Chương 8: Book 1, Chapter 8: Clash

Yuki really should ask John more about his capabilities once they were back at the fort. Silence hung over the road, thick enough to be cut with a knife, and Yuki caught the edge of a few shrill screams and scrambling feet from several streets over. How annoying. Still, she wasn't worried; this… undead was probably the extent of their local might.

Yuki doubted they'd be deploying an asset likely to cause unrest amongst the townsfolk with its grotesque appearance if they had an Unbound of their own to function as the muscle. Besides, whatever commander authorized their deployment in the first place wouldn't risk losing assets worth so much for a few scraps. Still, she heard the hearts of all the mortals present amongst the little group of annoyances pound in terror at the display, smelled their terror, and saw the barely disguised trembles in their forms…

if she were a younger, more impulsive woman, she might have been tempted to listen to her instincts screaming "prey." Of course, poor Aiki and Haru were somewhat terrified, too, understandably, and, given his scent, John seemed more stressed than scared. Still, once this is all done with, she really should comfort all of them… Or at least the first two. It was still a struggle to figure out how to best interact with John. The disguised kitsune smiled sweetly.

"I believe that Lord John has made his displeasure clear. I would ask you to not interfere with his business or that of my mistress again lest he decide to be less merciful next time." The fearful step back from the creature was interesting; it more or less confirmed that it was sapient and gave her yet another angle to play. She turned to them next.

"I'm afraid I don't know what to call you, but I implore you, don't waste this second chance at life. I detest unnecessary bloodshed, and whatever might that form provides you, it isn't enough," she pleaded, "Is fighting against a scion of the Celestial Court truly worth a few scraps of revenue for your masters? Even if the Grand Deal does not permit my lady to be here today, striking one of her direct mortal servants would be as good as an act of war.

If you somehow survive the wrath of those present, she'd be well within her rights to extract whatever vengeance she wished." The pounding of a few more pairs of boots caught her ear. Lighter, less heavy with equipment, and lesser in armour. More numerous, though… and coming from the same direction as their previous annoyances. They rushed around the corner, ten men bearing a mixture of spears, axes, and bows, the latter sending a twitch of worry up her spine.

Perhaps she should ask them all to head inside; the upcoming fight may force her to position herself so that she can't strike arrows out of the air before one strikes true. Their kit was lighter and simpler, with only a cuirass for their chest and padded armour for their legs and arms. They seemed just worried at first, then scared, but as they took in the scene, what was worry turned into incandescent anger, but not at them. No, they beheld her display of ki with fear; their anger was saved for the soldiers. Oh.

Ohoho! She knew what this was! Tax collectors rarely came from inside the community, after all.

"Sergeant Shirai, you bastard! Are you trying to get us all killed?" the new group's leader shouted, and Yuki couldn't help but smirk. A quick barked order of "Positions!" had the men form loose ranks. Three bows at the back, four spears spacing themselves out through the street, with the three remaining axemen, including their leader, taking up positions between them. With danger at their heels, half the tax collectors disorganizedly spun, split between facing down John and Yuki or the local militia.

The undead, thankfully, stayed fixed on her and John. Despite their relative weakness, she had little doubt the entity could cut through lightly armoured mortal infantry like warm butter and maim one or two of them while she was busy tearing anything in her path to the creature apart.

"Stay out of this, Yashiro! This is official tax collector business!" the newly named Sergeant Shirai barked, evidently having found some of his courage once more.

"Official business? You're pissing off an Unbound, you idiot!" Yashiro responded, eyes flicking towards where Haru and Aiki were frozen, "What the hell do these two even have that makes risking the lives of your men worth it? What, are you behind on quota or something? Stand down, or you'll get yourself killed and take half the street with you!" He then turned to Yuki, bowing, "I'm sorry, my lady, he's one of the government-appointed tax collectors and is not from around here.

Please forgive our trespasses against you and yours." The "please don't take it out on us; we hardly even know them" was very obvious, albeit appreciated, even though she had no intent of harming anyone else.

"You're forgiven; his sins are not yours. Oh, and two Unbound, actually. My lady sent me to provide security for her two new servants as they gathered their belongings, and Lord John graciously decided to accompany us. The noise you heard was him making a point." The new group looked over to the pale and obviously foreign John, who regarded them with an intense frown, causing the lot of them to squirm uneasily.

"He does have that feeling about him, doesn't he?" muttered Yashiro, warily eyeing up John in a new light.

"My apologies if this is too bold, but you mentioned you being here on behalf of others. Would you mind telling me who, my lady?" Yuki nodded.

"Of course. I serve the kitsune who has claim over these woods." One could hear a pin drop in the ensuing silence.

"We have a kitsune in our woods?" quietly murmured the local militia leader in disbelief, who blanched when she nodded. Evidently, he didn't account for her sharp hearing.

"Indeed! Sadly, she has been away on business in the Yokai Realm for longer than your grandparents have been alive, but now she's back. These two unknowingly intruded on her visit with Lord John, and, magnanimous as she is, my lady decided to take them on as servants," Yuki spoke, weaving a web of half-truths and misdirection. She certainly had a claim over these woods in that it was in an area those sworn to her used to frequent, and she had been away in the realm of spirits for quite some time.

She tilted her head, mischief lighting in her eyes.

"Did the tax collectors not tell you? They saw her yesterday," Yuki explained, watching the militia leader grow ever more angry by the second, nearly outright grinding his teeth.

"No," he growled, "They didn't." He looked at the lot of them like a dog looked at an unattended steak, trying to decide whether he could get away with making them disappear.

"Fine," Sergeant Shirai replied, "Have them. We're going. Men?" The undead sheathed their sword back through their skull without hesitation, and the mortals took a bit more time before following, axes being stowed and lowering their spears, pointing the tips to the ground. For some reason, their leader shot the man who had tried to dissuade them originally an ugly look. The militia wordlessly parted, letting the lot of them retreat empty-handed in the face of overwhelming force.

Their escape was slow and hesitant, like someone facing down a wild animal that might take sudden movement as a provocation. They kept their eyes on them until they were just about out of sight, hurrying away only then. Yuki gave Aiki and Haru a quiet nod, and the two of them placed what they had in the cart before rushing back inside to grab more of their things. The leader of the new group breathed a sigh of relief, stepping forward despite being in complete and utter abject terror.

Still, he made a good show of masking it. Putting his axe by his side, he dropped down onto his knees into a seiza position before bowing deep and low, chest pressing against his lap and head almost touching the floor. Quickly catching on, his men followed him, albeit less gracefully and precisely.

"Please forgive us for the lack of hospitality, honoured visitors. If you require anything of us, we'd be pleased to assist," he intoned from his bowed position. She did have to admit his Saikeirei was extremely good. He was clearly just trying to save himself and his men from the retaliation of a potentially wrathful kitsune, but the gesture was appreciated nonetheless. Was he trained formally, perhaps, or did he just have experience with Unbound?

Their egos could get rather large, after all, and having a good bow ready to go went a long way to corralling them and stopping temper tantrums. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"You're forgiven," she replied, but the man stayed down in the bow. Eventually, after a few tense seconds, Yuki added, "Do not mind Lord John. He is a man of few words but would have said so if he had an issue." It made John seem a bit rude, she did admit, but it wasn't as if she had any other choice. Hesitantly, the man glanced up, looking over to John, and after the latter read the latest bit of text she summoned up, he smiled and nodded. The man stood, and his men were not far behind.

"My thanks. This lowly Sergeant Okada Yashiro is honoured to meet you," he said as his heart started to slow from its former breakneck pace and bowed deeply. Again, she could tell that he was shamelessly attempting to get on her good side, but it didn't bother her much, and he did have a talent for it.

"And I am Higa Yumi. It's a shame we couldn't meet under better circumstances," she replied, looking over to where the men retreated, "If I knew this was going to be such an ordeal, I would have made sure to come earlier. That lot being so eager to fall on their own swords is bizarre." Annoyance flashed across Yashiro's face before he suppressed it.

"Aye. I think the taskmaster they have leading them is giving them quotas. Sergeant Shirai and his lot of bandits are probably short and trying to squeeze anyone who can't fight back," he grumbled before remembering himself, eyes widening, "Forgive me. I didn't mean to burden you with our troubles." Yuki waved off his concerns, shaking her head and giving him a disarming smile.

"Oh, please, it's of no issue. I'm new to the area and curious: What are they doing?" He was a bit more hesitant now, carefully looking around to ensure none were listening in, although Yuki knew they weren't, before sighing.

"Their commander, Nomura Shinji, sent out a few teams like them into the area to collect a new special tax they're calling the Warfront Support Tax… but they have quotas and nowhere near the best communication, so they act more like bandits than anything, trying to squeeze as much money or goods as they can get away with out of folk to meet their targets before going to another town."

"You're the head of the local militia, aren't you?" Yuki asked, and the man nodded his head. Interesting, it must be a very small force, then.

"My lady is likely going to take interest in this." He tensed, and Yuki let him soak in the implications for a second, letting worry about getting a surprise visit from a kitsune take root in his psyche before continuing, "How can I best contact you?" She probably wouldn't scare him, at least that bad… even if it was tempting. Maybe just a bit later, once they had a better relationship and she didn't have to worry about terrifying him to death.

He slightly sagged in relief, quickly adding, "The second street west of main, my lady. The militia headquarters is about halfway down. I am there every day in the mornings." Yuki nodded.

"I will keep you no longer, then. I'm sure everyone is waiting for an explanation as to what occurred." The conversation a few streets over was still hushed, even if she couldn't pick out the exact words, and the tone tense. It wouldn't do to disrupt business any more than she had to. The man quickly saluted her, saying, "I will leave you to your business, my lady," before barking a quick command to his men and leaving with them in tow. Yuki liked him.

She might have to try and poach him for herself later when she had guards worth managing. He didn't panic in the face of what he thought was likely death but clearly wasn't too stupid to realize that fact, given how he shouted down the cause, and had a strong protective instinct. Then, afterward, he swapped perfectly into a well-done de-escalation, even if it was ultimately unnecessary.

Yuki turned back to John, and, seeing the couple still in the house and that nobody watched them, she summoned up some shadowy text that read, "Are you alright?" Part of her wanted to confront him over not just letting her handle it, given that it could have put him in danger, but she couldn't find the will to do so. His reaction was entirely understandable, she supposed.

John hesitantly nodded, but she could smell the stress on him, saw how he kept his back to the wall so no one could sneak up on him, and heard how his heart had yet to slow. Poor soul. Perhaps she should offer to cook tonight, so he could spend more time in that workshop of his. When Yuki saw him walking out of it this morning, he seemed so much more at peace than last night, even if the unholy noises from it were confusing at best. What would even make that high-pitched whine?

Perhaps John would show her after she finished his latest barrage of mathematical concepts. Yuki wasn't entirely sure of the practical applications of the mathematics of circles or how to find the rate of change in an equation yet, admittedly, but it was clear that his magic was fundamentally based on it. She supposed it made some degree of sense.

The eternal blocker to complete Physical Techniques like he possessed was always that you must work out every interaction ahead of time to an absurd degree, inevitably leading to a breakdown somewhere or another in all but the most basic examples. Still, to intuit the mechanics of even the material and immaterial primal four from just the barest scraps of manuals in a language other than your own… It impressed her, to say the least. Learning the language itself was a feat and a half on its own.

The Shape of All Things assisted in helping children learn their first, of course, its shade providing inherent meaning to form and linking it in their mind, but past the first, it could be a hindrance. Were you not expecting its influence, it could keep drawing you back toward what you first learned rather than what you're trying to. Did his people have a method to leverage it for languages beyond the first? What a heady power, if so, and one she must learn.

Not for herself, obviously; she had long since learned every language in her homeland and the surrounding nations, but the things it could do for trade alone were incredible. Aiki and Haru returned from inside, loading up a second load of their things before turning to her.

"We're ready," Aiki said. Yuki looked over the small pile in the back of the cart with a frown. It was little more than a few sets of clothes, cookware, basic tools, and a small bag of coinage. Haru's kit of needles and thread was probably the most valuable thing there.

"Is that all?" she asked. It wouldn't do to leave anything behind for those vultures. Aiki cringed before replying.

"I'm afraid so, Lady Higa. We were never the richest, but we used to have more before…" He trailed off, looking down the road toward where the tax collectors fled. Well, now she felt awful for bringing it up. Still, as far as raw coinage goes, they were probably the richest amongst their little group if John didn't have a horde of coinage he hadn't had a way to spend stashed away somewhere, as Yuki's own assets had been long ransacked or turned into someone else's prized ancestral relics somewhere.

The kitsune briefly entertained thoughts of benevolent banditry, violently robbing those poor excuses for tax officials and sending them back to their masters nude and missing a few less critical bits. Alas, the bureaucrats would probably just keep sending more until it became financially unfeasible with the ongoing war, and not all of them were likely going to be bastards, just slaves to that quota in a poorer region… Assuming this "commander" didn't just make it up.

There was a more elegant solution here; she was sure of that, but she couldn't quite place a finger on it. A problem for later, then, once she recovered more thoroughly. The remains of the metaphysical venom coursing through her spirit from the spears still caused her frequent pain, and the thought of being beset by random migraines while waging war against federal agencies, while nostalgic, was currently unappealing.

"Let us return, then," Yuki said, and Aiki hurried to the front of the cart, grabbing it by the handles once more. John stepped out of the way, faintly frowning as he looked over the meagre pile, evidently running headfirst into the same concerns as Yuki. Their eyes met, and the kitsune sadly nodded. His frown deepened. They left afterward, with Yuki in the lead, John not far behind, and the couple bringing up the rear. The walk back out of town was peaceful, although they encountered a few more people.

Still, the townsfolk paid them little mind, although they were a bit more tense than before. She supposed she would be, too, in their situation. While that was not a full-fledged lightning strike, signs of an angry Unbound within the area are a terrifying portent for somewhere not large or important enough to have some of their own as protection.

John relaxed significantly once they were out in the wilderness once more, and once she was very sure they were away from prying eyes and were passing a pond, the kitsune was struck by a fit of whimsy. Gold-black flame covered her as her form burst from its magical shell, expanding back out to her full stature. The pair of yelps and the trio of speeding hearts behind her were satisfying, and a grin spread across her newly freed muzzle.

Her tails spilled forth, admittedly still rather uncomfortably woven into three rather than fully splayed out as nine, but at least no longer pinned against her back. Ugh, it was always like cramming a whole person into a bottle. Between her chest and her tails, she could hardly breathe in there, but the alternatives were even worse. She knew from experience that trying to fit some of the tails down by her legs would only result in some rather painful pinching if she had to move quickly.

Once the flames cleared from her eyes, she watched their reactions through their reflections in the pond. Haru and Aiki both jumped back and although John stood in place, he instinctively leaned back. Adorable shock and maybe a tiny bit of fear were written across their faces as they struggled to process what happened. The latter quickly faded once they realized the ethereal fox-fire was her doing.

The mysterious owner of the fort's eyes suddenly widened, and he pulled out a scrap of paper to write some notes on, although they were in his written language, so she couldn't understand them. She didn't look back and instead stepped forward like nothing had happened. After some wordless hesitation, the rest of the group followed her.