Anthony had been paying careful attention to the Shikigami, and while he hadn’t memorized what ones produced which effects, he had figured out a few of them. The ones being used here were of the earth element and would try to capture him. Well, he wasn’t about to let that happen.
A loud slapping sound echoed around the room as Anthony slammed his hands into the ground. What happened next shocked even Secilia and Sasha. A black barrier sprung up around them, dark as a night sky without stars. The Shikigami slammed into the barrier and were torn to shreds.
“Sasha! Make us an exit!” Anthony shouted.
Sasha grinned widely. “With pleasure!”
The beastkin woman raised her fist above her head and brought it down--hard. The ground crumbled underneath them and they dropped. Secilia screamed as Anthony pulled her into a bridal carry as they fell. He landed on his feet and bent his knees. Sasha landed in…
“Is that a superhero landing?” asked Anthony.
Sasha looked up and blinked. “A what?”
“A superhero landing. You know, where the superhero falls from a tall height. When they land, it’s on one knee, with one foot on the ground, and one hand touching the ground.” Anthony pointed at her. “Just like that.”
Sasha looked down at how she landed, which was indeed exactly as he described it. This was the iconic superhero landing.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha said with a scowl, standing up and dusting her hands. Her cheeks were quite red. “Let’s get going before those ninja follow us.”
“Right. Right.”
Anthony, with Secilia in his arms, ran alongside Sasha as they booked it out of that room. His barrier went down a few seconds later. He didn’t hear the ninja dropping from the ceiling, but they were ninja. It would have been disappointing if he’d heard them. A good ninja should be able to remain completely unheard. In fact, they should have been unseen too. Maybe they were bad ninja because they revealed themselves to him?
“You’re thinking something stupid right now,” Secilia said in his arms.
“I’m thinking deep thoughts the likes of which someone like you could never fathom in a thousand years.”
“You were thinking about how those ninja must not be very good ninja because they confronted us instead of hiding in the shadows and striking when they had the chance,” she said.
“Witchcraft!”
Secilia rolled her eyes at him.
“I smell them coming,” Sasha said.
“You must have quite the nose. All I smell is dust,” Anthony said.
Sasha tapped her nose. “They have poison on their weapons. Of course I can smell them.”
Anthony was impressed, but he had no time to compliment her. The swishing sound of something cutting the air echoed behind him, and he and Sasha moved as a pair of daggers glinted in the minimal light. They embedded themselves on the floor. Anthony was about to move past them when Sasha grabbed his clothes and jerked him back. She bulldozed through a wall seconds before the knives exploded in a spray of poison-coated shrapnel.
“You saved me. My hero,” Anthony said, batting his eyes at her.
“Oh hush.”
The ninja continued to chase them through the building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Anthony killed a few of them. However, that did not seem to diminish the amount of enemies they had to fight. He had seen a few dozen originally, but now he was certain there were a lot more of them.
Anthony used his spatial manipulation to cut through their foes as they showed up. However, he also had his ridiculous physical abilities.
He had realized it shortly after their first confrontation with the samurai, but Anthony’s strength had massively increased after bedding Sasha. It was clear that she had given him not magic but a stronger body. He not only had increased physical prowess but greater reflexes and enhanced eyesight. As his body adjusted to the changes, it became easier for him to spot details he might have missed before.
Sasha, meanwhile, was a wrecking ball. She demolished any enemy that came too close and plowed headfirst through walls like they were made of stacked toilet paper. He’d already seen her crush the head of a ninja like a grape. She had also snapped one’s neck with her thighs. He was a little jealous of that man. Death by snu snu was something every man dreamed of at least once.
While they managed to leave a trail of corpses in their wake, their enemies just kept coming as they continued traveling down the building. And they were eventually cornered once more. The trio stood near a glass window that revealed nothing but more buildings. Before them were what must have been several dozen ninja.
“Got anymore plans?” asked Sasha.
“Maybe we can teleport away, but…” Anthony glanced behind them. “I’m not sure it will make our situation any better.”
“Thought not.”
“I don’t care what you guys do, so long as you do it soon,” Secilia snarked. “I don’t want to be killed or captured by these people.”
“Ditto,” Anthony said.
The ninja closed in, yet before they could get far, the glass behind Anthony shattered, and they turned their heads as a ball rolled across the ground. At least, they thought it was a ball, until it unfurled in a burst of smoke and someone was suddenly standing before them.
The person was young. That much was clear at a glance. They were short and flat as a board. They wore what looked like a shinto priestess outfit, all red and white, but what really stood out to Anthony were the two fox ears on their head and fox tails behind them.
“What…?”
Anthony began to say something when the young fox girl swung her arms wide and released several shikigami from the voluminous sleeves of her robes. Each one flapped in the air before racing toward the ninja, striking their foreheads. Some tried to dodge, but the shikigami moved so fast it was like they were teleporting. Vines burst from the paper, twisting around the ninja and constricting them so hard their cybernetic suits cracked.
The girl turned to Anthony, and he realized that he knew her.
“Come with me if you want to live,” she said.
It was Gitsune’s daughter, Tamamo.
***
Tamamo helped Anthony, Sasha, and Secilia escape, leading them to a tunnel that she locked with several manual mechanisms that did not rely on any power source. He didn’t know where they were going, but he didn’t ask questions even though he had many.
“You’re Tamamo, right? Gitsune’s brat?” asked Secilia.
“I’m not a brat,” Tamamo grumbled. “But yes, I am Tamamo. It’s a pleasure to meet you all again, though I’m sad it's under these circumstances.”
“Likewise,” Anthony said.
“I take it you’ve come because you realized something was wrong?” Tamamo continued.
Anthony nodded. “We first realized something was wrong when it became clear that Japan had been completely cut off from all forms of communication. We came here to investigate.”
She nodded and smiled. “Well, I’m glad you did. A lot has happened. I’ll fill you in once we get somewhere safe.”
“Speaking of, just where are you taking us?” asked Secilia.
“To the safe-haven of all yokai in Neo-Tokyo,” said Tamamo.
They didn’t know what she meant at first, but it wasn’t long before they reached a massive red gate. It stood out, not the least of which was because they were in the middle of a tunnel. The vibrant crimson color made it stand out all the more amidst the gray.
Tamamo gestured for them to follow her, and they walked underneath the red archway of the tori gate--only to find themselves in another world.
“What the--” Sasha began.
“Heck?” finished Anthony.
“Holy shit,” Secilia said.
Even though there had been nothing but more tunnel on the other side of the gate, they suddenly found themselves standing amidst a village that looked like it had been transplanted from a Japanese period drama. A dirt road stretched before them and all the buildings were made from wood and had straw roofs, reminding Anthony of this one period drama he had watched about a wandering samurai who had forsaken violence.
“Come on,” Tamamo said, gesturing for them to follow her.
They did, and as Anthony got to see more of the city, he found himself more confused. It wasn’t just how this place looked like it belonged to a samurai period drama during the sengoku era. It was the people. A young woman walked by them, glancing curiously as though they were oddities, despite the fact that her neck stretched at least six feet long. A squat… man? Woman? He couldn’t tell because they were short, covered in fur, and only had a single eye. There were many more oddities, such as women with the lower half of a snake, men with wings stretching out of their backs and large noses.
“These are yokai,” Anthony muttered. “A whole village of them.”
“This must be one of the hidden yokai villages,” Sasha said.
The lights went off in Anthony’s head. He’d heard of these. While many supernatural creatures had integrated into human society, that didn’t mean everyone wanted to do the same. In Japan, there were several yokai villages for those who did not want to join humanity. They were located in out of the way places where humans rarely tread.
“How did we get here?” wondered Secilia.
“That tori gate must have been a portal,” Anthony said.
“That is correct,” Tamamo said. “Many of us yokai have integrated into human society, but sometimes, we want to get away from it all. Those tori gates were created in hidden locations so yokai could use them to instantly teleport to these hidden villages.”
Anthony looked around some more and found that, while small, the village had a lot to offer. They passed an oni pounding away at heated metal in his workshop, a woman who was half-spider was sewing clothes using silk produced from her own threads, and several yokai children who ran through the street. One of those children bumped into Anthony.
“You okay there, kid?” he asked.
The young girl looked up and her eyes widened. “A human! It’s a human!”
Her words caused all the yokai on the street to stop and turn to them. Anthony shifted. The looks weren’t hostile, but they also weren’t welcoming.
“What’s a human doing here…?”
“Is that Tamamo-sama? Did she lead them here?”
“Why would she do that?”
Anthony tried to say something to the little girl, but she ran away from him quickly, hiding behind a corner and glaring at him with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
“Tamamo… I think we should hurry,” he said.
“Yes,” Tamamo said, having seen what happened. “That would be best. Come. That is our destination.”
The building she had pointed out was a refined estate that looked like something the Kyoto aristocracy would live in. It was a beautiful estate surrounded by perfectly manicured gardens, with ponds, sakura trees, and bonzais sitting on islands. She led them over several arched bridges painted in royal red and through winding paths that gradually revealed more of the garden’s beauty. The sound of flowing water echoed around them as the scent of numerous blossoms calmed their minds. Subtle fox carvings and statues decorated the garden, until they reached the entrance, where a pair of large statues with red gems in place of eyes sat. tis place seemed less like a home and more like a work of living art.
“You’ve got some fancy digs,” Secilia said.
Tamamo nodded her head graciously. “Thank you. This estate belongs to my mother. We come here on our vacations, or when we want to get away from the busy life of Neo-Tokyo.”
They entered the house to see a strawmat entrance. Tatami. They were asked to take off their shoes by a yokai woman who looked mostly human save the fact that she had only one eye and fingers that looked almost like tentacles.
Before long, they were led into a room with very sparse decorations. Tamamo sat on a slightly raised platform. Behind here was a tapestry of a nine-tailed fox lounging in a grassy field. Two vases with burning incense sat on small displays made of bamboo. Those were the only decorations. Anthony, Sasha, and Secilia sat just before the raised platform.
Tamamo took a deep breath, and when she looked at him, he could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
“Now that we are here, allow me to tell you about the dire situation in Japan,” she began.