=Chapter 4-Oni King
After a long screaming match between Takara and Satoru over his, not so, intelligent loss of such a powerful item. Isamu manages to silence Takara with a few choice words whispered in her ear that has her breaking out of his hold and moving rapidly out his range with a deeply crimson face. Satisfied with her silence, Isamu then has Satoru lead the way to the last place he saw the Oni gang.
He leads them into the thicker parts of the woods, where there are hardly any trails to lead you out to freedom and stops them upon the crest of a small hill. They all can see the Oni gang quite clearly, seeing as how their giant hairy leader is in possession of the brilliantly glowing hoshi no tama.
"Starlight, star bright, first star that I see tonight-"
"Sh...Is that it?"
"Yes."
Takara looks around Isamu at Satoru in confusion.
"I expected it to be quite a bit bigger than that. It's pretty small for something that holds so much power."
"Explosive things come in small packages, my friend."
"What I don't get is why those walnut brained monsters even bothered stealing your hoshi no tama?"
Isamu looks between Takara and Satoru with a curious expression on his face, while wondering the same thing.
"Yes. How did they get the idea to steal it?"
"I can see this isn't going to be as simple as I thought. I guess I'll have to explain. It all started when the Legendary Vampire Queen Hisako found me."
Satoru told them how the Vampire Queen had come upon him after his parents had been slaughtered by a powerful Oni King with the prowess to slay the normally very powerful kitsune. He had had only five tails at the time, so was merely the age of a human teenager by kitsune standards. Hisako had chosen to help him avenge his lost parentage and take over the mantle of the Oni King after the original one had been slain.
Afterward, Satoru had shown his gratitude to her by naming her his sister for life, which she had happily accepted at the time by adopting him as her brother. She had told him that his first act as her brother was to extend his hand in aid should she ever have need of it at any point in time and she would endeavor to reciprocate.
"Wow. You are beholden to the Queen Mother of all the vampires?"
Isamu scowls at Takara's admiring tone and turns to Satoru sardonic expression.
"Yeah. The bitch who seduced our Ancestral Leader, Kenta, away from us Hunters. How nice for you. Essentially what you are saying is that these pinheads stole your hoshi no tama out of revenge for their fallen leader then?"
"Essentially. Yes."
"Fine. Let's get this done and over with, then we can continue onto wherever it is you were going in the first place, Takara."
Takara stares at the side of Isamu's face with curiosity over his statement, but ignores it and prepares for the coming fight instead.
"I still say you are not coming and need to go home, Hunter. Anyway, lets see what we are up against here...Hm...I see. That leader of theirs is a Oni Hybrid. He has the long claws and two long horns of an Oni, but he has beautiful blue human skin on him. His companions are definitely Oni, because they all are very disgusting looking. That red one in the middle has five eyes. That's soo gross."
"They are also carrying kanabo."
"Those iron clubs are not fun to go up against."
"We are going to have to retrieve Satoru's hoshi no tama."
"It's off to work we go-"
Takara whistles merrily as she unsheathes two of her kaiken and charges down the hill with Isamu right behind her with his katana.
The Oni Hybrid is the first to spot their quick approach and roars a warning to the other five Oni just as Isamu takes a flying leap off the slope of the hill to lop off Oni five eyes head. The four remaining comrades split off to take on each of the human smelling warriors, while their leader tries desperately to access the power within the hoshi no tama.
Isamu has just taken down a second Oni with eleven toes and blue skin, when he spots Takara from the corner of his eye, and finds himself momentarily distracted. He manages to ward off his last attacking Oni of the three fat fingers, toes, eyes, and green skin to watch Takara in action with her two Oni.
Takara had pulled short when she had seen Isamu go sailing through the air from the hillside and take off Oni five eyes head. A shiver of excitement had went through her at the sight and had brought a rather sinister smile to her face as her two opponents, the purple skinned Cyclops with fifteen digits Oni twins, slowly trying to close her in between them.
A liquid heat fills her bones and the taste of acid fills her sensitive mouth just as they draw near enough to reach out to touch her. She bursts into motion, somersaulting backwards over the Oni twin behind her, then childishly kicks him in the rump to send him into his brother. She chuckles as they ricochet off each other, come back together with their identically enraged expressions, she taunts them by sticking her tongue out at them, and they both charge her at the same time. She waits until they are within striking range, and then does a forward flip between them with her arms outstretched and level with their exposed throats. She severs off both of their heads at the inside edges and watches as their heads flop to the opposite sides from each other before landing in a crouch behind them. She slowly straightens up and looks over her shoulder with a fanged grin as they fall face first to the ground in death.
"TAKARA! LOOK OU-"
Her head whips back around to the front just as the Oni Hybrid hits her with a ball of flame in her chest. She screams out in pain as it sends her flying backwards to the ground between the dead Oni twins and clutching at her searing wound in the center of her chest. She sucks in a hissing breath as her charred skin rips, then melts like bubbling butter as her blood works quickly to heal the ravaged flesh of the upper mounds of her chest. This does some real damage to her modesty sense the flames had torched a large revealing hole in her shirt and has left her healing breasts loose for all to see.
Isamu had seen the flaming ball hit her, heard her scream of pain, and the sight of her wounded upon the ground had had his blood boiling to the point that he had hacked his last Oni opponent to pieces.
He is about to charge the Oni Hybrid in his confusing rage as the creature moves over to Takara's prone form, but pulls short when he hears a very familiar animalistic growl rumble up from her. That's when he notices her exposed femininity and nearly drops his sword in his attempt to quickly cover his eyes in crimson shock.
"YOU ROTTEN HALF-BREED BEAST OF CREATION! You torched my only shirt! I'm sick of you animals burning my stuff!"
Isamu peeks between his fingers to see her come off the ground in a blur, jump on the surprised Oni Hybrid's back, sink her fangs into his throat, and rip the hoshi no tama away from him in her rage. The creature's scream is such that it brought a terrible chill to Isamu's suddenly rigidly over-heated body. He finally does drop his sword, along with his hands, and watches in horrified fascination as she feasts upon the beast until it collapses to the ground in death. He shudders as she pulls away from the creature's neck with its mixed blood of red and green flowing down her chin to drip off onto her exposed breasts. He blinks in shock as she tears the thoroughly damaged shirt off of her to clean herself, and then yells for Satoru to come get his stupid fucking ball and give her his shirt in payment for its retrieval. He experiences a momentary sense of envy as Satoru pulls off his shirt to give to Takara and she quickly pulls it onto herself with a deeply crimson frowning face boring a laser hole into the kitsune's embarrassed expression as he tries to look anywhere but at her. When she finally looks around, she spots Isamu staring at her with a heated gaze, and he flushes even redder in the face.
"Oh! For crying out loud! You two men act like you've never seen a pair of women's breasts before!"
"To be perfectly frank. I haven't seen a pair quite like those since I saw Hisako's slightly fuller ones at the stream we went to get cleaned up in after our battle with the Oni in my youth."
Isamu remains silent, because he is taking in the contrast between her red shirt with her liquid gold blonde hair to the white of Satoru's slightly bigger shirt and finding himself wishing he wasn't there.
"Hey! What's your excuse, Isamu?"
Rather than answer her, Isamu retrieves his sword off the ground, sheathes it, and marches right up to Satoru with a mean scowl.
"And just where were you while we were retrieving your hoshi no tama, Fox?"
Satoru finishes putting his hoshi no tama on around his neck and turns a frown on Isamu at his infuriated tone.
"Hey, no need to get growly at me, my friend. I was up there watching until I saw a need for my assistance. I almost came down after that Oni Hybrid nailed Takara there with a fireball, but held back when she came off the ground at him."
"Whatever...We retrieved your damned ball. Now lead us out of here!"
"Okay. Where is it that you wish to go?"
Takara frowns at Isamu's sudden aggression and wonders at his clear avoidance of her earlier question. She decides not to push him and grabs Satoru by the ear instead to bring him down to her level, then whispers her destination to him.
"Oh. I see. You're a Protector and this here fellow is a Hunter. How odd? Why do you two enemies travel together to this place by the shore?"
The still aggravated Isamu and Takara share a momentarily secretive look before he looks back at Satoru to respond to his question.
"Let's just say that we weren't left much of a choice and leave it at that, Fox. Now let's move!"
Satoru and Takara watch as Isamu storms back up the hill, leaving them and their slain enemies behind.
"My. He's a testy one, isn't he?"
"Pretty much. We just need to get going now, okay?"
"All right. Right this way, little ones."
It wasn't until they were a good ways into their walk that Takara had just included Isamu on her travels and finds herself feeling kind of strange at the thought of being around him for the rest of the journey.