Chapter 14 The Bet
"How about the fact when you spend your evenings making love with my Mumu-chan, you ask her to put on the illusion that she's Ria?"
At those words his first reaction was to look back at his wife. Despite his concern for her safety he felt nothing but relief that she didn't seem to have heard.
For a moment he felt his world start to crumble. He could see the cracks start to form in what he'd thought was a going to be a happy life. His faith, his love, his trust, his devotion were all failing him thanks to that one sentence. An ache in his chest squeezed his heart in a way that made him want to double over and weep.
How could you do this to me, Kurumu-chan? How could you betray my trust?
Had Moka heard what Shade had just said, he was sure he would have lost his precious wife forever. He had no doubt of it, no matter how much Moka loved him he knew she could never accept it if she thought he preferred her older sister to her in any way. Even worse was that he couldn't lie to her. If she asked him certain questions she would wring the painful truth out of him.
There were just some things that were best left hidden and forgotten.
"You don't need to worry," Shade assured him. "My illusions are much stronger than Mumu-chan's. Moka is completely caught within them and oblivious of anything you or I say right now." She gave a slight chuckle, one eye was beginning to close, surrounded by an ugly bruise. "So far as your wife is concerned, she and I are having a glorious fight to the death. Vampires, they always take things too far don't they?"
"I'm a vampire too," he pointed out.
"Present company excluded."
Two tears fell from his eyes as he touched Moka's face locked as it was in a fierce scowl. It was obvious to Shade his thoughts were focused solely of her.
She held out a hand to him, the other still clutched at her side. "Would you be a dear and help me up Tsukune-sama?"
Her wings and claws had melted back into her body. Once again she was just a stunningly beautiful woman, though a little worse for wear. The results of her fight were only too obvious. There was a large bruise forming under her right eye along with several smaller ones on her arms, legs, and shoulders. Small cuts ran her arms and legs. Her clothing had been largely shredded and he could see most of her sheer black bra. What was left of her dress barely covered her 'unmentionables'.
He stole a breath before glancing over at her. To the eye she might not look threatening any more but that was usually when a succubus was most dangerous. He knew that Shade had been defending herself against Moka, using her illusions to defeat his wife at that last possible moment. Deciding to put his own worries aside for the moment he first made sure Moka was all right, then he approached her and offered her his hand.
"Are you all right?" His question lacked warmth, but the concern was real enough, he didn't want her permanently injured.
Taking his hand she pulled herself wearily to her feet, swaying till she eventually collapsed against him. She really was at the end of her strength. Defeating Moka had taken everything she had. "I'll be fine in a few minutes. Vampires are not the only ones that heal quickly." She smiled at him demurely. "Mumu-chan was right about you. In spite of everything you still offered to help me and asked if I was all right. You really are very kind Tsukune-sama."
"Don't get the wrong idea," he told her icily. "I don't understand what your motives are and I'm still angry about what you did to my wife at our reception. I think what you did deserved punishment." He looked away from her, back to Moka still lost in the illusion of battle. "I never wanted you dead though, just punished." Noticing how much of her body was pressing against him he pulled away from her to let her stand on her own. "That doesn't mean I like you."
She continued to smile and hold onto his hand. "Not yet."
"Not yet?" He glanced back at her. "You are out of your mind if you think I'll forgive you for this. I want you gone and away from my friends and family. Oh, and if there is any doubt as to how much I utterly despise you right now," taking her hand out of his, he pointed a finger under her chin to emphasize his point. "I also never want to see Kurumu again."
Shade's eyes turned to slits, her lips forming a dangerous frown. "You're starting to upset me, Tsukune-sama. I've been a good girl up til now. I've gone through hell to get myself here for the sake of my Mumu-chan and you. I'm going to allow you a chance to take back what you said, or I swear to whatever god you hold sacred that you'll regret it."
Before this moment she had been all smiles, friendly even in the midst of battle, now she looked like a volcano near to eruption. She was deadly serious. Angry and fuming silently with an eyebrow tick and flex of her jaw that proved her wrath was growing beneath the surface.
Tsukune stood his ground, letting his youkai seep into him like some drug, tingling his senses into something dangerously eager to put wounds on her flesh. He usually tried to keep his vampiric nature at bay, but when he released it he felt the same urge for battle all vampires seemed to revel in.
"Fine. If you can explain to me why Kurumu decided to tell you what she swore to never share with anyone. She made that promise to me on her own, I never asked for it. So please, convince me she was justified in breaking it. While you're at it, tell me why I should accept your help, accept you assaulting my wife, and accept involving Moka's family in all this. If you can do all that then I will reconsider keeping Kurumu in my life. Until then, your Mumu-chan betrayed me and I want nothing more to do with her as either friend or lover."
"And what trust did she betray Tsukune-sama?" Shade stood a little taller, just enough for her eyes to meet his nose. "Admit it, here and now in front of me, why you no longer wish to be loved and adored by my niece. If you're going to discard her and her love of you, at least be man enough to admit the reason why."
He faltered for a moment, her sudden show of anger and righteous indignation making him hesitate.
"C'mon," Shade mocked him now, hands on her hips. "Be a man." She deliberately glanced over at Moka. "There's no one else here to hear it."
"You want to hear me say it? Fine! You win, okay?" Tsukune paced in front of her, his hands at his face as if to try and get the image out of his own head. Glancing back to his wife, his love, his eyes consumed with shame.
"When Kurumu and I would meet," his voice seemed far away, almost as if he was talking more to himself or to Moka then to Shade, "usually in Las Vegas...she really liked it there because there was always so much to do, so much to see, and a sort of controlled chaos about it...kind of like her." He chuckled to himself without humor. "We would have a suite reserved, some place expensive and discreet. I would make her use her ability with illusions to appear as Ria...and we would have sex together like that." His voice came out pitifully broken, empty as if he had given up all hope and just accepted his fate.
Shade shook her head, speaking calmly, soothingly. "I don't condemn you for that Tsukune. If it was just an illusion or role play, that would be fine with me. I think it's healthy to seek out fantasies with lovers sometimes, but that is not why I am here, is it?"
Tsukune flinched and lowered his eyes, unable to look at Shade. "She told you about that, didn't she?"
Kurumu's aunt nodded, "Yes, Tsukune-sama. That is why I am here and why I've gone through all this trouble. Say it out loud to me, confess your sins."
Stubbornly, Tsukune shook his head, unable to admit what Shade was asking him to.
"Tsukune," Shade gripped his chin and tipped his head up, forcing him to face her honest, sympathetic mix matched eyes. "It's okay. I already know. Kurumu isn't mad, you know that. I'm not here to blame you, threaten you, or even laugh at you."
The look on Tsukune's face said he truly didn't believe her.
"I'm not going to because I know, deep inside this vampire body, you are still a human. You have a human heart, with human regrets, human beliefs, and that," She poked his chest to emphasize her point. "Is why I'm here for you and Mumu-chan. Above all, I know you are still true to your friends who you love, and to your wife who wouldn't understand unless she experienced the same thing."
Tsukune's sudden growl was feral and angry.
"I won't lie to you, Tsukune." She frowned at him. "I touched your wife. I tasted her, but I was gentle and made her think of how she wanted to love you, touch you, be with you on your wedding night. She was so very delicate and gentle. Your Moka-chan really is a wonderful person and a great woman. You really are blessed, Tsukune."
The logical part of his mind told him that Moka wasn't really injured, just physically touched against her will. The possessive, loving protective man in him, the husband just couldn't get the fact out of his head that someone had touched his Moka-chan without permission and violated her.
"Then, after that little lesson, I touched her some more, put my mouth on her and felt her with my breasts in her most sensitive womanly area as she orgasmed against me. I made her think of what you must have endured while you were with Ria. I wanted her to comprehend on a physical level what it must have been to feel pleasure while experiencing it with something or someone that brought you pai-"
"You bitch!" his hand whipped around and struck her across her face, throwing her into the ground in a crumbled mass of dirt, even shattering a large boulder with her body. The plumes of dusts, swirling dirt and leaves that flew in the air clouded Shade's form into something broken and misshapen.
The Arch Succubus could feel his rage along with mounting youkai power filling him. Tsukune was glaring down at her and his fists were gripped tight at his sides. Shade could feel the humanity ebbing away and being replaced by the vampire.
"How dare you touch her like that?! What gives you the right to make her remember that night when it took us so long to get over it? What makes you think you can take something so precious from her, hurt her, and get away with bragging about it to my face?! You fucking, thoughtless whore! I'll never forgive you! I'm going to kill you!"
He straddled her now, hovering over her limp body, gripping her neck with both hands and squeezing as tightly as his vampiric powers would allow him.
"Urk!" Shade tried to breathe. Damn! Vampires really do always take things too far! She could only make a wet sputtering sound come out of her lips. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets as his hands squeezed the life from her.
The veins around his arms, his neck, his face bulged with his exertion. Teeth bared and hissing, he squeezed, squeezed, squeezed. The exotic arch succubus's face, her beautiful, stunningly attractive visage blotched into something ugly, began to turn red, her beauty vanished and became something hoarse and quivering, something desperate and scared.
"Please die...die so no one will know...please...please, just die..." he shivered over her, taking a maniacal pleasure in ending her life that he had never wanted, ever considered until now. He squeezed harder, making her body twitch and writhe into the painful throes of impending death.
The oddest thing happened, Tsukune noticed as her eyes were flickering instead of glowing. One was brighter while the other one was losing its light, as if a part of its luminance was shifting, changing...then he realized what was happening.
"Shit," he said before saw her other eye reflect a glaring blue light...
This battle is beautiful, Moka thought.
She had not relented in her fight with Shade. The Arch Succubus had adapted to Moka's speed, her strength, and her ferocity and was still giving as good as she got. Five long gashes marked the front of one thigh, another across her back, and three more had been carved across her cheek. The weren't bleeding profusely, but there were a lot of them and they were seeping onto her sundress. The Elder Vampire's most beloved daughter could feel her body just starting to tire and weaken under the strain. Shade was hurting too though, she was bent over and panting. Her moves had definitely slowed and her attacks were less sharp. There was just a little less snap to her slashes, a little less steel in her spine, and a little more weariness in her eyes.
Moka was winning by inches and she loved it. There was no glory in defeating the weak. There was no better place to be, no more satisfying victory than one where she delivered pain and humiliation by fractions instead of leaps and bounds. It was inevitable that she would win this confrontation, that was never in doubt, but the Succubus kept on coming, unrelenting, and as determined as she was. Had she had Moka's strength, speed, endurance, and healing ability, the chance of her winning this battle would have been less predictable. Unfortunately for her only one of them was a vampire.
Born and bred specifically to be a predator, a hunter, a killer, there was no creature that could equal her.
"So how do you," Shade panted, her body trembling, "want to end this?"
"With a winner," Moka inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, trying to recover her breath. The young Aono bride had never been put through this much exertion before and she was absolutely joyous. "and a loser."
"I would never," Shade's body twitched, flinching as if something invisible struck her, "call you a loser, Moka-san."
"And I would never consider you my superior," Moka growled, launching herself yet again, swinging her leg around for a beautiful axe heel drop on Shade's shoulder.
Before it could land, Shade vanished in a puff of smoke.
Moka blinked, then turned to her right, her left, up and then down. She spun herself in a circle and noticed, for the first time since the battle had begun, that everything was off. The normally lavender tint to everything had faded into something closer to magenta. It was silent, there was not even the perpetual chirping of cicadas or the rustle of wind through the trees. She was still in the forest that she remembered, everything was still in place, like the damaged earth, the uprooted trees, the deep grooves in the ground where she had tossed the Arch Succubus around and used her body like a plow.
No, something was not right, but she couldn't understand what.
"Tsukune?" She asked, and it was then she realized he was nowhere to be seen.
"Tsukune," Moka had lost track of him since the fighting started and she had knocked him aside. Was he hurt? Had she hurt him so badly he couldn't respond? Where was he?
Oh, no...
"TSUKUNEEEEEE!" Her soulful wail echoed inside the illusion that Shade created.
The only answer she received was an unnatural silence.