-Line-

Swearing because werewolves don't fear Aisel.

It didn't take long for us to run into a problem, quite literally.

'Hullo, you're the illusion person, right?' Akiryuu asked her telepathically. It had been a while since we had entered the werewolf HQ. So far, we had been able to avoid most of the patrols and stray wanderers because of Luna and Rina. The werewolves most likely knew that were were coming to retrieve our comrades as well and had set up fake posts with traces of Alice and Karima's nen signatures. This had lead to quite a few difficulties that had lead to delays to a normally simple retrieval mission.

'Yes, that's me.'

'I heard your specialty was this neat trick called 'Timelapse', right?' Chills crawled up my spine. Something told me that Akiryuu was an older Yuki with fire.

'...Yes?'

'Well, my Hatsu is pretty limited to my reaction speed, but I want to see if Timelapse can change that.'

'Okay?' I finished. I knew that Akiryuu was part of a Specialist clan that could 'summon' eastern dragons made of multipurpose flame. Controlling the dragons was supposed to be extremely difficult and required immense concentration. Akiryuu was one of the best, and she could only control three or four.

'We've been noticed.' Luna said, suddenly stopping in her tracks. 'Who's staying behind?'

'Keiron and I will be.' Akiryuu responded rather calmly, as she had foreseen this happening. The redhead had been on more than a few missions during her life and was well-accustomed to being noticed an retrieval mission, especially if said missions required waltzing into one of the largest werewolf bases. 'Tricia will lag behind for a little so she can cast Timelapse on me.'

Keiron's Hatsu was reinforcement, a Hatsu that was especially useful in buildings and even more so when partnered with a destructive Hatsu, such as Akiryuu's or Lennex's.

'Got it.' Luna said. It wasn't too long before all of us could sense the ominous aura that approached us. It was a familiar aura, the one of a beast trapped inside the shell of a human being, one of a werewolf. All of us tensed as the battle inched closer, except for Akiryuu, Luna, and Keiron who were confident in their abilities.

Cast Timelapse on Akiryuu, and when she gives the signal, follow Luna and the rest of the team. I told myself, forcing my breathing to calm down.

One moment was serenity, and the next was chaos.

Two dragons swirled into existence, drowning the first attackers in a sea of flames. I quickly cast Timelapse on Akiryuu, the red-head grinning mischievously as soon as the effects of the illusion began to occur.

"It's the damned Ryuuhane!" One of the werewolves exclaimed, two more dragons manifesting on Akiryuu's fists. The red-head responded to the werewolf by smashing the ceiling above them, causing several of them to be crushed by the pieces. Keiron was already in position, reinforcing the parts of the building that we didn't want collapsing.

"The 'damned Ryuuhane' has a name and a title, y'know!" Akiryuu exclaimed back, a bit of her accent slipping into her speech. "'Tis Dragon Fist Akiryuu! Remembe' it!" She finished, smashing werewolf fodder into well-done werewolf feed.

'Do not get on Akiryuu's side.' I noted, 'In fact, do not anger anyone in possession of fire or explosives.'

'Or nice people.' Yuki added, 'Especially nice people, like me.'

A fifth dragon appeared, wrecking further havoc among the platoon of soldiers.

'You can go now.' Akiryuu said, dismissing me, 'Keiron and I will catch up once I beat the livin' crap outta these 'damned werewolves'.'

I sprinted after Rina, definitely not needed to be told twice.

-Line-

'Where's Alice and Karima?' I asked. Luna and Rina both gestured to someplace north-northwest. So far, the mission had been going along smoothly. The werewolves had sent reinforcements to Akiryuu and Keiron's battle but they were still going strong.

'They probably know that we're coming for the prisoners so they're moving Karima and Alice around.' Luna said, elaborating on their location. 'We'll have to fight off a few of the guards though. Shouldn't be too much of a problem though.'

'Okie Dokie!' Yuki chirped, 'I'll pitch in using Minefield.'

'There are a total of four of them. Rina and I can take two, Tricia and Yuki can take the other, and Sakurami can work on retrieving Alice and Karima.'

'Got it.' Rina and I said, Yuki pitching in with an 'Aye aye captain!'. We would encounter the werewolves any moment now. When, I wouldn't know.

Currently, Luna was leading the group due to her status as the best fighter out of the three of us. I followed her with Rina taking the rear. After hearing the groups that would be taking down the werewolves, I couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy. My last encounter with a werewolf had gone terribly, to say the least. My arm had been burned to smithereens and I had only survived due to the intervention of a spy.

To top the off, Maktsia would be classified at an average soldier's level of strength. He was the same as the fodder that Akiryuu had been punching around earlier.

Now I would be facing two more of them. Granted, I had Yuki, but even Yuki had limits.

'Stawp worrying so much!' Yuki said to me, 'We'll be fiiine. If Luna thinks we can do it, hell yeah we can do it!'

'Yeah.' I said, trying to calm my nerves. 'We should be able to take on two werewolves.'

'Nawh nopity nope. We will be able to kick some werewolf butt!'

'Got it.'

'More enthusiasm!'

'Got it!'

'Much better.' Yuki yawned 50 meters above me. 'Just don't die on me, 'kay?'

'I won't.' I said, to both Yuki and me. I survived several fights in the last war just fine. There was no way I couldn't do it again. I had a solid skill set between kenjutsu and illusions. I could use the Seven Swords if I ever was in a pinch, although I still had some issues with number 4. In the time they had spent in Kelsi's realm, Yuki and Tricia had agreed to lower the nen usage and power of the swords that they had trouble with since they had no time to perfect them as they were.

Currently, all of the swords were unusable to some extent, except for number four.

"Look what's here." A foreign deep voice rumbled, "Kittens." As we turned the corner, we encountered four werewolves, just as Luna has described. Two similar-looking werewolves stood to our left with one other to our right.

'Looks like we get the siblings.' Yuki said, already firing up her Hatsu. Minefield was activated by leaking Yuki's nen into the ground, which would then clump up and form deactivated explosives that were invisible to the eye hence the name 'Minefield'. Once 100 bombs were in place, the minefield would activate, exploding only when the targets stepped on the bombs.

"Look at what came crawling back from the dump." Luna spat back, "Sons of some bitches."

At the finish of her sentence, the werewolves charged at the 4' 8'' swordswoman partly engaged at the girl and partly because it was true since they were dog hybrids.

I easily stopped the siblings in their paths, sliding my katana out of its sheath and engaging them in close-combat. Both of their pupils were dilated from their activated Ren and only continued to further transform the more nen they used.

"C2!" The slightly taller one called out of the blue. Instantly, the two of them slid in a formation around me, nen pulsing into their hands.

'OH NO YOU DON'T' Yuki said, flinging more than several explosives down onto the rooftop.

Minefield: 7/100

Their Hatsus seemed to be sync with each other. I noted, mind scrambling to figure out their abilities and fighting style. It seemed that one of them would call a code and the other would respond appropriately.

"First Summon: Raikori!" I called, a veil of ice and lighting covering my katana. The original created a blade that would freeze and electrocute anything it touched, but the weaker version would have to do.

"T21!" The shorter one said to the taller. Instantly, a gun-like object appeared in both of their hands. Yuki kept them dancing with explosives.

Minefield: 20/100

C2? T21? I pondered, using Timelapse to slow the world around me. Between 'C' and 'T' were 18 letters. 18 x 21 was some three digit number. It was near impossible to remember 3 hundred-something combos, so they must have some kind of code hidden in the numbers and letters they chose.

I activated Hunter's Bane, the third sword of Enki. Hunter's Bane was a floating transmuted blade that wandered behind be, connected by a single line of nen. Both of them began firing from afar, clearly not wanting to get close to me.

Minefield: 32/100

What if… T stood for Transmuter?

I pulled the two into a slim illusion, tricking them into missing their shots and confusing the world out of them. A simple tug on the illusion and their world shimmered.

Minefield: 41/100

C would stand for Close-combat. I thought, slashing the taller one's shoulder.

"S9." Specialist. The injured werewolf said, gritting his teeth. Even if I understood some of their code, it didn't put me at an advantage.

The two werewolves were now beginning to turn more obviously now, their face becoming more feral and hands more clawed. The shorter was already sprouting ears and fur.

Bombs rained down on the two, Yuki having the time of her life.

Minefield: 67/100

Keep on the offense, I told myself, leaving a mirage of myself behind as I lunged at the shorter one's throat. The world around them seemed to shimmer as I 'appeared' right next to the werewolf's neck.

The werewolves were now overwhelmed with Yuki's explosions and my illusions. For them, any moment that wasn't spent dodging explosives was spent trying to make sense of the constantly shimmering and shifting world around them.

Minefield: 74/100

"O32!" The shorter one called, both of them taking offensive stances and charging nen into their hands. A whip appeared out of thin air, which seemed to crack with some kind of electricity.

The assumed older brother was an conjurer, the younger was possibly the same.

I soon found out that the weapon was indeed channeled with electricity when the same whip when suddenly cracked right next to me. If it hadn't been for Timelapse, I would have been dead and electrocuted. The younger brother was cooking up something nasty as well.

The world slowed down in preparation of the werewolves' attack, the electrical whip clear against the dusking sky.

Minefield: 81/100

'Hang in there Tricia!' Yuki called optimistically. 'Just a bit more and this fight is ours!'

I would have smiled if I hadn't discovered how fast the whip moved. There was a quick blur to my right, and before I knew it, I had somehow gotten an electrical burn on wrist. In surprise, I dropped my sword.

The first time was a fake. Much to my dismay, a second one appeared in his hand. Soon, all hopes of retrieving my sword were lost as he pressured me away from the weapon.

Even with Timelapse and my reaction speed at its finest, I simply couldn't move fast enough to avoid the lighting-fast whips. It wouldn't be long before I was overwhelmed. My only hope was to buy time and hope that Minefield would finish in time.

87/100

89/100

92/100

95/100

Just was the count reached the final stretch, the shorter werewolf finished powering up his ability.

"X" Both of them said at the same time, the shorter one now at the edge of losing control of his body to the beast inside of him. Despite this, feral predatory smiles spread over their faces.

Within seconds I knew why.

Every layer of illusion that I had placed on them instantly shattered when I was suddenly suspended in the air with invisible bonds. Throughout the fight, the shorter one had been setting up his trap, which was why he turned much faster than his assumed older brother.

A werewolf turns according to the amount of nen they use. The numbers they had been saying probably had to do with the trap, not their combos. The letters were most likely thrown in to distract me.

"Aeolus." I said, trying to summon the second sword. No wind gathered in my hand like I had practiced. Hunter's Bane disappeared, as I was forced into a state of Zetsu soon after.

"I've got you now." The taller one hissed from the pain of the cuts and burns we had given him. The sharpening bonds around my body tighten, drawing blood. "You damned Kaikos really put up a fight, I'll give you that."

Yuki flung a few bombs onto the floor.

Minefield: 99/100

"SHUT UP YOU DAMNED LIZARD." He screamed into the air, tightening my bonds even further. They were starting to really hurt now. Luna was more than busy dealing with her own werewolves and couldn't help me either.

One last spark made it to the floor.

Minefield: 100/100

-Complete-

The world exploded into a beautiful shade of burning red and yellow, burning my opponents into werewolf kebabs and dispelling the trap that I was entangled in.

'Aaand BOOM!' Yuki cheered. Despite my original confusion at Yuki's enthusiasm when it came to explosives, I do admit, seeing stone erupt into clouds of smoke and fire is rather satisfying. 'i never get bored of this.'

'I would definitely say the same.' I said, watching the harmless columns of fire bloom around me.

Within a minute or so, the smoke cleared up and Luna and Rina's werewolves joined ours. Now that the fight was over, I was more than happy to have survived a battle against two werewolves.

My fight against Maktsia was simply turned into his favor because of the explosion in the beginning that caught me off guard, which forced me to fight without use of God's Reign and extensive use of the Seven Swords. The toned down version of the Seven Swords fit my style much better as well.

I briefly snapped myself back to reality.

'Hm?' Yuki said as Luna used her Ravin eyes to searched the area. It was clear that the draiknor had noticed something unusual. 'Now that I think about it, where's Alice-.'

Luna's eyes widened in that one second, immediately whipping around to the airborne draiknor. "DOWN!"

'Wha-'

A beam of light shot out of nowhere, hitting a bundle of feathers in the sky as the world began to slow down. One moment everything was going well and in the next, everything was wrong.

The lifeless once-blue draiknor fell onto the floor.

"YUKI!"

-Line-

BONUS KAIKO RANKING

Dunno if you caught it, but in chapter two I wrote a list of the top ten of the Kaikos. The list is:

Kelsi

Takuya

Lennex

Karima

Keiron

Hikaoki

Ruki

Luna

Akiryuu

Masaru

Hopefully, you will be able to understand it better now, since you probably didn't know who half these characters were in chapter 2.

Note that the characters are not sorted in terms of battle capability, but their overall abilities and how well they could lead the Kaikos.

I think I also mentioned that Kelsi and Takuya could technically tie for first, but Takuya settled for no. 2 because Kelsi's better with the public and legal stuff.

Hm… If they were sorted by battle capacity it would go something along the lines of this:

Kelsi

Takuya

Akiryuu

Lennex

Luna

Keiron

Masaru

Hikaoki

Tricia & Yuki Combo

Eh, I haven't really introduced anyone capable of taking 10th but that's how I would think it would go

Kelsi vs Takuya - Draw but Kelsi wins due to a more versatile skill set

Kelsi can't counter Takuya's speed but Takuya can't injure Kelsi because of her 'realm flicker' technique, where she quickly teleports to a different realm and then teleports back. Even if Kelsi can only appear in the place she disappeared, Takuya's busy dealing with meteors.

Lennex vs Akiryuu - Akiryuu wins

Lennex has explosives, Akiryuu has four snake dragons that can strangle you in flames. Lennex's new rope/explosive combo is a nice defense and offense, but Akiryuu has four flaming snake dragons.

Lennex vs Luna - Lennex

Uh… Ravin eyes and shadow armor don't work very well against explosives.

Tricia and Yuki Combo - Pretty powerful, but still under Hikaoki

Tricia is invincible in close-range combat, and Yuki makes up for her weakness in far/mid range by pelting the enemy with bombs and using Minefield. Loses to Hikaoki due to lack of defense.

Keiron in general - Loses to everyone above

Try using a walls against Ravin eyes, explosives, four flaming snake dragons, or swords. Or if you're really suicidal, Kelsi

Hikaoki - Do I really need to explain?

HONING ABILITIES DO NOT WORK AGAINST WALLS, RAVIN EYES, EXPLOSIVES, FOUR FLAMING SNAKE DRAGONS, OR SWORDS. Buuuuuut a weapon-switchy thing might. Maybe if you use it with the homing ability?

Karima - Really?

-Line-

AN

Oh… hehehehehehe. Yuki's dead.

I had actually planned this pretty early on, somewhere during the first hunter exam phase or so.

DON'T KILL ME.

(Pretty please)