I start to lunge forward with a snarl that vibrates the air, only to be abruptly brought up short. Mia has an arm pressed against my chest to hold me back, and after a moment small arms wrap around my waist. Shirone actually lifts me off the ground to keep me in place.

They might be trying to say something, but I'm too consumed with burning rage to register anything. At least until he starts to speak.

"Princess Kunou!" He still talks like a brain damaged eighties superhero, "I am glad to see you arrive safely!" He sweeps his still sparking rapier up into a salute, "It must have been very frightening for you. I wish my peerage and I had managed to catch up to the stray before it could accost you, but alas we were too slow." He sweeps his sword down dramatically, and has an overdone look of sadness and contrition, "Now all I can do is offer you a place of safety, a place to grow so eventually you never need to be afraid of such beasts ever again. I want you princess... to be my queen!"

There's a moment of silence as he finishes his speech that he preens in slightly. None of us are really watching him though. As he talked, something that looked a lot like a heat shimmer appeared behind him. Slowly, just above the devil king on the steps, the air peeled back revealing a doubledecker bus sized golden fox. Nine long sinuous tails weaved a mesmerizing pattern behind her.

Yasaka, the nine tailed fox of Kyoto glares down at the devil king with the kind of fury that only a mother afraid for her child can produce, "I find it insulting," The moment Yasaka speaks, whatever she's been doing to hide her presence vanishes, leaving me feeling like I somehow missed a bonfire right in front of me, "that you would come to my city without telling me." Mana floods the air, first from Yasaka herself, and then rising from the ground like a thick fog, "I find it angering, that you would attempt to recruit an under age member of my faction by taking advantage of possible recent trauma." The mana in the air is so thick that I can almost swim in it. My armor slowly refills my mana network in a way I haven't seen since the Genius Loci. The ambient mana is even thicker here though, "I FIND IT INFURIATING THAT YOU WOULD TRY SUCH ON MY DAUGHTER!"

Yasaka finishes her speech in a roar, and the entire feel of the station changes, like something immense is looking down on us with anger. Like the entire city just turned to glare at the devils.

The peerage members begin to shift uneasily and reach for weapons, readying themselves for a fight. Only to be short stopped as more Yokai appear literally out of thin air. A seven tailed kitsune with vibrant red hair and ears slaps a paper talisman onto the floating mortar, sending it crashing to the ground. The woman with the seal skin freezes in place with nothing more than a glare from the newly appeared seven tail.

The dwarf and minotaur are checked by a male and female pair of oni dressed in full samurai armor, and carrying a katana sized for them. These aren't the dumb muscled brutes that most oni appear to be. They carry their swords with the comfort and familiarity of years of brutal training, their expressions saying that they'd love to provide a demonstration of their hard earned skills. I'm not skilled in reading bovine facial expressions, but it certainly looks like the minotaur is somewhat shocked to find himself looking up at anybody.

The two devil knights are suddenly confronted by three men with long noses. Their white hair and beards give the impression of age. Age that doesn't fit with how they stand, and the hard athleticism of the physiques that show under their simple kimonos. Two of them carry swords, while the third leans negligently on a shakujo, the monks' staff that Mia had mentioned some of her kind prefer to swords. Elder tengu, warriors who have no doubt reached their age by being vastly better than everybody who's tried to kill them.

The devils might have tried to fight anyway, the belief in their own inherent superiority, or just an unnatural drive to protect their king, driving them forward. But then Yasaka growls. The support pillars on the platform shift just slightly, and the walls groan as layers upon layers of inscribed spellwork begins to glow on everything. Every wall and pillar, the floor, the ceiling, the tracks, even a train that passes through the station, glows with centuries of layered magic. A statement that no matter how superior the devils think themselves, Yasaka is at least a match for any devil but two, and even those two would hesitate to fight her in Kyoto itself.

The king slowly turns to see teeth in jaws that could consume him in one bite, belonging to a very angry nine tailed fox less than a foot away from him. That the fox would likely eat him in two bites just for the chance to bite him in half isn't lost on anybody.

The devil swallows, "My Lady, if I have offended in some way I most sincerely apologize." Oh no. He does not get to talk his way out of this. When I was nine I couldn't do anything about him.

Now? Not so much.

A pluck of an imaginary bowstring rips the devil off the stairs, and away from Yasaka. While he's still in the air I peel Shirone's grip off of me, careful not to hurt her. Before I even touch the ground, I telekinetically launch myself forward to meet the flying devil.

He hits the ground in the center of the platform, about halfway between his peerage and Kunou's protection detail. He lands with a crash, flopping gracelessly like a landed fish. I descend on him, drawing Sclamhaire in the air, and adding the power of my fall to my strike. I aim to bisect him with one blow, finish him before anybody has the chance to interfere.

Something I fail at, as a sickly green dome of energy snaps closed around the devil king just before Sclamhaire can reach him. The magic barrier doesn't slow Sclamhaire down much at all, it shatters with the first touch of her edge. The Devourer rips energy from the delicate balance that keeps the energy shield solid, and feeds it to me as mana.

Unfortunately, 'not much at all' is still some. It's only a moment, but that moment is enough for the devil to successfully scramble to his feet, only just avoiding where Sclamhaire bites into the concrete floor.

I rip her free of the ground as he whips his rapier up into what looks like a half decent guard position. I don't know a lot about rapier fighting, but there are some universal truths no matter your preferred form of combat. He's centered on the balls of his feet, has his sword covering most of his vulnerable spots, and can quickly get it in the way of the rest.

I take a quick glance at his peerage just to see if I'm going to have to figure out a way to deal with them as well, but they're all holding very still. Yasaka and her guards seem inclined to let me do what I want. Especially since the girl who had been riding the mortar is flopped out on the ground with a paper tag on her face. The woman with the seal skin has raised her hands and stepped back from the seven tailed fox woman, who's glaring at her with another paper tag ready in her hand.

Well then, it looks like I've got free rein.

I lunge forward, and the fight is on. To my only slight surprise the devil manages to deflect my first two swings, and on the third even manages a counter attack that I take on a pauldron. He clearly expects the lightning attached to his rapier to do something, and has an almost comical look of disappointment when it doesn't. I'm not sure how conductive the alloy of fae metal and soul is normally, but Sclamhaire drinks down each jolt, feeding me bits of power.

On the fourth exchange, when the rapier meets Sclamhaire's flat I twist her sharply to bring her edge to bear, and carve through the rapier feeling only a slight pull. The roughly three quarters of the rapier goes spinning through the air, and the king only barely avoids losing an arm in the same pass. He might have gotten away from Sclamhaire's edge, but that doesn't put him far enough away to avoid my follow up push kick.

My armor's boot hits the devil in the chest, launching him backwards, and laying him out flat on his back. I take a moment to make sure everybody else is still content to just watch, and it looks like the rest of his peerage is still locked down. Yasaka herself looks vaguely amused, if I'm reading the grin on her muzzle correctly. She's not moving in any case.

So, back to murder.

I leap forward in a high arc. Normally this would be stupid as hell, but sparring with Mia I've learned an appreciation for diving maneuvers. And while I don't have my own wings yet, I have learned some other tricks.

My mental bowstring thrums, and my trajectory goes from a pretty good parabolic arc, to a straight diagonal right at the king. He manages to narrowly avoid my foot stomping hard enough to crack the concrete where his chest had been before he rolled away. A further scramble lets him avoid Sclamhaire as well, when I take a swipe at him.

He makes it to his feet, and takes a few quick steps back as I advance on him at a casual pace. He's red faced, and more than slightly disheveled, and still holding onto the remains of his rapier.

"Enough!" He screams more than a little shrilly, "Pathetic mortal! I will not be shamed like this any further! Behold! The power of my ancestors!" Sharp white lines snap into existence around him, forming what looks almost like a line drawing of full covering Greek themed armor, "The Armor of Achilles! The Power of Destruction, Angelic Light spears, nothing can penetrate the power of..."

Sclamhaire hits the armor, and it shatters like glass.

The devil seems completely stunned, but he snaps out of it when I punch him in the side of the head as hard as I can. He hits the ground almost as hard, and starts trying to scramble away from me, even as his 'Armor of Achilles' reforms around him. I kick him in the ribs to flip him over, my armor not shattering his armor, unlike Sclamhaire, but that doesn't surprise me. My armor is nowhere near as... aggressive, as Sclamhaire is about what it consumes.

Stomping down on his chest now that he's facing up though, lets my armor absorb enough of the energy forming the Armor of Achilles that it shatters again. He starts to say something, but I stomp on him again, and feel more satisfaction than I probably should at the sound of his ribs cracking. It also keeps him from talking, which is the real goal.

Without pause or ceremony, I lift Sclamhaire, and plunge her downwards. She impales his skull, pinning his head to the floor. Death would have been almost instantaneous, and as painless as I can make it. I didn't do this for revenge, or a desire to torture him.

I'm just... removing a proven threat.

If I keep saying that often enough I might even start believing it.

I do feel like an enormous weight has lifted from me, though. Or maybe more like something I know has been stalking me for years, just out of sight, has vanished. Either way I'm left a little light headed, and feeling somewhat empty.

Sclamhaire comes out of his head, and the floor, as quickly and easily as she went in. I flick her off to the side, the little bit of blood attached to her blade is flung off. Nothing tends to stick to Sclamhaire, or my armor that I've noticed. I'm not quite sure why that is.

I take a look around. Mia and Tsubaki are where I left them. Mia's still in full armor, so no telling what she's thinking about. Tsubaki looks like she's in shock though, eyes wide and her jaw dropped a little bit. Shirone, good kitten that she is, has Kunou behind her, though the kit is peeking around her to watch the action. Neither seems upset by what just happened. Well Shirone looks a little concerned about me, but a quick nod seems to settle her.

On the opposite side of the platform are the former kings peerage, and the elite Youkai guarding them. I get a good look at their reactions as I head towards Yasaka, who's clearly the one in charge here. At this point the devils don't seem to have much fight left in them. The peerage looks even more poleaxed than Tsubaki does. The Youkai remain stoic, but all of them get out of my way as I approach the giant nine tailed fox.

The two oni samurai give me considering looks as I pass by them, and I get what I think is a nod of approval from one of the tengu. It only takes a moment for me to reach the steps where Yasaka sits. I pull down my hood and mask before bowing to the Youkai leader, "Lady, your daughter delivered intact and mostly unharmed. I think."

"Mostly?" Yasaka questions raising an eyebrow spot, "You think?"

I shrug, "We did have to fight a stray queen on the way here, and then there's all of this. If she was human I'd tell you to expect nightmares, as it is though?" I shrug again, "You'd know better than me what the consequences to her mental state might be, I just didn't want to assume."

The nine tailed fox nods, "Understandable. Rhostana-dono, this is the second time you have found and saved my daughter from those that would use her. We will have to speak about what form the necessary thanks will take. And I may have a commission for you as well."

I nod back, but the light headedness is beginning to get to me, "I'm more than happy to discuss both subjects with you, if you don't need me now, though?"

Yasaka eyes me for a moment then nods, "Take what time you need to compose yourself Rhostana-dono."

I bow again, and only narrowly avoid falling flat on my face as my light headedness edges towards dizziness. I manage to avoid embarrassing myself though, and move past Yasaka up the stairs and into the cool night air of Kyoto.

There are more Youkai out here, maintaining a barrier that's keeping the uninitiated away from this station. They largely ignore me though, and I find myself not quite sure what to do with myself. After a few moments just standing there, staring at nothing I decided to follow the hierarchy of needs.

And the first thing I need is a drink.

###

I've been staring at this coffee cup for almost twenty minutes, despite the fact that I don't drink coffee.

I mean really, when they say 'acquired taste' all I can hear is 'stockholm syndrome'.

This coffee is in a large clear glass mug though, and slowly becoming a lighter color as the cream I'd poured into it when I first got it, slowly mixes with the coffee. Something about my current state of mind combined with the slowly spreading cream is almost hypnotizing.

Just not thinking about anything for a little while is soothing.

At least until I almost jump out of my skin because somebody I didn't notice sits down across from me at my table. To my surprise it's somebody I actually know. Yasu, the Yuki Onna devil queen turned king in her own right, who's former king I'd just murdered.

I wonder if I'm about to get into another fight...?

"Toast?" Guess not. Yasu raises a glass of what looks like iced coffee. Heh, the Yuki Onna drinks iced coffee. I pick up my own glass and clink it to hers, before joining her in a drink.

I think I do excellently to not spit it out again. Coffee is disgusting at the best of times, lukewarm coffee is somehow even worse.

"Not angry? I did just kill your king." I have to ask, just to make sure.

She snorts letting out a little puff of frozen mist, "Decalan Eligos may have been my king, but getting powerful enough for my own peerage, and out from under his thumb, was the greatest day of my life."

"I do recall the two of you not getting along." I mutter pushing my cup away from me with the tip of a finger.

She nods, then frowns, "I knew when you summoned me that you remembered more than you should, but we never did discuss how much you remember, or how you remember at all."

There isn't exactly a question there, which is nice of her. She's telling me she wants to know, but isn't pressing me about it at all. I take a moment to examine her carefully. Really, we could almost be set up as mirrored opposites. Her literally snow white hair to my red/black, her pale skin to my Hawaiian tan, her ice blue eyes to my metallic gold. At least I don't feel hideous next to her any more, though her low cut tank top is showing her off better than my armor. At least I like to think that my... whatever I have is working for me as well as the almost royal elegance and grace she seems to display so casually, works for her.

I manage to avoid getting lost in her cleavage and decide to answer her implied question, "I had an impossibly consistent reaction every time I tried to think about the 'school shooting' that directed me to not think about it. Like the same thought and physical response every time, and there were so many inconsistencies with the idea of a school shooting I couldn't help but think about it a lot. Then I found the flier you gave me."

"How did you know what it was? If you didn't remember my giving it to you? An occult circle on a piece of paper decorated with naked girls seems like the kind of thing you'd just toss." She asked between listening to me and sipping on her drink.

"Well... You weren't the first encounter with the supernatural that I had," True even if I didn't know that Cait was more than a goth teen working a part time job at the time, "and I knew enough about myself even then that pictures of naked girls weren't an entirely unreasonable thing for me to have. On the other hand thanks to prior experience I knew what the flier was."

She raises an eyebrow at my casual reference to my sexuality, but just nods as I finish my explanation, "So you knew that you must have had an encounter with a devil that you couldn't remember."

"Yup. So once I knew that there was something there to find, I meditated and forced myself to go over every memory in detail, recreating what happened." I shrug, "It wasn't hard at that point to tell the difference between artificial memories and the real things once I found them."

"And you were what? Nine when you did this?" I nod and shrug again. She mutters something that sounds like 'impossible mortal', but continues speaking before I can ask about it, "Is that why you went after him so hard? That fight was clearly personal, which I can understand if you remember what the stray left behind in your school."

"Wouldn't I have spent more time trying to hurt him if I was going after him from personal anger?" I'm not really disagreeing with her, I'm mostly just trying to stall. Did my fighting look angry? Even to somebody who's never seen me fight before? I'll grant that I was way more emotional than I normally am in a fight. I didn't even do my normal analysis of my opponent. I always break down who and where I'm fighting before I start, but not this time.

God damn, I'm lucky the fight went how it did. I could have so easily missed something that could have made the fight go a different way in my an...

"If you were angry maybe," What? " but you were afraid."

...

Oh.

I slump in my seat and stare at my cup of now completely room temperature coffee, the milk now completely mixed with the coffee. My attention, though, wanders without my eyes following along. The world outside the coffee shop provides just enough background noise to paint a clear image to my sonar. The cars moving back and forth, people going about their business, or waiting just out of my sight lines from the windows.

Fuck it. Pua always says I need to talk more about what's bothering me, and this isn't really dangerous to talk about.

Maybe it will even be good for me.

"You know, ever since I discovered the supernatural, my greatest fear has been losing myself." Yasu looks confused, but I keep talking before she has the chance to say anything, "Either to mind control, or just manipulation, the idea of being somebody's puppet..." I shudder, "And then he comes along, and rewrites my existence for a day, makes me afraid where I hadn't been before. Ever since then he's been the face of my fears. Every nightmare I've had about getting caught and..." I can't finish the sentence and so instead just draw in a shuddering breath, "I had one entirely around him forcing me to be his new queen, and then making me kill my friends and family, and it was far from the only one like that."

"They don't work that way you know. The Evil Pieces?" Her voice is gentle, she's trying to be reassuring.

I appreciate the effort, but it's really not working.

I nod, "I know that's what they say, but there's plenty of examples that make me doubt that. Like that devil who collects nuns." Yasu grimaces, "Or just the way Riser Phenex's entire peerage seems perfectly willing to be used, and abused by him. Even if it's not outright mind control, the pieces are still coercive." My eyes are still stuck on my coffee cup, even though entropy has taken its course, and it's boring now. My fingers twist the cup back and forth, just so they have something to do. I can hear the two figures outside leaning closer to the window, "Once one of those pieces is in you, you're trapped, and your king holds your life in their hands. All they have to do is claim you're a stray, and they can kill you with impunity. That threat is hanging over your head, even if it's just implied by the circumstances, every time they tell you to do something." I shake my head, and wrench my thoughts back to the original topic, "So suddenly there's the face literally from my nightmares trying to coerce somebody I care about a great deal into his peerage. I... I couldn't let him go again. I've been planning how to kill him since I regained my memories, and suddenly the threat is right there in front of me?" I shake my head, finally looking at Yasu. She meets my eyes, and there's something there that looks like understanding, "I had to make the threat go away. I couldn't leave it out there any more."

For a long few moments we're quiet. After that though I break the silence, "You know, I think I'm supposed to feel worse, or guilty or something after that. Revenge isn't supposed to be a good thing you know? But, all I feel is relief. A weight I didn't even know I was carrying is gone, it was almost dizzying, and now? Now I feel free. What does that make me?"

Yasu smiles gently, "A person."

I snort.

It's a platitude.

But maybe an accurate one.

I sigh, and stand, "I should get going. Yasaka was nice enough to give me time to get my head on straight, but I really shouldn't keep the god fox waiting." I hesitate for a moment, "It was... nice seeing you again."

Yasu beams at me, and holds out a piece of paper. Taking it and looking it over, I find that it's a devil flier, almost exactly like the one she gave me all those years ago. Just minus the naked girls.

"Call me any time. Even if it's just to talk." She smiles at me. A simple happy smile.

She's really pretty.

"I just might do that." I smile back at her, carefully keeping myself from blushing.

I think this is the devil equivalent of getting a girl's number?

Would it be weird since she knew me when I was nine?

"What do you plan on doing now?" Yasu asks, with genuine curiosity.

I think about it for a moment, but the answer is actually kind of obvious to me with any thought at all, "I think I've earned a vacation. One where I don't have to fight anything, or learn anything. Something that's just purely fun."

And I think I know exactly where to find a safe place that will be nothing but fun if Serafall has anything to say about it.

And she does, being a Mao and all.

I shake my head, stuffing the flier into my armor skirt, and head out of the door waving once over my shoulder at Yasu as I leave. Stepping outside I take a deep breath of the Kyoto night air, "Well come on, diplomacy and foxes are waiting for us." I glance over my shoulder at where Mia and Tsubaki are against the wall of the shop, just out of sight from the window I'd been sitting next to.

Eavesdroppers.

"How long did you know we were there?" Tsubaki asks, but my only answer is a smug smirk and a shrug.

They fall in next to me, and we walk for silence for a bit. Tsubaki walks along with the same stately air that both she and Akeno share. I wonder if they had the same teacher? Mia on the other hand is now clearly off the clock. She still wears her armor, but is almost skipping along and grinning at every confused look we get from the civilians. Finally after several minutes, Mia can't keep quiet any more, "What do you think people think when they see us walking around all armored up like this?"

I grin to myself slightly, remembering asking myself that question last time I was in this city, "Cosplay."