Per CRStats, Kylre had about 90 hp, with an AC of 13, and the clutch ability to summon other low-CR devils. He was specced to fight a party of six, all at level 2, with relative parity. He and the summoned imps mostly dealt piercing and poison damage, which is quite the punch when most of the party has less than 20 hp. He did have Toya helping with the hypnotic song until Beau knocked her out, too.

That loadout is nowhere near enough to survive three rounds with ten opponents, even if they split their focus.

Also, hi, it's been years. I figured out what my problem with this chapter was, and now it's here. The problem was, in fact, the chapter. So it got rewritten from nothing in four days.

For all the trouble Kylre caused and the difficulty of getting the pursuit party to his hideout, the actual fight was over in less than a minute.

Kei wasn't sure if she was supposed to be disappointed by that or not.

On one hand (or tail), the not-lizardman weighed more than any three members of their group if Kakashi was excluded from consideration, and a single punch was capable of knocking a grown human's ribs in with a glancing hit. He'd demonstrated as much on the road. In a pure contest of physical might, a fight between him and local authorities could go either way until backup and zombies clogged up the melee. Toya backed him up, too, and sang in such a way that several members of the hunting party clutched their ears against either the noise or some strange effect woven into the music.

On the other, even a devil couldn't stand up to odds of literally nine (or ten, if you asked Isobu) to one. He did try to level the playing field—using mind-controlling magic, a life-draining ability that healed him, summoned demons, et cetera—but there was simply no getting around the ability of a group to dogpile on a single opponent. Even if Kei's team arrived late, the fight had already been swinging in favor of numbers.

Especially since—between Beau going directly for Toya and Isobu and Kakashi popping the flying imps like sapient balloons—none of Kylre's reinforcements lasted long enough to actually help.

In hindsight, the whole situation was pitiable.

"I have so many questions. Kei, you have no idea how many questions I have right now," said Rin, peering over the corpse with the eye of a woman who'd once reanimated frogs for science. It probably helped that she'd known Kylre for about fifteen minutes two days ago. She didn't know him well enough to regret his fate.

Kei didn't really either. A week of acquaintance or not, it wasn't going to miraculously make up for, uh, the zombies.

You are a soft touch, not suicidal, Isobu grumbled from his perch on Kei's shoulder.

And you're the most belligerent backpack in the world, Kei told him.

Of course.

There was a certain kind of mindset that was okay with killing somebody after a week's acquaintance. It was primarily the specialty of assassins.

There was also a certain kind of person who would travel with an innocent gang of weirdos and then murder someone in public, recklessly drawing the attention of a law enforcement force that was one step above a lynch mob on a bad day. And in later deciding the fuzz was getting too close, setting zombies on former friends, and also generally being a fiend. The first deaths were a bit of a gray area. Maybe being fiendish meant bystanders just dropped because they were allergic? But the witness testimony to the second incident pointed to malice aforethought. At this point, it was hard to keep it all in order.

Kei didn't have a lot of high ground. ANBU were by far the most capable of cold-blooded murder, but Kei was a jōnin. One whose most unique value was her power output, not her subtlety. Barring one or two missions, every death by her hands occurred in the heat of combat and with absolutely no pretense of stealth. No one ever asked her to get close to someone emotionally, and then whack them.

She couldn't really imagine doing it, if she was being honest.

"I could probably carry him back to town, if you wanted," Rin told the others, and her voice cut through the worst of Kei's mental fog. She popped her knuckles one at a time, like she hadn't just punched down a stone wall before bothering to limber up first.

"It might actually be easier to avoid being charged with murder if we don't," said Beau, grimacing at the number of wounds across Kylre's corpse. "Just take the head and leave the rest."

It was one of those conversations that made it almost "convenient" that Beau had choked Toya unconscious a short time ago. Not necessarily admirable or justifiable, but, well, better options were a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

Arriving late to a fight meant the messy aftermath was at least partly their problem. Kylre's corpse was already half-decapitated from the killing blow, in addition to a variety of wounds that led up to that moment, and in all likelihood there'd be…spillage. If they tried to move the corpse intact. It wouldn't take that much more hacking to sever the spine, but a long drag across the island might mean fiendish organs were scattered all over the landscape.

Sure, Kei could roll him up in a corpse storage seal, theoretically, but she hadn't the first idea how to compensate for the fact that Kylre was a fiend. The original parameters of the seal were for inanimate objects or, uh, corpses of things that were a bit more closely related to humans than "extradimensional monster."

She needed to do more research. There was some long-neglected part of her brain, jammed between other thoughts like a misfiled folder, that insisted the body of a fiend was supposed to decompose into sludge much faster than this.

Or into…fireflies? Ghost lights? Ugh, she couldn't remember.

Molly cradled the unconscious Toya against his shoulder and strode purposefully away, and Kei didn't blame him one bit. Fiend or not, it didn't take a lifelong carnie to recognize how badly Kylre's death (and subsequent mutilation) would feel to the child he guarded. Toya literally slept in Kylre's arms every night.

"Fjord, give me your falchion," Beau said, as she put her foot on Kylre's neck to expose the slash wound, "You're the only one with a sword here!"

"Hold your horses—"

Well. That was a little uncomfortable.

Kakashi shoved his muzzle into Kei's hands at this point, so she scratched his chin and his ears at the same time. While both of them were familiar with the smell of fresh blood, Kei even allowed him to stick his head inside her jacket like an overgrown puppy. Getting covered in slightly musty fur was a small price to pay. There wasn't even any gross imp blood on his mouth.

In a way, it was consolation for yet another evening spent with the wolf's mind in control. Oh, it didn't slow down Kakashi's combat efficacy much at all—it actually reduced the hesitation over biting anything that squeaked funny—but he'd be embarrassed in the morning. Again.

"You're really quiet right now, you know," said Jester. "Is it because you feel bad about the devil toad?"

"Why would that be?" asked Isobu, whose list of people he actually cared for was painfully short.

"Oh, you know, because you were late and then like two of us almost died and stuff, and the lawmaster totally wants us dead since we broke curfew to go chase the one who was really making zombies," Jester said, all in a rush. "Did you know the Crownsguard thought we're making the dead people attack people? Because that's pre-tty suspicious and jumpy. If we didn't investigate him, I bet they wouldn't even do any work before scccccclurch! Off with our heads!"

Kei was still getting over the part where she had a tail, among the absolute parade of weird bullshit that characterized the last ten or so days. At this point, she needed an entire filing cabinet with tabs that organized the various levels of "what the fuck" each development represented.

"As though I would allow such a thing," Isobu said with an impressive snort. He didn't exactly have much of a nose for it.

"Aww, thanks! You must be super powerful to talk like that," Jester said, and offered her hand to the little Tailed Beast. "But you totally don't need to avenge us or anything since we're not dead, so it's all good."

After a moment's consideration, Isobu leaned far enough forward that he could grip one of Jester's blue fingers and shake it with as much pompousness as he could. "That was a considera—"

Unfortunately for Isobu's pride, Kakashi took this moment to pull free of Kei's grip and suddenly notice Isobu's newly precarious position. With one ear up and the other pointed to the sound of flesh being hacked apart, Kakashi turned quickly enough to make Kei overbalance just a bit. Either due to unfamiliarity or thoughtlessness, it was enough force to dislodge Isobu entirely.

And the turtle was spared the fate of plummeting headfirst into the muck by Kakashi's jaws snapping outward and catching him in midair by one tail.

"This is undignified! Put me down this instant," Isobu complained loudly, swinging in the air like a rope toy. Most of the motion was his own fault.

Kei caught the swinging turtle one-handed, despite the speed involved and the way his spikes dug into her palm on impact. If not for the fact that Isobu and Kakashi were both only so invested in the process, she'd probably have failed. Thankfully, they were both in a cooperative mood, and Kei did not get her arms impaled or sundered or whatever.

Isobu settled more when held in her arms like a living plushie, and one tail whipped out to crack next to Kakashi's nose. There was a startled yip, then a quick set of bared teeth as Kei held Isobu out of Kakashi's reach.

"He's just messing with you," Kei told Kakashi quickly, even if he wasn't quite up to interpreting language at the moment. He'd get the tone if nothing else. "I'll make him apologize later."

"You cannot promise that!"

It was a little like managing a small, dangerous petting zoo.

Mostly because Jester's hands had already disappeared into Kakashi's ruff with zero hesitation. He didn't seem to mind, either.

"He's so fluffy," Jester said in awe. Her purple eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, catching reflected moonlight. It was one more reminder of the weirdness of their entire situation. "So fluffy."

Kakashi huffed and leaned into Jester's touch for the sake of ear rubs.

I wonder if he'll remember this in the morning? From what Isobu described, Kakashi didn't recall anything that happened when the wolf mind was in the driver's seat. His sense of propriety would be put through a blender otherwise, what with running around technically naked all the time.

…Kei wasn't going to mention that anytime soon.

"I know you said before he was your friend and he only looks like a wolf, but he's acting a lot like one from what I can tell," Jester went on, though Kei hadn't answered at any point. "He's actually really quiet and calm when you're not inside someplace, isn't he?"

Kakashi kept one ear pointed at Jester, but looked up at Kei with big, soulful eyes. At the same time, his nose twitched as the scent of blood got stronger.

Toya was going to need so much therapy. Which she was not going to get.

To Jester, Kei admitted, "When he's not like this, he spends a lot of time reading."

"Oh, what kinds of books does he like? I have a couple I could read out loud—I mean, if we didn't have to clean all this blood out of our clothes. I don't know what time it is, but it's late and I guess we're mostly done here?" Jester took a moment to frown back at her group, then said, "Are we done here?"

It turned out the answer was yes.

Which meant that, of course, the band of misfits who had slain the terrible beast had to haul his huge head back to the rowboat they'd used to get to the creepy island in the first place. Beau and Fjord did most of the hauling while the rest of the group licked their wounds (mostly Caleb, who'd been knocked unconscious by an imp before Kakashi bit it in half), fussed over the former (Nott), or chatted happily to everyone who could have their ear bent (Jester and Rin).

"We should bring her to the—" Jester paused while talking to Molly, as though she'd misplaced a word.

"The authorities," Nott suggested.

Molly made a noise best described as negative, but drawn out and more designed to interrupt an ongoing sentence. Kind of sounded like a foghorn. He hitched Toya higher against his shoulder at the same time, defensively.

Jester continued, either ignoring it or not understanding the implication, "—So she can defend us."

"Well…" Molly began, grimacing.

"So that she can tell everyone the fiend was bad," Jester tried, but looked a little uncertain now. Her tail lashed in agitation.

Beau looked equally skeptical in the midnight gloom. "I don't know if she feels that way."

"I don't know if she feels that way either, although—" Molly interrupted himself with, "And also, only half of us were here." With his free hand, he made a sweeping gesture that encompassed Caleb, Kei, Rin, Kakashi, and Isobu.

They really did rush into battle with a ridiculous numbers advantage, didn't they?

"Why are they the only ones?" Maybe it was the fact that he'd been poisoned recently, but Fjord wasn't doing the math as quickly as Kei had the other day.

Law enforcement: Wasn't a problem until I got here.

Painfully true, said Isobu.

"Because the rest of us are under arrest," Molly reminded them pointedly. "The worst O-Kei and her crew did was get thrown out of an inn, and the Crownsguard don't know that." He shrugged. "So, congratulations on defeating the creature that single-handedly killed several guards. I'm sure you'll be well-compensated."

Jester grinned in a conspiratorial way. To Caleb, she sing-songed, "You are a very powerful wizard."

And not long after that, everyone…kinda realized that they were in various states of fucked-up or injured, and so it was time to take a break.

Kei and Rin, who had both emerged from the battle unscathed, shared a totally smug high-five. Rin's side was arguably more fitting; she'd taken exactly one poisonous claw-swipe from Kylre over the course of the battle, and just poked herself in the arm to heal it instantly. With no perceptible use of chakra. It was one of like fifteen things that prompted Question Mode.

Just not around strangers. It could wait.

Kei, by contrast, hadn't really discovered anything new during the fight other than a) her Coral Sword was just as effective on fiends as on bandits and b) her tail was really annoying . It kept smacking her in the calf whenever she moved.

Beau, as one of the people tasked with carrying the head, held it mostly by the stump instead of hooking her fingers into a blowhole or eye socket. Fjord seemed to be copying her. Understandable, for people who'd decided to do the work themselves instead of letting Rin do all the heavy lifting.

Right up until Beau got a hand under the jaw and wiggled it, saying in a mockingly deep voice, "Hey, Jester."

If Kei's ears picked up mobility alongside pointiness, they'd be pinned as flat as Kakashi's were at that exact moment. As it was, her tail automatically curled around one of her legs and she felt her lips form a snarl. All of her fangs were on display at once.

"I ate dinner with him every day for two years," Molly said, making much the same disgusted expression. "Just think about that."

It didn't precisely work to shame anyone, but Beau did at least stop. Which meant Caleb could stop retching into the grass at the sight of corpse desecration, so it was a win-win kind of thing.

Shaking his head until his horn charms jangled, Molly went on ahead again with Toya still in his arms.

Rin pursed her lips. "I'll go on and make sure there's nothing else on the island waiting for us. Be back in a moment." And then she slipped into the dark, chakra a little agitated. As long as she stayed within Kei's range, it was fine.

Isobu wiggled out of Kei's arms and rolled after Rin with a sharp, "Then wait for me."

Kei sighed. Cruelly abandoned again.

Kakashi licked a stripe up her hand.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Enough moping for me."

For her part, Kei led Kakashi on by his heavy pre-winter ruff and settled them both against a tree when they reached the boat. It put them away from the group—besides Molly and Toya—and thus in a slightly quieter spot. Sleeping against him was a recipe for a sneezing fit, but she did manage to get his huge head to settle peaceably across her lap. She rubbed his ears a little before returning to slowly just scrunching her hands in his fur.

It was as much a sensory reset for her as it was for him.

Petting Kakashi's fur also helped her pretend not to hear the sounds of Toya waking up and Molly trying to talk to her. Or the subsequent struggle when she realized Kylre was no longer with her. The group that carried Kylre's head was far enough behind that there was a bit of a reprieve from…the inevitable consequences of the evening's fight.

It was probably better to stop thinking of a name attached to that gruesome prize.

"So, do you read super smart people books or like normal books?" Jester asked, having skittered ahead of the rest. Apparently, Kakashi's fur really was that soft. It drew her in like a moth to a flame.

Kei scratched her cheek a little sheepishly. "Romance novels, mostly? I suppose that's a little embarrassing—"

"Oh my gosh!" Jester let out a gleeful gasp that soon pitched upward into a squeal. While Kakashi's ears flattened a little in disapproval, she yanked her pack open and retrieved a somewhat well-loved paperback in both hands. She was so eager to share it that she shook the book a little too fast for Kei to read the cover. "Okay, okay, okay, you have to tell me the titles of the good ones. Is there a grand romance? Is the sex any good? Does the story make you laugh?"

Oh dear. "Uh, no? I don't think—"

"You totally should!"

Kei's potential answer was interrupted by the sound of Toya crying.

Ah, shit. The head-bearers had arrived.

So had Rin, carrying a handful of what looked like herbs under one arm and Isobu with the other. With one sympathetic glance toward Toya and the rowboat owner's hysterical shouting, she made her way to Kakashi and Kei's sideshow and dropped onto her haunches.

"In my defense," Rin said as she handed the greenery to Isobu and his nigh-bottomless stomach for safekeeping, "I think being around all those fiends was what made my skin all gross and itchy."

Well, it explained why she'd taken a hit from Mr. Toad Monster at all: being distracted. Rin's training emphasized dodging more than tanking, because the latter was Kei's job. She didn't have any good reason to put herself at risk other than the mid-combat realization that every single person allied with them was made of tissue paper in comparison. And…whatever weird thing was going on with her biology today. Kei could practically see Rin taking mental notes.

"Once again, a shell proves superior," Isobu said once he'd swallowed, as though he'd never submitted to scritches in his entire life. Then he crawled onto Kakashi's crossed forelegs and turned around to watch the show.

Kakashi yawned again and turned his head so that he could drop the hollow of his throat right atop Isobu's shell. The little monster disappeared with an indignant squeak. Due to the proportional shrinkage of Isobu's spikes and their general position, not to mention Kakashi's thick pre-winter coat, Kei doubted Kakashi even felt discomfort. In normal circumstances—

Well, in normal circumstances, the interaction here would be highly unlikely for many different reasons. Starting with Isobu's lack of a physical body. But this was one more absurdity piled on top of a very wild version of reality.

Kei kept herself from moderately hysterical laughter one moment at a time.

The boatman's yelling eventually died down when the mismatched group bribed him with a bottle of wine and quite a lot of gold, but—

"Uh, I don't know how to say this, but my boat wasn't exactly built for…ten people? Plus me. Some of you are either going to have to find your own way back across or just try to swim for it." He glanced at the severed head and shuddered like he was expecting the group to perform that particular trick again. On him. "No offense, but I never want to see any of you again."

"Take the ones you arrived with, the head, and the girl," Kei suggested, while Rin dug around for her purse. Or just random coinage she'd acquired while running around on her own for the last week. Guess she wanted to add to the pot. "The rest of us aren't your problem."

"Oh, good, because I was definitely not volunteering," said the boat's owner. He had the general manner of a man who had stumbled into a pit deeper than he expected, and would take any lifeline out of the situation.

Kei nodded.

From there, it was mostly a question of putting everyone's heads together for the trip back. Ideas were bandied back and forth regarding the best method to present their kill to the relevant authority figures. The group belatedly recalled not telling any of the Crownsguard that Kylre was a fiend (specifically a "nergaliid" or devil toad) before rushing off to kill him in the dead of night. Nott in particular pointed out the tiny little hole in their plan; if Caleb showed up with a dead circus member without ever elaborating on the situation, there was going to be a bit of a problem convincing anyone that the circus wasn't somehow still to blame for the deaths in town. Which could get several innocent people executed, never mind their own necks.

Kei mostly let them argue it out. Instead of participating, she held out her right hand and started channeling another iteration of the Coral Palm. Rin had fought Kylre barehanded—as she normally did—but it was going to be an uphill battle to convince anyone that Caleb's skinny nerd self had successfully decapitated a fiend without some serious assistance.

Allow me to be helpful, then.

When she had formed the rough shape of a cleaver the length of her entire arm and broken off the relevant bits to form a cutting edge, Kei started to wrap the hilt in string with the same lightning efficiency she used for traps. At a glance—specifically by someone who couldn't see well in the dark—it could resemble an off-pink sword.

"Done thinking?" Rin asked. She tilted her head at the blade with some curiosity. "Is that for me?

"Yep. Time to convince the law that we actually could kill someone who…killed several of theirs. It'll be interesting, if nothing else." Kei stretched her legs and leaned awkwardly backwards do the same for her shoulders and spine. Her tail flexed along with her spine, which wasn't a comfortable sensation even before its rapidly lashing end smacked Kakashi's flank. "Sorry, Kakashi."

He let out a big canine "whoof" of a sigh, too tired to bother getting excited by an accident.

Rin took hold of the coral weapon and stood to give it a few experimental swings. The blade cut through the air with a slightly off-sounding whoosh. At least to Kei's discerning ear. "I mean, between this and Kakashi's teeth, I think we can be at least a little believable."

Unless the cops were stubborn about it, in which case they'd have to…improvise.

What does that even mean?

Um, we'll burn that bridge when we get there?

The trip across the lake didn't kill anyone. The two groups traveled separately yet again, with Kei's team walking across the water under cover of near-perfect darkness and the misfit menagerie in the boat. Kei was careful to keep just out of sight. This was not a sophisticated endeavor; she only used her and Rin's strange new vision to pace out an appropriate distance. As soon as they couldn't see the boat, Kei figured they were probably fine.

Molly vanished almost immediately after they got to the docks again, with barely a tip of his horns toward Kei and Rin as he headed for the carnival. Toya was either asleep or just very quiet in his arms, which was probably for the best. If something went wrong, she needed to be well out of the blast radius.

And when Kei was involved, that was usually the correct term.

Jester, Beau, and Nott, who were supposedly under house arrest, took off in short order, which left Rin and Kei sitting on the pier with the severed head. Caleb went off to find the local law enforcement. Fjord (under a disguise as a Crownsguard) stuck around, but the sense of an impending reckoning didn't abate. Kei hadn't quite been able to tell that Fjord could assume other faces until she recognized his voice through the accent, but it cut down on only half of the nervousness.

At least the boatman had been scared off by…everything. Fjord pretending to be the long arm of the law was simply the last straw.

So, waiting.

Kei dealt with this twenty-minute uncertainty by using Coral Palm again, but this attempt focused on making a somewhat ugly kanabō. Given what Rin had said the other day about Kei's horns, it seemed on-brand to make a weapon suitable for an oni. Isobu's chakra gathered in the center of her right hand and the first blobs of unshaped coral started to bubble out.

"I could probably heal you up a bit, if you'd like," Rin said to Fjord, looking speculatively at him. The little crinkle in her brow made the diamond on her forehead stretch a little. "I heard everyone groaning a little while ago."

Under his Crownsguard disguise, Fjord looked intrigued. "Could you?"

Rin nodded, bouncing on her feet a little. "Give me your hand and we'll find out!"

Fjord hesitated for only a split second—Rin's general countenance was mostly "SCIENCE!" on a day like this—but gave Rin his hand anyway. That probably made him more adventurous than most people in Konoha, honestly.

Rin hummed as she made the half-seal necessary to activate her version of the diagnostic medical ninjutsu. Her hands glowed green mostly in Kei's augmented vision, but it wasn't difficult to ignore. Rin could nearly perform the jutsu—or cast the spell—in her sleep. She only used it every day of her professional career.

"I can tell where the stinger got you. You've been dealing with it well," Rin commented. "Probably still hurts, though."

"You can say that again," said Fjord with a wince. He'd only gotten stabbed once, unlike some people.

"Then we'll fix that right up."

Well, if anyone was going to figure out how chakra-based healing worked on someone without the relevant spiritual circulation system, better Rin than Kei. Kei was great at deconstructing things. Putting those same things back together—through healing or otherwise—was somewhat more difficult.

About a minute later, Rin's voice said, "There, good as new! Tell me if you experience any weird tingling or burning sensation, or if you—"

Kei scratched Kakashi's ears to try and blot out the rest of what was undoubtedly a symptoms list fit for a prescription drug commercial. The end of the symptoms list was a coin flip between "death" or "an erection lasting longer than four hours." Kei did not need to know where the rapid-fire list would fall.

Incidentally, your use of my power requires more focus than you are giving to the process.

Kei looked down at the would-be kanabō, which was supposed to resemble a nightstick or billy club. A basic bludgeoning tool, but sized to fit in a sleeve or pocket in case one needed to hide weapons, and lined with spikes for added damage potential. The traditional weapon of an oni, when made of steel.

The result of tonight's tinkering mostly looked like a bumpy pink dildo, because the technique did not naturally deal well with the subtleties of shapes smaller than a watermelon. Especially when Kei was distracted.

"So, what was that supposed to be?" Rin asked, peering at it.

"Less suggestive." Kei sighed and snapped it in half with her fingers, then tossed the pieces into the lake. She could feel her face heating up in embarrassment, then was sidetracked by the realization that she didn't know if she still blushed pink or not.

She definitely still bled red, but…

"Oh, good. I was wondering if I'd missed something when I put together that pamphlet and left you with horrible misconceptions of how sex toys worked," Rin said, oblivious to Kei's mental tangent.

It was very, very difficult to scandalize someone who worked with human organs on a fairly regular basis. There was only so much embarrassment left after nearly fifteen years of Tsunade-level medical skill and almost that long spent dating Obito. Not to mention voluntarily teaching a sex ed course to her peer group. With Obito as a captive assistant.

Rin was entirely too powerful.

"After this, what will we do?" Isobu asked, from his vantage point on Kakashi's haunches. All of the tails at that end were wagging.

"Not sure yet," Kei replied. She glanced toward the severed head, which was currently covered by Rin's jacket. "Maybe ask me again once we've avoided having to kill our way out of town."

Isobu subsided with a grumble, as though she'd massively disappointed him by not providing a body count. Would-be kaijū and all. Then make another weapon so I am less bored.

Kei rolled her eyes, but she held out her hand anyway. Isobu wrapped a little hand around her pinkie to make sure she concentrated. Probably.

"Isobu-chan, do you mind staying in the lake for a bit?" Rin asked, extending her hand to Kei's inner demon. "I feel like if the authorities see you, they might make the inference that you're also a, um, demon influence."

"Of course I am," Isobu said flatly. "Kei and I match perfectly."

"That's part of the problem."

It was probably a bit obvious where Kei's tiefling coloration came from when they were sitting next to each other, even to people who didn't know exactly what Isobu was. That, of course, was a problem for Future Kei, who was at least going to have a coral baseball bat in preparation for the inevitable showdown.

She was in the middle of adding spikes—separately, which seemed to be easier than producing a whole weapon at once—when Isobu rolled himself into the water. And she just barely finished tying a strip of cloth around the handle by the time the sound of people approaching hit her ears.

Fjord stepped off the dock and replaced his Crownsguard disguise with that of a nondescript old human man, slinking into the shadows as torchlight entered their field of view. Though Kei glanced at him in a silent question, he held up a hand quellingly.

Kei decided against using the Transformation jutsu, but she wasn't sure that's what he'd meant to convey.

Next to her, Rin's fussed over her body language for a moment before giving up on acting entirely. For Rin, that meant she was standing over the head and peering down at it while making inquisitive noises. She just needed a deerstalker and a magnifying class to complete the farce.

Kei hefted her club over her shoulder and tapped her foot, which felt about as unnatural as posing for a photograph. If she smiled, it'd be worse. Humans tended to look at her fangs a little sideways.

Humans. Like she wasn't one underneath it all.

The group that arrived at the dock was led by Caleb—looking somehow scruffier in comparison—and consisted of four Crownsguard and a dwarven woman wearing at least two-thirds of the raiment of some kind of civil official. It was mostly in shiny bits on her overcoat.

And then there were Nott, Jester, and Beau, all in chains and being dragged behind the group.

Somehow, they'd managed to get arrested. Probably without even getting to the inn successfully, which was just typical. Kei knew that much by now.

"Hello!" said Rin, ignoring that problem entirely. She bowed to the entire group, polite as necessary. Her giant cleaver was held in both hands and shiny with viscera—which she'd acquired for it about fifteen seconds of frog-head-puddle ago. "Is it time to talk things out?"

The presumed lawmaster looked a little nonplussed to see them. It wasn't an unfair reaction; between Kei and her tiefling self, Rin and her complete nonchalance, and the giant wolf-monster still lying on the docks with a tail thumping happily against the wood, they made for a weird party at best. Honestly, the only reason Kei hadn't sent Kakashi off into the night for a bit was because there were bite marks on the back of the decapitated head that couldn't be explained except through his presence.

Hopefully no one had used those punctures to lug the head around.

Frog-devil. Whatever.

Caleb pulled his dirty coat aside to highlight a long, vicious slash that cut through his shirt and the sluggishly bleeding gash there. "You see this? It was done by this thing." This quiet, declarative moment lasted right up until Caleb pulled the coat off of the severed frog-demon head.

The people who hadn't participated in the frog hunt reeled back at the sight of it.

The head, over an hour after the severing, lolled like a Halloween pumpkin on the stump. The long tongue drooped out of the open mouth and past all the teeth, in that rubbery way corpses got after being exposed to air for too long. All of the horns on the head were broken-off or just sorta shoved inward from—well, Kei wasn't saying her new club couldn't have done the job. It just hadn't.

Tonight's latest highlight: Manufacturing an alibi for fun and profit.

"I could have healed him before we started this conversation," Rin muttered in an aside that only Kei heard.

"Not the time," Kei replied under her breath.

"It is as bad as it looks, and if you have any holy people in this city, they will confirm that this thing is fiendish," Caleb went on, unaware of whatever they were talking about.

The lawmaster, who approached to poke at the severed head, sighed and said, "You say it's a fiend? Because what this looks like is you just murdered one of our possible witnesses and/or other members of this investigation, so I'm hoping this is a fiend. I don't know fiends."

You and me both, Kei thought.

Caleb frowned slightly more than normal. "I hope you don't believe that I slashed open my own body and then went to the police."

The lawmaster snorted. "Honey, I've been doing this for a long time. I've seen stranger. Hold on just a second." She gestured for one of the guards to come over and barked some sort of order Kei didn't have time for. "Just so happens we have someone in town who might be able to confirm this for us, might help your case."

Jester's chains rattled. "Who is it?"

"Oh, they will be here shortly."

The next couple of minutes were kind of boring from Kei's perspective. A lot of waiting for what turned out to be a delicate-looking elf with blue robes and a general air of put-upon dignity that couldn't manage much on its own. He confirmed that the severed head belonged to a nergaliid ("I'm not a specialist, unfortunately. This creature is very much a very dangerous entity from the far east. I'm surprised it made it this far into civilization before being destroyed. It's a good thing it has been."), which mostly made Kei's skin itch with the idea that Kylre might've been feeding on her for days without her knowledge.

Ergh.

Not that you would have noticed. You have far too much chakra for any significant effect.

Thanks solely to you.

And with that, a trial was clearly the only correct option. The entire combined group headed to the lawmaster's trial chamber with the devil's head in tow. Molly returned to the group along the way and was immediately clapped in chains. Those who were not chained up could sit in the chamber's stone bench gallery, while those currently on trial were arrayed in the lower well of the building as judgment awaited.

Kakashi was not allowed into the building. Instead, he sat outside with a sad look on his canine face until Rin volunteered to sit outside with him and handed Kei her cleaver back. Given the choice between a calmed giant wolf and being messily devoured on a whim, the Crownsguard decided to let Rin do so. She wasn't even peripherally a part of the circus, after all.

Kei sat in the gallery with both coral weapons across her lap and waited.

When Fjord showed up again—having briefly ditched the group to drop his disguise and hurry back for solidarity—the Crownsguard sat him next to her like they expected both of them to run. Instead, Kei made a point of examining her nails and digging out the worst of the night's mud and dirt.

If Kei wanted to "run," there'd be a minimum charge of six murders and a lot of arson to sort through in the aftermath.

"Come here often?" Kei asked Fjord, while everyone was arrayed in the middle of the room.

"Y'know, I hate to say it, but this is my first real run-in with the law," was his response. And he wasn't even in chains. For shame.

The lawmaster—something that rhymed with "Yorda"—got all her ceremonial armor on, stepping onto the dais like a true judge. There was no jury. Kei assumed there was an executioner, somewhere, and resolved to take them out first if necessary.

"I would like you to present what evidence you have to absolve you of these charges against you and then based on what you present, I'll decide whether or not you're innocent or guilty or require further investigation. Who would like to present evidence first? You! You brought the head of a creature! You're not in chains. We'll start with you." Kei presumed she meant Caleb. "And speaking with Zeenoth here, it appears what you said is true. This creature is a dangerous, terrible fiend. And looking at it's apparent ability to feast on the essence of creatures, this explains both the transformation of the old man. This also explains destruction of our two guards, who were recently discovered. Rest their souls. So, that explains that. Convince me as to why you were not working with this entity, especially those of the carnival."

One of the guards shifted in a way that nudged Kei, who did not raise her hand to volunteer that information. She'd gotten paperwork from Gustav, but she'd never intended to stay with the circus for long. The instant she found Rin in town, the metaphorical timer ticked faster.

Still, so much for that "not all tieflings know each other" assumption the Crownsguard had so graciously afforded her. In this town, they actually did.

Yet more Crownsguard escorted Bosun and Gustav into the room, manacles included. Yasha, who Kei supposed had been arrested at some other point, was also dragged in as a part of the circus party. Kei made sure to wave at them as they passed by. She didn't really trust her ability to make a real case in their defense.

Aside from "helped kill Kylre," which was as much to avoid taking the heat for his crime as it was to kinda cover their tracks regarding being accessories to the zombie thing. Technically, someone had brought Kylre into the circus in the first place.

That someone was Gustav. Comprehensively guilty, in the eyes of people who knew how fiends operated.

In the end, that was what it came down to. No one really made a foolproof argument worthy of an attorney accredited anywhere, but Gutstav practically fell over himself to take the blame for the entire incident. He'd brought the fiend in. He could take responsibility for that, at least. And in doing so, he got everyone else out of chains in exchange for his freedom and a debt to society that amounted to over two thousand gold.

The circus, understandably, was not sticking around town in the wake of that. It wasn't even intact anymore.

"Thanks for looking after me for as long as you did," Kei told Gustav, as everyone's goodbyes were starting to bubble up to the surface.

"Don't thank me," Gustav said with a wince.

They'd made it out of the law offices entirely and went back to the circus grounds, and people were starting to get ready to move. Probably to leave the country entirely, to be honest. Kei wouldn't be surprised if she needed some kind of globe to determine everyone's destinations after this. And possibly a set of darts to fling at it.

This thought brought Kei's brain screeching to a halt. …Is this world a globe, or is there some Discworld stuff happening here?

You ask this like I would know.

Well, what's happening that's more important? The drama's over.

Regardless of his sourness, Isobu sent her a vague impression of being carried through the forest in Kakashi's jaws, which was enough for Kei to know that she oughtn't bother asking any follow-up questions either. Such was her life. "Is my boyfriend eating deer right now?" was not on the list of things she needed to know at midnight.

He probably was. Isobu made a decent minder for now.

Kei cleared her throat as she tried to get back on track. "At the very least, for the paperwork. I didn't have the first clue about them." Because they were both fraudsters and Kei's ID was only valid a dimensional jump back thataway.

"Oh, then…" Gustav still looked so horribly guilty that Kei had to wonder if it was all down to the toad at all. "You're welcome for those. I hope the rest of your travels work out far better than this venture did."

"That's the plan," Kei said with a dip of her head.

Ahead of them (and the Crownsguard making sure Gustav didn't leave), the remainder of the groups most involved in this incident—the circus and the entire chaotic crew that killed Kylre—were already making plans for a round of drinks at the Nestled Nook. It wasn't a celebratory atmosphere, exactly, but the relief was palpable.

Gustav followed her gaze. "Does that plan include being gone before the party's underway?"

"I think we should consider it," Rin piped up from Gustav's other side. It was still so late that the human of the pair of Crownsguard startled when she spoke, but she ignored it. "No offense to Trostenwald at all, but it's probably better to not outstay our welcome, you know?"

Gustav's answering laugh was a courtesy more than anything, unhappy at best. "Oh, I do. Well, don't let me slow you down."

"Of course," said Rin. "It was nice to meet you, even if the circumstances were bad." She patted his shoulder in a friendly sort of way. "I think Kei still has some unfinished business, but after this we're going north."

"North?" Kei repeated on reflex. They hadn't said anything about directions, at least as far as she remembered.

But Rin just jerked her chin in the direction of the still-moving party, who were already entering the Nestled Nook. Clearly, this wasn't the time for a debate. Instead of pushing, Kei gave up on that question and hurried to catch them.

It wasn't much of a goodbye. It didn't really have to be.

Kei made a quick circuit around the room—hugged Molly and bowed to Yasha, patted Toya and tried to avoid getting on the worst of Ornna's bad side by giving them startup gold—but in the end, she hadn't known them for long. Gustav's big speech, if he had one, would be lost on her anyway. She was only even allowed into the Nestled Nook because Yorda wasn't around.

"Take care of yourselves," she bade them anyway.

"Same to you," was the general, collective vibe.

It was enough. Best get going sooner rather than later.

Team Minato was still one member short of a full roster, after all.

Notes section:

Sign of Ill Omen: You can cast "bestow curse" once using a warlock spell slot. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest.

1) Kei does not view "not being a humanoid" as a disqualifier for personhood. She's been living with a representative of her world's least-human lifeform as a brain roommate, so she has a much harder time, say, disrespecting corpses than the future-Mighty-Nein do. Plus, part of her formative experience in warfare as a genin was in handling human remains and performing (mass) burials after battles.

2) The circus's zombie incident is Kylre's fault, but per Matt's end-of-campaign wrap-up talks? He's totally been eating people, fed to him specifically by Gustav. Gustav is also the mortal who made a deal with him, so even without him "disappearing" random people, the Trostenwald thing was his fault. Kei got her paperwork from Gustav, but was not hired on in any official capacity. At most, she did odd jobs for Gustav to justify to Ornna why Kei was allowed to take up space in their cart.

3) Kakashi and Jester canonically have basically the same taste in literature: trashy smut. The difference is that he gets embarrassed if asked to read aloud. She does not. And Jester has yet to discover Tusk Love.

4) The average alignment right now for the (eventual) Mighty Nein is probably just off chaotic neutral. They aren't even actually mercenaries yet; they're just a barely-together band of misfits whose primary collective goal is "not being arrested."