Chapter 15: A glimpse of peace
Naiki wake up from his sleep and still remain clueless of what have happened. He looks around the unknown architecture of the room with high wooden roof that can be seen from the inside. He hears the footsteps from the other side of the room coming to his room. "Darling, you're awake." Vexis says out of relief. She limps to him, it makes Naiki wanted to grab hold of her but he himself cannot move that quickly. She sits down at the side of his bed while leaning her body towards him. "What happened? I don't remember anything." He cautiously says it to her. "You want the short or long version?" Vexis tries to make a joke even in her condition. "Short version" He replied. "You lost control of yourself using that armor, got berserk by your powers backfiring, destroyed a planet, a moon and nearly hit our fleet. I tried to stop you including the other girls and I nearly got killed by you." At the end of the explanation, she pouts in anger. "Sorry Vexis…I have nothing more to say..." Hearing that regret, she pushes her nose at his cheek while Naiki hugging her. Naiki musters what energy he has left to sit down. "You have changed darling." Vexis says to him with a smile.
He notices the injuries on Vexis was his doing. Naiki pulls her to his side and put his hands on her wounds, especially the most severe one on her abdomen. "H-hey, it's not night time yet…" Vexis softly speaks with her flustered tone. "I'm dissipating the elkyte particles that's in your body. That prevent you from healing properly and the only one that can remove and generate them is me." Naiki explains while doing it, Vexis look at his sad face of what he has done. She puts her head at his shoulder. "It is lucky that you aimed me, if it was the others they might not live today." After Naiki remove the elkyte particles, Vexis take some time to recover herself while resting at Naiki's side, he embraced her while she slept with him supporting her back. Ilya shows up an hour later with some food after Vexis takes a short nap. "Vex, is master okay?" Ilya peeks in while saying it to Vexis. Vexis that is already awake; is fixing one of the dueling swords that they have used before while sitting beside him. Naiki finally feels his powers returning to him tenfold. "Yep. Why don't we all walk out?" Vexis looks at Naiki who responds with a nod. The three of them steps out of the house after they have eaten something. The sight mesmerizes Naiki, cherry blossom trees filled the scene with humans and some demi humans in old dresses walking near the stone streets. Some sees him and politely bow.
"Ah, you finally awake." The voice comes around the other side of the house. It was Araki and his companion dragon. "Thank you for helping us healing Naiki." Ilya speaks out for Vexis. "Not a problem. Naiki, I have unlocked all of your powers. Master all of them slowly." Araki noted it to him. "Why would you do that? I locked them for a reason, it's dangerous as some of them even can destroy this galaxy." He says it while eyeing the place. "It is much more dangerous if you locked it. The power cannot adapt itself and clearly wanted to remain active. This is the first time I have seen someone with too much power and the type to locked it all away as it chews on itself." Araki explained to Naiki while they walk to one of the halls while Vexis is having a conversation with Araki companion at the back, Ilya leads on the front while keeping alert. Naiki is still surprised to see a place this beautiful and less tall structure like the one in his empire.
He tries to link to his mobile fortress and finally sees it on the right side of the view. It looks a little battered up as some debris can be seen floating in the space; it generates small electromagnetic storm to patch up some of the hull damage. "Vexis, what did you do…?" Naiki says it lowly but it caught her attention as he looks at the Storm Fortress, she quickly goes at his side. "D-darling I can explain-" Araki cut her word off. "Naiki, it is already hard enough for them to come here. To cross multiple overlapping warp jumps just to shorten time including distance is considered suicide. They made it here to save you." Naiki sighed. "Alright, I'll let it go for now." Naiki pats Vexis head as she calmed down, he accelerated the Storm Fortress repairs with his own management. They talked through to the main hall, Araki told Naiki to enter first. There are five nine tailed white fox waited for them inside. Vexis is extremely surprised by it because she can't detect them when they first arrived at this planet. "Oh, fluffy nine tailed foxes…" Ilya teases Naiki of the situation since she knows that he likes foxes; especially the fluffy ones. Naiki hold the wanting urge to cuddle all of them. "They wanted for you to take over this planet, since the five of them cannot decide it in the first place." Araki's companion approaches him and whispers something. He immediately bid farewell to him and leave them. The five of them looked at him, waiting for his decisions. "Vexis, handle this one." Naiki leaves while pulling Ilya's hand. "What!?" the artic fox blurted out.
"There your kind, so you handle it." She hears it from him that already walked away. Vexis scratches her head and sits down with the five foxes. "Master, stop pulling. I can walk by myself." Ilya stated it. "Oh, sorry." Naiki let go of her hand. "Why you don't want to handle that matter master?" Ilya ask oddly since he avoided the opportunity. "Feels like the situation is better if Vexis handle it. Ilya, where are we actually?" He asked away, avoiding the topic. Ilya pops out her navigational chart using her bracelet. The sight is enough to catch others attention seeing the projected galaxy. "Here…" She pointed out where they are. "And here is our empire…" Ilya directed her finger slowly and stops. The system they are on is directly the most outer south side of the galaxy that is the opposite side of the Imperial Cybran Empire in the northern galaxy. "Really? That far?" Out of disbelief he asked again. Ilya only nods and turns off the projector since some of the children is playing with the projected galaxy. "Aww" some of the children says it and walk away after Ilya shoo them off, Naiki smiles wryly seeing she dislike active type of children. "Master, let's go and see Lenora and Layla. They are training at the beach." Naiki agreed and walk with her.
"Come on, Ilya is much more aggressive than you. Fix your form Lenora!" Layla seriously yelled at her. Lena pant out of breath while holding her training sword. She grips the sword tight with her two hands and swings it hard at Layla; making an energy wave directly aiming for her. Layla dodges the incoming energy wave with her left grappling hook and her combat boot thrusters at high speed. She pincer maneuvers on her right side; Layla right hand swing upfront followed by her spinning body and deliberately aims at Lenora's neck. The sakhalin fox barely parry it in full force while holding out the pain from the impact of the blade. The sakhalin fox materializes her second sword; countering the force of Layla trying to knock her off to the ground. She quickly grabs it with her left hand and turn the Ion sword on and stab it to the ground; equalizing the force. With her full might, she was able to fend Layla off as she falls back a few feet away.
Lenora connects the end of both swords, making it a double-edged sword. She holds it openly on her right hand; arching it at the side. Her left hand picks up her rapid firing laser gun as her leg braces for the next move. "I need to get stronger; I want to protect Naiki as same as they can. I want to be useful to him; not just sit around and watch." Lenora highly motivates herself after what just happened. Layla sees her focused aggressive stance. Naiki that have just arrived with Ilya; sits at the edge of the cliff near the line of cherry blossom trees. Ilya stands at his side observing them while they are focused on each other and explained the rule of combat. Layla extended her grappling hook and connected her sword to it. She slowly spins it around in a small circle using her right hand while hopping in the same spot. As the wind dies, Lenora unleashes multiple energy wave using the double-edged sword followed by laser shots as she rushes to Layla. Layla picks up the speed of her spinning sword and deflected the waves, she throws the spinning sword at her while dodging the laser rounds. Lenora duck the oncoming sword aiming at her head; she sees her yanking the sword back to her hand and Instinctively deflect it using the back pointed sword by angling it using her elbow. Lenora drops the laser gun and jumps hard using her own combat boots. She knows that she cannot win in terms of one hand strength. With her sword completely pulled back into the gauntlet of the grappling hook, Layla parry her single handed. The sheer strength of Lenora pushing it downwards forces Layla to support her left arm while grunting. Both locked on that position with neither budging off. A fallen stone is heard by them as their ear twitches. Before they can notice, Ilya straightly darted herself to them with her own energy sword aiming at their crossed swords. The sudden impact is strong enough to recoil both back at their starting position. Ilya stands firm in the center; slashing her sword and deactivates it with her cold exhaling breath. She sees both of them lying flat at the ground with open arms while panting. Layla broke out a laugh. "Hahaha! we were ambushed by Ilya and both of us did not notice of it." Lenora laughed too of Layla's statement and Ilya gives a chuckle. "Waaaaittt! Arrrrggghh!" the voice of a flyover small arctic fox interrupted them as it bombed into the shallow water. The three of them looked at the shallow water as it changes into its mythical beast form. It was Vexis as she returns back to the beach and hunker down after being thrown by Naiki.
Naiki short warped downwards. "Who told you can put your melons on top of my head and your hands in my pants especially in public!?" He angrily vented. Vexis transforms back into her anthro form and burrowed her face into the sand. "I can't help it since you rubbed my wounds. You are mean sometime, even after I just recovered being badly wounded by you…" Her voice muffled in the sand. Ilya sweeps her tail off seeing the situation. "Looks like Vexis is the only one that can't control her carnal instincts sometimes. Even Layla now can properly do it. You should learn from her." Ilya rebels back to Vexis with her words with a smug. "At least that is rightfully mine." Vexis stated it while popping her face from the sand, Layla pounces to Lenora and tickles her, both rolled in the sand near Vexis and collided with her. "Since you three are in the playing mood, I will attend master for the moment." Ilya sarcastically speaks loudly while folding her arms. Naiki assess the situation quickly and backed away near the beach entrance. The three quickly stands up and bicker over with Ilya to take care of Naiki. "Having trouble already?" Araki silently arrives near him and make fun of the situation while drinking some tea with his dragon staying at his side. "As usual; Vexis will rule out the rest or she will back off and choose one...or they would team up and ambush me, again..." He confidently says it with Araki laughing the end of his word.
"So how do you feel?" Araki questions him. "All of the powers returning to me feels overwhelming; like if I touch something, it might turn into ash." He gives a faint laugh out of his own fright. Araki handed him a glass of tea. Naiki grabbed it gently, immediately his power corresponded to the item he held and turns into dust with the tea disappeared. "Try to contain it this time." Araki hand him another glass of tea that his companion is holding. Peculiarly, Naiki takes the tea liquid directly from the glass. It bubbles around and splits into portion that he easily can bite the drink off. "That works too." Araki gives a faint laugh. Araki pointed out a lion anthro comes to Naiki's companions. The emperor enhances his senses to hear what the lion is saying to them. "You lot are that person mates? It's a shame that you taste wasted on a weak human." He boastfully says it to them. Naiki only sits back as he clearly waited for a chance to intervene.
"What did you say!?" Ilya is pissed off on what she just heard. Her sudden turn to him leaves a cold wind striking at the lion but he directed the wind away. "Hooh, this is going to be fun." Araki watches with his dragon; Naiki closes his eyes out of ignorance while feeling the flow of his powers as he tries to control it. Vexis watches him do so, signaling her to do what she wants. "Whimsy troublemaker." Vexis taunted from behind as she steps forward. "Why don't one of you become mine instead?" The lion says his fill. Vexis taps her index finger at her mouth thinking for a second. In a quick flash, she slapped him with her changed left hand beast paw. He crashes out near Naiki and Araki. Vexis fully changes into her mythical beast form and confronted him again that is still lying flat at the ground. "If you dare come between 7 meters of us especially my girls and husband, I am going to burn you alive and eat your soul!" Vexis aggressively threated him with all of her tails lit up with her eternal flame.
Naiki silently arrive at her side scooting her off. "Weak huh? I wonder what will happen if I throw you straight at the deep space…?" Naiki grinned while releasing his deathly aura and materializing his Echo Mortis sword on his right hand with the roaring sound of Storm Fortress sirens. The lion frantically gets half up and limply ran away on the opposite direction with his broken leg. "Don't taunt your new ruler kiddo!" Araki shouted at the lion. As the time passes on to nightfall, all of them returned to the house that they stayed in.
Weirdly enough, Naiki cooked some quick food with the help of Vexis handling the main course. She fends off the three girls from cooking and asked them to wait. He handed the first batch of s'mores that he made to the living room where Ilya, Layla and Lenora sharing some of their interests. "Here you go, something to fill the wait." Naiki notes them and quickly retreats back to the kitchen as Vexis called for him. "It's rare of you to cook darling. Before you just order some stuffs or make instant foods using the dispenser." Naiki gives a short laugh hearing that from her. "That goes for the both of us since this is the first of a long time you cooked something." Vexis only shakes her head, both of them stops when they hear rowdy noises at the living room.
Naiki goes to see what's wrong with Vexis sharpen her hearing senses from the kitchen. "The last one is mine; you already ate six of them." Layla sharply stated it while swishing her tail. "No, it should be split into three. All of us already ate six including Lenora." Ilya growled. At the perfect moment, Araki's companion dragon comes to visit them to see how they are doing. Naiki grabbed the last s'more for her and tell her to run off quietly. "Ilya, Layla calm down; we should just leave the last one for Naiki." Lenora tries to calm them while the three of them looked at the empty plate. "Wait…It's gone! Lena did you eat it!?" Both Layla and Ilya speak spontaneously. Lenora shields herself with her tail out of fright. "No, I give it to Araki's dragon since the both of you are arguing without being aware of it." Coming out of hiding, Naiki speaks with orderly tone. "Seesh, you lot. As if I'm not making a second batch or something." Naiki crosses his arms. "I won't give you dinner if the three of you keep on bickering!" Vexis shouted from the kitchen. Ilya and Layla quickly stop after Lenora passes them quickly to the toilet.
Finally, they sit down together enjoying the meal that the emperor and empress prepared. Vexis takes the opportunity to make the others jealous. "Darling, ahh~" She directed the neatly fish cut to Naiki with her fork after seeing him did not eat most of the food. Naiki takes it while watching the small galaxy map at his communicator while planning the shortest route to go back home. She licks the fish sauce at his right mouth. Naiki did not react but the three clearly wanted to do it at Naiki as Vexis did. Layla drop her jealousy by eating more of the fish cut. Ilya simply look away while exhaling; munching away the vegetables and Lenora only watch with her tail flicking lightly. "What?" Naiki asked of their weird behavior; none replied while looking at him. "Okay then, Ill take my break at my room. Do what you want, just don't disturb my rest." He leaves them as they eat. Layla finishes off quickly, directly she tries to enter Naiki's room on the side of where Vexis is sitting. She quickly blocked her. "Nope…let him rest. I know you too well…" Vexis grinned at Layla. As they are done with the dinner and cleaning the table, the four returned to their room for their short nightly activities and sleep.