46. Oni

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A young woman, draped in a cloak and a tusked mask that hid every part of her figure, watched from atop a tree in disgust as the "beasts" tried and failed to penetrate the dome formed by the dogs of the Magic Council.

"Useless no matter what form they take."

Her attention turned towards the sword tied to her waist, its weight feeling like a call to action as she so desperately wanted to go and claim the prize of her hunt for herself. The gift from her saviour, the one who taught her the pleasure of turning the predators into prey, would make that barrier completely useless.

But she stayed her hand. No matter how desperately she wanted to move, to act and make herself known, she knew it would be too much of a risk.

Best case scenario, she would eventually get her hands on the Etherion. Worst case scenario, she would kill all of her pets and leave.

The thought made a smile flit across her face. Maybe she would. After all, she was only supposed to probe the Magic Council's defences. At least that's what she was told. Getting the Etherion would just be a bonus. A way to impress him.

But the idea of slavish loyalty to her cause of choice was replaced with confusion and vitriol as the land and sky both were bathed in violet flames. Familiar violet flames.

Her white-knuckled grip on the sword forced the blade to rattle its scabbard as her whole body shook with rage and disgust.

'It's here!? That old bastard said he killed it and yet it's here!?'

Her chest heaved heavily as the picture of red and violet flames clashed afore her as her home was reduced to ashes. She and her older sister's sobs shook them both as violently as she was shaking now, and that feeling, the raw memory of that day forced her breath to hitch. She forced her body to be calm with measured breaths and nodded as her grip on the sheathed katana became composed once more.

'No. No weakness. Now is my chance to move beyond this. It will die here today.'

As her body and mind synced in both composure and purpose, a branch snapped from behind her and instincts took over. Her muscles flexed and audibly creaked as she drew the blade from its sheath with lethal familiarity, the air distorting and sound cracking booming as the blade instantaneously cleaved through the area where the branch snapped.

But she hit nothing.

She was confused for a brief second before she heard the air swirling around an object flying towards her, which she deflected. She traced the sight of the rock that bounced off the spine of her sword towards a girl much younger than her, no more than fifteen, casually bouncing a rock in her palm and holding a large bundle of them to her chest standing at equal height to her on a separate tree.

All she had on was an open-back crop top turtleneck and baggy sweatpants. Her feet, strangely, were bare and she had no way to keep warm from the winter air, but considering the fire trapping them all in the girl likely didn't even need it, the swordwoman considered.

The only sense of protection she had were the black bracers on her wrist that stretched from her elbow to her knuckles. She thought her foolish until she saw the black symbol on the girl's lower stomach.

'Phantom Lord,' she recognised, instantly earning an internal scoff, 'Just another arrogant wizard then. Maybe she'll prove to be a more powerful pet than the rest if nothing else.'

In a fraction of a second, she studied the girl's demeanour. Leisurely relaxing with an armful of rocks in a tree easily thirty meters high. A blank expression on her face save for a bored smile etched onto her face.

'Arrogant indeed, and yet...' she thought before taking a brief glance down, 'she managed to get up here without me even noticing. Must have stealth magic, one that let her detect me from all the way up here, and if she's confident in letting herself get caught she must have a trick up her sleeve. I'll be wary, and take her down as fast as I can.'

"Well, are you going to stare, Miss Swordsman, or are you going to introduce yourself?"

"I have no interest in giving my name to someone who will not need it."

"Well, you have a stick up your ass. Fine then, my name is Lyssa Wisteria. Occupation; traumatised teenager who has no healthy coping mechanism which leads to my side job as a wizard."

"Wisteria? Are you the same girl who was accepted into the Himura Elite Guard at the age of twelve?"

"I am. Were you...part of the guard as well? Your movements with that blade were pretty close to what the Captain taught."

"That is none of your concern. But as an olive branch, I will allow you to flee before you're ultimately defeated. I will still hunt you, but you may have the opportunity to pray to whatever god you worship before I enslave you. As a fellow survivor of Himura."

Whatever reaction she had expected from the fifteen-year-old, it wasn't for her to start barking into a fit of laughter. A sinister gleam entered her eyes as some of the rocks she carried tumbled out of her grasp from her shaking.

"So you are the one controlling these people? Ha! I didn't think their controller would be foolish enough to be this close to the conflict, but here we are! I planned to bully the information out of you, but here we are! Well, thank you for saving me time, so can you be a dear and set these people go?"

Instead of acquiescing to the girls simple request, she attacked, her cloak obscuring her figure as the purple-blue blade sang through the air. The girl's smile turned bloodthirsty, actually sending a shiver down her attacker's spine as the aura around her turned dark and began to corrupt the air around her.

"Scatter," she said. The bundle of rocks in her arms glowed purple before they all shot forward with speed to match the swordswoman's charge. Her charge carried on unimpeded as she deftly reflected each rock, her and her sword a blur of movement as the distance between them was closed.

She cleaved at the girl, purple-blue metal arcing towards her neck with finality. Lyssa, still smiling raised up her arms to block the attack, her form turning into flame as she did so.

The smirk she had on her face vanished as instead of going through her fiery form, the blade dug it's teeth into her arm, cleaving to bone before she jumped backwards to further separate herself from her assailant.

The swordswoman paused her assault, the sight of the girl turning into those purple flames jarring her in that brief moment. Lyssa herself was looking at the arm that was cut. Not at the wound itself, but at the inky black vine tattoos that began to appear, stretch, and corrupt.

She took a deep breath, pressing her palms together and chanting, forcing the vines to regress and vanish. Lyssa's attention turned towards the blade in her opponent's hand and cursed, 'Anti-Magic? Not good. If I take too many hits, she'll cut the seals off. Grappling it is.'

"You!"

The shout of the swordswoman drew the devil slayer's attention away from the seals she placed on herself and to the look of the angry woman ahead of her. She wrenched the cloak off of herself, revealing the appearance of a familiar armour, stained by the symbol of a dark guild.

The red and black samurai armour, one bearing an identical appearance to those worn by the swordsmen of the Himura guard, yet the symbol of fire that the guards took pride in was clawed through. Painted over was instead the crude symbol of a bleeding claw. One Lyssa had saw only once prior.

'Beestenbloed.'

"Demon!" the woman howled as her hand reached up to grab the oni mask on her face, "You will not leave this mountain alive!"

Then she shattered the mask.

The crimson material coalesced into a thick smog that she inhaled like an addict. Her bronze eyes went bloodshot in an instant as her veins visibly thrummed and her muscles twitched and grew. Her skin turned red and her skull twisted in delightful agony, growing a horn and tusks as her whole body echoed with euphoric power.

Lyssa, her arm now healed, watched in horror and disgust as the woman engorged herself in the substance with rapturous glee. The situation they were in earlier now reversed, as the hulking swordswoman - no, as the oni stared at the fifteen-year-old in murderous delight while Lyssa stared at her in doctoral disgust.

"Leviathan's Blood..."

"Ehe~ That's right, wretched demon! Oh, how I've prayed for this day! Now die!"

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Sorry for the slowed updates everyone, but we're finally putting in the last of the renovations now that everything settled down. Just gotta put the new floor in and finish nailing in the last of the paneling. But! I come with a peace offering.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/62125/ghost-in-the-city-cyberpunk-gamer-si

This is honestly one of the best fanfics I've read in a long time and has made me honestly put everything I've written til now into perspective. If you're a fan of the Cyberpunk series, give it a read, you will not be disappointed. It's still updating too! So yeah, give Ghost in the City by Seras a read if you're looking for some new material because I binge-read all 164 chapters last week and it's honestly so good.