Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune Ch. 42
🕑 Added 2025-08-13 01:07:15 +0000 UTCIt had been a while since Yuki had people react to her like this. She didn't miss it, despite how useful it was.
People cleared out of her path like she was an incoming flood, and the militia obeyed without question. At least nobody was begging for blessings yet. No, that would likely come later. This move… it may necessitate more regular presence in Broadstream, even without what John was planning. To think, what he had shared while they were preparing… devaluing the coin in the Nameless' possession may be easier than she thought, even if it may cause some civil unrest.
Perhaps their fear was for the best this time, given how sour her mood was and how effectively it kept everyone well out of her path. She hid it for John's sake, as she didn't want to distress one of the few friends she had right now, but it was very, very tempting to barge inside and turn every person inside that building into a stain that would take days to scrub out.
All the people in the village would thank her, too, but John would likely be too horrified by the results for her to get close for a while, which was unacceptable given the wedge Kiku had already driven between them. He was getting better about it, but the first time he saw her tear into a Nameless was not a thing she wanted to repeat without cause more than simple stress relief.
She glanced down at the grovelling man. "Get up," she ordered.
The man sprang to his feet, still shaking as she approached, keeping a careful eye on him. The weapon still lay at his feet, entirely out of reach.
Now that she thought of it, these people would likely be hunted down like animals by the villagefolk once they were stripped of their equipment, anyhow. She could probably clean up whoever made it to the forest if she truly wanted them.
She had to think about it.
Yuki stepped on the spear near the head, splintering the wood under her foot, rendering the weapon unusable, and making the man flinch. "Now, what is going on here?" she too sweetly asked.
"Sergeant Shirai told us the boss is dead, and that you killed him!" the man immediately spilled, bowing so deeply she thought he might keel over.
She supposed it wasn't a… completely inaccurate series of events, although it pleased her to know that the leader of the tax collectors, who wasn't present the last time she showed up, was among the casualties. At the very least, it would decapitate their collection efforts elsewhere throughout the region, too. Still, it put them on a timer to stabilize things. She was reasonably sure they were "legitimate" collection agents in the eyes of the government, so someone would probably notice in a few months, but that wouldn't be a concern as long as they were scattered or dead by then.
Given how low the value of the area was, they'd probably send a token force to find out what happened. Any investigation into their practices would turn up numerous abuses of power, although she'd have to take care of the Nameless issue before then.
Shirai was the one in control of that unfamiliar undead, wasn't he? She half expected him not to inform his men about the situation, grab as much wealth as possible, and leave. It would have been challenging to pursue him… but perhaps he feared the Nameless too much to do that, if he was even acting logically enough to consider the idea. Staying here was an extraordinarily poor plan. Even if he could somehow fortify the place enough to stop her from entering, she could just burn the building down if she truly needed to.
Some probably hid away and fled already, assuming Shirai didn't convince them that they'd be torn apart the second they stepped away from town, but they were a problem for later. Even if they survived the Nameless and became bandits, it'd be easy to have them killed later.
"He is still inside," Yuki stated.
"Yes, Lady Kitsune, on the top floor!" the man hurriedly offered, clasping his hands before bowing frantically, repeatedly, like more bows equalled him being more sorry. "Please have mercy on me, Lady Kitsune. I have a family back home, and I fear he'll find a way to kill them for betraying him!"
The lilt in his inflection and the way his heart sped when he spoke told her that it was a lie, an obvious one at that, even without mentioning how he started sweating more heavily as he considered the words. He probably wanted protection against the villagers, who were probably going to grab each of his limbs and pull until they came loose. She almost felt insulted if it wasn't for how close he was to soiling his clothes. Most mortals couldn't lie to save their lives when confronted.
"Oh, I have a solution for that! Stay still, they won't know that you cooperated if it looks like I removed you," John cut in, clearly falling for the lie.
Perhaps she should do something. On the other hand, she was terribly curious about what her ally would do.
John pointed at the man, who flinched in fear, closing his eyes. Had he overcome his aversion to hurting others? Was he just trying to appease her? He flexed his fingers, but there was no grand burning, no freezing, no lightning bolt.
The man slowly cracked his eyes open once he realized he was not immediately dying.
John then gently moved his arm, and the man began levitating into the air with a shrill scream. His eyes went as wide as porcelain plates as his arms flailed wildly, trying to grab onto something—anything! He almost caught the building, but John curled a finger, bringing him away. "Help me!" he cried, legs kicking. Somehow, he had managed to destabilize himself, and he was slowly rotating through the air as if gravity decided not to apply to him.
"Hold on for a moment," John muttered, pulling the man further away from the building, deep concentration furrowing his brow as he clearly was trying and failing to ignore the screams that doubtlessly made everyone inside think he was being brutally torched. He had quite the set of lungs; the noises had the volume of a general bellowing orders and the tone of a particularly startled small child. The man was clearly in the wrong line of work.
It was hard for her to remember how mortals didn't have an Aegis of their own, or at least one worth anything of the name. Even a new Unbound would be plenty able to assist an effect like this as long as they weren't weakened first.
Yuki kept the smile from her face—this was a serious situation—as she turned to Rin and ordered, "Circle around the building. Make sure nobody gets out through the back."
The woman's eyes were locked on the hovering, shouting man as he spun through the air, drifting higher into the sky like a demented sky lantern. Thankfully, she managed to hesitantly tear her eyes from the spectacle once she fully registered the order. "Yes, Mistress Yuki!" she responded, jogging off.
The sharp smell of urine stained the air as John levitated the cowardly bandit onto the roof of a nearby two-story building, which seemed to be some sort of shop. The whimpering man grabbed onto the tiles like a sailor tossed a rope at sea as he was released, hugging himself to them so hard his fingers bled.
"There we go, nobody will suspect we did anything other than forcibly remove him," John muttered to himself.
Yuki wondered if he knew how terrifying he was in the eyes of mortals.
Every interaction with the supernatural was a danger to the average person of these lands. It would have taken a flick of his wrist to dash him across the rocks like a bird dropping a fish. Haru and Aiki only had a safe space to stay at the leisure of a pair of mysterious figures who, to their knowledge, may both be older than their village and largely disconnected from mortal morality and had no obvious reason to help them. When he interrogated the local merchants, he sealed the drafts, almost as if he were quieting whatever happened next so as to not bother everyone else.
Whether he liked it or not, he was akin to a looming executioner's blade upon any space he was in, for they knew not the gentle heart beyond each action. She could tell he craved connection, and she was happy to give it to him, but he might have more luck with the yokai than the mundane people of this land. To have an Unbound interested in you was to be in danger, even if only due to the incredibly lopsided relationship.
Granted, that aspect was still there with the average yokai of the forest to some degree, given the threat of his power, but it would be mercifully dulled to a blunt point.
"Come along. Let us put an end to this little infestation. I shall take the lead," Yuki suggested, and John nodded in return, but said nothing.
Without further distraction, she walked through the door, John following not far behind. The lobby was barren, the desk up front torn apart for wood, and the lacquered floor had many scrapes that smelled fresh from heavy items being dragged. No furniture was left in the room, having been pulled into the hallways to form hasty barricades. She could smell fear-drenched sweat in the air, hear the thundering of terror-ridden hearts. Drifting in from further up, there was an air of mild rot, but she could tell it wasn't from this floor. If there was any doubt that Shirai and his weapon were still in this building, it was gone now.
John looked around, tense like a rabbit looking around for danger, even though he outpowered these men by magnitudes. Was he truly afraid of them, or was he afraid of harming them? It did not escape her that he kept the telekinetic focus slotted in his gauntlet, despite being the slowest to disable a man by far, and in his left hand was his "Magi-welder", gripped deathly tight. The building must be crushingly silent to him, and he doubtlessly wondered if he would have to do anything drastic.
"You intend to do the same to them?" she asked curiously.
He nodded, although his movements were jerky and unsure as his eyes darted about. "Please?" John whispered.
These men were dead anyhow. Even if she didn't kill them, the militia or the villagers certainly would without a second thought, and likely more painfully at that. Still, she could allow some to survive, for now. "I'll try," Yuki conceded, "but we don't have the space to keep them. I will try to show mercy to the ones who are less violent, but if I let the worst of them go, they'll probably become regular bandits and hurt others. Please, John. I'd like you to stay here."
The man gritted his teeth, looking away from Yuki, his breath catching and his heart speeding up.
"Fine," he finally agreed, hesitantly, refusing to meet her eye. "I trust your judgement."
"Thank you. I'll leave you here to keep watch. Stay safe," Yuki said, turning away from him and walking to the hall. A makeshift wooden barricade, constructed of interlocking furniture, blocked the path, but she pushed it out of the way with casual ease. Did they set this up before they realized they didn't have the power to man it? Was there a mutiny in the ranks, draining their manpower? Hmm. Perhaps she'd get some answers from the first man she was coming up on.
His breathing sounded like he was pressed in a corner of the room she was coming up on, and as she paused in front of the thin paper door, she could feel his heart start to thunder as her shadow cast through it.
Almost carelessly, she flung the door open, drawing a scream from the startled man inside. He was older than most in this profession, perhaps in his late thirties, but that clearly was not due to skill at arms on his part. His armour was lacking, just layered cloth, and weapons, a bow and knife, lay discarded on the ground next to the dresser he was trying to hide behind, and he made no attempt to reach for them as Yuki walked closer and closer, only instead trying to back away. Alas, sadly for him, he could not pass through solid wood like a ghost.
Every part of her mind screamed, "Prey, prey!" as she loomed over him, the man saying some spiel she had heard thousands of times before as he begged for mercy. She hardly listened to the words, nor bothered to determine whether the man was being truthful.
It was tempting, and his soul was probably delicious.
She did, however, make a promise to John.
"Get up and go to the lobby. My ally will see to you," she ordered, voice cold as ice.
The man was frozen, legs locking up, uncomprehending eyes on her.
She sighed, grabbed him by his collar, and tossed him out the door, skidding across the floor with a yelp. "Go, now!" she hissed, and the man hurried to his feet, skidding like a cat trying to get traction on a slick floor before running toward John. Another series of distressed cries and promises that it'd be just a moment confirmed his capture.
Now that she thought of it, having a few cowed tax collectors might be useful. If nothing else, handing them over to the locals after she was done finding out if they knew something might be a good way to curry favour.
Yuki idly strolled towards the next heartbeat through the silent halls, ensuring her pawsteps were loud enough to hear. It was always strange going back to a place as herself she had only visited in disguise before. Everything was sharper, more real, like she had only been here in a dream prior.
She homed in on her prey regardless, casually stepping over a crude tripwire trap connected to a crossbow along the way, plucking the bolt from the flight groove and snapping it.
She stopped outside the next thin door, casually sliding it open.
TWANG!
The bolt flew toward her chest, but she smacked it from the air with the back of her hand before rushing the man, wind screaming past her as she blurred toward him. Sweat beaded on his brow as she approached, but he hardly had the time to recognize that she was moving before she was on him.
One hand wrapped around his neck and hoisted the tax collector as a clawed squeeze from her other disarmed him, a hand falling along with the crossbow as he gasped like a dying fish.
Well, there was the first one to fail today. There was no need for Yuki to drag this out longer than she had to, though.
She drew her free hand back even as the man was still registering the loss of his own, plunging it into his chest like a knife and wrapping her hand around his heart.
The man froze like a statue, the start of his flailing stopping dead as she twisted, reaching in an impossible direction into the metaphysical, her warm hands wrapping around his writhing soul. He bubbled and shifted, trying to flee from her in the cage formed by his physical self, but her grip was too tight. A subtle flex of her power, and everything he was started to compact itself down toward his heart like water toward a bath's drain.
She felt the icy terror soak into her claws, but there was little he could do at this point as he was unanchored from his physical form, losing coherence and ossifying into a ball of experiences and instinct, bound together with the lifeblood of all beyond mere physical.
Compacted, solidified as one firm mass, she tore it from its nest into the real world, discarding his corpse like an empty package.
His soul, the culmination of his being, gleamed under the light. It was a pale blue orb, stained by grey swirls that bubbled inside, the edges fading away into subtle rainbows.
It tasted like terror and hopelessness as she swallowed it, and energy flooded her form like a raging storm. For just a moment, it felt like she had lost nothing at all. A pleased shiver shook her form, and she gasped, a tingle of a blush colouring her face.
How unbecoming. There was still work to do. Four more men were on the first floor; all but one hadn't made the same mistake and were promptly sent to John.
"We're clear," she stated, returning to the foyer.
Wisely, John didn't question the blood staining the fur on her hands, although he looked away, seemingly nauseous. "Next floor, then?" he asked, and she nodded, leading them to the next floor.
Once more, the man took up a place next to the stairs, down, throwing open a window so he had a clear line of sight to the now slightly cramped roof where he was leaving terrified captives.
The kitsune left him, not a word passing between the next two as she cleared this floor just like she did the first. The men here were fighters, more willing to try and strike at unexpected visitors, and she greeted them in kind, leaving blood slicks and hollowed out corpses in her wake.
There were twelve, this time. Yuki sent two to John. Even though they were only scraps compared to a yokai or an Unbound, all the energy was starting to go to her head, making her feel a bit giddy. The grin split her face as she slayed another, the following warmth in her core a welcome addition. Still, she suppressed it when she returned to John to not startle him.
He didn't question how few were shepherded to them, and they climbed to the third in silence.
This time, three men were manning a barricade made of roughly locked-together furniture, all of whom started cursing and fleeing the second they saw her. John only managed to grab one, but the other two didn't get far before Yuki was upon them.
One by one, she scoured the floor, purposefully avoiding the stench of rot. They were in small groups of three to five this time, and she couldn't help but marvel at how poor their planning was. Were they waiting for some sort of signal? Did they think they could hide and slip away when they heard some of their fellows getting slaughtered? None of them seemed eager to make a move. It just made hunting them down all the easier. Only two went to John this time, despite their greater numbers.
Truthfully, she didn't care overmuch about keeping count. Finally, it was just them and Shirai.
"John," Yuki said, returning to the stairs, "it's time."
Grimly, he nodded, following her. Unsurprisingly, their prey decided to hold up in the same office she had looted before, perhaps believing it a seat of some sort of power that would protect him.
They stood before the doors. "Do you have a plan?" John whispered.
"Yes. I take out the undead, you grab Shirai," she returned, pointing toward the door, listening to his heartbeat and breathing… and the shuffling of his bodyguard. Curiously, Shirai's heart was pounding faster than it should be, even if he knew they were there, and the pair were very close together. Perhaps he was hiding behind it? "They're both about eight steps past where I'm pointing. Ready?"
John hesitantly nodded, taking up a post further back, pointing his gauntlet at the door, bracing himself.
Yuki flung the doors open, and—
The undead stood there, wearing armour, unlike last time. It was still grotesque and swollen, cast in sickly purples and bright reds with flesh like a melted candle with a bulbous head. Six short swords stuck through the mass of warped flesh that was its head. A seventh was held to a tied-up Shirai's throat.
Suddenly, it all made sense. This was a coup! No wonder the men were so poorly arranged. Their commander must have been held hostage for hours.
The portly man in question was tied up, kneeling on the ground, tears streaming down his face, and terror-drenched sweat pouring off him. Placing a boot upon his back, the undead removed the blade from his throat before kicking him forward toward Yuki with a gurgled grunt and holding up a small sheet. Written in unsteady characters, and stained with unidentified juices, it read, "I surrender. Take this pathetic lump as tribute."
Well, didn't that make things interesting?
Comments
Trevyn Lane
Yuki is fighting her nature here. She wants to be better than the monster that she is (and she knows she is a monster, she is that wise). I will also point out that she is right about the "Collectors" fates, they will not live after they leave John's merciful care. She cares about John because he is the kind person she wishes she was, and is the smartest mortal she has likely ever met. The combination of kindness, intelligence, and mystery is entrancing to her, and while his soul would be delicious, his company and active intelligence are experiences that she would never get again. And that isn't even mentioning the new magical discipline he invented, or the pleasantness of having a friend (a rarity for Yokai or the powerful)
Vlad Cold
So, hypothetically declare that money that passed through hands of hostile yokai are "cursed" and can turn humans into puppets. Then "for safety" mark all money in settlement and from outside trade and say all unmarked are not currency and should be rejected... If John can also drop value of items Nameless possess, they gonna extinct overnight.
OccasionalNewb
Then again, I am a staunch Human supremacist, so I can't exactly be trusted to be completely impartial.
OccasionalNewb
This chapter solidifies for me that Yuki isn't as good as she would like John to believe, and maybe even as she'd like to believe. Her willingness to back down on her word because it's a minor inconvenience, albeit only partially along with her nonchalant attitude about casually eating a person's soul (which is just bad both in Eastern and Western spirituality) really doesn't say good things about her. I really hope John sees these signs and the others Yuki's giving and he remembers that Yuki (and most of the other Unbound for that matter) is not human. To be honest she seems to be more animal than person at times
K
Woof. A friendly reminder that Yuki's predecessor wanted to break free from the chains of what they were built for for a reason. Obviously Kitsune were built for horrible acts. Edit: it could also just be as simple as they aren't hers and they're her enemies so they're prey mentality. Or it could be because he showed her kindness first, thus a debt. Or she could genuinely just like him for some kitsune-off-the-wall reason. Like curiosity and pack based affection replacing human love. It definitely seems like both Kiku and Yuki value their own, just in different ways, and don't value those not of their own nearly as much.
