Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune Ch. 36
🕑 Added 2025-07-02 02:13:23 +0000 UTCJohn did what he did best. All the bile, all the hatred, all the dread and pain and doubt burning him up from inside… he forced it down into a nice neat box to be dealt with later so he could face this monstrosity. He could—would endure. He always had.
It faded away into the background, along with the screams of the men he mangled, as he focused on this new threat.
The beast hardly fit through the doors, as towering as it was beneath its veil of ghostly pale silk. It was solid. More real than the normal Nameless he had fought in the past. Shadows still licked at it unnaturally, but it was far more solid, having a thick, darkened carapace under it. The eight eyes, rather than different flavours of madness, were eerily steady, subtly glowing red as they scanned the battlefield with steady precision, and rather than crude butcher's blades, the two front legs were almost elegant scythes.
Now that he was looking at it, the beast's chelicerae were… different, too. They were more solid, more like a jagged tri-jaw than anything that fit on a spider. It was curled tight like a spring, ready to burst into violence at any moment… yet, it didn't. It just loomed over the battlefield, slow, deep, rattling breaths the only sign it wasn't a corpse itself.
It looked over the battlefield, slowly, calmly, with none of the frenzied madness of its lessers. It looked from Yuki, to Rin, then the dead, and finally to the… sea of twitching bodies.
Guilt ate at John's stomach, despite the situation, and he felt nauseous as his recent meal fought to come back up, but he managed to swallow his bile back down.
Then, it looked at him.
The shadowy beast stared at him, and… he could read a disconcerting amount of emotion in those eyes as it looked him up and down. It looked at him like one might look at an old acquaintance, and once its gaze lingered on the Winged Disc, it started to look curious.
It looked away, and he shivered, his body finally feeling safe to do so once it was no longer under a predator's gaze.
"It's stronger than I expected," Yuki called up, glancing towards John. "It should be far weaker. Something's wrong."
He glanced toward her, but only for a moment, unwilling to take his eyes off the monster that was now examining the field of crippled bodies with interest for long. His mind whirred over what Yuki said, before his face settled into a grimace. "You tried to kill it while it wasn't paying attention," he stated.
"Yes. It should have been easy, but it was somehow too strong for that," Yuki explained, eyes still locked onto their eerily still and calm adversary. Her monochrome tails twitched in thought as she bore into it, as if a closer look would unravel the mystery. "Nameless nests that accumulate extra money can spawn more Greater Nameless, almost inevitably spawning a civil war in young hives, but if a Greater sections the wealth off for their personal use, they remove it from the overall 'pool' and stop it from spawning more of their ilk, allowing them to instead empower themselves. This behaviour is not instinctual, and I've seen no sign of prior civil wars in how they build the exits to their nests."
The words sat heavy in his mind, and he grunted in affirmation. That… was worrying, for more than one reason. He doubted they just happened to have lucked into some book describing that particular behaviour. No, either this infestation was much older than they anticipated, or someone taught them that.
John wasn't sure which idea he hated most.
The monster looked at them both one last time, then it twitched. The shadows on it deepened as it convulsed like a dying animal, maintaining eye contact with them the whole time. John raised his gauntlet and instinctively tried to fire, but it clicked and only formed a little spark rather than a booming lightning bolt. Shit. He was out of air aspected mana!
He fumbled with pockets, hands violently shaking as the creature's shape contorted like it was writhing from within like a burlap sack filled with wild animals, but it suddenly stilled.
Thick, inky fluid dripped from its frame, staining the ground beneath it, forming a bubbling pool from which smaller legs reached forth.
Eyes widening, John watched in rapt horror as dozens of tarantula-sized spiders spilled from the pool, surging like demons as they swept over the land like a tide. They burned under the sun, wisps of darkness rolling off them like mist under the noon sun, but they cared not. None moved towards Yuki, but some sped toward Rin.
The dragon-blooded Unbound stumbled to her feet, sword held out in front of her as an aura of hoarfrost formed on her blade.
"No!"
He seated the heat focus in place and smote them like an enraged deity, the darkened creatures evaporating like snow tossed into a furnace, the land scorching black beneath them.
"Get out of here!" he roared, ignoring the sudden stabbing pain in his throat.
"Sensei, I—"
John knew that tone. He bellowed over her before she could disagree. "Get to safety before I throw you there myself!"
Rin's jaw clicked shut, and after a moment of hesitation, she hurried off, back toward the river.
It was then that a chorus of shrieks and screams, each as guttural and visceral as a man with his hand ingested by a machine, began.
John's head whipped around, and the bottom of his stomach dropped out as he beheld the crowd of men he had laid low being swarmed over by spiders the size of dinner plates, spinning thin strands of webs to hold their quarry down. Oh, they tried to get away, they did, but there was little they could do as shadowy legs knocked weapons away and held limbs down. One even managed to stab one dead with a knife, but the swarm didn't care. No, their impaled brethren were ignored entirely as it bled black all over their captive, the only acknowledgement from the horde being a quick glob of web from three more to hold the offending limb in place.
What was he supposed to do? Indecision bogged him down as he raised his gauntlet. How the hell could he get them off? Pretty much everything he could do would just kill the men, too. Could he lift them in his telekinetic grasp, crushing the spiders? No, it would take far too long. Perhaps they burned easier than human flesh? It would hurt them more, but surely it was preferable—
A pair of brown eyes met his own. Wide, terrified. The man had been one of the men in the back ranks, and thus one of the first he… maimed so cruelly. His gaze was wild and panicked as he thrashed against his binds, and he shouted at John with a voice full of terror.
He couldn't tell what the man said, and it was unclear if that was because he couldn't pick out the words or because there was no logic within the babbling.
Both too fast and too slow, a set of four long, shadowy spider legs reached out, grabbing him by the lips and prying his jaws wide open, akin to a cruel dentist.
He stood, frozen in horror, as another spider took the opportunity to step into the man's mouth and begin to cram itself down his throat. Sharp legs dug into his flesh as it pushed itself in despite seeming like it was an impossibility for it to fit.
The spider made it work, contorting in ways more suited to an octopus as the man began heaving, bits of sick shooting up past the intruder, but it was undeterred as it dug itself in deeper, forcing its way down the man's throat as he choked… only to be followed by a second spider, then a third. Their eyes met again, but they were almost… resigned this time, yet sadly pleading.
What the fuck was he supposed to do? Could he do anything?
He haltingly, shakingly pointed his gauntlet at the thrashing man, even as nausea threatened to overwhelm him.
There was one thing he could do.
John's aim shook as thoughts of the Unbound's popped and half-cooked body came unbidden to his mind.
He… had no way to save this man. The only thing he could do was make it so he stopped suffering.
So why couldn't he just twitch his fingers and do it?
The tax collector's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he began seizing and foaming at the mouth, any sense of organized struggle long forgotten as he mindlessly thrashed against his binds. Writhing, he spun to the side, body contorting in a way that dislocated one of his shoulders with a sickening pop, then he went stone still.
John's arm crashed down to his side, and he was wracked by a sobbing cry before he buried it deep down inside.
He was a failure; he killed a man out of fear, and then, when death was a mercy, he was too cowardly to do it.
The body twitched to life once more, and its shadowy attendants undid its bindings even as they began to melt in the harsh sunlight, globs of blackness falling off them in wriggling chunks that shortly turned to mist.
They rose as one like puppets dangling on silken strings. How did John forget about the rest of the group? He barely stopped himself from heaving at the sight of all the "corpses" standing up, entirely ignoring the previously crippling wounds he inflicted minutes before. No, whatever propelled them now was not just mere muscle.
A quick glance revealed the Greater Nameless was still in place, and Yuki… she crouched over the bisected form of Rin's opponent, panting heavily.
At least, he assumed it was a dead body until it twitched, a weak limb reaching forward to drag itself away. Was it being puppeted? No, why would they infest something with no legs?
A chill raced up his spine.
The man, somehow, was still holding on to life! Just how tough was the Unbound?
Yuki planted a paw on his back, forcing him face down into the dirt. Crouching down low, she traced a hand up his back, claws barely grazing his flesh.
She less punched through his flesh and more pressed her hand into it, parting it like sand as he began to squirm below her, little blood leaking to the surface, given how much he had lost already. A moment later, she yanked her hand free, revealing a small sphere which she quickly swallowed. Almost at once, Yuki stood straighter as she shot back up, far more alert as she scanned the area, looking over the Nameless and the group of walking corpses with a dispassionate, analytical gaze before finally landing on him, softening into something more gentle.
"John," Yuki said, voice steady and even. "Focus. You can get through this. We'll talk later."
There was nothing else to say. This was do or die… So why were John's hands still shaking so much? He grabbed his gauntleted wrist and held it steady, breathing deeply to calm his racing heart.
"Welcome. Welcome. Interloper. Adversary," croaked a sing-song voice, far too deep for that tone to fit.
"This meeting is overdue," another voice continued.
Spinning around, he beheld… the corpses, no, the puppets. They looked at both him and Yuki, their numbers split evenly. Somehow, they looked more lively than they did a moment ago, like their puppeteers had repaired them from the inside. Even the burns upon their legs began to fade, although the skin around the area looked almost… hollow, light barely passed through translucent papyrus skin, before darkening back to more "natural" colours a moment later.
Sickness threatened to race up his throat as John realized that they were already hollowed out from the inside; mere moments were all it took.
And… what was that it called him? Adversary? He assumed Yuki was the interloper because she had only shown up recently.
Deep black clouds suddenly rolled in above, casting them in uncomfortable murk, yet the creature's eyes cut through it with ease, and he swore he saw that same uncomfortable gleam in its puppets as well.
Yuki, however, saw an opportunity; he could see it in her stance as she flicked between watching the Nameless and its puppets. "You welcome us, Nameless, despite my claws against the flesh and your proxies being laid low."
"You are both good sparring partners," the beast responded with a third puppet, its voice warbling. It wore a young man no older than nineteen as a mask, and even had the gall to smile with his stolen lips. "But I can only learn so much from my… lessers, and a puppet would never get close enough."
Something about the answer unsettled Yuki, and one of her tails lashed. "That is one of the first abilities your kind tend to master, no?" she inquired. "You already know enough to prevent the birth of siblings who may threaten your command, but not enough to peer through the eyes of your lesser siblings?"
The spider waved off her question, and one of the puppets responded in turn, but it was stiff, robotic. "There is plenty of time for learning that later."
John may not be socially adept, but he could recognize the deflection. There was no mistaking it; the answer to why was something the yokai didn't want them to know. Perhaps about who taught it? …Perhaps there was some other Greater Nameless before it, and it usurped it somehow? That would track, but it felt like he was still missing something important.
"What do you even want?" John found himself spitting. "All these lives destroyed, all these people hurt. What was it all for?"
That smile, that damned smile, never left the creature's stolen face. "I want to live. To grow. This world hates my kind, and I must gather power to survive. You have been a great teacher. There are few places to clash against another without risk, so I must thank you."
His eyes narrowed, and sweat beaded upon his brow. No, that couldn't be it. Dread pooled in his gut along with white hot, simmering anger that slowly bubbled up the back of his throat like an all too familiar companion. All this time, it had been… sparring with them? With him? The years he's dealt with Nameless, he's been the toy of some fucking monster who killed, who stole bodies, who destroy lives just so—
A scream tore from his throat as blazing hot heat shot from his finger toward the Nameless, blackening the webs but doing little damage through the beast's Aegis. The only reason he didn't empty the entirety of his fire-aspected mana at once was that the heat focus didn't have the massive throughput of the lightning beam. It was still enough to instantly ignite the grass underneath the creature into a small brushfire and blacken the stones below.
It moved fast, far too fast, juking out of the beam as he tried to track it, but it reared up, a ball of webbing extruding from its spinnerets.
Eyes widening, he turned off the disc's speed limiter and juked to the side, just getting out of the way before a massive net tore through the space he just occupied with a shrieking noise.
John aimed to fire again, but hesitated as Yuki soared into the air behind it with a mighty leap. The air tasted brittle and sour as she called on power deep within herself. Where it usually felt warm and comforting, this felt… acidic and terribly wrong as a lance of light formed upon her hand, a mass of solid, sharp-looking white which glowed with the sun's blinding radiance, cutting through the sudden gloom of the afternoon.
She drove it into the creature's back, the light tearing through the webbing and getting driven against the shadowy mass… but it didn't sink in. The shining light shattered, breaking into a shower of cascading, glittering shards upon the creature's carapace.
Darkness welled from within, and alien dread ripped through him as the creature pulsed with alien darkness. A wave of sheer, stygian blackness threw the kitsune off and into the woods, shattering wood and branches echoing out as she disappeared!
"Yuki!" he called, immediately raising his gauntlet to fire off a few quick blasts into it, burning away more and more of the silken webbing.
"Well, hello there, handsome," a husky, feminine voice whispered in his ear, his blood turning to ice as a pale lavender, almost white, and violet furred hand held his mouth shut even as he tried to shout out.
He jerked and tried to dodge forward instinctively in sheer panic, but the hand pulled tighter, and several tails with deep purple tips wrapped around his form, hoisting him off his disc and closer to his captor.
She was warm, soft, and… familiar. John squirmed in her grip and tried to angle his gauntlet to get off a surprise attack on her leg, but her other hand grabbed his fingers and interlaced them with her own, holding them in place and completely stopping him from moving or using it!
How? John had hardly used it in front of anybody! No, no, whoever the hell this is knows how it works, or at least knows enough to disable him! Who? Blood rushed in his ears, and panic bloomed in his chest as his heart beat like a hummingbird's.
"Now, now. None of that," the voice began from somewhere above John, but as she spoke, she leaned in, and he could feel her breath prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. Her tone was calm and honeyed, but his instincts screamed danger, like he was locked in a cage with a tiger. "The two of us shall have some… time to ourselves. It's the least I can do for you when you've had such a rough time since you showed up in my backyard. I should have visited you earlier; it's a shame she's gotten her claws into you first."
The figure tensed, and her claws dug hard enough into his cheeks that his warding flared to life, stopping him from being cut before she seemed to remember herself and lighten her grip.
"My apologies, you sweet little thing," she cooed. "Call me Kiku. I'm one of Yuki's darling sisters."
She paused before laughing, the malicious edge hidden within making his whole body tense.
"Although, are we really sisters when we were the same kitsune once?" she mused, fingers idly drumming against his cheek. "There are many things Yuki neglected to tell you."
Comments
Sven Förster
The question now is, is the "kitsune" in the title singular or plural?
Unwillingmainer
Seems things can always get worse for poor John. Greater Nameless's horrors and his teaching of and now Yuki's evil sister/shard. He may endure, but it's going to be a rough day for sure.
