Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 828: Sneaky Fox

”Southern perimeter S-tier rotation is confirmed,” Grace said, closing the comm channel with the quartermaster by winning. ”We have continuous coverage through the next eight hours. After that, I need the Chairman’s authorization to extend the Pacific team’s deployment past their contractual window.”

”Granted,” the Chairman said without looking up.

”Korean Vanguard’s second detachment is requesting positioning on the western ridge. They want line of sight to the seal coordinate.”

”Approved. Keep them behind the artillery line.”

”European Coalition forward team wants to know our rules of engagement.”

”If the seal opens and what comes out isn’t human, they shoot it.”

Grace noted it down.

The tent held the silence for two seconds.

”The stream feed from inside the seal just transitioned,” Grace continued, checking her minimized pane with an expression so aggressively neutral it could have been laminated. ”Phase 1 appears to be over. The team survived. They’re in some kind of intermission period.”

Lazarus’s chair creaked forward. ”Yeah, the monster pulled out like I should’ve pulled out of that rock and roll hippie chick back in the 80s, but her inner folds gripped onto me like a hungry demon, maybe she was my wife’s sister-”

*Bang!*

Lazarus Crane was slapped on the back of his head with a stack of reports.

”Father? Are you telling me...?”

”Oh, don’t worry sweetheart, you don’t have a sibling. She said she refuses to sire the offspring of a weird fucker such as I and swallowed the pill before she even released her demonic grip on me.”

”Phew.” Finding such a reason completely acceptable, Viera breathed a sigh of relief.

”...The stream viewership is at fifty-four million and climbing,” Grace reported, ignoring the father-daughter duo’s nonsense to the best of her ability.

”What’s happening during the intermission?” Raziel asked. ”I checked and I only have access to that blue-red girl and her nonstop yapping.”

Grace’s expression did not change. Grace’s expression refused to change. Her professional duties included watching her idol’s son’s pornographic content by direct order of her superior.

”Preparations for Phase 2,” she said.

Evangeline spoke for the first time in over twenty minutes.

”He’s shooting the hottest porn I’ve ever seen.”

Every pair of eyes in the tent found the co-leader of the Radiant Order, who had not moved from her position at the far end of the table, chin still propped on one hand, the other still beneath the table’s edge. Her smile was serene and her shoulder had not stopped moving.

”It’s just the foreplay,” she continued, ”but damn, they’re really good at their job.”

The rhythm of her hand increased.

Grace closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them and found the Chairman already looking at her with a gaze that asked a very specific question.

”I was going to brief you once the initial preparations were settled, sir.” Grace kept her voice level.

”During the intermission, Kaiden addressed his stream audience and decreed that he intends to use the downtime to increase his power. It appears that he can accomplish this by...” She searched for the least career-damaging phrasing available to her. ”...having intercourse.”

”More like shooting porn,” Evangeline corrected warmly, her eyes half-lidded. ”Thank all that is holy.”

”What kind of power?” the Chairman asked.

”That remains to be seen.” Grace sighed. ”He didn’t elaborate. He never does.”

Lazarus stroked his beard, grinning. ”I had an inkling he’d be up to something like that. The kid’s tougher than I gave him credit for. Keeping up with so many needy lasses for this many months is a bigger feat than if he were to come out of that battle unscathed, as far as I’m concerned.”

Before anyone could reply, Grace’s interface chimed.

The sound was different from the logistics alerts and the comm pings and the rotation confirmations.

Higher. Cleaner. Flagged with the priority marker reserved for geopolitical developments, because Grace had learned months ago to separate her alerts by category or drown in them.

She opened it.

Read it twice.

”Sir.”

The Chairman looked at her.

”Yunohana Tsukikage just made a public address. Broadcast from the Moon-Thread Shrine in Kyoto, carried on every major network in the Pacific Rim and now being picked up internationally.”

Grace’s voice was steady, professional, and approximately two degrees colder than it had been thirty seconds ago.

”She’s pledged the Shogunate Circle’s full material and personnel support to, and I quote, ’the defense of the anomaly known as Kaiden Grey and the brave souls who fight beside him, in the shared interest of humanity’s survival.’”

The words landed on the table like a grenade with the pin already out.

Lazarus nodded. ”That woman has excellent taste. I’ve seen her splurge a fortune on donations as well- I mean she also donated some tidbits here and there.”

Viera’s knuckles went white at her sides.

The Chairman’s hands remained clasped behind his back, his posture unchanged, his gaze on the readout.

To anyone who didn’t know him, he looked perfectly composed.

Grace knew him.

The muscle along his temple had tightened by a millimeter, and that single millimeter contained more fury than most men could fit into a thrown punch.

”She timed it,” the Chairman said quietly.

”Perfectly,” Grace confirmed. ”Viewership peaks, the entire planet is watching the feed, and Yunohana steps in front of a camera and tells the world that Japan stands with Kaiden Grey. While we’re the ones staging nuclear warheads on the lawn.”

”We’ve been supporting him since day one,” the Chairman said, and the quietness in his voice was the kind that made aides find reasons to check on things outside the tent.

”Quietly,” Grace said. ’Mostly because of Vespera’s threats of leaving for China if we didn’t leave Kaiden alone,’ she thought, but didn’t say it out loud.

The public had watched the American government stay mostly silent on Kaiden Grey, never endorsing his content for months, while Japan’s most beloved spiritual leader publicly donated to his stream and praised him on international broadcast and urged people to watch his fight.

The optics were catastrophic.

”She’s not offering help,” Raziel said. ”She’s establishing precedent. If Kaiden survives this, Japan will have been the nation that stood with him publicly before the outcome was decided. Every other government on Earth was hedging. The Shogunate Circle was not.”

”Political leverage, correct,” the Chairman said.

”Recruitment leverage, too,” Raziel added.

Lazarus scratched his beard. ”She wants the kid. Understandable.”

”Sir,” Grace said carefully, ”I should note that Yunohana’s public support of Kaiden began during the bathhouse stream, months before the Kaiju situation. This isn’t reactive. She’s been positioning for this.”

The Chairman exhaled through his nose.

He stood there for a long time, watching the numbers, watching the seal coordinate, watching the fifty-four million viewer count tick upward on the stream feed that Grace kept in the corner of the display, and the room waited because when the Chairman went quiet, everyone with a functioning survival instinct went quiet with him.

”Get the president on the line for me.”

”Damn, Scarlet just called their foreplay art,” Evangeline commented. ”The gold digger bitch got excellent taste.”

”...” The tent sighed collectively.

While the humans of Earth were mounting their defense, Kaiden was working extremely hard to unlock his 4th Sin Stance!