Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 854: Tsundere

She crashed into his chest with both arms around his neck and her legs wrapping around his waist, the full curve of her flush against him with zero warning and zero spatial manipulation involved, and the impact nearly took them both to the ground.

”Kai!” Her face buried into his neck and her lips released a thousand rapid kisses on his skin, every word accentuated by a wet smooch. ”Missed! You! So! Much! WHY! DID! YOU! BECOME! EVEN! MORE! HANDSOME?! UNFAIR!!”

Bastet’s tail found his leg while he was still getting smothered by Nyx’s lips, winding around his calf in a slow possessive spiral that curled upward and settled against his thigh with steady pressure.

She hadn’t moved from where she stood, hadn’t reached with her hands, just sent her tail to claim territory the way a queen sends an envoy ahead of her arrival.

”Master.” The purr vibrated through the tail against his skin. ”Well played.”

Calypso caught him from behind before he could respond, both arms wrapping around his torso and her chin hooking over his shoulder, her own tail joining Bastet’s on his other leg. ”Darling, you deserve a big reward!” Her smile settled against his neck. ”Commanding us all... It suited you.”

Kaiden by this point couldn’t move, because he had Nyx wrapped around his front, Calypso draped over his back, and two tails claiming his legs, and the absurdity of it pulled a laugh out of him that surprised everyone present, himself included.

’I love them way too much... How can they be so amazing?’

He peeled Nyx off with effort (she went unwillingly, spatial pressure making her heavier with every inch of distance he created), kissed the top of her head before she could protest, and untangled himself from the rest with the gentle stubbornness of a man who had somewhere else to be.

His mother stood apart from the group the way she always did, shadows pooled at her feet, watching her son tend to each girl with a face that gave away nothing at all.

Kaiden pulled her into a hug so enormous her feet left the ground.

”Thanks, Mother.” He held her there with his cheek resting against the top of her head. ”Without you, we never would’ve won.”

Vespera blinked against his chest.

Then his voice went cold and absolute, a register she had never once heard directed her way.

”But you will never think of yourself as expendable ever again.” His arms tightened around her. ”Is that understood?”

Vespera went rigid.

Did he just issue an order to her?

He was technically her guild leader now, but still...

Kaiden never spoke to her like that.

Her lips parted around a response that wouldn’t come, and Kaiden leaned in and pressed his lips against her forehead before she found it.

Her composure cracked open.

Shadows swallowed her from the feet up, coiling around her body until she vanished entirely from his arms, and where Vespera had been standing there was only a pool of darkness retreating to the far corner of the space with a speed that could only be called flight.

”...Did Shadow Mommy just run away?” Bastet’s ears perked forward.

”Too many emotions.” Calypso’s tail swished behind her.

”Mother-in-law is a tsundere,” Nyx giggled, delighted.

”A tsundere with a rapidly melting iceberg of an exterior...” Luna murmured, her pout breaking into a smirk due to Vespera’s antics.

Kaiden chuckled and turned to find Scarlet standing with her arms crossed, flames finally dimmed to nothing, watching him with an expression that sat between amusement and something honest.

He extended his hand.

Scarlet looked at it, looked at him, and clasped it without hesitation. Her palm was furnace-warm, the grip immediate and firm, and the look she gave him held none of the romantic softness the other girls wore. It was respect. The kind one fighter gives another after a battle that mattered.

”Not bad, golden boy.”

”Thank you.” He squeezed once. ”You did great.”

”Yeah, yeah.” She squeezed back harder. ”Next time, let me finish my damn fight.”

”Sure. I’ll just let all my girls die a terrible death and lose the match so you can get your battle junkie fill.” Dry as a bone, delivered without a single twitch of expression.

Scarlet watched him for a beat, then her whole face split into a grin so wide it threatened to crack the dimension. ”Excellent! Haha!”

While Kaiden had been making his rounds, Alexandra had been making hers.

She’d been flitting between the girls since the moment they materialized, golden light sputtering from her fingertips as she pressed her palms against arms, shoulders, ribs, checking and rechecking wounds that no longer existed.

The match had healed them completely, which the girls repeated over and over again, but Alexandra didn’t care about what they said.

She was their diligent healer and protector now, and she knew very well that the doctor didn’t just obey the patients.

”You’re fine,” she murmured to Aria, both palms flat against her stomach where the gash had been, light pulsing once and finding nothing.

She moved to Luna. ”You’re fine.”

To Nyx. ”You’re fine too.”

To Bastet, who purred at the warmth of her touch. ”Fine.”

To Calypso, who ruffled her hair and earned a swat. ”Stop moving, I’m checking!”

Then she found Alice.

Alice was still sitting where Kaiden had left her, scowl firmly in place, fingers laced tight in her lap, pretending she wasn’t sulking about being set aside. Alexandra crashed into her with a hug so hard the chair scraped backward across the stone.

”You were so brave!” Alexandra’s voice came out thick, her face buried in Alice’s shoulder. ”I’m so incredibly proud of you, you brave, brave girl!”

”It wasn’t that scary...” Alice’s voice was flat, but her arms had already wrapped around the curvaceous woman. ”But thank you... I’m glad it’s over...”

Alexandra hugged the precious young warrior with all her might.

...

[Phase 2: Complete.]

The dimension folded inward like a closing fist, the chess grid dissolving beneath their feet as the starfield ceiling contracted and the Kaiju’s silhouette faded behind a wall of collapsing light.

The transition was instant and total, one world swallowed by the next, and when the darkness cleared they were standing in the familiar stone hall of the Abyssal home.

Their home. The one Calypso had given Kaiden when she knelt.

The air was cool and still after the dimensional heat, torchlight flickering along the carved walls, and for a long moment nobody moved. They just stood in the quiet, breathing air that didn’t taste like a battlefield.

[Rewards calculating...]