Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1052: Investigating

Kaiden took Yunohana’s offered arm, and they left the trees together, walking down into the island’s harvesting yard while the men at the conveyor dragged another carcass toward the cave.

Before stepping onto the bloodstained gravel, she passed her bag to the nearest protector. The blue boating jacket followed, slipped carefully from her recovering shoulder.

”Would you keep these for me? I expect we shall be a moment.”

”Of course, my lady.”

With her pale dress freed from the jacket, Yunohana returned to Kaiden’s side and opened her fan.

He glanced down at her.

”Still hoping to catch the sunset?”

”I have gone to considerable trouble to arrange a romantic evening. I would appreciate some cooperation from the locals.”

The man painting over the Circle’s emblem saw them first. His brush stopped against the container door, leaving white paint dripping down the insignia he had been trying to conceal.

Yunohana addressed him in Japanese. At the sound of her voice, the overseer turned on his platform above the enclosure, and the workers below began abandoning their loads.

One dropped a whole carcass on his foot without appearing to notice.

”Lady Tsukikage...?” the overseer managed.

She answered him pleasantly, indicating the stolen shipment with her fan before pointing toward the ground at his feet.

”What did you tell him?” Kaiden asked.

”That feeding unregistered monsters for commercial harvesting is prohibited, that those supplies belong to the Circle, and that he and his armed employees may surrender to my protectors.”

The overseer’s gaze jerked toward the figures emerging along the tree line. Behind him, a man with a rifle began backing toward a narrow passage between the shed and the cliff.

”We have permission!” the overseer blurted in English. ”This is authorized!”

”It is not. Would you put down your weapons?”

His answer was a shout in Japanese as he ducked behind the platform’s steel railing.

Rifles swung toward the couple.

”Ah,” Yunohana murmured. ”Very well.”

Kaiden opened his gauntleted hand toward the slaughter pen. Fresh blood rose from its drainage trough in a thick stream, sweeping across the yard to spread over his forearm.

By the time the first rifle fired, he had hardened it into a curved shield tall enough to shelter them both. Bullets hammered against the slanted red surface, ricocheting upward through the empty loading gantry until its lamps exploded over the shooters.

Kaiden kept walking with Yunohana on his arm.

”While it isn’t watching the sunset romantic, I can’t complain,” the shrine maiden smiled as she listened to the bullet impacts.

”There’s an opportunity for romance in every situation if you look hard enough,” Kaiden grinned, holding her closer.

Beside the container, the painter dropped his brush and threw himself flat. A Circle protector reached him from the trees, hauling him toward cover while the other workers scrambled after them with their hands over their heads.

”Stop firing!” someone screamed from the platform. ”You’re hitting the-”

A support cable snapped overhead. Kaiden extended the shield’s upper edge beneath the falling gantry, catching its weight on a broad red lip before tipping it toward the abandoned conveyor.

Steel crashed through steel. The machinery folded beneath the impact, scattering rollers across the gravel as Yunohana lifted her skirt clear of a spreading puddle.

”How thoughtful.”

”I was hoping you’d like the service.”

A gunman rose behind the shed’s concrete loading barrier and hurled a grenade over it.

”[Silver Thread],” Yunohana murmured.

Silver flashed from Yunohana’s fan. Her thread looped around the grenade in flight, drawing it into a smooth arc above their heads before she sent it back over the barrier.

The men behind it began screaming.

Kaiden released her arm and curled the shield around her side as well as his. Behind its shelter, tendrils of blood crept across the gravel and hooked beneath the concrete barrier’s footing.

Fire punched above the concrete. Before the smoke had cleared, Kaiden pulled, ripping the barrier loose while his shield narrowed into a heavy ram along his forearm.

He crossed the emptied stretch of yard and drove it into the exposed slab.

Concrete plowed through the firing position, carrying rifles and men into the shed with a crash that blew its doors from their hinges.

From the platform came a strained, disbelieving sound.

Kaiden looked back at Yunohana. Her hair was still settling over her shoulders as she watched the wreckage with considerable satisfaction.

”Shall we?” he asked.

”Please.”

”[Flame Spear]!” an awakened guard shouted from inside the shed.

A spear of blue fire tore out of the smoke toward his chest.

Kaiden opened the ram’s broad head into overlapping plates and caught the spell on them. Blue flame gouged through the first layer, splashing fire across the next while he continued forward behind the blood shield.

He peeled the burning plates outward as the spear spent itself, letting the last of the fire wash past him into the gravel.

Behind the broken shed doors, the awakened guard stumbled backward and thrust his casting hand toward Kaiden again.

”[Flame Spear]!”

”[Silver Thread].”

Yunohana’s thread caught his casting wrist and jerked it wide, sending the second spear through the shed’s empty side wall.

”What the fuck-”

Kaiden stepped through the smoke, drawing the unburned blood back over his fist until his knuckles disappeared beneath a thick, ridged striking face.

*Bang!*

His punch crushed the guard’s breastplate into his chest.

The man flew through the rear wall, taking a broad section of the shed with him.

*Crash!*

Splintered beams struck the cliff beyond while the remaining roof sagged into the space he had left.

Kaiden turned beneath the falling timber to find Yunohana already approaching through the dust.

She had gathered one side of her skirt above her knee to step over a broken beam. A very lovely length of bare leg emerged beneath the pale fabric, and he enjoyed the view right up until a swordsman leaped from the platform behind her.

”[Severing Thread].”

Yunohana’s fan swept past her shoulder without her turning around. Silver caught the attacker’s sword wrist, wrenching his arm across his own throat as she stepped aside to let him land, drawing the thread against his neck.

The instant his boots hit the gravel, she pulled the silver through his throat, spraying blood over the beam she had just crossed.

Kaiden raised his gauntlet before any of it could reach her dress. The fresh blood streamed toward his hand, joining the dark red mass around his forearm while the swordsman collapsed behind her.

”You were looking at something,” Yunohana observed.

”Perhaps.”

She lowered her skirt, with an expression of exquisite innocence.

”I believe now is the time to look at the men and women trying to kill you, not me.”

”Eh...” Kaiden shrugged. ”They’re too weak.”

*CRASH!*

An enormous sound came from the cave enclosure.

The chained section of fence had bowed into the yard. Beyond it, hooked forelegs clattered against the bars as the monsters crowded toward the fresh blood, climbing over one another to reach the opening.

The overseer abandoned his platform’s stairs and jumped toward the path to the shore. A protector met him at the bottom, drove him facedown into the gravel, and pinned his arms behind his back.

”My lady! The fence!”

Yunohana glanced toward the workers gathered behind the Circle’s line, then back at the creatures forcing their way out.

”Yes, I see it. Would you keep everyone over there?”

The chain broke with a sharp report. An armored monster shouldered through the gap, dragging the fence from its posts as the creatures behind it shrieked and surged into the yard.

Kaiden grinned.

”Now this is worth looking at.”

”So you’d rather look at ugly monsters than my legs, I see...” Yunohana mused.

”...I-”

”Just kidding~” the shrine maiden giggled, visibly having the time of her life.

”...”

He smiled gingerly, spreading the gathered blood into a broad shield braced along his gauntlet and met the first creature head-on.

Its hooked forelegs struck the shield hard enough to gouge trenches through the gravel beneath his shoes. Kaiden leaned into the impact, allowing the blood to flow around both hooks before hardening it into a pair of locked sockets.

The monster tried to pull away.

”Oh, no you don’t.”

Kaiden twisted, dragging its head aside while its own momentum carried its armored body past him. The blood grips lengthened with his swing, giving him the reach to smash it across the next charging beast’s face.

The hooked limbs tore free in his grasp. Their owner struck the other monster broadside with a crack that echoed off the cliff.

Armor shattered through the ruined fence. Both creatures tumbled into the slaughter pen, crushing the heavy blade’s frame beneath them, and Kaiden pulled his blood free before the wreckage finished falling.

”SKRREEEEEE!”