Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch51

Note: Chapters 47-51 are being posted together. Be sure to read them in order. Commentary after Ch51.

“She’s trying to force the transformation,” Daji said. “It won’t work. It never does. Not since Tamamo no Mae, and she went mad from the process of devouring the divine power of the Japanese Emperor. Perhaps I won’t have my choice of vessels after all.”

Mei burned like a living candle of foxfire in front of Vince, Momo, and Gaby. The fake soul egg withered away into ash in her hand and she watched it scatter in the air. Her blazing eyes stared into the sky for several long seconds.

Momo moved first. Numerous strings extended from her fingers across the stadium and to Mei, and magic poured through them.

Mei’s tails twitched and reams of foxfire vaporized Momo’s spell. Mei swept her good arm at Momo and white light bloomed like a star from her tails, which fanned out with perfect separation.

A strangled scream escaped Momo as force blasts shattered her barrier and body. She crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from wounds and a broken rib jutting out from her lower torso. Even as she fell, her tails snapped off a tornado that swirled around Mei.

Then Momo teleported away, likely to join her sister.

Gaby grimaced and dashed over to Vince. “We need to pull back and get—”

“No,” Vince said. “She’ll burn out. But if we leave her alone even for a second, she’ll gather her strength and wits and we’ll be back to square one.”

Mei proved inexhaustible. More than that, he worried how much havoc she might wreak before burning out. She’d blown Momo away with ease. How badly could she harm the support crew if she reached them?

Understanding crossed Gaby’s face, and she showed grim resolve. “Right. We can’t give an inch, or else.”

Yet it was basically the two of them. He didn’t know how long any of the others needed to heal up and come back into the fight, or even if some of them could.

The foxfire blaze surged toward them. Mei strode toward them, utterly lost in her imaginary world where she was truly ascending to demigodhood. Her tails blazed with searing bright light.

Gaby spun and raised a massive golden shield overhead. A barrier sprung up in front of the foxfire, slowing it as the inferno consumed it.

Vince pummeled Mei with fireballs and other spells, to little effect as his flames vanished in her purgatory of foxfire.

He focused and began pulling the tornado closer. Hopefully that wouldn’t prove a mistake, but he worried that making it so massive had weakened its effect. They needed every ounce of assistance he could muster to weaken Mei and strengthen themselves.

A telekinetic barrage shattered Gaby’s shield, but she darted forward. The foxfire tore at her clothes and body, incinerating her magical clothing. She ignored it and leaped overhead, light mustering along her arm.

Mei flicked a finger up and something slammed into Gaby from below, cracking her barrier and knocking her off-course. The unicorn plowed dirt with her spell. Even as she picked herself up, the foxfire tore into her. Her eyes turned solid gold while her horn shined like a lighthouse, pushing the foxfire away.

“I’m no demon, puta,” Gaby growled. “The light of Albion doesn’t yield to jumped up mutts.”

Mei froze and a sneer formed on her face. For the first time since consuming the fake soul egg, the eight-tail fox showed real emotion. Gaby’s words punctured her bubble.

“Perhaps it should, if you knew better,” Mei said, her eyes losing the otherworldly fire within them as she glared at Gaby.

Her tails whirled and the foxfire congealed into a single massive fox, which then crashed into Gaby. The unicorn roared, meeting Mei’s spell with a lance of light nearly as big.

The foxfire won out, but Gaby refused to scream. She took a step toward Mei, green and golden light intermingling with the massive fox attempting to consume her whole like a foxfire elemental.

Vince’s dragon crashed down between Mei and Gaby, as if declaring a challenge. Fireballs rained down on Mei’s foxfire spell, consuming huge chunks of it. A flame laser lit up the dragon’s mouth.

“I’ve already warned you.” Mei reached out with her sole hand and fired an inferno of foxfire.

But Vince didn’t pull back this time. He pushed his dragon forward, even as the azure flames overwhelmed Daji’s magic and began to eat into his dragon. Mei’s raw, unyielding power ate into the threads that held his meister-tier spell together, and Daji grunted with effort as she pushed everything she had into holding it together.

“You have seconds, master,” Daji said.

“Plenty of time,” he whispered to himself.

Mei’s eyes widened as his dragon lumbered through her flames. Her foxfire tore along its entire thirty-foot length, and even dug into the crevices of its scales. It should be destroyed and collapsing into prismatic light.

Yet the dragon rammed its blazing maw toward her face from mere feet away. All nine of her tails merged together to form a single fan of blue foxfire.

An azure explosion blinded Vince, and he felt his dragon vanish in it. Mei’s scream split the air. Prismatic light glittered among the rampant foxfire, which also began to collapse into raw magic. A pool of rainbow flooded the field around Mei. With each passing second, the magic dissipated and left reality.

A distraught expression tortured Mei’s face as she spun around, staring at her tails. Her ninth tail had shattered, just like on the night of the heist. She was no kyuubi.

On the opposite side of her, Gaby staggered to her feet and was hauled away by Nina. That meant Vince might be joined by another ally soon enough.

Until then, he faced Mei’s fury alone.

“Again! Why won’t you just die, like the pathetic human worm you are?” Mei wailed.

A telekinetic blast swept him off his feet. He fired back with fireballs and fire nets, forcing her to continue defending herself. Her spellwork was sloppy, and she struggled to knock back his far lower spell quantity while attacking.

He downed yet another magic infusion and grimaced. Once Mei regained her focus, he was dead.

Using Daji’s power to cast his dragon within seconds might be his only option.

Something black glittered in the dirt nearby. A sword still wet with blood. An idea formed in Vince’s mind, and he rushed over to pick it up.

The blade felt surprisingly light, yet a strange feeling ran through his limbs the moment he touched it. Daji’s presence clamped down on it and it vanished.

“Muramasa’s blades are forged with trapped spirits, which is why Knightsgate eventually ordered them destroyed,” Daji explained. “Each sword is like a soul egg, but intended purely as a weapon for ordinary mortals to use. Their fury, sorrow, and distress curses the wielder as much as the target.”

“Well, I’m already cursed with you. What’s another forbidden weapon,” he joked.

The sensation of fluffy tails batting the side of his head provided some levity, despite the grim situation.

He’d ceased his onslaught of spells to pick up the sword, and Mei regained her focus. Her tails shimmered with white light.

For some reason, she froze and stared at him. A strange half-smile graced her face.

“You have no clue what that even is, you fool,” Mei said. “Your doom is sealed even should you survive me tonight.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and sized up the distance. Less than thirty feet.

She realized the same thing and fanned out her tails. “Go ahead. Try your usual trick.”

“Sure,” he said.

He’d seen what happened with Anzu earlier, so he didn’t try teleporting to Mei.

His ring gleamed and Mei came to him. Her breath hitched, as if she hadn’t expected that. She hissed. Whatever protections she used failed against Kiho’s trick. One of her bracelets began to glow.

He grabbed her arm, and heat pumped through his veins as he activated Ashley’s magic tool. Strength capable of overcoming Mei held her in place.

She screamed at him, “Die! Die! Die!”

Telekinetic blasts pummeled his body and arm, but without her usual focus. Even so, her raw power came through. A snap came from his arm and pain assailed him. He held strong, relying on the glove to power through and hold Mei in place for only a second longer.

He rammed the sword through her chest. It pierced her barrier as if it didn’t exist, and he felt no resistance from bone or flesh. Vince felt as if he’d stuck a sharp kitchen knife into a tub of butter, except that tub of butter bled and gurgled blood.

Mei sneered at him, even as her body paled and shook. “I took that cursed weapon off a far greater swordsman than you or anyone else here. Don’t threaten me with the skills of a talentless peasant.”

A hammer blow knocked the wind out of him, and he finally let go of her. She staggered backward, and her bracelet glowed. Nothing happened.

Hilariously, after all her insults, she’d forgotten the curse.

Vince fired a flame laser at her head, but while it burned away a lot of her barrier, it didn’t penetrate. She ignored him. The blade fell free from her chest and she tried to throw it at him. It struck the dirt beside his leg.

She blinked away with her other bracelet, then tried to summon a force blast with a shaking arm.

He scrabbled to his feet and reinforced his barrier. A crater formed beside him as Mei missed.

Relief washed over him. Finally, he’d weakened her enough to deliver the finishing blow. He downed a healing infusion to quieten the pain rushing through his broken arm.

Anger followed when she jammed her fingers into the open sword wound. Foxfire blazed inside it. Mei grinned at him.

“I told you, you don’t understand this sword at all,” she said.

Blue and green magic intermingled in the wound, and her body began to strengthen again. Vince had missed his moment, however small it had been.

Only one option. He took up the stance to resummon his dragon.

Mei stared at him in shock. Perhaps she recalled how he’d cast his dragon in seconds with Daji’s help after the heist.

Whatever the case, her tails spun behind her with more determination than she’d shown since losing her ninth tail again. Four additional Meis sprang into existence. Illusions.

Then she teleported across the field without using her bracelets, with the copies appearing in a small circle around Vince. Each held their palm toward him. Telekinesis gathered in their arms.

Vince dropped his dragon instantly and swept his cane around. Black flames gushed out, overwhelming Mei and her clones. The illusions melted instantly, but the fourth Mei kept moving toward him. Her barrier disintegrated and her body burned as she punched him with telekinesis at point blank range.

An odd force ran through his lower torso, as if it had penetrated his jacket and barrier. He felt no wounds.

Mei collapsed to the ground, her illusions gone, body burned, and barrier shattered. Her breathing came in short rasps and she cradled something in her fist. Perhaps the memory of the fake soul egg she’d hoped might make her a kyuubi.

Vince held his cane to her head and took a deep breath. He’d hesitated earlier and regretted it. Without any quips, he gathered the magic for a flame laser.

An eerie smile crossed Mei’s face as she stared him, and death, in the face. She opened her fingers.

Daji’s soul egg sat within her hand.

“I will be a kyuubi,” Mei whispered.

Black and crimson flames erupted from her body, forcing Vince backward. He panicked, reaching for the egg in his pocket and finding nothing.

Daji’s presence remained in his mind, but she didn’t respond to his thoughts. He felt her there, clinging to him with all her might and unwilling to go. Their bond remained strong enough that not even Mei’s magic could damage it, despite her attempt to tear it apart.

Mei rose to her feet, her ninth tail once again present. Except this time, it resembled one of Daji’s. Black, with red tips. Black flames danced over her other tails and red ink seeped into her tails from the tips.

When Mei tried to use foxfire, only black fire came forth. She stared at her hand in shock.

“All this time?” Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. Then she smirked at Vince. “I had wondered how you could possibly be the one to offer me the egg. You’ve been trying to use it all along. An idiot mortal playing at demigod.”

“And yet, you’re losing,” Vince said.

“I have ascended,” Mei said.

She pointed at him and a jet of black and blue flame gushed forth. Vince met it with a barrier, and Daji’s power still supported him.

But he needn’t have bothered. The blue foxfire and black magic-consuming flames burned each other out before reaching him. Mei stared in shock.

“I… I am a kyuubi,” she repeated.

As if to prove her point, all nine of her tails spun in a complex pattern and glowed blue. The silver beams from earlier appeared overhead, but even larger than before.

Vince stared up in horror as a portal of mixed foxfire and Daji’s black flames appeared.

“Vince!” Nina called out. “Get the hell out of there.”

The lioness dashed toward him from the far end of the stadium, beyond his fire tornado. But he remained still.

Because confidence in Daji told him what would happen. As well as confidence in his own power.

Foxfire and black flames descended. The foxfire vanished almost instantly, and a mass of black flames washed over him. Vince ignored them, and they ignored him.

Seconds passed as he tried to find Mei. His awful magic senses made it hard. Eventually, the black flames burned out. Mei stood feet away.

Her triumphant expression faded away, leaving only shock. She began to shake.

Then anger grew in her eyes and she tried to summon telekinesis. Her tails burned, and she fell to her knees, wailing in pain.

“I am your master,” she screamed, gripping Daji’s egg and shaking it. “It won’t end like this. A kyuubi like me can’t die to trash like this.”

Vince pressed his cane against Mei’s forehead as tears of frustration streamed down her face. “But you will.”

His flame laser blew a clean hole through her head.

Life left Mei’s eyes. Her ninth tail fizzled out, and all effects of the transformation vanished in an instant.

She returned to being Mei, the silver eight-tail fox with a god complex. Her body teetered lifelessly and began to fall over.

Black and crimson flames consumed her. She rose into the air, and within seconds, a figure matching Daji exactly hovered over Vince. Her nine tails, impressive bust, and familiar smirk stared down at him. Mei’s missing arm turned into a construct of solid red light.

Flames danced around him and absorbed his fire tornado. He couldn’t feel her presence now, or her power.

“A world ripe for the taking and a cute man for the riding,” Daji said, then threw her head back and laughed. It echoed across the entire stadium. “Yet I never answer the whims of bitches who don’t understand their place in the world. I do so adore those who strive through the pain, even if they’re a little thick and won’t simply take what’s theirs.”

Daji stared at him for a moment, then winked. Vince stared back.

“Enjoy your final moments, dear Mei,” Daji said.

She blinked, and Mei’s face took over the hovering figure. For a moment, utter glee and triumph filled the fox. She grinned at Vince, convinced in her victory.

Then the screaming began. The black flames intensified and wrapped around her body.

“Why?” Mei wailed.

The rest of her words were incomprehensible. Black flames charred her body and vaporized her tails. Vince found himself transfixed in horror as Mei burned away in the air, her body and tails disintegrating.

When the flames vanished, only ash remained. Most of it scattered in the air, with a small amount clumping where she’d kneeled. Daji’s soul egg sat in the clump.

Convinced Mei was truly dead, Vince collapsed to his knees. Exhaustion overcame him, accompanied by relief.

They’d won. Mei was gone and the Yakuza defeated.

- - - - -

Commentary: Ding dong, the witch is dead.

After three-and-a-half books, the Yakuza arc is (effectively) over. One wrap-up chapter remains for the book, to be posted tomorrow.

Both this and the Kigenai fight are the longest and most difficult fights I've ever written, for slightly different reasons. I've written big, complicated battles in Spellblade before, but Mob Sorcery's magic system and scaling allows me to write what are effectively JRPG boss battles. Mei even does the whole "boss nearly wipes the party at the start of the fight" trope.

People who want an overpowered MC stomping the antagonists will never be satisfied, but I'm happy with battles that allow me to showcase a whole team effort and the difficulties fighting someone far stronger. Vince and the others earn their victory, and Mei gets a karmic death. There are also plenty of flashy moments. I also got to throw in tons of little Japanese easter eggs, like the Nintendo joke because the Hojo emblem is the same as the triforce (the Miura clan would have absorbed them given their proximity).

I hope you enjoyed the big finale to the book and the Yakuza arc. I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on it.