Mob Sorcery 5 - Ch50

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

With the final words of Kiyoko’s incantation, her virtuoso-tier spell shined like a beacon. The green wings behind her flared out dozens of feet in either direction. Anzu blinked away from Mei, as if aware of what came next.

A boom split the air as a circular tunnel formed of glittering wind blades shot out from the tengu’s blade. It connected Kiyoko to Mei. The fox’s face twisted in rage as she hurled foxfire uselessly at the spell binding her in place, and a talisman was torn to pieces the moment she let go of it.

Mei’s lips moved soundlessly. Her voice couldn’t escape the wind tunnel Kiyoko had created. Vince suspected she cursed Kiyoko.

Kiyoko vanished at the same time the glowing spell behind her collapsed. Air exploded out the back of the tunnel, visibly distorting Vince’s view of anything beyond it.

A green light launched itself down the tunnel at a speed Vince followed only with his enhanced senses through his dragon, and likely due to Daji’s help. The tunnel collapsed behind Kiyoko, as if focusing the wind magic as she raced forward.

Kiyoko flew from the sky to Mei in the literal blink of an eye. The sonic boom reached Vince only after her spell struck Mei. The sound of her blade carving open a chasm in the field and blasting apart the external wall greeted his ears first. Aqua light rippled along the length of the dome keeping them inside the barrier. The Miuras had built it to withstand a virtuoso-tier spell, or at least an indirect strike.

Kiyoko stood in front of Mei after descending, her sword pressed against the very edge of a crater.

A bloody mess oozed from Mei’s upper-left chest. Somehow, she’d dodged the worst of it, whether through teleportation or bending space.

But everything from her left shoulder had been obliterated, along with half of her left foot. Nothing remained of her barrier or bubble. Even the tips of her silver tails had been blasted apart.

Regret crossed Kiyoko’s face as her muscles relaxed and she closed her eyes. Green light shimmered along her limbs. She looked in better condition than Kigenai, to Vince’s eyes.

But Mei’s rage nearly ended that. She screamed and hurled a talisman at Kiyoko, while her tails shined with white death.

Anzu stepped in and pulled Kiyoko back. Anzu’s body still shimmered with empowerment magic as she blocked Mei’s arm. A dense white contingency barrier sprang up over Mei’s body to protect it, but cracked from Anzu’s strike.

The talisman activated and a black katana shot out. Red Japanese script gleamed along its length.

“A Muramasa!” Daji gasped.

Anzu’s eyes widened and she tried to blink away. But the moment the sword’s blade touched her barrier, she was held in place. It punched through her barrier and bodysuit as if they weren’t there. A bloody gasp escaped her.

“Your treason never ends, does it?” Anzu asked with a bloody smile. “To keep a cursed relic Knightsgate ordered destroyed over a century ago.”

“Nobody suspects a bumpkin, after all,” Mei said, her eyes cold.

Her telekinetic blast slammed down on Anzu, while Vince’s dragon leaped over. It was too far.

His teleportation ring gleamed. He appeared a dozen feet behind Mei, his cane raised at her head.

Mei’s ears twitched and she hesitated.

That proved enough. Momo descended from the sky and snatched her sister up before dashing away. The black katana fell point-first into the dirt before Momo teleported away.

Mei’s telekinetic blast landed on Vince instead. His dragon leaped overhead, and it rippled off the black and crimson scales.

Coiling around his body, Vince unleashed a black inferno on Mei. Her foxfire shrouded her body but she began stepping away. Half her tails focused on healing, but the gaping hole on her left side showed no signs of improvement. She even downed a healing infusion Ally had probably made over a month ago to no effect.

“Where are your allies?” Mei asked. “Battered, bruised, and scared, they leave you to face me alone. Watching me fight with everything I have, don’t you understand that I’d never abandon you?”

“Like you never abandoned Kigenai?” Vince asked.

“She fought for her honor as my most trusted subordinate. You’d be different as my partner,” Mei said, but regret flashed across her face.

“Did you tell Kigenai that before you left her to die, alone, just like her god before her?”

Utter fury warped Mei’s face. “Do not compare me to those false idols, who claim superiority and faith, but ask us to do all their duties. I abandoned nobody! That is why I came here, despite my position and boundless wealth in Japan, to build a new future for all kitsune. I could have done nothing. Allowed my ninth tail to grow in secret, and then seized Japan. But I am here, suffering and bleeding for my ideals.”

“For your greed!” Vince snapped. “All you immortals say this shit, for fuck’s sake. I’m not a chess piece, and none of my friends and loved ones are. Fuck you! I’m not the one alone here. You are. And you’ll die alone, because you wasted your centuries cultivating your hatred instead of some basic empathy.”

He felt Daji’s fury bubbling up in him, but blaming his outburst on that was a cheap excuse.

Vince despised Mei. Hated her for all her scheming, her excuses, her insanity, and the casual way she used and threw away people.

The obsidian ring from Quintus sat on his finger, easily visible as he fired a flame laser at Mei with his cane.

Quintus’s mentor had given up her own life to protect Quintus, despite being a demon. Mei could never do that. She lacked the fundamental capacity to care about others.

It wasn’t about being human, but being a decent fucking person, immortal or not.

“Well said, master,” Daji whispered.

“Every hand I hold out to you is batted aside,” Mei said, voice shaking. “I never understand why those with power and potential throw it aside.”

She slammed a telekinetic blast into his legs. The blow stung, but didn’t knock him down. More strikes rained down on him, while his dragon failed to breach her foxfire defenses.

It was a repeat of the night of the heist. Even with Daji’s help, he struggled to compete with Mei’s spellcasting speed, foxfire, and overwhelming strength. His barrier began to crack. He gritted his teeth.

“Perhaps I was wrong earlier,” Mei said. “You might be the one who is all bravado, relying on others to back you up.”

“And back him up I shall!” Goro shouted.

Mei’s eyes bulged as multiple spears of earth slammed into her from behind. Goro charged her, his muscular body gleaming with purple light.

Split between two foes, Mei focused on the closest one, as she had all night. She raised her sole arm and swung an invisible blade through Goro. His empowerment magic vanished.

But he’d gotten close enough. Foxfire rippled around his arms as he fell into a practiced stance and threw his first punch, blurring across the small gap between him and Mei. A telekinetic blade cracked his barrier without slowing him down.

His foxfire tore through Mei’s barrier and she shrieked. She drew another talisman.

Goro caught her wrist, then snapped her arm with a swift movement. With his arms wreathed in azure foxfire, her barrier melted and he shattered her arm with ease.

Green light shined in his tails as he prepared for a likely final blow.

It never came as Mei’s telekinesis swept Goro’s legs out from under him with a crunch. Her hammer blow came down next, but he blocked that with the same layered cross barriers Cora had used. He grunted as the force blast still rocked his body before he activated a new barrier.

“Like father, like son,” Mei gasped out, green light healing her broken arm as she recast her barrier. “You Miuras don’t know that your era has passed and you’re no longer needed.”

Goro rose to his feet despite his wounds. “There is always a world for warriors. Most may be useless in a world of peace, where they amount to little more than thugs and bandits, but I’ve been trained to defeat monsters and defend friends and family to the death. A monster stands before me, and a friend needs help.”

Vince blinked. A friend, huh? What a world Goro lived in that he considered Vince a friend. Hyuga had been right about the young fox needing more experience.

Mei sneered. Her foxfire barely held back Vince’s black flames as she raised her arm again, this time with a telekinetic blast.

“Damn fucking right,” Gaby said.

She slammed into Mei as a streak of light, her fist nearly cracking the fox’s barrier. A lance formed in her hand. She planted it in the ground, sending dirt flying everywhere.

Telekinesis scattered the dust, and Mei scowled as Gaby pulled Goro away.

“I assumed that idiot would be useless to you after you spurned the real knight,” Mei said. “Yet I should have executed her the moment I had the chance. This night would already be over if I had.”

Vince didn’t waste time with a witty remark. He carefully focused his magic in order to prevent her from noticing his true goal. Casting multiple spells at once was a struggle, and he needed to down a magic-restoring infusion. He barely even noticed the ones he took so far.

“No rejoinders? No speeches? Is it over, then?” Mei sighed and flicked her hair. “Then allow me to put you out of your misery.”

Vince stared at her. She stared back.

Then she finally looked down. The ground appeared normal, unlike when he usually cast his flame pillars. She always countered with foxfire beneath her feet.

But what if he summoned the flames farther beneath the dirt and kept the magic hidden for longer? Ordinarily it would be a terrible idea, but Daji’s power was so much greater than his that a half foot of dirt barely inconvenienced her. He could melt steel beams with the black flame laser.

Mei’s hair rose and all eight of her tails turned blue. Foxfire shimmered along her arms.

Too late. A pillar of black flames, each ember tinged with crimson, erupted and reached two hundred feet into the air. The tornado fed it with more power, strengthening it as Mei screamed in terror and pain.

Vince wished this was the end, but he still sensed her immense power. Foxes were dense bundles of magic, and Mei likely used healing magic to heal her burns as fast as he caused them, even if it cost her oodles of magic.

His suspicion turned out to be true when the pillar faded. Mei kneeled, mostly naked and burned, her hair incinerated, and her tails singed and blackened. Only her jewelry and enchanted straps across her thighs, torso, and upper arms remained intact. Whatever talismans she’d kept had been obliterated. Green healing magic gave her skin an odd gloss, but competed with the lingering burns of Daji’s flames.

Vince pointed his cane at her. At the same time, Momo emerged from the darkness and Gaby roared toward them.

“I refuse…” Mei whispered. Her hands gripped a pocket of one strap. “Not after all this…”

Momo’s eyes widened.

“Kill her!” Momo and Daji said at the same time.

Vince fired his flame laser while Momo’s telekinesis descended.

Foxfire tore through the strap pocket and dug into something. A prismatic explosion ruptured reality, shattering Vince’s spell and knocking Momo back.

Mei stood, still naked, but now with a prismatic ninth tail. The fake soul egg from the heist burned in her fingers, illuminated from within and without by azure foxfire. More foxfire flickered along the length of her nine tails, and even within her eyes.

“I will become a kyuubi, because I am a kyuubi,” Mei said.