The Forest God's New Familiar

~ Chapter 16 ~

Kyoko sighs as she lazily sits on the wooden boards of the shrine, staring at the grey clouds that threatened to drop water. It's going to rain soon, I just know it. Just as she predicted, it began raining lightly.

"It's time to put this plan into action," Hideyoshi said, a sinister smile on his face as he stands up from his throne. "I'm going to enjoy making those two suffer."

Kyoko was relaxing away, content with doing nothing while she thought of plans to find a certain wolf yokai. However, her thoughts were interrupted as something came crashing down in front of the shrine. The dust cleared to show a huge crater with a man in it. Well, someone has to pay the fees for destroying shrine property. She sat up as Takehiko came running out of the shrine, his eyes widening as it landed on the man. "Hideyoshi...."

So, that's Hideyoshi... He looks more like a pedophile than Takehiko does... Ah well. She stood up and said "So, you're Hideyoshi?"

'Hideyoshi' smiled sinisterly, and said, his voice sounding dark "Well, hello Takehiko, I'm glad you survived so you can see me kill your Familiar~ I must say, you made a grand pick on your part. But I wonder... Why did you pick a yokai to be your familiar, hm~?" Takehiko stiffened up slightly. "Oh~ Did you pick her because she reminded you of me? How sweet~," Hideyoshi's eyes darken. "It's too bad, she'll be dead!"

He bolted towards Kyoko, his wolf claws extended. Kyoko dodged, making Hideyoshi hit the wooden boards of the Shrine and destroying them to pieces. Kyoko said in a calm, blunt tone "I'll have to put a bill on you for that. That''s property damage."

Hideyoshi laughed, "So, what they say about you is true, you really don't care about your life. But should you really be caring about property damage when you're about to die?"

She shrugged, and said "If I cared in the first place, would I be even talking about property damage? Most likely not."

"Don't underestimate him, Kyoko! He's stronger than he looks!" Takehiko warned, making Hideyoshi look at him and go for an attack towards the God.

However, before Hideyoshi could land an attack. Kyoko had grabbed onto his wrist, just before his claws could penetrate Takehiko's skin. "I'm your opponent. Familiar's fight first. God's fight second. I'm sure you know that," Hideyoshi smirked evilly and jumped away from the pair, deciding to get serious.

"Well then, let's fight, shall we?" Kyoko's claws extended and the fight began.

Their claws collided with each other with every attack, bursts of impact could be seen as the sound barrier was broken with every attack. Wind surrounded Kyoko's body, but mainly her claws where she tried to pick up the velocity of the wind to high speed to pierce Hideyoshi's skin. However, Hideyoshi realised what she was trying to do and backed away before she had the chance to land an attack.

He's pretty good, I guess fighting barehanded won't be enough. She flipped backwards, her hands on the hilts of her two swords. The chains tightened around her swords, but that didn't stop her. She forcefully pulled the swords out of their sheaths, breaking the chains that bind them there. Her eyes gleamed and once more, her face turned into an emotionless statue.

She pounced towards Hideyoshi, and slashed her swords towards him. He managed to dodge, only getting nicked slightly. He frowned and flipped backwards, nekotas appeared on his hand, signalling he too was going to get serious. Once more, their attacks collided with each other without mercy.

If I can just find a opening to his attacks, I can win this. She narrowly dodged a scratch to the face and jumped back. Too close, too close for comfort. He disappeared from sight and appeared behind her. What the? She blocked his attack. His attack pattern is changing. Caught off guard, Hideyoshi found an opening and plunged his claws into her stomach. She coughed up blood, and pulled away before he could attack with his other deadly nekota claws.

However, just as she went for another attack, she coughed up more blood and noticed her wound wasn't healing. What the? Why am I coughing up more blood? Why aren't I healing? She noticed some type of purple gas seeping out of her wound. No. He poisoned me. This is bad. At this rate, I'll— She coughed up more blood as Hideyoshi stabbed her once more, just missing her heart.

He pulled out his claws and kicked her in the stomach, making her fly back and crash into a tree. Hideyoshi smirked as he walked towards her, "Looks like the mighty Rogue Hunter won't be here for very long. The poison I gave you has already spread throughout your body, you won't be able to move anymore," he's right, damn, he's got me good. "It won't be long before you feel the pain of the poison as it eats your insides. Meanwhile, I think I'll enjoy throwing you around for a bit," he picked her up by the front of her clothes and threw her.

She crashed into another tree hard, making her cough up blood as the tree crashed down in the opposite direction. This action was repeated over and over again while Takehiko just hopelessly watched. He wanted to help, but he had to respect what little pride Kyoko still had left. He was only going to enter the battle when Kyoko tells him too. As much as it hurt his heart to wait and just watch, it was for the sake of Kyoko.