Megami Kyūbi no Yoru Part 2

  The air in the improvised meeting room smelled of stolen, freshly brewed coffee. A few maps torn from the wall were spread out on the creaky wooden table as Adelis and Urakaze drew lines with a black marker, connecting points on the temple's layout and marking entry and escape routes.

  "If we break in through the west wing," Urakaze murmured, running a finger over the drawing, "we can approach the altar without going through the main entrance. The cult's reinforcements patrol further south."

  Adelis nodded, repositioning some of the kitchen cookies they were using as markers.

  "The river is not as heavily guarded as the rest of the village."

  "We can use it to move quickly in case of an emergency escape."

  "With Levia's help, we could get upstream in no time."

  "No one would think to search further up immediately - everyone would rush downstream, giving us a chance to strike again while they're distracted by the search below."

  "The problem is that Levia would only have the river itself to move through. She'd be quite vulnerable if we left her behind. The attack has to succeed."

  "It doesn't matter, I can heal from any wounds I take. I have a high tolerance for pain - I can take a few hits if it means helping us get out of here," Levia said bravely and decisively, though she was still afraid inside.

  "If we succeed and destroy the stone, we'll get rid of the demon, but the clan will still be there."

  "It's best to just do what's necessary to bring down the barrier and get out of here."

  "If I can contact the Onmyōji Association, I could call for reinforcements and wipe out the entire village in one fell swoop," Urakaze said, trying to remind them of the true goal.

  "Ah, it's not the best plan in the world, but it's the only one we've got."

  "Even a poorly made plan executed on time is better than a perfectly made plan executed too late."

  "This will have to do."

  In a side corridor of the hotel, Momo worked on her own battle plan. With a kitchen knife she cut a rubber hose and inserted it into a car parked at the entrance. She drew a strong breath through the hose and watched as gasoline began to flow from the tank - a little trick she had learned in times of need while repairing battle gear in the past. Next to her, plastic crates filled with glass bottles served as the base for Molotov cocktails: sake bottles with rags twisted from scraps collected around the hotel, ready to set things ablaze.

  We can use them to set fire to the barricades or distract the cultists when we make our move. Surely they'll be too busy trying to keep the flames from spreading to their homes... I hope it's enough to tilt the odds in our favor, the angel thought. A sigh of resignation followed, as she thought about how much she would have preferred her beloved husband to be the one in action, while she remained in the background, offering support. But she knew that things didn't always turn out the way you wanted them to - and it was the very person she trusted so deeply who had taught her that the most important thing was to adapt to what is, not what you want.

  From the shadows of a treetop at the edge of the forest, the black and red spider-shaped silhouette of Mei Ling could be seen, sharpening her senses. Using makeshift binoculars - a more or less unsuccessful experiment with her own silk and a pair of glass bottles - she spied as best she could on the group of fanatics gathered around the Sesshō-seki and the temple. She noted every guard, every ritual, memorized the number of torches, the rhythm of the chants, their duration, the equipment the ninjas were preparing.

  "There are six guards at the bamboo wall, three at the north gate, and another pair patrolling around the sacred well," she whispered to herself, her heart beating with the precision of a war drum.

  "They're quite predictable, almost like beginners - no better than a hastily armed militia."

  "Perfect for a synchronized attack."

  "It could work if we scare them enough."

  "The real problem is the ninja clan. They're few, but they're trained. Whether we overcome them or not will determine our success or failure."

  "Since I'm one of the best fighters, it's up to me to defeat them."

  "I still have 20 minutes free, I'd better spend it watching more closely."

  On the roof of the hotel, two figures watched the surroundings with eternal patience - two gargoyles that did not miss a thing. Charlotte and Kazumi patrolled the area with infrared vision. They moved in perfect sync, silent as shadows, their eyes sharpened like eagles. Each stood with her back to the other, trying to scan everything around her. It was up to them to detect the enemy's attack in time.

  They stood still as statues; movement was unnecessary for the machines they were. But in their minds, there was evidence of concern for the others - their obsessive surveillance, the constant scanning of their surroundings, the need to record every detail and raise the alarm at the slightest irregularity.

  Their minds worked very differently from the rest of the world - a world of numbers and rules they could never escape, and yet one they worked tirelessly to change.

  ███ FILE HEADER ██████████████████████████████████

  CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL // EYES ONLY

  TRANSMISSION ID: 0XAC45-5F11

  UNIT ID: CHARLOTTE_KZM

  TIMESTAMP: [1101.2345Z]

  █ SYSTEM LOG █

  > [SURVEILLANCE_MODULE ? CHARLOTTE]

  [1101.2345Z] INIT → Perimeter Scan Routine...

  [1101.2346Z] ALERT → Hostile Entities Detected:

  - Sector: Southwest

  - Estimated Count: 3

  - Armament Status: Light

  [1101.2346Z] CONFIDENCE → 85.2% (Location Approximate)

  █ END MODULE █

  > [TACTICAL_ANALYSIS_SUBPROCESS ? KAZUMI]

  [1101.2347Z] EVALUATION → Patrol Node Coverage:

  - Status: Insufficient

  - Thorough Search: Infeasible

  [1101.2347Z] TIMELINE PROJECTION:

  - Late/Night: Safe infiltration window (p < 0.15)

  - Dawn: Nervousness seed event + Reinforcement Spawn

  - T+12h: Hostile Contact Probability ≈ 0.78

  █ END MODULE █

  > [OPTIONAL_MODULE_INVOCATION ? CHARLOTTE]

  [1101.2348Z] COMMAND_EXEC → LOAD_MODULE "DragonDescendants"()

  > LOAD_MODULE INIT

  > STATUS: 0x01 - INITIALIZATION_INCOMPLETE

  > ERROR: CODE 0x0D11 - "PHASE_DEBUG_MISSING"

  > RECOMMENDATION: Acquire additional behavioral telemetry; rerun simulation.

  █ END MODULE █

  > [SUBSYSTEM_REPORT ? KAZUMI]

  [1101.2349Z] DEPENDENCY AUDIT → MODULE "DragonDescendants":

  - NeuroEmotionalPatternAnalyzer v2.4 → NOT INSTALLED

  - AdaptiveCourageProtocol → CORRUPT MEMORY BLOCK

  - RandomnessGenerator → SEED UNDEFINED

  █ END MODULE █

  > [DIAGNOSTIC_REPORT ? CHARLOTTE]

  [1101.2350Z] SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC:

  - Simulation Runs: 0/1024

  - CPU Utilization: 92% (Operational Threshold Exceeded)

  - Failure Point: "EXECUTE_BRAVERY_ROUTINE"

  - Root Cause: Insufficient Paternal Combat Heuristics

  [1101.2350Z] WARNING → System Overload Imminent. Error 0x0B05. Retrying...

  █ END MODULE █

  > [AI_OVERRIDE_ATTEMPT ? KAZUMI]

  [1101.2351Z] ACTION: Attempting Self-Optimization...

  > RESULT: ABORTED

  > REASON: "INSUFFICIENT_LOGIC_RESOURCES"

  > NEXT OBJECTIVE: Live-Action Telemetry Acquisition [Primary Operator: EMPEROR_01CE]

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  █ END MODULE █

  > [CLOSING_TRANSMISSION ? CHARLOTTE]

  [1101.2352Z] MODULE "DragonDescendants":

  - Status: PENDING_UPGRADE

  - Awaiting Incoming Directives:

  ? INTEGRATE_EMOTIONAL_FEEDBACK_LOOP

  ? DEBUG_COMPLETE

  █ FILE END ████████████████████████████████████████

  AUTHORIZATION SIGNATURE: SYSTEM_CORE_01-C

  VERIFIED: 1101.2352Z

  "Three figures moving near the car on the southwest road, slow movement," Charlotte reported in a neutral tone.

  "Confirmed identification: cultists without heavy weapons," Kazumi added.

  "They are maintaining their patrol pattern. No change in formation."

  "They suspect we are in the area, but don't know our exact location."

  "They also don't have enough manpower for a thorough search. We have an 85% chance of making it through the night undetected."

  "However, once the sun rises and the lack of results makes them nervous, more people will join the search."

  "They will find us by noon tomorrow with a 78% probability unless we take appropriate action."

  "Tactical suggestion: activate Dragon Descendant mode?"

  "Negative. Psychological analysis is still incomplete; inability to process decisions correctly, insufficient random generation capability."

  "Unable to recreate with the necessary efficiency to run the program, lacking debug phase and high-level simulation execution."

  "Dragon Descendants program underdeveloped."

  "Key data collection required."

  "Analysis: insufficient to run program correctly."

  "Program postponement recommended until new enhancements and improved logic development are completed internally."

  As the clock struck the first hour past midnight, the girls were now close to the cursed village and the temple, still hidden in the darkness. They had only needed to silence a few guards to get this far. The nervousness was evident in most of them. The night enveloped the temple like a thick cloak of shadows. The sect's torches flickered in the shadows, illuminating fanatical faces chanting in a forgotten tongue. Mei Ling, hanging from her invisible web between the branches, held her breath. Twenty meters to the altar. Six guards. Three ninjas camouflaged on the roof. Time: three minutes.

  "I've led a few military campaigns. I've given the signal for an operation a hundred times, and I've personally given the order just as many times," he said.

  "And yet, I've never been as nervous about doing it again as I am today."

  "Now that I'm here on the ground, just a few feet away from people who want to hurt me..."

  "How the hell do sergeants and lieutenants manage to do this over and over again?" said Adelis, watching the battle from a side she usually never saw.

  "Simple, they never get used to it. They just do it out of fear!" Urakaze replied as she threw the first bottle.

  *Crash* "Time to burn this shit down!" Mei Ling muttered as she threw a Molotov cocktail at the sacrificial warehouse, then another at a group of people standing on a wooden roof.

  "Oh God, give me the strength to do what I'm about to do!" said the frightened mother, trying to light her bottle as fast as she could and throwing it nervously at an old house.

  "Now!" Urakaze shouted, raising her katana, soaked in ninja blood, as she leapt nimbly from the forest into the center of the village.

  On the other side of the village, in the fog that clung to the ruins, Charlotte and Kazumi raced across the central square at full speed. They were the second part of a pincer attack, trying to get in as deep as possible to take the pressure off the main group.

  "Target: Main altar. Secondary route via eastern alley. Elimination of guards: priority."

  "Confirmed. Activating coordinated attack mode."

  The androids showed what they were holding - two hammers, an improvised spear made from a stick, and a shovel with sharpened edges. To most eyes, they were nothing more than tools, but in the right hands, they were weapons if you knew how to use them. That was something their father had taught them by watching him fight with every tool and skill he had to gain the upper hand.

  They advanced through piles of rubble, dodging spears and flaming torches, moving deeper and deeper into the village to create chaos.

  Inside the temple, Mei Ling tensed her nets like steel cables. With a twist of her hips, she unleashed a monumental web that engulfed the cursed stone, tearing several fanatics from their prayers and dragging them into the air.

  Adelis leapt to the base of the altar, driving the tip of her spear into a crack. With a brutal thrust, she shattered the first fragment of the Sesshō-seki, releasing a jet of ink-black smoke.

  It was the moment the androids had been waiting for: a crash of metal as the rear doors shattered announced her arrival. Charlotte and Kazumi charged in simultaneously, their movements synchronized as one. A charged impact of the hammers fell through the anchoring stone.

  "Assessment: unstable stone, imminent breakage," Charlotte announced in an icy tone.

  Kazumi followed up with a boosted blow, striking the cursed goddess in the face. The Sesshō-seki shattered into a thousand fragments, each one sparking with a spectral wail before vanishing into particles of ash.

  A deep whistle echoed through the temple: candles snuffed out, the barrier trembled as if breathing its last. A deafening scream tore through the air as the demon, once rooted to the stone, broke free in an eruption of fury and ash.

  Urakaze lunged at it, her katana slicing through the air with a precise gleam. The blade sliced through the shadows, splitting the demon's spectral form in two. A torrent of corrosive ash rained down to the ground, mixing with the mud as the twins' hammering echoed through the chamber like victory bells.

  The barrier dissolved with a murmur, releasing the trapped air. From the other entrance, the last of the cultists fled into the darkness like faded shadows. But the hunter did not stop there - she launched herself back into battle against the ninjas, a fierce and brutal fight, the weight of her duty and her struggle clear on her face.

  "Run!" "Get out of here!"

  "I'll take care of stopping them! Run!"

  The other girls looked at her and understood what she was trying to do. They knew that she was the most capable of dealing with this kind of problem, and now that the barrier was down, she could escape whenever she wanted. That's what they thought as they ran out of there, took the golf cart with Levia in it, and drove uphill until they reached the garage from the night before.

  "The car!" Adelis yelled when she saw the garage. The mechanic, pale, watched them rush to the now repaired car.

  "What the hell...?" the man asked.

  "Don't ask questions!" Momo tossed him a wad of bills without counting them and got into the car with the others.

  "Consider this a bonus for keeping quiet!"

  The road wound under the first lights of dawn. Mei Ling, back in her human form, concentrated on getting the car back on the normal streets of the city without damaging it again.

  "Damn, how much longer will it take Cesar to get back? These things are his problem, not ours," Levia joked, pulling out a water bottle, another thing borrowed from the hotel.

  "Yeah," Mei Ling sighed, trying to drive as fast as she could on the road.

  "He would've done something stupid like jump into the river with the demon, and somehow he would've managed to explode something that wasn't even flammable, like a skateboard."

  "Don't forget the part where he tortured Stella and blamed her for something."

  "Oh, and then a pretty girl would come out and he'd try to take her."

  "......."

  "But at least everything would have worked out in the end." Momo added as Adelis looked out the window. The village disappeared behind the mountain, but in the rearview mirror a figure in a fox mask was watching them.

  "!!!!!"

  "That way! It's not over yet," she muttered.

  "Those fanatics..."

  "Shhh." Mei Ling put a hand on her shoulder.

  "We won today. The rest is the Onmyōji's problem."

  The car sped toward the highway, leaving behind the ashes of a failed ritual.