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Nightmares

An Anthracite City Story

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

The road into the town was quiet except for the sound of a little motorized scooter-bike puttering along. A desolate mountain village on the coast of the Sea of Japan, in the Niigata Prefecture of Japan, that was where his search had taken him. There was no mistaking it, they had taken her here, Kenchi Bito could only hope he was strong enough to save her. He had to be; he couldn't bear the thought of not succeeding here. He had to succeed, that was all there was to it.

Before the... calamity that had turned the whole world to ruin, Kenchi had been a relatively normal life for someone of... he might as well be honest with himself and admit he had been part of Japan's upper class. The grandson of a toy mogul that was a proud member of one of the country's more conservative and traditionalist factions, Bito had an unusual upbringing to say the least. One made all the more unusual by the fact that the Bito family was an active ninja clan during one of Japan's more turbulent periods, grandfather was always proud of the family's storied history. None of that mattered anymore though. Besides his sister Hoshi and himself, his family was dead. And outside of Hoshi, there was only one woman that was close to his heart... Kasumi.

It was Kasumi that brought him to this nameless little village tucked away in the mountains, overlooking the ocean. While wandering through the prefecture, a fellow survivor told him that someone matching Kasumi's description was being taken to an old abandoned Shinto temple at the top of... Kenchi's train of thought immediately stopped the instant he pulled up in front of the entrance to the temple and craned his neck upward. It was a typical rural Japanese temple situated at the top of the mountain with a very long stone staircase leading up the side of the mountain. Disengaging the ignition on his bike and setting it in park, the wasteland warrior sighed and dismounted. A hike up a small mountain, likely to get ambushed on every landing by members of the cult that took Kasumi, and to make matters even better it was starting to snow gently. Something felt off about the worsening weather but he didn't have time to dwell on that now.

A chill ran through his tattered street clothes as the weathered young man set his pack down beside the parked motorcycle and making sure his sheathed katana was strapped firmly to his back, Kenchi sucked in his breath and started walking up the countless gray steps. The sound of his shoes echoing against the cold stone was the only noise that could be heard. Birds were gone, whether chased away by the sudden early snow or by the evil air that hung over this place Kenchi couldn't tell, and the temple grounds were otherwise deathly quiet. The young man kept an apprehensive hand around the hilt of his sword. Something was not right here...

Waiting for him to ascend to the first landing on the stone stairway was... nothing. The cobblestone courtyard was empty except for him and the wind. For a moment he thought he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye but it was likely just his nerves. Regardless he needed to move faster; the quicker he got to the top of the mountain the less chance this... Kitsune League would have to hurt his beloved. He had to hurry.

Running up the next flight of stairs with an incredible natural agility, he arrived to the second landing only to find it as empty as the first. For a brief instant he wondered if he had heard wrong and the cult was meeting somewhere else. After all, where were the guards to stop men like him from interrupting whatever it was they were doing? By the third landing he unfortunately had his answer.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard of the third landing, her body seemingly unbothered by the cold despite being dressed in a horribly impractical crimson outfit that looked like it was stripped from a bad anime, was a vulpine anthro playing with a magically suspended sphere of what the human quickly realized was blood. The vixen flashed a toothy grin at him as he drew his sword and began to eye her suspiciously.

"Well, well." She began in Japanese. "We were wondering if a warrior would come to try and interrupt the ritual." The vixen continued as she rose to her feet, the orb of crimson fluid remained suspended in midair.

"Kitsune..." Kenchi snarled, raising his sword in a fighting stance.

"Now, now, I know we're called the Kitsune League but don't you think that's species profiling? Of course we practice an aspect of life magic that's been banned by the International Wizards Convention on our world but do you see us with multiple tails or drinking souls?" The female mystic continued with a sly smile as she stuck her hand into the magical ball of blood she was playing with. In an instant the ball reformed into a nightmarish staff made of flesh. A blinking eye set where a magnificent jewel should have went stared at back at him as the weapon finished forming.

"I do not have time for this. You have a friend of mine up there." Bito replied, fighting to steel himself in the face of the abomination she twirled in her hands.

"Oh you must be Kenchi then, Kasumi will not stop talking about you though for the life of me I cannot figure out why. You hardly look like anything special." The vixen replied dismissively, at least the wayward warrior knew he was in the right place now...

The human ninja declined to reply, instead silently throwing himself straight into the fight. The vixen parried his opening blows easily; turning aside his sword swings with her supernaturally hard staff before pushing him back with a single high kick to the chest. Kenchi glared as he physically drew himself into another ready stance, staring daggers at his opponent. This was taking up too much time...

The vulpine sorceress was about to beckon him to take another go when the human seemingly just disappeared. One moment he was there then the next... if this was a manga he would have vanished in a flash of speed lines. Was the story of how Kenchi defeated the Dark Sentai true? Something she briefly contemplated for a few seconds before a sharp pain, like something blunt hitting her with the force of a courier's van, struck her squarely in the abdomen. As she was thrown back and landed against the snow-slick courtyard doubled over in pain, the vixen caught a flash of her foe continuing his way up the mountain. She must alert her sisters in the League...

The rest of them were waiting for him on the fifth and final landing. In the shadow of an ancient temple probably older then all of the combatants put together, five vulpine witches had gathered to try and stop to him. Like their coven sister before them, all five were beautifully figured, dressed in slender outfits that were more practical for a summer day at the beach then the early snows that seemed to have no effect on their scantily-clad bodies, and armed with weapons forged of magically conjured flesh and bone. Nightmarish armaments were readied and hungry for the blood of a warrior; this time he could not evade them. This time he had to fight if he wanted to get to Kasumi without being torn apart.

Reappearing with his sword drawn, Kenchi took in all of his foes with a single baleful glare and exhaled. He had to do this and it had to be done using as little of his power as possible. With his katana raised, the human swordsman spread his feet apart and took up another fighting stance, time for the battle to begin in earnest.

Despite all the anime clichés they had stacked atop one another, Bito had to give credit where it was due when they charged him all at once. Swords clashed as blows were blocked and parried, the invaders weapons of flesh and bone holding up well against the forged steel of the human's blade. The blood magi were relentless, pain seared through his body as their weapons found purchase despite his best attempts at dodging the incoming blows, hungrily drawing blood and generating colorful bruises when they impacted. His main saving grace was that their skimpy uniforms were about as protective as they looked. One was taken down almost immediately by an upwards slash that cut from naval to the bottom of her throat, delicately slicing between the black-furred vixen's breasts and cutting her top open, causing horrific bleeding as internal organs became visible. The second and third were wounded shortly afterwards, horrible slashes across the abdomen and breasts gushing blood and viscera as the vixens backed away.

Sensing their numbers shrink, the two remaining combatants switched tactics and took on a more defensive footing to buy themselves time and Kenchi quickly saw why. The three he had struck down were healing themselves, the arcane energies in their blood causing the crimson fluid to flow backwards and seal up their wounds. Meanwhile the human intruder was still bleeding, slowly losing blood from where a bone sword cut into his arm. This was not going well, time to stop holding back and make these invaders pay for what they had done to Japan...

The second round was about to begin when a pained scream echoed out of the temple only to be cut short with a violent gurgle of someone choking on their own blood. A second later, the coven's high priestess appeared out into the courtyard. Even compared to the others, she was inhumanly beautiful in spite of the blood dripping from her hands. Immaculate red fur, delicate slender curves wrapped inside a billowing silk kimono. But then there were her eyes... one look into those eyes and he knew, he knew this was no mortal creature standing in the temple doorway. Not any more at least.

Licking the blood from her hands as if it was the sweetest syrup, the leader of the Kitsune coven stepped down from the temple with a grin on her face. "Tell me hero, how does it feel to fail?" She asked knowingly.

No... he couldn't have been too late. She had to have been lying. "I must congratulate you for having excellent taste though. Her innocence will rejuvenate us and ensure we will continue to remain beautiful."

Overcome by rage, Kenchi lunged... and was promptly paralyzed mid-stride with a wave of the witch leader's hand. Falling over in a twitching mess, he was unable to do little except watch as the crimson-furred vixen effortlessly stepped over him and listen as she addressed her coven.

"Well this was a fun distraction but I believe it is time for us to move on sisters." She gestured, motioning for all of them to gather in a circle.

"But mistress, is it wise to leave the furless one or the other prisoner alive? Shouldn't we drain his essence as well?" One of the junior vixens asked, Kenchi couldn't tell which one beyond that she was one of the three brown furred ones in the group.

The red fox briefly looked behind her at the warrior she so easily defeated, her face fixed in a gaze of dismissive contempt. "He is now of no more consequence then the female we trapped in the temple storeroom. Besides sister, you should know as well as any of us that the blood of males is useless for the rituals that keep us youthful." The mistress explained as casually as if she was ordering lunch at a sushi bar.

Then like that, they were gone, vanishing on the wings of magic and leaving Kenchi alone in the courtyard. Nothing but him and a strangely ornate key glistening in the snow, he couldn't tell whether it was left behind by intent or accident. Once the human regained control of his muscles, he crawled to his feet and picked up the key. He had a sinking suspicion he knew what waited for him in the temple and he didn't want to see Kasumi like that. It also could have been a trap; it would explain why the leader of the troop of vixens had dismissed him so nonchalantly. Tightening his hand around the key, he made his decision...

The interior of the defiled Shinto temple somehow managed to be even more horrifying then he imagined. Had he not been told beforehand that was Kasumi on the stone altar that the vixens had set up in the center of the room... divine mercies how could he have let himself be so weak in the face of such monsters? It was likely he would have just stood there in the middle of the carnage, caught in a whirlpool spiral of depression spawned by staring into the face of utterly failing someone he held dear, had the prisoner locked away in the shrine storeroom been of the extremely vocal variety.

"LET ME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A WARRIOR YOU BLOOD DRINKING HARLOT!" A boisterous female voice with an unfamiliar accent boomed in Japanese from behind a shut door, the jingle of metal chains being jostled as someone fought with her binds.

Brought back to reality, Kenchi tested the door and found it unlocked. Opening it, he was briefly taken aback by the sight that was waiting for him inside. Chained to the wall was a tall, athletically toned white tiger anthro. Strong, well-exercised muscles merged seamlessly with an otherwise feminine hourglass figure, gently curved hips and a generous bust that filled out the furred woman's costume quite well. And what a curious costume, obviously taking inspiration from Japanese aesthetics but clearly not manga-inspired like the blood-red bikinis the Kitsune League. An ornate blue lattice pattern was stenciled over a tight green body suit covering the female from the neck down. A face bequeathed with a pair of icy blue eyes and a magnificent mane of jet-black hair looked back at him as he took a glance at her restraints.

Kenchi had no idea who this tigress was but judging by her restraints he could only hope she was on his side of the moral spectrum. Glyphs radiating a mystical energy were drawn all over the floor, walls, and ceiling while the heavy steel chains keeping this woman firmly attached to the stone wall of the temple bore the signs of even more enchantment. The ninja may have been an utter layman when it came to the mystical arts but he still recognized when someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure someone else stayed put, clearly this was not a female that could be rendered helpless by a simple ball of twine. Whoever this person was, she probably could have done a much better job at saving Kasumi then he did...

"Who are you?" He asked in Japanese, hopefully this stranger's grasp of the language was good as his next best language, English, was... serviceable at best.

"I am called Magnitude. Who are you and where is the woman the witches were keeping with me?"

Kenchi declined to continue that conversation any further, his heartstrings feeling like they were tied in knots as he tossed the key to Magnitude's bindings at her feet. By the time she had picked up the key, unlocked her manacles, and looked back up in his direction, the ninja had vanished without a trace. As she took her first tentative steps towards looking for him, the smell of gore and carnage hit her feline nose like a sledgehammer. There was no mistaking it, that was the scent of Kasumi the woman she had been imprisoned with. But did that mean the swordsman that came to the tiger's rescue was... No it couldn't be him. Could it?

No one was around to see the young man return to his motorcycle parked on the side of the road next to the shrine entrance. No one saw him put his sword away and bandage up his bleeding arm. And no one saw him cry silently as he shouldered his pack and rode off on the northern highway....