Chapter 86 - Adverse Reactions, Progress, Robbery

"Anyways, boss. Do you indulge yourself with real food like this from time to time?" Fumio strangely feels honored seeing Red's seemingly odd human action of gluttony.

"Not really. I just have something to celebrate today." Red lies.

"Celebration?" Fumio's curiosity is piqued.

"Yeah. None of your business for now." Red smirks.

"Whatever, boss." Fumio is disappointed.

"Yeah. Anyways. Wanna stay here for a few days? The shore under the cliff is isolated, perfect for your water walking training. If you manage to feel out more tricks, you can traverse the water for hours at a time, just like how comfortable you are in walking a calm lake." Red suggests.

"Okay. Sure boss. Your spiritual gathering plates are in my storage ring, so I'll cultivate later tonight  there too." Fumio nods, hungry for progress.

"I'll book a nearby hotel for the both of us." He then pulls out his phone to look.

"Sounds good." Red approves.

Red, after subjugating 1 Scamp-rank demon which is Rizretheen, 8 Soldier-rank demons, 2 Knight-rank which include Tezguniuth, and the General-rank demon Xoz'gekal, all 11 demons in total, his body is a bit in a mess.

The reason why he asked his new minions for a few days is because the moment he subjugated Rizretheen, he already feels the side effects of it. Side effects that did not affect his soul, but instead manifested in his body.

Effects that he figures will take him days to recover from.

Even though food will not solve his problem with his body, he figures that eating delicious food and letting loose will help him to calm down.

Another effect he did not expect from his abuse of his soul techniques, is his reduced control over his spirit sense. He would either access too little of it, or too strong of it. He will have to see how long the effect will last.

<><><>

Hinohara - Three days later

Yoshiko is currently in her front yard, doing a set of karate kata taught to her by Red.

While her movements do not look strong, they are still strong enough to make the sleeves of her training kimono,*fwoo* *fwoo* *fwoo* produce satisfying sounds.

A few more snappy movements later, "Huuuu…" she stops and takes a deep breath, and "HAH!" she yells as she throws three consecutive punches.

This concludes her kata practice for the morning.

"Ooohhh.. scary…" Her neighbor Gin, sitting at his second-floor terrace from above, heckles her.

"Good morning, Gin-san." Yoshiko greets the man, already used to the man's teasing remarks.

"Good morning, Yoshiko-chan. Coffee?" Gin offers just as courtesy as he sips on his mug, knowing that Yoshiko will refuse anyway.

"No, thank you." Yoshiko refuses.

"I thought this was gonna be only a short-term interest, I didn't think you'd persist doing kata every morning for two weeks." Gin asks as he drains the remaining coffee in his mug.

"And why would you think that, Gin-san?" Yoshiko and Gin are startled by Kotone jumping down from Gin's rooftop, to Gin's terrace, joining him at his outdoor table.

"She just seemed the gentle school-teacher type to me." Gin shrugs as he recovers.

"Good morning, Kotone-chan!" Yoshiko greets Kotone.

The two no longer find it odd to see Kotone, Fumio, or Red jumping around high places.

"Good morning, Yoshiko-chan." Kotone returns the woman's greeting.

"Coffee?" Gin offers, genuinely.

"No thanks. I've quit." Kotone refuses.

Gin scrunches his brows in amusement.

"It's not like it's cigarettes." He mumbles.

Yoshiko meanwhile, takes her attention back to herself, executing the Basic Breathing Technique to recover.

"How about you, Gin-san? Not interested in learning self-defense?" Kotone asks Gin.

"Nah. What's the point?" Gin shakes his head.

"Instead. I have to build up my strength. I noticed that the kids have gotten very strong recently. It's hard to keep them in line whenever I bring them out." He sighs.

"Yeah?" Kotone smirks.

The children indeed, after just two months of practicing the 16 poses, adding their very nutritious diet, have grown taller and stronger.

"Huuuu…" Kotone then notices that Yoshiko seems done with her morning exercise and is about to enter her house.

"Yoshiko-chan…" She then joins Yoshiko at Yoshiko's doorstep.

"Here you go." She pulls out a small corked glass bottle containing a diluted version of Red's special milkshake from her storage ring, and hands it to Yoshiko.

"Hm? What's this?" Yoshiko asks as she studies the beautifully crafted bottle.

"Protein milkshake. Helps with the hunger." Kotone introduces the substance.

"What? How'd you know?" Yoshiko is surprised. She indeed in the past two weeks, found her usual intake of food inadequate.

"Because I've been there. The dieting, controlling your food intake? You no longer need it. The sudden increase in physical activity makes your body demand more food instead." Kotone explains.

"I see. Thank you then." Yoshiko nods before proceeding to uncork the bottle and chugging its contents.

"Uhuh. It's better to be fit and healthy than staying skinny and starving all the time." Kotone advices.

"*gulp* Of course." Yoshiko accepts the advice as she steals a glance at Kotone's figure hidden under kimono.

"Ahh… That was… heavy, but delicious." She is done drinking the milkshake, and just notices the delicious aftertaste.

"I'll take the bottle." Kotone asks for the bottle, satisfied with Yoshiko's reaction.

"No, no. I'll wash it first. Come in." Yoshiko refuses as she leads the way inside her house.

"No. I have a special way of washing it." Kotone says as she follows inside.

"Special way?" Yoshiko's brows rise.

"Yeah." Kotone snatches the bottle before storing it again in her ring.

"Instead. Why don't you show me your arms?" She asks.

"Okay?" Yoshiko is confused but she folds the sleeves of her training kimono nonetheless.

Kotone, under the guise of gently massaging Yoshiko's muscles, sneakily activates her spiritual energy and infuses it to the Spiritual Energy Storage Seal connected to Yoshiko's Resistance Seals.

A minute later, she frowns.

'Just how much do you need?' She complains internally as Yoshiko's Spiritual Energy Storage Seal is still hungrily eating her spiritual energy.

Two weeks ago, Yoshiko completed her training in the basic poses, having achieved one breathing cycles in each of the 16 poses. Her achievement unnerved Fumio and Kotone. After all, Yoshiko only took one and half months to do so; only half the time Fumio and Kotone completed their first breathing cycles. 

After Yoshiko completed her first steps in training, Red was satisfied and immediately carved Resistance Seals on her, without her knowledge.

Kotone also witnessed the entire process of Red applying Yoshiko's Resistance Seals. Red fusing silver threads to Yoshiko's skin, making use of them to draw the seals, was a very memorable scene for her. 

"Where's Kichirou-san by the way? He hasn't been around for three days. He usually shows himself every day or every other day." Yoshiko asks.

"He said he's busy with something." Kotone passes Red's excuse.

Last night, Red tasked her to refill the Spiritual Energy Storage Seal supplying Yoshiko's Resistance seals. From Red, she found out that Yoshiko's resistance seals, just like her advanced ones, also require manual refilling of energy. But Yoshiko, not having access to spiritual energy, therefore not able to refill her own seals, has Red refilling it for her.

Another minute later, "Done… You're good."

Kotone is done refilling Yoshiko's seal, trying her best not to curse at spending three quarters of her elixir sea.

She cannot wait to go back in the gardens to continue cultivating, to refill her elixir sea as soon as possible.

<><><>

Chiba City, Nagano Compound.

Five one thousand-kilogram weights are currently levitating three meters above the ground.

Suddenly, *slam* *slam* *slam* the weights are dropped, causing a shake in the combat room, and cracks on the clay ground.

"One minute. Very good, Kaoru…" An 80 something year-old man, looking two decades younger than his age, and looking immaculate in his brown colored kimono, nods in well-hidden satisfaction at his granddaughter.

"Thank you, grandfather." Kaoru, without much enthusiasm, accepts her grandfather's appreciation.

"…" Nagano Sora, the current Clan Head of the Nagano, despite his calm demeanor, is troubled in his heart looking at the current state of his granddaughter.

The once beautiful Kaoru wrapped herself up in bandages to hide the burn scars throughout her body. Her once lively and cheerful nature has changed to an almost unemotional one.

His only consolation of the incident, though he can only bitterly accept it, is Kaoru's drastic increase in control of her abilities.

"Grandfather, what's wrong?" Kaoru asks.

"Nothing, my dear." Sora shakes his head.

"Kaoru. Are you sure you don't want to undergo reconstructive surgery?" He asks.

"No, grandfather." Kaoru coldly refuses.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

Suddenly, someone starts banging on the metal doors of the combat room.

Sora, with a flick of his will, pulls open the heavy doors with his telepathy.

"What is it?" He asks as some attendant frantically rushes inside.

"Sora-sama! The island! It's being attacked!" The attendant reports.

"What's there to worry? Unless someone is at my level, they won't dare intrude." Sora frowns at his attendant's overreaction.

"I-uhhh… Sora-sama, it was a legitimate distress call. So the head guard must have thought that the threat must be at your level." The attendant reports.

"WHAT?" Sora's ever calm attitude cracks.

He immediately acts and levitates himself to fly.

As he is about to fly off the combat room's doors, "Grandfather. May I come along?" Kaoru asks as she too, flies to follow her grandfather.

"No. It's dangerous." Sora immediately refuses.

"I'll be on the side. I'm strong enough to just watch."

Sora, seeing the fire in Kaoru's eyes, bites the bullet and nods.

"Fine. But promise you'll just watch."

He puts his arm around Kaoru, holding her firmly.

"I promise, grandfather."

<>

Fifteen minutes later, the grandfather and granddaughter pair arrive at the Nagano's demon prison 90 kilometers away from the Nagano Compound.

Sora, who was preparing to fight, is dumbfounded, looking at the scene from above.

The building below now has a huge hole at its center. The twenty or so armed guards on top of the walls are all lying down unconscious. He also notices that the place is quieter than usual, even with the guards down.

"Stay here. If something happens, hide." He orders Kaoru as they descend to the top of the wall.

"Yes, grandfather." Kaoru obeys, and she starts levitating the unconscious guards by their clothes to gather them in one place.

With that, Sora flies to the hole on the roof of the building to take a look at what happened inside.

The facility is Sora's own brain child so he knows all the ins and outs of it, and would immediately notice something unusual. And the silence of the facility is unusual to him.

Usually, the moans, groans, and screaming of the demons in captivity are heard even through the thick walls of doors of their cells.

At the end of the hallway, he sees a boot sticking out. He figures that it is a foot of guard's body. He rushes to attend to the guard, and to his relief, the guard is only unconscious, although ungracefully lying down on the stairs.

After making the guard lie down comfortably, he proceeds to check each and every room of the first sub-level. 

<>

A minute or so later.

Kaoru sees Sora fly out of the building, with five unconscious guards floating behind him.

"How are they?" Sora asks Kaoru he joins her. He is referring to the unconscious guards that Kaoru attended to.

"They're not dead." Kaoru reports.

"Good. So are these ones." Sora says as he puts the five guards he was carrying with his telekinesis, to the guards gathered by Kaoru.

Kaoru meanwhile, cannot help but stare at her grandfather. She has not seen her grandfather wear the expression he is currently wearing on his face. Sora's face looking almost purple also worries her.

"What happened inside, grandfather?" She asks.

"I'll tell you later." Sora sighs.

"I understand." Kaoru suppresses her curiosity.

"Come with me."

The next moment, Sora and Kaoru arrive at the office of the head of the guards and they find the head guard unconscious.

"Hey, wake up." To Sora's relief, he manages to shake the officer awake.

"S-sora-sama!" The head guard frantically gets on his feet and bows to Sora.

"A-and… Kaoru-sama…" He gets startled by the mummy-like Kaoru.

"Drop the formality. What the hell happened here?"  Sora asks.

"I-I…" The head guard takes a few seconds to remember what happened before he went dark.

"I saw in the camera feeds our guards all simultaneously collapsing. Knowing that we were going to be helpless against what was happening, I immediately made a distress call. After that making the call, our surveillance expert over there also collapsed. After that I don't remember anything else." He reports shortly in as much detail.

He then looks at the wall clock and finds that it is not even 20 minutes since he made his distress call.

"Oh, thank goodness. You got here early, Sora-sama." The head guard sighs in relief.

"No. I got here too late." Sora collapses on the closest chair he finds.

"Too late?" "Sir?" Kaoru and Sora ask.

"Yeah. 26 dead demons, with no cores left behind. And 9 missing ones." Sora informs the two.

"WHAT?" The head guard  is stunned.

"Grandfather. What about the demon general?" Kaoru asks, clenching her fists.

"Gone. My guess is, he got away. I'm sorry, Kaoru." Sora reports. 

Kaoru's fingernails dig in her palms.