Once the girls had safely left the party and we had tidied up, I finally had the opportunity to sit down Shaeula and ask about the strange way some of the girls were acting, so we went to her room and sat on her bed.
“So, got anything to say?” I asked, and she squirmed uncomfortably, before leaking out a sigh and confessing. “I simply decided to start-start my chirurgery on Keomi and the new female, Maiko. It is exhausting indeed-indeed here on the Material, so I felt I should-should make a start on the tasks ahead while I was-was able. And rejoice!” she smiled, eyes bright. “I have-have, after observing you many-many times, managed to-to replicate the basics of your Ether Healing! This works most-most excellently with my own-own skill. I deserve praise, do I not-not?”
Ignoring the fact she was clearly nervous, I quickly examined her, confirming that she had indeed learned Ether Healing. “Yeah, good job on that. The more skills we have the better.” I gave in and stroked her head, causing her to lean into me, happy. “And I guess it makes sense to prepare, as long as you are managing things properly.”
“It does-does!” Shaeula agreed. “After all, we have many-many tasks remaining.”
“Sure. So… why were the other girls looking so drained and beaten-up?” I asked, and Shaeula flinched. For a moment she stayed buried in my embrace, before looking at me, face flushed, a cheeky grin plastered across her features. Damn, that’s cute, but you won’t escape my questions that easily.
“Well, hmm… I was a little-little careless, and some girls managed to listen in-in to our talk. So I believed it would-would be best to draw them into our clutches. So-so…” she paused, taking a deep breath. “… I performed chirurgery on them-them as well.”
“I see…” I said, and for a moment Shaeula looked at me, hopeful, before I rapped her on the head a few times, not hard, but enough to show my displeasure. “.. is what you were hoping I would say, right? As if! You know we need to be careful, information leaks have put us and my family in danger already. You shouldn’t involve people who have no stake in this!”
“I know-know…” she pouted, rubbing at her head, despite the fact my knuckles clearly didn’t hurt her, as I had no desire to cause her any real pain. “… still, we are tasked with improving these nobles, are we not-not? I thought it would be wise-wise to practice on some normal females beforehand. A good idea, is it not-not?”
Well yeah, there’s no way we can mess up with Tsumura-san and the two Fukumoto’s. Still, there’s quite the flaw in that argument… “Yes, but weren’t Eri and my sis both normal girls? You’ve already practised on them!”
Shaeula stuck out her tongue in a manner she had seen Aiko do to express comical remorse. “That-that is exactly what Kana said. How-how vexing. Still… greater numbers bring us greater benefits, am I wrong?”
I sighed then. I found it really hard to stay mad at people I cared about, especially girls. “No, you aren’t wrong, but… really, I wanted to stick to people from the shrines, and also now the nobility, I guess. Just… consult with me in future, please!”
Shaeula kissed me then, soothing away my last discontent. As we parted, our lips hot, she grinned. “I shall-shall, I promise. But Kana can keep her friends in line-line, I have every faith in her. And you cared enough to offer Hisano advice, so I felt-felt you would not mind her inclusion.”
Seriously? If being even slightly nice to a girl gives Shaeula the impression that I’m interested in her, then I’m going to have a tough time. Resolving to discuss this with her at length later, I noticed something seemed missing from the room.
“Hey where’s the doll Azuki was in? It was just over there wasn’t it?” I pointed to the empty corner. As soon as I did so, I heard a scraping from under the bed, and Azuki crawled out, her wooden joints working slowly. Once she was out she fell against the wall, sitting as she was left before, her eyes still red and full of life.
“I see-see. Were you hiding from the young females?” Shaeula asked, and with a creaking nod, she agreed. Opening and closing her mouth slowly she managed to make some crude words with great effort.
“Yes… hiding. Too many… people.” The voice was whisper quiet, and only with my superior hearing could I pick it up.
“So you can move like Hyacinth said.” I mused. “I wonder how that works.”
Shaeula eyed her, nodding. “The doll has accumulated aether over-over the years. Though it depletes rapidly as Azuki moves.” She talked to her. “You should-should rest.”
“But… the mad… fairy…” Azuki protested weakly, and I knew what she meant.
“Don’t worry about Hyacinth. You just sleep for now. Later, when there’s more ether here for you to absorb, then you can think about moving.”
Hearing my words the doll gave a relieved sigh, her eyelids sliding shut as she slumped down, still and lifeless once more. Just one more strange wonder added to the pile. Still, her ability to ‘bring fortune’ to a house that she mentioned… that intrigues me. Still, until Wednesday, we can’t experiment much.
“All right then. Today has been… interesting.” I said, and Shaeula nodded her agreement. “Now we can take our time and do whatever we need to in the Boundary, since we have no pressing events coming up. It’s been a while, our days have been packed recently.”
With that we entered the Boundary once more…
********
“Damn it, I’m beat.” I stared up at Ulfuric as he held out a mighty hand. Grasping it, I let him pull me to my feet, my exhausted muscles protesting, my many cuts and bruises stinging painfully. “You really worked me over.”
“Indeed, there is little point to training unless you give it your all, consort.” Ulfuric rumbled. “Still, you learn quickly. You managed to avoid several of my feints this time.”
“Yeah…” I muttered, using some aether to heal my wounds, and not for the first time during this sparring session, as when I was unable to continue Ulfuric had bade me fix my injuries before continuing. It definitely did help me learn, both combat skills and aether control, but it was quite the brutal training regimen. Seriously, I never used to like exercise, especially if it got to the painful, exhausting stage. And here I am now taking regular beatings and working myself until I drop. Sure, it’s probably because I have a goal, but I think it’s mostly because I have a way of quantifying my improvements. Seriously, I wonder why everyone doesn’t get a status screen. It’d help people grow a lot…
“… still, I fell for more than I noticed, right? You don’t hold back too.”
“The only way you will learn is if there are consequences for failure.” Ulfuric chastised me for my complaining. “So, how is the balance of the new weapons? Master Bjarki has done well, I feel.”
Yeah, he sure has. The practice weapons I was using were blunted versions of the new main armaments that had been forged. The swords were sharp-edged and somewhat curved like a katana, but heavier and thicker, made from a strong, durable metal alloy that Bjarki had crafted. Still, that wasn’t all, apparently the edges were mixed with some kobold bluesteel, Ixitt helping integrate it, so that the edge could be fortified with elemental essence for additional destructive force. Bjarki called them the twin fangs, which was pretty cool. They did look a bit like curved teeth.
This was matched with a similar spear, though this time the longer wooden shaft was strengthened with metal rivets, and the head had an x-shaped guard. The spearhead itself was also metal and bluesteel alloy. Lastly I had a matching dagger for emergencies.
A shame they haven’t managed to crack firearms yet. Still, it’s only been a few days here. I’m confident they’ll get it done, and so is Ixitt. Speaking of Ixitt, when he heard a new Territory was being established he was eager to see it first-hand, and had begged to go with the taskforce escorting the Jade Beetle kami back to defend the area for the next few days. It wasn’t like there was any reason to refuse him, so…
“Yeah, they feel pretty good. It’s still hard using two swords at once, even though I have the reflexes and can think fast enough I end up getting myself into knots easily.” I put aside the other thoughts and considered the fruits of my many hours of gruelling sparring.
“If learning such skills was easy, there would be no shortage of mighty warriors. Now, enough rest. Come at me again!” Ulfuric ordered, and with a tired sigh I took my stance, ready for another round of beatings…
********
“I now-now have more sympathy for your struggles.” Shaeula panted as she lay down beside me, her head on my lap. As she shifted my bruises ached, but I put on a brave face and continued to give her a lap-pillow. Her damp hair smelt of sweat and her yukata was clinging to her slender body, so at least I had a nice view as I circulated aether to heal my wounds for the fifth time. “It is much easier to simply use elemental wind and flame-flame from a distance.”
Shaeula had also been sparring, though she was against several of the female weaselkin warriors we had inherited from Shaeraggo, and they went easy on her because of her royal pedigree. Even so, Shaeula was unused to such physical labours, and trying to fight with her body and use her dagger proved very draining, even for someone with her statistics.
“It sure is. But Ulfuric is right. You should know how to defend yourself in close-combat.” I stroked her sweaty head gently. “Nobody would suspect you to have any skills, so it could prove the difference between keeping you safe and a bad end in an emergency.”
“I know-know.” Shaeula agreed wearily. “Still… my respect for you only increases.”
We stayed like that for an hour or so, until Shaeula had recovered enough to move. Ulfuric was now patrolling our Territory and dealing with any issues on the borders, bringing us more ether, so it was time for the next leg of our customary practising.
Sitting down amidst the rising ruby flow of earth elemental energy, I began my meditations, drawing in the crimson tide. Shaeula was sat outside the red cascade, still wary of the energy she declared so inimical to her, observing me with her shining mystic eyes, offering advice as she watched me manipulate the flows, trying to balance the three conflicting forces. Seriously, if a third element is such a pain, I dread to think how hard adding water will be…
The energy pooled around my root chakra, the entry-point to my chakra network, so pulling it in was easy, and the red brilliance built up quickly. Still, as it started moving through the rest of my network it quicky met the first obstacle, the yellow glow of fire in my solar plexus. The earth tried to greedily drink in the flame, spinning out of control. This in turn sent a chaotic mixture of ruby and citrine surging towards the emerald of my heart chakra. Red and green clashed violently, pushing each other away, while yellow once more consumed green, swelling in stature. This then continued to flow, and when the jumbled masses of energy struck my lunar chakra, my body became ever more disarrayed, the chaotic flows starting to eat into my subtle body, pain knifing through me, my capillaries starting to burn, pops sounding audibly within my head as lesser nodes overloaded and cracked.
First, I need to calm the fire and air. I can do that, as I’ve already tamed them… bringing calm to the yellow and green tide, I managed to force them back into balance, though the experience was exquisitely agonising. Still, while I was doing this, I was barely able to keep the red flows in check. “Earth… spiritually it represents protection, growth, nature…” I began to mutter. I had asked the White Snake kami and Ulfuric many questions, and had finally managed to gain some enlightenment on the spiritual aspects of the element. Earth was paired with water to create the nature/wood element, and was linked to living things, representing a healthy, strong body. It could also be called the element of protection, as demonstrated by the salt wards and Ulfuric’s armour of stone. In addition, it was also considered tied with the opposite, death, since all that lived eventually returned to the soil. Every element having an opposite. Yin and yang. Life and death… isn’t that like… I grasped desperately for a fleeting insight into another matter, but controlling two difficult tasks at once was proving beyond me, so I wasn’t able to grasp a third.
“Wait, controlling two at once… isn’t that like dual wielding?” I exclaimed out loud. Sharpening my focus, splitting the tasks in two, I allowed my dominant focus to control the earth energy, while the easier task of balancing the others I left to my off-hand, to use a metaphor. “From a scientific, Material point of view, earth is the element of stone and soil. There are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic types, all formed in different ways, with different compositions. Quartz is the most common, and silicon, oxygen, calcium, carbon… many different elements make up earth, but some are more common than others…” I’d been studying relentlessly during any free time I had, determined to master this task. Even as I tried to marry together the spiritual with the scientific, the pain was becoming unbearable, my network suffering. It was then I opened my eyes as something warm grasped my hand.
Shaeula had entered the earth fountain, and while she was looking terribly nervous and uncomfortable, she didn’t seem to be harmed by it. She had taken my hand and was squeezing it reassuringly. As she did so I felt her aether trickle into me, and the pain in my network started to ease, smaller nodes repairing themselves.
“I can-can see it.” Shaeula affirmed, excitement overwhelming her disgust at the ruby motes that were bathing her. “Whatever you are doing, it seems-seems to be bearing fruit. Still… the pain… I sympathise.” Her face twisted, perhaps remembering the agony she endured mastering the flame. “Allow me to aid you. I can-can repair some of the damage to your Astral body, and redirect some of the wayward flows.” Suddenly the boiling earth energy became quiescent, though the backwash of garnet was flowing into Shaeula, causing her great pain as it unbalanced her own body and network.
“I don’t want…” I managed to croak, but she silenced me with a kiss, her tongue intertwining with mine lasciviously. After a moment she pulled free, sighing.
“Enough-enough of that. I shall… stop if the pain… becomes too great. It is a female’s greatest… pleasure to aid-aid her male, is it not-not? Let… me have this…”
“Fine, brave girl.” I chuckled grimly. “In that case…” I need to wrap this up and I need to succeed. I don’t want her courage and suffering to have been for naught. I have a bit of affinity for earth now so… “Soil can be made from decaying organic matter, and shale is a stone likewise formed from organic materials… life and death combined. Stones can contain metals, or gemstones, being as hard as diamond… the very ground we stand on is the earth, crust, mantle, core, each different yet…” as I continued to concentrate, the flow struggled against me, it was calm on the surface, but underneath, crimson energies churned, just waiting to escape my control destructively. No, doing two things at once is too hard for me still… like when I use a blade in either hand, it only takes a moment for me to lose focus and I get tangled up… hands, both hands… I looked Shaeula in the eyes, and my expression must have startled her, as she cocked her head, questioningly.
“Shaeula, you can use fire and wind just fine, right? So can you just use your chirurgery to hold onto mine, keeping it stable? Then I can worry about the earth alone.”
“I can, I believe.” She gasped, still shivering at the discomfort she was subjected to. “If-if… I link our lunar nodes once… more, like we did-did before….”
“Fine. Do it!” I asked, and she nodded, before a surge of wind and flame gushed from her lunar node into mine. I gasped, feeling the pleasure of our joining souls once more, connected on a deep, almost erotic level. Shaeula shuddered, rapture from our merging warring with the pain from the rampant earth element.
No time to be engrossed in the pleasure of this. I have to tame the earth energy! Guiding the flows, I stabilised the root chakra, a sea of ruby and garnet around it like a halo. The sacral chakra followed easily enough, before I reached the usual stumbling block. This time however I was able to guide the energy through the yellow, and then the green seas, Shaeula keeping my energy from escaping my control. After the heart, energy was absorbed greedily by my lunar chakra, sparking another war within my body as the three energies fought each other, but as that was the focal point of our merging, Shaeula was once more able to tame it, and soon red energy was beating in time with the others.
Back round to the throat… then up to the third eye… and finally… the crown. As the circuit was fully completed, I felt a great surge of strength within my body, and with that silver letters blazed into being. I toppled backwards, spent, Shaeula in my arms, and I had no time to read the letters as she was kissing me again fiercely, stealing my breath, our souls and chakras intertwined in the Fae way of love…
********
“I love you, Akio.” Shaeula giggled, held in my arms, watching the play of earth energies overhead. I had managed to roll us out of the fountains while we were entwined, and now we were covered in mud and dirt. Still, I regretted nothing, other than a brief sorrow that I hadn’t done such with Eri yet.
“That was quite magnificent.” Shaeula exclaimed, kissing me greedily again and again, her face, no, her whole body pink, flushed and sweating. “I could feel-feel your everything within me, even the cursed earth.”
“It didn’t hurt you did it?” I asked, concerned. “I guess that might be a worry for Fae, if they try and bond with those of opposing elements?” I never thought about that before, but I wonder how they’d overcome that. I’d… I’d hate it if I got stronger and wasn’t able to satisfy Shaeula any more….
“I can not-not speak for others, but for me…” she paused, thinking, before kissing me one more time. “It was not without discomfort… but pain? No, it did not-not hurt. The feeling was strange, but tangled up within the pleasure of our shared wind and flame, it was far-far from unpleasant.” She licked her lips seductively.
“Lucky. I’m sooo jealous. Nobooody ever considers poor Hyacinth.” At her voice I sat up, nearly throwing Shaeula off me by mistake. As she squealed in protest, I blushed myself, seeing Hyacinth peering at us from where she had snuck up on us.
“Sooo hooot. I wish master would hooold me tight when the mistress is away. That is a brownie’s duty, after all! Tend to the house, guard the children, seduce the master…”
“I think your mask is slipping, boggart.” Shaeula declared, annoyed. “While it is quite-quite normal for males to indulge with their servants, my father and brothers do it frequently, I do not-not trust you enough to be alone with my Akio.” She glared at the intruder, cheeks puffed out threateningly. “You may have sworn Oaths, but you are still-still an Unseelie at heart.”
“I trust her.” I soothed Shaeula, rubbing her head. “I don’t think she is going to harm us, I just get a feeling.” I paused then, realising what it was sounding like, and hurriedly followed up with “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m interested in her! I’m happy enough with you and Eri, I’m not going to be chasing anyone, not like… hey, Shaeraggo does it too? Poor Selensha.”
Shaeula shrugged, mollified by my ministrations. “It is accepted practice, is it not-not, even in the mortal world? I watched many television shows where the master sleeps with his maids.” She paused then, frowning in thought. “Not-not that I would recommend you indulge with my maids. If that is your wish-wish, then go ahead, but… they are rather stupid, I doubt-doubt they could please you.”
Ugh, a whole heap of problems with that. Firstly, they are still humanoid weasels, and I am NOT a furry. Sure, Shaeula is cute in her weasel form, but that doesn’t mean I’d like to… well, to put it bluntly, have sex with it. Secondly, they hate me really badly… and… “Well, no way I’m doing that. It’d make me feel like shit if I found out you were having an affair with the butler, so I’m not going to do anything similar.” Do we even have a butler? Maybe at this mansion…
“I have told you, I have no and will have no-no interest in other males.” Shaeula scoffed. “Still, it is cute you worry about such things.”
“I am being ignooored.” Hyacinth was twisting and clutching herself bashfully, face flushed. “Master and mistress are treating me like furniture. This is a gooood thing too! A servant should be unobtrusive!”
Rolling her eyes at the display of our so-called servant, Shaeula asked me to check the results of our efforts, so I did, trying to blot out Hyacinth’s capering.
You have gained a skill, Root Chakra Of Earth Rank 3. Your Root Chakra will generate earth energy and your ability to absorb and utilise it has increased. [Class: ???]
You have gained a skill, Earth Manipulation Rank 5. Your ability to manipulate and control earth energy has dramatically increased. Your understanding of earth has significantly increased, and you can handle earth with less wastage and greater efficiency, and are more able to adapt to and control unique earths. [Class: ???]
Your Skill, Lunar Chakra of Wind and Flame Rank 2 has become Lunar Chakra of Wind, Flame and Earth Rank 2, strengthening your control and generation over earth energy. [Class: ???]
Seeing the results I couldn’t help but let out a little cheer, hugging Shaeula happily. On seeing my joy she was happy as well. “I see-see you have succeeded! I expected no less from my Akio!”
“I couldn’t have done it without you! Your eyes truly are awesome, and your chirurgery is also busted as hell. I doubt I’m the strongest Astral Emperor-candidate out there, no doubt some lucky bastards got broken-as-hell starting skills, but I can’t be too weak, considering our experiences. Anyway… Rank three for my chakra, Rank five for manipulation, and the lunar chakra has earth as well now. I guess my affinity boost and all that studying really paid off!”
Now I have a third option in battle, and as I keep running out of elemental energy way too quickly, having extra options means I can fight for longer…
As Shaeula congratulated me once more, Hyacinth continued to complain, trying to attract my attention. Somehow she had managed to unbutton a number of the fastenings on her maid outfit and she was exposing quite a bit of flesh. Shaeula quickly leapt up and thwapped her on the head, ordering her to cover up, ignoring Hyacinth’s bitter complaints. I could only look away, sighing. Though not before I caught a glimpse of her assets, which were surprisingly large now she was starting to fill out again. Perky too… shaking my head, I grabbed them both by the hands and headed back towards the main shrine. One minute I’m powering up like it’s battle shounen, the next minute it’s a romantic harem comedy… whichever god chose me… they must have a really sick sense of humour…