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Raidou Kuzunoha the XIX

"Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's been an uptick in unrest and- whoops, hang on!" Raidou tossed the cellphone up into the air and grabbed her sword with both hands as she carved through a berserk demon. She caught the phone and brought it back to her ear a moment later. "I've kept them under wraps so far, but if anyone shows up to lead them, it could get nasty." A rapid series of slices, wrapped in the green aura of the Raidou line's techniques, sent another demon into the dirt. "It's been calm for awhile, though, so this might just be an anomaly. Mm-hmm. Yeah." she nodded, despite the impossibility of the person on the other end of the line seeing. It was a Kuzunoha's job to keep the peace... at least Inaba seemed to have finally cooled down. Not much had happened there for a couple of months now, and there were a few people left to watch over it. "Don't worry, I've got it. See you at dinner." She flipped the phone shut, slid it into its holster, and drove her fist into the face of a demon that had been leaping at her. "Come on, kids, I can do this all day." she told the little demon punks. "Settle down and stop bothering people... unless you just want to play with Alice or something?" her mouth twitched in amusement as the demons promptly prostrated themselves. Higher-level demons had too much pride, but the low-level demons that filled the world (and, indeed, were most of what the Yatagarasu dealt with; major incidents were actually quite rare overall) tended to be of the type that weren't going to screw around with demons so far above them. "Didn't think so. All right, you see this map here? I want all of you to go to this area over here. It's a reserve we're making, where you'll be free to be yourselves and- yes?"

"I cAn'T rEaD MaPs!"

Raidou sighed. "Have a friend show you the way." she told the illiterate. Oh, demons... so many types to deal with.

Raidou Kuzunoha the XIX

Click-click. Click. "And... send." Raidou said, her lips twitching slightly. Faster than the Crow flew, information surged into the digital highways, and at her command, a set of instructions had been issued to various bureaucrats and newsfolk. The Yatagarasu had rather heavily infiltrated the Government, providing both points of contact and ways to control information, which was considered to be at least as important as the actual field-work. The Yatagarasu wasn't merely interested in solving spiritual problems; it intended to see to it that, as much as possible, people didn't even know those problems existed.

Come morning, people would find a story a few pages into their daily paper, explaining some (utterly made-up) actions of a terrible, terrible religious cult. An organization that kidnapped children and marked them as sacrifices, performing twisted medical experiments that disrupted the child's body, all in preparation for a heinous human sacrifice on a particular date. It was a tale likely to result in revulsion and disgust among a wide section of the populace... with an evocation of pity for the poor child who'd been rescued by a heroic special forces unit operating under the authority of the Shogunate. It was hilariously patriotic, really, but people tended to respond well to things that put their Government in a good light and some faceless monsters in a bad light. Especially when the Government already enjoyed popular support.

It was fairly normal for the Yatagarasu to play both sides of the game, so that it could end up coming out ahead no matter who won... and direct things to its interest. This particular one was more of a personal one, though. It did have a public relations boost for the Government that they were absolutely going to be permitted to take advantage of, and a few discreet notes had been slipped under doors (as it were) to make sure they knew it. Each aspect of the story had been carefully crafted, of course. All of the tattoos had been done by the cult, and over so much of the girl's body that removing them would be incredibly difficult (and painful)... and besides, she'd just been rescued. The spike was the result of a form of surgery the terrible cultists had performed, and the opinion of medical experts (unnamed, of course, but they could trot one out if need be) was that attempting it remove it was too likely to harm the girl... so in it stayed, at least until technology advanced. Even her eyes had been explained away as the result of a permanent change to her body by drugs that she'd been forcibly given. She was moving to Inaba because... well... so were lots of other people as part of the Government's campaign to revitalize the traumatized little town, and where better to be the new girl than among a bunch of other new people? She'd be able to fit in much better there, the poor girl, and she'd have people her own age, also new, to talk to. Her parents were going to be there, too.

Of course, doing it to remind the Shogunate of the benefits of aligning with the Yatagarasu was only a part of it... there was also the fact that Raidou rather wanted to develop the girl's social skills. There were quite a lot of reasons of that type, actually. The biggest and simplest, though, was simply because she'd wanted to do something nice for the girl... and remind her of her humanity.

She should probably send someone over to drop off the girl's new uniform, though... Hmhmhm.

???

As the unnatural creature formed, it didn't take long for other people to start arriving - which may not have been much of a surprise, given the amount of foresight the Multiverse King had. Nevertheless, the creature that appeared had odd proportions - arms and hands that were too big for its body, horns in unnatural places, and a mouth too big for its face. Its entire body was somewhat airy and translucent, and it slowly sniffed with a too-wide nose.

"I smell you... Filthy betrayer! Die, and fall into Yomi where you belong!" It raised one hand, and a burst of energy flowed across the battlefield to sap the energy of those present.





Siona

As the wave of weakening energy spread across the battlefield, a light flashed on a nearby rooftop and a pale-haired figure with fox ears and a tail nimbly jumped down, landing behind Lukas and Suika. As she did, a white fox mask formed in one of her hand and she pressed it onto her face - where it stuck fast, though it wasn't immediately clear how it had done so. "Well, well, he did find something interesting for us, didn't he?" she mused. "This is an Aoandon - the spirit of a woman who died pursuing an ill-fated relationship. I wonder what it's doing here...? Eh, doesn't matter, I guess. What does matter is that I'm here to back you up. Don't pull your punches - it's tougher than it looks."

Aoandon

Leif's fist sunk into the Aoandon's body, even as the others charged their energies. Still, it was clearly going to take more than one punch to bring this ghostly figure down - and in retaliation, it raised one hand and made a quick gesture. The air above the sudden battlefield fogged up, and seconds later a number of icy spears rained down from the sky... and were pointedly more dangerous to those who'd had their defenses lowered. "Betrayer... they took all they were given, and destroyed it! Never again!"





Siona

Spears of ice crashed down on Siona as well as the others, and she winced as a few struck her - although her mask helped to mitigate a little bit of the damage, and her sacred aura quite a lot more. Between that and her raiment, she'd be able to endure blows for quite awhile.

The celestial fox considered for a moment as she watched the others act, then hopped forward and tossed a small paper talisman towards Lukas. As it neared him, it erupted into a circle of light that briefly surrounded his body, augmenting his power with a divine blessing. "That should help." she said cheerfully. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she was rather pleased with the opportunity to give a blessing to a human. She wasn't a terrible fighter herself, but... as a guardian goddess, her true skills were displayed when she had the chance to aid and support others.