Clubhouse Beatdown

 The effect was immediate.

Wasn't every day a man turned into a monster in the middle of your clubhouse, after all.

"By the sun goddess—!"

As intangible fur like flowing mist sprouted from his skin and cast him in shifting shadows, the group of yakuza at the table stumbled back, jerking up guns and knives. He didn't give them a chance to fire, bowling straight through.

For just an instant, eyes blew wide enough to reflect twin yellow-green glows and the yuurei flowing with his form like a fur cape, its teeth his teeth, its eyes his own, its ears flicking at a cry behind him.

He chomped him in the shoulder, not breaking skin, and tossed him into the group, taking down half in one go.

"He's an oni— a demon! Shoot him! Shoot him!"

Bit unfair. He ducked, shrinking down to a smaller, less ugly target, a buzz clipping his ear. "Demon" was pushing it a little. With a jerk, he heaved the table up and tossed it into the other half, screams joining the frantic gunfire.

A flicker of movement at the bar caught his eye, and he flipped out his own pistol, shots cracking down the line systematically, faster than thought, sending three down with broken shoulders.

One managed to dive over, twitching just quick enough to avoid him, his pal already slipping out of view. Damn eels.

A pair of impacts tickled his side. He sent a bullet whizzing over Shimizu's head for that, the man scrambling for the stoner corner, his mates—now hiding behind the table—forcing Lachlan to switch focus. His shot sent them ducking for cover.

Unfortunately for them, cover tactics wouldn't work on him.

He launched forward and leapt over the edge. A revolver crunched under his teeth, its owner screaming. Another flew out of a hand as he kicked out, glitters of blood catching the light where claws tore skin.

A knife slashed past his face, nicking his cheek, but his own knives slashed deeper, ripping bloody ribbons across the man's head. Messier than he'd like. He curled his lip and smacked the last with the back of his gun-hand instead, hearing a faint crack under the force of the blow.

The man curled on the ground half under the table, gasping, and he turned to the corner, where Shimizu and the last of them stood, frozen.

He cocked his head. "I thought you'd know an obake when you saw one. My mistake."

The smalltime yakuza leader screamed incoherently in response, firing a wild round of shots.

Lachlan simply vaulted back over the table. If he really wanted, he could bulldoze through the lot, but best not to—injuries might not affect him much now, but he'd pay for being too reckless later.

Of course, he caught a cracking pair of shots from the side, because he'd forgotten about the two behind the bar, hadn't he? Shite. He ducked down as a bullet grazed his shoulder, snapping one back, a bottle exploding and drawing muffled yells.

Wouldn't keep them down for long though, and that'd been his last shot. No time to reload.

Gritting his teeth, he took out the jar of glimmer and smashed it on the ground, pressing his hand into the glowing puddle. Time to find a use for this stuff.

It burned, sizzling and spitting against the ghostly surface of a not-quite-human hand, and he snarled under his breath, throwing up a glowing shield as the gunfire renewed. Slapping it again, he sliced out with a sharp wave faster than any bullet, a pair of screams greeting him.

Two down.... Turning his cracked shield on Shimizu's little holdout, he took one last sizzling handprint. And only four to go. 

He leapt across the room.

The went down easily. The one next to Shimizu took a glowing arrow to the face that shattered on impact, sending him to the floor.

And that just left one.

He prowled forward, never taking his eyes off the man's ashen face. Hand shaking like a leaf, Shimizu snapped his empty revolver up, the weapon clicking twice before he seemed to register the obvious and whipped out a knife instead.

Casually, Lachlan swiped it out of his shaky grip and took another step forward—

A screaming yakuza leapt at him from the side, slashing wildly at his head with a knife.

Suicidal maniac— Gritting his teeth, he caught the wrist wielding the knife, fighting off the urge to sink his teeth straight in the man's neck. He snarled instead, throwing him back into the wall with an ugly crunch.

He snapped back on Shimizu and threw the last of his glimmer in a blunt projectile, knocking the revolver he was desperately trying to reload away. "That's enough."

Flexing his hand to ease out the ghostly sizzle fading off his skin,  he cut off the cursing by slamming him into the floor.

He leaned in, both the man's hands clenching around his arm in a futile attempt to lift the pressure off the base of his throat. "Anything to say for yourself, Shimi?"

"You're— a foreign— g-ghk— demon."

"Not the answer I'm looking for." He pressed harder, Shimizu squirming and spitting curses at him. "Let's start with 'no, I won't ever be an idiot and bother Hironaga or his family again, I'm so sorry, Lachlan-san'."

"What— do you want from— from me?" Shimizu hissed.

"I'm sure you heard me, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." He eased off just slightly in case he'd gone deaf and not stupid. "I want you to leave Hironaga-san, his family, and all his possessions alone. You or your people touch them, or anything they own, and I'll burn this place to the ground like you lit up his boatshed."

Shimizu made a choking noise, his eyes glaring death threats.

"Oh, and if you think you can sneak by me—say, if I'm out of town—or hide...." He let the tips of his claws prick through the man's skin, before finally letting him go, standing up. "Then next time it'll be my teeth around your throat instead of my hand. Understand?"

Shimizu scrambled up and back against the couch, holding his bleeding throat, his own teeth bared in a shaky sneer. "Go— go to hell, gaijin."

He responded by casually taking his pistol out of his belt, replacing the magazine, and aiming between the yakuza's eyes, letting sharp canines show in a smile. "Don't make me want to shoot you worse than I already do. If you step out of line, I will hunt you down."

"Why defend the old man anyway? His life is worthless."

"I'm not asking for your opinion, I'm asking if you understand." He narrowed his eyes. "Do we, or do we not have a deal? Are you really going to make me kill you?"

The insufferable bastard's dark eyes flicked between his face and the gun, face ash-grey and twitching like he wished he could grow a nice set of fangs himself. "You are a fool—"

"Last chance." The hammer clicked back.

"Fine— fine! I'll leave the old man alone, you bastard pig!" His voice cracking a couple octaves rather spoiled the insult.

Lachlan let the barrel drop back to his side, holding his gaze. "You will. Because you know I'll be back if you don't."

He left, slipping out the back door.

Leaning back against a wall in the shadows of the narrow backstreet, he thumbed the decocker of his pistol, and sighed. Could feel his yuurei still thrumming in his veins. It'd have to stay there for now since he didn't have the glimmer to bolster his strength if he dismissed it. Without his spirit keeping his body from realising it'd just been through a war, he'd probably collapse from the shock of instantly healing about five fatal shots.

A soft sound caught his ear, and he turned to see an old lady shuffling obliviously down the dark alleyway. And he wasn't using his full senses, but she looked an awful lot like Yuka. What's the old lady doing this time of night...?

Slowly, he straightened, squinting at her, an odd prickle chasing across his hackles. She'd always seemed a little strange, but he'd never poked at the feeling too deeply....

"Oni-kun." She made straight for him, her gap-toothed smile greeting him. "There was so much noise around here earlier— it sounded like the oni were invading! I hope you weren't hurt."

"What a nice old lady act. Bit different from the creepy crone I usually see you wearing." He raised an eyebrow, daring to draw a bit more on his senses and the air he was picking up from her.

"Ah, of course, you're still wearing your wolf like a coat, aren't you, young man?" She grinned, smoothly changing form into a... very curvy, mostly clothed kitsune with multiple tails. "Strips a lady's disguise right off. How shameful. Though I'm surprised you didn't guess earlier."

He did try not to stare. Her smirk told him he failed. "Well, there are plenty of old ladies out there who aren't secretly pretty kitsune in disguise."

The fox lady laughed, leaning forward to tap him on the nose, and... was she taller, or had he shrunk? "And none of them who can give you the desires of your heart. How would you, my dear, like to join the Shadow Corps?"

What? That wasn't usually where "desires of the heart" led. "The... magic underground police?"

"No, no no." She grinned slyly. "Former underground police. We have ties to the military now, you know. You have heard of the mighty Samurai masters, haven't you?"

"The fictional robot-pilots in manga?" He quirked an eyebrow. Aiko liked those comics.

She laughed again. Something must be hilarious. "Not quite. Think of them as masters of magic fighting the oni who crawl out of the sea."

Wasn't that far off from the manga already. As if this wasn't bizarre enough: an old lady turning out to be a kami and... recruiting him into the army. Flirtatiously. "Do they happen to be assigned to Kaijan?" He asked in case he hadn't collapsed and fallen into a coma.

Her eyebrows rose delicately, keen amber eyes looking right through him. "Well, I suppose you don't know much about the Samurai program, do you? You're aware that Kaijan has the highest number of oni and onikaiju invasions in the world, at least?"

"Most people do." He tilted his head. "Is that a yes?"

"It is. Our best and bravest go there. You could be one of them." Her eyebrows rose. "Unless you're not interested."

Well, wasn't getting anywhere with Major Toad. "You're offering me free passage in, no questions, no chance of anyone looking sideways at an obake gaijin and tossing me out on sight?"

"Of course. You don't trust a kami to keep her word?"

"Could be wary of making deals with spirits."

"Apart from the fact you already have?" She encompassed him with a gesture, smiling slightly.

"Well... that one wasn't exactly a mutual agreement." To put it lightly.

"Oh. I see." She blinked, her ears angling back slightly. Maybe she did, then, if he could ascribe feelings like that to a being thousands of years old.

"In any case." He considered the stars. "It's a tempting offer."

"Then...?"

He shrugged. If it stuck in the morning, then he'd finally have his opening. If it didn't, it wouldn't matter. "Well, why the hell not?"