The strength she remembered

The mountain didn't welcome them. That was the first thing Yukari noticed as they crossed the old boundary marker, half buried by moss and dirt. The air felt too thick, even the wind felt wrong, like it wanted to claw at her skin. Hayato stops a few paces in front of her. "You feel it too," he says. Yukari nods, eyes scanning the tree line. The forest was too quiet, no chirping birds, no sounds of insects, no rustling of small animals trying to escape danger. Like everything living had already learned to stay away from this place. "Oni, territory," she murmurs. "Old." "Very," Hayato agrees. "This one's been here longer than my order." She glances at him. "Then why are we here?" He hesitates before answering. "Because it started moving." She turns toward him, her interest peaked. "Oni don't move unless they're forced to." "Yes," he says grimly. She feels it then, the tug. Her tails move behind her uneasily. Advanced abilities. Speed, agility, raw strength. "It has my tail." Hayato's jaw tightens. "I know." 

They continue silently, boots crunching over old pine needles and gravel. As they move higher the forest thins. Trees give way to jagged stone patches and blackened scorched earth. Yukari slows and Hayato notices. He always does now. "What is it?" He asks. Her fingers flex uncomfortably. "Do you know what oni do with power they don't understand?" "They hoard it," Hayato replies. "Until it either breaks them, or everything around them." She nods. "And they don't refine or temper it. They just endure." Her gaze drifts to him, her lips pursed. "That tail won't make it smart, just relentless." He takes the information in. 

They reach the plateau carved into the mountain side. A natural arena of stone and dead earth. At the centre stands a massive structure. A shrine turned into a fortress, build from blackened rock and reinforced by iron bands warped by heat. Something had struck it.  Hayato stops short. "This place was sealed." Yukari tilts her head. "Was." The seals lay shattered across the ground, their sigils burned away as if scrubbed clean by brute force. Hayato swallows. "We should..." The roar cuts him off. It rolls through the plateau like thunder dragged across stone, vibrating in Yukari's bones, rattling her teeth. Dust cascades from the shrine walls as something massive shifts within. Yukari feels it then.

Her tail lashes behind her. Hayato notices. "You're… different," he says quietly. She doesn't look at him. "I remember this feeling." "Power?" She shakes her head slowly. "Responsibility." The shrine doors explode outward. Stone shatters. Iron screams as it tears loose. Heat blasts across the plateau as a massive shape emerges. Towering, horned, skin etched with old scars and fresh burns. The oni's eyes glows a dull, furious red, its breath steaming as it rolls its shoulders, cracking bone and stone alike. Around its neck, a charm, the tail is bound into it, its presence radiating outward in waves that distorts the air itself. The oni grins. "So," it rumbles. "The fox comes crawling." Yukari steps forward before Hayato can stop her. "You're wearing something that doesn’t belong to you," she says evenly. The oni laughs, the sound booming and terrible. "It makes me stronger." She meets its gaze without flinching. "It makes you sloppy." Hayato moves to her side, sword already in hand. "We do this together," he says. She glances at him. Something soft flickered between them. "You should stay back," she says. "No." "You could die." "So could you," he shoots back. She studies his face for a long moment, then nods once. "Then don’t slow me down."

The oni roars and charges. Stone fractures beneath its foot, a shockwave rippling outward that hurls debris like shrapnel. Yukari barely has time to brace before the ground bucks violently, throwing her sideways. She hits hard, shoulder screaming as she rolls across the earth, barely avoiding a slab of rock that slams down where her head had been a second before. "Fox," the oni rumbles, voice vibrating through the mountain. "You feel it, don't you?" It lifts one massive arm and catches Hayato mid swing. Hayato's blade rang uselessly against the oni's forearm as fingers closed around his torso. Runes flare desperately along the sword's edge as Hayato drives it down again, sparks bursting where steel meets skin.

The oni laughs, pleased. "Too light." It hurls Hayato. He flies like a discarded doll, slamming through a stone outcrop with a sickening crack. Dust explodes as his body vanishes into rubble. Yukari's heart lurches. She didn’t scream his name, she sprints straight at the oni, tail lashing behind her, every muscle screaming as she closes the distance. The oni turns just as she leaps, massive fist swinging, and she twists mid air. Her body adjusts instinctively, spine flexing, hips rotating with unnatural precision. The punch grazes her instead of crushing her, the force still enough to send her skidding across the ground, but she stays upright. The oni pauses. Its eyes narrow. Its movements sharpened, reflexes tightening, perception stretching. She could feel the weight of her body, the angle of her limbs, the exact moment where force met resistance. She plants her feet as the oni charges, each step shaking the plateau. She waits, counts, then sidesteps at the last moment, driving her elbow into the back of its knee. Bone cracks and the oni staggers.

It snarls and swings blindly, catching her across the ribs. Pain explodes through her side as she is thrown again, breath slammed out of her lungs. She hits hard and rolls to a stop near the shattered shrine. The oni advanced, slower, it's cautious now. It slams its fists into the ground. Stone erupts upward in jagged pillars, boxing Yukari in. She leaps, twisting again, barely clearing one spike as another explodes beneath her feet. She lands on a ledge, balance perfect despite the chaos. It tears a boulder from the ground and throws it. Yukari inhales sharply and moves through the throw. She runs toward it, feet pounding stone, adjusting with every micro-shift in trajectory. The boulder skims past her shoulder, missing by inches. She leaps again, tails whipping for balance, and slams both feet into the oni's chest. The impact forces it backward several steps. The oni stares at her, then it grins.

"Yes," it growls. "This is worth it." It surges forward, faster now, learning. Its strikes adapt, blows no longer wild but calculated. Yukari blocks one, redirects another, ducks under the third one, but the fourth clips her jaw, snapping her head sideways. Stars bursts across her vision. She spits blood and laughs breathlessly. "You're copying me," she taunts. The oni snarls and headbutts her. Her ears ring as she stumbles backward, barely staying on her feet. Before she can recover, the oni grabs her tail. Pain shoots through her spine. It yanks and Yukari cries out as she is slammed into the ground, back first. The impact driving the air from her lungs again. Cracks spiderweb under her body as the oni raises a foot to crush her.

A flare of light explodes into its face. Hayato bursts from the rubble, bloodied and furious, talismans igniting mid air as he hurls them rapidly. They detonate against the oni's head and shoulders, blinding it momentarily. "Get up!" he shouts. Yukari doesn’t waste the opening. She rolls, jumping to her feet, and runs up the oni's body. Stone shatters beneath her steps as she climbs its torso, leaping from shoulder to horn. She twists mid air and drives her heel down into the charm at its neck. The oni roars in agony. Its advanced strength went berserk.

It grabs her mid air and slams her into the ground again and again, each impact blurring her vision. She feels like her bones are shattering in her body. She screams as something in her shoulder tears. Still, she tries not to lose focus. Even broken and bleeding, she adjusts. On the final slam, she twists, lessening the impact, rolling free as the oni roars and stumbles. Hayato closes in with his sword ready. Together they press it. Yukari draws its attention, dodging, weaving and striking weak points while Hayato carves sigils into the ground, sealing patterns forming beneath the oni’s feet. The oni realizes too late. It lunges for Yukari again, and she lets it.

She steps into the strike, grabbing its wrist, using its momentum to pivot and wrench the arm downward. Bone snaps and the oni howls. Hayato slams the final seal into place. Chains of light erupt upward, binding the oni mid roar. Yukari staggers forward, blood dripping from her chin, arm hanging uselessly at her side. She presses her palm to the charm. "Enough," she whispers. Light explodes as the charm unravels, power rushes back into her with a force that nearly drops her to her knees. The oni screams as the strength it had stolen was ripped away, its body collapsing as the seals tighten.

Silence crashes down. Yukari falls to one knee, breathing hard, tails curling protectively around her. Hayato reaches her side instantly, hands hovering, unsure where to touch without hurting her more. “You're insane,” he says hoarsely. "You let it grab you." She looks up at him through the blood. "I knew exactly how hard it would hit." That scares him more than anything else she'd done. He swallows hard. "You trusted yourself." "No," she corrects softly, meeting his eyes. "I trusted what I used to be."

The plateau lays in ruins. Stones cracked, the earth torn open, the air reeks of smoke and blood, some of it not human, some of it very much so. Yukari stands at the centre of it all, chest rising and falling slowly. Her new tail unfurls behind her alongside the others. She feels it settle into her spine, into her bones, reinforcing them, reminding her body of what it once was capable of enduring. Hayato approaches carefully, sword lowered but not sheathed. His haori is torn, blood seeping from a cut along his ribs, but his eyes never leave her. "You didn't give up despite your injuries," he says quietly. She turns toward him. "Neither did you." He lets out a breath that might have been a laugh. "I couldn't." Her brows furrow, sensing something more than just survival behind his words. "Why not?"

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then he finally speaks, "Because when I thought it might kill you… I realized I didn't want to see how that ends." The admission hangs between them, heavy with unspoken words and deeper meanings. Yukari feels something tighten in her chest, not the tug of another tail, but something warmer. Something far more inconvenient. She steps closer. "You should be afraid of me," she says softly. "I am," Hayato admits. "That doesn't change anything." Her tails curl behind her, slow and deliberate. "That's foolish." He meets her gaze steadily. "So is caring about a fox who’s collecting pieces of herself like weapons."

A faint smile touches her lips. "Careful," she murmurs. "That almost sounded like trust." He doesn’t deny it, instead, he reaches out, then stops himself, hand hovering uselessly in the air before dropping back to his side. "We're running out of time," he says instead. "Each tail makes you closer to..." "What I was?" she finishes. He hesitates. "What you could be." She looks away, her gaze drifting toward the mountains beyond the plateau. She knows exactly where her last tail is. "Yes," she says quietly. "We are."