My routine had returned to normal, once Lein's camp was crushed.
I'm certain that by now, Aniel's group already crushed the incoming reinforcements as well, and are proceeding deeper into Senilea.
Well, their problems aren't really mine anymore, but the village does wonder what happened to the soldiers that suddenly vanished.
With them gone, I go back to sleeping in my adoptive mother's house, and occasionally being glomped by my sister, when I'm not being attentive.
Playing openly with the other kids has also returned to being a common sight, and I've gone back to regularly strolling through the village.
Well, the village chief at one point asked me what it was that Lein was after in this village, and I figured being honest couldn't hurt at this point.
"It was Princess Aire. She asked for protection, before heading back to find her father," I informed.
Needless to say, he was shocked, but he seemed to understand, and promised not to tell anyone.
As for my pet, I've been coming by to give her food regularly every day, as promised. Each day, I'd slowly increase how much she was allowed to eat, before leaving.
In this way, I have shown her the worst possible hell for her, while also showing her that I could be kind to her if I wish to be.
Actually, it's about time I usually go feed her, but...
"Toya, where are you going?" I was stopped by my sister Yenna.
"I'm going to go feed my new pet?" I answered with a head tilt.
"A pet?"
"Yeah. It attacked me, but I decided to tame it, and now it's my pet."
"Show me!" She demanded, seemingly delighted by the idea of a "pet".
I actually haven't shown Sentra to Yenna. I at first thought to let her become a punching bag, so I held her upside down. However, I decided to go a different route all together.
"Well, in that case, let me pick something up from Ellen's place," I said.
I thought about just going to feed her today, but I suppose it won't be a bad idea to let her stretch her legs a bit, a test her current state.
—And like that, we headed to Ellen's.
Yenna has actually come by Ellen's a few times to have yukata's made for her, ever since meeting with the Princess. It seems that she roped mother into buying her some dresses, and has since switched over to using them. Well, I think she looks lovely in most of the clothes she already has, so I have no problem with her copying me. In fact, I'm sort of delighted.
"Ellen~" I called out, as I took a knock at her door.
I only had to wait a moment before the door was wide open, and I was greeted by a familiar smiling face.
"Toya! Have you come to play with little Linna?" She asked. Linna was her daughter, which I sometimes played with, considering Ellen was the first person whose marriage I "blessed", effectively making Linna's birth in some indirect way my responsibility. Right? I may be pushing it though. Still, cute babies are cute.
"No, I'm sorry. I actually wanted to pick up that dress I asked of you," I said with a smile.
"Oh, alright," She said with a bit of disappointment, as she headed inside, and quickly brought back a folded black dress. It wasn't made out of anything expensive, though the dyes used to make it were probably a bit much.
"Thank you. I'll come by for Linna later," I cheerfully said, as I handed the dress over to Yenna to carry.
She gracefully accepted the luggage, and the two of us got going.
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For most of the journey, Yenna kept her mouth shut, showing quite a lot of patience, unusual for someone her age. However, after an hour of walking through the woods, and hiking over hills, it seemed Yenna's patience had reached a limit, and she couldn't help but ask.
"Why so far?"
"Because I didn't want people to find it," I said.
"Who's this dress for?" She could clearly tell it was too large for her or me.
"My pet," I said simply.
"... Is your pet a person?" She asked with a frown.
"Something like that," I said with a short laugh. "They tried to attack me, so they can find the princess and kill her, so I beat her up, and made her into my pet," I explained.
"Doesn't that mean she's like a prisoner? Or a slave?" She asked, tilting her head.
"But I like pet better," I said. She didn't retort that, but she didn't seem as excited as before anymore. I guess she doesn't like my semantics game.
Well, that's fine.
"Hey, I'm gonna go kill that boar over there. I forgot to bring food this time," I said, as I pointed over at a wild boar that had yet to notice our presence.
I merely stopped time, and without the small pig even realizing I existed, I stabbed through its eye, and into its brain, while simultaneously slashing at its throat.
It wasn't very large or anything, but it could probably feed a small family for a few days.
"Think you can carry this?" I called out to Yenna as I returned to normal time.
Running over to me, she nodded as she looked down at the dead boar, and handed me the dress.
If she was much older, holding a boar like that probably wouldn't be so weird. But...
Well, to put things simply, I've asked Uncle Jenn to train her. I did try teaching her how to fight a bit, but I wasn't of much help. So I asked Jenn, an experienced soldier about it.
It seems he was amazed by how easily she wielded her life force, and decided to teach her himself.
I asked that he keep it secret of course, but he said that Yenna is some sort of genius. It would honestly be best if she were to join the military, and marry into a military family, but I told him my intention to keep her. He did seem troubled for a bit, saying it would probably stifle her growth, but I let him know that I'll let her gain some real experience.
Still, that was just a week ago, so she hasn't had much time to train. Jenn gave her pointers on how to "control" her Ki, but it seems to be completely natural to her.
That said, despite being a genius she has trouble using weapons. She can't extend her spirit into them, and they often just end up breaking in her hands. So Jenn plans to teach her exclusively to fight with her bare hands, if it turns out she has no ability to use weapons.
She's effectively going to become a brawler, and with that she'll become several times more scary.
What I find amazing though, is that Jenn can fight her pretty well.
It made me wonder if Jenn could take on Aniel if he was serious.
Putting those thoughts aside, we continued onward, until we reached the mountain, and hiked up to the cave.
Once we reached the cave, I decided to set down a piece of cloth, and then set the folded yukata on top of it, as well as a towel.
"Can you prepare the boar outside," I told Yenna, who nodded. It's convenient having her around, seeing as I didn't want to bother with cooking right now.
Sentra could already hear me, as she perked her head up, with excited ears, and some of her long flowing tails also showed excitement.
Of course, because it was time to eat, right? Could she smell the boar, I wonder?
As I opened her cage, I went ahead and let her out, lightly tugging on her hair so that she'd crawl out on her own accord. I no longer had her ears stuffed, or the bag over her head, so she could easily smell and hear now. On top of that, just the other day, I decided to stop gagging her.
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"A-are we going somewhere?" the timid girl asked. Of course, I've never really gotten her out of her cage until now.
"You're going to wash yourself," I said, as I went about unbinding her legs and arms. As I expected, she was much too docile at this point to escape. The absolute loneliness was probably the biggest factor, but giving her some good food to eat after, probably helps. She already understands there is no use trying to escape now.
However, once her legs were free she merely stumbled over, as if she didn't know how to use them. Of course, for the last week or so, she had been crawling on her knees alone, and she also spent "over two months" immobile, so it's possible she has almost forgotten what it's like to move her muscles.
I also ended up removing the cloth that held her fingers together, and from being able to move.
All of this seemed to surprise Sentra, as she began to touch her nude form for the first time in a long time. She had an amazed expression on, as she touched up her legs, and even touched her fingers.
However I noticed that she seemed very clumsy with her movements, and wasn't quite coordinated. Well, I guess two months of sense deprivation is bound to cause some damage to her psyche. Will she need to relearn to fight..?
—"My... fingers are fine?" She asked, amazed. Ah, come to think of it, she probably didn't know I healed her, huh?
However, as she moved her legs a bit, while sitting there on the floor, it also looked like she was massaging them after they had fallen asleep for so longer.
"Here's a rag, and a bucket of water," I said, setting the bucket down beside her, and giving her a couple sets of rags. "I'm going to go prepare some food," I said to her.
She nodded excitedly, as she seemed happy by the new-found freedom of her limbs. Of course, Yenna was preparing the food; I was merely watching Sentra clean herself down, and Yenna outside prepare the boar. It seems she brought back some firewood, and started a fire just outside the cave.
Thinking about it, I basically had Yenna cook without even basic tools. Well, I have a couple knives on me, so I end up lending one to Yenna. It's not much, but it's something. Should make her job easier.
Still, Yenna's not that experienced with this, so I have to wonder if I'm pushing her, and I want to ask, but she has quite the determined expression. I'm actually scared I might insult her if I ask if this is fine for her.
Well, I guess building up her experiences like this is fine.
As I look over at Sentra, it seems she had washed down most of her body with quite a bit of effort, and as she began washing her face, her blind-fold ended up coming off.
I forgot to remove that, huh?
I didn't think much more than that, however she seemed to gasp in shock.
As her eyes were suddenly filled with dim light, she squinted in surprise, as she looked about.
"W-what? My.. my eyes?" She couldn't believe it.
"I had them healed," I said, as she looked at me for the first time.
Aniel didn't quite perfect his healing magic. It worked on most types of cells—especially those that already regenerate well enough—and he could at least restore the structure of most tissue. However, that was enough for the level of damage done to her eyes. I did end up cutting into them a bit with my nails, but it's not like I damaged her retina much, and it's possibly she would have recovered on her own anyways. Though, I don't know how long that would have taken.
A family member in my past life once had a piece of metal shot into his eyes, and he was able to see quite well after a bit of treatment, and a few weeks of recovery. It wasn't too much of a shock that scratching her eyes could be healed.
"I... can see..." She said, looking at her hands. Her voice seemed to crack as she sent me a questioning look, "Why would you?" She couldn't believe that I would go out of my way to heal her like this. Of course, she probably also didn't realize the potential that she may have healed on her own regardless. Though, I guess that's not guaranteed without medical treatment, huh?
"I said it before, didn't I? You're my pet from now on," I said.
When I gouged her eyes, it was purely to keep her from using her light bolts, or reading my mind.
To be honest, I knew Aniel had a variety of magic, and even observed him using healing magic on abrasions and minor wounds, but I had no reason to assume he had magic with such powerful restorative abilities. I ascertained that he could heal something like scratches and such, so I thought fixing her mangled fingers would be possible. Her eyes were just a possibility. Of course, there is the problem with conservation of mass, so trying to restore a limb would either need the limb to be reattached, or somehow a way to convert matter into flesh. At least according to Aniel.
I can't imagine how the magic works, but I'm amazed Aniel could create something like that. Couldn't Aniel basically be some kind of great healer?
Well, it's better not to dwell.
Before I knew it, Sentra was crying. Well, I could back off, and let her cry her eyes out, but I decided to sit beside her, and scratch behind her ears.
What's that?
Aren't I bothered sitting so closely to a naked woman?
What do you think I am? Some 12 year-old sleazy teenager who can't control his impulses?
Oh wait...
I'm an 11 year-old sleazy teenager, in this life, huh? Well, I can still control my impulses. Most of them, anyways.
Putting that aside, she eventually calmed down, though I wasn't quite sure what she was crying for to begin with. As she turned her eyes towards me, I saw neither hate nor fear. Instead, it was uncertainty.
As I gave a bright smile, I pulled myself up, and walked over to where I placed her knew clothes.
"Then, Sentra the Fox Spirit, pledge yourself to me, and I will ensure you are never alone again," I said, as I passed her the dress.
She easily caught it, as she looked down at the folded yukata, before looking back up at me.
"Do you agree to my terms?"
As she brought the dress close to her chest, she nodded her head with a soft "Yes."
Of course she said yes. She had little other choice, all things considered. I had grasped at her weakness, and shown my power over her.
Her response was expected.
However, what was most unexpected about that, was the phenomena which took place immediately following her submission.
As I felt a strange tingling crawl down my spine, and up my tail, I shot a look at my lone tail, and...
... It split in two.
Immediately following that, I was hit by a truck called Yenna.
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Author Notes:
Look look! Another tail!
Anyways, as of about a week ago, I stopped writing chapters for the story, and we've now caught up to everything I wrote. I'll probably spend a few days getting my motivation back to write a few more chapters, and decide where to take the story from here. I'm pretty open in this regard, so if anyone has ideas, fire away!
As always, Feedback and Suggestions are appreciated and encouraged.
If you like this story, or maybe hate it with a passion, please read a review and give me attention.