Renya waited until Danberu was far inside the bakeneko herd. Danberu made a good showing lighting cats on fire under the evening sun. It was good that Danberu went so far ahead. Renya was contemplating throwing him deeper into the herd of cats herself if he didn't go far enough. The tanuki delayed her this morning, and for that, she resolved they had to die.

This morning Renya looked down upon the tanuki prancing around Avar's cage and partying and told Fubuki.

"I'll kill them all. Lazy furry bastards."

Fubuki didn't take her seriously. Renya viewed it as more of an oath. Renya had reservations about slaying Danberu, who at least listened to her orders. Danberu looked like he could be bullied into usefulness. Renya saw him as useful for his title of Tanuki Lord, if nothing else. If someone had seen the conversation Renya had with Danberu that morning and the evening before it might look like she didn't value him as anything more than a tool. That was still true.

In the center of the fighting she sidled up to the nearest tanuki who was lazily swinging up his iron club. The line of attacking bakeneko were held at bay by Renya's rain of strikes. The tanuki didn't look serious about killing a cat in one blow. He'd hit a cat alright, Renya could see that, just not well enough to even stun it.

That kind of usefulness wasn't needed.

Which was why when she struck out killing one cat in front of her she also cut the tanuki beside her in the leg. She timed her attack so the bakeneko in front of the tanuki would have the chance to kill him. They did. Renya moved onto to her next tanuki. Renya kept the attacking cats at bay in front of her, still cleaving a path of dead cats as she took out each tanuki one by one.

Each tanuki barely noticed over the course of a minute that they were falling in battle. When the tanuki realized that the front line had gone down, they began to lose strength. Some panicked and turned to birds, but for some reason their necks snapped in midair. The tanuki were confused at the sight and thoughts that foul magic was afoot worsened their panic.

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Danberu raged far from the front line cleaving a path of flame with his phoenix tiger form deep into the cat herd. The bakeneko ran from the flame, pressing attacks onto the defending tanuki. Meanwhile Renya began to urge the tanuki to fight seriously with love taps to their bodies, forcing them forward.

If the tanuki had any time to think it through logically they still wouldn't have realized Renya was attacking them. Even if they huddled around a bonfire telling war stories later that night they would only talk about how strange it was that the tanuki who tried to fly away died so fast. They would complain about Renya, mourn the dead, and blame themselves.

They couldn't see Renya's strikes at all. Renya was able to move fast enough that she could attack twice at one time. It was a technique that used her homunculus body to the fullest. She would strike normally, then just as the strike landed her arm would change direction and force and strike again.

It wouldn't be possible for a normal human to pull off the intense amount of control and calculation required to be that exact with the use of her body's power was a trick possible for Renya.

She developed the trick when fighting Myon two years ago. Renya surpassed herself to survive in her first battle, kicking herself into overdrive to learn combat from observing Myon. She used her own family as bait, studying in mind why they fell and how to avoid death. Renya didn't think much of doing that to her family, after all, she assumed that if they were serious about survival they would do what she did. Her accrued experience and contemplation of attack patterns was great enough that by the time Renya faced off against Myon alone, not only was Myon wounded and tired but Renya felt like she could face Myon at full strength.

Renya acted out her spoken oath that morning with efficiency. Within a few minutes Avar and her stood surrounded by bakeneko. The tanuki all fallen, and Renya and Avar fought back to back. Piles of bakeneko corpses collected on the field as Renya broke off from Avar.

If he happened to die she wouldn't mind much either, but for her sake, she hoped her tool, her bakeneko lord, lived.