Syon pleaded with Satou in tears while outside Renya fell to the ground. On Renya's head was one black cat ear, one white cat ear, and snaking from below her dress were twin black and white tails.
Renya struggled up, holding one side of her face covering an eye. As she pulled it away her eye shined bright yellow contrasting with her blue eye.
"There's another voice in my head. But, it's just one more voice."
Renya wasn't sure which voice was Miko's and which was hers at first. She figured it out because Miko was the only one trying to push for control. All the rest of her voices in her head were busy discussing matters like the roman senate of old. Renya liked thinking of her mind like that, an ancient oil painting of civility and discourse. To her, it was like someone drew a cat on with crayon.
Already Renya felt her entire mind discussing the potential of using the cat as a medium for casting magic. Already the voices were devising spells and running thought experiments to see if they would work. Renya had little imagination. Renya had a lot of observation.
The human mind automatically sees a model of the world, then they build on that model of the world step by step. Every human had a stack of hasty and haphazard chunks that formed their concept of the world. They couldn't see the world as it was. Yet, Renya's mind could only see the world as it was. She had no imagination of the world. She only had the world. The sole saving grace that gave her the ability to survive Myon's onslaught that night was simple: an internet connection on an old PC she setup herself.
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She did not have the specs of the stronger homunculi, in fact she was weaker. Those homunculi were ran over first. The way Renya survived her first fight against an opponent that destroyed countless stronger than her was by imitation. She imitated what she saw on TV shows and imagined from visual novels. She imagined that she would never get hit, and her mind was able to bring that into reality using her imitation alone.
It would be called talent or skill if a human did it. To Renya, it was magic. Since she already fully understood this, and the nature of her body, and how a bakeneko might fit into the picture, she came up with the solution of attaching the bakeneko to her imagination.
It was already an accomplishment far beyond Renya's Father could have ever dreamed. If he were alive he would have hugged Renya out of sheer joy. A homunculus with the power of magic. Syon's strange idea she got watching Ichi that day in the forest came true through Renya's efforts.
Renya touched her neck lightly. The wound was long gone from where Syon used the Silver Cross on her. The desire for vengeance burned brighter than ever.
Renya had a hero she read about online. In secret forums, they would talk about the Druid Runa and his exploits. When Renya saw Tama earlier, she could only think of the gallant and wild Runa saving a beautiful woman. Half of his motive would be carnal lust to bed yet another romantic conquest, and half would be desire for approval from his mother, an eye-patched wolf who raised him.
So when Renya walked inside and saw Renya fully prostrated with a straight silver sword in front of her, her eyes turned into stars. She couldn't believe what she was looking at. The Druid Runa's Wolf Sword.
Renya mouth trembled as she kneeled down and her fingers shook over the blade. She wiped away silver drool as she saw her indecent face reflected in the clear blade.
In a corner of the fort, Satou adjusted her new golden glove with a look of distaste at the scene in the doorway. Two shameless women, a white clothed long haired tengu bowing it's head into the ground and a slavering homunculus with cat ears.