Chapter 357: A Good Woman.
"Alucard!"
"Hmm?" Victor looked at Haruna.
Seeing the woman's expression, Victor's heart began to beat faster. She had a rather frightening expression, but he didn't feel fear, but something else.
"Don't mess around! This is not your fight!"
"I know, because of that, I didn't kill the flying snakes, I just sent them flying."
"…really?"
"Yes, I don't get involved in other people's fights." He spoke in a convincing tone.
But of course no one believed him, just two people.
Haruna and Ophis.
"So it's good then." Haruna turned to face Genji.
Is it really all good!?
Haruna then proceeded to ignore Victor. She looked around, and seeing the state of her army, her eyes narrowed slightly, and she decided to get this over with as soon as possible.
"Kuroka, it's time." She took a step backward and retreated to her army.
"Nyahahahaha~, I was waiting for this-Nya!" Kuroka kicked a Yōkai like a delinquent, and said with a big smile:
"Get up, and get ready, things are going to get serious-nya!"
"Y-Yes!" The Yōkai quickly stood up.
"Everyone, back off!" Understanding what was going to happen, everyone quickly started to retreat away.
"What's going on?" Gin asked his father, Genji.
"...I don't know, but whatever it is, we can't let it happen." Genji replied.
Gin nodded, and started ordering the Yōkai to attack.
"Line of defense get ready-nya!" Kuroka screamed.
"..." Victor looked at Kuroka who was ordering her subordinates around.
'Nya this, nya that, nya everywhere... How can people concentrate with her talking so cutely?
"The battlefield has changed, what is happening?" Jeanne tried to analyze it but couldn't find any coherent reason for Haruna to back off now. It's not like she was hurt.
"Do you know something?" Anna asked the two Oni.
"Hmm, it's hard to say. The arts we use are quite versatile, she could have prepared anything with her Yōuki."
"Yōuki?" Victor asked curiously. He'd heard this from the Yōkai he'd tortured, but none of them gave a satisfactory answer. They just looked at Victor confused, and answered.
Yōuki is Yōuki.
He couldn't feel this 'Youki', but he knew the woman was wielding something because he could see a kind of black energy circling around her.
"Yōuki is a negative energy that us Yōkai use. It's part of nature and has always been around, and us Yōkai can use it naturally." Shuten Douji replied.
"Is it something like chakra and stuff from fiction?"
"... Well, the essence is the same, but it's a little different, after all, we use negative energy, and chakra is a more neutral energy."
"I see..." Victor thought about a few things, and from what he learned, Yōkai were essentially 'Yin' based beings.
They were beings very similar to Vampires in that regard.
If Yōkai were Yin based beings, the Onmyo Mages were Yang based.
They were the opposite of Yōkai, but since the massacre Scathach caused, the Onmyo Mages have been reduced to a single woman.
Mizuki.
In the past, Victor tried to learn Onmyo magic, but he just couldn't understand what this 'energy' Mizuki was talking about.
He also couldn't react to that energy. For that reason, he just trained Kenjutsu with Mizuki, after all, she was a master of the Odachi.
A weapon very similar to the greatsword that Victor used.
'Wait...' Victor just realized something.
"Can this energy be learned by Vampires?"
"...." Shuten was silent.
"Yes you can. The Noble Vampires of Japan can use that energy." The one who answered was Ibaraki.
"...What...?"
"...?" Ibaraki looked at Victor, and when he saw the big smile on Victor's face, he realized the shit he'd just done.
He knew that smile very well, it was the smile of someone who found a very interesting toy.
"Well, fuck." He made a prayer sign: "RIP Japanese vampires, it was a pleasure meeting you."
"Idiot! This is why I tell you to keep your mouth shut!" Shuten hit Ibaraki on the head.
"...well..."
[KAGUYA!]
[YY-Yes?] Kaguya was startled by Victor's sudden scream in her head.
[Don't kill the Noble Vampires! Bring them all to me, you hear!? I want all these motherfuckers alive!]
[Yes, Master!]
[Good, I'm waiting for your good news.]
Victor could barely contain his excitement upon discovering that he was going to learn something new. He looked like a gamer who was hyped for the release of a game that he had been following since the beginning.
"Is this similar to what you use Anna?" Victor asked without turning around.
"Demons use a type of demonic magic. We use the negative energy that is produced in Hell."
"In terms of energy, our negative energy is purer, and more evil. In other words, we are superior."
"But because that energy is so strong, our versatility is low."
"And that's where Yōkai shine." The one who spoke this time was Ibaraki.
"We can use Yōuki for many purposes, and as time passed, special Yōuki began to appear, and the owners of these Yōuki formed Clans… This woman is a good example." Ibaraki stopped talking and looked at Genji:
"That man is even more special."
"... That I can see." Victor laughed as he stroked the head of Ophis who was looking at Haruna with a penetrating gaze.
"...Can Vampires use demonic energy?" He asked nonchalantly as if he wasn't really curious.
"I don't know, I've never heard of a Vampire using this energy. After all, it's a very evil energy."
"... When you use this energy, do you feel a pain in your body?" Jeanne's eyes fluttered slightly when she heard Victor's question, she knew where he was leading this conversation.
"Hmm? No, not at all."
"...Then, don't we have an example of a Vampire using demonic energy right before our eyes?" He smiled kindly at Anna.
"…Eh?" Anna was speechless at what she heard from Victor. She was about to protest what Victor said, but fell silent when she actually thought about it.
Technically speaking, she was a Vampire now, but she could use her old power easily. Of course, it wasn't at the level she used to use when she was a full Demon, but she could still use it.
"That's true..."
"I will go to Hell in the future." Victor decided immediately, he could barely contain his excitement to learn new things!
'If I learn these two energies, maybe I won't have to wait so long for my power bottleneck to increase!' Victor felt quite euphoric.
"...." Jeanne was silent.
"You're the first person I've seen who really wants to go to Hell."
"Is he right in the head?" Nero asked Jeanne.
"Who knows?" Jeanne replied.
"Just saying, you can't go to Hell the way you are." Anna said.
"..." Now that she talked about it, Victor remembered his conversation with Adonis, and suddenly his expression darkened.
'Fuck! Fuck the idiot who made that stupid rule!' Victor was unknowingly cursing the very God who made this system.
'Damit, I'll just settle for the Japanese Vampires then…. For now…'
"Hmm?" Victor came out of his thoughts as he felt a change in the air, and looked at Haruna who had started to do something.
Haruna's tails began to flutter in the wind, a dark power began to cover her tails, and as if it were black threads, this power began to spread to all of Haruna's subordinates.
The injured subordinates began to heal, and the subordinates who were between life and death were completely healed.
Haruna jumped towards the moon, and while in the sky, she began to sing in a soft voice in ancient Japanese:
"Moonlight will bring my enemies to their knees."
Haruna's eyes shone with a blueish-white hue, it was as if the moon itself was in her eyes.
And in the next second.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The dark power exploded from her body and soared to the heavens.
"Ugh, what a massive amount of Yōuki." Ibaraki complained lightly. He could feel the sensation of tiny needles going through his body just being in the presence of this Yōuki.
A few seconds later, Haruna's Yōuki begans to flow through the threads of darkness that were connected to her tail.
And soon a sight that sent Genji reeling in shock manifested before everyones eyes:
"This woman… Did she really manage to master this technique?" All of Haruna's subordinates began to be covered by a sort of extra layer, like a cloak.
"What is this, Father?"
"The nine-tailed fox is essentially a Yōkai that has a lot of Yōuki, and that Yōuki increases with each tail the fox acquires over its long life."
"With this principle in mind, a friend of mine created a technique."
"And this technique was based on taking your massive quantity of Yōuki and dividing it among your forces. By doing that, when your subordinates went to fight, their chances of dying would decrease significantly."
"...This is a surprisingly gentle technique."
"Yes, but… It is very difficult to master. You need to have extremely precise control of your Yōuki, and any pain felt by the subordinates you are supporting with this technique active would be felt by you as well."
"Which means, if a Yōkai has his neck cut, Haruna will feel it too."
"…This is indeed a very gentle technique."
"...." Victor narrowed his eyes when he heard what the two men were talking about, he looked at Haruna, and thought:
'Why...? Why use this technique?... Are you afraid of losing your subordinates?' Victor could relate to that feeling, just imagining losing his Maids would drive him crazy.
This was also one of the reasons he always fought alone. When fighting alone, only he would be at risk, not his subordinates or his Wives.
"..." Haruna looked at Victor for a few seconds, and showed a small smile.
'I see...' Victor closed his eyes and smiled the same way she did. He understood that his deduction was correct.
'She is indeed a good woman.' Victor's respect for the woman only grew with each thing he learned about her.
"Nyahahahaha~, I can feel the power!" Kuroka's hair began to float as if defying gravity, and soon she spoke:
"Yōkai! Finish this ASAP! Remember, our leader is counting on us!"
"OHHHHHHH!"
....