Chapter 15: Girl, Wails
Chapter 15: Girl, Wails
NICHIKA’S terror flared as two of the sneering men suddenly put their hands on her shoulders. They crowded her in from both sides, hiding her tensed body from any passerby.
“Sure thing, baby. This ain’t the place for it, so let’s go somewhere else.”
“It’s a real turn-on, getting hit on by a cute girl like you.”
“Stupid, don’t be too greedy.”
They forcefully moved her into an alleyway where the illumination from the streetlights didn’t reach, and the sounds of the hustle and bustle of the main road were muffled. They pushed Nichika into the wall, and she sharply inhaled.
She strained a faint smile and focused on getting herself out of the situation in one piece. “Um, I think you’ve got the wrong idea. All I need is for you to give me one kiss, out on the main road.”
“Huh? What are you goin’ on ‘bout, when you’re the one who invited us?”
“You’re not a kid. You know what you’ve gotten into.”
Nichika froze.
“You keep lookout first,” ordered the guy who had her against the wall.
“Sure thing. Gimme a turn later.”
It was too late to undo her actions now—the men looked even more titillated by her turning stark white.
“Oh yeah, baby. That’s the look. Getting cold feet after luring us in?”
“Is this your first time or something?”
“Seriously? Your first?”
“It’s not…” Coming up with an excuse was hard.
Presuming she couldn’t talk them down, she shoved the guy in front of her away and tried to make a dash for the street. But before she could even take a step, he seized both her wrists, wrenched them above her head, and pinned them against the wall.
“No!”
Next, he shoved a hot hand under her skirt. She flinched as he rubbed her thigh. “St-Stop it. Please…” she pleaded, tears stinging her eyes.
“Don’t arouse me more. I won’t be able to contain myself.”
The grinning man caught her cheek in his hand. In his eyes, she could plainly see his lust asking, “How horribly should I ravish you?” His breath against her ear sent panicked shudders of disgust down her spine.
“I’ll take my sweet time enjoying you.”
“…!”
His eyes locked on hers, he slowly leaned in until their lips…almost met.
“What a greedy bitch we have here.”
Everyone looked up with a start when that low voice fell upon them. Against the backdrop of two hovering moons, a man sat on top of the building, eyeing them.
Nichika’s eyes bulged, and she uttered his name, “Oswald!”
Without even the slightest reaction to her voice, Oswald wordlessly tossed something down at them. It exploded midair and flooded the narrow alley with thick, white smoke. A refreshing smell passed through Nichika’s nose.
The men choked. “What…the ‘ell…is this…?! Damn…!”
“W’at did…ya do…?!”
The wicked witch rested his chin on his hands with a bored expression. Swinging his index finger through the air, he explained as if he were a lecturer and the would-be rapists his disobedient students. “What I just chucked down there inhibits intracranial arousal, suppressing male sex functions… In summary, it’s a drug that prevents erections.”
“W’at?!” The men immediately grabbed their nether regions.
Oswald smiled suggestively at them and held up another explosive vial. “The effects of the previous one are temporary, but the drug I’m holding now will make it permanent. Want to give it a go?”
“EEEEEK!”
The men tripped over themselves racing away from the threat of something several times more frightening than a physical fight. Oswald hopped down from the building and snorted in the direction of their mad escape. “Making scum like them impotent would’ve been better for the world at large though.”
“……”
Sliding down the wall to her butt while trembling, Nichika’s eyes met Oswald’s. She cowered under his hard, judging gaze. Fidgeting nervously, she tried to straighten out her disheveled clothing.
“U-Um, I…”
The moonlight shining from above cast a distinct shadow from the man clad in all-black. Eyes colder than any iceberg pierced her. “So? Did those fiends satisfy you?”
“…!” Heat flooded her cheeks the second she processed his words. Throwing the weight of her shame behind her anger, Nichika lashed out to protect her dignity, “Wh-What’s your problem?! Whatever I do is up to me!”
“Is it now? In that case, you would’ve preferred me to leave you as their plaything? I’ve sure picked up a crazy nymphomaniac.”
“Wh-Who in their right mind would say that?!”
Nichika pushed herself off the ground and tried to stand just as Oswald moved in. She shrunk back from the tall shadow closing in on her and fell back down, her back pressed to the wall. He angrily slammed a fist against the wall, right beside her head. She gasped.
“Why did you do something like that without my permission?” he growled, his menacing tone hissing as it crawled its way up from the depths of his gut.
“B-B-Because…” Nichika didn’t trust him enough to confess that she had been anxious and terrified. Unable to continue her sentence, she hung her head as low as it could go and held her silence. “……”
“Lick it.”
“Excuse me?” Doubting her ears, she raised her head. Thrust before her was the back of his hand—blood trickled from a small cut he inflicted with his knife.
“I want nothing to do with another man’s leftovers. This is all you’re going to get from me.”
“What kind of a reason is that?!”
“Don’t need it?” Oswald challenged, pulling his hand back and licking it himself. The way he moved his tongue across the wound was so fascinating—she couldn’t look away.
Needs must when the devil drives. After a period of silence, Nichika trembled as she took his hand. She hesitated for as long as she could then softly ran her tongue along the cut. The taste of blood filled her mouth.
“Mm…ngh…”
A strange sensation raced down Oswald’s spine as he watched—and felt—her lick his hand rigorously with an eager inexperience. His blood and her saliva swirled around the tongue that slid out of her full lips. A viscous strand stretched between his hand and her tongue, dripping onto her thighs, catching the moonlight. She was on her knees, licking him; it was a terrifyingly erotic sight.
In contrast, Nichika was disconcerted by the metallic taste in her mouth. She pulled back, thinking she had obtained enough liquid to survive the day—only for him to wrap his hand around the back of her head.
“Huh?!” she cried out, startled.
Oswald pulled her up toward him, kissing her before she could resist. His tongue penetrated the gap in her lips, muffling her cries.
“Hey—stop, Oswa—” He was about to push her up against the wall, so she thrust him off with all her strength. “I told you to stop it!”
Pin-drop silence fell between them. Nichika felt like the chilling gaze of the man she had rejected was going to freeze her in place, but she wasn’t willing to give in to its intimidation.
“If your blood works, then there’s no need for a kiss! I don’t want Princess Yura’s leftovers, either!”
“Huh?”
Oswald’s thoughts were thrown for a loop. Why’s she bringing up Princess Yura at a time like this?
Nichika stood staunchly at a distance without answering his confusion. A hot lump formed in her throat as she rattled on nonsensically, “I-I’m sure the two of you were making out! It must’ve felt so good for you to forget all about me…”
She was sobbing now. She hadn’t even given him time to deny her accusations. Oswald could only stare at her in dumbfounded shock as she broke down.
“I know I did something incredibly stupid! But I was just so uneasy and scared, I couldn’t stop myself…! I didn’t want to die!”
Nichika was overwhelmed; she didn’t even know what she was feeling at the moment. Inside her, jealousy and fear jumbled messily together, swelling past their limits. The torrent of her wild emotions poured out in tears.
“Y-You c-contracted…with me!” she got out between sobs, “Y-You should…keep your promises…jerk!” Shoving all her anxiety at him left her with little more than cringe-worthy embarrassment.
“Are you a child?” Oswald pulled the head of his apprentice, who was wailing with childish abandon, to his chest.
“Hic…waaah….” she continued to sob.
“Troublemaker…” He sighed over the quivering girl he held against his chest. Gingerly, he placed a hand on her head.
That’s right, he reminded himself. She’s just a bratty kid. She’s a defenseless, optimistic child who came from a peaceful world.
Keeping that in mind, he spoke to her in the gentlest voice he could manage, “Nichika, do I seem like the kind of man who would break a promise I made?”
“…You do.”
“Oi, you’re supposed to deny that.”
She doesn’t even trust me a little? Oswald raised his face to the night sky and stared at the clear blue moon, puzzling over how he could word what he wanted to say in a way that would get through to her. Aah, I’ve really gone and picked up a troublesome one this time. But I can’t leave her to her fate, because—
“Witches protect the promises they make until death. A promise is a contract and a spell for us.”
Though everyone blasted Oswald left and right for being a crooked scam artist, he had, in his own unexpected way, a deeply held principle: he would never go back on something he said he’d do. Such was his self-imposed rule.
His deep, gentle voice slowly eased Nichika’s sobs. However, she still wouldn’t lift her face from his black coat.
“We’re in a contract. I’ll protect you. If you understand that, never do something like this again. Got it?”
For someone who typically lacked tact, he had managed to do a good job of picking the right words this time. She gave a tiny nod, and he sighed with relief. Then, taking the opportunity, he cleared up another big misunderstanding.
“And while we’re at it, I don’t know what weird things you imagined, but Princess Yura and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“You…don’t?” Nichika timidly lifted her head. Her eyes were tinged red, and her tear-stained pupils glistened like obsidian.
“She’s just a business partner. And who knows what that kind of woman would make you do if you spent even a single night with her—”
“I’m so glad.”
She showed him a smile as bright and dazzling as a sunflower on a summer’s day. For some reason, he choked on the rest of his sentence.
“Oswald?”
She’s really an odd woman. Her expressions change with each passing second, and just treating her to a few kind words can make her act like this. Someday, her unguarded feelings will be the end of her. This world revolves around caution; you have to be suspicious of everyone. But—
“Hmph, simple-minded girl,” he said. He grabbed her face and squished it.
“Agh!” Nichika turned bright-red and flailed. “Hey! What’s that for?!”
“Stop while you’re ahead. It’s useless to be jealous of Princess Yura. The difference between the princess and you is that of the moon and soft-shelled turtles—wait, the turtles don’t deserve to be compared to you.”
“Oh, come on!”
Oswald smiled—not his usual cynical grin, but an honest smile. Nichika’s heart raced over seeing him wear that expression for the first time.
So he can smile like a normal person too…
She felt like the gap between them had grown a little smaller, but it was a feeling that was soon ruined when he replaced his innocent smile with his usual wicked grin. He pinched the fabric of his coat, where she had buried her face, and pulled it back and forth to demonstrate the damage.
“You got your snot all over it. What’re you gonna do for me if it doesn’t come off?”
“My nose didn’t run,” she denied.
“So you say.”
“……”
A shadowy figure was watching them from above. Standing on the rooftop, the white-hooded outfit obscured the gender of their stalker—it was questionable if they were even human.
“I don’t believe it. I’ll never accept it!”
He—or perhaps she—gritted their teeth and quickly swung their hand through the open air. Instantly, the breeze swirled into a tornado.
***
MEANWHILE, back at the inn, Wolfie awoke alone and blinked in the empty pitch-black room. Now it wasn’t just Oswald who was gone, but even Nichika, who had been leaning on the banister last he checked. When had she upped and disappeared?
“Nichika? Master?” He trotted over to where he had last seen Nichika. “…Weird. Where’d they go?”
Leaping over the banister, he landed in the alley and proceeded to track them with the nose he took great pride in. Catching wind of their familiar smells right away, he frolicked in their direction.
“Ooh, they’re pretty close by!”
He hopped into a back road interposed between the main streets and jumped for joy when he spotted the backs of the two people he loved most.
“Hellooooo!” he howled. They turned toward him at his innocent shout. “Thank goodness! This is where you were, huh?”
“Wolfie?” Nichika said.
In that exact moment, Wolfie noticed something flying down at them.
“Eh…?”
The projectile was headed straight for Nichika’s head. But she was smiling, unaware.
“I’m sorry for worry—”
“WATCH OUT!”
He sprung to action faster than he could think. Knocking Nichika to the ground, he took her place. The sound of something shredding buzzed in his ears. An unbelievable amount of blood gushed from his belly.
“Wol…fie…?”
His blood rained down on the face of the girl who was now staring at him in horror. With a loud thud, he collapsed, his consciousness rapidly descending into the darkest of abysses.
Wolfie’s vision blacked out with Nichika’s distant screams as the last thing he heard.
***
IN an instant, the clamor of the busy city fell away. Nichika couldn’t move. There was so much blood; it looked like it was part of some sick gag. But a weak moan from the wolf brought reality rushing back. She frantically pulled Wolfie onto her lap. He had flopped over limply, and his eyelids didn’t even flicker when she moved him.
“Wolfie?! Wolfie!”
“Who’s there?!” Oswald barked fiercely. The person on top of the roof disappeared in a single flutter of their white robe instead of answering. “Curse you! You think I’ll let you go?!”
Oswald launched off his right foot to chase after the attacker, but Nichika’s scream pulled him back.
“OSWALD! Wolfie! Wolfie is…!”
He glared at the roof and clicked his tongue once before backtracking to her. Kneeling, he confirmed his familiar was still barely holding on to life.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. Nichika, return to the inn and borrow every cloth they have on hand.”
“Can you save him? Can you?!”
She clung to his arm as he moved to further confirm his familiar’s condition, and he shook her off while loudly rebuking her. “Get moving if you want to save him! Do you think worrying or praying can save a life?!”
Nichika flinched but pulled herself together. Wiping away her tears, she dashed off. Oswald frowned at the sight of the wolf’s life rapidly draining away before him. He pulled a vial from his pocket, yanked out the stopper with his teeth, and poured the contents messily onto Wolfie’s wounds to begin first-aid.
“I keep telling you people, I’m no doctor, and I definitely ain’t a vet!” he griped aloud. Then, speaking directly to his familiar to tether his consciousness to the waking world, he shouted, “Don’t you go and die on me, stupid mutt! What kind of servant goes and dies before their master? Huh?”
***
THE sliding door opened and Oswald stepped into the adjacent room. He had finished treating Wolfie. Nichika bolted from the seat she had been restlessly waiting on, and immediately bombarded him with a million questions.
“How is he?! Is he okay? Will he live?!”
“For now, yeah. He’s fortunate the damage didn’t reach his internal organs—he’s got the devil’s luck, all right.”
“I’m so glad to hear that…” Nichika sighed in relief as she sank to the floor.
From what Oswald went on to explain, though there had been a lot of bleeding, the cut had only pierced through one layer of skin, so stiches had been able to close the wound.
“But we can’t relax yet. He’s still feverish from the injury…” he trailed off.
“Let’s stay in this city for a while,” Nichika suggested, her mind much more at ease. “We don’t have to worry about the Witch’s Councilors coming for us here thanks to Princess Yura, right?”
But Oswald’s expression remained grim. He pulled an object from his pocket and tossed it lightly on the tatami mat. “Look at this.”
“What is it?” She gingerly picked up the foreign article rolling on the ground, careful not to let it make too much contact with her skin. It looked like an empty black cartridge case, with the tip crushed where the bullet had launched.
“This was on the ground in the alley. Looks like this is what the idiot wolf got shot with.”
“He was shot? But…”
Wolfie’s injuries clearly looked like gashes, like the ones generally caused by sharp objects such as swords. The damage done to him didn’t look like a typical gunshot wound.
Before Nichika could ask for more details, Oswald confessed, “That’s a weapon I made. It’s enchanted to tear the target to shreds upon contact.”
“What?! I can’t believe you! Why are you making such a dangerous weapon?!”
Running out of words to blame him with, Nichika grabbed his coat. But he didn’t answer her, and on top of that, he didn’t even brush her off like he normally would have.
He put his hand to his chin, the worst-case scenario crossing his mind. “…This is very bad.”
“What is?”
“I’ve only sold these cartridges to Princess Yura. We might have to leave this city much sooner than we planned.”
“Wh-Why would Princess Yura target us?!” Nichika asked, alarmed.
Oswald restlessly headed for the door. “Who can say for sure? But I can think of plenty of reasons. Perhaps she wants to erase my existence because I’m the only other person who knows how to produce the cartridges. Maybe she can’t stand you. Or it could simply be the most obvious possibility: she just sold us out to the Witch’s Council.”
“I can’t believe it…”
How could someone with such a friendly smile sell us out? Struggling to accept that they had been betrayed, conflict tumbled in her belly.
“But how can we run away with Wolfie like this? …Isn’t it dangerous to move him?!” she asked, raising her voice without meaning to.
The wolf partially opened his eyes from his deep slumber. His golden pupils aimlessly wandered around the room until they fixed on his master and the apprentice. Relief washed over his face as the two responded to him.
Nichika shook away the tears forming in her eyes again. “I’m so sorry. You ended up like this in my place…”
“Wolfie, can you walk?” Oswald asked. The question got a slight smile.
“I think that might be a tad outta the question. But I’ll be fine on my own. You two can leave ahead of me.”
Nichika’s eyes rounded at his unexpected suggestion. “Are you telling us to abandon you and go off on our own?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Nichika. I noticed it earlier—that attack was clearly targeting you, and you alone.”
“I was…the target?” Shock paralyzed her thoughts.
With his eyes half-shut, Wolfie continued, “You were. That’s why I think it’s best if I be a good boy and wait here alone until I get better. Either way, I’m going to slow you guys down.” His mind was still in a haze, because he spoke slower and calmer than usual. “You two can go…search…for the Great Spirit together…and come for me…before you…leave for…good…”
He finished his thoughts and fell back into a deep sleep. They fell into silence before Wolfie’s peaceful breathing.
Oh yeah… Wolfie’s words reminded Nichika of the magic orb. She pulled it out of her pocket. We also came to this country to find a Great Spirit.
Oswald stood. With a decisive air, he said, “Let’s go. Seems like we don’t have the time to linger.”