Chapter 98: Chapter 98

Jin’s POV
   The figure known as Hatred walks a few steps forward, thus allowing the group to see her face better. Yup, it’s indeed Shino, Jin’s younger sister that he hasn’t seen ever since the Cultural Festival of Kitajoshi.

   She’s seen better days. Her cheeks are sunken, and there are huge bags under her eyes. Even if she’s wearing clothes with long sleeves, Jin could still tell that she’s mostly skins and bones. She’s probably on a diet.

   Jin takes a look around while also trying to detect any other presence in the vicinity. There’s nothing else, human or otherwise.

   “So, when will we execute the plan?” Tatsuma asks.

   Jin steps forward.

   “We’re getting rid of the first half of it. Mika and Chimera, try to find an opening to get in while I get busy.” he says with a volume that could only be heard by those who’re near him.

   “Wait, which part of the first half are you ditching?” Mika asks.

   “The part where the others take care of Hatred. She’s mine.”

   “Um, Silver Wolf-san?” Audrey begins a little hesitantly.

   “Yeah?”

   “That person known as Hatred. I think I recognize her. She’s actually, um… is she…”

   She’s probably trying to choose her words carefully so that she doesn’t end up exposing Jin and Shino’s true identity.

   “Yup, it’s her.” Jin confirms.

   “That means that you’re trying to save her, yes? I shall do my best to help!” Audrey offers eagerly.

   Jin tilts his head. “What?”

   “...Huh?”

   The two of them stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds. Even through her mask, Jin could tell that Audrey has a confused look on her face.

   “YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!” Shino shrieks.

   Jin turns to look at her.

   “What exactly did I do to you?” he asks innocently.

   “You beat up my father and sent him to the hospital! Also, you and that journalist exposed the crimes he and his subordinates did! As a result, my mother and I were chased out of our house and had to sleep on the street!”

   Ah, so she wasn’t on a diet. Jin shrugs like he doesn’t care, since he really doesn’t.

   “You father got his just deserts. He has himself to blame and no one else.”

   To be fair, Tengu, one of the Three Great Youkai, was the one who possessed him and did all the evil deeds. Still, Jin can’t prove it, which is why he never bothered to tell any outsiders.

   “Shut up! I went through hell just to get the power to take revenge on you! It’s time for you to die!”

   “Try me.”

   Lots of long mouths with sharp jagged teeth appear from Shino’s shadow and rushes towards Jin. At a rough count, Jin counted at least twenty.

   Now that Jin could take a closer look, they’re indeed familiar. Shino definitely got the inspiration from an anime that Jin loved quite a lot. Even though she mocked pretty much everything about the anime, she was entranced by one of the antagonists who appeared in it. She was especially impressed by the way he controls his shadows to rip and tear his enemies.

   Four feet.

   “You sure you don’t need our help?” Tatsuma asks from behind Jin.

   “Nope.” Jin assures him. “She’s the only one who came out, so I don’t have to worry about fighting others next.”

   “Um, that’s not what I meant.”

   Two feet.

   “Just stand back and watch the show.”

   Felfarthen appears at Jin’s left hand. Right on time, the mouths are inches away from him. He slices each and every one of those mouths into half with a speed faster than lightning.

   Shino blinks in surprise a few times.

   “Is that all you got?” Jin asks her nonchalantly. “You got to do way better than that if you want to beat me.”

   She grits her teeth in anger.

   “I’ll show you!” she froths.

   More mouths appear from her shadow. This time, there’s more than fifty of them.

   “Um, you sure you got this?” Tatsuma asks with a concerned tone.

   “Relax, she’s nothing.” Jin assures him.

   “HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME!” Shino shrieks.

   “What are you going to do about it?”

   Instead of answering, Shino directs the mouths to charge towards Jin. In the blink of an eye, most of them are right in front of Jin, their curved mouth opened wide and ready to chomp Jin into half.

   Jin swings Felfarthen with a lightning-fast speed once more in an attempt to slice the mouths apart. He was successful, although this time the slashes were met with some resistance. Jin can’t even slice a few of them and had to dodge. It’s like the mouths have received some power ups.

   Hmm, there’s probably a reason that Shino’s nickname is Hatred.

   “You can try to slice them away all you want, but you’re wasting your time!” Shino shrieks. “For as long as-”

   “Oh look, a clown.” Jin interrupts while looking casually towards his right.

   Shino lets out an incoherent shriek. She was so freaked out that Jin failed to get rid disappeared without a trace. So Shino is maintaining them through the control of her emotions or something similar. And she still has coulrophobia, also known as fear of clowns, even after all these years.

   She quickly looks to her right with more than ten of her shadowy mouths appearing, all ready to tear apart the clown which Jin claimed he saw.

   “Oops. Those were just some blinking lights. My bad.”

   Which of course there wasn’t any.

   Shino looks at him with eyes burning with even more hatred than a moment ago. She’s also frothing at the mouth.

   “As if I couldn’t hate you any more than I already do…” she says between clenched teeth.

   “Consider this as a handicap. You can’t be strong if you don’t have enough hatred inside that rotten heart of yours, right?”

   She growls in frustration. Yup, Jin’s deduction about her ability was definitely spot-on.

   “Well, aren’t you going to shut me up? Or are your so-called trip to hell a complete waste of time?” Jin continues to taunt.

   Shino walks forward a few steps while glaring at Jin with the intention to kill. Jin turns his neck to look at his allies.

   “Things are about to get ugly. It’s better if we spread out so that she has a harder time on attacking us.” he tells them.

   When he said the last part, he looked specifically at Mika and Fukuma. Thankfully, the two of them got the hint and nod.

   Date Jr wastes no time in bringing out her scale. She raises it up without a word. The scale with the black orb leans downwards heavily.

   “You shall be judged!” she says to Shino.

   Lots of chains appear out of nowhere and bind Shino tightly. Shino looks down at those chains with a calm expression.

   “Is this supposed to stop me?” she asks.

   A mouths appears and chomps away those chains. Date Jr lets out a loud gasp.

   “That cannot be…” she whispers.

   Hmm, looks like those mouths have anti-magic properties on them. It’s either that or Shino is too strong for Date Jr.

   “Well, looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way.” Jin says.

   Zheng rubs his hands enthusiastically.

   “FINALLY, TIME FOR SOME ACTION!” he says in his usual loud voice.

   Jin sighs and looks at Fang.

   “Please keep an eye on him and make sure that he doesn’t go too wild.” he pleads.

   She nods at that.

   “I’LL BE COUNTING ON YOU TO DO THE USUAL, FANG!”

   Fang nods again. She goes behind Zheng and raises up both her hands. Out of nowhere, sewing needles appear on the gaps between her fingers. She then swings her hands, making the needles impale Zheng’s back.

   “ALL RIGHT! I CAN FEEL MY STRENGTH INCREASING!” Zheng says excitedly.

   Jin can even see the said strength in physical form. Bright, whitish aura is coming out of Zheng like this is some kind of battle manga.

   “Fang’s ability allows her to strengthen or harm someone by impaling his or her acupuncture points with needles.” Tatsuma explains.

   So her basic role is support. While Jin is thinking that, Tatsuma gets closer to him.

   “Whatever you do, make sure that Zheng isn’t knocked out.” he whispers.

   “What’s going to happen if he does?”

   “YOU’RE GOING DOWN, HATRED!”

   “There’s no time to explain. Just prevent it from happening, okay?”

   “Roger that.”

   Zheng charges towards Shino while raising his right hand. When he swings it forward, a Chinese dragon, a lion, and a tiger materialize out of thin air and rushes towards Shino.

   “Zheng has the ability to materialize things he imagined in his mind.” Tatsuma explains again.

   “So that aura thing appeared due to his ability?”

   “Yup.”

   “And isn’t his power kind of broken?”

   “Not really. He can’t bring out anything that wasn’t found in his favorite Chinese comic.”

   “How does that even work?”

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   “Beats me. You’ll have to ask him to explain.”

   Fang also joins in the fight. She has no weapons except the needles and relies mostly on her limbs to fight. She’s quite agile and quick and making Shino’s mouth difficult to attack her.

   Zheng and his animals, on the other hand, aren't that fortunate. Bit by bit, they’re bitten here and there by those sharp teeth. Thankfully, Zheng’s injuries aren’t that severe, and those animals of his aren’t affected at all. Speaking of unaffected, Zheng isn’t bothered by the fact that he’s getting pushed back.

   “NOW THIS IS A FIGHT! I HAVEN’T BEEN IN ONE AS EXCITING AS THIS ONE FOR AGES!”

   “You, I have to deal with first. You’re so loud my ears might go deaf if you blabber on for too long.” Shino says with an irritated tone.

   With that, more mouths are being sent to attack Zheng.

   “I think we should join in.” Jin says to Tatsuma.

   “Yup.” The latter agrees.

   Tatsuma ignites himself on fire and flies towards Zheng and Fang in order to assist them. Four mouths were incinerated when they were punched by Tatsuma’s flaming claws.

   “THANKS FOR THE HELP, MY FRIEND!” Zheng says gratefully.

   “Don’t mention it.”

   “So all of you want to die? I can oblige.” Shino hisses.

   All her mouths start attacking Jin and his allies all at the same time.

   Jin fends those mouths coming at him at ease. He even has the leisure to take a look around.

   His eyes went to Meiko the half-oni first. She’s whacking those mouths that are trying to chomp her left and right with her club. One somehow managed to get into her blind spot. Jin was about to help when its approach was barred by an invisible barrier.

   Jin clicks his tongue. Once again, he was robbed of the spot of being Meiko’s elder brother.

   Meiko turns around and gapes in surprise. She immediately smashes the sneaky mouth into oblivion.

   “Don’t just focus on what’s in front of you. Be more mindful about your entire surroundings.” Ayumi calls out to her.

   “Um, thank you.” She thanked the onmyoji bashfully.

   “Don’t worry about it.”

   Ayumi is trying to be nonchalant, but Jin’s excellent night vision allows him to notice the bashful fidgeting that she did.

   “Hey, no flirting over there!” he chides loudly.

   Ayumi looks over.

   “Which part of that was flirting?”

   “Are you seriously denying it? You were fidgeting like a pure maiden, for crying out loud!”

   She stiffens at once. Not too much, though, since she could still create a barrier to stop an incoming mouth from attacking her.

   “Am not!”

   “You totally were. And stop denying. It’s just going to have the opposite effect.”

   “You were the one who insisted that I was fidgeting when I wasn’t!”

   “Please stop arguing, the two of you!” Meiko pleads. “This isn’t really the time and place for it!”

   “Now look what you did, you made her mad!” Jin chides Ayumi.

   “Oh, so it’s my fault now?”

   “Can you guys stop having a conversation while we’re in a fight?” Tatsuma demands.

   Jin looks towards him. The young yakuza leader is burning mouths after mouths, not to mention punchiung them and make them burn. King, on the other hand, is standing one feet away from him and blasting more mouths with her (probably) wind ability. Both of them are concentrating really hard and look like they’re having a tough time.

   “Do you need help?” Jin asks.

   “No thanks! I can’t talk about dominating the entire Japan if I can’t even fight off one psychopath.” Tatsuma declines.

   “That’s one crazy dream you got there.” Jin notes.

   A mouth was very close on spearing Tatsuma’s face with its sharp jaws. Tatsuma managed to escape from his worst fate by rolling away.

   “I promised my father that I’ll accomplish it, so that’s what I’m going to do.” Tatsuma continues like nothing has happened.

   “And I shall assist you as your significant other half.” King says while casually snuggling up to Tatsuma.

   Her face was pushed away immediately.

   “We don’t have time for this, now or ever.”

   Rather than being discontent, King shows a joyful expression.

   “Oh, so this is what you call a tsundere. More, please…” she moans.

   Yikes, someone has a weird fetish.

   Even Miko joins in the fight. That said, she can only make the mouths she targets stop moving for a few seconds, so someone always has to act as the finisher.

   “You don’t have to force yourself and join in, you know.” Tatsuma tells her.

   Miko shakes her head stubbornly.

   “I want to do this.”

   “It’s really rare for you to act like this. What got into you?”

   Miko didn’t answer, but Jin knows the exact reason she’s actually doing something. Right now, Mika, her twin, is doing her best to get inside the lab. Jin doesn’t see Fukuma. He probably already went in by turning himself invisible or something.

   All this while, the furious attack from Shino has never stopped. Not that Jin has to worry. She has become stronger, but still not strong enough to pose a threat to him.

   “Ah, someone help me!”

   …As opposed to Kubo. Jin sighs and looks over. He’s barely able to protect himself from being chomped. Naturally, Rei-san and Kuroi are doing their best on protecting him, but even they are having their hands full.

   Without pausing what he was doing, Jin blasted away three mouths that were about to overwhelm Kubo, not to mention five and seven more that were giving Rei-san and Kuroi hard times with his Spells.

   Kubo lets out a huge sigh of relief.

   “Thank you, Silver Wolf-san.”

   “Don’t thank me just yet.”

   “Huh?”

   As if on cue, more mouths appear and charge towards the anime nerd and his maids.

   “Cast Strengthen on your maids.” Jin tells Kubo.

   To his credit, he did it without hesitating nor asking a single question. His speed on casting the Spell was so swift even Jin was impressed. Almost immediately, Rei-san and Kuroi moved swiftly as lightning and dealt with those mouths.

   “Wow, I feel so strong nya! I think I can blow up a mountain with the way I am now!” Kuroi says excitedly while flexing her muscles.

   “Indeed. Now we can get rid of those trying to harm our master with more efficiency.” Rei-san agrees.

   “Don’t get too carried away, girls. The Spell won’t last long, so it’s better to be mindful of what you do.” Kubo warns them.

   Well, that’s one group settled. Now for the most worrying one: Date Jr. Ever since her power was proven to be ineffective against Shino, all she had been doing was just swinging her hammer and fending off those mouths that got too close to her. Even with her mask on, Jin could still tell that she’s being extremely dejected.

   “Hey, you okay there?” he calls out.

   “I am fine, rest assured. At least physically.” she assures him.

   “Just don’t get distracted from what happened just now. Trust me, you don’t want to lose focus in a fight.”

   “Duly noted.”

   While they’re still talking, Jin hears someone’s phone rings. He turns around and sees Tatsuma taking out his phone.

   “It’s Mika.” he reports after taking a glance at the screen.

   “Whatever happened to being stealthy?”

   “Beats me. Either way, I better answer this.”

   Tatsuma puts his phone near his ear.

   “Hello? What happened?”

   Tatsuma goes silent for a while as Mika is speaking on the other side of the phone. Shino is still pestering them with her attacks, though it’s nothing that Jin can’t handle. A few seconds passed, and the color from Tatsuma’s face have been drained all at once.

   “Wait, seriously? Are you certain?” he asks with a barely audible tone.

   More talking on the other side.

   “Pray tell, what has happened inside the lab?” King asks as she blows away three mouths at the same time.

   “The researchers. All of them were murdered.” Tatsuma replies in a whisper.

   “...I beg your pardon?”

   “Hey, don’t get distracted.” Jin says while standing in front of King and blocking a blow from a mouth meant for her.

   King lets out a soft gasp. “My apologies.”

   “Wait, what about those people who were experimented on?” Jin asks Tatsuma.

   “Um, Silver Wolf asked-oh, you heard him. Well, they were being locked up, but they’re still alive.”

   “Well, at least there’s that.”

   “But, who would murder all those researchers?” King asks.

   “Ah, that would be me.”

   The entire battlefield got quiet all of a sudden. Even Shino has paused her attack. Everyone minus her is looking at the top of the building where the voice came from. A man in his forties is looking down at them while smiling pleasantly.

   “Austin Graylock, the 439th head of the Graylock family, at your service.” he introduces himself.

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