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(Canticle of Hope) Ch. 5: Closer to Home (NSFW)

Hitomi let out a small giggle at Kye's comment, and at the frown which followed. She stifled it with the back of her hand, but an amused smile lingered on her face a moment longer.

"Well, we shouldn't get overconfident," she warned, getting serious once more. "They know we beat them last time, so if they're smart they'll bring stronger forces next time. If they do know what happened to..." The kitsune hesitated for a moment, glancing to Isabella, before going on. "...um, about Isabella-chan's pregnancy, then it would make sense for them to set an ambush. Assuming they don't know who we are, their best chance of getting at us would be to either do something to bait us out, or else to wait for us in one of the few places they know we'd have to go."

Hitomi paused for a moment again, tilting her head slightly to one side. It'd just occurred to the kitsune that she was casually analyzing a potential attack against her. Her life had gotten weird over the last few days.

"But," she went on, "If we expect an ambush, maybe we could turn it against them somehow. Is that what you were thinking, Kobayashi-san?"

She looked over to Syra for confirmation, then added, "Either way, though, we're going to need to stay as sharp as we can to be ready for them. Sensei," she looked to Orpheus, "Do you have any suggestions on that front?"
 
Syra cringed a little when Isabelle stated that she was keeping the baby. Somethin still didn't feel right about it but she had learned to keep herself to herself after last time. She bit down on her lip as she listened to the girls analyze a potential ambush.

'It's good to know the blunt steel and dull armour comment only applies to me.' She thought to herself as everyone jumped at the idea of simply protecting themaelves from the ambush. " i have a feeeling if there is an ambush its not going to be as simple as, oh we'll just prepare for it." She looked around the group waiting for a solid plan.
 
Emi turned her attention to the discussion of purifying the child "Well which of the three locations have a suitable place to go camping near? that should be our first target. Cause then we can go hiking and such and draw less attention to ourselves while looking for it." Emi smiled as she waited to hear more information on the locations.
 
Orpheus placed his chin in his forepaw and thought hard.

Euridice hopped down and paced along the table. "It won't do much good to look into camp sights until i find out which of the locations are still active," she replied, then went back to pacing til Ryuko distracted her with a cookie.
 
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Later that night, the squirrels were still unable to provide a good answer about how to be prepared to turn the ambush against their foes. Nor had they received new news on which of the sites were active, so they could prepare for their journey.

The meeting eventually broke down into unrelated things, including actual study groups, dinner, a bit of friendly gossip, and even some music and manga.

Around 11 AM, Ryoko leaned in and kissed her kohai softly. “Are you going to your new club meeting in the morning, Isa-chan? You should get some rest.” The tenshi quietly touched her fellow redhead on the tight little belly. “You've been training hard. Get a little extra rest tonight, okay? I'll make sure we don't leave any mess for your parents in the morning.”

Isabella reply here?

After Isabella had gone to bed, Ryoko stood in the middle of her friends. “So, there's one really easy way we can make sure we can be ready for the enemy when they come for us. We can train hard. If anyone has a really early day tomorrow, you should go home now, and we'll meet for lunch tomorrow. Everyone else, let's pack up here and go on a little patrol. We can practice our magic while we're at it.”

The girls spent an hour and a half wandering the streets on the other side of Rumiko's bridge, on patrol. They hadn't run into anything, and the night was quite enough that they'd had some chances to practice their spells unseen. They took turns on watch while others practiced, so that when a normal passed them by all they got were some admiring glances and the occasional polite compliment on their cosplay.

The girls were passing down a block of apartments when a little scroll case fell down from the roof of a five story building too clatter on the ground in front of them.
 
Kye, reveling in the afterglow of being Euterpe, bounded along, humming a grand ascent within the streets. As she danced around the girls, she couldn't keep her hands to herself, a grazing pet shoulder to elbow, adjusting the bangs of someone who had them foll before her eyes, a stirring smile. It was just contact, and it was her way. The clatter of something as it rolled down the sloping roof drew her attention as a curiosity, the scroll fell, clattering and laying upon the ground, none to stand above no window to have fallen from. She flitted to the case, lifting it from the ground and again looking up in the hopes of returning it to someone.

As she noticed none above, she began to examine the scroll case, could she open it?
 
Breathing the cool night air, wrapped in her cloak and wandering the darkened streets with the other girls, Urania found herself quite at ease. With no sign of any trouble, the darker concerns of their planning had slowly bled away. She found herself often looking up at the night sky, and smiling. Whatever was to come, she was enjoying tonight. Kye’s casual contant wasn’t catching the kitsune too off guard - she hardly jumped once - and, though the occasional second glances of strangers made her blush with embarrassment and draw her cloak tighter about her body from time to time, even that wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

The clattering scroll case brought to mind something Kye had once mentioned, about how they’d found Terpsichore just before they’d met. The details were unclear, but she’d mentioned something about a trail of kunai showing them the way. Could this mysterious scroll case be related? Could someone be following them?

Well, there was one way to find out. Looking up, there didn’t seem to be anyone up there, but who leaves something like that lying on the edge of a roof? Urania closed her eyes for a moment, wrapped her hand around the bow/staff at her side, crouched down, and concentrated. Then…

Ping!

The hooded kitsune vanished in a burst of luminous stardust, only to reappear a moment later on the rooftop in a bright flash of light! It wasn’t the first time she’d attempted that, but it was definitely the furthest she’d ever tried to travel by starlight; the feeling was exhilarating, but she tried her best not to get distracted, focusing on regaining her bearings and looking around cautiously for anyone else who might be up here.
 
Kye found that the scroll case would open easily by simple expedient of twisting one of the sides. There was a note inside, not caligraphered but hastily scrawled with a ball point pen.

Spawn of a mandrake devil lead by a shadowy devil baron are planning to strike a tenement tonight. If you wish to aid them, follow.

Urania disappeared in a soft flash followed by a cascade of sparkles.

A tall girl with a long black top knot and soft brown eyes gave a surprised squeak and jumped when Urania appeared. She didn't raise her hands, but a fan of three kunai appeared between the fingers of each hand. The lower half of her face was covered by a red silk scarf. She wore an alluring purple kimono and red obi, with a few other traditional weapons tucked away in places.


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Urania hadn’t really known what she’d expected to find, but ‘a cute ninja girl’ was not it. Sure, all the clues had pointed that way - the kunai, the scroll case, the fact that whoever it was had been following them unseen from the rooftops - but still. A ninja? An actual ninja? An actual, pretty attractive ninja?

The kitsune gave herself a mental shake. She was going in circles, now, and from the look of those knives, this was no time to get distracted.

“You’ve been following us, haven’t you?” Urania asked accusingly, trying to mask her moment of surprise behind gruffness. She slowly rose up from her crouch, keeping a careful eye on those kunai and holding her bow out defensively like a staff in front of her, just in case. “Who are you? Why have you been watching us?”
 
Kye giggled, unclear pronouns, do they mean help the mandrake and baron or help the tenements? Her thoughts sprinkled around then she thought of Toad, was he a baron? She would follow, her litany and chorus to Euterpe rose as did the light show.

Then Euterpe stood before all. Two quick bounds took the lithe Muse to the end of the building, another to the top of the fence, another to the middle branches of the neighboring cherry tree, her last bound landed her at the end of the roof. Inadvertently she had pincers the ninja girl, and as she rose, she smiled.
 
Syra razed her guard as the scroll case gell from the rooftops. Eyeing it in suspicion she kept her eyes focused on the rooftops as Urania vanished in a flash of light. Not the most subtle of moves but atleast it was useful.

Shifting in the uncomfortable silence, she waited as Kye opened the scroll case and read the contents. Her knee length skirt fooating in the gentle nights breeze. Finaaly breaking the silence she glanced at kye. " some sort of joke?" Syra questioned after hearing the giggle.

Before she could get an answer Kye shifted into her muse form and took off. Letting out a short sigh she shrugged. " i guess this means game on"


"My soul is free as the wind,"
Magic swirled around Syra lifting her off the ground.

"My spirit burns with a blazing inferno,"
With a sudden flash a blazing fire engulfed the young girl. Her clothes burning away in the heat leaving her exposed for a second.

"My resolve Is a bastion against evil,"
The Fire seemed to absorb into Syra's body forming her clothes, as other parts solidified into a spear in her hand.

"For I am Melanipe, The Ebon Mare!"
With a sudden burst of heat Melanipe shot forth from the inferno staight on the heals of euterpe.

"Care to share?" Melanippe called after the muse as she gave chase.
 
Euterpe, smiling at the cute ninja girl, handed the scroll to Melanippe. "She is leading us to another baron and mandrake attack. In the tenements." She looked down, the others were still down there, "Can we take this to the ground? The others would appreciate it." The request seemed harder edged than anything Kye had said in her life. Euterpe was not Kye.
 
Emi quietly made her way around the building and got to the fire escape and made a small leap to get to the fire escape stairs and quietly began her ascent up the stairs. Finally arriving at the top and waves to the ninja and speaks up in a quiet tone "Greetings and how may we help you today?"
 
The kunoichi looked nervously between the two girls, lips tight beneath the red veil. She took a few steps back, then jumped when she almost backed into Emi.

A quite moment later, then she whispered, "I think... My sisters are never going to let me live this down."

She sighed and flexed her fingers, making the kunai vanish up her sleeves. "Okay, to the ground then..." She gave a soft groan. "I don't know how much time we have though."

The kunochi casually leaped over the building next to Emi. She landed in a light crouch on the fire escape's second floor landing. She padded down the last floor, then again casually leaped off, dropping to the ground as if a one story drop were a hop.

The kunoihci stepped out from the alley to the other magic girls. She looked around, meeting their eyes, then she whispered. "Wow... You really do look just like magic girls from anime."

She paused a second, then reached up and pulled down her mask, revealing sensual lips and pointed chin. Then she bowed. "I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'll share with you freely what it's permited to me to share, and hope you'll choose to respect it when i tell you something is not mine to say."

she gave a bow. "Call me Kohaku. Yoroshiku."
 
"They know where the mandrake and a baron are attacking tonight." As the kunoichi leaped away, Euterpe watched admiring the grace. She noticed that Emi, the last to get here, had climbed up, the hard way. She giggled. "C'mon Emi, let's take the fun way down." She offered her arms for the trip as she indicated the free side of the building that presented a fence and a cherry tree for climbing aids.
 
Emi grinned " I would love to take the fun way." she stepped close to Kye and wrapped her arms around the back of kye's neck" I am ready when you are."
 
Euterpe lifted the petite girl into her arms, looking to Syra, "See you on the ground." The cat girl bounded from the roof, she targeted a lower branch of the cherry tree as she descended, they would be heavier though the dainty little scrapper shouldn't be too much. The thought flitted through her mind as she arced through the air. Her foot landed, the bough bent, their weight shifted to the tree, it swayed, just when she was ready to spring away then came the snap. "Here's the fun part." She told the bundle in her arms for reassurance, and with the last resistance the branch offers, she twists the collapsing branch into a launch forward, rolling through a flip. A flip that absorbs the last of the impact as the two roll to a stand several feet away.

Euterpe looks back over her shoulder as she sets Emi down, "Remember this address, I am sure your friend Kye will want to return and heal the tree." She leads the youth around the building to meet the descended Kunoichi.
 
Melanippe stared at Euterpe with a mixture of jelousy and anger. It had taken her considerably more effort to scale the building, having to add extra steps into the climb. Now despite her best climbing effort they all set off to where they had started. The ground.

Mumbling something about cat hybred people under her breath, she made her way to the edge of the building and weighed up options. Grabbing onto the drain pipe she slid down it, before lunging for a window ledge half way down. From there she pushed off, landing on a fence below. Finnally leaping from the fence and landing in a roll to her feet.

"I swear we better not be climbing back up there...."
 
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Naela whimpers, the first sound she had made the entire evening, from behind Ryoko, timidly peering out from over her shoulder at the ninja girl. She gulps nervously and smoothes down the front of her outfit.

She was clad in gold boots that stopped just below the knees, and white leggings, a silky gold skirt covering her upper thighs and wrapping around her waist, alongside a tucked in, white sleeveless shirt that fit snugly to her body, accentuating her modest breasts. She wore a small headband of gold, with a silver hourglass emblem in the center. Her hair was bound in a messy bun, tied with a white silken hairband. On her hands were golden gloves, ending at her wrists.

Needless to say, the odd get up definitely had the girl embarassed.
 
Urania sighed as she watched the others, in various ways, leap back down from the rooftop. She knew, from practice, that she wouldn't be able to teleport again right away. It'd take a minute for her magic to recharge.

The kitsune looked over to the fire escape. Then she sighed again.

"... damn it."

---

Urania was the last to reach the ground, her cloak pooling around her as she dropped the remaining distance from the lowest landing. She didn't waste any time catching her breath though, getting right back to her feet and walking to join the others as she straightened out her skirt and tugged her cloak back into place.

"I'm Urania," she responded to Kohaku's introduction with the slightest of bows, not breaking her stride. "I'm sure you'll appreciate our need for privacy, as well, but if there really is an attack, we should be moving. You can answer our questions on the way."

She wasn't sure how to feel about this ninja just yet, so for now her tone was all business. Kohaku seemed friendly enough, but Urania was still worried. How long had she been following them? How much had she seen?
 
Kohaku
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This provoked a nervous but sincere smile from the kunoichi, and a fierce nod. “This way.” She gestures for them to follow and lead them down the street at a jog, turning left two blocks up. “I've been trying to keep track of the monsters in this part of Tokyo recently. My clan has other concerns, but I want to help as my duties allow.”
 
Emi nodded and climbed out of her friends arms. "Thanks for the lift" she turned to the ninja and followed in the direction she went to.
 
Urania picked up her pace, her cloak flapping at her heels at she jogged after the ninja. Surprisingly, Kohaku's quick explanation had gone some small way towards allaying the kitsune's suspicion. If the ninja was tracking the monsters it could at least explain how she'd found about their group, and her desire to help seemed genuine; she'd certainly done some good the time she'd helped them. Her mention of a clan prompted more questions in the curious kitsune's mind, but they seemed like exactly the sort of thing Kohaku wouldn't be free to talk about.

"Why all the secrecy?" Urania asked. "If you want to help, why keep yourself hidden before now?"
 
Kohaku
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The kunoichi didn't immediately answer, leading them another good half block before she just shrugged, "All ninja clan officially disbanded in the Meiji era. Most of the clans complied--on the surface at least--disarming, adapting our martial arts to civilian styles, sometimes making our living teaching ninjitsu to outsiders. Most of the Clans keep their teachings, traditions, and ideals alive, but haven't yet felt the need to take up arms again.

"My Clan has other responsibilities."

She glanced a street sign, then nodded and took a left. "Three blocks."
 
Meaning, presumably, that her clan *had* felt the need to take up arms again, if they were even among those that had disarmed in the first place. Urania looked over the kunoichi surreptitiously from the corner of her eye, thinking of the kunai that had vanished into her sleeves, and her other weapons. Her words kind of reminded the kitsune of something Orpheus had said that morning, about secret societies who 'remembered or reclaimed the old magic'. Is that what her clan was?

"Your clan monitors magic?" Urania guessed, a little out of breath. Jogging had never been her strong suite. "Or monsters?"

The kitsune wanted to indulge her curiosity about the kunoichi more, but as she ran, she shook her head. There was a more urgent matter at hand, and the closer they got, the more pressing it became. "What are we up against?"
 
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