Searching for Answers... (Schala/Augen/Cross)

[Schala]

Finally, someone had listened to her! Really, what did it take for a person to pay attention to a simple request?
Sai stood up. "I suppose we are going into the library now?"
She could find out where to find all the jewels and/or how to be a queen!
"Let's go! C'mon!"

[recon5]

Inside the library Patchouli was gloating over what she thought was her success as she lay in her bed. Most of the people of Gensokyo seemed to like Marisa too much for them to even think of keeping her out of the library, and the witch had managed to steamroll over the few who didn't like her. The group of strangers had given Patchouli the hope that one of them might be able to stop Marisa so that she could at least have some peace in the library today.

Remilia's voice came through loud and clear thanks to the magic at work in the Scarlet Devil Mansion, but Patchouli wished that it hadn't. The newcomers hadn't been any help at all it seemed, and that Chinese gatekeeper hadn't done much better. Now all she could do was wait and see if the Head Maid did anything and she wasn't very hopeful. Even worse, after expending so much energy in casting the barrier she wouldn't be able to stop Marisa herself and the witch would be all over the place. She sank into the bed and pulled the covers over her face with a soft "Mukyuu~".

----

Koakuma noted Marisa's departure, which she was sure would please her mistress. "Well done, I must say. Please, follow me."

She turned and flew off toward the Mansion, looking back every so often to ensure that the newcomers were following her.

[Augen]

((Drakie asked me to skip him this post, so I am... Though, it's mostly me playing with myself))

... Landbeast? Dammit, I don't wanna fight right now, Augen thought. Unfortunately for him, these were no mind-readers he was facing.

One of the seadogs beared it's fangs. "So... Do we kill it and show it to Havleder. Proove to him that the girl is evil as well?" "Yes... That sounds like a good. Kill him and BRING HIM BACK," it said, opening it's mouth and driving it torwards Augen, who grabbed the beast by both jaws and held them open.

"Hmm... This one's a FIGHTER," the next one said, also diving it's teeth torwards Augen. This time he hit flesh, and the pain caused Augen to flinch and break the first one's jaw off.

"NO! MAURICE!!! YOU'RE GONNA REGRET THAT," shouted the third one as it charged, but Augen shoved the first one's face into that one's mouth as it chopped down. Seal number three paused and floated back before spitting out number one's head. As is drifted, something other than blood drifted out of the seal head... The head of a human. What the hell, thought Augen as he watched the head drift. Only to have number three chomp down on his shoulder.

------

Meanwhile, the older beast who brought Kylie to his cave earlier was waiting... Waiting for the unconcious girl to wake up. It was obvious, to the trained eye, that she was certainly not dead... Still, her state worried the elder, and he nudged her shoulder lightly with one of his fins, hoping for some sort of reaction.

[Schala]

Sai gratefully followed Koakuma. She was very relieved to finally go into the mansion and get her hands on the jewels.
But most of all, she wanted to learn secrets.
There was so much she didn't know. Who were these people? What were they looking for? What had she gotten herself into?
Whatever it was, she was about to find out.

[recon5]

As Koakuma passed Meiling, the gatekeeper gave her a puzzled expression. The assistant librarian stopped for a bit to explain the situation and after giving it a bit of thought Meiling nodded and flew off to her post. As far as she knew she'd managed to stop Marisa for once and she would be rewarded at the end of the day.

Koakuma watched as her colleague took off, then she continued flying towards the Scarlet Devil Mansion. After a while she remembered that she still had some advice to give to the newcomers and she spoke without looking at them. "Lady Knowledge has been severely weakened by her latest endeavor so please be gentle with her. I know you must have important questions to ask her but please, for her sake, do not rush her or pressure her too badly. She still needs some rest."

[shiningdrake]

Marisa glanced through the books on the shelves, and if one looked interesting, she tucked it somewhere in her clothes. Just as she had decided that it would be a bad idea to try to carry much more, as she felt them weighing her down, another one suddenly caught her eye. She figured that just one more couldn't hurt, then slid it out of the shelf and opened it up.

Oddly, the book was in a language she couldn't read. Though it was still oddly clear how to cast the spells, she had no idea what they did. She flipped through it slowly, and stopped at one page on a whim She realized that she wanted to cast the spell here... Odd. However, she did plan on casting it sooner or later, why not here instead of at her house?

As soon as Marisa had impulsively cast the spell, everything around seemed to shake violently, and suddenly, a glyph appeared in front of her. Then, suddenly, what looked like three bolts of black lightning converged at the center of the glyph... A little bit of rubble also fell nearby. "Wha-?!" Marisa cried out, startled. She looked up toward the ceiling and saw several holes where the lightning must have come through. The sky looked... odd. From what little she could see, it looked like the sky was solid clouds, shining with light and swirling in a circle.

Marisa then looked back at the glyph, and saw that there was a sphere of darkness in the center. She could vaguely see a shape inside, which looked strangely familiar, with a skirt and a pointy hat. It also appeared to have two stick-like wings, reminscent of Flandre's... Then the darkness surrounding it exploded outward with a blast of wind "Ah!" Marisa cried, as she felt herself being sent flying back, her broom flying in another direction.

Marisa hit the ground with a thud, about 20 feet away. "Oww..." she groaned. Then, suddenly, the shaking all around her stopped, the darkness faded, and she looked toward the figure that had appeared. "What?!" she exclaimed, unable to believe it. She now realized why the shape had looked familiar... It was her! There was a perfect copy of Marisa standing there, the only visible difference being the wings, which looked much like those of Flandre Scarlet, but with white gems instead of rainbow colored.

The clone was looking around at its surroundings, "A library? Hm... This might be interesting to look through." Then, it looked straight at Marisa, "But first, I think I'll get rid of you, so I can gather the knowledge that will let me spread suffering as I will." She grinned nastily, "Ritual Sign~ Orrery's Sun!" Four spheres of different colors, one red, one blue, one green, and one yellow, surrounded her as she lifted into the air.

"Oh crud!" Marisa let out as she ran for her broom. Yes, it might have been stupid, but she never flew without it, and she didn't want to be stuck on the ground for this. It would have been a whole lot smarter to do without it for a moment, but old habits die hard...

---

"...I thought I told her not to make a bunch of noise!" Remilia grumbled once everything had stopped shaking, and she had recovered from the shock that had made her jump all the way out of her bed. "And instead, she shakes the entire mansion! She was Patchy's problem earlier, but I won't stand for this!" Remilia stormed out of her room and began heading toward the library.

However, once she emerged on a balcony above the library, instead of finding Patchouli and Marisa in the middle of a battle, she found... Two Marisas. One seemed to be diving at something, the other appeared to be attacking with several spheres of light... The attacker had strange wings that were very similar to Flan's. "Now what's this?" Remilia wondered, "Well, I suppose I'll find out once this is over." She decided that she'd intervene, and began shooting streams of danmaku at the attacker.

Unfortunately, the winged clone didn't seem to be harmed, only irritated, and glared up at Remilia. The spheres surrounding her shot toward the young vampire, who only barely managed to dodge by flying up into the air quickly. Sadly, the door behind her, and the balcony below her, were not so lucky. "I'll have to have Inu clean this up later," she noted, before she shouted, "Divine Punishment~ Young Demon Lord!"

[Augen]

It wasn't easy, but Augen had managed to shake off the two youkai whose mouths had previously been attached to his skin. What's more, when one of them dived back at him he managed to shove his club down it's throat, watching it choke for a moment before kicking the club through to it's back and out.

Two down... One to go. But as Augen turned to face the other, he saw that it was already swimming away in fear. Augen wouldn't have been able to catch up with the beast, especially as he was still wounded by their teeth. Still bleeding. Underwater.

On the bright side, the beast made a convenient decision by swiming away: he gave Augen the location of their settlement. And thus, likely the location of Kylie. So, he began walking torwards his destination. After a few moments, he could spot a series of caves in the distance... But he still had a ways to walk.

------

Meanwhile, in the mansion...

One of the maids was cleaning the lavatories when something caught her attention. There was a smell... A delicious aroma flying through the air. "What is this," she asked herself. "Why, it smells like a kitty... And one that doesn't like baths at that. Oooooohhhh..." And so, she faced the cieling. Then extended about 5 feet of tongue above her head. Then bent it to a horizontal position close to the base. Then she flew...

The sound of wind being cut came through the hallways, getting closer and closer towards the front entrance. The maid wanted the source of that smell. And surely the mistress would not want it tracking fleas into the mansion. This cat needed a bath.

Akane had a job to do. And she did not plan to let anything stop her.

[Schala]

As Sai looked it the mansion, she saw it was very...alluring, or that's the way Sai put it. That feeling of spookiness and beauty at the same time.
"How...alluring," she said. It most certainly held a lot of secrets. Secrets she would know soon. Oh my, she would have a lot of questions. A lot. No, MORE than a lot.

[recon5]

Patchouli burrowed as far down as she could into her bed and pulled her covers over her head. She wasn't sure what book Marisa had read but it seemed to be one of the more powerful ones. To make matters worse she didn't have enough power left to even identify what had been cast, let alone prepare a counterspell. She'd summoned her Magic Stones to protect her and had cast the most powerful barrier she could manage over those but now the only thing she had the energy left to do was to wait and wish Koakuma was there with her...

----

Koakuma had just entered the main hallway when her sensitive ears picked up the sound of danmaku coming from the library. She was immediately overwhelmed by concern for her mistress and she excused herself from the group before disappearing in a flash of smoke and brimstone.

When she emerged in the library she was greeted by the sight of a terrific battle between Remilia and what seemed to be the love child of Marisa and Flandre. The minor devil's first instinct was to support the vampire and she began firing at the newcomer.

[shiningdrake]

Marisa grabbed hold of her broom, got onto it, and then zoomed into the air. Looking down toward her winged clone, she saw danmaku hitting it... And it wasn't hers. As it looked angrily toward the source of the attack, Marisa herself looked curiously as well. There was Remilia... Who then barely dodged an attack from the enemy. It would have hurt if she hadn't dodged it, that's for sure... And Marisa could be the next target after that balcony if she didn't watch it!

She shook her head and turned her attention back to that insane clone of hers, even as she heard Remilia call out, "Divine Punishment~ Young Demon Lord!" A cage of blue lasers appeared around the monster, and then a few yellow bubble-like shots shot toward her, along with a number of blue bullets. Marisa shot some danmaku of her own at it, but it still managed to dodge almost everything, which was nearly outright disturbing given the small amount of space it had, and even when it did get hit, it was barely fazed.

The creature kept its attention on Remilia, apparently considering her a larger threat. It kept throwing its orbs at her again and again, leaving holes in the wall where it hit, and knocking over bookshelves when it hit them. It also released shots at Remilia while the orbs were coming back in, which she wasn't able to dodge. Marisa soon realized that Remilia was losing strength faster than the creature was. Even if it was just one spellcard's worth, considering that the opponent looked to only be losing energy at a rate that it would take THREE of Remilia's spellcards to take out Orrery's Sun alone...

Even when Koakuma came in and began assisting too, the creature still kept going and going and going... It was time for Marisa to put her own full power out at this thing. Simple streams of danmaku weren't nearly enough. "MASTER SPARK!"

---

What was this thing?! Remilia could understand its dodging her attack if she'd been alone, but dodging so much of it even with Marisa helping, and looking as if it barely felt it when she did hit?! This wasn't right! Though at least it wasn't passing through the lasers to smash her with those orbs at point blank range...

Just as Remilia knew she'd have to end the spell, she heard a cry, "MASTER SPARK!" shortly before a huge beam enveloped the creature they'd been fighting, hitting with such force that it was sent crashing through bookshelves, and then into the wall on the other side of the (huge) room.

Remilia ended her spellcard and flew in the direction the winged witch replica had been sent crashing. As she came near, the spark began fading, and Remilia could see that the thing was standing up again! "Is that the best you can do?" she heard it call out, before the attack had even finished fading! Though it did sound like it was getting a bit tired now.

The vampire girl decided not to give this thing a moment's rest. She called out, "God Art~ Vampire Illusion!" immediately before she felt the wind get knocked out of her as she was hit by something from behind... HARD! Apparently one of the orbs had been left behind, then crashed back toward its owner straight through Remilia. "Oww..." she groaned as she got back up. Her spell hadn't ended though.

[Augen]

Augen had swam in an arc around a line of caves... No seals in sight. Except for those two armored ones in front of the central cave. But if Augen was quiet, he could... Ugh... He could make it in unseen. He should probably hurry though. Something's not right... Gotta... Hurry...

So Augen mannaged to make his way to the top of the cave, slipping behind the guards before bringing the two together with his club in hand. The black iron stick was held tightly to the guards' windpipes, preventing the flow of air to their lungs. After a few minutes they stopped moving.

Then Augen turned. There was a hallway. With doors. Last one must belong to their leader. He would know where Kylie was...

----------

Havleder turned as the door to the room burst into a bunch of useless wood. The kid with the stick stood there. He came for something.

"... Art ye thy demon who hath slain two of my men," Havleder asked, looking at the intruder. Augen raised his hand. Four fingers were held up. "And why hath thy commited yon sins," Havleder asked. Augen opened his mouth in an attempt to speak, but that did not help at all and Augen's face became even more red and agonized.

"... And now thou art here to slay me, aye," Havleder asked, pulling the trident from his side. Augen shook his head and walked to the unconcious body of Kylie, lifting it up and walking away.

"Thou shalst not escape... GUA--" Havleder's attempts to call his guards was interrupted by a swift girl in the face. Youkai were quite useful as melee weapons, Augen noted before he turned and started to stumble back from the way he came.

----------

Akane stopped flying as she got a little closer to the target. She didn't want to scare the guests away, after all.

When she arrived she was suprised to see that only one of them had entered the mansion. And that pesky librarian had just disappeared. How convenient...

"Welcome to the Scarlet Devil Mansion," the pink haired maid said, suddenly appearing behind the catgirl. "I'm sure there are many things you wish to ask," Akane said, stepping forward so that she was only an inch away from Sailuni. "... But that was a harsh battle out there. Before we let you into the library you must have a wash. Look, there's even a bit of blood on your clothing."

Indeed, there was some blood on Sailuni's shirt. It must've been from when she took Augen off of his impalement. He was bleeding a lot at the time, after all. "Come with me," Akane said, holding onto Sailuni's arm. "I'll help you to the washroom. Don't worry. It's not far."

[Schala]

"Hello hello," Sai said.
"Wait--a BATH?!"
Oh, wait. That sounded rude.
"I'm sorry," she said with a giggle. "It's just...I'm a ca--I mean, nekomata." If there was anything Sai hated, it was being called a "cat."
"I do not need a bath, thank you," she said, trying to pull her arm away.
"And could you let go of me? Please?"

[recon5]

Koakuma realized that her shots weren't doing as much as they needed to regardless of how many she released. While she wanted to immerse the intruder in burning sulfur and finish the battle right away, the terms of her contract with Patchouli restricted her to using attacks which were in line with the present-day nature of Gensokyo. Even worse, the intruder didn't seem to have such a restriction.

There was one upside, though. As the librarian's familiar she could call on the library's magical defenses but she'd been reluctant to do so as it would expose a great number of books to destruction. They had been hard enough to replace following the Scarlet Mist incident and Koakuma was certain that even more would be needed with this kind of threat.

At that moment she heard a cry of distress from her mistress and to her horror she realized that the intruder's shots had somehow made their way to the magician's bed. Now her mistress' life was at stake and it was certainly worth more than all the books in the library.

Dropping to the ground, she began the appropriate incantations, tracing symbols and circles on the floor as glowing lines proceeded from under her to a number of specially designated shelves. Their books vanished in bursts of blue light and began to materialize at random locations around the intruder, casting the spells they held as quickly as possible. Fireballs, wind blades, wood bullets, rocks, spectral knives, lasers, and every other kind of attack spell that the books held within them rained down upon the intruder. If this didn't finish the battle nothing would.

[shiningdrake]

Marisa's spark finally ended, and she flew to where her opponent had been sent crashing. She came upon an unbelievable sight... That thing was still standing! And it wasn't doing too badly against another one of Remilia's spells either... Though it wasn't doing as well as when it had been dodging Young Demon Lord, it looked like it was tired now. And then the books came.

There was a huge STORM of magic, all aimed at that creature... But that was no reason to not help fight it herself. "Asteroid Belt!" Marisa called out, and a huge number of star-shaped bullets began attacking it. Surely it couldn't last much longer...

---

It was weakening! There was no question, the strange creature was becoming much weaker than before. It just seemed to keep going when it got hit though... Its orbs were still there, but not moving, and now it was sending streams of black danmaku toward Remilia. These weren't the kind she could keep dodging however... And they were painful. But she wasn't nearly done yet!

And then, the books came... Had Koa activated them? It looked like they just might win this! And then Marisa... Yes, there was no question, it couldn't possibly withstand this storm of magic! It was enveloped by the storm of powerful magic, and soon its attacks ceased. Remilia still had a bad feeling however...

Suddenly, she heard a shout, "Infernal Moon!" Remilia strained to see the shadow of the creature obscured by power, and saw that its orbs were spinning around it, faster and faster... And then there was a shattering noise, and darkness beyond what even a vampire could possibly see through suddenly enveloped everything.

When the darkness faded, she saw an incredible sight. It looked like the orbs had been replaced by... Other things. There was a sphere of red flames, a sphere of ice, what looked like a sphere of green wind blades rotating at incredible speed, and... Well, only one thing that WASN'T a sphere. It appeared to be ten pieces of yellowish colored solid rock, all touching together at the center forming a shape that from a certain angle, looked almost flower like. At the center of each, there was a core of deep black colored pure energy.

The objects then proceeded to fly through the air at quite considerable speed, and crash through each of the attacking books, destroying them instantly. Bullets trailed through the air behind them as they did so, then scattered in random directions rapidly. Remilia was unable to dodge all of them, and was hit with incredible force by a rather large cluster. "Aaah!" she cried, as she fell to the ground.

The young vampire shook her head as she got up, and looked up at the winged magician. Its weapons were right next to it again, but instead of circling around, they floated in one place. Their owner herself was floating in midair, the ice sphere below her, the fire sphere above her, the wind sphere to her left around the height of her shoulder, and the earth "flower" also to her left, about the height of her hip. All of them were about two feet away from her. They were all connected by a very dark purplish light, in a shape that resembled a crescent moon.

Their owner gave a very evil looking, confident grin. "Die." it said simply, as it threw the moon shape and all the elemental fragments of it at Remilia... And Marisa, who had ended up behind her. Remilia quickly dodged out of the way, as did the magician.

---

What the hell was this thing?! It had just destroyed the books with what looked like no effort whatsoever. After dodging the bullets its weapons had left behind, Marisa was now behind Remilia... Marisa hadn't seen the attack coming until Remilia dodged, and she herself barely managed to get out of the way.

The dark crescent returned to its owner like a boomerang, leaving a thick trail of bullets behind it both ways, which then scattered. The bullets were of five colors, red, blue, yellow, green, and most of all, black! Even as far away from where they'd started off at as she'd become, Marisa herself had difficulty dodging them. Remilia... Got hit by a couple, and cried out in pain.

Marisa focused on dodging, but then the vampire came over next to her, and said, "We need to work together to fight this thing!" While they both kept dodging attacks as their opponent repeatedly threw that boomerang at them, they worked out what they were going to do. They shouted together, "Vampire Mage~ Scarlet Galaxy!"

The spell began with a cage of red lasers, similar to Remilia's Young Demon Lord. However, instead of bullets, another, much larger white laser, similar to Marisa's Master Spark launched itself at the creature. It dodged the wrong way, running straight into one of the spots where a laser bent, being caught in the edge of the spark, as well as two lasers and a burst of energy.

During this time, Marisa hadn't realized that the dark crescent was headed for her until it was too late to completely dodge, and she was hit by the edge of it. "Gah!" she cried out, more from her surprise and frustration than the pain itself, though there was hardly a lack of that. She should have been watching the enemy's attacks rather than its attempts to dodge hers... "Get ahold of yourself!" she heard Remilia saying, "We can't afford to lose this!"

Marisa would have snapped back, but she decided it would be better to keep her attention on the enemy's attacks. She was able to avoid being hit by any of the bullets it had left behind, despite being inside the first wave. She watched the boomerang, and saw... "Uh-oh." she said. It was separating again!

---

At this point, their spellcard reached its next phase. Marisa made her spark release in a different direction, not straight toward the enemy, but to her right. It circled around, and just as she was about to be enveloped by her own attack, she moved away and stopped releasing. The spark formed a circle.

During this, Remilia's red lasers had began spinning in many different directions. Marisa now put her own power into them, and they began releasing large amounts of star-shaped shots. Remilia had put her own power into Marisa's spark, and it now turned blood red. Nine streams of danmaku came from different directions rapidly, converging toward their opponent, leaving trailed behind them. And then from another nine directions. Over and over again...

Their target was NOT doing well against this onslaught, frequently getting hit by bullets, and occasionally running into lasers as well... It seemed to be refusing to just give up though, and kept going far beyond what anything either Marisa or Remilia had ever seen though.

Speaking of Marisa and Remilia, they were having plenty of trouble themselves. Being assaulted by four weapons that homed in on them relentlessly, leaving trails off bullets behind that then scattered, was not easy to last against. To be fair, they were doing quite well, but they could NOT keep this up much longer... It was time to end this!

Smaller lasers came out from the spark as well, which began spinning rapidly. From those lasers, knives shot out at high speeds. It wasn't an incredibly complex addition to the card, but it was highly effective, making the enemy run into nearly as many bullets as it tried to dodge as it would if it was standing still. It wasn't as if the card was IMPOSSIBLE, but it was just apparently far more difficult than this thing was nearly prepared for.

However, the same thing could be said for Marisa and Remilia. Soon enough, they were unable to continue their spell, and it faded. However, though they were worn out, they could still keep fighting. At this point, their opponent's attacks ended as well. This left the entire area free of danmaku for a moment. Remilia stood on the ground, glaring at the opponent, panting heavily from the energy she'd used on that card. Marisa was doing the same, except she was up in the air on her broom. The two of them stared at their opponent, who looked exhausted as well.

Suddenly, it spoke. "It seems that you win... This time. I was unprepared for combat when I ended up here..." Suddenly, it zoomed into the air with incredible speed, and made one of the holes in the roof even larger as it did so.

Marisa didn't pursue. She liked a challenge, but that had been ridiculous! As the magician looked around at the wreckage of the library after setting herself on the ground, Remilia found the breath to speak. "Now," she said, "Do you have any idea just what that thing was?! It looked exactly like you, so I would assume that it has something to do with you."

The vampire waited for a response with a scowl on her face, tapping her foot. Though she knew Sakuya would clean up most of the damage, she hated her home being damaged like this, and knew that most of the books here were no doubt not only irreparable, but irreplacable!

The magician replied to Remilia without hesitation, "She appeared when I read a spell from a book I randomly picked out off one of the shelves... By the way, I think I should probably go now." She zoomed out on her broom through the same hole her clone had escaped through.

"Get back here!" Remilia shouted at her, and began flying after... She quickly stopped however, realizing that the only way to do anything about this would be to fight the magician, which she really didn't have the energy for, even if Marisa herself was just as exhausted.

Remilia sighed. She didn't want to bother with anything else right now, she'd just have one of those special food items made of blood and go to sleep... She was too tired to go outside and feed tonight, and there would still be plenty for Flan...

"Oh!" she cried, at the thought of Flan... She'd probably be coming out soon, wondering what all the excitement was about... Sure enough, right at that moment, the younger vampire came in. "Remilia?" she asked, "What's going on? I heard lots of noise..." Remilia replied to Flandre, "It's nothing important, it's over now anyway." Flandre looked curiously up at her older sister, but then understanding dawned on her face, "Were you playing with Miss Marisa again?"

Remilia smiled weakly at her younger sister, "Yes, something like that. Why don't you go back downstairs Flan? There's nothing else interesting." Flandre looked up at Remilia, "But-" she began, but then said sullenly, "Alright..." and headed back to the cellar where she stayed. Remilia then sighed, and drank some "tea" before she headed to sleep.

[Augen]

"Havleder... Are you okay?! Wake up!" The old man opened his eyes and looked over to see one of the guards at his side. "Are you alright sir? There were two guards dead near the entrance to this cave... I thought I should make sure you were alright."

"Aye... I art fine," the elder said as he straightened himself out and looked at the trail of blood. "... But a demon hath assaulted me and slain several men. The demon wast wounded, however. His blood shalt light thy way."

"Yes sir... I will follow immediately," the guard said, before swimming off torwards the trail. After a while, he found that the blood trail led most of the way to the mansion, but then ended. And not far drifted two bodies. One of a young-looking humanoid girl, who lay there unconious. The other of a young human boy. Dead. The seal guard turned and began to swim back to the cave village. Kylie was now far enough from the cave that the sealmen would not have to worry. And Augen was dead.

----------

"Nonsense," Akane said, still holding onto the catgirl's arm. "I cannot let you into the library until you've had a wash! Why, you just reek of blood and dragon sweat! It is quite unladylike."

The maid was tenacious. She would not give this one up. The cat smelled so delicious. And surely she wouldn't want to encounter one of the vampires while she had all of that blood on her clothing. Akane was a good maid. She just wanted to help. Or at least that's what she convinced herself.

"Now are you going to come with me... Or am I going to have to force you to come with me," Akane asked, before letting her tongue wrap around the catgirl's arm.