Chapter 48: Sakura Petals [Kolme]

"Ah, shit."

The undercover oni is being drenched in sweat but she's able to conceal the obvious fear and hesitation by sending her main 'consciousness' into a spare body ready to be used on the back alley of the bakery, leaving her main body auto piloted by a self-made artificial intelligence circuit.

Chickening out, not wanting to experience the awful clusterfuck of a scenario that will happen when meeting Chronos' family, she decides to leave all the anxiety to the lifeless pilot that is now taking over her true body.

Rebooting—

Transfer success.

Jolted awake, Ketanium spreads her control over the new body she has just overtook.

The dark, mushy, stinky, and cramped place has taken over all her sensory feelings to puke internally.

"It's only a matter of time until I shift into a spare doll swimming in lava."

Just like a window opening in the morning to suck in all of those fresh breaths of the dawn, she vents the ceiling of the dumpster from the inside. The escape is a success! With a side dish of horrible wet and rotten peanut butter intoxicating her sharp sense of smell. It shows how introverted Ketanium is when she is willing to waste a huge amount of mana to create a spare vessel beforehand just to avoid unwanted contact.

Even if her main body dies, she can start all over if her consciousness is safe. The main reason for her survival till this moment is all because she is not afraid to let go of everything if she can live on.

"This is worth it," she says. Reaching out from the pool of trash, Ketanium makes sure that there are no sudden ambushes from both directions of her vision before heaving a relieved sigh for the day.

Tan skin with white perpetual eyebrows, eyelash, long hair reaching her hip, and on her forehead can be seen a pair of sharp horns with the hue shifting from her skin's color to red on the end. Taking an item from her space-pocket, a set of white kunoichi clothes from her glory days.

"Ah right, I'm still smelly."

Ketanium deploys a spell circuit to erase bacteria and numerous molecular substances outside her body with pinpoint precision. Feeling like being reborn after the cleansing, she reaches her hand just as when an opening of her space pocket opens to retrieve a grimoire.

Flicking through numerous pages, she stops at page 69. A special page with only a broken circuit array and triangular symbol with one eye in the middle of it. Ketanium places her finger into the old parchment as she shifts the fragmented circuit into a new one once again.

A dark red portal appears.

She marches in as the world around her changes into an unknown land coated by the night, and three horned figures wearing unique kimonos are present on top of a wooden rubble which was a prime shrine in the past. Partying and swaying their heads left and right as the alcohol dances in their joy, a genuine smile and the smell of a drunkard is being exuded. Weirdly enough, all of them are female.

The moon appears cracked from afar and the wind shoves the pink petals from the sakura trees to enrich the land.

"Oy, Saya! Here, take this!" says the farthest one from Ketanium. Tall and slender stature with jade hair, graciously balances the red ceramic plate full of sake as she throws the heavy gourd one handed to a new participant for their party.

Ketanium catches the gourd with one hand, and then immediately sits cross legged with the weight of her troubles being taken away by the soothing drips from the nearby pond. "Righty ho, I think I need more sake since the last fight."

"Ya still with those Tartarus brutes, my dear Saya?" asks the shortest one with long straight void hair. Unlike other oni, her horns are planted on the side of her head and not on the forehead, two menacingly strong bones of a beast that is longer than the oni's limbs. With a cheeky smile and blushes, she points her unoccupied finger to Ketanium. "Ya can just call me if somebody is messing with ya!"

"Saiko, Saya isn't a brute like you. Who knows how many troubles she will get if you go over to Neamh," says the sophisticated oni with clean fiery red hair, sitting with straight posture as she shyly hides her drunkenness unlike the other two who's wilder than any youkai combined. She gently pours the gourd into a cute cup she holds as she sips another liquid of alcohol into her throat. "You're a 'Primordial' so don't embarrass the younglings."

Saiko immediately retorts, "Younglings these, younglings that, who cares of ages in these times where ants from Neamh are troubled by a speck of void that comes from an error space fart! Isn't that right? Tamomo?"

The green haired lady, Tamomo, shifts her gaze away from her elder playfully. "Whatever you say, old Saiko."

A smile permeates Saya as she meets and gathers with her old friend. "Reiyu, someone defeated me and it seems like I'm in need of another sake gourd, probably the best one, can you make one?"

Reiyu immediately chugs the sake from her cute cup, revealing a face of an annoyed oni. "Oy! That kind of gourd isn't something we give to strangers! How strong is she anyway?'

"In some comparison, I flew the moon to her and she didn't die."

Reiyu spat out the sake on her throat. With red cheeks and tired eyes, she put her drinking set into her space pocket. "That is highly excessive of you to bash someone with a moon." Taking out a raw gourd with a jade scroll right after.

"That ain't really hard to do though, just look at Tamomo! That lass fricking broke the moon in this realm just because she didn't like how the ground looks!" shouts Saiko, emphasizing the moon with her forefinger merrily.

After taking another sip of sake, Saya stands up, alerting the other onis from the sudden mood change.

"I do want to report something from the Tartarus' current movements."