Summoning Circle XIX
This is a continuation of Summoning Circle and the finale. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTE: Tagging @katriniac and @forallyourikemensengokuneeds at their request. Also, there is smut / NSFW content.
She touched down on solid ground and staggered forward, barely catching herself on an outcrop of... rock? What did one even call the shimmering stuff Purgatory was made of? Barely had she righted herself before she tottered backward and dropped hard into the springs.
Wait. Wait! Surfacing, she realized in one joyous moment that she’d done it. She’d found it. Restraining her laugh, she lapped to the side of the pool and squelched back onto dry land, staring up at the stars shimmering overhead.
“Alright,” she whispered, shaking her arms dry. “Alright.”
What now? So she was out here, and now... what, exactly, did she think she was doing? All at once her spirits deflated. Okay. Well: step one, get out of Kenshin’s prison. Step two, locate Mitsunari and Mitsuhide. But how exactly did she do that second step? Clasping her hands open and shut, she realized with a start that the book had stayed behind. Of course it had. Nothing could be that easy.
But... she exhaled, watching the plume of her breath disperse around her. She was out. She’d done it. Clasping her hand around the necklace resting on her chest, she considered her next moves. It didn’t feel possible to just summon them there with the necklace. Eyeing it warily, she even tried--but no. Nothing but a faint pulse in her palm like a heartbeat.
Off in the distance, something howled. Conventional wisdom said that you stayed where you were when lost, but she was pretty sure conventional wisdom didn’t apply here. Lurching back onto her feet, she jogged in place to get out the drips and set off down the path.
“I told you,” Yukimura huffed, “She’s not here anymore.”
“This is the last known location of the signal.” Nobunaga stared down his nose at the demon, his presence pulsing ruby through the swirling clouds around them. “And you mean to tell me you don’t have her?”
“Had her.” He frowned, crossing his arms tight. “We had her, and then she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Mitsuhide asked. “A human does not simply disappear. They aren’t like us.”
“Maybe not, but that’s what happened. She figured out some kind of crazy reverse summoning technique and spirited herself out.”
Mitsunari frowned. “That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
“No one has used that kind of a technique that I know of. It isn’t even written in our records. I would know.” Spreading his hands apart, an illusory book stretched between them, frantically flipping at his behest. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“I’d let you go and check, but you know how Kenshin and Shingen feel about--”
“Nobunaga.” Out of the mist came the man himself. Kenshin eyed each of them with barely-concealed suspicion. “I suppose you came for the humans?”
“Where is she?” Mitsuhide managed politeness. “Yukimura said she disappeared.”
“So she did. Made a reverse circle. Wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it.” But that apparently was the least of his worries. “I have another inside there. He’s working on a way to stay the fraying of our barriers and prevent creatures from breaking into the other realm. Were you aware of that? His name is Sasuke.”
“Sasuke?” Mitsunari repeated with a smile. “I know him, but I didn’t think he was here.”
“He is. Apparently the goal of their trip was to find you two.”
Without a word, Mitsuhide opened his map again, staring intently and waiting for that pulse of a signal. Kenshin continued. “I have other concerns, chiefly with that woman. If she managed to create magic purely on her own, with nothing but a single--poorly written--book to reverse engineer, then we are dealing with two highly intelligent humans. So I have a concern.”
Nobunaga hummed. “Do tell.”
“It is no secret that the monsters here are alluring to the curious.” And those mismatched eyes settled straight on Mitsuhide, holding him in his sights as he continued. “And deadly.”
“What are you saying?” Mitsunari cut in. “We don’t mean her any harm.”
“Don’t you?” Kenshin continued, unperturbed. “First you take such a personal interest in a fragile thing, then you involve her and risk her life by maintaining closeness, and now she is so invested that she willingly subjects herself to the horrors of Purgatory, even eschewing the safety of my residence. Is that not endangering her?”
“She makes decisions of her own free will.” Mitsuhide swirled the map under his fingers.
That icy gaze hardened. “You evade my point.”
“No. I don’t.” And he glanced up at last, his yellow eyes flashing. “We’ve tried to prevent this. I even took the extreme of abandoning her, against my better will and Mitsunari’s protests. You cannot ask me to do the same thing twice.”
Mitsunari’s purple eyes shone like a spotlight. “You mean it?”
“I do. I’m so, so sorry Mitsunari. You tried to tell me this was the wrong choice, and I didn’t listen. Please forgive me.”
Kenshin appraised them both sourly. “This will mean her death.”
Nobunaga spoke up. “Their circumstances are not yours, Kenshin. Let me see this other human you have there.”
The fog lifted, and she could see the pathway stretching out before her as she entered what looked like a town. Rather, it was meant to be one--all of the buildings were that same, shimmering purple, like a video game with none of the textures loaded. She tried to rest her hand against the wall of one of the low, thatched roof cottages and watched as her hand phased right through it. Huh. Curious, she took a deep breath and stepped through.
Inside, the room was small and cozy. A translucent fireplace cast its light around the wavering room, an old wooden table set with dinner for a family that flickered in and out of memory. They wore old clothes--from the seventeen hundreds, maybe?--a mother hunched over a small baby in a makeshift highchair, a hard roll of bread and some stew set out before them. What was this, a memory? An installation? A town that was never finished? She wanted to reach out to them, but it was nothing more than smoke, so she walked outside once more.
Out in the distance, something howled again.
Now that sounded like the vampire. Shaking her head, she quickened the pace. Well, Ieyasu’s house hadn’t been too far away from the hot springs, but she didn’t remember passing through the town. There was a chance it was the wrong direction, but--
Something barreled into her.
Alarmed, she flung her arm, smacking something coarse and hairy straight in a wet nose. Oh no. She didn’t need Mitsunari’s knowledge to draw a hard assumption about what it was snarling over top of her, luminous yellow eyes glaring through the purple mist. Around her, more werewolves howled.
Frantic, she drew back her leg and kicked it hard in the jaw.
It didn’t expect that. The creature fell back with a dog-like whine, scrabbling back to its hind legs as she rushed for the town again. No good. Five slavering mouths panted and drooled behind her, their hot breath swirling around in pursuit. She was going to die. She was going to die, and Mitsunari and Mitsuhide would never know what became of her--
That stopped her feet.
She danced to the side as one of them charged toward her, dashing into the house once more to get her bearings. At least they couldn’t see her properly through the walls. Think, think! She wracked her brain for a solution, acting more on instinct than real effort. Could she even draw on Purgatory’s pathways? Taking the marker from her pocket, she started on a sigil on the center of the kitchen table, marveling that she could draw on a memory. God--she had no idea what she was doing, but it was all she had.
The first one burst through not long after. On a whim, she took the necklace Mitsuhide had given her into her palm and tried to flip the table--and it worked. Instead of phasing straight through, the rough grain of the wood connected with her hand and she flung it into the creature’s face, watching as her sigil flashed and enveloped it completely.
“Fuck yeah!” She did a jig until another one broke through. Damnit. Necklace still in hand, she grabbed the table from the floor and wrenched it back with all her might, using it as a shield. That one fell through as well, but as soon as it did, the sigil faded from the surface. “Fuck!”
Outside, three more prowled. She could feel their huffs of breath through the walls. Slicking back her hair, she uncapped the marker and drew again.
“It’s as simple as an algebra problem,” Sasuke explained. “Really.”
The three demons and vjelko in the room with him stared as if he were the cosmic abnormality, not them. He sighed politely and arranged his diagrams on the table. “So you are summoned by a specific set of symbols in a pre-arranged pattern, yes?”
“Correct.” Nobunaga agreed impatiently. “You’re saying that just another sigil should lock the holes in the barrier, but I’m here to advise you that we’ve never had much luck with that.”
Sasuke shrugged and shoved his glasses back up his nose. “I’m willing to try and publish my findings for replication.”
“Do what?” Kenshin asked, then irritably changed his tune. “Nevermind. Do you have any success yet?”
“I have some theories. I haven’t implemented them yet as it would require having access to one of these tears, and I cannot personally navigate Purgatory.” But he patted a hand over a machine sitting on the desk. “I am at least seventy-two percent confident that this should work, provided I have your assistance.”
“How so?”
“Well, clearly you don’t have much in the way of batteries here, nor can I just hook it up to an outlet. Solar power is right out, as is wind. However, I think a basic source of nuclear power should service it perfectly fine.” Sasuke motioned to some of his notes. “And as best as I can tell, the way the demons I’ve observed here have manipulated matter appears to be through a variant form of nuclear fission.”
“So you want one of us to power it?” Mitsunari asked, his eyes wide. “That’s brilliant!”
“Yes, though I suspect it would take a long-term investment on the part of whomever volunteered to power it.”
The men were all silent for a long moment. At last, Kenshin squinted at Sasuke. “If it doesn’t work, can we stop?”
“Of course.”
That was all he asked. Quietly, he announced, “Then I will do it.”
Out of nowhere, Nobunaga’s eyes dilated. Sniffing the air, he turned toward Mitsuhide and Mitsunari. “Does your woman frequently use sigil magic?”
“Not that we know of,” Mitsuhide answered.
“Though apparently,” Mitsunari added, motioning at the remains of the circle drawn behind them, “We could be surprised.”
The Vjelko chuckled. “You’re about to be. Someone is running rampant with it in the Ghostly Township, and I have a feeling it is who we are looking for. Sasuke, Kenshin--if you don’t want the barrier to be ripped open further from all the activity, I’d suggest you get a move on with that.”
A third one burst through the wall and the sigil exploded, which she hadn’t expected. The creature screamed bloody murder and fell back out, its fur a wild orange blaze. Around her, the house shivered. Was it becoming more solid? That didn’t bode well. God, if only she had Sasuke here to theorize.
But she didn’t. She just had two more werewolves prowling around the house, a marker, and a suddenly very real table in her grasp. When had that happened?
“Alright, you fuzzy fucks,” she mumbled, scrawling another circle onto its wooden surface. “Try and get me.”
As if it heard her, a fourth one plowed through the wall, and this time it splintered rather than just allowing passage back and forth. She screamed and wrenched the table between them. Kra-kow! Icicles shot like bullets, snapping her table and putting the beast down in one.
“Damnit.” She thrust the useless half of the table down, still clutching the marker tight. Now she was good and trapped if she decided to remain in the house, and the only way out was now that hole. One more werewolf prowled out there somewhere, but it was the only chance she had. It wasn’t as if she could hide here. Screwing down her resolve, she sprinted out of the hole in the wall.
Sure enough, barely had she cleared the wall before a massive, clawed hand swiped down and took a chunk out of her arm. She screamed and collapsed to her knees. Get up! Rolling to the side saved her life; the creature leaped bodily onto where she’d just been kneeling, saliva spraying from a hungering maw. She struggled for her marker, trying to draw something, but her arm wouldn’t respond.
Someone stepped in front of her.
“You don’t touch her.” Mitsuhide swept out his arm, a swirling mass of energy pooling in his palm, and the light blinded her. The werewolf’s frantic squeal echoed out through Purgatory, and then--nothing. Her eyes adjusted again, the light gone, and two sets of arms wrapped around her.
Mitsunari whispered, kissing her forehead, “Are you okay?”
“Y-y-yes,” she managed, still too shocked for coherent thought. “Hi, Honey.”
His petal-soft breath hitched against her ear. “I still get to be Honey?”
“Yes, Honey, always.”
“I’m so sorry.” Mitsuhide kissed her bloody shoulder, prying away strips of her ruined sleeve. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I thought you would be safer. I thought you could just forget us. I’m so sorry, please forgive me--”
Words failed her. Instead she leaned heavily into his arms, resting her forehead against the curve of Mitsuhide’s neck, and he fell silent. It’s okay, she thought, but the sounds wouldn’t come out, so she just kissed the exposed edge of his collarbone instead. Something dripped hot onto her cheek and she wondered for a moment what that was, but--no, it was Mitsuhide, and he was crying against her. She squeezed his arm.
“We love you, Honey,” Mitsunari soothed her, petting her hair. “We love you. You’re safe.”
Sasuke set up the machine on the edge of the township, angling it toward the house that steadily became more real. Kenshin tied up his sleeves.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Sasuke offered for the thousandth time. “If anyone else might want to do it--”
“I owe it to someone,” Kenshin snapped. “If not for me, she might have lived.”
He didn’t ask again. Instead he switched the machine on. The demon reached out his arm and forced a beam of light into it, and it whirred into life, projecting a thousand sigils across the far reaches of Purgatory like a beacon, forming a massive web of orange energy.
They spent three days doting on her.
Every time she woke, Mitsunari or Mitsuhide were there, if not both, changing her bandages and presenting her with something lovely to eat. Ieyasu visited frequently to check on her arm. Even he seemed less sour now.
“What you did was sort of impressive,” he mumbled. “Kind of.”
After he left, Mitsunari wrapped a gentle hand around her throat, drawing a fine line with his thumbnail down her skin. “Whose are you?”
“I’m yours,” she murmured against his mouth. With a teasing smile, he bit down onto her lower lip.
“Of course you are, Honey.”
Sasuke visited one day, drawing up a chair beside her bed. “So we successfully stayed the fraying of the barrier. It would be safe for us to go home now--but there is a catch.”
“What’s that?”
“Well.” He shoved his glasses back up his nose. “For any walking back and forth between the barriers, it is necessary to shut the machine on and off. While that is possible, it also is quite a bit of exertion onto Kenshin, and I think it would be best to avoid that.”
“So what you’re saying is that when we go, we’re basically gone.”
“Correct.”
It didn’t feel like much of a choice. She stared out the window before her, watching the stars of Purgatory swirl around, the rivers of dreams flowing in a silver stream. What a beautiful, terrifying, incredible place it was--and she was alright with that. “Then I’m staying.”
Sasuke didn’t fight her. He just smiled his typical muted smile. “I thought you might say that. Purgatory is a fascinating source of study and research. I’m going to stay myself, then.”
When she finally felt better, Mitsunari and Mitsuhide prepared a home made meal for her on the balcony.
“Masamune had to make it.” Mitsunari admitted. “We don’t know how to cook on Earth, let alone here in Purgatory. We’ll have to make a number of allowances in regard to food preparation to make sure you have something to eat.”
“But that won’t be difficult.” Mitsuhide took a long draught of some silver-black liquid, eyeing her. “Did you enjoy it?”
She smiled up at them, wearing a beautiful black dress they’d gathered for them. “It was delicious.”
“Perfect. And now--”
“Now,” Mitsunari grinned, his eyes sharpening, “We have to punish you for scaring us.”
“Scaring you? You two scared me!” She scoffed, but Mitsuhide gently cupped his hand over her mouth.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “Precious things like you don’t get to talk right now.”
Oh. Her pulse quickened as their hungry eyes bored through her. Without further ado, Mitsuhide swept her up from the chair and carried her back inside, setting her in Mitsunari’s lap on the bed. Together, their practiced hands peeled the dress from her body, dropping it in gentle swaths to the floor.
“My love,” Mitsuhide murmured, kneeling between her legs. “There is nothing in the world I can do to make everything up to you.”
“I thought I was the one getting punished, not you?” She managed, her breath hitching.
“Well,” Mitsunari offered, his bright voice entirely at odds with the leash he produced in his hand. “You could fix that. I can punish the both of you.”
She fixed the collar back around Mitsuhide’s neck and gave him a gentle tug on the leash, watching his yellow eyes go hazy. Eagerly he dove between her legs, clutching at her thighs and running his tongue along the slit of her.
“O-o-ohhhhh,” she gasped, writhing back against Mitsunari. The other demon laughed and cupped his hand around her throat.
“What a good little plaything you are,” he crooned, soft and sweet in her ear. “I do enjoy using you. You’re my little toy.”
“Yes,” she gasped, her soul practically vibrating out of her body from Mitsuhide’s attentions to her sex. “Yes, yes, yes. I’m your toy.”
“Good girl. Good, good girl.”
Mitsunari liberated the leash from her hand and jerked on it. Mitsuhide growled in protest but obeyed anyway, rising between her legs to his partner, and from there, they kissed each other. She watched Mitsunari run his tongue over Mitsuhide’s dripping lower lip, absorbed in the taste of her, and it made her heart burn with desire.
“Honey,” Mitsunari whispered to her, grinning like the devil, “Do you want more?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then you can undress me.”
Her hands shook as she undid his robe, and barely had the fabric left his shoulders before he pulled her up into his lap and lowered her onto his cock. She groaned, barely able to take all of him. Mitsunari tugged the leash again. “Get down there and get back to work.”
It was almost too much to take. Mitsuhide’s mouth sucked on the tiny bud of her, the whole of Mitsunari sliding in and out of her, glorious pressure hitting every sensitive part of her. She cried out and writhed, but he pinned her back against his chest with a hand to her throat, nipping at her ear. “Are you happy?”
“Oh my god,” she managed, her voice cracking with pleasure. “Oh my god, yes.”
“Thank me.”
“Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you--”
Mitsuhide played the tip of his tongue along one especially sensitive part of her and she screamed, finally releasing, her mind swirling into some heavenly place. Both of the men stilled until she stopped writhing.
“Aw, look at her,” Mitsunari crooned, brushing her hair from her face. “I think more would break her.”
“Please,” she gasped, almost insane with need. “Please.”
Mitsuhide rose and unclasped the collar from his neck, setting it around hers with a final click. It felt so right that she didn’t resist. With practiced ease, the men transferred her onto him and she cried out as she sank down onto Mitsuhide, Mitsunari following again only a moment later.
“I love you,” she babbled incoherently, “I love you. I love you. I love you both. Please don’t leave me.”
“My sweet, sweet Princess,” Mitsuhide whispered, tugging meaningfully on her collar. “Don’t imagine that we ever will.”