The Red Hand

Chapter 107 –  Reactions and the Family Secret.

Rewinding time a bit to earlier that day. The annihilations of Libra was broadcast to a huge number of people, with the recording quickly going viral. Reactions to Akagi's actions varied with many being grateful, while others were horrified at her excessive display of violence. In the United States, President Rosewood was feeling a mix of both.

Sitting in a briefing room, President Rosewood sat in complete silence until the rest of her cabinet and other important government officials arrived.

"So the good news is, Libra has been defeated." She sighed as she recalled the video footage of Akagi defeating them. "The bad news is, now we have a much greater problem." She placed her head in her hands. "Why can't things be easy?"

{She wasn't kidding when she declared herself to be a monster, was she?} (Rosewood)

Secretary Nowak commented. "That blast given off by Herlex... our calculations project it had enough energy to severely damage the planet if he'd pointed it in a different direction. I... I apologize Mam, but I'm a little dumbfounded by this whole series of events." Even an experienced member of the defense community had a hard time comprehending what just happened. "If that Akagi woman took that hit and survived, then I'd be inclined to agree with her assertion that nuclear weapons would not affect her."

{Yeah, I think nukes are the least of her worries if she can survive a blast which could've blown up a planet.} (Rosewood)

"To be entirely honest, I thought she was exaggerating her power in an attempt to intimidate us. But after that display..." President Rosewood groaned. "I'm not so sure anymore. I guess that means when she told me she could destroy us all, she wasn't joking."

{If we could feel her aura from the other side of the planet, just how powerful is she?} President Rosewood had been in a meeting when suddenly the entire room started shaking. At first they believed it to be an earthquake, but soon reports flooded in about similar events across the globe. It seemed that when Akagi let out her power, the entire planet began to shake.

"Madam President, I say this with all due respect. What fuck do we do against that?" Secretary Nowak dropped all formality for a moment. "If she can withstand a blast which our analysis suggests could destroy the planet, we have no hope of beating her. I'm at a total loss for how to proceed against such a threat."

"Perhaps she has some kind of weakness?" One of the military brass spoke up. "She's got to be vulnerable somewhere, perhaps she simply requires a specific type of attack. There must be a way to defeat her, she's not a god.”

"No, but she is a Demon Lord. Our little spy has informed me a bit about what that status means before you all arrived." President Rosewood glanced at the military commander. "It's not just a title, General. It's a designation, and we'd be fools to ignore it." She didn't know everything, but Hikari told her enough to make her wary.

"With all due respect Madam President." The military man continued. "That girl is likely feeding you tall tales on orders of her master. She is a spy after all, so I wouldn't advise taking her words at face value." His comment was reasonable, but wrong. “I believe we should double our efforts to recruit some of these powered individuals into our ranks as a deterrent for future threats. Perhaps we can even deepen our intel gathering from those who knew about this Akagi woman. They may be able to shed light on her abilities and may even give us a method of dealing with her.”

{If it were that simple, I suspect the Japanese Government would have already dealt with her General.} (Rosewood)

"Be that as it may. I believe the best path forward is to avoid antagonizing her and seek peaceful coexistence with her and her people. She seems to be more interested in her own life and those of her group than fighting us or humanity as a whole, so I see no reason to go testing theories about defeating her." President Rosewood looked at the others in the meeting room. "Need I remind you that if we're wrong, it won't just be this country that's destroyed but the entire world."

The room grew silent as she said those words, because they knew she was right. "Japan will be granting her territory as part of its deal to handle Libra. That will mean she steps onto the international stage as a new power, and I think it's in not just the United States, but humanity's best interest to start our relationship with her on the right foot." She took a deep breath.

"Abigail, please work on getting Congress on board with a formal invitation to Demon Lord Akagi to the White House. I would like to speak with her in person so we may discuss our relationship going forward. Please explain to Congressional leadership the need for a dialogue with her and my desire to have our two peoples exist together peacefully. Inviting her here formally as a representative of her soon-to-be nation will be a good first step in establishing a positive relationship with her." She said to her Chief of Staff.

Technically she could just invite Akagi without approval, since the President was America's chief diplomat, but inviting the literal Demon Lord to the White House would cause issues and thus she figured it would be beneficial to seek approval from at least Congressional leadership before extending an invitation.

"That might prove difficult, and I suspect we'll get pushback from some of the more hawkish members of Congress, but I'll make it happen." Abigail nodded.

"Secretary Hubbard." She turned to her Secretary of State. "Please stress to the Japanese government that they should under no circumstances take actions against Akagi or otherwise provoke her wrath. I'm not saying they can't defend themselves, but they should not be the ones to initiate hostilities." President Rosewood didn't need further crisis in Japan now that things had stabilized.

"I will speak to the Japanese Ambassador after we finish here." He nodded.

"Also, get me in touch with Ambassador Wakemore. The U.N. was also intended to deal with non-human existences, and I suspect it will want to be involved in any and all negotiations involving the Demon Lord.” She gave a dry laugh. ”Though technically, the Secretary for Outer Space Affairs was created assuming we'd be negotiating with Aliens from another planet, not a something born on our own world." She sighed.

{At this point, nothing could surprise me...} (Rosewood)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in Japan, the RRT was still in a state of shock over the sudden and total destruction of most of Libra. They'd figured Akagi would handle Libra, but this was far beyond their expectations. Not long after things finished up, Superbia returned with the restrained Elna, who, didn't put up any resistance. After being healed and thrown into a specially-made cell, she stayed completely quiet muttering something incomprehensible about Akagi and eternal darkness.

Mixu, Excelsior, and Aoi stood in the comms room as the other members logged in to speak over video call.

"So... Demon Lord." Mixu sighed. "Anyone have any ideas about that?" She had no clue what that meant or any of the details, and neither did anyone else.

"I guess we have our answer as to why Hishya was so freaked out." Minazawa clutched her head over the video call. "So Akagi wasn't human, and in fact, she was a world-ending Demon hell-bent on the extermination of mankind. Great, just what we needed in our lives."

"Not to mention she eats souls." Hoshino shuddered as she recalled what Akagi did to Libra's members. "I'm just glad she's not after me, that looked horrible."

"All hail the Demon Lord!" Imp burst out laughing. "May her reign be long-eternal! All shall quake-cower in fear-terror at her darkness!" Her comment annoyed or exasperated everyone else.

"Imp...” Mixu glared at her. “Forget it, I don't even have the energy to smack you. Go worship your God Empress or whatever..." Mixu was going to say more but gave up. "I don't care what you do anymore."

“Heh-heh.” Imp continued laughing.

"Well, at least Libra's dealt with!" Aoi tried to be positive. "So, hopefully, things will start getting back to normal soon, and at least this means the attacks should stop! So lets look at the bright side!" The other members were less enthusiastic about this turn of events.

"You know, when I joked about Akagi being the Demon Empress of the world. I wasn't expecting to be proven correct on that." Excelsior was kicking himself for that comment. "And normal? Really Aoi? Do you seriously think that Akagi is just going to sit in her little village and just do nothing? God only knows what she's going to do next, and I wouldn't be surprised if she starts a serious bloodletting for shits and giggles."

"I mean, even if she does start her eradication of humanity we can't do anything to her, Excel." Mixu commented. "Tell me, could you eat that blast and come out unscathed? Any of you?" She looked around, and no one answered. "Thought so. I'm not interested in becoming Demon food, so count me out of any schemes to fight her. If you all want to go poking the Demon bear, then be my guest, but don't come crying to me when she eats you."

"Akagi friend, not foe," Imp spoke up in her friends defense. "Leave alone-ignore. Best choice-decision."

"So, are you going to run off and become the Demon Lord's top lackey? You seemed quite enthusasitc about your new overlord." Mixu asked sarcastically. "I'm sure she can get you all sorts of toys to play with Hell she might even go big and bag you a few souls to play with."

"Hmmmmmm." Imp stuck out her tongue in thought. "Perhaps... hehehhehe."

{Though I already have test subjects. Heh-heh...} Imp was already working with Akagi on experimenting on Merkyul and his team in conjunction with Daikael. Things were proceeding smoothly and it was bearing many fruits.

"So what happens to the RRT now?" Hoshino asked. "Libra's done, so are we disbanding?" She asked Aoi.

"No," She shook her head. "This organization was created to be a response team for attacks or natural disasters. With Libra defeated, the team will enter standby mode, only being called when normal emergency services are insufficient." There was much more the super-powered fighters could do other than fight terrorists.

"Akagi will be coming here tomorrow with Hishya, so please be in Tokyo in person. She wants to speak with all of us." Superbia mentioned what Akagi asked her to. "And I'd recommend not ignoring the Demon Lord's request." She gave a dry laugh.

"You saying that just makes me think we're back in FWO." Minazawa shook her head. "Wasn't there some lore about a Demon Lord in the game?"

"Yes-yes!" Imp answered. "But Akagi not same Demon Lord. Akagi much more dangerous-deadly."Imp gave a tooth smile, she knew that this new Akagi would give her so much more fun toys to play with.

_____________________________________________________________________________

In a mountain compound West of Kyoto.

Kenji Tomogawa sat around a conference table with his first son (Akagi's uncle) and his second daughter (Akagi's Aunt). He was in formal attire, similar to that of a Buddhist priest. While his children were in similar clothing.

"It would seem that the events our forebears prepared for has finally come to pass." Kenji looked at the image of Akagi in her Demon Lord form projected on the wall. "Darkness has returned to Japan. After two centuries, we are called upon to perform our sworn duty as banishers of Yokai and all things evil. This Demon Lord was born of our own blood and thus it is our responsibility to destroy her and save the world as is our duty by blood." He looked at his two children who nodded in agreement.

"Begin preparations. We will require the blood of our Masters to succeed in this great endeavor. Take great care in securing the girl. Once we have her, we can unlock the sacred implements left to us in case the darkness ever returned. With their aide, the stain upon our family shall be erased and peace and order will be restored." The girl he was referring to was Naomi. Their two clans had once been one, but in the 1700s, the Tomogawa was split off from the main branch to create a dedicated Yokai hunting clan. This was something only known to the highest members of each family as secrecy was paramount. Naomi's father and grandfather were killed before she was informed, and thus she was unaware of the connection, as tradition dictated that family members would not be informed until their eighteenth birthday.

The Tomogawa clan was also similarly secretive, with only its Head and those deemed worthy being brought into the fold. This was usually the Head's immediate children as well as the children of heirs and the siblings of the head as well as their children. But at times there were those unsuited to their duty born into the clan. Those deemed unworthy were not informed of this part of the Tomogawa legacy, such as Akagi's mother, and thus were unaware of the truth. At present, the Tomogawa family had ten active agents spread amongst the generations. Similarly to the Tokugawa clan, members were not inducted until their eighteenth birthday, as the ritual used to awaken their spiritual power was unsafe until maturity.

"Father," Juichiro spoke up. "While I do not disagree with the need to act, I find it concerning that we would kidnap a member of the Tokugawa clan and act without their direct approval. She might be a mere girl, but she is the last remaining member of our Master's house and she would perish during the release ritual!" The Tomogawa's were sworn to the Tokugawa's in blood and oath, doing this would violate both of those. “Is there no other option? Could we not take from one of the other branch families? Or perhaps negotiate with this girl?”

"We do not have the luxury of standing on formalities," Miyabi interjected. "That girl is not aware of our family's history and sacred duty, and she cannot make an informed decision as she has been tainted by that Demon. Her death will atone for her sins and her betrayal of our founding oaths." Her eyes told just how serious she was. “If it wasn't for that fool of a sister of ours, we wouldn't have to take such drastic measures anyway.”

{She even failed to kill that monster discretely, even with all the help I provided her over the years! What a worthless woman!} Miyabi had tried to get Shima to secretly kill Akagi when she was younger, but attempts were either aborted or failed to finish her off.

"Indeed, your sister is right." Kenji nodded. "Akagi is a threat to the entire world, and we are the only ones who can stop her. On top of that, she has spirited away our family's most gifted member in generations. Kana would make a fine head in the future, and we must rescue her from Akagi's demonic corruption. Once we do that, we can reeducate her in our ways." He was absolutely sure that his family could handle whatever power Akagi had obtained. “As for other branch families, I'm afraid that will not be possible. None exist which have enough direct Tokugawa blood for use in the ritual.”

He was especially angry at Kana being with her sister, because in just over a year, Kana would have been officially brought into the family business. Her incredible intelligence made many people wondering why she was left in a normal school setting when she could easily have been placed in university at a young age. The answer was because Kana was intended to use her mental prowess for the sake of the clan rather than for herself. Kenji had already determined that she would succeed him as family head once he stepped down, and things were already in motion to include Kana into the family business. She was expected to be the clans most powerful members in generations and early spiritual tests were off the charts. Refusal wasn't really an option, and it was expected that she would acquiesce once the importance of the clan's mission was revealed. If that failed, there was always good old fashioned brainwashing with spiritual power. Something the family could and has used on its members in the past. Until then, like all future members, Kana would live a normal life until her eighteenth birthday. This was done to allow them a sense of normalcy and to make sure they didn't become aloof and forget why they protected this world. Kana's high intelligence did cause some issues, but since the girl herself wanted to remain in a normal environment anyway, things worked out.

However, despite all his training and preparations, Kenji made several fatal mistakes in his planning.

One, he assumed Akagi was unaware of what was going on behind the scenes in the Tomogawa household.

While it's true that she was not informed of the true history of their family while she grew up. She'd had sent some of her agents to spy on the family, and was shocked by what she'd discovered. Out of concern for Kana, she'd decided to withhold this information, but intensified surveillance on the family out of a sense of caution. Though she told her agents to keep their distance, afraid that the Onmyoji could harm her people, meaning that her information was incomplete.

Two, while it's true that his family's spiritual power was great, Kenji was heavily underestimating Akagi's power, and assumed she was no different than the Demons recorded in his family's bestiary. He failed to understand that his family was not strong enough to handle her even with dedicated anti-demon techniques, and his reliance on ancient weapons from the past made his plan highly susceptible to failure.

And three, he assumed that Akagi couldn't adequately protect Naomi from whatever attack they tried, as he was unaware of the protective shadow that surrounded the girl. If/when they tried something, Akagi would know and that would signal the family's destruction. For no matter how much Akagi cared for Kana, she wouldn't allow anyone to get away with harming her or her friends, and Naomi was kind of like a second daughter to her, though Akagi would deny that. If it came down to it, Akagi would just ask Kana for forgiveness afterward rather than permission.

These three factors would come together to bring down the centuries-old Tomogawa clan, and Akagi would not hesitate to enact her vengeance. For it would take much more than a few priests to bring down a Demon Lord.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

West of Sendai, deep in the mountains.

“Hiyyah!”A woman with long red hair, tied in a ponytail, yelled out as she fired blasts against the mountainside. “YaYaYaYaYaYaYaYaYaYaYaYa!”

Her name was Eris, leader of the second largest player organization in FWO, the guild Shining Blade. The mountains around Sendai were her favorite training area, and she'd constructed a small base nearby with some of her other guild members.

{Just you wait Hishya, next time we fight. I'll definitely defeat you!} (Eris)

Eris was snapped out of her thoughts by one of her friends. “Hey! Eris! It's time for lunch! Come on down, everyone's waiting.” A girl in a brown tunic called out to her.

Eris put our her fires and turned to the girl. “Sounds good Ema! I'll be down in a bit!” She smiled. After a few minutes of cool-down, Eris walked down to the small clearing where Ema had set up a table for lunch.

“There you are Ayame.” Eris called out to the blue haired girl sitting at the table. This was Ayame, her best friend and second in command. The two had been friends even before FWO and both had taken to continuing their training even after escaping the game.

“Yo!” Ayame made a peace sign. “So check this out.” She pulled up a video feed and sent it to Eris. “Looks like our favorite assassin went and finished the job for us.”

Eris watched as Akagi consumed Zappy. “Damn, she really went for them, huh?” She wasn't particularly disturbed by the footage, but it was still a sight to behold. “I guess that means the government really did hire her.”

“Yeah, apparently Armalthy went and fucked up big time by attacking that priestess of hers. Akagi said at the end of the stream that if anyone else touches her, we're all dead.” Ayame took a sip of her tea.

“Hey those ass hats had it coming. If we were stronger, I'd like to have done it myself.” Eris clicked her tongue. She wanted to defeat Libra herself and finally show up Hishya.

“Tell me about it. Those bastards hit Sendai a few times, and I'd love to tear them apart for that.” Ayame was also from the city and had come to loath Libra for all their destruction. “I just wish more of our members would actually take training seriously. Most of them skip out and some don't even show at all.” She sighed. “The bastards think peace is free.”

Most of the Shining Blade members, at least those who retained their abilities, had chosen to stay out of the Libra-RRT war and remained neutral. Each had their own reasons, but Eris and Ayame were angry that more people wouldn't get involved. They'd originally thought of joining the RRT, but decided to stay near Sendai for the time being to protect their home. 

“At least it wasn't Hishya that finished things off. All she got to do was stand on the sidelines and watch, serves her right.” Eris laughed.

{Reformed or not, I don't give a damn Hishya. I'm going to get you on your knees and humiliate you one of these days like you did to me and so many other players!} Eris didn't hate Hishya, and accepted that she was a better person now than she was before, but that didn't mean her lingering anger had disbursed.

“Alrighty! The soup is done!” Ema came back with a big pot and a small basket which had bread.

“Let me take that.” Eris took the hot soup pot from Ema and placed it on the table. “Oh that smells good.” Ema had taken to cooking quite well over the years, something the two girls were grateful for.

“Yeah! I'm starving! Lets eat!” Ayame's stomach growled. “Thank god for Ema! Otherwise we'd never get good food out here!”

Ema got slightly embarrassed. “My cooking isn't really anything special, you two are the special ones with all those powers you have.”

“Yeah, but our power involves getting angry and hitting things really hard. It's not that impressive” Eris gave a wry smile, both her and Ayame were barbarians and were trying to handle their rage ability with its changes in the real world. It was also one of the reasons the two hadn't engaged Libra outside of attacks on Sendai since they didn't trust their powers at the moment. “Don't go discounting yourself like that. You've always been a massive help!”

The three sat down and ate lunch, discussing their progress, future training and what would happen now that Libra was dealt with.

“Well...” Ayame said while chewing. “If all the Libra members give up, that's the end of that. But I don't think we should stop training. Who knows what might happen next.”

“I agree, we need to whip the rest of the members into shape, lest we fall behind. We have no idea what threats might emerge, and I have no interest in being turned into a pawn for the government or any other group.” Eris said while taking a bite of bread. “Wouldn't shock me of more things from FWO start cropping up too. This whole situation still doesn't sit well with me. We've seen that NPCs can cross from the game into our world, so perhaps other things could too? Maybe monsters?” That was a possibility Akagi had broached to her once on a phone call.

“No clue, but we just need to be ready for whatever the future brings. I can imagine the government is going to try even harder to bring us under its thumb from here, and we need to be powerful enough to resist.” Ayame nodded.

{I also need to be strong enough to protect the people I care about.} She glanced at Ema and Ayame. {Hishya's only gotten stronger, so now I need to work double time to get more powerful than her. Perhaps Akagi has some ideas? She did offer to train us if we were interested. Perhaps we should take her up on that offer, if its still on the table.}