Ohe girls had safely left the party and we had tidied up, I finally had the opportunity to sit down Shaeu and ask about the strange way some of the girls were ag, so we went to her room and sat on her bed.

  “So, got anything to say?” I asked, and she squirmed unfortably, before leaking out a sigh and fessing. “I simply decided to start-start my Chirurgery on Keomi and the new female, Maiko. It is exhausting indeed-indeed here oerial, so I felt I should-should make a start oasks ahead while I was-was able. And rejoice!” She smiled, eyes bright. “I have-have, after you many-many times, mao replicate the basics of your Ether Healing! This works most-most excellently with my own-own skill. I deserve praise, do I not-not?”

  Ign the fact she was clearly nervous, I quickly examined her, firming that she had indeed learher Healing. “Yeah, good job on that. The more Skills we have the better.” I gave in and stroked her head, causio lean into me, happy. “And I guess it makes seo prepare, as long as you are managing things properly.”

  “It does-does!” Shaeu agreed. “After all, we have many-many tasks remaining.”

  “Sure. So… why were the irls looking so drained aen-up?” I asked, and Shaeu flinched. For a moment she stayed buried in my embrace, before looking at me, face flushed, a cheeky grin pstered across her features. Damn, that’s cute, but you won’t escape my questions that easily.

  “Well, hmm… I was a little-little careless, and some girls mao listen in-in to our talk. So I believed it would-would be best to draw them into our clutches. So-so…” she paused, taking a deep breath. “… I performed Chirurgery ohem as well.”

  “I see...” I said, and for a moment Shaeu looked at me, hopeful, before I rapped her on the head a few times, not hard, but enough to show my displeasure. “.. is what you were hoping I would say, right? As if! You know we o be careful, information leaks have put us and my family in danger already. You shouldn’t involve people who have no stake in this!”

  “I know-know…” she pouted, rubbing at her head, despite the fact my knuckles clearly didn’t hurt her, as I had no desire to cause her any real pain. “… still, we are tasked with improving these nobles, are we not-not? I thought it would be wise-wise to practi some normal females beforehand. A good idea, is it not-not?”

  Well yeah, there’s no way we mess up with Tsumura-san and the two Fukumoto’s. Still, there’s quite the fw in that argument… “Yes, but weren’t Eri and my sis both normal girls? You’ve already practised on them!”

  Shaeu stuck out her tongue in a manner she had seen Aiko dical remorse. “That-that is exactly what Kana said. How-how vexing. Still… greater numbers bring us greater bes, am I wrong?”

  I sighed then. I found it really hard to stay mad at people I cared about, especially girls. “No, you aren’t wrong, but… really, I wao stick to people from the shrines, and also now the nobility, I guess. Just… sult with me in future, please!”

  Shaeu kissed me then, soothing away my st distent. As we parted, our lips hot, she grinned. “I shall-shall, I promise. But Kana keep her friends in line-line, I have every faith in her. And you cared enough to offer Hisano advice, so I felt you would not-not mind her inclusion.”

  Seriously? If being even slightly o a girl gives Shaeu the impression that I’m ied ihen I’m going to have a tough time. Resolving to discuss this with her at length ter, I noticed something seemed missing from the room.

  “Hey where’s the doll Azuki was in? It was just over there, wasn’t it?” I poio the empty er. As soon as I did so, I heard a scraping from uhe bed, and Azuki crawled out, her wooden joints w slowly. Once she was out she fell against the wall, sitting as she was left before, her eyes still red and full of life.

  “I see-see. Were you hiding from the young females?” Shaeu asked, and with a creaking nod, she agreed. Opening and closing her mouth slowly Azuki mao make some crude words with great effort.

  “Yes… hiding. Too many… people.” The voice was whisper quiet, and only with my superior hearing could I pick it up.

  “So you move like Hyath said.” I mused. “I wonder how that works.”

  Shaeu eyed her, nodding. “The doll has accumuted aether over-over the years. Though it depletes rapidly as Azuki moves.” She then talked to her. “You should-should rest.”

  “But… the mad… fairy…” Azuki protested weakly, and I knew what she meant.

  “Don’t worry about Hyath. You just sleep for now. Later, when there’s more ether here for you to absorb, then you think about moving.”

  Hearing my words the doll gave a relieved sigh, her eyelids sliding shut as she slumped down, still and lifeless once more. Just one more strange wonder added to the pile. Still, her ability t fortuo a house that she mentiohat intrigues me. Of course, until Wednesday we ’t experiment much.

  “All right then. Today has been… iing.” I said, and Shaeu nodded her agreement. “Now we take our time and do whatever we o in the Boundary, since we have no pressis ing up. It’s been a while, our days have been packed retly.”

  With that we ehe Boundary once more…

  ***

  “Damn it, I’m beat.” I stared up at Ulfuric as he held out a mighty hand. Grasping it, I let him pull me to my feet, my exhausted muscles protesting, my many cuts and bruises stinging painfully. “You really worked me over.”

  “Ihere is little point to training unless you give it your all, sort.” Ulfuric rumbled. “Still, you learn quickly. You mao avoid several of my feints this time.”

  “Yeah…” I muttered, using some aether to heal my wounds, and not for the first time during this sparring session, as when I was uo tinue Ulfuric had bade me fix my injuries before tinuing. It definitely did help me learn, both bat skills aher trol, but it was quite the brutal training regimen. Seriously, I never used to like exercise, especially if it got to the painful, exhausting stage. And here I am now taking regur beatings and w myself until I drop. Sure, it’s probably because I have a goal, but I think it’s mostly because I have a way of quantifying my improvements. Seriously, I wonder why everyone doesn’t get a status s. It’d help people grow a lot…

  “… sadly, I fell for more than I noticed, right? You don’t hold back too.”

  “The only way you will learn is if there are sequences for failure.” Ulfuric chastised me for my pining. “So, how is the bance of the neons? Master Bjarki has done well, I feel.”

  Yeah, he sure has. The practice ons I was using were blunted versions of the new main armaments that had been fed. The swords were sharp-edged and somewhat curved like a katana, but heavier and thicker, made from a strong, durable metal alloy that Bjarki had crafted. That wasn’t all, apparently the edges were mixed with some Kobold bluesteel, Ixitt helping ie it, so that the edge could be fortified with elemental essence for additional destructive force. Bjarki called them the Twin Fangs, which was quite cool. They did look a bit like curved teeth.

  This was matched with a simir spear, though this time the longer wooden shaft was strengthened with metal rivets, and the head had a cross-shaped guard. The spearhead itself was also metal and bluesteel alloy. Lastly I had a matg dagger for emergencies.

  A shame they haven’t mao crack firearms yet. Still, it’s only been a few days here. I’m fident they’ll get it done, and so is Ixitt. Speaking of Ixitt, when he heard a erritory was beiablished he was eager to see it first-hand, and had begged to go with the taskforce esc the Jade Beetle Kami back to defend the area for the few days. It wasn’t like there was any reason to refuse him, so…

  “Yeah, they feel pretty good. It’s still hard using two swords at once, even though I have the reflexes and think fast enough I end up getting myself into knots easily.” I put aside the other thoughts and sidered the fruits of my many hours of gruelling sparring.

  “If learning such skills was easy, there would be no she of mighty warriors. Now, enough rest. e at me again!” Ulfuric ordered, and with a tired sigh I took my stance, ready for another round of beatings…

  ***

  “I now-now have more sympathy for your struggles.” Shaeu panted as she y down beside me, her head on my p. As she shifted my bruises ached, but I put on a brave fad tio give her a p-pillow. Her damp hair smelt of sweat and her yukata was ging to her slender body, so at least I had a nice view as I circuted aether to heal my wounds for the fifth time. “It is much easier to simply use elemental wind and fme-fme from a distance.”

  Shaeu had also been sparring, though she was against several of the female weaselkin warriors we had ied from Shaeraggo, and they went easy on her because of her royal pedigree. Even so, Shaeu was uo such physical bours, and trying to fight with her body and use her dagger proved very draining, even for someoh her Statistics.

  “It sure is. But Ulfuric is right. You should know how to defend yourself in close-bat.” I stroked her sweaty head gently. “Nobody would suspect you to have any talents, so it could prove the differeween keeping you safe and a bad end in an emergency.”

  “I know-know.” Shaeu agreed wearily. “Still… my respect for you only increases.”

  We stayed like that for an hour or so, until Shaeu had recovered enough to move. Ulfuric was now patrolling our Territory and dealing with any issues on the borders, bringing us more ether, so it was time for the leg of our ary practising.

  Sitting down amidst the rising ruby flow of earth elemental energy, I began my meditations, drawing in the crimson tide. Shaeu was sat outside the red cascade, still wary of the energy she decred so inimical to her, me with her shining Mystic Eyes, advice as she watched me manipute the flows, trying to bahe three flig forces. Seriously, if a third element is such a pain, I dread to think how hard adding water will be…

  The energy pooled around my root Chakra, the entry-point to my Chakra work, so pulling it in was easy, and the red brilliance built up quickly. However, as it started moving through the rest of my work it rapidly met the first obstacle, the yellow glow of fire in my sor plexus. The earth tried to greedily drink in the fme, spinning out of trol. This in tur a chaotic mixture of ruby and citrine surging towards the emerald of my heart Chakra. Red and green cshed violently, pushing each other away, while yellow once more ed green, swelling in stature. This then tio flow, and when the jumbled masses of energy struck my lunar Chakra, my body became ever more disarrayed, the chaotic flows starting to eat into my subtle body, pain knifing through me, my capilries starting to burn, pops sounding audibly within my head as lesser nodes overloaded and cracked.

  First, I o calm the fire and air. I do that, as I’ve already tamed them… Bringing peace to the yellow and green tide, I mao force them bato bahough the experience was exquisitely agonising. Sadly, while I was doing this, I was barely able to keep the red flows in check. “Earth… spiritually it represents prote, growth, nature…” I began to mutter. I had asked the White Snake Kami and Ulfuriy questions, and had finally mao gain some enlighte on the spiritual aspects of the elemeh aired with water to create the nature (oftentimes called wood) element, and was lio living things, representing a healthy, strong body. It could also be called the element of prote, as demonstrated by the salt wards and Ulfuric’s armour of stone. In addition, it was also sidered tied with the opposite, death, since all that lived eventually returo the soil. Every element having an opposite. Yin and yang. Life ah… isn’t that like… I grasped desperately for a fleeting insight into another matter, but trolling two difficult tasks at once roving beyond me, so I wasn’t able to grasp a third.

  “Wait, trolling two at once… isn’t that like dual wielding?” I excimed out loud. Sharpening my focus, splitting the tasks in two, I allowed my dominant focus to trol the earth energy, while the easier task of bang the others I left to my off-hand, to use a metaphor. “From a stific, Material point of view, earth is the element of stone and soil. There are igneous, sedimentary aamorphic types, all formed in different ways, with different positions. Quartz is the most on, and sili, oxygen, calcium, any different elements make up earth, but some are more on than others…” I’d been studyilessly during any free time I had, determio master this task. Even as I tried to marry together the spiritual with the stific, the pain was being unbearable, my work suffering. It was then I opened my eyes as something warm grasped my hand.

  Shaeu had ehe earth fountain, and while she was looking terribly nervous and unfortable, she didn’t seem to be harmed by it. She had taken my hand and was squeezing it reassuringly. As she did so I felt her aether trickle into me, and the pain in my work started to ease, smaller nodes repairing themselves.

  “I - see it.” Shaeu affirmed, excitement overwhelming her disgust at the ruby motes that were bathing her. “Whatever you are doing, it seems-seems to be bearing fruit. Yet… the pain… I sympathise.” Her face twisted, perhaps remembering the agony she endured mastering the fme. “Allow me to aid you. I - repair some of the damage to your Astral body, and rediree of the wayward flows.” Suddenly the boilih energy became quiest, though the backwash of gar was flowing into Shaeu, causing her great suffering as it unbanced her own body awork.

  “I don’t want…” I mao croak, but she silenced me with a kiss, her toertwining with mine sciviously. After a moment she pulled free, sighing.

  “Enough-enough of that. I shall… stop if the pain… bees too great. It is a female’s greatest… pleasure to aid-aid her male, is it not-not? Let… me have this…”

  “Fine, brave girl.” I chuckled grimly. “In that case…” I o this up and I o succeed. I don’t want her ce and suffering to have been for naught. I have a bit of affinity for earth now so… “Soil be made from deg anic matter, and shale is a stone likewise formed franic materials… life ah bined. Stones taials, emstones, being as hard as diamond… the very grouand on is the earth, crust, mantle, core, each differe…” As I tio trate, the flow struggled against me, it was calm on the surface, but underh, crimson energies ed, just waiting to escape my trol destructively. No, doing two things at once is too hard for me still… like when I use a bde iher hand, it only takes a moment for me to lose focus and I get tangled up… hands, both hands… I looked Shaeu in the eyes, and my expression must have startled her, as she cocked her head, questioningly.

  “Shaeu, you use fire and wind just fine, right? So you just use your Chirurgery to hold onto mine, keeping it stable? Then I worry about the earth alone.”

  “I , I believe.” she gasped, still shivering at the disfort she was subjected to, her words broken and halting. “If-if… I link our lunar Chakras once… more, like we did-did before….”

  “Fine. Do it!” I asked, and she nodded, before a surge of wind and fme gushed from her body into mine. I gasped, feeling the pleasure of our joining spirits once more, ected on a deep, almost erotic level. Shaeu shuddered, rapture from our merging warring with the pain from the rampah element.

  No time to be engrossed in the pleasure of this. I have to tame the earth energy! Guiding the flows, I stabilised the root Chakra, a sea of ruby and gar around it like a halo. The sacral Chakra followed easily enough, before I reached the usual stumbling block. This time however I was able to guide the energy through the yellow, and then the green seas, Shaeu keeping my energy from esg my trol. After the heart, energy was absorbed greedily by my lunar Chakra, sparking another war within my body as the three energies fought each other, but as that was the focal point of our merging, Shaeu was once more able to tame it, and soon red energy was beating in time with the others.

  Back round to the throat… then up to the third eye… and finally… the . As the circuit was fully pleted, I felt a great surge of strength within my body, and with that silver letters bzed into being. I toppled backwards, spent, Shaeu in my arms, and I had no time to read the letters as she was kissing me again fiercely, stealing my breath, our spirits and Chakras iwined in the Fae way of love…

  ***

  “I love you, Akio.” Shaeu giggled, held in my arms, watg the py of earth energies overhead. I had mao roll us out of the fountains while we were entwined, and noere covered in mud and dirt. Still, I regretted nothing, other than a brief sorrow that I hadn’t done such with Eri yet.

  “That was quite-quite magnifit.” Shaeu excimed, kissing me greedily again and again, her fao, her whole body pink, flushed and sweating. “I could feel-feel your everything within me, even the cursed earth.”

  “It didn’t hurt you did it?” I asked, ed. “I guess that might be a worry for Fae, if they try and bond with those of opposing elements?” I hought about that before, but I wonder how they’d overe that. I’d… I’d hate it if I got stronger and wasn’t able to satisfy Shaeu any more….

  “I ot-not speak for others, but for me…” She paused, thinking, before kissing me one more time. “It was not-not without disfort… but pain? No, it did not-not hurt. The feeling was strange, but tangled up within the pleasure of our shared wind and fme, it was far-far from unpleasant.” She licked her lips seductively.

  “Lucky. I’m sooo jealous. Nobooody ever siders poor Hyath.” At her voice I sat up, nearly throwing Shaeu off me by mistake. As she squealed in protest, I blushed myself, seeing Hyath peering at us from where she had snuck up on us.

  “Sooo hooot. I wish master would hooold me tight when the mistress is away. That is a Brownie’s duty, after all! Tend tooo the house, guard the children, seduce the master…”

  “I think your mask is slipping, Boggart.” Shaeu decred, annoyed. “While it is quite-quite normal for males to indulge with their servants, my father and brothers do it frequently, I do not-not trust you enough to be aloh my Akio.” She gred at the intruder, cheeks puffed out threateningly. “You may have sworn Oaths, but you are still-still an Unseelie at heart.”

  “I trust her.” I soothed Shaeu, rubbing her head. “I don’t think she is going to harm us, I just get a feeling.” I paused then, realising what it was sounding like, and hurriedly followed up with “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m ied in her! I’m happy enough with you and Eri, I’m not going to be chasing anyone, not like… hey, Shaeraggo does it too? Poor Selensha.”

  Shaeu shrugged, mollified by my ministrations. “It is accepted practice, is it not-not, even in the mortal world? I watched many television shows where the master sleeps with his maids.” She paused then, frowning in thought. “Not-not that I would reend you indulge with my maids. If that is your wish-wish, then go ahead, but… they are rather stupid, I doubt-doubt they could please you.”

  Ugh, a whole heap of problems with that. Firstly, they are still humanoid weasels, and I am not a furry. Sure, Shaeu is cute in her weasel form, but that doesn’t mean I’d like to… well, to put it bluntly, have sex with it. Sedly, they hate me really badly… and… “Well, no way I’m doing that. It’d make me feel like shit if I found out you were having an affair with the butler, so I’m not going to do anything simir.” Do we even have a butler? Maybe at this mansion…

  “I have told you, I have no and will have no-no i in other males.” Shaeu scoffed. “Still, it is cute you worry about such things.”

  “I am being ignooored.” Hyath was twisting and clutg herself bashfully, face flushed. “Master and mistress are treating me like furniture. This is a gooood thing too! A servant should be unobtrusive!”

  Rolling her eyes at the dispy of our so-called servant, Shaeu asked me to check the results of our efforts, so I did, trying to blot out Hyath’s capering.

  You have gained a Skill, Root Chakra Of Earth Rank 3. Your Root Chakra will gee Earth energy and your ability to absorb and utilise it has increased. [Css: ???]

  You have gained a skill, Earth Manipution Rank 5. Your ability to manipute and trol Earth energy has dramatically increased. Your uanding of Earth has signifitly increased, and you handle Earth energies with less wastage and greater efficy, and are more able to adapt to and trol unique Earths. [Css: ???]

  Your Skill, Lunar Chakra Of Wind And Fme Rank 2 has bee Lunar Chakra Of Wind, Fme Ah Rank 2, strengthening your trol and geion over Earth energy. [Css: ???]

  Seeing the results I couldn’t help but let out a little cheer, hugging Shaeu happily. On seeing my joy she was happy as well. “I see-see you have succeeded! I expected no less from my Akio!”

  “I couldn’t have do without you! Your eyes truly are awesome, and your Chirurgery is also busted as hell. I doubt I’m the stro didate for Astral Emperor out there, no doubt some lucky bastards got broken-as-hell starting Skills, but I ’t be too weak, sidering our experiences. Anyway… Rank three for my Chakra, Rank five for manipution, and the lunar Chakra has earth as well now. I guess my affinity boost and all that studying really paid off!”

  Now I have a third option in battle, and as I keep running out of elemental energy way too quickly, havira options means I fight for longer…

  As Shaeu gratuted me once more, Hyath tio pin, trying to attract my attention. Somehow she had mao unbutton a number of the fastenings on her maid outfit and she was exposing quite a bit of flesh. Shaeu quickly leapt up and thed her on the head, her to cover up, ign Hyath’s bitter pints. I could only look away, sighing. Though not before I caught a glimpse of her assets, which were surprisingly rge now she was starting to fill out again. Perky too… Shaking my head, I grabbed them both by the hands and headed back towards the main shrine. One minute I’m p up like it’s battle shouhe mi’s a romantic harem edy… whichever God e… they must have a really sick sense of humour…