Chapter 146: The Puppeteer
The night breeze swept across the front garden.
Daki still stood in the middle of the fountain, soaked from head to toe, the pink kimono clinging to her skin, tracing every line of her sensual body.
Behind her, a dozen obi sashes unfurled from her waist, rippling in the air like snakes waking up.
"Do you really think you can force me, you damned brats?"
"Miss Warabihime, we beg you not to make this difficult for us."
"Difficult?"
Daki snorted mockingly. "Then don’t do anything!"
One of the sashes shot out, slicing through the air with a sharp whistle.
Ivy stepped aside by barely a step and Pearl, without losing an instant, raised her hand.
A torrent of milky-white silk poured from her palm and condensed into a thick barrier in front of them both.
The sash struck against the cocoon.
The silk only suffered a few cuts in its surface layers, but it remained completely unmoved.
Daki narrowed her eyes and a cold smile formed on her lips.
"Interesting."
And with that word, three sashes shot out at once.
Two aimed directly at Pearl’s face and the third traced an arc along the flank, seeking out Ivy.
The cocoon expanded immediately, covering them both. The frontal sashes crashed against it without managing to pierce through.
But the one coming from the side turned abruptly mid-flight, changing its angle, and lunged toward Ivy’s neck.
Ivy moved a finger.
An extremely fine thread of silk coiled with precision around the end of the sash, and pulled hard.
The trajectory veered off. The tip passed grazing Ivy’s temple and sliced off a few locks of her hair.
"Your thread is quite resistant."
Daki tilted her head with a hint of surprise. But her smile, far from fading, turned much more dangerous.
"And how about this?"
Five sashes.
Seven.
Nine...
More than a dozen sashes shot out, no longer in direct, linear attacks, but now falling upon them from every angle, an encirclement closing in from the sky itself.
Ivy’s fingers flew. The thread wove a dense net in the air, spread out to intercept them.
Swish
The thread snapped.
The edges of the sashes were sharper than a sword.
Ivy’s pupils contracted. Her fingers kept releasing thread without stopping, but every time it touched the sashes, they severed it.
"Your threads aren’t much after all."
Daki’s voice brimmed with superiority.
And yet... her sashes couldn’t force their way through Pearl’s cocoon either.
That whitish silk was heavy, clumsy, not at all flexible. But its resistance bordered on the absurd.
The sashes struck it again and again, leaving superficial cuts, scratches, marks. Nothing more.
Nine sashes lashed out frenziedly against the barrier.
And all nine kept being stopped by that same cocoon.
Daki frowned slightly.
These two... one on the attack, the other on the defense. They coordinated damnably well.
But nothing more.
"Do you plan on staying there all night?"
She laughed mockingly, and her sashes intensified, falling upon the barrier with even greater force.
"With so little do you intend to tell me what I have to do?"
Pearl didn’t answer. All her concentration was set on holding the cocoon.
Ivy, on the other hand, wove and unwove thread to contain the attacks while following Daki’s movements with her gaze.
Both sides reached a stalemate.
The sashes couldn’t pierce through the cocoon. And Ivy’s threads couldn’t evade the sashes’ blockade to reach Daki.
But Daki wasn’t in the slightest hurry.
"Being mere servants at Marcus’s side." A smile of contempt appeared on her face. "Where did you get the courage to meddle in my affairs? This is something between Tamayo and me. What the hell do you two have to do with it?"
"Or could it be...?"
"Do you really think you’re important?"
Ivy exchanged a look with Pearl.
Their eyes met for an instant. And they both nodded at the same time.
Suddenly, Ivy’s fingers turned toward the house.
Several threads shot out like lightning toward the mansion’s door and vanished into the darkness inside.
Noticing the movement, Daki sneered. "You still plan on resisting? You—"
She didn’t get to finish.
From inside the mansion a rush of footsteps suddenly burst out.
Three silhouettes came running out of the shadows at astonishing speed.
The man in the lead had thick sideburns climbing up his cheeks, giving him the appearance of a humanoid cat.
The Nichirin Katana in his hand gleamed with an icy shine beneath the moon.
His movements were somewhat unnatural, like those of a puppet. But his speed was absolute madness.
Daki narrowed her eyes.
’Demon Slayer Corps?’
That’s right. The one at the front was Kaigaku, wearing the Demon Slayers’ uniform, with his arms and legs exposed.
In the blink of an eye he had thrown himself at Daki, raising the katana to bring down a direct cut at her head.
Daki snorted. A sash came out to meet him and cleanly severed his right arm at the shoulder.
Blood spurted out.
However, Kaigaku didn’t even frown.
Or rather: there was no expression at all on his face. Nothing. And his eyes were empty, dull.
Another sash struck him head-on and sent him flying through the air.
The amputated arm, still clutching the katana, was flung upward.
And then, before Daki’s stunned gaze, that severed arm, which was already beginning to disintegrate, stopped, floating unsettlingly in the air.
The next instant it hurled itself at her like an arrow, katana first!
"Wha...?!"
Daki threw herself to one side in a hurry while a sash interposed itself to deflect that thing.
And it was right at that instant that she saw them.
Threads... Threads connected to the arm.
"Puppets?!" She was shocked and furious.
’No wonder even severed limbs can keep attacking!’
But in that instant of distraction, the other two puppets had already thrown themselves at her.
One lunged from the left side, opening its arms with the intention of seizing her.
The other circled around behind her, fingers curved like claws, aiming straight at her heart.
Daki’s sashes thrashed frenziedly and cut them both to pieces.
The heads went flying. The limbs were left scattered.
And yet...
Those severed limbs kept moving, separated from the body!
The severed head, mid-flight, opened its jaws to bite her face.
The fingers of the amputated arm closed and shot toward her like a throwing weapon.
The torso, split into two halves, bounced against the ground and crawled searching for her legs.
"Get away! Get away!! GET AWAY!!!"
Daki began to scream while her sashes desperately tore apart the arms and legs that besieged her from every direction.
"Disgusting creatures, get the fuck away from me!!"
However, being demons as well, these things were impossible for her to kill.
Even if they ended up cut into small pieces, as long as they remained connected to the threads, they would keep attacking.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst was that, before she managed to get rid of the remains, their owner had already repaired them.
From the stump of the severed arm a new arm sprouted.
From the half of the severed torso new legs grew.
And then, with that same empty gaze as always, they resumed the attack.
Daki’s expression finally changed.
She raised her eyes toward Ivy, standing behind the cocoon.
That little servant who looked so submissive was standing there calmly, moving her fingers lightly, as if she were playing a piano.
From each one of her fingers ran dozens of threads so fine that the eye could barely make them out.
And the other end of each thread was fastened to every joint, to every centimeter of the puppets.
She wasn’t merely pulling a few strings. She exercised absolute control: precise, synchronized, simultaneous.
Every attack, every movement, every reaction of the pieces once separated from the body... it all passed through her fingers.
Sweat began to bead on Daki’s forehead.
At last she understood...
The true ability of that woman with the air of an affectionate wife had never been cutting with threads.
But this...
Absolute multitasking. Puppet control.
"Damn it!"
’To break up a gang, you first have to cut off its head!’
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