The Bounty Hunter

August 30th, 2089

Rin’s POV

I glared at the jerks who dared to hurt Master, ready to kick their ugly butts!  “Rin… aim for the one with red hair.  He’s channeling a curse that’s crippling me.”  Master sounded so weak through our telepathic link, it’s scary.  I launched my foxfire in a circle, scorching a bunch of the pathetic demons.  Why are they even considered demons like me?  They are so lame!  Hmph, I am so much better and cuter than all of them!  The chains restraining Master vanished, likely due to the death of the conjurer. 

The rest started running about like ants while I wrapped one of my tails around Master.  He always liked stroking my tails, he said the fluffiness was “healing”.  I hope it works fast, he seems badly hurt.  I locked onto the ginger who Master told me to attack and charged.  A big red giant with a stupid looking stick moved to stop me. 

I jumped high into the air as the one-armed doofus swung his stick.  I then shrank my body (except for my tail with master), allowing the stick to swing by.  The giant ended up overextending and leaned forward due to the unexpected miss, allowing me to land on the upper part of his back.  I then expanded back to full size, making the red dumbo eat concrete hard as I pushed off. 

I soared through the air towards the ginger, who was surrounded by a bunch of small-fry demons.  They braced for my pounce, but that’s not what I was planning to do!  I opened my mouth and created as much foxfire as I could muster, condensed it to the size of a marble, and then released it.  My super-duper foxfire laser tore through 12 different demons right towards the ginger.  There was a big, big boom and I saw nothing but black fire in the area!  Yes!  He’s toast!  I can feel that the curse on Master has disappeared.  Master is getting all better and is going to praise me and pet me and cuddle with me! 

“Surprises, surprises… Who would have thought that Tokyo is such a fun Jack-in-the-Box?  I meet a Remnant and a true kin of mine back to back.”  My fur stood up in fright at that aura.  Ginger was standing up with most of his clothing burned off, but was otherwise unhurt.  Scary!  “Relax, little kit.  The sirens indicate that our playtime is over for now.”  He looked past me at Master who was all better and glaring at him.  “Bye, bye darling.  I’ll be back for you.”  The scary ginger winked at Master before vanishing along with the other jerks, leaving just me and master in the ruined stadium.

“Let’s go home, Rin.”  Master was smiling at me as he held out his arms.  I shrunk down to my usual size and leaped into his arms.  “Did you see me?!  I was like ‘bam’ and they were like ‘nooo’ and then I was like ‘kapow’!”  Master started laughing lightly at my words as he set-up the teleportation magic.  But right before we disappeared I asked about something that was bothering me “Master, that scary ginger called you darling.  Isn’t that only for couples?  Is he joining your harem?”  I tilted my head as Master suddenly started coughing.  What?  Did I say something strange?

Terra’s POV

After Rin’s timely intervention, I managed to stagger back home.  The concert was in the late morning, but it was evening by the time I came back home.  My parents were supposed to have returned from their business trip today, but the voicemail indicated that they would be delayed another 3 days.  Good, I wouldn’t want them to see me like this.  I have some gnarly looking cuts and bruises scattered on my body.  With my mana restored it was easy enough to heal the worst of my injuries, but there’s still a lingering taint from that blood magic curse that was interfering with my recovery.  I could power through it, but I am paranoid about leaving myself vulnerable by draining my mana too much while Dante and co. are still out there. 

My augmented constitution will be able to handle it given a few hours.  It won’t be able to repair the mental trauma I’ve incurred.  My alternate persona has stolen the heart of an actual Demon Lord, and he wants to turn me into his lover/sex slave.  Fuck.  My.  Life.  I won’t be able to ever use my “Rin” persona again without risking a damn demon attack.  My idol career is over, which means that I need a new source of income.  I also have a rampaging demon lord and his demon army to deal with and school starts in two days. 

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  This is bad, this is really, really bad.  I now know what happened to all the released mana from the Redemption Project.  I never considered the possibility of the mana aggregating to form spirits, let alone demons and a demon lord.  Demon lords are the highest known class of demon and thus are among the strongest spirits in general.  I don’t know much else about them.  There was not a lot of material written on them in the other world due to their rarity.  I don’t know how they are born, what abilities they have, nothing other than that a demon lord is considered the equivalent of a major natural calamity.  Nevertheless, Dante shouldn’t have won our fight.  I am someone who managed to kill a Hero, and Dante even admitted that I was slightly stronger than him.  Yet I not only lost, I got my ass handed to me.  Have my few months of peace dulled my fighting edge that much? 

My brooding was interrupted as I heard the footsteps of someone approaching the front door.  I tensed for a second, but quickly relaxed after I recognized the scent. “Minato?  Are you home?”  Hikari had unlocked the door with her spare key and entered.  “Yeah, I’m in the living room.”  I replied.  “Your mom called me to let me know they weren’t coming home today, she apparently is convinced that you are unable to cook for yourself.”  Hikari giggled as I huffed at that statement.  I can cook, although it is limited to simple dishes.  Very bland and simple dishes, but it still counts.

Hikari tactfully chose not to comment further about my cooking skills, deciding instead to unpack the two bentos she had brought along.  We ate quietly for a little bit, but with Hikari silence never lasts for long.  “Did you see the news about the Pandemonium attack?”  she asked as I winced at one of my injuries I had received during said attack.  “Yeah, I saw it.  Kind of hard not to given the declared state of emergency and all the news channels covering it.”  I replied as I continued eating my tasty bento.  The flavor was marred by the guilt I had in lying through omission to Hikari.  I don’t like lying to the people I love and I do my best not to, but there are a couple of exceptions.  The whole “I saved the world but also sacrificed millions of individuals to do it” and my Rin persona are two things that I will lie my ass off about to them.

“Reiji was at the concert.  He’s pretty traumatized by the attack.  I think he lost someone close, but he wouldn’t tell me who.  I did my best to comfort him, but I’m not the right person for the job.”  She gave me a pointed look as she continued “I have no experience with death and killing after all.  In fact, I’m rather surprised that I was the first person to contact him.”  I sighed as I understood what she was getting at.  I wasn’t up to answering Reiji’s questions today, but there was a bigger reason for my reluctance.  “I don’t know what to say.  It might be surprising to you, but I lack good people skills.” 

Hikari’s response was to reach out and stretch my cheeks irritably.  “True, but this isn’t people, it’s Reiji.  You’re friends.  Do your best and it should work out.”  She released my cheeks after one last pull, leaving prominent red marks on my face.  She’s right, I shouldn’t overthink this.  Reiji is my friend and he needs me right now.  He’ll ask about the magic artifact I gave him and I’ll tell him the truth.  I’ll leave out the parts about me being Rin and Project Redemption, but he’ll know everything else.  This can also apply to my new demonic problem.  I already saved the world from one threat, there’s no reason I can’t do it again.  I’ll just do my best and it should work out.  “You’re right, I’ll go to him tomorrow.”  I gave Hikari a smile, which she returned while gazing at me lovingly. 

“Well, since you’ve been such a good boy, I think a reward is in order.”  Hikari said enticingly as she stripped down to reveal some rather daring black lace lingerie.  She walked over to me and kneeled down in front of me.  She gave me a sultry glance while licking her lips as she undid my pants.  Yeah, so Hikari has progressed from just being assertive in bed into being a full-fledged dominant in the bedroom.  We don’t do anything too kinky, but the variety does spice up the sex. 

Hikari’s stamina is the weakest in the harem and she lacked the “exoticness” of being a different species, so she focused on sex techniques to compensate.  Naughty cosplay, sex toys, dirty talk, etc. were all things that Hikari turned to in her attempt to “keep up” with the other girls.  It’s unnecessary, since I find Hikari just as attractive as the other girls, but I certainly don’t mind her efforts.  It was rather amusing at first at how embarrassed she got as she did something particularly lewd.  She’d hide her embarrassment by acting confident and domineering.  That façade eventually became real as her sadistic tendencies blossomed.

That evolution leads me to now, where Hikari is showing amazing skill with her mouth and tongue as I started letting out hot sighs as I got turned on.  After a short while, the blissful feeling ended.  “Ara, looks like you’re already ready.  You’re rather eager for your reward, aren’t you?”  Hikari teased after she finished her opening act.  She got off her knees, and slowly removed her lingerie to reveal her impressive body.  I remained unmoving on the chair, despite my throbbing urge to jump her.  I wouldn’t want to be “punished” after all. 

She picked up the light scarf she had on before as part of her outfit and lightly tied my hands together behind the back of my chair.  “There are two simple rules you need to obey while I’m giving you your reward.  One, no touching.  Two, no looking.  I expect you to have your eyes closed and hands behind your back the entire time.  Break either of the two rules, and I’ll turn your reward into a punish~ment.”  She cooed at me while having an obvious look in her eye that said she really wanted to punish me.  I closed my eyes obligingly and waited.  Hikari placed her arms on my shoulders and straddled me across the chair. 

She teasingly rubbed her body against mine while whispering a variety of sexy sweet nothings in my ear.  Like a temptress, she tried to get me to break one of her two rules, but I held firm.  Barely. When she had worked up a light sweat, she realized her efforts were futile and she then decided to finally mount me.  I started moving my body in-sync with hers and soon we were both letting out moans of pleasure.  We indulged in each other bodies for as long as we could before Hikari was fully spent, leaving it up to me to tuck her into bed while I spent some time thinking.

My naughty time with Hikari has done wonders to clear my mind.  I was overthinking my problems and I was being too insecure.  Who cares if I am still a cold, heartless bastard due to my time in the other world?  I have people I love and who love me.  If there is a threat to those I love, I eradicate it with all possible prejudice.  Fuck Dante and fuck Pandemonium.  I’ll kill them all.  Dante also conveniently has a large bounty on him, it’s only fair that I collect on it to compensate for the fact that he sabotaged my idol career.  A feral grin made its way onto my face at the thought.  Be prepared Dante, I’m coming for you.