Strays: A Romantic Fantasy Adventure

The first night in the tent wasn’t so bad. It was actually quite enjoyable as three of the members of the group curled up in the comfortable silence and read with little interruption, only pausing now and then to comment on something interesting that had been discovered within the pages of their book. Once it became too dark to see the text, they settled down and followed Ren into sleep with hopes for drier conditions in the morning. However, the rain had only picked up during the night and continued throughout the day. There was little choice than to stay hunkered down and wait out the storm.

By that evening, Sakura was ready to snap and completely lose her mind. Sitting in a small space with Ivy and Zero was fine. They were enjoyable and considerate and had no problem sitting in the silence. Ren… was Ren. He was annoying at best out in the open, but in tight quarters he was absolutely intolerable. He twitched, and snapped, and clicked, and was just all around disruptive in minuscule obnoxious ways. He was touchy. Extremely touchy. He was always having to touch. He touched Sakura’s arm, her tail, her back, her ankles. He touched any piece of her he could safely get away with. He touched her with his fingers, his feet, his elbows, even his nose.

“We’re leaving first thing in the morning,” the demon declared out of nowhere, her sanity barely holding by a fraying thread at this point. “I don’t care if it’s raining. I don’t care if any of you come. I’m getting the fuck out of here. I can’t do this shit anymore!”

The angel lay on his back, a pile of the woman’s long, cherry hair piled on his chest as he tied bows with it before pulling them apart and repeating the process. “I think we should wait for the rain to stop. No matter how long it takes,” he piped, perfectly content at where he currently found himself in life. It hadn’t taken long after awakening that morning to decide that the stone-cold facade was not for Ren, and he quickly abandoned ship. Besides, his loving attentiveness and undeniable charm had wooed the woman once before. There was absolutely no reason why it wouldn’t work again.

Sakura thought about pulling her hair away but knew that he’d just move on to touching some other part of her, one he found more desirable, so she left it. “Then you stay!” she growled.

“But you can’t leave me,” Ren whined, reaching both arms out to her. “I need you. I’ll get lost.”

His hands were slapped away as the two began bickering back and forth, one thoroughly enjoying it while the other resisted the urge to shed the blood of the angel throughout their crowded confines.

Across the tent, Zero sat patiently, reading book number three, as Ivy jovially played with his hair. A considerable amount of time had been spent plaiting small braids all throughout, and the girl was now gently unwinding them, leaving behind tight waves in his normally straight white tresses. She hummed merrily, her fingers running from roots to ends, freeing any tangles.

The book softly closed, and the boy glanced up. “I want to leave,” he said, his voice quiet but unexpected, silencing the arguing pair immediately as they turned their attention to him. Though he didn’t show it, the devil was just as fed up with the angel’s antics as the demon was. Rain or shine, it was time to get out of there.

“You want to leave?” Ren asked, surprised. It wasn’t often that the devil made requests, but when he did, the angel listened.

“I do. I want to go to Astern.” He looked at Ivy. “Would you like to go?”

Ivy smiled brightly at him, thrilled that he had spoken up on his own accord. “Of course! A little rain never hurt. I’m sure it won’t be long before it ends, anyways.”

“Okay.” The man sat up. “We go tomorrow then.” Within a split second, he snatched the distracted vixen around the waist and fell back with her as she hollered and tried to fight him off. “Hooray! Astern! We’re going tomorrow! Aren’t you excited, Sakura?! All your dreams are coming true!”

The rain was still falling the next morning as they woke up. Wrapping themselves in their cloaks and jackets, the group set out to make their way to clearer skies. The road had turned to sticky, paste like mud that clumped in globs to the bottom of their boots, making their steps uneven and troublesome the further they went on.

Despite high hopes at the beginning of the journey, they were all soaked with no sign of even a hint of blue ahead.

“There should be a village soon,” Ivy chirped, trying to stay positive while being wet and cold to the bone. “They might have a place we can stay.”

Sakura nodded, displeased with the prospect of losing more time but even more displeased with clomping around in wet boots and clothes. She looked off to the side and stopped, squinting her eyes into the hazy distance. “What is that?” she asked, everyone stopping and turning their attention the same way. “It’s growing, right?”

“Yep,” Ren confirmed, and wandered away from the road in order to investigate. “Let’s go poke it.”

The moss green creature had grown several meters by the time they were close enough to get a good look. It was nearly the size of a three-story building and moving upwards, scythe like branches blooming from its center and reaching outwards. Its head was triangular with two large, bulbous eyes that looked as if they had thousands of mirrors set in them, reflecting the surroundings around it as it swayed its way towards the pouring clouds. It was growing out from the soil, the dirt and grass churning away from the form as it widened its girth.

“It’s like a... praying mantis tree,” Ivy decided. “What kind of pest is it?”

“No idea,” Ren grumbled, watching it grow taller and taller at a moderate speed with mild interest. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Do you think it’ll cause trouble to the village?” the girl asked. “Or is it just going to keep doing… that?”

“It’s not going to be doing anything once it’s dead.” Sakura reached for her glaive, having already planned her attack.

The removal of the glaive was halted as Ren wrapped his fingers around the woman’s wrist, a luring smile on his lips as he gazed lovingly at her. “Wait. You killed the last one. It wouldn’t be right to keep making you exterminate every pest we come across.” He turned to Zero, all pleasantness gone. “It’s your turn, boy. Go get ‘em.”

She glowered at the angel and shook her head in disapproval before looking at the devil. “It’s fine, Zero. Don’t listen to him. I can do it myself.”

“Nope.” The man shut the fox down quick. “Zero doesn’t need you, and he’s never going to improve if you come in and mother hen him.” He stood in front of the white-haired boy and put his hands on his shoulders, ocean eyes peering deep into irises of fire. “Listen,” he spoke to the devil earnestly. “Girls love it when you kill…” He paused, looking at the creature still growing behind him before turning back to Zero. “Whatever the hell that thing is. They love it. Can’t get enough of it.”

“That’s not really true,” Ivy shyly interjected, receiving Ren’s large hand in front of her face.

“Hush, Little One, this is very important. Zero, my boy, my perfect pumpkin, you have been training your whole life for this one moment. This is when you go from being a boy to a man. Do you understand?”

The boy didn’t care. “Can I just go now?” Zero asked blankly. It really was better to just get it over with. Otherwise, they’d be out here all day, forced to listen to Ren’s persistent jabbering, a fate that was so much worse than just doing what was asked.

“Make Papa proud.” The man encouraged as he pushed the boy forward.

“Will he be okay?” Ivy asked as she watched Zero make his way to the pest, the creature growing ever larger.

Ren chuckled, ready for the show. “Oh, it’s gonna be hilarious. Everyone’s gonna have a good time. You’re gonna love this, Little One. Just you wait and see.”

Ivy stared up at Sakura, her lovely face twisted with worry as she chewed her bottom lip. The woman sighed and wrapped her arm around the girl in an attempt to comfort her.

“It’s okay,” the fox reassured her gently. “He’ll be fine. If there’s any trouble, I’ll take care of it.”

“Leave him alone,” the angel warned, watching the devil intently. “It’s the way we learned and it’s the way he’s gonna learn. Mind your own damn business. Worry about yourself.”

The woman glared but couldn’t argue. It was exactly how they had learned, and they were probably better off for it having had learned it on their own with no hand holding from the man responsible for their upbringing. If her and Ren could handle it at younger ages, then there was no reason the devil couldn’t manage it now.

But it wasn’t exactly something that was simple to explain to a girl who loved and cared for everything and dreaded watching every pest extermination that she was forced to endure. She would never be able to understand. So, instead of arguing or attempting to convince, Sakura simply squeezed Ivy tighter and prayed it would be over quickly.

Zero stepped up to the pest, observing it closely. By now, it was five stories high with dozens of scythe branches protruding from its body with new ones slowly expelling from its trunk every so often. His head tilted up, following it from its broad base up towards its narrowing head that arched over like a flower bud too heavy for its stem before hopping from branch to branch, making his way towards the top of the pest. Pulling one katana, he held it before him, looking between the blade and what he assumed was the creature’s neck. It seemed as good as any place to start. Raising the sword above his head, he swung it down swiftly, slicing through the air and connecting with the neck.

It did little more than nick it.

“Hit it harder!” Ren yelled, giving obvious advice that wasn’t needed.

Zero unsheathed the other katana and forced the blades down with all his strength. They sunk further into the neck but didn’t cut entirely through.

A growl rolled from the demon as she barely held herself back from rushing forward and exterminating the pest herself. “He’s doing it wrong.”

A muscular arm pressed against the woman’s chest to keep her in place, her lust for destruction emanating in waves through the rain. “Leave him be. Let him figure it out for himself,” the man insisted, thrill in his eyes as he continued watching.

A low rumbling began at the base and gurgled its way up until it erupted from the beast’s mouth; a deep, vibrating howl that seemed to crawl through the air just as slowly as the creature itself. The pest’s upward trajectory increased slightly as it waved back and forth stiffly. Zero pulled the katanas out and situated himself, his feet slipping along the slick, rain drenched branch.

“Do it again!” the angel called up to him, ever the helpful spectator.

Zero began to hack at the neck, his blades digging deeper with each swing, getting closer and closer to the end, his full attention and effort on severing the remaining hard flesh.

Without warning, the wail transformed to a high pitch shriek as hundreds of smaller branches erupted from the body, a defense mechanism of the pest.

An old, familiar feeling distracted Zero from his work and he paused, trying to connect the sensation with his thoughts that had suddenly begun to tumble away from his ability to comprehend. He removed the katanas from the pest and looked up at the cloudy sky, struggling to grasp onto his fading consciousness as large drops of rain splashed against his face.

He heard a scream.

Ivy.

His head dropped to look towards the girl as she crumbled to the ground, the demon also screaming as she latched onto the frantic and writhing girl.

Zero coughed, the taste of blood on his tongue and spilling down his chin.

This was not good.

He peered down at the scythe like branch impaling through his stomach and chest as his vision tunneled into complete darkness.

He messed up again.

Sorry Ren.

The man looked up at the boy, the scythe going through him, curving up like a smile towards the sky, dripping with the devil’s scarlet blood onto the dark green branches below. The angel scowled and scratched the back of his head as he listened to the shrieks and howls of the girls next to him.

A sigh vibrated from Ren’s lips. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”