Yuri: Harbinger of the Otters 5

The inside of this woman's house was pretty bland, its clear she had no particular attachments here. I vaguely wondered if it'd be a good idea to take this woman with us. Somehow, a party of four seemed appropriate, as if this was the proper size for one.

For some reason, I wasn't in the mood to play with this one. I sensed something outside anyway and wanted to investigate it. The air had a chill to it. I kind of enjoyed it, the cold didn't bite me the way it did others, it was like a lovers caress to me. It was pleasant. I had wandered to what seems to have been the outside of the town. There was a stream and I decided to take a drink from it, I had become quite thirsty and seemed to be fairly upstream. My thirst was quickly sated, I decided there must have been nothing.

"Hello Yuki, you seem to be enjoying yourself." I sent a wave of icicles flying around me, the classical reaction to being called by that name.

"Well aren't you just as cold as you ever were..." The voice said, "and here I just wanted a friendly conversation."

"All the people who know me by that name are supposed to be dead." I said with a voice as cold as the shivers this person had sent down my spine. "If you want to talk, how about you show yourself, I'm in quite a generous mood and will gladly trade more than just words with you..."

"Hah, your wit hasn't diminished I see, your menacing bearing is giving me the shakes." He appeared behind me with a knife in his hand, heading towards me. My tail sent him off balance as I twirled around and grabbed his hand, tossing him into the stream. 

"If you cant stand the cold..." I told him in a minacious tone, staring down at his body. "Then you chose the wrong creature to pick a fight with." The water began to slowly freeze around him, just a few more seconds and he would be caught in the ice trap.

"The waitress at that place you ate, she was quite cute." My heart skipped a beat. If he knew about that... I had to get back to them. No... not now, I weighed the options and realized that I needed to keep this person from leaking any secrets of mine. The few seconds it would take to silence him were well worth the risk.

"Cocytus..." Cocytus was one of my strongest spells, it would chill him to the bone and shatter him. I left him to his fate, there would be no escaping now. I ran as quickly as I could to find Hagan and the woman, if he had identified her its possible that others had as well. Hagan was probably strong enough to fend off anybody that came across and she didn't look like a lightweight either. 

There would be no helping it, we would have to just skip this place. I didn't like leaving gaps but we could always come back later. I had no intention of endangering my future subjects and I kind of liked this girl anyway for some reason.

Scenarios ran through my head and I ultimately decided we were taking her with us. If there were demon slayers after me, I couldn't risk getting her caught up in this. I reached the house and kicked the door in. I'm not actually physically strong enough to kick doors in, though, with some freezing in the right places, it was doable. 

"We need to leave, now" I whispered the word sleep into her ear and she did as she was ordered. "Hagan, carry her and run, this place isn't safe." He responded quickly and we jumped out of a window. The glass didn't bother either of us much and we took off just before the house exploded. Crap, this isn't good, I wanted to keep low key and that might not be possible after tonight. 

I quickly realized she wasn't that far from the edge of town and I was extremely grateful for both that and the darkness. It meant that few people would be able to make us out as the culprits. Notoriety isn't good when you are trying to take over the world after all.

We found part of the woods that we had been in before, a small clearing inside them, there's no way that they had followed us this far. Hagan set down the waitress and covered her in a blanket. We were safe.

"Were you just thinking you're safe? No no no no, that just wont do my sweet little snow demon." A voice said from across the clearing, he wasn't in attack range and I cursed my luck for that. He was a bipedal red dragon, he must have been an adolescent, couldn't have been over fifty years old at the most.

"Its been a long time since we met my dear, I'll give you that much. Still though Yuki, I'm hurt that you don't remember me. How melancholy." Iggy... he's the one that talked to me like that. Damnit, they've gotten to him too it seems, curse my luck. 

"Iggy, I'm so sorry I left you alone, I didn't mean to. Please forgive me." I told him, the first genuine tears of sorrow to reach my eyes in a while. I had broken away and not been able to take him and now they've corrupted him. Its like a horrible nightmare.

He was on me in a flash, he punched me in the center of my torso, it hurt in ways I hadn't imagined possible. I thought I was impervious to this sort of attack. Hagan attacked him from the side but he spun around expertly, his tail tripped Hagan up and one arm hit Hagan's face, as the other lifted his legs up. Iggy kicked Hagan in the gut and he went flying. Iggy was a master combatant who had taught me to fight. This was bad...