Chapter 96 – Tokimasa’s punishment

Alex asked while lowering his Magic, “So, what do we do now? How do we figure out where we are going with our relationship?”

Nadyian held both of his hands and said, “For me, nothing has changed. I am still nuts about you. Even more, now that I found out you are not with the Consortium.”

Alex made an awkward smile. “Well, I also need to tell you that in Azurath, I have more women in my life. It’s not only Shinatobe. Sarutahiko Okami is a Spirit of the Earth with whom I also made a contract. There is also Pearl Pearson, an Elfian, Wenammy, a High Fairy, and Anika Wright, a Mermaid.”

Alex flinched because of the angry Nadyian’s sudden squeeze in his hands. “Seriously? You were cheating on me with all those women? You have some nerve, Ryu! Or should I say, Alex Brim?”

“I… always made sure to separate my two lives… I wanted to tell you many times, but I couldn’t!”

Nadyian let him go and grabbed Tokimasa’s jacket and lifted him with no kind of effort.

He stared at her, surprised by her strength, and she grinned. “Yeah, I am getting stronger by the minute, Tokimasa. Being in Azurath once again after so many years is filling my reserves of Magic like never before, and my body is responding to it. I am angrier now, after finding out that my boyfriend was cheating on me all this time with a bunch of women, and you will pay the price for his cheating. I think I am going to start with your fingers, and when you have no more bones to break, that smiling Orc over there will heal you, and Shinatobe will have her turn. My aunt Oli seems to be waiting to get you for all these years, so you are facing a few days of never-ending pain and suffering.”

Tokimasa tried pleading for his life, and he made some attempts to escape Nadyian’s firm grip, without success.

She went past Alex and grunted, “We are not done, mister. I want to meet those women and have a word with them. They have to tell me in complete detail everything they did with you so that I can punish you accordingly. I bet it’s not their fault, because you are just a lousy cheating bastard!”

Alex went pale and felt Shinatobe gently tapping his back. “She is interesting, Alex, no doubt about it. I wonder what Anika’s reaction will be when she finds out that she has a new rival and that she is also a Mermaid. They are more understanding about sharing a man with another woman, as long as it’s not another Mermaid, and to make things worse for you, Nadyian is Anika’s cousin. It’s better if you get mentally ready because even Okami will be angry with you. I am also about to take your head off, but I think I will wait to see their reaction. Who knows, we may decide to torture you for a few days as well.”

Alex gulped and Shinatobe’s grown-up form pushed him outside. She stopped for a few seconds in front of the closet, and she then went outside as well.
Nadyian raised one eyebrow at the new woman, and then her expression softened when she recognised Shinatobe.

She dropped Tokimasa in the middle of a space near Ghar’s house, and as she was grabbing his left pinkie, Tokimasa shouted in panic, “Mae! Don’t do this! I always treated you as if you were my daughter! I thought you were! I am sorry if I killed your parents, but you don’t understand! Spirits are evil! They brainwash every living being with whom they make a contract! No matter if it’s a Mermaid, a Fairy, or a Human! I did you a favour! I set you free!”

Nadyian spoke as she was breaking the finger, “And now, I am also doing you a favour! I am going to teach you how to sing in pain!”

While Tokimasa was screaming, Nadyian went for the ring finger. “That was a nice scream! Now, a little higher!”

The sound of another bone breaking spread all around, and Alex wrinkled his nose as Nadyian was going for Tokimasa’s middle finger. “What about if you try a high pitch? That’s it! Take a deep breath and let it all out!”

One at a time, every finger on Tokimasa’s hands was broken, and Nadyian then took out his shoes and socks.

She grabbed the left pinkie and grinned. “That was a good song, but what about if we tried another genre? Let’s say, rock and roll this time?”

She broke all the toes in quick succession, making Tokimasa let go a never-ending scream. She then moved the broken fingers on his hands and feet with a rhythm, playing him like if he was a piano.

After a few minutes, Tokimasa fainted, and Nadyian stood up with a frown. “Now that this is becoming fun, he faints!”

Ghar went to them and as she was healing him, she snorted while smiling at Nadyian, who wondered what she was saying.

Olive translated with an awkward smile while noticing that the Orcs that heard the screams were smiling and snorting as well as if they were laughing. “It seems the Orcs like your music, Nadyian. Ghar asked if you could play another song because that last one was very good.”

As Tokimasa was recovering his senses and jolting at the sight of a scary female Orc smiling at him, Nadyian crouched and said, “I don’t mind continuing this concert. What do you say, Tokimasa? Shall we try another genre? What about Opera, this time?”

With a quick and powerful twist, she broke Tokimasa’s left arm at the elbow, and he let go a long and loud scream as he was looking in horror at his arm at a ninety-degree angle, facing his back.

He shouted at Nadyian, as she was grinning at him. “No matter what you do to me, I won’t tell you anything about the Consortium!”

Nadyian stopped in the middle of twisting his right arm and tilted her head. “What are you talking about? I just want to torture you! I don’t need you to tell me anything because I already know everything there is to know about the Consortium! I know there are only seven Dark Mages on Earth, spread over seven different countries. I know the Consortium sells the Magical Orbs to rich people, and those Dark Mages use the Magic in them to heal those rich people when they get hurt and prolong their lives. I know that those Mages have many people working for them, doing their security, but so did the last ten Dark Mages that I killed in Japan! While you were peacefully sleeping in your bed, I was getting rid of them and stealing all the Magical Orbs they had. Despite your constant control, I became a singer, and after what I did at the Festival, I am sure everyone is in love with me by now, and on my first tour, I will aim for those countries where your friends live, and I will take care of them as well.”

Hangaku Tokimasa looked into the eyes of the girl he always thought was his daughter. The shine in her eyes was frightening, and the way she was smiling was terrifying to him. More than the pain that she already inflected upon him, her eyes were doing more damage than that, because they were destroying his soul.
The fact that he was so oblivious to why the members of his organisation were disappearing, something that baffled him for years, had a reason. And now, that reason was staring at him with those glowing eyes full of hate and Magic. He couldn’t deal with that discovery, and his mind snapped. He mumbled incoherent words while staring at nothing, his eyes wide open and his lips twisted with disgusting drooling.

Nadyian tapped Tokimasa’s forehead, and when she noticed he wasn’t responding, she stood up and faced Olive Andrews. “I think I broke him. Do you think your friend Orc over there can heal him? My mother always told me that Healing Magic can only heal the body, never the mind, so I am not sure if she will manage it.”

Olive Andrews approached and looked into Tokimasa’s eyes. She went silent for a while, and then she slowly shook her head. “There is nothing we can do now. He is not there anymore. I don’t know if it was because of the pain, or because of what you told him, but his mind is already dead. He is like a vegetable, a useless piece of rubbish. The best we can do for him is to give him a merciless death. I suppose the shock was too much for him to bear.”

Shinatobe went to them and put Tokimasa over her right shoulder with his head facing her back, with him still mumbling.

She faced Ghar and said, “Point me to the nearest cave. I will leave him there to rot, and I will wait at the entrance to make sure he doesn’t recover and try to flee. I want to see his body decaying as he dies of thirst or hunger, whatever comes first.”

Ghar pointed to a mountain on their left, and Shinatobe looked at Alex. “Ghar’s closet door leads to your Castle, now. It’s better if you go there with Nadyian and introduce her to the other women. I will take a few days to join you.”

Shinatobe walked in the direction that Ghar pointed, and Sakamo touched Nadyian’s right arm. “Do you want to go now, or do you want to stay here for a while, to calm down? Your eyes are glowing in a scary way.”

“Why do you think I am like this? Could it be because the one that killed my parents gave up on his life so easily and I am not satisfied, or is it because I found out that the man I love has enough women in his life to shame a rabbit?”

Sakamo scratched his cheek. “That was not entirely my fault. They fell in love with me on their own. I had nothing to do with that, except that I wasn’t aware that my Magic was overflowing because I made two contracts with Spirits recently, and it took me a while to get used to the excess of Magic.”

Nadyian Mithym faced him with a serious look. “One of them is a Mermaid? Is she pretty?”

“She is. Well, I haven’t seen a Mermaid in Azurath that wasn’t pretty, actually. She is Miss Olive’s daughter because she was the contracted Spirit of her father, and I suppose that makes her your cousin.”

Nadyian rolled her eyes, and she almost shouted, “Great! That’s just great! She is not only a Mermaid, but she is also from my family! This is getting better and better!”

She then noticed that there was a female Orc staring at Alex with a big smile, and she asked him, “And why are there Orcs in Azurath? And why is that annoying woman looking at you as if she is undressing you?”

Alex looked around and saw the female Orc, the same one that had kept on looking and smiling at him ever since that enormous group came to Azurath, and he gave her a small wave with his hand. “Ghar came first, from a Magical Void that appeared in ‘The Republic of Beliersia’. She joined our group when we were travelling there for a Quest, and this group came from Magical Voids when we were returning to the ‘Kingdom of Bouria’. Hangaku Tokimasa opened those Magical Voids. He had a group of Dark Mages, mercenaries that used to work for a now-deceased Baron, and some people from ‘The Galtian Khaganat’.