Write For You [Bonding Quest]

Atilla saw a mouthful of fangs dive at her, and she jumped out of the way, the long tail of her rat form coming around with her weapon and bashing right into one of the large, black snake's unblinking eyes. She whirled around to face him, her teeth chittering together and the fur on her back standing up as she stood on her toes, taking one step backwards as the serpent recovered and glared at her. The thing was a higher order oni, much larger than even her second form, and she felt bold in taking it on herself.
It opened its mouth and chanted something brief and blasphemous, eventually belching out a poisonous cloud of miasma. The rat had recognized the phrase he uttered as a chant, however, and using the advantage of the pause, ran past the creature, slitting its back end open and allowing the black intestines to roll out.
The thing coughed, hissing curses at the angelic being before himself dissolving into the blackness from whence he came, his soul particles destined for the pits of Onitoshi.
Atilla sighed, then sat like a human, her whiskers twitching as she tried to smell which way a nice stream would be so she could freshen up and have a drink. She'd come a long ways since she'd last walked in this forest, and she had a bit longer to go before she could defend herself satisfactorily without her husband by her side.
She reached out her paw and took her lengthy tail in her hand, eyeing the unique blade at the end, a relic of her past life that she remembered well. The knowledge of her former life was now hers, and she recalled without flinching the legions of Slovay once dead beneath her paws with the help of the tail mounted weapon.
Somehow, it was a relief that she'd confronted her past and conquered it instead of devolving into her former self as she once feared she would.

*Questing

She was hardly reassured, though the other's voice was gentle and soft. She didn't really like his hands that close to her rear, though she guessed it had to have been necessary. The tattoo hurt less than before certainly, as much of the heat element had been removed, but she still felt the pain on her lower end as she sat on the back of the chair. Her hand closed very tightly around the oni's, her other arm forming a crook in which she buried her head to muffle the noises of her own sobs and shrieks in the heavenly language she chanted with. Her body was too worn out for any more thrashing, however, which meant that besides shivers and tremblings, she stayed relatively still through the procedure.

*

Her lower back still sore, the rat kami raised her head from where it had been resting on the chair. "It's over?" she would ask weakly, distantly, but as the pain faded, so did her feelings, and soon a relief from being done with the entire thing washed over her and brought a wide grin to her face. "It's over," she would repeat joyously, letting go of the other spirit and standing to her feet, a brief blush coming over her face as she remembered where her tattoo was and wondered if the Apprentice had seen anything. Curiosity sprouted in her mind as to what exactly hers looked like, but she wouldn't try to see in a mirror with this stranger looking on. Briskly pulling down and smoothing out her shirt, she took a quick look to the left and the right and reached down to slip her robes back over her head. "Thank you, Apprentice-sama..." she would say with a polite bow and a wink, not exactly following the conversation about the other demons. "Is there anything else special we should know about the... tattoos?"

*

The woman left the shop with the other oni, politely bowing on her way out before oogling the artwork newly implanted on his side. It held an appeal as she saw it, and it seemed somehow fitting with the rest of his personality and talents. "That is very..." she said, her mind churning through her more ancient memories and trying to pull forth the appropriate word from her days of lewdness. "Sexy."
That was definitely the right word, she thought, pleased with herself at recalling something she hadn't heard since she was a demonic warlord. Since his looked so nice, however, her old curiosity about the nature of her own tattoo came in. She wouldn't be able to know that it was a purple, black, blue, and green design of several orchid flowers surrounding what looked like some sort of horizontal eye rune unless someone told her. The slightly larger size and elaborateness of her tattoo was to compensate for the fact that she was missing the limb the weapon would have to materialize on. She looked left and right to ensure nobody was around before she slipped out of her robes, holding them in one hand and turning around, bending over slightly as though asking him to pull up her shirt. "I cannot see mine. Can you tell me what it is of?"

*

The kami looked up towards the sky, thinking. "A flower?" For a moment she thought back to the dusty tome of flowers and what they stood for that lay in one of the darker corners of the temple library she was raised in. The orchid always caught her attention, and while it represented many things, she liked it as a symbol of perfection and sacrifice, the spots on some varieties of the flower being likened to blood spots.
She smiled gently, wondering if she should tell him what she'd done. It probably wouldn't appeal to his pride, she decided at length. He'd probably be happier not knowing.
But then she felt his hand on the still-sensitive area of her skin's recent piercing and she shuddered, not because it stung, but out of the pleasurable touch in an area that had very recently been overloaded with pain. "Aah..." she moaned shortly, catching herself and realizing that she'd been a bit loud with the involuntary noise.
Righting herself, a blush coloring her cheek because of their proximity to the hut, she hurriedly dressed herself again and held the oni's hand. Breathing a sigh of relief at the thought that maybe the smithing demon hadn't heard, she looked back and laughed nervously, her brief anxiety melting with the sudden realization that it didn't matter what some demon in the backwoods thought of her."Thank you... very much..." she said with an almost silly grin.

*

The kami thought for a moment, putting her hand to her chin even. After that moment, she would lay her hand on the oni's shoulders and dissolve into light, reforming as a rat around his neck. Her tail more than doubled the length of her body and at the end, a safe distance away from his body, a sharp blade with runes and the orchid motif etched onto it waved back and forth gently. "I am sure we will encounter a few opponents on the way home," she grinned.

*