Cultivating Anthro CEO RPG Hero Harem Reincarnation In Another World

[Purple Fox] held its hook-ended arm up higher, with the bookish monk still impaled by it.

"Oh, crap!" The scrawny monk said.

Akira and the tough monk merely gawked in fear.

"That thing is…" Akira started to say.

'One of the golems!'

Ai was the only one who didn't appear scared, as she sighed and produced a smarmy, close-eyed smirk. "Hehe. That's a sign to make myself scarce." 

Saying this, she promptly faded from view through the use of her [Stealth] ability.

"Ai, what the Hell?!" Akira snapped.

She giggled. "I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines, as always!"

"Curses," the bookish monk groaned, still clinging to life by a tenuous string as her blood continually poured, dripping out onto the floor beneath her. "Purple Fox...is unpredictable. More savage, than the others...even if you know the trick...

"Lung is...punctured. Death...a virtual certainty."

The tough acolyte stomped forward.

"Not on my watch, lady!" he bellowed, retrieving a large hammer from his inventory.

"No!" she cried. "Don't try to fight it!"

The monk rushed in with a downward swing of his hammer, but the beast was too swift. 

It sidestepped and dodged the blow, while gracefully swinging its other arm forward; holding its pose for a moment, as Akira then gasped when a sharp blade was revealed to have been jutting from inside of its palm—now glistening with freshly drawn blood.

"It has weapons hidden inside of its body!" Akira warned, pointing, as the tough monk fell to his knee with a grunt. 

"Cheating...bastard," he muttered through his angrily gritted teeth while clutching at a growing stain of blood on the front of his white gi. "Well, you sure got me there" —he chuckled, steadily rising back to his feet— "but I won't fall for the same trick twi—"

TSCHIIIING. 

A javelin suddenly protruded from [Purple Fox's] elbow, driving into the back of the tough monk's skull and out his open mouth.

"No, Cho Yun!" the scrawny monk yelled.

But he was already dead, near-instantly, when [Purple Fox] kicked the corpse free of its armament. 

Akira looked up at the bookish monk.

"You called this one a wild card," she said, with clear panic in her voice. "How do you seem to know so much about this place? And what were you trying to achieve just now by stripping?"

The bookish monk coughed.

Her voice was failing. "Have to...give yourself...to them…

"Sexually."

Akira's eyes widened.

She recalled Kiki's advice from before: 

'You need to let them have their way with you. That's the secret.'

"No," she murmured, shaking her head.

"It's...the only way," the bookish monk insisted. 'It's how they pass on...their chi manipulation abilities."

"I..." Akira said shakily. With her already losing Ai, Vash, and Kanna all in one fell swoop, she couldn't bear the thought of sacrificing what little agency she still had left, by allowing the rights to her body to be taken from her as well.

"Hey wait, you coward!" Ai called after her, as she abruptly took off [Scurrying].

"What about me?!" plead scrawny monk.

Ai laughed. "You don't even have a name, you wimpy loser!"

However, Akira ignored them both: choosing against taking a risky fight, with the "unpredictable" Purple Fox, when the other's fates were still unknown.

'Vash, Kanna…please be alive!

'If the three of us join forces, we might stand a chance…'

'Just like all those other times!'

Tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes. 

'Besides that, I just want to say I'm sorry.

'Just to see your faces again, and beg for a chance to make amends...

'I know why you're angry, Kanna. It's because I always neglected you compared to the other girls. So, you started to feel left out. Resentful. That's why you sought after Vash for comfort.

'And Vash…

'You'd make a better CEO than me, in many respects! So I shouldn't have left you feeling like you were living in my shadow.

'Because the truth is...

'I've grossly undervalued the both of you!'

While her thoughts were thus weighed with remorse, Akira crossed through an ancient kitchen filled with pizza ovens like the ones back at the monastery. Then through a large dining hall, with several long tables, she had to leap over.

She'd almost made it to a set of wide bamboo double doors when suddenly Vash came bursting through from the other side.

"Akira, watch out!" —she lunged, pulling Akira to the floor with her; a [Chi Blast] whizzing by just as she did, passing overhead until it exploded against the far wall in a cloud of debris. And when they both glanced up from where they had fallen, there was Yellow Bunny: with its unremitting sinister smile, peeking in through the doorway as it held up its hand, posing like it was giving a friendly wave.

Another blast was charging in the center of its palm, being fed through tiny beams of chi drawn from each fingertip. Vash barged in front of Akira quickly, as if to shield her, but Akira brushed them aside.

Because even though there was nowhere left for her to run, Akira now had every reason to fight.

"Auuuugh!" With a furious roar, she equipped the legendary [Gandiva] bow and fired a shot. The ensuing beam of piercing white light tore through the dimensions of the doorway, consuming Yellow Bunny in its devastating course and briefly blinding both Akira and Vash, in their proximity.

Once their visions cleared, they were relieved to see mechanical limbs and bits and shards of shattered clay littering the ground.

Yellow Bunny had been blasted into pieces.

"Well," Akira said, breathing heavily from the exhausting toll of using the bow, as she turned to Vash with a relaxed smile. "Maybe these stupid fucking golems aren't so tough after all.

Got a potion handy? I could use a pick-me-up."

Vash nodded, smiling back.

"You should learn to be more prepared," she said, handing Akira a handful of the vials of red liquid. "I'm not always gonna be there to look after you."

Akira chugged a few vials quickly, sighing afterward. "And you should learn to be more confident," she returned. "Because I won't always be there to make the game-winning plays."

"I don't compare to the best."

"And sexiest."

Vash rose sharply, serious again. "We still have to save Kanna.

"Last I saw, Red Bear had her."

"Alright, then let's go before that bunny bitch decides to wake up."

"Hah! Yeah."

They hurried onward, laughing and feeling hopeful; neither of them bearing witness to Yellow Bunny's discarded eye beginning to glisten with chi...

Kanna was in the amphitheater, fighting for her life.

She had defaulted to her [Windhammer], after her [Wodao] had broken, her brutal swings breaking off chips of the golem's clay armor with each successful hit against its guarding arms.

"I'm not dying to some ancient Pluck E. Cheese animatronic!" Kanna yelled.

She swung her hammer across its legs.

The blow caused it to topple forward onto its hands.

Grinning, reared back her hammer.

This would finish it!

But then, a curious [Black Cock] came up behind her, grabbing her by her sides with its smooth, strong hands as it clucked with maniacal glee.

"Grr…! Let go of me!" Kanna growled.

Red Bear slowly returned to its feet, fixing its vacant, dead stare on her.

Kanna's veins filled with ice.

She struggled but couldn't escape Black Cock's grasp, as Red Bear was rearing back its glowing chi-infused fist to deliver a mighty blow.

'Someone, please!' she thought, closing her eyes to brace for the blow 

'Vash, Akira…'

Red Bear smashed its fist into her chest, instantly obliterating her ribcage on impact with its super-enhanced strength to expose the soft organs underneath to a volley of rapid, pummeling punches that followed. Kanna gasped and shuddered, her eyes rolling back and mouth hanging lazily open with each blow. The tremendous pain continually being buffered against by a pleasant, warm, and tingly sensation spreading across her entire body.

Black Cock grinned in delight, at the devious role it was playing in her suffering: constantly imbuing her with its healing chi energy, to counteract the life-threatening damage caused by Red Bear's attacks. Whereby, it prolonged her suffering.

Red Bear punched her gut. Snapped her neck. Smashed her skull. Cleaved her face with a [Karate Chop]. Killed her multiple times.

Until finally, he grabbed her by each of her arms at the shoulder—

And, he pulled.

He mercilessly tore each arm clean from Kanna's body, Akira and Vash arriving at the sound of her long, agonized scream.

"Fuck!" Vash was furious.

Holding both hands in front of him, he used the streaming fire technique he'd picked up, during his training at the monastery, to exhume wrathful flames upon the golems. Their clay skins melted like wax, revealing larger glimpses of their crude endoskeletons underneath; as they recoiled, but could do nothing to defend themselves from the intense heat.

Akira lifted the [Gandiva], to finish them off in their stunned state.

While gazing down her sights, she witnessed Kanna helplessly worming across the ground to where her arms had dropped with her face fully red, burn marks streaked across her face, still screaming at the top of her lungs.

'My God…!

'As cruel as you've been to me these past few days…

'Oh, God. This is too much.'

She was about to fire off a shot when Vash's flames suddenly cut out.

Glancing over, she saw Purple Fox! It was biting Vash on the shoulder, ferociously shaking its muzzle back and forth like a clamped dog, ignoring her flailing fists beating against its skull. As meanwhile, Red Bear and Black Cock were still alive: looking even more horrifying with most of their faces and upper torsos melted away, proceeding gradually after Kanna as she was whimpering and sobbing, inching away in trails of blood commencing from her gaping arm sockets.

Thus, Akira was presented with a split-second choice to make on where to shoot first. And because Kanna seemed the more defenseless of the two, with a clearer shot that carried an added potential to take out two birds with one stone, she fired on Red Bear and Black Cock.

Both golems were swept away by the [Gandiva's] awesome might, reducing them to shrapnel.

Akira then set her target on Purple Fox.

"Take the shot!" commanded Vash.

"I can't! I might hit you."

All of a sudden, Vash grew serenely calm, bearing a warm smile.

"So long as you and Kanna are safe…"

"Shut up, Vash!" Kanna pleaded, sitting up with her back leaned against one of the amphitheater steps. "Don't go trying to die all heroic!"

"It's okay," Vash sobbed. "I always wanted to be the hero anyway."

"Not like this"—Akira shook her head, smiling nervously with sweat oozing down the side of her face—" not when there's a whole life still ahead of you. With Kanna."

Kanna gasped. "Akira…!" She supported the two of them being together, after all?

Akira lowered the [Gandiva], grinning.

Having seen [Purple Fox] in action, she was reluctant to engage them up close.

'Still, if anyone is risking their life here…

'I'd rather it be me.'

She calmly stepped forward, taking a deep breath as Purple Fox, still with its teeth dug into Vash's shoulder, glared up at her while threateningly holding its hooked arm against Vash's chest.

"Guh. You can do it," Vash groaned.

Akira took another step forward, and it was then that Vash's head exploded.