All in all the training, while quite exhausting, had proven very interesting to Laura, although the use of the kiais had still not quite sunken in, which was exactly why she and Daiki were still in the gym after the training had officially ended. Prof. Yakamura had agreed to let the spirit and the Human stay a bit longer to help the former get more comfortable with loudly announcing her attacks in exchange for cleaning up after them and sorting the Kendo clubs gear.
In the middle of a strike, the Kitsune stopped when all her tails gave an involuntary twitch as a shudder ran up her spine until her ears perked up as far as they could.
"Everything alright Laura?" Daiki asked concerned as he stopped as well.
Laura opened her mouth to reply, before what she saw behind Daiki made her discard that train of thought, and she tackled him down instead, rolling the two of them to the side and standing up again. Standing there was the same bull horned spirit that had helped waylay the Kitsune earlier this week, swinging a naginata through the air where just a moment ago Daiki had been.
"Why are you here?" Laura shouted, her illusions slowly dissolving, causing the air around them to shimmer.
"Ah so this is where you ran, little girl." The male spirit bellowed "It matters little, soon Lord Yo-tsu will rule over these lands."
"Wha-what's going on Laura?" Daiki inquired as he slowly stood up, shinai grasped tightly, his voice filled with confusion.
"Later Daiki." The Kitsune replied as she moved her bamboo sword to intercept the incoming attack of the other spirit, barely managing to block the polearm on its leather wrapped shaft instead of the blade biting deep into her weapon, if it wouldn't outright cut through.
"So the little cutie is a friend of the humans?" The invading spirit said with a manic grin. "This means this all might be interesting after all."
As it tried to turn and attack Daiki, Laura barely managed to stay between the two, trying to figure out how to best continue this fight. The shinai she held in hand would not do much damage to her enemy, and disarming the seemingly stronger enemy would be tricky at best. While her pyromancy would probably be effective, burning the other spirits skin would not do enough to stop it from continuing fighting in any reasonable timeframe.
As she barely managed to deflect the next thrust without ruining her weapon, it became quite clear to her that this fight needed to end soon, or she would tire out too much to do anything meaningful. Ducking underneath a wide swing form the horned spirit before her, Laura struggled to think of a way to end this fight quick enough. A stab through her enemies unarmored torso, or maybe an eye if she were confident enough to hit it, should end the fight decisively, but the only weapon capable of performing such an attack was in her enemy's firm grip.
Just as the follow up from her enemy bit deep into her weapon, cutting two of the bamboo strips in half and nearly cutting all the way through the other two as well, the Kitsune realized that there might be away to cause damage to the other spirits organs without the need for a better weapon. As the pieces cut from her ruined weapon hit the floor, her gaze filled with determination, she stepped into the bull horned spirits next swing and grabbed the handle of its naginata with her left hand, trapping it between the two of them. Putting her right hand onto the enemy's chest, the young woman concentrated as hard as she could on creating a flame a few centimeters before her palm, while struggling to keep the other spirit from attacking with everything else she had.
Just as her strength was about to give out, smoke began to rise from her enemies mouth and nostrils before the spirits whole body slacked and fell to the ground, pulling Laura with it as she couldn't relax her grip on the polearm in time. Lying on top of the spirit's corpse, Everything she just did caught up with Laura as her ears began twitching wildly. 'Wha-what did I just do, that that thing tried to kill me. What if someone finds out about all this?'
"So it's later now" Daiki said as he approach the heavily panting Kitsune, interrupting her racing thoughts. "What is going on here? Are you even Laura?"
'Wait no, keep calm, Daiki now, freakout later with Takeko in private.' the German focused herself with a deep breath as she got up.
"Yes" Laura replied taking a breath after each word. "And I am not sure. I will tell you all I know. Once I caught my breath."
"Okay." the other student said before stepping away from her, only to return a few moments later to hand her a bottle of water. "Here I hope it helps."
"Thanks" the Kitsune said before draining the bottle in one go. Getting up into a sitting position she gave a weak smile towards her friend. "So this all started, well for me at least, when I was on my hiking trip to the mountains earlier this week." Laura began her retelling of all that had happened to her since Takeko dragged her into the spirit world.
"That is a lot to take in." Daiki said once Laura had finished. "Also, what should we do about this body?"
"Well I could try to burn it, but that might leave marks on the floor." Laura replied to the question. "And if you want we can talk a bit more, but I would like to head to my room for that, or at least put on something more accomodating for my tails."
"I think it is worth to try and burn the body, if we leave it here someone will get curious about it all." her fellow student replied, sounding more than a little paranoid. "And you mean like that yukata you mentioned earlier?"
"No, that would stand out to much wouldn't it?" Laura asked as she conjured a series of blue flames covering the spirit corpse next to them.
"Not to much, there are a decent number of students who wear more traditional clothes as their day to day wear, at worst it would raise an eyebrow or two as you are an exchange student." Daiki commented as he watched fascinatedly as Laura performed her magic.
A few minutes later, there were only a handful of scorch marks and a pile of ash left of the bull spirit the Kitsune had slain. They spent about half an hour cleaning everything up, both the pile of ash, as well as the gear the Kendo club had used, after which they headed to Laura's room in the dormitory.