That night, I went to Tamamo's room to sleep. Normally I slept in the nude with my wife, but since I was sleeping with another woman this night, I decided to wear pajamas. Tamamo opened the door at my knock and welcomed me inside.
"I was wondering when you'd finally arrive," she said blearily. "Kitsunes need more sleep than lamias. I usually go to bed earlier than you two but I waited up for you. I had a lot to think about, anyway. It's a family reunion. I'm so excited, yet at the same time frightened."
"I can understand that," I said. "Shall we retire?"
"Most certainly," Tamamo said, curtsying.
We climbed into her small bed, actually a bit small for me, but Tamamo made up for it by wrapping me up snugly in her arms and tails. I don't think I'd ever been more comfy in my life. I would have drifted off almost immediately if not for an erection slipping through the fly of my pajamas. One of her tails in that area kept on shifting a little, rubbing against it. Was she doing that on purpose?
I tried to go to sleep, but every few seconds that tail would shift again, causing me to feel things I probably shoudn't have been feeling. Wasn't this supposed to be dead serious? She seemed to be asleep. Maybe she was just twitching involuntarily?
I tried to gently move her tail away from my groin. Her tails were already extremely pleasurable all over the rest of my body. I didn't need to have one resting on my nether regions. To go to sleep this way every night must have been a unique form of paradise for her lovers, but tonight it was making it harder to sleep.
She grunted and her tail moved back where it was, this time tightening around my shaft. She had to be doing this on purpose! Whether or not she was doing it willfully, she didn't do it long. I orgasmed in less than a minute, which actually did cause me to pass out.
I'd hoped for something less creepy than a cave, and I got it. It was my favorite place, the mall. I was glad that I had brought Tamamo along on one of our outings in my world, otherwise this might have been disorienting for her. But where was she? I didn't see the Ancestors either, so I had to assume that as in my other dreams they would show up at some point, or I'd have to go and locate them. It never took too long, so I wasn't worried. Well, I was, but not about that.
I was in the food court, my favorite place inside my favorite place. It wasn't terribly crowded, so I looked around to see if I could spot anyone familiar. I could not. I decided to grab something to eat. My usual, burgers and fries. Thinking I was pretty good at figuring out how this was going to go, I sat down at a long table with enough seats to accommodate the guests I expected to be arriving soon.
As I expected, I didn't have to wait long. The five Ancestors arrived with trays of food of their own, sat down, and wordlessly began to eat. It would have been comedic had the stakes not been so high. This was like a great power summit meeting. Shouldn't I have dreamt that this was taking place in the White House or something? What made the situation even more absurd was how they were dressed. They were in their true monster forms, yet wore clothes from my world, many of them completely inappropriate given their natures. Saja was wearing an "I'm with Stupid", shirt, with the arrow pointing at Kanade, who along with Kanon, wore Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts respectively. Minagi had a Miami Dolphins jersey. Good taste, I thought. Hiruko was the only one dressed as she had been last time.
Saja was the one seated right in front of me. I'd gotten used to thinking of her as the leader, both because of what I'd read and because she acted like it, although the others only barely deferred to her. She took a bite of pizza and stared at me as she chewed. When she was finished, she said, "I like this. It is called pizza? Is this a popular food in the world now?"
"This is actually my world," I explained. "I wasn't born in your world. I come from another, and this is one place in that other world."
"Do you mean a different dimension?" Kanade asked, simply placing a sub directly into her stomach through her slime body. "Is that now possible as well?"
"I guess you'd call it a different dimension, sure," I said amiably, trying to keep the discussion civil this time. As the Monster Lord's husband, I had become used to the idea that I was a diplomat. I just never expected that I'd be doing this kind of diplomacy. In my own dreams, with nearly godlike women. "I don't think we've quite settled on whether to call it a different world, different dimension, or different universe, but I think you get the idea."
"If you have been lying to us, you certainly have a much more vivid imagination than I," Saja said, looking around. "This place is strange. I could never have imagined such a place."
"I see only humans here," Hiruko noted, munching on a cookie. "Why is that?"
"My world doesn't have monsters," I explained. "As far as we know, humans are the only sentient beings in our universe, although there could be planets with others."
"A world without monsters?" Saja mused. "No wonder you have ideas in your head about humans being free. Assuming your tales are true, you come from a world of free humans. And this world appears to be prosperous. Everyone here looks healthy and happy. The technology here is wondrous."
"Absolutely!" I exclaimed. Was seeing my world penetrating their stilted worldview? If so, I was very glad my mind had generated this setting! "I'm surprised you haven't commented on what you're wearing. I'm sure you didn't choose those shirts."
"Actually, we did," Saja said. "You probably don't realize this, but we always arrive in these places before your conscious mind does. After we got over our initial surprise and annoyance, we went… shopping."
This was getting better and better! They seemed to be happy tourists! Maybe showing them around my world for real would be helpful! After all, they probably couldn't do any serious damage. Ilias herself had been basically mortal when she visited my world. Much stronger than she had any right to be, with just enough magic power to be a little dangerous, but far from a destroyer of worlds. At best, she might have been another Uri Geller, bending spoons for gullible audiences. I started to wonder if maybe Geller was for real.
As if things already weren't going well, Tamamo made her entrance, also with a tray full of food, tofu and rice balls, naturally. She was stunning. She was in her true form in my dream. I was sure that she was more beautiful than even Ilias, more beautiful than the other five Ancestors. Or maybe it was just because I loved Tamamo so much. She sat next to me.
The other Ancestors were stunned and delighted. Hiruko gleefully hopped out of her chair and came around to give Tamamo a hug. The others were all smiles as well. Tamamo's eyes welled up again. It must have been so lonely being apart from the sisters that she'd spent thousands of years with.
Saja was the only one whose reaction was fairly subdued. Her smile was genuine, but I could still see a hint of skepticism. Tamamo recognized it as well.
"I see you aren't sure whether to believe that it is really me," Tamamo said to Saja. "Perhaps you believe that I have just been generated by his imagination?"
"It is what I thought I believed," Saja said. "But I realize that he could not have mimicked your true form without knowing you. I assume that in the real world, you are still sealed in that weak form."
"I am," Tamamo said. "I can feel the seal weakening. I attempted a word of dispel yesterday. I was able to hold onto my true body for twenty minutes!"
"Soon, then!" Minagi exulted. "Our return is imminent!"
"That's why I wanted to be here," Tamamo said. "I came to tell you that everything Luka says is true. He is a dear friend of mine. He is married to the Monster Lord. Humans and monsters live in peace now. Well, mostly. As you well know, one year is not long enough to permanently change a world. I agree with you that it's an unstable situation and might not last. That's why I want you five to join me! Together we can make a much better world than the one we left!"
"Hmmmm," Saja said, biting on a piece of crust. "Perhaps what you say has merit. But that is not entirely for me to decide. Alipheese must judge whether this situation is worth maintaining."
"What do you mean 'we', sister?" Kanade spoke up. "You were only partially sealed! You were able to continue to live on while we rested in a state of not quite death!"
"Do you think I had it better than you did?!" Tamamo shot back angrily. "You were asleep! I had to go on, missing all of you, missing our creator! She assigned me a duty and I did my duty! Don't you think I would have rather been with you, sleeping?"
Uh oh, now it was getting tense. I wondered if perhaps I should jump in.
"What's important is that we seem to agree that we should give this new world a chance, am I right?" I asked.
"I do not agree!" Kanon shouted. "As always, I serve Alipheese, but I will make my opinion known! This entire idea is absurd. This world is wondrous, yes, but our world is not this world! The humans of our world are cattle!"
I'd heard that said before, by certain monsters, usually when unfavorably comparing me to the native humans of their world.
"There's a lot more to them than you think, sister," Tamamo said. "I've seen it. Without us to enslave them, they advanced tremendously. Maybe not to the extent where they have shopping malls, but there's still plenty in the world now that you never imagined. Clean drinking water for almost everyone! Most humans can read! With technology imported from Luka's world, they are advancing by leaps and bounds!"
"This has gone beyond absurd into the realm of dangerous," Hiruko said. "If humans advance that far they will only turn that technology against us. You betray your own people, Tamamo!"
Given that Hiruko was the most enthusiastic to greet Tamamo, that really didn't sound promising.
"No!" I argued. "It's not humans just hoarding all the tech! Every single thing I've brought over has been shared with monsters as well! In fact, the castle was the first place I installed the new technology! There is nothing humans have, or will receive, that monsters will not share in!"
"I think that sounds good," Minagi said. "I'm starting to like you, Luka. You seem like a nice guy. I say we give Luka and his new world a chance. I would love to have shopping malls come to Hellgondo."
"Of course you would," Hiruko snapped. "You always were interested in pretty baubles. This place is full of them. You'll notice I was not seduced by anything here. How far has the greatest seductress in the world fallen, to be seduced herself by the dreams of a mere human?"
Tamamo squeezed my hand and mouthed, That's two! To me. I guess that meant we'd convinced two of them? Hiruko and Kanon seemed hellbent on reenslaving humanity. Minagi and Saja seemed to want to give peace a chance. Kanade seemed to be seeing which way the winds blew, although she still seemed miffed at Tamamo.
Saja quieted everyone. "If we were all in agreement, perhaps we could present a united front to the Dark God. But as you know, in the end, the decision is hers. Divided, she will simply disregard us as squabbling children."
"Invoke the Dark God, and she may appear," a voice said. Everyone else immediately stood up, including Tamamo. "Is there an available seat at this table?"
The woman I saw was awe inspiring. She was not quite what I expected. There were absolutely no representations of the Dark God Alipheese anywhere in the libraries, except for a black mass that looked quite frightening in some religious pamphlet someone from the Ilias faith had handed me once. She was quite beautiful, which I expected, but not in the pure way that Ilias was. Her beauty was far more intimidating, even sinister. She wore all black and had evidently not been interested in shopping for clothes here, although she did seem interested in the food, her tray full of various items from salads to cookies to grilled cheese sandwiches. No meat? That surprised me. Could the Dark God be a vegetarian?
Everyone offered her a seat. I belatedly stood out of respect. I'm a diplomat, after all, I thought. She waved everyone off and grabbed her own chair from a vacant table and pulled up in between Saja and Hiruko, so that she could be at the middle point directly across from Tamamo and me.
"What's this I'm hearing about new worlds, old worlds, different worlds, alien worlds, crazy worlds?" she said, picking up a grilled cheese sandwich.
"Your majesty, we were discussing how the world has changed since we were sealed," Saja explained. "This human and Tamamo insist that humans can now be trusted, that we should live in peace with them."
"We did live in peace with them," the Dark God retorted. "That peace was broken by Ilias. If we are here, apparently that peace has been broken once again."
"That's not why this is happening," Tamamo said. "We don't actually know why this is happening, but it's not war. The war already happened. We won. Ilias is dead."
Alipheese looked up, staring at Tamamo, chewing her grilled cheese slowly. When she swallowed, she said, "Run that by me again? How did you kill Ilias? That's not possible. If it had been, we would have done it."
"Ilias took a gamble she shouldn't have," Tamamo explained. "she was tired of all the weak human heroes failing to kill the Monster Lord and wipe out the monsters, so she found a human from another dimension to do the job. Someone much more powerful. The end result was Ilias' death, not the Monster Lord's."
The Dark God appraised me. Her evil looking eyes seemed to bore through my soul. I know that's a writer's cliché, but damned if it wasn't appropriate here. I tried to remind myself that darkness wasn't necessarily evil, light necessarily good.
Before she decided to say anything, Minagi spoke up. "That is what we've been talking about. The humans are weak. Their weakness makes them hate us."
"It also makes them fit only to be livestock," Kanon added.
"Shush." Alipheese said, holding up her hand. "First off, it is very unlikely that Ilias is truly dead. She is pure holy energy. Holy energy, like dark energy, is neither created nor destroyed. She will be reborn. When she is, the trouble will begin again. We must make sure the world is ready for that."
"Ilias will come back?!" I asked, alarmed. "Really?! When?"
"Not long," Alipheese answered. "Depending on how much violence was done to her holy body, anywhere between five thousand and ten thousand years."
Phew. I had been worried there for a second.
"If she is indeed returning that soon," Saja said gravely. "We must prepare. War is inevitable."
I was about to nearly jump out of my seat, but Tamamo put her hand on my chest as a warning.
"I agree, your majesty," Tamamo said. "How best to prepare? With useless humans as livestock, or with allies who willingly aid us when the time comes? I know you haven't known Luka long, but I know that I would rather have one of him than one thousand weak humans."
"I prefer them weak," Hiruko said. "Monsters need no help from humans to defeat angels. Angels are almost as useless as humans. Only brave when they can strike without fear of harm."
Well, that had certainly proved to be true, I thought.
"You're all idiots," Alipheese said. "If there's another war, it ends the same way the last one did. With us sealed. Ilias is willing to destroy all life and start anew. That's not who we are."
This was a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I gave up on predicting how this was going to turn out.
"Absolutely!" Tamamo said joyfully. "We need to create a world that Ilias can't destroy! We can only do that if we and the humans advance enough that the forces of heaven can never harm us again! And we can only do that together, as equal partners!"
"You were always my sweetest child, Tamamo no mae," the Dark God said. "But you're also a moron. I didn't select you to remain because of your intelligence. I could have picked Saja for that. I chose you for your loyalty and sense of duty. We're not living as equals with the humans. You know why? Because we aren't equals. Sure, maybe your little friend here is the equal of monsters. Maybe he's even my equal. But he's one man. If he pledges his loyalty to me, he can be a partner. But not those cattle that pass for humans in our world. We can develop the necessary technology without them. Luka can help, but from now on all new technology is only for monsters unless I say otherwise."
"Okay, now just hold on a second!" I yelled, standing up, no longer restrained by Tamamo.
"Be silent, human!" Saja ordered. "Show the Dark God the respect she is due!"
"Saja, please shut the hell up and finish your damned pizza," Alipheese said mildly. "I'm prepared to believe that Luka is the equal of the goddess, which means he is my equal. He owes me nothing. But if he stands in my way, I will crush him. Luka, you are just one. No matter who your allies are, without Ilias, there is no counterweight to me for the time being. I and my Six will wipe you and your allies from the face of the planet. I'm not saying I plan to return things to exactly the way they were before. I'll have to see how things are for myself. But whatever I decide, my word is law. Even the current Monster Lord must answer to me. You will as well. Did I hear right? Are you married to her?"
"I am," I said. "Look, we're talking thousands of years! At least give us a few centuries to prove to you that humans and monsters can live in peace!"
"I don't give a flying fig about any of that," Alipheese retorted. "I know how to create a peaceful world, a peace that lasts. When I'm through, we'll have thousands of years of peace, in which time we'll figure out how to stop Ilias again. Maybe we can use whatever power you have and reproduce it. Obviously you won't be alive by then."
"Or maybe Ilias isn't coming back!" Tamamo said desperately. "She was destroyed in part by an otherworldly power. The normal rules don't apply! That's why Ilias chose him to kill the Monster Lord! It wouldn't release the dark magic into the world if he was the one who killed her! Maybe when he helped kill Ilias it didn't release the holy magic into the world! Maybe she's gone forever!"
"Maybe," Alipheese said mildly. "I've lived long enough that I'm pretty sure I'd seen everything. Although being here in this shopping mall I guess I haven't. This is good, by the way," she said, biting into a chocolate chip cookie.
"Then it can't hurt to just wait awhile!" Tamamo urged. "I've been here, you haven't! I've seen what's possible! I've come to love the humans dearly! Did you know that a small village also came from Luka's world, hundreds of years before he did? They worship monsters there!"
"As they should," Alipheese replied. "What's so special about that?"
"With respect, not fear! That's the difference! Do you realize how good it feels to be loved? Do you know what that's like?"
"I never gave it much thought," Alipheese responded. "I don't give a shit. What I care about is the welfare of my creations. Look, Tammy, I know these ladies have been having a debate and all, but this just seems open and shut to me. We need the humans for only one thing. Whenever we've let up on them for just a few years, they get ideas and all of a sudden my children can't feed, they can't reproduce, and a few years after that, humans start killing them. You've been around to know that's how it always goes. How long has the world been at peace?"
"One year," Saja answered for Tamamo. "One measly year, and she's an optimist."
"Please, your majesty," Tamamo pleaded, close to tears again. "Just see it! I'm sure you'll believe in it as well! Maybe you could travel around the world with Luka for a few months! That's how the current Monster Lord came to be a true believer in peace! She already wanted it, but she was skeptical it was possible. But Luka showed her that it could be real!"
"What Luka showed her, is that power is what matters," the Dark God said. "He didn't beat Ilias with rainbows and tulips, he beat her with power. At least that's what I think you've been telling me."
"It wasn't like that," Tamamo said softly. "You had to be there. The whole world united to fight back against Ilias. Luka had so much to do with that."
"And would they have united behind him if he hadn't been powerful? Would it have mattered if they had? If he hadn't been powerful, I'd have been jarred awake by the screams of my people. Why wasn't I, by the way? A war should have released tons of dark energy."
"Ilias was using a former Monster Lord to manage the dark energy so as to avoid breaking the seal," I explained.
"Oh?" Alipheese said, sticking a fork in her salad. "That's a laugh riot. A monster Lord teaming up with Ilias? Whatever happened to her?"
"Luka, along with me, the Monster Lord, and others, destroyed her," Tamamo said. "Eden helped a great deal as well."
"Eden?" Alipheese said, choking on a piece of lettuce. "What strange bedfellows! I'd need a scorecard to keep track of who was on what side! Monster Lord on Ilias' side, a Seraph on your side! You'll have to tell me all about it when I take my throne back."
"That's not going to happen," I said, trying to sound dangerous and wondering if that was a good idea.
"I'll tell you one last time, you don't want me as an enemy," Alipheese warned. "So you've got two choices. You can be my partner, or you can mosey on back to your world with its shopping malls. If you oppose me, I'll kill you. Believe me, you don't want to stay here and oppose me. I won't even kill you myself. I'll just make sure you're weak enough for your wife to do the job. You're in for one huge disappointment if you think any Monster Lord is going to go against the wishes of her goddess."
"She will," Tamamo stated plainly. "And so will I."
Alipheese threw down her fork in disgust. The other five ancestors looked ready to attack her, even though in a dream it was pointless to do so.
"Now… Tamamo… dammit Tammy, this was the bullshit I was afraid of!" the Dark God said with exasperation. "You're too damn old to be so impressionable! I know this human is extraordinary. I can see that even if my idiot daughters can't. I respect his power, I really do. I even respect his sincerity. But you know better! Don't try to tell me that one year is all it took to convince you that humans shouldn't serve us!"
"I know," the kitsune said sorrowfully. "You're right. It probably will all go bad. It always does."
"Okay, then," Alipheese said. "So what's the problem? Do you think any of those fuckin' Seraphs would ever get a conscience?"
That seemed to settle it for Tamamo, if nothing else did. "They did," she said, looking Alipheese right in the eye. "They learned not to blindly follow a goddess who they knew was wrong. I can do no less. The world will never be perfect. But I won't stop fighting to make it better. Their example showed me the way as much as Luka's did! I implore you one last time! Just spend some time in the world! You'll start to believe if only you give it a chance! But if you make a different decision, as much as it kills me, I must oppose all of you. The world will oppose all of you! We beat the forces of heaven! We can beat you and your five Ancestors if we have to!"
"Oh, Tammy, you're such a sweetie," the Dark God said. "Do you really think the monsters will just line up behind you and the sellout Monster Lord? Now granted, I haven't been there yet, so I don't know precisely how many will be loyal to her and to you and mister snips and snails and puppy dog tails here. But I doubt in just one year that most of them have forgotten the reality of the world. Expecting them to follow your Monster Lord, what are we up to now, Alipheese the what?"
"Sixteenth," Tamamo said.
"They'll follow the Sixteenth Monster Lord when they could be following the first Monster Lord, the Dark God herself? One who promises them dominion over the humans, free semen whenever they want it, versus your optimistic view of a peaceful world? I'm guessing they have to ask permission to get semen from a man?"
"Actually, yes," I replied.
The Dark God and her five ancestors laughed. "I think I've heard enough," Alipheese said. "Thanks for the field trip to this mall thingie. Maybe I'll use your technology to visit your world and conquer it, too. It's worth doing for those cookies alone. I wonder how much more satisfying they are in the real world? Anyway, you two can go now. Vacation's over, ladies! We've got things to do!"
With that, she made a hand motion and both Tamamo and I were jarred awake. To my shock, I woke up in the arms and tails of the fully unsealed Tamamo.
"Oh no, Luka!" she whispered. 'They're already here!"