Chapter 32

Although late afternoon had made way for evening by the time Laura was satisfied with her progress, the lounge room closest to her room there had still been people up and about in it, enjoying their saturday night. Looking around, Laura saw a few groups of students sitting together from the looks of it working on their assignments. Not really feeling up for anything like that at this, the Kitsune instead joined a group of students playing a friendly game of poker. While there was a lot of friendly small talk over the game, Laura didn't pay more attention to it than what was necessary to not be considered impolite. Instead she focused most of her attention on the game, despite them not playing for any actual money. Even so it left her in rather high spirits when she ended up winning the whole 'pot' of chips, irregardless of the fact the Kitsune changed nearly every second hand she won with illusions. Once the game dissolved, she kept chatting about her stay so far, classes and of course the professors holding them with others still hanging around.

In the end, Laura was the last person to actually leave the room, not quite tired yet due to all the caffeinated drinks that had been shared. Walking up to the door, the Kitsune was caught by surprise as once again a spirit charged at her through a door she was about to open. As she jumped aside, the charging bear like attacker still managed to step on one, or maybe even two of her tails while swinging its warhammer which luckily only connected with a chair, splintering the wood it was made from.

Dismissing the illusions of normal clothes, as well as those hiding her tails and ears to let herself focus fully on the fight she had found herself in, Laura drew her weapon taking a defensive stance facing the bear spirit.

Taking in her opponents appearance, it appeared it was wearing what looked like a metal chest plate, while wielding a warhammer in its right hand and a shield in its left. As she threw a probing strike at the other spirits right arm, it quickly intercepted her blade with the shield, before swinging the hammer towards Laura's head.

Taking a step back the Kitsune deflected the strike to the right with her own weapon, where the hammer broke through a table, leaving a jagged, barely fist sized hole. With the spirit trying to dislodge its weapon from the remains of the table, Laura thrust her sword forward, aiming for the bears neck, only to get it deflected by the shield once again. She still ended up cutting into the spirits right arm deep enough to draw blood.

Enraged by the pain, the bear began to swing it's hammer wildy at the Kitsune for the next few moments, forcing her to take step back after step back as she did her best to parry and avoid the hammer breaking some bones, until her back hit the wall.

Thus cornered, the Kitsune decided to attempt something a bit more outside of what she had practiced back home, and as she rolled to the side, two of her tails hooked around the other spirits leg, causing him to tumble down just as Laura was stopped by the couch on her right. Getting back up faster than the bear spirit, the fox eared woman charged over to where her attacker was still trying to get up.

Raining blows down on it, she forced the bear to crawl backwards, it's shield still offering enough protection to prevent anything worse than a superficial cut connecting. As they reached the opposite side of the room, Laura once again used her new appendages to her advantage, as a trio of them dragged the shield that had deflected just about all her attacks to the side, allowing her blade to stab through the spirits neck with little resistance.

Seeing the blood beginning to spray from the wound in sync with the dying spirits slowing heartbeat, she quickly summoned a couple of flames to burn the red liquid, as blood stains on the wooden floor would not make hiding what truly happened here any easier. As she watched the fluid leak out of the dead spirit, Laura was a bit taken back by how used she had already gotten to hiding the existence of spirits and killing others in self defense.

Once the flood of blood had stopped, the Kitsune dragged the corpse to one of the windows and, after opening it, got rid of the dead spirits body, silent tears running down her cheeks.