Soul Merger

Alissa felt pretty good as they brought back a wine set that would keep her set for at least a week. Stepping back into her house however brought the feeling down a good deal. The monsters were still there, and still the center of attention from people who should know better. Fili and Akari were scribbling mystic sigils on their arms and wings. Probably a preparation for the binding ritual.

She pulled her attention away from that mess and instead headed over to her pantry. A few unspoiled fruits left, along with tomato paste and her own pickled vegetables. Probably best to use the perishables. She took them and the tomato paste and placed them on the table and Clara started setting out the rest of their spoils.

"So, as Clara pointed out we should probably go over your stories," Rosalina said. "At least the parts you want to talk about." Alissa grabbed herself one of the pickle jars and headed over to the chair furthest away from the monsters. Better to stay away from that.

"Actually," the angel said, "it would probably be best to finish the bindings. I don't want to get you in trouble if someone comes by to see what happened here. And we'll need some space between myself and Kotori if they're going to work correctly."

"But Raiel-" the harpy whined.

The angel patted her on the head. "I think we can trust the nice priestess. In fact she might be better for the development of your soul. I have limitations myself."

The harpy looked disgruntled, but she hopped over to Akari. "Fine."

Alissa locked gazes with the angel as the others walked to the next room and shut the door. The woman's golden eyes had a harder edge now. Which Alissa was happy to meet. She waited a few moments for the noise canceling spell Rosalina was likely tossing up before starting. "So, what was so important you'd kick your pet out?"

"I wanted to ask you what a child who escaped being a sex slave did to earn your hate?" The angel snapped. Fili winced at the woman's venom.

"See that's the thing," Alissa replied. "Keeping a monster as a slave is definitely more fucked up. But manipulating their soul into the perfect daughter or pet or whatever doesn't seem great either." She let her own disgust flow freely at the woman.

The angel's wings snapped open. "But it's fine for this rotten world to twist her into a murderer? No, I won't accept that!" Her eyes blazed, then fell. "But I admit I'm not the one who should help her. We angels have our own flaws. Better she find someone not caught in madness."

"Yeah I can't exactly judge the world," Alissa snapped back. "But we don't need to add on to its mistakes. Just let monsters be monsters! You can't fix what they're missing."

"Alissa." She blinked and turned to find Fili glaring at her. It was the first time she'd seen the woman really annoyed. "What do you even know about composite vs complete souls?" the mage asked.

Alissa considered the correct answer, because Fili seemed serious. "Complete souls are what humans have and mean their bodies and souls are linked. Composite souls are a mishmash of soul energy that isn't fully linked to the body or to itself. And that's why they seek out complete souls to fill the gap." The last bit she'd learned from researching the disgusting monster that made up her merge.

The mage sighed deeply. "Right, I'm going to force you all to read at least the monsterpedia after this." She folded her arms. "Succubi are not a normal example. Complete souls are attached to the body, but they can be altered, as you've experienced multiple times. They're like glass figurines. And Composite souls are like a crude sand sculpture. You have to work to keep them from collapsing, but you can patch them up and make them a real sentient being with-" she hesitated a moment, "-well a lot of work. But that harpy isn't a murder monster anymore."

"And when we stop keeping her soul fixed into something sane?" Alissa returned. "What happens then?"

"She dies and a new harpy soul is formed to fill the body." Fili said. She looked over to the angel. "Which is why I wonder why you were willing to kill the original harpy for this. You might have kept her body intact, but that's not the same person. Even the best tamers can't patch up a composite soul without shattering most of their personality."

The angel folded in on herself. "I know. If I was better, stronger, I should be able to do it. A demon could probably do it. But all I can do is try to make a facsimile of the being I killed. A child with a chance to thrive where her previous self could not."

Alissa thought over the mess for a moment. Then she sighed. "Sorry Fili. I guess I was wrong. I still think fiddling with souls and stuffing them into meat corpses is weird and fucked up, but that's not the harpy's fault." She frowned at the angel. "That's your fault. Though I can almost understand it, even if it's stupid and crazy."

"Angels tend towards stupid and crazy," Raiel admitted.

Fili looked between the two and shrugged. "Well, good enough. Now let's finish this ritual so we stop breaking all the laws."

Akari sighed as she finished the ritual marks. "I really should have pressed Fili for more information on this. I'm not a real monster tamer."

Kotori cocked her head at her. "That's fine though right? I mean you could not mess with my soul or whatever that lady was going on about. I'm fine with what Raiel gave me."

"Kinda agree," Clara said. "No reason to do anything other than make sure she doesn't eat people. She seems like a nice enough gal already."

"Thanks!" Kotori puffed her wing feathers in pride.

"If only it was that easy." Akari sat down and motioned her new charge to do the same. "I'm not a good monster tamer, but I'm aware of two truths. First is that a monster bound to a tamer reflects their treatment. That's not a problem for us, since none of us are terrible people who abuse our friends. But the second is that the tamer's 'understanding' of how a monster 'should' be will bleed over. It's unavoidable."

Rosalina nodded. "Ah. So basically if you act as her tamer for a long time she'll become more and more like a youkai."

"I hope so," Akari replied. "My views towards youkai are much better than my views of harpies."

Kotori blinked and twitched her head again. "What's a youkai?"

Well wasn't that a complicated question? Akari considered before deciding to deflect. "Many things. Which might be to our advantage. We can work together to decide what youkai you want to be like, and then it won't be as much my influence as you growing into your own desires."

Clara raised an eyebrow. "So you're asking her how she wants to be manipulated?"

"Yep!" Rosalina said with a grin, before getting a little more serious. "From what I know it'll be less impactful if they agree on what reality should be."

Akari nodded. "If we have similar ideas, differences will be individual quirks as opposed to something I'll unconsciously try to alter." She turned to Kotori. "So I guess then the question is what kind of youkai you'd like to be?"

"How can I decide if I don't know what youkai there are?" the harpy replied testily. "Shouldn't you give me options?"

"Of course." Akari smiled and started to think over the legends of home. There were plenty of bird youkai, tengu being the most obvious but- well this girl wasn't very tengu like to start. She could feel Ibaraki snorting in derision somewhere in the back of her mind at the very thought.

That led to the next legend. "Perhaps a blue jay youkai? We have crane and sparrow youkai already. They tend towards loyal, helpful, and domestic." Akari looked to where Kotori was thinking. "Blue jays would likely have more trickster elements, but bird youkai frequently have those traits."

"I'm fine with loyal and helpful, but I don't know about domestic." Kotori extended her wing talons. "Working with these is hard. And Raiel's already weird about me being too helpful." A gleam appeared in the harpy's eyes. "Besides, I kinda want something cool. Something that will let me help Raiel more than just clawing up people she blinds."

Akari considered her options. Yosuzume were bad luck, so no there. Same for Itsumade. She was starting to wander into more local spirits and distant creatures of legend. But a thought tugged at her. "Hm, how about a Mou Shuvu?" She looked over at the confused girl. "They're the spirits of young women in bird form who lure unfaithful men into the wilds in order to break open their skulls and eat their brains."

Clara was looking at her in disbelief, but Kotori sat up in her seat. "Oh! So they punish people like the creepy guys who kidnapped us! That sounds cool!"

"Are you fine with having a hankering for brains?" Rosalina asked. "Seems like something that's hard to get."

"You aren't gonna let me kill people unless they're really bad anyway," Kotori replied with a worrying pout. "Might as well have fun when I can. Besides, you can buy animal brains."

A spike of amusement and pride came from Ibaraki, which was another worrying sign, but it seemed they had their match. And maybe the city could use a bit of cleansing. She pulled out the mithril tube that matched the runes she'd drawn on the harpy. "Very well then. Kotori, in the name of the gods, I bind you to serve humanity! You are now Yata no Kotori and servant to Akari. I call you to me!"

She poured her power into the mithril tube, then focused it towards Kotori. The mystic device shaped her energy and flung it towards the harpy girl, wrapping around her like a snake. Kotori struggled for a moment before realizing this was part of the ritual and just closing her eyes.

The runes on her body merged with the runes from the mystic tube, and then with a flash Kotori transformed into light and was sucked up into the device.

Clara shook her head. "That seems weird. Breaks all sorts of physical laws."

"Well rules are made to be broken." Rosalina looked at Akari. "Do you need to keep her in there for long?"

"No. Just another few moments." Akari waited as the runes on the tube shifted before slowly fading to the thin lines on the cool metal. She waited another three breaths before focusing her power into the tube again. "Come forth."

The tube opened and light spilled forth which expanded to reveal the harpy girl. Kotori swayed back and forth, trying to regain her bearings. "Okay, I don't think I like that."

"I guess it's harder on people who are awake," Akari mused. "I've never used it on a conscious monster before."

"Ah I was wondering how you got all those ritual lines on a monster that wasn't willing to be tamed," Clara said. "Guess the answer is, you don't."

"Got it in one!" Rosalina grinned. "You okay there, Kotori? Tell us if you have any pressing urge to eat brains."

The harpy gird shuddered and puffed her feathers before relaxing a little. "Um, I actually feel a little better. I was tired before."

Akari nodded. "You were probably suffering from a lack of magic. That should be fixed now." Her stomach growled and she grimaced. "However, I'm really hungry now. Let's start eating the spoils from your looting before I start feeling weak myself."

Kotori nodded happily. "Raiel should be done with whatever she was trying to keep from us, so yeah! Let's eat!"

Akari wondered exactly what kind of mess she'd been talked into as they moved back to the other room. Ah well, it couldn't be worse than some of the nonsense Ibaraki got up to.