The next day in a small cabin at dawn.
"Damn bitch!" a drunk man cursed. There was a noise, and almost in the blink of an eye, a muffled cry of pain was heard before a body fell to the floor.
Inside the cabin, a man fell to the floor, completely dead, his eyes already lifeless while his face showed an expression of anger. His fat body was lying on the floor, looking like a slaughtered pig.
Although there was no blood coming out of any part of his body, anyone could clearly tell that the guy was dead.
Not far from him, a beautiful girl with large breasts, a slender body, long legs, and a cheerful face looked at the man with a slight smile. "It looks like the little woodcutter won't be able to chop wood anymore—nyah," the girl licked the back of her hand like a cat as she smiled brightly.
A woman hugging her son not far away was trembling constantly. From the marks on her body left by constant beatings, it was clear that her life was not a good one, while the child crying in her arms seemed to be half-blind, as only one of his eyes remained open.
Kuroka smiled brightly, took a small wad of dollars from her clothes, and threw it to the mother not far from her. "Here, this is the money for letting me spend the night—Nyah." The mother, who seemed to be completely huddled up, quickly took the wad of bills and hid it inside her clothes.
Kuroka, who saw this, smiled slightly, stopped licking the back of her hand, grabbed the man's body by a corner of his clothes, and dragged him away from the house.
"Why can you eat so much? Looking at your wife and son, it seems like you live in constant fasting..." Kuroka muttered as she walked away from the house, still dragging the corpse, saying a few words, and finally entering the forest not far from it.
A couple of kilometers later, she left the corpse in a visible place to feed the lions and finally thought about returning to spend another night in that pleasant cabin.
However, just then, Kuroka moved his ears, tilted his head slightly, and with a frightened "Nyah!!" dodged like a cat a sword thrown like a spear in his direction.
Kuroka quickly looked at the place where the sword had been thrown. It had stuck into the ground and disappeared completely, sinking into it. If the sword had hit her face in that state, it would have killed her instantly.
A strange feeling of danger invaded the cat girl's heart. She let out a big, restrained sigh before looking up at the top of a tree not far away.
"Who's there, Nyah?!" she called out, but when she got no response, she simply shook her head. "I don't care what your goals are-Nyah, but if you plan to kill me-Nyah..." She crouched slightly, her eyes sharpening, her body entering combat mode.
"It seems you've forgotten about me..." A strangely familiar voice made Kuroka open her eyes suddenly, her expression one of complete surprise, her body paralyzed for a moment as her eyes watched the treetop with some expectation.
In an instant, several swords were thrown in her direction. Due to her surprise, Kuroka barely saw these swords coming and dodged them almost purely by instinct.
"Damn it-nyah!!!" she cursed, as she dodged too late, one of the swords grazing her right arm, creating a large gash in her skin that caused several drops of blood to escape.
Kuroka quickly regained her composure and looked back up at the treetop with her eyes slightly shining. "Koneko!!! What are you doing here?!" was Kuroka's first question after a moment of silence.
Four figures emerged from the treetop and jumped down to stand on the ground. The one in front was... of course, Koneko. The other three were Kiba, Irina, and Xenovia.
Kuroka's eyes narrowed sharply when she saw her sister's appearance. "What happened to your skin and hair?" she asked almost unconsciously, but Koneko did not answer.
The energy of nature quickly poured into Kuroka's body, causing her to grow two ears and two cat tails. She once again adopted a battle stance as she focused her gaze on her younger sister.
But, as she focused on her sister's body, Kuroka almost let out a cry of surprise. "Is this Senjutsu?" she wondered, only to shake her head almost immediately. "It's impossible. Senjutsu doesn't have this kind of purity..."
What was happening was a surprise to the cat girl. Her younger sister, Koneko, had not only changed her skin and hair color, achieving a more yellowish and greenish appearance, but a strange energy similar to the Senjutsu she uses, but hundreds of times purer, ran through Koneko's body.
Observing Koneko's companions, Kuroka also noticed that this strange form of Senjutsu also ran through their bodies, but with the difference that they had a lower concentration of this rare Senjutsu in them.
Finally, Kuroka narrowed her eyes when she saw that her little sister's ears and tail also had that strange color.
"This isn't Senjutsu. Magic needs to combine with natural energy to form a new form of energy called Senjutsu. What you're wielding is pure natural energy, which is unstable..." Kuroka muttered under her breath.
"I've finally found you, Kuroka. It's been a long time since I last saw you. Now, seeing you like this, with those torn and loose clothes, with that playful look..." Koneko's face turned to one of deep contempt for her sister. "You look like a prostitute offering her services to any man."
Koneko showed her contempt with a look of deep disgust for her sister. After all, for her, all the misfortunes that had occurred in her life had one name: Kuroka.
"Kiba in front, Irina and Xenovia on the sides, I'll take care of attacking her from behind!!!" Koneko gave her orders like a powerful commander.
"Understood!!!" The three quickly formed a position with Kiba in front.
"Is this the team you formed to hunt me down for what happened years ago-Nyah?" Kuroka scratched her head, still remembering when she had to kill her leader to save her life and Koneko's, and then handed little Koneko over to the princess of the Gremory clan.
Although at the time she did it to save her little sister from the clutches of that heartless demon scientist, she never told her sister about it, her reasons remaining unclear until now.
Despite appearing calm and serene, Kuroka was sweating profusely. She could feel a strange energy coming from those three people and her little sister. It could be said that each of them was very powerful, above even a high-level demon.
"That strange pure natural energy..." Kuroka muttered with some hesitation. She couldn't know exactly what the pure natural energy her sister and those beings forming a combat position were using was, but one thing was certain: she could only find out by fighting.
Kiba narrowed his eyes, crouched slightly, looked Kuroka in the eyes, and lunged forward with a great leap.