Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 981: Relaxing Together

A few hours out of an American runway, Kaiden Grey sat in the upper-deck lounge of the Shogunate Circle’s plane with a controller in his hands and a territorial dispute in progress on his lap.

Luna had claimed his left thigh somewhere over the Pacific. Bastet had taken the right soon after, on the grounds that she was ’in need of Master’s warmth’.

Neither of them had asked him.

By then the Circle’s attendants had decided the guests were not to lift anything heavier than chopsticks. Hot towels arrived before anyone knew their hands were tired, and no cup on the deck ever dipped below half full.

The pace of the flight itself was part of the hospitality. The plane could have crossed the Pacific in a fraction of the time, one of the attendants had admitted, sounding almost apologetic about it.

But a fast crossing would have dropped them onto a dark runway in the middle of a Japanese night, and their hosts intended to welcome them properly, in daylight. So the plane took the long, lazy road, and the Circle’s staff filled every hour of it with the best amenities their guild could offer.

Nobody aboard had filed a complaint. After the parade of suits back home, a long flight with hot tea and nothing to audit sounded exactly like paradise.

Kaiden had reached for the teapot exactly once, early on. A white glove got there first. The attendant poured for him, bowed to him, and withdrew with the pot.

”I can pour tea,” Kaiden told her.

”Yes, sir.” She kept the pot.

”We’re being utterly pampered,” Luna marveled. ”I love it.”

On the lounge screen, two fighters circled a neon arena, and the mood on Kaiden’s right thigh had been curdling for three rounds.

Luna had been hunting for opponents whose hands could keep up with hers ever since ranked ladders stopped being fun, and teaching Bastet to game had felt like charity at the time. The charity was now down four rounds and flicking her tail against the seat cushion in a rhythm that promised consequences.

”A cheap trick,” Bastet said, low and flat, as her fighter hit the mat again.

”Cry about it, kitten. You fell for the same throw four times.”

”A queen does not fall. She is ambushed.”

”She is FREE PREY!” Luna crowed, taking the round.

Leia had appointed herself commentary desk from the neighboring couch, and nobody aboard had been strong enough to stop her.

”And the desert queen drops another exchange!” she reported into a bread roll. ”Four straight losses on wake-up, folks! Disgusting habits at this level of play!”

”Five,” Sarah corrected from behind her. She had a running tally going on a napkin.

Emily had spent the same hour trying to find somewhere to stand that was not too close to Kaiden and also not too far from Kaiden, for her heart struggled to deal with both close and far proximity for some odd reason.

The search was still ongoing.

Rika filmed all of it. Kira filmed Rika filming it.

Kaiden joined as the third fighter from between the two monarchs, arms threaded around both women’s waists to reach his own controller, and he had spent the whole set quietly making sure neither of them lost too badly to the other.

It worked for eleven rounds.

”Master.” Bastet’s ears had gone still. ”Your fighter has been standing in the corner for some time.”

”He’s throwing rounds.” Luna paused mid-combo, which for Luna was an act of violence against her own nature. ”He’s been feeding you free hits so you don’t sulk, and parrying mine so I don’t gloat. Kaiden Grey. Explain yourself.”

Two heads turned to him in perfect sync, one of them crowned with twitching ears.

”I’m innocent as a newborn baby,” Kaiden said.

”Get this liar!” Luna shouted.

The alliance lasted about forty seconds, which was how long the two of them needed to delete his health bar from both sides while he laughed too hard to block.

Peace returned to the lounge over his corpse.

Farther down the deck, the rest of the family had scattered into their own corners of the flight.

Aria and Alice shared a couch with a fortress of Japanese fashion magazines rising between them, and for once neither of them was attached to Kaiden’s arm. They had simply relocated the obsession.

”This one.” Alice tapped a page. ”If I wear this, strangers will know I’m with big brother at one glance.”

”Mm. And this one for me~” Aria folded a corner with care. ”Kai likes this shade on me.”

They studied each other’s picks and nodded in serious approval, allies for exactly as long as their plans aimed the same way.

Alexandra hovered behind their couch with the price tags, going paler with every currency conversion. ”That coat costs more than a luxury NYC rent!”

”Beauty is expensive,” Alice explained wisely.

”We’re living in a different world now, Lexi. Spending a bit of money on what makes us happy won’t hurt anyone,” Aria smiled. ”Come, join us. I think this set would look great on you...”

”You think so?” Alexandra’s eyes widened, drawn to the skirt Aria selected for her. ”Is it really okay?”

”If you give me this attitude...” Aria’s eyes narrowed. ”I’ll feel forced to buy out a whole store for you.”

”Don’t do that!” Alexandra yelped.

”Then stop thinking you don’t deserve anything.”

”O-okay...”

Calypso had the window end to herself, narrating the ocean to anyone in range, and Nyx watched the whole deck from the deepest seat with her cup, contributing nothing and missing nothing, merely relaxing while watching her family have great fun.

A little before the seatbelt chime, the head attendant came up the stairs, bowed to Kaiden, and reached for no tray at all.

”Lady Tsukikage asks that you watch the broadcast, Lord Grey.”

The arena on the lounge screen dissolved into a podium in Tokyo, a government seal on its front, morning light through tall windows behind it. Captions ran along the bottom in two languages.

”Extraordinary session of the National Diet,” Emily read aloud, quiet.

Behind the podium, a silver-haired minister read from a folder in the unhurried tone of a man who knew the size of his audience. The act had passed that morning, the captions said, and the vote had not been close. Then he reached the line the session had been called for.

”Non-human persons who have demonstrated sustained, publicly observable non-hostility toward humankind shall hold full legal personhood under the law of Japan, with every protection that status carries.”

The minister named no particular monster out loud, but the whole planet held months of footage of exactly two people that sentence fit, and one of them was sitting on Kaiden’s right thigh with a controller still in her hands.

Nobody on the deck spoke.

Then Calypso grinned.

”Choco Kitty, guess we’re people in Japan too!”

Bastet’s ears had flattened at the first line of the caption and stayed down, and the controller sat forgotten between her hands.

A country she had never set foot in had spent its morning on her. Its lawmakers had watched the record of her life with the family, the battles, the sunbathing, the evenings she stood guard over a human home, and on that evidence they had stood up and voted her a person.

The country behind her required her Master to fight constantly to get this privilege for his two monster lovers. This nation had only watched her live, never once interacting with her personally, and decided within a day.

”Japan...” the tanned felinid muttered under her breath, feeling more and more positively about the country.

Kaiden looked at the caption holding on the broadcast and understood the size of the gift.

At home, that sentence existed because he had sat down at a signing table in front of the entire planet and refused to lift the pen until it was added. It lived inside his accord, clause-deep, and men with badges were auditing the ground under it at this very hour.

Japan had passed the same sentence into national law as a welcome present, before his plane ever touched their soil.

”A clause can be renegotiated,” Nyx said into her cup. ”A law has to be repealed.”

Calypso hauled Bastet up off Kaiden’s lap and into a hug that reordered her spine. ”Say it! Say we’re people!”

”...We are people,” Bastet managed, with as much dignity as the hug allowed, and her tail gave her away completely.

”Congratulations, you two.” Kaiden’s grin had gone soft at the edges. ”Welcome to personhood. Try not to get arrested in your first week of being arrestable.”

”Cally somehow passed a background check,” Luna said. ”I need everyone to sit with that.”

Emily was tearing up again. Nobody was surprised.

The seatbelt chime sounded through the deck, and the silver veins along the walls dimmed for descent.

”We begin our approach,” the head attendant announced, bowing to the cabin.

Out the long window band, through a thinning deck of cloud, Japan came up out of the sea.