Four - Chapter 4 - Shield Maiden - Part 1
What a surprise, I'm behind again. Anyone not see this coming? Eh? Eh?
Standard inquiries for assistance and feedback applies. I will be updating as I go along, as usual, and marking when this is updated with a time stamp. Any parts too slow, too fast, too little description, not enough, are the characters sufficiently in character, and what not? Any ideas for the title? Remember, it has to do something with the number four and the character limit (including spaces) is 21.
Possible titles so far:
For the Children
For the Lost
For the Fallen
For the Victims
Forthcoming
Foresight
Fourth Kind
Four Eyes
Four Part Harmony
Come Forth
Back and Forth
Set Forth
For Whom
Worth Fighting For
Fighting For Worth
UPDATED: August 12 - 3:25pm
And this post is officially too big. Gotta split it into parts. Oh dear, and no breaks to help with that either.
Edit - This half of chapter four is officially unlocked for public viewing. Suggestions for chapter preview images and feedback are always welcome.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - The One to Carry On
Chapter 2 - Second Thoughts
Chapter 3 - Third Degree Part 1/ Part 2
Alternate Reading Venues: FanFiction.Net You-fic.net deviantART Archive of Our Own
It took a couple hours for Amaya, Botan, and Kurama to arrive at the demon hunting grounds. The place was nestled between the industrial and commercial districts of Mushiyori. Tall radio towers and billowing smoke stacks loomed over densely packed warehouses that bolstered signs advertising space for rent at affordable prices. From the main streets, the area did not seem particularly ominous - the buildings were relatively new, well over fifty cars sat in lots or on the street, and there were at least a dozen ordinary people spotted going about their business.
Finding an area rife with demonic activity, yet still occupied by workers ignorantly going about their business, was a mixed blessing at best. It suggested that the demons had not yet grown so brazen that everyone who entered the location became their prey. Unfortunately, the presence of normal humans forced the small group of supposedly ordinary teenagers to take care not to arouse suspicion as they discreetly made their way towards the proposed area that was at the heart of the disappearances in this section of the city. With every alleyway they traversed, the buildings appeared to grow older, less well maintained, with fewer innocent bystanders wandering about.
Amaya kept silent during the majority of the trip, her mind churning with a multitude of questions and troubled thoughts of what they might face. She did not wish to complain anymore or wonder why fate chose this role for her to play, but concerns remained that expanded beyond that worry. Finally, upon noticing that the area seemed deserted of other humans, she gathered to nerve to ask one of the questions that had been gnawing at the back of her mind. “I was wondering… if this place we’re going to is the center of all the recent disappearances lately, won’t we have to worry about the police? They should’ve noticed the pattern too.”
Botan lightly scratched her finger along the edge of her jaw as she hummed softly, considering her answer. “Human disappearances have been pretty spread out across the city as far as the police are concerned. Most of the people who have gone missing in this area are the types who don’t really have anyone who would report them as a missing person, like homeless people, runaways, and people who use more deserted areas like this for shady activities.” For a moment, the Grim Reaper felt a small swell of pride. “Unlike the police, Spirit World treats every single life as important and keeps track of everyone, regardless of who they are. Plus, unlike the police, we can ask the victims themselves what happened to them after they’ve been mur-”
Botan slapped her hand over her mouth as she realized she said a little too much. The last thing any of them needed to think about right now was how many people died thanks to the recent increase in the local demon population. She knew that the reminder certainly churned her stomach. Despite the uneasy moment she created, she tried to regain her cheer and flashed Amaya a strained smile. “W-well, anyway, you don’t need to worry about any of that. We’ll be in and out in no time and we’ve got people in Spirit World who will take care of anything strange that gets left behind, so ordinary humans won’t get suspicious.”
Amaya tried not to think about the hasty shift in Botan’s explanation, using it to remind herself how vital it was that she be Spirit Detective before moving on. “That’s what happened with Horumon, right? Spirit World covered up that he was a demon.”
“Bingo,” Botan said lightly.
Kurama waited until it was apparent that the girls had finished their conversation before he addressed Botan. “What can you tell us about the demons we’ll be facing?”
Botan’s mouth contorted somewhere between an uneasy smile and a grimace. “Not too much I’m afraid. Seems most of the victims don’t really remember what happened to them, and those that remember anything didn’t get a good look at the demon that killed them except that whatever it is it’s loud, comes at you from out of nowhere, and has really sharp teeth.”
Amaya rubbed her arms to alleviate a sudden chill that made her muscles twitch faintly. She could deduce why murder victims would distinctly remember that the demon that killed them had sharp teeth.
Kurama’s green eyes were drawn by Amaya’s faint trembling, but only for a moment before he regarded both of his companions. “We’ll need to stay alert and expect an attack to happen at any time.” The girls nodded silently, Botan’s expression more convincingly resolute than Amaya’s.
The conversation slipped away, allowing the group to lapse once more into a troubled silence. It was nearly twenty minutes later - over a good ten minutes since they last saw another person - that Botan brought the group to an abrupt stop, nearly causing Amaya to collide with her from behind. The Grim Reaper turned to her companions with a severe look and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Okay, this should be close to the center of the disappearances.” She focused her gaze specifically on the Spirit Detective. “Got the Psychic Spyglass ready?”
Amaya stared at Botan, her face blank with incomprehension. “The what?”
Botan’s expression virtually mirrored Amaya’s before her cheeks changed to a more rosy hue. She rubbed the back of her head beneath her ponytail as she recalled yesterday’s incomplete training session. “Oops. I guess I forgot I didn’t tell you about that didn’t I?” Hastily she summoned the briefcase that contained the detective tools from the same subspace she stored her oar, and rooted through it for the item in question. She pulled out what appeared to be a rather ordinary pair of glasses with large lenses surrounded by a thin black frame. “Ta da!”
Amaya gingerly accepted the glasses and slowly turned them over in her hand, looking at them from every angle to verify that they appeared perfectly ordinary. She had been expecting something called a Psychic Spyglass to look like a detective’s magnifying glass or a small telescope, but felt it too impolite to say aloud.
Botan practically radiated excitement despite their current circumstances. “I really should’ve given you this little beauty right away, especially since it’s been improved so much over the old monocle model. With just a little bit of your Spirit Energy the Psychic Spyglass will let you see through walls, clothes, and just about anything really. It’s even got some extra features the older model didn’t have, like letting you see in the dark and drastically reducing blinding glare so that the bad guys can’t surprise you with a flash bomb or something.” She leaned over to tap the bridge between the lenses. “There’s even a small switch right here that’ll let you turn off the looking through walls feature so you could use it in combat without being distracted by constantly having to look at what’s underneath the enemy’s clothes.”
Amaya raised her eyebrows, appraising the rather inconspicuous detective’s tool in a new light. “That’s amazing! It’s like having instant x-ray vision.”
“It also helps you see things more clearly even in the worst weather,” Botan said. “So not even fog can hide demons from you. It’s also completely inconspicuous and so stylish to boot, don’t you think? It’s really-”
Kurama cleared his throat, interrupting Botan’s explanation while drawing the attention of the two girls. “It might be best to continue this topic later, preferably under more favorable circumstances.” He paused significantly before focusing his gaze on Botan. “Unless there’s another feature that would be of immediate use given our current situation?”
Botan shifted, suddenly overcome with a sense of unease, as a forced giggle tumbled from her lips. She gave a furtive glance towards their surroundings to both avoid Kurama’s eyes and look for any sign that some demon might be sneaking up on them. “Oh, right, demon hunting grounds. I nearly forgot for a minute there. I was more or less done anyway.”
Amaya tried to ignore the heat that rose in her cheeks for her part in the conversation and slipped the glasses on. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words evaporated in an instant, leaving her unable to utter anything but a choked squeak when she got a good look her companions. She quickly turned her head to stare through a nearby wall, the heat in her face turning into a roaring flame, as she verified, quite vividly, that the glasses did indeed work as Botan claimed.
Botan turned to Amaya upon hearing the strange noise the Spirit Detective emitted. “Did you see something?”
“Yes,” Amaya said before she could stop herself, her voice a full octave higher than usual. “I-I mean no!” She coughed then swallowed hard in an attempt to sound more like her normal self. “I mean… the glasses work but I don’t see any other demons or anything suspicious yet.”
Botan almost accepted the answer at face value, but she got a good look at Amaya’s profile. The Spirit Detective’s expression read clearly of embarrassment, almost to the point of comedic exaggeration. The fact that Amaya was looking everywhere but in Kurama’s direction explained instantly what had happened. It took all of Botan’s willpower not to laugh. She tried to suppress the urge to tease the dark haired girl, but a wry retort was already forming on the tip of her tongue.
“We should try and keep conversation to a minimum,” Kurama said in a low voice. “It’s likely that they know we’re here already, but we should try to lessen the risk of being discovered as much as possible.”
Abashed and disappointed, Botan let go of the witty comment she prepared with a sigh. “Oh, right.” She made a mental note to have a little talk with Amaya privately once the assignment was over, and then tried to get her mind back on the task at hand.
Amaya stubbornly fixated on the mission and walked slightly ahead of the others to ensure that she would only see the contents of buildings from here on out. We are about to fight demons, probably to the death. Now is so not the time to be thinking about… She cringed as her train of thought went down the path she desperately wanted to avoid, so she forced herself to remember the battle with Horumon instead. The second we find a demon, I’m flicking the switch.
Silence reigned as the three made their way cautiously through the maze of increasingly dilapidated warehouses. Garbage, such as cardboard boxes and old clothes, lay strewn on the cracked sidewalks, often piled in ways that appeared far too methodical to be mere happenstance. The streaks of rust left by the rain and marks of graffiti were downright cheerful in comparison to a large dark red stain they found splattered across one of the inside walls of a warehouse. There was no sign of what left the mark, save for streaks along the ground that tapered away into nothing shortly outside the building.
Kurama ran his fingers along the wall and breathed deep before he shook his head. “This stain is old. It’s probably been here for at least a year.”
“Somehow I don’t find that terribly reassuring,” Botan whispered, her voice wavering. Her eyes darted around with a wary air about her, as she tried to keep watch of every direction at once.
Amaya felt her stomach churn as she avoided looking at Kurama for more reason than mere embarrassment. There was no need to ask what caused the stain, as her imagination was quite happy to answer that question for her. It was almost a blessing when she found herself distracted by a glimpse of movement she noticed beyond a mercifully blank wall. The Psychic Spyglass left little sign of the wall but the faintest transparency. Beyond that and the street was another wall that seemed only as substantial as a sheet of mist. It allowed her to see a vaguely human shaped shadow that appeared crouched and shuddering, but she was unable to make out any details with two walls and distance separating her from what she was trying to identify. “There’s someone there.”
Kurama turned his gaze sharply in Amaya’s direction. “Where?”
Amaya looked back then shut her eyes immediately before flicking the switch on her glasses to turn off their see through effect. She pointed blindly in the direction she spotted the figure as she tried to keep her focus. “In… in the next building over. I can’t see them too clearly from here. I think I have to be closer in order to get a better look.”
Kurama glanced in the direction Amaya indicated. There were no windows on that particular wall to give him any hint as to what lay in store for them. The area was rancid with the stench of decay and the overlapping pungent scents of demons both old and new. Even in the unlikely event that he was caught off guard by a large number of demons, nothing about the circumstances of the mission hinted that anything they might encounter could be more powerful than the fox demon at his present level. The problem was that his companions were nowhere near his strength, and the narrow alleyways combined with numerous buildings offering a plethora of places to hide made the area rife with the risk of an ambush, particularly since whatever demons living there seemed adept at hiding their energy. He turned his focus to the girls. “I’ll go first. Botan, keep a distance behind me, and Amaya, you cover the rear. We don’t want to risk anyone sneaking up behind us.”
“Right,” Botan said, only the slightest tremor in her voice hinting that her resolute expression was a facade. Though she possessed strength and abilities beyond ordinary humans, she was no fighter, and knew that her role was best left as guidance and as an extra set of eyes to keep watch.
Amaya nodded, relieved that no one expected her to take point, and gripped her umbrella tightly, sandwiching the protective talisman she disguised as a good luck charm between it and her palm. Privately, she felt thankful for the earlier rain, the exam, and the fact that Botan remembered to bring her belt bag along. It meant that she had a full arsenal of ways to defend herself. Despite this, she felt her stomach tying itself in knots as they made their way to the neighboring warehouse. I can do this. I did it before, and this time I’m not alone. Just keep focused…
All too soon, the three reached their destination. Kurama opened the door slowly, peering inside. The interior of the empty warehouse was much like the others, save this one had an occupant. A small, trembling figure huddled in the far corner, back to the door. The person possessed a mop of wild, greasy black hair that jutted in all directions, and wore a filthy jacket, sweatpants, and boots.
To Kurama’s surprise, the scent he detected was not of a demon but that of a human male. The diminutive size of the person indicated he was a child, likely no older than ten. More alarming than the child’s presence in a place like this was the scent of freshly spilled human blood.
“It’s a child,” Kurama said. “He appears injured.” He wasted no more time and strode quickly through the warehouse to reach the boy, trusting that his companions would follow.
Wet smacking sounds that grew louder the closer Kurama drew to the boy caused his steps to slow, his instincts telling him there was something amiss with how the child’s head bobbed up and down. He changed direction slightly to get a better look at the boy without getting too close, regretfully allowing Botan to dart past him with Amaya close behind. “Wait!”
“Hey!” Botan said, her voice echoing off the walls of the warehouse. “Are you o-”
A guttural snarl consumed Botan’s question as the child whipped around. It was not just the boy’s hair that slimy black, but every inch of his skin revealed by his winter clothes appeared covered in crude oil. His eyes were gone, replaced with white flames, yet somehow he gave the impression that he could still see and focus on the reaper as he lunged towards her with massive sharp teeth and fingers that ended in claws.
Botan screamed and brought her arms up to shield herself, her eyes shutting instinctively, then shrieked again as a body slammed against her, knocking her to the ground. She opened her eyes when she realized that she was uninjured and saw Amaya sitting on top of her, using the open portable umbrella combined with her Spirit Energy to create a shield that deflected the monster’s fangs and claws, but not the force of the collision. A second later, she saw Kurama wrap a long green vine around the thing that was supposed to be a child, securely binding it while pulling it away from the girls. Once the danger appeared over, the Grim Reaper glared at the fox demon. “I thought you said that was a child!”
“It is,” Kurama said, his voice carrying a faintly rough undertone. His eyes were hard as he watched the monstrous child struggle to get free of the vine, slowly sawing away at it with claw and fang. “Amaya, make a barrier to trap him, quickly.”
Amaya was on her feet in a flash, and ran around the creature as fast as she could. She threw her arms in his direction as she completed the circle, letting out a wordless cry just before the familiar light blue glow of her Territory appeared and locked away the thrashing boy within a separate dimension. She tried not to look at the oily black monster as she drew out her marbles to infuse them with her energy and place them along the circumference of the shield. She could not afford to be distracted until she completed the lattice points.
Botan dusted herself off as she stood back up. The irrational anger that came from the attack melted away into a far more apprehensive feeling, as she watched the creature burst free from the vines that she now noticed lacked the thorns that Kurama’s Rose Whip normally possessed. The expression the redhead wore, his jaw set and tense, eyes narrow, did not help the sense of unease building inside her. “What do you mean that’s a child?”
Kurama waited until Amaya finished reinforcing her barrier, as he did not intend to shatter her concentration and her Territory by association. He spoke only when both girls were able to focus on him. “His scent is human, though there is an undeniable demonic influence at work here. I was unable to notice it until I got close due to how saturated this place is with the smell of demons.”
Amaya felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “You… you mean…” She looked at the monstrous boy as he threw himself against her barrier letting out a shriek that should not have been possible to create with human vocal cords.
“There is a demon here with the power to transform humans,” Kurama said. A cursory glance past the barrier allowed him to spot what had preoccupied the boy before their arrival. On the floor was a slab of bloody meat about the size of a deflated basketball, covered in bite marks. He felt it unwise to draw his companions’ attention to it, so he quickly returned his gaze to the child. “Since he still smells human, I believe there is a chance that the change can be reversed.”
A loud thud accompanying a slight shaking of the ground ended further conversation. A moment later, the screech of metal, splintering wood, and breaking rock drew all eyes to the door from which they entered, as it and a sizable chunk of the wall came crashing down. Botan and Kurama hastily backed away to avoid the debris created when a long steel girder wrapped in barbed wire tore a hole in the wall with violent strikes. Amaya ran past her companions, only to circle back to where she originally stood. A splinter of rock struck her cheek just as she threw up another barrier, this Territory much larger than the first to encompass her, her companions, and the shield surrounding the transformed child.
From the safety of Amaya’s Territory, the three could see the result of the violent attack as well as its cause. A hole stretched from the floor to the high ceiling of the warehouse and was wide enough to accommodate a semi-truck. A massive humanoid figure loomed just outside the warehouse, the large hump on its stooped back just barely shorter than the ceiling, which was well over five meters tall. Its arms and legs were thick as tree trunks and nearly the same shape, ending not in roots but giant bony growths. Scales covered its massive muscles, each so large and protruding that they looked more like dark blue rocks embedded into translucent light blue skin. Beneath its sagging belly was a leather loincloth adorned with strings of shiny rocks and bones. A thin blue film briefly flickered across bulbous white eyes that looked like infected blobs of pus resting where the temples would be on a human. It snorted through a pair slits that served as its nose, which rested above a mouth that was too large proportionally for its face, yet still held too many irregularly shaped teeth that jutted through its skin in two shaky rows all the way down to its neck. It roared in a deep voice that resonated through the warehouse like the boom of a shotgun, holding a hissing undercurrent to its speech that was similar to the scraping of sandpaper. “Brother!”
The large shield Amaya made only moments ago disappeared, her concentration disintegrating when she got a good look at the monstrosity in front of them.
Botan fared better, though not by much, as she did not often encounter demons quite so disfigured, and grunted in disgust through her teeth. “What in the world is that thing?”
“Amaya!” Kurama said, his voice snapping as sharply as any strike of his whip, drawing the Spirit Detective’s attention from the giant demon to him. “Make another shield for you and Botan.”
It took a few seconds for Amaya to remember how to make her voice work. “B-but what about y-”
The demon drowned out Amaya’s words with its angry bellow. “What’d you do to me little brother?”
Botan cringed at the intense volume that assaulted her ears, instinctively shielding them with her palms. “We don’t have your little brother! Believe me, if we met anything as big and scary as you we would’ve remembered.”
Kurama placed himself between his comrades and the massive demon. It lumbered forward slowly with a wide stride that sent tremors through the ground with each step. The redhead’s sharp mind was already racing, carefully analyzing each movement and possible methods of attack from this new enemy. “I’ll handle this one.”
Amaya wanted to argue for fear of the danger Kurama placed himself in, but ultimately did as he ordered, creating a new barrier hastily with lattice points so that it would not disappear so easily. She checked the initial shield she created around the transformed child as well to ensure that she would not accidentally trap her and Botan in the same space with a currently dangerous entity.
With Amaya and Botan no longer at the forefront of Kurama’s concern, the redhead focused on the demon looming over him, feeling no fear despite its gruesome countenance. “What do you mean by ‘brother’?”
The massive demon tilted its head down towards Kurama, but only for a moment, as it focused instead on the direction of the shrieks created by the captive child. “Me brother! What be you doing in there?”
Botan looked at the transformed boy, who was slashing his claws ineffectively at the barrier Amaya placed around him. “Wait, does he mean he thinks this is his little brother?”
Kurama moved quickly to intercept the demon and draw its attention by standing in its way, but the giant acted as though he was not there, utterly fixated on the captive child. The former spirit fox leapt backwards - before he chanced the larger demon striking him with one of its large limbs or the girder it wielded like a club - to land lightly on top of the shield protecting the girls. “This child is not your brother.”
The hulking demon paused in its approach and lifted its head just slightly, the closest indication it could give that it was looking at Kurama without the benefit of pupils or irises to lend a visual cue as to where its attention lay. The redhead wondered how well it could actually see. “You make me brother cry,” it said. It raised the girder high, tearing a hole through the ceiling as it brought its arm up and back. “Me don’t like ones who make me brother cry.”
A flick of the wrist from Kurama drew a rose seed from his hair, instantly growing it into a green thorn covered vine that he lashed around the steel girder as it came down. He used his Rose Whip to redirect the momentum of the large piece of metal while slicing it through at the base with the supernaturally strengthened thorns. The result left the giant demon with little more than a stub while the remainder of the girder drove itself into the ground just shy of the shield, as sweet smelling red rose petals rained down around them.
Botan exhaled a breath she did not realize she had been holding. Though the chances of the demon’s club breaking into Amaya’s Territory were slim, she was glad that they would not be testing out its limits under such dire circumstances. “Nice one, Kurama.”
Amaya swallowed to get some moisture back in her suddenly dry throat, rubbing her neck a little too firmly to ease her discomfort. The attack and counter happened far too quickly for her to realize what had transpired until it was over. Her heart fluttered in her ribcage like a trapped bird as her gaze went to the girder that had nearly come crashing down on top of them. The reddish stains and strips of what she hoped were merely trash that decorated the bits of barbed wire drew her attention in particular.
The large demon held what was left of its club in front of its face, its thin eyelids flickering frantically. It tilted its head from side to side and turned its hand over to inspect its destroyed weapon from every angle, as though something might change during its examination. “Where did me club go?”
Kurama felt a measure of relief. For all its immense strength, massive size, and grotesque appearance, the level of power this demon possessed seemed significantly inferior to his. His intelligence alone gave him a substantial advantage. “You claimed this child was your brother.”
“Yeah,” the demon said as it craned its head towards Kurama. “Me little brother. Why you got me little brother in that ball? You stop making me brother cry or else me crush you.” It pulled its arm back for another swing, but all it accomplished was creating a slight breeze that brushed back strands of Kurama’s red hair. The demon bobbed its head, its eyelids flickering again, before it raised the stump of its club for further scrutiny.
Kurama took care to choose simple words, as he doubted this demon would understand anything overly complex. “Who made him your little brother?”
“Me mamma,” the demon said. “Me mamma made me’s and me brothers’ and me sisters’ new little brothers and little sisters.”
Botan felt her ire rise like a trail of fire traveling upwards along her spine. “I can’t believe this! Just how many children have you kidnapped and transformed into monsters? They are not your brothers and sisters, you overgrown troll! These are innocent human children with families, who are no doubt beside themselves with worry, and you’re transforming them into horrible monsters! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
The massive demon lowered its head, craning it far to the right to the point that the demon nearly fell over. It let out a surprisingly squeaky little laugh. “Womans! Gimmie!” It reached for Botan with its empty hand, only for its claws to scrape uselessly against the barrier. The aqua haired girl let out a yelp when the demon’s hand came too close and jerked backwards instinctively. The giant poked and prodded at the shield, but made no progress in getting through to the girls inside.
“You keep your hands to yourself!” Botan said once she regained her composure.
Kurama’s voice became as sharp as a razor’s edge. “How many little brothers and little sisters did your mother make?”
The demon’s eyes flickered again as it scraped its claws against the periphery of Amaya’s Territory in front of the Spirit Detective’s face, as though the demon believed that switching its target might yield better results. Amaya shuddered at the proximity, but managed to keep concentrating on maintaining both barriers. “Womans and me little brother,” the giant said. “Let me in so me can has you.”
A small gesture from Kurama’s hand unwound his Rose Whip from the girder in an instant. A moment later and the whip struck the giant’s wrist, carving a gash through the demon’s scaly hide that oozed with black blood as thick as tar. The fox had enough of reasoning with a greedy simpleton who barely had any concept of what was going on around it. “Tell me where I can find your mother.”
The demon did not notice the pain until half a minute and two more lashes of Kurama’s whip later. The giant howled like the gust of a tornado as it drew back its arm. “You hurt me!”
“If you have any complaints about my behavior then bring your mother here,” Kurama said. “I’ll be more than happy to discuss the situation with her.”
The demon raised its head to Kurama and drew back its lips in an ugly sneer. The giant threw its head towards the ceiling and let out a deafening cry, forcing Kurama to cover his ears to shield them from the audio assault. “Mamma!”
The word hung wavering in the air, echoing through the warehouse and the surrounding area. Within moments, the ground trembled five distinct times, each shudder accompanied by a loud thud of something huge and dense striking concrete hard enough to break it. Through the large crack in the wall carved by the giant demon came five more demons similar in size and stature to the first, each a strikingly different color. Aside from their color, the red and yellow demons differed from the blue only by the ornaments attached to their loincloths. The green, purple, and orange demons were likewise similar in build, save for large sagging breasts they sported, hidden by strips of leather. The only thing truly unique about each of them aside from hue was the weapons they carried. The red demon dragged the arm of a crane, trailing a large wrecking ball behind him. The yellow demon clutched a twined piece of metal made up of an extremely long yet tightly coiled length of fence. The green demon lugged around a tall ginkgo tree, its trunk perforated with countless numbers of blades that threatened to split the wood apart. The orange demon sported a club made up of coiled copper piping that somehow hung onto numerous large shards of glass. The purple demon’s weapon stood out from among the others as something obviously not created through simplistic improvisation - she carried a double-ended trident made from red metal, its tri-pronged blades jutting from pinkish gray pulsating blobs adorning both ends that vaguely resembled brains. Kurama noted to himself to keep an eye on the purple demon in particular.
“More of them,” Amaya said, her voice faint. It was only thanks to her Territory that she and Botan could hear her quiet whisper, as the shield protected them from the piercing howl - to the girls, the noise never raised beyond tolerable levels.
Botan placed her hand on Amaya’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, both to offer reassurance to the blue-eyed girl and ease her own frayed nerves at the sight of so many giant demons crowding into an increasingly cramped warehouse. “It’ll be alright. Kurama can take on even a dozen of these brainless oafs blindfolded. No sweat.”
The smile Amaya gave Botan was weak and unconvincing, but it was the best response she could offer.
Botan smiled back, but only for a second, as she noticed the wide line of blood drawn down from Amaya’s right cheek to the dark haired girl’s collarbone. She had not seen it earlier because she had been standing to the Spirit Detective’s left. “Oh, you’re bleeding!” She silently berated herself for not noticing the injury sooner. “Here, let me take care of that.”
Amaya brushed the half-dried blood from her neck and chin, noticing for the first time that it was there. “I’m fine. It’s not important.” She looked at the blood streaked across the back of her hand. When she spoke again, she talked over the beginnings of a protest from Botan, drowning the reaper out. “Do you still have the Concentration Ring?”
Botan blinked, so startled at the sudden change in topic that she lost her train of thought. “What? Oh, right.” She quickly summoned the tool kit so she could give Amaya the ring, grimacing at the red streak on the Spirit Detective’s hand. “Here, but you better save it only as a last resort. Just let Kurama deal with things for now, okay?”
Amaya nodded and slid the Concentration Ring onto her ring finger. “Right.”
“Now, about that cut,” Botan said. “If you’ll just let me-”
Laughter floated through the air like the tinkling of chimes, lightly echoing off the high ceiling of the warehouse, pleasant yet demanding the attention of everyone who heard it. From somewhere beyond the group of giant demons came the surprisingly dulcet voice of a woman in her prime. “Aoirappa, have you been playing with your food again?”
The blue demon turned its back on Kurama. “Mamma!”
The other five demons split into two groups as they created a path that led to the large hole in the wall. The clacking of heels lightly touching down on concrete heralded the arrival of a woman who appeared as though she was a statue of a goddess carved by a master sculptor given life. Long strands of white hair coiled about her, hugging her body with each elegant step she took, while shadows darker than what hair should create naturally danced about along the strands. Three circular jewels traced an arch over each of her eyebrows - primary colors over her left and secondary colors over her right - drawing attention to the fact that her eyes lacked any feature save for a glowing void of white. The woman was of average height, standing merely a third as tall as the giants that craned their heads towards her. The clothes she wore exposed much of her shimmering dark gray skin. They clung so tightly to her body that they seemed less like cloth and more like swatches of glistening black paint shaped similarly to a barely secure bustier, a tanga, fingerless opera gloves, and thigh-high ballet boots. Hanging loosely from her hips, as though flouting the laws of gravity, was a chain of metal flowers with different colored petals, which coiled around a white painted shakuhachi. “Oh, did my poor baby boy cut himself, he was so excited? Come to Mamma, Aoirappa, and I’ll patch you up.”
The blue demon took a heavy step forward. “Mamma! Mamma!”
The woman held up a single finger, which the blue demon took as a sign to halt. “Aoirappa, now you know better than to come to me like that don’t you?”
The blue demon, Aoirappa, let out a whistling wheeze through his teeth. “Yes Mamma. Sorry Mamma.”
A sound comparable to a balloon bursting rang out, as all at once Aoirappa’s body collapsed in on itself, shrinking down into the size and rough shape of a bowling ball. From the now smooth surface of the demon’s skin came four stubs that served as his arms and legs, as well as a dome shaped head capped with a pair small, pointy horns. He looked almost exactly like a plush toy, with an extra wide line drawn for a mouth and a pair of shiny silver coins for eyes. The wound left on his arm bulged with thick fluffs of black, like a doll losing its stuffing. Aoirappa floated to the woman he called mother, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and settled comfortably into the crook of her arm. When he spoke again, his words came much more easily, his voice softer and at a much higher pitch, like that of a child. “That evil man hurt me, Mamma, and took one of the little ones!”
The demon mother crooned as she twitched her fingers over the injured arm, drawing out strings of glistening silver from her long fingernails that quickly crisscrossed into stitches. The stuffing soon retreated into the wound before it sealed shut, leaving no trace of injury or the silver strands binding it behind. “There now, all better.”
Aoirappa placed his stubby arms against his mother’s chest. “Thank you, Mamma. I love you!”
Kurama watched the scene unfold with a critical eye. This mission appeared much more dangerous than he initially anticipated. It seemed very unlikely that this woman was a mere D-class demon. “I take it that you’re the one in charge here.”
The demon mother tilted her head in Kurama’s direction, her expression almost bored as she tickled Aoirappa’s round belly with a single finger, causing the tiny demon to squirm and giggle.
“That’s it!” Botan said, her eyes lighting up with understanding. “That explains it. I was wondering how those giant demons could hide themselves and the destruction they caused from Spirit World intelligence, let alone sneak up on us. Their real form is that little one!”
The demon mother tilted her chin down a slight degree, as though focusing on the glowing barrier. “I am Irokafue, and whom are you to dare hurt this sweet and innocent child like this? What monsters dare to lock away a mere babe whom is screaming for his mother? Have you no heart?”
Botan fairly quivered with rage and shook her fist in Irokafue’s direction. “Monsters? How dare you call us monsters when you’re transforming human children into this?” She gestured behind her at the cursed boy, yelping quietly as her fingers accidentally struck the barrier separating them.
The anger seemed infectious, as fury spurred Amaya to speak sharply as well. “Why are you doing this? You have plenty of children of your own. You don’t need to steal children from other mothers!”
The corner of Irokafue’s mouth twitched, barely exposing a flash of white teeth. “Women. I have no use for girls whom have begun their cycle, and I will not tolerate the existence of arrogant cows whom wish to steal my babies for their own.”
Botan thrust her finger forward to point at Irokafue, barely holding her arm back just enough so as not to slam her hand against the outer barrier. “That is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Do you even listen to yourself?”
Irokafue released Aoirappa, who drifted upward at her side. “I have no need to listen to the ravings of women so desperate for children that they would steal them away from their loving mother’s bosom.”
“I think she just answered your question, Botan,” Amaya said in a quiet mutter.
Kurama readjusted his stance in preparation to jump, holding his whip at the ready. The tilt of his head cast a shadow over his face, making his eyes a darker shade of green, as he fixated his gaze on Irokafue. “Release the children you’ve stolen and return them to their human forms. If you refuse, there will be no mercy for you.”
Irokafue lifted her head high in Kurama’s direction, lowering it slightly before raising it again. A smile tugged at her lips, the expression more hungry than pleased. “And just whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Someone who is losing patience,” Kurama said. The distasteful demon in front of him was not worth a proper introduction. “Tell me how to reverse the transformation.”
Irokafue tossed her head back as she brushed a lock of her hair from her shoulder, arching her back in the process. “I’ll make you a deal. If you agree to sire new children to replace the babes you take from me, I will allow my babies to turn back into their original distasteful aging forms.”
Botan outright gawked at Irokafue. “What?”
“I refuse,” Kurama said.
Irokafue jerked back as though struck, her long, pointed ears twitching. “What did you say?” Her head slowly swayed back and forth, reeling from Kurama’s words. “That cannot be right! You cannot refuse me! Have you knotholes for eyes?” She cupped her breasts then ran her palms down along her stomach, ending at her hips. “A mere human such as you should feel blessed by the gods to be permitted the chance to sample the perfect body of Irokafue for even an instant! Whom do you think you are?”
Botan folded her arms. “He’s someone with a lot more class and far better taste than you! Of all the nerve!”
Kurama’s look held nothing but contempt for the supposedly sensual movements and striking features of Irokafue. “I find nothing alluring about a woman who reeks of death and human suffering.” The lack of comprehension on the gray woman’s face only heightened the fox demon’s disgust towards her. “The thought of touching a creature like you turns my stomach.”
Irokafue’s mouth twisted, as wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes. “Very well. It is a pity that such a handsome man such as you will be a playmate of my daughters until they tire of you, but I hate men whom refuse to learn their place!” She turned her head to the giants that possessed sagging breasts. “Papururappa! Orenjirappa! Gurinrappa! The man is yours!” She looked to the remaining three. “Aoirappa! Niirorappa! Kiirorappa! Break the shield and bring the women to me!”
“Yes Mamma,” the colorful demons said in unison. The voices of the larger demons rumbled like an approaching storm, completely drowning out the relatively quieter voice of Aoirappa.
The small blue demon was quick as he streaked towards the barrier, but Kurama’s reaction time was faster still. Kurama lashed out with the Rose Whip to strike Aoirappa and sent the diminutive demon flying back, black fluff spilling from a deep slice carved through Aoirappa’s midsection.
Irokafue shrieked as she watched Aoirappa hit the floor, all but split in two. “My child! You hurt my child!”
Kurama twirled the Rose Whip in a circle above his head so quickly that it became little more than a green blur. Red rose petals gently fluttered down around him like snow, filling the air with a sweet scent. “This is your final warning. Unless you want the rest of your children to meet the same fate, release the human children you’ve transformed.”
Irokafue ground her teeth together. “Kill him! Kill him, my children!”
The combined roar of the five remaining colorful demons made Kurama cringe in pain, but he forced himself to endure the noise and the ringing it left left inside his throbbing head. When the giants charged at him from all sides, they came within range of the whirlwind of fluttering rose petals. Their movements ground to a halt, as the toxins on the petals and pollen in the air attacked their nervous systems. The tip of the Rose Whip drew a line of energy above Kurama’s head that formed a flickering circle of light. “Rose Whip Thorn Wheel!” Waves of energy expanded outwards in all directions from the glowing circle and broke off in crescent shapes, slicing through the air, the walls of the warehouse, and the giant demons.
Kurama slowed the spinning of his whip to a halt, allowing his weapon to dangle at his side. As the last of the rose petals touched the ground, so too did the giant demons tumble, their bodies diced into numerous irregularly sized pieces. Five loud pops resounded as the giant demons transformed from hunks of muscle and tar into small strips of colorful fabric and clouds of black fluff.
Irokafue turned her head to scan the room, taking in the carnage before her. “My… my children.” She dug her nails into her scalp, drawing a viscous black liquid that trickled between her fingers. “My children!” Her voice slowly grew louder as it lost all trace of tenderness. “My children!” Each word she spoke wavered in pitch until it cracked with a tinge of hysteria. “You’ve murdered my children!”
Botan laughed as she threw her arms into the air and let out a whoop of joy. It may not have been appropriate, given the signs of slaughter that surrounded them, but she could not help but enjoy the euphoric feeling of triumph. “Alright, Kurama! You did it! You showed that witch she can’t go around doing whatever she pleases!”
Amaya reeled, as her eyes drifted through the warehouse to take in the state of both the colorful demons and the long thin slices carved through virtually every wall from Kurama’s attack. She focused on the fox demon when he jumped lightly to the floor in front of the barrier and watched his retreating back as he made his way to Irokafue. The Spirit Detective felt as though she should say or do something after such an overwhelming victory, but found herself at a loss. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was a high level demon. He took out those monsters as if they were nothing.
Kurama reversed the growth of his Rose Whip, returning it to a mere seed, as he approached Irokafue with measured steps. “You were warned,” he said once the silvery demon stopped screaming. “Now… you will release the humans you transformed, even if I must make you do it by force.”
Irokafue’s lips twitched, as though she had forgotten how to shape her mouth. Surprisingly, a small hiccup that sounded suspiciously like laughter escaped her. The sound repeated itself a little louder. A high-pitched shaky giggle pulled her lips back from her teeth before she threw her head back and cackled, an ugly sound that rang around the warehouse from all sides.
Kurama halted only a couple meters away from Irokafue as he watched her intently. There was a chance that she had simply snapped from the shock, but experience told him that it was moments like these where a person was most likely to do something dangerous and unpredictable.
“You think you’ve won,” Irokafue said, the words burbling out with squeaky giggles. “You think I have no more children left to protect me?” She threw her hands outward. “My children will always protect their mother! Come to Mamma, Babies!”
A cacophony of snarls and shrieks filled the air. Shadows on the floor darkened, turning into portals that allowed blackened heads with eyes of white flame to emerge from their depths. There were dozens of children, wearing everything from thick jackets and pants to swimsuits and sandals. They crawled on hands and feet like animals, snapping their unnaturally large and sharp teeth at the one who angered the demon who made them what they were.
Kurama had little recourse but to dodge as the transformed children lunged at him from all sides. The option to attack was there, but the thought of shedding the blood of another innocent child… He banished memories of the cruel choice thrust upon him over a week ago thanks to the mad designs of Shinobu Sensui, focusing instead on the present and the alternative tactics he could take. If he could dispatch Irokafue, then perhaps the children would revert to normal.
Regrettably, approaching Irokafue proved more challenging for Kurama than he expected, particularly because she kept her distance from him. The attacking children forced him to remain in constant motion, and most of the children clustered around their so-called ‘mother.’ He could barely touch his feet to the ground for more than a second before leaping into the air over the head of a girl in a brown stained frilly dress, twisting his body around to evade the claws of a boy with a frayed straw hat that barely hung onto his neck by a string.
“You horrible, horrible woman!” Botan said, raising her voice above the din generated by the transformed children. “Don’t you even care that these children might get hurt too because of what you’re doing?”
No answer came, save for Irokafue’s harsh mocking laugh.
As much as Amaya worried for Kurama’s safety, she felt a greater sense of concern for the children. The fox demon had already proven he held immense strength. If he made one mistake, a child or any number of them could be hurt, even killed. The Spirit Detective turned to Botan, grabbing her guide by the wrist. “There has to be something we can do to help Kurama. Isn’t there a tool or something that could help us?”
Botan turned her eyes skyward as she racked her brain to remember the various potential uses of the tools in the Spirit Detective’s arsenal. “Let’s see… There’s the Mystic Whistle. That can be very obnoxious for demons.” She glanced outside Amaya’s Territory and grimaced as she saw a couple children clawing at the barrier wall. “Oh, wait, that probably will hurt us more than help since it’ll affect Kurama too and probably won’t work as effectively on the children since they’re still human deep down.”
Amaya held up her good luck charm, a desperate air to her voice. “What about talismans? I used one like this to hurt Horumon and those demon insects. Would it, I don’t know, get rid of the demonic influence or something?”
Botan knitted her brow. “Maybe… But I’m afraid I’m not too well versed in talismans, and we don’t know exactly what it was that Irokafue did to them, so I’m not sure. It might hurt them more than help.”
Amaya tightened her grip on the charm, halfway crumpling it as her frustration mounted. I’m supposed to be the Spirit Detective, aren’t I? How can I save anyone if I can’t do anything? If only there was a way to find out for sure…
A glimpse of the child Amaya caught earlier, still uselessly trying to make his escape, gave the Spirit Detective an idea. If she just placed the talisman against the child’s hand, then the damage would be relatively minor if it was indeed toxic to him in this state…
Amaya shuddered when she remembered the burn the talisman left on Horumon’s face that destroyed his eye and turned away. The force of the child tackling her earlier had been nothing when compared to Horumon’s blows, hinting that the children, even transformed, were likely far less resilient. Yet, she also recalled Izumi’s transformation from ordinary girl to something just short of a shambling corpse. Izumi showed no signs of injury caused by anything but falling down after the talisman destroyed the demon insect that possessed her. Using the talisman on Izumi had been an accident, but Amaya knew that if she had the choice to do all over again, she would have used the charm anyway, regardless of the risk, in order to prevent anyone from getting stabbed. Amaya had to admit that her concern towards hurting Izumi was significantly less than the fear she felt for harming any of the innocent children forced to do Irokafue’s bidding. The children barely looked human in this state, whereas Izumi’s appearance had not changed significantly. Is it really right to risk it?
Calm returned to Irokafue’s features as she watched Kurama struggle to evade the constant barrage of attacks. “My little ones are so good to their mother. They protect me, love me, and feed me.” She removed the shakuhachi from her belt. “Shall I show you what else they can do?” She did not wait for an answer, as she placed the bamboo flute to her lips.
A haunting melody filled the air, somehow perceivable to the ear despite the constant barrage of blaring noise created by the children. The flames where their eyes should have been blazed brighter, creating thin wisps of black smoke that cumulated into a dark fog. Kurama was forced to rely more on his sense of smell in order to avoid the attacks that continued to come relentlessly even as visibility lessened and the air grew charged with Spirit Energy. Eventually he could see little more than glimpses of twin balls of white fire streaking towards him from all sides. The former thief quickly retreated to where there were fewer children to contend with in order to get out of the fog, certain that it was no mere smokescreen.
Botan grimaced as the world outside Amaya’s Territory turned pitch black. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this…”
Want to read more? Head on to Chapter 4 - Shield Maiden - Part 2.
Standard inquiries for assistance and feedback applies. I will be updating as I go along, as usual, and marking when this is updated with a time stamp. Any parts too slow, too fast, too little description, not enough, are the characters sufficiently in character, and what not? Any ideas for the title? Remember, it has to do something with the number four and the character limit (including spaces) is 21.
Possible titles so far:
For the Children
For the Lost
For the Fallen
For the Victims
Forthcoming
Foresight
Fourth Kind
Four Eyes
Four Part Harmony
Come Forth
Back and Forth
Set Forth
For Whom
Worth Fighting For
Fighting For Worth
UPDATED: August 12 - 3:25pm
And this post is officially too big. Gotta split it into parts. Oh dear, and no breaks to help with that either.
Edit - This half of chapter four is officially unlocked for public viewing. Suggestions for chapter preview images and feedback are always welcome.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1 - The One to Carry On
Chapter 2 - Second Thoughts
Chapter 3 - Third Degree Part 1/ Part 2
Alternate Reading Venues: FanFiction.Net You-fic.net deviantART Archive of Our Own
It took a couple hours for Amaya, Botan, and Kurama to arrive at the demon hunting grounds. The place was nestled between the industrial and commercial districts of Mushiyori. Tall radio towers and billowing smoke stacks loomed over densely packed warehouses that bolstered signs advertising space for rent at affordable prices. From the main streets, the area did not seem particularly ominous - the buildings were relatively new, well over fifty cars sat in lots or on the street, and there were at least a dozen ordinary people spotted going about their business.
Finding an area rife with demonic activity, yet still occupied by workers ignorantly going about their business, was a mixed blessing at best. It suggested that the demons had not yet grown so brazen that everyone who entered the location became their prey. Unfortunately, the presence of normal humans forced the small group of supposedly ordinary teenagers to take care not to arouse suspicion as they discreetly made their way towards the proposed area that was at the heart of the disappearances in this section of the city. With every alleyway they traversed, the buildings appeared to grow older, less well maintained, with fewer innocent bystanders wandering about.
Amaya kept silent during the majority of the trip, her mind churning with a multitude of questions and troubled thoughts of what they might face. She did not wish to complain anymore or wonder why fate chose this role for her to play, but concerns remained that expanded beyond that worry. Finally, upon noticing that the area seemed deserted of other humans, she gathered to nerve to ask one of the questions that had been gnawing at the back of her mind. “I was wondering… if this place we’re going to is the center of all the recent disappearances lately, won’t we have to worry about the police? They should’ve noticed the pattern too.”
Botan lightly scratched her finger along the edge of her jaw as she hummed softly, considering her answer. “Human disappearances have been pretty spread out across the city as far as the police are concerned. Most of the people who have gone missing in this area are the types who don’t really have anyone who would report them as a missing person, like homeless people, runaways, and people who use more deserted areas like this for shady activities.” For a moment, the Grim Reaper felt a small swell of pride. “Unlike the police, Spirit World treats every single life as important and keeps track of everyone, regardless of who they are. Plus, unlike the police, we can ask the victims themselves what happened to them after they’ve been mur-”
Botan slapped her hand over her mouth as she realized she said a little too much. The last thing any of them needed to think about right now was how many people died thanks to the recent increase in the local demon population. She knew that the reminder certainly churned her stomach. Despite the uneasy moment she created, she tried to regain her cheer and flashed Amaya a strained smile. “W-well, anyway, you don’t need to worry about any of that. We’ll be in and out in no time and we’ve got people in Spirit World who will take care of anything strange that gets left behind, so ordinary humans won’t get suspicious.”
Amaya tried not to think about the hasty shift in Botan’s explanation, using it to remind herself how vital it was that she be Spirit Detective before moving on. “That’s what happened with Horumon, right? Spirit World covered up that he was a demon.”
“Bingo,” Botan said lightly.
Kurama waited until it was apparent that the girls had finished their conversation before he addressed Botan. “What can you tell us about the demons we’ll be facing?”
Botan’s mouth contorted somewhere between an uneasy smile and a grimace. “Not too much I’m afraid. Seems most of the victims don’t really remember what happened to them, and those that remember anything didn’t get a good look at the demon that killed them except that whatever it is it’s loud, comes at you from out of nowhere, and has really sharp teeth.”
Amaya rubbed her arms to alleviate a sudden chill that made her muscles twitch faintly. She could deduce why murder victims would distinctly remember that the demon that killed them had sharp teeth.
Kurama’s green eyes were drawn by Amaya’s faint trembling, but only for a moment before he regarded both of his companions. “We’ll need to stay alert and expect an attack to happen at any time.” The girls nodded silently, Botan’s expression more convincingly resolute than Amaya’s.
The conversation slipped away, allowing the group to lapse once more into a troubled silence. It was nearly twenty minutes later - over a good ten minutes since they last saw another person - that Botan brought the group to an abrupt stop, nearly causing Amaya to collide with her from behind. The Grim Reaper turned to her companions with a severe look and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Okay, this should be close to the center of the disappearances.” She focused her gaze specifically on the Spirit Detective. “Got the Psychic Spyglass ready?”
Amaya stared at Botan, her face blank with incomprehension. “The what?”
Botan’s expression virtually mirrored Amaya’s before her cheeks changed to a more rosy hue. She rubbed the back of her head beneath her ponytail as she recalled yesterday’s incomplete training session. “Oops. I guess I forgot I didn’t tell you about that didn’t I?” Hastily she summoned the briefcase that contained the detective tools from the same subspace she stored her oar, and rooted through it for the item in question. She pulled out what appeared to be a rather ordinary pair of glasses with large lenses surrounded by a thin black frame. “Ta da!”
Amaya gingerly accepted the glasses and slowly turned them over in her hand, looking at them from every angle to verify that they appeared perfectly ordinary. She had been expecting something called a Psychic Spyglass to look like a detective’s magnifying glass or a small telescope, but felt it too impolite to say aloud.
Botan practically radiated excitement despite their current circumstances. “I really should’ve given you this little beauty right away, especially since it’s been improved so much over the old monocle model. With just a little bit of your Spirit Energy the Psychic Spyglass will let you see through walls, clothes, and just about anything really. It’s even got some extra features the older model didn’t have, like letting you see in the dark and drastically reducing blinding glare so that the bad guys can’t surprise you with a flash bomb or something.” She leaned over to tap the bridge between the lenses. “There’s even a small switch right here that’ll let you turn off the looking through walls feature so you could use it in combat without being distracted by constantly having to look at what’s underneath the enemy’s clothes.”
Amaya raised her eyebrows, appraising the rather inconspicuous detective’s tool in a new light. “That’s amazing! It’s like having instant x-ray vision.”
“It also helps you see things more clearly even in the worst weather,” Botan said. “So not even fog can hide demons from you. It’s also completely inconspicuous and so stylish to boot, don’t you think? It’s really-”
Kurama cleared his throat, interrupting Botan’s explanation while drawing the attention of the two girls. “It might be best to continue this topic later, preferably under more favorable circumstances.” He paused significantly before focusing his gaze on Botan. “Unless there’s another feature that would be of immediate use given our current situation?”
Botan shifted, suddenly overcome with a sense of unease, as a forced giggle tumbled from her lips. She gave a furtive glance towards their surroundings to both avoid Kurama’s eyes and look for any sign that some demon might be sneaking up on them. “Oh, right, demon hunting grounds. I nearly forgot for a minute there. I was more or less done anyway.”
Amaya tried to ignore the heat that rose in her cheeks for her part in the conversation and slipped the glasses on. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words evaporated in an instant, leaving her unable to utter anything but a choked squeak when she got a good look her companions. She quickly turned her head to stare through a nearby wall, the heat in her face turning into a roaring flame, as she verified, quite vividly, that the glasses did indeed work as Botan claimed.
Botan turned to Amaya upon hearing the strange noise the Spirit Detective emitted. “Did you see something?”
“Yes,” Amaya said before she could stop herself, her voice a full octave higher than usual. “I-I mean no!” She coughed then swallowed hard in an attempt to sound more like her normal self. “I mean… the glasses work but I don’t see any other demons or anything suspicious yet.”
Botan almost accepted the answer at face value, but she got a good look at Amaya’s profile. The Spirit Detective’s expression read clearly of embarrassment, almost to the point of comedic exaggeration. The fact that Amaya was looking everywhere but in Kurama’s direction explained instantly what had happened. It took all of Botan’s willpower not to laugh. She tried to suppress the urge to tease the dark haired girl, but a wry retort was already forming on the tip of her tongue.
“We should try and keep conversation to a minimum,” Kurama said in a low voice. “It’s likely that they know we’re here already, but we should try to lessen the risk of being discovered as much as possible.”
Abashed and disappointed, Botan let go of the witty comment she prepared with a sigh. “Oh, right.” She made a mental note to have a little talk with Amaya privately once the assignment was over, and then tried to get her mind back on the task at hand.
Amaya stubbornly fixated on the mission and walked slightly ahead of the others to ensure that she would only see the contents of buildings from here on out. We are about to fight demons, probably to the death. Now is so not the time to be thinking about… She cringed as her train of thought went down the path she desperately wanted to avoid, so she forced herself to remember the battle with Horumon instead. The second we find a demon, I’m flicking the switch.
Silence reigned as the three made their way cautiously through the maze of increasingly dilapidated warehouses. Garbage, such as cardboard boxes and old clothes, lay strewn on the cracked sidewalks, often piled in ways that appeared far too methodical to be mere happenstance. The streaks of rust left by the rain and marks of graffiti were downright cheerful in comparison to a large dark red stain they found splattered across one of the inside walls of a warehouse. There was no sign of what left the mark, save for streaks along the ground that tapered away into nothing shortly outside the building.
Kurama ran his fingers along the wall and breathed deep before he shook his head. “This stain is old. It’s probably been here for at least a year.”
“Somehow I don’t find that terribly reassuring,” Botan whispered, her voice wavering. Her eyes darted around with a wary air about her, as she tried to keep watch of every direction at once.
Amaya felt her stomach churn as she avoided looking at Kurama for more reason than mere embarrassment. There was no need to ask what caused the stain, as her imagination was quite happy to answer that question for her. It was almost a blessing when she found herself distracted by a glimpse of movement she noticed beyond a mercifully blank wall. The Psychic Spyglass left little sign of the wall but the faintest transparency. Beyond that and the street was another wall that seemed only as substantial as a sheet of mist. It allowed her to see a vaguely human shaped shadow that appeared crouched and shuddering, but she was unable to make out any details with two walls and distance separating her from what she was trying to identify. “There’s someone there.”
Kurama turned his gaze sharply in Amaya’s direction. “Where?”
Amaya looked back then shut her eyes immediately before flicking the switch on her glasses to turn off their see through effect. She pointed blindly in the direction she spotted the figure as she tried to keep her focus. “In… in the next building over. I can’t see them too clearly from here. I think I have to be closer in order to get a better look.”
Kurama glanced in the direction Amaya indicated. There were no windows on that particular wall to give him any hint as to what lay in store for them. The area was rancid with the stench of decay and the overlapping pungent scents of demons both old and new. Even in the unlikely event that he was caught off guard by a large number of demons, nothing about the circumstances of the mission hinted that anything they might encounter could be more powerful than the fox demon at his present level. The problem was that his companions were nowhere near his strength, and the narrow alleyways combined with numerous buildings offering a plethora of places to hide made the area rife with the risk of an ambush, particularly since whatever demons living there seemed adept at hiding their energy. He turned his focus to the girls. “I’ll go first. Botan, keep a distance behind me, and Amaya, you cover the rear. We don’t want to risk anyone sneaking up behind us.”
“Right,” Botan said, only the slightest tremor in her voice hinting that her resolute expression was a facade. Though she possessed strength and abilities beyond ordinary humans, she was no fighter, and knew that her role was best left as guidance and as an extra set of eyes to keep watch.
Amaya nodded, relieved that no one expected her to take point, and gripped her umbrella tightly, sandwiching the protective talisman she disguised as a good luck charm between it and her palm. Privately, she felt thankful for the earlier rain, the exam, and the fact that Botan remembered to bring her belt bag along. It meant that she had a full arsenal of ways to defend herself. Despite this, she felt her stomach tying itself in knots as they made their way to the neighboring warehouse. I can do this. I did it before, and this time I’m not alone. Just keep focused…
All too soon, the three reached their destination. Kurama opened the door slowly, peering inside. The interior of the empty warehouse was much like the others, save this one had an occupant. A small, trembling figure huddled in the far corner, back to the door. The person possessed a mop of wild, greasy black hair that jutted in all directions, and wore a filthy jacket, sweatpants, and boots.
To Kurama’s surprise, the scent he detected was not of a demon but that of a human male. The diminutive size of the person indicated he was a child, likely no older than ten. More alarming than the child’s presence in a place like this was the scent of freshly spilled human blood.
“It’s a child,” Kurama said. “He appears injured.” He wasted no more time and strode quickly through the warehouse to reach the boy, trusting that his companions would follow.
Wet smacking sounds that grew louder the closer Kurama drew to the boy caused his steps to slow, his instincts telling him there was something amiss with how the child’s head bobbed up and down. He changed direction slightly to get a better look at the boy without getting too close, regretfully allowing Botan to dart past him with Amaya close behind. “Wait!”
“Hey!” Botan said, her voice echoing off the walls of the warehouse. “Are you o-”
A guttural snarl consumed Botan’s question as the child whipped around. It was not just the boy’s hair that slimy black, but every inch of his skin revealed by his winter clothes appeared covered in crude oil. His eyes were gone, replaced with white flames, yet somehow he gave the impression that he could still see and focus on the reaper as he lunged towards her with massive sharp teeth and fingers that ended in claws.
Botan screamed and brought her arms up to shield herself, her eyes shutting instinctively, then shrieked again as a body slammed against her, knocking her to the ground. She opened her eyes when she realized that she was uninjured and saw Amaya sitting on top of her, using the open portable umbrella combined with her Spirit Energy to create a shield that deflected the monster’s fangs and claws, but not the force of the collision. A second later, she saw Kurama wrap a long green vine around the thing that was supposed to be a child, securely binding it while pulling it away from the girls. Once the danger appeared over, the Grim Reaper glared at the fox demon. “I thought you said that was a child!”
“It is,” Kurama said, his voice carrying a faintly rough undertone. His eyes were hard as he watched the monstrous child struggle to get free of the vine, slowly sawing away at it with claw and fang. “Amaya, make a barrier to trap him, quickly.”
Amaya was on her feet in a flash, and ran around the creature as fast as she could. She threw her arms in his direction as she completed the circle, letting out a wordless cry just before the familiar light blue glow of her Territory appeared and locked away the thrashing boy within a separate dimension. She tried not to look at the oily black monster as she drew out her marbles to infuse them with her energy and place them along the circumference of the shield. She could not afford to be distracted until she completed the lattice points.
Botan dusted herself off as she stood back up. The irrational anger that came from the attack melted away into a far more apprehensive feeling, as she watched the creature burst free from the vines that she now noticed lacked the thorns that Kurama’s Rose Whip normally possessed. The expression the redhead wore, his jaw set and tense, eyes narrow, did not help the sense of unease building inside her. “What do you mean that’s a child?”
Kurama waited until Amaya finished reinforcing her barrier, as he did not intend to shatter her concentration and her Territory by association. He spoke only when both girls were able to focus on him. “His scent is human, though there is an undeniable demonic influence at work here. I was unable to notice it until I got close due to how saturated this place is with the smell of demons.”
Amaya felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “You… you mean…” She looked at the monstrous boy as he threw himself against her barrier letting out a shriek that should not have been possible to create with human vocal cords.
“There is a demon here with the power to transform humans,” Kurama said. A cursory glance past the barrier allowed him to spot what had preoccupied the boy before their arrival. On the floor was a slab of bloody meat about the size of a deflated basketball, covered in bite marks. He felt it unwise to draw his companions’ attention to it, so he quickly returned his gaze to the child. “Since he still smells human, I believe there is a chance that the change can be reversed.”
A loud thud accompanying a slight shaking of the ground ended further conversation. A moment later, the screech of metal, splintering wood, and breaking rock drew all eyes to the door from which they entered, as it and a sizable chunk of the wall came crashing down. Botan and Kurama hastily backed away to avoid the debris created when a long steel girder wrapped in barbed wire tore a hole in the wall with violent strikes. Amaya ran past her companions, only to circle back to where she originally stood. A splinter of rock struck her cheek just as she threw up another barrier, this Territory much larger than the first to encompass her, her companions, and the shield surrounding the transformed child.
From the safety of Amaya’s Territory, the three could see the result of the violent attack as well as its cause. A hole stretched from the floor to the high ceiling of the warehouse and was wide enough to accommodate a semi-truck. A massive humanoid figure loomed just outside the warehouse, the large hump on its stooped back just barely shorter than the ceiling, which was well over five meters tall. Its arms and legs were thick as tree trunks and nearly the same shape, ending not in roots but giant bony growths. Scales covered its massive muscles, each so large and protruding that they looked more like dark blue rocks embedded into translucent light blue skin. Beneath its sagging belly was a leather loincloth adorned with strings of shiny rocks and bones. A thin blue film briefly flickered across bulbous white eyes that looked like infected blobs of pus resting where the temples would be on a human. It snorted through a pair slits that served as its nose, which rested above a mouth that was too large proportionally for its face, yet still held too many irregularly shaped teeth that jutted through its skin in two shaky rows all the way down to its neck. It roared in a deep voice that resonated through the warehouse like the boom of a shotgun, holding a hissing undercurrent to its speech that was similar to the scraping of sandpaper. “Brother!”
The large shield Amaya made only moments ago disappeared, her concentration disintegrating when she got a good look at the monstrosity in front of them.
Botan fared better, though not by much, as she did not often encounter demons quite so disfigured, and grunted in disgust through her teeth. “What in the world is that thing?”
“Amaya!” Kurama said, his voice snapping as sharply as any strike of his whip, drawing the Spirit Detective’s attention from the giant demon to him. “Make another shield for you and Botan.”
It took a few seconds for Amaya to remember how to make her voice work. “B-but what about y-”
The demon drowned out Amaya’s words with its angry bellow. “What’d you do to me little brother?”
Botan cringed at the intense volume that assaulted her ears, instinctively shielding them with her palms. “We don’t have your little brother! Believe me, if we met anything as big and scary as you we would’ve remembered.”
Kurama placed himself between his comrades and the massive demon. It lumbered forward slowly with a wide stride that sent tremors through the ground with each step. The redhead’s sharp mind was already racing, carefully analyzing each movement and possible methods of attack from this new enemy. “I’ll handle this one.”
Amaya wanted to argue for fear of the danger Kurama placed himself in, but ultimately did as he ordered, creating a new barrier hastily with lattice points so that it would not disappear so easily. She checked the initial shield she created around the transformed child as well to ensure that she would not accidentally trap her and Botan in the same space with a currently dangerous entity.
With Amaya and Botan no longer at the forefront of Kurama’s concern, the redhead focused on the demon looming over him, feeling no fear despite its gruesome countenance. “What do you mean by ‘brother’?”
The massive demon tilted its head down towards Kurama, but only for a moment, as it focused instead on the direction of the shrieks created by the captive child. “Me brother! What be you doing in there?”
Botan looked at the transformed boy, who was slashing his claws ineffectively at the barrier Amaya placed around him. “Wait, does he mean he thinks this is his little brother?”
Kurama moved quickly to intercept the demon and draw its attention by standing in its way, but the giant acted as though he was not there, utterly fixated on the captive child. The former spirit fox leapt backwards - before he chanced the larger demon striking him with one of its large limbs or the girder it wielded like a club - to land lightly on top of the shield protecting the girls. “This child is not your brother.”
The hulking demon paused in its approach and lifted its head just slightly, the closest indication it could give that it was looking at Kurama without the benefit of pupils or irises to lend a visual cue as to where its attention lay. The redhead wondered how well it could actually see. “You make me brother cry,” it said. It raised the girder high, tearing a hole through the ceiling as it brought its arm up and back. “Me don’t like ones who make me brother cry.”
A flick of the wrist from Kurama drew a rose seed from his hair, instantly growing it into a green thorn covered vine that he lashed around the steel girder as it came down. He used his Rose Whip to redirect the momentum of the large piece of metal while slicing it through at the base with the supernaturally strengthened thorns. The result left the giant demon with little more than a stub while the remainder of the girder drove itself into the ground just shy of the shield, as sweet smelling red rose petals rained down around them.
Botan exhaled a breath she did not realize she had been holding. Though the chances of the demon’s club breaking into Amaya’s Territory were slim, she was glad that they would not be testing out its limits under such dire circumstances. “Nice one, Kurama.”
Amaya swallowed to get some moisture back in her suddenly dry throat, rubbing her neck a little too firmly to ease her discomfort. The attack and counter happened far too quickly for her to realize what had transpired until it was over. Her heart fluttered in her ribcage like a trapped bird as her gaze went to the girder that had nearly come crashing down on top of them. The reddish stains and strips of what she hoped were merely trash that decorated the bits of barbed wire drew her attention in particular.
The large demon held what was left of its club in front of its face, its thin eyelids flickering frantically. It tilted its head from side to side and turned its hand over to inspect its destroyed weapon from every angle, as though something might change during its examination. “Where did me club go?”
Kurama felt a measure of relief. For all its immense strength, massive size, and grotesque appearance, the level of power this demon possessed seemed significantly inferior to his. His intelligence alone gave him a substantial advantage. “You claimed this child was your brother.”
“Yeah,” the demon said as it craned its head towards Kurama. “Me little brother. Why you got me little brother in that ball? You stop making me brother cry or else me crush you.” It pulled its arm back for another swing, but all it accomplished was creating a slight breeze that brushed back strands of Kurama’s red hair. The demon bobbed its head, its eyelids flickering again, before it raised the stump of its club for further scrutiny.
Kurama took care to choose simple words, as he doubted this demon would understand anything overly complex. “Who made him your little brother?”
“Me mamma,” the demon said. “Me mamma made me’s and me brothers’ and me sisters’ new little brothers and little sisters.”
Botan felt her ire rise like a trail of fire traveling upwards along her spine. “I can’t believe this! Just how many children have you kidnapped and transformed into monsters? They are not your brothers and sisters, you overgrown troll! These are innocent human children with families, who are no doubt beside themselves with worry, and you’re transforming them into horrible monsters! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
The massive demon lowered its head, craning it far to the right to the point that the demon nearly fell over. It let out a surprisingly squeaky little laugh. “Womans! Gimmie!” It reached for Botan with its empty hand, only for its claws to scrape uselessly against the barrier. The aqua haired girl let out a yelp when the demon’s hand came too close and jerked backwards instinctively. The giant poked and prodded at the shield, but made no progress in getting through to the girls inside.
“You keep your hands to yourself!” Botan said once she regained her composure.
Kurama’s voice became as sharp as a razor’s edge. “How many little brothers and little sisters did your mother make?”
The demon’s eyes flickered again as it scraped its claws against the periphery of Amaya’s Territory in front of the Spirit Detective’s face, as though the demon believed that switching its target might yield better results. Amaya shuddered at the proximity, but managed to keep concentrating on maintaining both barriers. “Womans and me little brother,” the giant said. “Let me in so me can has you.”
A small gesture from Kurama’s hand unwound his Rose Whip from the girder in an instant. A moment later and the whip struck the giant’s wrist, carving a gash through the demon’s scaly hide that oozed with black blood as thick as tar. The fox had enough of reasoning with a greedy simpleton who barely had any concept of what was going on around it. “Tell me where I can find your mother.”
The demon did not notice the pain until half a minute and two more lashes of Kurama’s whip later. The giant howled like the gust of a tornado as it drew back its arm. “You hurt me!”
“If you have any complaints about my behavior then bring your mother here,” Kurama said. “I’ll be more than happy to discuss the situation with her.”
The demon raised its head to Kurama and drew back its lips in an ugly sneer. The giant threw its head towards the ceiling and let out a deafening cry, forcing Kurama to cover his ears to shield them from the audio assault. “Mamma!”
The word hung wavering in the air, echoing through the warehouse and the surrounding area. Within moments, the ground trembled five distinct times, each shudder accompanied by a loud thud of something huge and dense striking concrete hard enough to break it. Through the large crack in the wall carved by the giant demon came five more demons similar in size and stature to the first, each a strikingly different color. Aside from their color, the red and yellow demons differed from the blue only by the ornaments attached to their loincloths. The green, purple, and orange demons were likewise similar in build, save for large sagging breasts they sported, hidden by strips of leather. The only thing truly unique about each of them aside from hue was the weapons they carried. The red demon dragged the arm of a crane, trailing a large wrecking ball behind him. The yellow demon clutched a twined piece of metal made up of an extremely long yet tightly coiled length of fence. The green demon lugged around a tall ginkgo tree, its trunk perforated with countless numbers of blades that threatened to split the wood apart. The orange demon sported a club made up of coiled copper piping that somehow hung onto numerous large shards of glass. The purple demon’s weapon stood out from among the others as something obviously not created through simplistic improvisation - she carried a double-ended trident made from red metal, its tri-pronged blades jutting from pinkish gray pulsating blobs adorning both ends that vaguely resembled brains. Kurama noted to himself to keep an eye on the purple demon in particular.
“More of them,” Amaya said, her voice faint. It was only thanks to her Territory that she and Botan could hear her quiet whisper, as the shield protected them from the piercing howl - to the girls, the noise never raised beyond tolerable levels.
Botan placed her hand on Amaya’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, both to offer reassurance to the blue-eyed girl and ease her own frayed nerves at the sight of so many giant demons crowding into an increasingly cramped warehouse. “It’ll be alright. Kurama can take on even a dozen of these brainless oafs blindfolded. No sweat.”
The smile Amaya gave Botan was weak and unconvincing, but it was the best response she could offer.
Botan smiled back, but only for a second, as she noticed the wide line of blood drawn down from Amaya’s right cheek to the dark haired girl’s collarbone. She had not seen it earlier because she had been standing to the Spirit Detective’s left. “Oh, you’re bleeding!” She silently berated herself for not noticing the injury sooner. “Here, let me take care of that.”
Amaya brushed the half-dried blood from her neck and chin, noticing for the first time that it was there. “I’m fine. It’s not important.” She looked at the blood streaked across the back of her hand. When she spoke again, she talked over the beginnings of a protest from Botan, drowning the reaper out. “Do you still have the Concentration Ring?”
Botan blinked, so startled at the sudden change in topic that she lost her train of thought. “What? Oh, right.” She quickly summoned the tool kit so she could give Amaya the ring, grimacing at the red streak on the Spirit Detective’s hand. “Here, but you better save it only as a last resort. Just let Kurama deal with things for now, okay?”
Amaya nodded and slid the Concentration Ring onto her ring finger. “Right.”
“Now, about that cut,” Botan said. “If you’ll just let me-”
Laughter floated through the air like the tinkling of chimes, lightly echoing off the high ceiling of the warehouse, pleasant yet demanding the attention of everyone who heard it. From somewhere beyond the group of giant demons came the surprisingly dulcet voice of a woman in her prime. “Aoirappa, have you been playing with your food again?”
The blue demon turned its back on Kurama. “Mamma!”
The other five demons split into two groups as they created a path that led to the large hole in the wall. The clacking of heels lightly touching down on concrete heralded the arrival of a woman who appeared as though she was a statue of a goddess carved by a master sculptor given life. Long strands of white hair coiled about her, hugging her body with each elegant step she took, while shadows darker than what hair should create naturally danced about along the strands. Three circular jewels traced an arch over each of her eyebrows - primary colors over her left and secondary colors over her right - drawing attention to the fact that her eyes lacked any feature save for a glowing void of white. The woman was of average height, standing merely a third as tall as the giants that craned their heads towards her. The clothes she wore exposed much of her shimmering dark gray skin. They clung so tightly to her body that they seemed less like cloth and more like swatches of glistening black paint shaped similarly to a barely secure bustier, a tanga, fingerless opera gloves, and thigh-high ballet boots. Hanging loosely from her hips, as though flouting the laws of gravity, was a chain of metal flowers with different colored petals, which coiled around a white painted shakuhachi. “Oh, did my poor baby boy cut himself, he was so excited? Come to Mamma, Aoirappa, and I’ll patch you up.”
The blue demon took a heavy step forward. “Mamma! Mamma!”
The woman held up a single finger, which the blue demon took as a sign to halt. “Aoirappa, now you know better than to come to me like that don’t you?”
The blue demon, Aoirappa, let out a whistling wheeze through his teeth. “Yes Mamma. Sorry Mamma.”
A sound comparable to a balloon bursting rang out, as all at once Aoirappa’s body collapsed in on itself, shrinking down into the size and rough shape of a bowling ball. From the now smooth surface of the demon’s skin came four stubs that served as his arms and legs, as well as a dome shaped head capped with a pair small, pointy horns. He looked almost exactly like a plush toy, with an extra wide line drawn for a mouth and a pair of shiny silver coins for eyes. The wound left on his arm bulged with thick fluffs of black, like a doll losing its stuffing. Aoirappa floated to the woman he called mother, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and settled comfortably into the crook of her arm. When he spoke again, his words came much more easily, his voice softer and at a much higher pitch, like that of a child. “That evil man hurt me, Mamma, and took one of the little ones!”
The demon mother crooned as she twitched her fingers over the injured arm, drawing out strings of glistening silver from her long fingernails that quickly crisscrossed into stitches. The stuffing soon retreated into the wound before it sealed shut, leaving no trace of injury or the silver strands binding it behind. “There now, all better.”
Aoirappa placed his stubby arms against his mother’s chest. “Thank you, Mamma. I love you!”
Kurama watched the scene unfold with a critical eye. This mission appeared much more dangerous than he initially anticipated. It seemed very unlikely that this woman was a mere D-class demon. “I take it that you’re the one in charge here.”
The demon mother tilted her head in Kurama’s direction, her expression almost bored as she tickled Aoirappa’s round belly with a single finger, causing the tiny demon to squirm and giggle.
“That’s it!” Botan said, her eyes lighting up with understanding. “That explains it. I was wondering how those giant demons could hide themselves and the destruction they caused from Spirit World intelligence, let alone sneak up on us. Their real form is that little one!”
The demon mother tilted her chin down a slight degree, as though focusing on the glowing barrier. “I am Irokafue, and whom are you to dare hurt this sweet and innocent child like this? What monsters dare to lock away a mere babe whom is screaming for his mother? Have you no heart?”
Botan fairly quivered with rage and shook her fist in Irokafue’s direction. “Monsters? How dare you call us monsters when you’re transforming human children into this?” She gestured behind her at the cursed boy, yelping quietly as her fingers accidentally struck the barrier separating them.
The anger seemed infectious, as fury spurred Amaya to speak sharply as well. “Why are you doing this? You have plenty of children of your own. You don’t need to steal children from other mothers!”
The corner of Irokafue’s mouth twitched, barely exposing a flash of white teeth. “Women. I have no use for girls whom have begun their cycle, and I will not tolerate the existence of arrogant cows whom wish to steal my babies for their own.”
Botan thrust her finger forward to point at Irokafue, barely holding her arm back just enough so as not to slam her hand against the outer barrier. “That is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Do you even listen to yourself?”
Irokafue released Aoirappa, who drifted upward at her side. “I have no need to listen to the ravings of women so desperate for children that they would steal them away from their loving mother’s bosom.”
“I think she just answered your question, Botan,” Amaya said in a quiet mutter.
Kurama readjusted his stance in preparation to jump, holding his whip at the ready. The tilt of his head cast a shadow over his face, making his eyes a darker shade of green, as he fixated his gaze on Irokafue. “Release the children you’ve stolen and return them to their human forms. If you refuse, there will be no mercy for you.”
Irokafue lifted her head high in Kurama’s direction, lowering it slightly before raising it again. A smile tugged at her lips, the expression more hungry than pleased. “And just whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Someone who is losing patience,” Kurama said. The distasteful demon in front of him was not worth a proper introduction. “Tell me how to reverse the transformation.”
Irokafue tossed her head back as she brushed a lock of her hair from her shoulder, arching her back in the process. “I’ll make you a deal. If you agree to sire new children to replace the babes you take from me, I will allow my babies to turn back into their original distasteful aging forms.”
Botan outright gawked at Irokafue. “What?”
“I refuse,” Kurama said.
Irokafue jerked back as though struck, her long, pointed ears twitching. “What did you say?” Her head slowly swayed back and forth, reeling from Kurama’s words. “That cannot be right! You cannot refuse me! Have you knotholes for eyes?” She cupped her breasts then ran her palms down along her stomach, ending at her hips. “A mere human such as you should feel blessed by the gods to be permitted the chance to sample the perfect body of Irokafue for even an instant! Whom do you think you are?”
Botan folded her arms. “He’s someone with a lot more class and far better taste than you! Of all the nerve!”
Kurama’s look held nothing but contempt for the supposedly sensual movements and striking features of Irokafue. “I find nothing alluring about a woman who reeks of death and human suffering.” The lack of comprehension on the gray woman’s face only heightened the fox demon’s disgust towards her. “The thought of touching a creature like you turns my stomach.”
Irokafue’s mouth twisted, as wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes. “Very well. It is a pity that such a handsome man such as you will be a playmate of my daughters until they tire of you, but I hate men whom refuse to learn their place!” She turned her head to the giants that possessed sagging breasts. “Papururappa! Orenjirappa! Gurinrappa! The man is yours!” She looked to the remaining three. “Aoirappa! Niirorappa! Kiirorappa! Break the shield and bring the women to me!”
“Yes Mamma,” the colorful demons said in unison. The voices of the larger demons rumbled like an approaching storm, completely drowning out the relatively quieter voice of Aoirappa.
The small blue demon was quick as he streaked towards the barrier, but Kurama’s reaction time was faster still. Kurama lashed out with the Rose Whip to strike Aoirappa and sent the diminutive demon flying back, black fluff spilling from a deep slice carved through Aoirappa’s midsection.
Irokafue shrieked as she watched Aoirappa hit the floor, all but split in two. “My child! You hurt my child!”
Kurama twirled the Rose Whip in a circle above his head so quickly that it became little more than a green blur. Red rose petals gently fluttered down around him like snow, filling the air with a sweet scent. “This is your final warning. Unless you want the rest of your children to meet the same fate, release the human children you’ve transformed.”
Irokafue ground her teeth together. “Kill him! Kill him, my children!”
The combined roar of the five remaining colorful demons made Kurama cringe in pain, but he forced himself to endure the noise and the ringing it left left inside his throbbing head. When the giants charged at him from all sides, they came within range of the whirlwind of fluttering rose petals. Their movements ground to a halt, as the toxins on the petals and pollen in the air attacked their nervous systems. The tip of the Rose Whip drew a line of energy above Kurama’s head that formed a flickering circle of light. “Rose Whip Thorn Wheel!” Waves of energy expanded outwards in all directions from the glowing circle and broke off in crescent shapes, slicing through the air, the walls of the warehouse, and the giant demons.
Kurama slowed the spinning of his whip to a halt, allowing his weapon to dangle at his side. As the last of the rose petals touched the ground, so too did the giant demons tumble, their bodies diced into numerous irregularly sized pieces. Five loud pops resounded as the giant demons transformed from hunks of muscle and tar into small strips of colorful fabric and clouds of black fluff.
Irokafue turned her head to scan the room, taking in the carnage before her. “My… my children.” She dug her nails into her scalp, drawing a viscous black liquid that trickled between her fingers. “My children!” Her voice slowly grew louder as it lost all trace of tenderness. “My children!” Each word she spoke wavered in pitch until it cracked with a tinge of hysteria. “You’ve murdered my children!”
Botan laughed as she threw her arms into the air and let out a whoop of joy. It may not have been appropriate, given the signs of slaughter that surrounded them, but she could not help but enjoy the euphoric feeling of triumph. “Alright, Kurama! You did it! You showed that witch she can’t go around doing whatever she pleases!”
Amaya reeled, as her eyes drifted through the warehouse to take in the state of both the colorful demons and the long thin slices carved through virtually every wall from Kurama’s attack. She focused on the fox demon when he jumped lightly to the floor in front of the barrier and watched his retreating back as he made his way to Irokafue. The Spirit Detective felt as though she should say or do something after such an overwhelming victory, but found herself at a loss. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was a high level demon. He took out those monsters as if they were nothing.
Kurama reversed the growth of his Rose Whip, returning it to a mere seed, as he approached Irokafue with measured steps. “You were warned,” he said once the silvery demon stopped screaming. “Now… you will release the humans you transformed, even if I must make you do it by force.”
Irokafue’s lips twitched, as though she had forgotten how to shape her mouth. Surprisingly, a small hiccup that sounded suspiciously like laughter escaped her. The sound repeated itself a little louder. A high-pitched shaky giggle pulled her lips back from her teeth before she threw her head back and cackled, an ugly sound that rang around the warehouse from all sides.
Kurama halted only a couple meters away from Irokafue as he watched her intently. There was a chance that she had simply snapped from the shock, but experience told him that it was moments like these where a person was most likely to do something dangerous and unpredictable.
“You think you’ve won,” Irokafue said, the words burbling out with squeaky giggles. “You think I have no more children left to protect me?” She threw her hands outward. “My children will always protect their mother! Come to Mamma, Babies!”
A cacophony of snarls and shrieks filled the air. Shadows on the floor darkened, turning into portals that allowed blackened heads with eyes of white flame to emerge from their depths. There were dozens of children, wearing everything from thick jackets and pants to swimsuits and sandals. They crawled on hands and feet like animals, snapping their unnaturally large and sharp teeth at the one who angered the demon who made them what they were.
Kurama had little recourse but to dodge as the transformed children lunged at him from all sides. The option to attack was there, but the thought of shedding the blood of another innocent child… He banished memories of the cruel choice thrust upon him over a week ago thanks to the mad designs of Shinobu Sensui, focusing instead on the present and the alternative tactics he could take. If he could dispatch Irokafue, then perhaps the children would revert to normal.
Regrettably, approaching Irokafue proved more challenging for Kurama than he expected, particularly because she kept her distance from him. The attacking children forced him to remain in constant motion, and most of the children clustered around their so-called ‘mother.’ He could barely touch his feet to the ground for more than a second before leaping into the air over the head of a girl in a brown stained frilly dress, twisting his body around to evade the claws of a boy with a frayed straw hat that barely hung onto his neck by a string.
“You horrible, horrible woman!” Botan said, raising her voice above the din generated by the transformed children. “Don’t you even care that these children might get hurt too because of what you’re doing?”
No answer came, save for Irokafue’s harsh mocking laugh.
As much as Amaya worried for Kurama’s safety, she felt a greater sense of concern for the children. The fox demon had already proven he held immense strength. If he made one mistake, a child or any number of them could be hurt, even killed. The Spirit Detective turned to Botan, grabbing her guide by the wrist. “There has to be something we can do to help Kurama. Isn’t there a tool or something that could help us?”
Botan turned her eyes skyward as she racked her brain to remember the various potential uses of the tools in the Spirit Detective’s arsenal. “Let’s see… There’s the Mystic Whistle. That can be very obnoxious for demons.” She glanced outside Amaya’s Territory and grimaced as she saw a couple children clawing at the barrier wall. “Oh, wait, that probably will hurt us more than help since it’ll affect Kurama too and probably won’t work as effectively on the children since they’re still human deep down.”
Amaya held up her good luck charm, a desperate air to her voice. “What about talismans? I used one like this to hurt Horumon and those demon insects. Would it, I don’t know, get rid of the demonic influence or something?”
Botan knitted her brow. “Maybe… But I’m afraid I’m not too well versed in talismans, and we don’t know exactly what it was that Irokafue did to them, so I’m not sure. It might hurt them more than help.”
Amaya tightened her grip on the charm, halfway crumpling it as her frustration mounted. I’m supposed to be the Spirit Detective, aren’t I? How can I save anyone if I can’t do anything? If only there was a way to find out for sure…
A glimpse of the child Amaya caught earlier, still uselessly trying to make his escape, gave the Spirit Detective an idea. If she just placed the talisman against the child’s hand, then the damage would be relatively minor if it was indeed toxic to him in this state…
Amaya shuddered when she remembered the burn the talisman left on Horumon’s face that destroyed his eye and turned away. The force of the child tackling her earlier had been nothing when compared to Horumon’s blows, hinting that the children, even transformed, were likely far less resilient. Yet, she also recalled Izumi’s transformation from ordinary girl to something just short of a shambling corpse. Izumi showed no signs of injury caused by anything but falling down after the talisman destroyed the demon insect that possessed her. Using the talisman on Izumi had been an accident, but Amaya knew that if she had the choice to do all over again, she would have used the charm anyway, regardless of the risk, in order to prevent anyone from getting stabbed. Amaya had to admit that her concern towards hurting Izumi was significantly less than the fear she felt for harming any of the innocent children forced to do Irokafue’s bidding. The children barely looked human in this state, whereas Izumi’s appearance had not changed significantly. Is it really right to risk it?
Calm returned to Irokafue’s features as she watched Kurama struggle to evade the constant barrage of attacks. “My little ones are so good to their mother. They protect me, love me, and feed me.” She removed the shakuhachi from her belt. “Shall I show you what else they can do?” She did not wait for an answer, as she placed the bamboo flute to her lips.
A haunting melody filled the air, somehow perceivable to the ear despite the constant barrage of blaring noise created by the children. The flames where their eyes should have been blazed brighter, creating thin wisps of black smoke that cumulated into a dark fog. Kurama was forced to rely more on his sense of smell in order to avoid the attacks that continued to come relentlessly even as visibility lessened and the air grew charged with Spirit Energy. Eventually he could see little more than glimpses of twin balls of white fire streaking towards him from all sides. The former thief quickly retreated to where there were fewer children to contend with in order to get out of the fog, certain that it was no mere smokescreen.
Botan grimaced as the world outside Amaya’s Territory turned pitch black. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this…”
Want to read more? Head on to Chapter 4 - Shield Maiden - Part 2.