At the edge of the barrier, Nerine stood staring at it. She focused intently on the red glow, while Saki and Seiji stayed behind her, though close. Seiji looked over to Saki as they waited. “You know, we’re all just been assuming that the rumor could be Yumi or Yuki, one of our friends. What happens if it’s not any of them?”

“We deal with that if it happens. But I doubt that’ll happen.”

“And if war breaks out, what then?”

“I don’t know. Seiji I don’t have all of the answers. I’m winging this as much as anyone else. So don’t look to me for such things.”

“And what about—“

“Seiji, I said I don’t have your answers!” she snapped.

However, Seiji quickly tapped on her and pointed out ahead of them even as Nerine tested the barrier. “No, what about that?” Standing at the barrier staring straight at them was a human, or more likely a demon that appeared like a human. They should not be able to see them yet both Saki and Seiji could see the look of their eyes fixed on them. They were not searching or confused. They knew exactly where they were.

Saki ground her teeth together. They had not even made it through the barrier and somehow were spotted. “Damnit! We fight…” Confusion and questions spun about in Saki’s mind about how they were detected. Though as she could see the demon did not seem to be attacking them either. ‘It knows where we are, but can’t see us. So they’ve got some other way to find us…’

For all on the planning that Saki or Nerine calculated, they really should have put a couple moments into what Saki had said by a slip of words. Because it was exactly what Seiji needed to hear. He burst out of bubble of invisibility that kept them hidden. Even knowing that they were there, the demon still looked surprised as Seiji blasted out with his fist wound up.

Taking Seiji’s fist straight to the face, the demon flew backwards across the field. Expecting the fight not to be over yet, he charged in after the demon disappearing into the cloak of night. Saki groaned in annoyance. “Should have seen that…” Then she remembered something important. “Damnit, Seiji! You can’t fight demons!”

Nerine finished walking through the barrier closing them off to the human side. But it worried her that Saki would say such anything. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s something I haven’t told him about demons and knowing him, he’s going to ruin our chances of a simple infiltration.”

“That might already be over…” she commented noted that the noise Seiji made from starting a fight would likely not going unnoticed by the other demons.

Saki picked up Nerine and sprinted away with her not taking to her full speed. “We can outrun a few demons. It’s not like the whole place is packed with them. We just need to end this quickly so that we can slip into the shadows. And I need Seiji not to make a stupid mistake.”

Chapter 413 – Demon’s Blood

Following the punching, Saki quickly found the two deeper into the territory of the demons. “At least he’s not completely stupid. This far out, we may avoid detection still.” Placing Nerine to the side, she charged in disappearing from sight. “I’ve got to reach him before he does something we can’t undo!”

Narrowed focus, the demon that Seiji fought was not looking very good. In its human form, it did not seem to be able to stand up to the brutal force that Seiji could wield. This made things even worse, Saki knew. She caught sight of Seiji landing another blow as blood sprayed up from the opened wound. “Damnit!”

Seiji dove in to finish off the demon, but Saki grabbed him and pulled him back just in time. It allowed her to breathe for once. “I made it.”

“What the hell, Saki?!”

She sharply whacked him in the head to get him to be quiet for a moment. “Shut up and listen for a second! You can’t let the blood of a demon get on you! They’ll be able to track us and it can’t be removed!”

“Wait, what?! Why the hell did you wait until now to tell me?” He revealed his fist painted lightly in the blood of the demon he had been pummeling into the ground.

“Because I planned on handling the demon fighting, since I can’t trust you to fight carefully!”

He threw up his fist at her frustrated with her lack of faith in him. “I’m getting tired of you thinking I’m stupid!”

Before Saki could come in with a retort, Nerine stepped between them, finally reaching them after Saki left her behind. Using her gauntlets, she grabbed the two to get some distance between them. “You can fight with each other after we deal with the bigger problem.”

Seiji leaned backwards in surprise at seeing an actual demon standing before him and not just one in human skin. “Where the hell did that come from?!”

“While you two were arguing, it gave the demon time to transform. Apparently, their human form is not their normal appearance.”

“No…” muttered Saki, as she ground her teeth to see that the problem became significantly more challenging to keep quiet. ‘This was exactly what I wanted to avoid…’ Their options narrowed to only one now. Admittedly, she knew it had always only ever been one. Just in different conditions. Now in the currently situation, she had only one thing to say. “Seiji, full power!”

He grinned with the encouragement from Saki. His leg slid back a little anchoring into the ground as the earth cracked and pressed down. Light pulsed down his scar signaling the increasing power building within Seiji. In moments, he built up enough to blast off the ground at the demon, but with the increased size of the demon into a large snake and spider like hybrid also came power of its own. Unlike before when Seiji effortlessly pummeled the creature, an array appeared in front of its hand this time halting Seiji’s fist.

While he held up the demon’s right arm, the left came around hitting him in the flank shooting him back with equal speed. “Damnit, it’s far more powerful than I expected!” Saki disappeared going over where Seiji flew and landed on him kicking off from him to charge at the demon.

“Damnit, Saki!” Seiji yelled as he flew back towards Nerine. Crashing into earth, Seiji wasted no time hopping back to his feet not looking slowed down by the attack. He brushed off his damaged tunic and charged back into the fight.

However, neither of them had any success in breaking through the barrier that it put up. It had enough mobility and power to keep up with both of them despite their speed. Additional arrays appeared in the air generating demonic energy rapidly to engulf Seiji for counterattack. The beams of energy pushed him back into the ground as he tried to protect his body with his arms. Eventually, the energy dissipated leaving a mostly unharmed Seiji behind with burning ashes falling down around him.

Free to attack once more, Seiji went in blindly without any plan. Little changed from the resumed attack. Neither of them could make it very far with their attacks. Nothing could get through the defense and time was draining away fast.

Saki paused in the attack to watch the situation with Seiji and the demon. “We need to finish this, but nothing is harming it… But it also seems unable to hurt Seiji either. It has vast power, yet Seiji is going head on.” While she watched him fight, she noticed what was happening. Since she had never been in a real fight with him, she never noticed it before. In the middle of the fight, she could not pay attention to the tiny details. None of that mattered before to her. “Damnit, Seiji! I can’t believe you!”

Jumping out in front of Seiji as a new attack came in, she snatched away something from him as the attack came through. She landed safely away from them and stared at it. “A talisman, figures. We knew as much, I’ve just never seen him use in a fight before.” Saki jumped forward to the demon in her theory. The barrier came up around the demon and she used the talisman on the barrier trying to push through the defense.

Her hand almost made it through before being repelled by it. The talisman burned up from the intense demonic energy present. “It had some effect, but it’s lacking power…” She looked up at Seiji’s continuing failing attempts. “It’s gotta be him,” she concluded quickly.

All she needed was the right moment to strike. She had to watch as the two clashed in futility. The demon seemed to be as annoyed about being unable to kill him as Seiji was about doing anything to harm it. They had equally perfect defenses with neither understanding the other. The moment the demon figured it out, which Saki assumed was smart enough to do so, Seiji would lose. It had not figured it out already because of Seiji distinctive use of his power made it harder to notice.

But she had her moment finally. She disappeared as she saw the attack building up from the demon. Which was enough of a sign for Seiji’s power to subconsciously manifest. With the conditions finally met, she pulled Seiji out of the line of the fire. “We’re finishing this now, Seiji!”

“Hey? What the hell?!”

“Just follow my lead!” She grabbed a bunch of the talismans gathered around Seiji to protect him and threw themselves at the demon. In the moments before hitting the barrier, she shoved the talismans into Seiji’s hand. “Put all of your power in the attack!” She guided him in to the spot.

Seiji still did not understand what was going on. It was a straightforward enough command that he could follow. Screaming deep from his lungs, his scars glowed bright channeling it into his hand making the talisman respond. The demonic energy began to vibrate and weaken under the influence of Seiji’s power. Backed with strength, Seiji finally shattered the barrier protecting the demon and Saki leapt through the hole quickly landing a kick to the head of the demon.

Downed, though not killed yet, Saki landed on the earth next to the fallen demon. “Nerine!” she called with the final stage of the plan. Grabbing the weird thorax like body of the demon, Saki tossed it into the air with the barrier fully down as a beam split the sky. A burning hole remained in the demon left from Nerine’s attack.

Saki sighed with relief to have the threat finally over. “We need to get out of here immediately!” It was a miracle they had no one else come after them or possibly arrogance. Either way, she would take either given.

“What the hell was that?!” shouted Seiji looking at his hand.

“Move now! Explain later!” Saki jumped off getting her a burst of speed to pick up Nerine before turning back around once more.

Seiji watched the two disappear into the forest nearby leaving him alone with potential more demons coming. “Damnit! I want some answers!” He charged after them following the sounds of Saki running through the forest trying to get as much distance as possible.

After ten minutes of running they finally came to a stop deep in a thick forest. Saki stopped on a large branch meters above the ground. She waited for Seiji to catch up. “I’m going to need your help, Nerine. You’re going to be the only one that can salvage this.”

“I’m going to need some answers about what’s going on.”

“I’m wanting some as well,” snapped Seiji landing on the branch near to the two women. “What was that back there?”

“Can we really not? There’s more important matters right now!”

“This is pretty damn important to me!” Seiji threw out his open hand to Saki. “What did you do? Answer me!”

He still stuck on an unimportant matter, but Saki could not stir him otherwise. He was going to keep pressing it until she answer. “Fine, if it’ll get you to the more important issue faster. I didn’t do anything. I just correctly used your power.”

“My power?”

“You really aren’t going to be this blind to what’s been going on to you this whole time?”

“That is not mine!”

“Yes, it is, Seiji. It’s a part of you.”

“No, it’s not! I refuse to accept it!”

Saki crossed her arms feeling like she was suddenly getting to a different matter entirely. It was not something that she expected to hear from him. In fact, even more surprising was the look on his face. He knew what she did. And because he knew that was what made him anger. She did not expect that from him. “What? You bothered that everything you have isn’t all muscle and that you actually have something else helping you?”

“It’s wrong! And you didn’t have the right!”

She stepped back as he leapt over to stand in front of her. ‘He’s really bothered by this… Now I’m really confused. What’s his problem? He’s taking this too seriously to just be one of his usual muscle headed issues.’ It was not the sort of face that she ever thought that she would see on Seiji. He was genuinely bothered and angry with her. “We killed the demon. And would have done so faster if you actually use that Shinto ability of yours rather than focusing solely on strength!”

Seiji punched Saki in the face for her remark, which stunned both Nerine and Saki. Saki never saw it coming, something so out of character for him. “Seiji…”

“You look at me like I’m a joke and an idiot, but there are lines you don’t cross. That isn’t Shinto! That damn power isn’t!”

To be continued…