The spark and fissures form from the tip of Niko's sword along the ground towards the Chisai copy.
Finishing up her transformation, Chisai covers her hands and quickly pulls out her glaive, swinging it upwards at the Niko copy. As the sharp end of the glaive's blade strikes the Niko copy in the chest, Chisai throws the blade over her head, flinging the Niko copy off behind her, and in front of Kitsune. It lands on its back with a soft thud, then bouncing once before stopping.
The center fissure from Niko's Hellfire attack speeds directly towards the Chisai copy. As it touches the ground to gain speed, the fissure crawls up the leg and shoots straight up its head. The Chisai copy flies backwards towards a tree, hitting it hard, then falls to the ground.
"If that was it, that was easy!" Chisai says.
"I doubt it. Mine had a bomb that blew up part of your house." Niko says as she gets back into position to fight again.
"WHAT?!" Chisai yells, disturbed by the fact that part of her house was now in pieces, and if any of her family were injured in the explosion.
Trying to get Chisai to focus, Niko follows up. "Worry about that later. Now, just focus on defeating our enemies."
The Niko copy slowly pushes itself off the ground, then turns around to face Kitsune, ready to attack with kamas in hand. Ooze from the cut in its chest drips to the ground before the cut starts to close. The Niko copy growls, ready to strike again.
The Chisai copy pushes itself off the ground. A large gash from its left foot all the way up to its head is burned black, but starts to bubble as it starts to regenerate itself.
Seeing their enemies' new regenerative ability, Niko says to the other two, "We're just getting started." Niko runs towards the Chisai copy, sword drawn and ready to strike again.
Kitsune runs towards the Niko copy, kamas posed ready to strike at any movement he sees.
Chisai is holding her glaive in front of her, taking a defensive stance for now.
Kitsune gets closer to the Niko copy, swiping at its neck. The Niko copy jumps straight up and flies over Kitsune's head, heading directly towards Chisai.
The Niko copy's claws shine in the sunlight as it strikes towards Chisai. Chisai blocks with her glaive and tries to parry any attack that is thrown at her. Seeing any opening to attack, she swings at the opening, only to quickly revert back to her defensive position to avoid being struck.
As Niko approaches the Chisai copy, he swings downward directly towards it. The Chisai copy rolls away and tries to strike at Niko. Seeing the attack, Niko rotates his downward sword upward to strike the Chisai copy's hand. Slicing through the hand, the Chisai copy lets out a large shriek as its hand falls to the ground and dissolves away.
The shriek makes Niko cringe, but doesn't completely distract him from his target. He swings again at the copy's chest, hoping to damage it while it is injured. The Chisai copy jumps away, avoiding the strike.
Trying to predict his target's next strategy, Niko follows the Chisai copy as it bounces away across the sandy area.
Knowing that the Niko copy got away from him, Kitsune runs up on the Chisai copy, hoping to get at least one strike in. He swipes at the inner-side of the copy's mid-section and strikes it with a kama. The Chisai copy lets out another shriek, which makes Kitsune release the kama to cover his ears, leaving it in the copy's chest. As the Chisai copy bounces away, it reaches down to Kitsune's kama, pulls it out covered with a silver ooze, and throws it at Kitsune's head, spinning like a blade.
Trying to protect his ears from the loud noise, Kitsune is unaware that his own weapon is about to be used against him.
CLANG!
Hearing a metallic sound through his hands, Kitsune opens his eyes, looking to see where the noise came from. As he opens his eyes, he sees a long reflective bar in front of him, and a metallic blur surrounding it.
"Keep your eyes open." Niko says as he holds out his blade between the Chisai copy and Kitsune.
As the metallic blur slows down, Kitsune can focus on what it is: his kama. He reaches up to grab the handle. "Thanks, man."
Niko doesn't respond as he runs after the Chisai copy again.
Man, seven years of training, and I can't even get in one good attack without it being throw back at me. Kitsune thinks. But why don't I use what I'm good at?
As Chisai blocks the Niko copy's attacks the best that she can, she sees a swipe at her legs. In response, she jumps up to avoid it. Moments later, the Niko copy is looking up at her as she is floating above it. "Wow, this makes it easier!" she says as she flies away, with the Niko copy watching her.
Seeing the Niko copy all alone, Niko imagines the worst: Chisai had been killed. Letting rage take a hold of him, he ignores his current target and starts running towards the copy of himself with all of his force, yelling as he runs.
Before he strikes his own copy, a solid stone wall quickly rises up between him and his copy. He comes to an immediate halt before splatting into the wall. Looking around for what could have caused such an uprising, he notices Kitsune off to the side, holding up a hand in the direction of the wall. "Kitsune? Did you do this?"
"You bet. It's what I'm best at." he says with a smirk. "Now, pay attention to your own target."
Realizing that Kitsune was right, Niko turns around to see the Chisai copy within striking distance of him. He swings as fast as he can to deflect any attack that may strike as a large SPLOIT noise comes from the other side of the wall.
Kitsune, seeing how he was not involved in this fight, had a slight moment of overwhelming joy. Yes! I can do this! I haven't tried this technique since....forever ago! He looks around to see how the status of the two fights are going. Now, to see if I can do it again.
Chisai, floating in the air and a good distance from the Niko copy, aims to strike for her attack. She dives downward, flying at the Niko copy on his level. As she approaches, it tries to attack, but she holds out her glaive and strikes it with the force of a fast car. The glaive slices through the copy's body with a SPLOIT noise, leaving a trail of silver ooze as the glaive leaves the wound. Hearing her attack make contact, Chisai flies back up to survey her target.
Thinking that she had sliced it cleanly in half, the feeling of excitement filled her mind. However, once she viewed her target, she saw that she had only cut through half of its body, and it was quickly healing back. In addition, a large stone wall had risen right where she just flew down. Not questioning the miracle, she saw it as an advantage to narrow down her target's field of movement.
She flew down again, holding her glaive out to her side, hoping to strike her target again, and to complete the full slice. As she gets closer, the copy turns to see her flying in towards it, and moves aside, but the glaive slices through the copy's left hand. The hand falls to the ground and dissolves away, followed by a large shrieking.
As she flew back up to prep for another attack, the dissolving hand brought along an idea in her mind: she had an advantage, but she either needed some really good luck, or her best attack in order to strike down her target.
As he swings, Niko's blade struck the Chisai copy in the body, leaving a deep cut, and forcefully flung it to the side. Hitting the solid stone wall, the Chisai copy oozes silver from Niko's attack.
Caught up in the moment, a sharp pain comes from Niko's left side. He looks down, only to see that his black over shirt and gray t-shirt had three gaping holes in them. Sure enough, the Chisai copy had struck him and drawn blood, which was slowly coming out of the gashes it had made.
Within seconds, the cut that Niko had made on the Chisai copy was healing up, with only drips of ooze seeping out, and it was ready to strike again.
Trying to hold his side to prevent any more blood from coming out, Niko considers his options. Thinking back to the boulder incident, where all three fissures struck the boulder and made it explode, Niko has an idea.
He runs towards the line of trees, on the perimeter of the sandy area, leaving droplets of blood along his path. The Chisai copy follows in p
ursuit.
Niko runs around the perimeter of the sandy area, hoping to gain some distance between him and the Chisai copy. He pauses in his run to look back, but the Chisai copy is right on his tail. Knowing that he only had one option left, he had to time it just right. He faces the Chisai copy and raises his sword above his head. However, with the cuts in his side, the strength in his left arm is weakened and the sword starts to shake.
As the Chisai copy gets within striking distance, he swings the sword down towards the ground.
Knowing that she only had one moment to get this attack right, Chisai starts to psych herself up. She breathes in heavily, then exhales, clearing her mind.
Swooping downwards, she aims directly for the Niko copy. With its claws out in front, it starts charging towards Chisai.
She pulls her glaive back behind her, ready to strike. With the Niko copy closing in on her position, she swings the glaive in front of her with all of her might.
HELLFIRE!
TWILIGHT GLAIVE!
Red, fiery fissures form from the sword's point in contact with the ground. With the Chisai copy ready to strike at Niko, the fissures travel up one of its legs and spread outwards. A large flash of red and orange come from the strikes, and the reflection from silver intensifies the colors.
A crescent-shaped form of light grows from the tip of Chisai's glaive, increasing in size and flying away from her. As it slices through the midsection of her target, from its left shoulder down to its right thigh, she closes her eyes. The feeling of thick fluid covers her from head to toe, quickly dissipating and dripping from her body. She opens her eyes, expecting that she had been consumed by the Niko copy and its silvery insides. Instead, she sees the sight of an oncoming tree straight ahead of her. She quickly pulls up to avoid the tree, and the remaining silver fluid falls off from her sudden ascent.
Feeling the heat from his own attack on his face made Niko shut his eyes and cringe, trying to protect himself from the fiery exothermic heat. The feeling of hot, indirect heat was quickly replaced by an cool, yet odd, metallic, and wet-sand texture that he couldn't quite place. As he opens his eyes, the sight of countless silver droplets and globs all across his body slightly freaked him out and makes him try to back away from it as fast as possible.
Quickly scurrying backwards, he hits the trunk of a tree with his head.
"It's a good thing you have such a hard head, furball." Kitsune says as he walks over to Niko's position.
Coming to his senses, Niko realizes what just happened: his attack destroyed the Chisai copy, it exploded, he hit his head on a tree truck, and....he was just called 'furball'?
"Furball? Who are you calling a furball?" Niko says as he stands up, the droplets of silver fall off of his body and gather on the ground.
Putting his hands up in defense, Kitsune backs away. "Hey, hey. Come on. You're a cat demon, right?"
Snarling at the thought of being called a 'furball', Niko stares at Kitsune with an evil glare.
"I'm just a human....although a human with a special ability to move ground, that is."
"Your point?" Niko argues.
"I just thought it would be cool to give you a nickname, furball."
Before Kitsune can blink, the tip of Niko's blade is pushing up against his neck. "Don't you ever call me 'furball'. Got it, goldy?"
Nervously, Kitsune gulps, feeling the tip of Niko's blade piercing his skin. "Yep, sure thing, man!"
Still shaking the feeling of odd silver fluid on her, Chisai sees Niko confronting Kitsune at the other end of the sandy lot. Hoping that nobody else has to be killed today, she flies over to them. As she lands near them, she reaches out to calm both of them down. "Whoa, hey guys. We just beat whatever was chasing Niko and me. Let's be happy, and not kill each other, 'kay?"
Staring directly into Kitsune's eyes with his own red eyes, Niko blinks, realizing that she was right. He retracts his blade and sheathes it. Offering out a hand to Kitsune, he says, "She's right. If it wasn't for your stone wall, I would have been toast."
Slowly lowering one of his hands to take Niko's in a shake, Kitsune uses his other hand to cover his throat. "No problem, furball."
Niko grasp of Kitsune's hand increases in strength, and squeezes with enough force to almost break it in half.
"OKAY OKAY OKAY! NO MORE NICKNAME!" Kitsune calls out for mercy.
"Hey! We're still friends, right?" Chisai asks, trying to regain control of the situation.
Niko's grasp slowly releases. Kitsune quickly withdraws his hand and shakes it up and down, trying to regain feeling in it.
A soft clapping is heard in the distance, deep in the thicket.
Kitsune, Niko, and Chisai all turn to see where the clapping is coming from. "Were we being followed?" Niko asks generically.
A figure walks out from the thick tree coverage, clapping with every step towards the trio.
"Tora? You'd better not have another surprise for us!" Kitsune calls out, ready to grab his kamas in an instant.
As the clapping dies down, the figure steps away from the thicket. The sunlight causes a reflective glare on the leather-bound metallic goggles on top of his black hair, which slightly blinds the trio. As he approaches, his outfit become more detailed: a loose-collar white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, accented by a pure black tie, secured and surrounded by a vertically striped gray-and-black vest with silver buttons. Various small leather pouches with gold buckles are strapped to his black leather belt, directly below his vest. Leather straps cover the insides of his shoulders, leading to a thin leather messenger bag on his back. His pants are pure black and loose fitting, but become tighter right below his knees, which are then followed by knee-high silver-buttoned leather boots.
The trio examine this new threat, wondering what time period he jumped from to get here, and why he is walking towards them.
"I don't know who this Tora is, but that was one impressive display of demonic abilities." he says as he stops walking, keeping the distance of the majority of the sandy area between him and the trio.
Leaning over towards Niko, Chisai whispers, "He knows about our demon abilities! He'll rat us out to the government!"
Standing in front of the Niko and Chisai, Kitsune takes one step forward. "Look, I'm not in the best of moods right now, so tell me who you are, and why I shouldn't kill you right here!"
Bowing towards the trio, the figure speaks up. "I have many names throughout the years, but you may call me Omego."
"Phsst! Omego? Sounds kinda cheesy." Niko says.
Standing back up, Omego follows up by saying, "You may call me Omego because it will be the last name you will ever need to know."
Striking Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune as a threat, they all get in their fighting positions with their various weapons. "What did you say?" Kitsune says through his teeth.
"None of you will leave this forest. I will take control of all of your weapons, and your demon abilities." Omego says with a smirk.
Without thinking, Kitsune quickly dashes towards Omego with his kamas ready to strike.
"KITSUNE!" Chisai calls out.
"You idiot! Let's create a plan before attacking!" Niko adds.
Blinded by fury, Kitsune speeds towards Omego, however Omego doesn't seem concerned by the approaching attack.
Seeing Kitsune quickly approach Omego, and Omego just standing still, Niko steps back, thinking that the situation may be less severe than expected. "What if Kitsune's right? What if this guy is just a joke?"
No later than Niko finishes his sentence, and Kitsune is about to strike Omego down, Omego reaches into one of his leather pouches and pulls something out.
Viewing Kitsune's attack from their perspective, Niko and Chisai expect to see a line of blood along the ground and part of the trees. However, their expectation is never met.
Only a few centimeters from Omego's head, Kitsune's right kama rapidly stops. "What's....going...on?" he says through clenched teeth, as if he is paral
yzed.
"Oh, I didn't tell you? I had a little surprise in store for all of you." Omego says.
Kitsune retracts his kamas, steps back from Omego in a calm manner, and slouches in Omego's direction.
Niko and Chisai increase their distance from each other, hoping to get a glance at whatever Omego just pulled out to stop Kitsune's attack.
"When I said that none of you are leaving this forest, and I would take control of all of your weapons, and your demon abilities, I wasn't kidding." Omego says as Kitsune slowly turns around to face Niko and Chisai.
Holding the item up above his head, Omego says loudly, "Behold!"
Suddenly, it dawns on Niko and Chisai that the item is no other than the-
"The Medallion of Tsukaneru!" Omego, Niko, and Chisai say in unison.
Pulling the medallion back down to his chest, Omego has a sense of satisfaction across his face. "Ah, then you are aware of its power. Good, that means I don't have to explain how you will die."
Strengthening their weapons' positions, Niko and Chisai can only estimate what other powers Omego has contained within the medallion. From their explanation from Lord Tora, Niko and Chisai have a brief understanding of what powers the medallion may have, but without seeing them in person, they had no idea how powerful they could be.
Omego walks up beside Kitsune, places a hand on Kitsune's head, and starts patting his head. "Now, as I control this little fighter, how about I let him do some of my dirty work?"
Kitsune's head rises to face Niko and Chisai. His eyes only contain his ice-blue color, surrounded by black.
Omego backs away from Kitsune and points towards Niko and Chisai. "Now, my puppet. Attack those two demons!"
Kitsune quickly dashes away from Omego and towards Niko and Chisai.
"Omego! Why not let Kitsune go and fight us yourself?" Niko calls across the sandy area.
"Because this is more fun, of course!" Omego says as he leans on a tree behind him. "With the power of this medallion, nobody will stop me! Ha ha ha! Fear me, the mighty and powerful Omego!"
Slightly distracted by the connection to his recurring dream, Kitsune appears in front of Niko and swipes at him. Reacting to his attacker, Niko holds his sword up to block Kitsune's attack and stopping his kama.
Chisai jumps towards Niko, reaching for Kitsune's arm to pull him off.
Kitsune turns his head towards Chisai and throws his other kama in her direction, spinning like a blade.
Retracting her weapon, and pulling herself aside, Chisai avoids being hit with Kitsune's kama, and proceeds to his position to help Niko.
Kitsune increases his pressure towards Niko. Pushing against Kitsune with all of his might, Niko loses part of his grip with the ground and stumbles back.
Since grabbing one of Kitsune's arms wasn't an option, Chisai has another idea: while Niko and Kitsune are having a strength battle, she shoves her glaive between the two of them. Reaching around Kitsune to grab the other end of her glaive, she starts to pull, hoping that she could give Niko an advantage without hurting Kitsune.
THWACK!
Chisai's "prying" technique is met with Kitsune flinging his head back and hitting her square in the nose. She lets go of her glaive and backs away, protecting her face.
"CHISAI!" Niko calls out.
At his slight moment of distraction, Kitsune pushes with more force, making Niko lose his balance and stumble backwards again. This time, Kitsune swings outward and makes Niko's sword swing away from him.
As he starts to lose his grip on the sword, trying to hold onto his Banish Blade with as much strength as he can gather, Niko reaches out with his thumb and index finger, pressing them together on the bottom edge of the handle. The sword's handle rotates in between his fingers, but he doesn't lose it. Knowing that he is completely open for a direct attack, he tries to back up.
Kitsune swings with his kama towards Niko, striking his chest. Between the two of them, Chisai's glaive drops to the ground.
"Well, that was easy." Omego says from the other side of the sandy area.
As Niko backs up, the sight of Kitsune's kama blade is seen tearing through his "Sword Titan" shirt, creating a large vertical hole. However, there isn't any blood coming from Niko.
Looking down at his torn shirt, Niko is overwhelmed that he wasn't injured further. He looks back up at Kitsune to see if there was a reason.
One of Kitsune's eyes has returned to normal. "Must....fight...back..." he tries to say.
Niko notices Chisai standing behind Kitsune with some distance between them. She removes her hands from her face, surprised that there wasn't any blood. Kitsune controlled his attacks, overpowering the medallion's mind control. Niko thinks.
Realizing that his grip was loosening, Omego stands up from his lean on the tree. "What? That's not possible!"
He reaches down to pick up a long branch, a little shorter than himself. "Well, if you want something done, you have to do it...." The medallion glows again in his other hand, creating a spark of fire from the tip of the branch, growing quickly down to his hand and engulfing the entire branch in a fiery glow, turning it into a flame-like sword, "...yourself." Omego says with a smirk.
Seeing how Kitsune couldn't finish Niko off quickly, Omego dashes towards Niko, ready to swing his flame sword.
Quickly decreasing the distance between himself and Niko, Omego knew that this was going to be the end, then he could take care of the girl and the pesky kama-wielding one, and he would be more powerful than ever.
Having Chisai in his sight, Niko looked at her and nodded. She returned the look and nodded in return.
"This battle is OVER!" Omego cries out as he is about to strike Niko.
Chisai runs to the other side of Kitsune and grabs the end of her glaive. Dashing towards Omego with her glaive in hand, she glides right beside him, hooking the sharp end of her glaive through the necklace of the medallion and yanking it out of his hand.
Ready to strike Niko on the head to end his life, Omego swings. Hitting Niko's head only results in his stick breaking in half, and plowing directly into Niko, knocking him over and landing on top of him.
Noticing that his attack somehow failed, Omego looks around and notices that he is laying directly on Niko. "What was that about being all powerful?" Niko asks sarcastically.
Realizing that he was in no position to call the shots, Omego pushes himself off of Niko and quickly backs up. "No matter. I still have this!" Omego reaches behind him and pulls out a long, gold and black sword-like blade bordered with metallic teeth. The style of the blade matched the theme of his outfit with the amount of gears, screws, and pipes. He flips a switch within the enclosed handle, and the teeth on the blade start moving, as if they were on a track.
Thinking that Omego was just a washed-up petty criminal without the medallion, the sight in front of Niko made him think twice about Omego's real intentions.
Omego swings at Niko again, hoping that he could pick up where his flame sword left off.
CLANG! Kitsune is standing between Omego and Niko, holding up his remaining kama to parry Omego's attack. CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. The rotating teeth on the blade keep sliding on Kitsune's kama.
"Forgot about me, huh?" Kitsune says as he tries to intimidate Omego.
"No, I thought you took a nap!" Omego says sarcastically as he swings outward, overwhelming Kitsune and tossing him aside. "Now, to....." He looks ahead, expecting to see Niko, but Niko is no longer in front of him. "Where'd you go?" Omego looks around trying to find his target.
"YAHHHH!" he hears from above.
Looking up at the source of the noise, the sight of a pointed object heading straight down towards him made Omego jump out of the way.
Niko lands where Omego just was, with his blade directly down into the ground.
"I won't be that simple to defeat!" Omego says as he backs away.
"How about THIS!" Chisai says as she flies directly towards Omego's direction. "Twilight Glaive!"
"And my own attack," Niko says. "HELLFIRE!" he yells out.
Chisai swings her glaive in front of her, directly towards Omego, but forgets one thing.
A small rumbling is heard from Niko's position, then the sight of ground being shoved up followed by fiery outbursts emits from his sword outward towards Omego. A sparkle catches Niko's eye, and he can only watch in fear as he witnesses it happening.
The reflection of Chisai's light attack and Niko's fire attack show in Omego's eyes as he tries to think of all, if any, of his options.
The medallion swings from Chisai's glaive and gets caught on the edge of her Twilight Glaive attack. The crescent-shaped light moves forward and carries the medallion with it, directly towards Omego.
He's going to get the medallion again, and then we're up against even more power! Niko thinks.
"I'm back!" Kitsune yells as he launches himself towards Omego's backside with both kamas.
Perfect. Omego jumps up, grabs a smooth, thin metal disc from his back, and places it under himself. He then ascends directly upwards, avoiding all three attacks.
Not expecting his target to find a way out from a cornered attack, Kitsune now sees the impact of the other two attacks. "Oh crap...." he says as he closes his eyes.
"KITSUNE!" Chisai and Niko call out, knowing that they are both helpless in stopping their own attacks, so they must watch as their newest teammate is obliterated by their own power.
As Kitsune's kamas continue downward, one of them hits something metallic. At that moment, Kitsune realizes that his kama had pulled the medallion chain forward from Chisai's attack, which meant that the medallion itself had come in contact with the crescent light.
In a single moment, Chisai's crescent-shaped light, Niko's fiery uproar, and Kitsune's attack had all come together, with the medallion being the intersection.
All three of them close their eyes; Niko and Chisai shielding themselves from whatever carnage their attacks may have caused on Kitsune, and Kitsune from the impact their attacks, and his, caused on the medallion.
The medallion starts glowing bright white, emitting a strong light, then a strong spherical force negates all of the attacks and pushes everyone back.
Niko, trying to hold onto his grounded sword for support, loses his grip and falls backwards on the ground. Chisai, still flying forward, is flipped backwards and falls flat on her back, bouncing slightly as she hits the ground. Kitsune is pushed back towards a tree and hits it, rattling the leaves above. As if that impact wasn't bad enough, he feels something solid hit him in the chest a split second after the impact with the tree.
Omego, witnessing the whole fraction-of-a-second event from above, is propelled skyward. He holds on to the edge of his thin metallic disc for any support he can find. "WHOOOAAAA!!!" His cry echoes away as he disappears.
Coming to, Niko opens his eyes. The slight of the cloudy sky meant that he either survived the attack, or he had died. He was hoping for the former.
As he slowly sits up, he sees his sword sticking in the ground in front of him. Shaking his head to wake himself up, he looks around. Chisai was laying on the ground not far from him. He quickly pushes himself off the ground and runs to her side. Seeing her brown hair, and the absence of her glaive, meant that she must have become unconscious, and she had turned human. As he reaches around to pull some of his own hair into his view, he sees that he had turned human as well. He reaches under Chisai to help her up. "Chisai? CHISAI!" He calls out, hoping that she wasn't dead.
Blinking a few times, Chisai starts to wake up. "What...what happened?" She asks as she puts a hand to her head.
"I don't know, but I think that we just did something bad – something really bad." Niko says as he looks over at Kitsune, who has slid down to the base of the tree that he had impacted.
Helping her stand up, Niko holds on to Chisai for stability. "What do you mean?" She looks around, not seeing the one important item that they had fought for. "And where'd the medallion go?"
Looking around for any sign of the medallion, all Niko saw were the remains of what his and Chisai's attack had done with they came into contact: a small crater at the impact site.
Nervously, he says the only thought that he could think of.
"I think....we destroyed it."
Chapter 8