 
## Night Blade

Dawn of Discovery

Kyle M. Perkins

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Kyle M. Perkins and Lunar Productions

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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###  Prologue

_It's_ _all_ _come_ _down_ _to_ _this._ _This_ _one_ _final_ _moment._

_I'm_ _standing_ _in_ _a_ _shadow_ _of_ _my_ _former_ _self,_ _questioning_ _my_ _motivation._ _Surrounded_ _by_ _all_ _of_ _the_ _friends_ _I_ _have_ _made_ _over_ _time._ _We_ _all_ _knew_ _that_ _everything_ _that_ _has_ _happened_ _led_ _up_ _to_ _this._

_"_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _about_ _this._ _"_ _she_ _says._ _What_ _is_ _she_ _unsure_ _about?_ _Do_ _I_ _even_ _know_ _her?_

_"_ _Ha_ _ha_ _ha! Fear_ _me!_ _"_ _my_ _old_ _enemy_ _says._ _Wait_ _-_ _why_ _was_ _he_ _my_ _enemy?_ _I_ _can't_ _recall._

_"_ _The_ _Medallion!_ _Get_ _it!_ _"_ _I_ _say._ _What_ _am_ _I_ _saying?_ _Why_ _is_ _that_ _important?_

_Another_ _of_ _my_ _friends_ _is_ _crawling_ _on_ _the_ _ground,_ _just_ _barely_ _able_ _to_ _move._ _"_ _Can't...._ _reach...._ _don't....._ _give...._ _up._ _"_ _he_ _says,_ _reaching_ _for_ _the_ _medallion_ _that_ _I_ _spoke_ _of._

_I_ _hear_ _"_ _Here_ _goes_ _nothing,_ _"_ _from_ _behind_ _me._ _I_ _look_ _in_ _that_ _direction,_ _seeing_ _another_ _person_ _surrounded_ _by_ _a_ _flame_ _of.....light_ _?_ _Is_ _he_ _going_ _to_ _attack_ _me?_

_After I_ _turn_ _to_ _look,_ _I_ _notice_ _that_ _I'm_ _holding_ _something._ _In_ _my_ _hands,_ _I'm_ _holding_ _one_ _of_ _the_ _most_ _powerful_ _weapons,_ _the_ _Banish_ _Blade._ _My_ _parents_ _told_ _me_ _about_ _it._ _But_ _why_ _is_ _it_ _all_ _black....and_ _sparking?_ _That_ _doesn't_ _seem_ _right._

_I_ _look_ _up,_ _seeing_ _a_ _large_ _powerful_ _being._ _I_ _can't_ _make_ _out_ _any_ _details_ _of_ _his_ _figure,_ _but_ _I_ _know_ _that_ _deep_ _down,_ _I_ _must_ _stop_ _him,_ _even_ _if_ _it_ _means_ _sacrificing_ _my_ _life_ _to_ _save_ _others._

_I_ _take_ _a_ _big_ _breath_ _in,_ _and_ _quickly_ _exhale._ _What_ _choice_ _do_ _I_ _have?_ _I_ _must_ _do_ _this._

_As I move forward, my_ _body_ _seems_ _to_ _move_ _on_ _it_ _own._ _I'm_ _suddenly_ _rushing_ _towards_ _this_ _large_ _being,_ _sword_ _ready_ _to_ _strike._ _"_ _YAHHHHH!_ _"_

Niko quickly sits up in bed, the sheets fall away from his upper body. "....AAAHHHH!" The position of his arms mimicking the holding of a sword about to strike.

The jolt wakes Niko's cat, Shadow, out of a deep slumber and almost off the bed. Hanging off the edge of the bed by his claws, Shadow uses all of his might to try and climb back up on the bed.

Breathing heavily, Niko looks around, seeing nothing but a dark room with minor details of his belongings outlined by the red glow of his clock, which said 3:23AM. Putting his hands on his knees, he says aloud. "Not another weird dream!" Looking over at his clock, his eyes quickly adjust to the sudden increase of light. The right side of the clock says "May 23". As it occurs to him what the day is, he signs as he continues. "....and on the day of the big tournament. Just great...."

A glimmer of an outline catches his eye, and Shadow hanging onto the edge of the bed. Niko reaches over to Shadow, picking up the clinging feline. "Aw, boy. I'm sorry." He picks up Shadow and holds him close, trying to apologize for his recent unexpected action.

Shadow looks up at Niko with big, reflecting eyes, but then starts to jostle, wanting away from the close hold. Niko lets him go on the bed. Shadow quickly curls up and falls back asleep, wrapping his tail around the front of his head. Watching his cat fall back asleep, Niko says "Good idea," then turns away from the clock, repositioning the sheets into a more comfortable position, and closes his eyes.

The slumber of sleep is cut short by a loud buzzing. Niko rolls over, hitting his alarm clock. Pulling his hand away, he looks at the clock display. 7:00 AM. Resisting the urge to go back to sleep, he forces himself to sit up in bed. Extending his arms outward to stretch, a "Mroaw" comes from his lap.

Shadow is sitting upright, looking at Niko. He pulls his arms in and wraps them around Shadow. "Hey Shadow – did I scare you last night?"

The black feline responds by moving forward towards Niko's face, and headbutting him, purring softly. "I'm sorry, boy. I just wish that weird dream would disappear." The purring grows louder as Niko starts petting Shadow on the head.

Shadow moves over as Niko starts to get out the bed. Taking in a big whiff, the aroma of pancakes fills the room. "Ahhh. Mom, you know just how to start off a morning."

Running downstairs in his most comfortable khaki pants, a white t-shirt with an inverted triangular logo for "Sword Titan,"his favorite anime, on the upper left, and a red, unbuttoned short sleeve polyester/rayon collared shirt, along with his lucky black sneakers with silver accents, Niko passes through the kitchen. His shoulder-length spiky red hair bounces with every move.

"Good morning, Niko." Misaki says, flipping another pancake in her dark turtleneck, a nice A-line pleated skirt draping down just below her knees over a pair of black tights under, and a white apron on top.

"Mornin' mom! Smells delicious!" Niko replies as he inhales the delightful aroma of delicious pancakes once more.

Niko reaches over, grabbing a couple of hot pancakes. "Be careful, they're fresh." his mom warns.

The pancakes hop from one of Niko's hand to the other. "AH! Yeah, you're right," he says as he pops them into his mouth, hanging mostly out. He continues his sprint towards the garage.

"You are sure in a hurry, son. Think you're going to be late for the tournament?" Himuro says, looking at his tablet in a traditional dark blue yukata.

"Dad!" Niko responds, "You know with the rush hour traffic, I gotta get there early, or I'm gonna miss the opening ceremony! Don't forget: I'm in it!" He grabs his gear bag from beside the door to the garage. Putting a hand on the door handle, he pauses before opening it. Frantically looking around, he notices that something is missing. "Where's my-" he starts to ask, but is cut short.

"I got your uniform dry cleaned. It's in your car." Himuro says, not looking up from his tablet.

Niko lets out a sigh of relief. "You had me worried there for a bit, dad. Bye!" he says as the door slides open and rushes through.

A few seconds later, a small sequence of beeps is heard from the door as it slowly slides shut. "That boy still hasn't learned to close a door yet, has he?" Misaki says.

Not looking away from his tablet, Himuro nods his head in agreement. "Just be glad those doors are automatic." Seconds of silence pass by, then he looks up at Misaki. "Tell me again why we aren't going to see him at the tournament?"

Misaki places the last pancake onto a stack ready to be served then turns off the electric griddle. "You remember: we were told by Lord Tora that he must complete this on his own, and his adventure begins tonight."

Himuro places his tablet on the table. "Okay, okay. I've known Lord Tora for quite a while, but I've never heard him say something so.....isolated."

Misaki places the stack of pancakes in the middle of the small round table, then sits across from Himuro. "You know how cryptic he can be. I'm sure he had his reasons."

Driving down the road, the loud bass reverberates inside of Niko's car. His mind starts to think about the dream. _Who_ _were_ _those_ _people?_ _"_ _Ha_ _ha_ _ha! Fear_ _me_ _"_ _sounds_ _like_ _a_ _cheesy_ _line_ _from_ _a_ _kid's_ _show._ _Why_ _did_ _I_ _need_ _to_ _get_ _the_ _medallion?_ _What's_ _so_ _important_ _about_ _it?_

_What_ _does_ _it_ _mean?_

His car pulls into an already full parking lot. Finding a lone parking space seems like finding a needle in a haystack, but on the far side of the lot, Niko finds one and pulls in. Countless people are migrating from the parking lot inside the large glass-covered Convention Center.

Stepping out of his car, Niko reaches into the back seat, pulls out his gear bag and his uniform, throws both over his shoulder, and starts to follow the crowd to the entrance. Approaching the entrance of the building, a familiar voice comes from out of nowhere.

"NIKO! DUDE!" A person with short, spiky blonde hair with thin sun glasses races towards Niko with arms raised and waving. His blue school uniform jacket is loosely blowing in the wind.

Slightly startled, Niko responds. "Daisuke? What are you doing here?"

Daisuke puts one arm around Niko, opposite the gear bag and uniform. "Just here to wish you good luck, dude. Like you need it!"

"Don't worry about me – let the ring decide my fate."

"Dude, you sound like a fortune cookie!" Daisuke says as he walks with Niko through the entrance.

Now in his pristine white Taekwondo uniform, Niko walks with Daisuke into the main event area, with his gear bag is still over his shoulder. Entering from one of the spectator areas, the two of them stop walking and take in the sights. The amount of the many different rings, the countless people in uniform on the main floor walking around, the reflectiveness of the trophy table, and the large digital display at the front, hanging from the roof, behind a large banquet table. "Wow, this is one heck of a view!" Daisuke says as he places his sunglasses on top of his head.

Niko lets out a large sigh. "Yeah, the best of the best are here. They even made a special area up front for the top ranked people."

Daisuke looks up at the large display. Amazed by the size and resolution, he says "Dude, that is one _killer_ TV."

Niko looks up at the 6-meter high, room-spanning digital display. "Whoa. They went all out for that, didn't they?"

Daisuke hits Niko on the back. "You ain't kiddin'."

Walking away towards the spectator seats, Daisuke gives a 'thumbs up' to Niko. "Good luck, dude! I'll be up here rootin' for ya!"

Niko gives a 'thumbs up' back at Daisuke, then descends the stairs into the main area.

While on the floor, Niko finds his ring and places his gear bag down in a storage area. Looking up at the large digital display, the display cycles between a few items, including a large clock saying "10:00 AM" and the date, the convention center logo, the series of school logos from among the country, the founders of the sport and top ranking instructors, and a series of brackets, with each competitor's face next to the edge of the display. Niko quickly finds his face among them, but doesn't have time to recognize any of the others before the brackets cycle away. "I guess I'll find out who I'm fighting when the time comes."

***

"Score! Final point: Niko Sakuna!" a judge says from the floor as he and other judges around the ring hold up white flags.

Niko and his opponent face each other in the center of the ring, bow, and shake hands, then part ways.

The large display continues to cycle through items. The clock displays "4:15PM". Shortly after the brackets show up, many of the faces are grayed out as they did not proceed. Niko's face moves from the semi-final bracket into the finals bracket.

Daisuke jumps over the safety bar from the spectator area and lands hard on the solid concrete below. He picks himself up and runs to Niko's ring.

Niko approaches the edge of his ring, pulling off his protective foam helmet. Sweat drips from his hair and helmet onto the ground.

"Niko! Dude!" Daisuke calls from afar.

Niko pulls out his mouth guard, places his helmet under one arm and raises the other. "Daisuke! Hey!"

Daisuke quickly runs up to Niko. "Dude! I can't believe you got this far! You must be dead tired!"

Niko walks over to his gear bag, grabbing a towel. He starts to wipe the sweat off of his head. "A little, but when you train like I have, this is nothing...." He quickly sits into one of the vacant judges chairs.

Daisuke reaches into Niko's bag, grabs a half-empty water bottle and hands it to Niko. "'Nothing' my butt! You're exhausted!"

Breathing heavily, Niko has to catch his breath before responding. "Maybe you're right."

"Dude, I don't mean to rush things, but you're up again in 15 minutes to finish this tournament."

Niko looks up at Daisuke, realizing that his final match is only moments away. "Too bad they won't let me take a shower. I'd like to be clean before competing before the Masters."

"I don't think you have a choice." Daisuke says as he sits in another vacant chair. "So, any idea who you'll be facing off against?"

Niko continues to breathe heavily. "No idea. They should be finishing up their match now" he says as he continues to wipe off as much sweat as possible.

Daisuke looks up at the large display. The series of brackets show up again. Opposite of Niko's picture, another photo advances from the semi-final brackets to the finals. The photo shows a square face with some-what tall spiky black hair with a red headband. "Dude, he looks tough."

Niko starts to rub the towel through his hair. His matted shoulder-length red hair now starts to get the "bounce" back it had before. "Who is it?"

Daisuke tries to make out the name. "Tsu...yo....ki. Why does that name sounds familiar?"

Niko's eyes quickly open wide, his expression is worrisome as he starts to comprehend the situation. He looks up at the display, hoping that the name was associated with someone else. Seeing the photo displayed just solidified his uneasiness. "Not again!"

Daisuke looks at Niko, confused at Niko's statement. "Old friend?"

Niko bends downward, throwing his face into his towel again. Slightly muffled, he says "Long story. I'd rather not talk about it right now."

Daisuke places a hand on Niko's back. "Don't worry dude; you can take him!"

Pulling his face from his towel, Niko starts to sit up. "You don't understand. Tsuyoki was....."

A large announcement comes from above the intercom system, cutting off Niko's statement. "The final match will commence in 15 minutes in the Master's Ring. Finalists, please be prompt."

Niko closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, exhales, and reopens his eyes. "Well, let's get this over with." He grabs his gear bag, stands up, and starts walking to the front of the event area.

"I'll be rootin' for ya, man!" Daisuke says as he walks away to the back of the event area, trying to get back to the spectator seats.

Standing on the edge of the Master's Ring, a large gold-rimmed square area right in front of the banquet table, Niko is back in his full gear, ready to fight. While waiting on the fight to commence, he becomes lost in thought again. _Ha_ _ha! Fear_ _Me!_ _The_ _Medallion!_ _Here_ _goes_ _nothing...._

The banquet table begins to fill in with all of the high-ranking master instructors from across the country. Many of the them gleamed with the bleach-white, decorated uniforms, others had all of the wear-and-tear that uniforms can get over decades of use. Some of the instructors dressed extremely formally, wearing white button up shirts and solid black suits, almost like government agents. Any student knowing of the intimidating power gathering behind the banquet table would be easily wrecked with nervousness. The approach of the master instructors rounded out the presence of the tournament's grand prize: an ancient okatana with a deep red leather-braided handle, sheathed with dark scales, on shining display in the middle of the stage, surrounded by a light red velvet-lined leather box.

However, Niko is lost in thought and doesn't realize that they are gathering.

Shortly after, Tsuyoki appears on the opposite side of the ring, also in full gear. His tall, black spiky hair starts to poke out through the holes of his foam helmet. He looks across the ring, acknowledging Niko, but doesn't say anything.

A judge walks into the middle of the ring in his pristine black suit, wearing countless memorabilia pins on his lapel commemorating all of the different branches he had worked for along with his current rank. Facing away from the banquet table, he raises a hand between the competitors signaling the commencement of the final match. "May I have your attention, please?" The whole convention center is filled with his voice. "The final match will now commence." The audience cheers loudly in response. The judge extends his left hand towards Niko. "Niko Sakuna...."

Niko, recognizing his name being called, quickly composes himself and snaps to attention. "Sir!" The audience continues cheering.

The judge lowers his left hand and raises his right towards Tsuyoki. "...will face off against Tsuyoki Konkura." The audience's cheers double in volume, especially from the young females.

Tsuyoki, looking relaxed, doesn't acknowledge the judge.

The judge turns around to the banquet table above him. The audience becomes silent within a matter of seconds. "Grand Master Li, may I have your permission to begin the Final round?"

The person above the judge stands up, pushing his chair backwards as he stands. While many of the instructors had bright white or slightly off-white uniforms, this person's was very different. His slightly-tattered uniform told the signs of his commitment to the sport. The repairs that were made, the black bordered and gold lapel and stripes on his sleeves, and his hair is whiter than the well-worn gray of his uniform. Slightly bowing to the judge, he says says in a low, raspy voice, "You may commence," then pulls his chair towards him to sit down again. Claps from the audience grow for a few moments until the sound fills the whole convention center, then slowly dies down.

The judge turns around away from the banquet table. Two other pristine black-suited judges appear from the far corners with red and white flags in their hands. The judge shoots his open right hand in front of him, between the two fighters. "Competitors, please greet each other."

Niko and Tsuyoki walk to the center of the ring. They both bow towards each other, then Niko extends his gloved hand in preparation to shake.

"Well, I didn't expect to see you here, Tsuyoki." Niko says in a cheerful mood.

"Shut it. We're here to fight, not chat." Tsuyoki extends his hand, but fist-bumps Niko's glove instead of shaking it, then starts to backup.

"I was just trying to make it friendly...." Niko says, trying to make the best of the situation as he backs up, preparing to start the fight.

Tsuyoki quickly gets into a fighting stance, ready to start the final fight of the tournament. "Well, here goes nothing."

Niko gets into a fighting stance, then pauses as he recognizes the voice from his dream. _What?_ _No_ _way_ _that_ _was_ _him!_

The judge looks at Niko, then Tsuyoki, then back in the middle of the ring. He raises his hand, lowers it quickly and steps away to the edge of the ring. "FIGHT!"

As soon as the judge spoke the word to start the fight, a side kick starts flying in Niko's direction. Still distracted by the thought of what he could have sworn was a connection to his dream, the side kick harshly hits him in the ribcage. His protective padding only dulled the pain, but he could still feel the impact throughout his chest as he stumbles backwards trying to regain his balance. "BREAK!" The judge yells. The two competitors step back from each other, standing straight up. Niko starts to rub his chest, trying to coddle his injury. "Judges: Score!" the judge continues.

Red flags go up at the corners of the ring from the other two judges. The center judge raises his right hand. "2 points to Konkura." he says.

The audience cheers loudly.

"I thought you would put up more of a fight. Are you really that rusty after all of these years?" Tsuyoki says in a snarky manner.

Niko doesn't respond. _Come_ _on,_ _Niko!_ _Get_ _it_ _together!_ _You're_ _in_ _the_ _Master's_ _Ring_ _for_ _the_ _final_ _fight_ _of_ _the_ _tournament!_ He thinks to himself. _You_ _can't_ _get_ _distracted_ _by_ _what_ _may_ _or_ _may_ _not_ _be_ _a_ _coincidence._ He shakes his head back and forth in quick succession to get rid of any stray thoughts.

The center judge walks back to the middle of the ring, between the two fighters. He places his open right hand between them again, looks left at Niko, then right at Tsuyoki. The two fighters get ready to begin the next round. The judge raises, then lowers his hand between them again, yells "FIGHT" and steps back to the edge of the ring.

The two fighters quickly decrease their distance, getting close enough for a kick, but don't make any contact. Instead, the two of them stare into each others eyes and slowly rotate in a circle, trying to find each others weakness. Niko throws a quick jab, but Tsuyoki parries and returns with a jab of his own. Niko moves out of the way to avoid it. Seeing a small opening, Niko picks up his right leg and tries to round-kick Tsuyoki in the chest, hoping to return the "favor". Tsuyoki rotates his forearm downwards and blocks Niko's attack, then quickly retaliates with a front kick to Niko's chest. Niko pulls his arm in close to himself which makes Tsuyoki's kick miss a scoring point. The two fighters assess each others techniques, then slowly back up from each other.

Seeing that the chest area was now one of Niko's better protected areas, Tsuyoki changes his technique. Aiming for Niko's head, Tsuyoki knew exactly what to do. "You're making it a little harder on me than last time." He says through his mouth guard.

Niko doesn't acknowledge Tsuyoki's statement.

_Fine_ _–_ _you_ _want_ _rough,_ _I'll_ _make_ _sure_ _you_ _go_ _down!_ Tsuyoki thinks while planning his next strategy.

Niko analyzes Tsuyoki's movements, thinking that an opening will become apparent any moment now. Tsuyoki's arms open to his sides. _Perfect!_ _His_ _chest_ _area_ _is_ _open_ _for_ _a_ _wide_ _attack!_

Niko quickly pulls up his leg and tries to aim for Tsuyoki's head, hoping that Tsuyoki will block. His round kick comes from below and quickly raises to Tsuyoki's head level. In response, Tsuyoki raises an arm and puts it next to his head, expecting to block. Niko pulls his leg back and lunges forward with a punch to Tsuyoki's chest.

"BREAK!" The center judge says. Niko successfully landed a punch on Tsuyoki's chest. "Judges: Score!" Two white flags go up, and the center judge's left hand goes up. "Point to Sakuna."

The fighters back up once again and get in a ready position to fight. The center judge approaches the middle of the ring and goes through his starting sequence again. "FIGHT!"

_Perfect._ _He_ _thinks_ _he_ _got_ _a_ _point._ _Now_ _to_ _end_ _this_ _–_ _3_ _more_ _points_ _with_ _a_ _flying_ _kick_ _to_ _the_ _head,_ _and_ _I'll_ _win_ _this_ _match,_ _the_ _tournament,_ _and_ _the_ _grand_ _prize._ Tsuyoki thinks as he sets himself up for a flying kick, making sure he has his distance correct and plenty of space around him. Once again, he and Niko circle around the ring analyzing each other.

"NIKO! Kick this guy's butt!" Daisuke says leaning over from the stands.

Tsuyoki lunges quickly, trying to lure Niko into a false sense of protection. Niko quickly responds by moving backwards a bit and raising his guard. Realizing Niko fell for his trick, Tsuyoki backs up, increasing the space necessary needed for his technique. He tries to throw some false punches towards Niko's mid-section, hoping to make his guard move lower and make his head available for an attack. Sure enough, Niko does just that. Finally, deciding that the time is right, Tsuyoki throws his back leg up behind him, quickly turning to gain momentum. In what seems like a fraction of a second, he throws his weight with his back left leg, hops in the air with his right leg and swings it using his weight. His right leg comes around with a strong force and is right above Niko's head. He then forces it downwards directly at the top of Niko's head. _Perfect._ _With_ _one_ _strike_ _of_ _my_ _flying_ _axe_ _kick,_ _this_ _match_ _will_ _be_ _over._

Chapter 1

_Everyone_ _is_ _around_ _me_ _for_ _one_ _reason._ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _any_ _of_ _them,_ _but_ _it_ _seems_ _like_ _I_ _do_ _somehow._ _Although_ _I_ _am_ _curious_ _as_ _to_ _why_ _we_ _are_ _here,_ _i_ _t_ _seems_ _like_ _we_ _all_ _gathered_ _for_ _one_ _purpose,_ _but_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _exactly_ _what._

_"_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _about_ _this,_ _"_ _I_ _say._ _I_ _really_ _don't_ _know,_ _because_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _what's_ _going_ _on._ _Maybe_ _the_ _glowing_ _thing_ _on_ _the_ _ground_ _is_ _important._

_"_ _Ha_ _ha_ _ha! Fear_ _me!_ _"_ _Who_ _said_ _that?_ _I_ _don't_ _recognize_ _the_ _voice._

_I_ _look_ _around_ _to_ _see_ _if_ _I_ _can_ _make_ _sense_ _of_ _the_ _situation._ _The_ _person_ _holding_ _-_ _what_ _is_ _that,_ _a_ _black_ _sword?_ _-_ _says_ _"_ _The_ _Medallion!_ _Get_ _it!_ _"_ _He_ _seems_ _familiar_ _–_ _have_ _I_ _met_ _him_ _before?_

_Another_ _person_ _is_ _crawling_ _on_ _the_ _ground,_ _just_ _barely_ _able_ _to_ _move._ _"_ _Can't...._ _reach...._ _don't....._ _give...._ _up._ _"_ _he_ _says,_ _reaching_ _for_ _the_ _glowing_ _thing._ _Is_ _that_ _the_ _medallion?_

_"_ _Here_ _goes_ _nothing._ _"_ _I_ _look_ _in_ _that_ _direction,_ _seeing_ _another_ _person_ _surrounded_ _by_ _a_ _flame_ _of.....light?_ _Whoa_ _–_ _that's_ _pretty_ _cool,_ _but_ _it_ _looks_ _dangerous._

_A_ _large_ _powerful_ _being_ _has_ _some_ _kind_ _of_ _dark_ _flame_ _around_ _him._ _I_ _can't_ _make_ _out_ _any_ _details,_ _but_ _I'm_ _guessing_ _he's_ _the_ _bad_ _guy._ _I_ _guess_ _we_ _all_ _are_ _trying_ _to_ _stop_ _him_ _from....something._

_The_ _person_ _with_ _the_ _sword_ _is_ _dashing_ _forward_ _towards_ _the_ _dark_ _flame_ _guy._ _My_ _heart_ _aches,_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _why._ _Somehow,_ _I_ _know_ _that_ _he_ _is_ _going_ _to_ _get_ _hurt, and it pains me to see him hurdling towards danger._

_He_ _screams_ _"_ _YAHHHHH......._ _"_ _I_ _feel_ _like_ _my_ _heart_ _is_ _going_ _to_ _break_ _into_ _two,_ _or_ _three,_ _or_ _a_ _million_ _pieces._ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _why_ _I_ _feel_ _for_ _him,_ _but_ _it_ _is_ _tearing_ _me_ _up_ _inside_ _to_ _see_ _him_ _in_ _danger._ _I_ _reach_ _out_ _towards_ _him,_ _hoping_ _that_ _either_ _I_ _can_ _stop_ _him_ _from_ _hurting_ _himself,_ _or_ _at_ _least_ _letting_ _me_ _help_ _in_ _his_ _attack._ _"_ _NOOOOOO......_ _"_

Shocking herself from a deep slumber, Chisai pulls her head up from her desk. "...OOOHHH!" her hand is extended out in front of her, trying to reach for something that isn't there.

The whole class of 27 students turns to her direction, including the instructor at the front. The math equation written on the board is only half-written, as the loud outburst in the classroom pulled his attention away from writing the rest.

The instructor breaks the silence. "Konami-san, do you have something you would like to add this equation?" he asks sarcastically.

Chisai blinks multiple times and looks around frantically, trying to get her bearings. "Um, huh? What?" Realizing that she was in a classroom, sleeping was not the best option. "Nevermind, I was just....nevermind." she says as her embarrassment grows. She tries to slump down into her chair, hoping to hide her embarrassment from the others.

The class refocuses their attention to the instructor, who finishes writing his equation. Turing to the class, many hands raise up to provide an answer. The instructor points to one of the students while holding a dry-erase marker. "Nishimura-san."

Nakafumi Nishimura stands up, holding her hands against her school uniform skirt, and proceeds to announce the answer. "x equals seven divided by pi squared."

"Correct," the instructor responds, then turns back to the board to continue writing equations.

Nakafumi grabs her skirt and forces it forwards as she sits down. She turns to her right and faces Chisai, giving Chisai a thumbs up, expecting to cheer her up.

A small smile appears on Chisai's face as she reaches into her desk and pulls out a large book. Opening it to a random page, she stands it on her desk, hoping to block her face from displaying the residual embarrassment from the awkward event moments ago.

***

What seemed like centuries passed by in the matter of seconds. Seeing his opponent's leg in the air about to land directly on his head made Niko uncomfortable, and made him remember a previous moment where he was hit in the head by a similar flying kick that caused him to become unconscious for a few moments. During one of his training sessions when he was a child, his father once told him that "Getting knocked unconscious was the next worst thing to being dead, because you are completely defenseless from your opponent's attacks." This stuck with him throughout all of his matches to make sure he avoided being knocked out again.

Knowing that being kicked on the top of his head with a strong attack was not an option, all of the possible remaining options flew through Niko's mind that hopefully resulted in the outcome of his survival. Moving his hands from his chest to above his head was not an option, as the attack was extremely strong and would easily injure both of his arms, along with his head, even with the addition of the protective sparring padding. Parrying wasn't an option, because he would still need to move his arms above his head, but the time needed to do so was greater than the time needed to complete the attack. Moving out of the way wasn't an option, as he needed to first get stable footing to move away, then stable footing to keep standing, and that would open him up to a direct attack once Tsuyoki landed. The only option left was the best one, but it would take a bit of skill and luck to pull off. However, it's the only one that he could do with the matter of seconds left before Tsuyoki completed his attack, but what other choice did he have?

Tsuyoki's leg came crashing down in one of the most powerful flying kicks in martial arts. Hitting the ground, it left him a bit unstable as he regained his balance. Realizing that his powerful kick missed, his only assumption is that Niko somehow moved, but a cursory glance around showed that Niko was not around. What the-?

Tsuyoki's thought process was cut short by a blow to the back of the head. The power in the blow caused him to cough out his mouth guard in addition to stumbling forward, almost falling to his knees.

"BREAK! Judges: score!" The center judge called out. Two white flags fly up, each judge holds up two fingers. The center judge extends his left hand in the air with two fingers outwards.

The audience cheers loudly, making the echoing in the convention center almost deafening.

Reaching down to grab his mouth guard, Tsuyoki turned around to see what just happened. He didn't expect to see the underside of Niko's foot in the air, right where his head just was moments ago.

Niko slowly retracted his foot and placed it on the floor. Tsuyoki returned to his spot on the other side of the ring, as did Niko.

"2 points to Sakuna!" The center judge called out.

The large overhead display updates the score. A large digital "2" appears next to Tsuyoki's picture, and the "1" next to Niko's picture fades into a "3".

"Just like old times, huh?" Tsuyoki says.

Taking his mouth guard out to speak more clearly, Niko responds with "You haven't changed a bit. You're still underestimating me."

"How'd you avoid my kick?" Tsuyoki asked, not really expecting a straight-forward answer.

"Simple: I lowered my head and rolled under you. I could easily stand up and return a kick to your head just as you landed." Niko said with a smile.

"Smart, but let's see who can finish this." Tsuyoki said as he put his mouth guard back in his mouth.

"Agreed. This will be a close match." Niko smirks as he also puts in his mouth guard.

The center judge lowered his hand and repeated his starting sequence again. "FIGHT!"

***

Chisai always had a creative personality, and today was no exception. As she drew in her sketchbook, trying to drown out the dullness of her instructor and the pointless concepts of math lessons, detailed figures that she kept seeing in her dreams started to take life from simple drawings and rough outlines. The details became finer with each overpass. It helped that the jeweled glove she wore on her right hand was a good luck charm she received from her older brother before his passing, but in this case, it helped prevent smudging while she was drawing. Even she was amazed at how easily her drawings seemed to take life. Everything seemed perf-

"Psst!"

A slight moment in lost concentration, and a stray line crosses across the whole image, which causes her latest piece of work to turn into an irrecoverable scribbled mess. Chisai starts to cringe, knowing that the piece that she just worked on, the piece that she spent the latter half of math class trying to complete, was now nothing more than a mere doodle.

"Psst!" Nakafumi leans over, trying to get Chisai's attention.

Chisai slowly turns her head in Nakafumi's direction, trying to glare with all she can muster. "What?" she says grumpily, but softly, trying not to disturb the class, yet again.

"Are we still seeing the movie this weekend?"

Plans of the weekend were nowhere in Chisai's memory. She was purely focused on her art, trying to make sure that all of the details she could recall could be transposed into her drawings, and making sure to keep a low profile in class. After sorting through all of her thoughts, it occurred to her that she made plans with her best friend to see the latest action-thriller of the season, Sword Titan 4. Realizing that the plans that Nakafumi asked about were, in fact, planned, Chisai starts to become relaxed and responds. "You bet! I wouldn't miss it for anything. I...." her cheerful response trails off as a shooting pain goes through her chest. Her eyes open wide as she looks past Nakafumi, and starts to bend over her desk, looking slightly dazed.

Paying close attention to her expression, Nakafumi reaches over to help her friend. "Chisai?"

Something was obviously wrong, and Chisai knew it, but she didn't know what it was, or what to do about it. She faced her desk, hoping to hide any issues from her best friend. Her long brown ponytail wrapped around her head and blocked part of her face. Noticing herself shaking uncontrollably, she grabbed the edges of the desk, hoping to stabilize herself. As the sweat starts to pour off of her face, the overhead classroom lights reflected onto her desk. She couldn't pin-point the exact issue, but something inside of her was making her feel worse than any pain she had ever experienced. At this point, the jewel that sat in the middle of her glove started glowing, then dimming, almost pulsating continuously.

Trying to gain her best friend's attention, Nakafumi repeated herself as she inched closer to her. "Chisai? Is everything okay?" Moving to get a better view of Chisai's face, Nakafumi wasn't prepared for what she saw.

Chisai's eyes were blank. Completely white - void of life.

Nakafumi quickly shuffled back to her chair, scared of the sight of her best friend showing extremely odd behavior and not having the slightest clue of what to do.

CRAAACK! The desk that Chisai was holding on to was now split into two pieces. The grip that she had on the edges and the pressure she was putting on those areas was enough to break the desk in half.

The loud sound gained the attention of the instructor, who was continuing his writing on the front board. He whipped around to see where the loud noise originated from. The sight of a broken desk in the middle of the classroom would alarm anyone, but not this instructor. The previous encounters with Chisai had left him skeptical of any attempts for attention, including long restroom breaks, throwing paper airplanes across the classroom, stacking chairs into a pyramid, writing messages on the windows, her cell phone going off with a distracting ring tone, etc. A broken desk was on the list of "inevitable things" that this instructor knew was going to happen some day.

He closed the textbook he was holding and places it on his desk. Pulling up his desk chair, he grudgingly sits in it, expecting this charade to take its time as it played out. Previous antics had taken up to near thirty minutes to complete, so he knew it would pass eventually. Any resistance he gave would engage the outburst and it would usually not end in his favor. At this point, he learned to just sit back and let it happen.

Seeing that the instructor really didn't care anymore, Nakafumi loudly spoke up, "Sensei! I think that Chisai needs to see the nurse!"

The instructor disregarded Nakafumi's notice. Instead, he pulls out a personal digital tablet from a desk drawer and turns it on. The reflection of the tablet's display is faintly reflected in his square glasses.

"Sensei!" Nakafumi calls out again.

The instructor lets out a large sigh. "Konami-san, you can't fool me this time. End this foolishness before I send you to the Principal," he says without any emotion.

"I-I-I......" Chisai starts to say with a raspy-like voice. Noticing this, Nakafumi turns her attention to getting Chisai to the school nurse, regardless of how the instructor acted. She stands up, moving closer to Chisai. She bends over and starts to wrap her arm around Chisai's waist, hoping to get her moving.

"I....feel......" Chisai tries to continue.

"It's okay, Chisai. I'll get you some help." Nakafumi stands up holding Chisai, who drops the pieces of desk she is holding on to. As soon as they walk around the pieces of broken desk, Nakafumi gets pulled downward to the floor. Chisai is now balled up on the floor, still shaking and sweating.

"This is getting old, Konami-san." The instructor, who could care less at this point, puts his feet on his desk and gets comfortable in his chair.

"Sensei! I don't think she's kidding around. She looks like she's in some serious pain!" Nakafumi yells out. The other students around her look worried, but don't want to help.

"I....feel....." Chisai tries to say again.

Outside the classroom window, a small squirrel is running back and forth on a branch. Most people would think that this squirrel is trying to find some nuts around, or is being chased by something. It pauses every few moments to look into the classroom through the windows. It even looks like a normal squirrel, except for the blue vest it's wearing. "Oh no. OH NO! It is not time yet!" it says, then runs back and forth quickly on the branch. "Oh no! OH NO! It cannot happen at this time!"

One minutes and forty seconds into the round, and it seems that Niko and Tsuyoki are evenly matched. Kicks are swung, punches are thrown, and not one point has been scored yet, which means that the score is still 3-2 in Niko's favor. If a point is not scored in the next twenty seconds, one of the judges will throw in a yellow flag, meaning that the two-minute round ends and they must begin again.

"Fifteen seconds," one judge calls out.

Niko and Tsuyoki are too busy analyzing each other, attacking and defending, and avoiding strong blows that they don't even realize that two minutes is almost up.

"Ten seconds," the judge calls out again.

A strange feeling is building up inside of Niko, but it doesn't get his attention. Tsuyoki throws a punch, he parries and returns with a jab. He throws a kick, Tsuyoki moves and throws his own.

Dark marks start to appear on either side of Niko's face in a large scratch pattern, which means only one thing: his hair will change color from the fiery red to sleek silver, and his ears will move to the top of his head and become pointed. He's transforming into his demon cat form, something that he has the power to control, but not this time.

What the....? Why am I changing NOW? Now is NOT a good time to be doing this! He thinks to himself. Luckily, his helmet blocks any views of his ear transition and a good portion of his hair changing.

"Five seconds."

Caught up in his transformation process beginning, and the amount of time left in the round, Niko's focus is lost for a mere second. In the amount of time that he lost focus, his teeth clench into his mouth guard, and his head is forced backwards, causing him to fly upwards, then fall backwards onto the ground.

Tsuyoki is standing upright, with one leg upward in the air in Niko's direction. He saw that Niko was slightly distracted and threw a front kick directly at Niko. Expecting Niko to move back, or at least parry it, the kick should have landed squarely on Niko's chest. Instead, it slid up and impacted Niko's neck and chin, transferring all of the power from his kick into the bottom of Niko's head.

Two red flags go up in an instant before the center judge can call out the score command. "Judges...." he starts to say.

Niko falls onto the ground, and bounces slightly, then becomes motionless for a bit.

The audience hushes, expecting the worst. The whole convention center is so quiet, the sweat from Tsuyoki can be heard hitting the ground. The red flags slowly lower.

Thinking that she can still help her best friend to the nurse's area, Nakafumi wraps her arms around Chisai once more and tries to help her up. Chisai tries to move her arms to help herself up from the floor, but her legs don't want to respond.

One student at the far end of the class runs up to the digital alert system by the door, ready to press the "Medical" button as soon as they can.

"Hold up!" The instructor snaps.

The student freezes, only a few centimeters away from the button to call the nurse.

The instructor clears his throat, then follows up. "Don't you dare press that button. This will all be over soon."

Nakafumi tries her hardest to prop Chisai up, but to no avail. With this unknown illness affecting Chisai's every system, her strength is pretty much shot. Against all of her might, Nakafumi's grip loosens, and Chisai falls onto the ground.

Worried that her friend is in a worse condition than before, Nakafumi rushes to Chisai's head, trying to get any response. Tears that formed in her eyes from the amount of care that she has for her best friend, fall onto Chisai's head. Chisai is completely unresponsive, however, her hair starts to change hues until it becomes bright orange, a nice complementary color to her blue school uniform accented by white outlines.

Pushing through the tears, Nakafumi's attention is pulled towards Chisai's orange hair. "*sniff* What? How did that happen?" She pulls up some of Chisai's hair off from the ground, and some dark marks on Chisai's face become apparent. "Where did those come from?"

The squirrel outside the classroom notices Chisai falling. "Oh my! I must warn Master!" he says as he scurries down the tree and away from the school.

Where am I? Why am I here? My mind feels like it's going a million miles an hour. What's happening to me?

Feeling slightly exhausted, Chisai pushes herself up off of the ground. Looking around at the kaleidoscopic surroundings, she tries to figure out exactly where she is.

Another figure in the near distance sits up slowly and looks around. He looks about as confused as Chisai is.

Wait! Don't I know him?

She rushes over to his location. By the time she gets there, he has stood up. His silver hair lightly reflects the multiple colors of the room. He looks down, up, and side to side at all of the multicolored areas around them, then at Chisai. He opens his mouth, but words do not come out. She does the same, with the same result. To her surprise, she reaches up for her throat, wondering where her voice went. She looks down, then back at him, slightly embarrassed. All he does is give a slight smile.

Realizing that voices were not a method of communication in this....wherever they were, both of them started reaching out to each other with their hands. As they get closer and closer to each others hand, there is a strange feeling in the air.

This feels......right. I don't know why, but it does.

The moment their hands touch, a bright light flashes from the center of their touch and quickly grows outward, making Chisai and the other person flinch from the brightness.

The center judge rushes to Niko's side and checks his vitals. He reaches down and picks up Niko's head. Dark marks are barely visible on Niko's cheeks. Thinking that they are just marks from the match, the judge disregards them. A bit of hair has escaped the helmet's holding and is now right above Niko's eyes.

Niko slowly opens his eyes, then blinks a few times.

The judge, only a foot above Niko's head, asks "Can you continue?"

Niko looks around, then pulls the back of his hand to his mouth, wiping away any blood he thought may have been there. "Yeah...I can."

"Everything is alright!" the judge yells out. A slow clapping is heard from a single person in the audience. As Daisuke stands up clapping his hands in a slow pattern, others gradually join in, until the whole audience starts clapping and cheering again.

Niko stumbles back to his starting position. Tsuyoki is standing on his position, acting like nothing happened.

The center judge returns to his spot. "Judges: Score." The two red flags go back up, each judge holds up two fingers, and the center judge raises his right hand with two fingers extended. "2 points: Konkura."

The audience cheers loudly as the large digital display updates Tsuyoki's score from a 2 to a 4.

Tsuyoki gets in a ready position, ready to end this match. Whatever just happened better not happen again – this should be a fair fight, and if he's not giving me his all, then it will be worthless.

Niko is just standing on his position. His hands are down by his side, and his head is facing downwards.

The center judge goes through his starting sequence once again. "FIGHT!"

Tsuyoki comes in with a strong punch, hoping it will make Niko pay attention. He is only a few inches away from making contact with Niko's unguarded chest, but he stops. He looks up at Niko's face.

As soon as Tsuyoki's glance met Niko's stare, Niko's eyes turn from dark navy to bright red, almost the same color as his hair is......was. Niko changed. Tsuyoki does a quick scan around to see what other changes had been made. The tuft of hair that escaped his helmet had turned silver, the dark marks on his face are more prominent, his teeth are longer. Even his presence seems stronger.

Knowing that something was wrong, Tsuyoki pulled back his punch and returned to his ready position, making sure that his guard was strong for whatever was about to come his way.

Confused by the recent events, the judges try to get closer for a better view. The master instructors up stage are confused and try to lean in for a better view.

"STAY BACK!" Tsuyoki yells out.

Stunned by the command of a participant, the judges stay where they are.

Niko's head rises to see Tsuyoki. One eye is covered by the tuft of hair that escaped, meanwhile the other stares directly in Tsuyoki's direction. In one look, Tsuyoki could tell that this stare had a sense of determination, dire passion, certainty, and maliciousness.

Before Tsuyoki can blink, he can already feel Niko's glove approaching his chest. Tsuyoki parries, but more punches follow. Trying as fast as he can, Tsuyoki parries every one. After the barrage of punches ends, kicks start coming one after the other. Each kick is increasing in complexity and power, and Tsuyoki is unsure how much longer he will be able to defend. There doesn't seem to be any openings in Niko's attack, as his offense is extremely strong and fast. He tries to move out of the way, but a series of Niko's kicks blocks him from moving in that direction. The only option he has is to do the worst thing in a sparring match: back up in a straight line. If he crosses the edge of the ring, Niko will get a point, and with the score already at 3-4, he doesn't want Niko getting any more points than necessary.

Niko's vigorous kicks progressively raise from Tsuyoki's chest area and aim for his head. He puts his arms up by his head to block the kicks, knowing that his chest is completely ope-

A jump reverse side kick hits Tsuyoki in the chest with enough force to destroy a wall. He flies out of the ring and soars thirty feet horizontally, right into a stack of extra floor padding. He lands on his feet, then slowly loses the strength in his legs and falls to his knees.

Niko lands on his non-kicking foot and keeps the foot that kicked up, but tucked in.

"Judges: Score!" The center judge says.

Two white flags go up, and each judge holds up two fingers. The center judge holds up his left hand and extends two fingers. "2 points, and the match, to Sakuna."

The large display updates the match's score to 5-4. Tsuyoki's picture fades away and Niko's picture moves to the center and doubles in size, becoming the primary focus of the screen. The audience's cheer doubles in volume.

The center judge walks over to Niko, and grabs his left hand. Niko, still focused on Tsuyoki, resists as much as he can. The judge tries to bring Niko's hand upwards to declare him the winner. As soon as Niko's hand starts to raise, his determination, his dire passion, his maliciousness all go away and he is left very weak. His kicking leg falls to the ground and the leg he is standing on starts to wobble. He looks around, trying to figure out what just happened. He sees Tsuyoki on his knees on the far side of the main event area. "Oh crap. Tsuyoki...."

The cameras on the floor zoom in to Niko's face with the judge. He can see the broadcast on screens nearby. His large picture on the digital overhead display shows his hair returning to his regular red shade, and the marks on his face are gone. What just happened? Why did I transform?

"The winner of the tournament: Niko Sakuna" The judge calls out across the overhead intercom system.

The master instructors behind the banquet table start to stand up and clap. The audience follows suit. Suddenly, the whole convention center is filled with cheers, clapping, and rooting – all for Niko.

"We will begin the awards ceremony in ten minutes, followed by the closing ceremony." One of the master instructors says from the stage.

Daisuke, jumping the safety barrier again, runs over to Niko.

The judge holding Niko's hand puts his hand down and starts walking away. Niko starts to remove his helmet, hoping to get some fresh air. Moments later, Daisuke has his arms wrapped around Niko in a big hug. "DUDE! YOU WON!" he yells.

Niko regains his balance, but continues looking at Tsuyoki kneeling on the ground.

Daisuke grabs Niko by the shoulders and turns him around. "DUDE! Did ya hear me? You won the tournament!"

"Yeah, I heard. But I'm worried."

"About what? What could you be worried about?"

Niko looks back in Tsuyoki's direction. To his surprise, Tsuyoki was no longer there. He drops his helmet and dashes over to the stacked practice mats. Frantically looking around for any clues of Tsuyoki's whereabouts, he falls to his knees and searches the ground. A large darkened triangle on the ground is the only remaining mark from Tsuyoki's travels to the practice mats.

Daisuke walks over. Holding Niko's helmet, he asks "Where'd the other guy go?"

Niko stops his search. "I.....don't.....know." He looks perplexed as to Tsuyoki's whereabouts.

"You must of kicked the wind out of him if he couldn't even face you again."

"Yeah.....maybe." Niko thinks back to the last move of the fight. Where did that power come from? How did I kick him this far?

Daisuke offers a hand down to Niko. "Look, you have an awesome award ceremony coming up in a few minutes. Let's get the rest of this gear off ya and toweled off for the ceremony."

Niko, realizing that looking any more would be pointless, looks up at Daisuke. "You're right." He grabs Daisuke's hand and pulls himself up off the ground.

One of the master instructors, dressed in a formal suit, walks up to the podium on the stage and starts to announce the end of the awards ceremony. "At this time, we now present the tournament Grand Prize to the final victor: Niko Sakuna. Please come on the stage."

All of the high-ranking students were sitting in a evenly spaced grid formation at the front of the main event area. With his gear packed back in his bag and all toweled off, Niko stood up, walked in front of his row of students to the floor's edge, and turned to approach the front stage. He walked up the steps on the side of the stage to reach the podium in the middle, and met with the formally dressed instructor, who bowed to him and walked backwards, away from Niko.

Looking a little unsure about the upcoming events, Niko looks around thinking that he is supposed to give a speech or something.

A small squeak behind Niko causes him to jump a little. He turns around to see Grand Master Li pushing his chair back to stand up. This was something that Niko never expected to experience: a personal interaction with the Grand Master – the only 9th degree black belt in the whole sport.

As Grand Master Li approached Niko, Niko quickly bowed in respect, expecting the interaction to be extremely formal. Seeing the Grand Master's feet walk past him, Niko was questioning the possibility of the interaction. He slowly stood back up, looking in the direction that the Grand Master went – away from the podium towards the back of the stage.

The Grand Master stopped before the display of the grand prize. He yelled out "JUN BI". A few high-ranking students appear from behind the curtains with wood boards. Each set of 4 stacked boards were supported by two students each. Each group stood in predesignated areas: two groups on each the left and right side of the Grand Master holding the boards vertically, two groups at 45-degree angles on the left and right side holding their boards high but facing the floor at a slight angle, and two students placed a series if 10 concrete slabs separated by thin wood spacers in front of the Grand Master, right below the grand prize.

Each of the students holding the boards held their positions like they were bracing against a wall – they knew the amount of power coming and had to be prepared for it.

"SHI JAK," the Grand Master called out. Like a well-rehearsed play, each sequence of events happened one after the other, and all within a few seconds. The Grand Master reached to his left, punching through the 4 boards being held with ease, yelling as he plowed through. He then reached to his right and, with the palm of his hand, went through another 4 boards, yelling again as he went through. He faced forward and jumped a little, bring both feet up in the air at once, and ended up kicking both sets of the 4 boards at the 45-degree angles, yelling once more. Finally, he faced the concrete slabs and sliced through them with the outside of his hand – all ten of them. Nothing but crumbled pieces were left in the middle of the slabs. Once again, he yelled through the process. The Grand Master pulled his hand back, slowly stood up, faced the audience, then bowed.

The master instructors were shocked for a moment, then slowly stood up and started clapping. The audience followed the example.

Niko was in awe.

The Grand Master turned back towards the concrete slabs. The velvet-lined leather box that held the grand prize lowered from its raised display location to the Grand Master's height. The Grand Master reached over and grabbed the box by the base. Holding the box firmly in his arms, he turned back to Niko and started walking his way.

Awe doesn't cut it – Niko was petrified.

As the Grand Master approached the podium, he placed the leather box into the hands of the formally dressed instructor, then finished his trek to the microphone on the podium.

The audience's clapping rapidly decreased.

In a low-raspy voice, he announced "This is the dawn of a new day. The sun breaks through the darkness. In my many journeys across the world, the experiences I have gained have crafted me into who I am today. I may only be 78 years of age, but my training has kept me young in many ways. It makes me proud to see so many young people practicing this martial art, knowing that their first lesson was only the beginning of a great journey.

"Many people can think of their lives as branches of a tree – the decisions made here and now, the decisions that may be made, and the choices made in the past. Today, the tree has reached maturity and has overcome the darkness. It must now begin to plant seeds for the future.

"Therefore, as a sign of progression from the old to the new, it gives me great pleasure to award this okatana to the winner of this tournament: Niko Sakuna." he said as he swings a hand towards Niko.

The audience's clapping and cheering resumed.

The Grand Master picked up the leather box from the formally dressed instructor, then turned towards Niko. "Niko Sakuna: please accept this okatana as a sign of a new beginning. With your noble character, you will develop a new permanence in life."

The term "stage fright" doesn't even start to describe what Niko was feeling. Embarrassment, nervousness, excitement, indecisiveness, overjoy, scared beyond reason to what was to come.

Given that the only choices he had at this point were to accept the prize with pride, or wet his pants from embarrassment, he reached both hands down slowly to accept the okatana in a formal manner. Once he touched the okatana's sheath, a spark went through Niko. His eyes opened wide, a chill went down his back, and he jumped a bit. Suddenly, all of his nervousness vanished.

He wrapped his hands around the sheath and lifted the okatana out of the box. Lifting it over his head, he faced the audience. The volume became deafening again, but died down quickly.

Niko faced the Grand Master and bowed. "Grand Master Li, I thank you for this prize. It was a pleasure to compete in this tournament, and I will accept this okatana with the greatest respect." He placed the okatana back in the velvet-lined leather box. The Grand Master removed the box top from the bottom of the box and placed it on top, covering the okatana, then handed it to Niko.

Niko accepted the box, faced the audience and put a hand up. The audience cheered again and he walked off the stage.

After the celebrations of the closing ceremony, the spectators and participants left the convention center. At this point, only a few cars were left in the parking lot.

Outside the convention center, Niko and Daisuke start walking back to the parking lot. Niko, dressed in the khakis and black shirt that he arrived in, had his gear bag and uniform over one shoulder, and the okatana box under the other arm.

Daisuke put his arm around Niko. "Dude! That's a freakin' sweet sword you got. Think I could take a look at it?"

Niko gave Daisuke a sarcastic glare. "Sorry, but this is going in a display case. I don't want to take it out unless I absolutely have to."

"Aw, man. Really? Are you sure?" Daisuke pleaded.

Niko added, "Plus, I felt something really weird when I grabbed it. I don't want you to go through the same thing."

Daisuke seemed puzzled. "Whoa – what's that mean?"

"I'm....not really sure how to explain it."

A gust of wind blows stray leaves across the parking lot. Along with the leaves floating by, a squirrel in a blue vest quickly dashes across the semi-empty parking lot towards Niko and Daisuke.

Seeing the blur of blue out of the corner of his eye, Niko turns towards the oncoming squirrel.

"Seyogi! Long time, no see!" he calls out.

The squirrel runs up to Niko, sits up. "Master!...... Master..... at last...... I have...... I have found..... you" he says panting between each phrase.

Seeing that the squirrel is obviously tired, Niko asks "Is something wrong?"

"It.....is.......time." Seyogi says trying to grasp for air.

Chapter 2

"Did that squirrel just talk?" Daisuke, stunned by the fact of a talking animal, crouches down trying to get a better look at Seyogi.

Seyogi puts up a paw in Daisuke's direction and looks away, trying to brush Daisuke off. "Yes, yes. I am a talking squirrel. I'll explain later." He looks up at Niko. "However, Master, we must go!"

Niko opens the back door of his car, places his gear bag in the floorboard, his uniform on the hanger, and the long leather box on the seat. He asks as he closes his door, "Go where? And what 'time' is it?"

Seyogi looks up at Niko with as much determination as a little squirrel can force. "The transformation."

Realizing what Seyogi was talking about, Niko opens his driver side door and says, "Well, let's go!" He quickly sits in his car, pushes the "Start" button on the dashboard, and starts to back up.

"Master! Wait for me!" Seyogi yells as he scrambles to climb into the passenger seat through the open window.

Niko's car moves backwards, then jerks forward and out of the parking lot.

"So, we're....not going to the party?" Daisuke says sympathetically as he is left alone in the lot.

"Spill it: where are we going and what's going on?" Niko says as he drives around the convention center's parking lot towards the lot's exit.

"We are going to Kita Kawa High School." Seyogi says calmly as he settles in the passenger seat, his tail wrapped around his feet.

"I know where that is!" Niko calls out as he turns left towards the highway.

"Good. Now to give you the details." Seyogi clears his throat. "Do you recall the science fair at about, oh what was it, a year or so ago?"

"I think so. The whole school district had a huge fair in the middle of town at the mall. So what?" Niko says as he zooms on the highway, heading across town.

"Do you remember the girl with the jeweled glove?"

Thinking back in his memories, Niko tries to recall all that he can from the fair. "I think so. All I recall was that I was bored out of my mind."

"Please think harder, Master. If we are to help her, you must recall what she looks like." Seyogi pleaded.

Trying to focus on driving and sorting through his memories, Niko thinks harder. "Wait – didn't I see her in the food court talking to Nakafumi?"

"Yes, Master! She is the one I am speaking of. We must go get her, as she needs our help!" Seyogi says excitedly.

"But why do we need to help her? All I was told about the 'transformation' is that it will be the first of its kind for the Neko clan."

Seyogi exhales loudly. "I believe it is time for you to know the truth. You see, as a half-demon, you do not understand the complexity of the demon world, and how it can interact with the human world."

Niko seems puzzled.

Meanwhile, Seyogi continues, "During the science fair, there was a large explosion that destroyed a good portion of the mall."

"Ugh. Don't remind me. That was chaotic. Nobody was seriously hurt, but it was a pain in the ass to clean up."

"Well, during that explosion, certain events lined up that resulted in producing the first synthetic demon."

"WHAT!?" Niko yells as the car jerks across multiple lanes, almost driving off the highway.

"Master, I beg you: please pay attention to the road."

As he regains control, Niko asks calmly, "A synthetic demon? How is that even possible?"

"We are not quite sure yet, but the only person affected was the girl with the jeweled glove, and her new demonic abilities lay dormant - until today."

Niko's car pulls off on an exit towards the high school. "Is that why I started transforming too?"

Seyogi looks up at Niko. "Master! You transformed during your tournament? Wouldn't that classify as cheating?"

"I couldn't control it. I was in the middle of a match, and my marks started appearing. All of the sudden, the match is over and I won. I'm not sure exactly how."

"It might be a connection the two of you share. We won't know until we get her to Lord Tora."

As Niko pulls into the student loading area of the high school, Seyogi jumps out of the passenger window. "This way, Master!" he says as he runs towards the front door. Niko hops out of the car and is not far behind.

"She'll be fine. She's just pulling another prank." The instructor says as he flips through the latest headlines on his tablet.

"You have no respect for a student! How dare you let her suffer like this!" Nakafumi yells out as she tries to cradle Chisai's head.

The instructor places his tablet on his desk, leans on the desk with his elbows, and slowly removes his glasses. "If Konami-san didn't already have a reputation for pulling things like these, then something like this would be taken more seriously."

"This isn't a prank! She's seriously ill!" Nakafumi says.

The instructor slowly stands up, stretching his arms and legs. Grabbing his tablet, he turns to the class. "Look, I'm going to visit the restroom. If Konami-san isn't back in her seat by the time I get back, everyone gets extra homework tonight," he says as he walks out the door.

Nakafumi tries to shake Chisai, hoping to get her to come to her senses. "Chisai, I don't care if this is a prank or not, but please respond! You're really scaring me!" She says as more tears form.

Seyogi runs through the hallways, trying to find a specific room. Niko is right behind him, trying to keep up.

Moments later, Seyogi comes to a full stop in front of an open door. "Master! This one!" He says as he waves for Niko to come to his position.

Niko runs over to the open door. Holding onto the frame for some support, he catches his breath.

Hearing the commotion from the doorway, Nakafumi looks over. Realizing who is standing in the doorway, she pulls back enough emotion to acknowledge him, but becomes flustered at his presence. "N-N-Niko? What are you doing here?"

Niko looks up at Nakafumi's direction. Breathing heavily, he responds with "Naki? You go to this school?"

Nakafumi, trying to hide her true feelings towards her crush, tries not to be offended. "Um, yeah, I thought you already knew that."

Seyogi pulls on Niko's pant leg. "Master!" he begs.

Niko looks down at Seyogi, realizing that they were on a mission. "Oh, right." He looks up at Nakafumi. "Naki, we're looking for a girl with a jeweled glove. Have you seen her?"

Nakafumi turns her attention to Chisai. "You mean Chisai? She just collapsed. We don't know what's wrong."

Niko, unsure about the new information, looked down at Seyogi for advice. Seyogi is nodding as fast as his small squirrel head can nod. "Yeah, she's the one." He rushes over to Nakafumi's side and sees Chisai laying on the floor, her orange hair semi-scattered around her back made her look like a tiger.

Looking at Nakafumi, Niko says with reassurance, "Don't worry – we're here to help her." He leans over Chisai, putting his arms under her neck and legs. As he stands up, Chisai's orange hair flows across his front side.

Seyogi is still standing in the door frame. "Hurry, Master! We must get her to Lord Tora!"

Niko walks around Nakafumi and carries Chisai out the door. "See ya, Naki!"

Running out of the school towards Niko's car, Chisai's eyes open slightly. She sees a blurry figure with a red mane above her, but her lack of strength makes her pass out again.

Using his fingers to grab the door handle, Niko pulls open the passenger door and gently places Chisai in the seat. Seyogi runs into the car and sits between the passenger and driver seats.

Niko reaches behind Chisai, grabing the seat belt and reaches around her to secure it. He then runs to the driver side door, opens it, and slides in.

"Onward!" Seyogi says as he points forward.

Not even a second after Niko pushes the "Start" button, the car takes off and zooms down the road.

On the outskirts of town, the landscapes of bustling streets and crowded buildings quickly change to a serene, peaceful light forest. In the middle of one of the forests, a three story square house sits on a small island in the middle of a large lake. This house shone brightly as its gold-leaf coating reflected the sun rays. A gold-painted deck surrounded the house on each level, while the black layered roof overhangs provided just enough shade to protect anyone walking under. A gold phoenix statue atop the smaller 3rd floor roof had its wings stretched outward like it was about to fly off at any minute.

Behind the house, right off of the main floor was a thin dock that lead to a small island with a few trees. Two small birds chirp away on one of the tree's branches.

"Ah, my friends. Today is a very special day." Tora says to the birds in a deep, baritone voice. The birds keep chirping away. "We get to find out whether or not the synthetic demon is a success or not."

The noise of a car traveling up a gravel road is heard in the distance. Tora turns around to face the direction of the sound. "And it looks like they have arrived right on time. Wish me luck." He walks away from the trees, back across the thin deck, and through the house to meet his guests at the front door.

Trying to maintain his balance between the seats, Seyogi holds on to the driver and passenger seats for stability. "Master Niko, I do wish you would take this road at a more reasonable speed!"

Niko, trying to get to Tora's house, tries his hardest to drive down the narrow land-bridge gravel driveway. As he approaches the golden house, he calls out over the noise the car is making over the gravel. "Seyogi, is Lord Tora even home?"

"Do not worry, Master. Lord Tora is home when he is needed." Seyogi says as he tightens his grip on the seats.

Niko's car approaches the golden house and stops the car at a 45-degree angle, slightly sliding on the gravel below. He gets out of the car, opens the passenger door, grabs Chisai in the same holding position he had her at the school, and runs to the front door. "Seyogi, where is he supposed to b-"

A rock sticking out the ground catches Niko's foot and makes him fall forward. With all of the momentum that he was building, Chisai flies out of his hands as he falls to the ground.

Oh crap! Crap, crap, crap! What did I just do? She's going to get hurt now because of my mistake! Niko can't stop blaming himself as his travel to the ground completes.

With outstretched arms, Chisai lands softly in the grasp of Tora. The fabric that draped from his arms, as part of his gold and black-rimmed kimono, rustled with the catch. "Oh my, that was a close one."

Niko, whose face is now covered with patches of dirt and some gravel, pushes himself up off the ground. As he moves upwards, he looks forward to notice someone standing in front of him, as if the voice didn't give it away. The light-gold rim at the bottom of the kimono covered his feet, but Niko had a pretty good idea who the person was. As he rose, the light-gold rim became much darker, all the way up to a red belt across the waist, slightly covered by a long, white beard. The red belt bordered the bright gold of the kimono, and the thick black stripes around the edges of the sleeves were a dead giveaway. Upwards, the long white beard became wider until it met the thick red stripes around the lapel. Now it was absolutely impossible to not guess who this person was.

Niko finishes standing up, brushes himself off quickly, and bows in respect. "Lord Tora, I do apologize for my...."

"No need for apologizes, my child. You have delivered her just in time." Tora says.

Feeling more nervous than at the tournament, Niko felt dumbfounded. He was Tora's apprentice, studying the intricate history and actions of the Neko Clan. Although Niko was a half-demon, he wasn't the first. Tora was always an honorary member of the Neko Clan for as long as time itself and was designated to teach all of the half-demons how to fight, how to defend, how to act in the way of the Neko Clan.

Tora turned towards the house and starts to walk in the front door. "Please, come in. I will set the two of you up here for the night."

Niko stands up. "Wait, what? What about my parents? Shouldn't they be notified?"

Tora continues to walk through the door. "Do not worry. They have already been notified of your situation."

Trying to think of the ways that his parents would have already been notified of the recent events made Niko's head go in circles. How did they know something about me that I didn't know?

"Oh, and boy, bring that new okatana of yours." Tora says as he disappears into the house, followed by Seyogi.

Still puzzled by the previous situation, Tora's statement made Niko even more unsettled. How did he know about that? Limited to only one option, he turns back to the car and opens the back door. As he opens the leather box and uncovers the velvet covering, he reaches down to grab the sheath, but pauses, thinking back to the last time he grabbed it. Standing in front of the Grand Master. The honor, the celebration, the nerves. Once he grabbed hold of the okatana, all of the nerves disappeared - the intensity, the spark, the feeling of something powerful. Even if the last time was a little....overwhelming, Niko knew that he could handle the power. Somehow.

Overcoming his memory, he wrapped his hand around the sheath and pulled the sword out of the box. Closing the back door of his car, he runs to the front door of Lord Tora's house. "Wait for me!"

Walking through the door, Niko expected to see a large room covered with tatami mats and bordered with shoji screens and dark wood frames – what Tora's house usually looked like. Instead, he walked into a wood-floored hallway that seemed to not have an end in sight. Countless doors surrounded him without any unique identification. As far as Niko could tell, he was lost. "Lord Tora! Where did you go?"

An ominous voice echoes throughout the hallways. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." Tora's voice echos. "I have trained you thus far, so use what you know to find me."

Looking around for some easy answer, Niko becomes frustrated. "What does that mean? Why is it always a fortune cookie with you?" He runs to the door to his right and tries to turn the handle. Locked. He runs across the hallway to another door. Locked. The next ten doors he tries are all the same: locked. Seeing how this effort was not getting him anywhere, he sat against one of the doors and thought about what Tora had said. "'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.' So, I can either check every single door in this hallway until one opens, or....." The solution hit him. "I can transform into my demon form and find him quicker." He hits his forehead with the palm of his hand. "DUH!"

Niko stands up and sets himself in the middle of the hallway, equidistant from the doors to his left and right. By focusing all of his willpower, he closes his eyes to start the transformation.

Three dark, scratch like marks slowly appear on each of Niko's cheeks. In a wave-like fashion, his hair starts to change from fire red to sleek silver, starting from the roots outward. His teeth start becoming longer and sharper. Triangular-shaped ears slowly grow from the top of his head through his hair.

Completing the rest of the transformations, he opens his eyes. They shift from dark navy to deep red, showing the passion behind the demon form.

Once complete, Niko stands tall in his new form. Although he is only a half-demon, he can still portray the full figure of a demonic cat with most of the abilities of a full-fledged demon.

His eyes quickly become adjusted to the surroundings. Picking up on a faint scent, and faint sounds from afar, he dashes down the hallway with his sword in hand.

Walking up the last of the stairs, Tora walks into a small, quaint bedroom. Basic wood paneling, a lamp in the corner, and a simple twin-bed sits on the side. Slowly placing Chisai in the twin bed, he backs up to examine the situation. The jewel on Chisai's glove continues to pulsate, but very faintly. "Her abilities have activated, but cannot be controlled just yet. She must be stabilized." he says.

Seyogi runs into the room behind Tora. "Mi'lord, must you put Master Niko through such extensive tests? Hasn't he proven himself to you yet?"
"I just want to make sure he can trust himself. If he cannot depend on the power of his demon side to complete simple tasks, then there is no hope for him. That is what I have been training him, although he still has a long way to go."

Seyogi sits on the ground, feeling placated. "Aye, Mi'lord."

A loud "THU THUMP THU THUMP THU THUMP" noise is heard from the stairwell behind Tora. He turns behind to see what is causing the noise. Silver ears appear first, quickly followed by deep red eyes, dark scratch-like marks, pointy teeth, a white t-shirt with the Sword Titan logo and a red loosely hanging over shirt, and khaki cargo pants, with an okatana grasped firmly in one hand.

"Ah, young Niko. You have activated your demonic abilities and found my location. Good for you." Tora says with a sarcastic undertone. "You are just in time to witness the stabilization technique."

Breathing heavily, Niko responds. "The what?"

Seyogi speaks up. "When this young girl's abilities activated earlier today, they went into a state of uncontrollable flux. Her body did not have the strength needed in order to keep her new abilities in order. This stabilization technique will help her abilities become more controlled, and she will be able to control them, just like you, Master Niko."

Niko looks over at Chisai. "So....she'll be like me?"

Tora walks over to Chisai's side. "In a way, yes – I guess you could say that." Chisai's chest gently rises and falls with her shallow breathing.

Tora places his hands in the air, hovering over Chisai. A soft blue translucent light flows from Tora's hands and gradually surrounds Chisai's whole body in an oval shape. Once the shape completes, Tora removes his hands. "The process has begun."

Niko walks over to Chisai, trying to place a hand on the soft blue oval. His view of Chisai is slightly blurred, as thin circles move all across the oval's surface sporadically. "Just how long will this take?"

Tora turns towards the doorway. "The greatest effort is not concerned with results. If all goes well, it should take all night." He walks through the doorway. "Meanwhile, let us begin your training with your okatana."

Niko looks at Tora's direction, then down at the okatana. "Begin training? What do you...." his sentence trails off as he notices that Tora is no longer in the room.

Seyogi hops up on the bed, staring into the blue oval surrounding Chisai. "Do not worry, Master. I will keep a close eye on her."

Knowing that Seyogi had never let him down before, Niko felt comforted. "Okay, thank you." He stands up and starts following Tora's path.

"MASTER! LOOK!" Seyogi calls out, hoping to get Niko's attention before he walked away.

Niko turns around, but has to shield his eyes. The jewel on Chisai's glove grows brighter and brighter with each pulse. As the light grows brighter, streaks of white light fly from the jewel and gather above Chisai, between her and the top of the light blue oval. A smooth "WHOOSH" sound is heard with each streak.

"Seyogi, what's happening?" Niko tries to say over the sounds of the light flowing upwards.

"I do not know, Master. I am unsure about the particular details of this process."

The streaks of light increase in numbers, until a long, thin pole-like span of white light forms over Chisai's body. The span of light pulsates with the same pattern as the jewel in her glove as it grows.

"Master!" Seyogi says as he points to the span of light. "It is starting to take shape!"

The top of the span, closest to Chisai's head, bends into a crescent-like shape with an upward shaft in the middle, meanwhile the bottom starts to become thicker, then sharper at the end. The number of light streaks start to rapidly decrease until only a few fly outward. After the last streak of light flows from Chisai's jewel to the span above her, the top of the span starts to lightly spark and move downward along the pole. As the sparking effect moves downward, the top of the light span turns from bright white to a shiny metallic silver. At the point where the crescent shape turns straight, a few small silver leaf-like shapes appear on either side of the item, then moves downward and makes the span of light turn dark black, with purple jewel surroundings inlaid every foot or so. Once the sparks reach the bottom of the span of light, the jewel in Chisai's glove drastically dims. The newly formed item rotates slightly while staying parallel to Chisai, then lowers to rest across her chest. Her hands slowly raise up and lightly grip the item across her chest, and the jewel pulsates one last time.

"What was that?" Niko says as he lowers his hands from his eyes.

"I believe that our newest student just received her weapon of choice." Seyogi says slowly as he tries to examine the odd situation. He looks at Niko. "Young Master, please go see Lord Tora. I will keep an eye on her and let you know of any more changes!"

Niko, realizing that there wasn't much he could do, nods to Seyogi and runs out the door.

Seyogi turns back to Chisai. "For a weapon of such power, I hope your journey is well, young one."

Running down the stairs that he just ascended moments ago, Niko approached the long hallway with many doors once again. Tora was nowhere in sight. Feeling frustrated again, Niko loudly says "This again?", which echos down the hallway.

Tora's voice echos throughout the house. "No tricks this time, young one. Please meet me in the basement to begin your training."

Confused at the layout of the house, and the purpose of meeting in a place he had never been, Niko tries to think about where the basement would be. "How do I get to the basement?"

"Allow me." Tora's voice says echoing down the hallway.

A large square piece of floor below Niko fades away, which causes him to fall through. "What the-?" he yells out and flails trying to grab anything he can to prevent himself falling, but to no avail. As he falls, the hilt of his okatana catches the edge of the floor, which pulls the sword out of its sheath. The sword's weight causes it to swing back and forth on the edge of the floor for a moment, then overcomes its static friction with the edge and falls downward following him.

A loud "KER-THUMP" echos in a large dark room, followed by "Ow, that was rough," from Niko as he lands on his feet and stabilizes his balance. Moments later, his okatana lands directly in front of him and embeds its blade a few inches into the solid rock ground. The shock of the blade landing makes Niko jump back a bit. There aren't many lights on as Niko takes a look around, but his cat-like vision adjusts to help him see in the darkness. Ridges and objects start to take form in the distance and become more clear. The area around him comes into focus and appears to be a rocky, desert-like area with plateaus and mesas. The area where he landed is lighter than the surrounding areas, and seems to lead somewhere. A light coating of dust falls back to the ground from where he landed. "What am I doing here?" he yells out in no specific direction, hoping to get a response from Tora, wherever he is.

Niko's cat ears twitch as a small rumbling is heard from the distance, and grows louder by the second. Perplexed by what could be causing a rumbling like that from under a house, he looks in the direction of the sound and realizes what it is coming from: a large boulder, easily the size of a small house, is rolling at full speed – straight towards Niko.

He quickly grabs the sheath in his right hand, and sprints to his left as the boulder gets closer to protect himself from the danger of being rolled on. Realizing that his okatana is still sticking up in the ground, and that he doesn't want it to be destroyed by the boulder, he sprints back in the direction he just came. Grabbing the handle of the okatana with his left hand as he passes by, his momentum pulls it out of the ground moments before the boulder continues rolling. On the path's bank, panting heavily, Niko is grateful that he just narrowly missed being squished by a large rock, and saved his new sword in the process.

Once again, he yells in no specific direction, "What do you think this is? A movie?"

Out of nowhere, Tora's voice echos in the large, dusty, rocky room. "View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow."

Trying to ponder what Tora said, Niko racks his brain thinking about the wisdom he just heard. Looking all around himself for an answer, he yells back. "I don't understand! How am I supposed to grow when I don't know what to learn?"

No response.

"Well?" he yells again.

Again, no response.

A low rumbling is coming from the distance again. Niko's ears perk up at the noise. He looks in the distance that the boulder came from, thinking that it could be connected. Staying on the path's bank, he walks up the path trying to see if he can pinpoint where the sound is coming from.

Another boulder is rolling down the lighter path in Niko's direction. Standing on the path's bank, Niko easily avoids the boulder. The boulder continues to roll past Niko and down the slight hill, until it disappears out of view.

Having played plenty of video games in the past, Niko's experience told him that two similar boulders, traveling down the same path, meant only one thing: this was a test. "What is this? Another test? What am I supposed to do?" Niko says as he starts pacing back and forth.

He stops for a moment to think back to what Tora said earlier. "....let us begin your training with your okatana." Thinking that it might be a clue, he looks down at his okatana in his left hand. The perfectly polished blade reflects Niko's features along with the mysterious overhead lights. "Am I supposed to cut the boulder with my sword? Swords don't cut rocks!" He yells generically.

Another series of low rumbling noises come from the distance, and another boulder rolls by on the same path, disappearing out of sight.

Looking around for some sort of object, Niko figures that maybe the test deals with the boulder directly. Off to the opposite side of the path from where he is standing, a large pile of medium-sized rocks sit in a loose pile. Maybe I can create a diversion path to shove the boulder off, he thinks. Picking up the rocks one by one, he places them in the path, hoping to divert the boulder from continuing downhill and off to some other target.

Right on schedule, the next boulder rolls down from above and proceeds down the path. Niko crouches behind a stationary rock for protection. Upon reaching the pile of rocks, the boulder easily crushes all of them, leaving nothing but pebbles and dust as it continues to roll out of sight down the path.

Trying to figure out the next solution, Niko keeps searching for another object to hopefully act upon the boulder. Up the path, he sees an equally large boulder sitting on the edge of a tall mesa. Maybe I can push that off and block the oncoming boulder!

Sheathing the sword and placing the sheath under his belt, he begins his trek towards the mesa.

While Niko walked over to the large mesa, five more boulders rolled down the path in sequence and out of sight. As he approached the mesa, he realized that climbing it would be a challenge in itself. Scanning the rock face for any means of footholds or crevices, he spotted a scattered series of openings to easily scale the tall mountain. Putting his right foot in one of the holes and grabbing the rocks above for balance, he pushes himself up towards the top.

As he climbs the mesa, eight more boulders roll by right on schedule. Reaching over the ledge, he places both hands on the top and pushes himself over the cliff's edge. Pulling himself along his stomach with all of the strength his arms have left, Niko breathes heavily, trying to regain some energy to continue the task.

Another boulder rolls by below on the path.

Having lay on the mesa's plateau for a few minutes, Niko pushes himself up and heads over to the boulder teetering on the edge. Reaching it, he gathers what strength he has left it for one momentous push towards the large teetering boulder. He hits it with all of his force, and the boulder falls over the edge, directly on the path below.

Trying to muster a smile without any energy to spare is tough enough, but a small smile forms on Niko's face as he just realized what he had accomplished. Continuing his heavy breathing, he sits on the cliff's edge to watch the next boulder roll down the path, expecting to enjoy the upcoming event and pass this measly test.

Like clockwork, the approaching boulder appears from the distance. As it violently rumbles down the path, it gets closer and closer to the boulder that Niko pushed off the cliff that he now sat upon.

Excitement built up in Niko like a child on Christmas morning.

The moment the rolling boulder struck the stationary one, Niko could already feel the cool breeze of wind from outside Tora's house, the freshness of the lake water surrounding the house, the birds chirping in the near distance. Everything seemed to fall into place as the answer seemed to obvious to this puzzling test.

BOOM!

Until now. The large explosion noise was followed by a shower of rattling and "shhhish-ing". Metaphorically, the sounds could be Niko's daydream shattering. In reality, the rolling boulder plowed straight through the boulder that Niko pushed off the cliff. Nothing was left except two boulder-sized walls on either side of the path.

The rolling boulder continued on its path downhill until, yet again, it was out of sight.

Frustrated at the recent event, Niko quickly stands up and stomps around the top of the mesa. "AAAGGGGHHHH!"

Feeling anger getting the better of him, Niko pulls his feet together and stands still. Taking in deep breaths slowly and exhaling slowly, he starts to think again. What other options do I have? His mind jumps to what Tora said again. "....let us begin your training with your okatana."

Sitting on the top of the mesa and placing the sheathed sword in front of him, he props his hands and elbows up with his knees. "That's gotta be it. This is a test to teach me how to use the sword. But how am I going to cut a gigantic rock with a single sword?"

Trying to figure out what could possibly be the secret to this test, he thinks back to when he first received his okatana: receiving it from Grand Master Li. As soon as he touched the sheath, a spark shot through his mind, his being, his overall soul. This spark created much more than a sensation: it created a experiential bond between a sword and its wielder.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Niko asks as he tries to figure out where he is. The surroundings of where he has been transported are unknown, as nothing but white can be seen. As he walks forward hoping to see someone or something, two extremely large blurry figures start to appear. With a glimmer of joy, he runs towards the figures, hoping to get some insight to where he is.

As he gets closer, the two figures become clear. The one on his right is his house as it is today. The one on his left appears to be some sort of ancient pagoda. The pagoda stood tall, but seemed somewhat familiar. Its shiny silver coating reflected the bright white surroundings and the red smoke that flowed in and out of various windows.

Red smoke? Niko, intrigued by the appearance of something extremely odd, aside from the appearance of his current-day home and an ancient pagoda, approached the pagoda trying to figure out where the red smoke was coming from.

As he approached the pagoda, it seemed like gravity increased slightly with every step he took; walking towards the pagoda and its red smoke felt exhausting, until he could not proceed any further. Only steps away from the ancient pagoda, Niko was crawling as he did not have the strength to stand from the overwhelming effect of the gravity-like force pushing him down to the ground.

The red smoke starts to thicken. Niko tries to look up to see what it was doing. After a few moments, the red smoke starts to flow from the pagoda windows down to Niko's position. The smoke gathers in a thin cloud vertically in front of Niko, circling around a central point and increasing with every cycle. Trying to look up, Niko tries to pushes himself upwards, hoping to get a better view of what was to come, whether good or bad. Unfortunately, the overhead pressure pushes him back to the ground.

The cycling red smoke recedes inwards, then quickly blows outwards, revealing from top to bottom the red braided handle, the dark gray trident-like hilt, and the reflective silver of a blade – the same blade sitting in the velvet-lined box that Niko was about to receive – floating in front of him.

"He of the Neko clan." An ominous voice spoke out.

Niko tries to gather the strength to push himself up. He props an elbow below him for better support. Looking up at the floating sword, Niko responds. "Yeah?"

"Throughout time, I have slain many. I have protected countless. I have destroyed villages and cities, and I have brought salvation to others. Do you have the courage to wield me?" the voice speaks.

Niko, trying to push against the pressure, gradually answers. "How should I know? Aren't you the grand prize at the tournament?"

"I have been called many names throughout my history. I shall tell you the name you can call me, only if you can prove to that you can wield me."

Putting his other elbow below him for better support, Niko starts to get annoyed. "How am I supposed to do that if I can't even get off the ground?"

"If you are destined to wield me, you can overcome this challenge, or die trying."

Great. Just great. One moment, I'm at the tournament, and the next, I'm about to be killed by some ancient sword spirit. Niko thinks as he considers his options.

"All you must do is fully grasp my handle, and I will be yours." the voice says.

Sighing, Niko says grudgingly. "Well, what other option do I have?" Shifting his left arm under his chest, he forces himself up and uses his elbow as a main support for his body, he tries to reach up using his right hand towards the sword's handle. Closer. He decreases the distance between his hand and the top of the sword. Closer. The distance decreases some more. Niko's hand starts to shake under the pressure. CLOSER! His hand is almost touching the handle when the pressure overtakes him and he is flat on the ground once again.

The voice echoes throughout the white area. "I am ashamed. Only a select few can wield my true power. Others do not unlock the secrets and only see me as a dull blade."

Niko tries to prop himself up and reach for the handle again. As he slowly progresses towards the handle, the pressure increases as well. Once again, he ends up flat on the floor.

The voice continues. "Throughout time, I was destined to meet unique individuals to match my prowess. If I was mistaken, then I wish you well in the afterlife."

Knowing that he couldn't die here, Niko had one option that he hadn't considered. He yells out throughout clenched teeth, "I AM NOT DYING HERE!" as reaches out with his left arm, disregarding the support it provided, and grabs the bottom area of the blade. As he closes his hand around the blade, blood drips from his hand where it meets the sharp edge of the blade. Realizing that his grip was solid, he pushes past the pain and turns his hand inward, rotating the sword from the air onto the ground. A loud CLANK echoes throughout the large space as the red braided handle and gray hilt hit the ground. Seeing that his desperate "attempt at a plan" worked, he quickly moves his right hand to grab the sword's handle, which is well within his reach.

Within seconds, the overpowering pressure of the increased gravity force gradually lifts. As it lifts, Niko stands up as well.

"Well done, he of the Neko clan. You have passed the first challenge and have proven yourself worthy of mastering my power." the voice echoes.

Feeling an overwhelming sense of confidence, bravery, and assuredness, Niko places his left hand below his right, fulling holding the handle of the sword. "You have abilities?" he asks the sword.

The ominous voice responds. "You will learn in time my abilities. For now, you can call me by the name I am known by in this era: the Banish Blade."

"The 'Banish Blade', huh? Has a nice ring to it." Niko says.

"Over time, as I merge with your soul – mainly your demon half – I will unveil my abilities as I permit, as long as you put your trust in me."

Niko rests the sword on his shoulder. "As your new wielder, I see no reason not to," he says as he walks away from the pagoda, disappearing in the bright, white light.

"'I will unveil my abilities as I permit, as long as you put your trust in me.' That's what it said." Still on top of the mesa plateau, Niko grabs the Banish Blade's sheath and stands up, looking across the vast emptiness of the rocky terrain, and feeling confident that he now knows what he must do.

Low rumbling starts to raise in volume in the distance, which only means one thing: the next boulder is rolling down the hill.

Running to the edge of the cliff, Niko jumps off and lands on the path below, in the pebbled remains of his previous attempt, he lands on his feet, although kneeling to cushion the impact. Facing the oncoming boulder, he pulls out the Banish Blade from it sheath. Placing both hands on the handle, pointing the blade towards the boulder, he whispers, "I fully place my trust in you, Banish Blade."

As the boulder speeds closer, the only thoughts going through Niko's mind are either "certain death by boulder" or a miracle. Hoping for the latter, he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and raises the sword above his head. The boulder increases in speed and decreases the distance between it and Niko, now less than ten meters away.

Niko opens his eyes and swings the sword down towards the boulder, yelling "HELLFIRE!"

Chapter 3

The Banish Blade swings downward with a strong force, hitting the ground with its tip. A fiery rupture uproars from where the sword's tip met the ground and accelerates outward, splitting into three ruptures, all heading towards the boulder. Fire spews upwards from where the ground has separated due to the ruptures. Seconds later, the ruptures reach the oncoming boulder. The ruptures crawl up the boulder's face and cause it to glow red.

Frightened about the oncoming "fireball", Niko stands his position, but closes his eyes, expecting to be pummeled. Why did I trust this rusty old piece of crap? I'm about to die any second now, and I never got to say goodbye to-

A small series of cracking leads to a large "BRRRAAACKKK!", then silence.

Wondering if he was dead or not, Niko cracks open one of his eyes. Suddenly, a pebble hits him on the head. What the...?

More pebbles hit his head, and the sound of heavy rain is generated around him. He opens his eyes, surprised by what he saw. He was still alive, which is always a good thing. Aside from that, the boulder was gone. Various small rocks rolled by his feet and others were falling from the sky, more than the ones that were previously there based on his last attempt to stop the boulder.

"I did it?" Unsure about the most recent event, Niko doubted his action.

"As I said, as long as you put your trust in me, I will not fail you." The voice from the Banish Blade said inside Niko's mind.

Throwing up both arms, Niko exclaims, "I DID IT!" as he jumps up and down. His over-excitement is cut short by the presence of Tora up the path, walking towards Niko.

"You have done well, young one." Tora says, but this time without the echo.

Feeling caught off guard, Niko stops jumping and stands at attention, then bows. "Lord Tora, I did not know you were arriving."

Tora extends a hand towards Niko, raising it upward. "Stand, young one. Face me with joy, as you have learned your first skill with the legendary sword, the Banish Blade."

As Niko straightens up, he seems confused by Tora's statement. 'Legendary'? I didn't know that.

Tora continues. "This sword has many powerful techniques, and this little test was to teach you the first one. There were many false answers to this test, but you overcame them and found the one that was not obvious: placing your trust in your sword."

Niko, still looking at Tora, tries to look downward at his sword, thinking about the series of events up to now.

Far behind Tora, Seyogi enters the rocky area from a hidden staircase and runs to the two men. "Lord Tora! Master Niko!"

Niko looks behind Tora as Tora turns around, looking at the squirrel rapidly approaching their location. "Yes, Seyogi?" Tora asks.

Seyogi runs to Tora's side and catches his breath. "The stabilization process is complete, Mi'lord."

"Excellent timing." Tora turns to Niko. "Shall we go see about our newest recruit?" he asks as he walks towards the staircase. Seyogi runs behind him.

Niko relaxes his posture and holds his sword in front of him. "Thank you." He sheaths it, then runs after Tora, making sure to avoid the gaps that his Hellfire attack created in the ground.

As Tora, Seyogi, and Niko approach the top of the staircase to enter into the quaint bedroom, the light blue oval that was surrounding Chisai slowly fades away.

Tora looks down at the long weapon that rested across Chisai's chest. "Oh my. That is quite unexpected."

Seyogi jumps on the bed, sitting next to Chisai's arm. "I agree, Mi'lord. It seems that the jewel in her glove has a special connection to her soul."

"You mean that's never happened before?" Niko asks Tora.

"As she is the first synthetic demon to successfully make it to this point, I would believe anything is possible." Tora responds.

Slightly disgusted by the thought of other humans that have perished in his quake, Niko bursts out towards Tora. "'Successfully make it to this point'? How many times have you done this trick?"

Ignoring Niko's outburst, Tora raises his hands in front of himself, acting like he is trying make Chisai float out of the bed. "Arise, my new student, and discover your new abilities!"

Slowly blinking her way awake, Chisai fully opens her eyes. As her vision comes into focus, she looks around to find out where she ended up. Where am I? This isn't the classroom anymore, or that weird colored room I was in before. Seeing a stranger in gold robes and an odd person with silver hair – and cat ears? - standing over her, defensive instincts kick in.

Fully grasping the pole-like weapon laying across her chest, she quickly rolls forward and stands up on the bed. As she tries to back into a corner, she rotates the weapon's metallic end towards Tora. "Who are you? What do you want? Where am I?" the questions poured out one after the other.

Tora lowers his hands in a "calm down" motion. "Please calm down, young one. You are in my home." He places a hand on his chest. "I am Lord Tora, a diviner of sorts." He reaches out his other hand towards Chisai. "You are in safe hands. You had an accident about a year ago, and your new demonic abilities have awakened. You needed to be stabilized before you were hurt."

With the pole-like weapon slightly shaking, Chisai tries to process the information she was just presented. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Tora pulls his hand back. "You do not have a basis to trust me, and my credentials are beyond your understanding, but I was the one that helped stabilize your new abilities."

"Look – you don't have to trust him," Niko throws a thumb in Tora's direction.

Chisai quickly rotates her weapon towards Niko.

He continues, "but you can trust me. You collapsed at your school, and I brought you here. I won't hurt you." A slight smile followed his speech.

At the sight of his smile, Chisai becomes more relaxed. The metallic end of her weapon starts lowering to the ground as she gets a better look at Niko's hair, his eyes, and his overall figure. "You! You're the one I saw in that weird colored room, aren't you?"

After a long period of training, Niko's short term memory wasn't accessing information quick enough know what she was talking about. Confused by the question, he blinks a few times and opens his mouth, but doesn't say anything.

"It is you!" Chisai points her weapon downward and jumps off the bed in Niko's direction, making Seyogi lose his balance. "Somehow, in that weird room with all the colors, I saw you, and you did exactly what you just did." The jewel on her hand starts to glow, which causes her weapon to glow as well with a bright light. The long stream of light bends inwards towards the jewel and is absorbed, then the jewel's light dims.

Shocked by the mysterious location that her weapon went, Chisai looks down at her gloved hand. "What just happened? Where'd the thing go?" She asks as she points to the jewel.

"If I may provide some insight?" Seyogi says from the bed as he stands back up and dusts himself off.

Chisai turns to face Seyogi, then turns back to Niko. Throwing a thumb over her shoulder, she asks generically, "Did that squirrel just talk, or was it my imagination?"

Seyogi clears his throat. "Allow me to introduce myself."

Chisai turns back to Seyogi. "I am the ancient guardian, Seyogi. I assist Master Niko in his training to become a full demon." he says as he offers up a paw for Chisai to take.

Having never shaken a squirrel's paw before, she wasn't sure how to properly do it. She slowly extends her full palm towards Seyogi. He grabs the tip of her index finger and moves it up and down a few times.

Feeling slightly awkward, Chisai moves her hand to behind Seyogi, then scoops him up towards her chest. Slightly squeezing him as if he was a teddy bear, she gets a little excited and rotates herself left and right, with her hair tossing to each side. "Now this is how you meet a squirrel!" She catches a glimpse of her hair coming around one side. "Whoa! Who dyed my hair?" She reaches around trying to grab more of her hair, pulls out the hairband holding her ponytail in place, and swings her head left and right, fluffing out her hair. "I have orange hair! That's kinda neat!"

Small squeaks come from between her arm and her chest, but nobody hears them.

"Since we're doing introductions, I'm Niko Sakuna." Niko says as he bows towards Chisai.

Chisai turns around to face him. Her loose hair flows behind her. "Nice to meet ya, Niko! I'm Chisai. Chisai Konami."

"It's a pleasure to....meet you....now, please let me down!" a squeaky voice says from Chisai's arm. Trying to grasp for air, Seyogi flails trying to get free from her tight grasp.

Chisai looks down at Seyogi. "Oh, I'm sorry little squirrel." She loosely grabs him and gently places him on the bed.

Taking a big breath in, then exhaling, he says "Thank you, Lady Chisai. I appreciate your cooperation" as he adjusts his blue vest. Making himself proper, he continues, "Now, as I was saying: it appears your weapon is connected to your soul, and is stored in the jewel you posses on your hand."

Chisai lifts up her hand and looks at the jewel on her glove.

"The weapon appears to resemble a naginata, but with a unique shaping to it. Apparently, something in your soul is reflecting a naginata as it comes into reality."

Chisai starts tapping on the jewel, hoping to make it glow again. "Whoa. So how do I make it come out?"

"I do apologize, Mi'lady. That is something I do not know." Seyogi says sadly as he looks at the floor.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out somehow." Niko says.

"What about my orange hair? Who dyed it?" Chisai says as she runs her fingers through the ends of her hair.

"That, my dear, is a result of your demonic transformation." Tora says, stepping closer to Chisai.

Chisai jumps a bit away from Tora. Caught up on the commotion between Niko and Seyogi, Chisai forgot that he was also in the room with her.

Tora extends a hand towards his far right, then closes it. A hand-held mirror floats from a table on the other side of the room towards his hand. Tora grabs the mirror's handle and rotates it to face Chisai. "As you can see, your demonic form makes various changes to your appearance, and your instincts."

Chisai looks into the mirror and sees an edition of herself she did not expect. Her brown hair had turned bright orange, her emerald green eyes turned violet, dark scratch-like marks appeared on either side of her cheeks. Turing left and right to get a better view of herself, she excitedly says, "I look cool!" Noticing something different about her mouth's reflection, she reaches up to touch her teeth, which have become much longer and sharper. "Whoa!"

Focusing on her new lengthy teeth, she uses her right hand to try and push some hair behind her ear. The hair falls right back in place. She tries again, but unsuccessfully completes her task. Frustrated at how a simple task can not work, she pulls her hair back on the right side of her head. "AHHH! WHAT THE...? WHERE'D MY EARS GO?" she exclaims.

Niko walks up behind her and touches her left orange ear on top of her head. "They're right here." he says with a slight smile, trying to contain his laughter.

Without hesitation, Chisai folds back her new cat ears, then looks at Niko with an angry expression.

"Since you are part cat demon, you have cat ears now." Niko says, still trying to hold in his laughter, as he reaches up and grabs his silver cat ears.

Chisai looks up and takes a closer look at his ears, then gets close to the mirror to examine hers.

"Okay, that's a little weird."

"Don't worry – you get used to them." Niko says.

Chisai reaches behind her and grabs her lower back, moving her hands up and down. "Hey! If I'm a cat demon, where's my tail?"

Niko let out a hearty laugh. "You're only a half demon. Tails don't come with the package."

"Aw, I wanted a tail!" Chisai says, trying to beg as she throws her arms down at her sides in a fit. She then reaches up and catches her orange hair again, running her hands through it. "So....can I turn back into a human? Can I get my brown hair back?" She says as she reaches up to flick her cat ears.

"The only way I know of is to sleep. Once your mind becomes unconscious, the demon abilities are suppressed until you call them out again." Niko says.

Chisai faces Niko. "How do I do that? Do I call out 'demon abilities' or something like that?" she asks as she puts her arms above her, trying to act out a scene from a movie.

Seyogi scurries up Tora's robe and sits on his shoulder. "You call the abilities subconsciously, hence the reason your human form can suppress the demon abilities once you are asleep. Do not worry – the time will come when you will be freely available to perform the action in question."

"Yeah, what he said." Niko quickly adds to Seyogi's explanation.

Tora moves the mirror away and extends his hand to his right again. The mirror floats away and lands on the far table where it came from. "Now that I have stabilized your abilities, Lady Chisai," he turns to Niko, "and given you the necessary tasks required for you to learn your first attack with your new sword, I request a trade of sorts."

"Whoa. What's this about?" Niko asks as he is taken back.

"I performed an act of divine power for each of you. In return, you must do something for me."

"What's he talking about, Niko?" Chisai asks as she turns to Niko for support.

"The task I ask is not large. All you must do is find an item and bring it to me. That is all."

Niko and Chisai look at each other, unsure about whether to accept this task or not. Niko speaks up, "What if we don't do the task?"

"I cannot force you to complete the task I require, however keep in mind that my power is older than time itself. I have the ability to make anything happen."

Niko relaxes a bit thinking that Tora's statement is more of an empty threat than a demand.

Tora steps closer and leans in, getting within inches of Niko's face, then quickly changes to an expression that could terrify the bravest of warriors. He reiterates in a deeper, raspy voice, "Anything." He reaches up and touches Niko's forehead with his index finger.

The longer Tora's finger touches Niko's forehead, Niko's eyes widen more and more, portraying an expression of something terrifying.

Tora removes his finger and moves backwards, giving space between him and Niko.

Processing everything that he just experienced, Niko stutters, "O-o-o-o-okaaaayyyy. We'll get the thing you asked for."

Putting her hair back into a ponytail, Chisai asks, "What's this 'item' we have to find?"

"Lady Chisai, I am glad you asked." Tora says in his normal voice. He puts his hands in front of him, separating and lowering them, then bringing them back together to form a circle. A fine, white line appears on the path he just made. In the middle of the circle, a star burst appears and spreads outwards towards the white lines. An image appears extremely blurry.

As the image quickly focuses, Tora continues, "This is the item I request." A large gold coin with ancient writing on it appears in the middle of the circle, then rotates around showing the gold chain it is attached to, and the red pearl-like jewel in the middle. "This is the 'Medallion of Tsukaneru'. This extremely powerful item was in my private collection until recently."

Niko gets closer to inspect the glowing image.

"A thief broke into my collection and stole this item. I require it back."

Niko stands up. "A thief broke into your collection? I thought your power was basically limitless."

Tora looks Niko straight in the eyes. "My power does have its limits. The thief who stole my medallion was using a unique magic that I cannot sense. I am unsure about the intentions of this thief, or the sources he uses for magic, but he must not posses the medallion."

"So...we just have to find this necklace and get it back to you? Sounds easy enough." Chisai says as she fluffs her ponytail back.

"I hope it is so, Lady Chisai." Tora says as he raises a hand, making the medallion image and white circle disappear. "As this task does require some special talent, we will begin your training in the morning."

Niko looks down at his watch. "It's already 3am! Sunrise happens in the next few hours."

"Yes, and your training will begin." Tora raises his left hand up in front of Niko and Chisai, acting like he is reaching out to touch them, then swings his hand inward.

A bright, white light makes Niko and Chisai blink. When they open their eyes, they appear back at Tora's front door, facing Niko's car.

"I will call upon you when the time is right. Until then, sleep tight, young ones." Tora's voice says from all around them.

"That was....weird." Chisai says as she looks around, taking in the view of the moon's reflection against the lake and the gold-leaf coating on the house behind her.

Walking towards his car, Niko responds. "In all of the years that I've known him, he always seems to be a bit cryptic, but never asking for something like this. He must have a really good reason to ask us to take on something this big." He reaches down and grabs the passenger door handle, opening the door for Chisai.

Chisai walks towards the car. "Do we have another choice?" She asks as she sits in the passenger seat.

"At this point, I don't think so. We're in this for the long run." He says as he closes the door and heads around the car. Cringing at all of the negative thoughts that Tora had placed in his mind earlier, Niko didn't want to think of another option.

Opening the driver side door, he places his sword in the back seat and sits in the front. Moments after he presses the start button to revive his car, he turns the steering wheel and drives away from Tora's house.

"Mi'lord, are you sure these two are up to the task?" Seyogi asks as he looks up at Tora. "Although Master Niko is very experienced in the demonic arts, Lady Chisai only just received her new abilities."

Standing in front of the front door, watching Niko's car disappear in the distance, Tora responds. "As much as I can hope, they are the right ones for this particular task."

Sighing, Seyogi adds, "I was afraid you would say that."

Walking back into the house, Tora calls out. "Come, Seyogi. We must prepare for tomorrow. I have a feeling that our trespasser is ready to leave."

"Yes, Mi'lord." Seyogi says as he quickly scurries behind Tora.

Chapter 4

As Niko drives on an empty highway towards the city, the light provided by the moon makes it seem peaceful, almost like a scene from a serenade.

Pulling the passenger sun visor down, Chisai flips up the protective cover over the mirror. Bringing up her hands to touch the marks on her cheeks, she breaks the silence. "I still can't believe it."

"A bit strange, huh?" Niko says as he quickly glances in her direction.

"Yesterday, I was falling asleep in class and drawing," she moves her hands up to her ears again, "and now I'm a....." her sentence trails off.

"It's okay, you can say it."

"....a demon." She says nervously.

"Well, only a half demon. Full demons have a lot more power than us, but we can do one thing they can't."

Looking in his direction, she begins to become curious. "What's that?"

Returning the look, he responds. "We can transform from human to demon and back again!" he says with a smile.

"Oh, right!" Chisai looks forward at the road. "I can't wait to tell all of my friends at school that I'm a demon!"

"No! You can't do that!" Niko quickly interjects. "You know that demons are still looked down upon in the human world! Just imagine how you would be treated if you told everyone!"

Chisai starts to withdraw a bit, thinking that she made Niko angry.

"The news stations would put you on every channel. The government would put you in a padded cell! Science laboratories would want to perform experiments on you!" he says with increasing intensity.

Scared of what Niko was saying, and if he was going to get any angrier, Chisai tries to lower her head into her school uniform, like a turtle.

Noticing the silence, Niko looks over at Chisai. She looks like she was trying to distance herself from him and become one with the seat. Realizing that he scared her, he relaxes. "Hey, hey, hey. It's okay. I'm sorry about scaring you." He reaches over and offers a hand, hoping that she will grab it and pull herself back into a more comfortable position.

Chisai doesn't move.

"Look, I didn't mean to go off on you like that. It's just....I've always been told to keep this a secret, because the world isn't ready for demons yet."

Chisai starts to relax and sit up a bit.

"I've been told that my whole life – for the past 18 years. I guess I assumed you knew that, but you've only been a demon for, what, a little more than an hour? There's no way you could have known."

Chisai sits up straight in her seat.

"You know all of the ancient stories about warriors slaying demons? And....and all of the fairy tales that have the heroes destroy the demons?"

Chisai nods, slowly.

"Well, that put the idea in everyone's head that demons are bad, and it's been that way ever since. Therefore, the demonic world has to keep a low profile to make sure we don't all get killed. With the government monitoring everything odd and unusual, and with the scientific community only a phone call away, ready to dissect us and figure out how to harness our abilities, we can't take too many chances."

Chisai becomes more relaxed, enough to ask a question. "Does that mean that we will become evil?"

Niko turns his head and gives Chisai an awkward stare. "What? No, nah. Don't be silly. Look – I'm not evil, am I?"

Chisai slightly twists her head left and right, slowly.

"We're not all bad. Now, there are some bad ones out there, but we're the good guys; we take care of the bad ones to make sure that our secret is safe. Think about it: the same goes for humans; some are bad, but the good ones make sure they are handled."

Thinking about all of the "cops and robber" stories that she's heard over the years from her parents, her friends, the news, etc, it all starts to fall into place. "Oh. That makes sense."

Continuing his explanation, Niko gives an example. "And if one of those bad guys had, oh, let's say a gigantic bomb in the middle of downtown, what would the good guys do?"

Feeling included in the conversation, Chisai perks up. "They'd stop him from blowing up the city!"

"Right. And after they stop him, what happens next?"

She thinks about the question he just asked for a bit. Perplexed by the situation, she comes to the conclusion that she's never thought of that before. "Um.....people start shopping again?"

"The investigative teams come in and dissect the bomb, to learn how it works and how to protect themselves from another bomb of the same type."

Chisai puts her fingers on her chin, realizing the severity of the situation. "Ohhhh....."

"The same thing would happen to us: we'd get captured, studied, dissected, probed, and other bad things so they could figure out how we do things, like grow these ears." He points to the cat ears on his head.

Imagining what he just said in her mind, Chisai reacts to her thoughts. "Ouch."

"That's why we all say that the human world isn't ready for us. You can go to school when you are in your human form, but the moment you transform into...." he waves a hand up and down in Chisai's direction, "....this, everything is over."

"So how do I not transform?" Chisai asks, trying to become more informed and secure.

"It's easy. All you do is....uh...." Having never had to explain the transformation process to anyone before, Niko was at a loss for words.

Chisai leans in towards Niko, hoping to see that he was still alive, since he wasn't saying anything.

"Look: Lord Tora said that training begins tomorrow. Let's get some sleep tonight, and I'm sure he'll help you out then. Sound like a deal?" He asks as he looks in Chisai's direction.

Chisai closes her eyes and a large smile appears on her face. Giving a large nod, she says "Deal!"

"Good. Now, how do I get to your house?"

Traveling through the suburbs of downtown, Niko pulls up in front of a concrete staircase and stops the car. "Well, here you go."

Chisai grabs the handle to open the door. "Thank you for the ride....and the rescue." She opens the door to get out.

"Don't worry about it. Just don't forget that training starts in a few hours, and don't tell anyone that you're a demon now." Niko says across the car.

She stands up, out of the car. Turning back to Niko, she asks "You said that I would transform back when I went to sleep, right?"

"That's the way it's worked for me. Hopefully, you'll do the same."

"Good." She closes the door gently, not to disturb the neighborhood, then starts to climb the staircase.

Lowering the passenger window, Niko tries to get her attention one last time. "Hey! One last thing!"

Chisai turns her head around.

"I just wanted to say...." he pauses, "....good night."

With a smile, she responds, "Good night to you too." Then continues up the staircase quietly.

Niko raises the passenger window and takes off gently.

At the top of the staircase, Chisai sees something familiar and stops to take a look at it. She smiles as she thinks of all of the cherished memories she had made.

An old, thick oak tree sat in the front yard, towering over the two-story house. Thinking back to her childhood, the old oak tree provided hours of entertainment between herself, her older brother, Tsuban, and her younger brother, Buyo. Using their imagination, the tree was much more than a tree; Chisai and Buyo would protect the tree-castle while keeping the Tsuban-dragon away, the three of them would shoot to the moon using the tree as a rocket, it even became the "Kids are Cool" club as they all sat in the branches and talked in secret code.

Seeing the low-hanging branches made her want to do something – something that she hadn't done in such a long time: climb the tree.

As she approached the trunk, her fingernails dug into the bark and she lifted herself up. Within seconds, she ends up sitting on a branch that was twenty feet high. "Whoa! That was easy, and fun!" She looked down to survey her height, but quickly regretted it as she became dizzy. Looking around for ways to get down, she noticed that the branch she now sat on had access to the roof of the first floor, within an arms' length of the window to her bedroom.

Gracefully, she crawls across the length of the branch, then jumps off and lands on the first floor roof gently. Softly, she says, "That was fun!" Scurrying off to her bedroom window, she tries to pull the panes open. A small "clink" comes from the other side of the panes, notifying her that they were locked from inside. Pulling them enough to form an opening in the middle, she fits one of her fingernails in between and lifts upwards, moving the locking hook off of its secure screw and unlocking the panes. Finally, she pulls them open and crawls through to her bedroom.

Although landing gracefully in her bedroom, a small "creeeek" comes from the floor where she landed. Trying not to make any more noise than she had to, she slowly tip-toed her way to her bed.

The hallway light turns on, which pours light into her bedroom through her open doorway. Feeling caught like an animal, Chisai freezes and stares at the hallway, although she is less than five feet from her bed. A small shadow approaches from the left.

Moments later, the shadow leads to a young boy, no more than seven, stumbling down the hallway in his plaid sleepy pants and oversized t-shirt, dragging his large teddy bear behind him by the arm. An odd shape from Chisai's room catches his eye. As he looks that direction, he has to rub his eyes to push aside the sleepiness.

A tall silhouette appears in to be standing in Chisai's room; the details of this figure can't be seen due to the moonlight coming in from the window. However, the young boy notices two triangular items on top of the silhouette. Curious to his discovery, he slowly walks into the bedroom and reaches up to touch the digital panel to turn on the bedroom lights. A moment later, his eyes adjust to the light level, and the figure becomes clearer. "Sister? Is that you?"

Chisai walks over to him, crouching to his level. She puts a finger to his mouth while making a "Shhhhh!" noise. "Buyo, please be quiet!"

Slowly waking up from his slumber, he realizes that he is talking to his sister. "Sis, what are you doing up? And what's with the funny hair and ears?"

"Buyo, you can't let anyone know about this, 'kay?"

The inevitable question that all kids ask, and the one that Chisai dreaded the most, was asked once again. "Why?"

"Ugh." Caught in the act, Chisai knew she had to think on her feet to save herself. "I just got back from a cosplay convention. There's a character I really like from a series I watch called 'Sword Titan' that looks like a cat, so I dress up as that character every now and then."

"What's 'cosplay'?" he asks with innocent eyes.

"It's where a lot of people get together and dress up as their favorite characters from, you know, movies, shows, books, and stuff."

Once again: "Why?"

"Because it's fun to dress up as a cat."

Again. "Why?"

"Because...." she pauses, trying to pull some answers out the air. "You know that show you watch, the one with the talking cat and the fish?"

"Leo the Leopard! Yeah!" he starts to get excited.

"And you know how you like to dress up as him for halloween?"

"Yeah!" he says a little louder.

"SHHHHH!" She tries to make sure he gets quiet. "That's what I'm doing: I'm dressing up as a cat because it's fun."

"Why?" he asks, again beginning the endless cycle of asking the inevitable question.

Feeling exhaustion set in, Chisai starts letting her answers stray. "Because...we can't dress up a real cat."

Yet again. "Why?"

"Because we can't have pets in the house, and because dad's allergic to fur."

Again. "Why?"

"Because....." Becoming frustrated as the endless cycle of questions continues, and at the fact that exhaustion is taking over, she tries to change the subject, hoping to save herself any more embarrassment. She places her hands on his shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes, trying to take control of the conversation. "Okay, where were you going before you saw me?"

"The bathroom." Buyo answers without hesitation to the different subject.

Chisai turns him around and starts to push him out. "Okay, you go use the bathroom, then go back to bed. If you promise not to say anything to dad, I'll play with you tomorrow. Deal?"

He stumbles back in the hallway. "Okay. You promise?" he asks as he turns his head to look back at her.

She nods. "I promise, now good night, Buyo" she says as she slowly slides the door closed.

"Night!" he says back towards the closed door. Turning towards the restroom at the end of the hallway, he continues his trek, dragging his teddy bear behind him again.

Chisai turns around, rests against the door, and slides to the floor. "Whew. I hope he bought it."

After a few moments to regain her thoughts, she stands back up and reaches for the light panel, turning off the room lights. Too tired change out of her school uniform, she walks over to her bed, kicking her shoes off under the bed, and falls towards the pillow, grabbing what blanket is available and pulling it over her with the little energy she has left. As she closes her eyes, she lets out a sigh, followed by one final statement of the night. "What a long, strange day. I hope tomorrow is better." As she falls asleep, her hair slowly changes from orange to her normal brown, her cat ears shrink away, and the marks on her face fade.

***

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The scheduled klaxon of the alarm clock abruptly wakes Niko as he rolls over to hit the alarm clock, hoping to turn it off. "Fivemoreminutes" he says with a slur while his arm goes limp and hits the side of the bed.

"Wake up, young one." Tora's voice says.

Not expecting to hear Tora's voice, Niko interprets the call as a dream. Rolling over, he musters "No, no more boulders. I never want to see a desert again."

"Young one. It is time to begin the training."

"Just five more minutes! It's Sunday!" Niko rolls over to see where Tora's voice is coming from. He opens his eyes slowly, trying to get adjusted to the daybreak light. A blurry gold figure is in the middle of his room. Trying to get a better idea of who, or what, the figure was, Niko blinks a few more times, then rubs his eyes.

Tora is standing in the middle of Niko's room.

The shock of seeing the actual Tora, and not just a dream-produced image, Niko frantically pushes himself to the back of the bed. "HOLY CRAP! WHAT THE HELL?" As a defense reflex, he grabs the nearest pillow and throws it at Tora.

The pillow flies towards Tora and hits his chest. From the middle of his chest outward, the image of Tora gradually dissipates into thin wisps. The pillow continues flying past where the Tora image stood.

Walking into Nikos' room from the hallway with a tray holding a glass of orange juice, two cinnamon buns, scrambled eggs, and a chocolate muffin, Misaki starts to say, "Good morning, Niko! I made your fav-"

The pillow hits the bottom edge of the tray and upturns the whole meal on Misaki's chest and apron. As the cinnamon buns and parts of the muffin fall from her chest to the floor, her face is covered in eggs and orange juice.

"Mom!" Niko quickly jumps away from the bed towards his mother, standing in the doorway.

Misaki slowly removes the tray from her chest. "What. Was. That?" She says each word with increasing volume and intensity.

Grabbing the tray from her and trying to collect the bits of scattered food, Niko tries to explain. "Mom, I'm so sorry. I thought I saw Lord Tora in my room, so I threw a pillow at him and....." he trails off, expecting his mother to know the rest of that situation. He looks up at her face and is greeted by strong glare. Grabbing a towel from the back of his door, he hands it to his mother. "Sorry about that...." he says with growing embarrassment.

Never breaking her glare, she jerks the towel out of his hand and holds it up to her face. As she starts to wipe her face off of the orange juice and eggs, she muffles through the towel, "It's a good thing I made extra."

Sitting at the kitchen table in his comfortable khaki cargo pants, a gray t-shirt with "Sword Titan" written in white, block letters, and a short sleeve black button up shirt loosely over that, a new plate of breakfast items is placed in front of Niko.

"Now don't make this end up on me this time!" Misaki says as she sits down to enjoy a plate of her own.

Curious about her comment, Himuro takes a break from his daily headlines and lowers his tablet. He glances over at Misaki and Niko. "Say what?"

Niko grabs cinnamon bun and takes a bite out of it. "It was nothing - don't worry about it, Dad." He takes another bite from his bun.

"As I was saying, before I was interrupted," Misaki says as she momentarily glances over at Niko, "I made your favorite breakfast, in celebration of you winning the tournament yesterday!"

Already finished with his first cinnamon bun, Niko reaches over for his glass of orange juice. "Thanks, Mom!"

Himuro places the tablet on the table. "Yes, the latter half of the tournament was broadcast on the internet, and wow, was it a nail-biter!"

Thinking back to the last match of the tournament, when he fought Tsuyoki and his demon abilities surfaced, Niko stops drinking orange juice and takes a big gulp, preparing to hear statements like "You used your demon abilities and cheated", "You should have been disqualified", and "I thought we raised you better than that!" Random thoughts are speeding though his head.

The breakfast was a setup! They want me to hand over the Banish Blade to Tsuyoki as the 'real' winner of the tournament!

His eyes quickly move from side to side, looking all around the room, hoping to find something in which to change the subject when the situation becomes negative.

"It's been a while since we've seen Tsuyoki around, hasn't it?" Misaki asks as she scoops up some eggs to eat.

"Yeah, it's been, what....at least five years or so? Where has he gotten to?" Himuro says as he drinks some juice.

This is it! I'm going to be grounded until the end of time! But how do I explain that I didn't call upon my abilities – they activated on their own? They'll never believe the truth. I gotta think of something, and fast!

Slightly leaning into the table to get a better look at Niko, Misaki asks, "Is everything okay, Niko?"

Realizing that he had been holding the orange juice glass to his mouth for the past few minutes, he recognizes the awkwardness of the situation. Spewing some air into the glass and making the orange juice explode a bit, he places the glass on the table and wipes his mouth. "Yeah, nothing's wrong here. Why do you ask?" he asks nervously, like he is trying to hide something.

"You would think that the winner of the tournament would be proud of himself!"

"Yeah, especially when he won an awesome prize!" Himuro says as he picks up a cinnamon bun. "That last fight with Tsuyoki really was a close one, wasn't it?"

Niko gets some eggs on his fork. "Uh, yeah. It sure was," he says lightly
"What about the Grand Master? He sure put on a great show, huh?" Misaki says with excitement.

"Mmm-mph" Niko muffles as he shoves some eggs in his mouth, then nods in agreement.

"How about that 'grand prize'? The rumors around the network had a lot of guesses, but I know one person who actually has it!" Himuro stands up a bit and extends his arm over the table, getting within reaching distance of Niko.

Still suspicious of his parents intentions of the breakfast, Niko braces himself, preparing for his father to slap him across the face.

Instead, Himuro's hand reaches the top of Niko's head and ruffles his red hair. "Our son, right here, won the tournament and is now in the possession of the greatest grand prize of all." He then retracts his hand and sits back down in his chair.

Keeping his guard up, Niko thinks to himself Here it comes! Goodbye brief glory!

"Do you have it with you? Can I see it?" Himuro asks with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning.

As if coming out of a trance, Niko asks to clarify. "What?" The fact that his parents completely avoided the fact that he accidentally used his demon abilities to win the tournament left him speechless.

"The video sources online didn't get a good quality shot of it." Misaki says as she finishes up her breakfast. "Some odd blurry thing was blocking the grand prize, even when you were holding it over your head in front of everyone."

"Uh....yeah, it's in my car." Niko says as he slightly points to the driveway. He stands up, placing his napkin on the table. Believing that he just dodged a metaphorical bullet, he stutters "I'll....go...get it" as he walks to the front door.

As he walks through the front door and closes it behind him, Niko turns towards his car, and is confronted by Tora again. Not expecting to see him on the front porch, Niko stumbles backward in shock, grabbing the door handle for support. "Damn! You scared me." he reaches for his chest, hoping his heart is still in it.

"It is time. You must go to Chisai and comfort her, then we will begin our training." Tora says.

"But, I was eating breakfast with my parents. Can't I finish that first?" Niko begs.

"You must go to Chisai's aid."

"What's wrong with her?" Niko asks, trying to understand what Tora is asking.

A gust of wind blows from the east, causing particles of Tora's robe to separate from him and fly with the wind. Rapidly, Tora's image is disappearing again.

Feeling cheated of his second chance to talk to Tora, he raises his voice as he starts chasing after the particles in the wind. "Hey! Don't leave again! What's wrong with her?"

The door opens to reveal Misaki. "Niko, who were you talking to?"

Niko, standing in the middle of the yard, looking confused, turns to his mother. "Mom! Lord Tora was just right here! He was right here!" he says as he points to the ground.

"Lord Tora again? You must be seeing things. He hasn't been around here for at least a week."

The reference to Tora's recent visitation time frame struck Niko as odd. What was he doing here a week ago?

"Aren't you going to get your 'grand prize'? We can't wait to see it!" She says as she leans on the door frame.

Recalling that he was outside for one specific task, Niko jumps back on it. "Oh, right!" He runs over to his car, opens the back door, and reaches in to grab his okatana.

The moment he grabbed the sheath, a shock went through his soul again – only this time, Niko felt comforted.

He turned around to face his mother, closing the door with his hand. "Here it is!" He says as he sprints over to her position, holding it up for her to see.

"Does he have it? Can we see it?" Himuro calls from behind the door frame. He steps around his wife to gets a good look at Niko's okatana. As if an automatic response, he feels as if a wealth of information had been suddenly blessed upon him. "Is that....no, it can't be. But it has the.....nah, how could it. It's undeniable. How did it....." the partial questions continue as he slowly walks backwards into the wall of the front porch.

Niko slows his sprint to the front door as he approaches his father. Noticing the strange motions, he tries to get closer for support. "Dad? Are you alright?"

Focusing all of his attention on his son, he looks Niko right in the eyes. "Is that the......" Yet, another partial question.

Niko holds the sword up towards his father. Seeing the red handle, the scaled sheath, and the unique trident hilt shape, it was unquestionable; this is the sword that he had been told about in legend.

Needing to get something important, he pushes his son aside to rush inside. Niko, regaining his balance from the sudden push, asks his mother. "What happened to him?"

Misaki is looking in the direction that her husband traveled. Confused, she responds with the only answer she knows, "I don't know."

Moments later, Himuro returns to the front door with an old, old book. The dark brown leather cover has the scratches and imprints of being handed down through the generations. The pages have slight tears and rips all around their edges. The cover itself had an ancient writing on it, but out of the parts that were still legible, Niko could only make out a few letters in the quick glance that he could get. "Niko, do you remember the story I used to tell at halloween, the one about the village being swallowed up?"

Niko tries to think back to any halloween that his father told the story about the "village swallowing curse."

Traveling back in his memories, he recalls the story about a warrior who had a powerful weapon. Being the strongest one, he protected the village he lived in. However, the longer he possessed the weapon, the stranger his antics became, including killing livestock for the fun of it. After a while, the village started turning on him, trying to run him out before he killed anyone for the excitement.

Feeling betrayed by the village he protected, he stood on a tall hill overseeing the village, pointed the weapon in the air, and moved it in a circle above his head. A dark sphere started to grow from the middle of the circle, and sparks started flying from it.

Soon, the dark sphere grew so fast that it swallowed up the warrior, the village below, and the weapon itself, and none of them were heard from again.

It always used to give Niko nightmares when he was told around a campfire, thinking that he was next for this "village swallowing curse." However, a more pressing matter to Niko was trying to figure out what the connection was between his sword and the story.

Himuro opens the book to a page somewhere in the back. The pages let off a thin layer of dust as they move, meaning that this book had been in storage for a long time. "Look at this!" Himuro points to an image.

Bending over the book to get a better look, Niko focuses in on where his father is pointing. Suddenly, everything becomes clear. A long, curved sheath with scaly details, the trident-shaped hilt, and to top it off, the braided red handle.

Speaking the only words he could find, he says "What the.....?"

The image in the old book was the sword Niko held in his hands.

Pointing at the image again, Himuro inflects importance on his message. "Niko: you hold the weapon that destroyed the village."

Overwhelmed by the thought of holding something so powerful, yet so evil, made Niko's hand lose their strength. The sword he held in his hands slipped from his loose grip and started falling to the ground.

Noticing that a weapon so powerful was falling to the ground, Himuro acts fast. He tosses the book in the air to Misaki and dives for the sword. He grabs the sheath moments before it hits the ground. Electric sparks fly from the sheath and around Himuro's hands, causing him to open his hands and the sword to hit the ground. "OWWW! That hurt!" He stands up, holding his charred hands close to his chest for protection.

"Dad, I had no idea it would do that. I'm sorry." Niko says as he bends down to grab the handle and sheath.

"So, it is true: that sword is the 'Blade of Demise'. Legend has it that it will only choose a true owner and reject everyone else." Himuro says.

Niko looks down at the sword in its sheath. "'Blade of Demise'? It told me to call it the 'Banish Blade.'"

"The 'Banish Blade'? I've been told that it had different names, but I never believed it." Going over what Niko said again, Himuro catches something he overlooked. "You said 'it told you'? How did it talk?" He says as he leans in, hoping to at least get a closer look.

"You know the moment when I received the sword as the grand prize at the tournament?"

Misaki and Himuro nod.

"That's when it happened. I was so nervous to be in front of so many people, and the Grand Master alone. When I touched the sword, I went through, well, a test with it – the sword. When I passed the test, it told me to call it the Banish Blade. Afterwards, when I lifted it above me to show everyone, I wasn't nervous anymore."

Softly, Himuro speaks up. "'So it has been said, so it will happen.' The legend is true."

Niko looks up at his father.

Himuro puts his charred hands on his son's shoulders. "Niko! Whatever you do, do NOT lose that sword, and most importantly, do NOT let your anger take control of you. Your demonic abilities allow you certain privileges that others don't have. With this sword, you will most likely surpass any demonic ability. Even those of the Grand Council."

Curious to what his father just said, Niko reiterates. "The Grand Council?"

Realizing what he had just said, Himuro quickly covers his mouth with one of his hands. He removes his hand to say "Forget what I just said." then covers his mouth again.

Niko looks down at the sword, then remembers that he has to go help Chisai with....whatever is wrong with her. "Look, I have to head over to Chisai's for a while. How about you get some medicine on your hands, dad?"

"Chisai? Is she a new friend of yours?" Misaki asks as she holds her husbands hands, trying to comfort him.

"You could say that." Niko says as he runs back to his car.

"Niko! Don't forget: make sure you control your anger. That's how the warrior was lost: his anger got the better of him, and made the weapon more powerful."

Opening the driver door, Niko nods at his father, sits in the car, and takes off.

As his car disappears in the distance, Misaki tells her husband, "I'm sure he will be fine. We raised him well enough."

Taking slow steps into the house, Himuro looks over his shoulder in the direction that Niko drove. "I hope so."

***

Arriving in front of her house, Niko notices that Chisai is sitting on the steps in a plain green shirt, dark blue jeans, and ankle high black boots, with her head on her folded arms, supported by her knees. He parks the car in front of the steps, hops out of the car, and runs to sit by Chisai's side. "Chisai, what happened?"

Picking her head up from her arms, tears fall from her face to the ground and on her jeans. Her appearance, along with the darkened spots below her where her tears fell, made it obvious that she had been crying for quite a while.

"My parents found out that I missed part of school yesterday." She says, tears rolling down her face.

Recalling the events from yesterday, Niko remembers running into the school and carrying Chisai out of the classroom in the middle of class.

"Oh, yeah." Niko says, feeling guilty and embarrassed. "I don't know if it will do much good at this point, but I'm sorry about that."

She looks at him with an evil glare. "Sorry? SORRY?" She pushes through her tears and starts to raise her voice. "If this big event was supposed to happen to me, why didn't anyone plan to get me out of there more discretely?" She says a little sarcastically.

Feeling personally attacked, Niko rebuttals. "Hey! Don't kill the messenger! I was just doing what I was told."

Chisai puts her head back on her arms and starts crying again.

Hoping to cheer her up a bit, Niko asks, "Why are you sitting out here?"

"I just needed to get away from the yelling." She says through her arms.

Niko looks up at the house, then back at Chisai, putting a hand on her back. "How about this: I'll talk to your parents and see if I can clear some things up, 'kay?"

Slowly raising her head, Chisai looks at Niko like he's insane. "You? Talk to my parents? No way! You're nuts!"

"Well, maybe, but I can give it a shot." he says as he stands up and starts walking to the front door.

Realizing that he is really going through with this, Chisai turns her head to follow his movement.

As Niko approaches the front door, a faint red light on top of a white opaque bubble appears above the door. The sound of a chime can be heard from inside.

A few moments later, the door slides open. A young boy dragging his teddy bear looks up at Niko. "Hello?"

Niko crouches down to look the boy straight in the eyes. "Hi there. Are your mommy and daddy home?"

"Yeah." Buyo responds.

"May I speak with them?" Niko asks politely.

Buyo turns around. He yells, "MOMMY! DADDY!", then walks away from the door and Niko.

Chisai mother, a woman in her early forties, wearing a comfortable blue button-up silk shirt with spiral patterns on it and dark gray pants held up with a shiny black leather belt, steps to the door. Her shoulder-length brown hair had some minor streaks of gray in them, arranged in a stylish manner. "Can I help you, young man?" she asks with a smug manner.

In the background, Niko can hear her father on the phone. "Is that so? Well, I don't care! She has never done something that before! How could you?" The one-sided questions continue.

Hearing Chisai's father yell on the phone made Niko slightly nervous. Knowing that he has reached this far, he decides to proceed, as if he had no other choice. "Yes, hi. I'm Niko Sakuna. I wanted to see if I could clear up the situation that dealt with Chisai at school yesterday."

Looking him over from top to bottom, she says, "Fine. Come in."

Niko walks through the door, which slides closed as soon as he is clear.

Surprised at the fact that Niko could even start to pull something like this off, Chisai stands up and runs to a window on the front of the house. All of the sounds are extremely muffled, so she can only make out small bits and pieces.

Still not believing that something like this could happen, she tries to get into a better position to hear more of the conversation without exposing herself as an eavesdropper. However, all attempts at hearing more of the conversation resulted in the same outcome: muffled noises.

A few minutes later, the front door opens. Chisai tries to make herself sparse and hides behind the large oak tree in the front yard.

"I'm glad that we could clear that up. Once again, I apologize for the mix-up." Niko says as he walks through the front door, waving at her parents with a smile on all of their faces.

As the front door slides closed, Chisai confronts Niko on the sidewalk by the tree. Wiping the tears from her face, she starts to say what is on her mind. "How....." is all she can say before she tries searching for more words to express her surprise.

"I couldn't have planned that better if I did it myself." Niko responds.

"What do you mean?"

"You know the phone call that your dad was on?"

Chisai nods.

"That was your school. They called your parents and said that you came down with a severe illness that had some very unusual side effects. Based on that, I told your parents that I was the intern at the hospital, and the hospital tasked me to take you into special care, along with my medical team. Since I said that I would personally take care of you, I brought you home last night because you got out extremely late. I then told them that I was here to bring you to your followup, to make sure you were okay. There were other details, but they're not important."

"That's.....that's insane! They'd never believe that!" Chisai exclaims.

"Apparently, everything fell into place and it worked out. They believed everything I said and didn't question any of it. The call from the school helped set the scene, though."

"That's.....suspicious." She says as her tears dry up, but slightly paranoid.

"I know, but I don't want to go back there and clarify any more details that I have to." Niko shivers. "Your dad creeps me out."

"Yeah, I know. He can be a little intimidating at times. That's just the way he is."

Knowing that Tora needs them to be at training soon, Niko decides to move the conversation forward. He claps in front of him and says with an upbeat attitude, "Well then. Let's get you to your 'followup.'"

Chisai looks at him with caring eyes. This person, whom she just met less than twenty-four hours ago, rescued her, helped her, gave her a ride, educated her, and now saved her from her parents wrath (at least for now), doesn't have any negativity among him. He's always so focused, so cheery. And now he's strong for me. Another tear falls from her eye as she shows a slight smile.

A twinkle from the tear catches Niko's eye. He stops in his march to the car and looks at Chisai. "Something wrong?"

Chisai pulls over a sleeve and wipes her face. "No. Nothing's wrong. Let's go!" She says as she marches towards his car.

Following right behind her, Niko walks her and jumps down the staircase, landing between her and the car. He reaches down to grab the door handle and opens it for Chisai.

And so kind. She thinks as she sits down in the passenger seat.

Niko closes the car door and runs around to the other side. Quickly getting into the driver's seat, he pushes the start button. "Off to training!"

The car drives off into the distance. As soon as the car is out of view of Chisai's house, Niko turns to Chisai, who is still trying to wipe her tears away.

Breaking the silence, he asks, "So, what do you think we will do for this elusive 'training' that Lord Tora has planned for us?"

Chisai, trying to contain her emotions, is unsure and didn't expect a question like this to come up so soon. "I don't know. What are his training sessions like, anyway?"

Shuffling through his memories, Niko tries to recall all of the sessions he had been through. "Most of them are fairly simple. You know: meditate, target practice, balance techniques, sparring – most things that you'd get in any martial arts area, except these are for demonic abilities."

"What's the difference?"

A bright light appears in front of Niko's car. The light is so bright, both of them have to cover their eyes.

"What the hell?" Niko says as the light grows all around them, engulfing the car.

In the blink of an eye, the light is gone, and Niko tries to regain control of the car. Taking his arm down from his eyes, he feels slightly relieved. "What was that?" He looks over at Chisai. "Are you alright?"

Chisai slowly lowers her arm from her eyes. As she sees something that alarms her, she quickly throws the same arm in front of her and points at what she sees. "WATCH OUT!"

Niko turns his head to focus on the front of the car. His car is now driving on a grassy and sandy rock face, quickly approaching the edge of a cliff. "HOLD ON!" he calls out.

Stomping on the brake and pushing it as far as it could go, the car starts to skid. He turns the steering wheel, hoping to increase the amount of wind resistance the car has against the oncoming cliff.

Unfortunately, the car turns all the way around and starts sliding backwards towards the cliff.

Chisai tries to think of a way out of this. Thinking back to some action movies that she had seen, the hero always opens the door and rolls out of the car to save himself. However, with the car sliding backwards, opening the doors and rolling out would catch her anyway and be pulled along with the car.

With the amount of time decreasing before they fall over the cliff, Chisai yells "This is the last thing I would have expected!"

The brakes aren't working, which means only one thing, Niko thinks as he takes his foot off of the brake pedal and stomps on the gas pedal.

The tires quickly spin forward, but aren't overcoming the car's inertia. Niko looks over to Chisai. "I'm sorry."

Chapter 5

With the tires spinning forward, the car starts to slow down, until the back tires are just on the cliff's edge. Soon after, the car speeds forward, away from the cliff.

Feeling like his life had just been spared, Niko releases the gas pedal and gradually steps on the brake, bringing the car to a full stop.

Lunging forward, then immediately backward into their seats, Chisai and Niko start breathing heavily, their hearts racing a mile a minute.

Trying to talk between breaths, Chisai speaks up. "What. Was. That?"

Niko grabs the interior door handle and opens the car door. Stepping out, he surveys his surroundings.

Countless floating upside-down cone shaped rocks are scattered throughout the sky above and below. Looking to his right, he sees a waterfall falling into a shallow pool, surrounded by a light tropical foliage and a grassy area. He walks to the edge of the cliff that they almost drove over, but quickly steps back by the sight of an endless bottom. "I think it's our training area."

Chisai opens her door and steps out of the car, looking at the surroundings as well. "How'd we get here?"

Niko turns back to Chisai and starts walking towards her position. "I don't know. I think that the white light had something to do with it." He reaches into the back seat, grabs his okatana, slips it on the left inner side of his belt, quickly ties the attached rope across his body in a quick-slip knot, and holds on to the top of the sheath with his left hand.

"So what do we do?" she asks.

Walking back to the edge, Niko is unsure how to answer. He looks at the cone-shaped rocks floating by and takes a guess. "I guess we're supposed to destroy those things."

"But how?"

Niko turns to Chisai and looks frustrated. "Jeez! What's with you and all these questions." He points to his head. "Use your head! Figure it out!"

Chisai stomps towards Niko. "How dare you say that!" She starts to cry again as she gets closer to his face. "HEY! I was just being yelled at by my parents for the better half of this morning! Nobody asked my opinion, or why I disappeared yesterday. They all assumed that I had skipped out! I had nothing but yelling and screaming while I sat in front of them, helpless!"

She starts to get more animated as she throws her arms in the air. "I didn't ask for this! I didn't even know that I had these powers! I didn't know that I'd be in training today, much less using these new powers! What am I supposed to do? Automatically know everything there is in the world? Well, I'm sorry I don't. I don't have an encyclopedia of knowledge of your world or what Tora does!"

As she gradually invades Niko's personal space, he tries to back up.

"My life was fairly normal before all of this happened! Now, I have these stupid things that appear on my face and my hair changes color and my eyes do weird things and I....I don't know what to do! So just give me a break and help me learn these things, okay? OKAY?" Her expression is of frustration, but tears are crawling down her face.

With her face closing in on Niko's, his eyes have to become cross to focus on how close she is. Trying to increase his space from her, he tries to step back. "Look, I know that this is rough, but I...." a rock slips away from under his foot and he loses his balance, falling backwards. "....eeeyyYYAAHHHH!" His arms flail out, trying to grab anything.

Quickly composing herself, Chisai realizes that Niko is in trouble. She tries to reach out for his hand as he falls backwards, off the cliff. "NIKO!" Unable to catch him, she lands on her chest, looking over the cliff's edge. The sight of an endless distance makes her a little sick, but the thought of losing Niko made her close her eyes. Tears started to form, dropping into the endless abyss.

BOOF! The sound of something hard hitting the ground echos all around.

Chisai slowly opens her eyes, not knowing what to expect.

Niko lays on his back on a flat rocky platform below Chisai, about ten feet down. "I'm alright. Ow." He tries to sit up.

The rocky platform that he landed on starts to rise up to Chisai's level. Her emotions fill her with joy as she sees him appear. As the platform he is on levels out with the other, he stumbles off, towards Chisai. "What a way to start training, huh?" he says with a hint of sarcasm.

Overjoyed, Chisai wraps her arms around him and rests her head on his chest. Residual tears from her eyes start wetting spots on his shirt.

"Whoa. What's this for?" Niko asks, uncomfortably.

Chisai releases her grip and backs away quickly. Realizing that she had let her emotions get the better of her, she tries to think of a reason why she did that. "I....I...I...I just wanted to make sure you were safe. That's all." She approaches him and swipes a hand on his button-up shirt to dust him off. "Yep, you're all safe." She pulls her hands back near her chest.

Niko walks over to the cliff's edge, looking down. The platform he landed on is now below again. "If I was in my demon form, I would have landed on my feet."

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm a half-cat demon, and cats always land on their feet. Duh!" he says, jokingly.

"Oh, right." She reaches around and pulls her ponytail in front of her face, realizing it's still brown. "So, how do I turn into my demon form?"

Grabbing the top of his okatana sheath, he nervously says, "Well, I was hoping Lord Tora would be here to help you with that."

Chisai looks around. "Well, I don't see him." She faces Niko. "How do you do it?"

Feeling a slight déjà vu moment from last night, Niko tries to form the words needed to finish that thought. "I just....well, I.....you see...." He tries to think of the best way to describe it.

After a few minutes of silence, Chisai starts to get a little impatient. "Well?"

He reacts, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" Recognizing that it is hard find the right words for something that just comes automatically, he tries his best. "Okay, you know how you breathe, right?"

Taken back by the awkwardness of the question at hand, Chisai pauses before answering. "Yeah...."

"You don't think about it – you just do it."

Expecting a little more, Chisai tries to push the conversation forward. "And...?"

"That's just the thing: I was never taught how to transform. I just woke up one day and it just sorta happened."

"So how's that supposed to help me?"

Looking at his okatana, and the hand that is holding it, he has an idea and looks back at Chisai. "Okay, we're going to try something. How about this: think about trying to move your arm."

"Which one?"

Feeling embittered, he barks back. "It doesn't matter. Pick one!"

"Okay, okay" she says submissively as she looks at her right arm.

"Now, using just your thoughts, move your arm."

She looks at Niko like he's crazy. "What?"

"Just go with me, here."

Her arm starts to raise up.

"Good! You basically used your mind to do that."

"And...?" she says, trying to get to the point.

"...and that's what you need to do in order to get your abilities to activate. Just think about it – literally!"

She lowers her arm to her side.

Niko backs up to increase the distance between them. "Look at me and watch what I do." He closes his eyes and focuses.

A slight gust of wind comes from below and fluffs his hair out and makes his black over shirt flow. From the top of his head, his hair gradually turns from fiery red to sleek silver. Long dark marks appear from his jawline to his cheeks. His teeth start to peer out from his top lip over his lower one. Triangular ears start to grow from the top of his head.

The wind dies down, his hair lays on his head, and his over shirt rests on his form. He opens his eyes to look at Chisai. They turned from dark navy to a darker red than his hair previously was.

"That's all there is to it. I just thought about it, and it happened. Just like breathing or moving your arm."

Making her stance wider, Chisai starts to get serious about this. "Okay, so all I have to do is focus."

"Yep. Focus with all of your strength to make it happen. You know what you look like in demon form, so just think about that."

"You sound like a cheesy kids show, you know that?" She says jokingly.

"Just do it. Who cares what I sound like?" he asks rhetorically.

She strengthens her stance and closes her eyes, trying to focus all of her strength into transforming.

A few moments later, she opens her eyes. "I don't feel any different. Did I do it?" She reaches around and pulls her ponytail to look at it.

"No, but try again. Picture yourself as a demon – you know, the reflection you saw at Lord Tora's house." Niko says with as much support as he can muster, without sounding sarcastic.

Chisai restrengthen her stance and closes her eyes. Blocking everything else out of her mind, except for the image she saw in the mirror of herself in demon form, she puts forward all she can spare to focus.

A small gust of wind comes from below, fluffing her hair up and whipping her ponytail around. Gradually, her hair changes hues from dark brown to bright orange. She starts to feel a tingly feeling on her cheeks as the dark marks grow from her jawline upwards. As her canine teeth start to become longer, she pulls her lower lip back for them to grow. She also feels something.....different about her body; her senses have increased, her heart rate changes, and she feels like she can run faster, jump farther, react faster, and more. Her hearing sensitivity increases as she feels some things on her head, remembering that her ears have moved.

The gust of wind dies down and her hair falls back into place. She slowly opens her eyes, almost forgetting that she can now see more light as her eyes adjust to the sources.

"See? That's what it is like!" Niko says as he starts clapping.

Chisai walks over to the car and looks at the window, focusing in on her reflection. Her eyes have changed color from emerald to violet.

"I did it! I did it!" She yells excitedly as she jumps up and down.

"I told you. That's the best way I could describe it." Niko says as he walks over to her.

She brings up her hands to touch the marks on her face. "I feel so....different."

"Yeah, that takes some getting used to. But don't worry – the feelings subside after a while."

"So, how do we change back?" she asks, feeling like she should know that since she now knew how to change into demon form.

"As I said: the only way I know how is to go to sleep. Once your mind becomes unconscious...."

".....'the demon abilities are suppressed until you call them out again.'" Chisai butts in and finishes the sentence. "Yeah, yeah, you said that yesterday. I was hoping there was another way, like 'on demand.'"

"Not unless you know of a way I don't."

"Doubt it." She says as she looks at the window again.

A loud shrieking echos from the distance, causing both of them to look in that direction. "What was that?" they say simultaneously.

A small yellow bird is seen far off in the distance. It seems to be perched on a large horn, attached to an ancient skeleton resting on one of the rocks far in the distance. "Did that thing make the noise?" Chisai asks.

The bird jumps off of the horn and flies towards Niko and Chisai, but aims below them.

"I don't know. It seems too small to make that loud of a noise." Niko says as he looks around for another source.

Moments later, the ground below them starts shaking, and a low rumbling is heard all around. Niko separates his feet to get a better and more solid stance to counteract the shaking. However, as Chisai tries to find something to hold on to, she calls out to Niko. "Niko, what's going on?"

The sight of a large, gold beak, followed by a bird head and neck, rose from the edge of the cliff, and continued to raise upwards towards the sky. A growing shadow follows the movement of the bird and covers up Niko and Chisai, along with the majority of the floating rock they are on.

As he looks up and sees the large body of a bird rise as well, followed by long, three legs and flowing gold tail feathers, Niko connects the two items together: a gold bird and Tora's gold house. "Yep, this is a training exercise."

The bird is hovering above the two half-demons and starts flapping to keep its position.

"You're kidding, right? How are we supposed to defeat that thing?" Chisai yells as she scrambles to hold on to Niko's car.

"I guess we need to put ourselves to the test." Niko breaks the seal of his sword from his sheath and quickly draws it out. "Alright – time to test this out!"

The large gold bird swoops down towards Niko, keeping close to the ground. Okay, this is my chance! Niko starts running towards the large bird, holding his sword above his head.

What is he doing? There's no way that will work! Chisai thinks as she holds tight to his car.

Niko and the large bird quickly decrease their distance from each other. Thinking that he is close enough, Niko swings downward and starts to unleash his newest attack. "HELLFI-"

The large bird raises its altitude and glides right over Niko's head. The tip of the blade scratches the bird's underbelly, producing a high-pitched screech equivalent to nails scratching a chalkboard. As the bird flies by, one of its feet hits Niko across the chest, knocking him to the ground.

As he rolls away, Chisai calls out, "NIKO!"

Pushing himself off the dusty ground, he rubs his face as he responds. "I'm okay." He stands up and turns to the direction the bird flew.

On the other side of the rock, the bird starts hovering again. This time, the light that created its shadow is now being reflected off of its gold body and wings, casting a blinding light across Niko and Chisai.

"AH! It's too bright!" Chisai puts an arm up by her eyes to protect herself. Niko stays as he his, breathing heavily.

The large bird starts flapping its wings faster, generating large gusts of wind towards Niko and Chisai.

Chisai, holding on to Niko's car, holds on with all of her might. The car slides slightly, which makes her readjust and tighten her grip. Niko, on the other hand, tries to tough it out by getting low to the ground.

The large bird slows its flapping, making the gusts of wind die down.

"It's big, it's gold, and it can generate large gusts of wind. What other surprises does this big chicken have?" Niko says as he stands back up.

Swooping down for another pass, the large bird stays close to the ground again.

Good – another chance to unleash my attack. Niko reinforces his stance as the bird approaches. He raises his sword above his head, ready to attack.

When the large bird is within striking distance of him, he swings his sword downwards. "HELLFIRE!"

Moments after the fire and fissures appear from where the sword struck the ground, the large bird lifts up again, flying right over Niko's head. This time, Niko slips between the bird's three feet. Looking down to where he struck, the fissures his attack made caused large gashes in the rock face. Niko turns around to face the bird again, which is hovering at the spot it originally arrived.

"What am I supposed to do?" Chisai asks towards Niko.

A little preoccupied by his target, and frustrated that his last two attacks failed, Niko didn't want to answer that. Instead, he provided a sarcastic answer. "I don't know – get your weapon out and fly or something."

Thinking that Niko was serious, Chisai looks up at the bird, thinking of the best way to attack it. "Okay, let's do this!" She puts her left hand on top of her right, trying to crack her knuckles. To her surprise, the jewel on her glove lights up.

A little scared by the jewel lighting up, she pulls her hands away, and a large pole-like weapon appears in her left hand from her right. Looking up at the metallic end in awe, she feels empowered. "Whoa. I did not expect that!"

The large bird extends its wings outward, which start to form arcs of electricity around them. Seeing the sparks form on the wings, Niko prepares himself for an electric-type attack and runs to find something that won't conduct electricity. As soon as he is behind a tree by the shallow pool, he realizes that Chisai is still by the car. "Chisai! Move away from the car!" he says as he waves in her direction, motioning for her to move away.

Flapping its wings once again, the large bird causes gusts of wind to flow across the rock face, although not as strong as last time. Feathers start to fly from the bird's wings and head straight towards Niko and Chisai.

When the first few feathers hit near Niko, they hit the ground and insert themselves a good third of the way in, with such force making the rock face shake a bit.

Noticing that Chisai was still by the car, Niko tries to call out, "Chisai!" hoping to get her attention, and to snap out of whatever trance she was in.

More feathers hit around Niko, which make him duck for cover. One feather slices through the tree he was hiding behind, nearly missing his head. The tree slides off of its base where it was cut and falls into the pool of water.

Thinking the worst had happened to Chisai, Niko grudgingly looks over. Countless feathers have inserted themselves into the ground near his car. Thinking of his priorities first, he realizes that the car is untouched. Good, the car is safe. Then it hits him: Where is Chisai?

Hoping to determine what the large bird was going to do next, he looks up in its direction. The large bird quickly flaps, then swoops again close to the ground. Realizing that the bird was making a beeline straight for Niko's position, he launches himself into the pool of water.

The large bird swoops by, missing Niko, and continues its flight to the other side of the rock face.

"Brrrrrr.....this water is cold!" Niko says as he frantically swims to the shore closest to his car.

Gaining some ground on the shore, Niko stands up, shakes off some of the water, and runs over to his car. He swerves around the implanted feathers, but notices that the electric arcs are no longer present. Expecting to see the shredded remains of the girl he had just met sent an uneasy and unsettling feeling through his being. However, he must continue on to assess the situation, no matter the consequences.

Once he reaches his car, he doesn't see any blood splatter, or the sign of a body. He sheathes his sword, then reaches up to gain some stability on the car as he breathes heavily, trying to regain some strength. But, if she isn't by the feathers, where did she go?

He looks around the area, trying to find any sign of Chisai's whereabouts. Thinking of the considerable options, he grabs the door handle and flings it open, hoping she got in the car for protection. No luck.

He runs around to the other end of the car, hoping she had run for cover. Once again, no luck. "Where did she go?"

A high-pitched "WHIISH" is heard from above, quickly turning into a low-pitched "WHOOSH". Niko looks up, hoping it wasn't another large bird.

Instead, he sees the green shirt and blue jeans of Chisai – flying in the air towards the large bird. Trying to comprehend what he had just seen, he says out loud, "Whoa. When I said 'fly', I didn't mean it literally!"

Chisai, holding her weapon below her, flies towards the large bird at the other end of the rock face.

"Chisai!" Niko yells out to her. "You can fly?"

Quickly glancing down at the call of her name, she sees Niko. Focusing back on her target, she faces the large bird again, but does a double-take to make sure she actually saw what she thought she saw. "Niko, where did your demon abilities go?" Not realizing how fast she was approaching, she slams head-first into the chest of the large bird.

Confused by her question, Niko turns to his car's side mirror to get a look at himself. Sure enough, his hair had returned to its normal red color, the marks on his cheeks were gone, and his eyes had returned to dark navy. "How'd that happen?" He touches his hair and his cheeks to make sure it wasn't just an illusion.

The large bird shakes a bit, which causes Chisai to fall from its chest. Unconscious, she falls head-first towards the rock face. Her weapon turns to light and zooms towards her jewel.

Niko looks up to see if Chisai had made contact with the bird. Hoping to see some sort of damage to the bird, he instead saw Chisai falling straight down. Her brown hair was a sign that she had been knocked unconscious, or went to sleep in the air. Expecting the former, he calls out, "CHISAI!" and quickly pushes himself off the car, straight to Chisai's targeted landing position.

Focusing on his mission of saving Chisai from face-planting into the ground, Niko's instincts kick in. He approaches Chisai's position faster and faster.

Thinking that he is only moments from saving her, he lunges himself towards her with his arms extended in front, hoping to catch her in a last attempt. Shortly after, he lands in the dust, making a large dust cloud form around him.

Not hearing the violent "splat" of impact, he opens his eyes slowly. Noticing that his hair had folded over his eyes, and was silver again, he shakes his head to move it away from his eyes. When the dust settles, he sees Chisai is horizontal, which means that she was saved, but she is a bit further away than he expected. She wasn't in his arms.

Instead, she was in arms covered by long red sleeves with black trim, and held by hands that had a partial black covering on them.

Niko focuses his eyes on the figure holding her. He coughs a bit and waves in front of his face, trying to get the residual dust out of his way. The red sleeves were just the start; they connected to a long red overcoat that continued the black trim pattern, but looked extremely worn. This person was wearing jet black pants, heavy reinforced black boots, and a blank white t-shirt. Finally, as Niko made eye contact, the other person's ice-blue eyes met his precisely, with parted half-length gold hair on either side of his face.

"Did'cha lose something?" he says.

Niko quickly stands up, pushing the hair out of his face and dusting himself off. "That's mine."

The person looks down at Chisai's face, then back up at Niko. "What, you mean this?"

Niko points straight towards Chisai and lines his body up with the direction. "She's mine!" he reiterates, but with more volume.

"Is that so? Well, you missed her." the person says.

Within the fraction of a second, Niko reaches to the handle of his okatana and draws it out, pointing it directly at the person's neck. "Hand her over. I'm warning you."
Disregarding Niko's warning, the person looks upwards and starts to ascend. Realizing that as the person rises up, and his sword's position at the person's neck, Chisai may come into contact with the sword. So Niko pulls it back to a safe position.

Keeping eye contact with the person as he ascends, Niko's peripheral vision sees the item responsible for the ascension: he is standing on a small inverted cone-shaped rock, similar to the ones all around the area.

"If you really want to save her, I'll let you do it." The person says as he is floating above Niko. "Here you go." He lets go of Chisai, directly above Niko.

Niko quickly sheathes his sword and holds his arms out to catch Chisai. Landing hard in his arms, he has to bend his knees to take some of the force.

"There. You saved her. Enjoy your stay," the person says as he floats away from Niko, Chisai, and the large bird.

Dumbfounded by the recent events, Niko calls out. "Wait!"

The person stops moving forward on his rock and looks back. "What?"

Not expecting the person to actually wait, Niko searches for words. "Why?"

The person's rock turns towards Niko and gradually floats downwards, merging with the rock face below until the person is level with Niko. "'Why' what?"

The large gold bird perches on the cliff with the waterfall, looking over the squabble.

Niko looks down at Chisai. "Why did you save her?" then looks back up at the person's ice-blue eyes. "Why are you here? And who are you?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. So many questions, and yet, so few answers." The person says.

"Quit it with the riddles!" Niko yells out angrily.

"Let me guess: you were sent here by Tora, right?"

Taken back by the mention of Tora's name, Niko straightens up his posture to the point of actually stepping back. "You mean Lord Tora, right? I guess so."

"Then you were captured, just like me."

"WHAT?"

Niko's loud question makes Chisai open her eyes. When she looks up, she sees Niko's silver hair and red eyes. "Niko?"

Niko looks down at Chisai. "Chisai! Hey! You're awake!" He places her on the ground, feet first.

Looking around to see what the situation was, she asks, "What happened?"

The person speaks up. "Ahem. Allow me: you were fighting my pet bird and slammed into him. You then fell unconsciously towards the ground, and...." he looks slyly at Niko. "This dimwit caught you."

As he finishes making sure Chisai can stand on her own, Niko throws an evil glare at the person.

Chisai composes herself and looks around the ground, trying to find something.

"Chisai? What's wrong?" Niko asks.

"My weapon. Where'd it go?" She asks with a bit of alarm.

"I didn't see it when you fell. It must have disappeared when you were knocked out." he says as he reaches for a bit of her brown hair to show her.

Grabbing the hair presented to her, Chisai is a little upset and stomps a bit on the ground. "I changed back? But why? I just became a demon and wanted to stay one, at least for a little while!"

"HA!" the person says out loud.

Niko and Chisai look over to the person.

Holding his mouth to try and contain any more uncontrolled outbursts, it's easy to tell that he is smiling.

"What's so funny?" Niko asks with a jeering expression.

He holds out a finger and points to Niko and Chisai. Removing his hand from his mouth, he continues. "So, you two are...demons?"

Chisai stops stomping and calms down. "Well, technically, we're half demons."

Niko glares at Chisai, realizing that she just gave away any chance of threatening the person in front of them.

"Even better! Half-demons! You must be a prized treasure for Tora." the person says. He walks over to Niko, reaches up to one of Niko's ears, and pinches it. "And I'm assuming you are....cat demons, right?"

Feeling insulted, Niko gets closer to the person, invading his personal space. "What is this about Lord Tora?"

The person reacts to Niko's approach and puts his hands up by his head in a surrender-like fashion. "Hey, don't blame me. Not many people come to this location by choice, which most likely means you were sent here by Tora to enhance your abilities."

Since processing what the person had said made at least some sense, Niko backs up and straightens his posture. "Well, that's the point, isn't it? This is a training ground."

"Nooooo, no no no no. This isn't a training ground. This is a prison."

Niko and Chisai are shocked by the word.

Extending his arms to either side of him, the person says as he walks towards Chisai, slowly turning in circles. "Look all around you. The color of the sky extends for a full three hundred and sixty degrees. No top, no bottom, no sides. This area goes on forever. Do you see an entrance, or an exit? Do you see a ticket booth?" He starts to get louder. "Do you know how far the ground is below us?"

Niko and Chisai looks all around, thinking about what the person had said.

The person steps closer to Niko, pushing into his face. Niko can feel the air coming from his nose. "If this is a training ground, then explain how I have been here – for seven years." The person pulls his face back and walks towards the pool.

Slightly freaked out, Niko straightens up. "Seven...years? How'd you get here?"

Looking at his gold-haired reflection in the glossy pool, he sighs, then answers. "The same way you did: a mysterious white light brought me here, and I've been searching for a way out ever since."

Trying to be the optimist in this situation, Chisai walks up to him, her reflection standing beside his. He looks up at her. "Well, if we're all here together, let's at least join forces to find a way out."

Niko walks up on the other side of the person, "...and not try to kill each other?"

Chisai looks at Niko with a puzzling look.

The person looks at his reflection, then at Chisai, then Niko, then back at his reflection. He puts his arms behind him, then around Niko and Chisai's necks and pulls them in for a close hug. "What the hell? At this point, I've got nothing to lose!"

Chisai and Niko are trying to pry his arms off of their necks. The person finally lets go when he realizes what they are doing.

Stepping back from the pool, Niko and Chisai rub their necks trying to restore feeling. The person turns around to face them, and claps his hands trying to pump up the morale. "Well, if we are going to join forces, let me at least introduce myself. I'm....." he pauses, realizing that he hasn't had to tell anyone his name in over seven years. Searching through his memories, he tries to find what he had been called for at least fifteen years. "Kitsune. Kitsune Kaji." he says as he bows with grace.

As Kitsune raises back up, Chisai continues. "Hi Kitsune! I'm Chisai Konami. Nice to meet you." Kitsune extends a hand in Chisai's direction. As Chisai firmly grasps it, Kitsune wraps his other hand around hers and gives a full-fledged hand shake.

"I'm Niko Sakuna." Niko says as he continues rubbing the back of his neck. "You never did answer my questions before."

Kitsune lets go of Chisai's hand and looks at Niko. "What questions were those, again?"

Niko loudly sighs. "Why'd you save...." thinking back to the question he had proposed, then the fact that Kitsune gave him the credit for saving Chisai, he reworded the question. "...us? I mean, if you said that bird" he says pointing to the large gold bird perched on the waterfall cliff side, "was your pet, then why attack us, then stop the attack?"

Kitsune looks behind him at the large gold bird. "Ah, yes. That." he turns back to Niko to answer his question with clarification, and to see the expression on his face when he answers. "At the time, I didn't see you as a threat."

Niko's expression turns from one of slight anger to chagrin. "What?"

"You heard me. My bird likes to play with things, or people, that he finds. He saw you as a game. When I came by, trying to see what all of the commotion was about, I saw your pathetic attempts of attacking him. So it was either let you fight it out, and he would torment you or tear you to shreds, or you would be falling for all of eternity to the bottomless abyss that is this area."

Feeling ashamed of being called out like that, Niko starts to speak. "We could've taken him if we had more time!"

Kitsune laughs aloud again. "HA! There's no way you're on the same level as my Kinhouou. He can swallow you up in a heartbeat. He was just playing with you."

"Aww, I wanted to try out my new abilities." Chisai pleaded.

Niko looks around. "Well, what's stopping you from attacking those trees?" He points over at the foliage by the pool. "Just watch out for the cold water."

Kitsune looks at Niko with a peering glance. "Why is that?"

"Well, I think when I was in my demon form," Niko runs his hands in front of him from his head down, showing off his features in a quick display, "and your bird attacked me with its electric feathers..."

"Ah yes, that's one of his favorite attacks." Kitsune says.

"Anyway, I jumped into the pool, hoping to avoid the attacks. I think the cool water made me change back to my human form."

Kitsune stares at Niko. "Are you that stupid?"

Niko backs up a bit. "What?"

"If my Kinhouou had sent an electric feather into the pool, you would have been fried to a crisp!"

Niko has a vacant expression on his face as he thinks about the reaction between electricity and water. "Oh. Yeah. Whoops!"

Feeling a small gust of wind shoot up, Niko looks over. As Chisai faces the foliage area, her hair fades to orange, the marks appear on her cheeks, and her eyes drastically turn from emerald to violet. She launches herself towards the trees ready to attack.

Niko and Kitsune follow her with their eyes, amazed that her feet aren't touching the ground as she glides across.

She reaches over to her right hand and quickly pulls her hands apart. A light beam appears between her hands and morphs into her weapon.

As she decreases the distance between her and the foliage, Niko wonders what she is going to do. Will she try to slash at the trees? Will she use the bushes as target practice? Will she-

Within feet of the closest tree, Chisai calls out with an echo as she swings her weapon in front of her. "Twilight glaive!" An arc of white light appears from where she swung and proceeds to slice through the tree in front of her, and the trees behind it, and the bushes, and the vines, and anything else in its path.

Chisai slows her flight down to land right after the first tree.

Kitsune and Niko run over to Chisai's position.

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Chisai yells out in excitement as she raises her weapon up in the air, then falls backwards on the stump to rest.

As Kitsune and Niko approach her, Niko joins in on her excitement. "How did you....?

Kitsune bends down to inspect a sliced tree stump in front of Chisai. As he runs his hand across the flattened surface, he speaks up. "If I knew you could have done this, I'd....." he becomes speechless.

Niko runs over to the gashes that his Hellfire attack made earlier. "What about me? Look at these!" he points down at the fissures. "This is from my attack!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. All you did was dig a hole." Kitsune says, brushing Niko off.

Feeling brushed off, Niko starts stomping on the ground towards Kitsune, ready to punch his head in for that comment.

Before Niko can reach Kitsune, a tall, oval-shaped white light appears from behind Niko's car, creating a low whirring sound. Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune look in that direction.

"Either that's a new recruit, or we just found the exit." Kitsune says as he starts to walk closer, then starts sprinting to the white light.

A faint slow clap is heard coming from the light. Moments later, Tora walks through the white oval with Seyogi on his shoulder.

"Tora!" Kitsune yells out, stopping abruptly. He reaches behind him and grabs the two kamas he kept on his back, and braces for a battle.

As Tora approaches Kitsune, he reaches out a hand of peace. "Ah, Kitsune. I'm glad I found you here. I was worried."

"Cut the crap and let me go!" Kitsune says as he lunges forward to strike at Tora. Niko and Chisai are appalled at the fact that anyone would want to strike such a master.

Tora holds up a hand in the direction of Kitsune's closest kama. The kama's point hits Tora's hand and stops, like a moment frozen in time. "Must you be so violent? I had hoped you learned to come to peace with yourself." he says in a peaceful manner.

"I'm violent because I want to kill you!" Kitsune says as he increases his volume and swings with his other kama. Again, Tora blocks it.

Niko runs up to Kitsune's side, trying to hold him back, and addresses Tora. "Lord Tora, is what Kitsune says true? Is this place really a prison that you put us all in here to suffer?"

"Ha ha ha." Tora gives a light laugh. "My child, this is merely a training ground to help you realize the limits of your abilities."

Seyogi speaks up. "That is correct, Master Niko. This training ground has been used by many a warrior over the ages."

Looking all around him, Niko raises another question. "Well, what about the endless sky and bottomless abyss?"

"Merely an illusion created by the magic of the area. Witness as I toss this little pebble off the side." Tora pushes Kitsune back with enough force to make him lose his balance slightly, then bends over to pick up a small rock and tosses it over the side of the rock face.

Expecting it to drop forever, Niko listens closely for any kind of sound. Chisai walks up behind them, hoping to learn more about what is going on.

Tora opens up his palm in front of him, facing upwards. Seconds later, the same small rock falls from the sky into his hand. Tora wraps his hand around the small rock and moves it between two fingers to present to the others. "See? The 'bottomless abyss,' as you put it, is merely an illusion. The bottom just continues into the top, and thus completes the cycle." He extends his arms to his sides. "Why else do you think this is the largest rock face in the area, and the only one with foliage and water?"

Niko and Chisai look around at the other floating rock pieces, realizing what Tora said is true. Kitsune says in a battle-ready stance facing Tora.

Tora continues, "This is the central point of the training area."

Once they heard all of what Tora had to say, Niko and Chisai each had an "A-ha" moment as they connected all of dots in Tora's explanation.

"You're not fooling me. If this really is a training ground, why couldn't I leave?" Kitsune says as he flips his kamas in his hands, making sure he is ready for any sudden moves that Tora may have.

"My dear Kitsune; you were brought here by accident. I did not know you were here. If I did, I would have let you out as soon as you arrived." Tora says with a slight mischievousness in his voice.

"Do you know what I've done over the past seven years?" Kitsune says loudly.

"Oh my. Seven years, you say? Well, I'm sure your family is quite worried about you." Tora turns to open a direct path between Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune, and the oval-shaped white light. "How about I offer this as compensation: you may leave right now."

Kitsune starts to relax and stand up, but is confused by Tora's offer. "Wha...what?"

"You may leave." Tora says as he extends a hand towards the light.

"Seriously? I can just leave?" Kitsune asks, making sure he heard correctly.

"Actually, all of you can leave. Niko, you have demonstrated your defensive techniques and your newest attack. Chisai, you have activated your demonic abilities on demand, and discovered your newest ability and attack. Well done."

"....and me?" Kitsune says, still holding onto his kamas with a death grip.

"Ah, Kitsune. You have progressed quite well over the years. Your ability to move earth on demand has improved dramatically."

Hearing what Tora just said, Niko thinks back to when Kitsune was on one of the floating rocks, then slowly lowered his rock to merge with the rock face. 'Move earth on demand'? That's an ability I haven't heard of before.

"Just walk through the light and you will be back where you belong." Tora says.

Niko walks over to his car. "What about my car? Can I drive it through?"

"Niko, you may drive it through, but only you alone." Tora says.

Slightly confused at Tora's last statement, Niko looks over at Chisai.

"Do not worry about her, young one. She shall travel through as well, but on her own." Tora says.

Confident that Tora is telling the truth, Niko opens the driver door, places his sword in the back seat, and pushes the start button. He quickly turns the car towards the white light, drives towards it, and stops right as the front of the car touches the white light. Lowering his window, he calls out to Kitsune and Chisai. "See you guys on the other side." Then drives forward into the white light and disappears.

Chisai walks up to Tora. "Will it really take me home?"

Tora answers in a confident voice. "Little one, I promise that it will take you back where you belong."

Picturing her home in her mind, she starts to get excited. She turns to Kitsune, just to make sure he won't be left behind. "You're coming too, right Kitsune?"

Seeing Niko leave gave him some hope. He places his kamas on his back and relaxes. "Yeah, I'll be right behind you."

Accepting his answer, Chisai smiles at him. "Okay! See you there!" She walks through the light and disappears, just like Niko and his car.

Kitsune looks up at his golden bird. The bird raises a wing towards him, trying to wave goodbye. He raises a hand in the bird's direction, replying his goodbye as well. A tear rolls down his face as he thinks of the past seven years: his first arrival, fighting the large bird multiple times, becoming friends with it, swimming in the glossy clear pool, sleeping by the waterfall, discovering and developing his earth movement powers, always trying to find a way out. The thought of losing the only friend he had after seven years left a hole in his heart that he knew he couldn't fill again.

Kitsune slowly walks up to the light, but Tora places a hand between him and the light. In a deep, raspy voice, Tora speaks down to him. "If you ever try to escape again, I will make sure you never leave." Tora lowers his head towards Kitsune, making sure that Kitsune could see his sinister glare.

Kitsune takes a big gulp, knowing that this was his chance to finally leave. He could see his father again, even though he slightly despised his way of life; he could see his little sister again, and how she had grown; he could find his old friends again and talk about the good old times; he could visit his mother's grave and mourn her loss. His chance was less than an arm's length away, staring him in the face.

Tora slowly raises his hand between Kitsune and the white light. "Are we clear?" his low, raspy voice says.

With all of the negative thoughts that had gone through his head, Kitsune knew that being this close to Tora meant that if he wanted to, Tora could easily snap his neck within a second, which meant that he had to basically be on his good side from now until he walked through the light. "Yep, all good here!" He says nervously.

"Then you may proceed." Tora says as he puts his hands into his sleeves.

Kitsune takes another large gulp as he steps forward, and into the white light.

As he continues to step forward, the white light quickly fades away behind him. Once his eyes adjust from looking at bright light to the lower-lit surroundings around him, it all becomes clear. He was free from his prison, but did not see what he expected.

Hoping that his friends were near, Kitsune calls out for them. "Chisai? Niko?"

Minutes of silence pass by.

As he looks around, the sight of dense trees, bushes, hanging vines, and other green foliage meant one thing and one thing only: he had been tricked, again.

"Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!" he yells out as he jumps up and down in anger. "How'd I fall for something that easy?" He reaches for the nearest tree trunk and throws a hard punch at it.

His punch makes a shallow dent in the tree's thick bark.

Feeling a bit better, now that he released a bit if steam, he exhales, trying to regain his focus. Pushing all of his anger aside, he starts to hear faint noises in the far distance. Varying degrees of monotone music. Series of low-pitched vroooom sounds, starting high and getting lower. High-pitched serialized squeaking. Continuous loops of ambient noise of.....he couldn't put his finger on the exact identification, but it was definitely a sound that he hadn't heard in quite some time.

He looks up through the canopy at the blue cloudy sky. "Well, back to square one. How do I get out of here?"

Seeing a path of worn-down vegetation gives him some hope. Walking down the worn path, he enters the jungle, hoping to find a clue to where he is.

Chapter 6

Driving out of the white light, Niko quickly surveys his surroundings and notices that he is driving in Chisai's neighborhood. "This must be where I'm supposed to be. Lord Tora said so." He looks at his car's time display, which says 11:43AM. "And just in time for lunch. Maybe Chisai and I can grab something to eat." A tuft of hair falls into his peripheral vision, and he notices that it had turned red again. "And I'm human again. I guess Tora can control my transformation too."

He pulls over to the concrete staircase in front of Chisai's house and steps out. As he runs up the staircase to her front door, it automatically opens. "Chisai?" he calls out, hoping that she was home.

"Niko! Hi! You made it!" Chisai says as she walks through the kitchen doorway into the living room, making direct eye contact with Niko at the front door.

"Uh, yeah. The light gateway dropped me off here."

"You took so long, I thought you'd never make it." Chisai says as she walks back into the kitchen.

Niko makes his way into the living room, adjacent to the front hallway, and places a hand on the back of the couch to seem comfortable. "You thought I'd never make it? How long ago did you arrive?"

Chisai walks back into the living room holding a cookie sheet with triangular rice balls wrapped in seaweed. "I got back about an hour ago. I was hoping you would arrive soon, so I made some onigiri for us to enjoy!" She says as she places them on the table in front of the couch, then sits on the couch. She pats the seat next to her, inviting Niko to sit.

"An hour? I didn't think it took that long." He walks around to the front of the couch and sits next to Chisai.

She reaches into her pocket, opposite the side of Niko, and pulls out her cell phone. She looks at it, then shows it to Niko. "Yeah, look!" The digital time display showed 12:45PM. "I guess the light gateway transports things with a time delay."

Looking a little suspicious of Chisai's recent statement, Niko reluctantly agrees. "Yeah, I guess so."

Chisai puts her cell phone back in her pocket and reaches over to grab an onigiri ball. She offers it to Niko. "Here, take one!" she says with a smile.

Niko slowly reaches up to grab the onigiri from her hand. "Thank you. I guess I am a little hungry." Caught up in the string of events, a thought pops into Niko's head. "Hey, do you know what happened to Kitsune?"

Chisai has a vacant look on her face.

Not paying attention to her expression, Niko raises the onigiri to his mouth.

A few seconds later, she responds. "Who?"

Not expecting to receive that specific question from her, he pauses from taking his first bite and lowers the rice ball. "You know. Gold hair, red jacket, black pants." He pauses a bit to think of what else just happened moments ago. "We fought the huge gold bird at the training grounds. You got your demonic abilities and flew right into it."

Processing the information presented by Niko, Chisai puts a hand behind her head, closes her eyes and offers a fake smile. "Oh yeah. I almost forgot about him! Heh heh..."

***

"Where am I?" Chisai asks as she walks onto a sidewalk of a bustling city. As she walks forward, the light behind her quickly fades away. One thing that she notices is that she is no longer carrying her glaive in her hand. As she looks down at her hand that was carrying her weapon, she starts to panic, thinking that she had lost it.

"Chisai!" a familiar voice calls out.

She looks in the direction of the voice, only to find Niko waving his arm in the air to get her attention. He is standing in front of a table at an outdoor noodle shop.

Worried that she was still in her demon form in front of a large amount of customers, and possibly some of her friends, she runs up to Niko, hoping that not many people saw her. "Niko! When did you get here, and where are we?" She says as she quickly approaches the table.

Niko pulls out a chair and offers it to her. "I got here about an hour ago. I thought you were right behind me, so I started waiting. After about 45 minutes, I ordered some noodles for us to enjoy, hoping you would arrive soon."

She leaned in to Niko and asked the question on her mind. "Niko, am I still in my demon form?"

Niko looks at Chisai like she just told the punch line of a joke. "What? Of course not!" he says as he lifts a hand to grab some of her hair and shows it to her.

Relieved, Chisai turns around and sits in the chair offered to her. Niko quickly moves to the other side and sits in a chair of his own.

"Really? You've been here for almost an hour?" Chisai asks as she smells the aroma of warm flavorful noodles. The sight of a cold blue drink sits near her bowl.

"Yeah." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. "Look," he says as he holds it up for Chisai to see.

The digital display on the cell phone says 12:44PM. Chisai couldn't believe that an hour had passed from when she walked through the light in the first place. "Well, I guess it's time for lunch then!" She says with a smile as she holds up her chopsticks.

"Agreed!" Niko holds his chopsticks up and breaks them apart, ready to eat.

Chisai pulls up a few noodles from her steaming hot bowl and slurps them up. "Mm-mmm!" After a few seconds, she says, "These are delicious!"

Niko picks up a few noodles and starts slurping them up as well.

"So if it took me nearly an hour to get here, shouldn't Kitsune be here in roughly an hour?" Chisai asks as she picks up another few noodles.

Niko stops mid-slurp. "Mmph?" Noodles are hanging from his mouth.

"You know, the guy that we just met, before coming here. He kept saying that he was in a 'prison'. He had the large gold bird!"

Niko finishes slurping his noodles, then nods his head. "Right, him." He wipes his mouth. "Haven't seen him yet."

"Well, he should be here soon. Hopefully there are plenty of noodles left for him!" Chisai says as she picks up some more noodles.

A chiming ding echoes through the house. Only a few centimeters from his mouth, Niko is denied his first bite, yet again, as he lowers his onigiri to look at the front door. He then looks at Chisai, trying to figure out which one of them will answer it. Being the chivalrous man, he places his onigiri back on the cookie sheet and stands up to walk to the door.

Upon his approach, the door opens. "Naki! Hey!"

Nakafumi, standing on the other side of the door, is surprised to see her old friend from cram school, and more importantly, her crush. "Niko? What are you doing here?"

Trying not to explain that he had just come from demonic training, he answers with the only reasonable explanation he can come up with on the spot. "It's a long story."

"It's okay – we should get together and catch up." She tries her hardest not to reveal her feelings towards him.

Relieved that she doesn't ask for his real reason, he agrees with her. "Yeah. There's a great noodle shop in downtown. We should get a meal there soon."

"Sounds like a plan. Text me with a time." Changing the subject to reflect her real reason for appearing at Chisai's house, Nakafumi continues talking. "Anyway, I'm actually here to see how Chisai is doing. The whole class got really worried when you carried her out of the classroom in a hurry."

"Oh, yeah. She's doing great." Basing his next statement on the context of the conversation, he tries to cover for Chisai. He leans in to Nakafumi and says softly, "I'd rather not explain the details right now." Meanwhile, he thinks If I told her the truth, she'd never believe me.

Understandable of the finer details, Nakafumi nods. "Oh, okay. I understand."

Chisai walks around Niko to see who is at the door.

At the sight of her best friend, Nakafumi raises her voice in excitement. "Chisai!"

Chisai looks at Nakafumi. "Oh, hey, you!"

"I wanted to check up on you, but good ol' Niko here says you're doing just fine!" Nakafumi says as she lightly punches Niko in the arm.

"Oh, yeah. I'm doing great." Chisai responds.

"Since you're doing so well, are you still up for seeing 'Sword Titan 4' later today? I got tickets!" Nakafumi says as she holds up two translucent pieces of paper with reflective details on them.

"You guys are seeing 'Sword Titan 4'? I love that movie!" Niko blurts out as he opens his over shirt for better visibility of his block "Sword Titan" letters on his gray shirt.

At the sight of his shirt, Nakafumi gets caught up in the excitement of the moment, and knowing that her crush had another commonality to her. "Cool! I can see if we can get you a ticket, too! It'll be just like old times!"

"Awesome!" Niko responds back.

Feeling generous, Niko asks Nakafumi "Hey, why don't you come on in? Chisai made some onigiri that I have yet to try."

"NO!" Chisai immediately says. Nakafumi jumps at her response. Realizing that her outburst was unexpected, and not well planned, she tries to think of a reason. "You know how my parents are; only one guest at a time!" She says followed by a light laugh.

Nakafumi sighs. "Yeah, that sounds like your parents alright." She turns around to walk down the walkway. "Well, I'll see you guys at the theater. Say, 4 o'clock?"

Niko raises a hand to wave goodbye to her. "Sounds good. See you then."

Niko starts to walk away from the door, unaware that Nakafumi wanted him to stay. However, with Chisai in the doorway, she feels like she must ask her a question. "Chisai, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Slightly confused at the sudden request, Chisai faces Nakafumi. "What is it?"

Nakafumi wraps an arm around Chisai's neck and walks onto the porch. Getting closer to her so Niko can't hear what she is saying, she whispers to Chisai. "What is he doing here? You know that I've had a crush on him for years!"

Chisai is unsure about how to answer her question. "What? You've never told me that." She says with no emotional attachment.

"I know I've told you that, like, a thousand times!"

"I don't recall you ever telling me that." Chisai says in a monotone voice.

"Look, just don't do anything that might embarrass yourself, or more importantly, me. I still want to see if I can ask him out on a date soon. 'kay?"

Trying to process this new information made Chisai uneasy. "Okay, sure."

Happy with her situation, Nakafumi runs to the oak tree to get her bike. She waves a hand in the air towards Chisai. "Okay, bye! See you guys at the theater at 4!" She picks up her bike resting on the oak tree, hops on, and rides down the street.

Chisai walks back through the front door, which automatically slides closed behind her.

Walking back to the couch, Niko feels compelled to clarify something that had been on his mind, following the recent events. "I didn't know you were a 'Sword Titan' fan, Chisai."

As Chisai sits back on the couch, she reaches over to pick up the onigiri that Niko had placed back on the table. "Yeah, I've been a fan as long as I can remember!"

Picking up the onigiri from her hands, Niko suspiciously responds. "It's only been out for two years."

"Really? Wow, time sure does fly when you have fun with 'Sword Titan.'"

As his suspicion rises, Niko raises the onigiri to his mouth again while keeping a close eye on Chisai.

"Sis, have you see Leo the Leopard?" Buyo calls from the staircase.

"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO STAY IN YOUR ROOM!" Chisai yells up the staircase.

The sudden call from Chisai's younger brother and the sudden outburst from Chisai startled Niko, causing him to drop his onigiri. Once it hits the floor, a few rice grains fall off.

Buyo starts crying at the top of the staircase.

"Whoa, whoa. You talk to your little brother like that?" Niko asks, trying to comprehend the violent side of Chisai.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep beep beep.

A soft series of sequential beeps is heard coming from near Niko. "What is that?" he says as he looks around, he is trying to find the source of the beeps.

The beeps increase in repeating frequency. He looks down and notices a small red glow from the onigiri he just dropped.

"HIT THE DECK!" He calls out as he forces himself over Chisai, pushing both of them towards the kitchen door. As they both fly into the kitchen, he grabs a cabinet edge, swinging himself and Chisai safely behind it.

Moments later, the red glowing light on the onigiri becomes solid red, followed by one second of a solid "Beeeeep".

Niko holds his ears closed to protect himself.

A powerful explosion emerges from the onigiri, quickly expanding outward.

The force of the explosion pushes the couch upwards and towards the kitchen door, blocking Niko and Chisai from the damage.

A few seconds later, after not hearing any debris falling or moving, Niko removes his hands from his ears. "What. The hell. Was that?" He stands up and walks to the couch that is blocking the kitchen doorway, shoving it out of the way to see what the carnage was from the bomb he held in his hand moments earlier.

He was not prepared for what he saw.

A gaping crater was in the middle of the living room floor, and part of the front of the house was blown outwards, wrapped around the oak tree in the yard. Scorched floorboards scattered the whole area, reaching halfway up the staircase. The seating items were scorched and torn to shreds from the explosion. The table that sat in front of the couch was now sticking half-way into the chimney.

As his hearing returns, Niko hears the cry of Buyo from the top of the stairs. Over the crying, he asks, "Chisai, what just happened?"

Not receiving a response, Niko turns to see Chisai, hoping that she wasn't hurt. She was sitting on the ground, laying up against the corner cabinets, but her hair was covering her eyes.

Kneeling down to offer some support, Niko reaches up to push the hair out of her face. "Chisai, are you okay?"

Her eyes are closed, and she seems unconscious.

Realizing his only course of action was to call the emergency support, Niko stands up, takes out his cell phone and looks at it before he dials, noticing something odd. Knowing that that his cell phone synchronized with the network time server provided by the cell phone company, it automatically updated to whatever time was set by the company. So why did it say "11:50AM"?

Pushing those thoughts aside for the moment, he presses the appropriate keys to dial out. "Hello, Emergency Services?"

Behind Niko, Chisai opens her eyes. She starts to snarl.

"I would like to report...." his sentence trails off at the sound of snarling. He turns around to look at Chisai.

Her eyes glowed bright and solid red. She looks at Niko with a sinister expression.

"Hello? What kind of report would you like to file?" the voice on the phone says.

"I-I-I-I gotta call you back." Niko reaches his thumb around to press the "End Call" button.

Chisai's nails grow longer and her teeth become longer – longer than in her demon form.

"Chisai? What's happening?" Niko nervously says as he backs up slowly.

All she does is snarl and growl. Her mouth starts to produce a large amount of drool.

"Chisai?" Niko says, giving her one last chance as he backs up to the refrigerator.

Within the blink of an eye, Chisai lunges at Niko with an arm ready to swipe at him.

He ducks and moves away as her arm goes above him. As he stands back up, he looks at the refrigerator. Large claw marks penetrated through the door and into the food inside. "Whoa! That's new."

Chisai, or what's left of her, turns to Niko, ready to strike again.

Trying to look at her face, Niko barely recognized her anymore. Aside from the brown hair and clothes, it looked more like a mannequin dressed as Chisai than Chisai herself, except with red glowing eyes, long teeth, and sharp talon-like claws.

Seeing that he was no match against "her" without his sword, Niko races towards the front door. The Chisai copy follows him with agile speed.

The door starts to open upon his arrival, but Niko doesn't want to wait for it; he pushes right through the thin semi-translucent door panel, landing on the other side with countless glass shards, and runs towards his car.

The Chisai copy is on all fours, galloping towards Niko.

Arriving at his car, Niko hops in through the window, presses the start button, and stomps the gas.

Within a second, he takes off, and the Chisai copy lands right where his car was.

"That is NOT normal!" Niko says as he speeds along. Hoping he had lost whatever was chasing him, Niko looks in his rear view mirror. To his surprise, the reflection of the Chisai copy is keeping up with his speed. "What? Impossible!" He quickly turns the steering wheel to the right and stomps on the brake, sliding the car's back end left, but pointing the car right. After the car lines up with an adjacent road, Niko stomps on the gas again. "Let's see you keep up with me in the city!"
The Chisai copy stays on his tail, and quickly turns right to follow Niko's car.

"Wow, that was good." Chisai says as she places her bowl on the table after finishing off the broth. "Why haven't I ever been to this place?"

"I don't know – it's been here forever." Niko responds.

Chisai picks up her napkin to wipe her face.

Putting his bowl down on the table as well, Niko reaches for his drink. Noticing that the level of Chisai's drink was unchanged, he thought of mentioning it. "You haven't touched your drink yet. Aren't you thirsty after a long morning?" He takes a sip from his drink.

"No thanks. I find that a flavored drink take away from the flavor of the noodles." Feeling slightly embarrassed, she looks down at her bowl. "It's a personal thing."

"No worries. We each have our own quirks." Niko says as he puts down his cup.

The sound of a speeding car approaches from the distance. Chisai looks up at the direction of the sound. "Who would be speeding through a city at this time of day?"

As she hones in on the sound, the sight of Niko's car speeds past the noodle shop. Following the sight of passing car, Chisai focuses in on the driver. The first thing that she picks up on is the red hair. "Niko, isn't that your car?" She holds up a finger following the car's direction. "A guy that looks just like you just drove by."

Niko turns around to look at the car, missing the sight of it. "What? Nah, that couldn't happen. You must be seeing things."

Moments later, a blur of brown, green, and blue passes the noodle shop at the same speed as the car. The blur snarls and growls as it passes by, frightening some of the customers. Chisai looks down at her clothes, thinking of how coincidental it was that she wore the same colors.

"What is that?" one man yells.

"A monster!" a lady yells as she quickly stands up to get away from the sight.

"Call the police!" another man yells, trying to force himself through the crowd.

Niko and Chisai stay seated as they survey the scene. "I think we should go." Chisai suggests.

"Don't worry, it will pass." Niko says as he raises a hand towards Chisai's cup. "Please, drink up. It may help calm you."

Calm me? How will a drink calm me? Chisai thinks. As she reaches for the cup of blue drink, a frightened customer bumps into their table, knocking the cup over and spilling the blue liquid all across the table.

Chisai quickly stands up, trying to avoid getting the blue liquid on her, and starts looking around for something with which to wipe up the mess. In the chaos of the situation, she doesn't notice that the blue liquid on the table starts to bubble.

Moments later, the table dissolves, dropping the ceramic bowls to the hard ground and shattering. The shattering noise draws Chisai's attention over the chaotic crowd. "What just happened?"

Not hearing a response from Niko, she looks over in his direction. He is no longer in his seat.

She stands on her seat to get a better view above everybody's heads. "Niko?"

The chaos of the unorganized crowd makes it hard to view anything. "Niiii-ko?!" She calls again.

The crowd seems to stand still for a moment, then everyone runs out of the indoor restaurant and away from the building entirely. Chisai tries to get a look inside one of the doors to see what the commotion is about. She sees a bundle of red hair inside, but it moves out of her view.

The object moves into her view again, and she sees the khaki pants and black over shirt that Niko was wearing. "Niko, is that you?" she tries to call again.

The last of the indoor crowd moves outside, which gives Chisai the chance she needed to view the full object that is causing such a racket inside. It was Niko, but he looked different; his eyes glowed bright solid red, his teeth were longer than usual, and he was pouncing and swiping at everything in sight.

One final customer runs out of restaurant, followed by loud claws tearing through the doorway and wall like tissue paper. Tripping over his own feet, he falls to the floor. "Please, spare me!" he yells out.

The glowing eyes of Niko, or whatever he was now, stared directly at Chisai as it held on to the side of the door frame. It starts to snarl in her direction, sounding just like the strange thing that dashed down the road moments ago.

Realizing that she was in its sights, she tries to back up. Catching the armrest of the chair she was standing in, the chair tilts, causing her to fall backwards. The chair catches the railing of the outdoor area and tosses her backwards. As she stumbles, trying to gain her balance after falling off of the chair, she loses her footing and falls on her back.

The Niko copy lunges from the door frame and aims straight for Chisai.

Chisai tries to flip over and push herself off the ground. Right as she gets up, a loud "WHOOSH" followed by a "CLANG" heard from behind. She turns around to see what happened, hoping the monster that attacked her slammed into one of the outdoor poles.

Instead, she sees a figure in a long white floor-length jacket with a silver trim. His black hair spiking up at least a foot from his head. He's hold a long, yellow, glowing sword-like object above him, braced with both hands, holding back the claws of the Niko copy.

"What's going on?" She yells in no specific direction as she starts to run away from.....that.

"Go! Get out of here!" the figure in the white jacket yells. "I have this covered."

Chisai looks closer at the man in the white jacket, trying to match a name, or a face, or anything. The sound of a metallic key hitting the ground grabs her attention. "Do you have a death wish? Then take this and go!"

Chisai bends down to pick up the key, careful not to accidentally press one of the various buttons on the key base.

"NOW!" The person yells, pushing away the Niko copy with a swing of his sword-like object.

As a tear forms from her eye and rolls down her face, she nods, then runs towards parked cars lined up along the opposite side of the street.

As other metallic-sounding noises come from behind her, Chisai doesn't dare turn around. Instead, she is pressing the "Unlock" button on the key base, hoping that a car responds with the stereotypical soft "honk honk".

Luckily, a car does respond to her commands. As she approaches the car, the sight overwhelms her. A sleek red sports car hisses, then opens its driver door straight up. Assuming that this is the right car, Chisai hops in, and the door lowers to close.

Sequentially, lights, buttons, and circular charts start illuminating the interior of the car. "Welcome," it says in a friendly female voice. "Where would you like to go?"

Slightly freaking out, Chisai calls out, "Anywhere! Just go!"

"Acknowledged. Proceeding to-" the voice cuts off as a large metallic creaking noise is heard from the hood. Chisai withdraws into the bucket seat, trying to protect herself.

When she opens her eyes, she notices the Niko copy is on the hood of the car, in a large dent most likely caused by when it landed, and is staring directly at her. Drool from its mouth drops onto the car hood and starts to sizzle as it hits.

Trying to get away from the terrifying red-haired thing, she flails around trying to reach for anything that she can throw at it.

"Autonavi-navi-navigtion has beeeeeeeen lost." the friendly female voice from the car says in various jarred tones. Lights start to blink on and off all around the console.

The male in the white jacket calls from behind Chisai's position. "Override command: omega-zeta-3-1-9!"

The car revs up its engine and pulls away from its parallel parking spot. The force of the moving car makes the Niko copy roll forward, then over the car.

The person in the white jacket jumps towards the monster, but only strikes the road with a "CLIING" from his sword as the monster continues the pursuit after Chisai.

Seeing the countless dials and buttons blink on and off, Chisai is completely lost on how to exactly operate this crazy runaway car. She reaches for the door handle, but the only thing she can feel is the smoothness of the interior of the car. She frantically searches for any kind of handle on the door to get out, but to no avail.

There is a map on the center dashboard constantly showing her current position, but goes blank every few minutes. Meanwhile, the car speeds down the road, avoiding near obstacles, but increasing in speed.

She looks out of the front window, hoping to see if there is any sign of where she is, or where she is going. To her surprise, she sees a traffic jam on a bridge leaving the city. With the car going almost full speed, she stomps on the floor, hoping to find some sort of brake.

I'm trapped inside an out-of-control car, going faster than I want to know, directly towards traffic on a bridge, and I can't find the brakes. I'm so dead! Chisai thinks as she considers her options, which at this point consist of covering her eyes, hoping to make any sort of death quick and painless.

The car continues towards the traffic jam, but makes a slight turn to the right, straight for an empty car-loading trailer ramp. As the car veers up the trailer ramp and over the truck in front, it hangs for a while in the air as it flies over the edge of the bridge, and directly into a forest below.

The Niko copy follows the car off the bridge as well.

***

Driving down an unmarked dirt road surrounded by dense trees, Niko starts to relax. Without any form of the monster that was chasing him in sight, he feels like he can take a breather. His car crawls to a stop, just short of a small, wooden shack. "Whew! That was close." He steps out of the car and looks backwards. "What was that thing, and where did Chisai go?"

Feeling safe enough to gather his thoughts, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. Thinking that he could call his dad for some sort of advice on this crazy situation, he starts to press some buttons on his screen, keeping an eye on his surrounding area. The phone responds with an odd-toned beep. Niko looks down at the phone, and reads a message that he never thought he would receive in this day and age: "No Service."

"Well," he puts his phone back in his pocket, "so much for calling for backup."

Above him, a low-pitched hum begins to get louder, then jumps higher in pitch. He looks up, only to see a red car flying off of the bridge that passes over the trees. Trying to estimate the car's falling trajectory, he looks through the trees for any sort of path he can take. One small footpath leads behind the wooden shack and directly parallel to the car's path. He reaches into the back of his car to grab his sword, and heads past the wood shed towards the path.

As the car veers off the bridge, Chisai feels weightless for a moment.

The friendly female voice from the car speaks up. "Systems detect increased distance between ground and car. Determination: you are falling."

At the sound of the last word, Chisai's fear doubled, if not tripled. She never thought she would be plunging to her death in a souped-up futuristic sports car that a stranger let her use. Defensively, and involuntarily, she begins to scream.

The voice from the car speaks up again. "Best course of action: ejection while sacrifice."

The thought of being scarified to anything made Chisai even more scared. Her heart starts to beat more times than she can count. Her life starts to flash before her eyes as she looks out the front window, only to see the rapidly approaching canopy of the forest below.

"Farewell, Mr. Konkura. We had a lot of fun." the voice says.

Small hisses and clicks come from all around Chisai. Thinking the worst, she screams with all of her might, hoping that someone or something will hear her and come to her rescue, although rescuing a falling car at this rate would be pointless.

Straps appear from the sides of the seat and wrap around her, automatically clicking into each other. Thinking that this is one of her worst nightmares, she doesn't even want to think about what will happen next.

The whole roof detaches from the car frame and flies upwards. A metallic "CLANK" is heard from above, as if the roof came into contact with something, but Chisai is a little too preoccupied to even notice the noise.

Moments later, her seat is launched from the car itself. She grabs hold of the sides of the seat to hold on, finding handles on both sides. She grabs hold of the handles like her life depended on it.

Experiencing the effect of negative gravitational force on her made her a little sick. The seat's upward momentum slows down, then starts to fall downward.

Before Chisai can think of what horrors she had left to face of this catastrophe, a small white parachute shoots upwards from the back of her seat. Moments later, a larger red parachute comes out and appears above her and covers her in a glow of red from the sun above.

Feeling her heart trying to jump out of her chest and get as far away as possible, she starts to slowly glide down towards the canopy below.

Sounds of crunching metal, glass shattering, wood snapping, and various other popping noises come from below her. Too scared to see what kind of carnage the impact of the car had with the forest below, she picks up her legs onto the seat and wraps her arms around, trying to expose as little as possible from whatever awaited below.

Shuffling through the dense woods proved to be a bit of a challenge for Niko. Thinking back to this morning's events, he says aloud, "What I wouldn't give for Chisai's attack right about now to clear a better path for me."

The sound of metal crunching and wood snapping echos ahead of him. Knowing that he only has a few minutes to hopefully save anyone in that crash, he increases his speed forward and activates his demonic ability, hoping to gain some speed, and to be able to jump from tree to tree, in case the woods became too dense.

As he goes further, the woods start to thin out, and he can see a large sandy area with lots of sun. "An opening!" He rushes towards the sandy area, hoping to find another path to where the car may have crashed.

As Chisai slowly glides down to the ground, she slowly opens her eyes to at least see where she was going to land. Having no prior knowledge of how to properly guide a parachute, she was at the mercy of wherever gravity and the wind took her.

Below her, she sees a tower of smoke coming from the wreckage of the car she was just in. Looking elsewhere, she sees a large opening in the trees. Hoping to land in an area that she didn't have to climb down from, she tries to shift her weight to aim for the opening.

Moments later, she lands in the open area with a soft "thud." Realizing that she had landed, and on firm ground, she feels all around her body and the straps for a release mechanism. As she searches, the parachute floats downward and covers her up.

Pushing through the last of the thicket, Niko sees a large red blob moving up and down at the other end of the sandy area. Drawing his sword from its sheath, he approaches the red blob with caution.

As he approaches it, the blob starts flailing and small noises come from it. Being close enough to touch it, he aims his sword directly into the center of the blob. Stepping closer, he steps on an edge of the blob, but it doesn't react to his approach. Reaching up to feel the blob, the feeling of cloth-like silk and nylon passes through his fingers. He grabs a hand full of the material and yanks it away, pointing his sword directly at whatever was under this 'cover.'

The brief moment of being uncovered sent a feeling of joy through Chisai. However, the sight of seeing something sharp and metal pointed at her throat rapidly dispersed the joy and turned it back into fright.

Hoping to start this confrontation as friendly as possible, she quickly moves her hands from searching for a release mechanism of her straps to up beside her head, closing her eyes to shield her from whoever was about to attack her. "Please don't kill me. I didn't know it would drive off the bridge like that!"

"Chisai?" Niko says with a soft undertone. He withdraws his sword and sheaths it.

Chisai opens her eyes and slowly looks up. The first thing that she notices is his silver hair, meaning that he had turned into his demon form, unlike the red-haired menace that was chasing her. "Niko? Is that really you?"

Niko bends down to get a good look at her. Resting on one knee, he asks, "Quick: what happened this morning?"

A little suspicious of the sudden question, Chisai thinks back. "Um, my parents yelled at me, you talked to them, we went to the training ground, fought a gold bird, and met Kitsune, then...."

Niko puts a finger up to Chisai's mouth, notifying her to be quiet. "That's all I needed to hear." He reaches down and follows the straps around her chair. He presses a button on the side of her seat, next to the right handle, which makes the strap buckles release in sequence.

The straps release their hold on Chisai, who suddenly launches herself from the seat and towards Niko. Wrapping her arms around him, and making him fall backwards, she says, "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Thankyouthankyouthankyou...." she starts to say.

Falling onto his back, Niko is a little uncomfortable. "Uh, Chisai?"

Not willing to let go, Chisai rests on Niko for a while. "You have absolutely no idea what I just went through. I'm just glad to find the real you, and to be on solid, non-moving ground."

The sound of rustling in the nearby trees catches their attention. Before they can get up, Kitsune walks out of the woods and into the sandy area. "Man, I really miss my Kinhouou right now. He'd fly me over these woods in an instant."

"Kitsune!" Chisai and Niko call out simultaneously.

Trying to kick off a branch that had wrapped around his leg, Kitsune hops into the sandy area. Looking up at the source of his name being called, he responds, "Hey, you...." He pauses as he notices that Chisai is laying on top of Niko, "...guys."

The pause in his response and odd tone of his voice made the situation seem awkward. As Niko and Chisai looked at each other in the eyes, the realization of the awkward moment grew more awkward.

Chisai pushed herself off of Niko and backed away. Niko sat up, then pushed himself off the ground.

"Kitsune, when did you get here?" Niko asks, trying to move the conversation along.

Pointing over his shoulder, Kitsune responds. "About ten minutes or so. Tora's light thing dumped me out over there, and I've been crawling through the jungle trying to figure out where I am."

Chisai points upwards as she walks up to the guys. "See that bridge, up there? We're just outside the city."

"City? Which one?" Kitsune asks.

"Tankana. We're just east of it." Niko answers.

"What? Really? It must have changed a lot while I was gone." Kitsune says. "I don't recognize any of it."

"It's a little hard to recognize a city from a forest." Niko points to the small path that he just traversed. "My car is this way. Let's get in it and..." His sentence is cut short by the falling of a tree coming from his route. The blur of brown and green catches his eye. Turning in that direction, he draws his sword out and backs up to Kitsune and Chisai. "Guys, we got company."

Chisai moves back with Niko. "What do you mean?"

A snarl comes from the forest on far side of the sandy area. Sounding similar to the one that she had just escaped, she already knew the answer to her question.

"Chisai, get into your demon form. I think that's the only way we can defeat this." Niko says.

"This? I have my own to deal with!" She snaps back as she sees the pile of red hair crawling through the forest, getting closer to her. Focusing all of her attention to turning into her demon form, she shuts out all distractions. I hope I can do this quickly. Her hair starts to fade to orange, which meant her process was starting.

Seeing this for the first time made Kitsune a little uneasy. "Whoa, that's something you don't see everyday."

Chisai's copy emerges from the forest on the far side of the sandy area, galloping at full speed at Niko.

Niko's copy lunges from the forest straight towards Chisai.

"What the hell are those things?" Kitsune calls out.

Niko raises his sword above his head."We're about to find out!" He swings it with all of the force he can muster in front of him. "HELLFIRE!"

Chapter 7

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 pursuit.

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 paralyzed.

"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

Hearing the news of their quest coming to an abrupt end, Chisai starts to break down. "But...but...but...how will we pay Lord Tora back? If we destroyed his medallion, what'll he do to us? What if he locks us up and throws away the key? What about our families? How will we survive? What if he-"

"Oh, shut up!" Kitsune yells.

Chisai quickly becomes quiet. Looking in Kitsune's direction, it dawns on Niko and Chisai that he may be hurt. They run over to his position to help him up.

As Niko extends a hand to help Kitsune up, Kitsune follows up from his previous statement. "So, what's this about paying Tora back?" he says as he rubs his back, hoping to ease some of the pain.

"Since Lord Tora helped me learn a new sword technique, and helped stabilize Chisai's demon powers, he asked us to find and return his medallion as payment." Niko starts to walk over to his sword to pick it up out of the ground. "I guess we can't do that now. We'll just have to go back and say that-"

"You'll do nothing!" Kitsune yells out as he looks down in front of him, meanwhile placing his kamas back into his back holster.

Niko grabs hold of his sword handle and pauses, wondering why this "new guy" is bossing him around now. Pulling the sword out of the ground, he carries it on his shoulder as he walks back to Kitsune. "And why is that?" he asks smugly.

Kitsune bends down to grab something, then stands back up as he looks at the item. "Although I absolutely despise Tora for what he did to me, whether he admits it or not, I think I found a way for you to not lose your lives over something trivial."

Curious to what Kitsune found, Niko and Chisai close in on him.

Kitsune opens his hand, revealing the curved trapezoid item's reflective gold surface, imprinted with a flame-like symbol. "Because we're going to fix it."

Surprised at the item, Chisai starts to ask, "Is that a piece of..."

Niko finishes her sentence as he sheathes his sword. "The medallion! It broke into pieces!"

"And it looks like this is only one of the powers." Kitsune says. He looks up at Niko and Chisai to follow up with a question. "How many pieces were there in the thing?"

Niko and Chisai both shrug their shoulders.

"Well, I guess that means that your quest will be just a little longer than just today." Kitsune suggests.

Niko and Chisai look at each other and nod. "Yep" they both say.

"So what does this piece do?" Chisai asks.

Leaning in to get a better look, Niko offers a suggestion. "I think this is the piece that allowed Omego to have that fire sword."

"So, how's it work?" She asks as a followup.

Feeling obligated to answer her question, Niko speaks up. "I.....don't know."

Residual pain from their previous fights start to throb in Niko's side. He raises a hand to cover the wounds, knowing that he will need some sort of medical attention soon as blood starts to seep through his fingers. "AHHH!" he calls out in pain.

"Niko!" Chisai responds automatically as she reaches out to him, trying to assist in his healing.

Putting the medallion piece in his jacket pocket, Kitsune suggests an idea. "Look, we've been fighting non-stop since this morning. How about we take a small break?"

Looking up at him like he's an idiot, Niko speaks up as he hobbles to a nearby log. "'Non-stop fights'? At least you didn't have to deal with an exploding rice ball!"

Assisting Niko, Chisai speaks up as well. "Or a dissolving liquid and a maniac among the crowd, or a suicidal car!"

Surprised at this new information, Kitsune feels a little out of place. "Hey, hey! How's about I go see if I can find us some water? I'm sure you two are thirsty as well, right?" He says with a nervous smile.

Relaxing on the log, Niko agrees. "Sure. If you can find some water, bring it back. I'm going to need it. Then we can get to my car and dri-" the throbbing pain is a little too much for him as he tries to finish his sentence. He quickly inhales through his teeth, trying to tough it out.

"Yeah, I'll go find some water for us." Kitsune says nervously as he scurries off into the woods.

As Niko lays on the log, Chisai holds his other hand. "It'll be alright, Niko. We'll get you some water, then head over to the hospital. I don't think I can carry you by myself to your car."

Looking into her emerald eyes, Niko speaks with as much strength as he can muster. "It's okay, I'll be fine."

A rustling in some nearby bushes catches their attention.

Pulling his strength together to prepare himself for a refreshing drink, Niko speaks up. "Is that Kitsune? Did he find a source of water that fast?"

The rustling in the bushes stops as a short humanoid figure stumbles out on all fours. Chisai and Niko can't help but look at this odd, all black figure.

The two large antennae on top of its large round head wiggle around, as if its trying to look around.

"What is that?" Niko says softly.

The short humanoid figure turns its head to look at Niko, as to see where the noise came from that it didn't expect to encounter. At that moment, Niko and Chisai notice that although the figure is all black, it has large gold eyes staring directly at them.

Perceiving it as a threat, Niko tries to pull out his sword, but his strength is shot from the wounds he encountered. Chisai notices Niko struggling and suggests an idea. "You say here. I'm going to transform and take care of that thing!"

As she starts to focus her ability, Niko notices that the figure is jumping straight towards them, its mouth wide open and teeth showing, as if it was ready to devour. "Chisai! You can't transform in time!"

Thinking that this odd figure was going to do something horrible, Niko closes his eyes as he prepares for the worst.

Expecting the figure to get closer, Niko feels a cool chill across his face, followed by a metallic BWANG sound.

He opens his eyes, not seeing the figure anywhere around, and sees Chisai's orange hair. Did she transform in time to care of that thing? He thinks.

"Those things can really sneak up on you." A female voice says stepping out from behind the bush that the odd black figure appeared from.

"What was that thing?" Niko says, breathing heavily.

"That," the person says as she curls her hand up towards her face, "was my next test subject."

"Test subject?" Chisai asks quizzically.

The person looks directly at Chisai's cat ears on top of her head. "I see that you are a demon," she looks at Niko. "And what might you be, big boy? You must be used to having a demon around if you aren't running away from the sight of those 'cat' ears."

Pushing himself up from the log, Niko sits up. "I'm a demon too. Well, a half demon. We both are."

Chisai interjects just as Niko finishes his statement. "You aren't going to tell anyone, will you?" She asks with begging hands.

"Honey, don't worry. I work with powers that would boggle your puny government and scientists' minds. If I turn you over, I have to turn myself over as well."

Niko and Chisai look at each other, trying to figure out what the person was talking about.

Chisai looks back at the person. "But....aren't demon powers the most powerful? Isn't that why the government is after us?"

"Trust me, hon. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing."

Another rustling comes from behind Chisai and Niko. Focusing in on their conversation, Niko jumps a bit at the surprise.

As Kitsune steps over a thorny bush towards the duo, he speaks up, trying to let them know he was back. "Guys, you won't believe it. I found a crashed car with nobody inside, and there were some canteens, so I filled them up with water and..." Kitsune stops talking and drops the canteens on the ground. The open canteen that Kitsune was holding spills its contents onto the ground. His jaw drops and eyes open wide as he has the person in his direct view. "Huuuuauaaaahhhh....." comes out of his mouth as he tries to say anything. His rising view of blue denim meeting a black shirt accenting her features, slightly covered by an open blue mid-drift vest, all topped with the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen, and the most elegant shoulder-length amber hair he could imagine. After a few silent seconds, he finally says what he wanted to say. "Holy hot babe!"

Niko reaches down to grab an unopened canteen, cracks it open, and drinks from it.

"Anyway, I was saying before I digressed, the thing you just saw was my test subject." the person says.

Kitsune quickly moves next to the person, wrapping his arm around her waist. In a sultry voice, he says, "I'll be your test subject."

Throwing her opposite hand from her waist, she pushes Kitsune away by hitting him in the face.

"The monster you just saw is called a Mashu." The person says as she shakes her hand that pushed Kitsune away.

"Mashu?" Chisai asks.

"They're small energy spirits from an unknown area. They're made up of dark energy that must be dispelled."

"Whoa – that seems like something out of a movie." Niko says.

"And yet here we are, with demons on the loose!" The person says, trying to prove her point. "God, you guys are rude." She turns away from Niko and Chisai. "Maybe I'll just finish my tests elsewhere..."

Niko speaks up. "Look, I'm sorry. I've just been through a lot today, and I'm a little defensive to any new information."

The person stops. She looks over her shoulder. "I know."

Confused, Niko and Chisai look in her direction.

The person turns back around to face Niko. "Niko Sakuna, son of Himuro Sakuna, a cat demon, and Misaki Sakuna, a human. I know all about you."

Slightly freaked out, Niko tries to back up, but is stopped as the person steps closer to him. "I know what you've been through: winning the tournament, gaining ownership of the Banish Blade, the training with your first attack, traveling to the training grounds, your interaction with...." She looks to Chisai, "her," then looks back at Niko. "I even know about your recent fights with the Chisai-look-alike and the twerp Omego." She kneels to his level, then places her right hand above Niko's wounds. Chisai tries to reach in to block the person's hand, but stops right before grabbing it.

"Wha-who-how-whe-Are you tracking me?" Niko tries to escape, thinking that he had been the target of a government mission.

The person's hand glows slightly, and a semi-translucent black bubble appears from her hand, growing to cover Niko's wounds. She looks up at Niko. "Call me Karen."

"What are you doing? Stop that! I don't need to be...." his sentence trails off as he notices what she is doing.

Karen removes her hand from Niko's side. "There. Good as new."

Niko notices that the pain is gone. He looks down at where he was attacked. The wounds are gone, the blood is gone, even his shirts are repaired. "How'd you...."

Karen opens a hand towards Niko and Chisai. A spherical black glowing orb with deep purple and bright gold sparks flow through it. "I'm a Time Alchemist."

Amazed by the feature in front of them, Niko and Chisai are entranced by its essence. "Whoa" they both say.

Karen closes her hand, which makes the black orb disappear. "The 'test subject' that you just saw was going to help me develop my new technique."

"Wait! If you're a Time Alchemist, does that mean you can travel through time?" Chisai asks.

"Clever, but no. I only have abilities to rewind time in short increments, and see in the past." Karen says.

"...which is how you knew so much about me." Niko finishes the sentence.

Karen stands up. "You guys really are rude."

Chisai reaches out for Karen's hand. "No, we're not. I promise! It's just been a really hard day and we're not used to having so many....new things."

Seeing Chisai's innocent violet eyes made Karen feel for her. Sighing, she follows up. "Okay. I can see that all of you had a really hard day."

Chisai smiles, then lets go of Karen's hand.

Kitsune, covered by dust after being tossed back into the sandy area, sits up. Dust particles fall off of his jacket. "Whoa, what just happened?" He focuses his eyes on Karen. "And who's the babe?"

Karen looks at Kitsune and quickly extends a palm in his direction. A small black/gold orb flies from her hand and hits Kitsune in the head, making him fall back on the ground. "That's just a sample of my ability."

"Is that what you used on that....mashu....before?" Niko asks as he stands up and rotates his arms and waist.

"Yes. I use a centralized concentration of time energy to blast it. I was hoping to capture it, but I thought your lives were more important." Karen says as she pulls her hand back from striking Kitsune.

"That. Is. SO COOL!" Chisai says as she starts to giggle in excitement.

"Are these mashu a threat? Should we be killing them?" Niko asks, always trying to make sure he is prepared.

"Most of them are harmless, but recent events have lead to the discovery that some can be controlled and forced to fight." Karen says.

Niko draws out his sword. "Then lead us to them. This may be in connection with the medallion pieces that we're searching for."

Karen looks at Niko like he's lost it, but she concedes. "I guess it could be better than searching for them myself. I've been on the run chasing the few in this area for a while."

"Sounds like we're now a team!" Niko says smiling as he puts his sword on his shoulder, then extends a hand towards Karen.

Karen looks at Niko hand, then reaches out to grab it and shake it. "Sounds good."

Chisai extends her hand and places it on top of theirs. "Yay! We're a team!"

Kitsune sits up from the sandy area. "Don't forget about me...." he falls backwards again.

Walking back to Niko's car, Kitsune bounces up and down as he's carried on Niko's shoulder. Karen and Chisai follow closely behind. "If I'd known you'd knock him out like this, I would have parked the car closer!" Niko calls out.

"I knocked him out the first time, but that should have only lasted a few minutes." Karen says as she looks at her hand, wondering if something went wrong with her 'attack'.

Chisai, back in her human form, speeds up to Niko and bends down to look at Kitsune's face. He has a wild grin on his face, but his eyes aren't responding. "He's not knocked out. He's just being stupid." She says as she stands back up.

Kitsune's head raises from resting on Niko's back. "I resent that!"

Surprised at Kitsune's outburst, Niko throws him off of his shoulder onto his feet. "You could've walked here?!"

Trying to look innocent, Kitsune shrugs his shoulders. "Yea, but I was enjoying the free ride." He looks over at Karen. "...and the view."

As Karen extends a hand in Kitsune's direction, Kitsune reacts defensively by standing on one foot, raising the other one, and using both of his hands to block his face. In other words: quivering.

Karen withdraws her hand. "I wouldn't waste another attack on you, but don't think that you're safe."

Kitsune repetitively nods quickly.

Pulling out the key from his pocket, Niko walks to the driver side of his car and opens the door. "Where to next, guys?"

"If you guys are up for some festival food, I hear there's a great matsuri in the next town. My treat?" Karen says as she gets into the back seat behind Chisai, as she sits down as well.

Chisai and Niko look at each other. "Deal!" They both say.

Kitsune slides into the seat behind Niko. Karen looks at Kitsune with an evil glare. "Don't. Even. Dare."

"You know the harder you are to get, the more I'll try...." Kitsune says.

Karen opens a palm in front of her and forms a black and gold orb in her hand.

Seeing her response, Kitsune tries to meld with the car door as he distances himself from Karen.

As Niko's car pulls up to a make-shift gravel parking lot, the crowd of people dressed in kimonos and traditional outfits flock towards the large torii-shaped entrance gate. The gate itself has traditional Japanese lanterns hanging from it, and zig-zag pieces of folded paper draped from connecting wires. The sound of ceremonial drums echo in the distance, and the aroma of freshly cooked food fills the air.

As the four step out of the car, Niko looks around, as if trying to spot something.

Chisai, Karen, and Kitsune all step out and start walking towards the gate. Noticing that Niko was not with them, Chisai looks back and sees Niko still at the car. "Niko? Come on! Let's get in!"

"I don't know guys. I have an odd feeling that something is going to happen." Niko responds.

"It's a festival, man. We can either go in and enjoy ourselves, or stand out here and miss out on all the fun." Kitsune adds.

Seeing the exact thing he was hoping for, Niko spots a group of demonstrators walking towards the gate, carrying practice swords on their belts. He reaches into the car, grabs his sword, and holsters it in his belt. "Okay, ready to go."

"You're being paranoid." Karen says.

"Hey, you never know. I wanted to make sure that it was okay to bring this in – just in case." Niko says as he joins the group.

Entering through the gate, the colors of red, yellow, blue, and green surround them in the form of bouncing balloons partly filled with water, colored lanterns hanging from every corner and edge, flying carp wind flags, and signs all around advertising games, food, and other forms of entertainment.

"This has to be the most colorful matsuri festival I've ever been to!" Chisai says as she takes in the sights.

Niko follows up. "I'd have to agree!"

Observing their surroundings, Kitsune takes a long look to see everything around him. "I haven't been to a matsuri in seven years. I almost forgot how enjoyable it was."

"Guys, listen." Karen says. The rest of the group stops to look at what she has to say. "I promised that I'd treat you guys to some great matsuri-themed food, right?"

Everyone nods in agreement.

Karen reaches out to Niko's hand and grabs it, placing a few pieces of paper currency in it. "You guys go enjoy yourselves. Don't let me slow you down."

"What do you mean, Karen?" Chisai asks.

"I have some....personal business to take care of." Karen says with a slight choke in her throat.

"Well, who am I to turn down free food?" Kitsune says as he runs to the nearest takoyaki stand. Chisai runs after him.

Looking down at the money in his hand, Niko looks back up at Karen. "Are you sure?" but Karen is nowhere to be found. Niko scans the crowd to see if he can find her amber hair, but doesn't see anything close to it.

"Niko! I could use your help!" Chisai calls out.

Looking behind him, Niko sees Chisai holding on to Kitsune's jacket as he tries to grab some takoyaki balls directly from the grill at the nearby stand. Assuming that Karen had her own business to take care of, Niko focused his attention on prying Kitsune away from food he hadn't paid for yet.

As the trio enjoy a helping of takoyaki balls, some fish-shaped taiyaki, and cotton candy, they pause on a bridge to observe their own reflection in the water below.

"If you told me last week that I'd have my own abilities and be chasing the pieces of a medallion, I would have never believed you." Chisai says as she looks at the reflection of her cotton candy in the sparkling water.

"Yeah, it's amazing how something so small can change your life forever." Kitsune says as he chomps on the last of his takoyaki, thinking back to when he was first transported to the training grounds they had left hours ago.

"I know what you mean." Niko says as he eats more of his fish-shaped taiyaki. "One moment, I'm winning the tournament, then I face my old friend in the final fight. When I pretty much know it's all over for me, something happens, he gets knocked out, and I win the fight."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Kitsune says as he tosses his wooden skewer over his head, and behind him on the ground.

Chisai looks behind Kitsune at the skewer on the ground. "Hey! That's littering!"

A male voice calls from the other side of the bridge. "Chisai?"

Chisai turns around to see who said her name. The sight of a short male with thick white hair and a blue school uniform makes eye contact with her. "Whitey!"

She stands up, throwing her cotton candy to Kitsune, and runs towards her old friend.

Kitsune, fumbling to catch the cotton candy, and Niko look over to Chisai, who is hugging on a person, at least a foot shorter than her, with a head of white hair.

As Chisai backs up and turns to face her new friends, she puts an arm around 'Whitey.'

"Guys, this is Whitey!" Chisai says with excitement in her voice.

Niko and Kitsune stand up to greet him.

"It's a pleasure to meet some of Chisai's friends. I'm Kazeyama Hijime, but most people call me 'Whitey'." he says as he adjusts his glasses.

"I'm Niko, and this is Kitsune." Niko says, pointing to himself, then over to Kitsune.

Kazeyama looks at Chisai. "Chisai, I would love to stay and chat, but I have a matsuri to run."

"Wait – you're running this thing?" Kitsune says with a bit of shock.

Chisai feels obligated to answer. "Yeah, Whitey's pretty much in charge of everything at the school. He's the president of every school club-"

"Almost every school club." Kazeyama interjects.

"Sorry. Almost every school club, organizes the school functions and schedules, and even has his own fan club. I'm a really close friend of his." Chisai says.

"Chisai, you're making me blush." Kazeyama says as he tries to look away.

"Sorry. It's just hard to imagine what you don't do."

"Well, I'm not going to be in charge of this festival if I don't get to my post. We need to get some time together and chat."

"Great! When are you free?"

As Kazeyama runs away, he yells back to Chisai. "I have some free time during the school's fair tomorrow. I'll see you then, okay?"

Chisai waves a hand in the air. "'kay! See you then Whitey!"

As Niko and Kitsune approach Chisai, Kitsune asks, "That guy sure has a full schedule, doesn't he?"

"Relax. He just likes staying busy."

Out of nowhere, Kitsune feels something bump him. To whoever it was, he looks behind him to say "Hey, watch it!"

"Kitsune, you gotta be a nicer at a public event like this!" Niko says as he reaches out for Kitsune.

"Not when the person has something of mine!" Kitsune says as he starts chasing after the girl.

It takes a moment for Niko and Chisai see the same thing Kitsune did: a little girl with black hair is running away, and she's holding one of Kitsune's kamas in her hands.

"Kitsune! Wait for us!" Chisai calls out.

"No way! She'll get away!" Kitsune says as he disappears into the crowd viewing a concert of ceremonial taiko drums.

Pushing their way through the crowd, Niko and Chisai keep an eye out for Kitsune's gold hair, trying to avoid the food, souvenirs, balloons, and other children.

"AAAAGGGG!" Kitsune's voice carries over the crowd from in front of Niko and Chisai.

Navigating their way through the rest of the crowd, Niko and Chisai arrive on Kitsune's position in an semi-open area. His hands are on his head and through his hair, showing that he is frustrated.

"Kitsune, what happened?" Chisai asks as she approaches him.

"I followed that little thief this far, then I lost her." Kitsune says.

Looking at the three separate paths in front of them, each one leading away from their current position and down thin rows between tents, fences, and short buildings, Niko offers a suggestion as he reaches for his sword. "If you followed her here, she has to be down one of these paths. Let's each take one, then meet back up here."

Kitsune grabs his remaining kama and nods at Niko, running to the left. Chisai nods as well, then runs off to the right. With the only path left, Niko proceeds down the middle one.

As Chisai proceeds down her path, something catches her eye. Something black quickly moves out of her sight and down the path. "Guys, I think I found her." She proceeds to where she saw the black item. As she gets closer, it becomes apparent what it was: a mashu, similar to the one she saw earlier with Karen, was standing in front of her, wiggling every so often, and staring in her direction. "Guys! I have a mashu!" Chisai calls out.

No response.

Thinking that she was alone, she starts her transformation process to take care of the mashu. She focuses her mind on the transformation. A small gust of wind comes from below, and her process begins. Her hair fades to orange, her eyes change to violet, the marks appear on her face, and her teeth become longer. "That gets easier every time I do it." She says as she finishes the process and the up-gusting wind dies down. She reaches to her right hand to activate her jewel and materializes her glaive. "Alright. Time to see if I can take care of one of these things!"

The mashu turns around and runs away from Chisai, heading down the alleyway.

"Hey! Wait!" Chisai says as she runs after it.

Looking around for any sign of the little girl, Kitsune examines every nook and cranny he can see. "Where are you?" He calls out playfully.

The sound of laughter echoes from in front of him, coming from around the corner. He stands upright, then runs around the corner, finding himself at a large heavy warehouse-like door, cracked open. Pushing the heavy metal door open to pass through, he sees is kama on the floor, reflecting the warehouse lights above.

"Welcome." The little girl's voice echoes throughout the warehouse.

As Kitsune looks up to where the voice came from, he sees the little girl standing on a box of large pyramid of crates with a wall expanding the height and width of the warehouse behind her.

Kitsune reaches down to pick up his stolen kama. The floor is coated with water, as if it had recently been washed. "Why did you steal this?" He asks as he shakes off his kama of the excess water.

"To lure you here, of course," she says.

Kitsune looks around, expecting some sort of trap. The warehouse is completely empty except for the crates that the girl is standing on. "What's the deal?"

"Oh, Kitsune. You ask too many questions." she says.

Not expecting the little girl to know his name, Kitsune steps back into a ready stance with his kamas ready to strike. "How'd you know my name?"

She holds a hand out to her right, palm facing upwards. A spherical ball of blue water forms in her hand, the size of a softball. "I'm Mizu, the controller of water."

"That doesn't answer my question." Kitsune says as he starts to get frustrated.

"I have my orders. All you need to know is that you are my target."

"Target for what?"

"You know, you still ask too many questions. Why don't you..." she pauses for a bit while she throws her 'water ball' straight at Kitsune, "...be quiet!"

His experience at the training grounds allowed him to push his target practice skills to the limit. Striking something that was coming right at him was easy. Before the water ball strikes him, he swings one kama out towards it, splitting it in half. The two halves of the water ball fly in opposite directions, landing on either side of him on the ground.

"Don't get too comfy. That was the practice." Mizu says.

Slightly confused, Kitsune looks around to see that the two water ball halves are splitting apart, forming a circle of water droplets around him. "What kind of power is this?"

Mizu brings her other hand out and raises both of them in front of her. The water droplets around Kitsune raise up, forming a rotating circle around his head.

Frightened, Kitsune tries to think of a way out of the rotating water drops. Before he can react, Mizu closes her hands, and the water droplets speed inward towards his head. The first one goes into his mouth, closing off his wind pipe. The other two go into his nose to block his breathing, while the others grow in size to form a massive water sphere around his head.

Gasping for air, Kitsune releases his kamas, causing them to bounce off of the concrete floor. He tries to grab the water sphere around his head, but only grabs handfuls of water instead without grabbing anything tangible.

"This was easier than expected." Mizu says as she laughs lightly.

Kitsune falls to his knees as he tries anything he can to get some air.

Carefully moving forward, Niko moves his eyes left and right, examining everything he can see, trying to find Kitsune's kama thief.

The sound of chattering and a can hitting the floor echoes from in front of him. Expecting a little more than just a little girl, Niko fully grasps his sword handle and begins his transformation process.

With his hair silver, his eyes red, his teeth longer, and the marks on his face, his feline senses kick in. He can smell something, like burnt toast, but it doesn't smell like any of the festival food he just passed. He can't quite put his finger on the exact smell, but he decides to follow it.

As he moves forward, he approaches a metal door with a window in it, slightly open. He moves to the window to look inside, but there aren't any lights on.

He slowly pushes the door open to see if anybody is inside. As he moves inside, his cat eyes quickly adjust to the darkness and he is able to see the outlines of some standard office items: a filing cabinet, a few chairs, a large desk, some bookcases. However, the smell he is following is coming from another door in front of him.

He carefully approaches the second door, feeling more and more like this is a trap.

The second door squeaks open, away from him to his left. As he looks inside, there isn't anything in here, except the outline of a person on the far left, up against a wall.

Niko slowly moves forward towards the person, but the person doesn't move. It must be a mannequin, he thinks as he turns around to walk back out through the second door.

The glow of light reflects in the door, catching his attention. Before he can turn around to see where the source of the light came from, a fireball flies past him, hitting the door and closing it.

Reacting to a perceived threat, Niko draws his sword as he faces away from the door.

The whole area is still dark, and the person's outline has moved slightly. The right hand is now facing upwards.

Curious by the slight movement, Niko nudges forward.

Suddenly, a spark comes from the figure's right hand. The spark quickly turns into tear-drop shaped fireball, floating above the figure's hand and illuminating its face. All Niko can see is short black hair, one red eye, and part of a blue hoodie.

"What do you want? And where's the little girl?" Niko calls out. His questions echo through the large darkened area.

"What little girl? My mission was to bring you here, Niko, which I did." the figure says in a manly voice.

"What mission? What am I doing here? How do you know me?" Niko calls out again as he inches closer to the figure.

"I was told you were going to ask a lot of questions, but I never thought you'd ask so many at once." the figure says.

"Just shut up and tell me!"

"My, you sure are demanding." The figure rotates his other hand upward, and another tear-shaped fireball forms. The other half of his face is seen. "I'm Yakedo, the controller of fire."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Niko yells.

"Do you see the dark ring on the floor around you?" Yakedo asks politely.

Niko, keeping an eye on Yakedo and his fireballs, looks down for a moment. "I don't see anything."

"Aw. Your cat eyes don't see that well in the dark? I was misinformed. Let me..." He pauses for a bit as he tosses one of the fireballs directly in front of Niko, towards the dark ring on the floor, "...light up the room."

The fireball hits the floor and quickly spreads outwards, forming a ring of fire around Niko.

"What's going on?" Niko yells, slightly frightened.

"The dark ring on the floor was practice. Now that you're here, I can take care of you." Yakedo says as he slowly approaches Niko.

Trying to keep his cool, Niko swings his sword in front of him, trying to intimidate Yakedo. "Do you know who I am?"

As Yakedo approaches the fire ring, his full figure becomes well illuminated. He places his hands behind him, as to approach Niko with a bit of slyness. "I know all that I need to know about you, Niko. And I expect you to use your new attack on me."

Surprised that this person could know about the recent events, Niko tries to connect the dots. "Are...are you a time alchemist?"

"A what?" Yakedo gives a light laugh. "I have no idea what that is. I was informed of you by my boss, and his orders were to make sure you didn't leave. While I was at it, I thought I could test your new attack, and see if you were any match for my unique abilities."

"Why?"

He tsked. "Again with the questions. You should be worrying about my questions, instead of your questions."

Niko gives a quizzical look at Yakedo.

As Yakedo brings back his right hand, a new fireball appears in it. "Such as 'are you prepared for this?'" He throws his right hand towards Niko like throwing a baseball. The fireball leaves his hand and flies directly towards Niko.

Thinking that his attack was strong enough to break a boulder, Niko tries to swipe at the fireball. He makes contact with it, cutting it in near-half. The fireball pieces split and fly around him, joining in on the ring of fire that surrounded him.

Yakedo throws more fireballs Niko's way, with Niko striking every one. "Is that the best you have? I'm sure you want to use your new attack right about now." Yakedo says, taunting Niko.

Getting frustrated, Niko feels like has no other choice. Making sure he was aimed for Yakedo, he raises his sword up, then swings it downward with all of the force he can gather. "HELLFIRE!"

Following the path of the fleeing mashu, Chisai tries to keep up. "Wait! Wait up!" She calls out.

The mashu reaches a canvas tarp, anchored taut to the ground and angled low. It scurries towards an opening and slides under.

"I gotcha now!" Chisai says as she approaches the tarp. She reaches down to grab the edge of the tarp, expecting to see the fleeing mashu. Instead, she sees nothing but darkness. Her cat eyes can't adjust to what is ahead of her. "What's this?" she asks based on curiosity.

"Welcome, young one. Your time is near." a deep resonating voice says.

Confused by the strange voice, Chisai starts to back away from the tarp, but a large shadowy hand reaches out from the darkness and grabs her hand. "What the...? Help!" She calls out as she tries to find what the dark hand is connected to.

"Do not waste your breath. Sounds cannot penetrate this barrier." the voice says as it pulls Chisai into the darkness.

"Niko! Kitsune! HELP!" She yells out.

"Soon, your power will be mine!"

Hoping that at least someone will hear her before she is consumed by the mysterious darkness, she calls out one last time. "HELP! NIKO!"

Chapter 9

The fiery flames from Niko's Hellfire attack permeate through the concrete floor towards Yakedo, forming a force of wind strong enough to blow part of the ring of fire away.

"Yes, let out the fire!" Yakedo says over the sound of the attack.

Slightly blinded by his anger towards Yakedo, Niko can only see what is in front of him. As he watches one of the fissures approach Yakedo, Niko sees a shiny black glass-like surface enveloping Yakedo. As the shiny black surface disappears, Niko notices that Yakedo isn't there any more, and his attack continue with the absence of Yakedo.

Trying to recover from his recent attacks, Niko breathes heavily as he notices one of the fissures from his attacks reaches the wall that Yakedo was standing in front of when he walked in. The fissure hits the wall, causing massive cracks crawling up the wall.

As his attack dies down, Niko runs over to the point where his attack came in contact with the wall. Inspecting the quality of the wall's material, something seems odd. "Huh? Steel shouldn't break that easily!"

The sound of ice cracking is heard throughout the wall. As the cracks reach the ceiling, the wall comes crumbling down around Niko. Using his cat-like reflexes, he backs away quickly before he is hit by any piece of the falling wall.

Moments later, the wall has completely fallen down. Pieces of the wall are scattered around Niko's feet, looking like melting ice sculptures. "This isn't steel. This is ice!" He says as he picks one piece up to examine it.

The sound of a large amount of water splashing on the ground catches Niko's attention. As he looks in that direction, he sees a pile of wooden scraps, then Kitsune kneeling on the ground and runs over. "Kitsune!"

Gasping for his fresh supply of air, Kitsune inhales loudly and exhales, trying to get as much fresh air as he can get, coughing every so often. His face and hands are wet, and his hair is flat on his head, like he just came out of the pool.

"Kitsune! What happened?" Niko says as he approaches Kitsune.

Facing the ground, Kitsune tries to answer between breaths. "I went for a swim," he says with a sarcastic undertone.

Niko looks around for any way that Kitsune's explanation could have been true. "Really?"

"No, you idiot." Kitsune says as he tries to scoop up some water and throws it at Niko. "I was ambushed by a kid that could control water. She was trying to suffocate me."

Feeling the cool water land on him, Niko notices that his demon powers were going away. Soon, he was human again. Reacting to having water thrown on him, Niko puts an arm up to block whatever he can. "HEY!"he says involuntary. After he realizes what just happened, he continues the conversation. "Control water? I was just up against someone who could control fire." Niko says as he looks back at the remainder of the smoldering fire ring that he left. "Think that there's a connection?"

"How would I know?" Kitsune says as he tries to stand up.

Niko quickly sheathes his sword and puts an arm around Kitsune's back to help him up. "Well, whoever they are, they're gone now." Niko looks around Kitsune, noticing that both of his kamas were sitting on the floor. "And it looks like you got your weapon back."

Kitsune forces his way away from Niko and stumbles over to pick up his kamas. As he picks up the second one, he looks at Niko. "If the guys that attacked us could control water and fire, why didn't they just kill us? Why taunt us instead?" As soon as his last word was said, he starts to feel a little dizzy and fall forward.

Niko quickly runs under him and helps him stand back up. He puts Kitsune's left arm over his neck, and his right arm around Kitsune's back, acting as support. "Look, whatever their purpose, let's just be glad that they're gone. Let's meet back up with Chisai." he says as they both slowly walk to the door behind Kitsune.

Slowly creaking the door open, Niko walks out holding Kitsune. Chisai is walking from around the corner of her alley towards the duo, but her orange hair was covering her eyes.

"Chisai! Hey! We found Kitsune's stolen weapon." Niko calls out.

Chisai slowly walks towards their position, but doesn't respond. Her glaive is dragging on the ground behind her.

"Chisai? Hello?" Niko calls out again as he and Kitsune stop walking.

Unloading Kitsune, Niko starts to walk over to Chisai to see if she needed his support.

"I heard it over here!" A voice says from the nearby concert area.

"Oh crap! They can't see Chisai in her demon form." Niko reaches over to Kitsune's hair. "Sorry, man. I gotta get some of this."

Kitsune has his hands on his knees, trying to stay up right, not really responding to Niko's odd action.

Niko squeezes some of Kitsune's hair, gathering a small puddle of cool water into his hand. He splashes it towards Chisai, but no effect. Niko tries it again, but again with no effect. One last try....

"It came from the warehouse!" another voice says, sounding closer than before.

Niko gathers the last bit of water from Kitsune's hair and tosses it on Chisai. He starts to see her orange hair change back to brown and her weapon dematerializes into her glove.

"Chisai? Guys? What are you doing here?" Kazeyama says as he approaches the trio, seeing Kitsune breathing heavily and dripping on the ground, Niko slightly wet, and Chisai looking-

"Whitey!" Chisai says as she launches herself over to him to give him a hug.

Returning the hug, Kazeyama separates himself and asks again. "What happened here?"

"We were chasing a thief through this area, and they hid inside and got away from us." Chisai says with a perky attitude.

One of Whitey's security guards walks past Niko and Kitsune, going inside the doorway.

Meanwhile, Niko and Kitsune look at each other, wondering if Chisai knew of the events that happened inside the building.

"A thief? What did they steal?" Kazeyama asks.

"I think it was a toy or something from one of the prize booths." Chisai says, trying to act investigative.

Niko and Kitsune look at Chisai with a concerned expression, wondering where that kind of story came from.

"Well, if they did steal a toy, I'll have to reimburse the merchant. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that trouble." Kazeyama says.

"Sir, I think you should see this." The security guard says.

Concerned, Kazeyama walks over to the doorway. The guard pushes it open for him to view. The sight of the water on the floor, a collapsed wall, and crushed crates astonishes Kazeyama. "Guys, why are our supply crates crushed under this wall?"

Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune all look at each other with worried expressions, wondering if any of them will come up with a cover story.

Kazeyama turns around to face the trio. "Look, since I didn't see who actually did this, I can't claim it as an accident in my report, but since the three of you are near, I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave the festival for now while we clean this up."

"Leave? Whitey, we just got here." Chisai says, begging for his sympathy.

"I'm sorry, but it's festival policy. I may be in charge, but I don't make the rules. No hard feelings, guys?" Kazeyama says holding up a hand in defense.

Sighing, Chisai turns around to walk away. "Okay, we'll leave. But I'll still see you at the school fair tomorrow, right?"

Kazeyama smiles. "Sure thing."

Turning around to see Kazeyama's smile made Chisai a little more cheerful.

Niko puts an arm around Kitsune to help him walk out. Some of the guards walk behind them as escorts.

As Kazeyama takes another look inside, his voice echoes in the vast emptiness of the warehouse space. "What a mess. Well, get the mops."

Chisai's the first to approach the car. Kitsune, now walking on his own, slightly stumbles as Niko is behind him, ready just in case. "Well, that was weird." Chisai says, turning around to lean on the car.

"Yeah, it was. Speaking of which, what happened to you, Chisai?" Niko says as he walks to the driver side of the car.

"Me?" Chisai puts a finger to her chin and looks up, trying to think back. "I recall finding Kitsune through the crowd, then splitting up to go in different directions. Then I saw a mashu and changed into my demon form and chased it down the alley..."

"A mashu?" Niko and Kitsune say in surprise.

"Yeah, it lead me to a weird tent thing, then...." she pauses as she tries to think. "I don't recall. The next thing I know, I'm standing in front of Whitey!"

"What happened?" Kitsune asks as he slips into the back seat of the car.

"I told you: I don't remember!" Chisai says with a bit of frustration.

"It's alright, Chisai. I'm sure it will come back to you." Niko says as he starts the car. "Meanwhile, I have a story for you."

"Yeah, me too." Kitsune says as he lays down in the back seat.

***

As Niko drives through a neighborhood, Kitsune looks out the window at the view.

Niko continues telling Chisai his story. "....and then, I saw Kitsune surrounded by water, so I rushed to his aid. You should've seen him – it looked like he just got out of the pool or something. So I helped him-"

"Niko! Stop!" Kitsune calls from the back.

Confused, Niko looks back at Kitsune. "I was just finishing up the story, Kitsune."

"No, stop the car!" Kitsune yells.

Stomping on the brake, Niko's car screeches to a halt in the neighborhood. "Kitsune, what's the matter?" Chisai asks looking into the back seat.

Kitsune is looking out the window like a child seeing a toy he really wanted through a storefront.

"Kitsune? Hello?" Chisai says.

Niko looks out a window facing the same direction as what Kitsune is looking at. He sees a small, oriental-style house, surrounded by a large wooden fence. The layered-stone walls stretch all around the house while a stone pathway leads through a zen rock garden. "Is that what you're looking at? It looks-"

The sound of the back car door opening cuts off Niko's sentence, followed by Kitsune walking towards the oriental-looking house.

"Kitsune?" Niko calls out, trying to get his attention.

Kitsune doesn't respond as he continues walking forward, straight through the gate in the fence.

Niko moves the car forward to park in an adjacent driveway. He and Chisai get out and follow Kitsune.

"Kitsune, dude? Anybody home?" Niko says as he snaps in front of Kitsune, once again trying to get his attention.

Kitsune stops in front of a dark brown wooden staircase, leading up to the wrap-around deck with the same dark brown wooden color. As he looks up at the front door, he says, "I'm home."

Niko and Chisai look at each other with a sense of confusion and wonderment. "This is your home?" Chisai asks.

Kitsune doesn't answer, but instead starts walking up the stairs.

The front door slowly opens inward, with a slight creak. "Dad?" Kitsune says softly.

"NII-SAN!" A high-pitched voice comes from the door, followed by a large amount of orange hair leaping from the doorway, straight towards Kitsune.

Ready to defend, Niko grabs hold of his sword handle, and Chisai gets in a ready fighting position.

As the large amount of orange hair tackles Kitsune to the ground, Niko and Chisai get a better look at what is attached to the hair. Arms are wrapped around Kitsune while the person is wearing a white lab coat and black pants.

Falling to his back was the last thing Kitsune expected at a time like this. "'Hey' to you too, sis."

"Nii-san! You're back!" Kitsune's sister says as she pushes herself off of him. "You had us so worried!" She falls back down to give him a bigger hug.

"You're...squishing...me!" Kitsune says as he slightly chokes.

"Kitsu-kun! It really is you!" A male voice says as a person approaches the door looking up from a glowing tablet reflected off of his glasses. "Keshi, get up off of your brother." He says as he walks down the steps towards the group.

Keshi pushes herself up off of Kitsune, and runs back to her father, her large breasts bouncing with every step. As Kitsune stands back up, he rubs his back from the impact. "Sis, you've gotten bigger since I last saw you."

Keshi's smile grows larger. "Yep! I'm all grown up now!" She says with a bubbly attitude.

Sticking the tablet device in his coat pocket, Kitsune's father speaks up. "Kitsu-kun, I'm assuming these are your friends?"

"DAD! Don't call me that! My name is 'Kitsune', not 'Kitsu-kun'. I'm 22 now, not a little kid anymore." Kitsune grunts.

"Oh, you're still my little boy to me, Kitsu-kun." He says. As he puts a hand in the air to wave at Niko and Chisai, he speaks. "Hello. I'm Kitsune's father, Kiban Kaji."

"Hi. I'm Chisai Konami." Chisai says.

Niko doesn't say anything as he stares at Keshi.

Chisai and Kitsune look at Niko, wondering if he's going to say anything. After a few moments of silence, Kitsune snaps in front of Niko's face.

Coming to, Niko blinks a bit and spits out a few words. "Oh, what, I'm, uh, who, uh, blue....."

"Uh, what?" Chisai asks, semi-rhetorically.

"I believe I have an explanation." Kiban says. "It seems his teenager hormones are kicking in. Keshi has been attracting a lot of male attention in the past few years. I can't say I blame them."

Keshi just smiles bigger as she slightly arcs her body to the side.

SLAP! Kitsune slaps Niko across the face. "Dude, that's my sister!"

Shaking his head like he had just woken up, Niko looks around to figure out what he's doing. "Oh, sorry. I wasn't paying attention. I'm Niko Sakuna."

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you." Keshi says with a slight bounce. Niko's stare refocuses on Keshi's chest as it moves.

"Same goes for me." Kiban follows up. "Listen, it's been at least ten years since Kitsu-kun's been home."

"It's been only seven" Kitsune growls.

"Really? Only seven? My, it seems like longer." Kiban says.

"And you call yourself a scientist?" Kitsune says under his breath.

"Anyway, it's been a long time since Kitsu-kun's been back home. Why don't you all come inside? Keshi, can you prepare the tea?" Kiban says.

"Yep!" Keshi says as she stands back up, her breasts bouncing. "Hope everyone likes Jasmine tea!" She says as she runs back up the stairs, inside the house.

"Please make yourselves at home, and pardon the mess. We're running a few series of experiments and needed to spread out the technical equipment." Kiban says as he extends a hand towards the door for the trio.

Kitsune walks past Kiban, slightly aggravated.

"Thank you." Chisai says, while Niko seems lost in a trance. "Come on, Niko!" She says as she reaches out for Niko's hand and drags him along like a dog on a leash.

Sitting around a short chabudai table, Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune are sitting on zabuton cushions while Keshi pours the teapot into each of their cups. Every time Keshi bends to pour the pot, Chisai hits Niko to keep him focused.

"Thank you for the tea, Mr. Kaji." Chisai says as she holds up her cup.

"Please, call me Kiban. I've always hated titles." Kiban says as he sits down with them.

"What kind of experiments are you running?" Niko asks.

"It's a...." Kiban looks away, "how to explain it...". Looking back at Niko, he continues. "Ever looked up something on your phone, like an article or a reference?"

"Yeah, I do it all the time." Niko says as he takes a sip of his tea.

"Well, this is a kind of.....it's hard to explain." Kiban says nervously.

Putting his cup down, Niko starts to get curious. "What is it?"

Kiban looks around the table, then back at Niko. "You're probably going to think I'm crazy for saying this. I know many people have."

"Try us." Chisai says as she sips.

Kiban looks around the table one more time, making sure he feels confident enough to say what he wants to say. "The whole world relies on facts, and transmitting information faster than possible, right?"

Niko and Chisai nod. Kitsune's trying to stay out of the conversation.

"Well, these experiments deal with.....I feel stupid even saying it." Kiban says as he looks away feeling embarrassed.

"Look, you've already started telling us. You might as well finish." Niko says.

Taking a deep breath, Kiban exhales and says, "You're right, you're right. I've started, therefore I must finish. Okay, here it goes."

Niko and Chisai lean in towards the table to hear what he has to say.

"Damn it, dad! Just spit it out already! Your experiments deal with the demon world!" Kitsune blurts out.

Feeling like he had just made a presentation in front of thousands of his colleagues in his underwear, Kiban's face becomes extremely pale.

"'Demon world', huh? Sounds fishy." Niko says.

Following the ruse, Chisai follows up. "Yeah, I guess we need to call the government on this secret research you're doing."

In a heartbeat, Kiban is reaching across the table at Niko and Chisai. "PLEASE PLEASE DON'T DO THAT!" he begs.

Niko and Chisai look at each other, then slowly crack smiles that turn into laughter.

Pulling himself back to his cushion, Kiban tries to curl himself up and away from any more embarrassment. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

Wiping a tear away from his eyes, Niko controls his laughter enough to talk. "Don't worry about it. Both Chisai and I are half-demons."

The feeling of awe goes through Kiban as he is unable to speak for a moment. "You-you-you are actual demons?"

Sipping his tea, Niko answers. "Well, I'm a real half-demon – have been all my life. Chisai's a synthetic demon. She just got her powers yesterday."

Chisai chokes a bit on her tea. "I'm a WHAT?"

"It dealt with Lord Tora. Ask him." Niko says calmly.

"I don't believe it. A real demon and a faux demon, right on my doorstep." Kiban says as he tries to comprehend the amount of research that is basically sitting in front of him. Feeling a sense of joy, he stands up and runs around the table, getting between Niko and Chisai. As he places his arms around their necks to give them a tight hug, he says, "Do you have any idea what kind of progress this will make on my research?"

Niko and Chisai try to look at each other, starting to get worried. "Uh...maybe we should go." Niko says.

Realizing that he was scaring his guests, Kiban lets go of their necks and backs away. "Oh, no, please no. Please don't go! I promise I won't dissect you or perform experiments on you or anything!" He pleads.

Unsure about their current situation, Niko and Chisai look at each other, hoping to get a confirmation from each other. "You absolutely promise?" Chisai asks.

"You have my word. As of now, all of my research has been based on rumors, skeptics, stories, you know, all of the gossip across the network." Kiban says. "I've never actually been able to prove the existence of actual demons in this world. The whole context was just a theory, or in some parts of the world, a joke."

Keshi walks over to Niko's part of the table and pours more tea into his cup. Slightly distracted, Niko starts talking. "Well, as long as you promise not to do anything weird to us, we'll help you."

Bowing on the floor in respect to his new "demon assistants," Kiban expresses his gratitude. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you."

As Keshi steps over stretched cables and moves around some equipment to leave and enter another room, it occurs to Niko as to what he just said, and he needed to make sure that the deal was one that he could live with. "On one condition."

Kiban stops bowing and pushes himself up to listen to what Niko has to say. "Yes?"

"Whatever research you get from us, you must keep secret."

"Understood. No problems here. 100% secret!" Kiban says in an animated fashion.

"Because you know what the government will do and other scientists will do to us if they found out." Chisai adds.

"Unfortunately, yes, I do." Kiban concludes.

"Good, because I don't know and I don't want to know." Chisai says.

"I'm glad we have a deal." Kiban stands up and starts to walk into another room. "Listen, if you don't mind, I'm sure you don't want to spend your whole lives here. How about I give you something to take with you?"

Niko, Chisai, and Kitsune all look at each other, curious to what this item could be.

Before any of them can answer, Kiban walks into the other room. "Be right back!" he says as he steps over cables stretched across the house.

"Well, that was...slightly weird." Chisai says.

"That's just how he is, and how he's always been." Kitsune says.

Niko looks around the room to see more of Kitsune's house. He sees a photo on a mantle surrounded by candles and flowers. The female in the photo looks a little like Kitsune, and a little like Keshi. "Kitsune, who's that?" Niko asks as he points to the photo.

Kitsune turns around to see where Niko is pointing. As soon as he sees the photo and the surrounding items, it all comes back to him. "That's...." he tries to hold back a tear as he turns back to face Niko, "my mother."

Niko spits back up in his tea a bit, not expecting to hear that type of answer with the emotional attachment.

Feeling his emotions go from slight frustration to sad, Chisai extends an arm to Kitsune, trying to comfort him. "Did something happened to her?"

Sniffling, Kitsune's mind relives the dark memory. "When I was six, I was at home with my mother watching TV. When I got up to get something to drink, there was a loud crash through the front of our house. I was scared and hid in the kitchen.

"I heard a deep creepy voice talking. I couldn't understand everything he was saying. I went around the corner to see who was talking, and saw my mother cowering in the living room. Her face showed that she was completely terrified – I'll never forget it.

"The person talking in the deep voice started getting closer to her. All I could see was his shadow overtaking her. Then...." Kitsune pauses as he sniffs a bit, a tear forms in his eye.

"It's okay, you can tell us." Chisai says, trying to offer some moral support.

Kitsune continues. "Then, the shadow grew larger and larger, and had tentacles grow out of it."

Niko and Chisai look at each other in confusion. Tentacles? They both silently mouth to each other.

"All I could do is hide in terror as the tentacles speared through my mother." Kitsune leans over to Chisai and starts crying on her chest. She pats him on the back.

"She cried out in pain. Her voice still echoes in my ears. I saw...I saw her blood covering the wall. I saw the life fade from her eyes. I saw her.....DIE!" Kitsune starts crying unbearably. His tears start staining Chisai's shirt.

The noise that Kitsune was creating prompted Keshi to come back in. "What's going on?" She looks down at the table and sees Niko and Chisai, and Kitsune laying on Chisai's chest crying. Her attitude turned from bubbly to serious in an instant once she recognized the situation her older brother was in. "I know what this is about." She kneels down between Kitsune and Chisai, slightly nudging Chisai out of the way. Kitsune moves his head from Chisai and on to Keshi. She puts a hand on his head and starts rubbing it. "He always gets this way when he thinks about our Mom."

_Whoa, she got really serious all the sudden._ Niko and Chisai think.

Curious to the situation, Niko holds his hormones back to ask his question in a professional manner. "Why aren't you crying, Keshi?"

"My dad and I were out at day-care. I was only a toddler when mom died, so I didn't get to know her much." Seeing how her dear brother was caught up in his memory, she felt obligated to finish the story. "From what I've been told, when dad and I got home, the first thing that he noticed was the large hole in the front of the house. I was too young to know any difference."

Keshi continues. "When he ran inside, he saw her laying on the floor, covered in blood and with giant holes in her body. He didn't know how to deal with it, and went mentally insane for a while. I basically lived at day-care for a few months.

"Afterwards, when he and Nii-san finally talked about it, he devoted his life to researching more about demons and how to get back at what Nii-san saw."

"I'm so sorry." Niko says. "If I had known that he would have broken down like that, I wouldn't have asked."

Holding Kitsune tightly to help him recover, Keshi looks up at Niko. "It's okay. We've had to deal with this on multiple occasions. I'm sure this is the first time he's thought about her in so many years." She looks behind Kitsune at the photo. "We keep that photo of her to remind us about her; not the bad times, like this one, but the good ones, even if we don't all remember her as others do.

"Since Nii-san was abducted seven years ago, we haven't had to worry about his breakdowns around here. It was peaceful for a while, but then we missed his crying. It just didn't feel like....home, without him here."

Slightly choking on his words, Niko tries to speak. "I....can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent."

Holding and looking into her tea, a tear falls from Chisai's eye into her cup. "I know what it's like to lose a brother." The tear causes ripples in her faint reflection.

Concerned that old memories were resurfacing, Niko reaches over to Chisai for support. "Chisai, are you okay?"

Chisai sniffs, holding back her emotion. Wiping her eye with her free hand, she looks at Niko with a forced smile. "I'm fine. I'm okay."

Niko looks into her eyes. "Good. I was getting worried that this was going to get even more sad."

Chisai sniffs again. "Nah, it's okay." She looks around as if to find a distraction. "Hey, where'd Mr. Kaji go, anyway?"

"I'm right here!" Kiban says as he enters the room. "I heard Kitsu-kun crying, so I went to his room to get something to help him."

Hearing his father's voice offer some form of support, Kitsune lifts his head from Keshi's chest to look at him and what he's holding.

"Kitsu-kun, look what I have." Kiban says as he holds an item towards Kitsune.

Kitsune slowly sits up and leans forward, reaching out to grab what his father was handing him: a round, plushie fox, slightly smaller than a bowling ball, with orange and white fur, small black paws and ears, and short orange tail with a white tip, looking well past its prime and overdue for a wash. Kitsune quickly snatches it from his father's hand and hugs it like there's no tomorrow.

As Kiban sits at the table, he places a tablet-like display on the table. "When Kitsu-kun was little, my wife, Shizuka, bought him that little fox, he would never let it go, and he had it with him ever since. Although she got it for him, it helps him relax and come to peace with her memory."

"How touching." Chisai says.

"How fitting."Niko follows up with a slightly sarcastic tone. Chisai punches Niko in the arm for that comment. "Ow!"Niko says softly as he rubs his arm where she hit him.

Sniffing, Kitsune says in a cracking voice. "Okay, I'm better now."

Trying to move the conversation along, Niko notices the tablet-like device on the table and points to it. "So, Kiban, what's that thing?"

Kiban regains his focus on the device. "Ah, that." As he picks it up to show to them, he continues. "This is my latest little invention: a portable demon database reference guide with built in 3D projection array."

"That's...a long name." Chisai says, trying not to sound offensive.

"I know." He sighs as he places the tablet on the table. "I'm great at creating things when it comes to designing and developing them, but not naming them."

"I know!"Keshi perks up. "How about the 'taiseki'? Seeing as it's a storage database, the name fits."

Kiban thinks on it. "'Taiseki'? It has a nice ring to it."

Niko and Chisai feel a little left out of the conversation. "So...what's it do?" Niko asks.

"I'm glad you asked!" Kiban says as he picks it back up. "I'm still working on the mass database referencing listing, but it can query whatever you like for whatever I've been able to find. And, if something new is found that it doesn't have, then it automatically updates the reference and syncs it with the server here!"

"So, how do we use it?" Chisai asks.

"Let me show you." He turns it around so the screen faces the trio. "Give me a demonic item. Any item."

"The Banish Blade." Niko calls out.

"Um....uh...I'm sorry, but I don't have that entry." Kiban says nervously.

"But it's a demonic item. I have it in the car!" Niko says.

"Does it have any other names, perhaps?" Kiban asks.

Niko tries to think back to what his parents said. "What about 'The Blade of Demise'?"

"Accessing." The tablet device says in a digital voice. The screen lights up and a series of lines and circles appear, with one large circle rotating in the middle.

Surprised by the sudden reaction of the device, Niko and Chisai hop back a bit.

A few moments later, the device speaks again. "Item found: Blade of Demise." The small embossed circle in the top of the device rotates forward, then emits a series of lights producing a rotating 3D representation of the blade and its sheath in front of the device. "Description: Legendary Sword. Attacks: Unnamed attack generates dark vortex, creating a gravitational force pulling all surrounding items into it."

"Whoa." Chisai says.

"That's what the legend says." Niko says. "But I have an update for you. The only attack I've been able to produce is Hellfire, and it creates fiery fissures along the ground. And it told me to call it the 'Banish Blade'."

"It....told you?" Kiban asks in astonishment.

"Yeah, yeah. Long story. But listen, if that record of yours needs to be updated, then let me update it." Niko says.

"All you have to do is let it observe you, and it will update the record, hopefully with some video proof." Kiban says. "Please, take this, and carry it with you on your travels."He says as he hands it to Niko. The 3D projection fades away, but the screen stays on. "I'll stay here and make improvements on the database, and try a few more things out."

"I got something I want to ask." Kitsune says as he places his plushie fox on the table.

Niko, Chisai, Kiban, and Keshi all look at Kitsune, surprised that he wants to talk after having his breakdown.

He reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out the medallion piece. As he holds it up in front of everyone he says, "What about this medallion piece? How many more are there?"

The tablet device responds. "Query unknown. Please restate."

"Try this." Kiban picks up the tablet and faces it towards the medallion piece in Kitsune's hand. "Examine item." Kiban says in a commanding, monotone voice.

The embossed circle at the top of the tablet flashes once, then starts to display the lines and circles again on its screen. "Accessing..." the tablet says. "Item found." A 3D image of the medallion in full is rotating in front of the device. "The fire fragment of The Medallion of Tsukaneru. The Medallion of Tsukaneru is a powerful medallion controlling elemental powers: water, fire, earth, wind, and psychic. Each piece interlocks, forming the full medallion, which can then combine the elemental forces. The jewel in the middle allows the user to control the powers with a mental link, instead of calling out each power." The 3D projection fades away.

"Wait. I thought the five elements were 'earth, fire, wind, water, and metal', not psychic." Niko says.

"Don't blame me. I didn't write the legend." Kiban says as he places the tablet on the table.

"Well, at least that helps us identify how many pieces we need to find. We have the 'fire' piece, which means that we have to find four others." Chisai says, reaching over for the tablet.

"Don't forget the middle jewel. I didn't see it after the whole 'explosion' disaster back in the forest." Kitsune says.

"Do you think Omego has it? It could have flown up with him." Niko says.

Kitsune crosses his arms. "I don't know, and I don't want to find out."

"Well, until we find the other pieces, why don't I hold on to the Taiseki?" Chisai says as she tries to shove it into back pocket.

"Okay. Kitsune, you hold on to the fire piece. Chisai, you carry around the database, and I'll drive the car. Our little adventure is falling into place, and we'll be back at Lord Tora's with the medallion before he knows it." Niko says.

"Right!" Chisai says as she nods.

"You can go back, but I'm not going with you." Kitsune says.

"What?" Niko asks, thinking that Kitsune's adventure ended right here.

"I'll help you get the medallion pieces, since I was there during its destruction. But after you get all of the pieces back, I'm not going back to Tora's."

"But...why?"

"I'm 99% sure he's the one who captured me."

"Wait! Lord Tora?"Kiban slightly yells as he slams his hands on the table. " As in the ancient wizard that has been eluding me for years?"

"Uh...yeah." Niko answers with a slight hint of fright.

"I've been trying to catalog him in my database for years, but every time that I get a bit of new information, or some photos or a location, it always vanishes without a trace!" Kiban says.

"Yeah, digital records are wiped clean. Physical documentation disappears." Keshi speaks up. "We've even had couriers try and deliver the information to remote destinations, to see if it was just us, but when they arrived to deliver the package, the package was gone without their knowledge."

Surprised at this information, Niko and Chisai try to comprehend what they just heard.

"I have no doubt that Tora is evil, which is why I'm not going back with you." Kitsune says, patting his plushie fox.

"Okay, that's just...weird. But I've known Lord Tora for years – he's my personal trainer, and he helped Chisai stabilize her powers!" Niko says.

"It doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't change." Kitsune says as he stands up. "If he really is the one that captured me and held me prisoner for seven years,"he cracks his knuckles. "I'll make sure he pays."

Niko quickly stands up. "Okay, okay, you don't have to go back with us to deliver the medallion. It's your choice. And, I think that we're all a little tired from today's events." He faces Kiban. "Kiban, do you have some place for us to rest for a while, just to get our energy back before we head out again?"

Pausing for a moment to think of possible options to the question he was presented, Kiban finally responds. "Yes! Please! By all means, take a rest! Our home is your home."

"Ahem..." Kitsune coughs a bit.

"And, of course, it is still your home, Kitsu-kun." Kiban says.

Kitsune softly lets out a deep growl.

Kiban continues. "We don't have a suitable guest suite, so I hope we can accommodate." He looks at the trio. "Niko, you can borrow my bed. Chisai, you can borrow Keshi's, and Kitsu-kun..."

Kitsune looks at his father with an evil look.

"You can have your old room. It was left just the way it was when you left."

Kitsune stands up and walks towards the staircase to go upstairs. "Thanks, dad" he says under his breath.

Chisai stands up. "Thank you, Kiban. I'm sure getting a good rest will help us be ready for whatever comes our way."

"Agreed." Niko says.

Kiban stands up. "I'll lead you to my room. Keshi, can you lead Chisai to your room?"

Keshi quickly stands up, her large breasts bouncing due to the movement. "Sure thing, dad!" she says with a smile.

"Please, come this way, Niko." As Kiban walks down the hallway, he notices Niko isn't following him, but instead is entranced by Keshi.

Walking back to Niko, Kiban grabs his arm. "Come on, boy." Then walks down the hallway again as he drags Niko.

Keshi hops up the stairs. "This way!"

Chisai follows Keshi's path.

As they reach the top of the staircase, the noise of a door slamming is heard down the hallway. Keshi looks in the direction she thought the sound came from. "I'm sure that's Nii-san. It's been a hard day for him."

"Yeah, I can imagine." Chisai says.

Keshi bounces over to a door that says "KESHI" on it. Presenting her room like a business presentation, she holds out her hand. "So this is my room." As Chisai approaches, she continues the presentation. "If you want to rest up, you can use my bed! Extra pillows and blankets are in the closet, and the bathroom is down the hallway, first door on the right."

Walking past Keshi to get into her room, Chisai nods. "Okay, thanks." She notices the various diplomas hanging along the walls, the amount of shining trophies on the bookshelves, and the large piles of stuffed animals scattered throughout the room. Although the room had a certain "young female" touch, it certainly reflected Keshi's knowledge and experience in a large number of different fiends.

"How long do you want to rest?" Keshi says with an upbeat attitude.

"Um...maybe an hour or so? I think that should do it."

"Okie dokie! I'll come get you in an hour! Sleep tight!" She says as she walks away and back down the steps.

As Chisai sits on the bed, it bounces slightly. "How appropriate." she thinks. She stretches out her body along the bed and lays her head on the pillow, falling fast asleep.

"So here's my bedroom. The bed may be a little stiff, but it should be pretty comfy." Kiban says as he walks into his bedroom with Niko. "There's a bathroom down the hallway, and I'll try to be as quiet as I can in the lab."

To Niko's surprise, the room was completely clean, as compared to the rest of the house. The cozy colors of the carpet, the bed, and the walls made the room extremely welcoming, and the numerous digital displays across the wall made the room have a futuristic look to it as well. Walking towards the bed, Niko says, "Thanks. Can you wake me in about an hour or so? I could really use the rest." He slowly raises his arms, stretching while yawning.

"You got it." Kiban walks over to a digital display on the wall. After pressing a few buttons, the numbers "1:00:00" blinks in green. "In one hour, this alarm will gently wake you." The numbers start counting down by the second.

Niko sits on the bed, judging its softness. "Okay, thanks."

Kiban nods, then walks out the doorway and closes the door most of the way, leaving a crack in it.

***

About 45 minutes later, a series of high-pitched noises, followed by a series of clicks wakes Kitsune up from his slumber. Surrounded by the posters, the books, the figures, and other trinkets that he wondered how he couldn't live without when he was 15, the nostalgic trip left him uneasy, so waking up wasn't too hard for him.

He walks over to his bedroom door and opens it, expecting to see his father, sister, or one of his new friends making the noises. "What is going on?" he asks down the hallway as he tries to blink himself awake.

As his eyesight focuses, he sees a person with orange hair walking down the hallway. "Sis, you're being too noisy!" he says as he approaches the person.

The person turns to go down the staircase, and Kitsune can see their face through the banister poles. "Chisai?" Her eyes are blank.

He expects the sound of feet landing on the steps to be heard, but a closer look at Chisai showed her floating down the steps. "Chisai! What are you doing?" He tries reaching out for her, but is repealed by a barrier. "What the hell?"

Jumping down the stairs as Chisai floats down them, Kitsune turns the corner as she approaches the bottom. The front door opens inward as she approaches and floats through.

"NIKO! WAKE UP!" Kitsune says as he slams his father's bedroom door wide open.

Niko sits up in the bed. "What? What?" he looks around trying to assess the situation.

"Chisai is...." Kitsune has to think about how to describe what he just saw.

"What about her?" Niko asks as he gets out of the bed.

"She...."

"What?"

Frustrated at the lack of adverbs to describe the situation he just witnessed, he grabs Niko's arm and rushes to the front door. "Look!" He points to Chisai, who has floated down the front staircase and is now floating through the front gate. "See?"

"Chisai!" Niko calls out.

Chisai doesn't respond, but instead turns left and floats down the street, increasing in speed.

Running through the front door and down the large staircase, Niko yells back to Kitsune. "Get to the car. We'll chase her down!"

Feeling like he had no other option, Kitsune jumps down the large staircase as well and heads over to Niko's car.

They both jump in, Niko presses the start button, backs the car up, and starts speeding down the road, chasing after Chisai.

As they travel down the road, following Chisai at increasing speeds, Kitsune asks, "What happened to her?"

"I have no idea. I knew she could fly, but I never thought she could fly this fast." Niko says as he sees his speedometer needle rise quickly.

After about twenty minutes of chasing Chisai, Niko and Kitsune are driving on a car path through the forest, near the location they were earlier in the day. "Boy, this all looks familiar." Kitsune says as he looks at the surrounding trees.

"Where the hell is she going?" Niko asks.

"I don't know, but there's A CLIFF!" Kitsune says with increasing volume as he points in front of the car.

So focused on following Chisai, Niko didn't see the approaching cliff edge. He slams on the brake, hoping to stop the car...again.

As Chisai approaches the cliff edge, a large black oval appears in front of her, off the edge of the cliff. The edge of the black oval is fuzzy, as if it is unstable and has to be held in place. Chisai approaches the black oval, passes through, and both her and the oval disappear.

Approaching the cliff edge, Niko and Kitsune hold on to the door handles for support. "Hang on!" Niko calls out as he spins the wheel.

The car slides sideways, then comes to a stop at before the cliff edge, with enough room for Kitsune to get out and walk around.

As Niko and Kitsune step out, they both are breathing heavily. "What... the... hell... just happened?" Kitsune asks.

"And where'd she go?" Niko asks as well.

A white oval appears and grows on the Niko's side of the car, opposite of the cliff face. The sound of sparks and electricity come from the oval.

"Niko, what's happening?" Kitsune calls from the other side of the car as he looks down the cliff side, wondering where Chisai went.

As a figure materializes from the white oval, Niko recognizes the person and calls out, "You're the last person I'd expect to be here!"

To be continued...

About the Author

When he's not writing story lines or scripts for upcoming novels or mangas, Kyle M. Perkins usually designs, develops, and hand-codes web-based services using a mixture of multiple web languages, including PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, jQuery, and more, as he has been doing since 2001.

Although this is his first official novel, Kyle is also working on story lines for various mangas titles, including such titles as _Crystal_ _Blaze,_ _All_ _Souls_ _Crescent,_ _Phoenix_ _Eye,_ and _Omega_ _Noir_ , all produced by Lunar Productions, a small studio run by him and Keat Cahoon.

As a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, Kyle has many years of experience in the martial art, including becoming State Champ in Weapons for 2 consecutive years, and a Level 1 Instructor for the American Taekwondo Association.

Kyle thoroughly enjoys watching sci-fi and anime series, with his favorites being "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Doctor Who", and "Sword Art Online."

Kyle lives in Waynesville, NC, with his fiancée, Martha "Keat" Cahoon, and their three cats, Niko (yes, the name is the same), Chi, and Maru.

