Disclaimers: Author does not on anything, so leave me alone.

A/N: Something about gore-fest, blood and guts and fighting. I must be running around in the deeper end at the moment. Will only be a one shot for now, AU, rather pointless read, but there may be more… one day. Once I get my head over something (needs to finish stories). Something about demons and demon-hunters (in case you get confused). Now, isn't that an original idea (yes, that is sarcasm). Enjoy.

Okay, people seemed to be complaining about the… uhm… lack of pairings. Of course, the forewarning was that it was nearly impossible to see it as a one-shot, so… there's more. Yeah… I know… fear me.

Status: Multi-chapter fic. Incomplete.

Pairings: DarkRiku, others to be mentioned later.

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Spiritual Side

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Fortitude One

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Wiping a hand across her face, Riku spat out some blood and heaved herself up again. Her muscles strained pitifully, begging for rest, but she knew that it was practically impossible; unless she wanted to die. And she wasn't ready for that yet anyway. Her dark eyes darted across the small room, ignoring the devastation around her as she held up her long-sword into a proper fighting stance.

Blood dripping silently off the cold steel, and the sensation of blood pouring out of her leg wound would have – at one point – made her wince, but her attention was focused on more desperate things. Things that would either account to her own death, or the others'.

The corpses that littered the floor around her were already beginning to decay, she noticed bitterly; had she been fighting against this thing for that long already? It seemed almost impossible and she didn't like it. She was used to it, but she didn't like it one bit, and knew that she never would.

Risa was going to have a fit when she found out what had happened, the short haired brunette winced mentally at the thought of her younger twin, but then again, if she did die, it wouldn't matter, would it? At least the others had managed to get away from this place before something more disastrous happened. And they could warn the others.

Dammit, it was Saehara's fault in the first place. If the damn reporter hadn't decided that he wanted to make some stupid report about this stupid mansion that she was now in, then it wouldn't have placed him in this danger; in which both she and Mio had been forced to get him out of it. The short-haired blonde had then been sent off with him to get him to a hospital and to send for reinforcements, leaving Riku to deal with the mess as best as possible.

Where the hell were those reinforcements?

The sound of something wooden cracking brought her back to her senses and she smirked grimly at what was before her.

It was a demon of some sort, that was for sure, but definitely harder to decapitate and destroy. Why and how it had come into existence was a mystery to her and had been forcefully filed away to ask questions later. Its' minions, however, were the typical d-rank demons they always were and had spurted more blood than what one could have expected of the vile things. The floorboards she was standing upon was slippery with their blood, and the fact that they were rotting this quickly could only raise one suspicion.

Had this… thing she was facing somehow managed to absorb their souls? She had once talked about this to Daisuke, who had admitted that bodies only begin to decay once their souls are free from it, and judging the speed of that horrible dead smell that was beginning to fill the room…

She wrinkled her nose in disgust as the demon charged her. She parried, wondering how it had managed to acquire any sort of weapon at all, and countered; knocking it back just slightly. But while she was panting and hoping that back-up was coming, the creature didn't seem to be hindered at all by fatigue.

Riku cursed under her breath, her breathing coming in sharp, painful gasps. It was too much for her to handle in one day, especially on her own, but she couldn't just back out and run now. Hell, even if she wanted to do, just running around and taking a step would lead to her collapse.

God, she hated all this. The blood on her leg wound was slowly trickling in a thin pathway, her sword shaking just slightly in her hand as she tried to readjust. If only she had listened to her sister and had taken those extra medical items when Risa had insisted it so. Or at least drag Daisuke with her; he could probably deal with all this without any problem now.

But now, she was the only one here; with the demon that could not even be identified and she was probably going to die. Well, that was nice, thinking all that before her actual death, but it wasn't going to be pretty. If demons were as sadistic as she thought them to be, then it was going to be pure torture for her for a long time…

"Dammit, can't think about that…" she hissed to herself, the pain nearly wrenching her apart mentally as she used all her willpower on staying up and ready for the next attack. But it didn't help.

A sharp gasp escaped her in pain as something sharp and lethally cold pierced her right shoulder, practically reaching the bone. She pulled back in the same direction, countering with an upwards slash which missed. One hand holding her sword, the other clasped tightly over the wound, her eyes narrowing at her enemy. There was no glory, no triumph or mocking in the demon's face; it was like it was too stupid to even be able to think that at all. No, it was probably just sent here to kill, and kill it was about to do.

Her senses were beginning to fog up and she struggled with it, only partly aware that her knees had hit the floorboards and blood was soaking her tunic. The clarity of her death and the fact that it would probably kill her twin at the thought was almost too painful to even think about it, but the thought would not leave her.

Damn all of them, damn the stupid upper-being that had created demons in the first place and damn Saehara for his eagerness to run into things despite the danger of it all. Damn them all now…

As a grateful darkness swept over her – well, even if she did die, it would hopefully be now when she was unconscious and unable to work out anything theoretically – some sixth sense somewhere indicated that, aside from the demon approaching her form, someone else was coming.

Well screw it all, she was already dead.