Chapter 4

Homecoming

After I had visited a barber and shaved off my beard back into it's usual goatee, I was back looking somewhat normal again. That is, except for my muscle growth. I couldn't really hide it, since it was summer time now and way to damn hot to wear both a sweatshirt and overcoat. I wore the overcoat alone as much as possible, so people wouldn't question why I had spent so much time in Europe lifting weight or whatever. We had returned mid afternoon, so I was able to finish all of that up and spend sometime with my mother who, of course, asked both Derek and myself a thousand questions a piece. She had insisted on Derek staying with us and having a home-cooked meal. She was like his second mom, in a way.

My mother, Michelle, was the one who had pretty much raised me since I was about six years old. My old man left her and I really hadn't seen much of him since then. She was in her early forties now, but still going strong. It turns out, though, that the man who left when I was a child wasn't my true father. I met my real dad, Todd, only a few months before I had left. Everyone says he looks exactly like me, and I guess that's true. I dunno. He seems pretty cool. He and his wife Melissa were going to be joining us for dinner.

Derek and I had already planned to visit our friends the next day and try to spend as much time with them and my family as possible for the next two weeks. We swore we weren't going to worry about the upcoming battle, because I mean, who knows. We might not make it out alive. We had to live life to the fullest now, or it might be to late.

Dinner happened as planned. My mother, you could say, prepared us a feast fit for a king. We ate, talked about the trip (well, lied about the trip), and laughed about all the good times in the past. After a few hours, everyone either left or went to bed, leaving Derek and myself up and sitting in my room, me on my bed and Derek on the recliner. My room was fairly big. It had a large bed, a lazy-boy recliner, TV and videogames, and a decent stereo. The wall was covered in posters, as well. My closet mostly just had clothes in it, but I kept the Tetsaru and my old blade in there as well, along with the jacket Gero gave me, and my fighting gloves.

"So..." Derek said after a little bit of silence, except for the sound of the TV, "You gonna write a will?"

"Hell no." I replied, even though the thought had crossed my mind. I mean this really could be our last stand. We might actually die in the battle to come. We had only fought against minor demons in the past, and here we are about to go up against the strongest of the strong.

"Yea...your right. No need to worry. We're plenty strong! Plus, Kurama will be with us." Derek said with a grin. I glanced over at him.

"How much stronger did he get?" I asked, curious on if Gero was right and Kurama had gotten some training in while training my friend.

"A little bit. He claims he's now a high A-class demon, but who knows."

"I see..." I put my hands behind my head and closed my eyes. I decided that there was nothing I could do about it at this point. "I'm gonna catch some shut eye."

"All right. See ya in the morning." he got up and left the room, flipping off the light switch as he did. We had a forth bedroom which Derek pretty much claimed as his own. I turned off the TV and stared up at the ceiling. I'm not going to die...we'll beat Shura, and that's that. And with that false bit of hope, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

The next day, after we had breakfast and showered and crap, we met our friends at the mall. They were over thrilled to see us, and we couldn't help but be as well. After all the hugs and high fives and whatnot, I couldn't help but notice that Liz wasn't around. I looked over at my friend, Justin, and asked about her.

"Where is Liz? I figured she'd be first in line to see us back." Justin gave me a rather confused look,

"Dude...you gone nuts? Liz went on the same program you and Derek did about six months ago."

"What?!" Derek and I yelled in unison.

"Y-yea..." Justin replied, taking a step back, "She said it was in the same area. Oh! It must have been at a different school. I guess it is possible you didn't see her, but I wonder why she never tried to contact you. Oh well." Derek and I looked at each other and walked off into a corner of the mall.

"'Same program as us'?" Derek asked.

"No way...Spirit World hoaxed that. It's not possible..." I rubbed the back of my head, "Maybe...there really is a program like that? And Spirit World just put our names in it. Shit, I don't know I'm freakin' confused!"

"Oh, hey! Liz!" We heard someone say from behind us. We turned around and sure enough there was Liz, draped in her usual attire. White t-shirt, tan pants, and tennis shoes. Her hair was braided back and hung loosely. It looked even longer then before, but that did make sense since it had been eight months. She smiled at the others, and then looked at Derek and me.

"Hi there, you two. I hope you got as much from that program as I did." She winked, which caused me to frown and step forward.

"Now wait a second, Liz! We-" I was cut off by Derek grabbing my shoulder.

"Play it cool." he whispered. I sighed and nodded slowly. He stepped forward and looked at her, "So Liz...what kinda stuff did you learn at the program you did?" he asked her, watching her carefully as if she could explode at any given moment.

"Well..." she said with a smile still on her face, "Let's just say it was a learning experience, and I'm sure that we all learned about the same things. Like...foreign kings and invasions..."

"Liz..." Derek started, but this time I was the one to cut him off.

"Liz. You know, don't you?" I asked her. My gut was already telling me the answer, I just wanted to be sure. The girl merely smiled and nodded slowly,

"Yes, I do. I know all about you two and your adventures, Kurama, and all of what is going to take place in two weeks. And, I'm going to help." This time, we both stepped forward,

"No way." Derek said, firmly.

"Yea. You can't fight with us. You don't know a damn thing about fighting demons!" I said, slightly loud. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard, but everyone was oblivious to our conversation.

"What do you think I was doing these last six months, huh? Studying foreign languages? I was training to learn how to fight demons, like you two. I already had basic combat down." That part was true. Liz was a black belt in karate, and had been for a year now. She was going for her second degree, but that's about all I knew.

"Okay then. What kinda spirit powers you got, huh?" I demanded. This just didn't seem right, Liz fighting along side of us. Sure, she was one of "the guys", but not mine and Derek's partner in demon slaying.

"Well," She began, "What I have isn't exactly spirit energy. I'm a psychic, or that's what Kenji told me."

"Who's Kenji?" Derek asked, propping himself up against the nearby wall.

"My master, the one who trained me. Anyways, my psychic powers let me control the area around me with my daggers and knives..."

"Whoa." I interrupted, "What daggers? What knives? Liz, you and sharp pointy objects frightens me." She merely laughed, and held one out. It was a simple throwing knife, with 4-inch blade. She closed her eyes for a moment, and I quickly felt an odd change in the feeling of the area. I glanced at Derek, whom I could tell also noticed it. Liz also noticed our reactions and grinned,

"This is called my Territory. In this area, I can control the sharpness and density of my weapons, making them faster and stronger then normal knives or daggers. It makes for good demon hunting." I was frowning now. I didn't like the fact that Liz was going to be helping us. Not because I thought she was going to be a burden or anything, but only because both Derek and myself looked onto Liz like a younger sister, and her fighting with us might make us to worried about her, and we'd forget our true mission. I shook the thought out of my mind.

If Kurama thinks she'll be a good ally, then I guess that's fine with me... I thought to myself.

"Well...whadaya think, pal?" I heard Derek ask me, and I glanced over to him, and merely shrugged.

"Whatever...just don't get in our way. Your knives are jackshit compared to my Spirit Gun." And with that, we all had a good laugh, and joined back into our group of friends to hang out for the rest of the day, and attempt to be normal teenagers.

Three days had already passed, and it had seemed hardly a day at all. I was alone for the first time since I had arrived back into town, and I happened to be at one of my favorite spots. It was atop of the mountain that was in the outskirts of town. It wasn't really a mountain, but the name suggests it. Mt. Solo. Dumb name, but whatever. It was still a nice spot. I came here a lot to think, and now seemed as good a time as any to do so. I had with me the Tetsaru, and I just stared at it blankly.

I guess this is the part where I look back at life, right? Tell myself I have no regrets. Shit...I got a lot of regrets. I wish I coulda at least gone to college. No, I gotta stop thinking like that. I stood up, holding the Tetsaru in my right hand, "I'm not going to let some damn demon get the best of me!"

"Good to hear, cause neither am I!" I heard a voice call from behind me. I quickly turned to see Derek, grinning at me.

"How long you been there?" I asked, frowning.

"Long enough to realize we're thinking the same thing." he walked over and sat down a few feet from me.

"So, Derek. Really. What did Kurama teach you during your training?" I asked after a few moments of aquard silence.

"Want to find out?" he asked, a mischievous grin on his face. I stood up, realizing we were, once again, thinking the same thing. "I don't think you and I have ever actually had a good fight before, Corey. It will be interesting."

"Ha! If you find interesting the same thing as getting your ass kicked, it will be interesting for you." I threw off my coat and sweatshirt, and dug into my pockets for my gloves and put them on. My sword would remain against a tree stump. This was going to be just a humble spar. Derek also removed his jacket and took off his katana that was hitched onto his pant belt. "First one to go down wins." I declared, holding my fists up in my usual pose.

"Of course." Derek agreed, holding his own up.

At the same time, we both unleashed our powers. They met and seemed to be pressing against each other furiously. I grit my teeth, and Derek put is right foot forward to balance. When we realized that this was getting us nowhere, we broke off and then began to run at each other. We were about 10 feet from each other, and it took us only a spilt second to intersect. Both of our right fists met with a burst of both spirit and demonic energy. We glared into each other's eyes for a moment, and then broke off the combined fists, and began to wail on each other with incredibly fast punches. It was merciless, even if it was just a spar. I punched him square in the jaw, which he countered with a punch to the chin. Every attack that we laid out was fully charged with either spirit or demonic energy, which I may add, really hurts!

"Is that all you got?!" I yelled, grinning. I loved fighting, there was no doubt about it. The pure adrenalin rush that I get from it overwhelms me. I laid a good elbow right into Derek's gut after I had ducked down while he had attempted a roundhouse kick to my face. He grabbed my arm in the midst of it and threw me over his shoulder and down on the hard ground with a thud.

"Of course not!" he retaliated. I got back up once again, still grinning.

"Well, let's finish this!" I yelled loudly.

"With pleasure!" We both ran at each other once again, our fists fully charged with energy, when it was all interrupted by a cough...a cough that didn't belong to either of us. We stopped dead in our tracks and looked to the source.

A woman. A beautiful woman. She had green eyes, and long brown hair, at least it looked long. A bandana was covering a lot of it. She wore tannish cargo pants, and a purple belly shirt. She looked to be about nineteen, twenty years old. Yea, she was diffidently beautiful.

"Hi there." she said, a pleasant smile on her lips.