Mai's POV
Bolting out of the tea shop I headed towards the park, all the while thinking how Stephan could have found me. I didn't think I'd ever be found here in Japan. I thought I had covered my tracks so no one could locate me, but it looks like I was wrong.
How could Stephan have found me? I know none of the demon hunters here in Japan would tell anyone I was here. Some wouldn't be able to say anything since, not all of them could speak English or Gaelic. I'm giving them too little credit, none of them would rat me out because they have more honor than that, if not they have something against the Demon Hunter's Society like I do. They made the mistake of banishing me, now I want nothing to do with them.
As I approached the park the presence of a demon became stronger. It was so strong that I was almost not sure if I could pin point its location. "Damn, this thing must be a level five demon."
I needed to somehow draw out the demon and I had to be careful about it. Closing my eyes, I channeled all my focus on trying to locate exactly where the demon was. Doing this leaves me defenseless and not fully aware of my surroundings. This move is not usually done without someone there to guard your back, but I wasn't like most demon hunters. I hardly carried any weapons with me, I didn't see the need to as I enchanted all my weapons with an engraving that allowed me to summon them no matter where I was.
I usually didn't use weapons when I fought demons as I preferred the challenge and the workout it took to take down a demon barehanded. I was hoping the demon would attack me when he thought I was defenseless and if that didn't work I'd at least be able to pin point his exact location. I wasn't disappointed as the demon did as I'd predicted.
Catching a flash to my left I ducked as the demon's claws went to swipe the left side of my face. In a crouch I summoned my favorite Kung Fu fans. Most people laugh or chuckle when they see me pull out these fans.
What people don't understand is that these fans had been used as weapons since the Edo Period It's greatly debated who first invented the fan, China or Japan, but they've been used in many wars and by many military generals. War fans are very easy to conceal and are readily available in close combat. The fan is made from iron or steal that folds allowing for easy storage/carriage, when opened it makes a clanking sound that can throw an enemy off. When the fan is closed and the user has excellent skill they can block blows from several types of weapons.
It also helped that I had the fan enchanted so that couldn't break during battle. The fans were mint green, similar to my aura, and has a white nine-tailed fox on the material. The kitsune is my animal to call or a protector if you would like to refer it to that. Every weapon I own has a kitsune on it somewhere.
I saw the demon's shocked face when I turned on my heels and hit him square in the gut with the end of a closed fan. I opened the fans when he stumbled back and using the air currents to my advantage so I could keep my balance as I jumped to his side. The moment I landed on my feet I switched from my fans to my hooked swords, another Chinese weapon. Each sword has a sharp blade similar to the jian, though possibly thicker or sometimes unsharpened, with a prong or hook near the tip. Guards are substantial, in the style of butterfly swords. Often used in pairs, the hooks of the weapons may be used to trap or deflect other weapons.
Once more I didn't allow the demon enough time to react as I charged bringing one of the swords down and hooking his left wrist. As I went to hook the blade around his neck the demon became smoke and reappeared behind me. Whipping around I was temporary stunned when his claws hit me across my face, the fucker had tried to blind me, but he had hit me too soon and wasn't able to catch my eyes instead he hit my temple, which was bad enough. Taking advantage of my current predicament and knocked both swords out of my hands causing the guards on the swords to cut into my hands.
I dropped onto the ground before he had the chance to attack again and kicked out at as his feet. Hitting my mark, I sent him tumbling over me and as he landed on me I shoved up into his stomach making him fly onto his back. I noticed with satisfaction that I'd knocked the breath out of the demon. With blood dripping into my left eye I summoned a chakram, is circular in shape with a sharpened outer edge and ranges in size from approximately 4.7–11.8 in in diameter. The chakram is primarily a throwing weapon but can also be used hand-to-hand. This is one of my deadliest weapons and is also one of the easiest weapons to handle that I owned.
Taking aim, I threw the chakram and the moment he gained his footing the chakram hit and took out his left arm, this seemed to infuriate him. I side stepped his next attack pulling out two katars and jabbed one in him in the side with my right hand. Katars are a push dagger that are characterized by its H-shaped horizontal hand grip which results in the blade sitting above the user's knuckles. This seemed to finish him off because he burst into a white flame.
The only way you can tell a demon is dead is when they burst into white flame, if they don't they can come back to life stronger than before. I stayed for a couple moments later to make sure that he was the only demon in the vicinity. It was strange how whenever a demon was around there was no one to witness their defeat. Ghosts are a little different, most of the time they played pranks on people or tried to kill them. To ghosts it didn't matter if people were around or not where as a demon preferred to pick off their victims one at a time with no witnesses.
Heading back to the entrance of the park I saw a car park and the driver jump out. I was too far away to see who it was but I recognized the person's aura. The aura was a light violet color which meant it was Sasha, a Russian demon hunter who came to Japan because she couldn't stand working with the Demon Hunter's Society anymore. She ran up and took in my pitiful appearance.
"Damn, girl, you look like shit," she said with her Russian accent that everyone gives her grief over. How she can stand such a climate change as from Russia to Japan I will never know.
"Thanks, a lot, Sasha. Do you have a first aid kit in your truck?" I asked trying to stop my face from bleeding any more than it had.
"Sure do, sweet pea. Do you want me to take care of the blood on the ground while you fix up your face?" she asked.
"That would be nice thank you," I replied as she handed me her keys.
Cleaning up the blood and my wound didn't take as long as I thought it would. It only took me fifteen minutes to sanitize and bind the wound. When I finished I looked to Sasha to see that she was almost finished with cleaning the blood I left behind. Once she was done she joined me back at her truck.
"So, how many demons were there to be able to give you that wound?" she asked while she went over my handy work, making sure that I did everything correct. When she was satisfied she patted the side of my head and pointed to the passenger side.
I didn't answer her until I got in and was buckled. "There was only one, but I am pretty sure he was a level five demon. If he wasn't that he was a level four."
"Damn, that strong? Haven't seen one that strong in this area in a while. How did you kill him?"
"With a katar," I said paying more attention to the road than I was to the conversation.
"A what?" she asked stopping the truck.
"A katar. You know the superhero Wolverine right," I asked trying to figure out the best way to describe what a katar was.
"He was the superhero with the retractable steel claws right," she replied after she thought for a little bit.
"Correct. A katar is similar to Wolverine's claws. A katar looks like a single blade until activated. Once activated it splits into three separate blades. There are some katars that are a single blade only such as mine are. The katar originated in India," I replied as she started the truck one more time and headed to Japan's demon hunter's temporary headquarters.
"You have an interesting weapon there. I've heard people talking about the many different weapons you have. Listening to them I did not once hear anything about you having a katar. How many weapons do you own?" Sasha sounded amazed that I could possibly own several weapons.
I shrugged before I answered her, "I own several weapons. I like to collect a lot of the medieval type weapons. The weapons I have acquired since the beginning of this year have been: the katar, kakute, which is a spiked ring that can be very deadly if laced with a poison that will kill a demon, haladie, sodegarami, zweihaender, fire lance, atlatl, khopesh, shotel, Chinese Dao, and an urumi, which is a flexible sword whip. I had to take special training to be able to obtain the urumi. My all-time favorite type of weapon of all the weapons I've obtained is the Glaive spears and my favorite glaive is the knife glaive. My second favorite would be the halberd spear, next to that would be the fauchard spear. My next weapons to get are the French voulge and Scythe spear."
"Holy shit woman, that's a lot of weapons. Do you own any swords?" she asked sounding astonished.
"Sure, I do. Some of those I listed off were sword types. I own swords from a sabre to a scimitar to a bastard sword," I replied nonchalantly.
"You know what, your parents shouldn't have named you Mai. They should have named you Gladiola or Marylou," she said still awestruck as she parked in the parking lot behind the hunters' headquarter.
"Why do you say that? What do those names mean?" I asked a little miffed.
"Gladiola is Latin for sword and Marylou means their rebellion or a famous warrior. Your name means dance does it not?" she replied not sounding remorseful.
"It depends which version you go off of, it can mean blossom, real or true, love or affection, or the month of May. Though if you think of it swordsmanship can be considered a dance of itself," I answered as I got out of the truck.
"Come on in so I can re-disinfect and re-bandage your face. I am afraid of it getting infected," she said. I looked at her face to see if she had any ulterior motive to get me to join or take over as a leader. When I saw none, I nodded my head in agreement and followed her into the old building that needed major repairs.
I noticed that the inside had been redone since the last time I had set foot in here. I followed Sasha down the hall passed several offices. Every time I came in here it still amazed me on how big it actually was compared to the outside. Sasha led me to the main conference room, I noticed that this room had the most renovation out of all that I had seen. The room has a new flat screen tv, a new table, new conference chairs, and a new technological system, it was quite impressive.
There was someone working on the system board, I could tell he was not from Japan, he looked to be from China or from a country near China. He was very handsome, with his black hair and emerald green eyes. When he stood up I could tell he was about six-foot-tall and had broad shoulders. Sasha smiled at the fact that I was openly staring at him before she said, "Mai this is our newest member of our unofficial guild, Ace Wilkons. Ace this Mai Taniyama, aka the Celtic Demon."
"No way, you mean the Celtic Demon!" he said seeming awestruck as he stuck his hand out for me to shake.
I took his hand and shook it knowing he wanted to test to see if I was as good as everyone said I was. As I suspected he threw a punch that was fast, faster than I expected most people to throw. It still wasn't fast enough to catch me off guard because I caught his hand as I sidestepped and twisted both hands while I swept his feet from underneath him. Once he was on his back I let go of both hands and stepped back to insure he couldn't use any leg kicks on me.
"Nice try, but you're going to have to do better than that if you want to best me," I said with a sideways glance at him as I went towards Sasha so she could re-bandage it.
"Wow you're good most, people can't see my punch until it's too late. What happened to you?"
"She got in a fight with a level five or four demon," Sasha said when I didn't say anything.
"You can't tell the difference between a level four and a level five demon?" Ace asked completely surprised.
"There is very little difference between a level four demon and a level five demon. Now if it was a level three demon then you could tell the difference between the two," I said in Sasha's defense.
"I don't understand how you can't tell the difference between the level four and level five demons," he replied.
"Easy, here let me explain the levels. Before a demon gains a level, they are considered baby demons. How they gain levels is anyone's guess at this point in time. Once a baby demon gains a level they are considered at level ten, which is the weakest level there is. The next step up from level ten is level nine the only difference between this level and level ten is that a level nine demon is slightly stronger than a level ten demon. Level eight is when you start to notice the major difference in levels. A demon of this level gains an ability, what the ability will be no one knows, it varies from demon to demon. A level seven demon is slightly stronger than a level eight demon. Now with a level six demon there is a noticeable spike in power. Instead of gaining an extra power they gain two extra powers. Level five and four are so close in power they are very hard to discern from each other. There is only one way to tell the two apart and if you wait until that, you're as good as dead. The difference between the two is when level four demons go into rage mode their eyes turn red, they are the only demon to do this when they go into rage mode. Level three is a step up from level four and five not much is noted differently except being stronger. With level two demons there is another spike in power. But not so much as with level one demons. Level one demons are the strongest and the hardest demon to defeat. They are the most powerful demon and it takes at least ten experienced demon hunters to take one down," I said as if I was reading from notes.
"You know a lot about the different levels of demons. I don't remember reading anything that in depth," he replied.
"You wouldn't have. What I just told you is based off of my research on the different levels," I stated.
"Have you ever seen a level one demon?" he asked.
"Yes, I have and I've seen the damage one can cause." I left the moment after I replied to Ace's question. I did not want to dredge up old wounds. As it is I'm going to have to face some of my past tomorrow. The moment I stepped outside my phone vibrated letting me know I got a text message.
Hey, figured you'd be done fighting by now. Stephen will be at a place called SPR. Figured you'd know where that is located. He'll be there tomorrow from 1 to 4 p.m.
-Argyle