Disclaimer: I do not own Zatch Bell or any of its characters (protects me from getting sued somehow, I guess.)

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving I filled up on plenty of turkey, ham, and pie lol. Then I had to do all the dishes because I didn't help prepare the food, I guess it was a fair trade.

My Shaman King story is finally up so when you're done reading and commenting this you can just head over to that section. The title of the story is "The Journey West", if you read and now a little Japanese mythology you'll understand why. Both series are pretty similar if you think about it.

That's enough advertisement for my other story, your all here to read this story!

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Chapter 12: Demon Battle at Kiroro Pt 2

Claire woke up completely buried in thick snow. She was freezing and quickly dug herself out. "Natsumi! Natsumi!" She called for her human partner that she had lost during the avalanche. Claire had a few scrapes and bruises, but her strong demon body managed to protect her for the most part. She dug around various spots in the snow until finding a body. She began to dig even faster only to find it was Hayate's body. She tossed him aside like garbage and continued to search for her own partner.

Hayate began to groan and mumble something that Claire really didn't understand, but once she actually looked at him she saw that he was severely hurt. He was bleeding from the head and barely conscious. Without a moments hesitation she picked him up and carried him on her back. She had no idea where she was going or where there even were, but had to find a better place for Hayate to rest and warm up his body he was freezing.

He mumbled something again and pointed to where he was originally lying down. Claire ran back over and picked up Shuu's book. "Where is that pervert anyway? And where's Natsumi?" She continued to carry Hayate's body into the unknown hoping to find someone to help them or a shelter of some kind.

~Meanwhile, somewhere else on the mountain.~

Shuu had woken up in the same condition as Claire and found Natsumi buried in the snow, unconscious. Her body was freezing cold, and he could tell that her leg was probably broken. He grabbed Natsumi and her spell book and began carrying her.

"Its okay…I can walk myself." Natsumi said, barely managing to get the words out. She tried to get off of Shuu's back, but Shuu wouldn't let her.

"You can't walk on that leg. Now you just let me do something good for once." He grinned and gave her thumbs up.

"Ha-ha, the thumbs up. That's so…lame." She said before passing out again.

"What lame! I thought it was actually pretty cool." Shuu continued to carry her, searching for a nice shelter.

~Several hours later.~

Hayate woke up in a cave next to a burning fire. Wrapped around his head was what he suspected to be clothing or something to stop the bleeding. He suddenly tood up and started to feel light headed and fell back over.

Claire walked in holding a few small fish and more firewood. "So you're up?"

"And all this time I thought you were a crazy psycho, but on the inside you're actually a nice girl aren't you?'

She grabbed one of the fish she was holding by the tail and repeatedly smacked Hayate with it until she was satisfied.

"Okay, I take it back just don't hurt me!" His face was red and swollen from the repeated slaps to the face. As they sat around the fire cooking the fish it started to get quiet. "You miss her don't you? You're partner."

Like Claire was actually going to admit something like that. "No, of course not. See all of this? I can so live on my own!"

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." There was another fish smack, this one semi cooked. "Okay, I get it, damn."

Shuu had actually managed to make his way down the mountain and found an old lodge where an elderly couple was living. While Natsumi slept peacefully Shuu sat down and was having hot bowl of soup. A while later Natsumi woke up with of course no idea of where she was. Shuu simply offered her a bowl as well and sat down next to her bed eating what was his third bowl.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, thanks to you." She gave him a kiss on the cheek that made him blush.

"That crazy girl would've killed me if you died on my watch, so don't take this the wrong way!" Natsumi simply laughed a bit and ate a bit of soup. "We should probably get moving soon, we'll have to find our partners and get off this mountain."

After eating and a bit more rest Claire and Hayate left the cave and began to search. He still felt a bit light headed, but Hayate decided he would walk this time. "Can you feel Shuu's presence anywhere near?"

"I'm not very good at sensing other demons, but I do feel a faint power coming up the mountain in our direction." They picked up their pace a bit.

As Shuu and Natsumi left the lodge Natsumi also asked Shuu the same question.

"Yeah, I feel a little something heading down the mountain towards us right now." Shuu still had to carry Natsumi due to her leg. While she was unconscious however he managed to wrap some wooden splinters around her broken leg. He carefully carried her back up the mountain in the direction he was sensing the power from.

After a good while of walking Claire could tell they were getting closer to Shuu and hopefully Natsumi as well. "He should be just behind all of these trees, and then we" When Claire pulled away the thick tree branches from the mountainous trees she saw that it was actually the blue haired ice demon, Daijiro that they had been tracking this whole time.

"I thought you said it was a faint power you were sensing, earlier you two said you could sense a powerful energy from them." Shuu was in battle position with his book out and everything, but put it away once he realized it was useless without Shuu.

"You thought it was that simple and we would just let you get away scotch free?" His tattoo began to glow an aura of colors again.

Shuu and Natsumi could here about a half a mile up the mountain from where they were a large explosion and saw huge shards of ice rise from the ground. "Crap, we have to get up there now!"

"Wait if they're way up there then who's the person we're walking towards?" They prepared themselves as someone emerged from behind the trees.

Shuu and Claire barely managed to avoid the last attack, but it didn't seem like Daijiro was done yet. He placed his hands on the ground and called another spell as more ice spikes flew out towards them.

"This isn't good, as long as were on this mountain he's at a great advantage." Hayate yelled over to Claire as they both dodged the spikes in opposite directions. Daijiro then held out both hands, each pointing at a different target and called another spell, this time firing small cyclones of icy wind freezing things on their way to their main targets. Hayate managed to dodge the one headed for him but Claire's left arm and leg were frozen.

Shuu ran back to her side to see if he could help but her arm and leg seemed to frozen solid. "Damn it! Can we ever get a break around here?!" Daijiro held out a hand towards the two of them as the tattoo began to glow a bit more.

"Now I'll just finish what my brother started! This won't hurt for a second."

"Maybe not but this will!" Shuu landed a kick directly to Daijiro's face, knocking him down into the snow. He ran over to Hayate's side and was ready to fight the ice demon. Along with him was Claire who was being helped over to the rest of them by two other people dressed in thick clothing due to the cold. One was holding a yellow book.

"I'm not here to fight a war. Three on one, I may be powerful but I'm no fool!" He called out his spell for the ice claws and tail and ran down the mountain past them on all fours. Shuu began to run after him only to be stopped by Hayate.

"Not today, for right now we need to nurse our wounds and be thankful we survived this day. And um who's your friend here?" He said referring to the other two with the yellow book.

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End of chapter 12, please comment it really helps and motivates me to continue writing this story.

I wonder if anyone knows who those special characters were that showed up towards the end.

Expect a new chapter next week hopefully. This chapter was meant to be a little bit more character development than anything else, sorry for no fight.

coughReadShamnKingfanficcough