Kirin sharpened his Soul Edge against a simple stone he found outside knowing that his great weapon needed a good sharpening once in a while, or else he would not be able to slaughter anything that he wanted to; Fiona looked at it with a scared face and yet with curiousity as well, this weapon intrigued her since she was so young and, like any young child, they will become intrigued with anything so complex or so amazing; it's eye was looking around the area that Kirin now called a home and then stopped at her, she was afraid instantly as that red eye stopped upon her with its eerie and silent gaze, but then tried to poke it as her curiosity finally sunk into her head, but Kirin placed his paw on her wrist to seize her curious fingers from reachig their destination.

"You don't want to touch this." Kirin calmly pointed out a fact as he kept his eyes upon his blade and its sharpening session.

"Why not?" Fiona innocently asked, knowing deep inside, her curiosity was angered by being stopped by the owner of the legendary weapon.

"The last guy who touched it got his arm torn off by it." Kirin smirked with his little lie, knowing that, since she is too young to filter out truth from sarcasm, she wouldn't dare touch it now.

Fiona slowly brought her arm back as her curiosity screeched in fear, it was also unable to filter sarcasm from truth, her only concern at that moment was keeping away from the humongous blade.

Then it happened. The stone fell to the floor in utter silence.

Kirin's tattoo was going mad within him like a demonic force wanted to be released of the swordsman, the pain that emitted from the tattoo and through his nerve system was extremely unbearable, he couldn't stop the agony from surging through his body as he dropped to his knees and gripped his stomach, grunting loudly and sometimes letting out a scream of pure torture, it was like a burning piece of coal being rammed into his flesh, deeply and rapidly upon his skin.

Fiona ran to her brother as fast as she could possibly take herself, tripping on the stairs more than once or twice, but she had to get up to his room as quickly as possible.

"Pierce!" Fiona called out loudly, dashing into her brothers room with tears of terror running behind her.

Pierce turned his head to his little sister with confusion, wondering why her voice was filled with sobbing, she wrapped herself around his waist tightly as she leaped onto his lap, crying of fear at the sight of Kirin in the agony of the tattoo.

"Whoa, sis, what's the matter?" Pierce asked the young fennec girl, a frown across his muzzle as he gently scratched the back of her neck, trying to calm her down.

"Kirin, he…he's in pain." Fiona sobbed and choked, she had never been so terrified in her life, she coughed and wiped her tears away upon his fur, which Pierce usually frowned upon anyway, but that didn't concern him, all that concerned him was Fiona's sobbing words.

"Pain?" Pierce asked with confusion in his voice, he knew Kirin for a very long time when he returned to corneria, all the fights that he got into, Kirin never felt an ounce of pain, with any punch of kick that struck him, he'd laugh and shrug it off, returning the slugging back to those who harmed him, but now Pierce was confused, was it possible that his blue furred friend wasn't so invincible as he thought?

"That tattoo thing on his belly, its glowing and hurting him." Fiona cried into her brother's stomach, wanting to help yet stay as far from Kirin as much as possible at the same time.

Pierce picked his sister up, sat her on his shoulder gently and jumped over the side of the upper floor, landing on the ground with a hard thud from his sandles, his attention then turned to the shaking motion of his mother, he looked at his mother who laid on the ground in terror, knowing whatever she sees, wasn't something he wanted to see; then looked at his friend Kirin, at that very moment his eyes met with his friend's exsistence, Pierce was in fear.

Kirin's spine cracked loudly within his structure as it pushed in and out of his back, the skin and fur rippling upon him as it stretched outwards towards the ceiling, as though something was wanting to be free of the darkness inside him, suddenly the skin ripped open and wings burst out of him with a flash of blood splashing the walls behind him, his fingers cracked and clenched as long claws began to form from his fingernails, sharp and long as a knife's blade. His fangs grew out of his muzzle and below his lower lip, like a sabertooth tiger, as they grew, the once bright white color of his jaws slowly shedded away into a darker color; his fangs were now gray.

Kirin plowed through the door with a hard ram from his shoulder, running from the Pheonix residence as his body was slowly manifesting into a more demonic shape, he may have been growing darkly in his head and soul, but his heart was his major source of telling him he had to stay as far away from them as possible to protect them, yet nothing could stay in his path too long to stop him from entering the city of Corneria with a forced savage ambition; Pierce quickly called up his friends and told them to meet at the school, having no time to explain to them of what the emergency was, he just needed them there and fast. With a loud smack as he placed the phone on the receiver, he turned to the closet door and opened it slowly, a great curved broad sword with a wind chime dangling from its hilt lay in glass case, Pierce grasped the blade and shouldered it, knowing that if he could not calm his friend, he would have to resort to one final trump card and slay him.

"Mom…I have to go." Pierce announced as he advanced on the doorway to the front yard, but his mother quickly stood in his way, blocking his path.

"No Pierce, not while he's out there, the soldiers will take care of it-" Fara barked with worry, if such a monstrosity was on the loose, she wouldn't dare risk her children's lives to it, but with a hard grasp on her shoulders, Pierce brought his eyes to her eyes.

"And what if they can't harm him, even if they are shooting at him, who's going to stop him then?!" Pierce interrupted her with a bark of his voice, what he spoke of was a true fact, if a massive machine beast like Syphon couldn't defeat him when he was so young, what could possibly defeat Kirin at a teenagers age with demonic powers?

Fara was beaten instantly at the arguement, she couldn't argue with her child any longer now since he possessed abilities and strength far beyond her own, his ability to control winds gave him his own personal strength like Pinza over the element of ice, Connor over element of fire, and Lazlo over the element of lightning. A soft tug was felt upon his pant leg.

"What about me?" Fiona called from below her brother's massive form, his sigh was like a gentle burst of wind as he kneeled down and hugged her, giving a gentle kiss upon her forehead.

"I can't take you Fiona." Pierce explained with a frown, gently fixing her hair after rubbing it, he could do nothing but let out a chuckle when she whined.

"Why not?" Fiona whimpered and tightly latched to his neck, her arms dare not to let go until he agreed to take her along, but Pierce's choice was chosen.

"Your just to precious to risk." Pierce spoke and gently pried her off of him, setting her down on her feet.

Fiona wiped the tears away from her face and understood her brothers words perfectly, if she wanted to do things she wanted to do later and required him to get them done, then she would have to allow him to go by himself, she smiled and waved goodbye to her elder brother, letting him be on his way to meet with his friends at the highschool, and if they can stop Kirin, then they might be the very new saviors of Corneria.

School

"Alright guys, we've got ourselves a personal mission in need of being done so lets get to briefing: Kirin is manifesting into a demon none other than the one named Gray fang...so how are we going to stop it?" Pierce explained to the circle of his companions, a long naginata rested in the paws of Pinza with an icy colored shaft; in the paws of Connor rested a double sided scythe formed from a massive ruby he found upon Venom before receiving passports with his father to gain privlages to move to the Cornerian residence; Everyone thought deeply on how to take on this mission with the best of their strategy, finally Lazlo stood up from a jump from the floor and held his spear high into the air with a grin.

"I say we just hit him with everything we got in our power, wind, fire, ice, and lightning, its bound to hurt him sometime, baby!" Lazlo grinned to them and spun his spear above him, his plans were always so primitive, all he knew is that he had to hit his target to hurt it, and nothing more than that.

An awkward silence fell upon them as Lazlo slowly slowly stopped his grin, knowing that it was a complete failure.

"We'll keep planning but that is a good backup." Pierce finally spoke with slight anger in his voice, he despised anyone who would dare stop him from thinking.

Nearly an hour passed by and yet no one else could think of another plan, how could they anyway? They never faced anything like this before, venomians and eventual escaping serial killers were one thing, but this was a demon they were up against, a creature they have never faced other than Kirin who destroyed Syphon and his followers, the only thing they could do was nothing but attack it.

"Alright Lazlo, lets go with your plan." Pierce sighed with dissapointment, he was usually the one that would formulate a plan, now he felt demoted as the avian leapt up into the air and let out a yell of glory.

Pinza stood up and wrinkled his nose as a small drop of water smacked his nose, he looked up into the sky with confusion and held his naginata up to the sky as a small piece of ice flew by him from the chill of his weapon, it was beginning to rain raining, this gave Pinza a prefect plan.

"Hey...do you feel a storm coming?" Pinza grinned as he rubbed his muzzle thoughtfully.

"Yes I do...why?" Pierce asked, he could easily sense a storm if it showed itself through the winds.

"If I freeze the rain when Kirin in sight, what will happen?" Pinza grinned again, he would expect anyone of the others to know.

"…Kirin will get hit by a barrage of icicles!" Amazingly, Connor was the one to speak up, being the lazy and tired wolf he was, he could hit nearly as hard as Kirin could with his element of fire attacks and strikes from his scythe, but there was only a 5 chance of such things happening when he was nearly asleep, and no matter what, he was always nearly asleep.

"That's right!" Pinza announced and, like a pet, rubbed Connors head and threw a treat, and like a wolf, tired, fatigued, or just plain stupid, Connor's muzzle clasped around the small cookie and fell onto his stomach, his auto-fatigue kicking into his system and knocking him into slumber.

Everything was now planned out and ready to begin, a normal plan and a back up plan incase icicles weren't the best thing to use, they hurried off to face Kirin, Pinza and Lazlo far ahead of Pierce, who strained himself to carry the sleeping Connor upon his shoulders but managed to stay just behind them, they had to find Kirin quickly before he could anyone…but where would he be inside the city?

City of Corneria

Kirin looked at the squad of soldiers, his body only halfway complete to become fully demonic, wings spread high and claws flexed, the squad lifted their blaster rifles up and began to prepare themselves, ready to fire at him with their land masters and blasters; Kirin just smiled at them with no care for what they did to him, his legs stood perfectly still as his eyes rested upon them, waiting for them to strike.

They fired instantly before Kirin could make any move to strike without knowing that he was in no rush of striking at all, cannon fire and laser fire went off loudly in the air and flew quickly at Kirin with blurring speeds, all setting off one massive explosion that encased him within its fire, but their hearts sank in their chests as they saw their results, he wasn't harmed in anyway, his skin was perfectly fine with no burn marks at all, no blast or cannon fire could go through him at all, he was perfectly invincible with such demonic force coursing through his veins.

Kirin walked over to the squad slowly, his feet dragging against the street with a sinister grin upon his face, fangs exposed brightly to the red sun; they ran in terror as fast as their legs would take them in such heavy armoring, but a land master was too slow to get away from the demonic vulpine, he grabbed the firing nozzle of the land master and clenched it tightly, his muscles tensing as he lifted it off the ground with such ease afterwards, and swung it in a cyclone motion to build up speed and wind, then his paws released the cannon's nozzle, letting the tank fly high and fall hard into a barracks filled with those tanks and several hundreds of Cornerian militia, setting off a chain explosion around the area.

Kirin laughed with hate in his voice and yet was filled with the massive amount of joy to see carnage performed from his work, it now became his new bloodlust and yet his new misery, inside he felt like only himself, as the outside only felt like the oncoming Grey Fang. Suddenly a gale blew towards him and struck with a powerful wind, but Kirin felt nothing of this attack, not even an ounce of pain, his head turned and snarled as he caught Pierce and the rest of the teens in his sight.

On top of a roof top

With a black coat drawn around him and a weapon radiating a dark aura, the human Ariaz snickered as he looked down at the gathering bunch.

"That's right Kirin, make sure Grey Fang is mighty powerful." He smirked with glee, knowing that soon he would possess the great demon Grey Fang.

Ariaz looked down at the battle field of the five teens ready to wage war against each other, chuckling at the sight of such betrayel and harm to such friendships, his fingers danced along the hilt as it kept a firm grip on the weapon, a long black blade with a golden arrow design on the back and strong the steel, a crimson hilt and two curves at the end moving inward.

"My sword Ascalon will tear that demon right out of your bones!" Ariaz Grinned and snickered, the time was coming so quickly and his plan would be put into action.

Ariaz then laughed like a maniac after witnessing such a glorious event, waiting for the destruction to commence.

Back on the ground

Pinza held his naginata up and released a chilled breath into the air and towards the clouds, freezing the rain from a soft watery form into a hard cold form, barraging Kirin with thousands of pinning icicles, the rain had pinned him to the ground and disabled quick or planned escapes, just as the panther predicted and hoped for; an angry snort came from Lazlo as Pinza's plan had already completed the fight, with which they didn't need any time or moment to spare on the "all or nothing" tactic Lazlo suggested, but as long as they stopped Kirin, everything was safe for now.

Kirin was stuck to the ground and his eyelids shivered, the sign that no man could hold back when put to the brink of their sanity…crying. Pierce looked down at his defenseless friend; he was, indeed, crying with sadness and pain, Pierce looked at the body of his friend, Kirin did have many Demonic parts such as fangs, claws, popped joints, wings, and a couple spikes, but he was still himself no matter what changed his looks, he was still the defenseless child within.

"Please guys…make it go away." Kirin sniffled and begged, knowing that his friends could do nothing to save him, but he couldn't simply let his hope die in his chest, he needed a miracle.

And such a miracle was about to be conceived; with his ears twitching to the sentence, it was his que to act, Ariaz hopped down into a long drop from the roof tops and landed on the ground with a hard thud, his bones snapping back into place, Ascalon in his hand inside its tight and dark grasp, glowing a devilish aura.

"I'd be glad to take back what should have been mine! Think of it as your "miracle", young Mccloud." Ariaz grinned and grasped his sword tightly in his hand, an aura that smelt of decaying flesh lingered above him, an excellent tactic to keep any away with a sensitive nose.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kirin muttered, he was either to angry or to terrified to rip himself from the icicles and attack the human.

"Gray Fang should have chose me as his magnifisent host, not you, you were not suppose to be apart of my plans, just a mere side effect in my path to glorious carnage, but you just had to tell your father FUCK YOU straight to his face, now that was pure hatred and fueled the tattoo's uncontrollable hunger for more from your torn past, the reason he picked you because before that, you disobeyed your mother's word and had friends over, trashing the home you lived in!...Now I am going to take that demon away from your damned body, one way or another!" Ariaz snarled and smacked his blade against the ground, like flint and steel, he set it ablaze with a fiery black and purple aura, the smell of insense flowed from it like a small camp fire.

He made his move quickly and without pause, with one blurring dash towards the group and the pinned Kirin, he had him right where he wanted him, it would soon end before any hostility could take form. Ariaz spun and stuck the blade into the Tattoo of Kirin with a quick downward thrust, slowly a screech fluttered into the air, no doubt it was the demon slowly being pulled away from its host and into the sword, forming onto the Ascalon quickly: his tattoo, his demonic abilities and appearance that all showed themselves upon the blue vulpine were fading away into the blade; soon Kirin could no longer maintain such a form without the aid of the demonic guest and flopped to the floor, no longer pale or bloodlustful, he was free of it, but Corneria was soon to be labeled "doomed".

"Finally, it's mine…after being tormented by your idiot father, the insults that I had thrown at me, the Gray Fang demon is finally mine!" Ariaz cackled with wickedry in his voice and held Ascalon high above him, the clouds stormed above them and lightning slammed around; with quick spin, Ariaz plunged the mighty blade into his heart, but no matter the deepness of the wound, he didn't bleed one drop, the ascalon hummed as it began to expell the demonic presense from its hollow being, the tattoo started to crawl and linger into Ariaz's chest cavity, tattooing his heart and infusing the demonic power into him. "Now…I will destroy everything that Gray Fang was dreaming to eliminate from this world and the worlds above the skies of Corneria…but first, however…your beloved teacher, Rosita, must finally be killed and laid to rest when I find her, 800 years is long enough for the old bitch!"

Kirin struggled and smashed his arms against the icicles, freeing himself from his pinned position and got up, holding his Soul Edge to support himself and ready to fight; quickly he dashed forward at the newly empowered human with the soul edge held high above him but Ariaz simply grinned and just smacked him in the face with a hard backhand punch, knocking him to the side with a loud smack to the vulpines jaw.

"Now that he is out of the way, who else is going to stop me?" Ariaz smirked and raised a brow, eyeing the four remaining fighters.

Pinza, Lazlo, Pierce, and Connor quickly dashed forward and grasped their weapons tightly in their paws, the agile Pinza and Lazlo leapt up for an aerial attack while the muscle lugging Pierce and Connor came from the ground for an frontal assault towards Ariaz, but with one easy jump forward and the usage of all his limbs, he smacked each attacker away from him with two strong kicks to the muscle bound Pinza and Connor, and two hard punches to the aerial Pinza and Lazlo; all four, like gravity, crashed at the same time yet in different areas; Pinza's body turned a car into itself after landing on top of it, Lazlo's spine took a great blow from hitting a fire hydrant, Connor's squishy belly took barely any damage as he crashed through a window, and Pinza's skull took a major blow from hitting a street lamp.

"Dumb animals…now Rosita…here I come." Ariaz grinned and dashed out of their sight, a cackle from his breath was all that was left behind.

Kirin closed his eyes slowly from weakness and unconsciousness, he couldn't believe it in all of his years of living on Sauria and Corneria, he just couldn't believe it: he had lost a fight for the very first time.

A few hours later

Kirin awoke slowly in ache on the couch in his parents house, trying to push himself up, but in the act, felt even more pain, his arm wrapped in a splint and his legged bandaged from major bruising and open wounds, his body forced himself to flop back down.

"Kirin, don't try any moving for a while, you took a nasty strike from Ariaz." A soft voice gently spoke out, though he could see, his vision was blurred badly like staring at life as a smudged painting.

Kirin looked around as his vision cleared, he could seen that his friends, the local doctor, his mother and his father stood next to him during his healing, it surprised him, his father would still stand by his side even after all those past events, he would still stick by him.

"Dad…" Kirin slowly began, knowing that all he did before was wrong, he knew he had to make up for it, he had to set things right.

Fox bent over to look at Kirin as he crouched down, waiting for an insult no doubt, what he got was his own surprise, it was a hug, a tear soaked hug from his son as Kirin buried his head into his chest.

"I'm sorry that I said those things, I'm…I'm grateful to…to be your son." Kirin sniffled, knowing all that he had done, he wanted forgiveness, that was all.

Kirin couldn't let go of his father and wouldn't dare to let go of him, all he needed was someone to make him feel like he was home again, that he mattered, he just held on and cried, his father couldn't bear to ignore him, Fox hugged his son as well, crying as well against his head.

Kirin then let go after a few moments of pulling himself together, wiping his tears away from his face and stretched his back, he stood up and took in a deep breath as he began picking up his Soul Edge and swinging it over his shoulder, readied to go back onto the field again.

"Kirin, what are you doing." Pierce asked, worried about Kirin's current condition.

"I have to get to Mrs. Skywinder before Ariaz, she still has the weapon that killed him eight hundred years ago." Kirin spoke as he strapped on his weapon onto his back and pulled his coat on, radiating its red colorful material.

"So?" Pierce asked and raised a brow with confusion.

"So if it killed him then, it will kill him now." Kirin explained, tying his sandles on and rubbed down his pants.

"But if she is dead?" Pierce asked a third time and crossed his arms

"Then the weapon will still be there." Kirin replied once more and brushed his hair out of bed head.

"Why?" Pierce began to become suspisious of this "weapon" Kirin spoke of.

"I figured out what the weapon is called...the history books in her class...finally one of them made sense...finally one of them spoke of her weapon." Kirin looked at him as he grasped soul edge tightly in his paw.

"That would be?" Pierce raised a brow, slowly standing, a quick recovery of his wounds.

"Balmung." Was the only word that Kirin uttered from his breath

Pierce gasped, he knew what this weapon was, the very ancient weapon he read from the textbooks from his school.

"You mean…" Pierce gasped slowly, the answer to defeat Grey Fang now in their sights was now in danger.

"Gods right hand." Kirin uttered as he sheathed, the time had come to deal the stronger blow to the demon.