Sesshomaru couldn't remember being so angry for a long, long time. It was ironic that a woman - a human woman - could have insulted the powerful daiyokai, killed his uncle and destroyed his gift without being taken apart.
By then, Sesshomaru had realized that Pyromancer Angel won by pure brute strength. Her weapon was so powerfully heavy that her blows could only be dodged. Attempting to block them would probably yield fairly unsuccessful and grisly consequences.
"Good at ducking? Useless coward, just like the spotty one!" Pyro Angel yelled at Sesshomaru as she continued to slash, miss and hit the rocky ground, "Weakling! Face me like a man!"
Sesshomaru did not know how many more insults he could take in. Pyromancer Angel, on the other hand, had long known of the fine art of playing with her opponent's anger. She knew how well it worked in terms of making proud enemies willingly run into her blade.
"Lowly demon!" Pyro Angel said in Sesshomaru's face. The dog demon caught one close glimpse of her deep green eyes. Then, he suddenly realized the reason why her eyes looked so strange.
"You are much older than you look," Sesshomaru remarked coldly, dodging another sweep.
"Got some brains!" Pyro Angel replied, "I've been doing this job for over half a century, and I never get bored of it! Time is no object to the warrior of fire!"
She swung her falchion, once again attempting to decapitate Sesshomaru.
"Too scared to fight back?" Pyromancer Angel bellowed mockingly. Then, the warrior of fire leaped into the air and yelled, "Xuezhan Bafang!"
She slammed her falchion blade into the rocky ground with such force that instantly huge cracks spread throughout the grey cliff. Out sprang boiling, blood-red lava; the essence of fire from within the core of the Earth.
Sesshomaru continued to dodge her slashes and scorching lava, but by then Jaken had regained consciousness and heard some of Pyro Angel's curses.
"How dare you insult my lord, you filthy wench!" Jaken screamed from below the cliff.
Pyro Angel stopped swinging her falchion-staff for an instant, and shot a terrifying, green-eyed glare at Jaken, before laughing sarcastically.
"Filthy wench, eh?" She smirked.
Then, from beneath her scalding red breastplates, Pyro Angel drew out a tiny sharp blade with a tree peony silhouette finely engraved onto it. It was a hidden weapon - a common device used by experienced Chinese warriors of the time. With amazing accuracy, she shot it at Jaken, and it stabbed the green imp in the very middle of his chest. Jaken went silent and fell limp onto the ground.
That was the last straw. Sesshomaru blinked once, and his eyes turned red, followed by the thickening of his duo magenta stripes. The enraged and barely sane yokai blindly tore through the air, aiming his claws straight for Pyromancer Angel's neck. Little did he know that he was doing exactly what his opponent wanted him to.
"Your anger has doomed you this time," Pyro Angel whispered to herself as Sesshomaru flew at her, before snickering insolently.
During the instant he was flying towards his enemy, Sesshomaru remembered the first time he ever killed a person. He was only two years old then, but the memory was almost repeating itself. Yes, that time, he was also shaking in fury. He had been insulted, and suddenly a dramatic change overcame both his appearance and his sanity. That time, he tore out his enemy's throat. And he thought he was going to do that again, too.
But at the last moment, just before her throat was to be impaled, Pyromancer Angel thrust up her falchion blade and perfectly deflected Sesshomaru's hand. The furious yokai brushed past the warrior of fire, and landed on the cliffside behind her.
Neither of the two moved for an eerie moment. Then, out of the blue, Pyro Angel started laughing like a madwoman, as a few specks of blood rushed down her right arm and hit the ground beneath her. She turned to face her opponent, who was kneeling on the rocky ground with his back to her. Just then, Sesshomaru's eyes turned from red back to dark amber, and his sanity returned.
"Impressive, impressive," Pyro Angel said with her branded mocking voice, "Let me tell you, nobody in the world whom I have used this tactic on had been able to hurt me. How impressive! And your arm is not broken either! Proud, are you? But oh look, what's this? Looks like your pride betrayed you."
Pyromancer Angel roared with indecent laughter, before raising her other hand for the dog demon to see. In her left hand she tightly held a dagger that was now dripping with dark red blood. Sesshomaru gritted his fangs and kneeled unmoving, hardly believing that a human being's weapon could have broken through his armor. He tightly clutched the dark patch in the middle of his chest. The pain was making breathing difficult.
"Time to remove the head from the shoulders," Pyro Angel said sadistically.
She pulled up her falchion-staff from the rock, and took one step towards Sesshomaru. Then, she suddenly stopped, and looked down at the ground. She was still standing on the cliff's edge which she had badly cracked earlier with all her missed slashes. A truckload of chipping noises emerged from the broken rock, and Pyro Angel made an expression of horror.
"Oops..." She whispered.
The rock beneath her feet gave way, and she fell down from the thirty-foot high cliff. For the first time since she met Sesshomaru, Pyromancer Angel lost her calmness, and her screams could be heard clearly throughout the forest as she plummeted down to the hard ground.
"Here, pony-pony!" Pyro Angel shouted at the last instant.
Out of nowhere flew a bluish-blackish unicorn. It perfectly caught Pyromancer Angel, and lifted her into the air. Then, she fixed her eyes onto Sesshomaru again. He was standing emotionlessly on the cliff, or rather, what was left of it.
"Go, pony! Kill him!" Pyro Angel commanded.
The unicorn flew at the dog demon. But Sesshomaru had had just about enough. Just how low had he stooped to? First a human, now a horse?
Sesshomaru grabbed the white patterned hilt of Bakusaiga. As the unicorn approached him, he skillfully impaled its midsection in a flash of green light. The beast was killed instantly and fell to the ground beside Jaken.
"My pony!" Pyromancer Angel yelled, "You will regret this!"
Sesshomaru saw a flash of orange light, and when he looked down again, his opponent was nowhere to be seen. She had obviously fled. For a long time, the dog demon stared expressionlessly at the destroyed toy tiger sitting on the dull rock. After a while, Sesshomaru took his eyes off the little toy for once and for all.
Slowly, he descended from the destroyed cliff. As he reached the bottom, Sesshomaru glanced back at his green servant, who was laying lifelessly on the ground. Then, he turned around and left both bodies where they were.
"Sesshomaru-sama?" Jaken muttered.
The imp opened his eyes, and suddenly jumped. There was a dead horse right next to him. Jaken backed away from the carcass, and squinted at the small blade embedded in his chest. He was flabbergasted at the very fact that he was still alive. How could he have survived a knife in the chest?
Jaken grabbed the blade and pulled it from his clothes. The amulet finely crafted from the olgoi-khorkhoi's red armor fell out with it. The hidden weapon had stabbed the pendant, and Jaken was completely unharmed. He had just fainted again, was all. Jaken had never been so thankful. It seemed that after all, the amulet did bless him with a bit of good luck. Then, the green imp's face fell again.
"Sesshomaru-sama!" Jaken screamed. The forest was silent, and the sun was low in the sky. The aftermath of a huge fight was clearly visible. There was broken rock and spilled blood dotted around the ground. His lord was nowhere to be seen.
"Sesshomaru-sama has abandoned me!" Jaken cried in agony, "Or he's hurt! Or he's dead! Or he's been eaten or worse!"
Jaken was so stressed out that it took a while for him to calm down, gather his thoughts, and consider the logical options. His croaky voice diminished as he trailed off into the bush, scratching his little green head and waving his flamethrower-staff around in the air.