Angel vs. Demon

Chapter 38 – The Seventh Level

"You know," Mizore mumbled, sucking on her lollipop, "I kind of feel bad killing all these monsters."

"Why?" Kenta asked, his head slightly cocked to the side. "They tried to kill us first!"

"Yeah, but they had no choice," Moka answered, thinking hard. "Someone – their superior, I'm guessing – made them empty promises, and lied to them. That person gave them what they thought was a legitimate reason to hurt us… does that make sense?"

"That doesn't make them completely innocent, though," Kiseki added. "And it won't matter even if they were; either way, we'd still have to fight them. But that kind of makes me feel bad for the less fortunate, the less evil ones."

"True," Kenta agreed after a while. "I could kill a chimera, but I'd never hurt a little girl!"

"Speaking of little girls…" Tsukune stopped short, halting in his steps. "Are you all seeing what I'm seeing right now…?"

"Hmm?" Everyone turned to look where Tsukune was pointing. There, around the bend in the tunnel, was a little girl. A little girl crouching, to be precise.

Because of the dark lighting in the tunnels and the shrunken, squatted figure of the child, you could hardly notice her. If someone passed by fast enough, she'd look like a small boulder or a really big rock. Her long dark hair reached down to her waist, covering half of her figure, so that didn't help either. The little girl was shrouded in the darkness; the group of travelers only assumed it was a girl because of the long hair. Even they didn't know for sure.

Moka looked at her friends one by one, analyzing their expression. She wanted to know what they were planning to do, but their expressions were as puzzled and clueless as hers was. Finally, she decided to take action and make the first move.

"Hello…?" Moka called gently, slowly approaching the girl. "Are you okay?"

The little girl didn't answer. Her head was still bent, she was still crouched, and her hair still covered half of her body; she didn't budge an inch.

Moka cleared her throat awkwardly and tried again. "Um… What's the matter? What are you doing bent over here all by yourself?"

Still, the girl made no reply. Moka was beginning to think there was something wrong with her (whether it was that she was mute, deaf, or injured)… when she suddenly twitched. The girl had moved! She twitched, then began to tremble uncontrollably. Moka – who was the closest to her – even heard faint mumbling sounds coming from her as the girl rocked back and fourth on her heels in her crouched position, still shivering.

Now, Moka was sure that something was wrong. The others began to notice too.

"She must've gotten lost and stuck down here or something," Kurumu whispered, a hand covering her mouth. "I mean, she must be starving, isolated, and who-knows-what-else… Moka, you best stay away from her for now. You don't want her to attack you."

But Moka knew this already; she was not so easily fooled. Although she felt sympathetic for the girl, she knew that she could be potentially dangerous. She had to be on the safe side and back off for now.

The group of friends waited for what seemed like an eternity, but still the little girl did not move. She just shivered and rocked back and forth slightly, mumbling all the while. It was impossible to know what she was doing or what she was thinking, so all they could do was wait.

Finally, Kurumu couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay, look guys," she said quietly in an impatient voice, "she's not doing anything. Can we just quietly pass her and move on? We're wasting time here!"

After a moment's hesitation, Tsukune nodded. It was true; the little girl didn't seem to be doing anything; they couldn't help her. And the longer the waited here, the more time they'd waste. The smart thing to do was to try to evade her and avoid personal confrontation. They had to continue on their way.

"Let's go to the right," Moka whispered, her hand touching the wall. "Try to walk as quietly as possible and pass her without accidentally kicking her in the head or anything like that… please."

Yukari snorted quietly at this, but Kenta nodded his head in completely seriousness. The group of friends hugged the wall and proceeded to tip-toe past the crazy little girl. The entire time they were talking, she did not notice them whatsoever. She just continued shivering, huddled there on the ground. It was like she was possessed or something… it was eerie to watch.

The scarier thing – perhaps, the scariest – was when Tsukune (leading the travelers in passing the little girl) just stepped his one toe past the little girl. He was nowhere near her, not touching her at all, but as soon as he passed her "invisible line", she snapped. The girl's head swung up, and from beneath the dark hair that draped her face, the girl's dark, empty, hollow eyes stared at Tsukune.

He felt her dark, disturbing, scary power even before she struck. He had time only to widen his eyes for a millisecond before she sprang up and pounced on him. And no, she did not do so in a feline or sexual way at all… she did so with the agility and carelessness of a five-year-old. She simply charged at him and attacked his arm, securing her teeth around his forearm and chomping down.

"Aaah!" Tsukune yelled in surprise. He tried to shake the girl off, but she just held on even tighter. She was beginning to draw blood, and Tsukune's friends could see the dark red liquid spreading across his school uniform.

Kurumu and Moka took the girl's arm and started pulling her away, and they eventually got her hands away from Tsukune. She simply bit down harder, though, and Tsukune uttered a groan of pain. But she was still just a little girl; no one could find it in themselves to physically wound her. Yukari, however, couldn't take it anymore; she waved her wand, and a brass bin appeared out of nowhere and bonked the crazy girl on the head.

She shrieked (whether from shock or pain, no one knew), but she did let go. She scuttled down near the depths of the tunnel, and kept on mumbling to herself. She looked like she was shivering from the cold, and mumbling from the hunger… but Tsukune knew that was not the case. Although she wore nothing but a tattered, holey, dirty white robe, she did not act like she was feeling the least bit cold. And although she kept clutching at herself and even tried to eat his arm, Tsukune knew that she was not hungry. Her stomach did not growl, and she looked naturally scrawny. She seemed more in need of a good sleep than a decent meal, truthfully.

The girl was twitching visibly now, and she kept staring at Tsukune and his friends. It was beyond disturbing.

"Ouch," Tsukune muttered, looking down at his wound.

"I hope it's not infected," Mizore said, "Who knows? That girl could have rabies. She certainly seems crazy enough."

"I wonder if she talks," Moka murmured, bandaging Tsukune's wound with a ripped part of his shirt. They had brought no First-Aid Kit or anything like that; there was just no need to do that for monsters. Either the injury was not that serious and would heal in a moment, or the injury was beyond self-repair and needed to be checked out at the monster infirmary. There were hardly any in-betweens.

"Hey," Yukari chirped, crouching down to the girl's level. She was still a good few meters away from her, but she knew that by doing this the girl would feel less intimidated. "Hi, there. We're not here to hurt you… I promise that. We just want to pass this tunnel. Is that OK? Can you let us go?"

"Mmmmuuhhh…" the girl moaned, her face hardly seen through her mass of hair. "Kkkkuuuuuuuuu…"

"We don't want you to attack us, OK? No more biting! We just want to leave."

"Nnnnhhh…" the girl trembled, her jaw quivering. She looked like she was working up the courage (and the ability) to speak properly. "Nnnnnooo."

Yukari straightened up, frowning. "No?"

"No." the girl repeated. "No…!"

"Why-" Before Yukari could finish, the girl put her hands up in front of her. She began mumbling again, this time very loudly. No, she didn't mumble; she chanted and recited strange words at the top of her lungs.

Moka gasped. "This child…"

Indeed, this child. There was obviously something strange about her. A black mist rose up from the tunnel grounds and swirled around her short body, immersing her in darkness. The darkness began to spread; it no longer coiled around her tiny body. It snaked along the ground and seeped into the earth, like a black mist.

"What's happening?" Kurumu cried, clearly frightened.

Yukari was scowling. "I don't know… but we need to get out of here fast!"

The group of friends tried to run. They sprinted away from the girl, and to their surprise, the girl did not come after them. She just kept on chanting. And the black mist just kept on seeping. It chased after them tirelessly.

"Hey, what the-!"

Suddenly, the ground started trembling. It started out as a light shudder, but then it turned into a full-blown quake. Tsukune and his companions could no longer run without falling flat on their faces; they tried to balance themselves out and keep still.

All at once, hands popped out of the ground. Boned, skinless, fleshless skeleton hands… tens and tens of them burst out into the open, many of them in front of Moka and her friends. They were blocking their way.

"What's this!" Mizore gasped in alarm, her lollipop almost dropping out of her mouth. "How come there's-?"

"Oh no," Yukari cried, her face turning pale. "I didn't think – I thought they were all extinct…"

"What, Yukari?" Kurumu snapped, her voice climbing up nervously. "What's all extinct?"

"Necromancers!"

"Necromancers…?"

Yukari nodded jerkily. "They're humans with supernatural powers… they can call up the dead. Speak to them, communicate with them, whichever… necromancers can basically control the dead."

"Oh my God," Kenta remarked, his mouth forming a perfect "O". "That's…"

"Rare," Kiseki finished for him. He was staring at the little girl, unlike the rest of his companions (who were busy staring at the skeleton hands protruding out from the ground) and was studying her. He analyzed her every movements, taking every little detail into consideration.

He was still doing so when the skeletons began to climb out of the ground. Some of them, they realized, still had some flesh on them… it was truly a gruesome sight. Their tattered clothes hung off of them in pieces (as did their flesh), and some of them were even wearing Yokai Academy uniforms! Kurumu prayed and hoped that she and her friends would not end up like that.

"Wh-What do we do…?" Kenta asked nervously, backing away from the undead. The group of friends were forced to go back-to-back as they were pushed away from their original destination.

"What do we do?" Moka echoed. "We'll have to fight them, of course."

"All right…!" Tsukune said so with gusto, clutching his still-bloody arm. He would not let his team-mates be terrified; he would protect them all. Tsukune suddenly felt another warm body pressing into his back. He twisted his neck around to look, and it was Kiseki.

"I got your back," he said, smiling crookedly. Tsukune smiled appreciatively in return, and the two (along with everyone else) charged at their dead enemies.

Kurumu sliced many into pieces with her claws, and Kenta jumped on several, crushing them into bits. Yukari kept on plonking big brass bins onto their heads, and Mizore froze as many as she could. Moka, Tsukune, and Kiseki did the hand-to-hand combat, and also succeeded in destroying many.

What the friends did not expect, though, was their enemies' revival.

None of the dead were "dead" for too long; some revived later than others, and many revived almost instantly. Those ones crawled forward on their mangled bodies, slow as a turtle, but still determined to destroy its targets.

"What the hell?" cried Kurumu, backing up nervously. "I swear I already cut those zombies in half!"

"You did," Kiseki murmured, staring at them intently. "But… hmm. They seem to have revived. No, strike that… they can't revive, because they're still dead. They just can't stop moving. Or, technically, they can't stop following the girl's commands."

"Commands?" Tsukune glanced at the frail, tiny, twitching girl near the back of the tunnel. "She's the one doing all this?"

"Of course!" Yukari exclaimed, "Kiseki's right… the girl's commanding the zombies to kill us, and even if they're injured or dead, they'll still obey that command until they physically can't anymore."

"That's…" Mizore looked for the right word. "… gruesome."

"Very," Moka agreed, looking sick as she stared at the moving corpses all around her. They were closing in, inch by inch.

"Oh well," Kurumu shrugged, extending her claws once more. "Then we'll just have to make sure they physically can't move anymore, right?"

She began spinning, twirling, and leaping through the mass of crawling zombies. As she did so, her nails sliced every zombie head, every zombie limb, and possibly every zombie bone in half. She reduced them till there was nothing more left. By the time she was done that first wave of zombies, she was panting and sweating, heaving her breaths in and out.

The necromancer girl was unfazed. She muttered some more, and a new wave of zombies rose out from the ground at her command. These countless corpses couldn't be defeated; they'd just appear wave after wave. There was no getting rid of them completely.

"Oh no," Kurumu groaned, staring at the new wave of zombies. "Look at this…"

Kiseki shook his head lightly. "This is obviously not the way to deal with the problem. Who knows how many corpses are down here? We could be stuck here forever, just fighting these zombies endlessly."

"You're right," Yukari agreed, pulling her witch hat down lower over her face. "The only way to end this is to… deal with the necromancer behind all the zombies. We have to get to the root of the problem."

So, instead of charging at the zombies and spending all their efforts on overcoming them, they attacked them only to sweep them aside, when they got in their way; they only spent their main efforts on reaching the necromancer behind all the layers of walking corpses.

The little girl's huge black eyes widened when she saw that her zombie army wasn't holding her enemies back. Her mouth opened slightly, but she made no noise; instead, she cowered and backed away slowly, even deeper down into the tunnels.

Tsukune reached the girl first. He bounded up to her and tackled her to the ground (lightly, of course; Tsukune was a gentleman after all). He wiggled till he got behind her and grabbed a hold of her wrists, making sure she couldn't scratch or punch him. Her feet were still free, though; out of desperation, she kicked behind her and lashed out at Tsukune's shin. He let out a high-pitched grunt, but otherwise held on.

"What do I do with her now?" he asked, looking up at his friends.

Moka opened her mouth, but then closed it again. Normally, they'd dispose of their enemies and make sure that they were either unconscious or unable to pursue them, but this little girl was wide awake and still kicking. To defeat her would have meant to knock her out somehow, and although the girl had some problems and fought viciously, she was still a little girl. Knocking her unconscious would have been a bit much.

"Do you have a rope of some sort or something?" Yukari asked out loud, bonking her wand into a zombie that was uncomfortably close. "We could tie her up to some rock or something and make sure she stayed still enough for us to escape!"

"Good idea…" Kurumu murmured, nodding.

"No!" Surprising everyone, the little girl growled this out loud. "You chain me up, I will send my zombies after you!"

Mizore bit her lip. They were probably too soft-hearted, but not one of them could kill this little necromancer with their bare hands.

However, the group of travellers took too long to decide. Out of nowhere –

"Oh no!" Kenta exclaimed wildly, "Look out-!"

Mizore turned just in time to see a zombie's clawed hand come at her stomach. It was like slow-motion to her, though; Mizore dodged that attack easily. She shifted to one side, letting the zombie's rotten, yellow-nailed claws slice through thin air.

It didn't, however. Little did Mizore know that the little necromancer girl was right behind her; while she dodged that attack, Tsukune still held the girl in place. The zombie's hand zeroed in on the girl's chest, and it pierced through her flesh. The necromancer's plan had backfired; the zombie didn't get Mizore, it got her instead.

Tsukune was still holding the little girl from behind, and blood splattered across his face and hair while the zombie's hand stabbed through the girl's chest. Eyes wide open and face in shock, Tsukune did not let the girl go until she slid down, body limp, and crumpled to the ground. Because the puppeteer was now dead, the zombies all collapsed where they were standing.

Tsukune blinked for a few moments, then gave a tired, tiny, slightly psychotic smile. "Well, that sure answered our question about what to do, doesn't it?" He bent down and turned the girl's dead body over. She had her eyes wide open, but she was no longer twitching. While she had been constantly shivering while she was alive, she no longer did so in her death.

Tsukune reached down and covered the necromancer's eyes with his hand, and slowly closed them. Then, he stood up and let out a big breath of air.

"Well, my friends, let's continue on our way, shall we?"

No one spoke or argued. They understood that Tsukune did not wish to talk about the dead necromancer, so they quietly walked on. Mizore did have a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, though; she had dodged that attack, which led to the girl's death.

She shook her head, though. She knew that they couldn't afford thinking about these things, not when there were still more opponents to defeat. She reminded herself that she had to be tough, and stay strong for the rest of them. With a deep breath, she followed the rest of the gang as they continued to trudge through the dark tunnels.

Author's Note:

Hey y'all! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. :)

So yes, this one was sort of different. You have to ask yourself, after all: what if my opponent didn't deserve to die? That was kind of the basis for this chapter: feeling bad for your enemies.

Aaanyway, only two more levels to go! I hope you're all as excited about this as I am… x) Favorite and Review and all that good stuff!

- ACookieZ