It was nearly 3am in the town of Kekeio when the sound of a door being splintered by outstanding force resounded though the streets. Being such a normally quiet town, this caused some of the residents to awaken and check out the window. The streets being only partially cobble and mostly dirt was also quite unlit, causing those who wanted to see the commotion to try to peer into the gloom with little success. The night was clouded with neither star nor moon visible. All they knew was the splintering was from the old library where the town witch once presided. That was many months ago, and many believed the place to be cursed, choosing not to mess with anything inside. Aside from the occasional dare from one of the children, no one had attempted entry. The townspeople boarded up the place after her disappearance, and the only reason no one burned down that accursed place was the fear that the death penalty still waited those found guilty of arson.

Inside the building was just as dark, though both of its new occupants could see just fine in the gloom, one due to undeath, and the other magic.

"How certain are you that we're going to find something useful here?" Mari asked as she stepped over some debris left behind by the last battle that took place here.

"Selina always kept a lot of records and notes," Asuka noted, as she idly remembered her first fight with the mage she would come to know as Rastur. "She was trying to use the Sons of Shaft to fulfill her own dreams of becoming the Dark Lord, so she must have kept some serious ledgers about her plans and what she learned about those dark organizations."

"But we found nothing at the mountain house, what makes you think we'll find something here?"

"I admit, Mari, it's a longshot… but we're out of options." Asuka moved towards the staircase. "I think she spent most of her time up there."

Both girls made their way up stairs as they hear some minor commotion in the streets.

"Seems the town knows we're here," Mari noted.

"We can't worry about that," Asuka noted. "Besides, they couldn't stop us if they tried."

Her bedroom had bookshelves of their own, and Asuka decided to start sifting though them. Mari opened a dark wood wardrobe only to be faced with rather risqué outfits and lingerie.

"She wore stuff like this?!" Mari exclaimed. "What was she, some kind of slut?" She pulled out a bra with no fronts and a pair of panties that lacked a crotch. "What's even the point of this?"

"Selina apparently had some appetites she never discussed with me," Asuka noted. "When I fought her she used a rune that turned her into something akin to a succubus or demoness, so in hindsight, I guess it fits." Asuka noted something odd. "Now why would someone like Selina keep a Bible in her room?"

Asuka tried to pull it out of the bookshelf only to hear a click. The shelf turned on a central axis point revealing another hidden room.

"A secret room," Mari noted. "Well, if that isn't about as cliché as it gets."

"They still work," Asuka replied. "Neither of us knew it was there."

Inside appeared to be a small office. Asuka used her fire rune to light the lantern on the desk and allow her to relax her use of a night eye rune. A black book sat on the desk and a nearby quill sat in a small empty well, though residue inside the well indicated it was once full of water and some traces of ink which now stained the inside. Several inkwells with tight cork caps also sat there awaiting a new purpose that would never come.

Asuka sat down and opened the book. Mari stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. The first pages greeted them with various occult symbols and runes along with the familiar winged inverted cross.

"Jackpot," Asuka noted and began flipping though, noting a drawing of a five-headed serpent with a brand on the head of each. "What's this?"

"It looks like a hydra with five heads," Mari noted, and pointed at one of them. "That symbol represents The Circle of the Moon."

"That one looks like the Son's of Shaft sigil," Asuka noted pointing to another. "Could this mean that there are five main cults? What are the other symbols?"

"We better get this back to Shinji," Mari noted. "He'll know what to make of it."

VI: Force of Nature, Part I

Several Hours Earlier

Without sound, a bud rose from the dank soil in an underground cavern. It grew far too large for a normal flower bud, opening to reveal two individuals within.

"Odd way to travel," Shinji noted as he stepped out of the flower and onto the dark soil.

"It's more subtle than teleporting and can't be detected by magic," Hikari explained as she left the flower as well. She gently reached up and gave the flower attached to her shoulder a gentle touch causing the vines about her to writhe slowly for a second. "At least I'm pretty sure it can't."

"You're basing this on?"

"Huge cult of magic users and I've used it twice nearby with no reaction," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Pretty safe bet it's a good way to get in unnoticed by mages." Hikari pointed up the nearby stairwell. "That's where the ritual took place."

Shinji quietly moved up the stairs to the room. A bloodstained altar greeted him but no sign of a body. Then after a moment looking, he found out why.

"Not good," Shinji noted as he knelt down next to the altar.

"What is it?" Hikari whispered as she scanned the room with her eyes for signs of trouble.

Shinji picked up a bloodstained piece of bone about the size of a coin. Hikari saw this and immediately placed a hand over her mouth, knowing instantly it came from the girl she watched die.

"W-Where is the rest of her?"

"Food for ghouls," Shinji noted grimly. "Seems the Order of Infernus is not above using undead to dispose of sacrifice victims."

"You'd figure they'd just burn the bodies, being as how they nearly worship fire."

Shinji stood up, dropping the bit of bone and producing a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his fingers. "They likely serve a dual purpose; body disposal, and security." Shinji looked back towards the stairs they entered from. "The Challis of Agnui requires a bound demon to power it directly with sacrifices for fuel. They're likely using the same demon who's name the challis bares."

"Aguni," Hikari noted. "The wrathful demon of hellfire. Fitting."

"Somehow I keep forgetting how smart you are," Shinji noted. "Must be how beautiful you are."

Hikari smirked with a slight blush. "Beauty doesn't always mean dumb you know."

"That doesn't fully explain most humans," Shinji noted sardonically. "We're up against a demon who wields fire like a toy. You're half plant. Are you sure you don't want to sit this one out?"

"If I can't handle a bit of adversity, what good am I?" Hikari replied.

"This is different," Shinji pointed out. "It's a bit like Superman trying to take on a being made out of Kryptonite."

"Well to be fair, he took on Metallo all the time and that guy uses Kryptonite as an energy source."

Shinji frowned. "As much as I appreciate the amount of nerd-lore you possess, even you have to realize this is different. We're not in a comic book."

Hikari nodded. "I know that… but I can't let you face him alone."

Shinji sighed. "What is it with all the girls in my life being ludicrously stubborn when it comes to dangerous situations?"

"Better question: Why is it that men always feel like they have to do the dangerous stuff alone?"

Shinji sighed, "Touché."

The decent down took almost five minutes to complete, especially as cautious as they were as they moved, but at last they entered a catacomb. Broken stone and dark soil gave way to the white marble that made up the floors and walls. Carved columns of marble held up the ceilings in the larger rooms with carved reliefs, silver sconces, and black marble adornments. The floors alternated in black and white marble tiles like a chessboard, and though there was no outside, huge stained-glass windows adorned some walls, especially in hallways. An extra space behind the stained-glass windows in every area used fire to illuminate the glass. The actual catacomb vaults were arrayed in unadorned walls with shelf after shelf of desiccated and mummified remains lying upon the vertically arrayed slabs all the way to the ceiling which was nearly six meters above them.

"Elaborate," Hikari noted.

"The cult's very presence is apparently able to warp reality," Shinji explained, "transforming materials and even creating effects like this."

"What effects?"

"You didn't notice?" Shinji asked. "We're still directly under Hitomi Tower despite the distance we walked."

Hikari realized it and it made her mind twist a moment. "This place is extra-dimensional?!"

"Probably closer to stretched space," Shinji noted. "But you're on the right track. We've walked a good distance down here and should be at least a couple blocks away from the building, but in reality, we probably only actually walked about 10 meters, maybe a little more."

"Weird," Hikari noted. "But this is a cult dedicated to fire. Why is it so churchy in here?"

"The order believes what they do is a purification of sorts; this place reflects that." Shinji walked over to a marble column, examining the iconography on the plaque there. "Wipe clean the pestilence of modern life and return the world to a simpler time… a time when men rightly feared the dark, and the things that exist within it."

Hikari looked around her, taking in the details, and only now noticed the upper most areas that seemed to have ledges of their own. Marble gargoyles perched upon these ledges at the point where a column reached the bottom of the ledge. The curved ceiling was covered with paintings depicting towns and cities on fire, demons dancing in the flames, and the occasional man in a red robe holding a torch over his head as if filled with divine purpose.

"They're insane," Hikari concluded.

"And they must be stopped," Shinji agreed.

Hikari looked back towards the ledges and saw something that caused her to gasp and step closer to Shinji. One of the gargoyles was now staring at her. Shinji noted her sudden fear and looked up, managing out a curse before the gargoyles began to move and drop from the ceiling towards the floor, opening their wings to divebomb the intruders. Shinji dragged Hikari to the floor to avoid the initial assault, then pulled her out of the main throughway and to the other side of the columns.

"Fighting these things, the cult is going to know we're here for certain," Shinji noted.

"So much for a surprise attack," Hikari lamented, completing his thought. Vines wrapped around her forearms as she broke cover. Shinji noted the buds beginning to form and open along her arms as he summoned a pair of throwing spears and tried to take out a gargoyle as it flew up after another divebomb attempt.

Hikari lashed out at an incoming gargoyle with her arm sending a series of roses with stiff stems and sharpened points at the end into the target before rolling out of the way. The gargoyle crashed into the ground shrieking as the toxins within the stems were quickly tearing its nerve endings apart. The rose on her back spewed forth a series of seeds into the marble behind her as two more gargoyles attempted to rush her from behind. Hikari, aware of their presence simply faced them as they charged. The moment they hit the seeds, a series of large Une ripped from the ground hopelessly entangling the gargoyles in a crushing grip. She then prepared herself to strike another that was dropping from the ledge nearby as the thorns within the Une pierced the gargoyles, poisoning them as well.

Another gargoyle attempted to dive upon Shinji, only to be sliced in half by his Flying Armor that suddenly appeared behind him. Shinji's claws and feral state were now on full display as more gargoyles landed around him. A close quarters melee ensued, though the gargoyles did not fully realize just how outmatched they would be.

Two more gargoyles fell the floor, victims of Hikari's rose darts as she now stepped into a huge rose that had erupted from the ground behind her. Despite the fact that one would normally not want to be stationary when fighting such mobile creatures, Hikari knew what she was doing. Her physical contact with the rose strengthened her powers and now the swarm of gargoyles was being torn to pieces by a myriad of vines. Three more gargoyles were held at bay by a tall plant with a decaying human head atop it. They attempted to attack the stalk only to get rained on by acid that quickly ate though their bodies.

Shinji was about to slash another in half only to watch it get entangled and dragged into the plant hell that had formed behind him. Hikari's full capabilities were now on display, and even Shinji felt a bit of terror at what he was witnessing. The vines had already grown over the closest columns, gargoyles struggled to try to escape the sheer mat of Une that covered the ground, Corpseweeds melted other gargoyles, reducing their bodies to mere fertilizer, and a few of the gargoyles were skewered in such a way that had Shinji truly been Dracula at that moment, he would have appreciated the display.

Within moments, the last of the gargoyles were no more, and Shinji watched as all the plant-life retreated back into the marble. In less than a minute there were no signs that such a deadly jungle existed. Hikari stepped out of her rose at it too closed and receded into the ground.

"I think it's safe to say you are far more powerful than any other Alura Une in existence," Shinji noted.

Hikari smiled softly at that. "And you were worried."

"Intruders!" Both of them turned towards the new voice only to see a group of five cultists with several ghouls at their command. The monsters were desiccated with tough, leathery flesh, bloody gums pulled back from their inhumanly sharp teeth, fingernails extended into wicked claws, and eyes that lacked any humanity at all.

And they were all coming from the direction Shinji knew they needed to go.

"Out of our way!" Shinji hissed; the sound of his voice caused Hikari to step back.

"It's him!" another cultist shouted. "The Candidate! Take him alive. Kill the other one." The ghouls ran on all fours towards the pair as soon as the order was given.

Hikari slammed her hands onto the marble floor. A few meters ahead of them, thick thorny vines ripped from the ground forming a barricade. The ghouls threw themselves against the impromptu palisade, some impailing themselves but quickly ripping themselves off the vines to start chewing though them.

Shinji concentrated for a moment before raising his hands from his sides with the palms up.

"Open Hell's Gate! Step forth my servants!"

Hikari watched as two columns of hellfire rose from his sides. "Not sure what you're doing, but you better do it fast."

The flames calmed revealing his chosen servants… Minotarus and a Werewolf. Minotarus immediately raised his axe and charged as the vine barrier broke and the ghouls got through. The first ghoul was split in half by the massive axe. As another ghoul tried to capitalize on the opening, the Werewolf delivered a viscous flying kick, taking it out of the air. The recoil caused the wolf to back flip back to the ground, and he instantly rushed with his claws out towards another ghoul, eviscerating it.

The cultists attempted to run back the way they came only to find another thorny barrier between them and safety. As Shinji and his minions had the ghouls occupied, Hikari was now approaching the cultists, walking with one foot in front of the other, unconsciously rolling her hips as she did so. Rather than excite the cultists however, they were intimidated by her seemingly casual demeanor.

"Going so soon?" Hikari called out.

"Monster!" one of the cultists shouted as they all drew various weapons. "We shall have your head!"

"Oh… I'm the monster, am I? You spill innocent blood for your own ends, you plot the destruction of all humanity has accomplished, the genocide of countless millions if not billions of people, and I'm the monster?!"

Shinji watched as the last of the ghouls were killed and saw Hikari approaching the cultists alone. One of them charged at her, only to get impaled though his center mass by a thorny vine that erupted suddenly. Shinji noted she did this without even so much as a gesture. One of the other four attempted to summon a creature only to have a vine strangle him from behind and lift him off the ground. The other three immediately tried to find a way passed the barrier, but one of them was already being dragged to the ground, thorny leaves from several Une piercing his flesh and feeding on his blood. The two-remaining rushed towards Hikari, mad with fear. She thrust her hand towards one of the men sending a series of vines into his chest from a few meters away as he dropped his weapon. The other swung his weapon, getting within range, only to have his hands caught by a vine that extended from the flower Hikari kept on her back. The man impaled became desiccated and crumpled to the floor, as Hikari simply threw the other towards Shinji. The man tried to get up only to have the Werewolf step on his throat. Before he could escape, Minotarus split him in half at the chest.

Shinji approached Hikari as she dropped the desiccated corpse. It was only at that moment that Shinji noted the flower on her back was actually rooted into her skin, not simply holding on. Red traces below the surface of the roots were flowing into Hikari, not away from her though.

"Hikari," Shinji whispered.

"I know," she replied softly. "But now isn't the time."

"You've only just realized it, haven't you?" It was more a statement than a question.

"They're right you know," Hikari sighed, noting Shinji wasn't going to just let this go. "I'm a monster."

"Hikari…"

"No. It's fine… I was worried about losing my humanity when this whole mess started, but I've come to realize that if we're going to fight monsters… we must become monsters ourselves."

"Not at the cost of our souls," Shinji noted.

"You think I'm enjoying this?!" Hikari shouted, causing Shinji to flinch. "I'm ironically more of a vampire than you are right now! I've already killed more people than most serial killers… but you know what? These cultists aren't really human. They have abandoned reason for madness, and they must be put down… because if we don't…"

"I know the cost, Hikari… I know it all too well. I've been doing this longer than you have."

"I'm not losing my soul, Shinji… none of us are. We know damn well why we fight, and why me must kill."

Silence reigned between them for a moment before Shinji sighed. "I'm worried that may one day change."

Hikari silently stepped close to him and wrapped her arms, and a few of her vines around him.

"If that ever happens to me… I firmly expect you to end me."

"You know I can't do that," Shinji lamented.

"You can… you will… you must. Our morals are all that keeps us human now. If we lose that, then our souls are truly gone."

They stood in silence a moment before Hikari finally stepped back, withdrawing her vines as well as if they were just another set of appendages to her.

"This is why we fight," Hikari concluded. "We fight to hold on to what links we have left to humanity. They can't protect themselves… so just as I am sworn to protect you, my Master… I will protect them."

"Alura… She's become so much a part of you now."

"We are as one. I know you never meant for any of this… but I believe it was meant to happen. She's filled a part of me that I never knew was empty."

Shinji nodded. "Now let's put that to good use. We still have to sever the connection to the challis."

Hikari smiled. "Into the breach then."

Deeper within the catacombs, they came across a set of double doors covered in demonic glyphs. They were huge, carved from dark wood and inlaid with gold.

"If I were a demon… I'd be in there," Hikari proclaimed.

"Let's hope so, we're running out of time," Shinji replied then kicked opened the doors.

Inside was a chamber, like any other in the catacombs, though the vault shelves weren't included in this area. The chamber's ceiling was just as high, lacking any of the gargoyles from the previous areas.

"Empty?" Hikari whispered as she looked around.

Suddenly the doors behind them slammed shut, and a deep sound, like a bleating goat only much deeper echoed though the chamber.

"The hell?" Shinji exclaimed at the sound before he watched the symbol of Aguni appear on the wall opposite the door. Something was off though… the symbol wasn't quite right.

Suddenly the wall rippled as if the surface of water. Two more ripples appeared, one on each side several meters apart. A massive, and furry demon claw stretched from the left side out of the ripple. Its wrist clasped in a massive leather manacle attached to a huge chain. From the far right, another demon claw just like it emerged. Then from the center distortion a massive goat's head entered the room, its eyes blindfolded in leather straps with metal buckles, it's neck similarly bound. Blood tinted saliva dripped from its mouth; blood so hot it steamed. It bleated again, this time the sound echoed as if within an endless set of chambers. Burned into its forehead was the mark of Aguni.

"This… this isn't Aguni!"

Hikari nodded as she took in the sight of the monster. "No… its Adramelech… Demon of Agony."

Burn to Burn

The seed we sow

Burn to flow

Into the sorrow

Burn to Burn

The seed we sow

Burn to grow

Into the sorrow

"A monstrous goat, our toughest challenge yet… is this thing really bound to the Challis? We must destroy it, then we find the cultists responsible and end them… We can't fail!"

Next Chapter: The conclusion of "As Nightshade"