Hello everyone I am not dead yet and neither is this story ;)
To explain I had not a lot of time to write simply because my job was taking up more and more of my free time and I have been slightly distracted by writing another story that I might publish at some point when I feel like it
Until then enjoy the story, big thank you goes out to Killroy122496 as always as he helps me immensly with this story ;)
Trying to protect everything will only end in more heartache at the end when you ultimately fall
Chapter 21: Cleansing Flames
Akeno Misaki and her three sisters had done many things in their lives despite only being sixteen and seventeen years of age but as of right now they were aimlessly drifting around the ocean of the world.
Akeno and Mitsuko had decided to meet up again as did Shirayuri and Kishiko so they could hunt down the now much larger groups of ships that started to set sail from the various maritime nations of the world.
So far they had sunk over eighty modern escort ships while also damaging over two hundred student ships of various classes and that wasn´t even taking into account the sheer havoc they caused two months earlier as they had send out their entire fleet to close any sea routes all over the world.
That of course got the attention of the world's military who desperately tried to destroy them and their fleets to open up trade between the various nations again without success.
Six months that was how long their supplies had held out before they had to withdraw most of their resource intense ships meaning that mainly submarines, cruisers, Battlecruisers, destroyers and a few aircraft carriers were the only things still deployed in their fleets but something worried Shirayuri, Mitsuko and Kishiko.
Akeno had become someone completely different over the six months they held the world hostage no longer was she the caring older sister no she was now a mere shadow of her former self as she was easily angered and lashed out viciously several times and no matter what they did Akeno always seemed to be so full of anger and hate.
Akeno was also the only one of the four sisters who was still mercilessly attacking any ship that crossed her path be it instructor or student ship even several transport ships were sunk by her submarines except she never killed anyone that was the thing they were confused about but for now they decided to leave her to her own devices.
Over a month went by before Akeno realized that none of her three sisters had made any contact with her so she called up Nomad on Kakureta Island only to learn that the ships of her sister had returned to port without them onboard and several of the ships badly damaged.
Akeno was beyond furious but thanks to her training she calmed down enough to start searching for whoever dared to attack her sisters and only two days later Akeno found a fleet of mainly battleships and aircraft carriers in total there were thirty six ships but with her much smaller fleet of just three Battlecruiser, three heavy and three light cruisers, five destroyers as well as ten submarines she decided against engaging that fleet however just she tried to turn away one of the light cruisers in the back of the formation was hit right on the aft causing its rudder to yam.
Akeno knew immediately what had happened so in order to buy time she laid a smokescreen to cover the damaged light cruiser before she ordered all of her submarines to conduct a torpedo attack on the pursuing fleet.
But just as the submarines came into range the radio came to life on Akenos bridge "To the captain of the fleet of the past do not attack or we might be forced to execute one of the hostages".
Akeno was confused by the message that is until her mind shut down as she heard the voice of Mitsuko scream out in pain but only a second later her entire mind was consumed by rage and something even more sinister as the skin on her arms cracked and several red glowing lines of blood became visible.
From Akenos back two massive midnight black wings stretched out to the sides as she took to the air flying directly towards the unknown fleet without caring about what might happen to her own fleet.
Akeno saw someone standing on the deck of one of the aircraft carriers and immediately dived towards the person only for her to fly into something and before she had any chance of stopping she crashed into the metal wall of the command tower with a grunt of pain as Akeno crumpled to the ground.
"That might have been a bit too much Eirin" mumbled Hatsuki Yakumo as she looked at the dust cloud that was caused by whatever had tried to attack them crashing into the command tower.
"You still are hoping that it is not as bad as it is Reimu but I already saw how far gone she is unlike the three others" Eirin replied with a sad sigh walking up from behind Hatsuki who mumbled something as the dust cloud was split right down the middle.
Eirin had to gulp at what she saw while Hatsuki simply looked sadly at what was once a good friend of hers.
Akenos wings seemed to be burning at the lowers parts as ash constantly rained down on the ground but it was the cracked skin that caused Hatsuki to gasp as the cracks had spread everywhere not just on the arms but every part of skin that was visible on Akeno was cracked with the glowing blood red lines.
But her eyes were the worst they didn´t even look demonic or human they were a complete black abyss that seemed endless "We have to do this fast everyone do not give her any room to breathe until we can get her into that cell" Eirin yelled as a fire tornado engulfed Akeno completely.
Akeno thought she had seen the group of five girls somewhere before as they felt so familiar but before she could even waste another second on that thought she had to move.
She barely dodged the massive flame tornado that would have otherwise engulfed her completely but now she was facing a group of four girls two in front of her and two standing behind her but the two before her looked very familiar to her.
The first girl seemed to be a fifteen year old Caucasian Japanese female with long chocolate brown hair with a large red ribbon in the middle of her hair and chocolate brown eyes.
She was wearing a red and white Kitsune kabuki mask, red and white kosode robe, white shrine maiden sleeves with the shoulders exposed and red lotus flowers on her arm sleeves, a black obi belt was tied around the waist, red hakama trousers, and brown geta sandals but what worried Akeno were the two Katanas that the girl was holding in her hands both with silver steel curved blades, black hilts, hand guards, and scabbards that hung from her belt.
The second girl that stood in front of Akeno was a sixteen year old Caucasian Japanese female with long snow white hair and ruby red eyes.
She was wearing a black Kitsune kabuki mask, a snow white kosode robe, black and white shrine maiden sleeves with the shoulders exposed, a black obi belt was around her waist as well, black hakama trousers, and black geta sandals.
But the weapon in her hand was a Katana with a black steel blade, black hilt, hand guard and scabbard that was slung over her back but before Akeno could take a look at the other two girls she had to raise her own blade to deflect a vicious strike from a curved jade green steel blade that was on the end of a Naginata.
And even before Akeno could recover from the previous strike that rattled her bones she had to dodge to the side as a massive Odachi with a long silver curved blade would have cut her in two otherwise.
Akeno tried her best to cause as much damage as possible on her four opponents but just when she was trying to get a hit in on one of them, one of the other three intercepted her strike while the remaining two tried to strike Akeno.
It was over three hours before Akeno finally seemed to have gained some ground as two of the girls had been knocked out and thrown into the water by her but the remaining two proved to be very difficult opponents to fight as the two began to throw some kind of papers at her.
But before Akeno even knew what was going on she could no longer move a muscle as she stood there ready to strike the girl with the Naginata down but in the next instant Akenos entire vision was consumed by crimson red and pale blue ghostly flames as she screamed in pain.
Reimu and Sanae Hakurei watched the flame cage carefully as they still heard the pained wailing of the girl trapped within but just as the screams started to die down the entire cage exploded into a million pieces and in the middle of the burning sealing charms stood Akeno her clothes slightly burned along with her left arm and right leg.
But before the three of them got a chance to attack each other again someone else spoke up "That is quite enough" Eirin yelled but Akeno dashed forward regardless and tried to cut down Reimu only for Akeno to fall into a black portal that dropped her onto the flight deck from high above with a resounding crash as the air was forced from her lungs.
Eirin had to sigh as she looked at the girl lying on the damaged flight deck but even though the girl tried to get up her body would no longer move an inch "Kaiju if you would" Eirin said as the young man walked up to the girl still trying to get up and grabbed her wrist.
Kaiju continued to tighten his grip until the girl let go of her blade that Kaiju flung away from her before releasing her arm and taking a step away from her but just as Reimu and Sanae got to work on setting up another fire cage the girl managed to get one knee up while resting her entire body on it.
But the next thing the girl said chilled them all to the bone
"Let Ashes and Blood Flow as Life and Flesh burns in my flames. My Duty has yet to come to an end. I shall rise as many times as I´m called by the contractor. Therefore I swear upon my oath. I shall bring an end to all things" Akeno spoke her voice ice cold as the sun was blocked out and black storm clouds gathered in the sky above them.
And a moment later Akeno was engulfed in a black smoke cloud and only seconds later the cloud dispersed again revealing Akeno her old burned clothes gone along with all of her injuries but what had changed was that her skin had turned an ash gray.
Her body was covered in a skintight black bodysuit while over her shoulders rested a crimson red coat and around her waist was a crimson red skirt but when she opened her eyes they were no longer the black abyss from before but instead her eyes were of a terrifying deep crimson red that was matched by her hair and the blade resting in her right hand once more.
The blade alone gave off a sinister feeling to everyone present but for some reason it was Kaiju who took the first step towards Akeno but the next thing that happened confused all of them.
Kaiju collapsed to his knees holding his chest as if he was in pain before he was struck by white lightning that came from the sky but a moment later Akeno saw something very different stand up from where Kaiju just stood.
A white feathery humanoid demon with a single large raven black angel wing on his back, long silver hair, and emerald green slitted eyes. He wears a suit of silver black, a demonic helmet with angelic like ornaments on both sides of the helmet over his head, black and silver knight armor with black angelic gauntlets, a silver cross in the middle of his armor chest piece, and silver demonic greaves along with a long red cape around his neck.
But before Akeno could even think about this new development this person looked at his hands and took a deep breath of air before throwing his head back and laughing loudly "Oh it has been so long since I had to deal with one of you damned Seraphs" the person that had been Kaiju hollered as something engulfed both of his arms.
A moment later this thing had a pair of white and black demonic angelic gauntlets with five sharp claws at the fingertips around his hands and greaves with talons at the toe sections around his legs.
Akeno barely managed to get out of the way as a massive maw of a shadowy beast being snapped shut where she had been standing a moment before but in the next instant Kaiju was on her and struck her with his claws that were barely blocked by Akenos blade.
Kaiju actually managed to grab Akeno by her throat as she had to dodge another shadow beast's maw and the two of them flew off of the ship towards an Island where Kaiju threw her into the ground creating a small crater in the solid rock.
Akeno barely felt the impact of her crashing into the ground but a moment later she saw Kaiju draw another weapon as the gauntlets disappeared this weapon looked similar to a sword that is if the swords looked like molten lava as both blades have a crooked curve all along which connects the handle that takes the form of a claw grabbing the blade.
But before Akeno knew it she had to dodge the two lava blades that swung at her connected to Kaiju by burning red chains that caused the sand beach to turn to glass while other parts were turned into lava itself which forced Akeno to take flight with her wings otherwise she would be burned alive even with her Seraph power healing her.
But just as she was about to reach Kaiju he called another weapon to his hands this one a menacing black scythe with a silver blade which Kaiju used to force Akeno back to the ground until some kind of silver black mist started to surround Kaiju.
A metallic gray guitar that had three separate scythe blades that can interconnect with one another formed a guitar that was now in Kaijus hands and it dawned on Akeno who she was dealing with as Asuramaru had warned her about this one particular demon "Damn you Lucifer" Akeno yelled as Kaiju pulled on the strings of the guitar.
Akeno had to destroy a seemingly endless onslaught of different kinds of weapons made out of the most ridiculous amounts of metals but at some point Kaiju stopped with his onslaught only for Akeno to collapse to her knees and as she looked down she saw it right there in the right side of her chest was a blade but it was completely made out of ice.
"This has been the most fun I had in ages come on you can´t be done already" Lucifer yelled as Akeno tried to remove the ice blade from her chest only for a black mace to strike her right in the head causing her to fly into the jungle until she crashed against a solid stone wall.
But before her body could even start to fall Akeno screamed in agony as her hands and shoulders were pinned to the stone wall by long silver daggers keeping her in place as Lucifer slowly walked towards her.
"Come on is that really all you got" mumbled Lucifer throwing another two daggers that pinned Akenos thighs to the stone causing her to scream in agony again but Lucifer simply pulled out the daggers a moment later allowing Akeno to drop to the ground.
Just as Akeno was about to pass out from the pain she saw how the five girls from before landed in the clearing and looked at her in worry but before they were even close her entire world fell into darkness.
Eirin, Reimu, Sanae, Yuki and Tsukiko had thought this situation couldn´t get any worse from the moment Akeno had transformed into her seraph form but of course Kaiju just had to be nobody else than the fallen angel Lucifer who had thoroughly and brutally defeated Akeno.
The five girls were onboard the Nagatsuki a Shinano Class Aircraft Carrier and in the largest hangar floated a fire cage and inside was Akeno the wounds Lucifer had inflicted had healed almost instantly but that wasn´t the reason Akeno was still in that cage.
They had to move her back to Japan to Mount Fuji so they could begin to get rid of the corruption that took hold of her but until they arrived they had to make sure that Akeno would not be able to do anything.
At the Rabaul base three days after Lucifer defeated Akeno:
Sekiro and Riya had a bad feeling ever since Akeno and her three sisters had started their worldwide attack over seven months ago they had tried to contact Akeno without any success.
But now they were more than just worried as they both felt a searing pain from time to time but they both knew what it meant Akeno was in a lot of pain that was the reason Riya and Sekiro were onboard the Dönitz that was heading straight towards Japan and only a day later they started driving towards Mount Fuji as they felt drawn towards it thanks to the bond they shared with Akeno.
But when they arrived at the foot of Mount Fuji the feeling completely disappeared as if Akeno had disappeared from this world "Just where did that girl go?" mumbled Riya as she and Sekiro were busy with searching the entire forest that is until Riya felt something, it was just for an instant but it felt very similar to Asuramarus power and only a moment later she found what had caused it.
In the middle of a clearing sat a young man before a stone altar but that was not the reason why Riya and Sekiro had drawn their blades no it was the two very familiar blades that rested on the stone altar as they belonged to none other than Akeno.
The young man stood up from his praying position and looked surprised at Sekiro and Riya as if they were not supposed to be here "Excuse me but I do not believe we have met before" the young man spoke his voice holding a certain edge to it.
Riya nodded to Sekiro who took a simple step forward "We have not met before but the two blades on that altar belong to the one person we hold closest to our hearts" Sekiro replied causing the young man to flinch back at the harshness in Sekiro´s voice.
The young man nodded at that relaxing his stance so Sekiro and Riya did the same but held their blades at the ready "Then you may follow me I will show you to the one who can explain everything to you. By the way the name´s Kaiju" Kaiju added before walking deeper into the forest until they arrived at a small wooden shack.
Kaiju entered the wooden shack and sat down at a small table with what looked like a simple glass ball resting on a red cushion "May I ask your names so I may know who I have the pleasure of meeting?" asked Kaiju with a small smile as Riya and Sekiro leaned against the entrance door.
Sekiro nodded to Riya as a silent message passed between them "You have not earned my trust therefore you shall only know me as, the one armed Wolf and this is Apollyon" Sekiro replied only giving Kaiju their codenames.
Kaiju nodded in understanding before turning towards the glass ball on the cushion that started to glow slightly before the voice of a girl was heard in the room "What is it Kaiju we told you to keep watch on the altar didn´t we?" asked the voice but Kaiju merely chuckled "I know my duties well Miss Hakurei but there are two people here that are very close to the person who owns the two blades on that altar" Kaiju explained getting only silence in return.
Kaiju waited a moment before the same voice spoke up again "Are they with you in the same room?" the voice asked and Kaiju confirmed that answer "I see does one of them go by the name Apollyon or Wolf?" the voice asked causing Kaiju to grin "Yes in fact those are the names they gave me when I asked them" Kaiju replied getting a heavy sigh from the other end.
Kaiju gave a small smile towards Riya and Sekiro before the glass ball shined a bit brighter before going back to normal "Hand these to them both and show them the way to the entrance" the girl simply added before the glass ball stopped glowing and two small gems appeared on the table.
One was a pure snow white gem while the other was a pitch black with graying sliver lines on it "These two will allow you to see the one who will explain everything to you" Kaiju simply explained as he handed the two gems to Sekiro and Riya before getting up from the ground.
Kaiju showed them the way deep into the forest until they arrived at what looked like a mountain path "From here on you have to go on your own as I have my duties on this side simply follow the path and you will find who you are looking for" Kaiju explained as Riya and Sekiro looked at the path ahead but as they turned towards Kaiju again to ask him something he was already gone.
Riya and Sekiro shrugged their shoulders at that before pulling on their respective masks and walking down the path ahead of them, it wasn´t a very steep path but at some point they felt as if they had walked through a door from a very cold room into a very warm one.
And instead of them being on the hill path they found themselves climbing the stairs towards a grant Japanese shrine but even though the shrine was beautiful both Sekiro and Riya now could clearly feel the pain their bonded mate was going through causing them both to fly up the staircase.
But at the top of the stairs they found someone waiting for them in the middle of the courtyard "It is an honor to meet the both of you Sekiro and Riya Nomura" the girl that almost looked like Anastasia but Sekiro cared very little about that "WHERE IS SHE?" Sekiro seethed in anger causing the girls smile to fall.
The girl waved a hand towards Sekiro and Riya for them to follow her so they did the girl showed them the way to a smaller temple that was sitting right before a waterfall but the girl walked into the shrine and led them down a staircase until they arrived before a pitch black door.
The girl stopped and turned towards Riya and Sekiro "Whatever you see in that room do not interfere for if we do not do this you will lose the one you love" the girl simply said before shoving the doors open.
But the moment the door was opened even the slightest crack Sekiro and Riya heard an ear piercing scream from the chamber causing them to run towards the small balcony but what they saw had them almost jump down into the chamber.
In the middle of the chamber were four girls chanting something as an older woman was standing before what looked like a sphere of blue white and crimson red flames but that wasn´t what Riya and Sekiro interested.
It was the person that was trapped within the sphere of flames as it was none other than Akeno but the longer they watched the more they wanted to interfere until the girl spoke up again "What you are seeing is a purification ritual. The girl you know as Akeno and her three sisters have been influenced by the grudges and hatred of the dead members of the clan" but before Sekiro could ask anything he girl continued to explain "Akeno realized this was happening early on and in order for her to protect her sisters she took on the curse almost completely on her own" the girl spoke with sadness but also some pride in her voice.
Sekiro could only nod dumbly at that as he starred at the fire sphere again as another hear wrenching scream came from within "It will take the shrine maidens another two days to complete the ritual you are more than welcome to stay with me during this time" the girl explained as she guided Sekiro and Riya back to the surface and into one of the sleeping quarters of the shrine.
Even if they both knew that Akeno was safe both Sekiro and Riya couldn´t help but wonder, Why did any of this have to happen.