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Chapter Eleven
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A surge of adrenaline ran through Miyuki's bloodstream. No way in hell was she going to let Amaimon hurt Rin. She'd kill him first or die trying. Seventeen years of held back anger and frustration over this green bastard's annoying games were bubbling to the surface. She'd been used all her life and now she'd make her own decisions.
Everyone else's voices sounded so far away that they didn't have a chance at stopping her. Her legs moved as fast as they could towards Rin, faltering when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She was still running when she noticed something move in the bushes next to her. Her eyes widened but her reaction had been too slow.
Someone landed a solid punch to the Yuki-Onna's face and sent her flying. She landed on her back and rolled a few feet before digging her nails into the ground and stopping herself.
"What the hell?!" Her pupils narrowed into slits and her tail had untucked itself from under her shirt.
"Finally! After so long…"
"Hayami! Are you okay?!" Suguro yelled as he and the rest of the Cram Class walked closer.
Miyuki narrowed her eyes towards the figure that had emerged from the brush and asked, "Who are you?"
The stranger was now fully visible thanks to Rin's blue flames. There stood a young woman, no older than Miyuki, with messy brown hair and eyes as green as the trees surrounding her. She was much shorter than Miyuki's five-foot-eight frame.
"Really? After all this time, you don't remember me?" the brunette mocked. Miyuki felt like there was something familiar about the emerald-eyed girl standing in her way but couldn't put a finger on —
Then it clicked.
"Well, I wish I had the luxury of forgetting you. Then again, can you blame me?" the girl frowned as she slipped a sword out of the duffel bag she was carrying.
"Mika…?" she stuttered with a shaky breath. The brunette smiled menacingly.
"Glad you remember," Mika giggled as she unsheathed the sword. Of course, she still holds a grudge. One does not simply forget the face of the person who killed their only family in front of them.
"How did you find me?" Miyuki asked, a feeling of guilt welling up in her chest.
"A man by the name of Stephan. He's a...collector of sorts," Mika explained, lazily pulling her hair into a ponytail.
"Why are you here?" the Yuki-Onna feltlump formed in her throat. The thick tension that permeated the air made it hard to breathe.
"You would have thought that after these years, you'd get smarter," Mika skillfully twirled her sword in her hands. With a sigh she continued, "I'm here to make sure you suffer the same fate my sister Isaki did thirteen years ago!"
As she aimed her sword at Miyuki's throat, the brunette smiled maniacally. Her target was still reeling from the information she had just received but she managed to pick up the ever-approaching footsteps of her classmate.
"Hayami? Who's this? Why the hell does she have a sword pointed at you?!" Suguro practically growled. Miyuki closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Go. All of you need to leave," she hissed, voice stern and demanding despite the terror inside.
"Are you serious?" her classmate knit his eyebrows in confusion.
"You won't want to be around for this," Miyuki spoke in a dangerously low voice. When Suguro opened his mouth to speak, he was instantly cut off by the noirette's sharp look. Loud bangs and crashes came from where Rin and Amaimon were fighting.
"Your friend is making quite a ruckus back there," Mika nodded in the flaming boy's direction, "A fire demon and an ice demon? You two wouldn't work well together, I think."
Miyuki narrowed her eyes. "Mika, it wasn't my fault," she said with a lick of confidence. The brunette with the sword laughed.
"You turned my sister to ice and you say it's not your fault?!" she cackled hysterically.
"I didn't have — "
"I could care less about your excuses," the tip of her sword poked further into Miyuki's neck, drawing a bead of blood, "She's gone! Dead! When will you own up to it and say that it was you?!"
Miyuki bared her sharp teeth as she felt a warm liquid trail down her collarbone and soak into her shirt. Mika's voice seared her ears with its bitterness and there wasn't anything she could think of to help the situation.
"I'm here to make sure that you die and go back to wherever you came from." Her emerald eyes, filled with rage and heartache, glanced at something in the distance. Miyuki knew what she had to do…
"Mika, please don't make me hurt you," she pleaded. When Mika pulled her sword back, the noirette released the breath she had been holding in.
"Too bad because that's exactly what I had planned. I want you to beg for your life. I want you to plead for me to stop!" she spat with a sadistically sick grin. Miyuki looked back to the others who had come to retrieve her and Suguro so they could leave.
Her eyes closed in the time it took for the demoness to collect herself. She buried her shock and remorse deep down while lowering the temperature. Beneath her feet, a sheet of ice spread across the blades of grass and snowflakes began to dance around her.
The breeze tangled itself in her hair and clothes, wafting the scent of fear into the Yuki-Onna's nose. She snapped open her previously closed eyes that had begun to glow a vibrant red and glanced at her classmates.
"Of course. Why not both of them?" Kamiki rolled her eyes as if she had seen this coming. Miyuki smiled sadly.
"I'm not sorry. For the first time in forever, I felt human. Thank you for that," she bowed slightly. She had failed to notice that Shiemi was awake now.
"Miyuki..." she said so sadly. Her aching heart couldn't take it anymore. With the painful swallowing of her pride, Miyuki pushed everything down. All her hopes and dreams, love and sadness...Buried.
"You guys should leave," she instructed before turning back to Mika.
"So, the hunt becomes the hunter. How does it feel to be the prey?" the vengeful swordswoman snickered, circling her opponent.
"Don't get cocky," Miyuki chastised. She mirrored Mika's movements but left freezing footprints in her wake. Her childhood friend giggled.
"Let's see if this little rabbit can dance."
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Up in the sky, Rin distanced himself from Amaimon once again. Sweat dripped down his brow as he clutched his sword so tightly that blisters formed on his palms. A strange sensation he couldn't quite place made him look down towards his friends. They were leaving. Good. The need to get as far away from —
"What the hell?" Rin mumbled to himself as he watched Miyuki and some random chick with a sword charge one another.
His fellow half-breed coated her hands in a glove of ice, making a claw that she used to parry the brunette's strikes. Worry welled up within him as he watched Miyuki dodge the stranger's attacks but never return them. He knew her well enough that he could tell by her movements that she was buying time.
"The way she fights is beautiful is it not? A wintery dance of death," Amaimon commented nonchalantly while he picked something out of his fangs. Rin tensed up again, not liking the way this freak spoke about his friend.
"What would you even know about her?" he snapped, gearing up to attack.
"She never told you? Hm. Figures," his opponent yawned.
"Tell me what?!" Rin was losing his temper. Amaimon monitored him for a careful moment, lips curving into a mischievous smirk that rubbed him the wrong way.
"We used to be pretty close, ya' know?" he sang tauntingly.
Rin scrunched his face in confusion. He unknowingly lowered his sword as the gears turned in his mind. After a long minute, he jumped to conclusions.
"WHAT?!" he roared, flames burning hotter and face growing redder. Amaimon burst into a fit of laughter that had him doubling over mid-air.
"Oh, you should see your face!" he gasped for air as he whipped mocking tears from his eyes. When he finally calmed down, he looked to Rin with a dangerous smile and eyes that dared him to attack; "It wasn't like that. Although, I can't imagine why she didn't bring it up. Maybe shame?"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" the demon prince moved faster than he did before, his body a blur before he landed a punch on Amaimon's dumb face.
"All this anger over a little joke? Don't tell me you've fallen for her!" the King of Earth roared in amusement, "She's a true monster, kid! She'll eat you alive."
"You don't know shit," Rin growled threateningly. He swung his sword but just barely missed his target's head.
"I know plenty," Amaimon replied smugly before kicking the boy back a few feet, "Tell me, has she given herself to you or are you still bottling up those feelings?"
Rin didn't say a word, giving the demon all the answers he needed. The next time he went in for an attack, Amaimon held him in place by grabbing his blade with his bare hands.
"I'll let you tell her before I kill you if that'll make you feel better. Who knows, maybe I'll take her as my second wife just to spite you! Can't say I haven't thought about it…"
"Don't you dare touch her, you sick freak!" Rin had heard enough. He pushed Amaimon back with his flames and clenched his sword so tightly his knuckles turned a ghostly shade of pale. If this jerkwad wanted a fight then it's a fight he'd get.
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Miyuki breathed heavily as she looked down at the blood pooling in her hands. She was far too fatigued to heal properly and it felt as if her opponent was only getting quicker. Her head was spinning as she slipped behind a tree for cover.
"Stop this and go home!" the demoness shouted through her laboured breaths.
"What home? No place is home without Isaki. We did everything together!" Mika shrieked from somewhere behind her. Miyuki couldn't help but notice how pathetic her whining had started to sound.
"I'm genuinely sorry, but…" the raven-haired teen paused to check her opponent's position before slamming her hands down and throwing up a wall of ice, "get over it!" She swan dived off the top of the barricade and lunged for Mika.
"Years and years of searching! Do you know what I had to do to find you?!" the brunette yelled with wide eyes. She was trying to slice through her childhood friend's arms but the Ice Queen had them covered in — you guessed it — ice. The wintery crystals and snow floating around her had turned into frozen shards that dared to cut if they got too close.
"I joined the True Cross Order, hoping you were drowning in a tank of holy water. After I couldn't find you there, I met up with Stephan. Yeah, he's shady, but he's got ways of knowing where people are. The Order doesn't know but I couldn't give a shit about them," she explained as she dodged Miyuki's one of her sub-zero shrapnels.
"He hooked me up but he always wants something in return. I would have thought he would let my debt slide but this last order was too tall."
"And what might that be?" Miyuki asked as she breathed heavily and circled the human. Mika's lips twitched before curling into a devilish smile.
"I asked him for a weapon worthy enough to kill a demon," she adjusted her grip on her sword so she could see her reflection on the moonlit blade. "This here is Kusanagi, the Sword of Valor. Together, we're going to perform an exorcism."
"You really need to get some therapy or something. This isn't a safe outlet," Miyuki narrowed her eyes at the brunette's words. She released more pressure, draining more power to lower the temperature around them below zero.
"I'm on Lexapro!" Mika roared as she thrust her sword out towards Miyuki. The snow woman landed a punch on her opponent's abdomen but was cut in the process. She yelped as her sliced leg caved in. "Down on your knees, just like you should be," Mika cackled as she stalked over to the girl she once considered her friend.
"Stop this," Miyuki tried to plead once again. Her cries fell upon deaf ears as the sword was plunged into her stomach, drawing out an agonizing howl from the demoness. She fought through the pain and wrapped her legs around Mika, pulling her to the ground. The girls struggled to stay on top for a minute before the sound of branches breaking and trees being shaken drew in their attention. Rin was curled to the ground, back slamming into the hard Earth beneath him.
"Rin!" Miyuki cried, noticing his demeanour now matched that of a rabid dog. She tried to open the telepathic link but couldn't. He was too far gone.
She rolled off of Mika and fell onto her back as Rin jumped on top of her, using the ice around her arms as a shield. The feral young man chipped away at it, drool falling from his mouth.
"This one means something to you," Mika hummed mockingly, from somewhere out of Miyuki's line of sight.
"Don't you dare touch my friends," she demanded. Mika scoffed as Miyuki held Rin at an arm's length away from her. He scratched her while she pushed herself up and onto her knees, but she didn't mind.
"Friends? I wonder how far you'll get with this set." Mika snatched the boy's collar and barely poked her sword into his back.
"Maybe I should tell those new friends of yours about what you can do — what you did do. Then, maybe they'll learn to fear you as much as I did."
"Shut up!" she screamed, realizing the weight of her body couldn't be held up by her injured leg.
"I'll tell them about how you killed my sister."
"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up," Miyuki put her hands over her ears, pulling a bit at her hair.
"You turned her to ice! You shattered her!" Mika shouted, causing tears to run down Miyuki's face. She began to shake. The ice around her was gone, leaving the only trace of her demonic powers to be her matted tail and horns hidden under a rat's nest of hair.
"Stop it…" her voice cracked unapologetically.
"What are you gonna do? Kill me, too?!" Mika kept her grip on Rin but held her arms out in a vulnerable stance. Miyuki simply bowed her head in defeat. "You'll smash me into a million little pieces like Isaki. Then, you'll lose control and you'll do the same to those other loser friends of yours."
"I will watch you kill everyone you love."
A moment of silence filled the suddenly chilling air. Miyuki, with her head still down, let out a frosty exhale with snowflakes dancing on her blue lips. Frostbite crystals grew on her neck and face while her eyes snapped up to give a death glare to Mika. Something bubbled inside of her; not cold like her usual power's feeling, but numbingly warm like when you're out in the snow for too long.
This was not her doing. Something else controlled her surge of energy. A whirlwind of emotions hit her like an oncoming train: sadness, confusion, helplessness and the most dominant of all, anger.
A sheer cold shockwave shot off in every direction, freezing whatever it touched and sending Mika flying into the forest. Before she could figure out what had happened, she was pinned to the ground by a rabid Miyuki. All sane thoughts left her mind as she sat on top of the swordswoman, foaming at the mouth. Mika took the opportunity to plunge Kusanagi into the demoness's stomach, pinning her to a nearby tree.
"Yes! That's exactly what I want to see! I want you to unleash all of that energy! Try and kill me!" she cheered like she was at a baseball game and not trying to murder her oldest friend. Her laughter was cut short by an ice shard that flew past her face, slashing her cheek. With a cruel smile, she ran her index finger across the cut and licked the blood off.
"You're gonna have to do better than — " she was interrupted by Miyuki using an ice blast to slam her into the side of a pillar of ice that appeared behind her. Mika's eyes widened as the air was forced from her lungs.
"Didn't see that one coming," she admitted with a wheeze. Once she caught her breath, the brunette dusted herself off and approached her cornered little mouse again. Still pinned to the tree, Miyuki looked utterly exhausted.
"Don't get tired, yet," Mika sang tauntingly while grabbing the stabbed young woman and hoisting her over her shoulder. The immobilized demon could do nothing but watch through heavy eyes as she was carried out of the forest.
Was she going to be killed? Were her friends safe? Was Rin still mad? No answers were provided which left her thoughts to gnaw and scratch the inside of the skull. Instead of fighting, she let the sounds of the wilderness lull her into a deep, deep sleep.
I'm sorry, you guys.
