Battle Gallop
At eight and some odd minutes into the day Orochi and his men had made it halfway to Simoo City. However a scouting troop has spotted them and Orochi and crew are about to encounter with them. The heroes gallop their way through the woods; a shadow jumps from a branch and snaps a twig. Sakura hears this, "Orochi, we're being followed." Orochi says, "Move into battle formation and prepare for battle." Orochi moves to the head of the pack, Gan positions himself to the far left, Sang to the far right, Sakura and Kristina move to the rear along with Tengai, Kamuu moves into the middle of the diamond pattern. Soon they could hear the sound of hoofs thundering among the trees. In an instant ten of dark hooded cloaked men on white horses with green eyes appeared around all sides of the party. Three surrounding Orochi, two surround both Sang and Gan, four near Sakura, Kristina and Tengai. Three ghouls strike at Orochi, he parries with his katana he keeps at his side. The two near Sang strike at him, Sang shoots at them with his Yasminkov 2000H pistol. Sang hits one of them in the head, the hood drops to reveal nothing. There wasn't a head insight of the man. Sang muttered, "Sorcery" and then proceeded to shoot at the horse, the horse buckled over at the shot and lost it's footing. The horse fall down knocking over the man, a cloak falls to the floor with no body. The other phantom rammed his horse into Sang's, Sang steadies his horse and fires, but his shot is deflected by the ghoul's blade. The ghoul rams into Sang once more, this time Sang grabs onto the arm (which strangely feels solid) and shoots the horse underneath. The horse doesn't filch; the ghoul breaks away from Sang's grip and attack with his blade.
Before Sang could taste the steel he shoots at the horse once more, this time in the eye. The horse eye shatters into glass shards, the horse reels back in pain knocking the ghoul off. The horse stops and runs around in a circle five times before it explodes. The head is launched into the air. Meanwhile Gan is defending against two ghouls on horseback; one ghoul swings his broadsword at neck level while the other does likewise. Gan is forced to raise his Yasminkov 7000V shotgun to block the right ghoul and clutch the arm of left ghoul. Shotgun blast fire out of the gun as struggles to keep both ghouls at bay. At this instant Gan yanks the left ghoul of his horse and drops him on to the ground. A puff of smoke disappears underneath the cloak as it falls to the ground; his horse stops running along Gan, it turn to the right and jumps into the shrubs disappearing into the forest. Gan continues to struggle against the other ghoul. With shotgun shots still blasting Gan hold his seating against the ghoul's pressing assault. Gan takes a chance and uses his other arm to grab on to the ghoul's sword wielding arm. This gave Gan some leeway to attack so he slides his gun down the edge of sword attempts to fire. The ghoul grabs on to the gun with his other hand and points it upward into the air to narrowly avoid the blast of the gun. Gan and the ghoul struggle as they ride along the forest pathway. All of them have exited the forest and are riding along Lake Mahu nearing Simoo City.
Gan takes the ghoul by surprise via pulling him toward himself. This cause the ghoul lose his grip on the gun and Gan takes advantage of this opportunity and takes the shotgun out of the ghoul's hand and lowers the barrel to the midsection and discharges. Smoke blows out the other end of the ghoul and the cloak falls over the horses' eyes. The horse stops and reels up into the air, kicking its heels into the air as it let's out a bizarre cry, as if sheet metal being ripped apart for no reason. The horse fades out of sight from the galloping battle, five minutes earlier Orochi was still handling three ghouls on his own, Kamuu (who hasn't been touched by a ghoul) has been preparing a spell to help Orochi fend off the onslaught. Kamuu raises his palm in direction of the ghoul behind Orochi; his eyes turn a pale blue. Kamuu releases a wave of lightning from his palm and hits the ghoul; he crumbles into a flat empty garment on the horse, the horse malfunctions (it was hit a rouge spark from the attack) and explodes. Kamuu rides though the explosion; he can taste the heat of the explosion as his eyes watered slightly despite his best efforts to ward off tears by holding his arm in air to shield himself. Kamuu exits the ball of fire unharmed and launches another attack, this time he attacks the one on the left. The bolt strikes the horse and it explodes thus vaporizing the cloaked fiend.
This gives Orochi an opportunity to fight the evil spirit "mono y mono". Orochi starts to go at it with the ghoul, each own's blade clashing into each other. The horses have exited the forest and are riding along the serene lakeside. Orochi and the spirits are going at it neck and neck, edge to edge galloping down the rain soaked dirt path. The horses gallop along the path, they track mud across their hooves while their masters move about above them on their backsides. Orochi strikes towards the head of the ghoul, he counters, strikes towards the mid-section, he counters, the fakes a strike to the head. The ghoul starts to block but Orochi immediately goes to the torso, the sword goes through the torso, and it does nothing. Orochi pulls back quickly his blade to block the fiend assault, Orochi pushes away the blade and attacks the horse's head, the ghoul blocks his sword away. Orochi thinks that there must be a way to attack the horse without that thing blocking him. Orochi thought of a solution, a risky one however, to his dilemma. Orochi pulls another katana from his second sheath and without the support of the saddle he goes all out on the fiend. A fury of sword slashes came at the spirit at a remarkable pace, slash after slash after slash; the apparition had a hard time blocking all of the attacks. Orochi could sense that he had him on the ropes so he made his move, he position his right sword towards the head of the ghoul, the other towards the horse's. The ghoul defended against the right-handed sword, the left came slicing through the maw of the white stallion.
The horse's body immediately falls over to the side; the cloak is thrown into the air and gradually falls to the ground. When the crew had first gallop across the lake shore Sakura, Kristina and Tengai all had their own hands full with the four ghouls. Sakura and Kristina kept them at bay with their stars, the ghouls kept blocking the disks being thrown at them so no one has manage to land a solid blow so far. Tengai had hinted towards the girls to keep distracting them while he drew his horses over to their backsides. You see by now most of them had been positioned to one side of the diamond formation. This gave Tengai an opportunity to a pre-empted strike; he edged around to the other side of the ghouls (breaking the diamond formation) and found himself facing the backs of the cloaked group. He quickly slices the backmost host in half with his sword; the cloak explodes a sea of smoke into the air as the two pieces of cloth fall to the ground. The three remaining turned around to see their fallen comrade and the one whom slain him. They turned around and began to strike in a tumultuous manner; Tengai found himself defending against a volley of three attacks. He knew that he couldn't hold them at bay for long, someone had to come up with a solution quickly. Sakura give Kristina a look, Kristina nodded her head and pulled out a red shuriken out of her side pouch. Since the three were so close to each other a well placed bomb on the middle horses side would decimate the remaining. Kristina aims careful then release the bomb, it hits the mark. Tengai saw what the girls did and slowed down his horse considerably. The second he does that the bomb goes off, a ball of flame engulfs the three and both ghouls and horses demise in a fiery blaze.
The heroes break from their formation and ride north along the clear sun lit lake. A town can be seen within distance.