Author's Notes:

Hello everyone! Sorry for the late post. I've been ill lately, so its been getting in the way quite a bit. I hope you understand.

@Kotano-Chan: I'm glad you're enjoying the story! I think I warned everyone that things may be a little sadder going forward, so...yeah. The last 2 were a little depressing. Sorry xD

@GB: Hi there! I'm happy to hear you like what you see in the story so far! If you're going to start from the beginning, just know that those were my first chapters of any fanfic I've ever written, so they're a bit dodgy. Still, thanks for reading!

Chapter: Dying Light

Shion stood alone against the one called Lucifer, her friend's already injured and now blinded.

As she slowly moved towards her opponent, several thoughts raced through her head as she tried to think of a way for her and her friends to come out of this alive.

"We have been warned about this opponent by the serpent Lifrasir." She thought calmly to herself. "Seeing as he blinded those three, he may have an ability which allows him to manipulate light."

As she thought, her opponent prepared himself for her attack, using one pair of wings to defend his body.

"Although I can say with near certainty that his powers involve the manipulation of light, I will not know to what extent until I engage him in combat." She continued. "This opponent is also capable of flight and is most likely at home fighting in the skies. I am at a disadvantage in the sky since I am not yet used to flight. On top of this, the powers of my eyes seem to be relegated to ground use only. I must keep him grounded, therefore my attacks should be focused not on his vital organs, but on his wings."

With her strategy more or less finalized given her available information, she pulled her sword out of it's scabbard then, as quickly as she could, rushed at her opponent, using her large wings to propel her forward.

He swung his scythe immediately to block her sword, but she used the agility her wings granted her to maneuver to his side and try to slice of one of his wings.

He managed to dodge in time, but had the first wing on the left side of his back slightly wounded. When he created enough distance between them, he went back to his defensive position.

Rather confused by this, Shion chose to try the same tactic. However, this time, her opponent blocked her blade.

She then retreated to a safe distance and began to observe him. He didn't move from where he stood, choosing to constantly defend himself.

"Of course the same thing wouldn't work twice." Shion thought to herself. "But what is he doing? Why isn't he attacking? Is he waiting for something?"

As these thoughts crossed her mind, the sun peeked over the morning horizon. As soon as the rays of sunshine landed on her opponent, he stood up from his defensive position.

He spread his six wings, as if stretching them after taking a nap. For a few moments, he remained motionless, basking in the light of the sun.

The whole thing made Shion feel very nervous and uncomfortable. Her mind raced with ideas for how she could win the fight quickly.

However, before all of that, she remembered that her friends were still nearby, incapacitated.

"Saito," She said with a calmness that didn't fit the situation. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah!" He replied, leaning against a rock.

"Find Alex and Louise and get them as far away from here as your body will allow." She said.

"What about you?!" He asked.

"Just do it." She said. "The only senses you have to rely on are your sense of smell, hearing, and touch. Since this will be a battle in the air, you cannot help me with those senses. Even if you had your sight, I am the only one capable of efficiently fighting this person. Do as I say."

He wanted to argue, but he knew that she was right. He lacked the long range attacks necessary to help even if he didn't lose his eye sight.

Using his powerful sense of smell, he quickly found Alex and Louise, then ran away from the battlefield, although he didn't know exactly where he was going.

When they were far enough away, Shion returned her attention to the man who seemed to be basking his feathers in the sunlight.

Because he seemed wide open and she preferred to strike unexpectedly, she turned on her eyes, allowing her to manifest the giant magenta colored skeletal avatar that surrounded her

"As far as he knows, this power is mostly defensive in nature." She thought to herself.

As she thought this, two tridents made of the same fire like substance as the avatar manifested themselves in two of the avatar's seven hands.

"That means he should have no reason to expect an attack. Especially not from this range." She thought to herself. "This is approximately 20 meters. I can hit him accurately from this distance easily."

When she had this strategy figured out in her head, she launched her attack. Faster than the blink of an eye, she threw the two tridents at him with pinpoint accuracy and immense speed.

The impact sent dust into the air, obscuring Shion's view. After a few moments, the dust finally settled.

Much to her surprise, she saw that both of the tridents had impaled her opponent's body.

She didn't move towards him at all. She knew that something was wrong. There was no possible way that some Lifrasir had bothered warning her and her friends about could be defeated so easily.

After observing him for a few seconds, she slowly moved closer to him. She deactivated her eyes to save energy, making the large avatar disappear. However, when she was within less than 5 meters of him, she felt an unnatural shift in the wind.

Just in time, she managed to dodge an attack that seemingly came from nowhere. Lucifer's scythe just barely grazed the tips of her feathers.

She jumped to a safe distance away to rethink her strategy.

"I'm sure I hit him." She thought to herself. "I certainly didn't see him move. So how did he get behind me? Teleportation?"

She was in a slight panic, but took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She decided that her next attacks had to be as clean as possible and throw no dust into the air so that she could see what he was doing.

To do that, she decided to attack her without using her eyes. She rushed at him at swung her sword.

This time, he blocked it with his scythe. The impact of the two metal blades caused a shockwave to form.

Shion then pulled back, only to continue her assault. Sparks flew every time their blades crossed.

After a few minutes of this, when Shion rushed forward to attack again, she was suddenly kicked away from an odd angle.

The kick cracked some of her ribs, but she was otherwise okay. When she looked back, she was surprised to see that instead of the one opponent she was fighting, there seemed to be a clone of him as well.

"What the hell?" She said to herself. "Another one? Where was he though? A clone?"

When she stood up, she winced slightly, feeling the pain from her ribs being cracked.

"I can't fight two people at once " She thought to herself. "It is unlikely they'll let me escape. I either have to kill them quickly or figure out as much about them as I can. Perhaps if I can get information about them to the others, they'll be able to win after my defeat."

Just as she thought this, she saw him in her peripheral vision only a few feet away and about to attack her.

In response, she flew into the sky. While she was in mid air, however, she saw that the other Lucifer was already there.

Because she wasn't used to flight, she manifested a giant ribcage around herself just before his scythe could hit her.

She was knocked at high speed into the ground. Because the ribcage she created around herself protected her, she was unharmed.

She immediately got up, expecting the first Lucifer that attacked her on the ground to attack her once more.

However, that attack never came. Instead, she hears the Lucifer in the sky fly down at her. He brought his scythe down on her, but she blocked it with her sword, having turned off her eyes again.

As she clashed, her mind raced with possibilities of what his ability was. Eventually, she managed to put some distance between her and them.

"How did he get near me so quietly?" She thought to herself. "And why didn't he attack me once I was back on the ground? That was the perfect opportunity to strike."

Her mind raced with dozens of theories and solutions. After about a minute, she seemed to have an idea.

"Could it be..?" She thought. "Testing that hypothesis could prove fatal, but if I'm right, it'll make things more straightforward."

She picked up a very long sharp branch of a tree that had been destroyed. She then stuck her sword in the ground and sounds around quickly, causing dust to be thrown into the air.

She was now surrounded by dust. She could only see a few feet in front of herself, but could see up into the sky directly above her.

After about a minute, he suddenly appeaared through the dust in front of her.

He brought his scythe down on her head. However, she did not attempt to block it.

She gripped the branch she had grabbed earlier and threw it as hard as she could above her.

Above her, another Lucifer was stabbed by the branch she threw at him through his stomach and two of his wings.

At the same time, the scythe of the Lucifer on the ground passed through Shion harmlessly.

The Lucifer on the ground disappeared into nothingness while the one in the sky fell to the ground.

He was by no means dead, but it seemed he would no longer be able to fly. His abdomen had suffered a rather gruesome wound as well, so Shion's fight would be easier.

Shion smiled as she thought about his powers, feeling proud that she had figured some of them out.

"So there really was only one Lucifer." She thought to herself as she began to manifest her avatar again. This time, it started to become covered with what looked like muscle."He uses light to trick my vision. But light has no substance. No weight. That's why I never heard him or felt the air change when his clones got closer to me."

"But to create clones of light, he also has to see them. If a clone appeared while I was in that dust, it means the only place he could be was above me." She said.

As he attempted to pull the branch out of his body, she threw two more tridents at him.

This time, she could clearly see him dodge them. As soon as he managed to dodge them, he pulled the branch out of his body.

He started bleeding excessively from his abdominal wound, but still got to his feet.

At this point the sun was high in the sky. He looked up at it for a few seconds, then raised his scythe into the air.

Shion was on her guard, so she kept her eyes activated. For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen.

Suddenly, however, the scythe seemed to start absorbing the light around them.

"Is he going to try and blind me?" Shion thought to herself. "My power will stop that from happening."

Only a few seconds later, rather than the blinding light she expected to see, a beam shot out of his scythe's blade and struck her avatar.

It was extremely fast and powerful. It began to burn a hole through her giant golem, making her eyes feel quite a bit of pain.

Soon, she deactivated her eyes and tried to dodge the beam. Unfortunately, it still struck one of her wings. Strangely, when the light hit her wings, it seemed to disperse for a few moments before finally burning her.

She tried to take some time to make herself ignore the pain, but she had to keep moving because Lucifer kept attacking her with his light.

Eventually, she hid behind a boulder. She knew that his light couldn't melt through it very quickly. And since he couldn't fly, she didn't have to worry about sneak attacks from above.

She took this time to look at her damaged wing. It was badly burned, but she was surprised the beam of light didn't just burn a hole through it instantly.

"That attack. It's too fast to dodge." She thought to herself.

As she thought, she could hear him beginning to melt through the rock she was hiding behind. He seemed intent on keeping his distance.

As she tried to think of a way out, she noticed some light flickering oddly on the ground in front of her.

At first, she thought it was an enemy attack, but soon realized it was just sunlight reflecting off of her metallic feathers and onto the ground.

She didn't think much of it and scolded herself for being distracted. She quickly looked over the rock star her opponent.

He was gathering a large amount of energy into his scythe, seemingly for a much stronger attack. Still, for the time being, she wasn't being attacked, which gave her a chance to strategize.

It was at this point that she looked back at the spot where her wing got hit by his attack. She noticed that a few spots on the ground looked like they had been hit as well. They were turned to glass from the intense heat.

"I'm sure he never hit the ground. I never did either." She thought.

As she thought, she again noticed how the sun's rays reflected onto the ground from her feathers.

After staring at the light for a few seconds, she finally realized what had happened. Why her wing was burned through and was only burned on the surface.

"So my feathers reflected some of the light towards the ground." She thought. "How fortunate. Still, this doesn't help me. My feathers aren't mirrors, so they can't reflect the light directly back in the direction it came from."

She started to move the feathers on her wings until they formed as flat of a surface as she was capable of making.

"My only option is to rush towards him while deflecting his attacks." She thought. "This means my wings will surely take damage, but if I get close to him, I believe I can defeat him considering her injuries."

Just as she made her mind up, his massive attack blew the rock apart. The ensuing explosion singed some of her skin, but she was still able to move. Knowing she had no other options, she ran straight towards him.

She would have to run a distance of 50 meters to get close enough to attack him with her sword.

As she ran, Lucifer shot several beams of light at her. They were extremely fast, so she had to focus hard on when and where to move and place her wings.

As she had predicted, although her wings were capable of deflecting a significant amount of the light, every attack still burned the surface of her wings.

It was excruciatingly painful, but she did her best to ignore it. By the time she was 10 meters away, the majority of the feathers on her wings were burnt off, so she had to be even more precise with her placement and angling than before.

Just when she was about to run out of feathers to use, she got within range to attack him.

She brought her sword down to strike his head. He tried to block it with the handle of his scythe, but the sharpness of Shion's blade cut through it.

Because of the scythe's deflection, Shion's sword cut deep into his shoulder and chest rather than his head.

Before he fell to the ground, however, he gripped the blade of his scythe and jammed it through Shion's abdomen.

She coughed up a lot of blood, but remained standing. Before he could attack again, she stabbed him directly through his heart, the pulled out her sword.

He started to cough blood for several seconds before finally, he became silent and motionless.

To make sure that his revival was impossible, she decapitated him and destroyed his head with a large stone.

With victory in her hands, Shion fell onto her knee, with the blade she was stabbed with still in her abdomen.

Slowly, she got up and began to walk in the direction she saw Saito run with her friends.

However, she could not make it very far. After only 100 yards, she collapsed, covered with blood and injuries and with her friends far away, unaware that she had attained victory.

Author's Notes:

Just thought I'd put this out there. For those of you who don't know, Shion's powers (eyes) are taken from the Susanoo in the series Naruto: Shippuden. My reason for including it is simple. I love the power and chose to use it. Anyway, that should help all of you visualize that better. See you next time! (I hope) :)