Chapter 7: Resolve
"Oh, come on!" the lion demon snarled. "It's a joke. It's funny! You're supposed to LAUGH! Laugh, or I'll shock the lot of you!"
"Don't bother," the paper demon spoke, revealing it possessed a mouth at one end. "Don't you remember what happened the last time you tried to shock me?"
The lollipop smirked and jumped up and down. Naoki didn't actually see it speak, but it obviously was the speaker. "I do! I do! He reflected it and killed the Nekomata he was trying to admit to our group!"
"Stop bringing that story up!" The lion demon roared, his face going a little pink. "How was I to know she was weak to electricity?"
What. . .what is this?
"Hey, Shiisa," the Pixie look-alike said suddenly, pointing to Naoki as he stared wildly at them from his supine position on the floor "I think he's woken up." She bent down and smiled at him. "Hi, mister demon!"
"Ooh! Really?" the lion demon turned to stare at Naoki, leaned down and sniffed his face. "So he has! Hey there pal! You're finally awake!" He gave Naoki's face a lick, seemed completely unperturbed when the youth pushed him off and tried to scoot across the floor away from him. "Heehaw, don't worry buddy!"
"What – Who - . .. " Naoki couldn't speak for a few seconds, licked his tongue to speak better.
The dog-lion grinned. "Who are we?" It jumped, stood at attention, raised a paw to the roof.
"SOOOOOOUND OFF!" the dog lion pointed to himself. "Shiisa! Of the Holy Clan, Master of Lightning!"
The pixie look alike did a summersault in the air, grinning broadly. "Hua Po! Jirae! Master of Fire!" She seemed slightly older than the Pixie Naoki had met before, maybe about 10 or 11. He couldn't tell very well.
The Lollipop spoke next. "Kodama! Of the Jirae! Master of . . . " his voice trailed off for a second. Naoki couldn't tell, but the Kodama seemed even younger than any of the other demons – he couldn't be older than five. Mentally, at least.
"Force…" Shiisa whispered.
"Oh, right! Master of Force! Let's be friends, mister!"
There was a long pause.
"Hey.. .. " Shiisa whispered again. "Hey. .. Shiki . . ."
The paper monster didn't do anything, looked around and realized everyone was staring at him. ". . .what?"
"Ahem!" The Shiisa gave the paper monster a poke.
"Bah. Fine. Whatever. Shikigami of the Brutes, master of Deadpan Snarking."
All of the demons except for Shikigami spoke now. . . "And we are. . ."
"Here he goes again," the paper demon whispered in the background.
"The Shinjuku Hospital Infiltration Team! Seekers of Love! Peace! And Magatsuhi!"
"And lameness," the paper demon whispered again, but the dog-lion didn't seem to care Shiisa was standing with two paws in the air, while Kodama and Hua Po were carefully posed on his back. They were striking a pose.
The look on Naoki's face said it all.
The hell?
"So, now you've been introduced to our little band of idiots," Shikigami muttered. "Now introduce yourself."
". . .Oh. I'm . . . " he hesitated. "I'm . . .Naoki Kashima. Of the. .. uh . . ."
Before he could properly introduce himself, the Preta answered it for him. "He. . .. Naoki. . . . of the . . . Perverts. . . "
Naoki stared. So did everyone else. The effect on the room was immediate – the stylish pose the three demons were in collapsed upon itself immediately and Kodama was nearly squished flat as the others sprinted to the other side of the room in a flash. "Ahhh! Get him away from us!" they shouted.
He must have heard Pixie call me that. RATS.
"No no no!" Naoki pleaded. "It's not like that! It was just a misunderstanding, she was badly hurt!"
"Sure, sure, that's what they all say!" Shiisa said as he cowered away from him.
"I'm serious!" Naoki protested.
Kodama simply stared in confusion. "Uh. . .is something wrong? Why is everybody running around?"
Shiisa spoke from the bottom of the demon pile. "It's nothing, nothing, Kodama! Never mind!"
Kodama wouldn't let it go. "I don't understand. What does Pervert –"
"Not until you're older," Shiisa told him.
"Oh, okay," the Kodama said, silent for a moment. Then he spoke again. "How about now?"
"OLDER THAN THAT!"
"Please listen to me!" Naoki protested. "It's just a misunderstanding. Um . . can somebody tell me how I got here? The last thing I remember is a Lot of Pretas."
Hua Po was the one who answered his question. "Ha, sure! You're in Shinjuku Hospital Annexe, second floor, one of the hospital rooms, and you came in on your own two feet! You just barged in, holding that Preta of yours, then face planted on the floor. So we took care of you!" She grinned.
"You did?" Naoki stared. "Um . .. thank you."
Hua Po looked at him curiously for a moment, then continued. "Sure, we were going to eat you. . . " at this point Naoki stared at her in terror. ". . . but then we did a little snooping, decided you were useful enough alive!"
"I healed you, Mr Pervert!" Kodama spoke cheerfully. "Pervert. Peeerr Veeerrrt. Heheh, it's a funny word!"
"W – Why? What do you mean, useful alive?" Aretheygoingtoeatme,likethePretasweregoingtoeatIsamu?
"Why else, silly?" she grinned at him. "We help you out, then you help us out! We need you and your hot muscles to do us a favour. You see, there's somebody we need taken care of."
"Taken . . .care of?" Naoki didn't like where this was going.
"Yup," Kodama answered. "He's name is Forneus of the Fallen. He's a big meanie whose taken over Shinjuku and won't let us leave! He's the one in charge of the Pretas and he took all the Magatsuhi for himself and won't give us any!"
"Yes!" Shiisa barked. "He's one nasty bugger – tough as hell. Matter of fact, he's one of the Marquis of Hell themselves, in charge of 29 legions of angels!"
ANGELS?
Naoki couldn't have heard right. "Seriously?" he asked.
"Seriously!" Shiisa cheered. "As Leader of the Shinjuku Hospital Infiltration Team, I have made it my mission to kick him out of here, and take all of the Magatsuhi for my –"
The other demons turned to stare at Shiisa angrily.
"Uh. . . . I mean, ourselves! He guards the front door, the only way in or out of this place, and parades around like he owns the place, demanding a toll to pass. Well, I told him exactly where he could stick his toll, and then we beat him up so bad that he let us enter. "
"No you didn't!" Shiki grumbled. "The only reason we got in trouble was because you tried to pay the toll in fake macca!"
"He didn't need to hear about that! But yeah. Now the nasty guy won't let us back out, not even when we offered him chocolate cake."
"Seriously," Hua Po said. "He's so strong and so mean and so nasty, he hurt us really bad when we fought him! He ripped off both my arms, slashed Shiki in half and crushed Shiisa's ribs! We would've died if not for Kodama's Dia spell!"
Kodama smiled happily. "But now that mean old Forneus is going to die! We're going to use our secret weapon to kill him!" The two Jirae got into a singnig match.
"We're going to rip off his arms – err, fins!"
"Slash him in half!"
"Crush his ribs!"
"Kill!" The two demons descended into a fit of manic giggles.
"K-kill?" Naoki blinked. The sound of a pair of young children giggling about inflicting torture and murder was unnerving to him.
"Yep! We're going to make him pay for what he did to us, now that we've finally got our secret weapon!"
"Uh. . .what is this secret weapon?" Naoki asked.
"Ahahahaha!" Hua Po laughed. "It's you, silly!"
Naoki stared. "What – but I'm just –" a human who's stuck in a horrible nightmare and wishes he could just wake up because he's not a demon, honest – "I'm just some random guy. I can't kill anybody, that's wrong!"
"Ahahahaa!" the two demons laughed louder.
The Shikigami snorted. "For a person who can't kill anybody, you do pretty well for yourself."
Naoki blinked at the paper demon in surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"You don't remember?" Shikigami asked him.
"About what?"
Shiisa smirked. "Let's show him what we mean."
The other demons nodded, opened the door to the room, indicated Naoki to come out and look. He followed them out, looked around . .. STARED, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Did – didI –
He could see all the way from the annexe passageway to here – it was just one long passage. The gate machine was ripped apart, absolutely obliterated, its bars badly bent out of shape, some even completely ripped off. The walls were splattered with blood. And the ground was absolutely covered in Preta corpses, everywhere. There were corpses ripped in half, corpses disebowled, corpses with holes punched in them, some corpses impaled on the gate spikes. . .
They're all dead. The whole horde. . .
The memories came flooding back – flashes of them – seeing Isamu and Pixie abandon him, falling to the ground, trying to will himself away from the nightmare, being covered in Pretas, struggling against them, winning the fight, standing up . . . going berserk . . . attacking Pretas. . . killing Pretas. . . torturing Pretas. . . mutiliating Pretas. . .eating Pretas. . .
Naoki fell to his knees and threw up.
"Clean up on Aisle three!" shouted Hua Po and Kodama together.
Meanwhile, in other part of the hospital. . .
WOOOOOOOOHHOOOO!" shouted the Pixie from her vantage point on Isamu's hat, where she'd decided to reside ever since they abandoned Naoki back at the pathway. No wonder the Pervert wanted one of these things! Sustenance, entertainment and transport in one! Humans RULE!
Below her, Isamu continued on his way through the hospital, repeating the same things over and over: I have to run to safety, have to run to safety,. He had been running for seemingly hours now, ever since he'd woken up from a nightmare in which a bright light had yelled at him. The weirdest thing was that Isamu couldn't remember ever falling asleep.
He could still remember the voice from the nightmare.
You who are about to enter my domain, show me your soul.
He'd woken up, glanced around the place, then run into a ghost who told him told the world had ended. Just like that.
Of course, Isamu didn't believe him. He was the badass of the school, after all, not a sissy who believed in ghosts or ends of the world. So he'd continued on his merry way through the hospital, whistling a tune to cover up how unnerved he was by the whole experience. This cheery demeanour had come to an abrupt halt when he ran straight into a battle between the two demons he'd seen before by the basement door and a horde of purple hippy things.
Now he was free, and he was running as fast as he could, but he was unable to scream anymore and his manic adrenalin rush was running out. He fell to the ground, coughed and gasped for air. Above him, the Pixie continued to whoop and cheer.
"Aw – don't tell me you've run out of energy already? We've only gone a few meters! Hurry up, human, or we might run into the Pervert and the other demons again!"
Isamu glanced up from where he was on hands and knees, remembering the name. Naoki...
He hadn't recognised Naoki when he burst in the room, sending the purple hippy things flying. He'd looked like a wild beast, covered in blood with blue stripes to glowed menacingly in the darkness and Isamu had stared, not recognising this thing that had just saved him. When the monster introduced himself as Naoki, Isamu had refused to believe it, so he'd hit him with the bar.
Then the hundreds of purple freaks had arrived, and Isamu DID believe that this monster was Naoki Kashima, teacher's pet of the class and all round nerd. Of course it was Naoki. Who else would be stupid enough to stand in front of a wall of fire?
Isamu remembered one time when they were younger. It had been an argument over fathers. Isamu's father was a drunken and abusive alcoholic who had little time for his son. Naoki had had the GALL to tell Isamu that he should be thankful for the fact that Isamu had a father at all. This had made Isamu furious, and at the end of the argument he had ordered Naoki to go take a long walk off a short pier.
Thus did Isamu learn that Naoki couldn't swim.
When the Pretas rushed in, Isamu realized that something was different. No, not just in the markings – he'd already figured that bit out. It was in Naoki's mannerisms, his actions, his beliefs . The Naoki Isamu knew wouldn't face down the demons like he did – he'd lie down and die so that Isamu could be the hero, so Isamu could beat the bad guys down. Naoki wasn't supposed to be the strong one! Isamu wasn't supposed to be the weak one!
This isn't how it's supposed to happen!
The situations were reversed and Isamu had concluded that this could not be Naoki Kashima, was NOT Naoki Kashima. It was a doppelganger, a monster in human form and he no longer believed it was Naoki.
So he had shunned it, yelled at it, kicked it in the head, locked It behind him, abandoned him. The monster had begged him, pleaded with him, and as it begged Isamu found himself recognising Naoki again, despite the markings that crisscrossed his face like tacky neon body paint.
It was his eyes. His eyes were still the same, still the blue they always were. He still had that puppy dog look, always eager to please, the look he always gave bullies when they were beating him up.
Now Isamu didn't know what to believe.
Was that Naoki? Or a monster?
Or
was it both?
Atop his head, the Pixie sighed happily, getting a little tipsy from all the Magatsuhi she was absorbing, unable to care less about Naoki and his identity crisis, Truthfully, she'd lied to Naoki earlier when she'd bragged about killing some humans – she actually wasn't strong enough to do something so impressive, her nifty Zio lightning spell a source of excruciating agony but not death. Besides, it was far more profitable to hang about humans when they were alive. Magatsuhi was highly dependant on the intensity of strong emotions, usually negative ones like grief, terror and rage, but there was some from passion as well.
Pixie, like pretty much any other demon, could not create Magatsuhi herself – they needed to feed on humans, just as humans in turn needed to feed on other things. It was a demon's very spark of existence, their way of gaining strength and power, and it was a substance absolutely every demon wanted – with one exception, of course, but he was a Pervert and was dead now, so he didn't matter. Anyway, she had the human now, so life was good.
At least, it was until the amount of Magatsuhi emanating from the human changed.
At first she didn't know what had happened – the human had gotten up off the ground, catching his breath, looking around, clearly thinking. But something was different, and she didn't like it. She gave the human a poke. "Hey! What are you doing, hat boy?"
Isamu had made a decision. He had to stop screwing around and start getting serious. I'm Isamu Nitta, the badass of the Class!He had to get out of this hospital, find the bastard responsible for this chaos, and punch them in the face until their tongue emerged out of their own ass.
I need a weapon.
The metal bar was useless – it had been bent and broken by the thing formerly known as Naoki, so he had to get another one. A weapon. Preferably a gun, although finding one in a private Hospital of all places wouldn't be very likely. He looked around, saw a broom leaning against the wall.
That'll do.
He grabbed the handle, gave it a practice swing. Atop his hat, the Pixie grinned as she realized what Hat Boy was contemplating doing.
"Hehehehehe," came the giggling from Isamu's hat. "This'll be good.".
Why is my hat talking to me?
Isamu was momentarily confused, but put it out of his mind. So he was hallucinating –who cared? He was the Badass Isamu Nitta, he wouldn't stop for his hat talking to him, or for seeing monsters running around – not even when his broomstick grew arms and started whine –
Wait – WHAT THE -?
The broomstick moved on its own – it turned around, stared back at him. The broom had a face, arms and legs – it was alive! It's face scowled up at Isamu as he made a strangled squeak, a high pitched noise part way between swearing and squealing.
"DO YOU MIND?" the broomstick asked him in an old lady's voice. "That was immensely rude! Honestly, children these days. . ."
Naoki Kashima stood on his knees in the middle of the hallway, staring wild eyed toward the annexe pathway. Before him lay a scene of utter destruction, of blood and gore and horror that he knew now that he had caused.
Behind him, a group of demons were poking him in the shoulders, completely unbothered by the situation.
"Come on, mister! Let's play, let's play!" Kodama tugged Naoki's arm.
A demon – the Hua Po – give Naoki a punch. "TAG! You're it!" She flew off, waiting for Naoki to chase after her, looking back in confusion when he didn't. She turned in midair, glared at him, then summoned a ball of fire in her left hand and throw it at him.
He didn't even notice it singing his hair. He was a little preoccupied.
How. . . how could I have done this?
Naoki knew that he'd killed Pretas, that the Pretas had squealed, made noises that indicated they felt the pain he caused them and that he hadn't cared. They were demons, sure, but they were still . . .living? . . . beings,
How could he have changed so much within the span of . . . however long it was? How could he have gone from refusing to hurt a fly to massacring so many in such a short time?
This made it the forth time. Four times – once in the Labyrinth, once upon meeting the Pixie, once upon arguing with Isamu, once upon fighting the Pretas. Four times, four individual times, that Naoki had felt an urge to kill and cause pain.
What caused that urge?
He had been thinking for several minutes now, and he had now come up with a likely culprit - the Magatama embedded in his own head.
Naoki knew he was a demon because of the centipede thing that had been dropped on his head, but previously he had assumed that after transforming him the thing had merely disappeared or wandered off. He knew now that was not the case. The horn sticking out of his neck WAS the Magatama, transmogrified into a new form, altering its own shape just as it had altered his. But it wasn't dead. He could feel it, moving around slightly. The Magatama anticipated the fight, relished it, wanted more.
I could have killed Isamu and the Pixie, along with all the other demons here!
He looked around in panic for their corpses, thankfully found only dead Pretas.
As time went on, the Magatama had seemed to change its activity, an activity that seemed to fluctuate in the same degree as the sun. He had noticed, earlier, that the sun had changed in its brightness as he'd explored the Hospital, sometimes being exceptionally bright, other times dark. From what he could tell, the light had been at its brightest when –
. . . when he had been chasing the Pretas through the hallways. At the same time, the Magatama in his head had been at its most active as well. Therefore: the Magatama had driven him berserk, driven him to kill all these people.
The devil's making me do it. He found the thought incredibly ironic, but not reassuring.
The light was still bright, very bright, but not as bright as it was during that terrible moment, but he could feel it – feel the Magatama in his horn thrash about, could feel his body trembling in anticipation of its next fight.
I really don't have a choice in this.
Behind him, the demons were tapping their feet, waiting for him to finish doing whatever the heck it was he was doing. All except the one surviving Preta, of course – it was stuffing its face on its own kin, gorging itself as fast as it could.
"Is he. . . finished?" Hua Po asked the others.
Shiisa answered her. "Honestly? I can't tell. I don't even know what the heck he's doing."
"Strange. .. is he mourning their deaths?" Shikigami whispered.
Naoki glanced, turned to his horror show company, sighed.
"So. . . . " Shiisa asked him. "Are you done yet?"
This doesn't change anything. I can't lie down in my despair. I have to find the others. Isamu's still alive, Chiaki's waiting for me under a stack of rubble, Hijiri's still with the pillar, Hikawa's probably already left the building and taken Ms.Takao with him. She gave me this power to help the others and I have to doi t. I'm the only one who can.
He stood up and spoke. "Yeah. I'm done."
"Do we have to kill you in gruesome ways? Or are you going to help us defeat Forneus?" The Shiisa asked hopefully.
Naoki sighed, apologized to God, hoping he would be forgiven for sinning even more. "He's blocking the exit, isn't he? I need to get out of here, to meet up with my friend."
Shiisa grinned. "Excellent! I will await news of your accomplishment!"
Naoki blanched. "You – you're not going to help me?"
"Huh? Us?" the Shiisa blinked. "Well, no, I wasn't planning on it . .."
He was immediately elbowed in the side by Shikigami.
"I mean, yes, of course we were! Yes! We're right behind you! Naoki Kashima, I formerly welcome you to the Shinjuku Hospital Infiltration Team. " The dog-lion jumped to attention.
"SOOOOOOOOOOUND OFF! Shiisa of the Holy Clan, Master of Lightning!"
"Kodama of the Jirae, master of Fire!"
"Hua Po of the Jirae! Master of . . . wait a minute Kodama, I'M the master of Fire! You're the master of Force! Say it again!"
"Oh, okay. .. Kodama of the Jirae, Master of Force!"
"Good. Hua Po of the Jirae, master of Fire!"
"Not this again. .. " Shikigami muttered.
Hua Po gave him a poke.
"Fine, FINE. Shikigami of the Brute Clan, Master of Deadpan Snarking. Congratulations Naoki Kashima, now you have to go through this inane ritual yourself."
"Huh?" Naoki blinked.
"Sign off, like we did! Name and . . ." The Shiisa's voice tailed off as he realized a problem. "Actually, just state your name."
"Okay." Naoki didn't have a problem with that. He raised a hand. "Naoki Kashima!"
"Aren't you going to pick a mastery?" Kodama asked him.
"NO HE'S NOT!" Shikigami replied, perhaps worried at exactly what mastery he WOULD pick.
To his surprise, the Preta behind him did exactly the same, actually stopped eating momentarily. "Me Preta. . . of Haunt Clan. . . WANT EAT!"
"Well met, both of you!" The Shiisa said. "Right then, Naoki. Follow me! To Love! Peace! And Magatsuhi! Shinjuku Hospital Infiltration –"
The Shiisa's motto was interrupted by a sudden screech, a screech of pure terror.
"WOOOOAAAHH!"
"Hey, do you guys hear that?" asked Hua Po.
"How couldn't we?" came Shikigami's retort. "Sounds like some human."
That voice. . . It's Isamu
"It came from over there!" the Kodama squealed, doing mid air summersaults by the inside window that overlooked the Annexe entrance. "Look Look! Something's happening!"
Everybody ran over to check the sights, including Naoki, who stared in shock when he arrived. It was Isamu, bursting into the lobby, swinging a broom back and forth as though it were a sword. A sword that. . .was speaking. More specifically, screaming.
"YOU BRUTE! Did anybody tell you to respect your elders? Unhand me this instant!"
"Is that. . . Datsue Ba?" Shiisa asked. "Why on earth is she being swung around like a weapon?"
"He probably got her while she was taking a nap in one of the rooms," Shikigami replied. "Serves her right for taking my old master's clothes."
"Old master?" Naoki asked.
"Shiki here was summoned to serve as some human's familiar," Hua Po explained. "I toasted the human's ass, hung 'em on a tree, and whilst they was dying, Datsue Ba came and nicked all his clothes."
"It was my tree," Kodama whinged, "And it wasn't supposed to be used that way."
"Want eat," said the Preta.
"Good times," said the Hua Po. "Me and the others were making a tidy profit that way, selling all the clothes of the heretics we hanged."
"Stop talking about her," Shikigami snarled.
Her?
"Guys, would you shut up?" Shiisa growled. "I'm trying to watch!"
The other demons mumbled an apology and went back to watching the scene below. It was obviously now that Isamu was in combat with something. As he focused closer, he recognised it as one of the skulls Naoki had fought in Amala, the ones with the purple mist. This one was roaring at Isamu, looking very upset. Suddenly, it charged at the human. Isamu was ready, however, and before the skull could reach him he swung the broom like a baseball bat and scored a hit. The skull was sent flying into the wall and the purple mist dissipated.
"YEAH!" Isamu shouted at the top of his lungs, continuing to swing his Datsue Ba weapon around. "Who wants to take me on next, EH!
"Unhand me this instant, human!" His weapon screeched.
Hua Po turned to the others. "Should we warn him?"
"Naah," Shikigami replied. "Let him get what's coming for him."
"What do you mean?" Naoki asked.
The paper demon smirked. "You'll see. . ." It turned to Shiisa. "I bet you five hundred macca he's about to get eaten."
"You're on!" Shiisa replied.
Isamu was exuberant – he'd managed to fight off the terrible monster, ALL BY HIMSELF! Never mind the shrieking of his broom, never mind the fact that his hat had been egging him on, telling him to fight more and more. Now he was high on adrenaline, the end was in sight, the other monsters were nowhere to be seen, things were looking up.
. . . wait.
What's that sound?
There was a rumbling, similar to the rumbling of before, when he was reading a comic on one of the beds of the main hospital's second floor and there had been a vibration that made the bed shake. Isamu had thought it was an earthquake, so maybe this was an aftershock. He held his Datsue Ba weapon securely, ignoring its wailing. The shaking only grew more violent, however.
"W – w- what's happening?" asked the Pixie.
"Here he comes . . ." Shiki muttered, five coins marked "100" sitting in front of him.
"Who?" Naoki asked. Where did those coins come from?
"Forneus. . ."
The rumbling was getting louder beneath Isamu's feet, making him more and more uneasy. Then it stopped.
Isamu blinked.
Isamu glanced down at the ground.
. . . ?
. . .
OH CRAP!
He stared in stunned disbelief. "HOLY –" He was already running, sprinting for the hospital door, just in time to avoid the GIGANTIC MOUTH that appeared underneath his feet, easily big enough to swallow him whole. He continued to run as the mouth revealed itself as belonging to a gigantic manta Ray that came leaping out of the ground as though it were water, leaping several meters into the air, all the way up to the demons watching on the second floor.
"THAT'S FORNEUS?" Naoki shrieked. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, that he had just seen a Manta Ray come leaping out of a tiled and carpeted floor.
"Yep," Kodama answered him.
From their position, Naoki could see what he'd just agreed to defeat clearly now. It was a dark blue manta ray that looked, well, almost like any other manta ray he'd seen, except for the minor facts that it was wearing a silver crown, and that it was ABSOLUTELY BLOOMING HUGE, easily the size of your average sedan. For a few seconds it simply hang in the air, staring at the demons above it – specifically at Naoki himself.
Then it turned in mid air, flapping its fins as though they were wings, staring at Isamu who was running for the exit. It spoke. "In just which compass direction do you think you're going, little Homo Sapient? I have been specifically instructed to not allow any ingress or egress from this establishment!
"What did he say?" Kodama asked.
"He said he hates the human's guts and he wants to kill him."
"Oh. Then why'd he use such big words?"
Shiisa answered him. "Well, he IS a master of rhetoric and languages."
Then the Ray was charging for Isamu, crossing the distance in an instant, cavernous mouth extended. Isamu screeched, swung his Datsue Ba broom and stuck it in Forneus mouth where it jammed and prevented the demon from speaking coherently.
"Woah! Score one for the human!" Isamu's hat declared.
"AH!" the demon yelled. "Oou –OOu ITTLE OTHER UCKER!"
The broom was ripped out of Isamu's hands and he was sent flying by a swipe from Forneus' tail, knocked into a wall. "I'll AKE OO AY OR IS! EPARE OO IE!"
". . .or not," Isamu's hat grumbled. Suddenly it moved, lifted of his head, revealing the Pixie, shouting at the top of her lungs. "Damn it! Now look what you've done you stupid human, you nearly got me killed! This is too much for me - I'm out! Later, weakling!" She turned, to fly off into the sunset . . .sunrise . . .BAH! Whatever the heck you could call it now, she was going to fly off into it.
At least, she was until Forneus appeared directly in front of her, blocking the exit. "Ust air oo oou ink OO'RE oing of oo!"
CRAP.
"Uhh. . . nowhere," Pixie said sweetly.