Author's Note: I got ahead of myself earlier and wrote and finished this before I even posted chapter 31.

The Story So Far: Hiruma's awake, he's had some explanations, and he's back with the others. Now some dude named Blake (who's bad news) has taken Lotem.

Hidden

By: Bar-Ohki

Chapter 32: Akumetsu

"…Blake is a half-elf, half-Incubus Necromancer." Zeke explained after a moment. "He is extremely powerful and evil."

"Blake had enslaved almost all of the Underground with his magic." Zork added, looking shaken.

"It took all of the Elders, Lord Zeke, the Dungeon Master, and 30 other highly powerful Mages to seal him away." Doburoku explained. "…We sealed him under in Mount Fuji."

"…The Underground is still recovering from the wounds he gave it so wantonly." Zeke admitted. "Blake uses spells that even the most morally corrupt Necromancers wouldn't dare touch."

"And he escaped and has my mother." Hiruma commented, sounding unamused.

"We need to save mom!" Zork announced.

"Yes, but how do you propose we go about doing that?" Doburoku asked. "Blake was sealed away 300 years ago, Zeke's the only one currently living of the original sealers."

"…I have an idea." Zeke admitted slowly after a few moments. "But I'm going to need your consent for something, Youichi."

"My consent?" Hiruma eyed the elf wearily, not trusting the creature one bit.

"I would like to use your blood to create a familiar." Zeke explained.

"I have no intention of bleeding right now." Hiruma gave Zeke a disgusted look.

"Actually the Elders of Northern Europe took a lot of blood from you while they had you captive." Ayla explained. "It's in this cooler here."

Hiruma hadn't been expecting that.

"The familiar would be for Zork and would be a very useful thing to have around when we deal with Blake." Zeke assured everyone.

"Who is the spirit?" Hiruma demanded, knowing that familiars needed spirits.

"Dungeon Master Dalboz." Zeke answered. "Zork's father and Master."

"…Fine." Hiruma gave Zeke permission. Zeke glanced at Ayla who got off the cooler.

"Oh you have it!" Zeke saw the green box for the first time. "That will be a great help!"

"You know what is in that box?" Emlyn was mildly surprised.

"I'm the one that put that box together." Zeke sounded offended. "Of course I know what is inside."

"…What is inside?" Shin asked. The box seemed normal.

"Akumetsu." Zeke answered with a grin. "An artifact."

"An artifact!?" Sena gasped, awed.

"I haven't heard of this artifact!" Emlyn protested.

"That's because it's only 15 years old." Zeke answered. "It hasn't been touched by anyone other than its maker."

"…And why is it in a green box?" Hiruma held the box up.

"Because it was forged for you." Zeke answered simply. "And you are its first wielder."

"You can make artifacts specifically for people?" Mamori gasped.

"They always are made specifically for people when they are initially made." Zeke remarked.

Hiruma snorted and opened the box, making Emlyn somewhat upset. Inside the box, wrapped in white silk, was a black hand gun. It was different from a normal gun in the sense that it didn't seem to have a place to put in bullets, but it did have a safety and all the proper mechanisms of a gun. Hiruma picked it up and held it in his hand. Perfect fit, perfect weight, perfect balance, no doubt that it had been made for him.

"Hm." Hiruma set the box down and proceeded to examine the gun a little more thoroughly. It was a completely normal gun except that it didn't have a place to put in bullets.

"How the fuck do you load this thing?" Hiruma demanded.

"You don't." Zeke answered. "I don't know all of what it does exactly, you never can with a proper artifact, but I know that it doesn't need anything other than a master."

"Where are you going?" Emlyn demanded, having noticed that Zeke was about to leave.

"I have to make a familiar and I can't do it in a room that allows no magic." Zeke answered. "Though I will strongly recommend that the lot of you get yourselves to the Upground and figure out what happened."

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea," Doburoku agreed. "Is there an Underground Underground station around here?"

"Yes." Zork answered.

"I'll catch up with you as soon as I can," Zeke promised, "just please do not confront Blake without me."

Hiruma simply stared at the gun in his hand, his life had just gotten pretty damn weird.

"Oh and Youichi," Zeke added right before he left, "you might want to practice with that before you try it in battle."

Hiruma aimed at the far wall, turned the safety off, and pulled the trigger. He felt a pull on his energy and a silent little gust of air came out of the end of the gun. A small portion of time later the wall exploded violently and the debris fell forward a little, then sucked back into the middle of the explosion. Soon the debris had compiled and shrunk down into a small, smooth, black stone.

Zeke paled at the sight of that.

"Hm." Hiruma commented, not having expected it to do that. Shin looked like he had scene a ghost.

"What did you see?" Juumonji asked Shin.

"…That bullet just sucked all the magic out of the rock and pulled it into that stone." Shin pointed at the black stone.

"It made a Medium?" Sena blinked. Kurita walked over and picked up the stone.

"Yeah, it did." Kurita agreed.

"…That's somewhat impractical." Hiruma observed.

"What if you shot that at a Mage?" Ayla pointed out, startling everyone. "If it didn't kill them, it would definitely remove them of their powers."

"Assuming it stuck in them and didn't go through." Hiruma pointed out. He put the safety back on.

"Are you okay Lord Zeke?" Emlyn asked.

"I'll be okay." Zeke assured her. "I'm just a little stunned is all."

"You're stunned?" Zork asked.

"…I'm the one that forged that artifact." Zeke admitted after a while.

"Then you should know how it works." Hiruma frowned.

"No, I went into a trance when I forged it, I don't actually have any memory of creating the weapon." Zeke shook his head. "Artifacts possess a smith and make themselves be made. The smith never remembers making it, they just know who it is for when they are done."

"I've heard that was the case." Doburoku commented. "But I don't recall you having any smithing skills."

"I don't." Zeke commented. "But found myself up in a dwarven village, with a kind of weapon I had never seen before in my life sitting in my hands. The locals told me I had been possessed by their smithing god."

"You've never seen a gun before?" Kuroki asked.

"Is that what it's called?" Zeke asked back. "I don't even really know how to use it as a weapon, I just know it doesn't need anything but a master to work."

"They don't have guns in the Underground, typically." Doburoku explained.

"Hmm." Hiruma looked at the gun again. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Hiruma?"

"I don't think my aunt wants me putting any more fucking craters in the walls." Hiruma glanced at the giant hole he had made.

Everyone nodded.

"I'll take them to the station." Zork assured his aunt.

"…Be careful." Emlyn wished them as the group journeyed out into the halls of the Roost.

To Hiruma's relief the station was not only close by, but there were no Succubus in between them and it. Zork called the train to take them to the Deimon JR Station. Hiruma learned about exactly what had transpired since his kidnapping and how the group had rescued him.

"So who are you exactly?" Hiruma asked Ayla.

"…I'm a Sensitive in charge of caring for the magical creatures they kept imprisoned." Ayla explained.

"You're a Sensitive?" Yukimitsu blinked.

"Its minor, I can kind of read the minds of those I touch if I concentrate really hard." Ayla explained. "I can't understand the thoughts of non-human things very well."

Hiruma pointed Akumetsu at her. "So you've read my mind?"

"Enough to know that you were a person with a life." Ayla explained, very intimidated by the weapon. "And that it wasn't right to have you trapped like that!"

Hiruma lowered his gun.

"Either way we have to keep her with us," Doburoku told Hiruma, "if she went back now she'd probably be executed as a traitor."

The train came screeching to a stop.

"Name and purpose." The train demanded again.

"Here we go again…." Togano muttered.

_=_=_=_=_

I like Akumetsu, don't you?