Chapter 17

Why are we back here?

I ducked under Cognizine's shield as it flew overhead. I sliced away one of the lesser ayakashi and jumped over toward Yoshimori. Linzang pushed Gingross and Tsurosa way with a wave and I jumped over it. Cognizine's shield circled back and I ducked again. It flew up at an angle and sliced through tree branches and other lesser ayakashi. I grabbed Yoshimori and pulled him into a bush with me.

"What'd you do that for?" He shouted at me.

I sighed, "You haven't thought of a plan at all, have you?"

"I was just gonna kill them all!" He shouted.

I sighed, "You didn't think it through, like usual."

"Hey!"

I gave him a peck on the cheek and he immediately calmed down.

"I'm guessing you noticed that Cognizine's shield is annoying, right?" I asked. Yoshimori nodded.

"Well, if you tried to strategize, you would have taken it into account that Tsurosa and Gingross work extremely well together, that their attacks easily cleave through kekkai, and that they never stray too far from each other. You also would have noted that they are close-range fighters, compared to a kekkaishi's long-to-mid-ranged fighting style." I said. So far, surprisingly, Yoshimori wasn't confused.

"However, normally it would be hard for a kekkaishi to battle against Tsurosa and Gingross, Cognizine is also helping them. He is a long-ranged fighter, and compliments their close-ranged fighting style, making it even more difficult for us to fight them. His shield is impervious to attack, so attack it won't do anything. Cognizine stays hidden in the background as he fights. We need to take him out first, before we even have a chance against Gingross and Tsurosa."

Yoshimori cocked his head to the side in confusion.

I sighed, "I'll explain it more simply; Cognizine's shield is annoying; therefore we defeat Cognizine first." Yoshimori nodded in understanding this time. I sweatdropped, but nodded back.

"How do we do that?" Yoshimori asked.

I stuck my hand out of the bush and pulled Tokine in.

"She'll help." I said.

"How'd you know she was out there?" Yoshimori asked in surprise. She looked at us and sighed.

"I'm guessing Yoshimori didn't realize that it would be smart to take out the man controlling the shield first?" She asked.

"Hey!"

I kissed Yoshimori again to make him shut up.

After I filled them in on my plan, we jumped into action. Popping out of the bush, we avoided Cognizine's rapidly spinning shield and ran towards were I sensed him to be. As I predicted, he vanished and reappeared in a different spot. Yoshimori immediately ran towards him, prompting him to vanish again. This time, he was too close and Tokine almost got him.

I could sense that he was panicking and he vanished to reappear closer to the school. I ran out of the trees towards the school and slowed. I looked at the sky. It's gotten dark; it's the middle of the day. It must be going to rain. I looked around the area, an illusion. Christeenala's work, she's hiding us from being seen.

I ran towards the school, jumping over the obstacles until I reached the roof. Cognizine turned and jumped slightly in surprise. His shield span violently towards me and I jumped out of the way It made a sharp turn towards me and I put up my arms to protect myself. A green kekkai slammed into the shield and knocked it far enough of course to spin past me, missing me by a few centimeters.

Suddenly, it started raining. No- it started pouring. The rain quickly soaked my clothes and I let my tail and ears droop. I hate being wet. I looked around, noticing Yoshimori and Tokine appearing beside me.

The visibility has lessened because of the rain, as if we weren't having a hard enough time already. Suddenly, Cognizine burst out of the rain and rushed me. I braced myself to push back but a blue kekkai popped up around me and shoved Cognizine back. The rain stopped falling around us.

I looked around; the rain still falls around us. The rain just froze in a 6 meter radius around us. Cognizine appeared in front of us, floating upside-down. He smirked at us and a large spike flew out of his shield. Yoshimori pushed me out of the way, causing me to fall onto Tokine and push her out of the way too.

I looked up and saw the spike scrap Yoshimori across his face. I gasped and threw a broken… sword-like thing, from the ground at Cognizine. IT hit him and dug into his shoulder. The spike vanished as Cognizine staggered. I rushed over to Yoshimori and caught him as he fell. He had a large gash on the left side of his face, and he can't open his left eye. I quickly ripped off some fabric from his school uniform and wrapped it around his wound, diagonally over his face.

He whimpered in pain as I put too much pressure on the wound and I gave him a sympathetic look, tears falling from my eyes hidden by the rain, which had begun to fall again.

I heard the clanking sound of the sword piece being thrown to the ground. I picked up Yoshimori and moved him to the sidelines. I turned just in time to see a green kekkai hit Cognizine's flying shield out of the way form hitting me again. Cognizine teleported around the roof repeatedly and rapidly.

I remember when he first introduced himself.

"I am the Guardian of Space"

He manipulates matter, explains why he won't stop teleporting, why his shield flies, and how he froze the rain while standing upside-down on thin air. I suddenly had an epiphany and looked at the broke n sword piece. I ran over to it and picked it up and gave a fake kick at Cognizine to make him ignore the piece of sword.

I gave a look to Yoshimori, who was barely conscious. I gulped, and looked away.

That might be the last time I get to….

I ran at Cognizine with the sword piece and he smirked. His shield flew at me and instead of jumping out of the way, I held up the piece of sword. The shield and sword crashed into each other.

My plan's working!

The shield is slowing. The sword shard cracked and I braced for it to completely break, but the shield stopped spin. I picked it up and tossed it at Cognizine. He gasped and made to stop it with his powers. I nodded at Tokine and she immediately picked up on my plan, thank god! I jumped onto Cognizine after he stopped the shield and made to slit his throat with my claws, but he flung me off.

His attention away from the shield, he looked at me and I smirked at him. Suddenly, a green kekkai appeared and slammed into the shield. The shield broke away from being frozen in the air and flew again, spinning rapidly. Cognizine gasped, but couldn't regain control again and before he could react, it flew at his neck, and decapitated him.

His head fell to the ground and blood splatter everywhere.

This blood is red…

It's almost like we killed a human….

A green kekkai protected me form getting blood splattered on me and a blue kekkai appeared over Cognizine's headless body and his bodiless head and destroyed them. Tokine used Tenketsu on the mess and Cognizine was gone, again.

I struggled onto my feet and walked over to Yoshimori. I helped him stand and he held his eye.

"Is it still there?" I asked.

Yoshimori nodded and I hugged him and cried.

"I-I don't want to s-see you get hurt e-ever again!" I shouted into his chest.

"Looks like I missed a lot." I turned and saw Tokine there, she was unscathed, but she looked exhausted. I had forgotten that she's been kidnapped for a week.

"You did…" I said with a smile. I wish we had never gotten involved with this mess. But, if we didn't…. would Leo and Linzang still be alive right now? Would Christeenala still be alive?

"We should get out of here, were all too exhausted to fight. We had no time to rest up before we got involved in another battle." I said. I looked at Yoshimori and he shook his head.

"If we leave, we'll lose Kara-" Yoshimori broke out into a coughing fit and I held him tighter.

"We're leaving; we won't be of any help in our condition. We're all exhausted, and we only fought one Guardian. I don't know how Christeenala managed to fight multiple members at once." I said. Yoshimori looked like he wanted to continue arguing but then some blood dripped out of his mouth and my eyes widen.

I felt him hug me tighter, "We can leave, but I'll be fine, remember that." He said. I nodded.

"I'll help you guys get out of here, if something attacks you there's no way you could fight it off." Tokine said. We nodded at her and walked down from the rooftop in the rain.

The rain suddenly stopped and started falling upwards. I stopped with Yoshimori and looked at it. The rain's turned into blood…. That's not normal….

I looked at the trees and they were slowly melting away, as if they were burning. I held onto Yoshimori. I looked back. Tokine is with us. I saw the people fighting the trees. They look like they're just holograms, fading away, as if I could walk through them.

I stood up straight once I realized were we were. I saw Gen run past, but he was solid and normal, except for the cuts and tears in his school uniform. It's so hard to fight in a school uniform. He looked at us with a panicked expression and ran over to us.

We're in Tsurosa's haunted world….

I apologize for the long wait, I blame my muse. But its back, so be happy! I'm sick today, so I have a perfect excuse to catch up on some writing! Don't forget to review :3