And then there was one, Shadow Realm Triforce, you're the only one left, it seems. Kinda makes me sad a bit, the fact that i really want to write and everyone just keeps leaving, but I still have you left, unless you leave me too, and then i'll be all alone...
Knight Set.
Naota laid on the ground for a while, trying to think of a plan before getting up. She started to climb up the debris and pushed away the ceiling that was loose. It fell to the ground and she pulled herself up, finding herself in an elaborate hallway filled with expensive items. 'I finally made it in the main house, there are so many doors, I wonder if any will lead me anywhere.' She started to open doors but she found that most of them were bedrooms. She continued walking until a projectile stopped right in front of her foot. She unleashed a spirit barrier around her and started to sense her surroundings.
'Weird, I can't sense anyone.' She thought. She heard someone sprinting behind her and felt the ground shake and crumble. She fell right back down towards where the boulder was. She landed unscathed and found herself face to face with her opponent. He had short blond hair that hugged his face, his red visors covered his eyes. He had a yellow trench coat on with a white turtle neck underneath it, blood red pants and boots to match. He smirked at her and flicked his wrist, causing needles to appear from beneath it and into his hands.
"Well now aren't you well dressed to fight?" Naota said.
"You shouldn't be talking down to your betters human." He said and rushed towards her, long needles in both hands. He tried stabbing her but she kept dodging, but the more she dodged the more his strikes kept getting closer to her. Finally he made a cut in her shirt and she jumped away from him. He threw needles at her and she dodged but it was a distraction. He came up from her side and stabbed. He only stabbed her shirt, she landed away from him with only her bottom shirt on but not before grabbing her side.
'He's fast, really fast. The more I dodge the better he reads my moves, so far he hasn't used any of his demon energy and even then I can't land a hit on him. Damn it, he's stronger than me.' Naota thought. She looked in her surroundings and figured out a plan.
"Is that really all you can do, use your little pathetic needles, kinda lame for a strong demon if you ask me." Naota goaded him. He smirked at her and started to charge straight for her. 'Perfect.' She grabbed her wrist and started to focus energy into her entire palm. He jumped for the strike. She raised her palm.
"Spirit Palm!" Energy shot from her entire hand encompassing the whole hallway they were in, there wasn't any room to dodge and he took the entire blow. Her hand smoked after the attack and she panted, 'I really shouldn't use that one too much, just three shots left.' She couldn't see her attacker because there was so much dust in the air from her blast, but she saw a silhouette. She gritted her teeth when she saw that her blast only seemed to tear his clothing. He started to laugh and sat down on the ground.
"Man that was some blast, it would've hurt me too if you were just a little bit stronger, but that was pretty neat energy." He took off his visors. His eyes were blood red and his pupils were in slits. "Since you manage to at least damage my clothing I'll introduce myself, the name's Vain, and I'll be the one to kill you." He started to take off his coat and boots. "Haven't you wondered where the needles are coming from? Now that my clothes are ruined, I don't have to be stealthy about it anymore." Needles started to sprout from inside his body and his smirk grew. Naota put up her barrier again but he already got in front of her and punched her stomach, she barely avoided it only to start to dodge for her life, little by little his cuts appeared all over her body the second he took a swing.
'I can't keep avoiding forever, I have to land a hit, if I don't I'm dead!' Naota thought, but she reacted too slowly and he sliced her face, she finally stepped back only to be confronted by the wall of spikes from earlier. She had four cut marks on the right side of her face, one on top of her eye and the other three below it. She closed her eye from the blood pouring from her wound. He walked slowly to her, a big grin on his face.
"So any last words?" Vain asked. Naota panted, she couldn't keep this up for long. 'Using that might work in this situation but it takes so long! I have to try it.' She began to expand her barrier and Vain jumped back, not letting it touch him. Then little by little her barrier kept shrinking and shrinking until it became marble sized in her hands. She panted heavily. 'Just one shot at this.' She took her condensed spirit energy and threw it at Vain, he avoided it easily and laughed. "Is that your master plan?" It landed near the boulder and the debris that was blocking it.
"No, that's my plan." Naota said and the marble exploded in waves of spirit energy, getting rid of the debris of the boulder and letting it roll again. She ran towards Vain and slid underneath the boulder, disappearing. Vain had nowhere to go, it was a closed hallway and the wall behind him was spiked. He smirked as the boulder came closer.
"Not bad, not bad at all."
Naota landed hard on her back, she coughed out the air in her lungs from the fall and panted very heavily. She looked up, some light coming from a hole that she came in from. 'That was a big leap of faith. Making my spirit bomb blow up some of the debris but the hole wasn't big enough for the boulder to fall through, I was able to slip into it just barely, but with this Vain will be dead; there wasn't any way to escape from it.' Naota thought, letting herself calm down. She sat up and wiped the blood from her face, her body is littered with small cuts. She stands up, wobbles, still amazed she survived. 'Still I was lucky, chances are if I'm gonna go up against another demon like Vain, I won't survive, I don't have much spirit energy left.'
She looked around; the area seemed a bit drier and a little hotter. There weren't any torches on the wall, the only source of light coming from the hole above. She looked up, the hole was too far, and she started to walk into the darkness. 'Guys, be careful.'
00000
Kuwabara let out a battle shout, cutting the troll's arm once more. It fell and disintegrated but it grew right back out, stretching and trying to grab him again. 'Every time I cut his arm off he grows a new one, at least he's slow.' Kuwabara thought, trying to figure out a plan against this troll. The troll stopped and looked around for a second. Kuwabara took a defensive stance, and then the troll crashed his arm into the wall, grunted with effort and started to tear down the walls. 'Oh crap!' Kuwabara thought when he saw his clawed arm going towards him.
"Kuwabara duck!" Yusuke shouted, pointing his spirit gun in front of him, Kuwabara hit the ground and Yusuke shot. It hit the troll square in the chest, Yusuke's spirit gun also destroyed the hallway behind him, leaving a great big chasm that led outside. Unfortunately because of the blast the ground weakened. Yusuke and Kuwabara hurdled downward, with the troll closely behind, half of its body disintegrated from the blast. Using the falling debris as a foot hold, Kuwabara and Yusuke safely made it to the ground, the troll fell a little bit away, its body being covered by the large debris.
"Come on Urameshi, I don't want to be here when that thing gets up." Kuwabara said, going into the dark and dry sewers.
"Oh come on, it took a blast from my spirit gun, it's not gonna get up." Yusuke said, dusting off his clothes.
"Yea? Well I kept cutting off his arms and they just kept growing back! Trust me that thing is gonna get up." Kuwabara said.
"Fine, but where are we?" Yusuke said, looking around his surroundings. He lightly fanned himself with his shirt. "It's pretty hot down here." He kept looking around but the only light was coming from above from their fall. "Hey Kuwabara you can see in the dark right?" Yusuke asked.
"Yea, I can also sense Naota and Kurama, they're pretty close but…" Kuwabara started, Yusuke followed closely behind him.
"But what?"
"Here we are in this huge building, and there's no one in it. I keep sensing our energies but no one else's, not even that troll. Something like that should have some energy at least but, nothing. It's like it doesn't even exist." Kuwabara said.
"Weird." Yusuke said and heard something behind them, the troll got back up, finished with his regeneration. "Hey didn't we just walk away from that? How the hell did we get back here!"
'Something's wrong, I was sure we were walking away from it!' Kuwabara thought as he took out his sword. 'What the hell is going on here?' Just then a flash of black came from the hole, it dropped down and Yusuke and Kuwabara stared in shock at the person who just came in.
"Hiei!" Both of them shouted. His hair stood up with a star white center. His usual white bandage on his forehead was gone but he was still wearing his black attire.
"What the hell are you two morons doing?" Hiei asked as the troll got closer.
"Hiei watch out, there's a troll is behind you!" Kuwabara said as the troll lashed out his arm towards both of them. When the dust blew away, Hiei has the trolls arm right through him.
"Hiei!" Yusuke shouted.
"Fools, can't you realize this is an illusion, or are you both too moronic to even tell?" Hiei said, the trolls arm coming back and he didn't even have a scratch on him.
"But, but how?" Kuwabara stammered.
"Idiot, use your dimensional sword." Hiei said.
"Hey! Who're calling an idiot shrimpy!"
"Kuwabara just do it!" Yusuke shouted.
"Fine." Kuwabara's sword transformed from its usual yellow lightning appearance to a more finer, sword looking one. Kuwabara let out a battle shout and cut the troll. It shattered like glass, the dark sewer like tunnel became ruins and they found that they were in a cave.
"Woah, what happened?" Yusuke asked, looking around.
"You were caught in a trap, not that unlikely considering it was you two, but more importantly Kurama in still stuck in the illusion." Hiei explained.
"Wait, how come you weren't affected?" Yusuke asked.
"My jagan eye, I was able to not be affected by the illusion when I entered the fortress. As long as it was uncovered I could easily avoid the trap but you two buffoons were running around like idiots, it was amusing for a while." Hiei said.
"You mean you saw us and didn't help us!" Kuwabara shouted.
"I was only led here with a small explanation on what do to, someone lied to me, saying that I can get a good fight and some information for Mukuro, but it doesn't look like I'll find anything." Hiei said.
"Who led you here Hiei?" Yusuke asked.
"It was a demon named Yasu. I was on patrol near this area when he found me and told me I could find out more about the fanatics that have been going around demon world. Mukuro gave me her consent, she wanted to find out more."
"So you've heard about the revolutionaries too huh?" Yusuke said and Hiei nodded. "But still, we need to get going, Kurama is still stuck and so is Naota, not only that Hikaru is still captured." Yusuke explained. "You don't need to stay here if you don't want to Hiei." Yusuke said.
"Hn, who knows if you two fall into another simple trap, not only that I still could learn a thing or two if I stay with you." Hiei said, following the way out of the cave.
"That damn shorty." Kuwabara said, crossing his arms.
"Lay off Kuwabara, he helped us and now we can help Kurama, where is he anyway?" Yusuke asked. Kuwabara closed his eyes focusing on the energy.
"Naota is actually pretty close to us, if we keep walking we'll run into her and Kurama is on the same path but we still have to walk a bit in order to get to him." Kuwabara said.
"Alright, then let's get going."
00000
Yusuke's rook and Kuwabara's knight disappeared from the board and Shuichi panicked for a split second. Yuu chuckled, his eyes dancing with happiness. Shuichi's hands tightened into fists, Naota coming ever closer to the two of them.
"Only your queen is left, I guess my bishop was too much for both of them. It's a shame, I was wishing to play this game a little longer. You can still choose to come to our side Kurama, you can still save your queen and pawn. Just say yes." Yuu stated.
'No, I can't, Kuwabara and Yusuke both can't be defeated by an A class demon. Something is wrong, there is something that I'm missing, but what?' Kurama thought. Yuu smirked, while bring up his fan.
'Fool, there is no escaping my illusion. They are so strong, your body will feel the pain and will die underneath it. If only I can defeat his queen, then I can turn him into our side, or I could kill his reason for being here, what to do? What can I do to make him suffer so completely he would come to our side?' Yuu thought.
"Unfortunately for you I am on a schedule, how about we end this game? Queen, attack his queen." The piece moved in front of Naota and Shuichi glared at him darkly. Yuu chuckled. "My queen is S class, your B class queen will not win this round, and all you can do is just sit tightly or else your other friend will plummet to her death. Not only that the heat from the lava impends your plants, they cannot grow here. You are cornered fox, now choose wisely, lest all your loved ones die." Yuu cackled. Shuichi felt himself getting beaten, unable to make a strategy again Yuu.
As the queen was set Naota's queen piece vanished from the board and Shuichi felt a pit of despair in the bottom of his stomach. His brow furrowed and his bangs shielded his eyes while Yuu laughed maniacally. Just then a sword sliced through the door and the illusion was shattered.
Now that the illusion has shattered what will become of Yuu? How come Yasu has decided to help Hiei and the others when he has already betrayed him? Will they be able to save Hikaru in time? Find all of this and more on the next excited chapter of Someone I can love!