A/T: Thank you so much for the review, pinkdoughnuts! I'm glad you loved that bit of PruHun - it's kinda funny, actually, because when I wrote it, I'd kinda forgotten they'd kissed a couple of times before in the storyline itself, and then there's their relationship before the storyline itself - I'll put that up somewhere later on...so anyways, I'd thought it was the first time that they were kissing, so I kinda put in everything into that. It's going to be a little longer before you get to see AlNat, because, reasons, but I hope you enjoy the tiny bit that is there in this chapter ;) As always, thanks for reviewing!

And, as always, all of y'all reading, please review! It makes me super, super happy!

On with the chapter!

Chapter 25

"Kids? We're fighting kids?" Alfred growled.

"Demons, comrade, demons," Ivan corrected.

"I'd take a zombie apocalypse over this half assed kiddie demon parade," Alfred grumbled, locking his fingers behind his head.

"Those demons might look like kids, Al, but they aren't to be trifled with," Shree said. "They're all level 20, at least, and from the number of them coming, it's not going to be easy. If nothing else, it's going to get tiring after a point."

The rest of them silently viewed the sea of children walking towards them. They stood before the gates, a small group defending the monastery. In numbers alone, the sheer vastness of the demons could engulf the twenty-odd number of them. But each one standing could take on ten of them without any difficulty.

They were all children, wearing tattered clothes, their faces heavy and worn with fatigue. They all swayed from side to side, as if with hunger, holding steel bowls in their hands. But their edges shimmered and solidified, their eyes too big and their irises coloured too brightly, their limbs too long and spindly - all the traits that were hallmarks of demonic entities.

Ivan's face, however, was grim. "There are some children in their ranks, comrades."

The rest of them spun to Ivan, shocked. "Wait, what?" Eliza exclaimed.

Ivan's mouth was pressed into a hard line. "It will not be hard for Alfred or I to be able to pick out the children from the demons. Roderich, Natalya, Shree and Ludwig will rely on their intuition, so they will also spare the real children. But the rest of you," he said, turning to Eliza and Roderich's students in training, "you will not be able to pick it up at all, until it's too late."

"Once we begin to tire, it won't be easy for us, either," Nat said tensely. "Whoever is behind this" -

"It's alright," Roderich said calmly, and everyone's attention turned to him. "I can overcome that barrier, but I need some time. Until then, Ivan, Natalya, Shree, Ludwig and Alfred only may engage the enemy. The rest of you, stay here with me."

Alfred watched as a look of understanding dawned on their faces, but he had no clue as to what was going on. Before he could ask aloud, however, Ivan caught his eye, and explained to him - "Roderich is more well versed in the scriptures than us. He has developed a technique which will allow anyone infused with his energy to be able to see what he sees, and he is trained in switching his vision to be able to look into different Realms. If he switches his vision, he will be able to ensure everyone else sees what he sees."

Alfred quickly processed everything, and a thought occurred to him. "He's going to be able to fight during that time?"

Ivan shook his head. "Not as much as usual. If he gets attacked, he can defend himself for a short while, but he will lose his focus after a point, which will render his abilities useless. The whole thing takes time to come together, and it takes a lot of energy to maintain. It's risky that way, so one of them will have to stay back with him. Well, let's get going." Ivan grinned uncharacteristically. "This is going to be fun, comrade. Pity that comrade Mathew could not join us."

Alfred grinned, his eyes sympathetic. "Matt will curse his health to no end," he chuckled. "You ready pervert?"

Ivan scoffed, but chuckled at the nickname. "I was born ready."

-o-

'Hey, Tony man.'

Interesting circumstances you have arrived to here.

'We need to kick ass, Tony! We're the heros here!'

You are much more confident of you abilities now.

'Well...I have been training with these guys. And even if I go berserk, these guys will handle it.'

You trust them.

'Yes.'

If that is the case, here you go.

-o-

What will it be?

'Level 30.'

So be it.

-0-

The rest of them watched as Alfred and Ivan were enveloped by their brilliant demonic energy. Ivan removed his trench coat, and tossed it to Eliza, revealing his tunic which was without sleeves, a strange sight since all priest tunics had full sleeves which could be rolled back and tied. Purple flames engulfed the entirety of his hands, the tattoos on his arm glowing and rearranging themselves below the layer of flames. The rest of his clothes, however, did not catch fire - there were two engraved copper rings at each shoulder border, where the sleeves would have started, and the engravings on the rings protected the cloth from demonic energy.

His appearance did not change as much as it had the last time he had fought - the tips of his hair glowed lilac and floated gently, but it did not streak. The skin on his face grew paler, but no marks appeared on his skin.

Alfred glowed golden-orange, his hair floating in the air, the tips of his fingers merging with the orange flames that raged on his arms. His body glowed with a white heat that thrummed with a pulse, sending waves of heat into the area around him.

Nat pulled out her keshi from her belt, and Shree twirled her daijin in her hand. Ludwig removed his coat, revealing a black vest fitted over a muscular body, and knuckle gloves with engraved brass kuckles.

"You made those yourself?" Alfred asked him excitedly.

"He made it long before he joined the Academy, Alfred," Shree said. "The inscriptions are all anti-demonic, so don't let the knuckle brass touch you."

"That was very crude, compared to what I use now, fraulein," Ludwig said, a faint smile on his lips. "These have been upgraded since then."

"That can pack quite a punch," Nat said, holding his hand in hers and studying the inscriptions.

"Look at those guns!" Alfred exclaimed, looking at Ludwig's extremely well developed biceps and triceps. "If a normal punch doesn't knock these demons out, I don't know what will." Alfred jumped in excitement. "This is so cool! We're going to kick ass!"

"Before you blow up out of excitement," Ivan said, "let's get going."

All of them turned to the wave of demon children before them, a gleam of madness filling their eyes.

This was going to be fun.

A flash of lilac and golden-orange streaked towards the sea of demons, and within seconds, the five of them dispersed, assaulting the demons all at once. Alfred and Ivan moved through the demons like lightning, leaving utter destruction in their wake. Shree used her staff, her movements cutting right through the demons like a hot knife through butter. Nat used the sides and the back of her keshi, striking the demons, and whichever part of the demon was struck by her keshi got burnt, the skin sizzling, the scars in the form of inscriptions. Ludwig was moving fluidly, and whatever his brass knuckles touched exploded into pieces. His motion was so continuous, so smooth and so perfect is seemed as if he was performing the dance of death.

Nat drove her keshi into another demon. "This is getting boring," Nat said. "These demons are powerful enough to may be cause some damage, but one of them wouldn't be able to kill us."

"Here, shoot!"

Nat unthinkingly pointed her keshi at the demon Shree had flung at her, and shot it down. "Hey, do that again," Nat said, surprised at how much fun that had been.

Shree flung another demon at Nat, and instead of shooting it down, she jumped into the air, and with one powerful motion of her arm, struck it down with the butt of her keshi. As she landed, she took down two more demons, and raised her hand to strike.

But the child before her was not a demon.

She arrested her arm mid motion, and pulled the child to her with the other hand. "Shree, it's a kid!" she called out.

"Yeah, I've got two with me now as well," Shree replied. "What do you think we should do?"

Nat turned to the child. "Do you understand what I'm saying?" she said gently. Tears welled in the child's eyes, but the look in her eyes said that she didn't understand what she was saying, only the tone she was using. The girl before her was dirty and tired, wearing the same tattered clothes as the rest of them, but she was not a demon - she had none of the traits that the others possessed. She opened her mouth and words babbled out in a rush, but Nat couldn't understand what the kid was saying.

"It's okay," Nat said soothingly. "You're fine now. Nothing's going to happen to you." She stroked the girl's hair, and without looking away from the girl, raised her arm and shot the demon running towards them. Nat rose, and turned to Shree. "They don't speak out language!" she yelled back.

"Yeah, I figured that out! Now what?" Shree yelled.

Nat frowned, and shot down another demon rushing towards her and the child. "Alfred!" she yelled out loud, her voice carrying over the din of yelling demons. Within seconds, the golden orange flash zoomed towards her, and Alfred landed before her, the heat of his energy strong enough to kill all the demons standing in a radius of a few metres around them. "Sup, priestess?"

"Take the children you see in their ranks, and leave them near the monastery entrance," Nat said, holding the child who clung onto her as soon as Alfred reached them. "Find all the children, and remove them from the field."

"Yeah, about that…I'd do that, but the problem is, they have a tag, priestess," Alfred said. "You need to kill the demon holding the tag to be able to remove the child from in between the demons. I tried taking one of them away, but when we got farther away from the other demons, the kid began to choke. When I brought him back, he told me what I told you just now."

Nat frowned, her mind racing with thought. As she thought, however, three demons from behind her leapt towards her, their arms extended, their fingers turned to hook like claws. Alfred tilted his head to shift his vision around her, and focused his gaze on them. The energy of his gaze was so powerful that paralysed, they fell to the ground.

"What is it?" Shree asked as she cut through three more demons.

"The children are connected to the demons!" Nat yelled back. "You can't take them away." She smashed through another demon. "But you can do this," she murmured as a thought occurred to her. She chanted incantations, and pressed the back of the keshi into the child's forehead. A mark appeared, the mirror image of the back end of the keshi.

"Shree, you can mark them!" Nat yelled out. "They have enough demonic energy to be marked by inscriptions!"

"Oh, good idea!" Shree replied.

"What about me?" Alfred asked, and Nat frowned thoughtfully. "You can't mark them with your energy, as it will mix with the other demon's energy," she muttered. "Put this mark," she said, drawing a mark on the skin of her arm, with her finger. "It's the first basic letter we learn as priests," she explained. "Draw it on their forehead with your energy."

"Like this?" he asked, marking her arm using the gestures she had used.

She nodded. "Tell Ivan what we're doing. He'll know what to do."

Alfred nodded, and turned to leave. "Hey, priestess," he said, turning back to her.

"What?" she asked, her face utterly serious as she turned to face him.

He flashed a grin, and quickly leaned in for a peck on her lips. "You look awesome when you're kicking ass," he murmured, and before she could wrap her head around what had just happened, he zoomed away as a flash of energy.

"Nice," Shree drawled, her stress on the 'i'. "Nice of him to" -

"Shut up, Shree," Nat growled, and cut through some more demons.

-o-

"They don't stop coming, comrade," Ivan commented almost nonchalantly, but inside, he couldn't think of how the wave of destruction that the five of them managed to wreck on the demons didn't seem to make a difference. They were weak enough to cut through ten at a time, but their numbers…along with that were all the children trapped within the masses.

Nat's idea, however, was brilliant - the children had enough demonic energy to sustain an inscription mark, but as it was not their own, it did not have its usual destructive effect that it would have had on the demons. And once the demon in control of a marked child was killed, the demonic energy surrounding the child would vanish, along with the mark.

But there were too many of them - and more than losing energy continuously, it was becoming frustrating.

"This is like chopping the same log of wood over three hours, with no sign of stopping," Alfred said, landing next to Ivan.

"Oh, look," Ivan said, smiling. "Roderich sent reinforcements."

Alfred turned to the front, and his mouth curved into an 'o' of amazement. Elizabeta and the other priests who were left waiting with Roderich had finally arrived at the initial line of demons who were being held back by Nat, Ludwig and Shree, and they were surrounded by the tranquil navy blue energy that was characteristic of Roderich. Their eyes were glowing - not ablaze, the way the imprint of Roderich's hand on their back was. But their eyes were aglow with the same blue of his energy, their irises shifting between their natural colour and the energy swirling and flashing.

"His energy is crazy," Alfred commented, in awe of Roderich.

"He's the second strongest Head Priest of an academic discipline," Ivan said, and smiled. "This is going to be fun."

-o-

Eliza couldn't stop blinking at her own vision - it was insane. Her normal vision showed a mass multitude of children, but when she blinked, the children disappeared. Everything disappeared, to be replaced by differently coloured, peculiarly swirling energy. Everything - from the children, the plants and tress, the worms in the ground and the birds in the sky, to the priests fighting them and Ivan and Alfred in their demonic forms - all the of them had energy swirling within them, and the aura which pulsated from them took the form of a colour.

"All those from our Realm has a characteristic aura, which glows green-yellow," Roderich had explained to her. "And their body outline will be completely filled in by their energy. The demons, or members of other Realms will not be able to fill out their bodies - their body will resemble a shell, and their body outline will be faint. And those carrying demonic energy will carry the colours of both this and the demon's Realm - it will mix and move throughout their body, but will never merge. The amount of each colour will tell you which energy is predominant."

Eliza looked at Ivan and Alfred in the distance, and gasped. The energy sensitive vision showed the radius of their energy to be far greater than what she could see normally - in her normal vision, their energy flamed and flared around their bodies till a small distance from them, but in her sensitised vision, their aura ranged several metres around them, and the demons standing in that range had disturbed energy flow - it was jerky and abrupt, whereas those outside the zone created by the Reserves had a stable energy flow which formed the same pattern over and over again.

Nat and Shree and Ludwig had a similar effect, although it covered a much less area than the Reserves, and it was far different - the aura of the Reserves was like a fire spreading everywhere, whereas the priests had an aura which was like a clear, transparent globe around them.

What she could see was amazing.

She picked up her pan. The entire thing was covered in inscriptions, and it was charged up by the spiritual energy of the environment created around her. It was truly amazing.

And now, it was time for her to be truly amazing.

She swung her pan to one side of her body, and ran towards the sea of demons. Her supernatural strength showed itself in her strikes and batters, and she smashed her way through, demon upon demon. As soon as her pan would hit the body of the demon, the external energy would flow into the demon shells through the inscriptions on the pan, and the newly entered energy would stop the motion within the shell. As soon as the demonic energy stopped flowing, it would merge with the external energy and assume its colour. Finally, it would leave the shell the same way it came, and the empty shell would fall to the ground.

Soon, however, Eliza lost track of how many demons, she ploughed through - they didn't stop coming. Her stamina had grown tremendously after training under Shree and Nat - as one of Johnny Doe's personal assistants, she had learnt mixed martial arts to be able to defend herself, and she was generally fit, but Shree and Nat were a whole other deal. Training under them and made her stronger, quicker, more accurate and far more deadly than she could have been with her mixed martial arts alone.

Her reflexes weren't working as well as they should have, and one of the demon-children touched her arm.

She screamed at the excruciating pain - it was as if someone had wrapped a white-hot branding iron around her arm. That moment of weakness was enough - the other demons closed in, grabbing hold of her, their touch more harmful than any physical attack they might have employed.

"Eliza!" Shree yelled, and summoned her spiritual energy to wipe out the demons between her and Eliza with just a look, but before she could even begin, Ludwig reached Eliza, the blows he rained on the demons throwing them right off her. What he saw, however, made him grimace.

There were burns all over Eliza, but they weren't the normal kind of burns that were caused by extreme heat. The burns were caused by the energy of the demons, which seemed to stick to her skin like hot, sticky taffy. And the longer it stayed on her skin, the more it was affecting her energy flow.

Ludwig picked her up, and anchored her over one shoulder. This was the woman who was the most important person in his brother's life, and while watching her fight, he could understand why.

He took a deep breath, and started chanting incantations. His voice grew louder progressively from a whisper, louder and louder until the reverberations of the sounds hit the demons like a shower of arrows. Those around him slapped their palms on their ears tightly, some screamed from the pain it was inflicting. His voice rose, and with a roar, he rained his arm, and drove his fist straight into the ground.

The ground broke into many, many tiny chunks, and ripples moved across the ground, almost as if the ground has lost its solid property and had turned fluid.

Demons dropped like flies, one after the other, in the direction of the ripples. Ludwig rose, and moved towards where Shree was. "Shree!" he called out. She turned around, and the grave look on his face was enough to tell her that Eliza needed help immediately.

Shree raised her had holding her staff to her forehead, and closing her eyes, she muttered incantations softly.

Her eyes flew open, and she moved her staff down with one swift, striking motion. The force of her energy stopped the flow of demonic energy around her in an instant, and they dropped to the ground like wooden dolls. Shree ran towards Ludwig, jumping over the bodies without even looking at them.

"What is she - oh, dear," Shree said, wincing at the sight of the glowing patches of demonic energy on Eliza. "So that's why they're children - we'll let down our guard like this," Shree said as Ludwig set Eliza down. "If it was one of us, it would have been fine...but it's her, and she has no idea how to deal with this," Shree said, setting Eliza's head into her lap. She looked at Ludwig, who understood, and got into position to stand guard. Shree placed her hands on Eliza's cheeks, and closed her eyes.

-0-

"Comrade, I'm going to meditate."

"Say what?" Alfred yelled, shocked. "You crazy, pervie?"

"This needs to stop, and I need to understand how. I'm going to meditate - stay close, comrade."

In front of Alfred's perplexed eyes, Ivan sat down over body shells, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes.

"The things I have to do for this guy," Alfred grumbled, and began engaging the demons in the vicinity.

-o-

The entire field around me was dark blue, and the ground underneath me pitch black. Every creature assumed the shape of an orb of energy tinted by the colour of their aura, bobbing up and down. Some vanished, some remained. It was as if a field of cotton was affected by the wind, each boll a different colour, swaying to the wind, carried away by it when the time came.

But these demons seemed to be coming out of nowhere - there was no Yoni nearby, no progenitor whose energy I could feel - so where were they coming from?

'Level 24.'

The chakras within me unwound, and her energy flowed into me. It never grew familiar - her energy always felt like it was an ice-cold shock flowing through my veins. And as it rushed in, I let it trickle out.

From underneath my feet, snow-white lines emerged out, forming leaf-vein like patterns, branching, joining, making its way across the field. It connected with each orb of energy, and made its way, and I followed the path scribed by the thickest white line.

My vision shifted between the realm of energy and the realm of matter, and I could see myself sitting at the origin of the white veins, the area around me kept clear by Alfred's efforts.

I smiled. Good boy.

I continued to walk.

I don't know how far, or for how long I walked. When my vision shifted for a moment, I found myself far, far away from the wave of demons, and the monastery. But the white line on the ground continued to move.

Thinner white lines began following the thick white line I walked on, some parallel, some joining the main white line. As I walked, more and more lines joined the line I followed, until all the smaller, slender tributaries had joined the main line. But the line continued to move.

And finally, it stopped.

There was one large orb of energy before me, much bigger than the small body outline it occupied. The orb almost filled out the body, but not completely - there was a faint gap between the energy and the body, but it was very much there. I turned around the to look at the tiny bolls of energy far, far behind me.

My vision flickered - I was in a cave of some kind, and it was another child-like visage that the other Realm being had taken. But when I turned, I couldn't see anything except the walls of the cave. There was no way to get here by myself, and even before getting here, I couldn't extricate myself from the wave of children-demons long enough to figure out how to get here.

Unless...

"Take me back," I said softly. My vision switched back to the realm of energy, and I felt myself dragged back, as if someone had caught hold of me from the centre of my back and was pulling me in one, fluid motion. Farther and farther away I moved from the large orb of energy, picking up speed, moving through the sea of cotton boll-like orbs, until I finally reached my own body.

The force pulling me from behind disappeared, and I stood where my body was seated. I sat down, assuming the same position as my body.

I had an idea.

-0-

"You done sleeping, pervert?" Alfred growled as he sensed Ivan rise. "While you've been having a great time taking a long look within" -

"There's one more of them, comrade," Ivan said, cutting Alfred short. "And that one is much, much more powerful that any of these demons."

"Wait, what the hell?" Alfred snapped, his anger sending his energy flaring. Ivan coolly met Alfred's gaze. "We need to get till there" -

"How the hell do you suggest we do that? I haven't been able to move from this one spot - these bloody demons surge in whenever I clear out ten of them, and" -

"They want you, Alfred," Ivan said. "So we give them what they want."

Alfred stopped fighting, and looked and Ivan incredulously. His mouth opened to say something, but the longer he stared at Ivan, the deeper his conviction that Ivan had some sort of crazy plan grew. And Alfred had been with Ivan long enough to know that Ivan's plans were truly crazy, as he had no regard for others' lives.

But somehow, he still trusted this man.

"Alright, then," Alfred said after a heavy sigh. "I'll follow you."

Ivan smiled. "Good." And he immediately went back to normal, his lilac flames of energy disappearing into nothing.

"Say what?" Alfred almost screeched, his jaw dropped, his eyes bulged and aghast. "What is wrong with you, man?"

The smile on Ivan's face didn't waver, however, and Alfred was reminded of his words. Reluctantly, ever so reluctantly, he disengaged his energy, the flames dissipating in an instant. His face was furrowed with regret, and he knew that he'd hate himself for it, at least for a while.

"Now, sit down, comrade," Ivan said, as he sat down. The expression on the demons surrounding the two of them mirrored the sheer, utter confusion on Alfred's face - the demons had stopped closing in on them, and just stood there, dumbfounded.

Alfred ignored his screaming instincts, and sat down. "Why are we doing this?" he asked slowly.

Ivan smiled sunnily, and whatever little hope Alfred had put in the man sunk into oblivion.

"It's simple, comrade. We are surrendering."

A/T: And that's that.

This was a really long chapter to write out, and I have a few classes during college hours which I utilize in writing my stories. I just don't get it in me to write when I'm free, however - that needs to change.

I've started staying at home for four days of the week, and I stay in the hostel for the other three days. I'm managing to stay out of attention and drama - it's been the bane of my life, starting July end all the way till January of this year. I've had enough problems to deal with in that time, and at the end of it, I took out a whole month off just to get my shit straight. I've had to get a lot of shit straight, and I'm probably still doing it, but mentally, I'm in a much better place right now.

I wish I could undo those six months entirely, rewrite them into a point where I could have been much more productive and happier. It wasn't all misery - I had some pretty amazing times - but everything was moving so fast that by the time I could wrap my head around one problem, another one would pop up, and all hell would break loose.

But enough about that time of my life - it's done, and I'm back to writing, something I really shouldn't have given up in the first place. I'm an idiot like that.

I hope you guys like this chapter - the next one is also pretty damn good, I assure you.