Just before Kyo tried to understand what is Tohru doing inside the huge, blue dome, Kakeru appeared regaining control of his horse as he redirected the marine formation in close in ranks.
When the shield barrier that Tohru summoned with her holy cross disappeared, the Marines are now raised their bayonets up high as they see more ratmen attempt to overwhelm their position. Thankfully, Kakeru hurled several smoke bombs form inside the pockets of his marine uniform to blind-sight both enemy units all at once.
As the grenades were set off, they let loose a massive, thick cloud of smoke that engulfed the entire forest trail surrounding the marines
"Hey orange-head! Don't dilly dally, we have to maintain our ground here until the Captain takes care of that Sohma noble!" Kakeru shouted, making Kyo snap out of his own thoughts.
Shaking his head, Kyo went back into the fight as he retrieved his rapier before helping Kakeru take down the ratmen with their sabers and rifle bayonets while the smoke continues to impair their vision.
Somewhere deep inside in another reality, Captain Tohru finds herself in a different kind of environment. In her surroundings, the first thing that Tohru notice is that she in a strange landscape where it is pitch black. Before long, the blackness unveil a thin pathway dimly illuminated with a purple glow pointing towards a distance of 30 meters in front of where Tohru is standing.
Just as she looked up far and wide towards where the pathway is heading, Tohru sees that a person is bound up to a tree as his wrists are being wrapped with small chains, straining him by his hands in forcing both of them to stretch out towards the branch that the chain is tied up to. For the person's legs, they were tied up to the main tree trunk in chains as well. The person barely had any life in him as he is seen in a unconscious state, hardly breathing. His head to facing downwards, unable to look at anywhere while being bound for only god knows how long.
Seeing this, Tohru could sense that the person bounded to the tree in a different reality is not a good sign. It's as if he was imprisoned inside his mind by a insidious entity before gaining control of the host back in the real world.
Just as she approached the bound man, he slowly looked up with only one eye. Because the man is in a terrible state, he barely could see what was in front of him. The moment he saw a small glimpse of Tohru, he was unable lift his head up. However, Tohru could hear him mumbling to himself as if he begging someone to put him out of his misery. However, Tohru still did keep in mind over the lessons she learned from her mother when it comes to purifying and cleansing the victims of evil spirits in the Missionary at Port Haven.
The moment she got closer, a huge shadowy rat-like head figure emerged from the bounded man as it glared its huge sinister eyes at Tohru.
"Who are you trying to invade the sub-conscious mind of my host? You have no right to be here!"
Before the huge rat face could see it coming, Tohru glared intensely back at it as she held up her rosario while still dangling on her left wrist. In an instant, her rosario fired out a spread-out yellow flash that showered the shadowy figure that blew out its glowing, fiery eyes from its sockets.
"Neither do you!" Tohru bellowed. "His body is his own to control. You can't control him for he is still not willing to function on his own without being forced to do so. BEGONE YOU VILE RAT THING!"
In a struggle, the shadowy figure hissed and snarled as it tried to fight back against the overwhelming light coming from Tohru's Rosario. But it was hopeless. Tohru insisted on ridding the noble of his demonic possession for she is eager to save the tormented than rather put him out of his misery.
However, the figure still reached out black tendrils coming out from its back as they are aiming directly at Tohru. Fortunately, Tohru isn't single-minded when it comes to using her rosario during the exorcism. She had mental flexibility as Tohru raised her right hand whom she is using to hold onto her glowing warhammer. With several swings, she bashed the dark tendrils away from her with ease.
Frustrated by such bashing, the dark rat entity hissed as the figure grew higher reaching up to almost 20 feet tall which is towering over the priestess instantly. Regardless, Tohru refused to back down as she raised her rosario up towards rat entity the moment it tried to reach its huge black claw at her. The rosario projected a red round shield that stopped its huge claw from lurching towards Tohru's face.
"ON THE BEHALF OF THE HOLY ORDER OF THE RED BUTTERFLY, I HEREBY CAST YOU OUT OF THIS TORMENTED, UNFORTUNATE SOUL!" Tohru bellowed as a cone-like flash showered towards the claw from the projected shield.
Once the flashing light engulfed the demon's claw, the rat head hiss even louder but in excruciating pain. The next it happened, the rat's head disintegrates only to reveal a glimpsing image of a young boy who is severely abused by a group of people.
As she watches carefully on the image, Tohru realized that the boy is crying in the live image as two people were delivering smack talk and physical abuse for no apparent reason. Whatever it was, she also noticed that the young boy had the same hair color to that of the very same person that Tohru is trying to exorcise on.
"Yuki! I told you not to leave this castle, young man!" An angry voice hissed as he smacked the boy across his face.
"P-please! I-I-I just want to..."
"NO EXCUSES YUKI SOHMA! YOU HAVE TO STAY WITH THE PRINCESS AND DO AS SHE SAYS!" A female, angry voice bellowed as she grabbed the young boy by the collar of his shirt.
At first, Tohru felt confused on what was the image about. But what she does realize that the young boy was actually Yuki Sohma in his childhood days. Other than that, Tohru has still yet to understand why would those two figures be abusing Yuki from off-screen. Before long, the screen fizzled in the next second before it disappeared.
Right in front of Tohru, is a distraught young man around her age appears as he is hurdling himself at the back of a corner, covering his face as if he is suffering from the inside due to reasons that she doesn't understand yet.
In fact, Tohru start to hear all sorts of blabbering voices coming from the direction of the cowering man. Despite this, Tohru dauntlessly approached him as her left hand lit up in a glowing white light before reaching out to him. The moment Tohru's glowing hand touched the young man's black hair, the whole area that Tohru and the young man are in starts to lit up all around them, disintegrating the very darkness that covered up this alternate reality.
Before long, the young man slowly looks up to see Tohru's face as she smiled with kindness and confidence.
"It's okay, sir. I'm here to help." Tohru said calmly as she kneed down to his level.
"You?! You don't know anything! Please, I want to be alone!" The frightened man said as he swatted Tohru's hand away from him.
"Are you sure that's what you really wanted? Why not find a pursue a better future? Because you still have more choices to make in your life." Tohru said in persistence.
"I-I-I..." The scared man stammered as he is unable to move an inch.
"Whoever is trying to tell you to do otherwise, they are presumably wrong in so many levels because they haven't even opened up their eyes yet. It's not too late to start over again."
The young man couldn't find anything else to say against Tohru's remark. As he looked at her, Tohru made a serious but determined look on her face as if she was actually trying to help despite not knowing too much about the Marine Captain.
For Tohru, she saw that the young, distraught man had a bright face with grey hair and black eyes with a handsome but scared appearance.
"Why don't you just give yourself a chance with me first?" Tohru said as she smiled at the young grey-haired man.
In silence, he reluctantly nodded before introducing himself as he raised his hand towards Tohru.
"M-my name is Yuki Sohma!"
"I'm Tohru Honda, Captain of the Red Butterfly Marines."
As the two finally shook hands out of a proper introduction, a ray of light engulfed them both as the alternate reality they're in soon fades away.
With Kyo holding his rapier against an attacking Ratman Commander's cutlass, the rat screeched in fright as it felt itself disintegrating right before the orange-haired boy's eyes.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" The rat man shrieked as his flesh started burning away from the inside as it disappeared seconds thereafter.
All at the same time, the other rat men also hissed and screeched as they all disintegrated into nothingness. For the Royal Guards, they immediately fallen back earlier as they are unable to hold their ground while fighting through both the Marines and the massive smokescreen, unable to help out their fallen noble.
Shortly afterwards, the smokescreen got blown away by the softness of the wind from within the forest as all of the Marines finally reappeared in front of Kakeru and Kyo.
Upon seeing this all happened at once, Kakeru and the marines cheered in triumph. For Kyo, he felt a bit relived for a moment.
The blue dome also disappeared along with the ratmen and the smokescreen, revealing Tohru Honda still standing tall, still facing the young rat noble who is now unconscious but still breathing normally.
As Kyo came up to Tohru, he sees that the rat noble was laying face flat on the ground in front of the Marine Captain's feet.
"I don't know what happened but you almost gave me a heart attack when you stood in-between me and the damn rat." Kyo said as he walked up next to Tohru.
"Sorry Kyo, but I've handled worse. He'll be waking up in a few hours. So, I might as well put him in a secure area in order to give him time to recover." Tohru suggested as she waved towards Kakeru to come over to his side.
"Can you get this noble back to camp?" Tohru ordered the Warrant Officer.
"Aye, sir!" Kakeru responded as he carried the unconscious noble over his back before being accompanied by 4 Marines back to base.
For the rest of the Marines, Tohru rallied them all along with Kyo as they continue to advance through the forest in order to secure the Rat Noble's ship.