Chapter 22

"What the hell happened?!"

Yua was at the opening of the domain when Yuuji, Suiryu, Megumi and Sukuna returned. Sukuna was bracing his stomach oddly. Megumi was out cold on Suiryu's shoulder. "We got to talk, and we need the asshole here to explain what happened… DON'T WE!" Suiryu growled.

Sukuna however was looking away, scratching the back of his head a little sheepishly. "I may have gotten… a little carried away with my role…"

Yua was confused as hell, Suiryu insisted that they speak of this with everyone else but first… Megumi needs to be situated.

Yua was about to suggest to Suiryu to take him home when Toji appeared. Once more, not all there but he was making a strange sound towards Megumi. 'Hurt? Is my son hurt?' was what Toji was asking.

Suiryu assured him he wasn't. He just overworked himself.

Toji nodded as he took his son and retreated to the nursery… followed by the younger siblings. She smirked to it all and shook her head, but then refocused. "Okay, so what happened?" she asked.

Suiryu explained that they were being followed, but of all people to pick up on it, was Sukuna. Despite having no power…

"That's not true, Sukuna has elemental abilities still…" she said in a correcting tone.

"So do we, but neither one of us picked up on it!" Yuuji protested.

"When we learned that we were, I saw a fairy trying to flag us down. I went to see what it was about. Apparently, one of the slayers was a divine user… and there are divine creatures who hate dragons being in power…" Suiryu explained. "I got hit with something and was out cold."

"Us too, we managed to avoid them for a while until they cornered us. I got hit with a powder and was knocked out."

Yua then turned to Sukuna.

"What?" he demanded.

"What happened after?"

He peered away oddly, but then smirked. "Let's say the years I had killing people made it far more easier for me to act pathetic, after all… I know the look and tone" he said rather proudly.

"Please, all he needed was some ham to go with his cheesy backstory." Suiryu growled. "Why the hell did you tell them to kill Megumi first!"

"What!" Yua demanded.

"So we could get out of there!" Sukuna snapped back. "You fail to realize them 'killing' Megumi was the best and only way for us to escape, besides. A strike to his heart, you have to hit it twice."

This… made everyone pause oddly.

"How would you know that?" Yua asked.

"I overheard him speak of his… situation with his rabbits. I also heard through the others his shikigami created his dragon body. Knowing the ten shadows that I do, it would make sense that the rabbits are the scales, they tend to take the damage as well as offer means of a counter strike or escape plan. Taking that into consideration, the slayers didn't realize, one has to remove the scales to get to the heart, so, the first thing they struck wasn't his heart…"

"But one of the scales… which would be one rabbit," whispered Yua.

"That's why it takes two strikes. One to get rid of the scale, the other to hit his heart… but that's easier said than done. Rabbits replace themselves very quickly… until he ran out of scales, there was no chance they would have struck his heart."

Yuuji and Suiryu still glared at him.

Yua sighed aloud to it all. "So we got dragon slayers…"

"We had them before, but what I want to know is. Why are they picking up the hunt again? Who has told him there are dragons in Japan?" Sukuna asked.

"I can think of an asshole with stitches across his brow…" said Suiryu.

"No shit," growled Yuuji.

"I do want to warn you of something, the three of you." Said Sukuna. "When Kenjaku gets into a corner like this, as he tries to think of another way of getting his plan into play and to his benefit, he will switch out his body to something that may assist him more than the last one."

"You think he has?" Yua asked.

He snorted a smirk. "I would bet my brewery he has already and will return here a different man, or woman, I could give a shit"

She agreed to that, it's one thing for Kenjaku to bring others into his fight, it's another to switch bodies suddenly. But still, these dragon slayers were able to tie Yuuji and Suiryu down… she was about to speak when Sukuna gave her some odd threads. "I think you were about to ask of these. This is just like how you brats first kept me in place, it's dragon hair." He decreed.

"From what dragon?" Suiryu asked. "Every time I moved, I felt that cut into my skin, it shouldn't!" he protested.

Yua took a closer look at it, but paused. "How can that be… this… looks like Lady Tiamat's hair!"

"That's because it either is… or someone related to her. Since it restrained them brats with ease," Sukuna decreed.

Things… may have gotten a little complicated…