A/N: For those that aren't familiar with the weapons in Sai's arsenal, go and read the most recent chapter of my story: The armory with Sai Blade.
Yesterday, Shane and I were sparring to ensure that my skills weren't falling behind without my powers, my dual-wielded weapons resembling purple-bladed, curved-hilted lightsabers made by Rodin, dubbed Voiceless contending against Shane's two keyblades. We also had our faithful companions beside us, Shane with his Espeon, Daybreaker and my pet and greatest fighting partner, Hookfang, a mighty Dread King Rathalos. I blocked and dodged several of Shane's attacks, deflecting one and attempting to strike him, but he managed to block my attack at the last second.
"Satisfied yet, Shane? I think it's pretty easy to tell I haven't slowed down any." I told him.
"Your skills are still sharp, but you still left plenty openings. Even if that trench coat can stop almost anything, you can't simply take all the attacks you used to be able to. Case in point!" He said, activating a fire spell, which I jumped back from, just narrowly avoiding. Hookfang flew in to try and swipe at Shane with his poisonous talons, but Daybreaker interfered.
"Espeon!" The Sun Pokemon declared while it fired a Psybeam at Hookfang, who narrowly dodged the beam, flying at Daybreaker instead. Shane attempted to rush in and help his partner, but I jumped and twirled into his path with my blades extended, becoming a deadly obstacle in Shane's path, bringing him to a stop, before locking our blades together. Hookfang flew towards Daybreaker and shot a fireball from his mouth at the Espeon, who in turn fired a Shadow Ball from his own mouth, the two powers colliding and launching them both back.
"Daybreaker!" Shane shouted.
"Hookfang!" I called out. We separated our blades and exchanged several more blows, even disarming each other of one of our weapons, before spinning and delivering one final slash each, Shane bringing his keyblade down diagonally and me slashing at his midsection.
There was a brief moment of pause, before we both dropped to one knee, me putting a hand to my chest to stop the bleeding of a roughly 6 inch cut across my chest and Shane holding a very shallow wound on his stomach. "Cura." He declared, healing himself. "Not bad, Sai. Even without your powers, you're still a dangerous opponent." Shane said, hurrying over to Daybreaker and offering him a lemonaded.
I sighed. "Still, apparently not dangerous enough. But luckily, you guys all have my back." I said, going over and feeding Hookfang a sizable cut of beef shoulder.
"You're not going to eat a senzu bean and heal that?" Shane asked, gesturing to the cut on my chest.
"No. At least for small, non-threatening injuries like these, I need to learn to live with them. Because they represent a mistake I made in battle that COULD have cost me my life." I said seriously, then smirked. "Besides, I couldn't get scars with my healing factor. Might as well work in some while I can. Chicks dig scars." I said, causing Shane to face-vault.
"Of course, it would be something like that." He said, pulling out a boot from nowhere and whacking me in the head with it.
"Hey, watch it." I told him.
"Sai." My father said, suddenly appearing before us.
"Yes, father." I said, bowing my head.
"A big gang is attacking a large gated community. And they have the power of high demons. Go. The people need your help." He told me.
"Got it." I said.
"So, with all due respect, why is Sai going without his powers?" Shane asked.
"Sai was the one who made a deal with the Justice League to handle this issue." Ryu explained.
"He's right. Besides, just because I don't have my powers doesn't mean this isn't my fight. And besides, I need every chance to do a heroic deed I can get if I ever want those powers back." I told him as we climbed on Hoofang's back and took off.
A large group of at least 20 demonized thugs was ransacking the gated community, robbing everyone blind and even taking several hostages. One of them picked up a van and prepared to crush an old woman with it, but was stabbed in back by a set of menacing claws that came out of its chest, before pulling out through the sides, almost ripping him in half, but wound up slicing him in half first. It was revealed to be a woman with wavy shoulder-length grey hair, paper white skin and red eyes, wearing a black and dark gold demonic armor. "Run." She told the family, who quickly heeded her order.
"She just killed Tarantula! You bitch, you're gonna die!" Another demon thug shouted as he rushed at her. But suddenly, a large fireball suddenly hit him in the back.
"Obviously, you guys are new to being demons, so it's time for you to learn who's in charge of you." I said as Shane and I descended on the back of Hookfang
Shane jumped down, along with his Espeon, drawing his Biggoron sword. "Surrender now, or resist and meet your end. It's your choice." He told them.
The demonic thugs looked at us and laughed for a moment. "Oh, no! Some kids and their little pets are gonna try and stop us! What are we gonna do?!" One of them mocked.
"You... Can see this is obviously a dragon, right?" I asked, pointing to Hookfang.
"And Daybreaker is more than a simple pet. He's a faithful partner and more than enough to beat you into nothingness!" Shane threatened.
"Yeah, but we're a bunch of hulking beasts! I bet we could knock Bane around like a little girl in this state!" One thug laughed.
"Sai, you and your friend are late." The woman told me.
"Apologies, aunt Shizuka. There were some actual demons across town as well." I said.
"Very well. But don't think you can get away with not pulling your own weight because your powers are sealed." She said, suddenly, activating her Devil Trigger, becoming a black and green humanoid dragon, but with a dragon skull for a head. Her arms the split apart into two different sets of arms, meaning she now had four arms, each which she produced a dark green blade of demon energy from.
"Okay, now she's just rubbing it in." I said, annoyed.
"So, you're aunt's Devil Form is just dragon General Grievous?" Shane asked.
"Pretty much, now just fight." I said, rushing into the fight with Hookfang flying behind me.
Background Music: "Hero" by Skillet
Hook fang slammed into a thug, talons first, stabbing his 8 talons deep into the thug as well as injecting him with poison, while I rushed in and sliced his stomach open with my Kamaitachi bladed fans, effectively disemboweling the thug. Hookfang then did a backflip, knocking the thug into the air, while I jumped after him, spinning as I did so, the fans creating a small tornado of wind blades that reduced the thug to ribbons. Two more came at me, but I switched Kamaitachi to my Ardat sword and holding the microphone hilt up to my mouth. "Aaaaah~! Aaaaaaah~! Aaaaaaah~!" I vocalized the screaming from "Big Enough", creating a huge soundwave that brought the two to an immediate halt while Hookfang shot several fireballs down at the 2 thugs from the air, which exploded and did even more damage, the thugs crashing back to the ground, where I stabbed the one in the middle and sent an electric current into the other two, frying them.
Shane rushed in at another group of 3 thugs with his Biggoron sword, deflecting several fireballs and lightning bolts the elementally powered thugs were shooting at him, closing the distance and slashing the first one in basically the same way I did, spinning and slicing the thug from his right hip to his left shoulder. He then used his own thunder magic to call down powerful bolts of lightning to shock all three thugs at once. He then ducked and the thugs recovered just enough to see Daybreaker had used its psychic ability to catch their fireballs and thunderbolts that Shane had deflected, now sending them back at the thugs, blasting them off their feet and onto their backs, where Shane obliterated them with light magic. He turned in time to see another thug charge at him and push down on his Biggoron sword, only for a Psybeam from Daybreaker to blast him back, at which point Shane decapitated the demon.
Shizuka spiraled her arms around wildly, the energy blades from her hand slicing through virtually anything, terrifying the 5 thugs in front of her, before one rushed in with demon energy making massive claws on his hand, but before he could swing them, she effortlessly cut both of his arms off, followed by his legs, then cut him in half and decapitated him before his body could hit the ground. She then simply pounced on the next one, standing on his shoulders and jumping down with her arms out in front of her, slicing him vertically in half. The other three also made energy claws and attacked her all together, but she still effortlessly blocked and countered all their attacks, spinning and slicing their hands off, crouching to one knee and stabbing the center thug in the head with both of her upper arms, cutting the other two horizontally in half with the lower set.
I faced against off against a lightning-powered demon thug, absorbing the lightning he fired at me back into Ardat, supercharging the blade, at which point I flipped the sword again and vocalized into the microphone, creating a devastating sound wave that sent him and a demon rushing past him towards me flying back, their skeletons basically shattered and their internal organs ruptured from the force of the shockwave, at which point I shot out a blade of lightning at them to cut them in half. However, I failed to notice that one of the thugs had ripped up a bit of the road, pulling a couple rods of rebar and rushed at me, striking me in the face with it. He landed a few more blows on me, before attempting to stab me, but at that moment, I remembered the fairy Shane had gifted to me a while back. "Invincible weakling!" I declared, activating the spell as Neris appeared and shielded me, the thug's attack only sliding me back. But as I counterattacked, my hits were doing nothing.
"Sai! Hang on, I'm coming!" Shane called out, rushing to help, but his path was quickly blocked by two more demons, who all began attacking him at once. Daybreaker jumped in and helped by chomping on a demon's neck with Psychic Fangs, but the thug reached back and threw him to the ground. "Daybreaker! Damn you!" Shane snapped as he pushed the other two back and stabbed the thug that threw Daybreaker down in the stomach, before ripping his blade out of the thug's right side. Unfortunately, this wasn't completely cutting him in half, so he was able to regenerate from this and press the attack. "Curses! I'm sorry, Sai!" He snapped as he was put on the defensive.
Hookfang was dealing with one more thug, sinking his into the thug's shoulders again and shooting several fireballs into his face, before turning to see me in danger, roaring and flying towards the thug assaulting me. The invincibility wore out and the thug grabbed me and slammed me into a wall, stabbing me in my sides with the rebar, at which point I shouted in pain. Hookfang flew in and chomped down on the thug, but unfortunately, the other one he hit with the fireballs wasn't done yet, grabbing his tail and slamming him into the ground, before spinning and slamming him into a wall. The thug he was chomping on got up and glared at him. "Stupid beast!" He snapped, kicking Hookfang in the face, before grabbing his head and breaking his neck.
"Nooooo!" I shouted in horror and heartbreak. This quickly turned to fury as I glared at them, pulling out my Last Regrets magnums. "You bastards! I'll make you pay!" I roared, shooting at them while lunging forward, trying to work my way off the rebar.
The thugs simply laughed, attempting to tank the bullets. However, this proved to be a mistake, as these guns packed roughly twice the punch of Bayonetta's Scarborough Fair, easily putting holes in the thugs and even managing to kill one of them. "Why you bastard!" The thug who killed Hookfang snapped, rushing forward and slamming his fist into my gut, causing me to cough up blood.
My aunt Shizuka dispatched the final two thugs, now leaving only the thug who killed Hookfang and the one Shane was fighting, as he managed to decapitate one of the two. She then noticed my predicament, however. "Sai!" She cried out, rushing in towards the thug. unfortunately, he had a hidden surprise. Holding his hand out, a cloud of black mist emerged from it. Shizuka ran right into it, only to stop and drop to one knee, coughing. "Impossible...! This is the smoke of death! You must've killed a shinigami to obtain blood with this power!" She said through coughs.
"You're one of them, too, huh? Well, I didn't kill the first one, I just bought this blood. But I have killed one now." He said, putting a hand to her chest and releasing a pulse of purple energy, Shizuka's soul being ejected from her body and vaporized, her body falling to the ground.
I was shocked and horrified at this as well, but my anger was building even more. "BASTARD! I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER!" I shouted, managing in my moment of rage to rip the rebar out of the wall, freeing myself and pulling the bars from my sides. "Hard worker!" I declared, Neris appearing by my side and healing my injuries, stopping me from dying on the spot. "Shane! It's time to stop!" I told him.
Shane just finished his last thug and looked to me, quickly understanding. "Got it! Stopza!" He declared, raising his sword.
The image of a clock then appeared on the thug, leaving him completely frozen. I then walked up to him. "He's still aware of everything around him, though, right? And able to feel the pain?" I asked, to which Shane nodded. "Good." I said and then began mercilessly beating on him, even clawing at him with my fingernails, before pulling out Blazeguard and slicing off his legs, cauterizing the stumps with Hellfire to prevent the limbs from regrowing. I then repeated this process with is arms. Time restarted and the thug fell to the ground, screaming in pain, but I simply stomped on his stomach, viciously slashing him with the fire wheels, the wounds beginning to boil and expand from the steam, causing him to bleed more.
"P-please... Mercy..." He pleaded.
"No amount of mercy in this universe could EVER save you. In this life, or the afterlife." I said, spinning the flame wheels and setting the thug ablaze with hellfire, causing him to slowly burn to death.
End Music
I stood over the dead thugs and glared down at them furiously, before spitting on them and turning back to my fallen aunt and dragon, a guardian of humanity and the most loyal creature I'd ever known, now lost to this world, forever. "Hookfang... Aunt Shizuka... You both fought for the sake of others until the end. And in the end... There was nothing I could do for you..." I said, bowing my head and clenching my fists.
"I'm sorry, Sai. I should've done more." Shane said. "And if I hadn't talked you into sparring, both of us and our partners would've been at full power for this fight, Hookfang would've been stronger and more capable..." He said.
"Espeon..." Daybreaker mewed sadly.
"No. I should've done more... Because I should've been able to do more. If I still had my powers, this never would've happened. My aunt and my best friend would be still alive!" I snapped, punching one of the downed thugs hard enough to cave in his skull, but also breaking my hand. "Dammit!" I snapped, ignoring the pain long enough to pull out and eat a senzu bean. I then looked to aunt Shizuka's body as beams of light began to shoot from it, before her body eventually transformed into a menacing whip that looked like a spiked black spinal cord coming from a serpent's mouth. "Her Devil Arm. I suppose it's fitting. She was a master of taming and training demon horses." I said, reminiscing a bit.
"So, what now?" Shane asked.
"Now, we destroy the criminal's bodies and collect Hookfang's. Then my family will give him and Aunt Shizuka their final, proper respects." I said, pulling out my phone and calling my mother. "Mom... I'm sorry..." I said, before telling her the rest of the story.
Back on the islands of the Blades in the dark of the night, on the smallest island that we specifically use for our family's graveyard, my family and some of our closest friends stood amid the small dessert of black sand, countless weapons of all shapes and sizes stabbed into the ground, marking it as a grave for a fallen blade. I held Shizuka's whip in my hand, before burying about half of the handle into the ground, bringing the whip part up and over the back of the neck of a bust of Hookfang's head, which marked his grave, before stabbing the end of the whip into the ground on the other side from the handle.
Shane looked over the field of countless weapons, in awe at what they represented. "All these weapons. They go on as far as the eye can see. I couldn't begin to count them. And each one is a fallen Blade..." He said in disbelief.
"For so many of them to be scattered all around. That must mean..." Draco went on, equally shocked and awed.
"That no matter how powerful the Blades seem... No matter how unbeatable they may appear... Death is just as much of a possibility for them as it is for the rest of us." Damion finished their thought.
My mother then took my place in front of the two memorials we were focusing on. "My sister's journey in this world is over. And although we have forever lost a great member of our family, she is now free. She can never be harmed again. Pain is a feeling she will never have to experience again. She was one of our bravest. One of our brightest. She will never be forgotten. Now, show your pain, your fury, your sorrow and your goodbyes by sending her off with a show of your powers." She said, my family holding one of their hands to the sky and firing off a beam of their powers, darkness from Nightshade and a few others with the power of darkness, ice from Katana and our other ice demons, bolts of lightning from the hands of Lance and some others, etc.
I held my head down and clenched my fists tightly, to the point they trembled and bled. "Sai?" Shane asked worriedly, taking a step forward.
"Even here, simply saying farewell to a loved one, who was lost as a direct result of my own action, I can't do anything..." I said hopelessly, closing my eyes.
I finished the story and opened my eyes, bringing myself back to the present. "So, as for why we hadn't contacted you, there you have it. You haven't heard from us because we didn't want to speak to anyone, since we were mourning and in pain." I explained to him.
"Then why didn't you simply bring them back from the dead with that ability of your brother's you seem so proud of?" Batman questioned.
I glared at him. "A: Even if you can revive them and undo the death, someone still died, you insensitive asshole, I should beat you to death where you stand. Just because you can bring the person back doesn't undermine the death in the first place. That's like if someone flat-lines at a hospital and you use a defibrillator on them. Sure, you brought them back, but they still died. And B: it's the same reason why your precious Booster Gold can't be brought back. Soul attacks. And animals cannot be revived. They are lost to us, forever." I said mournfully.
"I see... Then, I'm sorry for your loss." Batman said.
"We were never particularly close, but she was still family. She was one of the last multi-armed demons in our clan and THE last practitioner of Shito-Ryu, the four sword style. And she bred and raised our demon horses, so she's the only real reason I've ever ridden a horse. That was fun. And Hookfang, he and I hatched on the same day. We were born and raised together. His is a void that I'm truly not sure can be filled." I said.
"I'm sure you're aware of my history as well. I'm no stranger to loss, but that's why we have to keep fighting. Why no one else will suffer like us." Batman said.
I then sighed and observed Batman's assorted gadgetry he asked me to look over. "There's nothing wrong, per se, with what you have here, but there's nothing particularly effective, either. Can you get the rest of the Justice League here. I'll take you all to get properly geared up to be demon hunters." I told him.
"Right." Batman said, heading to make the call.
Soon enough, the rest of the League arrived. Wonder Woman instantly came at me, raising her sword to my neck. "Where were you and your clan? Why didn't you tell us about the new abilities these thugs were gaining? Booster Gold is dead now because of you!" She snapped.
"You're not the only ones that lost someone. If you want the rest of the story, have Batman tell you later. What's important right now is that none of you have the right gear to face the demons we're coming up against. We're about to change that now." I said, pulling out a blood red crystal and speaking my family's demonic language. Suddenly, a black and red swirling portal like a whirlpool opened below us and pulled us in.
The League groaned as they regained consciousness, starting to get up, the first thing they were noticing was the extreme heat and the ones with powers began to feel themselves slowly becoming weaker. "W-what's going on?" Superman groaned as they got up, opening their eyes, which shocked them, as they found themselves in what looked like a deep red cavern, opening into a red desert with fire at the horizon. "No..." He said in shock.
"Our powers... I feel them weakening." Diana said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Realm of Damned Souls." I told them, before suddenly feeling a familiar sensation, noticing a red glow beginning to rise from my body. "Could it be?" I asked quietly, a grin quickly spreading on my face. "Yes... It's feint, but it's still there..." I said as the glow became stronger.
"Sai... You brought us to hell?!" Superman demanded, looking around for me, before being shocked by what he saw.
"I knew we couldn't trust him!" Batman said, glaring at me as well, before noticing the same thing Superman did.
"Surely, you know, you'll never get away with this!" Wonder Woman snapped, turning to face me as well, but was also shocked at the scene. "Great Hera..."
I looked down to my hands, which now had fire in them. And past that, demonic energy was radiating all around my body. The image of the seal then appeared on my back, above me clothes. The blackish purple image was still there, giving off a strong, but occasionally flickering glow, but was covered and overwhelmed by the bright red of my demonic energy. "Oh, yes... It may not be a permanent fix, but as long as I'm here... Look who has his powers back!" I said with a smirk.
A/N: Hello, everyone! Thank you so much for reading! For those curious, one of my aunts actually did pass away earlier this year. Again, we weren't that close, but it was still sad and, just like in this fic, she's the only reason I'd ever ridden a horse in my lifetime. As for why Hookfang met his end, well, this whole early point of the story is essentially bringing Sai to his lowest point.
On a more positive note, I'm now playing Injustice 2 on my YouTube channel, Sai Blade. So, go check that out and subscribe if you haven't, please.