Hey guys, next chapter is here. Unfortunately, I have something I need to address at the moment. apologies if I rant, but this is annoying, and I must say something. Skip this if you review with an account.
If you guys review the story from a guest account, please review and actually say something about the story or the chapter in question, and not just nonsensical bullshit. If you don't, I will delete the review, and will do so with every review like this. If this issue persists, I'll turn off guest reviews entirely. As a creator, it is beyond irritating to get a review and see something completely unrelated to the story. You guys want to know a legit review I got once?
"hot cross buns" Can't make this up, honest to God.
No more of this shit. seriously. I don't want to disable guest reviews, but I will if this doesn't stop.
Now it isn't all of you. Lots of people review as a guest and leave great reviews. But this nonsensical stuff? Has to stop. Wise up, guests. I'm done staying quiet.
That being said, please enjoy!
Nashi didn't really know why this Quinn guy felt like introducing himself made a damn bit of difference, but he seemed to think it did. After a moment. he coughed.
"Generally you introduce yourself after someone else does." He said, as if to hint at them.
"We'll pass." She replied, "Now, just take your men and get the hell out of our way."
"No can do, miss." He said. "That would imply that I disobey a direct order, and I don't do that."
"An order from who, exactly?" Damien asked.
"Well, our leader." Quinn replied. "You know, our founder. The big guy. So again, not going to happen." He sighed and shrugged. "I can't believe I keep giving you people chances, but I'm in a good mood today. So just hand the guy over already."
"If it avoids bloodshed, I'll go with you." Gin said, speaking up.
"Gin..." Simon started.
"Enough of this foolhardy behavior." Gin said, stepping forward, away from the group and towards Quinn. "You guys aren't involved, so go home to your families and friends. I appreciate your kindness, no matter how fleeting it was." Quinn smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder as he reached him.
"There's a good boy." He said. "Now I hate to do this to ya, but according to the big guy I have to transport you back to him. Something about the Pain Lord and you...I don't know. You know anything about a Pain Lord?"
"Not at all." Gin replied. "Brute's though..."
"Brute, eh?" Quinn asked, scratching his chin. "No, no nothing about that. Oh well, Neptu will beat my ass if I come back without you, or if you're dead, so let's go." Quinn moved and two Hunters took a hold of Gin's shoulders and pushed him away from the group. Nashi watched as every Hunter surrounding them slowly moved away and started to move down the street, leaving them and Quinn there.
"What?" Elise asked. "You got what you want, screw off."
"Hostile, huh?" He asked. "I'm sorry it came to this, you all seem like nice folks."
"Just leave, would you?" Quinn snorted and turned on his heel.
"See ya." He called, filing in with his men.
This left the group of seven be as the small army disappeared down the road.
"Fuck this." Drake whispered under his breath.
"What can we really do?" Ultear asked, crossing her arms. "I know we're good, but I couldn't count how many of those guys were around there. Plus that Quinn guy was something else. A bit quirky, but you could sense he was powerful."
"We can't just leave him." Damien said. "He's not like Taisho or Shuichi. He's sane, he doesn't deserve to die just because he's like Bella and I."
"Agreed." Steph said. "So what do we do?" Silence came over the group at this question, before Simon started to hum.
"The road runs through a valley up ahead, right?" He asked.
"I think so." Nashi replied. "Why?" Simon smirked back at them.
"I have an idea."
Gin walked with Quinn and his army through the valley, ignoring the causal chatter of those around him. Their mundane issues really meant nothing to him. All he cared about at the moment was staying quiet and keeping to himself.
"Rough day?" Gin made a face and turned to find the leader, Quinn, staring at him. Despite the power he radiated, the blonde hair and blue eyes looked incredibly friendly.
Gin knew better.
"You could say that." Gin muttered. "Getting captured wasn't the highlight, though."
"Ah, a joker?" Quinn asked. "Don't worry, it won't be that bad."
"No?" Gin asked.
"No!" Quinn exclaimed. "Neptu probably just wants to torture you for information for a few hours before the exorcism." At this, Gin felt sick.
"Exorcism?" he asked weakly. Quinn nodded as they walked along the path.
"Yeah, it's how he deals with strong demons." he said. "He usually expels it from the hosts body so that we can kill it. As to not hurt the host."
"But I'm a Demon Lord." Gin said. "The Lord and I have intertwined souls. An exorcism would-"
"Tear you both apart at the seams?" Quinn finished. "I know. That's the point. As oppose to other people who host demons, usually to no fault of their own, Demon Lords latch onto their host at birth and they become one. An exorcism rips the Demon Lord out to send it back to the Circles of Judgment and, now that your soul is left in the body alone, it collapses in on itself and you die. Sorry, I know it sounds painful."
Painful was putting it lightly. It sounded horrific. All because Gin was born as a one in a billion monster, he would die this way. Fate had a cruel sense of humor.
"Hey, don't pass out on me now." Quinn said. "All of this shit I talk ain't all true. We've never exorcised a Demon Lord before, there's only twelve. It might not even work cause you're so much more powerful. Maybe he'll need Elizabeth to help him. Maybe every member of the Cross."
"What are these members of the Cross, exactly?" Gin asked, happy for a topic outside of his death to come up. "You mentioned you were one before, right?"
"I did." Quinn agreed. " The members of the Cross are the four strongest members of the Skylance Demon Hunters outside of Neptu. There's me, The Base of the Cross. The girl I mentioned before, Elizabeth, she's the Left Arm of the Cross. And obviously there's two more members of the Cross. But that's enough about that." Gin supposed that was fine. He'd die anyway, no need to pry for information he'd never use.
"Whatever you say..." He muttered. Quinn didn't say anything more at this, and Gin fell into his own thoughts. An exorcism sounded excruciating, but there wasn't exactly a way out of it. He was surrounded by Lord knew how many Hunters, all of which were ready to kill him at a moments notice.
After a few more seconds, Gin felt a presence beside him.
"Don't worry about an exorcism, boy." Mortavius said. "That shit won't work on us." Gin didn't reply as to not raise suspicion from the Hunters around him, so he simply raised an eyebrow. "Like you mentioned before, our souls are intertwined. Ripping me out involves a meticulous process of separating you and me in the first place. An exorcism itself wouldn't be strong enough to separate at the seams, like he claims. And even if it does work, you wouldn't die. So take a deep breath."
Gin did as he was told and took a slow deep breath. Somehow it barely alleviated his worries about his current situation.
"Besides," At this, Mortavius laughed darkly. "It's almost upon us again, boy." Huh? What was he talking about? "Can't you sense it Gin? You've known me along enough."
The Bloodshed.
Gin knew what he meant. Mortavius was saying the fight was incoming. But with who? Surely not Nashi and the others, they weren't that dumb that they'd attack the Hunters at this ti-
BOOM!
Gin's thoughts were interrupted as something above him exploded. He looked up to see bits and pieces of the rock face to their left falling towards them. He ran backwards a few feet and watched as the boulders separated the army into two groups, who were all very confused and shouting out questions. After this, explosions rang out from the other side of the rock wall as Gin. He watched as bit of dark red magic and fire sprung out everywhere, and Hunters cried out in pain and surprise. The Hunters with Gin were surprised and just standing still, too stunned to move.
"Don't just stand around with your thumbs up your ass!" Quinn shouted somewhere to Gin's right. "We're under attack! Secure the prisoner and move to make a way to get to the other said of these rocks!" The Hunters moved quickly at this order, making sure Gin wasn't running off and then making their way through the boulders that had collapsed to separate the army.
As they did so, Golden light rained down on them, followed by an arc of electricity and ice. All of these attacks threw up a large smokescreen, and Gin couldn't see a damn thing. Soon afterwards, a figure landed behind him, and arms wrapped around his midsection.
"Don't say a word." The deep voice said. It was foreign to Gin, yet oddly familiar. The figure rocketed upwards out of the smokescreen and up onto the cliff surrounding the valley, and Gin landed on his feet as his savior released him.
Somehow Gin was not surprised that he turned to find Simon, Ultear, Elise, Steph and a creature he took to be Damien standing there.
"What are you idiots doing?" He hissed as more cries of pain rang out from the valley, followed by another explosion and a laugh that sounded like Drake. "You should have just let them take me away, not corner them like this and-"
"Save it, it worked didn't it?" Elise asked as Sion aimed his palm up and shot golden light into the sky.
"What was that?" Gin asked.
"A flare to tell Nashi and Drake we got you." Simon said.
"They're probably too wrapped up in their fighting to see it." Damien said, returning to a human form. Gin turned towards the cliff a good fifteen feet away to see a dark red claw latching onto the cliff side. After a few seconds, Drake and Nashi appeared on the end of it. Drake's left hand was holding the magic that held them up, and his other arm was wrapped around Nashi waist to take her with him. As they reached the top of the cliff, Drake threw her up and she in turned pulled him up, and they ran to join the others.
"So we did it, huh?" Nashi asked, grinning. "No issues?"
"Nope." Steph said.
"Nice." Drake said. "But we should probably get out of here. General dumbass and his bootlicking army probably won't take to kindly to this." Gin agreed with that much.
"We can come back out on a path back there." Ultear said, pointing behind her. "Let's get out of here!" Once again, Gin took off with these people away from the Hunters. He didn't know why they'd come for him, or how they'd come up with such a plan in such a short amount of time.
What he did know, though, is that they'd pissed off a whole army now.
"Sir, the Demon Lord's escaped!" Quinn growled and turned to the Hunter.
"And how the hell did he do that?" He demanded.
"No idea sir." The Hunter replied. "Shall we track him?"
"You check on the wounded, I'll track him." The Hunter nodded and turned to do his duties, and Quinn leaned down towards the ground. He didn't know how those kids had gotten the Demon Lord out, but they'd chosen their fate now. He didn't need to hold back.
Quickly drawing the tracking circle, he watched it light up as it prepared to track the Demon down. Before it did so, however, Quinn quickly added another enchantment to it. Something Elizabeth had taught him. It would track him alright, but it wouldn't alert the tracked. A much better alternative, even if it used up more magic to cast.
Quinn smiled as the line whipped up the cliff side and away from them. Appeared they planned on moving towards another path to get away. No matter. Quinn raised a hand to his head and initiated a telepathic connection.
"Why hello there, fellow Hunters. It seems that keeping some of you in the woods away from this conflict was a good idea after all. Could you kindly intercept the eight kiddies that escaped to a path up the right side of the cliff?"
"No problem, Quinn. Passive tracking circle?"
"Yes, of course. We're taking a detour. Kill the kids trying to save our Demon Lord."
"As you wish, Base of the Cross"
Damien ran with the others away from the Hunters, and he hoped that that was the end of them.
Somehow, he doubted that severely.
Soon enough they came out onto another path, and Simon looked around quickly.
"Where now?" Elise asked.
"Give me a minute, I have to get my bearings." He said, still looking around. "Alright, I think we have to-!"
BOOM!
Damien stumbled back as white magic exploded out around him. Like he thought, that wasn't the end of the Hunters. But how the hell had they caught up with them so quickly?
He watched as Hunters practically came out of the woodwork and surrounded them, just like the last time. This time tough, they didn't seem to just want to surround them. Many of the Hunters had their hands in a formation to use magic, and many others seemed ready to attack at a moments notice.
"How the hell did they find us already?" Nashi asked. "Was the distraction that bad?"
"Doesn't really matter either way." Elise replied, arms turning into clubs. "But now we've pissed them off."
"Divide and conquer, alright?" Simon said, before turning to Damien and Gin. "You two stay back, we don't need you getting really hurt."
"Alright, have all the fun then." Damien muttered, pouting.
"Understood." Gin replied, nodding.
And with that, all hell broke loose.
Damien and Gin dove behind the treeline as explosions rang out. Damien watched as Nashi caused huge explosions to separate the huge groups of Hunters, and Elise ran through them all clubbing one after the other. Simon flew all over the place and knocked Hunters out from a distance with golden light before landing and engaging some with swords. Steph and Ultear worked together to conduct electricity through Ultear's water magic and knock out large groups all at once.
So basically it was a war zone.
"Holy hell..." Gin whispered, making Damien chuckle.
"Yeah, awesome huh?"
"Barely." Gin retorted. "I've never met people so eager to die."
"I could say the same for you, Mr. sacrifice myself to save strangers." Damien said, making Gin grow quiet and stare at the ground. Damien returned his eyes to the battlefield to watch his friends destroy the Hunters, but more always seemed to crawl out of somewhere.
"One of the six...Or is it seven now? One will still die."
A cold shiver went down Damien's spine as Xisplate's words came back to him. One of his friends was supposed to die. But when? And why? How?
...Was it now?
All of a sudden, Damien's stomach twisted. He watched as Nashi received a blow to the back and fell forward. Drake took a fist to the face and staggered back. Simon dodged blasts of holy magic and landed on Elise, throwing both to the ground. Steph was hit from behind, and Ultear had to turn to water to avoid hits.
No. There was too many of them. His friends were surrounded.
Damien realized he was standing up when Gin grabbed him.
"What the hell are you doing?!" He hissed. "We take too many hits and we're toast!"
"I know that." Damien replied calmly. "But I'm not going to sit back and watch my friends get hurt."
"God you people are crazy..." Gin muttered. At this, Damien jumped from the tree line and into the fray, taking over into his basic form. He soared towards Nashi and knocked her out of the way of a few bursts of Holy magic, but this caused them to strike him instead. As soon as they did, Damien felt faint. It really did hurt badly.
"What the hell, Damien!" Nashi shouted, taking out the Hunters who had hit him with a blast of fire. "Get out of here, you'll get hurt!"
"Like you won't?" He demanded. "Your mouth's bleeding." Nashi made a face and wiped the blood from her mouth.
"Just get out of here, would you?" She asked. Damien rolled his eyes and took off into the sky, looking for more Hunters to attack. He swooped down and tore at large groups of them, but this in turn made it very easy for some of them to notice him flying around and started to shoot at him. He dodged most of it, but a few stray shots managed to hit him, and he groaned it pain and he struggled to stay in the air. God, it hurt so bad...
...Shit!
Damien had been to lost in his thoughts to notice a huge blast of magic coming his way. He tried to dodge it, but it clipped his left wing. Damien cried out as he started to plunge towards the ground, right into the middle of them. He landed hard and struggled to his feet as Hunters came after him, countless holy bursts flying at him. He used darkness blasts to knock most of them away, but others snuck through and struck his body, causing him to fall to one knee in pain.
Fuck, get up...Get up!
Damien got to his feet just in time to grapple with a Hunter, who had advanced a bit to far. Damien struggled with him for a little bit, before grinning as he got the advantage and knocked the man down.
"Quick tip, man." he said. "Don't engage me in hand to hand comba-"
Steph threw out bursts of electricity at all the Hunters near her before she paled, and her spine tingled.
...No. It can't be...
Turning slowly, Steph saw what had in fact caused her to feel this way, and she nearly fainted.
The man from before, Quinn, had impaled Damien through the chest with a blade made of Holy light.
She watched as the blade disappeared, leaving no hole or anything. Damien, however, looked stunned.
"I said before." Quinn's voice rang over the chaos. "I only wanted the one, but you decided otherwise." He pocketed his hands, and Damien began to sway back and forth.
"Onii-chan!" Steph called out, making him look at her. They looked eyes for a few seconds, and Damien's eyes remained wide.
Before he puked up blood all over himself. After this, he started to fall.
"DAMIEN!"
Steph's scream made Nashi's blood run cold. She turned to find Damien falling over, Quinn walking away from him as Hunters advanced. Nashi ran on instinct, and made it to Damien as Steph knelt down and shook him.
"Damien! Damien!" She cried, shaking him violently. "Please hang on! It's okay!" Nashi looked up as the others made their way towards them, probably also from Steph's cry.
"Ultear!" Nashi shouted.
"I know!" Ultear replied, slamming her hands on the ground. With this, a shield of ice sprung up around them. The Hunters began to throw attacks at it immediately, but Ultear kept it up. "Tend to him!" Nashi looked back down to find Damien's face and body a ghostly white, and he coughed up more blood as Steph cupped his face in her hands.
"Damien, please! Hang on! You'll be okay!"
"What the fuck was that jackass doing on the battlefield?!" Drake shouted.
"I don't know!" Elise replied, tears rimming her eyes. "Is he okay?!"
"That fucker impaled him!" Simon growled. "I swear if I get my hands on him..."
"Damien! Damien!" Steph shouted over and over. "It's okay! Eyes on me, Okay?! Keep them on me!" Damien looked near death, but he nodded weakly and kept his eyes firmly on Steph.
"We need to get out of here!" Ultear shouted, still holding their shield up. "Get Damien home!"
"How exactly do we do that?!" Nashi asked, starting to panic. "We're surrounded and Damien doesn't look like he can take another hit!"
"I don't know, but my shield can't take many more either!" Nashi looked around at the cracking ice. They were running out of time.
"Do we have a plan or not?!" Drake asked.
"No, we don't!" Simon replied.
No.
They really didn't.
Gin watched as the Hunters assaulted the icy shield with everything they had, eyes wide with shock. Quinn had run Damien through with a magic holy sword. He'd watched it happen. What now? What was he to do?
I can't do anything, I'll end up like him...
It was at this moment Gin felt a presence. He slowly looked up to find Mortavius smirking down at him. There was silence between the pair, before Gin shuddered.
"Please, no..." He whispered.
"I'll leave this one up to you." Mortavius said, voice heavy. "People will die either way."
The shield broke, revealing the group surrounding Damien and Steph to protect them as best as possible. The Hunters didn't attack right away, they simply advanced ready to.
"You know what?" Quinn's voice rang out from somewhere. "One last chance. Where's the kid?"
"Go to hell!" Nashi shouted.
I can't do anything, I'll end up like Damien...
...
But if I don't...
"Kill them and search the area." Quinn said. "He can't have gone far."
These people are prepared to throw their lives away for me...
Why am I not doing the same?
"STOP!" Nashi looked over to find Gin coming out of the bushes at the side of the road.
"All he reveals himself." Quinn said. "So what'll it be, kiddo?" Gin didn't say anything, he simply stared at his feet.
"Gin, get out of here!" Nashi shouted. "We'll be okay, save yourself!" He didn't say anything.
"Don't be stupid, leave!" Drake yelled. "We'll be fine!" Gin again, did not reply. He simply began walking forward. After a few steps, he paused.
And slowly raised his right arm.
"Kid..." Quinn started.
"Takeover..." Gin whispered, yet it was loud enough for Nashi's blood to run cold.
"TAKE HIM OUT!" Quinn roared. "BEFORE HE...!"
"...Demon Mortavius."
Yeah I'm an asshole, I know. I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try to get five!