Chapter 91 - Bonnie And Clyde

Gentarou pulls out once again the glass container with the piece of wood in it, holds it towards the demon chained up beside Minoru, "O, kanerakkah…", and he starts chanting an incantation in an unknown language.

"…Muvachip'hramak aiklakun…"  Minoru's eyes meanwhile, glints in expectation, having witnessed Gentarou do the ritual three times already.

"Mhehehehe…" The demon suddenly starts chuckling in contempt, confusing Gentarou.

Gentarou also feels something strange, but does not let it distract him.

He takes a deep breath and, "KRUITTALE TAYA'UNNE!", completes the spell with a theatric shout.

He waits for one, two, three seconds, but realizes that something happened, or did not happen.

"Huh?" Gentarou frowns.

"Mmhhahaahaha!" The demon's chuckle this time ascends to a full-on belly laugh of ridicule.

Minoru, finding the ridicule in the demon's laughter satisfying, "Hhahahaha!" copies it and directs it to Gentarou.

"You shut up." Gentarou stuffs hardened mud on the demon's mouth.

"What did you do?" He asks Minoru with a dangerous glare.

"Nothing. You must have mispronounced the spell or something." Minoru smirks at him.

Gentarou takes a deep breath to calm himself down before begrudgingly taking the suggestion.

"O, kanerakkah … Muvachip'hramak aiklakun … KRUITTALE TAYA'UNNE!" He completes the spell once again, but just like earlier, nothing is happening.

"Hhhueehehhhh…" Despite the hardened mud stuffed in the demon's mouth, it still manages to express a ridiculing smile and grunt.

Minoru too, smiles in glee.

"Tell me what you did, or you won't even be worthy to be the demon's host." Gentaro, with a flip of his will, manipulates the mud golem encasing Minoru to tighten its hold on Minoru's neck.

"*khk* I didn't do anything. I was busy running away from heroes." Minoru's gleeful smile has not left his face.

"Why don't you calm down, geezer? Maybe you shouldn't be chanting while angry?" He suggests.

Gentarou, finding that indeed, this is the first time he is performing the ritual angry, takes the suggestion to heart.

After a few deep breaths, he manages to calm down.

"… KRUITTALE TAYA'UNNE!" He chants the spell for the third time, and just as before, it does not work again.

"Pfft…" He receives a funny look from the demon and Minoru once again.

"You! You did something didn't you!?" Gentarou is losing his patience and his anger manifests in the mud golem tightening its hold on Minoru once again.

Despite his muscles being squeezed and compressed, and his bones starting to get dislocated, Minoru still manages to not scream in pain.

"L-Like I said, you senile bastard … I had my hands full with those meddling superheroes to do anything." He replies through gritted teeth.

Finding Minoru's answer logical, Gentarou wants to pull his hair out in frustration.

Minoru, feeling the mud golem's hold on him slacken, relaxes.

"I read from somewhere that a priest or a monk should be in a certain state of mind to perform a ritual. Maybe you're not in condition to do that." He suggests once again.

Gentarou sneers.

He always performed the demon subjugating ritual almost casually.

"You're really treading the line here, boy. After what you've done, you won't see tomorrow anyway."

Gentarou takes a deep breath, and mulls over what he is not doing right.

"Can I tell you a story?" Minoru takes Gentarou's attention.

He wants everything to be over.

Gentarou simply gives him a dismissive look, but has his ears open.

"After I stole that wood fragment of yours, and I was about to escape, I just happened to stomp hard on some random log. It got crushed, and pieces of wood flew everywhere…" Minoru pauses and smirks.

Gentarou gets a terrible feeling in his stomach.

"I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to actually find a fragment that looks just like your uh,… treasure." Minoru continues, barely stopping himself from giggling.

"And th-" Before he can continue, Gentarou is now in his face holding a dagger to his neck.

"WHERE'D YOU PUT IT?" Gentarou growls, barely suppressing his rage.

"I don't know where it is now. I flushed it down some random public toilet…" Minoru was planning on doing so, but he figures that doing that and only just that, would not have been satisfying, and would not have gotten him some infamy in the clan.

He only regrets that he was not able to see the piece of wood get flushed down a toilet like he planned, but instead, he had to resort to just chucking the thing under a car. He can only wish that the wood fragment was ran over by cars, and is now in useless, smaller pieces.

"That's it… That's the look I wanted to see. Hehehehhhh…" Minoru gloats over Gentarou who is about to lose his mind.

"A 'boy' you always looked down on, has destroyed your f*ckin dreams, geezer."

"Are you done?" Gentarou asks, his voice cold.

"I'm n---" Minoru is about to say something clever but, "I don't care." Gentarou already stabs him in the chest.

Gentarou pulls out the knife from Minoru's chest and as he is about to deliver another, "*GASP*" he hears a female voice behind him audibly gasp.

Before he can even turn around, *smack* he feels something hard and powerful hit the back of his head, flies away, and *SLAM* he bounces hard on the thick, reinforced concrete wall of the most reinforced floor of the facility.

"W-who…" His mind reeling, his world spinning, and his body slack from an obvious concussion, he can only imprint in his mind that is already slipping in and out of consciousness, a kimono-wearing, 40 something year-old man holding his fist on the air.

The man who is obviously the culprit of his current state.

"Fuck off, you monster." Fumio leaps to the helpless Gentarou, mounts the man, and gives a few more spiritual energy infused haymakers. He only stops after making sure that Gentarou is knocked out cold. He is sure that Gentarou is knocked out as he sees the mud golem encasing Minoru has suddenly disappeared.

Kotone meanwhile, dashes to the fallen Minoru immediately and presses her palms to the blood spurting wound on his chest.

"A-are you okay...?" She realizes she just asked a stupid question as soon as she asked it, but seeing someone mortally wound another human being is a first time for her. But while she is confused, she has enough awareness to apply spiritual energy on her palms as an attempt to constrict the blood vessels on Minoru's chest.

"I- Who are you guys?" Minoru asks, surprised by the two's appearance. 

He scratches his curiosity however.

"Don't mind me. Kill him now!" He asks Fumio through the pain.

"I know that he's a monster, but I can't." Fumio refuses and joins to attend to Minoru.

"Let's pick him up and go. Boss might be able to save him." He frantically says as he too, applies a small stream of his spiritual energy to Minoru's wound.

"Don't you two dare bring me anywhere! Please. Just leave me here. *Cough*" Minoru pleads them.

"You're gonna die!" Kotone frantically argues.

"And that's exactly what I want. I- Wha-?" Minoru suddenly realizes the strange energy that is being applied to his wound.

"Look, we can slow down your bleeding, but we only have so much energy. Gentarou too might wake up anytime soon." Fumio, while worried for the man, wants to save his and Kotone's spiritual energy for them to use to flee.

He also only has a half of his energy reserves left as he applied too much spiritual energy on his punches to Gentarou earlier. He also feels that his wrists might be slightly dislocated, and he does not want to fight injured.

"I'm not worth saving. Just leave me here so I can bleed out like a gentleman, will ya? *cough*" Minoru chuckles as he coughs out blood.

"You're worth saving! You doing what you did, means you're a good person!" Kotone insists as she slides her arms under Minoru.

"Stop it! *cough*" Minoru yells at her, him coughing up blood stops her from lifting him up.

"Do you know how many bodies I've burnt?! Even though I didn't know it at first, I personally escorted innocent people to their deaths!" Minoru looks at them in defiance.

"So please. I don't want to see their faces again in my dream." He pleads them as he slacks his body defeatedly.

Fumio and Kotone exchange glances for a moment, before the two of them stop infusing spiritual energy to their palms.

"You didn't know, yes. But you also saved thousands of innocent lives that would have been sacrificed by that asshole. Is there anything we can do for you?" Fumio asks.

"Yeah. A couple of days ago, I saw a colleague escort a teenage boy to a demon's cell. A TEENAGE BOY!" Minoru's face crumples remembering the boy's face.

"I couldn't do anything to save him… But there's this little girl on the list. Her number is already approaching, so maybe she only has two or three days left. Please, save her before they sacrifice her. Please, do it on my behalf." He asks of them. 

"Alright. Where is she, and how many guards are there?" Fumio asks.

"Just the opposite wing from here, accessed through the first sub-level. I don't know how you two made it in here, but if you two managed to stay invisible long enough to know enough, then you won't find the security there a problem." Minoru instructs.

"We will save her." Kotone promises, getting a look from Fumio.

"What are we supposed to do?" She grumbles at him.

"You're right." Fumio realizes that his usual indifference and distance to others' plights is not applicable in this situation.

"I only have around 55? 60? percent left in my tank. You?" He asks.

"Three quarters maybe. It's probably still less than what you got." Kotone says, knowing that Fumio's elixir sea is vaster and his spiritual energy thicker than hers.

"Okay. You power our seals, and stick close to me. I'll be in charge of the assault." Fumio immediately comes up with a plan.

"Okay." Kotone finds the plan acceptable.

"Good. Even though I didn't understand what you two just said, looks like you got a plan." Minoru is relieved, as he feels that he does not have much time left.

"Okay… It's getting cold." Minoru feels his heart quiver.

"I don't have long, and judging from your face miss, I think I can trust you." His eyes soften looking at the caring Kotone.

"Anything." Kotone is ready, knowing that Minoru is about to ask something.

"I'll tell you the passwords of my apartment, my ATM card, and my computer. Pawn it, sell it, for the girl to use. I know it's nothing compared to the things I've done here, but I hope my life savings can give the girl a chance in life." Minoru says.

Fumio and Kotone are moved by Minoru's final wish.

"I'll make sure of that." Kotone immediately pulls out her phone. 

<>

"Hm? Where are we? Nee-san? Nii-san?" The seven-year-old young girl in Fumio's arms wake up.

"Oh, you're awake?" Fumio smiles at the girl.

"Ooh! Wah! We're so high up!" The girl's eyes go wide as saucers as she realized that Fumio and Kotone are jumping from building rooftop to building rooftop.

The two easily broke the girl out of Oonishi Clan's demon prison, and flee without anyone noticing because of their invisibility seals. They did not have to fight too because of their use of the sample of Red's sleeping powder she asked from Red. 

"You're not scared?" Fumio asks. "No! It's exciting! Are you two superheroes?!" The girl asks  cheerfully.

Fumio and Kotone both smile bitterly at the girl's innocence.

The Oonishi clan made the girl's cell look like a nice bedroom, making the girl feel lucky that she has a nice room for herself unlike when she was in the orphanage. She did not have the slightest clue of what was waiting for her.

"Okay. But you have to sleep for now, okay? Close your eyes." Kotone asks and as the young girl closes her eyes, she sprinkles a very small pinch of sleeping powder in the girl's nose. 

"How about the people back there?" Kotone feels hesitant leaving behind the eighteen other sacrificial prisoners.

"If we break them out, what'll change?" Fumio shakes his head. .

"If we break them out, yes, they'll stop what they're doing, but only temporarily. Maybe they'll even transfer their operations to who knows where?" He figures.

"Yeah…" Kotone realizes that it is not as simple as just breaking in and breaking out.

"Maybe Kichirou-san will know what to do?"

"Boss knows a lot of things about a lot of things. So, hopefully, yes.." The two can only hope.