Chapter 118 - Task

At the hilltop, leaves and grass are billowing, much livelier than the breeze should be able to make them dance. This is all because of a figure in the middle of the clearing, being shined upon by the moonlight.

"*sssuuuu**hhpppp*" Yoshiko finishes another cycle of Celestial Body Breathing Technique, and her elixir sea cannot expand any further.

She then stands up and is about to go back to the treasure fragment dimension when Red appears suddenly in front of her.

"Sensei." She is taken aback.

She knows that Red only cultivates at the hilltop during the day.

"You have hit a wall." Red tells her.

"Yes, sensei." Yoshiko is no longer surprised or uncomfortable by Red seeing through her.

"The past few cultivation sessions, my elixir sea barely expanded." She reports.

"I never heard Fumio or Kotone suffer this. Is it because I used demon cores and they didn't?" She asks in worry.

"Yes. But not in the way you think." Red chuckles.

"Because unlike you who only utilize the breathing technique when you expand your reserves, they always used it to both refill their reserves and to cultivate, making them capture the trick in it. You would have too had you not chosen to use demon cores to refill your reserves faster. They also are more familiar with their meridians. You who only focused on growing your strength and elixir sea, have not yet." He explains.

"I see." Yoshiko is relieved.

"What do I do now?" She asks.

"It's time for you to pause your physical training and cultivation training and start on more advanced elixir control training." Red recommends.

"How do I do that?" Yoshiko asks.

"Before I tell you, I think you should pay for my demon cores that you used." Red smirks at her.

"O-oh…" Yoshiko is stunned. She was too focused on growing stronger and trying to catch up to Fumio and Kotone that she almost forgot the deal she made with Red regarding the demon cores. Unlike Fumio and Kotone who were hesitant in using the demon cores, Yoshiko was more liberal about it.

"I-I'll go hunt for demons as soon as possible." She promises.

"No." Red says, surprising her.

"I have a task for you instead. Consider it a test too. Within the next few days, maybe later, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, the peace of the children will be disturbed. I have sent Kotone and Rezonad away. Fumio will be staying in the city until further notice. Xoz'gekal will also spend time with me. Therefore, this thing? I want you to deal with it alone." He orders cryptically.

"I will be ready." Yoshiko promises.

"Very good." Red nods before disappearing.

"Damn. I need to learn that." Yoshiko knows that Red did not use an invisibility seal because she would have seen through it. 

A few hours later. Leaves are floating in front of Yoshiko, morphing into different Kanji (Chinese written characters) letters by Yoshiko's spiritual energy. It is one of the elixir control training methods she once saw Fumio. At the time, her spiritual energy did not have the potency to replicate the feat, but now that she has an elixir sea the size of a lake, she can now practice her elixir control using the method.

She actually likes elixir control training better than any other type of training she has to do because she can do it without costing her spiritual energy. Her mental endurance will have to be spent however.

"WE NEED HELP!" She is startled by Goichi's shout and all the kanji she wrote in the air collapse to a small pile of leaves. She was not expecting the trouble Red was talking about to come so soon.

Using the basic traversing technique that Red taught her, she zooms out of the hilltop and arrives at the training yard of children in three seconds flat.

"What happened?" She asks the children.

"Nana-san... Nana-san is dead! She was killed down the road!" Taishiro reports immediately in panic.

Yoshiko looks at the children and she sees that they are either sullen or are in shock. Especially Ran who is alternately holding her back her tears and being in a daze. Her heart shakes realizing that the children's 'peace being broken' is much worse than she thought.

She can only hope that Nana, who the children care about, is not really dead.

A second later, she arrives above the visitors and she stops in mid-air, using a flat surface she made using her spiritual energy as a platform to stand on.

Her world goes silent as she sees Nana's body on the ground, bleeding out through a stab wound in the middle of her chest.

Ichiki not doing anything to revive Nana also tells her that it is too late.

Nana is dead.

Even though  Nana was a demon, Yoshiko has come to appreciate the demon's competence as a babysitter, and the demon's efforts in making the children comfortable and happy. Even though she can never be too sure if Nana really loved the children, she knows that the demon would have provided a caring environment for the children.

Looking at the demon's dead body makes her angry at the culprit.

She is also angry with herself however. Had she taken Red's warning more seriously, had she put off her training for the day to at least feel things out first, then Nana would not have been killed in the road like a dog in the street.

"… Now, please bring us to your boss." She is pulled out of her daze by Samuel's demand of Ichiki.

She takes a closer look at each of the visitors, and her eyes are caught by the man who is holding a long blade she figures was what used on Nana. As she looks at the blade more, she is stunned. The blade's uniform color from handle to point, and its excessive shine reminds her of the most tragic night of her night.

"Angel…" She realizes and she decides to make a move.

"I AM HER BOSS." She announces herself.

The visitors all look up at her and they all give her a skeptic look.

Instead of explaining herself, she rushes to Jamshid at a speed everyone present can barely keep up with. Even though Jamshid is already raising his hands to defend, Yoshiko is simply too fast for him and *WHACK* he receives a straight punch to his face. He is not able to absorb the punch and the leftover force from it flings him back and he smashes against the hillside.

Yoshiko meanwhile does not give him time to recover. She dashes to the knocked down angel and presses her foot on his chest. She pulls out her katana from her storage ring, rests its point to Jamshid's neck and, "How dare you.", looks at Jamshid coldly in the eyes.

Jamshid meanwhile, is stunned.

He does not feel superioris energy on Yoshiko.

"W-what are you?" He asks in confoundment.

"What else would I be but a human?" Yoshiko answers and slashes her blade on Jamshid's neck.

Soon, a glowing white yellow smoke quickly rushes out of the wound and surrounds the angel blade on Jamshid's hand.

"…" Jamshid, seeing his sanctic essence uncontrollably leaving his being while his life fleeting just as quickly, holds Yoshiko's foot, attempting to free himself from being pinned by it.

His efforts are useless however because just a second later, his angel blade and his sanctic essence merge with each other and compress into a small glowing crystal.

The small glowing object that contains his angelic being is the last thing he sees as his world goes dark forever.

"…" The visitors, seeing the angel, the only person they were scared of in the group, was dealt with very easily, unanimously feel chills climb up their spines.

They also eye Yoshiko's sword, feeling that something that can cut an angel's skin so easily and can result to the angel's death, has to be special.

"…" Heydar meanwhile, feels like he was just robbed. A no-name someone, one that is very young, snatched his angel while he can only watch helplessly.

He knows the full extent of Jamshid's ability, and if he did not personally witness Jamshid's downfall, he would not believe it.

Their brotherhood's information about the demographics of a place is almost always accurate so he always trusted the information they give him, including the one they received from Hinohara. Unfortunately, the brotherhood's information about the place is years behind as it simply was not a place of superioris activity.

He can only accept his bad luck.

As Yoshiko turns to them, the visitors unanimously take a step back.

Yoshiko meanwhile, after venting her anger, has finally calmed down and is now looking at the 'guests' more closely. She also feel things she knows she missed because of her state of mind earlier; things that are in the guests' pockets.

"You three." She addresses Samuel, Marites, and Heydar.

"I know you are looking for answers. But did it have to come to this?" She asks them as she puts away Nana's body in her storage ring, and pick up the demon core and the angel crystal with her spiritual energy.

"To be fair, miss? The angel's at least a Peak B-Class. He acted on his own accord and we are not powerful enough to stop him." Eliza reasons.

"You should ask this man…" She points at Heydar.

"He was the one holding the angel's leash." She washes hers and Samuel's hands.

Yoshiko waves her index finger towards Heydar's body and shoots an invisible spiritual energy blade on it. A cut appears on Heydar's suit and from it, rushes out a wood chip and enters Yoshiko's waiting hand.

Yoshiko, seeing the familiar object, confirms her theory. The three indeed are carrying things that is similar to the wood chip that Red is using to cheat time. She also knows that unlike Red's wood chip, the visitors' wood chips are not activated and are only used to ensl*ve demons. This realization makes him connect another thing.

"That angel was serving you?" She asks Heydar as she plays the wood chip between her fingers.

The guests, except for the three Japanese ones, who are still in shock that Yoshiko can detect and telekinetically manipulate Heydar's wood chip, snap out of their state by Yoshiko's question.

"Y-Yes." Heydar misinterprets Yoshiko's question as a rhetorical one, but he answers anyway to avoid conflict.

"Then you should thank me for dealing with an insubordinate angel." Yoshiko harrumphs, copying the arrogant bosses she once had.

"…" Heydar can only swallow his resentment.

"Uhm… Young Lady?" Marites takes Yoshiko's attention.

"Ours is the heirloom of our family. But me and my brother are willing to give up. As long as you tell us what it is for, we are satisfied to leave and never speak of what we have seen today." This is the only way out she can think of.

"I'm sorry. None of you can leave. You should have left things that want to go home, well, go. I cannot risk you all coming back here." Yoshiko refuses.

She has made up her mind to make the visitors stay in the hill forever, no matter what method, dead or alive.

"This is ridiculous!" Jotaro scoffs.

"We have left our marks in the village. My clan knows that I am here." He boldly claims.

"Oh? And which clan do you belong?" Yoshiko asks.

"Ota City. Haneda Clan. And my friend right here is from the Chibana Clan." Jotaro proudly states his and Masuo's backgrounds.

"Haneda… Chibana…" Yoshiko sorts through her memories, and quickly finds what she knows about the two clan.

"It doesn't matter. I can wipe them out if they come looking." Yoshiko shrugs.

She can make Xoz'gekal, a high-tier Demon General, sweat in a spar.. While she is confident to fight a mid-tier A-Class Superiori clan heads of the Haneda and Chibana at a standstill, she is even more confident in ending them with sneak attacks.