Chapter 319 - Vol. 5 -

Keiko

Earlier

For the first time since Keiko had picked up her sword once again, she felt herself getting lost in the battle. The city was already covered in fire, just as it had been before during the demon's siege, but this time, none of the human warriors had any intention of running away. As the chaos unfolded around her, Keiko had stumbled at first. However, it did not take long at all for her to acclimate this time. And, that meant that she had quickly turned into a storm on the field with her sword. 

Currently, she was in a position that would make many lesser warriors drop to their knees and beg for mercy. Surrounded by many different demons, with the screams of the more unfortunate soldiers trickling into her ears, Keiko dashed toward them. Her blade cut straight through a Wrath demon's neck to her right before she charged toward the next enemy after that and stabbed her sword into its gut, before sliding it up and allowing the demon's entrails to get acquainted with Pearl's cold ground. She ignored the EXP messages that would frequently appear over her head and instead kept her focus on the fight.

Don't stop,  she told herself.  Maintain this aggression. The army expects a lot out of you. Deliver. 

On that note, as a Lust demon flew down at her and tried to slam her to the ground, Keiko retaliated by turning her sword vertically. 

"Zansae!" She muttered, and in a move she improvised then and there, she planted her heels into the floor, spun in place but slashed up, arching her sword diagonally.  A flash of roses exploded from the arc of her swing and the demon who'd been on a collision course with her split into two halves before it could touch her. Both halves of its body fell around Keiko, harmlessly. 

Keiko took a deep breath. Her body felt so loose, she may as well have been a gust of wind, the way she went from one demon to another after that. 

Her attacks were only interrupted when she caught sight of Ash, up ahead, looking around confusedly. 

Hm... I should check in on her,  Keiko thought, running up to the half-demon. 

As Ash turned toward her, Keiko caught a brief glimpse of a wild look in the woman's violet eyes. One that faded as they fell on her. 

"Ash!" Keiko called out as she got closer. 

"Yeah?" 

Her voice sounded low and concerned, but as she inspected Keiko's body, she visibly relaxed a little. 

"I haven't seen that thing from before," Keiko told her, but really, she just wanted to make sure she was alright. "Have you?" 

"Mhm," Ash nodded before a demon charged at her. Ash casually impaled it, letting it fall to the ground as blood spurted into the air from the wound she'd made. "I saw it just up ahead," she let Keiko know and the Zayama blinked. 

What? 

She hadn't been expecting that at all. Her heart went cold for a few seconds as she remembered her fight with it back at the campsite. 

I figured it would be here, but, this early?

"Keep an eye out," Ash told her. 

"R-Right," Keiko nodded before she turned away from Ash and went back to where she'd been. 

Now, though, she wasn't in that same flow state from before. Hearing about the demon's presence, although expected, had taken her out of the moment just a little. She needed to get back into a rhythm. 

Knowing this, she started with a Gluttony demon to her left. Keiko planted her sword into its gut and dragged it to the right, and everything that was inside that demon came out, sprawling onto the ground. After that, she kicked a demon off of a young soldier and a quick flurry of slashes rendered that demon into a collection of severed limbs. 

Keiko turned to look around and find more targets, but instead, she found people who needed help. One of the soldiers was having his throat torn out by a Lust demon that, at the same time, had a tail planted firmly in his body. Aside from that unfortunate individual was a Gluttony demon that was in the middle of devouring a female soldier's body after having torn off her arms and legs. 

The horrors of what she witnessed momentarily made Keiko freeze, but soon, anger pushed her to act. She ran up and stabbed the Lust demon right between its eyes, before then moving to the Gluttony demon and decapitating it in one smooth slash. 

"Agh!" A woman cried out and Keiko quickly turned toward the voice, finding Hinata pinned down with a Wrath demon on top of her. She had one arm separating them, and the Wrath demon's fangs were buried in her wrist. 

Keiko moved quickly, dashing toward them and embedding the tip of her blade in the demon's neck before it could make any real progress on biting off Hinata's hand. The girl pushed the demon off of her and stood up, with Keiko helping her. 

"Kei... Siya," Hinata said, flinching as she touched her wrist. "T-Thank you." 

"No problem, heal yourself, seiyo," Keiko replied automatically, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder. "The fight's only getting started." 

Hinata nodded eagerly before Keiko went away, moving toward her next engagement. Almost as soon as she'd spoken with her, she found Ichigo in a similar position, as multiple demons closed in on her position while she hurriedly shot one arrow after another into them. 

Keiko ran toward the woman and quickly cleared out the demons in front of her, prompting a grateful grin to appear on Ichigo's face. 

"Thank you!" She called out, continuing to shoot out more arrows at the enemies around them. However, Keiko noticed she had a wound in her gut. 

"What happened? Is there no healer nearby?" 

Ichigo shook her head. 

"I got Cursed," she told Keiko, and the shorter girl's eye widened. 

It hadn't happened in so long that she'd genuinely forgotten that was one of the many risks of fighting demons. Something that separated them from the average monster. 

"I wrapped some cloth around the wound, though. It should hold up until the battle ends. Do not worry about me," Ichigo told her. 

"O-Okay..." 

"Again, thanks. Now, go help the others!"

"R-Right," Keiko replied, as she turned around, in an effort to find the next person to help. Instead, though, as she turned and looked, what she found was Ash, walking away from the main site of the battle. 

What?  Keiko asked, tilting her head until she saw what Ash was walking toward. 

Up ahead, there were three figures. One was the Nightmare she'd fought before, a sight that made Keiko's heart speed up, but the others were Nightmares that, if she'd ever seen them before, she didn't recognize. 

Putting that aside though, she got angry at Ash as she saw her walk forward. 

"What are you doing?" Keiko asked under her breath. "Don't fight them alone!" 

She looked around, eventually finding Yumi and Sinneah, fighting side-by-side and eviscerating the demons around them with ease. Nodding to herself, Keiko ran over to them. 

"Yumi, Sinneah!" She called out. Yumi was the first to respond, quickly identifying Keiko and running up to her. The robes she was wearing were covered in violet blood, and as Keiko approached her, her boots came down on small puddles of that same liquid. 

"Yes?" Yumi asked. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, yeah, but we need to help Ash!" She pointed at her with her sword. "The Nightmares!" 

Yumi looked over at them and when her eyes fell on those powerful demons, a glare came over her face. 

"I see," Yumi nodded. "Sinneah, come!" 

Without a word, Sinneah followed that order, and the three of them quickly ran toward the place where Ash was, just in front of the dead, giant tree, with the twin moons letting their light pour down onto the winding street. 

"Hm?" Ash asked, as she looked back and found them approaching. "Keiko? Huh?" 

"What do you think you're doing?" Keiko asked, annoyed as she walked up to her. "With enemies like these, you weren't even going to think of asking for help?" 

"... If you get hurt," Ash began to respond as she turned her eyes back toward the approaching Nightmares. 

"The alternative would be to sit back and watch you fight them on your own, and that's not about to happen," Keiko told her. "Now, are we going to fight? Or not?" 

"... Sorry," Ash replied before nodding. "You're right. I just..." 

"I know, I know," Keiko told her. "What are their levels?" 

As she asked that, Ash shook her head and Keiko saw a far calmer look appear on her face. It was a relief to see that expression. 

"The Nightmare you fought is still the same level as before," Ash said. "Level 60. The one on the left is level 55, I haven't seen that one before. I don't know what it does. The one in the middle, though, leave that one to me." 

"What level is it?" 

"... Level 92," Ash told her, and Keiko felt like she'd just been hit in the gut. 

"What?" She asked quietly. 

"If you even get close to it, you're committing suicide," Ash let her know. "So, stay as far away from that one as you can. The other ones, though, well..." She briefly looked over at Keiko, Yumi, and Sinneah. "I believe in you," she told all of them, though her eyes lingered for a moment on Keiko. 

Taking a deep breath, Keiko nodded. 

"I understand." 

"I've been waiting for this," Yumi said as she made a flourish with her naginata, walking forward. "Remember, Keiko, it can deceive your Spirit Eye somehow. Do not rely on it." 

"I guess I'll take on the one to the left," Sinneah nodded to herself. 

That Nightmare was... peculiar. It had the bloated body of a Gluttony demon, but its arms were covered in muscles. It was carrying two flails, and at its head were not two eyes, but one large violet eye, wide and threatening. 

With their targets selected, the girls walked forward. 

Keiko's hand tightened around her hilt. 

I can do this,  she thought.. I can do this.