"What's happeni— YAWN"
"What's happening? We're . . . in our new base!"
"Really? What does it look like? Can we go adventure?"
"Not right now . . . a monster attacked our base and we're trying to fight it off."
"Aww."
"I'll wake you up when the monster is gone, okay?"
"Okay!"
After that, Tenma falls asleep. Kaori lets loose a breath of relief. "I'll wake you up, that is, IF no one survives," she mutters to herself. "But that doesn't mean that I won't protect you," she says.
"Mesamerga – Runé!"
Light that that resembled the shape of vines is created and start homing right at Behemoth. It lets out a roar, which completely neutralized the Magic spell. Not only did it do that, the roar also struck fear into those in the battlefield.
"W–What?! That was one of my best spells!"
"Looks like it's not a mindless beast, after all. It was able to adapt to your Magic, with just one hit taken."
Sakaki summons two shurikens into his hands, he chants "Lock-On," again, and fires them at Behemoth, who then uses its roar to deflect the shurikens —— unsuccessfully. One of the ninja stars exploded in his mouth, while the other exploded close to its cheek.
"Doesn't look like its adapted to my shurikens yet, though."
He, in turn, fires two more shurikens, which Behemoth fails to deflect, and explodes.
"But, it's only a matter of time before it does—!"
* * * *
"YAWN— Why was there a roar, Ms. Kaori?"
"Uh . . . The monster still hasn't gone away yet."
"Somebody should tell the monster to leave! Hmph!"
"Y–Yeah!"
Kaori's ears start moving like they just picked up a signal. In the blink of an eye, Kaori grabs Tenma and rolls away, as fast as she can. She puts her down and aims her bow from where the 'attack' came from. Her enhanced hearing picks up some slithering.
"A snake . . ?"
It became clear what had actually attacked them. It wasn't a snake, but it was definitely serpentine. It was Behemoth's tail; it acted . . . and attacked them, like a predator would attack its food—— it seemed like it had a mind of its own.
"Its tail is this large? . ."
She looks all around her and finds Behemoth fighting Kaname and Sakaki — while having one of its eyes glaring at her. She aims her bow at the tail that was wrapped around the tree. She smiles with all her might.
"I kind of knew that I would have to fight it, prematurely."
Her smile was to tell Tenma to not be afraid, because she was there, without really needing to tell her. But before she was able to even react, the tail knocks away her bow and snatches Tenma. Kaori chases after it and manages to catch up. She grabs onto Tenma's tiny and frail hands, then starts to pull them with all her might.
"I'm not going to let go of you!—"
No one could really help her. Justice was nowhere to be found, and the others were too busy directly fighting Behemoth to help her. And, they couldn't retreat to help her, either, otherwise, they'd all be killed by Behemoth – fast.
With no other option left Kaori opens her mouth, which revealed several sharp animal-like teeth. She bites and effectively rips off parts of the tail. She pulls Tenma out once most of the tail was gone. It retracts back to Behemoth, who wasn't shocked or in pain, despite the current situation of the tail. The tail just regenerates back.
Seeing that Behemoth was still glaring at them, she tries to look for a weapon to fight back with, since she knew that her bow would be useless against Behemoth. Without time to react Behemoth attacks them with her tail again.
"What?!"
* * * *
Sakaki continued to use his golden shurikens since Behemoth still wasn't able to counter them. Since her offensive Magic was now considered "useless" against Behemoth, Kaname decided to fully play the role of support, by casting buffs on Sakaki and his attacks, while simultaneously casting debuffs on Behemoth.
"Sakaki, we need a new plan, your shurikens will become ineffective soon, and it doesn't look like you have much of them left."
"You're right. Do you have anything in mind?"
"I have an offensive Move that could harm Behemoth, but I need a huge amount of time to cast it. During that time, it could adapt and immediately kill us."
During that time, they heard Kaori scream.
"–"
"–"
Blood started spraying onto Kaori's rosy face. When she opened her eyes, there was a man with red hair standing in front of her, he cut the tail into pieces. He turns around to Kaori sitting on her knees. Behind her was Tenma, who was still clinging onto her, the same way Kaori was clinging onto her when the tail grabbed her.
"Sorry that it took me a while to help. I'm not proficient in healing Magic."
"Right . . ."
He exits the forest and enters the battlefield.
"Justice, what was that scream?!"
"Behemoth tried attacking Kaori and Tenma with his tail, but I intervened at the right time; they're both fine!"
"Ah. At least everything is alright."
"Not really. We still have to focus on the real issue at hand, Behemoth. Did you guys manage to find a weakness, while I was gone?"
"It knows how to counter my Magic, so our only hope of beating it is with Sakaki's shurikens, but that's going nowhere. — But, I do have an attack that could harm it, I need a lot of time to chant it, I suppose. Can you guys cover me?"
The two men shake their head up and down. They ready their weapons and attack. Justice uses his sword, which he enhances with Magic, again. And, Sakaki, uses a Kyoketsu-shoge. A blade that is connected to a long chain with a ring at the end of it. There is another curved blade attached near the hilt of the blade.
"I'm very experienced with this weapon than many of my others. So, watch out, Behemoth, fighting in a forest is a Ninja's forte!"
Sakaki jumps into a tree with supersonic speeds. The blade part of the Kyoketsu is fired at Behemoth, who deflects it, which causes the blade to get stuck to another tree. Sakaki jumps out of the tree with the ring part in his hand. He rushes over to Behemoth with incomparable speed. Sakaki tries putting the ring on its trunk, but Behemoth tries to parry it with his claws. Which leads to Sakaki putting the ring onto its arm.
He grabs the blade that was stuck to a tree and proceeds to jump into the aforementioned tree. Behemoth's arm was lifted up by the chains.
"Justice! Now!"
With the enhanced sword in his hand Justice slashes and slashes through Behemoth's armor. Effectively harming it in the process. While the two were doing that, Kaname was gathering her Mana into one spot, so she could fire all of it at Behemoth with a single blast. She begins to recite an incantation.
"O' luminous God of light — No."
Her eyebrows sank, she was disappointed. She couldn't focus on keeping her Mana in one place nor could she focus on the incantation. All her attention went towards Justice. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, despite needing to cast the spell. He notices that she was staring at him.
"Kaname? What's wrong?"
"It's . . . er . . . Nothing!"
"Justice, watch out!—"
Sakaki gets sent flying at a tree by Behemoth's tail. Justice notices this and re-joins the battle—— again. Kaname breathes in and breathes out calmly.
"I have to focus on the battle too . . . !"
She closes her eyes and blue specs of light appear around her. All of the specs all start flying towards the tip of her Staff. Instead of getting absorbed by the staff, the specs surround the tip. More and more specs appear and surround the tip as she says the incantation.
"O' luminous God of light, wipe out all the evil in this world. Thou shall smite all my enemies with your Divine Hammer of judging. Darkness is nothing, but the absence of Light. Show thou Divine Retribution to all the sinners, and banish all evil with thou Omnipotent power. Let all the righteous people witness thou mercy! — Aria Stoci Wud: The Chains from Heaven!"
The blue specs that were enveloping the tip of Kaname's staff get absorbed into it. Kaname lifts up her staff and a massive line of blue light is fired from the staff and into the air, clearing out all the clouds that made the sky look so gloomy. Once the beam of light disappears, two chains made out of light were shot out of the sky.
They start homing into Behemoth. It grows a pair of devil-like wings and flies away to avoid the attack—it still wasn't able to avoid the chains, though. After binding him, they send him crashing downwards. The crash creates a smoke wall that blocks the view on what happened. More chains are fired from the sky and home into the spot where Behemoth crashed, then creating more smoke.
"Did it work? . . ."
"Let's hope it did."
All of them let out a gasp. When the smoke clears . . . it shows that Behemoth wasn't defeated—— it was still able to stand up normally, and despite being thrown from so high up in the sky and then being pelted by more chains, he still only had a few bruises.
"Not . . . even . . . that could . . . defeat it? . . ."
Kaname collapses, as a result of her using too much Mana. But the good thing was that she wasn't dead. Losing consciousness by exerting too much Mana was very normal; it wasn't much to worry about. But, what WAS to worry about is Behemoth.
"Kaname!"
"Ah. So it's back."
Justice and Sakaki turn around. Beyond Behemoth was a man with blonde hair. Behind that man, were a bunch more people, all with weapons in their hands, ranging from Bows to swords, to axes. The blonde haired man carried a long pole-like weapon with him. It looked to be either a spear or a lance. Noticing their numbers, Behemoth uses its wings to retreat.
"Is that you, Sakaki?! Did ya finally bring those friends of yers?!"
"Sakaki, do you know him?"
"Yeah, he's one of the people I met while searching for a new base!"
"Wait— So you found even more people to join the resistance?! That's great! Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"
Kaori jumps out of the tree she was hiding in. In her arms was a sleeping Tenma, that had tears all over her face.
"She thought you guys were going to die."
Kaori quickly laughs it off, acting like she didn't think the same thing.
"Are Y'all coming or not?!"
Justice rushes over to Kaname and carries her via piggyback. And, follows Sakaki, and Tenma, who were following the Blonde haired man to their new base. Kaori walks over to Justice.
"I'm sorry for being useless. . ."
"It's not your fault that your arrows didn't work against it."
The blonde haired man stops and raises his hand. The entire area in front of him started to look like reality was being warped. A few seconds later, the 'reality warping' stopped, and a gate resembling a black hole opened.
"Follow me."
Everyone followed him into the gate. None of the people who followed him, save for Justice and Kaori were shocked at what they saw. The place they were in, did not in the slightest even look like a "hideout," or anything of the like. It was full of people — both old and young— and it looked like a village. The entire place looked festive. Sakaki turns around to Justice and Kaori who were still shocked at what they saw.
"Welcome to Herbe Village!— Our new base!"