"Run Anon, run away as fast as you can from here and don't look back... I promised to protect you and take you back to where you belong, this is my fight and not yours so please run away from here."
Anon snapped out of the misery as his mind flashed back to all the years he lived, the joy he witnessed through the years, the time he spent with his family and the goal he had set to achieve in order to keep his family happy. Although the experience of joy was less in comparison to the sadness and misery he faced through these years, Anon realized how much joy and happiness he could miss out on just by surviving this situation.
Anon whispered to himself in his mind, "I didn't survive my worst days only to give up now." and ran from there as fast as he could, he turned back and shouted to Rayleigh "I promise I'll return with the book and together let's overcome this, until then please hang on..."
While running back home to get the book Anon praises himself to have made the right decision as surviving is an opportunity in itself as one survives, he opens the doors to million other opportunities. He thought to himself "What would dying in this situation got me to? Everything up until now would be useless if I gave up back then."
Anon was still a young boy and in comparison, to the humans who were here before Anon was, Anon's could not sense any energy around him although he coexisted in the Void and on the earth.
A yokai slipped and escaped the ongoing fight of other yokai with Rayleigh, this yokai began following Anon till the way back home and Anon didn't have a single clue about it because his sensation was still weak to the energies around him.
It was quite late at night so Anon had to sneak into his own house as his parents were asleep, he quickly headed to his room in search of the book and when he found it he grabbed it. As he was lost in the thoughts of how this book had saved his life earlier today, in that very moment something had pinned him against the wall.
"Who the hell are you? Let go of me at once."
Anon completely caught off-guard by the Yokai was now pinned against the wall and against the time of losing the only friend he had or by losing his own life.
"How am I to let you go? When all these years I have been craving of eating human flesh and you are finally here, there's no way I would let you go without even having a bite of you."
Anon trying to force his way out of the submission hold from the yokai but he was not strong enough to escape the grasp of his hands, the yokai was in control of Anon.
A few minutes later Anon screams in pain, "AHHHHHHHHH…... WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? JUST LET GO OF ME…." As he turns behind and sees that his arm has been bitten off. The Yokai had started devouring him even before killing him.
"Oh how long I have waited for this day to satisfy my pleasure…... It sure was a worthy wait to have finally tasted human flesh. I can no longer resist myself, so I'll eat you up alive."
In this moment Anon found the slightest of chance and out of desperation, Anon escaped the grasp of Yokai when he found a small opening in his lapse of concentration, as soon as he was free from his hands Anon blew a punch to the Yokai's face to buy himself some time to run away while grabbing the book.
Severe blood loss from his right hand but Anon couldn't care less and began running for his life whilst bleeding because he knew if he and Rayleigh merged together as one nothing could stop them.
Blood loss was not the only problem Anon was facing he thought the punch he blew to the yokai should have been enough for him to buy enough time, but the Yokai was so persistent and he was still being chased by the Yokai. It was probably enough but the yokai could sense Anon's energy all the way.
Running and running for about ten minutes Anon's eyes slowly started to blackout, a sensation which is felt before one is about to faint. Anon had lost a lot of blood and he was on the verge of fainting but his will kept pushing him forward.
"Ray, I'm finally here. Please help me, Ray..." as Anon shouted asking for help, he fell down to his knees first and then collapsed directly on his face and fainted due to tremendous blood loss.
Rayleigh was himself injured in the war and was far worse off than Anon, "Anon, Are you alright?" there was no response from Anon and then Ray notices the injury on Anon's right arm and panics. "Hey kid, please respond to me…. Are you alright kid?"
Rayleigh pulled Anon's hand to check if there was a pulse reading in his hands and to his relief there was a pulse reading which relieved him from the fact that Anon is still alive, during this period of time Ray managed to beat two out of the four Yokai he was fighting the two remained still and they were quite strong.
The two yokai teamed up on Rayleigh while he was paying attention to Anon's situation and was distracted from the fight he was fighting earlier, the two yokai kicked Rayleigh and kicked him really far.
"Hey, you fool! You should be concentrating on us should you not? We'll punish you for not paying attention to us you fool!" after being kicked to the floor Rayleigh was given quite the beating.
The promise that Rayleigh had made, he felt the promise was drifting further and further away as time kept passing by because he found himself in a situation this time, he knew this was the end and there was no way out, without Anon's help he could not do it.
A defeated Rayleigh on the ground turns his head to Anon with tears filled up in his eyes, whispers towards the direction Anon was fainted and says "I'm so sorry, my only friend Anon I couldn't keep a promise. I have been bad to keep promises, I failed to keep one with my mother as well and I hope maybe if not in this life maybe in another you'll forgive me."
Blurry and teary eyes saw Anon moving Rayleigh thought he was hallucinating or seeing things but Anon actually moved this time, "Anon, can you hear me? Can you hear me, kid…..Oh god please tell me"
Anon responds, "Oh why are you whining even now before my death Rayleigh.." and at that moment Rayleigh hopes and expectations of keeping the promise had revived.
"Hey kid, if at all you can move. Do not question anything just do as I say. Eat me and you'll understand why, because I'm no longer of use to you."
Anon heard what Rayleigh had to say quite clearly but Anon came here with other ideas to help Rayleigh and not just betray him in this fight because Anon felt that he himself has to be blamed for getting persuaded so easily into the traps of the Yokai.
Anon eventually did fight himself and managed to stand up in that condition, reached his hands into the hoodie and pulled out the book which was given to him by Rayleigh to merge them together.
"I'm not here to fight and survive this alone, I would not betray my only friend because things aren't going the way I want it to go. I'm going to eat the paper and cast the spell quickly show some courage and fight with me instead of talking nonsense you were talking about a few minutes ago."
Out of all the odds Rayleigh's faith had been restored and now there was nothing other than victory in his mind, Rayleigh shouted from distance "Quickly read the spell and eat the piece of paper, I'm waiting to merge with you and beat them up."
The other Yokai who was chasing Anon back from his house shouted towards the other two Yokai saying "DO NOT LET HIM READ THAT OR WE SHALL BE DOOMED, WE'LL END UP BEING THEIR FEAST TONIGHT. HURRY UP AND KILL THE CHILD."
Rayleigh had the last ounce of energy left in him and used all of it, to protect Anon and buy him some time to read the spell and eat the paper. Rayleigh said, "To reach the kid first you have to beat me to death, I have made a promise to protect him."
Rayleigh attacked all of the three Yokai together at once but couldn't sustain for a very long time which eventually beat him to the ground, "Oh so we must kill you first before we head towards that useless human? I think it's a warmup before our main course meal." Replied the Yokai to Rayleigh.
"Anon, hurry up kid. Do you want me alive or not? How much time for you to read that spell kid….."