"What happened? Is she okay?!" Edric asked in a panic.
"SILENCE, BOY!" The demon roared. "She is fine. What happened is not any of your concern. Am I understood?"
"I-"
Tanner jumped onto Edric, clasping a hand over his mouth. "Yes, it's understood, sir."
The demon scoffed. Then it grabbed Yuna by the arm and forcibly lifted her to her feet. "Go there where the other children are."
Yuna looked up from the black sand and saw, beyond the carriages, there was a large group of children all cluttered together in a large group. And then she saw what she assumed the older girl had seen before, and her eyes widened and her heart stopped.
There, before the children, was a massive black spire with countless others around. It was like some kind of dark fortress, immense and foreboding. Red veins of strange energy ran through the cracks of the massive structures reaching hundreds of feet into the air. The structures were sharp and pointed like spikes, jutting up from the earth.
"Move it!" The demon growled, pushing Yuna forward. At first, she almost stumbled to the dirt, but she caught herself and began to walk slowly towards the other children, glancing back at Edric and Tanner. They were staring back at her.
The kids were all in a panic, but they kept their emotions in check, out of fear of being killed. Hushed whispers hung around the crowd of children as they all spoke amongst one another, speaking their concerns and thoughts.
"Yuna!" A few minutes later the voice of her elder brother came from behind the crowd. She turned and began making her way towards it.
"I'm here!" She called.
When she found her brother, he ran to her and they held one another in a tight hug.
"Are you alright?" He asked, breaking the embrace.
Yuna nodded. "I think so."
"Are you hurt?" He asked, checking her marking while ignoring his own.
"No," she said, ignoring the pain that was still shooting through her arm. "I'm fine, I promise."
"Greetings!!!" Came a booming voice.
Yuna and Edric looked over in the direction of the voice, as did everyone in the group.
"Guys! Guys! Are you guys okay? Is Yuna okay?" Came Tanner from behind. Yuna turned to him, about to greet him back and tell him she was fine, but Edric quickly shushed them.
"I welcome you to my humble abode!!" Came the voice.
Yuna looked up, seeing a man standing atop one of the shorter spires looking down upon them all. The moment she saw him, a shiver of fear ran down her spine, as though it was her natural instinct to fear him.
He wore a black cloak that billowed behind him in the faint wind, and his hair was long and black, hanging below his eyes. He had two black horns that pointed out before taking a sharp turn, pointing back. His ears were pointed and his skin was deathly pale, but for the most part he appeared human.
He had gleaming blood-red eyes that seemed to bore into your soul and fangs hid behind his lips. He looked like some kind of royal vampire.
"My name is Tamashi, now I know, you kids must be quite scared. I mean, you watched your families killed right in front of you and… well… some of you misbehaved." He grinned, glancing over at something.
Yuna followed his gaze and her eyes went wide, her heart exploding in her chest. There, to the side of the crowd, was a black carriage filled with dozens of dead children, their expressions frozen in contorted faces of fear, their dead eyes still wide with terror as their flesh was strewn open and torn apart, their blood spilling down the sides of the cage.
"Now, listen. I understand that you must hate us now, for certain. But I promise you, we have good reason for the things we did. I mean, only the weak ones out of you all would break down under these circumstances, so of course you will die. Weaklings will never survive, and if you break down in combat, you'll be killed in an instant." Tamashi shrugged, "I get that you are all just kids, but it's a necessary sacrifice really."
Tamashi crouched down on the spire, staring down at the children as he rested his chin on his fist.
"Tell me. Do any of you know why humans are so unique? Why your race is favored by the gods?" He waited a moment for a response, but none came. "Really? No one? Well, the answer is simple. Humans have two natures when they are born, Yin, spiteful and wrathful, and Yang, compassionate and loving. See, most beings only have one nature from the day they are born, for example, demons are born with the Yin nature, while gods are born Yang."
"So you might ask, 'what is so crazy about that?' Well, let me tell you. Humans may be born with two natures, but as they mature, they will always lean more towards one nature than the other. Most humans you've met in your lifetime-if not all- are of the Yang nature. Compassionate, loving, emotional, blah-blah heartfelt, weakling bullshit."
Tamashi raised his eyebrows and held up a finger. It was as though he was trying to act like a teacher. "Now, do you know what happens when a human nurtures the Yin nature? Well, to start, they lose almost all sense of emotion, and then they begin to gain immense strength and unnatural abilities. Now, you can't just do bad things to nurture the Yin, it's not that simple. There are special processes to it, but when they are followed, humans become something different; monsters."
"Werewolves, vampires, windego, all the things that go bump in the night, other than demons of course, are simply humans who nurtured their Yin nature! But, those kinds of human are long past gone. They posed a threat to the gods, who feared them, as Yin natured humans held incredible power, and so the gods took humans into their arms and raised them to be kind and weak."
"Since then, the Yin breed has been long since lost. But, do you know why you are here? Hmm?" Tamashi asked. "To revive that lost and glorious breed! You will all be raised under my supervision, and I will make you all strong enough to bring down the gods that abandon you and your kin! Don't blame us for the deaths of those you love, or the pain you've been through. Blame the gods. Did they not vow unto your kind that they'd protect you from us horrible demons? Well, now look at what happened. The gods don't care, they abandoned you, left you for dead. And now, I'm giving you the chance to get back at them. The only question is, are you strong enough?"