Fog covered the moonlight-illuminated mountain, The towering trees that populated the mountain swayed in unison as a cold wind swept through their branches, creating a haunting whistle. Their dark green leaves rustled as the mountain stayed still in anticipation. The only area the fog hadn't engulfed itself around was the very top of the mountain, where Akaza's humble dojo lay. Ali stood calmly at the entrance, in front of the door, the wind brushed across his body as the demon who had tormented him for so long stood 10 metres away from the dojo.
"Rip off! You finally face me! You look different. But still uglier than me." The demon blabbered nonsense as it commented on Ali's new patterns. Ali was caught off guard by the demon's bright look. Its oily skin had changed into a pale yellow, the most prominent change was on its shoulders. Around the thick neck of the demon, a multitude of gold and silver chains, stacked on top of eachother, so many they had tangled to make a mess of glistening metals. The demon laughed as it continued laughing, its laughter echoing through the desolate mountains.
"Well… if you won't say anything. I guess you won't have any last words before I kill you." The demon cackled as it stared directly into Ali's eyes. Ali looked into its wide dark eyes which boasted arrogance and pride. The demon felt its blood rush with rage and motivation, it screamed loudly with a sick grin on its face.
"You're dead today rip off! I've been waiting!" It shouted as it dashed forward, its fat feet digging into the ground as it sprinted towards Ali. It wasn't long before the distance between them closed in. The demon wide-eyed ran with its body leaning forwards, its numerous chains bouncing up and down.
Ali watched as the little goblin of a demon ran with its stubby feet. Bloodhungrily lurching its body towards him, it was a fearful sight. Despite the imminent danger, Ali stood still, his chest rising up and down in calm breaths.
"Watch out, rip-off!" the demon sneered, launching itself into the air, aiming to strike Ali with a powerful punch. Its fist clenched tightly behind its body. Its body twisted ready to thrust its fist and end this fight.
"See you in hell rip off!" The demon's eyes flared with confidence, its body filling with adrenaline and a godly amount of spirit. Not even a metre remained in between the demon and Ali, and Ali hadn't moved a muscle. The demon's eyes went wide as it saw Ali's face not even a metre away, its pudgy fist exploded forwards towards Ali's jaw. Ali very simply leaned to the right and let the fist fly right by his face. The attack, not even grazing Ali, left the demon open mid air. Fear struck the demon's heart. Ali twisted his torso to the right and tightened his fist, his feet dug into the ground. With his left fist he swung at the demon.
SMASH!
Ali's fist smashed into the demon's chest, Ali pushed the fist forward even more and propelled the demon away. As it hit the floor, it spat out blood and it's body tumbled backwards. Dirt clouding as it's body skidded on the ground. Its ego shattered as it sat up on the floor in fear, as it pushed up on the floor its arms ached in pain. Its chest pulsing in pain from the shock of the punch. The demon felt pain every time it moved, the punch's impact had reached even it's legs. The demon's entire body throbbing in agony. As it looked forward, fear paralysed the demon, the silhouette of Ali showing as the dust in the air dispersed made the demon go pale.
As Ali started walking forward, his very presence sent the demon into panic. The demon's hands grabbed at the dirt and it twisted its body and scrambled to try to get up. Anxiety reached the very fingertips of the demon, it started to take deep breaths, its legs struggled to cooperate. The demon's body shivered as the realisation of its impending death washed over it. Tears welled up in its eyes, and it crawled forward desperately, gasping for breath in short, fearful bursts. It immediately started screaming when the cold, terrifying grasp of Ali's hand clenched at the back of its neck.
"Please let me go! Please! Please!" The demon shamelessly begged, terror infiltrating its heart.
Every muscle in its body tense and squirming for dear life. The demon's head was wrenched backwards roughly, before it was thrusted into the hard floor. The demon's ears rang as the impact shocked it. Surges of pain jolting across its body. Ali's expression was in disgust, he didn't exactly feel good about absolutely thrashing the demon. The arrogant demon had got its ego shattered so fast it was sad. It waited 3 months for the fight to take 3 minutes. Ali sighed and shoved the demon's head into the ground again.
"Alright. Let's try this out." Ali thought to himself. He had been training for this exact moment.
Ali took a deep breath, clenching the demon's neck even tighter, feeling the cold touch of its chains against his wrist. The demon writhed relentlessly, overwhelmed by true fear. Suddenly, it felt its very life force draining away, its vision blurring, and its heart slowing. Weakly, the demon gasped, "What... are you... doing?" Its vision faded to white, its blood ceased to flow, and its body slowly lost all energy. Ali's hand grabbed tightly at the demon's neck, his other hand grabbed at his own wrist. His jaw clenched, a feeling of power surged into his body, slowly seeping throughout his entire body, he felt the energy slowly filling him. The absorption was working. The demon on the floor was having adverse effects, its pale yellow skin turned depressingly grey. Its screams got softer and softer til it's once fat body looked like skin and bones. The only colour that remained was it's chains. Ali let go of the now lifeless demon. He stared at his hand. He hadn't felt this energetic in a while. He stared at the demon's corpse. He grabbed at the thick tangled chains and pulled them over the demon's head.
Without a second to spare, he swirled around and threw the chains in a random direction into the sky, the chains split as they flew through the air, growing smaller and smaller as they got further from the peak of the mountain, sparkling before they were swallowed by the thick fog that covered the ground below the mountain.
As Ali admired the view, a loud crash boomed behind him, wind rushing onto Ali's back. Ali turned around, dust falling as Akaza stood in the middle, he had just returned from whatever he was doing. The Upper Moon stared at the skeleton-like corpse with intent to know what had happened. "What'd you do?" Akaza asked Ali, with no care in the world for the corpse, he launched it with a strong kick. The corpse tumbled down the steep mountain slope, rolling into the dense family of trees that laid on a large flat platform below. Akaza turned to Ali for his answer.
"I absorbed the demon. I don't know how to explain it, there's a book inside." Ali yawned and walked back into the dojo. Ali's body felt brand new, for the past 3 months Ali could barely get by with the energy he got from sleep. Now he understood why sleep wasn't a good choice for demons. The more time he spent as a demon, the more he truly understood the difference between humans and demons.
After Ali showed Akaza the book and explained for a couple of minutes, Akaza began to understand the extraordinary feat Ali had accomplished. Seated on the floor, Ali leaned backwards a bit, he stared at Muzan's book that was flat on the ground that Ali used to explain.
"Wow… You've really surpassed my expectations… No wonder you were meditating 6 hours a day. I wonder what Muzan would think of this." Akaza commented on Ali's achievement.
Ali looked at Akaza and leaned back a bit.
"Wouldn't he already know? He can read the mind of all demons right?" Ali recalled something Akaza had said a couple weeks ago when they were talking about several aspects of being a demon. The conversation stretched for hours, Ali had gained information about Muzan, the various Upper Moons, and even Akaza's past.
"Not all. He can only read the ones that he had made into demons. I don't know why when I turned you into one… Something happened when you became a demon, and you became a demon created by me and not Muzan." Akaza explained. Ali thought about this hard, almost all demons were created by Muzan himself, he wasn't sure how demons were exactly made, but, it must be some complex practice. What was differently done that he created by Akaza and not Muzan? Is there a difference? Would his powers be different? He had several questions. But there was one that he found the most important.
"So you can read my mind?" Ali stood in worry. He had some questionable thoughts every single day, and if Akaza had been reading those…
"No, I don't know how to read minds. I don't want to read your thoughts though. '' Akaza wasn't confused as to why Ali was so worried. Occasionally when they were both chilling in the dojo, Ali would start telling Akaza about random thoughts, they would absolutely torture Akaza. His worst memory was the time when Ali spoke for two hours on how rice is the best food ever made.
Ali sat back down and sighed in relief. Just as he closed his eyes a bit. SLAM! Ali's eyes opened quickly and he saw in front of him Akaza sat cross-legged. In front of him a chess board, Akaza with a particular glint in his eye, a glint of determination, held out his hand to start the challenge.
"Let's go." Akaza was more determined than ever to beat Ali in chess. Ali had beaten Akaza every single time they had played, leading with a total record of 23 - nil. Ali laughed and turned to the chess board, shaking Akaza's hand.
"Alright." Ali grinned, "Don't cry when you lose."