"So, this is the DHA headquarters, huh?" Ryuku asked as he looked around. He put his bags on the ground as he saw the tropic location. His sunglasses were slid down, showing some of his eyes. "Pretty fancy, if you ask me."
"Well, it is a twelve-billion-dollars-a-year project. What did you expect?" Yuri asked.
"Hakura told me that it would be fancy, but I never imagined something this large." Yuki claimed.
"I thought you came here last year," Daisuke gave Yuki a look.
"No. Me and Hakura thought that we should, but it turned out that we didn't think I was ready."
"She thought you weren't ready to come to this, but she thought you were ready to fight me?"
"Well, you forget: you were a lot weaker back in the day."
"Yah, I guess you're right." Daisuke said, embarrassed that he didn't even think about that.
"Well, what should we do first?" Yuri asked as she looked around the entirely new reconstructed building. Last thing the whole group heard was that Kagori had beaten the crap out of the place, and now it was the nicest building in the entire world, possibly.
"First things first," Daisuke said. "We should get our rooms and put our stuff away. Then we should meet this 'Jin' kid."
The group nodded at the instructions. They headed towards the lobby, and they checked in. Like they thought, Ryuku and Daisuke roomed together, and so did Yuri and Yuki. Door to door, to be exact. As soon as they threw their bags into their rooms, they headed out to the lobby again.
"Do we even know anything about this Jin person?" Yuki asked. "Do we have a physical description of him or anything that can help trace him?"
"No, we don't have jack." Ryuku said as she solemnly shook his head. "And we only have an hour before we have to meet in the tournament stadium."
"Well, either we're going to have to see what he's like as soon as we get there, or we book down and find him now." Daisuke said with an energetic tone, trying to get everybody pumped and ready.
"Um, excuse me." A meek voice said behind Daisuke. Daisuke turned around to see a kid, maybe a year younger than the group. He had chocolate brown hair that ran down to his back, kept in a ponytail. With his wide eyes, he might have even looked three years younger than the group. "Are you Hiromushu Daisuke?"
"Um, yeah. Are you Jin?"
The kid's face brightened up.
"No, sir! I'm Hirotogo Aiji at your service!" the kid smiled with a slight salute. "It's such an honor to finally meet the greatest Demon Hunter ever. I won't let you down."
The kid talked fast, and Daisuke noticed it. He was a like a younger version of Momo, but without the shoving in the mouth of food. And the way he spoke, it almost had no connection or relation to the last sentence, but at the same time, in the big picture, made the sense that it needed.
"What happened to Jin?" Yuki asked.
"He decided to just leave this one out, and sent me instead. He said I would have a better chance."
"H…How old are you?" Daisuke questioned.
"Thirteen."
"Exactly what I thought." Ryuku said with a sigh. "A pipsqueak."
"What's that suppose to mean?" Aiji question. "I can fight, I swear I can. Just you wait, I'll show you guys." The last sentence didn't sound angry, but rather like Aiji wanted a challenge, and was just accepting the greatest one of them all. The grin had given the subtext away.
"Well, what can you tell us about yourself, Jin?" Yuri asked in a motherly tone. Daisuke and Ryuku didn't know what it was, but there was a weird look in his eye. Something that could be found any teenage guys eyes when they fell upon a beautiful woman. The same eyes Ryuku gave Yuri when they first met. All in all, Aiji thought Yuri was hot.
"Well, I, uh…" he stammered. "I live over in Osaka, and I've been Demon Hunting for about six years."
"You've been Demon Hunting since you were seven?" Ryuku asked, a little in disbelief and trying to pry open the lie.
"Yep." Aiji said with a smile. "Well, technically, I've been able to see Demons all my life, but I started to hunt them at seven. It's a family custom."
"Family custom?" Daisuke asked. "Both your parents are Demon Hunters?"
"Yeah." Aiji said, "Why? You make it sound weird or something."
"Well, with our parents, we're half-breeds." Daisuke said as he looked at Yuki.
"I have absolutely no faith in the fact that I may have Demon Hunting parents." Yuri proclaimed.
"That's weird," Aiji said. "Because usually there has to be a Demon Hunting gene for a kid to be a Demon Hunter. I mean, there are special occasions, but that happens every once in a while. It's really rare."
"So, you mean that my parents could be Demon Hunters?" Yuri asked. "That would be weird."
"So, how are going to fight all these teams?" Aiji asked, his eyes gleaming at Daisuke for a plan.
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean, 'what you mean'? You don't have a plan? What kind of Demon Hunter are you? How do you not have a plan!?"
"What are you whining about?" Ryuku asked, sounding annoyed at Aiji. "We've never had plans and look how far we've gotten."
"I'm pretty sure you guys have cut it close a lot of times, haven't you?"
The look on Ryuku's face had said that the kid was right.
"What do you mean, exactly, when you're talking about a plan? We don't even know who are enemies are going to be. How are we going to be able to plan something if we don't know strengths and weaknesses?" Yuki inquired. "It's just contradicting."
"Well, if I get the names, I can get the info." Aiji said with a smile. "I know just about every single Demon Hunter in Asia and their stats. I'm working on America, and Europe I have very little knowledge, but they're sending in their big guns, so it's the obvious people, right?"
"What do you mean, every person in Asia? That's impossible." Ryuku said. It sounded like the two were going to have a rough time getting along with each other.
"With all due respect," everyone knew that Aiji said that just to tick Ryuku off. The polite manner of how he said it, it drove Ryuku insane. Any normal person would have shouted back, but with this, it made Ryuku angry. "My family has very big connections with people around the world. We're sorta the DHA library of Demon Hunters. We have cases on every single Demon Hunter we hear of at the most recent information. Sure, there may be some Demon Hunter's whose stats are underestimating their ability, but that's because nobodies heard of them for a while."
Will all Demon Hunters please make way to the stadium to meet with your team? Please enter the left wing if your leader's last name begins with A to M. N to Z will meet in the right wing. The PA system rang out, and everybody stopped doing whatever it was that they were doing at the moment and listened.
"Is that you, Daisuke?" Yuri asked. "Are you our leader?"
"I guess so."
"So, this is how it begins, huh?" Ryuku said with a grin. "Well, I'm sure as hell a'int going to be tired from exhaustion. I'm too pumped to even imagine being tired. Let's go, I want to start. I mean it, let's fight." Ryuku had never been this hyped up before. Usually, he took things slowly, almost at a slacker's pace, but now he was up and at 'em.
"Well, I know that we're going to meet a lot of teams. But I'm still worried about Kagori's group."
"I'm so bored." Sakura said as she sat on a couch in the glass room that hung attached to the ceiling of the 200 foot tall dome. There had been food on the table for eating, and the floor in one spot was made out of glass to watch the fight from below. And there was a TV screen, and the whole tournament was filmed in a football game like basis. The cameras had constantly changed, and they were always given the best angle for better dramatics and view. But Sakura was still the most bored person in the room.
The whole room belonged to the five who were going to fight and Moku and Iro. Kai was pacing around as he ate, Sakura remained on the couch, Ken and Yukin were glaring at each other, and Iro and Moku were watching the fight with Haku.
"Quit complaining. We'll get out there and fight when the time's ready." Kai said as he swallowed. "Besides, I don't think Hiromushu has a chance against us, so we might as well let him take his time. Let him save all the energy that he needs into the fight with us. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The harder they fall, the more fun everything in life is."
"That's so wrong," Moku said with a slight laugh. It wasn't amused, but wondering how anybody could live with such a train of thought.
"Do you really think that Daisuke would be weak enough to just sit and die that easily?" Ken asked. "He killed the other five, hadn't he? I mean, he can't be simple, that's all I'm saying."
"Yeah, but he and his friends only took on one or two of them at a time. When he takes us five, it's going to be freakin' hell." Kai said with a large grin.
"They're not going to know what hit 'em." Sakura agreed as the two high-fived each other.
"I'm not so sure about that," Moku said, pointing at the TV screen.
Daisuke and his friends were up, and they were going up against a relatively good team. As soon as the countdown ended, you could see Daisuke and his friends charge forward. It seemed like only four or five swipes per person had gone down, and the match was over, Daisuke's team the winners.
"If they could take them out with so much ease, I'm not sure how great we're really going to do." Ken said. "He's heaps good, that's for sure."
"Wh, c'mon, Ken." Kai said. "Don't be such a downer. There's no way we can possibly lose this match."
"Well, I suppose if we target the right people for our special abilities, we may have a chance." Yukin said.
"What do you mean?" Haku asked.
"If we go for the people who can't handle our strengths as well. For example, since Kai is good at speed, he'd go after the slowest person. When they die, we'll have a two-on-one match, and they'll be easier to kill. Eventually, it'll be every one of us against just one of them."
"You guys are crazy." Iro said. "Taking on the Hiromushu team like it's nothing? You keep forgetting, they adjust to any situation. There really is no weakness. Either they win, or you're going to have to slow them down to the point of exhaustion before even getting a good gash on them."
"Iro's right." Moku said. "I think you guys should keep your distance in a fight and wind them down. It's a better policy."
"Keep our distance?" Kai laughed. "Are you nuts? They'll just charge after us and kill us."
"Not if you pretend to run away. You should know that Daisuke has a huge heart. If you're not going to fight, he's not going to want to fight you. He's really not a predator, just somebody who fights for something he believes in."
"If you like him so much, why are you with Kagori."
"Because, I don't agree in the terms Daisuke lives in. I think Kagori has a better approach in the world."
"They're on again." Sakura called out.
They watched the next match that Daisuke and his friends had, and it was the same results as last time: easy.
"Well, hope you guys are still pumped, because you're next." Iro said with a devilish grin.
"Twelve rounds, sixty people, twenty-eight point five gallons of blood. You do the math and ask me why I hate this." Ryuku said. "All this stuff is really pointless. No offense, Daisuke, but I don't think a bunch of archives should be worth his much."
"I feel the same way, but we're already here." Daisuke said with panted breath. He looked out at the field to see some workers taking off the corpses from the last fight they had.
"We're in the finals now, so the next group is our last group." Yuki examined the board of challenges.
"Hopefully they'll be as simple as the last group of people." Yuri sighed. "I just want to get this over with."
"But, now we know we're fighting the best for last." Daisuke said sternly. "Kagori's group is bound to be the last people we fight."
"Are they really that hard?" Ryuku asked.
"Yep," Aiji answered as he popped out of nowhere. "These guys are about twice as good as you guys. If you've only been holding back about an eighth of your strength, then you're SOL."
"Hey, twerp. Perhaps you should shut your mouth and wait for the next match."
"Hey," Aiji said defensively. "I saved your hide twice today. You have no right to yell at me like a child!"
It was true. Aiji was a lot better than the group could have guessed him to be. And when people were about to strike Ryuku in the back, Aiji had managed to save the day and get the either killed, or off track. Aiji was probably as good as Ryuku and Daisuke, which was great by their standards.
The group stood off the arena, but continued to look out unto it. It was time; Kagori's group was here. It was time to fight. Daisuke looked at each individual, and looked heavily into their eyes. Every single one of them seemed confident. Not cocky, but confident. Wish I had that feeling. Daisuke thought. Kagori's group stood at the edge closest to Daisuke and his friends.
"You ready to do this?" a skinny strawberry-blond hair kid called out. "It's okay if you take your time. I mean, it is your last fight for the rest of your short lives."
"Oh, yeah!? Well, Daisuke and I are going to sweep you guys all around the floor. We're gonna stomp you out so bad, you'll–" Daisuke covered Aiji's mouth, and continued to look into the group.
"May the best team win." Was all he said.
"Don't worry," A girl who was just putting gloves on told him. "We will."
The team walked out onto the other side of the stage. Daisuke uncovered Aiji's mouth with Aiji seemed calm enough.
"Which person is which, Aiji?"
"Huh? Oh, well, the strawberry is Kai. Fast runner. Then we have Sakura, I'm not sure what she does, exactly. Then, we have the guy with the scar on his eye, Yukin. That bulky guy? He's Ken, the Australian badass. And the last kid is Haku. I'm not even sure why's in this group."
"Well," Daisuke said. "I think that we may have a hard battle ahead of us."
"Is that all you're going to say?" Aiji asked.
"There's really nothing else that you can say." Yuki said for Daisuke. "All we can say is the truth. There are no sugar-coated lies that we can tell ourselves, because we know they're obviously lies. So, why even bother, if it's just going to make us even more nervous?"
"She's got a point kid." Ryuku said. Everyone knew he said that just to rub something in Aiji's face.
"Well, all we can do is hope for the best." Daisuke said, stepping onto stage. The others followed him, and they traveled to the center.
When Kagori's team saw Daisuke and his friends, they, too, traveled to the center of the battlefield. They stood ten feet away, just looking at each other.
"Well, I suggest you cast that spell thing for your books. I want don't want this be to drawn out any longer than it needs to be." Daisuke said grimly.
"No problem." Kai said, taking out his book. His friends followed, and they all had their strength needed.
The entire arena had gone quiet. The people of the stands had stopped talking entirely. Nobody moved, and not a word was spoken. Until Daisuke drew his sword. And his friends followed, and then Kagori's group did likewise.
"Let's do this." Aiji said with a grin.
Daisuke was the first to charge. Nobody else moved, not even Daisuke's friends. Not even anybody on Kagori's side. They stood there, waiting for Daisuke to get there. As Daisuke ran, he looked for the right target. Somebody he thought that he could take easily. For some strange reason, Daisuke aimed for Yukin, the harder looking one. Daisuke swung his sword, and Yukin parried.
The two swung their weapons around for ten seconds, the sounds of their swords clashing echoed throughout the whole place. Until Yukin landed a punch on Daisuke's left cheek, and Daisuke flew back, in what seemed liked slow-motion. When his back landed on the ground, the crowd shouted in applause, and with that, both sides started to attack. The fight had started.
Ryuku had gone straight for Yukin. Ryuku had declared that nobody was just going to sock Daisuke in the face and get away without a proper example of "an eye-for-an-eye". Ryuku and Yuki had clashed weapons together for a couple of seconds Ryuku ducked under a swipe, and swept Yukin off his feet. But even as Yukin fell, he ended up doing a back handspring. When he landed back on his feet, he sprung forward and brought his sword up to a striking range. With Ryuku in a mild state of shock, it was hard to move out of the way. Yukin cut a good portion of skin on Ryuku's left arm, and Ryuku retreated for the most part.
"What's wrong?" Yukin taunted in a cold tone. "I thought you were going to destroy us. Is this all you pathetic Demon Hunters have to offer?"
"This?" Ryuku grinned as he looked at his bleeding arm. "This is nothing. I'm just warming up."
"Well, you better play for real, otherwise you're going to–"
A punch in the face had both sent Yukin flying, and also shut up him. As Yukin sat up and looked at Ryuku, Ryuku still had that grin.
"I fight when I'm ready, not when you're done talking."
"A cheap-shot artist, are you?"
"If it keeps me alive, it keeps me alive. If you had known Hakito, he would have told you the exact same thing."
"So, you're the fool who decides what rules to play by, are you? A fool, that's what you are."
"Keep talking, and I'm going to have to cut out that tongue of yours just to keep us fighting."
Yuki had her hands busy with Haku. She kept attacking, but all he did was dodge her attacks. No blocking, no attempts to advance to offense, not anything that a person who desired to win usually did. It was either he wanted to die, or something very wrong was going to happen. His movements seemed to be very liquid-like. His shoulders slid back, and he just seemed to flow from one place to another. At one point, Yuki almost had a decent mark on him, but he bent his head in between his legs.
"Missed me," he said with a smile. Something had been eerie about his smile, and Yuki had just wanted to destroy him even more than before. And every time she had missed, he had said the exact same thing, the exact same way, and it pissed Yuki off more and more.
Aiji was having trouble with Ken. The big lug versus the small shrimp. Aiji stood his ground, even as Ken started to advance into Aiji's area.
"A small tyke, aren't ya?" Ken asked as he chuckle. "You're in for a bit of hell, little fella."
"I'll show you hell."
Aiji started to rapidly punch in Ken's direction, but Ken had blocked every single attack with his arms. Aiji started to combined punching, kicking, and various break-dancing like attacks, but Ken had blocked them all.
"You've got some nice moves for a small tyke like ya. But let me show you how you're suppose to move around."
In a flash, Ken had Aiji by the throat, and kneed Aiji in the gut. No air could come in or out of Aiji's system. Then, Ken gently tossed Aiji into the air, no higher then eye level of Ken, and head-butted Aiji in the face. The head-butt sent Aiji flying and skidding across the ground.
Yuri was the only one to fight a girl. But, luckily, she was use to fighting nothing but girls in her life, so it was an advantage. Yuri never said this, but fighting a male had usually frightened her, due to her past experiences, but a girl? That was a cakewalk.
Yuri looked at Sakura, who hadn't moved. She had her arms crossed at the chest, and she wasn't even looking at Yuri. She was looking out somewhere else. Yuri wasn't sure if she should attack or not.
"You got a cute boyfriend." Sakura said. "Too bad I'll have to take him."
"Take him?" Yuri asked, blankness written on her face. What is she talking about?
"Yeah. Pretty damn cute. Can't just let someone like him slip by. Although, I don't think I'd ever think twice about even dating him if it wasn't for you."
"Me?" Yuri was still confused.
"Yeah. No guy's fun to have if it means there's no competition in it."
Yuri got the hint.
"You touch Daisuke, and I swear I'll rip your arms out of your limbs."
"You'll have to move first." Sakura said, and when Yuri tried, she was completely stiff.
"What the hell…?" Yuri looked around her, and didn't see anything, but she felt like there was something stuck to her.
"They don't call me the Black Widow for nothing." As Sakura grinned, Yuri could see a set of fangs that started to drip with glee.
"Oh, great." Yuri said to herself. "I get the blood-sucking one."
Daisuke started to stand and saw that Kai was the only not fighting. Kai seemed a little cocky, cockier than Daisuke could be able to handle with.
"So, you're the great Hiromushu. You're the exact way I pictured you. Weak, small, skinny…"
"You better watch it," Daisuke threatened.
Suddenly, Daisuke was flying in the air, his sides burning with pain. As soon as he realized that he wasn't on the ground, he was hit again by something, and crashed into the ground, creating a hole. When Daisuke painfully stood, he saw Kai still grinning.
"Or what? You're going to hurt me? Well, let me tell you something, Hiromushu: You can't hit what you can't catch."
"What?" Daisuke asked.
"Still wondering what the hell happened to you? I have the book of the cheetah. I have the power of the fasted animal on land. Do you possibly think you can handle someone as strong as me? Don't kid yourself. You're nothing but a wannabe."
Before Daisuke could even throw out a few words, punches landed on his cheeks, making him bleed from the mouth. Cuts had started to be made. Small ones, and they started to gradually grow into deep, bleeding cuts.
Ryuku was thrown on the ground by Yukin by the throat. Ryuku's throat was completely closed, and he wasn't able to breath at all. With what Ryuku could guess, he would only have about thirty seconds before he passed out, and probably a minute before he was strangled to death. Luckily, Yukin had to grab Ryuku with both hands.
Ryuku drew a bow and arrow, and loaded it. Ryuku looked around as best as he could, looking at his friends, seeing their troubles. Ryuku looked at each and every single one. Time was running out, and not just for him. Finally, Ryuku let go of the arrow, but his aim wasn't at Yukin. It was at Daisuke. But what it hit was the once whirling torpedo Kai. Kai was struck in the neck with the arrow. Nobody thought that such a thing could, or would, happen.
"You're a fool." Yukin said. "You should have taken that shot on me. You might have gotten away with living a couple more seconds. Don't you see, Kai was a cocky fool. I won't make the same mistakes."
But the minute he spoke those words, Yukin's eyes shot open, and his grip released. He rolled over, landing next to Ryuku. Ryuku say the sword in his back, and in his neck.
Daisuke ran up, taking the two swords out of Yukin's body, and rushed up to Sakura, cutting her down as well, easily, as if Daisuke had held everything that he really had in his life behind a door nobody was allowed to open. His strength was far more than Ryuku could have guessed. Ryuku was as useful as Gi in a fight, physically, when it came down to Daisuke's strength he was showing off now.
Seconds later, every single of the five had been fallen due to Daisuke's hands. When Ken was the last to fall, Daisuke fell to his knees. Ryuku and the others walked together over there. When they got to him, they heard a noise and stopped. Then they saw Daisuke's shoulders shaking. Yuri noticed this first: he was crying.
Yuri knelt next to him, and put her arms around him. Nobody knew why he was crying, but they thought that comforting would be best.
"I…" he started. "I killed them."
"You knew that this would happen, Daisuke." Yuki said gently. "You knew this was going to have to come down to death in the end."
"No," Daisuke said offensively, and loud. "You don't understand. Something happened. That Sakura girl… she begged for mercy. And did you see what I did?" he pointed to her, and the group could see one of her arms had been slashed off, seven pierces in her torso, and three slits in the throat. "I'm out of control."
The group stood there, looking over at Daisuke. There was nothing that could be said. There was good news and bad news to this whole thing. They could get the books they needed, but Daisuke had suddenly become a cold-blooded killer.
"Either way," Ryuku finally managed to say, his voice serious for once. "This is the last chapter on those kids with the books. We took out ten of them, didn't we?" He asked. "And ten is the number needed to break that seal thing along-side with the golden book."
"Yeah, that's right." Yuri said. "But what exactly happens?"
"First of all, we need to talk to Hakura." Yuki said. "She has the ten books. And after that, we can found out all for ourselves."