The possessed student focuses on Yama and the rest.
----------------------------------------
Yama is the first to get struck by the demon-possessed student; it shoots a right straight directly at Yama’s face. However, Yama was able to see the attack coming and blocks it with both of his hands in front of his face, one supporting the other.
The force of the attack pushes Yama back a few feet, the remainder of the students notice this and immediately back up while regrouping around him.
“Are you okay?!” Juso asks worriedly.
“I’m okay, he packs quite a punch though.” Yama replies, wiping his forehead.
"So, this is a demon." He thinks to himself.
Taking notice that its attack did not have the same effect as the rest, the possessed student moves on to the other students unfamiliar to Yama.
Two of them are quickly felled by him as the student releases a massive beam of demonic energy from his mouth causing the ground and trees to dissipate in its wake. Aori and the rest look shocked as they’ve never seen something that strong come from someone of their size before.
Kokkuri continues to watch in disappointment, as the mystery student engages once again, to defend the rest of the students the demon-possessed student was after.
He begins entering fast-paced hand-to-hand combat with the possessed student. Seeing this, Kokkuri and Yama raise their eyebrows at his strength.
“Not bad.” They both say to themselves in unison.
A ferocious kick to the abdomen sends the possessed student flying a few feet which gave the other student time to cast his Jutsu.
“Yōgan Mizūmi(Lava Lake)”
Placing both of his hands on the ground, the gravel in front of him, and stretching towards the possessed student; begins to melt and mold itself into a pool of lava.
Yama sees the action as foolhardy, and he is quickly proved right as the possessed student easily jumps high into the air. While at the same time focusing the Kishō in his feet, to create a platform in the air that it can bounce off of using its pure strength and Chi control.
The mystery student is shocked and is quickly met with an axe kick that instantly knocks him out. The possessed student continues his onslaught against the other two students.
“I’m getting all riled up!” Ryukyuko says surprisingly as his energy begins to rise.
“We’ll take him together.” Yama says in agreement.
“I don’t think I can wait!-” He replies.
“Big broth-” Before Ryukyuka could speak, Ryukyuko had already vanished and was face-to-face with the enemy after thwarting its assault on the remaining students.
“My turn.” He says aloud, as his right palm radiates brightly with a blinding light.
“Kagayaku Tenohira(Radiant Palm).”
Ryukyuko strikes the possessed student with a cleansing thrust of light to the gut. Kokkuri whistles in excitement, as the student is sent flying far into the woods. The light of the attack was so bright that no one could clearly see the contact.
Yama and the others repeatedly blink in disbelief.
“Well… that was fast.”
“Is it… over?” Yama says.
“It’s definitely not over!” Ryukyuko yells in Yama’s direction.
“I probably just brought us a little bit of time.”
Their facial expressions change.
“What are we going to do?!” Juso states.
“I suppose the only thing to do is to get Kokkuri-sensei so he can handle it.” Aori replies.
“I’m sure that crazy Sensei has already taken notice of the battle that has been going on.”
“If he wanted to handle it he could’ve done so already.” Yama argues.
“You’re right, I guess.” Aori agrees.
“There’s nothing for us to do but fight.” Yama says.
While Ryukyuko still has his back turned against the enemy so he could relay the information, an explosion of energy rises up from the forest destroying the greenery from its density. Ryukyuko looks surprised.
“Whoa, not even the Shomi(Possessed Humans) in the South had energy like this…”
“This isn’t any ordinary parasite-demon.”
“But it doesn’t matter.” He says while taking the stance to charge his energy.
“I can still take him!” Ryukyuko's energy begins to explode on a similar level of the enemy.
Feeling the giant presence come towards him at high-speed, Ryukyuko readies his defense. The Shomi lets out a numerous succession of high-powered beams soaked in demonic energy. At such levels, the evil essence from the energy begins to corrupt the surrounding area, causing regular Chi to be disrupted; resulting in lower level usage by those who do not utilize demonic energy.
Ryukyuko feels his power being sapped away at little by little but pays it no mind.
Using the beams and dust clouds as cover from its attack, the Shomi appears up under Ryukyuko, breaking his defense and readying himself to deliver a devastating uppercut. Ryukyuko is stunned that he was unable to see him and cannot dodge in time, he begins to brace his jaw and weaves backward.
However, he soon realizes won't need to, as in the same moment as the Shomi nearly connects, Ryukyuka appears out of the enemies’ shadow and executes a powerful suplex.
Seeing this take place Yama and the others immediately looked around and noticed that Ryukyuka had vanished.
“Were they both always this fast?” Yama says to himself.
Ryukyuko immediately regains his posture and goes in to support Ryukyuka in her attack. After landing the stunning suplex, Ryukyuka transfers to and jumps out of Ryukyuko’s shadow to regroup. While Ryukyuko delivers a swift kick to the Shomi’s ribs causing a few to break.
“I was almost a goner there,"
"Thanks for the backup!” Ryukyuko says.
“As long as you cast a shadow I’m always there!” She replies.
The Shomi begins to get up and regroup itself.
“Should we be letting them have all the fun?” Aori says.
Thinking for a second Yama replies with an eager smile.
“Not for another second!”
Yama and Aori immediately dash to regroup with the twins as Juso stays behind to support and gather the rest of the incapacitated students. The mystery student from earlier begins to regain consciousness.
“Can’t let you guys take all the credit! What if Sensei is watching?” Yama says to the Twins jokingly.
“You know... getting this close, there is one thing I just realized,” Aori says.
“Are we going to have to kill him? Isn’t he... our classmate?”
Everyone freezes.
----------------------------------------
No one says anything for a few seconds as they watch the Shomi slowly recover.
“Oh wow… you’re so right.” Yama says gasping internally.
“I completely forgot!!”
“Who was he?”
“That’s not important!” Aori replies quickly.
“What are we going to do?!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The Shomi has almost fully regained consciousness at this time, Ryukyuko interjects.
“From what I know, it’s not possible to just remove the demon by killing the host.”
“Although it would be the easiest route and the demon will return to the Underworld.”
“But it’ll just come back right? Didn't they exorcise Shomi back in the South?” Ryukyuka says jumping in.
“Exorcism?” Yama says slightly confused.
“What’s that?”
At this time, the possessed student has stood up and is analyzing who it should attack first.
“There’s no time to explain!” Ryukyuko yells.
“Demons have an aversion to Light nature, I’ll see what I can do.”
Ryukyuko instantly vanishes, and coming down on top of the Shomi, he unleashes a flurry of kicks toward its head. The Shomi is easily able to defend against such kicks, even though from Yama’s and the rest’s perspective, the assault was hard to track. “Insane.” Yama says to himself.
Seeing his first strike fail, as he is still above the Shomi, Ryukyuko fires off a powerful cannon of light from the palm of his right hand, using his left for support. At point-blank range, the Shomi was unable to fully dodge, however towards the end of the blast it had already regrouped backward.
The Shomi wails, feeling immense pain. The heat and holy-like nature of Ryukyuko’s light attack leaves burns, bubbles, and loss of hair on its head. Angered by the action, as soon as Ryukyuko lands from his attack, the Shomi quickly dashes at him to catch him off guard.
The movement speed of the Shomi had increased double from before. Even with Ryukyuko’s reflexes and speed, the left-over refraction from his beam has left his eyesight very-negligibly blinded, less than a second, but that was just enough time for the Shomi to deliver a devastating uppercut.
Appearing from below Ryukyuko, the Shomi charges his fist with dense-corrupting demonic energy. Enough to even infect light itself.
Ryukyuka immediately feels its weight and knows the outcome of the attack. She takes off to recover her brother but she isn’t fast enough. The deadly uppercut sends Ryukyuko flying several yards into the air. He passes out immediately.
Since he is too high, Ryukyuka is unable to support from his shadow, so instead, she focuses her Kishō around her legs in an attempt to jump and catch him.
As the entire exchange was going on, Kokkuri decides it may be time to intervene as the childrens only hope has been defeated. As he readies himself to leave he is stopped in his tracks by a thunderous roar.
“KO-KUN!!” Yama yells out furiously.
Caught in a moment of rage and worry Yama closes his teary-eyes calmly and begins moving his hands in a gentle motion, left and right, around and around; slowly.
The vibe around the area encompassing the students and Kokkuri begins to change.
Everyone can feel the ground beneath them start to soften; at this moment Aori realizes what is happening.
“Yama!!”
She yells at him, but her voice does not reach his ears.
At this moment, Ryukyuka has just barely reached Ryukyuko and starts to descend. The Shomi charges at Yama.
As it gets closer, particles of dust and minerals begin to float off the ground. The movement of Yama’s hands become a little clearer.
He picks up his tempo, and the ground instantly turns to sand.
Aori, Juso, and Kokkuri’s feet submerge themselves 2 inches deep, into what has now become one of Yama’s greatest weapons.
Aori looks at Yama intently, as the Shomi is only a few feet away.
Yama immediately crosses his arms in an X-like formation and shouts.
“Suna Chinkon Kyoku(Sand Requiem)!!” Uttering these words, the environment around everybody shifts.
High and heavy winds begin to blow and the ground which has been infused with Yama’s Kishō has now become sand. Infusing his Kishō in with his environment, Yama has essentially increased the range of his Kādo(Chi Field), the entire Daimond Field and its outskirts are under his domain.
The sand moves in fluid, octopus-like motion aimed at the Shomi. Seeing that it can no longer get close, the Shomi backs off.
However, the sand continues to track him down, and will not stop as long as Yama is moving his hands.
Juso, Kokkuri and Aori stare at Yama in slight awe.
“Oho? Who knew the kid had this under his sleeve.” Kokkuri says to himself.
“Amazing!” Juso says in wonder, as Aori makes a face resembling a proud mother.
At this time the Twins, have regrouped behind Aori.
“Did you know Yama could do this?!” Ryukyuka yells in shock, as it is hard to hear over the tremendous winds.
Yama continues to play his dirge, keeping the Shomi at bay, since it cannot get any closer, it fires off several beams of demonic energy in an attempt to blow apart the arms of sand.
A few get blasted to pieces but they are instantly regenerated by the vast amounts of sand available for use.
“I had no idea he was working on something like this,” Aori replies.
“This is crazy, but even I can tell is uses up a lot of Kishō.”
“Well, it looks like he can handle it.” Ryukyuka states.
“He does want to unify the world after all."
Aori smiles and continues to watch Yama’s battle intently.
----------------------------------------
Still spectating from afar, Kokkuri decides to let the battle play out a little longer.
Yama’s initial plan of waiting for the others to regroup while he fends off the Shomi is completed, and he is now able to go on the counter-attack.
Knowing that staying in one place too long is dangerous, the Shomi has been bouncing around the landscape since Yama’s attack has begun.
“You bastard!” Yama yells.
The Shomi shrieks.
In an attempt to get the Shomi on the ground, Yama begins to move a large amount of sand overhead of the possessed student. A giant shadow spanning 50 yards appears over the Shomi, as it starts to rain down spikes of hardened sand.
Using his arms, fingers, and hands to control the sand, some of the movement Yama makes appears completely exotic and unconventional; while retaining beauty and elegance.
The Shomi bounces around and continues to dodge Yama’s onslaught.
“What kind of demon is this,” Yama says to himself.
“This is a low-ranking demon?”
Noticing Yama slightly occupied, the Shomi immediately gathers both of his hands together and begins charging a massive amount of energy. Almost instantly an orb of demonic energy larger than Yama’s sand cloud is discharged.
Such an attack moves the Shomi back while in mid-air and moves it off trajectory.
Its mistake is very costly.
As soon as the smallest amount of the Shomi’s left foot touched the ground, it was abruptly grabbed by the sand. At this same moment, Yama used the remainder of the sand behind him to form a thick 5-walled barrier, reinforced by his Kishō.
The spectators continue to watch Yama’s battle in sheer amazement.
“Impressive.” Kokkuri says to himself.
As soon as the blast was negated, Yama focused all of his energy into capturing to Shomi.
The sand begins slowly encroaching upwards, the possessed student finds himself unable to move.
The Shomi begins to scream. Its voice reverberates in the air causing slight pain and discomfort.
Yama gets closer to the Shomi as it continues to become covered in sand up to its waist.
A few feet away, the sand has now reached up to his neck, and it starts to worm. Continuing to scream, Yama notices something in the back of the noise.
After some time, Yama begins to clearly hear a voice.
“...”
“...n”
“...No.”
Yama recognizes the voice to be the actual student.
At this moment, the anger in Yama subsides, however his attack and its pressure do not.
“Forgive me.”
In an empty tone, with little regret, and emotion, executing an almost out-of-character action, Yama continues to seal the Shomi.
Placing his thumb upside down, in the center of the Shomi’s forehead between the eyes.
“Suna No Mīra-Ka(Sand Mummification).”
The sand fully encases the student, and its Kishō can be felt slowly dissipating.
After the body is fully covered in the Chi-drenched sand, the entirety of the Shomi's body and surrounding spaces are encompassed in a cube of sand and fully sealed.
Finishing his sealing, Yama falls to one knee before Aori quickly rushes over. She catches him and helps him walk back to the others.
----------------------------------------
“That was incredible Yama, when did you learn to do all that?” Aori says excitedly.
Slightly out of breath Yama replies, “I told you… there’s always a moment to train!”
Aori laughs.
At that moment, Yama is suddenly thrown in the back of his mind, he sees nothing but darkness; however, he can feel a sense of proudness coming from it.
He is quickly jolted back and pays the experience no mind, yet he holds on to the kind feeling that came from it.
Ryukyuko wakes up from his daze.
“Good job Yama you did it!” Ryukyuka yells happily.
“W-what happened?” Ryukyuko interjects rubbing his jaw.
“Did I-?”
He sees Aori carrying Yama back.
“I see.” He says aloud.
“You got another one up on me eh?” Ryukyuko says to Yama exhausted, patting him on the back.
“You softened him up for me, thanks.” Yama replies smiling.
“Yama! Are you okay?!” Juso says worriedly as she runs to help carry him with Aori.
“I-i’m fine, thank you.” He says slightly blushing.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before!” She replies thrilled.
At this moment, Kokkuri appears behind the twins, facing Yama and the girls.
“Hello.” He says happily.
The twins were startled and dash forward towards Yama and the girls, turning around to face who just appeared behind them.
“I couldn’t even sense him.” was the general thought of everyone who saw him appear.
“Good job everyone!” He says, pretending as nothing happened.
Ryukyuka gets a little angered.
“HELLO?!”
“WHERE WERE YOU!” She shouts.
“Do not yell at your Sensei.” He says somewhat sternly.
“Nothing bad was ever going to happen to any of you.”
He pauses for a second.
“Except for the student that got possessed…” Kokkuri says in a slightly joking tone.
“What’s his name… Itoku Ue?”
“Poor kid.”
Hearing, or for lack of hearing the right expression in Kokkuri’s tone, Yama gets upset.
“You let us fight a fellow classmate to a near-death battle.”
“I thou-”
Kokkuri cuts Yama off.
“As I’ve said before. Ishinnoji has no place for weaklings, Itoku Ue allowed himself to be possessed by such a weak demon.”
“And you all had such a hard time against it.”
“It’s a shame re-”
Yama interrupts him, remembering the moment he heard the student’s voice.
“How dare you.” Yama says angrily.
“Look.” Kokkuri breaks in.
“The child will be fine, he will he exorcised and hospitalized afterward.”
“What was a freak accident turned into an opportunity to show you all the harsh realities of the real world.”
“Children like you are what’s going wrong with the Shinobi of today.”
“We are still at war and have been for nearly a two-centuries.”
“Moments of ceasefire do not mean moments of peace. The West must stand strong as the stronghold for the human race.” He says triumphantly.
“This will be the last time I mention this.”
“From this moment forward, I expect everyone to wake up every day like their life is on the line.” He pauses for a moment.
“Because.”
“It is.”
After uttering his words Kokkuri leaves and the children are speechless. They begin to reflect on his words and think about what just transpired.
Yama finds some truth to what he said.
“Tch.”
“Whatever,” Yama says.
“Let’s head back.”
The team begins to wake up and move the other students back to the Academy. Yama ends up supporting the mysterious student that engaged the Shomi first.
“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” Yama says to him somewhat ingenuously, while attempting to help him up.
“I’m Minamoto Yama, what’s your name?”
The student shrugs off his comment and gets up on his own.
“Taiyuji Suisei.” He says quickly and quietly before taking off by himself.
“Taiyuji, huh?” Yama says to himself, watching him walk away.
The rest of the team has finished waking everyone up, and they all make their way back towards the Academy.
By this time, there is still a couple of hours before classes are over, but as they reach the classroom, they notice a note on the door that has canceled classes for two days.
Everyone takes the notice differently and go their separate ways.
“Guess it’s time to go home, huh?” Yama says.
“Yeah,” Aori replies.
“Should we tell Itama-ji about what happened?”
“Why not, it should make for an interesting story.” Yama laughs.
----------------------------------------
After an intense training session and vicious battle, Yama and the rest make their way back to the castle, excited to tell their adopted father about their emotional day at school. Dinner went by quickly as Itama was proud, but wouldn’t express it too severely and mostly brushes it off in the end.