Sinerman mansion - Basement
Aren turned towards the door and left Velica alone for a moment. Eventually, she had nowhere and no way to escape. Slowly, he walked up the stairs and grabbed the door handle. Apparently, he started to open it, but as if someone had suddenly struck it, the door handle was ripped from his hand, and the door slammed shut again.
"What?" Aren frowned, concerned. He pressed the handle again, but this time he couldn't move the door even as he braced himself against it with all his strength.
As he was so denied, the door suddenly eased open. Aren hadn't expected it, so he flew away from the door and fell halfway back down, rolling the other half. Luckily, Aren was resilient, and falling was one of the first things he learned at the academy, so he made it through without hurting himself more.
"Damn!" He groaned as he picked himself up off the ground and looked up the stairs where the door was wide open. He made his way up again with his weapon at the ready. The red blade pulsed slightly with red light like a beating heart, and Aren's hand trembled slightly, not out of fear but because he felt his spiritual power was still impaired as if he had failed to connect with all his spirit beasts.
As his foot touched the last stair, the door slammed shut on its own again. "'Enough! Who's doing this!?" Aren barked, running over to the door and swinging his weapon to destroy the door, but the door was sneaky and burst open again, and Aren managed to grab the wall this time, or he would probably fall down again.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The door quickly went crazy and opened on its own and slammed shut again. Aren looked at them worriedly when he noticed something else.
He stared into the hallway beyond the door, and a chill ran down his spine. Something was coming down the hallway towards the door. Each time the door slammed and reopened, the creature was closer and closer.
The creature was shrouded in a milky white haze while its face was immersed in the darkness of the hood, and all that could be seen were two glowing eyes, the color of cyanide.
Aren's eyes widened in shock as he realized what was coming towards him. He jumped to the door the moment it slammed shut again and slammed into it with full force to keep it from opening again.
Then he put one hand to his nose, fingers raised. "Sita! Come to me!" He called urgently.
He felt the tattoo on his back move, and a cloud rolled out of his back and rose above his head, turning into a small three-tailed fox.
The fox was small, and its fur was a combination of white and black. The large orange eyes gave it a cute look, but the fox itself looked rather angry. Its fur was a little wild, and it moved on its own as if it was underwater.
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"What?" the fox named Sita asked, and his voice didn't sound cute at all. It was the voice of a grown man.
"Sita, not now! We're dealing with a feral spirit! Seal the room, now!"
Sita the fox snorted and began to wag his three tails. "No, Sita! This is a ghost with a human form; you have to do your best!"
Sita stopped wagging his tails and stared at Aren for a second before his entire form crumpled and changed back into the form of a cloud. It then grew larger, and a new creature emerged from the cloud. This time it looked like part fox and part human. However, he was still small in stature like a twelve-year-old child and wore a black and white kimono.
"Aren! What happened to your spiritual power? I'm stuck halfway!" Half-fisted Sita complained, but he was already working on the seal. He linked all his fingers together, and when he pulled them apart, red glowing strings stretched from his fingers, which he then began to assemble and join into a cube with quick movements. Sita's deep orange eyes focused sternly on his task.
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"Later!" Aren replied, jerking in fright when he heard someone knock gently on the door he was leaning against. Aren knew very well that the ghost was just messing with them and had no problem walking through the door as it was.
"Done!" Sita called out, tossing a cube made up of red strings into the air, which suddenly grew larger and expanded until it covered the entire room. The basement looked like it was covered in a red luminous net.
Aren sighed and stepped carefully away from the door, descending the stairs backward. The door didn't open by itself again, and no one knocked. "What did you do?" Sita asked, tucking his hands into his wide sleeves and looking very stoic despite his height and appearance.
"Hiccup!" His ears perked up when he heard the hiccup, and he turned around, only to see the scared and chained girl.
"Velica Stragos. The youngest daughter of the Stragos family. Chained, terrified, in a dark cellar," Sita spoke slowly and turned to Aren, his orange eyes very cold.
"What did you want to do?" he asked.
Aren returned the look and folded his arms across his chest. "You know very well what," he replied without regret.
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Sita shook his head. "You've really lost your mind," he sighed. "Never mind. What about that ghost? It can't come to us at the moment, but we can't go out either."
Aren looked up at the door and lifted his lip in annoyance. "Hell, I don't know. It's definitely a Higher Spirit. We can't deal with one of those. At the very least, it takes a Second Tier Spiritualist, or more likely a Third Tier. Novices like us don't stand a chance," Aran lowered his red eyes and sighed.
He didn't believe that Sinerman's mansion was cursed, which was why he dared to use this place. He had no idea that such a powerful spirit resided here! Why hadn't someone captured it long ago, or at least banished it back to the spirit world? This was beyond his comprehension. It had been made clear among his first lessons with the theory that free spirits were not to be allowed to roam the earth among the living.
The damage these wild creatures could do was too great. So as Spiritualists, they had to capture these creatures to make a contract with them or at least drive them back to where they belonged if not directly destroy them.
Everyone in the area knew Sinerman Manson and all the various rumors about this place. You'd think the mansion would have been checked out by now. Plus, as a historical landmark, it was undergoing regular inspections and repairs. No reports of a feral ghost.
"It's probably only been here for a while. There's no way that the ghost won't be noticed for a long time," muttered Aren, who had convinced himself that the Higher Spirit had only been here for a short time.
"So we'll just have to wait for rescue," Sito nodded, but his beard twitched when he saw Aren looking at him hesitantly. "No?"
Aren scratched the back of his head and admitted more bad news. "We're at Sinerman's mansion. No one's coming."
Sito rolled his orange eyes. "By all Yam's balls!" Sita swore a peppery curse that made Aren wince. Sita didn't swear very often.
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Desmond was having fun. Normally, she didn't bother scaring people, but that was only because most of them didn't even enter the mansion, and the ones that did try got scared of themselves and ran off before she could really try to do anything.
Just the slamming of the door made the human male afraid. Des didn't need to see it; she could feel it. Though his fear was much less than the girl's.
She then floated out the door to give Aren a small shake. As the young man held the door closed, she began to knock on the door in amusement, wanting to walk through, but something stopped her.
"Hmm?" She made a surprised sound and examined the door. Des tried going through the wall, but that didn't work either. She tried from all directions, but instead of going through like she usually did, she hit something solid.
Des ran her hand over the wall, wondering if she should try to force her way in. She immediately dismissed it again. She didn't want to destroy her home. But she was ecstatic. This was something new and different! She couldn't get through! How exciting!
Desmond moved back to the door she had been hovering in front of and waited patiently. She knew she would have to come out sooner or later. People needed to eat and drink. They wouldn't find any of that in the basement. Maybe if they tried to eat spiders. Des also wondered if the man named Aren would kill the girl.
Des couldn't help but smile slightly.
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Sita pressed the space between his eyes and muzzle as he groaned and mentally cursed his master's foolishness.
He couldn't understand why he had to choose this particular place that everyone knew was a cursed place. Spirits and even Yokai like himself avoided this place like a death trap. Yet his master, without even consulting the whole thing with his strongest Spirit Beast, walks in here and waves his hand over everything. What a troublemaker!
Sita had rarely regretted signing the contract with Aren, but now he truly regretted it. As a Yokai, he wasn't very strong and had trouble getting stronger on his own due to the heavy competition in the Spirit World. But after years in the contract with Aren, he had managed to get his third tail, and if he returned home now, he wouldn't have to suffer so much.
Sita was now a Low Spirit third tier, but he only needed two more tiers, and he would become a Medium Spirit. That already meant something. But then Aren had to mess it all up! Not only did he want to take away another Spiritualist's power, but he also got trapped in a cursed mansion with a Higher Spirit!
"I could help," Velica, who had finally managed to calm down, suddenly spoke up.
Sita looked at her and had to think about it. She could help, but she was a Novice just like Aren, so it might not be very useful. Plus, if they got out of here, she would reveal everything, and Aren would be punished anyway. Sita would have to return to the Spirit World or get a new contract. He could get a better master, but that wasn't guaranteed either.
Sita turned to Aren. "It would be best to kill her and then blame it on the Higher Spirit."
He heard Velica gasp in horror when she heard that, but Sita ignored it. He didn't care about other human beings besides his master. And Sita had a certain sense of loyalty, so he suggested what he thought was best for his master.
Aren looked at Velica, who was trying to shrink under his gaze. "Do you think I would be strong enough to defeat the High Spirit then?"
Sita snorted. "Hardly. It'll rip you to shreds. From what I've seen and heard from you, he's not a crazy spirit. It could probably be reasoned with."
"What makes you think that?" Aren doubted it. Sita pointed a slender finger at Velica. "You said she's been here for two days. Nothing's happened to her. The spirit left her alone. It only became active after you arrived. You probably did something to piss it off."
Sita shook his head. "It probably didn't like the fact that you wanted to make a mess of its home. I wouldn't have liked it either."
Aren was thoughtfully silent while Sita checked his seal. However, he saw no signs that anyone had tried to break it. It was strange. He expected that he had to repair the seal a lot as the Feral Spirit tried to get in. But there was not a single attempt to break it.
To the best of Sita's knowledge, that meant the High Spirit wasn't crazy and was either very patient, knowing they had nowhere to run, or might have lost interest. But the second was very risky to assume because it could mean a quick death for them.
He looked at Aren who was pacing back and forth trying to think of a way out. Sita squinted his eyes as he looked his master over. "What happened to your Spirit power? It's all disturbed." He had noticed it before, and because of that, he hadn't gained enough power to completely transform. He could use his own Spiritual Energy, but that would be a waste especially if he needed to fight.
"I don't know. Everything was fine when she suddenly started getting weird. Suddenly, my Spiritual Energy decreased by half, but I don't know why that happened." Aren replied, wishing he could start meditating to figure out where the problem was, but this wasn't the time. He needed calm and complete focus to meditate.
Sita walked around Aren and tried to figure out the problem as well, but he wasn't like Desmond who could see the channels created by the spirit contract. Sita shook his head when he couldn't figure it out.
After a moment, Aren sat down on the ground and looked around the basement before his eyes fell on the windows that were high up. "How about using this?" He asked, gesturing with his hand. Sita looked at the windows. "Maybe. If I change back into a fox, I could squeeze out. But then what?"
Aren pondered. "You could lure the Higher Spirit away. He probably won't come out; you could make some noise around. Meanwhile, I'd run away."
Sita scrunched his furry chin. "That might work. But what about her? Are you going to kill her?" He nodded to Velica, who already looked exhausted from all the fear.
She looked up at them. "I'll swear on my Immortal soul that I won't say anything if you leave me alone. Please." she demanded in a faint voice. "I'll even say that you saved me so you could get a reward."
Aren and Sita looked at each other. That was a very strong oath, and the more Aren's whole plan was delayed, the more he felt insecure about it.