“Ugh... what happened....”

Hoshi awakens moments later to the sound of gun fire. His entire body is cramping, and it is severe enough that he can't even move his jaw muscles, he is speaking through his teeth. When he opens his eyes, he sees June carrying him, and she seemingly had jumped into the pool to save him, given that she is drenched.

“Shh, don't worry, we're here to help you, Hoshi....” June says to him, looking over her shoulder a second later. “Hey Raph, get over here!? I need you to take point!”

Raphael, who is behind June and firing off a HLT16 at a group of Sigil heads running towards him from his left, looks at June and says “Be there in a second!”

June gets to the doorway that connects to the school and says to Raphael “Hey are you going help out wi-.” but she notices that Raph isn't paying attention. She sighs and says “Guess I have to do this myself....” and sends out her left knee towards the double doors. A blast of wind hits the door and knocks it open. She looks back over at Raphael while walking backwards and says “Yo, you comin'?”

Raphael hears her and starts running towards June, saying “Just a moment'!” A single Sigil head leaps towards Raphael from his left, but he reacts and shots three bullets through their body while running for the door. He runs through and slams the door shut behind him, before placing a light magic ward on it to block passage

“Wait... tell me what's happening....” Hoshi says, trying to raise his arm, but he is unable to move.

“We'll explain what's happening when we get you to safety.” Raphael says, loading another clip into his HLT16. “For the time being, we need to find somewhere to hide!”

“Yeah, Raph's right. There's way too many Sigil heads for us to take at once!” June says, nudging her head in the direction of the hall. “Raph, you take point!”

Raphael swiftly agrees and starts walking down the hallway with his HLT16 raised. June walks behind him, holding Hoshi securely in her arms.

When Raphael and June get to the first intersection, Raphael catches sight of a Sigil head down the right corridor. He fires at the Sigil head, but it gets out of his line of sight before he can fire.

“Damn, got away....” Raphael says, lowering his sights. He hears a crashing noise above him a moment later and raises his head in it's direction, but he doesn't have enough time to react before a Sigil head in the rafters leaps down on top of him.

Before Raphael can put up any resistance, the Sigil head stabs a knife into the center of his chest, but pulls it out right after. Raphael uses that time in between thrusts to summon his armblade and cut off the cultist's head. Raphael throws the body of the decapitated Sigil head off of him and gets to his feet, grabbing his HLT16 on the way. He looks over at June and says “Nothin' to worry about.... Now, let us continue.”

As Raphael and June continue down the hallways of Unimori, June says “Where are we trying to go anyway? I know that we're trying to find a place to hide, but do you have any idea where!?”

Raphael doesn't leave the question up in the air for long “We'll head to a storage closet and barricade it from the inside. We'll stay there for the rest of the night, until the sun comes back up. After that we'll take down the barricade and leave, sending Hoshi back to the investigation group.”

Before June can say a word, Raphael stops and throws his hand out in front of her. She stops as well and asks “What's the matter?”

“We have company....” Raphael says. Right after he speaks those words, a group of six Sigil heads and a Demu behind them step out into the hallway. The Demu is holding a black metal automatic rifle and the other Sigil heads are all wielding knifes or blades of some sort. “June, Miyra and Quib are somewhere in this building. I'll take care of them, you find Miyra or Quib and then find a storage room. I'll catch up with you later after I'm done.”

“But Raph-”

“Just go!” Raphael says as he turns his head towards her, a fire burning in his eyes. June understands from the expression on his face that he is telling her to do this, not asking. June nods her head and then runs off down the hallway she had come from.

With a burning blaze raging in Raphael's eyes, he throws his HLT16 down on the ground and draws a two-handed scimitar from his back. He begins walking towards his foes, gaining speed as he goes. The enemy does the same, meeting him in the middle of the hallway.

The Sigil head at the middle of their formation swings at him with a vertical strike, but Raphael quickly dodges to his left and kicks one of the Sigil heads to his left as it advances with a thrust, hitting it straight in the gut and stopping it's attack.

Raphael dodges a strike aimed for his head from the other Sigil head to his left with a dodge downward and brings his sword up from below, slashing the Sigil head from gut to neck. With his scimitar still in the air, he swings it down behind him, bringing it right down on the shoulder of a Sigil head coming up behind him, cutting off it's arm.

Another Sigil head attacks him with a stab, but he grabs the attacker's hand when the knife is only inches away from his chest. With one quick motion, Raph snaps the man's forearm in half. As the Sigil head screams in pain, Raphael headbutts him, which crushes his enemy's head.

“Two left!” Raphael yells before the Demu opens fire. He sees the Demu raising it's rifle, and quickly grabs the Sigil head to his right by it's throat and holds their body out as a shield as the Demu begins firing. The Sigil head's body falls limp moments later.

The Demu's gun jams. Raphael hears the gunfire cess, and then throws the Sigil head he was holding into the last remaining Sigil head. He draws his pistol out as the body's make contact, and begins firing into the corpse, hitting the Sigil head behind the corpse multiple times.

The final enemy has a noticeable deep fright behind his hollow eyes. Raphael, with a grin on his face, advances towards the Demu. “Heh, so the Demu are siding with the Sigil heads now, huh?! Then I'll stop you both!”

Before the Demu can run away, Raphael phases out of reality and reappears right behind the Demu. Before it can react, he jams his scimitar through it's stomach, with the blade jutting through it's back.

Raphael pulls his sword out of the Demu's body, sheathes his scimitar, grabs his HLT16 and goes down the hallway June had left previously.

June is running down the hallway with Hoshi in her arms when she suddenly feels a sharp pain in her leg. She falls to the ground, dropping Hoshi in the process. A second after she falls to the ground, she is back up, the nanobots in her bloodstream healing the bullet wound to her thigh. Before she can draw her weapon or even see where the attack came from, she hears a springing noise and is hit with a human-sized net. She falls to the ground right as she sees her attacker come out of the darkness.

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Not only can June see her original attacker, but she can also sense the evil aura that is around her. There are Demu surrounding her, and she is defenseless. The Demu that had originally trapped her is moving in for the kill, but before he can get to her with his combat knife, June sends out a blast of wind, sending the Demu back a few feet.

June looks behind her and sees a Demu raising a sword above the defenseless Hoshi, but she knows that her life is also in peril. At any time, the Demu she had just shoved could get back up and come at her again, and she will, if forced to continue for too long, will become too tired to continue using wind blasts to push it away. The only thing she can do is try to get out of the net.

Before June can muster another thought, she hears the churning of a minigun, and immediately after, sees a flurry of rifle rounds go over her and into the Demu about to finish off Hoshi. She knows who this is immediately and once the firing has ceased, yells out “Miyra! Get me out of this net!”

Miyra, holding her minigun, runs out of the shadows and kneels next to June “Damn, just in time!” Miyra yells as she pulls out a large hunting knife.

With one quick swipe, Miyra slices off the net that June is trapped in. After June has been released from her bonds, Miyra lifts her up off of the ground. Miyra gives June a smile “Sorry about that.... I sorta got lost in the halls....” Miyra scratches the back of her head and laughs before picking back up her minigun.

June walks over to Hoshi and picks him up once more. She notices that he is grunting from severe pain. Without even giving it a second thought, June focuses healing magic into her arms and into Hoshi's body, healing him of his cramping from earlier now that she can focus more easily.

Hoshi pushes his head up after feeling that the cramping has subsided in his neck. He lifts his arm up above him and wiggles his fingers, feeling no pain. “Wow, that feels better... but, how did you....”

“It's magic. Now, let's go!” June says before letting Hoshi get back onto his feet. They all sprint down the hallway until they reach a hallway closet that they can use.

Miyra grabs a hold of the doorknob and attempts to pull the door open, but it doesn't move “Damn, it won't open!”

Right as Miyra says that, a loud voice can be heard from behind them. “Step aside!” Miyra and June immediately know that the voice is Raphael. He runs in between Miyra and June and shoulder rams the closet door, forcing it open. Holding the door open, he makes a swaying motion with his hand and says “Come on. Everyone, get in!”

After everyone has huddled into the storage room, Raphael and Miyra begin grabbing whatever they can find and putting it in front of the door. June, however, unfolds a chair and places it on the ground for Hoshi to sit on while she begins looking for a towel for him to use. As she looks, she says “You're lucky we got here in time. Any later and you would have drowned!”

Hoshi, with a slight shiver in his body, lightly mutters “I don't know what happened. Why is the eldritch-sign cult after me?”

“Because they knew that we would be looking for you.” June calmly says, finding a towel and a blanket right after she finishes speaking.

“What, why!? I'm just a normal freshman! I haven't done anything to anyone!” Hoshi says in disbelief.

After wrapping the towel and blanket around Hoshi, June giggles and says “Hoshi, we know who you are, and what you've been doing. The Dusk Avenger, we know that's you. You had to have known they would be coming for retribution at some point. Now it's time to take it a step further. Join us and the others in saving this city.”

Hoshi sighs after hearing this. He was told that something like this was going to happen, but he wasn't told about these three. “Fine, I'll help. The Sigil heads nearly killed me anyway...!”

“Good!” Raphael says after pushing a cabinet in front of the storage room door. “You're the last person they need to even out the team. We'll tell you more in the morning, but for now we're going to tell you a bit about ourselves, since you'll be seeing a lot of us during this whole debacle.”

The conversation goes on for a few minutes, with Raphael explaining, in modest detail, who he, the JB and the investigation group are. Hoshi, still shivering in his towel, nods his head through most of it, accepting what he is being told.

After placing a final box in front of the storage room door, Raphael cracks his neck and sits down on the floor. He sways back his hair and looks at June before saying “June! Get him something to sleep on.” After June has started looking for a mat, Raphael says “For now, just get some sleep for the night. We'll wake you up in the morning before we leave and point you to where you should go next, specifically, the team that we were talking about earlier.”

June takes down a large mat at the end of the room and places it down on the floor. She then goes over to Hoshi, picks him up and places him on the mat. “Goodnight and sweet dreams.” she says before walking over to Miyra.

“So, what do you make of all of this?” June asks Miyra in a concerned voice.

“Hmm? About what?” Miyra questions, not sure exactly what June is asking about.

“It's about the Demu that we fought on the way here. Why are their Demu here? This world is far behind the UMA frontline and they haven't reported any Demu getting through recently. More importantly, why are they attacking one of the people that is going to be part of the investigation group before they're not even in the group!? I think the Demu have some kind of connection with the Sigil heads.” June says in suspicion.

Miyra picks up a stapler on one of the cabinets and plays with it in her hands as she speaks. “Well, we both know that the Demu usually have something to do with most evil things that happen, no matter how tiny their presence is or how small the evil, even to the point that they are only using influence on a person's mind to make them do the deed, like slight nudges in a certain direction. It's definitely possible that the Demu have something to do with the Sigil heads, but we should gather more proof before we jump to any conclusions....”

“Yeah, and don't forget that they like to get involved in things that revolve around good versus evil, which would be similar to the situation in Ignama. That and they do want to capture June, so attacking people that are close to her and getting involved in situations she's related to I would consider is in their playbook.” Raphael says, resting his back against the side of the wall. “By the way, it's possible that the Sigil heads could find us in here, so we should stay alert.”

Raphael looks at his friends and says “Everyone get ready just in case.”

Miyra looks down at the stapler in her hands and then looks back up at Raphael “I could always staple them to death...?” she says with a shrug.

Without a word, Raphael moves from the wall, walks over to Miyra, and lightly slaps her on the back of the head.

Six hours pass, and Raphael is the only one that is awake at the moment. He looks at his watch and sees that it is now six-thirty in the morning. He gets out of his chair, walks over to Miyra and gives her a nudge with his foot, saying “Come on, get up.”

Miyra lets out a large yawn before getting to her feet. “What time is it?” she asks Raphael.

“A little after six-thirty in the morning. Go wake up Hoshi while I wake up June.” Raphael says before cracking his neck and walking over to June.

Raphael goes over to June and nudges her shoulder with his hand and lightly says “June, it's time to wake up.”

Despite giving June the amount of freedom that she has, to the point that she can do whatever she wanted, he still treats her with a sense of caring that you would see from someone who considers the other as family, to the point of siblings.

June grunts as she opens her eyes. She quietly mutters “ 'Morning....” before giving Raphael a smile. He smiles back at her and helps her to her feet.

When he looks over at Miyra, he sees that Miyra has woken up Hoshi and he is now on his feet. He motions with his hand and arm towards the barricaded door and says “Miyra, help me clear this.”

“Let me help too.” June says before grabbing a box that is part of the barricade and moving it to the side.

A few moments later and the group has cleared the way out. Raphael motions with his hand for everyone to get back while putting a hand on the doorknob and another on his sidearm. “I'll go first and make sure that nobody is around....” he whispers before slowly turning the knob open and walking cautiously out into the hallway.

Once he sees that there is nobody in vicinity, Sigil head, Demu or otherwise, he motions with his hand for everyone to come out.

After Hoshi has come out of the storage room, Raphael says to him “For now, I need you to go back to your dorm room and get changed, I'm sure your freezing. Wait until after that and then go to room two-o'-one before homeroom starts and talk to a kid with dark blue hair and a pair of glasses, he's the leader of the investigation group. Introduce yourself and say that Raphael sent you. Don't stay there for too long, since you still have your education to worry about. After that, I'll meet you and the investigation group at the usual spot. The investigation group will tell you what that is. See ya soon.”

Raphael and his team run away after the conversation is finished, all of them running out a door further down the hallway and disappearing out of sight moments later.

Hoshi, shivering slightly, shrugs his shoulders and says “All part of the deal, I guess.” before walking down the hallway, leaving the school building and going back to his dorm room.