An annoyed thin line drew through his lips at Yumi’s remark. Thinning his eyes to a piercing stare, he looked insulted by her action. “You would hold back thinking you could beat me without your full power?” The ground suddenly began to shake and cracks ran out from under his feet tearing apart from the release of his demonic energy. “The arrogance, to think you could stand anywhere as my equal with such half hearted attempts!”

‘Seems I’ve angered him…’ she remarked, feeling the air changing. It became heavy and poisonous. Like the elder had described to her before, the demonic energy killed life. Just the exertion of his power was enough to bring the forest to its knees. Leaves turned black and rained like a dark ash around them. Soon the trunks would twist and dry out if it went on for much longer.

Yumi watched the demon powering himself up in anger for being underestimated. ‘This isn’t going to be like the other fights I’ve had. If I don’t actually pay attention and fight for real, I could actually die here…’ She understood this feeling very well, the real feeling of death in the air and not from the demon energy. No, she could feel the demon wanting to kill her. Though that hadn’t really changed from the moment they met. But she felt it finally that he could actually do it. He was no pushover for her. He was a real threat to her.

This was familiar to her. She knew that feeling better than she would have liked. It wasn’t something she should know so well. Her life before meeting Yuki would have found it all scary and terrifying. She would have run away from it all. It would have left her completely consumed in fear that she wouldn’t even be able to move.

Yet not anymore. She actually looked forward to it a little, what the demon could offer. Fighting wasn’t something she enjoyed, but she felt a little secure within the digital world to be freer. It made her wonder what he did have to challenge her.

“I will tear you apart and split your body in two! And the last things from your lips will be cries of agony begging for your life!”

Yumi grinned a little, finding herself oddly amused. “It’s like those shows on TV. Yuki probably feels like this, doesn’t he?” It felt like such a terribly classic villain line that she couldn’t help but have trouble taking it very seriously. Though terrible threats aside, his power was no threat. ‘I can’t sense power, wish I could. I might have an idea how we compare…’

Her question wouldn’t go unanswered for long.

Chapter 395 – Black Ash Demon

The demon disappeared completely from her sight. For a moment before he disappeared, she could see a blur in his movement. She turned around trying to figure out where he was coming from. ‘He’s really fast… As fast as Saki?’ The few times she had watched Saki move, she never could see her when she put effort into it. She had no idea how fast Saki could be never being able to follow her movements.

Caught in her own thoughts, she couldn’t see Tokaromaru coming when he did strike. All she felt was pain across her face as she went flying backwards unprepared. Her head broke through trees clearing the forest of its well protected canopy.

“Where is this power you claim to be holding in reserve?” taunted the demon. He then disappeared again, appearing above Yumi as she still flew. A spin kick to her ribs sent her into the forest bed carving out another crater deeper than the last one. Blasts of red energy flew out of his hands engulfing the entire crater in a glow. The light stained his skin in a soft red highlight as he watched.

A distortion in the space around him appeared suddenly. He felt it increase quickly, but had enough time to escape before it claimed his arm. He adjusted his arm trying to figure out what happened. “It felt thick and heavy… what strange power does this little girl possess?”

“So you escaped. You’re the first that wasn’t caught up in that attack.” Yumi stood up through the waves of clouds left behind from the attacks. She stared up at the demon. “I’m still getting the hang of it, but I’ve managed to make it lethal compared to where it was only a month ago.”

“Taking this seriously now.”

Yumi wiped away the blood from her face left by the last attacks. They left her head ringing something awful. She thought she might have a headache with her head splitting trees. But she couldn’t give it much attention, not with the demon before her. “It wouldn’t do you well to underestimate me either, demon.”

“Prove to me that I shouldn’t, then perhaps I won’t.”

“Who’s arrogant now?” Yumi jumped up into the air as she began to charge white particles to her hands. However, the demon didn’t wait to let her charge up for her attack. He dove straight in striking her in the stomach with his foot. As she bent over his foot, he grabbed her head and spun her around. He returned her back to the crater.

“That’s not going to be enough against me!”

Coughing through the clouds, Yumi rose once more. “We’ll see about that…” She began to gather up her energy again, but Tokaromaru disappeared from her sight again. Before she could even react, he was behind her with his hand stuck through her stomach.

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It surprised her how little it actually hurt. She couldn’t even feel it. It didn’t even feel real to her. Had she actually been struck? Then she coughed up blood and she knew it was real. The pain spiked through her body sharply as it all rushed forward at once.

Her legs felt weak as she could have collapsed if it weren’t for the hand inside her still holding her up. Tokaromaru kicked her off his hand and blasted her with a red orb where she laid. “You’re no threat to me. Your boasts are empty.” He stepped forward with his hand soaked in her blood. Lifting his bloody hand, he tasted her blood. “Surprisingly sweet for such a pathetic human.”

Standing over her, he pressed his feet against her arm while staring at her. “Left or right, first?” he grinned sadistically.

Gritting her teeth together, Yumi fought with the pain and blood loss that started to make her feel lightheaded. ‘He’s too fast for me to see…’

A distortion appeared in the air once more, but it wasn’t fast enough to capture him. She failed to get anything more than him off her. Struggling to keep her body moving, she leaned forward needing to be on her feet. ‘I’m not losing here… I can win… I must or else I can’t follow him…’

Blasts of energy flew at Yumi suddenly through the haze of the forest. “You can’t catch me with such slow attacks.” She had enough time to get her barrier in place, but it shattered immediately, only deflecting the attacks away from her. He appeared in front of her, launching Yumi into the air with a blinding kick. Following her ascent, he punched her through the forest carving out another line of destruction.

He slowly marched after her at the end of the line. “Seems you still had some energy left in you. Resisting will do you no good. Just accept your death.”

Yumi coughed up blood again with her vision becoming blurred. She could only trust her ears to hear him coming. “You sound like a cliché villain…”

“You’re going to die, what does that matter?”

“I’m not dead yet…” She tried to stand up to face him once again, but her legs were failing her. And to make things worse, he was already in front of her. Yumi could hardly see him, but swung out at the air with her right hand.

It completely missed, but the demon grabbed her arm. “Right it is then.” He pinned her down to the ground with his feet as he gripped on her arm tightly. “I prefer taking my time slowly cutting through the bone and severing tendons from flesh. But I’m not going to grant you such pleasure for your insults.”

As he began to pull on her arm, Yumi screamed in pain becoming overwhelmed. ‘He’s really going to rip off my arm! How am I supposed to kill something I can’t see?!’ Panic started to build in her mind. That fear she dismissed before crept forward. ‘This is supposed to be just a game. Why is it so real?!’

Yumi struggled trying to get her arm free, but the demon kept her pinned. She couldn’t even form her energy. Her mind was too erratic for anything to focus. Nothing was going to save her. Then she heard the pop of her joint as he dislocated her arm from her shoulder. It sounded even worse than she imagined and felt like someone had sliced through her chest. The pain spiked as tears poured down her face. Nothing but her muscle and skin held her arm in place now and that wasn’t lasting for long.

Her muscles tore and ripped apart under the strain. Her skin stretched and snapped. Blood gushed out of her as she could no longer feel her right arm. The demon lifted her up as she hung there unable to do anything. “I’ve got three left to go. Most will pass out after one and the strong can only make it to two. You have to be just right about it keep someone alive for all four. I’ve no interested in seeing that with you anymore.”

He slapped her with her own arm and kicked her into the earth prepping for the next arm. ‘He’s going to kill me if I do nothing! I have to do anything! I’m not dying in my own mind!’ The earth suddenly shattered around Yumi as a storm of debris shot up away from her at the demon.

It was enough to get it off her and him to take some distance. She rolled over clutching her shoulder as blood poured out. Forming up a barrier, she broke it into shards and buried one of the hexagon shards into her shoulder cutting off the blood. “Gah!” she screamed in pain, “Dammit, that hurts…”

Tokaromaru smiled, actually impressed by the boldness of Yumi’s action. “Such pain. You’re surprisingly stubborn for a weakling.”

Yumi struggled to keep her breathing under control, but still panted heavily as sweat covered her entire body. Part of her felt unusually cold, but she focused on the demon. “I might be weak…but I’ll still kill you…”

“There’s that arrogance again.”

‘How do I do it?’ Yumi stared at the demon, gaining back some of her sight. It was still hard for her to see him, but it was enough for her to work with. She just had to accept it. Her body was completely trashed from the beating. She was fortunate that she could still strike back. ‘He’s too fast for me to actually get an attack off, even when I was healthy. I need a way to know where he is going to be. If I knew that I could kill him with my gravity power…’ Unfortunately, she knew that she wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch him for something like that.

Distortions in the air appeared, forcing Tokaromaru to dodge. They were smaller than before, making them even easier for him to dodge. He moved closer to Yumi with each step. Nothing that she did was slowing him down or even reaching him. “Still struggling with futility. You’ll die soon enough. Just accept it.”

‘I need to hold him down somehow. So he can’t use his speed…’ Then it came to Yumi. She found a solution to the fight that had been evading her the entire time. She fought with her body to get her back up, but she fell over again. Collapsed in the dirt, Tokaromaru approached to take her next arm as promised. She stopped moving.

“Looks like you finally are accepting things.”

Fierce determination exploded in her eyes as she focused on him. Suddenly her white barrier came up around the two of them. Another and another barrier rolled up, sealing them inside under a fivefold field. “I finally got you.”

He looked around at the barrier as it shrank in around them restricting his ability to his speed. “You can’t beat me. I can just kill you before you make any action.” A distortion appeared around his hand with him no longer able to evade it. “You think that is enough? Pathetic!” He squeezed his hand down as a red glow exploded out tearing apart the gravity sphere.

A wet sound appeared from nowhere to his surprise. “What?!” He looked down to see a white blade pierced through his heart. It pushed through, exploding out his back as the energy blew out his chest ripping a hole through him. He staggered back against the barrier, shocked at the reversal.

Bloodied and unable to move, Yumi smirked weakly at him. “You toyed with me, because you underestimated me. But you showed me something important. I have to be swift and strike without regard for fairness. A fight to the death is never fair or honorable. And now you’re dead.” Yumi shot out an arc of energy beheading the demon swiftly.

As the barrier fell, she saw oni gathering around with bloodlust in their eyes. A dark expression covered her face as she hovered into the air to save her body. “No more toying around. Taste my full power!” Large white spheres rapidly appeared around her in the forest tearing apart the demons under the pressure of the gravity. Leaving nothing standing around her. “No mercy,” she spoke menacingly as she turned away from the massacre.