A long morning slowly gave way to a painful afternoon as Yumi walked back to the village. Most of it was just automatic as she marched. Little of the forest or the plains registered to her as she passed them. Only the goal of the village in the distance remained clear in her sight. And even that had started to shrink smaller for her in her vision.

By the time she made it back to the village most of her vision was completely gone. She couldn’t see the villagers running up to her. None of their voices reached her. Everything was in silence. Nothing but the void of emptiness awaited her.

It was uncomfortably familiar.

Chapter 396 – The Empty Forest

Gasping for air, Yumi threw herself up from her spot. She didn’t immediately recognize where she was. ‘This is…’ Looking to her side, she saw Yuki lying down. “…Yuki…” Rubbing her face with her right hand, she wiped away the sweat that stuck to her forehead. Then paused, to see that her arm was restored.

She looked down at him realizing that happened. ‘He’s healing me despite his own injuries…’ Everything in her body felt better. The pain and heaviness disappeared. It felt normal, the way it should be. Yet, in her mind, she could still feel the pain and remember what happened against the demon. ‘I can’t keep relying on Yuki to patch me up. If we’re going to be stuck in this land of demons for days until Phoibe rescues us, I’m going to have to improve myself. I’m the only one of us that can fight right now. I can’t always be leaning on Yuki.’

Standing up, Yumi stepped out of the elder’s hut to leave Yuki to keep resting. ‘I hope he’ll be fully recovered soon. Though I don’t know what we’re going to do afterward. Just wait, I guess…and survive.’ Outside in the village, she caught the sun in her eyes. It felt like more time passed than she believed. But the village was saved, there appeared to be no further demon attacks while she was asleep.

“Master Yumi!” called the elder, noticing her walking down to the center of the village. The old man hurried along to reach others as several other villagers joined him. “Are you healed?”

A bit of weakness in her leg made her buckle briefly, but she caught herself from it. ‘I feel a little off balance…I must still be a little low on blood from the fight…’ She kept herself together in front of the elder. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Yumi looked out at the village trying to see what life looked like after she defeated the leader of the demons. Everything continued as normal, which shouldn’t really be much of a surprise to her, but it still gave her pause. ‘They were panicking and fleeing before, now they’re acting like nothing happened…’

The elder stared at Yumi for a while as she ran through her thoughts. When she snapped back, she noticed him. “What’s wrong?” There was a strange look on his face when he looked at her.

“Your arm is fully healed, Master Yumi. When you returned to the village yesterday you were covered in blood and nearly dead. Yet you stand now completely unaffected.”

‘Unaffected might be overstating it right now, but Yuki’s ability is certainly going to surprise people.’ She grabbed onto her right arm a little self-conscious with the staring. “My friend’s special in his own way.”

“He can heal fatal injuries?”

“He can’t resurrect the dead, but he does have powerful healing powers.”

“So the two of you are Hunters?”

“Not quite, he’s a little different.” She looked around at the villagers. It was something that she had avoided calling out before, but saying she had medicine wasn’t really going to be a valid answer anymore. They wouldn’t have believed her. An arm didn’t come back just with medicine. “After he recovers, he would be willing to help. It does exhaust him and he needs his rest right now.”

“Yes, of course. We didn’t mean…”

She lifted up her hand to stop him. “It’s fine. I understand, being this far away it’s hard on everyone.”

There was some relief in the faces of the people. She could only imagine how challenging it was living in this village or even this world. A place where demons could attack at any moment and being isolated out in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t know how they managed to do it.

She turned the attention to a more pressing matter. “Has the forest calmed down?”

“Yes, there’s been no sign of activity that anyone has seen. Thank you, Master Yumi for driving off all the demons!” The elder bowed deeply before her as did everyone else in turn. They hung their heads low before her. “We’re sorry for doubting you. Our fears overcame any reason we possessed. Forgive our insults toward you.”

Yumi tried to get them to rise back up, but they were stubborn in seeking forgiveness from her. “It’s fine. I’m just happy that the village was spared any harm because of a mistake I made.” She kept trying to get them to rise until she relented to them.

Off in the distance, she saw the forest rising up. The massive holes that marked up the previously pristine nature reminded her of what happened. It was going to be a while before it recovered from her fight. “I’m sorry for destroying so much of the forest.”

The old man shook his head, apparently not bothered by it. Though Yumi imagined that he probably held himself back on her account. “It was unavoidable and you did end the terror of the Reaper. So we can’t be anything more than grateful to you.”

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It was difficult for her to accept that as a fact. ‘If I had been more direct at the start I might have been able to prevent the damage. I need to be able to control my powers better and learn more about them. I’ve been going off instinct this whole time and I managed to get this far, but it’s not going to keep working. I was almost killed because of that…’

Once they were finished with apologies, the villagers started to disperse. Yumi took it as her opportunity as well. She had things she needed to do.

She walked out of the village and returned to the forest where it had all happened. There were a couple of things she wanted to see for herself. She walked through the craters and fallen trees. All around her was destruction left behind. The lingering demon’s power tingled on her skin. She had killed something even stronger than the oni’s. A quick check back to the village reminded her it was quite far away. Though the forest was probably dead, for a while at least.

Around her, she eyed the shattered forest and earth. Though there was less debris than she remembered their being. Scattered around were hunks of trees and earth making the terrain even more rough.

Yumi stopped before a tree that was cleanly cut at a curve. As she ran her hand over the perfectly smooth surface, she started to remember the rest of the events. The rest of the picture came back to her as she recalled what happened to the oni left behind after she killed Tokaromaru. ‘All of these holes in the forest were from me. I let my power run out of control without concern for limiting it. It was pure destructive power.’

It made her sit down for a moment to take it all in. ‘I normally can keep things under control. The last time I lost control…’ Yumi thought back to the attack on the Capital of Atlantis and her charging in after Ayumi after learning what she planned. ‘I promised myself I’d keep myself in check. It was fortunate here that it was only demons and in the middle of the forest. But that’s no excuse. I need to get better…’

The other reason she traveled out into the forest, training. Yumi summoned up her barrier and created a triple thick field with it as practice. ‘Ever since I unlocked these powers, I never really bothered to give them much focus. I practiced lightly so that I could summon them, but that was it. Which hurt me while following Yuki to Atlantis. My other personalities took control of me because of my failures. And now I’m relying on Yuki for my failures. I can’t do that if I plan to follow him.’

She manipulated the thickness of the barrier and added another field. ‘This is my only real defense that I possess, but it gets shattered so easily. I don’t have enough control over it to make it successful. I need to learn this inside and out. Unless I understand this I won’t prevent further harm from coming to me…’

For hours of sweating and shortness of breath, Yumi practiced her barrier. The summoning of it became just as important to her as the strength. She tested out different methods and power fueling it. None of it was under real combat. So she didn’t know how it would do then, but if she understood it better she could use it correctly. She also wanted it to be stronger for less effort. The demons she fought were powerful and in ways that her basic knowledge wouldn’t be enough.

Lying on her back and staring up through the hole in the forest, she could see the clouds moving quickly through the sky. Not much had changed. It was hard to expect a lot to change. But she knew more about her powers limitations. And that was victory enough for now. ‘I’m going to be facing more and more powerful demons from here on out. Tokaromaru wasn’t the most powerful demon, that much I feel certain about. And if he showed up when I killed his soldiers, there’s no doubt more will come after me for killing Tokaromaru. I just need to be ready for the next time…’

Drained of power from summoning her barriers so much, Yumi considered going back to the village to rest. “I can’t do much as I am now. And I can’t stay drained of power for the next attack…”

Yumi lifted herself up feeling lightheaded still. She pressed her hand to the ground for support. “I’m still not fully recovered…”

However, before she could start walking back, she heard a noise in the forest behind her. She immediately turned sharply in the direction and armed herself quickly with a blade of white. “Who’s there?” Yumi worried what sort of fight she could put up with her powers being drained from use. ‘If it’s only an oni, I can manage…’

Yet, to her surprise, it was just a child that came nervously out of the side of the tree. It was a young boy no older than Yuki’s brothers. ‘What’s a child doing out in the forest? They get lost?’ They had a scared look in the eyes looking at her. She realized that it was because of her weapon that she bore at them.

Dropping the energy, it faded into particles, as she lowered her guard. “Are you lost, little boy?”

“I was…out picking fruit…” He hovered around the tree still hesitating around Yumi.

She sat down at her spot to try not to look that intimidating. However, they still had reservations about her. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t harm you.” Yumi tried to get the boy to come to her, but he refused. “You can stay there until you feel safe. Why don’t you sit at least? We can talk.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Yumi, but he hopped up on a broken trunk as a chair. She thought it might have made him feel like he was safer behind higher up than her. “What were you doing?” he asked.

Yumi looked around at the forest. ‘Does he think I did this? He wouldn’t be wrong…but I can’t really tell him that. He already looks scared enough.’ But she needed an answer for him. For now it was going to be easier to start with little bits of the truth. “I was training.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be stronger.”

“Are you weak?”

She had to think about it. The demon called her weak and ordinary, which she easily admitted to him being right. Though given what she could do, it seemed a little weird to say she was weak. It was a difficult question to answer. “I guess that depends on your point of view.”

“Point of…view?”

“That’s right. There’s always those around you that are stronger or weaker compared to you. So it’s not simply one side.” She stopped herself becoming pensive over what she was telling him. It just sort of had come out. She didn’t give it much thought until she said it. ‘I guess that really is true…but I still needed to be stronger or else the next demon could kill me. I need to keep training myself…’

“Com…pared?”

Watching the boy tilt his head, he didn’t really seem to understand everything that she told him. Though she couldn’t really blame him. She was talking in very broad and vague terms now. It might have been big for him to follow with straightforward logic. “Let’s just say for simplicity's sake, I am weak.”

“And you want to be strong?”

“That’s the goal. But it’s still far away. I need to keep training.” Yumi looked back up at the sky, noticing the sun was further down than she thought. ‘Not quite night, but it’s going to be a long walk back with the boy.’

She stood up and extended out a hand for the boy to take. “Let’s go back. If we don’t start now, it’s going to be night before long and your parents will be worried.” The boy still hesitated, but at least jumped off the tree to approach her a little. He kept a wide distance of five meters between, but if he felt safe that way. “Just follow me.”

It ended up being nearly night before she did return to the village with the boy in tow. “We’re finally back. Which one is your house?” She asked, pointing out to the village.

There was no reply from the boy, who still must haven’t trusted her despite following her back the whole way. Though, while the boy said nothing, one of the villagers stopped in front of them. It was a young man, one that she remembered helping in hauling away the oni horns she brought back. He paused and then quickly approached Yumi. “Master Yumi, what are you doing leading a demon back to the village?!”

“Demon? Where?” she turned around immediately summoning her white blade ready for an attack. She couldn’t believe that she missed it the whole time. ‘I didn’t hear anything! Where is it?’

The young man tapped on her and pointed down. “The child’s a demon, Master Yumi! Send it away immediately!”

“The boy? But he’s just a child…right?” She stared down at the boy trying to figure out what was happening. She wondered if the villager was so paranoid that they were seeing demons everywhere. The boy pulled back looking scared. And the shouting from the villager at the boy only got more people coming out. “You’re mistaken, it’s just…”

“Demon! We’re protected by Master Yumi the Demon Hunter, your boldness will no longer be tolerated!” The villagers started to get violent as they approached the boy with confidence that Yumi would protect them. Her head continued to spin trying to figure it all out.

“What’s going on here?!”