Chapter 2: Rescued

            Chaos surrounded Kosuke and his friends. Demons and robots fought side by side, blood soaked the once peaceful streets, the humans tried to hold their ground, but it was a battle that was already lost. As the teens rushed towards home, they came across the corpse of one of their classmates. The one of the poor boy’s legs had been ripped off, where it had gone was a mystery, all that remained was torn pieces of cloth and a loose shoe. Bite marks covered the former classmate’s arms and torso; the demon had the decency to leave his head unscathed.

“Kosuke!” A familiar voice pierced through the air.

The three teens snapped out of their trance to see Kosuke’s dad running towards them wielding a bloodied and dented metal baseball bat. “Dad!” Kosuke called back, tears of relief forming in his eyes.

“Matsuoka-san!” Both Shingo and Kanako cried out.

Kosuke’s dad hugged his son quickly. He then motioned for the teens to follow him as he explained. “We need to get you three home. Shingo-kun, your parents went to go get Emiko-chan, while I went for you guys.” A robot blocked the group’s way, Kosuke’s dad lifted the bat, he lit it on fire and bashed the robot until it’s head was nothing but scraps. The group ran through the streets. They were almost back to their apartment building, when they came to a street that was completely blocked off between the rubble and fire. “We will have to find another way.” Kosuke’s dad grumbled.

“That won’t be necessary!” A gruff voice yelled. The group spun around to see a demon sneering at them. This was the first time Kosuke could get a good look at a demon. He had four horns, two on the side of his head, two sprouting from his forehead. He had small tusks poking out from his bottom lip, with large fangs just inside is mouth. “Surrender to me and I will let the little ones live for at least, oh, three more months, they will make good slaves.” The demon offered, playfully tapping his fingers on the hilt of his sword.

“Kids,” Kosuke’s dad began to speak as he gripped his bat tighter, “run.” He commanded as he dashed forward.

Without missing a beat, the teens ran towards a nearby alley. For a brief moment, Kosuke turned his head to check on his dad. Kosuke saw his father get sliced clean through, just below his shoulders. Tears escaped the young man’s eyes as he watched in horror as his father’s blood stained the pavement. Shingo grabbed his arm and pulled him along. “We need to go, otherwise your dad died for nothing!” Every word Shingo spoke shook as he held back his own emotions.

The youths escaped to another street, there weren’t any demons or robots here, only human corpses and scrap metal. “Quick, over here!” Kanako led her classmates over to a car that had been flipped on its side. They crouched down and hid as Kanako waved her hands in the air, summoning a breeze that flowed in the opposite direction they came. “Now he won’t be able to smell us as easily.” She stated.

“Kosuke-kun, what’s the plan? Do we still go home?” Shingo asked nervously.

Kosuke hesitated. “Uh, um.” He wiped his tears, regaining his composure. “Yes, we stick to the plan. We will be fighting on our home turf; we will have an advantage.”

“Right!” Shingo and Kanako nodded.

“Oh my!” A female demon shouted. “Lookie-lookie, I thought this area had been picked clean, but there are some little humans still here! What joy, father will be most pleased.” She cooed as she grabbed her cheeks. “Tell me now, young ones, what are your elements?”

“Grr,” Kosuke’s face filled with rage, “How about a demonstration!” He then chucked a fireball at her.

The demon dodged. “My, my, you’re quick. My father has no use for any fire elementals, hmm, I’ll ask him if I can keep you, you’re kind of cute.”

A shiver ran down Kosuke’s spine. Just as he was about to give a rebuttal, the demon that killed his father showed up and yelled at the female demon first. “Back off Hanmusume-san! I was hunting them first, they are mine!”

The female demon’s eyes grew wide and her eyebrows furrowed. “San? San!” She marched up to him and pointed her finger in his face. “My father is an incubus; his sister is the right hand of our lord! You better be showing me more respect!”

“Respect?” He scoffed. “You’re not even your father’s real daughter, your mother is an imp! You’re not even a real demon, you don’t even have a name, you’re lucky I used an honorific, instead of your number, Hanmusume-ichi.”

Hanmusume-ichi punched the demon in the face. “All my father’s children learned to respect me despite my heritage the hard way, so will you!” She hit him again.

“Brat!” The demon dodged her next attack. “No one will miss you when I dice you into tiny little pieces!” He drew his sword and sliced at her arm, giving her a deep wound.

“Gah!” Hanmusume-ichi grabbed her arm. She then noticed the teens trying to escape. “Hey! They are getting away!”

“Heh, I’ll cut you a deal, we spilt them.” The sword demon grinned.

“The red-haired boy is a fire elemental, my father has no use for him, I was hoping to keep him, but if there is one more useful, I’ll need to take that one. The other we can flip a coin for.” Hanmusume-ichi agreed to the deal, adding her own stipulations to it.

The demons then rushed past the teens blocking their escape. Kanako created a massive wind to try slowing down the demons’ approach. Kosuke tried to send fire at them but to no avail. “Dang it! I can’t create flames with your wind, Kana-kun.” Kosuke clenched his fists as he gave up.

“It’s up to me then!” Shingo grinned, he then created a wall of water. “Urr-ah!” He sent the wall of water flying at the demons. Shingo made finger guns and shot water a stream of water at both of them. “Ha ha!” He laughed.

Kosuke watched the demons’ feet. “They are still coming at us, luckily, we are mostly at a stalemate. Unfortunately, I have a feeling we will run out of stamina before they do.”

Kanako used as much of her strength as she could to make her wind stronger. “Grrr, why don’t you like, pray or something. We need some sort of intervention, and I think divine is the only intervention we are going to get.”

The strum of a guitar ripped through the air. Everyone looked to where the sound came from, up upon the roof of a three-story apartment building, stood a girl around Kosuke’s age, she had black hair in two pigtails, the one on the left side of her head was nestled high up, while the right was fixated lower, clearly on intention. She then began to play a song on her guitar, while the three teens down below stopped using their elemental powers.

A blur brushed past Kanako, suddenly, the sword demon was knocked to the ground. A young man with a wooden katana in hand had appeared to save the day. He was an older teen, he had blond hair, and he carried more training katanas in a basket on his back. He stood up straight as the demon came to his feet. “Your sword. I want it.” The young man then rushed the demon. As the demon went to grab his sword, the ground shifted, pulling the sword away.

“Brat!” The sword demon cawed. As he stood up, the blond teen charged at him again, the demon caught the wooded sword. “Now, Hanmusume-ichi, kill this pest!”

The female demon dashed forward, her claws extended. Kosuke caught his fist on fire, about to step in, when dozens of metal spikes landed on Hanmusume-ichi’s back. She stumbled, she desperately pushed towards the boy, then a blade with no hilt sliced her head off.

Everyone expect the blond boy who kept is eyes on his opponent looked to the sky to see a mostly metallic being floating in the air. “Is, is that a robot?!” Shingo exclaimed.

“It can’t be, or it shouldn’t be, it has hair, and fleshy face. It must not be from Zushitsu Tech.” Kanako replied.

“I’m not a robot.” A strong voice boomed from the metallic being. “I shall explain later, Yuzuru-san!” The being motioned with her arm and the demon’s sword began to float.

The blond boy released his wooden sword, running to the floating blade. Once the metal blade was in his hands he charged the demon, he sliced his arms in two before going for his head, he rammed the sword down into the demon’s skull with a mighty battle cry. The teen did a flip, once his feet were firmly on the ground, he flicked his blade, cleansing it of the blood.

The girl with the guitar ran over. “Ah, senpai, are you alright?”

The blond looked up from the sword he was inspecting. “Huh? Oh, yes, thank you for your concern.”

The metallic being landed, the teens could now make out her short blue hair that faded into brown and her purple eyes more clearly, this was a human, albeit a strange one. “We need to get out of here. I am Hisakawa, and this my friend Nakai-san.” She motioned to the blond boy.

“Please, call me Yuzuru, there is no need to be so formal when addressing me.” He gave a small bow.

Hisakawa then continued. “We have a place prepared where we can hide out until most of the chaos blows over, please come with us, I will explain everything once we get to a safe place.”

“Wait!” Shingo shouted. “We need to find my family first, my parents went to go get my sister at Minohara Elementary, we-“

Hisakawa cut him off. “We can not save them, not yet, if they are alive.”

“Wha-what do you mean?” Shingo began to cry.

“The demons have made the Minohara neighborhood one of their bases, the rest of the city is simply hunting grounds, but going there without a plan is suicide. I’m sorry.” Hisakawa explained. “We must leave now before more hunters come.” She then began to lead the teens to safety.

“No.” Shingo uttered as he cried. Kosuke wrapped his arm around him as they escaped.