Reunions

“Manifest Pathos: Mana Conversion!”

Iguchi’s mask grinned wide and its colors flipped. The black curves for the eyes and smile became white, and the mask itself changed from white to black.

Iguchi stood up, using his left hand to wipe the blood dripping down from his chin.

“Manifest Pathos: Shadow Saber!” he chanted through gritted teeth.

Badum!

His chest began to tighten. Before he could clutch it, bunching up his shirt, a sword identical to the one in his right hand began to form.

The only difference was that this one was made from pure darkness and shadow.

“Argh!!” he grimmased. “This pain!”

There’s a reason humans don’t use dark mana.

The mask began laughing. “Oh, your suffering… It’s so… delicious~!”

It moaned with pure joy.

“If you l-like my pain so much, do something with it you damn demon!” he shouted.

A specter on the larger side approached him. It was blue with a single horn and wielded a club. It had two glowing red eyes, was twice as tall as him and prepared to swing.

Whoosh!!

Boom!!

Its club hit the ground with tremendous force, leaving a caved in point of impact. It lifted its club and grunted and squealed in satisfaction. Crimson blood dripped off the club, and a crushed corpse—completely unrecognizable—rested in the small crater.

“Pathetic…”

Its eyes widened and it tried to turn around—

“Squeeeee!!”

—but it collapsed to its knees, unable to move.

Iguchi walked around from behind it and stood before it. As he did, both of the specter’s arms—currently supporting and holding itself up—limply slid out from under the forearms.

Splat!!

Its face fell first into the crater, squishing the human corpse it smashed.

“I need to put an end to this parade of demons…” Iguchi muttered to himself as he flung the blue blood off his blades.

“Well, technically,” the mask started, “while this is a parade of a hundred plus spectral apparitions, not a single one here is a demon.”

“...”

“Oh, my bad! Were you trying to say something cool~?”

I really, really hate you specters.

A shadow appeared behind him, and it was a towering presence. He turned around and saw an identical specter to the one he’d just killed.

“My my, aren’t you ugly?” he mused.

This one had red skin, two horns, and a single eye.

Iguchi flipped his solar saber and jabbed it into the back of the blue specter’s head.

Shink!!

Enraged, the red specter growled.

Stupid ogres…

“So predictable!” he said as he dashed.

The red ogre began to swing its club down on him, and he hopped to the side just in time to avoid the hit. Now starting from a cold stop, Iguchi waited for the ogre to attack.

It lifted the club slightly off the ground, and it swung for his right side.

Here we go.

Just as the club was in range, he jumped—flipping straight over the weapon.

“You’re wide open!”

Now on the offensive again, Iguchi rushed in before it could move its arm back.

Slash!!

It crashed to the ground as its left leg slumped, no longer supporting its body.

“I hope you suffer for all of eternity…”

Shink!!

He pulled his swords out of the specter’s head. Several seconds later, both ogre specters disintegrated into ash, one leaving behind an arm, and the other leaving a leg.

The remaining limbs shrunk down into smaller versions—sizes suitable for an infant’s limbs—and began pulsing. Their flesh was now withered and gray with blue veins visible under the surface. On both limbs, a blue eyeball opened and looked around.

“Reduced to the undead state? What a waste…” Iguchi spat. “If only we knew how to turn you into psycarrions. Then you’d actually be useful.”

He put them in his pockets, then turned to face the remaining horde.

“Sigh… Let’s get this over with. You with me, Duality?”

“I’ve got a name you know! It’s Janin!” the mask cried. “But yeah, let’s have some fun~!”

* * *

Feavor roamed around through the labyrinth until he found the dungeon.

“Here we go! This is the jackpot!”

He kicked the door open and stepped inside, peering through the bars on each cell door.

“No,” he shook his head. “Not you.”

He continued.

“Nope. You’re not the right one either.”

The specters became even more restless.

“Damn… Why is it so hard to find the right demon down here?”

Some slunk away in the cells after sensing his intense dark mana.

“Aah… Here we go,” he made a fist. “This is the one.”

Bam!!

The cell door flew open.

“Knock knock! Anybody home?”

A man with long white hair sat inside and looked up at Feavor. He had two eyes under his normal pair, two on his chest, and two more revealed themselves on the back of his hands as he stood up for a total of eight. On his palms were mouths and a large maw on his stomach smiled.

“Hello Feavor. It’s good to see a friendly face.”

He reached out to shake the gentleman demon’s hand, his large muscles flexing as he did.

Feavor extended his hand. “So… I see you’re doing alright, Mugen.”

“Well, it’s about time. I haven’t eaten a human in so long! I was beginning to think you bastards forgot about me!”

Feavor rolled his eyes. “I hear you. I can see your hair has grown long in your time away too… Anyway, what do you say we go home?”

“Hahaha! Yeah, let’s go ‘Mr Proper’! Are there any good Psycho Hunters around?” Mugen asked.

“Unfortunately,” Fever sighed, “my orders were to bring you back to my boss… Sorry man.”

Mugen clearly did not like that revelation—it showed on his face—but he gave a resigning sigh.

“Okay then. I take it you have a teleport scroll prepared? I’m a bit low on dark mana right now.”

Feavor shook his head. “Not quite. Instead, I’ll give it to you, but first we’ll use dark transfer. I need someone to come here.”

“All right. I’ll see you on the other side then. Let’s spar when we meet again!” Mugen smiled.

They clasped each other’s hand and Feavor chanted “Manifest Pathos”.

“See you on the other side… Dark Transfer!”

* * *

Takada’s eyes began to flutter.

“Tada…”

What a bad dream…

“Taka…”

Who’s calling my name?

“Takada…”

I can’t believe I’m married! Hehehe!

“Takada! Wake up!”

Finally, his eyes opened, and two soft faces were in his.

“... Maki? Zashi? What happened?” he inquired, still half asleep.

“I should ask you that!” Zashi exclaimed. “You look like you got hit by a truck—and after you were just treated too!”

“That’s right,” Maki added. “You keep making a lot of trouble for us… Do you really want us to have to rely on our step brother?”

“...”

She’s right… I made them a promise…

“I’m sorry,” he said as he sat up. “Did someone take care of the vampire? He didn’t enter the labyrinth did he?”

The twins’ eyes went wide.

“What do you mean?”

“What vampire?”

Oh crap…

“This is bad!” he shouted. “I have to go!”

He climbed to his feet and put his hand to his face.

“Aaahh…” he winced.

“What’s wrong?” they asked him.

“My face…” he replied. “It burns!”

Zashi told him to come to her and she placed a hand on his face.

Suddenly, her dull blue eyes began to glow a bright blue. As they did, his skin under her palm began to freeze over.

“Close your eyes—This is going to hurt.”

Takada grimaced as she moved her hand all over the burn on his face.

When she was done, he walked away and grabbed his katana.

“Okay. Let’s go!”

The siblings hurriedly walked to the labyrinth entrance, climbing down the ladder one after the other.

Inside, they navigated their way to the sealed vault, and as Takada tried to push the large doors open, it wouldn’t budge. His sisters helped him, pushing the door alongside him.

Maki broke into a fit of coughing afterwards, and Zashi rubbed her back gently.

“Everything looks like it’s in order here,” Takada assessed.

He stepped further inside to double check. Once he verified that there were no intruders, the large doors opened.

“Looks like we meet again, Psycho Hunter!”

Feavor entered the room with a smile on his face.

“And I see you brought some girls with you too…”

He broke out into a fit of laughter, and the siblings took their stances.

“It seems that fighting me man to man—fighting with honor, even though you lost—wasn’t good enough for you!”

Takada gripped his katana tightly, and his eyes began to glow.

This bastard!

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Did you come to steal the psycarrion?”

“Hahaha! That’s what you’re worried about?” Feavor chuckled. “You have no shame! I might have to kill your precious girls there for you to understand! Maybe then you’ll—”

A young man entered the vault behind him and placed his hand on Feavor’s shoulder.

“I said you can kill Takada. You will not harm a hair on those girls’ heads,” he warned.

No way…

“This can’t be real…” Takada thought aloud. “S-Saiken?”

“Long time no see, Takada!”

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

What do think will happen next?

If you have any thoughts, theories, or feedback, I'd love to hear them in the comments!