Chapter 15

Arisa hesitated to respond; she grabbed a handful from her robes and squeezed it nervously.

“You don’t have any reason to trust me and I don’t have any reason to think you’re really not a demon.”

‘Just as I thought, she is no different. I suppose there really is no difference, no matter what I do I will be seen as their enemy.’

Arisa cut off his thought with an outburst of emotion in her words. “That being said, I can’t call myself a human being if I let another person that tried to save me be treated like a monster!”

Kiramaru was left speechless and simply stared at her with widened eyes and a somewhat childish expression.

“I see… If that’s the case then will you let me free, I have something I still need to do before I die?”

Arisa dispelled the restraints around his body by waving her paper talismans directly over it. The symbol drawn on hers were each different, coherent to whichever element of effect the attack would do.

At the back of each talisman was the same painted symbol that appeared on Kyosuke's bow and on their robes.

The talismans she waved over the restraints had similar patterns to the ones binding Kira except that hers were drawn in a parallel design. They were completely flipped over.

With a gentle brush against the paper around his chains, they burst into flames and released their grip. Kira stumbled about until he gained his balance to stand again.

He may have only been chained for a couple of hours but the talismans on his chains kept his mana restricted.

Therefore he was feeling the full brunt of his wounds from Kyosuke and the bear all at once.

“Are you alright, do you need some help standing?” Arisa rushed to his side hastily.

Kira wasn’t reluctant to her help but he couldn't resist flashing a subtle smirk.

“What’s with that face, I don’t know why but it’s making me irritated…” She said as she cringed with her head back.

“I just find it funny that you only chose to help me now.”

“If you don’t like it then I could always leave you!” She quickly snapped.

“No thank you, I have had enough time without a shirt! I’d like to get my things now thank you.

After a quick back and forth Arisa helped Kira out of the church door, guiding him to the exit. She nudged the door with her shoulder and opened the large cathedral-like doors.

‘Ko…’

Arisa leaned in close and whispered into his ear. “I heard yesterday that you had never heard of a church before so I should warn you…this church isn't built out in the middle of nowhere, it’s actually-”

The lowering sun beamed across his face and he set his eyes on the open sky and everything it looked down upon.

A large traditional feudal lord mansion spanned across his view from both sides, completely pin-pointing the church in its centre as the main focus.

The outer walls stood a bit higher than usual but the overall structure was a large square wall running around the church with a few buildings and the main manner built into the wall.

“You got to be kidding me... I’m not really free then?” He mumbled in disbelief.

‘No matter how I look at it this is ridiculous, If I try and jump the wall I will only cause suspicion and get caught. If it comes to a fight I will be as useless as a regular human…I can’t let it come to that then.’

Arisa squeezed at his wrist tightly and snapped him out of his deep thought.

“What is it?”

“I said I will get you out of here and I promise I will. So when everyone’s attention is pulled onto me, you have to run okay?” She said with a forced smile.

‘This will be my one and only chance, a drawn out fight would be stupid. Not to mention that I have already wasted enough time here because of her!’ Kira contemplated.

“I understand.” He answered earnestly.

“You should be safe if you stay out of sight until then, you’ll have to go on your own but be sure not to get caught until I give the signal!” Arisa mentioned as she let go of him.

“What, you’re leaving now? I don’t know this place at all, where do I go?”

“You got this; if you don’t want to be found then just don’t get caught okay!”

“Just don’t get caught…easy for you to say!”

Kira frantically panned his head left and right trying to gain some sort of direction to head first. Even if the Church was placed in the centre he wasn’t getting much of an idea where everything was because the area was massive!

‘Shit, I can’t believe I forgot! There’s no way I can leave without my sword.’

*

Arisa raced through the hallway of the manner uncontrollably panting as she stormed across countless rooms. Her main focus was reaching her chambers before any of father Demen or his henchman noticed that she was gone.

She burst through the door with haste and bumped into a solid figure, they weren't particularly large but they were slightly taller than her.

She stumbled back and lifted her head, noticing Kyosuke slightly hunched forward with his attention on her.

‘Bad bad bad bad bad!!! This is the worst possible guy to have run into…Does he know, there's no way he doesn’t or else why would he be in my room waiting for me. He doesn’t look happy…’

“What are you doing in my room; this isn't for you to be-”

“SHUT UP! I always knew that you were a piece of shit but this time you just took the cake.”

Arisa stepped back nervously but it was too late, the door had already slammed shut when she burst into the room a few moments ago and it would be pointless to try and over power him.

Arisa knew that Kyosuke could pull back his bow way before she could do anything.

‘He knows! This is bad. This is bad. This is bad. What do I do?’ Arisa panicked.

Kyosuke took a few steps forward until they were right in front of each other. Without any notice he pulled out a knife that was attached to his belt and held it to her neck.

Arisa was pinned to the door with the knife pressed firmly against her neck, a slight slit let out a trickle of blood which ran down her neck and landed on her collar bone.

She could feel the cold steel pressing against her and eventually turned warm, leading to a numb resident over her throat. Her heart was moving so fast that she could almost see it bursting from her chest.