Stalemate's End

Smoke plumes grew into the sky gathering together into a gray mass of clouds. Countless craters left behind from the unstable blast altered the terrain far more than anything Yumi had done before with her attacks. Any hints of nature were ripped away. Only the smoldering craters remained dotting the foothills.

Silence otherwise reigned through the field. No hints of the demons that made the mountain their home or the fighting of Yumi and the demon. All seemed dead. And anything that might have survived waited to know if it was finally safe again.

Safety however had stopped being part of either of their concerns. The destruction saw to that. Out of the smoke at the epicenter of the blast a large shadow appeared. It was the demon, however it came out of the explosion far worse. Two of its tails were merely bloody stumps now with dark red thickly coating the fur. Along its back, large sections of its black fur were stuck together from bleeding. Even its head was scarred with part of its ear missing and completely burned away fur on the left side.

A roar of pain unleashed from its maw dripping blood. Pain clung desperately to the demon refusing to release it. It staggered forward to Yumi. “You can’t hide from me! Drenched as you are in our blood, I can easily find you, Hunter!”

Yumi surfaced from the smoke standing before the demon. “I’ve no intention of hiding from you, demon,” she mustered through all of the pain. She didn’t know how much pain the demon was in, the sight only gave her a sense. ‘I can’t believe he’s still standing… What does it take to kill him?!’ Questions about the demon did nothing to stop her own pain, which she was certain was worse than whatever he might have been suffering.

“You’ve used up all your power.”

“Is that what you think?” She slowly walked a few steps closer to the demon to prove him wrong. ‘I have something else, but I don’t know if it’s enough to finish this… He looks like he still has plenty left in him…’

Laughter filled the air from the demon. “All you have left is an act.”

“We’ll see how much of it is an act when you’re dead!”

She kept pushing her front, which amused the demon. But Yumi gave a good enough performance that there was some hesitation. He stared down at her, continuing to read her face. “Your bluff won’t work on me. A ruthless killer like you wouldn’t hesitate for the kill if you could take it.”

A smirk appeared through the blood on her face. “You’re right. I can just kill you on the spot. But I’m growing tired of this gauntlet you’ve laid out for me. The only reason I’m here is to confirm that you’re lying, on the remotest chance you aren’t.”

“Oh we weren’t lying.”

“You’d like me to believe that. I’ve no reason to trust anything a demon says.”

“Yet you’re still here hanging onto your last breath before I kill you.”

“You’re talking pretty big for someone acting. I already said I’m only here because I can’t afford to assume.”

“Then you’ve come to die.”

White blades appeared around Yumi displaying her power for the demon. “I’m ready to kill you at any time!”

“Empty threats!” The fur along the back of the demon glistened with a red hue. It seemed to be backing its threats for Yumi as well. They stared across at each other with barely more than a meter between them.

Chapter 405 – Stalemate’s End

One minute passed. Two minutes, three and silence broke.

“This isn’t going to work,” Yumi remarked. Neither of them had moved. The longer that they stayed still the more it became clear. They had become like statues, unwilling, not wanting to move. If it continued anymore they could turn to stone.

The tension completely shattered. He nodded to her with the red glow disappearing along with her weapons. “Neither of us have enough power left.”

Dropping to the ground, finally able to have peace, Yumi’s legs could rest. A small chuckle came out of her as she found their situation strange. “I’ve been killing your kind since I got here. It feels a little odd not to want to do it.”

“Yes, I agree. It’s rare to find a human as powerful as you, even among Hunters.”

She looked up at the still intimidating presence of the demon. “So you gonna transform back into a human?”

“I’ve spent too much energy to do that. This is my real form, my human form is merely a disguise and requires a lot of energy and focus to maintain.” He looked about at the destruction wrought by their fighting. Given his height, he had a better view of it than her. “I haven’t seen our land so ravaged before.”

Yumi could only focus on the crater that she sat in, which easily fit the demon with plenty of room to spare. “Yeah, sorry about that. Though you were trying to kill me.” She gave a slightly sheepish grin to the demon. ‘Why am I apologizing to a demon?!’

“It’s the sign of a good fight. Nothing wrong with that.”

‘He’s got a way of looking at things like Seiji. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand it…’

“It’s the same for you, is it not?”

Standing back on her feet, she pushed herself forward to look out over the crater. “What happens now? Neither of us are in any shape for a fight, but nothing’s resolved.”

The demon walked out of the crater, having a better view of the land than Yumi. He looked down to Yumi after seemingly confirming something. “You’ve proven your worth in my eyes.”

“And what does that mean to me?” All any of this mattered for her was finding out if Yuki was actually here or not. If she could get some real truth out of the demon, she could leave now and resume her search without being forced down the distraction.

“It means that I’ll take you to my Lord.”

“I’m not interested in meeting your Lord. Only—“

“Yes, finding your friend. You’re quite focused. Don’t worry, he’s there as well. My Lord did send out the invitation for this meeting.”

Staring at the demon, it was even harder to get any sort of read on him. It might have been worth something if he was in human form, though Yumi knew even that would have been mostly fruitless for her effort. As a real demon in beast form, she had no hope of knowing anything about his intent behind those words. She couldn’t even tell if there were facial muscles with enough fine control to craft any sort of subtlety or deception.

Which simply left her in the same position as before. “I’ll see this to the end to find the truth.”

“Still untrusting.”

“Do I have a reason to be anything else?”

“For what reason would I have to lie? If I just wanted you dead, I could have done that at any point while you were fighting your way up here.”

“If you were only interested in a fight and not killing me, you wouldn’t have sent your pawns at me first.”

“Make no mistake, I want to kill you, but I don’t just fight anyone. Reputation is just words until I see proof.”

“You sent demons you knew were going to die just to see if I was worth killing?”

“Low level demons like that are like grass, bountiful and thick, but ultimately only fill up space.”

Yumi stared in silence for a moment absorbing his reply. It took her a bit to fully take it in. For some reason, she thought that he might have been different from the rest. Yet it just proved he was the same as the others that she already killed. It felt like a contradiction.

He looked down at her, finding her lack of reply a bit curious. Unlike her, he figured her out quickly. “Horrified that I would sacrifice demons for an empty reason?”

None of it really came out in his face, but she got the feeling he was mocking her. It was enough to snap her out of her internal nest of knots. “Just reinforcing what I already knew.” Yumi pushed herself up with what little power she still held to hover. Though it strained her mind tapping into the thin threads of her power, the relief it gave her legs and body made it a suitable trade off in pain. “Let’s get going.”

He followed with ease in his long strides over the warped wastelands of the hills. “For a ruthless Hunter, you’ve got a strange bit of optimism in you. Almost like you didn't grow up in this world.”

Keeping the direction that the demon pointed out, she didn’t try to look over to her traveling partner. Even knowing that they were both drained of power and will to fight, she still felt like at any moment he would jump to kill her off. Unlike her, even without powers to wield with ease, he still had a massive body that would tear her apart. She didn’t know why he would just stop at such an advantage. This demon made less sense the more she thought about it.

“Unwilling to make conversation?”

“Tch…I’m not in the habit of sharing words with someone trying to kill me.”

“That seems untrue, given our conversation already.” Yumi gave him a cold shoulder for his troubles of poking holes in her words. “Is there a subject that you would prefer to discuss?”

The demon handed the conversation over to her. Having it in her court wasn’t something that she was prepared for considering the company. If she could, she would have already ended it. But with the usual option gone, she was left having to listen to him.

Given how much they had been out to kill her and they never really gave her a good reason at the start. A demon just attacked her as though it was the most natural thing for them to do. Any sort of time in the village with the people forced to live in such close proximity to them made it clear the human perspective.

The media that she knew was largely commonplace as well. Just something that she easily accepted. So it came off jarring and awkward when one just wanted to have a conversation. Everything within her just wanted to kill it and move on. It was only going to kill her eventually. He even said as much. He just hadn’t right now on a whim, because of some convoluted sense of personal honor or code or something that she didn’t understand, or wish.

Yumi found herself thinking more about the other topics than whatever the demon asked her about. ‘I’m not sure why I’m even acting like I’m supposed to be questioning this. It’s all just fake anyway. I shouldn’t be thinking about this like it actually matters. We’re just stuck here until Phoibe rescues us.’

“I didn’t mean to stump you with such an intellectually challenging question.”

“Can’t kill me, so you’re tossing insults now?”

“Just checking if you were even listening. You seemed distracted.”

“Why does it even matter to you?”

“Still hostile toward me I see.”

“You want to kill me.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t be cordial.”

“Yes, yes it does!” Yumi shouted, stopping for the first time and touching the ground. She glared up at the demon unable to see anything that might be humanity, despite his previous form he could hold.

“Just because of that? Sure it’s not something else?”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“It’s because I’m not like you.”

“Are you getting hurt over empty feelings because you think you’re being discriminated against?”

“And you haven’t killed just because of what you saw?”

“Never!”

“The two demons we sent to you were only messengers. Some of the weakest we had with express orders not to attack, yet you killed them without even a second to see what they wanted. Are you really so noble?”

“What?!” She took a step back trying to figure out how he even knew that happened. ‘Has he been following me this whole time? Watching what I do?’ Though she still found it insulting to be lectured by a demon. “They were demons!”

“And that’s justification enough? We’re demons so we must die, no questions asked? We’re living, intelligent beings like humans, yet you unquestionably have determined all of us are worth killing. And you wonder why we demons kill humans to begin with.”