"Oh, I remember you, alright," Kasai growled, a hatred burning in her chest for the demon hotter than the sun.
All of the other demons were gone now. It was just the Sureiyazu and the demon made of fire. He was easily three times as tall as any of them, and he only had vague facial features in the constantly burning flame.
"I'm glad," it laughed. "That will make it all the more fun to burn you to ashes."
"You're the one who's going down!" Kasai yelled, Inochi at her side, nearly humming with anticipation.
"I see you still have that katana," said the demon.
This momentarily froze Kasai as the memories seemed to radiate from the blade.
But no. She wouldn't be distracted by the demon's tricks. This was her chance. This was the chance she'd been waiting for forever.
"Kasai," said Hachirou hesitantly, "what's it talking about?"
"We've met before," Kasai said quietly. Somehow she was even more menacing when she spoke quietly - as if she was trying to hold back her power, as if she was under control of her emotions and was itching to let go. "But this . . . this is the last time we'll ever meet. I'm going to get my revenge."
And Kasai sped forward then, faster than she'd ever gone before, her enhanced speed landing a blow where the demon's essence would have been -
If it hadn't moved.
In a whirlwind or fire, it had moved itself several yards to the right of where she had landed.
Kasai swore. "He's been preparing for this too."
The fiery demon laughed cruelly. "No, little child. I have been reforming."
"My name," Kasai growled, anger beginning to take over, "is Kasai!"
"And my name," is hissed, "is Dakufaia."
Kasai's breath caught in her throat. Flames of the past danced behind her green eyes -
"Ready yourselves," Akuma yelled behind her. "Come on."
The others were in line, weapons at the ready -
"No," Kasai said simply.
"Wh-what?" Akuma asked.
"No," she repeated. "This demon is mine. I don't want your help."
"Kasai -" Akuma started again.
"I need to do this on my own," said Kasai. "It's nothing personal. I just need to."
Akuma, against her better judgement, nodded.
Kasai branished Inochi, slowly stepping forward, closing the distance between her and the demon. Who would attack first? Both were equally as ready, poised to respond to the slightest movement from the other.
And it all happened in a blur - their battle.
Kasai was in the air, swinging her katana this way and that, while the demon laughed and swatted at her and she dodged -
Finally a blow hit her and she skidded into the ground, leaving a trail of moved dirt behind her.
For a moment everything was still.
And then Kasai grinned and picked herself up off the ground to launch herself towards the demon again.
Their battle was heavily one-sided. With every move that Kasai made, even with her extra speed, seemed to have an arm of fire on the other end that would catapult her back in the direction she came.
"Kasai, are you sure you -" Akuma tried again.
"No," Kasai said stubbornly, anger the only thing keeping her eyes alight. She turned back to the demon again.
She leveled Inochi with the ground and charged forward again -
And suddenly the fire was gone.
The air lightened and the grass miraculously changed back to its happy green color, but Kasai simply stood there, Inochi piercing the air where the demon would have been if she were a millisecond faster. Time seemed to be suspended in that single moment - the moment when she realized that she hadn't slain it.
And then she collapsed to her knees, dumb with shock and disappointment. Her face was streaked with dirt and sweat and her heart beat fast. But it was over. The demon was gone. Dakufaia was gone.
"Kasai!" Akuma exclaimed, seeing her fall. She and the others ran over.
"Kasai, are you okay?" Hachirou demanded.
"Are you hurt?" Aya asked.
"You know," Shinrin said loudly, "I thought you said there would be -"
"Shut up!" Aya hissed. Shinrin shrugged.
"Kasai?" Yuri said tentatively.
"Kasai . . ." Heishi said slowly.
"Kasai!" Hachirou said again, frantically.
But she just sat there, uncomprehending of what had happened. Dakufaia had been there, in front of her, and she hadn't slain the demon. How could that be . . . ?
"Are you alive?" Ryou asked helpfully.
Hachirou knelt next to her and waved his hand in front of her face. "Kasai . . ."
Finally she blinked and then seemed to register all the people around her. "Oh, hi there."
The group let out a sigh of collective relief.
"Don't space out like that, Kasai," Aya scolded as a smile crept onto her face. "You scared us."
"Sorry," Kasai said quietly.
"Okay, that's too much trauma for her," said Hachirou, standing again. "She just apologized."
"And apologized softly," Akuma added.
Kasai laughed a little at that. "What do you want me to say?"
No one answered.
"Oh, nobody wants to be the mean one?" Kasai asked. "Alright. My story's a long one though."
~~~
Dakufaia growled, the flames of its body hissing and taking on a color closer to blood than flame.
"I could have easily crushed them."
"The time was not right," said the king sharply.
"The Kasai one would not accept help from the others. It was the perfect moment to remove her from the equation."
"No."
"You pretend to have plans for us, but I am beginning to doubt that."
"Doubt all you want. If you want to conquer the humans, you need to be concentrated."
"And we were."
"They destroyed the small army I put there. I did not want to lose you to them."
"But Kasai! She is at her weakest on her own."
"Trust me. This is for the best."
"I know her. I know her weaknesses."
"You have fought her before. You do not know her."
"That is the same thing."
The ghost of a smile appeared on the king's face. "Not to humans."
~~~
"You're sure you want to know?" Kasai asked. "I mean, I'll happily keep all my secrets until the day I die if you want."
"Pffft. No thank you," said Hachirou. "Spill the soup."
"'Spill the soup'?" Ryou repeated.
"It's something they used to say in my village," Hachirou said, waving it off.
"Well, here goes," Kasai sighed. "Let me think where to start with this . . ."
***
"Sachiko!" calls Chika. "Sachi!"
"What?" a young Kasai calls from across a flower-covered valley, running to meet her sister.
When they meet in the middle, both are exactly the same height, both have the same green eyes that stare into each other, and both have the same length of bright, flaming orange hair.
"There you are, stupid," Chika laughs. "I was looking for you everywhere. We're late for lessons."
Kasai lets out a dramatic exasperated sigh. "Ugh. Again? I don't get why we have to train so much just because Mama and Daddy own the guild."
"That's why," Chika laughs. "Honestly, you'd think I was the older one here."
"Hey!" Kasai exclaims. "I'm older! By a whole two minutes!"
Chika raises her arms in the air in surrender. "I never said anything different, Sachiko."
"Exactly."
"Now let's go have a spar, okay?"
"Alright, fine."
***
"You have a sister?!" Yuri exclaimed.
"You have a different name?!" Akuma cried.
"You didn't like sparring?!" Aya asked, eyes wide.
Kasai sighed, much like she had in the past. But this sigh was knowing and heavy. "One - had. I had a sister. Two - technically. If you ever call me Sachiko I'll hurt you. And three - yeah, I didn't like sparring."
"Who are you?" Hachirou asked.
"That's actually a good question," said Kasai.
***
"What?" asks Sachiko, laying in the grass under a tree, as her sister approaches her.
"What do you think?" Chika asks in reply.
"I think you're gonna force me to spar with you."
"How very perceptive."
"But I don't want to be a demonslayer. I want to be a normal person."
Chika doesn't seem to know what to say to that.
"How do you train all the time?" Sachiko asks. "Isn't it boring?"
"Not really," says Chika. "If I get bored, I just think of some way to make it more interesting. I just play pretend."
"Play pretend?" Sachiko repeats. "Like how?"
"I . . . I pretend I'm a famous demonslayer," Chika says sheepishly. "She's strong and brave and doesn't mind training so much. I named her Yukan'na, because that means 'brave'."
Sachiko sits up. "Hmm . . . If I were a famous demonslayer, what would my name be?"
"Something really cool," says Chika.
"Yeah," Sachiko agrees. "Like . . . like . . . I know - Kasai! 'Fire'!"
"That's not cool, that's hot," Chika laughs.
"You know what I mean," Sachiko says.
"Yeah, I do," admits Chika. "Let's go train, Kasai."
"Okay, Yukan'na."
---
"Tell the story again about the katana!" Chika cheers for their father.
The dojo is empty now; all the members of the guild have just gone back to their rooms. It has been a long day of work and training, and Chika and Sachiko sit in front of a glass case built into the wall, their father between them, staring at the beautiful katana behind it.
"This katana has been in our family for a long, long time," their father begins - the way he always begins. "It was handed down from generation to generation. It survived the destruction of the Buki guild when your great grandfather had it, it survived travelling across Sekai when your grandmother had it, and it survived all the hard work your mother and I went through while we built this guild from the ground up. Before that - who knows? It could have done anything."
"But if it's so old, why does it still look so good?" Chika asks.
"Two reasons: the first reason is that it's never been used, even after all this time. It's a tradition sort of, now, not to use it, just to keep it in the family. And second - it's been in our family so long that it's tied to us. As long as our pride and honor is upheld, the katana still looks good as new."
"What do you call something that awesome?" says Sachiko.
Their father laughs. "Its name is Inochi."
"So why don't you ever use it?"
"I don't know," he admits. "It's just tradition."
A long moment passes while Sachiko stares at the katana.
"Anyway," her father interrupts, "it's getting late. You both should go to bed."
"Awwwwwwwwwwww," they whine.
***
Inochi felt heavy in her hand as she told that part.
"So you're the first in your family to ever wield that katana," Heishi thought out loud. "That's kind of cool."
"I guess so," Kasai sighed, looking over the blade of the sword, which was covered in little nicks and scratches. It seemed too perfect to have slain so many demons, and she didn't doubt that her family was really tied with the katana. But if that was true, why did it have so many imperfections it had never had before? Was she not upholding the honor?
I'm trying. I'm trying so hard.
Tears stung her eyes. And she hadn't even gotten to the bad part.
"Are you . . . crying?" Hachirou asked slowly. He hadn't forgotten - the only other time he'd seen her cry was when she had been standing with him on the wall outside the castle.
"No," said Kasai. "Not yet."
***
"Sachiko!"
Why are they always yelling for her?
Sachiko is looking into the case at Inochi, ignoring the calls of Chika from another room. She should be going to train, but a few minutes of stalling can't hurt them.
Suddenly a cry erupts from another room - Chika! Something is terribly wrong . . .
But something holds her in place. A crackling is growing stronger, and so is the heat. Fire. But how? How could a fire have spread here, with all the trouble that her parents go through to make the guild safe from -
No. There are more screams, screams of a demon. This is all wrong. It shouldn't happen this way. What Sachiko would give - a thousand years of training to save their lives . . .
But she still doesn't move. Why can't she move?
The demon can.
Suddenly the wall bursts open, and a demon comes through, easily three or four times taller than the still-small Sachiko, Chika in his clutches.
But it's all wrong. She isn't burning like the rest of the room - instead she's disintegrating into a dust that the demon is slowly absorbing, gaining her power -
The first thing Sachiko thinks of is the katana. Somehow within her, she already knows that everyone else is dead. The screams and cries have all dissipated and it is only the roaring of the fire. Inochi is all that is left of her family.
Ignoring safety, she slams into the glass case, grabbing hold of the hilt of the sword. It feels strangely right in her hands, if a little too long.
The demon laughs at her while she makes for the door behind her, panting heavily.
Suddenly a wall of fire blocks her path. Glancing towards the other exits and seeing them, too, useless, she is forced to face death in the eyes. No, an ending like this is worse than death, because at least in death the soul dissolves slowly and painlessly - to dissolve this way would surely be painful.
The arms of fire stretch out to grab her, but she runs as fast as she can, dodging them - after all, she has been training to be a demonslayer for years now.
But this chase of cat and mouse doesn't last long. Cornered by the flames, and with no time to do anything, and Inochi still firmly in her grip as an awful pain explodes through her body, she slices through the air.
Unknown to Sachiko, the demon's essence is torn, and the katana, in the brief moments that the core is exposed, begins to absorb the demon's power in a similar way to how Chika died . . .
And with a roar, the demon is gone, not to be seen again for six years.
---
Sachiko isn't sure where she is going, but she just needs to keep moving.
Every time she stops, she sees Chika dying in front of her eyes. She has been travelling for a week now, aimlessly . . .
She tried to leave the katana behind, to leave the last piece of her past in the past, but she couldn't, because every time she tried, it felt like her soul being ripped in two. So she carries it with her now, promising, as the only person ever to wield it, that she will uphold the honor that kept it alive.
And there is some comfort in it too . . . She can't place it, but every time she holds the blade and concentrates, she feels as though Chika, her twin sister, is standing by her again, and her parents behind her, ever supportive. If she listens, she can even hear their voices . . .
But maybe she is just hallucinating.
In this town, everyone is talking about a group of demonslayers called the Sureiyazu. They sound familiar. Right, they trained at the Buki guild with her great grandparents. Somehow, one of the members is still alive and has taken in a young girl who he is training . . .
From this a little spark ignites in the coldness of Sachiko's heart, and a day later, she stands at the door of what she knows to be the Sureiyazu castle.
"Yes?" A man with white hair that covers one eye answers the door.
"I want you to teach me demonslaying," she says. "And there's nothing you can do about it."
"Well, in that case," he smiles, "I'll teach you. Since clearly you won't leave unless I do."
Sachiko nods sharply.
"Who's this?" asks another girl who suddenly appears at the door.
"This girl is going to join you in your studies," says the man.
The other girl furrows her eyebrows. "Oh. But who is she?"
"What is your name?" he asks.
Eons seem to pass.
"Kasai. My name is Kasai."
***
"I can't be without Inochi," said Kasai finally, "because otherwise I'll die. Master Shi thought that somehow while the demon was attacking me it started to eat my soul the same way it ate Chika's. But when it was slain Inochi absorbed my soul back into it, along with some of the demon's power - which is where I get my speed from. He said there might even be some remnants of the souls of the other people it devoured that day . . ."
A breeze set in, blowing Kasai's hair into a long arc, far longer than Chika's had ever been.
No one said anything.
But maybe, for these few moments, it was better that way.
"You're okay though?" Hachirou asked.
Kasai sighed and stood. "Yeah. It feels good, actually, to get that off my chest. I knew I couldn't keep it a secret forever."
"Yeah!" Yuri agreed. "All better."
"Still . . ." Kasai thought aloud. "I want to get out of here. It's all the same as it was when I lived here. I never lived in the main part of the city but it just reminds me of all the things I tried to leave behind a long time ago."
"We're right behind you," Akuma assured her.
"Of course we are," said Aya. "We always have been."
Kasai turned to look at the sky, promising to herself:
"But if I ever see that demon again - and I swear I will - I'll make sure it never sees Sekai again. Or Jufuku for that matter. I can't let it destroy anything else. I won't."