Inside the building...
Rubbles and debris caused by the explosion began to fall one by one. The fire had slowly but steadily continued to spread as thick smoke covered the area's visibility. But it was when another explosion took place in the laboratory that Riya managed to regain consciousness shortly after she ran and avoided the explosion.
She remembered the moment when the explosion happened. She immediately figured out that the floating dark orb a while back came from a demon shinobi and out of instinct, she grabbed Ayako's hand. But before they could escape away from there further, the orb exploded in an intense magnitude. And she was thrown away by that intensity along with Ayako, with both of them hitting the ground hard and losing consciousness shortly after.
When she looked beside her, she saw Ayako starting to regain consciousness as the brown-haired girl was slowly opening her eyes. Riya tried to sit but immediately held her head when she felt pain. It was most likely caused by the impact that she took when she hit the ground. She also saw Ayako slowly sit and looked around, only to see her get shocked by what the girl saw around.
"What happened? Was it caused by that dark orb?" Ayako immediately asked after looking around. Riya was surprised to know that Ayako could see that dark orb when she knew very well that a person without spiritual ability would never be able to see that.
Not unless... Ayako was not just an ordinary human living in the Human World.
"You can see that orb?" Riya still asked just in case. Besides, she needed to know.
Ayako looked at her confusingly because of the seriousness on her face. Nevertheless, she nodded as an answer to that.
She sighed and then smiled when she looked at Ayako. "I guess you're not as ordinary as I thought."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
But before Riya could answer, she managed to sense something dangerous that made her turn around and narrow her eyes as she looked in a certain direction. It went even narrower when a figure emerged from the thick smoke and the fire that kept on spreading.
"Stay behind me, Kirisawa-san," Riya said without looking at her. Though still confused and now scared, Ayako complied with that.
The figure became clearer the moment it stepped out of the smoke. A human-like demon with wings of an eagle behind him emerged, holding a scythe with a black handle.
"I'm surprised you made it alive from that explosion, humans," the demon said while smirking.
But it didn't make Riya scared at all. All she did was smirk at the demon's statement. "It surprised me more that you demon shinobi showed up in this world. I can't believe you still have the guts to show your ugly face to us humans."
That surprised the said being and angered him in the process. "What did you say?" Then he pointed his scythe to Riya but she did not even flinch. "Let's just see if you could still say those words after this."
To Riya's surprise, the scythe began to generate a dark purple orb and aimed it not at her but at the ceiling above her and Ayako. The orb flew fast towards the ceiling and it exploded at the point of impact. Then Riya tried not to let her guard down.
However, the intensity of the impact caused a large part of the ceiling to collapse completely. A large part of that ceiling was about to hit Ayako who was just standing there frozen because of shock.
"Watch out!" Riya yelled and pushed Ayako as hard as she could before the large chunk and she dropped to the ground at the same time.
"Miyuzaki!" Ayako screamed the moment that the ceiling dropped and crushed her to the ground. All Ayako could do was stare with wide eyes while waiting for the cloud of dust and smoke to clear out. She was surprised to see a familiar figure whose half of the body lay under that chunk of the ceiling. She could not move because of that since the one under that large chunk was Riya.
The fact that Riya saved her from being crushed continued to echo in Ayako's mind. She thought Riya was dead but then she saw her trying to stand up while trying to lift the rubble. That was when she got her senses back and approached Riya to help her lift away that large rubble and somehow, they managed to do so.
Ayako helped Riya to sit down before saying anything. "Are you alright?" Ayako asked in a completely worried tone.
Riya managed to smile at her. "Yeah, I guess I could say that but..." Then Riya looked at her right foot which was bleeding at that moment because of the rubble. "I'm going to make that jerk pay for this!" Riya said before clenching her fist.
"I thought that was our job as your warriors, Mistress Riya."
Both Riya and Ayako turned to where they heard the voice. But Riya's eyes widened when she saw two figures emerging from the spreading fire.
"Yukari-chan... Soujiro-kun... How...?" Riya could only mutter after confirming the identity of the hidden figures in the smoke.
Soujiro's face went serious and looked at the demon shinobi who kept on touching the blade of his scythe. "We can't explain it to you right now, Mistress. But we'll be much willing to tell you everything once we take you out of here."
Yukari then faced Ayako who was beside Riya. "It might be weird for you when we ask this... but can you take Riya-sempai out of here? We don't want her to get caught up in the battle."
However, Ayako did not know exactly what to do. She was having a hard time dealing with that. Then she saw the siblings materialize two beautiful weapons—weapons that Riya did not expect to see from them.
"The Scythe of the Deep Waters and the Flute of Melody... The weapons chose the two of you to become their masters?" Riya asked which made Ayako even more confused.
'What the heck is going on here? And who is this being that's attacking us? Are the Hondou siblings holding some sort of weapons? I don't know what's happening now...' Ayako thought as she watched the siblings poised for a two-on-one battle. But then she stopped watching them when she saw Riya trying to stand up despite the bleeding wound on her right foot and now, on her left thigh. She stood up as well and supported Riya. "You don't have to force yourself to stand up, Miyuzaki."
"If we don't get out of this place, we'll be dead before this fight finishes. And I don't think that demon shinobi would even try to let us go," Riya stated.
Before Riya could continue, Ayako saw another dark orb floating outside the building and she was surprised to figure out that it would come after them when she saw it approaching. The orb glowed and created another intensifying explosion.
"NO!" Ayako screamed and closed her eyes tightly.
Just at that time, something happened to Ayako and one of the three remaining Legendary Weapons located in the isolated Zircon Lighthouse, also known as the Light Shrine under the custody of the Spirit World.
xxxxxx
"Koenma-sama, this is terrible! The Legendary Weapon at the Light Shrine had just mysteriously vanished!" one of Koenma's agents announced over the transmission in a panic.
Koenma stopped stamping the files on his table and rashly lifted his head after hearing that. And then he looked at the screen where the agent was communicating.
"But how did that happen? We have the Light Shrine completely guarded so there's no way it would just vanish."
"I don't know about that, Sir. But the shrine suddenly emitted a blinding light that made us distracted and disoriented, as well. When the light faded, we rushed inside and we found that the Staff of Shimmer vanished. And just like what happened with the first four weapons, only the energy of the weapon remained at the scene," the agent informed.
The toddler's face went sober and looked down.
'This is getting even worse than I thought. And to think another weapon would disappear in the middle of the case. Yusuke has to know about this... no matter how hard the mission might turn out. I could only hope this does not end in another tragedy...'
After that, he told the agents what to do next. Then shortly after, he called Botan to let her inform Yusuke of the news.
xxxxxx
"What? Another weapon had disappeared?" Yusuke exclaimed when Botan told the news Koenma just said a while back. "But we haven't located even just one of the four other weapons yet. Now we're going to have to deal with another one?"
"I know it's getting harder, Yusuke. But Koenma-sama could only trust you with this. He felt that you and the others could finish this mission," Botan said seriously. 'But I can't tell you that your cousin Riya-chan might be involved in this. Sorry, Yusuke...' she added in her thought.
No one said a word after that. Yusuke was still thinking of what else to do when they heard a familiar voice.
"But before you go and find the weapons, we have a situation that you might want to deal with, detective."
Yusuke turned only to see an extremely serious-looking Hiei standing behind him.
"What's that suppose to mean?" Yusuke asked.
"Hanasakura Academy is currently being attacked by demon shinobis. Fortunately, our targets, the Legendary Weapon Wielders, are there," Hiei stated that made Yusuke and Botan shocked.
"Are you serious?"
xxxxxx
Kurama stopped running when he felt an immensely powerful spiritual energy hovering near. But he's sure that it's not from the Arrow of Wind. He felt that just at the same time another strong shaking was felt along with the sound of another explosion coming from the same direction where the first one happened. He felt his heart pound faster than it was a while ago and for some reason, he could not proceed to the stairs that would lead him to the scene of the explosion. Nevertheless, he continued to run toward the stairs.
But then he halted to a stop when he sensed something that was just a few meters away from him.
"Who's there?"
He then heard a soft but sinister laugh just before a figure of a woman began to emerge from the dark corridor. After a few moments, he could see the face of the woman completely. She was beautiful physically and that beauty would entrance any man. But since his olfactory sensation was stronger than anyone, he could say that that beauty the woman in front of him possessed was quite a deadly one and he loathed that deadly scent of a demon shinobi.
"You do care for that girl, don't you?" she said, making Kurama frown.
"What are you talking about?" he asked coldly as he looked at her the same way. "Did you do something to Riya?"
The demon shinobi smirked evilly as she took out her sword from the scabbard on her back. "Me? I did not do anything. But from what I can tell, she's probably dead by now... along with the other Legendary Weapon Wielders."
Kurama's eyes widened at that.
"She's probably dead by now..." Those words kept on ringing in his mind for several seconds before a telepathic message disrupted it. There was only one person right now that he could think of who knew he was in that building besides Hiei.
'She is not dead, Kurama. She is still alive.' That telepathic message from Yumi made him inwardly sigh with relief. But he never let the enemy in front of him knew that. Then he heard the Fire Wielder continue to speak. 'Whom you are dealing with right now is a demon shinobi with amazing swordsmanship but she does not have the same level of intellect as you have. I know you can pull this off. You do not have to worry about Riya. The other wielders are protecting her. You just have to remain your head cool if you wanted to survive.'
After that, the demon shinobi lunged at him with her sword. Kurama pulled a rose from his hair and transformed it into his Rose Whip.
"An unlikely weapon for a good-looking guy as you... But do you think a whip-like that could hurt me?"
He showed a faint smile and fixed a stance. "Yumi's right. You don't have that much intellect in your head."
That angered the woman and lunged at him faster. He tightened his grip on his whip and began to attack her with it. He saw her get caught off guard and was surprised when she saw the whip wrap her body, particularly to her neck and waist. She dropped her sword when the thorns from the whip began to dig into her skin. Most likely, the pain was starting to overtake her as she tried to let go but to no luck since Kurama was pulling the whip for the thorns to dig deeper and injure her.
And since Riya was being attacked by another demon shinobi, he couldn't waste more time in that fight. He has to hurry even though Yumi assured him that Riya was not dead. He has to see for himself that she was still alive and alright.
"This game is over so better not spread your sickening scent in this place," Kurama said as coldly as he could, without a doubt, making his enemy slightly quiver. He knew that since he was holding the whip that wrapped around her.
Without delay, he pulled the whip with much force that cut the demon shinobi's body into pieces and dropped to the floor. Blood flowed from the body that stained the floor and he just looked at it with hatred in his eyes. The whip in his hands returned to its rose form and then he sighed.
"Kurama!" He heard someone call out and when he turned around, he wasn't surprised to see Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Botan approaching.
He saw their slightly surprised look when they looked at the sliced body pieces of the demon shinobi with her head just a few inches away from his foot who had an extremely shocked expression on her face.
"You did this?" Kuwabara asked after a while. Kurama nodded and glanced at Hiei.
"Is she safe?" Hiei asked after that.
Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Botan exchanged glances at each other when that question was asked.
"She? What are you talking about? Who's that 'she' Hiei mentioned?" Yusuke inquired as he faced Kurama confusingly.
Kurama decided not to face Yusuke but instead, he faces Hiei. "She's fine... I guess. I haven't proceeded to the scene since this demon shinobi stopped me here. But according to Yumi, she's alive since the other wielders were protecting her from the other demon shinobi's attack."
Yusuke sharply faced Kurama, catching the redhead surprised.
"Alright, Kurama! You're starting to lose me here. What the heck is going on? Who is this 'she' you're talking about? And what do the other wielders have something to do with this?"
"There's not much to tell, Yusuke. All I could tell you is that the wielders are currently the ones who were about to save a friend of mine who's in danger right now," Kurama replied.
Yusuke sighed after several moments of silence. "I don't know what's going on for the wielders to do that. But as of now, we're tasked with locating the fifth Legendary Weapon that disappeared from the Light Shrine."
"What kind of weapon?" he asked.
"Koenma-sama said that it was a staff. And there's only one weapon which has that kind of description," Botan answered.
"The Staff of Shimmer, the Legendary Weapon that was said to give the wielder the ability to manipulate the energies derived from the forces of the sun, moon, and the stars," Kurama murmured.
"But seriously, this mission is getting way harder than we thought," Kuwabara said. "And to think another weapon would be gone missing in the middle of our mission. I can't believe this."
But Kurama somehow didn't hear it. His mind was traveling somewhere and in a way, Hiei figured that one out because of his silence.
"Don't you think you have a girl to save right now, Kurama?" Hiei suddenly said that surprised the others and returned his mind to reality.
Botan faced Kurama with worries. "A girl? Was she the girl that the Fire Wielder mentioned before when we first met the wielders?"
He nodded and then began to run towards the stairs.
"Kurama, wait up!" Kuwabara called up but Kurama didn't even look back.
Right now, his only priority was Riya's safety. But before they could even take a single step on the staircase, there was a blinding light that engulfed the whole building. And it got everyone in that building completely distracted because of the intense brightness.