"Kurama! Riya!" Yusuke screamed when the blast occurred and almost threw them away from there.
"Have those demon shinobi gone completely insane? Why would they attack Kurama and Riya from out of the blue?" Kuwabara asked as they tried not to be blown away by the explosion.
Hiei unsheathed his sword and firmly stabbed it to the ground to be used as a support in order not to be blown away and then he spoke. "That depends on their answer once we find that demon shinobi."
The resulting glow and shockwaves from the blast faded slowly but the thick smoke continued to block the view of the area. And what they saw after that made them quite surprised.
"W-what the heck happened?" Yusuke asked, most likely to himself when he saw two figures in the smoke. But what surprised him the most was when they saw Kurama behind the heavily panting Riya, whose both hands were surrounded by a bright yellow glow and crackles of electricity.
The glow on her hands faded and then she collapsed to her knees, still panting.
"Good thing the attack has electricity on it, or else... or else I wouldn't be able to absorb it..." she murmured before looking behind her to check on Kurama. "Are you alright?"
Though still surprised by what happened, he nodded. "Thanks to you. But how—"
"Later. We'll have time to talk," she said nonchalantly as she looked up, her eyes hardened. "But one thing I'll tell you... This is one secret that I want you to know." She stood up even though she was still feeling a bit dizzy because of absorbing the twin electric attack.
"Can you still move alright?" Kurama asked as he stood up and approached her with worries. "You're already injured because of absorbing the attack."
Riya faced him and smiled a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Besides—" she paused before glancing in one direction where Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei were approaching from. "—I'm not alone. You'll help me, right?"
Kurama smiled then nodded. "You can count on me."
"And us, too!" Yusuke yelled as he approached the pair. He was panting and took a deep breath after that. "Damn it, Riya! What the heck was that ability you showed a while back? You prevented Kurama from being harmed by that electric attack."
"Yeah, right. But in return, she almost ran out of energy to absorb that attack," Hiei said in a slightly sarcastic tone.
Riya just smiled at that. She didn't take that as an insult, though. "So now you can sense it, huh?"
"Not much. Somehow, you have your way of preventing your spiritual energy from being detected by any demon classes," Hiei said seriously as he looked at her the same way.
'That's not how it is, Hiei,' she said to herself. 'The seal is already beginning to break since my powers are getting weaker as each day passed.' And then she secretly glanced at Kurama who was looking at her with a serious expression on his face.
Unknown to her, Hiei managed to read her thoughts regarding that and it surprised him inwardly. And that was when he figured out what Yumi said to him yesterday about her master's condition means.
But before he could ask her anything about that, one of them sensed another approaching attack. This time, from the demon shinobi itself with a big ball of black lightning in his hands.
"Diabolic Lightning!" the enemy shouted before throwing the attack on them.
Though it was fast approaching and the gang evaded the attack, Hiei and Kurama figured out that there was something wrong with it.
"Wait a minute. I couldn't sense any energy from that ball of lightning," Hiei commented when he landed on the ground a few meters away from their first position.
"That's because the attack was an illusion," Riya stated, making the others look at her. But before they could say another word, she suddenly began focusing her spiritual energy between her hands, forming a ball followed by many (and by many, it was thousands) large glowing dots being absorbed in that ball.
"W-what is she doing now?" Kuwabara asked, confused about what was going on.
At that instant, something struck Kurama that made him figure out the answer to Kuwabara's question.
"If I'm not mistaken, she's summoning lightning spirits to enhance the output power of her attack without risking her spiritual energy," he said. "But that's only possible if you have mastered the Spirit Summoning Arts. And from what I heard, it will take you 30 years of training before you could do such a taxing ability."
"Then how did she...?" Yusuke could only say before looking at his cousin with extreme worries.
'Riya, you're already forfeiting your life just by doing that technique,' Hiei thought as his face remained stoic to hide his worries for the said girl that Yumi was trying to protect with her life.
"The real attack of the demon shinobi..." Riya started as she faced above northwest from their spot"... will be coming from that direction!" she yelled before she raised the glowing ball, now glowing even brighter. "Spirit Thunder Blast!" she shouted as she threw a narrow particle beam shot surrounded with crackles of lightning to the northwest direction she was looking at earlier.
Like what she said, a lightning attack was heading towards them from the direction she fired the lightning beam. And Kurama finally sensed the demon shinobi's location after the latter threw the attack. Using his Rose Whip, he entangled the culprit that was hiding in the southwest direction and cut its body the instant the pulled the whip hard. The whip's thorns dug pretty deep into the demon shinobi's body that it was able to but the body easily.
"Well, that was easy," Yusuke said as he looked at Kurama but then he somehow wanted to take that back when he saw Riya's serious face. "Riya—"
"Shh!" she silenced him and scanned the area. "Something doesn't add up here."
Before anyone could react to that, they sensed another evil presence from behind them. This time, it was even more powerful than the first one earlier.
"Shit! Where the hell are they coming from?" Yusuke asked pretty annoyed and immediately fired his Spirit Gun in the direction where he sensed the evil presence. Surprisingly, the beam did hit the demon shinobi approaching hard after it fired a fire beam.
"What? You got to be kidding me!" Kuwabara yelled as he watched the beam coming towards them fast. He summoned his Spirit Sword with the purpose of cutting the beam somehow.
"Are you sure that's the best idea, Kuwabara?" Riya asked while trying to think of a spell that would stop the beam as she tried to hold her laughter.
Hiei scoffed at that and answered. "He never really thinks about best ideas."
"Well, I don't care if it's the best idea or not but we need to defend ourselves from that attack, or else, we're toast!" Kuwabara said and took a fighting stance.
'I have to admit, it would be dangerous if we got hit by that beam of fire. But seriously, the attacks might be powerful yet the demon shinobi casting it was weaker than the previous ones. There's something wrong here...' she thought before she finally figured out a way to deal with the attack and the demon shinobi.
"Yusuke..." she called, catching the said person's attention. He faced her seriously. "I have an idea, but I need your help. All of your help."
Yusuke smiled. "You can count on me."
"If I'm going to deal with the demon shinobi, I would gladly do it," Hiei said with a smirk.
"It's not only you who's going to deal with that sick bastard but Kurama, as well. Kuwabara will be the one to destroy the source of the portal after our attacks destroy the beam and let it enter the portal."
Kuwabara frowned at that. "Source of the portal? Where will I find it?"
Riya pointed a certain direction... behind Kurama. When they turned around to look at it, they saw a globe of dark energy emitting a dark glow. Above it was the suspected portal she was talking about.
"Ready?" she asked. The others nodded.
They waited for the right distance they needed to commence with the plan. And in Yusuke's command...
"GO!" he yelled as his friends went to their destination as fast as they could.
Hiei and Kurama advanced to the demon shinobi's position where he was thrown by Yusuke's Spirit Gun earlier. The fire demon unsheathed his sword and in a matter of seconds, he and the demon shinobi were locked in an intense sword fight. Kurama tried to attack from behind as it would be the enemy's vulnerable spot but he was surprised to see another sword emerge from its back, blocking his attack.
Though caught surprised, he managed to counter when he realized what was going on.
'This demon shinobi can multiply any part of his body to defend him from surprise attacks. Most likely, he could multiply his hands to any part of his body and control it for sword fights like this,' he concluded before something caught his eye. 'His foot! That's where his weakness is!' And with that, he beckoned Hiei to continue attacking the demon shinobi to create a distraction so that he could destroy the demon shinobi's core located inside its left foot.
With one swing of his whip, Kurama struck the demon shinobi's left foot, cutting it to pieces in the process. The demon shinobi screamed but Hiei immediately silenced it when he cut his throat, arms, and body to pieces with ease and speed.
The blood from the pieces created a puddle on the cemented ground. Hiei placed his katana back to its sheath as he looked at the scattered body pieces.
"What do these demon shinobi want for them to do this? I couldn't figure out their ulterior motive for this to happen," Kurama said, confusion and anger vividly etched on his face.
Hiei didn't say a word, but his expression was enough to know that he, too, felt the same way as Kurama even though he didn't quite know why Riya would be involved in this. He would probably get the answer from Yumi when they meet again.
Meanwhile, Riya and Yusuke were supposed to destroy the fire beam. He was done charging up his Spirit Gun on his fingertip as she was done uttering that incantation for her spell.
"You're ready, Riya?" Yusuke added without looking at her.
She nodded before she positioned both her hands facing the approaching target's direction as a glowing orb of light began to grow bigger to the size of a basketball.
"Thunder Rage Blast!"
"Spirit Gun!"
As soon as the two attacks were shouted, they released it almost all at the same time and they merged to form one powerful beam that overpowered the fire beam before entering the portal just up ahead in a seemingly straight line.
Kuwabara had no trouble destroying the source of the portal. The portal immediately vanished just after the beam entered it and the source was destroyed.
After all that, the barrier vanished. Riya took a deep breath before collapsing to the ground.
"Riya!" Kurama called just when they heard her collapse due to exhaustion.
He went to her and gently lifted her to have a look at her condition. He was surprised to see her shoulders and her right arm bleeding. When he checked it out from the cuts on her uniform, it would appear that there were bits of energy from the first attack powerful enough to break through Riya's power and capable of injuring her. He could also sense that her spirit energy was at a weaker level—dangerously weak, for that matter.
'She ended up like this... to protect me...' Kurama thought sadly as he gently carried the injured and unconscious girl before facing the others.
"We need to leave this place before any suspicions arise when they find us here," Kurama said nonchalantly before he ran.
The others later followed him. But before Hiei left, he sensed Yumi's spirit energy not far from their location. And with that, certain questions aroused his curiosity regarding Riya's condition that he might ask the Fire Wielder later.