Hero's Return 15 Backed Into A Corner

Finis.h.i.+ng his preparations Sora almost seemed to disappear from his previous spot, leaving a crater and a cloud of dust behind him, the only thing left being the lingering blue light of his sword but that also dissipated after a second. Sora cleared the distance between him and the preoccupied beast in an instant and had actually dived under the beast, sliding through the s.p.a.ce under the beasts body. Finally taking his sword out of the scabbard he stabbed directly into the protective dark aura and had got much further than the other two but found that he, too, had been unable to continue going after a certain point. Through the forward momentum he had previously, the sword that was now extremely close to the actual physical body sliced straight through the dark aura as Sora slid through. After another second Sora had fully travelled from the front of the beast to where it's tail was and after sliding to a safe enough distance he stabbed his sword into the ground using it to stop his forward momentum, Del and Rez were waiting for Sora to finish his attack before also withdrawing their weapons and retreating back. Sora, Del and Rez were now surrounding the beast in a triangle, all of them had been waiting for a reaction.

The beast had landed on it's two front legs after Del and Rez withdrew, it was standing still with none of it's previous dark aura leaking out - it seemed as if it was thinking about something and had no longer paid attention to them. None of the 3 wanted to jump in at this moment as times when a monster seemed to be the least dangerous were always the most suspicious, no smart hunter would take bait like this so easily. The dense aura that was acting as a defense had an extremely wide slice through the middle of it, after some time of the beast standing still the aura began to collapse, the aura seemed to be seeping into the ground, what was even weirder was that the pitch-black legs and tail of the beast also seemed to be dissipating.

So: "Huh?"

D: "Is there nothing inside?"

R: "No... There has to be some kind of physical manifestation - it managed to touch us, there has to be something inside it."

So: "What if the aura is just that dense?"

R: "That's a possibility. But if the dark aura by itself is that dense, then we have no chance of fighting against it at all. We aren't dead yet, so there's probably something inside.

D: "Guess that makes sense... But wouldn't we have seen it by now?"

So: "There are a whole bunch of tiny monsters that are really high ranks in the manuals, it's probably one of those."

D: "We may be in trouble then..."

R: "Let's just wait and see. It doesn't look like that dense aura is stopping."

The aura had dissipated now to the point that there was only a small sphere left on the ground, as it dissipated more from this point you began to see a small, tiger-like creature that looked more like a normal cat than a tiger, the appearance was akin to a white cat with black stripes - they were able to notice that it was most likely more of a tiger through the aura that it released. This small creature had a blue flame on the end of it's tail and some small one's on all four of it's legs too, it also seemed to have a small mane made of blue flame. After the dense aura had fully dissipated it seemed to struggle standing before slumping then falling to the ground, through reading it's aura the 3 hunter's knew that it was genuinely down.

So: "Possesion? It's definitely down, but..."

Sora looked down to the ground and began thinking.

D: "Where did the black aura go..."

R: "We definitely didn't take it down. It ain't gonna be that easy."

So: "I definitely weakened it... but now enough to make it run..."

D: "Careful, it seeped into the ground, and we know it didn't run. It's still in the area and we don't know where."

Rez closed his eyes and put his hand on the floor, slowly focusing his aura into the ground to look for any kind of disturbance.

Seiju and Kuo after seeing what happened had already figured out what was going on.

Se: "Possession."

K: "This makes this much more difficult."

Se: "If it's possession then it can easily just switch bodies once we come up with a plan for the one it's currently using. Looks like we won't be of much help anymore. We'll have to leave it up to them."

K: "It look's like the thing that uses possession has a mist form, they won't be able to hit it if it's part of the air. Best thing for us to do right now is to retreat and call in a hunter from the big city."

Se: "I agree, but you know them, the-"

K: "They won't leave untill all three of them are down, yeah, I know."

Se: "How're they gonna do this..."

...

?: "What the h.e.l.l? This was the worst time to not be helping him!"

?: "The h.e.l.l is a possession cloud doing here?"

?: "Those things come from the higher realms, how did it get here?!"

?: "They arent' powerful, but they can easily take over someone and the only way to kill them is to destroy the tiny core hidden in it. Even if he's talented in aura he can't put that much focus in his eyes to see the core whilst also being able to fight effectively."

?: "Isn't there an indirect way we can help without being binded?"

?: "It's impossible, as soon as we've used this spell we can't help him in any physical way, no matter how indirect."

?: "What about our plan then?!"

?: "Don't worry about that. Teaching him or being his friend doesn't count as physical interference, we're just encouraging him to do stuff on his own whilst leading him the right way."

?: "If only his weapons had manifested, those things could touch light beings and dark beings, no matter what form they held."

?: "Maybe he would have by now if you didn't spoil him."

?: "I was told to do it!!!"

?: "You need to learn how to say no..."

?: "No!"

?: "Ugh..."

?: "Besides, it's not like he won't get powerful anyway, I just wanted to help him along the way."

?: "Can you two quiet down? Im tryna see how he handles this."

...

So: "Rez, got anything?"

R: "Nah, it's either left or it's gone extremely deep underground. That thing was too aggressive to retreat after only a few exchanges, even if one of them was your most powerful hit."

D: "Keep an eye out, we don't know when it'll come back."

Se: "There's something weird going on."

K: "What? You see somethin?"

Se: "No... it looks like it completely disappeared, but it's not anywhere near them, and I doubt it would go underground... it's out of their vision, it most likely hasn't fled, and I don't think it would burrow that deep..."

After thinking for a moment Seiju instantly came up with what he thought could happen and turned to Kuo with a desperate look on his face.

Se: "It saw us right?! We were the only one's with Sora and the captain when it was charging around, which means even if we flee it still knows we're here! Kuo! We need to get out of here!"

Kuo instantly understood, for something that could sense the presence of humans at that distance and something that knew when to make a temporary retreat, it definitely had some semblance of intelligence. It might have tried to possess them!

Se: "RU-"

As Kuo jumped to a separate branch he looked back to see Seiju standing still. Not moving an inch, he seemed to be a completely different person, Seiju was mostly silent and kept to himself but this was a different kind of silence, it was almost cold.

K: "Seij-"

Before Kuo could finish Seiju had disappeared and he felt an extremely hot pain on his stomach, the pain he felt was followed by his vision distorting, this was then followed by a sharp pain on his back with his bow no longer being on his person. In an instant he had been hit from the branch to the ground, leaving a crater, the 'Seiju' standing atop the branch now held Kuo's bow in his hand and it seemed to be filling up with a dark energy. He looked towards the three hunters standing in the middle of the burning camp and jumped into the air above them.

As the blow was dealt to Kuo.

So: "What?! You all felt that too right?"

D: "That's the direction Seiju and Kuo went!"

R: "It got the drop on them?!"

As they were about to charge forward in the direction of the blast they saw a boy surrounded by a dark aura jump out of the distant trees and high into the air, notching three arrows into a bow with a dark energy swirling around it, the arrows seemed to absorb the dark energy as they changed from their normal colour to a completely dense, purple colour. Letting go of the string three arrows shot like bullets towards the three hunters with pinpoint accuracy.

So: "Dodge it!"

The three arrows landed and three giant smoke clouds arose from the points of impact, the wind pressure extinguished the fires from a wide area around the impact points and all that could be seen as the smoke cloud dissipated was a woman on the ground with a large wound on her leg, her eyes were closed, on the other side of her was a boy with a purple arrow in front of him, suspended in midair, he looked completely fine physically but was exhausted and sweating, Rez had used the strings in the immediate area and strengthened them to their absolute limit, he then gathered them all at a single point to block the arrow and stop it's momentum. He fell to the ground and had now been on one knee, with a single palm on the ground. In the middle was Sora, who had caught the arrow in his hand, what surprised Sora was that he felt a strange power in his hand that had instantly dissipated as soon as he caught the arrow, his hand was completely fine.

So: "Huh..."

Rez looked at Sora in shock.

R: "H-How? Sora! What did you do?!"

So: "I-I don't know."

Rez looked at Del that was on the other side of him.

R: "d.a.m.nit! Cap's down! Seem's like that demon possessed Seiju and is using Kuo's bow. We can't fight him. Now that the Captain's down we can order a retreat!"

Rez used the strings around the arrow to stretch to the other side of the field and pick up the captain, the purple arrow suspended in midair dropped to the ground and the dark aura that covered it had now dissipated, the one in Sora's hand was a normal arrow, and Del had an arrow near her with a broken tip. Rez brought the captain to his side and carried her on his arms.

So: "He aint letting us go, plus he's in Seiju's body. I ain't leaving until I get Seiju back. Rez, you and the Cap aren't in a position to fight anymore - retreat, tell everyone else who's waiting to retreat too, I'll hold him here."

R: "What?! You might die if you stay here!!!"

So: "Don't worry."

Sora looked at the hand he caught the arrow in.

So: "I feel like I can win this for some reason, don't ask why. It's just a feeling I've got."

Rez looked at him in confusion but knew that Sora had already made up his mind, he then looked at Del in his arms. He hesitated for a moment but put his faith in Sora.

R: "You better come back alive, else Del will kill me."

He let out a faint smile before running normally out of the camp. He no longer had any aura to spend after blocking the arrow so he could only rely on his base physical strength. The 'Seiju' that had been falling from the sky until now had landed on the ground, leaving a small crater as he threw the bow away, creating a claw through the dark aura on his hand, and instantly jumped towards Rez and Del, quickly appearing in front of them and throwing his dark claw down onto them, as he clawed down his momentum was stopped by something as a small crater was formed in front of him, creating a cloud of dust.

He tried to move his hand but found that he could not move. Beneath his claw he saw Sora who was holding his hand in place, what he found abnormal was that it didn't seem to be the Sora's hand that was keeping him in place, there was a small s.p.a.ce between Sora's hand and his 'claw', the darkness underneath Sora's hand also seemed to be slightly distorted and he began to feel a sharp pain in his hand.

...

?: "He's gained a really basic understanding, it won't be enough."

?: "Can you stop? I wanna see where this is going."

?: "Wha?"

?: "Stop saying things out loud man, we all know."

?: "Guys shhh"

...

'Seiju' pushed Sora away and looked at his hand, the darkness around it seemed to be in a state of chaos but it quickly regained it's natural form. It looked around for it's two initial targets but gave up on trying to kill them after thinking about its previous exchange with Sora.

Sora looked at his own hand, he too felt a weird sensation in his hand during the previous exchange, like he was wearing something that strengthened him, he didn't have time to think about it as 'Seiju' was already preparing another attack, Sora drew his sword and moved into a defensive stance, 'Seiju', seeing this, began to move all of the dark energy and compress it into a blade in his arm, the sword began to form at the end of his arm and eventually finished leaving a sword that seemed to float above the wrist, the air around it grew cold.

Sora took a defensive stance because he knew that possession was a very dangerous magic, it was especially effective against those who are friends as they would have to hurt and possibly kill their friends - he would rather stay defensive and look for any way to split Seiju from the dark aura even though he knew it would be extremely difficult.

So: "There must be a way"

As memories of his time studying the manual flowed he remembered constantly seeing 'Cannot be split from caster unless the caster willingly splits' or 'Extremely difficult unless you kill the host'. Sora began to sweat, he was panicking at the thought of having to kill his own friend. Seeing a noticeable change in Sora's expression 'Seiju' charged forward and sliced downwards, Sora blocked the blow but was shocked to find how strong the force of this sword was, he was barely holding on. Taking the oppurtunity to gain an opening 'Seiju' quickly dived towards the ground and sweeped Sora's legs with his own, leaving Sora in midair with no way to dodge or effectively guard. With a straight path towards Sora's head, 'Seiju' lunged with his sword towards Sora's neck.

At this moment, a helpless situation that he couldn't find any way to get out of, the thought of being killed by a friend, his complete inability to fight back. Sora realised he wasn't strong at all, he was praised often by both the hunters and the villagers, whilst he wasn't overly arrogant, anyone would be a little confident in their own ability. At his lowest point in his 16 year life, where he knew that the power his village held was nothing compared to this random monster found in this random forest, even someone like him in the top 5 in strength couldn't do much, he closed his eyes...

In the darkness he felt nothing...

He had felt no pain, he had expected to die already, after feeling no pain for a long time he opened his eyes.

In the darkness he saw 5 figures, they were all extremely blurry and unrecognisable with the exception of one in the middle. The one in the middle was a young man wearing fur clothes, he looked to be someone who hunted in a forest but he had no weapons on him. Sora looked down and found that he seemed to be standing on nothing, this entire place was completely dark and it seemed like the only thing standing inbetween him and the void beneath him was an invisible floor. Sora looked at the figures in front of him and saw that the one in the middle had walked up to him.

So: "Wh No... Where am I? I was about to die right?"

The figure looked at him and began moving his head to the left and right of Sora.

S: "Um... what are you doing?"

?: "Interesting..."

S: "Uhhh?"

?: "Younger than I was..."

S: "Excuse me?"

?: "Hmmmmmm"

The figure turned around to the blurry ones behind him and began speaking to them, what was weird was as soon as he begun to speak to these blurry figures, his mouth was moving but his words seemed to be completely blocked out by some sort of barrier, he could still hear faint sounds but not enough to make out words.

S: "Um. Excu-"

Before he could finish the figure instantly turned around and smiled.

?: "Sup! The name's Azu, we haven't properly met yet have we? This is a first, I just asked those guys back there why this is happening."

S: "Wha?!"

A: "Hm?"

Azu tilted his head to the side.

A: "Ohhhhhh yeah! You're probably confused!"

S: "Um... well... yeah I guess..."

Sora let out a slight laugh, the person in front of him had no hostile intent that could be sensed, even if the person was just hiding it, someone who could act this carefree and hide hostile intent would be way more powerful than he was, he could easily die by the hand of this person but they hadn't killed him yet, plus he thought he was already dead, there was no reason to be distrustful.

A: "Well, um... you have an innate power, it's a very special power that allows you to fight against both light and darkness and pretty much anything else as long as you put your mind to it, but specifically those two things. You should have felt something weird earlier right?"

S: "Um? Earlier?"

A: "Yeah."

S: "Well, I was having a fight with that thing that took over my friend and I felt that weird thing on my hand."

A: "Yeah, that! How'd it feel?"

Sora thought back to how he felt back then but after a while he also remembered how he even got here in the first place.

S: "Um... sorry but... am I dead?"

A: "Hm? Why would you be dead?"

S: "Well... I was about to die a second ago..."

A: "Ohhhh... that's probably how you awakened it then."

S: "Awakened? Awakened what?"

A: "The power I was just talking about."

S: "What... Is it?"

A: "Well... to put it simply, it's real name is 'Peace and Calamity' and it allows you to gain access to the true powers of light and darkness."

S: "Light- and- Darkness?"

A: "Yeah."

S: "Aren't those two polar opposite's?"

A: "Well yeah, doesn't mean they can't work together."

S: "..."

A: "You're not dead man..."

S: "It's kinda hard to believe..."

A: "Hm. Yeah, would be wouldn't it..."

Azu turned back around and started thinking about something, it seemed something clicked in his mind as he turned back around with the same smile on his face.

A: "Oh! I know how I can prove it to you!"

S: "Huh? How?"

A: "Well, if you're dead, we wouldn't be here!"

S: "Huh, how does that help?"

A: "It helps alot! Doesn't it make sense?"

S: "No! No it doesn't!"

A: "Wha? How?"

S: "I don't even know you! Let alone those... guys? I can't even see them, how do you expect any of this to make sense???"

A: "What? You can't see em?"

S: "Yeah, they look blurry to me..."

Azu began to think about something yet again, seeming to forget Sora was even there. Sora was getting a little frustrated, this person still hadn't properly explained what was going on.

S: "Who- Who even are you? Who are they?"

Snapping out of his pondering.

A: "Hm? Well that's an easy one."

S: "Easy?"

A: "We're your predecessors."

Azu's grin grew to a wide smile with his eyes closed. Sora was completely silent.

S: "Prede...

What?"