Augustus Mansion Raid Arc -Start-

  Odd Jobs enters the vast courtyard lined with lamp posts and decorated with Greek-esque sculptors. One of Patrick's hobbies is reading literature on the long artistic history of Shioto which is less prevalent nowadays, these statues represent his taste. Around 20 yards in front of them is the massive Augustus Mansion, one of many which is guarded by 30 vampires. None of them appear to be pushovers. Wasting no time, the large number of enemies pushes them.

  "We don't have time for these small fry. Iris, you can handle them, right?"

  "Eh? I have to go against so many again?"

  "Protect Diego while you're at it. Let's go you two!"

  Ariel, Shinatsu, and Kagura go ahead, cutting down the few vampires who got in their way. With the Vampire Lord using her brute strength again, she breaks down the front door and they enter.

  "They really left us to fight this many vamps?!" Diego questions while unsheathing his newly acquired blade.

  Iris saw how Ariel was looking at her. She has complete confidence in her abilities. To prepare herself, she slaps her cheeks two times in a row. "I-I can do it! We got this, Diego!"

  "I sure hope so."

  "The fangs are inside, we just need to kill these two Hunters here, One of the vampires shouts.

  The battle begins.

  The vampires once again commence their charge and surround the two who stayed. Iris goes for the closest one but her slash is caught. These vampires are stronger than the ones she fought in the parking lot last year, telegraphed attacks won't work even if they are quick. This caught her by surprise and opened up a moment's hesitation. She wasn't alone though. Diego was there to immediately follow up, jumping over Iris to slash the vampire across his neck. The cut wasn't deep enough, it would be healed in a few seconds. But this was enough for Iris to get herself back together, relinquishing the vampire's hold of her blade by severing his fingers, she's able to land a fatal blow. This was all in under 10 seconds, the other vampires are closing in on them. With their backs leaning on one another, Iris and Diego are ready.

  Bouncing off each other, they defend against the onslaught of vampire attacks, not going for any lethal blows yet but just chipping away at them. If they lose their blade, that's the end for them so they can't be careless. After a few slashes, Iris takes another one down. Diego is being overwhelmed however, over 20 vampires at once is too much for him. Before he can take any damage, Iris covers for him. Her first slash cuts across 2 vampires at once. The following instant, a vampire lunges at her who she pierces with a precise stab to the heart. Instead of retracting her blade, she digs a slash through the left of the vampire's abdomen causing liters of blood to pour out. Blood has never been a big deal to Iris mentally. She's a big fan of horror movies, but that's beside the point. This is the first time Diego has been exposed to so much open blood, on top of the intestines that spilled out, he was on the verge of throwing up but held himself back. They're in the middle of a fight after all. The vampires continue to put on the pressure, but Diego comes up with a witty idea.

  "Iris, hop onto my hands!"

  Diego forms a platform with his hands. Not questioning him, Iris follows his plan. Not knowing what was to come, she yelled when the said plan was enacted.

  "WOOOOOOAAAAH!"

  "Just like that!"

  Diego's bright idea was to spin Iris around like a bladed twister while cutting down the vampires who jumped at them. It worked quite well, taking down a few of them.

  "Haha.. I can't believe that worked."

  "P-Please don't do that again!"

  "But it worked so well!" Mid-sentence, a vampire was about to land an attack on Diego but he baited him into doing that by letting his guard down. As a result, he was able to cut him down. "Alright, that's my first kill!"

  "We're not done yet.."

  "Yeah, let's wrap this up."

  ***

  Ariel, Kagura, and Shinatsu entered the Grand foyer, its walls are full of Renaissance-esque paintings illuminated by chandeliers. 6 corridors can be seen, 2 going left and right, 2 going straight ahead, and the other two leading to opposite directions upstairs. There's some obstacles standing in their path. But Ariel couldn't care less about them, she feels Chifuyu's presence upstairs to the right.

  "Only 4 vamps inside?" Shinatsu questions.

  "These guys are probably even stronger than the ones outside," answers Kagura.

  "Can I leave these guys to you? I'm making a beeline for Chifuyu."

  "Sure. Could you take one out real quick though? It won't be much of a drag if there's one less."

  "I'll try."

  As Ariel prepares to dash forward, one of the vampires standing in their way shouts obnoxiously.

  "SILENCE YOU FOOLS! YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE GREAT INYAKI!!" The boisterous vampire is dressed somewhat like a jester with a white and red eye mask and lipstick on. The color scheme is mostly black and white with some red and purple thrown in. His silky hair is dyed black and white with some red highlights. The female vampire next to him has the same thing going on.

  "Shut up, we don't have time for your clown act." Surprisingly, one of the other vampires steps in. "The traitor is right in front of us!"

  He activates his curse, staring directly at Ariel, something begins to affect her. Her eyes open in shock, sweat starts to profusely form and drip down her face, it feels as if her bones are chilling and her heartbeat rapidly increases. But she gets her composure back in a matter of seconds. Ariel's bloodlust shoots through the roof.

  "What'd you do to me?"

  The vampire who activated his curse immediately jumps back in fear, but it's too late. Ariel has already ripped his head off of his body. The symptoms she was feeling disappeared.

  'Looks like the symptoms of whatever curse he used on me ceased after he died.' Ariel sighs with relief. "I'm going on ahead now. Unless any of you wanna stop me."

  "Nope, you're free to go."

  With that, she darts upstairs. Chloe, the female vampire looks at Inyaki with disgusted astonishment.

  "What, you wanna end up like him?"

  "No, I know I shouldn't be surprised. Patrick has a means to deal with her, that buffoon got ahead of himself."

  "Yeah, so anyway.. Back to my introduction. I AM—"

  "Say, you with the orange-reddish hair.." The third vampire speaks.

  "Uh.. yeah?"

  "Wanna go on a date?"

  "All these vampires are idiots," Shinatsu sighs.

  ***

  This was Iris and Diego's first fight together, yet their teamwork was superb. It wasn't an easy battle, but they fought waiting for openings as Hunters should and came out on top without receiving a single injury. Diego took out two while Iris took out 24. A single vampire remained.

  "Just one more."

  "Look Diego, this one has a weapon."

  "Oh, you're right. There's a blade on his back."

  "You two fought well." The last vampire speaks.

  "Oh boy. Is it just me, or…"

  "Ye-Yeah, I have a bad feeling about this…"

  The blonde vampire draws his blade.

  "I was tasked with disposing of Ariel Ryuji, however I ought to avenge my fallen comrades whom you've stricken down first."

  "He's saying something cool. Don't you think he let us kill them, like he was observing?"

  "Yeah, maybe. He must be convinced he's the boss of guarding the mansion or something."

  The two whisper to each other.

  "May my radiant light pierce the heavens."

  The vampire raises his sword upwards and a golden ray beams into the night sky.

  "Shoyo.."

  "Yeah. This guy is strong."

  The two spectators outside the gates watch as perhaps one of the strongest vampires in Shioto has revealed himself.

  "Diego, get ready to dodge!" Iris shouts as quickly as she can, she feels an attack coming. In a second, a golden slash projectile is thrust right at them spanning 15 feet which could hit them both at once. They jump out of the way in time, and the slash breaks a couple of statues that were several feet behind them. Iris realizes she has no choice but to close the distance, otherwise that ray of light will cut her down. Charging at him, her several attacks are being effortlessly parried.

  Diego doesn't interfere, he can't. 'If I try to step in, I'll be killed. Iris won't be able to protect me against this guy.'

  Iris's blade gets knocked out of her hands with the vampire's first swing which seemed like it was as easy as hitting a stick off a child. Iris has met her match. Her left arm gets grabbed.

  "You humans here are so fragile. Look, all I have to do to immobilize you is this."

  Snap.

  "AAHHHHHHHHHH!"

  He dislocated Iris's arm and proceeds to violently throw her at a statue, inducing great pain in her back. Falling to her right side while holding her arm, she can only continue to scream in agony.

  "That girl can't win this fight." Dallas unsheathes his blade. But Shoyo stops him without looking at him or saying anything. His gaze is focused on Iris. His eyes are saying something to the girl writhing in pain, but she can't see them.

  'Why… I know Mr. Shoyo is there. Why isn't he helping me?' The girl tilts her head to look at the vampire who is slowly approaching her, and fear overcomes her. Iris is scared. For the first time, she's faced with an opponent stronger than her. She believes there's nothing she can do. However, nobody has ever let her give up so easily.

  "IRIS!!"

  Her eyes shift to the man yelling her name. It was Shoyo, who entered the courtyard and her field of view. But it doesn't look like he intends to help, so what's the point of him doing this? The answer comes to the young girl. Last year in the parking lot, Iris didn't think she could actually beat 50 vampires by herself. Yet somehow, Shoyo knew she could. Shoyo is aware of just how much she can handle, and what she can't. Without wiping her tears away, she gets on her feet.

  'I'm here to save Chifuyu. He and Mr. Shoyo have so much faith in me, I can't let them down.'

  Unarmed, she rushes forward, evading the vampire's attacks.

  'Push the fear to the back of my mind. I've come this far haven't I? I need to have faith… IN MYSELF!'

  She successfully gets her blade back. The vampire was already aware there were a couple of Hunters outside the gate. For now, his sights are set on the girl in front of him. Only able to use one arm, Iris pushes again once more. The two have a fierce clash. No attack is landing on either side, they're deflecting each other's attacks. Even with only her right arm, Iris is keeping up more so than before. But her blade gets knocked away once more and he goes for the finishing blow. She evades at the last second rolling around him. The vampire realizes she intentionally let him disarm her this time. By the time he turned around, Iris already landed a clean slash on him. Diego tossed her his blade in the moment Iris was in his blind spot. The vampire coughs up blood. A deep gash across the chest was the best she could manage, unfortunately it wasn't enough. This can be healed in seconds if there's no following pressure being put on him.

  "Your name is Iris, human?"

  Breathing heavily, she tries to catch her breath but can't. Not knowing why though, she answers the vampire. "Yes.."

  "Stand proud Iris, you are strong."

  'What are you, the king of the curses?' Iris laughs as she collapses from exhaustion. Just before she falls to the ground, Shoyo teleports and catches her with something of a proud smile on his face.

  "I believe you're who they call the strongest Hunter. Who's this with you?"

  "The most handsome guy in the world, second to me of course… Hey kid, take Iris!"

  Running over as fast as he can, he grabs Iris and carries her away to the side of the mansion.

  "That was crazy! Are you the reincarnation of a great warrior or something?"

  "Hehe… You're strong too, even though you didn't go to the Academy."

  "Yeah, I must take over from my piece of shit old man."

  "I-I see…"

  "I'm sorry I couldn't help against that guy. I—"

  As he sits Iris down, she cuts him off. "It-Its's okay. We can still help the others inside. Isn't that why you grabbed our blades?"

  "Yeah, but you're injured."

  "I-I can still fight."

  Diego smiles unable to hide his concern.

  "Alright. Let's go help the others and come back with Chifuyu in tow."

  Iris grins. "In a minute, I need to catch my breath."

  "For sure."

  Meanwhile, it appears a big fight is about to take place.

  "Let's see.. If I had to guess, your strength is probably on par with Ariel's."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Just a feeling. Your vibe is off from every other vampire I've run into. I'd even go as far as to say you're a Vampire Lord."

  The blonde vampire scowls without saying a word.

  "Enough talk Shoyo, it doesn't matter who he is. We're taking him out."

  Shoyo and Dallas unsheathe their blades.

  ***

  "Sorry, you're not my type."

  "I find that hard to believe. Just look at these pecs you can see through my shirt." The vampire begins doing muscle-flexing poses that nobody asked to see.

  "Why did Patrick pick you as one of his fangs again?" Chloe the female vampire asks herself.

  "Fangs? What is that, your group's circus name?" Shinatsu jokingly questions.

  "I'm so glad you asked. First, allow me to introduce myself. My beautiful mother blessed me with the name Sabeh."

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  "I don't care."

  "Oi. How come he gets to introduce himself?!" Inyaki is malding.

  "Each of the strongest members in the Slayers has their own fangs, who are 4 vampires directly chosen to guard their head. Well, we're down to 3 know but that doesn't really matter. Because I'm all that's needed to protect Patrick."

  "Like I said, I don't care. My question was rhetorical."

  "Wait Shinatsu, he's telling us vital information," Kagura whispers.

  "Is that so musclehead, Patrick only needs you?"

  "Yep. No one—"

  Getting tired of this back-and-forth, Shinatsu initiates the battle immediately going for a kill shot.

  "Woah there, that's dangerous. Also, don't get so close to me. You're not my type pipsqueak."

  Kagura's eyes widen as she sucks her lips in, trying not to laugh at the unexpected insult hurled at Shinatsu. The victim of the verbal abuse gets very clearly agitated from this remark. Being called pipsqueak is something she never thought would happen to her.

  "Oh, you're dead…"

  "Scary."

  Sabeh runs off to the west wing of the mansion with Shinatsu chasing him.

  "Get back here!"

  "Good grief." Kagura follows after them.

  "I'll take on these two ladies, you clowns can go back to whatever circus you play in!"

  "…"

  "What now?"

  "…"

  Chloe ignores her partner. The two jesters have been left on their own.

  ***

  The hallway in the left wing stretches to nearly 40 feet, the green-haired vampire dodges every attempt at his life without even trying to attack back.

  "Shinatsu, calm down!"

  "Not until his mouthless head is in my head!"

  "You… have never had a boyfriend, have you? All this pent-up anger isn't good y'know."

  Sabeh continues to mock Shinatsu as he dodges all of her slashes, but Kagura has now caught up to them so it's now a 2v1. They've made their way to the kitchen and dining room, Shinatsu grabs several plates sitting on the counter and throws them with a dangerously fast spin that could possibly decapitate her arch-enemy. He merely punches them once they're in his face, meanwhile, Kagura wraps around to get behind him. Her swordsmanship is the best out of everyone in Odd Jobs. If Iris at the moment should be called pure talent, then Kagura is pure skill. Sabeh can't dodge Kagura's attacks as easily as Shinatsu who's a bit heated up right now. That is to say, none of the slashes that connect are deep at all, they're all surface level. But if the two continue to put up pressure, Kagura might get a clean hit off. Sabeh knows this, so he positions himself in a way where Shinatsu is in the way of Kagura. This throws them off. The vampire kicks the hot-headed girl into her comrade resulting in them both falling over. He then goes for the weaker one, grabs her, and slams her into the fridge causing most of the contents to plunge out. Getting a cutting boar, he breaks it over her head. Kagura recovered is already right behind him, but he dodges the slash and rotates into a double kick that hits them both. Shinatsu has taken the most damage so far, her nose starts to bleed. While the two are still on the ground, Sabeh slides the freezer open and grabs a Golden Diamond beer. He cracks it open and drinks it with no regard for his opponents.

  "Ah.. That hit the spot."

  He tries to break the bottle over Shinatsu's head but she rolls out of the way and grabs a blender off the counter. She charges into him and smashes it into his arm causing the glass to splinter in his skin. Kagura is there to follow up as always, thus the next exchange begins. The girls pick up the tempo and are even quicker than before. Sabeh slides over the center counter and moves into the dining room, the girls are right behind him.

  "What's the matter fugly? Not gonna use that Alter Weapon you've got?"

  "Shut up!"

  Shinatsu currently has a purple lightning Alter Weapon thanks to her twin sister who'd been missing for years. The truth is, she's been trying to use its power but hasn't been able to. She isn't as focused as she needs to be and lots of practice needs to be put in beforehand to prepare oneself to use an Alter Weapon. The chances of unleashing it during this fight are low.

  "Shinatsu, I'll hold him off. In the meantime, focus on using the Alter Weapon's power."

  "Huh? Who knows how long that'll take? We don't have time for that."

  "I know you can do it, so go!"

  "…Augh.. Fine!"

  "You think I'll let you do that?"

  Sabeh tries to go for Shinatsu, but Kagura stops him. "Don't look away from me."

  A clean slash has finally landed, cutting off his left arm and leaving a deep gash on his side. He backs away to regenerate and licks the blood on his arm. "Not bad."

  While Kagura takes on the vampire one one-on-one, Shinatsu attempts to bring out her weapon's ability. She calms herself and closes her eyes, taking steady breaths. In the Hunter Academy, they briefly learned about Alter Weapons. Only Special Rank Hunters are allowed to use them, and they train for hours on end before even being able to use them. Months of meditating with it is required to bring out its capabilities. It's said that once it connects with your soul, the user is free to wield its power. Alter Weapons drain stamina, so once the user is completely exhausted, they must cease using its power. Otherwise, it begins draining their life.

  Perhaps it may not be needed though.

  'Hold on, this girl's attacks keep getting quicker!'

  Kagura is overwhelming the vampire, landing more attacks than before. Sabeh was confident he could take on any Hunter that showed up, granted it wouldn't be any Special Ranks. If he knew Shoyo Kusakabe: the strongest Hunter was outside, he'd high tail it out of here. But a 2nd Rank is currently putting him on the ropes. He has no choice but to activate his curse.

  ***

  Blood that was splattered on a statue in Patrick's room peels off and gathers back to him. In the midst of this, Chifuyu is charging in for an attack but gets splashed by the blood hindering his vision. He attempts to back away but is snagged back by Patrick who delivers 2 heavy punches to his face and stomach. Falling to his knees, the blood comes off of Chifuyu and back to Patrick. Forming them into bullets, Chifuyu reacts just in time before he gets riddled. He does a few back flips to gain some space, but there's only so much of that since they're in a room. He can't dodge. Chifuyu's barely reacting to them in time slashing them once they're in his face. About 10 hit his body. Once he finishes shooting all the blood be has out, Chifuyu pushes in.

  Patrick's curse allows him to manipulate his own blood and multiply its volume. Once he multiplies its volume, it won't stain on anything, so he can continue to use that blood without needing to draw any more power from his curse blood. He turned a few drops of his blood into an amount large enough to fill about a 1-and-a-half-gallon bottle. He needs minimal effort to control this quantity of blood which makes his curse extremely powerful.

  Before Chifuyu can even reach Patrick, some of the blood behind him quickly shapes into a spike and stabs through his left leg. Not even given the chance to yell in pain, he receives a heavy punch to the face that sends him flying across the room. Patrick cuts himself to bring out a bit more blood and expands it, forming branches across the enclosed space. In mere seconds, Chifuyu has been ensnared by the enemy's curse. The blood branches burst spikes out from them in an attempt to decorate the half-vampire full of holes. But Chifuyu gets up and slashes the attacks. He can slash away as long as he needs to, the countless practice swings that Shoyo drilled into him have enabled him to do so. Cutting the branches, he heads straight to the vampire. Chifuyu knows he's unlikely to win against the adversary before him. Yet he has no choice but to continue pushing forward. Just as he gets within arms reach of Patrick, the blood forms into a drill and launches into the right of his backside. However, this doesn't prevent him from still cutting down his foe. A desperate slash cuts across Patrick's chest, dealing a fair bit of damage. If he hadn't noticed the intent in Chifuyu's eyes just in time, the cut may have been fatally deep.

  This throws Patrick off, so the blood drill disperses, along with all the other blood.

  "That's more like it."

  Chifuyu thinks about trying to heal his wound, but he doesn't know how long this fight will go on so he holds off on it. At the same moment, Ariel barges in.

  "Ariel!"

  The second the silver-haired vampire enters the room, she vanishes in no more than a second. Chifuyu's eyes then lock on a small cube that begins glowing which he hadn't noticed before.

  "Huh? What just… Where did she go?"

  "She entered the labyrinth."

  "What?"

  "The object you see is a labyrinth artifact. I set it to activate once someone steps near it, and for only one person to be allowed in." Even while fighting all this time, Patrick had been making sure Chifuyu wasn't stepping near it which was hugging the wall right by the door. It was a gamble that could only work this way. If he held it on him there were 2 risks. One: It activates a few seconds after you set the enter conditions so he could've got caught in it before throwing it at Ariel. Two: If he was able to throw it at Ariel the element of surprise would've been gone, so she could likely dodge the artifact. Having it lie in wait by the door was the most viable choice, which worked.

  "Shit. This is the means to deal with her you were talking about."

  "Indeed, it wasn't easy getting my hands on that. The color of it represents its difficulty, a combination of black and red being the most challenging. Vampires are by no means the strongest race, we almost never enter labyrinths because there's no merit in doing so. Real labyrinths have gates that you can enter and leave through. As for their artifact counterparts, those in it will not be freed until the boss is defeated. By being forced into one of the most perilous labyrinth artifacts there is, the Vampire Lord will likely die possibly before she even gets to the boss. I'm incapable of killing Ariel, so if this doesn't do the job, it's curtains for me."

  However he believes there's a 0% chance she'll actually conquer it. There are dozens of labyrinths of the continent where the vampires reside. There are only a few vampires in history that have beaten a black and red labyrinth. One being the Vampire King and 3 Vampire Lords, including Ariel's sister Ayume.

  "So all Ariel has to do is throw down with some monsters. Sounds like she'll be back in no time."

  "How naive. You can't begin to comprehend the power of beings that come from the Alter World."

  "I don't need to. I believe in Ariel."

  "Then I suppose I should wrap this up."

  As Patrick says this, he gazes upon the blood dripping down Chifuyu's cheek. His pupils dilate as he licks his lips.

  "Ah… I can't hold back any longer. Your blood AROUSES ME!"

  A comedic spark zings around Patrick's private area. Chifuyu looks on clearly disgusted and concerned.

  "Dude, are you hard? Ah hell nah!"

  ***

  Iris and Diego enter the mansion. Awaiting them is a pair dressed as matching jesters. One of them is in an embarrassing pose, imagining himself to be the star of some show.

  "Enter the Great Inyaki!" He yells to himself. Chloe just sits on the stairs rolling her eyes.

  "The hell's up with this clown?"

  "Th-They're vampires."

  "Let's take 'em out. I'll get the dumb-looking one."

  "Okay."

  As they run forward, Inyaki smirks as he's been waiting for this moment. "Showtime baby." Cursed veins appear on his face.

  "Diego!" Iris shouts. This will be another difficult battle, they're facing two vampires both with their own curse.

  "Wha…"

  Diego involuntarily drops his blade. He's already been affected by the curse.

  "Hey girl, shouldn't you be paying attention?"

  "Cra—"

  Iris looked away for a moment, even with the warning she still got hit in the heavy. But it wasn't by the female vampire, the culprit was a gorilla stuffed animal.

  'Where did that come from?'

  She had also activated her curse. Their next fight begins. Inyaki does a 360 spin and throws his right arm into the air.

  "You ready to bust a move kid?"

  "Huh?"

  Losing control of his body for a second, Diego does the same move as Inyaki.

  "Don't tell me…"

  "Have you guessed it? We're gonna have a dance-off, that's my curse. I can only use it on one person at a time, but you're stuck dancing until I've acknowledged that you're a better dancer than me."

  "Yo, are you serious?" Diego smiles. "Cuz if you are, then you picked the wrong opponent!"

  "Let's get down."

  First, the cotton spawns out of thin air, then the skin peels itself out from the inside as it forms into an animal. Several of them are coming forth as Iris climbs over the stair railing running upstairs to gain space.

  'Are those stuffed animals? That clearly looks like cotton, but that punch felt much heavier. So this is her curse.'

  "I'll have you know I'm rather fond of cute things, so I'll be a bit sad once I've killed you."

  There's an awkward pause before Iris responds. "A-Aw. Your words cut deep, deeper than any blade…" 'Oh my god, I can't believe I got to say that.' Iris basks in the glory of her first witty remark during a fight.

  As she's still thinking about the line she's been wanting to say for a while, an eagle stuffed animal swooshes up and blasts a gust of wind. Iris rolls out of the way evading the broken pieces of the banister that violently flew into the wall. Iris reacted before she thought of her action, consequently she performed the roll with her dislocated arm causing her even more pain.

  "Ahh.."

  Unfortunately, she doesn't have any time for error right now. An army of 9 stuffed animals are pushing her all at once. Iris gets back on her feet and runs down the hallway. Taking on all of them at the same time would be unwise, so she's going to try to isolate them into fast 1-on-1s. This is just a hunch, but she thinks she can take them down with 1 attack each as long as they're clean slashes.

  ***

  Faster than the rest of the pack, two cheetahs blitz Iris at incredible speed. Following right behind those two is a lion. Disregarding the fact that it's made out of cotton, the lion roars loud enough for the whole mansion to hear. Stopping herself in her tracks, Iris kills her momentum and slices through one of the cheetahs that couldn't stop itself in time. Just as she figured, they may pack a punch, but they're easy to cut through. Overwhelming strength and physical capabilities in exchange for no defense. If these were real animals, it might have been a different story. The Lion catches up and pounces on her, Iris is able to stab through the bottom of its chin, preventing it from biting a chunk out of her. Even though it shouldn't weigh that much, it still feels as heavy as a lion would on top of someone. The stuffed animals somehow also retain their weight, this is the power of a curse. However, with her blade already through its body, she's not at a disadvantage. After a couple of seconds of struggling, she slices through it and promptly cuts down the second cheetah that lunged at her. Charging at her now are 2 bears, 2 snakes, and a gorilla. The gorilla grabs one of the snakes and launches it at her after whirling it like a whip. It's flying at her fast, but not fast enough. Iris splits it in half down the middle and pushes them instead of running away. She bounces off the wall over the gorilla and cuts off one of the bear's arms. She feels like she can win in close-quarters combat against the rest now that the cheetahs and lion are out of the picture. The gorilla is a beast on its own though, it's huge and quick. It attempts to grab Iris several times at a scary speed, but she evades them all. Pounding the floor in anger, it follows with a devasting left hook that could take anyone out if landed, but Iris uses this to her advantage. With precision, she leaps off the fist mid-swing which gives her a boost in speed midair which allows her to cut through one of the bears. The last snake wraps around her body in an attempt to strangle her, Iris leaps off the wall again, this time doing several spins that manage to untwirl the snake. As soon it falls to the floor, she stabs through its head. Now just one more bear and the gorilla are left. Chloe turns the corner riding on top of the eagle. Iris is a bit worried now, she hoped to take these 8 animals out before the female vampire caught up. She decides to remain in her position, dodging the bear trying to maul her. Chloe hops off the eagle as it picks up the human with its beak and crashes into the wall at the end of the hall. The eagle put itself out of commission with that, but it dealt a lot of damage. Iris coughs up blood. She can feel her limbs giving out and her vision going blurry. But this isn't enough to put her out of the fight, not even close. Iris yells, it could be seen as a battle cry, this was to get her mind from falling unconscious. The bear and gorilla rush her with their battle cry. With one slash each, Iris cuts them down.

  "Hm.. Not bad." Chloe slowly approaches her, she's about 15 feet away.

  With her curse, she can create living stuffed animals and toys, some of which have their own abilities. Iris puts her sword up and gets ready to run at her before she can create any more animals. Suddenly, the door next to her starts to creak. It's being pushed open by someone, or something. Once the door is open enough, a human-like doll reveals itself. In a second, it blows itself up.

  ***

  Just as Kagura started overwhelming Sabeh, he wasted no time activating his curse. Kagura tries to back away because she has no idea what this vampire's curse could be. She was half a second too slow though and gets her blade snatched.

  "Oh. You've got good moves to be able to disarm me."

  "Hey, I'm flattered. Would you still be up for that date?"

  "Sure. I'd love to stand you up."

  "That might not be so bad."

  Sabeh tosses her weapon to the side and hand-to-hand combat begins. Kagura is throwing out fierce hands, but the vampire is simply enjoying the show, parrying her attacks. The tables have turned, and Sabeh starts dishing out some hits of his own. The one being overwhelmed now is Kagura, she hasn't gotten hit yet, but she knows his attacks have greatly increased in force. When she seemingly gets an opening, she strikes him in the stomach. Not just stopping with one, about a dozen gatling of punches follow that deal no damage. Sabeh let all of that happen, so she backed away to figure out what his curse is.

  "Your curse must grant you even more strength than you already have as a vampire."

  "Yep. A monkey could figure that out. To be exact, it triples my physical capabilities. I don't like it though, it's a boring ability. I'd rather have something flashy like the Chidori."

  "Sounds cool. Should I feel bad for you?"

  "Nah. As much as I hate to say it, it fits me."

  Meanwhile, Shinatsu was close.

  Near to grasping the essence of her alter blade.

  She opened her eyes to find herself in an unknown place covered in mist. Yet, she instinctively knew where she was.

  Bellowing thunder was accompanied by purple lighting blasting about in the gray sky.

  Ahead of her was a concentration of aura with an array of four colors: purple, black, orange, and blue.

  She reached her hand out.

  'Is that… my soul?'

  Opening her eyes back to the real world, purple lightning begins sparking from the blade. It wraps around Shinatsu's hand, but she doesn't feel any pain. She can use the alter weapon's ability.

  "Haha, you're kidding? It's only been a few minutes."

  "Shit."

  "You ready?"

  "Let's go."

  A lion's roar resounds throughout the mansion, signaling for the battle to continue.

  ***

  "Oh shit… I might be in trouble."

  Purple lightning overtakes the surrounding area, even Kagura has to back up. This is Shinatsu's first time tapping into the power of an alter weapon, also setting a new record for it. Naturally, it's still extremely difficult to control. Sabeh makes a futile attempt to escape its range, as a blast of lightning running up the floor captures him.

  Purple lightning differs from its normal counterpart in the fact that it saps the energy from those it touches, fatiguing them. The surge on Sabeh only lasted 3 seconds before Shinatsu fell to one knee from exhaustion.

  'Did that one attack drain me this much?!'

  However, this isn't a one-on-one. Kagura is there to follow up. Sabeh's body has been left feeling heavy after that attack. Thanks to his curse though, he's able to exert enough strength to jump all the way up to the ceiling grabbing onto a chandelier, evading Kagura's attack.

  "Aaaaahhhhhhhhh… HAAA!"

  Shinatsu somehow pushed another attack out, even more violent than the last pointed right at the vampire dangling in the air. It would seem this attack would be impossible to dodge, but he uses the chandelier to swing up and kick off the ceiling at great speed just barely escaping the range of the lightning. This attack takes even more out of Shinatsu and causes her to fall on both knees this time. Sabeh's trajectory was going straight to the girl who wouldn't be able to move for the next few seconds. Not missing a beat, Kagura is there to protect her and lands a slash. Not just one, but a relentless charge of slashes ensue. Sabeh can't dodge all of them, Kagura lands hit after hit after hit, all deeper than the last.

  Shinatsu gets up and tries to blast off another attack since she can't control the output. Not to her surprise, she's unable to. It appears two of those large attacks is her limit right now. It's a miracle she was even able to get off one at all. She's not out of the fight yet though, and goes to backup Kagura.

  "I think we're close to the time limit Shoyo gave us, he should be coming in any minute now."

  "Huh? The strongest Hunter is gonna be here. I've enjoyed my time with you lovely ladies, but I'm afraid this is where we part ways. Adieu!"

  "Oi! You're not going anywhere!"

  ***

  Iris appeared to be caught up in an explosion. Chloe assumes that she died in it, but she's waiting for the smoke to clear. She had set up dolls across the entire mansion beforehand. In a split second, Iris comes dashing out of the smoke. Even though she hadn't dropped her guard yet, she still couldn't react in time and got sliced clean in half horizontally. Iris with her exceptional reaction time was able to jump back far enough to avoid getting scorched. She couldn't totally avoid the explosion though and came out with burn marks down the left side of her face and body as a result, including on her eye. Taking a look at the vampire's body, Iris sees cotton coming out of the open parts with her body suddenly looking like a doll. This is a doppelganger, Chloe herself was never fighting. The real one was lying in a room playing with her dolls this entire time.

  "Tch." The vampire clicks her tongue as she stops gleefully swinging her legs. She didn't think she'd actually have to fight. Chloe gets off her bed with a sour look getting ready to fight for real. Iris on the other hand doesn't waste a second going back to Diego.

  What she sees when she gets back to the grand foyer isn't what she was expecting.

  'Th-These two are actually dancing.'

  Drenched in sweat, the two have been busting moves nonstop. They get even wilder by the second.

  "Fantastic! You're great kid!"

  "Ha. You're not too bad yourself."

  "I'm cranking it up a notch. Let's see if you can keep up."

  Inyaki's dance moves get more flashy and dynamic. But Diego isn't going to let this vampire outshine him. Building up so much sweat that he starts to feel hot, Diego strips all of his clothes off while still busting moves. Iris quickly covers her eyes, but jumps in pain from moving her left arm too fast.

  "YES! DON'T STOP NOW BOY! YOU MIGHT BE MY BEST OPPONENT YET!"

  Diego is so locked in he doesn't say anything anymore. They're both dancing so hard, it's as if they're invoking impact frames. At the same time, the two throw out their final move.

  "Huff… Huff… Huff…"

  They take a few seconds to catch their breath. Inyaki walks up to the naked Diego and offers a manly handshake.

  "That was damn good. Let's call this a draw."

  "Heh. Fine by me."

  The human and vampire shake hands after having the most intense dance-off of the century. Iris looks on in disbelief.

  'What did I just witness?'