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"Well, this sucks. This isn't anything like they told us it would look like." She wanted her money back. If she could choose, she'd go back to Future and their world. It probably wasn't as bad as this place. Back there... she sorta knew how the Corruption worked, and she could avoid it as much as she could. Here... well, she had no idea what was going on here! At least she had her brothers, she guessed. "Well...the only thing left to do is... kick a**." the girl said as she tugged at her whip, bring in with it a squirming Obariyon, before it turned into dust. "Good idea, Kou. Let's go then."

"Hey girl, you lost?"

The pretty head of seagreen curls turned behind her back, seeing a group of five men blocking her way. They were looking at her like a predator looks at prey, with varied amounts of hunger that would make anybody's skin crawl. Kyouko turned to face them, her stance shifting from one leg to the other. "Stay away... Don't come any closer." Her voice was leveled, the men confusing her warning for a cry of desperate help. "Look, I need to find my brothers, so please..."

Cruel laughter was their response. "You hear that, boys? She's looking for her brothers." They were mocking, and Kyouko did everything not to roll her eyes. "No, you aren't leaving here. You will be a good girl and give us what we want. Then...we might let you live. Depends on how you behave."

One of them moved forward and clasped his greasy hand on her arm, and the girl looked up at him with a look that could kill. "Are you ******** deaf!? I said..." with her other hand she took the guy's wrist and twisted it, a sickening crack audible. "Get the ******** away from me! I am not in the mood!" The man howled as he stumbled back, cradling his broken wrist, just as the others reacted and pushed forward.

"You b***h!"

"How original, wow. You wound me." Her whip was lightning fast. With an audible snap, it had coiled around a man's leg, and with a pull he was brought to the ground. In a second, it was already kissing a man's cheek, letting an angry, bleeding gash behind. One of them grabbed her, and Kyouko headbutted him, before throwing a kick at his chest, sending him sprawling on his back. The only guy left looked at the carnage before him and decided the wisest idea was to run.

He hadn't gotten too far before the leather whip snaked around his neck and tugged him back, bringing him stumbling over to the teal-haired girl. "Now listen, you piece of trash. You won't bully more people around here, you hear? If I find out about it... well, let's say I won't be this nice next time."

The darkness of the city was palpable now, the feel of Hellish miasma making the air stifling, as if it were the midst of summer, and hot...but this was no normal humidity, no gathering of smothering weather. No, this was the sticky, thick air of poison known only to those who had encountered the demonic races, and knew of their terror and the stench that rolled off of them, the miasma of their home world...and now it was filling the city of Iwatodai, which was smothered by the choking underworld poison. Most people would find their health fading away soon in this fog, as mundane as it seemed, but for those who survived like Hei, they would still have to fight the thick sweat that it drew from their bodies as if they were standing under the midday sun...even though the city was now as dark as night. Light was disappearing from the world, and it was up to the flickering flames that remained to restore it...people like him.

People who despised demons. But time was already slipping away...

"I don't need your help. If I can kill him, the miasma surrounding this city should dissipate." Hei was surprised when he was suddenly knocked aside. He'd finally caught sight of Tala, the monster that he himself had accidentally awakened, and he was thinking about setting things right...when a girl had tackled him out of nowhere. He'd approached silently, and the Demi-Fiend hadn't caught wind of him yet, but now his attempted ambush was failing as he saw Tala through a throng of demons, passing down a street on the far end of the road. If he lost sight of him now, there was no telling when he would be able to catch him again...and this demon beside him was wasting precious seconds. "Let go." Suddenly Kisa was tossed aside without reserved, and Hei tried to hurry forward through the Demons. He knew what Kisa was, but her creation was as much his fault as Tala's revival...and though her naivety didn't make her a threat, it made her poignantly useless to him, as well. Someone clinging to the status quo like that wasn't doing humanity a favor...she was merely enabling the cruelties that these creatures thrived on, and allowing them to occur! His demon charged forward into the crowd, but failed to make any headway. Hei grit his teeth, and pulled out his dagger...it looked like he'd have to cut through this group himself. And Tala was already gone...

Hei met Hikawa, a man who was known as the notorious leader of the Gaea Cult...the two had done business before, but that didn't mean that they shared the exact same ideals. Still, they both sought a world of peace and stability, one where the violent forces of change and meritocracy would be removed, and the venomous claws they'd dug into the shoulders of civilization would be cast off...and with just that much common ground between them, working together was not out of the question.

Hei had a special encounter with a High Pixie who had cast a spell over many innocents along Shirakawa Boulevard. After fending off a difficult onslaught from the demon, Hei eventually found an opening and put a crossbow bolt between it's eyes...or would have, if it hadn't ended up begging for mercy when it realized what a serious, humorless human he was. Party member acquired?