Welcome to Gaia! ::

Both Kiro's blades were jerked from his grasp and were sent flying behind Gregory. The moment this happened Kiro blinked quickly and activated his Kyto, the color of his eyes becoming crimson red and the exotic four-slit design took it's form on both his eyes. Looking straight int he face of the now spike-like Gregory, Kiro clutched his fists and swung his fists, the first fist was a right upper cut coming at Gregory.

Kiro continued laying countless punches on Gregory who seemed to have little defense against his Kyto. Kiro made note of landing a last elbow strike to the middle of Gregory's face before rolling for his blades.

Kiro grasped both his swords in each hand. Slowly he walked toward the creature which was once his comrade. Kiro's red eyes gazed down at his opponent, no mercy was there.

"I would keep at you a bit longer for Gregory's sake, but I'm short on time." Kiro spoke as he approached quickly now. He moved his right wrist into slashing position and lashed his right handed katana at the creatures head with fury.

Gregory hissed in fierce defiance, right up until his head was shorn clean from his shoulders. It bounced away wetly into the dark and the body thrashed about, twitching and jerking in a pile of limbs and gore as greenish blood spilled from the torso.

The spider lowered quickly out of the gloom above to land among the enthralled villagers. She hissed just as defiantly at William as many villagers turned to climb onto her back. Those that couldn't be carried by her rushed forward to attack both William and Kyro with reckless abandon as the Mother turned and fled into the passageway. After quickly squeezing through, she sprayed webbing across the opening to slow any pursuit before lumbering away with her "children".

Kiro stood his ground as William charged forward at the leftover enemies and he attempted to make quick eye contact with the ones he could with swift eye movements before the activation of the Kyto wore off.

Something still isn't right. How did Gregory become that way? Kiro thought, glancing at the corpse. And this whole thing seemed pretty too organized. Kiro sighed. "I'm pissed off." Kiro grunted as William continued slaying the villager fiends.

"I feel like someone wanted us to be here and do this." He added before lunging forward at a nearby enemy who was about to strike William, stabbing all the way through the head of the victim, blood oozing. Kiro then jerked his wrist, causing the bone encasing the fiend's head to split open completely like you would chopping wood.

William took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, calming his racing heart. He brought both blades up by his shoulders, the blood of the villagers running down them onto his hands. He swung both swords down and to the sides, flinging the blood free of the blades. He then sheathed them both. Both hilts were still slick with the blood of innocent men and women who had had the misfortune to be enthralled and controlled by a very powerful fiend. There wasn't much he could do about that at the moment though, he resigned himself to disassemble and clean them both when they returned home.
Will looked at his hands, they were still covered in blood. Blood spattered his entire form. The villagers may not have had much strength compared to two seasoned Hunters, but there had been a lot of them. Will had been forced to fight frantically, and as a result had several times had to move through fountaining blood.
"Dammit..." Will whispered to himself. He felt his frustration building.
He was a Hunter, it was his job to destroy fiends where he found them. And as a Guardian he was to seal their spirits so they could cause no harm in death. But he hadn't sealed this fiends spirit. He hadn't slayed it. He had given it the option to escape. Purposely. Because he knew he wasn't powerful enough to destroy it. He hadn't been prepared for something like this. Well, that wasn't going to happen again.
"Kiro, let's get heading back. There's nothing more we can do here now." William said and started walking back towards the entrance to the mines, back the way they had come in. He was careful not to step on the bodies, or limbs, of the slain villagers as he went. "We're gonna need Gene, at the least, and maybe a couple of the others. We're gonna track this thing down and annihilate it." William wasn't sure if he was talking more to Kiro or to himself.

((Don't skip back to the Corps. right away yet.))

William led the way out of the mine, and then out of the mining town. William went to retrieve his horse on the way, but found it to be missing. He didn't see any blood in the surrounding area, so he hoped that it had simply fled. The two Hunters walked for the rest of the day until the sun began to set. They were following the road, more of a path really, and were partway into a large grove, or perhaps a small forest. William collected stones and began to build a firepit, hopefully Kiro would return with firewood by the time he finished.

"I'm just a little disappointed, Kiro." This is the first mission we've ever done that we can really say that we failed. We didn't bring Gregory back with us, and we let the fiend responsible for his death escape. That doesn't sit too well with me." William said as he arranged the firewood inside the pit and lit it.