Dreams lost in the darkness

~Chapter 7~

The demon who was masked seemed absolutely wild. His actions were stiff, but powerful nonetheless.

Hayato struggled, to his own surprise, to leave the demon at least somewhat disabled. Shogo had retrieved his sword, but focused on reflecting the light from the self-revolving spotlights which threatened to blind them.

The previous lower demon moon he fought was weak, the 6th. The previous time, Mitsuki had left him to fight on his own first, and he already faced difficulties, though at least lower demon six had flesh easier to cut through. Still, Mitsuki had to step in before Hayato nearly fainted on blood loss from an injury right below his rib cage.

Now though, he was stronger. And still, fighting a lower demon moon was tough.

"Shogo, bash the lights!"

Why hadn't the idea come to him sooner?

The demon seemed alarmed at the idea, beginning to direct part of his attention to Shogo. It allowed more cracks in his defences, but Hayato knew he was more than capable of taking Shogo out even while dealing with him.

He released a series of breath of flame techniques, as many as he could. Flame tiger, Rising scorching sun, Flame of Purgatory, Unknowing Fire. Cycling them. Rearranging them. Pressing on.

The demon was clearly getting more and more disoriented as the fight ensued, but Hayato himself felt his energy begin to sap.  Shogo had destroyed the reinforced spotlights and headlights of the upper floors, and was suffering from injuries caused by the demon as he rushed to do the same for the lights on the stage.

Shogo jumped, he tumbled, rolled, crawled, did anything he could to hide behind the seats to at least lighten the impact of the incoming attacks. He tried to rush at first, but a near miss from the main blood vessel on the right side of his neck warned him. One more careless step and death was a very viable possibility.

When Hayato finally closed the gap enough, he drove his blade through the demon's eyes.

In the process, the mask fell off, revealing the demon to be...

"Chamu."

Hayato hissed.

The demon himself seemed stunned.

The moment of vulnerability was not expected of a demon moon.

He cowered slightly, and Hayato took the chance to try to decapitate him. He had tries to create another illusionary doll, one of Subaru. Hayato ignored it. It was, after all, just a fake. His blade had sliced through, and driven into the demon's neck halfway. The demon grabbed onto the blade, hands bleeding from the knife driven into his palms, but desperately holding the sword from slicing through.

The lights on top of the stage swivelled loosely, and both Shogo and Hayato felt their stomachs drop with the 3 of the lights, into the open trapdoor of the stage. Whatever they would do, it wasn't a good thing for the 2 on the other side.

Shogo rushed over to dismantle the rest, unable to hear Hayato's screams to get away as the sound of explosions rocked the theatre hall.

Chamu gritted his teeth, muttering something, before he gave in to the swing of the sword, his head dropping off to the side.

The lights from the stage that remained had fallen, and Hayato felt himself blasted backwards. He tried to open his eyes to see the impact, maybe find Shogo, but for the moment he opened his eyes a bright amber flashed, and the dust irritated the open pupils as well as his throat. He coughed, hands swinging wildly for something to grip onto.

His back crashed into a wall, his neck and head feeling the shock of having hit the hard surface, the shockwaves travelling from his neck down his spine and through to the nerves in his limbs, fingers and toes.