"Ma~ga~ri~chan!" I shouted, waking up the senior cat who was lounging on the roof basking in the lone sunbeam that had peaked through the clouds covering these misty mountains, courtesy of Dulio.
"Munya?" She lifted her head lazily, looking at me through half-slit eyes, "Do you know what time it is chickie-boya? Senior citizens need their rest nya~" She yawned and stretched.
"You can rest when you die. Come on now, rise and shine. I have decided." I shouted, "I will awaken my Touki today."
"Finally ready?" She tilted her head at me, baring her fangs slightly, letting out a noise that was between a purr and a growl.
She leapt of the roof and landed on my shoulder, floof all fuzzed up and warm from the sun. I couldn't help but want to pet her-
"Try it and lose your hand, boya." She warned as if reading his mind.
"Worth it." I dug in and the grandma cat just sighed, muttering 'damn phoenixes' under her breath, but I knew she didn't mind it so much, as long as you didn't touch her stomach or tails. I lost my eyes, hands and one leg for that particular intrusion.
Soon we reached the training ground, that had now been stained so many times with my blood, which was liquid flame by the way, that it was scorched black and cursed to high heaven with demonic power, each and every particle of dirt in the clearing could by now kill a normal human just by virtue of touching them. I should definitely collect the soil and use it as a weapon, it would be a waste not to.
She jumped off my shoulder and transformed into her true form, as we squared up against each other.
"You really ready for it chicken boya? There is no going back. I will not save you this time. Its do or die." She joked.
I knew she would save me if it went too far, not only because we had gotten close over the past three months, but also because if I died here, the Phenex clan would wipe out the Nekomata as a species.
Still, I asked, just to be sure.
"You have the two Phoenix Tears I gave you, right?"
"Get ready." She didn't answer and that was answer enough.
Her aura changed, turning sharper and more hostile, even more than usual, and I got ready, raising my guard and bursting out with demonic power. Our powers didn't clash, her aura just swept into mine, like dust in the wind, because that was the nature of Touki- unless she desired it, it wouldn't come into conflict. While Touki couldn't match the pure destructive power of demonic power, magic or light power, it more than made up for it in versatility, control and efficiency.
As for me, I couldn't fight like I usually did, maximizing exercise efficiency rather than survival. This was a fight to the death- my death. Not only because if I didn't fight like I meant it, I might, in that dying, pain wracked, fugue state, just subconsciously give up and die- one of the few ways for Phenexs to actually die- but also because Touki is fighting spirit, it is the struggle against the inevitable force of death.
Metaphysically speaking, its mechanism simply wouldn't work if I didn't fight to live.
She disappeared from before me as my eyes flit from edge to edge, shadow to shadow, searching, guessing where she was going to come from. Dirt flying to the left- a feint, right it is. Or so she wants me to think. Really, it is-
I jumped, her low swoop missing my thigh, but her tails, they had a mind of their own as she curled, backside up letting them swing. Five whirred at me, buzzing with deadly force. I twisted my body mid-air, two missed, I deflected a third, slapping it against the ground with a spin, and landed an elbow into her thigh, dislocating her leg while I was at it.
The tail slammed into the ground and the dirt exploded, carving a new gulley into the soil, a foot deep, sending dirt flying into the air. The last two however tore out chunks of my sides and stomach.
I dropped down and rolled over, the ground sizzling from my bile, and healed back up. It was weird in a way. I can't slow my healing down, but I can supercharge it, like the control only goes one way and that is fast, which makes sense from a survival perspective. You never really have to slow down your healing, but healing faster at the cost of stamina, or in this case demonic power, yeah that evolution makes for a winner.
We stood across from each other as she cocked her leg back into place, and hissed.
"Lucky shot."
I stuck out my tongue.
"Sore loser."
"Round two?" She nodded.
We broke back into a whirl of fists and claws, kicks and tail swipes, with just enough biting to keep it PG-13. She gouged out my cheek, I fractured her tail. My legs were blown off and she dodged my retaliatory low blow.
Blood and gore spilled, fizzled, and burnt and the ground was turned into a crater- well, more of a crater than it already was- we had already worn a plateau into the mountain at this point from our daily practice.
Till finally, she stole my heart. Literally. Mortal Kombat style.
"Fatality." She chuckled.
"Nerd." I gasped, blood pooling in my throat as my demonic power finally ran out.
She raised one paw and placed it on my stomach.
"I'll leave your head so you can think." Her paw flashed and my insides turned to jelly, "Try not to die. Forever, at least."
My vision narrowed as my bloodline, parched for demonic power dug deeper, even deeper, dragging out every ounce, every drop of it from me. Like a man suffering from scurvy, the things it had been patching up, opened up, the demonic power, what specks of it were left being pulled away to triage and emergency healing for vital instruments, the body crying out the equivalent of 'Don't you die on me!' until it couldn't anymore and the last ember of flame in my veins died out. The perpetual heat that had wrapped around me from the day I was born, the warmth, the liquid flame that was my blood began to cool and for the first time in this life I felt…cold. So cold.
My eyelids drooped heavy, the light began to fade till complete darkness overtook it. A spike of fear flashed momentarily, as the thought crossed my mind and time seemed to stretch that last moment into eternity.
Humans go to their religion's respective heaven or hell when they die, dragons, even Issei via osmosis, to the dragon of dreams, Great Red. Youkai to the Shinto Underworld and even Gods merge with nature, the world itself in a sort of rebirth. All parts of the cycle of nature. But devils? Artificially created, their mere existence an affront to nature, where do they go when they die?
The answer was simple. Nowhere. When devils died, what faced them was, just plain and simple, oblivion.
Well, there are exceptions. If I remember right, Cleria Belial somehow managed to 'redeem' herself in death, and got into heaven- which is just…how? Power of love?
Anyways, it's not like I'm dying in some heroic, noble sacrifice.
I'm being who I am, a greedy little shit, risking life and limb for more and more power.
And now, in this fading darkness, as all I am was stripped away, like dust into the winds of oblivion-oh, that's a good idea for a spell- I made one final attempt, even as my senses dulled, to reach into myself and look for it. That spark of life.
My last breath labored, my lungs popped with one last bubble, and my-
NO.
I caught the fading light of life, the smoke off the ember of my dying flame and followed them, one step at a time, like an 80 year old man climbing a cliff face with nothing but a knotted rope. The feeling wasn't dissimilar to trying to run in a dream. I was making no progress and even eternity has to come to an end. Oblivion wasn't calling anymore, it was ordering, and my anger spiked.
I said I AM MOVING!
The last shreds of willpower hardened till they burst out from friction and flared into flame. One last leap. Just enough for it.
One more. Just one more, dammit.
I AM NOT DYING HERE. The wisp thinned, and the embers blew out as I reached the core of my being, a figurative campfire. No, I remember this one.
This specific campfire.
I looked up.
A figure I couldn't quite recognize. Voices I couldn't make out. Their faces a void in memory, their voices mangled into noisy silence.
They were something to me, my past life.
A father, an uncle. Cousins. A camping trip.
The sun had set.
The dinner was done. And I, little and stubborn refused to go to sleep.
I didn't wanna. I wanted more. More campfire. More singing. More playing.
I knelt down beside myself. Beside the dead campfire.
I couldn't even see my face- his face…and I heard them say it. Just two words.
Lights out.
I looked back at myself, the little boy who wanted more. The campfire that was dead. And I reached into it. Deep within it, past the wet dirt that they had thrown over it, past the ash and chaff and tiny, sharp crumbs of rocks, and I grabbed it.
The coals beneath had shuttered, their warmth almost gone till I pulled them out.
I placed them on the ring of stones around me as a gentle wind struck up as if it were a warning.
I ignored it.
Reaching into my pockets I found them. Two last pieces of my will, hardened into flint.
The little me was crying now, the rest of the family had disappeared. The tents ahd disappeared. The forest around us stretched farther now, and loomed larger. The sky above, starless. And within, I gazed upon it. Nothingness. The Abyss. Oblivion.
And I grinned. I laughed. And struck the flints.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
A spark.
Then more.
I continued.
Digging into the ash pit, into the surroundings, every stray twig and straw, that chip of wood from where they chopped a log down into sticks. Splinters even. I piled them up there, right on the edge. And I blew.
The winds sharpened and little me shivered.
Just a little more.
The woods around us disappeared, the ground around us vanished into empty darkness and all that remained was the firepit and the starless sky.
The kindling caught, the fire sputtered out a spark with a crackle, and I cupped it carefully, even as my hands burned, a first for me.
"Burn." I whispered. My voice hoarse, my lips chapped from the cold and surging gales.
"Burn!"
It required more. Kindling, heat, fuel. The answer was easy. I plunged my hands into it.
"BURN!"
The fire caught me, my hands, my arms, my chest, my face.
Immolation. And yet, it felt nothing but warm.
I looked back and saw little me had vanished. I looked down and I realized. I was him.
"Never give up." I whispered, with a dry chuckle, as the fire consumed me and looked back up at the starless sky of oblivion and laughed like a man mad.
"GO FUCK YOURSELF!"
"I'M NOT DYING BITCH!"
"I'm NEVER Dy-"
I awoke to a bright white light, a thin blanket of aura like an army of insects crawling all over me.
"Welcome back, Major Tom." Dulio looked down at me with a tearful smile.
"Nyahahaha." Grandma cat laughed, "You did it. You really did it your way, you crazy little chicken boya."
"Congratulations." Sairaorg gave me a hand, and I groaned with pain as I stood up, "You awakened your Touki."
...........................
Took a while to write this. Not the best of what I had hoped but...eh. Tell me what you guys think.
Another chapter in a while. Wait for it.
Next time, the final part of Touki Training and the challenge against Nurarihyon.
Thanks for reading.
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Bye~