The abandoned mall loomed over Aiko like a concrete carcass of a forgotten era. She stepped lightly through the broken sliding doors, her orange headphones resting on her neck. Dust swirled around her boots. Shadows stretched across empty storefronts. Mannequins, cracked and headless, stared with sightless eyes.
The first floor yielded nothing. Aiko searched every corner, teleporting past collapsed beams and rusted shutters. No scrolls. The second floor was the same—just echoes and the suffocating silence of abandonment.
"Third floor it is," she muttered.
She blinked out of existence, reappearing in a flash at the upper level. Her eyes scanned the deserted space until they landed on something glimmering inside a storefront.
A scroll.
It was clutched in the plastic hand of a mannequin behind a glass pane. The store's door was locked tight.
Aiko rolled her shoulders. "Guess we're doing this the loud way."
She swung her leg, her heel smashing into the glass. Shards rained down, glittering in the dull light. Aiko stepped through the wreckage, grabbed the scroll, and smirked.
But the smirk faded almost immediately.
The mall stirred.
Roars echoed through the walls, crawling closer from every direction. Dozens of demons awoke from the shadows, their snarls rattling the air.
Aiko teleported away, appearing behind the first one. She snapped its neck with a brutal twist. Another lunged; she kicked it in the gut, sending it sprawling into an escalator. But more and more emerged, their numbers multiplying with every second.
"Tch. Not worth the effort."
She vanished in a blink, reappearing outside the mall's cracked facade. The roars continued inside, muffled now, but she had what she needed. A scroll.
She started toward the entrance hall. Then—
The sound of stone breaking.
Aiko turned just in time to see Tsubasa's body launched from a building. He smashed through a wall, wings wrapping around him to soften the impact before he crashed into the ground.
"Tsubasa!" Aiko ran forward.
Rin and Kenshin appeared from the gaping hole, landing in front of her, their weapons ready, their stances protective.
The ground rumbled.
And from the shadows crawled a monstrosity.
The demon stepped into the light—towering, its skin blood-red, its frame bulging with muscle. Four massive arms flexed at its sides.
The dot burned black on its neck.
Aiko's blood went cold. "An Upper Demon…"
A few streets away, Jay and Sota were scouring an office building with little luck. Papers littered the floor, desks overturned, everything thick with dust.
The ground shook. They froze.
Then Masato's body burst through a wall, landing hard on the cracked tiles.
"You alright there?" Sota asked, rushing over.
Masato groaned, pushing himself up. He wanted to respond, but his eyes snapped to something behind them. His face went pale.
"Watch out!"
Jay and Sota spun just in time, dodging the swipe of massive scythe-like arms that sliced the air where they had stood.
The demon emerged, tall and gaunt, its limbs twisted into curved blades. Its voice was a rasping hiss.
"Well, well… your awareness isn't bad. But no matter. Soon enough, you'll all be sliced and diced."
Ryuji stood in the center of a chamber thick with webs. He hurled fireball after fireball, but the threads didn't burn. His flames hissed uselessly against the white cords.
Above him, the spider demon clung to the ceiling, its six legs shifting effortlessly, its four eyes glowing with hunger.
"Try all you want," it laughed, voice dripping with malice. "My webs are fire resistant."
Ryuji clenched his fists, rage boiling. His flames roared hotter, but the demon's taunting laugh only echoed louder.
The red-skinned monster roared, its voice shaking the ground. Two of its massive arms slammed into the pavement, cracking it apart. Jagged stones shot upward. The demon grabbed them, hurling them with incredible speed.
Rin raised her arms, ice exploding outward in jagged walls. The boulders shattered against the frozen barricade, shards raining down.
Kenshin darted forward, twin swords gleaming. He weaved between the demon's swings, his blades flashing for an opening. He lunged—but the demon ripped a slab of pavement from the ground and used it as a shield. Kenshin's swords sparked against stone.
"Damn it—"
Aiko teleported behind the demon, aiming for its back. She grabbed its arm, straining to lift it. Her teleportation worked best when she could manipulate momentum, but the demon's body was like steel. She blinked again, reappearing above it, and kicked down at its head. The strike landed, but the demon only grunted, swatting at her like a fly. She barely blinked away in time.
Tsubasa leapt into the air, wings unfurling. He hovered high, firing razor-sharp feathers in volleys. They cut into the demon's flesh, but only shallowly, barely drawing blood.
The demon roared, punching the air with its upper arms. The force was so powerful it created shockwaves that blasted outward. Aiko was sent skidding across the ground, Rin was thrown off her feet, and Tsubasa struggled to stay airborne.
"This thing's insane!" Aiko spat, teleporting back to her feet.
Rin summoned pillars of ice, freezing the demon's legs. For a moment it slowed—but with a flex of raw strength, the ice shattered into shards.
Kenshin dove in again, blades flashing. He aimed for the demon's neck. The strike was perfect—until one of the lower arms ripped up more stone, blocking the strike just in time.
The demon laughed, swinging its upper fists downward. The sheer force cracked the street in half.
The four exorcists regrouped, panting, staring up at the towering beast.
"This is going to be hell," Aiko muttered.
Jay's claws clashed with the demon's scythe-arms, sparks flying with every strike. The demon was fast—inhumanly fast. It slashed again and again, and though Jay's healing allowed him to recover, shallow cuts still bled along his arms and chest.
Sota darted in, his eyes glowing faintly as he glimpsed the demon's next strike. "Left! Jay, left!"
Jay moved, barely avoiding the scythe slicing toward his ribs. Sota threw a kick at the demon's knee, but the creature twisted mid-swing, avoiding the blow.
"They're faster than my visions!" Sota hissed, beads of sweat running down his forehead.
Masato raised his arms, shadows unfurling like snakes from the ground. They surged upward, wrapping around the demon's torso, its arms, its legs. For a second, it looked trapped.
Masato grinned—until the demon smirked back.
It bent backward, acrobatic despite its frame, twisting and spinning until the shadows slipped loose. It landed on its claws, spinning in a whirl of blades.
The scythes swung outward, and black energy burst from them, forming crescent blades of pure darkness. They sliced through everything—walls, pillars, the very air.
Jay and Sota dove aside, the ground exploding behind them.
"Great. It has ranged attacks too," Jay muttered, panting.
The demon laughed, eyes gleaming. "Run, little prey. Run."
Ryuji's flames crackled hotter, his rage pushing him further. He hurled streams of fire upward, forcing the spider demon to scuttle along the ceiling.
But it was fast. Its legs moved with eerie precision, weaving through the flames like a dancer in battle.
It spat a glob of webbing. Ryuji rolled aside, the sticky substance splattering against the ground. He countered with another burst of fire, but again the threads refused to burn.
"Annoying pest," Ryuji growled. His flames erupted around him like an inferno, his black hair whipping upward, tips glowing red.
The spider demon only laughed again, its many eyes glinting. "Struggle more. I enjoy watching the flame die out."