Naoki avoided the arrow. Quickly, he threw a spear and attacked Akari. He was cruel. He attacked to kill. Akari couldn't afford to let her guard down. If she got distracted for even a moment, she would lose her head. In comparison, her fight with Shunji was a childish fight.
Akari noticed, too, that he was hiding his real power. At first, he seemed to have only a tenth of demon power. As the fight progressed, his true level was revealed—he had almost one-third demon power. However, this power wasn't acquired naturally; in short, he was not born with so much power; most of it was acquired. Akari now knew why he used the humans in the cave. He turned them into nutrients to increase his demonic power.
As the opponent was stronger than expected, Akari also sustained injuries. This couldn't go on like this. She needed a moment to gather enough power to destroy his soul. Nevertheless, Naoki was very clever. He was always attentive to her movements.
With no other choice, Akari held the tip of the spear, approaching her with her hand instead of dodging. In that split second, she swung her sword with her other hand, intending to sever the thread of his soul. However, Naoki, who was very afraid of death, felt that he could not evade that attack and took action. He took out a puppet that could take the damage for him.
It was so fast that Akari couldn't stop her attack and killed the person locked inside the puppet. It was a man with features strikingly similar to those of Naoki, yet he appeared to have endured all manner of torture, as his body was covered in wounds.
He seemed to hate Naoki very much, because he tried very hard to look at Naoki before he died. In the midst of her surprise, Akari did not notice the change in Shunji's expression when he saw her last attack.
Naoki realized he couldn't win, so he threw a hand grenade at her. Akari quickly formed a barrier, but the explosion was stronger than expected because it contained poison. Akari didn't have enough time to create another stronger barrier before the shockwave reached her, and just when she was thinking of using her spiritual power to cover her vital organs so she wouldn't die, two enormous wings rose up behind her and enveloped her, protecting her from the explosion and the poison. Everything was dark, and Akari's mind was confused. That was when the wings opened, and Akari could see what had saved her life.
It was an imposing dragon, approximately twenty meters long. Its scales glistened in the sun and were dark blue like the night, as were its eyes. Akari was stunned but also impressed. No one knew this, but actually, she preferred the complete demonic forms over the half-demon form. Of course, that was visually impressive. In fact, if it weren't because Sesshōmaru had tried to eat Inuyasha and her the first time she saw his demonic form, which caused her some kind of trauma. She would have liked to observe that shape a little more.
Akari stared at him stupidly until the dragon slowly set her down on the ground. Then she came to her senses. Naoki had escaped the moment he threw the hand grenade, so Akari had no choice but to pursue him.
Akari stood up and was about to leave when she heard.
"Wait!" Akari turned around and saw Shunji, who had returned to his human form. Akari looked at his hair and eyes and realized they were the same color as in his dragon form. Before, she hadn't even bothered to look closely because they were enemies, but now there was no reason to keep fighting, as Akari told him.
"Thank you for saving my life. I'll take care of Naoki." Shunji looked at her and said.
"I know. I want to go with you. This is my fault too." Akari looked at him strangely. He was acting differently than before.
Akari noticed that he seemed slightly nervous, and the expectation in his eyes was to accompany her. Akari couldn't figure out the reason for his sudden change in attitude and attributed it to feeling guilty. Or maybe it was because he wanted to save Naoki, and he behaved that way to deceive her. She didn't know it, but finally, for some strange reason, she decided to accept.
"Okay." She could see the tension in his body dissipate, and his eyes sparkled with joy.
She thought he was a little strange but decided not to think about it anymore for the moment. They both left the barrier, but Naoki had carefully covered his tracks. It was clear that he had prepared his escape route in advance.
Akari didn't know where to start, so Shunji told her.
"Why don't we go back, first treat your wounds, and then look for clues in the cave where he used to live?" Akari thought he was right and agreed.
She bandaged her injured hand and headed to the cave. Akari collected the human remains with the intention of purifying their souls and appeasing their spirits so that they could be reborn. Shunji followed her in silence. When the ritual ended, both searched Naoki's cave but found nothing important.
Akari was annoyed and set fire to the cave with her spiritual power to eliminate any traces. Akari didn't have clues, so she asked Shunji to tell her whatever he knew about Naoki.
"Naoki was the eldest son of a pair of half-demons, one of the last half-demons to exist here. However, they were a very strange couple, obsessed with the glory of the past. They often rejected their human blood and those who were not half-demons. When Naoki was born, they expected that since both parents were half-demons, their demon blood would suppress their human blood, and the child would be born a full demon.
However, that did not happen. Even worse, Naoki was born with only one-tenth of his demonic power. In their eyes, that child was nothing but a failure. They were so devastated and furious that they even tried to kill Naoki, but others who lived here stopped them. I warned them at that time and told them I would not tolerate that behavior, so they calmed down and didn't cause any more trouble.
Even so, their treatment of Naoki did not improve. Although they did not beat him, they mistreated him in many ways, starving him and locking him up for days without seeing the light of day. This continued for several years until the couple had another child. This time, according to them, they were fortunate, and their children were both born with one-third demon power. The birth of those two children only made Naoki's life more difficult. Naoki became the toy and slave of that family.
One of the couple's children was a girl, and they intended to marry her to me so that they could have another child with full demon blood." Shunji made a disgusted expression as he remembered it.
"In short, they were obsessed with restoring the demonic lineage." Akari said.
Shunji nodded. "Their behavior infuriated me, so I absorbed the couple's demonic power and expelled them from the mountain. They refused to leave without the other two children, so I allowed them to take them. They didn't want Naoki, which I thought was unfortunate, so I let him stay on the condition that he stay away and not cause any trouble." He sighed.
"I was stupid. I should have killed them all." Akari nodded.
"But then who was the person he used as a shield to evade my attack?" Shunji thought for a moment and said.
"It's probably his younger brother. There's no reason to feel bad about killing him. He was a piece of trash just like Naoki." Akari looked at him and did not disagree.
The appearance of that person had taken her by surprise. It's true that she had no intention of killing him, but she remembered that when she saw him, she could feel evil energy around him, although not as thick as Naoki's. He did have something that indicated that he had hurt many people.
However, the most interesting thing was that Shunji noticed her mood. He was more perceptive than she thought. She assumed that it was thanks to that he was able to break the chain of restrictions and transform himself. Akari hadn't forgotten, but she didn't say anything because he had saved her.