Chapter 17 - Beo's Food

Author Note: Haven't read through this yet.

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As Okita stood amongst his comrades of many years, he watched as Koko's head turned back and forth locking onto each youkai with laser focus.

"Koko this next attack can get a bit dangerous." Okita warned with a serious face as he slightly raised his hand. Soon enough a kanji symbol materialized in front of one of the youkai, as if triggering a chain reaction more and more symbols appeared and not long after there were countless glowing symbols radiating power pointed towards Koko.

"Let's see how you handle this Koko." Okita swiftly lowered his hand in a cutting gesture and the room lit up with a bombardment of spells raining towards Koko's lone silhouette. Keeping his eyes onto her Okita saw that Koko was... not moving at all? As the spells were getting closer and closer he got a bit worried, however, Koko remained unmoving on the spot.

As the spells started hitting their mark each spell that made contact produced a slight boom, like thousands of grenades going off one after the other in quick succession. The bombardment only stopped a minute later as a huge dust cloud had formed where they had hit.

As Okita was getting more and more worried not hearing anything from inside it, he was just about to go check if she was okay when a loud metallic clang rang out blowing away the dust in a circular fashion around the source. Looking at Koko's figure that finally appeared the only damage he could see were various small cuts spread throughout her tanned body which disappeared not even a moment later.

Okita's eyes slightly widened in shock as he saw Koko's body pretty much immediately regenerating itself from taking hundreds of youjutsu spells fired from High-class or above beings. Could it be that Koko actually wasn't entirely human? He didn't feel anything else from her when he checked a few weeks ago. Deciding to take a closer look after the fight he emerged from his thoughts as Koko bent down slightly before shooting into the army of youkai, punching, dodging and redirecting the blows raining down on her as if she had eyes on the back of her head.

Since she was working her way through the army, the amount of spells lessened alot since they would just hit their allies if everyone continued chucking them at her. Okita seeing that she was quickly shredding through the youkai unsheathed his sword and dashed in her direction.

Koko was making big swings using the extra reach her gauntlets gave her to keep a free space around her as she tried to dodge all the spells firing towards her. Getting hit with another spell which pushed her back slightly, she instantly rotated her body and punched out as Okita's sword suddenly flicked into view meeting it with a metallic clang, as the force threw both her and her attacker back into the crowd of youkai.

Using the force, Koko twisted her body in the air and started spinning before slamming her gauntlets into the ground destabilizing the surrounding area before she took a deep breath. Okita quickly dashed towards her as he felt her preparing something, but didn't reach her in time as he heard Koko shout before his vision turned white as his eardrums exploded and he was sent flying along with the surrounding youkai.

Landing roughly and eventually skidding to a stop Okita quickly tried to stand up before he stumbled as he felt like the world itself had tilted. Barely managing to stabilize himself using his sword as a crutch he looked at the aftermath of Koko's attack. A large circular area with Koko as the center had practically ruptured as remnants of broken tiles were very, very slowly repairing themselves.

Most of the youkai that were caught in the attack also weren't getting up, eventually dissolving back into shadows before returning inside his body. As he was glancing at the few youkai that remained he suddenly heard a loud impact noise before he felt his body jerk getting dragged backwards, while cracks of small impacts of air displacing rang out in succession from behind him accompanied by the feeling of an immense weight. Having a feeling that he really would die if this attack were to hit him he quickly shouted.

"I surrender!" Managing to slightly turn his body Okita saw Koko, her still wide eyes locked onto him as her pupils had almost turned to pinpricks in focus, her metallic mask concealing her lower face. One of her suddenly massive looking mechanical fists were quickly approaching him displacing air around it as it felt like time slowed for a moment.

Just before it made contact with his body, it instantly stopped before an enormous wind pressure crashed against and then through him, making his whole body involuntarily tremble along with the surrounding space as it continued for hundreds of meters behind him ravaging a trail through the floor expanding in a triangular wave.

Looking at the fist that was just a centimeter from touching him Okita let out the breath he was unconsciously holding as he felt like he'd just escaped death. Retracting her fist Okita saw Koko slightly blink for a few moments before seemingly returning to normal as she merrily threw her arms up and cheered excitedly.

"That was awesome! Guess you're not all talk huh, Century Geezer!" Koko patted his back after unequipping her weapons and her mask with a big smile on her face as he felt like he was getting whiplash from both her quick attitude change and the force she was using.

"Take it a bit easy on this old man, would you? I can feel my insides shaking." Okita said in an exasperated tone while the pain started kicking in as the adrenaline faded slightly.

"Oh." Koko let out a noise of realisation as she shoved a hand inside one of her pockets before pulling out what looked like a forest green marble and chucked it towards him.

Catching it Okita gave it a look before he looked back at Koko with a raised eyebrow.

"What's this Koko?"

"Food."

"..."

Okita looked back at the marble, if he was being honest it looked more like something you'd caution someone to not eat than it did food. However if Koko really was malicious she didn't need to be so roundabout in killing him as he now knew she was very much capable of beating him in a fight, he also hadn't seen her use the purple energy she used to unlock the doors as they entered so this was probably not her going all out.

Not to mention that the image of Koko wanting to poison someone instead of punching them just didn't make sense in his head with her personality.

Shrugging he popped it into his mouth and as it entered he could feel it dissolve into a liquid before he swallowed. Just a few seconds later his eyes widened as he felt his body suddenly bursting with vitality, his wounds quickly closed and left him feeling at peak condition.

This... this could heal devils.

As advantageous as demonic magic was in general since it used imagination as a big part in creating new spells, it was also incredibly averse to objectively improving the state of an entity. Healing magic was not a thing for devils since demonic energy just rejected the whole notion of healing. There were multiple ways to heal a devil, time, bodily contact and external means, however.

Time could only heal light wounds it wouldn't regrow a lost leg or an arm, bodily contact was basically the same, just faster. As for external means? They were extremely rare since barring the odd medicine here and there, most of the items related to healing were in some way related to holy energy which is basically their antithesis.

There were the Phenex Tears which could heal a devil but they were barely even seen unless you were intimate with the Phenex family, the Phenex head hoarding them religiously no matter how much his first and second son tried to convince him otherwise, only being used as political favors and by his family.

If they had another source of healing items, the Phenex's would basically be forced to start selling them again since they would lose their position as the only healers in the underworld. They couldn't exactly just force them to hand the Phenex Tears over since they'd just threaten to stop producing them and even more importantly, however.

It would set a precedent.

Attacking one of the noble houses would set everyone else on edge and as much as he didn't want to admit it, with the Old Satan Faction still lurking around there was a high chance more and more nobles would start to switch sides, not everyone was satisfied with the peace the current four Satans had brought and wanted more.

Eventually emerging from his thoughts Okita looked around to see Koko repeatedly poking one of his summoned youkai that looked very uncomfortable with the current situation. Recalling the poor youkai, he walked up to Koko with a serious face.

"Koko do you have any more of those marbles?"

"Hmm? Mmyeah, I do. Why?" Koko tilted her head in confusion.

"Would you be willing to sell them to me?" Okita asked while trying to think of what Koko would want in return.

Koko hummed as she rubbed her chin in thought for a few moments before nodding to herself.

"I can give you a few, but you have to fight with me whenever I want!" She declared while pointing at him, radiating an aura of satisfaction at her genius idea.

"..."

Okita had a conflicted expression on his face as one part of his mind was trying to convince him to agree, while the other was screaming at him to say no. Eventually letting out a deep sigh in resignation, he looked back at Koko who had somehow managed to get a holy grail was he was in thought.

"I agree, Koko."

"Yay!"

"Would it be possible to get a few before I leave?"

"Kay." Koko started walking towards the exit while waving at him to follow.

Walking behind her for a few minutes they eventually emerged from one of the scrap piles. Raising an eyebrow in confusion Okita wondered why she would store them up here on the surface rather than in her underground base.

Watching Koko walking in the direction of the dragon he nodded to himself as he felt like he understood why Koko was storing them on the surface. Having to go through a dragon to get them would discourage most people.

Walking up to the giant metal block it was sitting on, he saw Koko's leg getting covered in a purple energy as she gave it a slight kick and a holed opened up in it's side. Shoving her hand inside she took out a handful of marbles and handed them to Okita.

Looking down at the items that would send the whole underworld into chaos for a few seconds, he carefully put them in a pocket on the inside of his kimono while turning back to Koko.

"Thank you Koko, these are extremely important to the devil race since there isn't alot of items capable of healing devils. However, you should be careful with showing them around too much since alot of people would covet-"

Okita's face blanked as he looked at Koko chucking handfuls of marbles into the dragon's mouth at a time.

"..."

Come to think of it, didn't she say that it was food?

"...Koko."

"Yes?"

"What type of food are these marbles?"

"Beo's food."

"..."