Nine Circles of Hell, Part 1

"Hah...hah...hah…"

Austin pants nervously in rapid, ragged breaths as he stares down at the portal to Hell below him. Austin is stationed alongside the rest of the Sniper Squadron, which are positioned along the trees and hills overlooking the golden ruins of the Temple of the Almighty Torch. Beneath them, in the center of the ruins, is a spiraling, rainbow colored wormhole.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine," reassures Slayer Rokku (Cursed Ability: Lock-On, fought against Team Mikey in their first match of the IJST).

"You sound even worse than me," Austin replies, causing Rokku to flash him a nervous smile.

 "Well I'm the one responsible for making sure that everyone in the Sniper Squadron's attacks make their marks" Rokku nervously answers.

"My codename is "Takanome" for a reason," Austin replies. "I won't be missing a single shot, so don't worry about me. Go find someone else to support."

Rokku blushes and nods.

"Don't make small talk with the enemy, Rokku!" Snaps Slayer Ronbun (Cursed Ability: Papercut, a member of Rokku's squad).

"The Junior Slayer Tournament is over, Branda!" Rokku laughs. Even as she laughs, Rokku's voice is shaking.

"ONE MORE MINUTE!" A voice calls out. The voice belongs to Slayer Kaze, the head of the Sniper Squadron number one, the strongest of the Sniper Squadrons, and the one stationed outside of the main portal to Hell. Other Sniper Squadrons are stationed outside of the smaller portals to Hell, the ones where less demons will be coming out of. The Nine Circles of Hell will only be coming out of the main portal to Hell. The job of the Sniper Slayer Squadron is to pick off and one-shot the low ranking hordes of demons that spawn, so that the stronger Pro Slayers can focus on the big fries, such as the Nine Circles and Four Horsemen. As the first line of defense, Austin has one of the most crucial jobs.

"Ready your weapons and keep them trained on the portal!"

"Gunsmith: Sniper Rifle…" Austin softly says to himself as he constructs a sniper rifle out of his glowing orange Cursed Power and stares through its scope, keeping the barrel of his sniper rifle trained on the spiraling wormhole.

"It's go time…" Ralph whispers, who's stationed besides Austin, who nods slowly in response. "Morale Arrow…" Ralph says as he constructs a glowing golden bow out of Cursed Power and knocks back a golden arrow, aiming it at the portal to Hell. "Let's make a bet. Whoever kills the most demons gets the loser to treat them to lunch," Ralph smirks.

"You're on," Austin nervously smirks back.

"Thirty more seconds! You better be ready!" Kaze announces, as he begins counting down

"Ten!"

Austin wipes his sweaty palms on his pants.

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

Austin gulps.

"Seven!"

"Six!"

Austin adjusts his high-tech visor.

"Five!"

"Four!"

Austin stares through the scope of his sniper rifle.

"Three!"

"Two!"

Austin perfects his sniper rifle's angle.

"ONE!"

And then…all Hell breaks loose.

The Earth begins to tremble as the sky turns a dark red. Lightning booms and thunder cracks across the sky. LIghtning smiths a nearby tree, setting the jungle where the ruins of the Temple of the Almighty Torch lay in ablaze. Cracks in the ground shoot out from the portal to Hell in every direction, sprawling farther than the naked eye can see. The wind howls.

And then...the hordes of demons spawn.

Growls and roars fill the air, as waves and waves of low level demons begin crawling out of the portal, like zombies emerging from their graves, all rushing towards the nearest civilization; New York City, the present location of the Slayer Organization Headquarters.

"This is it! Fire away, men!" Kaze booms as he swipes a hand towards the demons, sending a gust of wind flying their way and picking them up in a giant tornado. Kaze's tornado then dissipates, sending dozens of demons flying in every direction, and killing them instantly.

Austin aims the scope of his sniper rifle at the first demon he sees and pulls the trigger.

But…he misses?

"DAMN!" Austin shouts, cursing his shaking hands. "I can't be careless with my shots, I only have a finite pool of Cursed Power!"

Meanwhile, besides Austin, Ralph, Ronbon, Slayer Supurasshu, and the dozens of other Sniper Slayers stationed outside of the Portal to Hell are busy picking off demons, with Rokku's help.

"Morale Arrow: Valley Shot!" Ralph shouts, as dozens of arrows begin raining down below upon the demon heard, picking them off.

"Damnit, Austin, FOCUS!" Austin roars as he slaps himself across the face. Austin then readjusts his visor and stares through the scope of his sniper rifle on the portal to Hell, keeping his barrel trained on the demons that emerge. "Gunsmith: Weakness Sniper!" Austin shouts as he pulls the trigger of his sniper rifle, sniping a demon in the skull, who limply flops to the ground as blue blood and brains explode out from the back of their head. "One down…" Austin mutters to himself before picking off another target.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Ten.

Austin keeps sniping demons, but no matter how many demons the Sniper Squadron kill, more just seem to spawn in their places.

But then…the unexpected happens.

A massive flood of Cursed Power rushes out of the Portal to Hell, like a gas bomb, and makes its way over to the Sniper Slayer Squadron. The Cursed Power toxic gas wraps around the Slayers, flooding their bodies and filling their lungs through the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Hundreds of Slayers stationed around the Portal to Hell begin to convulse and scream. Black scales sprout across their entire bodies, as their eyes floss over, their humanity replaced by a fierce, wild gaze.

And this occurs all over the world.

"Dammit, this is what they told us about…" Kaze growls. "There is too much Cursed Power entering our world, it's corrupting the minds of even Pro Slayers!"

With a roar, the new demon army charges, and begins sicking themselves on their former allies.

"Dammit, what the Hell is happening?!" Ralph cries as he fires upon friend and foe alike.

"There's no time to make sense of things!" Austin answers as he begins sniping demons as well. "But these demons are our allies no longer!"

"Just keep firing!" Kaze roars over the howling winds. "We're making a dent in the demons' advancements!"

After a few hundred of their brethren were taken out, the more higher intelligent demons focus their gaze on the Pro Slayers sniping above. The hordes of demons then open their mouths; and begin charging up spheres of Cursed Power within their throats.

"Are they…" Ralph stammers as he narrows his eyes at the demons.

"LOOK OUT!" Kaze roars, but it's too late. The spheres of Cursed Power charging up in the mouths of the demons explode outwards, flying towards the Pro Slayers in a flash of red light. Just in the nick of time, Austin ducks behind a tree to dodge. When the explosion of Cursed Power subsidies, Austin looks around, seeing dead bodies strewn about. Blood stains the area.

"Ah…ah…" Austin whimpers.

"It's alright, Austin, keep firing!" Ralph shouts as he peeks out from behind the tree he used for color and continues sniping demons. Ralph is soaked in blood as well. One of the demon's attacks nicked him.

Austin swallows, then ducks out from behind his tree and snipes a couple of demons, before diving back behind cover to dodge their attacks. But since he's too busy being shot at, Austin doesn't have enough time to perfect his aim, and keeps missing his targets. That is, until Austin feels a pair of hands on his shoulder, and flinches.

"Don't worry, it's just me," a voice says, and Austin recognizes it to be Rokku. "Just keep firing, I'll deal with your aim."

"Right," Austin replies as he keeps firing at the demons. And this time, without even brother to aim, Austin's bullets manage to snipe each demon he fires at, causing Austin's lips to curl up into a smirk. "Gunsmith: Assault Rifle!" Austin shouts as his Cursed Power sniper rifle reconfigures itself into an assault rifle. By using his less accurate but far more faster assault rifle, -with Rokku as support- Austin is able to shoot down far more demons than he was able to before.

Austin sees some motion to his right out of the corner of his eye. "Don't be reckless!" He shouts. But when Rokku yelps, Austin turns to his right, seeing nothing more than a corpse. "Shit…" Austin grumbles before turning his attention back to the demons. Austin's trigger finger never lifted from the trigger of his assault rifle even for a second

***

"Sigh."

"What's the matter, War?" Death asks the sighing demon, who's standing by the window of the penthouse, watching the city below. The hordes of demons haven't quite reached the city yet. The only thing harming the city as of now, are the giant cracks sprawling across the ground, decimating the infrastructure.

"I wanna fight!" War wines, throwing a hissy fit. "You know me, Death, I'm a battle junkie! Nothing gets me off more! It's killing me to have to stay here and do nothing, while I know there's blood being shed on the battlefield!"

Death laughs. "All in due time, War," he replies. "It would be unwise to waste your energy now."

"I'm just waiting for someone strong to appear…" Mikey grumbles.

"Why did you give Famine all the fun, searching for Pestilence?" War asks. "She already has plans on top of that, too! Something to do with the Lincoln Correctional Facility…"

Death and War are interrupted when someone else enters the room, a demon in a red suit.

"And who are you?" Death asks as he turns to face the demon.

"Lucifer!" The demon answers. "Lucifer, the owner of Hell's Bar."

"And what's your business?" War grunts, from her place lounging about on the couch.

"Ta-da!" Lucifer exclaims as he holds his palms out, producing a couple of capsule pills. "If I feed these to the hordes of demons, they'll become at least five times more powerful! I want nothing more than to help the Four Horsemen achieve their goals!"

"And how do we know that we can trust you…?" War growls, but Death holds a hand up, shushing War up.

"I've heard rumors of your work," Lucifer replies. "I like it! You're in! Do you have a way to feed your pills to the hordes of demons easily?"

"If I can stand on top of buildings, I can crush my pills into powder and feed it to the demons quickly," Lucifer answers.

"Great, then that's your job!" Death answers, causing War to let out a groan.

"What's the matter, War?" Death asks as he turns to face the demon.

"Everyone is doing something but me!" War snaps as she flails her arms in a temper tantrum.

"Patience, War, Patience…" Death laughs.