Spirit Stalker 8

"How many spirits do you have boy!?" Jinzo shouted angrily as his barrier broke apart. But he was not idle, as soon as it did, he thrust a hand out, a large sphere of crackling dark energy appearing in his hand that he shot to the side.

It shot through the air so fast Alexis could barely keep track of it, only to suddenly veer off course and shoot up into the air and disappear into the sky.

'Spirits, as in duel spirits?' Alexis' thoughts raced. Weren't they just a legend.

But...

The voluptuous blonde's mind went back to a certain card. The way she thought it had winked at her. The cryptic words Yarden spoke to her. That light that appeared when Titan was attacking her.

...Could this all be real?

"A lot," Yarden laughed and then clicked his fingers and to Alexis' further astonishment, golden light rippled at his side and suddenly, two more beings appeared beside him. One a towering bipedal green and brown lizard, while the other was a squatter one, coming up to Yarden's shoulders with a very muscular looking build with small wings and orange scales, "I would have invited you to become a spirit of mine as well, or left you alone if you knocked me back, that is, if you weren't a cunt trying to eat the souls of students here."

Lesser Dragon and Baby Dragon! And that girl! Wasn't she Unhappy Maiden!?

Jinzo's arms flared out, energy wrapped around them and the clearing shook with two massive impacts. The energy around Jinzo's arms rippled, but the bald duel monster held strong, eyes going to Yarden, "Those fools were the ones that summoned me!" the bald monster snarled, "I am merely taking the price I demanded! It is not my fault that they were too foolish to understand the price I wanted!"

Uncaring of his words, Lesser Dragon tore across the clearing at a rapid speed while Baby Dragon flew behind him, both intending to attack Jinzo.

"Begone whelps!" Jinzo shouted, a pair of crackling red beams of energy shooting out of his eyes towards the pair of attacking monsters.

"Ra!" Baby Dragon gave a very human shout and spat out plume of fire! It slammed into the pair of beams and somehow held them back for a moment, before they managed to tear through them and leave them as nothing but glittering orange embers.

But it was enough. Baby Dragon juked to the side and avoided the beams, and the brief stalemate allowed Lesser Dragon to get in claws, swiping one heavy clawed arm through the air and raking it across Jinzo's chest.

The bald monster screamed in pain as his metallic lab coat was torn and Alexis smelt the metallic tang of blood in the air somehow, even though no blood appeared, merely a trail of what looked like dark red energy seeping out of Jinzo's chest.

Lesser Dragon gave a roar and tried to swipe at Jinzo again, only for the machine monsters leg to come up in a kick that caught the dragon monster in the chin and punted it high up into the air.

At that moment though, something seemed to smash into Jinzo's back and the monster was slammed face first into the ground hard, just as Lesser Dragon's back slammed into the ground in front of Yarden.

Alexis could see that Jinzo's metallic coat had its back torn away and more of that same energy was seeping out of its back up into the air.

"No...!" Jinzo snarled even as his legs and arms snapped together as if bound and a pink outline shone around his body, "So close! I was so close! If only I could have become Jinzo Lord, you fools would have stood no chance against me!"

"Sucks to suck mate," Yarden snorted from where he stood behind Unhappy Maiden, "This didn't have to happen you know, if you just let those guys go, I wouldn't have to do this and get rid of you."

"Shut your mouth you trash human! How dare you lecture me! I am ancient, beyond your understanding!" Jinzo spat, struggling to glare up at him, "I lived before you were even a twinkle in your great grandfathers eye! Do not think yourself powerful just because these pathetic spirits have bowed to you! You are nothing boy! NOOOOOOOOOOTHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNN-"

Jinzo's roar shook the clearing and made Alexis' ears ring, only to be cut off. Jinzo's voice turned into a gurgle and a mass of that light suddenly started pouring from his back. And then a moment later, Jinzo's entire body glowed the same color, before bursting apart like a water balloon and becoming that same red energy that flaked through the air like the embers of Baby Dragon's flame before it.

Alexis swallowed heavily and on instinct began to tiptoe away. She needed to get out of here. She needed to think this through.

She quickly left Yarden and the clearing behind and power walked in a rush back towards her dorm. She fished Hoshiningen's card from her deck box and eyed it intently as she went.

"..Are you really a duel spirit?" she wondered.

Her mind wandered to her brother and the Abandoned Dorm. And more specifically, the mystery behind it.

This all was beginning to make a twisted bit of sense to her after what she just witnessed.

It never made sense to her. How could a whole dorm of students, especially containing her strong older brother, just disappear over night? Unless some kind of highly trained team of soldiers were the one behind it, then it wouldn't be possible at all. And just why would people like that be behind it in the first place.

But that Jinzo. Hadn't Yarden accused it of stealing or trying to steal the souls of students here on the island and that was why he had tracked it down?

What if...

Just what if, a duel spirit of some kind, a very powerful one was behind the disappearances at the Abandoned Dorm.

'What if something like that Jinzo has stolen my brothers soul!?' Alexis thought in horror.