CHAPTER 4: MATOU THE KING'S ADVISOR, THE DARK CULPRIT

' Move ' that was the only thought driving Yu. Even faced with the swarming hordes of undead surrounding their master, he had to move. Taking a breath, he shifted his legs adjusting his position slightly to face the incoming wall. The darkness barely did anything to hide them from him, his sight and nose could pick them up without much difficulty. 

The breathing he held was limited, he knew it. Only short sporadic bursts of combat allowed him to hold the breathing, any long-form combat would result in him burning through the circulated oxygen in his lungs and that would be bad. Yu dashed forward, swinging his blade in ways that no swordsman could, cutting down corpse after corpse with the white blade. 

He found himself at the heart of enemy territory, surrounded on all sides by the corpses, he jumped, gaining elevation above the corpses and he swung his blade downward cutting the heads of the corpses. Still, in mid-air, he had the being who attacked them in his line of sight. 

He had to move and make his body lighter. He breathed in again, his alabaster skin turning red from the held breath. His eyes were white and sweat started to form on his face. With his centrifugal mass shifted, he managed to run on top of the heads of the corpses, crushing them underneath his foot. He leaped over hands that tried to reach him as he closed the distance between them. 

"Sun form one: heavenly demon" He murmured to himself as he jumped up a bit. Both hands holding onto the blade, and he stuck it out as he curled around into a ball and started to rapidly accelerate his body forward becoming a rotating ball of death cutting through the corpses and he shot past Matou, tearing through his shoulder and torso completely burning the areas he had severed in his rotation. 

Yu uncurled his body and crashed onto the building to his front, all the air he had stored up in his lungs escaping through his mouth, his muscles tightened around prohibiting him from moving. He exceeded his limit. Clearing through the corpses within a three-minute window was a strain to him and he did that, but his attack on Matou was shallow, he only managed to cut his shoulder cleanly and that was all he could manage. 

Karin watched as the blade in Yu's hand let loose flames when he was spinning, turning him into the maiden of the sun. She closed her eyes and opened them. But they were not deceiving her, she was seeing the famed heavenly demon. A move that took her nearly twenty years to even replicate and here was the boy she had sworn to dislike use the mastered version of the technique. She clicked her tongue, it aggravated her. 

But she had to admit, the boy had the strength to keep up with the sword even if he was using taxing means. He was in control of the sword, not the other way around it. 

"I guess it's time I stop lazing around." She mused to herself as she got up from the wall. 

She unsheathed her sword and held it in her left hand, the flames ignited from the hilt of the sword and traveled up her body. Her blond hair turned fiery golden, and her blue eyes had an enhanced aura to them. The flame changed her attire giving her a spandex suit that flowed like rivers but of flames. 

She grinned, the feral glint in her eyes shining brighter and she dashed forward, leaving flickers of fire behind her. "Sun Form: Willowing Hell!" She raised her hand and from her palm shot out a torrent of flames that devoured everything in her path, corpses and wood included reducing the corpses to ashes. 

Karin passed through some of the unburnt corpses and her hair extended outward piercing through them, disfiguring and dismantling the decaying bodies.

"Sun Form: Eye Of The Midnight Sun." She raised her sword with both hands and pulled back her hands so that the sword angle was beside her face. She stepped on the ground hard and thrusted the sword forward sending a flame dragon from the tip of the sword burning right through the corpses and rushed toward the figure in their path. Its Jaws opened and chomped on the neck of Matou exploding violently after it did, creating a nuke-sized explosion that was seen throughout the city. 

"That was not bad," Matou said as he stepped out of the crater, his body falling apart but for the most part he was intact. He chuckled and raised his right hand. Darkness pooled around his fingertips and he clenched his hand tight. "It's my turn now!!" 

Karin jumped up as claws shot from the ground aiming to pin her down. She stepped on one claw after the other, evading the crushing force of the said claws and repelling the darkness with her flames. 

Matou grinned and dashed forward, he appeared before Karin, his mouth wide open, and from the depths of his mouth rushed a wave of darkness which consumed Karin in a sphere. 

Karin looked around her, all she could see was darkness but that did not bother her. She held her sword in both hands. "Sun Form: Phoenix." She called out the technique, the fire around her formed wings on her back and a crown of rebirth on her head. She raised the sword above her, the flame channeling throughout the sword growing in intensity. 

The katana became a sword of fire, the length and width of it increasing twice. Karin breathed in, calming her breath and she struck down, the entire sword mimicking her hand movement shooting out a conflagration slash that tore through the darkness, scattering the cloud above the south region causing the shining sun to beam down on the area burning away the darkness within the corpses making them fade into nothingness. 

Matou closed his eyes and opened his hands as the slash rushed toward him. He could feel the heat burning away his shadow form. As if a purification agent was acting on his soul, causing it to tatter. He welcomed the attack which tore through his body bringing an end to his life and his lifeless body fell onto the ground with a thud. 

Karin lowered her sword to her side as she gracefully made it to the ground. She turned her attention to the mass of darkness within the city wall and outstretched her left extremity sending a torrent of flames through the darkness causing it to explode into fragments killing every creature that called the mass a home. 

She sheathed her katana, the flames around her body disappeared and she walked to the body of the enemy she defeated. As she got closer, her eyes widened. 

Laying on the ground with a gaping cut on his chest was the advisor of the king's assistant. But why? Why was such a harmless-looking man part of the demon plague that terrorized the people of Xin? Karin thought to herself and left the body of Matou. 

She came to the site Yu crashed on and looked at the boy who was sitting there, the sunblade in its sheathe. Karin shook her head and sat down beside Yu, she rested her head against the pillar and her eyes focused on the eagle roaming the sky. "For someone as young as you, you sure know a lot about the sun form huh?" 

Yu looked at his burnt hands and clutched them tight. "Yeah but I can't use it, Amaterasu said my body isn't suited for the sun because it keeps rejecting it." 

"Then how are you able to use the Heavenly Demon?" 

"OH, you know that move?" 

Karin feigned her annoyance. "Yes dumbass, I know the move, I spent twenty years practicing that move and every technique under the sun form. But you still haven't answered my question, how are you still able to use that move?" 

"Amaterasu and I deviced a plan, by me using the oxygen to fuel my blood flow I can temporarily force my body to create sparks that are enough to mimic the flames of the sun form and because of that I can use Heavenly Demon, but it costs me a couple of minutes of breathing and I need to recover after." 

"I see. We need to talk with the king, something is off about this whole city. The guy who attacked us was the same guy who brought us to the king." 

Yu looked at Karin and sighed. "I figured that much, the scent that guy had was similar to that of the advisor but I was not sure about it until you said it." 

"No one will be talking to the king, because he's sick." A feminine voice startled the two. 

Karin and Yu turned to look at the newcomer and were immediately on their guard, Karin being faster to draw out her katana. 

"Who are you?" She asked pointing the tip at the woman.