Chapter 9 - Can't Do it

  Arriving there, Guren explains the ceremony to them in detail. After that, each of them chooses a weapon of their choice and by doing that, they would make a contract with a demon. Atsushi chose a pair of green battle axes, and as he put his hands on them, he was taken to his inner consciousness and a demon was looking at him. 

  "Woah, a demon," he uttered in a low voice.

But, the problem is, he has no trauma at all, as if his childhood is particularly good. 

To make things difficult for him, the mountain spirit within him intervened in the contract-making and punches the demon. 

Atsushi sees this, and he looked at it and responded, "What the...? What are you doing? Who are you?" 

The mountain spirit glanced at him. "You will not make a contract with that demon, any demon. I am your spirit guardian, one of many spirits in this world, Atsushi." 

The spirit spoke with a deep voice, but in reality, it wasn't its original tone.

Atsushi was stunned, before being pulled back to reality and got knocked back from the Black Demon weapon by a few meters away, complete with some magical sparks coming from the dual weapons.

Guren sees this and asked him, "Are you okay, Atsushi?" 

Getting up, Atsushi replied back, "Yeah." 

He then ran back to the weapon and tried to hold and grab that pair of battle axes so he would make a contract with the demon, but his mountain spirit would not let that happen by sabotaging the contract. 

So, he was knocked back for the second time as Guren watches in astonishment. 

  "What in the world is he?" he asked in his mind. 

Atsushi then tried to do this for the third time, but it failed, and he was knocked back, again. 

This time, Atsushi gave up and just pondered on his mountain spirit's saying. 

Because of this, Guren walked up to him and said, "I guess you're not a good fit, Ikari Atsushi." 

Upon hearing that, Atsushi got up and looked at him. "Yeah, I can't do it. Something's preventing me from making a contract with that weapon's demon." 

  "I see, good thing you survived." Guren crossed his arms. "You may leave if you don't want to try again." 

"Yes, thank you, Guren-san," Atsushi responded with gratitude. 

As Yuichiro and Kimizuki tries to snap Yoichi out by fighting him, Atsushi left the ceremony room as Shinoa watches the fight.

Shinoa notices this, and she turned towards Atsushi and asked, "Where are you going?" 

As he walked away, Atsushi gestured. "Sorry, I can't do it. Something is preventing me from making a contract with a demon." 

Once Atsushi was gone, Guren said to her, "He can't do it. Just leave it to be." 

After that, Shinoa turned back to the fight between the three boys. 

  Later, once Yoichi snapped out of it, Yuichiro and Kimizuki looked around, only to see that Atsushi was gone. They then turned to Guren and asked where did he go. 

  "Oh, him?" Guren turned to them. "He just left because he can't make a contract with a demon." 

  "Why is that?" Yuichiro asked. 

  "Strange," Kimizuki added. "I knew this would happen." 

They had no idea that Atsushi had a mountain spirit within him.