Dark energy rolled through the room in slow heavy waves.
Hiro glanced sideways toward Natsu.
She looked back at him.
His ribs ached sharply every ti he breathed.
Her palms were red and shaking slightly from maintaining the extraction seal.
For one second neither of them moved.
Then Hiro cracked his neck once.
"Ready?"
Natsu exhaled slowly.
"Ready"
They split imdiately.
Hiro moved left.
Natsu moved right.
No hesitation. No discussion. Years of working together collapsed the decision into instinct.
Hiro went for the first possessed man again, the stronger one. The one that had adapted mid-fight. The one that had caught his fist.
This ti he stopped trying to overpower it.
He kept it moving instead.
Short bursts. Tight strikes. Controlled output.
Every attack forced a reaction.
Block.
Dodge.
Counter.
Move.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The ghost spent energy every second it stayed active inside the body.
Hiro stopped giving it chances to stabilize. Every ti it tried to plant its footing he forced another exchange before it could recover balance.
The possessed man lunged.
Hiro slipped sideways and drove a concentrated burst into its ribs.
Dark energy tore loose from the body in ragged strips.
The ghost answered with a clawing swing toward his throat.
Hiro bent backward under it and hit the man’s sternum with another pulse before retreating imdiately.
No commitnt.
No openings.
Make it spend.
Across the room Natsu had locked the second possessed man in place.
Seal lines spread beneath its feet in layered circles, pinning the body to the floor while pale gold threads crawled slowly upward through its legs and torso.
Extraction.
The possessed man convulsed violently as dark energy fought against the seal structure trying to peel it out from under the skin.
Natsu’s hands stayed steady.
The ghost scread through the patient’s mouth.
The sound ca out warped and doubled.
Dark energy burst outward repeatedly from the body but the seal held it in place every ti.
Minutes passed.
The room filled with pressure.
Hiro felt the first ghost slowing down.
The blocks ca half a second later than before.
The counters lost precision.
Its movents were still violent, still dangerous, but the ghost had stopped adapting. Now it was spending more than it recovered.
Good.
Hiro shifted imdiately.
Pressure.
He drove the possessed man backward across the room with heavier strikes now, limiting space little by little until the body hit the far corner beside the window.
A barrier rose behind it instantly.
Natsu.
Gold seal lines spread across the walls behind the ghost and locked the corner shut.
Hiro felt the strain in the seal imdiately.
She was holding extraction on the second ghost and building another barrier at the sa ti.
The lines were thinner than usual.
The anchor points slightly shallow.
Still stable.
Barely.
"Almost," Natsu said.
Her voice stayed calm despite the effort.
"Almost," Hiro answered.
He planted his feet hard against the floor.
Spiritual energy surged around his arm in dense concentrated waves before he drove both palms forward directly into the barrier.
A sustained burn.
White light flooded the corner.
Spiritual energy ground directly against dark energy inside the possessed body, forcing the ghost upward toward the surface.
The patient’s limbs jerked violently.
The blackness in its eyes flickered.
The control was degrading.
Hiro felt it slipping.
Almost out.
Then sothing changed.
Hiro felt it before he understood it.
Pressure.
Different from the ghosts.
Different from anything in the room so far.
Similar to what he felt in his nightmare.
His instincts tightened instantly.
Not behind him.
Above.
Around.
A presence that had not been there a second earlier.
He turned.
Sothing stood in the corner beside the window.
Tall.
Motionless.
Darkness gathered around it in slow heavy layers.
No face.
No visible eyes.
No clear body underneath the shape.
The dark energy around it did not leak outward chaotically the way ghosts normally did.
It stayed contained.
Controlled.
Deliberately held close to itself.
The room felt heavier just from its presence.
Hiro’s eyes narrowed slightly.
It had not entered through the door.
Neither of them had sensed it arrive.
It was simply standing there now.
Watching.
Hiro had one second to process it.
The thing moved.
One sweep of its arm.
Wide.
Casual.
The distance between them disappeared instantly.
Impact.
Sothing slamd across Hiro’s injured ribs hard enough to blast the air out of his lungs.
At the sa ti Natsu was thrown sideways across the room.
Both of them hit the floor.
Hiro rolled hard once and forced himself back onto one knee imdiately.
Pain tore sharply through his side.
The barrier was gone.
The extraction seal was gone.
Both possessed n stood upright again.
Dark energy poured from them in thick waves as their heads slowly turned toward Hiro and Natsu together.
The thing near the window had not moved again.
It stood silently in the corner.
Letting the situation speak for itself.
Hiro stared at it.
Sothing about the energy felt fundantally wrong.
Ghosts leaked.
Their energy fluctuated constantly. Rage. Hunger. Instability. Even strong ones bled excess energy into the environnt because they couldn’t fully contain themselves.
This thing wasn’t leaking anything.
Every strand of dark energy around it remained exactly where it wanted it.
Controlled.
Dense.
Ancient feeling.
Hiro’s expression hardened.
"That’s not a ghost."
"No," Natsu said quietly from beside him.
One hand pressed against her shoulder.
She still hadn’t fully lifted that arm since the hit.
"It’s not."
Understanding settled imdiately after.
It’s an UMBRAL.
The two possessions.
The pressure.
The timing.
The ghosts had never been acting alone.
Either they had brought this thing here—
—or this thing had brought them.
Wear the exorcists down first.
Drain their energy.
Force them to split focus.
Then arrive when they were already weakened.
Hiro slowly stood.
Pain dragged sharply through his ribs.
Beside him Natsu got up more carefully, her injured shoulder hanging lower than the other.
The two possessed n started moving from one side of the room.
The thing near the window stepped forward from the other.
Hiro and Natsu pulled back instinctively until they stood shoulder to shoulder near the centre of the room.
Dark energy filled almost every corner now.
Heavy enough that breathing felt difficult.
Hiro could feel blood running warm beneath his shirt around the damaged ribs.
Natsu still wasn’t raising her left arm properly.
Their energy reserves were already half spent.
Three enemies.
Two exorcists.
Bad numbers.
Very bad numbers.
Hiro glanced sideways toward her.
Natsu looked back.
Neither of them spoke.
The Umbral stopped moving.
The two possessed n stopped beside it.
All three waited.
The room beca completely still.
Hiro breathed once through the pain.
Beside him, Natsu did the sa.
The Umbral moved first.
It ca directly at Hiro.
A steady forward motion. Calm. Certain. Dark energy held close around its body in dense shifting layers that never spilled outward more than a few inches before settling back into place.
Hiro planted his feet harder against the floor.
Spiritual energy surged across both arms and concentrated around his palms until the pressure in the room changed with it. Heat rolled off the buildup.
The seal lines around the walls trembled faintly from the output.
He drove both hands forward.
The strike crashed into the Umbral’s chest.
The impact shook the room.
White light burst outward across the Umbral’s body in sharp branching streams. The force pushed it backward half a step across the floor.
Then the energy broke apart.
Dispersed outward around the arm the Umbral had raised to block with.
The Umbral lowered the arm again and continued forward.
Unchanged.
Hiro’s eyes narrowed.
He fired another strike imdiately.
More output this ti.
The second impact landed harder than the first.
Spiritual energy detonated across the Umbral’s upper body brightly enough that the room flashed white for an instant.
Again the force pushed it backward.
Again nothing else happened.
No damage.
No destabilization.
No dark energy tearing loose from the body the way it would have from a ghost.
The Umbral kept advancing.
Hiro stepped back once.
"Physical force works," he said. "The energy doesn’t do much damage."
Beside him Natsu’s hands were already moving through seal patterns.
Gold lines spread outward across the floor in widening circles around them, thin at first, then thickening as more spiritual energy fed into them.
"It has a complete body," she said.
Her voice stayed even despite the strain already building in the room.
"Your attacks are hitting the surface and dispersing before they reach the core."
The Umbral stopped several tres away.
The shape of it shifted slowly in place.
Darkness moved across the outline of its body in uneven waves.
One shoulder broadened slightly, then settled again.
Sothing about the proportions kept changing by tiny amounts every few seconds.
Watching them.
Behind it the two possessed n remained near the doorway to Room.
Still.
Patient.
Dark energy coiled from both bodies in slow black spirals that crawled across the ceiling before fading.
Hiro looked at them briefly.
Then back at the Umbral.
"The Fucking Umbral and it’s audience."
Reviews
All reviews (0)