Chapter 26: The Morning That Never Came

Yuna froze hearing that voice.

She knew that voice. The suffocating, predatory pressure radiating from the speaker was unmistakable.

The Demon Peer stepped out from the curtain of flames.

Thick, dark blood ran freely down his pale arms. It wasn’t his own. The crimson liquid seemed alive, moving across his skin like weaving threads, gathering around his hands before hardening into long, razor-edged, prehensile whips.

Yuna’s grip on the Lightning Sword tightened until her knuckles ached.

"You."

The Peer smiled, a cruel, lazy stretching of his lips. "You remembered."

"I remember every monster I’ve faced."

"Good." His pitch-black eyes moved slowly over the crackling blade in her hands, then dragged back up to her face. "You made quite a lasting impression the last time we crossed paths."

Yuna lowered her center of gravity, ignoring the burning in her lungs. "You should have stayed away."

The demon laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. "You still think this is a duel. How tragic."

He casually flicked his wrist.

Blood erupted across the street.

Yuna launched herself backward. The crimson whip tore through the exact physical space her head had occupied a millisecond prior, slicing cleanly through a stone pillar.

She landed gracefully on the slanted slate roof of a nearby building. A second whip immediately lashed upward, tracking her movement.

She swung, her blade catching the whip. The lightning seared the blood, boiling it instantly into foul-smelling black smoke.

But before she could reset her stance, the air behind her warped.

The Demon Peer materialized on the roof.

Yuna barely brought her sword up in time to block the sweeping kick aimed at her ribs. The kinetic impact was devastating; it sent her skidding backward across the slate. She dug her heels in, kicked away from the edge, and channeled lightning into her legs.

She vanished.

The Demon Peer looked around the empty roof, his head tilting slightly.

A flash of blue-white light illuminated the space directly behind him.

Yuna reappeared, swinging with everything she had.

Blood splashed violently across the slate tiles.

The demon staggered forward. Yuna had laid him open from his right shoulder down to his left hip.

The Demon Peer stared down at the enormous wound. For the first time that night, the amusement vanished from his face.

She had not merely wounded him.

She had come within a breath of killing him.

His expression hardened.

"You almost killed me."

"I know."

Lightning gathered around Yuna’s blade.

"And next time, I won’t miss."

The Demon Peer looked at her for several seconds.

Then his gaze moved across the battlefield.

The burning buildings.

The fallen demons.

The exhausted soldiers.

Yuna’s breathing.

Her stance.

Her sword.

He understood.

He could not defeat her by fighting her directly.

So he stopped trying.

"Everyone back."

The remaining demons immediately withdrew.

Yuna’s eyes narrowed.

The Peer smiled.

"You’ve spent the last several minutes trying to protect everyone around you."

His blood began crawling across the ground.

"Let’s see how long you can fight when they become the reason you cannot retreat."

The street exploded with coordinated movement. Dozens of elite demonic soldiers emerged from the burning buildings, targeting the exposed civilians Yuna had been shielding.

Yuna had no choice. She threw herself off the roof, intercepting the slaughter.

She cut through the first. Then the second. Then the third. Her sword became a continuous, blinding streak of lightning. Bodies fell in pieces.

But every time a demon dropped, another immediately took its place. They fought with suicidal fanaticism, swarming the gaps in her defense while she desperately tried to cover the retreating townspeople.

Her breathing grew ragged. The Lightning Sword was still blazing, but the sheer weight of it was beginning to drag on her forearms. Her footwork, usually flawless, was slowing by fractions of a second.

A demon managed to slip behind her guard. She drove her head backward into its face, cracking its skull, and spun to kill it. Another struck. She blocked. Another. She blocked again.

Standing safely at the edge of the battle, the Demon Peer simply watched. He waited until she parried a heavy blow, leaving her guard slightly open.

Then, he raised his hand. "Now."

Four blood whips shot forward.

Yuna reacted instantly. She cut the first whip in half.

The second coiled tightly around her right wrist. She twisted her blade, severing the connection.

The third caught her left ankle. She slashed downward.

But the distraction cost her. The fourth whip wrapped securely around her left arm, biting deeply into her flesh.

The Demon Peer pulled. The whip went taut.

Simultaneously, four massive brutes tackled her from the sides, their weight crushing her.

Yuna screamed, releasing a desperate, massive burst of radial lightning. The entire street shook. Several demons were violently thrown backward.

But the blood whips did not break.

They regenerated, multiplying and tightening further. One coiled around her right wrist. One around her left. Two more snaked around her ankles.

Yuna’s fingers went numb. The Lightning Sword slipped from her grasp, clattering uselessly against the cobblestones. The lightning continued to crawl along its abandoned blade.

"Let me go!" she screamed, thrashing wildly.

The demons pulled.

Her arms were forced violently apart, stretched out to her sides. Her legs were pinned immovably. She was suspended, defenseless, entirely restrained.

The Demon Peer walked slowly toward her.

Blood was still dripping steadily from the massive wound she had carved across his chest. But as he walked, the blood began to move backward, defying gravity, crawling up his legs and returning to the wound. The flesh knit itself back together.

Yuna stared in horror, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "You regenerate through blood."

"Among other things," he murmured, crouching down directly in front of her face. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

Yuna’s eyes burned with defiant fury. "I almost did."

"Yes." He smiled, tracing a finger lightly down her cheek. "That is why I am going to remember your face."

He placed two cold, dead fingers directly against the center of her forehead.

A freezing cold spread through her body, locking her muscles in place. Thick, black, jagged markings began spreading outward from beneath his fingers, crawling under her skin.

"What... what did you do?" she choked out.

"A localized curse."

"It won’t kill you immediately."

His fingers withdrew from her forehead.

"First, it will sever you from your aura. Then your connection to your lightning will weaken. Your body will follow after that."

He smiled.

"You will remain conscious long enough to understand exactly what is being taken from you."

She gritted her teeth and tried to summon her lightning to burn it out.

Nothing happened.

The elemental energy sparked in her chest, hit the black markings, and was immediately swallowed into nothingness.

She pulled against the blood restraints again. Her muscles refused to answer.

"You’re afraid," he noted, his smile returning.

"No," Yuna lied, her voice trembling violently, but she refused to look away from his pitch-black eyes. "You’re afraid I will kill you."

His smile disappeared.

For a moment, neither moved. Then the Demon Peer reached down and picked up the Lightning Sword.

"Don’t touch that."

He examined the blade. "So this is the family weapon."

"Put it down."

He lifted the heavy sword, resting the flat of the blade casually against his shoulder. "I think it suits me. I’ll keep it."

Yuna’s expression changed.

The sword was not merely a weapon.

It was the last physical piece of her family she still carried with her.

"Give it back."

Yuna pulled frantically against the restraints, ignoring the blood running down her wrists as the whips dug deeper.

The demon turned away. "You’ll have something else to worry about first."

He started walking. Then stopped.

A sudden pressure rippled through the air.

The Demon Peer looked upward. A magical transmission had appeared above the burning street.

A voice came through.

"Return immediately. The primary objective is shifting."

The Demon Peer stared at the projection, his jaw tightening in clear irritation. "Now?"

"Yes."

His eyes moved toward Yuna, then toward the sword in his hand. A slow smile appeared.

"Very well."

He looked toward his soldiers. "Keep her alive."

Yuna’s eyes widened. "Where are you going?"

The Demon Peer began walking away. "I have business elsewhere." He lifted the Lightning Sword slightly. "Consider this my souvenir."

"Give it back!"

He didn’t turn.

"Coward!"

He disappeared into the smoke.

The curse continued spreading.

Yuna’s vision blurred at the edges. Her limbs felt impossibly heavy, and every attempt to summon her lightning was swallowed by the curse before it could reach the blade.

She could hear the distant screams from the town below.

The crackling flames.

The footsteps of the remaining soldiers gathering around her.

The Demon Peer was gone.

But his orders remained.

Keep her alive.

Yuna understood what that meant.

The soldiers were no longer restrained by their master’s presence.

One of them stepped closer.

"Looks like our master left us something."

Another laughed.

"A living prize."

Yuna pulled against the blood restraints.

Nothing.

"Stay away from me."

Her voice trembled, but the hatred in it remained.

The soldiers exchanged ugly smiles.

One stepped forward.

"Let us finish what our master started."

Yuna’s breathing stopped for a moment.

She understood exactly what he meant.

She looked toward the eastern horizon.

The darkness was beginning to thin.

Somewhere beyond the burning town, Kōya was waiting.

He was supposed to meet her when the sun rose.

He was supposed to give her his answer.

He’ll come.

She closed her eyes for one brief moment.

He’ll come.

A shadow fell across her.

"Don’t look away."

Yuna opened her eyes.

The first faint line of sunlight appeared beyond the mountains.

Yuna never saw the sun rise.

The morning she had been promised never came.