Part 3: Chapter 6

    It was past 9:00; certainly not an early time to be returning home for a high school student. As Nakajima hesitantly pressed the intercom button, the door swung open, as if waiting for him.
    "Sorry I'm home so late. Professor Feed was..." Sensing a strange coldness from his mother's stare, Nakajima stopped in mid-sentence.
    This isn't the first time I've been late; why is she so mad?
    However, his mother's expression soon softened into a smile, and she pointed inside.
    "There's a guest here to see you."
    "To see me?" Nakajima pictured Yumiko's face.
    However, the sight of a pair of high-heeled shoes in the foyer soon dispelled his hopes.
    "Who is it?"
    "She says her name is Ohara."
    "WHAT!?" Crying out, Nakajima darted into the living room, without even taking off his shoes.
    The woman sitting on the sofa with her back to him slowly stood up and turned to face him.
    "It's been a while, Nakajima."
    The voice was familiar. The face covered in bronze scales was not.
    Nakajima felt surreal, as if he had been pulled into a nightmare, and he felt the will being sapped out of his body.
    "What...are you here for!?" Nakajima finally managed to open his mouth and speak.
    "I'm here to kill you, of course." Speaking casually, a crazed smile flashed on Ohara's face as she assaulted him.
    With the demonic blood flowing in her veins having transformed her into a powerful demon-human hybrid, Ohara was not an opponent that Nakajima could take on barehanded. Without even showing signs of resistance, Nakjama simply let Ohara hold him down, which caused her to let her guard down slightly.
    "What's wrong, Nakajima? Are you trying to suggest that I'm not worth killing!?" Sneering, Ohara's rank breath assaulted Nakajima's senses. However, he did not falter.
    I'll make you regret not using this opportunity to kill me...
    Nakajima had been picturing two blue spheres in his mind. They were spheres he had been given in Yomi, and were used to summon Hi-no-Kagutsuchi. Knocking the two spheres in his mind together, they gave off a shower of sparks, and a blistering aura surrounded his right hand. All of a sudden, Nakajima was grasping the Sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, which glowed with a crimson light.
    Feeling the intense heat, Ohara reflexively jumped backwards. Immediately the crimson blade came crashing down, slicing through her arm. Nakajima charged Ohara, who had been knocked backwards by the force of the blow, stabbing the sword as if to finish her off. But he had not adequately trained with the sword of Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, and Ohara escaped its tip by a hair's breadth.
    That moment, Nakajima noticed his mother in his field of vision, watching their battle as if possessed.
    "Mom, hide!"
    Nakajima became worried; he needed to get his mother outside safely before Ohara attacked her.
    "Do you want to be skewered on the sword that defeated Loki too?" Standing between his mother and Ohara, Nakajima threatened his opponent. But that once sentence reignited the dwindling flames of Ohara's desire for revenge.
    "You killed Loki...!?" Holding her wounded arm, Ohara ground her teeth together and took a step back.
    "The minute you let me bring out my sword, you lost. Wake up already!" There appeared to be almost a look of compassion in Nakajima's eyes, reflecting the red glow of his blade.
    However, at that moment, an intense pain shot through his right arm. Of all things, his mother had stabbed him from behind with a fruit knife. Though Nakajima immediately pushed his mother away reflexively, he could not understand what had happened and just stood there confused, and in that moment, Ohara, who had slipped behind him, grabbed him in a headlock.
    "Your mother has been possessed by a demon called an Apep, and is completely under my control. Letting you get killed by your own mother is the least I can do for you. Come on, do it!"
    Resonding to Ohara's orders, Nakajima's mother slowly walked toward her son, brandishing her fruit knife.
    "Mom, please stop!" Trying to break Ohara's grip, Nakajima cried out desperately.

    Right at that time, Yumiko had arrived at Nakajima's apartment building, and was about to press the intercom when she felt a strange presence. Without hesitation, she put her hand on the doorknob and focused all her energies on it. As a noxious smoke filled the area, the expensive, high-security lock system melted, and the doorknob fell to the ground; Yumiko had used a tremondous spontaneous combustion power. Running into Nakajima's house without taking her shoes off, Yumiko ran into the living room to see Ohara holding Nakajima in a headlock, moments before he was about to be stabbed by a silver knife.
    "Nakajima, look out!"
    "Wait!"
    The two cried out at exactly the same.
    Yumiko's eyes flashed with a blinding light for an instant, and the arms of Nakajima's knife-wielding mother burst into flame. In mere moments, the fire spread, engulfing her entire body in crimson flames, burning her to a crisp as she wailed in pain.
    Meanwhile, Ohara had escaped outside via the veranda.
    "Mom..." Not noticing the white snake crawling out of the conflagration before disintegrating into thin air, Nakajima merely stood agape as he watched his mother perish, wreathed in flames.
    "Yumiko..."
    Finally Nakajima turned around, his eyes wandering aimlessly.
    "You just killed my mom..." Nakajima's strained voice tore out Yumiko's heart.
    No, it can't be...
    Covering her face with her hands, Yumiko ran outside.