All of them turned to see the one who spoke and they lit up upon seeing Riya descending to the ground. Carissa accompanied her.
"Where in the world have you been, Riya-senpai?" Yukari asked, teary-eyed but smiling.
Riya only answered with a smile and it made Yukari run towards her and embraced her. The mistress embraced the Sound Wielder, in return. The gang smiled at the sight.
"I'm really sorry for coming late. It's just that I need to retrieve something which would come in handy for this battle," Riya said after she let Yukari go.
That was when they noticed the staff Riya was holding.
"Isn't that Carissa's staff?" Keiko asked.
Carissa shook her head. "That staff doesn't really belong to me, but to Lady Celeste. And since Lady Riya is the incarnation of Lady Celeste, she gained the right to use it. That staff is called Silver Staff of the Three Realms' Ancient Spirits or plainly Silver Staff. I was just protecting it until the time Lady Riya came to retrieve in order for her to use her powers to the fullest, which is really necessary for this war."
"I see," Kurama said, nodding.
"And I guess the full moon in blue only amplified the staff's power. But what happened to the Crystal Spear? Aren't you going to use it?" Ayako asked.
"I forgot to tell you. Lady Riya won't be needing the Crystal Spear anymore," Carissa said that confused them.
"What do you mean she won't be needing it?" Ren asked.
"She won't be needing it because that Silver Staff is already the ultimate form of the Crystal Spear," Carissa responded with a smile. Of course, what the little being said surprised everyone. "And since she finally retrieved it, I won't have to stay in that taller form anymore."
"So I guess that made you Lady Riya's Crystal Spirit now," Sei stated. Carissa nodded and all of them faced the dark sphere above the frozen park.
At that time, several demon shinobis appeared before them.
"Don't tell me we're going to deal with them again?" Yusuke said frustratingly and he was about to fire his Spirit Gun when Riya held his hand which surprised him. But what surprised him further was the grave expression on her face. This wasn't the first time Yusuke saw Riya like this and he knew what this meant. He then put his hands down and faced his cousin.
Riya let go of Yusuke's hand and walked a few feet towards the enemies. She closed her eyes when she stopped walking. But instead of using her staff, it was a surprise to the gang when they saw her dematerialized it from her hand. Soon after, Riya pulled a silvery-white rose from her hair. That rose was undoubtedly familiar especially to Kurama and it came as a surprise to the gang.
"Don't tell me... she's going to make a weapon out of it?" Yumi concluded upon seeing that.
But the answer only showed when they saw the rose emanated a white glow before the petals detached themselves from the flower's calyx. More or less, there were more petals detaching from the flower than what was supposed to be the amount and it floated around Riya before they finally coalesced into four rings in front of her. Riya raised her hand with the stem of the rose.
"Rose... Blade..." Riya uttered and the stem glowed brighter. It soon morphed into the silhouette of a sword before the glow shattered and revealed its form.
"Isn't that..."
"The sword that I gave her," Hiei said when he saw the familiar weapon that sought in the Demon World himself.
Riya's hand was still raised along with the sword. At the time, the petals spun fast and each, in turn, generated white-colored orbs in the center of each rings. She slowly opened her eyes and she saw the demon shinobis approached her via flying. She then brought down her sword to her side and waited for the right chance to attack the enemies. When she finally saw the chance, she swung the sword in front of her as she shouted the attack's name.
"Rose Blade Assault!"
The glowing white balls in the center of the petal rings immediately fired multiple white beams directly to the approaching enemies. Almost all the demon shinobis were killed as soon as they were hit but they were three more who managed to dodge it. Anticipating it to happen, Riya's sword began glowing and she swung it. The blade soon morphed into a whip that struck the remaining demon shinobis with ease and speed. Just as soon as she swung the sword-turned-whip to the enemies, the demon shinobis that the whip had struck were destroyed.
"Amazing..." was all Yusuke could utter at the sight of Riya finishing what was left of Erithea's minions. He soon saw Riya landed to the ground with ease.
"This is where it all begins," Riya uttered as she looked at the massive dark sphere floating above the park.
No matter where she would look at it, its powers would definitely cause a massive damage to the entire city. Properties and lives would be destroyed altogether when that happened. It was one thing that all of them would never allow to happen no matter what.
"What do you want us to do, Riya?" Yusuke asked that disrupted the flow of her thoughts.
"You're the leader, right?" she commented as she looked at her cousin. "Didn't you even think of something to do while you were fighting Erithea earlier?"
"And how do you expect me to do that? That wretched witch killed the wielders one by one and it wasn't easy for us to deal with something like that easily!" Yusuke shouted. "Kurama fell in a large hole as soon as the arrow was fired to the ground and I don't know what the heck happened down there. I don't even know how he managed to survive. If you haven't arrived with the Silver Staff, we're all done for," he continued but didn't get any response from Riya.
The others found it quite unusual, too. They all looked at her with concerns and worries.
"She killed the wielders one by one, huh?"
Keiko frowned at Riya's silence. "Riya-chan?"
Riya faced the others with a determined look on her face. "That only means she couldn't take us all down at the same time. That's her weakeness."
But they didn't quite get it. It made the young mistress heave a sigh. "She dealt with you one by one when she has enough power to take you all down. I'm not saying that you're weak for her to be take down that easy. But you see-"
"I think I'm starting to get it," Keiko cut off. "If we all take her down with our combined powers, she wouldn't stand a chance. We can win this if we work together."
"We are working together, idiot! But even you died at the hands of those wretched demon shinobis a while back, remember?" Hiei countered. Keiko glared at him.
"But even if we work together, if we can't even counter Erithea's attacks at her new form, we're all done for," Sei stated worriedly. "It's not that I'm saying we couldn't defeat her. It's our mission to defeat her and end this war once and for all. I know that. It's just..." But the female demon shinobi didn't continue.
Riya smiled. Of course, she knew that Erithea's new form would be even more powerful. It would be hard for them to take her down with one strike. But that was the reason she retrieved her lost powers back at the Alyssum Castle.
"It's true that Erithea's new form will be even more powerful and dangerous and there's no doubt. But I'll let you remember something, Sei-chan-" And then she faced the said demon shinobi. "-and of course, to all of you-" She faced the others. "-that this new form is also her most vulnerable form."
The gang was stunned by that revelation.
"What did you say?"
"I've fought her once in that form- when I was still Celeste 500,000 years ago," Riya started. "She was in that powerful but most vulnerable form when I sealed her before I died defending the Crystal Valley. At the time, the moon wasn't in full shape and it also wasn't a blue one. That's why I died that day. I overused my powers wherein I deliberately derived it from my own life force."
"You mean, you didn't use the castle's hidden powers during that time?" Yumi asked.
Riya shook her head. "I didn't. Besides, the only thing I could think of at that time was to save the valley and the three realms from Erithea's wrath and desire to take it over. I never cared about my own life at the time."
"It must have been hard for you," Kurama mumbled.
She smiled mentally. "Yeah, it was hard. But at that time, I knew it was worth it. Anyway, even though the rise of the blue moon would unleash the most dangerous powers that would allow Erithea to achieve her most powerful form, there's still a chance that we could defeat her once and for all. It's because that form was also her vulnerable state. If we could let our attacks pass through her body, then we'll unleash our trump cards."
"But how will we do that?" Ayako asked.
"We've overused our powers, too. We can't simply use a powerful attack again," Soujiro added.
"When I revived all of you, your lost strength had returned. You can use your most powerful attacks since I'll use the power from the blue moon and channel it to the Silver Staff to amplify your powers."
"You mean, all of us? Can you really do that, Riya-senpai?" Yukari asked, surprised. The said mistress nodded and gave all of them a reassuring smile.
No one said a word after that. The gang looked at each other to gain consent and after a while, they faced Riya.
"So I guess I'll have to hand to you the position of a leader, huh?"
No comments:
Post a Comment