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As Ash\'s training continued, she felt like she was picking up this new way of fighting, more and more. As the sun was starting to descend, and Ash\'s clothes, under her armor, were drenched in sweat, Yumi stood across from her with her naginata by her side. 

Ash narrowed her eyes and waited. Yumi nodded and instantly charged forwards. 

... Spin into a stab, Ash thought as she waited for Yumi to get close enough. As soon as she was, she turned on her heel and stepped out of the way, before lunging forwards with a thrust of her gauntlet. Yumi ducked under it though, which Ash hadn\'t seen coming. Crap! 

In a desperate, split-second decision, Ash hopped over Yumi\'s back. She ended up behind her and quickly, tried her hardest to turn around into an attack. Yumi dodged it easily, and Ash\'s arm ended up outstretched in front of her. Yumi grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her over her back, slamming her onto the ground, all with one hand. 

"Agh!" Ash cried out as her back hit the floor.

Ash looked up to see Yumi lightly place a foot on her chest. 

"A valiant effort, Savior," Yumi chuckled. "But it seems I got the better of you, yet again, though you are improving." 

"..." As Yumi walked away, Ash stood up a bit awkwardly. "Did I actually get better? Because every single one of these little fights has ended with me eating shit." 

"Improvement is a marathon, not a sprint, Ash," Keiko suddenly said, walking forwards. She had a bottle of water in her hands, along with a small towel. She handed over the bottle and reached up to wipe the sweat off of Ash\'s forehead with the towel. 

"What the fuck is a marathon?" Ash asked, between gulps of that water. 

"Uh, it\'s like a race. Anyway, the point is that improvement happens slowly," Keiko responded. 

"Gotcha."

Ash looked to her right and noticed that Kaori was being awfully quiet, sitting at a nearby table, alone. Ash walked up to her and sat down next to her. Yumi and Keiko followed. 

"So, since you\'re siphoning your stats into me, will you be fighting at all?" Ash asked. 

"Hm?" Kaori looked up at her. "Uh... I still need to be near you, so that the Mark of Love buff stays, but... I\'m going to try to stay out of trouble." 

"Good," Ash nodded. She took a deep breath and looked down for a second. "I haven\'t forgotten, by the way." Kaori raised a brow as Ash told her that. "You know, what I said in the portal. Once this is done, we\'ll talk shit out. Just saying." 

Kaori nodded at that. 

"Thanks." 

---

Luvine

The streets of Onyx were so chaotic, Luvine had felt like she was in a nightmare. The violet sky above, the blood running down the stone under her tiny feet, the screams of people being ripped apart around her. It all made her think she should have been asleep right now. 

But, no matter how hard she tried, she simply wouldn\'t wake up. Luvine had been asleep in the shade of an alley when she\'d first been woken up by the fighting. Her eyes had slowly opened and the first thing she saw was a soldier, trying to drag himself away from something. His blood, pouring from a wound in his neck, left a trail of red coming from the street. 

"W-What?" Luvine mumbled as she looked to her right and saw soldiers clashing blades with demons. Actual, real demons. 

It was Luvine\'s first time seeing them. She\'d always been spat on, told she was one, told she\'d bring them here or that she\'d turn people into them, but seeing them now, she wondered how anyone could confuse her for them. These weren\'t people, they were animals. 

Luvine stood up, her thin legs trembling. 

"W-What do I do?" Luvine asked herself, flinching when she saw a soldier have his head ripped off by a demon\'s claws in front of her. The soldier\'s head rolled down the street, all the way to her feet. His petrified, wide eyes looked up at Luvine as she stood over it. 

Luvine fell back, her legs\' strength disappearing. She couldn\'t say anything. She could barely even breathe. Eventually, though, something else appeared in front of her. A demon. 

It resembled a man with the strong build of a warrior, but with animalistic, stone-like legs and hands, and horns much larger than Luvine\'s own. Its violet eyes were wild and centered fully on Luvine as soon as the demon saw her. It took a step towards her and Luvine whimpered in fear. 

Just as an arrow struck the demon\'s head and fell to the side, lifeless. 

That moment though gave Luvine the shock she needed to get up and run. She sprinted out of the alley and looked around. Nowhere seemed safe. Everywhere she looked, there were people and demons trying to kill each other. However, there had been one person that Luvine remembered at this moment. Someone who had been kind enough to her that she wondered if he would help her now. 

An old man who ran a tiny bookstore nearby. Luvine had run into him a few times and every time she had, he\'d been nice to her. So, instinctively, Luvine found herself running towards it. Her size allowed her to move undetected, for the most part. No one, not the soldiers, not the demons, looked at her small body as she ran between the fighting parties. 

Eventually, Luvine reached the street where the bookstore was located, but she couldn\'t see it. 

"B-But... It was here..." She told herself. 

Eventually, though, she found it. The building the old man had owned was reduced to rubble. Nothing but a bunch of rocks piled on top of each other. 

"N-No!" Luvine teared up at the sight of it, running up to the building to see if the old man was anywhere to be found. Before she could see him though, two fighters got too close to her and Luvine backed away. 

As she realized she was in the middle of too much fighting, Luvine backed away from the crumbled bookstore. 

"I... I need to run." 

With that, Luvine started running away as far as she could go. No matter where she went, people were dying, and demons were winning. So, eventually, she saw a building that had an open door and an idea came to her. 

"I-I can hide!" 

She ran in and looked around, trying to see if she could find any space where she could remain until all of this passed. 

She went into a room then saw an empty closet. She didn\'t really think about where these people could be or what happened to them. Instead, she just walked right into that dusty old closet, closed it, and crouched. 

Her plan was simple. Wait here until the demons left the city, and everything would be okay. 

She was still so scared though that she couldn\'t keep herself from whimpering and sobbing as the things she\'d seen reappeared in her mind. She didn\'t know how long she was there. It felt like hours passed, but that could have just as well been minutes. 

Eventually, though, she heard footsteps outside her closet. She froze. Shivers went up her back. Her arms couldn\'t stop shaking. And then, the closet was opened. 

"No!" She cried out as she closed her eyes and raised her hands defensively. 

As if that would do anything to stop one of those monsters. 

However, a few seconds passed and eventually, she heard:

"Kid, open your eyes. If I were a demon, you\'d be getting eaten right now." 

It was a woman\'s voice. Luvine was shocked, almost immediately opening her eyes to check, but her made her take a while to do that. What she saw was a woman standing there, dressed in brilliant golden armor, with long, wild white hair, much like her own, falling down her shoulders. She was looking back at Luvine with eyes that were the same as hers, and horns just as short. 

""Come on, or are you just gonna stay there till something else finds you?" 

---

"Hi!" A voice called out to Luvine. She opened her eyes, her reminiscing stopping for the moment. She couldn\'t tell where the voice had come from, so Luvine had to look around as she sat at that pillar where Ash had given her the food previously. 

Right in front of her, there was a little girl with short reddish-orange hair and slightly dark skin who was looking back at Luvine with a smile. 

"W-What?" Luvine asked.

She looked to be right around her own age. The little girl was holding a cup of water. She extended her hands towards Luvine and grinned. 

"Water," the girl said simply. Luvine looked down at the cup and then back at her. 

"F-For me?" 

"Mhm," the girl nodded eagerly. "Mom told me it\'s good to share." 

"..." Luvine looked back at the cup and reached towards it. "Thanks." 

She grabbed it and took a sip. 

"My name\'s Opah," the little girl told her. "What\'s yours?" 

"... Luvine." 

"Ohhh. Hi Luvine!" Opah waved at her and Luvine basically gave her a look of awe. 

Almost immediately though, the girl ran away and Luvine\'s eyes followed her to where she was given something else by an incredibly strong-looking woman with a strikingly similar appearance. Then, she returned to Luvine\'s spot with a can of something.

"Here. Some food," Opah said. 

"Uh... I ate..." Luvine told her. 

"Oh. Okay," Opah replied and she ran off again, coming back with a book this time. "Let\'s read!" She said, pushing a book with a bunch of drawings right in front of Luvine\'s face. 

"I... I can\'t read," Luvine replied. 

"I can! I\'ll read for you." Opah responded and with that, she started reading from the book right in front of her. 

Luvine blinked as the girl kept going. 

.... What\'s happening?