✔ | At Least We Have Forever

Chapter 46 - For Duty & Love's Sake (Part 1)

While Kurama was gone...

All of them were injured severely from Erithea's powerful blast of dark thrown at them. Yukari's barrier only defended them for a short while before it shattered. Soon after that, the demon shinobis launched their group attack.

"Look out!" Yukari shouted and the group quickly dropped back to avoid being struck by the energy blades launched by the enemies.

At the last moment, the Sound Wielder turned back and charged her weapon with her spirit energy to conjure an attack and fired it at the enemies. But to her surprise, the demon shinobis managed to dodge the attack she cast. "It can't be!"

In that moment of surprise that Yukari's guard down for a little bit, vines burst out from underground and bound her tight. She was struggling to get out of the binds when several tentacles wrapped around her. Those tentacles were coming from the weapons of the demon shinobis that surprised the group.

"Yukari!" Soujiro screamed at the sight of his sister bound by the enemies. He materialized the Sword of the Sea the same way Ayako did to the Rod of Light.

But before they could throw an attack to help Yukari, the enemies began to torture her with electric blast after blast, causing her to scream in pain.

"We can't attack them like this or else Yukari-chan will be caught in it," Keiko said worriedly.

"So how are we supposed to save my sister?" Soujiro asked frustratingly, his grip on the hilt of the sword tightened.

"Don't worry about me, Onii-sama! You and the others have to go and defeat Erithea!" Yukari yelled despite the torture. "Go!" And after the shouted that, she focused all of her spirit energy into her weapon that she was still gripping tightlytoo not let it be taken by the enemies.

Yukari continued to scream as she increased her power output to an unbelievable level. The Harquebus of Sound then emitted an indigo-colored glow that surprised the demon shinobis but did not stop torturing her with an electric blast.

"You got some nerve using electric shock against me! But I will not allow you to hurt my friends, let alone hurt my mistress!" Yukari said firmly even though she was completely weak. Her grip on her weapon tightened and it glowed immensely bright, almost blinding. "Here I go... Sonic Crescent Smasher Blast!"

Upon shouting the attack, an indigo-colored ball grew from her weapon's mouth for a few seconds before exploding and releasing several beams that struck the demon shinobis through and through. The resulting blast threw up an ice pillar. The whole time, the others couldn't do anything to help Yukari since they were busy trying to prevent themselves from being thrown away by the blast.

"Yukari!" Soujiro shouted and tried to open his eyes to see the situation, only to have his heart crushed into tiny fragments when he saw his sister.

The materials and the smoke thrown by the blast slowly faded and cleared the view. But what had emerged from it made their eyes open wide due to extreme shock and the girl covered their mouth in horror, some of them shook their heads in denial.

Yukari was lying on a platform created from an ice pillar but that was not only what made them in denial at the moment. Several ice spikes stabbed the Sound Wielder all over but what horrified them was the spike that stabbed Yukari from the back of the neck. Despite all that, they could see that Yukari wasn't willing to let go of her weapon; her tight grip on it proved that.

The blue-haired Sound Wielder was staring blankly at the ominous night sky as a memory flooded into her mind...

xxxxxx

[Flashback]

After Yukari lost a one-on-one mock battle with Riya, both of them took a break as Yukari laid her back on the grass.