Yumi rushed down the dirt path to find the first vilger that she could. A middle-aged woman that stayed back to raise her five-year old. She was just out repairing a hole i with their child h around them. “Excuse me, Mrs. Nakae!”

  She turowards Yumi, hearing her voice as she approached. “Master Yumi, what is it? You look out of breath.”

  “Have you seen Yuki?” She only got a fused look out of the woman. Yumi fot that no one even knew Yuki, by name anyway. He kept ihe hut rec. So people only knew he was there, but nothing more. “My friend! Have you seen him outside?”

  “Outside?” The question apparently seemed strao the woman. Yumi didn’t uand it. But she didn’t want to try either. She just wanted an answer.

  “Yes, have you seen him?”

  As the woman thought more on the question, something seemed to e to her. “Oh, that’s right! I saw some stranger with the elder. Maybe that was him?”

  Yumi quickly turned and started running off again. “Thanks!” she shouted remembering her manners a little te. ‘Yuki and the elder together? Why was Yuki out walking? Is he feelier now? And why was he with the elder?’ More questions just seemed to be popping up for her. And she wanted answers now.

  Chapter 399 – Red Dire

  Seated atop one of the huts, Yumi sat with a pensive expression as she went over her information. She hoped keeping the high ground might let her see Yuki when he arrived. And everything was just a mistake of her overreag. She would take that over anything.

  ‘No one’s seen him in the vilge. But several did see him walking on his own. And Yuki otted with the elder as well. But no one’s seen the elder either tely. What happeo the two of them?’ She still had pieces missing to the puzzle. The worst being the most obvious oheir location. No one knew where they had gone, just had seen them walking. Having no clues to work from meant she could only search aimlessly.

  Though something about the whole thing bothered her. ‘Why was Yuki with the elder? The old man’s only talked to me and requested things from me. Why ge now? Unless…’ It was something in the back of her mind for a while. Something that she really didn’t want to eain. Yet she already admitted to herself it ossibility. And given things, it almost seemed more possible. ‘That two-faan isn’t trying to get more leverage on me, is he? Making sure I stick around to keep their vilge safe by holding Yuki hostage. Would he do that?’

  She didn’t want to really take such a ive thought. Yet with the old man, he was so driven to protect his people, she wondered if it might make him do anything dirty to keep that certainty. ‘He’s expeg me not to be willing to do anything against him, because I wouldn’t do anything bad.’ Such dark thoughts did make her hesitate in her resolve, if it turned out to be true. ‘This is still just a fake world. I’m only going along with the rules to make things easier on myself. So I shouldn’t o worry about feeling bad about anything I do here. None of them are real and it’ll all disappear once Phoibe rescues us.’

  Yumi stood up on the roof looking out at the horizon. The unknown before her that might hold Yuki. “I just o stop hesitating and do what must be done.”

  Resolved or not, she still cked any information to a. Without any sort of clue to go by, she was hunting around in the dark. “Should I just start searg?” Yumi was out of options in her mind. It seemed like the only thing that she could do. “Maybe I’ll stumble across him by act…” Ay hope to pin things on, that much she knew.

  But she ran out of ideas and she couldn’t stand and do nothing waiting for bad news. It was the only thing to do. Which quickly settled it for Yumi. She leapt off the roof and jumped over the fields to dash into the forest. Given that the forest was the most dangerous pce for Yuki to be, she felt it was best to rule that out before anywhere else. Even if she had been keeping the demon popution in the forest low, she could have missed one. She couldn’t sense energy, only listen. ‘There might have been one I missed. It would have been easy if they didn’t move.’

  Even pg some hope on a demon capturing Yuki felt a little bit of a stretch to her. They were after her and not him for one. She had been doing all of the killing. ‘Even injured as he is, Yuki still use his powers to defend himself. He wouldn’t be that easy to take. Uhey surprised him…’ Every point and a ter and she hated that she was getting nowhere with any of it.

  It was useless.

  An hour in the forest, Yumi finished sying a random oni she found roaming the forest. It had nothing to do with Yuki or her. It just seemed to have picked up on her going through the forest and insisted on a fight that it lost immediately.

  But it was about how she felt about the forest when she left it before. ‘It’s empty. I’m not going to find anything here. Yuki could be anywhere…’ Anywhere, and the nd vast enough to leave her searg for days.

  Yumi jumped to a new dire breaking free of the forest to begin her searew with more unfamiliar areas. She moved with more caution and took care to watch her orientation. Uh the forest, she didn’t know any of the dires as well from just looking at the nd. Even keeping the vilge at her back couldn’t be kept for long.

  She turned and stopped for a moment. Leaping high into the air and pushing herself up to float, she could still see the vilge. Though it was getting to be just a dot in the region. “I ’t let it out of my sight. For now, I’ll keep my search radius to this. I don’t know how far Yuki could have gone.” Even with a defined limit, it still left her with too much ground to cover.

  Returning to the ground, she hovered over the rolling hills with the openness proving easier travel for her. “I o find him quickly. The more time I waste searg, the further away he could be getting…”

  Despite her speed and the need, nothing ever came from the searg. Day ged to night and day once more. Ae that, she still hadn’t finished searg the entire area. More remaihat she could searbsp; That much she khough if she didn’t find him in that, there was still plenty more beyond. “Am I going to have to search all of Japan to find him?”

  That potential reality worried her, since she didn’t know what was going on. And for all she knew, he was in ahat she had already searched. So many unknowed that she couldn’t trol or uand. ‘Give me even one piece to base my sear… Anything!’

  A ch from underfoot of the earth spiked through her ear. It wasn’t the sort of clue that she sought. Yumi turned around, finding that she was being approached by five demons, none of which were oni. She only reized one of them as a wolf sort of demon she killed previously. The rest all looked unlike any other demon that she had fought yet, which surprised her giving the amount she had already. But she was reminded of the vast nature of the Japanese lore with demons and spirits. ‘I don’t have time for this…’

  Yumi leapt forward disappearing from the sight of the demons. In their fusion, they didn’t see her slice the head off the lead demon while the two adjat ones met deaths by crushing pressure left with smoothly curved cross ses of their lower bodies falling to the ground.

  The two demons that escaped immediate death only managed by reflex as wounds sprayed up from their chests. They leapt back, going to heightetention against Yumi’s ruthless assault. Staring at each other fns of Yumi, they slipped out of sight as well. However, one was found by Yumi’s bde as demon blood sprayed everywhere.

  Last of his group, the final demon caught sight of Yumi’s movements from the blood spray painting her path. It unleashed fmes from its mouth over the area that Yumi ran into. However, Yumi sliced through, splitting it with her bde. Appearing directly in front of the demon, she came to a stop before the demon.

  Looking down at Yumi, it didn’t notice the bde stig through its chest until death already swept down to cim its life as the st i. It grabbed out for Yumi’s head only for her to slice off its hand before it came anywhere close. “Don’t touch me.” She spun around slig off the head as she walked away.

  “Nothing still…” She began walking towards the vilge left with her thoughts. “I doubted they would have any clues on them, but it’s still disappointing to be right.” Yumi leapt into the air once more h in flight. A day without any sig her feelied ay. She hoped, expected, something to pop up. Yet she was still in the same pce as before.

  Lost. pletely lost.

  “Maybe Yuki’s returned and I was overreag…” she muttered with a thin hope to tie it all together. It was the only thing she could pin something to now. The vilge might have answers. ‘If this is all the elder’s doing, maybe he’s bad I wring some information out of him…’

  The vilge still remained more than an hour away from her at her normal speed. Which left her with other s. The demons she just killed hadn’t been the only ones out of the forest that she killed. Which left her with some worries. ‘I’m moving around so much, how are they still finding me so easily? It’s like they track my every movement…’ It was something that she never uood. In the forest, there was something that always felt off about it that she assumed it was a territory of the demons. But outside of it they could still track her with ease.

  ‘Could they also be trag Yuki?’ she wondered, ‘Or is it only me? Is it this mark that they warned me about? Is it more than just having a bounty on my head?’ For all her questions, none were new ones for her. She never really figured it out and it always bothered her. Though it made it easier killing them sihey came to her instead. But she didn’t need another interruption at the moment.

  Which fortunately panned out for Yumi by the time she reached the vilge. No further demons harassed her and the vilge seemed to be safe as well, not that was on her mind in priorities at the moment. But since she left the vilge, it didn’t surprise her. They wanted her right now rather than the vilge.

  Yumi nded in front of the entrand ran the rest of the way into the vilge keeping her eyes open for any signs. ‘Yuki be here, please! Just let this be an overrea. I don’t know where to look for you if it isn’t…’

  Her hope disappeared at the sight of the unged bed. No one had been back since she left. ‘Damn…what’s going on?’ She poked her head back out looking for her arget. ‘There he is!’ The elder was baow. “You’ve got some ao give up, old man…”

  Turning away from the hut sharply, she hastened her step. There was no ce that she was going to allow him to get away. She needed him to give up what he knew. “Old man!” she shouted, dropping any sort of formalities, as he had doo her.

  “Master Yumi?” he questioned, as he came to face her on her approabsp; Some fusion found their way into his voice at her ge in toh him.

  “Where’s my friend?” she demaanding very close to him, building up her presence.

  “What do you mean?”

  Yumi leaned in a little not taking his ignora face value. “I know you were with him. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her blood started to boil as she was losing her patieh him. It made her legs shake with ahat she barely kept in chebsp; “Don’t py dumb with me, old man. You were the st person to see him. I know you know something!”

  “I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, but your frie on his owerday. He only told me that he was leaving and nothing more.”

  Yumi had enough of his lying and grabbed him by his tunibsp; “Enough with the lies! I know you’re involved! Tell me what you know!”

  “Master Yumi?! What are you doing? You—“

  “Don’t think I won’t level your entire vilge if you’ve done anything to him! I care nothing for the sequences of a fake world! Answer me now before yret it!”