Ichi flew over the battlefield. A small girl in a black dress with dull golden hair and tiny translucent wings on her back stood in front of Rikya who was crumpled on the ground. Around her was a large golden sphere with strange writing on it. Surrounding that sphere was hundreds of thick slithering monsters that looked like they came from the depths of the ocean.

Ichi sped down in eagle form, switching to bigfoot and grabbing his stick with both hands. In his mind, the image surfaced.

"Miko. Hold off. Save your energy."

Ichi felt the cat trying to wrest control from him. In his mind, Ichi imagined that strike against the Mountain Lord. He hit the ground, knocking back the writhing monsters who screeched out. He held his stick aloft, and let the magic fire off. In an instant Ichi's body moved forward as if it turned into wind, and a single strike of his stick carved ten of the monsters in half. Body parts rained down as Ichi refocused and charged again. He cut swathes through the army like they were nothing but walls of paper. The blue blood scattering told a different story.

Ichi's hands didn't even feel resistence, or even when his stick hit them. The attack that imitated a samurai. The Flawless Strike. With that image in mind of one strike, one perfect strike, repeating itself again and again Ichi cut through a hundred monsters in less than a minute. They couldn't even react. The speed of his strikes sped up the more he got into the flow of it. As if doing it more and more made it even easier to do rather than exhausting him.

To the girl inside the sphere, all she saw was a hairy ball fly into the monsters and become a blur. A black and white blur flowed in the beast's hands slicing the monsters apart. Her mouth parted in surprise as she watched the grisly scene.

"This your boyfriend?" Satou said. She knew Rikya could barely answer.

It was more to herself than anyone else, the angel girl was having a rough night. Dark circles were under her eyes, She was summoned in her sleep thanks to the protection spell she put on Rikya. If Rikya were ever in danger, Satou would be able to be there because of that spell, but because of that spell she couldn't get a good nights sleep.

Ichi turned to look at her. The stick of balance rested on his shoulder as his hair was matted with blue blood. He undid his bigfoot form and walked over, completely naked save his shorts.

"Hey, Rikya okay?"

Satou waved her hand and hole opened in the barrier. Ichi walked over, crouching down over Rikya. She was conscious but her eyes were half closed. Rikya's black witch clothes were ripped, her long dark hair splayed out across the ground, and the black and white wave she made was lying broken by her side. The fox was nowhere in sight.

Satou tapped Ichi on his bare shoulder.

"Ichi, right? Keep an eye out, I'll heal her."

Ichi stood back as Satou kneeled down over Rikya. A dull gold eminated from her hands, then she pressed them into Rikya's body.

Ichi kept his eyes peeled as the shield went down. He silently worried about Rikya, but he didn't want to bother Satou. Miko told him she was a decent healer, but Ichi doubted a bakeneko could match up to an angel.

Renya caught up with Ichi, glancing at Satou kneeling over Rikya. She hovering behind his back and tapped his bare back with the flat of her blade.

"Cold." Ichi complained.

"I missed it." Renya said.

"My back's still there. Go ahead and stab. I'm keeping my promise."

"You're not fighting the squid, yet."

Renya looked above the treeline. The massive beast whirled it's tentacles about as blue bolts charred it from every direction. Red and orange tinged fireballs rained down from above.

"Kraken. Elder Kraken. I've seen them in grimoires before, but never in real life. How beautiful."

Ichi waved his stick at the piles of flesh he created.

"These guys?"

"Deep Ones." Renya replied.

"Oh, great. What, are we fighting Cthulu or something?"

"It's "a" cthulu, not 'the' cthulu."

Renya looked over at Rikya and Satou.

"He's wearing us down first."