With a nod of his head, Ren handed off the talisman as the electric dashed into the shrine to ring the bell instead. Though he felt particularly bad about leaving this whole ordeal to a complete stranger, Ren himself had no confidence that he could do anything on his own at the moment. The sudden appearance of a girl with... Fox tails and ears... Was more trivial than anything, but--

Hold up, was the one with the brush being overrun?

A few drops of sweat formed on his forehead as he watched the scene, his hands clenched into tight fists before the sound of a bell resonated through the shrine grounds. Ren looked about in confusion as the sound of the bell slowly rang louder and louder with each swing after it was struck, and how what he had assumed to be the skeletons gaining the upper hand was nothing more than an illusion.

So that fox-tailed girl...
Probably a kitsune. God [i]damn[/i] it all. Friendly? Didn't quite seem that way.

The sound of the bell seemed to be much larger than what anything of that size should reasonably have been able to create, though that may have been in part due to how much force it was stuck by. The young man instinctively covered his ears as the ringing resonated throughout the shrine, causing the giant skeleton to stop its advance and hold its head in pain.

...

Could that thing even [i]feel[/i] pain?

"I think this is a good a time as any to try, then!" Ren shouted as the ringing of the bell began to die down. "G'luck!"

As that was going on and most of the group was focused on handling the gashadokuro, a magic circle behind the bell began to glow, and soon after a white portal seemed to open on the other side, where an [url=http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=2161436]older man[/url] was seated, his brow creased in concentration as the portal seemed to waver. A few moments later, though, the gateway seemed to stabilize, and the man let out a sigh of relief.

"To think that this seal would fracture now... In any case, you people over there! Please, hurry and seal that youkai away! As things are right now, it would cause untold amounts of destruction if it made it back to the city!"

Ren turned his head in surprise at the sudden appearance of a new person, but rather than make a beeline for freedom, instead turned around and gritted his teeth. If worst came to worst and everything fell out, then there was no way he would live with himself. He was the backup, and that was that. No more, and no less.