[h3][sup][sup]That shrill cry. Ru remembered the day as if he was reliving it all over again. He had spent a millennia tracking the archdemon only known as J’zir on his own and finding nothing to prove his various journeys worthy of their undertaking. His search had finally brought him to the broken landmass that was once the United States and it was in a neighborhood similar to the one he now stood in that he met Anaïs. A bloody trail had led the fallen angel towards an alcove on the outskirts of the abandoned encampment. The bodies of various low-level demons littered the bloodstained earth like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, their faces frozen in their last moments of agony or terror or realization that this was indeed the end. Some had even gone down snarling. But they were all disposed of properly and the cuts had been expertly placed. When the trail had finally led to Ana, Ru was met with the same aggression she’d shown the demons. 

They had their brief duel. Ru taking up the defensive in order to assess his would-be enemy and Ana on the offense stringing together impressively precise slashes combined with pirouettes and whirling motions. She was an expert indeed, she’d moved like a ballerina across the grassy field and only committed to strikes when they were appropriate and had the best chance of landing on their target. It was only because Ru himself was not a low-level demon that he had been able to survive the onslaught. He’d concluded she had been trained well and even amongst humans deserved some level of respect. But it was her mentioning of J’zir that had taken hold of his mind and paused him in place. He’d had to block her final strike outright before inquiring about her knowledge of the archdemon and his whereabouts. 

Ru came back to reality, facing the snide superior demon. He inhaled and exhaled sharply, watching the steps the superior demon took backwards as his low-levels closed the circle to completely surround the fallen angel. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was too arrogant to run away and that arrogance allowed him to sit back and watch his underlings attempt to handle the work he should have been doing himself. It made no difference to Ru. He was frustrated at the lack of progress in the hunt and this was exactly what he needed at exactly the right moment. The grin returned to his face as his yellow eyes lit up with excitement. 

That shrill cry.

Ana was already at it not too far from him and it was that hunter’s bellow that spurred Ru into action. Instead of waiting for the demons to come to him he rushed straight towards the front and the two that awaited him there. They snarled and growled and lunged at him as soon as he was close. Ru ducked under a swipe and pulled one blade underhanded in a ferocious straight line that cut straight into the demon’s abdomen and unleashed its intestines, tubes and guts spilling out in a waterfall of blood. Without stopping, he immediately used the other blade, holding it properly and one-handed, to meet the second demon’s swipe and sliced through its arm cleanly before bringing the blade back around, palm gripping the hilt facing the sky, and cutting through its sinewy neck. Its head fell to the asphalt and rolled away while its body fell to its knees first and then flopped over lifeless. 

There was a pause. 

The smile on the superior demon’s face had been wiped away completely. He looked around at the underlings left and gave a non-verbal command to assault the fallen angel all at once with a nod of his head. Mindless, the demons did as instructed and each rushed towards Ru from around the now broken circle. Ru exhaled and went to work. He evaded claw swipes, cut, and slashed in equal measures moving across the cracked street as if he were now the ballerina. It was a macabre dance where limbs were severed, heads rolled, and blood spurted towards the darkened sky above. In his mind, all Ru could was his translucent self slicing and dancing away in the countless wars he’d fought with his angelic brethren. It was the same right now. It was always the same. Things never changed. At the end of the day, it always seemed to come down to his blades and how much they could eat before the battle was over again for a brief period. 

As soon as Ru stopped whirling around and the final demonic body dropped to the ground, his eyes immediately locked onto the superior demon who seemed like he intended on slinking away. Ru raised one of his blades and pointed it at the demon, narrowing yellow irises. “You [i]will[/i] tell me of J’zir, filth,” Ru said. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. A breeze blew through Ru’s locs gently swaying them back. The demon produced a smile at the menace of Ru’s pointed short-sword. 

“You seem familiar to me. You and your partner. Funny, that. But of course I won’t be telling you anything you see. Not when you’re both about to die,” the superior demon said. 

Ru raised an eyebrow. Superior demons were intelligent, but their strength levels varied. One couldn’t properly assess their strength by simply looking at them as they had the ability to hide their auras. This one had been masking the entirety of the battle both Ana and Ru fought. Now that he’d released it, Ru could feel his intent. It was murderous and it was strong. Stronger than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t expected as easy of a fight as the low-levels, but he also hadn’t expected to be facing a demon nearing archdemon levels of strength. That was a surprise.

A welcome one. 

Ru grinned again, slowly dropping his blade back to his side. The superior demon, at the same time, brandished two hatchets and unbuttoned the blazer he wore. He was dressed in the remnants of a charcoal suit, but it was tattered revealing peeks and glimpses of muscular tone throughout the demon’s human appearing body. The hatchets seemed to have come from the inner jacket pockets of the suit. Hatchets were an interesting choice, but it meant something. Something Ru confirmed as he bent his knees and brought both blades up into an X formation to block the speed blitzing strike of the superior demon. It had closed the distance in only a second. It was fast. Extremely fast. It couldn’t be that fast wielding anything larger. 

Ru growled and pushed the demon back before jumping back several times and stopping right near Ana who had dispatched the rest of her quarry. Without turning to face her, he spoke. 

“His intellect is superior, but he feels closer to an archdemon… This may prove challenging.” 

Just as he said that, the superior demon rushed forward once more. Ru dashed to meet him in order to give Ana time to conclude her own assessments. Ru clashed in the middle of the street, slain bodies scattered around, with the superior demon and was immediately put on the defensive. This demon was [i]fast[/i]. As he hacked away at Ru, the fallen angel could only block his strikes with both blades. The duo danced around the street swinging towards one another, evading, and clashing as if they were the only two creatures in this neighborhood. Ru kept the pace of the fight manageable and made sure to keep the demon away from Ana’s vicinity in order to give her time. He knew they would need a two-pronged offensive if they had any hope of defeating him, but he couldn’t let the woman get speed blitzed in the meantime. 

The opportunity and opening would come. Ru knew Ana would recognize it when it did so he kept slashing away, blade meeting hatchet, hatchet meeting blade. His body could handle this level of exertion and he was confident Ana would join in when the opportune moment arose.[/sup][/sup][/h3]