Aria's POV
The first wave of contractors attacks all at once.
Fifty spirits manifest—wolves, serpents, warriors made of elemental energy. They pour down the hallway like a tsunami of death.
"TOGETHER!" I scream.
Our powers collide with theirs in an explosion that shakes the entire building.
Azrael's chains tear through spirits like they're made of paper. Kaito's phoenix incinerates everything it touches. My lightning-edged chains dance between enemies, precise and deadly.
And Emiko—my sister moves like water and shadow, her blade finding weak points in every defense.
We're outnumbered ten to one.
But we're Nakamuras.
"Left side!" Kaito calls out, and I respond instantly, my chains blocking an attack meant for his blind spot. We move like we've fought together for years instead of minutes.
"Behind you!" Emiko shouts at me, and I duck as her dagger flies over my head and embeds itself in a contractor's spirit. The creature dissolves.
We're fighting as a FAMILY, and it's beautiful and terrifying.
"They're coordinating!" the head council member shouts from the back. "Break their formation! Separate them!"
Twenty contractors focus fire on Kaito. His phoenix shields him, but the impact drives him backward, away from us.
"Kaito!" I try to reach him, but more enemies swarm between us.
"I'm fine! Keep fighting!" His voice is strained but determined.
Another group targets Emiko. She's fast, but there are too many. A chain spirit wraps around her ankle and yanks. She falls hard.
"EMIKO!" I send my chains toward her, but they're blocked by a massive earth elemental.
"Predictable." The council member's smile is vicious. "You care about each other. That's your weakness."
He's right. We're being separated, isolated, picked apart.
"Azrael!" I reach through our bond desperately. "We need—"
"Already on it." His mental voice is calm. Confident. "Trust me, little contractor."
Azrael stops holding back.
His power explodes outward in a shockwave that physically MOVES the air. Every contractor stumbles. Even I feel it—that overwhelming, suffocating presence of a true Demon King.
"You insects," Azrael's voice echoes with otherworldly authority, "are fighting in MY contractor's presence. You dare attack someone under MY protection?"
His chains multiply. Not ten or twenty—HUNDREDS of chains erupt from every surface, filling the hallway with writhing black metal and demonic energy.
Contractors scream as chains wrap around them, crushing spirits and throwing bodies like ragdolls.
"Impossible!" the head council member backs away. "No demon should have this much power outside the Abyss!"
"I'm not just any demon." Azrael manifests fully—his true form that makes reality itself tremble. "I'm a KING. And you just threatened my people."
He tears through the contractors like they're made of dust.
But even as Azrael decimates their forces, I feel something wrong. Through our bond, I sense his strain. This much power in the human realm is burning through him.
You're hurting yourself, I send through the bond.
I can handle it, he responds, but I feel the lie.
"Aria!" Kaito appears beside me, his clothes singed but his phoenix still blazing. "We need to get that girl and get out! Azrael can't maintain this level much longer!"
He's right. We came here to save a child, not fight a war.
"Emiko!" I spot my sister fighting near the cell where the girl is held. "Get her out!"
Emiko nods and cuts down the two guards. She grabs the crying child and shields her with her own body as spirits attack.
"Cover them!" Kaito's phoenix creates a wall of flames between Emiko and the enemies.
I send my chains to make a path. "This way!"
We're moving toward the exit, fighting every step, when the head council member does something unexpected.
He stabs himself in the chest.
Blood pours out, and he starts chanting in a language that makes my skin crawl.
"No," Azrael's voice goes cold with horror. "He's performing a sacrifice ritual."
"To summon what?" I ask.
"Something that should never be summoned."
The council member's blood flows across the floor in patterns that glow with sickly green light. His body withers as the ritual drains his life force.
"If I can't kill you," he gasps, "then THIS will. I summon the Ancient One. The First Betrayer. The—"
He dies before finishing, but it's too late.
The ritual completes.
Reality TEARS open above us—a wound in the fabric of existence itself. Something reaches through from the other side. Something massive. Something wrong.
"RUN!" Azrael grabs me. "Everyone OUT NOW!"
We sprint for the exit as the building shakes apart. Behind us, that THING pulls itself through the dimensional tear.
I risk a glance back and immediately wish I hadn't.
It's not a spirit. It's not a demon. It's something older. Something that existed before the world had rules about what should and shouldn't be.
"What IS that?" Emiko shouts, still carrying the little girl.
"A Primordial," Azrael says grimly. "A being from before spirits and demons existed. They were sealed away because they couldn't be controlled or killed."
"Great!" Kaito's phoenix blasts a hole through the wall. "And we just let one out!"
We burst into the open air. The facility collapses behind us as the Primordial emerges—a writhing mass of too many limbs and eyes and mouths, defying every law of physics and sanity.
It SCREAMS, and the sound makes the sky itself crack.
"We need to reseal it!" I yell over the noise.
"The only way to seal a Primordial," Azrael shouts back, "is with a Nakamura Grand Seal. The technique your family used to trap them originally!"
"I don't know how to do that!" Panic claws at my throat.
"But I do." Emiko sets the little girl down behind a barrier of rubble. "The council made me study all the Nakamura techniques they stole. They wanted to use them for their own purposes."
Hope sparks. "Can you teach us?"
"No time for teaching." Emiko pulls out a knife. "The Grand Seal requires three Nakamura bloodlines working in perfect sync. And it requires..." She cuts her palm. "A blood sacrifice from each of us."
Kaito and I cut our palms without hesitation.
"What do we do?" Kaito asks.
"Link hands. Channel your power through the blood bond." Emiko's voice is steady despite the monster destroying everything behind us. "And whatever happens, DON'T BREAK THE CIRCLE."
We form a triangle, hands clasped, blood mixing. I feel Kaito's fiery phoenix energy. Emiko's cold, precise control. My own lightning and chains.
Our powers merge through the family bond.
"NOW!" Emiko screams. "GRAND SEAL: NAKAMURA ETERNAL PRISON!"
Light explodes from our joined hands—silver, gold, and crimson twisted together. It forms chains that make mine look like toys. These chains are PURE—forged from bloodline power that's been passed down for thousands of years.
The chains shoot toward the Primordial and wrap around it. The creature fights, screaming in languages that hurt to hear.
"HOLD!" Emiko's bleeding from her nose, eyes, ears. The strain is killing her. "Just a little longer!"
I'm bleeding too. So is Kaito. The power drain is immense.
But we HOLD.
The chains tighten. Reality itself bends around the Primordial, creating a pocket dimension to contain it. The seal completes with a sound like the universe taking a breath.
The Primordial is gone. Trapped. Sealed.
We collapse, releasing hands, gasping for air.
"Did... did we do it?" Kaito wheezes.
"Yes." Emiko laughs weakly. "We actually did it."
Azrael appears beside me, looking drained but proud. "I've never seen humans perform a Grand Seal. Your family really is extraordinary."
The little girl Emiko saved runs over, crying with relief. "You saved me!"
Emiko pulls her into a hug, tears streaming. "I told you I'd protect you. I always will."
For a moment, we just sit in the rubble, catching our breath. We're alive. We saved an innocent child. We sealed an ancient evil.
We won.
Then Kaito's phone rings.
He answers, listens, and his face goes white. "When? How many?"
"What's wrong?" I demand.
Kaito lowers the phone slowly. "That was my contact in the tamer network. The council just issued a kill order. On all three of us." His voice shakes. "Every contractor in the region is being mobilized. Hundreds of them. They're coming for us right now."
"How long do we have?" Azrael asks.
"Ten minutes. Maybe less."
I look at my siblings. At Azrael. At the little girl we just saved.
We're exhausted. Injured. Out of power.
And an army is coming to kill us.
"We can't fight them all," Emiko says quietly. "Even working together, we're too weak right now."
"Then we run," I decide. "We disappear. Regroup. Come back when we're stronger."
"Run where?" Kaito asks. "They control everything. The council has reach everywhere."
Azrael's eyes gleam. "Not everywhere. There's one place even the council can't touch."
We all look at him.
"The Abyss," he says. "My realm. Where I'm at full strength and they can't follow."
"You want us to hide in the demon realm?" Emiko asks incredulously.
"I want you to SURVIVE." Azrael looks at me. "Aria, it's your choice. Fight an army while exhausted and probably die. Or trust me to keep you safe in my home until you're strong enough to come back and end this war."
The sound of vehicles approaching echoes in the distance. Shouts. The coordination of hundreds of contractors mobilizing.
Ten minutes until they find us.
Nine minutes until we die or disappear.
I look at my brother. My sister. The scared little girl. And the Demon King who's saved my life more times than I can count.
"Azrael." I grab his hand. "Take us home."
He smiles—warm and proud and possessive. "As you command, my contractor."
The portal to the Abyss opens.
Behind us, the army arrives and sees us escaping.
"STOP THEM!" someone screams.
But we're already falling through the darkness.
Into the Abyss.
Into Azrael's realm.
Into the one place where we might be safe.
The portal closes behind us, and the last thing I see of the human world is hundreds of angry contractors trying and failing to follow.
We're safe.
For now.
But this war is far from over.