Restarting

Oni Yari!

He awoke in his bed after having died for the 3rd time in only 6 or so hours. This time though, the pain had disappeared much quicker.

He was getting better at ignoring it.

" Now, what time is it?", Akai raised his head to see that the clock read 5:43AM. " So it's random as long as it's within a certain amount of time. Then I guess the first step is make sure the shooter can't kill Mori who should be in Yuna's room by now.", he sat there consumed by his thoughts. He was so enveloped in them that he didn't even realize that Mori may already be dead.

He remained on his bed in a sitting position for about ten minutes as he devised his plan that had changed from it's murderous desire to an obsession, he wanted to protect Mori and Nao no matter what it took. Yuna never crossed his mind, the image of his full blood little sister dying in front of him had stayed in his mind like a screen saver for a phone. Every time he thought, that image appeared for a moment.

Akai never once got up to close his window but he did turn towards it and stare off at the rooftop he had been shot at from in the previous loop. " I still don't understand why she didn't just shoot the bed, it would've definitely gone through if it tore through 3 walls right?", as he pondered this, a realization hit him.

" Dammit Yuna! You're the one who left my window open weren't you!", he would've remembered why he left it open at least and so it must have been Yuna setting Akai and Mori up. " Damn you sneaky little, hugh. Thank you, I owe you one". He thanked his sister for setting him up and then realized something else, about Valentina.

" Now that I really think back, Valentina said she was some sort of spirit and she doesn't attack until the world goes gray around 7AM.", everything began to make sense now, he had figured something out and this excited him. " I might actually have a chance, all I need to do is make sure that Mori isn't attacked and get that red guy here to help me fight Valentina and the shooter".

Just as he said this, he noticed a flash of white light from one the rooftops outside. " I guess it's time to test it out. Hey! I see you out there! If you want me then shoot me! I won't move!", he looked straight at the glimmering light, clearly light reflecting off of a scope. He stood up and jumped out his window and began making his way out into the street. " If I'm right, then she can hear with incredible accuracy based on her shooting patterns in the last loop.", he stopped for a moment and shouted. " I want to talk to you! I also want to talk to the Crimson Swordsman who's been watching me"!

Silence was the only thing Akai heard until his sister Nao came outside to stand next to him, she never said a word. " Stay behind me Nao and let me know if you hear or see anything.", Akai's pupils shrank when he heard a strange sound forming behind him. He spun around to see the Red Haired man standing on his roof with a strange purple swirl of light behind him.

The man spoke in an angered tone " How did you become aware of our presence? How did you know we were watching you and for how long"? Once he finished talking, the sound of a gunshot rang out from behind Akai who grabbed Nao and covered her. When Akai looked towards the shot, there stood a girl dressed in black leather clothes from head to toe, she had Black hair down to her shoulders and blue eyes, similar to Akai's.

Her voice sounded a bit like an adult's when she spoke despite looking like a high schooler " I'd say you're a bit smarter than we gave you credit for. Now answer his question or Nao gets a whole in her head". Akai locked eyes with her but never showed even a hint of fear.

Akai grabbed Nao's hand and responded " First things first. There is a spirit that's hunting me right now and her name is Valentina. I have no idea what her abilities are besides her silver flash". Both of the mysterious people looked at each other with a surprised look on their faces.

Akai continued speaking " I want to make a deal with both of you", Akai turned sideways so he could see both of them while he looked to Nao. Akai looked to the red haired man " You protect my family and I'll tell you everything I know about Valentina". Akai then turned to the the girl in all black " And you help me kill Valentina, or at least stop her attack and I'll do whatever it is you people seem to want with me".

Just as he said this, a beep came from the girls back pocket. An alarm was playing a catchy tune from one of Akai's favorite artists. She grabbed the phone and looked towards Akai as she spoke " I'm listening.", her eyes moved to Nao's neck where a green dot had been placed. " Move!"

Akai kicked Nao backwards as he threw himself forward, upon doing this a short burst of five or so rounds flew by. He had saved Nao for now.

The red haired man dropped the ground next to Nao and brought his sword in front of him in a defensive position. " I'll protect her! You get inside and move the others to the bathroom inside the house Akai!", Akai got up and ran inside. The girl ran behind a car and set up the rifle in her hand while the red haired man opened some sort of portal and vanished only to reappear inside Akai's bedroom.

He looked down at the girl outside, " I'll spot for you, you take the shot". Once he finished talking a large burst of about 20 shots slammed into Akai's bedroom, tearing through the walls and riddling it with holes.

The girl in black shouted to him, " s**t! Kanda are you ok"!

" We're all good!", 5 more shots rang out with even more stunning accuracy, these ones wouldn't miss and had hit Kanda's sword twice and grazed his left leg. " Are they, shooting at our noise.", Kanda whispered these words to himself as he held a petrified and unresponsive Nao. Kanda put his arm out Akai's bedroom window and snapped his fingers. The instant he did this, 3 gunshots flew straight at his hand with incredible accuracy, they had missed by only a few centimeters.

Kanda jumped back inside and flipped the bed up against the wall and put Nao in the closet. "Stay in here Nao, I'll be right back alright.", she looked at him with a blank expression and nodded. Her face was cold and her eyes were as wide as they could be.

The mysterious girl hadn't realized what was happening yet and called out to Kanda, " Is Nao alright"! 3 more shots came barreling towards her and one of them bounced off of something metal on her shoulder. "Damn!", she shouted after falling to the ground.

Kanda jumped out of the window and landed next to the girl. " They can hear us. Stay as quiet as possible.", he whispered to her as he pointed at a roof that was about 120 meters away. " I think they're up there, try and line up the shot and I'll block".

" What! There's no way they're way out there. With an LMG! Are you kidding me?", the second she retorted, another burst of shots rang out but they were directed at the second floor of the Kenshi household.

Upstairs. . .

Akai ran up the stairs to his sister's room where She and Mori were sitting on the bed listening to music at full volume. Be blasted in the doorway and grabbed a folded blanket from the hamper next to him and shot it at Mori who had the music much much louder. When the blanket hit her in the face she fell back onto the bed and a bullet came through the wall and would have surely hit her. Akai had a knife in each hand and a distressed look on his face which terrified Mori and Yuna.

" Take this Yuna.", he whispered to Yuna as he tossed her favorite knife onto the bed next to her.

"W-what are you doing Akai? Why do you look like that?", she grabbed the knife and walked up to her brother.

" Sorry but I can't explain right now, all I can do is tell you to follow me to the bathroom. I know it sounds strange but just do it, we don't have much time".

Mori looked at Akai with an angry look on her voice as she shouted at him " What the hell was that for"! Akai, without hesitation leaped at Mori and tackled her off of the bed as a gunshot report sent 10 rounds flying through the wall at Mori. He had saved her but not without taking being grazed.

"Ticha s**t. Just stay quiet Mori, if you haven't noticed yet, we are being shot at.", he got up and tore his shirt off.

"W-what are you doing?", Yuna whispered her question to Akai in a scared tone.

"Relax, I'm not doing anything weird.", Akai wrapped the shirt around his abdomen to cover the gunshot wound he had gotten on his back. He barely held back a painful groan once he tightened the makeshift bandage. " Alright, First things first. Yuna, take Mori to the bathroom and don't make a single sound, don't even whisper. Once you do that, I'll head back downstairs and help the two people outside, they are here to help us this time". " Then what do I do after that though"? He thought to himself before telling Mori to get up ad go.

Yuna turned back to her brother before leaving. " Akai".

" Yeah"?

" Please be alright. Mori needs your help after all this is over". She looked at her brother with a concerned expression as she waited for a response.

" I'll be fine Yuna. No matter what, I'll make sure everybody makes it out this time". With these words, Yuna was satisfied and made her way to the bathroom while Akai covered the windows with her multitude of international blankets.

"Alright, that should at least stop Valentina from seeing in. Now I gotta figure out how I'm gonna stop this batshit crazy shooter.", he began making his way to his room where he heard more gunshots go off outside.

" I need to hurry! Oh right, if she shoots at sound then I'll just make as much noise as possible outside.", Akai broke out into a sprint down the stairs where he turned to the front door. I know you'll hear this!", he pulled the knife he had grabbed earlier out and sprinted at the front. He drop kicked the door open and after about a second, 7 shots tore through the door.

" Perfect!", Akai got up and sprinted outside towards Kanda and the girl. " Hey! Get ready to take the shot!", she looked at him with a confused look but immediately switched to her rifle.

" I'm ready, just show me where she's at.", she took a deep breath and set the bipod down on the hood of the car she was behind.

" Hey, red haired guy! You use that teleport thing to dodge her shots alright.", Akai ran out in the middle of the street with the red haired man not far behind him.

" Names Kanda btw and that's my cousin Shiina.", the man drew his sword that was now emitting with a fluorescent red glow.

" Thanks, that makes things easier, now let's do this"!

Bullets began flying towards the two of the and it was quite clear that they weren't gonna stop anytime soon. Bullets kept coming in the dozens as they pelted the entire street.

Kanda, reacting to this, tackled Akai out of the way and shouted something off-putting. " MANU ANGELI!"

When he said this, a light purple bolt of lighting shocked the ground in front of them releasing an extremely bright violet burst of light. What remained in the spot the lightning had struck was a purple wall of crystal that looked like it had dots of white and blue flowing through it.

Kanda shouted out to Shiina. " Did you see it"!

" I got the shot! Stay down"!

This entire time bullets were slamming into the other side of the crystal wall and bouncing off in all directions like they were being pulled away as opposed to ricocheting off. In this time, Kanda's eyes had changed to purple and his hair had become a bit spiky despite staying down. His body was emitting a dim purple light and short bolts of lightning were shooting off of his hands towards the wall.

" Take the shot Shiina! I can't do this any longer!", his fingers began crunching inwards as his hands were seemingly being pushed back by an invisible force. " Shiinaaaaa"!

Akai looked towards Shiina to see her eyes had turned a Golden Yellow and the creases in her rifle were glowing with a blue light.

"What the hell kind of a gun is that"! Akai was mesmerized by the blue swirling light at end of the barrel that suddenly appeared. It looked similar to a spiral galaxy and had an elegant yet violent glow to it.

Shiina closed her left eye and leaned her head on her hand that was placed on the rifles stock. She waited for a second longer until the blue light turned to a beautiful golden glow and shouted " ONI YARI"!

The rifle made a strange whirring sound that was followed by a burst of all consuming silence. It felt like the rifle had ripped the sound out of the air, but what followed was a blast of golden light that left the barrel at tremendous speeds. The beam of light went flying towards the shooter who was sitting on a rooftop around 200 meters away now. Right as the shot hit it's target a massive cloud of Golden flames erupted outwards, completely annihilating the building it had made impact with.

" HOLY CRAP SHIINA! Don't you think that was a bit overboard?", Akai had fallen on his butt from the kneeling position he was in out of sheer stupefaction. He couldn't believe what he had just witnessed to be real.

In a slightly offended tone she fired back " What about me saving your asses was overboard"?

Kanda lowered his hands and turned towards Shiina with a worn out expression. " I'd say you did a damn fine job, my key would've broken if you'd taken any longer though".

She responded to this compliment in a snarky voice. " Why thank you very much Kanda. Now Akai, would you mind thanking me properly"?

Akai and Kanda both looked at her with a confused expression and both said in unison. " I don't like where this is going".

" I w-what does that mean? I'm not gonna do anything weird to you just get over here Akai".

Akai got up and made his way over to her as slow as possible without making it obvious but he failed at this and she wasn't to pleased. " Dammit! Just get over here right now!", Akai run up to her after this and stood as still as possible in front her.

She leaned in and started looking Akai over from head to toe with discomforting precision. She walked around him and looked from several different angles.

"Akai".

" Yes!"

" Can I touch you?"

Without hesitation he responded. " Absolutely."

Shiina shifted her gaze to Akai's eyes and put her hand on his stomach. " Sorry Akai".

Akai's expression changed to confusion and then to a look that screamed pain as a shock run all throughout his body. Shiina kept going for a few seconds until a black cloud emerged form Akai's chest and formed into the shape of a clock with no arms and every number had been replaced by another clock and within these clocks was the same thing.

Shiina and Kanda looked to each other and then Shiina stopped shocking Akai.

" What the hell kind of a Manu Angeli was that"? Kanda spoke in a concerned tone.

" Shouldn't you guys be asking about me? That hurt like hell".

" Oh yeah, sorry about that Akai. I was trying to find it as fast as possible". Shiina looked Akai with a normal expression now which seriously complimented her face.

" Tch, how am I supposed to be mad if you do that"?

" Oh? Do you like me or something"?

I w-well no, your just good looking. Yeah, your just atractive. That doesn't mean I like you". Akai responded in a shaky voice and a red face. He couldn't look at her when she was looking at him like she was, with a shy look and a sarcastic voice.

Then the two cousins looked at each other and started laughing hysterically at Akai and how red he was.

" I can't believe you actually just said that to her Akai. You're a funny guy you know that.", Kanda said while dying of laughter.

" What are you laughing at"!

" I mean really, you think I'm attractive Akai.", Shiina started laughing harder after she said this.

" Oh god, I just saved these people and I look like a total i***t".

" Damn right!", the two of them said this in unison.

Akai gathered his pride once again all be it just barely and looked at Shiina. He got into a proud stance and raised his fist to the sky as he declared. " That's right! I am an i***t and I may be damn near useless but at least we saved everyone"!

The two of them looked at him with expressions that could only be described as weirded-out.