Wood Demon - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Rui’s Fury, Brother Against “Brother”

The air in Jack’s tattered room was thick with a fragile, stolen peace. Moonlight, filtered through the grime and webs of the single window, cast long, eerie shadows, but within those shadows, a small, defiant warmth flickered. Saya, in her breathtaking true form, her midnight hair a cascade against her pale shoulders, was sharing a quiet story – a faded memory from her human childhood, a festival of paper lanterns she barely recalled. Her voice was soft, a hesitant melody against the constant, almost subliminal skittering sounds that were the house’s usual soundtrack. Jack listened, perched on his rickety stool, offering quiet interjections, a gentle, teasing remark here and there that brought a fleeting, precious smile to her lips.

He’d just made a particularly absurd comment about the logistics of ancient festivals probably involving a lot more mud and significantly fewer health and safety regulations, and Saya had actually let out a soft giggle, her eyes bright with a momentary, unburdened joy. It was a beautiful sound, a rare flower blooming in the desolate wasteland of their existence.

And it was into this fragile, precious moment that the cold silence of absolute dread descended.

The skittering sounds outside the room, the faint creaks of the ancient house settling – everything just… stopped. An unnatural stillness fell, so profound it was like being plunged into the vacuum of space. Jack’s demonic senses screamed a silent alarm, every nerve ending suddenly alive with a prickling, icy premonition. Saya stiffened, her smile vanishing, her eyes darting towards the door, wide with a renewed, familiar terror.

Before either of them could react, a shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom of the hallway, resolving into the small, pale, and utterly terrifying form of Rui. He stood in the doorway, his crimson-flecked eyes, usually so empty, now blazing with a cold, white-hot intensity. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just looked, his gaze flitting between Saya’s true, beautiful form and Jack’s suddenly tense posture, taking in their shared space, their stolen intimacy. The silence stretched, taut and suffocating, heavy with an unspoken, gathering storm.

“Rui,” Saya breathed, her voice a terrified whisper. She instinctively began to shift, her features starting to waver as she tried to revert to her Rui-imposed persona, but it was too late. The damage was done. The truth of their connection lay bare.

Rui’s gaze settled on Saya, then flicked to Jack, a muscle twitching almost imperceptibly in his jaw. When he finally spoke, his voice was deceptively soft, a silken hiss that promised untold pain. “What… is this?”

Jack rose slowly from his stool, moving almost imperceptibly to position himself slightly in front of Saya. His mind raced, desperately searching for a deflection, an excuse, anything to de-escalate the cataclysm he knew was about to erupt. “Whoa there, little brother!” he began, trying for a breezy, utterly unconvincing nonchalance. “Easy now. We were just… uh… discussing. Interior decorating, you know? This place could really use some… non-web-based accents. Maybe some cheerful throw pillows? Or a less… oppressive color scheme?”

The words felt like ashes in his mouth even as he spoke them. He knew it was useless. Rui’s unnerving perception had clearly seen through far more subtle deceptions than this pathetic attempt.

Rui’s eyes narrowed, the cold fire within them intensifying. “Interior decorating?” he repeated, the words dripping with contempt. He took a slow, deliberate step into the room. The temperature seemed to plummet. “You, Older Brother,” his gaze flicked to Jack, “and you, Ane-san,” it stabbed at Saya, making her flinch violently, “what is the meaning of this… intimacy? Of this… deception?”

“Look, Rui,” Jack tried again, his voice firmer now, a desperate edge creeping in. “It’s not what you think. Saya was just… she wasn’t feeling well. I was making sure she was okay. Brotherly concern, you know?”

“Brotherly concern?” Rui’s lip curled into a sneer, a horrifyingly adult expression on his childlike face. “The bonds of family are sacred! They are absolute! I gave you roles! I gave you purpose within those bonds!” His voice began to rise, losing its silken softness, gaining a dangerous, trembling edge. “And this is how you repay me? By… by colluding? By forming these… these false, secret attachments behind my back? This is not the bond I decreed!”

His demonic aura flared, a palpable wave of cold malice that pressed down on Jack and Saya, making it hard to breathe. Thin, almost invisible threads began to coalesce in the air around him, shimmering faintly in the dim moonlight.

“You dare defile the bonds of family?!” Rui finally seethed, his voice cracking with a mixture of childish petulance and ancient, demonic rage.

The air exploded.

Threads, dozens of them, erupted from Rui’s fingertips, not to bind, but to shred. They lashed out with blinding speed, aimed not at Jack, but straight at Saya.

“Saya, look out!” Jack yelled, shoving her violently to the side.

He reacted on pure instinct, his own demonic power surging in response to the imminent threat. `Barkskin Fortification` rippled across his skin, making it momentarily tougher, more resilient. From his outstretched hands, a thicket of thorny vines erupted, forming a desperate, tangled barrier between Saya and Rui’s attack.

`[Thorny Wall Manifested!]`

Several of Rui’s threads, sharp as surgical steel, sliced through the air where Saya had been moments before, embedding themselves deep into the rotten wood of the far wall. Others met Jack’s hastily summoned vine wall, shredding through some of the thinner tendrils, but the thickest ones held, groaning under the assault, thorns snapping.

“Leave her alone, Rui!” Jack roared, his voice raw with a fury that surprised even himself. This wasn’t about roles anymore, or about his own survival. This was about protecting Saya, about defying god damn Rui.

Rui’s head snapped towards Jack, his eyes blazing with incandescent rage. “You dare interfere, Older Brother? You dare raise your pitiful powers against me?” More threads, thicker and more numerous, shot from his hands, this time aimed directly at Jack. “You are not fulfilling your role! You are a disappointment! A traitor!”

“My role?” Jack snarled, dodging a volley of slicing threads, the air singing around him. “My role isn’t to be your damn puppet, or to stand by and watch you torture everyone who doesn’t perfectly fit your twisted little fantasy! This isn’t family, Rui, it’s a goddamn prison!”

The fight was on. The small, tattered room became an instant battleground. Jack, now fully unleashing the strength he’d carefully concealed, his Level 32 power thrumming through him, met Rui’s onslaught head-on. `Entangling Roots` erupted from the floorboards, thick and gnarled, trying to snare Rui’s small, agile form, but the Lower Moon danced between them with contemptuous ease, his threads severing any roots that came too close.

Jack hurled a volley of razor-sharp thorns – `Thorn Volley` – from the vines still sprouting from his arms, but Rui erected a near-invisible web shield that deflected them with contemptuous ease.

“Is that all your ‘liveliness’ amounts to, Older Brother?” Rui sneered, his threads now forming a complex, inescapable cage around Jack, tightening with every passing second. “Pathetic!”

“Haven’t even gotten started, you little psycho!” Jack shot back, his mind racing. He couldn’t match Rui thread for thread, blow for blow. Rui was faster, his BDA more refined, his Kizuki-level power a tangible wall. But Jack had versatility, and a desperate, stubborn refusal to yield.

With a roar, he activated his `Siphoning Tendrils`, not from his own flesh, but from the very wood of the decaying house around them. Dozens of thin, woody tendrils erupted from the floorboards, the walls, even the ceiling, lashing out like angry snakes, trying to pierce Rui’s defenses, to distract him, to disrupt the flow of his threads.

Rui seemed momentarily surprised by this new tactic, his threads faltering for a split second as he sliced through the unexpected wooden appendages. It was the opening Jack needed.

He stomped his foot, channeling his will into the earth beneath the house. “Bloom for me, you ugly little bastards!” he yelled.

All around Rui, patches of the floor suddenly erupted with clusters of his toxic `Nightshade Blisterblooms`, their sickly-sweet, venomous scent instantly filling the air.

`[Blisterbloom Minefield Deployed!]`

Rui hissed, leaping back, his threads forming a whirlwind around him to deflect any stray spores or contact with the poisonous flowers. “Tricks! Your power is nothing but cheap tricks!”

“Tricks that are currently keeping your psychotic ass busy!” Jack retorted, using the momentary distraction to reinforce his `Barkskin Fortification` and summon a fresh wall of thorny vines, pushing outwards, trying to break free of Rui’s constricting web cage.

The dilapidated room was rapidly being torn apart. Splintered wood flew, dust and cobwebs filled the air, and the sickly scent of Blisterblooms mixed with the sharp, metallic tang of Rui’s threads and the earthy aroma of Jack’s summoned plants. Saya, who had scrambled to the furthest corner of the room, watched with wide, terrified eyes, her hands pressed to her mouth, occasionally crying out a warning to Jack as Rui launched a particularly vicious attack.

“You have been deceiving me!” Rui shrieked, his voice cracking with fury as he effortlessly dodged another volley of thorns and a grasping root. “Your power… it’s far greater than you allowed me to believe! Another betrayal!”

“Wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I’d sent out engraved invitations announcing my power-ups, would it, little brother?” Jack panted, his regeneration working overtime to seal the numerous shallow cuts Rui’s threads had managed to inflict. His clothes were in tatters. “I learned from the best, after all. And you, my dear Rui, are practically the poster child for secrets, deception, and generally being a manipulative little creep!”

Rui let out an inarticulate scream of rage. The threads around him intensified, becoming a solid, shimmering dome of razor-sharp silk, then exploded outwards in a devastating wave. Jack threw up his arms, vines coiling around him like a living shield, but the force of the attack sent him crashing back through the already weakened wall of his room, out into the moonlit, web-choked forest beyond.

He landed hard, the impact jarring every bone in his body, but his demonic resilience and `Barkskin` absorbed the worst of it. He was on his feet in an instant, the forest floor now their arena. Rui glided out of the ruined house, his small form radiating an almost palpable coldness.

“You cannot win, Older Brother,” Rui stated, his voice returning to its chilling monotone, though his eyes still blazed. “My bonds are stronger. My power is absolute within this family.”

“Your bonds are chains, Rui!” Jack shot back, his hands plunging into the earth. “And this family is a horror show! It’s time someone changed the damn channel!”

The ground around Rui erupted as massive `Entangling Roots`, thicker and more powerful than any Jack had summoned before, surged upwards, seeking to crush and imprison. Simultaneously, Jack unleashed his strongest `Leaf Vortex` yet, drawing leaves from the surrounding trees, sharpening them with his demonic energy, sending a screaming green tornado of razor edges hurtling towards the Lower Moon.

Rui met the onslaught with a contemptuous wave of his hand. His threads, now infused with a terrifying, destructive energy, sliced through the roots like they were paper, shredded the leaf vortex into harmless confetti. But it bought Jack a precious second.

From the earth where the roots had been severed, new life exploded. Dozens of thorny vines, empowered by Jack’s Level 32 demonic energy and his desperate will, lashed out, creating a writhing, impenetrable cage around Rui. Not to hold him for long, Jack knew, but to buy time.

`[Briar Patch Entombment – Max Effort!]`

Rui’s furious, muffled shouts could be heard from within the thorny prison. Threads began to slice outwards, but the sheer density of the rapidly regenerating vines, fueled by Jack’s direct connection to the forest floor, was making it difficult.

Jack knew this was just a temporary reprieve. He was already panting, the constant regeneration and BDA usage taking its toll, even with his tree-fueled reserves. Rui was a Lower Moon. His power, his stamina, his refined BDA – they were on another level. But Jack had managed something crucial: he had surprised Rui. He had proven he wasn’t just another weak, easily dominated puppet. He had shown resilience.

The fight was far from over. The night was still young, and Rui’s fury was a palpable entity, coiling like a nest of spiders, ready to strike again with even greater venom. But for now, Jack stood his ground, a defiant, plant-wielding demon against a Lower Moon’s rage, the fate of his fragile connection with Saya hanging precariously in the balance.