Working their way slowly, but surely, out of the toilet area, Ranma quickly helps Shampoo into the corridor as Ryoga holds off the rest of the demons, then joins the group just as Ryoga leaps through the entranceway and seals it with a bakusai-tenketsu. Panting hard, Ranma looks at Akane and Sekki, both a mess with demon blood, and opens his mouth to speak.

Ranma: "Akane...."

Akane holds a hand out to Ranma to silence him. Ranma tiredly obliges.

Akane: "Ranma, you need to find our family and friends. Me and Sekki can hold them off. In fact, we'll be scouting ahead and covering your backs. Alright?"

Everyone in the group nods, and begins to run off in different directions when Sekki calls them.

Sekki: "I don't think you mortals are going to be able to find the prison this way! Come on, it's-"

Voice: "Finally! Found you at last!"

Sekki turns pale at the voice behind her, as everyone gathers. She turns around, and sees Lina along with an army of demons behind her. Smirking, Lina floats towards Sekki, alone, silver hair splaying out behind her. She stops in front of Sekki, malice in her eyes. Malice.... and cold, cold anger.

Lina: "Finally, Sekki. About time we settled that old debt."

Sekki: "Li...Lina? I thought-"

Lina: "Doesn't matter, Sekki. I almost did die when you sapped my energy that time, but Lord Kuriimu found and saved me. Well, I'd say it's time I payed that old debt back?"

Shampoo whispers into Ranma's ear while the two are speaking, a soft and unnoticable breath.

Shampoo: "Shampoo think silver-hair angry with black-hair?"

Ranma: "You said it."

Lina waves her hand to the demons behind her, and behind Ranma's group. Ranma and the rest swallow a hard lump as they realize that they could've easily been destroyed, Akane included. The demons back off. Way, WAY off. Meanwhile, Sekki is still looking disbelivingly at Lina.

Sekki: "Look, Lina. I know you're angry about that incident, but.... but, well, you were going to kill the priest and-"

Lina: "SHUT UP! I never trusted you, Sekki, I was always better than you! But you had to take it away from me!  Me... me and Lord Kuriimu could've been ruling the human world! But you let that thrice damned priest live long enough to cast that spell! And look at what you made me!"

Sekki stops trying to reason with Lina, as she recognizes that mad glow in Lina's eyes. Apparently the demons do too, and retreat even further, but not running away. Lina continues in a dark, menacing, threatening voice.

Lina: "You were my SISTER, damn it all, and you BETRAYED me! You wanted to stop me from gaining control of the human world, and almost killed me!"

Sekki: "Sorry, Lina, that's the way I work. I'm an emotional fool. Six hundred years have done nothing to cure me."

Lina: "I'll cure it for you, sister-dearest."

Almost without warning, Lina charges towards Sekki in a burst of white light and misses Sekki by a hairsbreadth as Sekki drifts aside quickly. The air pops with a sudden vacuum being filled up again, and everyone moves to give the two some fighting space.

Elsewhere in the cavern, Soun, Genma, Mousse and the rest are navigating their way through the strangely deserted hallways. It is absolutely quiet, not even the sound of dripping water permeates the quiet cavern.

Genma: "Where are we now, Tendo-kun?"

Soun: "I don't know.... what about you, Cologne?"

Cologne: "Keep quiet and let me think. Hm.... ah, there-"

Cologne reaches a hand out to point in a direction, before a piercing shriek fills the cavern and nearly brings the whole mountain down.

Back at the "arena", the scene is general din and chaos as the demons in the tunnel are all screaming, howling or making noises cheering on Lina, their current Commanding Officer, taking on Sekki. Covering their ears, the rest of Ranma's group watch the fight with concern.

Sekki tilts her head to one side as Lina kicks straight up, then backhands the leg away, causing Lina to spin a little. As she finishes spinning from her backhand, Sekki vaults into the air and comes down with an axe kick aimed at the still unsteady Lina's head. Lina sees this and weakly brings up a wing to cover herself. The force of the impact forces her backwards though, and as she staggers into a defensive position, Sekki lands lightly on one toe and smiles evilly.

Sekki : "Sister, you always were weaker."

Lina, catching her breath, replies a tired response.

Lina : ".....We'll.....see...."

Bring an open palm up towards Sekki, Lina builds up some whitish chi as she steadies herself.

Lina : "Fire Flare!"

Sekki shields her eyes with her wings as the flash of white heat shoots towards her and blinds everyone at the same time. The fireball smashes into Sekki's wings and smoke rises off the affected surface. Sekki unfolds the wing and looks at the burnt wing. She flaps it a few times and the carbon flutters off in a small dust cloud.

Sekki : "You've improved, Lina. That almost injured me."

Lina has a second to react as Sekki rushes towards her and swings an arm at her, complimented (as usual) by her morphed-blade wing. Dropping to the floor, Lina watches as the arm flies overhead, then does a roundhouse sweep. Sekki drops to one knee as the sweep catches her left leg, and comes to eye level with Lina.

Lina : "You're getting slow, sister."

Sekki shrugs.

Sekki : "Comes with the age. You've got a while till my age though, so enjoy it."

The two flip backwards to get some distance between them and keep fighting. Lina comes in first, flying towards her older sister at an impossible speed, and Sekki sidesteps it just as quickly. Lina smashes into a muscle bound oni but bounces right back off to face her sister while everyone around the oni stands back as he tries to keep his guts in but fails.
Eyeing each other, Sekki laughs.

Sekki : "Always no control, very bad thing. Someone could get hurt."

Lina : "You."

Sekki gasps as Lina hits her with an even faster circle kick and staggers backwards. She ducks her head as Lina comes in again with a straight jab followed by a half circle kick as Lina spins her outstretched hand to her left, the kick catching Sekki in the jaw.

*crack*

Monsters : "Oooh! That gotta hurt!"

Sekki staggers to one side as she holds her jaw, and snaps it back into place with a loud crack. She turns to look at Lina, wiping the trickle of blood rolling down her jaw.

Sekki : "You're getting better."

Lina's eyes widen in surprise as Sekki suddenly comes at her with a mid-section kick, flying in that position to slam into her stomach. Lina flies into a wall, raising a huge cloud of dust.
Pulling herself out of the hole, Lina is nursing a similar trickle of blood from her jaw, then smiles evilly.

Lina : "Well then.... I can't fight you anymore, sister. So, instead...."

Ranma and the rest suddenly notice it's very quiet. They look around and notice that the demon army is staring at them. Sekki is doing the same thing, except she's staring at Lina.

Lina : "Attack."

And in a flash, the world seems to be rocked a primal scream. Everyone's eyes widen at the sheer force behind the scream, and shut them as the crumbling dirt around them falls into them. Lina's face is frozen in shock as she recognizes the scream.

Lina: "Mi'lord!"

Ranma and the rest are covering their ears with their hands and have their eyes shut tight, while the scream still echoes through the caverns. However, Ryouga risks a peek and looks around.
Seeing that the rest of the demons are still recovering from the shock, Ryouga gets the idea to escape. He quickly runs towards the nearest wall and pokes it.

Ryouga: "Bakusai-Tenketsu!"

With a virtually nonexistent explosion, Ryouga blows a hole in the wall. Akane sees this and grabs Ranma and Shampoo's arms, pulling them with her, seizing the opportunity to escape. Ryouga quickly starts burrowing through the rock with all due haste just as a demon notices their quarry's absence and screams an alarm, drowned out in the echoes of the other scream. Sealing off the tunnel behind them with a kick, Akane urges Ryouga to hurry.

Ryouga: "I'm doing the best I can without hurting anyone else, Akane-san!"

Akane: "Then let me do something about that!"

Trailing behind Ryouga, Akane uses her wings to shield the people behind her from the flying debris and stinging rocks.

They make much faster progress.

Cologne: "This is not good."

As soon as the last echo fades away into nothingness, Cologne removes the earplugs from her ears and knocks Genma's head, waking him up from the shock.

Cologne: "I'll bet that demon's found us missing and is planning to come after us right now."

Mousse looks at Kuno worriedly.

Mousse: "But, Cologne, how can we hope to outrun that demon!? We can't even..."

Kuno: "Get your hands off me, cur! I, the great Tatewake Kuno-"

*donk*

Cologne silences Kuno with a knock to the head before continuing.

Cologne: "Well then, it-"

*bam*

Cologne: "Can I never complete a sentence without being interrupted?"

Ryouga blinks as he spots the group in front of him to be that of the group he landed on the island with. Soun and Genma look at him for a moment, blinking. They begin to smile.

Soun: "Ryouga! How good to see you, my boy!"

Genma: "Now we can escape!"

The two begin dancing with joy, before Soun notices something.

Soun: "Er, Ryouga? Where are the rest-"

Akane : "Here, otosan."

Rage. Pure, unadulterated Rage. Killing Rage. Anger. Frustration. Everything that a demon can feel and more, none good, well up in Kuriimu's mind as he realizes his 'soul pantry' is missing. Or rather, empty. With a vengeance and anger at having been cheated, Kuriimu screams. The scream carries through the mountain, actually rippling the stone at weaker junctions. Frustration vented, Kuriimu begins thinking coldly.

Kuriimu: <They must have escaped.>

With a lust for revenge driving him, Kuriimu looks around and Feels for the souls of his captives.

Kuriimu: <There.>

Dropping to all fours like the great hunting cat he possessed, Kuriimu begins the hunt.

As soon as the demon screams his alarm, Lina blinks for a moment, then looks around her. She realizes that while Sekki is still there, the rest of the humans and that one strange succubus are gone. Her eyes widen in rage.

Lina: "They've escaped! They...."

She glares at the demons assembled.

Lina: "GO FIND THEM!"

Only too glad to be away from her, the demons comply. Leaving Sekki alone with Lina, Line gives her sister a loathesome smile.

Lina: "I'll deal with you later, sister dearest. Right now, I've got something else to attend to."

Sekki watches as Lina disappears off into the distance at high speeds, and looks at the empty caverns around her, then at the gaping hole in the wall with a small pile of rubble somewhere further in.

Sekki: <Stupid demons. They can't even see the hole in the wall.>

Soun: "Akane-chan?"

Akane quietly floats out from behind Ryouga, followed by the rest of the 'rescue' party. Head hung low, Akane dares not look at her father.

Akane: "Y....yes, otosan."

Soun: "A...Akane-chan...."

Throwing the emaciated Ukyo to Ryouga, Soun hugs Akane with all his might, crying. Akane starts a little at this, then lets him hug her, stroking his back as he does so. She feels so.... good.... at being hugged. For once in unknown years, she feels loved again. She holds back her own tears as she speaks.

Akane: "Oh, otosan.... I missed you! I thought I'd never see you again!"

Soun stops hugging Akane for a moment and holds her out at arm's length. He looks at her up and down. Sweat begins to form on his brow.

Soun: "A..Akane? Those are.... interesting clothes you're wearing... and those wings...."

Akane: "I.... I'll explain later, otosan. Right now, we need to-"

Akane blinks for a moment as Gemna comes into view with Nabiki slung over his shoulder. Ranma notices the pallid form of Nabiki, then at the similarly pale Ukyo in a shocked Ryouga's arms. Akane does likewise.

Ranma: "Ucchan?"

Akane: "One-chan?"

Soun remembers the two. He begins crying again as he quickly repeats the tale to the newly arrived group.

Shampoo and Sasuke look absolutely shocked. Ryoga looks stunned. Ranma and Akane look like they could kill.

Looking at the figure of Ukyo, Ranma cracks his knuckles as his chi aura flares up dangerously.

Ranma: "That monster'll pay for doing this to Ucchan and Nabiki."

Voice: "Better that you get them out first, Handsome."

Everyone turns to see the source of the new, but familiar voice. Sekki comes through the hole Ryouga made, dusting herself off as she does so. Looking at the motley collection of people, Sekki nods at Ranma.

Sekki: "I'd rather see to it you got them out first, Handsome. Kuriimu is not-"

Akane puts a hand on Sekki's shoulder. Sekki looks at her.

Akane: "Sekki, please do a favor for me. I already owe you my life, but...."

Sekki's eyes soften as Akane tells her to take the group out.

Akane: "Me.... and Ranma have something to settle here."

Ranma nods solmenly. Sekki looks at them, then nods as well.

Sekki: "Very well, Akane-chan.... if it means that much to you, I'll help you."

Akane smiles and nods at Sekki.

Akane: "You should win an award for being the kindest spirit on this island yet, Sekki."

Sekki shakes her head and smiles sadly.

Sekki: "Oh, no dearie.... I'm just an old and ageing succubus. And a fool to boot. We'd normally never be this good. I must've been a reject."

Akane shakes her head.

Akane: "Well, you aren't. You're a godsend and shouldn't we know. Now, get them outta here. We've got some business unattended, right, Ranma?"

Ranma: "You got that right."

Sekki nods, and gathers the group to escape. As soon as they are gone, Akane nods to Ranma.

Akane: "Time you put that new-lost fear of cats to good use, Ranma-kun."