A Second At Love (Derek Hale)

Chapter 23: De-Void

Skylar POV:

"Oh, now this is a stand-off I wasn't expecting." I chuckled as I entered Derek's loft to be met with the sight of the Sheriff pointing a gun at Chris, who was pointing a gun at Stiles. Oh, rather the Nogitsune.

"Where have you been?" Allison exclaimed, her attention turned from Nogitsune to me.

"Killing, among other things." I answered truthfully, going to stand beside Chris and raising a brow. "Chris, put the gun down."

"Sky, you know just as well as I do that Stiles is gone." Chris glanced at me while keeping the gun trained on the fox.

"At the moment, yes." I admitted. "But the two of you aren't helping Stiles at all in this fight. The Nogitsune feeds off of pain, chaos, and strife. Now I don't know about you, but what I just walked into seemed a lot like strife. You're just feeding the fox, making him stronger. By fighting each other, you're playing right into his hands."

"Not exactly." 'Stiles' spoke up, smirking. "It would be nice if Scott was here too, but I'm pleased that you showed up." He nodded to me, making me hum in acknowledgment. "I'm glad that you got your guns out. You're not here to kill me, you're going to protect me." Moving back so that we were between him and the Oni, the Nogitsune looked very smug at the recent turn of the events.

"Oh don't act so surprised." I groaned as Chris's eyebrows shot up, taking out my own gun. "He's a trickster, this is what they do." Checking my rounds, I slid the magazine back into place and chambered a round, pointing it at the Oni. "And now we're paying the price for walking right into his trap." Pointing it at the Oni, I smirked as I began shooting, getting closer with each step. Using up the rounds, I quickly holstered the gun and pulled out my silver knife again, beginning the hand-to-hand combat.

Admittedly, I wasn't as good as I could be at it, and it probably would've helped if I had my katana with me, but hunters made do with what they had. At least, I did. Backflipping to avoid one of their swords, I slid between their legs and was fixing to stab them right in the back they suddenly just disappeared. Blinking in surprise as my eyebrows shot up, I turned to observe the rest of the room, which now only contained us five, the Nogitsune and the Oni both missing.

Spotting the wound on Derek's shoulder blade, I went to a closer look at it, making sure they didn't have any poison or wolfsbane coating their swords. Looking up as the door slid open again, I relaxed at the sight of Scott and Kira, knowing that at least the Oni or the Nogitsune wasn't back again. "What happened?" Scott asked, seeming surprised at my sudden reappearance.

"They disappeared. They literally just vanished." Allison informed.

"And so did Stiles." The Sheriff added, looking very defeated.

"Since when did Sky get back?" Kira asked hesitantly, the look on her face telling me that she wasn't sure if she should bring me up or if I was to remain the white elephant in the room.

"Literally just before the fight started." I answered, cooling the air around Derek's shoulder to help stop the bleeding. "Right now though, let's not focus on my weird and sudden disappearance, let's focus on finding the Nogitsune, and find out why the Oni backed down."

"What makes you think there's a reason?" Scott asked.

"Because they don't back down." I sighed, meeting his eyes. "Ever."

*****(Later)*****

Once the others had left, Derek had gone to clean up and I reloaded my gun, cleaning it before placing it back into my holster. "What are you doing?" I asked as he came back down the stairs, hair dripping wet and a chessboard in his hands.