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sweetthepotato · 9 months

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The Final Pillar: Chapter 22: When You Talk about Next Year, a Demon Laughs

Disclaimer*

Please note the following work is meant for mature audiences.

Masterpost

Chapter 21

Chapter Summary

The newly appointed Nightmare Hashira suffers from the aftermath of her mission, receiving tragic news from the site of the Mount Natagumo incident.

Contents⚠️

Warnings for graphic violence, emotional distress, death and loss, post-traumatic stress, abandonment, mentions of suicide.

If these themes bother you, please be cautious. Always seek professional help where possible if these may trigger you.

((Brief mentioning of Soft!Tengen))

Despite the absolute carnage that occurred in the forest, it took no less than a few days waiting for the kakushi to arrive. She’d been unconscious for that long under the shadows of the camphor and maple trees, her body slowly, but gradually, repairing itself from the previous confrontation.

Feeling more dead than alive, Kagome had to struggle her way back to the town where she resided for the past week or so. Covered head to toe in blood and gore, each step was like hauling around lead, and it took all the girl’s last ounce of strength to note the human remains of her team without breaking down and sobbing.

Her left hand still itched and irritated her, but she paid it no mind as to what that meant until much later. As she stared blankly into the distance, her brain tried to process the events that happened before. Her trek back into town, therefore, was a silent one. The horrified reactions of the local townsfolk, their mouths hanging open agape in the screams they were too polite to sound out, made little impression on her initially. However, it was over the next night, and then many others following, that they would join many of the other ghosts that would haunt her in her sleep.

The kakushi who arrived to greet her, deemed her physically in good enough condition by the conclusion of her mission. The imprints of the Metal twins’ nichirin swords would say otherwise, her insides still raw with pain, but Kagome had little desire to argue with them. When they affixed her with the honorific ‘sama’, she was dismayed as to the reason until one of them pointed at the seal on her left hand. Where the kanji for ‘kinoe’ once was, was now that of ‘hashira’, and despite what she thought that would mean when she was slightly more naïve, the appearance of her new title made her numb. The activation of the wisteria ink, the second time in the past month or so, reddened her skin with hives. It came across as more of a curse than anything else.

The days that followed occurred as a more monotonous routine. Kagome followed her first instinct, which was to get away from the town as much as possible. In an even more remote village, Kagome ate, read and trained in their open spaces. Her goal now was to build up her strength and stamina, and now that became a compulsion that fuelled and created its own form of hunger. Things didn’t go to plan at all, and now that the natural order between mentor and protégé had been disturbed, there was the raw, fierce notion of finding Shizu and forcing him to step up and get promoted already. The position of a pillar unnerved her, and it went against all of the carefully laid hopes and wishes she should’ve followed; she was to be his support in rebuilding the name and image of the Imado clan, not the other way around.

On the seventh day following, Mizutama flew down to Kagome’s room, which was a considerably rare visitation for Shizu’s bird. By this time, all members of the Demon Slayer Corps who were stationed nearby Mount Natagumo were called to assist, and that by itself was its own kind of bloodbath.

Mizutama landed on the ledge of Kagome’s window, his polka-dot neckerchief crumpled from his long-distance travel. The crow looked at her with as much sorrow a bird’s face could muster.

As he glanced at the girl, who’d changed much from the last time he had seen her, he lamented at breaking the news to her gaunt visage. ‘Kagome-san, I’m sorry to inform you that Shizuro-san was one of the first to be sent to Mount Natagumo to investigate the presence of demons in the area. He fought bravely, and in an attempt to shield the mizunoto and mizunoe slayers, he was compelled to use the last form of the Illusion Breathing style.’

On the outside, the girl didn’t even flinch, but internally, it was as if the last, already worn out, tether to earth snapped and her emotional landscape churned and stirred. She’d trained enough with Shizu to know his skillset, and that his ninth form, romantically titled ‘Ballad of the Hero’, was specifically designed to be a high-risk move.

That hurt more than any pain she’d ever had to experience, and considering how her last team mission went, it came across as a different sort of betrayal, the type that Kagome couldn’t find much of a reason to get angry at the man for. As unjust as it was, as guilty as she felt for thinking of it, it was as thought that, rather than choose to stay with her and fulfil his promise, he chose the Demon Slayer Corps, and that was a more specific kind of abandonment. The kind, understanding part of her psyche, the one that the Nightmare user very much blamed Shizu for creating, told her that her feelings of resentment were part of what made her human. However, the colder, more ruthless part of her, the one who’d experienced much and absorbed even more to fuel its influence, convinced her that no matter what she did, she was always in the wrong. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong plane of existence.

Her head shifted upwards towards Mizutama, who was aware enough of his own feelings to accept this as an appropriate response.

His beak pointed at the bag he brought with him from his travels. It looked to be made out of a soft, maroon-coloured cloth with a hand-braided drawstring sewn in, in order to seal its mouth. When she refused to move, dissociating, her world becoming greyer in her grief, he hopped closer to it and dragged it, strenuously, into her lap.

‘Open it,’ he insisted, or rather, instructed. ‘Shizuro-san had always planned for you to have this, if things ever came to the worst-case scenario.’

Mechanically, Kagome pulled open the drawstring bag and drew down the fabric to reveal the contents inside. With a soft gasp, the first audible thing she’d uttered in days, she found her friend’s oni mask, the one he’d been wearing ever since the day they first met. The mask was a fresh reminder of everything she knew and cared about regarding the person who was Shizu. It was a sort of confirmation, too, as he would have never parted with it, even to give it to his own heir, unless he died.

The material from which the mask was made, was allegedly from the old scraps and broken parts of nichirin blades. She remembered being told that it was forged during the Sengoku Period, by Shizu himself, his voice tinted with the notes of a hardly concealed pride, when it was the golden age of demon slayers. The carbon grey colour of the mask gave few clues, and so it was as mysterious as it was weighty.

Although she initially thought it was weird and ugly, she noticed a few things about the way the oni’s expression was designed. While the large, bulbous eyes of the oni were those that seemed to express a kind of sadness that matched its colouring, her mouth was shaped into that of a cruel snarl, as if she was laughing and barking at his own anguish and suffering.

In her tutelage, many years ago, Shizu explained the meaning of his family’s saying…

…The man slouched comfortably on the veranda of the Imado estate, the orange of the sunset beating down on the slight tan of his skin. A stick of kinako dango was held by the hand that supported his back, the light brown powder threatening to dirty the polished wood underneath him.

It wasn't the oddest place for her mentor to educate her in but considering that they’d just finished a bout of strength and body conditioning training, he thought it was as good an opportunity as ever.

‘A few things you need to know about the Imado clan, Kago-chan, in order to be properly initiated,’ he started, to the girl’s confoundment, ‘The first is our motto, which is the kotowaza “When you talk about next year, a demon laughs.”’ Half-chuckling to himself, his voice soft, he pointed to the gaudy oni mask on the top of his head, ‘Do you know what that means?’

She shook her head in the negative, thinking, with a pout, that Shizu was the first person she knew who’d even brought up the idea of demons in the first place. As she heard the Imado’s family saying, she couldn’t help but imagine a specific type of demon, rather than the topic of demons in general. She envisioned that there was some kind of cruel demon out there, who used their ability to see the future to play with the minds of unsuspecting victims.

Kagome peered into the man’s lone amber eye, its pool of molten honey shining in the sky’s transition to the evening. She wasn’t sure as to how to respond, and so she shook her head, which earnt her a small, patient smile etched in his lips in return.

‘Well… it means that it’s impossible to plan for, and predict the future, which probably sucks for me, here,’ he chuckled at his rare moment of self-introspection. ‘Kago-chan, I hope you understand this, which might help you when times get tough… Life… Life is a tricky thing,’ he said, ‘The choices you make, the emotions you feel, all they really are, are a sign of that moment. Humans are unpredictable creatures, as much as we try to control our destiny. We gamble, we roll the dice, as they say, but our plans change, and so do we… there’s nothing good or evil in how life is.’

He shifted his way closer towards her, and with his physical presence now in closer proximity, she felt the way his warmth radiated off his body and reached through, down the many layers of her skin. His hand reached out, patting the hair atop her head.

‘The Imado, long ago, decided to try and understand the nature of this saying, it’s been an obsession that’s lasted through the generations,’ his smile was a lit pile of kindling, ‘For now, we’ll laugh away what fears we may have about our future, and even if my bet on myself won’t manage to pull through in the way we’d want them to…’

The young girl nodded, thinking that she comprehended what he was trying to say, but not really. She thought that Shizu was in one of those wistful, opaque moods that were hard to decipher. The last few months of her life, before they met, didn’t concern any thoughts of the future; she only lived to survive, even if it meant to beg, lie, cheat or steal.

‘It might not make much sense to you now, but as you grow up, and work more as a demon slayer, I think you’d be able to come to your own understanding of what that means.’

…Kagome put on Shizu’s mask, not caring as to whether Mizutama was observing her. Even in the darkness the mask provided, the act of wearing it made her think of the sunset, of her friend’s smile and the fact that even though she’d carry on his dream for him, his absence, now a permanent one, would continue to sting. With a bitterness she swallowed, she thought that the oni the Imado were talking about must’ve enjoyed their show. Her grief confronted her with full force.

With apprehension, she couldn’t help but shake the thought that she was a poor replacement for the person she’d, wholeheartedly, wanted to call her brother someday. As the mask acted as its own barrier from the rest of the world; she felt the tears begin to flow.

It was midday.

Tengen awoke, still sluggish after the confrontation from the night before. Shinazugawa caught him that night, attempting a discreet -a flamboyant emphasis on that word -discreet search of Kagome’s bag, as something about the new hashira’s training struck him as odd, somehow. The aftermath of that, well, was just as Kagome thought it was. Shinazugawa, the fucking brat, took it as a sign that the girl was even more suspicious than she let on, and took particular interest in tearing into her satchel, his hands latching onto her mask.

The Sound Hashira acknowledged that it wasn’t too uncommon for some demon slayers to wear masks, but the material from which it seemed to be made was unusual. The design even more so, as it reminded him somehow of the harshness of his own experiences as a shinobi.

He understood her anger, he empathised with it, even, but he didn’t expect the usually stoic Nightmare Hashira to explode in such a way. That was something he could look into for next time, even something he could potentially ask Rengoku about. She seemed to let her guard down around him, so he might know.

Sighing, he stared at the opposite corner of their room. Kagome sat there, murmuring in her sleep, instead of lying down in the usual comfort of a futon and blanket. She was out of her uniform, seeing as she ripped up one of her earlier sets the night before, to show them both, in a fit of rage, her scars.

Tengen thought he understood the gist of it; that some other demon slayers had turned their backs on her, and that her existence among their ranks was a direct consequence of their actions. There were things about his life, too, that made him empathise with the worst kinds of betrayal.

The young hashira wore the aforementioned mask on her face. It looked as if it were a kind of security blanket, he supposed. It suited her, in a slightly flashy way, but it stood out against the youthfulness of her posture and visage. Now that her long hair flowed, unbound by the act of braiding, she looked more and more like the teenage girl that she was, rather than a battle-hardened demon slayer.

Using the shinobi training that had been etched into his being since birth, he snuck his way closer towards the unsuspecting girl. He couldn’t help it, but his curiosity continued to gnaw at him until it was satisfied. Peeling back the mask from her face, he found her expression peaceful, in a somewhat oddly unsettling way. He could spot the freckles that embellished her face, and the way her eyes darted under her closed lids, the brown lashes long and slightly curled.

‘Shizu-niisan,’ she breathed out gently, in almost a whisper.

And to that, Tengen noticed a stray teardrop run its course from the corner of her eye.

#demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kny fanfic #demon slayer oc #kimetsu no yaiba oc #kny oc #demon slayer tengen #tengen uzui

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sweetthepotato · 9 months

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The Final Pillar: Chapter 21: And There, the Forest Became Her Fortress and She Became Its Pillar

Disclaimer*

Please note the following work is meant for mature audiences.

Masterpost

Chapter 20

Chapter Summary

Pushed to her limits, Kagome has no choice but to face the incoming horde of demons, even if it means taking more risks.

Contents⚠️

Warnings for graphic violence, blood and injury, emotional distress, cannibalism (between demons), themes of survival, exhaustion and fatigue.

If these themes bother you, please be cautious. Always seek professional help where possible if these may trigger you.

It took a few seconds for the kinoe to catch herself, clutching at her side. With a tear this large in her abdomen, her Breathing alone wasn’t enough to stem the blood pouring out at the side of her abdomen. She felt the holes of her uniform enlarge, as with some effort, she channelled more of her demon powers into her bloodstream. The sensation was beyond the heat one would find in the water of an onsen; it burnt through her, lava-like and molten, but it repaired her wounds much more effectively. At the same time, Kagome took a stream of air in through her nose, inhaling slowly and steadily until she exhaled carbon dioxide through her mouth. The pain was there and still excruciating as all hell, but it had subsided.

The bleeding had sufficiently stemmed at this point. A few more moments later, the brunette was able to regain a standing position, her muscles now reinforced enough to scale the trunk of her camphor tree to its third-highest branch. With the threat of demons now looming closer and closer towards her location, the kinoe silenced her presence to next to nothing.

Her thicket became swathed in silence, save for the snarling monsters further off into the distance.

She waited, peering down below.

Her right hand, recently healed from Kirimori’s impalement, gripped at the side of the camphor to hold her steady. Her legs were spread out across the length of the branch, crouched low and keeping the rest of her body in balance. Her thighs tensed when the first ten or so demons were within eyeshot of her bird’s eye view. As they crept towards the scent of the dried blood on the tree’s trunk, she launched herself with increased power and velocity.

Now airborne, she announced herself, peeling back her layers of concealment. Katana withdrawn, she performed the fifth form of her Nightmare Breathing style, Hell’s Valley. Somersaulting three times before gravity led her towards the ground, she slashed her nichirin above the crowd. Fortified by a demon’s strength, the strikes were more powerful than they would’ve been without, fissuring the earth with a thunder-like crack. Some of the maple trees toppled down under the sheer force of her kata, and while some demons faced the brunt of her wrath, more fell under the destruction of their surroundings.

In that move alone, Kagome estimated that at least eight of them died, with an additional few more incapacitated and trapped in the ground. There were a few, her senses informed her, who were specifically crushed under the weight of trees, and this, she hoped, was where they’d stay until the sun claimed them. As she stumbled a landing on another, much lower branch, the girl released a small trickle of blood from her stomach wound onto the forest floor.

She was sure that a sizeable group would fall for her trick. Sure enough, another swarm appeared, including the hair demon who’d destroyed Kirimori earlier. Gravity seemed to allow her blood art as an exception; as the demon moved closer to her location, her tresses drifted in the air, at some points, ensnaring and cannibalising more of her fellow creatures.

There was a rumbling from Kagome’s tree trunk that travelled to the branch below her zori. The hair demon’s blood art snaked around the base of the maple tree, fully intending on crushing the base of her hiding place. Her hair only seemed to make its way to the half-point of the trunk, and so Kagome wagered that it was best to convert her set of kata into more mid-ranged attacks. As the tree broke down in its middle, tilting downwards in a perilous angle, the Nightmare Breathing user thought that urgency justified her taking the risk.

‘Nightmare Breathing, ninth form! Equinox Flower, inverse!’

Flipping until she was upside down, the kinoe spun in a clockwise motion while swinging her katana and wakizashi around in circular motions. As the ‘flower’ itself was completed, Kagome almost lost count of the demons she’d successfully eviscerated with her latest move. Luckily, the hair demon, as she was able to see when she flipped, landing on a much lower branch of a different tree, was well and truly decapitated. She didn’t hear a thing over the screeching of her teal blades, but there was a grim satisfaction at watching Kirimori’s killer waste away in the hours of the early morning.

When she jumped down for the third time, Kagome released Hell’s Valley again, cutting down more trees in the forest. Two other demons with blood demon arts ended up being squashed by the felling of camphor and maple.

As the kinoe landed back on the ground, she estimated there were still at least forty demons left in the forest. She inhaled deeply and breathed out, feeling her tiredness seeping into the muscles in her legs and chest, her vision darkening in her periphery. Swallowing her sense of self, she placed her wakizashi back into its sheath, arms trembling from the effects of her adrenaline.

She decided to try and keep her core sealed off for now. Her left hand holding her katana, she leaked blood, imagining thin cuts along her biceps, especially where the holes in her uniform and haori made her skin meet the humid summer air. If she was even remotely aiming to be successful with this, she needed to ensure that none of the demons were tempted with a visit to the nearest town.

Streaks of crimson wept from the lacerations in her skin, and then she closed them off temporarily. She concealed herself within the surrounding environment, running as fast as she could towards the horde, slicing down upon their necks and leaping off the bases of surrounding trees to provide more momentum.

‘Nightmare Breathing, second form, Despair!’

With the strike of her sword, each one in a different cardinal direction than the last, she metered out the exact amount of strength needed to decimate those in the horde. Where she was unable to cut through some of their necks, she’d slash at their legs, making those demons collapse and squirm from their injuries. When she charged against them a few more times, at one point from their north-east, and at another, from a south-south-westerly direction, she slayed the monsters with little time for reprieve. Being in such close proximity, she was able to hear their screams this time, their howling at their own demise comparable to the brute force of her nichirin blade.

The last part of her second form came to an end. Kagome skidded ungracefully into the earth, eventually outstretching her right hand towards the roots of a tree to stop herself from completely keeling over. The brunette’s uniform and haori were torn in various places; as she dropped herself onto one knee, she felt the wetness of the dirt seep into the gaps of the fabric. Her breath was abuzz with the smell of death, but the scent and texture of the earth was a source of grounding. Her heart was still beating, albeit rapidly, and she kept the grip of her camouflage tight, lowering her body closer towards the floor of the forest.

More acid made its way through her oesophagus. She followed her urge through, throwing up again at the side of the tree. At some point during Despair, she’d lost control of her Breathing, and now here she was, hyperventilating on all fours. Morosely, she noticed that her stomach started to bleed again, the tear re-opening. If she knew what would’ve happened earlier that night, she never would’ve intended to take on so many demons at once, but she reminded herself that she was the only one who could now. She acknowledged, though, that such physical exertion took its toll. If only there was more opportunity to train earlier in the week.

Her head swam, but even then, she half-berated herself; the moment Shizu caught wind that she got herself killed after letting her skills deteriorate, she’d never stop hearing about it for at least the next ten of her lives. There were people to protect, further away from her; she supposed that her pride as a demon slayer was also something to consider.

Shizu better fight a Lower Moon after this, she seethed.

Feeling, hearing, smelling, seeing and even tasting the air told her that more demons were approaching. Her bleeding made it completely impossible to continue hiding herself, and so she relinquished her careful control over her presence. Tonight was the night of risks, she thought, as she pondered her next move. It was a decision that was half a calculation and half made of desperation, but the brunette considered that it was worth it to utilise more of her demon powers, just as the same as she did earlier. She could sense the jawless demon with the pitchfork was making his way towards her, and so time added pressure.

She inhaled and exhaled, combining her powers with her Breathing. There was a hum coming from the deepest layers of her flesh, her heart palpitating, circulating more of that liquid lava through the channels of her veins. It made it to the scarlet dribbling from the wound in her abdomen and the power in the pit of her stomach grew there, close to the exact centre of her body. Below her, she saw her creation. It was a whirling spiral of blood, not yet fully corporeal, but it was good enough for now.

The kinoe refined it and honed it until the spiral smoothed over, eventually reflecting her haggard appearance. Her demon blood took its toll on her, and she dug her fingertips into the earth, channelling more of her essence into her new weapon. Her tongue slightly grazed against the top row of her teeth, and there, she felt her canines sharpen. Likewise, she could tell that her object was comparable to that of a razor, though now it was about the size of a square of tatami, albeit circular in shape. She concentrated, the pressure around her eyes pressing down around her sockets, until she exacted her authority over her creation, sending it flying into the trees.

To be safe, Kagome got up, hand on the hilt of her katana. The pitchfork demon withdrew his weapon from the confines of his flesh, preparing to throw it now he was dangerously in close proximity for a point-blank hit. As soon as he pulled back his arm, the sheet of her blood rushed past under the command of its master, splicing the demon horizontally through the middle of his body. His top half toppled over, as did the bodies of several others as they writhed in despair. Rushing forwards, Kagome swung her katana, not even bothering with a Breathing form. The pitchfork demon’s eyes widened in terror as his neck met the bite of her sharp blade.

In the time she was hunched over, her limbs had a small moment of reprieve. The Nightmare Breathing user reinforced her arms and muscles with a combination of Breathing and demon techniques. She was sure that she was hot to the touch now, if the singeing of her clothes was any indication, but she was sufficiently pushed beyond her limits. The katana in her left hand felt much lighter than it did before, and she angled it, no trembling in sight, in preparation for the next few Nightmare kata.

Screaming, more of the demons ran, scenting her marechi blood. She charged towards them in kind, tossing her katana up and away from her to make her seem as vulnerable as possible. With her right hand, she pulled out her wakizashi as her legs continued to sprint.

‘Nightmare Breathing, eighth form, False Salvation!’

She swiped using her much shorter nichirin, soon enough losing count of the number of demons she’d managed to cull. She’d made her calculations accurately, spotting how her katana descended towards her new position in the forest. It spun as it fell, but it managed to land in the palm of her left hand. With both hands now full, the Nightmare user continued to strike down any demon within her purview, not relenting on her assault until the last of the monsters had been executed.

At one point, she had to dispatch a hole-ridden demon whose blood art was the throwing of needles. The female, she supposed, must’ve been a seamstress when she was a human; she sprayed a bunch of spikes at her through the holes in her body, but her very skin had hardened with the power of Kagome’s very own demon arts, not even leaving so much as a dent. Upon cutting through her throat with a rendition of her second kata, Fear, she felt an irritating tingling on her left hand. The brunette ignored the sensation for now, out of the concern that if she immediately stopped herself mid-momentum, everything would come crashing down.

The closest group of demons were destroyed through exacting Equinox Flower one more time. The ninth form, as it was performed according to her moveset’s orthodox, repelled the dredges of the monstrous horde as the sharpness of her nichirin lopped off parts of their limbs to begin with. As she crouched down, adding the finishing touches to her series of circular swipes, the demons who’d faced her onslaught proceeded to dissolve with their screams, fizzling up into the lightening sky as if they were made of confetti.

With time, Kagome eventually descended upon the last of them. They were a female demon, she remembered, her black hair arranged in a loosened bun, and hardly even threatening in contrast to the others of her kind that night. With as much brutal efficiency as she could scrape out of herself, she was quickly beheaded. The monster screeched in pain as she met the brunt of her katana, but the girl tried her best to ignore her desperate pleading.

The demon slayer skidded to a halt upon finishing the first form of her Breathing style, a spinning cut Shizu named ‘Midnight Howl’. She tripped as her foot returned to its position on the forest floor, rolling over as the rest of her body buckled downwards.

Sensing the end of her impending danger, her demonic traits receded automatically. She didn’t find the strength within herself to get back up as she hyperventilated the air back into her lungs. There wasn’t much energy left in her by that concluding stage; her use of her blood demon arts, as it tended to do, had long since drained that from her. From that point, it took her utilising every last will within herself to try and warm her body back up.

The feeling of being cold, tired and empty bore into the very marrow of her bones. Her injuries were finally catching up to her, and they returned to her senses with a searing ache –that was always the risk, she knew, of involving her forsaken biology to its fullest. When she figured out that her position wasn’t going to be enough, the ramifications racking through her entire being, she used the last of her strength to shift to her side, hugging her legs in the foetal position. She needed to conserve as much of her body heat as possible. Trembling, her hand, as one last precaution, clutched at her wakizashi.

Her body, for the last time in the span of twenty-four hours, acted on its own. Her eyes felt heavy all of a sudden and she blacked out.

#demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kny fanfic #demon slayer oc #kimetsu no yaiba oc #kny oc

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sweetthepotato · 9 months

Text

The Final Pillar: Chapter 20: In the Midst of Despair

Disclaimer*

Please note the following work is meant for mature audiences.

Masterpost

Chapter 19

Chapter Summary

Kagome's team come face to face with an incoming horde of demons.

Contents⚠️

Warnings for graphic violence, blood and injury, emotional distress, cannibalism (between demons), self-extraction of weapons.

If these themes bother you, please be cautious. Always seek professional help where possible if these may trigger you.

Sekine was the first of her captors to meet the horde of demons. At first, she smirked in self-satisfaction; the knowledge they were abandoning Kagome to her fate most likely fuelling her skewed distinction between right and wrong. She ran quickly towards Kaneta, the spark in her eyes demonstrating how excited she truly was at the thrill of making such an escape. As her zori glided lightly atop the dry earth, it was clear that her euphoria dulled all the senses she would’ve gained from her demon slayer training. Long gone was the instinct for survival; she was too distracted to notice the glow of a demon’s eyes, nor perceive the waves of insatiable hunger lingering in the air.

One of them, a towering thing with a bald head, quickly swiped at her with a set of claws. The poor, deluded girl didn’t even get the chance to react to her attacker. Without even so much of a gasp or a scream of pain, part of her forehead and nose were completely cleaved off in a spray of blood. The rest of her summarily toppled to the ground.

Kagome watched the scene play out in front of her with horror. It was as if her head was pinned to the bark of the tree as well and she couldn’t look away from the gruesome display. The scent of the Metal user’s blood permeated the air and wafted into the brunette’s nostrils; if it weren’t for the pain she felt across her whole body, she was sure she would’ve become instantly green with nausea.

Sekine wasn’t completely dead; her hand still twitched and trembled against the dirt beneath her palm. Another demon, much larger and very much deformed from the human they once were, ran, stomping his feet in a rush. As he sped over towards another of Kagome’s captors, a new target easily spotted, his foot slammed into the girl’s back. With a sickening crunch, her spine was smashed into the forest floor as though it were an insect’s, and her body was therefore broken from the waist down. She was well and truly gone by that point; two other demons, teenagers from what she could tell, moved their way towards her corpse. Acting upon their hunger, they proceeded to tear out parts of Sekine’s intestines and devoured them gluttonously. The face of one of them, a female with a face solely consisting of mouths, snarled viciously. The red of the former Metal Breather’s blood dribbled down each of her pointed teeth.

Her twin, Kaneta, screamed his sister’s name, over and over again. The desperation in his voice battled with the squelching in the distance. He clambered his way towards her while more of the inhuman monsters ran their way out of the darkness. His grief made him blind and his senses dull, in too much of an emotional state to notice that he was completely surrounded.

His arms moved as he sprinted, Sekine’s remains now more of an imprint against fallen foliage. A smaller demon, one who was probably a child before they were turned, yanked him backwards, biting at his hand. That was the first of many casualties, as the child managed to tear off three of the five fingers from his right hand. He yelled in pain, his left palm instinctively searching for his nichirin katana. But, in his despair, he realised that his blade was already forfeit, foolishly lodged in the Nightmare user’s stomach.

Kagome lurched forward in a knee-jerk reaction. She writhed against the points where she’d been impaled against the tree, as if ripping herself off the bark was part of any remotely sane plan. As Kaneta’s sword sawed further into her side, she watched the boy’s face shift from its state of denial to one of morbid resignation.

‘No!’ She shouted at him, the sensation of uselessness settling into the layers of her skin. She cried that there were more of the monsters behind him, but it was beyond too late.

There was a scream when a demon bit a chunk of muscle directly from the back of the boy’s neck. The demon clutched at him with its full force, pulling him from the collar of his shirt. As more of the material tore away from him, his fear acting as additional seasoning, another one, upon another, swarmed around him, crushing his ribs inwards. Blood spurted out of the kinoto’s lips as the numbers surrounding him rose to about fifteen. In his last moments, his eyes shifted away from Kagome’s form, looming over the entrails where his sister’s body had been. His brutalised hand outstretched, he stepped closer towards her, but the crowd prevented such progress from occurring.

The next demon, his seven arms flailing on his back, swiped their claws at the side of his face, which resulted in the flesh, spanning from just under his cheekbone, to the side of his neck, almost being completely flayed off its skin. His cries transformed into futile shrieks for his older sister to save him, but he was eventually pulled under, the monsters more than already slaves to their nature to provide a modicum of mercy.

The brunette leant forward as much as she could, away from the tree. Her screams only really echoed Kaneta’s shouts, and she found that she couldn’t utter a single, recognisable word in response to the carnage she had to witness. Even though her wounds created for her a new, tangible kind of hell, her body, subconsciously working towards its own survival, relied on its demonic traits to keep as much of her blood inside of itself. While the wounds in her stomach and shoulder had yet to seal themselves over, the properties of the nichirin steel slowing that process down as it usually would, her right hand was starting to heal.

Self-repairing in such a manner was always daunting, but she felt the byproduct, adrenaline, coursing through her veins. Heart hammering in her chest, she stretched out her left hand, the corner of her shoulder bent over to its maximum capacity. The left hand, now able to reach its right counterpart, albeit with no small struggle, tapped the top of the tsuba of Kirimori’s tanto by the fingertips.

The Nightmare user gasped a series of short breaths, peeling herself by the inflamed muscles in her abdominals to reach further. She was grasping the hilt, tugging at the blade from where it was embedded. She writhed, and with each movement, the blades carved into more of her flesh. The globes of her eyes stung at the wet mixture of sweat and tears and she found herself squinting, then blinking them away until they continued to trail upon her cheeks.

With a cry of pained determination, Kagome eventually liberated her right hand from the tree’s branch.

Meanwhile, in her periphery, the last of her captors seemed to be surviving the longest against the onslaught of demons. As he shrewdly chose to dispose of a regular blade instead of his nichirin, he was easily able to slay at least three demons in the time of the brunette’s struggle. Two more charged at him at once, but the green of his sword glinted against the midnight blue of the night, unleashing a form from the Wind Breathing style.

‘Wind Breathing, third form, Clear Storm Wind Tree!’

A series of slashes rushed their way into the bodies of those demons, seeming to mimic the force of a whirlwind. Five more of the monsters were also taken as collateral and they disintegrated into ash as quickly as they arrived at the forest.

Only somewhat delirious, Kagome saw the oldest demon slayer of their group as a small sign of hope. Despite recovering from the wound he caused, she yelled at him to dodge the next few attacks that came his way. He crouched low, successfully dodging the demon who swiped at him from the blind spot at the back of his ear. With a swing of his katana, he lopped the head off of his shoulders.

‘…sixth form, Black Wind Mountain Mist!’

More demons, those that leapt above him, were eviscerated in an arching slash. Upon its return to a more neutral position, however, Kirimori’s arm started to sag at his side. As another group quickly raced to replace their kind who’d just fallen, the Wind Breathing user executed the seventh kata, launching himself into the air, seemingly intending to launch a comparatively much wilder attack. However, it appeared more sluggish than his previous efforts. When he was about to touch down, back to the forest floor, he was close to buckling down to his knees, his chest heaving for gasps of oxygen.

His panting devolved quickly into wheezing. With the next few demons, the Wind practitioner was about to release another move, an utterance for a fourth form half-stuttered from the man’s lips. He’d lost his bearings, finding his zori trampling in the middle of Sekine’s remains, the slipperiness of what appeared to be a piece of undevoured organ causing him to slip.

Luckily, that helped him dodge a swipe from one of the creatures, a horned abomination with his jaw missing, who’d attempted to strike him with a pitchfork at his side. In that time, Kagome just managed to remove Sekine’s katana from her shoulder, though her howl reflected that of her colleague, who’s next evasive manoeuvre failed to escape the points of another attack. The tips of the same pitchfork pierced through his chest, the strength of the demon’s assault pressing Kirimori into the sides of other demons as he was lifted up off his feet and shoved into the vicinity of a nearby oak tree.

He coughed up a little blood at first, but the pitchfork demon soon retracted its weapon, the points morphing back into the flesh of his body. The man convulsed because of his newfound emptiness, spouting out more blood in a similar manner as a fountain.

Another pitchfork was thrown at him from behind, piercing him all the way through his chest upon the second instance of impalement. Both he and Kagome knew that his chances of surviving past the night were nigh impossible. The holes and rips that remained from the demon’s rudimentary blood art were dotted around where his heart and lungs would be. And, by that point, not even the most advanced Breathing techniques would be adequate enough to save him.

The man, using the last of his strength, swiped at the demons who continued to surround him. As they disintegrated, he’d managed to clear enough space to crumple to the ground dejectedly. There was another one of the monsters, slightly more powerful than the pitchfork demon, that encroached its way towards the Wind practitioner. Initially, she looked more like hair than a creature made of flesh and bone, but as Kirimori crawled away, bumping into the rough trunk of a tree, there was something off. The demon’s hair floated in such a way that she was able to pin him in place against the base of the oak tree.

Wrapping her follicles around his neck, it seemed as though she’d be choking him to death, but slowly, the strands pushed their way into his punctures. She dragged him against his will, the hair swelling and writhing from the inside of the demon slayer’s body. He began to groan until his utterances evolved into yells. With a tearing sound, the man’s body was shredded apart, the demon using more strands to feed herself on his parts. All of a sudden, the person who was Kirimori exploded from the pressure of her hair, his limbs and organs flying out within a certain radius of where his body once stood.

All the demons nearby were easily distracted by the sight of more gore, clambering over each other to get to his flesh. Some were more than ravenous, their teeth clamping down on their own kind to get even the smallest taste of human meat.

The pain from Kagome’s stomach had dulled by this time in the night. However, there was a clear drawback; now that her brain was much less preoccupied, the stench of the nearby carnage was getting to her olfactory system. It was enough to make her sick, and in a badly timed display of vanity, she made sure to aim the acid away from her clothes, between her feet.

The revelation was unsettling, to say the least: she was now the last remaining demon slayer of their team. The urge to succumb to the rest of the group’s fates was a tempting one and as the edges of her vision tinted black, she felt the pull of oblivion waiting to claim her as well. In a moment of weakness, she trembled, petrified of the horde walking their way to where she was.

Her senses were overwhelming her, like having fifty cymbals clapping in her eardrum. She felt the presence of nearly two villages’ worth of demons making their way through the thicket of trees. Although, unbeknownst to them, her team had acted as a useful distraction, Kagome felt a sinking kind of dread pool in her.

Her life flashed before her eyes.

Her brain, reeling from the events of the past fourteen years in rewind, crucified itself on trusting Kirimori’s words of reassurance… she regretted having to work in more team missions, they hardly ever worked in her favour, anyway… she felt remorse at the outcome of her Final Selection Exam… the flipping of images stopped, jammed at that one tableaux, her memory of meeting Shizu for the very first time, his hand reaching out towards her…

He smiled awkwardly, that time they met. Neither of them were entirely sure of themselves, but…

She startled, the realisation washing over her like a bucket of cold water. The girl shivered, her heart clenching at itself in apology, for she was able to fail in holding up her end of the deal. Her chest racked itself with guilt at the notion that she’d ever regret meeting Shizu, the person who’d given her a sense of purpose.

He’d seen her. She remembered the day he found out about her demonic heritage, he held out his hand, rough and calloused from his almost constant training, and gently placed it atop her hair. He’d accepted her without much of a question, with the same awkward, comforting smile.

However lofty and ridiculous, she adopted his dreams as her own. Giving up on them in this way was one of the worst betrayals she could think of.

Mind now in a state of sudden clarity, the kinoe begrudgingly took stock of her surroundings, her situation, and her injuries.

She was in a forest, where the oak and pine on the far end transitioned to her location, where the tall and sturdy camphor and maple was. She could sense that of the seventy or so demons that remained in her thicket, at least twenty-seven had feasted consistently enough to develop blood arts. They brought themselves to her, not just because of the smell of her marechi blood, but because the experience that lay in every cut and tear upon her body taught her that demons were as ruthless as they were cannibalistic. If she was killed here, then they could just as easily feast on each other before searching for other sources of food…

It was too predictable, but that’s what the monsters were, in the end. The vast majority only wanted a few things, food, mainly, not too dissimilar from parasites who’d sup on the nutrients of their hosts.

Her resolve emboldening, Kagome noted that her hand had pretty much healed completely since the tanto was pulled out. With a pained sigh, she realised that her right shoulder had only just stopped bleeding, which meant that she was still able to use both arms for her kata. Together with Kaneta’s nichirin still in her stomach, her most major injuries were, thankfully, not yet fatal. Although they would result in nasty scars she’d estimated to require the course of a year and a half to fully heal, she understood grimly that this was good enough. The main priority now was that her body continued to be pinned to the trunk of her tree, and with a sharp intake of breath, she’d realised that Kaneta’s katana had nearly sawed through the entire left side of her abdomen. There was only a patch of flesh remaining before she thought her innards would start to spill out.

The existence of the sword, then, gave her a slight dilemma. As the demons were approaching her ever so closer, Kagome focused on her Total Breathing Concentration. Her lungs filled up with as much oxygen as they allowed, and as she exhaled slowly, her suffering subsided slightly. With both hands gripping the tsuba of the nichirin, she exerted the exact amount of strength necessary to pull it out. To distract herself from the sheer agony of such an act, she maintained her breathing, in and out. Once it was gone, she sighed, taking care not to collapse onto the deteriorating leaves beneath her zori.

#demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kny fanfic #demon slayer oc #kimetsu no yaiba oc #kny oc

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sweetthepotato · 9 months

Text

The Final Pillar: Chapter 19: The Girl Must Be Broken in Order to Be Re-built

Disclaimer*

Please note the following work is meant for mature audiences.

Masterpost

Chapter 18

Chapter Summary

Suspicions heighten as the kinoe's mission seems more and more hopeless.

Contents⚠️

This is where things may get disturbing, folks.

Warnings for violence, injury and blood, forced drug use, dissociation.

If these themes bother you, please be cautious. Always seek professional help where possible if these may trigger you.

‘There have been more refugees arriving here as of recently,’ Kirimori stated, his hand movements brisque, ‘Overall, the townsfolk are very much aware of the threat surrounding them, and if I’m feeling pessimistic about it myself, I don’t blame them for being jumpy.’

‘Kirimori-san, with the testimonies we’ve heard so far, we might have to arrange an evacuation here as well.’

He rubbed at his eyes, and all of a sudden, Kagome noticed the lines and folds that creased along his forehead. Shaking his head at her, the girl wondered at his resigned expression, ‘We won’t be able to save everyone, there are too many to control here,’ he responded. ‘I’m thinking that the Corps is asking us to stake our lives on an impossible task… At this rate, we won’t be able to defend the town, nor would we be able to direct the flow of such a crowd to a bigger area…’

‘As demon slayers, we’re putting our lives at risk, anyway,’ she asserted, the teachings of Shizu and many others’ ringing through her words, ‘If it means distracting the swarm heading towards us, I’d prefer that over giving up on the civilians and letting most of them die.’

It took a while for the older slayer to respond, his eyebrows knitted together with a kind of foreboding. The space he left behind in his considerations was filled with a disquiet until Kagome, in all good intentions, offered to call for reinforcements. His answer to the girl was not much other than two words signed in code, ‘Tomorrow night.’

Ever since their confrontation with Sekine and Kaneta the other day, Kagome realised with growing apprehension that she and the Wind Breathing user were keeping more to themselves than they would have. If only they were more forthcoming with the details of the mission, they would’ve had more of a chance to save the townsfolk and defend their homes.

However, after reflecting on the past few hours, Kagome realised that her apparent ally in all of this kept brooding by himself as of late. She stomped out the sneaking suspicion that he was deliberately hiding from her something important, but his signs kept his innermost thoughts vague. The girl considered talking about strategy, and about the option for her to use her thirteenth form, if need be, but the man seemed to want his solitude. Although he appeared to be coming to his own conclusions, she didn’t know what to make of the current situation herself.

With that in mind, she made sure to keep her futon situated much closer to the Wind user in their shared room. Lying on her own, she considered the option now to request for more reinforcements on her own, but upon further contemplation, it took her more than a few days of travel to get to her location. Even if they had to ignore the dubious behaviour of the other two group members, if they didn’t coordinate themselves by now, they were already set in fighting a losing battle. It was hard not to feel dejected at that, but she thought that everyone had come to terms with the risks of their profession.

If one thought a little bit more optimistically, she considered, then perhaps they would be able to scrounge something up, at the very least. There was a lot of lost time, and so she didn’t know much about the skill levels of the other slayers. However, if their current rankings indicated anything, it was that they were able to survive long enough to be in their current position; that had to count for something. Even if her team wouldn’t be able to receive any assistance on time, they should probably be able to contribute to the mission in a substantial way until they did.

With those resolutions staying in her head like a mantra, Kagome decided that a nap was a good idea to calm a tired mind and closed her eyes.

A few hours later, after hearing some murmuring off into the distance, Kagome’s eyes opened in the pitch darkness. She found herself alone in their room, where she suppressed the quiet panic thrumming under her skin. There was a feeling that something must have gone astray in the middle of the night.

Kirimori’s futon was hardly slept in, as she wasn’t able to feel the usual warmth of a human body from nearby. The quilt was left open too invitingly for it to have even been touched. Taking the chance now to exit out of the door, the kinoe made sure to keep her footsteps light and her presence melt into the walls and floors. In her mind’s eye, she housed her suspicions in a box and then submerged it, for fear of her emotions arousing any alarm in the building.

The muffled sound was further up the hallway, and now that Kagome focused on her hearing, it sounded more like a conversation between three people, rather than an intense confrontation. The girl heard her name mentioned a handful of times; in the first few instances, it was said with a scoff, which elicited the narrowing of her eyes. The next time she heard her name, in Kirimori’s gravelly voice, he explained how she was already suspicious of the twins and had argued for them to try and defend an evacuation of the town. She was then able to hear Sekine’s nasal tones, who, without any hint of subtlety, rebuked that prospect entirely.

‘I’m not sure how she became a kinoe before any of us,’ she huffed, ‘But I’m sick of her type in the Corps, the ones who expect the rest of us to commit suicide to protect spineless villagers for little in return… the town is doomed, anyway.’

‘Actually,’ Kirimori started, his voice contemplative, as if he was recalling something, ‘I thought it was a joke at first, but there's been a rumour going around the kakushi for a while, but it’s changed as of recently, from what I can catch… They’ve been claiming for a while that there’s been a half-demon slayer in the Corps, who’s been rising in the ranks quickly in the past month or so…’

‘A half-demon… I’ve always questioned how a kinoe could be so young; she seems so meek that I can’t imagine her skills are up to the same standard as the rest of us,’ the girl half-laughed, ‘The Demon Slayer Corps must be more desperate than I thought.’

‘Kirimori,’ her brother chimed in, ‘Remember we were called here after the last village was pillaged. When we say that the Corps gave us one final suicide mission, we mean it… if what you’re suggesting is true, then we’ll never be able to solve our country’s demon curse…’

‘My sister and I have been pooling resources, even ransacking some of those abandoned villages for one purpose, which is to leave the organisation. The fact that we’re here, even discussing it, implicates us all. I can guarantee that shit will hit the fan the moment Kagome calls in a hashira. If you ever wanted to live past tonight, I suggest you follow through.’

The Nightmare user heard more than enough. When she was only a few steps away from approaching the well-lit room, she took a deep breath, the anger she initially managed to wrangle, now about to bubble over the surface. Pushing the shoji door, she made sure to take another inhale as it slid open, composing herself.

To her confusion, the only person she saw inside was Kirimori, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He was peering up at her with a guilt-ridden but resigned expression. His mouth was pressed into a solid line before it creased further into a frown. With a nod, he signed the word ‘now’ in the Corps’ sign language.

Before she could even demand an explanation, the door slammed shut behind her.

Sekine, her dark eyes wild, grabbed at her and forced her down viciously. The force of her forearm strength pushed against her collarbone as they wrestled on the floor. Despite her self-indignation, Kagome knew there wasn’t much she was able to do, knowing they already suspected her of being a half-demon. Jutting out her elbows and pushing away the Metal Breather was the extent of what she could do in self-defence, believing that the Corps would see things differently if she harmed humans in any way.

The girl, exerting the limits of her strength, reached down, and searched frantically for something she seemed to have dropped to the ground. To stop the brunette from resisting any further, her forearm was pressed firmly against her windpipe. Running out of options, the Nightmare user focused more of her energy on her breathing, lest she pass out quicker than necessary.

The girl’s brother, who’d been in the other corner all this time, came to assist. He fumbled around in his pocket, before withdrawing his item and crouching down to her level. Staring at her, his face inches away from hers, his eyes seemed to pierce into hers, a menacing glower taking form on his features. With a whistle, his sister relented, now holding fast onto her upper arms.

Kagome broke into a coughing fit to get all the air back into her lungs. As Kaneta approached her, moving gracefully upon his knees, his left hand gripped upon the hair at the back of her head. Pulling it backwards, which caused the kinoe to gasp in shock, he exposed her bruising neck to his direct line of sight. His other hand moved, and through her peripheral vision, the brunette spotted his syringe, which contained a liquid she didn’t want to become acquainted with any time soon.

Squirming against their grasps, she felt the metal press against her skin, the cold sensation too short lived before the needle pierced into it with a sting. The liquid surged as it was forced into her system, and she screamed, terrified for her life. She knew that resisting the effects of the drug was now too late. After her third scream, Sekine, who was still behind her, covered her mouth firmly and attempted to hush her into submission. The more Kagome thrashed her body, to relinquish the girl’s grip, the quicker the perimeters of her vision darkened. Then, without much fanfare, she collapsed, the world completely blacked out.

The Nightmare user felt sluggish as she was carried away by two of her captors. As if he had multiple opportunities to practise, Kaneta held steadfast to her legs, his gaze staring indifferently to the path in front of him. She guessed that Kirimori was also there, with the way someone tugged at her biceps from behind. She recognised Sekine’s face amongst all of the distortion, smirking to the sound of the men’s feet, crunching on the leaves below. As she rolled, her control relinquished, to a different angle, she watched the swaying silhouettes of the trees above her, framing the eclipsed moon.

Whatever drug they forced upon her, made her body unable to move, and her throat unable to produce a scream. She could only watch as the images around her swirled and blurred into each other. Whenever they deigned to give her a second of clarity, Kagome felt her stomach sink in fear.

The Metal Breathing user, hands free of her burden, peered down at her motionless body. She sneered at her helplessness, watching as her head rolled limply onto and off her chest. With each bump and divot in the earth, she bobbed up and down, which seemed to be more than enough entertainment. Her thin lips moved -at first, without sound -but then, when Kagome was able to garner all her effort in concentrating, she was able to hear the self-satisfaction in her nasally voice.

‘…rry, Kagome-san…’ she heard Sekine gloat, ‘…ruined the plan …we never intended …and send for reinforcements.’

She tried to respond, at first, but could only emit a feeble moan to her captors.

‘Shh…’ the girl managed to press a finger to her lips, the feeling of the light pressure of her point as if barely ever touched her, ‘If you truly are just a human being, it’ll be over as soon as you know it.’

The brunette tried to shift her shoulder, her leg… any limb that was attached to her body, but they were all as heavy as lead. Her mind fought against the fuzzy feeling that was taking over. With as much consciousness as she could muster, she decided to focus as much as she could on her breathing to distract herself from her panic. As some of her nerves calmed themselves down, she drifted off to sleep again.

She came to. Kagome considered that it would’ve been at least two hours since her captors started carrying her.

During the time her mind shut itself down, her body was able to break down more of the unknown drug. Helped by her more advanced Breathing techniques, her vision was much clearer than it was before. This time, she was able to recognise the slayers had taken her to a familiar patch of forest. From the sound of the river running through it, to the dents in the boulder they managed to walk past, she realised that this was the same thicket she travelled through to get to the town in the first place.

Kagome had another realisation, which was one that came with its own risks. While her body functioned on autopilot, she’d unconsciously drawn upon her demonic physiology to accelerate the metabolisation process. Although her muscles were tighter than they usually would be, she felt it, the circulation of her blood and oxygen returning. Despite her sensations only merely trickling back to her brain and lungs, she was wide awake.

She tested her newfound strength against Kaneta’s hands, which were holding onto her by the calves. Imaging the movement she wanted to make, she at first focused on the big toe on her right foot. Feeling it wriggling in her white tabi, she then aimed at shifting the whole foot, and then a kick to at least dislodge it from the boy’s grasp. The first attempt only resulted in a small, barely even susceptible, upwards shuffle of her leg. However, upon further tries, she was soon able to kick and jolt her limb with a reasonable amount of force.

The teenager shouted to his sister, who was already a few metres away ahead of the males by now.

‘Sekine, I think this place is fine for her,’ Kirimori called out, his triceps clenching harder on her writhing arms.

The girl made a noise of agreement.

In the dark, she was dropped unceremoniously onto the forest floor. As she tried, desperately, to clamber away from the rest of the group, she felt their hands, clammy with sweat, haul her up and slam her into the trunk of a nearby tree.

She tried to scream for help, for her bird, Matsuhachi, and when that failed, cried for Shizu to come and rescue her like he would’ve if he was there. She tried to scream her loudest screams, but Kirimori’s hands clamped down on her mouth, muffling all the noise.

The weight of his arm against her still feeble body pushed her neck further into the rough texture of the bark behind her. Her nerves had gradually regained their sense of touch, so she felt the nicks and cracks of the tree scrape into the exposed skin.

The man below her smiled sadly, as if he had the gall to be remorseful about his actions. ‘Kagome-san, I hope you know that there aren’t any hard feelings,’ he said, ‘This is a matter of survival, you see, so don’t take it personally.’

She wanted to yell. She wanted to shout and roar at him through the grip around her face. She bit at the area of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, tasting the man’s blood and resisting the urge to gag. But even despite his very obvious pain, his grip didn’t budge even an inch from where he held her.

His other hand was also unyielding as it seized onto her right arm. Turning his whiskered face towards Sekine and bobbing his head, the girl took out her grey nichirin blade and made her way closer towards the tree. Her dark eyes glinted dangerously at her, the katana wavering in anticipation at its tip.

Kagome wriggled and cried, almost at the point of begging the trio to stop what they were doing. They weren’t aware of the consequences for harming her in such a way, she wanted to shriek. Sekine aligned the point of her katana at the centre of her right shoulder, and when it found its mark, she grinned madly. As the tip of the blade broke into her skin, she yowled at the intrusion in her shoulder. Kirimori visibly winced at the crush of bones breaking where the nichirin pierced her, but his grip was steadfast, knowing that it was too late to turn back now. Blood gushed from her new injury, spraying the girl’s sneering face.

Her right shoulder now substantially skewered into the tree, Kirimori removed his left hand from her. Reaching into his sleeve, he withdrew and unsheathed an ordinary looking tanto, its blade dull and scratched with overuse. As she was recovering from the shock of Sekine’s blade, he outstretched her right forearm against the nearest branch. After some trembling on his end, he managed to pin it there, and plummeted the steel into her right hand. Now longer muffled, the brunette screamed in additional pain, the nerves seizing and sending signals to the base of her brain stem. The Wind Breather’s palm was now covered in her red, and once more, he gave her another guilty look.

Her state of mind was in a strange place. She had half the ability to scream at Kirimori to fuck himself up the arse, but she didn’t have all of her bearings. It was the combination of the drugs, her terror and her pain that made up her delirium. She was sure that she dissociated from herself for a few moments, before Kaneta removed his hands from her, relinquishing his grip on her shoulder.

The boy unsheathed his nichirin katana, the blade blessed silver by the light of the moon, and for a third time, she was impaled. Her blood flew across his torso and seeped into the dark fabric of his uniform. This time, though, it was through the left side of her abdomen, with the sharp edge pointed away from the centre of her body. The girl felt her intestines squirm from the inside of her stomach, the blade threatening to saw her through if she ever attempted to struggle.

There were many words one could use to describe how she was feeling. In spite of the tear tracks trailing down her cheeks in pain, the kinoe’s face flushed with fury at her captors, and her eyes, now narrowed and grimacing, damned them. All of them were now covered in her blood, and that scared her to no end. Her heart pounding against her ribcage, the adrenaline rushing through her veins, the girl knew that it was only a matter of time until they would all realise what they’d wrought.

The thicket, she knew, joined multiple villages together, and was the perfect place for a massive gathering. They were coming and there was no stopping them.

She could scream now, but it was pointless, she realised. She wanted to ask them, plead with them about what they were doing, that they were now in the most amount of danger they could ever be. The trio looked to each other, with various reactions ranging from regret to sadistic joy. And staring back at her, Kirimori’s eyes beseeched her, pityingly, for forgiveness. Kagome glared in return, but it was too late; his expression searing itself into her nightmares in perpetuity.

Her captors did not hesitate much longer to try and abandon her in the forest. But unbeknownst to them, this wasn’t long before Kagome was able to sense the first five demons making their way. Those five quickly became eighteen, and the kinoe’s breath hitched as she sensed at least twenty-seven walking towards their group.

The last thought Kagome had, before they came, came from the voice of her much younger self. It was the ‘her’ that was there well before her time in Sendai, the one part she tried to hide and suppress more than the others in shame. She, with her much shorter hair and smaller stature, sobbed louder than she’d ever done.

Her child self was fed the wave of fear the Nightmare Breathing user allowed to wash over her. In her tiny cries, the girl whimpered inside her head, pleading to no one else and nothing else, ‘Don’t leave me here.’

#demon slayer fanfic #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kny fanfic #demon slayer oc #kimetsu no yaiba oc #kny oc

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