A New Beginning

Stars

Little by little crushing the boy's neck, with one of her nails, cutting open the bandages to show the scars across his mouth.

"AHHHHGG!!" The nail began to tear away the small progress that the skin had made to reattach the wounds until he felt the blood going down his throat. 

'Crash!' 

'Smash!' 

He could hear his own head being crushed, his own eyes being pulled out before the snake demon devoured him whole, crunching every part of his body until there was nothing left.

So this is how I die...

In the end, there was nothing left. 

"WAKE UP!" 

He was wrong, there was light, and then there was a horrible pain in his head, and a sting in his cheek. 

"Don't breathe the air around here, and get out." He remembered the voice, it was the same girl who gave him the dagger. 

"YOU BLOODY BASSSTARD." The demon hissed as she let another one of her screeches be echoed through the forest. 

Obanai felt his hand, it wasn't broken, then his cheeks, the bandages had still been there.

"What happened?" He asked through Giyuu's cloth, but she didn't answer, instead she let go of him while closely paying attention to the demon in front of them.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" 

"Get out now!" Obanai made a run for it, constantly limping to the other side where Mitsuri had been dragged while trying to get as much as possible back to his lungs, which was quite hard considering the demon's illusions.  

The demon's hand regenerated fiber by fiber until it was complete. In one swift movement she tried to gouge out Giyuu's head, who simply dodged the attack with no problem. 

The seconds passed and Giyuu managed to dodge all of the claws with her sword, now back up against a tree, she dodged the incoming attack that had easily sliced the tree from behind. 

One wrong move and she could very well be dead with one movement. 

"Blood demon art: Chanting." Her nails grew thicker, longer, far sturdier than a bear's claws, and a small liquid could be seen dropping from her scales. 

 It must be poison.

Giyuu prepared herself, taking a deep breath outside of the smell of the snake.

"Third form: Flowing Dance." 

The demon couldn't get closer to her without Giyuu already slashing away her arm, and as much as she tried to, the hunter was always one step closer to cutting her down. 

Giyuu noticed just how even after cutting one hand, the other had quickly regenerated to strike her again. 

From the top of the trees, to the boulders, and back to the ground again, Giyuu fought off the snake demon, and at the same time, kept her distracted long enough for Obanai to escape. 

What she didn't know was that someone else was there.

"Ah!" Giyuu had let go of her katana as she didn't notice the tail that came after her. With another attack from the snake's tail, the demon had finally gotten her to the ground. 

Dammit, if I breathe now I'll get drowned in the illusion again.

Her blue eyes looked back at the snake demon that had crushed her katana in two.