𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀 | 𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐨

𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐱

She stilled, leaving Sabito alone for a moment. Is he a boyfriend now? Is that what ...

His grumbling shook her from her thoughts as he sat up, stretching and finally opening those pearly eyes to give her a sleepy smile. "Okay, I'm up."

Just like that, she was lost in just his presence, drowning in his eyes, entranced by his lips. Y/N shook herself at the realisation that she was staring.

"Good," she managed to force out, hopping out of the tree awkwardly and landing with a stumble.

"Hey, what's with the impartiality?" Sabito protested, landing beside her much more smoothly and dusting off his haori. "Don't I get a good morning kiss?"

Y/N fixed him with a look, fighting the laugh that was swelling up within her. "It's literally nighttime."

"Doesn't sound like a valid excuse to me," he teased, capturing her in his arms and making her squeal with laughter as his lips peppered one, two, three kisses to her cheeks. 

"Really?!" Giyuu's groan from the other side of the clearing had both of them snapping back to attention with small smiles. "I'm so glad I only have one night left of this."

Sabito winked. "See, but, we'll be Demon Slayers by your side for years. You haven't seen anything yet."

Y/N flushed at the connotation in his words, saved by Hiroko clapping her hands (she seemed to do that a lot, like an older sister trying to wrangle all her siblings). 

"We're going to hunt together tonight," she explained, twisting some of her hair around her finger. Y/N noticed that her hair was free of the usual braids, and was much longer than she'd thought, almost to her elbows. "Make our way down the mountain, because when the sun rises, we're out of here."

The group murmured excitedly, each of them reaching for their weapons.

"Let's do a tag system, rotating who's leading," Hiroko suggested. "I'll go first with ... hmm, Asa, you up for it?"

The boy shrugged, moving to her side and looking somewhat disgruntled about the fact he only came up to her chin. She continued to rattle off names, pairing them up to lead, and Y/N tuned out a little, trying to stifle a yawn. The Final Selection had definitely fucked up her sleep schedule.

"... and, I think we should put our two lovebirds together last!"

She snapped back to attention, noticing Sabito smirking at her. Attempting to shrug casually, she nodded and leaned just a little closer to him. Hiroko organised them into a sort of arrow formation, giving them the final order "do not get separated", before nudging Asa and lunging into a run.

Y/N was quick to follow, scanning the forest around them as they began to weave through the trees. Sabito ran by her side, the silent reassurance of his presence inexplicably comforting her. Though it was dark, there was just enough light from the stars to see and hunt by ... not that it revealed much.

Even though that night was the climax of their entire trial, there wasn't a demon to be seen. 

"This is creepy," Y/N whispered, as she and Sabito switched forwards for the fourth time that evening, bringing them to lead the group. "It's been hours, but there's still not a sign of anything. I know there were a lot of demons in the clearing the other night, but that couldn't have been all of them."

He shrugged, pulling his fox mask to hang on the side of his face to look at her better. "Maybe it's just an easy conclusion. Besides, they might still be scared of your fire."

The explanation was logical, but Y/N was still shaken. And then, barely ten minutes later, they realised that they had spoken far too soon.

An awful sound grated upon all of their ears, like the screams of hell-sent souls, like the audial embodiment of pain, like death, death, death. Y/N almost dropped her sword in her hurry to sheathe it, raising her hands to shelter the sides of her head and try and block it all out.