Amare Flos (Demon Slayer)

Chapter 26: Potential

Kaze's body was tense, the mountain stayed motionless as the three stayed silent, the tall grey trees as still as statues. Not even the wind dared to intervene in the silence. Eira's heart beat slowly, cold shivers jolted across her body occasionally feeling danger. Her mind raced trying to locate where the danger was sprouting from. Kaze turned his body again, his back facing the two girls.

"Are you alright?" Asumi whispered to Eira tapping her shoulder. Eira just looked at Asumi, Eira felt a cold sweat break over her face, the cold atmosphere sending chills down her entire body. She put a single finger over her lips, and slowly closed her eyes to focus, she breathed in a deep breath of the cold dry air. Eira's mind burst into imagination, she could feel the auras vividly, they were all around the mountain. All squirming, all struggling, but why?

Then Eira's mind grasped it, the outstanding auras that overpowered the others. There were three figures, all in different places on the mountain, a deep crimson associated with each of them. Eira's eyes opened suddenly when she heard a violent gasping for air. In front of them, a girl in the Demon Slayer Corps uniform grabbing at her stomach, stumbling forwards. She fell forwards, and was caught in the arms of Kaze.

"Please... No... Spiders..." The girl's face was pale and her eyes were almost closed, Eira rushed to her assistance, her heart pounding seeing the horrid sight of the frightened girl.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Eira asked quickly. The girl struggled to get back to her feet, relying on Kaze's support.

"20 Mizunoto... and 2 Kanoe... That's all they sent... This mission is for Hashiras... I..." The girl said through vicious gasps, her voice got soft as her head tilted back and she seemingly passed out. Eira covered her mouth, 20 Mizunoto and 2 Kanoe?

The girl had stated that this mission was for Hashiras just how bad were the demons?

"What are we waiting for? There are people to save." Asumi clenched her sword, putting up a fake facade of confidence. The fake facade of confidence was created because of a certain insecurity Asumi had developed. She had been thinking about it ever since the incident with Ali. She has been thinking about the first mission, and in the fight with Upper 3. She had been useless. She had barely done anything in comparison to Eira or Ali. She hated that thought that she weighed down the team. She wanted to contribute just as much as they did, instead of standing around out of fear. She looked at Eira and Kaze and started walking. Kaze laid the girl's body sitting upright on the trunk of a tree and followed Eira.

Kaze and Asumi had already started walking in the direction the girl had appeared from. Eira reluctantly followed, the strong crimson in addition to the doubt she felt after the terrified girl appeared throbbed at her head, a mission that was meant for Hashira, that line repeated in Eira's head.

As they pushed through the thick bushes that populated the path, after a couple of minutes of walking, they were met with a horrific sight. All across the tall trees, tied to branches, silk white cocoons hung from the branches.

They all stood in shock as they saw a mass number of cocoons in the shapes of human bodies hanging from trees, for every branch there, a human shaped cocoon hung, squirming with desperation. Every single one of them screaming for help.

The three stared at the sheer number of cocoons stretching til as far as they could see, the girl's number was inaccurate, there were definitely much more than 20 people assigned to this mission. There had to be at least 50 people in these cocoons alone.

Eira tilted her head downwards, looking at the trees, she squinted. The overwhelming amount of auras in the air was distracting her from the obvious aura that stood 20 metres infront. One particular tree felt weird to her, someone was there. Hiding. Before she could even react, in the corner of her eye, the green sword that Kaze held gleamed as he swung it.