Akira

1. Fateful meeting

Her movements were smooth as her delicate fingers strummed the strings of her Koto. Her long silky blond hair cascaded down her back, framing her delicate porcelain face with warm lavender eyes, rosy cheeks and blood red lips. The snow white Kimono she wore that had blue edges gave her a more ethereal look.

She was a goddess in the eyes of all that looked upon her and her music brought calm and tranquility to this usually unsettled town.

When her song ended, she bowed respectfully to her audience before she left the stage. Her host was sad that she had to go. He had never gotten this much business before.

"Lady Himorogi, must you truly leave?" The man asked her.

"Unfortunately, Paku-san. I have a long journey ahead of me and it'll be a lot easier if I cover much ground before sunrise. The heat has been brutal these days at noon and it will slow me down." The young woman explained as she began to pack away her instrument, preparing for the long journey in front of her.

"But my dear, travelling after sunset is dangerous. There are demons lurking in the darkness."

Demons. She never usually heard the townsfolk talk about it but the fact that these people weren't shy about mentioning such a thing informed her just how awful their experiences must have been. Most people in the places she went to didn't believe in demons.

Letting out a sigh, she gave him a gentle smile.

"Thank you for your concern, Paku-san, but I do not fear demons. I will be alright." She told him.

After a few minutes of trying to convince her to stay, the man finally let her go, begrudgingly however.

The moon had an otherworldly aura around it that night. The air, however, had a chill to it. There had been a shift in the current sometime during the evening and that had told her that something bad was coming to this town.

She usually preferred to stay out of trouble but she knew that once again trouble had found her.

A chilling scream suddenly broke the silence of the night. It only lasted for a second hence she knew that she would arrive too late. Taking out her personalized red bladed Kusari Fundo, forged with nichirin ore, she dashed towards the place where she sensed the demon's aura.

After running for about three hundred feet, she came to a grassy clearing. Four dead bodies lay mangled and battered on the ground but the thing that caught her attention the most was their black uniforms.

Demon slayers.

She caught sight of a fifth slayer, the poor girl stood with her sword drawn but her limbs were shaking heavily.

The man who stood in front of her had a hand on the hilt of a sword that was sheathed by the side of his hip. The gentle evening breeze caused his dark burgundy ponytail to sway with the wind. Against the pale moonlight, he looked regal. If it wasn't for his obvious demonic aura and, as she soon noticed, the six eyes that stared his opponent down, Akira would have believed that he was another swordsman.

As she looked closer at him, she could see the dense muscles and sense the heaviness of his demonic aura. He was unlike any demon she had ever encountered before.

At that moment, she knew that if she doubted herself, he would kill her.

"Total Concerntration : Stone Breathing, Second Form, Upper Smash!"

Akira shouted these words as she threw both her scythe and weight for a pincer move before smashing down on the chain to cause the weight to then rebound and smash her target from afar.