burning for you - rengoku k.

fourteen.

The morning came, I felt so tired after staying up with Mitsuri for so long. I let out a big yawn as I set up in bed and stretched. I heard a knock on the door suddenly.

"Come in!" I said, as I wrapped my haori around me to cover my body.

Kyojuro entered the room, with a soft smile. "Good, you're awake" he said. "Can we leave after breakfast?"

I nodded. "I will be downstairs in fifteen minutes"

He left the room, so I started quickly getting ready. I cleaned up myself, brushed my hair then I put on my uniform. I attached my sword to my waist then I was ready to go.

We had a simple breakfast of eggs and rice, we could barely finish it when Nozomi and Kyojuro's crow flew inside by the window.

"There is a demon in a village not too far away" said Nozomi. "You two are the closest"

We quickly ate the last bites of food and we were ready to go to that village.

When we got close, I already felt that something was not alright. At all. The wind brought the metallic scent of blood, and the silence around the village was deafening. You couldn't even hear animals nearby.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Kyojuro" I said as I stopped running.

"Yes, me too" he agreed. "I think we are about to face a strong opponent"

"Let's not make a hasty move" I sighed worriedly. He nodded, so we slowed down.

Once we entered the village, the quietness seemed even more odd as the streets were filled with people. But, they made no noise, they didn't talk to each other, they were just walking around.

It felt like a ghost town, but these people were very much alive. Their eyes were empty, like their minds were elsewhere. A shiver ran down my spine as I looked at them. We were quietly walking on the streets, but the villagers acted like we weren't even there. It creeped me out.

"Kagemi" whispered Kyojuro, not wanting to stir up the quietness of the village.

"Yes?" I whispered back.

"Please, be on guard. I can't feel the demon around"

"Yeah, me neither" I said, shifting my gaze from one person to another, monitoring the crowd for a possible threat.

I had never seen anything like this. But, it wasn't so unimaginable that a stronger demon is capable of some sort of mind control. The problem was, that we couldn't sense the demon itself at all, only the lingering scent of blood. We had to be patient, waiting for the sun to set, but it was still before noon, so we had plenty of time until then.

Kyojuro tried to talk to the villagers, asking for any information, but as expected, he was unsuccessful. The villagers completely ignored him, like he wasn't even there.

"This is scary" I noted, stopping at the middle of the street. "Let's go back to the forest for now and wait for sunset. I can't sense the demon right now and I don't think we will be able to learn anything from the villagers"

He nodded with furrowed eyebrows. We went back to the forest, sitting on the ground, waiting for time to pass.

The sun eventually started setting. We returned to the village, and we saw that all the villagers were walking to the same direction.

We looked into each other's eyes with Kyojuro, and we both nodded. We decided to follow them.

They were all walking slowly to the other side of the village, there was a big barn.

I started to feel the strong scent of blood there and some sort of cold coming from inside the barn.

That must be the demon. I thought, and I knew that Kyojuro came to the same conclusion.