fire & water (TanjiroxReader)

Chapter 32:Scroll

    For once luck was in my favor, because I had just enough strength to counter the blow and was spared by the feast of the blaze. The material of my sleeves was partially singed by the flames, and my skin endured a few burn marks too. The bright side was that I wasn't fried like gourmet tempura!

    I waited for the flames to subside before lowering my weapon and dropping my defense to the point where I could calm my senses, allowing the flaming form behind me to flicker out without destroying more of the forest. I looked around whilst wearing a befuddled expression and heaving heavy breath after breath, seeing that I was the only one standing out in the open.

    "Dammit... he got away again..."

*End of flashback*

    Tanjiro gently took my arm around the back of his neck and hoisted me up onto my feet, letting me support most of my weight on his body. "Thanks Tanjiro..."

    "No problem! Let's just get you back to the butterfly estate as soon as possible!" The boy smiled at me while hiding a reassuring spark in his eyes, gently squeezing the hand of the arm that wasn't draped around his neck. Together we started to slowly walk forward, and we were equally too worn out to go any faster.

    To my right I could see the abandoned shrine, or what used to be of it. All that was left of it after the battle was the stone foundation and a few toasted wood planks, the rest of the structure had been totally destroyed in the fiery battle. Heh, seems that shrine couldn't withhold against everything.

    As my head lolled to the side a little each time I took a step, it was then that it hit me; The demon had both survived and escaped with the exact attack I'd promised myself not to let him get away with. And that... was my strongest attack.

    ... Fuck.

    I really didn't expect this mission to turn out like this.

Shinobu's POV
    I idly walked through the morning streets of the Amber village; snacking on a simple onigiri while using the directions given to me from one of the villagers to navigate my way around. I was mainly in search of where they kept the town records, I'd been to multiple buildings already but; none of them had proven to be the place I was looking for.

    Last-night's mission had gone relatively smoothly, my target was just your run-of-the-mill demon. The mediocre foe wasn't anything a pillar such as myself couldn't handle. To me my mission felt more like a side task, with my main one being the search of information on (y,n)'s family. I needed to know just what was going on within the (l,n) bloodline, not only for the sake of my curiosity but for the (h,c)-headed girl.

    Might I mention that this was for the purpose of the background interrogation of (y,n) from each of the Hashira, though I doubt I'll find anything that would be useful to that subject.

    I was continuing down the same direction of the path when a large opening in the closely built buildings caught my attention. The dirt road split apart to go through this opening, and it lead to a slightly larger building behind the rest of the street. Bamboo surrounded the place in a crest shape to make a serene frame around the important looking building, and there were old paper lanterns hung around the area to attract people to its entrance.

    "Hm, I was told that the historian's place would look something like this. This must be my stop!" I muttered happily, walking up the dirt path and entering the building. At first glance, this place could've been mistaken to be an entire library by the look of things. There were loads of shelves stacked to the very top with hardcover books and scrolls, with a lot of them varying in size.