"Huh? Concentrate my anger?"
Sakusa nodded, "That's right, brat. Concentrate your anger, give your emotions direction, and you can use them to grow stronger."
The duo sat down after a long day of training together the day prior to the fight, sitting under a tree with the food they had bought during their lunch break.
Sakusa, of course, had tempura and riceballs in his lap, while Shinobu made the mistake of buying fresh fish from the docks and expecting it to stay fresh if she kept it out of the sun.
When they had finally stopped their sparring and training to eat, it was nothing but wrapped up, lukewarm, mushy filets.
She flashed Sakusa a smile, saying "Ah, well, it can't be helped, I wasn't even that hungry anyways~!"
On the inside, though, she was weeping softly on the ground in a fetal position.
Uggghhhh.......I spent a good amount of money on that fresh fish, and now it's all gone to waste.....
As the taller man on her left ate his food, he proceeded to explain his thoughts.
"So, Kocho,"
"Mhm?"
"You know how when you're pissed off, you experience all those different changes to your body?"
The ravenette nodded, her eyes fixed on the boy's crotch with drool threatening to pool out of her mouth.
Mmmmmm.....food......
Sakusa, though, quickly caught her gaze and ever so slightly blushed a shade of pink.
"O-Oi!" He sputtered with a flustered face, "Quit being such a pervert, if you're gonna do that stuff at least don't make it so obvious!"
"Eh?" Shinobu was visibly confused, but after a few seconds, her eyes shot open and she burst into a flustered mess.
"I-I WASN'T-
"W-Whatever!" Sakusa interrupted, averting his gaze and glueing it to the ground,
".....a-as long as I don't notice, y-you're free to do what you want....."
Shinobu's mind went blank.
.....eh?
Is Kari-san.....
"Are you a submissive and like being spied on or something, Kari-san?"
"WHA-!?"
Brushing off the question with a flustered sigh, Sakusa composed himself and continued his explanation.
He didn't give a concrete answer, though, much to Shinobu's amusement.
"Ahem, l-look, brat. I'll try and make this shit as easy as possible for you to understand. When you're angry, your heart rate spikes, increasing your blood flow, and your mind can end up going blank and empty if you let it, increasing your concentration."
"Rage is nothing like you believe it to be. You can control it and repress it to an extent, but when it comes to you, I doubt you have the practice and skill that is necessary to do anything but cover it up with that other personality you use as a mask."
H-How did he know I use a personality to cover it up too?
"E-Erm, I guess, haha..." Shinobu awkwardly chuckled. She didn't have a clue what to say to the mild dig at her, so she simply kept her mouth shut.
"Well, think of it this way." Sakusa continued, "Think of the anger inside of you like a river. On your own, you can't stop it, it's too strong for you and your....tiny body."
Even if he thought she wouldn't notice, Shinobu saw the quick glance at her chest that Sakusa took as he uttered the word 'Tiny'.
....
Screw you.
I hate you.
die.
commit seppuku.
A s s h o l e .
"So, you got help. You decided to just smack a dam in front of this river by using this fake 'look at me, I'm a gentle butterfly princess that smells like flowers' personality you've got going on." Sakusa scoffed,
Shinobu had to pinch herself to stop herself from beating him to a pulp.
"What you should have been doing was trying to harness and redirect your anger to benefit you, instead of just shutting it down completely."
"That personality of yours is just going to make things worse if you're serious about using the anger inside you to grow stronger."
"But, we don't have enough time to give a damn about that for now, so let me help you with the basics of this." Sakusa dismissed.
"I want you to think of things that piss you off. Not just pathetic little pet peeves you've got, things that genuinely make you feel like going on a rampage."
"E-Erm, I'm not sure I can do that on command, Kari-san~" Shinobu replied with a sheepish chuckle.
"Oh."
"Well, have fun dying then."
Shinobu furrowed her eyebrows in confusion when Sakusa proceeded to turn his attention back to his food, totally ignoring her.
What.....the hell?!
Tick marks formed on her forehead as she began to poke and harass Sakusa relentlessly, trying to get him to speak to her and explain to her just what she was supposed to do to use her anger to make herself stronger.
"Hey, hey, Kari-san, you can't just go ignoring me like that~!"
"Kari-san, Kari-san, Kari-san, Kari-san, hey, hey, Kari-san, come on~!"
"You're just being difficult right now, maybe wipe that frown off your face and tell me what I'm supposed to do~!"
"Kaaaaarrrrriiiiii-ssssaaa-mphm?"
Shinobu's pestering was suddenly halted when the feeling of a crunchy, flavorful bite filled her mouth, and she instinctively chewed the piece of food in her mouth.
"It's tempura, I figured you liked it." Sakusa commented, leaning back onto the tree.
It took a while, but once Shinobu finally processed what had just occurred, a bright red blush appeared on her cheeks and she darted her head away from a flat-looking Sakusa, trying hard to cool herself down.
D-D-D-D-D-Did Kari-san just feed me?! W-What kind of moron is he?! You can't just do that to me, that's like-...n o-
"Oi. Don't tell me you have a bloody fever now."
"EEP!"
Shinobu jerked her head away again when Sakusa suddenly appeared in front of her, peering into her soul with his annoying little ruby eye she detested so much.
"I-I'm totally fine, Kari-san, just m-move back a bit, please and thank you!" The butterfly girl managed to sputter, holding her hands out in front of her.
The crimson-tipped teen furrowed his eyebrows and let out a groan, flopping onto his back on the ground. "Yeah, whatever." Sakusa sighed, putting his hands behind his head.
"Look, I'm not good with explaining things,"
Oi. You managed to explain the 2,000-year history of your family bloodline, explained every detail necessary about what you had found about the Seraphim, and you told me how your Kari ability thing works without making it sound confusing in the slightest. You so can explain things to me, you're just too lazy to!
"O-Oh, that is quite a shame~" Shinobu ended up replying with a strained smile.
Lazy bastard.
"So, I want you to just remember this."
"Kocho, the first step is to let the river run. Start thinking about shit that makes you angry beyond belief, visualize and imagine that one thing happening in as precise detail as you can, and let your anger bubble up on its own. Don't force it, don't suppress it, just let it take over. The second step is to repeat it again and again, remember and come up with the most infuriating things imaginable and repeat them like a record inside of your mind. The last step is the give your flowing river some direction. Target all of the anger and rage you feel within you at your opponent, and don't you ever let go of that feeling you feel when you're like that, or you'll end up becoming a mindless swinging beast who's way too predictable and way too open."
"But, if you give let the river flow, and give the flow a direction, I can 100% guarantee that you will get stronger."
Huh? What is this?
Razel unraveled her coiled whip, and when nothing but a patterned piece of clothing appeared in her grip, she froze.
Her haori?!
"Dance of the Butterfly; Caprice!"
The demon shot her eyes to where the voice had come, but by the time she had processed the situation, she was too late.
Dozens of injections tainted her pale body, and instantly, she felt the effects of the poison, blood spilling out of her mouth as she collapsed to her knees.
S-Shit, she got me.....
Shinobu didn't stop, dashing forward with another toxin in her hilt.
Don't stop, not yet! Kill her before she can get back up, you need to finish her o-
"Kidding~"
In the blink of an eye, Shinobu was snatched by her throat and slammed into the sand, dragged through it like a shovel before getting thrown across the beach like a ragdoll.
N-No!
The butterfly girl tumbled through the dirt but landed on her feet, clutching her side that crashed into the ground with her left hand while holding her blade in the other.
Razel, though, had an ecstatic grin on her full, red lips, licking the blood off her chin and hands with a giggle.
"Mmmmh~, I can feel your poison course through my body as we speak, Shinobu~" the demon giggled behind her hand, "It hurts, it hurts like hell, I love it~!"
"Well, I would be more than happy to give you as many doses as you'd like, demon~" Shinobu activated another one of her toxins, this one a paralyzing one combining the demon-killing effects of wisteria with insect venoms used to numb and freeze prey in their tracks.
It was quite the challenge, but a single 10 ml injection can completely paralyze a demon's body part in less than a dozen seconds, and keep it in that state for ten minutes.
However,
I've only ever tested this on lower-level demons, I've never been able to test this on a demon this strong.....I'm not even sure this toxin could work......
Shinobu shook herself out of her daze, though, and remembered Sakusa's words to her.
"The first step is to let the river run."
Alright....let the river run.....
Shinobu closed her eyes and let out a long exhale, something Razel tilted her head in confusion over.
"Hm? Did you fall asleep, Shinobu?" The female demon asked innocently, "That's not nice, I'm a pretty big deal, and I'm not boring either!"
The butterfly girl heard none of this, however, trapped in her thoughts.
Come on......think of what infuriates you, Shinobu....that shouldn't be hard, since everything does.....
Flashing images of situations, words, and people all ran through her mind, with each one being scanned over by Shinobu.
The memories had to be perfect, they had to be strong and hold enough hatred to her in order to enter that state she was in when she fought Sakusa those days ago.
The image of a flat, plain-looking young man with long navy hair and a mismatched haori came into her mind.
Tch, Tomioka-san always pisses me off, always being so dense and ignorant of me.....
......however, I have nothing against him, and he's still nice to talk to......
Next, was the dozens of demons she encountered previously that degraded and mocked her for her short stature and frail body.
Those too, though, were not enough.
No, I ended up killing every last one of those demons, I don't have much resentment left towards them, just their disgusting actions and the deaths they caused.....
Before long, though, she found it.
Shinobu's eyes shot open, with only one figure appearing in her thoughts.
YOU.
The familiar figure appeared before her, standing tall with a golden fan in his hands and a sadistic glimmer in his rainbow-coloured eyes.
She knew this figure all too well,
This was the figure of the demon that killed her sister.
Little by little, the shadowy figure slowly molded in with Razel's silhouette, and before long, the two demons had become one.
Shinobu was now seeing Doma, the Second Upper Moon, instead of Razel.
Shinobu could feel her pulse increase, her focus sharpen, her muscles begin to flex harder and harder and the veins across her body began to pop out.
"The second step is to repeat it, over and over again."
Every second she saw the golden-haired demon's smug grin as they brutally killed her sister in cold blood only pushed the effects further and further, until even her teeth were grinding themselves against each other.
Bit by bit, Shinobu was becoming angrier and angrier, and her body was responding to it in the best way possible.
"My, my, you're beginning to look less and less pretty the longer I look at you, Shinobu~" Razel let out a giggle behind her hand, eyeing up the shorter Hashira, observing the transformations to the other girl's body.
Hm.....I'm not sensing much change to her, but something tells me she's got something up her sleeve....
Hmph, I bet Irire's having fun with that big strong Hashira, he looked like he could give me something to fight for.....
As Shinobu crouched low and grit her teeth, Razel did the same, with a sadistic grin forming on her lips as the demon cracked her whip and spread her wings out.
It doesn't matter....
I'LL JUST TAKE YOUR FREEDOM, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, AND TAKE HIM ON ONCE YOU BLEED OUT ON THE FLOOR~!
"DIE, DIE, FUCKING DIE! RRRAGH!"
The ground shattered again and again like bombs blanketing the terrain as Sakusa slammed his flaming blades down into the ground where Irire stood, missing the older demon by mere centimeters.
Sakusa wasted no breaths on hesitation, slamming his fists down and stomping on the ground like a wild beast, thrashing about with his flaming blades flying through the air on their molten chains.
"BURN, BURN, BURN, DEMON!"
Irire jolted backwards, and unsheathed his blade at lightning speed, blocking the wild slash by the crimson-tipped Hashira, the sound of their weapons ringing through the air.
The two struggled for power over the other, with Sakusa snarling like a beast and Irire holding a firm expression.
"Hmph. Are you done, you animal?" The demon spat bitterly.
"FUCK RIGHT OFF, YOU DEMON!"
Sakusa snatched the demon by the throat with his other hand and threw him into the ground face-first, smashing Irire's face in again and again against the dirt, before throwing him up into the air and flinging his blades right into the demon's trunk.
"EIGHTH FORM; CRUSHING SWING!!"
In the blink of an eye, Irire was thrown back into the earth, shattering the terrain and shaking the leaves right off the branches and toppling trees with the shockwaves.
The old demon, though, was completely unfazed.
Irire jumped back up, his golden eyes wide like saucers with a newfound grin on his lips.
"Good, good, Kari boy!" He called out as he unsheathed his blade and held it in front of him,
"Show me more, let me see more of your power!"
"RAGH, SHUT UP!"
Sakusa rushed forward with a bellowing snarl as he spun around acrobatically around Irire's horizontal slash, commencing his assault.
Endless, continuous slashes amongst flames of black-and-red surrounded the demon as the Rage Hashira shouted and growled into the air, attacking from all angles as the pair dashed through the trees and into the sky, blocking and parrying and countering each slash, swipe and thrust the other sent towards the former.
Flashes of crimson and white burst through the sky as trees, dirt and debris was flung all over, with the sound of Sakusa's heart racing in the air.
Irire, though, as he parried one diagonal slash from Sakusa's right and was met with a follow-up spinning roundhouse by his heel, was absolutely unimpressed.
Hmph.....So this is your Raging Phoenix, hm?
Pitiful.
"Bone Breathing, First Form; Graveyard Ascension!"
In one swing, Irire launched an upwards flurry of sharp bones out from the ground right in the direction of the crimson-haired teen, and when Sakusa dashed right through the attack with a bestial expression with a wide, all-black eye, the demon's disgust grew drastically.
The Raging Phoenix is the name of the Kari's ability to adjust and increase their heartrate and bloodflow manually, or more specifically, when they push this ability to its fullest extent, increasing their pulse to its maximum to grow their strength, speed and focus tenfold.....
It is supposed to be used in conjunction with the Kari clan's martial arts techniques, along with the Breath of Rage and its intense combinations, but you.....
As the two clashed swords again and Irire was swatted like a fly through a flurry of trees by a front kick, the demon couldn't help but feel his heartrate quicken in what seemed like years.
You, Kari boy.....
You're not able to use the martial arts, are you?
Every missed slash, every parried attack, every blind rush forward mixed with the flash of blood orange chains soaring through the air and down upon him, Irire grew tired.
You're ignoring a section of what made the Kari clan so infamous and formidable, and relying too heavily on the physical attributes given to you from your lineage....
You use nothing but the Breath of Rage and the Raging Phoenix of the Kari fighting style, but that does nothing for you but keep you from capitalizing on all that the Raging Phoenix has to offer!
You, Sakusa Kari....
Cannot use the Raging Phoenix to its fullest potential!
"Bone Breathi-
"BURN."
In the blink of an eye, Sakusa appeared before the old demon again, swinging his blades across Irire's chest and bursting it open, before following it up with a frontal assault from every angle and direction, tearing the demon to pieces.
"BURN, BURN, BURN, BURN, BURN!"
The Rage Hashira's unrelenting barrage of slashes and stabs didn't stop, the fire around the two demons burning black and crimson until the trees even began to catch fire.
Sakusa paused for a moment and jolted backwards a dozen metres, sheathing his blades and crouching low with a beastly snarl, the veins and arteries across his bloodied body vibrating and pulsing wildly like snakes across a rock as he coiled in for an attack.
"BREATH OF RAGE, SECOND FORM;"
"SKIES' IMPACT!"
In a flash of crimson and black flames, the ground burst alight from where the crimson-haired teen stood, and a spiral of fire burned and howled through the forest as Sakusa spun with his blades and chains roaring around him, burning all that he blitzed through.
When he finally stopped his spiraling onslaught, Sakusa stood frozen like a statue in a newly-created crater of singed grass and charcoal, his breathing slowly returning to normal, a good 100 metres of forestry devastated in his single attack.
He stood, with his blades in his outstretched hands, blood dripping down onto the ground,
until a gash horizontally across his chest burst open, and he collapsed to his knees.
His saucer-like eye returned to its ruby colour, the black sclera vanished with his mouth agape, the taste of blood on his tongue as he stared at the ground in disbelief.
W-Wha......h-how did-
"The Raging Phoenix, the name of the Kari Family's ability to rapidly increase their heartrate and push their speed, strength and focus to a level unattainable by normal humans."
Sakusa darted his head to the direction of the gruff, raspy voice, directly behind him, where the remnants of his assault lay.
His confusion only grew.
H-How did he-
There was a shadow blocking him, but something about Irire's pressure was more sickening and heavier than ever.
Sakusa could notice in an instant when a demon was strong, and right now, his radar was going off the charts.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, fucking shit, I hit him point-blank with Skies' Impact when I was in that state, I haven't met any demon strong enough to handle that since......
With every step Irire took closer to him, Sakusa felt the pressure grow.
It wasn't until the old demon stepped out into the glow of the moonlight did he see what the source of this new, colder, more menacing presence had come from, and his eye shot open when he saw it.
W-What......
WHAT THE FUCK?!
The old, scarred demon with a katana strapped to his waist was no more, and in its place, was something much, much more dangerous.
The white-haired demon's top was shredded off, revealing the stocky, ripped core beneath, but strapped across his front-
no, what lay beneath the skin diagonally across his front, was his katana.
All across his arms and legs were sharp, pale bones that protruded from every angle, with two long blade-like bones poking out of his elbows and two bones reaching out of his wrists like giant daggers on either arm. His entire body was covered from head-to-toe in these bones, with his ribs bursting out of his skin and sticking out like a cage across his katana embedded in his chest. His long, white hair was let loose and flew out in every direction like a white fire, his golden eyes penetrating right through Sakusa's soul with their malice.
Every sliver of the teen's being was telling him to run.
W-.....what do I do here?
"That is what you were using, was it not?" Irire asked, pointing his finger at the shaken Hashira,
"That power of yours, it was the Raging Phoenix, as your clan would call it?"
"Tch....and what....the fuck do you care, huh?" Sakusa panted, wincing in pain when he shifted himself around to face the demon, holding his hand over his shoulder wound.
"Hm....I figured..."
"It was pitiful."
Irire held out his hands with a maniacal venom laced in his golden eyes, the bones all across his body protruding out all at once.
"I have never seen someone use the Raging Phoenix on its own to such an extent, it was quite admirable, Kari boy." The demon huffed in reply, before lunging forward and snatching Sakusa by the hair, yanking his head up to face his golden gaze.
"Even if I was unimpressed, I do have to give you credit for forcing me to use the Final Form of the Bone Breathing to stop your devastating attack."
The scarred demon planted his hand to his chest, tapping on the katana beneath his skin with his fingertips.
"You see, Kari boy," Irire explained, "There are multiple forms of the Bone Breathing style I learned 180 years ago, when I was still human, but there is only one I was able to develop once I had escaped death and became a demon."
"My Blood Demon Art involves my sword- no, as a matter of fact, it is my sword. My katana had been imbued with my own blood as I reformed it and now holds my Blood Demon Art within."
"What you see now, is the Final Form of the Breath of Bones, the Spirits' Possession!"
"If I absorb my sword into my body, I can control the bones in my body at will," Irire said with a grin, holding his hand up and thrusting a bone blade out of his palm right in Sakusa's bloodied face,
"See~?"
Sakusa, though, scoffed with a smirk on his face. "So, what, the best you can do is fling some bones out of your body?"
The boy's grin only grew as he spat blood all across Irire's face and sprung into action, stabbing the demon in the chest with one blade and grabbing their skull with his right hand and ramming his thumb into their eye, the auras of the two rivalling each other as the familiar thumping of Sakusa's heart boomed through the air, the veins and arteries pumping and pulsing out of his skin.
Sakusa's tongue hung out of his mouth as stood face-to-face with the white-haired demon, their gazes almost indecipherable between one another.
As the Raging Phoenix took over, it became less and less clear who was the demon between Sakusa and Irire.
"That's fucking cute~"
As Sakusa twisted his blade deeper into Irire's chest, he cried,
"NOW BURN!!!!"