"You aren't real."
"Why not? I mean, you are here aren't you?" His eyes burned like the flames of the sun, painted in the blood of those he ate.
"What makes you think that you are alone?"
"What makes you think you are the only one with a grudge that could last more than a lifetime?"
~~~~~~
"Wake up! Tomioka!"
Her eyes opened instantly, looking around her to notice they weren't in the room anymore.
"You are awake now, good." Shinjuro let her down before continuing, "You'll take care of that snake demon, I'll go ahead and make sure everyone is safe."
Currently there were only three people heavily injured, not counting Obanai, as Shjnjuro had taken care of most of the blood snakes that had gone for the family.
"They are currently on the east."
"Alright." With that Giyuu grabbed the sword the hashira had been holding and quickly headed to the east, while Shinjuto had already disappeared to take care of the blood snakes. An irritating task considering the snakes would keep regenerating again and again, all of them never exceeding past a few scratches for the Flame hashira had cut them off instantly.
"Third form: Blazing Universe."
With one swing, he was able to strike down one of the giant snakes that had collided with each other to make themselves massive against him.
Another strike, and then once more, Shinjuro was easily fighting off the snakes, carefully managing to save all of the fifty women without any deaths on his part.
Meanwhile on the other side of the mountain, the snake demon seemed to have the time of its life as she played around with the kids, catching up to them immediately and scaring the girl's spirit.
She was strong, very strong indeed, but what a pity that she didn't have the stamina to keep up with her chasing.
She must taste very delicious. Oh what a wonderful meal I'll have.~
"She's catching up, we need to run faster!"
"I..." Mitsuri took a deep breath again as the weight of the boy finally pulled her down.
"...can't, I'm sorry..." Obanai let himself go of the girl, flinching as the pain in his feet still wasn't recovered enough.
"Come on, just a little more." Obanai said as he grabbed her hand. Mitsuri took another breath before looking back at the forest, the snake demon was just a few meters away from them. Cold sweat ran through her as those slit pupils turned to look at them, her mouth wide open as the saliva ran down her chin.
The quick jolt of fear made her get up again, and soon both of them had started running without anyone daring to look back.
Just the Kaburamaru hissed a warning and Obanai looked back at the snake before pushing Mitsuri off the road.
"Eh?!" Mitsuri was pushed down into a deep rolling hill with almost no end, her last vision being that Obanai had been grabbed by the neck. Even Kaburamaru had been pushed with her to be saved against the demon.
His mind was blank, the fear running through his body made him tremble as his weak fingers tried to push away one finger from his neck, which only made the demon want to grip his neck even more.
His little hands tried to reach out for something else instead, the dagger. Without any hesitation, his face reddening out of lack of oxygen, he tried to stab the demon's eye, who quickly grabbed his hand and crushed down his bones with ease until he let go of the dagger.
Little by little crushing the boy's neck, with one of her nails, cutting open the bandages to show the scars across his mouth.
"AHHHHGG!!" The nail began to tear away the small progress that the skin had made to reattach the wounds until he felt the blood going down his throat.
'Crash!'
'Smash!'
He could hear his own head being crushed, his own eyes being pulled out before the snake demon devoured him whole, crunching every part of his body until there was nothing left.
So this is how I die...
In the end, there was nothing left.
"WAKE UP!"
He was wrong, there was light, and then there was a horrible pain in his head, and a sting in his cheek.
"Don't breathe the air around here, and get out." He remembered the voice, it was the same girl who gave him the dagger.
"YOU BLOODY BASSSTARD." The demon hissed as she let another one of her screeches be echoed through the forest.
Obanai felt his hand, it wasn't broken, then his cheeks, the bandages had still been there.
"What happened?" He asked through Giyuu's cloth, but she didn't answer, instead she let go of him while closely paying attention to the demon in front of them.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Get out now!" Obanai made a run for it, constantly limping to the other side where Mitsuri had been dragged while trying to get as much as possible back to his lungs, which was quite hard considering the demon's illusions.
The demon's hand regenerated fiber by fiber until it was complete. In one swift movement she tried to gouge out Giyuu's head, who simply dodged the attack with no problem.
The seconds passed and Giyuu managed to dodge all of the claws with her sword, now back up against a tree, she dodged the incoming attack that had easily sliced the tree from behind.
One wrong move and she could very well be dead with one movement.
"Blood demon art: Chanting." Her nails grew thicker, longer, far sturdier than a bear's claws, and a small liquid could be seen dropping from her scales.
It must be poison.
Giyuu prepared herself, taking a deep breath outside of the smell of the snake.
"Third form: Flowing Dance."
The demon couldn't get closer to her without Giyuu already slashing away her arm, and as much as she tried to, the hunter was always one step closer to cutting her down.
Giyuu noticed just how even after cutting one hand, the other had quickly regenerated to strike her again.
From the top of the trees, to the boulders, and back to the ground again, Giyuu fought off the snake demon, and at the same time, kept her distracted long enough for Obanai to escape.
What she didn't know was that someone else was there.
"Ah!" Giyuu had let go of her katana as she didn't notice the tail that came after her. With another attack from the snake's tail, the demon had finally gotten her to the ground.
Dammit, if I breathe now I'll get drowned in the illusion again.
Her blue eyes looked back at the snake demon that had crushed her katana in two.
No!
Without a second thought, the demon went straight ahead to stab her nails in Giyuu's chest.
Giyuu, without much choice, had to fight those things with her bare hands, the palms big enough to plunge into her skin, she bit her tongue instantly to not let out the screams of her pain.
Acid, the liquid that was running through her was pure acid that had started to disintegrate some of her skin. Her weight wasn't enough as she started to be pushed around by the other, the droplets of acid slowly coming her way onto her face.
The claws finally digged inside her skin, the acid trying to melt off her muscles was enough to let her scream in pain, and a second later, she would be greeted by a wave of mist surrounding her head. The red eyes from before, looming from behind the shadows, waiting to meet her again.
Giyuu pulled herself away from the snake woman, it was no wonder that such a demon had been tasked for a hashira. She certainly wasn't the strongest out of the demons he had encountered that weren't lower moons, but she was certainly one of those tricksters, with different kinds of arts under her scales.
Snap out of it.
Giyuu tried to move away from her as fast as she could, but her balance wasn't in the best shape as she would like it to be, it felt as though she was fighting off in a drunken state, not that he really drank any alcohol in his old life, dream? That time.
"Tch-Ughng." Once again, she had been wounded by the claws, this time from her right shoulder. The pain thankfully, always brought her back into reality before the illusion kicked in.
But it was starting, and the more she slowed down the more air she needed to grasp, until the last of her conscious mind had been pulled back from her control, from reality.
She was in the shadows again, but those red eyes weren't there anymore.
Instead there was pink, a lovely color that she followed around from the shadows, those pink eyes being worn by a lovely woman, the shadow of a woman, with the teeth of a cat and nails as sharp as a lion's claws.
"Giyuu-Chan. Follow me. Let's see the stars again." And off they went, the hand made of black fog, dragging her to somewhere else, somewhere completely unimaginable for her eye to see.
"Let's never go home again." The shadow said, as Giyuu's eyes widen at the sight of blood covering every corner and wall, every object that she never knew off, everything as red as the boy's eyes, and in the center of it all was a huge window, with all of the stars of the galaxy in sight.
~~~~~~
"Hey!" Mitsuri headed over to the boy as he leaned on a tree for support.
"Are you alright? Do you need help?" He looked up to see her with tears in her eyes and a bit of mud on her cheeks.
"Sorry for-- akh! ... Throwing you off."
"Don't worry about me! Your neck was almost..." Mitsuri couldn't even process the word, holding back the tears, she just stayed silent as he waited for him to speak.
Obanai was really going to die, and at that moment it really kicked in what he had done. He wanted to live, yet he really just sacrificed himself for someone he only met today.
From Mitsuri's collar, he spotted Kaburamaru surrounding her neck.
"Kabu-"
"AHHH!" Both of them turned their heads to the sound, it wasn't, it definitely wasn't the snake demon, and the only one who was with them was Giyuu.
Even before they could run away or towards her, the girl had gradually steered down the mountain without noticing them, bringing the demon alongside her.
They both hid in the bushes as fast as possible, their heads filling up in dread as they saw Giyuu slowly losing her strength and fall into the trap, completely.
Mitsuri looked at the girl, then at the boy and back at the demon.
Finally, she looked back to herself. The self who was stronger than seven men and eight more than a sumo wrestler.
The self that had been gifted with strength ever since they were born. She wasn't a hunter like the others, but without them there won't be others to protect what she could not.
"Run away." Mitsuri said as she noticed a huge rock standing near the bushes.
A hand grabbed her wrist just as she tried to make a run for it, "Wait, what will happen to you?" She felt her body run cold for a moment.
"I'll run, but I have to help someone first." With that Mitsuri let go of his hand, even if she felt the fear pressing down her body, crawling on her knees, inside her stomach, suffocating her lungs. Each motion she made was carefully carved into her memory by the sharp knife that was her paranoia. Every step she took, her mind would actively scream at her to run away, or freeze there and hope for the demon not to see her.
That kind of thinking was useless as she noticed the demon's eyes on her.
Only now noticing that her body had moved on her own and she was now standing next to the fight, huffing as she had thrown the huge rock, smashing the demon's head with it.
"Don't breathe in the air." Mitsuri's heart and soul almost escaped out of her body as she felt the boy's sleeves on her mouth. After calming herself down, she listened to him and put her own sleeves over her mouth.
"Do you see the fog?" Mitsuri nodded, everything was dissipating little by little. Taking the chance as the wind dispersed, Mitsuri headed for Giyuu who was half standing, her body hunched over, as from one of her eyes, a tear was falling off.
Mitsuri took her out of there, with Obanai wanting to follow behind, only running as he saw her being in danger.
"BEHIND YOU!" He shouted, almost breaking his stitched parts as Mitsuri was dragged down by the head. The snake, ever so large as it took its prey.
The head wasn't human anymore, just a wild animal, a snake, wearing the torso of a woman, it's head still not as big as her mouth as the moment she opened it, it was enough to eat her in one bite.
Mitsuri was let go as the snake demon opened her mouth.
"Fourth form: striking tide."
Two consecutive slashes cut off each arm, and at the same time, she was able to carry Mitsuri out of the demon's mouth.
"Thank you." Giyuu let down Mitsuri as she still remained in position with her broken sword.
I won't waste anymore time.
"I'll kill the demon now."
~~~~~~~
"Tomioka Giyuu or Tomioka Tsutako. They should live somewhere around here, no?"
"Oh no dear." An eldery woman said as she looked at the person covered in clothes from head to toe. Even from the voice she couldn't identify them to be a man or a woman, it was far too soft, but just deep enough to also pass as a man. "We haven't heard any of those names." She continued on her answer until a hand gently slapped her back.
Could it be? I came too earlier?
No, he must be twelve now. His sister must have died today.
"Come on now, don't lie!" Another far less younger looking woman approached them in their conversation. "Obaa-san, such a bad memory you have."
The woman turned to look at the traveler, squinting her eyes, trying to get just a peek at who it was from the inside.
She sighed, giving up. "Those girls, one of them died years ago while the other was sent away-"
"Wait, girls?"
"Yes? both of them." The woman scanned them up and down.
"May I ask where they are?" They said with a softer tone as the light in his eyes diminished.
"The youngest was sent away to a temple, or to her relative, I don't know at this point, it's been so long." However she still pointed to someone,
"But that woman might know."
"Thank you."