Naomi's P. O. V:
I flick my gaze upward to see my boyfriend leaning against a tree in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. I see pride in his blue orbs even as his face remains stoic.
"It's about time you showed up, Yu-kun," I say with a teasing smile. "Enjoyed the show?"
"Much. It looks like you have an admirer," Giyu responds, jerking with his head behind me.
"Eh?" I utter, blinking my eyes. I turn around to see the boar masked boy gazing at me with gold sparkles floating around him.
Both Giyu and I give him unimpressed deadpan expressions.
Giyu scowls at him as I turn away. I grab his arm and we start walking back into the trees, but the boar boy calls after us, causing us to stop.
"Hold on a second!" We turn with unimpressed expressions to the boy as he points at us. "Fight me, Pinky-san! You beat that member of the Twelve Kizuki. And, now, right here, I'm gonna beat you! If I can manage that..." He crosses his arms while pointing both thumbs at himself. "... that'll make me the most powerful of all!!"
"Sorry, Bud, but it'll take you a hundred more years to catch up to my and Giyu-kun's level," I say bluntly, startling the boy.
"What'd you say to me?!?!" The boar boy yells, already giving me a headache.
"He's so loud," Giyu mutters. "And, if he keeps moving like that, he'll worsen his injuries."
I say to the boy, "That wasn't one of the Twelve Kizuki. Could you not even tell that?"
"Of course I could tell!!" He says hotly. "For your information, it was Tanjiro who was saying it was one of them! I was just repeating what he said earlier. I knew that amateur couldn't have been one of those guys!"
I step up to the boar boy as he keeps blabbering. He cuts himself off when I suddenly loom before him, tailbone length pink hair swaying with the movement, a wide smile on my face.
A deep blush appears on his boar mask cheeks as I close my eyes. Then my left hand swings through the air and strikes the side of his neck with enough force t knock him out out.
The boar boy goes rigid before hitting the ground with a thud.
"Now you can just take a nap." I brush off my hands as I go back to my boyfriend and say, "That's much better! Now we have peace and quiet again."
"That was a bit much, Naomi-chan," Giyu says, deadpanning at me.
"It's like you said, if he'd kept moving, he'd have made his injuries worse. That guy was completely cut up," I say with a shake of my head as I hold up my hands.
"Still, though... we could've just tied him up with this," Says Giyu as he holds up a strip of rope, startling me.
"That's cruel, Yu-kun!!" I exclaim, my pink and purple eyes widening, palms held upward.
"And you knocking him out isn't?" He retorts.
"It's not like he can move now, anyway," I mutter, letting out a mushroom sigh.
"Let's go. There are still more demons out there," Says Giyu as he starts walking back into the trees.
I jog to catch up to him, falling into step beside the ravenette.
🗡🗡🗡
Giyu and I travel through the night dark forest before we pick up the scent of two more demons nearby, and the scent of a human. The two latter ones are familiar but not the first demon scent.
Ahead, I see a burgundy haired boy next to a dark haired girl as the white haired spider demon is about to shred him to ribbons with his blood stained threads.
I unsheath my katana and launch into the air, using my First Form to slice through the threads with ease. I land back on the ground behind the boy as the threads drift softly to the ground, coated in crystal before they shatter and dissipate.
The boy murmurs in awe, "The threads just... crystallised and shattered?"
I say to the boy without looking at him, "You did well holding out until we got here. Leave the rest to us." I face the spider demon just as my partner shows up beside me. Annoyance flashes across the demon's features. His skin is white with crimson red dots around his eyes and on his cheeks. His hair is white and curls around his face, hiding his left eye which I notice has the kanji for "Lower 5."
He's one of the Twelve Kazuki, huh?
"You're like a torrent of insignificant insects constantly getting in my way!" The demon grits through his teeth as his shoulders quiver. "Blood Demon Art: Cutting Thread Rotation!"
More red threads swirl around the demon before shooting for me and Giyu.
"I'll let you finish things off, Giyu-kun," I tell him.
"Total Concentration, Water Breathing: Eleventh Form: Dead Calm," Giyu says with an unchanging expression as water swirls around us, before turning still.
"The Eleventh Form?!" The boy gasps in disbelief.
I smirk, gazing at my boyfriend. It's his own original technique.
"It doesn't matter what technique you use on me!" The spider demon yells as his threads fly for us. They shred apart before they could slice Giyu and I up. "What?!" The demon gasps.
"What's going on? What did he do? The instant they touched him and the woman, the threads scattered. Not even one of them reached them. The strongest threads of all were destroyed? That cannot be! I'll try it again! And assassinate the woman in the process, as I was ordered to!" The demon says as it holds its blood stained hands out to Giyu, who's face remains expressionless, but I knew he was angry at that last bit.
The demon holds out its clawed, red hands as Giyu stalks toward it. When Giyu reaches her demon, he swiftly slices its head clean from its shoulders and it hits the ground with a squishy thud.
"Nezuko!" The boy gasps, covering the girl's body as Giyu remains with his back to us.
I rest my hand on my sword hilt as the demon's body walks up to the burgundy haired boy, even though he's turning to ash. The demon's body collapses beside my feet as he continues to wave his hands about. When his body falls still, the boy looks at him, a sympathetic expression on his face.
I tilt my head down at him. I could never understand how he could feel such sympathy for demons, after everything they've done to us. My pink brows furrow as the boy puts his hand on the demon's back comfortingly, the rest of its body turning to ash.
The boy's fuschia eyes widen and I look up when Giyu steps onto the demon's remains, gazing down at the Mizunoto. "Don't waste your sympathy," The Tomioka tells him. "It was a demon."
The boy flicks his gaze to me as I add, "The fact it looked like a child makes no difference. It lived for decades, terrorising our people."
With tears glistening in his fuschia eyes, the boy says, "If it's for the sake of avenging those who were killed," Here, he tightens his grip on the white kimono, "to make sure there are no more victims, I won't hesitate to bring my blade down on any demon's neck! But when it comes to those who felt despair and regret from the actions they took as a demon, I will never disrespect them!" Giyu and I narrow our eyes. "Because at one time or another they were human, no different from me! So, please, don't step on his remains! They're not hideous monsters at all! Instead, demon's are hopeless creatures, tragic creatures...!"
Giyu's blue eyes widen as recognition flashes across them. Curious, I follow his gaze to the girl underneath the boy only my own eyes to jerk wide at the familiar bamboo gag.
"Isn't she...?" Giyu and I utter, before we notice some butterflies fluttering around us.
Wait—butterflies...?!
Giyu and I look up just in time to see the Insect Hashira flying straight for us, aiming to kill the demon girl my boyfriend and I'd saved two years ago.
We unsheathe our swords as the boy covers his sister's head. Giyu and I step over them, with me stepping over the boy's head, to block a surprised Shinobu's katana swiftly, causing her to fly over us and she flips about before landing gracefully on her feet, skidding forwards a bit, back to us.
"Oh, my!" Shinobu gasps. Giyu and I face Shinobu as we crouch before the boy and we place our hands on his back protectively. Shinobu turns to face us as she questions, "Why would you get in my way, Tomioka, Suishou? And after you two told me we could never be friends with demons. Naomi-nee-chan may be the most popular amongst the Hashira, but I have to say," Shinobu adds to Giyu, "this is exactly the kind of thing why no one likes you."
She smiles at us.