(Y,n)'s POV
The little girl drew her arms back and threw the first few darts, her attacks coming at very high speeds that cut through the previously still air. It was easy for me to block the wooden forms with tactful shifts of my blade, and all of the darts weakly ricocheted to the ground after being robbed of their inertia.
I caught one of the small darts between my fingers before it could reach my face, and taking the tempting opportunity, I brought it up to eye-level to speedily examine it. The darts weren't that thick, in fact, they were too small to be considered even remotely lethal. But since they were so sharp, it wouldn't be very hard for them to puncture human skin.
On the tip of the wood was a bright purple and black substance, which had a rather watery consistency. It didn't take long for the purpose of the darts to dawn on me after analyzing what the peculiar purple fluid was. The thin sharp structure of the wood, the purple liquid on that very wood, the mysterious cause of the man's death-
"Don't let the darts get into your skin, they're laced with poison!" I warily warned the others while dodging the next upcoming rush of the demon's darts, throwing the dart in my hand to the side and out of the way.
"You're so smart! I didn't think you'd figure it out so soon!" The sadistic child laughed, moving out of the way when Inosuke rushed at her and attempted to cut her arm off. The boar-headed boy moved out of the way as some of the now proven deadly attacks went whizzing his way, dropping to his knees to avoid the poisonous wake of the darts.
Inosuke firmly planted his foot into the demon's small shoulder once back on his feet, causing her to keel over onto her back at the rough force. "Owie, that wasn't very nice!" The black-haired girl whined with a high pitched voice, she hugged her arms close to her chest whilst glaring at Inosuke with her big doll-like eyes.
"Inosuke, get away from her!" I hastily signalled to the boy when our target conjured a handful of the poisonous darts in both her hands. I sprinted towards the both of them, skillfully drawing my sword behind me to prepare myself to block the oncoming attack.
"Flame koi, 6th configuration, wildfire!" I made it just in time to disarm the darts before they could reach the boy's bare arms, my flames, raging on with a fiery passion, burned all of the wooden spikes to a charred crisp on the ground. The demon backpedaled when I swiftly changed motions to make a diagonal slash at her with my weapon ablaze from the tip down to the hilt, nearing her where there was just enough space in-between us to make a successful slash.
"Humph, this game isn't very fun!" The girl yelled with a bratty frown, pulling out a different set of darts from the sleeve of her red kimono. Unlike the others, these pieces of wood were coated with a bright green liquid, a completely different shade compared to the purple substance on the original darts.
Instead of throwing them at me, the girl whipped her arm around and shot the darts into an oak tree close to the two of us. I stared in awe and confusion as glowing green cracks crawled throughout the surface of the tree bark, causing an eerie groaning noise to escape from deep within the great oak.
That couldn't be good-
Letting loose one final concerning roar, the tree erupted into a million pieces of itself, sending sharp chunks of wood slicing dangerously throughout the battel in all directions. I was able to dodge the shrapnel that threatened me, but what I didn't anticipate was for the same thing to happen to yet another tree.
Since I was so close to this particular oak, I was unable to block or even attempt to dodge the staggering wood that it cruely gifted the area. Acting more like literal knives than wood, three large pieces of shrapnel sharply impaled my right leg, I didn't even get a wink of time to react to the stabbing pain before the demon child sent a flurry of darts my way.
"-Water breathing, third form, flowing dance!" Tanjiro bravely called out as he stepped in just in time to counter the darts with his blade, small spurts of water relentlessly swiveled around his black weapon when he moved in front of me.
"Thanks Tanjiro!" I spoke up quickly, letting him take over for the moment while I checked on my leg. I cradled the limb in my hand as I moved a portion of the fabric from my pants away to examine the puncturing wounds. Though I was steadily starting to bleed, a heavy weight was lifted from my shoulders when seeing that there wasn't any poison on the sharp chunks of wood, which was something I was especially worried about beforehand.
I unlodged the shrapnel from my leg so I could properly move it and looked back towards Tanjiro and Inosuke, who were both in the heat of the battle. My eyes, sneakily budding up minuscule tears now that my body was experiencing the pain of the injuries, widened when seeing the amount of darts the girl was preparing to throw at the boys. Which, the numbers looked to be reaching somewhere in the high seventies!
"It's humanly impossible to dodge all of those without getting hit..." I whispered under my breath when my heart skipped a beat, not entirely sure on what I could do to help. I looked behind me to see Zenitsu just a few feet away, quivering in fear with his weapon held out in front of him.
"H-h-huh?! (y,n) what are you doing?!" He registered me with a tremble the instant I grabbed his wrist and began to pull him forward with me. I had a good sense now of what I had to do to keep everyone safe, and my plan wouldn't work if I let the blonde just idly stand by.
I ran as fast my legs would take me, unfortunately not as fast as I'd hoped due to my wounds. "Flame koi, 3rd configuration, flame ring!" I slammed my sword into the ground when the black-headed demon released her life-threatening attack, and my flames did their job of protecting everyone from the bombardment of darts.
It took a few seconds before I was able to drop my defense and let everyone prepare themselves for the child's next attack, bu that's when she said it; "Yay! I finally got a hit in!" Instead of attacking again, the girl jumped up and down with joyous cheering. I looked at her, dumbfounded, unaware of what she meant at the time.
'Get a hit in?' What's that supposed to mean?? "Wait..." I breathed out in horror as the situation fell down on me, enveloping my mind in a sense of unease and panic. I slowly looked behind me to face the others. Tanjiro and Zenitsu were perfectly fine, however... Inosuke wasn't.
A single dart had somehow made it past my ring of fire and found its way into his forearm, the skin around the contact point was slowly morphing into a sickly black and was steadily spreading across his arm. "Poisoned or not, I'm still gonna bring you down!!" The boar-headed boy removed the piece of wood from his skin, pointing it at our target with a prideful voice while acting like he hadn't just heen poisoned.
"We'll just have to see about that!" She argued while equipping a set of the green-coated darts in her right hand. I grabbed onto Zenitsu's waist and jumped backwards when the girl sent multiple attacks at us, separating everyone and forcing us to scatter. The ground shook intensely as multiple areas of the earth detonated, pushing me to keep lunging back with the blonde in my grasp.
A sudden and sharp pain shot through my wounded leg and ended in my thigh, following a line that the wouds sat on. The resulting cause was my knee buckling under my weight, and a slight whimper slithering out from my mouth. The ground before us shook again, almost playfully even, preparing to erupt at a dangerously close distance from us. Zenitsu took the chance to wiggle out of my grasp to ready his blade, he squeezed his eyes shut as he successfully blocked the attack that was to combust.
"A-a-are you o-okay...?
"I think the real question here is, are you okay...? Zenitsu, you look like you're about to pass out." I responded to the blonde-haired slayer's question with a raised eyebrow, concerned by how close he looked to swooning like a damsel in distress.
"I'm f-f-fine." He gave a shaky smile with a small thumbs up, though his stuttering and profuse sweating proved my reasoning for him not being okay.
"Alright, whatever you say." I patted him on the back with a quick thankyou for helping me and rushed back over to the demon girl. The child was aiming dart after dart at the two other boys, the playful smile she'd once been wearing earlier had now been replaced with an agitated grimace.
"This isn't very entertaining you know!" She whined while turning her attention to me as I dropped low to the ground, dodging the darts she sent at me with ease.
"You're not putting enough strength in."
Rengoku's words echoed in my mind just as I was about to aim a kick at the demon, quickly reminding me of what the two of us had worked on last night. Taking his comment into consideration, I added more force to my attack as I hooked my heel into the girl's neck and swung through. This greatly disoriented her, causing her to stumble over the back of her kimono.
"T-that wasn't any fair!" She yelled with a frown while throwing three of the poison-laced darts at me, but I was able to roll out of the way. I jumped up to my feet, skillfully pulling my weapon out to my right. I dashed straight towards the demon, who was glaring at me with deadly intentions and readying her next attack.
I knew a straightforward attack like this was a both dangerous and dim-witted action, and that's exactly why... I wasn't going to attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Inosuke and Tanjiro readying themselves for a killing blow, but our target was too focused on me to notice this. In this situation, I was the decoy meant to distract her from what was really coming.
When the girl sent yet another round of darts at me, I jumped to the side, allowing Tanjiro and Inosuke to take the kill. They both brought their swords over, making a cross-hatched slice through the demon's neck after slicung down. Her eyes sparkled with tears as her head fell to the ground, making a soft crunching noise when it came in contact with the leaves. The child's body fell afterwards, keeling over in the opposite direction that her head had gone.
"Y-you weren't supposed to win..." She mumbled with a small pout, looking at the burgundy-haired boy as fat buds of water bloomed at the edges of her eyes.
"... I'm really sorry it had to come to this..." Tanjiro put his hands together in prayer with a small exhale, watching as the body of the demon was quickly reduced to nothing but ash. I sheathed my sword and did the same, whispering a small prayer under my breath to contribute.
I looked up at the still dark sky aftwerward, feeling a calming sense of relief trickle through me. Now that the battle was finally over, I could ease my muscles. But, something kept egging me on, screaming at me that something wasn't right.
Now that I really put more attention on my surroundings, I realized it was quiet. Too quiet. Usually after a successful battle, a certain someone would be yelling in victory. But for the first time, Inosuke wasn't speaking a word.
I peered over at the boy in question, partially concerned for his well-being. He'd already put away his jagged swords, and was now silently standing just a few feet away from where the demon girl once was. Inosuke steadily swayed from left to right, which only made me more worried.
"(mispronounced name)..." Inosuke finally spoke up, but his words came out in a rather raspy and quiet manner.
"I... I don't feel so good..." He trailed off with a cough, his swaying shifted from going in a left-to-right motion to leaning backwards into slow descent.
"Inosuke!" Tanjiro yelled as the boar-headed boy fell to the ground, which resulted in his boar mask tumbling off. I dashed over to the two of them, watching in terror as black veins spread up his arms, just like what happened to the middle-aged man.
"The poison's taking effect!" My eyes widened as the severity and the seriousness of the situation hit me at full speed.