Party Crashing Demons
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of Breath of the Rifleman! Now for those of you who don't know already, I'll be starting a new series of side stories centered around my Re:Zero fic, 'A New Crusade', with the first chapter set to drop next week. It's called 'A New Crusade IF' and focuses on alternate routes that my story could go much like the actual IF stories, so I'm open to any suggestions any of my readers might have. Now then, I'd like to give the usual shoutout to LoneTaker, groche9655 and Noble Eight for their contributions to this story. And to answer DCDGojira's question, we just might. Now then, onto the story!
The Infinite Fortress: Doma's Shrine Room
"Time to die you rotten bastard!" Exclaimed Inosuke as he and Kanao rushed towards the downed Upper Moon. Much of his body was currently melting from a special gift or two Shinobu had given him earlier on at the last part of their fight. 'I owe you one, Subaru Genjirou,' thought Shinobu as she eyed the area where she'd dropped the sleeve-pistol he'd given her. In all honesty, she hadn't been sure if such a tiny thing could help her, but then again she'd accomplished a surprising amount despite being such a tiny thing herself.
Flashback: Lab Room of the Butterfly Estate
"This is rather….remarkable," Shinobu had to admit as she adjusted the focus on the microscope she was using to get a better look at the slide currently under it, "I'd never thought of adding trace amounts of mercury to the concoction to slow a demon's healing abilities. And this mixture using some of Uzui's most lethal shinobi poison appears to be working exceptionally fast."
"What I find remarkable is how you're able to figure out anything looking through that weird device," said Subaru as he stood next to the doorway while leaning against the wall, "I get that you're looking at 'cells' or whatever you call them. But I don't get how you can figure out whether or not a poison works just by looking at what it does to them."
"I'm surprised you were able to develop the poisons you have without the use of a microscope," commented Yushiro who was studying a petri dish at the far end of the table, "how did you go about testing them?"
"My father went through a lot of trial and error," said Subaru, "and he got some good advice from our Ainu neighbors up North. Most of what I use follows his old recipes along with a couple of others we came up with during training. As for testing, before I met Shinobu and learned some of her methods I would try out different concentrations on some of my rounds and see how they worked. Thing about field-testing stuff like that in this profession, though, it can be a little risky."
"And leads me to wonder how you've managed to survive up to this point," commented Yushiro without looking up from his task.
"You can't really make fun of him when I myself was of the mind to try an untested method," said Shinobu as she held her hand up, "within my body right this very moment is circulating wisteria poison. I've been intaking wisteria flower poison for over a year now, to the point where it's not only within my internal organs but down to the very tip of my nails. For obvious reasons, I can't tell you what the side effects might be or if this method would've proven effective."
"I can tell you that's a method you'll never learn the results too if you ever happen to actually test it out," said Yushiro as his eyes moved to look at Shinobu.
"Until recently I thought it was the only way to combat an Upper Moon for someone like me," said Shinobu before glancing at her sleeve where she now had a certain hidden pistol, "but a stubborn student and a hunter with a hard head convinced me otherwise."
"And here I would've thought the Kamado boy had something to do with it," said Yushiro, "never knew Genjirou had it in him to be persuasive."
"I was just calling it as I saw it," said Subaru with a shrug, "anyway, remember that if you have to use that sleeve pistol, do it up close. Those rounds are hollow points that can be filled to the brim and coated with whatever type of poison you feel like and they'll flatten on impact to increase shredding damage while decreasing penetration. You'll be delivering more poison with them than you could with the best strikes of your sword and the rounds themselves will remain in the target to continue poisoning for a good little bit. It might take some time if used against an Upper Moon, but they'll feel it either way."
"It is an admittedly nasty way to administer poison," agreed Shinobu, "now I have both you and your father to thank for broadening my horizons a little. If we all survive the coming battle, I think I'd like to visit Saburo again."
"He'll be hanging around with some of the old slayers for a bit," informed Subaru, "but first things first, as they say, we've still got some prepping to do."
End Flashback
'And those rounds have done wonderfully,' thought Shinobu as she glanced at her right arm and both legs, 'no doubt it also helps that they're being aided by some of the poison I'd had circulating in my body, so that turned out not to be a waste of time either. If nothing else, it's at least created an opening.' Though how much of one was debatable as Doma shakily raised one of his fans and cast a surprisingly powerful technique: Blood Demon Art: Rime-Water Lilly Bodhisattva! The result was a giant ice statue of a Buddha with multiple large water lilies surrounding it, one of which was holding Doma up in the air away from the two slayers.
Fortunately, Kanao and Insosuke quickly shook off their surprise and dodged out of the way of the ice Buddha's chop strike which destroyed much of the bridge they'd just been standing on. The two continued to dance around its attacks as Kanao looked for an opening. But her exhaustion and the freezing air was making it difficult to keep up with the statue as it continued its onslaught and that was before Inosuke got captured by one of its giant hands, escalating the situation even further. She knew there was no time to fall back and regroup, lest they give Doma time to adjust to the poison eating away at his being. So, she instead decided to put her remaining energy and breath into one final technique.
"Breath of the Flower Final Form," spoke Kanao as the sclera of her eyes turned blood red, "Equinoctial Vermillion Eye!" Everything seemed to slow down then as Kanao's perception increased to its utmost, allowing her to spot an opening among the ice statue's attacks which she exploited immediately. It was a useful technique, but also the riskiest one in the arsenal of a Breath of the Flower user because increasing one's perception in such a way required creating a pressure on the eyes with Total Concentration Breathing, hence the bleeding that gave the sclera their current, distinctive color.
Kanao knew as she dodged and sliced the ice arm to pieces that prolonged use of the technique would render her blind, meaning there was no time to lose as she leapt up onto the statue and then the icey flower where Doma was before slamming her sword into the Upper Moon's neck. The poisoned demon's right arm had fallen off by this point and his left arm was too slow to block her attack, so he instead ordered his icy statue to blast Kanao in the back with freezing breath that threatened to coat her entire backside in ice. Despite this, Kanao pushed on with all of the strength she had left, driving her blade as deep as she could into Doma's withered neck. But even despite the poison, she was having a bit of trouble cutting his head off completely due to her exhausted limbs.
Fortunately, Inosuke had a solution to that thanks to still having his arms free despite the Buddha statue's grip on him. "Breath of the Beast Eleventh Fang!" Roared Inosuke as he threw both of his swords in Kanao's direction, "Sudden Throwing Strike!" The Boar Fighter's jagged weapons spun and slammed into Kanao's blade with enough force to push her sword even further. It was the literal push Kanao needed as she let out a final war cry while slicing Doma's head clean off.
The stunned demon couldn't even say a word at this point because of the poison which had rotted his mouth off. Though that didn't stop Inosuke who began stamping on Upper Moon 2's remains as soon as they hit the bridge. "Ha, you were all talk after all you bastard!" Exclaimed Inosuke with an evil grin on his face as he began stomping on the ashes with both feet, "we got him good, victory is ours-guh!"
He fell down to a sitting position then as his wounds started getting the better of him, such as the two slashes he'd gotten across his chest from earlier in the fight. "Master!" Exclaimed Kanao as she rushed over to Shinobu, "Master, are you alright?!"
"I've admittedly been better," coughed Shinobu as she held up her bandaged right hand, "that piece of shit took a good bit of skin off my right arm and both legs. I don't think I'll be running around much for the rest of the evening, and let's not even talk about my other injur-Kanao, are those tears?"
"I'm just," sniffed Kanao as she pulled Shinobu into a hug, "I'm just so happy you're alright!"
"'Alright' isn't the exact term I'd use," said Shinobu with a pained smile, "but I do feel a bit strange. Don't tell him I said this but perhaps Subaru was on to something. I really hadn't thought of what to do if I lived through my fight with that bastard."
"That's alright," said Kanao with a smile, "I'm still figuring out a lot of stuff too, but at least we can do that together now."
"Yes," said Shinobu with a smile, "yes I think I'd like that, sister." It was a touching moment, until Inosuke ruined it by asking, very loudly, if Shinobu was okay. Izayoi was not looking forward to helping him through the rest of the fortress.
Another Section of the Infinite Fortress
"Breath of Thunder Fourth Form: Distant Thunder!" Exclaimed Jinora as she hit both opponents with long range slashes. The two of them were hit, but even with the lightning aiding the slashes they still advanced towards her intending to unload their long-barreled revolvers at point-blank range.
"Breath of the Serpent Second Form," said Ozaki as she came slicing the back of the demon's necks, "Venom Fangs of the Narrow Head!" This blow was about as effective as the last several had been, which wasn't very much at all, but it did give Jinora a chance to leap and brace herself against a nearby wall.
"Breath of Thunder First Form," exclaimed Jinora as she sped past both demons, slashing their necks at an angle, "Thunderclap and Flash!" The technique itself was exectuted correctly, but once again the cut just wasn't deep enough to sever her opponent's heads. The demons responded this time by slamming both of their feet on the floor, causing several sections of it to break apart and swing into the air, flinging Jinora along with it. The two fired their revolvers at her then as if she was a piece of skeet flying through the air.
The slayer girl managed to deflect both bullets and readied her sword for another technique, but the moment she landed there was a gun barrel pointing right at her face. Just as the demon was about to cock the hammer, Ozaki came out of nowhere. "Breath of the Serpent Third Form: Coil Choke!" She exclaimed as she circled around their adversary, cutting them from all directions. If she had a moment, Jinora might've commented on the technique if not for the other demon swooping in with their own weapon aimed for the Breath of the Serpent user.
'No you don't,' thought Jinora as she leapt up and executed her own technique. "Breath of Thunder Sixth form: Rumble and Flash!" Her opponent was struck with several ranged, electrified cuts that tore into them from multiple directions, burning a bit of the amazingly durable cloak off in the process. The two slayers moved back and regrouped then, inspecting the effectiveness of their techniques. Unlike some of the others, these actually seemed to do some damage as the two demons appeared to stagger a bit.
But then the larger one cracked its neck and glanced their way, seeming more annoyed than anything. 'This, could prove to be insanely difficult,' thought Jinora as she and Ozaki prepared for the next assault. While this was occurring, Subaru, Izayoi and the group of other slayers they'd run into where following along after Mukago who was saving them a good bit of time by leading them through areas with the lowest presence of demons. It was certainly good news for rifle-wielding slayer as he didn't need to waste a lot more ammunition on anything else besides Muzan if he could help it.
"Keep your eyes peeled everyone," said Mukago, "Nakime's got surveillance on this whole place, just about. The closer we get to Muzan the more she's gonna manipulate the fortress to create obstacles."
"How vast is her control over this domain of hers?" Questioned Izayoi, "is she able to warp its shape into something completely different?"
"She's not the most creative sort," replied Mukago, "so she usually just creates doors in random places and manipulates those funky platforms to squish people from time to time." Subaru was about to comment on that when Shika screeched a couple of times at them.
"We might not need to worry by the sound of it," he noted upon hearing the falcon's report, "Shika says Mitsuri and Obanai managed to find her."
"That sounds awesome except for one problem," said Mukago, "if those two manage to cut off Nakime's head then-OOOOOOF!" Her sentence was cut off as two figures came flying in through one of the sliding doors, slamming into her with enough momentum to send her into Subaru. The result was all four of them piled up against a nearby wall.
"Ow," groaned Subaru, "what smells like snakeskin and thunderclouds?"
"Oh I know that voice," said Ozaki in annoyance as she repositioned herself as best she could in the current pile of bodies, "that's you isn't it, Subaru Genjirou?"
"Hey Ozaki," groaned the Matagi, "and if my memory is working right, that's Jinora Kuwajima with you."
"Pretty good," said Jinora as she and Ozaki managed to untangle themselves from the pile of bodies and stand up, "but would you mind explaining to me why there appear's to be an Upper Moon demon running around with you?"
"Hello," said Mukago as she shifted around and hugged Subaru, "this guy freed me from Muzan's influence with a trick from Lady Tamayo. I'm with you guys now because fuck Muzan and his stressful working environment."
"Wow I was wrong," said Ozaki, "you're even worse than Zenitsu. You actually seduced a female Upper Moon demon."
"That is not what's happening here," grunted Subaru as he managed to stand up and gently pried the demon girl off of him, "I'm spoken for already and she's currently in Muzan's sights unless we kill that bastard. I freed Mukago here because it seemed like a good time to test said little trick from Tamayo. Now we have a guide to get us to Muzan or Nakime, the one controlling the fortress. And speaking of demons, who or what sent you two flying through that door?"
"Well," said Jinora as she glanced at the hole they'd made where the demons they'd been fighting were now stepping through, "we ran into some tough ones. They're not Upper Moons but they aren't the same as the demon guards either."
"Mukago, any ideas who these two might be," questioned Subaru as he aimed his rifle at the newcomers.
"None," she replied while unflattening her revolver carbine, "I might not have seen every demon in this fortress, but I'm pretty sure these ones aren't from inside it. I feel like I'd remember guys who smell like wisteria and vomit." 'Wisteria and vomit,' thought Subaru as he sniffed the air a bit before his entire body tensed. He knew that smell and it was one of the last things he'd wanted to encounter this evening.
"Shit, everyone STAY BACK!" Exclaimed Subaru as he charged forward while firing his rifle a few times which barely staggered the demons. But that wasn't the point as he spun and released a large mass of explosives for his next attack. "Breath of the Rifleman Fifth Form: Obsidian Snow Five Fold!" The resulting explosion was enough to destroy the entire wall, floor and even some of the ceiling in front of him before the Matagi backed up with his rifle still aimed at the smoke.
"So that's Breath of the Rifleman," commented Jinora with a glance at the Matagi, "I'd heard it took many elements from the breaths of sound and thunder, but I hadn't expected it to potentially equal some of the techniques."
"I can tell you all about it later," replied Subaru without taking his eyes off the settling smoke, "but this fight is far from over. Isn't that right, SHUTEN AND IBARAKI DOJI?!" A sudden bout of laughter was Subaru's answer to this as said demons came walking out of the explosion, their cloaks and hoods now completely gone to reveal their more traditional kimonos.
"Well now that's a little disappointing," said Shuten while brushing a bit of shrapnel off himself, "I was hoping it'd take you at least a little longer to figure out who we were."
"Not that we put a huge amount of work into those disguises," commented Ibaraki, "I told you we should've covered our scents too."
"Oh come on I don't smell that bad," said Shuten with a shrug, "I'm just now getting wasted at this point-."
"Why are you here?" Questioned Subaru, running all of the current options for fighting them through his head. Even with the numbers advantage, they'd be hard-pressed to take on both of these powerful demons.
"Oh come now, that should be obvious," replied the drunk demon as he tossed away his gun, a long-barreled revolver Subaru identified as a Colt Buntline Special, "this is the biggest party that's ever happened in Muzan's fortress, so of course I'd show up to make a mess of things." He reached into his sleeve then and produced a massive Kanabo club which he rested on his shoulder. "And I think the next bit I'll do is, smash whatever in the world that catches my fanc-."
"What did you say your name was," said Jinora suddenly as Subaru noticed the grip on her sword had tightened significantly.
"Hmm," said the now slightly confused drunk demon as he turned to the Breath of Thunder wielder, "I'm the legendary drunk demon, Shuten Doji, and this is my wife, Ibaraki Doji. I know I haven't made as big of a splash as Muzan in the last thousand years, but that's because I've mainly been screwing around instead of making evil plans."
"Tell me," Said Jinora with narrowed eyes, "did you at any point encounter a Thunder Hashira?"
"You'll have to be a lot more specific than that," said Ibaraki with her hands on her hips, "we've encountered numerous Hashira over the years of just about every breath style you can imagine. Trying to remember one out of the several to possibly dozens we've killed is like trying to remember what we had to eat on a certain date last y-."
"You didn't kill him," said Jinora, "you got close though. Thanks to you bastards he lost his leg and was forced to retire."
"Oh now that really does narrow it down," said Shuten as he scratched his head, "the list of Hashira who've actually survived me is much shorter. Let's see, a surviving thunder hashira, no. No you couldn't be." He took in a big whiff of the surrounding air then and examined the scent. "Well I'll be, that bastard survived after all, Jigoro was it?"
"Jigoro Kuwajima," affirmed Jinora, "he said he lost his leg to a demon named Shuten Doji that smelled like a horrid brewery. I'd hoped someone else had managed to end you, but this is good too."
"Ah, one of my more recent hangover episodes," said Shuten, "then again when I say recent I mean within the last few decades. But I remember now, that was an annoying fight. He couldn't land a killing blow on me but it took me forever to hit him. I tossed him into the roof of a nearby building after I took out that leg of his but I guess he managed not to bleed out and now I'm looking at his, well you're too young to be a wife or daughter so I'm guessing, granddaughter?"
"That's right," said Jinora as some veins began to stand out on her arms and head, "I'm Jinora Kuwajima, granddaughter of the Thunder Hashira Jigoro Kuwajima. And I, AM GONNA TAKE YOUR HEAD!"
Well it seems Subaru isn't the only one who's familiar with Shuten Doji if Jinora's pissed off expression is anything to go by. Though given how things have gone so far, does she stand a chance of actually hurting him? But we'll see about that later, in the meantime, feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. Be sure to stop in next time as the fight against Shuten and Ibaraki accidentally spills into a couple of other fights. 'Til then.