Crossovers: Demon Slayer (Gotouge Koyoharu) , Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (From Software), and Nioh 2 (Team Ninja)
This story is a joint idea of TheAbyssWatcher and I. Story would be all mine, world building—mine. Give the other guy some credits though, I live on his money for the moment.
Chapter 1, Arm of a Shura.
Blue eyes revealed as those eye lids slowly parted. Those orbs looked blankly into the darkness that was the ceiling of a hut. There was a shuffling noise, and as the figure covered in blanket turned her head, she saw an elderly woman collecting sets of tools on the small table across the room that was illuminated by sunlight seeping through the gaps on the side wall. When she was finally noticed, the person in black kimono with maroon streaks approached her.
"Please, drink this young one." A cup of something was in the older woman's arms. She motioned to tilt it for her to drink and she could do nothing but to comply. She had little strength to swallow the awfully tasted liquid, but with each gulp she could feel her vitality being restored. She started to drink with more vigour for the rest of the medicinal water and finished with a gasp for air.
"Good. You're much easier to take care compared to people I used to deal with." The elder said that with a small laugh of her own. "Honestly I don't know how you survived your injury. But you're not a normal human, aren't you?"
She replied by looking directly into the dark eyes of the woman, who covered her mouth with her left hand upon noticing something in her eyes. "Oh, my. A nagitama. I'm glad to be able to save you. We barely see any of your kind here in Ashina."
There was another presence in the room, a bit further close to the collection of wooden effigies.
"She's not fully a yokai." It was the sound of an elderly man. "A union of one and a human. A shiftling."
Sound of tapping could be heard, he seemed to be working on a contraption, tinkering with it.
"Your presence in this day and age tell tale of a great battle. As Lady Butterfly had once mentioned. It had been foretold in a scroll of the Hayabusa clan."
As two demons fight one another, a shiftling will fall by trickery. Broken and beaten will them be, but the fate of the nation would be burdened upon that beaten shoulder and great destruction soon follow.
The man recited the prophecy. It was pretty disturbing for the ill woman.
"You would want to be prepared for it. It is on your shoulders now, and you need two of them still."
The elderly woman with white hair styled as a blooming flower was silent for a while, processing the foretelling of yet another battle. She then got her attention back to nurturing the shiftling. "You're not beyond repair, warrior." She showed her patient that the left arm she had was sliced, charred, and smashed to complete and utter mess.
"There is a replacement for an arm. A tool of a shinobi. It served a purpose in the past, but if the day for it to see the struggle once more has come, so be it."
She brought more medicine for the obviously pained woman. This time it included knifes and what smelt like alcohol.
"Just bear with the pain for a while."
As unconsciousness brought her once more the place of transit, she found multiple figures standing in the distance.
One was a woman, she was standing on a giant wooden branch that formed a helix going upwards inside the hollow bark of a ridiculously big tree. The motherly figure, with cloth over her head, reminded the dirty blonde-haired shiftling of her own. Her feet brought her to come and meet the stranger.
When the figure realized of the advance on her, she seemed to snap out of her daydreaming expression. "Welcome, stranger," she said. "What brings you here?"
The younger looking woman had a dumb look on her diamond face under the shadow of the bangs of her hair.
"Why is it, stranger? What's on your mind?" She had voice so motherly in nature, soft and caring. She giggled when the taller of the two was scratching her head and looked away as she was caught without anything to say.
"Tell me of your name, samurai."
The blonde pulled out a dagger and drew the blade halfway. On the side of the crystalline blade was a writing.
"Hide, is it?"
A nod. The weapon was then put out of the way and stored to the back of the woman's hip.
"So, are you going to speak? Or you're really doing a vow of silence?"
No answer.
"Alright Hide. Would you like to hear a story instead?"
Hide, whose contrast black eye brows raised curiously was not expecting a person would be as motherly as if she was her own. It was mistakenly taken as an acceptance for the older looking one to continue.
"I have a child unlike any other of mine. He was brave, yet him heart was the most caring. He is also the most stubborn one."
The story went as the child appeared as such a miracle, that turned out to survive the slaughter of her family. The boy now had to live on with her sister to be taken care of. It was hinted that her surviving daughter was special in her own regards. The two was supposed to care for each other, but she feared that they would face great challenges ahead.
"Hide… You have a way out of here don't you? I can see that you're a kind soul. I would like of you to meet my son, and my daughter. They could use your help, if you be so kind."
And should you come to love them, as I know you would, you can find that they are such a great help themselves.
"There, there."
As Hide came back to the waking world, she found as if weights had been lifted with the way her body felt lighter than it had before.
The elderly man in an orange robes patted her on the right shoulder.
"Even I did not awake after that deathly experience the way you do. The weight of this burden on your shoulder is placed for such a strong soul that will carry it to become part of themselves. Your calling is not misplaced and you should heed it." The elder did not even look into her eyes when he said those heavy words. The one-armed man then left her side and went back to his business of sculpting.
Hide's mind was then brought to the other person in the room, the old healer.
"You have a lot ahead of you. I suggest some more rest to get yourself back to full strength. I shall have food ready for you the next time you're awake."
This old lady was not as warm as a normal doctor would be. Her way with using the scalpel and knife, as the scene of the woman amputating her whole left arm gradually coming back to Hide, was not that of a mere healer but the precision of a combatant. She wondered what it meant.
Another medicine, a pellet this time was given for her to drink. It tasted slightly of a poison she knew, and it did make her losing consciousness.
It was a rare moment for her to be brought into a dream of her own mind making. And it was a not happy memory.
So this was the evil that sucked the blood of those people. He had the appearance of a man in his thirty, black curly hair and sinister eyes that had no remorse of the killings he did. He took her presence very seriously, knowing of a worthy opponent the moment he laid those cruel eyes of his upon her blue ones.
"What are you? State your business!" He demanded.
The way he raised his tone indicated he was not looking for answer from the blonde, but an opening. He wanted blood the moment he realized the woman's nature was that of a yokai, if only partially. Hide knew well of this point onwards combat is inevitable.
"How dare you, filth! Answer me where you stand, in the presence of an immortal!"
Sword quickly came out of its scabbard, an uchigatana that had no particular specialty to its design. The blonde held onto its handle in a relaxed grip and put up a stance of holding the blade forward to the height of her chest, pointing it slightly upwards. It was the middle stance for balanced offense and defence.
She had no idea what to expect from the fellow yokai. It was clear that responding to his talking would leave her open for an attack.
"You seek to kill me, is that it? Your puny blade will not even cut me! Come! Let's see if you can land a blow before you bleed!"
Her primary instinct was not to respond taunting. She should hold her ground and let the enemy made their advance first, but in this case he knew to be wary himself and decide to wait for her to make a move.
It was a stalemate, but the fight was unavoidable.
Should Hide disengage, the demon would hunt her down and that would put her at a disadvantage.
She finally decided to slowly approach her foe.
"Too weak!"
A malformed thing that appeared to be a creature with many sharp teeth charged at her at speed she did not anticipate.
She managed to raise her sword on time to block the full brunt of the impact from what turned out to be an appendage the man grew out of his body. The blonde managed to hold her ground, but now she was open for follow up attack as her katana was thrown away.
"Die!"
Another of the monstrous thing was launched her way, going for the head.
She side stepped it at the last moment, but now that there was two of those things, they became a real threat as they turned around and chase after her.
Hide turned around to meet them, the first one came she jumped over and the second one she ducked under.
Then she sprinted toward her lost blade, picked it up and put it back into its scabbard. She pulled her other weapon and launched her own attack right after with double swings of the greatsword, an odachi that was four times the size of a regular katana. It had the weight to slice off the offending appendages.
The purifying element infused for the blade left burn marks that cauterized the wound it left.
She then switched back to her shorter blade and did an iai stance. She timed a consecutive attack that slashes an area all around her, covering herself in a barrier of after images from the slashes. It caught attacking tendrils that exploiting her blind spot. Her strong perception was able to sense those.
"You…" Her inhumane enemy shook with rage.
He was a demon that had gone far beyond reasoning and there's no saving the twisted form he had become but through deliver him to the next world. His own offensive capability was not enough to kill her, and she can see it in his eyes that he now actually feared for his life.
He grunted and made a run for it, jumping from where he was standing with such incredible force that it brought him to a rooftop of a pagoda a block away.
Hide could not cover such distances but she made a chase for it.
She drew her crystalline yellow dagger and with it transformed into a fox of the most beautiful white colour, wearing pink scarf and had pretty braids below its ears. Its nine raised tails swayed as it hopped around the rooftops of the houses following the man with blood red eyes.
The chase brought them halfway across the city of Edo. It took them to the heart of the city in a place where the road was totally unlit.
It was at this moment the man vanished into the darkness.
The nine-tails launches fireball from its bushy tails as did a back flip in an attempt to illuminate the surrounding. It was quickly revealed that multiple figures were there.
They disposed of the projectile with their own method of fighting style. Among them was shock waves of different origin and shape.
The fox jumped in to the empty air and transform once again in reaction to the enemy number. It became a floating figure, skin pale as the snow and it made a pose of howling into the moonless night sky. Large shock wave from the feminine form of a yokai pushed aside the others that was aimed her way. She then lowered herself to the ground in her full glory of a yokai, a phantom type.
Her hair was a mess compared to the ponytail it was. Now that they was unleashed, they extended to their full length to her side and her back. White streaks were on the end of every single strand, including the one going across the face where it was partly covered by a black mask resembling a fox she had been.
Her eye's sclera turned blood red but the irises still of the glowing blue that can be seen through the slits for the eyes.
Underneath the base of the mask her mouth that had the once thin lips thickened, with a pair of big fangs came out from the corner of her mouth, but her face was still the same proportion of size.
Two protruding horns, crystal like and simmering with warmth and eerie light was atop of her forehead.
The attire she wore was of the same leggings: black cloth as belt for pelt with grey fur over dark blue cloth skirt. She wore black straps on her one visible thigh for what appears to be shinobi tools.
Her feet were not touching the dirt of a pathway, and they were covered by tied black leather foot wrappings that had the toes shown.
The torso was different though, where it was pelt, leather and a bit of cloth, now it was metal plates of swiveling pattern that tightly wrapped the shapely figure but left the midsection of her chest open, giving a bit of cleavage. On the shoulders was two pauldrons with waves of white fabric from underneath with differing lengths that giving of the majestic of her appearance of an ancient form of yokai.
The final touch was glowing amber fabric looping over her head based on a collar that made a magnificent floating decoration.
Five sets of eyes were analyzing her every feature and while they could not see any arm, they the black hands that were as if made solidified lava, still glowing hot. They hovered on her sides, positioned just as normal hands would in case of invisible fore and upper arms.
The one she was aiming for, the farthest away in the pitch-black darkness under the shadow of a Torii Gate, he said: "Kill her."
The next thing happened was a very complex set of illusion one could ever hope to comprehend.
It was a blurry maelstrom when it was cast upon and now the whole surrounding transformed into a labyrinth of a structure, where each boxy segment had sliding doors, walls, ceiling and floor. The rooms was scattered all over the seemingly endless three-dimensional space and they were aligned differently as if most of them had tumbled over to every possible configuration.
The demoness looked at her surrounding and gave a bit of inspection as her enemies practically disappeared from her view.
She explored, also tried to destroy a bit of the wall and the roof to an inconclusive result.
She then decided to called for one of the greatest of her ability, summoning another yokai that had pledged their allegiance upon her by submitting their core for her to use.
With a rumbling of the entire dimension that was the accursed place, a giant entity came and occupied a massive portion of the place by destroying anything in his path. There, the legendary Daidara-Bocchi came forth, as big as a castle and its arm was made out of great boulders. Its face was that of a torn apart earth with branches of trees carried by the destruction, with two glowing orbs the colour of yellow as its eyes. Those orbs then glowed menacingly before shooting off beams of energy and made rupture to the supposed living illusion.
"Incredible…" A voice with no presence where it came from could be heard hanging just a few distance away from Hide.
As the illusion crumbles, the previous world came into view once more, but she was greeted with her being surrounded within striking distance and with a lot of attacks coming her way at the same time.
With no time to dodge, she summoned a barrier of golden plates than surrounded her form. It retracted some of the attacks and the counteracting force the thing had blew as a very strong shockwave that send the four offending figures of males into the air and away a good ten feet away, but rendered the woman staggered herself.
What came next was the same two giant form that was the transformed arm of the curly haired man. It came at her defenceless form with roaring sound as it was faster than the speed of the current wind.
Then darkness consumed her.
With loud gasp and racing heart, also series of coughs did she woke up.
A presence was quick to approach her. It was the older woman, her face was not the slightest worried. She brought a cup of warm water for Hide to drink, as she was already up and sitting on her bed.
After few gulps the blonde stopped trembling. Her brilliant blue eyes then looked at that of the elderly woman in worry and confusion.
"You are recovering from otherwise fatal injuries." The elder spoke calmly. "A few more days and you should be strong enough to go out."
She put the cup away. "My name is Emma. I was the one to found you the other night and brought you here."
The younger looking woman, who did not realized she was as naked as the day she was born, had her round bosoms out in the open as she had her torso out of the blanket, so Emma started wrapping them with roll of cloth she had to cover her modesty.
Once Emma finished with the wrap, she picked up a bowl of soup for her patient. When Hide was about to accepted it, her hands was gently pushed down by the cold arm of her caretaker.
"You're should get used to the new arm first."
It was then Hide realized of her now much different left arm.
Strong and hard wood that was also lightweight, highest quality steel, and other exotic material was involved in its design that made the makeshift arm worked just as a real arm would and they responded exactly as how she would her own would.
She moved it to touch her own face and got smacked instead as it actually heavier that it felt, got staggered a bit. Then as she came to cope with the balance and mass of it, again she tried to inspect her own face with it, comparing the feel with her real hand.
Where as her right could feel the sharp jawline, the thick eyelash, the straight nose, and the small lips; her right could only feel slight resistances in its effort to brush a surface.
She did not retain her touching sense for the replacement arm.
Close to her ears, it also creaked as if it was a piece that had not been used for a long time, despite her mind had told her that she had to have inherited the thing from the one-armed sculptor.
She then let both of her arms left her face that was now directed toward the silent sculptor on the far side of the temple as she came to reckon the building was supposed to be.
"Now, now." Emma brought attention back to herself.
With a spoon of the soup in her hand she was to feed the gorgeous stranger. "You need to eat to regain your strength, then you can talk to the sculptor yourself."
The elder gave Hide but the briefest moment to open her mouth and the blonde had to adjust by leaning backwards so she would not get broth all over her newly applied underwear. Her injured self was truly so weak that swallowing the food was difficult.
It seemed she would have a lot of recovering to do.
It was the second night since she was awakened from her near-death experience.
It was raining heavily that day, with thunder and wind that the rain droplets came in waves as they can be seen through the gaps of some of the loosely fitted wooden panels for wall.
She definitely caught respiratory issue the other day and had pretty bad fever that Emma had to do some traveling to get medicine for the treatment, hence why she was practically alone at the moment, with the sculptor not having any interest but to make more of the Buddhist effigies.
His creation was very different with some of other that seemed to be a lot older and angry looking. The newer ones were that of a committed presence, like a retainer that will follow the wish of his master, even with their death. But none of them would be of comparison to the golden one on her right. When she was looking at them, she had a sense of a spirit lived inside of it. Should she offer something, she might find herself gaining a favour of some sort.
Her latest musing was interrupted with footsteps that accompanied the heavy rain. It grew closer by the second and then it transitioned from splashing ones to that on wooden tile.
She knew that would mean a visitor, but this late at night the door to the temple is closed and the sculptor was sleeping.
The elderly man was quick to wake upon the sound of knocking followed by shouting.
"Anybody inside?! Please hurry! They're almost here! Help!" It sounded like a young man, but it was weird that the footstep was so heavy. "Hello?! Please help! I can't fend them off at the moment! I have to hide! Please!"
The elderly sculptor was slow to move, while Hide was so caught up in her illness she should not be off the bed anytime soon. It took some moment for the elder to open the door, and by then another presence was nearing the place.
The opening door revealed a young male carrying a sizeable wooden box on his back, who was now facing the figure out there in the rain, with a black sword in his arms.
"Get in, boy. The protection of the temple would prevent the demon from entry." The sculptor calmly said it despite his eyes was narrowing at the presence Hide had no access to see.
She was quick to realize of the familiar aura of an aratama, an evil yokai.
She remembered hearing of the protection of the place in the story Emma had lulled her to sleep with, to help her through the fever. Pretty sure she mentioned an instance of the seals it once had was broken by the conceiving of a demon that once lived in the temple. That would mean that the place was defenceless.
Feared for the safety of them all, Hide forced her aching body to wake up, barely clothed and all, and reached for some of her stuff she had managed to make in her boredom and disability to got out—some papers with writings on it and a horn with inscriptions. She also scrambled for her dagger in the stash of her belongings, but it was not there. She just knocked over the whole thing in frustration.
With only her blanket to cover her lean figure of a woman in a messy wrap, she shakily stepped towards the entrance, getting looks from the sculptor and the boy who just got inside.
She halted the old man from closing the door and head out a bit. The unsightly shape of a snake with the torso of a woman that had no arms—a nure-ona (wet lady) was there out in the rain and it gave off a sadistic laugh when it saw her.
It charged at her with mouth opened fully like the snake it was. Hide slammed the big wooden door as she stepped back in to block the attack. There was a booming sound as it hit the door with such force that the impact knocked the youngest off his feet. Hide practically bashed the creature with the door by kicking it open, then she followed up with another strong one that hit the yokai in between its bare bosoms that launched it into the clearing again.
Before the thing could recover, she used one of her paper that she kept dry in the blanket. With the gesture as if that of ancient Japanese magic user, she raised the paper seal and swing it forward to follow her two fingers holding onto it, pointing at the monster.
Projectile in the shape of ball of lightning was thrown and hit the intended target of the ground just in front of the snake.
It cried just like a woman, but with an otherworldly echo to it, as it was zapped by electricity conducted by the pool of water it laid on. It trashed around for a bit, distracted by the pain and the nasty shock.
It gave time for Hide to use her horn. It blew a soundlessly from it, but it seemed to create even more electricity compared to the papers. The sparks generated by the action gathered through the rain and formed a in front of her line going towards the yokai, then they explode in pillars of lightning.
It was so devastating that it decimated some of the tall bamboos behind the creature into two burnt pieces that was quickly being extinguished by the rain.
The nure-ona then stopped moving and its body rapidly vaporized into black fumes as if it was swallowed by a darkness.
With that, the weakened woman took rapid breathing as she had expended energy she barely had at the moment. And then she fainted at the doorstep.
End of chapter.
New story for better fandom here we go! I'm trying to prove a point here, that people have preferences on the sort of fandom and character they would read. I know I have mine, but majority watch, for example: Shirou Emiya (Fate: Stay Night) and Jaune Arc (RWBY); much more so than others and they were not that much of a popular fandom. Why?