Chapter 18- Calm before the Storm
The manslayer walked silently down the road, a sword slung over his back. In the pitch black of night, he appeared as a phantom to all who passed by. His mind was centered one thing: the one called the Black Oni, by others Shura.
"You accept your fate easily. How foolish. Have you no sense of value of your own freedom?"
Jaken listened to the taunts of the demon that silently whispered to his mind. Unlike with Shura, the evil spirit wasn't using a proxy, in their case his skull turned spaulder, to speak aloud. Instead, the demon's words resonated through his entire body.
The bandit lord at last stopped walking. His working eye drifted to the winding road in front of him. The darkness that surrounded him did well to conceal the path, so that not far ahead it seemed to disappear.
"My freedom may vanish after this." said Jaken, "Or perhaps it is only a matter of time before a powerful enough priest exorcises you. It doesn't matter. Right now, a satisfactory battle is the only thing worth wild in this world."
Jaken spoke to himself, "My blade is shaking with anticipation. Is yours manslayer?"
Shura's teacup shattered as she held it.
"What? I wasn't even trying to crush it this time! Ugh… I told you we should have just gotten sake!"
"Drinking nothing but sake isn't good for your body my dear." said Haru.
He called to for a waitress to clean up the mess on top of their table. Shura's fingers started fiddling around with the broken cup shards, trying to impale them into the table top. The waitress quickly cleaned away the mess and within a minute, set a plate of sweet dumplings between the couple.
Shura happily began to decimate the valuables of her skewer sticks. By the end, only a single dango was left untouched in her heap of skewers. She delicately scooped it up with two fingers.
"Hey Haru… why don't we try something? I heard about this. I'll put it in between my teeth and then you eat it?"
"What? That's… what's gotten into you? I mean you don't even sound embarrassed to say that out loud, no less try it."
"Why would I?" she asked, "This is all new to me and I want to try all this. I've missed out on so much, I should have tried my hand in this stuff ages ago. Not that it would have been the same without you Haru."
Haru felt something soft press against his lips. The taste was sweet and he opened his mouth to allow entrance. Shura laughed as she watched him eat her last dango.
He carefully swallowed it and resumed his rant. "Seriously though, you stopped stuttering and getting all shaky so fast. You've become such a predator, I don't know what to do."
"I have always been a predator. Now I just found another source of pleasure… something that induces lust…"
"Don't say it."
Shura laughed. "You're so cute."
Her expression suddenly changed to one unmistakably grave. "Besides…. we don't have much time left to hang out like this. It's been over a week since he left. Something tells me Jaken is nearly here, in the possession of that damned ayakashi."
Haru could feel the vibrations of her sword shake the table. Shura released her blade and put her hand over her face. It did little to hide her enthusiasm or her bloodlust. Her eyes narrowed into a hellish gaze and she exposed her fangs as she gave a wide grin.
"I can hardly wait!"
Author's Note: I apologize for the shortness of this chapter. They were events I felt needed to be there to flesh out the character's relationship and ready the stage for what's to come.