Demon Slayer Chapter 2

4 years.

It felt like it had gone by in a flash.

Everything that had happened during that time flashed through his eyes in a single moment, right as the lightning encased fist crashed into his face.

At least, that's what he'd claim when he picked himself back up.

And he did.

Naruto groaned. They were on sand, he shouldn't have bounced that hard.

Natsu burst out laughing from where he was sat, far enough away so that he wouldn't get between them. "You're so lame!"

"You didn't do any better." The blond snapped back, huffing out a stream of white flame at the girly-haired dragon slayer. It got on Naruto's nerves, Natsu was just as immune to fire as he was. He'd been smug when he was eating the pinkette's attacks, but it had instantly dropped when the roles had been so easily switched.

Natsu wiped his mouth having devoured the last of it, burping back his own attack in retaliation.

The two of them had been bugging Laxus for fights for the past month, and the older teenager had finally caved under the constant, repetitive barrage every time he came back to the guild. Now that they'd both lost after only mere moments of their fights starting, they would take their frustration out on each other.

It would often backfire, only creating more annoyance and frustration.

The damage they could inflict on each other was almost non-existent.

Natsu was the first to let it out. "Quit eating all of it!"

"I haven't eaten today."

"That's not my fault!"

"But it is your problem."

Hours later, still brimming with magic as if it had never been used in the first place, they'd collapse from physical exhaustion, throwing low, half-hearted insults when they had mustered the energy. Laxus had made himself scarce long before, unwilling to be around the two any longer than he had to be.

"My name's Natsu." Naruto mocked in his best attempt at a girl's voice. "Please don't make me go on any dangerous missions Master, it'll ruin my pretty pink hair!"

"I'll burn you."

"Try it, idiot."

A warm aura rushed over the blond, and he let out a snort of amusement before chowing down on the free food. Naruto sighed in content, pushing the sweaty strands of hair out of his eyes as he picked himself up off the ground. "Come on." He said. "We're going on a job."

"Now?"

"Now."

"Why?"

"Are you going to get up?"

"If you answer."

Naruto's lips twisted into a grimace. "It's just been a while. Nearly nine months."

Natsu grinned. Was that what he wanted to hear? "Getting lonely without me?"

"Piss off."

There wasn't many present in the guild's hall. Being a Tuesday, it meant that most were still out on the jobs they had taken the day before. Even Gray was gone, probably with Cana tagging along. It was true that Fairy Tail was growing larger and more popular with every year that passed, but they still received more requests than they could handle which meant there was a nice chunk still left over.

"Hey."

Naruto ignored it, it wasn't meant for him. The owner of that voice only ever came for Natsu. Instead, he tore an interesting looking request off the board. Three hundred thousand Jewels to play bodyguard for a couple of people on their way to Crocus? It was almost a joke how much they were willing to pay for a simple job like that. He pinned it back up in its previous spot, he wanted something more exciting, and there was no way he was making the long, tedious and boring trip all the way to the capital city.

The blond snatched up the monster hunter one instead, two hundred and fifty thousand Jewels. That was much more up his alley.

"Oh? You picked that one huh? I'd been planning to."

"Too late, mine now."

He'd hoped that she would leave him alone, but of course that couldn't happen. Why would she give him that luxury?

Mirajane Strauss, thankfully a hard worker and was almost always out on a job, usually with her two siblings by her side. She'd shown up out of the blue three years ago and joined the guild. Take Over, that was her magic. She took over demons and used their power to fight. Naruto had jumped at the chance to fight her when he'd heard about it, it was a chance for him to pit his demon slaying magic against a real demon's power.

He had his ass handed to him, while she had only taken one hit—a good hit, mind you, she'd blasted through one side of the guild hall and out the other, a hot trail of flames leading back to him.

They hadn't fought since, but Mira never dropped the subject and always found time to rub his nose in it.

"Want me to tag along and hold your hand?"

"I'm not a little kid."

Mira leaned down so her face was level with his, strands of her long white hair falling in front of her eyes, a mocking smirk firmly planted on her lips. "Is that so?"

"It is."

"Then when you get back, why don't you prove it to me?"

"You won't get a good reputation by beating up kids."

"Lucky for me that you're not then, right?"

Naruto twisted his nose in annoyance. A week ago, Erza had taken a job that (according to the master) would take months for her to complete. Was that it? Was that why Mira turned to him, because the person she usually vented her frustrations out on was away?

It kind of pissed him off.

"Fine." Naruto agreed. "This time, I'll send you through the cathedral."

He watched her lips, slowly twitching into a grin. "Perfect."

Displaying the request he'd pulled of the board, Master gave him a lazy wave of recognition before he was on his way, snatching Natsu away from the talkative Lisanna on his way out.

"Guuuhh..."

"Shut up."

He'd forgotten—while Lisanna had been taking up a lot of Natsu's time, the main reason he'd stopped going on jobs with the dragon slayer was because he was a complete pain in the ass to travel with. It amazed the blond, they'd fought to a standstill countless times, yet the thing that managed to consistently and without fail beat Natsu was transportation; arguably the most useful thing in the world, even more so for wizards as their requests often demanded long distances to be traversed.

"Uooogh."

It was the same for this request, too. It would be dark by the time they reached their client if they had walked all the way to Clover, but they could reach that point in just a couple of hours by taking a train.

Natsu picked himself up, using the window as support.

Was he feeling better?

The pinkette took a quick glance outside. Paling further, he retched, collapsing back down on the padded seats with a pitiful groan.

Guess not.

They'd arrived at the Oshibana train station, their last stop before Clover. From the window, Naruto could see all the boarding passengers. It was the middle of the day, most who had jobs were already at work, which thankfully meant that they wouldn't have to share their cabin with any weirdos.

Naruto's eyes landed on Natsu, staring out the window longingly like he wanted nothing more than to be on the ground.

Scratch what he said before, there was already one in here.

"We're on the final stretch to Clover." Naruto said. "You can stop being such a baby."

Was that a smile forming?

Naruto couldn't tell, the next thing he'd seen was the ceiling of the train. He could hear glass shattering, men and women alike screaming like they were being attacked, accompanied by a screech like someone was running their nails down a chalkboard, only much louder.

He flinched and groaned, his body ached all over. How much had he been thrown around? Better yet, what had even happened?

Shattered bits of glass were seemingly everywhere, some shallowly embedded into his skin. Naruto plucked them out. He was lying down beside window that let them see outside—at least, it used to. It was broken and all that was on the other side was stone, the entire carriage had been flipped over onto its side.

"What the hell happened?"

Naruto didn't have an answer.

The screams from before hadn't disappeared, now with pained yells and crying joining in among the pool of noise.

The door to their cabin had unhinged itself, the glass windows that had been on it in bits around them. He could try and reach to climb up and out, but there wasn't really anywhere for him to go from there. Instead, the blond picked himself and jumped, snatching at the door frame. Once, twice, he only just managed on his third attempt, arms straining as he pulled all of his body weight up with him.

The first thing he noticed was probably the worst sight he'd seen in his life. Someone hadn't been as lucky as he and Natsu were. The woman wasn't even twitching, a large piece of glass protruding from the back of her head. That wasn't the worst of it, part of the rail that people could grab onto for support while the train was in motion had broken up and littered the back of her body, including one that had gone straight through her spine.

Whether it came out the other side or not, Naruto wasn't brave enough to find it. Quite the opposite, he had to turn away and cover his mouth to prevent himself from throwing up.

Breathing deeply, he turned his attention back to Natsu, putting his hand back down through their cabin. "Come on." He said. "We need to get out of here."

Aside from scratches and the small bits of glass that had punctured their skin, the two were mostly fine. The rest of the passengers weren't in such a good condition, yet they still pulled themselves together enough to get out of the overturned carriage. He looked around for anyone that could need their help, but it looked like the adults had already beaten him to it—anyone too injured to help themselves were being pulled out by the train station's staff.

"It stinks."

Naruto flicked his eyes away from a man's corpse, that was at least two. He couldn't smell it, but Natsu's nose was on a completely different level than his was.

They pushed past the wreckage, moving past another dead body before reaching back door that led to the other carriages—well, it was where the door used to be. He had to jump again, reaching in one just one try this time, pulling himself up so his arms rested on the door frame.

It hadn't just been their carriage, the entire train had been derailed and thrown into the station, taking out plenty of the stone pillars with it.

The whole carriage shook, as if Master had grabbed it and rattled it around for a few seconds. Naruto furrowed his brows, looking wherever he could to try and find what had done it.

It happened again, a loud rumble following.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know."

"Well you're the one up there."

The third time it came was much rougher and louder. Naruto lost his grip and fell straight on his ass. He would have verbally complained, but was shut up by the booming roar that reached his ears.

"Shit."

It roared again as they scrambled out of the carriage, a new round of screaming following, he could hear those that ended before they'd gotten all the air out of their lungs. Natsu was the first to take off towards the screaming, Naruto close behind. The dragon slayer ran past the end of the carriage, instantly going back over his footsteps and bumping into the blond.

Naruto would have snapped at him, but once again shut his mouth as a completely different train carriage blew by them, bounced once off the wide staircase before rolling to the other side of the station. "Oh."

Around the carriage they'd been in was a monster.

Duh.

There was a few mages surrounding it, slowly backing off as they fired their spells. It was large, ten feet tall if he had to guess. If it wasn't for the ghastly skin, malformed hands and feet with the misaligned face, Naruto would almost call it human. On top of its head was a short horn, probably sharp enough to pierce steel.

It proved him right almost as soon as the thought had crossed his mind, snorting and charging at one of the mages who was at least capable of moving out of the way, the monster's horn ripping through one of the many scattered train carriages.

"Natsu." Naruto scrambled to pull the request out of his pocket and shoved it in the pinkette's face, he thought it looked familiar. "Looks like he found us instead."

The dragon slayer grinned, slamming his fist into his open palm. "As if I needed more reason to beat the snot out of him."

The two charged headfirst at the monster, taking its attention from the other three mages when Natsu spontaneously combusted. It roared back in response, lashing out and backhanding the closest mage, sending the man's limp body into the air and punching a nice hole in the train station.

"Stay back!" One of the others yelled at them—black hair, black eyes, a remarkably forgettable face and exitiiiia now tattered suit. He probably wasn't even a guild wizard yet was fighting the beast anyway, did he have a death wish?

The monster's nostrils flared. The muscles in its legs visibly tensed as it prepared to charge, doing so with a grunt and a huff. The man in the suit fired off his gun once more, but the blast of magic harmlessly bounced off of it's disfigured face.

Being faster in a dead sprint, Natsu clashed with it first, leaping up and sinking his fist into its chest. The beast's momentum was overpowered by the dragon slayer's flames, losing it's footing and flying back and slamming into one of the many overturned train carriages.

"Kama no Gekiko!"

The flames roared from the blond's mouth, washing over Natsu and meeting the downed monster head on, exploding in a brilliant show of white hot fire.

Natsu rounded on the blond immediately. "You hit me!"

"You'll get over it."

"Don't give me that crap!"

That was a nice and new thing he'd learnt after joining Fairy Tail, his magic wouldn't inflict any harm on anyone he didn't want it to. It had come in handy more than he originally thought it would, he didn't need to be wary of any allies getting caught up in it.

Though he couldn't do too much damage like that to Natsu anyway.

The monster huffed and snorted, skin steaming, slamming its fists into the train carriage as if it was throwing a tantrum, denting the metal even further with each hit. It picked itself back up rather quickly, tearing one of the train's rail wheels off and hurling it like a frisbee in one swift move.

Uh oh.

Naruto burst forward and tackled the suit wearing man to the ground, hearing the wheel loudly whistle over his head. "You should get out of here." He said, hauling the man back to his feet and sliding him out of the way as another zipped by them. Natsu re-engaged the monster with a shout. "We can take care of that."

He looked like he was going to open his mouth and refuse, but changed his mind when the dragon slayer roared and exploded, a sizeable sphere of flame surrounding him and the monster. Quickly and without further trouble, the man got out of sight, the only other mage there diligently following.

'Now that that's taken care of...' The blond's attention came back to where Natsu was fighting their target. He was jsut in time to see it, too—it being the monster's oversized fist crashing into Natsu's chest. In the split-second, Naruto would swear that he heard the bones cracking and snapping under the force. The beast followed through with his swing and the dragon slayer flew back at mach speed, striahgt past Naruto, and punched a hole through the steel that the train carriages were made out of with his body. 'Shit.'

The word repeated itself over and over again in his head. He'd heard of jobs going wrong plenty of times from the older mages in the guild, where wizards and anyone else involved were seriously injured, forever crippled, or even killed. No matter what request they took, there was always risks. Macao, Wakaba, Gildards and Master had pummelled that into all the heads of the younger mages ini the guild so they were all fully aware of what could happen. Despite that, it had never really crossed his mind that something would actually go that wrong.

He hoped that Natsu was okay.

He wasn't.

His friend's chest looked like it had caved in on itself, his breaths short and raspy, his eyes flickering around like he was still trying to understand what was happening. Naruto's hands shook as they hovered over Natsu's body, what was he supposed to do? He couldn't do anything, the only kind of magic he knew burnt stuff. "Natsu..." He croaked, voice weak and pitiful. He never should have let the dragon slayer fight it on his own, not even for a moment. They could have taken it down together, this situation wouldn't have arised if they had acted as an actual team.

The rumbling roar snapped his attention to the hole in the carriage.

It was already pretty large, large enough for him to climb through easily enough. It got larger, the monster ripped it open with its bare hands. Was it bigger than before?

Naruto swallowed. It was here to do to him what it had already done to Natsu.

He was scared.

It reared its giant arm back.

Naruto didn't really know what ran through his mind at that moment. Later, he'd probably call it stupid. He scrambled to his feet and launched himself at the beast with a snarl, coated in flames. Before it could swing, Naruto crashed his fist into its disfigured face with as much strength as he could muster. It was definitely bigger than before, stronger too, it was only sent sliding back a few paces back, one of the dark blisters on its forehead bursting.

The blond didn't stay still though, there was no way he could let the monster make another move against him, he really might die from it.

He thought he should probably come up with some sort of plan as he zipped under its legs, but there was no time to sit and think of what to do next. He span around, flames spilling from his body in excess, landed a blow to the back of its left knee. It roared out and swung the same leg to try and hit him, but the blond manouvered himself around it and made his way back to the monster's front.

It was still recovering from swinging its injured leg so hard and so suddenly behind it, Naruto used the time to jump at to the same level its face was at with the assistance of his flames. Its face was really disgusting now that he had a closer look; a darker tone that the rest of its skin, blisters that bubbled and boiled, black as night pupils, the whites of its eyes red and strained, it was made worse by the fact that its nose looked like someone had jabbed two holes in its head.

Naruto discarded the information, instead moving his body and swinging his led, his foot crashing into the side of the beast's head. Normally, it'd be where the temple was, but he had no idea if the monster even had something like that. It fell like a sack of potatoes, its entire body slamming into the stone ground with a thunderous clap.

There was no way Naruto would be satisfied with just that. He inhaled, a small string of flames escaping his closed lips, before leaning forward and popping his jaw open, flames wildly roaring from it at .nearly point-blank range, spreading out and going up into the in a torrent of hot flame.

When he'd ran out of steam, the monster's body reminded him of burnt fish, black and steaming. It smelt much worse, though.

Natsu.

Naruto scattered back over to the train carriage, hauling himself up and sliding over to Natsu's body. He was still breathing, if only barely. His eyes looked dead. "U-uh... j-just breathe."

The ground rumbled.

The panic from before had returned, he was shaking again. What did it matter that the monster had been taken out? He couldn't do anything to help the dragon slayer recover.

It rumbled again.

"Natsu?" His eyelids were beginning to finally close.

The rumble came again, much louder and more noticeable this time.

Naruto looked up. The steaming monster wasn't dead, its skin was slowly starting to come back. It was bigger again, easily over twenty foot now. Its arm reared back, only this time Naruto didn't have a burst of confidence come to him this time. Was there even any way he could beat it? He'd used as much power as he could in his attacks, but it had just gotten back up again, stronger than before and healing itself.

The giant fist hit him head on. He could feel his body bounce of off the stone and flip uncontrollably through the air-wait, hadn't he been inside the train carriage? There wasn't any stone floor in there. He caught a glimpse as his limp body soared through the air, the monster's giant fist retracting back through the hole in the side of the carriage it had blown through with the blond's body.

A cold, hard landing is what he'd been expecting—instead, it was much softer and warmer backed by a firm grip.

"It's okay." Someone said into his ear, his head thumped at the sound. The voice was familiar, one he'd heard numerous times over the years. Jiraiya? what was he doing there? He asked himself, was he in so much pain that he'd started to hallucinate? "I'll take care of it from here."

Chapter 2 done!