'Okay, okay, okay, okay—' I took in a deep breath to bring me back to the present, because God fucking dammit, it bloody hurts.
The sharp piercing pain in my joints was almost bloody unbearable— even with all the shit amount of adrenaline rush my body was going through right now. I was honestly in no condition to fight— which even Tamayo noticed.
"Take cover, Miyasha!" Tamayo insisted, gently tugging the long-ass sleeve of my haori, "I can see how much this is draining you... You haven't recovered enough to engage in a fight yet—"
"I know!" I gritted my teeth as I noticed Tanjiro and Nezuko exiting the house, "But it would be very unfair to just let them fight alone! They are kids, Tamayo! Kids!"
I fiercely looked into her eyes, those almost pupil-less purple abyss, "At least let me guide them." I requested, suddenly feeling guilty for yelling at her. It was quite stressful, fighting alongside people I was not yet used to.
Tamayo nodded, slowly getting up with help of Yushiro as we moved towards the crumbled walls of the house.
'They would have to change location again...' I thought wistfully, 'Maybe when this fight is over, I can help them relocate—'
"Tamayo-san!" I looked up to Tanjiro, who kneeling just behind the temari-demon after he had cut off all her arms, "Are these two demons closely related to Kibutsuji?"
Tamayo contemplated over this and declared that they most likely were.
'They weren't though, were they?' Even though my memory of the manga and anime was slightly fogged, it did not mean I couldn't remember the basic of the plot details—
"Then, I'm going to extract blood from them for sure!" Tanjiro declared, determination blazing in his eyes.
Suddenly the demon started cackling loudly, regenerating her six arm within the fraction of a second as her cut-off limbs disintegrated slowly. "You think you're going to extract blood from us? I don't know what you are scheming," She grinned maniacally at us, making me and Yushiro stand protectively in front of Tamayo, "But I won't allow you to do anything to displease him!"
Tanjiro took a step back at her deranged smile as she had turned backwards to face him, "If you think you can extract blood from us Twelve Demon Moons, have at it!"
"Watch your back!" Yushiro instructed, "Don't let your guard down for a second! If those two really are Twelve Demon Moons, then they're undeniably more formidable than any other demon you've killed until now!"
"Right! Understood!" Tanjiro replied back, repeating what Yushiro said as a mantra. "Right! I'll do my best!"
"Tamayo-sama!" Yushiro started, "Let's use those two as decoys and escape." Upon my intense glare and Tamayo's shocked expression, he instantly claimed it as a joke.
'Joke, my ass.' I glared at him one last time before focusing on the fight going on before us.
"I'm going to bring that head of yours to him—" the demon gloated loudly, just as Nezuko was suddenly pushed onto Tanjiro. "Now then, why don't you both die at once?"
'Can I really not take one of them on my own?' I asked myself again, already knowing the answer to that question. Fuck me and my fucking bad decisions and my fucking curiosity for going near Muzan despite my better judgement.
"Hey, demon hunter!" Yushiro called Tanjiro again, "You get rid of that arrow man first! We'll take on the temari woman with your sister!"
"Understood!"
I glared at the fans in my hands intensely, gripping them tightly as my knuckled turned white. 'Even Yushiro is helping them more than I fucking am. And he didn't even wanted to do that in the first place!'
"Oi, woman!" Yushiro called me, "Stop staring at your hands and get fighting!" I nodded silently at his instructions and moved out, noticing the demon being distracted by Nezuko.
Without a moment's notice, Yushiro sprinted towards the temari-demon and used his blood demon technique to vanish, making the said demon very confused.
Using the opportunity presented to me, I opened my fans and jumped right in, slashing her arms deeply just as Yushiro kicked her while being invisible. This caused two pair of her upper arms being cut-off, degenerating instantly as it fell to the ground.
'Fuck.' I cursed inwardly, 'There's not enough blood coated on these fans! I cannot poison her if I don't coat them again!'
Not to mention that I couldn't actually behead her due to my lack of strength and the fans not being an effective weapon to do so with.
"You hurt Tamayo-san!" Yushiro started, furiously pointing his finger at the female demon in front of him. "I'll never forgive you for that!"
'Jesus Christ... the amount of devotion and stubbornness this man has for Tamayo is borderline obsessive.' I thought absent-mindedly as I made a cut on my left forefinger with the tip of a blade of my fan and let the blood drizzle over the fans generously.
"Tamayo...?" The arrow-demon mused, "Hey, Susamaru, the one over there... Wouldn't that be Tamayo, the Fugitive? What a great souvenir she'll make!"
"Is that right...?" The temari-demon said, before trying to regenerate her arms, "What...? Why can't I-?!"
I immediately sprinted towards the demon, intending to inject her with as much of my blood as I could. Noticing me rapidly moving towards her, she instantly threw as many temari balls as she could towards me and Nezuko. I redirected my path, jumping away from her as I slashed her face and collar bone; her blood splattering over my own face as I instantly closed my eyes to avoid getting them injured.
I heard Yushiro and Tamayo yell as I fell unceremoniously at the ground nearby, instantly being dragged by someone as I felt something pass by me at a high speed.
"Oi, baka!" Yushiro seethed near me, "Can you not attack them without injuring yourself?!"
"I'm not injured..." I half-heartedly replied as I instantly rubbed off the demon blood on my face by the sleeve of my haori, "And avoid touching me, unless you want to be injured." I made a playful jab as I moved my closed fans even further away from him.
"What fun this is!" The temari-demon kept repeating, as she finally regenerated her arms back after kicking Nezuko back into the house.
"Did you inject her with your blood or not?!" Yushiro asked me urgently as he noticed her talking to her partner about bringing our heads back home.
"I did but..." I looked at the nasty slash wounds at her face and collar bone area, "It may take a while to to show effects! She's a higher level demon, after all."
Yushiro cursed as he finally got up from the ground, slowly helping me off as we moved from the demon's sight. Unfortunately, the temari-demon noticed this as she instantly started bouncing her temari balls forcefully on the ground to create as much dust as she could.
"Yushiro," I whispered as the thick dust clouds covered our sight, "Leave me here for now. Go attack her."
"What the hell are yo—"
"Just trust me on this, okay?" I pleaded, "You can't avoid her attacks with me as a baggage!"
"But you will die if I leave you here!"
"I won't! Just do what I say, please." Yushiro glowered at me for a few seconds, finally loosening his grip on my shoulders.
"Don't die." Was the only thing he said before sprinting off to attack that demon woman. I instantly limped off to the side of the house, avoiding any kind of detection from either side of the fights.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' I cursed as I felt immense pain at my left ankle and right hand's wrist, 'My movement is seriously impaired! I fucking shouldn't have gotten involved in all of this at all.' I thought bitterly as I suddenly felt Tanjiro's aura flair and the arrow-demon's aura significantly lower down.
'Wait, what is happening-' My eyes widened as I saw Tanjiro being plunged around by an invisible force. I instantly got up on my feet, moving as fast I could towards where Tanjiro and that blind demon were fighting.
What I noticed there was a decapitated demon cursing loudly at Tanjiro as the boy himself was plunged around by what I assumed to be his demon blood art technique.
'What should I do—' My eyes widened ad I noticed him using his breathing technique to break down the obstacle and somewhat change the direction of his 'flying'. I looked down at the demon who hadn't noticed me yet and mused if I should use my blood on it or not. 'No time to think, Miyasha. Just do it!'
I immediately retrieved my fans and sliced open the same cut on my left forefinger, making it bleed even more. Sprinting towards the demon with as much speed as I could, I generously drizzled its head with fine droplets of my blood.
"What is thi—" the demon let out an unholy scream as its skin melted off of its bones and caught the unnatural white flames my blood always brought. Even its body started disintegrating faster, falling like ashes onto the ground.
I instantly wiped one of my fans clean with my haori and threw it towards the direction of the body of the demon. The fan clashed with the already fallen body, inflicting a wound on it as it clattered nearby. I watched as the blood from the wound started dripping onto my fan without combusting.
I finally looked up after that— my eyes following onto where Tanjiro could be and saw him free falling from almost five meter above the ground.
'Oh shit—' I ran towards him, jumping at the last moment to cushion his fall with my body— which I would have almost missed if I hadn't jumped.
His body harshly landed over mine, making me lose all my breath as I felt the force of his fall. Tanjiro gasped loudly, gulping as much air as he could. He instantly tensed though, when I groaned loudly, immediately trying to move away from on top of me before sprawling back onto my stomach.
"I'm sorry, Miyasha-san! I didn't mean to fall on top of you—"
"No," I immediately cut him off, "You didn't mean to, but I did. You would have broken quite a few bones if you had fallen directly onto the ground, not that you might not already have a few broken ones with all that flying around."
"I'm so sorry!" He loudly apologized, again trying to get up from on top of my stomach before I stopped him.
"Calm down, boy." I commented, mildly annoyed with our awkward situation and my immense back pain, "Let me help you. You are clearly too exhausted to even move around properly." I slowly got myself up to a sitting position and helped Tanjiro move to the ground beside me.
When he started trying to stand up, I tugged him back onto the ground. "Sit down here. And do not move."
"B-But, there's still one more demon-"
"They will be fine." I sharply conveyed, "They can fight very well, not to mention you may very well have some fractured bones and internal bleeding—"
I was rudely interrupted by an unholy scream, this time of the temari-demon's.
Bile rose to my face as she came into our view with her face and chest melting off of her bones. Her internal organs became visible to us as its skin and bones liquefied, and caught fire simultaneously.
I could hear Tanjiro gasping in horror, watching the demise of the demon just as I did. I closed my eyes as I heard her dying groans; pitiful even as they were, they made me feel more of a monster than I already thought myself to be.
After a few minutes of nothing but silence and the sound of the flames, Tanjiro looked up and asked, "Did she just... die?"
Before I could answer, Tamayo answered for me. "She will die momentarily."
"That's..." I started hesitantly, looking at the remains of the demon in front of me, "That's the effect of my blood on demons." I simply stated. I didn't knew how to explain it in any other way, and I didn't know if I even could.
Tanjiro looked at me with eyes that were filled with so many emotions— too many for me to even want to decipher. I looked away and focused all my attention in attempting to stand up.
"Tanjiro-san," Tamayo called out, "She is not one of the Twelve Demons."
"Yes, she isn't." I agreed, looking down at Tanjiro, who was still attempting to sit straight, "A Demon Moon has their number engraved on their eyeballs, which neither of the two did." I looked back at the demon remains sprawled around on the ground in front of us, "Though, that did not mean that these two were not as strong as a lower moon."
"Lower... moon?" Tanjiro asked tentatively.
"There are two... tiers of Demon Moons, you can say. The lower tier are the lower Demon Moons and the upper, stronger ones, are the upper Demon Moons." I explained, "The ones we just fought tonight, were almost equivalent to the lower six. Though, they didn't exactly use their full potential, thus, can be considered weaker than the lower six as well."
"Weaker?" Tanjiro asked in disbelief, "At that level?"
"Yes," Tamayo agreed. "She's right."
"Who knew there were such stupid demons?" Yushiro scowled at the corpse, "She physically injure Tamayo-sama. She got exactly what she deserved." I wisely chose not to comment on it, instead focusing Tamayo and Nezuko.
"Tamayo," I gently called, "That arrow-demon's corpse might have disintegrated by now, but I had managed to collect some of its blood onto my fan. You'll find it near the brick wall, somewhere perpendicular to us."
Tamayo nodded, instructing Yushiro to bring her some injections. "There is still one of the other demon's arm left from when Nezuko attacked her," Tamayo mentioned, "I can retrieve her blood from it as well then. I hope these blood samples will be instrumental in developing the healing serum."
"That's... That's good." I breathed in a deep breath. "Do you need my help, somewhere?"
"I need you to rest a few hours now, Miyasha." Tamayo gently stated, "You have lost a lot of blood and have also injured yourself at many places."
I didn't dare say anything else, knowing full well that I might anger a certain loverboy if I went against Tamayo.
"I'm going to take care of Nezuko." Tamayo declared, looking at me from the corner of her eyes, "I medicated her heavily and almost used my spell in front of her... I'm sorry." She slightly bowed to Tanjiro. "And Miyasha, please come inside and rest. You need to let your body heal from the effects of Kibutsuji's blood."
"I... I will."
Tamayo smiled one last time before going inside the house with Yushiro on her tail as he ordered us to not move a muscle.
"Ma... ri..." I gasped as I heard the demon's voice calling for her temari several, turning to see Tanjiro gather the toy and gently placing it near the demon's corpse.
"Here's your mari." He gently said, his eyes turning softer as he heard the demon asking for him to play with it.
'How is she still... alive? Because of her left over arm...?' I thought fleetingly as I stared at the sky.
As the Sun started rising, I looked up to watch the remaining bits of the demons gradually disintegrate. Tanjiro sat there in silence, contemplating a few things as he looked up to the slowly brightening sky.
"What are you thinking?" I softly asked.
"...There's no salvation for them." Tanjiro answered gravely, his eyes focused on the last temari ball in front him, "Even after they die, not even their bones remain... Is this the price they pay for killing others?"
"They might not exactly be aware of their doing." I started softly, looking up at the gradually brightening sky, "Even if they were humans before, their humanity and memories were stripped away from them as soon as they turned into a demon— most of them turning into one without even their consent."
"Miyasha-san," Tanjiro gently started, "Do you... do you think that all demons deserve this?"
I looked at Tanjiro, his figure still slumped in front of the temari ball. "No." I simply answered, musing if I should explain it or not, "Nothing is black and white in the world, Tanjiro. Demons, no matter how much we deny it, are just like humans— just with the lack of their human memories. They are the darkest part of their human selves, representing how evil one can become. They are unfortunately interpreted as filth rather than what they actually are: untold tragedies, thus, breeding hate and self-righteousness among the victims of these catastrophe."
I sighed loudly, "In the end, no demon deserves dying like this... Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is to kill and free them of their forced immortality." I ended, slowly turning to face Tanjiro, who seemed to be already staring at me.
"Do you think that about Kibutsuji, too?" Tanjiro asked tersely.
"Muzan... is a different thing entirely." I commented carefully, knowing the significance of the answer to Tanjiro, "He... has been around for too long; living with such an absolute power for so long that it has absolutely corrupted him, disabling him from seeing anything beyond his own self. His story may very well be a tragedy, but the ripples it caused are so drastic and catastrophic, that almost no one can agree to see him as a victim."
I closed my eyes after that, giving Tanjiro a chance to contemplate about everything and ask anything else, if he wanted to.
I could almost feel the first rays of sunlight on my face— the gentle breeze along with it felt heavenly to my body.
"You should go inside now, maybe." I offhandedly commented, breaking Tanjiro away from his thoughts.
"Hai."
"Can you walk now? Or should I help you walk?"
"Hai, Miyasha-san! No need to worry." Tanjiro replied gingerly as he walked towards the house, but suddenly halted as he turned his head back to look at me, "Miyasha-san?"
"Hai...?"
"Were you the person who helped me walk back home when I fainted... a few weeks ago?"
I smiled at him, "Yes, it was me."
Tanjiro now fully turned back to face me, bowing as he thanked me for helping him.
"It was my duty to help, silly." I softly smiled at him, "Now go to the basement of the house— Yushiro and Tamayo must have brought Nezuko there as they noticed the Sun rising. Also, do not forget to take your wooden box along with you when you go down, so that Nezuko doesn't have to come out in presence of sunlight at all."
"Hai, Miyasha-san."
I smiled one last time as I noticed Tanjiro leave. All this had been a very troublesome yet such an exciting ordeal.
'It's time to leave now.' I thought wistfully as a sudden grief took over me. I didn't want to leave.
'But if I didn't...' Then what?
What if I didn't? Would it be so bad?
What if I actually could change things for the better? Save Rengoku, maybe? Protect people just like I wanted to? Was I ready to take that responsibility?
Was I?
"Miyasha-san!" I was pulled out of my thoughts as I heard someone calling me. I turned to see Tanjiro waving at me as he jogged up to me, "Miyasha-san," he huffed as he reached near me, "Would you like to travel with me?!"
(~End of Blood Arc~)
Soooo, this arc is over! I really hope you enjoyed the double upload today xD
I was feeling motivated as Hell these past few days and you guys' reviews and fav/follow just made me wanna write even more! And this fanfic has crossed 100 followers! OwO
As for the chapter, I think you all may have noticed how Miyasha didn't exactly had any role in the fight— not an actual direct one at least. That, my friends, was intentional. Not only was she 'injured' while all this happened, it was all too sudden for her despite her foreknowledge. Not to mention she still isn't sure of her actions yet, and her inner conflicts just make it worse for her.
So, overall, her involvement was less. Don't worry, I ain't gonna turn her into a wallflower— she is gonna pull her own weight, but till then, I'll make sure to highlight her overall conflict till then.
Now, for the replies!
marrona: Yep! Finally into the plot town xD
Guest: I'm really glad you enjoyed! And yes, I can't wait to get to Zenitsu and Inosuke as well~
Einklley: You guys catch onto things so fast xD So, yeah, it indeed is her blood type but any other info about it will only be disclosed a little later into the story— when we my Oyakata-sama. So please have wait for it with me!
TheBlueAmethyst: I absolutely love your ramblings and your predictions really help me to understand how you, as a reader, are perceiving things. Trust me when I say I actually look forward to your reviews xD Other than that, I am planning to keep adding interludes for other character's perspective too, don't ya worry. About her and Tamayo's meeting, I'll be disclosing about it on a later chapter— she did a lot of things in the past four years, and all this will be slowly explained through out the fanfic. And daaaaaamn, you instantly got the reference and even translated the meaning of the blood type xD I'm so bloody impressed! You have some fucking amazing theories and I just can't help but admire them! And about the blood, it really is a game changer— but with some proper set backs, especially for Miyasha. And about Sanemi's thought on it— it'll be very funny, trust me. If I can actually write it well, you all will enjoy her interaction with the Hashiras. And lastly, thank you so much pointing out the tense change! For now, I've only edited that but i'm planning on to edit the misspelling and stuff on a much later date. THank you so much for your amazing comment! I'm genuinely all smiles while replying to this!
mothedman: Ah, I indeed am going to continue with the manga after I finish with where the anime ends. But if I had my way and write it right, I'm planning to alter the manga plot quite a bit— essentially preventing some major character deaths. So, do look forward to it!
Now, we're done! And damn, these are soooo many reviews! This only makes me wanna cry TwT You all are too sweet! So, see you with the next update!
Please review if you want to— I love reading from you guys, and honestly, it motivates me like no other :D
Stay safe and stay healthy!
