The Swordsman and the Asura
Hello to everyone and welcome to a new little story! Now to start off with a quick explanation, this piece here is a request from fellow reader, Samuel Dudek. For the moment it's meant to be a short story and this first chapter right here is the prologue as I'm still wrapping up my main Demon Slayer story, 'Breath of the Rifleman'. So for now the best I can give on an update schedule for it is a new chapter every few weeks, depending on other projects. What I can tell you is that the following chapters after this one should be a bit longer and a bit more exciting. Now, enough of my rambling, let's get on to the beginning of a new story!
Even though it happened over a century ago, she could still remember it like it was yesterday. She'd been playing with her Temari handball all by herself out in the backyard of her home. Her parents had always been busy people and never had a lot of time to play with her, so she often went out into the neighborhood to find other kids who would. She'd quickly discovered that her favorite games to play were those involving the Temari ball, and she'd jump at the chance whenever someone else wanted to play one of those games.
But she wasn't always the most capable person with a handball and wound up falling over and hurting herself from time to time. It would always worry her parents whenever she came home with cuts and scrapes, so they'd go out into the neighborhood afterwards and tell the other parents that the Temari was off-limits whenever they weren't around. This meant all of her friends would intentionally try to play other games when she was around or leave her out completely, save for one boy. Strangely, she couldn't remember the boy's name, but she did fondly remember how kind he was and how willing he was to go against her parent's wishes in order to make her happy.
The two of them would sneak off and play Temari games for several minutes to even hours during the day and then sneak back before her parents caught wind of what they were up too. She remembered those days as some of the happiest of her life, before they were gone. This was another memory she could recall clearly, far more clearly than she ever wanted. She'd been waiting and waiting for him to show up that day, her Temari already hidden in her sleeves as she almost shivered with anticipation for what game they might play today.
But instead of the boy sneaking into the backyard like he always did, the door to the house had opened to reveal her mother had returned early that day, with terrible news. The boy she always played with, her best friend in the whole world, was dead. The cause had been an accident, something had spooked one of the horses at the town stables and it had gotten loose. Her friend had been on the way to their house when he got trampled by the giant cart puller, leaving him dead in the streets where his parents had eventually found him. At first, she didn't want to believe it thinking it to be some cruel joke her mother decided to play on her, so she ran into town.
But it hadn't been a joke or a lie or anything of the sort, it had been far worse. Her mother had been telling the truth, a truth which she couldn't deny upon seeing his body in the arms of his parents. She cried for days after that as she woke up every morning for a month hoping it had all been a bad dream, expecting her friend to show up at anytime asking if she wanted to play a game with the handball. But he never came, and it eventually dawned on her that he would never be there to play with her again.
And so there she'd been, a lonely little girl playing with her Temari and no longer expecting anyone to show up to play along. Then one day, someone did show up. She remembered this part most clearly, the day she first met Muzan Kibutsuji. He was a tall man who'd always been fond of wearing an elegant suit with a black top and white pants along with a white Fedora. Though even it couldn't hide the strange hair underneath that seemed to hang like a mop of seaweed in certain places.
The most striking feature about him, the one that always came to her in her dreams at night, were his eyes. His red, slit eyes that seemed to either study or glance over everything as if measuring its worth in an instant. In this case, he appeared to find her worth his time as he spoke. "Well look at this," he'd said with a voice that simultaneously drew her in while also sending chills down her spine, "what's a little girl like you doing out here playing ball by yourself? Have you no friends or other family to play with?"
"My…..my parents are busy right now," she'd managed to get out, "but even if they weren't….they don't like me playing Temari games. They say I'll hurt myself too badly."
"It's only natural they'd be concerned for your safety," said Kibutsuji, "yet they also sound a bit…overbearing."
"You don't know the half of it," she replied as she picked up her Temari, "they treat me like I'm made of paper or thin glass, saying if I permanently injure myself, it could ruin the rest of my life. I know they mean well, but because of them no one ever wants to play with me. And now they're using the one person who did want to play with me as an excuse….as an excuse too-RAAAAAAGH!" She'd angrily thrown her Temari at a nearby flowerpot, knocking it over. "I just want to go out and play like all the others."
"What if I told you there was a way you could play without ever worrying about getting hurt again?" Muzan said with a light smirk.
"Like what," she asked back, "you're not gonna make me wear a suit of armor all the time, are you?"
"Nothing of the sort," said Kibutsuji as he held up one finger, "I'll just make a little change to your body. You'll be faster, stronger, your skin will be tougher and even if you somehow manage to injure yourself, your wounds will heal up almost instantly. The only thing you'll have to worry about is not getting caught in the sun."
"What happens if I get caught in the sun?" She asked, genuinely curious.
"It will burn like nothing you've ever felt before," replied Muzan, "but worry not. There's still plenty of time to play during the night or during times like these when it's nice and cloudy outside. So what do you say? Lose the daytime but in exchange you can play without ever worrying about getting hurt again?"
It was a tempting offer, far too tempting to simply pass up even if it did turn out to be nonsense. And she really did want to play without worrying her parents, and what better way to do that than being incapable of ever being hurt again? In truth, it didn't really take long at all for her to make the decision. And so, after giving her nod of approval, Muzan jabbed her in the head with his finger.
She lost track of everything else after that as an intense, burning pain overtook her body. She collapsed on the ground, unable to move as she felt something changing inside her, like a cancer that was quickly spreading throughout her entire body. Her vision blurred as she looked up at the grey sky with darkness slowly but surely overtaking her. The last conscious thought she had before blacking out, was how hungry she was.
The girl would come to regain her senses some time later after night had fallen. And the first thing she saw, were the bodies of her dead parents and the blood on her hands. She remembered nearly hyperventilating at the sight, wondering how or why this had happened. But even more so she wondered why the blood on her hands smelled and tasted so…..good?
"M-Mom," she'd said in shock, "D-Dad I….did I…..do this? I'm so….so sorry. I just wanted….I just wanted to play without getting hurt. Without worrying you two." Then she felt a strange anger come over her, an anger that was directed at the two people she loved most in the world, the anger she hadn't realized had festered so much.
"It was…..all your fault," she said bitterly, "if you had just…..if you'd only let me play with the others. I just wanted to play, to have fun like the other kids! But all you saw…..all either of you saw was a fragile little girl! Well I'm not that fragile little girl, not anymore!"
"I'm beyond that now, beyond either of you! I'll play with who I want, what I want and however rough I want! So goodbye, Mother, Father, because your little girl hasn't just grown up, she's better than ever. From this day forward the world had better watch out, because Susamaru is here!"
And so begins the story of Susamaru and her eventual faithful encounter with a certain demon slayer. Now as mentioned before, I'll be resuming this story here shortly after I'm done with my main story 'Breath of the Rifleman'. So 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 Susamauru meets her match over a century later! 'Til then.