A continuation. It's time to get roasted by fate fans in the comments.
…
The streets had sank into themselves, and the establishments were in chaos.
The houses hadn't yet fallen, but who knew when they would actually collapse? Apparently, the tunnels that had been found definitely had a larger impact than anticipated.
The residents that remained in their houses were already swarming onto the collapsed dirt paths, tripping and stumbling along the way. In the center of what appeared to be the road collapse, however, one house had fallen deep into… something, virtually disappearing.
Many other houses built on faulty or old foundations had also partially collapsed, with wooden beams and roof tiles crumbling over their heads.
A lot of people were in danger.
But weeks after the incident, many people would still swear to the police interviewers that they saw something, no, someone, saving them.
They were like a floating spirit, levitating off the ground and swimming in the air like an elegant koi fish. The hair of the woman's spirit seemingly tied itself to each and every person that had been trapped, before rescuing them… either via gentle guidance or rapid tugging.
But it made no difference. They had been saved. And not a single person had disappeared in that incident.
Save for the people that had been in the one house that collapsed. Thankfully, many of them had gone out getting supplies to prepare for the incoming wave of customers during the night and one of the serving girls still in the house made it out… though not perhaps totally mentally sound, shouting about demons and transforming pale creatures.
What remained on the minds of all those who had witnessed the incident, however, wasn't the strange rescues or stories.
That memory was the last they saw of the ghost. Floating in midair, with a black robe and a red scarf billowing in an invisible wind as she floated back towards the epicenter of the incident.
And those five haunting words.
Don't come back until dawn.
…
Surprisingly, fighting demons was not very difficult.
As the pink and green belts fluttered in the air, each razor-sharp edge carving into the stone and pulverizing the wreckage of the fallen house further. Wooden shards and the masonry crumbled into the air, creating a foggy haze amongst the scenes of chaos.
But honestly, it was okay. Because while the attacks could shatter wood and scrape stone… Ryoma was a semi-competent servant.
With one clean swing, he severed one of the belts (to the great shock of the demon, somehow), before taking out his gun and retaliating with two shots. The serving girl behind him cowered from the gunshots, holding her ears and falling to the ground.
…But this was one difficulty. Taking care of a liability.
""Die, filthy humans!" the demon roared after deflecting the two bullets with more of the infinitely growing belts. "Us demons are the most powerful and beautiful beings! You will never approach our strength! Eight… belt… slash!"
The eight belts behind the demon began to ricochet across the pit, the semi-contained environment clouding up even more as the fog slowly began to spread.
Ryoma took a superficial breath, raised his sword with one hand, and…
Shot his gun more at the demon.
"Curse you, and your modern inventions!" The demon shouted. "But did you think that-ack!"
To the demon's surprise, and Ryoma's complete nonchalance, the bullets hit the biological body and caused injuries. As the bullets hit, however, something began to fly at the two from behind. Four belts curved to strike at the girl, while four other ones aimed for Ryoma's limbs. Ryoma could obviously deflect all of them if they were aimed just at himself, but the serving girl was about a meter away from him. There was no way to simultaneously defend such a large area with only one weapon.
And so, to solve this issue, Ryoma grabbed the girl's sleeve and leapt up… away from the belts.
Which curved upwards to follow them.
The one person in his arms was incredibly inconvenient, and Ryoma could only really choose between his sword and his gun in this case.
But there was a third option: running away more, and drawing the battle out of the pit. Although it would be convenient, there was still the one person in his arms that he needed to get to safety first.
Sadly, said person had passed out due to the sudden fear and movement. Which was, again, even more inconvenient, because Ryoma couldn't even tell her to hold on or something.
Sheathing his blade, Ryoma held the girl over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes with one hand while firing his gun at the demon with the other. Taking advantage of the shifted weight, he was able to change the trajectory of the jump to the side of the walls, where he jumped once more.
Two of the belts diverted their path to block the bullets, and while holes showed within the probably demonic fabric, their intervention was enough to divert the bullets. Six more belts continued to follow Ryoma.
"Oryou! Are you done yet?" Ryoma shouted. "I don't have any way to kill the demon myself."
"Then where did your nichirin blade go, then, demon slayer?" The demon laughed, suddenly emboldened. "Did you forget it at home or something?"
Tossing the girl into the air, Ryoma drew his sword, slashed through the collection of belts, and leapt up to catch the girl once more, before propelling himself further up the pit. At last, clasping the edge of the unnecessarily deep hole with his gloved hand, he easily hoisted himself up, before staring down at the demon approaching him with a speed that was slightly slower than his own.
It was honestly pretty disappointing. The demon was definitely fast, by human standards, but by servant standard… it was D-ranked at best.
Then again, Ryoma hadn't seen any of the weird lettering-on-eye imagery yet, and given the relative power of this demon compared to the one that Oryou had consumed a couple weeks before, this definitely wasn't her final form.
Therefore, it would be best if they could finish this fast.
"What's going on, demon slayer?" the demon taunted. "Afraid? You should have known better before trying to challenge me!"
Quickly, Ryoma continued his quest of combat avoidance until the regular, fragile human was off his shoulder. Running amidst the collapsed streets and the slightly crumbling houses, he leapt onto the tiled roof of one of the buildings to get a better view, and-
A belt laced through where his feet were two seconds ago on the ground.
"You're not making this any easier for yourself, you know?" the demon grinned. "Now, there are even more people that you have to defend."
In the distance, Ryoma could hear the footsteps of various people trying to leave the scene. There were many choices here, but since Ryoma couldn't actually do meaningful damage to the demon, he was left with only one.
Keeping the demon's attention on him. By being as irritating as possible.
Ryoma, however, wasn't really good at this. Other people normally described him as a pretty easygoing guy, but for the survival of more innocent people, he had to at least try.
Luckily for him, it probably wasn't that difficult to anger an egotistical demon.
"...Am I supposed to really respond to you?" Ryoma questioned. "I mean, there would actually be some significance if I was talking to the person in charge of you, but… you? Really?"
The demon staggered, as if she was actually physically struck by the statement.
"I had opened this investigation to get to something deeper." Ryoma said, slowly sliding off the roof in the rising moonlight and landing on the collapsed, dirt road into a balanced position. "Something about the courtesans hiding the person that we were after, or how there was somebody after us. But all that it revealed… was you?"
Ryoma adjusted his hat and chuckled, before cringing at his own attempt at trying to sound like a villain.
"Disappointing. Really, how disappointing. I guess I really should just kill you now, to save myself the trouble. Or, if you tell me where your leader really is, so that I can go and kill him."
"You… you dare?" the demon growled, clutching her head, almost as if in disbelief. "You dare insult me? You dare insult… my master?"
Ryoma sensed Oryou floating around the street corner, and quickly threw the unconscious serving girl behind him. Oryou snagged the girl out of the air and floated on, continuing on her quest to try and evacuate everybody within four blocks.
"Yes?" Ryoma answered, like picking an answer from a multiple choice question.
As the demon scratched her head and writhed in fury, Ryoma sighed and looked up at the moon.
The moon was still the moon, and the sky was still the sky. Despite the potentially climactic battle, really nothing that was too out of the ordinary had happened. Sure, these demon things were weird, but it was honestly just another tuesday for Ryoma as a servant.
There was no point in attacking. Ryoma couldn't even kill her. Every slash would just regenerate, and only Oryou could actually defeat the demon… by eating her.
Eventually, the demon came out of her indescribable fits of rage that did absolutely nothing and attacked. Eight more belts began to swirl like a tornado, tearing up the uneven dirt path as they advanced.
"You… you… you maggot!" the demon roared, as Ryoma sighed and began to sidestep the attacks slowly, slipping in between the rotating blades as the belts continued to writhe and attack with sweeping blows. The houses behind him were destroyed, but at this point, there wasn't really that much Ryoma could do about it.
Well, another way of defeating these demons was to keep chopping them into mincemeat until daytime came, right?
His blade glowed subtly, and Ryoma sent more and more mana through his frame, causing a slight breeze to emerge. The demon, however, did not notice, enthralled in her power of twirling eight pieces of fabric around.
Then, Ryoma disappeared.
…
One moment, the man was just standing there, holding his blade, as the belts closed in on him.
The next? He was gone.
"Wha-"
The dirt where he was standing had been destroyed, and the belts' motions had been disrupted. The streets seemed empty. Eerily empty, even, to the demon.
And then, everything rose up to meet her. No, wait. Was it her that was meeting the ground?
Then, a bullet went through her head. There was no pain, but just a bit of disbelief. then another. And another. It went through like a rock going through a pond, causing ripples, the impact making the brain matter liquify with the shock of the impact and the penetration.
Her head hit the ground in eight separate pieces.
Then, it was ten. Then sixteen. Then eight again, as they slowly began to fuse back together. Strands of her hair began to tie together and bring together separate pieces, only for them to be slashed apart once more.
But there was a chance. The man was only concentrating on her head, so that means that she could surprise him with-
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Three more gunshots at the joints stopped her body from getting up and charging. The resulting belt attack was mistimed and hit the ground instead, causing great dust plumes to rise up into the sky.
She couldn't give up now. She couldn't keep letting this human insult her… by doing this!
This was completely humiliating. Unacceptable. Denying the very thing that made her a demon.
It made her feel weak. It made her feel… inferior..!
The belts were still going. Slowly, snaking up from the floor to attack the man's feet. And as soon as he was forced away, she would regather her head and finally kill-
One swing down at the ground severed the eight belts, rendering the front ends of their attacks as nothing but floating ribbon.
One thin slice of her face flew out of the chopping block and landed on the ground, tears trailing down one eye, before hitting the ground and making the dirt slightly more wet. As the piece slowly sank into the loosened up path, Daki decided that she had already had enough with this.
"On…" her mouth shouted, before being sliced in half.
That was it. Daki was over the edge now. Everything beforehand had been irritating, but this was absolutely insulting. Unacceptable. Unacceptable!
"Oni-channn!" she shouted with both halves of her mouth. The sound seemed to distort and echo, since two separate pieces of flesh were trying to do the same thing, but it was a haunting wail nonetheless.
The man that was slicing her head finally stopped his unrelenting assault as her brother's signature blood sickles slashed through the air with his usual ferocity and speed, actually forcing the man back.
With her brother's sudden slashes finally overwhelming the probably surprised man, Daki finally fell to the floor… this time, in twelve pieces. Slowly, she began to regenerate, but one of her eyes stared at the man, who took a deep breath and leveled his gun at them.
"So… another one emerges." the man sighed. "Which one of you is responsible for the murders?"
Her brother, however, ignored him.
"Who…" he muttered. "Who did this to you, idiot sister?"
Slowly, the flesh of her head began to move together, before fusing into a face. After it swirled for a moment, during which her brother gently wiped off the bits of blood, she burst into tears.
A gunshot interrupted the tirade, piercing Daki's slowly recovering torso.
"Did you all cause these?" the man said, getting out a stack of the wanted persons posters out of his coat, before throwing them onto the ground. The papers slowly cascaded to the ground, but a quick slash destroyed it.
"Stop annoying us, you…" her brother growled, looking at the man. "You…"
Her brother looked him up and down, no doubt comparing his own appearance to the man's. Daki knew that her brother had grievances with this sort of person, who looked like the modern equivalent of a samurai in western attire.
Undoubtedly, it would make her brother feel… jealous.
"Argh! Your sort just infuriates me." her brother went on. "Good looking… well dressed… You just had everything thrown at you, didn't you? Every opportunity… Luck… You're even taller…"
"I see." the man in front of them sighed sadly. "All of you demons are just dead humans motivated by your emotional insecurities, aren't you?"
"And you're not denying it?" her brother growled.
"...Well, no." the man sighed. "But for what it's worth… I feel sorry for you. If you tell me where your master is, I will end your pain."
Slowly, Gyutaro began to chuckle, bending his head back and laughing. The sound was shrill and loud, echoing across the ruined streets like a crow's call or a frog's croak.
"Are you trying to threaten me, then? Or trying to emphasize with us?" her brother said, grinning. "You with your good fortune and successful life? But…"
His blood sickle swung towards the man's face as Gyutaro's sickles struck the ground, sending up another dust cloud . Waves of blood sickles were then sent forwards and flew out of the dust cloud as the man was most likely torn to shreds.
"We don't need your sympathy, pathetic human."
Stowing away his sickles, Gyutaro looked at the night sky and began to laugh.
"What a foolish human. Letting his guard down just because we're- urkh-"
A blade stabbed through Gyutaro's thin body, severing bone and flesh alike. It gleamed in the moonlight, painted with a blood that slowly evaporated into the wind.
"I know."
The man said, stepping out of the dust cloud and holding his gun to the demon's head.
"You don't need my sympathy. The ones that you've killed are the ones that deserve an apology for your very existence. But it's too late for them now, so to make up for it…"
A gunshot. Gyutaro's head was punctured by a gunshot. It didn't do anything, but it shook the demon greatly as he backed off of the blade, the wound slowly healing as the sickles zipped back into his hands.
But Gyutaro was no longer smiling.
"You all need to disappear."
And with that, the man leapt forwards, swinging his blade fiercely.
…
It didn't have to hurt this much. He had seen it all already. The fall of a government, the assassination of close friends, and the effect of war and imperialism on ordinary civilians.
This was sadly, all too familiar. The casual slaughter of people in a peaceful world. The egotistical and manic attitudes of the demons were rather similar to those who had abused their power during the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, tearing apart families and mass producing tragedies with their unregulated use of power.
…And more importantly, the demons didn't real control over their own actions. They really were just puppets of the possible dead apostle they were here to hunt, motivated and personified by the scars on their psyche from back when they were alive.
This world really was tragic.
But the only way to put this tragedy to rest… was to kill those demons.
So, he fought. An upward swing forced the demon to block as he used his magical energy to reload his gun. The demon swung back, the strikes impossibly fast. Faster than, perhaps, even Ryoma was.
Ryoma's blade twirled back to block as he stepped back warily.
"Nii-san, kill him quick!" the other demon shouted. "He… he… diced up my face!"
"It's not always that easy, you idiot!" the skinny, green-haired demon shouted, swinging his sickles like they were claws of a praying mantis. Every blow and attack was followed up with twists of inhuman agility, showing the advantage that these demons had over standard humanoid foes.
Ryoma was, once more, on the backfoot. Without the element of surprise or the assistance of his firearm, he had completely lost the shock factor that initially allowed him to push the demon back. Slowly, bit by bit, the skinny demon's expression re-emerged into a manic grin, the pace of his swings increasing further and further… and Ryoma staggered back, the blows echoing on his sword.
The demon's strength was also akin to being servant-level. It was nothing like the white-haired demon he was pushing around easily before, but since the demons had advantages like quick regeneration, their recklessness and decisiveness did give them an edge.
Still, despite the agility and strength of the attacks, it lacked technique, and since Ryoma wasn't totally outclassed physically, he was able to fight back.
One overextension, and a quick counter slash put yet another wound into the demon's arm.
The demon, however, just laughed.
"Don't you get it, idiot?" he said, leaning in to look Ryoma in the eyes. "We're demons! Your attacks do nothing to us!"
Following that statement, the blood that spilled from the wound began to rotate, forming a small, vertical cyclone in the air that was filled with an ominous blood.
Then the attacks were unleashed as more slashes were sent at him from range, the bloody projectiles orbiting around him and threatening to close in for the bisection.
One quick slash dissolved one incoming attack, while two gunshots sufficiently disrupted another. Ryoma spun as he focused on quelling the incoming attacks, his footwork beginning to blur.
However, an abrupt rumbling of the ground necessitated him stepping to the side. This movement caused him to be struck by one of the sickles on his shoulder. The attack tore through, causing illusionary blood to spill out onto his clothes.
Ryoma winced as he took the injury, but getting ensnared here was probably much, much worse. After all, even if he hadn't been hit by the belts, they probably could cut through his flesh.
Quickly, he slashed at the belts that lanced out of the ground to ensnare him, before leaping onto a building. The slashes followed him, as did the demonic fabric, but despite the veritable hail of mixed projectiles, his gunfire was sufficient to destroy the slashes and his katana fended off the belts, which, surprisingly, did not tear immediately, but were merely wrinkled and ripped by the attacks of his still-recovering arm.
"Now, you stand no chance against us!" the white demon declared victoriously, as her forehead opened up to show a third eye… with the number six written on it. Ryoma took a subconscious step back as waves of intimidation poured off the two, before gritting his teeth.
This would be more difficult than he anticipated.
As the white-haired demon laughed shrilly, before pouncing towards Ryoma, a black blur appeared, slamming her to the ground.
The demon was promptly impaled from the behind by an array of black spikes. The other demon reacted quickly, slashing at the spikes with his sickles. When they pinged off uselessly, he instead dragged his sister out of the supernatural attacks, leaving behind some of the demonic flesh and scraps of fabric.
"You… hurt… Ryoma…" Oryou muttered, rising out of the shadows. Her hair rippled and writhed, slowly lengthening and fading into darkness as her eyes began to glow red. Her clothes flowed in the breeze before tightening, slowly showing their scaly patterns in the moonlight. The spikes receded from the shadows, shaking off the clothing and flesh that they had torn from the white demon.
"Oryou. You're finally here." Ryoma said, grinning despite the rather grim thoughts he had been thinking. "Are the civilians all gone?"
"Is Ryoma okay?" the serpent asked, floating and hovering around the spot where his arm was hurt.
"Don't worry about it." Ryoma laughed easily, the wound slowly disappearing in a blue smoke. "Nothing a little mana won't fix."
"That attack was supplemented by a deadly poison, traitor." the male demon said, looking warily at Oryou's floating form. "Your pet demon slayer will soon be dead."
"Poison will not work on us, lowly pests." Oryou said, slowly floating into the sky. "We are stronger than you. And soon, you will be dead."
Then, Oryou tilted her head, before continuing to speak. Making two peace signs, she floated horizontally and chirped her signature phrase.
"Yay. Peace, peace."
The demons continued to stare, probably confused by the random statement."
"That's not when you say it, Oryou." Ryoma sighed. "Just… take care them. It's the most merciful we can be to them at this point."
"Okay." Oryou said, rushing forwards to kick the still-regenerating female demon in the guts. "You will perish, skank."
"No, not that one!" Ryoma shouted. "That demon is so weak that even I can probably take it! Get the other one! The one using sickles!"
"No alone time with other women!" Oryou shouted, right as the female demon screeched again, probably indicating a severe amount of pain as she tried to regenerate from the stab wounds.
"Well, alright then." Ryoma shrugged, aiming his gun at the demon. "I guess it's just us now."
"What do you mean my poison doesn't work on you?" the male demon muttered, scratching at his own body furiously. His skin began to peel as his sharp nails cut into his own flesh, drawing blood. "You're… you're just a lowly human, but you're much too lucky. A wife, even if she is a Demon, a handsome face…"
"You're repeating yourself." Ryoma sighed.
"Just die already, you bastard!" the demon roared, leaping up to the rooftops and bearing down on Ryoma with his twin scythes.
What other choice did Ryoma have, if not to respond in kind?
His gun fired once more as he surged forwards to meet the demon's blows.
…
Daki had never really felt it before, but now she knew.
This… was fear.
The sensation of hopelessness. The slight exertion on her own body, as her belts endlessly surged out to meet this other demon's attacks.
If she could even be called that.
This woman… if she could even be called a woman… felt different. There was something much more dangerous. Unlike Muzan-sama's controlling presence, there was an air of ancient mystery surrounding her. In addition to a powerful, supernatural scent, there was also a hint of earth and dried blood.
She had only smelled that type of dried blood smell from somebody like Upper Rank One or Muzan-sama, people that had been slaughtering humans by the dozen for centuries.
Her gaze penetrated her, looking at her as if she wasn't an all-powerful demon, but just prey. Simple prey.
Even that woman's hair was able to pierce her belts like they were nothing but the thin, white, semi-transparent paper used in windows. Her attacks pulverized Daki's limbs, forcing them into a flurry of regeneration as bits of her flesh were sent flying.
"I'm supposed to be the demon here!" Daki shrieked, her belts growing out more and more to strike at the woman. They glanced off her clothes, not even wrinkling the loose robe. "I'm supposed to be stronger! I'm supposed to be the one to effortlessly tear through you!"
A spike suddenly stabbed through her from behind as Daki continued to try to retaliate. Shrugging off the physical wound, she continued to lash out with her belts, but then, she froze as the tendril abruptly split itself after piercing through her abdomen, and then slammed her against the ground after branching off to coil around her abdomen. Her limbs felt absolutely powerless against the force of nature that were the shadows that this woman emanated.
"Now… how does Oryou-san do this?" the woman muttered, floating around Daki slowly, tilting her head and examining her flesh like Daki was nothing but meat in a butcher's shop.
The woman's mouth began to morph, showing sharper and longer fangs that definitely did not belong in an ordinary human's mouth. Not that the woman resembled one in any way.
Then, she took a bite out of Daki's shoulder.
Daki screeched in pain, her entire body writhing as an unfamiliar sensation returned. It felt like her shoulder was melting, burning, and being torn to shreds all at once, dissolving in an abyss that she knew nothing about.
And it… wasn't regenerating? It was just bleeding out?
Was she going to die to this… creature?
"Nii-san!" Daki screeched. "Help me! She's going to kill me!"
…
Surprisingly, Ryoma was doing decently.
Knowing that Ryoma couldn't actually kill him, the demon began to act more and more recklessly. Countless times, Ryoma's blade had cut into the demon's various body parts, only for the demon to heal over the already severed sections, temporarily trapping Ryoma's blade, and then continuing on with fierce sickle slashes.
"You aren't exactly human either, are you?" the demon said, looking at Ryoma's arm. His wound, along with the rip on his suit, were entirely gone.
"I thought you'd notice earlier." Ryoma sighed, shaking his head as he blocked yet another attack.
Just as the demon attacked with more flying blood sickles, a shrill screech pierced the night.
"Nii-san, help! She's going to kill me!"
"What?" the demon snarled, before dashing towards what was probably his sister. Ryoma, seizing this opportunity, utilized even more mana for a burst of speed, stabbing his sword into the demon's retreating backside to stall him and give Oryou more time. The sword, however, just sliced through the demon's body as he ran forwards with reckless abandon.
"Hands… off… my sister!" the demon roared, leaping into the barrier of spikes that Oryou formed. Oryou's body writhed as it slowly began to expand, preparing to trap both demons with the sheer durability of her body.
Then, everything turned red as hundreds of blood sickles poured out of his body at a pace that Ryoma hadn't seen yet. Oryou was pushed back as the sheer number of attacks were released. A beacon of dark red blasted into the sky, causing sharp gusts of wind and almost reaching the clouds in the night sky. The surrounding infrastructure was ravaged as the impact spread across the sky, no longer stopped by the wall that was Oryou's body.
With this opportunity, the white demon escaped, using her belts and the other demon's attacks as a cover. The attacks, though numerous, had been easily stopped by Oryou's body… so other than the localized area, everything else was completely fine.
Not a single building had lost a roof tile.
Despite the magnitude of the attack, it was honestly really underwhelming.
And Oryou…
"Oh no." Oryou said, picking up a small thread of what looked like her hair. "Oryou-san has been harmed. How will I ever recover from this loss."
Ryoma observed as, slowly, the shoulder of the white demon actually regenerated, and her hiccuping cries slowly subsided. Then, the male demon slowly looked up from what looked like an exhausted slump, lifting up his hands as if to somehow coax the female demon's shoulder into regenerating.
"Oryou." Ryoma muttered. "Pretend you're exhausted."
"Why?" Oryou said, "Oryou-san can just eat them again. They are weak."
"You'll need to consume them all at once for this to probably work." Ryoma whispered back. "They're not like the lower tier demons that we fought on the first night. They can actually recover from your bites."
"...Fine." Oryou sighed, before faking a collapse. A pool of darkness oozed out of her body slowly, acting almost like blood, before Oryou slowly sank back into Ryoma's shadow.
"Oryou-san, are you okay?" Ryoma gasped, kneeling down to touch his own shadow pointlessly.
"...Too dramatic, Ryoma." Oryou sighed from within his shadow. "Oryou-san thinks you are acting like one of those stage performers."
Ryoma then staggered to his feet, and leveled his blade at the demons.
"What did you do?" he cried dramatically. "What did you do to her?"
"You may be immune to poison… but she isn't!" the male demon snickered. His body looked… dried up and devoid of blood, since blood was probably what actually made his weird power work, but it was quickly regenerating.
"Oryou-san believes this is false." Oryou muttered.
"Shush." Ryoma muttered with the corner of his mouth.
"She's a demon, and demons have to fight other demons too, y'know? So, I made my poison to target all living things, not just humans."
"But with her gone…" the white demon cackled, flexing her shoulder and slowly growing her belts out once more. "You're dead meat!"
The male demon, fully recovered, leapt forwards once more, attacks blitzing Ryoma with an even greater speed, now that he was absolutely certain Ryoma couldn't kill them. The white demon advanced as well, belts cutting off Ryoma's escape as she extended her claws, ready to tear into Ryoma's face.
Ryoma began to run. For Oryou to surprise attack them, he needed a place that had a lot of shadows… and a place where there was only one direction of escape.
But this whole place was flat, and the houses basically didn't even matter to the demons. As Ryoma ran into a house and closed the doors, before trying to leap out a window, the demons ran through the wooden walls, leaving the door as the only thing intact on that side of the building.
"You can't run forever, weak little demon slayer." the male demon laughed. "Now that she's gone, you won't be able to survive!"
Ryoma said nothing, and continued to run with a speed that was hopefully faster than the demons. Back to the hole that started it all.
It was a rather deep hole, and the wreckage of that building was within it as well. There were enough shadows for Oryou to hide and gather strength while transforming.
Dodging past more belts and another volley of blood sickle slashes, Ryoma finally leapt into the hole. Slowing his fall a bit by stabbing his sword into the side of the pit, he dove into the wreckage and sheathed his blade.
"Oryou, start transforming." he muttered.
"Oryou-san will eat them all." Oryou muttered ominously, before descending into the shadows made by the wreckage of the building. Ryoma felt their collective mana supply drain as Oryou activated her great transformation, saturating the air so that even Ryoma, a servant not that knowledgeable in the mystic arts, could actually feel something was off.
Then, there was the sound of crunching wood. The two demons fell together into the wreckage of the dining room that had begun this night's confrontation.
"So, you thought you could hide from us here?"
"Well, no." Ryoma sighed, standing up and holding his hands to the side. "I brought you here… so that we can take care of both of you at the same time."
"You're trapped as well." the female demon said, grinning. "My belts have covered the exit to this pit. You won't be able to get out ali-"
The ground suddenly burst, and a great, scaly serpent emerged. Everything began to sink into a pool of shadows, except for Ryoma, as the demons looked at the orochi with incomprehension in their eyes.
Quickly, the female demon's belt began to pull her back upwards, but she impacted something hard and scaly on her ascent.
"What the-"
The pit's entrance was completely covered in Oryou's serpentine body, who caught the female demon with her tail.
"Behold, Oryou-san's great transformation!" Oryou's voice boomed within the cavern. "Now, meet your end, filthy pests!"
"Damn you!" the male demon rasped, before leaping towards Ryoma, both sickles extended out to slice Ryoma's head off. "If we're going to die here, then you'll die with us!"
"Nii-san, do something!" the white demon sobbed, her body already trapped by Oryou's coils. "Do something!"
Ryoma took out his gun, and shot the approaching demon in the face. Abandoning all pretenses of defense, the demon's head lurched back as the bullet impacted, but his body continued to run forwards, his blades wildly swinging.
Then, the demon was hit by a thrown projectile. More precisely, it was the female demon. The demon's sickles fell out of his hands, slowly sinking into the shadowy ground.
"Damn you!" the skinny demon roared pushing himself up. Ryoma could see the demon's skin bubbling. "I'll destroy everything here, then. Rotating blood sic-"
Oryou's serpentine maw smashed against the pool of shadows that now was the ground, erasing any trace of the demon's existence.
For a moment, as Oryou's form slowly shrank and coalesced back into a vaguely humanoid shape, Ryoma closed his eyes to pray for the demon's souls. Though they had probably hurt thousands with their existence, it was ultimately the fault of the dead apostle's conversion of the two.
Now, all that remained of the demons were the scraps of fabric slowly falling from the sky… from the female demon's futile attempts at containing them in the pit.
Ryoma sighed, and sat down.
"Oryou-san believes that was much too easy. We spent more time trying to find the pests.."
"And now, we can finally return to our vacation." Ryoma said, standing up and stretching. "Hopefully, there won't be any more ghouls we have to kill… or murders… or mysterious circumstances. Let's just get back."
"Okay." Oryou nodded. "Oryou-san demands frog sashimi and time to regenerate mana."
"...Have you actually figured out why we need to do that in the first place?" Ryoma said.
"The demons also use mana." Oryou said. "Some parts of them keep absorbing mana from the world. Those parts died inside Oryou-san when Oryou-san consumed them."
"Interesting…" Ryoma muttered. "But sadly, we're not mages. It's not like we can do anything with that information."
…
"Kaw! Kaw! Mysterious floating woman in the Tokyo Red Light District! Kaw! Kaw!"
The crow landed on a teen's shoulders, and a scarred hand reached up to receive the hastily scribbled report that was sent to the Demon Slayer corps from said district.
The teenager grinned, his scarred face distorting in a somewhat painful manner. Still, it didn't stop the bloodlust from showing in his expression.
There were more demons in town, huh?
Sounded like a job for the wind hashira!
…
And the next plotline emerges!
Here, I make some assumptions: that Demons can at least match servant-level things (since, well, they also do show several feats in the anime and novels that are really strong) and Ryoma can't actually hurt em substantially. Oryou still stomps Upper 6, at least. Also, Ryoma's stats may not actually reflect his own stats, but actually Oryou's stats, since they are a duo. However, we won't know his actual stats, since Oryou does a lot of fighting for him.
Anyways, it's just a theory. A fic theory!
(Why must matpat leave us like this)
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-SpiritOfErebus