"Yo, hashira."
The sound of the rushing fountain picked up the quiet voice and carried it away.
Entire body strained and hand poised over the hilt, Kyojuro gritted his teeth. Eyes fixed on the demon, he wondered what in the world he should do.
Should he attack? If the demon's not up to it, he'll just dissipate like he did earlier in the park. Does it want to talk? Instantly, as if on purpose, the idea of asking the creature about the blood demon floated up in the young man's mind.
Not, that's not it. The atypically orange, like cooling embers, eyes drifted over to the speaker in the demon's ear.
If the demon figures out that the slayers were seeking out the shadow, he'd warn his partner for sure.
Kyojuro gritted his teeth, suppressing his frustration. Did the demon come to fight, or is he seeking something else?
The concrete darkened from the water drizzling out of the fountain. The stain grew slowly, until it nudged the side of his shoe.
"I'm sorry for vanishing on you several times." The wind ruffled the demon's hair, laced with tiny droplets. "But sunlight really got in the way." His features softened.
"Well, it's not like you don't know that."
The eyebrows creased over the bridge of his nose. So the demon's intent on fighting, after all. Jaw clenched, Kyojuro slid his foot back and turned his torso.
"May I ask you something?" He said loudly, drawing the blade out of the sheath. The demon's eyes followed the path of the sword as it swung noiselessly through the air, then darted back to the young man's face.
"Go ahead."
"What's your name?" Kyojuro asked warily, lifting the sword next to his forehead. Locked in the stance, he felt the blood thumping in his temples, and the electric sparks sizzling from adrenaline through his muscles.
Given how little data they had on this demon, even the detail of its name would help draw out a criminal profile. Kyojuro's grip tightened on the hilt.
There was a chance that the name was Shun. If not, that meant someone else was involved. In both cases... they received substantial information on their hands. The creature just had to say a name.
The demon smirked, and his lips lifted into a dangerous grin, revealing the sharp canines.
"What's the point of introductions... Rengoku-san?"
The water splashed into the air when the demon leaped into the fountain.
Kyojuro reacted instantaneously, jumping in to block the upcoming creature halfway. The jets of water hurled chaotically off his arms, spattering into his face and obscuring his vision.
Holding the water that accidentally got inside his mouth with his teeth and tongue, Kyojuro pivoted abruptly and angled his sword. The talons grated down the steel.
The demon snarled and twisted, going for a kick. The young man dodged and the creature skidded under a fountain stream. It ricocheted violently from its spine, bones protruding from under the soaked shirt.
Kyojuro spat out the water and fixed his grasp on the hilt. Finding a secure footing, he glared at the demon. Thoughts raced tightly in his head.
It wasn't just the sheer stamina.
The demon lurched forward, water foaming around his ankles.
It was the technique.
Kyojuro felt the demon's forearm clasping firmly around his. As his body was sent into a backwards somersault, the young man tossed his sword into his left hand, the one that would swing closest to the demon's neck. The grey eyes widened in realization, and the grip on Kyojuro's arm disappeared as the creature avoided the slash. Kyojuro landed nimbly on his feet and dashed at the demon.
It was some strange blend of hand-to-hand combat, so mixed up that it was impossible to tell the basic foundation. A fist came into his face - that was the classic boxing punch. But the rearrangement of his feet at the same time, wasn't that something more from their native martial arts?
The steel rang in the air when the talons crashed into the blade. The skin hissed vehemently, and the water diluted the red.
Kyojuro dug his foot into the floor of the fountain, overactive sensors numbing down the pain in the gashed hand. The demon leaned closer, and the fastened blade shook within the talons as he pressed down.
"It smells nice." The demon's breath clouded the steel. "That AB blood of yours. Mitsu had a slightly different smell."
"Don't call her Mitsu," Kyojuro forced through his teeth. He didn't even care that the demon somehow knew their names at this point.
"Why not? We're on familiar terms."
"There's nothing familiar between you and her." The anger was rising exponentially, and it took all of his strength to focus on the shaking sword in his hands; despite his talking, the demon was steadily pushing down, forcing the hashira backwards. "Or you and me, for that matter."
"Really?" Without releasing the pressure, the demon raised one talon to point at the young man. "Not even when you cost me a whole apartment?"
That was his chance. Kyojuro stared right into the demon's eyes.
"Only you?" His fingers slipped on the hilt, damp from the blood dripping from the wound. "And what happened to Shun?"
A ripple ran across the demon's jaw, and, just for a moment, he decreased the weight on the hold.
Flame Breathing, Second Form: Rising Scorching Sun
The red bloomed as a terrifying flower as the two talons dropped into the water. The demon jumped several meters back. The fountain stream dripped onto his shoulders, cascading off the jutting joints.
Kyojuro inhaled slowly, lowering his sword. The wet hair was plastered across his forehead. All of his muscles pulsated, shocked from the suddenly removed pressure.
"So?" Kyojuro raised his voice. "Are you Shun?"
Anger blazed across the demon's face.
Blood smearing over the severed palm, it launched forward and leapt upwards. Practically deaf from the ringing in his ears, Kyojuro stepped forward. The soft meat underneath the talons of the demon's feet ripped open as the steel bore into them.
He had to gain higher ground, while the demon was still skewered on the blade.
Twisting the sword, Kyojuro pushed upwards with his shoulder to add momentum and toppled the demon over the fountain's border.
The creature fell on its stomach, hitting its chin on the concrete. Immediately, Kyojuro jumped, sword pointed down for the nape.
In a second, the demon drove his hands into the ground. Muscle bulged across his entire arm, and he flipped onto his back. The dust in between the stone tiles piled under his claws as he drove the heels into the ground to shift upwards.
As the sword scratched the skin on his neck, the demon inched up.
Without a single noise, the blade glided just below his collarbone. The demon exhaled sloppily, and blood from the severed lungs spurted out of his mouth.
With lightning speed, Kyojuro moved the sword upwards through the flesh. Even if the demon succeeded in evading the first blow, he was still—
The demon's hands flew up and gripped the blade.
The hashira gritted his teeth, pressing his leg on the demon's hip as he tried to budge the sword. Blood dripped erratically from the corners of the demon's mouth and fell into the dip of his ear, pooling next to the black speaker.
The two regenerated talons stretched out of the stumps and curled around the blade. The force pushing the sword upward increased. Relentless, Kyojuro stabbed his heel into the demon's hip bone. The creature winced, but continued to weed the steel out of its body. The hashira strained, sensing how the blade squeezed slowly out of the demon's chest, and pressed down on the hilt with his entire body.
He was so close. So close.
The demon released the blade.
The abrupt disappearance of pressure caused Kyojuro to stagger slightly, his stance destabilized. Sword tearing through his chest, the demon lurched forward, just enough for its back to detach from the ground.
"Blood Art, First Form. Wings of Tengu."
The stone piles smashed into bits when the wings sprouted from underneath his shoulder blades. The sword sank to the hilt into the demon's chest as he reeled forward, but he didn't seem to notice. The black spilt out of his pupils and into his eyeball, leaving a bright grey iris.
An astounding amount of force shoved Kyojuro in the chest. In a millisecond, the hashira yanked out the sword and skidded across the plaza ground. Regrouping, understanding with acute clarity that he'd just avoided being overturned on his back, the young man glanced upwards.
The demon was standing several meters away from him. The blood was wiped across his chin. Wings, bony and raw, shivered behind him.
Kyojuro stood up and pointed his sword on the demon.
"There's another reason why we're not familiar with each other."
"Let's hear it," the demon responded quietly. He was pressing his hand to his chest, as if wanting to stop the blood flow. The gesture was nearly human. Kyojuro lingered on that hand before transferring his gaze on the demon's face.
"We are living for entirely different purposes, and thus we cannot understand each other. There's no way we'll ever be familiar."
Such words were unnecessary on a battlefield, every single hashira knew that. There was only one use for empty talk - restoration.
His heart raced at an immense speed inside his ribcage. The water, dripping down his frame, seemed to only increase the heat emanating from his body. While he was speaking, pain slowly broke out from the all-numbing adrenaline.
A shallow slash in the left shin, pulled muscle in his right arm. He already knew about the wound on his dominant hand.
Kyojuro inhaled carefully, balancing out his breathing. Oxygen raced through his vessels, and he psychologically felt better.
"I think you're wrong."
The low voice echoed across the empty plaza. The demon lowered his hand from the chest. The blood rolled off the curvature of the talons and dropped into a small puddle forming in the creases between the stone tiles.
"Didn't you see it with your boy? The public's reaction? They're all too eager to plunge you down. You're too strong for them." The demon shook his head, sarcastic and serious at the same time. "Just like us."
"Don't equate our strengths. Yours have nothing to do with lifelong training and the desire to protect others."
The demon's eyes narrowed. For a moment, he was silent. Then, he turned around.
"Fine. The public doesn't hate your strength. It hates your weakness."
The wings slapped harshly against the air, and the demon flew right into the night sky. Watching him turn into a small dot against the skyscrapers, Kyojuro felt the blood grow cold in his veins.
The demon wasn't running away.
It was going towards the traffic.
The sirens wailed nonstop. The red lights bounced off the windshields. Honks sliced through the night air, and regulatory drones buzzed in a frenzy, trying to ease the traffic. Standing behind the railing, Zenitsu observed the congestion, painfully aware that his stress level is on the climb.
"There's no way they're going to clear the freeway," he remarked quietly, gaze glued to the cramped vehicles. Not when the flyers and cruisers were packed like sardines in a can. Leaning on the railing next to the yellow-haired demon slayer, Inosuke smirked.
"I do envy Green-Checkers. Because he's banned from the Upper Level, he doesn't have to do all this crap."
"Shame on both of you," Chuntaro scolded them from the speakers. "Monitoring public safety is a must for a demon slayer."
"Isn't that a cop's job?"
"Care to elaborate how exactly a police officer will hold back a voracious, overpowered monster?"
"This is so sad," Inosuke sighed and, folding his arms on the railing, lowered his chin. Zenitsu gave him a sympathetic glance before transferring his eyes back on the rows of clogged vehicles in front of them.
Part of him was relieved that he was assigned to the evac unit rather than the one carrying vigil of where the demon might appear. At the same time, he was unusually uneasy. Looking at this sea of cruisers and flyers… he couldn't be irresponsible, and all of his actions started carrying an extra weight.
"Where is everyone going anyway?" Insouke muttered. The headlights shivered around the glassy curvature of the boar mask's eyes. "Didn't they hear the announcement? They should be sitting in 'er home quiet like mice."
Zenitsu mentally agreed with him. There was a long sigh inside the speaker.
"The population is way too great for the traffic to funnel out quickly. Besides, you know how things go. There's always some birthday party, concert, business conference that is more important than a government announcement."
"They literally saw the demon." The boar head moved to the side, as if trying to look at the invisible boy. "What more could they want?"
"A demon in the Upper Level in broad daylight? What a joke." Short snaps of the keyboard cascaded through the speaker. "It could be a sneakily-crafted hologram done by some sociology students to collect demographic-psychological data. Yes, just a hologram."
"Who can hold a fucking umbrella."
Chuntaro sighed again. "You know what I mean."
Zenitsu turned away from the traffic. Leaning back to the railing, he typed a number into his watch. The voice hologram projected off, showing the noise frequency, before evening out into familiar wavelengths.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah. We just wanted to ask how you are." Zenitsu stared at the black screen of the watch. Inosuke shuffled over silently down the railing for better hearing.
On the other end of the receiver, Tanjiro laughed. He looked up to where Nezuko was busily ironing her shorts.
"I guess I'm fine. It's unusual not to do anything when such a commotion is going on."
Nezuko immediately stopped what she was doing and stared at him.
"But I'm not complaining," Tanjiro added hastily. "It's nice to get some time to myself."
Nezuko rolled her eyes. She gave the shorts a forceful push with the iron, and Tanjiro involuntarily winced.
"At least, that's what Nezuko is trying to persuade me of."
"She's precisely right," Chuntaro intervened, effortlessly invading Tanjiro's watch. "You already got us into enough trouble. So we'd really appreciate you staying out this time."
Folding the shorts on the ironing board, Nezuko snorted into her muzzle. Tanjiro sighed and rubbed the back of his head self-consciously. "Yes, sir."
On the other side, Zenitsu smiled against his will.
"For heavens' sake, Tanjiro, don't go guilt-tripping us," he joked, pretending to be offended. Inosuke grinned behind his mask.
"Yeah, what a goody-two shoes!"
"Seriously, guys..."
Tanjiro didn't finish the sentence.
Jumping from the couch, he opened his mouth, not believing what he just smelled. Several steps away, Nezuko froze with her eyes wide. The shorts, dropped from shock, lay stiffly on the floor.
"Tanjiro?" Zenitsu voiced carefully.
Tanjiro raced out of the living room and slammed open the front door. He felt cold sweat break out on his forehead at what he saw.
Just a few feet from the porch, down the alley, a demon was chewing on an old man's arm. The old man was unconscious, but his body jerked occasionally as his nervous system kicked in.
The smell of his own rage flooded his nostrils, blocking out all other scents. In a millisecond, Tanjiro was next to the demon, and his fist socked the demon squarely in the jaw. There was a sickening crack and—
The demon's jaw melted around the young man's fist, and the demon bit harshly into the human's hand. Tanjiro grimaced, adrenaline instantly cooling down, but before he could react, a shadow flew over his head.
The demon's teeth raked across Tanjiro's hand as his head rolled down the concrete. Breathing out, Tanjiro lowered his bleeding hand and looked to his side.
"Thanks, Nezuko."
Nezuko nodded seriously, placing down her leg. The demon's head rotated to face them. It was gnarled with wrath. Swallowing bits of Tanjiro's skin, the demon snarled and glowered at her.
"What the hell are you thinking? Are you a fucking idiot?"
A figure glided across one of the rooftops. In his fury, the demon's head neither noticed it nor heard the short snap of a reload.
"This is our chance, bitch. With that winged freak pulling the demon slayers into the Upper Level, we can finally eat normally. Or are you that dumb that you haven't realiz—"
Pulverized brain and bits of bone splattered into the air as a bullet rammed into the demon's skull. Nezuko's features twitched, and she hid her face in Tanjiro's shoulder.
Standing on the rooftop, Genya lowered the rifle.
"Eat normally, huh?" His eyes dropped at Nezuko. "Do you feel the same, rosy?"
Nezuko didn't answer and, clasping her brother's shoulder with her hand, snuggled closer to his side. Placing his hand on hers, Tanjiro gazed at the fellow demon slayer on the roof.
"Genya."
The demon's body unraveled into ash at their feet. The old man whimpered quietly.
"What is going on?"
"Exactly what that bastard said. They've realized it."
A scream rang out several alleys away, confirming another demon attack. Tanjiro clenched his fist, and Genya's fingers tightened on the rifle.
"Let's go, Kamado. Let's show those motherfuckers proper demon hunting."
For a moment, steam swallowed his body, particles clinging to his coat and tie, before reluctantly letting go. The electric lines swung above his head, and a faint zap of dying holograms resounded in the distance.
Not breaking his pace, Giyuu looked down at the watch. The tracker was steadily drawing a map in a bold red across the screen. A software-generated green line layered over it, cutting out all the small twists and turns of the blood vessels. According to the tracker, they ran below the ground's surface. Giyuu verified it; when he momentarily enabled his watch, it nearly malfunctioned from the over abundance of blood vessels in one place.
"It seems to be headed towards the construction site in sector 82-N," Shinobu said softly into his speaker. Giyuu lowered his arm and returned his gaze back on the path.
There was an overturned street sign in a puddle, and the hashira jumped easily over it.
"Did you hear what's going above us?" Giyuu asked quietly. A message from Kanzaburo popped up around ten minutes ago; the entire Lower Level descended into chaos. The demons, spurred by AB-4527's audacity and the fact that most of the Corps' strength was centered in the Upper and Middle Levels, began attacking without restraint. Kanzaburo said that casualties skyrocketed.
It definitely explained why the rock bottom was so abandoned. Even the typical demonic scent that permeated the human-less alleys was weaker.
"Yes, Muichiro's crow let me know. He said that our units are being pulled drastically from the evacuation effort into the Lower Levels. At the same time, I got a report from Urara that AB-4527 infiltrated the traffic."
The corner of his lips dropped slightly, revealing his bitterness.
"He's clever," he commented faintly. Shinobu sighed, not saying anything, and the speaker rattled from her breath. Her face, tired but concentrated, appeared in Giyuu's mind, and he clenched his teeth in an attempt to fight the nostalgia.
It's been a long time since they worked together on missions.
Thoughts swirled in his head in a disorganized mess, all coming back to their argument half a year ago. Giyuu skidded around the corner, more force in the turn than necessary.
He had to stop thinking about it. If he allowed his concentration to slip, everything would come falling apart.
The tracker began looping over and over in an elliptical trajectory, as if caught in the main circulatory flow.
Giyuu halted instantly in his tracks. His eyes rose cautiously, taking in the surroundings.
He was standing in a small alleyway. Bright light breached the shadows at the end, projectors gleaming in the air.
"As I thought, it's a deserted construction site." Her voice was even. "Approximate location is sixty-one degrees to the west... around eighty meters above the ground."
"Can you pull up any cameras?" Giyuu whispered, walking noiselessly up to the end of the alley. He pressed his back against the wall and carefully looked out.
"No. Everything is either dead or blocked."
The construction site was illuminated by tall lights. Long cast shadows stretched from the broken-down excavators and bulldozers. Piles of cement loomed like burial mounds, and the wind shivered the torn canvas on top of drainage pipes.
Giyuu felt as if he was having deja vu, except exponentially worse.
Thousands of blood vessels trickled across the ground. From all directions, over the collapsed scaffolds and yellow warning signs, splitting off and merging together, they streamed down towards an invisible origin.
Giyuu's eyes rose upwards, towards the eight-meter crane rising from the depths of the construction site.
A dark silhouette stood motionlessly at the very top.
Giyuu inhaled slowly, and even though the air was heavy with dust and blood, it still cleared his head. He slid out the sword noiselessly from the sheath and slightly bent his knees.
"Don't be stupid."
Giyuu did not answer her.
The small rocks crumpled under his feet as he ran across the site, occasionally hiding behind a vehicle or any other large object. His eyes kept on dropping on the ground.
The blood vessels slithered quietly next to him, as if leading him to their owner on purpose.
Coordinates raced on his watch, marking him closer and closer to the target.
The blood vessels became denser. They wrapped around metal ropes. They climbed over the crumbled slabs. They slid right over the warning sign, crossing out the word as if they couldn't care less.
Blood rushed through.
Stumbling next to a half-built concrete wall, Giyuu pressed his back against the cold stone, trying to quiet down his anxiety. His heart was beating unusually fast.
Maybe because it was a Moon.
Or more so because he didn't know what to expect.
Gripping his sword, Giyuu carefully looked out.
The eighty-meter crane rose into the sky. Vessels crawled all around. Some climbed up. Others dropped straight from the outstretched wrists.
The breeze quietly ruffled the swamp-green fabric, revealing the veins wrapping around the bare ankles. The collar of the kimono was wide open, veins strung to the neck.
The brown eyes traveled absently over the site and froze when they saw the hashira.
A/N: Hi, hi, hi! I haven't written in so long, which is why I wanted to get this out, even if it is outside my typical update schedule. I apologize for disappearing suddenly, especially after I said that I'll be posting regularly, but the past weeks I was... a little hollowed out. And since I didn't want a chapter slapped hastily together, I postponed my update.
So, Wings of Tengu. Tengu are Japanese yokai (i.e. demons) whose powers include teleportation via their wings as well as skillfulness in martial arts. I wasn't thinking of Tengu when I made up the bird demon, but when I wrote the first draft with a generic blood art name, my quasi-beta-reader looked at me with disgust and researched mythological, winged demons native to Japan. So I basically got really lucky that this demon's powers correlated so strongly with that of the Tengu XD
(... he does have a name. I just can't reveal it yet ;)
Thank you so much for sticking around, I hope I haven't lost you guys during this weird break. Fingers crossed they won't become a thing, but then again, I have a pretty pushy beta-reader :))