Author's Corner

Hello everyone! I'm back! I hope you're all doing okay. Thank you for the lovely reviews! I'm so glad you're enjoying the story. I hope this chapter manages to meet your expectations, and as always, don't forget to review!

Trigger warning: violence, gore and references to sexual assault.

EIGHTH BLOOD

Chapter 20: Kill or be killed

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"Have you been able to see my boobs this whole time?"

Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes. The front of Octavia's kosode was shredded. She'd only realised after thinking that her clothes seemed breezier than they had before. In an attempt to preserve her modesty, she was wearing her travel pack like a front-facing baby sling.

"It isn't my fault that you refuse to bind your chest."

"It's not like I need to," she mumbled under her breath.

Sesshoumaru eyed the travel pack and said, "You seem to have found a solution to your little problem."

"You're joking, right? Besides, I'm not the only one who needs new clothes. Yours are covered in blood."

"Blood doesn't bother me."

"Well, it bothers me. I'm not hiking through the wilderness with my nips hanging out and you smelling like roadkill. There must be a town with a market around here somewhere." She spotted a road through the trees and walked towards it.

Sesshoumaru's feet remained rooted to the ground. "If you fail to return by sundown, I am leaving without you."

"Whatever you say, kólos."

"What was that?"

She stopped walking and pouted at him. "Was Greek not one of the ten languages that your father made you learn?"

He narrowed his eyes. "No."

"That's too bad."

"What does it mean?"

A smile pulled at her lips. "Figure it out, big boy."

Sesshoumaru responded in what she thought was Mandarin, but it could have been Cantonese or Urdu for all she knew. Her smile faltered. Her three spoken languages were nothing compared to his ten.

"Wow. Very mature."

"You started it, human."

"Oh, piss off."

He chuckled as she marched away, resisting the urge to throw a rock at him. He seemed to enjoy tormenting her. What had happened to the silent demon who'd ignored her every word?

The road led her to a village beside a lake. The villagers seemed unfazed by her dishevelled appearance. To be fair, they had probably seen a lot worse. Octavia used the money that Cyril had given them to purchase a blue kosode and navy hakama trousers for herself, as well as a new pair of sandals to replace her old ones. She was disappointed by the lack of boots available. After bartering with the clothes vendor, she traded her remaining earring for the most expensive piece of clothing he had. It was a grey kosode with blue horizontal stripes. It was nothing special, but she hoped that Sesshoumaru would appreciate it regardless. She also managed to convince the vendor to throw in an additional pair of hakama trousers.

She got changed in the forest and washed her blood-crusted earlobe in the lake, then shoved her old clothes into her travel pack alongside the ones she'd bought for Sesshoumaru. They took up a lot of room in the bag, but they would be useful for any future injuries. Sliding her arms into the straps, she stood and headed back towards the road.

Screams blasted through the trees, prompting her to retrace her steps. The village was being raided by cutthroats and thieves. Octavia watched from the treeline as the villagers were dragged from their homes and forced to their knees. She averted her eyes as one of the bandits drove his sword into an old woman's stomach. Determination had her jogging towards the stables on the outskirts of the village, praying that the bandits wouldn't see her. They had already stolen all of the horses. It was a shame that they hadn't thought to take any of the other animals.

Octavia unsheathed the Sword of the Firebird and destroyed the latches trapping them in their pens. The oxen soon broke down the stable doors and stampeded through the village.

Vaulting onto an ox's back, she steered it towards a pair of bandits, who were in the process of restraining a little girl. As she galloped past, Octavia slashed at them from behind, knocking them both to the ground. The little girl shrieked and scrambled away. The men tried to stand up, but their wounds were too deep to move without them bleeding to death.

"Someone catch that fucking woman!" one of the bandits yelled.

Octavia slashed him in the neck with her sword. Blood spurted out of the gash, coating his hands when he tried to stop the bleeding. If he wasn't a murderer and a thief, she would have been disgusted with herself, but here, it was kill or be killed.

Unused to carrying a blade, the Sword of the Firebird was a dead weight in her hand. She wiped the blade on the ox's fur and shoved it back into its sheath. She needed to find a lighter weapon. She grabbed a wooden bucket that had been left by the water well and bashed one of the bandits over the head with it. The crack of the bucket against his skull was unlike any sensation she'd ever known. She swung the bucket at a different bandit's head, knocking him over like a bowling pin.

"Get her, boss!"

A hand grabbed her by the collar and yanked her off the ox's back. The bucket slipped out of her grasp and clattered to the ground. Octavia dangled in the air before a giant of a man. He was tall and burly, with one hand fisted in her kosode whilst the other pressed a katana to her throat. "Who the fuck are you?" he growled. "You can't be a demon. I wouldn't have been able to catch you if you were. But those eyes . . . There's nothing human about them."

"You're right," she choked. "I'm no human. I'm a vengeful spirit. Now, let me go or I'll curse your entire bloodline."

He howled with laughter. "We got ourselves a joker, boys!" The blade pushed into her skin. She winced as he leaned in close and whispered, "Human or not, I like a woman who bites back. If you hadn't killed my men, I might have been tempted to let you live, provided that you agreed to serve me in exchange for your life. It's a shame you're so scrawny. I prefer to have something to grab onto, if you know what I mean, but you all feel the same down there. I once knew a guy who claimed to have fucked a she-demon in a pleasure house, and he said it was phenomenal. Hell, maybe I'll hang onto you for a little while, just to see if he was exaggerating."

Octavia bared her teeth at him and snarled, but it just made him laugh harder. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. Why did she have to be so weak?

You are not weak.

She froze. She hadn't expected an answer. Whose voice had that been, anyway?

Whilst the man's attention was on her chest, she slipped the Reikon Blade out of its sheath and plunged it between his eyes. His men gasped as the katana tumbled to the ground. Octavia grimaced at the sight of the dagger sticking out of his head like a knife in a slab of butter. There was no blood in sight, and he didn't seem to be in any pain. Had it been any other weapon, he would have been dead in an instant. She backed away as he reached for the dagger's hilt and pulled it out. The flesh knitted itself back together afterwards. It was as if the wound had never been there in the first place.

"You're going to pay for that, you frigid bitch."

The voice spoke to her again. Show them what you are capable of. You might not be able to drain power from your surroundings, but that is not the full extent of your abilities. There is power inside of you, Okteviah True Jewel. More than you can possibly imagine. Use that instead.

Hearing voices was never a good sign. First it had been the echo, now it was this. She'd well and truly lost it now.

She wished that Sesshoumaru was there with her. Even if he didn't save her from these degenerates, he would at the very least avenge her.

Before she could lift her feet and run away from the huge man in front of her, a flash of green light appeared behind him and lashed his torso. Octavia was too stunned to scream as the upper half of his body landed in the grass with a resounding thud. The bottom half was quick to follow. Octavia's eyes followed the ribbon of light to Sesshoumaru's index finger and widened. He seemed as shocked as she was.

Sesshoumaru lashed the whip again, as if testing its strength. The act made deep lacerations in the ground.

"Boss!" one of the bandits cried, falling to his knees beside the man's two severed halves.

"Damn you!" cursed another. "You'll pay for this, you bastard!"

The whip shone brighter and started steaming. It looked and smelled like acid. Oblivious to the danger it posed them, the bandits raised their weapons and charged at Sesshoumaru. The whites of his eyes turned red and he smiled, flashing his sharp teeth.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Their bodies hit the ground like apples falling from a tree. Octavia felt numb as their blood around them, creating a small pond that was the colour of rubies. She waited until the whip had retreated into Sesshoumaru's finger before whispering, "Your youki . . . Is it—"

"Gone," he said. "I can no longer feel it." He studied his hands and frowned. "You didn't call out to me. Why?"

"I had it handled."

"You were moments away from being gang-raped by those lowlifes—"

"I didn't need your help!" she snapped. Eyes burning, she stormed over to the pool of blood where the Reikon Blade was and picked it up. Was it your voice I heard?

The dagger was silent as she wiped it on the grass. When she turned to face Sesshoumaru again, his jaw was clenched and he had a strange look on his face. She held his gaze as the villagers surrounded them.

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Author's Corner

Kólos means ass by the way lol.