After the dust had settled I looked out and studied the three demons that had decided to attack us. The only woman had ear length hair that was black and faded to orange that matched her orange kimono that was under a black haori.
"You were right, Yahaba! A building just appeared out of nowhere!" The woman laughed.
"The handiwork of a blood demon arts wielder adept at hiding objects" The man demon with the eyes on his hands said, his hair was short and black and he was wearing a large bead necklace, Yahaba I guess his name was.
"And is the demon hunter accompanied by a demon? What's going on here?" Yahaba questioned.
"Isn't this fun?" She questioned while bouncing the temari.
"Still I have to say, Susamaru. Your way of doing things is so immature. So careless. You splattered me! You splattered my kimono with dust" Yahaba scowled.
"Oh, stop whining! We found them right away thanks to my temari so who cares? And now we can have tons of fun" She yelled, launching the balls again at the house. It was obvious that the third demon was keeping back for now, probably trying to catch us off guard.
"Found 'em! Found 'em!" Susamaru cheered with a toothy grin. I watched once more as she threw the temari and Yahaba's arrows helped guild them but there was something else as well, the third demon's power was obviously helping them out since there were three aura colours together not just the two.
"No Yushiro" I warned as he tried to protect Tamayo and dodge the temari only to have it fling back at him and tear his head off.
"Yushiro!" Tanjiro yelled.
"Damnit! Nezuko, take the lady sleeping in the back room somewhere safe outside" Tanjiro ordered.
"No it's too dangerous, Tamayo you mentioned a basement earlier correct? Nezuko take her there please" I said and Tamayo nodded. Nezuko left with the woman and both me and Tanjiro pulled out our swords.
"That's one down!" Susamaru said her aura was nearly glowing in glee making me want to throw up, their auras were blacker then normal demons but not as bad as Muzan's.
"The demon hunter wearing hanafuda-like earrings and the demon hunter with red hair and yellow eyes, his face full of scars. That's you two, isn't it?" Susamaru asked, obviously this wasn't a random attack. Someone had sent them after us with specific instructions to target Tanjiro and I.
"Tamayo-san, please find a place to hide! Me and Hikaru are the ones those demons are after" Tanjiro said, worried about Tamayo and Yushiro.
"Tanjiro, I want you and Hikaru to fight without worrying about us. We'll be fine without your protection, since we're demons" Tamayo said.
"She is right Tanjiro, demons can't kill other demons" I said before bracing myself as Susamaru once more threw her temari's.
"Wait Tanjiro" I tried to warn as he used the seventh water breathing form, drop ripple thrust-curve. It was an attack that was the fastest piercing move in all of the water breathing forms but it wouldn't matter with this.
"It isn't just the temari, she may be throwing them but that Yahaba is using his own blood art to control the path that the temari's are on. Not to mention that there is a third demon out there also helping them" I snared dodging the temari that was aimed at me three different times before it went back to Susamaru. I ignored Yushiro as he snarled and became angry at the demons. Susamaru seemed to be getting into the battle as she shrugged off the top half of her kimono leaving only her chest bound with a piece of black cloth.
"To be killed by me, one of the Twelve Demon Moons, you should be honored!" Susamaru cheered but I saw the disgusting orange in her aura, she was lying but now wasn't the time to point that out.
"Twelve Demon Moons?" Tanjiro questioned.
"They serve directly under Kibutsuji," Tamayo answered while Susamaru laughed before growing four more arms so she now had three each side each with their own temari.
"Now then, let's keep playing!" She called before launching the temari. The balls were tearing the room apart while me and Tanjiro dodged.
"Baka! I told you to pay attention to the arrows" I scowled as I grabbed Tanjiro by the collar and slammed us into the floor as he tried to cut two temari's up. We were then forced to roll out of the way before dodging and flipping even more temari's.
"We'll be healed soon enough! So don't worry!" Tamayo called out once she and Yushiro once more got hurt.
"Hey! Moron demon hunter! Listen to your friend, look at the arrows and you can tell which direction they're going in! Dodge the arrows!" Yushiro yelled while I dodged and blocked trying to figure out what the third demon was contributing.
"Arrows?" Tanjiro questioned. That's when I remembered that Tanjiro had a keen sense of smell but his eyesight wasn't like mine, making me curse.
"Seriously! You can't even see them! I'm going to lend you my sense of sight! That should at least enable you to behead that temari woman" Yushiro yelled while getting a charm out and sticking it to Tanjiro's forehead. I could tell that Tanjiro could see the arrows now since he was dodging the arrows a lot better now which meant that I didn't have to pull him out of the way anymore.
"Thank you Yushiro, I can see the arrows now too," Tanjiro thanked.
"Then hurry up and defeat her!" Yushiro ordered. At that moment one of the temari sped past me making me feel the wind from the attack and my eyes widened, so that was what the third demon was doing.
"Nezuko, let's go outside, you take care of the demon up in the tree" Tanjiro said, he was speaking about Yahaba who had moved up to the tree when the dust got too much for him.
"Wait" I yelled out as Nezuko left to deal with Yahaba and Tanjiro stepped out to face Susamaru but he left his back wide open for the third demon. Quickly pushing Tanjiro out of the way I stopped the attack with my sword and gritted my teeth before reaching for my short sword and stopping the second attack.
"Pay attention, I'll go and deal with the third demon" I snarled before I dashed towards the tree that he was hiding in.
"I see, I see you're the smart one, correct? You knew that we were here before we even arrived" The demon grinned, he had light brown hair that was short but really messy.
"Of course I did, the aura of a demon is so disgusting that I can barely stop myself from gagging" I said before swinging towards him with my swords. He dodged out of the way and jumped onto the ground and then took a deep breath.
"So he was correct, that man told us to kill you but even though you were a Marechi, we were not to devour you" He grinned.
"You must be referring to Kibutsuji, in that case I will extract your blood before I kill you" I glared before grabbing my swords and planting my feet down. I was lucky that I had done so since I was soon blasted with an attack of air.
"So I was correct, that woman Susamaru was throwing the temari, Yahaba was using his arrows to direct them and you were controlling the wind around them to make them faster and stronger then they physically could have been" I said and he laughed.
"You know I may just have some fun tonight after all," He cackled wildly and I grunted as another attack slammed into me making me lose my foot and slide along the ground on my back. Quickly I rolled out of the way to dodge the next attack before stopping the next with my sword but all that did was make me slam into the tree behind me. Grunting I jumped up the tree and flung myself into the air to try and get closer to him only for him to send another attack at me that had me quickly ducking out of my hiori to save myself from being ripped into the air. Unfortunately that made me miss my chance to attack and I was now plummeting towards the earth with nothing to stop my fall.
'Total concentration, Water breathing eighth form: Waterfall Basin' I thought aiming the attack at the ground, the eighth form creates a wave like effect that softens the force of gravity and can harm others who are around but for now I was using it so that I wouldn't be harmed by the fall that I had. The demon didn't give me a chance to recover as he was laughing and throwing more and more attacks towards me. I couldn't dodge all of them and I couldn't block them before the force behind them would add strength to my sword and fling me away when he controlled the wind to go a different way. It was exhausting and I was getting cuts over my arms, legs, chest and face even with my uniform. I would have to continue to go my total concentration breathing for the full fight so I didn't exhaust myself but I needed to be able to get close to him so that I could use an attack to finish him off. Crying out I felt my left arm being cut making me drop my short sword but I still had hold of my crimson sword. Wait a minute, that was it, perhaps seeing it would throw him off a little since he hadn't been paying attention to it. Moving my sword to where he could see it I noticed his attacks faulted giving me time to dodge them and I also saw fear in his aura before he suppressed it to bring forth his happiness. It didn't matter since I was close enough now and with my total concentration breathing already in effect all I had to do was use either the first or second water form. In that moment I made a mistake, being so close I had thought that I had already won the battle so I let my guard down and the demon grabbed me by the neck making me choke and release my sword to bring my hands up to scratch at the hand around my throat.
"That was a close one little demon slayer, seems you got cocky and got caught didn't you? I know what he said, not to devour you but you smell so delicious, I can't help myself" The demon chuckled before leaning forward and licking my cheek where blood was trickling down from a cut on my forehead making me shudder in disgust. Suddenly I found myself dropping to the ground as the demon let out a choked sound and was suddenly holding his throat as he gagged.
"What is this! What the hell did you do?! I have to devour you! I need more! Let me devour you! It burns! NO! I can't!....LET ME DEVOUR YOU!" He roared before racing towards me. His aura had been clouded in insanity just like all the other demons before him. It always happened when they hurt me, no it always happened when they came into contact with my blood. I didn't have time to think about it now as I ducked out of the way and grabbed my crimson sword and blocked a head on attack. It seemed though that his mind wasn't fully lost to his madness as he jumped back and continued to fling blades of air towards me. I would have only one chance at this so I decided to go for it. Using the foot work from the ninth form: Splashing Water form, that gave the user the ability to flow through any environment they encounter since it largely ignored the movement of the sword, to dodge the attacks and then pairing it with the first form: Water Surface Splash to attack would give me the best chance. Without waiting I put my idea into work and danced around the attacks until I was close enough and used my attack, watching as the demon's head who was still screaming about burning and devouring me hit the ground followed by his body.
