The Demon Queen

The Slayer of the Sun (Part 2)

TW: blood, severe wounds

Before I knew it, burning hot flames had slashed through my body. My face was not spared. I felt like everything of me was set ablaze. A cutting flame immediately slashed through my left eye, immediately blinding me on impact. An X-shaped gash burst in the middle of my throat, preventing me from being able to scream from the pain. Blood started to rush down my face and over my body. 

All I could hear was Muzan frantically calling my name. His voice got closer, and I sensed him clearer as the flames around me disintegrated into the air, leaving only the wounds behind.

Muzan, run away! The words I wanted to say bellowed in my mind. My body isn't regenerating! Run!

Run!

RUN!

From the one eye of mine that somehow remained untouched, I saw Muzan become encircled in flames alike to the ones that had cut me up. His popping, panic-stricken eyes moved from staring at me to looking down at himself. He grit his teeth in pain before a scream erupted from him, which was immediately cut short by the sound of his neck being cut.

If it weren't for that he was beheaded before me, I would have only thought of how stupid and careless he was to come to me instead of killing the slayer. It seemed now that we were both going to die at the sword of the slayer with the hanafuda earrings. Muzan could have at least come out alive, if only he had killed the slayer while he was still focused on attacking me.

He froze, didn't he ...

I'm not going to freeze.

As Muzan fell to his knees, I jolted over to him, my wounds in a constant state of reopening and stretching deeper into my body with every move I made. I started to feel panic as I saw blood running past his mouth, his head separated from his body as he desperately tried to keep holding it onto his neck with his stumped arms. His hands were gone from sight, as if they had been burnt to ashes in the air. His arms could barely balance his head in place. Like me, he was not regenerating at all.

I bore my fangs, growling under my breaths, and took Muzan's head into my hands to hold it securely in place. My eyes became completely crimson red as I stared at the slayer, who slowly and cautiously approached us. My mind raced as all I thought of was how I needed to kill that man, but I couldn't even bring myself to move from the position I seemed to be trapped in. 

I had lost so much blood and continued to bleed endlessly all over myself and now all over Muzan, too. Because I wasn't regenerating, I didn't have the physical strength to even stand up anymore, let alone fight a demon slayer who had suffered nothing besides getting tired.

I heard Muzan panting in raspy breaths. Blood kept oozing from his mouth down his chin and onto his body. He was trembling in fear in front of me, desperately holding on to what remained of his life with all of his focus.

He had never been so much on the verge of death as he was then. Even when he was human, and slowly wasting away, fighting with his illness, death was something inevitable in the near future. But now, he was looking death straight in the eyes.

I had to protect him. Even if I had the strength to move and try in one last attempt to touch the slayer, I was holding Muzan's head in place.

I couldn't let go. I couldn't be responsible for his crippling, lifelong fear becoming his reality.

And I couldn't lose him.

The demon slayer stood still at a distance about half a meter away from us. He looked at us with flashing eyes amidst his otherwise blank face.

Holding his sword at his hands, he said, "There is something I need to ask you. What is the value of a life to you?"

What is this bullshit? I thought.

The slayer looked to me. "Ubuyashiki girl."

Muzan's face grew dark red and he snarled at the slayer.

"Do you feel any regret knowing that you've brought a plague upon your descendants?"

Muzan started to growl, his teeth jittering in his mouth.

We need to split our bodies, He said to me telepathically.

The thought of that made me nervous. We only tested it together once, and afterwards it took us an entire night to completely regenerate.

That was when we were at full strength. In the state we were in, I had my doubts that we would succeed.

On three, I heard Muzan's voice say to me in my mind. One ... Two ...

But, we had no other choice.

Three.

It was either be killed by the slayer, or take the gamble that we would survive splitting our bodies to escape.

So, I did it. And hoped for the best.