Eclipsed (Demon Slayer)

strength

I woke up in the morning with the sun shining brightly through the window, Narrowing my eyes I turned over. It was kind of hard to sleep last night when Tanjiro kept getting beat by Naho, Kiyo, Sumi everytime he stopped his concentration breathing. Like they should be in bed.

I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, Zenitsu and Inosuke are still in bed, they don't even put in the effort to train anymore. I take my leave and headed outside, the sun still hurts a little.

"Morning."

I jumped with yelp as I see Lady Kocho with a smile.

I grabbed my chest. "You can't just sneak up on me like that. Please announce yourself next time. I'm not built for jump scares."

"I'm so sorry." She says. " Please forgive me. I leave this to you, run this course. I will be helping Tanjiro today."

I nodded as she disappeared, I ran swiftly, jumping into the high beam, running from each one, I jumped again to a tree and all around the area as fast as I could. Onto the ground, I skidded, raising the dirt. I raised my leg high in the air, slamming it to the ground, the rocks fly up and I kicked one by one into a tree causing a hole to form. My thoughts are interrupted by Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke running outside.

"Ah, Anaka!" Inosuke says running past me.

"It's Akari." I say as he started to lift the rock weights in the tree limb. Zenitsu twirls me around happily and runs around on the high beams.

Tanjiro patted my shoulder as he goes to cheer on Inosuke. I thought I wasn't supposed to train with them.

"You can train with them today." Shinobu says from beside me.

"Are you sure?" I say weary.

She nodded with a smile. "Show them your strength."

I smiled as I walked over to them.

"Akari, do you want to try?" Asked Tanjiro.

I nodded as Inosuke dropped the rocks. "You can't beat that! I'm stronger than you!"

I raised my eyebrows as I pushed him to the ground, he grunted as he stood up.

"Hey! Nanae! You can't-" I pushed him on the ground again.

"Now guys, there's no reason to fight." Tanjiro sweat drops as I grabbed onto the rope and pulled effortlessly.

"Arghhh!" Inosuke shouted.

~
I watched as the man who forged Inosuke and Tanjiro's swords was chasing him back and forth with a knife for breaking his last one. I think it's the perfect amount of anger, he worked hard on them.

"Is this a new training regime?" Asked Shinobu.

"Probably not." Answered Aoi.

"By the way, when can I get my sword back?" I asked as she smiled at me.

~
"There is no rules. Come at me with full intent to kill me. I've removed the poison from my blade in order not to kill you."

"B-but-" I say.

"On your mark-" Aoi says.

"Wait, I can't hurt-"

"Get set-"

"Aoi!"

"Go!" She says as Shinobu comes at me and I dodged, her sword clangs with mine as I held her back.

"I wasn't ready!"

"Oh, no. We can't stop still one of us wins." She says as I dropped down and tried to kick her feet out but she jumped back. She's fast. I ran at her sword drawn, at the last minute I threw my sword in the air and slide through her legs. I jumped up and wrapped my legs around her neck and swing it the ground, my sword falls into my hand as I stabbed her...but it was just the ground.

Her sword comes down behind me and I moved my legs up, standing on my hands, stopping the blade with the grip of my feet.

"Oh?" She says as I came back down kicking her back. She grunted as she flies backwards into the fence.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry!" I say as I walked up to her, something sliced my chest as I looked down to see my shirt sliced in four places, blood lines appear.

"Oh, my, looks like I'm winning." She smiled.

A vein popped in my forehead, I turned and walked away from her.

"Akari, what's the matter?" She says as I stomped the ground, a rock flies up and I kicked it so hard it his her sword and it goes flying into the fence. As she looked the other way, I jumped on her back and put her in a choke hold. I held on tightly as I heard her gasp. I blinked as I realized what I was doing, I dropped to the ground and started begging for forgiveness.

"You're ready." She says as I lifted my head, she held her throat. I frowned, I didn't want to hurt her.

~
I turned as I tried to get Inosuke off of my back, it was useless though. "Get off."

"No." He grumbled.

"Inosuke, please get off of her." Tanjiro says sitting up.

"Mind your business, Tantoro."

I grunted with effort as I got his heavy body off of me and laid on his torso sideways, he didn't seem to care. I slowly drifted back to sleep but was rudely interrupted by the sound of flapping wings.

"It's morning! Wake up!" The crow says.

"What the heck?" Inosuke groaned.

"What's going on?" I hear Zenitsu mumbled.

"The casualties of the Mugen train are increasing." He says as Inosuke pushed me up, we're finally awake. "More than 40 are now missing. You are to join Kyojuro Rengoku on site. Head west at once!"

~
She moved the comb through my long hair as I watched the birds fly around outside, I haven't let anyone groom me since my mother passed away. Shinobu let me wear a kimono instead of the demon slayer uniform because apparently, I was allergic to the fabric. She put my hair in low hanging pigtails and put red and blue butterfly clips in them.

"I don't think I'm worthy of those." I say.

"You are. You trained under me, it's a gift." She says. "I can only believe you'll be stronger overtime."

She shows me to the mirror and I felt amazing, my body was much more fit than before, I looked prettier even. She smiled at me and I smiled back as she left a kiss on my cheek. My face heated up as I took my leave immediately. I walked out to see those three little girls crying about the guys leaving. Zenitsu's eye's lit up as he saw me, he had hearts floating around him.

"Ms. Ashaya!" The girls say in unison as they hugged me.

"You look so pretty." Sumi gushed.

I blushed again holding my cheeks, I'm not used to so much compliments.

"Oh, my!" Zenitsu floats over to me. "You're so beautiful, this body deserves to be worshipped unconditionally-"

"Shut up!" Inosuke shoves his head down.

Tanjiro walks up to us with a smiled. "What happened to your uniform, Akari?"

"I'm allergic to the fabric. But this is okay, I guess."

"It suites you." He says. "Okay! You guys! We're headed out now!"