Paradise | Kimetsu No Yaiba ( Demon Slayer )

◆ Chapter Five - My Own Steel ◆

◽◤◦Third Person Pov ◦◢◽

Crimson liquid stains pure white snow, leaking out from various holes in the dead girl's once clean flesh. It pools under her, staining her pretty kimono in it's ugly color. The same ugly color that was also splattered along the wall up ahead.

As one treads closer, eerie, rough cracks grow louder and louder until they're able to be differentiated. A booming crackle there, a softer pop here, disturbing squelching there, and so on. Each noise echoed with some sounds traveling farther than others. They were heard by the same ears nonetheless..

A silhouette sits, hunched over. It's figure lit up in the dank yellow glow of the fire that roared freely from the once confining lantern—which has now been destroyed, allowing the fire to dance freely in the wind and slowly burn the delicate lantern to cinders in the snow..

As one gets closer, they'd be able to see under the silhouette and see the man laid there, bug-eyed and limp. The silhouette which sat on his legs and digged into his neck was the originator of such sickening sounds. Not that the silhouette could help themselves. They were hungry after all—ravenous if you will. Human bones aren't exactly the softest, especially the neck and shoulder bone. Kinda like crab legs, it took a lot of work to break them down between their teeth and get to the gooey, delectable center.

A soft patter is overshadowed by loud cracking of bones and loud gulping, but they were heard nonetheless. The silhouette pauses, parting from their dinner to look up—revealing in the process their green skin and golden eyes in the ripped open lantern's light. 

A little aways from the monostrous boy stood a man with a sword in hand. The otherwise gentle cloud patterns tatted all over his top glowered threateningly in the moonlight just like his mask—not that seeing the latter in the sunlight would've made the boy leap for joy. Nothing was gentle about it. Like an angry demon, it was colored red and had aggressive, thick eyebrow hair and mustache to adorned it's mad expression.

He saw it clear as day. It made the demon boy want to crawl into a hole and hide away, but he'd never admit something so embarrassing, not even on his deathbed.

The demon boy charged at the man, his claws loudly clanking against the blade in a quick succession as he flipped around. The man had an iron defensive, one impenetrable no matter what angle the boy attacked from. And, in the end, the man's impassable swordsmanship backed him into a corner..

The poor demon held his bleeding wrist in his palm, panting out thick clouds of hot breath as he watched the man. His footsteps were slow. Each crunch of snow under his sandals was an underlying threat that would spike anyone's anxiety.

He was so scared. He had no choice but try and make a desperate escape—which he did attempt. With the blood dripping from his wrist painting a clear trail into the snow and his boots leaving large footprints in their wake, the boy ran as fast as his legs could carry him..

He stops and looks back. The man is gone, leaving the boy too bewildered to be relieved. A chill runs down his spine. He looks back. The man stands above him on the roof of the fence.

His heart skips. The air in his throat leaves him. The man disappers before his eyes and with the sharp slice of his blade echoeing his defeat, everything goes black.. 

The boy opens his eyes again and this time, instead of that mean-faced man, there's a kinder-faced boy fly down at him from above. His blue, cloud-patterned top flails gracefully in the wind and he had that same blue blade pulled back..