Chapter Text
Shinobu’s fingers are painfully numb. Her chest just about ready to burst as freezing air continues to blow against her face. She keeps running nonetheless. It had only been a day since Tomioka had departed for his latest task of a demon attack when Ubayashiki-sama had called for her. Giving an urgent request that she is to go as well with utmost haste. She had swiftly departed when she received the message at the brink of dawn equipped with soley a sword and an emergency kit. Far before the kakushi dispatched that were meant to follow her.
She had already run the majority of the 3 day trip. Only stopping once when she had been on the brink of passing out from exhaustion, her crow’s incessant squawking keeping her from closing her eyes.
She’s already thought of all the possible states she might arrive to find Tomioka in. The fact that she had been called out could only bid an abnormally powerful demon. And that meant that there was a chance that either he had managed to slay the demon while on deaths door or had retreated knowing he was outmatched and nearly dead. Those were the best case scenarios.
She pumps her legs faster. Maintaining all her focus on her short precise breaths. The white of the snow glowing from the moonlight serving as a means to navigate the darkness.
Her crow had flown ahead to search the area. It meant she was getting close.
She also can’t ignore the fact that Tomioka already being dead was also a high probability on the list of things she might arrive to find. Her already strained heart spiking at the thought. Inadvertantly bringing her back to a frequent memory, clutching the butterfly haori she has donned as she screamed and cried until her voice went hoarse. A constant reminder of her powerlessness that the universe is sure to remind her of every time she aims at the neck of a demon.
En calls for her from a distance, rocketing from the darkness, crackling through branches and landing onto the ground. Shinobu picks her up. Her heart palpitating harder as she speeds through where the crow came from. Pushing through thorny branches and moving quicker when she spotted the first hints of dark red on the ground. Following the path that worringly largened she finally reached a clearing.
She halts, sliding a couple feet through the snow as her eyes latch on to a shivering hunched over figure a distance away wrapped in a formerly half red and half yellow and green patterened haori. Now nearly fully stained a deep red.
She would have sighed in relief if her hackles were not instantly raised in alarm of a demon presence.
She places her crow on the ground.
Her hand ghosts over her sword’s handle.
“Tomioka–san?” She warily takes a step forward, tense, as her body screamed in warning.
The hunched figure stiffened. Slowly straighting up to reveal a bushy ponytail. The head slowly turned. Revealing slitted eyes—
Driven by instinct, Shinobu doesn’t hesitate in leaping into the air, unsheathing her sword as she used her momentum to stab where the demon was seated. It, in the last moment rolling to the side. She put a foot out, landing with a spin as she readied another pounce.
She falters at the sound of weak squawking. Seeing Tomioka’s old crow in the hands of the demon waving its wings at her. She willfully ignores how the demon placed it down a fair bit away with the utmost gentleness. Springing up to aim another thrust in it’s eye.
Again and again and again.
It nimbly dodges each thrust. Almost seeming to flow around her blade like water.
The demon then pushes her, she’s unable to correct her momentum and careens into a tree. Turning at the final moment, her back takes the brunt of it.
Shinobu barely feels it.
She plants her arms backwards to push herself off again. Glaring, before readying a leap.
He—it just looked at her, blinking stupidly, almost surprised.
She tightens her shaky grip on her sword, sheathing it and pressing the smallest button to inject a small dose of poison into it. Grinding her teeth, she unsheathes it again. Running at the demon and performing multiple stabs at its chest as quick as she could muster.
It’s unable to dodge all the blows, and she jumps back as it gives an inhuman screech and purple veins protruded from the wounds she had managed to cause.
Shinobu smiles.
She can’t be sure how long she subsequently danced around the demon at it threw strike after strike at her with her returning in parries or dodged blows. She’s almost entirely numb, her head seems to ring.
Why’s she using her weakest poison? She should just end it already. She’s bound to tire out long before it does.
She sheathes her sword, her finger hovering over the button which would coat her sword in her most lethal poison, willing herself to push it.
She doesn’t.
The demon growls. Baring its teeth as it lunged, and swiped its arm at her. She crouches down, taking the opening to land another stab into it’s leg. It screams again, and grabs her shoulders as it went for a bite.
Panicking as it was too close to kill with a well placed stab to the throat. She brought her sword up in a blocking position, the demon going for her hand on the handle. Causing her to rapidly let go of her sword just as the demon fiercely clamped down its teeth onto the hilt.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Shinobu whipped her foot, revealing a blade before she kicked the demon, it let go of her. Breaking off the blade in it as she stumbled backwards to find herself against a rock wall.
Her vision blurs.
Her muscles ache.
She can’t jump out of it’s radius without it catching her.
She’s gotten sloppy, she’s truly trapped.
The demon hardens its glare at her, raising a tight clawed fist.
This was it. This was how she was going to die. By the hand of what used to be a friend. She’s failed him. She’s failed Kanae.
“I’m sorry, Tomioka-san.”
The demon mumbled something behind the gag of her sword, the fist above it visibly shaking.
It came down inches beside her head. Creating a resounding boom that echoed through the entire woods. She could only look up as she heard tumbling and realised that the demon had kickstarted an avalanche.
Rocks and snow falling were the last thing she saw before everything went black.