sweet but a psycho

chapter 8: festival

The trio started wondering the area. Its mostly tsuta pulling giyu aroumd, while shinobu sulked behind them. All shinobu could concentrate on was tsuta's incessant rambling about how pretty the place is. She isn't wrong in this regard, though shinobu would rather swallow her own poison's than admit it. The fact she's was clinging onto giyu like he was a lifeline didn't help her case at all. Just wanted to make the insect pillar stuff her mouth full of barbiturates.

"Oh!" Her voice cut through her musings. Tsuta pointed towards a stall. "You see that tomioka-san, it sells goldfish! They are so cute! Do you think you can get some for me, can you can you?!" She peered at giyu, eyes hopeful. He just looked at her, slightly confused.

"....fish?" He repeated stupidly. Tsuta nodded. "Yes! I've always wanted a goldfish!" Shinobu decided to insert herself in between them.

"Ara, this is very fun, but why don't we get going. If we stop at every stall, the night will escape us." Shinobu smiled while she stubly removing tsuta's arm from giyu's.

Tsuta looked kinda sad at shinobu's point. "Right but i wanted to have at least one of the goldfish, they look so cute." Shinobu didn't really care much for her words as all they do is make her burn with anger, though she'll never show how much it affected her in public.

"Tsuta-san—" she started off before she felt her male companion place a hand on her shoulder.

"....she could have one fish, i don't mind getting her some." And before shinobu could reply to his suprising actions, giyu walked to the stall. Tsuta's eyes sparkled with excitement while the insect pillar's mouth was agape in shock.

'H-How could tomioka-san take her side instead of mine?! Am i not more of an important person than her? I'm hurt, how could he? No, she is the reason he's acting like this! Disgusting, she should die for this transgression against me!' Shinobu thought as she became alight with anger and jealously against tsuta, again. While the person in question was waiting excitingly and patiently for her promised goldfish.

After a few minutes of tense waiting, well it was tense for shinobu as her hands were itching to take out her sword and make good use of it against a human, giyu came back with a couple of tiny fish in a glass container.  Tsuta cooed at the sight of them.

"Awwww! They are very cute! Thank you tomioka-san!" She almost snatched the fish from his grip. Overall she seems very happy with the fish. Giyu looked satisfied that he made someone happy so gave an extremely miniscule smile at the sight, causing shinobu to feel even more anger.

Shaking with intense rage but managed, managed, to keep a smile on her face, the insect pillar walked towards the water pillar. "Ara ara tomioka-san, so you can smile after all, here i thought your facial muscles only kept your face in a specific expression at all times~" she doesn't know how she managed to keep her voice level and light but it worked as giyu didn't say anything to her words.

"Ah earth to tomioka-san and shinobu-san, lets continue with the festival shall we!" Tsuta skipped ahead, giggling with delight. Giyu sighed and followed, pulling shinobu with him.

Timeskip: at 9 pm:

The 3 of them walked up and down the festival just enjoy every stall they came across, or rather, it was tsuta who was enjoying everyone of them. Speaking of tsuta, she parted ways with the hashira a while back. She stated that her job starts around that time and she should get going. Shinobu didn't question it, she was just happy that tsuta would be out of her sight. So now its just the 2 pillars walking around the festival now.

Not much was said between them, suprisingly. Shinobu wasn't her normal chatterbox self and that concerned giyu slightly, she would have teased him by this moment. Actually, this was perfect time to find more information for the mission, they still don't know much about this demon. Where does it hunt? How powerful is it? Why target this area? These questions were on giyu's mind and he decided to bring it up to his partner.

"Kocho...?" He asked, shinobu jumped slighly.

"Yes tomioka-san~?"

"The demon...." he trailed off. Shinobu let out a noise of agreement.

"Ah yes, the demon. As its night right now, its the perfect time for it to come out but...." shinobu looked around. "There's a lot of people around so it probably wouldn't strike now, maybe pick some people off..."

Giyu came and stood close to shinobu, a blush appeared on her face. "Very well, we shall continue looking around."

"Y-yes we shall~"

And so they did.

Timeskip: inside the park, midnight:

A young woman was being dragged across the ground.

Her legs have been systematically broken at the knees to disable her ability to run. She had passed out from the shock of the pain but has woken up now. She looked around frantically, wondering where she's being taken to. She was just at the festival and next thing she knew, she was taken and legs broken.

"...w-where am i being taken to?" She managed to say. The thing that was dragging her gave a dry laugh.

"Hush now, we are almost there~" and true to its word they reached a door in the ground. The thing started to try and open it. The young woman wanted to get away from there, not sure what its intentions are, but she can't since her legs are broken. Once the latch was unlocked, it turned to its victim.

"I'm going to drop you inside now~" it grabbed her by the hair and threw her down a flight of stairs. Several more bones were broken, smacking her head against the hard concrete. She cried in pain. The thing smirked with amusement. The thing then went towards the victim and injected something into her, she could feel her muscles weakening.

"What on earth-"

"I just gave you some liquefied curare~ its a powerful muscle relaxant. If given in high enough doses it can cause asphyxiation due to paralysis to the diaphragm♡. The plants are usually found in central and south america and if your pathetically feeble mind is trying to come up with an answer as to why i have it in japan.... well~ let's just say i have connections~" it explained. The young woman would have started shaking but she's paralysed, by fear and the muscle relaxant.

It hefted her onto a waiting chair and chained her to it. "I'm not gonna kill you at least not yet~ i like to torment my meals first than kill them outright~ so what do you want removed first? An arm? A leg? Your eyes gouged out? Hm~ doesn't really matter since you can't answer and i'm gonna kill you anyway~"

The woman opened and closed her mouth with what little strength she could muster. "W....what are you?"

It gave another smirk, knowing she would ask that, they all did. "I'm a demon~" and with that the demon beheaded the woman.

Dripping noises.....

A/n: oh spooky! 😂 we are getting close to the final showdown💃🏽