The Descendant (A Retelling and love story of Demon Slayer)

Three

 Villagers evacuating from their houses in the area could be heard, though they steered clear of the specific road Akari and the demon were on. Akari could hear the shouts of a male voice off behind her a good distance away. Glancing back to confirm it, she spotted the young male slayer that she had procured the sword from. He was waving his arms, directing the fleeing civilians toward the medical center like she had told him to do. He spotted her, eyes locking with hers for a brief moment before nodding and continuing on with his assignment.

Akari swiftly dodged another wind slash, perching on a nearby tree limb before needing to bail quickly or risk getting shredded by another oncoming attack. The demon growled in frustration. His hunger for her rare blood caused his once easygoing demeanor to shift into something more ferocious and desperate. With every dodge she successfully pulled off, his attacks became more and more unrefined. Suddenly he let out an enraged yell.

"RAGH! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DAMNIT!" He launched himself at her with more reckless desperation. His clawed hand pointed and posed to stab her through the chest. Akari deflected it with her left hand, bringing the sword down on her opponent with practiced precision. In this moment she didn't see a man who had been turned into a demon, she instead saw her father. In her hand, a wooden practice sword as she practiced this drill with him a thousand times over. The demon's scream of agony brought her vision back from her memories as the borrowed blade sliced clean through his bicep. The sound of his visceral pain caused something within her to hesitate in her movements and though he was injured, he attempted to take advantage of that, by clawing at her right side. His razor-like nails tore at her flesh right above her collarbone and shoulder, but she managed to move away quickly enough to avoid any major damage. Gaining some distance, she cursed herself for her hesitation, though she supposed it couldn't be helped. Her practices with her father never resulted in causing physical damage since they were just drills and hearing someone scream from pain she willfully inflicted was not something she was used to hearing.

The demon shouted obscenities at her as he grasped the severed end of his arm. Crimson blood flowing from it freely between his fingers. The sight made her stomach roll. 'If I don't finish this quickly I'm afraid I'll pass out...' She didn't even think about how it was going to feel slicing through his neck. If she did, she was certain she wouldn't be able to go through with it. 'In that case...' Widening her stance, Akari loosened her muscles before taking in a long breath that filled her cells with the power she needed. She brought the sword to point toward its target, set even with her stance. 'I'll have to finish this in one swing, before I have time to register that feeling!' The demon's arm suddenly stopped bleeding and in an instant a new arm shot back out to take the old one's place. His feet pushed off the ground with enough force to leave a small dent in the earth. Akari focused her mind, uttering her breathing style under her breath.

"Breath of Stars, third form: Lightspeed." She was gone before his eyes. Moving at the speed of light on swift bare feet. It was a form that was perfect for closing the gap between opponent's with a burst of focused speed. It was often used to surprise, and was normally coupled with another form to inflict damage.

"WHAT-" He felt her presence behind him a moment too late.

"Fourth form: Stardust Slash." His beady eyes widening in shock as he felt the steel slide through his neck with little resistance. He couldn't believe it, refused to even. 'There's no way!' He thought as his vision tilted to the side, unable to stop himself from falling to the side. Feeling his body hit the dirt road before his head confirmed the worst for him. "No way..." He whispered just before his head met the ground, the impact was nothing compared to the realization that his head had been severed. "NO FUCKING WAY!" Akari placed a hand over her mouth, though she was aware that severing a demon's head would still allow them to function as normal, it was still a jarring sight. Seeing a severed head talking as though nothing had happened was a definite form of nightmare fuel. Reading about it in journals and books can never compare to seeing it in reality. "HOW! HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN DEFEATED BY A MERE CHILD! IT'S NOT FARE! I DID EVERYTHING I WAS SUPPOSED TO!" Akari raised a brow at this, forgoing her own discomfort in favor of strategic knowledge she approached the talking head that was now beginning to disintegrate.