Kiri No Akuma

Misuto-OG

  The cold air filled my lungs, blood coating my skin, and it pained me to breathe, I am Akimitsu Misuto, and I am a demon slayer.

  It all started years ago. Atop a small hill, I had left my dad at home to work at my fruit store. It was snowy and frosted, my fingers were blue, my vision was faded, and my heart pounded as I felt a hard aura around me.

  "Morning, Mrs. Muromachi!" I said in a whisper, trying to shuffle my way through the layers of snow. It felt like tiny knives driving through my flesh, I lay out fruits in front of me atop a bamboo table. My fingers felt as if they would fall off the entire 3 hours I was there. I headed back home after no sales, same old pain from earlier.

  I felt something was off at the hill. The smell of rancid meat was present the closer I had got to my house. I walked through the door to see something that would change my life forever, my father's rotten corpse being consumed by a pink haired man with blue lines marking him. He had short white baggy pants and a squared light purple haori, leaving his chest shown, his eyes were a piercing yellow. He had a symbol in his eyes that had read 'Upper 3'.

  I stood there in silence, tears welling up in my eyes until I couldn't hold it in anymore, and tears rolled down my emotionless face.

  "Father..." I stepped back, ready to flee, but something stopped me. I heard a springing noise as the person shot straight at me and scratched open my chest.

  A yelp and spitting sound came out at the same time from my throat. Blood dripped out my mouth.

  "This is my death, isn't it?" I said quietly to myself while tumbling through the snow, blood dripped everywhere. The man looked at me. I grabbed a dagger made from the ores in the mountain out of my pocket.

  "You tell me whatever the hell you did to my father NOW!' I yelled at him. He let out a loud laugh at me, I held the dagger in front of him as a threat. He flicked off my right ring finger without even moving, I fell to the ground crying in pain, and I saw maggots coarsing through my father's raw pale flesh. It filled me with a determination of sorts.

  "YOU.. YOU KILLED MY FATHER!" I sobbed, trying to keep grip with the dagger. I lunged forward and cut out the man's eye. He stood still.

  "You're weak as a human." He shoved me away at least 15 meters away, and when I got back up, he had already appeared in front of me. But his eye was back.

  "How did you regro-?" He punched my ear off, the sun started to rise, and his arm started to wither away, so he pounced away.

  I lay on the snow, bloodied and cold, and my fingers started turning grey from the freezing temperature. I crawled through the snow, halfway through the forest, I fell unconscious. I was unconscious for 11 hours until I was awoken to a dog licking my hand. Maggots crawled in the holes in the dog's skin, and blood dripped from its mouth as if it just bit through a man's arm.

  "Aww.. You poor baby.." I pet the dog, I heard the wet squelches of the maggots going through its flesh. I picked it up and carried it slowly to the town, but nobody was there.

  "Hello? Mrs. Muromachi? Is anyone here?" Did everyone leave early? No, nobody ever leaves early! That's when I saw it, a human arm on the ground.

  "Oh, she was so stale and dry! What a waste to eat. We should have just killed her!" A high-pitched voice said. He sounded as if he was drawing pleasure from the death of the entire merchant shop. A man walked out Mrs. Muromachi's shop, he wore a skintight red turtleneck with black splotches near his throat, tan pants sagged down on his legs.

  "W-who the hell are you and what did you do to Mrs. Muromachi!" I shrieked at the man. He turned to look at me, and his eyes glistened a rainbow color. It had a symbol in it just as the other man, his read out 'Upper 2'.

  "Why I am Upper Moon 2, Doma!" He coughed into his hand and walked closer to me.

  "And you are?" He reached his hand out and plopped it down on my shoulder.

  "YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION, WHAT DID YOU DO TO MRS. MUROMACHI!?" I held out the dagger in front of Doma. He just tapped it, and it fell out of my hands.

  "Don't worry..!" He chuckled, maggots coursed through my hands, I started to lose balance, and right before I did, I heard something.

  "AY! BACK OFF!" A person landed on Doma and stabbed him with a black and green sword, I fell down and looked at the man. He had dozens of scars on him, and his sword read 'Destroyer Of Demons'. The man slit open his arm, and drops of blood went into Doma's mouth. He hissed at the man and crawled away.

  "Ay, brat. Are you alive?" He sheathed his sword.

  "Yes, sir!" I got up and followed the man with the dog in hand.

  "The hell happened to your ear?" The man asked bluntly, not giving a care for my feelings.

  "This guy with these blue markings punched it off. He killed my father and ate his bottom half." I looked down at the dog and ruffled its hair.

  "Who you were dealing with was a demon, specifically, Akaza, the third Upper Moon." He touched around behind his ear and pulled out a puece of metal.

  "Upper Moon? What the hell is that?" I turned my head.

  "They are very strong demons. They have ate hundreds of humans.. Absolute scum of the world." He increased his walking speed and sped past me.

  "Ay! Wait up!" I yelped at him.

  "Ok then speed up!" He started running faster, I could barely keep up with my injuries.

  "I can't run!" I fell down, maggots fell out my hands onto the snow. The man picked me up and ran through the forest.

  "Who you just saw was one of the strongest demons of the Taishō period. You're lucky I saved you." The man scoffed, blood trickled out the cut he had made on himself, snow being dyed a deep red. The man jumped into the air and landed on a tree, I shook from the impact.

  "You see that house over there? That's the Butterfly Mansion. I'll drop you off there, Shinobu will take care of you." The man jumped again onto the ground and left me at the Butterfly Mansion, I saw a tiny lake, so I ran over to it and drank some of the water, but it was scalding.

  "OW! ACK!" I spat out the water, not only did it burn my mouth, but it tasted horrible.

  "What's in this pond?" I looked in and felt something. It was dead fish!?

  "EEK!" I rushed my hand out of the lake and ran into the mansion, but then I remembered something.

  "The dog! I need to go back and get the dog!" I ran toward the forest and into the slumbering snow.

TO BE CONTINUED