Hakuouki: Demons Within

薄桜鬼 15

When I awoke the next day, Souji was shaking me with a desperate look on his face. Footsteps pounded back and forth outside the room, down the engawa and the corridor. The unmistakeable sound of steel against flesh echoed throughout the halls, followed by the clanging of blades and inhuman growls.
"Kaori! Kaori, Get up!!!!" Souji shouted, kneeling beside me and sweat beading on his forehead.
"What?!" I shrieked, sitting up abruptly and rising to my feet.
"The furies have invaded! We have to protect this building!" He firmly held my forearm, and gazed into my eyes. Behind his own emerald orbs was panic and bloodlust, twisting into a malicious glare.
"Be safe." He finished, hesitantly releasing my arm and darting out the door. I jumped out of my robe and into my kimono, then hakama, and rushed out the door, my katana drawn. Two beasts immediately met me in the hall, and their skulls were cracked in two by my blade. Stepping over their corpses with fresh blood on my feet, I ran outside to see the serene courtyard now a live-action battlefield. Harada had speared through three heads consecutively, and was having trouble removing his blade from their bodies. Heisuke guarded his comrade's back and looked up at me before resuming his battle. I took about five steps before a fury came stumbling towards me after being knocked backwards by Saito, but before it had the time to touch me, it was finely decapitated by him. The monster's blood spilled onto the ground and splattered across my face.
"Are you alright?" Saito asked.
"Of course, thank you." I responded right as he ran to meet another foe. I jogged across the courtyard looking for an unmatched foe, but found none. I followed the sound of more distant clamor to find an enemy. Re-entering the house, in the tea room, Hijikata was taking on multiple foes in his fury form with Kondou fighting beside him. Without thinking, I picked two foes off for him with my blade, grinning sadisticly as their body crumpled to the ground. It was disturbing how satisfied I was by the sound of cracking bones, ripping flesh, and spraying blood. Hijikata nodded his thanks and reached behind him to the closet, revealing a small desk. He opened its drawer and took out a packet, consuming its contents. I shrugged it off, as this was taken care of, and moved out to the front gate to regroup with Souji. As expected, he was hacking through heads and crushing skulls. Blood coated his haori and hakama, with splatters of the crimson fluid speckled onto his face. He wore a malevolent and murderous smirk as he tore through enemy after enemy. One by one, each fury slumped to the ground silently, their hideous grins remained plastered on their faces, even though their gleaming red eyes clouded over, and their body remain motionless in a river of their own and their comrades blood. After the last enemy in his chain of foes fell, he glanced towards me, acknowledging my position.
"I'm glad your okay." He said as he whipped his sword to the side, the blood that was on it slipping from the steel to the dirt. I smiled in response to him, then caught glance of an incoming hoard of furies.
"Souij!" He nodded and pivoted on one foot to face the enemies, and I stood beside him, holding out my blade. Together we fought and eliminated the demons in twos, but in the distance I caught sight of not a fury, but a human leading the furies.
"Souji!!" I called out over the sound of war cries, growls, screams, clashing blades and ripping flesh. Souji was too engrossed looking for more to kill to hear me.
"Souji!!! Souji!!!!!!!"I yelled to no avail. I sighed and warily took things into my own hands. Locking my sights on the human fury-leader, I ran towards him with my blade extended, cutting down a few furies before reaching him. I plunged my blade into his unsuspecting back, and he doubled over. Before he could fall over, I grabbed him by the scruff of his worn kimono and struggled as I hauled him to the house as a prisoner. He had dropped his sword-which he was using as a commanding baton, which was left in the overgrowth. After Souji finished bathing in another group of furies' blood, he came towards me and took the guy from my grip, easily dragging him into the house and throwing him against the wall, cracking the wood and wallscreen.
"Kaori, tie him up. I'm taking care of the rest. If he doesn't behave, either torture him, or supervise him until I return." Souji ordered with a intimidating tail on his command. I held my blade to the man's neck.
'If you so much as move, I will personally grant you a punishment worse than death. I'll make you wish you were in hell." I was nervous saying this to a man, but this man was no warrior to be respected. He was lower than me and I could treat him as such. I traveled into the other room and found some twine, which I used to make a rope. Then, I took the man's seemingly weakened arms and held his wrists, kicking his back and pulling his arms towards me. If he struggled, I would break them both. I bound the rope tightly between his wrists, and released his arms. They would remain in an uncomfortable position the entire time. He was in pain, his eyes showed that, but his sickened smile remained stuck on his face. There I waited for Souji and the others to return.