Heart Of Fire; Veins Of Ice | Kimetsu No Yaiba Fanfic (Kyojurou's POV)

Chapter 48

It's a familiar scent.

He's craved it before.

He's craving it again.

His lungs are burning, as he blinks at the woman. Colds hands forced his fingers to curl themselves around the hilt of his wakizashi, while the woman looks at him, and she handed the cloth over to him. His limbs move of their own accord, taking the blood soaked cloth from her hands.

Blood and Snow.

Fighting and shouting.

It tasted so sweet on his tongue.

Kyojuro blinks.

He throws the cloth away, as he breathes hard. Before he succumbed to his hunger. It was sweet enough that he could taste it just by smelling and seeing it. The woman looks at him, as she takes a step back.

And promptly points a gun at him.

She presses the muzzle to his forehead, as Yousuke and Hiromi turn to glance at each other. The woman's eyes show and eerie calmness to them, as she keeps her kusarigama with a single hand. He wouldn't die from a head shot. He knows he won't.

She won't pull the trigger.

His demon eye blinks.

She does.

He feels a cold hand around his throat, cold strands of hair on his skin, as something hangs over him.

It smiles as it wraps a hand around his neck, and the other wields a transparent blade.

Somehow, the gun falls to the ground in two separate halves, even as he barely just manages to draw his own wakizashi out. The woman falls back, surprised, as she swings the sickle end of the weapon at his throat, the chain hovering in the air like a poised snake as it moved. Kyojurou reacts, as he raises his wakizashi to block the blow.

But it never comes.

"Violence within this house will not be tolerated."

With clawed gloves, Himura catches the sickle as she pulls the chain taut. The woman seemingly averts her gaze to the ground in a posture of respect, as she bows. The others bow as well.

"Everyone else is dismissed." They leave.

"That is the demon which attacked us on the mountain. I recognise the colour of his hair and his mismatched eyes," The woman explains. Kyojuro feels his head hurt. The presence weighs down on his shoulders, and he feels the cold hand move to his shoulders, and its fingers dig into his shoulders.

It wanted blood. Human blood. His own blood. It wanted any blood he could offer.

He could smell the scent of blood off of the woman's clothes, the bloody, torn strip of cloth, his own blood on the wound of his neck, of which had closed but the blood was still there. There was blood on Himura's sleeves as well. He closes his mind as he focuses on staring straight ahead, at one of the paintings on the wall.

The hunger is oppressive, like the weight on his shoulder, bearing down on him as he could feels its fingers move to his neck, and still he continues to breathe the breath of flames. It burns against the cold, and yet he knows that it will not last long. The moment he stops, is the moment the cold will lash back out at him, like the demon which sat in his left eye, and the very same one he swore was sitting on his shoulders.

"Kyojuro."

Himura's voice finally reaches him.

He turns to him, as she holds a flask out to him.