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

79

Inside, the second floor balcony is in a mess.

Large chunks of the walkway were destroyed, and it was equally cold inside the left wing as it was outside. Within the rectangular interior of the left wing, the wood, which was unnaturally white in colour, had ice frozen between and beneath the boards, where icicles formed on the railings and parts of the ceiling which had managed to stay intact.

Silver and bronze which had once been etched into some of the pillars were now rusted or covered in ice, buried beneath wood, steel, torn cloth from the banisters, as well as ceramic tiles and more snow. Kyojuro took a closer look at some of the drawings which seemed so old that the paint was flaking off, and ice simply froze and covered it, preserving it in time like the remnants of this temple.

It was once magnificent, grand and welcoming, giving off an aura of ice, snow and purity of the cold, a palace for the spirit of the snow to descend and live within her grand temple. The walls were all supposed to be of a pale snow white cloth, which never got dirty despite the snow and freezing rain. Banners would have hung down from the ceiling, together with silver chains bound and embedded with small, diamond shaped crystals would have been intertwined with said banners.

The floors were made of shaved ice covered by a layer of thick tatami mats, as the pillars were coloured a light grey and a sharp azure blue in deep gradients from bottom to the top. White coloured lanterns with numerous words were written to welcome all worshippers as well as the spirit of the snow, for this was her home and her abode.

He took in a deep breath, as he exhaled vapour into the cold air.

Her fingers clung to his own, holding his hands in her palms, and in the moment, he bites back the urge to flinch from the imaginary touch.

This temple, to which he somehow knew how to get to the main hall, as he walked across the walkway and found a hidden ladder disguised within a small wooden slab attached to the wall. A pair of cold hands guided his own fingers as he found small square like tiles across the wooden slab, and carefully pressing a few tiles, he shifted his feet away from the base of where he stood on as the tile beneath fell down and away.

Yousuke remained silent, but watched with extreme interest.

The ladder leads down below, into an underground passage as he slung and brought with him five different swords, not including his own wakizashi which he still had not been able to get back ever since he woke up in the steel cell.

Reaching down into the ground below, he found that the reason why the way down was protected was due to a large pillar which was actually hollow inside. As Yousuke had the small lantern clipped to his belt, Kyojuro found his eyes adjusting easily in the dark, easily able to pick out everything in the dark, and the various different stones and carvings across the wall, in a language he was unable to read.

They were cursive, but a language he had seen before, but just so rarely when he was in the cities. If he was correct, it should be known as English. He runs a hand along the wall, finger tracing over the carved letters in the smooth granite walls. A feeling of deja vu washes over him, followed with a trace of a single scene which seemed to overlap with his own actions.

She had once traced her hand over the walls as well, but behind her followed four individuals, mere silhouettes as she showed them the way to Arctic Silver.

"Do you know where this corridor leads to?"

Yousuke's voice snaps him out of the moment.

"A-Yes!" He replies on instinct, as they quicken their pace through the underground passage.