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

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There was a foreboding sense of despair, as the snow rushed at them, and she...she was scared.

The speck of orange light arced across the sky, dripping feathers made of molten fire across the snow. The cold winds were brought to a halt in its presence, as it landed at the foot and at the corpse of Nobu's decapitated head and corpse. Kyojuro struggled to stay standing as he watched the vermilion bird fold in its two pairs of wings and meet his own gaze.

With feathers of gold and crimson fire, the snow at its feet were set aflame, as water was transmuted into oil where it landed. It wore a crown of gold and silver across its neck and head, an accessory which only added to its vibrant colours. Three long tail feathers swept across the ground, ending in shimmering rose gold tips as its four eyes rested on his.

In them, were the slitted eyes of a demon.

Its presence was that of the molten, burning sun, blinding his eyes in the dead of the night, setting his skin aflame with the waves of heat which emanated from its large body, and fire which seeped into his bones and scalded them. This fire was like the spark of an inferno, a wildfire, uncontrollable, all consuming, all devouring. It purified the land it stepped on, like a twisted spark of hope on the wrong side of the battlefield.

"My apologies, it appears I was unable to kill her." Nobu's head spoke, as Kyojuro silently counted down the amount of time it would take before he would start disintegrating. Move. He needed to move. Everything felt heavy, his limbs, the sword, as he picked it up and took a step forward. His movements were sluggish, slow, like blood refused to flow in his veins.

The bird made its way over to Nobu's head, as it started to cry tears of blood over Nobu's corpse. It listened to Nobu's words.

She instinctively brought his blade up, as she forced him to use the blade to cut Nobu's head once more, which it disintegrated as soon as she swung at it once more, but the corpse...the corpse seemed to be regenerating a new head.

KILL IT

Her desire was so strong that Kyojuro could not disobey. He needed to kill the vermilion bird. The phoenix. The vermilion bird gave him a disinterested glare as it immediately leapt into the air, escaping to the sky as he pulled out one of the training blades, and threw it after the phoenix which failed to hit its mark as the phoenix merely dived down to avoid the blade, before taking to the air once more.

Turning to gaze at Nobu's corpse, Kyojuro watched with morbid curiosity as it slowly started to push itself up from the ground, and a new head appeared atop its neck. His limbs. Why did they feel like dead weight now? His head was starting to hurt as well. It couldn't be the transition between the two breath styles which cause him to suffer from its backlash, could it? But it did not seem that apparent before, and if he was suffering from its backlash, it would have caused him to stumble before.

Nobu watched him with a resigned smile.

"Now the others know you're alive. I've failed to preserve your honour, forgive me," Nobu spoke, with a voice not quite his own, as it was raw, and only she knew what was happening. Kyojuro had no idea what to make light of what he had just witnessed.

Nobu should have died.

Nobu glanced at the bird, holding out a gloved hand to seemingly stroke its feathers, as the bird lazily set its gaze on him.

He should have died.

But the phoenix.

The vermilion bird brought him back to life. How was that even possible? He had never seen a demon come back to life before. Once the head was decapitated with a nichirin, that was it. Game over for the demon. Nobu glanced at him, as he held a hand out for the bird to land on it. There was no way a demon could regenerate its head back after being decapitated by a nichirin blade. Just no way. That itself went against everything they had learnt so far about the demons, and if this was the case for the upper moons, then they were thoroughly screwed.

The vermilion bird was large, and staring at it, he knew that he should have moved faster. Now he was too late. Nobu glanced at him, and now, he could see that the tips of Nobu's hair were white, a sign that this demon was not who he once was. He had died, and this was a different version of him. Nobu glanced at him, this time, Kyojuro could see that his eyes were both a glowing amber, no longer the deep blue they once were.

Nobu walked over to him, the bird now comfortably seated on his shoulder, dripping molten fire along his torn, frosted uniform and dissolving the ice, reducing it to vapours of water and steam in the cold air. Around them, the snow melted, as Nobu used his blood demon art to temporarily halt the flow of the avalanche. An avalanche which consisted of the entire peak of the mountain.

She screamed at him to move.

But he couldn't. It was as if all of his blood had frozen in his body, or the sheer shock of heat followed by cold and trailed once again by the heat had shocked his systems so much that his muscles refused to move, having been over expended and exhausted in its extremes, but even in his exhaustion, he knew he would always be able to move.

This, this was something else. His hands were not shaking even though they should be in the harsh cold, and he saw his fingers quickly turning purple, numbness, frostbite taking over. His head hurt, and he couldn't breathe in the slightest. There was a pressure, building up in his head, behind his eyes, as if he were trapped and encased in a moment in time. It could only be Nobu's blood demon art working on them.

But that was not possible. Even if he had managed to recover, their capabilities to use their demon blood art would not be this strong. In fact, this was even stronger than before-

"She must be asking how I'm able to do this, isn't she?" Nobu gave him a small smile, a part of him that still remained what Nobu originally was, as if he were not something else. It was unsettling, uncomfortable, and it made him feel so useless, so powerless as Nobu strolled over to him, down the mountain and next to him.

"Too bad I won't say anything about it. I will, however, keep you here like this until the sun rises. Or, should I decapitate you with your own sword?" Nobu stared at him, as he used his hand and brought it down on where Kyojuro still gripped tightly onto Arctic Silver.

No...

And his hand came to a stop just above his own.

"I won't. I cannot say the same for the current wielder of the original blade, however," Nobu slowly retracted his hand as the bird seemingly huffed. The waves of heat emanating from that demon bird alone was melting the snow beneath their feet into water, and he was sinking into a small shallow pool of water.

Why had he ever thought of the phoenix to be a bringer of life? Now, it only brought him certain death.

This was it. There was nothing he could do. Nobu's power clung to his blood, halting it in place with it's sheer force.

"Your body cannot take any more stress on it. Abruptly switching breath styles will result in a large whiplash on your body. Particularly two opposing breath styles. I'm sure she did not tell you this, Kyojuro-kun."

His wounds were reopening, as blood started pouring from them once more.

"Her power is too weak, too faint, too diluted to help heal your wounds. You might be able to bring out large, astounding amounts of power at your peak, but there's a steep fall after you've had your moment of glory."

Blood on his lips.

Across the snow.

Hashira....

Run.

He's coughing, choking as Nobu clapped his hands together.

"There is no shame in surrender, Kyojuro-kun. If you had been more attentive, more reactive...maybe you would have noticed why you've been bleeding out a lot faster than normal." His wounds....were not healing.

Blood Demon Art: Fate's Judgement

Blood spilled from his wounds, from his eyes, throat, ears, nose and lips, as well as all of his wounds, as it was being forced out in the opposite direction, as above him, a large storm of snow came crashing down on him.