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

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A/N Warning : Prepare for hell. 

Help doesn't always arrive in time.

As Yousuke shielded Fuyuko with his body, and the horse raced along the snowy path on its own volition, finding a safe area to take shelter in a mixture of its animalistic instincts and need for survival, the nichirin blade would never reach the flame Hashira's hands.

Sometimes, help doesn't arrive at all.

Kyojuro plunges down into the chasm, where snow and cold water formed shards of ice on its surface, puddles of water and snow. Her power completely exhausted, he tries to draw on his own strength in order to stand, refusing to acknowledge the fact that his own had long been spent before hers, and that her demonic abilities were the only thing keeping him breathing in the moment.

Such was the nature of reality, cruel, harsh and unforgiving.

She knew it all too well.

As the flame hashira shattered his body against the cold snow, cushioned only by some water in the slowly overfilled river, his bones broke, pierced his own flesh from inside out, and still he kept his eyes open, and he breathed. With shards of bones through his own lungs, dislocated limbs, a fractured skull, internal bleeding, torn skin, he dragged himself up.

Why would he do so? What made him persist on to no end?

He inhaled, pulling out the very last blade in his sheathe. Against the pain, the inevitable death which would follow the wave of snow, she did not have enough blood left to heal him. And yet he fought. Raising his blade, he cut through the wave of water, the storm of snow, parting the white powder and freezing the water into two halves. As he stared on in surprise, a small smile laced his mouth.

And that was but a mere question she would have asked herself a long time ago.

She watched the snow fall, envelop, devour, and swallow her home whole, and watched the lone swordsman fight against the world, fight against his fate, bearing the pain of a thousand deaths on his shoulders, and she acknowledges his strength. Perhaps she had a long time ago, perhaps only now.

Blood Demon Art: White Out

Holding onto his sword, she stabs the blade into the ground.

Reducing the amount of snow around them to be a lighter flurry, as ice and snow recoiled and collapsed back on each other, one made artificially of a demon's blood while the other of true nature, as the surroundings around them shifted entirely.

Bringing out the true effects of her blood demon art, they stared out as the area around them flattened out into a pure white, infinites stretch of flat snowy ground. Snow beat down harshly around them, but the immediate threat of being crushed and buried under it was eliminated. They laid down on the snow, her giving him a moment to catch his breath and recover what little he could.

She could not sustain this alternate reality, this tear in space, for a long time.

"Hashira," Kyojuro sat up, as he felt his wounds healing, slowly but not enough, as he looked around looking for a face to give the voice. And there she was, the snow demon, who knelt on the ground in front of him. She was in the same state as she had been trapped in the ice coffin. Well he wasn't the only one who got injured.

His mind was at peace.

She frowned at that thought.

Holding a hand over her missing eye, her blood was that of black ice and a transparent black liquid, as she glanced at him, before looking around for any sign of any enemies. Why would she have to watch out for enemies in her own domain? Kyojruo did not understand.