Whirlwind - Demon Slayer x reader

The Hunter

A/N: Ooof this chapter wound up turning into a massive exposition dump, sorry in advance ^^"", but on the bright side you guys get to learn a bit more about our mysterious demon! じゃあ!

The moon hung heavy in the blacken, starless sky above. The wind blew, the trees rustled, and even the forest itself seemed to shudder, as if it knew something was amiss. And amiss something was, for a demon was traveling within its bowls, searching and hungry, but it would seem it had found another victim to sate that hunger.

A low growl left his lips as he licked the blood off his teeth, his sickly, dark green tongue darting out only to be stained red. He chuckled lowly at the corpse of his former victim, a young man that had been fooled into believing that he was his dead twin brother, as his multitude of fanged mouths finished stripping bare the flesh from the man's bones, leaving only his bloody clothing behind. Slowly, the demon reformed unto itself, long dark hair replacing the white that formerly adorned his scalp and his tail reforming, with thin white snakes writhing and coiling back into his body. His body returned to how it was before, save for the twin serpent heads that were replaced with two normal, albeit scaly, hands. He shook his head, letting his ebony black locks to settle back into place before looking down at the pile of bones and blood-stained cloth.

Uncharacteristically for a demon, he gently removed removed the red and blue haori and kimono that dressed the bones. He looked them over for a moment, looking for any tatters or holes, and when he found none he he plopped the blood soaked articles into the satchel he had snatched up from another victim a few days ago, amidst dozens of other kimonos and articles of clothing he had stolen off of other previous victims and hunts.

Hunts that allowed him gain the strength he had lost trapped in the godforsaken well in that godforsaken forest, so he could take down his true prey. He snarled lowly.

He could practically smell that damn child, the little bastard.

Her enticing blood and wretched aroma.

Honestly, she smelled and looked too much like-

Like...

He froze, eyes wide and... far off for a moment in a trance as memories flashed before his eyes.

Her soft hair..

Her kind eyes...

A smile that could light a thousand worlds...

A laugh that subdue even the coldest heart-

The demon's thought was cut short when he was swiftly kicked back into reality with a self-inflected slap to the face. He vigorously shook his head as his hissed in thought.

'You don't need to be thinking about her, Narisumashi... She's gone.. s-she's dead...'

That little brat's memories had proven that much to him, the image of Kikiyo's severed head on the floor in a pool of her own blood nearly making him want to throw up. He growled, shook his head, and scoffed to himself as he began weaving through the dense underbrush.

"Fuck...why should I care? The bitch had it coming after what she did to me...."

Yet....

Why did he feel a pit growing in his stomach at the thought of not caring?

She was beautiful. Her eyes were warm and kind, so befitting someone of her beauty.

He had resisted at first at the thought of an arranged marriage to one of the last surviving members of the fabled Fujimori clan, but caved at the thought of dishonoring his family by refusing the offer of intermixing with such a bloodline. The Fujimori were said to be descended from forest kami from long ago and known for their great healers, fortune tellers, scholars, and herbalist priests, but were slowly dying off one by one in the dead of night 'til only a handful remained. Their surviving elders were trying to marry off their unwed children as soon as possibly, desperate to preserve what little of their bloodline was left, and his family had been one of many approached with such an offer.