Chapter 34: Shinobu's conflicting thoughts

Shinobu clenched the hilt of his sword tightly and started on focus on every movement of Haruto. Although she has only joined outdoor missions of demon slayer corps for a short time, she still had her fair share of battles to make her focused.

Although young she still have a kill count which will make other unable to look down on her skills and through her battles with demons, she has long realized that there was nothing fair in a battle with demon. Since despite having superior strength and supernatural powers, demons never hesitate to use foul plays to their advantage, so she have to be alert every moment.

After waiting for a some time, seeing Shinobu doesn't have any intention to make the first attack, Haruto became impatient to continue waiting. So he choose to be the first to attack.

The explosive speed brought by the powerful body of the demon, as well as the destructive power brought by the swing of the sword, makes every blow from him quite powerful. A sword swing went straight to Shinobu's head without any delay.

The girl just lightly walked sideways and easily dodged the sword. Her purple eyes scanned the place where she had just stood. There was already a huge pothole there. Her eyelids twitched slightly, his destructive power was no joke.

Seeing her dodging his attack so easily, Haruto started to focus more, knees slightly bent he slammed on the ground, leaving behind a damaged ground and a cloud of dust, the whole person followed Shinobu like a cannonball.

The strong wind from the slam blew the girl's jet-black hair but Shinobu just stood her ground. After previous confrontations, she has roughly figured out Haruto's physical strength. It was obvious that thanks to the characteristics of demons, Haruto was completely superior to her in terms of strength and reaction ability.

But the other party doesn't seems to have practiced any martial arts and his attack methods are simple and novice. Since he doesn't use any fighting skills, most of his strength bis unnecessarily wasted. So without surprise as an element it will be quite hard for Haruto to win against a skilled opponent.

But her case is different from Haruto, she's a human being so her stamina is not unlimited and her physical strength is also limited. So in order to end the battles faster and in a shorter time, she often tries to use smallest force to exert her strength when making moves.

So as if she had predicted the direction of the opponent's sword beforehand, she easily reversed her steps and avoided Haruto's sword like a gust of wind.

If the two were in a real life-and-death battle, Shinobu felt that at the beginning of the battle, Haruto might be slightly superior to the opponent with his demon body strength and reaction but as time pass and his opponent gets the idea of his strength, he would definitely die by the opponent's sword.

However right now, the two are just sparring. Therefore Haruto was limiting a certain amount of strength when attacking and tries to stop in time when it may really cause life-threatening harm. And Shinobu was also consciously making efforts to avoid making life threatening blows which was also making her having conflicting emotions since it was the first time she was sparring with a demon in place of directly going for the kill.

If it's purely just to learn from each other and not involve life, then the two of them are almost on the same level. While Haruto had the advantage in strength, speed and stamina, Shinobu could counter it with her sword skill and experience.

That feeling was mutually awkward for both of them. So it was just Shinobu getting more experience in dealing with a physically superior opponent and her teaching Haruto battle skills through her moves like how to unleash maximum strength with minimum effort or how to maximize the power of a sword swing or how to make the most effective counterattack with simple movements etc.

Haruto can also feel that Shinobu intends to convey that. Although the positions of humans and demos are different, at this moment the two are actually fighting each other as a swordsmen and learning from each other.

.........

"Huuf huuf..."

Finally Shinobu exhausted all her stamina and directly laid on the ground to rest. Haruto also kept his sword down and looked at the other party with gratitude.

He benefited a lot from the fight with Shinobu today. Although Shinobu, as a member of the Demon slaying corps can not teach him the 'breathing method', she still did her best to guide him during the battle. Letting him learn a lot.

Shinobu panted heavily, looking at Haruto who was still looking fine without any labored breath, she had to sigh at the power of demons.

Although she could have teach him more but she didn't as it will not benefit Haruto much since her sword style doesn't suit Haruto much with his strength.

Compared with her style of fighting, which pays more attention to body movement and sword skills, the explosive style is more suitable for Haruto with his strength. For example, Jigoro kuwajima's Thunder Breathing style is more suitable for him. With quick attacks he could use his strength more.

Looking at the other party, although she has only been in contact with him for a short time, she was already having mixed feeling about this demon. This demon is behaving too much like human that it's hard to associate him with other demons, which was making her thoughts conflicting.

'why?'

'Was it because he was not behaving like other demons or that he's indistinguishable from human except his horns?'

'If the other party was not a demon, it's not hard for her to think of making him friend gradually in the future.'

'It's just a pity he's a demon, There is nothing to be friends with.'

'She couldn't be friends with a demon.'

However suddenly Haruto seemed to feel something, he raised his head suddenly and unconsciously clenched the Nichirin Blade tightly in his hand.

A figure as graceful as butterfly was rushing towards them. Kocho Kanae, she finally found them.

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