Chapter 17

—Natagumo Mountain—

"It looks like the sun'll be up in a few hours." Koyuki said as she glanced at the clock over the fireplace.

"It seems like we lost track of time." Keiko said with an awkward laugh.

"It's fine, you guys can stay here for the morning. It's not like we don't enjoy the company." Koyuki said with Isamu and Mayumi nodding.

"Then thank you for your care." Keiko said with a slight bow. Habuki followed although he didn't like bowing, it was a respectful act.

As the sun started to rise the five demons slowly started doing their own thing relaxing.

…

"Alright everyone. Make sure to stay on guard. You're all rank Kanoto, so let's get going." Said the leader of these knew demon slayers. She held the rank of Kanoe and was told to lead these demon slayers into a battle.

The plan was to catch them on the mountain or inside of those houses at dawn and trap them so they would be pressured between getting exposed to the sunlight or getting killed by them.

With everyone ready they started ascending up the mountain. There were only about 20 of them and they were confident in both their ranks and numbers. The leader marched through the forest of trees with a determined look.

Ever since the day her li-

"Leader!!" A demon slayer yelled. Kyoko suddenly shook her head and with a quick slash, cut the log coming towards her in two.

"One of you must have pulled a trip wire. Watch your step and separate a little. Get within arms reach of each other, but stay with your partner." She ordered.

They all followed orders and continued up the mountain. They started to notice the sky getting a bit brighter and knew they were just in time.

'So this place is boobytrapped? Who knows what they could've put here.' She thought.

*BOOOM*

Screams erupted from the back of the group as the explosion rang out. Bodies were sent flying and a fire was started.

"What was that?!" Kyoko yelled as she turned around and went to the back of the group. She saw used her sword and with a swift slash the wind that followed blew the fire out.

She saw the burned bodied of five demon slayers. She could see that they were still alive but heavily injured.

She waved in the air and her crow flew away to get the Kakushi to the scene to take care of the injured demon slayers. She didn't have much hope that they would live, but she and the rest of the team carefully put them in a nice place while ever else continued up the mountain.

'Damn it, this whole area could be boobytrapped. Sticking close together we might pull a trip wire, but spreading out we might step on some explosive.' Kyoko was getting pressured.

"We'll have to split into a small group. 7 of you go around the mountain and the rest of you can follow me. Split up and move carefully!!" She yelled to the team.

They split up and followed orders as they again began going up and around the mountain.

…

"Should we go down now?" Habuki asked from the living room with everyone else inside. Once they triggered that explosion their presence was already exposed not to mention their aura.

It wasn't much, but it could be sensed.

"No, we'll let the traps do their thing before we go down. Itsumu, could you head to your lab and grab the gun powder?" Koyuki asked.

"He nodded and left the living room and went into a wide closet. Pulling up a few boards he climbed down a ladder and walked down the tunnel in darkness.

He passed many a few doors and made a left turn before going up a ladder, pushing up a few wooden boards and pulling himself up into another closet.

Walking out from it, he was inside a well kept room with a simple bed, a desk, and a bookshelf with books filling it. It was a room he and Kyoshi designed when they were remodeling the destroyed cabins and sheds around the mountain.

He left that room and went into another that had a big desk in the middle of it and around it were shelves with different types of minerals and other things in them.

He went over to a shelf and grabbed a bottle of black powder before leaving and going back to the main house and returning to the living room.

"We'll wait here and see if any of them get up to this point. Kyoshi and Itsumu have made some fine traps so let's see how they work." Koyuki said.

Keiko and Habuki nodded their heads and leaned back in the chairs with their eyes closed. It helped with focusing in on different aura's.

….

—Koga Village—

Waking up, Kyoshi stretched before getting out of bed. He opened his bag and took out a different set if clothes which looked a lot like a karate gi, but black.

The karate jacket was black and short sleeved so he wore black arm warmers with it. He had a white belt wrapped around his waist and wore black pants with white bandages around his wrist and ankles.

To match them he wore regular black sandals. On the back of his karate jacket was a white crescent moon. It represented that he was taught Moon Breathing from Kokushibo, although others wouldn't know that.

He grabbed his sword,straw hat and wallet before leaving the his room, going down the stairs and out of the inn. The sun was just starting to rise so people would still be sleep.

He decided to take this time and scroll around the village since it was quite big.

'I wonder if uncle Muzan knows anything about this place.' He thought as he looked around at the traditional Japanese style building and homes.

'He never mentioned anything about ninjas or this village, so either he doesn't know about them, which I doubt or he just doesn't see them as a threat.' Kyoshi thought.

He took subtle glances to his left and his right, noticing about 4 shinobi following him. In fact they were scattered everywhere throughout this village.

Although the guys following him were quite weak he only had to worry about Masako and the village chief if he wasn't wrong to assume those were the two big auras he felt.

There was a third one similar to Masako's but he wasn't worried about it. Especially since it wasn't on their level.

As he was walking there was a sudden gust of strong wind that caused the trees to stretch and shake. He even felt as if it was pulling him back and as it passed him he caught a scent of something.

He realized he hadn't eaten anything today and his hunger was starting to settle in. But there were two scents he picked up.

One of human meat and blood and another of a demon. Although the scent smelt obscured with another human scent he could clearly smell a demon.

So naturally he bolted off in the direction of the smell. The four shinobi following him were stunned when Kyoshi vanished from his position, but they didn't sit there.

They popped a white smoke bomb and another team saw this as their signal. The scent was coming from the back of the village, close to the forest line which was were the chief lived.

Team 3A saw the signal and jumped into action. The guards at the chiefs gate drew their weapons and got ready for the in coming attack. The shinobi on the rooftop spread out and looked for the threat.

Little did they know, Kyoshi already got past them by concealing his aura and shrinking down to about 3 feet tall. He also had his sword shrink and now he was back to his normal size.

He jumped into a tree and saw the backyard of the house. He looked by the pond and saw a girl feeding the koi fish inside the pond. She suddenly turned her head and looked up towards the tree.

She pulled out a kunai and just as she was getting ready to throw it, a shinobi landed on the roof causing her to look up.

"Ma'am, there seems to be a problem, so you'll need to go back inside quickly!!" The shinobi said.

Yui, nodded and got up as she ran into the house. The shinobi turned around, but before he could even crouch to jump, Kyoshi quickly jumped to the man and slit his throat.

He ducked down and silently jumped off the rooftop with the body and then jumped over the fence closing the backyard and the forest off. As he took the body with him into the forest he started thinking.

'What if they're harboring a demon in the building? Or have it chained up in some type of prison?'

As he ate the food he decided that he'd have to put on his detective persona and have some fun.