Dance

"Can't you tell the situation you're in? I will win."  A thread flashed by Shin, cleanly cutting part of his haori off.

Shin looked at his torn kimono before pointing his blade at the demon. "All you could do is tear my kimono, do you think you can win?"

Rui snorted and pulled in two of his fingers causing more threads to move towards Shin. 

Shin could see all the threads around the two and those making their way to him. They were many but still, he believed he could cut through them as he did with the others. 

He prepared himself and swung his sword at the incoming attack in an attempt o cut through them.

*Cling!*

The sword and threads made contact. Yet, something Shin didn't expect happened, his sword broke. He was stunned, before the others could reach he jumped out of the way. 

Still, he wasn't left unharmed. Some threads had cut through his mask and hit his face leaving a trail of blood. 

Shin's wound quickly healed. Rui began pulling his strings like a puppeteer, causing more threads to move forward.

Shin danced around them, every time he would dodge one another would take its place. The threads came towards him faster as time went on.

His body was being riddled with cuts each second and would heal another after, still he seemed to have been watching the barrage of threads closely. 'Got it.'

He began to make his way towards Rui while dodging around his threads more frequently.

'Moon Breathing: Second Form: Pearl Flowers Moongazing.' Shin performed several crescent shaped slashes that sent out crescent moon blades in an attempt to stop the threads coming towards him.

The two attacks crashed into each other. The moons had some difficulty but they managed to cut through them.

Seeing this, Rui decided to speed up his attacks. Yet the same thing repeated itself, Shin cut through his threads.

Rui's hands became more crimson and he forcibly pulled both of his hands back. 

"Blood Demon Art: Cutting Thread Cage." He created a web shaped string around Shin that spun quickly and closed on him in an attempt to cut him to pieces.

Shin unleashed a swarm of crescent moons, however, unlike before when they cut through them they dispersed on impact. The threads were unaffected and continued their path towards him.

At that moment time appeared to have stood still. Shin's body subconsciously changed stance and his breathing pattern along with it. 

His body felt heavier and was aching. Still, he didn't stop at any second, he refused to stop even for a moment. 

*Pwuh!*

A black flame engulfed what was left of Shin's blade. His senses were yelling for him to drop the sword and move as far away as possible. Surprisingly even with those warnings, the flames engulfing his sword felt warm to him.

He swung his sword towards the threads, it managed to easily cut an opening through them as if they were nothing but normal threads, not those of a demon.

Shin moved like a flash and began to gain ground on Rui at a rapid pace.

Rui's eyes widened. Shin's demeanor had changed completely and he could feel the heat those flames were radiating even though he was quite far away. 

He jumped back and continued to pull the threads on his fingers with every fiber of strength he had.

The threads that were idly standing by to limit Shin's movement began to move towards him at high speed from all directions.

Shin chased after the Kizuki, cutting the threads that came after him. Each swing of his sword was performed differently as if he was dancing.

The two demons moved between the trees constantly like bats out of hell. Shin was quickly catching up to him. 

Almost every tree they came by was shredded by Rui while burnt threads were left in their tracks with a trail of black flames blazing behind.

"Once I win I'll carve you up and leave you out in the sun for a bit so you can learn your place!" Rui angrily shouted pulling on his threads at a speed that could only be seen as a blur.

"You talk too much for someone on the losing end." Shin retorted. He appeared in front of Rui and swung his sword.

'Hinokami Kagura: Dance!' 

Shin unleashed a single high powered vertical slash at the Kizuki's neck. Before Shin could fully decapitate Rui he saw a dark line appear around Rui's neck the exact moment his sword made contact.

*Thwop!* 

Rui's head detached from his body with an infuriated look on his face. Yet his body didn't turn to ash immediately as other demons would have. 

Shin turned towards Rui's head and threw his broken sword up his throat, Rui's eyes widened in disbelief as his body began to turn to ash.

Before Shin could completely cut off Rui's head the demon used his threads to behead himself, it was a good move and would have tricked anyone if they weren't Shin or someone stronger.

Shin looked towards the body and felt a slight hunger overcome him. He walked over to the body then ripped its arm off before biting into it. It didn't taste bad but it wasn't as good as human flesh either.

Once Rui had completely turned to ash Shin stopped eating and dropped like a puppet without its strings.

He didn't know why he switched to Hinokami Kagura or how he was able to perform it when he couldn't before. Either way, he didn't care.

His body didn't take long to heal itself. His clothes were barely hanging onto him and his mask wasn't even serving its purpose anymore.

He got up and walked to where the rest of his sword was. He let out a sigh seeing the shape it was in after picking it up. 

Shin slightly shuddered looking at it and could hear the sound of something cracking. 

He shook his head then turned to leave but a voice suddenly interrupted him. "I knew I heard something over here."

Shin sensed something quickly coming towards him and jumped out of the way. A tall young man with medium length messy black hair tied back into a low ponytail came flying by him like a wheel with water around him.

Once the water dispersed, he turned towards Shin. He wore a dark cyan tinted version of the standard demon slayer uniform with a red haori over it.

He pointed his blue katana at Shin, on the side of his blade the words 'Destroyer of Demons' could be seen.