Chapter 4: Encounter

" " Speaking out loud

' ' Speaking in mind

* * Sounds/actions

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Previously

Like that, a few days passed peacefully in this village, wake up, eat, train weapon summoning, eat, sleep, repeat. She had enough money to last a few more days.

She was wondering if and when she'd finally meet a demon or a demon slayer, until she didn't have to continue wondering.

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Present

It late getting late at night, sun was down, the village had wound down for the day, nearly everyone inside until dawn. The coldness of the night arrived and the town went quiet. It had appeared that more people had heard about the rumors than it seemed.

Just as Maki's head hit the pillow, she suddenly sat up.

*Sniff* *Sniff*

'That smell is utterly appalling. There is only one thing that could produce such a scent of disgust, it has to be a demon! The scent seems to be coming from the forest.'

Getting up from the bed, she makes her way out of the door stealthily and through the village without being detected. Partway through the village, she picks up on more scents too close to the horrid one of the demon.

'A human? No, 2 humans near the demon? Demon slayers presumably, but there's some blood too. Game plan: get a hold of a nichirin sword, study it briefly, summon my own nichirin sword. I suppose I could try to summon one before, but this way I'll be able to do it quicker since I'll have more information about it.'

It didn't take all that long to reach the area the fight was happening. On the way there, she had summoned a katana. By this point, there's no sound involved, and the faintest of smoke emitted. Currently she's only summoned it straight into her hand, next is to summon it through her body and by her side.

Reaching a nearby point but at an undetectable distance. She sees one slayer down and bleeding but not critical, and one slayer looking warily at the demon. The down one was a girl, and the fighting one was a boy, both looking like teenagers. Both of them were wearing the standard demon slayer uniforms.

Speaking of the demon, it was a seriously ugly thing. It almost looked like a humanoid version of an angler fish, just without the light up antennae. It had extremely thin fresh hair that reached its feet, completely dull silver eyes that looked like mercury, a Voldemort looking nose(or lack thereof), long pointy teeth in the entire mouth, nothing but skin and bones for a body, and legs that almost looked like fins with feet.

It was attacking like it was screaming and sending shockwaves, but it was also attempting to lure the slayer with an enchanting melody as if it was a mythical siren. However, it seems this slayer is somewhat resistant to the lure, and only partially affected, but it slows them down and makes them less aware.

Suddenly, it seemed as if the demon was going for one last physical attack to take down the slayer. Before it could move however, Maki rushed in.

*Swoosh*

*Slice*

*Splurt*

*Plop*

In the perspective of the demon slayer, it looked like the demon was getting ready to attack, but froze, then a moment later, a nearly invisible blur flew by and its head separated from its body with a blood spray, and subsequently plopped to the ground.

Following that scene was dead silence, when Maki reappearing between the 'dead' demon and the slayer. Maki isn't much taller than the boy but her burn scars and scar on her eye with said eye being all white, is a little intimidating to the slayer. Suddenly she sticks out her hand and speaks.

"The demon isn't head yet, I need you fancy dancy blade to kill it, I don't have one. Quickly please, before it regenerates. Then we can get the girl some help before she bleeds out."

She came off a little curt and demanding, but she wanted to be ready with the blade before the demon regenerated. The slayer eyes opened wide when finding out the demon isn't dead, and handed his blade to her even quicker when she mentioned his partner. After handing her the blade, she turns around a begins walking to the downed demon while examining the nichirin blade. While he runs over to attend to his partner.

'Hmm grey? Would that be stone breathing? Or is it 'uncolored' as in basic metal color? I'd have to ask, but it's a fine blade, not bad, not top grade, but still very good. This scarlet crimson ore in incredible, I can just feel the difference in my hand. I think I could summon a pretty good quality nichirin blade now. If I get a better one and learn more about it, it could definitely help me summon better nichirin blades and ability infused blades in the future. Anyways, time to put this demon down.'

As she had been inspecting the blade, she arrived next to the demon who was in the process of quickly regenerating. However, before it could, she impales the edge of the demons neck with the blade into the ground.

"Die demon."

"NOOOoOoOoOoOO-" "Schlick"

With the last desperate yell from the demon, she slides the blade through the demons neck, turning the demon to ash scattering in the wind.

'It's pretty cool to be able to do this myself instead of watching it on a screen. Anyways, let's get this girl some help.'

With the demon dead, Maki quickly heads back to the pair of slayers and hands the boy his sword back.

"Kid where is the nearest place we can get her healed up, I'll take you there. If you don't know, have your crow take us."

Maki then picks up the injured and lightly bandaged girl into a princess carry.

"Get on my back, I'll get there faster that way."

After taking a moment and about to argue, he recalls how fast she moved when beheading the demon he was fighting. Giving up before he started arguing, he just sighs and climbs on her back.

"*Haah* Go that way. Follow that road and it'll go to headquarters, that's the nearest." As he points towards the road heading south.

Suddenly Maki picks up speed catching the boy off guard and nearly fall off her back.

"Thank you for saving us, I'm not sure if we could've made it out alive if it weren't for you. By the way, what's your name? I'm Goto Tadashi."

(A/N: Tadashi Goto for my Fellow Americans, also for anyone reading who does speak Japanese, forgive me. I speak very little Japanese)

"Zen'in Maki, also it was no problem, I have no issue saving those who need it."

"Well either way, thank you. Also, I'm curious, you seem to know about us, but it doesn't look like you're a part of us, how do you know about us?"

'Makes sense that he'd be curious, not too many know about them.' "I know of people who have been in the corps. Haven't got the chance to take the final selection though."

The truth, but not exactly the way he'd think.

"I see, well with saving us today, you might get that chance, I'll need to report this, and it's possible someone will need to meet you."

After a bit of small talk, they continued talking about some things on the way to the Demon Slayers Headquarters, or more precisely, the Butterfly Mansion.

Tadashi also mentioned that the girls name was Yuki Hana. They talked about other things too, such as what she was doing there, what their initial mission was about, how she got her scars, etc.

Everntually before they knew it, they had reached their destination; The Butterfly Estate. Due to Maki's speed, they had made it there much quicker than they would have otherwise. Luckily, Hana's Kasugai Crow had left during the fight to try and get reinforcements or healing from the mansion, but due to the speed of Maki, it had only just reached the mansion. Therefore, there were healers and other slayers preparing to leave.

When they finally arrived, they found the other group at the front gates. Maki had set Tadashi down and he ran up to the others with Maki in tow with Hana still in her arms.

Seeing the Butterfly Estate, it was nothing short of beautiful.

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Thank your for reading. A longer chapter than the last 2. Hopefully it's heading in a good direction.

I want the story to have more depth and substance than just following the plot along.

Soon we should see some good training time for Maki. Training her Byakugan, perfecting her weapon summoning, and hopefully learning concentration breathing ;).

Please let me know if there's any spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes.

Anyways, thank you again, have a wonderful day.