CHAPTER 5: Something bigger than myself

                                    

                                          
Word count: 3164
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𝔽𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕝𝕪 𝕒𝕣𝕔

A couple of months later
"Caw! Men have been disappearing in a town to the west! Caw! Head there immediately! Caw!"
"Let me at least get my sword" Kirumi said before taking everything needed and going out
Once she was able to find a road, she started walking a little to save energy, she knew she would need to run since there was a forest ahead and some demons tend to take refuge in forests
"Suki, have you eaten?" Kirumi asked while looking towards her crow who slowly went onto her shoulder, shocking her head
'I sometimes forget I have to feed you' Kirumi thought before taking a piece of bread she had in her haori's pocket
And so, she started feeding the crow while walking towards her destiny
'You're not that annoying when you're like this'
~
After 6 hours, Kirumi finally arrived to her destiny, it was a very small town
'I can't sense anything, I might as well ask people' Kirumi thought before going towards a few people asking for any strange occurrence and only one was able to answer since 2 of them cried knowing who to blame for their loss, two others said they didn't know anything since they were out of town and the last one... she knew too much for a person's liking
"I... I saw him, he looked young, but he was weird... He had stripped lines all over his body... and... and my husband was about to arrive, he was already by the door when... when the thing just covered his mouth and punched him lots of times, like... Lots of times, everything was terribly fast... I-I... I was terrified and I was shocked, I couldn't ask for help or do anything since there was no one and I was scared... H-his body... his body just disappeared when I searched for him" The woman was already on the verge of tears by the end of her explanation
"I'm very sorry for your loss...Either way, thank you for helping me in investigating... I'll do my best to stop this" Kirumi gave a pat that she hoped was comforting to the woman and then she decided to leave, not before telling the woman to take some wisteria with her, well, it was more like a poison of wisteria so that the woman could put around her house
"Please mix it with a lot of water, I promise it'll at least help a little" That's what Kirumi said before leaving the woman
~
'It is already 5 am and there have been no screams or anything... the demon should've done at least something'
Kirumi waited for a few more minutes before she sensed something and God, was it strong
She ran off towards where her senses told her, but a second after she felt close to the danger, she abruptly stopped
She was a Hashira... for her to be sent here... for terribly fast movements to be seen... This demon couldn't be weak... It shouldn't be!
But then again, thinking of a plan for her to not die... since when did she think like that? People were dying right now
Kirumi ran into the place the demon should've been in, but there was nothing more than a crying woman and blood... a lot of blood
The woman seemed worked up, she probably had just come here
'...Why only men?'
"Excuse me..."