Kaoru POV :
"Hmm…"
I couldn't help but hum to myself as the body of a man twice my size slumped down against the old machete I found leaning against Tokinari's house.
Well, that was my first time killing someone buuuuut it didn't feel too bad.
No.
Not like that, I mean like I wasn't as shocked as I expected.
I'm not a psychopath.
Maybe it was because he was trying to kill Toki? Probably.
Anyways, now I'm at a loss because my dumbass best friend just killed three men.
That and the fact he killed then infront of his house, where his family are also probably dead. They're gonna think he killed everyone!
Now I've gotta find a way to carry him to a safe distance so that we won't get accused of killing these people when more people come to check up.
Hmmm…
I walked over to the house, grabbed the sheath of the machete and slung it over my shoulder.
With a deep exhale of renewed determination I grabbed Toki's bloody clothes and started dragging him across the floor.
After a few steps, I gave up.
Not gonna work, the dude weighs like twice as much as me.
Looking around for something to help me drag him, I finally spotted it…
A wheelbarrow!
One small issue though, I'm gonna have to pick him up in order to actually drive him around.
Hmm, how exactly do I do this now.
I moved over to the side of the house where all of Toki's dad's work stuff was and grabbed the wheelbarrow.
Wheeling it over to Toki, I noticed something shiny, an axe.
Well, since I've got a weapon I might as well get Toki one too.
Putting the lumberjack axe in the wheelbarrow, I stopped infront of Tokinari.
Thereafter, I grabbed him under the armpits and with every last ounce of my strength, I failed.
You can't blame me though, he's heavy.
But I should probably hurry, don't want him to attack me when he wakes up.
Think… think… think…
Okay.
I might have a plan, I think.
I grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and tipped it down, so that it was flat on the ground.
Then, I grabbed Tokinari's shoulders and pushed his upper body into the wheelbarrow.
Thereafter, I moved the wheelbarrow back up.
Which was a little dumb because Tokinari now looks like his back has been snapped.
Right, moving quickly I put both arms under his lower back and lifted with my whole body.
*FLIP!*
"Hraagh!"
Jeez.
Finally! I flipped him into the wheelbarrow.
Only, he doesn't exactly look like he's in the most comfortable position.
His legs were over his head.
Ok well, not wanting to waste anymore time, I started pushing the wheelbarrow into the distance.
Now we're talking! Picking up speed, I grinned to myself.
This was definitely thrilling, it felt like we were real criminals on the run. How exciting!
Though, it kinda felt like I was missing something, oh well I don't care.
…
…
About four hours later, two more men came up the mountain to check up on the previous group since they hadn't returned yet.
And the moment they arrived, the foremost man, a short and scrawny man that looked to be about 30 years old, stopped in his tracks.
His eyes widened and then he ran.
He ran to the man who had his face pounded in repeatedly.
"S—Shuko!" He dropped down to his knees, hands shaking.
His friend, a taller man who was lagging behind slightly due to an underlying health condition, finally caught up.
And he too, ran forward to 'help'.
However, they were far too late, everyone was already long dead.
The shorter man looked at his friend with a shocked expression, "You stay here, I'm going to go get help."
The taller man just nodded solemnly, still a little shaken.
Watching his friend leave, the taller man stood up.
"Dear lord… what happened here?" He said, voice shaky.
He walked forward, turning his head to look at everyone that died.
He recognized all of them, but the one that shocked him the most was definitely Akira.
"Who on earth could've done this? They destroyed the house too, was it a monster?" He hummed to himself as he continued forward.
Entering the house, he looked around and his eyes landed on one thing.
"A baby?" He said, voice barely above a whisper.
On the floor, looking completely untouched, was a singular baby boy, sleeping soundly on the cold floor.
Ignoring the child for now, he continued into the house and what he saw nearly made him faint.
"Are those… bite marks?" He managed to say while holding his mouth, forcing the bile back down his throat.
He saw two young girls with their bodies completely mangled, with chunks of their flesh bitten off.
He couldn't take it, he exited the room and then left the house, breath coming in heavy bursts.
"What… really happened here?!"
…
…
"AAARRRGGHHHHHHHH ILL KILL YOU!"
Suddenly waking up from an endless nightmare, Tokinari shot up awake with a guttural roar, still covered in blood, clothes dirty, hands bruised and mentally unstable.
Sitting across from him, Kaoru Kazeneko had his hand over his chest, scared half to death from Tokinari's sudden outburst.
"W-where am I? What happened?" Tokinari managed, struggling to his feet.
Kaoru quickly came to his aid, helping him up.
"We're in a cave I found, what happened was… you went crazy and killed a couple random people from the village." Kaoru said matter of factly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Tokinari grabbed his forehead, his whole body aching. "Dude… what about my family? Was that a dream? And I killed people?"
Kaoru placed a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a hint of sympathy. "I'm sorry, they… I think your family is gone."
"So it was all for nothing."
Kaoru raised an eyebrow, "Huh?"
Tokinari suddenly looked him dead in the eye, with the most serious expression he'd ever had on his face, seemingly already forgotten about the whole killing people thing.
"I have died Two Hundred and Thirty Eight times."
"Right… let's get you back to sleep buddy." Kaoru said with a sigh, patting Tokinari's shoulder.
Baring his teeth, Tokinari grabbed Kaoru's hand, "I'm not lying. Every time I die, I go back in time. There was a demon, it killed my family before killing me. And then I came back to life, back to when I woke up. I tried to fight it, I learnt it's fighting style and yet I couldn't beat it, it was a monster. A demon. The only way I could survive was to abandon my family, the only one I could save was my younger brother, Riku."
Kaoru's eyes widened suddenly, realising the thing he forgot.
"Wait."
"Where's Riku?"
Kaoru squinted and pursed his lips. "Aaahhh. Right, I thought I forgot something."
Tokinari's eyes darkened.
"Where is he."
Kaoru looked a little solemn before replying, "He's probably still at your house, only like five hours has passed, he should be just fine."
Grabbing Kaoru's shoulders, Tokinari was shocked at his utter incompetence. "That's besides the point! He's barely even one years old, and you left him alone?"
"Okay, let's go back and get him then." Kaoru sighed and wriggled his way out of Toki's grasp.
"It's besides the point, he's all I have left, I've seen them all die so so much, I've seen him die multiple times, it's not funny, it's not a joke. This is serious, Kaoru." Tokinari stammered, his voice breaking, tears starting to well up in his eyes.
Kaoru couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt in his chest, he was starting to believe that maybe he wasn't lying about the whole coming back to life thing.
Tokinari dropped back to his knees, his whole body shaking violently as tears streamed down his face.
"I—I left them all… to die. It's my fault, Kaoru. It's all my fault." He cried, voice repeatedly breaking, hands shaking violently as he wiped away the tears.
Kaoru dropped down to his level and gave him a big hug.
Tokinari didn't protest, instead, he wrapped his arms around Kaoru and cried into his shoulder.
"It's not your fault, I'm sure they would've wanted you to live, even if it meant them dying." Kaoru comforted him, feeling the warmth of Tokinari's tears through his old ragged clothes.
"Kaoru, I'm sorry for getting mad at you, you saved me, thank you. Thank you." Tokinari's cries were becoming worse and worse.
The weight of everything crashing down on him all at once.
But thankfully, he had Kaoru to take some of the pressure.
Although he didn't actually experience anything, just seeing Tokinari's situation made his heart ache.
"Don't apologise, it's my fault that I didn't bring your brother, I should've been more mindful, I'm sorry." He said, holding Tokinari a little tighter.
About ten minutes of crying later, Tokinari sniffled awkwardly. "I'm sorry for that."
Kaoru just smiled softly, "It's okay, we all need to cry it out sometimes, cry the pain away, I say!"
Tokinari chuckled, that was the first time he'd laughed since all of that took place.
Kaoru was definitely a good friend, even if he's not a good person.
"Okay, let's go get Riku, then we'll discuss our situation a little more." Tokinari's voice had a layer of determination under it, still plagued with the screams of his family, except he wasn't alone now, he had Kaoru to take the burden too.
"Alright, follow me. I think I remember the way." Kaoru said, waving a hand to tell Tokinari to follow him.
Tokinari started walking in his direction before wincing. "Argh, what the hell? Why does my body feel so stiff… it's like I've been shoved into a small box and wheeled around all day."
Kaoru pursed his lips and looked away awkwardly, "no idea, let's get going."
Tokinari grumbled but walked over to Kaoru.
As they left the cave and stepped into the forest, the evening air welcomed them back into the mountainside.
Tokinari squinted at the sky, not having seen the sun for a while, not in a regular state of mind anyway.
Kaoru didn't stop, he just kept walking.
Tokinari picked up his pace slightly, walking after him before finally catching up.
But something kept itching at Tokinari, every subtle sound would make him flinch, he would constantly look around as if he was being watched.
He was severely paranoid.
And this didn't go unnoticed.
"Hey, if you're so worried, you can go back to the cave and grab the axe. I've got a weapon, maybe you'd be less paranoid if you had one too?" Kaoru suggested, but Tokinari shook his head.
"I'm sure we'll be fine."
Is what he wanted to say, but before he could continue, he found himself walking back into the cave and grabbing the oh so familiar axe he'd been using recently.
Feeling the familiar grip of the axe, Tokinari couldn't help but feel a little odd.
Running back after Kaoru, he asked skeptically, "So you could find my axe but not my little brother?"
"Dude! I'm sorry, okay? We're going to get him now." Kaoru said, rolling his eyes, clearly tired of Tokinari's sarcastic remarks.
Looking at Tokinari, who was still glancing around nervously, Kaoru couldn't help but ask, "So tell me about the thing that… created this mess."
Tokinari placed his hand on his chin for a second as he racked his brain.
"Alright, here's everything I got from him throughout my many loops. His name is Mukorozan, he is a demon. There are demons in this world, I'm not sure how they're created or where they've been this whole time, but demons exist. Among the demons there are twelve demons that are significantly stronger than the rest, Mukorozan used to be one of them but was kicked out after the 'master' found more suitable demons. Oh yeah, there's a 'master' demon that is pretty much the supreme leader of them all."
Nodding his head to show that he was still listening, Kaoru mumbled something incoherent about how strange this was.
Not paying any mind, Tokinari continued. "Mukorozan is a fat ugly, disgusting creature with six arms and three eyes. I assume most demons resemble humans like him except with strange additions like extra arms or so. Another thing about demons are that if they're strong enough, they have a special ability unique to just them called a 'blood demon art.' Mukorozan had one, it allowed him to suck anything around him into his mouth to which he'd then eat them."
Kaoru gasped, taken aback.
"Yeah, I know. I even died to it a couple times, it's the most painful way to die. Demons eat humans to get stronger and they're only out during the night because their only weakness is the sun. No matter how much you injure them, they will just regenerate. They will only die if they're exposed to sunlight. Not only was Mukorozan there, we died to a different demon too, if I was holding Mukorozan off for a certain period of time, another demon would arrive. I know nothing about this one other than it's appearance, it's much shorter and thinner than Mukorozan but its arms are like swords."
Kaoru, now fully believing Tokinari's claims of being able to come back after he dies, hummed in thought.
"So, if they demons are so strong and can only die to the sunlight, why haven't they just taken over the world?" He asked.
Tokinari nodded, "Exactly what I thought. My guess is that there is a secret organisation or something that fights them. That, or there's another weakness that he didn't tell me about."
Kaoru looked at Tokinari with a glint of excitement in his eye. "When this is all cleared up, I say we start finding and killing them."
Tokinari, not even fazed by what Kaoru said, nodded. "If the demon I fought was a stronger one, and there's two of us fighting significantly weaker demons, I'd say we have a shot. We'd have to train like crazy though."
"That's fine by me."
…
Current character sheet of them both since there isn't much info and this is where the real story starts, I'll be doing another sheet after they grow a bit.
Also, I'm not sure if I stated the date but let's just say it's currently September 21st
Attributes go from 1 - 10.
1 being an average man, 3 being the average demon slayer and 10 being peak capability (basically Yoriichi)
Name : Tokinari Saimaru.
Age : 16
Birthday : 17th of February
Height : 180 cm / 5"11
Weight : 86 kg / 189 lbs
Occupation : Lumberjack
Appearance : Rust coloured hair, Beige eyes, Tan skin.
Attributes :
Strength : 4
Speed : 1.5
Durability : 3
Endurance : 4
Intelligence : 6.5
Image :
Name : Kaoru Kazeneko.
Age : 15
Birthday : September 8th
Height : 164 cm / 5"4
Weight : 47 kg / 103 lbs
Occupation : Street Thie— Professional Pocket Artist
Appearance : Dark Gray Hair, Green eyes, Pale skin.
Attributes :
Strength : 0.5
Speed : 6.5
Durability : 2
Endurance : 3
Intelligence : 4
Image :