The air smelled of oiled leather, whetstones, and the resin-treated fiber of Shadow Cloaks—matte black jackets and trousers designed to shed rain as quickly as blood. The faint tang of demon-forged accents lingered too, from the darkened red plates of Akamura armor inset with scraps of hardened carapace and cured ogre hide. Above it all, the low, steady drumming of rain on the barracks roof filled every pause—an unending reminder of the world's misery beyond these walls. Asano Kiri approached a figure hunched over a small table in the corner, her two comrades flanking her.
There, a young scout was meticulously re-wrapping the leather grips on a set of throwing knives, his movements precise and economical. His name was Kinichi Akio. He was not the most seasoned of the scouts, but his record was flawless, and a quiet ambition burned in his focused, dark eyes. He looked up as the three slayers approached, his work ceasing, and he rose to his feet with a respectful nod.
"Kinichi," Kiri began, her voice direct, leaving no room for pleasantries. "I have a priority mission from the Elder."
She unrolled the second letter, the one bearing Elder Tanaka's seal, and laid it on the table, though she did not let him read it. "An urgent message must be delivered to the Elder of Shiroyama. The Blight you've been hearing reports on is more organized and aggressive than we feared. The village of Ishikabe has fallen."
Akio's professional composure wavered for a fraction of a second, his eyes widening at the news of a fortified village being annihilated.
"The situation is critical," Kiri continued, her gaze steady. "This letter contains a proposal from a person of authority within the Imperial Palace to form a joint operation between our villages—two elite squads—to strike at the Blight's source. The fate of much more than just our villages may rest on this message being delivered."
She gestured to her squad. "The Shadow-Wood between here and the mountains is compromised. Sending a scout alone is no longer viable. My squad will be your escort."
The weight of the mission settled in the quiet room. It was an assignment of unprecedented danger and importance. It was also the kind of task that could forge a scout's reputation forever. Akio looked from the grim, determined faces of the three slayers to the sealed letter on the table. He straightened his back, his brief shock replaced by a firm resolve.
"I understand the risk," Akio said, his voice clear and steady. "I accept the mission."
Kiri gave a single, sharp nod. "Good. We leave at High Twilight. Resupply what you need. We travel fast, and we don't stop until we reach Shiroyama."
The newly formed team made their final, swift preparations: restocking their pouches with fresh kunai and shuriken, topping off their waterskins, ensuring they had fresh bandages, replenishing their vials of antidote, and packing dense, high-energy rations. Before stepping out, Haruo pulled the hood of his oilskin cloak over his head, a silent acknowledgment of the grim weather that awaited. One by one, their boots met the cold water pooled at the threshold. As High Twilight reached its zenith, casting the world in the brightest, clearest light it would ever see, the four of them departed from Akamura's eastern gate—a small, determined unit heading into a growing darkness.
The oppressive gloom of the Shadow-Wood swallowed the four slayers the moment they cleared Akamura's eastern perimeter. The relative safety of the village vanished, replaced by a tense, listening silence broken only by the squelch and suck of boots dragged by slick, treacherous mud that tried to claim them with every step. The air of High Twilight, clear within the village walls, now felt heavy and strained, rain-soaked and suffocating beneath the blighted canopy.
They moved in a tight, disciplined diamond formation. Kinichi Akio, the scout, took the lead, his eyes constantly scanning, his movements a fluid weave through the gnarled trees. Twenty paces behind him, Asano Kiri marched, her hand never straying far from her katana, her gaze flicking between her squad members and the path Akio forged. On her flanks, Haruo's broad-shouldered presence offered a steady, reliable anchor, while Hayato's coiled intensity was a palpable thing, his head on a constant, sharp swivel.
Hours into their march, as the light began to take on the ash-gray tones of High Twilight's third phase, Akio's hand shot up, a fist. The three slayers froze instantly, melting behind the trunks of black-barked trees. Kiri moved forward, silent as a cat, joining Akio behind a thicket of thorns. Rainwater trickled from broad, sheltering leaves, cold drops splattering down onto her scarred cheek. She brushed them away with the back of her gloved hand, refocusing on the chaos below. He didn't look at her, his attention fixed on the path ahead.
It began as a low, guttural rumble that vibrated through the soles of their boots. Then came the sound of splintering wood, a great tree cracking and falling with a deafening crash. A bellowing roar of fury, deep and monstrous, echoed through the woods, answered by a higher-pitched, but no less powerful, shriek of rage.
"What is it?" Kiri murmured, her voice a bare whisper.
"Giants," Akio breathed, his eyes wide. "Fighting."
He led them on a wide, cautious arc through the undergrowth until they reached a low, wooded ridge overlooking a clearing. The scene below was one of primal, catastrophic violence. The scene below was one of primal, catastrophic violence. A massive, solitary Ogre, a mountain of corded muscle and warty green hide, swung a crude, uprooted tree like a club. The weapon smashed into the sodden earth with a thunderous crash, hurling mud and murky water high into the air. The Cyclops, its single eye darting, lunged aside just in time, narrowly avoiding the blow. Regaining its footing on the slick ground, it seized a jagged slab of rock and, as the Ogre staggered off-balance from its missed swing, drove the stone into the giant's exposed shoulder.
The two titans, natural and ancient enemies, were locked in a brutal territorial clash. They ignored the forest they were destroying, their only focus on killing each other. The sheer, overwhelming power on display was humbling; a single blow from either creature would obliterate any one of them without a thought.
Hayato's hand tightened on his sword, his knuckles white. Haruo simply watched, his face a grim mask, assessing the impossible threat.
Kiri's decision was instant.
"We go around," she commanded in a low, firm whisper. "Let the monsters kill each other. Our mission is speed, not glory. We use their noise as our cover. Move."
There was no argument. They trusted her judgment. Following Akio's lead, they retreated from the ridge and began a wide, silent detour around the battlefield. The earth-shaking thuds and furious roars of the titans masked their passage, allowing them to slip through the woods like ghosts. They moved with a renewed urgency, the image of the dueling giants a stark reminder of the scale of the powers that inhabited the dark woods, and of their own fragile place within it.
Putting the chaos of the dueling giants behind them, the squad pressed eastward through the blighted woods. The tense, listening silence returned, broken only by the squelch of their own boots in the ever-present, treacherous mud. They moved with a grim focus, their faces set, their hands never far from their weapons. The attack came without warning. The very ground beneath them tore open.
Wet soil and corrupted earth erupted as spiders burst from below, breaking their formation. The sheer, violent upheaval forced them to scatter, leaping apart to avoid being thrown from their feet. Their disciplined diamond formation was instantly shattered; each member landed in a defensive crouch, now isolated amidst the chaos. A massive spider, its fangs dripping with venom, immediately lunged at the now-exposed Akio.
With a speed born of pure instinct, Akio drew his katana, the blade hissing from its sheath. He met the creature's charge with a desperate parry, the screech of chitin against steel echoing in the dim light. The force of the blow sent him skidding back through the mud, his arms straining to hold the blade steady. He was defending, holding his ground, but he did not counter-attack.
"Kiri-sama!" he shouted, his voice tight with strain as he deflected another snapping mandible. "Formation is broken! I'm engaged! Requesting permission to fight!"
Kiri couldn't see him clearly. A hulking spider, its black eyes gleaming, commanded her full attention as she parried a powerful leg-strike that would have crushed a lesser warrior. She heard Haruo's grunt as he engaged his own foe and Hayato's sharp kiai as he met another. They were all locked in desperate, individual battles. Protocol had failed. Survival was all that was left.
"Granted, Akio!" she roared over the din of combat, shoving her opponent back to create a half-second of space. "Every sword is needed to survive!"
The word was barely out of her mouth when a new horror began. From the dark, weeping canopy above, more spiders descended on thick, glistening draglines, dropping into the fray and turning the desperate skirmish into a vision of overwhelming death.
A spider dropped directly in front of Kiri, its spiny legs slamming into the mud where she had stood a half-second before. She pivoted on the ball of her foot, the motion fluid and economical. Her katana hissed through the rain-soaked air in a low, silver arc, cleaving through the joint of the creature's foremost leg. Black ichor sprayed as the limb collapsed with a sickening crack. The wounded beast shrieked and staggered, its balance broken. Kiri gave it no time to recover. As it stumbled forward, she reversed the arc of her blade, driving the tip upward in a lethal thrust that punched through the soft chitin beneath its head. With the creature collapsing at her feet, her eyes were already elsewhere, her focus shifting to the next immediate threat. "Hayato, your left!" she barked, her voice a sharp crack of authority amidst the chaos. "Haruo, anchor the position! Don't let them break us!"
A massive spider dropped from the canopy, aiming for Haruo's head. He didn't dodge. At the last second, he planted his feet, lowered his center of gravity, and met the creature's falling weight with his broad, armored shoulders. The impact drove him down a half-step, his boots sinking deep into the mud, but he held his ground. With a furious roar, he used the spider's own momentum, driving backward with explosive force and slamming the beast against the thick trunk of a shadow-oak. The sound was a sickening, wet crunch of chitin against splintering bark. Pinned, the spider's legs scrabbled uselessly against his back. Haruo drew his wakizashi—the only blade with room to move—and drove it backward and upward in a single, powerful thrust, silencing the creature's hissing. He shoved the heavy corpse from his back and squared his stance, his eyes already searching for the next threat.
Hayato met the chaos with a sharp, wolfish grin. While the others held a position, he charged forward, sliding on the slick mud beneath a lunging spider's snapping fangs. He came up behind its legs, his katana and wakizashi held in a reverse grip, and drove both blades upward in a powerful cross-slash that nearly bisected the creature at its narrow thorax. He spun out from under the collapsing corpse just as another spider lunged. He caught one of its spiny legs on his wakizashi, the screech of chitin on steel setting his teeth on edge, and used the leverage to wrench the beast off balance before his katana flashed across and lopped its head from its body.
Freed by Kiri's command, Akio met the lunge of his first attacker with a motion of pure, deadly efficiency. He didn't block; he dropped, ducking under the whistling scythe-like leg as it passed over his head. As he moved beneath the creature's body, he drove his wakizashi upward in a tight, reverse-grip thrust, sinking the short blade deep into the spider's soft thorax.
His forward momentum carried him out from under the collapsing beast and directly toward the chaos of Hayato's struggle. A second, larger spider was pouncing at the young slayer's exposed back. Rising from his crouch, Akio's longer katana was already in motion, its tip meeting the pouncing creature in mid-air with a swift, upward thrust that punctured its underside and silenced it instantly.
Before the second corpse had even crashed into the mud, Akio's eyes were already scanning the swirling melee, his scout's perception cutting through the chaos. He saw what the others, locked in their life-or-death duels, could not: a smaller, quicker spider scuttling low to the ground, aiming for Kiri's legs as she parried a blow. With a flick of his wrist, Akio drew and threw a kunai in a single, fluid motion. The steel spun through the rain-drenched air and struck the creature squarely in its central eye, pinning its twitching body to the ground.
Akio's eyes caught a flicker of unnatural movement—not from the trees, but in the churning mud directly behind Haruo's position. "Haruo, behind you!" he roared. The broad-shouldered slayer didn't hesitate or even look; he trusted the call implicitly. Dropping his weight and pivoting on his heel, Haruo swung his katana in a devastating, horizontal arc. The heavy blade met the spider just as it erupted from the ground, cleaving clean through its midsection in a shower of black ichor and filth. The two halves of the creature flopped uselessly into the mud. For a fraction of a second, Haruo's intense gaze met Akio's across the clearing—a silent, sharp acknowledgment of a debt incurred and a life saved.
Silence, sudden and jarring, fell over the clearing, broken only by the four slayers' ragged, adrenaline-fueled breaths and the steady, indifferent hiss of the rain. The small clearing was a charnel house, the ground slick with mud, black ichor, and the twitching, severed limbs of the eight defeated spiders.
Kiri stood straight, her katana held in a low guard, her gaze sweeping over her squad. Soma Haruo was already checking the edge of his blade. Iwai Hayato had a wild, sharp grin on his face, his chest heaving. Her eyes finally landed on Akio. He was pale, his knuckles white where he gripped his sword, but his eyes burned with a fierce, newfound purpose.
She gave him a single, sharp nod of approval. "Good work, Akio," she said, her voice quiet but carrying clearly in the sudden stillness. "You saved Hayato. You earned your place in the fight." It was not high praise, but in the brutal meritocracy of the demon slayers, it was everything. Akio simply nodded back, too overwhelmed to speak.
"We can't stay here," Kiri announced, her command cutting through the moment. "More will be drawn to the carnage. Report status, check your gear. We move in ten seconds."
Haruo grunted an affirmative. Hayato, with a final swipe, wiped a smear of black ichor from his cheek. The immediate danger past, a sliver of triumphant camaraderie broke through his intense focus. He turned to Haruo, and with his wild grin softening into one of genuine respect, he closed one eye and gave the larger man a sharp thumbs up. "The way you slammed that beast into the oak... I heard its chitin crack from here," he said, his voice a low, appreciative rasp. "Fucking brilliant."
The gesture caught Haruo off guard. A broad, proud smile broke across his weathered face, and his rigid, defensive posture relaxed completely. He rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, a bashful, almost boyish motion. "Heh," he chuckled, "it was noth—"
The ground beneath him exploded.
A massive spider, its carapace thick and black, erupted from the mud, throwing Haruo off his feet. He staggered back with a cry of shock, but the creature was on him instantly. Its spiny legs coiled around his right leg like a vise, and its fangs, long and dripping with venom, plunged deep into his armored thigh. A scream of pure, unadulterated agony tore from Haruo's throat.
"Haruo!" Hayato roared, his brief moment of joy curdling into horror-fueled rage as he charged the newly emerged monster to save his comrade.
As Kiri and Akio recoiled from the violently shattered peace, their weapons snapping back to a ready guard, three more massive spiders emerged from the shadows at the edge of the clearing, their movements silent and fluid—a perimeter of deadly, patient efficiency closing in for the kill.
"Haruo!" Hayato roared, his brief moment of joy curdling into horror-fueled rage.
While Hayato charged to save his comrade, Asano Kiri and Kinichi Akio faced the new reality. The three spiders closing in were fresh, their movements a fluid, patient deadliness. There was no time for a plan. Kiri met the two on the left, her blades a blur of defensive steel, skillfully parrying and redirecting their furious attacks to keep them from overwhelming her. The third lunged for Akio.
Meanwhile, Hayato reached the struggling Haruo. The massive slayer was on his back, his powerful hands gripping the spiny legs of the spider on his chest, holding its dripping fangs inches from his throat. With a guttural roar, Hayato planted his feet in the slick mud, found his angle, and swung his katana in a single, impossibly precise horizontal arc. The blade hissed through the air, slicing clean through the spider's narrow thorax just above Haruo's straining hands. The creature's upper body and head fell away, black ichor spraying across Haruo's face as its legs went limp.
Kiri met the charge of two spiders at once. She used her wakizashi to parry a lunging leg-strike from the first, and in the same fluid motion, drove a powerful kick into the creature's side, sending it stumbling away. The move bought her a precious second. She spun, her full attention now on the second spider, and drove her katana through its eye, killing it instantly. Now facing the spider she had kicked away, Kiri began a deadly, pressing attack to finish it. At the same time, Akio, fighting with a cold, desperate focus, saw his own opponent overextend in a lunge. He sidestepped the attack and drove his own blade through its side, silencing it.
He looked up just as Kiri's opponent recovered with unexpected speed, its remaining legs lashing out in a furious barrage that forced her from the offensive and onto a desperate defense. It was this final, embattled spider that now reared up, preparing to bring its full weight down on her. There was no time to close the distance for a killing blow. Instead, Akio lunged, driving his katana forward like a spear, impaling the creature's thick foremost leg and pinning it to the muddy ground. The spider shrieked, its fatal attack thwarted, its body twisted at an awkward angle. That single moment was all Kiri needed. She spun, her own blade flashing in a devastating horizontal arc that sliced the pinned creature in half at the thorax.
The two halves of the bisected creature slapped into the mud, the wet sound disgustingly final. In its wake, a sudden and jarring silence slammed down on the clearing, broken only by the ragged, adrenaline-fueled breaths of the four survivors and the steady, indifferent hiss of the rain.
"Haruo!" Hayato cried out, his voice a raw sound of panic as he dropped to his knees in the mud beside his fallen comrade. His hand was already at his belt, uncorking a small vial with a sharp crack of his teeth. Without hesitation, he ripped away the blood-and-ichor-soaked fabric of Haruo's uniform around the bite. Two deep, blackened puncture marks marred the slayer's upper thigh, and dark, spidery veins were already visibly spreading beneath the skin. Haruo hissed in pain as Hayato poured the milky-white contents of the vial directly into the wound, the potent antidote sizzling on contact with the venom.
"Antidote is in," Hayato said, his voice a harsh, clinical rasp as he began to bind the wound with a tight bandage. "Report. Can you feel it spreading or is it holding?"
Haruo's face was pale, his jaw clenched, but his eyes were clear. "It burns… like fire in my veins," he gritted out, his voice strained. "But it's holding. Not… not your fault, Hayato. I lowered my guard. Mine alone."
Kiri approached, her face a grim, unreadable mask, with Akio a step behind her. The young scout looked on, his face pale, witnessing for the first time the immediate, brutal consequence of a single moment of carelessness. Kiri knelt in the mud beside her two slayers, her professional gaze assessing the wound, the bandage, and Haruo's state.
"Haruo, status?" she asked, her voice quiet but firm.
"The antidote is working," he reported, his voice tight with pain. "The venom is contained."
Kiri's eyes met his, her expression unwavering. She asked the only question that mattered now, the one that would determine the fate of their mission.
"Can you walk?"
The question hung in the air, colder and sharper than the rain.
With a grunt of effort, Hayato hauled Haruo to his feet. The larger man's face was a pale, sweat-slicked mask of pain, but he nodded, determined. He put weight on his injured leg and tried to take a step. A sharp, agonized cry ripped from his throat, and he collapsed, his full weight crashing down on Hayato, who struggled to keep them both from falling. The leg was useless.
The answer was brutally clear.
Haruo's gaze lifted from his own mangled thigh to meet Kiri's. The stoic resolve in his eyes vanished, replaced by a dawning, pale-faced horror. He knew the slayer's pragmatic code. He knew what came next.
Kiri's expression was unreadable, her face a mask of cold command. Her hand went to the hilt of her katana, the hiss of the blade leaving its sheath unnaturally loud in the tense silence. She took a single, deliberate step forward. "Hayato," she said, her voice flat and devoid of all emotion. "Stand aside."
Realization struck Hayato like a physical blow. "No," he breathed, before positioning himself fully in front of his wounded comrade, a desperate human shield. "Kiri, no!"
"Hayato, don't," Haruo pleaded from behind him, his voice strained with pain and terror. "It's the code. The mission... it's more important."
"I don't care about the code!" Hayato roared, his arms spread wide, tears of helpless rage and grief streaming down his face as he stared at his leader. "Please! Mercy, Kiri! He's earned a chance! Even if the Shadow-Wood takes him, just give him that chance!"
Kiri stood frozen, her blade held in a low guard. She looked from Hayato's desperate, tear-streaked face to Haruo's, who was now trembling not from pain, but from the terrifying acceptance of his own execution. For a long, agonizing moment, the commander warred with the woman.
With a sharp, final exhalation, she sheathed her katana. The clean, decisive click of the blade locking into place was an answer. She turned her back on them both.
"We can't protect you any longer," she said over her shoulder, her voice hard as stone to hide any trace of emotion. "We must make it to Shiroyama. With all haste."
Akio watched it all, his blood running cold. This was the reality of a slayer's life—a world where mercy was a debate, and survival a luxury. As Kiri and Akio began to walk away, Hayato lingered for a painful second, his gaze locked on his friend. Haruo, left behind in the mud and carnage, gave him a final, grim nod of understanding before turning his face toward the dark, waiting woods.