Chapter 44 : Meeting a demon (1)
P.O.V changed
At present, Embra is running through the forest in the depth of the night. He is using both 'Shunshin' and 'Stealth'. His silhouette can be seen flashing here and there on the trees but, the sound it made is so soft that even a bird is not alerted even though he just passed by it. That was the expert level of his 'Stealth' and 'Shunshin'.
It did not take long for him to reach the place where he first heard the scream. Hiding behind a tree, Embra check the situation using his haki,
'Humu. Two people. One is weak. Normal human perhaps. But, what is with this sinister presence? Is this the presence of a demon? Hm...' (Embra's thought)
Using his haki, Embra perceived two people but, he frowns when he senses that one of the people has a sinister presence. Embra decided to stay hidden and wait for the two atop a tree quietly. Two minutes later, a woman can be seen running away from a hungry demon. The demon looks like a normal middle-aged woman if not for her bloodshot eyes and sharp teeth where pieces of raw meat can be seen dangling from.
Embra frown at the sight of the demon but, when he looks at the girl who is running from the demon, he was taken aback for a bit because she is a beautiful woman with big eyes and an elegant V-shaped face. She is wearing a red traditional Chinese dress, Hanfu, together with a black sash at her waist.
'Woah. She would surely be a model if she were in China. Hm. Now that I look at it, she looks a bit like Dilmu*at. Is she her ancestor?' (Embra's thought)
While Embra is thinking random things in his mind, the woman who was running away from the demon trip herself as her feet was entangled in a tree root. The demon who is caught up to her smile sinisterly while approaching the delicious prey.
"Hahaha... Aren't you going to run anymore? What happened? I am not yet satisfied, little girl." (The demon)
"Please... Aunt Chen, please stop. Why have you become like this? Please return to the old and kindhearted Aunt Chen. " (The girl)
"Kindhearted? Haha... Mingzhu. Oh my dear Mingzhu, You still don't know? I am only living there at your house in the pretense of an Aunty because I have not finished digesting my last prey yet. " (Chen)
Mingzhu, the girl who has her back against the tree, opens her eyes wide in fear because she is thinking that maybe she turn into this because of the attack on her village. But, she could not believe the words of the once kindhearted Aunty and tremble in the sight of the monster who is drooling while looking at her.
"...L-Last prey...?" (Mingzhu)
"Oh? Don't tell me, You haven't heard of a demon at all? Oh, dear. My poor little Ming... You are a delicacy. A luxurious food for as demons. That's why I brainwash your family including you and make you all believe that I am a distant relative and stay in your house. *sigh* I would have eaten you twenty days ago since I arrived but, my stomach is already full of devouring other humans, you see.
I was full. So, I could not eat you. But, I could not let such a delicacy go away or be snatched away by other demons. That's why I live beside you and kill any stray demons. Aren't you glad, Lil' Ming? You will be my only delicacy, rare blood. *crazy laugh*" (Chen)
The demon woman gets closer to Mingzhu while talking and touch the girl's cheek like a precious thing. Her long tongue comes out form her mouth and licks a drop of blood on the cheeks of Mingzhu like how she would lick a candy. As soon as her tongue retreated back to the mouth, the demon woman's mouth smiles wide and she becomes ecstatic as she has just tasted the sweetest dessert.
"Ahhh... I can't hold it in anymore. Let me eat you, devour you whole, MInGzHuuU..." (Chen)
The demon woman's mouth opens wide and gets closer to the girl's neck to devour her while holding the girl down with her two strong hands on the shoulders. Mingzhu closes her eyes in fear at the sight of the demon while excepting a great amount of pain. The resistance she has earlier has gone and Mingzhu resolve herself to death while saying in her mind,
'...Father, Mother... I will be coming to your side soon... ' (Mingzhu's thought)
*thud*
But, the pain Mingzhu expected did not come, and instead, she hears the sound of something falling down. Mingzhu opens her eyes a little to see that the demon woman's head is gone. A disgusting feeling rolls up from the pits of her stomach but, she covers both of her mouths to contain her urge to vomit. The hands that are holding down her shoulders cannot be found anymore. While she is struggling with her feeling of disgust, she saw that all the limbs of the demon woman were cut apart by someone wearing black clothing.
However, before she can see it completely, that someone holding a beautiful sword stand in front of her to cover from the gruesome sight of the demon and Mingzhu saw how the four limbs of the demon flew up to different trees and held tightly by something there.
"*scream* Ahhh... Who dares - *swoosh*" (Chen)
"Shhh... I did not give you the permission to speak yet, demon. Shut up." (Embra)
"Mhmm..Muhmm. *muffled voice*" (Chen)
A white cloth falls on Mingzhu's face and before her vision is blocked by the white cloth, those are the last words she heard. Together with a sweet scent coming from the white cloth, Mingzhu's conscious slowly drift to a dream world but, before she completely falls asleep, she utters a word,
"Th-Thank You" (Mingzhu)
Embra looks back at the red clothing girl, who fall asleep because of the sleeping agent on the white cloth, with a smile. but, his smile cannot be seen because of the cloth that covers his mouth. Suddenly, his haki perceives an attack aiming at his leg, to which Embra retaliates by stabbing his sword towards it. Embra sees that the thing that attacks his leg is a long hand. He immediately jumps away from the limbless upper body of the demon woman and retreat.
'Wow. As expected if a demon. I thought I would have an advantage if I can just disarm her. So, I immediately cut all her limbs after beheading her and tie her limbs with wire but, she just regenerated new limbs, huh? Moreover, her hands look too long. what the hell. It is around midnight right now. So, I am gonna have to keep this demon for five hours till the sunrise, huh?... That's tiresome. Hmm.... !! ' (Embra's thought)
Embra brandishes his sword to ready for combat while thinking plans in his mind. At first, he thought to keep fighting this demon till sunrise but, he gets a few ideas while looking at the demon woman regenerating all her limbs and reattaching her cut head.
"Brat... Damn brat... where did you come from? Are you interrupting my -" (Chen)
"I will stop you right there, Ms. Demon. There is something I want to know though. Should we fight till sunrise or let me do some experiments on you? Hm? What do you say? Don't worry. I will be gentle. *wink*" (Embra)
The demon attack with her long hand at Embra as soon as his words ended. Embra parries her hand away with his sword and immediately comes in front of the demon to cut her throat again but, four hands come out from the demon's back to attack Embra as soon as he appears. Instinctively, Embra cut all of the hands and kick the demon woman in the chest.
Three shurikens appear in his hands and lightning crackled around them. Embra throws them at the demon woman whose head was lodged into the tree. Embra do hand sign with one hand and softly mutter,
"Shadow clone Shuriken Jutsu" (Embra)
The three shuriken turns into fifteen shurikens and hit various places on the demon's body. The demon scream but, Embra does not give a chance and use another jutsu through the wire that is attached to all the fifteen shurikens.
"Static Strings Jutsu" (Embra)
Electric arcs dance around Embra's left hand and they flow into the wire that is holding. Fifteen electric strings, each strong enough to make a normal human paralyze for a minute is discharged directly into the demon's body through the wires attached to all the fifteen shurikens.
" *Scream* " (Chen)
"Oi. Oi. Did the girl wake up? ... *phew* For now, Let's change location... Shadow clone" (Embra)
Embra sheath his sword and create a shadow clone. Together with the clone, he ties up the demon, like a mummy, and leaves the place while ordering the clone to stay beside the girl in stealth. If he wants to, Embra can do two shadow clones but, he is keeping his chakra usage minimum in case a huge fight breaks out. So, while pulling the tied up demon away from the girl, Embra heads toward a clearing in the forest.
'So far, I got two information from this demon. The first one is that she is digesting her previous prey. The second one is there are other demons beside her here. I have not heard about the first information in Anime or Manga. Do the demon digest for a long time? She mentioned that she digested for twenty days, right?
Hm... So, she has not eaten human flesh for the whole twenty days? This night is gonna be fun. Eve, buy some UV light. I want to see if it is effective against the demon. Also, buy some ... ...' (Embra's thought)
'*smile* Let's start some questioning... ' (Embra's thought)
(AN: Shunshin means Body Flickering technique. )