Part 2 Nightmare

Gin was sprawled motionless letting his breathing just barely be noticeable. Not far from him he could hear bone crunching and blood spurting. No screams sounded out, was everyone else dead? He gritted his teeth as his throat became choked. There'd be time to grieve everyone later.

If he failed to control himself it would offset his breathing and that mistake would be fatal. For his plan to work he needed to seem injured, unthreatening. The ground shook as something heavy moved towards him. Gin had read about it in the Onimichi demon records.

The juggernaut. It was a massive eight foot tall monstrosity covered in thick bone plates, and vomit yellow hide that was more like a giant callus than skin. It was tricky to deal with as its eyes, mouth or anything soft enough to punch through was hidden in its belly, underneath foldable abdominal plates.

Despite its resilience, It had three big weaknesses. The first was one shared by many demons. Sadism. It was noted for using internal mandibles to cut out or shred its preys' organs while they were still alive. Meaning, he wouldn't be immediately killed so long as he seemed helpless.

One method of hunting these creatures was to use a loud animal with good vitality like a boar as bait and skewer it when it's plates opened to torture it. The other, which was unavailable in his current situation, was explosives.

They could either be hidden in smaller prey that it would usually eat whole, thrown in in the form of small balls that would explode on impact, or a charge large enough to blast through its armor delivered via a suicide rush. Which even then it might still survive.

So Gin had no intention of blowing himself up. Running away wasn't an option either, if it managed to follow him back to the village it'd be a disaster. He'd settle for being bait and kill it here.

He remained completely limp with his eyes closed as large hands picked him up by his wrists, suspending him like an animal getting skinned. A hissing sound rang out as plates separated and he felt mandibles start pressing into his chest.

The second weakness was that it had a limited range of sight. So it wasn't able to notice that Gin was gripping a blade in between his toes. The mandibles pressed in slowly, like a child playing with its food. As soon as he felt his blood start to flow, he struck like a snake; burying his blade into a face that looked like a sack of meat with a mouth.

Its third weakness was that it didn't know how to handle pain. So rather than tearing him in half, as it was fully capable. It dropped him in a panic while it tried to shut its abdominal plates, this only worsened the damage by pushing on the still embedded blade causing black blood to spurt.

Gin wasted no time; springing off his toes the instant he touched the ground, and bounded forward. Possessing no weapon. He used his bare hand to strike into its mouth tearing through the back of its throat where its heart lay killing it.

The beasts' muscles tensed momentarily, breaking Gins' right arm, but loosened before his bones could be pulverized. He retreated from the toppling corpse to avoid being crushed. While he caught his breath he looked around searching for movement and listening for any unnatural sound.

It would be hard for anyone to believe he actually pulled that off. Using one's hand like a blade was a technique that was tough to learn and extremely risky, it's not something you'd ever use when hunting oni.

For soft tissues like the eyes it was a decent technique, but for a talent like Gin it was exceptional, and that may have been the only reason for its success.

"The dead will follow you." A voice whispered from behind. "What?" He whirled around, but there was no one there. "You can't escape it. All this blood. Your loyal kinsmen are dead and you cling to life? shameful!" the voice echoed around him as he searched for its source.

innumerable voices began a deafening chorus. Then suddenly. Silence, he was standing in complete darkness, the blood soaked temple walls gone. Taking a step forward, his foot made a splash, am I standing on water? He looked down and froze. The water was a dark red and in its reflection he saw a myriad of faceless corpses.

Yet he recognized them. Iori, Hanta, Takeshi, Nanba, Josuke, Retsu? Everyone? Tears welled in his eyes at the realization that he was the only one left alive. The faceless dead surged upwards, their arms shooting out and grabbing his legs pulling him down.

Gin struggled desperately; his arms flailing, but one after another they piled on wrapping themselves around his arms and torso despite his desperation he was finally dragged under wreathed in a mass of death. Now he was falling.

An eternity passed. As he fell a giant appeared taking the shape of a woman with flowing hair colored a pure ephemeral white. She was beautiful, Gin for a moment thought she was a goddess. Till blood began to flow from her closed eyes.

The sensation of falling was still there, but it didn't seem to be moving. —–— it said something in a language unfamiliar to him. -—— it repeated once more.

He felt he'd heard it before, but couldn't remember where. The giant face he felt he'd seen somewhere as well. Those giant hands began to clasp around him as it began chanting that word. "Who are you!" He shouted.—— "What does —— mean? Tell me!"

No answer. Those giant hands closed around him like a child holding a doll. The goddesses eyes and mouth opened with a smile revealing she was hollow. Primal fear filled him; he tried to scream but was denied as the hands tightened crushing him.