Fleeting Shadows (KNY x OC)

-21

"Sayomi!"

Mitsuri's strained scream echoes across the grounds as she outstretches her arm to Sayomi's direction, feeling powerless to save her. Tears spring from her eyes at the ghastly sight of her friend being in the same position Kyojuro died from; heart racing erratically as she gasps for air from having Akaza's forearm tear through her liver and burst out from her back.

The injured Love Pillar can only watch and force out nearly breathless pleas on the ground as the Upper Moon plasters a smug smirk at the Pillar whom he has his arm through. However, death has become quite indifferent to Sayomi, something Mitsuri has yet to know in the following moments.

Slack-jawed and unable to move for a few seconds, Sayomi chokes back a grunt, her breathing becoming staggered and face wincing at the feeling of a whole forearm tearing through her trunk with blood gushing out of her mouth. Bullets of sweat drip down her face upon feeling Akaza move his arm a bit inside, her insides radiating with pain as his arm grazes against a vital organ.

"You look to be in so much shock, Sayomi. You are sure to heal even if I choose to tear you in half," he shakes his head at her disappointingly, pushing his arm even further and eliciting a brief cry of pain from her, "it's a pity seeing you suffer like this when you don't have to had you gotten proper sustenance. This wouldn't even hurt the slightest and yet, here you are. Able to feel pathetic pain as a demon."

Sayomi forces out an exhale and a sudden inhale in, her mind struggling to process things in the condition she's in. She can't finish him off like this, he's too strong to pull away from even with her combined power as a Hashira and a demon. With daybreak closing in, the only way to kill him on the spot and ensure he doesn't escape in the process is... to burn with him.

"How does it feel? Being in the same place Kyojuro was in as I watched the life in his eyes slowly burn out," as if on cue, Sayomi is able to perceive bits of Akaza's memories with his flesh against hers and the fragments containing an aghast Kyojuro– with his right eye wide open and left clenched shut with blood dripping– staring back in shock as the same arm tore through him wracks Sayomi's composure to the core, ripping out of her a broken yet wrathful roar as she swings her broken blade to his neck and effectively cuts him halfway.

Akaza pales at how easily she is able to
cut him despite feeling her body tremble from the physical agony, baring his fangs at her with a thrust of his free fist to her face, which she stops completely with her own free hand.

They both struggle harshly within each other's supernatural grips, Sayomi forcing the ruptured muscles he has punched through in her body to close in around his arm and make it difficult for him to escape.

The Upper Moon's expression becomes more daunted as he feels her trapping him intentionally, the situation he's currently in emulating the one with Kyojuro and with the first view of the sun rising on the horizon, his worst hunch for this fight finally comes to light.

Sayomi smiles sadistically as she tautens her grasp around his wrist even more, basking in the apparent dread painted on his face at the sun rising and her incoming relief of having vengeance.

"Let me go!" Akaza growls as he continuously attempts to yank both his arms away and she chuckles maliciously at the look of desperation on his face. "You will burn with me."

"You..." The threatening scowl on his face suddenly shifts into a horrified gape at the strike of the sun's rays on them, Sayomi holding back any sound of pain at the searing sensation of sunlight sweeping across her exposed hands. If she dies now, then it's sweeter than eternity as long as she takes him down with her.

"I'm going to make you wish you killed me that night," her words drip like venom at the sight of Akaza recoiling uncontrollably at the progressing glare of the sun and her blade getting close to hacking his head off, the vulnerable side of his body nearly in flames at the increasing exposure. The resolve on Sayomi's face remains unfazed even with the increasingly unbearable scalding of her hands thanks to the rest of her body being protected from the spilling sunlight.