"Embers of Love" Demon Slayer Fanfic: Kyojuro Rengoku x Female OC

Chapter 1: Winter Bloodshed

"You incompetent child! You can't even do it right!" A hoarse voice of a scarred man loudly shrieked in the cold atmosphere.

In the cold garden of snow, laid a girl full of blisters and bruises against her pale skin. Her long snow-white hair, with streak of sky blue, messily scattered above the snow as she stayed unmoving in her spot as she looked at the cloudy heaven with dead azure eyes.

"Get up!" the man roared, "I said get up!"

But the girl didn't budge. The wooden sword felt heavy in her hand, and every edge of her body felt nothing but pain. She never felt cold even though the cool winter breeze pass through her, slightly blowing her hair.

"Fuyuko Kazahana, get up! Before I'll beat you into a pulp." The man threatened, pointing his own wooden sword towards her.

The man had the same feature as the girl, long snow-white hair with sky blue streak tied into a neat top knot. His pale skin is littered with deep scars and his azure eyes are full of fury and rage, like a blue flame but cold to touch. His right hand is missing in the sleeve of his white keikogi, and even though his left leg is covered in his blue hakama, the girl knew under those fabric is a wooden peg leg.

Those are the injuries her dear father received after an encounter with a powerful demon, he came out as the victor but was then forced to retire because his last fight almost ended his life, though Fuyuko wished it did and she wouldn't have to endure this hell.

"I don't want to, father." Her weak voice barely came out. "My body won't move."

"Don't be weak and stand up like a man!" her father shouted.

"But I am not a man nor a boy..." she replied.

And that earned a hit from her father's wooden sword. Fuyuko's body flinched upon the impact but still she didn't budge. In anger her father repeatedly hit her until she curled up into a ball, bruise after bruise, and she even felt her warm blood trickled down her skin.

"How dare you talked back to me!" he roared once more. "You will be train brutally until you get stronger, stronger than that Rengoku bastard with his weak flame breathing!"

"I swear in my death that our clan and our ice breathing technique will extinguish their flame." The man bragged. "We will freeze them and crush their soul with our cold ice!"

"Why don't just give up," Fuyuko coldly spoke, "the ice will melt before the flame ran out."

Her statement only fueled her father's anger and he ended up kicking her as hard as he could that Fuyuko flew out of the snow-covered ground and got her back slammed in the stone wall of their garden. She yelped in pain before falling back to the snowy ground and biting her lip to prevent herself from screaming in pain, tears started to form in her dull azure eyes but it never flowed.

"Tch. If only you were born as my son you would understand." Her father scoffed. "But you were instead born as a pathetic weak girl, you even killed your mother."

With his last words that struck a spear in Fuyuko's heart, he left leaving the injured girl outside the cold winter snow.

She knows she didn't kill her mother, her mother sacrificed herself to give birth to her and she can't help but feel terrible, because if this keeps up, Fuyuko already knew she will die soon enough and her mother's sacrifice will end up in vain.

She always had a choice to leave, run away, and free herself from her father's chain but where could a nine-year-old girl go? Demons lurk during the dark of the night, she would be eaten or die in starvation in the street. All route is leading her to a certain doom, so why fight if she could just lie down and wait for a miracle to happen or death to come by and finally end her suffering.

Hours flew by as the rain of snowflakes continued to fall from the gloomy sky, Fuyuko stayed still in the snow and let it bury her like the withered flowers in the winter seasons. She regained her strength from the long-time of lying down the cold but the will of life never returned to her heart, she did not wish to die but nor did she hope to live.

Fuyuko's eyes are starting to get heavy but before she could close her eyelids, realization suddenly struck her like lightning and that made her eyes bolted open upon her sudden resolution. Shen then stood up from her pitiful bed of snow and slowly walks towards the only weapon she could see nearby. A lone sharp axe stuck against a tree stump, she swiftly picked it up and it felt lighter in her hand than the wooden sword she left behind.

She made her way inside the dim house of nothing but emptiness and found her father lying down the floor with empty jars of sake scattered around him, the stench of liquor is present in the air but she paid it no mind as her eyes intensely gazed at her father's sleeping form snoring loudly like a dirty pig.

Malice and bloodlust then slowly crept out from her cold azure irises. Devil's voices started to sing in her ears like sweet honey, whispering to her. Both of her hands tightly grasp the handle of the axe and she raised it over her head as she mustered all of her strength to the weapon she holds.

Why wait for a miracle? if you can make one, yourself.

A sickening thud then echoed throughout the house of sins, followed by a loud noise of something rolling over the floor. Blood then dripped endlessly like a barrel of wine, staining the once clean wooden floor with red paint.

Fuyuko stared at the decapitated head of her dead father with cold dead eyes, and as the silence continued to hush, a small smile slowly rose from her pale lips and a sweet giggle rang out from the sullen air of winter bloodshed.

When her joyous smile finally vanished, she didn't waste time. She immediately cleaned herself, tended her wounds and pack her things. She also took her father's nichirin sword along with all of his money and valuables, she needs it if she want to survive on her own

After having all she needed, she then flared a fire and burn the house down along with her father's corpse. She watched the flames devoured every edge of the curse home she had been miserably living for years without peace. And now here she is, finally free.

She wondered, why didn't she did this sooner? Her old man is a former demon slayer with a high rank, he was about to be promoted as a hashira if were not for his injury that forced him to retire. She couldn't believe he was too easy to kill? Just one strike of an axe and he instantly died, how ironic.

The flame sparked brighter and Fuyuko watched in awe of its beautiful blazing hues, and the warmth it gives is nothing she never felt from the cold snow she once slept waiting for death.

Now that she finally regained her freedom and life, she will choose her own path to take. She will stand high like the clouds and glide with the wind like a snowflake. She will not let any one step on her again.