The battle had become exhausting, & repetitive. At some point, at least. You couldn't quite remember when. Not in this moment, at least. Not as the slithering, & sharpened arms of the infuriating demon before you seemed to strike & slither at all sorts of angles. Grabbing, & piercing at all that they could,

You especially couldn't remember once the head was sliced clean off, All that was deceptively left in its wake being a cinder-like ash of red cells & gray grates of dust & weavers. Streamers of saliva & drool, venomously hooked deep & muckily in the goo of body-burnt ashes. It stuck to the thick coax of your boots like tar, or cement,

But you especially couldn't remember, Once a choked, gargle of confusion elicited itself from your comrade,

"H--..." His breaths poured out in staggered heaves, His pale, & dirt-coated hands of dryness & aged stories, blisters, & callouses desperately gripping at the aged & unraveling wraps of his boundless swords. Chipped, & broken in a number of places. Most intentional, some not. "Hah..?" He inquired,

Your eyes seemed to take a moment to adjust to the darkness. Moonlight flooded along the forest floor with the slow, but easing disappearance of the large beast, once before you.

A large gape, slithering, & relentless. Messily split through the center of his core. A mangled mess of flesh. A river of thick, metallic-scented liquid coaxing from his core,

"Inosuke--" You called out, Watching as the boy began to stagger. Desperate, & gummy drool forming at the dried crevices of his lips. Pooling, as his bottom lip quivered, "Inosuke!" You called out, & rushed to his aid,

Inosuke couldnt comprehend it. It was unlike any riveting sensation he had felt before, & he had been impaled, he had been massacred, even, But his talent was always his persistent ability to move his organs & contract his body,

So why now? What felt so different?

"It.." the boy called out gruffly, & admittedly, weakly. "It stabbed me?"

"Inosuke, sit down--"

"That can't be--no--i never sit-!"