The Familiar Taste of Poison

I closed my eyes and listened to the silence. I couldn’t see my enemy, but I could hear him. The grass swished underneath his gigantic body and I could hear it growing louder and louder. I calmed myself as I waited for him to get close and told myself don’t be nervous, this is just another job. He is no big deal. Suddenly the grass was swishing around me in a circle. He was trying to constrict me again and I wasn’t going to let him.
I jumped in the air and tried to grab onto any part of his body I could reach. Doing it blind was sort of hard, but I felt the hard scales touch my hand and I sunk my nails into his flesh to make sure my grip was solid. I squatted down, picked him up, and threw him about fifteen feet away. I ran to the area of grass that suddenly got smashed down and jumped into the air.
I grabbed onto his body, focused all of demonic energy into my hands, and blasted him down into the ground. The loud BANG echoed through the evergreen trees. People were certain to hear in the village what was going on. They would expect me to come back victorious. I had to defeat him because they were counting on me.
Debris flew all around us and I did the same thing a few more times, digging him deeper and deeper.
I heard loud hissing and the snake started rolling around. He was on top of me and then I was on top of him. As we rolled, his scaly skin scratched my body all over. It felt like tiny little blades cutting me at super high speeds. I cringed, but continued to hold on.
I cursed under my breath and dug my other hand into his stomach. I continued to do this and crawled towards what I was pretty sure was his head. He shook around violently and hissed even louder. I had found it.
An enemy such as the one I was fighting could be very difficult to deal with. Their body has natural armor, so you usually have no other choice than to go for the eyes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see his eyes. However, after getting roughed up, my diligence rewarded me.
I felt around for his eye and punched it really hard. He yelled and whipped his body around, crushing trees, the ground, anything near him got destroyed by his gigantic body.
He managed to throw me off. I landed face down and as I was struggling to stand back up, a pair of fangs pierced through my back and out my stomach. My eyes widened as I looked at the sharp teeth sticking out of my stomach. They were stained with my blood and dripping with a gross looking yellow poison. I was shocked, the adrenalin made me numb. I couldn’t hear anything, I couldn’t smell anything, I couldn’t feel anything.
Then, reality came back in a hurricane of emotion and it was as if my senses were heightened. I hurt, a lot. My body felt as if it was burning. My breath became staggered and I was losing energy. I had to do something, though. I mustered up all of my strength and I yelled in pain and cringed. “Damnit!” I screamed and tried to throw some dirt into his eyes. He pulled his fangs out of my body and drew himself back. I must have gotten him. It gave me hope. I wasn’t going to die just yet. I was regaining a bit of my strength and I managed to stand up and wipe some of the blood away, but it just kept coming.
Chiharu was suddenly at my side, asking if I was okay. I avoided looking at him, but his touch filled me with just as much heat as a wildfire. He was sweating, bad. He was really worried about me…? No, that couldn’t be it. I couldn’t deal with my confused emotions at that particular moment.
“I’m fine, I have to go back and fight!” I hissed and tried to push him away. I walked toward the grass being crushed by my enemy and suddenly my knees gave out from under me. I was confused as I felt a warm liquid drip from the corner of my mouth. I wiped it away and saw that it was blood. The poison was actually hurting me. I was dying.
It was unusual that the poison affects me. Usually my demonic blood purifies it, but this time was different. It must have been close to reaching my heart.
“Shit” I hissed and tried to stand back up. I fell back down instantly. I couldn’t move much. I was beginning to hear gurgles whenever I breathed. Blood was filling my lungs.
Chiharu ran over to me. His scar was glowing slightly. He looked mad. I had never seen him like that before and it was quite a sight. His mad expression was frightening, yet still beautiful. I was enchanted even though I was drowning in my own blood.
“Lady Karin, you’ve been poisoned. I’ll take over the rest. Please just rest, the more you move the more it spreads. Just lay down!”
“I have to fight, you don’t understand!” I yelled and tried to turn away from him. I coughed up a lot of blood after that. I wiped my mouth and gave him a look of defeat. “If you have to kill it, you’re never gonna believe how good I am at fighting!”
Chiharu paused and gazed down at me. His scar stopped glowing, but he grabbed me tightly on the arms. “My lady..” He began softly. “Shut up!” He then yelled. I was taken aback by his sudden confidence that I wouldn’t kill him for saying that.
“I know how strong you are! You think the council would hire just anybody? Everyone around here knows how good you are at killing demons, so what if you made one mistake? Is killing yourself more important than letting me fight for you? You’re ignorant, so let me kill him so I can get you medical attention!”
I didn’t know what to say. He was so passionate with his words. His voice was so tender and warm even though he was upset. He also stood up to me, which was a first from anyone. I slowly shook my head and laid down. He continued to peer down at me and I felt my cheeks redden softly. I turned my head away and frowned.
“Whatever, go kill him since you can see him and I can’t.” Chiharu nodded at me, seeming surprised that I backed down so easily. He blinked several times before really realizing what I had just said. He stood to go after the snake but I grabbed his leg and peered deep into his eyes. “If you can’t do this, I won’t let you heal me. I’ll die and it’ll be all your fault.”
Chiharu smiled and ran toward the snake invisible to my eyes. He jumped into the air and big dark blue swirls of demonic energy burst from his body. He kicked what I guessed was the snake’s head and then dodged an attack from his tail. I was growing dizzy as the seconds passed, but I wanted to make myself watch Chiharu kill the snake.
I tried to sit up straight, but a sudden wave of nausea hit me and I threw up. It was nothing but deep red blood. I was scared and I wanted to help, but it was impossible by then. I just had to focus on not dying so Chiharu could heal me. I was so exhausted from throwing up, I passed out and my vision slowly darkened and I was mad at myself. How could I let some idiot show up and steal the show away from me..?