The Demon Slayers Sidekick

“Damn it. Why do I have to rely on a bow? We all know I'm better with daggers," muttered the ninja known as Quinta as she notched an arrow to her bow.

While she was preparing her shot, Rorio looked down at the crowds below. Using a bird’s eye view to get a read of the city.

As he did so, he quickly found Domino in the crowd.

Despite never actually sleeping with any, Domino was great with women.

This was proven by the fact that in a matter of maybe thirty minutes, almost twenty-six of them had flocked to Domino

Seeing that caused an irritated expression to form on Rorio’s face from his traveling partner's carefree attitude toward their current situation.

Deciding it would be best not to dwell on it, Rorio let out a sigh and recomposed himself.

Ready to keep moving, Rorio took another step forward when he felt something whizzing toward him.

Acting on instinct, Rorio quickly pulled up his hand and caught the item in midair before snapping it in two.

The loud sound of the item breaking rattled through the air as Rorio looked at his hands to find part of the item he was holding appeared to be some kind of arrow with a glowing pink tip.

Keeping hold of the arrow, he turned toward the direction from which it was shot.

“So the presence I sensed was hostile,” he muttered with a weirdly relieved voice.

However, when he looked toward the location where he was shot at, there was no one there.

That was because Quinta had ducked behind a chimney as soon as possible while trying to catch her breath as fear overwhelmed her mind wondering what just unfolded in front of her.

“I can't believe he actually caught it!” she muttered in shock

Taking a chance, she glanced over for a moment and saw Rorio snap the arrow in two before turning his head in her direction.

Quinta looked at him nervously before ducking her head back behind her hiding spot.

“Well, no matter. The minute he inhales the fumes of the spell, he should immediately fall under its effects and-”

“Excuse me? Were you the one who tried shooting this at me?”

She froze on the spot.

Turning her head, Rorio was standing there looking at her with a bored expression.

She was stuck in a state of shock. No one had ever inhaled the fumes of her lust arrows and not fallen under its spell.

“Lust Arrows” as they were called were special arrows designed using magic that originated in the Outbursts that could enhance someone's romantic urges.

In other words, it increases the sexual hormones in the body. Making the one under its effects more susceptible to flirting as well as other things.

While not permanent, the effects still lasted quite a bit and packed a pretty big punch in terms of potency.

But the man before her didn’t even flinch when he smelled the arrow’s aroma. He was completely unaffected.

Upon seeing this, all Quinta could do was stare as Rorio waited for her to say something.

Then, Using all the courage she could muster, she shouted out the biggest question she had.

“W...Why aren't you affected?”

Rorio’s expression never changed as he looked at the broken arrow in his hands.

“I've been training myself to be better than my traveling partner for years. Even going as far as staying in a forest covered in mind-altering flowers until I became immune. At this point, magic like this wouldn't affect me in a thousand years.”

He wasn't even bluffing.

After so many years of Domino always beating him at almost everything, he’d found himself feeling quite frustrated at his inabilities.

However, instead of this turning into jealousy, he used his powerlessness to give himself the motivation to become stronger.

Now, even he wasn't completely immune to stuff like mind magic.

And physical attacks could still pack quite a punch if they were delivered hard enough.

But Rorio wasn't about to let his life be determined by how skilled Domino was in comparison to himself. Leading toward his outstanding improvements in personal growth.

Moving past that, however, Rorio continued to glare at Quinta as her body shook in fear.

Then, in an act of panic, she put her hand up to her ear.

“All units! Report to my location! We have someone unaffected by my magic! More may be needed!”

Rorio let out an annoyed sigh.

She completely ignored his explanation and seemed to think all she needed more magic.

But to scare her, he gave her a wicked smile.

“Intercom magic huh? Not that reinforcements are gonna help you pull this crap. Still, I guess I wouldn't mind using some of you to get me some answers.”

Putting on a sinister tone, he stood there for a moment before a gust of wind blew by his ear.

Sensing something coming towards him, he quickly dodged out of the way of an arrow that was about to hit him right in the head.

Quinta ducked down into a nearby window while Rorio was distracted.

After regaining his footing, Rorio turned around to find the girl gone.

“Great. I knew she was gonna pull that stunt and I looked away anyway. Talk about an idiotic move,” he muttered, annoyed.

Pulling out his sword ready for battle, he turned towards the location of the shooter of the aforementioned arrow.

In almost an instant, a whole group of ninja women surrounded Rorio.

The one who shot the arrow still had her bow out and had notched another arrow as the others around her did the same.

Holding his blade at the ready, Rorio prepared to attack the minute any of them made a move

“We're members of the queen’s cupid ninja squad and we're here to arrest you for disobeying the biggest rule of Lust Street!”

“The biggest rule?”

Rorio looked at the girl with a quizzical expression on his face.

The girl nodded.

“You failed to follow our biggest rule of them all. And that’s indulging yourself in this land of women!”

“....Huh?”

Rorio looked at the ninjas in utter bewilderment.

As Rorio didn’t know the rules of this place, he didn't understand what the hell they were talking about.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! Are you telling me that I’m required to do stuff like what's going on below!? What kinda bullshit is that!?”

The ninjas only glared at him.

“Our queen wants this place to be somewhere those who want love can have it. You’re ruining it for others by not doing it yourself!”

Rorio couldn't believe the crap he was hearing.

“What the heck!? I don't even wanna be here! I came here solely because Domino wanted to!”

He wasn't lying. Domino had vetoed Rorio's idea of sneaking into Dragon Bane City and playing Domino off as an undead monster of some sort.

But because of Domino's obsession with women and booze, Rorio’s idea was denied and the two of them made their way toward Lust Street.

With Domino going off and enjoying the festivities of this place, that meant Rorio was stuck in this situation against his own will.

All the girls had their arrows notched at the ready.

Rubbing his eyes, Rorio came to a decision.

Taking a deep breath he shouted his feelings into the sky.

“Dammit, Domino! Why did you have to pick this stupid place!” he screamed as he stuck his hands out into the air before lowering them and turning his attention back to the ninjas who looked a bit taken aback by his actions.

Letting out a sigh, Rorio finished calming down and prepared himself for battle.

“Okay. I can tell this is gonna be a boring fight, so can you all just please give up now?” he asked.

Sadly, the group acted exactly as you thought they would. They all instantly released their arrows from their bows.

However, in that instant, Rorio's hand started glowing green.

“Bring time toward a quick stop. Slow-Mo!”

As Rorio said those words, the people, objects, and even the air itself seemed to slow down.

It was like everything was moving in slow motion.

This was Rorio's special time-freezing magic he called “Slow-Mo.”

Slow-Mo was a spell that slowed down time for about thirty seconds.

In that time frame, Rorio was allowed to do whatever he wanted.

While most people would probably like to use this power for something like rape or murder, Rorio only ever used it for fighting.

Also, the spell could only be used once every six months. Despite that issue, it was one of the few spells Rorio ever used.

While he’s good at magic, he preferred fighting with a blade.

In fact, the only times he used this spell was to wrap up battles quickly.

As time moved to a halt, he took action.

Walking to the first woman who spoke, he sliced through her arrow and pointed it at the ground.

Moving over to the next ninja, Rorio turned the arrow back toward the girl who fired it and repeated this process with the rest of the ninjas.

After finishing off the last of his setup, Rorio returned to his original spot just as the spell wore off. And everything happened in an instant.

Arrows nailed all the girls' shoulders, chests, and stomachs as they were sent flying off the roof one after the other.

Before long, only the ninja that spoke first was still standing.

She had no idea what had just happened, but whatever it was, it sent a chill down her spine.

In a panic, she shot her hand up to her ear.

“Attention! This is Bell Quartoz from Unit 4! All units in the area close in! We're dealing with a heavy fighter here!”

Keeping her eyes on Rorio, she held her hand to her ear.

However, a few moments later she realized no one was responding.

Confused, the girl whose name was apparently Bell turned to Rorio.

“Something wrong?” Rorio asked in a confident tone.

An idea starting to form in her head, Bell looked at some nearby buildings and found most of the other units were already taken out.

“How did you-!?”

Terrified, Bell snatched an arrow from her quiver in an instant and notched an arrow before shooting it straight at Rorio.

“Okay, now you're just getting desperate,” Rorio said before grabbing the arrow mid-air and throwing it right back at Bell. Hitting her off the roof.

She landed in an alleyway below in a pile of trash.

While unharmed, Bell reeked. And the fact she had fallen under the effect of her own arrow didn’t really help things.

But moving past that, Rorio looked around to make sure no other ninjas were coming.

“Looks like I really did take care of them all. Talk about a letdown,” he muttered.

He’d run into a few ninjas before he met with Quinta. However, he had dealt with them before they could do anything so he hadn't had time to register that they might be part of the same group.

With that out of the way, Rorio turned his head to the castle at the center of the city.

As he did so, he recalled how the ninja's had mentioned romance was a requirement in this place. Meaning someone made that a rule at some point. And there was only one person with a high enough authority to make a rule like that possilble.

“I bet this place's queen is behind this. Guess I should just pay her a visit,” Rorio grumbled before dashing off toward the castle.

Meanwhile, from a window in the building near him, Quinta watched Rorio with a hint of curiosity.

“That move he just did...it almost looked like...”

A memory came back to Quinta at that moment. However, trying to focus, she shook her head. Then, regaining her composure, Quinta looked toward the direction Rorio was heading.

And then, Pulling her hand up to her ear. She muttered something to herself.

“I must inform the queen that the rule breaker is on his way.”

That was all she said while she waited to act on her words.

Meanwhile, Domino was relaxing in the streets with a huge group of women surrounding him.

While he was here to have a little fun, he didn't forget about the mission of learning information. So he went around and tried to obtain as much info as he could.

But sadly, most of the information he received was just stuff he already knew. Like how the Outbursts was separated from the Inlands and had two layers. Nothing Rorio hadn't already told him. So when he started to wonder if there was any real new information he could find, a woman let him know that if he wanted info that normally wasn't available to the public, he'd have to speak to the queen of Lust Street herself.

After learning about this, Domino slowly started to make his way toward the castle.

However, as he was walking, he noticed a bunch of strange women in tight black suits, also known as ninja suits, moaning on the ground as they struggled to get to their feet.

“Talk about weird getup,” Domino muttered before realizing he should probably separate himself from the crowd surrounding him.

So, turning around to the women he was with, Domino put on the most charming voice he could muster.

“I'm afraid this is where we part for a while ladies. I thank you for your company.”

He then used his agility to leap onto the roof of one of the houses.

Facing the giant building in front of him, Domino quickly made his way toward the castle where the queen was awaiting him.