Sun Slayer's radiance

“This is the best day EVER!” Pinkie shouted, not even waiting for her friends to catch up as she bounced off into the crowded streets of the festival.

Shaking her head, Twilight stopped and turned to her friends, along with Yoriichi and his brother, with a smile. “Alright, everypony, I got all of today's events neatly planned so we don’t miss a single thing!”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes with a groan. “Booooring! Twilight, this is a festival, NOT a family get-together.” The rainbow-maned pegasus complained. “Besides, I’ve heard they got one of those new “roller coaster” things here!” Rainbow points to the distance at a towering structure with loops and hills that overlooked the festival itself. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not waiting for the line to get long. So see you all later.”

With that, the colorful pegasus took off with a rainbow trail left behind her. “Ah’m gonna follow her to make sure the mare doesn’t get into trouble.” Applejack tipped her hat and galloped after her friend.

“Oh, come on!” Twilight threw her hooves up, “I’ve spent most of the night coming up with this!” Her soon-to-be rant was interrupted by Yoriichi walking up to her.

“I still don’t understand. Why is this event so special that you’d lose sleep over it?” He asked politely. Last night after Celestia had suggested the festival, he questioned the solar diarch about it. Unfortunately, she only said that Twilight would be able to explain and that she needed to tend to some important documents. Not wanting to waste her valuable time, he obliged. When he arrived at the studious mare's room, she tunnel-visioned a checklist in front of her while mumbling about plans, routes, and whatnot.

Twilight's exasperated demeanor took a 180, gaining a guilty and sheepish expression. “Oh, sorry. I was caught up in everything last night. I forgot to tell you. Well, the festival is to celebrate the founding of Canterlot. Ponies throw this big celebration to show off a lot of things.” She explained casually.

“What things?” Michikatsu walked next to his brother, Fluttershy, silently following. “All of this is new to me and my brother.” The older brother looked around with an almost childlike wonder at the many food stands and games.

The studious mare giggled with a hoof over her mouth. “A lot of things, actually. If you want I can-” Twilight was once interrupted again when she was suddenly dragged into the crowd by Rarity and rushed behind a cotton candy stand. “R-Rarity, what are you doing?!” She shouted, but her muzzle was covered by Rarity’s hoof, with the other over her lips.

“Shush, Twilight. Don’t you see the opportunity?” Rarity questioned. “This is the perfect time to get Fluttershy and Yoriichi to discover the burning passion between each other!” The fashionista had a borderline crazed look, peering to the gap between the stands.

Twilight shoved Rarity’s hoof away and scowled lightly at the white unicorn. “This isn’t some cheesy romance novel, Rarity. If those two actually loved each other, then let them work it out on their own.” Her reasoning fell on deaf ears as the sides of her face were grabbed by the worried-looking Rarity.

“But Twilight, darling. The poor mare hasn’t found her special somepony in ages, and now is the time to change that!” Twilight held back a yelp as Rarity and her moved quickly to the edge of the cotton candy stand and peaked around the corner. Still in the same spot were the two brothers and the shy mare. “I mean, look at Yoriichi! He’s a strong, kind, and sweet stallion, perfect for Fluttershy!”

The two mares hid around the corner again. “All I am asking for is that those two can get some alone time.” Rarity gave Twilight a grown-up equivalent to a pouty face a foal would make. “Please?”

Now there were two options, Let the Fationista plan go through and leave the two alone, or put a stop to this. Sadly, the pouty face worked on the young princess who regrettably agreed with her friend. “Fine,” She sighed, “It wouldn’t hurt to leave them to themselves.” She could only shake her head as Rarity squeed in joy.

With the rest, Fluttershy shifted nervously in place and eyed Yorrichi. She was about to speak when Twilight and Rarity came back.

“Sorry to say this, but me and Twilight over here decided to go off on our little adventure, so I bid you three fare well!” In a burst of uncharastically speed, The two mares, mainly Rarity, dashed into and disappeared into the crowd.

Now alone, the three awkwardly looked at each other. “So… where should we begin?” Michikatsu asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I-I can show you two around.” Fluttershy meekly said. “ You both need time together, I hope I won’t be a bother…” The shy mare looked at the ground with a sad face. But she flinched a little when Yoriichi’s hoof touched her cheek and gently raised her face to look at him.

“You would not be a burden, so please, guide us,” Yoriichi said in a low tone.

A faint blush spread across the shy mare's face as she spun around. “A-A-Alright I g-guide you!” She unnecessarily shouted. The two brothers looked at each other quizzically but physically and mentally shrugged it off as the three walked into the depths of the festival.

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Yoriichi eyed the tall attraction in front of him with a confused look. The…thing…looked to be at least 20 meters in height with a red bell at the top, numbers were painted on the vertical tower, and next to the base of it was a sizable wooden mallet. From what Yoriichi saw, foals and adults alike took the wooden mallet and slammed it onto the base, resulting in an attached projectile flying up towards the bell. Nobody had gotten it to hit the bell in the time the stoic stallion observed, and it interested him.

“What are you looking at?” Fluttershy said, now noticing Yoriichi staring at the towering attraction.

“It’s some weird machine that tests one’s strength,” Yoriichi said while rubbing his chin in thought. “While it is a simple concept, I find it to be interesting.” Yoriichi’s eyes wandered until they landed on his brother walking up to the stand with a confident smirk.

As Michikatsu stopped before the attraction, a young stallion wearing a blue and white shirt and matching top hat ran up to him. “Hello there, sir! Are you interested in testing your might with my invention-” The stallion dramatically threw a foreleg back, pointing at his work. “THE HIGH STRIKER!”

The older brother winced from the young stallion's volume but quickly hid it behind a cocky smirk. “Shouldn’t be too hard. A children's game is no a match for a trained sword-m- I mean pony like me.” He said. The small crowd of ponies audibly awed at the statement and watched with excitement as Michikatsu took the wooden mallet in his mouth.

With a mighty- albeit muffled- roar, the older sword-pony swung his head down and connected the mallet with the base of the high striker. The crowd watched as the metal striker rapidly approached the bell, only to be disappointed when the striker was barely an inch away from the bell. Michikatsu’s eyes widened, he involuntarily dropped the mallet and glared daggers at the young stallion.

“What the hell?! I put everything behind that hit!” He shouted. But his anger only grew when the young stallion smirked smugly and shrugged at him.

“Don’t know what to tell ya, man. Maybe you don’t have what it takes.” He said.

Michikatsu fumed and recoiled a foreleg back, “Why you little-” he was about to hit the little shit when his hoof was grabbed by Yoriichi, who blankly looked between his older brother and the smug stallion.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to have a try at it as well.” He calmly asked. Michikatsu yanked his hoof away from his brothers and walked back to Fluttershy while cursing under his breath.

“Sure man, you don’t look as strong as the other guy, but there's no limit to fun.” The young stallion said, adding heavy sarcasm at the end of his sentence. ‘Doesn’t matter anyway. It would take a Princess to get the striker up. There’s no way-” His internal monologue was halted as Yoriichi slammed the mallet into the striker base, splitting the mallet and leaving a big dent where he hit. The striker itself was barely seen: the only thing left of its existence was a ding from the now mangled bell as it flew off into the distance. The young stallion sputtered and wordlessly looked wide-eyed at the sky like the rest of the small crowd.

“I put too much force beyond my hit and I apologize for it,” Yoriichi said with a small bow. “May you have a good afternoon." The stallion didn't seem to respond as the swords pony walked away with a hidden smirk. Yoriichi reached his brother and a shocked Fluttershy and stopped. “Shall we continue?”

After Michikatsu got Fluttershy out of her stupor, the three continued their way through the festival stall to stall. TL;DR, many of the attractions that involved the usage of limbs, mainly forelegs, were destroyed by either of the two brothers, intentional anger or not. But in the end, Fluttershy was practically buried in stuffed animals with a belly full of sweets and other treats from the food stands. The sun was starting to set over the horizon yet the ponies only seemed to grow in number with the only safe place being a small courtyard that was fenced off from the road.

“I’m afraid that I need to gather our comrades. I’ll also need to get back to the castle soon, the princesses put me on something called “community service” as a punishment.” He said with a huff and eye roll as he walked away, leaving Yoriichi and Fluttershy alone.

For the longest time, the two stood in the court silently so as not to start any awkward conversation. Fluttershy looked around nervously while Yoriichi stared her down with his ever-lasting gaze. Ever since yesterday, the shy mare had been actively avoiding the swords pony for reasons she won’t say. It bothered Yoriichi to no end that it was because of him that she was like that, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

The stoic stallion sighed, walked over to a nearby bench, and sat on it, looking at the ground in thought. Fluttershy noticed this and carefully put the stuffed animals down to join Yoriichi.

“Fluttershy…do you hate me?”

She stopped in the middle of sitting down to look at him with a bewildered expression. “W-What? Of course not, why would you think that?” She asked worryingly.

Yoriichi looked at his shy friend with guilt, “Ever since that night you’ve been acting distant towards me. We both know that it is because of my outburst. But I still feel that there is some form of hatred in your heart for me, and I understand. I’m sorry for what I did…” The swords pony looked away from the now tearing up Fluttershy, “You can hate me all you want, I don’t have a say in what you feel.”

Suddenly, Yoriichi felt a light mass press against his back and two yellow forelegs wrapping around his form. He knew full well what, or who, it was from, but he couldn’t bear to look back. The feeling of hurting another was simply unbearable for him, especially the ones you can't cover with a bandage. Maybe it would be best if he’d leave and spare her and the others of the bad luck that follows him, they deserve to live better lives than to worry about him-

“I don’t hate you!” Fluttershy shouted, her voice barely heard by the ponies around them. “Sure, what you did scared me. And yes, I was distant because I was afraid. But I hate that I did that because I know you also feel bad about it. As an element of kindness, I should be there to support my friends…no matter what.” The stoic stallion slowly turned his head to look at Fluttershy. Her bright blue eyes seemed to shine in the moon's glow as the world around them seemed to become nothing but a whisper to them. Though the words she spoke were comforting, the nagging feeling from before came back in full force.

Yoriichi surprisingly gave a full smile to the shy mare. “I’m happy to know that. And I will also be there to protect the ones I love.” Fluttershy’s face seemed to turn a faint red, but the two didn’t even bother to address it.

As if in some trance, the two narrowed their eyes and leaned into each other, lips not even two inches away from each other.

BOOM!

The two broke out of their trance as they and the ponies around them all looked in the direction of the explosion sound. In the distance, the roller coaster crumbled into metal scrap with a large explosion accompanied by distance screams. Everyone was scared stiff, except for Yoriichi, who saw small figures in the distance rapidly becoming larger. His eyes widened and he immediately drew his sword.

“EVERYONE FLEE, TRY AND REMAIN CALM!” He shouted, his message being slightly muffled by his weapon.

It was too late, Demon changelings started to swarm into the crowd, getting in a few kills by stabbing ponies with horns or jagged appendages. Yoriichi took action and breathed deeply.

“Sun breathing: Thirteenth form”

Yoriichi kicked off the ground, breaking it and dashing into the panicked crowd like a bullet. Demons started to fall instantly with their heads coming clean off. The rest of the ponies screamed and ran in terror, not even bothering to look back. One after another, they fell like flies to Yoriichi's blade as the swords pony zoomed back and forth throughout the makeshift battleground. Two demons tried to pounce the sword's pony from the back. But the sun breather sensed the bloodlust and swiftly turned to face the shocked demons.

With one well-placed strike, Yoriichi cut the two hellspawn in half widthwise and caused the demon's screams to fall silent. Not waiting for them to regenerate, Yoriichi cut the halved necks of the demons, turning them into ash.

“Fluttershy.” He called out the pegasus, but she was nowhere to be seen. A hint of panic started to fill the stallion as the thought of her death plagued his mind. Although, the sound of frightened whimpering and the light pink tail poking out of a bush calmed him greatly. When he touched the silky smooth tail, there was an eep sound, and Fluttershy popped out of the bush and saw Yoriichi. “Are you unhurt?” He asked calmly.

She nodded but saw the dead demon corpse disintegrating behind Yoriichi and whimpered. Didn’t he take care of the scary demons from Appleloosa already? Why were they back? Fluttershy flinched slightly when Yoriichi put a hoof on her shoulder.

“We need to find my brother and the others. I’ll protect you as we search-” Yoriichi turned around, facing away from the shy mare. “-get on my back and hold tight.” He commanded with the sword still in his mouth.

She climbed onto his back and tightly held onto his neck, either her physical weight wasn't that great, or he didn’t seem to care, because the swords pony bolted forward and ran down the street. It took everything for the mare to not yelp, closing her eyes and deeply burying her face into his back.

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Rainbow Dash's body was pulled out of the wreckage. She coughed up dust from her dry lungs, the feeling was agonizing for the athletic pegasus. Blood ran down her forehead and her wing was bent in the wrong direction, causing her to suppress a pained scream as the pain hit her full force.

“Sugarcube, are ya alright?”

She looked up to see Applejack crouched down next to her with a worried and angry expression. “Aj…what’s going on? And why is every pony screaming?” Rainbow dash asked groggily. She tried to stand, but her legs gave out, and she fell down with a thud as electric pain shot into her wing.

“Ah don’t recommend you standin’ right now. You’re in bad shape Rainbow.” The farm mare looked around the grizzly sight with ponies being slaughtered and bitten into left and right. “Those demons are back, somehow. They haven’t noticed us thanks to the rubble, but we need to get out of here quickly before they do.”

“Feast demons, for it is a privilege from Muzan himself that you live another day!”

The two mares froze at the familiar voice, and looking at the direction it came from, their eyes widened at who they saw.

Her body was a glossy black with mixes of blue, purple, and pink throughout her body in the form of galaxies and stars. The mane was similar to Celestia’s as it floated in a non-existent wind but more of a mockery than anything. Finally, her eyes were all but white voids with no pupils besides weird lines that Rainbow dash or Applejack couldn't understand. But what scared them both was the cutie mark of the demon.

A single star with a wisp of magic above it.