Chapter Text
That night, Michikatsu finds himself walking down a dark hallway.
He's following someone, he thinks, but he can't quite make out the set of their shoulders or the curve of their strides. He knows their footsteps softly thud against hardwood floor, but if anyone were to ask him to describe how loud the noise was, how long the intervals between them were, if the walk was calm or angry, he wouldn't be able to describe it.
Then, the hallway opens at the side to a courtyard, and he's bathed in the gold of the sunset. He realizes, suddenly, that he had been walking in the dark.
“Your brother came to us, Tsugikuni-dono,” the man in front of him says. “He said he wanted the best swordsmith we had to work on your sword.”
Michikatsu's throat tightens with the beginnings of offense—why was Yoriichi going around asking swordsmiths for him? Did he not think him capable? He was a samurai, for goodness' sake.
And that besides, why was he getting a different swordsmith from his brother? Isn't this smith the best in the organization?
“...your father passed the practice to you, yes?” he asks.
The ink-smear that is the man's head bobs. “He did. And it is an honor for me to forge Yoriichi-dono's sword, but I am not the best in my family.” The ink-smear shifts; through the shadows, a singular sapphire blue eye gleams. “My younger brother is a prodigy.”
Michikatsu's feet still before he can even will them to. The scene in front of him pitches; he can hear his blood roaring in his ears. Younger brothers and their talents; younger brothers and their effortless mastery of the things their older brothers slaved over until their hands bled; younger brothers and the easy things dropped into their laps when they never had to work for it.
Is this the shame that plagues older brothers like him? Is this simply how the world works, this mocking unfairness? Is there, then, no reprieve for Michikatsu, no hope that he may best Yoriichi?
“Despite how talented he is, he doesn't care for swordsmithing,” the man ahead continues; Michikatsu's gaze—which had fallen to his feet in his wallowing—snaps back up to where the man's blotted-out face tips here and there as he speaks. There's no anger in his tone, no bitter resentment; just warmth and mirth and pride, as if being humiliated and the possibility of his rightful place as heir being threatened is a laughing matter.
“That wanderlusted little fool…but he truly is the best the Mochizuki household has to offer.” The ink-smear trembles with a laugh. “Your brother worries greatly about your choice to become a demon slayer, Tsugikuni-dono. I know how that kind of worry feels all too well—and a swordsman, no matter how brilliant, is a dead man without his sword. So, I've convinced my little brother to work for you.”
The man pauses right at the turn of the hallway, and angles himself slightly. His ink-smear head turns with the action, and the single blue eye shines as it peers from within the chaotic mess of darkness. It reminds Michikatsu of a lighthouse in the storm. Or a candle in a night.
“My brother can be a bit…eccentric, shall we say,” the man continues. “So, you'll have to forgive him for asking to meet you before he works on your sword.”
Michikatsu bites back a scoff. This younger brother was probably curious what roadkill Yoriichi had dragged into his forge; perhaps he wanted to judge for himself if Michikatsu was worthy of his skills.
The man turns away and continues down the hall. Michikatsu quietly steps forward to catch up to him—
And finds himself standing in front of a doorway. Of course he does, he was heading here; the skip makes sense. No need for all the frivolities and the minutes required to bridge the distance between where he was and where he is now.
The room is lit in the same amber glow the hallway had been in earlier, only this time, the sunset streams in from an open window. It deepens the brown of the low table at the center of the room and paints the rest of the space orange: the floors, the ceiling, the walls…
The man sitting on one side of the table, longingly looking out the window as if he wanted to leap out and run and never look back.
He's young. Younger than Michikatsu, by the swordsman's estimate. The curve of his cheekbones hasn't sharpened yet, there aren't crow's feet under his eyes.
The ink-smear man who'd led Michikatsu into the room calls out his younger twin. Michikatsu knows he does, he just doesn't hear what's being said.
Mochizuki turns.
Oh, Michikatsu thinks as green eyes fix on his figure. I'm dreaming.
Of course he is. He can barely remember the older Mochizuki's face. His mind had skipped over the memory of walking down the hall. He shouldn't be able to clearly make out his swordsmith's face, but he does, because he's seen it again recently, just older, and so his brain has stitched together the face of the present over the past.
The Corps wasn't even called the Corps yet at this time. His memories have just muddied together. They used to just be called Demon Hunters.
“Little Brother, please greet our guest properly,” the older Mochizuki chides; his younger twin just stares and carefully sweeps those too-green eyes over Michikatsu's visage. It reminds him too much of how Yoriichi used to stare—his only reprieve from experiencing a wave of déjà vu is that Mochizuki's eyes are sharp. Bright. Assessing and cataloguing, not flat and unknowable.
But his stare still lingers too long and Michikatsu—
Finds himself seated across the swordsmith. His brain has skipped the scene again. This time, the older Mochizuki is absent, leaving only himself and the younger twin in the room. There is a tray with a pot on the table, and a half-empty ceramic cup of tea in his hands.
“Tsugikuni-dono, will you humor me for a moment?” Mochizuki murmurs into his teacup as he sips his drink. “I have a question I want to ask before I can commit myself to forging your weapon.”
Michikatsu feels his grip on his cup tighten; offense automatically bristles his skin—well, not his, but his dream-self's. His memory-self’s. His brain is feeding him all of the things he'd done and thought and felt back then, and he's just here for the ride. The ceramic creaks under his fingers. His mouth moves without him willing it to. “I was under the assumption the assignment was already confirmed.”
“Yoriichi-sama—”
The surprise comes double, both from his memory and his present self. Yoriichi-sama?
“—came to ask my brother to give the assignment to me, and my brother has discussed it with me, but both of them lack the persuasive weight I seek for my decisions.” Mochizuki lowers the cup to his lap. His gaze is on the rim; outside of that first assessing glance when Michikatsu was at the doorway, he has not looked up at the to-be-hunter's direction this whole conversation. It's insulting. “That’s why I asked for this meeting.”
Memory-Michikatsu's leash on his irritation slips. “Why must I suffer an interview when my peers have not been put through such a requirement?”
“It's more for me than for you. You could always find another swordsmith. I'm merely considering Yoriichi-sama's request.” Mochizuki's thumb glides up the side of his cup and crests onto the top of the rim. “If you wish for me to work with you, allow me an honest answer. If not, the door is right there.”
Memory-Michikatsu's lip curls. What uncouth behavior. The older swordsmith was well-mannered and proper. What happened with this one? Was it raised in a three-tatami room in a completely different part of the estate too? Not that this property was large enough to be called an estate—so perhaps this man was raised with livestock.
If Mochizuki notices his open disdain, he ignores it, idly running the pad of his thumb over the rim of his cup. “Tsugikuni-dono,” he says. “Why are you becoming a demon hunter?”
…that's it? “That's your question?”
“It is.” Mochizuki's thumb stops halfway through the rim's circumference, then glides back the way it came. “It's a simple question. I just want a real answer.”
Memory-Michikatsu considers it. Obviously, to say he's here because he wants to best his brother would be unbecoming. The demon hunters are an organization driven by altruistic goals, if a little muddied by desires for revenge here and there by those whose families and loved ones were slaughtered by demons. A reason as…personal…as his would surely be looked down upon.
“My men were slaughtered by a demon,” he says. “I simply can't look the other way when I've seen what monsters are out there, taking innocent, unsuspecting lives.”
Mochizuki's thumb stops.
He lifts his hand, loops a lock of white hair around his index finger, and pulls. The half of his finger choked by the hair swells, bleaches white.
“...you reek of fear, Tsugikuni-dono.” He turns his head to the side, looking away despite not having glanced at Michikatsu this whole while. “And you're lying.”
The cup in Memory-Michikatsu's hands cracks. “I'm lying?”
“You are.” Mochizuki nods. “Go find a different swordsmith. Perhaps my brother will agree to forge your sword.”
He could—the older Mochizuki was Yoriichi's swordsmith, he could do just as good work for Michikatsu—but the man himself conceded to his younger brother’s talents. And the hot, bruised feeling in Michikatsu’s gut wasn't going to let this go so easily.
Yoriichi already had everything: the strength, the speed, the talent, the gods-blessed sight. Why couldn't Michikatsu have the hunters’ best swordsmith?
“You will forge it,” he grits out.
“No, I will not.” Mochizuki finally looks up, green eyes snapping to his direction. “If my brother's work is not to your liking, may I suggest Kazebashira-dono's swordsmith? Tecchin-sama is just as capable.”
“You are the best smith this place has to offer.” Michikatsu's memory self slams a hand on the table before he can think about it, halfway rising from seiza position. The tray and pot rattle. The surface of the table splits slightly with a hairline crack. “You will forge me a sword.”
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Tsugikuni-dono, but this conversation is over.”
“Do you simply think me unworthy of your prodigious talents?” He ignores the dismissal. “Is that it?”
Mochizuki pauses. Lowers his gaze to his cup, seems to decide something, then looks up. “Yes.”
Memory-Michikatsu stands—
Except he blinks and the sunlight has gone. The scene outside the window has been replaced by pure, solid black, the lighting disappearing with it. The room now sits in darkness, and the only reason Michikatsu can see is through his nocturnal demon sight.
Michikatsu, not the memory his mind was putting him through. He's not a nineteen year old human swordsman anymore. He's an over four hundred year old demon, with six eyes and keen eyesight and the ability to see in the dark with ease.
He can easily see Mochizuki set his cup on the table, brace an elbow on it, and prop his chin on his palm. The swordsmith lifts his eyes to Michikatsu's face; the green of them seem to glow in the darkness. His white clothes are now streaked in dust and dirt, turned almost black by the grime.
“Incredible,” Mochizuki says. “Over four hundred years later, and you still don't know how to properly answer a question, Michikatsu.”
Michikatsu frowns and turns to his right—his body responds easily; he's not going through remembered motions anymore—then his left. The door he'd come through is gone; so is the window. In fact, all the walls in the room are gone. All Michikatsu can see is the floor around himself and Mochizuki, and beyond that is oppressive, opaque darkness, impenetrable even to his demon sight. It's like someone has plucked both of them out of the world and dropped them into an abyss, with only a thin sliver of recognizable environment to keep them sane.
“What is this?” he asks.
“You tell me,” Mochizuki says. “This is your dream.”
Demons don't dream. Demons don't sleep at all. Which means Michikatsu has somehow passed out again, when he shouldn't have been able to. His body's failed him again.
“Caged by the limits of your biology again, Michikatsu?” Mochizuki continues. “It must feel nostalgic, after all these centuries.”
“Be quiet.” Michikatsu snaps, turning back to properly face him. “It's been impossible enough talking to your descendant.”
Mochizuki's brows lift. He tilts his head. “You haven't gotten there yet. You always never get there because you spend so much time running from yourself.” He clicks his tongue. “I don't have descendants, Michikatsu. I never had children. You know this now.”
His frown deepens. “No, I don't. How am I supposed to know that when I didn't even remember you until today?”
“I just told you. You never get there because you spend so much time running from yourself.”
“How tiring.” Michikatsu sneers. “I have to hear a Mochizuki speak in traps in the waking world, and another speak in riddles in the dead one.”
“And you have no one to blame but yourself for both.” Mochizuki huffs. “Let me put it this way, Michikatsu—do you understand why you cried when you saw that flute amidst your brother's remains?”
Michikatsu suddenly finds his throat tight. He has to drag a breath in through his teeth to respond. “What are you talking about?”
“There you go again.” Mochizuki's brows crease.
A bead of red—lit by an impossible, invisible light so as to make it stand out in the dim room—blooms on the left side of Mochizuki's throat. It glides, slowly, to the right, cutting a line across his pale, unmarked skin.
Michikatsu's mouth instantly waters. Marechi.
“I am not the disease, Michikatsu. I am simply a singular symptom,” Mochizuki continues, unbothered by the fact that the red line on his skin is quickly racing to ring around his neck, and the blood blooming out of it is pouring, pouring, pouring down into his blackened clothes. “If you were honest with yourself more, perhaps I'd haunt you less.”
But Michikatsu can't even be disturbed by how the man's talking despite the fatal injury on him. His mind can't grasp the unnatural amount of blood leaving the swordsmith's body to drench through his clothes and pool onto the floor. His six eyes fix on how the rivulets of red slowly slide down Mochizuki’s collarbone; on the inviting way the blood glistens on the man's skin; on how it seems to crawl toward him, reach for him, as it floods on the tatami.
Come, it seems to whisper; Come, it seems to tease; Come, and sate your hunger on me, Michikatsu. Come, and quench your thirst. Press your tongue to the mat and lap up the life that's bled into it; drag your horrible, needle-toothed mouth over this soft and vulnerable flesh; sink your teeth into this fragile neck and drink this bloodbag dry.
He forgets the room. Forgets the conversation. Forgets the indescribable dark around him. All he knows is the sweet, tantalizing scent of prey. His gums ache, his insides burn, his teeth pulse and writhe and squirm inside his mouth. He's hungry. He's famished.
Come! the blood beckons as it sloshes against his feet and stains his socks red. Come and glut yourself on this violence! Come and wrap your fingers around these breakable bones! Come and acquaint the hollow feeling in your belly with the fresh meat of this terrified thing! Swallow its scream down your throat as you snap your jaws around it! Hold it down as it thrashes and kicks! DRINK THIS BLOODBAG DRY!
“Get ahold of yourself, Michikatsu,” Mochizuki says above him—above him?
Michikatsu looks up, and finds that he's shoved Mochizuki down onto the floor—into the small ocean of blood that's flooded the ground. His mouth is clamped around the swordsmith's neck, forcing the man to angle his head up. When had he moved? When had he attacked?
“Rouse that pride you cherish so much," Mochizuki snaps. “You're not weak, are you?”
Michikatsu bolts right awake to a dark and empty room.
His claws dig into the hardwood below him as he sits, halfway upright, on the floor. His topmost pair of eyes quickly flits around the room—the space is massive, with polished mahogany floorboards, cream wallpapered walls, a line of windows covered in thick curtains, and a pristine ceiling. It's also not any inn he recognizes he booked.
No, of course not. He and the children found Mochizuki last night, and the swordsmith agreed to house them. Michikatsu was in a guestroom, and though he'd found bedding in one of the closets, he'd left it there and instead settled himself in the middle of the room to meditate.
He fell asleep.
This is the second time his body's shut down against his will. That's one time too many. He needs to recuperate and regain his strength, and quickly.
Mochizuki is a doctor—they could store blood for later use these days, maybe the man had access to this storage. Whatever amount he can get obviously wouldn't be enough—Michikatsu was the strongest kizuki, with strength built from four hundred years of devouring humans and demons—but it'll be something. A stopgap measure.
Unless, of course, the blood was marechi. It wouldn't be perfect, no, but marechi blood was equivalent to devouring hundreds of humans. If he could get his hands on that, get the marechi's neck between his mouth, surely—
(“Get ahold of yourself, Michikatsu.”)
Michikatsu stands, straightens his new, borrowed clothes out, and heads into the hallway to find the doctor.
The large house mostly smells of cleaning products and wood polish, so the scents of its current inhabitants stand out to Michikatsu's nose, even in its weakened state. Right across his room, he can smell the scent of charcoal wafting from under the gap of the children's door; from the first floor, he catches a woodland, earthy scent from the foxes; still below, but to the eastern side of the house, he can smell lavender with just a hint of the sharp sting of antiseptic.
He follows that scent down and finds himself heading toward the kitchen. As he nears the doorway, the sound of soft giggling and singing reaches his ears, underscored by contented murring.
“—per sempre…il sogno mio…d'amore,” comes the voice, slightly breathy and hitching as if trying not to laugh. “L'ora è fuggita, e muoio disperato…”
There, in the middle of the tiled kitchen, is Mochizuki, dressed in white pajamas and dancing around barefoot while cradling his massive, dog-sized fox in his arms. The overgrown thing has his head resting on the human's shoulder, eyes closed and tail swishing, even as he’s being spun around and tipped back and forth. Mochizuki's beaming as he waltzes around the room, turning clockwise, then counter, then skipping about. His movements don't match the somber tone of his song.
In the corner of the room are eight bowls. Seven foxes stand by them, eating; the eighth bowl looks licked clean.
“E non ho—”
Mochizuki halts as he spots Michikatsu by the doorway. His smile drops.
“Ah, buon—good morning.” He narrows his eyes. “If mornings are good to you, considering you're a demon.”
Michikatsu unimpressedly drags all six of his eyes down to look at Mochizuki's feet. Walking around bare like that on tiles in winter, the madman. “I see your lack of sense extends to flirting with poor circulation.”
“Better than flirting with absent fatherhood.” Mochizuki crouches to set the fox down.
It unfolds itself to all four legs, does a full body shake, and settles down to glare at Michikatsu. For an animal, the displeasure it communicates through its facial expressions is impressive.
“What do you want?” Mochizuki asks as he straightens. He glances over his shoulder toward one of the windows by the sink. It's still dark outside. “It's almost daybreak.”
Michikatsu hesitates for a moment; there’s something humiliating about the former Waxing One asking for stale blood—but then he remembers he doesn't actually care about Mochizuki's opinion, and so consequently, there's no ego to be lost here. “Do you have any blood in storage?”
The doctor's brows rise slightly. After a moment, he lifts a finger. “Give me a minute.” He pats the large black fox on the head as he turns to leave through the adjacent doorway. “Don't bite him, Taki-kun, he'll give you indigestion.”
The fox growls at Michikatsu briefly but otherwise makes no move to attack. Michikatsu scoffs at it and takes a seat by the circular table in the middle of the room.
Mochizuki returns a short while later, a small crate in his arms, lined with three bottles.
“I can spare you a litre and a half,” he says as he sets the crate on the table. “The rest is for my research. I don't keep a large stock of blood in the house.”
Michikatsu picks one of the bottles up for inspection—it’s a regular soda bottle, just unlabelled, and its cork had two tubes protruding out of it. Likely to make the extraction of the blood inside easier. “The fact that you had any on hand is already suspect enough.”
Mochizuki shoots him a nasty, offended look. “You asked me for it.”
“I expected you to have to go to your clinic to get it.”
“Give it back if you're going to complain, then.” Mochizuki drags the crate back and moves to snatch the transfusion bottle—
Michikatsu lifts it out of the man's reach and hooks a finger around one of the crate's handles to pull it back. “You look old enough to know how to be a good host, Mochizuki.”
“You're several centuries too old to be a poor guest, Tsugikuni-dono.” Mochizuki huffs, but backs down and leaves the bottles of blood to him. Instead, the doctor busies himself with cleaning up his foxes' food bowls as the skulk finish their breakfast and bolt out of the room. The white one remains to rub her head against the black one's side, but follows the little red ones out right after.
Taki stays and keeps glaring at Michikatsu. The demon ignores him in favor of uncorking one of the transfusion bottles.
The blood inside smells…surprisingly bearable. Michikatsu's never been desperate enough to raid transfusion supplies, so he'd expected preserved blood to at least smell old. But there's none of that sour coagulated smell here.
He tries a sip. The taste could be a bit better. It's a little saltier than normal. And cold.
“I'm surprised you're actually asking for donated blood, Tsugikuni-dono,” Mochizuki says. He's finished cleaning after his pets and is rolling his sleeves up by the sink. He turns the tap on to wash his hands. “I thought you'd be out picking some poor sod off the street.”
“It's almost daybreak.” Michikatsu eyes the windows. The sky's already a dark blue. He'll have to get up in an hour or so.
“I thought you'd hunt during the night,” Mochizuki says. “A two story height should be a light jump to you, unless being cut off from Kibutsuji weakened you more than I thought.”
“For someone with simple decency, one would think you wouldn't encourage a demon to go kill people.” Michikatsu drains the rest of the bottle in one breathless go. Awful. Best to finish the rest just as quickly—so he does, in quick succession, and sets the empty bottles back into the crate.
“Notice how I said simple decency. I never claimed to be good, and to prevent any misunderstandings in the future, I will clarify now that I am not a good person.” Mochizuki shuts the tap off and dries his hands on one of the towels hanging by the sink. “Just a decent one.”
“I've surmised that much from your disrespect of privacy.”
“Well, gods forbid a man investigate why Waxing One is looking for him, hm?” He heads to the dish rack and starts taking out a few ceramic bowls and a cutting board. “What are you planning to do about your diet, Tsugikuni-dono?”
“I'd eat you if you weren't useful.”
Mochizuki laughs as he sets his dishware on the counter and reaches up into one of the cupboards next. “Charming. You already know the price of that.”
Michikatsu leans his weight back against his seat and crosses his arms. “That measure with your colleague is still in place?”
“And will continue to be so as long as you are under my roof.” Mochizuki pulls down a small sack of rice, then a pot. “I am glad to aide strangers—or little injured foxes—in need, Tsugikuni-dono, but not twice-traitor demons.”
“Hm.” Michikatsu watches the human slowly measure and scoop rice into the pot. “How extensive is your network of contacts?”
“I've only been here for two years, so just the prefecture, a few areas on its outskirts, and some of Tokyo.” Mochizuki purses his lips as he thinks. “Ah, but my contacts have contacts in other places, it's just that I personally have never established a relationship with them.”
He hums. “And in the criminal underworld, relationships are better when forged face to face?”
Mochizuki looks up at him with that unfortunately-now-familiar exasperating alacrity. Michikatsu has never tired of anyone so fast. “You think I'm in the criminal underworld, Tsugikuni-dono?”
“Your associate Asuka made a point to describe me and the children as civilians,” Michikatsu says. “And you throw around too much money for a supposedly small-clinic doctor. You're not opposed to surveilling people; you're a little too used to paying others to do it; you are, by your own words, not a good person.” He pauses. “And you're too calm when in danger, four-century bloodline grudge or no.”
“Oh? And what do you conclude from all that?”
Patronizing little thing. Michikatsu narrows his middle pair of eyes at the man briefly. “I think you treat criminals when they're injured and they pay you not to tattle.”
Mochizuki theatrically gasps and hovers his fingers over his mouth. “Ara, Tsugikuni-dono is smart.”
“Don't insult me.”
The doctor giggles and returns to his rice-measuring. “You got close. But they don't pay me hush money, I'm in the industry—semi-retired, but I teach new medical staff how to get around an operating table.”
Michikatsu runs the new information against what he already knows. The man's clinic seems to be legitimate, so—”That hotel is a front.”
“Tsugikuni-dono is smart.”
“You say that one more time, I'll rip your tongue out.”
The doctor snickers before he packs the sack of rice back into the cupboard and moves on to washing the rice in the pot. “I didn't know you were allergic to praise. I'll refrain from appreciating your efforts, the intellectual ones especially.”
“I hope you choke on that rice and die.”
“Ah, but then who would set up a sensor network to make sure you get a head's up if someone's looking for you?”
…Michikatsu swallows down his next wish for the doctor to die horribly. “Elaborate.”
Mochizuki, seemingly finished with washing the rice, drains it and refills the pot with clean water, before setting it down on the stove. He turns the gas knob up.
“I adjusted the perimeters of when I—well, this household, now—should be alerted if there are certain behaviors around the territories I have contacts in,” he says. “If anyone is looking for anyone named Kamado, or children fitting Tanjiro and Nezuko's descriptions, or a man fitting yours, it will be reported back here.”
That was…actually useful. If Mochizuki was able to get news of the fight on Mt. Kumotori just from a whisper network, the Slayers must already know by now. While Michikatsu wasn't the attacking party, the Corps' mission was to slay any and all demons, and if they got wind that Kamado Michitaka was a demon posing as a human, they could send people to Osaka in some misled effort to ‘rescue’ the Kamado children. Being able to track if people were looking for him is beneficial. But…
“How good is your network in Tokyo?”
“You know, Tsugikuni-dono, you shouldn't expect so many answers out of me without offering any back in return.” Mochizuki moves back toward the cupboards, this time to pull down various vegetables. “That's not fair, is it?”
Michikatsu curls a hand around one of the empty transfusion bottles just to have somewhere to displace his irritation. “I'm not playing your stupid game again.”
“Haha! It's a team-building exercise, Tsugikuni-dono. You know, in the criminal underworld,” Mochizuki exaggerates, then breaks into another round of snickers; what the hell was so funny about Michikatsu calling his illicit career crowd that? “We conduct our business on a foundation of trust, believe it or not. Not because of anything altruistic or moral, of course—don’t look at me like that—but it's the trust of simple transactions; give and take. One party provides something, like money; the other provides goods or services.”
Michikatsu tilts the bottle in his hand slightly, calculating the benefits of braining Mochizuki with it, before setting it back down. The man owned the house and paid for its utilities. “And why are you bringing me into this arrangement when I'm from a different seedy underbelly?”
“Well, last night has proved we would sooner kill each other than collaborate—”
“Because of your belligerence.”
“And your distemperance,” Mochizuki swiftly tacks on. The little idiot always wants the last word in. “So, in the interest of not completely burning down the house and destabilizing whatever small semblance of grounding your niece and nephew have, we could benefit from transactional interactions, no? You trust me to provide something, I trust you to give something back, and we both trust in the fact that neither of us trust or like each other.” Mochizuki grips his hands together and shakes them once. “Build this budding friendship on the immovable foundation of our mutual hatred.”
Demons don't work together. Beyond the fact that most of the species is animalistic, and therefore highly territorial, cooperation is something Kibutsuji Muzan highly discourages. Michikatsu has never bothered to speculate on his reasons, though he certainly could—it was a moot, unbeneficial point. He didn't become a demon to philosophize on Muzan's thought processes. He became a demon to hone his sword art. And he had no plans to collaborate with other demons; he had no patience for the mindless ones, and the ones who did have all their mental faculties were insufferable, like Douma.
It has been a long time since Michikatsu had to work with someone he disliked, and he can't recall if he's ever actually worked with someone he didn't trust. For all that he couldn't stand working alongside Yoriichi and watching his brother not need the help, he did trust him, to an extent. He trusted him to be frustratingly brilliant, to be so bright it made Michikatsu grit his teeth hard enough to injure himself.
Mochizuki had measures that could easily jeopardize Michikatsu and the children’s location. At the same time, the man's vast network allowed a thread of security for their stay here. It could go either way with the man, but being able to depend on a give and take laid intentions out transparently, made things easier to expect. The doctor was still a pain in the ass, but he did seem to follow through on his promises, and was a stickler for following his set rules.
Hm. Actually, now that Michikatsu's had a bit of blood and his brain is just slightly less trying to melt down—Mochizuki loves to hide things with his words and actions. Transactional interactions were simple enough to propose, it didn't need a whole spiel about his background and his work. He sounded like he was trying to pitch something and was backing it up with evidence so Michikatsu had less reason to question it. And with the way he'd kept dragging Michikatsu into a team-building exercise, as if he were a pet needing acclimatization…
Fucking bastard.
“I should take your head off” — he turns the bottle in his hand to hold it by its neck — “for daring to train me like a dog.”
“Wahhhh.” Mochizuki dramatically sways and places both hands over his heart. “Tsugikuni-dono is catching up so fast—”
Michikatsu prepares to throw the bottle at him.
“—oi! If you want me to keep sourcing you blood, don't you dare throw that! That is a human labor of survival and science!”
Four days after the letters from the Hashira reach headquarters, a notice is sent to all active Corps members—cultivators, swordsmiths, medical staff, and kakushi included. It is delivered by both Kasugai Crow and written correspondence as follows:
- Should any non-combatant Corps member come across a demon fleeing from an unseen, non-slayer threat or suffering injury from an unseen, non-slayer threat, they are to evacuate the area immediately and not engage. Do not return for anything. Do not wait to leave. Flee the area as soon as possible.
- Should any slayer ranking lower than Kinoto come across a demon fleeing from an unseen non-slayer threat or suffering injury from an unseen non-slayer threat, they are to evacuate the area immediately. If there are civilians present, persuade and assist them in evacuating but do not engage in battle unless absolutely necessary.
- Should any cultivator come across a demon fleeing from an unseen non-slayer threat or suffering injury from an unseen non-slayer threat, they are to evacuate the area immediately. If there are any civilians present, persuade and assist them in evacuating but do not engage in battle unless absolutely necessary.
- Should non-Hashira Corps members experience the above abnormalities with a Hashira in the area, report the event to the available Hashira immediately.
- Across all Corps members: all abnormal demon behavior is to be reported immediately. If you are unsure whether a matter is abnormal or not, exercise caution and report anyway.
Rengoku Kyojuro receives the notice at home, at the same time his father's crow rouses the man from his drunken slumber with an announcement of: “EMERGENCY HASHIRA MEETING! OYAKATA-SAMA HAS CALLED FOR AN EMERGENCY HASHIRA MEETING!”
Sitting in the kitchen with Senjuro, he startles at the noise and turns, anxiety brewing in his stomach, toward the direction of his father's room. The man rarely rises early these days, sometimes even sleeping into the afternoon and only waking up to puke and buy himself another bottle of sake. Kyojuro doesn't think the man would ever hurt his crow out of irritation since it was provided for by the Corps, but…well, he never knows. He hadn't thought his father would ever descend to these depths of grief, but clearly, he was mistaken.
“EMERGENCY HASHIRA MEETING!” the crow continues in the other room. “EMERGENCY HASHIRA MEETING! OYAKATA-SAMA HAS CALLED FOR—”
“I heard ya the first time, you damn crow!”
The sound of ceramic shattering rings out, followed by the crow's squawk. “WELL, WAKE UP QUICKER, THEN!” the bird shoots back. “GET UP! GET UP! ENBASHIRA RENGOKU SHINJURO, GET YOURSELF TOGETHER AND GET UP! YOU WILL BE LATE TO THE MEETING AGAIN!”
“Stop yer damn nagging!”
Kyojuro winces. Sitting across from him, Senjuro's wide eyes flit from the doorway, then to his brother, then to the crow on his shoulder.
“I'm sure Father will be fine.” Kyojuro plasters a smile on his face. If he acts worried, Senjuro will worry too. “He just needs to get his bearings, that's all.”
“Oh…” Senjuro blinks. After a moment, he nods and returns to his food. “Okay, Aniue.”
The corners of Kyojuro's smile crumple slightly, but he fixes it as soon as he catches it. He's the older brother here. Senjuro is only a boy and is already forced to learn his way around housework, with how busy his brother and father are. The least Kyojuro can do is reassure him when their Father's moods flare—the man's not even in the room right now, he's on the other end of the house yelling.
“Do you want another bowl of miso?” Kyojuro offers as distraction. “You've got a long day of school ahead of you, you should eat more.”
“Um.” Senjuro's eyes flit around the dishes set in front of them. Kyojuro had made sure to cook plenty this morning; it was a rare day he was home to cook breakfast.
His little brother's gaze lingers on the dish of tempura at his side. Kyojuro laughs and moves it over. “You can have it, Senjuro.”
“O-oh, but Aniue—!”
“It's fine! There will be plenty of restaurants on the road, and I will have plenty of opportunities to eat tempura in them!” Kyojuro declares. “You should eat to keep your energy up, Senjuro!”
Senjuro chuckles sheepishly under his breath, but nods. Kyojuro's smile softens.
Kaname, on his shoulder, clears his throat. “Mission, Rengoku Kyojuro,” he says. “Investigate a demon attack on Mt. Kumotori.”
Kyojuro pauses halfway through bringing a cube of tofu into his mouth. Mt. Kumotori? That was a bit far from the usual areas he was assigned to.
“Two families were massacred two days before New Year's Eve,” Kaname continues. “However, a Mizunoto has already been dispatched to take care of the first attack. Your mission is to do reconnaissance on the second attack.”
“Reconnaissance?” Kyojuro's brows raise in surprise. “Isn't that usually assigned to Kakushi?”
“This is a delicate matter. Based on the damage to the surrounding area, it's possible the demon responsible for the attack was a member of the Twelve Kizuki.”
Senjuro straightens in his seat, eyes widening in alarm. “A Kizuki…!”
Kaname presses on, feathers unruffled: “However, the area has been calm these past few nights so it's assumed the demon has left. Still, to exercise caution, the mission has been given to a Kinoto instead of a Kakushi.”
That makes sense. If the demon were still around, the Kakushi would be in danger, and if they were slain, no information would make it back to the Corps. The Hashira were having an emergency meeting, and swordsmen numbers were small and constantly fluctuating, with very few able to make it past the halfway mark of the ranks. He must have been the only Kinoto available to investigate a possible Kizuki attack.
“See what you can find, if you can tell what Blood Arts were used, if you can track where the demon might have fled.”
“I see.” Kyojuro nods. “I'll head there as fast as I can.”
Kaname lets out one last caw before hopping off his shoulder and onto the windowsill.
Kyojuro's never encountered a Kizuki before, and depending on whether this was a Waxing or Waning one, the outcome of this mission was a toss up. Then again, the demon was said to have fled the area, and this was just recon…if he made sure to investigate during daylight, he should the time and space to look around undisturbed.
“Will you be okay, Aniue?” Senjuro pipes up, brows creased in worry.
Kyojuro snaps out of his thoughts; he makes sure to keep his smile on as he ruffles his brother's hair. “I'll be alright, Senjuro!” he chuckles. “It's just a recon mission. They're only sending me for the safety for the Kakushi.”
It takes him half a day—food breaks included—to run from Sakurashinmachi to Mt. Kumotori. By the time he gets to the village at the foot of the mountain, the sun is already angled far toward the West; he'll only have an hour or so of daylight for his investigation. Two hours without the possibility of demons interrupting him.
That's doable. Kyojuro didn't get to Kinoto without being able to hold his own.
He stops for a quick dinner at one of local restaurants, and while he's there, asks the patrons and the employees what they know of the attack on the mountain.
“Oh, it was a terrible thing,” the lady who'd served him his food—possibly the wife of the owner of the restaurant, says as she shakes her head. “We used to get our charcoal from the family who lived there, but something happened. I don't know what it was. It could have been an animal that wasn't able to hibernate during the winter. It nearly killed everyone.”
Ah, so there were survivors! That wasn't better, necessarily—nobody should have had to lose their life at all—but it was at least not a complete loss. And he had people he could ask about what happened. With that in mind, he presses: “Where are the survivors staying?”
“I don't know.” The woman wrings the face towel in her hands. “Kamado-san…well, Kamado Michitaka-san—you see, the father of the house had a brother who would visit every now and then, and he always stops by during New Year's Eve—Michitaka-san took Tanjiro-kun and Nezuko-chan home with him after their family passed. I don't know Michitaka-san all that well so I don't know where he lives.” She taps a finger to her chin. “I do know he arrives with a lot of merchandise sometimes, so I think he might be from a big city.”
Hm. Kyojuro doesn't have direct sources he can ask, then. But that's not too bad; all the better that the surviving family has moved away from the site of the attack. Most demons didn't care about who they ate, but some particularly sadistic ones made a point to wipe out entire bloodlines.
The rest of the people in the restaurant he talks to say much of the same: they don't know where the Kamados moved to, they don't know what attacked exactly, they just know it took out most of the family. One young man he asks, however, has an interesting tidbit to give him: the Kamado father and his brother apparently managed to chase off the demon, and both of them ran to the village clinic to get their wounds treated. The brother survived. The father succumbed to his injuries.
Which is how Kyojuro finds himself gracing the doorway of one Dr. Aihara's practice. “Good afternoon!”
Every head in the waiting area (and some a little further by the reception desk) snaps toward him in surprise. Ah, had he spoken too loudly?
“Um, y-yes?” the young lady manning the reception desk stands from her seat. The poor woman's black and blue hair is slightly askew, and shadows hang from her exhausted eyes. She glances, brows furrowed, at the sword hanging by his hip. “You'll have to get in line, sir. We're attending to a lot of people. And please don't block the doorway…”
“Of course!” Kyojuro steps inside and heads for the reception desk. If the young lady working it was on shift when the attack happened, she should have been the one to receive the Kamados.
The customer idling by the desk—another girl, this time closer to Kyojuro's age—turns away from him to address her. “Thank you for your time, Miyamai-san.”
“Of course.” Miyamai sits back with a small smile. “If…if you find Michitaka-san, could you ask him how the children are doing?”
“I will.” The girl nods. “I'll try to write.”
Miyamai sighs. “Thank you.”
The girl gives one final thankful bow, then slips by Kyojuro to leave the building. He takes her place by the reception desk.
“Hello!” he greets. “I would like to ask what you know about the attack on the mountain!”
Miyamai blinks at him. Slowly. Not like a cat does, but like someone incredibly tired and incredibly confused because of it.
“Oh, uh.” Her eyes flick toward the doorway. “Do you, um, do you know the Kamados too?”
Too? Ah, that young woman who just left was looking for a ‘Michitaka’. That was the Kamado uncle.
Another lead. Kyojuro’s smile brightens. “Not at all, but I am investigating the attack, ma'am!”
“Ah.” Miyamai nods. “I see. Well—”
Miyamai, as he'd hoped, was working the night of the attack. She can only give him the bits and pieces she witnessed when the survivors came to the clinic, but Kyojuro gets the basic shape of the event from it: earlier that day, the Kamado father and his eldest son came down for an unrelated injury; on the way back, the father noticed something wrong and sent his son back to the clinic to hide while he went to help the rest of his family; he was only able to rescue his daughter (who took the body of her youngest sibling with her, unaware he was dead—Kyojuro’s heart clenches at the thought, the poor girl…); at some point, his brother arrived and they fought the demon off, but the Kamado father, already ailing, succumbed to his exhaustion and overexertion, and left the care of his remaining children to his brother.
“It was terrible.” Miyamai's eyes are wide and distant as she stares at her desk. “Nezuko-chan…she would keep saying it was a demon, and to be honest, I don't blame her. The way Rokuta had died…”
It was a demon—but perhaps not a Kizuki if two ordinary men had been able to chase it off. Kyojuro thanks Miyamai for her time and heads up to the summit of the mountain.
Halfway through his sprint, a figure comes into view: lithe; almost as tall as him; dressed in a dark red michiyuki that covered a kimono of the same shade, with white socks and red zōri. They're walking up the mountain at an almost leisurely pace.
Then, as Kyojuro nears, they stop. Turn.
The girl's sleek, dark, pin-straight hair sways in the winter wind, nearly brushing her shoulders as it does. Flat red eyes snag onto Kyojuro's face.
Oh! It's the girl who was looking for the Kamado uncle. Kyojuro skids to a stop.
“Ojou-san!” he greets. “I am investigating the attack here on the mountain. May I have a moment of your time?”
The girl impassively gives him a once-over, before her gaze lingers on his sword. “I'm not a local,” she says. “Just visiting.”
“I understand!” Kyojuro says. “But you knew one of the victims of the attack, yes?”
Her eyes drag back up to him. “And how'd you come across that information?”
“I saw you at the clinic!” he says. “And I talked to the receptionist!”
The girl blinks. Slowly. This time the motion does look like a cat's, but a particularly unimpressed one. After a moment, she tilts her head.
“Do you often ask strangers for information on girls you don't know and then follow them when they walk into a secluded location?”
Kyojuro's brain grinds to a halt. Hold on a minute, this conversation is steering down a path he was not expecting.
“I do not!” he defends, blinking rapidly. “I am merely doing my due diligence and looking into every lead I can find!”
“I'm sure.” The girl straightens her posture. “People always have excuses to hide their ill intentions.”
This is—this is deteriorating fast.
“Ojou-san, I have been assigned to investigate the deaths of the family on this mountain,” he repeats, like that would emphasize the fact that he was not following her, and certainly didn’t plan on mugging her or anything. “From what I've heard, you knew one of the men who were attacked. I wish to speak to you about it!”
“And from what I've said, I'm not a local. I'm just visiting. I don't know anything about the attack. Why would you ask someone who wasn't even present when the event happened?”
“I was hoping you knew where the Kamado uncle lived!”
“I don't.”
…well, that's. That's that, he supposes? Kyojuro's smile twitches on one end.
The girl takes a step back, then another, then another, until she's walking backwards uphill. Kyojuro quickly scans the ground behind her in alarm—clear, but there could be rocks hidden under the snow—and speedwalks after her.
“Ojou-san, you shouldn't do that! You could trip.”
“I’m not turning my back on a strange man.”
“I am not a criminal!”
“Which is exactly what a criminal would say.”
“I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot!” Kyojuro bends at the waist in a bow. “Please forgive me for alarming you! My name is Rengoku Kyojuro! I am a member of the Demon Slayer Corps investigating a demon attack on this mountain.”
He straightens. Up ahead, the girl has stopped walking, but her apathetic expression hasn’t changed.
Then, she says: “Demons aren’t real. People really do have all kinds of excuses to hide their intentions.”
Kyojuro feels a vein on the side of his head throb from the rush of frustration. That’s—okay, alright, she’s just a clueless civilian.
“Let me start again, Ojou-san!” he says, smile tight. “I am here to investigate and stay out of your way! How is that!”
The girl stares; hopefully she’s considering his words and not committing to misunderstanding him.
Finally, she turns away. “Don’t walk behind me.”
Good enough. He’ll take it. He lets out a sigh of relief and sprints the rest of the way up the mountain. It’s still light outside, the girl should be safe even by herself under the sunlight.
The scene at the summit is…bleak. It’s been cleaned up, obviously, with the way the debris is in piles and there are graves lining one side of the property, but Kyojuro can make out the stumps of pillars, the gouges in the ground that marked where a house once stood but was torn apart. The attack here hadn’t just taken human lives, it uprooted a whole home.
And the graves at the side…some of them look small. Child-small.
He makes his way to the graves and presses his hands together, murmuring a prayer under his breath.
When he opens his eyes, the earlier girl’s red michiyuki drifts into his periphery. She scans the mess, then approaches one of the debris piles.
She’d known one of the men here. This…must be difficult, even if Kamado Michitaka survived.
“How do you know Kamado-san?” Kyojuro asks.
“I thought you were staying out of my way,” the girl says, though she doesn’t look as distressed about his presence as her words have been implying. She picks up one of the broken chunks of wood and turns it around her hand. The edges of it are jagged.
“I also said I was investigating!” Kyojuro says. “Some demons like to track down certain families, so I’m just covering my bases.”
“Hm.” The girl puts down the chunk of wood and picks up another. “He was my teacher.”
Kyojuro perks up and turns to her. “Oh? What did he teach you?”
“Martial arts,” she says. “He didn’t show up for several days, so I came to see if something was wrong.” She looks around the area, brows creasing. “And, well.”
Kyojuro glances around the remains of the house. “You still haven’t heard from him?”
“No.” She tosses the new chunk of wood she’s holding and approaches a different pile. “But he might just be helping his niece and nephew settle into their new home.”
She drifts away from him after that. Kyojuro lets her be, instead scrounging around the piles himself for any hints of a Blood Art. Unfortunately, the most he can make out of the damage is laceration marks—done, seemingly, with a talon that could be separated from a claw, since the marks were in single slashes instead of grouped one. Perhaps the demon had a barbed tail? Or multiple extendable body parts that ended with a talon.
The sky darkens while Kyojuro sifts through the mess. When it’s dark enough that the sunlight doesn’t directly touch the snow, and but still bright out enough to see, the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He looks up from the wood pile he’s crouched by.
Demons. Plenty of them, huddled around what’s still standing of the woods.
He gets to his feet and immediately scans the area for the civilian girl. She’s bent by what looks to be the remains of a stove.
“Ojou-san!” Kyojuro calls out. She turns. “There are demons nearby. Please stay close to me while I dispatch of them.”
For a moment, he worries she’s going to accuse him of criminal intentions again, but she easily nods and walks over to where he is. Her eyes drift toward the treeline, down to the ground, then up to the branches.
Kyojuro follows her line of sight—dark silhouettes leap and crawl up the tree trunks, hopping from branch to branch until they find a vantage point they’re comfortable with. He turns to his other side, and finds more of the silhouettes creeping closer, gliding on the snow, scuttling over fallen trees.
There are too many demons in the area. Too much for a place that didn’t seem to have any reported attacks before, if the locals’ ignorance to the creatures’ existence was anything to go by. Something is different about this latest attack, something that warrants this many demons flocking to the site right after.
“Ojou-san.” Kyojuro draws his sword and braces his feet. “I will have to ask you to stay right where you are.”
“Hm.” The girl sniffs. “Go ahead, then.”
Kyojuro inhales—flames lick the edges of his mouth; he shifts a foot back, bends his knees, and lunges.
Flames erupt from his sword as he blitzes through a line of demons to his right, slicing a river of fire through their necks.
The crowd of demons surround them, so he cuts through the horde in an arc, quickly circling around the civilian to keep her protected on all sides. Heads, limbs, and claws hit the snow before the demons can react; a ring of fire bursts around the civilian as a defensive barrier.
Kyojuro circles once, twice, thrice, before the demons finally register his speed and what he's doing, and leap away with snarls.
“Demon slayer!” one of them hisses; he can't quite tell which one with so many of them. “And a strong one!”
Kyojuro slides back to where the civilian is, readjusting his grip on his sword. He must have slain at least thirty of the demons just now, but the shadows huddled in the woods are thick. There's still so many of them.
“Demons!” he booms out. “What is your business here?”
The only response he gets is enraged shouts, and then the beasts are throwing themselves at him. Very well.
The first demon to reach him is a big one, at least a foot taller than him with muscles twice as big as his head. The thing is fast despite its bulky form, and it swipes at Kyojuro with its large, spike-studded hand.
Kyojuro steps into the demon's space and aims a horizontal swing at its neck.
Flame Breathing, First Form: Unknowing Fire.
His blade cleaves through the demon's throat, flames trailing its wake. Before the head can hit the ground, Kyojuro twists around the body to keep from crashing into it, and intercepts the next demons attacking.
Fourth Form: Blooming Flame Undulation.
He strikes through the nearest demon with another horizontal slash, then curves that into a vertical swing to cut through another, then another and another and another, felling demons left and right as they rush at him. Once there's a gap between the rush, and the next attacker is still quite far at the tree line, he pivots on his heel and tears through the other side of the attack with his flames.
Through it all, the civilian thankfully stays right where she is, making it easy for him to control exactly where he's defending. He dashes between points around her orbit, sword slicing through hands and feet and appendages before they can reach her. Bodies fall and turn to ash far from her feet. She doesn't move.
Then, as Kyojuro's in the middle of cutting through a demon's neck, another presence closes in on his side. This one's fast. He only has a split second—one in which his blade is still in the process of exiting through the throat it's decapitating—to turn and notice. He grits his teeth at the sight of the demon rushing with its mouth aimed toward his side. He's gonna have to take the injury and quickly retaliate—
There's a wet CRUNCH; blood and bone matter splatter all over his white haori and the snow.
Kyojuro jumps back in surprise as his sword finally slices through the demon he's killing and frees itself into the empty air. The demon that had been about to take a chunk out of his torso is headless, and hitting the ground with a loud thud as the momentum of its head getting blown off bowls the rest of its body over. Just a few paces ahead, a bloody rock has gouged a line into the ground.
A rock. The demon's head had gotten blown off by a rock?
He chances a glance over his shoulder, just for a split second, and catches the civilian still in the afterpose of a high kick. Her eyes are on the beheaded, though still alive, demon. She clicks her tongue.
“You bitch!” the demon snarls, head having already regenerated; Kyojuro turns back toward it, then has to bring up his sword to defend against three more of its brethren. In the corner of his eye, the demon gets to his feet. “I'm gonna rip—”
There's a loud clatter as the civilian stomps on the debris to her right. Bits of it fly up, and before the mess can fall, she kicks the largest one right at the demon's head—and blasts it off in a spray of gore and bone again.
“Shut up and die quietly,” the girl says as she lowers her leg. “I find your voice unpleasant.”
Kyojuro cuts through two more demons blitzing him, before finally finding ground to dig his foot down and sprint at the one the girl had injured. He slashes at its neck before it can reform—it hits the ground in a cloud of ash.
The ojou-san can kick; very hard. Extremely hard, to be able to blow a demon's head off with projectiles.
But there's no time to dwell on that as the swarm keeps pressing in around them; he keeps his eyes on the demons in front of him and focuses on swinging at their necks. Behind him, he hears another clatter, and then a rock is sailing past his head and blasting the brains out of another demon running toward him while he's occupied.
“I'm gonna eat that leg first, bitch!” He hears the demon spit as soon as its mouth regenerates. “I’m plucking this rooster-looking guy's—”
Rooster-looking?!
“—eyes out and I'm gonna rip your legs off their joints!”
In Kyojuro's periphery, the girl scoffs and, to his alarm, heads left—though thankfully only to approach another debris pile that's well within his defending distance. She picks out a chunk of wood almost the size of her head.
“What are you so angry for?” she asks, tossing the chunk once as if testing its weight. “It's not my fault you're weak.”
The demon stills—then explodes: “You little—!”
The girl throws the chunk up high, pivots on her left leg and then, as the piece of wood comes down, kicks it with her right leg—sending it rocketing toward the demon's head with the force of a train. Its head bursts open; blood sprays the ground and the demons that are rushing behind it; its body flies back from the momentum of the hit and drags through the snow deep enough to expose the earth.
That seems to scare the advancing demons on that patch of the forest into halting. Kyojuro takes advantage of their momentary stillness to sprint toward them, blade ready. The girl keeps him covered by kicking projectiles at any demons approaching him from behind.
Kyojuro takes another deep breath and puts more speed into his swings; he can't let a civilian carry the responsibility of defending him in a fight, after all.
Once he's slashed through the last demon on this side of the fight, he returns to the other side—most of the demons are fleeing, likely having decided this night was a lost cause, but that just gives him more room to attack. He cuts through those closest to the epicenter of the battle, then sprints through the forest to chase those retreating.
By the time he slays the last of the horde, the sun has fully set and the stars are out. That must have been upwards of sixty demons on that mountain; he'd almost gotten mouthfuls taken out of him with how many he had to fend off. He needed to get better, train harder; if he was going to succeed his father one day, there was no room for sloppy mistakes like that, or letting civilians cover for him.
Speaking of civilians, he rushes back to the summit to find the girl. Not only was it his duty to make sure she found shelter safely now that it was prime time for demons to be out, she'd assisted and made sure he didn't get injured. He had to thank her.
Except, when he gets there, the mountain summit is barren. There's just the fallen mass of demons turning to ash, and the wreckage of the Kamado household.
He almost wonders if he'd imagined the strange girl, until he looks around and sees the evidence of her interference: the blood sprays from when she'd taken demons’ heads off. The gouge in the snow from when that large one got plowed through it.
“She would have made a good slayer…”
Perhaps even a disciple of Flame Breathing? His tsuguko always ran away because of how difficult his training was. She looked like a hardy one.
Ah, well. Sleek, nearly shoulder-length black hair; red eyes; red michiyuki; red kimono; white socks; red zōri—he's gotta remember all of that, just in case he runs into her on the road.
Ten hours later, as the sky lightens with the glow of the oncoming sunrise, that same young girl steps into a village far from the one at the foot of Mt. Kumotori. She hadn't walked all night, of course—she’d found an inn in the village before this one and slept for seven hours, then rose and quickly began her journey here.
With the sun quickly climbing the sky, she hastens her pace and slips into another small inn, one she had already checked into two days ago and is just now returning to. She greets the owner who's going through the records at the front desk, then climbs up to the upper floor and heads for the third room from the stairs.
She ducks inside and slides the shoji door closed before any of the sunlight drifting into the hallway can settle too long into the room. No matter how powerful a demon is, after all, they are still weak to sunlight.
Rei turns and straightens her michiyuki out as she faces the figure reclining by the low table. “I've returned, Douma-sama.”
“Rei-chan.” Douma smiles. “How was your trip?”
