DISCLAIMER: Kimetsu no Yaiba belongs to Koyoharu Gotouge

Genre: Adventure, Hurt/Comfort

(A/N) Tsuyoku~ Nareru~ riyuu wo shitta~ Chapter one was a verbal vomit, don't expect more 3,000 worded chapters because I need to salvage what I already wrote because I procrastinate till' my grave… I wonder if you can procrastinate your death, for me it's probably possible (I am not funny). Enjoy my jarringly-short-compared-to-the-first-chapter-chapter-two!

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Previously...

Tanjiro would be safe at home…. Nezuko felt her eyelids drop as she slipped to unconsciousness.

A shadow of a laughing soul

To Unfeeling Death it's sold

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When Nezuko woke up, the sun was barely up. Light shone bleakly through the windows as she got up, it felt strange to not feel the usual warmth that Tanjiro would wake up early to make.

I should thank Saburo-san by warming up his house! Nezuko thought, pulling a fire burner and stoking the hearth until she was satisfied. Her lunchbox was just where she had left it, a small square of purple and white. It should still be able to eat, although maybe a bit cold. Nezuko folded the futon into the closet and ignored breakfast. She took the bento and threw around a coat before leaving. And was met with a chilly gust of wind. It was less cold than last night, but much more windy. Cold gales whipped her hair around her face so she took a piece of cloth and tied it messily into a bun, it was almost as if it was trying to push her away from her house. The wind blew up snow so it was as if it was still snowing.

Then Nezuko caught something in the wind carried that wasn't snow. A thick smell of iron, almost as if the fog from the trees turned into a lead blanket.

Blood. Coming from up where she was going. Up from her house.

Nezuko ran.

All she could see was snow and all she could hear was panic drumming in her heart and her bated breaths. Please, Nezuko silently prayed. Let it just be my paranoia... But it wasn't, when she reached atop the hill, she gasped for breath. Her throat felt like it was shriveling up in thirst, her black jacket flapped in the wind like a struggling raven. And what she saw was something she can't let anyone see.

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Nezuko remembered one time when she saw Tanjiro chopping wood, his movements swift with practiced ease. It was almost mesmerizing to watch, and of course when they used his wood to cook and make a fire, Nezuko would feel safe and at bliss. Out of curiosity, she asked him how to chop wood.

"You have to make sure you position the wood correctly, if you don't then the ax would glance off and it would be dangerous." He picked up a piece of lumber and showed Nezuko how it should be placed, then he raised the ax and allowed it to fall onto the wood. His arms fluid and the wood was split into neat quadrants of wooden blocks. "If you don't balance it correctly, the wood will teeter and it would be as if the wood is confused of whether to fall or stand." He placed a hand on the wobbling log and smiled, "which is why Nezuko can put it on the straight path."

Nezuko felt like the teetering wood, not sure whether to collapse or freeze there. She stumbled over, she could see her family. So close yet so far away, too far. They were here, but also a whole other world away. Nezuko wouldn't be able to see them anymore. They are all dead.

A strangled sound escaped her lips, What had happened? Were they not just fine the other day ago? Crimson soaked the snow, leaky waterfalls dripped and flowed sluggishly into the floorboards. Tanjiro and Rokuta's bodies spilled onto the floor. Her brother's body over Rokuta and his arm circling his brother's head, his side accumulating snow like a sad, white burial.

Nezuko's eyes burned, she could almost imagine steam pouring from her hot tears. Why was she crying? Why can't she move and come over to see what happened? But what should she do? Come inside the house and see her family sprawled on the floor, dead against the wall, eyes without life? She could've spent the entire day in thought, knees locked as if she was frozen in time like the rest of her family. Half standing and half kneeling. Tears smoldered her eyes, it sent a hot sensation on her cheeks. Then she swore she saw Tanjiro's hand twitch.

It was barely a movement, like a voice that was almost inaudible. It could've easily been lost in the wind. "Niichan? Niichan!" Her voice sounded strange to her, raw and red. Her words mixed with a guttural scream she wanted to let loose. "TANJIRO!" Nezuko almost didn't hear the small gasp. The tears couldn't go through her eyes so it pounded behind her eyeballs, she felt as if her tears were beating against her eardrums. She swallowed and made a sound in a cross between a hiccup and a sob. Nezuko can't afford to cry now: she had to get Niichan to a safe place. She lifted Tanjiro up, trying to be careful with his wounds and choked back a cry when she saw Rokuta. Curled up on the bloodied snow like a small, withered rose. She focused on Tanjiro, she knew her family had moved on, only she and him are left. She has to focus and know her priorities. Find doctor, grieve later.

As Nezuko picked her brother up, firefighter style, she gripped his arm. Tanjiro's skin, once full of life, was now limp and pale. His tan had faded into something of a whitewash, even the scar on his forehead seemed to be losing its color. However, Nezuko could still feel a slight warmth under her fingertips like thawing ice. She had to keep him alive, if she could hurry to town fast enough to find a doctor then he might not be too late. She lifted him onto her shoulders and was reminded of all her sibling's little backs when they were young when she carried them. A small pressing warmth against her own. Tanjiro was usually the backbone of the family, now he was on her own backbone. A howl echoed in the mountain range like a fleeing cry.

Nezuko wanted to flee and cry too.

But no, she has to remember. Find doctor, grieve later.

Summoning her strength, she ran against the wind, tripping on her kimono and snow. Tanjiro was a lot heavier than her. Even though he didn't eat much, he still had a rather athletic

physique. Nezuko struggled to keep him on her back. She wanted to look back, maybe curl up in the blankets that her mother washed and fall asleep. Maybe this was all a nightmare and New Years Day was tomorrow. But the small breaths from Tanjiro were the only reason why she kept going, his breathing was shallow and his pulse thready and Nezuko's legs burned. Her own breath was getting ragged, she was never the one in her household to do all the muscle work. Going down the mountain, chopping wood, that was for Takeo and Tanjiro then passed to Shigeru. She blinked back the tears, silently glad that the winter wind was drying her tear ducts, she can't let her vision go blurry. Physically and metaphorically.

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So much for her original plan. It failed fantastically, right after she made it her goal to keep her eyes clear she found more weight on her back. Tanjiro, for some absolutely discouraging reason, had leaned forward. As if his original weight wasn't enough, Nezuko's knees buckled and she fell face-first into the snow. Nezuko was never curious about how snow tasted like but she tasted blood and realized that she had bit her tongue. The next thing she heard was the air whistle past her hair, and the sound of a blade slicing through the air like water. Nezuko could feel Tanjiro hugging her, then his pressure lifted almost forcibly. Nezuko panicked, was he going to run away? She reached blindly and felt something cold and soft, more flexible than snow but just as cold, her sight was bleary and her mouth felt like soggy bananas if bananas tasted like blood. Nezuko saw what she had grabbed, a strange geometric pattern of dark greens and yellow with lighter shades too. Following the seams she met the owner of the haori. A young man probably in his twenties, black hair that seemed to be in a ponytail done in the dark with his hands bound. Nezuko didn't mean to be rude but his hair really was wild and she wondered if the guy ever brushed it. If it weren't for his clean, pale face, Nezuko would've thought that he was a crazy person. His expression was like a guarded forest and his blue eyes stared at her frostily. Nezuko wasn't sure if he was annoyed or unsensitized as if he had seen this sort of scene play out in front of him numerous of times. He held Tanjiro in his left hand, restraining him by the arms as she watched her Niichan growl like a feral animal. His teeth were bared, showing fangs gleaming. Veins popped on his forehead and his eyes - his usual gentle eyes like sun-warmed cabernet were faded to a rusty color. Corrupted and polluted rust and slits for pupils that flickered around his surroundings like a broken light. Pain contorted his usually kind features and it was scary seeing him like this. Tanjiro kicked up dirty snow and jerked forward aggressively, Nezuko knew Tanjiro was strong. But the man showed no difficulty restraining him.

"And what," his eyes were like the freezing grasp of the ocean, "do you think you are doing?"

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(A/N) Bee-woop Tomioka Giyu makes his grand entrance. Not gonna lie, seeing him for the first time in episode one my heart was going doki-doki… I'm sure I'm not alone.

For the format, I still don't know how to make the line thing work because it was working yesterday but not today... Oh well. I hope when I publish it it doesn't look gross.

Last chapter I overdid it… ahahaha… it was about 3,000 something words and today's chapter-with only about a thousand six hundred words or so really is a dramatic change. Oops.

A shadow of a laughing soul. To Unfeeling Death it's sold, the "A shadow of a laughing soul" was from the English version of Gurenge by LeeandLie, the lyrics were so well translated! The fic name: Until It Blooms was also from the lyrics. Fun fact I guess.

This chapter was a bit hard to write, to make it sound real-or at least not forced; I have to put myself in Nezuko's shoes. But I never got my whole family killed by a demon, especially when Giyu came I was struggling to find the right words to put it. I have this thing where if I have to put a character in a situation that I can't relate to, I would put it in a metaphor. I found it out in Rick Riordan's writings, an author of the awesome books of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and those great stories. Also since this is Nezuko's POV and she doesn't know Giyu's name yet I resorted to "the man". Wow, so creative. I know I can call him "the blue-eyed man" or "the black-haired man" or "the haori wearer" but I don't like to do that. I feel like it just makes the descriptions a bit pushed and… in my opinion artificial…? As if the writer can't find the right words… well some people could make it work I suppose. If they can then that is great and really cool. Have a nice day.