Author's Note: Hiii its me again! I'm back after a while with a new story! This one's based Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba. I recently got into the series and I fell in love with it. But I noticed there were NO sickfics of it on here. So to my disappointment I thought, okay time to take matters into my own hands here! And after a few months of thinking, I got this interesting idea. And I'm aware that the manga confirms that demons can't get sick, but hey Nezuko's a unique demon so maybe she's an exception) It'll be a bit more intense than my usual fluffy fics, this one has a bit of a story arc to it. As usual I hope you enjoy and I hope I do these characters justice or get their personalities right in the writing because I've only been into this series for a couple months.
This may also be my longest fic yet. I have some plans for this one c:
Chapter 3: The trio discover Nezuko's illness is making her lose sight of herself and she ends up hurting Tanjiro due to her confusion.
Nezuko kept trying to loosen herself from Tanjiro's grip. She wanted to escape. She violently moved her whole body back in fourth making all sorts of angry growing noises.
"N-Nezuko...! Calm down!" Tanjiro said trying to settle her down. Even though she was small she still had the strength of a demon, so he was still struggling. "It's okay…!"
"Nezuko-chan…!" Zenitsu also said frantically.
All the noise caused Inosuke to stir in his sleep.
"Inosuke now's not the time to sleep, wake up!" Zenitsu said. He figured this was an emergency and everyone needed to wake up to help. "Wake up already, you stupid boar!" he yelled out.
The sleeping boar mask's snot bubble popped. "WHO YOU CALLIN' A STUPID BOAR!?" Inosuke sprang up like clockwork at the sound of the insulting call. Then turned to face the both of them, clouded vision from being half asleep.
"Nezuko calm down…!" Tanjiro continued to say to his sister.
But to no avail. Nezuko growled continuing to squirm her small yet strong body around trying to break free from Tanjiro's grasp. She then roared through her muzzle before she clung to Tanjiro out of fear gripping his shoulder like her life depended on it, sinking her small yet sharp claws through the cloth of the robe and into his skin, resulting in her drawing blood. Tanjiro was no longer wearing his protective garments at the moment, so he ended up hurt.
Tanjiro let out a pained groan as Nezuko sank her claws into him.
"Tanjiro!" Zenistu screamed in a panicked tone. "Are you okay!?"
Inosuke then woke up to the sound of all the commotion and looked over at his friends and the small girl. "Wha? What's going on? Hey Monjiro, Monitsu?! Why are you guys screaming!? Wait… I smell blood. Who's hurt!? Was there a fight?!" Inosuke kept asking questions confused by the scene before him looking around quickly like a wild animal.
"N-no… It's Nezuko…! She's not well and she's probably confused and she just…urgh!" Tanjiro wanted to finish but could feel Nezuko's claws sinking deeper in his skin causing the wound to grow deeper. "N-Nezuko… N-No…don't…" he quietly said groaning. Knowing full well the risks of this entire situation.
With quick thinking, Tanjiro fought through the pain he felt in his left shoulder and immediately pushed his sister's face into his chest with a lot of force. Nezuko tried to fight back but the high fever soon caused her to pass out again settling her movements down from her body going limp in Tanjiro arms, much to her older brother's relief.
"Waah! Tanjiro what are you doing?! She can't breathe if you do that!" Zenitsu frantically said.
"But that's the point!" Tanjiro replied. "Nezuko's never hurt a human before now, and with her claws sinking into my shoulder like this, I can't risk her catching the scent of my blood!" He continued pushing her in. "In the state she's in right now, she might end up craving it or worse!"
"Whaaaat!? Wh-What do we do then?!" Zenitsu said frantically once again.
"Hey Kentaro, she is way too weak right now." Inosuke said calmly. "She can't kill us."
"I know! That's not the point! We have to wash Nezuko's claws clean and fix up this wound before she catches the scent of any of it…" Tanjiro looked to Zenitsu. "Zenitsu, go fetch some water and a washcloth from the bathroom so we can wash her hand free of blood!"
Zenitsu nodded and immediately got up to slide open the door. Only to find the same old woman sitting by the door. She probably heard all of the commotion.
"Gentleman is there a problem?" she asked.
"WAAAH ITS THE GHOST!" Zenitsu wailed before falling to the ground due to the shock.
(Oh no, not good!) Tanjiro thought looking to her and the back to his sister.
If she finds out there's a demon here and that she hurt him who knows what could happen? The Wisteria crest homes were slaughtered by demons so they couldn't know about Nezuko and that she's not in the right state of mind right now and could hurt someone, namely her brother. Tanjiro needed to think up and excuse fast before his wound got any deeper.
"One of us fell over during our sleep and got hurt. We need some water to clean the wound please!" Tanjiro quickly said.
"Oh dear… Alright then." She said slowly walking off.
Thank god she believed that. Tanjiro sighed with relief.
"That was close…" Nezuko begun whining as she moved the claws deeper into Tanjiro in the process. He painfully groaned trying to brush it off. "Nezuko…it's okay… It'll be okay I promise…" he kept saying softly to her patting her on the back with one hand to calm his scared sister, but still forcing her face into his robe with the other to advert her demonic sense of smell.
"Tanjiro we need to get her claws out of you!" Zenitsu said looking frantic again. "The wound's gonna get worse…!"
"She was so strong before but now she's so weak…" Inosuke kept mumbling to himself looking at Nezuko through his boar mask.
"No, we need to wait for the water first!" Tanjiro said. "I can't move her hand until we can get it clean, or the smell of blood might reach her if she puts her hand down closer to her face…"
5 minutes later the bowl of water and washcloth soon arrived. Zenitsu grabbed it from her hands trying to brush his fear away of the ghoulish old woman. He had to help his beloved Nezuko, and Tanjiro too! He bowed to the woman thanking her with his eyes shut to not look her way as he turned around and slid the door in her face.
"Okay here's the water!" Zenitsu said setting it down by Tanjiro still frantic. "Now what?!"
"Okay good. I can't let her go, so I need you to grab her hand and take her claws out of my skin…" Tanjiro replied hissing at the pain a bit "…then immediately after that wash it with the water and cloth. Get all the blood off of her claws."
Zenitsu nodded before he reached for Nezuko's hand with claws imbedded in Tanjiro's shoulder. Luckily, the bleeding wasn't too severe yet. He gently grabbed the demon's small hand and tried to slowly pry it away from the injury. They were such soft, delicate hands. Hard to believe there were blood-soaked demon claws attached to them. Tanjiro winced slightly as the claws were gently removed from his shoulder and soon, they were completely out.
"Now quick, grab the wet washcloth and clean her hand! Hurry!" Tanjiro demanded.
Zenitsu did just that. He held her small dirty hand tightly with one hand and used the other to quickly grab the cloth and squeeze it before wiping her hand as quickly as he could. Nezuko moaned quietly at the feeling of cold water she could feel but her mind was still too hazy to function, so she didn't pay it much mind.
"Right…I think we're okay now!" Zenitsu said looking her hand over and any remnants of the blood on her claws and hand seemed to be gone.
Tanjiro then released his sister from the forceful pushing to his chest. She gave a raspy muffled gasp in the process as if she were taking in air after all the suffocation she probably felt. The entire time all of this happened, her eyes were still clenched shut. She was too scared to open them.
"I'm so sorry Nezuko… But it was for your own good…" he said smiling petting her head but then frowning at the heat emitting from her.
Inosuke was sitting there quietly looking at Tanjiro and Nezuko without a word. Tanjiro then set his next plan into action and turned to his boar masked colleague.
"Inosuke, I need you to look after her for me while I get this wound cleaned up…" Tanjiro said seriously. "Can you do that?"
"…Do what?" he responded. He clearly wasn't listening.
"I need you to watch over Nezuko for me." He responded. He figured Inosuke was tough enough to handle her. He then turned to face Zenitsu.
"Zenitsu, can you grab a blanket from the closet for me?" he asked.
"Why? Is it for Nezuko? She is shaking a lot." Zenitsu said.
He nodded. "It's not only to keep her warm, but to restrain her too." Tanjiro said.
"Restrain?!" he cried as he opened the closet to grab the blanket.
"Shh!" Tanjiro shushed Zenitsu as his volume was getting too loud again. "You saw what she just did to me. She's not in the right state of mind right now and that fever is probably clouding her judgement. We need to prevent her from moving her claws to accidentally hurt anyone else. So, we're wrapping her in that blanket to limit her movement to be safe."
Zenitsu just replied with a simple 'oh' before setting the blanket down in front of Tanjiro staying quiet as Tanjiro instructed Inosuke putting his feverish sister down in front of him on top of the blanket. She moaned as her body softly hit the ground and was breathing heavily, shivering.
"Inosuke I need you to wrap Nezuko in this blanket. You're strong so you can probably do it with a lot of force. I can't do it with this injury, so I'm leaving it to you. Wrap her whole body and restrain her arms. But leave her head out so she can still breathe." He instructed. "Can you do that?"
"Do what?" he repeated.
"Inosuke!" Tanjiro said angrily.
"Okay okay fine, I'll try." He replied getting ready to work as he looked down at Nezuko on the floor. "No. I can do it. Of course, I can! Anything you can do; I can do too!"
"Yeah okay, whatever you say. But just do it quietly and try not to hurt her! She's sick right now so her body is probably in pain." Tanjiro said standing up holding his shoulder. "Zenitsu, please come help me clean up this wound."
Zenitsu nodded grabbing the water and washcloth then whispered to Tanjiro as they walked to the bathroom "Are you sure you want to trust him with this?"
"Yes. I can trust him." Tanjiro said smiling. "I believe in him. He'll know what to do."
Chapter 3 is done. Yikes what a struggle it is to handle a sick and rowdy little demon. ;w;