walk steady on this cruel world's path

By: Aviantei

Part Twenty-Two:

"The First and Third Thunderbolts"

So, by some miracle, I survived my night at Headquarters, and I even made it through the next month and a half of my recovery without succumbing to assassination by any of the nine active Hashira. And with rehabilitation complete (including a strongly worded warning from Kochō to not push myself and my heart too hard again), I'd been allowed back on the front lines. I hadn't even been sent on any suicide missions. I was still paranoid that it was going to happen soon enough, though, so I hadn't quite been able to let my guard down.

And then, in the middle of summer, I'd found it. This is where they get back at me for mouthing off to Oyakata-sama, I see.

The day was hot and humid, and even the fancy fabric of my Corps uniform could only do so much to make things comfortable. But demons didn't give a shit about that sort of thing, and the nearby ocean just made the air all the muggier. The number of drowning deaths at this fishing town had reached the correct level of capital S Suspicious for the Corps to send out some Slayers. The bodies washed up on the beach with pieces bit off but not with teeth marks that matched any ocean predator just added to the urgency. So yeah, a demon, and one powerful enough that not only I had been assigned to the mission, but a gaggle of other Slayers were here as well.

"Rairi-san! We finished scouting the west side! There's some marks that indicate there might be a cave or some other hideout nearby."

Oh, and did I mention that I was the highest ranked person here and thus the leader by freaking default? I could almost hear Iguro scoffing, If you think the lower ranks need babysitters so much, you do it. Okay, so maybe I was projecting, but forgive me if this whole scenario didn't feel just the slightest bit like some sort of test.

Hinoto and above should be able to handle this sort of work indeed.

I held back my sigh and turned to the Corps member that had reported to me. All that time as a senpai at least made it possible to keep a straight face while I was supposed to be a good example or some shit. "Any signs that it might be a place where the demon's resting?"

"A few, but nothing that says so for sure. It sounds like there's all sorts of little caves and crevices on this beach, so the demon could be hiding anywhere."

And that was the sort of thing that every Demon Slayer wanted to hear. I scowled at the water, so fucking done with everything. From the sounds of it, the demon we were after was aquatic or amphibious or some shit, which put us at a distinct disadvantage when its feeding ground opened up into the entire damn ocean.

"Well make sure you add what you found to our target map so we can keep an eye on it tonight," I said, and the Corps member dashed off to Kei, the Kanoto I'd put in charge of logging possible hiding holes, her slight form bending over a map of the area with her auburn hair pulled back into a tight bun and out of the way. The girl was pretty efficient at it, including keeping track of location notes, but hell if we hadn't found an infinite list of places already. Come to think of it, we should rotate people out about now. If we're going to keep an eye on places tonight, everyone should eat and take naps so we're at all full capacity.

I pulled myself up to my feet, getting ready to let loose a Total Concentration powered shout to catch the attention of the assembled Slayers—except there was the sound of raised voices before I could even open my mouth. I turned in the direction of the disturbance, half paranoid that the demon had managed to attack despite it still being daylight out, but all I could see was a couple of Slayers standing around, one of them on the ground with a hand pressed to their face.

"What the hell did you do that for?!"

Really? Internal fighting? Give me a fucking break—

With my luck, moles had been planted in my group to start a scene to just prove that my ideas were dumb. Except when I closed the distance in a split second between where I was and the site of the argument, I knew that wasn't the case—because the person that was standing with his hand gripped tight into a fist and anger twisting up his face would never do such a thing.

"Zenitsu, what the hell's going on here?"

Since I was in charge, my arrival caused the gathered Slayers to freeze, any muttering falling silent as the mission leader descended upon the scene. Zenitsu's upset expression snapped to shock as he noticed me, and the Slayer on the ground with his dark hair kept short and swept to the side—fuck, Michi, right?—opened his mouth and said, "He just punched me out of nowhere!"

"It wasn't out of nowhere!" Zenitsu said. "Senpai, he was talking bad about Aniki—about how he can't do the first form and saying that it's going to get him killed!" I sucked in a breath at that idea. Kochō was a damn genius, and I hadn't had another nightmare since I started taking the medicine she'd made for me, but that didn't stop the memories of my previous dreams from catching up to me while I was awake, and the idea of Kaigaku just being gone was almost enough to launch me into a fresh panic.

Michi scowled despite his bruising cheek. "I don't even know what you're so upset about. If you know him at all, you should understand that he's arrogant—dying would serve the bastard right!"

"Enough."

I didn't shout, but I didn't need to, the tone of my voice enough to make everyone fall silent—and I was sure that my expression wasn't helping matters. I inhaled through my nose to steady myself and turned to face my kōhai first. "Zenitsu," I said, my voice free of inflection, "you know that it's against Corps rules to fight against other members."

Zenitsu flinched but protested, "But Senpai, he—"

"It doesn't matter, and you know better." It did matter, and Zenitsu could hear my lie without even trying. But I had to remember that I was the leader in this position and that my personal feelings didn't mean shit in the face of a mission. Zenitsu hung his head in that defeated way that I hated seeing, but I couldn't comfort him now. Instead, I turned on Michi next, his friend having helped him to his feet. "As for you, wishing death on a fellow Corps member is shameful behavior. Everyone in the Corps is risking their lives to fight demons. You should do well to remember that, since that someone you think so poorly of might one day be the person who has your back in a fight."

Michi grit his teeth, but he didn't argue back, which was good, because it was miracle enough as it was that I was holding back my anger. I cleared my throat and addressed everyone that had been watching the altercation. "Every single one of us here has a reason for being in the Demon Slayer Corps, and we're all working towards the same goal. There are far too few of us to afford us the luxury of getting to pick and choose who we get along with. Being able to work together to enhance our strength is one of the few things we humans can do that demons can't. Make sure you keep that in mind!" Satisfied enough that no one else in the crowd seemed willing to protest, I pointed at the troublemakers in succession. "Now, Zenitsu, Michi-san—the two of you are going to go pick up dinner for everyone here. You'll also be on the same lookout group tonight. Understood?"

Oh, that earned me a few gaping looks, but Zenitsu seemed to pick up that I was serious and nodded, muttering, "Yes, Senpai."

Michi was much less amicable to the suggestion. "Are you serious?" he asked. "What if he comes at me again?"

If Zenitsu of all people goes after you a second time, I'll say that you more than deserve it, I thought, swallowing the words down. "If either of you start another pointless fight, I'll make sure you both regret it. Or are you going to alienate an ally over something like this?" Michi's eyes darted away, and he kicked at the pebble-filled sand. I clapped my hands together, turning on a smile that I hoped contained at least a fraction of Kochō's terrifying undertones. "Excellent. Now, I'll provide you with the funds—" and by that I meant I had enough in personal stocks thanks to my very much unearned promotion, and I would so be asking Headquarters for reimbursement later "—so do pick up enough for everyone and make sure it's something we can eat before night falls. Everyone else, finish up your scouting, report anything new to the map, and get some rest!"

Under an order, the gathered Slayers scattered, not wanting to get caught up in my wrath. When his friend gave him a concerned look, Michi waved him off. I dug into my pockets, pulling out my wallet to pass to Zenitsu, who glanced at me with guilty eyes. "Sorry, Senpai, I—"

"Not important right now," I said, though my tone was less harsh than it had been before. Zenitsu swallowed, but he nodded, tucking my wallet away for safekeeping and giving Michi a wary glance. "Let's just make sure this mission wraps up smoothly, yeah?" Zenitsu nodded, scampering off with Michi following. "Oh, and one more thing, Michi-san." He turned back, and I beamed. "Just some food for thought from someone who's been a Demon Slayer for a while, is all. Kaigaku may be overbearing, but at least he's always putting the effort into improving and doing his work. In comparison to you, who's willing to bitch about others in the middle of a mission, which one of you would you say is the arrogant one, hm?" The color drained out of Michi's face, and I waved him off. "Now go ahead; you don't want to leave Zenitsu to take care of dinner by himself, do you?"

Michi dashed off, and I caught a glimpse of Zenitsu's smile before he turned around. With them both on their way and the rest of our party converging on the reporting station, I ran a hand down my face and sighed. Fuck, that was immature. I'd made my point more than enough earlier; I didn't have to call him out further. But I also couldn't just let him get away with saying something like that… Kaigaku will be okay, Rairi. He's already made his way to Tsuchinoe, and that's with solo missions, too. He knows how to handle himself.

But I couldn't forget that terror, the complete overwhelming presence that had been the Upper Moon Three, the way that even Rengoku-san had struggled to come out of that battle alive. And there was also the looming threat of Canon, even if nothing else as intense as Mugen Train had happened yet. If Kaigaku ever ran into an opponent like that, then even he'd—

No. Focus. Breathe. Priorities. We had a mission to take care of right here, right now, and I was in charge. It wouldn't do me any good to worry about other people if I didn't survive through this battle and bring the other Slayers under my watch with me. If I got distracted fussing about Kaigaku to the point that I got hurt, he'd never let me live it down. Food's taken care of, and everyone's reporting in. We need to set up a sleep shift, and then I gotta build a strategy for nightfall. Everyone's counting on me. Can't let them down.

My work, it seemed, was never done.

Oh so shockingly enough, the locals didn't happen to appreciate some mysterious sea monster eating their citizens, so they were pretty cooperative with the group of random strangers wielding very illegal swords taking up their beach. Hell, they even gave Zenitsu and Michi a discount on the bulky order of yakisoba they brought back. That was good news for my wallet, but the general cooperation of the populace was great for completing a larger scale operation mission like this, too. Escort missions where you had to protect unarmed civilians were an undeniable bitch.

So now we just gotta corner this demon and do our job.

A lot easier said than done when there were like six different locations that seemed like a good hiding hole for a demon during the day—and that was along the main beach alone. By now, most of the residents of this town understood that going to the ocean after dark was a bad fucking idea, so we didn't have to cover every place, just those most likely to be our target. When evening fell, everyone took up their assigned positions, while I cycled between them, checking to see if anyone had found anything.

A couple hours in with the moon half full and high, we'd managed to find jack squat.

"Any luck?" I asked for what felt like the thousandth time that night as I touched down beside the duo of Zenitsu and Michi and their lookout on where we'd found a seaside cave. It would be easy to tell if any of us Slayers got into a fight, but I would have preferred if we had the upper hand. Based on the boys' expressions, though, it didn't seem like they'd found anything.

"Nothing visible, but it's hard to see through the water in the dark," Michi said, and I held back what felt like my thousandth sigh. There was still a possibility that the demon had moved on to somewhere else or that it just wasn't going to come out to eat tonight. While the latter option was good for the safety of the town, it sure made our job much more annoying.

"Zenitsu," I said, and my kōhai's gaze turned to me, "I know it's not easy with the ocean nearby, but have you been able to hear anything?"

His brow furrowed, but Zenitsu shook his head. "Nothing yet, but I can try again." He cupped his hands around his ears to listen better, and Michi opened his mouth. I held up a hand to silence him; Zenitsu didn't need the extra distraction on top of everything else. A few minutes passed, and I was about to tell Zenitsu to keep an ear out before moving on to the next group whenever he gasped. "I think I have something! It's still weak, but it sounds like it was waking up." His body twitched, but Zenitsu glanced to me first. "Senpai—"

"Go ahead and lead the way. Don't lose track of it." Zenitsu dashed away, kicking up sand and pebbles in his wake, and I nodded to Michi. "Come on. If Zenitsu says he heard something, there's a chance we're gonna have a fight on our hands." I took off, Michi able to keep a decent enough pace with me, though it wasn't long until Zenitsu had come to a standstill atop one of the rock outcroppings a few other Slayers were in charge of watching over. "This one?"

"Yeah. I don't know if it's coming out, though. But it's down there."

Well, Zenitsu's ears were good enough of a source for me. "Alright. This was one of the caves that had a lot of water in it, if I'm remembering right." And that meant we didn't want anything to do with heading into its territory. "Okay, I need you all to gather everyone up. Five minutes, tops." We had a decent-sized force, even if there were plenty of lower ranks, so it wouldn't be that difficult assuming we could get it to fight us on even ground.

Well, if there's anything that will drag it out, I thought, making up my mind and organizing the Slayers into position. When they were all set up, I rolled up my right sleeve and drew my katana, stepping back towards the outcropping that Zenitsu had identified. The metallic yellow caught the slightest fractions of light as I poised the blade over the back of my own forearm.

It was a clean cut, one that would be easy enough to heal up with focused Total Concentration—but for now I needed it to bleed. The dark color dripped off my skin and down to the waters below, and I heard Zenitsu let out a panicked "Senpai!"

"Stay put," I said, my voice just loud enough for everyone to hear but hopefully not the demon below. "It's not that bad of a wound, and the blood might lure it out. An injury like this won't hinder me much anyways."

"But why hurt yourself to do it?" Michi asked, sounding skeptical. "If you're the highest ranked, then you have the most value—"

"Don't even." I shook my arm, scattering more blood into the water. "It's because I'm the highest ranked here that it's my job to do things like this so you all can make it through safe!" Rengoku had embodied that sort of ideal, and there was no reason that I couldn't, too—and if I was going to lecture the Hashira for how they needed to do more to take care of other Slayers, that was all the more reason. "Now stay in position, and wait—"

I heard Zenitsu's gasp first, which was a perfect warning sign, and I jumped back from the edge of the cliff as something bubbled out of the ocean, the saltwater spray coating my tongue and making my wound sting. A few breaths were all it took to slow the bleeding down, and I wiped my hand against my uniform pants before taking a stance.

"Kaminari no Kokyū—San no Kata: Shūbun Seirai!"

Rather than aiming for a kill, I was more attempting to knock the thing out of the water and onto dry land—and I kind of succeeded. The demon's upper half crashed down, its heavy weight almost decimating the cave that it had come out of. This thing was about the same size as the demon Shimizu and I had hunted down during Final Selection, except instead of a mass of distorted arms, it was a hodgepodge of different sea monsters: shark fins and jagged teeth and, naturally, fucking tentacles, the last of which was trying to drag it back down under water. I would have launched off another attack, but I was too busy to scramble for anything even resembling even footing on the now broken landscape.

But, hey, Headquarters hadn't sent me alone, had they?

"Kaminari no Kokyū—Ichi no Kata: Hekireki Issen!"

Zenitsu was a blur of yellow in the dark, and his sword carved a long gash through the demon's tentacles, causing it to let out a near deafening howl—again, what great news that the locals were cool with us! Zenitsu landed beside me, catching my arm and dragging me along to much more stable ground without missing a beat, and I gave him a smile in thanks before switching back into leader mode and issuing an order:

"Don't just stand around—take it down!"

[Author's Notes]

And this week on "Avi takes background characters with like five panels of canon content and fleshes them out." Just in case it wasn't clear, Michi is meant to be the Slayer who insults Kaigaku in Zenitsu's small reflection on Kaigaku during their fight. I, clearly, cannot be stopped.

Thanks to ILikeFoxes828, starrat, rebornandlost, kingcarl, achilles070755, Aria868, wolfman360, gg (Guest), ELeighto, emmy3612, Aerishime, huberaddy, and moonligh for the favorites, follows! We are getting ever-closer to that 300 favorite mark, and I honestly still don't know what to do with myself.

It's been a while since we've had an original demon encounter going on, so sea demon it is! With a four month gap between Mugen Train and Red Light District Arc, there's plenty of ground to cover here. Since Rairi's made a proper recovery now, they're field clear again. Thus: managing a group mission setting.

Also, I've been having a ton of fun with Hinokami Kepputan! I'm obviously maining Zenitsu, and I alternate between Shinobu and Makomo as my seconds. (Oh, I long for the day I can main Thunder Boys together, but alas...) I'm also looking forward to the DLC characters! At some point I should sit down and plan out what Rairi's and Shimizu's Training menu dialogue would be like, since that seems like fun... Are any of you playing Kepputan? If so, who are/who do you want to be your mains? What character from later in canon are you looking forward to playing?

It's time for a Taishō Era Secret! The Sea Demon in this arc was once a resident of the very town that it's now attacking. As a human, they worked as a fisher and helped run their family's business. However, one day they almost drowned and became afraid of the ocean. Muzan transformed them about a decade back, and the demon has been alternating between different coastal towns to avoid suspicion until now.

Next Time: Group fight, go!; Marechi blood is indeed a thing; and breakfast on the beach. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[10.23.2021]