I woke up with a start, loud tapping on the window snapping me from my dreams. When I finally did get to sleep last night, well, this morning; it wasn't as peaceful as I hoped. There were a few times I had to wake up from a nightmare, but no matter how many times I woke up from it, it was back as soon as I closed my eyes.
Pushing myself up from the bed, I opened the window to see Mio there waiting for me with what I could only assume was an unimpressed look. "Sorry, I guess I was pretty tired. Come in, I'll get a snack from my bag." She did indeed hop into the room and onto the desk that was under the window, excited for some almonds I toasted myself. Rummaging through my bag, I paused when something caught my eyes. I tried not to linger on it more than I should, so I just pushed it aside to grab what I was looking for.
"Almonds, almonds please!" Mio cawed, flying over to perch on my shoulder.
Laughing, I put a small pile of nuts on the desk for her to eat. "Here you go, Mio. After you're done eating, you can give me whatever message you have for me." While she ate, I slowly got ready for the day. Combing my hair out of my face, I pulled what I could into a ponytail before going to put my uniform on. I sighed, pulling on my blue and purple haori before putting my black scarf over my hair. Kyojuro and Senjuro got me this haori before I had left the Rengoku Estate, not wanting to let me without some form of protection for the oncoming winter. It wasn't just for winter wear though, it was very airy during the humid summer.
Since becoming a Hashira, I started to have migraines whenever I was going to have dreams that night. I had asked Shinobu to make some medicine for headaches, and she very kindly did. Today, however, I woke up with a headache that felt like someone had pressed my temples in between their hands.
"Mission! New mission!" Mio announced, now finished with her almonds. "There's been demon activity to the north-northeast of here! Children under six years old have been going missing, most of them being young girls! Defeat the demon and save the children!"
"Alright then, I guess I should get going, right? Has there been any other Demon Slayers sent to this location?"
Mio cawed out a laugh. "Multiple kanoto and kanoe have been sent out, and no one has been able to contact them since! Now hurry!" She ordered before flying out the open window. "Thank you for the almonds!"
I finally put on my mask, throwing my bag over my shoulder and leaving the room once I made sure my bed was properly made. I wasn't too sure how far north this mission would be, since Mio didn't give me an exact location. So it seemed like aimlessly walking for a few hours was the best option for now.
"Already leaving, Naoto-san?" Hisa asked as I made my way to the large gate of the house.
"Yes, Mio came by with a mission for me. Thank you so much for the hospitality, Hisa-san." I bowed at the short lady after she performed the kiribi ceremony for my safe travels.
"Well, stay safe during your mission, then. You're always welcome to rest here when you need to."
With a final goodbye, I started my journey north. It couldn't have been past noon when I started walking, the summer sun not showing any mercy today. Granted, if I wasn't wearing a clay kitsune mask and black scarf, I would probably be a little cooler than I was. Pulling out a small fan from my bag, I started to fan myself as I walked.
After a couple hours of walking, I came across a small farming town similar to the one that I had grown up around.. Seeing a young couple walking together, I waved them down so I could talk to them.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for a town north of here that has had reports of missing children. I was hoping that you would be able to help me." I noticed that the woman looked at her partner, her grip on her paper parasol growing tighter. I noticed that there was a young child carefully strapped to her back, they couldn't be more than a couple months old.
"Oh, that town?" She softly stated, obviously nervous. "My brother lives there; it's less than a two days journey. He mentioned the disappearances, so my husband and I had been avoiding going over for a visit; for obvious reasons." She motioned to the babe over her shoulder.
I bowed my head in appreciation. "Thank you for the information, I appreciate your time." With that, I continued walking. I heard them mumble to one another, more than likely commenting on how crazy I was for wanting to go north. Deciding to ignore them, I continued my mission.
Once I had arrived to the town Mio had told me to go to, I immediately noticed the lack of liveliness; notably children. The sun was starting to set, so children could still be playing outside, maybe going home for the day for dinner, but there was almost no one. The town almost seemed depressed, no one had a smile on their face, let alone talked to one another. I felt like I could safely assume this was the location I needed to be at.
After a while, I spotted a child holding an odd doll. Looking closely at the doll, I was confused. It almost seemed like it gave off a quiet ringing, something that they obviously couldn't hear. It looked like a regular kokeshi doll, the odd thing about it being the large smear of red across her face and body. Along with the ringing, there was a gross arura around it, oily and dark. The girl with the doll was playing by herself and couldn't have been more than eight years old, not at all bothered by the fact that she was alone.
Walking over to her, she looked up at me with a smile. "Wow, look at your little doll, she's cute!" I crouched down, getting a closer look at the odd doll.
"Thanks! Her name is Akane, I found her on the roads one day and I thought she needed a home!" She excitedly told me, showing me the doll.
"I wonder why she has all that red on her face though, maybe she smudged her makeup while she was on her own."
The girl looked around, making sure no one was listening before she leaned closer to me. "Okaa-san says that I shouldn't say this, because it might scare someone, but Akane has red on her face because someone she loved was hurt really bad." She paused, seemingly listening to the doll. "She says that she doesn't like you."
"It's probably the mask, it's a little odd, isn't it?" I pointed at the mask in question. "Thank you for talking with me, young one. I'm glad that I got to meet and Akane."
"Nanami, time to come inside!" We both looked up to see a young woman calling out to the child from her house. She was pale, looking like she hadn't been able to sleep for a few days. When she spotted me, she looked more worried than she did before, which I didn't blame her. With everything that was going on, seeing a weird character with a mask was probably unsettling to her.
"Well, I hope you and Akane and have a good rest of your night! Don't worry your mother too much."
I wanted to ask the mother about the kokeshi doll and what her child said to me, but she wouldn't say a word to me. She was more than likely afraid for her child, especially with a stranger with a kitsune mask talking to her. After my failed attempts talking with her, I had explored more of the town, asking people about the disappearing children. Multiple people thought they were spirited away, others thought that Hachishakusama had kidnapped them to eat them. The only person who said that it could be a demon was an elderly man who had heard tales of demons. He said that his grandfather was a swordsmith for samurai in the past, more than likely, those samurai were Demon Slayers.
After my investigation, I decided that it was time for me to wait until nightfall.
I sat in a tree, keeping an eye on the house that Nanami went into earlier. If my hunch was correct, the doll seemed like it was the key for the demon to choose their victims. The doll seemed pretty old, almost an antique. The weird aura and ringing sound that emanated from the doll was unsettling, and it was odd that no one could feel the strange presence from it.
My thoughts must have distracted me, because the soft sound of a door closing caught my attention. Looking down, it appeared that Nanami was sneaking out of the house; following her doll.
Which was floating.
Nanami seemed to be hypnotized by the doll, staggering after it with glazed over eyes. Not to alarm the demon, I quietly followed the child from the edge of the trees that surrounded the town. If I squinted, I could almost see that same, oily aura trail in front of the doll, making it look like they were following a trail. As I continued to follow them, the ringing slowly got louder and more harsh.
I didn't want the child to get any closer to the demon than she needed to be, so I started to go ahead of her, following the ringing sound. With little effort, I saw the origin of the disgusting, oily aura. The demon looked like she was a child herself, wearing a fancy red kimono that complimented the red shadow around and under her eyes and the vertical red stripe on her bottom lip. Even if the demon looked like a child, there was no telling if she was a child or centuries old.
The demon seemed like she was using her mind to move the doll of its own volition, probably its Demon Blood Art.
"Come here, little one... It's time to play~" She sang out, her voice sickeningly sick.
"I don't think so." I mumbled to myself, putting a hand on the hilt of my sword. "Melody Breathing: First Form, Hypnotizing Melody." Twisting my body, I dived towards the demon while a lullaby came to my mind. "Hashirzoroe, hashizoroe..."
When she heard the song start, the demon jerked her head towards my direction in fear. It was obvious that she didn't expect a Demon Slayer here, and didn't hear me following the child. She jumped up from her seat, waving a hand to summon more dolls. It almost seemed like she had a doll for every child that went missing, I had counted a total of nine dolls; not including the one that Nanami had in her possession.
I easily sliced through the kokeshi dolls with my sword, the sound of metal cutting through wood giving me chills. The demon jumped back before I could slice her head off, only severing a bit of her short hair off.
"Another Demon Slayer? You'd think after killing so many of you, they would take the hint and stop sending you here to die!" She yelled, obviously rattled from almost being killed. "I should have seen you through the kokeshi dolls, so how come I didn't see anything!?"
Landing softly on the ground with the multiple kokeshi doll parts, I looked at the demon as I tilted my head. "So, your dolls are like some sort of mode of seeing through to the child's side? Interesting, I've never seen a Blood Demon Art like that before."
She didn't respond, only growling as she summoned more dolls. It seemed like she didn't have experience with a Demon Slayer before, because the sound she gave off was one of a scared child. I almost felt bad for killing her.
"Melody Breathing: Fifth Form, Koto and Shakuhachi Duet." With sharp movements, I quickly inched closer to the demon, this time, my blade met her neck. The demon's head flew off, her body faltering for a moment before falling to the ground. When the sound of burning flesh didn't hit my ears, I looked around carefully. Usually demon corpses would start to burn away as soon as they were decapitated, however this demon seemed to be hanging around. Upon taking a closer look, the demon I had killed looked like a doll itself; her kimono sleeves hid the ball joints of her elbows and wrists. Her delicate fingers started to twitch, making me jump back in caution.
The demon started to laugh, the sound bouncing off the trees. "Did you really think you could win that easily?" The demon doll started to get up from the ground, her movements very jerky and odd. The sound of mechanical clicking started to echo around me. "I will commend you for actually touching my doll, your little friends weren't able to even figure out the connection between me and the kokeshi dolls!"
Making my breathing become silent, I focused my hearing on the forest surrounding me. More sounds of dolls similar to the one I had decapitated, more coming from the shadows. "This is as far as you're going to get!" I caught the odd, oily aura trailing deeper into the forest to my left. If my assumption was correct, that would be the way to the main demon.
"Melody Breathing: Third Form, Deafening Whistle." With precision, I launched myself towards the odd trail while I whistled loudly. The dolls were completely unable to keep up with the speed I was going, the high pitched whistle making them falter. "Even with all the dolls you have, the sounds of them moving could never hide the disgusting sound of a demon existing." Seeing the demon come into view, I adjusted my grip on my sword while she looked at me in fear.
With one swipe, I successfully beheaded the demon; the gross sounds of her existence starting to fade. I flicked my sword before putting it away, looking down at the disintegrating demon. Once she had completely disappeared, I started to walk back to where the child should be. Nanami seemed to be be asleep, more or less collapsed on the ground with her kokeshi doll. Taking a closer look at the doll, the odd red smears were gone, making her look like a normal doll again.
I picked her up from the ground, making sure I didn't wake her. It didn't take too long for me to start to hear sounds of footsteps coming my way. "Nanami?!" Her mother yelled out, sounding like she was already crying.
"She's over this way!" I called out, seeing the mother come out of the bushes with a lit lantern. When she saw the child I was holding, her shoulders slumped in relief. "She wandered into the woods with her doll, but she should be fine, along with the rest of your village. The demon behind this has been killed, but just to be safe, I can have some wisteria candles and incense delivered for everyone to put in their houses. Demons tend to avoid wisteria flowers and anything related to it."
"Demons? So Hikaru-ojii-san's comments of the missing children being a demon was actually real?" She asked ask she took her daughter from me, looking at me with fear.
"Sadly, yes, but if something like this happens again, someone will come back and help once again." I bowed. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way."
The mother grabbed the sleeve of my haori. "Wait, please! You can stay at my house for the night and have breakfast in the morning, as a 'thank you' for saving my child." It was glaringly obvious that she wasn't going to let me go without her showing her gratitude.
"Well, it would be easier for me to travel during the day, since it'll be safer. Thank you so much for the offer, miss."
Once it was morning, the mother of the child, who introduced herself as Sakuya, had made me enough umeboshi onigiri to last me more than a few days. She wouldn't let me leave half for her and Nanami, so I had begrudgingly left with the whole bath of onigiri she made. Sakuya said that I was able to visit anytime, and that she would tell the other townspeople about the new lack of demon in the forest.
"New mission! New mission!" Mio cawed from above me, making me wince at the sound. It seemed like a migraine was crawling its way towards me, and her harsh screaming wasn't helping that at all. Reaching into my bag, I grabbed more toasted almonds for her as she started to descend to land on my shoulder for treats.
"I'm assuming you already delivered the results of this last mission to Oyakata-sama, correct?"
She nodded her head excitedly while she waited for her almonds. "Good work, Naoto!" While we continued to walk, she took her sweet time eating her treat from my shoulder. While she was eating her almonds, I started to hum to myself like I usually did while traveling. I was lucky that Shinobu wasn't here to make fun of my little habit.
"New mission! New mission!" Mio announced again, now finished with her almonds. Now that she was done, I sighed as I tried my best to listen to what she was telling me.
Just another day as a Demon Slayer.
**Taisho Secret!**
Naoto's favorite animal is a dog, specifically the Shiba Inu. Even if they scream a lot, he feels like he can relate to them, since he would also scream at everything if he didn't get strange looks from onlookers. The first time he had met a Shiba was one of his first few missions when he joined the Corps. The dog had taken quite the liking to Naoto after he found his master, who was kidnapped by a demon during the night.