Chapter 2

"Pause it there please." Cana requested loudly, and Mira did just that, grabbing the remote control and pausing the projector. Nodding her head in gratitude to the white haired model, Cana then grabbed the barrel of beer next to her, which she had left untouched since the massacre of Tanjiro and Nezuko's family, and drank the whole thing in one go.

Everyone watched her, but no one made a comment about it, feeling the need for something heavy to swallow everything that they just saw too as a heavy atmosphere fell over them, causing the whole guild for the first time in a very long time to become dead silent. Even ones like Natsu and his Exceed Happy couldn't speak a word as they sat staring at the scene before them.

"Are you sure that it really is a recording and not some kind of horror movie?" It was Laxus who asked that question, looking at Natsu and his team who were sitting together, though no one wanted to question why he would think that because of the look he was having on his face. It appeared that the lightning dragon slayer was just as shocked as they were.

"I hate horror movies." Bickslow murmured, but everyone could hear him quite clearly, with Natsu nodding his head repeatedly in agreement.

"I… I don't know. Our client did say that it was the recording of his life work." Lucy shook her head and answered Laxus' question "He didn't mention anything about… about all that."

"Master, should we continue?" Erza asked, looking at their guild's master, the wisest of them all who had a thoughtful look on his face as he sat on the bar with his arms crossing on his chest. Anyone could tell just by looking at Erza that the red haired Titania wished to continue watching and see what's going to happen next to the Kamado siblings, but at the same time, she couldn't help but have a feeling that what's about to come was something not everyone in the guild could stomach.

And quite frankly, many members of Fairy Tail were having the same feeling as Erza.

"Let's continue." Makarov spoke up after a long minute of making his decision, nodding his head to Mira. "Your client… that man did say that he wanted us to see that even in the darkest time, there's hope, did he not?" Lucy and Gray nodded their heads once in confirmation, while Natsu did so repeatedly, remembering the words that their client had told them before they took their leaves from his home. "Let's see if he's really telling the truth."

"I will continue now, everyone." Mira announced and pressed the play button on the remote control to continue the recording. For the next fifteen minutes, Fairy Tail watched as the Kamado siblings traveled together to Mt. Sagiri, though their journey was halted several times because Nezuko couldn't travel during the day. Unfortunately for them, however, Tanjiro came across a farmer at a local farm and bought a basket to carry Nezuko in the daytime under sunlight.

"But isn't that basket a bit too small though?" Macao couldn't help but ask as he and everyone watched Tanjiro making his way back to the cave where he had left his sister to prevent her from getting exposed to sunlight.

"She grew older and became an adult while fighting Tanjiro earlier, maybe she could shrink down and get smaller for him to carry in that basket?" Mira pointed out, reminding him and everyone of Nezuko's ability, making them all nod their heads in understanding.

"That's true though."

"Nezuko?" Tanjiro called out as he arrived at the cave and kneeled down to poke his head into it. However, his eyes widened in surprise when he looked inside and couldn't see his sister anywhere "Huh? Nezuko? She's gone!"

"She couldn't have left, could she?" Wendy asked worriedly.

"I highly doubted that. The demons of this world's greatest weakness appear to be sunlight, and Tanjiro hasn't left that long. Nezuko couldn't have left that cave herself." Erza shook her head and told the young sky dragon slayer.

Just when Tanjiro was about to rush inside to find his sister, the red-haired young man noticed the hole on the farthest end of the cave, before seeing his sister's head poking out from it, looking quite uncomfortable.

"Ah, so she dug a hole. She must be that afraid of sunlight then." One of the older members of Fairy Tail acknowledge, because while the inside of the cave wasn't completely pitch black, there's still enough sunlight shining into it to light it up a little.

"Wait there for a second!" With that said, Tanjiro proceeded to cut the bamboo and use it along with the straw to cover the hole on the basket that he had forcefully bought from that farmer.

Once done, he crawled into the cave and kneeled down before his sister, blocking the sunlight as much as he could with his own body before asking Nezuko

"Can you fit inside this?" He asked, pointing his hand at the basket while showing her the inside "I want to keep moving during the day, too. I'll carry you, okay?"

Nezuko simply blinked at him, before she climbed out of the hole and tried to crawl into the basket. However, she could only get her head and about half of her chest in.

The mage of Fairy Tail couldn't help but laugh softly in amusement at the scene. It was somewhat refreshing considering what they had seen just a moment ago.

At the same time, however, they couldn't help but admire Tanjiro's strength and his love for his sister. The young man had just lost many of his siblings and his mother, and yet he's still smiling and being strong for Nezuko, and tried to help her as much as he could. They doubted that they would have the same strength to keep moving forward so soon just like him if they ever lost someone that they dearly loved.

Mira knew this better than anyone, having lost her sister once and turning into a wreck for a very long time.

"Ah, I think it's too small?" Tanjiro thought out loud, before smiling and thinking about how much she had grown, before he suddenly remembered what happened earlier and wasted no time to tell his sister "Oh, Nezuko, do you remember how you became big like an adult earlier? Do you think you can do the opposite? Get smaller?"

"Is it just me or she's a bit slow now?" Wakaba spoke his thoughts out loud, though many members of the guild had already noticed how Nezuko barely responded to her brother's words and requests, even though she seemed to be still listening to him.

"It must be the side effect of becoming a demon." It was Mira who answered his question, though she wasn't quite sure herself. She remembered getting stronger after taking on her first demon, but the demon of their world appeared to have many differences to the ones that she had met in her life.

Though she also had a theory in mind, remembering the words of the demon slayer swordsman that had tried to kill Nezuko earlier.

"Smaller, Nezuko! Get smaller!"

Tanjiro then chanted as he patted his sister in the back, as Nezuko pushed forward until she was able to flip the basket upwards and began to climb inside it, her lower body starting to get smaller before she eventually became as small as a four to five year old child, making her pink kimono look like a large blanket wrapping around her body now.

"Wow, that power of hers sure is handy." Gray said with a chuckle.

"She's so cute!" The girls squealed in delight at the sight of the young Nezuko sitting inside the basket, while the boys couldn't help but nod their heads in agreement. Her emotionless expression seemed to only add into her overall cuteness.

"How amazing!" Tanjiro said happily as he patted her head. "You were good, Nezuko!"

Nezuko simply smiled at her brother before he put the lid over the basket and covered it entirely with a blanket so no sunlight could get inside of it.

"Alright, off we go!"

With those words, Tanjiro crawled out of the cave with the basket, which he made sure to secure firmly on his back once he was outside before continuing his journey, stopping multiple times to check if Nezuko was comfortable inside. Having seen him carrying a basket full of coals down the mountain earlier, the mage of Fairy Tail was not surprised to see the young man seemingly having no difficulty traveling long distances on foot while carrying his sister on his back.

"Ah, in order to reach the slopes of Sagiri mountain you must first pass through this forest." A woman with a child standing at her side told Tanjiro, telling him the direction to Mt Sagiri "But the sun will be setting soon. Do you really want to go there while carrying such large luggage?" The woman asked in concern, but Tanjiro simply shook his head before bowing.

"Thank you very much." And with that, the dark red-haired young man turned on his heels and continued his journey, walking toward the direction the woman had shown him.

"Recently, many people have been missing mysteriously. Don't get lost!" Tanjiro turned around and nodded his head in understanding to the woman before waving her and her child goodbye.

"Oi oi, what the hell is with that warning?" Gray asked in disbelief. "And why is he still walking toward that direction?"

"I don't think he wants to stop right now and there is another path for him to take." Makarov pointed out while rubbing his chin thoughtfully "Remember that Nezuko is a demon who is afraid of sunlight, so night time is arguably the best time for them to travel. Not to mention that if he stops now and takes shelter in someone's house, he will have to explain to them why he is carrying his little sister in a wrapped basket."

"She could be exposed as a demon." Mira shook her head and continued the third master's word, making him nod his head in confirmation. If that happened, then Tanjiro might very well have chosen to protect his sister and have to fight another human, which was probably the last thing that he wanted to do.

Eventually, night came, and Tanjiro finally allowed Nezuko to get out of the basket to walk together with him on a path that allowed them to safely travel through the forest.

Now that they knew there was an imminent threat in Tanjiro and Nezuko's world that would come out at night time, the mage of fairy tail couldn't help but feel worried for them two. They were walking through a dark forest together, with nothing to defend themselves beside the axe that the older Kamado was carrying in his hand, though they doubted that it would come in handy in a fight against a demon that would not hesitate to kill him like Nezuko did.

"There's a temple over there." Tanjiro said as he saw some light. "There's light leaking through, so someone must be there. Let's check it out."

"Ugh… I really don't like the look of that." Natsu couldn't help but say with a shudder, having become familiar with scenes like this in horror movies. The fact that this was real life made it look even scarier than usual.

"A temple in the middle of the forest? Why would someone build a place like that all alone with no one around them while demons are running around?" Lucy added in confusion.

As the Kamado siblings approached the temple, Tanjiro suddenly froze when a certain smell entered his nostrils.

"I smell blood! Someone must've gotten hurt!" He said before grabbing Nezuko's hand and running towards the temple.

Once again, the atmosphere in the guild grew tense and heavy, as the mage of Fairy Tail watched the scene in total silence. They understood why Tanjiro would want to help the people in the temple; all of them would do the same thing if they were in his shoes, but at the same time, they had a feeling that what Tanjiro was about to find out in that place wasn't something he would want to see.

"Are you all right?" Tanjiro asked hurriedly after running up the stairs of the temple with Nezuko and yanking the door open with both hands.

The look that was shown on his face right at that moment was a clear proof for everyone to realize that the young man had wished he hadn't done that, and what they were afraid the most had happened and was about to be shown.

The inside the temple, which was illuminated by a small, lone candle, was drenched in blood, as three men laid dead inside, two of whom were laying on top of each other, while a fourth person with shoulder length green hair was squatting over the last one, munching on his hand while blood was flowing down the floor.

Mira shot her hands up and covered her mouth in shock, as the rest of the guild watched on in horror. The scene that the Kamado siblings and in turn, them, were witnessing was something that they would never expect to see even in their worst nightmares. Some felt sick in the stomach, and some even had to run into the bathroom to vomit.

"What do you want?" The man eating demon asked, as he slowly looked at Tanjiro and Nezuko, whose mouth was salivating despite the look of shock on her face as she looked at the bodies piling on top of each other, and breathed in the stench of their blood. "This place is mine, if you think about taking it, I'll make you pay!"

"Oh no, Nezuko-chan…" Mira spoke up worriedly, being one of the only few people who had noticed Nezuki's state before the scene switched over to the man eating demon, which had become the concern of the majority of the guild. "Please resist it." She prayed, but Nezuko seemed visibly shaken at the sight before her, not because she was afraid of it, but because of how much she was wanting it.

'A man-eating demon!' Tanjiro's mind processed, frozen at the scene in front of him, not even realizing that the basket that he was carrying with only one strap had fallen off his shoulder and landed heavily on the floor behind him.

"Hmmm, something doesn't feel right about you." The demon then said as he licked the blood off his fingers. "Are you two humans?" With that asked, he then stood up and glared directly at the siblings.

"Get the hell away from them, you fucking shit!" Natsu roared, his fists catching fire as he glared angrily at the demon on the screen. At this point, however, no one was bothered with stopping him from unleashing his flame, as they were all too worried for the Kamado siblings to want to take their eyes off the screen.

With a blow of the wind, the candle was blown off. Perhaps it was the extremely fast movement of the demon, as it shot forward and lunged at Tanjiro, tackling the young man faster than he could react out of the temple, with so much force and speed that the door itself was blown apart by him.

"Damn, he's fast." Jet said in surprise. While the demon was nowhere near as fast as him or some of the enemies he had faced in the past few years while acting as a mage of Fairy Tail, he's still so much faster than a normal human. And judging by the fact that the door of the temple was blown off, he wasn't only fast but he appeared to be quite strong too.

Raising his hand, the demon prepared to impale Tanjiro through the chest and kill him, but the dark red haired boy reacted by grabbing the axe he kept at his hip and swinging it at the demon's neck, cutting it and making it release him to jump back.

"Hell yeah! You show that demon, Tanjiro!"

Natsu cheered along with Happy, looking relieved just like many of his guildmates. Makarov and a few others, meanwhile, didn't believe that Tanjiro had delivered the killing blow on the demon, as it seemed to land easily on its feet while glaring at Tanjiro, who skidded backwards several steps. His attack just now with his axe would mortally wound a normal human, but beside the bleeding the demon did not look like it was seriously hurt.

"An axe, huh? Not bad." The demon spoke with a chuckle, bringing a hand over the wound on his neck. "But a scratch like this…would heal in no time at all." Just as he said that, the wound closed.

"That is some ridiculous regeneration ability." Gray stated in shock. He had fought against a few demons in his life, but none had the power to heal from a deep would in mere seconds like that.

"Then how do you kill something like that without sunlight?"

"You cut its head off." Erza answered the question, sending a shiver down everyone's spine "The demon slayer swordsman from earlier intended to cut Nezuko's head off. Quite possibly it is the only other way to kill these demons."

"See that? The bleeding stopped already." The demon spoke as he looked up and grinned maniacally at Tanjiro, who had a look of bewilderment on his face as he struggled to stand up with how much his body was shaking. The demon, however, did not allow him the chance again, and he disappeared from Tanjiro's sight by leaping into the air, before coming down at the red-haired boy with a powerful tackle, pushing him down onto his back and grabbing his neck.

"I'm gonna snap your neck! You are not gonna get me twice!"

Before he could do just that, however, Nezuko snapped herself out of her frozen state and ran at the demon, who only had enough time to turn his head up to look at her before she kicked him right in the head, decapitating him from the sheer strength behind the blow alone.

"GAAHHH!" Natsu, Gray and Happy cried out at the same time with their hands in the air, looking more dramatically shocked than ever by what just happened.

"Ugh… I am gonna be sick." Macao spoke weakly, as he fell to his knees while clutching his stomach. The gruesome scene from before, and now the sight of a decapitated body… it was too much for his stomach to handle. He really shouldn't have drunk all those beers.

"She's so strong." Lisanna whispered in amazement, while Mira couldn't help but smile proudly at the younger Kamado.

"Huh? Eh?!" Tanjiro gasped in surprise, as he stared in shock at the body of the demon before hurriedly pushing it off of him 'wow- so she killed him.' The boy thought, looking at his sister in a mix of shock and awe.

"Way too go, Nezu… EHHHH!" Happy cried out in shock, when the demon's headless body of the demon lying on the ground started moving and rising on its own to reach for Tanjiro. Nezuko, however, did not allow it to do that, and kicked the headless body as it tried to reach for him again, sending it flying and crashing against a tree.

"That thing is still alive?!" Natsu asked in shock.

"So decapitating alone isn't enough." Erza stated worriedly while biting the spoon she had unconsciously picked up and brought to her lips, trying to recall if there was any difference in the way the demon slayer swordsman had tried to cut Nezuko's head off. She was a hundred percent sure that he looked like he knew what he was doing, and he was certain a clean cut would be enough to kill Nezuko. Was it because this demon was unique like that? Or was it his sword that made the major difference?

"You bastards!" Adding to the already surreal sight, the head of the demon rolled around and screamed at them.

"GAHHHH!" Natsu, Gray and Happy cried out once again, and this time, they were joined by many guildmates, as they all looked at the head on the screen in shock. "THAT THING CAN TALK!?"

"Well… uh… if the body is still alive, then obviously the head is too, right?" Lucy pointed out with a forced chuckle.

"So one of you is a demon after all?" The demon's head continued to scream at the two of them "No wonder the smell is so strange. Why is a demon hanging around with a human?"

'It's talking!' Tanjiro yelled in his mind, but he didn't have time to make sense of it as the body got up again and ran towards Nezuko, hitting her away.

"Stop it!" The red haired boy yelled, grabbing the axe and rushing to his sister's aid. Just before he could do anythimg, however, the head of the demon suddenly lunged at him, having grown two large arms similar to those of his body from the side of his head and used them to move.

"GAAHHHHH!" For the third time, the trio of Natsu Team cried out in shock at what they were seeing. They had fought enemies with multiple hands before, but it was their first time seeing one with arms coming out of the sides of their heads like the one Tanjiro was fighting.

Reacting to the attack, Tanjiro swung his weapon at the lunging head and was able to stop it, as it had to bite its razor sharp teeth down the sharp edge of his ax. The head, however, seemed to have no problem holding Tanjiro back from sending the ax through his mouth with just its teeth, and used its new set of arms to the young man's shoulders, smirking all the while.

"Nezuko!" He called out, trying to call out for his sister, who couldn't answer as the headless body continued to hit her until it grabbed by the collar of her kimono and threw her into the darkness of the forest. "Nezuko!"

Tanjiro shouted after his sister, but was forced to turn back when he felt something coiling around his arms and widened his eyes when he saw that the hair on the demon's head grew and moved to ensnare the axe and him, all the while still smiling maniacally at the red haired boy.

"Oh no, he's trapped!" Mira spoke up worriedly, fearing for both Nezuko and her brother. She knew because of her surprisingly impressive strength as a demon, Nezuko could defend herself, but her brother was being left in a vulnerable state against that demon, who seemed to have no trouble dealing with him despite having no body.

"Get out of my way!"

To everyone's shock and amazement, just when they thought that Tanjiro could not escape from his current position, the boy reeled his head back, and then swung it forward, head-butting the demon so hard on its forehead that its face twisted in an expression of pain before being forced to release the blade of Tanjiro's ax while crying out loudly in a mix of pain and surprise.

"What the…?" As relieved as they were, the mage of Fairy Tail couldn't help but gasp in shock, and awe, at Tanjiro, who then grabbed the bodyless head of the demon and head-butted him again, this time even harder than before. "Oh wow…"

"Now that's a man's move." Elfman smirked, nodding his head at Tanjiro in approval. "You have my respect, Tanjiro." Moreover, not only did the young man appear to have hurt the demon with his headbutt, but he also seemed to be completely unfazed by the counterforce of his attack. It was as if Tanjiro had a head made out of rock itself.

Seeing his chance, Tanjiro did not waste any time to swing his axe at the head, throwing it at a faraway tree, making it fly while spinning in the air before imbedding itself into its trunk, pinning the demon firmly against it with no chance of breaking out.

"YEAH!" Fairy Tail cheered for Tanjiro, feeling amazed at the young man's resourcefulness as well as relief for him.

"Now go save your sister!" Elfman spoke up along with everyone else.

And Tanjiro did just that, not even pausing to celebrate as he turned on his heels and ran toward the direction Nezuko and the body had gone.

"Nezuko! Where are you?!" Tanjiro shouted, hoping his sister would hear him while using his keen scent of smell to find his sister. It did not take long, however, for the young man to find them at a cliff, where the body of the demon was trying to kick his sister off.

"Nezuko!" He called out, running towards them. "Leave her alone!" Tanjiro yelled, tackling the body.

"NOO!" The mage of Fairy Tail cried out simultaneously, their happiness disappearing almost as soon as it had come for them.

"Ah!"

Luckily for him, Nezuko shot her hand down and managed to grab him from the back of his shirt before he could fall with the demon's body, which then crashed on the ground and turned into a pile of blood and crushed meat.

A few members of Fairy Tail had to look away from such a sight, though those who stayed were able to see Nezuko pulling her brother up, stumbling down in their seats while sighing longingly in relief.

"Oh man… I don't think my old heart can take any more of this shit." Wakaba said as he lighted up his cigarette and took a deep breath from it, shuddering at the rollercoaster of emotions that he had just gone through.

"That was really scary." Lisanna nodded her head in agreement as Elfman put his large hand on her shoulder comfortingly "I am so happy that Tanjiro-kun and Nezuko-chan have each other's back like that, and I am glad that it's over."

"There's still one more thing that needs to be done though." Erza pointed out, and many immediately understood what she meant.

After checking to make sure that there was no serious wound on his sister beside a few bruises from being attacked by the demon, which soon faded away thank to her regeneration ability, the two made their way back to the temple, and it did not take it long for them to get there, finding out that demon's head was still trapped between the ax and the tree where he had left it.

'If I just leave him here, he could break free and kill more people.'

"That's true, young man." Makarov nodded his head in agreement at Tanjiro's thought, however, there was another question in his mind that he would like to see the answer to, and how his guild would react to it.

The boy thought, letting go of his sister's hand and grabbing a sheathed knife from his pocket.

"He is… he is going to kill it." Wendy asked nervously, and the words that had just come out of her mouth wasn't a question. Deep down, she was just like everyone else. She knew that the demon couldn't just be left like that, and the only way for Tanjiro to prevent it from escaping and possibly killing more people to eat was to kill it.

"He has to… right?" Lucy asked nervously, clutching her shirt as she looked at the scene "There's really no other way." Beside her, Natsu nodded his head in agreement, but at the same time, he couldn't help but feel rather uncomfortable about it.

'Are there a lot of demons out there?' Tanjiro continued to wonder, as he held the knife forward while looking nervously at the head. 'But the scent in the house isn't the same as yours, it was a different demon.'

"Eh? Then he did not kill those men?" Gray asked in surprise.

"What do you think, Gray?" Makarov asked, looking at the ice mage who turned to him with his eyes widening in surprise "Do you think Tanjiro should kill that demon now, despite knowing that it wasn't him who killed those poor people?"

"I…" Gray gritted his teeth, looking quite taken aback by the question the guild master had asked him "I… I don't know." He shook his head, and his question basically summed up the feeling everyone in the guild was feeling as they watched Tanjiro taking another step closer to the head.

"But even so… I have to finish him off. If I don't kill him, he'll attack other people and eat them!" Tanjiro spoke, more to himself than his sister who looked completely dazed out as usual. The young man was breathing hard, but it wasn't because of the struggle against the head that he had earlier, nor was it the run to look for his sister...

he was breathing hard because he understood the weight of what he was about to do.

"I gotta do it! Do it! Do it, do it, do-!"

But before Tanjiro could put the knife through the demon's head, a hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder and caused him to snap around in surprise. The mage of Fairy Tial was surprised and quite shocked at that, no one more so than Natsu himself, who had watched too many horror movies to know that a hand suddenly appearing out of nowhere was something that had to be demonic and related to ghosts.

"You can't finish him off with that." A male, hoarse voice said, coming from behind a red mask with a very long nose.

"Alright, Mira-chan, can you pause the screen right there?" Makarov requested, looking at Mira who nodded her head and did just that.


End of Chapter 2


Note: And that's the end of this chapter guys! I hope that you guys have had a great time reading this chapter. Sorry for taking such a long time to publish this. I actually wanted to send it up earlier, but my mother got covid so I had to return home to take care of her. She's feeling much better now.

So yeah, just like the first chapter, this chapter is sponsored by a patron of mine, and it was up and available for reading much earlier on my p/atreon than here (it will continue to be there in the situation that this story got taken down here).

But yep, that will be all. Once again, I hope that everyone has had a great time reading this chapter. Remember to leave a review once you have finished reading the chapter, and feel free to check out my on p/atreon for early chapters and smutty goodness and join my discord community. All of your supports would be much appreciated.

See you in the next chapter!