As James and Susamaru rushed an injured Makoto on Susamaru's back to a nearby Demon Slayer safehouse in a small hamlet near the mountain, with Zenitsu refusing to go out of fear, Makoto's story of what had transpired became clearer: Four slayers had initially been sent up to the mountain two nights before on a reconnaissance mission, but had gone missing when they did not send a report through a Kasugai Crow back to the Pillars, the highest-ranked members of the corps, or to the head of the corps, a man named Kagaya Ubuyashiki. As a result, a group of five, including Makoto, had been sent up the previous evening the two of them had arrived to see what had happened, but early on, after discovering the badly deformed body of two of the four original slayers around 7 P.M., they sent a request for additional slayers and staged outside the mountain to wait for assistance.

Thirteen were ultimately notified due to the perceived severity of the request. Ten went in ahead of Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu, since they were a bit further away than the others, who were locals to the area, and Zenitsu had slowed them down a bit. The original group of five went in around 7 P.M., but did not come out. Makoto had told them that the group of ten was to enter the mountain if a Kasugai Crow was sent back to them or if they did not return by 9:30 P.M., but that he had no idea if they did.

"We all arrived around 11 P.M.," James told him as they reached the house. "And none of those ten were where we were at. You said that they should have all met at the same place we did, right? If so, they may have fallen into the same traps you guys did."

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Makoto replied upon realizing the possibility that the corps had lost 18 slayers, a horrifically high death toll for a single engagement. "Eighteen slayers at once is a massive loss. There was a Final Selection Exam not too long ago that killed 16 trainees, and we all thought that was bad. Fucking hell, the Taisho Era isn't looking good for us at all."

"That must have been the one Tanjiro took," James said to himself, remembering the story Tanjiro had told him of how he became a demon slayer. As the owner of the house walked out, wondering what was going on, James explained to him, "This Demon Slayer was badly hurt up at the mountain! There's a whole bunch more up there that are either dead or hurt as well!"

"You guys got him splinted up?" The man's wife then also emerged. Both appeared to be in their 40s, and according to Makoto earlier, the man was a former slayer and was on the list of safehouses. "What are his injuries?"

"He has two breaks in his lower left arm," Susamaru explained as she lowered him and laid him down gently on the ground. "And a break in his lower right leg. He says one of the demons in the forest of Mount Natagumo strung him up on wires of some kind."

"Alright, I'll get some notification goi-" The man then stopped as he looked at James and Susamaru with a suspicious expression. "Wait… This doesn't feel right."

Makoto pleaded with the man, "They're fine! They don't mean any harm!"

The man ignored him and drew a sword from his side. "I should have said something sooner! You two are demons!" He then turned to his wife. "Go to our crow and tell the Oyakata-sama to send some Pillars here!"

James immediately drew his revolver and aimed it at the man. "I wouldn't use that if I were you. We're here to help you, not hunt you. It would be foolish to turn away one of your own just because two demons with halfway decent morals saved his life."

"Come on," Makoto moaned as the pain continued. "Stop fighting and fucking help me! I can verify they're with us!"

The man looked to everyone on the scene, pondering what to do, before reluctantly putting his sword away. "Fine, but only because this slayer said so. Do anything funny and I'll cut your heads off. I may be retired, but I didn't forget how to fight!"

His wife asked him, "So that's a no to the message?"

"Yeah," he replied. "At least the Pillar part. Just send one saying we need some Kakushi here instead for injured and dead slayers." The Kakushi were support members of the Corps who often provided medical services, battle cleanup and investigation, delivery of goods and weapons between slayers, and non-combat detective work. He then turned back to Makoto and told him, "Don't worry about that little spat we had earlier. You're still in good hands, trust me." He turned back to James and Susamaru, asking them, "How long will it take you guys to get back to the mountain?"

"About three minutes if we hurry," James replied. "We're gonna head back up there now."

"Alright," the ex-slayer replied. "If you find any other injured slayers, bring them here."

About ten minutes later, James and Susamaru were a group of four bodies they had found together, all of them seemingly unceremoniously dumped by someone. They were unsure if they were from the first, second, or third wave of slayers who had gone up. "The second one's dead," Susamaru confirmed with some sorrow in her voice. "How about the other two?"

"Dead," James replied, downtrodden. "Makoto's prediction of a lot of deaths might have come true. Did you collect identification for them?"

"Yeah," Susamaru replied as she took her backpack off and pulled a notepad and a pencil from it. She wrote down the name of the slayers she had inspected for signs of life and then placed their identification badges issued by the corps back in their pockets. "So that's one survivor and four dead so far." She then passed the notepad to James, who also wrote his two names down and provided transcriptions of all four names in romaji as well.

"Let's pick 'em up and bring them to the entrance," James instructed her. "I don't wanna leave 'em here where they could get lost instead of bein' given back to their loved ones… If they got any of those left." He then picked up two bodies by their shirt collars and began to drag them. Susamaru did the same by spawning her four extra arms. Both of them made sure to avoid rocks or bumps so as to not further damage them. "These poor, unfortunate souls," James thought to himself. "I know from experience what must have been runnin' through their heads when they were killed in battle."

Near the mountain, two additional slayers raced towards its entrance. These two slayers, a man and a woman, bore colorful haoris and unique swords, indicating their higher status in the Corps. As they both ran to the ongoing battle on Mount Natagumo, the woman, a rather short slayer with her hair tied in a butterfly-shaped purple ornament, remarked to the other, who had long-ish black hair, "You know, the moon is beautiful, isn't it?"

"And?" The man seemed to not be fazed by her remark, and was also confused as to the context of the seemingly random quote. "I'm here to hunt demons, not look at the moon, Kocho-san."

"Whatever you say, Tomioka-san," the woman replied with a tone that seemed to give off joy, but also seemed to hide something else. "I'm here to hunt too, but I can make observations about the world around me if I want to, right?" Her smile seemed to hide a deeper meaning to her words, as confirmed by the thoughts in her head. "Tomioka-san, why do you have to be so dense with me?"

Not too far behind them was another young woman, who looked to be just barely older than Tanjiro, with a side ponytail. She drew her sword as she rushed to catch up to her two companions, thinking to herself, "I wonder just how bad it's going right now for us to send so many resources here…"

About eight grueling minutes of dragging later, Susamaru and James had reached the entrance to the forest. As they let go of their bodies, they both wiped sweat off of their foreheads and nodded to each other. "Good work," James told his partner. "Their loved ones will have a body to bury." It had been 42 minutes since Tanjiro, Inosuke, and now apparently Zenitsu had entered the forest.

"Zenitsu was right," Susamaru told him as she reverted back to two arms. "That forest gave me the creeps. What's his deal, anyway?"

"I can sorta understand," James pointed out. "I've had moments where I freeze up, usually if somethin' happens that reminds me a lot about some of the bad shit that happened in my life. I froze up when I battled you 'cause I saw Yushiro get his head blown off by a handball."

"Why's that?"

"In the Civil War," James explained to her. "I saw men get their heads taken off by cannonballs. Just sayin' it now gives me the creeps. That shit fucks your mind up real good when you see it multiple times." Then, he stopped himself rather suddenly as he looked around. He quietly whispered to Susamaru, "Hang on a minute, I feel someone's with us." He grabbed his revolver and held it up as Susamaru readied her shotgun, both of them fully expecting a demon to appear and attack them. The tension from waiting for this unseen threat to appear was thick, and both of their hearts were racing as they anticipated an attack from any and all directions of travel towards them. "I can't tell if this force I'm feelin' is a demon or a human," James thought to himself. "Whatever it is, it seeks our blood."

The threat then made itself known when the same girl with the side ponytail from earlier charged at both of them with her sword, barely missing James as she tried to swing for his head. Susamaru fired at the girl, but did not strike her, as she screamed, "Fuck, it's a demon slayer!"

The girl froze in place after the blast from the shotgun, not expecting it as James aimed her gun at her. "Listen up," he instructed her with a yell. "I need you to drop that sword and listen to us!" Her once stoic smile and expression had been replaced with a genuine sense of fear, all of her plans to slay the demons before her ripped apart by the presence of their guns. "I'm not gonna kill ya, okay? Not unless you make me."

The girl then sighed and pulled a coin out of her pocket, flipping it into the air with the flick of her thumb and seeing it land on the ground. "Tails," she said somewhat nervously. "That, uh… That means I'll comply."

"Ooookay then," James somewhat awkwardly replied, unsure what the point of the girl flipping the coin was. "Well, whatever you do, we're on the same side as you. We wanna kill Kibutsuji Muzan and protect the innocent just as much as you demon slayers do."

"My mission is to slay all demons," the girl replied to him. "I care not for the squabbles between them, though I do wonder how you two can get away with saying his name without dying."

"Because we don't answer to that piece of shit," Susamaru responded, keeping her shotgun aimed at her. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Tsuyuri Kanao," she replied with a bow to both of them. "Tsuguko of the Insect Pillar, Kocho Shinobu. She won't be happy to see you guys hold me hostage, nor will Tomioka Giyu, the Water Pillar."

"We'll deal with those two when they get here." James then thought to himself, "These Pillars are among the best swordsmen in the Corps. If they sent two here, the other slayers should be safe, but we're in big trouble. Guns may not deter them like they did with this girl."