April 30, 1913
At the entrance to the Rengoku Estate, James and Susamaru anxiously waited for Kyojuro's father to come to the door. They had never met his family before, and were concerned about their status as demons who slayed other demons. Kyojuro apologizes in advance to them, telling them, "Listen, if my dad treats you guys differently, I'm sorry."
"It's fine," James assured him. "I would do the same in his shoes, and I'm not even sure what he's gonna do yet, but it's probably not exactly welcoming to us."
Kyojuro then knocked on the door to the main house of the estate, where he was met by his younger brother Senjuro. He asked his older brother, "Oniichan, who are those two?"
"These are my new Tsuguko," he explained to him. "James Colby, an American, and Susamaru. They're going to be living here and at the Butterfly Estate."
Senjuro bowed to both of them. "Welcome to the Rengoku Estate." He then extended his hand to James. "I'm sure you're familiar with a handshake, right?"
"Indeed," James replied, impressed he knew what a handshake was. "It's nice to meet you. What's your name?"
"Rengoku Senjuro," he explained to them. "I'm Kyojuro-oniichan's brother."
"Who are these visitors?" Along then came an older man who greatly resembled both of the brothers. "Kyojuro, who are these characters?"
"These are my Tsuguko," Kyojuro explained to his father. "James Colby of the United States of America, and Susamaru."
"Tsuguko, eh? Nice to meet you tw-" He then stopped himself as he looked over their features and became deeply confused. "Wait a minute… It's daylight, but… What the fuck?!"
"Yeah," Kyojuro awkwardly told his father. "We're gonna have to talk about that. Bear with us, and trust me when I say these guys are still on our side, father."
Shinjuro understandably reached for a sword mounted on the wall of the entranceway into the main house, and told Kyojuro, "They better not be causing any trouble. I won't hesitate to decapitate them."
"You won't need to," James assured him. "Trust us."
…
After about 20 minutes of explanations, all five of them sat together at a table inside the main house of the estate. Shinjuro had managed to calm down significantly, and was more amiable to both James and Susamaru, though secretly he still had his suspicions. "You two certainly have come a long way," he told both of them. "I commend you for siding with humanity."
"Thank you," Susamaru replied. "We've been battling demons nonstop for about a month. It's nice to have a break."
"I agree completely," James nodded. "Fightin' demons is fun and all, but it's nice to relax and unwind for a while."
"So," Senjuro then asked both of them. "You'll be staying here and at the Butterfly Estate, right?"
"Correct," James confirmed to him. "I'll be leaving for the Butterfly Estate late tomorrow, and I'll be back here by the 6th. Susamaru is staying here."
"Tell the girls there I said hi," Shinjuro instructed James. "I haven't seen any of them in a while."
…
May 2, 1913
A few days later, James went to the Butterfly Estate by himself, looking to give Shinobu a book containing painstakingly-handwritten copies of all information he had gathered on poison-making from his various journals over the years, as well as how to insert these poisons into sun-absorbing metal like nichirin. As he explained some stuff to the Insect Pillar, she asked him, "So he managed to accept you guys?"
"I'm not sure how," James admitted. "But Shinjuro wasn't hostile to us after the first few minutes. He was amazingly more accepting than you guys were at first."
Shinobu chuckled, admitting he was right. "That is true. You know, I'd like to apologize for what me and Kanao did to you and Susamaru at Mount Natagumo."
"It's fine," he assured her. "Listen, I would have done the same in your shoes. I don't wanna bring up any bad memories, but I gotta feelin' you lost someone close to you to demons, so that would explain your hesitance to accept us."
Shinobu's smile faded as she nodded, a rare sight. "Yeah… I did… My sister was killed by one of them. They think he was an Upper Moon. She… She would have been overjoyed to meet you and Susamaru, because she believed that not all demons were bad. I wish I could believe in it today in her memory, but…"
"You're angry," James finished her sentence. "You're angry that Muzan and his cronies murdered your sister. I know exactly how it feels to have your loved ones taken away from you, multiple times. I've lost my whole birth family, my first wife, my girlfriend before then, my child from my first wife, and my mentor, and I couldn't do a fuckin' thing about it." He then closed the book they were reading. "And only two of those were murdered by demons. The others were murdered by humans."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Shinobu comforted him. "Me and my sister lost our family to demons, and then I lost her to one. Ever since, I've made it my mission to find the specific demon who did it. That fucking monster took the only blood-related family I had left, and she had been married to Shinazugawa-san for only six months. Neither of us have been the same since she died." She then stood up from the table and continued speaking to him. "Before she died in my arms, my sister told me to look for the demon with rainbow eyes and silver hair. When I do find that bastard, I will confront him, and I will tell him a single message that gets right to the point."
"What would that be?"
With conviction and a hint of anger in her voice, Shinobu told James what he would tell that demon. "Hello. My name is Kocho Shinobu. You killed my sister. Prepare to die."
James was impressed by the simple yet concise statement. "Powerful… I hope you find him one day and get to tell him those words." Wanting to change subject as to not cause her any more grief, he then asked her, "Onto another topic, I guess. How are you and Pillar Tomioka, ma'am? Are you guys friends or…?"
Shinobu smiled once more. "Tomioka-san is a working partner. I guess you can say I'm close to him." Her expression and tone of voice belied a deeper connection to him.
"Are you sure he's just that?" James decided to grill her a bit on the issue. "He seems like a nice man, if only a little emotionally distant, but I can sense that he's seen suffering in his life."
"A little emotionally distant?" Shinobu now sprouted a small engorged vein on her forehead, indicating she was annoyed despite keeping a smile. "He's very emotionally distant. He's aloof as all Hell, and he doesn't fucking know how to properly communicate to people. This is why I keep telling him that nobody likes him, hopefully so that he can get the God damn hint one day."
Sensing that she was holding back, James asked her, "Are you usually like that? You seem to bottle up everything."
"Yeah," Shinobu admitted. "I do. Got a problem with it?"
Deciding to back off a bit, he told her, "Not really, but it's not healthy. Anyway, ma'am, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"It's fine," Shinobu told him. "Listen, you don't have to address me as a military commander."
"It's a force of habit," James explained to her. "You always had to do it with officers in the Army, and since the Demon Slayer Corps is organized in such a manner, I fell back into it."
"I get that," she told the new Mizunoe. "But to be honest, I've read what you did in the forest, and the report detailing your experiences. Colby-san, I don't think you'll be a Mizunoe. As soon as you get a grasp of the Breath of Flames, you'll be a shoe-in to replace Rengoku-san when the time comes for him to retire, or…"
"Or if he's killed in action," James finished the sentence for her. "You think I could be the Flame Pillar that soon, huh?"
"Absolutely," Shinobu confirmed to him. "You've been fighting demons longer than any of us have been alive, and you said it yourself, your kill count is astronomically high. You know, I don't know if you were told this, but we had to send missions out to capture new demons for Mount Fujikasane, since you and Susamaru-san killed forty of our captive demons. We may have to delay the next Final Selection of the First District by a week."
"No shit," James remarked, amused by what he had been told. "Pillar Rengoku told me most Final Selections see maybe twenty or twenty-five demons killed, not forty."
…
Soon after, James visited Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke in their shared room in the hospital part of the Butterfly Estate. "Good evenin', cripples. How's it goin'?"
"Hello, James," Tanjiro spoke up first from his bed. All three of them looked tired out from their rehabilitation training during the day. "How was your day?"
"Me and Pillar Kocho went over some poisons in addition to wisteria," James replied to him as he sat down in a chair in the room between Zenitsu and Tanjiro's beds. "How's about you?"
"It was fucking tiring," Zenitsu moaned. "I swear, this training is gonna be the end of me, and my arms still haven't fully grown back to their full size yet."
"Not yet, huh? That sucks." James then looked over to Inosuke. "How about you, Inosuke?"
"I'm fine," he uncharacteristically replies in a soft tone, as if he was hurt. "It was fine. Nothing more, Jeimatsu Kurobida."
"It's James Colby, and you can just call me James." James turned back to Tanjiro. "What's his problem?"
"He's probably not happy about the whole 'my blade broke when I tried to decapitate a demon' thing," Tanjiro mentioned to him. "That did a number on his confidence. Also, again, don't mind the misnamings. I've just completely given up arguing about it at this point."
"Monitsu," Inosuke then called out to Zenitsu. "I thought you had a good time with the girls."
Immediately, Zenitsu's face lit up with energy. "Aaaah, it was so much fun. I got to work out with pretty girls…"
As he became lost in thought, James asked Tanjiro, "He's that desperate, huh?"
"Yeah," Tanjiro confirmed. "You should have seen him when I met him after our Final Selection. He was begging this one girl he just fucking met to marry him even though she told him multiple times she already had a fiancé."
"I told you," Zenitsu tried to 'correct' him. "I saw desire in her eyes when she was hitting me!"
"You didn't see shit," Tanjiro actually corrected him. "Can't you take a hint when a girl says 'no'?"
"Fine then," he begrudgingly conceded. "At least I have Nezuko-chan…"
Tanjiro yelled out, "Oh fuck no! You are not getting anywhere near my sister!"
"HEY," Aoi Kanzaki, an assistant at the Butterfly Estate, then yelled into the room from the hallway. "Quiet the Hell down in here! You're being way too loud! If you guys keep it up, we got plenty of room outside!"
"My apologies," James replied to her, taken completely off-guard by her sudden entrance into the room. "We were a bit too loud. We'll be quieter."
…
Meanwhile, at the Tokito House, Muichiro and Mukago were about to engage in another casual session of making out and heavy petting that night as they both began to take their clothes off. Then, just as Muichiro stripped down to his underwear, he asked her, "Mukago-san, do you actually want to go all the way?"
Mukago stopped dead in her tracks as she undid her top. "I mean… I don't mind… I guess… It's just…"
Muichiro then sighed, realizing she was trying to be nice but hiding what she actually wanted. "You do, don't you?"
Mukago realized he was right and nodded. "Yeah, I do. Stopping just short can be fun and all, but it gets boring when that's all you do for a while. I was… I was just trying to respect your decision to hold off on it." She then sat down on the bed in her room. "Listen, we both said it ourselves: This has no strings attached. If you truly don't feel comfortable having full sex, you don't have to do it just for me."
"I know I said that," the Mist Pillar told her as he then gently pushed her down onto the bed and stood over her. "But I can't hold off anymore, especially knowing you want it. I was only holding off thinking that if we stuck to you blowing me and me going down on you and whatever, that would be enough of an outlet, but it wasn't."
"If you think that way," Mukago told him. "Do it. There's nothing wrong with it." She then kissed him on the lips, her warm breath piquing the Mist Pillar's attention. "Would this be your first time?"
"Yeah," Muichiro confirmed to her. "Back when we began was the first time I did anything."
"I think you'll enjoy it," Mukago then chuckled. "Come on, let's get to it."
