November 18, 1913

At the Butterfly Estate, Shinobu and another older slayer who was a cultivator for the Breath of Flower were talking to the three oldest of Kanao's rescued siblings: Kenta at 17, Keisuke at 16, and Keiko at 13. The cultivator, a woman named Madoka Yuki who bore dark red hair and pink eyes, had been a slayer since she was 15 and a cultivator since she was 26, having been the previous Flower Pillar before Kanae. Despite no longer being a Pillar, she was still an active slayer in spite of being 30 years old and well past the normal age of retirement at 26-27. Shinobu asked Madoka, "So, do you think you can handle three students at once?"

"I absolutely can," Madoka assured her. "I'm sure this won't be too difficult."

"Well," Shinobu followed up with. "The thing is… None of these three people can really read or write."

"I know, I know," Madoka assured her. "Your Tsuguko gave me a rundown of what's going on with them before I got here, Shinobu."

"Yeah, but… They're like Kanao before she grew up. They don't do anything unless ordered to."

"I'll make sure I iron out those problems." She then turned to the three siblings and asked them, "So, do you mind telling me your names again?"

The littlest one spoke up first, telling Madoka, "Keiko. I'm Keiko." She then pointed to her brothers. "Kenta. Keisuke. Kanao-oneechan said you are good at teaching."

"Your big sister was right," Madoka assured her. "So, you three want to be slayers?"

Keisuke, Kanao's twin brother, replied, "More than anything. We want to give back to the Butterfly Estate for their help." He had learned the most and had advanced the most of all the siblings, possessing no issues with his speech and learning the fastest when it came to reading and writing. "Kenta-oniichan is a little quiet, but he'll be fine."

"Yes," Kenta replied. A young man of few words, he was trying his best to open up to others. "I am quiet, but I want to learn to speak more."

"The Breath of Flower will be a good fit for all of us," Keisuke assured Madoka. "We've all observed Kanao-oneechan practice it, and she's even helped us get started a bit with breath training."

"Excellent," she beamed with joy. "I'll be sure to build up whatever Tsuyuri has taught you."

Kenta then asked, "How long?"

"How long?"

"He's asking how long it will take," Keiko clarified.

"Oh, right, right, right… Hmmm… It all depends, but I'd say you'd all be ready by the Third Quarter Final Selection next year, which will take about eleven months from now to start. If any of you three advance far enough in your training, I may let any one of you three go to the Second Quarter Final Selection instead, which is in about eight months."

"Looks like that will be our goal," Keisuke told his two siblings. "We'll train as hard as we can to be ready in eight months."

"You're certainly ambitious," Shinobu remarked to him.

Later that day, as the three packed their things, they all said their goodbyes to everyone at the Butterfly Estate. Kaneko and Kenzan, the youngest of the surviving Tsuyuri siblings, both cried as they hugged them and told them they would be back one day. The three Caterpillar Girls also were sad to see them go, but knew they would come back one day.

Once everything was packed, they just had to say goodbye to Kanao, the one who had gotten away before they did. Keisuke hugged Kanao first, the two of them sharing the closest bond since they had been twins. "I'll return one day, oneechan."

Kanao smiled and told him, "You're a man now, Keisuke. You don't have to call me oneechan. Nee-san is fine."

"I want to make up for all the lost years," he replied to her. "We'll write back here as much as we can, even if we have to have Yuki-sensei transcribe it for us. I'll do everything I can to fully know how to read and write, too. I promise."

Kanao patted him on the shoulder and told him, "I can't wait to hear from you again."

As the three siblings continued their goodbyes, Aoi asked Kanao very quietly, "Aren't you scared?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. You know how dangerous Final Selection can be."

Kanao sighed. "I have full confidence in Yuki-sama. She won't let us down."

"I guess I'm just scared is all," Aoi admitted. "I just got to know your biological siblings, you know, and now three of them are leaving us for a while. Kanao, you know that I've lost enough family members as it is. I don't want to lose anymore."

"I understand," she assured him as she held her hand. "You know that I can sympathize with that. Even so, we have to let them achieve their own dreams."

Aoi nodded. "Right… You know, ever since you met Tanjiro-san, you've changed a lot, Kanao. I would have never imagined you being like this even just a year ago. You're more talkative than ever."

"I guess you can say that my boyfriend found my voice. He told me to let my heart speak for itself right before Rengoku-sama was killed, so I've been living by that ever since. I haven't even flipped my coin for a decision ever since… Well, you know."

Later that day, Inosuke was out practicing by himself with his boar's head mask on, striking a dummy target set up at the Butterfly Estate. "Hell yeah," he shouted. "I nailed that last one!"

Aoi, who was watching him, remarked, "Well it's easy when the target is sitting still."

"Oh, really?" Inosuke felt as if she was challenging her. "Wanna have a go at it, then?"

Aoi, obviously still reluctant to wield a sword due to her past trauma, replied, "I don't think tha-"

"Come on," he insisted, offering one of his swords. "I'll even give you a bit of an advantage by using only one sword. I've been meaning to practice with just one sword in case I lose one, in fact! Fight me!"

"Ugh, fine," Aoi sighed, deciding to give in despite her hesitation. "Give me your fucking sword already."

Inosuke handed her the sword, telling her, "Let's see how you do, Aoi."

As soon as she grabbed a hold of it, she took a deep breath to clear her head and try to bury any sort of repressed trauma from her Final Selection. "Ugh… Okay…"

"Are you ready?!"

"Yeah!" Aoi thought to herself, "Not really, but fuck it."

"Let's battle!" Inosuke then charged at her with his remaining sword. As soon as he got close, Aoi deflected him and held him at bay. "Not bad!"

"Come on…" Aoi then forced him back. "Calm yourself… It's just practice…"

"What's the matter?" Inosuke was genuinely confused as to why Aoi was telling herself to calm down. "Can't handle me?"

"No, I can handle you, thank you very much!" Aoi then charged forward at Inosuke, taking a deep breath before muttering under her breath, "Breath of Water, First Form: Water Surface Slash…" She then slashed at Inosuke, who quickly dodged her attack. It was in fact the first time she had used a breathing style in a long time, though she had not forgotten due to how intense her training was.

"We're using breaths, huh? How abou-" Inosuke then realized something was wrong with Aoi, prompting him to take off his boar's head mask. "Hey, wait a minute. What the Hell?"

Aoi had frozen in place after her attack, breathing heavily as she broke out in a cold sweat. "Okay… Okay… Okay…"

"Hey, are you okay? Why did you freeze up all of a sudden? Did I hurt you?"

"No, no, you didn't," Aoi told him as she dropped his sword on the ground. "It's not you, Inosuke. It's me."

Inosuke knew by now that something was very wrong with her. "You don't have to continue, Aoi. I just want to know why you stopped."

"I do owe you an explanation, I suppose." Once Aoi shook her head again to clear her mind and calm herself down, she told him, "So you know that I'm a slayer, right?"

"Yeah, I know, even if you don't go out on missions."

"The reason I don't is because every time I pick up a sword, I get very afraid. Inosuke, I saw some fucked up shit in my Final Selection, and it left some scars, though they're not on my body. Those scars are in my mind. I haven't slayed a demon since my Final Selection, so instead, I work here."

Inosuke nodded. "So you see things too?"

"Wait, what?"

"The truth is… Sometimes I see flashes of events in my head, and I have no idea where they're from. They're all hazy and shit, so I can't recall specific details unless they just happened." Inosuke kicked over a small pebble on the ground as he held his head down. "I don't tell anyone else about it, though, or at least I didn't until now."

"That sounds about right for me," Aoi confirmed. "I saw a flash like that when I attacked you. That's why I stopped."

"You can stop practicing with me if you want," Inosuke assured her. "I can practice on my own."

"No," Aoi shook her head. "I can still practice with you. I just need a different weapon… I got it!"

"What is it?"

"I'll grab a naginata," Aoi explained. "We have one in storage in case we get attacked. I'll grab that and use it."

"Nagi-what-now?"

"Naginata. It's a blade on a long wooden pole. The onna-bugeisha used them a lot. They were female warriors who fought alongside the samurai long ago."

Inosuke, still confused but not willing to ask questions about basically everything in those past few sentences, simply gave a thumbs-up and told her, "Got it. I totally understand!"

"You don't understand, do you?"

Inosuke, defeated, replied, "Okay yeah, I don't. Not really."

Meanwhile, at the Rengoku Estate, a letter was delivered in the middle of the day, an unusual occurrence since most mail was delivered either early in the morning or later in the evening. As Shinjuro answered the door and greeted the mailman, the two talked for a bit as James looked on in intrigue. Susamaru asked him, "A letter at this time of day?"

"Yeah," James replied to her. "That's pretty damn odd."

Once the mailman had left, Shinjuro turned around and told James, "James, you have a letter from America."

"From America? Where exactly?"

"I can't really read the address," Shinjuro replied as he handed it to James.

"Hmmm… It's from Chicago, Illinois, but the street address… I don't recognize it." James then opened the envelope and read the contents of the letter. As soon as he got to the first paragraph, his jaw dropped. "Holy shit… Holy… Fuckin' shit…"

Susamaru asked him, "What is it, dear?"

"It's a letter from an old acquaintance," James told her. "It's about a major threat in Chicago. He wants assistance from the corps or from me."

"But what about our child?"

"That's why I can't go," James replied to her. "Someone else from the corps will have to go, assuming the Oyakata-sama will approve of such a journey."

"Good luck," Shinjuro remarked. "You guys were lucky enough to get that ship journey to Ceylon a while back approved by him."

The letter James received in the mail read as follows:

Dear James Egeler Colby,

Jack, either you or someone else from Japan needs to come to Chicago as fast as you can. We have had a spate of killings here, and there is ample evidence that a ghoul, or a demon as others call them, is doing it. There could even be multiple ghouls at work. We have tried to fight this ghoul or these ghouls for several months now. However, they keep killing our best hunters. By the time you read this, I might even be dead.

This letter should take about a week or two to get to you thanks to the telegraph lines. I hope it's fast enough. It would probably take about 90 to 100 days to get to Chicago from Japan if you sail to Los Angeles and then take a train up here, so a decision needs to be made sooner rather than later. I have attached a meeting place for any hunters from the Demon Slayer Corps to rendez-vous with us at the end of this letter. Do not let the Jackson Brothers or Muzan Kibutsuji find this letter under any circumstances.

Sincerely,

Edward Joseph Haugen