Once Gyomei and Sanemi's team had arrived in Chicago, they were immediately met with a blast of cold winter air and a gust of wind. Ambrose, Yoshimi, and Jun had run off, but the gang had already made plans to prioritize meeting up with Edward Haugen at the Glessner House over pursuing them. The only question now was simple, and Sanemi asked it best as they all sheathed their swords and holstered their guns: "Okay, now that we're here, where the fuck are we?"
Yasuhiro, who was one of two in the group who could speak English, looked at a street sign and read out, "East 16th Street and South Indiana Avenue. That's only 2 streets away from East 18th Street, so we should be close."
Rinji asked him, "They name streets in America?"
"They name streets in most of the world," Vèro explained. "It isn't like Japan where the city blocks are numbered."
A police officer walking his beat noticed the group and was curious to see a bunch of Asians with a young woman who was at least partially Black. He asked them, "Good evening. Are you folks from around here?"
"I'm from Québec," Vèro replied. "I'm accompanying a Japanese business delegation to the Glessner House."
"John Glessner? The John Glessner?"
"Correct," Yasuhiro affirmed with a nod in English. "Apologies for our odd attire. It's our company uniforms."
"Certainly an odd choice," the officer replied. "As are the samurai swords, but… Oh well, you guys aren't far from his home. Just walk one block east and then keep walking south. You'll run into it when you hit East 18th Street."
"Thank you," Yasuhiro replied with a bow. "Don't be confused. Bowing is our way of greeting and thanking others."
"That's fine," the cop replied. "Just don't cause too much trouble. If you fellas need any help, just look for one of us or for a blue police box. Carry on."
Once the cop had walked away, Sanemi remarked in Japanese, "How the fuck did we escape that one?"
"Americans don't care as much about carrying weapons," Vèro told him. "Gun ownership is almost completely legal here, as is sword ownership. That isn't saying you should always openly carry weapons, but if you conceal it, nobody will care. Besides, most Americans don't know shit about Japan aside from samurai and stuff like that."
…
About ten minutes later, the group arrived at the front entrance of the Glessner House, an imposing stone mansion on the southern end of Downtown Chicago located not too far from the shore of Lake Michigan. Yasuhiro and Vèro walked up with the original letter from Edward Haugen in their hands as they knocked on the door. Since it was early in the morning in Chicago, it took some time for someone to come to the door, but eventually, a servant of the family answered it. "Good morning. Who may you be?"
"We're from the Demon Slayer Corps in Japan," Vèro explained to the well-dressed servant as she displayed the letter from Edward Haugen to him. "I believe a Mr. Edward Haugen is here, as is Jonathan Glessner, and they're both expecting our presence."
The servant read the letter as he took it from her. He then nodded and said to her, "Mr. Glessner and Mr. Haugen were certainly not expecting a response so soon, but this will come as a pleasant surprise to them both without a doubt in my mind. You may all come in."
As the group entered the lavishly-decorated house, they all looked around in amazement at the wooden furnishings and electric lights all around them. Gyomei, of course, could not see the interior of the house, but assumed it was lavish anyway due to there being a servant for it. "How is the house?"
"It's really extravagant," Genya told him. "Electric lights, fancy wood furnishings, paintings and other artwork all over…"
Sanemi silently mouthed under his breath, "Holy shit… This house is huge…"
Rinji was amazed, having never seen a house so large in his entire life. "Fuck, this house is big…"
Yasuhiro said to the servant, "This house is amazing…"
"Why thank you," he replied as the group followed him into a small private library. "We do our best to keep up appearances around here. Now, just wait here in the library for Mr. Glessner and Mr. Haugen. You are all free to read whatever you like."
Once the servant left them alone in the library, they all took different seats in chairs around the room, with Vèro pulling out a book on animal hunting and popping it open for a read. She told Genya, "This place is great, huh?"
"No kidding," Genya replied to her. "What book do you have there?"
"Hunting," Vèro showed him. "I figured I could see what Glessner-san has in store here."
Chiyo meanwhile was reading a book she found that was in fact at least partially in Japanese. "Well, this is interesting. I didn't expect to find a Japanese book here of all places." The book was in fact a poetry and short story book. "Huh… I wonder why he has this…"
Rinji asked her, "Has what?"
"This short story and poetry book," Chiyo told him. "Most of it is in Japanese, but some of it is in English, too. Maybe this is a book for Americans to learn Japanese or something."
Then, all of them heard footsteps approaching the library. As they all turned around, an old man accompanied by a man in his mid-30s with brown hair and a formal suit walked into the room. The younger man spoke first, telling the group in English, "Well, this is certainly a surprise. I did not expect that they would be sending a team before I sent my letter. After all, a trip to Chicago from Tokyo should have taken over three months."
"It did not have to," Yasuhiro replied to him in English before he bowed to greet him. "My name is Yasuhiro Hata. I am a Kakushi of the Demon Slayer Corps. We travelled here through a portal."
"A portal?"
"It appears that our common enemy has also sent a team here," Yasuhiro confirmed. "We followed them here through a portal that Muzan Kibutsuji had set up with the powers of one of his subordinates, thus explaining our fast travel time here. We also saw Ambrose Powell Hill travel here."
"So Muzan did," the young man replied. "Well, it's a good thing you guys are here then. My name is Edward Haugen. This gentleman next to me is the owner of this fine home, John Glessner. I must ask… Who among you can speak English besides you?"
"I can," Vèro raised her hand. "I'm from Canada."
"I can tell based on your accent," Edward replied. "Quèbec?"
"Yes."
"That's about it," Yasuhiro told Edward and John. "Everyone else here only speaks Japanese."
"It shouldn't be a problem," John then told them. "After all, we have you two, and we've been trying to learn Japanese ourselves. Of course, we were not expecting you all so soon, so it may not be the best Japanese."
"It's fine," Vèro assured them both. "We appreciate the effort, though."
Sanemi then walked over to Yasuhiro and asked him in Japanese, "Are these our guys?"
"Yeah," he replied to him. "The old man is John Glessner, and the younger one is Edward Haugen."
"I suppose we owe you an explanation as for what in God's name is going on in this city," John then told them. "Especially since we were desperate enough to write to the Demon Slayer Corps all the way in Japan for help. Mr. Hata, please translate for me and Mr. Haugen."
"Yes, sir," Yasuhiro replied with a bow.
John and Edward then sat down near the group. Edward started first, telling the group, "We've lost ten hunters in the past two weeks, and twenty in the past two months. We have evidence pointing to the belief that two ghouls are committing a series of murders in the city, and have killed at least forty people in the past three months. All are incredibly brutal, with chunks taken out of the bodies."
"And from what we've seen from our connections in the Chicago Police Department," John added. "We think these ghouls are partially eating the bodies before fleeing the scene. The marks around each missing chunk look exactly like teeth marks. Initially, some police detectives thought that stray animals had eaten the bodies, but as the bodies began piling up, they realized the killers themselves were doing it."
"The newspapers call them the Chicago Cannibals," Edward continued as he placed down an issue of the Chicago Daily Journal with the front headline reading 'CHICAGO CANNIBALS STRIKE FEAR INTO CITY AGAIN WITH ANOTHER SLAYING.' He then told the group, "These guys appear to use knives and clubs to kill their victims. They either stab them several times or club them to death. After that, they steal their money and eat several parts of the bodies before fleeing."
Vèro remarked as she read the newspaper article, "Dear heavens… This is horrible."
"The fact that the Japanese Progenitor sent ghouls of his own here is deeply concerning," John added. "As is the fact that he sent a Knight of the Moon back to America. Their absence in our country has been good for us ever since the Jackson brothers sent them all to Japan with them. It's been a lot easier since they all left, and having at least one come back is one too many. American ghoul hunting was never really organized like it is in Japan, so having a formal group with formal training come here will be a big help. This is perhaps the most trying test for our ghoul hunters out here in the Midwestern United States in many, many years."
"I see, I see," Yasuhiro noted to himself. "So, where shall we start with our plan?"
"We can do that later," John told him with a chuckle. "You guys look like you've been through Hell and came back. Relax a little and settle down. We'll plan it out over dinner tonight."
"That sounds good to me," Vèro agreed. "Let's get settled here in Chicago before we do anything else. We're going to be stuck here a while anyway. I doubt we'll find a portal back to Japan, so none of us will get back there before late January or early February."
Yasuhiro agreed with a nod. "She is right. We will be here for a while."
…
Meanwhile, back in Japan, Muzan was holding an emergency meeting with all of the Progenitors regarding the breach that had occurred. From their locations and bases in China and the Philippines came Huo Senghui and Enrique de Castro, the other two progenitors alongside the Jackson Brothers, both of whom were summoned via a similar portal setup to what had been used to get A. P. Hill to Chicago. The two stood outside Muzan's private office, both worried about the circumstances of the meeting. "I don't know about this," Enrique said to Senghui in Chinese. "I can only imagine how angry he is about this breach."
"I would be fucking pissed too," Senghui replied with a nod. "The fact that demon slayers made it in there is outrageous, even if it was only for like five minutes. Heads would be rolling if that happened among my subordinates. I've been very careful to keep my headquarters out of the prying eyes of the Tibetans and the British."
"It's hard to do the same when the Americans are crawling around the Philippines looking for rebels," Enrique added. "It isn't as bad as it was a decade ago, but it's still a pain in the ass."
Muzan then opened the doors to the office and beckoned to them in Chinese, "In my office. Now." As they both headed in, Muzan took a seat behind a desk and told them, "Close the door." Enrique did such, quietly closing the door and locking it. "Now, I've already talked to the Jackson Brothers, and now I'm gonna talk to you two. What happened with this breach was inexcusable, and it cannot happen again. Do you two agree with me?"
Both of them nodded and replied, "Yes, Muzan-gōng."
"Good, because if you didn't, you'd both be dead. Anyway, I need manpower to increase patrols around the fortress. Would either of you be willing to provide twenty demons each to patrol the fortress at all times?"
"Of course," Senghui replied with a respectful nod.
"Same for me," Enrique also replied.
"I want any demon slayer that manages to somehow set foot inside this fortress dead or captured within less than three minutes of their entrance. Of course, it doesn't matter which, since we'll kill those fuckers anyway. Just be warned, if any live beyond that, I'll kill all the guards, and you'll have to send more. Do I make myself clear?"
Both replied, "Yes, Muzan-gōng."
"Good. I don't want a breach like this to ever happen again. If those bastards think they can try it a second time, they'll be in for a very rude awakening. A very rude awakening for sure."
…
Later that night in Chicago, Vèro was speaking to Edward about James and their connection within a small study room at the Glessner House. "I'll tell you what," Ed told Vèro. "Your grandfather's a Hell of a fighter. Jack's saved my ass more times than I can count in my thirty-eight years here in this world, both awake and asleep."
"I had a feeling you did dream infiltration too," she nodded. "How long has my grandfather been doing it?"
"He told me he started in 1880. I was only five years old, so I can't verify entirely, but he wouldn't lie about something like that."
Vèro then paused for a brief moment, having wanted to ask him about a specific event that James had never really told her about. "Did my grandfather ever talk to you about what happened at Chickamauga?"
Ed sighed. "I had a feeling you'd ask that. Truth be told, he's barely told me anything about what happened there aside from the basics. I assume he hasn't told you or anyone else in Japan what's happened?"
"He hasn't even told his soon-to-be-wife," Vèro confirmed. "Susamaru doesn't know the full story. She asked me if I knew, but I know about as much as her. I don't think Kyojuro Rengoku even knew the full story, and he and my grandfather were very close."
"Well…"
"What is it?"
"Before this man we both knew died," Ed began to explain. "Me and Jack worked with him. He knew James longer than I had, having known him ever since the Civil War. One night, a few months before he was killed, he told me what had happened in Chickamauga, since he was there and was among one of the first soldiers to arrive after Jack's unit was slaughtered. Tell me, have you ever heard of the tale of Old Green Eyes?"
"My grandfather told me that a demon with green eyes was near Chickamauga, but didn't say anything else. I didn't press him for information."
"Old Green Eyes was a grossly deformed ghoul," Ed explained. "Or as you would say in Japan, a demon. There were actually a few ghouls that all bore the same monstrous looks with bright green eyes in the area, and they had tormented the Chickamauga area for years. None of the Old Green Eyes ghouls are as intelligent as most ghouls, and they're usually used by other ghouls in the area as slaves of sorts."
"As slaves… Of course. When your progenitors were infamous slaveowners, it makes sense."
"A legend says that the Jackson Brothers created a few Old Green Eyes ghouls almost two and a half centuries ago when they still went by their Spanish names as the Juncosa Brothers. They created them by forcibly transforming a few of their slaves to see how massively they could change a ghoul's form."
"Let me guess," Vèro then inferred. "Old Green Eyes made an appearance at the battle."
"Oh yes he did," Ed confirmed. "At least one of them helped the Jackson Brothers annihilate the unit Jack was in. That same Old Green Eyes ghoul was later seen carrying away other dead bodies and eating them by soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy."
"Did this man ever tell you exactly what happened?"
"You mean Henry Butler? The man me and Jack knew?"
"Yeah, him."
"Henry did tell me," Ed confirmed as he got up from his seat. "But only two times, and both times, he had gotten incredibly intoxicated by alcohol by the time he started speaking about the battle. I made sure to write down as much as I could remember in one of my journals, which I keep here somewhere in the house. Let me see if I can go find it…"
A few minutes later, Ed returned with the book in his hands. Vèro asked him, "Want me to read it on my own, or can we read it here together?"
"You can do what you want with it," Ed replied. "It's a very old journal."
"I can see that." As she opened the first page, she remarked, "This dates to 1896. When was this last used?"
"The last entry is from April of 1899. My recollection of Henry's story should be somewhere in the middle of the journal."
"Before I read any further," Vèro then asked him. "How did Henry die?"
Ed paused for a moment to form a response to her question. He then said to her, "I suppose I owe you an explanation for that too. George Jackson killed him in 1898 when he hunted him down in Indiana. There should be an entry about his death in that journal. We didn't know about it for two whole weeks after it happened. That bastard George apparently broke into his house and killed him in his sleep. He tried fighting back, but given he's a Progenitor, he had no chance. George then went on to burn his house down and go on a killing spree in his small town. He killed sixty-four people that night by himself and burned down ten houses."
"Sixty-four people?!"
"That's just how powerful he is when night time comes," Ed shrugged. "Ghouls in America may be able to walk in the sunlight, but they still prefer to work at night, since during the day, they're just like us, but at night, they're almost invincible unless you know how to behead or poison them. When those poor townsfolk and their police officers kept shooting at George, they must have been so terrified when their bullets hit him and had little effect aside from making him angrier due to the pain."
"And that's why we hunt them," Vèro nodded. "Because who else will if we don't? Demon slayers have the training and the tools to do it, and we continue to do it despite the great risk we have to take."
"That we do," Ed replied with a slight smile. "And I'm damn proud of it."
…
Meanwhile, while sleeping in the same room as Chiyo, Rinji kept tossing and turning, bothered by something in his dreams. "Hey," he thought to himself inside his head. "Hey… HEY! WHERE ARE YOU?! WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!" He then turned again as he thought to himself, "Turn into you? Why? Become a family? But I already have my sister, though… My new family? Led by you? Why? Why?! WHY?!"
He then suddenly woke up, hyperventilating as his awakening also stirred Chiyo out of her sleep from the bed near his in the same room. She rubbed her eyes, checked her pocket watch next to her bed, and asked him, "Ugh, it's two in the fucking morning, Rinji. What is it?"
"I… My dreams… It felt so real…" He then took a deep breath and wiped his eyes and face. "Ugh… I don't feel so good."
Chiyo, now more worried than annoyed at him, got out of bed and asked him, "Hey, Rinji, are you okay? What happened in your dream? It sounds more like a nightmare to me."
"Maybe it's that," Rinji inferred. "Either way… I saw Rui in it."
"Rui? Lower Moon Five?"
"That's the one." Rinji then sighed. "Even though he's been dead for months, he still finds a way into my dreams. Tomioka-sama and Kamado-san killing him didn't help on that end."
"You once said that you and Reiko didn't always look like this," Chiyo then asked. "Did Rui transform you guys into your current states?"
"Yeah," he replied. "He did that for everyone in his fucked up 'family' of sorts. He loved the fact that we were already actual siblings, so he paid a lot of attention to us. It's a miracle we were able to escape, even with one of the other members having to sacrifice herself to do it." He then laid back down. "Look, Chiyo-san, I'm really sorry that I bothered you and woke you up. I'm going back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
"Alright," Chiyo replied as she got back to her bed and laid back down. "I'll see you in the morning, too." The two then slowly fell back asleep, with Chiyo having a lot more questions than she did answers about Rinji and his past before he became a slayer like her and the others. She also was curious as to how Rui and his Spider Family had worked before the Demon Slayer Corps had effectively destroyed it during their disastrous Battle of Mount Natagumo. She had heard about the failures and success of the corps and changes that had been made in the aftermath of the battle, but was also now curious as to the perspective of the Spider Family.
…
Hey guys, it's the author here.
I just want to let you guys know that I'm proud to have reached 100 chapters. I never thought I would manage to get this far in The Hunter From America. The story is getting a lot of traction, and I love seeing all your comments, kudos, bookmarks, favorites, reviews, and so on. It means the world to me to see so many people enjoy this story.
This season of the story is not over yet, though.
The next four chapters will be out in the rest of March and maybe early April. After that, the story will go on a short hiatus before Season 3 starts with Chapter 105. For those who are wondering, Season 3 will start with the Red Light District Arc along with original content. As with before, Season 3 will be 52 chapters long. I do not yet know how much else canon material will be covered in it, but I can guarantee you the entire Red Light District Arc for sure, as well as original content tied into said arc.
Stay tuned for a special dedication to the people who have made the Hunter From America possible in Chapter 104, the end of Season 2.
For now, enjoy this nice little Taisho Secret down below.
…
TAISHO SECRET #6
The Ramifications of the Battle of Mount Natagumo
1913 was already off to a terrible start for the Demon Slayer Corps. The 1st Quarter Final Selection of the 1st District (Kanto Region) had cemented itself as the deadliest Final Selection in decades, with only five survivors (four were documented, but Inosuke was later added as the fifth) out of a total of 21 participants, a costly and unusual number, as most Final Selections saw a little over half of all participants surviving on average.
While this disaster of a Final Selection was being discussed and investigated by the Corps, another event would happen that would add to the woes of the organization: the Battle of Mount Natagumo.
It had been known for at least ten years that demons had resided on Mount Natagumo, owing to its good forest cover and relative difficulty of access. However, through a combination of complacency, Muzan and Rui's relatively successful efforts to stay hidden, and bad intelligence gathering, the true scope of the Spider Family was not known until the battle itself. These failures would lead to one of the worst battles in terms of losses for the Corps ever since the Boshin War, and would leave a dark stain on what was otherwise a successful battle to destroy the Spider Family.
The first identified mistake was to send only four slayers into the mountain despite intelligence reporting there being at least three known demons (it was later revealed to have been a total of five demons at the time, and at one point as high as ten in the past). The second was that information relating to their abilities was not relayed to the slayers sent into the field. This information included the presence of spider webs (later revealed to be wires spawned from the body) that could attach themselves to targets. The third mistake was to send eight slayers up instead of calling for at least one Pillar immediately after it was known that the first group had gone missing. The fourth mistake was the fact that two more slayers had self-dispatched to the forest upon hearing of the first group's journey, only to be killed due to a lack of accountability for their presence.
No one in the first group survived. The only survivors in the second group aside from Tanjiro Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Inosuke Hashibira, all of whom had travelled separately and arrived later, were Makoto Watanabe, who was forced to retire due to his injuries, and Norio Murata, who returned to active duty after four months of recovery due to his injuries. Nine slayers were killed and five were seriously injured.
A report would be released in early November of 1913 by the Demon Slayer Corps' own Internal Affairs Unit, composed of Kakushi who are all former slayers, which criticized the corps for the above decisions and recommended the streamlining of intelligence-gathering, additional first aid training for slayers, a discontinuation of self-dispatching to missions by slayers not authorized to participate in them, and a set of defined guidelines to dispatch one or more Pillars to an incident or mission rather than deciding on a case-by-case basis. Time will tell if these recommendations are put into place in any form.
