"Natsu Rengoku and his friends had defeated the Spider Demon family after a long and difficult night on Mount Natagumo. Many innocent lives were taken and a few were saved. After Rui was killed, Nezuko was soon targeted by Shinobu Kocho and her Tsuguko, Kanao Tsuyuri. Thanks to Kusagi a crow stopping the fight, Nezuko and Tanjirou were taken into custody where they would be later investigated at Kagaya Ubuyashiki's mansion."
Fourteen Hours Later...
On a regular sunny day, fourteen hours after the night on Mount Natagumo, Natsu Rengoku and Inosuke Hashibara traveled on a road towards the Butterfly Mansion to check on their friend's condition. While arriving, they met another Demon Slayer named Aoi Kanzaki, who was collecting white blankets. She wore a blue Demon Slayer uniform. She had pale skin, blue eyes with white rectangular pupils in the center. She had black twin tails with blue butterfly accessories tied with them.
"Who are you? And what are you doing here?" Aoi asked Natsu.
"Hi! I'm Natsu Rengoku. And this is-" Natsu looked to his right to see Inosuke disappeared from his side. "Inosuke?" he then looked from behind and spotted Inosuke chasing some butterflies.
"Get back here!" Inosuke yelled as he ran after butterflies. He jumped and swung his hands trying to catch them like a net.
'Seems like he's having fun.' Natsu smiled as he watched Inosuke chase butterflies for a second.
"Eh-hem!" Aoi called for Natsu's attention.
Natsu quickly turned his head around directly towards Aoi.
"Are you going to tell me why you're here, or am I gonna have to to ask you to leave?" Aoi felt a bit irritated manner.
"Oh! S-sorry." Natsu rubbed the back of his head with his right arm and chuckled a bit. "I'm actually here to see my friends and Kurosaki. Tanjirou Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma." Natsu happily explained.
Inosuke Hashibara had traveled along with Natsu. As he arrived to the mansion, he quickly became occupied with trying to catch butterflies with a big butterfly net. He would run and jump to catch them, but the butterflies
"Your friends, eh?" Aoi muttered as she stared at Natsu's face. She can easily see the optimism on his face, then tilted her head to the left and saw that Inosuke was still chasing butterflies. "Okay. Come this way." she said, then opened the to the mansion. "But before you enter, tell your weird looking friend-that if he's staying outside, tell him to not mess up anything in my garden! Or else, I'll have him thrown out." Aoi demanded, before entering the Butterfly Mansion.
"Right. Thanks a lot." Natsu said, then looked back to see Inosuke still trying to catch butterflies. This time, Natsu spotted a butterfly net in his grasp. 'Where did he get a butterfly net?' Natsu shrugged a bit. 'I guess it doesn't matter.' "Hey, Inosuke!" Natsu called for Inosuke.
Inosuke stopped chasing the butterflies for a moment and looked to Natsu. "What?"
"I'm going to check on Tanjirou and Zenitsu! You wanna come visit?" Natsu asked.
"Why would I ever want to visit those two dipsticks?" Inosuke asked, then spotted butterflies flying over his head.
Natsu put on a weird and confused look towards Inosuke. 'D... dipsticks?' It was the first time Natsu had ever heard of the word, "Dipstick." he then clapped his face cheeks together with his palms. "Okay, I'm going in! Oh yeah! And one more thing I need to say. Aoi told me to tell you not to break anything in her garden! Or else she'll throw you out!"
"Shut it, redhead!" Inosuke yelled. "Can't you see I'm trying to catch these demon butterflies?" Inosuke turned his full attention to the butterflies he chased.
Natsu sighed. 'Okay...'
"Are you coming or not?" Aoi yelled directly to Natsu from within the Butterfly Mansion to the outside.
"R-right! I'm coming!" Natsu replied as he walked into the Butterfly Mansion.
A Few Minutes Later...
A few minutes after entering the mansion, Aoi lead Natsu to the infirmary where he met up with his friends, Tanjirou and Zenitsu and Kurosaki, who were dressed in white and were bedridden.
All three of them had suffered injuries to their bodies. Tanjirou only suffered a few minor injuries to his body, such as scrapes and pulled muscles. Plus, a broken jaw. Zenitsu suffered fractures to his face after being hit by Rui. Zenitsu was lucky to be alive. Kurosaki's condition was far worse, then Tanjirou and Zenitsu's. His entire body was wrapped like a mummy.
"Hey, guys." Natsu greeted his friends as soon as he spotted them in the infirmary.
"Natsu. You finally came." Tanjirou felt happy when he spotted Natsu.
"How are you all feeling?" Natsu asked as he approached Tanjirou.
"My jaw still hurts a bit, but it'll soon heal." Tanjirou informed Natsu as he rubbed part of his jaw. "But Zenitsu, here, is-"
"Natsu!" Zenitsu muffled while his face was wrapped in bandages. He quickly hugged Natsu and wrapped his arms around Natsu waist and sobbed.
"Hey, Zenitsu. I'm sorry for what happened to your face." Natsu told Zenitsu, then patted his shoulder.
Zenitsu started muffling words to Natsu as tears stream down his face.
Natsu couldn't understand what Zenitsu was saying with bandages covering his face. "Um, sorry, Zenitsu. I can't understand what you're saying." he said, while Zenitsu was shaking his head.
"Hey, I told you not to leave the bed!" Aoi yelled at Zenitsu.
Natsu looked to Aoi. "How did Zenitsu, anyway?"
"He got punched in the face really hard by one of the Twelve Kizuki." Tanjirou explained as he remembered witnessing Rui severely injuring Zenitsu on the night before.
Natsu looked over at Tanjirou after hearing his answer. "Oh."
"Your friend suffered severe damage to the nose and where the upper lip is, causing a critical facial structure." Aoi pointed directly at her nose. "If he wants to fight on the front lines, again, he needs immediate surgery. Once the surgery is complete, his face would then require a total of four-to-six weeks to heal. Which means, it might take months before until he's cleared to fight, again." Aoi stated.
Zenitsu's body froze like a rock and his pupils rolled to the back of his head after results of him getting surgery, if he he chose to get facial fracture surgery.
"Oh, well, that's sad." Tanjirou said, feeling a bit depressed.
"Yeah..."
"Ever since we brought him in here, he wouldn't stop screaming "Nezuko! Nezuko!" whomever Nezuko is..." Aoi stated as she shrugged her shoulder.
Natsu chuckled in his mind. 'I understand.'
Suddenly, Zenitsu collapsed onto the ground after thinking too hard of what surgery would do to him.
"Zenitsu!" Natsu felt Zenitsu's grip around his waist let go and looked to see Zenitsu's body on the floor.
"Just throw him back onto the bed." Aoi demanded.
Seconds after Natsu picked up Zenitsu and placed him back onto his bed, he looked over at Kurosaki, who seemed unconscious. "How is Kurosaki doing?"
"Not too good. He's suffered too much damage to the body-where he could keep fighting. His arms and legs are broken... his broken ribs pierced his internal organs..." Aoi sighed. "I'm afraid that his days of fighting are over."
"I see." Natsu pouted as he remembered meeting Kurosaki. 'If only we had arrived in Mount Natagumo at least an hour early, we probably could've saved more lives.' Natsu thought.
"How long will it take for his body to fully recover?" Natsu asked.
"I would at least say... maybe a year in a half to completely heal from his injuries." Aoi guessed.
"A-a year in a half?" Tanjirou gasped.
"Right now, we don't have any medication that can speed up the healing process. At least, not yet." Aoi said as she started thinking about one of the Hashira, Shinobu Kocho.
Tanjirou looked at Natsu, then looked around and noticed Inosuke wasn't present. "Hey, Natsu? Where's Inosuke?" he asked Natsu.
"Oh, he's outside catching a few butterflies. But, I think he might be done, soon..." Natsu informed Tanjirou.
Suddenly, Natsu, Tanjirou and Aoi paused as they heard the sound of a pot breaking from outside the mansion.
"Did a pot just break?" Tanjirou asked.
Aoi gasped.
Nine seconds after the sound of a pot had broken... they heard another breaking sound outside the mansion.
Tanjirou gasped after hearing the sound of another pot breaking outside the mansion. 'There's that sound again.'
'Another pot was broken. Who could be-' At that moment, Natsu suddenly knew what or who could be the cause of the pots breaking. 'Oh no...' he felt embarrassed after realizing that it could be Inosuke.
"Who the hell is-" Aoi paused after she heard anoth pot break.
"Dammit! I almost got it! Get back here!" Inosuke screamed as he continued chasing butterflies throughout the garden.
Aoi heard Inosuke's screaming outside and suddenly remembered seeing Inosuke trying to catch butterflies, behind Natsu's back, outside her mansion.
"Don't tell me..." Tanjirou said as he started
"Yep." Natsu shook his head out of pity.
Aoi gritted her teeth and started to get angry. "That idiot!" she then ran out the infirmary door to just go outside, approach and scold Inosuke.
Natsu and Tanjirou watched Aoi leave the infirmary to go out and scold Inosuke.
Tanjirou had sighed. "Inosuke's gonna get a heavy scolding."
"Yeah." Natsu replied, then turned his head to the corner and looked at Nezuko's box. "But, speaking of scolding, how did everything go with your trial?"
"Ah!" Tanjirou just remembered his trial with the Hashira. "Thank you for reminding me. I have a lot to tell you." Tanjirou smiled as he prepared to tell Natsu how his morning went.
Natsu leaned his head closer to Tanjirou's as he was ready to listen to his story. "Ready when you are!"
"Okay!" Tanjirou replied, then opened his mouth to tell Natsu what happened at Kagaya Ubuyashiki's mansion.
A Few Minutes Later...
Tanjirou had explained everything that happened from the moment he had awakened in the Ubuyashiki Residence to the moment he was escorted to the Butterfly Mansion.
"So that's what happened..."
"Yeah. That's everything, before I came here. But, I never thought I'd meet all of them at once." Tanjirou said as he remembered seeing the Hashira staring down at him.
"Yeah. And never once have I ever thought anyone would dare to put up a resistance against the Wind Pillar."
"I had no choice. He stabbed Nezuko five times, while she was in her box." Tanjirou told Natsu. "And I still owe him four more headbutts, by the way..." Tanjirou joked and grasped his left forehead.
Natsu laughed. "I'm sure you do. Also, and after hearing what Nezuko did-turning down that man's blood... that had to take a lot of guts. She really is an amazing person"
"Yeah. She really is." Tanirou agreed with Natsu.
Natsu stared at Nezuko's box. "She must be sleeping well, now."
"She is. We don't know when our next mission is, so I'm trying to help Nezuko get as much rest as possible." Tanjirou said as she looked to Nezuko's box.
"I get it." Natsu was silent for a moment until an imaginary lightbulb appeared over his head. "Wait a second. You said that you met every single Hashira, right?"
"Uh, yeah. I did." Tanjirou nodded.
"That means, you met my older brother, Kyojuro!" Natsu smiled.
"Kyojuro?"
"Yeah! Kyojuro's the Flame Pillar and he's really strong! He also likes to smile." Natsu told Tanjirou.
Tanjirou lightly gasped. In the next second, he flashed back carefully during his trial, earlier that day.
Flashback
While lying on the hard ground with rope tied behind his back, he remembered seeing the Nine Hashira. One of the people he remembered seeing was a smiling man with golden hair with red bangs wearing a white cape with red flames hanging on the tip.
"There is no need for a trial! Protecting a demon is against the rules! Let's execute him along with the demon." Kyojuro said with an optimistic tone.
End Flashback
"Oh, you mean, that guy." Tanjirou said after his memory was freshened.
"Hello, there!"
Suddenly, another person had entered the infirmary and waved to his fellow Demon Slayer.
"Hey, Murata." Both Natsu and Tanjirou had greeted in arms.
Natsu looked to Tanjirou. "Hey, Tanjirou, you know Murata?"
"Yeah, I do. We met, last night when we were looking for you and Inosuke." Tanjirou stated.
Murata grabbed a chair and sat next to Tanjirou's bed. He hung his head down and started thinking of what happened the previous night. "It was violent. The Hashira are really scary. They were all really mad." Murata thought of Shinobu. 'Especially, Miss Kocho.' he blinked. "They said that the casualties of Demon Slayers are getting higher and higher. Word had gone out that a few Demon Slayers on Mount Natagumo had broken the rules, so they asked me to reveal their trainers."
"Uh..." Natsu paused, as his face looked a bit confused, and his eyes shrunk like dots. 'Does that mean I'm in trouble, too? Because I'm good friends with Nezuko?' Natsu had thought.
Natsu stared at Murata with a blank face.
In the next second, a woman named Shinobu had entered the infirmary. "Hello!" Shinobu entered the infirmary, feeling happy.
"Geeh!" Murata shrieked in fear. Orbs of sweat formed on his face and his forehead turned blue.
"Hi, miss Shinobu." Natsu greeted back and smiled.
"G-gotta go! See ya!" Murata then ran out the infirmary without greeting Shinobu.
"Wait, Murata! Aren't you forgetting to gree-" Before Natsu could stretch his arm and finish his sentence, Murata had already left the room. "Oh... he's gone."
"No need to worry about him. He'll be fine." Shinobu told Natsu.
Natsu walked close to and stood in front of Shinobu. "Oh. Miss Shinobu?
"You can call me, Shinobu." Shinobu told Natsu.
"Okay." Natsu inhaled some air. "Shinobu?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you so much for sparing Nezuko's life. I'm happy that you did."
'Hey, I feel like I should be the one saying that.' Tanjirou thought.
"My pleasure. As long as she doesn't resist or eat another person, I don't have to resort to using wisteria poison to kill her." she said with a blunt smile on her face.
"Eh..." Natsu and Tanjirou's faces turned blue out of fear. Their pupils shrunk and their mouths were left open.
"Other than that, how are you all feeling?"
"I'm feeling a bit better. Thank you for asking." Tanjirou said in a lesser optimistic tone.
Zenitsu grumbled in his sleep.
Kurosaki said nothing in still sleep.
"It seems like your friends seemed to still be unconscious." Shinobu said as she looked at Zenitu and Kurosaki's unconscious bodies. "Well, then. It's time to place them both under immediate surgery." she said, then pointed towards Tanjirou. "And as for you, Tanjirou... you're going to start your rehabilitation training."
'Rehabilitation training?' Tanjirou thought as he had no knowledge.
'Tanjirou's going to be whipped back into shape.' Natsu had thought as he knew what Rehabilitation was.
Later that Evening...
The sun was starting to set, and the sky was turning a tad bit of orange. Natsu and Inosuke were leaving the Butterfly Mansion. Natsu looked normal and Inosuke seemed to be ticked off, as a result of him being kicked out of the Butterfly Mansion, temporarily by Aoi, due to Inosuke not being mindful of his surroundings. By breaking pots and attempting to kill butterflies in the garden.
"Who does that dumb she thinks she is? kickin' me out like that?" Inosuke referred to Aoi as he walked alongside Natsu.
"You were breaking her precious pots and trying to slice Shinobu's butterflies." Natsu noted.
"I was doing her a favor! Those demon bug flies were trying to eat her!" Inosuke yelled.
'Again, with demon insects?' Natsu thought in his mind. "You do remember that demons only come out at night, right?" Natsu asked.
"Who cares what day or night they come out? A demon is still a demon!" Inosuke pulled out his dual Nichirin blades.
Natsu chuckled.
"Uh? What's so funny, redhead?" Inosuke asked.
"You never change, do you?" Natsu said, then walked ahead of Inosuke a bit.
Inosuke paused. "What's that the heck does that even mean?"
"It means, I'm starting to like you as a person." Natsu smiled.
"W-what?"
"You're rambunctious, and you like to take charge into battle, despite being weaker than other demons. You're really a one of a kind." Natsu smiled at Inosuke, which left him confused.
Inosuke gripped his fists. "Don't try to trick me, redhead!" he pointed at Natsu's backside. "I'm going to surpass you in no time! And then, I'm going to be the strongest Demon Slayer in the whole entire world!"
"Natsu chuckled again. "Now, that's the spirit!"
"We've been walking on this road for a while. Where are we going, anyway?" Inosuke asked, not knowing where to go.
"Easy. While Tanjirou is starting his Rehabilitation training and Zenitsu is about to go through surgery... You and I will be going to my hometown to get stronger. And I know just the person to help us." As Natsu revealed his plan to Inosuke, he thought of his older brother, Kyojuro Rengoku.