Opening: Distortion by BABYMETAL

It was another day of training for Tanjiro and his friends: more excruciating stretches followed with some simple games. However, they challenged themselves by performing physically demanding tasks while maintaining their Total Concentration Breathing. They were inside the large room of the mansion where they performed their exercises. Several long ropes were hanging from the ceiling and their current task was to climb to the top and go back down in the shortest time. Tanjiro, Inoske, and Zenitsu anxiously readied themselves to climb as they waited for one of the residents of the mansion to give the green light. A blue haired girl with twin ponytails and matching eyes started the countdown for them. Kanao stood next to her, smiling like always.

Once the countdown reached zero: the three boys started climbing. It was a fierce race as Tanjiro and Inosuke struggled for dominance in the race while Zenitsu lagged behind. Once reaching the top, Inosuke dropped from the immense height, landing on his feet. This made him slightly buckle but he maintained his footing. The blue haired girl, Aoi, complained to Inosuke, "You're supposed to climb down, not drop down!"

Inosuke burst into a triumphant laughter while pressing his fists against his hips, "Only pussies climb down! I, Lord Inosuke, am the strongest!" By that time, Tanjiro managed to climb down and said to Inosuke:

"That's not much of a threshold when compared to Mister Slayer."

Inosuke retorted, "Shut up! I still owe him an ass-beating! I'll surpass him one way or another!" Zenitsu finished climbing down as well and expressed his annoyance:

"You two keep going on and on about that guy. Seriously, what did I miss?! Why are you so fixated on him?!"

Inosuke responded right away, "I want to kick his ass! That's all the reason I need." The doors of the room opened, gathering everyone's attention. Shinobu walked inside while reading a letter. Everyone there greeted the owner of the mansion; She quickly greeted back but it was obvious she was focused on the letter. As she read further into it, she raised her eyebrows in shock and let out a slight gasp. Tanjiro felt the need to ask, "Miss Shinobu, what's the matter?"

She finally removed her sights from the letter and looked at everyone else as she explained, "It says, here, that the total population of the demons has gone down drastically. The threats haven't been as frequent as they used to be. Though there's no strong estimate, it's speculated that at least several hundred demons have been killed off recently. It also says there have been frequent reports across many towns claiming to have seen the Hellwalker. So far, it's looking like the majority of these kills are at his hands." This shocked everyone in the room.

Tanjiro had to process the words he just heard from Shinobu. At least several hundred?! It hasn't been too long since he'd last seen the Hellwalker yet there are that many deaths? He thought, perhaps, it might be an exaggeration. After all, there are hundreds of demon slayers working for the organization. However, taking into consideration the sheer tenacity of the Slayer, his overwhelming strength, and intense hatred for demons: It's definitely not impossible. It's just a difficult reality to grasp.

Inosuke exclaimed in response, "So what?! I'll kill five million demons once I'm out of here! Just watch! I refuse to be sidelined by that jackass!" Most of the people in the room dismissed Inosuke's claims, however, Tanjiro took it differently. This is an inspiring moment for the Demon Slayer Corps, they now have a humongous edge over the demons with the Hellwalker on their side. Inosuke has the right idea to be that optimistic, and he should be too. It's becoming increasingly apparent how amazing the Hellwalker is, garnering even more respect from Tanjiro (as if he didn't respect him already).

It's more imperative than ever that they need to finish their training and rejoin the front lines. Tanjiro needs to find Muzan and end him for his sister's sake.

The training continued for the boys. It was later that same day where Tanjiro and Inosuke would be getting their replacement Nichirin Blades. Both boys were ecstatic upon receiving a fresh batch of swords from their swordsmiths. Unfortunately, the swordsmith for Tanjiro, Hotaru Haganezuka, wasn't so pleased to see Tanjiro after hearing his creation was destroyed by the boy. He constantly picked on the boy for the duration of his stay there. Tanjiro's sword turned into a black color and Inosuke's into an indigro-gray. Unfortunately for Inosuke, his words weren't serrated like he wanted, he had them that way for a reason. Left with no other alternatives: he took a rock to the swords and chipped them on purpose to give them the jagged edges he wanted. This was met with extreme backlash from his swordsmith, Kozo Kanamori. The two men quickly left, leaving the boys to their own antics as they now had their replacement swords.

It was getting late by then and the sun was setting. The boys were getting ready to head to bed in a little bit as they were finishing up their daily activities. Tanjiro was heading to his bed to put up his sword when he passed by Kanao. Their eyes were locked on one another as they passed by, but Tanjiro felt the need to break the tension by saying, "H-hey, Kanao! Check out my new Nichirin Blade that just came in. Doesn't it look cool?" He says as he partially unseathes it to reveal it to her. She inspected the blade and offered a cheerful smile to the boy, still not saying anything to him. She turns around and continues on her way, leaving Tanjiro in the hallway by himself. Tanjiro felt slightly flustered looking at her, she was beautiful in the sunset light. He stopped himself and shook his head repeatedly, berating himself for getting caught up like that and that he needed to focus on his task..

Once he got to his bed, he saw his sister, Nezuko, playfully rolling back and forth on it out of sheer boredom. She stopped when she saw her brother enter and hopped off the bed. The siblings embraced one another as she attempted to speak despite her bamboo gag preventing her from doing so. Tanjiro got the idea and figured his sister was asking how he was doing; He replied, "I'm doing fine, Nezuko. It looks like you were a little bored." The girl pouted angrily, expressing her frustration. Tanjiro could only imagine how much of a pain it must be to be isolated at all times, stuck inside something so you don't burn from the sun. He changed the topic by showing off his sword to his younger sister who took a fascination with the blade.

Tanjiro placed his blade next to his bed and felt like asking Nezuko a question, "Hey, Nezuko. I've been thinking recently and I'm feeling kind of conflicted. It's about demons and who they are. I don't feel like they're terrible creatures, they're just people who have been dealt a bad hand in life. Take you for example: You're the same old Nezuko I've always known. However, Lady Shinobu asked me to explain how they're so willing to commit to violence. Every explanation that comes to the top of my head has a contradiction. That's why, I wanted to see what you think."

Nezuko partially spaced out, that was a lot to unload on a girl. She tried to think but her brain got fried trying to process it all, plopping on the bed because it was comfortable. She made an elongated "hmm" sound as she tried to conjure up an explanation but had nothing. Tanjiro could understand, and besides, she couldn't really talk in the first place. That gag is holding back her primal urges as a demon to eat human flesh. Tanjiro sighed, apologizing for his sister and telling her to rest up. He made his way towards the door to rejoin his comrades but he heard his sister sit up from the bed and attempt to call his name. He turned around to see her gazing at him. She had a determined expression on her face as she gave a reassuring nod.

Tanjiro felt at ease having his sister believe in him. Really, that's all he could ask for nowadays besides giving her back her humanity. He swears, even if it's the last thing he does, he will give Nezuko's humanity back.

Elsewhere, on a separate planet, a soldier with a square-like face, short hair, and blue eyes was inside of a transport vehicle. For this assignment, his equipment was replaced with state-of-the-art military gear designed for space operations. He donned a green armor with darker-colored pants and black boots and gloves. Lastly, he wore an angular gray helmet with a blue visor. The man sat by himself in the transport, waiting to arrive at his destination. The driver spoke up from the front, "You're lucky you even have this job, Flint, most people would've been kicked straight out of the army after what you did. You're getting possibly the worst job anyone in the army could get."

The soldier, now a space marine, was unamused by the nickname. It's actually Flynn, but people seem to have to have a habit of condensing his whole name, Flynn Taggart, into just Flint. It's annoying and it gets on his nerves when people do it. However, he's put up with it for so many years now it's not even worth dealing with at that point. Regardless of that, he chose not to respond to the man's statement. The driver continued to speak, "How's it feel to be so far away from home, huh? Never thought you'd find yourself on a whole 'nother planet, right? It's wild, technology's advanced so far, who knows where we'll go!"

Flynn tuned out the man's rambling, resting his head against the window of the transport, looking out to see the orange terrains of Mars pass by. It was all lifeless, there was nothing there. It made him kind of appreciate the beauty of civilization and the nature of Earth in comparison to this. The driver raised his voice for Flynn to hear, "We're here! Welcome to UAC Phobos base, the worst possible place to be stationed at because there's nothing to do. Which, I guess, works for us. The vehicle stopped and that was the soldier's que to get up from his seat. He made his way towards the exit but the driver had one last thing to inform him about:

"Oh, by the way, Flint: You don't need to worry about your pet rabbit. We already have someone taking care of Daisy." The soldier stopped and the name echoed in his mind. Daisy, his pet rabbit. She was important, but why? The name kept ringing in the soldier's head.

The Slayer's eyes shot open as he heard the constant tapping of his visor from his Bearded Vulture. Damn it, how long was he napping? He intended to take a quick power nap, a few minutes or so but that was enough to knock him out. He remembered that he was resting atop a tree branch in the middle of the night. After recollecting himself, the Slayer looked towards the Bearded Vutlure who cocked its head in confusion of the Slayer's absent-mindedness. The name, Daisy, still repeated itself in his head. Yes, Daisy was important to him, but was it because she was his pet? Or was there more to it than that?

The vulture prepared itself to speak but stopped when the Slayer began to caress the vulture's head and mixed in a couple scratches. The creature had no idea how to handle this and spread its wings in retaliation. It finally announced, "There are more demons in a town a couple minutes away from you, eliminate them!" It back to work for the Slayer. He sat up and dropped from the trees. He still had no luck finding Muzan, it was getting infuriating. The only thing he's managed to figure out is that this Muzan's done a damn good job at obscuring his presence from everyone. No wonder he hasn't been seen because his subordinates don't even know where he's at. However, that will not stop the Slayer. He WILL find that damn demon and return to his dimension one way or the other.

A little bit of time passed for the trio of boys and they were each facing their potentially last checkup, the checkup to give them the all clear to get back into action. Shinobu was personally inspecting them because she was a doctor. She had finished checking on Tanjiro's condition when she took a seat in front of him in her little office. The woman smiled, giving a thumbs up as she explained, "Everything checks out, you're good to go. All that's left is for you to go out there and fight some demons." Tanjiro's face lit up with joy upon receiving the good news, pumping his fists in excitement. Shinobu continued, "I trust you'll keep your promise?"

Tanjiro replied, "I will, I've been having trouble finding an answer it but that's not going to stop me. I'll find something." Shinobu smiled, expressing her gratitude. It was then that Tanjiro had his own question for the woman. He asked, "By the way, Lady Shinobu, have you ever heard of the Hinokami Kagura Dance?" Shinobu shook her head, having never heard of such thing in her life. Tanjiro was let down by this but tried a simpler approach, asking again, "Err, how about Fire Breathing?" Still nothing. Well, that was discouraging as hell. However, he had to try. So he explained to the woman:

"Well, the thing is, I recently remembered this from my father. It was a specific breathing technique he used and I kind of tapped into it during my last demon encounter. I've been wondering about it so that's why I was hoping you would know something about this Fire Breathing, any leads you could potentially give me."

Shinobu had her finger pressed against her chin as she was taking it in, racking her brain around the information. She tells the boy, "Hmm, there's not a whole lot I can tell you in that regard. I know there's Flame Breathing but that's not Fire Breathing." This left Tanjiro confused as he was under the impression they would be one and the same. Shinobu explains to him, "I'm not keen on the details but I do remember they're strict about the phrasing. I'm certain the Flame Hashira, Rengoku, would know something about this. If I remember correctly, he's currently pursuing a demon that's been wreaking havoc several towns over. If you hurry, you might be able to catch up to him."

Tanjiro was quick to get up, thanking the woman for everything she's done and that he won't let her down. He had no time to waste, he left the room to get his gear as his friends were already ahead of him. He was quick to put on his old uniform and haori, it felt at home compared to the hospital-like clothing he'd been forced to wear during his stay there. Not that it was uncomfortable, but it was different for him. Once he was fully dressed, he wanted to say goodbye to all the inhabitants of the mansion and thank them for their hospitality. He thanked Aoi and the other girls there. However, finding Kanao turned out to be a bit difficult. He ended up finding her sitting on the porch of the mansion, overlooking the expansive garden. He made his way over to her as he announced, "Hey, Kanao! We'll be heading out now! Thank you for all the help these last couple weeks." She looked towards the boy, giving him the usual, plain smile. At this point, it was unnerving for the boy. It made him feel nervous thinking he did something wrong to make the girl not want to say one word to him. It partially hurt thinking he may have hurt the feelings of such a pretty girl.

Kanao took out a coin and flipped it, she ended up getting tails. As a result: She looked towards the boy and said, "I was simply following the master's orders, there's no need to thank me. Sayonara." She was hoping that would be it, but the boy turned out to be more persistent than she anticipated as he took a seat next to her and kept asking what the coin was about. She kept responding with "Sayonara" in the hopes he would leave. It's not that she wants him to leave, but she wasn't really ordered to converse with the boy further than this. She follows her orders and that's it, everything outside of it is far too uncomfortable for her. However, the boy didn't seem to want to leave until he got his explanation. So she succumbed to his questioning and explained:

"I flip the coin when I'm deciding something I wasn't ordered to do. In this case, heads was to not talk to you, and tails was to talk." Tanjiro found this very odd and asked:

"Why don't you decide for yourself?"

"There's nothing that really matters to me. That's why I have this help me decide the things I haven't been ordered to do."

Tanjiro disagreed with the sentiment, stating, "I don't think that's true. There's got to be something that matters to you, regardless of how you feel. Do you have any family?" The girl's cheerful expression partially changed as she tried her best to maintain it.

"The master is the only family I have, that's why her orders matter. It doesn't really matter how I feel, I trust the master."

Tanjiro was feeling conflicted, mostly due to a lack of context on whether or not Shinobu physiologically abused this girl into believing her opinions were worthless. However, he highly doubts Lady Shinobu is like that at all and this had to be a deep-rooted problem. He couldn't just leave the girl like this, he wanted to help. However, he was having trouble trying to think how. He began to express his thoughts out loud, "I suppose the voice in your heart is small because of that. Sure, listening to orders is important and all but we also have to trust our own instincts and think for ourselves. What are you thinking about right now? What do you want to do?"

Kanao simply dismissed the question with: "It doesn't matter.". Tanjiro saw that the girl was being as stubborn as he was, fine, he can work with that. He'll play her game then, he asks if he can borrow the coin for a minute. The girl hesitantly accepts and hands the item over to Tanjiro. The boy jumps into the garden, making his way towards the center as he exclaimed to her:

"Then let's make a bet! If this coin lands on heads: then you'll listen to the voice in your heart and follow your feelings!" This caught the girl's attention, she had no choice but to care now. Her heartbeat sped up significantly as she watched the boy flip the coin in the air. He forgot about his Total Concentration Breathing and flipped the coin in the air higher than he was expecting. They both kept their eyes on the target as it rapidly spun in the air, slowly descending. Tanjiro was completely focused on catching the coin, barely doing so once it got close enough. He felt flustered, he was really hoping he would get this right and turned to Kanao to signal that he got the coin.

The girl could practically hear her own heartbeat at that moment, she was completely focused on the coin now as her life depended on it at this moment. Tanjiro got close, preparing to unveil the result. Tanjiro let out a deep breath to cool himself off as he slowly removed his hand on top and revealed the item: it was heads. Kanao's heart jumped and Tanjiro leapt in celebration.

This was more than a revelation for Kanao: this was life changing. A girl born into poverty, beaten and abused for so many years she lost her grip on reality and stopped caring. She met her salvation when Shinobu and her older sister saved her from her previous owner. Ever since then, she has been showered with affection and kindness from those around her. However, their kindness could not undo the damage left behind by years of abuse. Now, she's being offered a chance to act on her own, to act on instinct: a sensation lost to her.

Tanjiro put his hand out to offer the coin back to the girl. As she reached out, he took her hand with both of his and pressed the coin into her palm as he exclaimed, "Kanao, you're free to grow and think on your own. Don't let anything stop you from doing that! You can only go up from here." He let go, nodding in approval as he finished his statement, "I hope to see you again in the future. I'm excited to see what type of person you end up becoming!" before jogging away.

Kanao couldn't believe it, this was all absurd. There was no way it should've landed on heads like that. She got up and questioned Tanjiro, "How did you make it come up as heads?" The boy stopped, turning to the girl before giving her a triumphant smirk:

"Just by luck, and besides, if it had been tails: I would've tried over and over again until I got heads. Every person deserves to follow their heart, we each should have our own thoughts and opinions that matter. If it's any consolation, your thoughts and opinions matter to me." He turns his attention back to the direction he was heading and ran off. It was like a blast of reality just hit her, a wave of emotions returned to her in that moment. It was whelming, causing her heart to feel heavy. She felt her cheeks get slightly warm which was unusual for her. That boy, Tanjiro, even though he had to go and was in a hurry: Took time out of his day to help her out. She didn't know how to respond to that. The coin she held onto belonged to Shinobu's older sister, Kanae, who had lended it to her so she could make her own decisions. In reality, she did cherish many thing whether she realized it or not, she cherished Kanae by keeping her butterfly ornament and wearing it in her memory. The coin, on top of being a keepsake, was also one of the last remnants of the late Kanae who had freed her from poverty. Now, it was obsolete as she was free to explore where her heart desired. Tanjiro really was a nice boy.

Tanjiro was red all over, he had never dealt with anything close to that before. That was all back-to-back improv. Normally, he wouldn't be like this around people but it was probably because it was with such a pretty girl. So what if it was a pretty girl?! People are people, regardless of who they are. He didn't have a problem around Shinobu, so why's he all flustered around Kanao?! He also felt slightly bad about leaving because it would mean not seeing her anymore. People come and go, but they're bound to see one another again so why the hesitation?

The boy stopped in his tracks and slapped himself across the face, it hurt more than he expected because of Total Concentration Breathing. However, the pain took his mind off of it, he needed to focus. He was getting too distracted. He saw Inosuke and Zenitsu waiting by the exit of the property, Inosuke mocking Tanjiro for being a slowpoke. Tanjiro ignored the comment and led the way as they all had one, united mission objective now: It was time for them to get back in the front lines and find the Flame Hashira, Rengoku.