AN: My take on how some of Tanjiro's abilities as a demonic breath user are found out. This chapter is Tanjiro PoV, next chapter is Urokodaki PoV of the last part of this chapter

Tanjiro was outside with Urokodakisan and Nezuko. He liked it when they all got to go outside together, though he was usually left watching his sister swing stuff at Urokodakisan. He was always sad on those times when Nezuko went out during the bad light and he couldn't follow after her, so he made sure to stick close to her every other time. He wanted to join in and swing stuff, too, but neither Nezuko or Urokodakisan had offered him a stick.

"Can you do a few of those moves in a row?"

That was Nezuko's voice, and Tanjiro looked up from the bug he'd been examining because of you. It was one of those times where you was Urokodakisan and not him, so he turned his gaze back to the bug and tried to remember what Nezuko had said it was called. Butterfly? It had wings and made a funny buzzing sound when he poked at it.

Nezuko clapped her hands together, "I was right! I thought the moves looked similar to my father's dance."

He recognized father and he didn't like how it made him feel. Urokodakisan said something that he missed completely, his face hot and stomach funny feeling.

"My family has this ceremony we're supposed to do every year. Father called it the hinokami kagura," Nezuko's voice wavered slightly and Tanjiro knew that sour scent meant she was sad. "The head male of the family dances from sunset to sunrise in honor of the Fire God to protect our family from threats and diseases. There's a lot of differences, of course, but the overall flow of one move into another makes me think that…"

The squirmy, hot feeling inside of him got worse. A lot of what Nezuko said didn't mean anything to him, but hinokami kagura meant something to him. To them. It was distracting enough that he couldn't pay any attention to what was said next.

Sometimes special words brought an image to his mind, like father and a man with a thin face and long hair, but hinokami kagura brought forward more. The thin man and a hand on top of his head, a warm feeling in his stomach because of words he couldn't remember. A feeling of amazement as he watched the thin man move in the white cold without stopping from bad light through the dark to bad light again. A sense of duty, of responsibility. It was something important. Something Tanjiro had to remember.

When he looked up again, Nezuko and the thin man were one in the same. For a moment she moved just like him, swinging her stick around in a wide circle. Then he blinked and the overlap disappeared, Nezuko performing a move he didn't recognize. She was doing it wrong.

Tanjiro stood up and walked over to her. He patted her arm when she stopped to let him near and then used both arms to gesture to himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. Something inside him told him that he was the one that was supposed to do the hinokami kagura and not her; seeing that she didn't know how to do it properly only cemented that feeling. He could show her and Urokodakisan how the hinokami kagura was supposed to go!

Nezuko didn't realize what he meant, though. She looked at him as he gestured eagerly to himself and hugged him, which was nice but not what he wanted. He hugged back because he loved hugs and he loved Nezuko, but then he pulled away and stepped back. He put a hand on her shoulder and pressed down gently and she seemed to catch on because she just stared at him and waited.

He didn't have a stick to hold and he knew he was supposed to hold something, but that didn't deter him. Tanjiro took up the dance from the start with no effort, his body remembering the moves for him. It felt nice to do something he knew was important to him even if he couldn't remember why it was important. Nezuko and Urokodakisan both watched him as he went through the different steps, but only one of them smelled both sad and happy. Tanjiro didn't know why Nezuko smelled like that, but all she was doing was watching him so he didn't stop.

"Give him your sword," Urokodakisan spoke up after a moment.

You and your were similar enough to make Tanjiro falter, but then he realized Urokodakisan wasn't looking at him.

"What?" Nezuko's scent brightened with surprise, "You want to give him a weapon?"

"You let him go down the mountain with you," Urokodakisan's voice took on a flat tone and Nezuko's scent picked up shame but also took on a stubborn quality. "Why not give this demon a weapon on top of making him faster and better at evading things?"

Tanjiro stopped moving entirely because the squirmy bad feeling was back. He knew demon. Demon was bad, but demon was also him. Was he bad? He reassured himself that he must not be bad because Nezuko wasn't bad and she loved him.

"Here, Tanjiro." And Nezuko offered him her stick.

Tanjiro took it and looked at it. Nezuko and Urokodakisan held the sticks like angry soft walker had held that sharp long thing that had hurt him, but they had never turned them at him and while they sometimes smacked each other with them it didn't seem to hurt too bad. It didn't look like what thin man had held when he did the hinokami kagura but it was close enough that Tanjiro didn't care.

Tanjiro began the hinokami kagura from the beginning, swinging the stick this way and that as he moved his body. Something bright lit up inside him because this was right. This was how it was supposed to be done. He was sure he could do anything like this. It felt like there had been something waiting for this, something large and hot that he'd never noticed before, and it came out through his hands first.

The stick in his hands burnt up in a flash and crumbled to ashes. Tanjiro stopped and stared at the black stuff in his hands, and then looked to Nezuko and held his hands out. His eyes watered. He hadn't meant to destroy her stick.

"It's okay, Tanjiro." Nezuko soothed. She moved closer to him and dusted off his hands, "What happened, Urokodaki-san?"

"I have some idea, and it's nothing bad for Tanjiro. I'll need a while to make sure, though." Urokodakisan came over as well and took one of Tanjiro's hands in his own so he could examine it.

Time passed. He and Nezuko continued to go up and down the mountain and play the dodging game, but now Nezuko's stick waving had increased and she play fought with Urokodakisan more. Tanjiro got to show her how to do the hinokami kagura, but it was slow going because she'd only picked up the first four parts so far. Urokodakisan tried to show him one of his own moves but Tanjiro didn't want to learn it. The hinokami kagura was important; whatever weird waving thing Urokodakisan was doing wasn't.

One bad light time, angry soft walker came. The number of sharp long things he was holding had increased and Tanjiro watched him suspiciously from a corner of their home. Nezuko no longer smelled afraid of him and she called him Tomiokasan, but Urokodakisan called him Giyu. She refused to let Tanjiro crowd her into the corner with him, which meant he had to be especially observant of each move Tomiokasan made.

At some point Urokodakisan pulled out two haoris that matched the blue one that he was wearing. He handed one to Nezuko and she put it on happily. Then he prodded at Tomiokasan until he took off the one he was wearing and put on the other, and Tanjiro glared from his corner. He liked Urokodakisan alright, but Nezuko shouldn't be wearing anything that made her look like Tomiokasan. It was harder to understand words when he was feeling so many distracting things. He missed a lot sitting in his corner, glaring at Tomiokasan. But Nezuko reached back and held his hand so he was still included, so he couldn't be too upset with her.

When it was dark out, all of them left the hut and stood around in front of it. Tomiokasan took off the extra sharp long thing and handed it to Urokodakisan who then held it out to Tanjiro.

"You want to give a nichirin blade to a demon?" Tomiokasan's scent darkened with something Tanjiro didn't recognize, too many feelings for him to pick out just one.

Tanjiro stared at the thing. He didn't like Tomiokasan and something told him that the sharp thing was bad. But then Nezuko grabbed the part that wasn't sharp and Tanjiro hurried to take it from her. It was alright when she swung the sticks but this thing was sharp. He didn't want her to get hurt.

Nezuko's scent warmed with love and a bit of exasperation, "Do the hinokami kagura, Tanjiro. Use the sword."

The long sharp thing was a sword, but so were the sticks. Words were stupid, but Tanjiro committed the additional usage to memory and made sure to walk far enough away from Nezuko that there was no risk of him hitting her. The sword was heavier than the stick but Tanjiro was still easily able to shift into the first part of the dance.

By the time he was on the third part, the feeling was back. It cropped up every time but Tanjiro usually tried to ignore it because he didn't want to burn up all the sticks. Except now he had something he was pretty sure wouldn't burn, so he let the heat within him grow. It came out through his hands again but this time he didn't stop it because nothing happened to the sword, letting the flames in his palm grow and surround his hands. He did the circular slash of the fourth move and the flames spread down the sword and moved out of it in the shape he had swung it; when it hit a tree he put it out before it could spread.

The acrid stench of Nezuko's fear hit him all at once and he looked up just in time to adjust his swing so he didn't hit her as she ran to him. She'd taken her haori off and now used it to try and smother the flames on his hands and Tanjiro realized the stench of fear was for him. She thought his flame was like the fire they sat around at night, which could get too hot and hurt.

But his flames didn't hurt. Their warmth made Tanjiro feel good, and he knew they were good. Demon was bad and he was a demon, but this was good, and he wanted to share it with Nezuko. It was easy to let the feeling grow and move to her because Nezuko was his and he would never hurt her, and so he set them both ablaze.

He burnt that stupid haori, though.

"Nezuko!"
"Kamado-chan!"

Urokodakisan and Tomiokasan smelled of fear because they didn't understand. But Nezuko was looking at him with her beautiful pink eyes and her fear was gone, the sticky sweet smell of her relieved happiness growing in its place.

"I'm okay!" Nezuko reassured the other two.

And then she hugged him. Tanjiro let out a happy sound and dropped the sword, hugging her back and the good feeling let the flames around them grow stronger.