^ Chapter 3 - The Drum House ^
Zenitsu's teeth chattered loudly and the small boy and girl shivered, all three of them utterly terrified of the monstrous roar that had come from within the abandoned home. Tanjirō however had already returned his attention to the now dead man in his arms, mourning over the life taken away from him, and grieving over the fact that they weren't there in time to rescue him.
If he and Nezuko would have been able to find the demon, he might have still been alive, and if this wasn't the kids' brother, he might not have been kidnapped by the demon inside of the house. It was a heavy burden on his heart, one that grew bigger when added on to the grief of not being able to save all of those young women eaten by the swamp demons from before.
Tanjirō's hands shook slightly, and he grit his teeth as an anger that he never knew he possessed started to rise up from deep within his very soul. He had experienced great emotion before, with the death of his family, and the conversion of Nezuko into a demon. But this fury, that seemed so foreign and savage to him, it was all new.
"We couldn't save him...we were too late to save him...if only we'd gotten here a little sooner, we might have been able to save him!" thought Tanjirō as his jaws locked together, baring his fangs as the anger continued to bubble up. This anger, this rage, it was starting to seep into every fiber of his being, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. His body shook slightly, his pupils narrowed, his fangs grew larger and sharper.
Was this the anger of a demon? Was this what made demons so ferocious and cold-blooded towards humans? It felt so foreign, yet so familiar at the same time. His rationality began to fade, he wanted to go on a rampage. He wanted to attack, he wanted to bite, he wanted to feast. His body was screaming at him to do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.
"N...No...this...isn't right…" Tanjirō told himself, clamping his eyes shut as he released one of his hands from the man, his fingers shaking. His fingernails had grown out into sharpened points, capable of tearing through flesh like butter. "I...need...to calm down…!"
Willing himself to let the man down onto the dirt gently, he pulled his other hand back and further resisted the urge to dig into the corpse sitting in front of him. The blood, the flesh, it all looked so delicious. If he could just have one bite, one lick, one taste of it.
"No!"
"T-Tanjirō!?" gasped Zenitsu when the demon slayer grabbed onto his wrist and squeezed as tightly as he could, hunching over and tucking his head into his chest to try and contain himself. "Tanjirō! Are you okay, what's wrong?!"
"Chu! Chuu!" chirped Ukogi, flapping his wings frantically. "Chuu!"
"I can't understand you!" snapped back Zenitsu. "I don't understand anything you're telling me!"
Tanjirō dug his fingers into his wrist, drawing blood from how tightly he was gripping it while he continued to battle back this new, darker half of himself from taking full control. There wasn't anything they could have done to save this man, he was already gone. It wasn't his fault that he had been taken by the demon inside of the house.
"You've got a duty to do, Tanjirō! You can't succumb! You can't give in! You have to stay yourself for Nezuko!" he told himself in his mind over and over again, repeating it as a mantra. "For Nezuko! For Nezuko!"
The mental chant began to have an affect on him, and slowly but surely he started to calm down and lose the anger that had so quickly filled his body. His nails began to revert back to their original size, losing their sharpness, as well as his fangs starting to shrink as well. His breathing began to regulate, and his body ceased shaking.
Eventually, Tanjirō was able to open his eyes again to the dead man lying on the ground before him, and he let out a deep sigh. Letting go of his now bloody wrist, he leaned forward somewhat and used his hand to close the empty eyes of the man so that he could rest.
"I'm sorry we didn't make it in time…" he murmured under his breath, before he was away of a pair of eyes staring at his back. He turned around and noticed an even more terrified Zenitsu looking at him, his teeth still clattering loudly while his body was shaking so much he could probably turn himself to fine powder.
"Zenitsu, I-"
"Y-You're...okay now, right? You're fine, right…?" Zenitsu asked in a shaky voice. "You...got really...bad there, you know? I...I could hear you...I could you know…"
"I...I'm sorry Zenitsu...I...I let go of myself for a moment…" Tanjirō apologized. He lowered his head out of regret for letting his emotions get the better of him, especially this newfound anger he had no idea he had the capacity to possess.
"But...you're okay now, right?"
"Mhm...I am. I've calmed down now. Hey, you kids...is this man your…?"
Tanjirō looked back up, turning his attention to the shuddering kids with a raised eyebrow. He knew they, or at least one of them, had seen the man come out of the window before he told them to look away after he had struck the ground. The girl was still tucked away tightly into her brother's arms, but the brother cracked open one of his eyes and glanced at him a little, before shaking his head slowly.
"It's not Onii-san. Onii-san's wearing a persimmon-colored kimono."
Tanjirō's heart leapt a bit in his chest, and a short-term wave of relief coursed through his body as his eyes widened while looking at the siblings. The young man who had just died wasn't their brother, his clothes didn't line up with the boy's description.
The short-term relief faded quickly when Tanjirō realized what that meant. Their older brother was still inside of the houses somewhere with whoever the demon that kidnapped him and this man was. He couldn't help but feel unsettled about it, from the way how the man spoke of finally making it out of the house, to the creepy tsuzumi drum beats had come from within the building several times over. Nothing felt right about this house, and it made him worried.
Turning to look back down at the young man one last time, he closed his eyes and offered his hands up in a silent prayer for the man, hoping that in heaven and the next life after that he would have happiness and prosperity.
"I promise to bury you when I return. Forgive me. Forgive me." Tanjirō prayed, before nodding his head. "Alright. Zenitsu, come on! We're going in!"
Tanjirō turned around, half expecting an at least somewhat ready Zenitsu to give into cowardice for a brief moment before begrudgingly following along, only to see a deathly afraid Zenitsu shake his head furiously back and forth while quaking in his sandals. Tanjirō sighed internally and approached Zenitsu with a somewhat expectant look on his face.
He had to give him at least some encouragement and a reason to go inside, especially with the life of another human being at stake.
"But no one else can help them now but you and me."
Zenitsu didn't respond to Tanjirō and instead continued to shake and cower down, his face twisted in terror as a weird whimper was continuously coming out through his teeth. Like a scared puppy he refused to budge, and after a moment or two, Tanjirō's expression darkened somewhat, becoming fed up in that moment as he looked at Zenitsu with the face of an ogre, his demonic eyes piercing right through Zenitsu.
"Really now...all right then. I get it." Tanjirō said darkly, before turning and walking towards the children still hiding among the brush next to the tree he saw them next to.
"Iyyeeeaaa!" squealed Zenitsu, his hair standing on end. "Hey, come on! Why are you making that ogre face at me!?"
He latched onto Nezuko's holding box and held onto dear life as Tanjirō kept walking without giving so much of a glance back at the whining demon slayer.
"Okay, okay! I'll gooo!"
"I have no intention of forcing you to."
"I said I'll go!"
Tanjirō shook off Zenitsu and he took off Nezuko's box, setting it down and opening the door slightly to check on Nezuko and make sure she was okay. She was fast asleep, hardly making any noise, and it brought a smile to Tanjirō's face before he closed the door shut again and he looked up at the young boy, who met his gaze.
"In case of an emergency, I'm leaving this box behind. If something were to happen while I'm gone, you two will be protected." he said, patting the box once before standing. "Alright, we're going now."
With the softly weeping Zenitsu following a couple of feet behind him, Tanjirō walked up to the sliding door leading into the house and pushed it to the right in order to open the way in. Beyond the door was an empty entryway, with a single lit lantern hanging from the ceiling in the center of the hallway, and some pots off to the side just past the doorway.
The lantern was a nice change from the darkness outside, and his eyes adjusted to the change in light so he wasn't blinded upon entering. He peered inside for a few moments, finding it quiet. Extremely quiet, save for the gentle flickering of the candle inside of the hanging lantern. Tanjirō then stepped inside and slowly walked down the hallway, Zenitsu doing the same while nervously looking around at every little nook and cranny for fear of something appearing out of nowhere. At the end of the hallway was a bend, turning to the left where there was another hallway lit by a couple more lanterns, as well as two separate paper doors that led deeper into the bowels of the house.
"H-Hey, Tanjirō...h-h-hey, Tanjirō!" cried Zenitsu, his body shaking so much it sounded like even his bones were rattling. "You'll protect me, right? Y-You'll protect me, right?"
At those words Tanjirō stopped walking, his earrings swaying slightly. He sighed again before he turned his body and head to look at Zenitsu with a heavily worried expression.
"Zenitsu, I hate to put you on the spot, but...I've only been a demon for a couple of days now. And it's taken me those couple of days of sleeping, as well as not eating, well, you know…'stuff' to fully recover from a battle with two demons I had in one of the bigger cities. If I were to get injured that badly again, I wouldn't be able to heal myself that quickly like any other demon could. I haven't mastered that yet, I think. So-"
"Eureaeggghhhh?! What do you mean, not yet?! Don't go breaking any bones or getting hurt on me!" cried out Zenitsu, completely throwing away any surprise that they could've had on the demon in the house. His eyes were practically bugging out of his head and his tears of cowardice and terror flowed free from them down his cheeks. "If you get fractures or broken bones or cuts, you can't possibly protect me! I-I'm gonna diiiiiie!"
Zenitsu collapsed to his knees and clutched his head, his snot starting to run out of his nostrils while his eyes continued to bug out, all large and bloodshot in a cartoonish way as he had another episode just like the one back in the town.
"What am I gonna do now?! I'm gonna die now! Gonna die, gonna die, gonna diiiie!"
Tanjirō's face morphed from expression concern to downright regret at telling Zenitsu that as the yellow-haired slayer then fell to the floor and started to roll side to side as he clutched his head, weeping and screeching about how he was going to be a dead man for sure. He regretted it not only because it was actually pretty sad to see a demon slayer act like this, but every second that went by with Zenitsu crying like this, it was another second in which the demon could discover their infiltration.
If the demon knew they were here, they could attempt an escape and leave the house entirely, possibly taking the brother of the two children outside with it. It would make it harder to find the demon if it remained there too, since it could plan ahead before they could discover it.
"Zenitsu, quiet down!" asked Tanjirō, raising his hands up. "You're going to be fine!"
"Don't you sugarcoat it! Ighyaaaahh! I'm so scared I could die, that I wanna diiiiie!"
"I'm not! I can tell, all right? Zenitsu, you're-not good!"
"Nnghyyeeeehhh!?"
Tanjirō changed his demeanor mid sentence as soon as he saw the two children from outside appear around the corner, holding each other's hands looking a little scared.
"You're not supposed to be in here!"
"Onii-chan, we heard scratching sounds from inside that box!" said the boy as they went up to Tanjirō, the four of them now in front of one of the open rooms that the hallway connected to.
"E-Even still, it pains me that you left it behind! I mean, it's more precious to me than my own life!"
Suddenly a huge thundering boom of sorts, followed by a deep rumble that shook the house sounded off, Zenitsu straightening up and leeting out a loud squeal as he gripped the sides of his head even tighter. The coward inside of him was getting too scared and it was overpowering him, reducing him to a scared child that couldn't seeing anything around him in any other way than in utter terror.
"Ighaaaaaa!" he cried out, bending over so quickly that his rear end bumped into the little girl and Tanjirō, sending them both tumbling backward towards the open doorway.
Tanjirō extended a hand out to try and catch something, anything that could help him stop from falling over entirely, while his other hand held onto the little girl so that at the very least he could break her fall. Thankfully he was able to obtain his balance quickly and he used both hands to stop the girl from falling all together, catching himself with his feet as they stood on the other side of the doorway.
"O-Oh...my butt-"
The bong of the tsuzumi drum was heard, like an echo that rang out throughout the house off every single wall and floor, and instantly the room changed to an entirely different one in the blink of an eye. Tanjirō gasped when Zenitsu and the young boy vanished entirely, the doorway that had once been there now gone and replaced with another paper door, their room having turned into a new one as well.
He and the little girl didn't even have time to get their bearings when the tsuzumi drum bonged five more times, each time the drum bonged causing the room to change again and again. When the last bong of the drum was heard, Tanjirō and the girl were now inside of a large room lit up by a handful of hanging lanterns from the ceiling, the two walls on either side of them lined with what seemed like storage shelves and boxes.
"It's a different room…" Tanjirō thought while looking around, waiting to see if the drum sounded off again. When it didn't, he relaxed only slightly as he got his bearings in the room. There was only one exit, the doorway in front of them, which led out to another hallway just beyond that which went from right to left and vice versa.
"No...maybe not a different room...were we the ones that moved? To the beat of that tsuzumi?"
Tanjirō then heard a soft whimper and he stopped looking around the room to the girl he had his hands on, the girl's face covered by her tiny hands as she sniffled and cried into them. She was scared, not only because of the demon inside of the house, but because she had been separated from her brother as well. He could hear her heartbeat, it was panicked. She was absolutely terrified, so to help her, he put on a reassuring smile as he gently rubbed her shoulders to try and sooth her.
"Sorry you got separated from your brother, okay? But I'm gonna protect you no matter what." he said, using a hand to wipe away her tears. "And Zenitsu is gonna protect your brother. Don't worry!"
"E...Even when...you're...you're one of them…?" asked the girl in a soft voice. "A...m-monster?"
Tanjirō laughed off the little insult, which wasn't really too bad since he thought the same thing about a certain person anyways, before he nodded. "Yes, I will. I'm going to keep you safe, and get you and your brothers out of here, safe and sound. I promise."
Tanjirō affectionately rubbed the top of her head, ruffling up her hair a tiny bit, and he was instantly taken back to when he would do that with Nezuko, back before that fateful day. The gesture apparently was enough for the girl to finally let go of her doubts, as she finally seemed to trust him enough to let out a tiny little giggle.
"What's your name? asked Tanjirō after finishing.
"T...Teruko…"
"Is that right? Teruko?" said Tanjirō with a warm smile. "That's a fine name you have-"
Tanjirō gasped as an invisible bright red mist that smelled of demonic blood washed over his face and up into his nostrils, his eyes darting to the entrance right as several pounding footsteps were heard coming there way, before a hulking man came into view from the hallway coming from the left. He was huge, bigger than Tanjirō, with grayish skin, black hair and razor-like teeth, and several tsuzumi drums protruding from his shoulders, stomach, and thighs. His face was held perpetually in an expression of anger, his teeth bared like an angry predator, and curiously his eyes were rolled up into the back of his head, showing nothing but his blood red sclera.
When Teruko was about to gasp or scream, Tanjirō didn't know which, he quickly covered her mouth with his hand to prevent her from making any noise. She was quaking now, even more so than before, at the sight of the demon, being so terrified that she clung onto Tanjirō even when he too was a demon.
Tanjirō didn't say a word either as sweet dripped down his forehead, his teeth bared in anxiety as he stared at the opposing demon just outside the room. His nostrils were filled with the scent of the demon, being stronger than a couple of others that he could smell inside of the house.
"Even among all of the other scents...this is the strongest one that this house is steeped in! This one's devoured a whole slew of humans! This one's the master of this house!"
The stench of blood from past victims coming from the demons was enough to bring out Tanjirō's urges, but he willed them to go to the back of his mind in order to focus. He couldn't let himself be overtaken by the lust for blood or flesh, the enemy was right in front of him. He had to protect Teruko at all costs.
"I'm gonna diiiiie! Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die, I'm telling you!"
Zenitsu, after Tanjirō's disappearance, had begun crying and screeching out for help once again while the young boy looked around behind them, calling out his sister's name over and over again to see if she would respond
"Tanjirō and I got split up! This is terrible!"
"Teruko! Teruko!" the boy called out, before Zenitsu frantically grabbed onto his sleeve while falling to his knees.
"No, no, no, no! Don't yell like that!" pleaded Zenitsu, the boy looking down at him and thinking in the back of his head how Zenitsu had been the one doing that just moments ago. "If you yell and the bad guy hears you, it won't be pretty! Come on, let's step outside…!"
"What...why outside?" the boy asked, looking surprised. "Are you trying to escape all by yourself?"
"Eh?"
"All this constant yammering about dying...aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
E-Ehh?!"
Zenitsu's hands froze up and twitched, letting go of the boy's sleeve, which allowed him to turn fully and look down at the older Zenitsu with a disdainful expression, even when he was several years younger than the slayer.
"Clinging onto a younger person? Don't you feel pathetic? What are you wearing the sword on your hip for anyway?"
"Gaahh!"
Zenitsu clutched his chest as he fell onto his back, his body jittering slightly while he stared up at the ceiling. "Those words cut so deep…"
In a heartbeat Zenitsu was then back on his feet dragging the boy by his other sleeve towards the exit of the house, the boy pulling against him to try and break free.
"That's not it! I'm not gonna be of any use anyway, so I'm gonna summon a grownup here, okay?"
"Let me go!"
"It's because this isn't something us kids can resolve on our own!"
Zenitsu reached the exit to the house, finding the sliding door was closed shut. In the back of his mind he assumed that was from when the boy and his sister had entered and they had closed the door behind them, so he was expecting to be back outside under the stars and the moon in the clearing when he flung it open.
Instead, there was a small darkened room on the other side of the door with a standing dresser and a pot in front of it, as well as a painting hanging on the wall over it.
"E-Ehh?! You're kidding me, kidding me, kidding!" cried out Zenitsu, clutching his head again in disbelief. "I'm sure this was the front door!"
He then dragged the boy with him to several other doors that they could reach, throwing them open with his hand to see if they led back outside, only for each one to lead to another part of the house time and time again.
"This one?!" He threw open another door, finding a darkened room, only this one wasn't empty. Standing inside the room was a figure, a man, who was physically well built with baggy pants secured around his waist by a thick belt of animal fur. Two swords hung at his sides, one on each hip, their blades made to be serrated, with tape wrapped around the handles rather than be bare.
The most striking feature that could be seen in the dim room was when he turned his head to look at Zenitsu and the young boy, revealing the hair head of a boar with bright blue eyes that shined with the light coming from outside the room. The man boar thing then let out an extremely heavy breath, causing what looked like steam to shoot out of his nostrils.
"I-I-IT'S A MONSTER!" shrieked Zenitsu, before the man boar thing crouched down and leaped at them.
Zenitsu ducked and the thing busted down the door, flying over Zenitsu and hitting the wall behind him before running out of the connecting room and into the hallway next to them on all fours, before standing up on two feet and sprinting off with thunderous footsteps. Once he was gone, the boy looked back down towards Zenitsu, who was cowering with his hands above his head in a squatting position after ducking to avoid the man boar.
Zenitsu felt the eyes on the back of his head and he glanced back over his shoulder to see the look the boy was giving him and he spun around, tears pouring out of his eyes as he pointed at him accusingly.
"What the hell? What's that look in your eyes? Stop looking at me like that!"
Teruko was shaking still as she tried to be as silent as possible with her breathing for fear that the imposing demon standing just outside the room would be able to hear her. At the same time Tanjirō stared down the demon with an intensity in his eyes, trying to guess what the demon could do next while he prepared to protect the little girl from the demon.
"If it hadn't been...if it hadn't been for their meddling…" the demon growled, grinding his razor sharp teeth together.
"Their meddling…? Could he be talking about the other scents I'm picking up…" Tanjirō thought before, without taking his eyes off the demon, he whispered to Teruko.
"Teruko, you gotta try not to scream." he said, Teruko looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. "The room's going to flip around, so don't go into the hall. Step back and hide behind the shelves."
Tanjirō slowly lowered his hand from her mouth, Teruko keeping her mouth shut even though she was still shaking. Once his hand was fully separated from her mouth, her pat her gently on the back before taking a step forward and to the side, standing in front of her as she slowly backed up a few steps before turning and scrambling for cover behind some of the shelves.
Tanjirō then used his thumb to pop his sword out of the hilt just a tiny bit, the sound loud enough for the demon to hear, as he got into a wide stance, ready to draw his blade. If the demon registered that he was there already, he made no reaction to his presence and continued to stand motionless outside of the room.
"Curses...curses! Thanks to them, he got away! When he was my prey!" rambled on the demon, growling again to himself. "Why is it? Why do they all keep barging into someone else's home? It's infuriating. That was my prey...my own prey, discovered on my own turf!"
Tanjirō then gripped the handle of his nichirin blade and pulled the shiny black blade out of its holder, the lantern light reflecting off the metal as he held the sword at the ready to do battle. He didn't know how this demon would stack up compared to the arrow and Temari demons he had faced before, but he wasn't about to make any guesses either.
"This'll be the first time I fight as a demon...I wonder how things will have changed…"
"Curse them, curse them!"
"Hey, listen!" proclaimed Tanjirō while keeping his blade steady. "I'm with the Demon Slayers Corp, Rank 10, Kamado Tanjirō! I'm going to slay you for what you've done!"
"A child with rare blood that I found myself!" muttered the demon, completely ignoring Tanjirō's proclamation.
Tanjirō's knees bent forward slightly and he leaned forward, surprising himself at how quickly he was able to launch off the ground and with how much power he was able to do so. His strength had certainly doubled from being turned into a demon, but he pushed the technicalities out of the way as he reared back with his sword, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the line of connection with the demon's neck.
"Got him!"
The demon without even looking at him then brought his right hand up and tapped the tsuzumi drum growing out of his left shoulder, Tanjirō's eyes widening when his whole view began to turn and take him with it, his momentum instantly falling off to the left as the entire room itself began to turn.
He heard Teruko yelp as fell out of her hiding spot and tumbled over onto what used to be the left wall that had become the floor, bonking her head against the wall slightly.
"Teruko!" called out Tanjirō after landing on the wall, only to really look around afterwards at the room. It literally had shifted entirely along a center rotational axis. The walls had become the floor and ceiling, and the floor and ceiling had become the walls.
"The tatami floors are now on the wall...wait a minute...the room didn't shift…" he thought, looking up at what used to be the ceiling and seeing how the lanterns weren't sagging or hanging due to gravity. They were straight as an arrow, still hanging normally towards what should be the ground.
"Did he rotate the entire room with that drum, or did he change our position relative to him within the room by modifying our gravity?!" thought Tanjirō, gritting his teeth as he looked up to the doorway where the demon had remained standing without moving an inch. "It must be the demon's Blood Demon Art! This entire house is this demon's territory!"
As he gripped his sword, ready to try and attack the demon again, the demon ground his teeth together again as his own frustration with the unknown event that had occurred before Tanjirō's arrival seeped through to the surface again.
"Infuriating...infuriating!" muttered the demon angrily as Tanjirō pushed himself off the floor to attack the demon yet again. Once more, before he could reach his target, the demon hit one of his drums and flipped the room over yet again, Tanjirō falling and landing on the ceiling next to one of the lanterns.
Teruko let out another yelp as she fell onto her back behind him, Tanjirō gritting his teeth as he thought on his feet to try and ensure he didn't have to worry about Teruko's safety while battling the demon at the same time. The easiest answer came to him quickly, and he pointed to the furniture that she could reach.
"Teruko, hold onto the furniture!"
She rubbed the back of her head and, while still terrified, she nod her head and reached up to one of the pieces of furniture in order to grab it so she wouldn't be at risk of injury when the room got flipped again, when it did.
Tanjirō then returned his attention to the demon and gripped his sword two handed, staring at the demon as he continued to grumble to itself about his prey and the insects running amok in his house. Before Tanjirō could make a move, the demon then rapped on the drum growing out of his left thigh twice.
Tanjirō could feel himself start to fall backward, and before he knew it the room started to flip end over end around him, causing him to fall right onto his back back on the floor when the room oriented itself back to its normal position. Reacting quickly as soon as landed, he darted over to the side and quickly caught Teruko in his arms before she hit the tatami matted floor.
"Wew, I got you...I got-"
"Coming throuuuugh!"
With a war cry, the doors to a second floor overhang that was behind them were shattered apart as the man with the boar head launched himself into the room, swords in hand. Tanjirō could only get a glimpse of the man before he was knocked to the side when the man landed on him, Teruko falling out of his arms and hitting the floor below the boar man with a squeal.
"Teruko!" cried out Tanjirō as he quickly got back up onto his feet, getting a good look at the man at the same time.
A once over showed Tanjirō that the boar head wasn't the man's actual head and face, but a helmet and mask of sorts that covered the entirety of his head and neck, hiding his identity. His swords had been modified to not only cut, but to shred through any flesh that they met, and an even closer inspection revealed to Tanjirō that they weren't normal swords, they were nichirin blades.
"Nichirin blades! He's a demon slayer?!"
"Khehehee...this is fun...I finally found you…! Now you can finally springboard me forward!" laughed the man as he stepped on Teruko, making the small girl squeal again, and pointed one of his swords at the demon. "You will be the springboard that allows me to get even stronger! Khaahaa!"
Tanjirō heard Teruko squeal when the man stepped on her back and he immediately growled, rushing over to the little girl's aid. He grabbed the newcomer's ankle rather tightly and growled as he threw him off Teruko with another force to actually flip him over once in the air.
"Don't stomp all over her!" he bellowed, picking Teruko up and holding her in his arms like a big brother would. "What do you think you're doing, stepping on a little kid like that!?"
"Who the hell are you…?" questioned the young man with a snarl.
"Someone that doesn't trample on little girls!"
The buff boar man laughed at him, bringing his swords up in a threatening manner as the azure blue eyes of the boar mask focused on Tanjirō, another breath of steam or air thicker than usual emerged from the nostrils.
"I like it! I like it! No human's ever sent me flying like that before!"
Tanjirō gasped when the boar man then lunged at him, swiping with both swords at his waist. He leaped back to avoid the blades, holding Teruko close to his chest with his left hand on the back of her head, his eyes wide with confusion about why he was the one being attacked and not the demon. The boar's head moved up slightly as the man underneath got a closer look at Tanjirō and noticed his demon eyes, a snort coming from beneath the mask as he stood up from his forward kneeling position.
"You're no human...you're a demon! Kheheheh, even more fun!" he laughed, pointing his right blade at Tanjirō. "My swords will definitely hurt you...they'll shred that neck of your's to pieces!"
"Wait, I'm not a bad guy! I'm in the Demon Slayer Corps, just like you!" exclaimed Tanjirō, motioning to the demon standing in the doorway to the room still. "I'm not the enemy here! The demon you want is right there, you know!"
"Like I care!"
The man snarled and rushed at Tanjirō again, the drum demon growling to himself and cursing under his breath as he brought up one of his arms, ready to strike his drums.
"Damn insects...damn insects! Out of my sight! Die!"
The demon then slapped the drum coming out from his stomach, causing an invisible rush of air to spontaneously appear between Tanjirō and boar man, three deep claw marks dug through the floor and sent wooden splinters and fragments shooting out in all directions. Tanjirō landed on his feet after avoiding the unseen attack, staring in disbelief at the floor damage that had appeared out of nowhere with destructive force.
"The floor ripped apart all of a sudden! At the same speed as the sound of the tsuzumi! In the shape of a beast's claws!"
The drum demon beat his stomach drum again and forced the boar man to dodge another invisible claw attack that shredded through the floor and the paper wall behind him. Another drum beat, and the room began to rotate to the right, Tanjirō tumbling over onto his back and hearing Teruko squeak when his back hit the wall. A third drum beat, the sound from the demon's left shoulder, and the room flipped back the way it had come, with Tanjirō taking a small leap in order to land on the floor with his back and protect Teruko again.
"The room spun right, and then left again, each direction to the sound of one of those drums!" he thought, trying to identify the pattern related between the room's motions and drums.
"Damn insects!"
The drum demon beat his right shoulder drum then his right thigh drum, the room spinning right once again and flipping in direction, causing the boar man to shatter through what would be the room's back wall, which had become the floor, and land on his back with a heavy grunt. He looked down at the man, ensuring that he was at least physically okay, before looking straight up to the demon above them, who seemed to be looking at his hands in front of his face.
He thanked his new sense and perception abilities as a result of being a demon for his ability to maintain composed as his view changed all around him along with the room itself. He might have already thrown up by now, but that didn't matter. He was beginning to understand the enemy's tactics.
Suddenly there was another bong of a tsuzumi drum, but it didn't come from the demon. In the blink of an eye, Tanjirō and Teruko were in a completely different room now. One lit by smaller lanterns hanging from the ceiling, a table in the center, and some storage closets hidden behind a handful of doors with white and red koi fish painted on them. Teruko finally pulled her head out of Tanjirō's shoulder and looked around with him at their new surroundings, Tanjirō attempting to rationalize how they had been transported without the demon being the one to do it.
Another second passed by and Tanjirō's nose was able to pick up even more scents within the home, now that the stronger scent of the drum demon wasn't so overbearing like before. He could smell the boar man somewhere, as well as the drum demon, even Zenitsu and Teruko's brother. But there were other horrid stenches just like the drum demon with them as well, somewhere within the bowels of the house.
"Could one of these other demons possess a tsuzumi? Perhaps that's why…"
Tanjirō looked to his right at the only exit out of the room, a paper room that didn't seem to have any light shining through it which meant just beyond it was a hallway within the house. Once he was sure they were safe, he loosened his hold on Teruko slightly and slowly squatted down, letting her onto her feet.
"I can smell blood...human blood...something's close." he thought, staring at the door before he heard Teruko whimper softly.
Tanjirō brought his warm smile back as he rubbed her back gently and looked at her, Teruko turning back to see his smile and felt calmer almost instantly. If she had any doubts about Tanjirō being a threat to her as a demon, they were gone now because of how he had protected her so avidly thus far.
"It's going to be okay, alright?" Tanjirō said while standing up, keeping his sword at his side. "Just stay behind me."
"Okay." replied Teruko, looking up at him with hope in her eyes.
With Teruko gently holding onto the hemline of his haori, they walked to the paper door and he slid it open slowly, peering his head out to make sure the coast was clear. Looking left revealing nothing, but as soon as he went right, his heart skipped a beat when he saw the source of the smell of blood at the end of the hallway, at a crossroads. An unidentified, bloody human corpse was lying there on the wooden floor, their blood splattered along the wall and floor around it.
Tanjirō's heart beat quickly for a few moments, his primal urge to devour human flesh resurfacing briefly before he turned his head and closed his eyes, pushing it back down.
"Another human ripped to shreds and devoured!"
"Wh-What's the matter?"
Tanjirō glanced back at Teruko, who was giving him a worried look. He gave her a smile to hide the pain in his heart from seeing the corpse and he turned around, putting a hand gently on her shoulder.
"It's all right. There are no demons around. Come on, let's go." Tanjirō walked out of the room with Teruko, keeping her in front of him as they walked to the left in order to stay away from the corpse. "Without a backward glance. Look straight ahead, okay?"
Teruko nodded her head once, trusting Tanjirō as he walked her down the hallway, their steps echoing off the walls with how silent it was. Keeping his senses sharpened to alert him of any danger, he thought to himself about the demon and his attack style, analyzing it to the best of his ability so that he was more prepared for when their next encounter came about.
He was certain that with every drum, a specific action involving any room they were in would occur soon after a particular drum was hit. One caused the room to spin one way, and another could reverse it. Then there was the drum that created the invisible claws, which he knew was the center drum growing out of his abdomen.
"I just have to figure out what each drum does, and with that, I can figure out a proper strategy." he told himself, before he sniffed the air and detected a new smell wafting around. "A new scent...it's-"
His eyes widened and he suddenly covered his mouth and nose with his hands, the sudden action causing Teruko to gasp when she thought something had appeared. Tanjirō's hand twitched and his hunger came back even more powerful than previously, no, even more than ever before since becoming a demon. The blood's scent was the same as a human's but completely different at the same time. Instead of the bitter smell he had gotten used to from being around humans in the town, this blood's scent was sweet, almost like fruit, and it was utterly intoxicating.
If he hadn't covered his mouth he might've gotten drunk off the smell, and from there he didn't know what could happen. The closer he got to the source of the sweet-smelling blood, the more his body started to react to it. with his legs beginning to wobble and his mouth starting watering like crazy. There was so much saliva that it was beginning to drip through the gaps between his fingers and roll down his hand, dripping onto the floor as they walked.
"Onii-chan...are you okay…? You're...drooling…" asked Teruko, looking up at Tanjirō. "And you're shaking too…"
"I'm fine, Teruko...it's just…" he said at first, before he shuddered and wiped the saliva away from his lips for a moment. "Demons...can smell human blood...it's...it's why a demon is so hungry all the time...because we can smell it…"
Teruko shivered a little and looked a little scared of Tanjirō for a second or two, the slayer seeing it for a moment before he sucked up some more of his saliva and gave her a shaky smile, rubbing her back reassuringly.
"I-It's fine though...I'm...I'm holding myself back. Whatever this blood is that I'm smelling...it's...different…"
"D-Different…?"
"It's scent, it's...I don't know how else to put it but intoxicating…"
Tanjirō covered his mouth and nose again to help limit the blood's effect on him as he tried to control himself and his hunger, his stomach growling loud enough for Teruko to hear. She looked up at how strained Tanjirō looked just by the way his eyes were, and after a few moments she put her small arms around his waist and hugged him gently, surprising him.
"I believe in you, Onii-chan…"
Tanjirō blinked in surprise, before his eyes relaxed as he smiled behind his hand and thanked her, sheathing his sword in order to rub the top of her head. The ache in his stomach was slowly turning into agonizing hunger, but he grit his teeth behind his hand and powered through by the power of his own will and his morals.
He offered a silent prayer to the gods, wishing for the power and strength to persevere through this trial, so that he could accomplish the duty that he had within that house. Tanjirō gulped down some more of his saliva, before he stopped at a series of paper walls along with a closed door, the room beyond it possessing some light that shined through the paper. The blood scent was coming through there, whatever it was, the source was just beyond this door.
Tanjirō stopped and his other hand out in front of Teruko, stopping her in her tracks, then pulled his other hand off his mouth to briefly give her the shush symbol with his finger, before covering his mouth and nose again. They silently approached the door and Tanjirō placed one hand on the door, and another on his sword, relying on his will alone to keep his mouth shut and his hunger under control.
Then he flung the sliding door open to the left, opening up the hallway to an inner two rooms that had tatami mat floors, as well as paper walls and doors connecting the two rooms painted with blue and purple flowers. In the second room was the source of the blood, a young boy wit short black hair and what seemed like an orange kimono. Resting in the boy's lap was one of the demon's tsuzumi drums.
"The source of the other tsuzumi drum, is a boy? Wait…" Tanjirō thought before he realized who the boy was right as their eyes met. The boy had a terrified expression and without hesitating, he brought the drum up and prepared to strike it.
"Wait-!"
Zenitsu took one nervous step after the other, shivering and chattering his teeth with each step he took. He was holding the boy's hand, the boy behind him, while he looked from left to right over and over again for anything that could pop out and attack them. His breath was clearly visible, from how warm he was from all the shaking and jittering he was doing as a result of his terror, when compared to the colder air around them.
The boy on the other hand looked tired and a little fed up with Zenitsu and his cowardice, almost letting his feet drag along with the demon slayer as they walked slowly down one of the home's many winding hallways.
"Um, excuse me, Zenitsu-san-"
"Eyyaaaaaghhh!" screeched Zenitsu, letting go of the boy's hand to turn around and stare with a terror and anger filled expression. His hands twitched as he held them up like a T-Rex, a vein bulging on his right cheek and his forehead, and his mouth was wide open as if he had seen a ghost. "Eaauuuugghhhhhh!"
With a tiny little leap he threw himself at the boy and held onto him with both arms in a death grip, falling to his knees as he started to shed tears and shake even more vigorously. The boy's expression turned into an even more apathetic one at Zenitsu's cowardice, not even bothering to try and get the slayer off of him.
"S-Signal...signal...s-s-signal me first! If you want to talk, don't come at me all of a sudden!" said Zenitsu, his voice barely understandable from how much his teeth chattered. "My heart nearly flew out of my mouth just now!"
"Sorry…"
"If that had c-come to pass, that would've made you a murderer for sure! Do you get that?!"
"It's just that...see...you've been sweating, gasping, and shivering so horribly."
"What about it? Aren't I doing the best I can here?!" Zenitsu shrieked, his breath blowing a few strands of the boy's hair while washing over his face.
"Well, forgive me for saying so, but you're making me nervous too, so…"
"A-Ah! I'm sorry about that!" apologized Zenitsu through his tears. "Even still...even still...if we talk too much, those demons and all will…they might find us, right?"
Zenitsu went on to explain to the boy again for the second time why it would be best for them to be as quiet as possible to avoid attracting any demons, even though he had been the loudest between the two ever since first stepping into the drum house with his constant crying and screeching in fear.
The slayer was so focused on explaining this to the boy that he didn't notice a hand reach out from beneath the raised wooden floor to their right and dig into the dirt floor, pulling out the rest of a body with a wet and slippery sound like slime. The boy's face paled and his eyes widened in fear, shivers soon following. Zenitsu stopped talking as well when he got a shiver that ran up and down his spine, his head slowly turning around as he sniffled and whimpered slightly through his chattering teeth.
His gaze was met by the four eye gazed of a demon with a huge, swollen frog like tongue dripping with saliva that hung freely out of his mouth, a pair of green and squinting red eyes glaring at them from the demon's face.
"Huehehehe...a couple of kids. Probably most agreeable to the tongue." murmured the demon as he pulled the rest of his body out into the open.
Instead of doing anything to the demon, however, Zenitsu only shrieked loudly again about how he had been right about attracting a demon by being loud, not really registering the fact that it was his fault that they had attracted the demon.
Finally his cowardice activated the fight or flight response, and he reacted by grabbing the young boy's hand and started to run away from the demon who crawled after them on all fours. He laughed as he chased them both, his swollen tongue wagging side to side out of hunger.
"W-W-We don't taste good! I'm sure I taste awful! I'm serious, okay?! This kid's all skin and bones, so he's all dry and tastes ghastly!"
"Khehehe, how will I know until I have a taste?" asked the demon before he fired his tongue out from his mouth like a rope dart.
Zenitsu squealed as he held onto the boy and ducked to the right, the demon's long tongue flying by them and reaching a pot on the left side of the hallway to slice it clean in half, spilling water all over the ground. The demon retracted his tongue before rearing his head to the side and fling it once again at the two.
"That's not faaaair!" Zenitsu cried as he tucked the boy against his body and leaped again to the right, crashing through a pair of doors into an adjacent room to the hallway. They slid across the tatami mat floor before coming to a half, Zenitsu's body then growing limp and his arm letting go of the boy.
Zenitsu didn't say anything as the boy sat up upon being free from the slayer's hold, and ge grabbed his arm, shaking it to try and get him to respond.
"Zenitsu-san! Zenitsu-san!"
"IIgyeaa!" cried Zenitsu, his body shaking heavily again. "It's in my knees now! Eight percent of my fear is in my kneeees!"
"This is no time to whine!"
"J-Just leave me behind, okay? Make a run for it!"
"I can't do something like that!"
Zenitsu sat up more and started to cry out of terror and internal admiration of the boy's willingness to stay with him, despite there being a demon hot on their tails.
"What a great kid! Even though I'm making terrified sounds like this! I gotta find a way somehow! If i don't protect him, what will become of him? Dying before he reaches double digits would be way too tragic!"
Zenitsu continued to shiver and bawl as he hunched over, clutching his hands closed to his chest as his cowardice and horrible self-esteem continued to beat down onto him. Thoughts of how he was weak and didn't even deserve to be a Demon Slayer hounded his mind, only fueling his cowardice even more while the kid tried to get him to stand up before the demon arrived.
It was too little too late, however. The hand of the demon appeared on the floor of the room from around the corner, Zenitsu jumping in fright as the rest of the demon followed soon behind it. The demon laughed to itself at the pair as he slowly approached them, his eyes bloodshot and wide with glee as its long tongue wagged back and forth dripping with saliva.
"I'm going to enjoy this...I'm gonna guzzle your brain matter through your ears!"
Zenitsu let out a sharp breath of air from his lungs and his eyes rolled upward as the terror finally proved too much for him to handle. He collapsed onto his back, mouth wide open with little to no air escaping afterwards, the boy staring in shock at the young man. He had passed out completely, his body slumping against his shins and showing no signs of any life whatsoever.
"Z-Zenitsu!" the boy cried out. "Zenitsu, get up!"
"Kukuku, what's up with him?" the demon asked, licking his lips as he kept approaching them, hunger filling his eyes.
The boy pulled on Zenitsu's haori, dragging him away from the demon towards the back wall of the room to try and delay the inevitable as long as possible. He hoped that Zenitsu would wake up any moment, screeching and whining like he always would, but considering how fat asleep the slayer was, that hope was quickly turning to terror at the prospect of dying to the demon. His heart beat outside of his chest, as loud as war drums, and the boy's breathing got quicker and more panicked.
"Kukuku...die!" snarled the demon before he slung his tongue at the boy.
"Ahhh! Zenitsuu! Wake up!"
Zenitsu's hand twitched slightly and as the tongue was about to hit the boy, in the blink of an eye, too quick to see, the last foot of the demon's tongue was cut clean through and severed entirely. The wriggling mass of bloated flesh fell to the floor a couple feet away from them and the demon was taken aback, cringing slightly as he withdrew his tongue as the wound started to heal.
The boy, who had closed his eyes in order to not see the end coming, didn't feel it arrive and after a couple seconds of silence, he heard the rustle of fabric and opened his eyes to see Zenitsu had gotten up off the ground and was standing in front of him His head was lowered, his uneven bangs hiding his eyes and upper face from view as he stood down the demon without any fear whatsoever. He was breathing, softly, without making any sound.
Then, with a single, fluid motion, Zenitsu's left foot slid back while he hunched over, left hand gripping the sheath of his sword, the right hovering around the grip at the ready. Zenitsu had his lips parted only slightly, and with one long, slow exhale, two clouds of thickened air or steam were pushed out between the gaps of his teeth to the left and right of his head.
"W-What's this sound?" thought the demon, now on his guard at the sudden change in the former coward. "This guy...he's giving off a different vibe…!"
The boy was staring up in shocked awe at the entirely different Zenitsu, the tears he had been crying as he saw his death coming right for him completely gone.
"Zenitsu-san…"
When the breath Zenitsu was exhaling ran out, with all of the air in his lungs fully expended, his left hand thumb popped his blade out by handguard, revealing a portion of a golden yellow sword that changed in gradient from light to dark from the razor sharp edge to the dull backside, before he gripped the white and yellow handle tightly with the opposite hand. The air then began to spark and crackle with electricity, tiny little bolts zapping across his body as if he were building up energy and waiting for the moment to release it all at once.
Then, like gun discharging, he surged forward at lightning fast speed, faster than the eye could even track.
"Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata: Hekireki Issen."
A/N Here we go, chapter 3, entering the infamous Drum House. I was actually contemplating skipping this part and leaving it just to Inosuke to figure out on his own, but I decided against it and I'm glad I didn't skip it. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! The fight against the drum demon Kyogai was an awesome looking one, but throw into the mix that Tanjiro is a demon now as well will certainly spice it up! Cant wait for that next!
Also, I know these chapters are coming out daily, but it's just so awesome and I love the story so much, the creative juices just haven't stopped flowing like the sweet nectar they are! Plus I wanna get to Shinobu :3
And thought to try putting the A/N at the bottom this time, we'll see how it goes!
Please leave a fav, follow, and review! Pretty please, I want to hear what all of you beautiful and amazing people have to say! :D
Translation(s):
Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata: Hekireki Issen
- Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash