^ Chapter 7 - Natagumo Mountain ^

The woods were dark and empty, with nothing but the chirping of grasshoppers and incense being the only other creatures they heard besides themselves. There was barely any light to be able to see within the sea of trees, with only the moon's glow providing them any source of illumination when and if it was able to penetrate through the thick foliage above.

It was cold, which meant a thin veil of fog covered the ground beneath their feet, their sandals squishing against dew-covered moss every so often. Inosuke and Tanjirō could easily see why this mountain was so heavily forested, it was practically untouched by human civilization. The terrain was uneven practically everywhere, and trees were so tightly packed together in some areas that to carve a road through it would require obscene amounts of manpower and resources.

The wind blew slightly through the trees and Tanjirō glanced to the left and right, watching the darker shadows of the trees within the forest for anything that could be considered an enemy. His nose was on high alert as well, sniffing the air every so often for the slightest hint of the smell of demonic presence that he had gotten earlier. There was one smell that was consistently present however, regardless of what.

"The smell of blood is all over the place...what happened here? Why was a Corps member here, and just what kind of demon pulled him back into the woods?" Tanjirō thought as he kept scanning the surrounding wilderness, his hand steadily resting on his sword scabbard.

By now, with all of the missions he had been on as a demon and being among humans, he had gained more control over his hunger and could handle the smell of blood better then before. He still had that slight nagging sensation in the back of his head, like a gnat buzzing around in there constantly reminding him of what he wanted to do, but he didn't mind it too much. He had even gotten used to being able to naturally hear the beating hearts of humans, including Inosuke and Zenitsu, as well as their blood flowing through their veins. That could only take him so far though, if left alone for an extended period of time among humans, he wasn't sure if he would be able to control himself for that long. He still needed more time to better himself at that.

Tanjirō figured that Zenitsu must experience the same thing, but on a far greater scale with his advanced hearing, just like Tanjirō was able to sniff more things than what even a highly trained sense of smell could detect.

He continued to follow Inosuke, who despite never once having been here before he assumed, seemed to know his way through the forest with the paths he was taking. He wondering if, like Zenitsu's hearing and his sense of smell, that being in the mountains had enabled him to develop his own super sense or something similar in that regard.

After another minute or two of walking, Inosuke grunted when his swinging fists caught something around them and he looked down at his fingers. Tangled between each of his digits were thin spiderweb pieces, twinkling slightly in some moonlight peeking down on them from above while remaining almost invisible to the naked eye without, to him at least..

"What the hell is this?" he asked while staring at the fibers, before Tanjirō looked around where they were and got an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Through the darkness and the shadows, he was able to see spiderwebs of varying sizes and designs spread throughout the forest, spanning gaps between trees, with some even stretching up as high as the first few branches of the tree tops.

He'd never seen such concentrated collections of spider webs before, and never webs this extensive or detailed. He could hardly see the spiders that had made them either, his advanced demon eyesight even having difficulty finding them among the fibers. It was kind of pretty, but deeply troubling at the same time.

"Spider webs…"

"Jeez, this place is full of spider webs!" growled Inosuke as he started rapidly shaking his hands to be rid of the webs. "What a pain in the ass!"

Tanjirō looked around them for another moment or two before he brought his eyes back to Inosuke, who had finally freed his hands from the tangled mess of fibers and was checking to make sure they were clean.

"Hey, Inosuke?"

"What do you want?" he asked, turning back to him while crossing his arms over in a funky manner.

"Thanks."

Inosuke dropped his arms and cocked his head a little to the left in confusion, not knowing what rhyme or reason called for Tanjirō to be thanking him when he had just done what was natural for him to do.

"You said you've come with me, and I felt encouraged." Tanjirō said, before he pulled up his mask briefly to give Inosuke one of his warm smiles. The kind that could make anyone who saw it feel even the slightest bit better on the inside, even if they were absolutely enraged. "That twisted, ominous scent I was picking up from the mountain...even when I'm a demon, it still made me freeze a little. So, thanks!"

Inosuke just stared at Tanjirō, the unblinking eyes of his boar head making it seem like he was just giving Tanjirō the cold shoulder and a dumb expression. Underneath the mask though, Inosuke's eyes had actually widened and his mouth hung agape for a brief few moments, when he was brought back to the resting home.

He had been sitting outside and the old lady caretaker had brought him a fresh pair of clothes for him to put on, so that she could spend the time to wash what he always wore. Then what she said to them as they left came next, the words at the time not making sense to him, even after Zenitsu and Tanjirō had spent time on their journey trying to help him comprehend the meaning. It actually started to make a little sense to him, and he let out a soft little breath of air as he felt a strange kind of warmth in his chest he never really felt all that much before.

"Inosuke."

"Hgk?!" he gasped slightly, glancing at Tanjirō when he was taken out of his trance.

Tanjirō's smile had disappeared and he had pulled his fox mask back down over his face while pointing up towards a nearby hilly ridge, where on it there was a person that appeared from behind the trees and walked from left to right. They hadn't spotted them yet, but from here Tanjirō could just barely make out a Corps outfit on the person, which meant it was an ally. And any ally that they could get would make it that much easier for them to deal with the demon inside of the forest on Natagumo Mountain.

The person was indeed a demon slayer, and after he stopped moving he crouched down and kept a hand steady on his blade, his eyes and ears trained to hear the slightest movements around him. Of course that didn't stop Tanjirō and Inosuke from sneaking up right behind him, the former laying a hand on his shoulder that startled and made him spin around before Tanjirō raised a finger up to his mask.

"Relax, we're here as back up. I'm Kamado Tanjirō, rank Mizunoto. What's your name?"

"Mur-wait...Mizunoto...Mizunoto?!" stammered the other boy with wide eyes. "Why didn't they send a Hashira?!"

"Hashira?" thought Tanjirō, his expression changing to surprise beneath his mask.

"No matter how many Mizunoto they send, it won't help!" continued the young man, his expression clearly a mix of disappointment, surprise, and fear. At least of course until it was full of Inosuke's fist when the muscular slayer socked him right in the mouth.

"Inosuke!" Tanjirō shouted as the man gripped his jaw and mouth, some blood dripping out from his nose.

"Shut up!" he shouted back, stepping past him and grabbing the hair of the third slayer. "As far as pointlessness goes, your existence itself has no point at all! Now, tell us what's going on, you spineless fool!"

"W-What's with this guy?!"

Inosuke blew steam out through the nostrils of his boar head as he shoved it right into the face of the young man in his grasp. With a slight vein bulging out at how he was being treated, despite being a senior member of the Corps compared to them, he grabbed Inosuke's wrist to try and get his hand out of his hair.

When Inosuke's grip failed to budge, no matter how hard he tried, and with his hair beginning to get pulled by the roots which made him even more uncomfortable after getting punched in the face, he relented and grunted.

"Th-The crow gave us the order! And ten of us Demon Slayers came here! Not long after we entered the mountain forest, the slayers…"

Tanjirō and Inosuke were then treated to a vivid retelling of the person's squad suddenly turning on one another without any rhyme or reason, the men and women senselessly drawing their swords to begin cutting one another down without even flinching. What's worse, it wasn't because they had fallen under a spell that wiped their minds or controlled them, they were awake and conscious the entire time.

With cries to stop or get out of the way, his entire group of slayers killed one another with their very own swords, until somehow he had managed to survive as the last one standing. It was scary to think about, and Tanjirō could understand his feelings once the young man covered his face with his hands, unable to finish telling the entire story because of how traumatizing it was for him. He knew almost exactly how he felt.

At an undisclosed location within the Japanese countryside, there existed a highly secret complex where someone vastly important to the protection of Japan lived and worked, entirely unrecognized by the Japanese government. Inside the central building within the complex, there was a man sitting outside on the porch with a gasping crow in his lap, the bird having flown miles as fast as it could to this location in order to deliver its message.

On either side of the man were two girls with similar hair to his own, only pale white, and their kimonos were floral in design.

Footsteps were heard from behind and one of the girls turned their heads to see the purple and black haired woman enter the room out of which the man sat, two lanterns flanking the open paper doors that led to the compound garden. The woman sat down on an empty pillow cushion next to a second man, one perhaps a year or two older than her with a split design haori draped over a dark cyan tinted Demon Slayer Uniform, the man's long, unruly black hair tied up in a single ponytail.

She didn't have to say a word, and neither did he. They knew why they had been summoned so suddenly to this man's home. There was no point to speak about being late or anything outside of that.

"So...it would appear that at Mt. Natagumo, most of my children have been slaughtered..." the man spoke. "I believe that one of the Twelve Kizuki is there...so I'll be sending both of you Hashiras there."

The second of the two white-haired girls looked back at the man and woman, the man standing between them not turning his head at all. Instead he kept slowly petting the crow in his lap to help it calm down and relax, while he raised his head lightly to look up at the moon.

"Giyū...Shinobu."

"As you wish." the young man and woman both replied at the same time.

Shinobu's smile remained as she looked down slightly at her hands, a regretful sigh escaping her lips as she thought of the possible adversaries that they could face at Natagumo. If it was one of the Twelve Kizuki, there were twelve possible candidates as to who it would be, either one of six Lower Moons or one of six Upper Moons.

The lower six were considerably weaker than the upper six, and it was common knowledge between her and Giyū that the lower ranks were always able to be killed one way or another. An upper rank was an entirely different story, because it tragically always ended up going the other way around.

"If only humans and demons could get along…" she said, before glancing at Giyū. "Don't you agree, Tomioka-san?"

"Impossible…as long as demons eat humans."

With their mission given, Shinobu and Giyū both stood up and bowed respectfully before they departed. Once the man heard them leave completely, he turned his head towards one of the girls when he heard her grabbing something from inside of her kimono.

Whenever he usually heard this, it meant that he had received a letter from someone brought by Kasugai Crow, and so he smiled and asked her if he had received anything.

"Yes, a letter. From Former Water Hashira Urokodaki Sakonji." she replied, the man nodding his head while smiling still.

"Ah, yes...Sakonji...I remember him well, from what my father told me about him before I met him personally. Tell me, why did he send me a letter? I'm positive it's not to catch up. Would you please read it to me?"

"Annotated?"

"No, the whole letter please. I don't want to miss any important information."

"Greetings, Oyakata-san, I hope this letter finds you well. I will attempt to be brief, but I'm sure you know how I tend to drag on in my letters."

The man laughed when the girl read that aloud, the other girl giggling softly as well, with the girl reading the letter smiling at how honest Urokodaki was about his flaws. The man motioned with a head nod for her to continue and she cleared her throat, looking back at the letter before she continued to read.

"I've written to you over a highly important and usual matter. I won't hide the truth from you, there is a Demon Slayer among your ranks that is traveling with a demon. He is my student, Kamado Tanjirō, who due to a demon attack nearly perished, was also transformed into a demon. Please, allow Tanjirō to be accompanied by his sister, and to remain a member of the Corps. Because of her resilient mental strength, Kamado Nezuko has not lost her human emotions. Even in a starved state, she never devoured humans while Tanjirō trained under me for two years. I have strong reason to believe in Tanjirō's word when he told me that he has done the same, resisting the urge to attack humans for the sake of his sister."

The man's gaze lowered itself from the moon as he continued to listen to the girl repeat the contents of the letter, which was quite long-winded like Urokodaki had warned. He talked about the letter that Tanjirō had sent him, and how he believes in and trusts that the siblings would never harm or seek to harm a human.

After that, Urokodaki went on to explain how he became a slayer thanks to Giyū recommending the younger Tanjirō to him, because of his strong will to find the demon responsible for his parents death and to cure his sister. The demon's name being the very name of the sworn enemy of the organization this man had founded as a weapon to combat him. Giyū believed that Tanjirō would find some way to help protect and cure his demonized sister, and Urokodaki believed in the siblings as well, with the utmost certainty.

"In the event that Nezuko or Tanjirō do assault a human, then Kamado Tanjirō , Urokodaki Sakonji, and Tomioka Giyū will atone by decapitation and committed seppuku. I have sent a letter to Tomioka-san as well, which I hope he has read by now." finished the girl, closing the letter up and looking back at the man.

He slowly nodded his head and lifted a finger to his chin, thinking about all of this information that was just given to him. Urokodaki was one of the most trusted cultivators for the Demon Slayer Corps, he had produced the current Water Hashira in the form of Giyū, so he knew that he could trust him.

But the situation was indeed far-fetched, as he mentioned in the letter. A demon working for the Demon Slayer Corps was unprecedented and unheard of. It was always the notion that demons didn't care about anything but themselves and who their next human meal was going to be. He doubted Shinobu and Giyū's compatriots would take kindly to the idea of letting two demons continue to work so closely with the Corps, yet at the same time...Giyū himself had somehow seen something which made him believe it could be possible as well.

"It's certainly interesting, to say the least...I have yet to see this young man, Tanjirō, personally, but if Sakonjii himself believes and trusts in him...then…" the man thought, before he smiled again and lowered his finger from his chin. "I will talk with Giyū about this once he returns, but for now...I'll choose to trust in your judgement, Sakonji. Let's hope you're correct, my friend."

Zenitsu had stopped shaking and had returned mostly back to normal while sitting on the ground outside of the forest. His expression was a rather pitiful one, and he was resting his chin on her arms while he hugged his legs against his chest.

Since the time Inosuke and Tanjirō had departed into the forest, Zenitsu had been silent and thinking to himself about himself, and his cowardice and his inability to actually help. He always talked about it in a relatively vibrant and animated manner, but he truly did feel as though he wasn't anything special compared to Tanjirō, or even Inosuke. He felt terrible on the inside because of how inadequate he believed himself to be, and because of how cowardly he was when any situation turned threatening or scary.

"I wonder if they hate me." he thought to himself, his fingers gripping his arms tightly. "Would you really leave your friend by the roadside? Wouldn't you talk him through it if you were friends?"

Zenitsu buried his face into his arms while imagining Inosuke and Tanjirō still there beside him, trying to talk him through his insecurities and boosted his confidence, he would have gone with them. Instead the two had just gone on ahead without even giving him a second glance, something that only added to his self-confidence deficiency.

He heard a light chirping next to him and he lifted his head up, turning towards the sound and seeing his sparrow Ukogi bouncing around on his little feet while chirping at him. Zenitsu couldn't understand anything that the sparrow was chirping at him, even though Ukogi himself was trying to tell him the truth of what he needed to do.

"Chu, chuu! Chu! Sulking isn't going to do you any good. You have to go help your friends now!"

"Lucky you, you don't have a care in the world. You don't understand a thing about humans, do you?"

If Ukogi was a human he would have frowned at Zenitsu, before he hopped and flew over to one of Zenitsu's hands and pinched the back of it with his beak.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!"

Zenitsu was on his feet in an instant, tears in the corners of his eyes and he pointed accusingly at Ukogi, who was flapping his wings and flying in front of him chirping angrily at him with as much expression as a sparrow could muster.

"You're not cute at all! I mean it! Not that side of you! Seriously, you've got zero charm!" he bellowed, taking a hold of Ukogi in his hands as the sparrow turned his head away from Zenitsu. "I mean, look how cute Nezuko is, and she's a demon! But you're a sparrow, and you're so vicious!"

Zenitsu opened his mouth to continue his ridiculing of his sparrow before the dots connected in his head and he remembered Nezuko inside of her box, which was on Tanjirō's back, as he ran into the dark forest with Inosuke.

In a split second his entire focus shifted away from his hand getting pinched by Ukogi to Tanjirō taking Nezuko with him into the forest. His eyes turned bloodshot as he yelled out his frustration from the truth, and completely ignoring his sparrow he took off running for the forest entrance without any shred of his cowardice remaining, replaced only by his fury.

"Why did he have to take my precious Nezuko with him?! Damn Tanjirō!" he roared, his arms swinging faster as he ran harder and left Ukogi in the dust. "Don't take a young girl into danger! Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idioooooot!"

Spurring up a cloud of dirt behind his feet he full-on sprinted into the forest of trees, Ukogi coughing and chirping behind him as he did his best to keep up with his master as Zenitsu shouted Nezuko's name into the night.

After Inosuke and Tanjirō were able to calm down their new friend after his slight breakdown with the retelling of the trauma he experienced, the three started to hear the sound of wires twanging in the trees and branches around them. It was slight, but when the forest had grown almost dead silent, it became perfectly clear and easy to make out among the insect chirps heard every so often.

"What is this sound?" questioned Tanjirō, his eyes darting from right to left in search of the noise.

"There it is again." muttered the third boy, his skin losing some color while Tanjirō and Inosuke brought their gazes down to him. "It's this sound again!"

"You've heard it before?"

"I heard this sound, and the next thing I knew, everyone started killing each other!"

"Where is it coming from then?"

Tanjirō started looking at the trees and the foliage, through the brush and the spider webs around them to try and discover what was making the strange noise. Like the sound of the strings or wires, whatever they were, the tension in the air was beginning to grow tighter and tighter as well, like somebody was stretching a rubber band until it was almost about to break.

Suddenly the third slayer gasped and gripped his sword, Inosuke and Tanjirō turning towards the direction he was looking toward and seeing a shadow slowly approaching them. The shadow turned into another demon slayer, who's unsheathed sword hung rather limp in his hand as he half walked, half shuffled one step at a time. More shadows emerged from the darkness of the forest, turning into other slayers that moved in the same way as the first, several of them having tattered and or bloodied clothes from each other.

Tanjirō could smell the horrid stench of a demon surrounding these poor slayers as they approached, his stomach overturning in disgust as he gripped his sword and let it go repeatedly. He was in conflict, what was he going to do against their comrades?

Before any of them could act, the first slayer that appeared shambled towards them and raised his sword up in a stiff manner, before attacking the black-haired young man a couple of times. Tanjirō and Inosuke soon came under attack by a couple more of the Demon Slayers, their attacks easy to read and dodge without little to no threat to themselves. Tanjirō had to be extra cautious though, since their nichirin blades would cause him even more harm since it would impair his healing if he were to get cut or lose any digits.

Tanjirō rolled away from one of the slayers while Inosuke ducked back and flipped through the air, landing almost back to back with Tanjirō as the slayers slowly surrounded them. The way they moved was off-putting, they seemed as if they were being controlled like string puppets, with how their limbs seemed to move with little to no natural movement and more like robots.

"These guys are all morons!" exclaimed Inosuke, glancing back at Tanjirō. "They don't know that it's taboo for us Demon Slayers to fight each other!"

"No, that's not it! They're not moving normally? They have to be getting manipulated by something!"

Tanjirō side-stepped another lazy swipe by one of the Demon Slayers, growling a bit under his mask while Inosuke grabbed the sword on his left hip and unwrapped the blade, swinging the spare bandages off to the side.

"All right. I'll slash them into bits!"

"No, we can't do that! Some of them are still alive! Besides, we can't harm the corpses of our teammates!" Tanjirō replied, glancing over his shoulder at Inosuke.

He lowered his sword, his eyebrow twitching underneath the boar head before steam escaped out from the nostrils and he spun around, growling loudly as he ran right at Tanjirō with his sword back at his hip.

"Stop denying me at every turn!"

Inosuke then lowered his head and rammed his head straight into Tanjirō's gut, knocking the wind right out of his lungs and causing him to stumble back from the blow. He held an arm around his abdomen and coughed several times, his vision spotty for a few moments before

it came back.

Meanwhile the third slayer was trying to defend himself from his either dead or dying comrades, deflecting their sword slashes and jabs with his own blade. He was too terrified to try and attack them or harm them in any way, especially because he didn't want to hurt the ones who were still alive.

He could see how some of them were trying to keep themselves away, their motions only making them feel more pain than what they already were feeling from being forced to attack their own compatriots. As one of the Demon Slayers grappled with him, another one ran up behind him to attack his blind spot, before Tanjirō and rescued him by grabbing and throwing both hostile men to the ground on top of one another.

Tanjirō leaned back a little before his nose caught a whiff of something coming from the back of the two people they had just dropped, a sweet kind of smell that was reminiscent of cherries. Tanjirō then drew his sword and with one quick slash through the air over both of the older boys, he felt the slightest bit of resistance from his sword and looked closely.

He had cut clean through almost entirely invisible strands of spider web fibers, their exceptionally thin width even hard for his advanced vision from catching them. Once he had cut through the nearly invisible fibers, the two boys collapsed to the dirt and ceased all movement whatsoever. The secret was out!

"It's threads! They're being manipulated by threads!" exclaimed Tanjirō. "Slash the threads!"

Inosuke grinned underneath his mask as he unraveled his other blade and leaped forward, swinging his twin swords rapidly through the air. He flew over several of the puppet-like Demon Slayers, cutting through all of the threads attached to their body and dropping them to the ground.

Of course he had to make the comment that he knew about them already before Tanjirō mentioned them, but he could care less about the obvious challenge. He was trying to pinpoint the location of the demon controlling their comrades, but even his nose couldn't sniff them out.

Suddenly, for a split second, the wretched odor he had smelled earlier appeared and went without so much as a warning. He then felt something miniscule weighing down his left sleeve every so slightly and lifted his arm up, seeing two tiny spiders colored white with red dots on their backs crawling along his sleeve.

"What the-" he thought before his arm was suddenly yanked, pulling him a foot over before he slashed through the threads.

The two spiders that had been on his haori sleeve then dropped to the dirt and skittered away, disappearing among the dirt and grass in the darkness without putting up any kind of fight or struggle.

"The spiders attach the threads to the people! That means…"

Tanjirō turned back around and growled a bit as the slayers they freed were once again pulled to their feed by the spider threads, like puppets getting ready for a show, with their arms hanging in awkward right angles next to them, their heads hanging a little low as well.

What he thought was a solution quickly turned into a new problem, now that the spiders had made their presence known as the source of the threads, even if they were to cut them they would just get reattached.

"It's not good enough to just cut the threads! The spiders are just gonna stick more puppet strings on to them! So-!" started Tanjirō before he cringed as the horrible smell entered his nose once again as a momentary breeze passed through the forest. "That acrid smell again! The wind must be carrying it here!"

He had no time to think as he looked down at the sound of hissing coming from his feet, seeing a small swarm of the white spiders surrounding them. Tanjirō leaped up to avoid the nearest spiders from jumping onto his shins with their tendrils, while Inosuke raised his blades up at the ready.

"So, all we gotta do is kill those damn spiders, huh?"

"That would be impossible! Those spiders are tiny, and I'm sure there are tons of them!" replied Tanjirō, leaping away from another group of spiders that tried to jump onto him. "We gotta find the demon that's controlling them!"

Inosuke didn't listen to Tanjirō and instead started to play squash the spider with the tip of his sword, killing spider after spider gleefully even when more emerged from the brush to take the place of those already killed.

Tanjirō tried to tell Inosuke again that it was pointless to try and kill all of the spiders, since the chance that there were hundreds of them inside of the forest was all too real, and it would be too much of an impossible task to attempt. He had to fend off the Demon Slayers being controlled as well, along with their only ally, with their swords progressively gaining more and more lethality as their puppet master seemed to adjust and work around their robotic motions.

What's more is that Tanjirō's mental barriers against his hunger were beginning to fail, as the corpses of their fellow slayers kept coming at him and wafting their exposed wounds and blood practically right in his face.

"Inosuke, if you have some kind of power that can pinpoint the demon's location, then help me out! This weird smell has been flowing in, but I can't figure out where it's coming from! And, also, um…"

"It's Murata!" shouted their one ally as he shoved one of his former squad mates away.

"And Murata-san and I will find a way to deal with the people being controlled! Inosuke!"

Tanjirō then felt a cold chill fill his body as well as an unfamiliar set of eyes, the clouds over the mounts passing by to allow the moon to once again shine over the forest, its glow coming down through a wide enough gap in the trees over them to give them the ability to see immediately around them.

There was a shadow on the ground, cast by something above them, so Tanjirō lifted his head up to determine what could be causing such a shadow, before his eyes widened at who he saw seemingly floating above them. A boy, probably in his early to mid teens, was looking down on them with spider-leg like hair and white skin, the kimono he wore possessing spider-web like designs embroidered into the fabric. Even without knowing who this person was, the white skin, the eyes, and the fact that Tanjirō's senses were sounding off all of the sirens and red flags inside of his brain.

"Don't disturb my family's peaceful life." spoke the boy, his voice calm yet full of hidden malice.

"He's floating! No...he's standing on some of those threads!" thought Tanjirō as he gripped his sword and stared up at the boy, his eyes narrowing behind his mask. "And what does he mean by family?"

"Mother will kill you all right away..."

"Mother?"

Inosuke then roared as he ran towards one of the Demon Slayer puppets and leaped onto their backs, using them as a springboard to launch himself as high as he could towards the boy. He swiped at his feet, his blade unable to reach where the boy was standing on his threads, before Inosuke fell back to the forest floor with a grunt.

Without saying anything else, the boy then began to walk away, easily balancing on the threads he used to stand on while utterly annoying Inosuke's shouts and yells at him to come back and fight him.

"Gyuh...why did that kid show up anyways?"

"That kid probably isn't the demon pulling the puppet strings! So, first, let's-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you!" responded Inosuke, slightly annoyed still by the kid's cold shoulder as he dodged an attack from behind and cut the threads loose from the slayer who did it. Once the immediate threat was removed, Inosuke flipped his swords downward before stabbing them into the dirt on either side of him. "You want me to find out where that demon is located, right? Just shut up already, Forehead!"

"Rude…" Tanjirō thought with a frown.

Inosuke, after stabbing his swords into the dirt, then spun around and took a kneeling position while extending his hands out to the left and right of his body. Beneath his mask he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing in order to steer all of his focus towards his exposed skin and the nerves connected to it.

Relying on no other senses except for touch, he took one last deep breath before lowering his head slightly again and opening his hands to face palm outward, fingers facing straight up.

"Kedamono no kokyū, Shichi no Kata: Kūkan Shikikaku!"

His heart beat then slowed down to a crawl and with one final breath from his lungs, he stopped breathing all together as the world around him to his senses turned totally silent. Not a single bug nor bird chirped. Nobody's breathing could be heard, not Tanjirō's or Murata's, it was just him and the whole world around him for a split second, every single motion that anything around him made being sensed by the slayer. Any motion made by either the biggest or smallest of creatures was felt by his advanced senses.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary to him, nothing noticeable or of worth, He continued to focus, waiting patiently for what seemed like an eternity before he finally got something. The image formed in his mind based solely off the changes in the air alone, enough to show him exactly where the location was. It was a clearing in the trees, where sitting atop a long stone in the center of said clearing was the outline of a woman with her hands outstretched like a puppet master.

"Found it!" exclaimed Inosuke, restarting his heartbeat and his breathing as he stood up and pointed in the direction of their target. "There you are!"

The small boy demon stood on a couple of web fibers overlooking the dark forests of Natagumo mountain, playing with his fingers as he created a small spider web between them with little to no effort.

Throughout the forest he knew that there were members of his family moving into position or already dealing with the threats to their home upon the mountain. Everyone was doing what they were assigned to do by him, and he felt pleased by that fact as he finished the web and stretched his hands out in order to let the moon's glow reflect off the little creation.

"I won't let anyone get in our way." he said, looking up towards the starry night sky. "The five of us are going to live in bliss as a family. No one can break our bond."

The woman sitting upon the rock made precise and quick motions with her hands, each fingertip connected to a spider web fiber that stretched out into the tree tops and the forest depths itself. She could see through the eyes of her spiders as she used her puppets to attack the intruders on the mountain, gritting her teeth slightly as she did.

"If I can do this without help...I should be able to receive some praise for this...I..I would have fulfilled my job as the Mother...he might be happy for me…" she thought, smiling a tiny bit. "Maybe...maybe…"

As she made a slight wrist motion to correct a puppet's motion, her smile wavered as that hope faded when she remembered all of the times she was able to succeed with tasks such as this, with each and every time always ending up with the same result. Even when she did well, she always ended up becoming the brunt of her so-called family's abuse, by every single member. From the husband she was supposed to have to the demons that were supposed to be her children.

Every last one of them saw her as the weakest of them all, excelling only in the ability to control others like a puppet master that couldn't even fighter on her own. Unable to defend herself personally, neither with her Blood Demon Art or the strength that her "husband" had.

"What do I know...no matter what I do...I...it won't make a difference…I'll just try to survive another night...and continue to do the same thing...over and over again…"

Before she was forced to join such a fucked up family, she had been confident that becoming a demon could be a new life for her. It involved the consumption of humans, of course, but she was able to live with that. She had nothing left behind from her former life, so she had little to no regrets in leaving all of that in order to start over again.

She never really had the best of luck, though. Natagumo Mountain was her original home, this used to be where she lived by herself in relative peace, where all she had to worry about was finding food among those who wanted to enter the forests around the mountain and make sure she didn't come into contact with the sun. There was a ruined house further up the mountain that she used, and for a little while, she was enjoying herself.

Then he showed up. He changed everything, she took over everything. He wanted her to act as his mother, and slowly more and more demons fell into his trap, being forced to play family under his direction, with even the slightest slip ups leading to severe punishment. The worst offenders were left utterly brainless, tied up to the roof of what used to be her home, so that when the side rose up they would burn away into ash.

"One of those who tried to run away even burned up for it…" she thought, her jaw clenching and her body shaking. "If I tried to run...I would have had the same fate...I...I couldn't...I can't...I'm too terrified…I don't want to be abused again...this time...it'll be different...I'm sure of it…!"

The female mother demon grew a more determined expression as she put more effort and focus into her puppets, to try and do away with the attacking Demon Slayers as quickly as possible. She wanted to prove to the family that she could be useful, that she wasn't just the weakest link in the group whose only saving grace was the looks that she had taken on when she became the mother.

This appearance wasn't even her's anymore, she had been changed to look like that demon who had taken over her home and brought in all of the other demons into it. If this form wasn't maintained at all times, then it was yet another source of abuse and ridicule by the other members of the family. All of it had proved to only further damage her mental state and make her wish more and more for any kind of chance to either somehow be free of them, or to be free from her own life.

Her terror of being abused again and the thought that maybe she would finally have some respite drove her to continue her attack against the Demon Slayers. But deep in the back of her mind, locked away behind these strong emotions, existed a tiny little voice that had been telling her for the longest time that it wasn't worth it anymore. That there was only one option left for her, if she truly wanted to be in peace.

The sweet embrace of death.

A/N Welcome to Natagumo Mountain everybody, the Spider Family wishes to say hello :))) Anyways! I would have liked to have added onto this chapter some more, but I dont want to end up cutting into the best parts of this arc and make it a jumbled mess between chapters! I wonder what will happen next for our intrepid heroes?

Please leave a favorite, follow, and a review telling me what you think! :D And if there's any mistakes I might have missed, feel free to PM me and I'll manage that right away! Sometimes Im as blind as a bat for some reason.

Translation(s):

Kedamono no kokyū, Shichi no Kata: Kūkan Shikikaku

- Beast breathing, Seventh Form: Spatial Awareness