^ Chapter 9 - Thunderclap and Flash! ^

"The blood of the Twelve Kizuki should have a high degree of Kibutsuji's blood. If I can extract it, the medicine that will turn Nezuko back into a human can be completed sooner!"

Tanjirō tightened his right hand into a fist and nodded his head while looking up at the moon, before remembering that Inosuke was waiting on him back where he had been launched from. As he jogged back into the forest, he hoped that the decision to spare the spider demon was the right one, and that when she reached Tamayo and Yushiro that they would be able to take her in and change her for the better.

"He and the Twelve Kizuki...they all have caused such chaos and strife...I won't forgive them for this!"

Tanjirō eventually made his way back through the forest to Inosuke, who was still fuming a bit with his hands on his hips and steam coming out from his boar head's nostrils. By now he had gotten used to his less than civilized friends mannerisms and couldn't stop himself from smiling behind his mask.

"So, did you defeat it?" asked Inosuke gruffly, breathing out some more steam.

"Yeah. Your throw was incredible, Inosuke." Tanjirō replied, Inosuke's gruffness soon morphing into that silent awe as he stared at him and let out that low almost inaudible ghost-like sound. "We should keep moving though."

"Guh, yeah!"

Inosuke shook his head and freed himself from his daze, before they marched off into the forest to investigate for any of the other demons that could be around them within its depths. As they walked, Tanjirō thought for one last time about the female demon and when he had been within moments of beheading her before the last second change. She was oozing with the scent of terror and suffering, something he confirmed once he talked with her and heard her story.

All of that had been enough for her to willingly wish for death, and it had to be because of the Twelve Kizuki member that was on the mountain. Either it was a physical member of this demon family that she had been an unwilling participant in, or someone that this family reported to, they had yet to find out. The indisputable fact was whoever it was, this would be their toughest challenge yet. Kyogai had been a former Twelve Kizuki, meaning at some point he was one of the strongest demons in Japan. That was no laughing matter.

"What scares me is that it could be any one of the Twelve Kizuki...from the bottom all the way to the strongest right underneath Muzan…" he thought, gripping his sword a little bit tighter as they walked deeper into the forest, his nose on alert for the scent of blood or any other demons. "I hope Zenitsu is doing okay, if he decided to enter the forest…"

"Nghdkk! Ouch!" yelped Zenitsu, wincing as he rubbed the back of his left hand. He had entered a section of the forest where there were visible spider webs hanging from and in between the trees around him, making him walk along an almost predetermined path because he didn't want anything to do with the webs. "Something just pricked me! What the hell?! This is so annoying!"

With his fear replaced by frustration at his continued lack of success with finding Tanjirō or Inosuke in the immense forest, he huffed out loud as he stomped forward along the uneven ground between a few trees. Ukogi was sitting on top of his head, doing his part to look around for any sign of their other fellow Demon Slayers so that he could sound off to Zenitsu of their appearance.

Neither of them knew how long it had been since they have entered the forest, but it had to have been a little while since the moon had changed its position in the night sky, so for all they knew their friends could be on the complete opposite side of the forest by now. For all Zenitsu knew, they could have already killed the demon and they were looking for him now if they noticed he had left the road leaving the forest.

"I can't find Tanjirō and Inosuke anywhere! This sucks!" growled Zenitsu, gripping his fingers tightly into fists. "Where did they go?!"

He arrived at a fork in the path, with a path going to the left and to the right, which only made it more confusing to choose which one because they looked literally the exact same regardless of the direction.

"And it sticks around here, too! Stinks! I think I'm gonna cry from how bad it smells!"

"Chu!"

Tiny white spiders with red dots on their backs skittered around below his feet and in the nearby shrubs off the path, Zenitsu taking his hand away from his nose and shivering at the sight. He tried to step around the spiders, his teeth chattering lightly because of the arachnid.

"And this sound of spiders rustling around is so creepy! I'm sure these spiders are doing their best to survive too, but still!" he exclaimed before a fairly loud rustle came behind him and he whirled around, Ukogi fluttering his wings while Zenitsu pointed his finger accusingly at what he heard without seeing what it was first. "Dammit! Shut up and just stay still!"

Almost instantly he saw the source of the noise, a diminutive spider creature with a human head with empty, bloodshot eyes that stared at him, with only little strands of hair on its mostly bald head. The creature had crawled out of the brush to look at Zenitsu directly, and now that either of them could see one another, Zenitsu's fight or flight response finally kicked into overdrive.

"EEYAAAAGGGHH!"

Zenitsu turned tail and immediately started to sprint away again with rejuvenated energy, sparked by the overwhelming terror of seeing such a creepy creature so close up. What the hell was something like that existing in this forest on this mountain? He had neither the time nor the want to think about that, because he and Ukogi were running as fast as possible away from the thing.

He wanted to run so far away that he hoped he'd run himself right out of the forest and away from anything else that could be living within the sea of trees.

"That's a spider with a human face! What's up with that?! What's up with that?!" stammered Zenitsu with slight tears in his eyes from running so fast. "Please be a dream! Please be a dream! Please be a dream! If this can just be a dream, I promise to do my best! If I wake up to find myself resting my head on Nezuko-chan's lap, then I promise to give it all I haaaave!"

Zenitsu ran himself all the way to the end of the path before skidding to a halt, his heels digging into the dirt, as he closed his eyes and screamed up to the heavens for the nightmare to finally end. When his cry ended, he opened his eyes again and immediately froze up when he took in the scene he had just arrived at.

Hanging up in the air on its side by a collection of thin spider web threads stretching from each corner was a wooden shack, with not a single light or source of illumination coming from its window or open doorway. Dangling by separate strands of web from the support threads were a handful of kids around Zenitsu's age, with one of them wearing the standard Demon Slayer uniform. One had dark purple splotches of what looked like rotting skin, with bloodshot eyes that had rolled upward somewhat and balding hair with only a few strands of hair left. Another was in the same state, only his legs and arms had lost all resemblance to human limbs and had become like those of a spider's.

Zenitsu's mouth was wide open and a cold sweat had formed on his face, his entire body twitching and shaking slightly as his fear increased tenfold. Ukogi was in a similar state, with his beak wide open and his small black eyes wide and unblinking.

"What the hell is up with this?! Are those humans who got turned into spiders?!" Zenitsu thought before he had to quickly squeeze his nostrils shut with his fingers again at the aroma permeating the air. "And it really stinks! Talk about pungent! Even if he's a demon, this would kill Tanjirō with his keen sense of smell!"

The groan of wood bending came from the shack and Zenitsu was snapped back to his senses as more sounds came from beyond the pitch black doorway, before blue glowing eyes peered out from the darkness. A head with short white hair and pale skin came with the eyes out of the black, followed by a huge spider's body with black fur and orange rings around all eight limbs and the abdomen, from which the thing lowered itself out by its web threads.

"It's huge! It's huge, it's huuuge!"

The spider boy lowered himself into full view before looking down at Zenitsu, his lips curling into a wicked smile with his fangs showing as he giggled with glee.

"You know what!? I refuse to speak with anyone like you!"

Zenitsu then turned about face and started sprinting away again, Ukogi flying right above him as fast as he ran, before the spider demon boy laughed out loud again with his left eye squinting more than the right one.

"It's no use running away. You're already losing."

"What are you muttering about?! I don't wanna hear it, so stop talking to me! I don't like guys like you, all right?!"

"You already know how dire your situation is, don't you?"

Zenitsu screeched to a halt, stirring up dirt around his feet, before turning around to look back at the spider boy with a dumbfounded and still very much flustered expression. His fear was held at bay enough by his rationality to kick in, where the boy's statement had piqued his interest enough for him to discover what he meant.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Take a look at your hands, khehe."

"What? My hands? What's wrong with me-"

Zenitsu brought his left hand up to look at it and his heart stopped. Barely even a breath of air came out from his lips when he saw veins in his hands bulging out, as well as several dark purple blotches covering three of his fingers and his palm, and a purplish red boil of some kind under his index and middle finger.

Just a little while ago his hand was perfectly fine without any of these blemishes and marks on it, when did this happen? How did this happen? What even is this? What was this? Zenitsu was utterly speechless, unable to speak or even think properly for a few moments.

"W...What is…"

"Khehe, it's poison. You got bitten by a spider, right?" said the spider boy, laughing and smirking evilly at him. "That poison will turn you into a spider too. Khehehe, kheahhaaa!"

Zenitsu's entire began quaking in terror as he closed his left hand shut and held it, his teeth clattering as his gaze darted from the spider boy and his victims dangling from the threads holding up his shack. What was happening to them was going to happen to him?

"In another thirty minutes, you'll be my slave, crawling all over the ground!" laughed the spider boy, before one of his legs held up a pocket watch next to his face. "This is a pocket watch...by the time this long hand goes around once, you'll have become a member of the spider clan!"

The demon was greatly enjoying the pain and terror he inflicted on Zenitsu with his words, his smirk morphing into a gleefully sadistic grin from ear to ear as he pointed to each number kanji written on the clock face with the tip of another leg. Each one he pointed out was a different stage of the transformation, from tingling and pain in the limbs, nausea, until he didn't even tell him what the end result would be because they both knew what that meant.

He cackled at Zenitsu as he kept the pocket watch up and in view of the slayer, enough that he started to scream when the big hand on the clock ticked once after just sixty seconds of the visceral description he received from the demon. A group of the transformed spider hybrids with human heads scurried up to Zenitsu, causing him to immediately begin sprinting again as tears flew off his cheeks.

"Kheheha! Running is-"

"Futile! I get it, get it, get it! I know that, alright? I know thaat!" shouted Zenitsu as he clambered up a tree and reached the first branch before the tree top, curling up and hiding his face from the world with his hands.

The demon laughed out loud, his boisterous laughter causing his spider body to bounce up and down and sway a little side to side from the web thread he was suspended by. This was an absolute riot to him, this little coward was reacting in a far more entertaining way compared to his other victims. He was going to get a kick out of this, watching Zenitsu cry and suffer.

It was enough to make him wish that his poison actually didn't work as fast as it did within thirty minutes, since it meant he'd only have that much time to watch Zenitsu suffer until he became like all the rest of his minions.

"Khahaha! What do you think you're doing?" he asked of the cowering Zenitsu.

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

"There's no need to be afraid. Once the poison makes its rounds and you turn into a spider, you'll lose all intelligence too!"

"Nooo! That's just what I don't like about this!"

Zenitsu had his eyes clamped shut and was still crying, his right hand now showing the effects of the poison with a large veiny boil on the back of his hand, below his index finger's knuckle. The tingling had started to slowly become apparent, and the pain he knew would come at some point as well. He was desperately wishing this were all still a dream, that he'd wake up with his head on Nezuko's lap, just like he said earlier.

Zenitsu continued to cry and ramble on, enough that it was actually beginning to annoy the demon with how obnoxious he was. This kid wasn't just a coward, he was the worst kind of coward.

"Huh! I can see that you want an extra dose of poison to turn into a spider faster."

"E-Ehh-eeehhhh…" Zenitsu murmured, slowly glancing bak at the demon just to see him grin maliciously at him again. "Eyyaaghh! I don't wanna turn into that! No, no, no!"

"Get a hold of yourself!"

Zenitsu, though his eyes were clamped shut, was brought back to when he was still being trained by his own cultivator, the man in charge of training users of the Thunder Breathing techniques. He had been in a similar situation like this before, where he had climbed up a tree to escape from something that he didn't want to do. In this case it was his master's training, something that he never liked to do and was always terrified of it when it came about. The sky was beginning to darken as the clouds rolled in, but Zenitsu neither knew or cared.

"Stop crying! Stop running away!" shouted the old man at the base of the tree to the crying Zenitsu. "Doing that won't get you anywhere! Zenitsu!"

The somewhat younger and black-haired Zenitsu shook his head violently side to side while continuing to cry, causing a vein to bulge out in the old man's face as he gripped his wooden walking stick even tighter.

"Come down from there! We're going to continue training!" shouted the old man with an intensity behind his voice befitting of a Thunder Breathing user.

"Oooh no! I'm sure I'll die if I do any more training!" Zenitsu remembered himself shouting back. "I'm sure that I'll die, so-!"

"You won't die! Not from this level of training! Come down from there, you little moron!"

"Gramps!"

"Call me 'Sensei'!"

"But I love you, Gramps!"

Despite all of his aversion towards his master's training methods, Zenitsu held a lot of love towards the old man because of what he had done for him, prior to becoming his student. When he had gotten into bad debt because a girl that he loved ran off with another guy, even after he had raised money for her, which she took, the old man had rescued him from that debt.

Even if it had just been a way for the old man to find another swordsman to train, Zenitsu regardless was thankful for him taking on the debt and freeing him from what could have happened to him if he hadn't been saved.

"I want to live up to your expectations, too But it's totally beyond meee!" Zenitsu had continued to cry, gripping the tree trunk harder. "I do feel terrible about the fact that I'm like this! Just so you know, I've been training on my own in secret too! I haven't been getting any sleep! But I have nothing to show for it!"

"Calm down, Zenitsu! You do have the ability to-"

"I've had enoooough!"

With the crack of thunder, a bolt of lightning shot down from the dark clouds above and struck the tree directly, sending powerful volts of electricity coursing through Zenitsu's body and the trunk of the tree down into the ground, dispersing out in all directions from the point of impact and scorching the grass while vaporizing all of the leaves of the tree.

In the blink of an eye the lightning was gone as soon as it appeared, and from the smoking tree Zenitsu fell towards the scarred ground. His hair had changed colors as a result of being struck by lightning, into the color he had now in the present.

"How tragic is my life anyway? I got hit by lightning...my hair color changed...I was thankful just to be alive, but...I...I hate myself more than anyone else."

Zenitsu continued to hug the tree while squatting on the branch he had scampered up to in order to run from the human-spider creatures, all the while being laughed at by the demon watching him. It was a sad scene, a Demon Slayer cowering down and crying to himself with snot dripping out of his nostrils.

Any self respecting Demon Slayer would look at him and think he was absolutely worthless, a waste of space that didn't deserve to wear the uniform and to carry around that sword at his hip.

"I always think I have to get my act together, but I end up cowering, running away, sniveling. I want to change...I want to be a competent person."

"Kukuku, what is wrong with you...you look so sorry, I can't believe you even have that uniform!"

The demon snickered as some of his transformed underlings began to crawl up the tree trunk towards Zenitsu, the sound of their pointed legs striking the bark causing him to gasp and clutch his head while looking down at them. His vision was clouded with tears, but he could still see their blank expressions and their white bald heads, it was terrifying him more and more.

"Crap, crap, crap! Don't climb up here! Just leave me alone for a minute!" screeched Zenitsu, shaking his head side to side as the fear got too much for him to handle. "Just for a minute alriiiight?!"

His fingers clutched his hair tightly, having a good handle on them at first, before he felt his hands come free and he stopped his crying when that happened. He brought his hands down and with wide eyes noticed that stuck between his fingers were large strands of his hair. The poison was advancing the decay and change of his body into that of a spider's, so much that he was already starting to lose his hair.

"My hair's falling out already…? My hair...is…"

Zenitsu felt his head grow lighter, and finally his eyes rolled up as he passed out from the terror. His body slumped over and his hands dropped off to the sides, the strands of his hair that he pulled out falling free from his fingers and blowing away in a slight breeze.

The demon laughed to himself and grinned at the sight, thinking again how this kid had ever become a Demon Slayer in the first place. How could a Demon Slayer just faint like that when there he was, a demon, right in front of him. The demon watched as Zenitsu's comatose body ended up leaning to the side and falling off the branch of the tall tree right when his spider underlings had reached him, his eyes following it as it careened towards the earth.

"He's gonna fall right on his head and die, probably by snapping his neck...what the hell?"

Zenitsu had passed by the halfway point on the tree before his mouth opened slightly and his teeth closed, a breath of air and steam slowly escaping out between the gaps at the corners of his mouth. He then gripped his sword with his dominant hand, the sheath with his left hand, and began to mutter under his breath.

"Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata…" he said in a low tone as he flipped himself upright, and right near the base of the tree he planted his feet firmly against the trunk and pushed himself off up towards the demon as hard as he could.

The demon was caught off guard, seeing sparks beginning to crackle around Zenitsu's body, so he quickly puffed his cheeks up and shot out a wide plume of dark purple liquid from his puckered lips at Zenitsu. Zenitsu quickly dodged out of the way, letting go of his blade's handle, and let the liquid fly harmlessly behind him into the tree he had leapt off of. As soon as the liquid struck the wood, a hissing sound followed by steam emerged from the impact zone as the tree bark was eroded and melted by the volatile poison.

"He just twisted his body in midair to dodge that!" thought the demon as he looked down at Zenitsu when he landed again below him. "What the hell is up with this guy?! Wasn't he just cowering in fear a few moments ago?!"

Zenitsu then struck his definitive pose, just like the one he had taken against the tongue demon within the Drum House, and he took another slow breath, before exhaling it as the fingers of his right hand hovered around his sword's handle.

"Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata…" he murmured again, ready to commence his attack.

"Hey, you guys! Pounce on him!" shouted the demon, before detaching himself from his thread to land on the ground with all eight legs.

He then turned tail and ran, looking back as Zenitsu jumped and leaped away from his spider underlings while still gripping his blade in the same fashion as when he first tried to attack him. Zenitsu repeated the same technique under his breath again before rushing forward after the fleeing demon, his face stone cold and his eyes still closed. The demon shot another load of toxic poison at him, but Zenitsu twisted his body to the side and avoided the attack yet again with minimal effort.

"Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata…" Zenitsu said for a four time, assuming the same stance as the previous times, before chasing after the spider demon once again.

"He's been assuming the same stance over and over...Kuhehehe...no doubt about it." the demon thought, grinning maliciously as he leaped up into the trees around his home's clearing. "This guy is only capable of that one attack!"

He was stirred from his thoughts when Zenitsu caught up to him faster than expected, catching him off guard once more as he and Zenitsu entered a game of cat and mouse in and around the clearing his shack was strung up in. Constant interference from his minions and his poison spit attacks kept Zenitsu from getting any closer, but every time his rush was stopped, Zenitsu continued to utter the same technique name and prepare for it every time.

"Don't worry, Zenitsu! Even if it's just one technique, that's good enough for you."

The old man cultivator was standing in front of the kneeling Zenitsu with the beautiful setting sun to the side. Its beautiful golden hues decorated the sky as well as the grass on the hill they were on, even the scarred portions from the lightning-struck tree. Zenitsu's haori was charred and burnt in some areas from the lightning, and Zenitsu himself had some burns that had to heal as well.

Zenitsu had managed to calm himself down from his crying episode earlier, and he was shamefully looking down at his cultivator's feet because of his inability to retain anything that was taught to him. Even from his own training, he still couldn't master any of the techniques that Thunder breathing could offer. All of them, but one.

"But...Gramps...I-"

"Zenitsu...if you can master even just one, that's a cause for celebration!" said the cultivator, before he placed his hand on top of Zenitsu's head and kneeled before him, giving him a gruff, yet warm smile. "If you can only do one thing, hone it to perfection. Hone it to its absolute limit!"

Zenitsu still refused to look into his master's eyes, because even if he could do that, there were still five other forms that Thunder Breathing possessed.

Demon Slayers that learn one of the Breathing Forms should be able to master most, if not all of the individual forms contained within each. What kind of Demon Slayer would he be if he only learned one? His master could see that his words hadn't reached him yet, so he resorted to doing what he did best, being direct and to the point with a little bit of physical motivation on the side.

The Cultivator then rapped his fist against the top of his head, not too hard to actually hurt him, but enough that he was able to feel it. Zenitsu jumped a little bit, but the contact was enough to drag him out of his mind so that he could listen.

"Do you know how to forge a sword?" he asked, before resuming the somewhat light hits on the top of his head.

"I...have no idea…" Zenitsu wanted to say, but he remained silent. "Will you keep hitting me? I think I'll cry."

"The thing about swords...you strike and strike and strike to get rid of impurities and anything you don't need, and to increase the purity of the blade, so a durable sword can be forged."

Zenitsu's eyes widened a tiny bit when the metaphor seemed to click with him as the man kept slowly beating on his head. It was as if he were a sword being forged and beaten on by a swordsmith's hammer. He was a sword that was being hammered over and over and over, knocking out all of the imperfections and the things that weren't needed. But Zenitsu wasn't made of metal, he was flesh and bone. Too much beating and hammering could break him.

"Zenitsu, perfect it!" said the old man, putting the hand he was hitting him gently with on his shoulder. Zenitsu and the old man finally looked eye to eye, and despite how gruff he always was, the warmth in his expression was unmistakable. "It's all right to cry. It's all right to run away. Just don't ever give up! Just believe!"

"Get out of my sight."

Zenitsu was stunned by the harsh words coming from his senior student, the older heir under his teacher. The man was entering his early twenties and he had black hair with turquoise eyes. He was in the middle of eating a peach and didn't even bother to give Zenitsu the pleasure of any eye contact, having spoken to him just from having sensed his gaze.

"I said get out of my sight. Don't make me repeat myself for a third time." the man said again, finally turning his head to look at Zenitsu. His gaze was cold and unfeeling towards the younger slayer, Zenitsu's body shivering a little under the scrutiny by his senior's eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."

Zenitsu opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it again and lowered his eyes down towards the grass at his feet, holding his hands out in front of his body. He didn't want to say anything because he was afraid to interrupt or talk back to the older student, which would be disrespectful towards him.

He had admired how he was able to learn almost all of the Thunder Breathing forms, and he wished deep down that he could do the same as well, so that they could be equals under their master's eyes.

"Aren't you ashamed of crying like a baby all day long?" asked the older student, his question prompting Zenitsu to slouch his shoulders more. "Tch, you laggard…any time spent on you is wasted. Sensei is an extraordinary man-"

"But Gramps said-!"

Zenitsu caught himself when the man had thrown his peace hard at him, the fruit smacking into his forehead and causing him to stumble back a few steps. The peach juices ran down his forehead somewhat and got into his hair, his skin stinging a little as well.

"'Gramps'? Don't speak of him in that familiar way! Sensei is a former Hashira! Someone who earned the highest title in the Demon Slayer Corps!" yelled the student, throwing his hand out to the side while motioning to the home of their cultivator behind them. The peach finally fell from Zenitsu's head as he looked down at his feet where the fruit landed with a soft splatter, his lower lip quivering already. "Almost no one ever gets the chance to be trained by a former Hashira! The time Sensei spends training you is all for nothing! You're an eyesore, okay? Get the hell out of my sight! Why are you even here?! Why do you insist on clinging on here?!"

After those harsh words, the memories faded away, like wisps of smoke flowing in the wind. Zenitsu was left alone, standing there with his head lowered and his eyes on the verge of tears. This was the reality he was faced with from his senior under their master, that he was the one who never truly belonged.

"I have no parents, so no one has any hopes for me. There's no one who dreams that I'll grasp or accomplish something one day. That I'll prove myself useful to somebody...that I'll manage to protect somebody...and make that person happy, just once in my life."

He was then consumed by the darkness of his own mind. The shadow of doubt, abandonment, non-existent self-worth, everything that was negative that any human could feel, all of it surrounded and merged with him. There wasn't a single light in that darkness, he was well and truly alone, in all of it.

"Not even a simple future like that. There's no one who hopes that I'll have one...if you fail, cry and run away even once, they say 'Oh, this guy's no good,' and they walk away. But…"

A single ray of light shined in the darkness, tiny at first, before growing bigger and brighter, illuminating Zenitsu's face. Then his upper body, then lower body, and the grass around him, until it grew into the fields of peach trees around the home of his master.

"But not Gramps! Time and time again, he steadfastly reprimanded me. All those times I kept running away...time and time again...he'd drag me right back. Maybe he smacked me around a bit too much, but he never abandoned me!"

Zenitsu dodged another spray of acid spit by the demon as they continued to chase one another around the clearing, the Demon Slayer landing back on his feet to resume the same position he's taken multiple times now. This prompted the spider demon to snicker to himself as a horde of his followers converged on him.

"This guy, how can he even call himself a Demon Slayer? Any minute now, you'll be rendered immobile by that poison." the demon thought, grinning in the most vile way possible.

Meanwhile Zenitsu was standing motionless, his hand quivering slightly above the hilt of his blade. The poison was ravaging his body on the inside with pain and stiffness, it was only a matter of time before he wasn't going to be able to move at all. He had to take action, now or never.

Sparks of lightning lanced around his hand, illuminating his fingers and sword as he popped it out of the scabbard with his right thumb. In that very second, that moment, a voice rang out in the darkness of his mind, casting away all thoughts of doubt and worry of never being good enough, never being strong enough. It was loud, and powerful, and full of belief. Full of belief and trust in him, in his abilities, in his strength, in his will.

"You went through all that hellish training, Zenitsu! You'll be rewarded for that without fail! Hone it to the utmost limit! Become the most durable blade of them all! Hone that one thing to absolute perfection!"

The spider demon attempted to hit him with his poison, but Zenitsu dodged, allowing the horde of human-head spiders to jump at him, eyes wide open and lacking any intelligence.

"Pierce him! Inject him with more poison!" he ordered, his spiders opening their mouths to try and stick Zenitsu with their razor-tipped tongues.

Zenitsu leapt and slid backwards once again, holding his pose as more tiny sparks of lightning began to come to life around his body. Once he landed on his feet, a wave of pain shocked his body and Zenitsu hacked up blood, the red and purplish liquid spitting out onto the dirt next to his hand after he hunched over, leaving him open on all sides.

The horde of transformed spiders were quick to act, surrounding the fallen swordsman and leaping on top of him to lock him in place with their bodies. It was over, the demon had won. He laughed triumphantly with his devilish smile, knowing that he'd have another minion within mere minutes.

"Never give up, Zenitsu! Believe!"

Suddenly huge bolts of lightning began to circulate around the pile of spiders, zapping and striking the ground before an explosion of electrical energy surged outward from within. The spiders were blown away by the force of air akin to a small thunder boom, the wind pushing back the trees surrounding the clearing and actually moving the spider demon back a few feet, catching him completely off guard.

Standing there, blood dripping down his jaw from his lips, was Zenitsu, bright blue lightning surging all around him and making the air crackle and simmer with power before his eyes shot wide open. His pupils were gone, his eyes a pure white that glowed with unseen amounts of energy.

"Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata…Hekireki Issen!" exclaimed Zenitsu, the lightning around him increasing with power, enough to cause the earth around him to erupt and spray debris in all directions.

The spider was actually fearful of his life now, a secondary shockwave causing him to try even harder to keep himself upright and not tumble back. Zenitsu's body glowed and surged with lightning even more as he tightened his grip around his sword, staying rooted to the spot as more and more power built up in and around him, from the tips of his toes to his finger tips.

"Rokuren!" he added, his jaw tensing up as he neared the moment of release.

The demon leaped up and spit out webbing from his rear, attaching himself to his home as he pulled himself up towards the door while spitting a ball of poison acid at the slayer. Zenitsu dashed to the right as quick as lightning, a boom of air left in his wake as the poison splattered against the crater and debris he left behind.

Around and around he darted in the clearing, using the trees and any stray threads connected to the shack as launching pads for his dashes. Two dashes, three dashes, four dashes, his speed built up with each subsequent boost. This was enough to force the demon to retreat into his shack as a last-ditch attempt to avoid the slayer, hiding himself in the darkness of the structure. It wasn't enough to stop Zenitsu, who reached his fifth dash as he landed with both feet on a thread located right below the shack entrance. The thread bowed beneath his weight, his legs bending slightly, before with another boom and a surge of lightning he dashed straight up towards the spider.

With an echoing boom like thunder from the strongest of storms, Zenitsu shot clean through the building up into the sky, the body of the spider demon and his severed head flying out in different directions from his exit hole at the same time. It had been so fast, the demon was still registering how he had been decapitated by the slayer he thought couldn't even be considered a proper Demon Slayer.

"Did I get slashed? Me? Slashed?! By him?!" he thought, denying the truth angrily with a wretched scowl on his face. "By a guy like him?! That's absurd!"

His severed head and body hit the ground below the house at the same time as Zenitsu landed on the shack itself, the slayer on his back with his eyes looking up at the full moon. He coughed and hacked out some more reddish purple blood, his body quivering when the poison caused him to lose all ability of motion.

The demon was killed just in time before he was robbed of his mobility, the key aspect of the Thunder Breathing technique. As he lay there, looking up at the moon, he remembered what he had said about being inside of this forest, how it had been a nightmare. Thinking about it again, he changed his mind.

"Dream...this is...a happy dream. I am powerful...more powerful than anyone. I really can help the weak and anyone in trouble. Anytime…" Zenitsu coughed as some more blood oozed out from his mouth, his breathing started to sound more ragged and strained. His body hurt. He'd never felt pain like this before, not even during his training. "Everything that Gramps taught me, all the time he spent on me...it wasn't for nothing! A dream that, thanks to Gramps, I became powerful and helped out a lot of people. But...now it's all...over..."

His vision started to become blurry, not only from the poison, but from his eyes starting to water up from the realization he had finally achieved his dream at the cost of his life. The chirping of Ukogi, who had appeared beside him now that the battle was over, sounded distant and far away. Still, he turned his head slightly and looked at the small sparrow, seeing the little bird with watery eyes despite being a bird as it got a little closer to him.

"Chuntarō...I'm so sorry…"

"C-Chu...chu! I'm going to find help, I promise! I don't want to see you die!"

He then flapped his wings and took flight, soaring as hard and as fast as he could in search of anybody who could possibly help his slayer. Zenitsu watched him fly away, before he blinked once to let some of his tears slide down the sides of his head, then looked up to the night sky again.

"Don't ever give up!"

Zenitsu's eyes widened slightly at the echoing command of his master, those four words of his enough to make him slowly clench his fingers into fists and start to breathe. Slow, controlled. He had to slow down the poison's spread for as long as possible, until help could arrive.

"Don't ever give up...use the breathing technique to slow down the poison as much as you can...even if it's painful, even if it's agonizing, don't try to take the easy way out...or Gramps is gonna let you have it! And...Tanjirō would yell at you...too..."

Tanjirō gasped and turned his head around quickly when he heard a deafening boom echo in the distance, the disturbance enough to cause some birds to fly away from the trees around them. He and Inosuke had arrived at a wide river, with the only foreseeable path across being a line of large rocks, and were about to cross it when the boom was heard.

"What was that sound?" Tanjirō thought, looking up to the sky to see if there was a thunderstorm somewhere near. "Did lightning just strike?"

"How should I know." growled Inosuke while approaching the rocks.

"But I'm not smelling any thunderclouds. The acrid odor in the air is stronger now, so I can't tell."

Inosuke made a grunt that Tanjirō could tell he didn't really care as much, so Tanjirō sighed a little bit before he grabbed Inosuke's wrist to stop him from crossing the river.

"We should head towards that sound."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because we should investigate what caused the noise. It could be-"

He was stopped by the sudden sound of footsteps, and all it took was a slight glance to the other side of the river to see a small girl wearing a similar outfit to the boy they had seen earlier, as well as the demon he had sent away, had walked right out into the open. Her hair was white, like the supposed mother demon, and she had the same pale white skin and red dot markings on her face.

It didn't take long for her to see them as well, the demon freezing and staring at them with wide eyes. She was just as surprised as they were that they ended up running into one another in the same place.

"A demon! Crap, because of the odor wafting all over this mountain, I didn't notice her coming!"

"Shuraaaagh! I'm gonna tear you to shreds, you damn demon!" snarled Inosuke, the demon girl taking a few steps back before turning away and running back towards the trees. "Come back here, dammit!"

"Inosuke!"

Tanjirō's cry fell on deaf ears as Inosuke started leaping from one rock to the next across the river after the demon, his mind's singular focus on catching up to the demon and separating her head from her shoulders. She turned back as she ran, annoyance written on her face, when before she hit the tree line she cupped a hand to her mouth and yelled out for her father.

"Eh? Who are you calling Otō-san?"

Suddenly a large dark shadow appeared over Inosuke, and reacting purely on instinct he quickly jumped back to Tanjirō's side when a hulking figure of a man crashed down onto where he would have been, sending water flying out in all directions on impact.

The beast of a man, being twice as tall as both Tanjirō and Inosuke, flipped his long white hair back and roared at them, all eight of his spider eyes upon his spider head staring them down while his humanoid muscles rippled and bugled. Despite having the head of a spider, the demon was still able to formulate coherent speech as it rushed forward and reared back with its right fist.

"Don't come near my family!" he snarled, before smashing his fist into the river coast Inosuke and Tanjirō were standing on, creating a deep crater on impact and forcing them both away. "Stay away!"

In the background, the small girl demon was standing by the trees she had run off to, watching the father demon engage the two Demon Slayers without a tinge of regret or worry on her face. She rested a hand against the nearest tree and turned away slightly, wishing the father luck before disappearing into the trees without a trace.

At the same time, while Inosuke was in mid-flight, the Father was already going for another fierce punch at Inosuke, a bestial roar echoing out from his throat between his spider-like pincers. Inosuke couldn't move himself out of the way in time, he was too off balance from having to leap back from the initial strike.

"Shit!"

A/N Sorry for a late release on this one! Took a little longer then I thought, even though its shorter than the previous chapter :P Regardless! We got to see badass Zenitsu in action! Hell yeah brother!

And we are also one step closer to that fight, the one ALL of you are excited to get to, I'm sure. But we still have at least one more chapter until then! So for now, leave a fav, a follow, and a review telling me what you think! :3

Translation(s):

Kaminari no kokyū, Ichi no Kata: Hekireki Issen - Rokuren

- Lightning Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash - Six Fold