^ Chapter 12 - The Coward and the Butterfly ^

"I messed up, I messed up big time!"

The sister demon ran quickly through the trees as fast as her legs could carry her. She could still hear Rui's vile voice telling her what she needed to do in order to make up for her transgression. It was like a curse on her mind and body, preventing her from doing anything else out of fear of receiving a harsher punishment than the one she had gotten.

She shook her head as she ran, closing her eyes and holding her hands up to press them against her ears in a futile attempt to block out Rui's voice echoing within her psyche. She wished that he could go away, that she'd never have to hear his voice again.

"And I was the only one who never messed up until now in this damned 'Pretend Family' game!"

She ran for a few more meters before stopping next to a tree, leaning up against it as she sunk to her rear and hugged her knees close to her chest, her eyes still firmly shut. Her mind drifted back to the start of this small little personal hell that she had been made part of. Of all the things she had seen, and what she had done.

A smaller girl demon wearing a dull green yukata with a red sash around her waist ran through the trees of Natagumo along a wide dirt path, her eyes full of terror and fear for her own life. There was an old and most likely abandoned home approaching her at the end of the path, and she hoped that she could evade her Demon Slayer pursuers once she made her way inside of its bowels.

She stumbled a little but continued to run, wishing she was wearing something different that could allow her to run faster with more mobility. As she crested the hill her foot caught a loose bit of dirt and she tripped, falling onto her knees and face that stopped her entirely. The slayers behind her laughed at her fall as they slowed down their jog to a walk, their swords glistening in the moonlight as they closed in on their prey. She was still a weak demon, without even one human under her belt, and so she was an easy target for the Demon Slayer Corps.

The girl lifted her head and glanced back, seeing the five slayers under command of one with a dark navy blue haori stop a few meters behind her and look down with contempt on their target. Their stares were like individual knives stabbing her on their own, sending chills running up and down her spine.

"We finally drove her into a corner!" said one of the slayers, eagerly taking a step towards her. "Now we can finally decapitate her and get out of this creepy forest."

One of the more reserved slayers noticed something above them and lifted his gaze slightly, immediately finding the object he had seen and staying their once he identified it. He pointed it out to his comrades and all five of them looked to the top of the old house's roof, spotting a small white figure standing at its peak with its eyes looking down on them.

The figure was a small boy, probably half the height of one of the slayers within the posse, and he had white spider leg-like hair topping his head that hid one half of his face from view. He wore a white and red male yukata with spider-web designs on it, the boy's skin being a pasty white color as well to match the outfit. Red dots decorated his face, which combined with his entire get up, it was easy to guess that this boy was a demon just like the girl they were chasing.

"Hey, hey you." spoke the boy while lowering his gaze to the other demon girl, completely ignoring the slayers. "Do you want me to save you?"

"E-Eh?" the girl stuttered, raising her head to the voice and seeing the boy.

"In return, will you do what I ask?"

"I-I'll do anything! I'll do whatever you want, so please save me!"

She was desperate to stay alive, she had become a demon because she had wanted to escape the life she had previously as a human and the abuse she would have gotten if she had stayed as one. Her life as a demon had been a second chance, one for her to craft a new story for herself without any worries or problems.

Yes, if she wanted to keep herself safe, she knew that she'd have to devour humans here and there, so she could get enough strength to defend herself. She had been willing to make that sacrifice alongside her humanity, and with that now on the precipice of ending as well, she was willing to do anything to keep even just a little bit of it.

"Then...become part of my family." the boy replied, keeping his gaze on the girl.

"I will! I'll do it!"

"What the hell are they talking about?" questioned another one of the five slayers, his patience beginning to wear thin. Why were they allowing these two demons to talk? They were here to kill them, not let them have a discussion. "Enough of this, we have a job to do!"

"Yeah, yeah, relax." spoke their squad leader with the haori. He approached the female demon from behind, readying his sword to deliver one quick stroke to decapitate her.

He was only able to take a few steps before the boy drew his arms up across his chest, eight threads connected to his finger tips unleashing a flurry of webs that cut clean through his sword, his body, and the bodies of his squad mates in one sweep.

Their diced up body parts landed on the ground where they stood with sickening wet plops from the pools of blood they created and laid there, disorganized and jumbled up like some twisted puzzle where they had to be put back together again. The girl demon didn't even flinch when she heard their swift deaths, her eyes staying on the boy above her before she slowly stood up and turned in order to see the carnage he had created.

"He killed them all...single-handed...I…" she thought to herself, before she heard the sound of footsteps and creaking wood behind her. She turned around and her eyes widened at the sight of several demons all similarly dressed to the boy who had saved her standing on the front porch of the house.

Only two oddities stood among the assortment of demons, a large muscular demon with the head and face of a spider framed by shoulder length white hair with darkened skin, and a demon hanging upside by a spider web with the body of a spider and the head of an older boy. She had no idea who any of these demons were, and her first reaction was some kind of aversion towards them, because of their existence as demons.

Before her mind could make itself up about what she had agreed to, and formulate any second opinions, the boy from on top of the roof was suddenly next to her, reaching over to hold her hand in his. She couldn't help but flinch a little from how cold his hand was, but she hid it well and turned to look at him at the same time as he looked at her. The girl could see his left eye clearly underneath his hair, seeing the Kanji tattooed onto his eyeball and not really knowing what "Lower Moon Five" meant.

"Welcome." the boy said, before walking her over towards the waiting demons the girl guessed was the rest of his family. "Starting today, you're part of my family now too."

The girl was then taken inside by the boy demon, who she learned was named Rui, and led to one of the inner rooms past the tattered paper walls and cracked wooden flooring. Once inside, Rui sat across from the girl as another one of his family members sat down with them, lighting a candle for the three of them to see one another better in the darkness.

When the candle was lit, the girl watched as who she assumed to be Rui's sister placed a simple bowl of water on the floor between her and Rui, nodding at the boy once it was there. Rui then created a short thread and bit it with his teeth to hold it in place as he cut his thumb against it, producing a single drop of blood that he then let fall into the bowl in order to dilute the water. The small little cut healed up in an instant Rui rested his hands on his thighs again, watching the girl as his sister lifted the bowl and presented it to her.

"Drink this. Our family's power belongs to Rui." said the sister, as the girl took the bowl from her and held it below her chin. She looked down at the blood-diluted water, feeling a powerful kind of aura emanating from it. An aura that intrigued her, and scared her at the same time. "Since we were all weak demons, Rui shared his power with us. Because Rui is one of that person's favorites, he gets special permission to do this kind of thing."

The demon looked up from the blood at the girl for a moment, before lifting the lip of the bowl up to her own lips in order to drink all of what it held. It tasted weird, going down her throat, not only because of the strange taste, but because of how it clung to her esophagus all the way down to her stomach.

Once she finished drinking all of the bloody water her eyes shot wide open and her body was afflicted with a sudden paralysis that caused her to drop the bowl onto the floor, the veins in her arms and hands then bulging out and throbbing. The same occurred all across her face as she slowly tried to bring her hands up to her head to stop the pounding headache.

"Do you feel it? You don't have to fear those Demon Slayers any more." said Rui with a blank expression while watching the girl's entire body start to twitch and writhe, seemingly in excruciating pain. She had even started to foam at the mouth as her veins bulged out even more from Rui's blood spreading its influence throughout her entire circulatory system, infecting every fiber of her being. "But now...it's time for the finishing touches…"

With her body paralyzed and unable to move, Rui stood up and looked down at her as he placed his hand on her face and firmly pressed his fingers around it. His fingernails dug under her skin and with a blood-curdling shriek he started to rip her face off, splattering blood onto the floor and her lap.

Over a period of what felt like an hour, in a matter of minutes Rui had meticulously changed the female demon's appearance to be akin to his own, by lengthening her hair and turning it white, and adding all of the same facial features that he and his sister had. She was cupping her face with both of her hands, breathing heavily as her wounds healed up in a matter of seconds, leaving the excess blood she had shed to remain on the nooks and cranny of her fingers. There were still some strands and patches of her former hair on the floor before her, as well as several large puddles of her blood.

"Alright, you can look up now." said Rui in a slightly soft tone, watching as his new sister slowly lifted her head up so it could be seen in the light of the candle. She couldn't see herself, but she knew that she was no longer the same person that she used to be, not any more. He had changed everything about her, she had become his. "You're truly part of the family now...Onee-san."

The newly christened Older Sister of Rui slowly nodded her head, affirming what Rui said, before she was helped to her feet by him and patted down by him and his older sister. A little later, she and the rest of Rui's family were gathered in the family room of the abandoned house, where they all sat around a collection of six lit candles with broken and decrepit bowls and platters meant for food in front of them. There wasn't any food for them to eat, the only food they needed were humans and their flesh.

With where she sat, the Older Sister made unnoticed glances around the room at all of the assembled demons, seeing the fairly same expression was shared among them, save for the brother with the spider body grinning while upside down, and the Father being incapable of such a thing because of his spider head.

It got her thinking, wondering if any of the demons around her were even wanting to be there, and if Rui was even related to them at all like she wasn't. What was the meaning of all of this?

"We're only playing house here, you know."

The Older Sister blinked as she was pulled from her thoughts, her gaze moving over to the sister demon who had been there with Rui during her transformation when she had first arrived there. A few days had passed since then, and she had kept to herself most of the time, preferring not to associate herself with any of the other demons.

Right now was one of the first times where outside of their supposed family time, which included fake meals, she was around one of the other siblings without any one else around. The other sister demon in question had spoken to her while looking outside from the little room they were in through the tattered paper wall she leaned against.

"What do you mean?" asked the Older Sister.

"We have no blood ties. None of us are related to one another in any way shape or form...the only thing we share is the blood from Rui." said the daughter demon, keeping her eyes on something occurring outside. "We're just a clan of assorted strangers…"

The Older Sister heard a cry from outside and she lifted up her gaze from her hands, looking past the other girl outside to see the Mother kneeling before Rui while apologizing profusely to him. Her voice sounded different, more high pitched than usual, and from where they were watching, they could see that her hair wasn't the long white kind they had seen her with before.

"I'm sorry Rui, I'll practice! Please forgive me!" cried the Mother as she lifted her head up, revealing her mature body had shrunken into one more like that of a child, with two black rectangle tattoos on her cheeks and black hair tied back into two pigtails with her bangs framing her face. "I'm so sorry I couldn't do it well! I-It's just that I revert by accident sometimes!"

Without a road Rui drew a thread around the girl's throat and extended his arm out, pulling on the thread so harshly that it choked the girl demon and drew a copious amount of blood from her neck. She coughed and struggled to breath, clawing a bit at her neck as the thread cut deeper into her skin, until Rui stopped and lowered his arm back down to his side to release her.

"I don't want to hear your excuses, Mother." said Rui as the looked down upon the girl with disdain, watching her revert back to the appearance of his Mother as her throat healed. "Play the role of mother like you should."

"I know what I must do, Rui…" said the Mother, her eyes looking straight down at the dirt. She dared not raise her head up to look at Rui, for fear of more punishment.

Seemingly satisfied with this answer, Rui turned and walked away without saying another word to her, leaving her alone without any words of encouragement or anything. The daughter demon and the Older Sister watched all of this occur from their little vantage point inside the house, the daughter having a feeling of remorse for their supposed Mother, while the Older Sister maintained a more straight-faced expression.

It hurt a little bit to watch her get treated so harshly like that by Rui, but the biggest thought in her mind was how she didn't want to end up in the same situation as her. If she wanted to survive in this family, if more occurrences like this were going to happen, she had to look out for herself and herself alone.

"We were all so scared of the Demon Slayers and just wanted companions. It's not like we wanted to take part in this baffling "Pretend Family" game." said the daughter demon, finally bringing her eyes away from the Mother and over to her hands. "But those who fail to go along with Rui's demands and orders get carved up or have their intellect taken from them...or get strung up...exposed to the sunlight."

The Older Sister's eyes widened a tiny bit, the daughter's sentence implying that there had to have been at least one person before her that had met the terrifying fate at the hands of Rui. hearing this, now there was even more reason for her to look out for herself.

"I'm tired of all of this, honestly…" muttered the daughter, bringing the Older Sister's eyes back to her for a moment before closing them and smiling.

"I'm going to pretend I never heard you say that-"

"I know you're not a fool, unlike all the others."

The Older Sister's eyes opened again and she glanced at the daughter, their eyes meeting for a brief moment before the daughter turned her head back again to look outside into the darkness.

"Let's run away together." said the daughter, once again looking at the Older Sister and giving her a rather warm smile. She was taking a chance with this complete stranger, a girl turned demon that she had never met before until the day that she had come to them to be transformed by Rui. She knew the risks, but she felt as though that she could trust her with such a statement. "I wouldn't say this to anyone but you. You're the one person I truly think of as my younger sister."

The Older Sister, upon finding out how this demon who she thought was around her age was actually older than her, and how she considered her to be an actual sibling to her despite them being demons meant to despise one another's very presence, was taken aback and left utterly speechless. She wasn't sure what she should say back to her, and just looked at her with slightly wide eyes and an open mouth.

She felt a kind of warmth bloom inside of her chest from what the Older Daughter told her, a warmth she didn't know how to deal with as a demon because it felt so foreign to her. Part of her wanted to take that chance with this girl, to risk it all in order to escape from this place before anything could happen to her like what the Mother suffered through a minute or two ago. If they could escape, they would be free of Rui's influence. They'd take the abilities that he had gifted them with and use them for themselves, for one another. It was tempting, to say the least.

"But…" she thought, before the older daughter reached out a hand to her as a sign of trust, and of agreement. It didn't take long for the Older Sister to make up her mind and take the hand of the older daughter demon, nodding her head with her own smile.

"Okay, so...tomorrow, Rui is going to be summoned by that person and descend the mountain. That's our chance to escape...to go free again."

The two girl demons ran side by side down the pathway leading from the home they had been made to live in with the other members of the spider family, holding hands as they did. They had gone over the plan a few times, and when the time came for it to be put into action, they went with it and didn't hesitate. The daughter actually smiled a little as they made their great escape, the freedom she knew they'd have already starting to bloom inside of her chest.

None of the other family members knew or cared about what they were doing, for all they knew, they were just going out for a walk in the forest or something of the sort. Rui would have been the only threat to their escape, and with him gone, they were home free. Or so she thought.

As they came running around a bend in the road, her heart leapt inside of her chest and got stuck up inside of her throat when she noticed Rui was standing in the path waiting for them, the same stoic expression painted on his face. She could feel it though, the exceptionally menacing aura that could make even demons fear for their lives. She and the Older Sister came skidding to a halt, taking a few heavy breathes for a couple moments, before she felt the grip of her hand loosen up.

"What is...I thought he was...what?" she thought as the Older Sister walked away from her side, letting go of her hand. Her eyes followed her as she crossed the gap between her and Rui, before stopping next to the boy and standing on his left, crossing her arms and looking off to the side without saying a word.

It was then she finally realized what had just happened, and by then it was far too late. The Older Sister was then made a witness of Rui's brutality first hand as she watched him drag the girl back to the house by his threads wrapped tightly around her throat, choking her and cutting her flesh at the same time. She refused to say anything, even as the other daughter demon silently pleaded for her to do something, to save her from what she knew was going to happen to her because she tried to escape.

Back at the house, the daughter was subjected to grueling and inhumane torture and injury for her transgression at trying to escape from Rui's family by the boy demon. With his threads he made her bleed profusely from all visible orifices, as well as from any cuts and lacerations, before letting them heal only slightly in order to do it all over again. He used his threads to break her bones time and time again, relishing in the screams that he caused her to make as he turned her into an example for anyone else who thought to escape or go against his wishes.

And throughout all of this suffering, the Older Sister remained quietly nearby, watching without saying a word as Rui ruthlessly punished the one girl that could have been her only friend in his fake family. She had ratted out their plan to Rui, telling him of what the daughter was wanting to do, and through that she was let off scot-free. She was spared, and her would-be-accomplice would be given the ultimate punishment.

Eventually Rui finished his punishment, ending it by stringing up the daughter's bloody and absolutely battered body to the front of the home. She was one step away from being comatose, with a blank expression on her face devoid of any emotion.

"How disappointing." muttered Rui as he looked up at the girl, holding his gaze for a few moments before he walked away in silence.

The Older Sister stayed for a few seconds longer, looking up at what could have been her friend, before she too left her to die as the sun's first light creeped up over the horizon and shined onto the home through the treetops. As her skin started to bubble and burst into flames, the daughter closed her eyes and cried as her life came to an end in fire. Nothing was left of her body, not even a single shred of her clothing.

She was gone.

"They were all fools...I'm not like them!" thought the Older Sister, clapping her hands against her cheek before she stood back up and continued to run through the forest like the coward she was. "Even so, I missed up!"

Flashbacks emerged in her mind as she thought of her meeting with Rui earlier, how she told him of Mother's disappearance possibly meaning she had died to one of the Demon Slayers on the mountain, and how their older brother had just been recently killed too. She had been scared and wasn't sure what to do herself, so she had approached him to see what he thought they should do.

She was still playing the act of being his sibling, wanting to abide by his rules in order to keep surviving for herself until the opportunity came for when she could be rid of him. If a slayer killed him, she could easily slip away unnoticed and make a break for it. That was always her goal in the first place, to live and survive for herself, even if that meant playing Rui's game and staying there on that mountain. Whatever was convenient for her own survival at the time, she took it.

Unfortunately, these inner feelings manifested themselves externally when her eyes reverted back to their former appearance as she asked Rui if they should escape while they still could. Her cowardice, as well as her eyes, immediately caught his attention and led to her face getting slashed by his threads in the blink of an eye. That's when that black and red haired Demon Slayer appeared, and from there the rest was history.

"I only got my face slashed...I got off easy…! But now...now, I don't care what happens now...this mountain isn't safe for me any more...I'm leaving!" said the Older Sister demon to herself as she rounded a corner and kept running straight ahead, until she happened upon a pair of Demon Slayers up ahead.

"Ah, a Demon!" gasped Murata in shock, the girl next to him jumping and turning around. "Look out!"

"Eep!"

Before either she or Murata could react, the Older Sister slid past them while flinging her hand out to release a thick strand of webbing that quickly wrapped around the two slayers, trapping them inside of a round cocoon. She could hear them prod and kick against the walls of the cocoon and smirked a little as she stood up, disconnecting the webbing from her hand.

"It's futile. You both will never cut through them." she said, stretching her fingers lightly. "My ball of yarn may seem soft, but it's extremely hard."

"Ehhhh?!" squeaked the girl when a thick mucus like substance started to ooze out of the walls and fill up the floor of the cocoon, causing them to lose their footing and fall on top of one another. "What is this stuff?!"

Unbeknownst to the demon, or Murata and his companion for that matter, they were being watched from the tree tops by a pair of purple eyes that became filled with regret after witnessing the action.

Shinobu sighed to herself and lowered her head slightly, looking down at the hilt of her sword as she came to terms with the fact that this demon, whoever she was, had a little to no chance of actually believing in her idea. The way she so quickly attacked the two slayers she was about to make contact with, with such a wicked grin on her face, told her everything she needed to know.

It actually made her quite sad, because now that was two demons in a row, from the one in the city before her summoning and trip to Natagumo Mountain, to now, that she knew she'd have to kill. It made her sad...and all the more angrier. Her hand tightened into a fist and it shook, her lip quivering slightly as she attempted to quell her own inner demons, so that she didn't give herself away. It didn't take long for her to do so, since it had become second nature for her after several years of bottling up her anger, and she resumed watching and waiting for her moment to strike. Thinking again of the dream she took on from her older sister, she wondered if in this situation, it could play out in her favor against this irredeemable demon.

"First, the solvent will melt those clothes out of the way...and then it'll be your turn." continued the demon, revealing a rather sadistic side of her personality. She patted the cocoon with her right hand, some veins bulging out on her cheeks and face from using her Blood Demon Art, and continued to smile as she heard the two slayers inside desperately try to escape. "You'll be reduced to mush in no time, and then I'll feed on you."

"Oooh, how amazing~! Do you release those threads from the palms of your hands?"

The Older Sister's heart stopped from the voice suddenly speaking to her directly next to her right ear, her head turning ever so slightly to catch the tiniest glimpse of Shinobu with her chin hovering over her shoulder while smiling warmly at her.

"The moon is quite lovely tonight, don't you think?"

Shinobu leaned back when the demon leaped away from her a meter or so, before outright attacking her with the same strands she used to form the cocoon around Murata and the female slayer. Maintaining her smile and hiding her anger at the sudden attack, she easily dodged each strand as they either flew by her or slammed into the dirt.

It even appeared that she seemed to flap and use her butterfly haori like it were an actual set of butterfly wings in order to maneuver around the Older Sister's threads. In a matter of seconds she was right on top of her, and with two sharp kicks into her chest, she knocked down and pinned the girl to the ground with her feet, all without even having to draw her sword, or even breaking her smile.

"I can see you have no intention of being my friend…" said Shinobu, feinting sadness with just enough credibility that the Older Sister's eyes widened when she thought she had a chance to exploit her.

"W-W-Wait! I beg of you!" she exclaimed while holding her hands up in a defenseless gesture, shaking them from side to side. "I'm being forced to do this! If I defy him, I'll be slashed to shreds!"

Shinobu faked a genuine gasp and leaned back some, her smile vanishing as she put on a surprised mask in order to make it seem like the girl had made an initial impression on her. Part of her was certainly intrigued in what she had to say, but she never once thought of dropping her guard because of all her experiences with demons lying to get what they wanted.

Now that she had ensnared the demon in her web, and she was mostly certain that's what the demon was trying to do with her, she had to just reel her in now.

"Is that right? That does sound tragic!" responded Shinobu, before smiling again at the Older Sister. "I'll spare you! let's be friends~!"

The Older Sister was actually surprised by Shinobu's quick turnaround from before, even after she had attacked her, and she genuinely didn't know how to respond at first. With a slight stutter she asked to confirm if Shinobu was going to spare her, since she wanted to be certain, and the beautiful petite woman nodded her head and smiled even more joyfully at her as she replied with a yes.

She explained there was one condition as to how she could be spared, and how they could become friends. The terms were just a few questions, simple ones at that, that Shinbou was going to ask her. Once those were done, then they could be friends.

"That doesn't sound too bad...I'll get her off her toes...then make my move. For now, let's play along…" thought the Older Sister as she silently nod her head to Shinobu's request.

"Great~! That makes me so happy to see that!" said Shinobu, clapping her hands together once to reciprocate her joy, before she leaned her head down until it was almost right over the demon's face. The shadows made her smile seem more terrifying than anything, as well as her pupil-less eyes, which made it seem as if she were looking straight into her soul. "Sweet young girl, how many people have you killed?"

Half expecting that question first, the Older Sister played up the theatrics by allowing herself to shed some tears as she turned her head to the right and biting her lip to appear sorry and weak.

"Five...but I was ordered to! I had no choice!" she answered, hoping that Shinobu would believe her. A terrible feeling crept up into her gut when Shinobu giggled and leaned back some, keeping her gaze firmly planted on her.

"There's no need to lie about it, because I already know." she said, causing the demon's eyes to widen ever so slightly. Murata and his partner struggled to break free from their cocoon prison behind them, causing the ball to wobble left and right while their clothes began to melt from the solvent they were soaked in. "That spell you cast to trap two of our comrades in a cocoon was most impressive! But that's besides the point...you've devoured at least eighty humans, haven't you?"

The Older Sister was worried now, and she tried to hide it as best as she could from appearing on her face, but was failing to do so under the watchful gaze of Shinobu kneeling on top of her.

"No, of course I haven't eaten that many. I only killed those five." she repeated in order to sound adamant.

"But I came here from the west, you know. The west, my dear." stated Shinobu while pointing in that direction. "On the west side of the mountain, I saw hordes of cocoons hanging from the trees. The human captives inside had been liquefied...every last one of them. All massacred. In that spot alone, I counted at least fourteen cocoons."

Shinobu's kind mask started to show signs of cracking as talking about the murders the demon had directly caused made a vein bulge out slightly on side of her head, her smile now giving off the feeling of belonging to a dangerous predator that the Older Sister was becoming more and more terrified of by the second.

She could feel the aura radiating from this woman, an aura that she had only felt from someone like Rui before. There was such a passionate rage emerging from within this petite woman that it actually scared her.

"Fourteen humans...all dead." Shinobu repeated, before her rage-filled aura suddenly vanished entirely, as if it never existed whatsoever. Her smile returned to being care-free and happy, the demon blinking a few times as she wondered if that had even been real at all. "Oh, it's not that I'm angry. I'm only trying to confirm the accurate toll~!"

"What good will it do you to confirm that?"

"Oh, you'll just receive the penalty you deserve and be reborn!"

"Penalty?"

"Mmn, that way, you and I can become friends." said Shinobu with a nod as she leaned back, standing up straight while keeping her right knee on the girl's abdomen. Despite her size, she was still able to keep the demon pinned beneath her with a surprising amount of strength, which enabled her to talk so closely to her and be utterly confident that she won't be in any immediate danger. "If you go unpunished after having taken all those lives, your victims will never get justice."

Instantly Shinobu was over top of her, using her left hand to grab the demon girl's right eye lids and spread them apart, exposing most of her eyeball and causing her to gasp in surprise at how quick she had moved.

"I could gouge out your eyeballs or slash your stomach to rip out your organs." Shinobu explained, maintaining her smile the entire time as she pulled her fingers away and turned her upper torso diagonally, resting her left hand on the hilt of her sword and her right on the belly of the demon. "For every person you've killed, I shall torture you. And after you've suffered through all the pain and agony, your sins will be forgiven."

The Older Sister's body was quivering slightly under the weight of Shinobu's knee as terror started setting in at the thought of being tortured by Shinobu. She remembered everything that Rui had done to previous members of his make-believe family, especially the one who she had ratted out to him only a few days after her arrival on Natagumo Mountain.

She didn't want to live her life paying for the sins she makes, so what if she's killed humans? They were able to make her stronger so that way she could protect herself better. Everything had been for herself, so why should that stop now?

"Oh, but don't worry! Since you're a demon, my dear, surely it won't kill you! And surely there won't be any side effects either!"

"Who do you think you're kidding?!" screamed the Older Sister as she brought her hands up, her eyes filled with blood lust. "Die, witch!"

Shinobu was quick to launch herself off the girl as two huge walls of her thick, cocoon forming thread were launched at her from the girl's palms. Using the attack allowed her to roll away from where she had been pinned and pick herself up, only for Shinobu to land on her feet gracefully a couple meters away behind her with tiny strands of the webbing floating towards the dirt like snow around her when she had sliced her way through the attack with ease.

She kept a hand on the hilt of her blade, glancing back at the demon while still maintaining her smile as she secretly clenched her right hand into a fist within her haori sleeve out of view.

"I can see that we'll never be friends. Oh...what a pity…"

The demon heard the ka-chink of Shinobu pushing her sword scabbard down some so her blade could be pulled out more easily, her thumb pressing against the flower shaped tsuba. That sound alone was enough to make the Older Sister whirl around, ready to attack, but froze up when she saw nobody behind her. All she saw was the still falling strands of her slashed up attack coming down to rest on the dirt at her feet,

She heard a whoosh of air come from above and only had a split second to look in order to see Shinobu flip once while drawing her blade before falling back down straight towards her, a shower of butterflies seemingly emerging from her body until she was consumed by them. Left in a world of what seemed like faint purple trees, the demon looked around for a few moments before alone butterfly fluttered up to her.

Confused, she lifted a hand up and allowed the little insect to land on her index finger to rest. After a few moments of not moving, the butterfly then turned dark red as its whole body began to bleed, leading to the liquid dripping around and off her index finger. Bloody splotches appeared across her body over her torso and heart, as well as the base of her neck, and on her forehead, yet she didn't seem to feel or worry about it at all.

In reality, Shinobu had darted down at her and used her uniquely built katana with a rod shape that ended in a needle-like tip that resembled the stinger of an insect. Five quick stings, one in the abdomen, one into her heart, another in her right shoulder, the fourth right into her jugular, and the last that pierced the skin of her forehead but didn't penetrate her skull..

"Mushi no kokyū, Chō no mai: Tawamure." said Shinobu softly with her eyes closed once she had landed on both feet behind the demon, her haori flapping slightly before settling.

The Older Sister quickly slapped a hand to her neck, feeling only the puncture wound, and gasped a little when she realized that she hadn't been decapitated, only pierced by Shinobu's blade in the five areas on her body. The pain was setting in, but she could heal up those wounds soon enough, even the one in her forehead.

"My head…hasn't been cut off!" she thought as she turned around, looking at the petite slayer as she stood up, her unique blade clear for her to see. "That's the sword she's using? Oh...I see...she's too tiny and has no arm strength, so beheading is beyond her."

She smirked a tiny bit as she raised her left hand up to attack Shinobu's blind spot, cooing to herself silently at the thought of taking care of another slayer herself, before her body suddenly winced from head to toe and every single one of her body's veins and arteries bulged out heavily beneath her skin. Dark purple lines similar to veins appeared across her skin, cross crossing with and over her veins as she was wracked with an intense amount of pain in an instant, enough to rob her of all the air inside of her lungs. Her heart beat grew faster and she gasped as she threw a hand to her mouth to prevent herself from throwing up blood, only for half of it to spill out from her lips through her fingers and stain the front of her clothes and splatter on the ground.

Shinobu didn't bother to turn around and witness the gruesome death of the girl as she gripped her neck tightly with a twitching hand as she stopped being able to breath from her airways closing up and blood spilling out over her teeth and lips. The lines of dark purple turned into full-sized patches of rotting, toxic skin that spread over her body head to toe. Soon she lost the ability to balance herself and fell onto her side, writhing in agony over what had been done to her.

"You mustn't think you're safe just because you haven't been beheaded." stated Shinobu with a smile as she turned around finally, seeing her handiwork enter its final stages. "Because there are swordswomen like me who use poison."

With the last fading light of her vision as her entire body started to shut down, the Older Sister watched as Shinobu skillfully twirled her blade by the handle with just her fingers. Around and around it spun as she lifted her arm up and transferred it to her left hand, with which she continued to twirl her blade back around until handing it off one last time to her right hand, until finally ending with the blade pointing downward diagonally across her body, a brilliant smile spreading across her face that matched her equally brilliant swordplay.

"Demon Slayer Corps, Insect Hashira, Kochō Shinobu~." Shinobu said, introducing herself to the demon as she died. "I may be the only swordswoman among the Hashiras unable to decapitate demons, but as I've created a poison lethal to demons, I'm also rather awesome~"

Shinobu blinked once when she noticed that the demon girl wasn't responding and she walked over, peering at her paralyzed and heavily poisoned body before covering her mouth and giggling.

"Oh! Pardon me! You're dead, so you can't hear me, can you? How careless of me~" she remarked, bonking herself playfully on the side of her head while smiling.

Once she did that though, she lowered her arm back down to her side and her smile faded while her gaze remained on the demon. If she hadn't been so eager to attack humans and killed so many, even if it had just been a handful, the chance for redemption could have still been there. A true chance, not the fake one that she put on for show in order to trick the demon girl into allowing her to finish her off.

Shinobu looked up to the bright moon above and closed her eyes, offering a silent apology to her sister at another failure in finding a demon that could possibly learn to coexist with humans. She heard some muffled screams come from behind her and she turned around, quickly remembering Murata and the girl with him that were trapped still. Quickly she jogged over to the cocoon and with one quick jab of her blade, she was able to rip open a hole large enough for the cocoon to rupture and spit out its two occupants onto the dirt.

Murata slid out first, his body almost entirely covered with the dissolving solvent, followed by the girl with him who slid out next to him. Their lower bodies were covered in the solvent totally, but their upper bodies weren't covered as much, revealing their uniforms had totally broken down inside the cocoon, leaving them both completely naked.

"Are you all right?" Shinobu asked sweetly upon approach, Murata and the girl coughing as they sought to catch their breath.

"Just barely!" replied Murata, coughing a few more times while the girl lifted her head and looked up at Shinobu.

"W-What happened to the demon? Is it dead?" she asked, her eyes glancing over to see the petrified corpse of the demon girl with a perpetual scream on her face. "S-S-Shouldn't you finish it off?"

"I killed her with wisteria poison." said Shinobu as she helped both of them up to their feet, using the flat edge of her stinger blade to remove most of the solvent from their naked bodies. She found it amusing that Murata hadn't realized that he was standing naked with two women, one also being nude, and a glance at the girl who she saw was blushing profusely was enough to make her giggle slightly. "She's already dead, so if we leave her, she'll rot. I am a pharmaceutical expert, after all~!"

"Whoa…" Murata murmured.

"Your clothes did get dissolved too, but your body is more or less unscathed! I'm so glad~!"

Murata's heart got stuck in his throat and he quickly realized where he was again, his head whipping back and forth between the smiling and giggling Shinobu and the other female Demon Slayer, who was shyly hiding her crotch with one hand and using her arm to cover up her ample chest. A girlish squeal came out of his mouth as he covered himself up as well and quickly inched away from the two girls, wanting to hide himself as far away from them as possible to avoid any further embarrassment.

"U-U-Um...Miss...th-thank you…" the girl spoke up, stuttering slightly while under Shinobu's gaze. "I...It was-"

"No worries. You're safe now."

Shinobu approached the girl and smiled at her while rubbing her head, being just half a head taller than her, in order to help calm her down and give her a sense of security by her side. The girl introduced herself as Osaki, and Shinobu returned in kind with her own name. Once she told her to wait for a few before she'd take them to a safe zone in the forest, Shinobu turned and sheathed her sword while looking up at the moon and the stars.

"Now then...as for the whereabouts of the demon that forced this girl to do his bidding...did Tomioka-san beat me to it, then?"

A/N To those of you hoping Id give the daughter a chance at redemption, I apologize for not doing so :( She didn't resonate as well as I did with the Spider Mother, especially because of how she betrayed the other demon to Rui in her flashback. So again, sorry about that! Especially since without that we never would have gotten that amazing swordplay demonstration by our girl Shinobu :3

Wanted this chapter to be the chapter before the Hashira trial, but totally misjudged how much content was before it, which isn't bad at all! Next chapter, we all know who the star of it will be. So see you then! Leave a favorite, a follow, and a review telling me what you think!

Translation(s):

Mushi no kokyū, Chō no mai: Tawamure

- Insect Breathing, Butterfly Dance: Caprice