^ Chapter 13 - The Sun Rises ^

"So you were able to survive Final Selection...and return to Urokodaki?" Giyū asked as he stood close by the recovering Tanjirō, the younger slayer nodding and smiling. "After so long…"

"Yeah...and to think that he reached out to you too about what happened to me."

Giyū gave the same gesture back to him while looking around a few times, ensuring that they were the only ones around. He had been relieved to find that the fight had ended when he arrived, and was surprised to find that it was the boy and his sister who he had met a little over two years prior who had succeeded.

The demon he could see staring so hatefully at them was clearly a Kizuki, he could see the tattoo on his left eye, which made it even more astounding that Tanjirō and Nezuko, two demons who he was for certain wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as a Kizuki because of they had never eaten a human. At least until he learned that during the fight, the two siblings had managed to manifest and utilize their very own Blood Demon Arts that allowed them to fight toe to toe with the Kizuki.

"Oyakata-sama will be interested to hear this...if what Urokodaki's letter said was true, and that he received a similar one to mine."

Rui on the other hand was still fuming as he looked at them with blood and death shimmering in his eyes, his body continuing to turn to ash at a slower rate than usual because of his will and desire to not die.

"I'll kill them! I'll kill them!" Rui thought angrily as he stared at Nezuko and Tanjirō, who were still in a close embrace. "I'll kill those siblings no matter what! Siblings...Siblings!"

It was a cold winter night, with snow falling from the cloudy skies above Natagumo Mountain. It was a peaceful night, the snow glittering somewhat from the moon's glow that managed to make it to earth through a gap in the clouds. The barren house Rui resided in was empty, with its only occupants being the boy himself, and the first member of his ideal family, the Mother.

"What is it that you want to do, Rui?" she asked, standing outside in the snow a few paces away from the front porch of her former home, where Rui stood. "What do you mean by 'family'?"

His past self didn't answer her question, only remaining silent because even he couldn't provide her with the proper answer. What exactly was a family? That he did not know. In fact he couldn't know because he couldn't even remember what a family was outside of the most basic understanding.

A family consisted of a mother and a father, and their children. The parents were supposed to protect and support the children, and the older children were meant to do the same thing with the youngest children or child. Everybody had a role to play and to master, and if they were successful and doing their part to make the family work, then that was a success. That was what being a family meant to Rui, that's what a family was to him.

"Is that why you made us pretend to be your family…?" asked the Mother, as the rest of Rui's family members appeared around her, as if they were ghosts.

It became clear that even she wasn't real, and that this was just a figment of Rui's imagination as he was slipping away from this world. All of his family members were gone, he was alone yet again, with the same empty feeling that he had before. He never got to feel what it meant to be part of an actual family, even when he had brought all of these demons together and forced them to be his family.

No matter how hard he tried to correct them, to make them perfect in their roles, he was met with nothing but failure time and time again. And now he had gotten one too many failures, and to pay for it, he lost his life at the hand of two siblings who shared the bond he had so desperately wanted to have.

"I thought that if I could feel a family bond, my human memories would come back…" Rui thought to himself as the image of Tanjirō and Nezuko embracing one another. The warmth and the bond they shared was so clearly worn on their sleeves, with how close he held Nezuko to his chest, and how tightly she gripped the sleeves of his haori back, he wanted that. He wanted it so badly that it hurt. "The bond of a real family...that's right...I…"

There was a group of three children who laughed and giggled as they picked up snow from the ground and formed it into snowballs to throw at one another, igniting a miniature war that involved only the three of them. Everybody in the village they lifted in was inside or somewhere else, which left them the perfect play area for their little snowball war.

The village itself was nestled in a mountain valley, with towering mountain tops covered with snow-tipped trees covering most of the valley's expanse and surrounding the village itself like a natural barrier that was only made more effective because of the mountains themselves. It seemed like a paradise, with beautiful sights all around that looked amazing during all seasons of the year. All of the citizens in the village had a reason to be happy there, all of them were safe and content with their lives. All of them, except one.

A human Rui with his hair colored black stood nearby from the outside, watching the boys have fun with one another while wishing that he could join them and play too. He took the risk and made a few steps towards the boys, feeling his legs wobble a little but nothing too serious. Rui became more excited with each step he took, truly believing that he would be able to play with the other kids like he had always wished for. That dream was once again dashed when he felt one of his legs give out, causing him to fall face first into the snow with a soft thump and remain there. He turned his head and coughed a few times, the cold snow burning slightly against his exposed cheek and chilling him.

Rui eventually rolled over onto his back and looked up into the clear blue sky, watching the clouds gently blow by overhead from the slow breeze. Birds chirped nearby from the trees closest to that side of the village, and after a few moments he felt rather at peace where he was, laying down in the snow and taking in everything that was around him.

"Rui? Rui!" he heard a voice cry out, with a woman eventually running up to him and kneeling down in the snow on his left. It was his mother, and she looked greatly worried by him not only being on the ground, but from being outside in general. "What are you doing? You know you're not supposed to be outside!"

Day turned to night, and the human Rui was sitting up in his futon with the doors of his room open to the gently falling snow outside. It was the closest that he could ever be to being outside without actually going out himself, which was hardly ever allowed to do at all.

That was the curse he was afflicted with. The curse of never being able to be a normal kid, to be able to go outside and explore their surroundings, to find other kids and play with them like how any kid would want to. He couldn't do any of that, his childhood had been given up the moment he first came into the world.

"I was always very frail...ever since I was born. I'd never even run." Rui remembered as his younger human self sighed and looked down at his hands, squeezing them lightly. Even simple motions such as that was a little of a task for him, which made him grow even more sorry for himself. "Just walking was a struggle. Until of course…"

Rui could see his younger self turn as an unknown figure with white dress pants and a loose fitting tuxedo with a white half-cloak over his shoulders. The man's hair was also parted down the middle and didn't have a single curly strand in it. Compared to the regal and sophisticated appearance this man had, his dark plum-colored eyes with slit pupils betrayed it with an underlying viciousness and pompous personality.

At the time, Rui had no idea who this person was and what he was capable of. Now that he was nearing the end of his life, now he knew what he had done to him, what the man did to him. He didn't save him from his curse, he overrode it with an even more terrible fate. This man was Muzan Kibutsuji, the undisputed demon lord of Japan.

"You pitiful thing...allow me to save you." Muzan said, before offering Rui a drop of his blood that would change his life forever.

That drop of blood changed him, it turned him into a demon with an appearance that drastically differed from his human form. His once black hair turned white, his eyes changed from the normal blue, and his skin turned pasty white. He no longer felt frail, in fact he felt stronger than ever.

"My parents weren't happy about it. Because now that I'd acquired a strong body, I could never expose myself to sunlight...and I had to devour humans."

A scene of the young and innocent-looking demonic Rui standing over the mutilated and devoured corpse of an unknown man played out, his parents discovering him and leading to his mom collapsing into tears while his father stared at him in disbelief, demanding an answer for what he had done.

Rui couldn't give them one, partly because he had no idea what to tell his parents about why he had to do what he had to do, but also how he had been prevented from speaking of the man who had turned him into a demon. The biggest thing that he didn't understand was how his parents could be upset with him, when he was doing what he needed to survive. He wasn't doing anything else bad, he was still their child.

"Long ago, I heard a wonderful story. There was once a father who died trying to save his drowning child. I was deeply moved. Such astounding parental love...and such a bond as well."

The young Rui sitting there above the corpse was immediately left all alone, the mindscape around him turning to pitch black darkness, which mirrored the feeling of the present day Rui who stood among the black looking at his past self. Back then he had something, and now he had nothing left.

"This father who drowned in the river had fulfilled his role as a parent. And yet, for some reason, my own parents…"

Rui lowered his gaze as memories he thought he'd never see again came rushing back, taking the shape of his bedroom back in his old family home, where the young Rui was silently sleeping without a care in the world. His father, with tears streaming down his cheeks, entered his room with a large cutting knife in his hand.

His intent was clear as he crept towards Rui's futon with the weapon, while Rui's mom was in the adjoining room looking in with her hands covering her face as she cried to herself. Both of them didn't want to do this, they didn't want to even lay a finger on their child, the life that they had brought into this world together. Of course, Rui couldn't have known that when the event that happened next took place.

"All my mother did was sob...never lifting a finger to protect me as I was about to be killed."

The scene turned dark, with the present Rui turning his head away with his fists shaking at his side. That night, when he had woken up with the sight of his father standing over him with that knife in his hand, he acted purely on instinct.

Rui had killed his parents in cold blood out of self defense, splattering their blood across the walls and floors his room, which ended with his father's crumbled corpse laying over his stained bed and his mother on her side with her hair messed up and stained red with blood, her innards kept from spilling out only by the arm she had over her stomach. His father was already dead, having bled out a few minutes ago.

His mother lasted longer, her breathing getting slower and slower, the will to live drifting away alongside her ability to keep herself awake. She couldn't even see Rui as he sat outside in the moonlight, looking up towards the moon in the clear night sky, because of her hair that she couldn't move out from in front of her face. It was a horrible sight, and during the whole ordeal, Rui had maintained the same aloof expression that his present self had. It hurt him, remembering this night, remembering how his parents had tried to kill him in his sleep, even though the chance of him dying was exceptionally thin because he was a demon. He didn't know that at the time, of course, he reacted solely on instinct.

"They had to have been impostors...they hadn't been my real parents. They hadn't been my real parents." he remembered thinking as he looked at the moon, completely apathetic to the sound of his mother dying right next to him. "The bond between us wasn't real."

The silence persisted over Rui's home, with nothing but the sound of his own breathing filling his ears, as well as the soft chirping of crickets in the distance. It was rather tranquil, the night, he had grown to like being outside ever since he had gained this new demon body from Muzan. It didn't matter if he couldn't go out during the day when the sun was out, he was able to go outside again at night and not have to worry about falling over from his own weakness.

"...S...Sorry…"

The present Rui raised his eyes up when he heard the faint voice of his mother, the past Rui on the other hand freezing slightly when her apology hit his ears. He deduced that she was trying to say something and decided to at least give her the attention in order to hear what she had to say.

Turning his head towards her, he lowered his gaze to the hidden face of his mother, focusing on her lips as she coughed a little when she choked on some of her blood. It was then when he saw her tears, her pure, shimmering tears that gently dropped onto the wooden patio she had been cut down on by her only son. Without an ounce of malice or hate in her voice, she apologized weakly for not being able to give Rui a strong and healthy body, before finally succumbing to her injuries and dying without saying anything else.

What she had said was enough to pierce through Rui's aloof exterior and reach his heart, causing his younger self to gasp lightly and stare now at his mother with wide eyes. The present Rui, watching from the shadows as a ghost, gripped his chest and lowered his head enough that his bangs covered the upper portion of his face. All of it was coming back now, all of the pain, all of the sorrow, his past as a human was flowing back into his mind like a raging current that he had no hope of stopping.

"Those...were my mother's last words before she died…" he thought, his eyes closing shut and remaining like that as the outside perspective taught him the truth of that night.

His father and his mother were planning to die with him, once they had taken his life. They were wanting to pass on from this world as an apology for giving him a life he didn't want, one where he wasn't able to do anything that any young boy would be able to do. To play, to laugh, to live.

Because of something they had no control over, his weak constitution and fragility, which led him to taking the offer given to him by Muzan for a new life and a stronger body, they were willing to shoulder the blame as their own and offer up their lives as compensation for it.

He had been so enraged by how he was trying to kill me, coupled with his first instinct to fight back, that the words his father had said went completely over his head. He realized too that his father was willing to die in order to atone for the murder that Rui had committed as well, which made the truth all the more clearer.

"It...was a genuine bond...and on that night...I snapped it." Rui thought as he lifted up his hands once the darkness consumed him yet again, seeing the threads he used so much as his main weapons dangling from every finger tip. Threads like the ones that bonded him together with his family. "Snapped it with my own two hands…"

Muzan then appeared as a dark shadow behind him, his presence only noted by his glowing eyes staring down at Rui as his words from the past were replayed to him in the same cold voice that the demon lord had then. Words of encouragement, meant to convince him that what he had done was the right path to take.

"It was all your parents' fault for refusing to accept you. Take pride in your own strength." echoed Muzan's voice, causing Rui to grip his head and shake it side to side while clenching his jaw.

"I had no choice but to see it that way...I could hardly bear the consequences of what I had just committed. The sin I had just made."

Muzan's shadow faded once again into the dark Abyss of Rui's mind, leaving him alone in the dark, holding his head in his hands as reality crashed down on top of him. Its weight was unbearable, even for his enhanced body.

It hurt him so much that he even began to weep, for the first time in years. The tears stung, clinging to his face as they slid down his cheeks and fell from his chin into the darkness around him. He felt horrible, for all the things that he had done since the day he severed his own bond with his parents. Since the day he ruined his own life.

"Even while knowing it had been my fault that my parents were dead...every single day...I missed my parents so much that I could barely stand it. Even after creating a fake family, the feeling of emptiness wouldn't go away. And as time went on...with the power I had growing every day...I lost sight of what I had wanted to do more and more...of what I had wanted. The bond of a family."

Tanjirō had resorted to sitting down on the dirt as he felt his strength continue to return after his fight with Rui, Nezuko now sitting in his lap still embracing him with all of her wounds having healed by then. Giyū was standing close by with a hand on his sword, watching over the two of them with his typical aloof expression, before he heard soft footsteps come from behind.

He glanced back and without showing any surprise, he witnessed the disintegrating body of Rui slowly walk its way towards them with his arms out like he were a zombie. Step by step, regardless of the bits and pieces of his arms and legs that turned to ash with each passing second, the body approached them, until it fell flat onto the dirt right next to Tanjirō and Nezuko.

Tanjirō turned and with wide eyes watched as Rui attempted to reach for him with one of his small hands, trying to grab onto anything he could. At first he didn't know what to think of it, but once his nose smelled the odors coming from Rui's body, his heart strained and he felt his eyes start to well up with tears.

"He...he's giving off the scent of grief too overwhelming for him to bear…" Tanjirō thought as one tear rolled down his cheek and dropped onto Nezuko's hand. That caused her to open her eyes and see her brother crying, her gaze falling to the source of the noise she heard being Rui's body almost halfway gone.

Nearby his head was looking at them with an empty gaze, the rage he had for them just a minute ago completely gone. Giyū noticed this and for a moment all he did was watch what would happen next, because he wasn't quite sure what to expect from Tanjirō and his sister. They had been threatened by the Kizuki, that much was certain, but there had to be a reason as to why Tanjirō had started to cry out of nowhere like he was doing right now.

As Rui's face turned to ash up to the bridge of his nose, he saw Tanjirō remove one of his arms from around his sister and lean over slightly in order to place his hand gently on the boy's back. That touch alone was enough to cause the demon's eyes to widen as a foreign feeling he hadn't experienced in years filled him to the brim. Soon enough, after seeing what he had done, Nezuko did the same thing too, only instead of resting a hand on his back, she placed her smaller hand on top of Rui's, even though half of his hand was gone.

"Warm...hands as...as gentle as sunlight…" he thought, as finally after years and years of being unable to recall any of it, he remembered all of it. Everything he had wanted to remember and more, his memories of his childhood, everything leading up to that fateful day and beyond. All of it. "What I wanted...was to apologize…"

His head fully disintegrated, yet his thoughts still persisted because his body had yet to fully turn to ash. With just his torso and right arm remaining, Rui offered his apologies to his parents over and over again, telling them that he was to blame for everything that had happened. That they shouldn't be blaming themselves, and that he'd pay for all of it because he knew where he was going for all the people he had killed.

With his final plea for forgiveness, and with his acceptance of not being able to meet his parents in Heaven, he finally departed from the mortal world as the last few ashes of his body faded away into nothingness.

"That's not true."

Rui gasped when he found himself sitting in the garb he had worn as a demon, surrounded by a yellowish white glowing orb. A warm and gentle hand was resting on his back, and as he looked left he saw the gentle smile of his father looking back at him, appearing the same as he had on the night of his death.

He didn't know what to say or what to think. It was his father, there right next to him, touching him, breathing. Seemingly alive and well...like they had never perished in the first place.

"We'll be going together even if it's to Hell." his father said softly, before Rui felt another warmth press against his right shoulder, which revealed itself to be his mother hugging her child gently and rubbing her cheek gently against his.

"Rui...we've been waiting for you here...we knew it would take a while...but we never gave up hope. We knew that someday...you'd return to us, so that we could be together again."

Rui's lower lip trembled as he stared at the smiling faces of his parents, his father rubbing his back gently just like he remembered he would when he was upset that he couldn't go outside to play with the other children.

"No matter where you go, we'll be with you, Rui." said Rui's Mother as she planted her lips against his forehead, kissing it softly before hugging him.

All of this was enough to cause Rui to transform back to his original human self, starting from the tips of his hair turning black, until every single white strand of hair had disappeared. His skin color returned to normal, the red dots on his face faded away, and his eyes turned one again into the soft blue color with his original white irises.

Even his clothes changed to the ones that he wore the night Muzan had turned him into a demon. This warmth, this overflowing feeling of joy and happiness that had been devoid from his heart and soul for so long, it was so incredible that he couldn't stop himself from crying into his mother's chest as he wrapped his small arms around her. Then he started to bawl, his wails of joy muffled by his mother's bosom as he let out all of the emotions he thought he'd never have again out into her as they hugged. His father jugged them both as well, smiling softly as their family finally came together after years of being apart,

"I'm sorry! It was all my fault!" Rui cried, slowly shaking his head side to side as he continued to weep with his parents within their little glowing orb as the flames of Hell grew in size around them, eventually engulfing them entirely.

In the mortal realm, Rui's clothes were left empty once his body had finished turning to ash, leaving Tanjirō's hand resting on top of it and Nezuko's hand laying flat on the dirt where his hand had been. Tanjirō had stopped crying now that Rui was gone, but he still felt sorrow in his heart for him, as well as guilt for thinking that Rui had been a demon who was irredeemable from the start. That he was someone who became a demon because they wanted to.

Now he was sure that Rui hadn't been one of those demons, based on the scent of guilt and sadness that had radiated so strongly from the boy's body as it disintegrated. While Nezuko brought her hand back and held onto Tanjirō again, he kept his hand on Rui's clothes for another few moments as he offered the boy a small prayer in his mind.

Giyū then approached the siblings and stepped onto Rui's clothes, startling Tanjirō and causing him to look up into the older slayer's aloof blue eyes as they looked down on him.

"I know that you and your sister are different, but don't waste any sympathy on a demon that devoured humans." he said rather coldly, striking a chord in Tanjirō's heart that made his eyes widen. "It doesn't matter if it looks like a child. It's still a hideous monster that's lived for decades."

Tanjirō blinked once while staring up at his senior, before his brow furrowed and his shock turned to repulsion at the insensitive words that he had just heard from Giyū. How did he become all knowing about who Rui was and what he had done? What his past had been? He didn't know either, but he always knew that he could trust what his nose picked up, and what he picked up hadn't been the scent of a cold-blooded monster like what Giyū was making him out to be.

"To avenge the people who were killed, to make sure there are no more victims…" uttered Tanjirō as his hand tightened around Rui's clothes. He wanted to rip them out from under Giyū's feet, but he refrained from doing that. "Of course, I'll bring my blade down on any demon's neck without mercy! But as for those for whom being a demon meant despair, those who regretted their own actions...I will never trample over them!"

Giyū maintained his blank stare even as Tanjirō spoke to him in a tone that wouldn't be fitting of a younger slayer talking to a senior, especially one in his position, because part of him wondered where exactly he was going to go with this proclamation.

Somehow, it started to feel as if he were talking with Shinobu, since he knew that she had a silly dream that she inherited from her late sister. About how there could be a chance for demons to live among humans, even when demons had caused so much strife and despair to humans ever since they were first created.

"Because demons were once human, too! Just like me, once...they were human too! They're not hideous monsters at all...demons are hopeless creatures! They're tragic creatures!" continued Tanjirō as he stared deep into Giyū's eyes, his hand gripping Rui's clothes shaking from how tightly he was holding onto the soft silky fabric. "That's why I believe it's possible! Possible for demons to get a second chance! That there can be a time when demons and humans can coexist! My sister and I are living proof of it! And more than that, there was a third demon here! One of the demons that were on this mountain, I was able to save her! She was the one that told me about the Kizuki member, and she promised me that she'd never hurt anyone ever again!"

"How can you be so sure?" asked Giyū immediately after Tanjirō finished, his feet remaining firmly planted on top of Rui's clothes. "How can you be so sure that demons can get along with humans? You and your sister are different, granted, but how can you be so confident in other demons? Do all demons deserve a second chance? Does he deserve one?"

Tanjirō caught his tongue at Giyū's flurry of questions, taken aback by how direct he was with getting answers out of him. But he was prepared for this, he knew exactly what he had to say back to him, because he knew now, more than ever, that he could trust in what he said.

"Because I can smell it, Giyū-san. You know it, and Urokodaki-sensei knows it. Anybody who's met me knows it, that my sense of smell is far beyond that of a normal person's. It's even more potent now that I've become a demon, it could even be stronger than Urokodaki-sensei's now." he replied, maintaining his fiery and determined stare down with Giyū. "I can smell the difference between good and bad demons...if they don't want to change, then I won't hesitate to cut them down. But if the chance is there...I'll do everything in my power to see it through. And the one demon I won't ever forgive is Muzan, because I'm going to make him pay for all the people that he's made suffer through one way or another, including myself...I can guarantee it."

Giyū could easily see and sense the frustration and anger that Tanjirō was exhibiting, as well as the sincerity behind those words. His eyes broke away from Tanjirō's in order to look at Nezuko, who had closed her eyes once again to rest while hugging her brother gently. He looked at the bamboo mouth piece that he had fashioned on the spot after subduing her, to prevent her from using her teeth from biting and feasting on any humans, seeing that there wasn't a single scratch on it.

Before he could reply about anything, he sensed a presence fast approaching them and, in the blink of an eye he drew his sword and stepped around Tanjirō and Nezuko to deflect the razor sharp stinger tip of Shinobu's blade before it could pierce either one of them.

Actually surprised by that, Shinobu maintained her composure and smile as she flipped over the three of them and landed on her feet several meters away, spinning a couple of times like an ice skater until coming to a complete stop.

"Oh my...why would you get in my way, Tomioka-san?" she asked, keeping her back facing the three of them while her sword remained at her side.

Tanjirō felt as though he had heard her voice before, but without being able to see her face he wouldn't know. Before he could use his nose to try and identify her by her scent, Giyū pat him on the back and motioned for him to go. He took the hint and held onto Nezuko tightly as he stood up and quickly fled with her in his arms, grabbing her box and throwing it over his shoulder as well as his mask.

"I should find Inosuke or Zenitsu, fast! I'll let Giyū-san handle her! Even though...she feels familiar to me because of her voice…"

Shinobu turned around and watched them quickly vacate the area, before her gaze rested on Giyū. She was surprised for sure, especially since it was Giyū that had deflected her blade from stinging the female demon she had seen in the arms of the other male slayer. Something didn't quite add up, and it could have been a trick of the eyes, but as she came rushing in she thought she could recognize the hair color of the boy holding the female demon.

"After telling me that we could never be friends with demons...how should I put this?" Shinobu said as she tipped her stinger blade downward across her body, entering her stance against her opposite. "This is why no one likes you, you know."

At the secured site of the hanging shack, the masked men and women called to the mountain under the protection of the Insect Hashira's Tsuguko were still hard at work securing the transformed humans that had been turned into spiders by the deceased Older Brother demon. These were the Kakushi, the attendants and custodial service branch of the Demon Slayer Corps that could be called in for situations such as these to assist their more skilled comrades in cleaning up after large battles with demons.

They stood apart from regular Demon Slayers because of their all matching black uniforms with the head and face covers that masked their identities, as well as the Kanji for "Kakushi", their name, on the backs of their uniforms. At the moment they had just taken down the three humans who were in the middle of their spider conversion, which meant they were luckier than the rest because once given the antidote they didn't have to worry about regaining too much of their former selves.

One in particular, who had lost most of his hair and had three large purple splotches of rotting skin on his face, was given the antidote by one of the Kakushi and in a matter of moments the physical effects of the poison were brought to a halt. His ragged breathing normalized and soon he was able to relax, the Kakushi member who gave him the antidote sighing in relief while looking at the empty syringe in his hand.

"Man, this antidote of Kochō-sama's is effective!" he remarked, before discarding the used syringe now that its use had been fulfilled.

"That's right. And to think she was smart enough to have all of this prepared for such an occasion." said another Kakushi member, a female one based on her voice and visible eyes, as she started to wrap up the freshly cured slayer with bandages. "She really is amazing. That goes for him too."

She paused in wrapping the slayer's arm and turned her head to look back at the shack, where two members of the Kakushi were working in conjunction with another pair to lower down a stretcher carrying Zenitsu with a few ropes to the ground. He had fallen into a deep sleep from pure over-exhaustion, and the Kakushi hadn't dared disturb him partly due to the rather fierce sparrow that refused to budge from where it sat on his abdomen.

Whenever one of the Kakushi tried to remove him, the sparrow chirped wildly and nipped at their fingers with his beak until they backed off, which allowed the sparrow to continue to rest on the young slayer as he slumbered.

"Ah, him? What about him?" asked the male Kakushi.

"He was the guy who defeated that demon, the one who turned all these people and a couple of our guys into those weird spider hybrids with the human heads. Thanks to that, it slowed the circulation of the poison just a bit."

"Ah, yeah. that is pretty good."

Together the two Kakushi finished wrapping up the treated slayer from head to toe, keeping his upper face and nose exposed so that he could breath, before placing a piece of paper with one of its sides made sticky onto the boy's abdomen area. The sticker read "Treated" vertically, which meant he was ready for transportation.

"There! Looking good!" said the male Kakushi, nodding his head at a job well done. "Chances are, they'll all pull through."

"Still, I'd like to wrap things up quickly and leave this place as soon as possible, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, me too. I mean, this place really, really stinks!"

The female Kakushi glanced over to see Shinobu's Tsuguko herself, a young girl with a side ponytail and white cape over her standard Demon Slayer uniform. She was standing somewhere near the center of the clearing with a butterfly on her finger, smiling softly at it as it slowly flapped its wings while resting.

She and the rest of the Kakushi weren't fighters at all, they were essentially the custodial branch of the corps, so they were glad to have a slayer around with them to protect them just in case they came under attack by a stray demon. She had to admit though, the Tsuguko was a little on the weird side.

Sparks flew as Giyū's sword connected with Shinobu's stinger blade, the two skilled fighters trading several blows with one another before leaping back for a moment of reprieve. They were allies of course, so they weren't trying to kill the other, but there was always the chance of a slip up.

Shinobu's smile had faded into a concerned frown, while Giyū still had his typical aloof expression, albeit with his eyes narrowed slightly to show he was focused and utterly intent on preventing her from giving chase after Tanjirō and Nezuko.

"I see you're dead serious, Tomioka-san." Shinobu remarked, switching her grip on her blade as they slowly circled one another. If she could subdue Giyū somehow, maybe with one of her non-lethal poisons, then she could slip by without him giving much of a fight. Of course, she was sure he knew that and would be on his guard. "Who would've thought a Hashira would ever defend a demon?"

"There's more to them than what you could possibly know." replied Giyū, keeping his eyes locked on Shinobu.

"So then shouldn't you be allowing me past, so I can find out for myself?"

Giyū's time for talking had passed and he remained silent, stopping his feet at the same time as Shinobu's once they had made a full ring around their impromptu dueling arena. Each sword user stared at the other, analyzing their stances, looking for any possible openings or weaknesses in how they had their feet set up or where they were holding their swords.

Of course it was expected there was little to nothing either could go off of in order to give them the edge in battle, which was only going to make it more difficult for either to surpass the other. At least, that's what Shinobu wanted Giyū to think.

"Mm...you can do whatever you wish, Tomioka-san, but I'm not going to join you in stalling for time. So, good day to you."

Giyū raised an eyebrow before the smaller Hashira charged him, feinting a jab with her stinger blade that forced him to sidestep and parry it. Against his expectations she dropped down quickly thanks to her already short stature, letting go of her stinger blade entirely for a brief moment to sweep her leg under Giyū's and knock him off balance entirely.

He winced as he fell sharply onto his back, leading to his own sword to be dropped, while Shinobu rolled forward and leaped back up to her feet in order to grab her blade once again and smile back at him.

"Bye~! Sorry, Tomioka-san~!" she apologized as she turned her right foot sideways, revealing a tiny blade had extended from her sandal, before she used her other heel to lock it back inside for another use. "Have fun!"

Giyū's eyes widened when a harsh stiffness overtook his limbs, that soon turned to full-on paralysis when he tried to stand up, only to fall right back down onto his knee. He moved his gaze down and cursed silently to himself at the tiny little cut made through the heel of his sock that had made a tiny enough incision into his skin for whatever poison Shinobu had on the hidden blade to enter his body.

He lifted his gaze back to Shinobu, only to see that she had already left to give chase after Tanjirō and Nezuko. With his situation now detrimental, leaving him unable to give chase, he lowered his head and only hoped that Tanjirō could somehow convince Shinobu of the same things he believed in.

"Keep moving, keep moving! Don't stop running!" Tanjirō repeated to himself over and over in his mind as he ran through the forest, his sleeping sister staying perfectly still in his arms while holding him. He was doing well just to keep his eyes open and his legs moving, the exhaustion from using his very own Blood Demon Art for the first time, among everything else, had drained him of all the energy he had managed to store up from sleeping.

He felt like that at any moment his legs could give out and he'd fall flat on his face and go to sleep right then and there. In fact, that idea was starting to sound better and better. It was starting to get a little stuffy inside of his mask as well, since his breaths weren't as controlled as they usually would be, which meant most of the air he was breathing was just his own recycled air that didn't escape out the sides of the fox mask.

A strange yet somehow familiar whiff caught his nostrils by surprise, and before he could react a foot landed directly onto Nezuko's box hastily thrown over his shoulders hard, knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing him to hit the ground belly first while Nezuko ended up flying out of his arms.

She grunted loudly when she hit the ground and rolled over a few times, her eyebrows furrowing as she opened her eyes and muttered something unintelligible from beneath her mouthpiece.

"What happened? Who was-"

Tanjirō's thought was cut off when Shinobu landed gracefully on the ground between him and her, her haori fluttering upward to reveal the Kanji for "Destroy" on the back of her uniform. His heart shot up into his throat and started to beat like crazy as she turned to look down on him, the same warm smile on her face.

"Finally, caught up to you. It wasn't hard though, since you just ran in a straight line~" she said with a light giggle, before she turned her head to Nezuko as she grunted and picked herself up off the ground. Once she raised her eyes up to see her brother on the ground and Shinobu with her blade out, her first instinct was to reveal her demon eyes and growl at her.

"Oh my, so she was a demon! You poor thing...such a cute little girl…" said Shinobu as she sheathed her stinger sword briefly, before drawing it once more and pointing it at her. "I promise I'll kill you with my least painful poison…"

Nezuko growled again as she lowered herself, ready to pounce on the woman she thought was threatening her brother, before Tanjirō leapt to his feet with a slight wheeze and tossed Nezuko's box off to the side so it wouldn't hinder him.

"Nezuko, don't! She's an ally! I'm fine!" he shouted, causing Shinobu to jump a little and glanced back at him.

There it was again, his voice. It sounded so familiar to her, but there was too much haze over where she had heard the voice before, when she was reminded of the demon in front of her and quickly turned back...only to find Nezuko looking normal with her arms at her side and not a hint of aggression on her face.

"What? She's not attacking me? How is that possible?" Shinobu thought with a genuine surprised expression on her face. She turned around while keeping her sword at the ready, facing Tanjirō this time and looking at the eye slits of his fox mask as he raised his hands up. "Why is a Demon Slayer protecting a demon? And...why is she-"

"She's my kid sister! She has turned into a demon and I've been travelling with her since Final Selection!" exclaimed Tanjirō with such passion that it caught Shinobu off guard again. "She hasn't devoured a single human either! And...and neither have I!"

"Neither have...you?"

Tanjirō gulped nervously before he slowly brought his hands to his mask and lifted it up off his face, returning his hands to their non-threatening, palms up and arms up position with mask in hand while revealing his demon eyes to Shinobu.

She gasped at his eyes, her senses finally cluing on in his demon aura that he was giving off just like Nezuko's. Then after another brief second or two of looking at them, her memories finally clicked into place and she finally recognized him by voice and by his eyes. He was the slayer she had talked to at the Wisteria home that night, when she had had probably a few too many glasses of sake.

"You...you're a demon...too? What's going on? Why are you a demon? Were you a demon back then too?" Shinobu asked with wide eyes, Tanjirō raising an eyebrow at the last part of her sentence before it clicked for him too.

"Wait...were you the-"

"Back at the-"

"When we-"

They both stopped talking when they kept cutting one another off, since both of them were surprised to formulate proper sentences. After a couple moments of silence, Nezuko actually approached the two of them with slightly tired eyes as she tugged on Tanjirō's sleeve, drawing his attention to her as she pointed at her box.

Tanjirō blinked but nodded his head, Shinobu watching in bewilderment as Nezuko then obediently went to her box and shrunk herself down before climbing inside and carefully closing the door behind her.

"How…"

"I...have a lot of explaining to do...just please…" said Tanjirō as he lowered his hands and gave Shinobu a reassuring expression. "I'm not going to attack you, and neither will Nezuko. We haven't attacked a single human at all since we became demons."

"How do I know I can-hey, are you okay? Hey!"

Tanjirō's vision had started to grow blurry and he wobbled from side to side, before he ended up collapsing against her and causing her to yelp a little as he fell on top of her. In the blink of an eye, he had been knocked out cold by his own exhaustion and he started to sleep heavily, his snores soft and slow, showing just how tired he really had been.

The only problem was that Shinobu had been pinned under him slightly and her cheeks flushed red since his head had ended up squished against her chest, making the position they were in slightly uncomfortable. Despite his cheeks resting comfortably against her rather ample boobs, this proximity allowed her to get an even closer look at his face and confirm once and for all that it was the same person she had met before.

His expression of total tranquility as he slept actually made her blush a little at how adorable and peaceful it looked, but she shook her head as she gently pulled herself out from under him and laid him down gently on his back.

"He's a demon, through and through, yet...then and now...he's not giving off an aura of blood lust or hunger at all...it's a sweet and gentle one…" she thought while watching Tanjirō snore softly, his chest rising up and falling slowly with each breath he took. "And the way his sister immediately lost all of that aggression, despite being a demon too...have they really not eaten any humans? Is it...could it be true that...that it's…"

"Message! Message! Caww!"

Shinobu paused and pulled herself out of her thoughts as she looked to the skies, seeing a Kasugai crow circling over where she was. "I have a message from headquarters!"

"From headquarters?"

"Tanjirō and Nezuko are to be taken into custody and brought back to headquarters! Caww! The demons Tanjirō and Nezuko are to be taken into custody and brought back to headquarters!"

Shinobu gasped and blinked a few times, her gaze dropping from the circling crow to the sleeping Tanjirō resting next to her, then to the box she had seen his sister crawl into. The crow cawed again before describing Tanjirō as having a checkered haori and a scar on his forehead, and Nezuko with a bamboo muzzle, which matched the description of the two with her perfectly.

"Tanjirō...and Nezuko…" she said aloud, before the bushes nearby rustled and she looked up, seeing a pair of Kakushi emerge.

"Oh, Kochō-sama!" said the male as he and his female partner both bowed their heads respectfully.

"Ah, Gotō-san." said Shinobu, smiling softly as she stood up and took a step back from the sleeping Tanjirō while motioning to him and Nezuko's box. "These are the two that the crows spoke of. Could you be so kind as to secure them both?"

"Both? Where's the girl?"

"In the box, just trust me on that."

Gotō, the male Kakushi, glanced at his partner before shrugging and walking over with her in order to tie up and secure them both. The female Kakushi simply picked up Nezuko's box and put it on her back like how it was supposed to be carried, before Gotō simply tied up Tanjirō's wrists and hoisted him up onto his own shoulders.

"To think that a demon's been in our ranks...how do you think the other Hashira will respond to this?" murmured the female Kakushi. "It's completely unheard of…"

"You got me…"

"Um, Gotō-san?" asked Shinobu, the Kakushi member turning his head and raising an eyebrow. "Do be careful with them...I...I'm not sure why just yet, but...something tells me there's more to them than meets the eye."

Gotō wasn't quite sure what she meant by that, but he nodded his head anyways and proceeded to leave the small clearing with his partner, allowing Shinobu some time to herself to think about what happened for a minute or so. She decided soon enough that finding and tending to Giyū first was her top priority, so with one last glance at the Kakushi and the slayer with them, she then leaped back into the trees to make her way back to Giyū.

Ukogi chirped a few times, half out of frustration but mostly out of happiness because Zenitsu had finally woken up after being treated, only to find himself wrapped up in bandages like some mummy from Egypt with patches of his hair sticking out between them. He had been allowed a way to see thanks to his eyes and nose being left uncovered, and he watched as the Kakushi in the clearing where he had killed the spider demon finished up their clean-up operation and were getting ready to leave.

He looked to the right with the slightest head turn and saw two other Kakushi had entered the clearing with a heavily beaten up and bloody Inosuke strung over the shoulder of one, with blood dripping from the mouth of his boar mask.

"Is he alive…?" thought Zenitsu, before the boar slayer was let down onto the ground and he heard a slight grunt come from him. Thankfully he was still alive, and it wasn't long before he too was wrapped up like a mummy, restricting all forms of motion from his body as a safety precaution once he had been treated somewhat.

"Who are these people? They seem to be cleaning up this place really efficiently." he thought, before his eyes moved to the girl helping to direct the Kakushi's efforts. She was ordering them around and helping them move the people they wrapped in, even when Zenitsu was certain she couldn't be any older then he was at 17. "And that girl there...isn't she the girl from Final Selection? She has the same kind of hair ornament as the lady who cured me."

"Should we bring them to the Butterfly Mansion as well?" asked a Kakushi who was holding one of the spider human hybrids in his arm.

"Yes, bring all of the wounded to our place." replied the girl, the Kakushi nodding his head before running off.

"Come to think of it, I have heard about these guys…" Zenitsu thought as he continued to watch the masked men and women work, Ukogi finally sitting down comfortably on top of his head. "The cleanup crew, the Kakushi. The unit that cleans up after the Demon Slayer Corps battles demons. They say most of its members are people who have no swordsmanship skills."

"Chu, chu!"

Zenitsu's thoughts were interrupted by Ukogi, who chirped again and pointed to the tree tops with one of his wings as the sky began to brighten and turn pink and purple and yellow with the light of the rising sun.

It was finally daybreak...the night had come and gone on Natagumo Mountain. A great many lives had been lost, but in the end, the Demon Slayer Corps proved victorious. Almost all of the demons had been slayed, with only one having managed to escape, thanks to the kindness and trust of a certain black and red-haired Demon Slayer who wasn't afraid to take a chance.

That same Demon Slayer was still sleeping on Gotō's shoulders with a spare blanket tossed over him to protect him from the sun. It was only then where they saw that one of his hands was exposed, so when the sun rose up above the tree tops and struck them with its warming light, they frantically tried to cover it up. Astonishingly, in their hurry to hide the rest of Tanjirō, they witnessed absolutely nothing happen to his hand from the sun. Shinobu and Giyū, who she had cured of his temporary paralysis, had arrived at the clearing just at the same time as they did and saw the phenomenon for themselves too. Wanting to see if it was true, they slowly revealed more of Tanjirō's body to the sun's light. Until the entire blanket was gone and still to their surprise he was perfectly fine. Giyū's eyes widened a little, since even he didn't realize that it was possible, and Shinobu covered her mouth when she gasped a little bit.

A demon that could withstand the sun's rays, it was almost unthinkable. Never before had such a thing been witnessed before, and it was then when the two Hashiras looked at one another and silently agreed that there indeed was something far more special about the Kamado siblings than either of them could even imagine.

"I guess we'll find out the whole story back at headquarters, will we, Tomioka-san?" asked Shinobu, smiling again as she looked at him.

"I'm still waiting for an apology."

"Mmm, nope~ You still prevented me from doing my job initially, remember? Sorry~"

The sun was now shining brightly overhead, with the birds chirping and the bugs buzzing in the trees and the plants that were planted within the borders of a giant hidden complex that was interconnected by a series of well-built roads and throughways. Wisteria trees had been planted around the whole perimeter of the giant city-like complex, and like other trees, were planted within its walls too as a safe-guard measure.

There were several large mansions and homes, as if they belonged to the richest and most powerful figures in Japan. Quite the opposite, this was the headquarters of the Demon Slayer Corps, the beating heart of the organization where all of the homes of its strongest warriors, as well as their families or close ones, were able to live in complete safety. In the very center of the huge complex was the most simple and least imposing home of them all, with a normal looking entrance and a rather beautiful looking garden taking up the rest of its allotted space.

There was a small self-contained river that divided the garden into two halves, and in a few parts there were a few wisteria trees that were mixed with a couple of regular trees. The garden was cut off from the shaded back patio of the home by a walkway of white polished pebbles that led from the left and right sides of the home and converged in the back.

And it was here where the still sleeping Tanjirō was kept, lying belly down on the pebbles, completely unaware of the several pairs of eyes watching and judging him.

"Wake up."

A/N Damn Giyu my man get outplayed. But this is it, next chapter is one I've bern excited to do for a while now! Hashira trial baby! Nothing much else to say here except hope you guys liked the chapter!

Leave a fav, follow, and review telling me what you thought! Thank you so much!