^ Chapter 23 - Rouse yourself, Tanjirō! ^

Tanjirō unknowingly cried softly in his sleep while he leaned against Kyōjurō's arm, the dream of his family being alive causing him to, as he and the three other slayers slept soundly with the rest of the passengers onboard the Infinite Train. None of them knew the real danger that lurked within the bowels of the mechanical beast, none of them could do anything about it.

Not even Kyōjurō, one of the mighty nine Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, seemed to be able to escape from the trap that Lower Moon One had so eloquently placed for them. They were all his prisoners, and they were none the wiser to the deception.

Their train car door opened in front of the first two rows where they sat and the four children entered, all of them checking to make sure everybody was asleep before they identified and gathered around the slayers. They looked tired still, with bags under their eyes caused from their own insomnia, which had been part of the reason why they had been so quick to accept the Lower Moon's proposal. Deep down they felt like this was wrong, these were other human beings that they were about to render empty husks, devoid of life. But the urge and desire for peaceful sleep, for wonderful dreams to fill their minds and take them away from reality, had too strong of a pull over their young, under-developed wills.

"So we just have to fasten this rope around their arms?" asked the girl with closed eyes, her own sleep-deprivation causing her eyes to remain almost entirely shut most of the time. "Or somewhere connected to their body at least?"

"Yea. Don't forget about the warning he gave...you mustn't touch, or disturb them." spoke the other girl with an affirmative nod.

One of the boys then stepped forward with a blank expression as he handed them each a medium-sized length of rope that they then cautiously tied around the wrists of every single slayer. The girl with braided pieces of her hair hanging over her shoulders connected to Kyōjurō and sat down next to Nezuko's box, the boy with straight black hair to Tanjirō before he sat down in the seat behind him, then the other boy and girl connected to Zenitsu and Inosuke. Sitting close by just within the length of the rope, they then closed their eyes and began to count down one number at a time, from ten to one, to get themselves to fall asleep.

Eventually all four kids were asleep themselves, their arms connected by the ropes growing limp with the rest of their bodies. From an outside perspective, it didn't seem as if anything was out of the ordinary. In fact it looked fairly strange, due to the fairly inconspicuous appearance of the regular-looking burly rope.

However, these ropes were far from regular. The ropes had been created by Lower Moon One from his very own flesh, which were then imbued with an ability that was granted to him by his status as a peculiar breed of demon. Unlike other demons who relied on physical strength and ferocity, the Lower Moon was a sleep demon, who with his unique powers could physically affect people's dreams and put them to sleep.

One of the many powers that branched off from this was giving other people that power to penetrate the dreams of those they connected themselves to. His flesh-created ropes for the tool for which this process could occur, and it was because of this that the children were able to individually penetrate the minds of the four slayers in order to see what it was they were imagining within their dreams.

For the girl who was connected to the Flame Hashira, she had entered during the day when in his family home, he was in the midst of an instructional exercise for his younger brother over swordsmanship. Recognizing it as the main body, she knew that she had to keep herself hidden so that she wasn't detected and recognized as an intruder. She waited until both siblings had their backs turned before she ran across the garden to one of the nearby buildings where she could see the wall of the compound their home was in.

Beyond that wall wouldn't be what one would expect from a normal person's dream, which normally would be an entire world in of itself. The dreams that Lower Moon One created within his prey does not stretch to infinity, instead the dreamer is centered within what one could describe as the center of a circle. Within that circle existed the immediate storage world that is crafted around the dreamer, making them believe that they are having a normally occurring dream.

Beyond this circular dream world laid an area of unconsciousness, where the so-called "spiritual core", a manifestation of their soul within the realm of their mental psyche existed. If this was destroyed, its owner would become mentally crippled. They'd be rendered completely immobile, turned into nothing but a drooling vegetable.

"Here it is, the wall of the dream…" thought the girl as she pressed her hands against the wooden wall of the Rengoku household's home compound. To anyone in the dream, it would've felt like regular wood, but to her, it felt like soft paper. "I'm going to tear through this so that I can have my own sweet dream!"

She retrieved an ice chipping pick from her clothes and stabbed it into the wall, the wooden board crumpling like paper as she tore a hole clean through them into the unconscious state beyond the dream barrier. As soon as she stepped through the tear, she was instantly met by an intense heat wave that was coming from various flames dotting the tiled floor around her. The sky was a reddish hue with smoke-like clouds blowing past rather quickly overhead.

"This is one weird place...it's hot and muggy...I'm burning up and I haven't even been in here that long…" the girl thought as she kept the pick ready at her hip as she looked around for Kyōjurō's spiritual core. "I just want to get out of her as soon as possible…"

She walked away from the tear and avoided some of the roaring flames, before finally finding what she was looking for floating in the middle of a tiny clearing surrounded by a towering wall of fire. It was Kyōjurō's spiritual core, a small glass-like orb tinted a deep hue of red like sapphire.

As she approached the core, she found herself getting sweatier and more sluggish by the second from the rapidly increasing temperature, with even the very air itself around the core shimmering from the heat.

"This is the first time I've ever seen one of these...it looks so fragile...so I should easily be able to destroy it!"

The girl gripped the ice pick tightly and lunged at Kyōjurō's core, fully intending on piercing it through with the sharpened metal rod and ending any and all chances of the Flame Hashira of fighting back.

A loud heartbeat like sound then echoed through the air around her and suddenly a loud gasp escaped her lips as finger-like impressions appeared around her throat, immediately cutting off her air supply long enough for her to drop the weapon and fall to the ground, gasping for air.

In the real world, the reason for her sudden collapse had happened because of Kyōjurō lunging for her with one of his hands and grasping her tightly around her neck to prevent her from attacking his spiritual core. A couple veins bulged from his hand and wrist as the unconscious girl was held in the air just tight enough that she couldn't fall or get strangled either. His facial expression was clearly one of distress, even though he was still sleeping, and the girl's was one of pain.

Under normal circumstances, when humans fall under the techniques of a sleep demon like Lower Moon One, they cannot and should not be able to move their bodies. This is because their consciousness is completely cut off from their body. As a result, they're trapped in the dream that they get placed inside of, unable to do anything.

Kyōjurō was no normal human, though, which was why the demon had given his underlings a very particular and specific warning.

Even though they'd fallen under his technique, Demon Slayers are highly sensitive and attuned to the thirst for blood, and there was a possibility that they could break themselves free if they detected even the slightest hint of bloodlust. It was exactly why Lower Moon One planned to use humans to destroy the spiritual cores of the slayers. If they had been successful, and the cores of the slayers had been destroyed, they wouldn't have offered any kind of resistance to the threat of a demon killing and devouring them.

But Kyōjurō moved. Kyōjurō moved when he was trapped within a technique that should have made it impossible for him to move. The girl who entered his dream hadn't given off even the slightest bit of blood lust, but because she had threatened to destroy his core, his body sensed her presence through pure instinct.

If his spiritual core had been destroyed, he would have been incapable of battle. If Kyōjurō had been incapable of battle, he would have been unable to fight. So now that he had moved, the girl cannot do anything because she was suffering real, physical stress in the real world. Kyōjurō could not move any further either, however, because despite the girl having threatened to remove his ability to fight, thereby putting his life at risk, he still had no reason to kill humans. Until the situation changed, the two were now locked in a bitter deadlock with no end in sight.

All the while, Tanjirō, who had fallen over onto the bench from the Flame Hashira's rapid exit from his spot, was still deep within his own dream world, unaware of the very real threat that was present within it.

At least, that's what the boy connected to him thought.

"Where'd you say Nezuko went again?"

"Onee-san went out to get some plants. She shouldn't take too long!"
"Huh?! In the afternoon!?" gasped Tanjirō loudly as he looked at his younger siblings sitting around him, the four of them in the process of preparing their food for later tonight.

All three of them stared at him with either blank or surprised expressions at his sudden outburst, one which not even he knew the actual answer for. He blinked and sat there quietly when his sister asked if that was bad, a couple of sweat droplets forming on his forehead before he quickly wiped them off and laughed nervously to himself.

"Ah, no...it shouldn't...uh…" he said with a slight stutter, his mind still trying to wrap itself around why he had reacted that way before he noticed his mom look his way and stop stirring the bamboo shaft she had in her hands.

"Tanjirō, could you prepare the bath? This might take some time…"

"Oh, sure! I'll go do it now, be back soon!"

Tanjirō stood up and left their home, stepping outside back into the brisk wintry air, his feet crunching slightly against the thin layer of snow on the ground. The mid afternoon sun shining above their home had managed to melt a good portion of snow away to reveal some patches of grass and some bushes in the forest around them, providing some warmth to his body as well.

"Ever since I got back from the village I've been saying some pretty weird things...I'm not sure why though...maybe it's just because I'm tired from the journey…" he thought as he looked up to the clear blue sky, smiling a little to himself.

He remembered how anxious he felt staying a night away from his family because of how long he had been in the village delivering and selling charcoal to the people who wanted some, but it brought him some solace seeing that everything had turned out fine just the way he had left it two days prior.

The only difference of course, one that had been around for several years now, was the absence of his father, who had finally succumbed to the weakness of his body and left their mother alone to raise their many children. That's why, as the eldest son, he had stepped up to become the man of the household and became the provider for their family by taking up his father's job of mining for charcoal, since it was what their family had done for generations now.

Tanjirō wondered if he was going to do that for the rest of his life, like his father and grandfather had done so before him, and if he was going to find a girl to fall in love with in the village like his predecessors had done too. The thought excited him a little bit, actually, since he had seen a couple of girls his age in the village that shared his mother's natural beauty, which had always been a ray of sunshine in his life.

As he walked around the side of his family home to fetch the water buckets he'd take to the nearby stream, his eyes caught something peculiar nearby among the first few trees of the forest surrounding their clearing. Tanjirō focused his gaze on the object and hesitated when the object was none other than a small wooden box with a single door and leather carrying straps. It was a tad bit beat up, with a few holes here and there, but for some reason, Tanjirō's body seemed to stiffen up a bit and his heartbeat echoed in the back of his mind.

"A-Ah! Whoa!" he gasped as he accidentally kicked one of the buckets, stumbling a bit before he caught his balance. His mother asked from inside if he was okay, and he yelled back he had just stepped on accident and that he was fine. Once he had his footing back again, he brought his eyes up to find the box again but saw that it was gone without a trace. "Huh, it disappeared...what the heck was that? Wasn't there a box there a moment ago?"

Tanjirō rubbed his eyes and blinked, seeing the box wasn't there still, and chalked it up as his vision playing tricks on him. He grabbed the water buckets and entered the forest to find his way to the nearby mountain stream where his family got their fresh water from. Thanks to the natural minerals that the water possessed from the mountain, they didn't have to worry about purifying it at all and could tap into their own little supply straight from the source.

Being among the trees led to trekking through some thicker snow pockets, and he shivered whenever one of his feet stepped into said pocket since he wasn't wearing his thicker winter boots that could protect his toes from the cold frozen snow. It didn't bother him too much though, and he continued to walk in silence before a faint glimmer of something bright emerged from the branches in front of him.

"A...butterfly?" he asked himself as a small and gentle looking butterfly fluttered towards him from the leaves.

The butterfly's wings were a brilliant purple and blue mixture of colors that looked almost otherworldly, with every flap they made making them appear to shimmer and shine in the sunlight. Tanjirō found himself smiling at the tiny insect as he lifted a hand up and extended his index finger so that it had a place to rest.

As soon as the butterfly's little legs touched his finger, he felt something akin to a pair of smaller sized arms gently wrap themselves around his waist and something warm, like somebody's cheek, pressed itself against his back. Tanjirō immediately whirled around and jumped a little, disturbing the butterfly from his sudden movement, to try and see what had hugged him from behind, but found nothing. When he tried to find the butterfly, it too had vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed at all.

"What was that…? Why did it feel...so warm…and why did it feel so familiar?" Tanjirō thought as he looked down at his feet briefly, before shaking off the weird feeling and continuing on towards the stream.

Finally reaching the mountain river he walked up to the edge of the little wooden dock he remembered his father had made for ease of access to take the mineral rich mountain water, without kneeling down on the shore, and set the buckets down.

Tanjirō then looked at the pristine, clear water and smiled along with his reflection as he recalled coming to this very stream when he was younger with his father. He had always tried to be the little helper and carry one of the buckets once they were filled for his father, but was prevented from doing so because he just wasn't big or strong enough.

Remembering that made Tanjirō laugh a little at himself and reminisce some more of his youth, before he took his eyes away from the water and reached back to grab a bucket.

He then turned back once he had one and was about to dip it into the water when he noticed his reflection and felt himself become as stiff as a board. Instead of seeing himself looking back at him, he instead was face to face with an older version of himself with a different looking scar, a strange uniform of unknown origin, and a sheathed sword slid between his belt to hang at his left hip.

What shook him the most among the differences he and his reflection had were that his white pupils had become slit and narrow, like those of a feline's, and his canine teeth had matured into full-on predatorial fangs. What is this? What's going on? Was this another vision? A lack of sleep induced mirage just like the random tool box and the butterfly had been?

Tanjirō watched with a growing sense of unease and terror of the unknown as his older reflection banged its fists against the water, like it was behind some kind of glass barrier, trying to break it and reach him. It yelled silently at him as well, disturbing the water around his mouth with how hard he was yelling, even though not a single sound was being made.

Whatever was going on, Tanjirō wasn't sure how to react. His knees were rooted to the spot, preventing him from moving, but he was still grappling with the idea of a rapid retreat back to his home in order to escape all of these strange occurrences. At the same time though, because of the way his reflection was frantically trying to break through the barrier it was imprisoned behind, as well as the way the deeply serious and pleading expression on its face spoke to him, he didn't want to leave. His feelings of wanting to help others in need grew stronger and stronger, even if this was a strange situation that gave him a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Tanjirō looked down at his hands, seeing the rough, calloused areas, the marks of a hard worker who puts himself on the line for the sake of others. His heart thumped a little as his eyes looked back up to the reflection, seeing it bang some more against the water and yell quietly. Not sure what could happen next, he took the chance and lowered his hand towards the water.

His heartbeat grew louder and louder in volume, beating so thunderously that it was causing his ears to ring and shake the very ground around him. Finally he touched his fingertips to the freezing mountain water, and then he fully submerged it to distort the reflection by a series of ripples.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. The beating of his heart went quiet, leaving a sort of numbing ringing in his ears.

Suddenly the hands of his reflection then burst up through the water and grabbed onto his haori's sleeve, making Tanjirō gasp loudly, before he was yanked down harshly into the stream. The first thing he realized was that the stream, which was only supposed to be a foot or two in depth, looked like an entire ocean below the surface. The second thing Tanjirō realized was that the water didn't feel cold at all, even though it was supposed to be the middle of winter and this water came from up the mountain where it was even colder.

Before he even had time to think about these things, his physical reflection was then face to face with him, holding his shoulders firmly as they floated below the surface of the water.

"Rouse yourself, Tanjirō! You have to wake up! They're attacking!" he shouted into his face as if they weren't underwater at all. His booming heartbeat returned as strong as ever, and it began to speed up at the same time, to the point it felt like his heart was popping out of his chest. "This is all a dream! Nothing here is real! You're still on the train!"

Tanjirō audibly gasped when he found himself sitting with his three younger siblings in the midst of eating their meal together. His mother, Nezuko, and the youngest of his brothers weren't around, yet even though he had gasped those who were there didn't notice. Had he actually left the house at all? It didn't matter, because the puzzle pieces had fallen back into place and the fog hanging over his mind had lifted.

While his siblings argued over the pickled radish they had prepared, he was looking around in a frantic manner, trying to figure out what he could do and how he'd be able to do it. He had to figure a way out of this situation, but how?

"I'm trapped in a dream I can't wake up from, even when I try to think of waking up. What can I do to get out? What can I do?!"

The Infinite Train rounded a bend in the tracks through a small forest, its wheels clattering a few times along the metal tracks, before it hit a slight bump that caused Nezuko to get jostled around slightly within her box. She woke up and pushed against the door, making it open so that she could tumble out and fall onto the floor of the train car. She grunted slightly when she hit her head on the hardwood flooring, but shook it off and rubbed the back of her neck as she stood back up and returned to her original size.

What she was met with was the sight of Kyōjurō currently holding a female child she didn't know of by the throat, a distressed frown on his face with veins bulging from his forehead even though she could tell that he was actually still sleeping. Nezuko was confused as to why he would be choking a child, but she quickly shifted her focus to her brother when she saw him on the bench to her right muttering to himself while sweating profusely. He looked like he was in pain, with his hands gripping his haori tightly and tugging on it, and his feet scraping back and forth across the wooden seat.

That alone was enough for Nezuko to immediately go to her brother's side and start to try waking him up, first by holding his right arm and gently shaking him. When that failed, she started to push and shove him back and forth harder, making the seat he was laying down on creaking lightly.

Tanjirō still wouldn't wake up from his dream, so with some quick thinking she steeled herself by clenching her smaller hands into fists and reared back, before smacking her forehead harshly against Tanjirō's to try and jolt him awake. Instead she was left jarred with stars in her vision and a bright red blemish just above her eyes that instantly began to bleed and hurt quite a lot.

"Nmmmpghh!" Nezuko cried from behind her bamboo muzzle as she gripped her head, her body twitching a little as tears fell from her eyes.

In her own pain and slight irritation towards Tanjirō's comically hard skull hurting her, she immediately used her Blood Demon Art to ignite her blood as she threw her head forward to flick some onto his body and consume it within the pinkish-red flames. This had to work, it had to! She needed her older brother to wake up from whatever nightmare he was trapped in!

Tanjirō was still in the middle of figuring out his next course of action before his body was suddenly consumed by Nezuko's pink flames, his instantaneous combustion causing his three siblings around him to squeal in terror. Two of them asked what they could do about the sudden appearance of the flames, with the third offering to get some water to put him out.

To their older brother though, he wasn't freaking out or worried at all. The flames weren't burning him in the slightest bit, and he could feel no heat coming from them. Nezuko's blood filled his nostrils, its scent oozing with sibling love and worry for his life, and from that he felt a surge of determination to wake up explode inside of him. She was calling had to him! He had to wake up, now, more than ever!

Tanjirō's eyes then widened as the flames seemed to respond to his innermost desires and will, transforming his clothes and appearance to what it was in the present. His demon features formed last with his blade and fox mask, and after a few moments he clenched his jaw muscles when he felt his enhanced strength slowly return.

"It's all coming back…" thought Tanjirō once the flames dissipated with the return of his Demon Slayer Uniform and sword, his hands balling up into fists. "My uniform and my blade, Urokodaki-sensei's mask...I'm waking up, little by little! I have to keep pushing!"

"Onii-chan, are you okay?" asked one of his siblings softly, Tanjirō's eyes coming up from his hands to see their worried looks.

Seeing them so worried and scared for their older brother's well-being, with his littlest sister on the verge of tears, it hurt him down to his very core. He wished he could tell them that everything was okay, but he knew he'd only be playing into the hands of the dream he was trapped in. Nothing could hurt him more than seeing his family dead in their own home, and the vision of Nezuko almost dying with their youngest sibling in her arms, before she transformed into a demon.

He couldn't let their faces deter him from what was at stake. The life of his sister, as well as his friends, could be in grave danger. He had made a promise to himself that he wasn't going to let anymore of those who he considered his family get hurt, and he had promised Shinobu to be safe. She was depending on him, and he couldn't give up on her!

"You three...Takeo, Hanako, Shigeru...I'm sorry…" said Tanjirō in a low tone as he stood up, dropping his gaze from theirs so that he couldn't be distracted by them.

His brothers and sister followed him with their own gazes, confused by why he was apologizing to them for an action that he had yet to make. Deep down he could feel his soul telling him to stay, to live the life he could had had if his family hadn't been killed by Muzan. But he held back those feelings and turned his head to the side, clenching his fist even tighter before he gave them one last look.

"I'm sorry, I really am...but I have to go now." Tanjirō said before he gripped his sword and leaped past his siblings, sprinting out of his home without looking back.

Even as he heard their cries over his shoulder, the cries for their older brother, he grit his teeth and held back his emotions as he entered the forest of trees surrounding their home in order to find a way out of the dream.

"Focus Tanjirō, focus! A demon is creating this dream; it's not real! None of it is!" Tanjirō told himself as he ran, his feet striking the snow and uncovered grass and dirt with the lightness of a feather as his advanced senses took stock of everything around him. He was on the lookout for any way that he could take advantage of to escape the dream, there had to be at least one way out! "I have to find an exit, I just have to! I have to get to that demon!"

As he rounded a collection of trees while staying on the path, he sensed a few people to his left, and with one sniff he knew exactly who they were before any of them could even speak once they crossed paths.

"Where are you going, Onii-chan?" asked the Nezuko of his dream with an inquisitive expression. She was returning from getting more food for them, their mother and youngest brother with her a couple feet behind. "I got a lot of vegetables today, you know!"

"Tanjirō? Is something wrong, dear? Why do you look like that…?" their mother Kie asked, her eyes wandering up and down his body from his feet to the top of his head.

Tanjirō's body had frozen up and refused to budge at the sounds of their voices, even though his brain was screaming at it to keep running. The feelings of leaving behind his family that he thought he had managed to keep at bay resurfaced with a reckoning, putting his soul into conflict with itself deep within his chest. They sounded so real, his mother and his sister, so real that if he didn't know it was a dream, he would have believed it.

"I wanna stay here forever...I want to turn back and head home…" thought Tanjirō as he lowered his head, his eyes staring straight down at his feet. Leaving behind his siblings at their home was difficult, but to be standing in front of his sister, who was the beautiful human Nezuko he had remembered growing up with since her birth, and their equally as pretty mother with her wondrous purple eyes, it was one of the most difficult things in his life. "If this would real, I would just stay like this forever. I'd put down my sword...and I'd spend the rest of my life with them. If this was real, everyone would be happy now. Nezuko could also be under the blue sky, in the warmth and the light of the sun."

Veins bulged from his hands as he clenched them so tightly that he was certain he would draw blood at any moment, and he could feel tears beginning to well up in his eyes. For a brief moment, his right eye even turned back to its human appearance, as if the dream's effect was starting to take hold of him again.

"If this was real, I would've just come here to burn some coal today, I would've never touched a sword before. If it was real...if all of it was real! But it's not! I've lost them already! I can't go back now, I can't! Not when I've already found my new family!"

Tanjirō brought his gaze up and steeled his resolve, his eye returning to normal as ahead of them, like visions in the desert, he could see Zenitsu, Inosuke, and all of those he had met in the Corps staring back at him, silently beckoning him to return to them.

The biggest and brightest among the visions was that of Shinobu and Nezuko, the real Nezuko, who were standing shoulder to shoulder with their arms and hands outstretched towards him. Nezuko's eyes were so pure and full of life, and Shinobu's smile ignited a fire inside of him that warmed him to the very core of his being and hardened his determination even more. Those eyes, and that smile, that was what he had to protect now!

"Tanjirō-kun...we're waiting for you. Your sister and I...we're right here, ready to be with you again…~"

Tanjirō then ducked down and continued to run, kicking up a flurry of snow with his speed as he left his family behind once and for all. His littlest brother, Rokuta, cried out and left his mother's side, his small innocent voice piercing Tanjirō's heart like a burning hot spear that made him cry as he ran away with no reason to look back.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, Rokuta. We can't be together anymore...but your big brother always thinks about you. He thinks about all of you. From saying thank you and sorry, both many times over until the end of time...I will never, ever forget you all. All of you will always be next to my heart, so please...forgive me!"

As he entered the sea of trees once again, the boy who had connected himself to Tanjirō in the real world went unnoticed behind one of the trees, and he waited until the slayer was well out of sight before he used his little dagger to tear open the scenery into the unconscious area of his dream.

Once he did, however, he was treated with one of the most beautiful and serene landscapes he had ever seen in his whole life. Not even the natural beauty of Japan could compare to what he was witnessing in that moment. The sky was of the deepest blue, with white fluffy clouds gently blowing across it from a gentle breeze.

As he stepped through the tear, his feet made tiny little ripples against the ground, which was water so calm that even with his body standing on it, it retained its mirror-like appearance that only served to reflect and amplify the beauty of the world around him.

"This is...it's gorgeous...it's just so infinitely vast...and warm…"

Tanjirō on the other hand had stopped running after a few minutes of searching high and low for the demon he could smell ever-so-faintly, his eyes looking around left and right for any kind of clue or sign for where it could be hiding. It felt like the smell was coming from everywhere at once, leaving him completely clueless as to where he could go.

With nowhere else to go, if this was the same result he was going to get, he became flustered as he tried to think of a way to wake himself up. Nezuko had warned him to wake up, and he could guess that if he was asleep, that the others had fallen for the same trap as he had. If all of them were asleep, then the situation was far worse than any one of them could have realized.

"What do I do, what can I do? The demon isn't anywhere!" he thought as he kept whirling his head around left and right, sweat droplets getting flung off his forehead and face as his anxiety began to build towards a breaking point. "I have to wake up, I have-!"

"Tanjirō, you have your sword. There is already something here for you to cut down. Just be brave...and don't hesitate."

The words of his father coming from directly behind him struck him in the same fashion as all of the strange occurrences that had occurred prior to this point in time. Nezuko's box, the feeling of Shinobu hugging him along with the butterfly, Tanjirō's own appearance in the present reflected on the water's surface. All of it was a warning from Tanjirō's own heightened instinct.

His instincts were telling him everything that he could not get before, showing him signs that would restart his memory and connect his body back to his consciousness. And with his father's words, generated by his own instinct, echoing in his mind, he looked down at his sword and quickly pulled it from its sheath.

"There is something for you to cut down...something to cut down...I get it, but...what I'm wrong? What if what I do here will affect me in the real world? I'm a demon...my sword is made to kill demons...I won't be able to recover!" he thought, his hand shaking and causing his sword to quiver and clink around slightly in his hand. He grit his teeth and shook his head vigorously side to side as he dropped to his knees and flipped his sword around, holding it up to his own neck with the sharpened edge pressed against his bare skin. "No, you can't hesitate! You have to do this! A death in a dream is related to waking up in reality, so I have to do this in order to wake up! For Nezuko, for Shinobu, for my friends!"

With a roaring battle cry and a will as hard as iron, he then pushed against his blade as hard as possible in order to begin cutting into his own neck with the sun-soaked, refined metal of his nichirin blade.

The metal burned and stung like hell, but he didn't waver. He did not stop. He had to keep going, he had to finish the job! If he was going to wake up, he had to decapitate himself with his very own sword!

"Uwwhoooooaaahghh!"

"Aaaaaghh!" shouted Tanjirō at the top of his lungs as he awoke with a start, his body almost completely drenched with sweat.

His chest was heaving with each breath he took, and the first thing he did was reach for his neck with a hand as if to check it was still attached to his shoulders. Feeling no cut whatsoever, he started to calm down slowly and get his breathing back under control while attempting to push the thought of his own self-decapitation out of his mind.

"I'm okay...I'm okay…" he told himself, taking a few deep breaths before he heard a slight muffled noise of worry come from behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder and found a nervous and startled Nezuko hiding behind the armrest of his seat somewhat. "Ah! Nezuko, are you okay!?

As he leaned forward to try and find out if she was physically fine, he caught a glimpse of the rope tied around his left wrist and stopped, bringing his hand up to see it wrapped loosely around his wrist, with part of it burnt off and left black and singed. Wondering why it was burned, his attention was directed from that to the barely noticeable scent of a demon emanating from the material.

Tanjirō then remembered the ticket he had and he quickly pulled it out of his haori, looking closely at the small piece of paper and frowning more when he smelled the same scent coming from the ink printed on the paper.

"As soon as I put my ticket away after the Conductor checked it, I went to sleep...it must have been set up by the demon doing this…" Tanjirō thought, before he remembered his friends and quickly stood up, seeing Kyōjurō standing in front of him first, then Zenitsu and Inosuke still fast asleep to his right. "Rengoku-san! Zenitsu, Inosuke! Shit, they're still asleep!"

Searching for his sword, he found it had fallen under his seat and quickly retrieved it, before going over to his friends and finding that they too had their wrists bound by the same rope he had removed from his own arm. They were tied to people he had no idea who they were or where they had come from, but considering the scent of the demon coming from the ropes, he knew that they had to be in on whatever was going on somehow.

As he went to pull his blade in order to sever the ropes, his instincts told him otherwise, and he refrained from drawing his weapon. The next best thing was Nezuko, who he immediately turned to and asked her to use her Blood Demon Art to fry the ropes into ash. Once they were gone, and the connection had been severed, Kyōjurō slumped back down into his seat, thereby freeing the girl from his grasp and allowing her body to fall down to the ground with a heavy thump.

"Zenitsu, Inosuke! Wake up!" shouted Tanjirō as he shook the slightly blushing Zenitsu, a light giggle escaping his lips since he was still firmly rooted in his dream. "Inosuke?! Inosuke, come on!"

His attempts to wake them weren't working, and before he could try again he heard Nezuko cutely tug on his arm while muttering some adorable sounds as she pulled his attention towards her. She had been part of the reason why he had woken up, and she was expecting some appreciation for it!

"Ah! Eheh, sorry Nezuko...there, there...thank you for helping me…" He rubbed her sister's head gratefully for the part she played, and she made a cute face at him while making other muffled "hmpphs" and "muus" at him. "But Rengoku-san, they're not waking up! What do we-!"

As he was turning around to try and get to the Flame Hashira, the girl who had been connected to him lashed at his neck with the ice pick she had possession of, his increased reflexes easily seeing the attack and allowing him to pull back with plenty of time to spare and push her back at the same time

Tanjirō would have pulled his sword as well, but he quickly remembered she was a human and instead took a protective stance in front of Nezuko, shielding her with his body and his arm against the girl.

"Don't get in the way! You're getting in the way of our sweet dreams!" she cried with an almost crazed look in her eyes, Tanjirō feeling his heart tighten as he smelled the scent of the demon all over her, visualizing it as a noose tied around her neck. Was she being controlled by the demon?

His nose detected three other new scents around him and he looked around, seeing the kids who had formerly been trying to destroy Inosuke and Zenitsu's spiritual cores before they had been forcibly brought back to the real world by Nezuko burning their ropes.

"I don't know how we're back here, but it's better than being chased around by that yellow-haired lunatic in his mind!"

"The naked boar freak chased me around too!"

"I'm not sure this is much better, you three...why are you even doing this? You can't hurt me with those!" exclaimed Tanjirō as he stayed firmly rooted in front of Nezuko, his eyes shooting from one kid to the other.

The boy and the girl with the closed eyes noticed his demonic eyes and actually shrunk away a little, seeing that he was a demon, before the third girl with the twin pigtails yelled at them to get them back in line. Tanjirō could tell that she was so tired and on edge, that him revealing himself to be a demon hardly mattered to her. He then noticed a head emerge from behind the sleeping Kyōjurō, which revealed itself to belong to a four boy he didn't recognize, the fourth in the group who he presumed had to have been connected to him.

What made him question what was wrong with him, and how late he was to join his partners, was how tears were streaming down his face as he made eye contact with Tanjirō. He could smell nothing but happiness and warmth, as well as sadness, emanating from his body, which was reflected in the tears that were falling from his chin onto the floor.

"What're you doing? Stop crying! I don't know about your tuberculosis or what not, but if you don't do your job properly, I'll tell that man and he won't let you dream anymore!" yelled the girl seemingly in charge of the group, Tanjirō's eyes dropping to the boy's hand and noticing a familiar ice pick weapon in his hand.

Seeing that look in his eyes made Tanjirō's anger, long dormant since his meeting with Rui on Natagumo Mountain, begin to bubble up from within at the thought of a demon coercing innocent humans to do his dirty work. Twisting their mind, taking advantage of their hearts, it was absolutely despicable! Especially so of somebody who was sick!

What happened next was not because he was scared about Tanjirō being a demon, but of his own doing. The oldest boy dropped the weapon without saying a word and held up a hand to his chest, his eyes remaining firmly on Tanjirō's.

This young man had no more ill intent or bloodlust left in his body. Originally he had though it was alright to hurt people, because if it resulted in him escaping from the suffering of an incurable disease, it was worth it. But because of what he had seen in Tanjirō's dream, within the realm of the mental depiction of his heart and soul, the kind young man he used to be returned.

It had been so warm in Tanjirō's dream, like the comforting kind of warmth one could expect to feel from being in a mother's gentle embrace. There had been shining little dwarf there made of a white fire of sorts, with no discernible features aside from their small legs and arms that possessed no toes or fingers. They had been incarnations of Tanjirō's kindness that persisted even while being a demon.

At first they were curious, walking and looking him up and down with their featureless faces, before they guessed what he was looking for and began to lead him towards it across the mirror-like surface of water. One dwarf each held his hands, like tiny little brothers leading their big brother to something cool that they wanted to show off, while the other two ran and skipped happily around them.

Eventually they brought him to Tanjirō's spiritual core, which for all intents and purposes was like a miniature sun, a brightly shining star that exuded nothing but intense waves of warmth, of kindness, and of happiness. Of course, beneath it in the shining pool of water, there was a single black dot just as big of the core that almost acted like its shadow, being the manifestation of the dark half of Tanjirō's spiritual core that resulted from being a demon, but that didn't stop the dwarfs from proudly showcasing what was in effect the very essence of Tanjirō's soul.

In the face of the spiritual core, which was brimming with such overwhelming kindness and light, the young man couldn't do anything and just cried. As he cried, the dwarfs stayed close by his side and comforted him by gently rubbing his head or his back, with one of them even resting its head close by to his so that it could share its warmth with the boy. He wanted to stay there forever, to continue feeling these incredible emotions that could make him forget all of his pain and suffering.

But Tanjirō had woken up on his own, so he was pulled back to reality forcefully in the blink of an eye. At that moment, he had managed to grab one of the shining dwarves, and held onto its tiny arm for dear life.

When he returned to the real world, the shining little dwarf, which had been part of Tanjirō's pure heart, now rested within the boy's own heart. Originally being so consumed by darkness and despair, the dwarf had brightened and warmed it up to the point where even now he couldn't stop himself from crying and holding his hand on his chest. It was if the little dwarf was dancing around happily inside of him, laughing and giggling like an overjoyed child.

And it was because of that little dwarf that he dropped his weapon and refused to move an inch, leading Tanjirō to see him as somebody he didn't have to incapacitate. He gave him the tiniest of smiles before he looked around at the other children and held his hands up slightly.

"I'm sorry, you three, but I have to go and fight. I hope this doesn't hurt you too much." he said with a regretful sigh, before he moved in the blink of an eye around the three children, knocking them out cold with a blow to the side of the head.

Tanjirō gently laid down each of the three children on the floor, making sure that they were at least somewhat comfortable, before he sat back on his legs somewhat still with that sad, regretful look on his face.

"You all wanted to have happy dreams...I know that feeling a lot...the dream I was having...I wanted to keep having it…" he murmured softly, before standing up and glancing at the fourth boy standing behind Kyōjurō's seat. "Are you alright?"

"Thank you...be careful." was his only response as he gave Tanjirō a smile, his tears drying up lightly before he wiped them away entirely.

Tanjirō gave him a confident smile and a nod before he and Nezuko sprinted out of their train car and stood outside where their car was connected to the one in front, his body shivering as the stench of the demon burned his nostrils from how strong it was around them. He could tell that the wind was causing the stench to be blown this far downwind, so he skillfully flipped himself onto the roof of the train and stayed low so as to avoid being blown off.

"Nezuko, don't come up here! It's dangerous, so just wait! Go wake everyone up!"

"Mmph!"

Nezuko nodded her head before she went back to their friends, while Tanjirō turned towards the front of the trail and kept a hand on his sword and his head low while sprinting through the strong winds passing by over the train. He leapt from car to car, not losing momentum, until he finally arrived at the last car before the train engine, where standing on top of it he found Lower Moon One observing the sky and the stars.

He noticed Tanjirō's presence and turned around, seeing Tanjirō staring him down with bared fangs and he laughed a little while waving at the slayer.

"Oh, you're awake? Good morning. You could have just slept some more, you know." said Lower Moon One with a carefree smile as his face developed more bulging veins.

He was no fool, he could see and feel that the young man across from him wasn't a human at all, he was a demon wearing Demon Slayer clothes, but that hardly mattered to him. It was the bow with the hanafuda earrings that Muzan had instructed him to kill, and being a demon just meant he'd have to take a few extra steps to ensure his demise.

"This guy…" thought Tanjirō with a growl as he lowered his stance slightly, the Lower Moon laughing again at his hostility.

"I showed you an especially nice dream back there. I could've shown you a dream where your entire family got slaughtered in the most brutal way possible, you know? Maybe I should show you a dream of your father coming back from the dead next!"

Tanjirō's right eye twitched and his hand gripped his sword tighter as the anger that had begun to boil up increased two fold, his eyes narrowing and his teeth growing a little bigger and sharper. His fingernails grew out into razor sharp points, and his feet widened a little more as he stared Lower Moon One down.

There was no chance of redeeming this person, he could smell it. The way he talked so frivolously about the dream he showed Tanjirō, a dream that he himself wished for almost every single day at some point, like how he could've shown them being slaughtered before his eyes. With his sense of smell so fine tuned, if he were facing Rui, he could have undoubtedly detected the feelings of regret and sadness that he had smelled once Rui had begun to die.

Right now, he was smelling none of that from Lower Moon One. All he smelled was greed and lust for suffering. And because of that, he made up his mind.

He was going to die, one way or the other!

A/N Howdy Howdy everyone! Things are heating up aboard the train, and I can't wait to show all of you what's going to end up happening with our special guest...just a chapter or two hue.

I will say this, recently I have become one of the authors that is being affected by FFN's problem with lag / backlog issues or whatever it is, so any and all reviews that have been left here recently, im able to see the email notification for them and see it reflected in the review count, but they aren't showing up physically in the Reviews tab of my story itself. It's really saddening, because I want to see them outside of the emails, and I want to respond to those I can respond to as well :(

I really hope that this gets fixed soon, so cross your fingers with me! Im sure that will work if we all work together!

Leave a a fav, follow and a review telling me what you think! And strap yourselves in for what comes next! :D