Disclaimer: I do not own Demon Slayer : Kimetsu no Yaiba or any of it's characters/story.
IX: Mansion
The trio kept walking down the dirt road, until they could see a house coming up.
Really, the house only got bigger and more intimidating as they approached. It was huge, with a light brown exterior and small windows. The roof was a darker shade of brown, almost black. A balcony was protruding from the center of the house, the railings painted black.
"Well, I suppose we should figure out where this Inosuke Hashibira guy is." Tanjiro stated, already scanning the area. Kanao followed suit, walking a little ways away from the group but ensuring she was still in sight of the others while at the same time glancing around.
Zenitsu did (eventually) start to look for the unknown student, while quietly complaining about how you can't really search for someone you've never actually seen before.
After a few minutes, they regrouped with no result.
"We should probably just head inside. Maybe he's already there." Tanjiro gave a slight shrug. The action was more towards Zenitsu, since Kanao couldn't actually go inside unless necessary.
The blonde boy agreed, while at the same time shivering in what Kanao assumed was fear. Well, he wasn't complaining at least.
"Stay safe Kanao, we'll be out soon." Tanjiro smiled at her, before turning to half-drag Zenitsu inside the mansion.
She just stared after them, the unsaid statement fresh in her mind.
I'm not the one that needs to stay safe. Please be careful, Zenitsu, Tanjiro.
/-/-/-/-/
She stood around for about an hour, curious of what could be going on inside the old building. She didn't really need to entertain herself, so she just waited and watched her surroundings.
A slightly muffled shout came from inside, rather suddenly. It woke Kanao out of her half-dozed state, instincts kicking in to see what happened.
She ran to the nearest window, crouching down on her knees and peering into the room. It was dimly lit, and as far as she could see, there was nobody in the room. After checking twice just to make sure, she moved to the next window.
.
"Cruel, isn't it?"
Kanao, after finishing her look in the 8th window along the garden, heard a voice. It sounded deep and smooth, definitely a man's voice. It also sounded like it wasn't directed towards her, rather to someone else.
"What do you want?"
This voice was different, familiar. After a moment, Kanao realized it was Tanjiro's. Something she found concerning, however, was the fact that his voice seemed pained. He must be confronting an enemy, which is the other voice.
Said voice laughed humorlessly. "What do I want? No, that doesn't matter. You see, the boss has given me an... interesting mission to carry out. The information he had was intriguing, to say the least."
Kanao figured out that the voice was coming from a second floor room, and stood on the ledge of a different window in order to see through the one above it.
Through the window was a large room, Tanjiro on one end looking a little pale and gripping his arm. On the other side of the room was a man with long reddish hair and a cream-coloured mask with four red eyes that covered his entire face. He wore an expensive-looking business suit, jacket undone to reveal a crimson shirt underneath.
"What information?" Tanjiro had his gun in his (injured?) hand, pointed at the ground. Kanao knew that he could aim it at a target and shoot within the span of about three seconds, but was worried about how the gun was in the hand of the hurt arm.
"It's about you." The masked man replied, an obvious smirk in his voice. Tanjiro's face paled even more than before, and the hand holding the gun began to shake slightly.
"You see," the man continued, waving a hand outward, "I've been given what you people might call a second chance. The boss wanted me to torment you a little, then capture you dead or alive."
"And what does this information about me have anything to do with that?" Kanao got the feeling that Tanjiro already knew exactly what the information had to do with it.
The man pulled out what looked like a smoke bomb from his pocket.
"Oh, this information has much to do with this. I know who you are, Tanjiro Kamado. I know what happened those years ago. You know what I mean."
He threw the bomb. When it hit the ground, Kanao leapt off the window and covered her ears. An explosion sounded, but only the type of explosion that comes from gas bombs.
She got back up after an unknown period of time, once again going to stand up on the windowsill to see what happened in the room. All that was in her vision was grey smoke, then it cleared.
Tanjiro was on his knees, swaying slightly and having dropped his gun. The man, who walked slowly toward him, was seemingly unaffected by whatever the blast was, probably because of his mask having some sort of feature to block and filter out air.
Kanao was a little scared for Tanjiro and wanted to know what happened, but the masked man answered for her.
"That isn't going to hurt you. Just make you... dizzy, I suppose. Feel like the walls are shifting to become the floor and whatnot. I don't want you putting up a fight, now do I?" He walked around Tanjiro once, then headed back to the front of the room.
Kanao debated whether or not she should go inside to help him, but after a flip of her coin she stayed in hiding. She'd run in to help once things got worse, since they almost always did.
"You do have tough luck, I'll give you that. Coming home to find your family murdered, and your only surviving sister is now in a coma." The man laughed.
She didn't know if she heard that right.
Tanjiro's family...
Murdered...
Sister...
Coma...
Her eyes widened, and she finally realized why his last name seemed so familiar when they had first met.
.
Kanao sat on the couch, reading a book that she was told to read. Shinobu stood in the kitchen making breakfast, spatula in one hand and mug of tea in the other.
Aoi burst through the door, having just come from the lobby of their apartment in order to pick up the newspaper.
"Shinobu! Look at this!" She panted, having just sprinted up several flights of stairs.
Her sister grabbed the newspaper Aoi had set on the table, reading the headline and sighing sadly. Seeing Kanao's curious expression, she turned the paper to show her. "Well, what's the harm..." she muttered as Kanao read the bold title.
Five Dead, Two Missing in Kamado Family's Murder
She read the headline a few times, unable to really believe that someone would kill so many people.
A flip of her coin had her asking why someone would do that.
"It's because they're bad people. Bad people that need to be found by justice." Shinobu had replied, eyes burning with a determined fire. "One day, you'll understand."
.
Her lips were parted in a silent gasp as she stared at Tanjiro. How could someone who was so kind and caring have such a horrible turn in their life?
His hand was moving slowly and shakily toward the gun he dropped. Picking it up, he tried to stand. He almost immediately fell back down, the drug supposedly not worn off yet.
The masked man crossed his arms. "Come at me all you want, you aren't going to be able to-"
He was cut off with a gunshot piercing the air. And from the looks of it, it also pierced his stomach. He fell to the ground, still conscious.
Kanao whipped her head to the other side of the room, where Tanjiro knelt with the gun in both his slightly shaky hands. "You've just taken your first step into hell." His voice was cold, but he also sounded sad in a way.
Kanao saw the tears gathered in his eyes, not falling but instead shimmering in place. "You think I don't know this? You weren't the one that walked into your home only to find dead bodies littering the ground! The bodies of your mother and siblings, who couldn't do a thing against the cold-blooded murderer!"
He didn't try to stand, but instead crawled over to a pile of papers scattered across the ground. "I was reading these as you talked. You know what it's like to feel pain inside too, don't you? This story, it seems like you've been working on it for years. And from the looks of it, you were turned down and insulted within seconds."
The man's mask had fallen off, revealing a person that looked to be in their 40's, with one of his eyes bearing what looked like a crossed out number. "Yes... I guess you - you could say I was... rejected twice..."
Tanjiro smiled sadly. Kanao wondered how his mood could change from cold to warm so quickly.
"Just so you know, I liked your story." He said.
The man's eyes widened, and he smiled. "Thank... you..."
His eyes turned grey and hollow, and Kanao knew he was dead.
/-/-/-/-/
"You might be wondering why I never told you."
Kanao looked up to meet Tanjiro's eyes.
She gave a silent answer in her eyes. I am curious, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.
The two were sitting in that room, Kanao wanting to make sure he was alright. Other than the odd toxin (if you could call it that) in his system and the arm that was a bit bruised, he seemed to be fine.
Well, until she found the two broken ribs he had tried to hide from her.
Apparently in the short period of time that Kanao wasn't keeping an eye on the window, the man threw a few punches. Or something like that. She got the idea that even Tanjiro didn't know exactly what happened.
"Everything he said was true. I was coming home from my part-time job one day to find that my family was - was dead." He winced as Kanao tightened the bandages around his ribs.
"After figuring out that Nezuko - that's my sister - was still alive, I tried to carry her to the hospital. This man named Giyuu stopped me, said that if I brought her to a public clinic, the organization would just go after her once again, and probably succeeded in killing her. He gave me directions to a man named Urokodaki, who is taking care of Nezuko now. He also taught me everything before I came to the academy for Final Selection."
He turned his head, hiding his face. "I...I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't just go and tell you all that, you-"
Ping.
The coin landed in her hand, then was pocketed after being glanced at.
"It's okay. I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me." Her soft, quiet voice echoed throughout the fairly large room.
What he did next surprised her a bit. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace. She hesitantly placed her arms on his back, not really being hugged enough to have perfectly figured out the concept.
"Thanks, Kanao."
You're welcome, Tanjiro. It was left unsaid but still clear.
.
After a while, they left the room to go find Zenitsu and maybe Inosuke.
Tanjiro explained to Kanao that there were two little kids, Teruko and Shoichi, whose brother Kiyoshi was seemingly taken by the masked man. Apparently he and Zenitsu were separated, each with a kid in tow, but eventually Tanjiro managed to find Kiyoshi and leave Teruko with them. He then left to go find the 'ringleader' of the mansion.
Once they got to a door, Kanao left under the pretence that she still had a job to stay outside. Tanjiro continued on to find his classmates.
Now standing back outside, she waited once again for her fellow Demon Slayers to come back outside.
She wasn't concerned, since she knew they'd come eventually.
TTTTT
I am sorry for the short little missed week, I was honestly a bit lazy that day (no, I don't have any valid excuse).
Well, this chapter is out. I think it's one of the longest chapters I've done, and here I thought it was going to be too short. I wrote this on my phone (on Notepad of all things, too…) since I was at my cottage (which has no internet) for a few nights and just got back today. If anything is wrong with this chapter, story or grammar, please let me know so I can fix it. I got really tired with this, so my editing probably wasn't the greatest.
I don't like writing excessively long chapters, instead I like to keep them a bit short. I feel like if you're putting aside a few minutes every Saturday/Sunday to read this/another story, you should at least not have to scroll for 15 minutes straight to get to the end of the 100,000 word chapter (yes, I've seen stories with chapters either that long or even longer).
Anyway, see you guys next week (perhaps)!