"I can't have you standing in my way." It was a tall, slim young woman whose eyes were lime green and hair was white as snow. "There can only be one who can surpass beauty, and I won't let you or any other women take it...even if you're human," the woman licked a long needle and walked closer to me as I watched her, and I felt the needle pierce underneath my right collar bone. I couldn't scream for help as the pain didn't subside until the lady disappeared.

I gasped in the middle of the night, waking up from the scary dream I had. My heart was racing and I had to touch where the needle pierced, but I didn't feel no marking whatsoever. "Holy shit, that scared me. I won't be able to sleep…" I rubbed my eyes, trying to gather what happened in my dream, but I was also scared on the other hand. "I'll just try and sleep…"

When daylight broke, I woke up in my quiet house where my handmaiden was let go. "This house never felt so lonely…" I stared at the sliding door where she would come barging in and yap about my agenda. "Well, it's time to get ready for a new day— Ack!" I felt a small pain in my chest. "I'll be okay…" I didn't want to think about the dream because I knew it wasn't real.

I got myself dressed and went to the kitchen to cook food for myself. As I was cutting vegetables, my head started to feel dizzy and my legs were light. I was trying hard to focus on my balance than giving in to my dizziness, but no matter how much I tried, I left myself fall to the ground in cold sweat. The world was spinning and I couldn't move an inch of my body, it felt like I was frozen in ice. It didn't help that my body felt so drenched in cold sweat. "I need…to get up…!" I told myself as I tried to roll over to my side and get up.

"Someone's bleeding! It smells human and it's coming from this house…"

I heard a voice that sounded like Tanjiro, but I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating at this point. "I'm someone who's bleeding?" I sounded so confused on what was going on. I think I was hearing things.

"I heard a voice! It sounded like… Kirika!"

At this point, I knew I couldn't move an inch of my body and the boys already barged inside my house.

I heard shuffling footsteps until I felt someone pulled me up. "Kirika, are you okay?" Giyu was staring at me with his indifferent facial expression, but deep down he was worried.

"Yeah… I guess I lost my balance from moving too fast," I lied to them. I didn't think telling them about my dream would do anything since it's just a dream, but my mind was gravitating towards it due to chest pain and cold sweat.

"You cut your finger." Inosuke pointed and I lifted my arm to see I did cut it.

"Ahah… Silly me," I didn't feel like I was in the right state of mind.

"Let me bandage it for you," Tanjiro wrapped a cloth around my finger, and Giyu helped me get up.

I used Giyu as my support so I couldn't loose foot again. "I was making food until I fell… How was your day?" I shifted the conversation.

"We've gotten a trace of the demon, but it hasn't shown up yet." Tanjiro informed me. "But besides that, what were you cooking?" he looked over at the chopped vegetables.

"I was going to make stew," I simply replied.

"Oh, I can help you. I know how to make it!" Tanjiro's eyes were sparkling. "And plus, you treated us with so many things, it's our turn to return the favor."

"Kirika, you should rest. You look pale," Zenitsu ushered me out of the kitchen and into my room. "Giyu, put her to bed and keep an eye on her. We'll take care of the food!" Zenitsu slammed the door shut.

"Geez, kicking me into my room and you guys just came in, that's rude." I crawled to my bed and wrapped myself up. "You know, this reminds me of the time when I had to stay over at your place when my parents went traveling for an event, and that night it was thundering so bad that I got scared and slept the night in your room. Remembering it now makes me feel embarrassed,"

"You wouldn't stop crying for your parents," Giyu chuckled, as his face changed for the first time.

I quickly got up from my futon and crawled to him, peering in front of his eyes. "Woahhhh! Did Giyu's face changed from a stoic expression into an amused expression?! This is incredible!"

His large hand was pushing against my face. "Go back to bed,"

I used both of my hands to grab his large hand and hold it in place before I made a special move. "Why should I? I'm fine now."

"If you're fine now, then why does your forehead feel cold than warm?"

"Because," I used one of my hand to jab his armpit. "I don't know."

Giyu succumb to the jab and I got on my feet and was about to run, but he rapidly tug my right foot and pulled me down, causing me to slip and fall. "You're not okay, you need to rest." I laid flat on the ground and he pulled my leg toward him and rolled me over to my futon.

"I could've broken my jaw," I stared at the ceiling as I told him. I did feel an aching pain, but it didn't hurt that much.

"You shouldn't have jabbed me in the first place." Giyu calmly stated, staring down at me.

"Go check if the stew is ready. I'll be in bed…waiting because someone doesn't want me out…" I dramatically sighed, turning my head away from Giyu. "Go, Childhood Friend, get me some food."

When the stew was ready, I was sitting with the others in the living room.

"Wow, who seasoned it?" I asked, taking many bites.

"I did!" Tanjiro smiled. "I have a good sense of smell."

"You live so luxurious," Inosuke said. "I roamed around your house to see what you guys had, and you guys had a lot of good things." He gobbled down three servings.

"Yeah, I know. I need to get rid of it. It's irrelevant stuff I don't need."

I felt something tickle in my throat, I could tell it was going to be a cough, so I let it out in my elbow.

"Kirika… Are you okay? Your sleeve is covered in blood."

I stared at the blood that came out from my mouth. I was stunned in horror because of what was on my mind. "Yeah… yeah I'm fine…" I didn't dare to look at them. "I'm going to be right back." I excused myself and walked outside to wash out my mouth.

The cold water touched every surface of my mouth to cleanse it from blood. "But it was only a dream…" I whispered to myself, unconsciously touching where the needle pierced me in my dream, and there it was the mark I was worried for. "Shit…" grazing it over my fingers, it felt like a small bump. I had a scary feeling that it might grow.

I ran back inside the house to gain some answers from the demon slayers. "Hey, how did the demon killed their prey?"

"You're very anxious," Tanjiro was very concerned about my wellbeing.

"Answer my question." I demanded.

"According to examinations, it seemed like poison killed them. It would form a bump and—"

"Okay I got it. I'm leaving," I couldn't look at them in the eyes.

"Kirika!"

Something was wrong, and it all started off with that nightmare. I thought it was only a dream because when I dream, I can barely do anything. "Ah!" I was having chest pain again, but this time it was sharper. "Shit!" I clutched onto my fabric.

"Lady Chiba, are you okay?" someone asked

"You don't look too well, Lady Chiba."

I kept hearing my name being echoed as my chest pain increased and my head was getting disoriented. My mind was splitting into two than focusing on one thing. My eyes were soaring around, seeing everything getting blurry. Another tickling feeling was rising in my throat again. I knew I couldn't cough it out. I shouldn't have ran outside my house.

"Kirika!"

Instead of having blood spur out of my mouth, I blacked out and collapsed on the ground.

"Is she the only one who got targeted?"

"Maybe so, because I asked others about it and they said their daughters are fine."

"How wasn't I able to sniff the demon out?"

There were too many voices talking when I woke up. My body was heavy and tired, my breathing was tough, and my chest was killing me. "Hey…" I quietly called out, tapping the ground for them to hear me. "I need to tell you something…" I told them about the dream I had and they soon figured out how it happened.

My eyes shifted slowly to the other side as I breathed tiredly. I've never felt so exhausted and heavy from anything in my life. The irony of wanting to be free is now turning its back on me. I tried to steady my breathing and concentrate on looking at somewhere else.

The sun was setting and I knew it was coming for me. I didn't feel cold or hot, my body was neutral. There was a throbbing sensation under my collar bone. It was the only thing I felt occurring in my body as I laid.

"We all can't watch over her, we also need to see if the demon targeted other women too. I'll let Nezuko stay with her."

Their conversation made my head hazier than before. I wanted to sleep as the dark sky was coming up.

"Kirika, I'm leaving my box here. You'll be protected if anything happens," Tanjiro left his box right next to me and ran off with the others, but Giyu didn't move, he stared back at me.

"Go," I flicked my hand, motioning him to leave. "I'll be okay… I promise you that I will not be leaving so soon. Pinky promise?" I lifted my trembling pinky and he came over to hook his larger pinky around my smaller pinky. "You have a town to save. I wish you luck!" I smiled despite the pain hitting my chest at the moment.

Once it was dead silent, I didn't know what to think. I couldn't move a limb, but all I could do was think about how the demon was going to come after me. I rotated my head and looked at the wooden box. "So you must be Nezuko…" In my condition, I didn't really think much about opening the box or what was inside. I wasn't scared to, not as much as the demon hunting me. I pulled the handle to see a tiny girl sleeping in there. I noticed her skin was pale as the dead and her nails were sharp like lions. "I wondered why they closed your mouth?" I had the courage to pull her out of the box and laid her right next to me. She looked so cute as she slept. "Ack!" I winced in pain, curling myself up into a ball. I felt it spreading throughout my body.

"Mm?"

I forced my eyes to open through the agonizing pain. I saw Nezuko looking at me with innocence in her pink eyes. I extended my hand out to her and touched her cheek. "I… could've had so many siblings." Out of six pregnancies from my mother, I was the child who made it through adulthood. The rest either miscarried, born premature, or didn't survive a few days after birth. I was the lucky one.

Then I started throwing up blood violently. My body was up as more blood kept flowing out of my mouth like a waterfall. The chest pain tightened and it was getting harder to breathe.

"Grrrr…!" my eyes flickered up to see Nezuko growling and her eyes alerted.

"Poor thing, I was hoping you could withstand it. I wanted to see you in so much pain as I took the life out of you. What a shame..." It was the demon's voice from my dream which could mean she was there in reality, but she was able to make it seem harmless.

My head couldn't move due to whatever she injected into my body.

"I'm making you suffer differently." I heard her feet touching the ground lightly, and Nezuko shifted herself in front of me. "Your body is going to shut down and— AGH!" The lady screamed.

I collapsed on my side and saw that the lady's head was kicked into.

"You wretched demon girl!" The lady yelled at the top of her lungs, piercing my ears as it bled a bit.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I was scooped into Giyu's arms. He was jumping from roof to roof, but I was confused about how he even got me. What I remembered was that I was still on the ground, suffering from pain and Nezuko kicked the demon lady.

"Don't speak," Giyu hushed me. "I don't need you to strain yourself, or else your condition will worsen. I'm taking you where you're far away from your house." When I looked at him, it seemed like nothing fazed him at all.

My eyelids were heavy and I was going to black out any second now, until I saw the shadowy figure of the lady. "Behind you…!" I tried to shout, but Giyu was already in the know and he jumped off and landed on the ground.

"Sorry, we couldn't hold her back from chasing after you!"

"Zenitsu, take her far away from here. If you can, use your speed and save her life at you-know-where," Giyu handed me over to Zenitsu. "Promise me, you'll be alive when I'm back." I simply nodded my head in response, and Giyu turned his back on me and faced the demon.

"Kirika, I swear on my life I'll keep you safe. I'm taking you to a place where you will be healed."

My body was losing touch to everything about me. I could no longer feel the cold night air. "I…can't feel…anything…" my eyes rolled down to sleep. I had a feeling I wouldn't make it through. The poison spreading in my body was thick, and I knew it from my sensitivity. "I can't…do it," my words were breathy and labored.

"Kirika! Listen to my voice…" I could feel him panicking from fright. "Giyu wouldn't want you to die! Do it for him and your future!" no matter how much Zenitsu tried to talk, I was slipping away.