[~Chapter 1: The New World~]

In a wintery landscape, with trees growing for as far as the eye could see, a young woman sat on the porch of a small wooden cabin. She was dressed in a pink kimono with snowflake patterns adorning it, kept together by a red string tied at the back. Her long black flowing hair reached to the center of her back, and her pink coloured eyes stared off into the distance.

There she sat, hands pressed firmly against the wooden floor of the porch, a small smile on her face as she looked after her younger siblings. Her mother was having a nap, so it was up to her to watch over her siblings, with the help of Taeko and Hanako, of course.

Rokuta and Shigeru were throwing snowballs at one another, enjoying their time in the outdoors whilst Takeo and Hanako were standing by the entrance of the woods so that neither of them could run off. As for the girl's older brother, Tanjiro, he was off selling coal in the nearby village and wouldn't be back for at least a day.

The trek to the village in the deep snow was arduous. She always wondered how her brother could do it constantly. Granted, if she were to guess how he did it, she'd assume it was with sheer determination to make sure their family was well off enough that they didn't have to move into the bigger cities for work.

For generations, the Kamado Family, of which the girl was a part of, had lived in this particular cabin since their latest ancestor Sumiyoshi Kamado. The hermit lifestyle was the easiest to maintain in this era, especially because of how opportunistic it was, especially with the long winters and short summers.

On Mount Kumotori, if you didn't have anything to heat your house with, it was no different from committing suicide. The warmest it ever got on Mount Kumotori was comparable to a handful of candles during the summer months. And in the winter months? Well, it was no stretch to say that it would be warmer to bury oneself in snow. As strange as that sounded, it would be warmer to do that then compared to staying outside for more than five minutes.

That was why they always had the coal burner on near the house. It was to generate heat to keep everyone warm. Especially during the night. If they didn't have wood burning, then it would be devastating. It was why the girl had chopped enough firewood to last the next week—which took easily three hours to do.

Contrary to what some people in the village thought, just because she was considered beautiful didn't mean that she didn't pull her weight in the Kamado household. Far from it. As a matter of fact, the only reason why the coal burning got done as fast as it did was because she would go with her brother to chop wood.

Most of the time, it was Hanako and Takeo who looked after Rokuta and Shigeru. At least, when Mother wasn't asleep and recouping energy from the tiring days of cooking and cleaning. For such a small house, it was constant busy work to just keep things flowing.

The girl felt bad for her mother. Ever since Father had died, things had only gotten worse and worse. Her mother's health was declining, and it was becoming increasingly evident for the girl and Tanjiro that their mother wasn't going to make it for the next winter.

If she kept getting sick….

"Nezu-chan!" Shigeru's voice caught the girl's attention, his adorable face normally was adorned with a wide smile that warmed the hearts of those who saw it. His short hair and his dark red eyes were the most notable things about the boy, as his light green and black patterned kimono and light green haori were covered in snow, along with his nagajuban.

She knew, in the back of her mind, it was going to be a mess to clean up, although it was necessary. Having warm, and more importantly dry clothes was vital in the near-freezing temperatures of the mountain tops because without them, even a kid as young as Shigeru would die from hypothermia.

Mother Nature was a heartless entity, as was obvious. Not even young children were safe from the cold embrace of Death, it would seem. There had been a few close calls a couple of times with Rokuta before he had turned four. Now, they knew better. But, she was getting sidetracked.

"Yes, Shigeru, what is it?" the girl asked as Shigeru ran over to her. It was then that she noticed it. The fear in her brother's eyes, and the scared look on his face. The girl blinked, confusion washing over her face as the little boy hugged her, shaking like a leaf in the wind. She noticed that Rokuta was with Hanako and Takeo and that they were backing away from the entrance.

Nezuko looked into the sky and noticed that the sun had travelled over the treeline. It was getting dark out. And while Shigeru and Rokuta had every reason to be afraid of the dark due to their age, Hanako and Takeo on the other hand looked a little spooked themselves. Which was really weird considering they had become practically fearless of the night as of late.

So why was it that they seemed so afraid?

As for Nezuko herself, she felt a very, very profound urge to run and hide inside. She didn't know what it was that made her want to do that, but her instinct told her to run. To get as far away from the house as possible.

Something was coming. She didn't know what it was. All Nezuko knew was that it was going to be bad. "Everyone, inside!" Nezuko called, and immediately everybody followed suit, leaving footprints in the snow. As they all shuffled into the house one by one, with Nezuko being the last one in, she caught something out of the corner of her eye.

It was a man. A man dressed in a suit, with white pants, and crimson red eyes. He wore a hat on his head, and his hands were flat against his legs. There was an uncaring look on his ashen pale face, and it sent shivers down Nezuko's spine.

"Who is that?" Nezuko thought, eyes narrowing with concern as Shigeru clung close to her. In the next moment, when she blinked, the man was gone. Almost as if he had made himself invisible. It made Nezuko's heart race.

"Where did he—"

It was at that moment that Nezuko felt something warm begin to pool around her neck. Her eyes widened in pain, as crimson liquid surged forth, coating her kimono from the neck down as her blood sprayed forth, landing all over the suited man, who was now inches in front of her.

Yet again, all she saw in his face was a look of uncaringness. His pupils were slit like a cat, and his expression was drawn up in a frown. There was no indication that the man cared for what it was he was doing, and what made things worse was that the thing that had blood covering it was his index fingertip—or more appropriately, his index finger claw.

Nezuko choked on her blood, the liquid sputtering out of her mouth as she collapsed and fell down the stairs to her house. She heard Shigeru scream, and just like that it was over. Shigeru fell too, eyes wide in pain as Nezuko coughed, her vision blanking in and out, and her body slowly feeling weaker.

She watched the man advance further into the house, as tears began to form in her eyes. "No… no, please. Leave them alone," Nezuko thought, trying desperately to make a sound, but found herself unable to. She tried to crawl forward, and when she did, a green light overtook her vision.

Out from the green light, just before she had succumbed to her fate, was a singular boot. When she looked up, she was met with another pair of Crimson eyes, though his pupils looked normal. His skin, strangely enough, was pink, as was his long hair that reached past his shoulders.

From there, as she reached up toward the man before falling face-first into the snow, Nezuko Kamado died in a pool of her blood.

….

The first thing that Technoblade did not want to see when he crossed over from The Overworld was the death of a child. Furthermore, as Dream exited the portal from behind him, and as the portal closed, he could hear Dream gasp in shock, yet another thing he hadn't expected to see, or in this case hear.

Heartless may the man clad in green be, but even he could only stomach so much death in one day, doubly so when it came was someone completely random that he had no prior knowledge of.

The scene where they had arrived in this new world was that of a massacre of an innocent, seemingly secluded family in what appeared to be a forest. Due to the thinness in the air, Technoblade deduced they were on a mountain.

The two barely had any time to come to their senses, as screaming came from the house that was only mere feet in front of Technoblade, and that was all the hybrid had to hear to get moving. He reached for his Netherite sword, hand grasping the hilt of his blade, as he stormed into the building. What he saw made his anger flair even more.

Mere seconds away from death was a girl, wielding a metal chopstick, and she was trying to stab it repeatedly into her attacker's face, to no avail. Around her were corpses of children, as well as a woman who looked to have been in her 30s, and in the center of it all was a man dressed in a suit with white pants, along with a white and black fedora.

When Technoblade entered the house, the man's attention snapped over to him almost immediately, and his eyes widened at seeing him. Not out of alarm, but out of confusion. He clearly didn't expect anyone else to be there, now did he? Not that it mattered, because Technoblade wasn't going to let him finish what it was that he had started.

The hybrid ran forward, tackling the man through the right wall of the house, forcing him to drop the child, who was thankfully unscathed. The man grunted, as Technoblade got him outside of the house and on the snow-covered ground. From there, he went to unsheathe his sword to stab the man in the chest to kill him, only for the man to do something that was unexpected.

The man's arm transformed into a meaty tendril about as thick as a spruce tree log. He used it to knock Technoblade away, sending him into a tree, and causing the already tired piglin hybrid to groan in shock. The man didn't give Technoblade a chance to move, as he was already on him with a clawed hand ready to rip Technoblade's face off.

At least, that was what would have happened, had the man not been blasted by a beam of pure green energy. It tore the man's monstrous arm off from the source, which made the man stumble and gasp in shock. From there, Technoblade was able to unsheathe his blade and activate Fire Aspect on it, which covered the blade in Hellflames.

The monster of a man hissed like a cat, seeing the flames with wide eyes as Technoblade closed the distance from his slouched position. He arched his sword back, swinging it from the hip with both hands, aiming to bisect the man from the chest down.

The monster man jumped up, as several spear-like tendrils sprouted out from his back, aiming to hit Technoblade in the shoulders, elbows, and knees. They would've hit if not for several glowing green arrows which cut them away seconds before they could hit their target, courtesy of Dream and his Great Bow.

Once again, the monster man was shocked at what he had seen. Just who were these people? Where the hell did they come from, and how could they use Blood Demon Arts? They weren't Demons, that much the monster man knew because he hadn't remembered creating Demons like them before.

Regardless of that, the monster man snarled and landed back on the ground. He wasn't about to waste his time killing these fools. He had done what he had come here to do, save for one of those wretched potential Sun Breathers. He would have to clean up his mess later.

In the blink of an eye, the monster man regenerated the arm that Dream had shot off using Blasting Bolt before vanishing from sight at the sound of some sort of string instrument. Technoblade's swing ended up hitting a tree, the fire catching on the wood, but not before Technoblade put it out by kicking up enough snow to snuff it out.

"What the hell was that?!" Dream shouted from behind Technoblade, as the hybrid put away his sword back into its sheath, whilst Dream put away his staff into his inventory, and strapped his bow to his body.

"A murderer killing people, it would seem. I wouldn't have stepped in had it not been for the fact that it was children he was killing," Technoblade stated as Dream huffed.

"That's fucked up, Techno," Dream quipped as Technoblade snarled.

"Like you have any space to talk, Dream. If you were smart, you'd shut up. Let's check the damage," Technoblade said as he entered the house through the hole that he had created. He bore witness to the child he had saved crying her eyes out. She couldn't have been older than 10 years old, 11 at most.

She, much like the corpse outside, was wearing a pink Kimono. Unlike the corpse outside, hers had flower patterns. And also unlike the corpse outside, she had shorter hair and darker-coloured eyes. She also had a pair of wooden sandals on her feet.

Technoblade knelt next to the child and placed a large hand on her shoulder. He cut quite an imposing figure, seeing as he stood easily at 7 feet tall, dwarfing Dream by two feet and a half. It was due to his Piglin and Demon genetics.

Regardless of that, the girl looked over at him with watery eyes. Technoblade felt his heart crack at seeing the child's torment. This must've been what his many victims felt when he would total kingdoms. This was the very reason he had thrown away violence—or at least, he tried to anyway.

"W-why?" The little girl hiccuped, choking back on tears as Technoblade lowered his head. "W-Why us…?" W-what did w-we e-ever do…?"

Technoblade wanted to answer the girl. To tell her that it was simply how the world worked. How life was unfair and that death came to all equally. But he wasn't that cruel. He wouldn't shatter the girl's heart more than it already was.

He wasn't completely heartless.

"I do not know, little girl," Technoblade replied, as the little girl began to bawl even more. The hybrid embraced the child in a hug as she cried. Technoblade looked up at Dream, who had leaned against the entranceway of the cabin, head hung low as he shook his head. Even though his face was obscured by a mask, not even Dream could justify what had happened here.

It was barbaric. It was disgusting. A waste of life that not even a madman could defend. Dream had done more than a handful of disgusting things to the likes of Tubbo and Tommy. But none of them have ever been something like this.

Yes, he had killed them multiple times. But his excuse was that Tubbo and Tommy had more than one life. These people, from what Dream could tell, were not given that luxury. They didn't have three lives. They only had one.

And it was wasted like this.

"Who was that man," Dream murmured. Technoblade let go of the child, who wiped at her eyes and sniffled.

"What?" Technoblade asked as Dream looked back at Technoblade.

"Who was that man? He didn't seem human, or anything I've seen. And I've never seen someone aside from maybe Ranboo regenerate wounds before by themselves. Most people need to drink Healing Potions before they can do that," Dream said as Technoblade narrowed his eyes, standing up.

That was a good question. Whoever that man was, he was some kind of entity that disguised itself as a human. Whatever it was, that man was going to die. Technoblade was going to kill him. But before that, he was going to bury the family who lived here. It would be disrespectful to do anything else.

"We should bury them," Technoblade said as Dream nodded. The child, who had come out of her stupor, whimpered. She was shaking, and Technoblade couldn't tell if it was because of the cold or because she was just that upset.

Out of habit, Technoblade took off his king's cape, knelt to the child, and draped it over her body to keep her warm. He wrapped her up like a cocoon, to trap in heat.

"Dream, take her outside while I dig about…" Technoblade stopped, before standing up and counting the bodies. There were easily five bodies, so he'd have to dig five six-foot-deep holes to bury the corpses. "Five graves, one for each family member."

He winced after finishing his sentence. At the very least, the deaths weren't torturous, it seemed. All of them were instant deaths, as most of them had their hearts removed or their throats slit. He was thankful that they died painless deaths. Well, as painless as they could be.

Dream nodded wordlessly, before walking over to the girl, and picking her up from under her arms, putting his free arm under her and holding her like a baby. She cried on his shoulder, obviously trying to keep her composure in the process.

The man clad in green walked outside of the house as Technoblade began to take the bodies outside. By now, the moon was beginning to show up in the sky. Technoblade would've called the night a beautiful one, had it not been for what had happened.

By the time he was done digging the holes and dumping the bodies inside, he was down to the last one just outside the front of the house. He had already dumped the mother's body into the first grave, along with the other three siblings.

Time seemed to flow seamlessly as he did what had to be done. He had no idea how long he had been at this, but he knew it was fairly long. It wasn't as if it mattered. What mattered was to make sure it was done right.

After he put the bodies into the graves, he dumped the dirt over their bodies, patted them down, and marked each grave with rocks of varying sizes. The biggest was for the mother, and the smallest was for the youngest. The one just outside of the house looked like the oldest sibling, so he saved the grave next to the mother for that one.

He looked up at the sky. Technoblade was shocked to find out that the sun was beginning to show itself. Had it really taken him over five hours to do all of this? Well, then again, it was the mountains. The sun rose earlier than most up here, he assumed.

The hybrid had just finished patting down the grave of the youngest, so now all he had to do was fetch the other sibling. He looked over to the wall and saw Dream slumped up against the wall sleeping with the little girl in his arms.

Technoblade could only smile at the scene. The tear stains on the girl's face had almost dried away, and by the time they woke up, he would find the nearest town in the area. Maybe someone would be able to take the child in?

Technoblade began to stand up, and as he did so, he heard a pair of fast-moving footsteps off in the distance and heading toward the house. This alerted Technoblade to someone's presence. It hadn't woken up Dream or the girl, and the hybrid couldn't tell whether or not that was a good thing or a bad thing just yet.

As he rounded the corner of the house, he saw a boy. The boy looked like the rest of the siblings but was too young to be the father. He must've been another sibling, Technoblade mused. He was wearing a green and black checkered haori, and underneath it, he was wearing a starch white kimono and what appeared to be baggy pants—hakama, if Technoblade remembered what Phil had called it.

"It's okay, Nezuko! I'll get you help!" The boy shouted, and that was when Technoblade realized that the girl was still alive. He knew exactly what to do, but he had to approach the situation carefully so as to not make the boy think he was hostile.

The boy was seconds away from putting the girl on his shoulders and running off when Technoblade approached. "Wait! Kid! Don't move!" Technoblade called out, making the boy stop in his tracks, looking over at Technoblade with wide eyes.

Confusion, anger, but mostly confusion, was in the boy's face. "Who're—"

"Kid, put the girl down, right now! You'll make her wounds worse!" Technoblade called out as he closed the distance between the two. The boy looked conflicted. But, after a few moments, the boy did as Technoblade had said.

In a flash, Technoblade pulled out a Healing Potion from his inventory. The boy's eyes widened at watching him do what the boy probably assumed was magic. Technoblade knelt to the girl, Nezuko if he had heard correctly, and popped the cork off of the bottle with his thumb. He opened the girl's mouth and poured the red concoction down her throat.

The boy sat there and watched as the wound on Nezuko's neck healed over in an instant. Her eyes opened, and Technoblade watched as her pupils went from slits like the monster man to regular pupils.

She coughed, gasping for breath as Technoblade stood up and took a step back, putting the empty potion bottle back into his inventory, giving the two siblings some space.

"N-Nezuko!" The boy cried, tears bubbling in his eyes as Technoblade looked over the girl, and noted a strange difference in her from before, when he had seen her corpse that had been in front of him not but a few hours ago.

Her hands were clawed.

Something had happened to her, and Technoblade had to assume the man was at fault for it. Regardless, it seemed as if he had stopped whatever transformation had been occurring before it could be completed.

"T-Tanjiro…" The girl rasped, coughing as Technoblade stared at the scene. The two had embraced one another in a hug, which warmed Technoblade's heart. After the two separated, the boy—Tanjiro—looked over to Technoblade.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Tanjiro demanded, his voice carrying a certain edge that was filled with suspicion. Technoblade couldn't blame the kid, especially considering what he had come back home to.

"My name is Technoblade, and I stumbled across some psychopath murdering your family. He escaped before I could bring him to justice. I was able to save your other sister, but everyone else has been killed, and I buried them. I'm sorry…" Technoblade replied in earnest as Tanjiro looked away, a pained look on his face.

"Dammit…" Tanjiro hissed, anger seeping into his voice as Technoblade lowered his head yet again.

"If my ally and I got here earlier, I'm sure we could've prevented the whole ordeal," Technoblade continued, but not before looking down at Nezuko. He made sure he wasn't seeing anything. Her hands really were clawed, and the more he stared, the more he could sense similar energy radiating off of her that he had felt before, indicating what it was that had happened.

She was a hybrid.

This Nezuko girl was now a Hybrid… And it was his fault. Then again, it was only because of him that she didn't turn full Demon. Well, Full Lesser Demon, anyway.

The more he thought about that man, the more he realized that he too was a Demon. He was the highest-ranking Lesser Demon. A Lesser Demon King. He radiated power that he had seen before in lesser Demon Generals, though a little weaker, from Hell thinking they could take on an Elder Demon Lord, of which he was the equivalent in terms of power.

The question now was how a Lesser Demon King found themselves outside of Hell, or better yet, how they were able to get out of The Nether. Whatever the case was, that would have to wait till later.

"As for your sister, once you've gotten a chance to fully come to your senses, I want to ask you a few questions. For now, I'll get to cleaning your abode, if you want. It's the very least that I can do. I doubt you'd want to sleep amongst puddles of dried blood." As Technoblade said that, the boy stood up and shook his head.

"N-No! You've done more than enough to help me. I-I'll clean up the house. But, you are free to repair the wall…" Tanjiro said, looking over to the destruction that his brief encounter with that Lesser Demon King had caused.

"Very well. Then let's get to work," Technoblade said as he pulled some spruce wooden planks out of his inventory, much to Tanjiro's and Nezuko's shock, which made Technoblade smirk.

Something told Technoblade that this new world he had found himself in was going to be, at the very least, interesting.