January 27, 1914

In a hospital room at the Butterfly Estate, an unconscious Tanjiro was lying in a bed as Kanao, Nezuko, James, and Shinobu all watched over him. Shinobu checked his heart rate with a binaural stethoscope followed by a wooden tube stethoscope before telling the others, "Okay, so, Tanjiro-san is in a coma. He's still alive, but I'm not sure how long he'll be in this state."

James replied to her, "Damn… He'll be out for a while."

"Oniichan…" Nezuko then said to Shinobu with a hint of confidence as she gently rubbed her brother's face, "I'm sure he'll wake up. My brother is too strong to give up now. We still have a mission to take care of."

James asked, "Is that mission killin' Muzan?"

"Exactly. Neither of us are going to give up until he's dead."

Shinobu smiled, telling her, "You and your brother really are determined."

"Yeah." Nezuko then asked Shinobu, "Any word on Zenitsu-san or Inosuke-san?"

"Inosuke-san is in a worse state than your brother, I'm afraid," Shinobu told her. "Zenitsu's also in a coma for the time being. I honestly don't know what will happen with Inosuke-san. As for Zenitsu-san and Tanjiro-san, I expect them to survive."

Nezuko solemnly replied, "I really don't want to lose any of them…"

Shinobu patted Nezuko on the back and told her, "I'm gonna go visit Zenitsu-san now if you want to come with me."

As the two of them left, Kanao and James remained by Tanjiro's bedside. The latter told her, "I am so sorry. I wish I'd let Uzui-san stick around longer so y'all could have given Tanjiro the news."

"It's fine," she assured him. "I didn't want to hold you guys up." She then knelt down on one knee and carefully placed one of Tanjiro's bandaged hands on her abdomen. "I didn't want to distract him with the pregnancy."

James assured her, "He wouldn't'a been distracted. If anythin', he'd be more motivated to fight."

"Maybe…" Kanao then rested her head on the bed. "I never would have guessed I'd become a mother at this age."

"It happens. My mother was only seventeen when I was born. She'd been married about a year to my father."

Kanao then said to herself in a quiet tone, "Kamado Kanao… Hmmm…"

James then left the room, telling her, "I'll give you and the father of your child some privacy."

Once Kanao was alone with Tanjiro, she sighed as tears began to silently fall from her eyes. "Please," she whispered to him. "Wake up. I need you, Tanjiro. Our child needs their father. Don't let this be goodbye." She recalled the words that Tanjiro had said to her in the past as she continued to lie beside him.

"This! This flip will decide if you listen to the voice in your heart from now on, with yes being heads!"

"I feel something, like there's butterflies in my stomach. What's going on?"

"I need you, too, Kanao."

"I love you, Tanjiro…" Kanao then gently brushed aside his hair to get a better look at his face before kissing him. When she lifted herself off of his lips, she told him, "Please, wake up so we can kiss properly again. I want to hold you. I want you to make love to me a hundred… No, a thousand more times. That's all I want. Is that too much to ask?" She then got up and looked over the bed before once again rubbing her abdomen, cuddling their child in the womb in a way. "And I want a family. A proper family. Children that we can both love and cherish unlike what my parents did for me…" She took a deep breath and then glanced out of a window to look at the gray winter sky and a light patch of snow that had fallen onto the ground. "The weather being awful certainly doesn't help the mood…"

Out in the hallway, James sighed and said to himself with a faint smile, "I think he'll pull through. He's too strong to let go just yet." He then turned and saw Nezuko curled up on the floor of the hallway and trying her best to hold back her crying. "Nezuko?"

"I'm scared," she admitted to him. "I saw Zenitsu-san in the hospital bed, and I…" She began to cry as James walked over and knelt down to hug her. "I don't want to lose my brother, James-oniisan… And I almost lost Zenitsu-san too."

"There, there… You're gonna be alright." James patted her on the back. "We're all gonna be alright."

"I hope… I really hope so…"

…

Outside, Aoi was practicing her sword skills once again, swinging it and counting each time she swung out loud. "Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four, one hundred and five…" As she continued on, she began to repeat Tengen's words about her unwillingness to fight in her head, as well as Inosuke's words of encouragement. "One hundred and six, one hundred and seven, one hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten…"

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"Hey, are you okay? Why did you freeze up all of a sudden? Did I hurt you?"

"You don't have to continue, Aoi. I just want to know why you stopped."

"The truth is… Sometimes I see flashes of events in my head, and I have no idea where they're from. They're all hazy and shit, so I can't recall specific details unless they just happened."

"I need female corps members because I need people to be disguised as several oiran in training to infiltrate Tokyo's Red Light District and find an Upper Moon."

Aoi thought to herself as she kept swinging her sword, "I need to get stronger! I can't do this shit anymore! I can't stay on the sidelines while everyone else around me gets hurt or worse. I'm fucking sick of being afraid to fight!" She counted to herself more, "One hundred and eleven, one hundred and twelve, one hundred and thirteen, one hundred and fourteen, one hundred and fifteen, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and seventeen, one hundred and eighteen, one hundred and nineteen, one hundred and twenty!" She then set her sword down and wiped sweat off of her forehead. "Fuck, okay… One hundred and twenty swings. I'll take a break and swing more."

Shinobu looked outside and observed her. She had grown concerned about her since Aoi had been practicing with a sword almost every waking moment when she was not busy with work at the Butterfly Estate. She sighed and told herself, "She's really pushing herself."

Aoi then drank from a small water gourd before taking a deep breath and picking her sword up again, a flood of emotions coming over her as she did. "Okay… Okay… Okay… Here we fucking go." She then began swinging again, counting to herself, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty…" One set of words from Tengen stuck out to her in particular.

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"I will be strong!"

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"I will be strong!"

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"I will be strong!"

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"I will be strong!"

"I could still take you. You don't look too strong, but you are a slayer on paper at least."

"I WILL BE FUCKING STRONG!"

Aoi said under her breath at the intrusive thought as she paused in the middle of her sword swings, "Shut the fuck up… Please, just shut the fuck up already… I am strong…" She then continued where she left off. "Forty one, forty two, forty three, forty four, forty five, forty six, forty seven, forty eight, forty nine, fifty…"

Giyu also saw Aoi practice as he walked up to meet Shinobu, asking her, "Is she still swinging that sword around?"

"Yeah," Shinobu replied. "I'm surprised she's exercising with that when we have a naginata here instead."

"Me too. Then again, I'm surprised you guys even have a naginata, Shinobu."

"It certainly is a very old tool. Slayers of centuries past used them before the corps perfected katanas, but a few die-hards still hold onto them like they're religious artifacts almost."

…

January 28, 1914

"I'm glad the trio survived," Susamaru said to James as the two shared a deer that James had hunted earlier in the day. They ate outside in the Rengoku Estate's courtyard, and normally did so late at night either right before or right after James went out on patrols. As Susamaru finished off the deer's heart, she further commented, "Are Tanjiro and Inosuke still unconscious?"

"Yeah," James replied. "But based on what we have so far, we know that at least Tanjiro is for sure gonna wake up. Inosuke, though…"

"What's up with him?"

"He got shot and poisoned durin' the fight," he clarified to his fiancée. "So he's a bit closer to death than Tanjiro is. I don't think he's guaranteed to die, but… Well, I wouldn't be too surprised if he did."

George then flew down with a note tied to his legs, landing right next to James. "Hey there! I got a message from headquarters!"

"From Ubuyashiki himself?" James then carefully untied and removed the note from George's feet and read it. "Hmmm… The next Pillar Meeting will be on February 1… That's a bit earlier than usual."

"He wants to celebrate the killing of the Sixth Upper Moon, so he figured he'd do an earlier meeting."

"Alright," James replied. "Go back to the Ubuyashiki Estate to confirm my presence at that meeting."

"You got it," George replied before he flew off into the night to deliver the confirmation of James' attendance at the meeting.

"What day is February 1st?"

"That's a Sunday," James replied. "I'll get a short prayer in before I head out there, I guess."

"Speaking of prayers," Susamaru then revealed. "I met up with that priest you told me about while you were gone. He says I could be ready to convert by March. That way, we can finally get married."

"By March?"

"Yep," she excitedly replied. "He says I'm making good progress studying the Bible."

James smiled. "You didn't have to do this for me, ya know? I easily could have married you in a Shinto ceremony instead, Susamaru."

"I know, but I want to do this, too." Susamaru then took him by the hand and told him, "You are worth converting for, James."

The two then shared a quick kiss. James told her with love in his eyes, "I really lucked out when I found you in Japan."

"And I lucked out when we first met… Even if we tried to kill each other initially." The two then shared a laugh. "Our kids are gonna be really confused when I tell them how their mother and father met."

"No shit they are," he agreed. "God damn, I'd be confused as all Hell."

…

Hey guys, it's the author here.

Sorry for the hiatus. Some work and personal stuff got in the way. Also, the ending of the Kensuke flashback arc was difficult to write and figure out, but I made it work. In fact, I actually finished Chapters 130 and 131 before I finished 127, 128, and 129, which is, of course, very odd. It does, however, allow me to post all five of these chapters at once, giving you guys a large amount of content. The original 128 had to actually be split in two after it got truly massive, and was one of the reasons why the flashback arc took a little longer than expected.

Chapter 132 is in production, and will be posted in the very near future. Thank you all so much for keeping pace with the story, even in slower periods such as this. As with before, the aim is to get to Chapter 156 and finish Season 3 before the end of May 2023, and then start work on Season 4, which will be Chapters 157-208. I believe that this story will be finished with Season 5, which, hypothetically, should end with Chapter 260. If it does get that far, funny enough, it would make it longer than the actual canon story of Demon Slayer. Maybe it will be. Who knows?

Again, thank you for reading, and expect more content soon.