January 31, 1914

James was cleaning his sword early in the morning after a long night of hunting demons. Beside him was Reiko, who had accompanied him on his hunt and was cleaning a smaller wakizashi. "We got that one guy pretty good," Reiko commented. "Too bad my brother wasn't there to see me kick that demon's ass."

"He should be back here soon," James pointed out. "Same with Shinazugawa, his brother, Himejima, that other girl they were with, and Vèro."

"You mean Sotozaki-san?"

"Yeah, her." James had momentarily forgotten her name. "Thanks for the reminder."

They then both heard a knock at the door of the Rengoku Estate. Shinjuro got up and said to the two of them, "I'll get it. Hang on." He then walked over and opened the door, finding a well-dressed man with a letter in his hands. "Who may you be?"

The man asked, "Is James Colby-san here?"

"Yeah," Shinjuro replied before he turned around and said to James. "Hey, James, you got a visitor. He has a letter for you."

"A letter?" James then got up and walked over. He asked the visitor, "Who's the letter from?"

"The Saito Company," said the man. "Saito Yoichi requests your services in the city of Yokohama."

James sighed. "Alright, alright…" He then took the letter and read its contents, which were entirely in English.

James Colby,

I am sending you this letter to inform you that I require your assistance. Meet me in Yokohama on Wednesday, the 4th of February, at my company's headquarters. This task requires dream infiltration, and as of now, you are the only one I know of who I can rely on. While I cannot disclose all of the details in this letter, I would advise you to build a small team of people for this mission after we meet in Yokohama. I have received word that that one young man you were with, Kamado, is badly hurt, and will probably not be able to join in on the mission. Even so, I have confidence that you will build a team that will achieve my goals.

Yoichi Saito

James wondered to himself out loud, "I wonder how he got word of Tanjiro gettin' hurt…"

Susamaru then walked over and asked her fiancé, "James, what's wrong?"

"Nothin'," James assured her. "I just got a letter from the Saito Company."

"We expect your presence at the meeting on the 4th," said the messenger before he left. "Have a pleasant day, Colby-san."

Susamaru asked James, "What does the letter say?"

"He wants me to infiltrate someone's dreams, but he isn't giving me any more details. The only real detail he says is that I'll need to build a team to do it."

Reiko asked James, "A team? Maybe I could do it."

"Well… I ain't got a lotta options. Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu are all still badly hurt, and I don't want to burden Nezuko with any more shit. I'll meet with Saito first and then discuss who I'll need on the team."

"Count me in if you decide to go," she replied.

Susamaru then asked out of curiosity, "Would I still be pregnant in the dream?"

"Come to think of it, I ain't sure." James did not know if a pregnancy would carry over into a dream. "I'm sure that even if you were, it wouldn't hurt the child in the real world. Of course, this all depends on if I actually need a team or not."

…

February 4, 1914

"Welcome back to my company," Yoichi said to James in English as the two met in his office. "I'm glad you could come on such relatively short notice."

"Okay, what do ya want from me, and how do ya wanna get it done?"

"I have a competitor of mine who is taking a train ride from Tokyo to Osaka so he can hop on a ship to Jinsen and then go to Keijo from there. You might be more familiar with their Korean names, Incheon and Seoul."

"I see," James nodded. "My fiancée and my former mentor went to Seoul, or Keijo as the Japanese call it, last year for a mission. Do ya want me to follow him onto the ship?"

"If all goes to plan, that won't be necessary. You'll get everything you'll need by infiltrating his dreams while on the train ride, but you'll need a team."

"Of how many people?"

"I would recommend yourself plus at least five other people," Yoichi replied. "Based on our experiences last time, that seems like a good number to deal with this competitor."

"Who is this man and what exactly do ya want me to do to him?"

"I want you to extract his plans for a hydroelectric dam he plans to build in Korea," Yoichi explained. "The two of us have been competing with each other ever since I started the Saito Company fifteen years ago. The man's name is Hideki Watanabe. He has a large scar on his face from the Sino-Japanese War twenty years ago, so he should not be hard to miss." He then gave James a picture of Hideki for identification purposes. "I have word from certain sources I cannot disclose that he plans to leave for Keijo on February 27th, and he intends to take a train to Osaka two days before."

"So I got until February 25th to get ready."

"Correct. Will twenty-one or so days be enough to prepare, Mr. Colby?"

"It should be," James nodded. "I'll build a good team, and we'll get you the plans for that dam. In the meantime, you'll need to make sure we don't get interrupted when we infiltrate his dreams on the train. Have ya considered bribin' the conductors or attendants on board or buyin' out a whole train car for us?"

"Actually," Yoichi said with a chuckle. "I bribed the head of the line running from Tokyo to Osaka. Since that entire line is nationalized, it was not easy, but I got word yesterday that we should not have any interruptions. He'll make sure we can get Mr. Watanabe alone with your team in a sleeper car."

"No shit," James replied, impressed. "That's impressive. Mr. Saito. Anyways, before I head outta here, what's the pay for this mission?"

"I'll pay you 200,000," Yoichi explained. "Each of your teammates will receive 75,000."

"200,000 and 75,000 is a lotta money. I make about 350,000 a year as a Pillar in the Demon Slayer Corps."

"This is a very important mission. As such, a high reward is necessary."

…

February 5, 1914

James was painstakingly writing down Dream Creation spells on several blank scrolls in preparation for the mission. He intended to have at least twelve and preferably fifteen made for the mission, and as he completed the first one, he said to himself, "This will take me at least two more days to do."

Susamaru walked into the room and asked him, "Have you figured out who will be on the team yet?"

"Not really," James admitted. "I've been busy with these scrolls. Besides, it's only been a day since the meetin' with Saito-san."

"Have you considered me?"

"I have," he nodded. "Maybe you could go, but only if we run a test first to see if you're still gon' be pregnant in a dream. If you are, I can't bring you along. You'd understand, right?"

"Yeah," Susamaru assured him. "When do you wanna test it out?"

"We could test it out right now if ya want." He then got up and pulled out a knife, making a small cut in his arm before using the blood that spilled out to paint a shape around him and Susamaru. As his cut healed, he said to her to activate the spell the traditional way, "By the Grace of the Spirits, I ask them to put myself and this person into sleep, and allow me to walk in her dreams as if they were my own. I cast the Dream Creation Spell upon you." Both of them then laid down on the ground, quickly falling asleep as the spell kicked in.

Both of them awoke in a bustling Japanese city-scape resembling inner Tokyo, and as they both looked at each other, Susamaru asked him, "Well, did it work?" The city-scape around them was populated with a mixture of Japanese and American people, all from James' subconscious since he had created and architected the dream himself.

"See for yourself," James replied, pointing at her abdomen. "Look down."

Susamaru looked down at herself and noticed that her abdomen no longer showed any signs of pregnancy. "Woah… Holy shit… I'm not pregnant in this dream at all.."

"Looks like you'll be on the team then, dear," James happily told her. "It'll be just like old times when we went on missions together."

"Yeah." Susamaru then hugged James, excitedly telling him, "I can't wait!" Even with the crowds of people passing by on the street in the dream, neither of them cared as they then shared a quick kiss. "Now, let's go find more people for the team."

…

February 7, 1914

"So you want me to accompany you?"

"Yeah, Reiko," James replied. "This isn't an official corps mission at all. This is purely a private endeavor. However, Saito-san promises a hefty reward for the team if it's successfully completed. 75,000 to be exact."

"Holy shit, 75,000?! That's almost seven months' wages for me." Reiko was shocked at how much she would make if she joined the mission.

"That's a lotta fuckin' money right there, huh?"

"Hell yeah!"

"I knew it would be a big draw. Saito-san says the mission is that important to him."

Reiko then asked James, "How long will it take?"

"In the real world? About a day and a night. In the dream world, I have no clue." James then revealed a spell scroll and told her, "This thing that I'm holdin' right now contains what we need for this mission. Once it's activated, time will slow right down. The goin' rate for time inside a dream made by this is about twenty minutes inside for every one minute outside. Normally, it's about twelve minutes inside for every one minute outside, but the thing is, this spell is a powerful sedative, hence the increase."

"So it could last much longer in the dream then?"

"Correct, especially if we create a multi-layered dream. For every layer ya go into, multiply the time again by twenty, so in the second layer, one minute outside is four hundred minutes inside."

"But we won't age or anything inside the dream, right?"

"Anythin' that happens to ya inside a dream stays in the dream," James explained. "Physically, at least. It would be bad if it didn't, since ya need to actually die or fall into water to wake up."

"We recommend either committing suicide or jumping into a body of water when you want to wake up from a simple one-layer dream," Susamaru added. "For a multi-layer dream, however, it gets more complicated."

"In a multi-layer dream, ya can't just shoot yourself and wake up. You run a big risk of fallin' into limbo, which is endless dreamspace that's impossible to escape from."

Reiko, concerned, asked him, "So what do you do to wake up?"

"You have to time a Kick Event," James replied. "Where ya have to wake up at the same time in every layer. It's a bit risky, but I've done it quite a few times."

"Will we have to do that here?"

"We may have to if things get a little crazy. This guy we're infiltratin' will populate his dream with people from his subconscious, and those people in his subconscious ain't gonna appreciate unwanted visitors if we make too much of a scene, so they may attack us."

"I see…"

"Are you sure ya want in on this?"

Reiko pondered for several seconds before giving James his answer. "I'll do it, but only if we recruit more people."

"That's the idea," James replied. "We'll need a minimum team of myself and five others, so we'll need to look around for more people before the 25th. Susamaru's gonna join us too, so we'll need three more people at a minimum, maybe even four more."

"By the way, do you want the corps as a whole to know about this?"

"Nah. This ain't really the business of the corps. Nothin' about this will involve demons or huntin' them, so I wouldn't even bother."

"If you say so…"