February 2, 1914
Early in the morning, before the sun even rose in the sky, a group of five men armed with two rifles and three revolvers hid in the forest near a small but lavishly-designed vacation home in southern Japan near Nagasaki. All of them were Americans, and all bore the telltale signs of being demons from their paler than usual skin to their sharpened canine teeth. The leader of the group, named Paul, told the four others, "General Jackson wants us to take the daughter alive and kill anyone else we come across if we can. If we have to leave a few people alive, so be it, as long as our primary target is in our possession. Count Mochizuki, his wife, and his youngest daughter should be the only ones there aside from some servants, so this shouldn't be difficult.
The second-in-command of the group, named Matthew and carrying a rifle, then said, "Elliot, come with me to go around the back. Johnny and Harry, go with Paul." The two riflemen would go around the back, while the three men with revolvers would attack from the front.
Before they left the forest, Paul instructed Matthew, "If you run into Count Mochizuki and his wife, keep them alive. Focus on getting their daughter."
"Absolutely," Matthew replied.
All five of them then slowly crept up to the front gate of the vacation home before Matthew and Elliot split off to scale the wall around the home from the rear. Paul then told Harry as well as Johnny, "Climb over the wall and open the gate for us. Remember, keep the Count and the Countess alive if you run into them."
"Got it," Harry replied before Johnny helped him climb up the wall by having him stand on his shoulders. Once Harry was on the other side, he opened the front gate to let the others in. By chance, a servant happened to walk outside just as they all walked into the front yard. "Shit, we got company!"
The servant yelled in Japanese as he pulled out a gun, "Intruders! Identify yourselves!"
Before he had a chance to fire, Harry ran up to him at an inhumanly fast pace and stabbed him, covering his mouth as he went down. As the other two ran up to him and he grabbed the servant's gun, Harry asked Paul, "How many servants are there?"
"At least three more after this one," Paul replied. "Maybe one or two more. Kill all of them. Leave the parents alive if you can. Leave the daughter alive at all costs."
Two more servants, both armed with kitchen knives, raced over from the house to see what was going on before they were both shot dead by all three of the intruders. Johnny said to the other two, "We probably just woke the fuckers up with that."
"It's fine," Paul assured him as all three stormed the house. "They won't be able to kill us demons anyway. We'll be outta here before the sun rises."
Meanwhile, around the back of the house, Matthew and Elliot scaled the wall and ran to a back door, forcing it open by shooting off the lock with Matthew's rifle and kicking the door twice. As they entered the house, they found the stairs nearby and ran up them, with Matthew telling Elliot, "Cover me from the rear!"
"Got it!" Elliot then spotted a servant running towards them and opened fire, shooting him twice and killing him as he tried to run up the stairs.
On the second floor, Kyousuke Mochizuki, the aforementioned count, ran out of his room with his wife. He yelled at Matthew in Japanese, "Who the fuck are you?! Get out of here!"
"We are not here for you," Matthew replied in heavily-accented Japanese. "We are here for your daughter!"
"My daughter?! Over my dead body!"
"We will not kill you!" Matthew then tried to run past him, but Kyousuke punched him and his wife kicked him twice. In response, Matthew began fighting them, trying his hardest to resist the urge to just shoot them with his rifle. He yelled to Elliot, "Grab the girl! I gotta fight the count and his wife!"
"Got it," Elliot replied as he ran past the trio.
The count's wife yelled, "No! Don't lay a God damn hand on her!"
Matthew then knocked her out with a punch to the head. The count yelled in response, "God damn you! Get the fuck out!"
Matthew yelled back at him in English as he knocked him out with a kick to the head, "Fuck you!" Now that both the count and his wife were unconscious, he told Elliot, "Take care of the girl! Her parents are just out cold! They'll wake up eventually!"
Elliot then ran into the room of the count's youngest daughter, the seventeen-year-old and rather timid Emi Mochizuki. She was cowering in fear and beginning to cry, afraid of what was going on outside. Elliot told her in broken Japanese, "Come with me. You come with me now."
"Okay…" Emi replied, shivering in fear as she slowly got up and walked over to him. Elliot then took out a blindfold and wrapped it around Emi's eyes before tying her hands up with rope. "What about my mother and father?"
Elliot did not entirely understand what she had asked. As such, he turned around and asked Matthew, "Hey, Matthew, I think this girl has a question. I don't know what the Hell she just said."
Matthew then walked into the room and asked Emi in Japanese, "What is your question?"
"What's going to happen to my mother and father?"
"Oh, them," Matthew replied. "Do not worry. They will be okay. They will wake up soon. We did not kill them."
"Okay… Please, don't hurt them…" Emi began to cry as Matthew and Elliot walked her out of the bedroom, guiding her to make sure she did not bump into anything or fall down the stairs due to being blindfolded.
Paul then walked over to them as they came down the stairs with her. He asked the duo, "How was it up there?"
"We killed a servant and knocked out the count and the countess," Matthew replied to him. "They're both still alive, just a little banged up since they tried to fight me."
"I left a ransom note near the front entrance," Paul then said. "Let's hurry up and get the fuck out of here before anyone else notices us or the sun comes up fully." He then turned to Harry and Johnny, telling them both, "Come on! We're getting out of here!"
"We killed all the servants we could find," Johnny replied to him. "There should be no surviving servants or maids here at all."
"Excellent," Paul replied as they all ran out of the house with Emi. "Now, let's get on that ship to Sendai and get her to the safehouse up there!"
Despite making it their mission to kill all of their servants, what they did not know was that of the six servants inside the vacation house at the time, one had managed to escape with his life. As they all fled with Emi as their prisoner, this lone servant ran through the woods to the nearby town to alert the residents and the town's small police force of the incident. Within about fifteen minutes, they would discover a horrifying scene at the house as well as the ransom note, which would demand 10,000 for the release of Emi.
As the local police chief looked through the home with several of his officers and several town residents, he said to himself upon observing the bloody scene, "Only monsters could have done this."
"Perhaps those monsters were literal," said one of his officers. "The ransom note mentions demons, sir."
"Demons? As in the demons of legend?"
"Indeed," replied the officer as he showed the chief the ransom note. "Looks like they come from America too. The note's in both Japanese and English."
"We need to find this girl," said the town police chief. "And we need to find her fast before they kill her and eat her body if the legends are true. We'll need help, too."
"Like other police services? The Imperial Army, even?"
"No," the chief replied. "I'll have to contact the Demon Slayer Corps. I've heard about them for years, but I had always written them off as a bunch of damn lunatics with swords until now."
"So the demons of legend are real…"
"Exactly, and we weren't prepared for it like we should have been. Right now, though, the focus is getting the count's daughter back. We can prepare for future attacks later."
…
About two and a half hours after the kidnapping had taken place, the telephone in Kagaya's office rang. Due to his current condition, Ayame answered it first with, This is the office of Ubuyashiki Kagaya. Who am I speaking with?"
"This is the Corps Switchboard," replied a Kakushi telephone operator on the other end. "We have a message for your husband, Ayame-sama."
"Alright," Ayame replied. "Hang on. Let me walk the phone over to him." She then turned to her husband, who was lying on a bed, and told him, "There's a message for you."
"Thank you for doing this," Kagaya replied as Ayame carefully walked the telephone over to him. "When is the new phone supposed to come here again?"
"Tomorrow or the day after." They had ordered a new phone to be installed next to Kagaya's bed so that he could eventually answer phone calls without having to get up or have Ayame walk the phone over whenever he wa bedridden.
"Once it comes, we won't have to do this anymore." Kagaya then picked up the receiver and asked the Kakushi, "This is Ubuyashiki Kagaya. Who is it?"
"Oyakata-sama, we have an important mission request from Count Mochizuki Kyousuke," said the Kakushi on the other end.
"From a count? As in someone from the official nobility of the government?"
"Correct."
"What's going on with him?"
"American demons kidnapped his daughter and killed most of his servants while they were vacationing in a small town near Nagasaki," the Kakushi explained. "From what we know so far, they are probably taking her to a location near Sendai. They're demanding a ransom of 10,000, Oyakata-sama, and if they don't have it by February 11th, they're going to kill her. The location they gave to drop off the money is Sendai Station, so it's definitely not where they're actually holding her hostage."
"That's a lot of money," Kagaya commented. "These guys sound pretty serious. I'll put a mission together to do some intelligence-gathering, and we'll go from there. We can't rescue her if we don't know where she is, after all. Once we get a location, we can send a full rescue team up."
"Understood," replied the Kakushi.
"I'll send a message to Count Mochizuki personally about this matter," Kagaya further explained. "He's probably terribly confused by all this. We'll do our damndest to get his daughter back in one piece, avenge his servants, and slay the demons who took her."
"Understood."
Kagaya then gave the phone back to Ayame, telling her, "I'll get a Pillar and at least one more slayer to head up to Sendai to do some reconnaissance. Once we establish where she's being held, I'll have a larger team go up to rescue her."
Ayame asked him, "Which Pillar do you want?"
"Hmmm… How about Gyomei? We can send Genya and Vèro along with him. Worse comes to worse, they could mount a rescue attempt immediately if the situation calls for it."
"I'll make the arrangements."
"Before you go," Kagaya then said to his wife before she left the room. "I just… I want to say thank you for sticking by me throughout all of this."
Ayame replied to him, "It's my duty as your wife."
"I can tell you think of it as more than just your duty," he told her with a smile.
Ayame smiled in return and walked over to give him a kiss on the cheek before the two shared a kiss on the lips. "Of course it isn't just my duty as your wife, Kagaya."
"I love you."
"I love you, too." The two then giggled as Ayame gently felt his cheek, the feeling of being together taking them back to when they were younger and had just gotten married to each other.
"I'm truly blessed to have a wife as beautiful and devoted as you, you know."
"Oh, stop it," Ayame humorously replied as she blushed. "I truly lucked out being married to you for so long." She then got up from the bed and left.
As Ayame left the room, Kagaya looked out towards the morning sky through a window and asked himself, "How many more of these will I see before my time is up?"
…
"Tomorrow," Aoi told Zenitsu as she briefed him on his current status back at the Butterfly Estate later in the afternoon. "You should be all set to be released."
"Thank you for the care you've given me ever since I got back from Yoshiwara," Zenitsu replied to her. "Though I will say that it is kinda sad that I have to go now."
"I know, I know," Aoi replied. "But trust me, it's for the best. They need more slayers out there with the way the conflict's been going recently." She then handed him several sheets of paper along with a pencil. "Fill these out and leave them on the table next to you. This is your exit paperwork. Please make sure it's complete before the morning tomorrow."
"Of course," Zenitsu replied. "Anything you say, I'll do."
Aoi chuckled and replied, "Don't let Nezuko-chan hear you say that."
Zenitsu laughed in response. "Don't worry. My heart is for her and her alone, Aoi-san."
She then smiled and told him, "You know, when I first heard that you and Nezuko-chan were actually a couple now, I was worried about how you would act around her given what you used to do a lot around girls when I first met you. However, I'm pleasantly surprised to see how maturely you're taking this relationship with her."
"Thank you," Zenitsu replied with a nod. "Finding Nezuko-chan has really been a blessing for me. I don't know where I'd be right now without her, or Tanjiro and Inosuke either for that matter."
"That's really sweet," Aoi replied. "I just hope Tanjiro-kun wakes up soon so you can tell him that. I'm also really worried about Inosuke too, given that his body keeps rejecting most of the medicine we give him."
"Me too. I hope they both get better soon."
"Well," Aoi then said as she walked out. "I gotta go attend to other patients. Have a good day, Zenitsu-kun."
"Before you go," Zenitsu then asked her, causing her to stop. "I need to ask you something."
"Yes?"
"Do you have feelings for Inosuke?"
That question immediately caused Aoi to blush as she tried to deny, "Me? Have feelings for him? I don't… Why?!"
"You seem very close to him," Zenitsu explained. "He told me how he trained you a few times to try to get you over your fear of using swords late last year."
"Why would I? He's a short-tempered moron. There's no way I'd fall for him and his good looks or his loyalty to the people he cares about or how he never gets my name wrong or…" Aoi stopped herself when she realized she was giving out numerous positive traits regarding Inosuke instead of denying her feelings for him.
Zenitsu grinned. "You've fallen in love with him, haven't you?"
"Fuck," Aoi replied in frustration and acceptance of defeat. "Maybe I do, okay? So what if I like Inosuke that way?"
"I don't judge," Zenitsu assured her. "I wish you luck with him. You deserve someone who will make you happy, Aoi-san. I mean that. You do so much work for everyone here, and you've saved countless lives."
Aoi nodded and then gave Zenitsu a smile. "Thank you. I'll see you later, Zenitsu-kun."
"See you later," he replied to her. Once she was gone, Zenitsu said to himself with a smile, "I really am in Heaven on Earth right now, aren't I? At least, until tomorrow…"
…
Later on after night had fallen, Nezuko walked into Zenitsu's room as she told him, "I heard you're gonna get discharged from here tomorrow morning."
"Yeah," he replied as he finished his exit paperwork. "I'm almost done with my paperwork to leave."
Many thoughts were racing in her head as she got closer to him. "You promised yourself you were ready for this," she thought to herself. "You are ready for this. You've wanted this ever since those magic words slipped through your mouth and his in Yoshiwara. You can do this. I can do this." She took a deep breath to steady herself and prepare for what she hoped would come next. "Before you go," Nezuko then asked him. "Can you do something for me?" She sat down on the bed next to him, a look of longing in her eyes. "Please?"
As she moved her arm closer to him, he asked her, "What is it, Nezuko-chan?"
"I need you for something," Nezuko explained to him as she laid down beside him. "Zenitsu-san… I can't get these thoughts out of my head of us going beyond just kissing."
Zenitsu now understood what she meant. His face lit up a bright red as he asked her, "You… You mean you want to hav-"
"Yes," Nezuko replied.
Surprised about how blunt she was being, Zenitsu asked her, "Are… Are you sure about this, Nezuko-chan? I mean, there are other ways we can show our lo-"
Nezuko shushed him by putting a finger to his mouth and going, "Shhhhhh. I'm comfortable enough around you for this, Zenitsu-san. Besides…" She then unbuttoned her uniform shirt and let it fall to the floor before straddling her legs on top of him. "I want to do this with you before you go out on missions again. I know you've wanted to do this with a girl for a while, and here's your chance."
"I…" Zenitsu then took a deep breath and told her, "You're right."
Nezuko then leaned down and kissed him as she continued to undo her uniform. Once she was finished taking her uniform off, she pulled back the covers of Zenitsu's bed and began partially undressing him, telling him, "I can take the lead since you're still a patient here."
"Until tomorrow morning," Zenitsu pointed out.
"Fair enough," she replied with a giggle. "Still, let me do the work this time. When you're out of bed, I can let you take control if you want…" The two then shared another long and passionate kiss that eventually led to the two of them making love.
Right before they did, Zenitsu asked her somewhat nervously, "Can I tell you something? Please, don't get the wrong idea or find this weird, Nezuko-chan…"
"What is it?"
Zenitsu, nervous about what he was about to say, stammered out, "I think… Um… I think your fangs… I think your fangs are actually really cute, Nezuko-chan."
Nezuko blushed and smiled at him. "Awww, how sweet. I think you're really handsome, Zenitsu-san. I couldn't resist you even if I tried." The two then began their love-making following another kiss. Knowing they had other patients in the Butterfly Estate, they both did their best to keep their voices down, but some moans still made it out of them anyway. The couple were in too deep to completely stop their activities anyway.
Once both of them were finished, the couple laid down together in bed, huddled together to stay warm because of the cold winter night as well as the state of full undress for Nezuko and partial undress for Zenitsu, the latter of whom even had a small bite mark from where Nezuko had bitten him slightly in a state of ecstasy, something demons somewhat commonly did during sex. As they peacefully slept in each other's arms, they both thought of what the future would hold for themselves as people and them as a relationship now that they had taken the next step in physical intimacy.
