Calvin Hodgeson asked Ambrose Powell Hill as the two met at the aforementioned Hoshino Mansion, "How many water containers did you mark?"
"Two," Ambrose replied. "And based on what I've been feeling in the past hour, it seems like both have been destroyed."
"Perhaps Johnny tried to expose us for some reason," Calvin replied, referring to the man that Genya had fought, who was also in fact part of the team that had kidnapped Emi. "You did give him that marked gourd after all just in case he did that."
"I hope he didn't," Ambrose replied with a sigh before taking a sip of wine. "If that idiot exposed us, it won't be long before those God damn demon slayers find out where we are."
"Even if they do," Calvin pointed out. "We got over thirty of our own here. We can fight them off."
"If they're normal slayers, that is. If they send even one of their Pillars, we'll have more difficulty. If they send two or more, we could very much lose… Unless we find out where they are first and I place a mark on a container of water near them, that is."
"Good idea," Calvin agreed with Ambrose. "We could kill them without them even putting up a fight."
"We just need to find out where they're hiding. The Demon Slayer Corps has a series of safehouses across Japan, but they can be particularly difficult to find."
"Trust me, sir," Calvin assured him. "I'll get some of my men to find where those bastards are."
…
"So you encountered that water creature too?"
"Yeah," Genya replied to Sanemi as they met up at the corps safehouse. "It killed the demon I was fighting just as he was telling me where they're keeping the Count's daughter. I was able to get the name of the house, but I don't know where it is."
Sanemi asked him, "What was the name? We can find it if we ask around."
"The Hoshino Mansion," Genya replied. "Based on what he was about to say, it sounds like it's outside the actual city of Sendai."
Gyomei then replied to Genya with, "Hmmm… The Hoshino Mansion… I don't know why, but that name sounds familiar to me. I feel like I've heard it somewhere before."
"I haven't," Sanemi added. "Something must have happened there years before I became a Pillar."
Then, the elderly innkeeper walked into the room, having heard the gang mention the mansion. "I heard you mention the Hoshino Mansion. What do you wish to know about it?"
Gyomei asked the innkeeper, "Do you know where it is? I swear that I've heard about it, but I cannot remember where or in what context I did."
"About eight years ago," the innkeeper informed them. "The entire family was killed in mysterious circumstances. Some say it was the work of demons, but officially, the killer, or possibly even killers, are still at large. I have a feeling the Oyakata-sama mentioned it long ago during a Pillar meeting."
"Now I remember," Gyomei realized. "The Oyakata-sama did indeed mention that at a meeting a while ago. Did the police state what exactly happened?"
"No one knows for sure, but the police found the whole family of six dead all throughout the house. It's believed they were killed two or three days prior in the middle of the night. The mansion is so remote that nobody noticed until a friend of the family could not get them to open the front door and found a blood stain on a window."
Vèro then asked the innkeeper, "Did whoever did it leave any clues behind?"
"Well… The head of the family, a man named Hoshino Kenji, said he was going to meet with two foreign businessmen the week he died. He never said which country they were from, but he said they were white."
"Hmmmm… I wonder…"
Sanemi then asked Vèro, "Are you trying to figure out who it was?"
"I need to figure out when the last time the Jackson Brothers visited Japan was prior to 1913," Vèro explained. "If the last time was about eight years ago, that might be the answer to this mystery."
"Fuck me," Sanemi sighed. "Those American Progenitors really are just as monstrous as Kibutsuji."
…
Later that night, Ambrose was filling out paperwork when a soldier walked into his room and informed him, "Sir, you have a visitor."
"Who is it?"
"Enrique de Castro, sir."
Ambrose immediately recognized the name. "Bring him in now."
Within a minute, Enrique walked into the room and greeted Ambrose with a tip of his bowler hat. "Greetings," he said to him in slightly accented English. "I trust that you've been doing well, Mr. Hill?"
"I have," Ambrose replied as he stood up. "Sir, do you require anything from us while you stay here?"
"No, no," he replied. "I must say, it was rather difficult traveling here when you could only move at night. I somewhat envy you American demons, being able to walk in the sunlight."
"Even if we're extremely vulnerable?"
"Who cares about that? After all, Master Muzan still wants your capabilities, even if it's only limited."
"He's tried for decades, and yet he never seemed to figure it out."
"Well…" Enrique then presented him with a small folder and placed it on his desk. "I've had a few of my own servants do some research, and I think we've figured it out, Mr. Hill."
"Have you presented this to my own superiors?"
"Of course," he affirmed with a nod. "They sent me here to actually collect some blood from your men."
Somewhat confused, Ambrose asked Enrique, "Blood? What for? I thought General Kibutsuji already texted the ingestion of blood and it failed."
"Indeed. Ingestion failed. However…" As Ambrose opened the folder, Enrique told him, "Injection wasn't possible until now."
"Injection with a needle…" As Ambrose read the research that Enrique's own underlings had conducted, he said to him, "Are you saying you've finally figured it out?"
"We may very well have," Enrique nodded. "Which is why I need blood samples from all of your men to bring back to the Dimensional Infinity Fortress."
"I can give you some of mine, too," Ambrose offered as he set the folder down.
"You don't have to."
"I know I don't have to, sir, but if my men are going to, I want to do it alongside them." He then looked past Enrique and said to the soldier standing out on the hall, "Livingston!"
The soldier with the last name Livingston then walked in and replied, "Yes, sir?"
"Find Hodgeson and gather up all the men," Ambrose ordered him. "We're all gonna donate some blood to Mr. de Castro for an experiment he's doing. It's very important, and it could turn the tide in our war."
"Yes, sir." The soldier then ran out of the room to tell the others.
Ambrose then stood up and told Enrique, "I hope you have enough glasses and vials, because I have twenty-six men here including myself."
"Trust me," he assured him. "I have enough for all of them."
…
February 5, 1914
Kaigaku was leading a group of six slayers, among them being Zenitsu and Nezuko, as they walked through a town near Sendai. They had managed to arrive a day earlier than initially planned to assist Sanemi and Gyomei's reconnaissance team. As they walked up a rather steep road on a hill, Kaigaku told the group, "When we meet up with the others, we'll form a plan of attack there. Word from my crow says they identified the mansion they're keeping this girl, so we'll be able to strike at these fuckers either tonight or tomorrow night."
One of the slayers in the group asked Kaigaku, "Did they say how many demons there are?"
"They didn't get a specific number," Kaigaku replied. "But they estimate somewhere between fifteen and thirty of these bastards."
"Holy shit," Zenitsu replied to Kaigaku. "Fifteen to thirty?! What the fuck are we up against?!"
"Come on," Kaigaku then lightly chided him. "You've taken on similar numbers before, and besides, we got two Pillars and their Tsuguko already there. These guys are so fucked when we show up to that hiding place."
"To be fair," Nezuko pointed out. "Last time we did that, he almost sort of died."
"Yeah," Zenitsu agreed.
"Look, stop worrying about that shit already. We got business to take care of."
"He's got a point, Zenitsu-kun," replied another slayer.
"Fine, fine," Zenitsu admitted.
Yet another slayer, the youngest of the group, then asked Zenitsu and Nezuko, "What do you mean by that? How close did you guys get?"
Nezuko replied, "Well, uh…"
Zenitsu explained, "I mean… Nezuko-chan did think I was dead for a brief moment."
"Holy shit," the young slayer replied. "That bad?"
"Yeah," Nezuko nodded. "It's a miracle he's even here right now, actually." She then smiled and patted Zenitsu on his lower back, almost touching his rear end. "But I'm glad he's here in one piece."
Zenitsu blushed slightly and told her, "Your hand's a bit low, Nezuko-chan…"
"I know." The two then shared a brief laugh.
The younger slayer, confused, asked Zenitsu, "Wait, Zenitsu-senpai, what's going on with you and Nezuko-senpai?"
"Oh, well, uh," Zenitsu then tried to explain. "We, um… We're together."
"Together? What do you mean?"
"They're fucking, kid," Kaigaku then interjected. "That's what they mean."
Nezuko and Zenitsu both blushed, with the former saying, "Well, uh… Yes, we are, though I wouldn't say it like that."
The younger slayer asked, "You mean like my mom and dad?"
A still beet red Zenitsu replied, "Yeah, uh, something like that…"
Another slayer in the group then noticed something in the distance, telling the group, "Hey guys, what the Hell is that?"
Then, all of them heard a man in disheveled clothing up ahead call out to them in a panicked tone of voice. "Hey! Hey! Over here!"
Kaigaku held his arm out to stop the group as he asked the man sitting on the side of the road, "What is it? Is something wrong?"
"Help me!"
"What's going on?!"
The man then collapsed onto the ground while clutching his stomach in severe pain. "Agh, my stomach… The water…"
Kaigaku and Zenitsu then both noticed a spilled canteen of water nearby. Zenitsu asked the man as he ran over to him, "What's going on? What about the water? Is it about that canteen over there?"
"The water… I drank it and I…" The man then puked onto the ground, and what came out of his mouth was a mixture of food, water, and some blood. "Agh, fuck…"
Zenitsu asked the man, "Who gave you the water? What's wrong with it?"
"A foreigner… He… Oh God… Fuck… Oh no…" He then began to scream in pain in between pained coughs, spitting up blood and causing some to land on Zenitsu's haori. "Help me! Oh God, help me!"
Zenitsu asked the man again, "What's wrong with the water?!"
"It hurts! God, it fucking hurts! Help me!" The disheveled man's abdomen then suddenly burst open, instantly killing him and spilling what was left of his internal organs on the ground. Out from the wound came a torrent of water that tried to latch onto Zenitsu, who quickly retreated before it could grab a hold of him. It was clear based on the state of his wounds and his organs that the man had effectively been eaten alive from the inside of his body, causing him severe pain.
Kaigaku yelled out, "Holy fuck!"
Nezuko quickly jumped into action, slashing through the water as it tried to reach for her. Her attack managed to deflect it, though this merely sent it in the way of Kaigaku as Nezuko yelled, "Kaigaku-san, look out!"
"Shit," he yelled before he too deflected the water.
Another slayer in the group yelled, "What the fuck is that thing?!"
"It must be a Blood Demon Art," Zenitsu yelled back as he drew his sword. "But from who or where?!"
Kaigaku pointed at the canteen on the ground and yelled, "The canteen! Destroy the canteen!"
Nezuko yelled back, "On it!" She then raced over to strike the canteen and destroy it with her sword, but before she could, the water wrapped itself around her leg and pulled her to the ground. "Agh, shit! It got me!"
One of the slayers in the group immediately ran for her, yelling, "Nezuko-san!"
Kaigaku ordered him, "Go for the canteen! Nezuko can heal her wounds!" The slayer, who was the newest of the group and was only thirteen at the time, ignored the order and instead tried to battle the water himself, pulling it off of Nezuko. He swung at it several times, prompting Kaigaku to yell again, "FUCK THE WATER! GO FOR THE GOD DAMN CANTEEN TO KILL IT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"
The slayer again ignored his order, and this time, he paid the price for it. He declared as he tried to attack it with a breathing style, "Breath of Water, Second Form: Water Wheel!"
Kaigaku yelled, "STAY THE FUCK DOWN! STOP!"
Zenitsu similarly yelled, "NO, WAIT!"
He jumped into the air, but the water was faster, and within only a few seconds, it wrapped itself around the boy's neck. "No! Wait! Sto-" Before he had a chance to finish his final words, the water decapitated him, causing another person in the group to scream in fright.
Nezuko meanwhile managed to reach the canteen despite her right leg being severely bruised, driving her sword through it and destroying it. As soon as it shattered, the water disappeared. As she caught her breath and began to limp back over, she told Kaigaku, "I… I killed it."
Everyone else was silent as they walked over to the boy's body and severed head, his eyes still wide open in a state of panic from what the water had done to him prior to its destruction. His blood coated the ground and his uniform was ripped in several places. A heavily breathing Kaigaku was both frustrated at the slayer and at himself, yelling out, "Shit!" He then muttered under his breath another curse, "Shit…"
Zenitsu looked at the body of the dead slayer and said to himself, "What the fuck…"
Kaigaku then began yelling at the body as if the boy was still alive, pointing and telling him, "I TOLD YOU TO STAY THE FUCK DOWN AND GO FOR THE FUCKING CANTEEN! IF YOU LISTENED TO ME, YOU'D STILL BE FUCKING ALIVE RIGHT NOW, YOU STUPID FUCK!" It was clear that he was not so much being mean towards the deceased slayer, but instead felt grief at his death as well as regret. "Fuck! Agh… Fuck…"
Another slayer in the group asked Kaigaku after a few seconds of silence, "What are we gonna do with his body?"
"Okay, look," Kaigaku then told the group after taking a deep breath and clearing his mind. "We still have a mission to do. I want everyone to take a deep breath, and then we're all gonna do our jobs, because too many people depend on us moving forward for us to just stop right here. What we're gonna do is clean this shit up, take care of both of these bodies properly, and continue moving forward. We owe it to whoever this guy's family was as well as one of our own. After that, we're gonna find the fucker who did this and send his ass to Hell where he belongs."
"I got it," Nezuko then offered, raising her head. "I can wrap up the bodies."
Kaigaku asked her, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
Kaigaku then sighed and took off a backpack he was wearing, pulling out two large sheets from the bag that were given to the group to deal with dead bodies. "Here."
"Thanks." Nezuko then took the sheets and walked over, silently wrapping up the body of the slayer first and carefully placing his head on top of his chest. She then did the same for the disheveled man. She muttered under her breath in a mixture of muted grief, frustration, and empathy for the deceased, "I'm sorry…"
As the group all watched Nezuko perform this rather grim task, Kaigaku said to them, "She doesn't seem tempted at all."
"She's completely suppressed those desires," Zenitsu added.
Another slayer in the group said, "Man, that was… Holy shit. That was that kid's first fucking mission, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Kaigaku replied. "It was. Nezuko seems so emotionless about it."
"I guess when you've seen almost your entire family slaughtered by Muzan," Zenitsu pointed out. "It makes shit like this just a little bit easier to cope with. Either that, or we're all just a bunch of fucking weaklings."
"I'm gonna go with the family massacre thing," another slayer replied to him.
Yet another slayer, who was on the verge of crying, said to himself, "Fucking Hell, man… He was only thirteen… What the fuck…"
Nezuko then asked the group, "Someone give me a hand moving the older man. I can lift the boy." As another slayer ran over and picked up the tied-up sheet holding the disheveled man's body, Nezuko picked up the boy's body sheet and carried it on her back.
Kaigaku's crow then flew down to him and asked, "Sir, do you want me to send a message to Himejima-sama and Shinazugawa-sama about this?"
"Yes," he instructed the crow. "Tell them we're down one slayer and that we'll need a way to put these two people to rest."
"Understood, sir," replied the crow before it flew off.
Zenitsu asked his girlfriend as they all walked forward, "Hey, Nezuko-chan, are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," she assured him as she continued carrying the boy's headless body on her back. "I can lift heavy loads with ease, Zenitsu-san."
"Okay…" Zenitsu then noticed that a single tear was slowly making its way down the right side of her face, indicating that she was in fact deeply saddened by the young slayer's death, but was hiding it for the sake of the overall mission and the more specific goal of putting him to rest.
…
In a small hut located in the backyard of the corps safehouse in Sendai, the group of five remaining slayers plus Gyomei, Sanemi, Genya, Vèro, and the owners of the safehouse all gathered around as they sealed up the body of the young slayer who had been killed in a makeshift coffin. Once the coffin lid was placed, Nezuko and Zenitsu, both of whom still had some blood stains on their uniforms, carried a Japanese flag into the hut and carefully laid it on top of the coffin. Once it was placed and flattened out, Sanemi told the group, "We'll keep a guard with the body until the Kakushi come to take it. I want someone to watch him at all times, night and day, until then."
"Understood," Kaigaku replied with a bow.
"This boy gave his life in the service of a country ruled by a government that doesn't even acknowledge that we exist," Gyomei noted as he prayed in front of the coffin. "I pray that one day, us slayers will be recognized for what we've done for Japan. Even if that day never comes, though, we will continue to serve. Namu Amida Butsu."
Vèro whispered to herself a Christian prayer in French, saying as she held rosary beads between her clasped hands in prayer, "Au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint-Esprit. Amen. O mon Jésus, pardonne-nous nos péchés, préserve-nous du feu de l'enfer et conduis au ciel toutes les petites âmes, surtout celles qui ont le plus besoin de ta miséricorde. Amen."
Kaigaku then bowed before the coffin before telling the group, "Zenitsu, guard the body first."
"Got it," he replied as he then walked up to the coffin and stood beside it as everyone else left the hut. Once he was alone, he remained silent, watching over the fallen slayer and keeping him company.
As the rest of the group walked away, the innkeeper said to Sanemi and Gyomei, "It's so unfortunate what happened to that boy. I heard it was his first mission."
"It was," Sanemi replied to him. "He was only thirteen, too. It's sad." He then turned to Kaigaku and told him, "We'll have to delay any attacks against the Hoshino Mansion until tomorrow night at the earliest. I want us to be at full strength as best as we can, and we can't do that if we have someone guarding the boy's body."
"I agree," Kaigaku replied. "It'll give us some time to deal with what happened. Will we still be within that deadline the Oyakata-sama mentioned?"
"We should. Still, I'd like to attack as soon as possible just in case those bastards don't hold up their end of the deal."
…
Meanwhile, at the Hoshino Mansion, Enrique had collected blood samples from all the soldiers stationed there. Since he did not have Limited Sunlight Resistance, he stayed in the basement of the mansion, which had all of its windows boarded up, and kept all the samples down there with him. He was meticulously writing the names of each demon he had collected a sample from on each vial. As he finished the last vial, he said to himself in his native language, "Iyon ang huling vial. Babaguhin ko ang tide ng digmaang ito."
Once he set the last goal down, Calvin Hodgeson walked down the stairs and asked him, "Sir, are y'all done with the vials?"
"Correct," Enrique told him. "I'll be summoning a pathway to the Dimensional Infinity Fortress when night falls. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Hodgeson."
"Any time," Calvin replied. "Ya know, General Hill managed to get another kill today with that Blood Demon Art of his."
"He did?"
"Yep. One of the three canteens he had us leave out ended up in the hands of some old homeless guy."
"I must say," Enrique then noted regarding Ambrose's Blood Demon Art. "It's not often at all that an American demon has such a powerful Blood Demon Art. I'm surprised he isn't ranked higher in the Knights of the Moon."
"It's largely due to seniority," Calvin explained. "Both as demons and during our service for the Confederate cause all those years ago durin' the War of Nothern Aggression. Generals Stuart and Jackson earned their positions through their leadership skills, not so much their abilities as demons, for example."
"Seems like the Jackson Brothers have a different way of looking at things than Lord Muzan," Enrique pointed out. "Even so, he doesn't seem to mind."
"With the results we get, I can see why he likes us so much."
"Maybe so…" Enrique then began to pack the vials into a suitcase. "Well, in a few hours, I will be heading out. It has been a pleasure working with all of you."
"Same to you, sir."
…
Later that night, around the same time Enrique left, an oiran working in Sendai's red light district had just finished a session with a client and was dressing herself as he left the room. "Thank you for coming. I hope to see you again."
"Same to you," the man replied, clearly happy about what he had done with the young woman. "I told you I'm great at sex." He appeared to be in his forties and seemed confident in his abilities in bed.
Once the man was gone, the oiran sighed and said to herself, "He really sells himself too highly when it comes to sex. I've had virgins who were barely adults who've fucked me better than that." She then turned around and noticed that he left a small canteen of water inside the room, and on said canteen were unusual markings. "Huh, that's odd…" She then got up to grab the canteen.
In the hallway, the man was happily humming to himself when he suddenly heard a scream come from down the hall near the room he had just left. He turned around and immediately ran back, thinking the oiran he had just been with was in danger. "What the Hell was that?!"
When he burst into the room, the water from the canteen he had left behind had wrapped itself around the oiran's body. "Help me! It's attacking m-"
Before the oiran could finish her sentence, the water began to smother her, almost drowning her in a way as he stepped back in fear. "What the… What the fuck is going on?! What is that thing?!" The woman screamed through the water several times before passing out, being effectively drowned. The water then ripped her head clean off and sucked it into the canteen, spilling her blood all over the room and causing the man to scream and run away in fear.
Another oiran nearby yelled out as she ran out of her own room, "What the Hell is going on?!"
The man yelled as he ran down the hall in fear, "The water is attacking! It killed the girl I just saw!"
As several other workers at the brothel ran over to see what had happened, the other oiran yelled as she ran into the room, "Oh no! Junko! Junko's fucking dead!" The body of the dead oiran was sprawled out and covered in a mixture of loose water and blood, her head completely gone as blood poured from the canteen.
Another oiran at the brothel yelled, "What the Hell happened?! Oh my God, Junko!" Ambrose Powell Hill's cursed water had struck once again, and as with last time, it quickly disappeared from the canteen it had been stored in, leaving the witnesses extremely confused and absolutely stumped over what had transpired.
