Welcome to chapter 4! Took me a little longer to finish, but here we are! Today we will get a solid glimpse into the equipment Paul is going to be using in his Demon Slaying career! Though I have a feeling this will not be his final complete arsenal, as he might pick up more useful tools along the way.
Chapter 4: To equip a Demon Slayer.
Three days later…
After sending his letter, Paul had used the last couple of days to regain his strength. He made sure to eat plenty, and got out of bed to walk along the grounds of the mansion. The mansion´s serene environment got Paul in a more relaxed state, which made him reflect on his journey to Japan and all that had happened so far. Why was he here? Why did he not just follow Shinobu's advice and return to work for his uncle? It was something he couldn't yet give a clear answer for, even to himself. It just felt right somehow, like he was meant to take this path. Germany had nothing to offer him anymore at least, so regardless of where this journey would end he was happy to be far away from the troubles of his homeland.
Though even without a clear answer to his own question he found himself more motivated, using his determination to take up a daily exercise regimen reminiscent of his old army drills, making the most out of the free time he had. He also practiced his Japanese somewhat by occasionally talking to the group of girls who took care of the mansion when they brought him food, and they gradually seemed less intimidated by his tall stature, telling him more about the mansion and how the Demon Slayers worked as an organisation. From them he learned about the ranks within the Corps, the basics of how a Demon Slayer's training looked like and the theory behind the special Breathing techniques Shinobu had talked about earlier, and the equipment the average Slayer used. Paul kept the information well in his head, he'd need it for the coming months.
As he went to leave on the last day, he dressed himself in his uniform, slinging the rifle around his shoulder and saying his goodbyes to the girls, thanking them for their help and receiving a rucksack with food for the journey to his uncle. Before setting off towards Tokyo however, he went to look for Shinobu, finding her meditating in one of the mansion's rooms.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything…" Paul said, making her turn around, her eyes finding his. "Well, now you already have." She teased with a cheery expression as she stood up. "Since you seem all dressed up I assume you're leaving?" She asked as she walked up to him, Paul nodding in response. "Yes, I came to thank you again for rescuing me, I wouldn't be standing here without you." He said as he looked down at her. "And I also came to ask you something, for my ideas to work I'll need some of your poison, otherwi-" He wasn't done explaining before she interrupted him. "Absolutely not." She said as she shot him down with a smile. "However, to become an official Demon Slayer you need to take a final exam. If Kuwajima considers you fit to take the exam, have him write me a letter, and I'll reconsider it." She added. Paul stayed silent for a moment, but this was a fair compromise, so he nodded. "Alright, look forward to his letter then." He said with a small smirk. "Until we meet again." She replied with a smile, leaving Paul to set off to Tokyo, a map with instructions to Kuwajima's location in his rucksack.
The journey to Tokyo was fairly uneventful, mostly taking him through large open farmland, kilometer upon kilometer of rice paddies and small villages passing him as he steadily kept on walking. The undisturbed nature was incredibly calming to him, and just like at the Butterfly Mansion he found himself more relaxed than he thought he could be, also making him acutely aware of how much he had been on edge the last months. But even with the relative calm of the last couple of days it was hard for him to find true rest. Even in the Butterfly Mansion he had still slept uneasy, often waking up multiple times per evening due to nightmares. The caretakers of the Mansion still spooked him if they unexpectedly bumped into him, even when they were only small girls. It frustrated him, the constant feeling that he had to watch his back.
Since he could only read the bare minimum of the kanji on the signposts he often had to ask passersby if he was still going the right way, in which he often got met with somewhat surprised looks. He guessed most of them hadn't met many foreigners, much less so any foreigners speaking to them in Japanese. Still, the people were helpful, and being used to long marches he made steady progress. After a long day of walking he found himself on the large paved highway towards Tokyo, roughly another day's walk away from Tokyo if the people of the small town along the highway had to be believed. Deciding to stay the night here, he asked around and located a hatago, a small inn located beside the long paved road. After a small dinner he got himself comfortable, resting for the night on a simple Japanese mattress placed down on the tatami floor.
His night was quite restless like many others, though it might not have helped that he was quite unfamiliar with the more traditional method of sleeping, namely a simple mattress placed directly on the floor. Regardless, after a short breakfast consisting of the supplies he received at the Butterfly Mansion he continued on his way towards Tokyo, which he should be able to reach before day's end. And indeed as he kept walking the road began to grow busier and busier, the towns he was passing through growing larger and larger. Somewhere in the afternoon he began to enter Tokyo proper, so it was time to locate his uncle's house. During his tour of the embassy his uncle had told Paul where he lived, so now he had to find his way there. His unfamiliarity with many of the kanji on the street signs got him lost more than once, and the fact that he was carrying a rifle did make him avoid any obvious police patrols just to be sure, but eventually he found his way towards what he assumed to be the right house. Though still Japanese in it's architecture, as he peeked through the windows he could clearly see western-style furniture. He knocked on the door, and an older European woman opened the door, her thick blonde hair stuck up in a top knot.
"...Oh? Is that you Paul?" The woman said as she looked at him, curious but unsure. "Hello aunt Grethe." Paul said with a gentle smile, but he only got a scolding back as a response. "Oh it is you! Heinrich was scared stiff about you! He told me what happened, you just up and disappeared! And then he got that mysterious letter, and here you are showing up at our front door! You made the poor man sick with worry!" The woman huffed, before sighing a little.. "...But I'll let him know that you are here, come inside." She said as she let Paul in. Soon enough his uncle walked inside, lighting up at the sight of Paul, embracing him in a hug.
"Paulie my boy! How glad I am to see you!" The man said with a grin as he squeezed Paul tightly, even if Paul wasn't as eager for the embrace. "I'm so happy to see you are well… After what happed I….I feared for the worst." His uncle said with a worried expression. "Well, I'm alive and well." Paul said with a small chuckle as his uncle finally let go of him. "I heard from aunt Grethe you got my letter?" Paul asked.
"Oh yes I did, in a very curious way as well I might add." Heinrich said. "I was walking to my office at the embassy one morning, when suddenly a crow perched itself on the open window with a letter in its beak! It kept making noise until I snatched it from the beast's mouth, and then it just flew away." He explained, gesturing wildly in the air. "And as for the contents of your letter….we'll discuss that after dinner." His uncle said, with a far more serious expression, before quickly returning to his usual cheery demeanor. "But Grethe is almost done with her famous Sauerbraten, you're not going to say no to that right?"
So roughly 10 minutes later Paul sat down at the dinner table with his aunt and uncle, eating a dish he was surprisingly familiar with after all the Japanese food he had had these last days. His aunt did make a damn good Sauerbraten, the marinated beef tasted incredible especially with the gravy. Though he preferred to keep himself silent it was pretty much inevitable that his uncle would start asking questions, so he started to explain somewhat, through trying to keep the details as secretive as he could.
"Demons huh? Well what I saw you fight that night sure looked like a demon." His uncle said in between bites. "And you were rescued? We didn't see anyone by the time we returned. When you told me to get the minister out of there, that was the first thing I did, and when we returned there was nothing left, except for poor Hanagezawa…" Heinrich said, his voice a little more quiet. "I guess with how the demon apparently dissolved after dying that explains why there was nothing to be found of it anymore." He added. "Though the police initially suspected you to be the killer, with your disappearance and all. But my testimony, and the fact his wounds looked…inhuman in origin, made them not try to pursue any leads that could lead to you for now at least, though obviously tales of monsters don't make for the most convincing arguments to the police."
His aunt scoffed, looking at her husband in disbelief. "Even if both you and Paul apparently have seen the same, don't you think this whole demon-thing doesn't sound ridiculous?" She said, looking him in the eyes. "I know what I saw, I might be aging but I'm not some sort of delirious old man." His uncle said as he looked at her. "Whatever that thing was, it was real, and it definitely wasn't human." He added. Paul looked down at his food in silence for a moment, before looking at his aunt. "As mad as this all sounds, I know what I saw. A man ended up dying because I was too late to do anything about it." He said, his aunt staying silent. "I should have done something..." Paul sighed in frustration.
"But Paulie… It wasn't your job to do something about it." His uncle commented. "You told me yourself, there are people who kill these creatures for a job, and you're not one of them." He said with a frustrated expression. "Why are you planning on joining them? You've already fought three years in the trenches, and now you're going to throw yourself into harm's way yet again?" His uncle said, with Paul looking at him. "After what I saw I can't just sit back and do nothing uncle!" Paul argued.
"But it's not your role to do anything Paul! You should be happy and proud to have serviced your country, and that you now have the opportunity to live a quiet life!" Heinrich added, raising his voice before being interrupted as Paul's icy gaze met his, as the tension in the room suddenly boiled over.
"Proud?" Paul said, an expression of disbelief on his face as he stared at his uncle. "I should be proud?" He repeated, a sarcastic laugh escaping Paul's mouth. "Dear uncle, I think that spending your time during the war in Japan with your diplomatic immunity may have made you forget what exactly happened back in the homeland…" He continued as anger grew on his face. "Tell me, should I be proud of the fact that I pushed the face of a boy into the wet trench mud, watching him choke and struggle until he drowned in the sludge?" Paul asked his uncle, his eyes watering up. "Should I be proud that I stuck my bayonet in an old man's chest, making him choke on his own blood as he looked at me with tears in his eyes?!" He continued, raising his voice. "Should I be fucking proud to have executed my own damn countrymen for desertion?! Or maybe of the fact I helped burn down an innocent Belgian village, huh?!" He practically yelled at his uncle, who was completely silent at this point, his aunt looking at him afraid.
A couple of quiet tears rolled down Paul's face as he got silent again. Sighing out, he looked up at his uncle with a somber expression. "Uncle, how old was I when you saw me last, fifteen? I am almost twenty-two now, I have changed." Paul said. "Believe me, nothing I have done in the last few years has made me proud…" He added softly. "And all I know is that even if what I'm going to do doesn't make me any less proud of myself, I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing nothing of importance while I constantly get haunted by the past. I hope you understand uncle, I can't just sit back after what I saw, I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I did." He added.
After a moment of silence his uncle nodded. "I think I understand…" Heinrich responded softly, his usual cheery attitude absent. "While you are always welcome under my employment, I do respect your decision Paulie." He said with a gentle smile, looking Paul in the face. He sighed a little. "I did already expect you to not be dissuaded by me, you were always pretty stubborn. I did want to try at least one time though." He said with a chuckle in an attempt to lighten the mood. Paul smiled softly at him, drying the couple of tears on his cheek. "I do hope that means you decided to buy the supplies I asked for." He asked his uncle, to which Heinrich sighed. "Yes, I did…Much to your aunt's dismay." His uncle answered, to which his aunt scoffed again. "I can't understand you went through all that effort to buy him these weapons!" She said angrily. "As much as I had hoped to convince him to stay, I know what I saw, like I said." His uncle said to her as he stood up, gesturing to Paul to do the same. "I wasn't going to let you go without making sure you could protect yourself, follow me." Heinrich said as he looked at Paul.
His uncle led him to the large shed in the backyard, opening up the door to reveal a variety of items on a table and a large backpack. Even in the dark it was easy to see the supplies in question were guns and ammunition. "You made some pretty specific requests, but I was able to get everything." His uncle said as Paul approached the table, inspecting the supplies. "Ah, and I was able to retrieve your pistol from your suitcase at the embassy like you wrote in your letter, it's over there." Heinrich said as he pointed towards the Luger, which Paul picked up. "Thank you uncle, I appreciate it." Paul said as he grabbed the holster also on the table, putting it on and holstering the pistol. He inspected the ammunition his uncle had bought, which was indeed the correct kind, hollow-point expanding bullets to be precise. There was both plenty of ammo for his pistol and rifle present, and he carefully loaded it into the backpack before pointing his attention to the two other firearms on the table.
"I don't exactly understand why you would need two of these, and such an older model as well, didn't the Americans use some sort of pump-action model in the war?" His uncle asked as Paul picked up both the firearms, an identical pair of short-barreled Winchester 1887 lever-action shotguns. "I learned from an American prisoner we took that apparently you can use lever-action weapons with one hand once you modify the loop of the lever-action to make it bigger." Paul commented as he aimed one of the shotguns with one hand, which was somewhat heavy, but not undoable. "You should be able to spin the gun around in one hand, and cock it just like that." He explained, his uncle scratching his chin in confusion as Paul stuffed both the guns in the large backpack. There was plenty of buckshot ammunition, as well as supplies to fashion his own brass shells, including powder, wads and shot, which was exactly what Paul had asked for. Though he never finished his engineering degree, being the son of a weapons manufacturer meant he had some technical knowledge of firearms and their munitions.
Putting the last supplies in the backpack, he turned back to his uncle. "Thank you uncle, I won't forget this, I promise." He said as he gave his uncle a quick hug, to Heinrich's surprise. "Will you at least stay the night before you head off to wherever you're planning on going? Your aunt prepared the guest room…" Heinrich asked, to which Paul nodded. He could rest for one more night, but now fully equipped, it was time for him to start his journey in earnest.