Susamaru was bored. She was currently laying in the grass outside the Butterfly Mansion trying not to fall asleep from the lack of things to do. It had been three days since her "punishment" and she had made a full recovery. Unfortunately, her friends were nowhere near recovered from their injuries. Tanjiro still had a broken jaw, Inosuke's throat was still injured and Zenitsu's arms were still stubby. Nezuko had not woken up since she fell asleep that first night. Murata was nowhere to be seen since he was too afraid of the Hashira, after giving his report to them, to ever step foot near the mansion and Shinobu was really busy attending to all the injured slayers who fought on Mt. Natagumo. As a result, Susamaru's list of friends was exhausted and she was very bad at entertaining herself. Even when she was still eating people she would often play with her "food" so that she wouldn't bore herself all night. Of course now she couldn't do that so she was at a loss. She tried talking to the Kakushi and the young girls who attended the mansion; however, they were far too afraid of her to hold a conversation for more than two seconds. Even Aoi, the normally strong and stern attendant to her friends, was too wary of Susamaru for the demon to even make small talk with her. Then there was Kanao… Susamaru had no idea what was up with that girl but she never spoke and always had a vacant expression on her face. Trying to talk to her was like speaking to a wall… and even then Susamaru might expect some walls to cause an echo which would have been more interaction than the girl ever offered.

The temari demon sighed as she tried to wrack her brain for some way to shake her boredom; however, nothing came to mind and she became increasingly frustrated that there was no one to play with! Just as she was about to start throwing a tantrum in the yard, the door to the mansion slid open and Shinobu stepped outside. She needed a bit of fresh air after working on her patients for so long and she also wanted to make sure Susamaru wasn't getting into trouble after being left unattended for several hours.

"Hello there, Susamaru," Shinobu greeted.

"Hi, Shinobu, what's going on?" Susamaru replied.

"Oh, I just finished checking up on everyone and decided to head outside for a bit. How are you feeling? It certainly seems like you are recovered."

"Yup! Everything's fine with me… just wish I had someone to hang out with," Susamaru lamented.

"Is that all? Well, I do have a little bit of time to spare if you'd like to do something," Shinobu offered.

"Really?!"

"Yes, what is it that you like to do for fun?"

"Let's see… I enjoy board games, sports and… any competitive game I guess."

"I see… well I'm not really one for board games myself," Shinobu said as she had a flashback to when her sister used to beat her all the time in every game they played. While she loved her sister dearly and wished she had spent even more time with her before she passed… she admitted to herself that game nights were not the fondest memories she shared with her late sister. Especially since Kanae always went easy on Kanao and not her. Luckily, her sisters and her never really played sports together so she was curious about them. "How about some kind of sport then?"

"Great! How about football?" Susamaru suggest. She remembered that Shinobu didn't have much upper body strength, hence why she couldn't decapitate demons; however, she was really fast and thus likely had enough leg strength to play.

"Sure! Let's try that!" Shinobu said excitedly.

It was at that moment that the door to the mansion came crashing down. Neither the human, nor demon present were startled by this; however, both were curious as to why the door would suddenly collapse. The mystery was short-lived though, as standing where the door was once attached to the wall was Nezuko. She had simply kicked the door off its track with the grace of a bear. She had heard people speaking outside and wanted to see what they were doing.

"Nezuko! It's not polite to kick down doors! Especially doors that belong to the person letting you stay in her home," Shinobu said with a vein popping out of her forehead. Nezuko simply stared at her with a blank stare; clearly not comprehending what Shinobu had said to her. Shinobu couldn't help but be a little annoyed with the young demon girl but she tried not to express such things on the outside. Instead she turned to Susamaru to ask, "Susamaru, do you know a way for Nezuko to understand what I'm saying?"

"Sorry to say that I don't… her comprehension is really low for a demon. I don't think any of us really know why," Susamaru replied as she shrugged her shoulders.

Shinbo just sighed at Susamaru's response. She decided it wasn't worth getting frustrated over and would have someone fix the door in the morning. Once she released her anger, she regained her cheery attitude and asked Nezuko if she'd like to join them.

"Mmmmhmmm!" Nezuko sounded in affirmative.

Susamaru was happy that she finally had people to play with again; however, she realized that they couldn't exactly play three way football and wondered what they were going to do about such a problem. Shinobu thought of that as well and excused herself for a few minutes so that she could grab Kanao so that it could be a two on two game. Once the humans returned, it was decided the match would be to five goals and the teams would make it so that this would be the human vs demon match of the century! After that, the four girls arranged the mansion's yard into a makeshift field and from there the game could commence!

"Go, Nezuko!" Susamaru shouted as she tossed her temari in bounds. From there Nezuko began kicking the ball as she ran along with it towards the humans' goal. She was fast; however, Shinobu was faster and quickly intercepted her and tried to kick the ball away. Nezuko's straightforward thinking didn't allow her to comprehend Shinobu's fast footwork and the temari was quickly snatched by the Insect Hashira. Shinobu then had a completely open field to run with the ball until she reached the demons' goal. Once there, she had to take a shot at the goal, which was being guarded by Susamaru. The temari demon thought she wouldn't have too much trouble blocking Shinobu's shot but she was very wrong as the Hashira quickly scored on her and began happily skipping back to Kanao to celebrate. Unfortunately, Kanao was as silent as ever despite being happy for her adopted sister on the inside.

After their humiliating performance for the first goal, Susamaru pulled Nezuko aside to whisper to her their next plan. This time, Nezuko would be the goalie and Susamaru would be on the field. Nezuko was able to understand Susamaru's words since the concept was simple so she took her new position quickly while Susamaru placed herself on the field. This time, Shinobu started with the ball and began kicking it towards the other end of the field; however, Susamaru had a plan this time and extended her extra arms out to hold them out near Shinbo to distract the other woman as her feat went to work on kicking the ball out from under her. Susamaru's strategy worked and she quickly stole the ball and ran it towards the goal, outstretching her arms to prevent Shinobu from getting close enough to steal it back. Once she was close enough, Susamaru shot the ball as hard as she could at the goal. Kanao just stood there and allowed the ball to sail past her and impact the wall surrounding the yard. Susamaru would have celebrated but she felt like she was simply allowed to score by the young slayer and instead was a bit miffed. The truth; however, was that Kanao was wracked with indecision on what to do and froze as the ball flew towards her. Shinobu noticed this and decided to switch positions with her little sister so that her sister could focus on one thing; offense.

After the teams' positions were more solidified, the match became much more even with Nezuko and Shinobu both proving to be competent goalies, while Susamaru and Kanao remained the shooters. Kanao was able to focus on the ball and thus didn't have to decide between chasing or blocking it and Nezuko's straightforward mentality was much more suited to simple blocking than the complex footwork required to take the ball to the goal. With that, everyone started having much more fun and the match was close with the end score being five to four with the demons taking home the win only because the humans began to feel a bit winded towards the last round of the game. Still, Shinobu smiled a genuine smile for once as she had legitimate fun playing with her new friends and sister, who also enjoyed her time with the others. Nezuko made happy noises and waved her arms around after being told she and Susamaru won and Susamaru had a huge grin from winning and spending time with friends. Still, the one thing that kept bothering the black and orange haired demon was Kanao; the girl still never spoke during the entire game. In fact she made basically zero noise the whole time and that was very strange. She decided to ask Shinobu what that was all about after their game ended and Kanao and Nezuko moved on to do other things.

"Hey Shinbo, do you mind if I ask you a question about Kanao?"

"I don't mind at all, what is it that you'd like to know?"

"Why does she never talk to anyone? She doesn't seem like she even speaks to you very often."

"Oh… that. Yes, well…" Shinobu said before detailing Kanao's past as a poor abused girl and how that pretty much caused her to become emotionally detached from everything. Susamaru found the tale to be quite upsetting and after Shinobu finished speaking, Susamaru resolved to get the girl to speak to her or at least show some genuine emotion.

After night had turned to day, Susamaru retreated into the dark ward of the Butterfly mansion to scheme and plan different ways to get Kanao to open up a bit. She was having difficulty coming up with something until she heard Aoi muttering to herself in the halls. She was complaining about Zenitsu not taking his medicine and Inosuke being rather rude to her and everyone else all the time and that gave Susamaru a "delightful" idea. With her idea in mind, she quickly walked up to Tanjiro's bed to ask him for a favor.

"Hey, Tanjiro can I ask you for something?"

"Sure Susa! What do you need? I'd be happy to help if I can," Tanjiro replied with the same kindness he always had.

"I'd like to borrow some money so I can go into town tonight to get something," Susamaru said as she pleaded with here eyes as wide as she could make them.

"Wait Susa… you can't go into town by yourself! The other slayers don't trust you enough to let you out of the mansion yet!"

"I know! I won't be going alone! I'm going to ask Kanao to take me!"

"Oh, that's a relief. I thought you were going to try sneaking out…" Tanjiro said with sigh. He knew how bored she had been getting since she'd been stuck in the mansion and he was worried she would do something rash. Of course, he had no idea she actually was going to do something rather rash… it just wasn't what he thought it was going to be. With his worries put to rest he only had two remaining questions for her, "alright then, how much? And… borrow? How would you ever pay me back?"

"Oh… I didn't actually think about that… I always used to just steal money if I needed it," Susamaru replied sheepishly.

"Susa!"

"What?! That was NOT the worst thing I used to do… obviously…"

"I know but that doesn't make it better!"

"I don't anymore! That's why I'm asking you instead of just taking some!"

"Well… I guess that's true."

"See? Progress! Anyway… I guess I'm actually asking you if I can just have some money then. I think I only need about 200 yen?"

"Oh that's all? I thought you were going to ask for a lot more based on how you said your question. Sure! That's no problem at all!"

"Thanks Tanjiro! If I ever think of a way to repay you I will!"

"You don't have to; it really is no trouble," Tanjiro said as he fetched some coins out of his dresser for her. "Besides, I still owe you for saving Nezuko and I from Rui. This won't even come close to paying for that debt."

"You don't owe me anything! You saved me first, you goof," Susamaru replied as she accepted his coins. "We'll just call it even but I would have done it a thousand times over anyway because of who you are."

"That's very kind of you Susa," Tanjiro said with his trademark gentle smile. He was really glad he decided to save her. She had ended up becoming one of his very closest friends and he knew that deep down she was good person who had been buried under a mountain of evil. All he had to do was move that mountain and for him, moving mountains for anyone had never been a burden. Every time someone in his village had asked him for some help, he had always been glad to do so. Their smiles were the greatest reward in the world and Susamaru's were even better because they had grown so close.

Susamaru saw that Tanjiro was starting to get lost in his thoughts and so she decided to thank him once again before excusing herself so she could leave him to them. After that, she left the room and spoke to Shinobu about her plans to take Kanao into town. She wanted to make sure the Insect pillar was alright with that and while Shinobu was a bit worried about a demon running around town, she did trust Kanao to stop her if anything were to happen and Susamaru had proven she was trustworthy herself so the Pillar decided to allow their little trip. Susamaru was very pleased with this news and as night drew closer, she searched for Kanao to explain that they were going into town.

Kanao was very confused about the demon's actions at this point. Why would she want to go anywhere with someone like the young Tsuguko? Still, Kanao decided to flip her trusty coin to decide whether or not she should go. Now it was Susamaru's turn to be confused as she watched Kanao flip the coin high into the air after which, the young slayer checked the result and nodded her head in confirmation of their trip. Later that night, the pair ventured into the town marketplace so Susamaru could find what she was looking for. Kanao still had no idea what they were even doing there, as Susamaru had never explained what they were going to purchase; however, she couldn't decide whether or not she wanted to ask the strange demon what was going on and there wasn't a spot for her to flip her coin in the busy streets without the risk of losing the precious piece of metal. Luckily, Susamaru found what she was looking for after about half an hour of searching. She bought one large firework and several sets of fire crackers. Kanao was familiar with these items but still didn't understand why Susamaru was so eager to buy them; however, their purpose became very apparent once the two returned to the mansion.

Once they had returned to Kanao's home, Susamaru snuck into the recovery ward and gestured for Kanao to wait outside. Inside the ward, Tanjiro, Inosuke and Zenitsu were all sleeping peacefully while Aoi watched over them. Susamaru snuck up to the female attendant and placed a hand over her mouth so she wouldn't scream. She then whispered into her ear.

"Shhhh! Don't worry, everything's okay. I just want you step outside the room with Kanao for a few minutes," Susamaru said. Aoi was too afraid to really argue as she normally would have and quickly obeyed Susamaru's instructions. The demon then proceeded to wake up Nezuko and Tanjiro so she could have them leave the room as well. From there she set about her plans. She laid firecrackers underneath Zenitsu and Inosuke's beds with long fuses attached to them that she gently laid across the ground as she made her way back to the room's entrance. Once she was there, she began tying her remaining firecrackers to the larger firework rocket while everyone else just looked at her baffled.

"Susa? What are you doing?" Tanjiro said as he did not like where this was going.

"Shhh! Just watch," Susamaru said. She then turned to Nezuko and asked her in a sing-song voice, "Nezuko, would you help me light this firework?" Nezuko happily used her blood demon art to set the fuses Susamaru held in front of her ablaze. From there, the chain reaction Susamaru had set up began to unfold as firstly, the firecrackers under the two sleeping slayers' beds went off violently jostling them from their slumber. Then, Susamaru released the larger firework into the room which flew around in circles around the two panicking slayers until it finally exploded into a burst of rainbow. This caused, Zenitsu and Inosuke to duck under the same bed together and they held each other tightly as they waited for all the noise to die down. From the hallway, the observing group had very different reactions than the two frightened slayers.

Susamaru and Aoi were howling with laughter while Nezuko slapped the ground in mirth. Tanjiro was upset that his friend would play such a cruel joke on his other friends and Kanao just stared for a bit.

"Susa! That was very mean!" Tanjiro yelled.

"No it wasn't, they deserved that," Aoi said with tears in her eyes from laughing.

"No they didn't! And… Nezuko! You shouldn't be encouraging this!" Tanjiro lamented. "Kanao, you don't think this is funny too do you?" Tanjiro said as he turned to the young woman. All the laughter in the hall came to a screeching halt as everyone waited for Kanao to reply. In that time, Shinobu burst into the room with an angry expression on her face. She wasn't even trying to hide how upset she was this time as she was pissed that someone would set off an explosion in her house!

"Who did that?! I want to know this instant!" Shinobu yelled at the group, all of whom pointed to Susamaru. Even Susamaru, pointed a finger at herself as she pleaded guilty to her crime. "Susamaru?! How dar-" Shinobu was about to start shrieking at the ungrateful demon until she heard a soft laughter come from behind her. She then turned around and saw Kanao chuckling. She chuckled and giggled until she had to start holding her sides as laughter fully gripped her. She even had to kneel from her fit it was so strong. Shinobu stared at her in awe. She had never seen Kanao laugh, ever! Not once! It was a sight she thought she'd never witness and it brought tears to her eyes. "Kanao…"

"Success!" Susamaru yelled from the other side of the hallway.

"What? Susamaru? This was all to… make Kanao… laugh?" Shinobu asked. Tanjiro also looked towards Susamaru in shock that all of that was just to make someone else laugh and not herself.

"Yup! Scaring the pants off of people always works!" Susamaru said as she held a thumbs up.

Immediately, all of Shinobu's anger evaporated and she was just left feeling extremely touched that Susamaru would go to such lengths just to get her little sister to come out of her shell a little. Even Inosuke and Zenitsu, who had come over to start yelling at her as well, felt that the end result was worth it. Kanao's laugh was a beautiful sight to all and it made everyone feel better. Eventually, everyone managed to calm down and most headed back to bed; however, Shinobu and Kanao stayed with Susamaru in the hallway for a moment. Susamaru was going to ask what Shinobu wanted before she was cut off by Shinobu giving her a big hug.

"Thank you. You have no idea how much her laughing means to both of us," Shinobu said as she embraced her new friend. Not only was her older sister's dream of befriending demons becoming true but also her dream of Kanao finally being saved from her wretched past even if the process was only just beginning. Shinobu continued to hug Susamaru for a while, as the latter reciprocated the embrace. Susamaru was just glad she was finally able to cause people joy instead of misery. It was moments like this that helped her think of herself a little less like a monster and a little more as a person. Eventually, Shinobu released Susamaru and wiped her tears away before regaining a stern expression on her face, "but if you ever light fireworks inside my house again, that punishment I gave you before will have felt like a pinprick compared to what I'll do to you!"

"Yes ma'am!" Susamaru said as she was shocked by Shinobu's sudden change in attitude. She didn't have to worry long; however, as Kanao burst into another laughing fit at their display. It seemed as though she hadn't fully recovered from her earlier fit and the scene before her reignited the embers of laughter that were still burning within her. Upon hearing her laugh once more, Shinobu and Susamaru both started laughing as well and Susamaru hoped deep within her soul that she and all her friends could continue to share many laughs like this ahead.