Mr. Demon Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba SI)

I couldn't breathe.

It had to be a sick joke.

I died. I remembered dying. And now I was alive, only to gain enough awareness to know that I was dying again.

My incapability of drawing breath wasn't the only thing killing me. I was starving, the hunger pangs were horrendously unnatural, as if every part of my body is screaming at me to devour something I didn't even understand. This entire body was being pressed down upon by an invisible pressure. The pain was-

-my eyes shot up. At least, it felt like an attempt to do so was made.

Did I pass out? Did I just died? It felt as if my consciousness had just left for a moment before it decided that it went the wrong way and made a big U-turn.

I still couldn't breath, I was still being crushed, yet I still lived. And I was still dying all over again.

Again and again, I lost count of how many times I fell into a state of unconsciousness, woke up in the same circumstances and faced death once again.

I just can't die. The hunger was eating away at my body, and at times, it felt like my mind was being eaten piece by piece.

What kind of hell is this?

Well, apparently, the boring kind. Slowly, but surely, the pain lessened and I was able to stay alive longer. The time it took for me to die increased which each "death", and it occured to me that I this buried body of mine was getting stronger every time I "slept".

The hunger was starting to be tolerable as well. It was still there, but I learned to ignore it's incomprehensible calls for me to "feed".

Yeah, sure, what was I going to eat? Dirt and stones?

Mobility still eluded me, but my senses began to sharpen, as I felt the conditions of this prison of earth more keenly. There were times when the earth was hotter, when it was cooler, when I could feel some dampness as a result of what was most probably rainfall from above… eventually, I could even hear beyond the solid matter surrounding me.

By the time I had the strength to struggle, to attempt to dig my way out, I was already capable of "seeing" without seeing. My eyes were unneeded for me to sense the density of the earth and stones that made up my grave.

It helped me "push" my way out of this burial site, eventually, I finally emerged from the earth.

Opening my eyes for the first time in god knows how long, I forced the hardened dirt out of my eyes to take in my surroundings properly.

The bright full moon had never looked so beautiful in my eyes.

"Ahh… what a beautiful… night…"

My hoarse voice echoed through the empty forest, I reached out as if to grasp the moon with my hands, and only noticed my decrepit wrinkled hand after basking in the moonlight for an unknowable amount of time.

"What… is this…"

I was kind of expecting to be a zombie that was late to the apocalypse.

However, my skin simply looked like that of an old man's, albeit a dirt-covered one.

Once I tore my attention away from the moon and my body, I sensed a tall stone to my side, that contained an engraving that looked like a name.

Isshin. Flashes of memories, thoughts, sensations… this body was Isshin's body, an ordinary old man that lived to die of old age, unlike so many of his other Japanese citizens in this uncultured times.

At least, until some stranger walked past him, pierced his skin with… a sharp fingernail?

I had the impression that he still died due to his advanced years, before he was buried and I came into the picture, carrying whatever change was meant to happen to his body when that mysterious event had occurred.

I would have to investigate that. The old man had lived a full life, as such, I wouldn't concern myself with his non-existent wishes. Instead, I had to focus on discovering what I am, what are my limits, and what should I do with this mysterious "gift"... somehow, I felt the answer to the third question was "kill the guy that made you this way".

That made a whole lot of sense… considering what happened in games like "Bloodborne" and other stories where a human character was altered to have super powers by a mysterious character with unknown motives.

Crawling out of my hole was easier than I thought. Running came naturally, as if I hadn't spent months, or even years, like a tiny worm digging its way through the ground.

"I am vengeance! I am the night! I am Batman!"

I always wanted to say that.

Huh, why am I facing the ground?

"Gah!"

Ah, I tripped.

I hope no one was around to see it.

In that moment of clarity, I managed to regain control of my heightened senses and took notice of something that smelled utterly delicious.

No! My mind screamed at me!

I slammed my fist onto my knee, just managing to stop myself from running straight at the source of the scent.

I highly doubted that any sort of instinct that yells "kill and devour" was a sign that these gifts of mine were granted by some benevolent source. Of course, like all powers, it is how you used them that counts, and I would be damned if I used a power granted by an "evil" entity to do exactly as such an entity intended.

While I would like to think of myself as a kind and forgiving person, as an imperfect human, I had my moments of petty spite. And quite frankly, I had the oddest feeling that whoever did this to me, to this old man, seriously deserved every bit of my spite, be it petty or truly hateful kind.

"Focus… clear out the ambient noise…" I recalled what I had learnt as my time as a part-time corpse, drowning out the environmental sounds to focus on different "types" of sounds.

"-Mama!" "Enma, you must flee-" "Ahh, I love it when my dinner gets some exercise-"

Okay, I watched enough anime, read enough stories and played enough games to recognized such a cliche scene right away.

I didn't need to think about the specific details. Now as the time for action.

My legs pushed me forward at speeds that far surpassed what an Olympic runner would be capable of, beyond the limits of humanity. My body reflexively darted around the trees that were in my way, I took the shortest path to where the voices originated form.

Quickly identifying the three bodies, I immediately embraced my racist side and attacked the obviously non-human individual!

"Now fo- uooooorh!"

The "thing's" head was torn off its neck with that one punch. Okay, super strength is most definitely a "yes" in my checklist.

"Run! Get help!" My frantic waving and gesturing seemed to scare the child and her mother, who was bleeding slightly from her palm, and was apparently the source of that delectable nectar I smelt… focus!

"YoooOOOUUU! HOW DARE YOU! This is my hunting ground! Find your own meals you filthy dem-"

I was already on the move and punched the monster's regenerating head off again. This time, I started stomping on his body, crushing parts of its limbs, then kicked them far apart from the largest source of flesh.

Talking is not a free action.

It started screaming something about me being a "traitor" and all sorts of things, but I kept finding ways to take advantage of its surprisingly fast (but not fast enough) regeneration, and continued to brutalized its bodies in more creative and gruesome ways.

Tearing its bones and flesh out of its chest with my own hands, grinding its regenerating skull into its own lungs to shut it up, grinding its exposed nerve endings at the coarse tree barks… I tried everything, and apparently, it was kinda working.

Its regeneration began to slow down, its resistance was becoming weaker, I could hear it begging for death and for me to just "let the sun end me".

Normally, I would have thought it was just a ploy, but considering its rather demonic looking features, I'd like to think that the sun would act as the creature's "kryptonite factor".

Upon inspection, dawn seemed to be imminent. I threw bits and pieces of its body into an area that would be exposed to sunlight, and made sure there was no shade that it could hide in by uprooting the nearby trees down and piling it up in another area.

After squishing the pile of flesh a bit more for good measure, I figured that the monster's half-finished words likely meant that I was of the same 'species' as it was, and carefully hid myself behind the wall of uprooted trees.

Sure enough, the monster disintegrated in the sunlight like a vampire instead of sparkling.

As part of an experiment, I carefully reached out with my finger... oh fuck! FUCK! IT BURNS!

The tip of my finger being exposed to sunlight resulted in excruciating pain. I have no doubt that I would have died if I decided to get some Vitamin D.

Okay then. It turns out that I died and was reincarnated in another world as a monster!

"How unexpected!" It was almost as unexpected as the main characters in Kingdom Hearts getting duped by Xehanort.

"... Shit. Time to start digging."

I wasn't going to survive the afternoon sun with this kind of protection. Ah well, back to crawling like a worm I guess…

"T-there he is!"

Huh? Oh, it's the woman from before!

Oh crap. She has guards with her.

This is the part where I get killed by humans despite my good deeds because they see me as a monster, isn't it?

If I was an edgier character then I would be angsting about being 'betrayed' and 'misunderstood' before I slaughtered every single one of them, and not just the men, but the woman too!

"H-here!"

And then I had a blanket tossed right in front of me.

"Um… I heard rumors that sunlight is harmful to demons… so you need to cover yourself!"

Eh? Eeeh? EHHHHH!?

My shitty Isekai story's immersive world was just broken by someone actually using their brains!

I looked up and down, between the woman with an expectant face and the rather thick blanket on the ground. The guards surrounding me looked wary and had some spears pointed at me, but they made no move to attack me.

"...Oh. If that's the case… then I will accept this gift. Thank you."

As I was obviously in Japan or its fantasy equivalent, I performed a respectful bow and sincerely thanked the woman for the gift. Giving her a bright sincere smile as thanks for her kindness and intelligence... in not provoking the obviously super strong monster out of typical human fear.

Everyone seemed shocked by the fact that I spoke and smiled in such a way. Is it so surprising?

"Please do not lower your head. If I do not repay my… e-eeep!"

"Huh?"

"Um, could you cover yourself now? Especially your lower body."

She covered her eyes with her hands.

I looked down.

"Oh."

No wonder it was so breezy.

I was butt naked!

I sure hope that this doesn't result in me developing some exhibitionist streak.

They tossed my another blanket after I only managed to cover the lower half of my body.

"Ooookay then. I am all covered up. Well, once again, thank you for your understanding and I will see you all-"

"-why are you walking that way?"

"What?"

"My home is that way."

I was then reluctantly "guided" to her home by some equally reluctant guards who were pointing their metal sticks at me as I walked alongside the lady.

Somehow, despite being some sort of demon, I ended up getting a job at the Ashina household as a special bodyguard working the night shift.