February 25, 1914

The funerals for Junpei, Yuta, and Hikaru were solemn affairs. As the procession for both of them slowly marched through the town that the Mochizuki family had called their home for so long, throngs of mourners took to the streets. Ahead of the coffins were the Mochizuki family themselves, along with Kaigaku, Nezuko, Zenitsu, Genya, Vèro, and Chiyo, who had all volunteered to help guard the procession. Of course, only half of those six slayers knew the truth about what had transpired on the 22nd of February.

As the procession continued on, Emi was crying and holding onto Kaigaku for comfort, causing him to mildly blush. "I can't believe they're gone," she sobbed to him. "Who would do such a thing to them?!"

"A man with no sense of honor or morals," Kaigaku replied to her as he continued to walk. He thought to himself, "…Which is a far more apt description of her uncle. I just wish I could have done this without causing her so much pain."

While the procession continued on, Chiyo looked at Kaigaku and Emi with a hint of jealousy in her remaining eye. Indeed, as some had suspected, she had longed for him ever since the two met as students of the former Thunder Pillar Jigoro Kuwajima, but she knew that he would never see her in that way. "He's been getting closer and closer to her by the day," she thought to herself. "It pains me to see it. I want him to be happy, but I know that perhaps… Perhaps he doesn't even truly see the count's daughter in that way. Perhaps he only sees her as being useful in gaining more power."

…

February 27, 1914

Having returned home, Zenitsu and Nezuko, the latter of whom by now had begun to live with the former full-time, were still shaken by what had happened the night Junpei and his son were killed. "I still can't believe I ended up killing his son," Zenitsu told Nezuko as the two ate breakfast together, with Zenitsu eating a traditional Japanese breakfast and Nezuko eating part of a wild boar she had hunted and killed the night before. "I'm never gonna forget that night."

"You and me both," she replied as she ate a chunk of meat with a small knife she had used to cut up the boar the night before.

"You… You don't judge me for that, right?"

Nezuko wiped her mouth with a cloth and assured her boyfriend, "No. I know you, Zenitsu-san. I know you didn't mean to kill the boy. If you did, you wouldn't be so remorseful, would you?"

Zenitsu paused, thinking about what Nezuko had said to him. "I…"

"What is it?"

"I'm surprised," he admitted. "I thought that once I told you, we'd be finished as a couple. Honestly, I'm not so sure I'd be as forgiving in your position, Nezuko." He then sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Damn it, I really fucked this whole thing up."

Nezuko set her food down just as she was about to bite into it and told him, "You need to relax, Zenitsu-san. It happened. All we can do now is move on and live with it. If you dwell on it, you'll go insane."

Zenitsu nodded. "You're right."

"So," Nezuko then asked Zenitsu. "Any word on how Kaigaku-san is doing?"

"I haven't seen him since the funeral," he replied. "I don't really know how he's taking all of this, to be honest."

"From what I saw of him when he came over after you killed the general, he seemed pretty worried, although he tried to not show it."

"Yeah, I got that impression, too." He then looked at the boar meat that Nezuko was eating and asked her, "By the way, on an unrelated note, are you gonna give the boar's head to Inosuke? I know he's been looking to get another one as a spare. He had two, but he had to throw one out."

"I sure am." Nezuko then showed Zenitsu her knife and told him, "I cut the head off already and cleaned it out with my knife. I'm gonna run it over to the Butterfly Estate to get it fully cleaned and ready for him later."

"Can I come with you?"

"Sure, why not?"

…

Meanwhile, Kaigaku was visiting the Butterfly Estate to pick up some medical supplies for Chiyo. As he was about to walk out of the estate, he noticed that Emi was standing out front and waiting for him. Surprised, he asked her, "Mochizuki, what brings you all the way out here?"

"Don't tell anyone in my family I came out here by myself," Emi immediately replied to him, almost cutting him off. She was rather stern in her warning. "Understood?"

"Oh, uh," Kaigaku replied. "Sure… But… Why did you come all the way out to this place? How the Hell did you find the Butterfly Estate anyway?"

"I asked around," Emi explained. "My family name has some pull, after all."

"Okay, but why?"

"I wanted to see you again," Emi told him as she blushed. "Um… I was thinking we could spend some more time together, Kaigaku-san. Also… I wanted to talk to you about something that's been bothering me."

Kaigaku, interested, replied to her, "Alright. What's going on?"

"It's about my father. So, uh…" She sighed, still hurt from the loss of her uncle and cousin. "So before my uncle and his son died, there was a lot of talk about me and him getting an arranged marriage to keep our bloodline going, especially since I'm an only child."

"I'm not entirely surprised that that idea was floated around. Why didn't your father just adopt a son and give him your name if he was that worried?"

"Well," Emi explained as she twiddled her thumbs. "He is now… And the idea now is that if he does, he'll marry me off to someone else in another noble family."

"I see. Does all that arranged marriage crap bother you?"

"Yes," Emi confessed. "I don't really want to get married off to some older man I barely know. I have seen arranged marriages between young women of my age to men who are twenty-five or older. I've even seen the sixteen-year-old daughter of a higher-ranked noble married off to another noble who was thirty."

"How common is that?"

"Enough that it's a real possibility."

Kaigaku, who came from a rather poor background and was in fact an orphan, was not used to such things that the nobility did. "All this shit really confuses me sometimes."

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just… I needed someone to talk to about it." Emi was clearly bothered by the prospect, and had been holding it in for some time.

"No, no, no," Kaigaku assured her casually. "It's not your fault. You talk, I'll listen, okay?"

Emi smiled at him, happy to hear he was willing to listen to what she had to say. "Thank you, Kaigaku-san."

"You know that I was born into a very different background," he pointed out to her. "The shit I dealt with was nothing like your life, but I'll still try to help you in any way you can. So, what else is bothering you?"

"The fact that all of this is happening right as we're dealing with the tragedy of my uncle's murder," Emi replied. "First, it was the kidnapping. Then, it was his murder and his son's murder. Now, I have to worry about being married off to some man I don't know."

Kaigaku nodded, taking it all in. "Sounds like you got a lot on your mind."

"I do."

Then, both of them were interrupted when James walked up to the entrance of the Butterfly Estate after having spent a whole night slaying demons after he had completed his mission for Yoichi Saito. A small stain of blood was on Kyojuro's old haori, indicating he had attended to a human who was bleeding, presumably from an attack by a demon. He yawned, tired from what he had done for the past few days, and turned to Kaigaku and Emi, confused by the latter's presence. "Who's the girl, Kaigaku?"

"I'm Mochizuki Emi," she said to James with a bow. "Daughter of Count Mochizuki Kyosuke."

"A count's daughter, huh? Are y'all that girl that got kidnapped by the Confederate demons?"

Confused, Emi asked, "Confederate? You mean Americans?"

"It's a long story, but yeah, them."

"Yes, I am," she replied with a nod. "Kaigaku-san helped rescue me."

"Oh yeah, he did." James turned to Kaigaku and asked him, "Did she come with you?"

"No," he shook his head. "She followed me here."

James chuckled, thinking that Emi had fallen for one of her rescuers. "Ah, I see. Did she get all smitten with you?"

Emi immediately blushed as she denied, "It's not like that at all!"

"Sure, it ain't."

Shinobu then walked out of the estate as well, and upon seeing Emi, Kaigaku, and James, she asked, "Wait, who's the girl?"

"Ugh," Kaigaku replied out of annoyance. "Not again…"

"My name is Mochizuki Emi," Emi said to Shinobu with a bow.

"Wait," Shinobu asked. "Aren't you the count's daughter that we rescued?"

"Yes," she nodded. "And you are?"

"Kocho Shinobu," she replied with a bow, although her bow was not as low as Emi's due to her pregnancy. "Insect Pillar of the Demon Slayer Corps. The foreigner you're talking to is our Flame Pillar, James Colby."

"James… Colby? Is that an American name?"

"It sure is," James nodded. "I've been the Flame Pillar since September of last year."

Emi then turned back to Shinobu and noticed her modestly extended abdomen. "Wait, Kocho-san, are you…?"

Shinobu replied, "Am I what?"

"Are you…" Emi did not want to say it explicitly to not be rude. "Expecting?"

"You mean pregnant?"

"Yes, that word," Emi replied with a blush. "I'm sorry. It's just that I've been taught that to bring up a woman's pregnancy is rude, so I try not to do it."

"I don't use words like expecting to dance around the issue," Shinobu explained. "I just say what I am. Yes, I am pregnant, Mochizuki-san."

"Most women I know wouldn't use such words around strangers," Emi replied, amazed Shinobu was being so forward with her about it. "It's almost like a taboo."

"I know. Trust me. I've dealt with pregnant women and girls before who have been reluctant to use such words when talking to me." Changing the subject, the Insect Pillar asked her, "So, Mochizuki-san, what brings you here?"

"I came here to see Kaigaku-san," Emi explained, only telling them the partial truth and not fully explaining why she came all this way to see him. "I really enjoy his company."

Shinobu chuckled. "Oh my…"

Emi again blushed, replying to her, "Not like that, I swear!"

…

Later that day, Zenitsu was walking to the Butterfly Estate with Nezuko in hand. He had to stop by and pick up some medical supplies before heading out on a mission that night. As he walked, his bird Ukogi chirped something to him, and based on his tone, he was clearly bothered by something regarding his master. Zenitsu assured him while calling him by his nickname, "I'm fine, Chuntaro."

In response, the crow that Tanjiro and Nezuko shared, Matsuemon, told him, "Caaw! No, you aren't!"

Annoyed, Zenitsu said back to him, "I'm not lying."

"Bullshit," Matsuemon replied.

Nezuko warned him, "Stop it. Come on. Don't mess with him like that."

"He can't just lie to his own bird like that," Matsuemon pointed out. "You need to tell us what's going on. That goes for you too, Nezuko. Caaw!"

"I just…" Zenitsu then sighed, annoyed by both of the birds. "I'm still dealing with what happened at the Mochizuki Estate while we were there, okay?" Ukogi chirped something rather softly to him, indicating he felt sorry for pestering him. "I know, I get it. It's fine. You have every right to be concerned about me." While neither of the birds knew of the true extent or nature of his involvement in what happened, they knew right then and there that what had happened had deeply affected him. He sighed and told Ukogi, "I'm sorry if I came off like an asshole, okay? I've been thinking about it a lot."

The two of them then heard Kaigaku's voice from the other side of the wall and stopped. Nezuko quietly asked Zenitsu, "Is that Kaigaku-san?"

"I think it is," he whispered back to her. "I think he's talking to someone."

Indeed, on the other side of the wall, Kaigaku talked with Emi about his life and his goals. "I quite literally came from nothing," he explained to her. "I can barely even recall what my parents look like anymore. It's been so long since they both died. As far as I'm concerned, Kuwajima Jigoro, the former Thunder Pillar who took me and Zenitsu in, was my real parent."

"That must be so heartbreaking," Emi replied, feeling deep sympathy for him. "I'm really sorry you had to go through that."

"It doesn't bother me as much as it used to," he assured her. "Besides, my dreams are something I need to focus on more."

"Your dreams?"

"My dreams include gaining the prestige and power to have the life my parents couldn't have. I want to be able to control what's around me after so many years of being the one at the whim of the world."

Emi nodded. "I see. I can understand why. After so many years of being at the mercy of a cruel world, you want to be the one who changes it rather than the one who gets changed."

"Exactly," Kaigaku agreed. "Am I boring you at all yet?"

"Not at all," Emi replied with a smile. "I've never really spoken at length like this to anyone. You know, when I first saw you, I thought you'd just be this really abrasive and brash young man, but there's so much more to you. It really fascinates me. You're amazing, Kaigaku-san."

"I wouldn't say I'm amazing," Kaigaku shrugged. "I'm just another swordsman right now, but one day, I'll be more than that. Whether I become a Pillar in the Demon Slayer Corps or maybe even a politician in government if I don't die in battle, I'll be more than just another man carrying a sword and hunting demons. I won't let anything stop me."

"Wow…" Emi then sat down on a bench across from him and asked him, "What about Zenitsu-san? He's been with you all this time in some form. What do you think of him? Is he like a brother to you due to you two living with Kuwajima-san?"

"Zenitsu?" Kaigaku chuckled. "I mean, he's alright. When we were younger, he was pretty annoying, and I thought he'd never make it as a slayer. I hate to say it, but I thought he'd get himself killed in the Final Selection he was in. The fact that guy's still alive is worth something, but… I wouldn't say we're super close. He's not really a friend to me."

"Really?"

"We're comrades," Kaigaku explained. "And on the rare occasions we do work together, we work well, but that's really it. I don't have a reason to hate him, but I don't really have a reason to consider him a true friend, either, and certainly not as an adoptive brother. I'm certainly a much better swordsman than him, and I don't really think he'd be able to surpass me given he only knows one form of the Breath of Thunder."

Those words shocked Zenitsu and Nezuko as they silently listened to Emi and Kaigaku talk on the other side of the wall. Zenitsu's eyes widened as his face went pale and he thought to himself, "He… He… After all this time, he doesn't consider me as a friend, let alone a brother?! Even after all we did together when we were young?! Even after what I did for him against General Mochizuki?! He doesn't think of me as a friend at all?!"

Nezuko thought to herself as she looked at her boyfriend, "Damn, those words must have stung. Zenitsu-san's face is really pale. It's like I saw the life drained out of him with those words."

On the other side of the wall, Emi remarked to him in a trance-like state, "You have so much confidence and faith in yourself."

"It's what keeps me alive," Kaigaku replied. "It's what allows me to talk to someone like you, Emi. A man in my standing would never be able to talk to the daughter of a count without such faith, especially you."

Emi blushed, smitten with him and his words. She then asked him, "Would you be willing to share your dreams with me?"

Kaigaku smiled. "In what way?"

"You can tell me anything you want," she told him as she got up and leaned in close to him. "Anything…"

Kaigaku, seeing that she was getting very close to him, looked down at her and contemplated what to do. "This girl is almost offering herself to me," he thought to himself. "So do I take it?" He began to seriously consider kissing her as their eyes slowly began to close. Emi, similarly thinking of such a thing, leaned in closer, ready to accept a kiss.

However, before either of them could do it, Aoi interrupted them when she slid open a door and walked out. She saw the two of them and stopped, asking as she blushed slightly, "Oh, uh, am I…? Am I interrupting something?"

Emi, immediately embarrassed, replied, "It- It's not what it looks like, I swear!"

"No, it's fine," Kaigaku told Aoi. "The two of us were just talking."

Emi again told Aoi, "This isn't what it looks like at all, I swear!"

"Stop freaking out," Aoi told her, somewhat annoyed by her reaction. "I'm not gonna do anything." She then picked up a naginata on the floor and walked past them.

Kaigaku, curious, asked her, "What's with the naginata?"

"I'm practicing with it for exercise," Aoi told him as she walked away. "Nothing more, nothing less."

…

February 28, 1914

"Get the fuck back here! Don't run from me!" Chiyo was battling a demon by herself late at night outside of a small village in the middle of a field. As she did, she was actively channeling her inner anger at being unable to get closer to Kaigaku into her attacks. The two stopped in the middle of the field after having run for several minutes, with Chiyo right on the demon's tail.

As the demon stepped closer to her, its four eyes looking around all independently of each other, he told her while his arm healed from a previous attack, "Four eyes versus one… I can see four times as many things as you, little girl."

Chiyo gripped her sword tighter as she yelled back, "Shut the fuck up! I'm not a little girl!"

"Am I already getting to you? Your mind must be weak, little girl." The demon then licked its claws, which still had fresh blood on them from a would-be victim Chiyo had saved earlier. "It's a shame you stopped me from enjoying my meal for the night. I'll just have to eat you instead."

"God damn it," she yelled again as she readied herself for another attack. "I told you to stop saying that shit!" She then charged at him as she declared, "Fifth Form: Heat Lightning!" She slashed at him with an upwards motion, the demon trying and failing to block her attack with his arm. When she slashed through his neck, the demon let out an ear-piercing scream before his head fell to the ground and his body collapsed. Even so, Chiyo was not done. She took her anger out on his body, continuously slashing into it and yelling at the dead demon as his body began to fade into the night sky. "Damn it! God damn it! Why her?! Why not me?! Why can't it be me?! Fuck, why not me?!"

When she was done, the demon's body was completely gone. She fell to her knees as tears ran down her face from her remaining eye. In her mind, she thought back to the times she had spent with Kaigaku when she was younger and still training with Jigoro, as well as the fact that he clearly had his eyes on Emi instead of her. However, there was also someone else in her mind.

As she wiped the tears away, she said to herself with a hint of confusion, "Why… Why am I thinking of Rinji too?"