Tanjiro Kamado headed back up Mount Kumotori after the sun had set. "How'd it get so late? Oh well, at least I sold out" he said to himself, smiling as he thought of all the money he'd made today selling Charcoal. He would be able to buy lots of food for his family. He couldn't wait for New Year's, to see his younger Siblings faces at the amount of food they had to eat. "Wait a minute! Tanjiro!" a familiar voice called out to him.
Tanjiro turned to see Mr Saburo leaning out of his house's window, "you're not going back up the mountain now? It's simply too dangerous. Your Mother would have my head if I let anything happen to you. You can stay here tonight. Come on, get inside" he called. Tanjiro thought about this. He supposed it made sense. His Mother would want him to be safe above all else. So he nodded, and headed back to his neighbor's house.
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After he finished eating and spoke to the older man for a while, Tanjiro went to bed. Poor Mr Saburo. He must have been so broken by what happened to his family, that he'd invented a monster to blame. But Demons weren't real. They were just a children's story. Right? Tanjiro held onto these thoughts as he drifted off to sleep.
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The teen was woken two hours before dawn by a horrible smell. He curled up and clutched his nose, trying not to wake Mr Saburo. What was that?! The scent had seemed to pass right by the house. It was going up the mountain. Tanjiro lay there for several minutes once the smell began to fade. There was something wrong. The only thing up past Mr Saburo's house on the mountain was his own house.
His family- Tanjiro felt ill, he had to get back to his family right now- right now! The 13-year-old quietly got up and dressed. He wrote a quick note to Mr Saburo, thanking him for his hospitality, but that an emergency had come up, and he had to leave before dawn. Leaving the basket he'd carried the Charcoal in the day before at the adult's house, Tanjiro began to head back up the mountain.
At first he tried to calm himself down. He was over-reacting. Everyone was fine. As a cold wind blew down the mountain, Tanjiro caught the scent of something metallic- blood. The teen sped up. His family was fine. Nezuko was there, she was very smart- the smell got stronger, and Tanjiro moved faster. Their Mother could take care of any small wound easily. There were several people's blood in the air. Everything had to be fine! Nothing bad had happened on their mountain, not anything too bad- Tanjiro was now running up the mountain, his breaths coming out in gasping huffs in the frigid air.
They were fine, they were fine, they were fi- Tanjiro stopped outside of his house, horror all over his face and in his Soul. Nezuko and Rokuta were laid out in the snow, his little Sister cradling the 3-year-old protectively in her arms. And inside the house- Tanjiro could only brokenly mutter their names as his eyes trailed over each of his family's broken and bloody bodies. "Mom- Takeo- Shigeru- Nezuko- Rokuta- Hana-ko-" he paused with a horrified gasp, seeing, inside the house, a man dressed in black, with his arm pinning his baby Sister through her chest up against the wall.
"You-" he began shakily, as the man turned to look at him over his shoulder, one bright red eye shone in the darkness of the house. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY FAMILY?!" Tanjiro screamed furiously. The teen grabbed the familiy's hatchet from the snow and ran at the man, intent on- well, he wasn't quite sure what he was going to do. He'd never felt this much hatred and fury in his life. As he raised the hatchet to attack, something lashed out at him with such speed that he couldn't even see it.
Tanjiro clenched his eyes shut, waiting for death, only to feel a small body tackle him back into the snow. Blinking his eyes open, Tanjiro gasped upon seeing a bloodied Hanako leaning on his chest, her formally dark red eyes now bright red and glowing in the darkness. "Hanako!" he gasped upon seeing his baby Sister alive and seemingly fine. But there was something different about her. Along with the change to her eyes, her scent had changed. "So, those brats were able to take my blood after all" the man in black said to himself.
Tanjiro glanced passed him and into his house as he heard several voices snarling. Takeo and Shigeru were up, red eyes glowing brightly and growling fiercely, both showing sharp teeth where their normal ones should have been Tanjiro, not quite understanding what was going on, but desperate to distract the man from his younger Siblings, tossed the hatchet in his hand as hard as he could towards the back of this man- no, this Demon's head. For that was the only thing he could be.
And his family- his family had been turned into Demons too, somehow. But Hanako had just saved him. That had to count for something, right? A fanged mouth opened up in the back of the Demon's head and caught the hatchet in it's teeth. It bit a section out of the metal, before the hatchet dropped to the ground. "Something is different. I can't feel these Demons" the man said, as he looked down at Rokuta, who was now kneeling in the snow alone, staring at him with bright red eyes.
Before anyone could do anything else, Nezuko lunged towards him with an exe-kick. Her attack sent up a huge cloud of snow. Tanjiro covered his face as he clutched onto Hanako tightly, "Nezuko!"When the snow had cleared, he saw his little Sister on the ground, staring down at her leg, which had been severed. "NEZUKO!" Tanjiro cried, horrified at the sight. Their Mother walked over and knelt down by her daughter. She carefully pushed Nezuko's leg back together. "It hurts, it hurts," she chanted, while the other Demon watched them.
Kie smiled at her eldest daughter as her leg reattached, and held out her other hand towards the man, "fly away" she said. Suddenly the black-haired Demon's leg was sliced off. He scowled angrily, 'a Blood Demon Art' he thought. Nezuko's leg healed, and Kie smiled at her daughter. As the enemy Demon's own leg regenerated in an instant, the bloodied forms of Takeo and Shigeru exited the house, both snarling at him. All Tanjiro could do was watch as both of his little Brother's leapt at the Demon man in an attempt to attack him. However, in an instant both young boys were sliced into pieces.
He gasped in horror at the sight. Nezuko stood up, watching her Siblings being torn apart with a blank look on her face, before memories of earlier that morning returned to her. As her rage at the sight grew, so did her body. Vines spread over Nezuko skin, as her veins popped out. She grew until she was the size of their Mother, a horn now extending out of the side of her forehead. In a flash, the Demon girl launched herself at their enemy, leg extended to kick him. Instantly her leg was in pieces. Nezuko growled, reattaching the limb and delivering a massively powerful kick into his stomach.
The Demon man was thrown into a hill. The girl snarled furiously in the direction he'd been sent. "Nezuko is, a Demon" Tanjiro said to himself in shock. Nezuko leapt to attack the other Demon again as the snow cleared. "Nezuko!" all Tanjiro could do was call after her in worry. "This Demon is strong" the man said to himself as he stood and once again sliced the girl into three pieces, along with the tree in front of her. However, Nezuko didn't fall to pieces like Takeo and Shigeru had. Her blood connected the severed pieces of her body, and Nezuko's hand grabbed onto the other Demon's cloak after he moved passed her.
Then she spun in the air, splattering her blood onto the black-haired Demon. Nezuko delivered a powerful kick to his side as she reconnected her body, throwing him away from her. "The girl's blood" he muttered, looking down at his cloak. Nezuko then reattached the rest of her body and kicked him further away. She held out her hand, her palm glowing bright yellow, as though heating up. The other Demon gasped as the splatters of blood on his body ignited into hot pink flames. "These flames-" he said. Nezuko grinned, before the man discarded his cloak and pierced the girl through the throat, arms and legs.
"You impudent child" the Demon man said, as his arm bulged. Suddenly Takeo threw something at the man, while pink flowers grew on his elbows and the backs of his legs. Takeo shot towards the man, before landing a powerful punch to his gut. "Such strength," the adult Demon said. "And yet you're still so weak" Takeo was suddenly impaled through the chest. Shigeru tried to attack the man while he was distracted, but was slashed across the chest, severing his arm in the process. Before anything else could happen, two seeds hit the Demon in the chest.
Hanako stood with her hands over her mouth as if to blow up a ball. Blue flowers started growing from the man's body where the seeds had hit. "These flowers are sucking my blood to grow" he said. Shigeru stood, pink flowers growing from the backs of his three limbs. "Impressive that you are so proficient in your Blood Demon Art's so soon. But that's not good enough to defeat me." His arm whipped out and smacked the young Demon boy into a tree. Hanako spat another seed at the man. "Amusing" he said, as another blue flower started to grow out of his chest.
"Stop," Tanjiro said shakily, as his baby Sister was sliced diagonally across the chest. "STOP IT!" Tanjiro cried furiously, running towards the Demon with his hatchet raised and Rokuta on his back. "Foolish child" the man said, beginning to morph his arm, but Nezuko kicked it, splattering blood and flesh everywhere. Tanjiro stopped in shock, as his Sister sent the Demon man flying into several trees with another kick. The man stood and dodged out of the way as Nezuko tried to kick him again, sending the tree he'd been leaning against crashing to the ground. Nezuko found her leg once again cut off, but this time grew it back in an instant.
Tanjiro and the Demon Kamado's surrounded the Demon man, before he spoke again, "so impudent". Suddenly their veins started bulging, and all of Tanjiro's Siblings and Kie collapsed to the snow, writhing in pain. Even Rokuta fell off of Tanjiro's back. The 13-year-old knelt down at his baby Brother's side in worry, unsure what to do. "Rokuta! Everyone!" he cried. "I cannot allow such strong Demon's to remain out of my control" the black-haired Demon man said, flesh shooting out and stabbing into all of the children. One aimed for Tanjiro, but Kie intercepted it.
"Mom!" Tanjiro cried in horror. "I will be taking my blood back now" the Demon said calmly. Before anything else could happen, the Demon's arms were sliced to pieces. A human man landed behind him and turned to look at the Demon. Tanjiro stared. He held a sword in his hand.