Chapter Text
There is a lot Tanjiro has to think about after Tokito leaves. Though the Hashira is dead now, he was still one of Tanjiro’s good friends. Respecting Tokito’s final wishes is the least he can do.
Lingering underneath the shade of the cave, Tanjiro watches the sky and waits for the sun to lower beneath the skyline before making any moves. Despite Muzan’s petty squabbling, he holds his ground. Never mind how pointless it is now to be hiding from the sun, when Tanjiro can walk beneath it perfectly well and fine, and why would he even waste the perfect form Muzan has blessed him with? Demons were never made for the daylight— Tokito wasn’t wrong in warning for them to be cautious. If Tanjiro can help preserve his energy for longer, it’s worth taking the extra precautions.
It isn’t long before the demon lord gives up. The evening comes quickly then.
Nightfall is a pretty thing, trees bathed in pale blue light and the sky dotted with white stars. Now that he isn’t running on empty, frazzled, and hungry panic, Tanjiro can appreciate the sight properly this time. The moon is high in the quiet, wind whistling through the grass.
Muzan is not nearly as thrilled about travelling in the dark. “A shame,” he seethes in low sulking. “I was enjoying being able to see the sun.”
The tone is an odd one, something more upset than angry in its infliction. Perhaps Tanjiro would have told him to take his complaints elsewhere, but he finds himself too bewildered by the words to reprimand Kibutsuji. The barest dredges of pity rise in him; Tanjiro squashes them as quickly as they came. There is no use in wasting sympathy for a man who won’t accept any.
Besides, there are better people to give his sorries to, such as the example of the poor children he unintentionally attacked yesterday. Tanjiro will give his apologies and make sure they’re okay, if their parents haven’t already done it for him. Then he will leave before Muzan causes more of a mess. Finding his way back to the village that Tokito dragged him away from, Tanjiro sniffs the air hesitantly. He can smell humans, but there is no stabbing pang of hunger as there was before.
He can control himself this time around. There will be no repeat of that fiasco from earlier.
“Are you sure about that?” Muzan dryly asks from his side. “I could push you over the edge if I really wanted to. I already have.”
“You failed to maintain it.” Tanjiro rubs his temple. Keep trekking forward. Don’t give him too much attention. “I don’t understand why you keep doing this. I already know you can’t do half the things you threaten.”
Even if he could, it isn’t as though any of it aligns with his supposed end-goal. Approaching the small town, Tanjiro surveys the surroundings. Largely empty, with a few lanterns lit to illuminate the otherwise barren street.
“You don’t understand demons,” Muzan scoffs. He stares idly up ahead at the street, recognising something Tanjiro doesn’t. “There are no motives behind a force of nature. It simply is.”
What dehumanising talk. Tanjiro does have to wonder who Muzan thinks he’s addressing with that cold statement. He had said the same thing before, not that there had been time given to dissect its implications. Such a terrible lens of perspective to live by. It’s phrased as something to glorify, but really, Tanjiro can’t see what there is to glamorise about the notion. Humanity’s sentimentality, Tanjiro argues, is what brings them value.
Muzan seems to disagree, though, and maybe this is just another issue they won’t be able to understand each other on.
“What a sorry way of life,” Tanjiro mutters under his breath. Muzan flinches at the lamentation, red eyes darkening with something unspoken, but he doesn’t say anything about it further.
Ignoring him, Tanjiro proceeds further into the village. A quiet, buzzing feeling is jumping about in his head as he enters, and he furrows his eyebrows in annoyance at the sensation. A headache is the last thing he needs right now. It reads as a dull sense of foreboding. The creepy atmosphere of the village does not help matters either. Tanjiro narrows his eyes— was this place always this uneasy? Or is it just because it’s nighttime right now?
He quickens his pace, walking faster. The children he harmed are nowhere to be seen. They’ve probably gone inside by now, been tended to by their parents. Tanjiro might just be wasting time here, but the sense of disturbance doesn’t go away.
It’s almost enough to make him miss the clear scent of copper, drifting through the nighttime breeze.
Muzan is the first to notice it. For once, his interest is captured by something else. His pupils constrict like a feline’s. “Do you smell that?”
Tanjiro lifts his head, breathing in the air and searching for the scent Muzan is talking about. “Blood.”
Someone is bleeding, injured. Chills gather down Tanjiro’s spine; he breaks forward with a run. Kibutsuji follows lazily behind, hands shoved in the pockets of his suit— if he weren’t forcibly stuck with Tanjiro, Tanjiro suspects the man wouldn’t be bothering to walk after him in the first place.
“Who was complaining about reserving his energy earlier, again?” Muzan’s words drip with sarcasm, heavy and thick. Tanjiro runs faster, solely to spite him.
“This isn’t the time. Someone might be hurt!”
Keeping his eyes open up ahead, he looks around worriedly. Most people should be inside at this time of night, no? The scent of iron is too pungent to be entirely indoors, though, and judging from how potent it stings the air… there’s a lot of blood. This is no ordinary injury.
The buzzing is growing louder. More insistent, like his intuition screaming something obvious at him. It isn’t the first time he’s had such a gut feeling, but that usually comes accompanied by a certain scent. It’s lacking this time. Tanjiro can’t place his finger on it; he scoffs in frustration.
“That is… that’s a…” he begins, before sharply cutting himself off. Nope. That can’t be right. He would have smelled it if that were the case. His gut feeling is so abnormally strong, though, insistent on this truth.
“A what?” Muzan raises a bored eyebrow. “Demon?”
Not the case. Tanjiro shakes his head in denial again, to which Muzan gives him an unimpressed stare. The buzzing in his skull grows stronger. Kibutsuji looks like he wants to say something, but decides better of it, likely knowing Tanjiro won’t listen to him anyway.
Instead, he points to a house across from them both.
How surprisingly coincidental it is that that very house is one of the places Tanjiro keeps getting that nagging feeling from. He scowls at it suspiciously. Is Muzan’s judgment really something he should be blindly trusting right now? This might be a setup. An elaborate one, and he’d wonder how Muzan even constructed the plans, but it’d still be a setup he’d pay for falling if he heeded the advice. Tanjiro turns to glare at Muzan, waiting for him to give reason for even a sliver of doubt.
“What’s the matter?” Muzan raises an eyebrow, like Tanjiro is the ridiculous one. “I’m incapable of committing to my threats, remember?”
Now he’s just mocking Tanjiro. Tanjiro scoffs and clenches his fist, wanting to spit something in reply—
“Help! Please!”
—and the thought is ditched as quickly as it had sprung. There’s no point in second-guessing Muzan’s words right now, not when someone clearly needs help. Running into the house, Tanjiro coughs through the smoke. The place is full of dust and rubble. It seems like something already broke inside.
“Don’t start drooling,” Muzan japes. Tanjiro has the brilliant idea of telling him to shove off, but the screaming civilians take priority.
“Hello?” He cups his hands and shouts into the dark. “Where are you?”
The light is obscured inside, but he can make out more forms than expected. Usually, Tanjiro is stumbling through the dark in these situations; working as a demon slayer has helped him grow to be more adapted to the absence of light, but that doesn’t mean his vision has magically improved. It’s a shock when he’s able to see in the low light. A woman comes running out, blood streaked across her clothes. Her eyes catch sight of Tanjiro.
“Help! My child,” she stammers, “my baby- that monster, he—!”
This whole place smells of blood. Tanjiro swallows back his nausea and craving, forcing himself to remain cool. He has a pretty good idea of what happened here. A demon attack is the only explanation for what could have caused this destruction, but he can’t smell it anywhere. Is his guess wrong?
The woman is still hysterical. Tanjiro grabs her hands and squeezes, trying to ground her. “It’s okay. I’m here to help! Are you okay? Are you injured anywhere?”
“Not me,” she shakes her head. Her voice cracks with a terrified sob. “It’s my son. Please save my son.”
“It’ll be alright. Your son, is he—”
A loud crashing comes from the other room in the house. Wood creaks and splinters, ceramics shattering on the floor. Tanjiro narrows his eyes through the rising smoke, slowly letting go of the woman’s hand and creeping toward the door. The buzzing is back, and more precise than before. Whatever it is, it must be inside this room.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he warns her. “I’ll be right back.”
Pushing open the door, Tanjiro enters the room. He freezes in his tracks at the sight.
A demon, it certainly must be a demon inside. It can’t possibly be anything else. A child’s disembodied corpse hangs from the demon’s hands, the sound of bones snapping and wet flesh being ground between teeth deafening in the room. It is hardly the first time he’s seen such a gory sight. He’s practically a veteran at this point. Tanjiro has seen this sight so many times that he should be used to it by now.
He should be, but this is the first time it’s ever been so clear. Whatever demonic senses he’s been enhanced with only serve to sharpen the image before him. Tanjiro’s breathing comes out staggered, and his eyes dart to the victim’s face. It’s a sickeningly familiar one.
He knows that kid. It was the same child who came up to him yesterday.
“Back already?” the demon growls in between bites, lifting his head. His eyes sharpen at the sight of Tanjiro. “No… You weren’t here earlier. Who are you?”
Tanjiro opens his mouth, and there is no sound. He can’t seem to get his words out. They’re clogging in his throat, along with his retching and appetite and revulsion. He coughs, trying to heave up empty air; he thinks he might be sick. He thinks he already is. His eyes keep being dragged back to the dead boy’s head, rolling at an unnatural angle and lifeless and dead, and, and—
“Stop looking at it,” Muzan scolds, right by his side all of a sudden. A cold hand clamps over Tanjiro’s eyes, blocking his vision. Muzan’s voice is strained, and Tanjiro imagines he might be frowning right now. Upset. Over what?
“You’re freaking me out.”
Tanjiro wets his lips, trying to pull himself together. For once, he does not shove Muzan aside, too lost on how to react. Instead, he does his best to swallow down his hysterics, steeling his nerves over. The beating of his heart is so fast he worries it will pop out of his chest. “You can feel that?”
No answer. Tanjiro nods, shakes his head, nods again, and Muzan snorts. Of course he can. Best to just assume the demon feels everything he does. Tanjiro opens his eyes, brushing Muzan’s hands away.
“I was just… caught off guard,” he rationalises aloud. “I didn’t smell a demon here.”
“Of course you didn’t smell it,” Muzan scoffs, rolling his eyes as though this is obvious. He stands near the doorway, watching the scene with a bored, cruel gaze. “You don’t smell yourself, do you?”
Tanjiro shakes his head and tunes Muzan’s voice out. He doesn’t have time to be breaking down. He’s a slayer, no matter the situation. There are people who need his help right now; even if he can’t save this boy anymore, he can still protect the mother and the other villagers in this town. Fixing his glare on the demon before him, he readies himself in a defensive stance.
The demon with the boy scowls. “What are you on about?” His eyes narrow on Tanjiro’s uniform. “Are you a demon hunter?”
“Please put that child down.” Tanjiro ignores the question, ignores the visceral anger brewing in him. He should give the kid at least the bare minimum of courtesy before fighting, even if he wants nothing more than to slaughter this demon right now.
“This one?” The demon lifts the poor boy again, letting the kid’s head roll. “I don’t think so. I was finishing up my snack here, just now. Where’d you stash the mother?”
Every word that comes out of this demon irritates Tanjiro. The blatant disrespect for other people’s lives, the casualty in which he refers to the child he’s murdered… It’s a familiar sort of anger. Tanjiro is no better at handling it than he was a year ago; in fact, he thinks he’s gotten worse.
He doesn’t have his friends around to help rein him back in if he gets over his head this time. He’d better finish this quickly.
Offering his dearest apologies to the mother and her children, Tanjiro lowers into his stance with a grim frown. If he had gotten his act together just a few hours sooner, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. There’s no time to waste dwelling on the potential what-ifs anymore, though.
“I said,” Tanjiro scowls, “let him go!”
He charges forward with a darkening glare, jumping up and easily pulling the child free from the demon’s grip. The body is quickly cooling. Tanjiro doesn’t allow himself to look at the boy’s face— he fears he won’t be able to keep his cool otherwise.
Setting the kid down outside of the battered room, Tanjiro stands back up. The demon is sputtering, as if just realising his prey has been stolen.
“I knew it! You are a hunter!” he snarls, spitting anger at him. “Aren’t you guys meant to be resting up right now? What’s a hunter doing out here?!”
How does the demon know about the corps’ current status? Tanjiro frowns, analysing the scene. He needs to get more information, but he’s just exposed himself to be a threat. The mother and potential others are also still in this house. The place is too cramped. He needs to move this elsewhere.
“What are you talking about?” Tanjiro lowers into another stance, reaching for his sword. His hands clasp around empty air. Shoot. He forgot he’s without his weapon right now.
The demon doesn’t notice his predicament. “Don’t act dumb! The lord gathered all of us to exterminate you hunters. There’s no way he would have missed one!”
All demons. That means all the demons were in the infinity fortress. Interesting— Tanjiro wonders if they’re aware of Muzan’s defeat? This demon is still alive, though, and so there must be others. That means Tokito was correct in his assertion that Muzan has not truly died.
“I don’t know,” Tanjiro scoffs, searching around the room. He picks up a broomstick. “Muzan isn’t as great as you guys think.”
“What would you know?” The demon glares suspiciously at him, watching him grab the broom with bewilderment. “Something isn’t right about you. Who are you?”
Now the demon is the one acting dumb. Didn’t he already figure it out himself earlier? Tanjiro is a demon slayer.
Either way, he doesn’t want to give his name to scum like this. Sucking in a deep, cold breath, Tanjiro lets the oxygen fill his blood and warm his lungs. The weight and grip of wood isn’t quite the same as a sword’s handle, but it’ll do fine. It’s better than having nothing. Charging forward, Tanjiro smashes the broom across the demon’s face. It sends the demon falling back further than expected.
“You- little—” the demon snarls madly. “Brat!” He charges at Tanjiro this time, and both their bodies go flying through the doors. Tanjiro cringes as he feels the wooden lattice and fusuma paper tearing under his back.
He has so many apologies to give after this battle.
“Nice going,” Muzan mockingly applauds from inside the house. He’s watching the fight as though it were frivolous entertainment. Tanjiro had almost forgotten he was still there.
“Are you going to help, or just watch?”
“Will I help the demon hunter slaughter my demons? What do you think?”
Sometimes, he wonders why he still bothers. Rolling back up to his feet, Tanjiro coughs and fights to stabilise his breathing. Where did the demon roll to when he launched them both through the door? Tanjiro’s eyes scan the ground for sight of where he might have crawled off to.
Claws swipe at his peripheral, and he yelps and jumps away. Swinging the broom upwards, Tanjiro just barely blocks another blow from the demon. He totally snuck up on him. He isn’t used to being noseblind in these situations. It’s throwing him off his game.
There’s still the buzzing to rely on, though. Tanjiro doesn’t know why or how, nor does he care much, but he can somehow sense the demon’s location. Maybe he should start utilising that ability more.
“Where’s your sword?” the demon taunts, jumping at him again. Tanjiro leaps back, light and careful on his feet. He grits his teeth as he parries another set of blows. The broomstick is breaking. It isn’t durable enough to stand up to this fight. “Or are you one of those clean-up hunters? Haha!”
Tanjiro clicks his tongue in annoyance as the final hit causes the broom to snap in half. Trashed. He mentally files another apology to give in his head. That’s one for the woman’s son, one for her doors, one for her broom…
“Don’t disrespect the kakushi,” he frowns. “They’re working just as hard as the rest of us. What do you have to say for yourself, though? Attacking innocent people like this…”
Spinning one of the broken ends of the broom, he flings it forward with gritted teeth. If it were sharper, sturdier, it might have pierced the demon’s skin. Still, it hits his target all the same, and that’s enough to buy him a few seconds to get out of attacking range.
“You’re no better than anyone else! Coward!”
“Shut up!” The demon grinds his teeth in anger at that, something animalistic in his glare. Tanjiro glowers back in return, assuming a defensive stance again. It’s odd. The buzzing is stronger, but it isn’t as concentrated as before. Tanjiro can see the demon right in front of him. What could this new sensation be?
Muzan casually strolls out of the demolished house, invisible to the demon’s eyes. At least one of them is having a pleasant time. He fakes a yawn, watching Tanjiro with a bored eye.
Raising a hand, Muzan points to something on his left.
“What?” Tanjiro squints. No. On Tanjiro’s right. He ducks to the ground with a roll, very narrowly missing a punch from a second demon. Second? There are more of them?
“Moron! He was right there!” the first demon complains. They’re squabbling now, both of them. Since when was that a possibility? They’re demons. They aren’t supposed to be creatures that work together.
Tanjiro spits out dirt as he gets back up to his feet, watching the two demons regroup. “I thought demons didn’t work together.”
“That was the lord’s rule,” the first demon sneers. “He’s gone now. We’re free to do whatever we want!”
So they do know about Muzan’s passing. Are all of the demons aware? They could have a real crisis on their hands if that’s the case. Tanjiro narrows his eyes and adjusts his stance, debating his next course of action. He doesn’t have a sword right now, and the broom is broken.
The best thing to do is to keep them talking. “How many of you are there?”
One of the demons scowls at him, looking ready to pop open a vein. “And why would we tell you that?”
Some do. Unfortunately for Tanjiro, it seems like these demons are smarter than their peers. The second demon that appeared lunges after him again; he’s faster than the first, Tanjiro notes. He jumps back with a grunt, but not before earning a slash across his nose.
“I got him!”
“Barely. Get his head, next!”
This is not good. Not good at all, especially when considering the fact that he’s fighting without a proper weapon. Even if he looks past the fact that he has no proper defence right now, that still doesn’t negate the issue of how he’ll even kill the demons afterwards. Hissing in pain as the cut on his face heals up, Tanjiro wipes the blood off.
The demons glare at him with suspicion. The first demon stiffens a little. “Hey, you aren’t…”
“Having trouble?” Muzan questions patronizingly, taking a seat on a tree stump and crossing his legs. Tanjiro glares at him like he’s the one responsible for all his problems right now. He very well might be; it wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to claim that as truth.
“Be quiet,” Tanjiro grumbles. His eyes drift down, noticing the dull shine of something sharp. Something small is lodged into the side of the stump Muzan is sitting on. A small… hatchet.
Huh. An odd sense of familiarity creeps up on him. Tanjiro lunges for the weapon faster than he thinks, holding it up with a triumphant laugh. Finally, something with a proper blade! Muzan watches him with a mix of boredom, annoyance, and dry amusement.
“Don’t get overzealous.”
“I’m not.” Tanjiro shakes his head, then pauses. “... why are you helping me?”
Kibutsuji stiffens strangely, before a look of revulsion crosses over his face. “Is that what you think this is?”
Rude. Never mind. It wasn’t like Tanjiro wanted to talk to him in the first place anyway. He scowls and swings the hatchet around, glaring back at the demons he’s currently fighting. There’s a job to finish here first, before he starts trying to do anything else.
“Hey, you!” The demons draw his attention back. “Who the hell are you talking to?”
“Nobody,” Tanjiro mutters. Muzan doesn’t count as a person in his book. The demon lord makes a face of mild offence— good. He ought to be offended.
Total concentration is easier to execute with an actual weapon. He’s confident that the hatchet won’t splinter apart; swinging it down, Tanjiro sucks in a deep breath. He lets the air ignite his muscles and extend to his surroundings, enveloping the hatchet’s blade with burning precision. His visualisation is crystalline. Hinokami arcs through the sky, and he swears he sees Muzan flinch in his periphery.
Fortunately for Muzan, he isn’t the victim of Tanjiro’s breath tonight. Tanjiro grits his teeth as he swings the hatchet down, letting gravity cut into the demon’s flesh for him. He hisses at Tanjiro, loud and screeching and spraying dirty blood everywhere.
“You- what the hell?!”
As he suspected, the arm is slow to heal. Even without a nichirin sword in hand, the breathing styles are still effective, and these demons aren’t particularly strong. Tanjiro grins a little. He can do this.
“I’ll ask you again. How many of you are there?” He raises the hatchet threateningly, solar flames still dancing off the tip of its blade.
The demon he struck growls in anger, and his friend just charges at Tanjiro. Looks like he won’t be dragging any further meaningful conversation out of these guys. Holding his weapon in defence, Tanjiro rushes back, dodging each and every strike. Now that he’s got a proper hold of himself and an actual weapon to fight back with, the fight is considerably easier. These demons aren’t all that strong to begin with, at least not in comparison to the other demons he was fighting before.
It isn’t very long before Tanjiro manages to knock the other over on his feet, trapping him beneath his shoe and the dirt. Forcing the demon to look up with the end of the hatchet, Tanjiro frowns.
“Did you two team up by yourselves?” It doesn’t feel quite right. His head is thrumming with the presence of these two demons out here, but it’s still too spread out to be certain that it’s only these two. Briefly, Tanjiro glances back at the house they charged out of. It looks relatively untouched. At least he knows the people are still safe.
“That’s none of your business.” The demon glares venemously at him, nothing but hatred in his eyes. He claws mindlessly at Tanjiro’s leg, unable to kick him off.
Tanjiro can’t tell if he’s bluffing or not. It irritates him. He ignores the claws scraping into his flesh, instead pressing down further. “Who else is here with you?”
The demon snarls and claws a gash into his eyes. “Fucking back off!”
It hurts. Tanjiro hisses, hands instinctively reaching up to cradle his face; the demon takes that as his opening to kick Tanjiro off with a grunt, sending him flying on his back. Tanjiro squints through the blood, his eye already healing. This is no good. He can’t keep taking hits. Injuries use energy to heal and regenerate, and Tokito just barely managed to curb his hunger a few hours ago. At this rate, he’ll wind up depleting his already limited reservoirs.
The demon is scowling at him when he gets back up, already having run to join his other friend. “I knew something was off with you,” he seethes. “You’re a demon! What’s up with that?”
This is starting to really irritate Tanjiro. If only he had a proper nichirin blade… they wouldn’t even be talking anymore if that were the case. Wiping blood off his face, he glares at them both. “There is nothing up with that. Answer my question.”
“It’s the most pointless thing for us to be arguing, you know,” the other demon scoffs. “It’s not like we can kill each other! What’s up with the uniform, huh? Are you another one of those traitors—”
“Shut up,” Tanjiro hisses. “Stop talking and listen to me.”
He’s not a traitor. He’s got nothing to do with these filthy demons at all, deplorable and sad beings they are. Tanjiro isn’t one of them, and he’s tired of people insisting he is. Caught up in his anger, he doesn’t even notice when the demons fall silent and pale further at his cold tone. Only thankful for the temporary quiet, Tanjiro sucks in a deep breath and forces his tone to come out smoother. There’s no need to be rash.
“Are you working with others or not?”
Absolute silence. He narrows his eyes, suspicious of the quiet. Are they plotting something? Finally, one of them speaks up again, unusually timid and frightened this time.
“... Kibutsuji, my lord,” the demon quivers. “I didn’t recognise you in that form. I was—”
“Stop, stop,” Tanjiro interrupts. His frustration from before has evaporated in favour of confusion. There are a thousand questions running through his head right now. What did that demon call him?
“What did you just say?”
The demons freeze up, actively trembling now. Tanjiro is boggled. He didn’t mishear that, did he? That was exactly what he thought it was. They think he’s Muzan. That alone is too disgusting to bear the thought of— he can’t let them continue thinking such.
“My apologies!” the demon jumps to defend, actually kneeling down in penance now. Kneeling. Tanjiro can’t help the way his eyes bug out of his head. “I did not mean it! I was overwhelmed by your presence, it simply slipped out without thinking!”
It’s only thanks to Tamayo that Tanjiro has any clue as to what the demon is babbling about. He scowls and shakes his head; he couldn’t care any less whether or not these guys uttered Muzan’s name or not. The issue is that they aren’t saying the right name, and he’ll be damned before he lets anyone else confuse him for Muzan.
“Not that. I don’t care about that,” Tanjiro shakes his head, a frown twisting his expression. “I’m not Muzan. Don’t call me by his name.”
It’s insulting. The demon at his feet makes a sound of surprise, hesitantly lifting his head. “But… you are my lord. Kibu—”
“Kamado,” Tanjiro corrects with a pained wince. It is painful to be referred to with Muzan’s name. He needs them to stop, right now. Narrowing his eyes, he lifts his hatchet again. “And I’m not your lord.”
The demons are still quiet. They stare up at Tanjiro with terrified eyes, begging for forgiveness from a greater deity than themselves. What did Muzan describe himself as earlier? A force of nature. How pathetic.
Something about the sight greatly irritates Tanjiro. He’s nothing like their master, and the implication that he is is nothing less than insulting. Just looking at how they cower now makes him nauseous. It’s as he said— a demon’s existence really is a sad thing.
In any case, he won’t be getting anything else useful from the demons. Perhaps it really is just these two.
“… you know what? Never mind,” he murmurs a hollow apology in advance. “... May you be reborn as human beings in the next life.”
The demon isn’t even given time to scream before his hatchet comes swinging down, burning cleanly into the neck. The second one screeches, but it isn’t long before Tanjiro decapitates him as well. They both drop to the ground, vocal cords shredded and ruined.
The sound of quiet gurgling is disturbing. Tanjiro watches their limp bodies lie there on the ground, flesh slowly trying to regenerate. His technique and breathing are fine on their own, but this hatchet is only a villager’s tool. It wasn’t designed to be a slayer’s sword. It isn’t enough to finish the job permanently.
“Demons can’t be killed that way, little hunter,” Muzan remarks, clapping his hands slowly and mockingly. Of course, now is the time he chooses to speak up.
“I know they can’t.” Tanjiro doesn’t even bother trying to conceal his annoyance. “I’m a slayer, remember?”
Sometimes, he has to wonder whether Muzan genuinely doesn’t remember what they’re called, or if he purposefully mixes it up out of disrespect. Both feel equally possible. After all, Muzan is basically just a glorified old man; Tanjiro is taking the liberty of assuming he has the memory problems to match. Chopping off the new growth from the slain demons’ heads, Tanjiro sighs and leaves the hatchet buried in the earth. The regenerating bodies squirm in the dirt.
What a terrible sight. At least he has the relief of knowing it’ll be gone by the morning.
“You said you wanted to see the sun?” Tanjiro mutters dryly, turning to look at Muzan. “Today’s your lucky day.”
Hours long after the sun has risen and burned away the bodies of the two demons, then set once again, Tanjiro leaves the village. Sunlight may not be fatal for him, but it is… admittedly still agitating. There is no shortage of complaints from Muzan about this fact; Tanjiro works hard to tune him out. The family he rescued allows him to make use of their utilities during the day, and he washes the blood out of his hair and clothes, rinsing anew. It’s good to be clean after three or so days of walking around in filth. Muzan stubbornly remains outside the entire time, the sun passing harmlessly through his spirit.
Right before he leaves, the family offers him a few gifts. An old samurai’s sword, a small bag of funds, and needles and thread to patch up his torn clothing.
“It’s an old heirloom,” the woman explains when he asks about the sword. “Only collecting dust in our house. Please take it. It’s the least we can do to repay you.”
People don’t often thank him on his missions— they fail to realise the gravity of what might have been lost. Tanjiro wants to argue that it’s because he failed to save her son that he doesn’t deserve such gratitude, but the surviving family makes it impossible.
“You’re incredible, mister,” the surviving daughter tells him. The sight of her makes Tanjiro’s chest feel tight.
“I’m sorry I failed to save your brother.”
“Don’t be sorry. You did your best.”
“Did you really?” Muzan mocks as they leave the village later, night having settled over the scene once more. He’s right, loath as Tanjiro is to admit it. Just one night earlier, he would have been the hungry demon, had it not been for Tokito’s intervention.
Tanjiro drops his hand to the sword fastened at his hip. Not quite the same weight or shape or smell, but it’s still familiar enough to be grounding. He tightens his hand around the hilt, taking in a deep breath. Release.
“Yes,” he affirms. Tanjiro was doing his best, regardless of the outcome. It’s easy to say that he could have saved one more life if he had been just a few minutes earlier, but agonising over the potential what-ifs won’t do him any good now. Even if he had been just the slightest bit faster…
Nope. Do not dwell on it. He’s already been scolded on this before.
“What were you doing, Muzan?” Tanjiro flips the question on him instead. “If you weren’t helping.”
Or so he claims. Don’t get it twisted: Tanjiro has never been one to jump to Muzan’s defence, nor does he want to be, but what happened earlier… he’s not sure how else Muzan was expecting him to take that. He was helping Tanjiro, wasn’t he? Just what angle is he playing at?
Muzan’s eyes sharpen a little. He stares down at Tanjiro from where he’s chosen to loom tonight. “I was assessing your quality.”
What a strange statement. He has it phrased as if Tanjiro is some fine investment, which wouldn’t be inaccurate except for the fact that this relinquishment is entirely involuntary on Muzan’s part. Tanjiro’s brows furrow; he frowns at Kibutusji.
“... and what did you find?” He decides he will entertain Muzan’s shenanigans for tonight.
“I suppose you’re not terrible, for a swordsman who managed to strike me,” Muzan declares snobbishly. Then he snorts. “Although you missed one.”
“Missed what?”
“There was a third demon.” Tanjiro freezes in his tracks. Muzan calmly folds his hands behind his back, beginning to walk again. His eyes are smug. “You let one escape.”