The faint morning light began to push back the darkness between the trees.
“Mm?” Nezuko, who had been quietly still this whole time, suddenly gave a small shudder.
Her pink eyes turned toward the sky growing steadily brighter, and a trace of clear unease crossed her face.
She stopped paying attention to Shinsuke’s side of things, spun around, and broke into a run, vanishing into the temple as a pink blur in an instant, moving like a startled little rabbit.
“Nezuko!” Tanjiro was the first one in after her.
Urokodaki and Shinsuke exchanged a glance, then followed.
The inside of the temple was dim, but in the shadows of a corner, Shinsuke spotted the simple bamboo basket immediately.
Inside the basket, Nezuko had shrunk herself down to the size of a small child, and was curled up obediently within it.
Two small, pale, soft hands gripped the edge of the basket, and half a little head peeked out over the rim, big pink eyes blinking away, like a tiny creature nestled in its den, so adorable it could melt a person’s heart.
Shinsuke glanced at the three bodies of the villagers on the ground, killed by the demon.
He noticed that Nezuko now didn’t spare those bodies so much as a second look, as though they were nothing more than ordinary rocks or logs.
That was a good sign.
Urokodaki noticed this too, and the gaze beneath his mask shifted faintly.
He walked to the three bodies and stood looking at them in silence for a moment.
“Tanjiro, Shinsuke.” He spoke at last.
“Let’s bury them.”
“Yes!” x2
The burial was carried out in silence.
The three of them found a patch of ground beside the temple that was relatively flat and dry, and dug with whatever simple tools they could find.
Shinsuke had just pushed himself hard with that technique and was somewhat drained, so his digging was barely faster than Tanjiro’s, who had no real training to speak of.
Urokodaki’s movements were the steadiest and the quickest, each shovelful of earth lifted with a kind of rhythm.
No one spoke.
There was only the sound of turned soil and breathing that grew gradually heavier with effort.
They carefully lowered the three incomplete bodies into the earth, filled the holes, and mounded simple graves over them.
No names, no markers, only three irregularly shaped stones set upright in front of the mounds as a sign.
The three of them stood before the graves, and Urokodaki bowed first.
Tanjiro followed right after.
Shinsuke, for once, did not clown around during this time.
But his silence was not some surge of bottomless sympathy or overflowing compassion either.
He felt no particular sorrow for strangers in this country.
What he felt was something more like a quiet reckoning.
If he had no system, if he had not stumbled by chance into finding Urokodaki, then right now, with a constitution as rare as his, he would probably have ended up the same way as those three.
No.
Actually, much worse.
There would have been no one to bury him.
Or rather, with a body like his, if a demon ever got its hands on him, forget dying in one piece.
Not a drop of blood, not a splinter of bone would be left to waste.
Tch.
Thinking about it that way, that strike he had just made, even the one that had impressed himself, still seemed like it fell far short of what he needed to protect his own life.
That blow had looked devastating, with enormous reach and power.
But thinking ahead, even Tanjiro, who had just started training in Water Breathing, would eventually be able to cleave boulders weighing tens of tons, so maybe his own technique wasn’t quite as extraordinary as it seemed.
On top of that, most demons were quick and agile and were never going to stand still and wait to be cut.
When it came down to it, he still wasn’t strong enough.
To live freely, boldly, and without constraint in this world, he needed to become much, much stronger.
The morning light had now fully illuminated the forested mountain, but the air before these freshly raised graves was heavy and still.
When he straightened up, Urokodaki’s gaze settled on Tanjiro.
The tengu mask concealed his expression, but his voice carried clearly to Tanjiro’s ears.
“Kamado Tanjiro.”
“Yes!” Tanjiro straightened his back immediately.
“If your sister Nezuko,” Urokodaki asked, one word at a time, posing the cruel question that had to be faced, “were to eat a human, what would you do?”
Tanjiro’s body went rigid in an instant.
Pain and conflict flickered through his crimson eyes.
But in the end, they were replaced by a stubbornness that was almost like defiance.
He believed it was impossible.
His sister!
She would never eat a person the way those demons did.
He opened his mouth, just about to declare his vow aloud.
“Don’t worry, Master!”
(￣３￣)a
A voice cut in ahead of him.
Shinsuke had drifted two steps closer at some point, and he patted his own chest with a carefree smile.
“I’ll keep a good eye on Nezuko!
With me around, with my irresistible scent around her, Nezuko won’t even glance at anyone else!
I guarantee it!”
Tanjiro: “!!”
Even the scar on his forehead seemed to flush a deeper red from the blood rushing to his face, and a clear “#” shaped vein burst into view.
“You, you you you…
what are you talking about?!”
Tanjiro snapped his head toward Shinsuke, his voice shaking with fury.
“My sister should be watched by me!
What does any of this have to do with you!”
“Hey, hey, Tanjiro, don’t get worked up.” Shinsuke waved a hand with the air of someone who understood everything perfectly.
“I know you care about your sister, but isn’t having one more person looking after her even better?
Look, I even have a special Breathing Style that can calm Nezuko down, isn’t that ideal?”
“Ideal my foot!” Tanjiro nearly leapt off the ground.
“She is my sister!
My own sister!
She doesn’t need some, some inexplicable person like you looking after her!”
“What do you mean, inexplicable?” Shinsuke raised an eyebrow.
“We’ve just been through a life and death situation together, haven’t we?
Between companions who’ve been through that, helping each other out, looking after a companion’s little sister, isn’t that only natural?”
“Shinsuke!” Tanjiro ground out through clenched teeth, his fists creaking, and he looked about ready to lunge.
“Enough.” Urokodaki cut in with a low warning, breaking up the argument before it escalated further.
He pressed a hand to his mask with a slight headache coming on, because dealing with one troublemaker was already exhausting, and now it seemed like there were two.
No.
Three!
There was still one troublemaking demon!
“Both of you, be quiet.
Tanjiro, answer my question first.”
Tanjiro shot Shinsuke one ferocious glare and forced himself to calm down.
Ordinarily he was gentle and even-tempered, and rarely got into it with anyone.
But his sister Nezuko was his only family left, which made her his one absolute line.
And this Shinsuke person just kept bringing her up every other sentence, constantly jabbing at that line.
Even trying to rip it out entirely.
But this was not the moment to deal with him.
Tanjiro took a deep breath, pulled his gaze away from Shinsuke, and when he looked at Urokodaki, his crimson eyes were full of resolve.
“I will find a way to turn Nezuko back into a human!
Until then, I will watch over her every moment, and I will stake my life on the promise that she will not harm anyone!
If…
if she truly does eat someone…”
Tanjiro’s voice caught, and the words he needed to say next would not come.
The gaze beneath Urokodaki’s mask was deep and measured, and though he had not known this boy long, he had already read his character well enough.
He spoke the words Tanjiro could not say, in a tone that left no room for argument.
“If Nezuko truly eats a human, I want you to kill her with your own hands, then take your own life in penance.”
The words rang out and settled over the morning forest.
“Yes!” Tanjiro snapped to attention with a jolt and answered firmly.
Urokodaki gave a single nod and offered no further comment.
“Remember what you said today.”
“From here on, I will test whether you are truly fit to become a demon slayer swordsman.”
“A demon slayer swordsman!” Tanjiro’s eyes lit up, and he pointed at Shinsuke in excitement.
“Is that what he used just now?
The ability of a demon slayer swordsman?”
Urokodaki glanced at the easygoing Shinsuke standing beside them, sighed, and nodded.
“Yes…
what he used was indeed the ability of a demon slayer swordsman.”
Internal thoughts: ‘It just has absolutely nothing to do with anything I taught him…’
Shinsuke threw an arm cheerfully around Tanjiro’s shoulders, and at a height of one hundred and eighty-four centimeters, with a body built solid over eight months of training, draping himself over Tanjiro was roughly like leaning on a small crutch.
“None of this ‘he’ business, we’re past that.
How about this: you call me senior brother, I’ll call you junior brother-in-law.
From here on the two of us can work out our own arrangement.”
(Note: in the Japanese usage, brother-in-law here carries the meaning of older brother of one’s wife.)
Ptch!
The vein on Tanjiro’s forehead erupted again.
Suddenly he didn’t want to learn anymore!
But…
without strength, what grounds did he have to help Nezuko become human again?
What grounds did he have to avenge his family?
Endure!
I have to endure!
Watching Tanjiro, under the pressure of Shinsuke’s words, call out an extremely reluctant “Senior Brother,” Urokodaki shook his head and turned toward the temple entrance.
“Let’s go, it’s light now, we’ll take her out of here first.”
Back inside the temple, Nezuko was still in that same pose, curled obediently in the basket like a small dog waiting for its owner to come home, though her little head was drooping in slow nods, clearly already drifting toward sleep.
“Nezuko.”
At the sight of his sister, Tanjiro’s face softened into a gentle smile, and he stepped forward quickly, reaching out naturally to hoist the bamboo basket onto his back.
At that exact moment, another hand reached in from the side and settled on the other end of the basket.
Tanjiro’s motion stopped, and he looked up.
Shinsuke had followed over at some point and was smiling at him pleasantly, that hand resting firmly on the rim of the basket with no sign of letting go.
Now that Nezuko had unlocked Tier Two, all Shinsuke had to do was stay near her to maintain Total Concentration Breathing Constant, and he was naturally not going to pass up a chance to stay close and keep getting stronger.
“Junior brother-in-law, little apprentice.” Shinsuke’s smile was radiant.
“You just fought a demon and then dug graves for half the morning, you must be exhausted.
Take a rest.
I’ll carry Nezuko back for you.”
Tanjiro’s brow knotted instantly, and the veins on the back of his hand rose sharply.
He gripped the other side of the basket tight and met Shinsuke’s eyes without giving an inch.
Their gazes clashed in the air between them, and it was almost possible to hear the crackling of sparks.