Waking up in the Butterfly Mansion felt like being drowned in a vat of aggressively floral potpourri.
I blinked my eyes open, staring up at a pristine wooden ceiling.
My left shoulder, which had recently been acting as a scabbard for a demon lord’s water-scythe, felt stiff but surprisingly intact.
My chest was wrapped in tight white bandages, and the air smelled heavily of medicinal herbs and wisteria extract.
[DING!
The ‘Miracle Healing System’ takes full credit for your survival!
Bind now to unlock instant health potions and completely avoid the upcoming physical therapy!] I survived because I have the metabolism of a great white shark, I mentally grumbled, trying to swat the blue holographic screen away.
My arm felt like lead.
“Oh?
You’re awake.
I was beginning to wonder if you were part bear, Shinazugawa-kun.” I turned my head.
Sitting beside my bed was a petite girl in a standard Demon Slayer uniform, draped in a delicate butterfly-patterned haori.
She was smiling.
It was a pleasant, perfectly serene smile.
But having spent years surviving in the East Blue, my instincts immediately flagged her as one of the most dangerous things in the room.
“Who are you?” I rasped, my throat dry.
“I am Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira.
And the owner of the estate you are currently bleeding all over,” she said, her smile never wavering.
“Your recovery is absolutely fascinating.
When the Kakushi brought you in from Kaza town, your shoulder was pulverized.
Yet, your cellular regeneration is operating at a rate that borders on demonic.
Do you have a secret you’d like to share?” “I eat a lot of protein,” I said flatly, sitting up and wincing as my ribs stretched.
“Where is my gun?” Shinobu’s smile twitched, just a fraction of a millimeter.
“Your…
gun, and your sword, are resting on the table by the door.
Your yellow-haired friend was quite adamant that we not touch the ‘boom-stick.’ He cried for three hours until we let him sleep in the hallway.” “Sounds like Zenitsu,” I grunted, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
“How long was I out?” “Three days,” Shinobu answered, standing up and smoothing her haori.
“You are strictly forbidden from training for another two weeks.
Your bones are knitted, but the muscle tissue in your shoulder needs time to stabilize.
If you try to swing a sword, I will personally paralyze you from the neck down.” She said it with such a cheerful, airy tone that I almost didn’t register the threat.
I respected that kind of unhinged energy.
“Understood,” I lied.
The next three days of “rehabilitation” at the Butterfly Mansion were a test of my absolute patience.
A very loud, very angry girl with blue pigtails named Aoi tried to make me do stretching exercises.
I bypassed this entirely by waiting until she left the room, loading my uninjured right arm with the heaviest medical equipment I could find, and doing one-armed curls to maintain my muscle density.
My ‘Iron Stomach’ was demanding fuel to finish repairing the torn shoulder.
I snuck into the kitchen at midnight and ate three days’ worth of rations, including a bowl of medicinal herbs that tasted like battery acid but made my fractured ribs feel instantly better.
By the fourth day, I couldn’t stand being indoors anymore.
I dressed in my fresh, black and purple Demon Slayer uniform, strapped the double-barreled Nichirin shotgun to my right hip, and tied the moss-green katana to my left.
I walked out into the massive, sunlit courtyard of the estate.
I needed to adapt my fighting style.
The East Blue ‘Three-Sword Style’ was dead to me in this body.
I was now a practitioner of the ‘Sword-and-Buckshot’ method.
But aiming a sawed-off shotgun with one hand while swinging a sword with the other required a level of ambidextrous coordination I hadn’t perfected yet.
I stood in the center of the garden, closed my eyes, and practiced my quick-draw.
Shuck-clack.
Draw the gun.
Aim.
Fire.
Draw the sword.
Slash.
Sheathe.
Reload.
I ran through the motions hundreds of times, building the muscle memory, pushing through the dull, burning ache in my left shoulder.
I wasn’t going to let a nerfed physical vessel stop me from reaching the heavens.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Genya?” The voice was harsh, raspy, and dripped with a venomous mix of anger and sheer disdain.
I paused, resting my hand on the grip of my shotgun, and turned around.
Standing at the edge of the courtyard was a man who looked like he had been violently dragged through a briar patch.
He had wild, spiky white hair, heavily scarred pale skin, and a crazed, wide-eyed glare.
His Slayer uniform was unbuttoned to expose his heavily scarred chest, and a green-tinted Nichirin sword rested at his hip.
He looked exactly like an angry, rabid hedgehog.
My inherited memories clicked into place.
Sanemi Shinazugawa.
The Wind Hashira.
Genya’s older brother.
[DING!
The ‘Family Therapy System’ detects severe sibling estrangement!
Bind now to unlock the ‘Heart-to-Heart’ dialogue tree and resolve ten years of mutual trauma!] I ignored the screen, staring blankly at the angry man.
In the original plot, Sanemi hated Genya being in the Demon Slayer Corps because he secretly wanted to protect him.
It was a classic, overly dramatic trope of ‘I’m being cruel to keep you safe.’ I didn’t care about their family drama.
I was Roronoa Zoro, and I didn’t take disrespect from anyone, regardless of whose body I was currently piloting.
“I’m training,” I answered, my tone deadpan.
“Did you need something, or are you just here to ruin the landscaping with your face?” Sanemi’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated fury.
The veins in his forehead instantly bulged.
“You little piece of shit.
I told you to quit.
You have no talent.
You can’t even use a Breathing Style!
And now you’re running around with a gun?
What kind of cowardly, pathetic joke are you playing at?!” He stepped off the porch, the gravel crunching under his boots, his spiritual pressure exploding outward.
The air around him whipped into a sudden, violent gale.
“You got nearly ripped in half by a no-name demon in Kaza town, and you think you have the right to act cocky?” Sanemi snarled, closing the distance between us.
“Quit the Corps right now, Genya.
Go live a boring, pathetic life somewhere else, before I beat you until you can’t walk.” I didn’t flinch against the wind pressure.
I just looked at him, completely unimpressed.
“You talk a lot for a guy with a glorified fan-blade,” I said calmly.
“I killed the demon in Kaza.
I survived.
My lack of magic breathing isn’t my problem; it’s yours.” “You want to die that badly?!” Sanemi roared.
He moved.
As a Hashira, his speed was genuinely terrifying.
He didn’t draw his sword—he didn’t need to.
He closed the ten-yard gap in a fraction of a second, his fist pulled back, aimed directly for my freshly healed face.
But I had fought Mihawk.
I had fought Akuro.
I knew what a killing intent looked like, and I knew how to read the physical telegraphs of a superior opponent.
My body was slower, but my battle IQ was lightyears ahead of him.
I didn’t try to dodge backward; he would just ride the momentum and overwhelm me.
Instead, I ducked into his guard.
As his fist soared over my head, I drew the moss-green katana with my left hand, keeping the blade sheathed, and drove the heavy black scabbard directly upward into his ribcage.
THWACK.
The impact was solid.
It wouldn’t break a Hashira’s ribs, but it was enough to knock the wind out of him.
Sanemi coughed, his eyes widening in pure shock that I had not only dodged his strike but countered it.
He recovered instantly, spinning on his heel and sweeping his leg out to break my knees.
I jumped, clearing the sweep by an inch, and drew my shotgun with my right hand.
I didn’t fire—I wasn’t going to blow his head off—but I used the heavy, iron-forged barrel of the gun like a club, bringing it down hard against his collarbone as I landed.
Sanemi caught the barrel of the gun with his bare hand, his grip like a vice.
Blood dripped from his palm where the Nichirin metal bit into his skin.
We were locked in a standstill.
He held the barrel of my gun; I had my sheathed sword pressed against his stomach.
“You think…” Sanemi hissed, his face inches from mine, his eyes burning with a manic, violent intensity.
“…a few cheap tricks make you a Slayer?
I am going to break both of your arms.” “Try it, hedgehog,” I growled right back, leaning into his grip.
“See which one of us walks away first.” The air between us crackled with murderous intent.
Sanemi’s free hand dropped to the hilt of his green sword.
My finger hovered over the shotgun’s trigger.
“My, my.
What an energetic family reunion.” The tension snapped.
Standing on the porch, holding a tray of medicinal tea, was Shinobu Kocho.
She was smiling her perfect, serene smile, but a thick, pulsing vein was visibly throbbing on her forehead.
The aura she projected wasn’t a violent storm like Sanemi’s; it was a cold, suffocating, venomous dread.
“Shinazugawa-san,” Shinobu said, her voice terrifyingly polite.
“I do recall mentioning that my patient was strictly forbidden from physical exertion.
Are you intentionally trying to undo my hard medical work in my own courtyard?” Sanemi clicked his tongue, glaring at her before turning his furious gaze back to me.
He forcefully shoved the barrel of my gun away, breaking our deadlock.
“He’s not a patient.
He’s a dead man walking,” Sanemi spat, turning his back on me.
“I don’t care what weird toys you bought, Genya.
If you stay in the Corps, you will die in the mud.
And I won’t shed a single tear for you.” “Good,” I called after him as he stormed toward the estate gates.
“I don’t need an audience anyway.” Sanemi didn’t look back.
He vanished through the gates, the wind dying down in his wake.
I exhaled a long breath, lowering the shotgun and rubbing my aching left shoulder.
The brief clash had definitely strained the newly knitted muscle.
“I suppose I should be impressed that you didn’t end up with a broken jaw, Genya-kun,” Shinobu said, walking gracefully down the porch steps and handing me a cup of tea.
“But if you ever try to brawl with a Hashira in my garden again, I will inject you with a paralytic that will make you feel like you are on fire for three days.
Do we understand each other?” I looked at her cheerful, smiling face, then down at the tea.
I chugged it in one go.
It tasted like concentrated dirt.
“Loud and clear,” I said, wiping my mouth.
“Now, when can I go kill something else?”