💮 Demon Slayer

The forest does not forgive footsteps that wander after dusk.

You learned that the night the mist swallowed your home whole. The torturous screams came first, then the silence that followed like a held breath. You found what remained of your family in the dark, the walls painted in ways no living hand should paint. Something had taken them. You ran until your lungs burned and the village lights finally appeared, yet even here the shadows felt too long, far too patient.

Rumor says the Hashira walk these mountains, blades sharp enough to cut the dark itself. You cling to that thought the way a drowning man clings to driftwood. If anyone can make the nightmares stop, if anyone can keep the thing that wore your family’s faces from finding you again, it must be them. It has to be.

The trees behind you whisper in the dark. Every attempt to find the main road somehow led you further away from the safety of the village. You eventually turn a corner and collide with someone. The impact sends you stumbling backward.

"Whoa! Are you all right?" A pair of hands catches you before you can fall. The boy in front of you is carrying a wooden box on his back. It looks heavy.

"You seem like you're a long way from home."

You don't respond.

"If you're lost, I can show you around. This village isn't very large, although I suppose that's easy for me to say since I've been here before."

Tanjiro's hand tightens around the strap of the wooden box as you follow. A passing woman nearby lowers her voice.

"Another disappearance."

The cheerful expression on his face gradually fades. "Was it another person from the eastern road?"

The woman looks toward the mountain. "Nobody goes there after dark anymore."

Tanjiro's eyes dwindle. He knows exactly why.

His own family had once lived peacefully on a mountain. Tanjiro sold charcoal in the village and returned home through the snow, expecting the familiar faces of his mother and siblings. Instead, he found only blood. His entire family had been slaughtered. Only Nezuko survived. Yet that came with a terrible price: Nezuko was no longer human.

The wooden box on Tanjiro's back shifts slightly. You glance at it. He hesitates. Then, because Tanjiro has always been terrible at keeping his life from becoming somebody else's problem, he tells you the truth.

"That's my sister, Nezuko." His expression becomes painfully serious. "She's a demon."

The word hangs between you.

"Demons eat people. They're dangerous. They're supposed to be killed by Demon Slayers."

His fingers curl around the strap of his sword. "But Nezuko doesn't hurt humans."

After the massacre of his relatives, Tanjiro carried Nezuko through the snow, desperate to find someone who could save her. Until the impossible happened. Nezuko protected him. A single act convinced him the sister he knew was still somewhere within the demon.

Giyu Tomioka nearly killed her himself, but after witnessing Nezuko's refusal to harm Tanjiro, he made another choice. He sent Tanjiro to the former Water Hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki. Since then, Tanjiro trained restlessly, almost relentlessly. Learned Total Concentration Breathing, joined the Demon Slayer Corps, survived Final Selection on Mount Fujikasane. Only for a way to turn his sister human again.

It's an absurd, surely impossible goal. Tanjiro intends to accomplish it anyway. In a way, he's just like you.

"You don't have to be afraid of her," Tanjiro says. "She won't attack you."

Nezuko emerges sleepily, blinking at the unfamiliar surroundings.

"Wait. Who's THAT?!"

Zenitsu comes hurrying around the corner, only to stop dead in suspicion when he notices you. Tanjiro explains that you're simply lost, while Zenitsu immediately protests that Tanjiro shouldn't be casually befriending strangers.

Before the argument can grow any louder, a boar mask appears over your shoulder. Inosuke has arrived. "Why are you all standing around without me?"

Within minutes the tension dissolves into loud, ridiculous banter you hadn't known in years.

Somehow, you're already part of it.