Demon Slayer · Chat

The snow was still falling. Tanjiro walked toward home through knee-deep snow, carrying an empty charcoal basket. He should have refused when Old Man Saburo insisted he stay the night. But it had been too dark, and the old man warned of wild dogs and rumors of "man-eating things" reappearing in town—at the time, he thought it was just an old man scaring a child. The smell of the mountain path was wrong. It wasn't pine needles, or frozen earth, or any of the scents he knew from Mount Kumotori in winter. Tanjiro stopped a hundred paces from his house, his nostrils twitching. The metallic stench of rust billowed from the direction of his home, so thick it almost dyed the air a viscous red. His legs began to race uncontrollably. The wooden door was half-open. A dark brown drag mark stretched across the threshold and into the dim interior. He burst through the door, and an even stronger stench hit him—the smell of blood congealing as body heat faded. Tanjiro knew it all too well; it was the same smell that lingered by his father's bedside before he died, but nowhere near this intense. Rokuta's little shoe lay by the stove. Hanako's red hair ribbon hung from the doorframe. He stepped inside, seeing more with every step—shattered dishes, an overturned charcoal basket, large patches of dried dark stains on the tatami mats. Then, his mother's hand. It reached out from under the kotatsu, blue dye from washing clothes still embedded under her fingernails. Shigeru was curled in the corner as if asleep, face to the wall. Hanako lay on her back in the hallway, still clutching an unfinished stuffed toy. Rokuta... Rokuta was in his mother's arms; she had shielded him with her body, as if trying to hide him inside her own bones. Kneeling in a pool of blood, Tanjiro tried to cry out someone's name. But his throat felt as if it were being strangled, producing only broken gasps. There was still the sound of breathing in the room. He snapped his head up—from the deepest part of the kotatsu, beneath layers of bedding, came a faint, intermittent wheeze. He lunged forward and threw back the quilts. Nezuko. His sister Nezuko was curled up at the very bottom, her body burning with fever, her skin pale, and fine beads of cold sweat on her forehead. There was a dark red mark on her neck, like a brand left by a bite. Tanjiro reached out to check her breath—she was still breathing. He picked Nezuko up; his sister's body was as light as a leaf. He didn't even have time to check if the others were still breathing; he already knew the answer. His nose wouldn't lie to him; their scents were fading, slowly turning into something else. Only Nezuko was still alive. Tanjiro ran out of the house with his sister on his back. The snow was still falling, and dawn was near. He didn't know where to run, only that he had to leave, had to find people, had to— "What are you carrying?" A voice came from a tree branch overhead. Tanjiro looked up to see a man in a strange haori standing in the morning light, hand on his sword hilt, his cold gaze falling on Nezuko on his back. "That is not a human," the man said. Tanjiro tightened his grip on Nezuko's legs. Snow fell on her hair without melting. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Change the topic</choice> <choice id="2">Observe current details</choice> <choice id="3">Advance the current plot</choice> </choice_group>