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Waking up with a mixture of dirt, sand and rocks being pushed into your face was not ideal. Especially when Tanjiro couldn’t move his arms and the pain from his injuries was still bothering him. A weight on his back pinning him down into the uncomfortable position didn’t seem to care about his predicament when he tried to sit up. Instead, they started to tell him about the importance of the people in front of him, the Pillars of the demon slayers.
Tanjiro wearily gaze out at the line of swordsmen looking down on him like he was a criminal. Tomioka was at the very end, his scent was filled with guilt and self hatred like the swordsman was blaming himself for what was happening.
“Good. He’s awake.” The woman that he remembered Tomioka fight against looked at him before clapping her hands together with a smile despite the amount of anger he smelled. “Before we start this trial, why don't we have him explain them crime of—“
“There is no need for a trial!” A swordsman with hair like fire yelled with a wide smile across his face.
“That’s right!” A tall man shouted out, his headband covered in jewels hanging down flashed in the sunlight. “I’ll just cut off the kid’s head in the most flamboyant style along with that demonic creature.”
“Ah, their poor souls. I pity them for being born into this cruel world.” A large man with prayer beads wrapped around his hands said. “Let’s put him out of his misery swiftly.”
“Forget about the boy.” Tanjiro looked up to a tree where a man with a snake wrapped around his shoulders was looking at him like rotten food. “Let’s discuss Tomioka because he is just as guilty of breaking rules.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him for now. I’m more interested in what the boy has to say about going out on slayer mission with a demon in tow despite breaking the corps rules in doing so.” The butterfly pin in the woman’s head almost seems to flutter as she walked closer to him with the disdain for him clear to his nostrils even though her smile still remained so peaceful. Those purple eyes stared into him like a predator not like the warmth of his mother or the care in Lady Tamayo’s. “You are aware of it, aren’t you?“
“I... I know but—.” Tanjiro croaked out, his dry throat aching from the lack of moisture.
“Now tell us why. You can take your time, so don’t push yourself.” The woman leaned down and pressed a glass of water to his lips. He barely noticed the black and white dressed person running off with an empty tray as he hesitated to swallow anything in the glass. “Drink it up, you will need it.”
Her words were like cotton covered thorns that smelled purely of wisteria and medicinal supplies. Despite the soft words, he could feel some anger behind what she said. Either way, he drank the water to relieve his dry throat after smelling it to make sure there was nothing dissolved inside the water.
He cleared his throat, making her step away with the glass as looked up to the demon slayers staring at him. “While I was away from home selling coal, my family was attacked by a demon...
Tanjiro took his time to explain the day, pausing when he felt the sorrow stabbing into his chest at being reminded of his family's dead bodies sprawled out inside their broken house.
He ends with explaining how his sister tried to attack him but stopped and hasn’t attacked another human since. That is when the uproar of the swordsman reached its height with the slayers thinking he was lying. The snake man particularly didn’t believe him since ‘if they are family to you, of course you would defend them’.
It was true but that doesn’t mean he was lying!
“Listen to me, please! I became a swordsman, demon slayer, so I could find a cure for my sister!” He heard at least two of them scoff as their scents remained heavy in their disbelief. All except one who was looking up at the clouds with an air around him like a morning mist. “Just let me prove to you that my sister—!”
Just then, he smelled three new scents suddenly appear. One was his sister, another smelled like food like they just came out from the kitchens and the last scent smelled like hatred and revenge.
Tanjiro turned his head and spotted a disguised servant in black and white chasing after a white haired swordsman who was dragging his sister’s box behind him. “Is this the infamous demon slayer who has a demon with him?”
“Shinazugawa, please don’t act this way especially without the master here.” The woman said, her smile had dropped yet the peaceful expression remained as her scent twisted into a feeling of annoyance.
Tanjiro focused on the wooden box as the swordsman stepped onto the box like a hunter with a fresh kill. His eyes widened as the swordsman raised his word—
And stab right into the box where his sister was resting inside.
Tanjiro gritted his teeth and then launched himself forward where the cocky swordsman was standing there with his sister’s blood dripping from his sword.
...After that, he doesn’t remember exactly what happened in order.
He remembered head-butting the white haired man down to the ground. Protecting his sister’s box with his body. Kicking out at someone’s groin. Trying to reassure his sister who was groaning inside the box. Somewhere there was a pained yell that either came from him or the scarred man. Biting at the arm that reached to take him off of his sister’s box. Or was that during his fight with the scarred man?
It was a whirlwind of events until one monotone voice called out an announcement that made everything freeze in place.
“The master has arrived.”
His forehead got shoved straight into the ground by the scarred man as the intense looking slayer asked about the situation from the man before them. Tanjiro looked up to see a sick looking man with scars covering most of his face. His chest tightened at the familiar smell as he was reminded of his plague ridden father in his final years.
“I apologize for not informing you all about this discourse of Tanjiro and his sister.” The master’s soft voice washed over the courtyard. “I received a letter from the former Water Hashira, Urokodaki Sakonji. Please read it, my daughter.”
Tanjiro listened as one of the daughters came forward to read out Urokodaki’s letter. It went into a detailed account of his mentor’s experience watching over Nezuko and how she had slept for two years while he was training and has never devoured humans ever since she was made into a demon. Tanjiro almost geared up at the end at hearing how both Tomioka and his mentor would kill themselves if Nezuko ever committed the sin of eating humans.
“We can’t guarantee that she won’t attack humans. We can’t prove the fact if she refrained from devouring humans for this long means she won’t ever do so.“ The master commanded attention with his words. “But I have more news to share with all of you concerning young Kamado. Tanjiro has met Kibutsuji Muzan.”
There were exclamations and shouts from most of the slayers around him at this information. Yet his face just got pushed into the ground harder by the white haired man. “What do you know?! What is his stronghold?”
“Shinazugawa, be calm.” The grip on his hair relaxed only slightly as the demon slayer’s hand twisted into the locks of his short hair. “Kitbutsuji has sent pursuers after Tanjiro. We don’t not know the full reason as to why he is a target. But it might have something to do with his demon sister. I believe something is happening with her that Kibutsuji never saw coming,” the master continued as his daughters remained at his side. “And from the letters, Nezuko seems to be different from most demons since it is recorded that she has only slept, yet she has so much strength.”
“I apologize, master. But I cannot accept this!” Shinazugawa said, the grip in his hair was still present. “Not after what demon slayers have been through. Not after so many people lost their lives to demons. I cannot trust the boy or the demon he has with him.”
“I see.” The master hummed, lowering his hand to pat at his daughters’ heads in the following silence. “What will it take for you to be more convinced to at least relax in their presence?”
Shinazugawa sat up straighter from where he was kneeling. “I can provide the evidence needed to prove that we all have a right to distrust this.”
Tanjiro heard the master agree and then only a moment later another pair of hands were holding him down against the ground as the white haired swordsman rushed forward.
Tanjiro struggled against the hold as he heard his sister’s box was manhandled while other swordsmen were instructing him to take the box out of sunlight for the demon to come out. He tried to call out for his sister but choked when the swordsman behind him grabbed the back of his throat.
Then, the air filled with fresh blood that smelled a bit similar to the boy from the mansion’s blood. Marechi blood?
“Hey demon. Come and get it,” Shinazugawa said. The scent of fresh blood from both his sister and the swordsman wafted into his nostrils.
The surroundings around him were so quiet he could hear Shinazugawa’s blood dripping onto the wooden floor of the open room.
Then, Nezuko’s smell got stronger as he heard the wooden box’s door open. Tanjiro struggled to turn his head to the side to watch what was going to happen but he was able to find a position where he could see.
His sister crawled out of the box and stood on those wooden floors with her pink, blood stained haori and that bamboo muzzle holding back her elongated fangs. Tanjiro frowned as he started to smell how hungry his sister was until it quickly changed to a more subdued scent he recognized instantly.
That was the exact smell that she has when she gets sleepy.
“What happens now?” One of the other swordsmen asked in a whisper.
Tanjiro watched his sister’s eyes flutter. Yeah, that was what’s going to happen. Even though he could see the minimal amount of confused interest in the spilling blood, the amount of sleepiness was overpowering it.
The fire haired one answered with a powerful tone to his words. “We watch to see who makes the move first—“
BAM!
Everyone jumped back as Nezuko slammed down onto the ground with her arms protecting her head. Shinazugawa jerked back from the sudden movement from what he could see as that familiar sleepy scent replaced all the instinctual hunger from before.
Everyone of the slayers in the nearby area stiffened like his sister was about to jump up in a ravenous attack at any moment.
But instead of a hungry growl, the only thing that echoed from the depth of her chest was the rumbling snores.
“What just happened?” The tall man with the flashy headband asked, pointing to his sleeping sister.
Nezuko, who was sound asleep, did not answer. All she did was snore as she curled up like she used to do at home. Her legs tucked towards her stomach with one leg higher than the other as her arms acted as the pillow underneath her head.
“Hah?!” Shinazugawa yelled out in outrage. His spilling blood was ignored as his sister continued to sleep like a peaceful baby even in the midst of their trial
“What happened?” The master asked his daughters.
The one at his right side piped up, “The demon has fallen asleep without even moving towards Shinazugawa.
“Wow, she fell asleep so quickly.” The master noted with a bit of An amazed tone in his soft voice. That gentle, scarred face turned towards the other swordsman as the one pinning him down released their grip only slightly in response. “Ah, at least it’s been proven that Kamado Nezuko won’t—“
“Zzzzzzz....”
“—won’t attack humans.” The master continued despite his sister’s low snores interrupting him. “I’m sure that even after this, there are some that still won’t accept her. But for now, I ask you to leave them be.”
Tanjiro smiled as the person holding him back stepped back while the butterfly woman approached him again with the glass of water.