Chapter Text
6:47 A.M, Tuesday. The sun was barely up as most winter mornings were. Somewhere on a busy street in a city with an incredibly high population, in an apartment on the second highest floor, a faint light had been shining through the window. There was the faint clicking of a controller as its wielder hit some of the buttons too hard. Leaning towards his computer screen, Sanemi had been focusing hard on a match in his game. This was a rare morning for him, he started with a game to blow off any steam from his work the previous night if it was too frustrating.
Suddenly caught up in a small fit of frustration, Sanemi desperately mashed in combos in hopes of winning only to lose. He scoffed and set his controller down while staring unhappily at the game over screen. However his little pity party was interrupted by his bedroom door creaking open. At first, the twenty one year old thought it was his cat, Nuclear Reactor (fitting name I know) but it actually turned out to be his younger brother Genya.
Genya kept his gaze on the floor, unsure if his brother would pay attention to him. Sanemi on the other hand had given his brother a confused look and pulled his headphones off.
“I thought you were going off to school by now? Why are you still here?” Sanemi asked. Genya raised his head slightly and met his older brother’s eyes. He hesitates, “I uhm… I missed the bus.” Genya mumbled. Sanemi stared blankly for a moment before sighing and standing up.
“Look, Gen, this better not be an excuse to ride the motorbike. You can’t keep doing this.” He scolded. Genya panicked a little and held up his hands, he tried to defend himself, “I didn’t do it on purpose! I slept in on accident!”
Sanemi shook his head. He didn’t really believe his brother but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He was either gonna let his brother walk to school and be even more late or just have him stay home. Neither option was good. The man rolled his eyes and waved his hand to shoo his brother off like a gnat.
“Go grab your things and wait by the door. I’ll be there in a minute.” He instructed. Genya nodded and wandered out of the room leaving Sanemi alone. The older of the two stood there for a brief second to stretch. It wasn’t often he had to drive Genya to school but there was always at least a few times in a school year where he did. Every single time it did happen, Sanemi was sure that his younger sibling was just trying to impress his friends by showing up on a motorcycle.
It was a cool bike though so he couldn’t blame him. Sanemi paced around a little before going to shut his computer off and go get dressed appropriately. Sure, Sanemi and Genya didn’t always get along but Sanemi wouldn’t want to embarrass his brother by showing up dressed like a forty year old dad who couldn’t bother to change the clothes he’s slept in for three days. That and it wouldn’t be safe while on a motorcycle to begin with.
So, after quickly getting ready, Sanemi grabbed his keys, helmet, and his brother’s helmet then made his way over to the door. He patted Genya’s shoulder and spoke with a little irritation in his voice, “Alright, kid, get moving. We don’t have all morning.” The teenager moved to open the door and rush down the hallway towards the stairs with Sanemi following close behind.
Flight after flight, they raced down to the bottom floor and out to the parking lot. The older of the two handed Genya his helmet, basically shoving it into his hands, and then proceeded to march over to his motorbike.
The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon now, highlighting the snow and ice with a glorious golden glow. It really was a contrast to Sanemi’s darkly colored bike and clothes. He was definitely the most noticeable thing in the parking lot at that time.
“So how much time is left until your first class starts?” Sanemi asked. In response, Sanemi’s little brother glanced at his watch, “Thirty minutes I think…”
“Seriously? This fucking early? I thought the bus was bad enough sense it leaves at six thirty.” Sanemi said with a groan. He put the keys in the ignition then gestured for Genya to hurry up and get on.
Genya was a little hesitant to do so but he didn’t want to waste any more of the other’s time. Might as well get this over with, they didn’t have all morning. As soon as Genya was seated behind his brother, Sanemi turned the keys, making the engine roar to life. The engine wasn’t exactly the ideal thing to listen to in the morning as it was insanely loud. Perfectly mirroring Sanemi’s angry exterior.
Sanemi Shinazugawa was not the type of person you’d want to mess around with. He was sure to prove it too. In fact that outer personality was a little intense for people new to him. Some of Genya’s friends were intimidated by his older brother so they didn’t visit frequently.
Deep down Sanemi did feel bad about that. He wanted the best for his sibling but he didn’t really know how to convey it. As little flurries of ice came down from the sky above, Sanemi revved the engine. Unlike most people, he couldn’t get enough of that sound. He looked over his shoulder at his brother.
“I suggest you hold on tight.” he said this with a mischievous undertone. One thing was for sure based on that alone, Sanemi was a speed demon. Going illegally fast was his favorite thing. He’s just lucky he hasn’t been caught yet. This was something Genya openly worried about.
Another loud roar from the engine was quickly followed by the sudden movement of the motorbike, startling Genya. He clung tightly to Sanemi as they raced out of the parking lot and down the streets. All he could do was hope he wouldn’t accidentally let go.
Sanemi was determined to make sure his little brother wasn’t late for class so he pulled some risky moves. Running red lights, practically flying past people from the speed he was driving, and using slightly dangerous shortcuts. This was made a little easier thanks to the high powered tech used for the newer motorcycles. The most efficient tech only being used for the demon slayer corps.
It was ludicrous that this power alone could push normal vehicles way beyond the normal limit for speed. But that’s what Sanemi liked about it. He shot through another intersection which caused stray pieces of newspaper to blow up into the air. One of the most impressive things though, was the trail of neon green light following Sanemi’s bike.
Within minutes, Sanemi had pulled up to Genya’s school. Due to the speed he had been going, stopping wasn’t exactly easy. The bike came to a screeching halt, causing the back of the motorbike to raise up into the air momentarily before coming back down to the ground with a slight thud.
Genya sat still in a wide eyed shock before shakily getting off the bike. Sanemi couldn’t help but to chuckle.
“I’ll see you later okay? We’re having Tempura for dinner tonight so don’t be late.” Sanemi said. Genya nodded and started to walk off, “I’ll see you.” The two waved at one another before going their separate ways.
Sanemi smiled to himself. He stayed still briefly to check the time before driving back to the apartment. Sanemi worked a night shift so he had all day to rest and do what he wanted.
As soon as he got home he went to check on his cat. He wandered around for a while until he found Nuclear Reactor in the living room. Sanemi went and sat on the floor near the cat and reached over to pet them.
“Hey, Nu…” Sanemi quietly greeted the cat. Nu was a grumpy little siamese cat that Sanemi and his brother had got recently. Both of the brothers couldn’t really come up with a good name so they settled on calling them Nuclear Reactor.
Nu meowed at Sanemi in a curious manner. The twenty one year old smiled slightly. He would likely spend more time with his cat but there were other important things he had to attend to first. However, like most cat owners, Sanemi couldn’t turn down just a few minutes to play.
–
Later, probably after twenty minutes, Sanemi had gone off to his room to work on something important. He sat at his cluttered desk with a bright lamp overhead. With this late night job he had as a demon slayer, it came with some powerful technology to get that very thing done.
Both in his bike and in his weapons, there were extremely powerful crystals that when used correctly, could form deadly laser blades. Sanemi personally didn’t like how his weapons were originally designed so taking the time to make his preferred adjustments was a priority.
The crystals used in his equipment were known as Nichirin. It was a hard to harvest yet durable crystal located near the surface. It was just powerful enough to create things like lasers and combined with where it was found, the absorbed sunlight made it effective to kill demons with.
Demons plagued the city Sanemi lived in. They’d cause havoc by destroying buildings and brutally murder thousands of innocent people. Their only weakness being the sunlight. Thanks to the Nichirin crystal weapons, eradicating demons was billions of times easier. The crystal itself would have to be cut down to a specific shape to properly form a blade for things such as swords and knives.
Other weapons like guns would also have their own unique cut to effectively create a bullet. Due to the difficulty of harvest, the crystal was incredibly expensive. If Sanemi wasn’t careful when modifying his weapons it could cost him everything just to get a replacement.
Even then, there was more than just the crystal that would cost an arm and a leg to replace. There was another hard to obtain material used in some Nichirin crystal weapons, the laser resistant metal known as Clausrinium. This metal was absurdly strong and the only known metal to not face any damage against a Nichirin laser.
Clausrinium typically is used to create protective guards for weapons so the user would stand less of a chance at self injury. Along with that, the metal was found deep underground, and before being forged into these guards the raw ore is basically impossible to properly harvest without tools breaking.
With this durability, Clausrinium is best forged with other metals to loosen it up. Due to some Nichirin crystal weapons needing more room for flexibility, something too stiff would make it impossible to properly use.
Sanemi’s weapons just so happened to need that large range of movement. So, his Nichi-Claus gauntlets were forged in combination with a softer metal. This combo had changed the bright bluish color of the metal to a grayish purple. More gray when it wasn’t directly under a light.
Most of the gauntlet had to be made with this metal due to some of those adjustments Sanemi would make. The Nichirin laser, typically formed as claws on a normal pair, had been completely changed by Sanemi. Now creating a far deadlier offshoot of the original weapon.
Currently, Sanemi had been adjusting one of the small shards of Nichirin crystal. The night before, there was a small malfunction while in use so Sanemi had to switch to his back up weapon, a normal Nichirin crystal katana.
Normally, a Nichirin crystal weapon had a daily life span of two to eight hours as the light used to power the laser took a while to charge. However, Sanemi’s gauntlets had failed to last even thirty minutes before powering down. Confused, he wanted to fix this problem and ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
It was possible that the light wasn’t passing through the crystal correctly and it needed to be moved slightly. Sanemi tried to be as precise as possible while making the changes until a sudden notification from his phone had pulled him from his focus. It wasn’t any normal notification though.
Displayed as a sort of hologram above his phone so he wouldn’t have to look down at it, the notification was a message to Sanemi from a fellow hashira, Obanai Iguro. Sanemi squinted slightly as he made an attempt to read the message.
It was a short and to the point, “where are you?” Immediately Sanemi knew what his comrade had meant and panicked. He was late for a hashira meeting. How could he even forget that one was happening today?
Sanemi shot up, gathered his things and left the apartment without wasting another second. The others would surely have his head for this one, he knew it. Being late to these meetings was never good, but they rarely ever occurred so how could anyone blame the man for forgetting?
Similar to how he took Genya to school, Sanemi had raced off on his motorbike at a dangerous speed. This time however, getting to his destination quickly wouldn’t be that easy. The city Sanemi lived in quite literally was divided into separate tiers.
In order to protect the city from outsiders it was constructed on massive floating plates. The design did come with its flaws, lower class people were left at the bottom and the richest people lived at the top, far away from most demonic threats. As expected though, the lower class had less exposure to the sun making it way more dangerous to reside in.
Sanemi happened to live on the second lowest tier and the location for hashira meetings was at the very top. Getting to and from that location was insanely difficult due to this. There were only two ways for Sanemi to even get there and he was not going to use one of the many skyscraping elevators.
Using them was costly, and if Sanemi did bother to spend what little savings he had, he hated being stuck in big crowds of people. Sure they would be in their cars and trucks but it would still be horribly cluttered. This would leave the wind hashira later than he already is.
Sanemi kicked his bike into overdrive as he shot across the icy roads. The inner parts of the motorcycle’s wheels started to glow with a vibrant green, the trail of light from before becoming more noticeable. This is exactly what the wind hashira needed it to do. Getting to the edge of the platform was only the first step in the complicated process of going up.
There were probably more efficient ways of doing this, but stress made it hard for Sanemi to think rationally. As the edge came into view, he knew there was no going back now. Onlookers would be quick to think Sanemi would drive off the edge and fall to his death but he did the exact opposite. As long as he didn’t slow down, he’d be fine.
With the speed he had been traveling, some special tech within the wheels of Sanemi’s motorcycle had been able to power on. It had one purpose and one purpose only. The trail of light generated from the wheels actually happened to be the result of Nichirin crystals. The wheels themselves were constructed from that same resistant metal in order to stay on top of the generated laser.
It only lasted for a short amount of time so Sanemi had to make his next move quickly. With all his effort, Sanemi carefully tried to lift the front of the bike up while also keeping himself from falling off.
As the wind hashira started his ascent to the top tier of the city the sun had reflected off of the smooth outer shell of the bike. It was bright and somewhat distracting but Sanemi had to push through, he’s gone and thrown himself off the edge, falling wasn’t an option. Sanemi did hold a bit of pride in his heart.
This had to be one of his riskiest stunts yet and so far it was going accordingly. Previously going from driving up walls to flight, truly impressive. At this rate he might make it to the meeting within the next fifteen minutes. Just don’t screw up. People still on the platforms below looked up in both awe and confusion.
Technology meant to allow vehicles to fly had failed so many times in the past, so it wasn’t permitted to be used by the public. The fact Sanemi was even up in the sky right now had people baffled. How did he manage to get his hands on something forbidden like that?
He knew damn well people were staring but that was the least of his worries right now. He was at the right height now and just needed to get back on the ground before the crystals in the wheels stopped working for the time being. This was the hardest part.
Clausrinium can’t pass through Nichirin lasers. So, Sanemi had to use a lot of force to get the front of the bike to lower. Sanemi made an attempt at slowing down slightly to make it easier only to have everything stop working completely. At least Sanemi was above where he needed to be now.
As he and his bike started to plummet he cursed fifty times over. Stick the landing, just stick the landing. How the hell do you stick the landing for a motorbike that can fly?!
“FUCKING DAMNIT!!” he yelled. This caught the attention of the rest of the hashira down below. Everyone scrambled to move out of the way, not wanting to be crushed by a 227 kilogram bike, plus Sanemi to go along with it.
Out of frustration alone, Sanemi let go of his bike, letting it hit the ground first. Right before he made contact with the ground himself, the sound hashira, Tengen Uzui caught him. Sanemi threw his helmet off and clutched his head with a little wince.
“That was quite the entrance there, Shinazugawa.” Tengen remarked. Sanemi groaned, “Just put me down shithead…”
Well, now Sanemi would have to put up with repairing his bike and the judgment of his comrades for being late and interrupting the meeting the way he did. All with a splitting headache.