Chapter Text
The night my world ended was quiet. Too quiet.
The moon hung pale and full over the rooftops of our kunoichi village, painting the courtyard in silver light. I sat with the other girls- my sisters - polishing kunai while we whispered about the drills we'd endured that day. Our clan had no room for laughter, and yet it still found its way into our circle, slipping out between sharpened steel and weary sighs like something we weren't supposed to have...but did anyway.
That was the last night I ever heard their voices.
The demon arrived without warning. At first, I thought it was a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, its footfalls heavy but deliberate. Then I saw its smile-too wide, too sharp- and the light of the moon caught in its teeth like the edge of a blade. Its eyes glowed with hunger, and something in my chest went cold.
We moved in unison, as we had been trained since childhood. Dozens of us in perfect rhythm, our steps like a drumline pounding the earth. Smoke bombs burst, kunai slice the air, blades cut across flesh that should have fallen. Our formation was flawless. We were kunoichi. We were shadows sharpened into steel.
But the demon just laughed.
Every wound healed before our eyes. Flesh closed, bones snapped back into place. What we cut apart reformed faster than we could strike. The rhythm broke. The song of our clan fell apart, and for the first time in my life, I felt it - the moment when training stopped being enough. I heard the wet crack of bone, the shrill scream of a girl I had sparred with that morning, the awful, empty silence that followed as bodies hit the ground one by one. The demon moved through us like fire through paper.
And I....I ran.
My blade slipped from numb hands. My feet carried me backward before my mind caught up, before I could stop myself. I stumbled into the shrine at the center of the village just as its beams began to groan and splinter from the tremors of battle.
Something struck my shoulder as I dove forward - a falling beam, or a slab of broken tile - I never saw what it was, only felt the impact steal the breath from my lungs and send me sprawling across the floor. Pain flared hot and blinding down my arm, and I bit back a cry as I crawled beneath the wreckage, dragging myself with one numb hand while the other burned uselessly at my side.
I stayed there, shaking, pinned beneath the dust and splintered wood while my sisters were torn apart above me. My heart thundered in my chest, each beat so loud I was certain it would give me away.
But the demon never found me.
When dawn broke, the creature was gone. Only ruin remained. I crawled from the shrine on unsteady limbs, my shoulder stiff and aching, my body heavy with dust, blood, and shame as I looked upon the broken corpses of my clan. Women who had taught me to walk without sound, to strike without hesitation, lay strewn across the ground, their blades useless in their hands.
I was the only one left.
The silence was unbearable. My heart was the only sound that remained - steady, relentless - and I hated it for that. In that rhythm, I head not just survival, but a vow I never asked for. If steel and poison could not kill demons, then I would find something that could. I would forge my own art, my own weapon, even if it meant standing alone forever.
That heartbeat became my song.
The first years after the massacre were chaotic. I wandered, half-starved most of the time and broken, clinging to my training like a lifeline that was already fraying. My stolen sword was the only thing that kept me alive, but against demons, it was little more than an ornament. I fought and failed, fled, and bled, barely surviving each encounter, hating myself every time I had to run again.
Yet in every failure, I learned.
I began to listen - not just to the demons, but to myself. To the rhythm of my breathing when panic tried to steal it. To the beat of my pulse when fear made it race. To the scrape of my sandals against the dirt when I forced myself to keep moving. Every movement had a sound. Every strike resonated through my bones. I began to notice how a swing that landed just right made the blade sing, how air hissed differently when cut at an angle.
At first, I thought I was going mad. But little by little, I realized I was building something new - not from strength, but from desperation.
The first form was crude: a desperate downward slam that shook the ground when it landed. The blade hummed, low and powerful, like the crash of a drum. It left me exhausted, my arms numb, but the vibration lingered in the earth. That became my First Form: Fortissimo Crash.
The second came when I noticed the rhythm of a demon's healing. Their regeneration pulsed like a heartbeat. If I timed my strikes to that, I could interrupt it, slowing the flesh as it knit together. I paired my blade with a sharp snap - at first, the crack of a kunai against stone, later something more refined. That became my Second Form: Tactus Lullaby.
It was during this time that I found the tessen.
I returned, eventually, to the ashes of my village. I don't know why. Perhaps I hoped someone survived. Maybe I wanted to disappear into the same place my past had burned away. Instead, I found the remains of my mentor's belongings, buried beneath collapsed beams. Among them was a pair of battered iron war fans, their edges chipped but intact.
I carried them as keepsakes at first. But one night, cornered by a demon too fast for my blade, I snapped them open by instinct. The metallic clap startled the beast for the briefest instant — just long enough for me to thrust my sword through its neck.
In that moment, I realized the fans were more than relics. They were rhythm itself — sharp percussion to my sword’s melody. I sought a blacksmith months later and begged him to reforge them. He added iron spines, strengthened their frames, and hid tiny chimes within their ribs. When I flicked them open, they rang with a hollow, haunting note.
The Whispering Tessen were born. They became my counterpoint. Where the blade sang, the fans whispered. Where steel struck, they clapped and chimed. Together, they formed harmony.
My forms grew with me.
Staccato Serenade. Allegro Fury. Crescendo Waltz.
Each one a little less about survival, and a little more about control.
And finally, my last form came to me on the edge of death. My body broken, my lungs shredded, I poured everything into one final note. My sword sang, pure and unyielding, and my fans scattered the sound like ripples across water. The demon froze mid-regeneration, its body paralyzed long enough for me to sever its head.
I named it Requiem’s End.
That was the night I truly became a phantom.
The years blurred together. Villages whispered of a songstress who wandered with shamisen by day and vanished by night. Some said I was a spirit of vengeance. Others called me a liar’s tale. I did not correct them. It was easier to be a myth than a woman with no name, no clan, and nowhere left to belong.
But the whispers spread further, and I began to hear of others — warriors who called themselves Demon Slayers. Among them, one name stood out: the Sound Hashira. A man who fought flamboyantly, with blades that roared like fireworks. A shinobi like me… but one who had chosen to live loudly instead of hiding in the quiet.
I wondered what kind of man could do that.
And now, here I am. Twenty-four years old, seated in the heart of the Entertainment District, my shamisen in my lap and my mask of serenity in place. The strings sing beneath my fingers, a melody sweet enough to lull courtesans and drunkards alike. To them, I am only a performer.
But beneath the laughter, beneath the rustle of silk and the clinking of cups, I hear it.
A heartbeat too deliberate.
A hunger too sharp to be human.
A demon walks these streets.
And I am not the only hunter who has come to silence it.