Chapter Text
On a sweat-drenched summer afternoon, Giyuu finally arrived at the far side of Mount Sagiri. Guided by his Kasugai crow Kanzaburo, he had trekked for two days to reach this point. He cast his gaze around for a good while, finding the scene at once familiar and strange.
Here on the north side of Mount Sagiri, there were no fields of wisteria blossoms blanketing the slopes as there were on the sunlit side of the mountain; instead, the hills were overrun with thick tangles of climbing vines.
His master Urokodaki Sakonji’s home lay on the mountain’s sunny southern face, whereas this time Giyuu’s mission was at the foot of the northern slope—rumor had it that a demon had been sighted there. Giyuu’s fellow Demon Slayer, Murata, had already sent his Kasugai crow ahead, and they had arranged to meet at the location.
Several years had passed since Giyuu last had time to come back to this mountain.
Part of it was that the Demon Slayer Corps sent him on missions all over the land, but deep down Giyuu knew he had also been avoiding this place so full of memories.
This mountainside had been the home of some of the only truly happy days of his life; yet it was also here that, in a single night, his briefly-held happiness was swept away. The only thing unchanged was the wisteria on the sunward slopes, still blooming as ever.
Now he was one of the Corps’ kinoe-ranking member, and three years had flown by since that day on Mount Fujikasane when he had lost consciousness during Final Selection.
As long as he arrived at the mountain’s north foot by noon tomorrow, he would meet up with Murata as planned. Time was still plentiful. He decided to let Kanzaburo rest and allow himself to linger here—just briefly—in this place he both cherished and feared. Yes, Giyuu had always felt that the place with his master and his fellow trainees was his only home since his sister’s death.
By contrast, the vast and lonely Tomioka estate was merely a place for him to stay.
Giyuu knew he had no outstanding talent and had only made it this far by sheer luck. The inheritance of that great empty house was proof enough of his fortune—he was the sole survivor of the Tomioka line, with no one left to whom he could repay his debts.
All the kindnesses he had received—from his master, from his sister, from Makomo, and above all from Sabito—he kept carefully in his heart, each drop of gratitude pooling into a deep, still reservoir within him.
When he was still an apprentice, Giyuu loved training and playing on the lush, misty slopes of Sagiri Mountain with Sabito and the other students. In the ever-shifting fog of the mountains, Sabito’s white haori1 would appear and disappear, a beacon guiding Giyuu onward. For some reason, that image rose up now in Giyuu’s mind with startling clarity.
He continued walking, eyes on his Kasugai crow perched on a branch ahead. Giyuu had never minded Kanzaburo’s chattiness. In fact, when Giyuu had first become a member of the Corps, Kanzaburo had only just learned to fly.
The little crow stayed by him through all the grief and despair that followed Final Selection. In those days, Giyuu refused to even acknowledge that he’d passed the trial—he didn’t complete a single mission the crow delivered, and he never once gave that uninvited messenger a kind look. Looking back now, it had simply been his childish way of taking out his anger on a defenseless little bird.
But now Kanzaburo was a stalwart partner who worked with him in perfect tandem.
As Giyuu traveled, the crow would chatter on and on about every possible scenario they might encounter on this mission. Sometimes it was simple encouragement—Kanzaburo was certain Giyuu would finish the task in no time. Other times the crow fussed like Master Urokodaki, warning him to be careful, worried that anything could happen to him. In truth, Giyuu had perhaps come to see the bird as one of the few family members he had left.
After the uphill path finally leveled out, Giyuu suddenly found himself approaching a home in mourning. Beyond a dense thicket of trees stood a rural household in the midst of a funeral.
In that moment, he was seized by the uncanny feeling that he had somehow been transported back to that time many years ago… He stood there with his mouth agape, momentarily forgetting to breathe.
Back then, among all the children Master Urokodaki had taken in, Sabito was the cleverest and fastest-learning—also the most mischievous of the bunch.
It was a summer evening.
They were only kids. In their play, they had wandered off to the far side of the mountain, drawn by the promise of a cool stream to escape the summer heat. Not until the sun was about to sink did they finally start their return journey. Along the mountain’s shaded side, tree shadows stretched long with the sunset, swaying on the breeze, flickering like ghostly shapes. Giyuu clung to the sleeve of Sabito’s shirt, squinting as he kept walking forward. From somewhere up ahead came the faint scent of burning incense.
At the base of a gentle little hill stood a tall, slender pine tree—a spot Giyuu still remembers even now. He was about to skirt around the hill when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. Up ahead, a small funeral procession was slowly making its way toward the house of mourning. The people in the line formed a long column, all of them dressed in black funeral robes.
The procession moved extremely slowly. Leading it was a person wearing a white kimono and a tall black cap, looking for all the world like someone out of ancient times.
As he walked, he waved some kind of branch in front of him. Right behind him came a young man carrying something that looked like a bamboo cylinder. Further back were four men hefting a long, narrow box on their shoulders, and beside them walked a woman in a black kimono, her head bowed low the entire time…
Sabito, for once, looked anxious. He knew that once the sun sank below the horizon, the world would belong to the demons. If they didn’t get back to Master Urokodaki before dark—never mind the thrashing they’d get—it would be unspeakably dangerous. Yet Giyuu was still lost in astonishment that a family actually lived on this remote side of the mountain.
“It's a funeral,” Giyuu murmured. “How strange… the funerals back home aren’t like this.”
“But here, funerals are like this.” Sabito assumed a knowing, older-brother tone. “Besides, I’ve heard that if kids attend, they even get steamed buns to eat. It’s getting late, and if we can’t make it back to Master’s, maybe we should ask if we can spend the night in their shed. At dawn, we can head home.”
“Buns? Really? The kind filled with sweet red bean paste?” Giyuu completely ignored the latter half of Sabito’s suggestion.
“Yep, really sweet ones. And they’re huge,” Sabito replied matter-of-factly.
Giyuu swallowed hard. “If we go… would we get some too?”
“Well—” Sabito cocked his head in an exaggerated show of earnest consideration. “I suppose we could.”
“Really?!” Giyuu exclaimed. The two of them had been running around all day, and only now did they realize how empty their stomachs were.
The sun was sinking in the west behind them. Facing the fiery sky, Giyuu watched Sabito walking ahead of him.
Sabito’s figure slipped in and out of the deepening patches of shade beneath the trees, merging with the thick darkness.
All Giyuu could see was the green-and-yellow pattern of Sabito’s haori catching the orange light of sunset. It was a moment so dreamlike, so unreal, that Giyuu could hardly breathe. Before he could gather his wits, Sabito confidently grabbed Giyuu’s hand.
“Let’s go give it a try!” he said. “After all, we’re just kids—they probably won’t turn us away!” Sabito then tugged Giyuu off balance, pulling him straight toward the back gate of the bereaved family’s house.
Sabito tapped lightly on the half-ajar door. The person who answered was an elderly gentleman in black mourning attire. In that instant, Giyuu thought he saw his master—something in the old man’s calm, gentle eyes was just like Urokodaki’s. Before the boys could say a word, the old man looked at Giyuu and smiled faintly.
“Has Jizo-sama2 sent you home early, Tarō?” he asked. Giyuu stared in dumb surprise and was just about to respond when Sabito pinched his wrist hard, forcing him to swallow his words.
“Children of Jizo-sama, come in,” the old man said, ushering them inside.
Sabito and Giyuu slipped off their shoes and entered. It was a small, warm house—unlike the sprawling Tomioka estate, this room was no larger than six tatami mats. On the hearth, a pot was boiling under a steaming basket, and the sweet aroma of red bean paste hung in the sweltering kitchen air.
The drone of sutra-chanting echoed in their ears, leaving Giyuu hazy and unsure if he was awake or dreaming. With one hand the old man lifted the lid of the bamboo steamer, took out two piping-hot buns, and held them out to the boys.
Not until the sweet red bean filling touched his tongue did Giyuu realize that Sabito was gently tugging at his sleeve. He hurriedly bowed and thanked the old grandfather with utmost respect. There was no sorrow in the old man’s eyes—only a serene, wistful fondness.
“I… w-we live on the other side of the mountain. We wandered off playing, so…,” Giyuu began haltingly. He tried to cobble together an explanation, but nothing he said sounded right.
Sabito smoothly took over. “We’re very sorry, sir. We were wondering… if we could stay in your shed for just one night? We’ll leave as soon as morning comes. Please allow us to help keep vigil with you tonight.”
At the front hall, two coffins bore the names Tokuko and Tarō. In that instant a chill of fear ran through Giyuu.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask who those two were—to ask whether they were siblings or husband and wife. White cloths covered their faces. The chanting of sutras droned on and on. Everything—the cloying incense, the sweet bean paste settling in his stomach—swirled together inside him, stirring up the mud that had long settled at the bottom of his heart’s deep pool.
The bodies within the coffins were dressed in plain white, just like on that night a demon had attacked the Tomioka household.
That night, he had been wearing a brand-new summer yukata3, watching his sister Tsutako as she embroidered a tiny pattern onto a wine-red haori. In the soft, rhythmic sound of her needle puncturing cloth, Giyuu had drifted off into a deep sleep—he hadn’t even laid out his bedding.
He was jolted awake by an earth-shattering crash.
At that moment, it felt as if a giant boulder had hurtled out from behind the decorative boulder in the front courtyard, tearing through the air with a booming crack. A thunderous roar shook the ground. A continuous buzzing rumble followed, one blast after another. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening—it was as if something was being ripped apart.
Someone screamed at the top of their lungs, “There’s a man-eating demon—run for your lives!”
A demon? Eating people?
A sudden wave of terror stole Giyuu’s breath. He tumbled down and shoved himself under the corner tea table. As whatever monstrous thing was rampaging overhead, he heard a woman’s voice wailing in terror. That’s not Tsutako, he realized. It was an older woman—surely one of the household servants.
“There are two of them! Hide, hurry—they’ll come back!” another man’s voice shouted in the eerie silence between crashes. “Hey! You there, hide! Don’t run around! Anyone in white who runs outside will be a sitting target… Hey!”
White clothes—that meant his sister. If she went outside in her white nightclothes, she would surely be eaten.
Suddenly, a huge white shape burst into Giyuu’s view. An instant later, something soft but heavy slammed down, blotting out his vision. “Giyuu, get up, we have to run—together! Quickly! Are you okay?!” Tsutako’s voice shouted above the din.
Tsutako’s face was deathly pale and she was gasping for breath, looking like a completely different person. He couldn’t speak; his entire body was rigid. All he could see was the hem of his sister’s beige yukata hovering in front of him.
A second wave of attacks struck. The man let out a shrill scream.
“Run now, while you can—the demon’s on the other side… Giyuu? Hurry, go!” Tsutako cried urgently.
He had never seen Tsutako look so terrifying—her expression was twisted and fierce. We’re both going to die here. I’m going to die, he thought. And then, all at once, his voice returned. He screamed like a madman, “Let go of me!! You’re too conspicuous!”
“I’m trying to save you!” Tsutako yelled back. “It’s just us left now!”
“No! If we go out there we’ll only die!” Giyuu shouted. In blind panic, he mustered every ounce of strength and shoved his sister away.
In that instant, time seemed to slow to a crawl. The wine-red haori slipped from Tsutako’s hands and drifted down over Giyuu, covering him completely. Through the obscuring fabric, he saw Tsutako stagger, placing herself in the doorway to block the inhuman creature outside. He could see only her back—she was trembling.
Then, like someone worshipping a god, she silently fell to her knees, cutting off his view entirely.
And then time snapped forward at triple speed.
He never heard his sister scream. I
n the blink of an eye, a tremendous impact struck the ground with a deafening crash, and every object in the room was sent jolting into the air. Through the cloud of dust billowing up, he saw Tsutako—the sister he himself had just pushed away—get launched into the air like a kicked ball, her body flung skyward, face-up toward the night sky.
When he finally came back to his senses, all he remembered was that his sister Tsutako was covered head-to-toe in blood, and the only red on himself was his sister’s fallen haori. When the sun at last rose again, a group of people carried him away on a makeshift stretcher.
After that, he lost consciousness, and he remembered little of what came next. In the aftermath, as the Tomioka estate had to be rebuilt, he was sent away from the ruined home. Traumatized and hysterical, he found that no adult believed the story he told of that night. In panic, he fled from distant relatives who wanted to commit him to an asylum.
////
He and Sabito sat keeping vigil in the wake hall, Giyuu clinging to his friend’s arm. That recollection drifted through his mind like trails of incense smoke, its threads wavering and curling in and out of focus. Sabito watched him with eyes that gleamed a silvery hue—gentle as moonlight falling on Giyuu, soothing and calm, parting the fog of his nightmares.
Tsutako’s death remained for Giyuu a memory both utterly real and utterly unreal.
While he lay unconscious in the hospital, he had missed his sister’s funeral. And so Tsutako had vanished abruptly from his world.
Giyuu had never even been able to confirm with his own eyes that she was truly gone. His relatives said they searched the entire house and never found Tsutako’s body. She had no grave—only a white-birch memorial tablet kept in a temple.
He knew, logically, that his sister had died that night—but the events of that night still felt as distant and distorted as a dream. He had missed the chance to apologize and the chance to say goodbye. That disjointed sense of time left his grief with nowhere to go.
Now Giyuu was already a member of the Demon Slayer Corps, and in a little over half a year he would turn sixteen. The funeral procession ahead of him was slowly moving down a narrow path through the woods. This sight was so similar to that day in his memory. Could it really be just a coincidence?
Giyuu wore his signature patchwork haori—the wine-red half of it was swallowed in shadow, while the blazing midsummer sun beat down on his neck. The other half, dyed bright yellow-green, caught the light and flashed in his eyes. A wave of dizziness washed over him. In a haze, he realized that it seemed he had never known any season other than summer.
The summer he first ever encountered a demon, he had pushed his own sister into the demon’s grasp—that was the summer he committed the sin of murder.
At the summer trial on Mount Fujikasane, he hadn’t managed to slay even a single demon.
And to this day, the scorching summer sun still clung to him, haunting him like an unrelenting ghost.
Taisho Secrets
- Haori – a traditional hip-length jacket worn over a kimono.
- Jizo-sama – a Buddhist guardian deity of children in both Chinese and Japanese culture, often believed to bring home the souls of children who died young.
- Yukata – a lightweight, casual summer kimono.