Chapter Text
Tanjiro is tired. Akaza has been defeated and now he has finally got a second to breathe. Tanjiro lays (falls) face down to the ground completely exhausted from everything that has happened in the past hour or so. He slowly lifts his head to see how Giyuu is looking, and to his dismay, he didn't look any better. The said demon slayer is sitting on his knees with his head resting on the handle of his broken katana. Taniiro guesses that Giyuu has passed out, because he isn't moving.
He can't believe this is happening, Ubuyashiki and his family is dead. A wave of anger and sadness washes over the younger slayer. He remembers on the moment when Ubuyashiki spared his sister, a demon, and him from punishment of death. He couldn't be more thankful to him for the act of kindness he has done to him. He sends a prayer to him, his wife Amane, and his children who weren't spared by the blast.
When he finished the prayer, he tries to sit up. It took all his power to not pass out in the moment when a screeching headache kicked in, but he bit his tongue to keep him awake, and pushed trough the pain.
As he sat down with metallic taste in his mouth, he glanced at Giyuu, who was still passed out. He slowly crawled to his side and decided that it would be better if he took care of Giyuus and his own wounds. He reached down to his pocket and took out bandages, layed Giyuu down on his back and then he unbuttoned Giyuus uniform and started tending Giyuus and his injuries.
"We needed to depart soon, the fight is still going on", concluded Taniiro after he finished wrapping his head with the last roll bandage. He isn't a doctor so he probably didn't do it properly (at all), and he can imagine Aoi's disgruntled look when she sees how he wrapped their injuries when (if) they come back.
Every part of his body was screaming at him in pain and as he slowly opened his eyes. The water hashira slowly looked around his surroundings, and the only things he could see was a wrecked room (rooms?) and Tanjiro sitting beside him with his eyes closed. The said boy was using Total Concentration Breathing: Constant to slow down blood flow in his heavily injured areas to stop the bleeding, when he caught the smell of confusion from someone.
His eyes shot open and quickly looked over to the person laying by his side. The moment Tanjiro saw that Giyuu was awake he immediately started flooding the other with questions. "Giyuu-san, how are you feeling? Do you need something? Can you move? I can help you st-"
The worried boy was quickly shut up by Tomioka who tried to quickly sit up, but failed as he fell back down with a huff. "Eh! Giyuu-san! Be careful or you are gonna open your wounds! Wait, I'll help you." Tanjiro put an arm behind the olders back and helped him sit up and rest his back against a pillar. "Thank you for bandaging me up." Thanked the older. The youngers cheeks warmed at the show of gratefulness from the other.
Before he could muster up a reply, Giyuu quickly said "Tanjiro, how long was I out?" asked Giyuu with low voice. "Probably not that long! Maybe 15 minutes at the most!".
The older clicked his tongue, "That's 15 minutes too long, we need to get going".
Just as he finished the sentence, he slowly started standing up. The younger nodded at the statement, he quickly grabbed the others katana which was laying next to him, and helped Giyuu to stand up.
When both of them stood on their feet, they quickly realized how heavy the situation is. They are in the middle of nowhere, with no knowledge about the other slayers locations. Just when Tanjiro was about to ask Giyuu if he knew where the kasugai crows were, he was interrupted by a sound coming from above them. Both slayers quickly looked up, already in a fighting position when they saw a crow - Tanjiros crow. The silence was quickly broken by the crow saying, "Caw! Caw! Other slayers are located up north! Caw! Caw! Hurry up, immediate help needed!".
When the announcement ended, both slayers wasted no time before springing into action. They started running trough the confusing palace on high alert, because this place was filled with demons in every corner. Tanjiro could feel the burning ache of his knees and the tiredness of his sore muscles, but he needed to concentrate so he tried to push the pain to the back of his mind. They seemed to be running for hours and hours, at least thats what it looked like to Tanjiro, the hallways seemed to stretch out and get longer and longer by each minute that passed.
Suddenly, darkish mist started appearing beneath their feet, both of them didn't notice anything strange about it at first, since Tanjiro couldn't smell any demon or just anybody anywhere, so they just brushed it off as residue of some blood demon art. Everything seemed to be going fine, until out of nowhere the mist darkened drastically. The moment Giyuu noticed it he quickly jumped away, thinking that it's work of a demon. Tanjiro noticed it a second later, and tried to jump away too, but he wasn't as fortunate. All of the strain on his muscles seemed to get to him, because instead of jumping he just stopped. He didn't fall or move, he just stayed still. Tanjiro tried to order his body to move, but it was hopeless. His legs were numb, and he could feel the katana slipping from his grip. Giyuu noticed the change immediately. He swiftly started to run and tried to tangle Tanjro out of the dark fog. But before his body could even touch Tanjiros, the mist shrinked to a size just big enough to cover Tanjiros surface and darkened to a deep black. Tanjiro still couldn't move no matter how hard he tried.
The dark fog seemed to abruptly begin to consume the younger boy. Giyuu reached out his arms to capture the redhead, but he was too late. He saw Tanjiros petrified face getting swallowed up by the fog, and as Tanjiro disappeared, the mist started to shrink, until nothing was left of it and the younger slayer.