Tsunami of Dead Tears: Part 2

Chapter 4

The dust had settled. Literally.

The ashes of the fallen demons slowly descended to the floor as the slayers attended to their casualties. Shinobu was fine. Tanjiro was fine. Zenitsu was violently shivering, but still fine. Inosuke was... nowhere to be seen. Most of the slayers were fine, although quite a few had bite wounds and slashes on their bodies. Even more had gunshot wounds, which the Yakuza members inflicted, mistakenly assuming the slayers as demons themselves.

Meanwhile, Giyuu was sitting on a half-splintered table, thinking to himself.

No wonder why demons were here. Giyuu thought. The Yakuza has enormous power over the city. Some of them even have connections to...

The Emperor.

Giyuu dusted his haori and stood up in front of everyone.

"Who is in charge of your... merry gang of conscripts?" Giyuu asked out loud.

Before Giyuu could ask again, a hand raised from the crowd.

"Me."

The man rose up and stood straight. He had horrible bruises on the right side of his face, with a cast hanging from his shoulders.

"I want to have a word with you." Giyuu said. "Hopefully we can both try to make sense of this... senseless situation."

"Yeah, I had the same idea." the man replied. "I have an office upstairs if you prefer a formal style of negotiation."

"By all means, uh.. what do I call you?" Giyuu asked.

"Haku." he replied. "Haku Bushido."

"I see." Giyuu said.

Both of them walked up the flight of stairs, careful not to miss a step. Giyuu glanced at Shinobu, sitting beside one of the Yakuza, and gestured her to tag along.

Giyuu and Shinobu entered the room and sat on a nearby chair, next to a table. Haku sat on the opposite side of the table. The air was tense, but Giyuu was sure he could get things straight with this 'Haku'.

"Who's the purple-haired bitch?" Haku asked nonchalantly.

Giyuu almost sprung over the table to tackle him, but stopped himself in time. This was no time to make emotions get the better of you. Shinobu just stood there and took the insult, remembering the time when her anger hijacked her own mind in a crazy quest for revenge. Giyuu helped to pull her out of that dark place, and she didn't want to go back in again.

Haku smiled sarcastically. "So, care to explain?"

Giyuu sat straight, maintaining a level of maturity. "I know things are a bit confusing, and what I am about to say may be hard to believe-"

"I just saw a man take six bullets to the chest and shrug it off like it was nothing." Haku said. "By this point, I could believe almost anything."

Giyuu smiled. "Glad to know that you have trust in-"

"ALMOST anything." Haku reiterated.

Giyuu smiled again, this time more aggressive than pleasant. "Glad to know that."

Giyuu leaned close to Haku, making sure that he could hear every word from his mouth.

"What you saw back there... was a demon." Giyuu said. "And we're the guys that're supposed to deal with them."

A moment of tense silence passed as they stared at each other, trying to interpret what's on the other guy's mind.

Suddenly, Giyuu heard a small click from underneath the table.