𝐀 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 [𝘈 𝘒𝘕𝘠 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯]

Chapter 2

  A/N Hi again! This is a trigger warning for blood and death, so if you feel uncomfortable with these things you might not want to read this chapter

_____________________

Hanako Kamado had extreme anxiety. When she was younger she used to stay awake at night pacing and worrying about all the horrors of the world that could come and hurt her and her family when they were sleeping. When she was overly stressed, if she messed up and couldn't think of a way to solve the issue, if she was afraid of something, she would have a panic attack causing her breathing to become heavy, her eyesight to become blurry and her thoughts to become even more troubled. These thoughts were of problems and issues that could arise from her mistake and, although she desperately tried, she would be unable to come up with a solution. Sometimes, when her panic attacks were too overwhelming, there was the chance she would pass out and come to an hour or so later.

So when she woke up covered in blood (the red liquid she didn't notice at all), she didn't feel exactly afraid and felt more so confused as to why her siblings weren't gathered around her smiling and hugging her, telling her she would be alright and that they would get through any issue together. Then it came flooding back: hiding, an awful smell, the look of fear on her family's faces, the three booming knocks on the door. 

Fear coursed through her as she inhaled the smell of blood, the intoxicating, metallic scent filled her nose and mouth, lining her lungs, making her feel numb.

It was much too dark to see anything around her, but she noticed the sun's rays trying to peek out from underneath the heavy object that seemed to be weighing her down. Pushing on the squishy thing she pried the cold hands that she knew all too well from her waiste. This was no object, on top of her, shielding her entirely from harms way was the dead body of her brother, Takeo.

She attempted to scream, but it was futile. Her breath was caught in her throat making it hard to breathe, much less scream. Eyes filling with tears she pushed her brother off of her and rose to her feet. Trying to blink the salty droplets out of her eyes while they adjusted to the light, she tried to examine the room around her. When her eyes fully scanned the room, her thoughts quickly caught up with her vision and the object in her throat that made it difficult to make a noise completely disappeared. All of the numbness rushed out of her as she fell to her hands and knees onto the floor, which was coated in half dried blood from who knows where. She felt a piercing pain in her right hand, but didn't really pay attention to it at all, her mind was only filled with what she saw before her. A shrill scream came flying out of her mouth along with the contents of her dinner. Laid out in front of her was the gruesomely murdered dead bodies of what once was her family.

Trying to stand, she stepped slowly towards the corpses of her mother and siblings calling out their names one by one.

"Shigeru," she said, whimpering slightly. "Rokuta, Mother, Takeo, Nezuko.. Nezuko?"

Hanako couldn't find her older sister anywhere. Searching around the house with a small sliver of newfound hope, she desperately pleaded in her mind for Nezuko to be alright. A slightly insane ,overjoyed smile spread itself across her face as she explored in hopes that Nezuko had survived somehow against whatever it was that had slaughtered her family. Said hope was completely doused when her eyes came to see the blood spattered across the snow in front of her house. It looked like someone had been dragged outside, the snow even had a small trace of Nezuko's scent, her essence of jasmine tea and warm rice lost to the wind.

The smile completely dropped off her face as she saw what seemed to be blood droplets in a sort of trail leading into the woods. Assuming the worst, that Nezuko was probably long dead, perhaps dying out far away into the forest to be used as a meal for some hungry creature, Hanako dropped to her knees. The life drained out of her as silent tears poured down her face as her last hopes of a chance to see someone of her family vanished completely. Nezuko was gone. Rokuta was gone. Shigeru was gone. Her mother was gone. Tanjiro was...Tanjiro hadn't been there. He hadn't been home. She had faintly smelt him in the house and without thinking assumed he had been killed as well.

'Perhaps Tanjiro saw the trail of blood heading towards the forest and decided to follow it to find Nezuko.' she thought. 

Her hope was starting to rekindle as she began sniffing around in an attempt to catch a whiff of Tanjiro's scent, a warm sunny day, filled with smells of the fresh flowers in mother's garden and father's favourite type of herbal tea. Finding a sort of current that was connected to her brother, she jumped to her feet and ran as fast as she could, following the blood trail along with her brother's faint smell. She was silently hoping and pleading to any form of god above to keep her brother safe and hopefully alive, while cursing herself and her smelling ability, seeing as she could barely smell him.

Sprinting across the snow barren trail she noticed a strange twinge to Tanjiro's scent. It was bitter and smelled somewhat like the thing she smelt before the attack. Warning signs flashed in her mind as she desperately thought of what could have tarnished her brother's pure scent. Whatever or whoever could have done this had to be pure evil to smell of such utter despair. Without thinking, she stopped running, nearly tumbling over her feet in the process of slowing down on the icy terrain. Remembering a story that Tanjiro had relayed to her and her siblings from old man Saburo, she came to the conclusion of what the only being that could have been the cause of her family's demise. The only being evil and hateful enough to tarnish to her pure brother's scent. Demons.