Ruby Tears (Inotan)

See a boar demon once and now its everywhere!

Ever since Tanjiro left the mountain village he's gotten a strange feeling. Like he's being watched constantly. At first he thought the boar demon was following him, the smell of blackberries clinging to the air but he smelt it during the day too. No demon was foolish or brazen enough to walk in the sunlight, right?

As if sensing his thoughts he saw it again, pink boar ears! The sweet smell coiled around him.

Am I going crazy? Did that demon have a Blood Art I was put under?

"Hello?" He called out hoping that maybe whatever or whomever it was would respond

Just as quickly as he opened his mouth the ears disappeared back into the woods, taking the scent of summer and berries with them.

I definitely need more sleep or I just really, really want fresh berries. Whatever comes first I guess.

Shaking his head, Tanjiro continued his path, he had a new mission after all, a few days prior his kasugai crow yelled for him to go to Natagumo Mountain.

An alarming amount of demon slayers had gone missing, Zentisu was supposed to be meeting him there in two weeks.

Hope he doesn't run away before I get there.

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When things started appearing in Tanjro's camp he felt vindicated.

Someone or something is following me!

The first night he woke up and found the corpses of multiple hare in a pile he hated to admit it but he screamed. They were freshly killed, some still oozing blood from the many claw marks.

Looking closely he noted they were already cleaned, ready to be roasted. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with them. Looking around his campsite nothing seemed to be out of place.  So why not enjoy them?

Hey, I'm not turning down free food I didn't have to hunt or pay for!

After that night, he woke up to all kinds of different things in his campsite. Clothing that didn't quite fit him, all various shades of green, multiple kinds of fresh game and of all things rocks. Pretty rocks, but rocks nonetheless. He kept a  few of the more unique ones, thinking of turning them into jewelry for Nezuko when he found her, the others he tossed aside. Thinking nothing of it, surely whoever is leaving them would understand. 

After a week the "gifts" stopped for a few days, the smell of berries disappearing with them, Tanjiro hated the disappointing feeling he got waking up to an empty camp.

Sighing with defeat he wondered who left the items, why did they? Questions he would never get answered it seemed. The slayer couldn't help but worry about whoever had to have been leaving them. Did something happen to them? Or did they simply lose interest in following him? A likely possibility, Tanjiro could admit he wasn't the most fascinating person.

However he was wrong, the night before he was meant to meet Zenitsu, he awoke feeling...strange. The scent of grass and berries so close he could almost taste it.

This time was different, all the other times his slayer's intuition didn't deem it necessary to awake him. Whoever had been leaving things had been entering his camp for a while so why now did he wake up? Then he felt it, a hand touching his shoulder before running their fingers down his arm over his haori, ending at his fingertips. 

It's clawed fingers.

Tanjiro couldn't stop his intake of breath, the hand touching him disappearing as if burned. Before he could even speak to his assailant he heard a soft thump hit the ground, then the trees shaking.