A Double Edged Sword (Discontinued)

Chapter IX

After a couple of days, a man with a mask and wind chimes on his hat comes to the house.

"Excuse me, who are you?" Tanjiro asks the man.

"I'm here to deliver katanas to Tsukiko and Tanjiro."

"That's us," we say.

"Come in," Tanjiro adds.

"I can go make tea."

The man ignores us and bends down putting a box on the ground.

"I'm Hotaru, the swordsmith who forged your katana."

He pulls out two sheathed katanas looking up at us.

"You two are children of fire."

"No were children of Tanjuro and Kie."

"Your red hair and eyes. Your family worked with fire."

"Come in," I say and this time he listens.

We all sit down, including Urokodaki to see what color the nichirin sword would be. The Hotaru hands us each a sword. Tanjiro's has a black sheathe and red accents on the handle while mine is a black sheath with white accents on the handle.

Tanjiro and I pull the swords out of the sheath and they start to change color. Mine changes to black and I look at Tanjiro's I see his sword is fully black.

"Aww! I was looking forward to seeing a red sword," Hotaru says.

Our crows interrupt announcing, "Go east! Go east! Girls are going missing!"

Hotaru leaves and Tanjiro and I get into our uniforms clipping the sword to our belts.

"Here," Urokodaki says handing Tanjiro a box. "For you to carry Nezuko. I have a theory that she sleeps to get stronger. The box is made of a lightweight material and it's coated in rock paint to make it stronger. She now thinks all humans are her family."

"Thank you," we say and get Nezuko in the box.

She shrinks down and crawls in. Tanjiro puts the box on his back and we head on our way.

•••

Once we get to the town and we hear whispers of how girls keep going missing each night. We hear whispers of this man named Kazumi, whose beloved disappeared from behind him. We go around asking who he is and we're pointed towards him.

"Are you Kazumi?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says to us.

"Can you lead us to where your beloved disappeared?" Tanjiro asks him.

"Sure," Kazumi says and I scent that he is very miserable.

He leads us to a back alleyway and Tanjiro gets on all four sniffing the ground.

"There's a faint scent of demon," Tanjiro says getting up.

I'll head ahead, I communicate to Tanjiro. Okay, he responds. I run off ahead, everything blurring by. The scent of the demon gets stronger when I enter an empty alley. Tanjiro, the demons close to where I am. Follow my scent.

After a minute Tanjiro and Kazumi arrive.

"He's below us," Tanjiro says to me, and we both line up our swords and stab the ground.

We rip open the ground to find a bog and the human girl floats to the top. I grab her and we both jump back. The girl's unconscious and a demon comes out of the bog. It has red eyes, pale gray skin, indigo to purple hair, and three horns.