⊱ ❅Clouded Judgement ❅⊰ | ❆ - • A Demon Slayer Story • - ❆

Chapter 9.

In complete panic and fright, we ran where our legs would carry us with no sense of direction whatsoever. All that mattered was to get as far from that creature named Kaito as possible, despite him not bothering to chase us to even begin with. We could barely think straight, and we only stopped at the sound of crows approaching our location. Kiseki was panting aggressively but managed to speak to me through it,

"Noriyuki.. wait.. these are Kasugai crows..!"

Kasugai crows? Why? Our crows hadn't been assigned to us yet, so why would there be Kasugai crows coming our way? It crossed my mind that Kaito was spotted and reported, but it felt very unlikely considering we didn't even notice him in the same room as us. I was skeptical, but Kiseki insisted on waiting for the crows rather than aimlessly run around. It seems the dust around Kamiyas death had already settled and we were more concerned about Kaito rather than anything, so the crows came at a good time.

However we quickly realised that the crows weren't ours nor aware of Kaito, as two young demon slayers had followed them until they spotted us out of breath, barely managing to even stand, and stopped to check up on the health of their comrades. One of those slayers just so happened to be Kaoru, who did not seem pleased to see us in the slightest.

"Did you get lost somewhere? Were you attacked? We had to send countless of crows to find you, do you realise what you're doing-? You two should have arrived at the headquarters eight hours ago! We're running low on slayers, you can't just go missing on your first day!!"
Kaoru sounded more and more frustrated as he continued, but the demon slayer put his hand on his shoulder to get him to calm down. Kaoru did calm down and the other demon slayer continued for him.

"I apologise for his temper, he's not very patient. It seems you have already met but I'll introduce ourselves once more: My name is Shinjuro Rengoku, and Kaoru and I were sent to find the two missing mizunotos, that being you. Ubayashiki deeply worries for his soldiers, so please show up in time in the future when needed. Again, in case something happened the corps will let it slide but desertion is punishable by death. As slayers, it's our job to fight with a burni-"

Kaoru interrupted Shinjuro in his enthusiastic speech.

"We get it, thank you. Kiseki, Noriyuki, follow us to the headquarters."

Shinjuro dropped quiet immediately and the travel to the headquarters played off very quietly. Neither I nor Kiseki brought up Kaito, and I locked my mind onto different topics, such as wether I really wanted to meet my biological father or why Kiseki seemed so angered by being called Shota. I wanted to ask him, but my gut feeling told me it was too personal to bring up infront of Kaoru and Shinjuro. So the three of us didn't say a word, whilst Shinjuro was going on about the duties of a demon slayer and the responsibilities we must absolutely bear. We drowned out that background noise and had an otherwise very quiet journey.

It was a tiresome walk, but we were greeted with numerous kakushi storming over us and covering us in questions we couldn't properly answer before being posed seven more of them, so we let Kaoru make up a story to satisfy their questions and call it a day. The headquarters were very well protected, it's outside coated in a long forest of wisteria trees meant to repel demons. The flowers apparently work all the way up to high ranking kizuki and according to Kaoru no blood demon art could damage the trees. Our location was also kept a secret, so we were completely safe from any outside dangers.

"So since you're a bit late to the party, do you want to meet some of my colleagues right away or-?"
Kaoru eventually asked us.

"Well.. I actually need to talk to Noriyuki about something so we'll be there in a bit, if that's not a problem of course. Do we get someplace to stay?"
"Well you could stay in the butterfly mansion but I inherited my father's mansion for myself and I wouldn't mind giving up a few rooms for good friends, what do you say?"

Good friends? We met him one time, his friendliness started to become unsettling. But I didn't think much of it, so Kaoru led us to a shared room inside his mansion very close to the headquarters. It was a five minute walk difference and his mansion was not just bigger but less loud and crowded. Kaoru explained that the headquarters and especially the Kocho mansion was at its most crowded shortly after the selection, as the number would drop very quickly in the next weeks.

"Well enjoy your stay, I'll be off telling Master that you're alive and well." With those words, he left us sitting in a room far too big for us in uncomfortable silence until Kiseki spoke up.

"Look.. when I told you I don't remember my past before meeting Kamiya, I couldn't be farther from the truth. I didn't want to be dishonest with you, I really didn't, but that story was one no one's ever heard of, not even Kamiya."

It was a bit hard to take in that he would ever lie or hide anything from me, but I wasn't mad at him in any way. Quite the contrary, I was curious about his past and nodded as a sign that he could carry on with what he had to tell me.

"First things first.. Kiseki is not my real name and it never was. My real name.. is Shota Nozaki."