Tanjiro and Kanao have settled down in their new family home just a few metres away from Tanjiro's ancestral home, and have given birth to four healthy children- one of who is Azami, a ten-year-old girl and the oldest child of the Kamado family. Yet...
"Nezuko-chan!" Kanao walked over to Nezuko and hugged her. The younger woman responded warmly. "Congratulations!"
"Thank you, Kanao-san!" She replied with a smile.
The day Kanao, Tanjiro, and the rest of her family found out about the happy news, they rushed over to Zenitsu's house to celebrate the occasion. Tanjiro was with him right now, greeting all the guests who had come over. Kanao could see Inosuke with his wife, Aoi, and his five kids- four sons and a daughter. The boys, like Inosuke was, were jumping around and causing a lot of chaos, and naturally getting on Zenitsu's nerves. Tanjiro and Aoi were trying to calm the two down and prevent them from scaring away any more guests. Just like they used to when they were boys, Kanao beamed and thought to herself.
She could also see, to her surprise, some of the Hashira, or pillars she fought alongside when she was still a slayer. Tomioka-san was brooding about in a corner, and Shinazugawa-san was surprisingly making civil conversation with Tanjiro, despite having hated his guts when they were young. The two were also married, wonderfully, but their kids had ran off somewhere. Presumably playing with their own and Zenitsu's kids.
Nezuko had wandered off into their house. Kanao followed her and discovered she was in the kitchen.
"Nezuko-chan, shouldn't you take it easier, given that you're harbouring another life within you."
Nezuko blushed with the bashfulness of a new bride upon hearing Kanao, but she shook her head. "I must prepare refreshments for the guests who have come here."
Kanao held Nezuko's shoulder and gently pushed her back. "I'll do it for you. Get some rest. I've heard from Tanjiro that you've been getting severe headaches. It is best you take it easy for a few months."
"A few months?" Nezuko asked, baffled. She had to stay out of station for months!
Kanao held Nezuko's hands together. "It will only be for some time, until your baby is born safely!"
Nezuko touched her belly, which was still flat for she only recently discovered she was pregnant. She reluctantly nodded, and went back into the common hall to greet her guests.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"What would you do that for?" Fumihiro yelled at Azami.
"You would have done the same if you were in my position!" Azami retorted back at her brother. Recently, Yoshiki Shinazugawa, the second eldest son of Shinazugawa Sanemi, had got down to his knees and proposed to her. Repulsed at his efforts, Azami rebuked him, saying he was uncouth, barbaric, and thick-headed enough to believe she would fall for someone like him.
"He's already mean as it is, now he's just going to bully us even more!" Fumihiro punched his sister's arm, but his fist rebounded harmlessly because he lacked the arm strength to land a proper punch.
"Did you hear what he said to me?" Azami punched her brother back, and was successful at hurting his arm muscles. Fumihiro winced in pain and clutched his arm. "He had the temerity to call me ravishing, entrancing. He said I turned him on! Do you know what that means?"
Fumihiro gave his sister a blank stare. Azami rolled her eyes and marched away into the woods behind Uncle Zenitsu's house.
Fumihiro retorted and chased after Azami. "The question is, how do you? You're as young as I am!"
Azami replied without stopping or looking back at him. "Nobody cares! The thing was, he told me something he wasn't supposed to say. Therefore, he got the punishment he deserved. And I don't care how many times he bullies me in the future. He possesses less than a tiny fraction of his father's fierceness."
With that, Azami ran away from Fumihiro to loose him and went into the woods to find solace.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Azami closed her eyes. She really enjoyed being in the woods around the nature sounds. No voices, no annoying brothers or friends, just herself. She was wandering around in the woods by herself. Really, how annoying could brothers be? To think he only cared about his own selfish desires and not his sister's reputation...
Azami was so lost in her thoughts that she did not notice how deep into the woods she was. Suddenly, she heard a scream. A piercing, chilling scream- one infused with pain and desperation. And it wasn't that of a human's.
Is that a fawn? Azami thought to herself.
Though her first instinct had been to run as far away from the noise, she was curious as to what would have forced the fawn to evoke that noise. Slowly and steadily, Azami tiptoed towards the source of the fawn's cry. She thought she roughly heard it to her right, somewhere near those dense bushes. Trickles of perspiration dripped down Azami's neck, and her hands were shivering behind her back. Yet, she persisted with her forward ascension. She finally reached the bushes, and, unmistakably, she could hear soft munching noises.
Could it be a bear? Or a pack of wolves? No, else I would have heard several munching noises. These noises appear to be coming from one mouth.
Azami silently picked up a long twig she found on the floor and patiently, using the twig, prised open a small branch from the bush. Through the small hole the bush made, Azami could see a small apparition. A brownish-black back- no, the brown was from the fur of this creature, and the black was from long dangling strands of hair that protruded from the creature's head until its back.
No wait, it's a human! A female! Azami realized with a huge shock. And the brown was actually from the clothes this person was wearing. The chomping noises were coming from her!
Azami willed her timid voice to escape her mouth, in some sort of way to get the woman to look at her. Instead, she produced a small, ungodly squeak. However, the human did turn around.
The first thing Azami noticed were her eyes. Large and pink, like the sky during sunset. In the middle, small pink slits, like narrow pupils. Her bared mouth beheld sharp fangs, which had pieces of animal meat stuck to them. Azami took in a large, sharp breath. Her heart stuck in her throat and her entire visage twitching in fear. What is this? What am I looking at?
Azami's eyes slowly darted down to the woman's hands. Claws, long, pointy, sharp claws the protruded from her dainty fingertips. Covered in crimson blood. Messily dripping from her elbows and her mouth. The scariest part of the scene was the fawn which lay below her. It's tiny legs were sprawled around, some broken and one even torn clean off its body. It's face, a mixture of mangled terror and helplessness it broke Azami's heart to even look at it.
Azami's eyes slowly went back to this person's face. Ehh? Haven't I seen her before somewhere? She looks familiar...
Then, it hit her. Azami had not recognized it before because of the eyes, the blood and the ugly scowl on the woman's face. But those wide eyes used to look at her with love, those dainty fingers used to tickle her when she was young. Even that long hair was something she would associate to this woman. Someone who had been close to her father, and someone who was still close to him right now. And it was supposed to be her special day!
"Aunt Nezuko..." Azami whispered the name of her aunt, the very woman who was butchering up a baby animal in front of her eyes.
