A Step on Both Sides | A KNY Fanfic

Chapter 7

It had been 3 months since Tanjiro arrived at Daylight Mansion, the home of Fumiko. He had already mastered total concentration breathing constant, and the first five moves of sun breathing. He had asked her about the hinokami kagura and fire breathing, and she told him that those were alternate names for sun breathing, the original breathing style.
Tanjiro was sitting on the roof at night, meditating, improving his concentration for the next day. Fumiko landed next to him with a smile. "Hello, Tanjiro," she said. "I can see you've been working hard lately."
"Yeah!" Tanjiro replied. "I want to master everything as quickly as possible so I can get back onto missions and help kill Kibutsuji!" With those words, Fumiko took a small intake of breath.
"Are you sad?" Tanjiro asked.
"Hmm?"
"You're usually smiling, but you always smell of sadness and hope. Is something wrong?" Tanjiro asked.
"I-It's been a complicated relationship with the demons," Fumiko admitted. "I was friends, to say the least, of most of the upper moons, and I want to meet my friends again. But something happened which made me leave, and now I want peace between slayers and demons so I can find my friends without risk of them dying. I know I'm a demon slayer now, but I still hope."
"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know..." Tanjiro apologised.
"It's alright," Fumiko said. "You better keep concentrating. You're going to learn the rest of the forms of sun breathing tomorrow."
"Right!" Tanjiro said as Fumiko left.
It had been 3 weeks since that happened, and Fumiko often thought about it. Did she really want peace between demons and slayers? Of course she did. She was part of both now.
Tanjiro had been told to go on a mission with Rengoku in the Infinity Train, so of course Fumiko followed. There, Tanjiro's face lit up when he saw two other people.
"Zenitsu! Inosuke!" Tanjiro yelled, running to a yellow haired boy and a boy with a boar headpiece.
"Tanjiro!" The yellow haired boy yelled. "Where were you?"
"I'm the tsuguko of the sun hashira, Fumiko! I was at the Daylight Mansion, and she was teaching me! It's been a while, Zenitsu!" Tanjiro replied. So the boar head mush have been Inosuke.
"What is this creature?" Inosuke yelled, pointing at the train. "It's the lord of the land! It slides across the earth! It's so long and overwhelming, it's gotta be! Looks like it's asleep right now, but be careful!"
"No, this is a train. Don't you know that?" Zenitsu asked.
"I'll attack it first!" Inosuke declared.
"Maybe it's the guardian deity of this place. So a surprise attack may not be a good idea," Tanjiro said.
"No, like I said, it's a steam train," Zenitsu explained.  "Do you understand the word train? It's a vehicle for transporting people."
"Train? Is that what the crow meant?" Tanjiro asked, while Fumiko bought four tickets.
"Headlong rush!" Inosuke screeched as he rammed into the train just as Fumiko came back.
Just as that happened, two station officers came running. "They've got swords! Call the police!" They yelled.
"Run!" Zenitsu screamed. Later, they decided to hide their swords on their backs and jump onto the train. Fumiko gestured for them to follow her, while she searched for Rengoku. Just as she heard that they heard a yell. "Umai! Umai! Umai! Umai! Umai!"
They went forward and saw Rengoku eating bentos, still yelling "Umai!" Fumiko looked at him, and said, "Rengoku?"
He replied with "Umai!" before telling them to sit with him.
After Rengoku explained about breathing, the conductor came and punched their tickets. When that happened, a demon came from the back of the train.
"This is an urgent matter, so don't mind the sword!" Rengoku said as he used flame breathing first form: unknowing fire to kill the demon in one shot. Straight after that, they fell asleep.