Redemption: Giyushino Story

The little things matter to

(7,600-word chapter)
(My fasted update yet, 13 days)

Giyuu POV:

I've stayed at the butterfly mansion for a couple of days now. It wasn't for my injuries, but rather I was keeping an eye on Tanjiro and his friends. Kocho was kind enough to offer me a room to stay in despite the fact I wasn't patient. Tanjiro's recovery is going well along with the others. He hasn't passed rehabilitation, but If I remember correctly, he doesn't until a couple of days before the Mugen train.

Speaking of the Mugen train, it's been crowding my thoughts over the last couple of days. Mainly because that's where my next mission is. This one is going to be much different than my previous ones because this will be the first time a significant change will happen. From what I recall, during this mission, Rengoku passed away in his fight against Upper moon three. He did an excellent job there as the only one that died on that passage was himself, he managed to protect his group along with the two hundred passengers.

I'm going to make sure no one dies on that night. My priority is to protect Rengoku and keep him out of harm's way. That would mean, I have to take on the Upper moon three. It's no easy task. As strong as I have gotten, I cannot underestimate the power of Akaza. This was the demon that nearly killed me had it not been for Tanjiro stopping him from piercing through my chest.

The main objective for this is to make sure Rengoku lives and is in adequate condition to continue you being a Hashira. I remember Tanjiro saying, he had suffered blows to the chest and was blind in one eye before taking a fatal blow through his chest. What I will need to do is to make sure Rengoku never suffers any injuries, at the very least, only minor ones that are recoverable.

I cannot understate the impact Rengoku had on Tanjiro. His final words to him, Tanjiro held on and kept true to those words till the very end. His death was the motivation to help Tanjiro grow and get stronger, vowing to avenge him. It wasn't just Tanjiro, many of the Hashira were affected by Rengoku's death. His positivity and eccentric personality were deeply missed by the Hashira. In a way, he was the sunshine of the group, was a friend when you needed him to be, and a motivational symbol in dark times, something I could never be.

Regardless of what happened in the previous timeline, Rengoku is my number one priority for this mission. The question that troubles me now is, how will I save him? I thought about this for the past couple of days and the simplest solution I could come up with is to tailgate the train and then save Rengoku when Upper moon three shows up. It's basic but effective. On top of that, it was nearly sunrise during the time of the battle, meaning I'll just need to hold off Akaza for a couple of minutes before the sun rises. At the end of it all, everyone will be alive and the timeline continues with Rengoku being alive this time.

As effective as the plan is, there is one thing that bothers me: Akaza. If I were to go through with the plan I had in mind, killing Akaza given the few minutes is slim. It's most likely he will get away as soon as the sun rises. If I wanted to kill Akaza, I need more time to do so. I need more time because Akaza's Blood demon art allows him to detect any slayers attacking him, so it's most likely he will react and survive until the sun rises. I'm still not a hundred percent sure how is blood demon artworks. Tanjiro managed to bypass his detection and slice his head off, which I'm not sure how he did. I was going to question him, but we had bigger problems to deal with at that time.

To kill him, I'm going to need more time to analyze and find the Akaza's weakness, but that would mean I need to find the upper moon three earlier than when Rengoku finds him. That only complicates matters because I don't have the slightest clue where Akaza comes from. It would be just easy to go with the first plan, but that would mean letting Akaza getaway. I do not want to let him get away.