I Spy (CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A REWRITE)

Chapter 15: The Long Night Part 5

Date: September 27, 2024
Time: 9:25 PM
Location: Forest around Tokyo
Weather: Partly Cloudy

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A man in a black tuxedo is seen running at lightning speeds toward a certain area, "You got the location of the package?" He asked into his earpiece, "Affirmative, the escorts and the group all left the area and are nowhere to be seen near the package." A voice said, "Apparently you created a distraction for the escorts because the moment you attacked, they started to head in your direction." Minato added. "What happened to the group escorting the package?" Tanjiro asked, "I saw the entire thing from a bird's eye view..." Minato replied. "Continue," Tanjiro asks as he continues to run in the forest, "The group who was carrying the package all ran as soon as they saw a humanoid figure tear one of the men's head apart like a f*cking sauce packet." Minato replied, "Brutal," Tanjiro snickered at his friend's minor exaggeration. "What happened next?"

"The escorts fought the thing of course, but the unknown entity did express some unique abilities, such as being able to summon glass and mirrors out of nowhere."

"Also there was another fight, as the escort group split up before the fight started, which only god knows why they did that."

"Did they also have to fight a similar entity?"

"Affirmative, two of them actually, one of them having to summon spikes and one having abilities that revolve around rocks."

"Future geographer-looking a*s."

"Pft."

"Anyways, I also saw similar being with my encounter as well."

"I already saw it, I put the info on a data table, I'll report this to the HR after you complete this mission, then we'll see what we do about it."

"Also, Tanjiro, did you notice something weird with these things, other than the supernatural powers that they have?"  

Supernatural regeneration powers? I saw one of the things heal a large wound like this..." Tanjiro says with a snap of his fingers

"Exactly, another entity with superhuman regeneration." A audible sigh could be heard from the in-mask speaker.

"How did they kill them?"

"I saw all three fights, the slayers won them all, but they only aimed for one part of the entities' body, the neck." 

"Hmmm, pretty similar to what we had to deal with, I guess it would make sense to severe the connection from their brain to their body in order to kill them, as the brain can't order wounds to heal if it is decapitated from their body..."

"Most likely the case, but in the meantime, we need to focus on getting the box for now since that is our priority."

"Maybe after we get all 50 kgs of that ore, I could ask the HR to approve our side mission."

"Thanks Minato, anyways how long until I reach the box?"

"Just a few miles straight, and you should be there in no time..."

"Aight' thanks."

"Also, how come you've never looked at the previous fights with that girl and those entities before we met up, like her OA? We could've figured this out a lot sooner if were looking at the correct images. We have access to every location on Earth as well as its specific date and time. God I love the corporation's technology."

"Uhhh.... ummmmm... well... because you never asked me to... and also... to be honest... I thought she was kinda un-important at the time."

"... you f*cking retard."

"Bro, ok, fine. I'll look back the footage and see what I can find after this mission, cause trying to locate the footage where you actually met up with her over these past 9 months and search up the area she was operating in beforehand is going to be VERY tedious. That's like 1500+ hours of footage I have to look back at..."

"You want a raise or something? We already get paid millions."

"Give me some vacation days in the future, please."

"... We're like the same age... why are you asking for vacation days... o-ok, fine, I'll put in a word for you to the HR when I get back."

"Yay."

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After a few minutes of running, Tanjiro reached an empty patch of forest that was once peaceful, but as he got there, he saw a headless body, small craters, and smoking tree, and spots of blood and some glass shards. As Tanjiro walked up to the headless body he silently prayed for it, "Rest in pepperonis, man." He thought as he chuckled at his own joke; he moved towards the package that was sitting peacefully on the ground, "Only thing that seems untouched here." Tanjiro thought as he moved his hands to pick up the package, but before his hands even touched the package, he felt a presence and quickly ignited his heat blade and slashed several vines that were mere inches from reaching his body. 

"Looks like I have to fight now..." Tanjiro thought with a ever-so-slowly-approaching smile creeping up on his lips as his blood began to boil once more.

He shifted his body to meet the person who attacked him eye-to-eye as he was walked out of the darkness of the forest, "Impressive," the demon said with an evil grin, "I know right?" Tanjiro said with a smirk behind his mask, "Tsk." The demon thought, "You're cocky, you don't know who you are dealing with." The demon said with a little anger in his tone, "Dealt with guys like you before, so you shouldn't be a problem," Tanjiro said casually, "What does he mean by that?! He doesn't look like a slayer." The demon thought as he just shook it off and prepared to attack, "Blood Demon Art: Winding Vines!" The demon said as vines appeared from behind him and started to approach Tanjiro at alarming speeds, "Blood Demon Art huh? Kind of similar to the slayers' breathing styles." Tanjiro thought as he dodged every one of the vines without breaking a sweat, "Quit it man, let me just get the package and leave." He gave as a first warning, "My lord said to bring you in, I do what he says and there is no exception to that." The demon sternly said as he released another attack, "Blood Demon Art: Devilish Trees!" The demon said as the trees in the surrounding area start to bend towards Tanjiro, "So they don't just summon things out of nowhere, they can also manipulate their surroundings..." He thought as he started the cut every tree in half with his heat weapon. "Absolute ease... I'll have to amp things up if I intend to capture him," the demon thought as he looks at his foe with a little surprise. "I can sense that you are surprised, it seems that I have impressed you." Tanjiro said with a little chuckle in his voice, the demon frowned and took a stance, "Blood Demon Art: Constricting Vines!" The demon said as another set of vines start to approach Tanjiro. 

Tanjiro just stood there as the vines started to wrap around his limbs, he also noticed that the vines had small little thorns on them.

"Interesting..." Tanjiro thought as the vines dragged him up in the air and held him there, "Looks like you were too slow to evade my attack," the demon said overconfidently, "And I'm the cocky one?" Tanjiro thought as he rolled his eyes, "Now I can teleport you to my lord, and he will give me my reward."

 The demon said, "Would love to see this beloved 'lord' of yours, but I am running on a pretty tight schedule, so can we cut this short and cut me out of these vines?" Tanjiro said as he chuckled a bit at the little pun he made, "No can do little, my lord asked me to capture you, and my lord is the greatest, there is no way I would disobey him." The demon said, "I would happily agree to go with you, but I have other things to do other than be captive to a bunch of random abominations of man." Tanjiro said with a little sigh, "Abominations of man?! How dare you! We are the greatest species to ever exist on Earth!" The demon exclaimed, "Oh boy, here we go again with the cockiness..." Tanjiro thought, "That's what they all say until they get curb stomped by regular 'puny' humans like me." Tanjiro said with a smirk.

"Tch... This guy is annoying, I better bring him in before he drives me crazy..." The demon thought with a few tick marks on his as he started to move the vines with his hands, "Hey, where are you taking me?" The vine-bounded boy causally asked, "My lord." The demon sternly replied back, "Hmmmm... nah, I have something else in mind." Tanjiro said as he spun himself around, overwhelming the strength of the vines and cutting each and every one of the vines that were keeping him hostage, he then jumped back and dusted off his suit, the demon looked at him with an annoyed-surprised look.

 "Let's see who's the strongest between the two of us. If you think you can take in me in so easily, then oh boy you're about to be in a world of pain." Tanjiro's smile started to widen as he cracked his knuckles and neck and went into a stance, signaling the demon to fight him.
 
"Dam it, cocky bastard." The demon thought as he began to attack Tanjiro, "Blood Demon Art: Sharp Cutting Leaves!" He said as the leaves of nearby trees started to stand up as if they were coming to life and launched towards our protagonist at blinding speeds. He managed to weave around the leaves with moves that only a superhuman could've accomplished. After the attack finished, Tanjiro stood there again with his heat blade spinning around in his hand, "Got any more, or are you done?" Tanjiro yawned. "This fight is actually making me bored... this is not making me hyped at all..." He thought.

[MADNESS METER: 3%]

The demon was beyond pissed at this point and unleashed another attack out of rage, "Blood Demon Art: Nature's Wrath!" He said as he raised his hand and clenched it into a fist, the entire forest around the two opponents then begins to shake tremendously, the trees curled towards our red-head and began to spit razor-sharp leaves at him, the skies turn black with clouds and lightning starts to crash down at Tanjiro's position as then he dodges and weaves through every strike. The wind speed suddenly increased and began to rip apart trees and rocks from the surrounding.

He noticed a few pieces of the ripped-apart tree trunks and large rocks flying at him, dodging everything single piece of debris as if it was an infant trying to throw a ball at full force. After he landed, he noticed the wind circling around him with the large pieces of debris flailing and flying around, creating a death funnel which was slowly closing in on him. He looked around for a second and shot his eyes towards the demon who was controlling the attack. 

As the circle of wind finally closed up on the man, there was a large sound produced from the crashing debris, and a large dust cloud was formed. After the dust cleared, the demon expected to see the man he was attacking on the ground unconscious. To his surprise (but not the audience's), he wasn't there. "Where did he-" the demon thought as he was soon interrupted by a voice, "Over here," Tanjiro called out as he causally sat on a tree behind the demon while checking his watch. The demon turned around and was astonished at how this man managed to evade the attack the he believed was a guaranteed hit. The red-head jumped down from the tree and held his blade in his hand, "I told you that I don't have time." Tanjiro said as he spun his blade around in his hand once again, "And now that I saw what you could do, it's now time to see what I can do." He held a causal stance as if he wasn't even trying to fight. 

In a blink and you'll miss it moment, his figure disappeared and re-appeared right in front of the demon.

His blade was a mere few inches away from the demon's face, so close that the demon was actually starting to get burned by the heat of the blade. "So fast!" It thought as he barely dodged the attack by slight ducking under the slash. He went in for a punch but his opponent quickly flipped over the attack and blitzed behind him. Our MC swung his blade, aimed at the demon's neck, and almost decapitated him until the abomination ducked under the attack at the last second and quickly created distance between the two.

The demon then stood across from Tanjiro while covering his neck with his hand, "Shit! He's way more faster that I thought!" He started to panic a bit as he prepared to launch another attack, "Blood Demon Art: Trunk Destruction!" He said as dead tree trunks started to rise out of the ground and move toward the man in the tuxedo. Tanjiro jumped over the trunks and soon noticed that there we more coming at him from above, so he changed his momentum and ducked under the trunks. He then began to charge the demon as he was still trying to hit him with dead tree trunks. 

Tanjiro managed to reach about a few yards from the demon as the it launched another attack. This time there were two sets of trunks, one on the ground and one right above the first set. This only left a small gap between the trunks, but, in typical MC fashion, he managed to thread the needle. He appeared behind the demon and finally decapitated it. The demon's head fell to the ground, but, to its surprise, he was not disintegrating. "My head!" He thought as the body began to frantically looked for its head to re-attach itself to, "So those swords do serve a special purpose." Tanjiro stood there as he watched the demon hurriedly look around for its missing head like a man who just lost his phone. His nose twitched all of a sudden and he started to pick up some scents, "Someone's coming." He thought as he grabbed the demon's body and head and kicked both parts with such a force into the sky that it would make even Team Rocket jealous.

He retracted his heat blade and quickly turned around to see that the box he was supposed to capture a while ago was now on the ground with scratch marks and a few cracks. "Must've gotten damaged by the fight," Tanjiro thought as he rushed over to the box and quickly took out his handle, he then placed the handle on the box and tapped his earpiece, "Send a drone over quickly, I don't have time." Tanjiro said as Minato agreed. A drone then appeared in front of Tanjiro in a matter of seconds and he attached the package to the drone and sent it on its way.

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While Tanjiro was retrieving the package, the demon, who was launched a considerable distance from Tanjiro, landed with a loud crash as his head and body collided with a tree. "Agh, f*cking hell, my everything hurts..." He exclaimed in pain as his body finally found his head and began to re-attach it.

After it was finally re-attached, he looked around to see where he was and saw a young girl in a pink hoodie and a pink sword right in front of him. The girl quickly backed off and assumed a defensive stance, "Out of my way idiot, I'm on a serious mission." She sternly said to the demon, who was still currently in much pain as of the moment. "Listen here little girl-ow. don't treat me like this, I'm currently occupied right now, and I don't need little Scruggs like you to interfere in my plan, so get out of my way-ugh..." The demon weakly threatened, only to be decapitated again by the girl as she ignored his body and continued running towards her objective, "He-HEY! HOW COULD THIS BE?" The demon panicked as he witnessed himself get decapitated in an instant before he finally turned into dust.

"Faster, I need to be there first!"

She then reached the area where the package is or was supposed to be, and to no surprise and her expectation, she already saw the man in the tuxedo there with the package gone.

A heavy, tired sigh escaped her lips, "Again...?" She said with a beyond defeated tone.

"We agreed on this before as well, we acknowledged that we have our own business to attend to and missions. I even made it clear that sometimes, my mission may interfere with yours." Tanjiro pulls out a piece of paper with what looks to be like signatures of their codenames on the bottom.

"Remember the contract!!!" He flicked the paper multiple times with a humorous tone, trying to ease her a bit from her fatigue.

"Pft." A small sputter escaped from her lips, signaling to our MC that she was certainly humored.

"Hehe! Got you!"

"Ok, fine, fine, you got me. But, can I please ask... why are specifically targeting our ore shipments?"

"Well my... company... is rather interested in these ores and its properties, especially its color-changing properties. And I just figured out that those swords of yours are specifically designed to kill those... things... abominations... demons... whatever the hell they're called."

"So it must have something to do with what the ore is made out of, which is currently what we're trying to find out."

"... uh-huh... and how much do you plan to steal?"

"About 50 kgs..."

"W-WHY SO MUCH?"

"Uhhh... because that's how much the tests require in order to figure out its properties..."

"Y-you do realize I'm right here, I can just give you the information you want instead of having you steal our precious ore supply and land a few of us into the hospital..."

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"THEN WHY THE HELL DID THEY GIVE ME THIS MISSION?! I STILL HAVE TO COMPLETE IT, BUT NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE, I MAY AS WELL HAVE THE BLOODY ROSSETTA STONE IN FRONT OF ME."

"G-GOD DAMMIT, WHAT IS THIS BS?"

"Wasted all that time for bloody shit..."

"*Ahem* *Ahem* excuse my outburst young lady... but... please..." Tanjiro states while slowly whipping out a notepad and pen from his suit jacket.

"... answer my questions."

"W-wait, you just have that with you on at all times...?" Kanao confusedly asked with a finger weakly pointed at his jacket.

"Woman, I can carry basically the entire US armed forces arsenal if I want to." Tanjiro nonchalantly replies with a slight tilt of his head from his notepad to the woman in front of him.

"What the actual f*ck type of company do you work for...?" She laughed weakly, unknowing if his statement was a joke or not. 

"Unrelated for now, try not to think about it too much. For now, answer my questions."

"Only because I don't want to stay up all night knowing that you have a black hole as a garment... ok... so... what do you want to start with..."

"What's going on? Why are there abominations of man running amuck, acting like they're the superior race like it's 1939 or something?"

"So... they're called demons right...? And they like to eat humans!" She exhaled quickly in a comedic tone, try to match up to the man's casual tone as well.

"Y-yeah woman... real descriptive!" He quickly caught on to her speech and matched it as well. The two shared a small chuckled as the tiny blanket of tension between them had lifted completely and a shroud of causal banter had arose. 

"And... what's their history?"

"... to be honest, I never really paid attention to that... the only thing I know now is just to kill those that don't look human. But... if I were to remember hard enough... my Master did say that demons have existed for a long time, ever since... what is it? The Heian period?"

"I feel like that should've been some real important information you could've taken in..."

"Who knows? I was in my own world that timeeeee." She lightly joked with a little spin. Tanjiro could only reply with a humored expression under his mask, finding the girl's tone a little bit cute. 

"And who is the creator of these said... 'demons'?"

"Oh! That would be Muzan Kibutsuji!"

"Nice. What does he look like."

"I don't know... nobody has ever seen him in public, especially slayers."

"Of course..."

"Ehhh... Imma just have Minato look for him on the population database."

"What properties do they have that sets them apart from regular humans?"

"Let's see... superhuman strength, speed, agility, regeneration, durability, and supernatural abilities that are granted to them immediately upon conversion."

"Any inherent weaknesses?"

"If you decapitate them with Ninchirin swords, then they'll die. If they're exposed them to the sun, they'll die. And they hate wisteria flowers, it's like a poison to them."

"The sun? Why the sun specifically?"

"*Mouths 'I don't know'* Probably cause it's too bright... or something..." She replied with a shrug.

"So I can theoretically use that one 200,000 lumen flashlight to kill a demon considering the sun only produces 127,000 lumen?"

"They made something like that...? Ye-may-no-who knows....? Maybe it'll work. No one has ever tried it, mostly cause they're not stupid enough to do so."

"Welp, now I know what's next on my bucket list during my stay here."

"Pfttt. Ok, anymore questions?"

"Also... can I come along if you do that...?" She said the last bit in a tiny whisper, realizing how embarrassing that might sound if said aloud.

"Sure! Also, just a few more left and we'll call it a night."

"YoouUu heard that?!" A very noticeable voice crack emitted from her mouth.

"PFT. AHAHAHHAHAHAHA."

"S-STOP, PLEASE! I-IT'S NOT FUNNY!" She blushed out of pure embarrassment as she held her own throat. 

"AHAHAHAhahah ahahahahaaa... ok, ok, I'll stop." A slight snicker escaped from his mouth as he finished his sentence. 

"MMMMmmmm! Idiot!" She turned around out of frustration and the lingering embarrassment that won't die down for the next 3 hours.

"Wait, no, please, I'm sorry." He tried to apologize, but it was very clear he was still trying his best not to laugh from her earlier slip-up.

"Ok, ok just answer this last question and I'll figure out a way to make it up to you." 

"Hmmm... really?" She pondered the offer with her hand raised to her chin.

"I'll take you 7/11 again."

"Deal. What's your last question?" She snapped her fingers and pointed a finger gun at him.

"Well she was easy to convince... mostly cause she's trying to actively avoid conflict with me..."

"How do Ninchirin swords work? Why are they the only things that can be used to kill demons?"

"Hmmm... well... it's not necessarily the sword that kills the demon, as you've said before I believe, the ore that the swords are made of are special. To be honest, Ninchirin ore is just like regular iron ore, the only thing that makes it different from iron ore is the solar energy-absorbing properties which makes it really handy killing demons. And since it's just iron ore, we can form it into not just regular katanas, but cleavers, a ball n' chain, and even bullets for a gun!"

"And whatever the hell Kanroji-sensei has..." She whispered that last bit to herself, Tanjiro heard it (of course he did) but he paid no attention to it.

"Alright. I think that's it for now... cause we might have to finish real quickly. I can sense your other friends approaching us at an alarming rate." 

"Uh-oh! Ok! See you, then!"

"Yeah, next time we meet, I'll take you to 7/11... again..." He simply waved and stood still. One second he was there and next second and blink, he was gone.

"Huh? I didn't even see him make a move and he's gone... my eyes couldn't even pick it up..."

"Thank god I didn't fight him." She thought with a slightly concerned bead of sweat running down her forehead. 

"Wait... if they're coming... then I need to make it look like a fight happened!" The thought went through her head the moment he left. She quickly began to scanter around the area furiously picking up leaves, branches, rocks, whatever she could find and threw them around to make the place look at least bothered with.

"Uhhh... if there was a fight here... how would the ground look? Think, think, think!" She tapped her foot as hard she can before she looked down at it.

"Ah! I got it!"

She started to run around the cleared area, printing foot marks as she goes. She deliberately made it so that it was random enough to be believable if much thought wasn't put into it.

"That's the surrounding done... now it's my turn." She grabbed a pile of dust and rocks and began throwing it on herself while simultaneously rubbing her hoodie against the surrounding trees, catching pieces of woven cloth off with the rough tree bark. She stopped and looked at the same tree she was rubbing herself on earlier, "This is going to hurt..."
 
The girl the kicked the side of the tree with her shin.

"Kek!" A wince of pain escaped from her lips.

"Yep... that's definitely going to leave a mark..." She crouched to the ground, holding her shin in her hands. She turned around to look at the tree which was now slightly dented from the sheer force of her kick.

And as if the timing couldn't be any better, the rest of the group of slayers appeared from behind the bushes, clearly exhausted from all the running they had to do tonight.

"K-Kanao!" Nezuko rushed over to her side, helping her get up. "What happened?!" She worriedly asked. Kanao coughed weakly, "Guess beat us to the package, I tried to fight him... but as you can see... it did not go so well..."

"Enough talking! Aoi! We need some Kakushi here for Kanao! Quickly!" Nezuko urgently ordered into her earpiece. "Sure thing. Just hold out for a and they'll come to pick you up. Consider this mission over and unfortunately failed." Aoi replied back before cutting connection.

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After half an hour of waiting the Kakushi finally arrived to pick up the group, they picked up the group and held them on their backs, and began navigating towards the Butterfly Mansion.

"Thank god I sent my crow on vacation..." Kanao thought with a little smile as she got on the back of the Kakushi.

"And now that I think about it... he really isn't all that bad... he's pretty funny... and kinda cute..." A tiny blush creeped on her face, but was invisible to the others around her due to her mask.

"N-no NO! You only have feelings for Tanjiro! Get it together!" She furiously shook her head, trying to get rid of the ill thought. 

"Anything wrong, Tsuyuri-sama?" The Kakushi asked, "No... thank you for worrying though..." She replied with an exhale as she strapped in for the journey ahead.

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Welcome back to another entry of The Slayer's Creed brought to you by Kanao!

Kanao: The Demon Slayers have existed for as long as demons have as well! We slayers take our duty very seriously since we know the faith of humanity rests in our hands with every mission we take, but sometimes some of our missions go awry and some slayers never make it back. In order to honor the fallen slayers, retired or not, we would dig a grave for every one of the fallen inside a secret graveyard that is only known to slayers, our tradition for the fallen has been like this ever since the corps was first founded. We would, of course, ask the families of the slayers for their permission to bury them inside the slayer graveyard if the slayer's family is still alive. If they decline then we create a fake grave to honor that slayer's legacy, while the actual body of the slayer rests in a separate grave. But there was one slayer who was never buried in our graveyard even though we believed he died, in fact, not much is known about this slayer since all of his records for the slayer's database have been eradicated, the only people who know about this mysterious man is Master, and even he wouldn't tell us about him, not even to the Hashira.

Kanao: But that would be enough of what we slayers do to the dead for today, but for now, you can go ahead and read the next chapter, "The Meeting and Recovery" where me and Aoi go to a Hashira meeting to relay our information to the other Hashira about this mysterious man who attacked us.

Kanao: Haha! Why us... I'm tried already... just let the matter die down so I don't have to stress about this anymore...

*Kanao fake cries as the screen pans out of view*