Chapter 25: The Mine Raid Part 2

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Date: October 11, 2024
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Random Forest
Weather: Clear


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As Tanjiro was whistling as he walks down a slope, he hears a rustling coming from his earpiece.

"Ayyy! Look who decided to come back from spilling coffee on himself!" Tanjiro said with a joking tone, "Bruh, come on, this isn't the most idiotic thing I've done..." Minato said as he sat down on his chair and sighed. "True, you've done worse things..." Tanjiro replied back, "Like that one time where you managed to steal a fish from the cafe and got hospitalized for one week due to you slipping on a puddle and falling two stories down..." Tanjiro said as Minato gave a dumb expression, "Ok, maybe I was pretty dumb when I was a child." Minato said, "Like we haven't told you countless times how reckless you are?" Tanjiro questioned, "Oh yeah, I just decided to ignore you guys because frick you, I could do whatever I wanted to do as a child!" Minato exclaimed. Tanjiro snickered, "But your recklessness has gotten you in trouble many times, much more than I can count." Tanjiro said, "Oh come on, I know I was dumb, but I certainly didn't do that many dumb things back then...Right?" Minato said, "When we were f*cking 7 years old after we watched "Ratatouille" you had your "chef" phase. The first time you came into the kitchen, you f*cking almost burned it down!" Tanjiro said as he started counting on his fingers, "And that time when we were training with the others, you decided to rewire all the training dolls in order to up our training sessions, but instead of faster and stronger training dolls, you made a f*cking amalgamation of a training doll!" Tanjiro exclaimed, "Like I'm pretty sure that goddam William Afton would be jealous of what the hell you just created there!" Tanjiro said as he counted one more finger.

"Another time when you were in my room, you decided to create some weird machine as a part of our project that we had for school, not only did you not make it portable, but you also managed to completely destroy my room in the process!" Tanjiro said as Minato looked down with another dumb expression on his face, "Ok ok, I admit it, I was dumb, that's why they made you the leader! Whenever I take command, I usually f*ck up the mission!" Minato says as Tanjiro chuckles, "Still remembering about the chicken incident..." Tanjiro whispers to himself, "Don't you dare bring that up!" Minato immediately replies back.

Tanjiro let out a small snicker followed by a chuckle since he likes to tease his friend about the several different occasions where he was a bonehead, "I mean even you struggled to fight it!" Minato replied back, "That was when we were completely new recruits and we just started official training with my dad." Tanjiro stated, "Point taken, but I'm pretty sure that thing still hates me today!" Minato complained. "I mean yeah, you did crush one of its babies..." Tanjiro replied, "It was an accident!" Minato replied back.

"I know, not my fault that the chicken hates you," Tanjiro said as he lifted his arms in the air and shrugged. "Anyways, do you see any suspicious activity near the mine, I'm nearing it as we speak," Tanjiro states.

"Yeah, I just checked our satellites, a convoy of around 20 men is walking towards the mine. They're closer to the mine than you, but I believe you can get there in time."Minato stated, "Any weapons?" Tanjiro said, "Some, but they are mostly two-handed blunt weapons like bats and crowbars. There are some sharp-edged weapons a few of them are carrying large military-grade knives, and one of them is carrying a machete. Probably just to deal with the foliage though." Minato replied, "Any unusual things orbiting around the designated area?" Tanjiro questioned, "As I said before, there seems to be a lot of crow activity around the mine, which is unusual because there is nothing really fishy going on. And the crow's activity is unusual too..." Minato says as he further examines the murder, "They appear to land in specific areas and seemed to be a bit more organized than most murders than I have ever seen." Minato said as Tanjiro nodded.

"Alright, thanks for the info bud," Tanjiro says as he starts to speed up and starts to run toward the mine.

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As he runs toward his destination Tanjiro notices the murder from a distance as he begins to pick up more speed than before.

He then quickly zooms past the murder without them noticing as he heads toward the mine.

But unbeknownst to Tanjiro, one crow who had keen eyesight saw the small trail of falling leaves and grass left behind as Tanjiro zoomed past his and his murder. 

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Tanjiro quickly hides behind a bush as he watches the group of men begin to chatter as they grab the box full of ore and begin to leave.

He quickly looks back and wonders why the crows were speaking fluent Japanese, "Interesting, I guess these crows are taught Japanese..." Tanjiro thought, "They were referring to me which confirms the fact that those "slayers" probably suspected that I would come here, but they didn't send in any escorts or anything like that?" Tanjiro wonders as he looks back to the group who were beginning to walk away.

Tanjiro shrugs as he gets up, "Guess I'll have to take it up with Minato." He thinks as launches a small white table from his suit at the group and quickly encased them in a thick smoke.

"Hey!" One of the men said as Tanjiro jumped from his hiding place and begins to attack them.

Tanjiro grabs one of the men by his collar and delivers a palm to his chin which knocks him clean out. He then turns over to see another man trying to attack him with his fists, only to be jabbed in the stomach and backhanded in the face.

Tanjiro then dashes behind two unsuspecting victims as he uses his knee to knock someone out and chop the other on the neck. 

A man spots Tanjiro knocking out his comrades as he tries to charge at him, "Hey!" He says as he tries to attack the masked man with a bat, but he is soon met with a kick to his jaw as he flips back and lands on the ground with a thud. 

Tanjiro then spots a group of five people all grouped together, "Probably planning to stick together..." He thinks as he shrugs, "Not a problem..." he thinks as he charges into the group and dropkicks one of them in the face as the man falls back unconscious. Tanjiro then regains his foothold on the ground as he quickly then sweeps the leg of one of the men he also falls to the ground and hits his head against the rock-hard floor, causing his brain to move around in his skull as he soon is knocked out due to the trauma to the head. Tanjiro then punches one of the men in his genitals and the man soon covers it in pain and falls to the ground. Tanjiro then quickly follows up as he soon thrusts himself off the ground with his arms and kicks the man in the jaw and soon gets up with one foot as he lands back down after kicking the man. 

Fully up from the ground, Tanjiro takes a stance as he is charged by the remaining two men as they charge with their fists, in which Tanjiro blocks all of their punches and attacks as quickly subdues them by knee-ing one in the gut and punching the other square in the face.

After he clears out the group of 5 people, Tanjiro quickly analyzes the area as he sees the other men in the group not so far away from each other.

He then starts to run further into the smoke as he then assaults one man with a punch to the gut and a quick jab to the back of the head which knocks him out. Tanjiro then looks to see another man who is struggling his way through the fog he then quickly charges him without him noticing and kicks him so hard that he knocks the wind out of him, the man quickly then falls to the ground as he gasps for breath. Tanjiro then delivers a chop to the neck to finally put the man out of his misery.

"Rah!" Another man screams as Tanjiro looks behind him and notices that one of the man's "friends" had just spotted him and began charging him with a machete. Tanjiro responds as he grabs a large stick that was on the ground and smacked him upside the head with it which then sent the person back and rendered fully unconscious.

"13 down 7 more to go," Tanjiro thinks as he begins to look around for the last seven people from the group. 

His "smoke vision" allowed him to see the last seven people all near each other but apparently, they were still finding their way in the smoke due to how thick it was.

Tanjiro sighed as he charged the first man and hit him in the stomach with his elbow. The man fell to the ground, but not before Tanjiro picked him up mid-fall and threw him toward the second man, knocking them both over. Tanjiro then dashed his way over to the third man who was holding a bat, and took his bat from him which Tanjiro used to bonk him on the side of the head. Tanjiro then turned around as he threw the bat towards another man as it hit him directly in the face and he fell on his back. 

Tanjiro then turned to charge the fifth man and chopped him directly in the ribs as they broke in half Tanjiro quickly followed up with a palm to the side of the hide which knocked the man out. Tanjiro then flipped over a man who managed to sneak up behind him and kicked his back which caused his lower spine to crack a bit as the man was sent forward.

Tanjiro simply walked up to the man and chopped his neck in order to knock him out. "One more..." Tanjiro thought as the smoke began to clear.

As the smoke fully cleared, the once confused and surprised man was looking directly at the man who attack his comrades. He stared into his neon eyes as his mask glowed a bright orange and red. The man who looking at him in fear as he soon saw the unconscious bodies of his comrades surrounding the unknown masked person. "What's wrong?" Said the masked man, the man trembled a bit in fear as he raised his fists into a guard as he prepared to fight him. Tanjiro only sighs at this, "You really want to do this?" He questions the man in which he nods in reply, "Y'know, I could just let you go in peace and you can return to your family without any damage to your body." Tanjiro says as he gives the man an option, "I don't have a family anymore... That's why I joined this organization. And those people you just knocked out are my only friends and comrades." The man says. Tanjiro sighs again, "Tough story bud..." Tanjiro says as the man only gives him pure silence, "Don't worry, for now, your friends are only unconscious and I only gave some of them major injuries..." Tanjiro states as he crouches down and lifts the arm of the man whose back he just broke a few minutes ago.

"Yeah... He's fine..." Tanjiro casually says as the man grits his teeth, "This man..." He thinks, "He's not taking this seriously!" He thinks as Tanjiro turns around to look at him. "Your cockiness will be your downfall bud! Mark my word!" He says as Tanjiro tilts his head, "I mean I am a little cocky sometimes, but come on, I can be aware..." Tanjiro says as he looks around, "I mean I just want to come to a truce with you because I pity your current condition." Tanjiro says as the man simply grunts at him. "And I have to admit, I respect your nobility and confidence in avenging your friends and comrades." Tanjiro adds, "But... Sometimes..." Tanjiro says as he quickly zips behind him and whispers in his ear, "You need to know when the battle is already lost" Tanjiro says in a menacing tone as the man turns around, "What th-" He says as he is quickly chopped in the neck as he falls to the ground unconscious.

As Tanjiro watches the man fall to the ground he looks around to see where his primary target was.

The box of ore.

After a few seconds of looking around, he sees the box on the ground completely flipped over with ore spilling out from it, "First time I have seen this thing take that much damage..." Tanjiro thinks as he walks over to the box and picks up the ore and places them in the box, "I was initially surprised how the first two boxes managed to survive the battle between those slayers and humanoid things..." Tanjiro thinks as he finishes picking up the ore and closes the box, he then takes out his detachable handle and places it on the box in which it sticks.

Tanjiro then reaches for his earpiece and pressed a button on it, "Hey Minato, I got it." He said, "Oh, ok, I'll send a drone over to you in a sec." Minato says as he takes a sip of his brand new cup of coffee, "Wha- never mind." Tanjiro says dismisses the idea, "What?" Minato questions, "Nothing, I just questioning why were you still drinking coffee after what just happened..." Tanjiro says, "Gotta keep awake somehow..." Minato replies.

As Tanjiro and Minato were having a conversation, a flash of blue light with a fade of light trailing from behind soon appeared above Tanjiro as the drone lowered its arm. 

Tanjiro still kept his conversation going on with Minato as he picked up the box and gave it to the drone which lowered its mechanical arm to pick the box up and soon sped off.

The drone quickly sped off before footsteps were heard, Tanjiro then looked in the direction of where the footsteps were coming from, "I'll call you later." Tanjiro casually said as he soon in the direction of two people, one wearing a purple hoodie and a fox mask with a butterfly design on it, and the other with a blue hoodie that had both of its sleeves mismatched in color, with one having a maroon-like color and the other having a green and yellow cube-like design to it. He also had a fox mask with tears coming out of the fox's eyes.

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A few minutes before Tanjiro met the convoy, the crow that had just spotted Tanjiro flew to a small hut and landed on the window sill.

"Caw caw! The "Masked Outlaw" is attacking the mine!" The crow said as a man with a large purple mark on his face smiled, "Very well, you may leave, thank you for telling us in time." He said as the crow nodded and left the window sill.

The man then turned back to two people that were kneeling in front of him. "It's time..." He said as the two people nodded and turned to see another two people with black clothing while carrying blindfolds.

They handed the two the blindfolds as they put them on and one got on their back while the other was led by the hand.

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As they were quickly led through the forest while being switched between different people and crows, the two decided to finally have a conversation with the first statement being.

"Ara ara Tomioka-san, why are you so quiet?" She said 

Codename: Poisonous Butterfly
Name: Shinobu Kocho

Description: Though Shinobu is physically weak and a very short person, she makes up with a special weapon that is infused with a deadly poison that is deadly even to demons. Her special weapon is created to be used for stabbing demons to infuse them with the poison, though this method is brutal and agonizing for the demons, it was her only way to kill demons since she is too weak to chop their necks off like a normal slayer. This earned her a reputation among both the slayers and demons as they call her a "Poisonous Butterfly" (thus the codename). She was promoted to the rank of hashira too as she quickly acquired the minimum amount of kills needed to become one, not to mention that she also invented her own breathing style, referred to as "Insect Breathing". Towards demons, she is merciless as she usually talks to them in a sadistic tone which sometimes scares even the toughest demons, her poison also made demons fear her as they all know that if injected with her poison, they could witness an unimaginable amount of pain. She is also a cheerful slayer even towards demons sometimes, but that still doesn't hide the fact that she is a deadly butterfly.



"..." Replied the man who was being led by the hand of another man in a black hoodie.

Codename: Rising Waters
Name: Giyu Tomioka

Description: Giyu is emotionless towards his comrades and demons alike, he rarely shows any emotions at all due to his past trauma. He constantly thinks that he never deserves to be a hashira and instead, his friend should've been one instead of him, but others kept on ignoring him and kept hating on him (such as Sanemi and Iguro). Even if he is traumatized and rarely shows emotions, he is a very promising slayer as he managed to reach the rank of hashira about a year after completing the final selection. He also created a new form of water breathing called "Dead Calm" and also took Nezuko in as his tsugko. He tried to teach Nezuko his new form, but to no avail, as Nezuko kept on trying again and again. He saw Nezuko as a very talented and strong slayer and therefore took her in as his tsugko. He also admires her for her sheer will and focus, he also commemorates her for her leadership skills and regards Nezuko as one of the best players he has ever met. But of course, he never told this to anyone and usually thinks these thoughts to himself. He is not that fond of anyone in the corps except for Nezuko and Shinobu, mostly because Shinobu once gave him Salmon Daikon as a birthday present, and from that day on, he has become a bit more fond of Shinobu, but he still shuts her off when Shinobu teases him about showing more emotion. Giyu doesn't mind Shinobu's company either way as he thinks that Shinobu's voice is a bit more relaxing to hear than just pure silence. 



"Ara ara Tomioka-san, you know that you are never going to get friends if you don't open up!" Shinobu teases and Giyu stays quiet.

"Alright, we are here!" Yells one of the men as they soon take the blindfolds off of Shinobu and Giyu. "Down that way, you should meet him." One of the men says as he points in a direction the two hashiras nod at the men and start to take off into the forest.

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"I always wanted to meet this man personally!" Shinobu said as she ran with Giyu who just kept a straight face.

Shinobu then looked at her fellow comrade and chuckled, "Ara ara Tomioka-san, at least reply to my comment, you know it's rude not to!" Shinobu said as Giyu looked at her and looked back.

"Just keep your head in the game Kocho, we're about to meet an unknown person that could bring our entire organization down." Giyu said as Shinobu grew a tick mark on her head, "This man..." Shinobu thought as she still kept a smile on her head and kept running.

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As they reached their destination they stopped in their tracks to see a man in a suit and a neon mask talking to someone with his earpiece. "I'll call you later." He says as he then faces the two slayers.

The slayers take their stance as they prepare to attack, "I take it you guys are slayers?" Tanjiro says, "Ara ara, so you know who were are?" Shinobu asks, "Barely," Tanjiro replies back. "I also take it that you work with crows?" He adds, "Yep!" Shinobu states. "Interesting." Tanjiro says, "Say, I would like to know more about you guys, you guys seem like lively people!" Tanjiro states pretty casually.

"Really?" Shinobu questions, "Yeah sure, I've always wanted to have a proper introduction to your guy's business." Tanjiro replies, "Well how is this for an introduction!" Shinobu says as she jumps in the air and lunges at the masked man, "Insect Breathing: First Form: Butterfly Dance: Caprice!" She says as she points her sword toward the masked man with the intent to inject him.

But as soon as she was about to hit him, Tanjiro flips over her sword and uses his leg to kick her to the ground. "Agh!" Shinobu states as she falls to the ground, "Kocho!" Giyu thought as he charge at Tanjiro with his sword, "Water Breathing: First Form: Water Surface Slash!" He says as he tries to slash Tanjiro, only for Tanjiro to spin horizontally in mid-air to evade Giyu's attack.

Giyu's eyes widen in surprise as Tanjiro then also kicks him to the ground on top of Shinobu. 

"Gah!" Giyu says as he falls on top of Shinobu. Tanjiro takes this moment to speed off into the night as he escapes from the two slayers.

"Ara ara, you can get off of me Tomioka-san," Shinobu states, Giyu then slowly gets up and helps Shinobu get up too.

"Where did he go?" Giyu says as he and Shinobu look around the area to see where that man is.

"He escaped..." Shinobu said with a tick mark on her head, "What a coward..." Shinobu said as Giyu sighed and started to walk away.

"Ara ara Tomioka-san, where are you going?"
Shinobu said as she quickly started to follow Giyu, "I'm reporting this to Master..." Giyu simply said. 

"Not without me loner!" Shinobu said as she knocked on Giyu's head.

As the two walk back to their Master, Shinobu starts to tease Giyu again but Giyu just stays completely silent the entire time.

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Spy's Diary


Entry 9

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Tanjiro is in a decorated room with a popper and a party hat along with cardboard cutouts of his friends all with party hats on.

Tanjiro pops the popper and begins his introduction


Tanjiro: Woohoo! We have officially finished the first arc of this series, also known as the "Ore arc"!

Tanjiro: I hope you guys read further into this book because our author has a lot of things planned for this book, so make sure you read ahead!

Tanjiro: Anyways, for this entry of the "Spy's Diary", it's not really anything related to my organization or how we operate, just something on my personal ability.


Tanjiro: Anyways, it seems that I have really flexible thumbs as my entire body is really flexible, so it's not really a surprise that my thumbs are also really flexible.

Tanjiro: People say I am "double-jointed" but being double-joined is not a thing, I just have really good flexibility in my thumbs.

Tanjiro: Here, I'll show you an example!

Tanjiro does a thumbs-up as he bends his thumb back and forms a slant with his thumb and his hand as he does it.

Tanjiro: See? People call it weird including my friends, but it brings me some joy to see people fascinated by my flexibility.

Tanjiro: Anyways, that's all for today, but keep reading on as we will soon enter another arc after a few comic relief chapters in preparation for the next arc.

Tanjiro gets close to the screen and whispers

Tanjiro: And trust me, things are going to get real in the next arc.

Tanjiro: Anyways, why don't you read the next chapter, "Decorations", where I and my friends start to set up decorations for the upcoming Halloween dance! It's bound to be fun!

Tanjiro: Bye!


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