Sister of the snake - Tanjiro X Reader

CHAPTER 21

We walked around the entertainment district until we came to the Tokito house. They offered to take me, but I insisted they take 'Sumiko' (Tanjiro) with me. My fake name was F/N (Fake Name). They accepted, and Uzui gave them a message. Don't take off my black face mask. He didn't tell them why, but they could tell he really meant it. And I knew it was necessary. If they saw my mouth scar, I'd be fired as soon as they saw it.

Me and Tanjiro were brought into the house and introduced to our rooms.

Timeskip to the morning brought to you by Zenitsu wildly playing the Shamisen in rage against Uzui for some reason:

Me and Tanjiro were folding towels in a room when one of the people came to our rooms and asked me to help them with something.

"F/N-chan, could you carry some of that over? We really don't have enough helpers..."

I smiled as innocently as possible despite the fact that they couldn't see my mouth, because I had to be unnecessarily nice and polite to them. I spoke in a polite but cheerful tone, which absolutely destroyed me inside and out. I was going to personally murder Uzui for this humiliation.

"Of course! Koinatsu-oiran's room, right? I can bring some over, no problem!"

My throat filled with bile at how unnecessarily polite I was, but I resisted the urge to vomit. I needed to keep up appearances. They showered me with compliments, and while they disgusted me, I pretended to be modest and innocent. The hardest thing I ever had to do.

I picked up huge boxes of cloths and stuff like that and took it to the room. As I walked, since I was holding an inhuman amount of stuff, I could hear them complimenting my strength. I walked around the huge building for a bit until I found what I thought was her room. 'Is this it? Yeah, I think so...' I thought as I entered the room so hear two kids whispering amongst themselves.

"I heard the hostess of the 'Kyogoku house' fell from a window and died. How frightening. Let's be careful."

One of them said.

"There are a lot of women who 'lose their footing' and disappear. It's scary."

The other replied. I knew what it meant to lose your footing, but since I had no other way to get into the conversation to extract information, I poked my head in.

"What do you mean by 'lose their footing'?"

I asked innocently, pretending that I had no idea what it meant. They turned to look at me and what I was carrying.

"What? F/N-chan, you don't know?"

"That's a lot of baggage!"

They both said at the same time. Then the second one answered my question.

"So when you say 'lose your footing', it means running away from here without paying your debts. If they find you, bad things will happen."

"Oh... I see..."

I replied, as if I didn't already know that.

"Some also say that they ran away with their loved ones... even a few days ago, Suma-oiran..."

My eyes widened to an inhuman size as I bit back something I was going to say. As soon as I trusted my voice, I said,

"Suma... she-"

Before I could finish my sentence, the door opened and Koinatsu stepped in.

"Please stop spreading these rumors. Nobody really knows... whether they ran away or not."

"Okaaaay."

The kids answered, although I could imagine that they would keep spreading them. I got a weird feeling about Koinatu, but I shook it off once she looked at me.

"Thank you for carrying these. Come here."

I nodded and approached her, wondering why she wanted me there. She didn't give a demonic aura, but some demons were exceptional at hiding their aura. Like... Akaza. I shivered at the memory. Rengoku's hand in mine as he died. Me holding his cold, lifeless body.

I snapped out of my trance once Koinatsu placed something in my hands.

"I'll give you some candy. You can eat it in secret. Despite your mask, you do eat, right?"

I nodded, and smiled innocently at her.

"Yes, I do eat. Thank you, Koinatsu-oiran."

The kids started asking her for some, and I knew that this was the perfect chance to get some information out of her.

"Hey... did Suma-oiran really lose her footing?"

I asked. Her attention turned to me once again.

"Why would you ask me that?"

I thought about the question. Tanjiro wouldn't be able to lie, but I could, and anyway, what I was about to say wasn't really a lie. Not completely.

"Suma-oiran is a childhood friend of mine, so I'm worried about her. She was sent here some time ago, but since she stopped sending me letters, I decided to check out what was wrong. Did she really lose her footing?"

"Yeah. I honestly never thought that Suma-oiran would lose her footing. she as a very gutsy girl."

I chuckled.

"That's for sure."

"She never acted conceited with the boys. But we found her diary, and it said that she lost her footing in it. I haven't heard of her getting caught, so it'd be nice if she managed to escape."

'Hmm... I don't know Suma too much...' I thought, frustrated internally. 'But she doesn't seem like the type of person who would run away from a mission like this... unless she was taken. Could it be that the demon killed her?!'

I growled deep in my throat, but my mask muffled the sound enough for the other people not to hear. 'That's a bit... too convenient for the demon... the diary must have been a false lead to try to make us think that she ran away... but it's definitely not true, since she would have gone to Uzui if that was the case, she's head over heels in love with him.' I smiled at the people.

"Well, thanks for telling me."

I then walked back to the room where Tanjiro was, but I couldn't help but feel like this exact same thing was happening in the other houses. I could only hope 'Inoko' and 'Zenko' were fine.

When I arrive at the room where Tanjiro was still folding towels, I explained everything to him.

"I see... we need to find Suma before she dies..."

He said. I nodded in agreement, and gave him half of the candy that Koinatsu had given me.