Our Halcyon Days || Reader x Tanjiro | RESUME 2022!

* t w e n t y - t w o *

The entire room changed.

Your eyes flicked from one end of the room to the other, anxiously drinking in every little detail. From what you saw, nothing was a threat to you and the girl's safety, but still... The whole situation was unnerving.

Maybe we were the ones that moved. We moved along with the drumbeat.

"Ah... uuuu..."

The girl you'd taken in your protection couldn't hold back her cries, and sobbed into her shaking hands. Distractedly, you rubbed the top of her head with your free hand; you detected the sound of stomping from a few ways off. You predicted you had maybe half a minute — no, twenty seconds before the stomps reached you, assuming they'd maintain the same pace.

"We'll be fine!" you told the girl, lacing your words with all the fake confidence your smile emitted. "Tanjiro and Zenitsu are strong. They'll protect your brother. And I won't let anything bad happen to you, either, so rest easy."

She wiped her tears.

"Your name is—?" you asked.

"...Teruko..." she responded.

You kept smiling, all the while gauging your distance from what was most likely an approaching demon. Your grip went tense on the hilt of your Nichirin Sword.

"Teruko," you said, crouching down so you were face-to-face, "I'm going to protect you, but to do that, I need you to stay calm and listen for my directions. Can you do that for me?"

Your heartbeat began to pick up as the noise gradually grew louder. Teruko nodded. You gently but briskly drew her over to the corner of the room, where she was further from the opening. A dresser sat a foot away from the wall — she caught on and tucked herself in the crevice.

"Wait there," you said, holding your scimitar vertically out in front of you and turning to face the corridor. "Don't leave this room, even if it moves."

You crept behind the sliding door on the left, which was the direction those booming footsteps were coming from. To your surprise, you next heard muttering. The voice was off-putting and low, growing louder as the seconds ticked by, along with the rhythmic beating of your heart.

"No one has any manners, barging into the home of someone else... Pisses me off..."

Full-Focused Breathing.

You aimed to end it in a single strike, crouching close to the ground.

The sound of the air crystallizing around my blade might give me away. I cannot use a breathing form.

"They are all my prey... They are all prey found in my territory... And that guy, the child of 'rare blood,' he, too—!"

A footstep landed right next to you, the thin door being the only thing concealing you from the demon's sight. With its next giant step, you saw its foot, then its leg, then its whole body. It took the form of an abnormally large and muscular man, with long-ish black hair and several dark marks on his face. His most noticeable features were his straight crimson eyes, and the drums that protruded from his stomach and the fronts of his left and right shoulders.

He didn't seem to have noticed you, for he kept walking onward.

You narrowed your eyes.

Now—!

You launched yourself forward with all the might of your back leg; your body, a well-oiled machine, your muscles contracting to pull your bones, working in conjunction with the tendons and joints, the pieces of your stealthy ambush flying all into place.