[ on hold. ] 𝙃𝙖𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 || ᴋɴʏ ʜᴀꜱʜɪʀᴀꜱ

◇ 𝒇𝒊𝒗𝒆 ◇

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"This house is filled with non-human residents, like a vampire, a demon, or a ghost," said Tomioka. The room was silent for a few seconds before the four let out soft giggles, Tomioka shook his head and told them he was serious, the four stayed silent and noticed how stoic his expression is, they started to feel their fear slowly rising. "Demon?" asked the innocent Nezuko, they did not want to believe it and thought the residents might be playing a prank on them, but they do admit that Shinobu and the others are a tad bit suspicious.

"Yes, a demon, please be careful, he will—" cut off by the sudden blinking of lights, Tomioka looked around and immediately sensed that the demon was there. Tomioka quickly stood up, startling the four in the process, he was still looking at the blinking lights and the corners of the room. "Leave," said Tomioka sternly, "now." The four scrambled out of their seats and immediately ran out of the library, dashing as quick as they could together on their way back to (Name)'s room that was several rooms away.

"Why did you tell them, Tomioka? Was that your intention all along? To save these children? If Kocho finds out about this, you can disappear on the face of this earth for good." Tomioka could only glare at the demon as he laughed, imagining the punishment that Tomioka could get for telling the guests about their secret. "Look, you all need to stop this, this isn't the right way to—" cutting him off from his sentence for the second time, the demon stood right in front of him, disguised in his human form as his light purple eyes glared at Tomioka's cold blue eyes. "Right way or not, we will do what we can to get it back," said the demon as he let out a 'tsk' before disappearing into thin air.

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"Huff, huff..."

The four panted for air as they arrived to the door of (Name)'s room, Nezuko grabbed the door handle, but instead of feeling the cold steel, she felt scales, she looked and what she saw made her scream before backing away from the door. "Nezuko?!" exclaimed the other three, (Name) looked at the handle and saw a white snake with piercing red eyes staring right at them, (Name) let out a loud shriek before pointing out that it was a snake. "Who are you?" asked a voice behind them, they all let out another shriek as they turned around and there stood a man around 5'3 with black hair and heterochromatic eyes which has the colour of green and yellow, a bandage covered his mouth, and he was wearing a black and white striped shirt with dark blue pants.

The four stayed silent as they stared at the man with both fear and shock, this annoyed the man and he asked them his unanswered question one more time with annoyance laced in his voice. "W-We..." trailed off (Name), she did not know what to say, the information she got from Tomioka was a bit too much to take in as she did not believe that she was being haunted by a demon and it wasn't her imagination. "Ah! Obanai-san, there you are," a familiar voice echoed the hallway and all five of them faced towards the direction of the voice. "Kocho," called out the man named 'Obanai', Shinobu stood in front of the group and looked at the four before letting out a smile, "ah, I see you met our beloved guests," the way she said it brought chills down their spines.

"Oh, guests," said Obanai as he observed the four before looking back at Shinobu, "what is it that you want from me?" asked Obanai to Shinobu before the two started walking away from the four, the snake slither its way down to the ground and trailed behind Obanai while the four could only stare in shock, but their eyes grew into the size of a saucer when the snake rested on Obanai's neck.

"...Maybe that's his pet?" said Zenitsu before placing his hand on the doorknob to open it, the four dashed inside once the door was fully open. They closed the door and locked it before sitting on the floor and huffing, they felt their heartbeats rapidly beating itself in their chests, their fear was increasing and they started having some doubts that Shinobu could also be one of those non-human residents.

"They're not human, what about Tomioka-san?" questioned (Name), "is he not a human too? What about Kocho-san? Are we being haunted by a demon? We have to get out of here, quickly!" blabbered the female, the three noticed how scared and alarmed she looks, she must've encountered more beings than them, for all they encountered was the ones haunting her room.

"Tanjiro, is he even here?! We need to search around and leave! I don't want to stay here!" exclaimed the girl as tears flowed down her cheeks, breathing heavily. The fear was evident in her eyes and Nezuko scooted closer to her and gave the girl a hug for comfort, "shh, it's alright, we're all scared too, so let's look for onii-chan and leave once we investigated," whispered Nezuko as she rubbed (Name)'s back and reassured her that they'll be okay if they stick together.

"Tomioka-san also mentioned that there are ghosts and vampires," stated Zenitsu softly as he curled into a ball and hugged himself from fear, "let's look for Tanjiro!" The four stood up and did some breathing exercises to calm themselves down, as Inosuke was about to grab the doorknob, the lights in the room started flickering and laughter echoed in the room.

"Leave us alone!" exclaimed (Name), the laughing echoed louder and then it suddenly stopped. "You know about our secret, so there's no way we're leaving you alone," said the voice, then it dawned on them, the demon was listening to their conversation, who knows if the other residents heard as well, they ran out of the room as fast as they could and ran down the hallways.

As they ran down the hallways, they spotted Rengoku at the end of the hallway. They stopped on their tracks and Rengoku immediately noticed them, he flashed them a smile and asked them what were they doing. All they could do was stare in both shock in fear, contemplating if they should just run away or trust Rengoku because of his cheerful disposition. He sensed their fear and told them not to worry and that he wouldn't hurt them for no reason, this eased their fear and (Name) started speaking.

"We're being haunted," said (Name) with fear lacing in her voice. Rengoku stayed silent for a moment with his eyes widened a bit, he then smiled at them and let out a short laugh. "Don't worry, Shinazugawa may scare our guests a lot but it was never his intention to harm them," said Rengoku which confused the four, "he likes seeing our human guests spooked out by the thought of them being haunted by a demon." Their eyes widened, does this mean that the rest of the residents knew what was happening to them? So that means that all the warnings Tomioka gave were true and he was the only one who has the intention of letting them run away.

"Are you..." trailed (Name), it could be possible that Rengoku was talking about something else and did not understand what she meant, but she wondered who could this Shinazugawa guy be. "Hm? Am I what?" asked Rengoku as he looked at the girl with a huge smile on his face.