He Who Fights Demons Ch 11

Apologies for the late post.

So this story won the poll by a thinner margin than usual! Just under a hundred votes!

I will write all of Gallows Humors and post it at once just so I can ram it down y'all's throats I swear to gawsh!

Lol, if only I had that much time. XD

Now, this chapter. In this chapter, a lot and simultaneously little happens. Bit of an interim chapter used to describe/define a new status quo. Nonetheless, I did my best to try and make the chapter as entertaining as possible while passing on all the necessary information.

Also, holy hell did this chapter fight me tooth and nail. But I'd say we're in the clear and it would be mostly smooth sailing from here.

Probably maybe.

Anyways, have chapter, hope you lot like. I swear I'mma get better about posting the next poll at a reasonable time.

=][=

Kamado Tanjiro gulped as he walked through the town where he and his squad of Demon Slayer corps members had been sent. The last two years of grueling training had not been easy, but after two attempts at breaking the boulder his father told him to cut, Tanjuro had finally deemed him ready to join the Corps.

The less said about the exam to join the Demon Slayer Corps the better.

He tripped as Xolo bumped his back, the large dog holding tightly to his side. Father had said to keep the dog close when he’d followed Tanjiro, since then Xolo growled at anyone that tried to separate them.

He absently ran a hand over the dog’s hairless head. “Good boy, Xolo.”

“Hey! Pay attention!” The squad leader called out. “You may be the son of a big shot, but that doesn’t mean anything!”

“R-Right! My apologies!” Tanjiro said. He shook his head and slapped his cheeks. He was here to kill a demon! His first ever hunt not directly supervised by his father! Tanjiro needed to do well!

Father couldn’t train with him as often as before, he’d long since been made a ‘Hashira’, and while Tanjiro didn’t really understand what that meant, he did understand that it came with responsibilities. It had been quite the abrupt step up from being simple charcoal sellers to Demon Slayers, and frankly the change to his family’s status made Tanjiro uncomfortable. But none of that mattered! He once again reminded himself to pay attention to his surroundings.

The town they’d been sent to was a small one built next to a river, Tanjiro couldn’t remember what it was named. Several people had gone missing while traveling to and from the town and others it was close to. So several squads of Demon Slayer had been dispatched to deal with the suspected demon that made this area its hunting ground.

A few people looked at them with trepidation as they walked through the street, which was fair, swords were supposed to be outlawed yet six men entered a village with swords at their hips…and a large dog.

The squad leader stopped them while he questioned the town’s people, asking about unusual noises at night or anything that might lead them to the demon.

That’s when Tanjiro picked up a scent like rotten milk and seawater, mixed with great anger and sadness.

“This way!” He shouted, Xolo taking off after him, he ignored the squad leader’s order to wait and pumped his legs to run faster as the scent of fear joined the unpleasant mélange. He ran into the canal the town was built around and though the light was poor, he was able to spot a deeper darkness in the water of the river, the same spot the scent emanated from.

Tanjiro drew the blade Morihito had made for him, falling into the special breathing his brother and father had taught him, and as he reached the dark spot Tanjiro performed the Burning Bones, Summer Sun step of his family’s ancestral dance.

The blade cut through the water with the same ease it cut through air, a pair of severed scale-covered arms tumbled through the air as the water darkened with blood.

Tanjiro reached into the water and pulled out a young girl, who vomited out water before coughing and weeping as he dragged her to shore.

“You!” Gurgled a demon as it emerged from the river, it was vaguely reptilian, its head had a bowl of thin waterlogged hair, a prominent bald spot on the center of its skull. “You cut off my arms! Have you any idea how annoying it’s going to be to grow a new pair!?”

Tanjiro hesitated, then firmed his resolve. “Xolo, protect her!” he shouted and ran forward.

“Idiot!” The demon shouted, the water frothing as two great tentacles of liquid emerged and lashed out at Tanjiro.

By the time they reached the location he’d been, he’d already kicked off the ground, soaring over the demon, its head turning to track him, mouth agape.

His sword flashed, and the demon’s head tumbled away.

“Setting Su—arghablaghabah!?” He began to say the name of the technique as he finished the backflip and made to land, but the water simply did not hold his weight as he fell into it.

The squad leader yelled at him for leaving the squad behind, but after he was done, he did quietly praise and thank Tanjiro for saving the girl and killing the demon.

He couldn’t wait to get home and talk to his mother, maybe this time he’d get permission to start searching for his big brother.

=][=

Ozaki watched in amazement as the foreign beauty, Pyrrha, blocked a swipe by the biggest demon Ozaki had ever seen, the slam of its stone like fist against her shield causing a burst of dust to fly into the air in a circle around her.

Pyrrha was unmoved other than the swaying of her ponytail.

A second later, the demon was missing one of its legs at the knee.

The demon was an ugly, brutish creature, five spike-like horns grew haphazardly out of its head, its blood red eyes were marked with the symbols for ‘Lower Four.’

It toppled over, swinging its other leg, larger than most tree trunks at the woman, who parried the titanic attack with ease before rushing forward and cutting off one of the demon’s arms at the elbow.

To Ozaki’s surprise, as Pyrrha moved to behead the crippled demon, its humongous head exploded out of its chest and vaulted away, a comically small, emaciated body scurrying away under its enormous head.

It cackled, the gravelly rumble something that should not come out of so small a body as it climbed the wall of the nearest building like a monkey, it stopped at the top of the building and roared back at them. “You’ll never catch Zuno! Zuno fastest there is!”

It dodged as Pyrrha threw one of her heavy, metal javelins at it.

“Hah! I just said Zuno faste—!” It cut off with a sanguine gurgle as the javelin that had sailed past it at some point turned around and like a striking serpent stabbed into its neck. Then, with a loud snap, the three blades it hid in its handle all exploded out, beheading the demon and splitting its head into two.

Its head and body vanished into ash before they even reached the ground, Pyrrha’s spear falling perfectly onto the palm of her hand, the three blades retracting by themselves back into the handle.

Miss Pyrrha huffed as she put away her javelin in the quiver where she kept the others. “What’s that, the third one this month, Ozaki?”

“I-It’s the fourth, ma’am.” Ozaki answered her superior.

A full Demon Slayer being appointed exclusively as the reader and interpreter for someone wasn’t unprecedented, but Himejima Gyomei was blind.

And a Hashira!

And Miss Pyrrha wasn’t even technically in the Demon Slayer Corps! The way it had been explained to Ozaki and many other Demon Slayers, Miss Pyrrha was a ‘consultant’ who was working with the corps.

The truth had been revealed when Master Ubuyashiki had summoned Ozaki to personally explain what she would be doing.

And how important Miss Pyrrha was.

Ozaki had at first been…doubtful about Master Ubuyashiki’s assessment that the foreign woman was what he claimed her to be. That was, until she bore witness to the way her shield and javelins moved unnaturally mid-battle. After that she very much believed. She counted it an honor to work so closely with someone sent by the Heavens to help them fight demons.

“How many times have I told you to drop the formalities, Ozaki?” Miss Pyrrha asked with a smile.

“Many times, ma’am.” Ozaki said, falling into place behind Pyrrha as she began walking, leaving behind the temple they’d been sent to.

Once they returned to the carriage that the Demon Slayer Corps had exclusively for Miss Pyrrha’s use, the giantess of a woman sighed. “I wonder if there’s been any news…”

“I’m sure this time we’ll return to something, ma’am.” Ozaki lied dutifully.

“You always say that.” Miss Pyrrha said with a sad smile.

“Ma’am.”

Ozaki had never met this ‘Morihito’ that Miss Pyrrha pined after, but according to her he was an exemplary warrior, one whom she had trouble defeating even when using her gifts to the fullest.

She could only hope that he was still alive, somewhere in the Empire, killing demons.

=][=

Ubuyashiki Amane sighed, rubbing her closed eyelids in an attempt to relieve their ache from having spent far too long reading reports.

The number of new demons being made was not slowing, if anything it was accelerating. In the last six months they had killed nearly a hundred demons, two dozen of which had been among the lower ranks of the Twelve Kizuki.

That said, qualitatively, each ‘important’ Demon they killed was slightly worse than the last. Not as powerful, not as comfortable with their unnatural abilities. Not as experienced. Yes, their abilities were eclectic, and that made them dangerous, but Amane would say it was…rushed, haphazard.

Demons thrown into the meatgrinder to clear the spot for the next one in line.

Nearly half of those kills had been claimed by Pyrrha, who, as Amane understood it, didn’t even use a Breath. This was the only reason why Pyrrha was not among the Hashira, as one of the requirements for becoming a Hashira was to master a Breath.

Her thoughts went to Kamado Tanjuro, appointed a Hashira by Kagaya, bypassing the usual ways of proving one’s strength by single-handedly besting fifty demons after reaching the rank of Kinoe, inheriting the title by becoming the Tsuguko of a seated Hashira, or slaying one of the Twelve Kizuki.

For the first time in the millennium-long history of the Demon Slayer Corps, the Ubuyashiki family had simply appointed a Hashira. Something that caused no small amount of friction, with Rengoku Shinjuro resigning in protest.

The naysayers all fell quiet when, on his first ever deployment as a Demon Slayer, Kamado Tanjuro was witnessed single-handedly killing a roving pack of a dozen demons as well as the Lower Three of the Twelve Kizuki that, according to reports, kept the rest of the demons as slaves.

The reason that such a report could be corroborated was that on top of all of that, he rescued the lower-ranked Demon Slayers that had gone missing, prompting the dispatch of a Hashira. The battle having been witnessed by them. Though according to their reports, ‘battle’ was too generous a term for the wholesale slaughter of demons that the man carried out. With slaughter also being too brutish a term, as by all reports, the man’s swordsmanship was the height of elegance. Truly deserving of the title granted to him by Kagaya, that of the Sun Hashira.

Now, for the first time since the founding of the Demon Slayer Corps, there was no current Flame Hashira, with the son of the former Hashira, Rengoku Kyojuro, acting as the Hashira in his father’s stead despite not having yet earned that honor. Amane hoped that Kyojuro would have the opportunity to prove himself to fill his father’s post, preferably soon. Things were moving far too quickly and while morale was on the rise thanks to the current number of successful demon kills having not been matched since the Sengoku Era, the lack of a Flame Hashira was sure t—

“Miss Amane!”

Amane twitched and nearly squeaked as her concentration was broken. She turned to see Kamado Hanako, the girl looking up at her with trepidation. “Yes, Hanako?”

“Kuina and Nichika got in a fight and now they’re refusing to talk to each other, and they won’t listen to anyone when told that they need to make up!” Hanako said, clutching the front of her Kimono, her face twisted into the supreme worry only an eleven-year-old could have over such grave tidings. “When my mom tried to talk to them and explain why they shouldn’t fight, they screamed at her and said she wasn’t their mom and couldn’t tell them what to do! So I came to get you because that was very rude!”

Amane smiled, reaching out to pat the girl’s head. “Yes Hanako, thank you for coming to get me.”

She stood and followed the girl who ran to the door, and stopped while all but hopping in place, clearly torn between telling an adult to hurry and the lessons on being polite that her parents had imparted.

If only all of Amane’s worries were this small, then the world would definitely be a much kinder place.

She really enjoyed the Kamados’ company, her children did too, and while the eldest had joined the Corps, the next eldest made for wonderful babysitters. It was a shame that it was a struggle to convince Kagaya to have them visit with any regularity.

When she finally arrived where little Hanako was leading her, she saw Kuina and Nichika, both of them kneeling in front of a gently smiling Kie, crying with ugly sobs as she spoke, her son Takeo standing nearby and trying to look stern.

“I see that I am not truly needed.” Amane said, making both of her daughters gasp and cry harder. “What happened?”

Kie smiled at her as she began to gently run her hands through the girls’ hair. “Just a small spat between siblings, their emotions got the better of them and they yelled at me. Once I sat them down and explained why they were in the wrong they apologized.”

Amane nodded. She was by far the more educated between them, but it was fair to say that she had learned a lot from Kie over the last couple of years, particularly about child rearing. She knelt by her girls and opened her arms, the two girls jumping forward and crying against her kimono while babbling apologies. “There there.”

Her relaxation ended as a Kasugai Crow landed in a flutter of wings and very loudly declared, “RENGOKU KYOJURO HAS SLAIN THE LOWER TWO OF THE TWELVE KIZUKI! RENGOKU KYOJURO HAS SLAIN THE LOWER TWO OF THE TWELVE KIZUKI! THE DEMON SET OFF BOMBS IN TOKYO PRIOR TO BEING DEFEATED! HIS TSUGUKO, KANROJI MITSURI IS WOUNDED BUT UPHELD HER DUTY AS A DEMON SLAYER AND PROTECTED THE PEOPLE FROM THE DEMON!”

Amane smiled.

Looks like they had a new Flame Hashira.

=][=

“I don’t know why you brought that ugly dog with you.” Noguchi grumbled as they patrolled the dark streets of the Kawagoe warehouse district.

“Hey, who are you calling ugly!?” Shimamoto said with a boisterous laugh. “She’s the prettiest dog ever! Besides, these dogs are important!”

“How so?” Noguchi asked, looking down at the large, hairless dog, its floopy ears standing up straight as her head twitched rapidly from one side to the other.

“Well, there’s a whole pack of them running around the Butterfly Mansion.” Shimamoto said, leaning down to rub the dog’s taut neck, the lines of its muscles standing out starkly on its skin. “This pretty girl latched onto me and followed me everywhere, when I asked Lady Kocho what the deal with them was, she said that the pack running around the mansion had initially lived in the Master’s mansion!”

“Huh.” Noguchi said, looking down at the dog, it was large, its shoulder almost reaching his waist, muscular in a way he hadn’t seen in many dogs, its skin was a brown so dark it was almost black and it had a few patches of fur randomly throughout its body. “Wonder why he likes such ugly dogs.”

“Oi, stop calling her ugly, you’ll hurt fer feelings.” Shimamoto grunted.

“It’s a dog, it doesn’t understand what I’m saying.” Noguchi sighed. “Though again, why would you bring a dog with you on a patrol? What if we run into a demon?”

Shimamoto raised his right arm and curled it to make his bicep pop. “Then she’ll witness her master valiantly killing a demon!”

The dog suddenly stopped and snarled at a dark street between two warehouses.

Noguchi turned to look, only for a dark shape to blur forward, the dog being sent flying with a whine.

“Mochi!” Shimamoto screamed, then turned to the man that had kicked his dog with a snarl. “You bastard!”

The man smiled, showing fangs instead of teeth.

“Demon!” Noguchi screamed. Drawing his sword.

“You’ll pay!” Shimamoto roared, his sword flashing, and the demon raised its hand and blocked it with the back of its forearm. It then backhanded Shimamoto, making him stagger back a few steps, his cheek bleeding.

The demon stepped forward into the scant light of the streetlamps, revealing a seemingly unassuming man wearing a dirty kimono, nothing about him stood out much, but Noguchi’s heart plummeted to his stomach as he saw its arm.

It was covered in armor that had sprouted out of its skin, not unlike the carapace of a beetle, but far stronger.

“Die!” Shimamoto said, uncaring of the blood streaming down his face he side stepped and slammed his sword’s edge into the demon’s neck with all of his strength.

Other than growing armored plates all around its neck, the demon didn’t even budge.

“We can’t kill it.” Noguchi gasped. They were about to die. If they were lucky, their disappearance would prompt the deployment of a Hashira.

“The Master said to kill dogs.” The demon said with a laugh. “But he won’t mind if I have dinner before I finish it off.”

And that’s when an enormous set of meat-shredding teeth glowing with the radiance of the noonday sun clamped down around the demon’s neck and tore its head off, leaving a cauterized stump on the body that flopped forward, already disintegrating. The eyes on the demon’s decapitated head were open comically wide as they stared up at Noguchi. “What?”

The dog savaged the head, tossing its head back and forth the way dogs did with mice or hares, the head of one of the demon transforming into dust and ash before it stopped.

Noguchi and Shimamoto stared.

The dog stared up at Shimamoto, her mouth open wide in a big doggy grin, her teeth losing their glow and once again turning into mere teeth as she panted in the night, as if she hadn’t just been kicked hard enough to kill a grown man or killed one of the strongest demons Noguchi had ever seen.

Shimamoto was the first to recover.

“Good girl, Mochi!” He said, tossing his sword aside like it was trash and falling to his knees, arms open wide.

Mochi’s tail wagged so hard it caused her entire back half to sway side to side as she threw herself into her master’s arms and began licking his face, eating up the praise he showered on her.

Noguchi fell on his ass. “You were right, Shimamoto.” He said absently, staring wide eyed at the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life as she continuously licked her master’s cheek clean of blood. “She is a beautiful dog.”