Shattered Kaleidoscope (Multicross: Demon Slayer)

I vividly remembered the moment that the final piece of my consciousness clicked into place. Almost like a light switch, there was suddenly someone home in the space behind my eyeballs for the very first time. With the sudden awareness came something that was like confusion. Only not quite, because I didn't have any memories to understand why I should be confused in the first place. 

I just opened my eyes one day, suddenly aware, and not quite sure what was going on. So, I walked into the kitchen. My mom made breakfast. I drank some chocolate milk, and I just kinda went with the flow. Because even if I couldn't remember learning, I could still walk and talk. If my personality changed, it wasn't ever enough to be commented on. I just went on with my life. 

It wasn't a feeling I ever expected to experience again. Even when I woke up from what were meant to be quick naps feeling like I had hibernated for centuries. There just wasn't anything like the moment when you become a functioning human being rather than a little autonomous meat mech with no higher thinking. 

But it was exactly that feeling that washed over me. Only, instead of a rundown trailer and an offered glass of chocolate milk that would start a lifelong addiction, there was fire. A dozen tiki torch-looking stakes were planted in the ground in a circle with a single man in the center of it. 

His face was covered by a white cloth with the kanji for Fire written on it, a black coat trimmed with red. He didn't wear shoes despite the bitter cold with a patch of dirt marked where he danced, even though there was a heavy layer of snow all around him. In his hand was… something. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was made of wood with sharp branches tied with red cloth.

I was mesmerized. Not because of how he was dressed but because of how he moved. It was too fluid. Too graceful. Too fast. Almost to the point of being inhuman. There was a pattern that he went through -- thirteen forms that seamlessly flowed into one another with nary a pause or a beat missed. 

“It's amazing, isn't it, Akari?” A gentle voice beside me remarked, and I only realized that someone was there when I managed to tear my gaze away from the man and look up. And up I had to look because she was apparently a giant. She was a woman in her late teens, with a kind face and a gentle expression. “Your father's Hinokami Kagura dance will last all night. He won't take a single break,” she said, reaching out to run a hand through my hair, brushing off a layer of snow that had gathered unnoticed. 

There was a lot to unpack there. Too much, really, so I focused on what felt easier to understand. 

“All night?” I questioned, looking back at the man who flowed through the forms with perfect precision. It had been maybe a minute or two, but I couldn't imagine it. I was tired just looking at him. Yet, his strength and speed never wavered, not in the slightest. It was as if exhaustion wasn't possible for him. 

My voice sounded small. Young. Meaning the woman wasn't a giant, I was just outrageously small. A child. 

“All night,” she smiled at my disbelief. “And one day, you'll be able to do it too.” 

I didn't believe her, and it must have shown because she laughed lightly. Only for that to earn a warning cry from the bundle that was strapped to her back. A baby. She glanced back, “Oh, I'm sorry, Tanjiro. I didn't mean to wake you up.” 

Tanjiro. Hinokami Kagura. 

Demon Slayer. 

The pieces that floated around in the back of my mind clicked together. I wasn't entirely sure what was going on, or if I was experiencing some weird lucid dream or not, but recognizing where I was felt like a tether that grounded me. The woman- Tanjiro’s mother- shifted the squirming bundle off her back, and I peered at him. Tanjiro Kamado, the protagonist of Demon Slayer. 

His face was pinched like he was about to start crying. “Would you like to hold your little brother, Akari?” She asked, noticing my scrutiny and my hesitation at realizing that Akari was apparently my name, had her make the decision for me. Pressing him into my arms, I realized that he was deceptively heavy. 

For a moment, I thought he was going to start crying, and I would end up dropping him. Instead, when his eyelids peeled back to reveal plum red eyes, he looked up at me for a moment before his face lit up with a joyful smile that only infants completely ignorant of the world could muster. I looked down at him and felt something in my chest clench.

“He feels safe with his big brother,” his- our mother said, crouching down next to us with a smile so soft and full of love that it made me want to cry just seeing it. Because I knew what fate would befall them. 

Muzan Kibutsuji would one day come to our home and slaughter everyone he found, with only Nezuko surviving as a demon. Tanjiro would come back from selling charcoal to the nearby village to find nearly everyone he loved murdered by an uncaring monster. A creature that had walked the earth for a thousand years and styled himself as a natural disaster that the rest of humanity simply had to endure. 

I stared down at Tanjiro, who released a bubbling laugh in response. That clenching in my chest solidified into what I could only call resolve.

I had more questions than I knew what to do with, but at the moment they didn't matter. I knew all that I needed to know to make a decision that would define the rest of my life. 

“I’ll protect him,” I decided, making a promise to myself. To him. To our unborn siblings. Then I looked up at our mother, who exuded love and kindness as naturally as the sun did heat. “I’ll protect you, too.”

Her eyes widened a fraction before her smile grew, taking my words as nothing more than an empty but sweet promise as she brought both me and Tanjiro for a hug. Her chin rested on the top of my head, her arms around us, and she let out a content but happy hum. All the while, my gaze turned to Tanjuro Kamado, who danced without pause and seemingly without effort. 

And I didn’t blink. 

[CENTER]

…

[/CENTER]

8 Years Later

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you a little young to become a Demon Slayer?” Sabito questioned, looking down at the young boy before him. The boy looked up with plum red eyes, his dark hair touched with a hint of red, and wore a puzzled expression for a moment before he glanced to the sides. “Yes, I’m speaking to you. My name is Sabito Urokodaki! I am thirteen years old, and I like peaches.”

“... Akari Kamado,” Akari replied, bowing his head politely. He seemed like a soft-spoken boy. “I’m eleven years old, and I like spicy food. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Ah! I’m pleased to meet you-” Sabito started to bow his head in turn before the rest of what he said registered. “You’re eleven?!” His exclamation drew attention from the other participants. There were about thirty of them in total, most of them around their early teens with a few in their late teens. He thought he and Giyu would be the youngest at thirteen. But, eleven? “That’s absolutely too young to become a Demon Slayer!”

“It’s fine,” Akari replied, and Sabito waited a beat for an elaboration, but it wasn’t coming. At least it wasn’t until Sabito started to look around for someone to speak to about his participation. “There isn’t an age limit.”

Because no trainer would be insane enough to send an eleven-year-old boy onto the mountain where the Final Selection to join the Demon Slayers was held. A mountain that was filled with demons, all relatively weak enough to be captured for the purpose of this yearly test -- they would venture onto that mountain, and they had to survive for an entire week. If they survived, then they would become Demon Slayers. 

His trainer, Sakonji Urokodaki, was the former Water Hashira, and he had done everything he could to dissuade both him and Giyu from participating in the Final Selection. Among his attempts was the idea that, out of a group of fifty candidates, perhaps three would survive. Perhaps it was arrogance, but Sabito was confident that he wouldn’t be among the fallen. 

He was strong. Strong enough that Sakonji told him that he had the potential to become the Water Hashira one day, if he survived. Sabito knew he was immensely talented, but he honed that talent every day by training until his arms felt like they were going to fall off and his lungs felt like they were going to explode. He trained until his hands bled, until his feet bled, and until the blisters tore and hardened to become thick calluses. 

Thirteen was already young. Eleven, however?

Akari smiled lightly at his expression of obvious concern, “Don’t worry. I’m strong,” he assured Sabito and that made his gaze drift to Akari’s hands. They were rough, already covered in scars and calluses. They were the hands of someone who had spent as much time as effort into becoming a Demon Slayer as either he or Giyu did. And that, more than anything else, made him swallow his protests. 

“I will believe you,” Sabito decided before reaching out and ruffling the boy’s reddish-black hair. “However, if you can, come find me. I’ll protect you. I promise!” 

Akari’s smile grew a fraction, nodding under his palm. It was only then that he realized that Akari felt unusually warm. A fever?

No. Sabito had his answer when he paid attention to Akari’s breathing. It was a style that he wasn’t familiar with, but it was similar to Flame Breathing. A derivative? Interesting, but that hardly mattered in comparison to the revelation that Akira was using Total Concentration: Constant.

Breathing Styles were incredibly taxing on the body. Most struggled to use them for the duration of a fight, which could only last minutes. To use a Breathing Style at all hours of the day… While it was simple in theory, it was a skill that few mastered. And those few often were the Hashira, the pinnacle of the Demon Slayers. 

Akira bowed his head when one of the messenger crows called out his name, marking him as the next to venture into the forest. Sabito withdrew his hand with some reluctance, watching the young boy walk forward with a katana about the size of himself strapped to his back because he was too short for it to go on his waist. 

Giyu approached after he was gone, “Who was that?” 

Sabito found himself smiling, “Someone to watch out for.” Giyu didn’t know what to make of that, so he let the matter drop, leaving both of them to wait for their names to be called. 

One by one, the crowd of thirty candidates dwindled, walking down the path that led to the mountain teeming with demons. To Sabito’s dismay, Giyu was called first, and his longtime friend and adopted brother swallowed thickly before braving the path. By the time that Sabito had his name called, it was close to dusk than not, leaving him with but an hour to settle on a shelter and to prepare himself for the long night to come. 

He walked past the wisteria trees that bloomed out of season around the mountain, essentially acting as a barrier, as wisteria was a potent poison to demons. He breathed in deeply, letting the strength of Water Breathing slow from his lungs, through his veins, and into his limbs. The katana that Sakonji gave him for Final Selection was clenched in his grip, while the scarred rabbit warding mask that he carved for him bounced with every step. 

The mountain smelled like blood. That, more than anything else, Sabito noticed. There were traces of the battles that had been waged on the mountain since the Hiean Era. A thousand years of potential Demon Slayers venturing to the mountain, only to find their deaths at the hands of the demons they were unprepared to slay. The second thing that he noticed was that the mountain was unusually quiet. Almost silent, as if there wasn’t anything alive within the barrier. 

An impression that lasted until the very last rays of light from the sun vanished beneath the horizon. The demons, half feral from being starved for a year, erupted with jubilation because they smelled the one thing that they could subsist on -- human flesh. 

Sabito took in a long slow breath, his thumb pushing against the crossguard, turning his gaze towards the dense dark forest to meet the gaze of a demon that emerged from whatever hole he had been hiding in. There was only madness in the demon’s eyes. No- not madness. Hunger. Starvation had hollowed out the demon, leaving nothing left but the urge to eat. A urge that it indulged by breaking into a sprint towards him and lunging. 

First Form: Water Surface Slash. 

The vibrant blue katana emerged from its sheath in a single smooth motion as Sabito stepped forward to meet the demon. With that same motion, his katana met the neck of the demon, the nichirin blade parting flesh and bone with ease. The demon flew by him, carried by the momentum of his lunge, with his head falling to the wayside before both began to disintegrate into ash, leaving nothing of the demon. 

Sabito looked down at his katana to see that it was trembling slightly. And it was only then that he noticed he was gripping the hilt of his katana so tightly that his knuckles were white. He forced himself to breathe out, his grip going lax. He had killed his first demon. But there was no time to be idle. There were countless more to slay on the mountain. 

With that thought in mind, Sabito broke into a run and honed his senses to pick up on any signs of battle or his fellow Demon Slayers. He honed his senses, heightening them so he could find Giyu and Akari first. What he heard was a sharp cry in the distance, and with a burst of speed, he threw himself forward and arrived on the scene to find Giyu and two other candidates facing down a demon. 

His heart stilled in his chest for the briefest of moments, seeing Giyu on his knees with blood racing down his face and his warding mask shattered at his side. The mask was likely the only reason he was alive. 

The other two candidates flanked Giyu, their expressions one of fear, but they held their ground to defend him. It earned a tight lipped smile from Sabito, but one that was quick to be washed away when the demon lunged for them. 

Second Form: Water Wheel.

He closed the distance in an instant, decapitating the demon to save Giyu and skidded to a halt. Glancing over his shoulder, the two candidates flinched back a half step at the sight of him. Giyu looked at him with one eye that was dazed, “Sabito…?” 

That was all he managed to get out before his eye rolled back and he slumped over unconscious. 

“Don’t worry,” Sabito said, sheathing his katana. “He's my friend. I don't suppose that you could keep an eye on him? You can leave any nearby demons to me!” He thumped his chest and saw the pure naked relief in the candidates eyes that were a few years older than him. 

‘They've lost their will to fight.’ It didn't mean that they couldn't find it again. What was lost could always been found, but they wouldn't find their nerve tonight. Maybe when the sun rose, they would have had enough time to settle and steel their resolve, but not before then. 

Sabito lingered just long enough to get a shaky nod from one of them before he started moving. Giyu would be fine. The old man's warding mask did its job. But the scent of blood was going to drive the demons into a feeding frenzy… and the only way he could make sure that Giyu wasn't attacked while he was weak… 

Was to kill all the demons. 

His grip tightened on his katana, angling it for the Third Form when he caught the scent of an approaching demon. He barely slowed before Sabito severed her head from her shoulders, simply moving on as he went on the hunt. 

One by one, he felled every demon he came across. Sometimes he arrived just in the nick of time to save a fellow candidate. Other times he arrived in time to see a demon being killed by one of them. He directed them to their fellow candidates before moving on, all the while a gnawing worry started to form in the back of his mind. 

‘Where is Akari?’ He might be strong. He might have the potential to become a Hashira, but he was still just a kid and that made it his job to make sure that he survived Final Selection. 

Almost to answer him, Sabiti heard the loud crack of a tree truck snapping like a twin in the far distance. With a sharp pivot, he raced forward through the shrubbery and stray branches, and he caught the scent of… a monster. A true and genuine monster. A demon that was far too strong for Final Selection. 

Through the trees, Sabito saw it. A huge hulking misshapen body that stood at fifteen feet tall with its body made of dozens of hands. Several of which were wrapped protectively around its neck. It wasn't idle. Two large arms stretched to impossible lengths at something, smashing into the ground with explosive force, and emerging from the dust cloud that followed was Akari. 

His katana was in hand as he ran up the length of the arm before it could retract, his expression was as much of a mask as his rabbit warding mask, but he ran forward with surprising speed. Not fast enough that the Hand Demon couldn't react as three more hands that comprised his body lunged for Akari. 

Sabito didn't hesitate. In an explosion of movement, he threw himself forward and into the air. 

Third Form: Flowing Dance.

With a flurry of swings, he severed the extended arms to let Akari race by unhindered. The young boy didn't waste the chance, throwing himself forward with a burst of speed towards the demon's neck, only to abort the swing when the arms around his neck went on the offensive. With a similar flurry of swings, Akari defended himself, using one of the limbs as a platform to kick off of and to come to a skidded halt next to Sabito. 

“Ohhho?” The demon purred, the severed limbs regenerating as it turned its full attention to Sabito. “A warding mask? Ahhaha… Another one of Sakonji's precious little pupils? What a relief… I thought he had finally given up on training them…!” 

A chill raved down Sabito's spine at the sheer malicious glee in the demon's voice. “You know my master?” He asked, adjusting his stance as Akari readied himself. 

“He's the one that brought me to this damned forest!” The demon snapped, arms unfurling around his neck like scarves, leaving a single one to guard it. Twenty arms hung from his shoulders and chest, or protruded from his torso from unnatural angles. “But I can take my revenge~! Every time he sends one of you brats with one of those masks… I make sure that you don't come back~!” 

Sabito's breathing nearly wavered. Anger rose in his chest that he struggled to swallow down. 

Sakonji had taken him and Giyu in when they had nothing. No one. He didn't take them in with the intention of teaching them how to become Demon Slayers. He had long since abandoned taking pupils because none of them had ever survived Final Selection. Something he blamed himself for. He thought he failed them. That he wasn't good enough of a teacher. He only relented when both he and Giyu passed every test, jumped through every hoop, and mastered every skill to perfection. 

The old man never talked about the children he thought he failed, but their loss weighed heavily on him. And now this demon had revealed itself as the perpetrator? That every lost student was a deliberate act of malice?

“I'll open a window for you,” Akari said and despite being so young, there was steel in his voice. And a complete absence of fear. “Cut his head off, Sabito.” 

Sabito forced himself to take a deep breath, calming himself and fuelling his answer. “I won't fail,” Sabito promised.

“What confidence! You seem a bit stronger than most of the children he fed to me,” the Hand's Demon began while both of them threw themselves forward even in the face of dozens of grasping hands launched towards them at high speeds. “You remind me of one of the first he fed to me! A little girl. She wasn't very strong, but she certainly was fast!” 

Akari took the lead, flipping over the hand that nearly crushed him in its grip to run up the arm. Sabito flanked to the side, drawing a few arms away from Akari, who used each one as a spring board that took him higher into the air. All the while, the demon talked.

“At least until she slipped up. Just once. I told her all about how I killed her senpai and she got so angry~! Her screams when I pulled each limb off were almost as delicious as she was~!” The Hands Demon taunted, sending more and more arms at Akari, who found their maximum height well above the tree line. Sabito wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he recognized his opening and took it. 

Sabito darted forward, slashing through an offending hand that tried to crush his skull, then another that tried to grab his leg before he launched himself up. He only had eyes for the demon's neck, trusting Akari whole heartedly that he would give him his window. 

His trust was rewarded. In a dizzying flurry of slashes, Akari raced down the arms that stretched up to grasp him when he fell, cutting through them with ease, making the Hands Demon flinch back. Akari didn't slow down even as he fell like a meteor, passing by the demon's neck to sever the arm that guarded it. 

“No-” The Hands Demon started to deny, but Sabito's katana already passed through its now undefended neck and severing its head. The body collapsed while the head rolled away, landing near Akari's feet. 

The boy looked down at it with a dispassionate gaze that didn't waver even when tears began to well in the demon's eyes. It began to disintegrate, and Sabito was content to leave it at that. But Akari spoke, “Tanjiro has it in him to have sympathy for a creature like you… but I don't.” 

He raised a foot and crushed the remnants of the head, reducing it to ashes that faded into nothing.

Sabito breathed a bit easier now that the demon was dead. “It looks like I didn't need to be so worried about you after all,” Sabito admitted, sheathing his katana. “You're strong.” 

Akari smiled, telling him that the compliment was appreciated, but his gaze seemed far away. Like he was looking at something far off. When he replied, it was in a soft voice. 

“Not strong enough. Not yet.” 

[CENTER]

…

[/CENTER]

Kagaya Ubuyashiki coughed into a handkerchief and pulled it back, expecting to see splatters of blood in the white fabric. Instead, the cloth remained free of blood, but he knew that wouldn't last forever. Or even very long. 

Already, he could feel the curse that had plagued his family for a thousand years rotting his body from the inside out. Like all the men in his family, he had been born frail. Even swinging a katana once left him bedridden for days. At times, even lifting a brush felt like it required a strength that was simply beyond him. 

At sixteen years old, Kagaya knew that he would not live to see thirty. He was unlikely to even see twenty-five. Some days he doubted he would see twenty. 

Such was the Ubuyashiki's penance for siring the first demon, Muzan Kibutsuji. 

‘It doesn't seem fair,’ Kagaya thought to himself, gazing at his slumbering children. His wife, Amane, bore him four wonderful daughters and a son. All of them were sleeping soundly, all without a care in the world and completely ignorant of the burden that they may face. His son, Kiriya, could one day lead the Demon Slayers as Kagaya had before him, as his father had done before him. 

He would be betrayed by his body every day. First would come the weakness. Then the pain. His eyes would dim until they grew dark. Every breath would feel like breathing in shards of glass. Then he would die, leaving his son to inherit a mantle that he wouldn’t wish on his greatest enemy. 

‘It stops with me.’ Kagaya swore to himself. To the gods that cursed his bloodline. He would be the last leader of the Demon Slayers. It would be his generation that slew Muzan Kibutsuji, the creator of all demons, and his children would grow free of the pain that had plagued him all of his life. 

“You shouldn't forgo sleep,” Amane admonished him lightly.

“I know,” Kagaya confessed. “But I cannot rest easy when the Final Selection is ongoing. Especially the final day.” How many young lives would be cut short by the barbaric trial? A trial that was necessary to test the mettle and skill of the prospective Demon Slayers. He hated it. Despised it. Yet, he couldn’t change it. The Demon Slayers needed to be strong and they needed to be driven. 

If they weren’t, then their ranks would become clogged with the unworthy and that could be the difference between slaying Muzan and failure. 

“And… I wish to look upon them. As much as I can. While I can,” he admitted softly, seeing Hinaki, his eldest daughter, even if it was only by five minutes, muttered sleepily with her leg kicking under her blanket. 

“... I understand,” Amane whispered, understanding what the confession meant. Already, color was beginning to leech from his eyes. Blues became more gray and his vision in his left eye grew hazier. He had perhaps a year before he went blind. While the curse affected each member of his family differently, after a thousand years, they understood how it progressed. 

They sat in silence for a long time after that, both of them looking upon their children. Kaguya felt a growing ache in his chest as he did. Fear, concern, and desperation rolled into one that sat next to his heart. Wishing desperately to spare them the burden that had been foisted upon him when he was four years old. A burden that he had carried for twelve years. 

Amane, ever sensitive to his thoughts, gently moved forward and took his hand in his. “The messenger crows will arrive soon. Let us look at the stars so we won’t disturb their sleep when they arrive,” she offered gently, and he accepted with a soft smile. Even as he cursed his body for needing her support merely to rise to his feet. 

“I would like that,” he replied and they shuffled out of their children’s room. They walked in silence with no one else but them in the manor. A safety precaution. The location of the Demon Slayer Headquarters was a well-guarded secret, known only to a select few. Servants were a risk that his family couldn’t afford, but he also preferred it this way. 

He could not fight. He could only watch on from afar as those more suited for it fought on his behalf. To have servants waiting on him and his family would be a sign that they were in any way elevated above the brave Demon Slayers who risked their limbs and lives every time they accepted a mission. And that was something he would never accept.

Amane brought him to the porch that overlooked a garden, but his gaze was above. At the unfamiliar stars overhead. 

The sight was honestly mesmerizing, even if it was deeply uncomfortable. There were more stars than there had ever been in the dark sky above, and each and every single one of them was unfamiliar. Constellations that had been connected for centuries, if not millennia, had vanished. The North Star, which had guided humanity since the dawn of time, was similarly missing. 

It happened eleven years ago with no warning. No discernible cause. Beyond, the revelation that Earth was no longer in what had been the Solar System. While they still orbited a yellow star, the rest of the planets in the Solar System were missing and had been replaced with two entirely new planets. To this day, scientists and philosophers were torn between thinking that the Earth had somehow been transported to a new star or that the other planets,  Mars, Venus, and all the others had been the ones removed. 

How such a thing was possible, no one knew. And Kaguya accepted that he was likely to die before they ever came close to an answer. In the end, however it happened, the affairs of the stars were beyond him. His concerns began and ended with Muzan Kibutsuji. 

Slowly, the stars began to fade from the night sky as the sun rose, and with it came news. The sound of flapping wings brought his attention to a messenger crow. Kaguya braced himself for the news that would be delivered as it landed lightly on an offered hand. 

“Kaa~! No casualties! No casualties for Final Selection!” The messenger bird announced, making Kaguya’s breathing hitch. “All thirty survived! All the demons have been slain!”

For just a moment, Kaguya allowed himself to bask in the good news. It wasn’t often that he received any. But that moment came and went entirely too quickly. “All the demons have been slain?” He echoed the news, delighted that the Demon Slayers had grown. That no lives had been cut short. Yet, he couldn’t deny that it was highly unusual. 

Even good years saw around half the participants die in Final Selection. 

“Kaa~! Sabito Urokodaki! Akari Kamado! Each slew more than a hundred demons the first night!” Sabito? One of Sakonji Urokodaki’s students. He had two of them in this year’s selection. It was a relief to learn that they survived, as the thought of every student of his who had failed to survive Final Selection weighed heavily on the former Water Hashira. 

Akari Kamado was largely unknown. He participated via recommendation, but he had no formal Trainer that Kaguya knew of. Yet, to slay so many demons and fight on the same level as someone trained by a Hashira? One whose standards were exceptionally high? That spoke well of his abilities. His talent. 

His position truly was a curse. One that he hated more than words could ever hope to convey. For the very next thing he thought was how to take advantage of this unexpected wellspring of talent. 

‘Hashira.’ Both boys had the potential to become Hashira, the pillars of the Demon Slayers and those who fought at a level that they could combat Muzan’s Moons. While his Upper Moons remained unchanged for centuries, or if they had, then it was by the demons killing their own to rise in the ranks; Hashira were the only ones who could reliably slay his Lower Moons. 

He had inherited a Demon Slayer Corp that was in shambles. Currently, of the nine positions for Hashira, only three were filled. 

Gyomei Himejima served as the Stone Hashira. 

Kanae Kocho served as the Flower Hashira.

Shinjuro Rengoku served as the Flame Hashira, though it was a question of for how long, with his steady slide into alcoholism. 

If Sabito and Akari's talents could be nurtured, the Demon Slayers may yet gain two more pillars to rely on. 

“I would like to meet them,” Kaguya decided. Perhaps it was premature, but his hands were guided by desperation. He would behold these children with his own eyes, so he may take their measure before he assigned unrealistic expectations upon them. 

It was then that the decision was made, but it wasn’t one that was easily realized. The secrecy around the Demon Slayer Headquarters was paramount, thus it was the better part of a week before the boys went through an elaborate series of steps before they managed to arrive before him in his garden underneath the warm afternoon sun. 

They both knelt in the itami room when he arrived. And they were both young. Too young. A jagged scar marked Sabito’s face, going from his ear to his mouth, but he seemed like a kind boy. Akari, on the other hand…

‘He has old eyes.’ Eyes that had been stripped of the innocence of youth and the ignorance of the cruelties of the world. Both of them bowed their heads as he sat at the head of the room, his wife by his side. He despised the relief that he felt when he was able to sit down. 

“Sabito. Akari,” he began, his tone gentle as he gestured for them to raise their heads. “I’m happy to meet you both. My name is Kagaya Ubuyashiki. I wished to thank you for your efforts during the Final Selection -- over the years, I have attempted to harden my heart to the losses that we face every year, and the fact that there was none this year… it was a welcome relief.”

He bowed his head to them both and Sabito flinched back. All of the Demon Slayers behaved as such. As if bowing his head was somehow beneath him. With his wretched body, it was all he could do. 

“Protecting people is what we do,” Akari found his voice first, and Kaguya smiled. He raised his head and looked to the younger of the two boys. The reports had informed him that Akari practiced Total Concentration Breathing: Constant, but it did surprise Kaguya that he didn’t recognize his breathing style. At least not entirely. “Thank you for meeting us, sir. There were a few things that I wanted to discuss with you and I thought that it would take longer for us to meet.”

Kaguya tilted his head, “I see. What would you like to discuss, Akari?” 

“More than three hundred years ago, the creator of the Sun Breath visited my ancestors,” Akari began, and Kaguya’s heart stilled in his chest for just a moment. The Sun Breath. Created by Yoriichi Tsugikuni, the man who had come closest to slaying Muzan during the golden age of Demon Slayers. The man who gave them their greatest tool against him and his ill-begotten creations. 

A man who had been banished from the Demon Slayers when his brother had betrayed them and taken his ancestor’s head in exchange for becoming a demon. A brother who remained the First Moon of Muzan’s Upper Moons: Michikatsu Tsugikuni, or as he was now known, Kokushibo. 

“He left several things with my ancestor. One of them was the Sun Breath in the form of the Hinokami Kagura, which has been passed down through my family for centuries. It is the breathing style that I use,” Akari informed, a severity in his voice that told Kaguya that he understood the weight of the information. 

All breathing styles were derivatives of Sun Breathing. Yoriichi had attempted to teach his comrades Sun Breath, but all failed to utilize it as he could naturally. Instead, they adapted it to themselves to create six distinct derivatives: Moon, Water, Fire, Thunder, Stone, and Wind. However, with his exile, the original breathing style was lost with him. The most powerful style, by all accounts. 

“With Sun Breathing, he imparted Thirteen Forms designed to combat Muzan Kibutsuji,” Akari continued. “As well as the knowledge that Muzan possesses seven hearts and five brains, making him immune to beheading. After his encounter with Muzan, Yoriichi concluded that the only likely way for him to be slain is with the sun. Which is why the Hinokami Kagura is designed to fight him from sunset to sunrise, if necessary.”

It was a wealth of information. The knowledge alone that Muzan was immune to being beheaded was the single largest step they had taken to defeating him in the history of the Demon Slayers. They had theorized, of course. But the fact remained that since his encounter with Yoriichi centuries ago, Muzan himself hadn’t been seen. Or, if he had, then none managed to survive the encounter.

Yet, Akari had more to give. “He also left information on what Muzan seeks -- to conquer his one weakness. The sun. He learned this information from a demon named Tamayo, who was under his control and had been tasked with recreating the medicine he had received a thousand years ago which turned him into a demon. Yet, she lacked the key ingredient to the medicine. An ingredient that Muzan has been seeking for a thousand years.”

“The Blue Spider Lily,” Kaguya continued with a slow nod, watching how the boy reached into his coat. He knew of Tamayo. His family had known of her for the better part of five hundred years. A demon that had seemingly broken free of Muzan, but she wasn’t trusted. While she survived off the flesh of the already dead, it was deemed too risky to approach her. 

They didn’t know how much control Muzan had over his creations, beyond the fact that merely talking about him activated a curse he placed on all of his creations. 

Akari produced a length of folded cloth that he presented. His wife, Amane, accepted it on his behalf. Pulling back the cloth, Kaguya beheld the Blue Spider Lily. The flower that had placed a curse on his bloodline. Its stem was thin, the petals dried and flattened, while the roots had been painstakingly preserved. 

“It grows on the mountain that my family has lived for centuries. It only blooms during the day, and only for a few days at a time every few years,” Akari continued, while Kaguya accepted the preserved flower. 

“... Ha…” Kaguya laughed breathlessly. His lips curled into a smile, the information a balm to his soul. A thousand years. Muzan had wasted a thousand years of his life seeking a flower that he wouldn’t ever be able to find. The flower was rare enough, as even his family had failed to find it, but as it bloomed only during the day… Muzan could never find it. 

He almost wished that Muzan knew that they had it. The object of his obsession. He hoped desperately that he wouldn’t be blind by the time he met the First Demon. He wished to see his expression with his own eyes. 

“It would seem that I have a great deal more to thank you for, Akari,” Kaguya said, raising his gaze from the flower to the boy who brought it to him. The boy who had changed everything. “This is a debt that I’m uncertain I could pay in my lifetime.”

“I don’t want a debt,” Akari replied, a certain edge in his tone. “I want Muzan Kibutsuji dead.” 

There was no faking the raw sincerity in his voice. A hatred that echoed his own. 

Kaguya was four years old when he realized his hatred for Muzan. His father, the former leader of the Demon Slayers, broke under the pressure. He couldn’t take it -- watching the Demon Slayers die in violence at the hands of their enemy, his body betraying him, and the cruel knowledge that Kaguya would suffer the same fate because he wouldn’t be able to kill Muzan with his generation. 

At four years old, he became the leader of the Demon Slayers and did all he could, but it was his uncle who acted in his stead while Kaguya learned what he needed to become an effective leader. His uncle lasted two years as the acting leader before he committed suicide, while also taking Kaguya’s little brother with him, as well as his mother, by setting the headquarters on fire. 

He didn’t blame them. He understood. Viscerally. He understood more than he ever wanted to. The thought of sending hopeful, kind, and noble Demon Slayers to their deaths… Fighting a desperate battle, even though he knew deep in his heart that the odds were he wouldn’t be able to put an end to his families curse… and knowing that his son would suffer the same fate…

Kaguya understood. But he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t falter. So, he hated. He hated and hated and hated until it felt like it was hate flowed in his veins instead of blood. Every night, he wished a thousand curses on Muzan Kibutsuji. He prayed to the gods for the chance to steal his life with his very own hands. 

He wondered what Akari had suffered to hate Muzan so. 

But, he set that thought aside, plucking the vibrant blue flower from the cloth and holding it with almost religious reverence. With it, they had options that the previous heads of the Demon Slayers couldn’t even dream of. A clear-cut advantage over Muzan, because now they had something that he wanted.

They could use it to bait him into a trap. Lure him out from whatever hole he had been hiding in for centuries. It was something that they would only get one chance at -- they would need more. The entirety of the Demon Slayers. To eliminate Muzan’s Upper and Lower Moons. As well as several more Hashira. But it was possible.  

They could turn it into a poison, so the moment he took what he believed to be the cure for his sole weakness, it destroyed him. 

‘Or,’ he thought solemnly to himself, ‘we could use it.’ 

The disparity between the peak of the Demon Slayers and Muzan’s Upper Moons was vast. If they could perfect the medicine that turned Muzan into a demon, if they could grant their Hashira high-speed regeneration or Blood Arts… They could fight at higher levels. The brutal attrition rate of the lower ranks for the Demon Slayers could be brought to an end. 

Regardless of how they used the Blue Spider Lily, it would be used. 

“That,” Kaguya began in a slow voice, “is exactly what I intend.” 

...

This story is a rework of Turning the Kaleidoscope (Multicross: Dune), which in turn is a more serious take on Conquest (DBZ/Multicross: Attack on Titan). The latter, I am still actively working on but I ran into a few issues with Kaelidoscope that had me looking for an alternative start. 

But, for those unaware, the premise of Conquest and this story is that every conceivable setting has been turned into a planet and sprinkled about in a XXXXL galaxy at random. Vast interstellar empires, such as the Old and New Sith Empires and the Republics of Star Wars, the Covenant of Halo, the Imperium of Man of WH 40k, or the Viltrumite Empire, and many more are all present but scattered across the galaxy. While they venture forth in the galaxy, worlds that have the ability to act on the displacement are gearing up to venture forth to discover that the galaxy is full of wonder and unimaginable horrors. The Tyranid hordes set to devour everything for their insatiable hunger, the Flood with their inexhaustible hatred for all things living, and the Ōtsutsuki Clan that devour planets in the name of power -- all lurk in the vast galaxy, and certain death is just as likely to be your next-door neighbor as salvation. 

Making it a race to discover planets that offer an edge in an ever-hostile galaxy. Element Bending from Avatar: TLA, Alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist, magic from the Witcher, mechs from Gundam, bio-weapons from Resident Evil. With every world incorporated, the odds of survival increase, so it is a race to expand. 

As for the new version of Kaleidoscope -- Demon Slayer is one of those settings that I've wanted to write in for some time, but I never really had a story to tell there until now. The Breathing Styles are pretty much perfect for this kind of story, as they let the humans be strong without being OP. That being said, it wouldn't be a particularly long stay. Maybe five or six chapters, since Muzan is more of a tutorial boss in the grand scheme of things. After that, the multicross elements would be front and center. It's not much of a spoiler, given that Demon Slayer is set in Pre-WWII, thus a couple of decades away from achieving any kind of space travel; those multicross elements will be arriving to the world of Demon Slayer. As friends or foes will be revealed in time. 

Another thing that will be different from Conquest and the OG Kaleidoscope is that Akari will act more as an agent of whatever Empire/Federation/Republic that Demon Slayer either forms or is brought into. At least, initially. He'll be the guy that they throw at problems, send off into the great and hostile unknown, and serves as the face and blade for their people. As the Empire/Federation/Republic gets its footing on the galactic stage, that'll give him political power. For better and for worse, because politicians are going to politic, and the last thing anyone needs when staring down the barrel of literal biblical Hell from Doom Slayer is an idiot in charge of the Empire/Federation/Republic. Because when you fold a setting into the government, you gain everything that made it great, but you also inherit its problems.  

Let me know what you think!