Next Target: 300 PS for a bonus chapter!
____
"Where's my sister?! Where's my senpai?!"
Tanjiro lunged toward Tamayo, but she turned her body and dodged him easily.
"Please… I need you to calm down."
"Don't ask me that!" Tanjiro staggered, searching for her with wild eyes. "Tell me where they are! My sister and my senpai — TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!"
Tamayo opened her mouth, but the words didn't come out, and she lowered her gaze.
That silence was worse than any answer, and Tanjiro's heart clenched. "WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?! TALK TO ME!"
"…They, most likely…" Tamayo swallowed hard. "…are dead."
She said it looking him straight in the eyes. Tanjiro saw how her pupils didn't waver, and his own contracted.
"In the commotion just now, I sensed Muzan's power. Your senpai… had a confrontation with him."
"No…" Tanjiro stepped back, shaking his head — "No, no, no. IMPOSSIBLE!!"
"He's strong! He's incredibly strong!" His voice was desperate. "He always kills demons easily! Even the master said his future would be—!"
"You don't have the slightest idea what Muzan is."
Tamayo cut him off without raising her voice. "Let's not even talk about the fact that your senpai is barely a newly admitted member. Even a Hashira, facing Muzan alone… would have an infinitesimal chance of survival."
"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!" Tanjiro clenched his fists until his nails pierced the skin of his palms. A thin thread of blood ran down his fingers, but he didn't feel it. "Senpai is different! HE'S DIFFERENT!"
"The hand demon, the swamp demon… he defeated all of them effortlessly!" His voice was firm. "The master said that someday he'd surpass even his own achievements! How… how is it possible that he—?"
"Seeing is believing."
Tamayo extended her arm with a solemn gesture.
She ran a nail across her skin and the drops of blood fell to the floor, where they expanded into a screen of light that floated between them.
"This is from my memories… from hundreds of years ago, when I was still at Muzan's side." Her voice darkened. "This is what he was like when he fought."
The luminous screen flickered, and a scene began to take shape.
It was a sky sown with bloody swords…
A terrifying power that leveled an entire street in the blink of an eye, crushing the Slayers' will before they could even unsheathe.
Tanjiro's eyes flew wide open and he stopped breathing.
That was slaughter…
"And that was hundreds of years ago…" Tamayo withdrew her arm, whose wound was already beginning to close, and the screen of light dissolved like smoke.
"Now he's even stronger."
And she looked at Tanjiro, whose face had gone pale. "Do you still believe your senpai can win?"
"..."
Tanjiro's lips trembled, along with his entire body.
The images of the massacre hammered at his head, but between each blow, between each flash of blood, another image appeared: Marcus.
The senpai who ruffled his hair with that strange smile. The senpai who stepped in front of him without thinking twice. The senpai who carried Nezuko on his back humming songs he didn't recognize…
"I… I'm going to go find him."
His voice came out broken. But it held.
"I don't believe you."
Tamayo frowned slightly. "If you go out wandering aimlessly now, the most likely outcome is that you'll die too."
"THEN I'LL DIE LOOKING FOR HIM!!"
Tanjiro looked at her head-on. His eyes were red, wet, but deep within them something burned that wouldn't go out. "Even if I die… I want to die beside Nezuko and beside my senpai! Not here! Not hiding! NOT WITHOUT THEM!"
"…"
Tamayo watched him for a long moment. Then she shook her head. "Besides throwing your life away… can't you think of anything else?"
Tanjiro was thrown off. "…What… what do you mean?"
"Keep living." Tamayo stepped forward, and her voice, for the first time, stopped sounding serene. "Keep living… and get your revenge."
"Only by surviving will you be able to avenge them. Hold on to your life, get stronger. Only then will you have any real chance of killing Muzan."
"..."
Tanjiro stood motionless.
He was clenching his teeth so hard the muscles in his jaw trembled. Tears pooled in his eyes, blurring his vision, but he refused to let them fall.
But after a few seconds, he walked toward the door.
"If I don't even have the courage to go look for them…"
He stopped at the threshold, his back to Tamayo. His voice came out low, broken, but firm.
"…how could I ever talk about revenge?"
"..."
Tamayo looked at his back. Upright, but slightly trembling, and shook her head.
But at that precise moment, Yushiro's figure materialized in the doorway, blocking Tanjiro's path.
He stood with his arms crossed, wearing his usual expression of impatience. But something in his eyes was different, and in his hand he held a package wrapped in gray cloth.
"There's no need for you to go."
Yushiro twisted his lips. "Tamayo-sama sent me to check the site a while ago."
Tanjiro went rigid. "…What did you see?"
Without a word, Yushiro held out the package.
Tanjiro's hands trembled as he took it.
The package had some weight to it. But it gave off a smell that churned his stomach and froze his blood at the same time.
…The smell of blood.
Breathing deep, he untied the cords.
Inside were several broken pieces of a straight blade, a hilt stained with dried blood, already darkened.
And a small bamboo tube.
!
The world stopped.
Tanjiro's breathing stopped.
He could smell it, and more than that, he could see it: it was Marcus's sword and it was the small bamboo piece Nezuko kept in her mouth.
"…Nezuko… Senpai…" he murmured, as his fingers traced the bloodstains on the hilt.
"…My condolences." Yushiro looked away, softening his tone slightly. "Your senpai… was pretty impressive."
He swallowed before continuing. "On the ground, it wasn't just his blood. There was Muzan's blood too. That bastard probably hadn't been wounded in hundreds of years."
"He wounded Muzan?!" Tamayo's eyes widened, genuinely surprised.
Yushiro nodded.
Tamayo was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice carried admiration and sorrow in equal measure.
"Barely admitted into the Corps and already capable of wounding Muzan… A talent that dazzling…" She closed her eyes. "What a shame."
"..."
Tanjiro said nothing.
Holding the broken sword in one hand and the bamboo in the other, his knees gave out.
He crumbled, as if the strings holding him upright had all been cut at once.
His body curled inward. His shoulders began to shake.
At first they were silent sobs, barely a tremor of a clenched jaw. Then, choked whimpers that escaped through his teeth like something alive he could no longer contain.
And finally…
"UAAAAAAHHHH...!!! SENPAI!!! NEZUKO!!!"
A gut-wrenching wail.
He pressed the blade fragments and the bamboo against his chest so hard the shards cut his fingers, while tears and snot covered his face.
"..."
Yushiro watched him with his lips pressed tight, trembling as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he simply clicked his tongue and looked away.
Tamayo lowered her eyes with a slow sigh.
They had witnessed this scene far too many times. The weeping of someone who has lost everything… So many times it barely hurt them anymore.
In the room, all that remained was the sound of Tanjiro breaking apart.
And then…
"Crying, crying, crying. All you know how to do is cry."
A strained voice, as if every word cost him enormous effort, rang out abruptly from a corner of the room.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself… Tanjiro?"
The crying cut off as if someone had ripped the sound away.
Tanjiro lifted his head with a jolt. His face was drenched, a string of snot hanging from his nose, his eyes so swollen and red he could barely see. But he saw.
In the shadows of the corner, a silhouette leaned against the wall, slowly rising to its feet.
The haori torn in several places. Dust and dried blood covering his clothes and his pale, gaunt face.
But those green eyes still burned intensely, and at the corners of his cracked, parched lips, a proud smile crept through.
Marcus.
He was alive.
And in his arms he carried a small figure: Nezuko in her tiny form, both little hands clinging to his neck, her glassy, tear-filled eyes looking at Tanjiro with concern.
"..."
Tanjiro's jaw dropped. The fragments of the broken sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor with a metallic ring that nobody heard.
Tamayo and Yushiro were also completely petrified, their expressions frozen in sheer disbelief.
Marcus wiped his face and, after catching some of his breath, winked at the paralyzed Tanjiro.
"W-What's with that face?" His voice trembled, but his smile didn't. "Did you seriously think… that sissy was gonna kill me?"
_____
Thank you for reading! 🙏 Marcus and Nezuko are safe! What was your favorite moment of this chapter? Please drop a comment and hit that vote button with your Power Stones!
________
Time: If you're craving more (and I know you are!), I have just what you need. On my Patreon, you'll find exclusive chapters. Join our community and be the first to discover what happens next!
👉 [patreon.com/Athome790]
Your support fuels me. Thank you for the support! 💖