The boy in the green yukata was moving through the trees at a half-run, steps unsteady.
His clothes were soaked in blood—none of it his own. He picked up his pace, glancing up again and again at the sky, which was deepening toward blue with the first grey edge of dawn, and spat on the ground with irritable disgust.
He looked wrong, the way demons always do: skin the white of candle wax, short black hair, pointed ears. Three crossing scars carved across his face. Long, slanted eyes. And in the orange irises, stamped large as a verdict—
—Lower Rank Three.
He was not human. He was not a run-of-the-mill demon. He was Wakuraba, one of the Twelve Kizuki, the demon lord's chosen twelve—number three among the Lower Ranks, which put him at the prestigious position of weakest among the relatively strong.
It hadn't mattered against the batch of rookie Demon Slayer Corps members tonight. They'd been easy work.
Wakuraba gritted his teeth in fury.
He hadn't planned any of this. Stumbling into a Demon Slayer patrol had been pure accident. He'd been in the mountains when they arrived—not moving in a single unit but split across several small squads, covering ground in all directions. They hadn't known he was there. But his face had been seen. Worse, the kanji in his eyes—Lower Three—had been seen, at close range, before he could move. The Corps had their crows, their fast-flying messenger birds, and the news would have already gone out the moment one of those birds took flight. He'd activated his Blood Demon Art immediately, pushed himself to the limit, tried to wipe every last one of them—and it still hadn't been enough.
A Hashira would be on the way. That was the only possible conclusion. And the gap between a Hashira and a Lower Rank like him was not the kind of gap that training closed—the distance between the Upper Ranks and the Lower Ranks of the Twelve Kizuki was itself already an impossible gulf, and a Hashira was something else entirely.
Running without his pride intact was humiliating. He'd take the punishment from Lord Muzan later if it came to that. Dying here would be worse.
He was so deep in his own calculations that he didn't register the presence approaching until it had already stopped concealing itself.
—Something's coming.
An instinct, not a thought. Something thin and hard sliced through the air and came for his neck. Wakuraba threw himself to a stop—speed was his best weapon, his most prized attribute, and it activated automatically in the presence of danger—then spun. The red object overshot him, buried itself in the ground with a solid thud, spraying loose stones.
"This is—what is this—"
Half of an eye was still visible above the soil, sticking out of the earth crack, the red vertical pupil straining upward through the gap as the thing thrashed and twisted against the rock that held it, still searching for its prey with single-minded energy.
"Is this a new weapon from the Corps? Are you telling me a Hashira is already—"
Cold sweat broke out. On the ground: a bizarre living projectile with an eyeball on it, still fighting to get free. The implications were not good.
He was spinning through options at top speed when the shadow of a large bird briefly swept across the ground above him.
He looked up.
The "red bird" landed with quiet grace.
Countless red-and-yellow ribbons hung from her sleeves, automatically wrapping themselves around a figure that moved with precise economy. Pink hair swung with her turn, a fan of petals in the dark. The girl looked back at him, and the face that came around was inhuman-beautiful, carrying a friendly smile.
"Don't move. I'm not hostile."
"...Who are you?"
He registered immediately that this person smelled nothing like a Demon Slayer. Wasn't wearing their uniform. His heartbeat settled a fraction.
"As you can see—I'm also a demon." Inori put on her most helpless, charming expression, deploying every bit of her looks in the service of this one request.
"But I've gotten completely lost out here. You're one of the Twelve Kizuki, Lower Rank Three—aren't you? Would you be willing to guide me out of this area?"
"I don't have time for this!"
Wakuraba's mind was a clock with one hand, ticking down to when the Hashira arrived. Under different circumstances he might have entertained the request. Right now he had no margin for it. And besides—he knew every demon in these mountains, knew their names and faces. This woman with no presence in his memory wasn't one of them. Whatever she was claiming, he didn't trust her.
He was a demon who had made survival his life's highest purpose. He had accepted Muzan Kibutsuji's blood for the sake of continued existence, nothing more. He trusted no one easily—not the Demon Slayer Corps, certainly not his own kind, and especially not an unknown quantity who appeared from nowhere with convenient timing.
More to the point: Lord Muzan didn't look kindly on Twelve Kizuki who ran from Hashira. If this woman knew him, if she mentioned tonight to Lord Muzan—
The thought pivoted, and arrived somewhere more useful.
"I have something important to take care of right now. You just wait here for me—I'll definitely come back for you before tomorrow night!"
—Looks like I've found myself a scapegoat, he thought, with something almost like satisfaction. Let her deal with the Hashira. Given that body, they'll mistake her for a Twelve Kizuki without any help from me.
"Am I not making myself clear?" The friendliness drained from her voice instantly, replaced by something like glass. "I want you to take me out of this area. Now."
"What? What are you on about, you—" Wakuraba caught himself. No time. "Who has time to babysit you?! You just wait right there and—"
He had to stop mid-sentence.
Because the girl in the bird-clothes had calmly raised her hand.
Faint crimson sparks gathered at her fingertip. Then two Red Feather Blades launched, consecutive, directly toward his face.
Wakuraba was already moving at the first sign of motion. His speed was his gift; he answered threats with it reflexively. One rolling dodge and the feathers overshot—and when he came up, he found himself looking at those two, plus the three from the earlier ambush, all five of them hovering above his head in unhurried readiness, eyes open.
"Either way is fine with me. If you won't cooperate, I'll just have to kill you and take your place as a new member of the Twelve Kizuki. That's how it works, isn't it?"
"Tch—I don't have time to play games with you right now!"
Under any other circumstances, Wakuraba would have made her regret the audacity. Under these circumstances—with the Hashira getting closer by the second, and the sky bleeding out toward dawn—he stood, left a single parting word, and became a blur of motion that vanished into the dark.
...
...
He was gone. Just like that.
Inori stood there, slightly baffled, watching the path he'd taken. She tilted her head one degree to the side. She didn't chase him.
He was committed, she'd give him that. She'd deployed her looks, played the whole helpless routine, and he'd still bolted without a second thought—which, combined with the sheer desperation radiating off him, made her think. It wasn't just the approaching daylight. Finding shelter from the sun was simple enough. A demon in a panic like that... he was running from something else.
The Hashira? Could he already hear them—
"A demon!"
"Move! Surround her!"
Behind her—multiple voices.
Inori understood immediately.
Oh. I see.
She was going to take the blame for someone else's mess.
I've added it! Thanks again for letting me know.