Maybe Another Time. (Demon Slayer Fanfiction!)

Chapter Thirteen

"𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐞...𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐧. 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐢𝐳𝐮𝐞."

"Alright, is everyone here?" Rengoku asked. The participants who were present were, Obanai, Mitsuri, Tengen, Muichiro, Shinobu and the young kamaboko trio. "It seems like it!" Mizue assumed, recounting everyone so she doesn't miss anyone. 

Giyuu and Sanemi didn't want to come and they couldn't find Gyomei to invite him. 

"Alright! Let's get going!" Shinobu cheered. It was close to sunset for the nightly lanterns and fireworks that would be lit. Mizue was just really happy to see the wisteria flowers again. Her eyes lit up as her hand reached the hanging petals, stroking each one. 

On the way, Tengen tried to explain what a festival was like but he didn't make much progress. She just got confused which frustrated Tengen. 

"So what type of festival foods are there?" Mizue inquired.  "Grilled squid, shaved ice, chocolate covered banana-"Tengen was interrupted by Mizue's wonder of chocolate covered bananas. "So it's like a banana but with chocolate and sprinkles on the outside?! Cool!" Mizue was excited to try them. 

They had finally reached the village which was just finishing up preparing and setting up the festivities. "What's that?" Mizue pointed to a stall with a wall of odd looking masks."Would you like to get one?" Rengoku offered, patting Mizue's head. 

"Sure!" Mizue accepted as they walked up to the stall. "Go ahead and choose!" Rengoku instructed. She took a minute to think about it but then she pointed at an otafuku mask. "It looks so cute!" Mizue's eyes glistened while Tengen was rethinking Mizue's taste in everything. 

Rengoku placed the otafuku mask onto her face as she jumped up and down. A very happy Mizue indeed. She thanked Rengoku and the guy at the stall while walking away to explore everything else in a festival. 

"Shinobu-san! Wanna play that goldfish scooping game?" Mizue requested, running up to Shinobu with her mask on. "Oh my, is that a new mask?" Shinobu asked. Mizue nodded and grabbed Shinobu's wrist. 

"Let's go goldfish scooping!" Mizue cheered, running to the stall with the game. Mizue scared a lot of people with her mask but didn't take it off. "Look, that's a geisha dancer." Obanai informed, pointing at a woman with fans in her hand. 

Muichiro, Obanai and Mizue watched the performance while Shinobu and Tengen got into an argument after she learnt that Tengen had three wives and was calling Mizue her his forth wife. Both Rengoku and Mitsuri tried stopping them but, it didn't end very well. 

"How pretty..." Mizue muttered, watching the geisha. "They're okay." Muichiro said, munching on takoyaki. The lovely dancer wore a black kimono with pink and white flowers patterning on the ends of her kimono. (sleeves included) 

Her movements were short and slow, making the feel very relaxed and calming as green leaves floated down to the ground. The performance had finished, but Mizue couldn't take her eyes off the geisha. Obanai took her wrist to take her to a stall, but she wouldn't look back. 

"Mizue, let's get some shaved ice." Obanai dragged her to the stall, noticing her wonders of the geisha. "What flavor do you want?" He asked, trying to turn her away from the geisha's direction. 

"Hey. Are you gonna answer me?" Obanai tugged on her arm, diverting her attention to Obanai. "What flavors are there?"  Mizue questioned. The man at the stall replied, "We have cherry, green tea and grape!" 

"I'll take the cherry, please!" Mizue responded, looking back at the geisha. Obanai, annoyed, pulled on her ear, distracting her from the woman. "Ow! What the-" Mizue didn't understand why he did that. 

"Shut up, stopping staring at the geisha and eat your damn shaved ice." Obanai demanded, handing her the shaved ice. He left to go eat with Mitsuri, leaving Mizue to go talk to the woman. "Hello! I loved your performance!" Mizue complimented. 

"Why, thank you. But I'm not an actual geisha. I only did so for the first time to get paid." The woman explained, wiping off her makeup. "That's alright though! I'm Mizue!" She introduced herself. "The name's Kie." The woman sighed.

"Cool! You have the same name as my baby sister." Mizue commented. "That's nice." Kie replied, only listening halfly. Kie brought out a demon slayer uniform, similar to Kanao's. "Are you a demon slayer?" Mizue inquired, while Kie nodded her head. 

"I must get changed, it was nice meeting you though, Shinguji-san." Kie sped off into a village building to go change. "How did she..? Ah, whatever." Mizue ignored the fact that Kie knew her last name and continued to enjoy the festival. 

"Mizue! Try out the chocolate bananas!" Rengoku called out, waving over to her. He held two sticks in one hand, waiting for Mizue to come over. The time had come when it was quite dark at night and the fireworks were to be lit. They would watch from the village's festival but, it was set near the city. 

Mizue bit into her little chocolate banana and watched as the first firework lit. She had only seen fireworks with Akaza on New Year's Eve. The first firework exploded in mid air and lit the sky up with the color red. 

"Explosions! I want to explode in the sky that too!" Inosuke laughed. "Inosuke, that would be extremely painful." Tanjiro advised. "I'm gonna go get some more chocolate bananas, you want anything while I'm up?" Mizue offered. 

"Could I get one too, please?" Zenitsu replied, holding down Inosuke from death by fireworks. Mizue nodded, smiled and walked up to the chocolate banana stall. "Hi! May I get two chocolate bananas?" She asked. 

Mizue noticed it was a different worker than the girl there earlier. He wore a kitsune mask and his hair was covered by a wrap of some sort. The man's clothing were a yukata with a white haori over it. 

"I'm sorry, but no." The man sounded quite familiar. "Where's the woman working here earlier?" Mizue asked. He did not answer her question but instead grabbed onto her wrist. She tried to resist, but his grip was wildly strong. 

"What are you doing?" Muichiro grabbed the man's hand and held on. "That's none of your concern." The man scolded. "Muichiro, I want you to go back to the group." Mizue had a stricter tone than usual. Muichiro didn't obey and kept holding on. 

"Please, Muichiro." Mizue whispered. Muichiro wouldn't let go, he gripped even tighter. The man pushed Muichiro back as the sound of a biwa echoed through the wind. Extremely louder than usual though. 

"Damn it." Muichiro ran back to the group to tell them of what he witnessed. "Mizue." Muzan appeared before her on a platform in the middle of the fortress. Surrounding her were the upper moons.

"I'm gonna die." Mizue was shaking, thinking of how she might end up tonight. "You aren't going to die, however, you will be punished severally." Muzan gave an odd smile and clapped his hands together twice. Kokushibo came up to the young girl and pulled out his sword. 

"Sit down." Kokushibo ordered. Mizue did as she was told and looked over to Douma. He had a worrying look on his face. She sat down with her hands beside her. He impaled his blade into her right hand as her eyes widened. He took out his blade and stabbed it into her left hand. 

At this point, she felt like she was about to lose a lot of blood. Lastly, Kokushibo stabbed her in the stomach which made her gasp of pain and then pulled her from her hair and dragged her to where Douma was standing. "Take her." Kokushibo muttered. Muzan was satisfied with her punishment and left. 

Akaza took her instead without saying anything. "Wait! Akaza-dono!" Douma called out, but he didn't turn back. He took her to an enclosed room and wrapped up her palms and stomach with bandages. 

"Akaza-san, you really good at taking care of people." Mizue complimented, smiling with her mouth dripping with blood. 

"Get some rest and I'll ask Aizetsu to make you Miso Soup. For right now, someone will watch over you." Akaza said, disappearing without saying another word as Daki and Gyutaro appeared instead. 

"Rengoku, Mizue's gone." Muichiro informed, yanking on Rengoku's haori. "What do you mean she's gone?" Rengoku asked.