Doom & Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Xover

Chapter 4 (REMASTERED)

Tanjiro looked towards the decaying corpse of the demon he had just fought. Despite their battle, he did have pity to spare for the demon despite his feelings towards them. He reached his hand out towards the dying demon but his train of thought was interrupted by the warrior bringing his foot down in front of Tanjiro, concerned for why a demon slayer would be reaching out to a demon whatsoever. The Slayer got on one knee and leaned towards Tanjiro. The boy looked up to see the man's helmet in his face. The warrior was giving Tanjiro a wide-eyed skeptical look through his visor, he did not have time for demon sympathizers if this boy was one.

Tanjiro was intimidated and couldn't bring himself to say anything except, "Thank you, sir. I- I was just-..." Tanjiro couldn't even finish his sentence, the Doom Slayer intimidated him far too much. They both heard the muffled groans of Tanjiro's sister a few meters away which caught their attention. The Slayer stood up, unaware of the girl's presence. Tanjiro cried out to his sister as he began crawling towards her once more.

Nezuko is a small girl just slightly younger than Tanjiro, having long, black hair which turns orange at the ends with a pink ribbon on her head. She wears a pink kimono with a long, dark brown jacket covering her. Lastly, she wears a bamboo gag tied around her head to keep her mouth shut. The warrior watched as Tanjiro used himself as a blanket to protect her. The Slayer watched for a moment until he was blinded by a static flash and he could vaguely depict an image through the chaos in his mind. The flash faded as soon as it arrived, leaving him only with a headache which made him put his hand on his helmet instinctively. Just what the hell was that? What did he just experience?

Tanjiro caressed the girl's hair as he explained, "It's alright, Nezuko, your big brother's here. You don't have to worry anymore." The Slayer felt compelled to check on the girl as well. He didn't know why, he had no reason to, it was as if some dormant instinct was instructing him to do so. He walked over before he knew it and crouched down to inspect the girl's injuries. She was cut all over and profusely bleeding. He didn't have any supplies on him to help her with so she was going to have to wait.

Tanjiro was sweating an incredible amount, more so than before because he can smell the demonic bloodlust radiating off of the Hellwalker. If this man knew that Nezuko was a demon, her life is as good as over and everything Tanjiro would've fought for would've been for nothing. The boy introduced, regardless, "This is Nezuko, my sister, she got tur- caught up in my fight against that demon and I was trying to save her. Thank you for saving us."

The warrior said nothing in response. Realizing the situation was safe, he stood back up and looked around to see if he could catch any traces of other demons but found nothing. That's when he heard something moving quickly through the forest and going directly towards him (or so he thought). He didn't know why, but he quickly grabbed both Tanjiro and Nezuko and leaped away from the incoming target as an individual zoomed past where they were. By that time, the Slayer had landed on the floor and placed the siblings down. This caused Tanjiro to cough uncontrollably as he was not ready to be manhandled like that.

The individual is a woman with gradient purple eyes and hair that is tied back with two large bangs reaching to her shoulders. Her hair is black and fades to a dark purple at the ends, being tied up by a large butterfly ornament. She wears the standard demon slayer uniform underneath her white jacket which is stylized to resemble that of a butterfly. She turns to the Slayer with a gentle smile on her face and asks, "Excuse me, could you step out of the way? I'd like to do my job." before raising her sword.

The Slayer stared at the woman, confused by what she meant as he had already taken care of the threat. The woman seemed to catch onto the Slayer's confusion as she elaborated, "Oh, I'm not sure if you know this but that little girl there's a demon. That's who I was trying to hit, I'm sorry for the confusion. My name is Shinobu Kocho, Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps."