༄ؘ | CHAPTER ONE: FRIEND OR FOE .
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warning :
cursing and violence.
IT WAS A GOOD DAY TO DIE,
Uzui Tengen thought begrudgingly.
* .˚ · .
ON this extremely rare occasion, he wasn't quite talking about himself. Though, had the Sound Hashira had the chance to find a better, hopefully cleaner place to kill a person in, he would've spent his entire fortune down to the very last piece of gold to get there ( without so much as a speck of hesitation. )
Instead, the fickle fingers of fate threw him into this shithole instead, where he currently sat a front row seat to, in his not-so-humble opinion, the most vile debacle of debauchery he had ever seen.
By day, the mining district of Ōmidani seemed earnest enough. Mountains that stabbed through sky and cloud dwarfed the rusted copper roofs and winding rocky paths below, thick with glittering fog at sunrise and catchers of golden light at sunset. By day, the citizens of Ōmidani seemed earnest enough. A bustling, hard-working community that toiled into the earth from morning to high noon, calloused hands unearthing precious ore that a single pound, in the Taisho period, resulted to a fortnight's worth of meals for the family.
Unfortunately, hearts of the people outside of the mining district were not as rich as its mountains. Not only was Ōmidani the most succesful mining town, it was the most overexploited one. The impoverished, starving and desperate citizens let themselves be swallowed by the earth in hopes of digging up a certain future, only to crawl out even poorer and the foreigners. . .even richer.
And the result; a town that unearthed gleaming riches was deprived of its own natural glow. Slums upon slums of the poor and homeless, finding refuge in bottles of sake and cursing the gods. Bone-thin children wailing and even skinnier parents breaking skin and bone for over a dozen pounds of precious metal, and only a day's worth of payment for the week. The streets were flooded with filth, teeming with thieves and murderers desperate for riches.
By day, the mining district of Ōmidani was earnest enough. But by night, where the more civilized were dead asleep to any sound of sin, monsters roamed the streets. And they were not so different than monsters the warriors—who clothed themselves with black uniforms and wielded blades of nichirin—were so accustomed to hunting.
The sun had long descended into the serrated horizon, painting the sky ( and the streets ) a more scandalous shade of night time. This were supposed to be the finer hours of a flamboyant man like Tengen's life, where an evening of scandalous thrill awaiting him.
Instead, it currently took roughly a quarter of Uzui Tengen's willpower not to smash his head into a tabletop there and then.
If this gods-forsaken mission was to fail, then it would take an even larger amount to prevent himself from saying screw it and blowing the whole place to dust and rubble. Because for the sake of all things flamboyant, the bar he was currently stewing in definitely did not live up to its name as the 'Pristine Pearl'. Not in the slightest bit.
Everything was greasy, to begin with. The tabletops were greasy, the chairs were greasy, hell even the people who slobbered themselves over cheap alcohol seemed to be slicked in oil from head-to-toe. Loud, slobbery laughter and manic shrieks from gods know where were shards of glass to the Sound Hashira's ears. These fools. Fools who dared to creep out of the safety of their homes, knowing damn well what the things that went bump in the night could do. More party for them, more work for him. It pissed the life out of him.
A chair creaked beside him, followed by the clinking of cheap glass. The action only added more fuel to the fiery monster of a bad mood stewing in the pits of his mind. As if the venue was bad enough, he found himself stuck with the most boring partner ever, with an unflamboyant temper and an even more unflamboyant vocabulary.
Whether his higher-ups had some twisted sense of humor or it was pure coincidence that he had a joint mission with Sanemi Shinazugawa, of all people, he didn't know.
"Did you at least get the drink right?" Tengen grumbled, eyes narrowed and arms crossed as he frowned at the messy sight of a crowd of drunk peasants . A few eyes met his gaze once in a while, belonging to the more surly, dangerous-looking men of the bar. Their gazes seemed weary, plotting even, but Tengen had no reason to be frightened. The coal-black uniform and bandage-wrapped slabs of nichirin strapped to his back was enough statement of what he could do if they attempted to bite.
"Depends on what the bartender understood from 'finest sake in a flamboyant as fuck shaped container'." Sanemi eyed the drink to his left.
"More like stale spiss-yellow alcohol in a glass that is somehow the exact same color of egret dung." He whispered menacingly under the guise of his breath.
"Aww, look how much of that you managed to memorize, knowing I was just joking. You'll make a flamboyant husband, Shinazugawa. Tengen cooed, attempting to pinch the Wind Hashira's cheeks in mocking. The latter hissed rabidly and drew his sword, making Tengen scoot backwards out of muscle memory.
Sighing, the man took a meager sip of the drink. Acid and wastewater dug into his taste buds, and he spat it and the rest of its contents onto the floor right after. Not that anyone would care, the rotten wooden panels were already flooded with filth.
"I don't know who to kill first, the bartender or you." Tengen wiped his mouth like his life depended on it."
"The lunatic gets what the lunatic wants."
"You listen up you little shi-"
"Cap it for a sec, ya think that's our guy over there?" Tengen met a dagger-like glare, luckily not directed at him. "To your left. Scruffy man, untied hair, right by the exit. The one with the muddy haori. He smells just like them," A growl of resentment rumbled through his chest, scar-coated hands tightening under the tables. "Gods, he's ugly as fuck too."
The Sound Hashira leaned forward, wrist pressed against his chin as he broke into a sly, half-lidded smirk. "Hope you said that knowing what your own face looks like, Shinazugawa."
Sanemi muttered a string of profanities under his breath before elbowing past his fellow Pillar. Knuckles turned white as he gripped against the white and olive hilt of his nichirin blade, quickly mingling with the sticky, thick-aired crowd. "You really think it's that trashbag of a man behind everything?"
"We tail him for a bit more, see if he's working with anyone else or if it's only him leaking those records. If not, you sit your pretty little rhinestone-covered ass back while I skewer him alive."
Knowing he was the only one between the two who could kill with such flamboyance , Tengen rolled his eyes. However, Sanemi Shinazugawa was still right about one, crucial detail.
"Missing?"
The Wind Hashira didn't bother masking the disbelief in his tone. "With all due respect, what the fuck do you mean missing, Himejima?"
It was late. Too late into the night that even the fireflies had ceased their twinkling. The only source of light was the single lantern that flickered at the back, casting a faint red glow in the meeting room, and ultimately drawing shadows onto the mountainous silhouette of the strongest of the Demon Slayer Corps, making his unusually cold face even more ominous.
"I'm not sparing any details, Sanemi, when I say that there are now multiple instances of demons missing from their reported locations, right after Kasugai crows have been deployed with information about them. For the past few days, Demon Slayers have been returning with their blades clean of any demon blood." From where he sat, Himejima Gyomei's eyes glinted like steel, hoarding a cloud of fury and regret. "In short, they've somehow found a way to avoid our attacks."
A fist lowly thumped onto the wooden floor, unassuming and threatening at the same time. "How." Sanemi made it sound more of a demand rather than a question, coating his tone with fury and venom.
The bulkier, more elaborately dressed man who sat across from him cleared his throat. "And the other part?" Tengen wired his hands together as he sat cross legged on the embroidered mat.
"Ah, right." The blind man reached for a box by his left, hidden snugly amongst an array of wooden shelves. Flipping it open, he took out a what seemed to be a roll of worn, wrinkled paper, with faded ink and an abundance of water stains.
"This is a map," Gyomei waited for his comrades' reply as silence took over.
"Y-yes...we, uh, we can see that, Himejima."
"The fuck is this?"
"It's a record of all routes ever taken by the Kasugai Crows, to and from different locations as they deliver messages. They're trained to memorize this route by instinct, and it's a well kept secret that only they and their handlers should know. The directions to the swordsmith village is here as well, but it's written in a code only kakushis can understand."
Despite being blind, Gyomei could sense an air of unease between the two, with a hint of confusion.
"...And what has this anything to do with the demons?"
"This map, alongside several other documents, is stored and protected in the organization's archives deep underground, guarded by a few specially trained kakushis. Only the Ubayashiki family and a few well trusted kakushis manage the archives. If there were any Demon Slayer that were to enter, they would be expelled from the organization immediately."
"That doesn't answer my question." The Sound Hashira raised a brow.
"The thing is, this map wasn't found in the archives. It was found on a cart in a village several miles from here by one of our kakushis. That cart was used to deliver iron shipments from a mining village to the east."
A low growl escaped Sanemi's throat. "And Oyakata-sama? What's his take on this?"
"Oyakata-sama doesn't know. His condition worsened a few days back, and he's been bedridden ever since. However, we won't wait for him to get better. The longer we let this sit aside, the more vulnerable the demon slayers end up becoming.. Which is why..."
The two shuddered as the Stone Hashira's milky eyes sent a cold stab thrumming through them. "I've tasked Kocho to secretly investigate the situation in the archives, but for the culprit who's been stealing the map, I hope it won't be too much to ask to send you two in a joint mission. I can't join you, as I leave for Tokyo at dawn. You both are the only ones left without a mission at the moment, after all."
"Gods help me," Tengen whimpered as Sanemi slammed his forehead into the wooden floor.
Tengen gritted his teeth.
After days of searching in the blistering summer heat that even his shinobi training proved inferior to, this better be the last lead they would ever have to pursue. Otherwise, the bar might just explode tonight.
"Oi, rat face." Sanemi had made the mistake of thinking the suspect was short from across the room. He was actually a few inches taller, and the scar-littered Hashira, realizing that, was now trying to look more intimidating, subtly standing on his toes with a tougher grimace on his face.
"Got time for a few questions?"
The man was surprisingly calm as he stared at the two buffer, dangerous-looking men. "Go ahead, little boys." He grunted with a bored expression on his face, arms stuffed into his sleeves. The two men only exchanged glances, before the Wind Hashira opened his mouth to speak.
Within a single bat of his eye, the man in front of the pair lit up bright, blazing blue.
Sanemi unfortunately failed to register ( in time ) how the man's skin rapidly molded from flesh mottled with jaundice into fissured, crackling red scales that peeled off from his arm and flittered in the air as light as ash. Blood sprayed as his skin broke, coating his body in gleaming, gold-tipped horns. He did manage to notice, however, the unmistakable figures appearing engraved into the supple flesh of his now electric blue eyes.
Lower Moon Three, covered by a single white cross slashed against the center.
It took a guttural roar to shake the people out of their stupor. The entire bar flooded in licking, red-hot flames, spreading from banister to banister, from person to person. An endless series of explosions shook the ground, coating everything Sanemi could see in an inferno of blistering heat, ash and screams.
"Not today, demon slayer scum."
Tengen could feel blood trickling from his ears as he lay on the floor, the wind knocked out of him. People thrashed around, desperately trying to shake the red and black flames off their backs. Some had headed for the exit in a stampede, rapidly deciding Tengen was their new rug in the process. But that didn't matter. Because now, he was pissed.
And the only thing that was driving him to get back up was the faint, distinct sound of footsteps, footsteps only a demon could make, footsteps only the Sound Hashira could hear, running from out of the now blazing bar and into the bustling, chaotic night market. The footsteps created a pattern, and despite his daze that pattern quickly drew itself into a map within his mind, based on the sound alone.
His lips curled upward, bright crimson blood a stark contrast to pearly white teeth.
That demon better run for his life.
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