Silence. The whole room was so silent that you could hear the crickets outside chirping as I watched Tanjiro start to blush before turning bright red and letting out a strangled squeak noise making me grin.
"You....You and you....You" Zenitsu said, looking like he was trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. Nezuko on the other hand didn't seem to have a problem walking up to me and tugging on my hand and if she didn't have the bamboo muzzle in her mouth I knew that she would be pouting.
"Of course, you get one as well" I smiled as I lent down and kissed her forehead and I saw her happiness sparkle as she snuggled up to my arm.
"Hikaru, I've told you before you can't just kiss me at random times," Tanjiro finally spluttered out looking like he was going to explode from embarrassment.
"Be thankful I decided to kiss you, I would have kissed Zenitsu to calm him down but he was crying and it didn't seem like a good thing at the time" I shrugged. Tanjiro and I weren't dating or seeing each other or engaged or anything like that. The truth was that I was a teenage boy and I believed that experimenting was something that I needed to do. This wasn't the first time that I had kissed Tanjiro fully on the mouth since he was one of the first people I experimented with since we were both maturing at the same time while training under Urokodaki and he was the only one around. Plus even if he acted embarrassed I could tell that he enjoyed it from the want, need and lust that entered his aura.
"We should get some sleep, we will never heal if we don't rest" I said now that Zenitsu had calmed down from the shock he had received so I laid down and willed myself to sleep while hearing Tanjiro explain that Nezuko was his sister.
The next day passed easily with me going through all my knowledge about my blood, demons blood and the elixirs that I was making. There was still something bugging me though, I knew for a fact that Hana had a deep wound on her shoulder and nothing that I gave her would have healed it up to nothing but a scar just a day after it had occurred. Shooting up I remembered something, when I went to treat her wounds before I started I had touched her shoulder with my hands that were covered in my own blood. Was that it? Did my blood somehow kill demons but then heal humans?
"Tanjiro, can I borrow you for a moment? Thanks" I said as I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the garden making him yelp but go along with me.
"Hikaru what is this about?" He asked, puzzled.
"This is going to sound super weird and probably set off all types of alarm bells but can I please have some of your blood and can I cut your arm?" I asked seriously.
"W-What? Why would you need to do that?" He asked and I knew that it was time for me to come clean about a few things.
"I am sure that you recall how I told you I am a Marechi correct?" I asked and he nodded.
"Well there is something different about me compared to a normal Marechi. My blood sings to demons and makes then want to devour it but as soon as they either touch it and get some in their stomachs they are driven mad by something, they start screaming about something burning and about how they want nothing more then to devour me" I explained before reaching into my box and pulling out a vial of demons blood and added my own blood to show him what I meant. His eyes went wide as the vial exploded and the blood seemed to burn away and he kept glancing between me and the vial.
"Exactly my blood can do that to a demon, but on the last mission I was on I believe that my blood healed someone's wound so I want to see the effects my blood would have on human blood" I told him and then went silent as he seemed to think about what to do.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," I said as the silence continued to grow more and more uncomfortable.
"No! I mean of course you can have my blood and if your blood really can heal then I will be happy to let you try it on me first! I was just worrying about what exactly your blood could be doing to our own body" Tanjiro explained.
"Thank you, as for worrying about me you don't have to worry seeing as there aren't any side effects that I can think of but that might be why Kibutsuji Muzan wanted to kill me" I said bring my hands up to ruffle through my hair.
"What do you mean? You weren't staying the night at our house?" Tanjiro asked, confused since I hadn't exactly told him what happened that night.
"No I heard screams and I ran to your house and saw him looming over Nezuko, of course I tried to attack him but he grabbed a hold of my hair.....I had to cut threw it to get free and then I swung towards him and the blade shattered and was flung back towards me. He then grabbed me by my neck and said about how I was an Akatsuki before slashing my chest and leaving me to die" I explained to him, hunching my shoulders when I thought of what I had done, I had disgraced my family. Before my thoughts could spiral out of control Tanjiro reached forward and hugged me towards him.
"You gave up everything so that you could try and protect my family, I will never thank you enough for that. I don't know if Kibutsuji Muzan targeted you because you were an Akatsuki or if you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time but I will tell you what I know. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their family long hair or not so if you can't belong to the Akatsuki family anymore then you will have to belong to the Kamado family while having the name that our teacher has bestowed on you" Tanjiro smiled as he cupped my cheek making me blush.
"Ah no lovey dovey stuff" We heard screaming and looked up to see Zenitsu had spotted us.
"Here" Tanjiro smiled as he gently took a knife out of my box and cut the back of his hand and let the blood drip into the vial. I then grabbed a bandage and cleaned up the wound and bandaged the light wound up that would be healed in a few days or sooner if I was correct about my blood.
Soon enough it was night time again and Nezuko came out of her box only for Zenitsu to start chasing after her. Tanjiro of course interfered and tried to stop him which made him start to chase both of them around the room we stayed in. Inosuke was sitting on the veranda alone looking up at the stars before the old woman came up to him offering clothes while I sat in the garden again with my box. This time though I had my small lab set up in front of me so that I could continue to brew my elixirs and I was going to experiment with Tanjiro's blood in a moment. Looking up I could tell that Inosuke was really enjoying being around the old lady, making me smile behind my mask. The only time I took it off was the night before so that the others would stop looking at me strangely. Grabbing the vial of Tanjiro's blood I held it up to the moon beside a vial of my own blood trying to see if I could see if there was any difference between them. Normal doctors would use a microscope for this but with my keen eyesight I didn't need to use anything to magnify my vision. Hearing a yell I looked towards the others to see Inosuke throw the doors open and headbutting Tanjiro in the back.
"What was that for?" Tanjiro questioned. With a yell they were suddenly back to running around this time Nezuko sat in a corner while Inosuke chased Tanjiro and Zenitsu chased after both of them. Looking back at my own work I cursed under my breath when I realised that I had nearly dropped the vial and I had in fact tipped some of my blood into Tanjiro's. Nothing seemed to change though, making me cork both of the vials and it was lucky that I did. No less than a minute later Tanjiro's blood doubled in volume making my eyes widen. That wasn't natural but if my blood somehow managed to make the human it came in contact with produce more blood there is a chance that it would also help the skin fuse back together healing a wound.
"Oi Tanjiro, can you come over here?" I called and Tanjiro nodded, rushing out of the room, Inosuke and Zenitsu hot on his heels.
"Cut it out" I barked out with a glare, if they damaged any of my stuff I would make them pay.
"Inosuke if you leave Tanjiro alone when morning comes I will fight against you okay?" I asked and his aura lit up and he nodded before taking off to do who knows what. Zenitsu then seemed to realise that Nezuko was alone in the room and raced back to chase her around more.
"Should we stop that?" Tanjiro asked.
"Actually Nezuko is enjoying herself now, seems like she thinks it's a game" I informed him after looking at her aura and Tanjiro calmed down before turning to me.
"I want to try and heal the cut on the back of your hand, I can't tell you what will happen but my theory is that my blood will make your body produce more blood and then make the damaged skin fuse back together" I explained to him, taking down a few more notes in my notebook.
"I trust you" Tanjiro smiled unwrapping the wound and I nodded. Warning him that it might hurt a bit I grabbed a vial of my blood and tipped it slightly until one drop dripped onto the back of his hand and then I used my fingers to spread the blood along the wound. We sat there for a few minutes waiting for something to happen and just as I was giving up hope the wound started to fuse together like it was never even hurt, not even leaving a scar since it was such a light cut.
"That was.....fascinating as well as disturbing. How did that feel?" I asked him, looking up at him with my notebook ready.
"I didn't really feel anything, there was a tingling sensation around the wound but that was it" Tanjiro answered looking horrified but then again he had just watched his own skin fuse back together unnaturally.
"So my blood does have the ability to heal others, in that case I wonder what would happen if I mixed my blood into my elixirs? Would they still work the same? Or perhaps would they work better?" I questioned, muttering to myself more than anything else.
"I will leave you to it, make sure not to overwork yourself and get some rest" Tanjiro smiled, he knew that once I had a breakthrough there was nothing that was going to take my attention away from it.
"Okay make sure to remind Inosuke and Zenitsu that I want to see them both tomorrow" I said distractedly as I started to write down notes. I wanted to see the other two boys so that I could get their permission to do portraits of them so that if something happened I would always remember them.
A few days passed with my mixing my blood into the elixirs I was making as well as experimenting with it. It seems that if my blood was mixed with an elixir it would work twice as good and twice as fast depending on how much blood was in the elixir. I also figured out that if I mixed the blood with the elixir I could use it on myself while if I tried to use just my blood it did nothing to help me. That meant that after I mixed my blood in with the burn paste that I made for where I had heat sealed my wounds it only took a couple of days for the burns to turn into fully healed scars. It seems I was getting more and more scars as the days went by but since the demons were after my blood because I was a Marechi it was no surprise plus I didn't mind the scars if it meant I killed the demons that inflicted them and helped save innocent humans. Back to the case at hand, my blood seemed to have a lot of healing properties therefore within just a few days all of our injuries were healed and we were just waiting for the doctor to tell us we wer all healed up which brought us to where we were now, kneeled and waiting for the doctor.
"You're fully healed, it's remarkable I didn't expect you boys to heal so quickly" He smiled and everyone brightened up and I smiled behind my mask while eyeing the others. It was probably best if they didn't know I slipped them some of my blood while they were sleeping, no need for them to freak out. Since we were all healed up we headed back to the room we were sharing and began to pack up, well me and Tanjiro did while Zenitsu seemed to be offering Nezuko's box flowers. Spotting a familiar aura coming towards us I stood up and put my arm up waiting for Kuro to land on it while Tanjiro's crow flew in and jumped on his hands.
"North-northeast! North-northeast! Your next mission is north-northeast!" Tanjiro's crow cawed.
"The four of you are to go to Mt. Natagumo, head to Mt. Natagumo" Kuro finished and I stroked down his back.
We finished packing up our stuff and getting dressed into our normal clothes before heading towards the front gate of the Wisteria house.
"We're heading out now, thank you for everything" Tanjiro smiled at the old woman.
"It was a pleasure to meet you ma'am and thank you for all the hospitality you have shown us" I said as we bowed our heads and she bowed hers back.
"Now then, for good luck" She smiled holding up two items.
"Thank you very much" Tanjiro once more thanked, as we all turned around other than Inosuke who seemed confused at what was going on. She walked up behind Zenitsu and struck the stone twice.
"What the hell do you think your doing, old hag?!" Inosuke yelled out and I grabbed his shoulder keeping him in place while Zenitsu and Tanjiro got in front of the old woman.
"Are you stupid? She's striking sparks for good luck! It's a purification ritual! Because we're going on a dangerous mission" Zentisu explained while yelling. Once Inosuke calmed down, the woman struck the stone behind me, Tanjiro and Inosuke.
"Always live your lives with great pride. I wish you luck in battle" She said before bowing her head, I sensed a little sadness from her. Perhaps she had grown accustomed to us in the last few days.
"Come on" I called Inosuke who had frozen with an aura of happiness and joy around him as the other two ran off ahead.
"'Great pride'? 'Luck in battle'? What does that mean?" Inosuke asked.
"It is rather hard to explain, 'with great pride' I guess means to understand your position and to behave properly so that you're never ashamed of yourself and the old lady is also praying for our safety" Tanjiro said and I froze in place for a second before continuing to jog. Never be ashamed of yourself huh? How could I not be ashamed of myself after I had disgraced my family. Suddenly I felt pain in my head and looked to see Tanjiro had chopped my head.
"Stop thinking about that, you may be the one who can see emotional auras but even I can tell what you are thinking with your eyes downcast like that" Tanjiro scowled.
"What do you mean by that?" Zenitsu asked, looking at me, it was obvious that both he and Inosuke were confused.
"My eyesight is exceptionally good, much like Tanjiro's nose, Zenitsu's ears and even Inosuke's wild instincts. Because of that I can see things other people don't, I see other people's auras and when people feel different emotions their auras change colours " I explained.
"Why would you look sad about that?" Inosuke butted in.
"That wasn't what I was sad about.....See while my name is Akatsuki Hikaru, it is he name given to me by mine and Tanjiro's Master, it was the name I was born with as well but I can no longer claim to be from the Akatsuki family because I have disgraced them" I said before jogging ahead of them not wanting to talk about it any longer. This of course made Tanjiro speed up, Inosuke saw it as a challenge and sped up and Zenitsu sped up to try and keep pace but he was getting left behind.
We continued to jog all day and once the sun was setting we finally spotted the mountain and my feet stopped making Zenitsu slam into the box on my back with a cry. We had arrived at the foot of the mountain.
"Wait a minute, just wait for a minute" Zenitsu called and Kuro landed on my shoulder.
"Zenitsu, what's wrong?" Tanjiro asked.
"I'm scared all right? Now that we're nearing our destination I'm so scared!" The blonde scaredy cat cried, making me sigh.
"Why is he sitting down? How creepy is that?" Inosuke asked.
"Who are you talking to, Pig Head? Don't tell me you're not sensing anything at all from that mountain!" Zenitsu yelled and I focused on the mountain and shuttered in horror and disgust at what I saw.
"What is it, Hikaru? What do you see?" Tanjiro asked.
"There are five no six demons, one of them is a lot more powerful than the others, the others are like flies compared to this one, must be one of the twelve kizuki" I said biting my lip not sure how to phrase the next bit.
"See? See!" Zenitsu yelled.
"There are other demon slayers in there as well, a lot of them, their auras have already fading but the others, their auras are fading fast though there are a few that are still strong but in pain" I said clenching my hand. I had never seen so many dead auras in one place, not only that but the demon auras were making me feel queasy and sick. That had to have killed dozens upon dozens of humans, maybe even hundreds to get this type of aura. Tanjiro suddenly took off running, making me follow him. I wasn't about to let him go alone. Inosuke ran after us and Zenitsu screamed at us not to leave him behind before running after us.
"Oh no" I said, seeing the collapsed Demon Slayer on the path and I ran towards him, placing my box down next to me ready in case I needed it.
"He-Help me!" He cried.
"Don't worry, I'm going to do everything that I can. Can you tell me if you are hurt anywhere?" I asked. Suddenly before he could answer, thin wire like things ripped him away making me try to grab him but I wasn't fast enough.
"I was still connected as well? Help me!" He screamed before being ripped into the trees.
"I'm going" Tanjiro said, and it seems he just got the smell of the twelve kizuki.
"I'll head in first. You can tremble in fear and follow me. I'm hungry" Inosuke said, placing his hand on his blades.
"Inosuke," Tanjiro said, shocked.
"You mean, you're hungry for battle" Zenitsu trembled.
"Kuro fly, tell the head of the Demon Corps that we are going to need back up so he should send one or two Hashira this way, quickly there is one of the twelve kizuki here" I said before I launched the crow into the air and he let out a caw before flying off. Turning I followed Inosuke and Tanjiro into the mountains, not knowing what was waiting for us.