The weather tonight wasn't good.
Perhaps because the past few days had been nothing but clear skies, the moisture in the air had built up to its limit. By late evening, the sky was already filled with dark clouds—it looked like rain was coming.
Under the gloomy sky, the town, already nearing nightfall, appeared even dimmer. Hanako was running through those shadowed streets.
She ignored the light rain that had already begun to fall and paid no mind to the encroaching darkness of the evening. Wearing cloth shoes, she dashed along the dirt-and-stone roads.
Just as she left the outskirts of town, the rain began in earnest. At first it was a drizzle, then a steady downpour, and finally it turned into a torrential storm.
The heavy rain soaked Hanako's clothes and drenched her hair. Yet she didn't care.
She messily wiped the rain from her face and kept running, firm and determined, toward a certain direction.
She didn't know how long she had been running.
"Huff.. huff.. huff.."
Only when she finally came to a stop did she realize how far she had gone.
She stopped in front of a deep, deep pit—then collapsed to her knees at its edge and shouted downward:
"Brother!!!"
Her voice echoed through the hollow below, but the rain muffled the sound, making the echo dull and faint.
When there was no response from within the pit, Hanako grew even more anxious. She shouted once again into the hole:
"Brother!!!!"
"Stop yelling."
At last, her call was answered.
But what made Hanako's heart skip a beat was that the voice hadn't come from inside the pit—it had come from above.
She turned and looked up toward the trees. Atop a large tree beside the pit sat a man whose hair was longer than his body, trailing all the way down from the branches to the ground.
The man's features bore some resemblance to Hanako's, but on his forehead grew a horn—something only demons possessed. His eyes were a stark red and black, and his grotesque fangs were bared in full view.
This was no human.
He was a demon.
"Brother… y-you… how… how did you get out…?"
Seeing him, Hanako's voice trembled—not knowing if it was from the cold of the rain or from fear—as she questioned him.
The demon extended his long tongue and licked the rain off his soaked arm, then grinned with a wicked smile:
"You haven't brought me food in days. I got hungry, so of course I had to come out and look for something to eat… Hey, my dear little sister… these past few days… why didn't you come?"
The demon's red-and-black eyes stared fixedly at Hanako.
Though he called Hanako "little sister" with his words, the look in his eyes was filled with a ravenous hunger—as if he were staring at food.
If it weren't raining, Hanako might have even seen the drool dripping from his mouth.
But she didn't notice any of that.
Instead, she shouted loudly to warn him:
"Demon Slayers! Brother, you have to run! Demon Slayers came—three of them! You're no match for them!!"
"Demon Slayers…? Ah, them."
The demon seemed to remember something.
When Kibutsuji Muzan had turned him into a demon, a portion of Muzan's blood had passed on memories as well—memories that told him about the Demon Slayer Corps, and that he must avoid their members at all costs.
In addition to that, there was also an order: to search for the Blue Spider Lily…
But this demon had never seen the Blue Spider Lily, nor did he have any idea how to search for it.
Still, those concerns could be dealt with later.
As he thought, the look he gave Hanako grew increasingly dangerous.
This girl… gulp...
The demon had already lost all memory of her. After becoming a demon, it seemed he had forgotten everything from his past.
When he had first transformed, the very first people he saw—aside from that man—were this girl before him.
The girl had called him "brother"… and while something inside him had stirred faintly at the time, that feeling had been quickly drowned out by hunger.
He was starving.
He wanted to eat.
He wanted to devour this girl.
So he had attacked her.
Unfortunately for him, the girl was lucky—and he was not.
She had run to the edge of a pit. The demon, driven purely by hunger and lacking rational thought, had slipped and fallen into it.
And so, he ended up trapped.
A newly born demon only had strength and speed slightly greater than a normal human. A few people working together could subdue one.
That meant he had no way of escaping from the smooth-walled, natural pit.
Fortunately, there had been a small sheltered area at the bottom that blocked out the sunlight—otherwise, he would've been burned to ash the next morning when the sun rose.
Even so, if nothing unexpected had happened, he would have just remained at the bottom of the pit, waiting to die.
But—unfortunately—there was a woman with a few screws loose who believed he was her older brother. Hahah!
Maybe this woman really had convinced herself he was her brother. When she learned that he needed to eat humans to survive, she had actually brought someone and—right in front of him—pushed that person into the pit.
From that day on, this demon began living a life of being "fed" by the woman.
Though she didn't come on a fixed schedule, and each time she only brought one person, he had to admit—being able to stay put and have food delivered to him was quite convenient.
So, the demon accepted this woman and treated her as his "little sister."
Up until now.
Truthfully, this demon never really believed the woman was his sister.
After all, they weren't even the same species anymore—why should he think of her that way?
Still, there was a strange feeling—an urge to protect her—that lingered inside him. That feeling disgusted him, and at the same time, he kind of wanted to get rid of her.
But she kept bringing him food… so he couldn't bring himself to just discard her.
Though now—it seemed he didn't need to worry about that anymore.
"Ah… Demon Slayers, huh… yeah, they are scary…"
The long-haired demon spoke in a low, gravelly voice.
But with the overwhelming sound of the rain—and even thunder rumbling in the distance—Hanako didn't quite catch what he said.
She called out anxiously: "Brother! You have to run!!"
"Run? Sure."
The long-haired demon grinned, revealing sharp teeth as he smiled at Hanako.
Seeing that he seemed to understand her warning, Hanako also smiled in relief—but the next moment, her smile froze.
Swoosh—!
The demon's hair suddenly shot out like living serpents, extending and twisting with unnatural life, wrapping tightly around Hanako and pinning her in place!
"!!"
The sudden turn of events left Hanako stunned. She stared in disbelief at her "brother," confusion flooding her eyes.
"Huh..? B-Brother..?"
She couldn't understand why he was doing this.
Until the demon spoke for himself.
"Before I run… let me feast first!!"
The long-haired demon let out a vicious grin, drawing his hair back as he lunged at Hanako.
His hair wrapped tighter around her, pulling her toward his gaping mouth—but just at that critical moment, amid the torrential downpour, a different kind of light suddenly flashed through the rain!
Water Breathing, Third Form—!
A young girl's figure darted through the rain, trailing shimmering streaks of water. That watery light surged forward at high speed, rushing straight toward the demon, dancing among the strands of his hair.
Swish!
In the blink of an eye, the demon's supposedly indestructible hair was sliced clean through, falling to the ground in tattered clumps, beaten down by the pounding rain!
—Flowing Dance!
Sakoma Iori's figure appeared in front of Hanako.
As Hanako fell, she was swiftly caught by two others rushing in—Takeo and Yoshizuru Asato.
They gently lowered the unconscious Hanako to the ground, then turned with Iori to face the demon high in the tree.
The long-haired demon's red-and-black pupils contracted when he saw how easily Sakoma Iori had torn through his hair. In the next instant, countless strands of hair surged back into motion, twisting together into a hardened needle-like spear that shot straight toward Iori!
The sound of clashing metal rang out through the rain as Sakoma Iori barely managed to deflect the incoming attack.
Just as she was about to counter, she looked up—and saw that the long-haired demon's figure had already vanished into the downpour.
"Hey! Don't you dare run!!"
Seeing her prey flee, Sakoma Iori shouted and immediately gave chase.
The demon wasn't particularly powerful—Sakoma Iori alone was more than enough to handle him—so neither Takeo nor Yoshizuru Asato followed right away.
Instead, they turned their attention to the rescued Hanako.
Her clothes had long been soaked through by the rain, and after running all that way, her legs and body were covered in mud. Yet she didn't seem to care in the slightest—she simply stared in confusion toward the direction the demon had escaped.
Yoshizuru Asato was silent for a moment before suddenly asking,
"Miss Hanako… why did you do it?"
"Why…?" Hanako turned to look at him, her voice almost instinctive, as she replied:
"Because… he's my brother."
He was also the only family she had left in this world.
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o(*￣▽￣*)ブ12 Advance chapters—P@treon/HornyFBI