Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny blinked slowly as a few more snowflakes bounced off his face. The feeling in his body was somewhere between numb and staticky, pain held carefully elsewhere as he mused on the brutal smack-down that landed him in his current situation. 

Playing nice had been a stupid plan from the beginning. 

He stared idly up at the thick clouds past the pair of red-eyed teenagers who had appeared a few moments earlier. They hovered over him, peering with concerned expressions.

The girl kept making small, curious noises through the segment of bamboo roped against her mouth. 

“Are you alright?” The boy in the green-checkered robe held a sword cautiously at the ready, though mercifully pointed away from his actual body. 

Danny nodded, then winced as pain spiked from his head, down to his tailbone, and lanced back up to his eyeballs in a lightning-hot bounce. 

“Ah! You’re not quite healed, you shouldn’t move.” The boy seemed concerned, crouching a little as Danny inhaled a ragged breath. The girl, however, knelt down and prodded something near his ear. She cocked her head, and lifted something green and white up where he could see it. 

A piece of him, how delightful. 

Danny closed his eyes as his stomach lurched at the sight. 

Relax, relax, He was only as human as he chose to be. Damage like that didn’t have to matter.

Not in this form.  

The girl squeaked and dropped it as the piece of him melted into something fluid and bubbling. Something more connected to him than to any particular physical form. It wriggled sluglike through the snow and joined up with the rest of the semi-fluid mass that had previously been spattered out across the jutting rock he’d been beaten against in the wee hours of the morning. 

His skull had cracked like an egg, hadn’t it? The soft mass of what could have been a brain had spread like a slit yolk. What time was it? Daylight, even if the clouds were thick with falling snow. He could see the stars overhead, last he remembered. His core hummed a dull ache in his chest. 

Danny groaned and rolled himself sideways to get off the rock.

The snow crunched softly under his feet and the teenagers backpedaled a bit more - clearly scared of him. 

He didn’t really blame them, as the viscous rest of him clung to the stone like dripping honey before sluggishly gathering up to rejoin his central mass. He touched the back of his head to feel as white jelly rapidly solidified and fluffed out into hair. His spine flowed back into place, plasma and smoke settling into a more solid body - sans horrible injuries. 

He cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and then offered the children a jaw-cracking yawn as he sat back down in the snow to lean against the rock that kinda-sorta probably would have killed him, if he wasn’t half-dead and mostly incorporeal to begin with. 

The boy now had his sword facing Danny fully, slow breaths puffing out into the winter air. There was something sharp and focused in the boy’s eye, even as the girl plopped down beside him to poke at the back of his head with her long nail. 

He watched her out of the corner of his eye for a moment and found nothing but unbridled curiosity. 

So, he turned to the kid. 

“What’s with the sword?” 

Said sword lowered slowly, hesitantly. 

“Well… you’re a demon, aren’t you? You don't recognize a demon slayer's blade?”
Danny scratched his cheek absently and gave a one-sided shrug. 

“How come you’re attacking me for being a demon, but not her?” He pointed to the girl, who grabbed his finger and turned his palm over to look at it with a serious expression. 

“Nezuko is…” The boy trailed off, staring at him like he couldn't believe what he saw.

Danny let her flex his fingers with a small huff of a laugh, her own claws much longer and sharper than the stubby ones shaping the tips of his gloves. 

Suddenly, the girl winced and scurried over to the boy's side with a few quick hops through the deep snow. She shrank, somehow, and bounced up into a tall box strapped to the boy's back.

The boy glanced up at the sky and seemed to come to a decision. He sheathed his sword.

"Alright, c'mon!"

Danny went intangible on reflex as the kid reached out to grab him. The kid’s fierce determination turned to shock.

"The sun is coming out!" the kid insisted, and tried to grab him again. Danny lifted his arms away, barely avoiding the quick hands as he shuffled backward in the snow. 

"Yeah, okay, sure. Stop that."

He backpedaled away from the kid, who glanced skyward and, in a series of movements almost too fast to see, shrugged the box off into the snow, whipped his checkered coat off, and spun it over Danny's head and shoulders.

Danny made a noise of protest as the jacket was dragged down over his face. The boy apparently decided that, since he was solid again it was just fine to climb on top of a stranger to smother him with his coat.

"For the love of- Get off me!"

"No! If you're a demon who doesn't hurt people, I don't want you to die."

Pressed against the snow, half-smothered by a thick coat and the weight of a teenager who was, apparently, afraid Danny was about to die from sunlight exposure.... it wasn't how Danny expected to wake up.

"Kid." Danny's voice was muffled by the snow being pressed into his face.

"I'm Kamado Tanjiro. My sister is Kamado Nezuko."

"Great. Nice to meet you both. Please get off, I promise I won't die.” 

The kid held still for a long moment, then carefully climbed off of him.

Danny sat up with the jacket still over his head, and slowly pulled it off. He held it up to Tanjiro, who must have been freezing in his black and white jacket. Or, maybe he had layers. It was hard to tell. 

Danny carefully folded the long coat and offered it back to him, already feeling the warm sun on the back of his neck.
He was probably somewhat translucent - after that kind of healing, his solid form wasn't at 100%.

"See? I'm fine."

Danny smiled at the thunderstruck expression on the kid's face. Danny reached out one white glove and ruffled the kid's auburn hair.

"Thanks for worrying, Kamado. Call me Phantom.” 

Chapter Text

Zenitsu blinked against the splotches of light lingering in his eye, ears tuned sharply to the churning wet sounds around him.

The storm raged above and around him, cacophonous. Sheets of rain drove cold lines down the collar of his haori, clinging to his hair in miserable blonde clumps.

Tanjiro and Inouske had, per his request, let him sleep in that morning. He'd lingered behind, enjoying the unseasonably warm day until a rumble in the distance informed him of the coming storm. No amount of panicked sprinting could get him to the little town in before it overtook him. 

His sparrow was tucked carefully inside his haori's inner fold, soaking wet. (But at least it was warm, heartbeat fluttering against his skin) 

The lightning that cracked above him was just as loud and rib-trembling as the one that struck him in that tree so many years ago - energy and movement condensing into a whipcrack of light and heat. He flinched every time the light drew nearer, his own nervous energy humming as he trudged through the growing mud.

Only a little further down this road. Only a little further, then he'd be able to meet up with his friends again. 

He wanted to cower in the woods, but there was rumors of demons that drove the team here in the first place. He'd much rather brave the rain and thunder than a potentially drier, hungrier path. 

His feet sank ankle-deep through sucking black mud as cold water dripped down from his scalp to trace his spine. He could barely hear himself breathe over the roar of branches battering against each other in the storm. Rasping waves of race paddies rippled, stalks bent in swaying waves as if some giant hand was tracing over them. 

Ahead, he could see the town’s lanterns bobbing faint and flickering under sharp gusts of wind.

Mostly, he kept his head down. One trudging foot after the other.

He heard a faint splash, a grunt of effort. The hairs on his neck and arms prickled. 

Then- 

Movement-without-heartbeat-

Zenitsu’s hand was on his blade's handle before he could think, feet shifting through resisting mud as panic thrilled through him. There, through the rain- someone was shuffling toward him, broad hood pulled down to shield from the storm. Wind buffeted their sleeves, and the skin on that person’s hand and wrist were deathly pale.

Zenitsu wanted to scream.

A demon! He was alone! He could hardly move with the mud, this was bad! Bad bad bad! He was going to die alone and forgotten on some stormy road, this was the worst. Absolutely awful. His friends weren't even here- 

He froze in place, free hand reflexively cupping over his sparrow as his own heart battered against his ribs. 

Closer, that person was hunched up tight like he was hungry, but his guts didn’t make any noise and even over the storm Zenitsu should have been able to hear a heartbeat but-

Blue eyes, like a clear sky. 

The color was startling when his gut expected demonic red. 

The person turned away and staggered sideways to the edge of the road to pass Zenitsu on the far side. To give him space. 

Both of them were soaked to the bone, mud crawling in spatters up their legs. 

Was the demon scared of him? Of his sword? Did he think Zenitsu was someone powerful? The idea made him want to laugh, but he was still too scared to move a muscle. 

Zenitsu turned to face the town, wondering why a demon would be walking away from it, instead of using the storm as cover to attack someone. 

Deep-growls-rasping, fangs-scraping

That sound! 

He whipped around again, shoes sticking in the mud, stance weak in his distraction. 

But the shape lunging out of the gloom wasn’t entering the radius of his sword. 

It was diving at the blue-eyed demon. 

A lightning flash lit up the world, and rolling thunder drowned out the sound of the second demon lunging at the first. 

The demon moved fast, muscle gleaming wet and black as rain sheeted off of him.

Long teeth.

Gaping mouth. 

Flash

Zenitsu caught a glimpse of a surprised expression, the slow turn and a raised hand, before-

He could hear the sound of teeth puncturing skin and tearing muscle. Could see blood spray up. The first demon shouted something in pain, and Zenitsu forced himself to draw his sword, blade shining wet and cold, when-

The second demon reared back with an unearthly shriek. Luminescent as the moon, a thick green foam churned out of the demon’s mouth, between its clawing fingers and down its chest. The green glowed, a neon stripe in the darkness between lightning strikes. Claws were covered in it, voice twisting as the sizzling foam (acid?) continued to eat down its throat. 

A blood art? 

In a flash of green, an arm was shoved forearm-deep inside the writhing demon’s chest.

It clenched and pulled.

Something small and glowing, like a pink egg attached to the body by intricate threads emerged in shuddering little snaps. Glowing red capillary and vein structures slowly stretched, until the first demon shoved the whole thing into his mouth and bit down. 

Like a stringless kite, the second demon swayed and tipped over, planting face-first into the flooded rice paddy aside the road. 

Zenitsu raised his sword in a trembling defense against brightly glowing green eyes. No, blue eyes? Blue, with green shining inside. Zenitsu swallowed, and it was painfully loud in his own ears. 

But the demon’s gaze was distant, sliding past him. They flickered closed, and the strange demon sank to his knees in the muddy ground.

Clawed hands sank into the (dead?) demon’s back to pull out tangled threads of quickly-fading red to shovel into his mouth like nests of hair-thin noodles. 

By the next flash of lightning, Zentisu’s footprints, and the distant flap of yellow cloth was all that remained on the scene. 

Chapter Text

Hunger hummed in her belly, never quite satisfied. She longed for the sweet-metallic taste of blood, and the feeling of muscle breaking apart under her teeth. The screams of prey, and the triumph of the hunt. 

Her name? She didn’t remember. It didn’t matter. 

She was hungry. 

She slipped along behind the brush that separated the woodland’s edge from a small farmhouse, bare feet near-silent in the damp leaves. The sky was dark, rainclouds trailing away after several days of storm. 

Her black hair was still damp, clinging to her neck and shoulders. 

Voices- she didn’t recognize them. 

A woman spoke with a short-haired teenager, the two of them exchanging quick bows back and forth. 

The woman picked up a large basket and started to walk away, waving back at him. 

The boy waved in return, and slipped into the house before the woman was out of eyeshot. 

She could hunt the woman - all alone on the trail, it wouldn’t even be hard. 

Small voices. Small bodies, breaking out into the early morning with joy. 

Tiny feet tramping across dew-damp grass, and tiny voices laughing at a sudden game. 

Children. 

Her mouth watered. 

Three children, not even to her waist. Guarded only by one teenager who was dumb enough to let them outside in the dark. 

They’d be so tender~ 

She swallowed her drool. 

Careful feet carried her around to the edge of the clearing. She sank into a crouch to wait for the best moment. 

She couldn’t wait too long, the sun was coming up soon, but if she could steal a child without raising the alarm, perhaps the mother would think the boy lost one of them. They’d send more people out into the woods, all alone to be picked off. 

More food, made helpless by their own stupidity. 

The teen is unarmed. Thin. Not a threat. 

Distracted by the youngest two, and the eldest was already wandering closer. 

Perfect. 

Her clawed foot dug into rich black earth and launched her forward. A hand on the child’s mouth to muffle any startled noise, and a bounce back toward the woods. 

The body in her arms squirmed, kicking uselessly. 

Freedom and food!

Then, suddenly, the weight was gone. 

She slid to a halt, startled at the change. Turned to grab again, if the kid had somehow squirmed free - 

But there was the teenager, setting the kid down as if he’d snatched the child right from her arms! 

 “Head back to the house, okay? Tell the others to get inside with you.” The child was already sprinting back toward the house - she’d only made it a dozen strides into the woods. 

“That wasn’t very nice.” the kid said, his face far too cheerful for the danger he was in.

She barked a laugh. Stupid, stupid meat. 

He’d just made himself into a meal. 

“You could have made this easy-” She started to say, ready to tear into him. Ready to show him how doomed he was, so she could taste the fear when she ate him. 

“Made what?” He interrupted.  

 The boy’s smile was frozen in place, eyes icy. 

“No, go on. What were you going to do?”

Something in her instincts shifted. A hint of wariness.  

“I’ll kill you.” She decided and lunged forward with a swipe of long claws. The boy didn’t move, only watched death approach his face. 

And pass right through him. 

She stumbled, whirling around to slash again with the thought he might have dodged at the last minute. 

But no- he was still standing. He turned to watch her slash again and again, through what felt like a misty illusion. 

“A trick.” She snarled. She turned to sprint toward the house. If he wasn’t really here, then she had time to grab- 

!! 

The ground suddenly spun, pain thudding between her shoulder blades as her body was slammed forward against a tree. She bounced off, shards of bark airborne beside her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the kid - eyes blazing green, fist cocked back - before her body slammed into the ground again with a force that knocked the breath right out of her. 

Fast!

“Wooo~ that looked like it hurt.” The kid had the audacity to whistle at her as she staggered to her feet, ribs knitting back into place from where they had crunched inward. 

“Brat.” She could only cough the word, hacking until blood cleared out from her throat and she could spit it away into the leaves. 

“Haha, gross.” He eyed the blood cheerfully, then blinked back up to look at her. “You weren’t planning on eating little Senna, were you?” 

She growled, crouching low in preparation for another fight. So he was fast, so what? She was a demon. She could heal. He couldn’t. One good hit, and he was down for the count. 

He seemed to read the resolution in her eyes. 

“Ahh… that’s too bad.” 

She lunged and the boy sidestepped, reaching out like he was going to grab her face. She twisted to slash through him - again, immaterial as mist. 

But something in her arm… 

Snagged. 

Numbness spread from her fingertips up to her shoulder, the limb going limp against her side. She glanced at it, failed to move her fingers, eyes snapping up to the kid. 

Tangled in his fingers were several hundred red threads, all looped and knotted together. They pulsed with a soft magma glow, light fluttering to match her heartbeat through the long strings that connected the knot to her shoulder. 

The boy’s other hand glowed green. He cut through the threads with a quick twist. 

The ones in his fist quickly lost their glow, shuddering until their solid form melted and spattered to the ground as a red liquid. 

She shrieked and backpedaled as the remaining threads turned, burrowing back into her like horrible parasitic worms. 

A parasite, am I?  

Cold dread lanced through her. 

She felt the burning feeling of her master’s blood crawling back down through the veins in her arm. Her fingers twitched, clenching, veins popping as the blood shuddered inside her. 

Kill him.

She raced at the boy, eyes wild with the terror of knowing her master was observing her every move. Connected to him by blood, he was there, in her head! She couldn’t fail!  

The teen dodged swipe after swipe, seeming to glide across the leaflitter floor. His green eyes watched her every move, and her master’s crimson fury glared at him through her. 

She was caught, there was no correct thing to do, she was failing at the only order she’d been given, she couldn’t touch him! 

She screamed in frustration, but the sound choked off in the same startled breath as her master’s presence was abruptly jerked away. 

Slowly. 

Slowly, she touched her chest. 

It felt-

empty. 

A gaping, cold hollow where something should have been. 

She was alone. 

How horrible. 

How awful, to be left alone in her own head, with her own thoughts, and memories of- 

Her face was wet. 

She was too hot. 

The boy was wrestling with something in his hands - something red and writhing, like a thousand squirming tentacles trying to bite into him. 

A flash of vivid green, and the shapes burst like infected pustules, fluid spattering across the boy’s arms and chest. 

He grimaced, flickered in that strange misty way and the stains dripped to the floor like they’d lost all surface to cling to. 

Her hands were shaking.

No, her entire body was trembling. 

The boy looked at her with something akin to pity. Something cautious. 

“You still wanna kill me?”

A tiny voice in her head was screaming, crying, and she recognized the tears on her own cheeks. 

She shook her head slowly. 

“That’s good. C’mon, I want to make sure the kids aren’t freaking out.” 

She felt like a lost ghost, shuffling after him out of the woods. 

The sun sat just under the horizon, deadly light already spreading colors across the sky. 

She swallowed. 

She remembered- 

As the children carefully slipped out of the little house, she remembered her own child, and how his meat tasted as she tore him apart. 

As they cried and clung to the boy, she remembered her husband, his loud grief as he struck her for the first time in defense of his own life. His pleas as she ate through him. 

As the boy sat down in the dirt of the farmer’s yard and cuddled the children close to reassure them, she sank to her knees under the open sky.

She remembered the horrors she’d done to people, driven by uncaring hunger. 

She remembered cracking bones, her own words dragging cruel fear from people. 

She remembered intestines between her fingers, muscles still thrashing as she tore them out with sharp claws from a girl who recognized her face. 

Empathy, kindness, regret - everything she thought she no longer had as a demon - that buried part of her rose up and hated.

There was no master to smother those memories, those emotions. 

No bloodlust to drown out the self-loathing. 

The first rays of dawn slid down over the tops of the trees, tinting them gold. A beautiful death - more than she deserved. 

Someone was walking up the road, dirt and stones scraping together. The mother of these children, probably. 

(She knew her, though. She knew these children. She knew their names. Why-?) 

The first warmth of light touched her forehead. She regretted that the children would hear her burn. She’d heard it was the most painful way a demon could die - worse even than having their Master tear them apart. 

She leaned into it, face tilted up to the sky.

She deserved worse. 

She deserved-

“Kana?” 

A broken voice. The clank of dropped groceries. Footsteps approaching. 

The sun was- 

The sun was warm, it-

She felt a woman’s arms around her shoulders, a sobbing breath against her neck. A hand cradling her head close. 

“You’re alive! You’re alive. Oh, thank the gods.” 

Kana opened her eyes - brown, instead of red. 

She and her sister were both alive. 

And the self-hatred inside her burned and burned and burned. 

There was nothing that could take back what she had done. 

The sun was only warm. 

She wished he had just killed her instead. 

It would have been kinder. 

Chapter Text

“Thank you very much!” 

The waiter laughed awkwardly, patting his hands in the air to ward off Tanjiro’s aggressively earnest bow of appreciation.

“Of course, young masters. Please, enjoy your meal.” 

“We will! Thank you for your hospitality!” 

“It’s our pleasure, so- ah!” 

Tanjiro’s too-low bow prompted the man to bow in return, frazzled by the boy’s excessive break in decorum. 

“Hey, Nezuko, do you want a dumpling?” 

Tanjiro turned, and their waiter was finally able to rush off a ‘thankyougoodbye’ before closing the paper-screened door between them. 

The three of them had found a private room of a local restaurant, steaming platters of food piled in the middle of their low kotatsu table. Snow fell quietly outside, the midmorning bustle of a small town sneaking in through the window. 

Nezuko was already nestled under the thick blanket, legs happily toasting from the small heater below their table. She stared wide-eyed at the dumpling held out to her, bamboo bit wiggling as she gnawed on it thoughtfully. 

“She sleeps to regain her energy.” Tanjiro replied for her, glancing at the closed door before walking to their table to sit across from his sister. “Since she doesn’t eat people.” 

Phantom just blinked at him, then looked back to Nezuko and wiggled the dumpling a bit. 

“Well yeah, I sleep too, and I don’t eat people. But that doesn’t mean I can’t eat normal food. How about it? Pork dumpling?” 

They still didn’t know anything useful about this not-demon person. Phantom hadn’t tried to harm them, but the color of his blood and his strange healing ability left Tanjiro uneasy. Even his physical form seemed not-quite real, wavering until they’d entered the lamplight of a town. 

Nezuko didn’t seem to mind him, turning to listen attentively whenever he spoke. And now, she turned to Tanjiro with pleading eyes. He chewed on his cheek, knowing that the bit in her mouth was more of a reassurance to others that she would do no harm - not a preventative on its own. She could probably bite through it in an instant if she wanted. 

Plus… this was the first time in a while that she’d reached out with something she wanted, instead of just following him around like a deadly duckling, doing what he asked. She still looked to him for assurance, but- 

Well, he could hardly say ‘no’ to a sliver of humanity peeking through, could he? Not after years of trying to get stronger, so she could become human again. He nodded, and her eyes sparkled.

Phantom’s expression didn’t change, patiently waiting as she reached up and carefully untied the knot at the back of her head that kept the muzzle in place.

The wood fell out from between her teeth, and Nezuko shifted her jaw, opening and closing it, swinging it in different directions as her muscles got used to the freedom. Sharp teeth clicked together, then bared wide as she broke into a jaw-cracking yawn. 

Phantom popped the dumpling in his own mouth. 

Nezuko made an outraged snarl, hand slapping down on the table. 
Tanjiro almost twitched, the sound far closer to an animal than any human noise. 

Phantom just gestured with his chopsticks to the platter of untouched dumplings in front of her. 

“Eat whatever you want, I already got germs on this one.” 

He occupied himself with the other food, but Tanjiro wasn’t really paying attention. 

He was busy keeping quiet, silent tears swelling in his eyes as his sister hummed and cooed over the spread of food. Her fingers were clumsy on the chopsticks, long nails snagging and scratching against lacquered wood, but she managed to serve herself some noodles and several dumplings without issue. 

The knot in his throat threatened to become a sob when she nibbled the end of a noodle, perking up at the flavor before slurping it up. Had he really been keeping her from this? Preventing her from enjoying human experiences, just because she was a demon? Two years since she’d started wearing the muzzle - could she have eaten with him for that long?

What else had he prevented her from doing?

What parts of her humanity had he crushed unknowingly? 

“If demons are anything like me, food won’t actually give any energy back. It just tastes nice.” 

Tanjiro turned his watering eyes to Phantom. The older teen was leaning his head against his fist, elbow propped up on the table rudely.

“Can-” His voice broke. Tanjiro swallowed and tried again. “She can taste it?” 

Phantom shrugged one shoulder. 

“Looks like it. I know I can, even if the full flavor is… mmm, distant, like this. Like when you have a horrible cold and can’t smell anything, so your taste buds are all muted.” 

Tanjiro sniffed his own snuffy nose, fisting his hands over his knees as he sat down. He should have given her a chance to experience the world, even if things were different. Did she want to play? They’d passed a festival some months back. Her eyes had gotten wide and bright, and Tanjiro assumed she was just childishly entertained by all the sights and sounds. 

But now, seeing her bright-eyed and fighting Phantom for the last pork dumpling with only their chopsticks as weapons, he felt awful. 

He was the worst big brother. 

He ducked his head, clenching his eyes shut and letting his hair cover his face to keep the grief to himself. He didn’t want to interrupt them. 

Tanjiro didn’t notice when Nezuko stopped playing, a worried question humming behind her lips. Didn’t see the concerned looks she shot at Phantom, then at him. 

But… he did smell the last pork dumpling carefully dropped onto his plate. 

He opened his eyes. 

Let his gaze follow the chopsticks up to Nezuko’s pink-tipped claws, and to her worried expression. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, his chest aching. He wiped at his face, embarrassed to be seen losing his composure over something like dumplings. “Thank you, Nezuko.” 

She frowned at him. She clicked her teeth together, grinding them like she was trying to chew on something. A soft grumble rolled in the back of her throat, then faded. 

Nezuko took a breath, and clicked - a breathy sort of sound that caught his attention. 

He paused in the fussy attempt to clean his face, and looked up at her. 

Her brows were furrowed, mouth still moving in a purposeful way. 

“Ta--e”

“Ta--ta-te… ta-e-o” She glared at the dumpling on his plate, then back at him. 

“Ta-ero” 

Tabero. 

Eat! 

Tanjiro nodded wetly. He picked up the dumpling and stuck it in his mouth. He couldn’t taste it past his own clogged up nose and tear-tightened throat, but the delighted look on his little sister’s face was breathtaking. 

She nodded at him with a pleased, toothy grin, and settled back into her place at the kotatsu to finish off the fish she’d served herself earlier. 

Tanjiro covered his mouth, overwhelmed with roiling waves of joy, grief, regret, and relief. 

Phantom slurped his tea noisily, breaking the tension of thick emotion in the room. 

“ANYway, I didn’t want to surprise you but I don’t really have any money, so I’m not sure how you plan to pay for all this.” 

Tanjiro nodded, pantomiming some approximation of ‘don’t worry, i’ve got it’ through gestures, thumbs-up, and some hand-waving. 

He finally swallowed the dumpling. 

“Thank you.” he croaked again. 

He felt like it was the only thing he could say. 

“Don’t worry about it. I appreciate the pick-me-up! I probably have to go find that demon that kicked my ass and ask for a re-match, so it’s nice to relax a bit before that.” 

Tanjiro paused in serving himself to glance at Phantom’s utterly relaxed slump. 

“What demon?” 

“Hmm? I don’t remember his name. Some crazy strong guy with pink hair. He went off about fighting, and power, and a bunch of weird stuff. I held my own for what?” Phantom seemed to count off on his fingers. “I dunno, two minutes? One and a half? Then he smashed me on that rock and knocked me senseless. Since my healing is a conscious thing, he said something about the sun and left me for dead. Then it started snowing for a bit, and you two showed up. Now we’re eating.” 

Phantom punctuated that with a stir-fried bean shoved into his mouth. 

He crunched it happily, paused and squinted, then swallowed painfully. 

“That’s a lot of chili.” He rasped, and grabbed for his tea. 

“You fought an upper moon?” 

Phantom made a questioning noise past the desperate gulps. 

“The demon, you said he had pink hair. Did he have ‘Upper’ and a number carved on his eyes?” 

Phantom considered that, then nodded.

“And you’re not dead.” Tanjiro breathed, looking stunned. 

Phantom wiggled his hand like a tipping balance and offered an indistinct noise, but still ducked enough that Nezuko could reach over and pat his white hair in approval. 

“I- I need to get you to meet the Hashira.” Tanjiro set his chopsticks down, turning from the table as his mind got caught up with the impossible thing he was involved with. If Phantom was like Nezuko, and could help them fight against Muzan and the twelve Kazuki, he needed to let headquarters know as soon as possible! 

A strong hand grabbed his forearm, yanking him back down. 

“Ta-‘ro.” Nezuko growled at him, and all fight drained out of his limbs. Tanjiro gave her a soft, disbelieving smile. Fiercely lined or not, it was a strange relief to see his sister’s face without the bamboo muzzle. 

“Yeah, okay. Let’s eat first.” 

Phantom pushed the chili-fried beans in his direction. 

Tanjiro ate.

Chapter Text

Look, there was only so much interdimensional travel a person could go through and still manage to act surprised when it happened again. 

Between ghostly abilities used in battle and his parent’s experimental tech, Danny had surpassed that limit a long time ago. 

So, it was with much less surprise and a lot more aggravated exasperation when he experienced the sudden drop of a wild portal forming under his feet to dump him somewhere else.

Somewhere very high up, in the clouds above a mountain forest. 

If he wasn’t able to fly, he probably would have died a very messy death due to falling several hundred feet to the rocks below. To his very good fortune he was, in fact, able to fly. 

Danny transformed and caught himself after a short drop and hovered to check if the portal was still open. Sometimes he was able to zip back inside and avoid adventures like this.

But, no- the portal had already snapped and swirled shut with no way to slip away back home. What a hassle. 

Danny slowly lowered down toward the treetops below.

Whether he was sent by Clockwork, the whims of fate, or some other happenstance, portals usually dropped him off near the site of some terrible disaster. Some person to rescue, or crisis to avert. He generally trusted that Clockwork - whether the odd ghost had initiated whatever side mission he ended up on or not - would put his own timeline back to rights if he was gone for too long. It was enough of a reassurance that he could focus on the ‘here and now.’ 

Danny wondered when he’d accepted such a crazy standard for ‘normal’. 

Below, a thick stripe of purple-pink blooms haloed the mountain. He eyed them warily, but caught no hint of the red haze of pollen or iridescent-black leaves of the kind of flower that could poison him. 

The dusk sky echoed the purple of those flowers, violet and pink settling calmly into the blue-black of night. As he got closer to the mountain, the thickly sweet smell of flowers grew nearly overwhelming.

Someone screamed. 

Ren slashed her blade with enough focus that a bright wave of wind manifested in its aftermath, but the demon only laughed as it dodged. Its tongue wagging in a grotesque display of hunger. 

She adjusted her stance, her grip, trying to keep the panic at bay. Her arm throbbed where four deep gouges burned - slashed by another demon’s claws.

There was no end to them! 

The demons on Fujikasane Mountain were supposed to be low-level, but she’d seen two other examinees cut down already. After six nights of fighting, she was exhausted. Ten hours of night left to survive, and she could barely lift her sword. 

Nichirin blades were useless if they couldn’t land a hit!

A skinny, tall demon had been hunting her since yesterday night. His green shirt was stained a muddy brown down the chest and sleeves, crusted from dried blood. He’d followed her scent across the mountain, far faster than her. 

She narrowly dodged another slash of claws, hungry mouth close enough that she could smell the rotten haze in its breath. The reflexive sweep of her sword caught a few fingers, but she wasn’t fast enough to block the mouth crunching down on her forearm. Her sword arm. 

She expected him to recoil when her sword got that close to his neck. He hadn’t. 

Her face must have been a picture of horrified terror - yellow eyes leered amusement up at her, jaw grinding the bite deeper. 

They both knew she was finished. 

The demon released her, humming a disgustingly pleased note as she backpedaled. He licked the blood from his own stumps of fingers, flesh slowly knitting closed. 

Her own body wouldn’t do that. 

Her arm throbbed, cradled against her stomach as blood seeped through her clothes. Her sword gleamed dully in what little moonlight was left. 

Something glowing caught in her peripherals.

Ren refused to look. She’d die either way. Maybe a new demon would cut her down in surprise, and she wouldn’t have to endure being eaten alive. 

The demon with the green shirt stepped forward, lunged into a run with claws at the ready. 

She sank into her defensive stance, sword prepared. 

The demon-

Crumpled. 

He folded like a wet rag around the fist of a white-haired teenager, a green flash lancing out behind him. 

The body slumped to the ground, yellow eyes blank, mouth gaping like it was struggling to draw air. 

The white-haired boy turned slightly, his eyes glowing an acidic green. She hadn’t had much hope to begin with, but the tiny flicker was quickly crushed.

Of course. 

Of course a demon would want to steal the kill of another. She was easy prey. Already crippled. 

Still, she tightened the grip on her sword, ready to run him through. 

The demon in the ground snarled, twisting to claw at the other’s leg. Faster than she could track, the white-haired one had hopped up into the air, twisting, opening his hand to face downward. 

A tiny green sun bloomed to life between them, the shape of it only barely seen before it extended into a lancing beam of light that cut through the demon’s chest. 

The body fell limp, rapidly dissolving into ash. 

The white-haired one floated gently down, short hair swirling like it was suspended in water until his feet touched the ground and gravity abruptly regained its power. 

The demons of the final selection were supposed to be low-level. 

A blood-art like that was NOT low-level. 

Ren swallowed, too numb to the terror of the whole horrible week to feel anything more than pointed unhappiness. 

Green eyes glanced up at her, considering. 

Raised a palm in her direction. 

She saw the sun start to form and leapt to the right, jostling her wounded arm with an impact that sent nauseating starbursts blotching across her vision. Her muscles were ready to slice a follow-up attack when she realized the demon wasn’t even paying attention to her. It was firing a quick volley of spinning green orbs at a third demon that had, apparently, been sneaking up behind her. 

Someone nearby yelled for help, the words cutting off with a finality that made her stomach lurch. 

The white-haired demon tilted his head toward the noise, shoulders stiffening. He looked at her and, with a casual dodge of a blade that might have done some damage if she wasn’t becoming woozy from blood loss, scooped her up in his arms. 

“Sorry about this.” He muttered to her, and she almost dropped her sword when the world blurred around her in silence. No wind or leaves snapping, just - effortless movement. 

Ren scrambled, falling to her knees when he suddenly dropped her, the jostle finally enough to send her meager dinner spattering to the dirt. 

She panted shallowly through the pain. She really didn’t have the energy to fight back any longer. 

Green lit up the spaces between trees. 

Like water flowing over a bowl, green light formed a dome-shaped barrier overhead. As it met the ground, she met the eyes of another participant of the final selection. From the knee down, his leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and his eyes looked past her in a thousand-meter stare. If it weren’t from his raspy breaths, she’d think he already died. 

“Are you alright?” 

Ren swung her sword, barely upright after the wild twist. The white-haired demon hissed and jerked back, hand split from thumb to wrist. He goggled at the hanging digit, other hand lifting to stick it back into place. 

Green fluid flowed, filling in the cracks. 

A moment later, the demon was twisting his hand and flexing the thumb like nothing had happened. 

Ren gave up. 

She turned her sword toward her own neck, blankly considering the angle she’d need to fall to cut the artery cleanly. A moment later, her hands were empty, sword impaled into the ground next to another she assumed had been “liberated” from her fellow captive. 

Torture, then? Eaten alive? She’d heard some demons preferred to devour living humans, wanted their heart still beating. To hear screams. 

“For fuck’s sake, calm down. I’m not going to eat you.” 

Ren belatedly realized she’d said some of that out loud, uncomprehending as the white-haired demon sat down on the leaves in front of her. Her head was spinning. Maybe the demon was trying to trick her somehow?

“I’m not a demon, either. Look, what’s going on? Maybe I can help.” 

“Final selection for demon slayers.” The man behind Ren rasped, and the not-demon’s gaze flicked to him. “Survive a week on the mountain, and you join their ranks. Fail, and get eaten.”

The not-demon frowned, glancing at the place where a demon had already dissolved to ash, burnt as surely as if it had been beheaded by a nichirin blade. 

“And if you’re injured, but alive by the end of it? Do they come get you?” 

Ren shook her head. “Such a thing is unlikely. If we can’t fight, a demon could easily detect us by smell or sound.”

“Well that’s stupid.” 

It started something like this:

On the last deadly night of the final selection, something bright and glowing dropped down into the mountain’s forest like a small star. 

Outsiders report seeing flashes of green light across the mountain.

Participants reported a powerful white-haired demon whose blood art targeted other demons exclusively. He seemed to fly from one end of the forest to the other, scooping up wounded would-be slayers and dumping them inside a green dome to be tended to by other wounded. 

At the end of the selection, seven new demon slayers made it down the mountain. 

And twenty-three injured participants of the final selection followed close behind, carrying each other as best they could. 

Chapter Text

“Ah-! excuse me! Sir! Sir, you dropped this!” 

Tomioka Giyuu turned, evaluating the child who approached him - money pouch raised in one fist. It was a child, despite the similarity in age to a certain young slayer. 

The boy’s face was soft in a smile, cheeks still round with baby fat. His hands lacked callouses, and the musculature to wield anything more strenuous than a brush. Young scholar, maybe, or a spoilt noble. 

“Thank you.” He replied, holding his palm out for the boy to place his purse inside. A quick check, and all the coins seemed accounted for. Yet, the boy still remained, rocking in his heels and glancing at Giyuu with far too much interest. 

“Thank you.” He said again, pointedly. He didn’t want the boy to think he’d get a prize for the delivery. It was just as likely he’d been pickpocketed, since his purse was usually tucked into a buttoned inner pocket - not something that easily could fall loose. Such things were necessary when engaging in high-speed combat. 

“You’re welcome,” the boy replied, not entirely looking at him. Giyuu followed his gaze and found only a row of houses. 

“Hey, how come you don’t wear the-“ the boy made a gesture in front of his face, like he was holding something round over his face. “Cat? I think that’s a cat? Y’know, the mask.” 

He blinked slowly, missing some context. 

“Cat….mask?” 

His memory flickered back to an exam, the thick smell of blood sticking in the creases of his hand, a boy trying to comfort him as he died. 

The protective masks that failed them both. 

Giyuu turned to face the boy more fully, buttoning his purse firmly in place. 

“You’ve seen it? Where?”

The kid nodded then paused, shaggy black hair flopping in front of pale eyes. He glanced back to the row of houses. Giyuu watched him closely. 

“I dunno, around. It seemed like it’d suit you.” The boy shrugged, rubbing the back of his head.

“Anyway! Glad I caught up to you. Uh- have a good day, I guess!” 

The boy waved awkwardly, backpedaling a few steps before trotting back down the street and around a corner. Giyuu watched him go, a frown tugging the corners of his lips. 

However, he was on his way to a mission. He couldn’t stop for a vaguely unsettled feeling when real people’s lives were at stake. So, the water Hashira turned and continued his walk out of the city. 

—

“He couldn’t sense me.” 

“Or maybe he could, and didn’t say anything to preserve the safety of the people.” 

Danny glanced at the ghost beside him, at the haughty tilt of his chin. He couldn’t see an expression beyond the blank-faced cat mask, but the other boy’s body language said plenty. 

Sabito’s shoulders slowly slumped. 

“Maybe you just weren’t putting off any killing intent.” He muttered, fiddling with the hilt of his sword. “So it’s not like he should be able to sense a demon otherwise. He’s human.” 

Danny nodded agreeably, re-folding the kimono he’d borrowed from someone’s closet. He tucked it back into place, t-shirt and jeans horribly anachronistic against the Taishō-era backdrop. As Phantom he was far more eye-catching, more obviously inhuman, so it was ok to look a bit odd. 

That’s what he told himself as he transformed back, white hair floating weightless between steps. 

Giyuu didn’t outwardly react when he and Sabito trailed after him, invisible and intangible. 

Whether or not he sensed anything, well-

Neither managed to agree on what his micro-expressions really meant, and he also tensed up at passing birds and squirrels, so neither of them managed to agree on who won their bet. They decided on a draw.

(In reality, Tomioka did not normally startle at squirrels. In reality, he was used to the vague feeling of being watched - maybe even watched over, if his near-death hallucinations had any merit. However, the feeling of two pairs of eyes drilling their way into his back was too much to ignore. What ghost lacked in killing intent, they certainly made up on sheer force of will.)