30 Doll Demon

Hiroto ignored the woman's words and reached for his katana, "What did you do to these people?" Hiroto asked.

"I only made them perfect! Look at them, now I have so many friends to play with." The woman said cheerfully. "Do you want to be my friend too?"

Hiroto furrowed his brows, slowly drawing his katana. "No, what you did to these people is sick. Desecrating their bodies like that. It's unforgivable." Hiroto said with an angry tone.

"I didn't desecrate anything! I made them perfect! I'll also make you look perfect!" The woman yelled as she waved her hands and a bloody mist rushed towards the pile of bodies. The bodies in the corner started to move and stand. They ran towards Hiroto and surrounded him.

Hiroto quickly kicked them back and dodged, trying to navigate past them. 'I'm sorry, but I have to do this.' Hiroto thought as he swung his blade down at a jumping body in half, all the cloth from inside started to spew out as a black liquid seeped out onto the pink floor.

Hiroto ran through the lifeless bodies, dodging and cutting them down before arriving in front of the woman. *whoosh* As Hiroto cut down, the woman disappeared into a bloody mist and stood a distance away.

"I'll forgive you for cutting my friends if you join them." The woman said, licking her arm.

Hiroto looked disgusted and launched himself towards her once again. 'If you can keep disappearing I'll just have to move faster.' Hiroto thought, before activating one of his fastest moves, 'Water Breathing, Seventh Style: Piercing Rain Drop'

Thrusting his sword forward, Hiroto moved at a faster speed, pushing his body to the limit. Just as the woman was about to disappear into a mist Hiroto stabbed out with his sword and pierced her shoulder knocking her down. *shlik* "AGhhh!" The woman screamed.

"You hideous creature! How dare you harm me!" The Demon yelled out, before clapping her palms together.

"Let's see how you get out of this." The Demon taunted, as he finished clapping her palms the bodies around the room started to bloat up the black liquid in their bodies started expanding at a fast pace. 'Crap'

Hiroto quickly moved the katana up the side of the Demons shoulder, guiding it through her body to her neck and severing it as fast as he could. *Shhhhikkkk* "Ahhhhhh" The Demon yelled as the blade tore through her and decapitated her head.

Hiroto quickly ran down the hallway, but bodies started to fall out of the walls and were covered with the same black liquid from before. *BOOOM* From behind a body was blown up, throwing all the black liquid around the room as it started to melt down the surrounding.

'I need to leave fast, otherwise, I'll be caught in the blast.' *suuuuu* 'Dance of the Fire God, Flash Dance.' With steam releasing from the sides of his mouth, Hiroto pushed his speed faster than he ever could. *crck* The muscles in his legs groaned as the pain started assaulting him. Hiroto pumped air through his entire body, focusing it on his legs to give more explosive power as he ran.

Leaving a trail of flames, the hallway started collapsing as the explosion followed right behind him, increasing in speed and distance to Hiroto

"Aghhh!" Hiroto yelled as he pushed his legs. He arrived at the opening to the basement and quickly jumped up. As he jumped up, the shockwave from the explosion reached him and pushed him out of the hall and through the ceiling above it. *BOOM* *Crash*

Hiroto's back was seared with some of the black liquid, but not too much. His shirt was ripped a bit from the shockwave and being pushed through the ceiling.

The group outside heard the explosion and felt the residual shockwave as the middle portion of the house exploded up. Looking up, they could see a figure flying through the air as smoke trailed from his back. Tanjiro recognized him as his brother and shouted out, "Brother!"

Hiroto's body was in the air as he was pushed out of the house by the explosion 'Gah, it hurts. My back feels like it's burning' Hiroto thought, as he pushed towards a tree. Quickly regaining his balance in the air, he landed on a branch of a tree but lost his footing as a piece of the house came flying towards him.

"Ahh!" Hiroto's voice trailed as he slipped from the tree and fell into a bush. Tanjiro ran up to check on Hiroto who was getting up slowly. His haori luckily didn't take too much tear damage and a bit of the Demon Slayer Uniform was blown apart but not too much.

Hiroto clutched his side as he picked out the debris from his hair. "Good thing the uniform is durable," Hiroto muttered in relief. A small amount of black liquid managed to land on his back, but the uniform was tough enough to stop the small amount, if there was a large quantity it would have gone through it.

"Brother! What happened? What was with that explosion?" Tanjiro came up and asked him after making sure he was ok.

"Yea, I'm fine. Just hurt a bit, not too big of a deal." Hiroto smiled through the pain, reassuring Tanjiro. Tanjiro, however, didn't believe him but didn't say anything.

Walking up the group Hiroto calmed them down and recounted what happened to him in the basement. "How did I not smell all of that blood then?" Tanjiro asked questioningly.

"She probably used the liquid as some sort of scent nullifier to hide the stench." Hiroto voiced his theory. "Whatever it was, it doesn't matter now. We should finish up burying these people first."

Tanjiro seemed to have already untied Inosuke who, for some reason, is competing in who can bury the bodies the fastest.

[A Couple of hours later]

As the sun started setting, giving off an orange hue to the land, Hiroto and the group were kneeling behind the last grave as they gave their prayer.

"Haaaaa!" *Thud* Inosuke screamed on the side and started kicking a tree.

"What is that person doing?" Teruko asked in confusion.

"Just ignore it, let him do his thing," Hiroto said as he slowly stood up after giving his respects to the dead people.

*CAWWW! CAWWW!* The sound of the crow cawing comes once more. "Descend the mountain! Descend the mountain!"

"Ah! The crow is talking!" Shoichi said, looking at the crow flying.

"Just… don't think anymore." Kiyoshi muttered.

"Mm," Teruko nodded.

"All right, follow me!" The crow yelled out. "Follow yours truly! Cawww!"

"I'm gonna get a headache soon…" Hiroto said rubbing his head.

Tanjiro was shocked as he yelled. "Are you injured? Do you need to rest? Here, get on my back, I'll carry you!"

*sigh* Hiroto ignored him and went to put Nezuko's box on his back. "Let's go then, hopefully, we can get some rest tonight. I'm beat."

The group started to descend the mountain, with Inosuke running through the bushes behind them and trying to ambush Hiroto occasionally as he dodges. Zenitsu had a moment where he cried after having to be separated from Soichi, claiming that the kid saved his life from a Demon.

'What surprised me the most was Tanjiro knocking Zenitsu out.' Hiroto thought. The crow also gave Kiyoshi a parting present, meant to ward off Demons made from wisteria, the only downside was that it puked it out…

"We can get home on our own from here, thank you for your help," Kiyoshi said with his siblings as they walked off to their home.

"Take care!" Tanjiro called out behind them, with Hiroto waving his hand.

As they continued down the mountain, Inosuke kept trying to taunt Hiroto and Tanjiro into a fight.

"Fight me! I swear I'm gonna find a weak point and bring you down, loser!" Inosuke shouted out.

"My name is not a loser! It's Kamado Tanjiro!" Tanjiro yelled back. Hiroto walked at the front trying to conceal his presence as best he could to avoid getting involved.

"Kamaboko Gonpachiro!" Inosuke pointed as he started pulling off moves. "I'm gonna bring you down! And you! Kentaro Hibiko! I'll best you one of these days!"

"AHHH! CAN YOU TALK ANY LOUDER?!" Zenitsu screamed from Tanjiro's back.

After that episode, night had fully descended as the moon became the ruler of the sky. Following the crow, they ended up outside of a villa.

The words, 'Wisteria' was written onto the door.

"A wisteria family crest," Tanjiro said.

"Do Demon Slayer's live here?" Hiroto wondered looking around.

"Rest time! Rest time! CAWWW" The crow shouted out from the side. "Since you've sustained injuries, you're to rest until fully recovered!"

"Are you sure it's okay to rest now?" Tanjiro asked.

"... ke-ke-ke" The crow said…

"...ke-ke-ke?" Tanjiro repeated confused.

"Let's eat this thing," Inosuke said.

"I agree." Hiroto followed up.

*creeek* The door to the villa opened up, as a short old lady with her white hair tied in a big bun appeared.

"Yes?" She said with her eyes closed.

"We were told to rest here for the night by the crow, sorry to bother you this last," Hiroto said.

"Who the hell are you?!" Inosuke shouted as he started walking forward. Hiroto grabbed his shoulder and squeezed *lightly* causing him to stop. *crck*

"Calm down now Inosuke," Hiroto said with a smile.

"I see you're a Demon Hunter." The old lady said bowing her head.

"You seem pretty weak, I'll let you off," Inosuke said escaping Hiroto's grasp.

"Please, come in." The lady muttered, before leading the group inside. They were led through a garden filled with various plants and rocks, with a bamboo wall surrounding the area.

Surprisingly, the old lady was walking faster than the group as they tried to keep up.