31 Rest

They were brought to a house on one side of the garden. "This is where you'll be staying." The lady said.

As the group entered, they saw her kneeling with her head lowered as she said, "A change of clothes." The group got changed as she takes their uniform to be mended and washed.

The group then walked into a different room and saw her kneeling in the same position with her head lowered. "And here is your meal."

"Ah! She has to be a monster Hiroto! The old lady's a monster! She's so quick, it's eerie!" Zenitsu screamed at seeing her appear seemingly out of thin air. "A monster hag-"

Before he could finish Hiroto and Tanjiro both kicked and hit him to shut him up.

The group began to eat, Inosuke started grabbing the food and shoving it down his mouth with his hands. Inosuke reached over and took fried tempura from Hiroto and ate it.

"Heuheuheu" He laughed back mockingly as he chewed.

Hiroto then moved his hands extremely fast and ate half of the food on Inosuke's plate and finishing his own before clasping his hands together and saying, "Thanks for the meal."

*snap* "grr" Inosuke then turned and took Tanjiro's shrimp trying to taunt him.

Tanjiro looked surprised and lifted a bowl of food saying, "If you're that hungry, you can have this, too." Tanjiro smiled sincerely.

*snap x2* "Huh?" Inosuke muttered in defeat and annoyance.

'He's totally forgotten about the box!' Zenitsu thought looking at Inosuke failing to taunt Tanjiro.

After they finished eating, they went into another room and saw 4 futons with the wisteria pattern on them. The old lady was once more kneeling down saying, "Your futons."

"There she is! The monster hag-" *bang* Tanjiro quickly hit Zenitsu's head.

Inosuke immediately jumped forward and claimed one of them as his own. "First come, first served!" He said tauntingly. "I'm taking this one.

"Whatever you want," Hiroto said unmoved.

"That's fine. Sleep where you want." Tanjiro said with a smile once more.

*snap*

"Where do you want to sleep Zenitsu?" Tanjiro asked him.

"Uhh," Zenitsu mumbled.

"Eaggghhh!" Inosuke did a boar-like squeal and threw his pillow into Zenitusu's face.

Several minutes of Inosuke fooling around, the old lady came in once more with a man dressed in white garbs. "Here is the doctor.

"Hello." The doctor greeted.

The doctor then went and checked on the condition of the 4, and concluded. "Mhm. You three. All broken ribs!" He points towards Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke. "Severe!" It seems that Hiroto wasn't as injured as the rest of them.

As the doctor left after giving some medicine and treating some wounds, Hiroto got up and carried Nezuko's box. "Tanjiro, come with me. Family meeting." Hiroto said.

Tanjiro looked confused but followed him nonetheless. Inosuke tried to follow them but backed down when given a glare by Hiroto.

Moving to a private room off to the side, Hiroto set the box down and opened it, letting Nezuko crawl out slowly. As she came out of the box she slowly stood up and started to grow in size to her original height. "Mm," Nezuko mumbled.

"Alright, sit down you two," Hiroto said, with Tanjiro and Nezuko following his instructions and sitting down in front of him.

"I want to clear some things first of all. Tanjiro, you saw me use a different breathing technique from what Urokodaki-san taught us right?" Hiroto said, looking at Tanjiro.

Tanjiro nodded, saying, "Yes I did. I wanted to ask you about it but never found the right moment to do so… I thought that when the time was right you would tell me."

"Mm," Nezuko mumbled.

Hiroto then continued. "You might have recognized some of the segments I used. It was what our father did during every new year, the Dance of the Fire God."

The moment that Hiroto said this, Tanjiro started to have a flashback of his father performing the Dance in the snow with his sickly body.

[Tanjiro Flashback]

Tanjiro was standing next to Hiroto who was carrying a sleeping Nezuko on his back with his mother next to him. They watched their father stand in the middle of a clearing surrounded by standing torches. Their father was twirling around and performing the Dance of the Fire God.

"Hey, mother." Little Tanjiro asked his mom. "How can father dance like that in the snow for so long when he's so frail?" His mother didn't answer him but just smiled lovingly.

'I bet my lungs would freeze.' Tanjiro thought.

The scene changed and Tanjiro was laying on top of his father's legs as he was sat up in the futon stroking Tanjiro's hair.

"There's a breathing technique. A way to breathe so that you won't exhaust yourself, no matter how much you move." His father said.

"Breathe?" Tanjiro asked.

"Right. If you can master the correct way to breathe, you'll be able to dance forever, too." His father said. Looking outside, Tanjiro saw Hiroto, Nezuko, and Takeo helping their mother with the laundry.

"The cold won't bother you either." His father continued, now looking solemn. "If nothing else, make sure this bracelet and these earrings get passed down to you and Hiroto uninterrupted." His father showed the bracelet in his hand.

"... That's what I promised."

[Flashback end]

Sitting in the room, Tanjiro seemed to have been zoned out thinking of something important.

Hiroto was comforting Nezuko as she fell asleep on his lap. Looking at Tanjiro's expression, Hiroto assumes that he must have remembered what their father told him. Similar to how it was for himself.

"I remember now…" Tanjiro said looking back at Hiroto. "So was father… also a Demon Slayer?" Tanjiro asked.

"I'm not sure, he might have been or he might not have. Learning the breathing technique doesn't make you a Demon Slayer." Hiroto said.

"Although the Dance of the Fire God can be a powerful breathing technique, it puts more strain onto the user if not trained properly. I've been practicing the 12 movements whenever I have the time." Hiroto said, before looking Tanjiro in the eyes.

"From now on, you will start practicing the dance as well. Whenever you have free time and not on a mission. I can guide you through them." Hiroto then carried the sleeping Nezuko into his arms as he stood up.

"Mm," Nezuko mumbled through her bamboo mouthpiece, still asleep.

"Let's get some sleep then, we need to recover first before anything else. Now then, how can we explain Nezuko's problem to those two." Hiroto muttered as he walked on with Tanjiro behind him and Nezuko in his arms.

As they walked in, Zenitsu immediately saw Hiroto hugging a girl into the room and had his mouth wide open. Inosuke just went, "hmm?" and ignored them. He seems to have already forgotten about the box completely.

Tanjiro was carrying the box back inside, and Zenitsu was able to piece together the puzzle seeing that the box was open.

"This is Nezuko she's our s-" Before Tanjiro could finish Zenitsu spoke up in a quiet tone.

"Hiroto…" Zenitsu said, with a yellow aura around him, as his eyes were covered with his bangs.

"Listen to me. *sprck* little sparks of lightning were seen around him.

"What the hell is going on?" Hiroto asked Nezuko was still sound asleep.

"Listen to me…" Zenitsu said once more, before raising his head to show his wide-open eyes staring in anger and envy. "Just who do you think you are?!"

Tanjiro stood shocked, Hiroto just looked on casually, thinking, 'I wonder if the old lady can fix my haori…'

"So, you've been traveling with a girl this cute? With a girl this cute in tow, day after day, you've been traveling, and you've been on cloud nine the whole time, huh?" Zenitsu said balling his hands into fists.

"I didn't give it my all just so you could spend time in la-la land, making out with a girl! Give me back the blood I shed for protecting your box while getting kicked and pummeled by that weird wild boar!" Zenitsu shouted pointing towards Hiroto.

Hiroto decided to ignore this and move over to his futon, grabbing the pillow and putting it inside of the box to have Nezuko lay on as she started to shrink back.

"You guys should rest up and stop messing around. Zenitsu, do you need me to remind you to behave yourself?" Hiroto said, with a threatening tone at the end of his sentence.

Zenitsu immediately sobered up when remembering who he was talking to. "Ahahaha, I was just kidding, kidding. Wouldn't you prefer to have a private room with your girlfriend instead?"

"Idiot, she's my little sister," Hiroto said before getting into his futon and getting prepared to sleep.

Zenitsu stood still for a moment. Then small flowers could be seen to bloom around his head as he smiled and started giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Hi-ro-tooo. Ta-n-Ji-roo." Zenitsu said in a friendly and bubbly manner. "Let's be friends from now on. Introduce me to your sister and I'll make sure to look aft-" Before he could finish his sentence, a loud sound could be heard. *Shing* Zenitsu slowly turned his head to the side and saw a red bladed katana embedded into the wall next to his face.

"Ah I'm sorry, I heard the sound of an annoying insect and decided to purge it. What were you saying?" Hiroto asked sincerely.

"No...Nothing! Goodnight!" Zenitsu said, sweating bullets and heading off to sleep.