Chapter 48

"Remember the story, you were beat up by some random bandits and almost died till I saved you and brought you here. Now we're seeking a medic. You got that?" He asked Tanjiro who he supported by putting his arm around his shoulder to walk right.

"Yes, I get it." Tanjiro said although you could see how much he hated the situation he was in.

A few minutes before they came to the fate of the village Kyoshi's said he'd slaughter the entire village if Tanjiro says anything about him and demons.

Who knows how many demon slayers could be there?

Anyways, Kyoshi nodded his head and walked towards the gates of the village. He put on a pleading expression as he quickened his pace to the two men standing at the entrance.

"Please…please help us. I found this guy on the road all beat up. We need a doctors!!" Kyoshi said sporadically.

"Kid calm down, we get the young man to a doctor, buy you have to tell is what's going on." One of the men said.

"Shinzo, hold here. I'll take them to a doctor." The man said. Shinzo, his partner, nodded his head and gripped the sword on his waist.

"Alright, follow me. Also, you can call me Mr. Wakari." The man said as he guided them into the village.

As the two of them walked in, they were getting looks from passing people and kids their age as well. Taking a look at Kyoshi, they saw his clothes and appearance and assumed he might have come from a good family.

Tanjiro also wore nice clothes, but people were more so focused on how beat up he was. Mr. Wakari guided them to a building made of wood. It wasn't large, but it was a decent size for a village outside of cities.

They walked through the front door and seeing a guardsman, the two at the front desk straightened up.

"Get the kid a room and a doctor immediately. Take him with you and I'll be back." Wakari said as he nodded towards the woman.

She immediately followed orders and came around the desk as she told Kyoshi and Tanjiro to follow her. Next to the desk was a double door which welcomed them to a three way hallway.

Go forward, right or left. They kept straight down the narrow hallway and passed by a few other nurses who had white metal carts being pushed in front of them.

They came to the end of the hall and turned to the right as they walked down another hallway and finally entered an open room on the end of that hallway.

"Sit him on the bed and take his haori off." The nurse said.

The room was well—typical. Wooden walls with barley any design, pictures, a white nursing bed and a wooden stand next to it.

Kyoshi walked into the room and pulled his haori off before putting him on the bed.

Tanjiro still felt pain from being moved around, but held in his yell as he was laid flat on the bed.

The nurse walked in and looked over Tanjiro's body as she noticed he was laying extremely stiffly and breathing in a weird pattern.

"I'll be back with some supplies. Is there anything you two need?" She asked.

"Hmm, he'll take some water. I'm fine." Kyoshi said as he sat on the edge of the nightstand next to Tanjiro.

"I can get you a chair if you need one." She suggested.

"Can you carry all of it? The chair, water, and supplies?"

"I'll manage it." She replied. Kyoshi nodded his head and she left the room and closed the door.

"Hey, using your breathing technique to heal is a rather good idea, but you know as a demon we can do it so much faster. The way I see it, it'll still take you quite some time to fully recover." Kyoshi said as he looked down at Tanjiro.

"…"

Tanjiro stayed silent as he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

"So, you gonna tell me where that demon girl is? I'm quite curious you know? How much stronger did she get well, if she got stronger at all.

Did she run away from you since she didn't like her pet treatment? Or maybe…you killed her?"

Tanjiro's eyes shot open and he was about to raise up, but the door to the room opened up and the pain bit him as he coughed up blood.

Internal bleeding was an extremely sever injury and movements—especially fast one—made it worse.

"Tanjiro, you can't keep trying to get up with your injuries." Kyoshi said as he pushed Tanjiro down to the bed.

The nurse came in with a cart which had all types of medical instruments on it. She took the cup of water which was also up there and sat it on the desk next to the bed.

Kyoshi got up and grabbed the chair from her other hand and thanked her for it as he sat down next to desk the water was placed on.

"On my way here, I called for a doctor which should be-"

"Ai." A make voice spoke, interrupting the nurse.

She turned her head and nodded as she walked towards the door and he came in.

"This is Doctor Ishimaru, he'll be taking care of you two for the day." She said as she bowed and left down the hallway.

"Alright, first off let me get your names." The doctor said as he closed the door and pulled out a pen. With him was a clipboard and what seemed to be a check up file.

"I'm Kyoshi and this is Tanjiro." Kyoshi answered.

"Last names?"

"Fuji and…"

"It's Kamado." Tanjiro finished.

"Alright. First tell me the general story behind all of this and strip your shirts." The doctor said as he put on some gloves and his stethoscope.

"I don't need a check up. We just here for him and I can tell you now he has a few broke bones." Kyoshi said.

"It's just procedure. I have to document both of you guys and your health since it's something the village guard asked about. Nothing I can really do about it." The doctor said.

"…alright." Kyoshi said as he stood up and took off his black gi shirt. The doctor look him over and wrote something on his paper before moving over to Tanjiro and unbuttoning his demon slayer jacket.

Once the jacket was opened the doctors eyes widened as he gasped. Kyoshi was also fairly surprised, because he didn't think he did that much damage to Tanjiro.

His abdomen was filled with dark purple bruises and swelling in a lot of places. If that's what Tanjiro looked like, he wondered what Inosuke's condition was like.

"I didn't think it was anything this bad. Okay, I'll be back with a stretcher, we'll have to take him to the emergency room and get an X-ray done. You're welcome to come along if you're worried for him." The doctor said.

Kyoshi quickly nodded his head and the doctor left the room hastily.

"Wow, I didn't think I did you that bad. I almost feel sorry." Kyoshi said as he came to the side of the bed.

"S-shut up." Tanjiro stammered as he continued with his breathing technique.

"Alright. Anyways, you'll probably have to stay here to recover for a while, but I don't plan on sitting here for too long. I wonder what I should about that." Kyoshi thought aloud as he hunched his shoulders.

"Meh, I'll think about it later."

Soon the doctor came back with a stretcher along with a few other nurses that put him on there carefully.

"Jesus, what happened to him?" A nurse asked as her, the other nurses and the doctor strolled Tanjiro down the hallway.

"Bandits." Kyoshi answered as he followed them.

"They did this to a little boy? I thought people would've been a lot more sensible in this age." The nurse said as they pulled the stretcher into an open room with one piece of large equipment and a surgery bed.

They lifted him up to the bed that had a white machine craning over it. The machine was an X-ray machine. He was laid down and they pressed a few buttons on a monitor and dragged the x-ray projector over Tanjiro's body.

"Oh my god." The nurse who looked at the radiograph gasped as she saw the damage. On the left side, he had four fractured ribs his right arm was dislocated and it looked like his spine had a little curve to the right.

"Alright, this isn't too bad. Go get me a few ice packs, some adrenaline shots and some pain killers." The doctor said as he looked over the images and sighed.

The nurses that were in the room left and now it was just the three males.

"So you said bandits did this to him?" He asked.

"Yeah. Found him laid on the ground and he kept muttering about them." Kyoshi replied.

"Alright. Well, I assume you kids aren't from around this town?"

"I'm not. I had my coming of age ceremony and I'm just a wanderer. I don't know about him, but his clothes make me think he's probably wandering too."

"Alright, when my nurses get back with the stuff I asked for we'll give him the adrenaline shots to numb up the pain while it heals.

We won't do any type of surgery, but his ribs should heal in a span of 2 months. The pain killers will be used periodically, so that he can take deep enough breaths to stay safe from pneumonia. And lastly, he'll have to stay here to recover.

Any form of movements would stunt the healing process greatly." The doctor said.

"I see. I'm allowed visits right? We're not family, but-"

"I get it, you want to make sure he's doing fine. I wish there were more youngsters like you in this village. I'll give you a visitor pass and as long as you hold on to it you can come visit."

"Thank you. Well, I guess I'll come back in a bit. I'm getting a bit hungry, so I'll go find a shop somewhere." Kyoshi said as he started walking towards the door.

"Ah wait, you should get your shirt from the other room. It's a bit indecent to walk out bare chest." The doctor said.

"Right…"

With that, Kyoshi got his shirt and said bye to the people at the front desk as he left the hospital. From the looks of the sky, in maybe 2 or 3 hours it'd be dusk soon.

He already planned on staying here for a whole day just to get Yui and get her prepared for next week.

He planned on giving her a some more of his blood, to bring her to another level, but he was a but anxious. Partly because he didn't know what would happen, but mainly because she could actually die with this one.

Her being his student, he didn't want her to die because of him…and because he's read a lot if fantasy novels where the student finally graduates from their master's teaching and they go out and impress the world.

Personally, he wanted to play the role of the modest and wise elder…

Anyways, he made his way to her location and on his walk there, he was stared at a lot. Either because of his clothes or because he's an outsider, but Kyoshi was confident that it was because his face. Still though…that didn't make being stared at any less weirder.

The village, well town in this case, was quite alright though. He passed by market shops, some kids running around, parents and adults going to work, etc.

Kyoshi turned a corner and saw three boys sitting on the ground in front of a door with wooden planks and bats in their hands. There were others looking at them and sighing as they walked away, although it didn't seem like they sighed from pity, but annoyance.

Kyoshi walked over and passed them as he knocked on the door. Just as he reached his arm out the three boys got up and looked at him seemingly agitated.

"Who the hell are you?" The 'leader' of this refined group of gentlemen asked.

"Hm? What that got to do with you?" Kyoshi asked as he turned towards them. He was taller than the boys and they were maybe his age. One was skinny, one was chubby, and the other was average, yet they all seem to have this "gangster" demeanor.

"What's it got to do with me? You're at the house of my wife you bastard." The skinny one said with a sneer.

"You got a wife…well, as long as she happy I guess." Kyoshi's said as he looked his up and down before turning back around.

"Get the hell out of here!!" The boy said as he grabbed Kyoshi's shoulder and tried to pull him back.

Kyoshi grabbed his wrist and swiped it away from him before turning around.

"The woman in here is your wife right? Why don't you call her out." Kyoshi suggested as he stepped aside.

"She's probably sleeping right now, so I'm not disturbing her." He said as he turned his head.

"Yeah alright." Kyoshi said, rolling his eyes as he stepped forward and knocked on the door.

"You bastard she's sleeping." The boy said as he grabbed Kyoshi's shoulder again.

Kyoshi grabbed his arm and pulling him around and with his right hand he grabbed him by the collar, easily lifting him off the ground before throwing him into his friends.

The three boys hit the ground with a thud.

From the door, Kyoshi heard an annoyed sigh as the door was pulled open.

"I tol-" Rin cut her sentence when she saw Kyoshi at the door. Her previously annoyed expression dropped as she straightened up.

"Sensei, I didn't think you'd be here that fast." Rin said as she opened the door and stepped aside.

"Ehhhh!!" A surprised cry came from behind them.

"Rin, do you know these guys?" Kyoshi asked as he glanced down at them.

"They're weirdo's that keep bothering me. I've been trying not to hurt them, but they keep testing me." Rin said as she glared at them.

"I see." Kyoshi said as he stepped towards them and knelt down as he put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Look, stop bothering my student or else…" Kyoshi said as he glanced downward then back at him. The boy looked down and his eyes went wide as he saw a kunai pointing at his baby maker.

"I'll castrate you and that way no girl will want to marry you. Anyways, good day gentlemen." Kyoshi said as he stood up. He then walked into Rin's house.