21: The night sky

"Yo tanjiro" itsuki spoke, causing the 4 people in the room to stop their chaotic chase.

They froze, thinking it was the old lady, but after seeing itsuki, tanjiro and nezuko happily walked up.

Only zenitsu and inosuke stood still in place as they watched.

"Itsuki, you are here" tanjiro said in a surprised tone, he wasn't expecting to see itsuki here.

"Yea I just finished my mission not long ago" itsuki smiled, he patted nezuko's head before saying.

"Nezuko grew up, even though it's only been like a day" causing the little girl to smile.

——-

After chatting with the two for a while, tanjiro introduced him to the other two.

"This is zenitsu, we met during my travel, you probably remember him from the final selection, and this is inosuke, who we also managed to run into"

Tanjiro then whispered into itsuki's ear "they both have very weird but interesting characters" nezuko nodded as if she was agreeing.

Seeing this scene zenitsu was the first to burst out in a roar "y-you, who are you calling weird, it's a LIE" he pointed at tanjiro, he was also pissed at itsuki for touching nezuko like that, but seeing how he was a whole head taller zenitsu held back.

Itsuki laughed seeing this scene, he reached out his hand to greet the two.

"Hello, zenitsu and inosuke, my name is itsuki, I'll be staying here with y'all till tomorrow" itsuki showed the most scripted smile he could muster.

Inosuke who had his shirt off didn't accept the handshake, instead he puffed his muscles and got loud.

"Only after you beat me will I acknowledge your strength, I don't believe this bastard tanjivoo has friends stronger than me" He was ready to fight.

"Inosuke, how do you still not know my name" tanjiro felt like beating this boar up one more time.

"And don't fight itsuki, you aren't his match" tanjiro said with a smile, but in the end he still had to wrap his arms around inosuke to hold him back from fighting itsuki, he would probably lose all his pride if itsuki defeated him.

"You have all this strength but want to fight humans?, we aren't enemies, our enemies are the demons, plus zenitsu is probably stronger than you, get stronger first and maybe we can talk again" itsuki slowly poked inosuke more and more, it was nice to not be focused on demons for a day.

"W-w-wah... me???" It took a while for zenitsu to catch that sentence, but he ended up pointing to himself as his face got red, seeing inosuke stare at him with blazing eyes made him want to hide in a hole.

"F-f*ck, I didn't do anything why are you trying to fight me" zenitsu felt that life was unfair, he hadn't done anything yet this muscle head wanted to fight.

"Stand still, I need to prove myself to itsake" he shouted as he chased zenitsu.

"That's not my nam-" itsuki stooped himself, not bothering to correct inosuke.

——

Itsuki waited till the group fell asleep, he went outside and sat down, staring at the endless sky filled with stars.

"I didn't think you would be awake at this time of the night, can't sleep?" Itsuki said as he noticed a figure approaching from behind him, he kept his eyes closed.

"You have sharp senses, but no I'm just making sure you guys are protected at night" the old lady said with a smile before sitting next to itsuki.

Itsuki didn't know why, but this old lady gave him a lot of mysterious vibes, not only right now in the demon slayer world, but even in the anime, in fact a lot of seemingly non-relevant characters did.

But he could tell this old lady wasn't simple, maybe not too strong, but definitely had secrets.

She joined itsuki as they both stared at the night sky, after giving itsuki some words of encouragement and telling him to live life to the fullest, because no matter how much strength you have, it won't make up for loneliness.

Itsuki didn't know what she was talking about, but decided to keep her words in his heart.

"Auntie Li used to say such things, what a pity...." itsuki shook his head as he watched the old lady disappear into the building slowly.