Land of Crimson Cherry Blossoms: Undercurrents Stirring!

The sun hung low in the west, its slanting rays bathing the crimson cherry blossoms across the mountains. Every petal seemed to glow, turning from pale pink to golden red in a beauty that hardly seemed real.

The Kocho Sisters set off for home, carrying medicine baskets that were noticeably heavier than before.

They walked more slowly than they had on the way out, but the weight pressing against their shoulders and backs was reassuring.

The paths between the fields had grown lively.

Farmers headed home in twos and threes after a day's work.

Their straw sandals left impressions of varying depths in the damp earth.

Sweat had soaked through their dark blue, coarse-cloth shirts, leaving broad patches across their backs, yet their faces shone with the simple satisfaction of the land's bounty.

"Oh, Kanae, Shinobu, you're back!"

"Look how heavy those baskets are! You had good luck today!"

Xi Taishu stopped, a half-full burlap sack slung over his shoulder, plump golden heads of grain poking out of it. He smiled simply, streaks of sweat leaving pale tracks across his bronze face.

"Hello, Xi Taishu."

Slightly out of breath, Kanae smiled back.

"Yeah! We picked lots! Some for coughs, some for putting on wounds, and some for the grandpas to soak their legs in!"

Shinobu lifted her little face. Tired as she was, her eyes sparkled, and a hint of pride crept into her voice.

"Good, good! Your father's a living bodhisattva in our village, and you sisters are both fine, capable girls!"

Another villager nearby, who was rinsing mud from his legs at the irrigation channel, looked up and called out in agreement.

"Oh, right. The other day, I heard from a passing peddler that the Benevolent Heart Hall in town has been buying good-quality aged wild honeysuckle lately. They're paying ten percent more than usual!"

"If your family still has any in the herb garden, have your father go take a look tomorrow. It's a good deal!"

"Thank you for thinking of us, Gen Shu. I'll tell Father later."

Kanae bowed politely.

Their simple conversation drifted on the evening breeze, fragrant with the fresh scent of rice plants.

The sisters continued on, the villagers' intermittent chatter trailing behind them: whose rice had fuller grains than everyone else's, whose half-grown boy had nearly slipped into a deep pool while catching fish yesterday, whether to eat freshly picked beans or vegetables pickled through the winter for supper...

As ordinary as the soil on the field paths, yet just as substantial and warm, it held the reality of life, day after day.

Under a tree,

Seven or eight children of different ages stood in a circle, heads pressed together, absorbed in their game.

They were playing "toss the stone," with crooked squares drawn on the ground.

The youngest girl was about four or five, with two stubbornly upturned pigtails. Her little face was flushed with effort as she clutched a stone, rose on tiptoe, and tried to toss it into the center of a square.

"A Zhu, your wrist! Put the force into it here!"

A slightly older boy, his skin dark from the sun, crouched beside her, holding her wrist as he taught her earnestly.

"Keep your eyes on the whitest one in the middle. That's it, throw!"

The stone left her hand and landed beside the target with a smack, kicking up a little dust.

She had missed, but it was close.

The little girl froze for a moment, then clapped her hands and jumped up, giggling.

In the distance, the chimneys of every home began to wake.

The scents drifting through the air grew more varied.

The tempting aroma of fresh rice, the savory smell of wild greens frying in iron woks, the rich scent of meat simmering in sauce...

The Kocho Sisters passed through this moving picture, so full of everyday life, and headed toward their own house, smoke curling from its chimney as well.

Shinobu seemed to have forgotten her weariness again, chattering to her sister about how funny and adorable the little girl called A Zhu had looked tossing the stone.

Kanae listened quietly, occasionally murmuring an acknowledgment, a faint smile on her lips all the while.

At last, the distant mountains swallowed the final golden edge of the setting sun.

Work, rest, cooking smoke, laughter... Another day in Crimson Sakura Village passed peacefully amid the silent fall of cherry blossoms.

As though it had been this way for hundreds and thousands of years, and would continue just the same.

About one li from Crimson Sakura Village, beyond a ridge overgrown with assorted trees, the scenery was entirely different.

This was the shaded side of the mountain. Towering trees blocked out the sky, their crowns crowded tightly together as they greedily seized the last of the daylight.

Silence.

A thick silence that seemed to have sucked away even the sound of the wind.

Then the shadows seemed to come alive and began to writhe.

First, beside a rock, a patch of shadow darker than the surrounding gloom slowly bulged and stretched, congealing into the outline of an exceptionally brawny man.

He twisted his neck, producing a faint crack that rang especially clearly through the deathly still woods.

His skin was a stony blue-gray, rough and covered in cracklike lines.

—Lower Rank Three Yan Nu!!

His face showed undisguised disgust as he spoke in a muffled voice:

"They picked a place like this... reeks of flowers and all that cloying crap? Fucking sickening."

"According to our intelligence, a Demon Slayer's Kasugai Crow regularly flies over this area every two or three days."

The cool, steady voice that answered came from beneath an old cedar.

A woman had appeared there at some point, leaning against it.

Her moon-white kimono was spotless, her long hair cascading down like a waterfall of ink, and her face was beautiful.

—Lower Rank Four Yue Lian!

She looked toward Crimson Sakura Village.

"This place is remote enough, with only a few dozen households. The authorities' informants rarely reach it."

"Moreover, it lies directly on the usual patrol route of our newly appointed [Water Hashira], Giyu Tomioka. Waiting here is our safest option at present."

"Hmph, safest?"

Yannu snorted a foul breath that reeked of sulfur.

"What if it's not that damned Water Hashira brat who comes? Do we wait for nothing, or settle for chewing on some ordinary Corps member with no bite to him?"

"Yannu, are you afraid?"

A third voice sounded, dry and crackling like flames licking firewood.

In the shadows nearby, a lean figure almost blended into a charred tree stump.

His eyes shone with two points of dark red light in the gloom.

—Lower Rank Six Jin Huo!

His voice was quiet, but his sarcasm burned.

"Did you lose your nerve when that Hashira who used Flame Breathing nearly burned you to ashes last time?"

"Who cares which Hashira comes? As long as we can twist off a head and bring it back, we'll have satisfied Lord Muzan."

"That's better than... going back empty-handed and being crushed to dust, wouldn't you say?"

The veins at Yannu's temple throbbed twice, and dangerous waves of heat radiated from his body.

He glared viciously toward Jinhua, a low growl rumbling in his throat, but in the end he merely clenched his rocklike fists and made no move.

"Yuelian's analysis is logical."

The last voice spoke. It was quiet, yet carried a strange cadence that made one want to listen.

A figure had appeared at some point in the middle of the forest clearing.

His back was to the other three demons. He stood straight, dressed in an impeccably tailored black tailcoat without a single crease. His hair was combed neatly back, revealing a broad but cold forehead.

—Lower Rank Two Ye Shou!

He did not turn around. His voice was calm and even, yet every word was clear.

"This is our only chance. Whether it's the Water Hashira or another Hashira who comes, as long as we take a Hashira's head, we'll have a way to live."

He slowly turned half his face toward them, his lips curving upward in an elegant arc. Yet his deep violet eyes were empty, reflecting no light at all.

"Or does one of you... have somewhere better to go? Or would you rather face our lord's 'disappointment'?"

A deathly silence fell over the woods.

Yannu turned his face away;

The dark red light in Jinhua's eyes flickered once, then grew still;

Yuelian stood quietly, like a lifeless jade statue.

"Very good."

Yeshu seemed to chuckle, but there was no warmth in the sound.

He turned slowly, folding his snow-white-gloved hands elegantly before him, his gaze sweeping over the other three faces, blurred and twisted in the shadows.

"Then let this little village, blooming with flowers, play... a magnificent overture for us."

He raised his right hand.

Then he gently snapped his fingers.

"Snap."

The crisp sound was startlingly abrupt in the woods.

Immediately afterward, a horrifying change occurred. The shadows at their feet, so thick they seemed impossible to disperse, began to writhe and boil violently, as if given life!

One viscous black shadow after another peeled away from the soil, the gaps between tree roots, and the backs of rocks, twisting and gathering like ink pouring out of hell.

Some retained a faintly human outline, while others had the shapes of utterly indescribable monsters. Their only common feature was the pure, bone-chilling malice they radiated.

Yeshu's Blood Demon Art—[Shadow Devour: Servants]!

"Go."

Yeshu's voice was as soft as a lover's whisper, yet it froze the air.

"Let sweet terror... seep into their bones ahead of us."

"Haah—!"

A soundless roar seemed to burst directly into their minds!

The dozens of black shadows suddenly moved!

With astonishing speed and a ferocity that threatened to devour everything, they silently swooped toward the land of cherry blossoms, gently shrouded in twilight, where cooking smoke and laughter drifted through the air!

Almost at the same moment, the figures of the four demons—Ye Shou, Yue Lian, Yan Nu, and Jin Huo—also turned indistinct and transparent, as though melting into the deep darkness that had suddenly descended.

Every trace of their presence was completely withdrawn and concealed.

The woods returned to deathly silence.