Tanjiro had never imagined that the sneaky shadow behind the tree would be his younger sister, Nezuko. For a moment, he stood frozen.
"Big Brother."
Nezuko called out to him.
"Nezuko!"
Tanjiro lowered his blade and hurried toward her.
But after only a few steps, he suddenly stopped and shook his head fiercely. "No. You can't be Nezuko!"
Nezuko called out again. "Big Brother!"
Tanjiro raised his Nichirin Blade once more and pointed it at Nezuko behind the tree. "Nezuko isn't even in this world, so... who are you?"
Though Tanjiro roared at her, the arm holding his sword trembled uncontrollably.
At his level as a swordsman, even utter exhaustion wouldn't make his sword arm shake like that. It showed just how conflicted he was!
Reason told him the Nezuko before him had to be fake, but he desperately hoped that she really had come to this world, so they could live peacefully together in the mountains.
Nezuko looked terrified as she glanced around in panic. "Big Brother, I don't know what happened either. Where are we?"
"This is the Shinobi World!" Tanjiro paused, then said, "Did you come here after that dark thing from before?"
Nezuko shook her head. "All I know is that our world was destroyed. When I woke up, I was already here!"
Tanjiro approached cautiously.
When he stood in front of Nezuko, he sniffed. "Your scent is right. You really are Nezuko! No! You—"
The scent coming from her was exactly the same as Nezuko's, but Tanjiro realized she had no sign of life.
Or, more precisely, there was no blood inside her—the thing demons craved most.
Other demons might have noticed this right away. But he had always suppressed his demonic nature, so he had overlooked it. By the time he realized something was