The demon was already right before them. Through the thick smell of blood, Shinobu Kocho could smell the foul stench rising from its body.
She looked at her sister, who was trembling with fear yet still stood resolutely in front of her, and her mind filled with nothing but endless despair.
Why! Why had it come to this!
What had their family of four ever done wrong!
Their father had spent his entire life treating patients. Why had he met such an end!
She knew all too clearly that her sister Kanae Kocho's flesh and blood could not stop the demon before them.
Once her sister was torn apart, she would be next.
But perhaps that was all right. With her family beside her as she crossed the Sanzu River, at least she wouldn't be lonely...
Kanae clenched her jaw tightly, her pink eyes stretched wide and filled with terror.
The horned demon stopped moving. Its ears twitched, and it looked outside in alarm and uncertainty.
Footsteps sounded outside.
They were accompanied by shallow panting, like that of a traveler who had run a long way.
The electric light in the house flickered, like a twinkling star in the night sky.
The demon sensed danger. Deciding to strike first, it reached for the pink-eyed girl before it.
Suddenly, a gleaming flash of steel swept past, and a gust of blue-green wind swirled before its face.
"Huh?"
It looked down. Its hand had fallen off.
When it looked up again, the two girls were gone.
Huh?
Who was that? How could anyone be so fast?
Shinobu Kocho, however, saw everything clearly.
It was a white-haired boy wearing a blue-green Haori. As swift as a phantom, he flashed past the window.
In the next blink, the boy appeared between the demon and the Kocho sisters.
He drew his sword and severed the arm reaching for Kanae with a single slash.
Then the white-haired boy clamped the blade between his teeth, tucked a sister under each arm, and swiftly retreated to the open ground outside.
It took a while to describe, but everything had happened in a single breath.
She glanced sideways at the boy, but could see only the fox mask worn to one side of his face and his gently heaving chest.
His temples were drenched in sweat, and he was dusty from travel, as though he had hurried here from somewhere far away.
The boy took the long sword from his mouth and held it across his body, instructing the sisters in a low voice, "Can you still stand? Find somewhere to hide."
His gaze swept over the bodies of the Kocho parents inside the house, and he let out a heavy breath.
"Damn it. Still a moment too late."
Kanae forced her fear-weakened legs to support her and carried Shinobu aside.
Even if she could not help, she absolutely could not get in the boy's way.
Once the girls had moved somewhere safe, Haruto turned his attention to the man-eating demon before him.
The innocent people murdered before him filled him with fury beyond restraint.
Ever since receiving the news, he had run nonstop, without even time for a sip of water, all the way from Mount Sagiri to this place.
And yet he had still been too late.
Innocent people had still died before his eyes.
The horned demon's pupils contracted. It smelled death on the young swordsman.
That was the murderous aura built up from slaying demons time and again-it should have fled sooner!
Haruto held his sword across his chest. Starlight flashed in his eyes, and he vanished from where he stood.
Star Breathing, First Form: Bright Tears.
In the demon's eyes, a figure abruptly appeared dead center in its field of vision. That beautiful Nichirin Blade bore a chilling menace that left it nowhere to hide.
To the young Shinobu Kocho, the blue-violet blade seemed to draw an aurora in its wake.
And the demon that had devoured several villagers and brutally murdered their parents was beheaded with just one stroke!
The demon's head tumbled across the floor, its eyes still filled with resentment and terror.
"How could... how could..."
It stared at its gradually disappearing body. "I ate so many people. I worked so hard at eating people... how could I be beaten with a single slash?!"
Haruto ignored its dying madness and stepped forward to carefully examine the bodies of the man and woman.
The man's throat had been bitten through, and he had already died from blood loss.
As for the woman...
A huge hole had been torn in her chest. In this era, there was no surviving the loss of one's heart.
Haruto let out a long sigh, unable even to bear looking at the two girls outside.
What was he supposed to do?
In a world this senseless, even families with both parents struggled to survive. How were two girls who had lost their parents overnight supposed to live on?
Orderly footsteps sounded outside. Members of the Kakushi, wearing uniforms and cloth masks over their faces, arrived to handle what remained.
They would collect the victims' remains, comfort the survivors and make arrangements for them, communicate with the local police station, and record the demon slayer's achievements to report to headquarters. The swordsman responsible for killing the demon needed only to leave quietly now.
Haruto walked out of the house in silence, only to meet the urgent, pleading gazes of the two girls he had rescued.
There was no saving them. They were well and truly dead.
He said it in his heart, then shook his head at the two of them with great difficulty.
The little girl with long black hair immediately crumpled to the ground. Large tears kept spilling from her beautiful purple eyes and splashing onto the earth.
The slightly older girl hugged her tightly, kneeling on the ground and sobbing too hard to speak.
It was always this way for those who bore a blood feud with demons. The dead perished in boundless agony, while the living would remember that horrifying scene forever, spending their entire lives trying to heal from that night.
Haruto could only walk past them without a word, as though he had done something wrong.
If he had arrived twenty minutes earlier-even ten-perhaps these two children would not have lost their family.
He saw a young woman from the Kakushi step forward to comfort them, then firmly help them up and lead them away.
The villagers' lights had all come on, and they peered over with fearful, curious eyes.
People from the police station had arrived too. The Kakushi were well practiced at dealing with them.
"Where will they be sent?"
Haruto asked, "I mean, those two girls."
"Mr. Takanashi." The Kakushi member he had stopped nodded to him. "Apparently, they still have living relatives. They'll probably be sent to stay with them."
"Ah, living under someone else's roof... but compared to wandering from place to place, it's the only option they have."
"In times like these, perhaps simply being able to live a decent life is already a mercy from the gods."
Once the girls were sent to their relatives' home, perhaps he would never see them again.
Haruto decided not even to ask their names. Standing in the early winter evening breeze, he rubbed his arms.
"It really is cold."
Cold to the bone, without a trace of human warmth.
"South-southwest! South-southwest!"
Cang Kong circled overhead, guiding him toward his next assignment.
"Woodcutters have been disappearing frequently in the mountains to the south-southwest! A demon is suspected!"
"A demon slayer's work really never ends."
The Kakushi member looked at Cang Kong and said to Haruto, "Thank you for all your hard work!"
"You too."
Haruto shouldered his carrying basket and set off toward his next assignment.
Before you continue