The Wisteria Graveyard

At Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters, Kagaya Ubuyashiki sat in the front room, silently watching the heavy snow flutter down outside the window.

Amane came out of the inner room and tucked a copper hand warmer into his hands.

"Are the children asleep?" Kagaya cradled the copper warmer. It took a while before his icy fingertips began to feel its warmth.

"Yes. What are you looking at, Kagaya?"

"I'm waiting for Haruto. He said he'd come today."

Amane pictured that white-haired boy with his enormous appetite, and remembered the smile her husband had worn for the first time in so long.

"In snow this heavy?"

"Yes... that's why he's a little late."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a guard from the front courtyard came to report.

"Mr. Takanashi has arrived."

"Please show him in."

Haruto entered the courtyard and stood below the hall, taking off his snow-covered straw raincoat.

The brazier inside burned fiercely. Haruto stood where he was for a moment and greeted Amane, waiting until the chill had left his body before sitting down beside Kagaya Ubuyashiki.

Ubuyashiki's health was getting worse. The scarring on his face seemed to be spreading.

"There's no need for that. My body isn't that frail yet."

Kagaya looked him over in surprise. "I'd almost think we hadn't seen each other in three or four years. It's only been a little over a year, hasn't it? You've grown so quickly."

Haruto was already at a growing age, and with good food, diligent training, and Constant Total Concentration, he had shot up in height. His body looked sturdier than before, too.

Sitting beside Kagaya, he made Kagaya look like a younger brother a year his junior.

"You haven't changed, though. You're still..." Haruto swallowed the rest of the sentence, remembering that he was supposed to address the boy before him as "my lord."

Instead, he felt around inside his clothes at his chest, pulled out a bag, and handed it to Amane. "These are gifts for the two children."

Amane glanced at her husband, then accepted the cloth bag and thanked Haruto gently.

"Have you named them?"

"The older sister is Hinaki, and the younger is Nikka." Kagaya stretched. "You're awfully late. I heard your injuries healed long ago."

"I went to the Swordsmith Village first." Haruto glanced at him.

He wasn't some workaholic. Why would he rush straight to the company to report to his boss the moment he got out of his sickbed?

"Ah, how is old Mr. Goto doing?"

"Very well. He can still forge Nichirin Blades."

He was still pestering Haruto to get married, as always, and had thrown quite a fit when he heard that Makomo and Sabito were childhood sweethearts.

"Even a visit to the Swordsmith Village wouldn't have delayed you this long, would it?" Kagaya frowned as he counted. "At least three days..."

"I also visited the Rengoku Family."

He had gone to see Mr. Shinjuro, expecting Shinjuro Rengoku to be in somewhat better spirits than before. Instead, he found the exact opposite.

The tall man was disheveled, his face covered in stubble, and he reeked of alcohol.

In the year since they had last met, the Flame Hashira, who had never touched a drop before, had taken to heavy drinking.

After learning that Haruto had developed a new Breathing Style and slain Lower Rank Three, he at least refrained from making any more hurtful remarks about being "useless."

Still, he looked impatient throughout, and it was the Rengoku Family's second son who received Haruto for the entire visit.

"Where's your brother?"

With no sign of Kyojuro, that bright, big owl, inside the house, Haruto quietly asked Senjuro, the little owl beside him.

"My brother went up the mountain to train." Senjuro was a little reserved, but clearly a sensible child. "He took Father's three volumes of Flame Breathing notes, and Father scolded him terribly..."

Later, Haruto found Kyojuro up on the mountain with a sword in hand. Fortunately, the fire in the heart of that boy, as warm and passionate as the sun, had not gone out.

The boy was also remarkably gifted. He had mastered every Flame Breathing form simply by reading the notes, making him far cleverer than a certain fellow who had trained for two and a half years and still only knew the first five forms...

"Ah, that's right."

Kagaya's words brought him back from his memories. "Mr. Shinjuro's letter of resignation is still sitting on my desk. I simply cannot approve it.

"The Demon Slayer Corps is already struggling with a gap between generations. The current Hashira are aging rapidly, and there's no telling how long we'll have to wait for the next generation.

"So you and Mr. Himejima appeared at just the right time, Haruto."

"I only killed a Lower Rank who wasn't in his normal condition." Haruto's brows drew together slightly. "Kagaya, don't make me say something as humiliating as 'I'm not worthy of becoming a Hashira.'"

Kagaya Ubuyashiki was silent for a moment, then rose to his feet. "Will you come to the mountain behind the estate with me?"

"Kagaya, it's snowing outside." Concern filled Amane's eyes.

"Bring me a cloak, and an umbrella." Kagaya shook his head to show that he would be fine. Unable to dissuade him, Amane hurried off to find a thick, fur-collared cloak.

"I'll hold the umbrella."

Haruto took the umbrella and used its canopy to shield Kagaya completely from the wind and snow.

What lay on the mountain behind the Demon Slayer Corps?

Amid wisteria that still bloomed as it swayed in the wind and snow covering the mountain stood the gravestones of fallen swordsmen.

There were so many gravestones that Haruto could not even tell whether the wisteria enveloped the graves or the graves surrounded the wisteria.

"So many..." Haruto struggled to speak.

"Yes. The true number is even greater. Ever since I was four, every so often, several swordsmen have died. When bodies are fortunate enough to remain, their families take them home, then send their clothes here so we can erect memorial graves."

Kagaya used his sleeve to brush the accumulated snow from a gravestone. An unfamiliar name was inscribed upon it.

Kagaya had succeeded as head of the Demon Slayer Corps at the age of four. Over the dozen or so years since then, he had sent off countless swordsmen and received countless bodies.

"If this is what happens to demon slayers, then the ordinary people who have died over the past thousand years must number far beyond tens of thousands."

Haruto's eyes darkened. There was no telling what thoughts lay behind their misty blue depths.

"You must know about the Ubuyashiki Family's curse, Haruto." Kagaya pointed at the scarring on his face and smiled with forced ease. "Unless we marry into a Priest Family, our children die very young. But even if we do marry, none of us has ever lived past thirty."

He let out a long sigh, as though something were blocking his chest.

"Before we married, I asked Amane whether she was willing to marry someone who didn't have long to live. If she wasn't, I would have broken off the engagement with the Priest Family-using whatever excuse I could find."

Haruto turned his head. A sheen of tears seemed to have appeared in Kagaya's eyes, and his voice, usually so soothing, had grown hoarse.

"But Amane said that hearing those words from me had made her fearless instead. You see, Haruto... what a wonderful wife I have."

There was a hint of pride in Kagaya's words, but Haruto's brow only furrowed more deeply.

After paying their respects, they headed back together. Kagaya's steps were unsteady.

He stopped where he stood and clenched his fists. "It's all because of that damned Muzan Kibutsuji!"

His fists trembled, but his voice sank even lower.

"I have a kind, beautiful wife, two adorable daughters, swordsmen who respect me..."

Kagaya Ubuyashiki clenched his jaw, but could not force out another word.

The fate of the Ubuyashiki Family told him not to be afraid.

The gravestones behind him told him not to be afraid.

But Haruto still understood what his eyes were saying.

Kagaya was not afraid. He simply could not accept it.

No one would want to die at thirty.