Chapter Text
Tanjiro had ignored what the old man had said. Demons weren’t real. The only thing really to be afraid of in these woods were the animals and Tanjiro was confident he could handle those.
After a successful day of selling charcoal, Tanjiro headed back up the mountain. The back of one of his earrings had broken off while he was traversing the mountain, so he just decided to take off both earrings and place them safely in his pockets.
Tanjiro was nearly to his house when he smelled it. Blood. A strong scent of blood was wafting towards him along with another unfamiliar scent.
He sprinted towards his house where he could suddenly hear crying and screaming. Running through the open door, he noticed a man with black hair and red eyes standing over the body of his mother and holding his sister, Nezuko by the throat. The man looked at him before he grabbed his screaming sister’s head and tore it clean off. Her body dropped lifelessly to the ground.
Tanjiro froze in terror. He still held his axe in his hands, but in his state, he wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.
The man approached his little brother, Rokuto, with his hand outstretched, pointed nails aimed at the toddlers head. Rokuto was crying, and his siblings were huddled around him sobbing.
“No!” Tanjiro yelled, breaking out of the frozen state he had been in. He ran between his siblings and the man with the pointy figures and held his axe up in defense.
The man stopped and seemed to contemplate the boy in front of him. Before Tanjiro could react, the man swiped at him, hitting him in the stomach, throwing him against the wall with a crunch.
The man once again slashed at his brother, but Tanjiro pleaded with him causing him to stop.
“Please, don’t hurt them. Just kill me instead.” He pleaded with the man standing over his little brother.
The man pondered his words before replying with, “Well, okay.”
The last thing Tanjiro remembered was a finger being stabbed through his head.