Demon Slayer: I am a Demon

The babbling stream flowed along the winding mountainside, making a clear and pleasant sound. A tall woman squatted down, stretched out her hands, and gently scooped up a handful of stream water to wash her face.

Beside him was a girl who looked very similar to him, but compared to the other's tall stature, the girl was rather petite.

Both of them had pinkish-purple eyes and were wearing standard Demon Slayer Corps uniforms. However, the tall girl wore a colorful butterfly-patterned haori that only the 'Pillars' of the Demon Slayer Corps could wear. Her long hair reached her waist, and she wore emerald green butterfly hair clips with pink edges at both ends of her hair.

The petite girl had short hair styled in a curly, night-bloom style.

The two women also had very different temperaments. The tall one looked very gentle and always had a smile on her face, while the petite one seemed serious and unsmiling. Just standing there, she was as sharp as a drawn sword.

The two are none other than Kanae Kocho, the "Flower Pillar," and her younger sister Shinobu Kocho.

"Sister, you let that ghost die too easily yesterday. These ghosts shouldn't be allowed to die so easily. Instead, their flesh should be sliced ​​away piece by piece, so they can truly feel the pain..."

Shinobu Kocho watched her older sister washing her face with the stream water and whispered to herself.

As if imagining the agonizing cries of those demons, Shinobu Kocho seemed to become very excited, and a blush rose to her pretty face.

Kanae glanced at her younger sister, lowered her head slightly, and sighed, "Those demons were once human too. After becoming demons, they were also very sad and suffered a lot..."

"elder sister……"

The girl called "little sister" suddenly looked up, a hint of anger in her eyes: "They're not human anymore, they've become ghosts. Sister, you're too kind, even to ghosts."

Kanae looked at her younger sister, but did not refute her. Instead, she gently took her sister's hand.

The younger sister's anger seemed to dissipate somewhat with the older sister's gentleness, but she still turned her head away angrily, her cheeks puffed out.

She knew she couldn't do anything about her sister's personality.

Kanae picked up her younger sister with some pity. She didn't care about her sister's fierce behavior; instead, she felt even more sorry for her.

Other girls of her age should be living carefree lives under the care of their parents, but her sister, driven by hatred for demons, embarked on the dangerous path of demon hunting.

If she hadn't gone down this path, at her age, perhaps in a few more years she would have reached marriageable age. If she found a man she liked, she could have married, had children of her own, and then lived a long and wrinkled life.

Instead of now, walking on the edge of life and death every day, not knowing if I will die on the next ghost hunt.

"If only my sister would stop hunting demons, let go of the past, pretend it never happened, and live a normal life..."

Kanae whispered, already somewhat regretting letting her sister embark on this path of no return.

Butterfly couldn't bear it any longer and suddenly broke free from her sister's embrace: "Sister, please don't say things like that anymore. It's impossible for me to go back to living a normal life."

As she spoke, the girl clenched her fists tightly, her eyes red: "That night, the ghost stole our happiness. I watched my father and mother being killed before my eyes. How could I pretend that such a thing never happened? How could I do that? How could I pretend to forget everything like an ordinary person, deceive myself, start a new life, and begin the so-called happy life that my sister hoped for?"

"All of this is simply impossible."

"Even if I succeeded, what difference would it make between me and someone who is dead?"

Hearing her sister's words, Kanae's eyes filled with pain. She simply hugged her sister tightly, just like that night when the demon broke into their house, when she had also clung to her sister, trembling. If only she had possessed her current strength when the demon broke into their house, perhaps things wouldn't have happened...

"Sister, please don't say things like that again."

With red eyes, Shinobu Kocho emphasized once again, "I don't want to hear anymore. I just want to kill all the demons I see, one by one, until all the demons in this world are wiped out."

The girl clenched her fists, her eyes were resolute, and her voice was filled with hatred for the evil spirits.

Kanae Butterfly opened her lips, intending to say something to her sister, but she couldn't help but look up as a 'saurus' fluttered its wings and flew over.

Kanae Butterfly reached out her hand, and the 'Katsura' gently landed on the girl's wrist.

Kanae Butterfly removed the metal tube from the 'Katsura's' leg and took out the letter inside to read it.

"What happened, sister? Did you find out about 'Upper Moon Three'?"

Shinobu's eyes were filled with excitement. She and her sister had been tracking the news of the Upper Moon Three among the Twelve Demon Moons these past few days. If they could kill the Upper Moon Three, it would be a huge blow to the demons.

Kanae Kocho shook her head, looking somewhat puzzled: "It's related to a town we passed through not long ago. They asked us if we had hunted down a demon while passing through that town."

"Why would you ask that question? No ghosts have been found in that city."

Shinobu Kocho muttered to herself.

They only lingered in the city briefly and didn't encounter any demons. If they had, that would have been even better; she would have personally beheaded the demon with her Nichirin Blade, and ideally, tested her newly concocted poison before doing so.

Recently, based on the fact that evil spirits dislike the smell of wisteria flowers, she specially extracted certain special components from wisteria flowers. She felt that these components should have the effect of slaying evil spirits, and she was going to use a ghost as a test subject.

"A small team tracked a demon into the city, only to find that one of the demons had been killed."

Kanae Kocho explained it.

"Could it be that swordsmen from another squad were passing by and killed him on a whim?"

Shinobu Kocho didn't seem to care much.

Kanae Kocho shook her head: "Apart from us passing by, there were no other swordsmen on missions nearby."

As a "Pillar" of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kanae Kocho knew more information.

"Who slew that demon?"

Shinobu Kocho also became interested: "Ordinary people can't kill demons. Even some powerful old-era samurai would have a hard time dealing with demons without a Nichirin Blade, let alone killing them."

As she spoke, Shinobu Kocho's usually stern and beautiful face softened into a smile: "It couldn't have been a demon that killed him with a Nichirin Blade, could it?"

After saying that, she felt somewhat amused. Given the demons' aversion to Nichirin Blades, they would avoid them like the plague. In all these years, she had never seen a demon wield a Nichirin Blade.

"It's impossible for any demon to wield a Nichirin Blade. Those monsters hiding in the darkness would never dare to touch a Nichirin Blade that contains the power of sunlight."

Shinobu Kocho was very certain.