A little warning before reading: There are a couple of manga spoilers in this chapter, and there might be a couple more in the future.

Shojo's Pov

I kind of remember that Demon Slayer cutting my neck, then followed by my body slowly becoming dust and disappearing. At first I was angry, as I couldn't believe I allowed myself to get killed by what seemed to be an amateur, however, shortly after, once I started feeling just how real it was, I got scared. I wasn't ready to die, and even if never really showed it, I still wasn't ready to say goodbye to my friends either.

Up until now, we had always been quite mean with each other, and even tried to part ways when we met as Demons, but just seeing Wakai die was enough to make me the angriest I had ever been during the past 15 to 20 years, but then, as I started dying, I realized that I now would never be able to talk to Kodo either, meaning that in just one night, everything we had disappeared.

I was between absolutely angry, and almost total sadness, but then I noticed something. "Huh, Kodo and Wakai. I hadn't heard those names in quite a while." As any other Demon, the three of us had forgotten about our past lives, which obviously included our names. We also never took the time to get new ones for ourselves, so we mostly went by whatever the village people called, which wasn't always consistent.

I also remembered what our childhood was like, but at the time, it didn't seem all that important. Sure, remembering all that made feel nostalgic, and the feeling of losing my friends even worse, however, it seemed to be a simple and normal childhood, with the three of us coming together simply because our families lived in the same town.

At first, I don't I liked Wakai all that much, as he was the weird kid of the town, but the more time I spent with him, and the simple fun that it was to be around him, made quickly forget about all that, and just embrace his friendship.

On a contrary manner, I remember almost always liking Kodo. He was the bravest kid of the town, and was far more reasonable than Wakai. I think I even had a crush on him for a while, however, when we tried it out, it turned out to be that I admired him a whole lot, and also appreciated his friendship, so we simply stayed as friends.

There were other kids with us in our hometown, but we didn't spend nearly as much time with them as we did with us, so we basically became the three musketeers or something. We would usually go out in little adventures, exploring the mountains surrounding our village, and while Kodo was the bravest, I was always the best at the exploring part. My parents made me learn some dancing, and I turned out to be pretty good, but I really didn't like it, and instead use all that knowledge to jump around and grab of branches and more.

It was all a bit foggy as well, as I really was young back then, but what sticked to me the most, was my last day as a human. It had been a not-so-great day. My mom had been teaching me how to cook, and while I didn't have a problem with that, she always said that it would help me get married in the future, and again, the idea of getting married wasn't awful, but thinking that this would be everything I would do, besides cleaning and stuff, was simply annoying.

I tried to tell mom about all of this, but she didn't listen, and we ended up having an argument, which she ended by sending me to my room. This all so infuriating, so I almost instantly escaped through my window to go look for Wakai and Kodo. It was easy to find them, as they were on our regular spot just a bit over the mountain skirts.

As I arrived, I could see Kodo reading, as he usually did when he had free time, and Wakai being an overall idiot by throwing rocks around, and even bashing some against his head as a 'endurance measuring' test.

I was happy to see them, but I still felt sad, and they quickly noticed. Wakai was the first, as he stopped what he was doing, and asked if I was okay. This made Kodo snap from his book and notice me as well, so he asked pretty much the same. I explained to them, and since it wasn't the first time this had happened with my mom, they quickly understood.

Kodo tried to cheer me up with some encouragement words, while Wakai tried to think of something else, and proposed an excursion to the mountain, as we hadn't done one in a while, since we had grown a bit out of that faze. Kodo got a bit angry with Wakai, as he surely didn't believe this wasn't gonna work for me, however, I did want to do it again, so I said yes. This surprised Kodo, and made Wakai excited, so we quickly organized. I would stay there and plan a route, Wakai would get some food for us, and Kodo would search for equipment.

We were probably a bit rusty from when we were a couple years younger, but we still managed to gather everything quickly. Less than an hour after settling, we were ready to leave, and so we did. Looking at everything, the nature going wild around us, the animals jumping and running freely, with the plants surrounding us, was an amazing and nostalgic feeling. We even recognized a couple plants and rocks from back in our day, which was more than mesmerizing.

We walked for hours until we started feeling tired, so we sat down to eat and chat. The main topic was of course remembering old excursions we had in the past, and remembering all that fun stuff that happened. It was a pretty fun talk to have, and it really made me forget everything that happened with my mom, however, from the clear spot we were staying at, we could see something, smoke.

We hadn't seen it before due to the forest trees, but now we could notice just how much of the sky it covered. At first we theorized that it would be a forest fire, which would be dangerous for us, but we would probably still be able to get back to the town in time, however, after thinking about it for a moment, we realized that the source of the smoke was the town itself, and so, without even a second thought, we sprinted back there.

The route we had taken was quite long, so it would usually take us quite some time to get back, however, since this wasn't the first time we had to get back quickly, we already had multiple shortcuts back home, so while it took us a couple hours to get to our spot, we were down in maybe 40 minutes, however, at no moment did the worry died down.

As we got closer and closer, the smoke just got worse and worse, until we finally arrived. Before we even got in, we could already see just how destroyed it was. A lot of buildings were either destroyed or burning up, and there were a lot of people trying to run away for their lives.

We were confused by all of this, so we stopped Mr. Mise, as he tried to get away from the fire and then asked to him. "Sir, what's happening?" And after he managed to catch up with us, he said.

"I don't know. One second nothing's happening, but the next, there's a ruckus outside and everything's destroyed." It was hard to understand, but we could probably ask more people once things died down, so we decided to get away for the time being.

Since the three of us knew the mountains the best, we tried to guide as much people as we could to a safe spot in the skirts of the mountains, however, as more and more people arrived, I couldn't find my mom anywhere.

As angry as I was, I didn't want anything to happen to her, so not seeing her out there, just made my heart sink. "Has anyone seen my mom?! Please Tell Me!!!" I exclaimed once pretty much everyone was reunited, and while no one could give a proper answer, they all agreed that they didn't see her coming out of the fire, meaning that she most likely stayed behind.

I instantly ran back in, soon followed by my two friends, and while at first I believed they would stop me, I think they already knew it was futile to try and stop me, so they instead helped me find her.

Even though it was obviously hard, due to all the fire and rubble that fell all around, none of us stopped looking for my mom, however, no matter how hard we looked, she was nowhere to be found. "Shojo. We've already been looking for too long, and we simply can't find her. I think we should go back and search once the fire dies down." Exclaimed Wakai, however, I didn't want to listen, so I exclaimed back.

"No! It might be too late by then!!!" And then ran to a different area to continue my search. We kept looking and digging around for anywhere where my mom could be under, but as we turned one specific corner, we saw something that made a shiver run down our spines, and immediately stop with some fear.

We don't know how, but there were three people out in the fire, and instead of running, screaming, or doing anything sensical in this situation, they were simply chatting between them. "What are the hell are they doing?" Whispered Kodo, to which none of us knew what to reply, however, before we even had a chance to do so, something grabbed me by the arms, and threw me all the way with those three.

As I landed infront of them, I could only stare in disbelief and fear, while also being extremely confused by what just happened. "Hey guys, look what I found!" I heard someone exclaim, and as I turned to look at what it was, I saw a winged man landing beside the other three, and while none of them had any outstanding characteristics, all of their eyes were pitch dark, with multiple cracks along their faces.

I tried to get away from there, but my legs simply wouldn't work, and I just laid there. The three of them seemed to inspect me, until one of them said. "Should we just kill her an get this over with?" And just hearing that one say that they were planning on killing me, made my blood freeze even more.

One other seemed to think about it for a second, before happily exclaiming. "I say we better enjoy her. Torturing can be fun!" But this seemed to trigger the third one, as he said.

"Don't be stupid. We can't waste our time with her. There's still that Demon Slayer somewhere around here that we gotta take care of." By this point it was getting confusing, though not less scary. The three of them seemed to start arguing about how to kill me, however, then the winged one said.

"Oh, wait guys!" And then flew off towards the spot where Kodo and Wakai were hiding and brough them out with us. I was more scared now, as I didn't want them to suffer, especially since it would be mostly my fault, however, right now I couldn't think about it that much.

Now that they could see the three of us, they all started talking between them, and I think one of them said something about us reminding him of them, but right now, it wasn't time to think about them. I was already feeling tired and dehydrated from all the fire and heat, and it was easy to assume that Kodo and Wakai were as well.

I turned to look at them, as to see how were they holding up, and it was surprising to see that they seemed to have something planned. Kodo had a very big rock on his hand, while Wakai gathered some dust for himself. This was enough for me to get the idea, so I got some dirt and rocks, and prepared.

It still took a couple of seconds for all four of them to look at us, and once they did, the three of us threw what we had in our hands to them, and with that second of distraction we had, we ran away from there.

At first, it seemed to work pretty well for us. By the time we crossed the first corner they still seemed to have some trouble with all the dust in their eyes, and as I turned to look back after that, I didn't see them trying to catch up, so I knew we had a pretty good head start, or at least I believed that until Kodo screamed. "Augh!" With a tone filled with pain.

I immediately turned to look at him to see what was wrong, and I was utterly shocked to see him impaled by one of those four guys, as all of them stood infront of us. I was confused, as not only had I not seen them catch up to us, but I didn't hear them as well, or noticed any other signal that they had come, so I couldn't understand how had they arrived so quickly.

More important than that, I was simply horrified by seeing Kodo impaled, and I wanted to help somehow, but the sheer horror and fear that this four emanated was enough to paralyze me, and just stare in disbelief.

After a couple seconds, the one that had impaled Kodo let him down, and then said. "How annoying. Let's just kill them already." However, the unamused tone he used made my blood boil, as he had impaled my friend, and he simply labeled it as being annoying, and I couldn't forgive him.

This anger seemed to push the fear away from me, as I found a little piece of metal, that had probably fallen from a nearby building, and then ran at him, screaming with anger. My objective was the neck of the one that impaled Kodo, but before I got to him, I was stopped by one that had some leaf thing as weapon, who said. "Oh, slow down a bit girl." However, I was simply too angry, so I tried kick him and get away, but even though I used all my strength, he didn't even flinch at it.

This was starting to get more and more scary, as I realized just how strong this four guys were, and I wondered what they wanted from our little town. The one that was stopping me from moving chuckled a bit at my kick, and he said to the rest. "You know guys, I like this girl. Hey, why don't we transform them into Demons? They have the spirit, and they surely remember me of us." The winged seemed excited, as he nodded frantically. The one with the lance that impaled Kodo seemed kind of annoyed, yet didn't say nothing, and lastly, the one with a scepter, that also seemed to be the leader, said.

"Whatever. Let's just get done with them." And with, they all seemed to agree on something. Starting off, the one that captured me suddenly thrusted his fist into my stomach, piercing it, but not all the way through. Then the one with the lance kneeled besides Kodo, and then introduced his fist in the area opened by his last, and finally, the winged one went towards Wakai, and while he was too scared to even do anything, the 'Demon' stabbed him with his claws.

I was confused, but I also didn't have time to think, so I instantly tried to get out of his grasp, however, as I tried to do so, I could feel his hand pulsating, as something entered me. Rather than wondering what it was, I simply got scared and tried even harder to get away, but his hand was simply too strong.

I didn't know what was he pouring into me, but whatever it was, it was starting to hurt, and I almost fell unconscious from it. By this point, the one holding me threw me away, just besides Wakai, and shortly after, they threw Kodo with us as well. "We'll see if he accepts you. If he doesn't, oh well, your loss." Said the one with the leaf, while also letting out a laugh, and then the four of them left us there to die.

I just snarled at them as they left, and then instantly turned to my friends. "Hey, guys, how you holding up?" Kodo only let out a grumble, as he was having the most trouble due to his bigger injury, while Wakai said.

"What, ugh...What do you think?..." And then finished with a light chuckle, which I tried to return. It was nice to see that he didn't lose all of his sense of humor, however, it was obvious that it was mostly due to the fear of the situation, something that I totally understood.

Just as I tried to laugh with him, a spurge of pain went through me, and stopped me from doing so. The three of us got closer, and as we also tried to hug each other, I said. "S-Sorry guys...This is my fault. I never...I never should've b-brought us here..." And by this point I couldn't stop my tears from coming out.

I was feeling horrible from bringing them here, however, the two of them got just by my side, and hugged me tightly, and while Kodo could barely let out some grunts, Wakai said. "Don't...Apologize Shojo...We would never want you to come here alone..." Then, as I returned the embrace to them, and just before falling unconscious, Wakai finished with.

"W-We are friends...until the end..."

Chapter End

U.A Side Stories

The reason as to why Hantengu was separated into his multiple selves was because he had recently fought a group of other Demon Slayers, including a candidate to Hashira, however, none of them were able to keep up with Hantengu, so a couple of them tried to flee, leading him to the town.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you're having a wonderful time with your families and loved ones. I apologize for last week, so here's your new chapter. I hope you enjoyed this bit of backstory and would like to read your opinions.

Not much else to say this week, so please leave your feedback and comments in general down below.

See you on New Year, SET YOUR HEART ABLAZE!!!