The Legend of Mr. Hanakaba

Chapter 1 - Mr. Hanakaba

Tanjiro entered. There was a faint noise of metal clanking that grew louder with every step he took; a noise that rang through to the ceiling and filled the room around him.

It was dark and he couldn't help but wonder who this could be. He'd heard so many things about this sword smith and while this man was renowned by everybody there, there was always a strange vagueness when people spoke about him; like nobody really knew who he was.

The noise grew louder and it began ringing through tanjiros ears. Somehow...
this noise was unpleasant.

When the other sword-smiths honed their blades, there was a certain lightness to the sounds. They combined and overlapped with each other in a way that displayed an unspoken camaraderie among all of them; like it was a language that only they understood, but this noise , coming from the top of this desolate hill , was lonely, and rang through in such a way that was disquieting.

Tanjiro stopped.

The corners of the room was dark, but the center was faintly lit by a dim candle.

It had a sort of grimey yet dignified feel to it. Here it stood, centuries old and nearly abandoned, but still somehow completely intact.
Tanjiro froze. There was a vague, distant sihouette that he could barely make out in the dark. An unnerving feeling ran through his chest. Realizing it was just a person, he sighed, relieved. A moment passed and he spoke.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Hana-"

The silhouette continued clanking the metal, and sharpened the blade even in Tanjiro's presence.

"I feel like I'm ... interrupting...", Tanjiro thought.

There was a certain tenacity to the sword smith's strikes that seemed almost inhumane. The staggering speed and strength of the strikes he used to flatten out the metal was almost as powerful as the eventual strikes of the blade itself.
The silhouette stopped abruptly, shooting up from his crouched up stance ,and turned around to face Tanjiro.

Its face was covered with a mask and loose cloth which was dangled atop a tenkan hat.
The silhouette turn its body fully to face Tanjiro, as if to ask what Tanjiro was there for.

Tanjiro snapped back to reality and realized that he had just been staring in a haze at the sihouette.
Almost embarrassed that he didn't speak up again after being interrupted by the metal clanking, he finally spoke.

"Oh! Uhhh... Pardon my interruption. My name is Tanjiro Kamado."

Tanjiro still could not see his face, or even make out any detail on him.
But the figure stood up to face him. His stance was powerful and commanding.

"...I already know ... who you are..."

"What? Why... does he...?"
Tanjiro cut off his own thought to respond.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I hadn't realized."
There was another unsettling pause.

"Er... I presume you're Mr. Hanakaba? Is that right?"

"Yes, that is correct.", he responsed.

The man had a pungent scent. It was a sweetish scent. It didn't seem natural though. It was definitely from a fragrance of some sort.
The scent irritated Tanjiro's nose as it overwhelmed the entire room. The air felt thicker because of it and the scent began stinging the passageway all the way from his nose through to his lungs.

"I knew ... that they were sending a demon slayer my way. You must be the boy who's visiting— the one haganezuka no longer wants to swordmith for."

"Oh- eh heh-I hope that's not what I'm know for around here...", Tanjiro thought sheepishly.