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it took a minute or two for her to comprehend everything, before rage began to blossom from the pit of her stomach. she was absolutely livid.
'what kind of morbid joy does this fucking demon get from emotional torment?'
she got up, quickly noticing 3 things.
1. she was gripping the arm of some random guy who had a rope linked to her, and it looked like she'd snapped it in her slumber.
2. rengoku was choking a little girl.
3. some random kid was screaming shit at tanjiro, who was also the only other person awake in the room at the moment.
"DON'T INTERFERE! WE WON'T BE ABLE TO GET OUR DREAMS BECAUSE OF YOU GUYS!" she screamed, waving her needle-like weapon around.
it was slowly clicking for kazemi.
'dreams... were they promised some type of eternal false reality of bliss if they did the demon's bidding?'
her eyes sharpened.
'if so... human or not, they're enemies.'
she unsheathed her sword, before appearing behind the girl, knocking her out with the tsuba of her blade. her body fell to the floor, a dull thump sounding.
tanjiro stood there in shock. he was obviously taking a while to process what occurred. kazemi didn't really have time to snap him out of it, since 3 others had gotten up, carrying similar weapons. they circled around her and tanjiro, glaring.
"hey!" one of them gestured to a sickly boy, sitting alone in one of the rows. another was nudging the body of the person linked to kazemi beforehand. his arm was swollen and purple, snapped in an awkward position. it was a bit discomforting to look at. "both of you, get the hell up! do you want your dreams!?"
the sickly boy merely ignored them, and the other one, well, looked to be in some type of panic attack, clutching his throat and heaving.
everyone was ignoring the girl getting choked by rengoku, for no apparent reason.
kazemi was getting a little annoyed. with minimal effort, she shoved them all to the ground. they fell like dominoes. if the circumstances they were in were different, she would've laughed.
tanjiro just watched, absolutely astonished. she was knocking those kids down like they were nothing, not even trying to listen to their reasoning.
they laid there, writhing on the floor.
"kazemi... maybe don't be so-" tanjiro got cut off.
"hiding in a fake dream is stupid. i couldn't give two flying fucks about a sad little sob story where you bawl over your lost loved ones. either suck it up, and face reality, or i can behead you in order for you to really reunite with them."
tanjiro wanted to say something, but chose not to. despite the vulgar words used, what she said wasn't a lie. living in a fake reality to escape your problems was selfish, in a way.
the sickly boy slowly got up, walking to tanjiro with a smile.
"good luck out there." he said quietly.
tanjiro quickly gathered his inner turmoil up. now wasn't the time for that. he instead smiled back at the boy, before turning to the spaced out kazemi and nezuko.
"kazemi, please protect the train cars the best you can, in case the demon appears. i can smell that it's very strong!"
'i'm not a mizunoto like you. shut the hell up.' she thought to herself. but, in the end, she just nodded.
tanjiro opened the doors to the train car, the rustling winds immediately pushing him back a foot or two. he turned to nezuko, advising her to stay inside with kazemi.
knowing he trusted her with someone valuable like his sister did make her feel a bit happy, but she didn't let it show. tanjiro then shut the door to the car, and kazemi immediately used some of the excess rope from everyone's wrists to tie the knocked out kids up. even the sick guy. she couldn't take any chances. just because he didn't seem hostile, didn't mean he wasn't.
frome above, she sensed a demon. but, it did seem weak. she hoped tanjiro was at least strong enough to kill something that measly without her needing to intervene.
as she stood there, nezuko was burning everyone with her pink fire to wake them up.
suddenly, the car began to feel... suffocating. like how it smelled right before a heavy rain.
in seconds, odd, fleshy tendrils protruded out the walls, going for the passengers, and anything else they could scavenge.
