Chapter 1: The Death of the Twin-Petaled Flower, the Voice in My Mind
"Sis—!"
By the time Shinobu Kocho arrived, what she saw was the girl lying miserably in a pool of blood.
Staggering forward, she rushed to the girl's side and collapsed to her knees. Trembling, she pulled the girl into her arms.
The girl in her embrace was terribly cold, sticky blood still pouring out without end. Shinobu desperately tried to tear off her clothes to press against the wound.
But it was all futile…
The girl named Kanae Kocho slowly opened her eyes with great difficulty. Those beautiful eyes had already dimmed somewhat.
"Shinobu… leave… the Demon Slayer Corps…"
"No, no! Sister, Sister, don't die, please don't die—!" Shinobu's voice turned hoarse, like metal scraping against metal.
"Listen to me… Shinobu… Shinobu…" Kanae struggled to put her words together, weak breaths spilling out between each sentence. "Shinobu… leave the Demon Slayer Corps…"
Her voice came in broken fragments.
"Let go of… revenge… Shinobu… Shinobu, can you hear me…?"
"Sister, Sister, stop talking! Someone, someone save her—"
The blood from the wound quickly soaked the cloth in Shinobu's hands until it turned blackish red.
That thick, sticky feeling made it hard for Shinobu to even breathe…
"Shinobu… I only hope that you can live like an ordinary girl… find happiness… and then grow old like a grandmother… if you can do that, it will be enough…"
Tears as large as beans fell down. Shinobu bit her lip.
"No, no—what kind of demon was it? What kind of demon killed you?!"
Even though the light in them was fading, Kanae's pale violet eyes were still as gentle as ever.
She quietly looked at Shinobu. Blood spilled from the corner of her slightly curved lips…
A deep sense of despair and helplessness surged through Shinobu's heart. Almost pleading, she asked in a broken voice,
"Please… Sister, please tell me…"
Kanae slowly closed her eyes. In the end, she still could not ignore Shinobu's plea.
"That demon… it looked as if blood had been poured over its head… it smiled so innocently… its weapon was a… fan…"
As Kanae's breathing gradually faded away, Shinobu's pupils widened.
An overwhelming despair—
A pain like her heart had stopped—
A suffocating terror and helplessness—
"Sister—!"
—
In the pitch-black stillness of the deep night, Shinobu Kocho slowly opened her eyes.
Chirp—chirp—
The cries of summer cicadas went on and on without pause.
Shinobu sat up, and the thin blanket covering her slipped down.
"I dreamed about it again…"
—
"It hurts—!"
Nanaha jolted awake. An intense pain shot through his chest.
He remembered it clearly—
He had been attacked, and a knife had been stabbed straight into his chest!
It had happened simply because he was a fairly handsome small-time internet celebrity. An obsessive stalker fan had followed him, and in the end, that person had acted on the twisted belief that if they couldn't have him, they would destroy him.
When he went to the supermarket, the knife had plunged directly into his chest.
He yanked open his shirt and saw that there was only a deep scar left on his chest.
"I didn't die?!"
A stunned expression appeared on Nanaha's face.
He distinctly remembered that the knife had almost pierced straight through his chest. At the time, he had not even been able to make a sound. So how—
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not understand. His chest still throbbed faintly with pain, making his brows knit tightly. It took him quite a while before he finally recovered a little.
"Come to think of it, where am I—"
Only then did Nanaha notice that he was in a completely unfamiliar place.
Trees were everywhere around him. How had he ended up in a forest?
"Where… am I?"
Being in such an unfamiliar environment filled Nanaha with extreme unease.
"Ah, my head!"
At that moment, Nanaha suddenly clutched his head and fell to the ground in agony, curling into a ball.
It felt as though a heavy hammer had smashed straight into his skull. He slammed his head against the ground with all his strength, as if doing so might somehow ease the pain.
Then, a flood of memories that did not belong to him rushed into his mind.
"Demons…"
"Flower Breathing…"
"This… ah!"
He had no idea how long the pain lasted. By the time it finally stopped, Nanaha's entire back had been drenched in sweat.
"What was that just now?!"
Nanaha panted heavily.
"Why are things from Demon Slayer appearing in my head? And those sword forms, those breathing techniques…"
He felt utterly incredulous. Those memories from just now were unbelievably clear in his mind, as if… they had originally belonged to him.
"Huh? Huh? Huh?! Why… am I inside a boy's body?!"
A shocked female voice suddenly rang out inside his mind.
It startled Nanaha so badly that he jumped.
"Who's there?!"
—
To explain what happened, we have to go back a little.
Kanae had already died long ago. Her body had been buried, yet her soul had never managed to find the road to reincarnation.
Because she was worried about Shinobu, she had remained by her side for all these years.
Watching her beloved little sister, little Shinobu, grow stronger little by little, Kanae saw that Shinobu had combined Flower Breathing with the experience of her seniors and actually created a new branch from it—
Insect Breathing.
Flower Breathing was a branch style derived from Water Breathing, while Insect Breathing was a branch of Flower Breathing, a further branch extending from Water Breathing.
Kanae sincerely felt happy for her.
But at the same time, her worries deepened.
Especially after Shinobu became a Hashira and obtained the title of Insect Hashira, that worry only grew stronger.
Because becoming stronger meant that the chance of encountering that demon would become even greater…
But Kanae was already dead, and could only watch helplessly as everything continued to move forward.
Until one day, a huge ring of light appeared before her eyes.
"So… it's finally time for me to leave?"
Kanae looked calm.
"I've stayed in this world for so long already. It's time for me to go. It's just that… I still can't bear to leave little Shinobu… and Kanao too… I want so badly to keep watching over them…"
She did not get to finish her final words. Kanae let out a soft sigh.
"It's time to go… I just hope they can both live well…"
Kanae's soul entered that ring of light—
And when she awoke from the void, she found herself inside a boy's body!
That was everything that had happened.
Nanaha's eyes widened.
He was absolutely certain that the voice just now had spoken directly inside his brain.
It was not an illusion!
There really was a girl speaking inside his mind, and—
Why did he suddenly feel a strange swelling in his chest?!
Two slightly raised little bumps…
"Nooooo—!"
A high-pitched voice that sounded somewhere between male and female echoed through the forest.