"Your nonsense is endless."
"Splurt—"
Roy appeared without warning and drove a knife-hand strike straight through Doihara's skull. He flicked his hand, letting brain matter splatter the floor, then turned a cold gaze on Tanjiro. "Do you know what you were doing?"
"I… know…"
"If you know, why didn't you act?"
"I… I don't know…" Tanjiro mumbled, not daring to meet Roy's eyes.
Roy simply drew the hatchet and set the edge against Tanjiro's neck. The blade kissed his carotid—five millimeters more and it would slice skin and vessel alike.
"Don't know? Great…" Roy let out a furious laugh.
"In that case,
"rather than wait for a demon to eat you next time…
"I might as well kill you now. At least this way—
"I can leave you a whole body."
Pity a demon? Who do you think you are?
In the original, Tanjiro's hesitation nearly made Urokodaki abandon him. Right now Roy had to admit Doihara's one line had been spot-on—
a bleeding-heart fool is just begging to have a blade at his throat.
"I… I just thought he was a little pitiful…"
"And that peddler in the hall with his guts torn out—was he not pitiful?
"All the people he's eaten over the years—were they not pitiful?"
Anger surged. Roy snapped his wrist and backhanded the hatchet across Tanjiro's face.
"Bang—" The blow hurled Tanjiro ten meters; he only stopped when he slammed into a tree and slid down the trunk.
"Remember this: if there's a next time—if the demon doesn't kill you, I will."
He hooked the hatchet back at his waist, shouldered the basket, and walked into the shrine. A tiny oil lamp painted his receding back with a ring of warm orange.
Tanjiro sprawled with his legs splayed, slumped against the tree. His right cheek had ballooned like a pig's head, and he barely felt it—just stared blankly at Roy's back.
When he was small, Father had taught him to keep a kind heart, to lend a hand when he could. But today… he'd used that kindness in the wrong place.
A demon is a demon, a human is a human. Prey pitying the hunter is asking to die.
Without its brain, Doihara's body crumbled to ash. The snowfall thickened, faster and heavier.
After a long while, Tanjiro's mind drifted back. Heat flared in his cheek. Thanks to the Zoldyck-style training Roy had endured since childhood, he knew how to strike: even on his first try, his form was solid—skin wounded, bones spared.
So Tanjiro looked miserable but was fine. He could still get up, kneel in the snow, and shout toward the shrine that he knew he was wrong.
He was still young—malleable. If it had been an adult, Roy would've killed him without a word to avoid being dragged down.
He didn't even look back. "Need me to come carry you?
"Roll yourself inside."
He set down the basket, found a broom by the door, and started cleaning up the corpse and blood.
Granted "amnesty," Tanjiro exhaled and hurried to his side, snatching the broom. "Let me, Niisan. You rest."
"Don't worry, I'll get this shrine spotless. Not a trace of blood smell left."
Roy trusted that dog nose. Since Tanjiro asked, he let him prove himself.
Until—
The boy went behind the statue and found a mound of bones stacked like a small hill.
Only then did he truly wake up to why Roy hadn't given Doihara even the smallest chance.
These demons—every last one of them—deserved to die.
"And I actually believed that bastard's sob story…"
Tanjiro's face went ashen. If he could, he'd go back a few minutes and slap himself for his misplaced compassion.
But time doesn't flow backward, just as these bones would never live again.
Roy had already seen it with [Gyo]. He said nothing; his heart felt like the moon veiled by clouds—heavy with shadow.
The Zoldycks killed too. Grandpa Zeno even did "one kill a day," far more than Doihara. But whether it was Zeno, Silva, or that old man Roy had never seen strike, they always gave targets a clean end—no pain.
This pile of bones was different.
He could barely imagine the pain and despair of being eaten alive.
Wearing the earrings that symbolized sun and mountains, Roy stood a moment longer. Then he moved. Passing the basket, he drew out the hoe, turned his back, and walked out into the snow.
Father had noticed the hoe was dull and told him to find a grinder in town—seemed it would finally see use.
Hearing footsteps, Tanjiro turned and saw the hoe on Roy's shoulder. He understood and silently followed with the oil lamp.
They circled around and found a patch of open ground behind the shrine where it met the mountain. Under wind and snow they dug a hole; before long they carried out the bones and laid them to rest.
The flakes were now as big as goose feathers.
By the lamp's dim glow, Tanjiro murmured, "Fire God, please bless these poor souls. Grant them peace and a swift rebirth…"
When Roy patted down the last spade of earth, Tanjiro stopped and asked softly, "Niisan, shall we go back in?"
Roy leaned on the hoe, standing in the storm, silent before the grave.
In the place Tanjiro couldn't perceive, a milky sheen of Nen filmed his eyes…
Shut out, Tanjiro assumed Roy was still angry and kept quiet—
Until a milky mass of energy drifted up from the mound. Roy faced the grave and cupped his hands. "Forgive this clumsy first meeting…
"I am Kamado Eijiro. May I have your name?"
"Your humble servant is Minamino Hirochi, of Kouchida Village at the foot of Mount Sagiri. My thanks for your vengeance, Lord Eijiro."
A chill gust kicked up snow into Tanjiro's face. He rubbed his eyes, baffled, and looked over.
Roy brushed his brow, used his body as a medium, and passed a layer of aura into those amber eyes—
Only then did the foolish little brother notice: right by his feet, a blurry human silhouette was prostrating toward Roy in a full dogeza, bowing five points to the ground.
"Isn't… isn't that the uncle who had his guts torn out in the shrine?"
Tanjiro yelped.
Yes—the very man the demon had eaten.
He was appearing for the first time in Roy's life—
as post-mortem Nen.