The cheerful morning sun was a liar.
It illuminated the horror in stark, unforgiving detail. The splintered wood, the dark stains soaking into the earth, the terrible, final shapes. Tsuruji's eyes tracked over it all, his breathing now even. The initial, frantic energy was gone, replaced by a cold, deep stillness.
He moved through the courtyard again, but this time with purpose. He did not look at their faces. He looked for canvas tarps from the forge, finding them clean and folded in a storage shed. He began the work. He covered his father first, then his mother. He was methodical, a machine performing a function. The tarps were not large enough to fully cover the forms, and the sight of a hand protruding from beneath the coarse fabric was more haunting than the initial carnage.
He had just finished when a voice, rough with age and shock, cut through the silence.
"By all the gods… Tsuruji?"
At the broken gate stood an old man, leaning heavily on a gnarled staff. His name was Jin, and his presence was as much a part of this place as the forge. He was a former fixture of the Corps, a retired warrior who had found solace with the Hatake family. His eyes, wide with horror, scanned the scene before locking onto the boy.
"What… what happened?" Jin's voice was a rasp.
Tsuruji turned. There was no relief in his expression, no tears welling up. "Demons," he said. The word was flat, devoid of emotion, a simple statement of fact.
Jin staggered forward, his gaze falling on the blackened smear on the oak tree, the heavy chain still wrapped around its trunk. His eyes widened further as he pieced it together. "You… you fought it? You survived?"
"It was slow. Hungry. Not smart." Tsuruji's reply was clinical. He looked from Jin back to the covered shapes. "They are all gone."
Jin's face crumpled, a wave of grief hitting him. He looked at the boy, truly looked at him. The ash-pale hair, the dead-fish eyes that held no spark, the absolute stillness where there should have been screaming, crying, anything. The void in Tsuruji's gaze was more terrifying than the scene around them.
"Boy…" Jin began, his voice thick.
Tsuruji interrupted him, his tone never changing. "They are gone because we were weak." He took a step toward the old man, his empty eyes boring into Jin's. "You were a Hashira. You know how to kill them. All of them."
Jin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mountain air. This wasn't a plea. It was a demand.
"Tsuruji, the power I wield… it's not—"
"Teach me," Tsuruji said, cutting him off again. The words were absolute. There was no room for refusal. "Teach me the way to eradicate them. Every last one."
He wasn't asking for strength to avenge his family. He wasn't seeking power to protect others. The vow he spoke into the quiet, sunlit air was one of pure, simple annihilation.
"Teach me how to kill them all."