"Grandpa Murata! Grandpa Murata!"
A flurry of footsteps echoed from outside the courtyard, mingling with the crisp sound of wooden clogs striking the ground. A group of sweaty children rushed in, the chubby boy at the front brandishing a tree branch—his "sword."
"Oh, it's Kenta. What, here for another story?" Murata smiled, sitting up straight and offering them a watermelon.
"We want to hear it!" Kenta shouted, his mouth stuffed full of watermelon. "The story of 'Underwater Breathing'! And that stubborn older brother, and that sleepy blond older brother!"
Murata stopped, his gaze involuntarily drifting to a corner of the room. There sat a dusty wooden box, inside which were locked my broken Nichirin Blade and a faded black team uniform. The word "Destruction" on the back of the uniform was probably blurred beyond recognition.
"That's not an interesting story..." Murata muttered to himself, his eyes thoughtful.
The children sat around the table, watching Murata with anticipation. Their knees were covered in mud, "medals" from their work catching rhinoceros beetles in the fields. They knew nothing of demons, nor the despair of struggling for survival. They only knew that they had to go home for dinner after sunset, or their mother would scold them.
That was good.
"Ahem," Murata cleared his throat, deliberately smoothing his still-smooth—though now streaked with gray—middle-parted hair. "That was in the Taisho era, before trains were as convenient as they are now, before pop songs on the radio..."
"Back then, the night belonged to 'them'."
Murata began to tell his story. He recounted the horrors of Mount Natagumo, the tragic massacre of countless companions. But Murata didn't describe it too goryly; he simply told them that they were a group of fools, so weak, so terrified, that their legs trembled—just as they had back then—yet they still gripped their knives tightly.
"Is Grandpa Murata a hero too?" the little girl asked, blinking her big eyes. I smiled wryly and waved my hand, gently tapping her head with my fan. "Grandpa, Grandpa was just lucky. True heroes are those who don't even leave their names, yet burn brightly before dawn."
Tanjiro's eternally clear red eyes flashed through my mind; Zenitsu's figure, weeping but never running away; and Inosuke's brute strength, even when severely wounded, still charging forward.
And the Pillars… Kyojuro Rengoku's fiery smile, and Kocho-kun's gentle sorrow.
"And then? Is the Demon King dead?" Kenta asked eagerly.
"Dead." Murata gazed at the distant mountains, the place of our final battle, now covered in lush vegetation. "As the sun rose, all the nightmares vanished in the sunlight. We hugged each other tightly, crying and shouting… At that moment, I thought, if I survive, I want to find a quiet place, grow some vegetables, get married, have children, and live a peaceful life."
"So Grandpa is growing vegetables now?"
"Yes." Murata said with a smile, his eyes brimming with tears. "Thanks to them, Grandpa can be here telling you stories. You can be like this now, without worrying about being captured by monsters at night, you can catch rhinoceros beetles, you can fish in the stream."
A gentle breeze blew, and the wind chimes under the eaves tinkled crisply.
The sound was like the unique tranquility of the Butterfly House back then, like the first birdsong of the morning after the final battle.
In fact, in the decades after that great war, the world underwent tremendous changes. Wars broke out one after another, houses collapsed and were rebuilt. Humans were sometimes more terrifying than demons, but also more resilient. The Demon Slayer Corps disbanded, and everyone went into hiding. The Ubuyashiki family divided their remaining assets among family members. I took the money and returned to the countryside.
"Alright, alright, the story's over!" Murata clapped his hands, snapping out of his reverie. "The sun's about to set. If you don't go back soon, your mother really will turn into a 'demon' and crawl back!"
The children laughed and scattered, the setting sun casting long shadows.
Murata stood up, stretched his stiff back, and turned to walk into the dimly lit inner room. He opened the wooden box, his fingertips gently tracing the broken Nichirin Blade. Though the blade was heavily rusted, one could still faintly feel the blacksmith's dedication.
"Is everyone alright…"
Murata whispered his farewell to those who were no longer there.