Upper Moons Convene

Obanai stood over Uzui and the unconscious Hiroto as he looked down at them. "Hmmm, I see. Hmm. Six. The weakest Upper Moon." Obanai said in a rather condescending tone.

"The Six thing aside, you beat an Upper Moon. We should actually be celebrating. The Six thing aside. I should praise you or something." Obanai looked down at Uzui.

Uzui responded in a tired tone, "No, I don't really need your praise…"

"That's right!!" Suma shouted.

"You're pretty late," Makio said.

"Y-Y-You're so late! Were you actually coming?! You're so late!!" Suma shouted at him.

"Hisss" the snake of Obanai's shoulder hissed at them.

"Gyaaaaahhh!!" Suma reacted and backed off, lunging onto Uzui.

"Ow ow ow ow ow." Uzui kept muttering over and over. His face was bandaged as well as various parts of his body.

Pointing at Uzui, Obanai continued talking. "What were you thinking, getting yourself beat up that much? Even if this was just a fight against Upper Moon Six, at best. At Least it won't take you forever to recover. So you better not slack off and get back to what you were doing before."

*sigh* "Yea yea. I was thinking of retiring, man. But since I came out of this better than I thought, I doubt I can come up with an excuse to retire now." Uzui said wearily.

"Screw retiring, I wouldn't have allowed you to anyways. Right now, too many youngsters are dying off without showing any signs of growth. Look at what happened to Rengoku, he's lost an arm and yet he's still maintaining his position. Having you in the shape you're in is a lot better than losing you. Fight to the death." Obanai refuted him.

"Hahaha. You're wrong about one thing. The young ones are definitely growing." Looking towards Hiroto who was bandaged up by the Kakushi, he continued.

"I wasn't the one that killed the Upper Moon Demon. The boy you absolutely despise was the one who did. Plus, the other one is also growing." Uzui said with a grin, looking up at Obanai.

Obanai paused, with his eyes widened as he talked through the wrapping around the bottom half of his face.

"Whoa, you're kidding. He was the one that killed the Upper Moon? This Upper Moon? Kamado Hiroto?" Obanai said, looking down at Hiroto.

----

At the Ubuyashiki household.

*cough cough* "I see. They did it. They beat an Upper Moon… amazing job, Tengen, Hiroto, Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, Inosuke." Kagaya said as he coughed out blood onto the tatami mats as his wife tends to him.

"Kagaya-Sama!" The concerned voice of his wife came.

"Caww, Caww!" The crows in front of him cawed out in concern.

"A hundred years!! A situation which hasn't changed for a hundred years has now changed! This is an omen! Fate is starting to change in a big way, do you understand this, Amane." Kagaya said, getting excited as his wife, Amane, wipes the blood from his mouth.

"Kibutsuji Muzan. We will definitely defeat you within our generation. You are the single blemish on our entire family!!" *cough cough* *hack!!*

As Kagaya went into his coughing fit, his children and wife got worried and started to tend to him.

----

The Dimensional Infinity Fortress

Akaza stood within the Dimensional Infinity Fortress, with various parts that seemed to be parts inside of a building flipped on its sides, upside down or slanted angles. One truly would not know which way was up, down, or if there is a sense of direction at all, once stepped inside here.

Akaza was in his usual get up, however, he was missing his left arm which Hiroto cut off and was unable to grow back.

*twang* The sounds of a biwa played out, as a pale woman with a grayish complexion was kneeled and holding the biwa in her hands. Each time she struck a cord, the walls, floors, and ceiling of the fortress shift around as they assimilate with one another. Her long bangs covered her face, as she sat on a perch and not uttering a single word.

At that moment, a pot seemed to have appeared and was shaking around. "Hyo!" A voice came out from it.

"Well, well. Akaza-Sama!" A pale white, abstracted, grotesque humanoid figure with an upper torso that has no arms and resembles that of an armless statue started to grow out of the porcelain pot. Multiple infant-like hands line his back, with his face being even more distorted as large green mouths displace the position of where one would expect eyes, and his actual eyes are located vertically from one another, one appearing in the mouth and the other in the center of his forehead.

"Dear me, you seem to be quite agitated, I wonder what has happened to your arm after not having seen you for ninety years." The grotesque figure said, with tongues sticking out of his eye sockets. This was Upper Moon Five: Gyokko.

"My, the mere possibility of you dying made my heart leap with jo- cough cough! Made my heart cringe with pain, especially the loss of your arm, Hyo Hyo!" Gyokko said.

"This is quite terrifying." A Demon with a big lump in the center of his forehead and horns on either side of it said as he hid behind the rails of some stairs, shivering. This was Upper Moon Four, Hantengu.

"Gyokko has forgotten how to count during our long absence. We haven't been called here for a hundred and thirteen years. An indivisible number…. An unlucky number. An Odd number!! Terrifying indeed…" Hantengu muttered in fear.

Akaza ignored him and looked up at the woman carrying the biwa in her hands. "Biwa woman. Has Muzan-Sama arrived yet?"

*twang* "He has not arrived yet." Her cold voice came, short and decisive.

"Then where's Upper Moon One? There's no way he'd get killed. That's why we got called here right?" Akaza continued.

"Hold up, Hold up! Hold on a minute- Akaza-Dono." A man's cheerful voice came from behind Akaza, as he put his hand on Akaza's shoulder.

"Look at you, what happened to your poor arm? I was super worried after hearing what happened to you!" The man's face leaned over Akaza's shoulder. He took on the appearance of a young man with a moderately toned and muscular body, who is of a notably pale complexion and possessed unusually long, pointed nails that appeared to be stained a pale blue. His hair appeared golden blond in color, where it parted to his left and the shorter parts seem to flare around the side of his head.

This was Upper Moon Two: Douma

"You're my precious buddies, tell me who did this to you and just let me take care of it. I don't want aaaaanyone here to wane out now." Douma said cheerfully, however his voice seemed to contain a hidden meaning behind them.

"Hyo! Douma-Dono…" Gyokko greeted.

"Hey hey, long time no see, Gyokko. Is that a new pot? It's pretty. The pot you gave me is in my room. I planted a girl's severed head in it for decoration." Douma said with a bright smile.

"You can't grow severed heads… but I like the idea." Gyokko replied.

"I know. You should come and visit next time!" Douma said.

"Move it." Akaza's annoyed voice came abruptly from the side.

"Hm?" Douma replied, still looking at Gyokko.

"Move your arm," Akaza said, then twisting his body to the side and punching towards Douma's face with his right arm, caving his face in. *POW*

"Eeeep!" The cowardly Hantengu cried out.

"Whoaa," Douma said, staggering backwards, as his face started to regenerate back in mere seconds. "Hmm, nice punch there! Although you lost your left arm, it seems you did get a little stronger since we last met, right? Akaza-Dono?"

Akaza grew more annoyed at the mention of losing his arm and having to listen to Douma's constant babble.

"Upper Moon One was the first to arrive. He has been here this whole time." The woman with the biwa said.

Looking up in shock, Akaza then saw a room appear and kneeling there was a man with spiky, black hair that was kept in a ponytail. He wore a purple-and-black patterned kimono and black hakama pants tied with a white cloth. He carried a sword at his waist. The partition that hung from the ceiling obscured his face as he sat kneeling, seeming to be waiting.

This was Upper Moon One, Kokushibo.

The man's emotionless voice sounded out, "I… am here… Muzan-Sama… has arrived…"

Seemingly, as if on cue, above them appeared Muzan who wore a western-style attired, donning a black vest and a buttoned-up shirt and tie underneath it. He stood upside down above them as he was using a pipette to drop some liquid into a test tube, as various lab apparatus was laid out in front of him.

*drip*

All of the Upper Moons reacted and looked up towards him, in both fear and respect.

*drip*

"Gyuutarou is dead. The Upper Moons have waned." Muzan's cold voice came, as he continued to use his pipette.

"Oh, is that so!" Douma said, looking up at the upside-down Muzan. "Well, I'm very sorry about that! I was the one who introduced Gyuutarou here after all… How can I apologize to you? Will you gouge my eyeball out? Or will you…" Douma was then interrupted by Muzan.

"I don't need your eyeballs. I figured Gyuutarou would lose. As I expected. Daki(warabihime/ume) was holding him back." Muzan said without a care and scribbled something into his notebook.

"Gyuutarou would've won if he had been the one fighting, to begin with. He could've just poisoned them in the beginning so they couldn't keep fighting… well, it doesn't matter anymore. Worthless. He had too much humanity in him. So he lost. But that's fine too. I'm not expecting anything from you guys." Muzan's cold voice came to them.

Douma then spoke up with his same smile still on his face. "Oh, you're talking about the sad things again. Has there ever been a time when I've failed to live up to expectations?"

Muzan then spoke up, as he started to grow angrier. "The Ubuyashiki family has yet to be entombed. And what about the "Blue Spider Lily"? Why can't we find it after hundreds of years? I… Don't really know why you guys exist anymore." The veins on Muzan's head started to bulge in anger.

The Upper Moons bowed and kneeled under his fury.

"And not just that. It seems that one of those 'Demon Slayers' possess that same crimson blade as that man. Isn't that right… Akaza…" Muzan said.

Akaza, who was kneeling, then spoke up. "That is correct. Ever since he sliced my arm off… I was never able to regenerate it. Not only that, but the cuts he left on me have never healed and continue to burn me to this day." Akaza gripped his hands, as he could still feel the pains of the cuts on him.

The other Upper Moons reacted with astonishment on their faces, as they finally knew the reason as to why Akaza had never been able to regenerate his arm back.

"Impossible… Forgive me, Muzan-Sama… but how… There shouldn't have been any more of them left… after that man…" Kokushibo said, gripping his knees.

Muzan snapped the pen in his hand as he spoke up. "It seems that the users of that technique are still alive…"

The rest of the Upper Moons looked on with confusion at what Kokushibo and Muzan were talking about.

"If you ever see someone with Hanafuda earrings or an onyx bracelet…" Muzan's eyes gleam with killing intent and hatred. "...make them suffer before you kill them.

----

"Ughh, my head. Where… am I?" Hiroto's tired and dry voice came, as he slowly opened his eyes.

"What is wrong with you?!" Aoi's voice came from the side. "Every time you come back here, you're always beaten up, hurt, or unconscious! Can you ever come back intact for once?"

Hiroto turned to the side and saw Aoi and Kanao standing next to his bed, while the other three beds were occupied by Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke, who seemed to be asleep still.

Hiroto tried to sit up but gripped the side of his body. "Ow ow ow, damn that hurts."

"You shouldn't move so much. Just stay and rest. *sigh* And you just recovered as well, yet you're back to being injured once more." Aoi's said, exasperatedly.

Kanao looked at Hiroto from the side with her same smile and spoke up. "I-I'm glad you're okay."

Hiroto smiled at her and said, "Don't worry. Something like this won't kill me."

Kanao didn't say anything and just nodded.

Hiroto then asked, "What about Tengen-Sama? The poison…"

"He's fine." Shinobu's voice came from the door that led into the room. Walking up to Hiroto's bed, she continued. "Your brother told us that it was Nezuko who got rid of the poison from both you and Tengen's body. I must say, that does make me quite curious." Shinobu said, leaning ever so closely to Hiroto's face, who in turn blushed a bit.

"To-Too close, Shinobu," Hiroto said.

"Oh my, my bad." Shinobu smiled, having fun teasing Hiroto. Her expression then got more serious. "But, why is it every time you go on a mission, you always come back so injured. And both times that you came back injured were from an Upper Moon. I'd say that you're practically a magnet for Upper Moons."

*sigh* "I don't know. But isn't it a good thing as well? I mean, that's one less Upper Moon for us to deal with." Hiroto said.

Shinobu nodded and said, "You have no idea how much this means for the Demon Slayer Corps. For the first time in over a hundred years, an Upper Moon was finally killed. And it was finished off by a Tsuguko no less."

Hiroto looked down at his right hand, remembering what happened during the fight against Gyuutarou. The sensation of the mark on his hand, and how he was able to see every part of Gyuutarou. His joints, muscles, bones, and organs.

"Now, there's something more important I want to discuss with you, Hiroto-kunnn." Shinobu's voice came from the side of Hiroto's face, as she said with a menacing smile.

Aoi and Kanao made their quick retreat as they walked away quietly.

*gulp* "Umm, whatever do you mean, my dear Shinobu?" Hiroto said, trying to please Shinobu and calm her down.

Shinobu smiled and went closer to his face. "There's no use in trying to sweet-talk me. What I want to know is… what happened to… the monocle I gave you?"

That night, Hiroto was facing another Demon on his own. Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke were long awake but didn't dare to move or breathe, as they listen to the pleas from Hiroto. Praying for his safe departure from this world...