“So you’re okay? That’s a relief.”
A wild boar about the size of an adult human snorted and stared hard at Tanjiro.
“You be careful from now on, okay?” he said with a smile, and the boar snorted again.
A few moments earlier …
It was all fine and good to climb up the mountain in search of the vine lantern, but finding a flower in the middle of the night was a much tougher task than Tanjiro had expected. He might have been raised in the mountains, but this was not the mountain he’d grown up on. Walking along the unfamiliar paths—eyes open for a flower that might not even exist—required more perseverance than he’d thought.
Making it all the more difficult was that Akane and Akari had essentially zero artistic abilities, and the picture they had so painstakingly drawn for him was almost entirely useless.
“People say the leaves are a really clear, bright green. And the stem’s got these big saw teeth.”
“I heard the flower has five petals. They’re all floofy like this. See? Look. This kind of shape. Mm-mm, not like that. No. Like this, I said. Here. Honestly, you’re so bad at this.”
“I guess most of the flowers are this really deep red. Soooometimes, there’ll be regular red or white ones, though. Hmm, what else? Oh! I remember. I heard each petal’s shaped like a wild boar’s eye. And they’re very cute. The smell? No one says anything about how they smell …”
Based on these few clues—the shape of the leaves, the number of petals, the color—Tanjiro had been looking along the sides of the path when a boar poked its head out from the bushes.
The boar looked very much like Inosuke. Its breathing was ragged, and its entire body smelled of anger. Tanjiro looked and found a fresh wound at the base of one leg. It was pretty deep, which was probably why the creature was so worked up.
“Are you hurt? Here, let me take a look. It’s okay … Aah, no. If you move like that, the cut will … ! Watch out!”
When he tried to soothe the boar and get it to let him treat its wound, it very nearly fell from the cliff. Tanjiro threw himself after it to protect the animal with his own body.
And now here he was.
“There we go! You’re all fixed up. You be careful from now on, okay?” Tanjiro grinned after the now-docile boar let him take care of its wound. The more he looked at it, the more it looked exactly like Inosuke.
“Okay, I have to go look for this vine lantern. You take care,” Tanjiro said, and was about to leave when the boar clamped its jaw down on his jacket.
“Ah! What’s wrong? You hungry? But this is a haori. It’s not for eating.”
“Hrrrrn!” The boar growled as it tugged on Tanjiro’s haori.
“Huh? You want me to come with you?”
“Hrrrrrrn!”
“Okay. Got it.”
Reading what was in the boar’s heart, Tanjiro bobbed his head up and down. The boar trotted off confidently, so Tanjiro let himself be led. After they’d walked a fair distance, a small cave came into view beyond the dense foliage.
“Ah …”
To one side of the cave, a crimson flower bloomed. Tanjiro opened his eyes wide.
Clear, bright-green leaves … Each of the flower’s five petals opening gently outward in the shape of a boar’s eye …
“A … vine lantern?” Tanjiro gasped.
The lovely flower was damp with dew that shone like scattered stars.
When Tanjiro’s family had been taken from him in a single night, how relieved he had been to find that at least Nezuko was still breathing! How happy he had been, how that fact had kept him going. Maybe Nezuko had become a demon so that she could live on and keep her cowardly older brother from being all alone … When this thought occurred to him, he felt such love and compassion for his sister, he nearly burst into tears.
Nezuko, so extraordinarily patient ever since she was little. So kind I almost want to cry. I swear I won’t let anyone take anything from you ever again. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.
Your big brother is going to make you happy. All the happiness I couldn’t bring to the others, I’ll give to you.
“Huh? Everyone’s awake?”
When Tanjiro returned to Hisa’s house, he noticed a serious commotion in the room where he and the others were staying. Even though it was the dead of night, a lamp was lit, and the voices inside were loud enough to hear in the hallway.
“I told you, that idiot Tanjiro went looking for a flower on the mountain! Yes, the mountain at night. Pretty dangerous if some demon shows up, right? We’re going to look for him, so you come too. That’s what I’m trying to say here.”
“Huh? Why should Lord Inosuke go looking for Konjiro in the middle of the night? You’re good on your own, yeah?”
“The mountains at night are scary! It’s too scary to go alone!”
“Tch! Coward. And why would that idiot Tanjiro go up the mountain, anyway?”
“I told you! He went to look for a flower! Listen when people talk to you!”
“A flower? Why would that idiot Butaro go off and pick a flower? That guy’s practically a girl.”
“He probably heard the story of the vine lantern and wanted to give one to Nezuko. Stupid Tanjiro.”
“Huh? This wine lamb, it some kind of food?”
“Vine! Lantern! Those village girls were talking about it this afternoon. You were there. You heard them, right, Inosuke? You were chomping away on mochi. Did you forget?”
“I remember the mochi. It was great.”
“Idiot! You stupid idiot! No brain in your head!”
“What did you say?!”