twelve

                                    

                                          



                          
present,
ubuyashiki estate

                          
early that morning, after a week the incident at the swordsmith village has occured, an emergency pillar meeting was held. 
                          
all eight remaining pillars meet up for a discussion regarding the appearance of demon slayer marks on mitsuri kanroji and muichirou tokito. 
                          
both, although badly injured, manages to attend the meeting at sharp time, so does the others. 
                          
"man, when will i ever be lucky to bump into an upper moon?"
                          
sanemi wailed out, supporting his face with two fingers as he sat cross legged on the tatami mat. gyoumei, in other hand, was too busy chanting his prayers for the sake of the meeting to be smooth.
                          
"it's not like people bumped onto them at all times."
                          
obanai iguro, who sit across sanemi sighed out. he then slightly rolled his eyes in annoyance upon seeing giyuu held his face up when obanai gazed up at him.
                          
"how are you two doing, kanroji, tokito?"
                          
he added, lacing his words with pure kindness. mitsuri's face brightened up as obanai asked, explaining she is doing fine although her broken ribs still hurts. she pointed at her head wrapped with bandages due to injuries and smiled even brighter than before.
                          
"you two recovered very quickly compared to the others involved. that's a good progress." 
                          
"yes, i assume that you two will continue to serve the corps as soon as you healed."
                          
shinobu and shigure both added, impressed by the two pillars' progress. shigure, sitting across muichirou sighed softly when she noticed that obanai was staring at mitsuri, who was whispering to her. 
                          
she know the pillars so well, even their deepest feelings. obanai, he never is able to convey her deep crush and feelings to mitsuri whilst the pink haired girl is oblivious to his feelings.
                          
"i feel a lot better! shinobu's medicine is affective! so i am healing very well! also, shigure-san gave me sakura mochi the other day so i guess my head feels lighter!"
                          
"im not at full strength yet..."
                          
muichirou stared at the mat, lowering his head down. the mist pillar still had a medication patch on his cheeks applied to reassure his pain. 
                          
"if we lose anymore pillar, the corps will be in trouble." 
                          
gyoumei, who just finished his prayer spoke up. even so, the buddha beads he holds keep shaking as he chanted prayer in between his words.
                          
"the master himself probably wants to talk to us about this matter..."
                          
"now, now tomioka-san. you finally speak, don't you?"
                          
shinobu added, trying to tease the water pillar who was sound and cool most of the time. it is suprising if he bugs in the pillar talks.
                          
giyuu shifted his gaze away, staring out of the open door to the well-kept courtyard. a few koi fishes of red, orange and white was swimming peacefully inside the small men made pool of the courtyard.
                          
"i bet the master is here..."
                          
shigure spoke, signalling the others by bringing one finger close to her lip to make sure none of them speak anymore words when the master arrived. 
                          
the echoes of footstep neared them. then, a young woman appeared from behind the sliding door, apologizing to all of them for the long wait. behind her was the two of her childrens, kiriya and kanata.
                          
"for the meeting today, i, amane ubuyashiki, will be in place of kagaya ubuyashiki."
                          
amane ubuyashiki bowed down, sitting in the usual place of the master used to sit. all of them bowed down, close enough to have their foreheads touched the tatami mats. 
                          
"our master's disease has gotten worse, and he wanted me to apologize to all of you for his absence for our meeting today."
                          
"understood. i will pray for his life to be spared, even for one more day. and for you, amane-sama, to stay strong."
                          
gyoumei leads the other pillars, bowing down once again and stayed in a dead calm silence, individually praying for the everylasting health of the master.
                          
"oyakata-sama wants to thank all of the pillars. all of you must have knew about this, but one of the demon has conquered the sun."
                          
"and she is here, the demon named nezuko."
                          
some of them let out shocked gasps of disbelief, except for mitsuri and muichirou who has chosen to stay in silence.
                          
"what's more worrying, is the fact that muzan kibutsuji might be chasing after her for him to defeat his one weakness of being expose to the sun."
                          
"we received reports that a strange marks has creased upon both the love pillar and the mist pillar."
                          
"ah, it does... but it takes me long enough to notice it appearing. the same shape as my sword hilt!"
                          
mitsuri pointed out, referring the mark's similarity to her breath of love sword hilt. she even demonstrated some swinging and pointed at her collarbone to confirm the mark really has appeared on her body. 
                          
"if i am not mistaken, during sengoku era, the swordsmen that time has the same marks shown upon their skin. they are also potentially powerful enough to finish off muzan."
                          
"this knowledge has been passed down over centuries, though."
                          
amane gave a little space for the future leader of the demon slayer corps, her son, kiriya to spoke up. the young child gestured a soft smile upon reading out the reports sent to him by the estate's trusted  kasugaigarasu.
                          
"but, i've never heard one. why must it be kept hidden anyway?"
                          
sanemi wailed, asking in a polite way to the wife of the master. she proceeded to talk as kiriya moved aside a little bit, to give his mother space to speak.
                          
"swordsmen of the era has start to dissapears, to either death of alive. the information itself has been hazed over times and at some points, it vanished in the thin air. however, we solely knew one thing important about it."
                          
"something important?"
                          
shigure tilted her head to one side. her red eyes displays a look of curiousity inside her mind. then, she and the others continues to listen attentively to every words and reports being told by the representative of the master himself.
                          
"once a person receives the mark, it starts to spread to other as if resonating."
                          
kiriya read out a text from a scroll within his grip. 
                          
"and as of now, the first person to ever have the mark is none of the pillar, but the breath of water practitioner, tanjirou kamado."
                          
"even so, he had a hard time explaining how it works. the kasugaigarasu we sent was hoke with no information. so please, tell me, tokito-sama, kanroji-sama."
                          
"alright! we will!!"
                          
mitsuri cheerfully said, smiling widely as if she is going to tell little kids bedtime story.