"So much nonsense."
"Splurt~" accompanied by a sound...
Roy suddenly appeared and jabbed his Hand Blade into Doihara's head, exploding it.
Then he shook his hand, allowing Doihara's brain matter to splatter all over the ground,
turned and coldly looked at Tanjiro, saying, "Do you know what you're doing?"
"I know...."
"If you know, then why haven't you acted?"
"I... don't know..." Tanjiro mumbled, afraid to meet Roy's eyes.
Roy simply drew out an axe and placed it directly against his neck, the edge pressed against Tanjiro's carotid artery. If he nudged it five millimeters inward, it could pierce his flesh, sever his blood vessel, and take his life.
"Don't know? Very well..." Roy laughed in anger,
"If that's the case,"
"rather than seeing you get eaten by demons next time...."
"I think it's better to kill you now. At least——"
"I can leave you with a whole corpse!"
Sympathizing with ghosts, who do you think you are?
In the original work, it was precisely because Tanjiro hesitated to act that Urokodaki Sakonji almost gave up on him. Now... Roy felt that Doihara's last words before his head exploded were indeed correct——
Bleeding hearts deserve to have a blade held against them!
"I... I just thought he was a bit pitiful...."
"Wasn't that man in the temple pitiful after being gutted by him?"
"What about those people who've been eaten by him over the years, aren't they pitiful?"
Roy's anger surged; he twisted his palm, raised the axe, and swung it heavily towards Tanjiro's face!
"Boom——" With tremendous force, the strike sent Tanjiro flying ten meters away, and only when he crashed into a big tree did he barely stop, sliding down weakly against the trunk....
"Remember what I said, if there's a next time, if the demon doesn't kill you, I will!"
Returning the axe to his waist, Roy shouldered his basket and turned to walk into the shrine... Inside the shrine, a small oil lamp was lit, bathing his silhouette in an orange glow....
Tanjiro's legs splayed out, sitting dejectedly against the tree, his right cheek swollen like a pig's head, yet unaware. His eyes stared blankly at Roy's silhouette in a daze.
When he was little, his father Tanjuro always taught him to uphold a kind heart when out in the world, helping those in need as much as possible. But today... his kindness seemed misplaced.
A demon is a demon, a human is a human, prey sympathizing with a hunter, already sets on a path to death.
Doihara's corpse lost control without a brain, turned to ash, snow falling even heavier and more urgently...
It took quite a while for Tanjiro to come back to his senses, only then feeling the stinging pain on his right cheek....
Thanks to the rigorous training of the Zoldyck Family from a young age, he's been hit enough to naturally know how to hit people... Though Roy was attempting for the first time, his technique was fairly skilled, only injuring Tanjiro's flesh, not touching his tendons or bones.
So while Tanjiro appeared miserable, he was actually unscathed, agile enough to pick himself up from the ground, kneeling in the snow and facing the shrine, shouting to Roy, acknowledging his mistake.
After all, he's young and there's room for reform. If it were an adult here, Roy would kill him without hesitation to avoid being dragged down.
He let out a cold snort without a glance, saying:
"Do I still need to help you out?"
"Can't you roll in on your own."
With that, Roy removed his backpack and found a broom in the corner near the door to start cleaning up the corpses and bloodstains in the shrine.
Tanjiro, having just been "pardoned", breathed a long sigh of relief, quickly walked over to Roy, snatched the broom from him, and with a flattering smile, said: "Let me do it, brother, you go rest."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure the shrine is spotless, without a hint of blood scent."
Roy naturally believed Tanjiro's "dog nose"... Since he volunteered, he simply gave him a chance to show off.
Until...
The boy walked behind the statue and saw the pile of bones stacked like a small hill...
Then he truly realized——
Why Roy wouldn't give Doihara even the slightest chance.
Turns out... these demons deserve death, one and all!
"I can't believe I fell for that guy's crap..."
Tanjiro looked extremely upset. If he could, he'd go back a few minutes and smack himself hard a few times for being so soft-hearted.
But time can't reverse, just like these bones in front of him, can never be resurrected.
Roy had long seen this scene through Gyo.
He said nothing at the moment, his heart as clouded as the moon concealed by tonight's clouds, shrouded in a thick layer of shadow.
The Zoldyck Family also kills. Grandpa Zeno even kills daily, countless more than Doihara, but... whether Zeno or father Silva or the mysterious old man Roy had never seen in action, they'd always choose to let assassination targets die "swiftly", ending their lives in painless fashion.
But these bones before him were different...
Roy found it hard to imagine what kind of agony and despair humans must feel when eaten alive...
Wearing earrings symbolizing the sun and mountains, he stood silent for a while before moving again, passing the backpack, pulling out a hoe, and headed outside the shrine.
His father Tanjuro noticed the hoe was dull and specifically instructed him to find a sharpening master at the bottom of the mountain. Now it served a purpose.
Hearing footsteps, Tanjiro turned his head, saw the hoe slung over his brother's shoulder, and realized what he intended to do, silently following with an oil lamp...
The brothers circled around, discovering an empty space behind the shrine that connected to the mountain, and in the wind and snow, dug a pit. Before long, when they returned to the shrine...
they brought out the pile of bones and buried them in the pit.
The snow was already falling in goose feather-sized clumps.....
Tanjiro muttered prayers under the lamp's dim light: "Please, Lord Fire God, bless these pitiful souls to paradise and rebirth soon..."
Only when Roy patted the final spade of earth onto the grave did he stop, cautiously asking: "Brother, should we go back inside?"
Roy leaned on the hoe, standing firm in the wind and snow, silently staring at the grave without speaking.
Yet without Tanjiro noticing, a layer of milky white "Nen" covered his eyes....
Tanjiro took a rebuff, assuming Roy was still angry, wisely closing his lips....
Until a mass of milky white energy floated from the grave, he heard his brother address the grave with a respectful bow: "Sorry to meet you like this..."
"I am Kamado Eiichiro. May I ask your name?"
"I am Minamino Guangzhi, from the village of Kouchida under Sagiri yama, thanking Lord Eiichiro for the vengeance."
A gust of chilling wind blew, whipping up snow onto Tanjiro's face. Tanjiro rubbed his eyes, cluelessly looking around.....
Roy gently touched his forehead, using his body as a medium, imparting a Sense layer upon his beautiful amber eyes....
The foolish Mamen Beans finally noticed, just by his feet....
stood a hazy figure, facing Roy, prostrating himself in complete submission, bowing to him.
"Wasn't he the guy who got gutted by the demon earlier?"
Tanjiro cried out in surprise!
Indeed... it was precisely the man eaten by the demon.
He was appearing for the first time in Roy's life through Posthumous Nen!