"Ichiro?"
The extremely familiar call made Tokito Ichiro escape from the darkness where he could not find a way out. He opened his eyes and saw his mother squatting in front of him, looking at him with concern, and then she gently wiped away the moisture at the corners of his eyes with her warm fingertips.
"……mother?"
A harsh voice came out from his throat, extremely hoarse.
Tokito Ichiro lowered his head slightly in a trance and found himself sitting on a wooden chair. He looked to the left according to his memory and saw his father folding the newspaper in his hand carefully, with a pair of glasses without prescription on his nose.
Tokito Ichiro clenched his fingers, but they were empty. It seemed that he should be holding something in his hand - he couldn't remember what it was, only his intuition told him that it must not be lost.
This inexplicable feeling made him feel a sense of disharmony with everything in front of him.
"I..." The words he was about to say were stuck. He stared at his mother's face in confusion. The hand on his cheek was as warm as in his memory.
But there seems to be someone missing, a very important person.
He thought, that person... should be similar to him in appearance and figure, and different from him in his sometimes sarcastic and unpleasant personality. That person... or should I say, that child.
He is the best kid in the world.
——"There is... one..."
Tokito Ichiro tried to grasp the fragments of light in his mind, but suddenly heard a voice that shouldn't be here. He couldn't find the specific source of the voice, but it felt very familiar. Tokito Ichiro lowered his eyes and met his mother's doubtful look. He unconsciously slapped away the hand.
Is someone calling my name?
He suddenly felt that this world was too fake. The sunlight slanting in from outside the house was bright, the flowers and plants in the yard were swaying in the wind, a black cat's nest was at his feet, and even his parents were exactly the same as he remembered.
But he felt that this was not true.
The sound became clearer and clearer, and Tokito Ichiro stood up and tried to run out of the house. He grasped the door handle and pressed it down, but it only made a "click" sound.
The door is locked.
His father, who was sitting at the table, put down the newspaper and walked towards him, ruffling his long, loose hair.
"What's wrong?" asked the father. "Are you going to see your friends?"
Tokito Ichiro turned around, a certain thought becoming more and more intense in his mind, forcing him to open his mouth and utter these inexplicable words.
He said, "Should I...have a younger brother?"
The father's hand paused, and he said helplessly: "You are the only son, why are you asking this again?"
"I just...seemed to have seen him before." Tokito Ichiro was silent, a name struggling to come out, but was suppressed. He vaguely remembered a back figure, and clenched his hands in vain, as if he could grab that wrist in this way -
He did catch it.
The scene before him collapsed into spider-web-like cracks in the corners, and the entire space shattered inch by inch. Even the figures of his parents disappeared in an instant, and only the hand he was holding remained.
--"elder brother!"
At this time, Ichiro woke up suddenly.
What he saw was the rising sun in the early morning. Suddenly, someone beside him leaned out and blocked the slightly glaring sunlight for him.
He grabbed Tokito Muichiro's wrist tightly. Under his anxious gaze, Tokito Muichiro propped himself up and coughed, breathing rapidly.
He inhaled Douma's blood demon technique and could only vaguely sense the condition of his lungs, but he felt that his mental state was better than ever before.
Tokito Ichiro blinked, and his thoughts came back to his mind a little later. He remembered that he had suddenly lost consciousness during the battle with Douma, and the parents he had seen before were all illusions created by his own memory.
But we should also thank Douma, because Tokito's so-called 'memories' all emerged as if activated by his words, and the last key point was hidden in that illusion.
The fierce battle ended with all four pillars injured, but the demon escaped from the sun intact.
Muzukawa Miyabi was the one with the lighter injuries. He let the hidden troops bandage his wounds. The old wounds on his arms had not yet healed and new wounds appeared. If it were not for Touichiro's reminder, he would have inevitably absorbed the blood demon technique released by Douma.
"It was just an accident." Tokito Ichiro explained dryly. He searched for words to form a sentence but to no avail. In the end, he could only utter an apology.
Tokito Muichiro didn't say anything, but just held his hand until he came over tremblingly and wanted to put Yuichiro and him on the stretcher separately, then slowly let go.
The four were carefully sent back to the Butterfly House, where they were met by Butterfly Shinobu who had rushed over after hearing the news. She was surprised at their injuries, and then arranged the order of their treatment according to the severity of their injuries.
Because the joint strengthening training was about to begin, the other pillars all gathered nearby. That day, Mitsuri Kanroji hurried back to the Butterfly House from outside, and at a glance she saw Iguro Obana lying on the bed, unable to move.
In addition to Mitsuri Kanroji, a few heads popped out of the door. They were Tanjiro Kamado and his friends who had been staying in the Butterfly House recently, and Genya Fushigi - although the latter was driven away for a while by Fushigi Saneya's harsh words as soon as he came in, he soon sneaked back and watched from the corner.
It is impossible to escape unscathed from the battle with Upper Ranks One and Two.
Iguro Obanai's left arm was nearly cut off by Kokushimo, and now he can only stay in bed and recuperate. Tokito Muichiro had a deep knife scar on his waist, but fortunately, it did not hurt his vital parts, and the treatment came in time, so he did not die on the spot due to excessive blood loss.
The most serious case was that of Tokito Ichiro.
When Shinobu Kocho learned that the cause of this injury was an Upper Rank Two, she fell into a state of confusion. Her hands kept moving. The medicine from the Kochoya could only temporarily alleviate the deterioration of Douma's blood demon art, but could not cure it directly.
Tokito Yuichiro was constantly in and out of consciousness. When he arrived at the Butterfly House, he relied on his strong willpower to make the Hidden Force think that he was the one with the least injuries.
Outside the house, Tanjiro Kamado, who had just returned from Tokito Muichiro's place, was standing at the door. When Shinobu Kocho came out, she met Tanjiro's eyes full of apology.
Just as Zenitsu said, dreams are just dreams. Kamado Tanjiro also thought so. After he told Shinobu Kocho about his dream, he fell asleep in a gradually increasing sleepiness, and now he is about to forget everything.
When Iguro Obana and the others were sent back, Kamado Tanjiro couldn't suppress his anxiety and ran over to see if they could help. Every wound on the wounded overlapped with what he saw in his dream. He asked the hidden troops if they knew who the four had fought with, and got the expected answer.
Was it a dream? He asked himself, was it really just a dream?
——Rather than saying "dream", it seems more like a prophecy.
Tokito Muichiro only stayed in the hospital bed for the morning. In the afternoon, he avoided the people nearby and quietly slipped to Tokito Yuichiro's place.
The sleeping boy's face was pale, his chest rose and fell with his breathing, his heartbeat was a little weak, and he was not as alert as usual. Even when Tokito Muichiro closed the door, the person on the bed did not wake up.
He lowered his voice, moved a chair over, sat beside the bed and looked at Tokito Ichiro.
'My brother was like that at that time.'
The figures of two people intersected and overlapped at this moment. On one side was the brother who fell silent in a pool of blood before joining the Demon Slayer Corps, and on the other side was Tokito Ichiro who was seriously injured in the battle with Upper Rank 2.
After the sun rose, the open space offered no shelter, forcing them to quickly stop fighting and leave before the sun's rays fell on them.
Tokito Muichiro's injuries made it impossible for him to stand steadily. He almost crawled up from the ground and staggered to Yuichiro's side. He covered the wound on his waist, and sticky blood kept oozing out, staining the torn cloth red.
Tokito Ichiro fell there.
He called out Ichiro's name with a trembling voice, and the hand that was held by Ichiro when he was unconscious became his life-saving straw - he didn't want to experience the feeling of loss again.
"Wuyi... Lang?"
Tokito opened his lifeless eyes drowsily, and it took a long time for his vision to return to normal, and the hazy white mist dissipated. He turned his head slightly and saw a mint green ball that was about to roll itself up beside the bed.
Tuanzi didn't move at all, and looked like he was sulking and didn't want to talk to anyone.
Tokito Ichiro was inexplicably tickled by him, and just as he was about to reach out to touch the long hair that was not tied into two ponytails, he suddenly started coughing. The next second, Tuanzi suddenly raised her head.
"You--" Tokito Muichiro's words were choked in the latter half. He looked up and met Ichiro's eyes which contained a faint smile. The cough he made just now seemed more like he was suppressing it deliberately, and it was not real.
As the saying goes, excessive joy leads to sorrow. Tokito Ichiro was still in the delicate mood of amusing the green dumpling, but soon he could no longer be happy.
Tokito Muichiro's eyes were filled with tears. The usually reliable and taciturn Kasumihara seemed to have turned on some strange switch when he saw Ichiro finally woke up. He seemed to have found some sense of security after letting go of his worries. He showed the expression that a child of his age should have, and silently shed tears in front of Tokito Ichiro.
Tokito Ichiro panicked.
He struggled to get up and comfort her - the more anxious he got, the more he couldn't control his hands and he couldn't lift them. In the end, as soon as he got up a little, Wuichiro pushed him down heavily.
Tokito Muichiro deliberately chose a shoulder without any injuries. Although the movement looked fierce at first glance, the force that landed on the body was actually very light.
Tears fell one after another like a line, soaking the thin white blanket that You Lang was covering himself with, staining it darkly.
He was a little hesitant, and imitated the actions of his mother in the illusion, gently wiping away the tears on Wuichiro's cheeks.
He was not one of those people who could say soothing words, so he couldn't find the right words. In the end, he just raised his hands and hugged Tokio Muichiro, who buried his whole body in his arms.
"I'm sorry." His second apology was hidden in his heart, but the words he heard clearly in the hallucination, spoken by another him, came out smoothly.
"Muichiro's nothingness has always been infinite nothingness."
Tokito Muichiro's body suddenly froze.
After learning that there was an injured person who was disobedient, Shinobu Kocho, who had escaped from the waiting Hidden Force members, found her way here. She was about to push the door open, but stopped because of the scene she saw through the crack of the door. The door lock locked and popped out in the middle of closing, making a crisp sound.
Tokito Yuichiro seemed to realize something and raised his head, only to see a closed door.
The author has something to say: Look, how sweet this world is.jpg
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Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated nutrient solution during 2020-08-31 01:12:14~2020-09-01 13:14:27~
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 3 bottles of Difu; 1 bottle of Junqi and Z;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!