33 Mt. Natagumo

As night descended once more, Hiroto was waiting impatiently for the recon team to come back. Waiting for several hours, he decided that he had enough.

Hiroto snuck through the camp and the unaware guards before leaving the campgrounds and running towards Mt. Natagumo. Approaching midnight, Hiroto had made it to the base of the mountain and saw the eerie atmosphere surrounding it.

Walking through the forest, Hiroto started to see some blood spots around the trees and ground. 'Something must have happened to the recon team.' Hiroto thought, picking up speed and followed the blood trail.

Several minutes later, Hiroto came across a person who was leaning back against the tree with his head down. Approaching him, Hiroto looked at his condition. 'His head is bleeding but it seems that he's fine. Wait… What are these strings attached to his limbs?' Hiroto said, as his eyes concentrated on the threats that were attached to the man's body.

As he went to touch them, the man moved his body upright and swung his arm towards Hiroto like a puppet. 'Is he being controlled?' Hiroto saw the threats on the man start to tighten and controlled him to attack Hiroto.

Hiroto quickly jumped back to avoid the attack. The man then took his katana out and started to charge towards Hiroto with movements that seemed to be akin to that of a puppet being controlled.

Hiroto pulled out his katana and blocked the strike towards his side. *clang* sparks flew out as the Nichirin Blades made contact. 'I can't kill him, he's still alive but unconscious.' Hiroto thought. He looked towards the threads and decided to cut off what was controlling the man.

As a strike came towards his head, Hiroto parried it off to the side with ease *clang* before slashing at the threads. *shing* The threads were though, but Hiroto managed to slice through the majority of the threads as the man fell to the ground with only one leg being controlled and lifted. Hiroto ran and sliced through the last thread before checking the man's condition once more.

'He's still breathing, how many were in the recon team? Were they all caught like this?' Hiroto thought. 'Normal people won't be able to easily see the threads, they are so thin and transparent.'

As Hiroto stood up, he saw some threads coming down from the trees above him and started to slowly wrap around his arm. Hiroto quickly pulled back and sliced at the threads before looking to where it came from. However, before he could follow the line, he saw 3 people walk out of the bush in a puppet-like manner.

'Are these from the recon squad?' Hiroto thought as he readied his sword. One of the people lunged towards Hiroto and swung his blade at his face, Hiroto dodged and cut through the threads above his head. *shing*

Just as he finished, the man fell but a sword came towards him from his side. *clang* Hiroto raised his sword and blocked it before jumping up to cut the threads above the girl and falling behind her. *thud* The girl fell to the ground.

Just as the last person was going to attack, he suddenly stopped. 'What? Why did he stop?' Hiroto thought. The next moment he saw the man raise his sword towards his neck and slice it open. *shik* *split*

Hiroto's eyes narrowed as he rushed forward but was too late as the man's neck started bleeding out massive amounts of blood.

Hiroto stared at the man before gripping his hands tight, his nails biting into his hands. He looked towards the other people who were unconscious and saw some threads falling towards them once more. Hiroto rushed forwards and instead of cutting the threads, he let them spin around the people.

As the thread started to make them stand up, Hiroto grabbed the nearest person and spun him around quickly, causing the threads to tangle on each other. The threads tried to regain control of the limbs but weren't able to move from being tangled up.

Hiroto then moved on from person to person as he tangled the threads up to make them lose control. After doing this, he gathered the people together and started to drag by the threads towards the base of the mountain. He descended down, but enough so reinforcements would be able to see these people.

Deciding he was close enough to the bottom, he stacked them up next to each other, just as he was going to carve out a message in a tree for the group to see, he saw some lights coming up the mountain.

'Torches?' Hiroto thought as he looked towards the group of torches carried by the people from the camp.

Hiroto decided to wait for them and see what they plan on doing.

As the group came closer, they saw Hiroto standing next to the people from the recon team. Akira came out from behind the group and shouted out, "It's you! You left the camp without permission and now you're out here trying to jeopardize our mission?!"

"If I was a moment late, who knows what would have happened to these people. Would you rather I wait around in the camp and not do anything, risking the lives of these people, or doing something productive." Hiroto said with a provocative tone.

Akira clenched his teeth, just as he was about to say something, someone, besides he spoke out. "Sir, those are the people from the Recon group we sent out, they never came back and it seems that they were injured."

"Someone, tend to these people. We'll go on ahead and continue our mission." Akira then turned to Hiroto. "You will stick with us from now on."

Hiroto ignored his words and turned and ran off, disappearing from their sights. "You-" *shik* Before Akira could finish what he was saying, someone from behind stabbed through his back.

"Ugh." Akira looked down and his eyes widened seeing the blade of a sword coming out from his stomach.

*clang clang* Hiroto turned around and saw the group of 20 people fighting and killing each other.

"Ahh! Stop!"

*ding*

"Why are you attacking us?!"

*clang*

"Ahhh! Help!" *splash*

Hiroto was too far to see what was happening as he already left to deal with whoever was instigating this whole attack. Running through the forest, he spotted some threads and decided to climb a tree to get a better vantage point.

Finding the tallest tree, Hiroto started climbing up and as he reached the top, concentrated his eyes to look around. Hiroto was having trouble finding the threads that lead back to the source. 'Dammit, I can't focus on them enough.' Hiroto thought in frustration.

*suuuuu* Hiroto breathed in and used a different breathing technique he had been experimenting with. He focused his breath and the flow of oxygen to go towards his eyes. 'Focus on the eyes, increase the blood flow and raise my eye's capabilities…' Hiroto thought, as he silently concentrated.

Hiroto opened his eyes, and from an outer perspective, one would see the shade of purple in his pupils grow in strength as they shine in the dark. 'Amethyst eye' was what Hiroto decided to name the ability to enhance one's eyesight by focusing the breathing technique to center around the eye.

'I should think of a name for this breathing technique and not just the ability…' Hiroto thought as he looked around. 'It seems I've finally succeeded.' Hiroto saw the world with more detail than ever before. He could see the individual lines on the tree leaves as well as the numerous thin threads than were encompassing the forest.

"There… that's where the threads meet." Hiroto said to himself as he dropped down from the tree and ran towards the direction he saw the threads originate from.

[Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain]

Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke were seen at the foot of Mt. Natagumo.

"Hold up!" Zenitsu yelled from behind.

"Zenitsu? What's wrong?" Tanjiro asked, with the box that Nezuko was in on his back.

"I'm scared ok!" Zenitsu cried as he hugged his knees on the ground. "Now that we're nearing our destination, I'm so scared!"

"Why the hell is he sitting? How creepy is that?" Inosuke said with his hands on his hips.

"Who are you to talk, Pig Face?!" Zenitsu yelled back. "Don't tell me you're not getting any vibes from that mountain!" Zenitsu pointed towards Mt. Natagumo.

As the group turned to look at the mountain, the same eerie vibe was still present in the forest.

"Still, what good will it do to just sit there? My brother is probably up there right now so we can't waste any time sitting around." Tanjiro said looking back to Zenitsu.

"I told you, he's creepy," Inosuke said again.

"I'm not creepy! I'm normal! I'm the normal one! You guys are abnormal!" Zenitsu shouted.

Tanjiro widened his eyes as he turned towards the mountain, *sniff* "What is this smell?" Tanjiro said before running forward.

As they ran forward they saw a person crawling with their sword in their hand away from the mountain.

"It's a Demon Slayer," Tanjiro said.

The man looked up and started to tear up, "H-help me…"

As Tanjiro and Inosuke ran forward to the person, something on his back suddenly tightened and pulled. "Aghhh!" The body of the man flew back into the forest, yelling. "They were attached to me, too! Help me!"