In a blur, a past memory suddenly floated in Akihiro's mind, temporarily diluting his craving for blood and flesh.
"Akihiro-kun, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Kie held the young Akihiro in her arms, asking softly.
"What do I want to be... I don't want to be anything, I just want to stay with you, Mother. When I grow up and have strength, I can protect you better, and protect my younger siblings."
Kie chuckled softly, covering her mouth:
"Then I'll wait for you to grow up, Akihiro-kun. By then, I'll be a bit old, and I'll rely on you to protect me."
Akihiro nodded, his voice childish but firm:
"I will, I'll definitely protect everyone."
Protect everyone... right?
I'm sorry, I couldn't do it...
This memory allowed Akihiro to gather his limited consciousness, controlling his right hand to pick up the axe that had fallen into the blood.
Gripping the axe tightly, Akihiro, with a contorted expression, slammed the iron-cast axe handle against his fangs.
"Crunch! Crunch! Crunch..."
Akihiro's fangs were not as hard as iron, and he swung the axe with all his might, holding nothing back.
Upon contact, the axe handle shattered all his fangs immediately. The bone fragments of his fangs mixed with the large amount of blood flowing from his mouth, which he spat to the side.
Human teeth are connected to many nerves, and so are a demon's.
The moment his fangs broke, an agonizing pain came, a pain so intense.
The physical pain completely suppressed his craving for flesh and blood, and Akihiro frantically moved away from Kie's corpse.
But his foot slipped, and he fell onto another corpse soaked in blood.
"Rokuta..."
Akihiro forced himself to calm down, even though his brain felt like it was being devoured and scorched by flames.
Suppressing his surging inner turmoil, Akihiro stood up.
He looked around and saw all his lifeless family members.
"Mother, Nezuko, Hanako, Takeo, Rokuta, Shigeru..."
"Brother promised to protect you, to keep you from harm."
"But against cruel demons, my promise, my persistence, was nothing but a joke..."
"I'm sorry, truly sorry..."
"And Tanjiro, you should still be alive, right? It's good that you didn't come back. The only thing I can feel relieved about is that you're still alive."
"I couldn't protect them, and I defiled Mother's corpse. Brother is so useless..."
Akihiro fell into endless pain. When he woke from his dream, that unbearable self-blame, fear, pain, despair, anger... all became reality.
And being in this blood-soaked, corpse-strewn hell for a newly born demon, such temptation was impossible to endure.
Akihiro could feel that if he stayed here, even for another minute, the demon's greed for flesh and blood would drag him into an bottomless abyss.
And his shattered fangs were recovering at a visible rate, replaced by an even more terrible hunger.
Tears and hot blood dripped onto the broken wooden boards.
Akihiro made a reluctant decision.
He had to leave here. In his current state, he couldn't even bury his family; there was no other choice but to leave.
"Tanjiro, when you arrive here tomorrow, you'll surely be in immense pain and despair, just like I am now."
"But no matter what, you must be strong. Brother believes in you."
"Also, you'll have to properly arrange the bodies of our family... Brother truly can't control himself."
Akihiro extended a finger, and a sharp fingernail popped out. He quickly carved a line of text on the wall of the small wooden house nearby.
"Tanjiro, don't despair. You must live, live, and wait for me to find you."
Time was pressing. Akihiro suppressed his hunger, preventing himself from looking at the blood and the scattered corpses.
After finishing the carving, Akihiro rushed out of the door without a hint of hesitation.
His face was contorted and twisted by the conflict between his demonic urges and his rationality.
"Bang!"
Crashing directly through the door, Akihiro rushed into the blizzard. He didn't look back, didn't stop. He didn't dare, fearing that if he paused, he would no longer be able to control the surging desires and would go back to eat everyone's bodies.
Aimlessly choosing a direction, Akihiro moved in a straight line away from the warm home he had lived in for sixteen years.
Along the way, the strong wind continuously blew, and Akihiro's neatly trimmed red hair was now flying wildly and disheveled.
He sped across the snow, enduring the constant, unbearable hunger in his stomach, moving further and further from home.
The trees in his vision rapidly receded. He didn't know how long it had been, perhaps an hour, perhaps a day.
He stopped only when he could no longer smell any blood.
He looked around and felt that his surroundings were very unfamiliar, with only white snow and silent green pines.
Moreover, he no longer had a home. A feeling of loneliness, as if he were the only one left in the entire world, washed over him.
"So hungry..."
Without the stimulation of the blood, Akihiro finally regained his sanity. However, the hunger in his stomach was now like a scorching fire, extremely hard to bear.
"My arms were shattered by that person earlier, my face was also shattered, and I just broke my own fangs..."
"But now they're perfectly recovered. A demon's physique is truly terrifying."
Although he had heard of demons before, Akihiro always considered them stories and didn't listen seriously. Now that he had truly seen them, he realized how terrifying demons were.
Forcing himself to calm down, Akihiro tried his best to recall what had just happened.
The bloody memories caused him immense pain, like coarse salt being sprinkled on a raw, bleeding wound, making him suffer excruciatingly.
But he had to do it.
Akihiro knew that avoidance and fear wouldn't solve any problems. Only by calming down, only by facing his bleak fate, could he find his goal.
"In the previous world, I think it was mentioned that energy is conserved. I repaired my severely injured body, and I ran at full speed for an unknown amount of time, so I must be lacking a lot of energy now. That's probably why I'm so hungry."
Akihiro closed his eyes, trying hard to drive the recently recalled images from his mind.
But the man wearing the white top hat seemed to be branded into his brain, lingering.
Thinking of him, Akihiro gritted his teeth fiercely, an uncontrollable rage filling his entire heart.
"I don't know who you are, nor where you are."
"However, I, Akihiro Kamado, swear here that I will find you and make you experience the most agonizing torment in this world, to avenge the blood of my family."
Akihiro's gaze gradually changed, finally settling into a determined look.
In this life, he had appeared gentle and sunny, with a diligent and positive personality, willing to help anyone in difficulty.
This was because the warmth brought by Mother, Father, and his younger siblings had made Akihiro who he was.
What he wished for was to be Nezuko and the others' gentle and caring older brother, to be Mother and Father's obedient and sensible son...
But now, only his younger brother Tanjiro remained, and Akihiro didn't dare to go look for him now, fearing he might hurt him.
Akihiro could no longer feel the warmth of family.
"Tanjiro, let me, your brother, carve out a world without demons for you."
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