56 Demon Slayer: Floating Comment

[Heh heh heh, who's Upper Rank Three being targeted now? Not telling.]
[Heh heh heh, who hasn't been targeted among the Upper Ranks? Not saying either.]
[When everyone's being targeted, shouldn't the one who isn't take a moment to reflect?]
[Douma: Hey, just because you're not saying anything, why do you keep looking at me~?]

[OMG, miracle medicine! Tamayo! You are! My! Goddess!]
[Tamayo always manages to concoct these inexplicably amazing drugs…]
[If Tamayo released this medicine, would the Nobel Prize for Medicine even have anything to do with the Germans anymore?]
[I say Tamayo's the true MVP of this entire story. Who's with me? Who's against?]

Haruto pulled his eyes away from the scrolling comments and looked at Tamayo.

"Wanna try it?" she asked with a soft smile. "But before you do, you'll need to establish an anchor point."

"An anchor point?"

"You know what an anchor is, right?" Tamayo explained patiently. "When a ship stops, the anchor is thrown into the water to grip the seabed, keeping the vessel in place.

To prevent your consciousness from drifting uncontrollably through fragments of memory, you need to create a mental anchor—something that tethers your mind to reality and reminds you that you're in a memory, not the present."

Tamayo's explanation was concise. "Just pick a common image and commit it deeply to memory."

Haruto nodded, twisted the cap off the vial, and downed the potion in one go.

Within moments, he slumped over the table and drifted into a silent sleep. Following Tamayo's instructions, Yushiro and Genya carefully laid him on a thin blanket, making him as comfortable as possible.

"Now then, Genya, let's discuss what we need to."

Genya cast a worried glance back. Haruto's breathing was soft, but his brows were tightly furrowed, as though he was trapped in a nightmare.

It was spring, just before summer, in 2019 China. College students were eagerly awaiting their long-anticipated break.

He woke up on his dorm bed, staring at the blue mosquito net above him, feeling dazed.

The old ceiling fan creaked as it spun, intermittently bringing faint relief from the heat but not enough to banish it entirely. He sat up, peeling his sticky torso from the bamboo mat, leaving behind red marks pressed into his skin.

The dormitory was anything but quiet. The mixture of sweat, stinky feet, and faint cigarette smoke assaulted his nose. This feels so real.

Real?

He scratched his chin, still groggy. It was all last night's fault. Watching Inception had messed with his head.

"Goddamn it," a voice cursed below. His roommate's colorful language rang out. "I swear, I wanna fly to Japan and stab Gotouge Koyoharu! Her family must sell knives, right?"

(T/N: Koyoharu Gotouge is a Japanese manga artist, known for the manga series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba)

"Isn't Demon Slayer finished? Why are you still cursing her?" another roommate asked, peering at his screen.

"Finished the anime, yeah. But there's still so much of the manga left. I binged the whole thing last night—couldn't stop."

"Hah, no wonder you didn't hear the professor call your name in class."

He climbed down from his bed, scratching his messy hair, and poked at his ribs through his old tank top.

"Demon Slayer?"

His roommate shot him a glance. "The anime. You don't watch anime, right?"

"No, I don't." His gaze landed on the roommate's screen. A black-and-white panel showed a familiar Japanese-style building. Three children with identical bob haircuts and two men sat cross-legged in the scene. Cherry blossoms floated across the frame.

Sanemi… Giyu…

His heart jolted. He hadn't seen this before, yet he knew their names. What was going on?

He overheard his roommate venting.

"After the Infinity Castle battle, only two Hashiras survived. The rest? Gone. Damn Gotouge killed off Shinobu too!"

Shinobu… Kocho Shinobu…

There it was again—that strange feeling.

His mind wandered, even as his body automatically grabbed a textbook for the afternoon class. Heading to the balcony to fetch his shirt, he was momentarily distracted by the vast, clear blue sky.

Even at dusk, when darkness blanketed the earth, there was nothing to fear.

Fear what?

He couldn't recall. The thought slipped through his fingers like water.

Lifting a hanger with the shirt he needed, a butterfly flitting past caught his eye.

It landed on his finger, a large, beautifully patterned rice paper butterfly.

This design… It was the same as Kanae and Shinobu's haori.

His mind snapped into clarity.

Haruto instantly realized: he was inside a memory.

Tamayo's medicine was working.

He hadn't even noticed anything unusual until the butterfly appeared.

Back in reality, Haruto stirred awake under the blanket, rubbing his throbbing head.

"What's wrong?" Genya poked his spiky-haired head through the sliding door. "Sensei?"

Tamayo looked up from her analysis of Genya's blood and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. "An hour and a half. That was quick."

"An hour and a half? It felt like ten minutes."

"How was it?" she asked.

"Too real. If not for the… anchor point, I might never have realized I was dreaming."

Tamayo smiled faintly. "That's thanks to your blood's unique properties. What did you see? Joy? Sorrow?"

Haruto didn't answer immediately. He fell silent, deep in thought.

Neither.

What he saw was a manga panel.

A meeting room at headquarters, with no Kagaya or Amane in sight.

Seated at the head of the table was an older Kiriya, flanked by two younger Kiriya-lookalikes, Hinaki and Nichika. Opposite them were Giyu and Sanemi, both deferential in their manner.

After the Infinity Castle battle…

Only two Hashiras survived.

The rest were gone.

Shinobu… gone…

The words from his roommate echoed endlessly in his mind.

"Only two Hashiras survived. The others… all dead."

The fates of Kagaya, Amane, Hinaki, and Nichika were all but certain.

Haruto shut his eyes, his entire body going cold as though plunged into an icy abyss.