*Asura's POV*

"Rats of Ashina."

I looked up at the person who spoke and lo and behold it was Urokodaki. He swiped his blade and wiped the blood off of it.

He offered me his hand I shook it. Looks like that was the wrong decision because Urokodaki was looking at me with a scrutinizing look. With Inosuke I knew how to look through someone's mask. I immediately took my hand back.

'Note to self. Never shake anyone's hand in this world.' I made a mental note.

"Put your hand forward," Urokodaki said this time with clear instructions.

I did as told and put both my hands forward.

Urokodaki immediately took out a bottle of what seemed to be some sort of water and poured it over my hands. It seemed to sting a little bit but otherwise, I was completely fine. The liquid seemed to wipe the black blood clean off my hands and the black blood seemed to fall on the ground with heavy thuds almost as if it was solid.

"Any other place where you came in contact with the blood," Urokodaki asked with a hint of Urgency.

Now that I thought about it my back seemed to be burning a little bit. Was the blood acidic or something?

"Take care of my brother and Tanjiro first," I said simply. I was sure that whatever it was my Demigod body could take care of it.

*Ding*

[The system recommends the host to not fuck around and accept the help if you don't want to look like a peeled onion.]

*Ding*

This made it even more urgent that Inosuke needed to be looked at first.

"I have already taken care of both of them. You're the last one. Though your brother was a bit feisty so I knocked him out." Urokodaki simply took out another bottle of the liquid.

It ticked me off a bit but I knew that Inosuke didn't like to accept help from anyone so I simply accepted what the old man said.

"Now undress."

'Why does this feel weird? Oh yeah I'm stripping in front of an old man' I never thought I would meet the old Hashira like this but life had a habit of sling shooting lemons into my mouth.

I took off my pelt but and pants but the underwear stayed on. Acid or not I'm not showing my family jewels to anyone. Well except for a girlfriend but that was for the future.

Urokodaki seemed surprised by my appearance and tattoos and seemed tense for a moment.

'Is this old guy trying to fight me? He must have confidence in his old bones. Senior citizen or not I'll kick your ass old man.'

Urokodaki proceeded to pour the liquid over my body and the black blood fell on the ground with heavy thuds and the ground seemed to get charred wherever it dropped.

'Well looks like I'll be needing a shower after this. Maybe I can take one in the waterfall?' I remembered that there was supposed to be a waterfall around Urokodaki's house.

"Put on your clothes." Urokodaki walked to Tanjiro and hugged him.

'So the old guy is only like that to outsiders huh.' I thought while putting on my clothes.

Fenris and Cerberus seemed to be disgusted by the smell of the black blood and stayed away from it. Now that I wasn't on Adrenaline it did smell pretty bad.

I picked Inosuke up on my shoulder after examining if he had any black blood on his body or not. He has mostly bashed the attackers against each other so there wasn't any that got on him.

I looked towards Urokodaki and he was cutting off the attacker's head one by one. Hashira or not he seemed pretty cold.

But now that I thought about it It was my mistake. I stopped after seeing that thing scream. The moment I thought that I was killing a human my hands stopped. It was for a split second but it was a mistake nonetheless.

'It seems I'm not as ready as I thought as I was.' I sighed. The attackers were strong and experienced but I should have been able to curb stomp them. I had become too reliant on my sword. Weapons can be broken or stolen I had grown up in the mountains so I was more eased into hand-to-hand combat but I was still taken off guard by the attackers.

Fenris rubbed his face against the palm of my hand as if reading my thoughts.

"I know about it little guy but it was still my mistake," I said while petting him.

"Don't blame it on yourself Motherfucker!" Horus practically screamed into my ear.

"But.."

"Fuck"

"I me.."

"Asshole."

"Calm d..."

"Dipshit."

And with that, I decided to shut my mouth. I didn't want to listen to an Eagle screaming profanities in my ear.

"You can't die right now," Horus said while looking me in my eyes.

'Does he really like me that much?' I mean it had only been 3 days since we met.

"You still have to pay me my mice."

Okay, I was deep frying this chicken the moment it let his guard down.

*Peck*

"Ow."

"I know what you think," Horus said as he flew off.

"As amusing as it is to see you arguing with a bird it's getting late and we have to reach my home," Urokodaki said as he started to run forward towards his home.

I adjusted Inosuke on my shoulder and picked up my stuff and ran after him.

*3 Hours later*

Boy was the old guy living in a far-off place. No matter how hard I tried he always seemed to be able to maintain 10 steps ahead of me. I hadn't activated my marks during the travel but the old man had pretty great stamina for someone his age.

By the time his cottage came into view, Tanjiro was breathing heavily and Inosuke was still knocked out on my shoulders. Fenris and Cerberus were the only ones having fun running as fast as they could to compete with the old Hashira who didn't seem to even mind their presence.

The door of Urokodaki's cottage opened as the last rays of light seemed to die out in the treeline and out came a young girl with a bamboo shoot in her mouth.

Tanjiro took off running seemingly forgetting about exhaustion and hugged the girl who seemed to be around 14 to 15 years old. Urokodaki came up behind them and hugged them. I could even see the few tears dropping off from the side of his mask.

Inosuke stirred on my shoulder deciding to wake up.

"Ahh family," I said while smiling.

______________________________________

Author's Note: Sorry about the late chapter. I'm sick right now and have exams in a couple of days.

*Looks at clock and types faster*

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