"I suppose that settles the question of whether you noticed my little parlor trick," said Oka.

Then a little smile pulled at the corner of the demon's mouth. "But I promise you, I have more."

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Zenitsu wasn't about to wait and find out. Sliding into First Form, he exhaled through his teeth and gripped the hilt of his katana. Breath of Thunder, he chanted inwardly, First Form.

(Out of habit he closed his eyes briefly. His hearing alerted him to anything coming and he felt a little braver when he didn't actually have to look at what he was fighting. He'd been on a roll lately—by now he'd dispatched several demons wide awake. He still suspected Tanjiro and Inosuke were pulling his leg about the times he'd slain demons while passed out.)

Exploding from the standstill, his eyes snapped open as he rocketed toward the demon, who stood motionless—

Except for something small he dangled between thumb and forefinger, directly before his neck. Zenitsu shot to a stop so suddenly the momentum pushed him on his toes and swept gusts of wind past them both, whipping haori and hair in a frenzy. The electrical discharge from his propulsion spiked the swirling air around them.

Zenitsu stopped practically nose-to-nose with the demon. Just kissing the edge of his katana was a photograph, pasted to stiff cardstock and depicting a lovely young woman in a kimono patterned with stargazer lilies.

She smiled in greenish-gray monotone, but there was terror in her eyes. To his astonishment, the eyes in the photograph widened.

"Sayuri?" he breathed, aghast.

Oka wiggled the photograph pinched in his fingers, stretching his neck up invitingly. "Weren't you going to strike about here?" he said playfully.

"What did you do to her?" Zenitsu asked. Horrorstruck, he drew back slightly.

"Nothing...yet," said Oka. "This is merely safekeeping. A...friend of yours, is she not?"

In the photograph Sayuri seemed frozen in place. Only her brimming eyes and convulsing jaw, trying desperately to wrench open, gave away this was no ordinary photo.

Zenitsu backed away a fraction. The space between them was no more than the table he'd sat across from Aoi at the butterfly manor, with its medicated cups of water.

"You keep them there?" he asked, recoiling at their proximity. Only the photograph of Sayuri kept his feet planted on the floor. "Take her out! Now!"

"Or you'll kill me?" drawled Oka. "No, I think not. Sheath that sword of yours, boy, or I'll rip this in half."

Oka showed little inclination to attack just yet; Zenitsu could hear it in the demon's pulse. The smiling, arrogant monster thought the photograph granted him immunity: that, unable to retrieve the girl from the exposure himself, the slayer would not dare attack.

"Did you do this to the others?" Zenitsu demanded, hands white-knuckled on his sword. Slowly, he slid it back into the sheath like forcing it through mud, the movement feeling counterintuitive to everything he'd ever learned.

The demon smiled wider and drew another fistful of photographs from a pocket within his smart jacket. Zenitsu glanced at them, then paled.

These subjects were not flushed with life beneath the frozen poses. They were an indistinct horror of blood and gore.

A headless man sat placidly on his stool, holding a calligraphy brush at the ready. His head lay feet away. A woman posed with her fan, a red ruin where her throat and stomach had been.

And a man knelt, shamisen and pick in hand, looking ready to strum a note—and oblivious to the gaping holes where his eyes should be. Oka peered at the photograph.

"An unsatisfying meal, that last one," he muttered. "I was too hungry and I didn't do the homework."

Zenitsu stood rooted to the spot, hysterics threatening to dissolve his composure. This was too much! It was insane! How the hell was he supposed to get Sayuri out of there?

"Take her out!" he ordered again, vainly trying to control the shaking in his voice.

Oka shrugged and replaced the grisly photographs, continuing to shield his neck with Sayuri's negative. "In due time. Exposure to moonlight does the trick—I'm actually not sure why. But, so long as I have this I think you'll have to—"

Zenitsu's hand shot out and snatched the photograph from Oka's grip.

The demon blinked. Then looked at his hand as if expecting the photograph to still be there.

Springing back, Zenitsu delicately tucked the negative into his shirt. Then he pointed an accusing finger at Oka. "You're lucky that wasn't medicated water!"

Oka started forward with a murderous look but was interrupted by the door to the audience hall suddenly sliding open.

"Quiet!" hissed a patron, sticking his head into the hallway and glaring at them both. "You're making a racket! The samurai's about to battle for the mermaid!"

Both Zenitsu and Oka swiveled their heads to stare at him. Through the wall they could hear the kabuki play going valiantly forward without its koto player. With an expression of having firmly told them their place, the man haughtily withdrew and shoved the door shut.

Zenitsu felt the familiar spiraling of a situation about to get very stupid.

Oka sighed. "This wasn't how I wanted the evening to go. Tonight was the first chance I got to visit this place. Imagine my dismay to discover that Ishii's star musician was a slayer from the Demon Corps! I was going to watch you play several more times before I devoured you. You really are very talented, though you had a rough start tonight."

Zenitsu blanched. "Excuse me for missing a few notes with a demon drooling at me from the front row!" he snapped indignantly.

Compounding his agitation was confusion by the fact that he seemed to be on the verge of having an actual conversation with a demon. Usually they'd tried to eat him by now.

Oka stretched his neck, flexing his hands. "Understandable," he allowed. Then he added, thoughtfully: "I'm glad I got to see you play. You're a credit to this kabuki. It won't be the same with you dead."

Zenitsu went a little green. "I can't tell if you appreciate the arts or not."

The demon's eyes burned with sudden fervor. "I love them. Nothing is sweeter than an artist who has mastered their craft. I can taste every bit of their finesse. Their talent sustains me better than a hundred lackwit humans with no talents!"

So all the years it'd taken those people to develop their craft were worth nothing more than a short meal to this monster? What of their dreams, their plans for their lives, everything they'd been working toward? Zenitsu knew better than to expect empathy from a demon, but at the same time, Nezuko had raised the standards to which he privately held all demons.

Zenitsu slid into First Form again, exhaling. First Form, he chanted just as the demon hissed something else.

A battering ram came out of nowhere and shot straight at Zenitsu. He rocketed up so fast he twisted to land on the ceiling, eyes bugging out as a long, scaly whip below lanced the air where he'd stood. Scaly? He just had time to spot an iridescent glitter of reptilian skin before the whip snapped up like a rope to crash through the ceiling.

By then Zenitsu had shot to the side wall, and the whip followed him there. In a flash he severed it with his sword. Blood spouted from the cavity in a fountain. It made him nauseous! Then, to his shock, the whole thing vanished, blood and all.

Something about it seemed familiar and he looked up to see Oka contemplating the print he'd tried to hide in, full of sea monsters. Zenitsu followed his gaze and saw a blank space where a kraken's thick tail had been.

Is he bringing the drawings to life?!

A snap alerted them to the irritated patron sliding the door open again to chastise them for the noise.

Mouth open to deliver an invective, the man stared wide-eyed at the damage in the hallway, then at Zenitsu with his sword out, and finally the demon, who looked suddenly ugly.

Then he silently slid the door back.

Either they take this outside or Zenitsu had to finish this now. First Form. He slid again into position.

"Don't you know any other form?" asked Oka gamely, as if enjoying himself. He hissed again.

This time Zenitsu was ready. And Oka knew.

Not one, or two or three, but four kraken tails exploded out toward Zenitsu again. He dispatched them rapidly, ricocheting sharply from one to the next, but Oka took advantage of the half-second it bought him to remove a folded print from his pocket and mutter something at it.

Zenitsu barely saw what hit him, but it sent him through the wall.

Fortunately the barrier was thin. Thank the lucky stars Ishii was so cheap. He'd just end up with gangrenous splinters for sure. Zenitsu sailed for what felt a mile before he skidded on his back with the wood splinters, sending krakens scrambling. Krakens? What the—he was on stage! Distantly, he heard surprised yells.

All around him, colorful cotton monsters hopped around in amazement. Some were so invested in the moment they hadn't realized what had happened and were still feinting with dramatic lunges at the samurai, who stood with his sword slack and jaw dropped.

"Zenitsu?" snapped the mermaid, from directly above in Zenitsu's line of sight. He'd slid to the base of the rock. Under the paint and costumery, Baba looked livid. "What the hell are you doing?"

Zenitsu scrambled to his feet, hair wild. "Get back!"

Baba did his best, but in the fish tail he could do little more than waddle away at a brisk scoot. Someone from the audience screamed, and Zenitsu's eyes were jerked to the wall he'd just been thrown through.

Tendrils crept in fluidly from the hallway and slid to find purchase on the other side. What emerged through the Zenitsu-shaped hole in the wall was like a terrifying sea monster of legend...

And a far more realistic interpretation of the giant cephalopod in the kabuki poster than the cheap recreation currently windmilling its cotton arms in panic, hauling ass off the stage.

Several patrons yelped and recoiled. To Zenitsu's shock, others clapped.

"Is this part of the play?" someone in the front row wondered in a loud stage whisper.

"They've really upped their game!" her friend said admiringly.

Zenitsu whipped around. He was going to go beserk! This was ridiculous! Was he the only one on the planet with any sense? He flapped one arm at them wildly, trying to wave them back. "Are you nuts?" he screeched. "Get away! Run!"

Instead the idiots just sat there grinning like kids. Only Hori seemed to realize he wasn't joking and started tugging back the other musicians. Ishii's face appeared like a demon mask behind the divider, contorted in fury.

Multiples of the monster's tentacles raced toward patrons in the front rows, who flinched at the unexpected attack. No! Zenitsu moved before he could talk himself into running away like any sane person with a healthy sense of self-preservation. In an eyeblink, he severed the tentacles before they reached anyone, sliding to a stop before the audience.

Tentacles fell to the floor, spurting blue blood in their death throes.

The morons broke into thunderous applause. Of course they were having the time of their lives watching Zenitsu fight. Wasn't that just typical!

"So interactive!" someone piped up.

"This isn't part of the play, you idiots!" Zenitsu yelled, just a little hysterically. "Get out of here!"

"Okay, that's overselling it," another man said petulantly. What were they now, the peanut gallery?

From the dais, the samurai looked incensed at being upstaged.

At some point Chuntaro had materialized to berate the audience with shrill chirps which represented the foulest language Zenitsu had ever heard him use.

"Oh, how sweet!" gushed a woman in a pink kimono.

Chuntaro called her something a waterfowl would have found very offensive.

Idiots! Zenitsu had to take this fight somewhere else. The cephalopod was busy menacing Baba around on stage, looking uncannily like a reenactment of the scene from the kabuki poster. The actor portraying the samurai actually brandished his katana at the monster and theatrically bellowed his next lines.

Slicing at another tentacle, Zenitsu exhaled, gritting his teeth. Thunder Breathing, First Form. In the next eyeblink he'd shot forward and brought his sword through the giant squid's head. Ink and blue blood sprayed everywhere to the appreciative disgust of the crowd. In the next moment it had disappeared, blood and all, and Zenitsu dashed back into the hallway, indignant at the applause.

Right away he almost panicked to find the hallway deserted, until he caught sight of the demon's back disappearing out the front door.

He can't slip away again!

Using Thunder Breathing, Zenitsu shot downstairs at such acceleration he accidentally plowed into the demon just as it had reached the street traffic.

Together they grunted, crashing to the ground and scattering marketgoers. Zenitsu seized Oka as he scrabbled up again. The demon was certainly strong. Peripherally Zenitsu was aware of the tumult they were causing in the already chaotic market. Terazawa gawked at them from the meat spit while his hand mechanically continued to turn the chicken. "Take it back inside!" some wag shouted.

Zenitsu fumbled at his sword but he hadn't thought this far ahead. Should he just...cut the demon's head off in front of everyone? The Slayer Corps guidelines were pretty murky when it came to public executions. Dimly he was aware of staring eyes and scandalized muttering from passerby. Just what he needed.

"Help!" the demon screeched. "This crazy guy's attacking me!"

"Isn't that the photographer?" someone in the throng wondered.

The crowd looked to Zenitsu.

A beat.

"He owes me money," said Zenitsu.

They nodded uniformly in sage understanding, and went about their business again. Such were the night markets. A few of the seedier toughs seemed eager to lend Zenitsu a hand in reclaiming his property.

"I'm going to eat every one of them," snarled Oka with his face in the dirt.

But he made no move to do it just then. Zenitsu had one hand on his sword and the other was gripping Oka's arm tightly. So far, he hadn't struck a blow under his own power. Why wasn't the demon attacking more bystanders? Was it because Oka was now in plain sight? Evidently he'd run out of paper monsters to breathe life into. But he still had a demon's strength and speed. Surely he had more than an overactive imagination in his arsenal.

Then it clicked. Unbelievable. He was still trying to hide as a human! All so he wouldn't have to abandon his meal ticket!

"You're totally shameless!" Zenitsu howled at Oka. "This town isn't your—your buffet!"

"What do you expect me to do?" the demon demanded hotly, twisting around. "Order off the menu?"

This was easily the stupidest fight Zenitsu had ever been in. And worse, he wasn't sure how to end it. Beheading a demon in the middle of the street was sure to bring the police down on him! Chuntaro was flapping around wildly, chirping excitable nonsense and being of absolutely no help whatsoever.

"You're coming with me!" he tried to say authoritatively.

"So you can take my head off in a side alley?" Oka shot back, oblivious to the startled looks he got. Gone was the respectable proprietor of a photography studio. Oka was wild-eyed, hair askew and bowler long gone. "Not a chance! That shamisen player was a terrible last meal!"

Poor Chiba. Dead, and still getting kicked when he was six feet down.

Overhead, the moon hung big and bright, as if it was waiting patiently for them to finish. A moon vivid enough to free Sayuri from the confines of the photograph. But doing so now would just open her up to danger again. She was safest staring at the inside of Zenitsu's haori...right?

Unexpectedly, the demon raised his hands as if in surrender, clenched in fists. Though wary, Zenitsu took the chance to surreptitiously bring his sword forward, nervously conscious of witnesses all the while.

Oka's face twisted. "Please don't!" he said pleadingly, in a voice strangled by fear. "Don't do this!"

Someone else might have fallen for it. Not Zenitsu. He heard the smile in the words.

Just as he threw all caution to the wind to behead Oka right then and there, in full public view, Oka's fists sprang open. Zenitsu just got a glimpse of bulging, manic eyes springing open in the demon's palms before—

FLASH!

The world immediately went dark.

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hey! how we doing?

I'm playing with the idea that *spoilers for the manga* at this time in the story (where it is mentioned he's done a number of solo missions by now), Zenitsu is transitioning to fighting demons while conscious-so he's not quite as smooth at it yet as he is when he's asleep. Otherwise the fight would be...probably a lot shorter.

would appreciate any feedback! Thanks-