A cup of hot tea warmed him from the inside, dispelling the chill.
Tanjuro put down his teacup and began preparations to worship the Hinokami.
The children were left to their own devices. The matter of dressing in the ceremonial robes still required Roy, the eldest brother... Tanjuro had already taken out the ritual garments earlier and placed them on a soft cushion nearby. The reason he hadn't put them on was that he had been waiting for someone. Fortunately, his wait was over.
Wide robe sleeves... a Shimenawa twisted like rope... a Hinokami Mask covering his face. Tanjuro helped Roy up, descended the steps, and came to stand in the courtyard.
Roy leaned against a corridor pillar, watching quietly...
The man took a deep breath, began with "Dance," and leaped gracefully...
Mother Aoi came over at that moment, carrying a plate of tempura. The freshly fried shrimp emitted an enticing aroma. The children, tired from playing, swarmed around. They were immediately shooed away by Aoi with a slap for each. "Let your big brother eat first!"
No one dared to provoke their mother's ire. Takeo and Shigeru reluctantly withdrew their hands, looking eagerly at Roy.
Roy smiled, symbolically picked up one shrimp, popped it into his mouth, and continued watching Tanjuro dance. Around him buzzed the sounds of "Slow down, don't grab!" and "Leave some for your big brother!"
Once, twice, Tanjuro danced with abandon, like a leaping flame spirit. With a flourish of his sleeves, he scattered a flurry of snow... Gradually, Roy narrowed his eyes, realizing something was wrong. How was it that his father's dance had more rhythm than his own?
"Niisan, do you want more?" Tanjiro, chewing on half a shrimp, had managed to wrestle two more away from Takeo and Shigeru and offered them over... Roy, however, was completely oblivious, staring entranced at Tanjuro. He focused Nen into his eyes, his mind expanding, and thought of a term—"Transparent World"!
The highest state in life is to live with transparency.
Undisturbed by worldly matters, wholly immersed in oneself, truly achieving a state of no self, no other, no thought. Only then can one use the "self" as the center, amplify perception, keenly grasp everything in the surroundings, and make the most reasonable reactions and judgments. For example... slowing down an opponent's movements, capturing their attack trajectory, seeing through the weaknesses in their attacks.
Summing it up, "Nothing new under the sun..." Roy murmured softly.
Tanjiro: "Niisan... what are you saying..."
"I said, nothing new under the sun..."
[Hint: Hatsu: "Eye of Insight" has been loaded (Note: Based on the Ren visualization of the "Sun," the host can see through falsehood and anticipate the enemy's moves for 0.1 seconds)]
"Poof~" Two bright divine flames ignited in Roy's pupils. Tanjiro's hand, offering the shrimp, froze. Meeting his niisan's gaze, he felt a chill, as if his entire body had been seen through. Startled, he subconsciously pulled his hand back, but Roy anticipated the movement, grabbed his hand, and plucked a piece of tempura, tossing it into his mouth.
Tanjiro paused for a second, rubbing his eyes. Why did it feel like his niisan's eyes were just glowing?
"Chew... chew..."
After swallowing the tempura, Roy scanned his surroundings, his gaze finally settling back on Tanjuro. Without turning his head, he said, "Nezuko, don't let Hanako suck her hand."
In a corner of the corridor, Nezuko, who was leaning against the hearth and comforting Hanako, looked over suspiciously. Her little sister was clearly playing with the bamboo dragonfly niisan had just bought; she didn't have time to suck her hand. But then... she looked again, and Hanako's little hand slipped off the dragonfly's tail and expertly went into her mouth.
Nezuko: "..."
She turned her head to look at Roy.
Big brother Eiichiro sat quietly with his back to her. The "Sun" in his eyes went out with a "poof~," having lasted only 0.1 seconds.
Afterward, Roy felt the world fade into lines before his eyes, then snap back to normal in an instant.
Hatsu... the natural result guided by Ren. Like "Bungee Gum" and "Texture Surprise" for Hisoka... "Control" and "Possession" for Illumi... "Stealing" and "Collecting" for Chrollo... "Guanyin Bodhisattva" and "Buddhist Principles" for Netero.
'What am "I"?'
'"I" am the "Sun." I can patrol the heavens, dispel darkness, and also shine brilliantly, bringing salvation to the world... Yoriichi Tsugikuni, you must have thought the same thing back then.'
"Hinokami Kagura—Flame Dance..."
In the wind and snow, Tanjuro finished the last movement of the dance and stopped, barefoot...
The wind lifted a corner of the Hinokami Mask. On the corridor, Roy watched, entranced. Dimly, as if in a daze, he seemed to see a person.
He had deep red hair, a flame pattern branded on his temple. Gazing across life and death, his figure overlapped with his father's. He smiled gently at him and said:
"Eiichiro, help me take off the robes."
"Yes."
Roy returned to his senses with a start. His father sat down next to him, revealing the knotted ties on his back...
He went forward and untied the knots, simultaneously unraveling a fog in his own heart, glimpsing more sunlight...
'This is a perfect New Year's Eve,' he thought.
That night, he ate New Year's Eve dinner with his family and chatted idly for a long time. Carrying Takeo and Shigeru, one in each arm, and leading Tanjiro, he returned to the west room where the kang had already been heated, and lay down in his clothes.
Unlike the town, faint sounds of firecrackers could still be heard in the mountains...
Amidst the tranquility...
After a day of excitement, Takeo and Shigeru fell fast asleep... Tanjiro lay down next to Roy, his closed eyes fluttering open and shut, open and shut again. He seemed still immersed in the joy of the festival, too excited to sleep.
"Hey, Niisan, are you asleep?" Tanjiro turned over to look at Roy. His big brother hadn't been seen for months, he was so long...—
No, he had grown so much taller... Lying down, he was a whole head taller than him... Before leaving home, he had only been half a head taller. The young boy secretly compared himself and pouted沮喪地.
Roy closed his eyes. "Asleep."
Tanjiro: "..."
He ignored it.
He continued asking, "When is Niisan leaving?"
"Tomorrow."
"Mm... huh? Tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Why so early?"
'The bedcovers won't even get warm...'
"Because time is short." Roy calculated the time. It was still two years until the birth of the youngest child in the family, Rokuta.
And it was precisely at that time that Muzan appeared and killed the Kamado family.
Roy wasn't one to procrastinate. From the first day he became the eldest son of this family, he had decided to strangle that piece of trash Muzan in the sunlight ahead of time, to let him properly feel what a "Merciless Sun" was!
Tanjiro fell silent. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask again... was it because of demons?
Seeing that his niisan seemed unwilling to say more, he gave up and pulled the blanket over his head.
The night deepened. The sounds of breathing echoed back and forth in the snowy, windy night...
The foolish little brother fell asleep shortly after.
Without his disturbance, Roy got out from under the covers, threw on a robe, and pushed open the door...
On the corridor outside the door, the man leaned against the hearth, warming a pot of tea.
He quietly watched his eldest son, who was growing taller day by day, and said something astonishing, "Eiichiro, congratulations on awakening the Transparent World."