"Azzura, you're way too young to watch this."
"You indruced me to anime, Isa!"
"True, but watch Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure, not Demon Slayer. It's for 16 years old."
"Oi, at least it's not Tokyo Ghoul!"
"Your mother allowed you to watch Tokyo Ghoul?!"
Stupidfidy Isabella Mazzini looked up from her pot of boiling pasta to her little charge Azzura Bonetti, sitting on the couch and hugging Isabella's Tanjiro plushie to her chest.
Azzura fixed her raising an eyebrow.
Only ten years old and already so sassy. Isa didn't know if she should applaud Signora Bonetti or demand higher pay.
She loved Azzura, she truly did, but the girl was a handful!
If she didn't need the money so urgently, Isa would probably think twice about babysitting Azzura.
Okay, now I'm being unfair. It's not Azzura's fault that she is so spoiled.
"Isa, the pasta is burning," Azzura told her drier than the Sahara desert.
An inelegant curse came out of the young woman, which made Azzura sing-song about how she needed to put 5 Euro in the Swear-Glas, while Isa tried her best to save their dinner.
Just a typical Friday night for them.
Since Isa had moved out from her parents and lived now across Azzura and her wild mother, this was her new normal.
Besides studying at the university, playing games and watching or reading anime/manga.
Yeah, the young woman was not your typical young adult.
Partying wasn't her thing!
Also, Isa had more online friends, than real-life friends, so not like she gets invited to go out in the first place.
But it was alright.
Long ago she made her peace with it.
I rather stay home and thirst over fictional guys who will never break my heart like real guys!
Thankful Isa managed to save the pasta, so they could now eat.
"I'm sad, Demon Slayer is ending soon." Azzura shared, between bites. "I'm not ready."
"I read the manga and I know I will cry when the anime ends." Isa agreed. "At least the ending isn't as terrible as Attack on Titan!"
Here Azzura shudder.
"Agree, but I'm so sad Tanjiro marries Kanao, I wanna marry him!"
"Tanjiro is too old for you." Isa laughed amused.
"Age is just a number!" Azzura declared. "Besides aren't you crushing on him too?!"
"I love a lot of fictional guys and gals."
"That's not an answer! Also, do you wanna create a harem?"
Surprised Isa did a spit-take and stared at Azzura.
"Where do you know this word?!"
"What, harem?" Azzura repeated. "Mamma and I watched Ouran High School Host Club"
"Your mother is so liberal, it's shocking, ey."
Soon they were finished with dinner and it was time to prepare Azzura for bed.
After Isa read the little girl a story, Cinderella, she could finally relax.
What better way to watch some anime?
Azzura's mother wouldn't be home at least till midnight, so Isa made herself comfortable on the couch with her Tanjiro plushie.
The soft snores of Azzura were a nice background noise, which made the young woman relax.
Relaxing so much she fell asleep.
None of them realised how the stove was defective, slowly filling the apartment with gas...
(*)
Living on the streets was hard, especially if you were a girl.
Since she could think, she had to be smarter and faster than men.
She knows what they did to young girls, having seen enough desecrated corpses in her young life.
At 13 she was one of the oldest street rats, bitter and weary of the world around her.
You could only count on yourself, as the other orphans would take any chance to robe and hurt you too.
Then why did she take in this little girl?
The little girl wasn't always a street rat, her parents just died this spring, leaving their only child alone.
She was so naive and had gotten herself nearly raped and killed if the older girl hadn't saved her ass.
To this day the older wonder why she did it.
Why should she care for the 10-year-old?
She had already enough problems to survive alone, but taking care of another mouth?
Maybe she had turned crazy.
Yet was it important, when they both were now dying?
The men who had wanted to rape the little girl had found them finally.
Their revenge had been...brutal.
Her little charge was already dead and she would soon join her.
They lay in the alleyway, side by side, and the older felt the cold grasp of death.
What a worthless and terrible life!
Why was she even born?
She closed her eyes, giving up.
(*)
With a jerk Isabella woke up, jumping to her feet.
"Who, what, where?!" she shouted, her hands in a kung fu pose. "Who is fucking with me?!"
What kind of weird creepy dream did she have?!
She had a dream she was 13 years old again, just in ye olde Japan, not in Sicily and as an orphaned homeless child, not even with a name!
Then she saved an anime Azzura from bastard men only to get them killed by these paedophiles!
Maybe she shouldn't watch so much True Crime, it messes with her head.
"Isa! Is that you?" Azzura called from behind her.
Relieved she turned around, ready to hug her young charge, only to gape.
What the fuck?!
"Why do you look like an anime?!"
"Me?" Azzura shouted back, pointing at Isa. "I look still like myself but you look like a main character with this silver hair and pink eyes."
Erm, what?
Isa gave herself a once over.
Just like Azzura, she wore an old, dirty kimono that you couldn't even guess what colour it once was!
However changed clothes was the least weird thing, since, as Azzura had said, she had long silver hair now!
"What is going on?!" Isa shouted. "Is this a fever dream?!"
(*)
After they calmed down enough Isa and Azzura decided to investigate.
Well, Isa.
Azzura just held her hand and looked around in wonder.
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy." Azzura gushed. "Did we go back in time, anime style?"
"Seems like it, but I do wonder why all seems so familiar," Isa mumbled.
They had seen this art style, but which anime?
Did they get isekai'd?
Or was one of them just dreaming this up?
But it felt too real to be a dream!
Finally, Isa saw how someone was throwing away a newspaper. To her shock, neither she nor Azzura had any money on themselves, so they had to be creative to gather information.
Making sure the man was indeed walking away, the older girl picked up the newspaper and began to read.
What then happened reminds her of Percy Jackson.
The Kanji transformed into letters before her eyes and she could read.
Yeah, sure, why not?
Not like this whole day was already freaky enough!
Careful Isa read the newspaper.
One, two, three times.
Azzura wanted to read to and pulled at her kimono sleeve. Wordless Isa gave her the newspaper.
The little girl frowned and then gasped.
"I'm reading this right?"
"Afraid so, Azzura..."
"...We got isekai'd..."
"Into Demon Slayer..."
Both stared in disbelief at each other.
(*)
The moon shines down on Isa and Azzura as they make camp in a little abandoned shrine.
They were lucky to even find this place!
After they had realised where and when they were, they panicked.
Well, Azzura openly, while Isa had tried to stay calm for the younger.
She may be again 13 years old, but she was still older than Azzura.
Her charge counted on her!
So Isa had stealth her nerves and decided for them they had to leave the town.
They had woken up in a bloody alleyway! Someone had killed the original souls in their bodies, that was more clear!
Walking around would get them killed again for sure.
Better avoid this.
However...
"Tanjiro meets his first demon in a shrine like this," Azzura murmured. "We could get attacked here!"
Looking up from the leaf bed she was creating, Isa sighed.
"I know Azzura, but in the town, we would have been killed for sure! I rather take my chances here."
"I don't wanna get eaten!"
"You won't I promise."
Azzura sniffled and rubbed her eyes.
"I want my Mamma."
"I know, sweetheart." Isa cooed. "But I don't think we can ever return home."
"At least you are truthful. I hate when people sugarcoat anything..."
Isa sat down beside Azzura, giving her a big hug.
"I know, I can never replace your mother, but you have me here. I will protect you, I promise."
"Do you have a plan?" Azzura murmured, holding tight to Isa's kimono in her fists.
"Well, I think the best is...I become a Demon Slayer too. In this period, there aren't a lot of work for women. Especially work for orphans." Isa explained, caressing Azzurra's light brown locks. "As a Demon Slayer, I will get at least regularly paid and the higher my rank the better the salary."
It stayed quiet for a few seconds between them, till Azzura said: "It's so stupid we don't know when Tanjiro's story starts, I mean we're in the Taisho Periode, but Demon Slayer never made clear WHEN the story begins."
"Mmh, you wanna change the end, I'm right?"
"We could save so many lives..."
Isa smiled gently down to Azzura, kissing the crown of her head.
"For now...we have to think about ourselves. We need to make the best of this situation, agreed?"
Azzura just nodded.
"Good. Ready to go to bed?"
Again just a nod from the little girl.
So Isa helped her into the leaf bed and stayed awake till sunrise to protect her charge from the monsters in the dark.
(*)
"We need names." Isa pointed out as they were back on the road.
They had been lucky and found some cherry trees and were eating them now for breakfast.
Sure, full you wouldn't get from them, but at least it tampered their hunger.
Azzura bites with gusto into her cherries, looking at Isa with big eyes.
"I wanna be Ochaco Uraraka!"
This made Isa laugh.
"You want to introduce My Hero Academia into Demon Slayer?"
"Why not?"
"I think we should have the same surname. Saying you're my sister will make people questionless why a teenager and a child travel together."
"Mmh." Azzura sighs thoughtfully. "Calling you Nee-Chan won't be a problem, Isa, but what surname should we pick?"
Good question.
Maybe Azzura wasn't that wrong to just take a name from another anime?
"How about Namikaze?" Isa suggested.
"Like Naruto's dad? Then let's go with Uzumaki!" Azzura gushed.
They squabbled for a while over surnames in Naruto, and then Azzura tried again with Uraraka's surname, so they talked about surnames from My Hero Academia.
The girls talked nearly the whole morning about a surname for them, going over a lot of animes and mangas.
"Ackerman!"
"We're Japanese now, Ackerman is English or German!"
"Can I at least be Mikasa?"
"You wanna be called three bamboo hats, Azzura?"
"What? Mikasa means this? Bah!"
It was difficult to find a compromise, till annoyed Isa shouts: "Kamiya!"
Azzura blinked surprised.
"Huh? Divine Valley? That's cool, Isa! From where did you get it?"
"It's Taichi Yagami Japanese surname," she explained.
"Oh, the googles boy from Digimon, right?"
"Right!"
With the surname out of the world, they searched for first names.
"I already know my first name," Isa said grinning. "I'm going by Himena. It means princess of roses!"
"Wow, that's pretty. I wanna have a flower name too!" Azzura declared.
"How about then Himawari?"
"Sunflower? Nah."
"Tsubaki, camellia?"
"No."
"Ran! It means orchid."
"Like from Detective Conan? That was not my anime."
"Mmh...Fujisaki. It means wisteria blossom."
"Oh! And demons hate Wisteria. That's perfect."
Happy that they had names, Azzura raised her arm in the air, Isa copying her.
"Get ready Japan! The Kamiya Siblings Fujisaki and Himena are in the house!"
(*)
"Okay, where did you get the names for us Nee-Chan?"
"Googled them Imoto-Chan."
"What?"
"What?"
Somewhere a crow was laughing.
(*)
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