Episode 8

The Smell of Enchanting Blood (幻惑の血の香り) is the 8th episode of the Kimetsu no Yaiba TV anime series.

Synopsis
The next mission is in Asakusa, Tokyo. Tanjiro is taken aback by how flourished the place is in the Taisho Era, but quickly picks up the demon’s scent.

His pursuit of the scent leads him to Muzan Kibutsuji. Tanjiro attempts to strike him down. But Kibutsuji, with his ability to turn humans into demons, cause a commotion in the area. As Tanjiro desperately tries to get things under control, someone appears before him…

Plot
In the middle of a crowd in Asakusa, a man has transformed into a demon and injured his wife. Before he can kill her, Tanjiro rushes in and stuffed his hood into his mouth. As the woman calls out to him, Tanjiro instructs her to slow the bleeding of her wound, informing others to help her get patched as he wrestles to control the demon. Muzan and his human family walk away, while Tanjiro can only watch helplessly as his enemy flees. He yells at the Demon Progenitor that he will never let him escape; hearing the threat, Muzan continues to walk away while being asked by his wife on Tanjiro's strange actions. Tanjiro promises to cut off his head and to never forgive what he’s done.

Police enter the scene and Tanjiro calls for restraints to secure the demon. They ignore him and attempt to pull him off the man but Tanjiro is reluctant to release his hold on the demon. He is nearly beaten by the officers but they are distracted by the sudden appearance of flower petals and flowing patterns blinding them. It is a Blood Demon Art, Scent of Illusory Blood, Visual Dream. Tanjiro detects a scent he can’t determine but senses it is getting stronger. A demon approaches him, accompanied by a boy; she tells him he can still use the term “person” to refer to even demons. She lends him a hand to save the transformed man. After sensing her, Tanjiro attempts to state her identity as a demon but she reveals it on her own accord, as well as being a doctor and that she too wishes to take down Muzan.

Elsewhere, Muzan sends him family away in a taxi, claiming he has a business meeting to attend to. He also intends to talk to the police about the “disturbance”, brushing aside his wife’s concern about the situation. With his wife and daughter gone, Muzan enters an alleyway to walk through. While doing so, he accidentally bumps a drunk man with his brother and friend. He apologizes but the drunkard attempts to confront him for his expensive clothes. The man then talks about his pale skin and claims he looks close to dying, enraging Muzan. He raises a fist and brutally punches the drunkard into the wall, breaking his skull.

Upon seeing his brother die before him, the other man attempts to punch Muzan but is swiftly kicked high in the air, vomiting blood and splattering the floor as he lands. As the remaining person watches in horror, Muzan approaches her and gets close to her face. Terrified, the woman stays silent as Muzan menacingly asks if she considers his pale complexion looks unhealthy to her. He asks if he looks sickly and unnatural, as if he is about to die. He retorts that he is instead a living being close to perfection and raises a claw.

He pierces the woman’s skull and floods her body with an enormous amount of blood. As she squirms in pain, Muzan rhetorically asks what might happen if he continues to flood her body with his blood, answering himself by stating that the human body can’t withstand such a transformation, leaving its cells destroyed. The woman transforms into a demon-like creature but her cells dissolve before it finishes, causing her to melt into a mess of flesh and gore that burns into ash.

Muzan summons two demon by his side and instructs them to bring him Tanjiro’s head, describing him as the demon slayer with hanafuda earrings. They immediately comply and leave him to do his wishes. Left by himself, Muzan suddenly becomes terrified and remembers a moment in his past; a memory of someone standing before him, a feared enemy raising his sword while also wearing hanafuda earrings.

Elsewhere, Tanjiro is admonished by the udon vendor for not eating the udon bowl he gave him. He immediately orders a new bowl and states that he will really eat it. The vendor asks Nezuko if she too will have one but Tanjiro interjects by asking for two bowls instead. After gobbling down his udon, they leave the vendor and continue to the city. As they walk, Tanjiro apologizes to Nezuko for leaving her behind suddenly, but she stops walking and looks on ahead. He sees that she is staring at the boy who accompanied the demon he met earlier, who claims he only waited under her orders.

When Tanjiro claims he could have found her with his sense of smell, he responds by stating that she is hidden under a cloaking spell he can’t see. The boy inquires about Nezuko really being a demon as well, calling her an eyesore while doing so. Upon hearing this, Tanjiro angrily retorts that Nezuko was considered the beauty in their town and refuses to let him get away with what he said. Travelling through the city, they end up at an alley’s dead end. Tanjiro is still claiming that the boy is wrong about Nezuko’s appearance, only for him to walk through the wall, instructing him to do so as well. Tanjiro and Nezuko walk through the wall and find a house seemingly where the dead end is.

Before entering the house, the boy quickly threatens Tanjiro should he offend the person inside in any way, claiming that though he has no care what happens to him, he only brought him to the house because the woman insisted. They enter in and Tanjiro finds the injured woman from Asakusa on a hospital bed, attended to by the demon from earlier. He apologizes to the demon for leaving her with the job and learns that the transformed man is still restrained in the basement. Tanjiro wonders aloud if she struggles to treat injured people, only to be punched in the chest by the boy. He criticizes Tanjiro for believing that treating humans involves holding back their desire for blood, leading him to quietly apologize. Unbothered by the statement, the woman scolds her assistant for resorting to violence. She introduces herself to Tanjiro as Tamayo and states that the boy is named Yushiro.

She answers that treating humans isn’t as unbearable to her as it might be to other demons, as she has changed her body considerably, including removing Muzan’s curse. She takes them to the living room and tells Tanjiro and Nezuko to get comfortable. She continues her statement by saying that by modifying their bodies, they only require small amounts of blood to survive, taking it from blood transfusion. Tanjiro realizes that is why he doesn’t smell anything different from the two despite them not being the obvious demons he has seen. Tamayo adds that Yushiro can get away with less than her as she is the one who transformed him. Seeing his surprised reaction, Tamayo tells Tanjiro that while it is usually Muzan who can transform people, she was able to turn Yushiro into one but only after 200 years.

At this, Tanjiro incredulously asks how old she is, only to be jabbed repeatedly in the stomach by Yushiro for asking for her age. Tamayo threatens Yushiro if he hurts him again and he quickly complies while admiring her beauty. Tamayo says that she doesn’t intend to create more demons and only transforms people who are terminally ill or gravely injured, adding that she will still ask them if they wish to live as demons as well. Tanjiro senses that she is pure and honest and someone he can fully trust. Finally, he asks if it is possible to transform a demon back into a human.

The two demons tasked with hunting Tanjiro find the alley where they walked through. One of them uses the eyes imbedded in his hands to follow his path, while the second demon asks if he has found them, playing with a temari while doing so. The Arrow Demon finds his footprints and notes that he is followed by two others. The Temari Demon becomes excited by the upcoming fight, feeling the blood Muzan has given strengthening her.

Tamayo claims there is a way to return someone into a human. Upon hearing this, Tanjiro tries in close to receive the answer but Yushiro angrily flips him over for trying to get near Tamayo. Tamayo scolds him again for hurting Tanjiro, though he claims he merely threw him over his shoulder, not hit him. Tamayo tells Tanjiro that for any wound, there is medicine or treatment, and that while she concurrently doesn’t know how to, she and Yushiro are dedicated to working on a method that may succeed. She gives him a task; to produce an elixir for treatment, she would need both blood samples from Nezuko and from demons as close to Muzan as possible. Due to Nezuko’s condition of sleeping to heal, Tamayo sees her as extremely rare and unique, since most demons cannot handle not eating for two years. She also explains that by demons close to Muzan, she means demons whose powers are similar to him, making it more difficult.

Tamayo asks if Tanjiro is willing to do her request; with the hope others too can be saved, Tanjiro complies. Tamayo smiles at his acknowledgement, causing Tanjiro to blush, though he immediately sees Yushiro’s anger at it. Suddenly, multiple temaris punch through the house, battering the interior and forcing everyone inside to duck for safety. They stop and fly back to their owner, the Temari Demon. As the Arrow Demon wonders how they plan to kill them, she answers, “Vindictively, of course!”. Their powerful presence startles both Tanjiro and Yushiro.

Characters in Order of Appearance

 * Tanjiro Kamado
 * Muzan Kibutsuji
 * Yoriichi Tsugikuni (Flashback)
 * Tamayo
 * Yushiro
 * Susamaru
 * Yahaba
 * Nezuko Kamado

Anime Notes

 * This episode marked the first time that a Bright Red Nichirin Sword was shown in the anime.
 * This episode depicts Muzan's flashback differently from how it's seen in the manga, showing the Demon King's encounter with the swordsman in an alley, despite the actual encounter occurring in a stone path surrounded by bamboo. This may be attributed to the fact that the episode was released 7 months before Chapter 186, where the encounter was more thoroughly shown.

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