Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, and Inosuke began their trek up Mount Natagumo. Zenitsu had stayed behind, so he got separated from the group. Tanjiro and Inosuke ran into one of the spider demons that uses threads to control demon slayers like puppets, making them attack fellow demon slayers. Tanjiro figured out that to stop them, they had to slice the threads, but more would just reattach. The two went after the one controlling the puppet demon slayers, Mother Spider Demon once Inosuke found her using Beast Seventh Form: Spatial Awareness. They were stopped by a giant demon with no head and sharp claws as hands. Inosuke got injured somewhat while dodging an attack, but using teamwork, Tanjiro and Inosuke were able to defeat the demon, and Tanjiro took care of the Mother Spider Demon mercifully with no pain using Fifth Form: Blessed Rain After The Drought. He did this because he witnessed how the spider demon Rui was manipulating the other spider demons. Zenitsu then wandered into the forest on the mountain to catch up with Nezuko, who is with Tanjiro, but was stopped by the Older Brother Demon. Zenitsu was poisoned and scared, but fell asleep and his true power was awakened while asleep. We got some backstory on how Zenitsu was trained by a very powerful old man he called gramps, but could only ever learn one form or technique for battle. His gramps believed in him though and told him to keep honing the form until it was as strong as anything else and couldn’t be honed anymore. Zenitsu then unleashed First Form: Thunderclap and Flash at sixth stage, dashing through the area in midair at lightning speeds, and sliced the Older Brother Demon, defeating him. He then had to remain on top of the suspended house held by webs and focus on his breathing technique to slow the poison, unable to battle any further. Meanwhile, Tanjiro and Inosuke ran into the spider demon they called “dad,” who had immense strength and speed and a spider head. Tanjiro got blasted away from them and Inosuke had to run and hold out until help arrived, only being able to slow the demon down a bit. Tanjiro then ran into Rui and one of the sister demons. He didn’t like the way Rui was treating her, and engaged Rui in battle, but quickly found out that Rui’s threads slice anything, including humans, into pieces. Rui revealed himself as one of the Twelve Kizuki chosen by Muzan to be one of the strongest demons there is. Tanjiro’s sword was snapped in half, but he didn’t give up against overwhelming odds. He unleashed Tenth Form: Constant Flux to keep spinning towards Rui and slashing his threads with the momentum and power gained. Rui then unleashed his blood demon art, and the threads turned red and got even stronger. Tanjiro got past this by unleashing his ultimate technique: Dance of the Fire God, and kept slashing, getting closer and closer to Rui in a dance of raw power as he became... Hinokami. Nezuko was still captured in midair by Rui’s threads, but unleashed her blood demon art, Exploding Blood, which snapped the threads protecting Rui. Tanjiro then hit Rui on his neck with the broken sword and the full power of his technique. Meanwhile, two Hashira demon slayers, Giyu Tomioka and Shinobu Kocho were deployed to help out. Tomioka arrived to where Inosuke was just in time to defeat the Dad Spider Demon, before Inosuke’s head could be crushed. He tied Inosuke up and made it in time to Tanjiro and Nezuko. It appeared Tanjiro had won, but Rui had secretly unhinged his head from his body using his threads before Tanjiro struck, meaning he was still alive. As Tanjiro was out of options and about to die, Tomioka showed up and sliced the red threads easily. Rui became enraged and attacked Tomioka, but Tomioka used Eleventh Form: DEAD CALM to change the entire atmosphere of battle and snap any threads that entered his range. He easily defeated Rui and said that Tanjiro had done a good job hanging in there until he got there. Kocho had healed Zenitsu’s poison, and then caught up with Tanjiro, Nezuko, and Tomioka. She was going to kill Nezuko before Tomioka intervened, and Tanjiro and Nezuko ran away. Just then, however, a crow called and said Tanjiro and Nezuko were to be brought back to the Demon Slayer Corps base alive. The cleanup crew rescued everyone from the mountain, and when Tanjiro woke up he found himself in the presence of the Hashiras... definitely looking forward to binging the last episodes and finishing season one!
