Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

He eats noisily, crunching, slurping, sucking, chewing, biting, gnawing, snarling. Bits of sinewy tissue slip between his teeth, purple-red, which makes him pause from his meal in order to pick the flesh out with long, razor-sharp claws. He manages to spit out the offending tissue onto the thoroughly stained tatami mats, growling, then commences back to his meal, facing me, keeping me trapped in the main room with him physically blocking the exit.

Drip.

Drip.

The stain grows, unhindered. 

He’s soaked nearly the entire half of the main room, now, with his meal. The tatami mats will have to be thrown away, with the flooring underneath scrubbed for hours. The blood might even trickle into the foundation at this point.

Drip.

He has skin the colour of parchment, lifeless and unnatural, shining like a dull moon under the flicker of the room’s dying lantern. I’m mutely surprised that his teeth, so angelically white and delicate in appearance, are able to pierce through anything at all. They look like little spider teeth, all sharp and spindly but weak and small. I winced when he took his first bite, munching through a layer of thick kimono and weathered skin both to reach the squishy organs underneath.

Now I remain still, desperately hoping that if I fade into the background he’ll forget that I’m here.

So I watch, silent.

The blood continues to pool, drip, drip, dripping away. Each droplet is in the shape of a spider lily bud, blooming, blossoming, painfully red, eerily reminiscent of an emotion in my chest that’s about to burst. 

The scene is drawn as an impressionist painting; the light, flickering brutal white-yellow in thin pen strokes, enhancing the way the two bodies, two lovers in embrace, fall on the ground, gently lain in the lap of the monstrous man, plucking the flesh and bones from their bodies in the masterful way a cellist strums his instrument, mesmerising. I gaze upon the legendary works of Monet and Renoir themselves, I think, still watching, hooked into the haunting beauty of hideous greed. I watch this man, this monster, this demon, while I remain barely breathing, tucked into the shadow of the main room, helpless to it all.

I watch him eat my parents.

From the way he shudders, tremors, I see him finish off mum satisfactorily enough to move onto dad.

There’s an eerie noise in the air, distant from the eating noises. I hear the chirp of crickets outside, the whistle of pine needles thrashing, and the slight patter of rain, but those are all present in reality – true noises. Sometimes, when I stare too long, I begin to hear sounds with my eyes, and I call them fake noises. The demon looks the way nails against a chalkboard sounds. My parents’ corpses, fresh and ripe, look the way a thunderstorm pounds against the vast, unforgiving sea. The closed sliding door behind him, peppered with little splashes of bodily fluids, looks the way crying sounds – sniffling, sobbing, whimpering, with a smear of snot and the tears going drip, drip…

Drip.

A teardrop innocently slides down my face and onto the tatami mat below. The soft material of the floor absorbs shock and sound, but in this particular moment, between the demon and I, any sort of movement at all will be noticed. 

Even the muffled sound of agony.

He looks up.

I hadn’t imagined that I’d die even quicker than before. My first life had been hectic, chaotic, trapped in a neon world of flashing lights, steel, glass – a concrete jungle. I died too young, on the cusp of adulthood, in a wreck of frothing white seafoam and in the hellish depths of the unknown – a slow, watery death. Then I started life over again by some cosmic wish (or joke, who knows), over a hundred years behind, in a different country, culture, and era.

The countryside healed the wounds sustained from death, and I happily absorbed every little bit of the simple life carved out before me. I learned a new language, traditions, religion, and more, helping out with the family business, tending to the shrines in our little village, and being an active participant in what I hoped to be a happy, fulfilling (if plain) life. My normalness detracted from the oddness of my eye colouring birth defect – blue! In Japan? – and I was set to be content for the rest of this second life, carefree.

“Your turn, little girl.”

This is no cannibal. This is a monster. This is the sort of monster parents make up to scare their children into behaving. This is a monster who prowls at night, subtly growing in size and power with every bite of human.

“I’ve been saving you for last.”

For the first time of the night, I decide to close my eyes and stop watching. My sight, my greatest gift, is a useless weapon against a glooming and inevitable death. So instead of seeing, I hear, I feel, I smell, and I taste.

I hear the drip-drip-drip of both tears streaming down my face and of hunger salivating past the demon’s spider-like teeth, slow and grisly. His footsteps thud softly, long legs bounding across the room in a moment’s notice, his heaving breath already just a metre away in the time it takes for me to count to five.

I feel my arms shaking, hands quivering, knuckles painfully clutching the edge of my kimono – a pretty pink dress, a recent gift from the neighbourhood boy who fancies me – crinkling the fabric, possibly cutting half-moons into the seam with my nails. I want the soft mats under me to swallow me whole, to let me sink down into the earth itself, to immerse myself in the serene dark, away from the possibility of my throat being ripped open, of my spine shattering, of my beating heart imploding within my little-girl body.

I smell the waft of iron and human excrement from the open corpses. Sometimes when I stare at anything long enough, I begin to see what it smells like – but now, I have no need for imagination. The scene smells like dread because that’s what it is.

I taste the throb in my throat and the salt in my mouth. There’s bits of leftover aubergine stuck around my teeth from dinner – I hadn’t been able to finish eating because a visitor knocked on our door. When my dad went to investigate, there was a boom, a crash, and a waft of dust obscuring the uninvited guest. The monster had muttered under his breath about wanting to taste our juicy meat, to pop our eyeballs out of our skulls, and to lick the tears off our faces before cracking our necks.

It’s black, the colour of peace, the colour of fertile soil, home to new life and hope itself, behind my eyelids.

It’s black when the unthinkable happens.

I open back to the harsh light, suddenly watching the ice-white demon fade away in a shimmer of dark ash. A man with a tengu mask wearing a cloud patterned jinbei kimono stands in place of the demon, then coming down to a crouch, shielding the gory scene behind him. The man sheathes an ocean-tamed katana and reaches out a wrinkly, calloused hand.

Sometimes when I stare too long I begin to see how something feels.

Soft. Warm. Inviting. Every line, nook, and cranny of the tanned, elderly hand screams of the wonders of this man, this abrupt departure from horror and terror, of the kindness and compassion this man exudes. 

My own hands, clutching the edge of my dress, shake.

“What’s your name?” He asks gently. 

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Name. Name? In Japanese the family name goes first, then the first name. I try to say it out loud, but I get stuck on the part where I’m supposed to open my mouth and vocalise. 

I can’t say my family name because there is no family left.

Just me.

Drip.

Drip…

In open, unhurried motions, the man with the funny mask reaches into a sleeve and brandishes a square of cloth – a handkerchief. I let him reach forward to wipe the tears and ugly snot from my face, following the movement of the muscles in his hand, wiping. 

They bulge up, down, left, right, and out. I’ve never met anybody this old with such muscle definition before. The man is also vaguely familiar, in the way that I believe I’ve seen him before, but definitely not in this life – I’d remember anybody with a strange get-up like that. 

I breathe in, then out.

“Makomo,” I whisper. No family name. “I – I’m Makomo.”

The air tastes of blood.

I don’t know how I can tell, but there’s a general shift in the man’s demeanour, something indicating relief. He almost looks bigger now, broadening his shoulders and puffing out parts of his kimono, further hiding the mess on the other side of the main room. “Really? That’s a pretty name! It’s nice to meet you, Makomo-chan. Could you please close your eyes for me? I’m going to take you outside now.”

Close your eyes.

I take his hand but I don't close my eyes. Not again. Not anymore. If he’s worried or disappointed, he doesn’t show it, and instead guides me around the corpses, to the fusuma walls. He forces the fusuma open and we depart through the backroom, the last shoji doors sliding behind me with such finality that I sink down to the damp engawa and think about everything that's happened in the past nine years of this life that has made me deserve such a wretched night. 

The old man plops down right next to me. 

“My name is Urokodaki Sakonji and my job is to hunt down demons,” he says, breaking the silence, cracking the rose-tinted glass of my final reality. Then he apologises for not being able to arrive in time to save my parents from this said… demon.

Because of course.

Demons.

And this is Urokodaki Sakonji, the former Water Hashira. A legendary demon slayer in a land of demons.

Because demons are no longer fiction, just like the fiction of books and television from a life long ago, with words now flying off the page and transforming into bloodthirsty, soul devouring, parent-eating monsters. Demons. Murderers. 

Fiction. Reality. Fake. True. Not real. Real.

When he offers to train me to become a demon slayer under the light of the waning moon amongst the quivering pine trees in my quaint mountain home of this peaceful village, I foresee a future of pain and death. Many students under Urokodaki’s tutelage perished during the Final Selection, and I’ll become one of them, only to exist as a spirit to help the important people later on. But no, I don’t really care all that much about people I’ve never met. It’s phenomenally stupid of me to choose a dangerous path with a high chance of death, especially a foreseen death in the world of fiction, but I have nobody left at this point.

Nobody but an old man with a sword, offering me a place in his home.

My family is dead. I lost a father, a mother, and an unborn sibling. What gives?

When I agree to become his apprentice, his shoulders slump down minutely, the fabric shifting ever so slightly, the clouds dancing to reflect the movement. Then he straightens back up, the weather scenery still, making me doubt if he even displayed any sort of reaction at all.

“Wait here,” he says, then disappears back into the house.

I sit there on the engawa, unaware of time. Little weeds sprout through the ground below the raised wooden platform so I swing my feet down and let the grass tickle my soles. I wonder what it would be like to be a plant. Life would be much simpler, then, only worrying about sunshine and rain. I’d be able to bask in the beauty of the world without pesky things like human emotions and painful deaths. And maybe if somebody steps on my fragile green stalk, they won’t have to clean up a massive splattering of viscous dark liquid and fleshy pink and purple bits. I won’t have crunchy bones scattered around making a mess, the shards clattering like beads whilst rushing down a waterfall of red. 

Then if someone steps on me, crushing my stem, smashing my petals into a paste, I’ll be easy to clean up and forget about. I won’t be a lying corpse on a tatami floor, engulfing the entire room with the stench of human turmoil. 

Urokodaki returns, saving me from my musings. He carries a small basket of my personal belongings and a pair of sandals, both of which he gives to me. I pull on the sandals and sling the straps of the basket over my back, letting the weight of familiarity ground me. 

And then we depart.

I’ve never travelled this far from home before, is what I think every time I witness a new marvel. The never ending rice paddies, the crystal clear lakes, the rushing rivers, the rolling hills of grass, the shadowy thicket of willow trees, the fruit orchard towns, the luscious and rich beauty of an untouched countryside. But, of course, in my nine year old glory, this is just an over exaggeration of my shock and awe of a world outside of my sheltered little life, for it’s all but a two day walk from my village to the base of Sagiri Mountain. 

Perhaps it’s my age, the fresh trauma, or an old man’s weakness, but he treats me gentler than what I remember of his tale from years past. We settle into his small mountain home, we eat a simple dinner, and he explains to me the entirety of the demon slayer organisation, all with a firm, guiding hand. 

Demon Slayer.

I’m going to be a demon slayer.

I’d be giddy at the prospect of being in a fantasy world, of magic and dramatic treachery, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m now stuck in this position because of my parents’ murder. I catch myself smiling too much when I run my fingers down the wooden blade of my tiny practice sword, wondering at the mystique of epic combat and lightning-quick movements. It feels like punishment, then, when I realise I’m not being serious enough in the face of my precarious position as a future dead-girl. 

So I train.

Because there’s nothing else for me to do in this world except chase down hungry, hungry demons, slashing, kicking, sparring, punching, clawing, ripping, brutalising, attacking, fighting. My desires are ugly but I am not ashamed, for I will live and see to a future where I thrash against the forces that took away the simple happiness I carved out in this second life.

And live.

Chapter Text

“Another five hundred!” Urokodaki barks.

Please no.

My arms quiver, but I force my hands to grip the wooden sword despite fresh blisters leaking blood and serum onto the bandaged grip and complete another five hundred rounds of the overhead cut. 

And, well – it’s not actually a sword, more of a knife. I’m not tall enough to use a normal bokken, nevermind an actual katana, so after some digging through a few cluttered chests, my new master eventually found a practice tanto blade for me to train with. It’s a thirty centimetre long blade with a slight curve meant to help with striking and slicing motions – with these types of swords, classic Japanese style, the user isn’t meant to apply blunt force through the tip the way a normal Western style longsword does, else it’ll shatter the blade. Which is fine by me, because the only part of combat training that I seem to be successful at is using momentum to let me dance around my opponent.

I’m too small for literally everything else.

At the end of the day, the pink-red rays of dusk filtering through the tall trees to the clearing where I train, Urokodaki encourages me to stretch far beyond the limits of a normal human being. 

My agility, dexterity, and flexibility are my greatest strengths, he says more than once, right before I complain about more work. And to truly excel at something is a gift not many others have. Best not squander it.

So at the end of every day, I remain in constant astonishment at the fact that I can place flat hands on the ground both ways, and that my arms can pop out of their shoulder socket to rotate up and out, fingertips able to reach the normally too tall branches. My legs fall even lower than a split, bending into a concave curve. I jump, I leap, I dance.

The Breath of Water is the epitome of flexibility, which is why, Urokodaki explains, that so many demon slayers in the corps are allocated to learn it. It requires flexibility and it provides flexibility, allowing the practitioners to be utilised in a variety of ways in the battlefield, from high attacks to low feints or rotation stunts to merciful slashes. The style may be the most popular to learn, but it’s the most difficult to find a true master, as many have tried and many have failed to be anything more than a jack-of-all trades, master of none. 

There hasn’t been a Water Hashira in the corps since Urokodaki retired.

He’s also never been able to graduate a student from the Final Selection, as the hand demon personally hunts them down. To my knowledge, the only student of Urokodaki’s teachings that did live beyond the treacherous seven-day assessment was Giyuu, who then shortly afterwards became the new Water Hashira. So as long as I avoid the hand demon, I promise myself, I should be fine.

Right?

In the meantime – training. 

High kick. Uppercut. Spin. Forward roll. Cartwheel. Side step. Extend. Slice down. Pronate. Supinate. Change grip. Both hands. Avoid blade – bridge! Backbend. Jump. Tuck and roll. Bend. Rotate hips, shoot upwards! Duck. Weave. Charge.

Observe.

I see the minute shift in his hips telling of an oncoming feint tactic. He lunges left, sword striking left, but the light shimmer of sweat, the whisper of gooseflesh on the back of his opposing hand, and the minuscule vibration of peach fuzz tell a different story. He’s going to switch grips – he’s going to adjust any millisecond now – and attack with a backhand right swing. I see the very air bristle in preparation around his midsection, cloth crinkling downwards in what will be momentum for a hit to either side. I see the static linger, crackling, imagining the future before my eyes like a thunderstrike, where his shoulders stiffen unnaturally, blocking a smooth motion in favour of reining in the effort for ease of tightening towards the opposite direction.

I see all of this, but my body can’t keep up with my vision. I try to duck down immediately, bending my knees, preparing for a different lunge tactic, but I’m still smashed by the flat part of his practice blade down into the dirt.

“Ahhh…” He intones, staring down at me plastered on the ground. “That was… Did you sense my feint?”

“...Yes?”

He nods to himself and taps my foot, forcing me back up. “This will make your training easier, then. Tell me, Makomo-chan, which of your senses is enhanced?”

My what now?

But I’ve always known the answer. It’s not natural, this part of me. I first waved it off as a birth defect mainly due to the colouring, then as the years passed by, when I realised I could see individual strands of hair from half a field away, I did little but wonder about the magic of being born in a body with no need for a prescription of glasses and carrot juice. 

“My eyesight is better than most,” I say.

I hear with my eyes. I feel with my eyes. I taste with my eyes. I smell with my eyes.

And sometimes, when I concentrate, I can see things I’m not supposed to be aware of. Hidden things. Forbidden things. Secrets of the body, mind, and soul.

With demon slayers, he explains, the very best of the best irrevocably change their anatomy because of the breathing style and their exposure to demonic magics whilst fighting them. The resulting mutation manifests outwards, typically providing odd colouring on the body. I must’ve had some sort of demon slayer ancestry that gave me these deep cyan irises, or perhaps something happened to me when I was little that mutated the genes in my eyes. 

“My nose is keener than most,” he says, tapping the elongated wood of the tengu mask. “I can smell a demon ten kilometres away. And I had a student, a long time ago, with enhanced hearing. You’re not alone, Makomo-chan. Most of us in the demon slayer corps are bit… different. A fair amount of us are enhanced.”

“So it’s not… weird?”

Urokodaki’s posture changes. The visible skin behind the mask, the strip around the edge of the frightening visage relaxes, wrinkles around the eyes disappearing but the lines around his jaw swell and tighten. The chin of the mask juts out a millimetre, a light tap by an extruding, clenched jaw shifting the position of the wood. “No, it’s not weird. You’re perfectly fine as you are. Better, in fact, with this gift – the potential to reach higher heights.”

Even with a mask covering his face, I see and see and see. I catch his fleeting emotions – sadness, guilt, sympathy – despite the hidden features. 

Sometimes, when I see too much, I violate people’s privacy. 

And I can’t turn it off.

As it turns out, Tanjirou does not, in fact, pull streams of ocean waves out of thin air whenever he turns on his magical katana powers. Artistic depictions in fantasy logic are always going to be a bit off compared to the real thing – and it’s incredibly strange to acknowledge that I am currently living in this real scenario of fiction.

The boy probably smells moisture in the air splitting from the speed of his strikes or whatever, and thus describes to his imaginary audience using that visual. So when I literally see a giant jet of seafoam and azure tides accompany the first kata I learn, I freak out a bit and wonder if maybe trauma messed with my head a little too much. I don’t want to immerse myself in the works of Hokusai dimensional woodblock prints – I want some semblance of normalcy and logic in this reality. Life is not a painting.

The mnemonic helps with concentration.

I breathe in. “First Form: Water Surface Slash!”

The momentum carries my tanto forth, splitting the poor branch in half at inhuman strength and speed. 

This second time I catch it – it’s not water, it’s a picture of water. 

Later, at dinner, Urokodaki explains, “Most demon slayers with enhanced senses tend to visualise the attack forms with the actual elements they’re based on. They’re rooted in nature. For example, our water breathing conjures the magical essence of water, and this is enhanced by the Total Concentration Breathing. Do you think most normal people would be able to see the very elements of this earth transform before their eyes?”

No. Probably not.

“Wait, magic exists?”

And that’s the moment when I realise sometimes old people keep kids around for purely amusement purposes, because he starts to shake and bellow a great, ugly laugh, then refuses to answer the question, telling me that I need to figure it out myself at this stage. 

But, well, holy fuck. Does it exist? Demons, by all rights, are weird little magical creatures. Demon slayers are mostly normal people with funky swords, though. In a very long, technical explanation, sure – magic is just unknown science, and the whole idea of breathing hard enough to jack up my muscles with Mega Safe Steroid Breathing Juice™ surely must be some form of wacky sciencey doo doo. 

Fuck yeah, I’m Meiji era Harry Potter. With a sword.

Swish-swish!

Urokodaki must sense my excitement because he stifles more laughter and shoves an extra helping of kabocha onto my plate. 

The next day he shoves me under a waterfall and says I can’t return home until I learn how to fight in water. 

Water’s the basis of water breathing, that I know for certain – but I’m not a mermaid. I don’t have fins, gills, or a tail. I have no webs, no scales, and no innate ability to survive in an aquatic environment. I can swim, but I haven’t really been exposed to anything deeper than a mountain stream in this life. I used to be an avid swimmer in my past life, attending competitions, conferences, tours, expeditions, and more, but that all changed when–

–bloated white hand reaching up, the pressure crushing–

It changed when–.

Oh, right. I died at sea, didn’t I?

I rise back up, my kimono sticking to my skin, the ends of my hair drip-drip-dripping on my shoulders. “How rude!”

He laughs, unaware, but lets me strip off the bulky outer layer for more flexibility. It’s late spring now and I’ve been fighting with a real tanto knife for the past few weeks, which I’m infinitely relieved for in this exact instance because a wooden blade would weigh me down whilst drenched. 

“Now, now, Makomo-chan,” he says. “It’ll be no different from the regular breathing exercises we’ve done. Swim a few laps and head down as deep as you can, then complete one repetition of the sixth form.”

Right.

Right, okay.

I paddle along, enjoying the ease off my joints in the quaint pool, then I send capital “A” Anxiety the finger and swim down into the depths, eager to train.

It’s a horrible mistake.

Staring down into the dark depths of a much, much deeper pool than I initially assumed reminds me of the beginning – but I don’t remember much of the beginning except for the crashing of waves, the devastating silence in the excruciating pressure of the ocean, and being locked in a storm with down as the only option left. I remember sinking down to the depths of the great unknown, ice rushing through my lungs, eyeballs popping like thin bubblegum in the crushing dark, with my own breath choking out of me when my throat collapsed against my bidding. The salt burning against my skin, seaweed brushing abrasively past my swollen, whitened legs, and my ears bursting and shattering helplessly as the slow, painfully slow path down to the clogged seabed trapped my feet. The world of the sea was so cold, then, that it burned, searing into my very bones as I froze stiff, sinking down and down and down until the last thing I felt was the blind winter.

–cold cold cold cold cold why is it so coldcoldcoldcoldcold–

“–komo!”

And I wake up to the joy of the warmth.

I was dead, then I wasn’t. I saw the sun again, the birds in the sky, the clouds, and the dew-lined grass under my feet when I was reborn.

I’m alive.

“–mo… Makomo!”

Grey rocks. A shore. Bubbling of a waterfall. The gentle spring breeze. A warm hand slapping my back. My body, half on the shore and half not. 

I look up. Urokodaki is wet.

He carries me home, my body curled into his in a rare show of my immaturity. He doesn’t seem to mind – I can see his thoughts racing a thousand miles a minute, wondering why I panicked whilst submerged when all the other times I dunk my head in a bucket of water for water breathing training I displayed a total lack of unease.

The failure burns, fire-hot.

Night. Stars. Fireflies. Cicadas. Half-moon.

“What happened out there, Makomo-chan? You said you could swim.”

Shaded grass. Moss. Sleeping birds. Budding lavender. Whispering pines.

I observe the wall of the home, extending far beyond through the cracks of the mostly closed window, concentrating on anything and everything. The stars are beautiful tonight.

“I know how to swim,” I say.

Three-time regional freestyle champion. Scuba certified. Cave diving tour guide. Of course I can swim. I know how to navigate through water better than most.

The air in the room stills.

“But,” I relent, the pride and arrogance relinquished as I slump down, wavering. “I–. I went swimming one day, years ago. I didn’t get back out. The next thing I knew, I woke up with no idea what just happened.”

There are no lies in my story, at least. Urokodaki doesn’t know I actually never got back out, but he can extrapolate enough information to be aware enough that I might be a ninny around what used to be my natural element.

But now I’m afraid, because how the hell can I master the Breath of Water when I can’t even get in a damned basin? 

He nods and says, gravelly and final, “I see.”

Urokodaki stays silent for a long time before formulating a plan.

The sudden fear that I’ll be kicked out for being such a failure is quickly squashed down at his new plan to gradually expose me to my fears again, swearing that my potential is too great to be hindered by this “minor” setback. 

So spring ends, splashing in puddles.

When summer hits, it’s the first year anniversary of my parents’ death. I fully master most of the forms by then, able to conjure the mighty strikes with but a moment’s notice. The only thing to continue is to increase the time and rate at which I can achieve Total Concentration Breathing – and swimming.

Autumn is much the same, mastering the last few forms. I turn eleven years old but only shoot up a scant few centimetres, much to my ire. 

Autumn also brings new challenges, such as being between a rock and a hard place when fishing for more information out of the stingy bastard. I know he’s lost eleven apprentices before me, each loss more profound than the last, and it weighs as a personal failure on him, but I hadn’t actually suspected him to deny a chance for a spot for his students at the upcoming Final Selections until after Sabito’s unfortunate and depressing demise. From what I’ve observed, he hasn’t been nearly as much of a hardass to me as he was to Tanjirou.

Until now.

“There’s no more I can teach you,” he tells me one sunny morning. “But I will not let you pass on to the next stage until you pass my final test.”

Split a boulder? Oh shit no, pure strength isn’t the way I fight, I can’t –.

“Climb this tree without the use of your arms.”

I relax momentarily at the words, at the assurance that it’s a test of agility. Climbing’s always been a piece of cake, but then I look at the tree he points at.

It’s hardly a tree at all.

A few weeks ago, during a terrible storm, lightning struck one of the ancient firs, splintering it of leaves and branches, leaving just an eerie milk-white, smooth pole in its place – the remains of the ancient tree being an easy fifteen or twenty metres tall.

Urokodaki wants me to walk up what’s essentially a giant buttery smooth pole without my arms, Naruto-style. 

Well, in the real world, something called gravity exists.

Because of this little something called gravity, I know for sure that Urokodaki despises the idea of letting me out of his reach, off to go die like the rest of his apprentices. This final test of his is the last stop, in his mind, to prevent us innocent children from a short, doomed life. He might even be pleased if I’m unable to pass this clever game, pretending to be disappointed before whisking me away to some children’s home in the city where I’ll be well taken care of, away from demons and danger. 

The only obvious course of action is to figure out how to pass this stupid test, then. 

I start by doing what I do best: I stare.

From afar, the scene may be painted funnily – a girl in a daze in front of a dead tree, standing and staring at it for an unusual period of time. I know what I look like, too, with my own natural resting expression a mix between dreamy and sleepy, my lips constantly curled into a mysterious smile, and my eyes, large but half-lidded, gazing off into the distance. It’s hard to directly look at people, I suppose, without somewhat violating their privacy, so I reserve truly staring for times of direct observation such as now. 

The shades of bleached wood dance, telling a story. 

I feel the patter of rain drench my clothes when I look at the raindrop stains sliding through the cracks and crevices. I hear the thunder pound in my ears when I look at the silver crackles of lightning scars running around the top. I smell the ozone when I look at the remnants of the massive storm, the bark and finger-like branches sizzling off in one sudden explosion. 

The wood itself is stable enough to support my weight if I were to reach the top, but the only available rippling ledges aren’t even big enough for a mountain goat’s surefooted hooves. 

Because I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, I try to Naruto-style it for the first day. AKA, running up the tree and hoping momentum sticks (in lieu of something useful, like magical chakra and other epic abilities pulled from my ass).

Hey, I’ve got two brain cells and they’re both competing for third place.

By the second week, I practice lunges, squats, burpees, and more. Might as well transform into a mountain goat at this point, right?

By the time the blistering cold infiltrates the air, the weather dropping to below freezing temperatures during the night time, blue and purple splotches litter my legs, a fresh bruise appearing every day. I can kick and jump like a horse on crack, but the ability to jump over fifteen metres straight into the air is still an unattainable goal. 

Inspiration comes from Second Form: Water Wheel. 

Because – spinning. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

Running start, bend down, channel power through my thighs and hips, then spring upwards with momentum!

I jump up, an impressive four metres already, hook my foot around the tree, and push off into a rotation with the other leg, leaping up. The top half is totally smooth, no ledges in sight, but I have no need for that anymore after training like hell in footwork. I push down, slamming on the wood, hearing a small crack from the abuse, and using that force to push myself up even further, arms flapping uselessly behind me. One more ankle hook, one more awkward bend, and I leap into the clouds.

I land gently at the very tip, my toes balancing on the skinny pole-top, gazing wide-eyed at the view down below.

Urokodaki looks like an ant from up here, hands clapping, nodding proudly.

A sad, despairing ant.

An hour before the trip to Fujikasane Mountain, Urokodaki provides a care package.

“Food to last the week,” he says, gesturing at the flat bundle. “You’ll have plenty of water – the mountain springs are one of the cleanest in the region.”

I examine the next gifts.

“You’ll need a new kimono sturdy enough to last in battle, and a nichirin blade – it’s custom, hard to find spare nichirin tantos nowadays, so use it well.”

The cloud patterned kimono is thicker and stronger than my own pink one, which will undoubtedly serve me well during my deathly adventure. Underneath, he’s additionally laid an extra posy blue kimono layer for added warmth and protection. The nichirin tanto blade shines deep blue, so I assume the knife used to belong to Urokodaki himself or he commissioned it for me from the corps – even before an actual acceptance into the division.

“And this, a talisman,” he concludes, brandishing a bone-white fox mask with two blue flowers painted along the side. “I imbued it with a good luck charm. May you have safe travels and succeed in your path, Makomo-chan.”

Wait wait wait – a charm?

Stupid fucking little… How do charms work? What does “good luck charm” even mean? Is this guy a wizard or what?

“You’re teaching me how to make good luck charms when I get back,” I demand, already tongue tied from his thoughtfulness. I mean to demand he teach me all his magic tricks and witchcraft (a luck charm, honestly), but the words fail in my throat as I bid him farewell. But no matter, I will be coming back and I will bully the information out of him. 

“When you come back,” he promises.

And I depart.

Chapter Text

The whole schmuck behind my dreamy, unsettling gaze is because I find it difficult to look at people directly without literally uncovering their every emotion, so when I decide to tug the fox mask on to test the feel, I’m awestruck at how much it numbs down my overachieving senses. I can still see with astounding clarity, but the narrow slits turn down the intensity – the extent I’d never realised to be so powerful. 

Normalcy is addicting.

Mount Fujikasane looms.

I wear the mask for the end part of the trip, sauntering into the forest of wisteria. A blood red shinto gate sits atop a flight of stone stairs, opening up to a clearing of forty people, all of varying ages and abilities but here for one purpose – to qualify for the corps. Strings of paper talisman tie between wooden poles and the ethereal wisteria, which seem to glow with their own natural light – they don’t, I know the flowers aren’t bioluminescent, but a shivering twinkle still alights the purple petals in a way that shouldn’t be possible. 

Perhaps my training has led me to open some sort of third eye when it comes to spiritual properties in regards to demons – or the fox mask contains other innate gifts Urokodaki’s hadn’t cared to elaborate upon. 

Most of the contestants are children around my age, I notice. Many with scars, faint or grotesque. They observe each new incomer with trepidation – who’s going to survive? Who appears the most confident? Who has the odd colouring denoting slayer ancestry? My kimono, bright blue, contrasts heavily with the typical dark clothes that blend into the background, unnoticeable. And my mask shines like the moon above, all too telling of something to be hidden, something to be wanted and protected, almost childishly drawing in furtive glances, a beacon.

So they stare, and I stare right back at them, the emotionless fox face eventually scaring them away.

Fortunately, I’m not the weirdest looking kid in the bunch. A boy with sunshine yellow hair tinged with fire wanders in and everyone stares. That kid holds a neon sign screaming “look at me! I’m brighter than the sun!” His appearance is a visible testament to the strength of his ancestors – and hopefully him, too.

I’d hate to be Rengoku.

When the full moon shines at the highest point in the sky, the test begins.

Hand demon. Hand demon. Hand demon.

Urokodaki’s love and care for his students brought upon their downfall, for the warm cloud-patterned kimono and the charm-imbued mask are easily found signs to those seeking revenge against the former Water Hashira.

The first night, I keep to the trees, leaping swiftly between the whip-thin branches, only becoming stationary at the top of a towering pine with umbrella-like boughs that obscure vision from those on the ground looking up, but extends my own field of sight despite the slitted eyes. It’s phenomenally stupid of me to continue to wear the gifts, but pride has always been my downfall. I want to treasure these gifts. I want to wear them. I want to feel the comfort of my master’s loving touch even this far from home.

The second night, the demons appear, carefully trickling out to examine their fresh prey, assessing the weak and the strong.

The third night, they hunt.

I see the howls of pain, the waft of sweat, the flavour of iron. The image of the demon with spider-like teeth, filleting a fleshy red strip from mum’s leg, overlaps with the first demon I find – some fat green thing with too many eyeballs. The two images finally fit together, the blue and red screens joining like canopying polarised stereo frames, and I slash, aiming at the(ir) neck(s).

It dies, shattering into a million pieces, ash dissolving away in the moonlight.

Thank you, mum seems to say, using a throat that doesn’t exist. You saved me.

“May you rest in peace,” I say.

The afterimage fades.

During the fourth night, in the west, flames rise. Someone’s being a trailblazer – literally. 

On the fifth night, I hear screams. 

From the treetops, I see rustling, thrashing branches three kilometres south, indicative of a large-scale fight. The air waves bristle, stiffen, tighten, clench, in fear of what has emerged. Birds squawk and fly away, insects flee, squirrels burrow, and even the very wind ripples away, leaving a dead zone in the strange clearing. 

The Earth despises these beasts.

I see a dead, stone-grey hand fly up into the sky, past the surrounding trees, up into the air, and I know the hand demon is there, waiting for me.

Another scream.

Then silence.

I see the earth rattle with every stomp-stomp-stomp.

Screams.

Van Gogh sought fame with the help of his floral still lifes. I remember once, a long time ago, visiting a museum in dedication to the artist and gazing upon the funny little trees, all twisty and bendy with interceding perspectives and confusing foregrounds. The shadows never made any sense, and the sun or moon seemed to only exist to serve as a focal point instead of remaining in the background the way an actual light source does. Nothing appeared as realistic as other artists’ works – everything too colourful yet not colourful enough, or was simply lacking the fine detail of Klimt and Bierstadts’ photorealism. Then again, I rationalised to myself, Van Gogh, at one point, went insane.

I smash through the river of paint, the speckled dots of stars in the sky shining on my beautiful kimono as I stain the canvas with each brutal leap away from safety. My foreground twists, bends, and breaks, not shattering like glass in an ancient mirror, but insidiously dribbling away, like blood pooling around bumpy scars, blending and forming a scratched-out frame that I can barely navigate through. Scenes fade into one another, the shadows tilt and moan, the night losing lucidity. This canvas has lost meaning, for I throw away the modicum of safety I treasure with a rushing pounding in my skull making me save someone I don’t even know.

If he went insane, then what am I doing?

The hand demon shakes the ground in fury when I slice away one of many hands to protect a fallen contestant. 

This is the demon fated to kill me, and I’ve just dropped a coin into Charon’s outstretched palm.

The demon roars, drunken.

“Run,” I whisper, not looking back at the girl behind me. She chokes, mumbles something, and slowly drags herself away – oh. Her sword arm is broken.

She won’t last long unless she runs away.

“YOU!” He accuses, waving a series of grey-green hands in my direction. “You, yes, you! You’re one of Urokodaki’s brats, aren’t you?!”

How do I stall?

I whip out the tanto, his eyes immediately narrowing down on the blue tinge. “Urokodaki-san is my master, yes.”

So the demon laughs, jovial, and spins a tale of the tragedy of vengeance. Eleven kids, dead. Eaten, smashed, swallowed whole, grinded against rocks, twisted limbs, plucked bones, gurgling blood, alluring crimson dyeing the ground, fresh and sweet. All were noteworthy in their own way, fast and strong, but all fell down in terror once they realised they could not pierce through the demon’s hard neck. Eventually, they were worn down by the overwhelming hands and could not keep up the fight. Thus they were devoured.

The girl’s footsteps have disappeared. I chance to whirl around, checking if she’s also disappeared from my vision, too, and she has. If I cannot spot her from here, then no one can.

So I bristle, overshaking my limbs in righteous fury. “You will regret their murder!” I vow, screaming, charging forward–.

Then fleeing.

There’s a loud crash far away, of hands clapping together to smash where I was projected to have landed. I’m not brave, courageous, or righteous. I won’t stay and fight to avenge those who would’ve been my older brothers and sisters. I’ll be the sensible coward who lived.

The hand demon chases me down, tries to find me. Its hunting technique, of course, has been honed over decades, and is vastly superior to my sense of smell, but I am still more agile.

The paintbrush bobs, weaves, and splatters, drawing new paths for me to pursue. The leaves begin to blur together at the rate I run, spiking green blobs, awash with silver from the starry sky, like the messily drawn piece of poignant post-impressionism that has become my life. I duck, I dodge, I weave, and I fly, never falling into the taunts of the demon or the shrieking demands that I stay in one place. The demon can’t catch me before dawn, so I prance atop a pink-stained sunbathed streambed when the morning arrives. 

The nights pass. I frolic on treetops, occasionally removing the fox mask to check my surroundings at a higher intensity when I feel the hand demon approach, and I live. 

Six people remain.

The girl I rescued isn’t here.

And surprise, surprise, it’s all the colourful kids. Rengoku, a few others with distinctive patterns, and me. We all examine each other warily, the battle adrenaline and paranoia not yet faded. 

One crow and uniform later, a representative brings out a tray of metal ore. 

I wonder what they look like to everyone else, because one boy complains to the representative that he can't tell the difference between each ore.

They’re vastly different to me.

I immediately narrow down between two globs, both mined during rainfall. The first one, during a gentle, loving patter. It looks like cooled down tea in my mouth, sweetened with sugar and spice. The second one was mined in the midst of a terrible storm, struck by lightning, flashed with thunder, born under the cry of the heavens splitting open, dark grey, cloaked blue, and streaks of blistering white. It looks the way lime candy tastes in my mouth, zesty, fighting, warring.

When I pick up the second glob, something in the rock shimmers deep cyan, reflecting in a million different lights, glittering and gleaming.

I blink.

The glow dissipates. No one around me seems to have noticed. Perhaps I dreamed it up.

“Which style?” The representative asks.

“Tanto,” I say. 

She nods and moves onto the next person.

What will they do with the remaining ore? Can I get a back up blade? Will they store or reuse it for future generations?

The concession ends.

All of us seem too tired to stand around and chit-chat, so, in lumbering, awkward silence, we file down to the mountain base and part ways. Rengoku looks like he wants to open his mouth and say something to me, so I dutifully ignore him and stroll home, the opposite direction of wherever the majority of the kids leave for – the main demon slayer corps residence, probably. Yes, yes, making friends is important, but going home to Urokodaki takes precedence.

I’m the first student to come back home alive.

The journey tredges forth.

Admittedly, I don’t keep track of time well, so I must arrive later than expected, because I catch my master in the middle of mourning. We meet each other halfway, in the trampled grass at the front of the small house, with him swooping in for a trembling hug.

“I’m home,” I mumble into his shoulder.

He shakes. “Good job making it back. It’s been… so long.”

When he looks up again, I know he must see eleven missing animal masks imprinted over mine, varying patterns and colours, lost inside a monster’s stomach, unknown, never again to witness the light of day or feel the embrace of a father-figure.

The climate of my heart spirals out of control in thick, rushing tides. Electricity crackles, starbright, white-hot, in tandem with the rhythm of blood pounding in my ears. Lightning pulses, breakneak, breathless, jumbling up the signals in my brain and agape mouth, to the eye of the tempest. There’s a crack somewhere, the first footstep indenting a great, imaginary wall of carefully moulded steel and stone, and a burst of a dam I hadn’t known existed. Stone, steel, cement, brick, blood, bone, they cannot hold against the demands of passion.

Maybe I should’ve learned thunder breathing , I think, feeling the hurricane rise, swelling tempestuously.

I am a child of the storm and today is a day for rain.

And I cry.

Urokodaki makes shushing noises, patting my back, combing my hair, and tugging off the fox mask to rest my bare forehead under his chin. I feel all my eleven years of age in my sparrow bird frailty, wondering about what-ifs and how-comes, rubbing my eyes until they turn fuzzy and sore. 

We talk over lunch after I calm down, where I explain my failures. I ran away from the hand demon, not strong enough to avenge his other children – my brothers and sisters – and unable to bring them to peace.

They watch with bowed heads, silent and invisible

“A demon made of hands,” Urokodaki muses, grounding me to the present. “That was many, many years ago. To think that he’s consumed forty contestants now… No, Makomo-chan. You did the right thing – coming back home alive. And you rescued that girl, didn’t you?”

The mixture of wrath and horror displayed in his body language sits at the bottom of my stomach, foul. Thankfully, none of it is pointed at me.

“She died.”

I don’t even know her name.

“But you,” and here, he slams down both hands on my shoulders, causing me to drop my chopsticks. “You survived. You came back, and that’s what’s important. Makomo-chan, you’ve done well.”

Because I’m alive.

Haganezuka arrives a week later, the bells on his bamboo hat chiming all throughout the mountain.

So the joke goes: three masked idiots walk into a bar…

And they get kicked out for not being funny. Seriously, I’m the only one out of sorts with the situation where all three people sitting on the veranda are wearing full face wooden masks despite none of us truly having a desire to hide our identity. The eternally grumpy red tengu, the mildly disturbing hyottoko, and the creepy white kitty walk into a bar…

“Oho! What do you say, Sakonji! Light blue or dark blue?”

“You would know better than me.”

The blacksmith guffaws comically. “Come on, it’s always fun to foretell,” he says, leaning into my personal space. “Ah! Blue eyes! I can’t tell if they're light or dark through the slits, though.”

“They’re ocean blue,” I say.

“Then it’ll be dar–! Wait, no. You’ve given me another option! Blue or grey, Sakonji? Blue or grey?”

I pick up the hilt before the blacksmith can annoy Urokodaki into an early grave.

Nothing happens for a second, my chest tightens at the idea that perhaps I’m not strong enough for the blade to change colours, but then a haze fizzles in the steel starting from the base, moving up and up and up, the dye puffing up like clouds.

It turns a very, very pale blue.

The hilt has white wrappings around the grip with faint imprinted cloud motifs, a bronze guard and buttcap, and a criss-cross of thin bronze ornamental thread lines between each cloud. The matching paleness of the ice blue blade makes for an ethereal sight, the tanto itself almost glowing under the sun. 

Or maybe I’m just being dramatic. 

I get to hold biases over my totally cool, epic tanto sword of destruction, right?

“White?! No, light blue. Aha – I won!”

“Didn’t you say dark blue earlier?” Urokodaki asks, totally on purpose. 

At least it’s still blue, albeit dangerously close to white. I wouldn’t know what to think if my shiny new nichirin blade came out in all colours of the rainbow or something equally strange. 

After whinging to his friend, Haganezuka threatens that if I break or lose the tanto he’ll make me pay with my life, which is fair enough because damn, this sword is cool as fuck. I’ll cry over the first minor chip.

All the best swords have names, don’t they?

I’ll name you “Jinsoku Ude,” I think, oblivious to the cheesiness. Maybe I’ll regret it later – after all, calling a sword “Agile Arm” is a bit too on the nose. 

I simultaneously decide to never tell anyone my tanto’s name.

Urokodaki sends me on an errand into a nearby village, claiming it a “pre-test” before the actual missions start rolling in. Totally not that he’s too lazy to get plums from the market square himself, no, of course not. Scout around for demons, walk around in the new uniform, and ah yes, also get plums, because – coincidence. 

Because it’s late winter and still cold as fuck in this part of the country, I don a white kimono layer over the black demon slayer uniform, tying the kimono waist informally to partially reveal the black military style chest. Then I pull a haori over the two layers because my blood circulation is actively trying to kill me these days. The haori had taken nearly a week to make, since I decided to keep Urokodaki’s kimono, turn it into a haori, and then modify it to my personal tastes, stitching white and pink flower designs over the clouds so it would scream This Belongs To Makomo.

I look like one idiot of a fairy – not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing yet.

Really, way too many clouds for one person. Some management douche in the upper ranks decided to embroider my entire tanto hilt with clouds for some reason, and I refuse to let that become my personal motif. The flowers on the haori completely hide what used to be clouds, just the way I like it – flowers are way cooler.

The village, a snowy little place next to a river, reeks of demon.

I arrive late at night, a whisper on the road, and immediately see the stiffness of the passersby that have nothing to do with the weather or my appearance. The streetlamps, a modern addition to the Japanese countryside towns, seem to be broken tonight, as only the light from the moon and the occasional lantern-strung window guide me through the gridded paths. This is the type of quiet to befall a town that has learned to be afraid.

The hunt begins.

I stalk the trail, running with hushed feet, ablaze. 

Corpse-rot. Pitch black. Closed shutters.

A boy, a scar, and a legacy.

The trail leads to a house with locked doors and windows, which are easy enough to burst through swiftly with eyes that can discover all their weak points. Two adults bleed out on the tatami floor, but I decapitate the monster just as it scratches a deep, brutal wound into a teenage boy’s face.

He doesn’t even register the injury, just staring numbly at the blood trail leading to his parents in the other room, the dissolving demon, and the blade in my hand, glowing the way the moon ought to. I sheathe it and reach out a hand.

“What’s your name?” I ask him, gentle, soft, reminiscent of a scene from years ago.

Blood drip-drip-drips from his face.

And he says, “Sabito.”

Chapter Text

“This is my crow,” I say. “His name is Itachi.”

As expected, he doesn’t get it.

Sabito furrows his brows. “...You named your pet crow ‘weasel? ’”

His lips twitch, as if to choke out a laugh, but he scowls midway, the action having tugged on the barely clotting cheek injury. 

Progress, progress.

Following the boy’s first glimpse into the world of demons and carnage, he immediately took my hand and demanded to learn how to fight. I wasn’t sure how to respond to such levels of impetuosity, but simply doing and saying nothing seemed to work just fine because the boy eventually shut up once the pain of the wound and trauma became too much and he just hovered behind me like an incredibly large duckling. 

When he went to the water closet to clean the wound, I abused Total Concentration Breathing and quickly lined the two corpses into a calmer, tranquil position, before laying a spare blanket over them. Sabito emerged seconds later, able to say goodbye to the nearly arranged bodies without having to look at all their missing bits and broken pieces. I taped the scratch together and applied emergency ointment, but even with the rapid care, the grotesque wound will scar, as ugly and jagged as those claws were. 

He gathered his things, said his prayers, cried, and left without looking back. I’d admire his tenacity if I weren’t so creeped out at how quickly he appears to be accepting his new lot in life as a demon slayer.

I had taken hours to sort out what the hell was going on and I had years of backstory and evidence to fall upon – this boy is ready to commit a genocide against an entire species after one chance meeting with me.

We walk along the forest path, frost nipping our heels in the wake of the morning.

So far he seems to be smart enough to extrapolate from his environment. I’ve seen him observe the military style uniform peeking through the overlayers, the tanto sheath at my hip, and the mysterious mask I’ve yet to take off. And so, because I’ve opened up a conversation now, a series of questions follow, now that I’ve signalled that we’re in the clear.

I pet Itachi and accept his scroll, tucking the contents into my sleeve, letting the crow fly back into the unknown. Our little exchange will give the boy another clue about the corps, given that we have our own specialised messengers. 

And the dam bursts open.

I tell him about the demon slayer corps in its entirety, from the boring bits to the exciting history. I tell him that whenever we find a victim of a demon attack, we offer them a place in our organisation. Since Sabito had accepted my offer, I’m currently bringing him to the person who had trained me. 

We break for a meal, still a half-day away from Sagiri Mountain.

He pretends not to be curious about the letter, but I see him very clearly attempt to sneak a look. Might as well let him know of the contents, as it concerns him now.

“That was a letter from the trainer,” I say, folding the paper back up. “The trainer has found a pupil, a boy named Tomioka Giyuu, age thirteen.”

Sabito listens intently, lavender eyes locked on my eye level. I’d never been sure of the exact timeline, but I suppose this is a start. “Does that mean I have to go to someone else?”

“No.” I hope not. “It means you’ll be training with a partner, someone with likely very similar circumstances as yours. This will ultimately work out to your benefit, as having a partner will considerably shorten your expected training period.”

Sabito and Tomioka are meant to be friends… right? I remember the future Water Hashira to take Sabito’s kimono and form it into his haori as a way to honour the dead boy’s memory, but there was nothing explicitly written about them being BFFs or anything – or maybe there was and I’m forgetting all these unimportant details with time. Are they even meant to be training at the same time? I’m certain that they’re in the same Final Selection together, but everything else is still blurry.

His gaze hardens, eyes wandering off into the distance.

Oh no. Is he doing that weird macho thing where he’s vowing to train as quickly as possible so he can murder more demons?

I should tell a joke.

We approach misty forests, the thick clouds nearly obscuring my vision – I can’t imagine what Sabito sees. Probably nothing but white. The fog is always at its highest level around mid morning, with the evaporation of the dew, the slowing winds, and the moisture from the nearby streams accumulating together into one thick soupy muddle. Itachi caws, sharp and sudden, from above.

“Do you know what you call a haunted path?” I ask. “Dead end.”

Then I giggle nervously, hoping it’s broken the mood a little bit. Can’t say I have the best sense of humour, but everyone likes dad jokes, right?

Thud.

Sabito crashes into a tree, having tripped on a root and wandered off course. He’s probably not the kind of teen who wants to have their hand held through their troubles, so I watch from a few metres away until he can get his bearings straight. Unfortunately, he does the exact opposite, eyes wide open, permanently set in a panic, and almost tripping again when he does get back on his feet. His eyes dart around, blind, shaking, and that’s when I realise that maybe, just maybe, I may have been setting a terror-inducing first impression.

Oops.

He can’t see at all in this fog.

I try to remedy the accidental hazing by standing closer to him and keeping my mouth shut so I don’t somehow say something creepy (why does no one like my jokes?), but Sabito remains guarded off for the remainder of the journey, keeping a much closer eye on me and his surroundings. 

The mist disperses once we reach past the forests and into the valley at the base of the mountain, where frost-dipped grasses crunch under his feet – not mine, I’ve learned how to traverse silently – and a light drizzle of snow begins to fall from the grey skies. We reach Urokodaki’s house, and when no one’s home, I track the fresh footprints to the training clearing.

Whilst Sabito acquaints with Tomioka, his new live-in training partner (and hopefully best bud), Urokodaki spirits me away into his house, with us moving at a pace too fast for the newcomers’ eyes to digest. 

He breaches the topic of paperwork, official documents, and…

“The corps requires some personal information every now and then so they can keep track of their members,” he says, staring intently at the document sitting innocently on the low table. It glares, simple, easy, plain. I read it over and over again, knowing there’s nothing complicated required of me.

My fingers play an agitated melody on the chabudai face, nails going click-click-click .

Yet it demands so much.

Birthday, preferred regions to travel, level, cultivator, cultivator notes, and…

Sign here, the words read. Sign

I can’t carry that burden, the one where glassy eyes roll onto the floor, still attached by stringy bits of pink, where ropes of intestines crawl out, oozing slowly like slime, where the gelatinous squelch of too many teeth rip into juicy, pungent meat. I don’t want that legacy where every time I introduce myself I’m reminded of what I used to have, held dear to my heart. I can’t forget my family name, but it sure does feel good to let it be buried in the grave of lost memories.

Urokodaki holds my wrist, tips the brush into the inkpot, and writes for me.

He writes, Urokodaki Makomo.

Oh.

He puts my wrist down, hands folded back into his lap, and bows his head.

The truth is, I’ve never minded not being able to see his face because I’ve always been able to sense his emotions in different ways. Head bowed, neck strained, heavy sighs – I know exactly what he feels in each and every moment. The wrinkle of cloth, the gentle movements, and the firm and unyielding stance tell a story of who this man is.

Love. Kindness. Care.

Family.

The ink dries. I fold the paper into a neat rectangle, tie it with string, and slide it across the chabudai. 

He looks as though he’s asking for forgiveness, the way he bows. It’s a show of respect, in some ways, or perhaps a dedication to the thing he’s finally opening up about – the thing he wants the most. How… demanding, this ultimatum. I faintly consider a future, seconds from now, where I shriek and wail and call him out on this opportunistic, predatory request. But I look at him, the decision already made in my heart, acknowledging the way he’s offered himself, his dignity, his desires, to me, on a platter adorned with silly things like legality and the adoption process. He wants this as much as I want a parent again.

“Thank you.”

My first mission is simple enough: killing an errant demon roaming around the plum orchards. 

My second mission – not so much.

“Higurashi Family Onsen! Northeast! Higurashi Family Onsen! Northeast!”

Itachi caws once, twice, then finally flies away off into the distance, meeting a black dot in the clouds I make out to be another crow.

Sweet. Does Itachi have a crow-girlfriend?

Or – wait, no.

I squint.

That’s a Kasugai crow.

In the raised path in a rice paddy field in the basin between mountains and hills, there are no trees or conveniently tall houses I can climb to check the horizon, so I amble northeast, unsure, until I catch a glimpse of red-gold in the flat distance several kilometres away. 

A team-up mission.

I could theoretically hide in the rice paddy irrigation streams, curled up amidst the long green stalks, buried in mud and unnaturally blue waters, but then I’d get my pretty haori and kimono drenched and messy – socialisation it is.

Half a kilometre in, I stop at a crossroad, standing straight and still, unmoving whilst the newbie demon slayer approaches. 

“Northeast!” Itachi cries again, swooping down. “Northeast!”

Fuck off, bird.

“Shush, I’m waiting,” I say.

The crow shrieks in my ear and flies off, circling above the steadily approaching figure. He must notice me two kilometres in, because I see him wave a hand and move his lips, shouting something incoherent. He speeds the rest of the way, kicking up dirt behind him, angering a few nearby rice farmers weeding out their crops.

Black military style uniform, white haori, flaming hair – of course.

“Hello!” He says, once he’s run up to me at the crossroad. I nod my head. “You were at the Final Selection several weeks ago! I remember your mask. My crow tells me we’re going to be teaming up together, which is great! The corps has been excited to see what the apprentice to the last Water Hashira can do.”

“That’s… nice. I’m U–.”

He sticks out his hand. “I’m Rengoku Kyoujurou! Nice to meet you.”

Wait.

He looks up and stares straight into my soul with those ringed red-gold eyes of his. “I also ruptured my eardrums during my last mission so I’m partially deaf for the time being! I apologise for any inconvenience! What’s your name?”

Do I… speak? Can he even hear me unless I shout?

“What?!” He shouts abruptly. “Sorry, if you’re speaking right now, I can’t hear you.”

Deep inhale. Deep exhale. I shout, “Urokodaki Makomo! Nice to meet you!”

Kyoujurou takes a moment, quirking his head, then unleashing a grand smile. “Oh! Garakodachi Hanako! Nice to meet you, too.”

“Makomo!”

“...Momoko?”

“MA! KO! MO!”

“Makomo?”

I nod. “Yes! I’M UROKODAKI MAKOMO!”

There’s a tinny “shut up!” from the nearby farmers, but we both elect to ignore them.

“Urokodaki Makomo!” He yells back, and I sag comically to show my relief. He beams, a smile flushing his cheeks, shining like the sun, if the sun were a 160 centimetre tall teenage boy with an incredibly awkward, if endearing, manner of speech.

No, I’m not irritated at his height.

Nope, not at all. 

The fact that I only reach up to his shoulder despite only being one year younger has nothing to do with any sort of ire.

God fucking dammit why am I not growing–.

I tilt my head to the side in the direction of the forked path, and Kyoujurou seems to understand.

We travel northeast, hike up a steep cliffside, all the way to a blisteringly cold snowy mountain top, to the Higurashi family onsen. Throughout the trip, we communicate through both shouting and body language, exchanging information of our ages, favourite foods, and more. He mentions something about my new family name, going quiet, whispering to himself about “must be a family thing” whilst staring at my covered face, but then goes back to being loud and happy, eager to just talk.

The irony of our pairing does not pass by. 

Flame. Water.

Hotspring.

The heirs to the Flame and Water Hashira, sent to discover demons at an onsen.

Ugh.

We arrive in the middle of the day, the pale sun still peaking high in the sky, the receptionist, some young girl only a few years older than us, pretending not to be looking at us in horror. For what a pair we make! Kyoujurou’s flaming hair and eyes juxtapose with my ice-cold, blue patterned get-up, and the poor receptionist meekly takes our payment, possibly only allowing us entry because we’re still just children – weird children, but innocent little children nonetheless. 

It’s a family onsen, which means the spring is meant for both men and women. “While we have the time,” Kyoujurou says, in a voice he’s learned to lower in volume, “Do you wanna explore the baths?”

We’ve evolved to simple gestures on my part, figuring that yelling whilst in a public area would get us kicked out, so he does all the talking and asking in a normal tone whilst I nod or tell him something with my body language. The easy camaraderie surprises me, but I chalk it down to his friendliness and my novel desperation to make a friend my age.

Weird. Now that I’ve mostly moved on from trauma, all I want again is to be normal.

I brush my hair up into a high bun, nodding, and we check out the springs together. A few elderly people, hikers, maybe, float around in the water, gossiping about something inane. They look at us, judging, then go back to whatever mid-afternoon healing ritual old people do. 

To be out in the open, nude, exploring the blissfully hot water with a kid I just met today, might be weird from another perspective, but neither of us seem to care very much about nudity in favour of enjoying the onsen. He might potentially be reaching that age where he might grow self conscious, but I sure as hell don’t care. Onsen is onsen.

I tap Kyoujurou’s shoulder. He turns around, about to dip in further.

Don’t let water in your injured ears, idiot.

I point at the water, tug on my ears, and his eyes go wide. 

“Oh, right. Thanks!” He says, edging away from the deep part. “I forgot about that.”

Dumbass.

We splash around a bit longer, examining all the nooks and crannies of the rocky pools, dancing around the property but making sure neither of us slip. I discreetly wipe sweat from my face under the mask – the steam is lovely but deadly – during our time in the water, but as soon as we emerge to observe the property, standing just a metre from the pool edge, the bitter cold freezes away all semblance of heat.

There’s something to be said about the magical properties of onsens, because it creates a new, close bond with Kyoujurou, and I almost forget that we aren’t here for leisure.

Supper is stiffer, thicker, tenser. We eat gallantly, as if lords, even with this simple onsen meal, which is miles better than eating packed, stored food. 

The sun begins to set.

We hunt.

It begins, as always, in the air.

Kyoujurou stands atop the roofs, daring, drawing his fire-red katana brazenly, as if to goad monsters, to fall into the trap of a young boy, their mortal enemy, alone.

I prowl the hallways below, listening for the crunch of bones, cut-off and choked screams, or the slick noise of dripping blood and tears. Young people in these parts have been disappearing as of late, never old, always below twenty, always pretty little boys and girls, gone in a flash. I walk quietly, not silently, taunting, my feet saying tap-tap-tap the same way my mission partner dances on the roof, thudding and alive. I’m tempted to take off the fox mask just to show off my pretty girlhood, my unrelenting youth, to bare my teeth and anger against this monster, destroying lives before they even begin. 

I see in the air a vibration, a start, a trail. 

The trail is visible in the darkness, where the sparse lanterns and the flicker of moonlight streams down to the floorboards, where the footsteps emerge in the floating dust – heavy, large, inhuman footsteps. The dust and lint cower in the air from the fresh path, so I follow each out of place speck and dirt, circling through the hallways, leading all the way to the entrance.

The receptionist.

She’s not the demon, I definitely would’ve noticed, but she’s going to be the victim tonight.

Sakurako, I think her name is, doesn’t stir when I slip into her private quarters, my tanto at the ready.

Something else watches, awake. It pounces, rapid fire movement, bounding across the room, playing. Sakurako wakes up then, by the chaos of the high-pitched giggles in the ruckus of a formless shape rattling the walls or by the bloodlust practically tangible in the atmosphere, hungry and curdling. She screams at my visible presence, soft and girly, feeding into the demon’s desires.

“What are you doing here!” She yelps.

“Saving you,” I say.

“What?”

And the demon reveals itself.

Pitch black, almost blue, glistening with an unseen light. Its skin reflects harshly at us, the texture like that of a shell, a scarab beetle perhaps, matching with the multiple beady eyes lined in a perfect semi-circle at the top of its oval head. The body is tall and gangly with multiple pincer arms growing from its stretched, deformed torso, with legs curled in itself, insect-like. Sakurako stumbles back into a wall, which is when I realise this room is far too small for a demon of this size – just one overextended swipe and he can destroy the entire diameter of the room. 

The inhumane appearance of the demon helps with the compartmentalisation of killing this thing. I’ve been lucky so far in that regard, where none of the demons I’ve encountered have resembled anything close to human, so I was easily able to turn off my silly emotions and decapitate the things I can readily call a monster.

The demon lunges.

Fast!

I dodge, my body still not as quick as my sight, barely getting out of the way, but able to nick one of its many arms whilst doing so. It screeches, a high-pitched noise that rattles my ears, and darts towards me.

Confident that the demon will now avoid Sakurako, I run the hell away, letting it chase me through the small hallways, taking sharp turns and letting it crash into thin paper doors and humidity-ruined walls. Several people wake up, but it’s hard to navigate to any of the windows to the rooftop without cutting it really close due to how insanely fast the demon jumps about. 

Must’ve really liked leapfrog in their past life.

I finally find the open window leading to the roofs, slamming through the half-open wooden shutter and frantically climbing up on all fours amidst the crashing and booming down below. 

Kyoujurou shouts my name.

Demon? Where!

But he’s just shouting to shout, nothing more. I wave back, still tense, waiting for the beetle demon to emerge from the very same window, but instead I hear an even greater crash, the telltale crack of wood and stone, and a giant explosion from the shingles. It bursts out from the rooftop behind Kyoujurou, spraying him in dust and splinters in a way that would cloud most people’s visions.

In the panic, after the initial roar and the screams below, mingling with the gentle swirl of water from the springs, I hear his voice cut through the chaos.

“Second form,” he says, fierce yet serene, and cuts upwards into the creeping body.

I see the fire, the trail of flame, the red-orange-yellow turning white in the middle with the katana blade, even though I know it’s not there at all. Yet it burns, steam and energy echoing off the strike, sending wafts of sweltering heat into the environment, alighting my senses with this one mystical element the polar opposite to mine. 

I see the essence of fire, the magic of the Breath of Flame.

The cut slashes across the beetle’s midsection in the colour of molten gold, having narrowly shifted its body mass to avoid decapitation. 

It’s much, much faster than we initially presumed.

We attack back and forth with imaginary jets of water and rushes of flame, peppering and hacking and goring, slicing off more bits and pieces of what we can reach against the swift opponent. The demon never hits me, but I can never really dish back anything worthwhile against it. Meanwhile, Kyoujurou deals out the real attacks, but in return is thrown around the decaying roof and chewed up like unwanted gum. 

Faster, faster, faster!

I dance, feet rushing, heels clicking, sandals sliding, tanto weaving back and forth like a gymnast’s baton – a third arm, agile against the beast, but not strong or big enough to create an opening of my own. 

“Stay still, little girl!” It screams.

No thank you.

Fourth Form: Striking Tide.

The tanto flows, first soft and gentle, parrying shelled pincers, weaving, ducking, dodging. Then as I build up momentum from my legs, the attacks grow frenzied and fast, the blade winding around like a whirlpool. My lungs feel like they’re about to burst out of my chest, my muscles scream for mercy, and blood rushes through my head, pounding so harshly I begin to think my brain’s going to leak from my ears. 

I force myself in the trajectory of the demon’s assault, letting him pierce through my defence, bruising or cracking my ribs, I can’t tell, distracting him while I chop off all of its grabby arms. Kyoujurou leaps from behind, using a misshapen shingle as a springboard, jumping up and delivering the final blow.

The fight must’ve been hours and hours, but was only barely five minutes long. 

I collapse to my knees, wheezing, finally succumbing to the effect of that blow to my abdomen, seeing a myriad of strange colours edge around my visual field. 

Fortunately, no fainting occurs, but a grateful receptionist and an onsen owner pretty much carry me away from the battlefield to rest.

Chapter Text

I don’t always team up with Kyoujurou for my missions, and most of them don’t end as catastrophically as that onsen one. Most of my missions for the rest of the year draw me as some creepy little assassin, investigating from the shadows, quickly decapitating demons before they’re even aware I’m watching them.

The team-ups occur a few more times and apparently it’s not a coincidence at all that the corps pairs up the Flame and Water Hashira heirs. Kyoujurou explains to me, one warm autumn evening after a mission well done, that the upper hierarchy mainly wants to see what I can do. Urokodaki was the best of the best, the strongest Water Hashira they ever had in recent history, and to see that all of his apprentices he cultivated had not made it past the Final Selection was disheartening, to say the least. They wanted that raw talent again, a second Urokodaki to fill in the ranks of the lukewarm water breathing troops. 

And then I came, blasting through all expectations.

I can’t help but wince at the backhanded compliments Kyoujurou recites from his betters about my ill-fated older brothers and sisters – it’s not their fault they couldn’t pass the test – but the idea is intriguing nonetheless.

And then I realise for sure that the bastard Ubuyashiki is pulling the strings behind some missions when I’m paired up with yet another Hashira heir.

He’s blatantly building bonds between the next generation of potential leaders, I think, fuming.

Kochou Shinobu blinks innocently, a sweet smile on her pale face.

Does no one else see what he’s doing? Honestly, thousands of demon slayers, and not one has a clue that their totally not gentle and awe-inspiring leader is manipulating the ranks in a way that lets nepotism get in the way of others? Yeah, sure, it benefits me, but the issue I have with it is that I don’t really want to hold the rank of Hashira – that shit belongs to Tomioka, or maybe Sabito, if the boy lives long enough. 

The only thing stopping me from screaming like a maniac is the future knowledge that there will be more Urokodaki heirs that Ubuyashiki can manipulate to his heart’s content, leaving me scot-free from responsibility, away from all that political mechanisms and nonsense.

“Good morning, Urokodaki-san!” She chimes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You can call me Makomo. I don’t care much for formalities. It’s nice to meet you too, Kochou-san.”

I feel a ripple of gooseflesh arise on my arms at her soft giggle.

What the fuck?

“Then call me Shinobu, please, Makomo-chaaaaan.”

Oh no.

She’s that kind of person.

Weirdly nice, very pleasant, warm and kind, but with a hidden side full of something that causes my senses to go haywire. 

Shinobu’s a few months younger than me, a teensy bit shorter and smaller (fuck yeah!), and infinitely skilled. Her long, thin sword cuts tiny papercut marks on the horde of bird-like demons we find in a coastal village, instantly paralysing them in their incredulous stare and surprised form. The poison coating her blade, funnily enough, matches the same violet hue of her irises and hair fringe, which makes me recall the term aposematism, and the sudden urge to run away as fast as humanly possible.

We stop at a teahouse on the crossroad, with me ready to finally gather my nerves and bolt.

She plucks dango from the stick and says out of the blue, “I’ve been wondering this, but what is your relationship with Urokodaki-sama? My sister told me he doesn’t have any kids, so when your information popped up at the corps everyone was really surprised at the new Urokodaki kid. Are you a daughter? Granddaughter? Niece? Grandniece?”

Wait, what?

Did he– did he seriously not tell anyone? Not even in the cultivator notes in that official looking document I totally neglected to finish reading?

“He didn’t tell anyone?” I ask.

She blinks, starry gazed, and smiles creepily. “Ah, I see,” she says, humming, then goes back to her tea and treats.

What the fuck does that mean? Does no one around here want to be anything less than confusing?

“What?”

She smiles again, sympathetic. “Yes.”

Huh?

That’s not – That’s not even a response. What does a simple “yes” mean?

Cross creepy off the list, Shinobu’s just plain mysterious. I miss Kyoujurou’s straightforwardness. No, I imagine myself saying, no I’m not his direct relative – I’m some poor orphan he adopted a while back and decided to bequeath upon me the weight of his powerful surname despite the unintentioned consequences. 

Well, fine. 

Two can play that game.

I stare back, exuding a Mysterious Aura™. The mask helps a lot with that, and the cloth I bandaged around my eyes prevents her from seeing anything through the slits. I can still see through the light fabric, having had to wrap it on to protect my sight from the horribly bright sun of an unclouded day. I’d kill for a baseball cap and a pair of Ray-Bans. 

We leave the teahouse and head back to our individual areas of rest, with her behaving like the cat who caught the canary for whatever odd reason. Maybe she’s just constantly high off butterfly dust. 

Itachi doesn’t bother me on my way home, which means he’s allowing this small break from missions no matter what his bird-fellows say.

Good bird.

I hear them before I see them – a first, for me.

“Aubergine.”

“Courgette!”

“Aubergine.”

“Dammit, courgette!”

I sneak through the window, like always, popping up next to Urokodaki who’s currently busy being disappointed in the boys’ pointless argument.

“They’re fighting over which vegetable they want me to prepare for a side dish tonight,” my former teacher explains once he notices my presence. He chuckles when he sees the gift package in my hands. “You know you don’t have to go shopping for groceries every time you visit, right?”

I shrug. “This is the first time I’ve arrived in time to join you for dinner. Shouldn’t break the habit now.”

He pats my head and disappears into the backroom whilst carrying my package.

How long until they notice me, I wonder?

Because of the sporadic nature of my profession, there’s no good guess as to when I drop by, and I know that the boys made a game of sensing my presence whenever I do arrive – so far, both of them are losing.

The game must’ve been born from Sabito’s irrational fear of me, which then rubbed onto Tomioka, who then muttered some nonsense about the strangeness of girls, further cementing both of their fears of me. Urokodaki, that bastard, definitely didn’t help one bit. In fact, whenever I pop by in the middle of the night whilst they both sleep, he tells me over candle-light of the mischief he gets up to during training sessions, using me as a metric to their current status. It’s “Makomo killed a bear with a hairband” and “Makomo can hold her breath for ten minutes.” Makomo this, Makomo that, no wonder I’ve become something of a legendary figure to these kouhais.

I head to the backroom to change once Urokodaki emerges, screaming, “No! You’ll be eating kabucha!” 

It greets a litany of groans.

Should I…?

Or no, should I not…

This is the first time I get to eat with them. They’re Urokodaki’s new students, his new kids. My new brothers.

Hmm.

I should probably start referring to Tomioka by his first name, then. Sabito hasn’t mentioned anything about his family name, presumably in the same boat that I was less than a year ago.

Yes. I should.

It’s warm enough in the house to wear the baby pink yukata from my personal belongings, so I take off the blue haori, white kimono, black uniform, then remove the final piece – the fox mask. I comb my hair into a neat bun, a classic style that mum liked to wear, and tiptoe out into the cosy main room.

I’ve eaten with other people before, but only just slipped the mask up enough to reveal my mouth, nothing more. Hell, I’m not even all that worried about people seeing my face, but I’ve grown into the habit of wearing the mask that now it almost feels strange to not have it on. It also adds to the mysticism of my identity, in that awe-inducing and awe-inspiring way of fictional superheroes and Edo-period samurai warriors. It’s the part of me that I can control, something to add to the resemblance with Urokodaki.

And I know he likes it, that fact that I wear the good luck charm everywhere.

So I help around the small kitchen, dishing out plates to the table, poking at the hearth and the bubbling soup, barefaced. Sabito and Giyuu notice my presence now, staring, silent, questioning.

We get to the start of dinner, sitting down on the cushions before Giyuu finally breaks.

“Who are you?”

Finally, someone who – wait, what?

The fuck?

Urokodaki chokes.

Sabito slaps his friend’s arm. “Shut up, idiot. It’s probably a new student.”

“Oh.”

The two boys, in their gangly fourteen year old glory, finally bow to greet me. Funny, they say that they hadn’t even noticed my arrival. When did I arrive? Was I here the entire time? Since when did their master have time to go out and rescue some poor new orphan? Wow, how old am I? I’m so young and cute!

I see the light blush on Sabito’s cheeks, barely hidden in the flickering light of the hearth, when I realise that I might’ve fucked up by being so secretive.

Oh no.

I glance at Urokodaki, trying to mentally send him the deadest of glares whilst keeping my face neutral and calm. He simply sits there, picking bones from his fish, mild and mellow.

“I’m Makomo,” I say. “It’s nice to meet you again, I guess.”

Then I look down back at my food, picking out the biggest slice of vegetable.

Mmmm, kabucha.

Chaos unfolds rather quickly and quietly, the boys freezing in place, staring dead at me, my face, then at each other. 

So dramatic.

There’s “you’re Makomo?” and “how old are you?!” and “sometimes he talks about you like you’re just a creepy spirit!” screamed at me, which is kind of rude, so I do one better and try to eat as quickly as possible so I can eventually flee.

“I’m twelve,” I say through a mouthful of fish, so it comes out like ‘mm twef.’

There are people younger than you but stronger than me, someone once said. Probably an anime character – goodness knows how much media I consumed in my hayday. Except I have the unfair advantage of gaining experience at a younger age, having started training when I was nine years old. These boys, at least, got to experience more of a happy normal life until a later age.

They turn their ire towards Urokodaki. Something about convincing them I was an evil witch who would steal their bones if they were naughty?

What the hell has he been teaching these poor boys?

“But you’re so – arghhh,” Sabito says.

“‘But you’re so small and cute, emphasis on small,’” Giyuu translates. Sabito elbows him. 

What a violent duo.

It wasn’t the height that they were perturbed about, apparently, but the size in general. They know how tall I am (with the added benefit of thick sandals), but the yukata dress offers a better look at my body compared to the bulky many-layered outfit that I usually wear. 

“Of course I’m small; I’m twelve.”

“I know, but–.”

“Sh!”

I’m convinced that I’ll remain in a constant state of confusion at this point.

Urokodaki pats my head lovingly. “Yes, yes, Makomo-chan may be younger than you, but she’s still your senior – I trained her first.”

Holy shit, he’s making us sound like we’re dogs.

I need to make a better impression on them, something funny and silly and in the spirit of puerile behaviour. Sabito’s an angry duckling and Giyuu’s a calm, collected one – but they’re both just rowdy teenage boys who probably like things like cursing and kicking and vulgarities.

“I’ll kick your asses,” I say very politely, still attempting to be the calm and concise senpai they can look up to. “Both of you. At once.”

Needless to say, dinner doesn’t end well.

I eat, at least, slurping up the rest of the soup, inhaling the rest of the kabucha – the only food I buy for Urokodaki, really – and eating small fruit desserts whilst the boys sulk and glare, probably mentally forming a plan on how to beat my ass. Normally I’d be intimidated at the thought of the future Hashira and his best bud actively planning on murdering me, but I can’t feel scared when the boys look so… tiny. And pimply. And gangly, and noodley, and skinny.

Oh, the woes of puberty.

Then we travel to the training clearing with practice swords, Urokodaki standing off to the side like a bemused primary school football referee.

Sabito and Giyuu attack in tandem, blocking me in. And, wow – they’re really going all out, one aiming for my head and the other aiming for my feet. Too bad I’m the exact kind of opponent they’re not used to fighting. 

Bouncing off one leg, I twirl sideways through the convenient gap between the swings, effortlessly landing a metre away. 

And by all means, they’re both excellent swordsmen, incredibly skilled in the use of the katana, but pure skill alone does not and will never trump battle-sharpened experience. They stick to a formula, repeating katas, swings, and slices that can be used against each other but not against me, their wily new opponent. There’s a difference between sparring and fighting – they’re sparring, I’m fighting. 

Actually, I’m more just avoiding the fight, hardly attacking at all, content to let them tire themselves out whilst I avoid every swing.

Sabito grunts out something vulgar, I pretend to be appalled, stopping momentarily to cover my ears, and Giyuu takes the opportunity to sneak up behind me. I can see the track of dust wafting from his trail, however, and bend into a spine-hurting bridge at the very last second just to witness the shock on his face of my trickery, hands still cupping my ears.

“Be nicer to your little sister,” I tease. 

Their teamwork is admittedly impressive, their attacks much more honed than any of Kyoujurou and I’s impromptu fuckery, and there are several moments where I actually have to try to run away instead of slightly shifting my stance to make them go flying. The moment where I decide to finally end the battle is when they get too cocky and attempt an incredibly dangerous move that would’ve injured anyone less flexible than me.

Giyuu feints, but I twirl away from the attempt, seeing straight through the fine detail of movement, but they appeared to have expected that from me by now, because Sabito waits from behind, ready to literally cut me in half (if it were live steel). So I purposefully run back into Giyuu’s fake-out, using his moment of shock to jump, land on his wrists, use his face as a kickboard, and spring into a backflip to kick his friend in the skull. They both, in a fairly quick reaction, attempt to swing their katanas up during my stint in the air, but I bend up far enough that the blades avoid me.

They both fall after the adrenaline fades, knocked down for the count.

And oooh that’s a broken nose. Fuck.

I might’ve ruined Giyuu’s whole pretty boy aesthetic, oops.

Urokodaki laughs at his dirtied, beaten down students. “Hah! This is a lesson, boys. Experience outweighs skill, out there in the real world. And truthfully, both of you are better than Makomo-chan when she was a student – stronger and more adept with a blade. But she’s been out on the field for nearly a year now, gaining more important skills than just swinging a sword.”

Ouch.

But, true. They’re both definitely more technically skilled than I, no matter how much it burns to admit. I’m not some prodigal wise-child, I’m more of a kid who knows how to Not Die Horrifically™ and look cool whilst doing so.

The best part of the day is when the bruised, bloodied boys crawl up to me and demand me to teach them my secrets. I don’t share my secrets of course, but I do end up showing off another demonstration of the kickflip and expecting them to follow. I won't go easy on annoying new brother-figures, this is how I show my love. I was supposed to have a brother, once, and my second parents had decided on the name Sei for the unborn child, but then following the extermination of my family, I haven't thought much about siblings. But now, I get to bully these two.

Reputation earned, Urokodaki forced the boys to go to bed after the brutal beat-down.

He gives me a pendant during our nightly talk.

Most swordsmen put tassels at the end of their katana hilt. But noooooo, I’m stuck with this stupid cloud motif.

“It’s pretty,” I say honestly, but still a little enraged.

It’s a white cloud ornament attached to the end of a small chain, where it clips at the hilt’s buttcap, overall matching the pale scheme of the tanto. To my chagrin, there’s a posy blue hydrangea on top of the cloud, further adding to the whole Frozen Ice Queen aesthetic that is, on my part, completely unintentional. Dammit, I like hot weather, not all this blue-on-blue nonsense. Where’s my summery reds and yellows?

Afterwards, he tells me of his current students’ successes, and how they’re almost ready to proceed to take the Final Selection. My test had been of speed, agility, and wit. Theirs would’ve been similar, but we can’t take any chances now that he knows of the hand demon’s existence and of its rock-hard neck. Since I couldn’t do it, it has to be them. My older brothers and sisters deserve their rest, deserve to let justice be served so they can be free of their duty tied to their old master.

“Can one of them split the boulder?”

“Almost,” he says. “So yes, they will.”

Really, a boulder in the middle of a nearby clearing was almost too convenient, until Urokodaki mentioned that Sagiri mountain used to be a religious site many years ago, where the locals designed shrines around the natural landscape, including bringing a boulder to a clear spot in order to honour the shinto gods of the earth. 

The hand demon won’t know what’ll hit it.

Chapter Text

Oh, the want for a camera!

Kyoujurou sleeps on his side, tucked into himself whilst cuddling the pillow meant for his head.

I imagine myself cooing like a little old lady over him, the camera flashing obnoxiously and the shutter going click-click per each frame, eventually waking a groggy-eyed, mildly grumpy boy. He’ll protest, I’ll cackle deviously, and someone or another will burst in and catch us both wrestling over the evil, evil DSLR. 

Unfortunately, the compact and polaroid cameras won’t be invented for another few decades. Until then, I’ll just have to preserve this silly scene in my memory.

The Wisteria Houses littered around the country supposedly belong to one wealthy family whose distant ancestor had been saved by a demon slayer, but the amount of generosity still offered today must surely outweigh the benefits associated. But hey, I can’t complain. Kyoujurou and I’s mission took an ill-fated turn and we ended up with more broken bones than either of us would like to acknowledge, but surprise, surprise, our magical breathing saves us from being stuck in this strange manor for longer than necessary, with our broken ribs taking about half the time to heal as it would for a normal person. 

There’s a checklist somewhere out there, possibly belonging to Ame-no-Uzume, of all the great deeds I’ll commit over the course of my lifetime. I bet half of the list is just ordering out the number of bones I’ll fracture, given that my track record so far isn’t too great. 

It’s an embarrassingly large number, that’s all I’ll admit.

And like children, Shinobu comes to pick us up once we’re all mostly healed, profusely thanking this specific manor’s ward for her hospitality, then slapping us on the back with her unique brand of love-hate-terror. 

“You two are insane,” she huffs. “Really. Nine broken ribs between the two of you? And three twisted ankles? How are you guys still alive?”

“I don’t know!” Kyoujurou responds confidently.

Shinobu bats away his thumbs-up and turns to me, a sickly sweet smile creeping up on her pretty face.

“Sheer willpower,” I say.

It’s funnier this way, when we collectively bull-head our way into insanity so she drops her “cool kid” facade and reverts to her innate state of constant teenage rage. This Shinobu is better than the other, creepy Shinobu – or maybe I’m just externalising my inner thoughts. 

On the escort out the gates, she drops the subject with a huff and explains a new mission debrief that was assigned to her and a partner, but that previous partner fell ill from food poisoning, which is why she begrudgingly (in her own words, she says) travelled a few hours out to find us, since requesting a new partner from the headquarters via crow would take longer than just kidnapping us from the safe haven and forcing us to do her bidding.

Of course.

There’s a village on the coast where, apparently, the death rate has increased insanely over the past few weeks. Normally, an influx of suicide-by-cliff jumping wouldn’t warrant suspicion from a demon slayer corps, but a Tsuchinoto-ranked member visited the village just last week for unrelated reasons and hasn’t come back yet. 

Once we reach the village, Shinobu simultaneously threatening and complementing Kyoujurou’s boisterous nature on the way there, I notice that the air smells pink and the locals look the way overpowered rice wine tastes – pungent, curious, yet pretty and perfect, drawing me in, guiding my feet to somewhere I cannot hope to discover.

The grey, slightly overcast skies in this mid-morning hour means any potential demons can wreak havoc on unsuspecting innocents whilst they go about their day in the outdoors, unshielded and unaware of the usual protection of the missing sun. It’s the sort of day that every demon slayer hates due to the uncertainty – will they come out? Will they hide? Why must our safe hour disappear? It’s so unfair! How long until they realise the sun’s hiding? 

Forever, I hope. That would be nice.

We explore the village streets, the local temple (there’s always a demon or two who get off on being sacrilegious), the black sand volcanic beach, and the jutting cliffside, the massive rockface nearly hiding this quaint village under its shadow during noontime. 

“Well, it’s obviously got an evil lair in there,” I say as we stare up at the horribly crooked, looping trail to the peak. With the grey weather and ominous mood, I’m reminded of cliff diving at La Push with teenage werewolves, except Twilight ends in a happy ending and in this world, anyone stupid enough to fall off that drop will surely die from either shock or breaking on impact.

The peak, as it turns out, has no secrets plain to see, other than a surprisingly nice view. I almost want to jump off the edge to embrace the beauty.

If I look down, I can almost see myself already at the bottom, waving hello, prancing along where the rocks meet the sea, a crown of golden marigolds woven through my hair. 

For a moment, the dark grey seas flash a luminescent turquoise, the frothing waves shining under the–.

“...Makomo?”

I break away, suddenly cold.

Kyoujurou peers from behind me on the ledge, both of us teetering dangerously close to potential death. I can smell his breath from here – hot, spiced, and something fruity.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

I leave because I don’t know, winding back down the trail, feeling his eyes on my back. 

At the base, they begin a discussion, ruling out certain areas and deciding who and what to investigate. The word “temple” looks like a bright, eclectic number seven, all strung out in radioactive billboard lights on the set of a dystopian fantasy play. The cry of the crashing waves is zigzags and lemon juice. The motion in which they say my name – Ma. Ko. Mo. – is trapping and enchanting, a dangerous repeat of drunkenness and helplessness all at once, where their voices sound like ocean blue and white-fire lightning. Is this what my name feels like?

–they’re coming–

The pebble lain trail threatens to cage me in stormy doom, speaking in twisting kanji and the scent of sparking charcoal, so I look to my friends to see if they're as affected as me.

–they’re here–

I look at Kyoujurou and he speaks in fireworks, bright, popping, neon pinks and yellows. I look at Shinobu and she waves her hand in front of my face as if I’m dull, then opens her mouth and speaks in the whisper of trees and grass. I must vaguely register their words in the back of my mind, but I stare at their lips and they contort, turning blue-green and white-grey, whistling, spiralling into what must be the prettiest cloud I’ve ever seen. I know they’re there somewhat, but when I look again, there’s nothing there but a white, puffy mist in the blobby form of two humans. 

There’s a muted, muffled voice telling me to be alarmed, but my attention is drawn away by the siren’s call by the cliffside. The song sounds like swirling violet and sunset orange, an amalgamation of flower petals dyed by the deep hues of an imaginary dawn. 

You don’t look well, Shinobu says, I think. It’s a bit hard to tell because leafy vines keep sprouting from the cloud, wrapping and binding her.

“Why are you floating?” I snark.

Wait, what?

It calls me, bright, clear, yet muzzled, telling me to head towards this sparkle of light and life.

Makomo, where are you going?

I walk up what used to be a beach trail, but now it’s just a stairwell of shining white and shimmering stars. But the fritzed-out voice, bubbling and underwater, raises the gooseflesh on the back of my neck, making me look backwards out of paranoia, away from the heavenly path and towards the now darkening, deadly clouds. They look the way the colour of ugly, mottled brown-grey sounds – foul, unearthly, rotten. Their questions and pleas sound like dark blue, broken bones, and the shape of a yo-yo toy with a frayed, snapped off string.

Terrifying visage, that. Best go the other route.

So I continue on the trail, hiking up the cliffside, following a mirage of paper cranes flapping their pathetic little washi paper wings, guiding towards an unknown treasure. One of the clouds behind me departs, off to fight off another blobby cloud at the beach with slitted eyes and a dripping red mouth whilst the taller cloud, still dark and looming, follows me. 

“Would you like to see?” A crane asks.

“Of course,” I try to say, but no words come out of my mouth. 

The crane wobbles its tiny beak anyway. I don’t know what it means by “see,” but I suppose I’ll find out. I’ve always been so fond of seeing. I love to see. 

The other birds pepper in several different “see!”s throughout the journey, and I can’t wait. Tulips, peonies, dahlias, lilies, lilacs, orchids, and marigolds bloom around the craggy stone path, peeking through wet, sand-coloured rock like well-mannered weeds. The flowers whisper something magical, pressuring me to skip faster and faster up the mountain all the way to the flat peak, overlooking the ugly grey seas that turn into sunshine yellow daffodil fields in just a blink. 

The crane flits by my ear, the bat of its fragile wings sounding the way peppermint and chocolate tastes. “The field is soft,” it promises. “You should jump down there.”

“It’s too tall,” I respond, still unsure if I’m actually speaking out loud or not.

Makomo… I think I know what’s going on. You need to–

“Jump,” it whispers. “It’s alright. It’s very soft down there. Nice and warm and plush. You like that, don’t you?”

Clang!

I nearly lose concentration of the beautiful sea of flowers, unfocused by the sudden noise that rang so harshly, juxtaposed against this vision of everything before me.

What was that?

That sounded like something hitting a sword, as if a fight’s started out, but that’s impossible because it’s so nice and peaceful up here, up here in this miniature galaxy of a billion stars and a dozen full moons, with lavender skies, azure streams of clouds, and endless rows of wildflowers and silver-twine jewellery. I must be mistaken. Nothing has emerged from the shadows because there are no shadows – this is what the cute origami creature whispers to me.

I should jump.

Close your eyes, someone says. I don’t know who, but it must be either Shinobu or Kyoujurou, because the voice isn’t pleasant at all. It’s filled with fear and desperation, high-toned, screechy, breathless. Makomo, can you hear me? Close them!

The voice sounds muffled, as if they’re screaming through water, the thick atmosphere weighing down all movement and noise. Or in perhaps some sort of venus flytrap, where their voice tap-tap against the buoyant alien flesh, only able to make dents and not fully penetrate through as I sit in a slow growing puddle of sticky nectar and impending death. 

I gaze at the kaleidoscope of stars whilst drowning in golden honey, the thick, syrupy mess caging me in with the urgent vibrancy of this beautiful little world. I don’t want to leave. It hurts to leave. It’s so warm and bright here. I can see the taste of melted sugar and rosewater float around in the insidious curl of honey, latching onto my limbs and sucking me down, down, down…

Close your–

I close them despite the commands having mostly faded away, now relying on my ears to hear the world around me.

"̶͉͇͝Ḇ̷̔́̕l̴̡̠̹̳̪̑̊͛o̶͉̘̮̗̞̓ǫ̴̨̥͔͉͘d̷̫͎̂͠ ̸̳̟͆̋̒͝D̷̻̩̦̫͊e̶̱̐̀͆͝m̴̢͂͝o̶̮̽̄n̴͈̯ ̸͇͛̎̈́̔̿A̷̤̖̼̍̕r̶̠̖̃̍̈́̕t̶̛̝̻̏̂ͅs̵̻̈̑͠:̴͖͖͐̈́̈́͠ ̴̙̍̍̃͆͠Ȟ̷̜̈́̂̈͑ä̵͉́́͌l̵̻̗̓̂͌̈́l̶̨̩̭͖̳̒̒͊̈̃ṵ̷̠̝̙̎̾̀̑͛ć̵̛̗̘̦̍͘͝ĩ̶̢͙̭͕n̶̼̹̟̠̈́̌a̷̛͙͓̞̝̙̅̾͌t̷̮͚̓ĭ̸̼̻̼͇̀̇͘o̷̝̐n̸̡͙̈̿.̸̛̳"̴̛̰̂̿̂̽

The demon’s voice ripples grossly through the syrupy air, but I fight from his grasp, eyes clenched shut, teeth gritted, gesturing wildly to the embrace of the brisk winds and raging emptiness. It’s black behind my eyelids, free from all distraction, away from enchanting microcosm it created, where I finally come to my other four senses, crouching down and clutching my tanto in the dark, only now aware at how close I was to the edge of the cliff as my feet nearly fail to find purchase on the wet rocks. 

How dare– How dare this demon.

I hear the cacophony of battle, blade ringing brightly against claw and bone. They’re at the tip of the peak, the very edge overlooking the ghastly seas, where seafoam might even dare to spray up to, even to this height. The salt in the air burns in my mouth and nose, so terribly different from the sweet honey and candy from before, but I revel in the pain of being alive.

Of course this demon, this lure, doesn’t expect me to have broken free of the spell. I can hardly believe it myself. But when I bound across the rockface, going only by pure memory alone, I jump up, shout enough of a warning for the other demon slayer to evacuate, and slice through some sort of filthy, hardened flesh. My ears are still fairly decent at detecting location, and with the sort of surety that only comes with deserved experience, I knew where the demon finally was and I attacked it, with it now disintegrating whilst permanently etched in a feature of surprise.

It’s dead, now, someone breathes out a sigh in the way that they’re about to say something, maybe about how I broke from the spell, but there’s a tear in the meat of my calf and a treacherous realisation of a dying animal, fighting for its last bit of revenge. 

And I fall.

Someone screams my name as I fall, daring to open my eyes now that the demon’s last bit of energy was used up to grab ahold of me instead of cast another illusion, and I see the horrified visage of red-gold up on the cliff as I hurtle down into the merciful embrace of an angry sea.

When I was twelve years old, I went to my first swimming competition. My team competed in a relay event, where I was selected to compete in several different tasks, from freestyle to backstroke to butterfly. 

–can’t breathe–

Butterfly was always the last event. It was the stroke where I had to oscillate in the water, relying on the strength of my kicks and the balance of my abdomen in order to wiggle through, leaping up with the great force of momentum out of the water like a dolphin greeting the waves or a rainbow trout climbing waterfalls. It went: wiggle, wiggle, burst up, wiggle, wiggle, burst up. My arms felt like wings, then, helping me defeat the grand foe of gravity, propelling me into the air towards the beauty of breath. 

–can’t breathe why can’t I breathe it hurts so much–

The chlorine burned my nose and throat, sending me in a tizzy, but I kept moving forward, keeping inside the obnoxious red-white patterned lanes, unaware of anything else except for finishing the task.

–dark dark dark–

In fact, staying underwater was almost preferable to the momentous flying leaps, where I was subjected to the freezing air, the wobbly noise of people stomping on the god-awful orange coloured bleachers, the smell of chemicals and gritty plastic, the gut-wrenching squeak of rubber inflatable devices scratching against polyester. I loved the pool. I hated the pool. I loved drowning, staying deep, deep in the crushing depths, floating without a care in the world, watching the striated reflection of the harsh overhead lights leak into the watery haven. I hated drowning, being weightless against all reason, having to reach up for air to live, being ejected from the wet sanctuary as soon as the timer stopped ticking. 

–help–

Despite everything, I loved the butterfly stroke all because of the leaping motion, where I could burst through the waves dramatically, all to take that first breath of fresh air.

–a pale, bloated hand reaches up, crying for help–

–it cries to…–

I don’t open my eyes because they’re already open.

And that’s my hand. Not now, not as I slowly fade away into the silence, reaching up into the faint glimmer of sky above, but the hand that reached out so many years ago, the one that fell prey to the mighty storm and sea, trapped in the sandy seabed of pain and misery.

I see the two right hands reaching up at once as if hallucinating again, as if the demon still controls my senses, still knows exactly what and where to target to be the most spell-driven. That hand, the pale, pitiful one, scraped by salt and exploded debris, is of years past. I need to focus on this hand, the hand that’s still moving, still waving through the depths, still reaching out despite all odds, into the lingering light.

–help–

I need to breathe.

It’s this pure desperation that drives me mad, I think, because I start to understand why Hokusai’s painting became so famous. 

The Great Wave off Kanagawa isn’t known for ethereal beauty or exquisite detail – in fact, quite the opposite. The simplistic strokes, the leaf-like seafoam, the plain blues and whites, and the large, animated movements are purposeful, meant to draw in all varieties of audience, young to old, to witness the reveal of power. The symbolism of hunger, of the wave, claw-like and taller, mightier than the mountain, meant to warn of the terror of nature. Not just great waves, but tsunamis, cyclones, storms, earthquakes, tornados, and more. Natural terrors. Horror shows. Mother Nature at her best, in wrath and in rage. 

Perhaps the blandness of the colour scheme was unintentional – after all, how creative can one really get whilst using a medium of woodblock and limited paints? – but for me, I can’t help but sympathise with the bleak picture. There’s no colour in the dark. There’s no colour when you fall asleep amidst the rocking of the destroyed boat, sinking into the pitch-black of the unknown. There’s no colour anywhere, no colour at all. 

As black spiderweb tendrils creep in through my peripheries, blinding me, and the lights all begin to fade, I wonder again why I found the water so blisteringly beautiful, back when I was twelve years old for the first time. I thought I saw a world of shapes and colours… but there lay a world of monotone, of blacks and greys and whites. Why did I want to be submerged? Why did I want to sink to the bottom? Why did I even bother?

–why can’t I fight–

–it’s not hard, it’s–

A pale, bloated hand reaches up, crying for help.

The past meets the present.

But I don’t want to die. Not again. Not like this. Not alone, cold, drowning. 

It’s far too late to fight, but I finally raise my hand farther up so my body’s upturned, and I kick my legs. I swim, I finally swim, I swim in this last minute desperation, in regret, in anguish, in agony. My lungs lay flat and empty, bleeding and hoarse, shrieking and wailing. My muscles scream, beg, hope for mercy, to stop using energy I don’t have. And my blood lays thick and my skin lays waterlogged, white, bloated, and heavy. 

But I fight.

I can see again, just a little bit, as I futilely kick up, up, and up, hardly moving an inch in my exhaustion. 

Bubbles escape my mouth. I must be screaming.

I think of soap bubbles in the bath. I used to use string to form little iridescent shapes from the foam, then blow them out into little bubbles that would float in the air, shiny little fairies of the house. Beg for your life, they would probably say now, whimsical and dainty. Cry, for you have lost. And you shall die.

Even though I dread the end, I can’t help but wonder what the bottom of this sea will feel like against my deadened legs.

–burst of light, splash, burning gold, doesn’t belong here, puffed cheeks–

I feel something tug at my waist.

–rush of bubbles, powerful kicks leaving jet streams in our wake, warmth–

I feel the warmth of a hand. The warmth of a person. The warmth of a saviour.

–hear my cries and help me, oh spirit of the sea–

The black crackles away as the pressure recedes, and my eyes refocus at the touch of warmth, to the anthropomorphised version of the very sun itself. My mind clogs, my lungs choke me, my senses stay in a haze, but I can see, blurry yet clear as day, Kyoujurou dragging me upwards into the steadily growing smear of white, saving me.

He must’ve jumped from the cliff. The trail down from the peak to the beach is far too long – he would’ve, perhaps, scaled down a few metres, realised the time crunch, then just jumped in, searching for me selflessly and in reckless abandon. 

I almost expected the water to shell over me, denying me the reality of surface tension, keeping me trapped in my grave as per my fate and doom, but I feel the painful air on my skin and hair and I know that I am free.

Kyoujurou brings me to shore, where I kick, choke, cough, gasp, and retch. I bring the mask up to my nose to remove all the seawater sploshing down my face in an almost comforting manner. He slams down on my back forcefully throughout, shouting over the crash of waves on the rocks about my health, if I’m okay or not, if the demon’s blood arts holds any latent effects over me. Shinobu rushes in a moment later from the land, done with the remaining demon lackeys, and administers emergency medical care. 

Meanwhile, I lay on the wet beach, the black rocks digging into my spine, laughing because I fought back.

“I fought,” I mumble, but perhaps it comes out in a choking sob instead of in actual words. 

Shinobu hushes me and pokes around in my ribs with some sort of device. Kyoujurou says something hilariously nasty when he checks out what she’s doing. I hear them say something along the lines of “–well of course it’s shitty for her, she’s got enhanced sight, might as well have slapped a target on her back for that stupid demon’s blood arts–.”

I fought. I fought back. 

Just keep swimming. Fuck yeah.

So it’s there, on the ugliest beach known to mankind, with jarring volcanic rocks and sediment grey waters, that I laugh and cry and do my best to imagine myself living without these friends of mine. They came for me. Kyoujurou jumped into the nightmare to save me. Shinobu has a full-on doctor kit to treat me.

They care and I care.

I fought back because I want to live, and that’s worth more than letting myself drown in trauma. I want to live with these people. I want to be with these people. 

So, I think, that’s the start.

Lives are so goddamn short. I’m going to change things, I promise to the gods of the sea. The world will never see it coming.

A storm arrives.

Chapter Text

We wait in silence, heads bowed, pretending there’s nothing wrong. 

Urokodaki writes a letter, the bristles of the brush scratching against the paper wetly – to whom, I don’t know – whilst I sit at the opposite end of the table, mixing paints and plucking the strands off the pillow seat. 

Splish-splash, goes the ink in the inkpot. Splish, splash, sploosh.

As it turns out, good luck charms aren’t made from well-wishes and magical fairy dust, but from a wisteria flower paste and several other herbs noxious to demons but fairly harmless to humans. I grind the flowers with a mortar and pestle until the petal mixture turns mushy, sprinkle in a few herb leaves and spices, and mix with some special type of water from a stream on Mount Yoko. Sun-exposed water. Really, at this point, shouldn’t it be called “high altitude water?” 

Once the mixture settles into a gloopy paint, I add blue dye and wait a bit more.

Splish-splash.

Splish-splash.

The breeze rattles against the open door, upwind.

I reapply a layer on my mask, making sure the colours on the two flowers are beautiful and vibrant again.

Splish-splash.

Two crows caw from above.

We both jump upwards and run out the door, ignoring all grace and sensibilities. Urokodaki waits at the veranda, sniffing around, investigating which way they’ll be coming up from the mountain. I can’t see anything through the thicket of forest, so I follow him dutifully, bounding down from the doorway and into the yard clearing.

They’re alive.

By the gods and spirits, old and new, they’re alive.

Giyuu’s scruffy head peeks through the sloping trail first, then Sabito’s, who’s heavily leaning into his friend’s shoulder for support. They’re both dirty, bloody, and exhausted to all ends, once pristine masks scruffed up with something, but holy fuck, they’re here, alive and well.

The hand demon, Giyuu later tells me, nursing a busted thumb and bruised ribs whilst in the company of a hot drink and fresh sheets, had been a menace beyond belief. They’d killed most of the demons on the mountain – a new record to boast about – but were accidentally separated due to the wily work of the last remaining batch of desperate monsters. He’d come across Sabito on the brink of being crushed, sword scattered away and several toppled trees in their wake. And then the last thing he knew was seeing that sort of blistering, bubbling purple-red born from underwater magma and violence. We stare at the almost dead boy, the eldest of us three children, laying on a futon with chaotic mien.

The hair on the back of my neck rises at the thought of their combined potential.

You’re alive, is all I think about saying and all I really mean to convey. Because that’s what matters in the end, in this little family I’ve carved out for myself, of a father and two brothers, all bloodthirsty and starving in a world where there exists those who wish for nothing more than to be a source of ruin.

It’s as easy as that.

It’s not so easy when the boys waver between respect and childish begrudging care towards me, but I’m aware of my influence upon whatever sanctity they’ve made for themselves when everyone has healed up enough to embark on missions, and when everyone exits the house fitted with masks and talismans. 

“Wow,” I say, and that’s my first word of the day. Wow.

The masks aren’t supposed to be a culture thing, they’re just–. Me. Being awkward. Not seeing things. Doing shit.

And here Sabito and Giyuu are, wearing their fox masks with double corded ties, not showing their faces because that’s totally normal and not at all different from literally everything that’s supposed to happen. 

Like me.

Why are you two copying me?!

They’re both a bit standoffish – Giyuu naturally silent and Sabito in a constant state of rage to be able to muster any drawn out speeches – so without visual cues of facial expressions, they’re going to gain a rather depressing reputation amongst the demon slayers. 

They stare at me for a moment too long when I distantly realise they probably want me to extrapolate on my thoughts.

“Wow,” I repeat. “You look terrifying. Woohoo.”

Sabito messes up my hair in response.

There’s a terrifying moment a month or so later when I catch the tail end of Sabito’s battle against a local demon and he utterly destroys the monster with all the rage in the world bottled up into a single slash. He’s strong. Too strong. And Giyuu, too – they’re both catching up at an uncomfortable rate. The sticky jealousy doesn’t feel nice as it gallops around my stomach, but all attempts to erase the unwanted emotions ends up unsuccessful. 

Uncle Iroh’s heeded wisdom is the only thing left, so I try to stifle all the pent up teenage angst and redirect the lightning into another pathway, away from blowing up in my face. 

I don’t want to leave this part of the country, where I’ve familiarised myself with the local fauna and flora of the mountains, stumbled through all the overgrown trails hidden with ancient Shinto and Buddhist shrines, and bled over the trees and stones from nights of training and memories. The sharp, brisk air whips about cleanly through the evergreen branches, whistling out a tune that’s become a drowsy lullaby. Of course I travel out and sometimes don’t return home for weeks, but there’s an expectation of returning home soon. There’s kabocha, green tea, sprigs of lavender peeking through the rickety engawa, moss and lichen climbing the whip-thin immature pines, smoky hot pot, sparking coals, stinging bruises, and wrinkly hands reaching out to brush dust off my shoulder.

I’ll be back, of course I’ll be back.

But the idea weighs heavily, already an ultimatum, already occurring and festering in my mind.

Mentally, I leave first – returning home from missions and hugging tighter, savouring it. Then emotionally – packing up clothes into a bag, giving Urokodaki a hint at the timeline, asking Shinobu if her deal’s still on the table. 

Then physically.

There’s an itch in my brain, the sort of itch where it disappears and reappears without warning. It’s a rash, a set of hives, a sickness permeating my thoughts and weakening them. I want to itch, itch, itch, scratching through the side of my head and into the bone, shattering the fragments of the skull so I can dig my fingers into the juicy organ, to really reach in there and wiggle my grip inside to relieve the pain. 

Except it’s not painful. It’s just itchy.

I have to get stronger, I have to be better, I have to see physical confirmation of improvement, I have to…

I have to be on top, because as soon as I slink to the bottom, then what will I be? Who am I – who is Makomo – without my wily strength? What am I even doing then? If I’m not better then I can’t stop the chain of events from happening, where heads roll to the ground, arms lay bloodied, katana blades cracked, and demons rise to the top of the mountain, watching the sun rise overhead whilst they indulge in the scent of delicate blue flowers.

Sabito’s alive. I made sure of that. I helped him grow strong – Giyuu, too. I made sure of it. But what happens after that? Sabito’s not meant to be here, neither am I, and the fates know of it. What will they do whilst I stagnate away, if I don’t grow strong enough to fight against the divine whims of whatever the hell lives in the clouds above? 

This is what I think when I travel to the Demon Slayer headquarters, knocking at the gate of the Butterfly Mansion.

Yeah, ‘cause I’ve got to fucking change things ‘round here, you hear that?

Blowing into gourds all day isn’t what I had in mind, but it beats twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing, I suppose. 

And after a long day of attempting to learn permanent enhanced breathing, Shinobu pulls a wildcard and declares, “Fight me.”

Like a badly planned Bond villain influenced by a particular brand of shounen manga protagonists, she pulls me to the training yard and hammers away attack after attack. It’s very unlike her to be fueled by rage – her older sister’s still alive, so that’s something – but I don’t know how to word an awkward what the fuck is wrong with you today, so I fight back and try not to die. 

It’s all wrong. Literally everything. This isn’t how Flower Breathing works, I would know because I’ve fought besides Shinobu countless times, and yet she’s pulling stunts and attacking head-on in battle instead of relying on proper form and technique. Flower Breathing is all about behaving like scattered flower petals in a spring breeze, flying around the opponent and sticking deep, unsuspecting slices from their blindspot. It never goes head-on, or violently creeps up into my face like this. I catch her rushing straight into my direct periphery more than once, enough for me to smell her breath as she bangs head-first in my direction, breaking the invisible barrier between us in a traditional spar. It’s like… exposure therapy. 

With her wacky form, I easily push forth and defeat her at the head-first strategy, as the water forms are more used to being pushed back and forth. 

Shinobu collapses on the ground with a grunt, laying splayed out in a starfish shape.

“That was new,” I say, because saying what the fuck might be a bit much right now.

She groans. “I’m trying a new style. It’s not working, though.”

Is this… Insect Breathing? The primary, rudimentary scraps of it? Why is it such a mess?

Unlike Kyoujurou and much like everyone else I know, she’s not the kind of person to offer up her heart and soul on everything she does. Her reasons are kept to herself, so I’m forced to extrapolate on the crumbs of information given. Logically speaking, I know that she’s from a family of people who practice the flower style, but by sometime in the Taisho Era, when she’s nineteen or twenty years old, she’ll be using the new insect style to achieve the Insect Hashira title. The between years are iffy, but with or without my involvement, she’ll get there anyway. Even if her current technique is complete garbage. 

Change the world.

“Do you… want help?” I venture, scratching the side of my mask. “Refining it?”

I can see Shinobu mulling the tentative offer, rolling it around in her mind, a jagged shape cutting into her ego and teenage pride, where her lavender eyes squint under the bright afternoon sun and her lips contort into the equivalent of biting into a metaphorical lemon. 

Instead of a response, she bounces up and charges right at me again, which I suppose is as good of an answer as any.

We spar, we fight, then we battle. A spar’s a game, full of banter and quick-witted retorts, blades nipping away teasingly, testing reflexes and refreshing on time-honed moves. A fight’s a race to the end, more serious in nature, not pulling punches and making extra sure to use the experience in an actual battle. Then a battle’s a type of war, dirty and gross, attacking the opponent because the opponent’s the enemy and they need to be put down and beaten and maimed and hurt so badly they won’t be able to walk.

Or, at least, it’s a one-sided battle.

Shinobu throws everything she has at me, slashing with her needle-thin sword as if I’m Muzan reincarnate, throwing hatred and sick, foul feelings into every desperate thrash. It’s unfair, her eyes scream. She needs to hurt, hurt, hurt, to dive her blade into flesh and twist and turn it around, to just utterly and definitively win this stupid front so she can be at peace. At peace with what, I wonder, definitely not panicking at my friend’s onset existential crisis in the form of blind violence. 

“What are you doing?!”

And all comes crashing to a halt.

Kanae is a tall girl with impractically long hair and wide, impossibly gentle cherry blossom pink eyes. Of course, gone an entire week and only now just returning from her long mission to witness this as our first interaction. I’ve never been able to master the art of leaving good first impressions, but this has got to be some sort of new low, even for me. 

I sheath the tanto and bend down into a polite bow. “Hello, Kouchou-sama!”

Shinobu, still caught in a stance meant to pierce the opponent’s heart, collapses on the ground in either pure embarrassment, shock, or exhaustion. 

Great.

Kanae storms into the courtyard, two small girls trailing behind her (Aoi and Kanao – those fucking tattlers), ignoring my presence and walking straight up to Shinobu, who’s gotten quite cosy with the ground.

“Hi nee-chan,” she mumbles.

“You!” The Hashira points. “You! That form! That’s not even remotely close to the flower style. And I saw that stance – why on earth would you use a killing blow stance against a human?”

Shinobu mumbles something along the lines of “meep.”

Unsatisfied, Kanae whirls around, long hair nearly whipping me in the face. “And you! You’re Urokodaki’s kid, right? What are you doing, indulging in my foolish sister’s whims? She aimed killing blows, you should’ve walked away from the spar! Where is your common sense?”

Common sense? What’s that?

Sorry doesn’t cover it. Kanae stays mad for a long, long time, refusing to talk to her sister for days. Shinobu knows she has to apologise first and provide some sort of explanation of her actions, but her bullheadedness kicks in at the worst possible time and we’re left in limbo at the Butterfly Mansion. Now the only people who want to even be with me are the two wards – the eternally grumpy Aoi and the creepily quiet Kanao. 

“Shinobu’s being an arsehole!” The little eight year old Aoi screams. The other one just smiles and stares off into space. “Slap her!”

Dear god, I hope I was a cuter child than these monsters.

I want to refuse. Holy fucking shit on a stick, I really want to refuse. But Kanae’s a Hashira and my best possible chance of moving up in power levels, and my only way to her is through Shinobu.

Which leads me to Shinobu’s room in the private wing of the Butterfly Mansion. By all rights I shouldn’t even be here, but with Aoi and Kanao dragging me through the halls, nobody even questioned my presence. I don’t knock because forgiveness is easier than permission, simply barging in, knowing through the faint outline through the papery shoji doors that she’s not even busy. 

Just moping.

“He–.”

“I get it, okay?!” Shinobu says, pacing around the room. “I was lost in the heat of battle and I messed up. Why doesn’t she understand that?”

“I–.”

“She’s just so strong and powerful, you know? She’s the best Flower Hashira our family’s seen in centuries, and I just wanted to make my own style because I know I’ll never be as good as her! I got obaa-chan’s physique so I’ll never be tall and big, strong enough to use a normal katana to perfect all the breathing forms of flower style. I don’t wanna be weak, Makomo-chan. I wanted – I want to make something for myself so that I don’t let her down.”

“That’s–.”

“This sucks so much. She’s my sister, not some stinky elder. She’ll understand me.”

Aaaaaaaand problem solved.

Shinobu grimaces, then finally leaves her room, ready to confess to Kanae of her misdeeds born from her first taste of independence. Man, why does puberty have to suck so much, even a second time around. 

Kanae agrees to train us after a mysterious amount of yelling and crying occurs in the upper levels of the mansion. She teaches little tips and tricks around the gourd breathing practice, then moves us onto thoroughly kicking our butts in order to gauge our abilities. Or to release stress, who knows. I’m stuck with even more flexibility exercises whilst Shinobu has to manage ironing out all the wobbly mistakes in the new katas she’s creating, pretty much as if she’s starting training from scratch. It’s a brutal process, leaving her with bloodied knuckles and amateur cuts all over, but it’s not as painful as whatever the hell Aoi’s doing to me under the guise of “helping.”

“The human body’s not supposed to contort into that shape,” I tell the brat.

Aoi sniffs. “Kanae-nee said so. So there .”

I’m flexible and I know it, but what I’m being asked to do is literal torture. Stand on my toes and bend backwards into an S-shape? Is that even possible? Do a split, but go even further, making my legs into an obtuse angle? Learn how to dislocate my shoulder joints so I can stretch them out further? The fuck?

“It’s practice,” she insists. “Kanae-nee said so.”

Why does change have to be so painful.

Chapter Text

Guilt is a funny concept.

It festers like an open wound, with thick, yellow-ish pus with the texture of paste leaking from the jagged edges of broken skin and disgust. It’s like a broken leg and a missing arm, where if I stumble from the pain of my leg, I can’t catch myself in time due to the horrid asymmetry of my body. Then I land face-first on the ground that’s riddled with corpses and half-dead flies, left to suffer for something that could have been – could be – entirely preventable. It’s pain, a stab in a moral heart, of my own making.

I often fasten guilt to be someone with a face, an anthropomorphism, so that I can redirect all the nasty, teeth-chilling, nausea-inducing emotions towards it. It's so easy to hate a someone instead of a vague, arbitrary concept that changes with context and generational hurt. I think of guilt to be more than just the discomfort earned from breaking my own sanity away out of fear of my person, and superimpose the image of my trembling, wrongfulness as a man, because it's easy and I need easy more than ever, when I'm as weak as this. Guilt must be some sort of nightmare man.

Guilt stabs me in the heart and poisons my blood. When my soul screams in pain, a cacophony of distorted violin strings rings through my mind, making everything from head to toe burn bluefire-hot, crackling, electrifying, buzzing, spreading pins and needles from my aching chest to tingling veins. The nightmare man turns from this idea of my personal disgrace to a culpable object; unreal to real. 

It leaves me alight in agony, for my own wrongdoings.

I know the ending of this story. I know the characters now, and who I want to save. I can’t do much to change the ending because it’s as good of an ending as any, but I refuse to let any harm come to those I care about – Urokodaki, Sabito, Tomioka, and now even Kyoujurou and Shinobu. These are my friends, and it wrenches my gut and shatters my bones with lightning strikes to even think about sitting on the sidelines, letting their own fate unfold, whilst I do nothing but sit on my thumbs and save myself.

My problem is that this list keeps expanding, and if it continues like this, I’ll have to sacrifice myself.

Guilt is a funny concept because there’s a dilemma churning in my head, duking it out like mortal enemies, where I get to keep my Big Bad Secret or I get to see Kanae return, uneaten.

She’s sixteen.

She’s not supposed to make it to seventeen.

I have since moved out of the Butterfly mansion, a la two months ago, during which Kanae thwacked me over the head during tea time one day and asked if I’d ever get around to managing the overgrown gardens at Urokodaki’s old Hashira estate. I didn’t know that grumpy old man even owned property larger than a matchbox, and promptly escaped the scary hospitality of the Kouchou home once I’d mastered several new awesome skills. 

To distract myself from horrible, horrible moral quandaries (and possible self-admissions of guilt), I focus on clearing up the hell hole. It’s a lovely property in the very edge of the village, with a large main house circling a wildly overgrown central courtyard, and a suspiciously thick layer of outer wall fencing. The outside layer is simple stone and wood, with traditional tile roofing, but then nearly three metres distance of obnoxiously tall and leafy bamboo trees further separates the outer wall from the house itself, like a thick second wall against the mysterious outside world. Even as a whippersnapper Hashira, Urokodaki must’ve hated the idea of noise and making friends.

I post him a letter, saying something along the lines of why the fuck didn’t you tell me you had a house here, but knowing him, he won’t even respond to it, and will instead rant about something annoying in his day.

Using an epic demon-slaying tanto to trim the grass is probably a bad idea. I do it anyway, because why not, and that’s when one of Sabito’s mission locations coincides with a village right next to headquarters, and he decides to visit me for the first time in a few months. 

He’s grown.

A lot.

It’s really annoying and possibly even terrifying, because puberty has hit the boy like a freight train.

“What did the grass ever do to you,” he says, and his voice is very growly and squeaky at the same time. “And how come you never told me about shishou’s house here? I could’ve been saved from having to sleep at the Purple One’s guest rooms!”

Apparently Sabito has met Shinobu. Badly.

“You used to be so respectful to me,” I lament, swinging my grass-stained sword around carelessly. 

Sabito huffs. “Your hands are bright green.”

It’s true – the grass in this stupidly overgrown courtyard has turned my nice and normal hands into monstrous little alien hands. 

“You’re not wrong,” I say. “But I refuse to be teased by an unkempt teenager. Your hair looks like a dead badger.”

He turns bright red under that mask, with echoes of the blush creeping into his neck and ears, and thunders off to explore the rest of the house. The re-introduction aside, Sabito is still (mostly) polite to his senpai, and helps me with the rest of the mini renovation projects I’ve been working on to keep myself busy in between the intense training periods. He finds an actual grass clipper somewhere in a storage shed towards one of the back walls, which looks even more like a murder weapon than anything I've ever seen in an armoury. Sabito then trims the rest of the hideous courtyard, shaving it down to what must be nature's equivalent of a buzzcut, because the only thing left (besides a tiny patch of yellow wildflowers) in the courtyard is now dirt and piles of dead green things.

We mutually decide for the graveyard of a garden to turn into a training yard.

There's no food in the house, so we dither around for a bit before cleaning up and search for a place to eat in the village. There are many occasions when acquaintances see us from across the dirt roads, pause, pale, and then whisper, oh god there's two of them, before fleeing the scene. I think it's hilarious, but Sabito's in that stage of emo teenage boyhood and starts looking all dark and funny towards corps members who stare a little too long. I neglect to tell him that he's not helping his case at all.

In the next few weeks, as I wrap up the formal training period with the Kouchou family, Sabito and Giyuu visit a few more times when their missions are close enough by. Giyuu has also been struck with the terrors of puberty, turning into slenderman, what with his pale and lanky body. His face is developing into the hot androgynous prince of every girl’s wet dream, despite the giant and seemingly permanent pimple on his chin. 

(It's okay. Nobody except the Urokodakis can tease him about his pretty boy looks, and holy shit Sabito gets mean as fuck)

I’ve grown, too, maybe. There are boobs now, which kind of suck, but luckily I skip the insecurities over beauty because for most of my time outside of Urokodaki’s residence, I keep the mask on and people are left to speculate.

That might cause issues later on.

Hmmmm.

The bright spot out of the horrible flexibility torture by Aoi and the lung capacity training by Kanae is that whenever the boys visit, I win every single spar.

I win against them. I feel as though I’ve earned my keep, once again, as a protector of my friends and family. I am safe and comfortable here, doing no actual real change to the world at hand. The guilt is never ending and darkening my very senses. I can’t see my own right hand.

There is change to be done.

I won’t be remembered as the girl who was too selfish to be a hero.

Ubuyashiki listens to Urokodaki’s apprentice. She spins a horrifying tale of encountering a Kizushi runner-up during her latest mission to Kyoto. He remembers assigning the mission to the main departments, when the issue of a simple haunted house and ten missing children came in the news, and isn’t surprised that his men must’ve sent this burgeoning young swordswoman to handle the chaos. 

They are in his manor, in one of the many offices, sitting in the dark. She doesn’t protest against the environment, and he hears her move with fluid grace despite the lack of light causing at least some sort of limited vision. The dark offices are used for sensitive cases when the situation calls for it, as Urokodaki’s child had claimed to need an audience just this morning.

He listens to her story.

The Kizushi runner-up had been privy to many interesting details, she claims, and she recounts this giant slug-like demon taunting its prey with information of her certain death in overconfidence, right as she finished it off.

“The Kyoto Slug mentioned that an Upper Kizushi is currently at the base of Fuji mountain,” Makomo’s sweet voice rings out, with an appropriate amount of worry and calm. “This was said during when I was tricking him about the location of the small boy, Tanaka, he was hunting down, so of course it may have been a trick. But please, sir, I inquire that reinforcements are sent to any members of the corps who are stationed there at this time.”

Ubuyashiki hears the echoing thud of wood and the rustle of clothes – the girl has bent down into a deep, pleading bow, despite knowing that he can’t see it.

Wood? Has Urokodaki’s craziness forced his apprentice to also wear masks?

“Do not bow, Makomo-san,” he says. Her pleading is blinding. “Please, hold my hand.”

She rises, and rests one small, calloused hand over his. 

“This does sound like a taunt from a desperate demon, but it is unbecoming of me to not check all clues for such important enemies of our organisation. I will send the Sound Hashira for reinforcement,” he says gently.

He is lying. He would never send reinforcements for the lies and trickeries of simple demons. He is lying about everything, except for that he will be sending the hot headed nineteen year old Uzui Tengen on this new back-up mission.

Because Makomo is lying.

Why, Ubuyashiki does not know, but he feels her pulse race then settle down, he hears the minute tremors in her voice, and feels the tension cut thick not from the subject at hand, but from the half-truths spouting from her lips.

She’s a good liar, he’ll admit, but he has learnt how to pick up on signals hidden from the rest of the world due to his blindness, and it is one of the many secret reasons why he has ascended to this level of position and power. It’s brave for her to lie to him face-on like this, so he’ll keep the anonymity for now, or until Uzui reports back to see if she’s correct about this rumour that “someone else” has formed about an Upper Kizushi.

The girl is lying, but not about this.

The Flower Hashira returns home, her entire regiment dead, leaning heavily onto the Sound Hashira’s sturdy form. He is acclaimed for his speed, but it still was not enough, because there’s a giant scar bisecting her face in a diagonal line, from eyebrow to chin. A bit of her nose bridge is gone, the upper part of her lip is twisted, and her left ear has been frozen off, but she’s alive.

Kouchou Kanae returns home and turns seventeen years old.

Chapter Text

I spend a precariously long time holding my breath after Kanae’s return. Weeks, months, and more pass by, as I’m sent on mission after mission, with occasional rest or training breaks in between. I can’t help but think every day will be the last, and in the middle of the night I’ll be banished to the netherworld for the brash lie straight to the face of the leader of the demon slayer corps. 

But Ubuyashiki does not summon me, and I think my lungs finally catch up to my brain when I see Kyoujurou for the first time in a while. 

He’s been in a dedicated quarantine for the better part of the year, with the declaration of mastering the Breath of Flame by himself, as his father has become a shut-in and barely ventures outside anymore – according to the gossip mill, lost in the agony of losing his wife.

And, well. It’s difficult to coordinate missions schedules anyway.

I see Kyoujurou before I hear him – as always. 

He’s grown up, too, somewhere in the middle of child and adult, with a muscular figure. He’s developed a strong jawline, and I watch the rivulets of glistening sweat ebb down the skin of his face, curving harshly against the bone by his ear. I can imagine rubbing my fingertip down the side of his face and cutting a thin line at the soft part of the skin from the newly matured jaw – a fantasy that creates an odd protest in my stomach. Then Kyoujurou turns his head to the side, checking out a squirrel on the side of the road, and the veins and muscles in his neck bulge out.

Everything about the teenager has become… more masculine.

It unsettles me in a way I find hard to describe.

Because he’s making my brain fall out of my skull for whatever weird reason, I don’t pop out of my tree branch until he passes under me, continuing on to the town we’re supposed to meet in, as per the mission documents. The idea of talking to him also feels unsettling, because if he has a deep voice (which he probably does, at around fifteen years old), I’m not sure how I’ll react.

Like a ninja, I follow him from behind, weaving through the forest line instead of directly on the main road. 

And then he reaches the town and waits by wandering through the street where the stalls are being set up for the summer festival. 

The game is up when he wanders into the quieter part of the festivities, towards the very end of the town’s main street. He steps into a narrow alley between two large wooden houses and calls my name.

I step down from the rooftop. “How’d you know?”

Kyoujurou laughs. His voice is deeper. “I didn’t. But it was something you’d do. Hello again, old friend!”

He steps forward, for an awkward facsimile of a hug, but the proximity makes his movements stutter. I can’t blame him – seeing him up close for the first time in at least a year makes me do a double-take, too. 

The boy is becoming a man.

He looks the way a crackling fire feels – hot, torching, numbing. The embers of his boyhood have slowly faded away in the hearth, transforming into a massive bonfire for the pious. I see the flush of his cheeks, high with pretty redness, radiate in warmth. The gold of his hair is a star in the night. 

“You’ve grown,” I say. More angular, muscular, taller.

Kyoujurou makes a decision to bridge the gap, and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I can’t tell what you look like, but I’m very sure you’ve grown too!”

I try to ignore the confusing fluttering in my stomach, and focus on the mission at hand.

Young couples in this area have been disappearing for the past few months – presumably by the hands of a hungry demon. The missions department must’ve decided this job had to be designated to demon slayers with a history of teamwork and a high skill level, so it was assigned to us, two tsuchinoto. The “couple” part is troublesome, which is where the festival comes into play.

“When everyone is occupied with the fox dance, we can sneak away to where the dossier says is the demon’s estimated resting spot,” He says, carving a small map into the dirt of the alley.

“Isn’t that a little unrealistic? I don’t want the demon to run away if it smells foul play.”

He looks up. His new jaw line is mesmerising.

“What?” He asks.

“Well,” I say, stealing the stick from him to doodle on the map. Our hands briefly touch, igniting a small spark. “If the reports are correct, this demon has probably terrorised other prefectures for years. It should be intelligent enough to think it’s fishy that we’re walking away from the fun dance this entire village is preparing for, to go to the seedy parts over here, alone.”

Unless it’s really hungry for flesh. Hmmm.

Doubtless, it’s run into demon slayers before, so we might have to change into new clothes to lure it out, if we go with this plan. It’s a high ranking mission, for high ranking priority. Fleeing is not an option.

Kyoujurou coughs and turns bright red. “Do you…” He says, and flushes darker. The lump in his throat bobs dangerously. “Do you not know… sneaking…?”

What.

“I admire this fantastic eloquence,” I say.

He calms. A bit. “Couples!” He stresses, too loudly. A random child peeks into our alleyway, then darts off to call for his mother. “Couples…?”

I want to ask couples what, but he drags me by the hand, out from the shady nook, once the bells ring and the festival officially kicks off. With the mission funds, we’re able to rent summer yukatas from a stall by the village entrance. Then we shift the belts for our swords in a way that appears more decorative and fun than for actual use – as if we’re secretly not monster killers hunting for prey.

The dandelion yellow yukata is tighter than it should be, but there aren’t other options in my size, so I settle with the figure-hugging silhouette. Kyoujurou ends up with a red outfit, with a few not so subtle glances to his hair and eyes, matching his face by the end of the process. 

“You’re going to keep the mask on?” He asks. The lump in his throat bobs. “There are a few other kabuki masks you can use for disguise.”

I tap the lacquered wood. Clink. Clink. “It helps focus my vision.”

And besides, the kabuki masks for sale are cheap replicas of the actual thing, only covering half the face with a thin clay material and lead-based paints. 

The mission itself is the least interesting thing of the night. We follow the script perfectly, chasing each other like lost lovers, stray dandelion puffs in the wind, endlessly circling and dancing and laughing. He looks so light and happy despite the tension in the air, the storm clouds building up under our skin, preparing for the fight. The gold of his hair ripples in waves, catching on light that only I can see, ending in fiery embrace – I chase after it, reaching, grabbing, running like there’s no tomorrow. The brush strokes of his blooming adulthood are two-toned and angled, captured on a streaky canvas. Kyoujurou is the acrylic to my watercolour. I want more.

He fights explosively, power building up in every tensed muscle, breaking into tendons, ligaments, and bones. The heat from battle is like a spray can pressed to maximum level, crying out with tears and intense pigment. Fire licks from his katana, singeing the grass below him. 

“Makomo!” He yells, and that’s where I step in.

In an old move that we used to practise, I race up behind him, jumping on the meat of his shoulder, avoiding the spine and delicate connections between his arm and torso, to flip upwards. He’s gotten broader this past year, with wider shoulders and a muscular figure. As such, there’s more room for my foot to move, so my jump goes higher and faster, and I bring my tanto down for the finishing blow. Except that’s when the demon chooses to distort its body, shifting into a wobbly mess to mess up the planned aim of a quick slash.

Seventh form, then. Rapid thrust-curve.

I overextend my sword arm, ignoring the displacement of joints and cartilage, and it feels like I’m ripping it out. The stab lands, skewering the demon’s sideways curved neck, and cuts clean through the smallest part. The head falls off and vanishes into chalky dust.

The next order of business is a relaxing spa trip. Kyoujurou worries about the overextension on my arm, so I elbow him violently to prove that it still works. He relents a bit, but insists on having one of his family friends join me in the bath to make sure I don’t collapse and drown. It’s a little insulting, honestly.

Thunder strikes the next morning.

“No baths,” I say, pointing at the greying skies.

We’re around the edges of the demon slayer residences, somewhere behind his property line. It’s a pretty part of the forest, but the birds begin to fly away and small critters nervously chirp, signalling that we should head inside if we still want to enjoy our day. 

He insists on still meeting the family friend.

She has, honest to fucking god, bright pink hair in a neon green ombre. What the fuck. I’ve heard of the Kanroji family, a small branch offshoot of the Rengoku line, being colourful people, but I’ve never seen one of the members before. Until now. Holy shit. Kanroji Mitsuri is a bit younger than me, a budding teen-something, with a heart shaped face, thick locks of the brightest hair in existence, and wide-set nuclear waste green eyes. To me, she resembles a disorienting mess of a kaleidoscope of colours. 

At this point, I don’t even care for being rude. I need to close my eyes. Argh. It’s not like they can see under the mask.

“Greetings!” She says, bubbly and sweet. “I’m Kanroji Mitsuri. You must be Makomo-chan! Ah, I’ve heard aaaaaaaaall about you from–.”

A thwack sound. Kyoujurou patted his friend on the back, preventing her from speaking further. Alright, then.

“A pleasure,” I say.

It’s not. It’s really not. She’s a biological affront to my senses.

I hear her punch him on the shoulder and blow a mini raspberry, so she changes topics from greetings to world-ending characterisation. “Anyway, he called me here because I’m still uncertain if I want to become a demon slayer like my parents or not.”

And that’s it. The end of the sentence. 

What does she want from me?

The silence stretches on for a long time until a few more shoulder punches occur and Kanroji awkwardly spills out, in a squeaky voice, “I mean, I came here because I wanted to be inspired if I should become a demon slayer or not based on the passion of my new friends and all the emotions in my gut because Tou-chan always told me to follow my gut instinct since it’s the key to understanding and interpreting the world around me so that I can become super strong and cool in whatever profession I pursue, which isn’t to say that I wouldn’t want to become a demon slayer, but rather I’d want to see for myself with my own eyes about–!”

This is insane. I think she’s asking to see me spar with Kyoujurou to see if she finds it inspiring enough to make a career out of it, but something is very wrong with that girl. She seems sweet, though. I open my eyes to look at her, doing my best to not be nauseated. Slightly jittery, swaying a bit, never keeping to a still position. She wears sandals and a yukata, revealing a slight slip of skin above the ankles but below mid-shin. The muscles ripple above her ankle, tightening minisculely, signalling that she’s also nervously tapping her own sock covered feet. I see all of this to read her character, and it’s telling me the same thing over and over again. Kind. Nervous. Uncertain.

So I pull out my sword and try to stab her. 

Instantly and incredulously, Kyoujurou gears up to block, but Kanroji is faster. She pulls the katana strapped to her belt in a heartbeat, reacting on pure instinct, to block the strike. I let the momentum fade, stepping back and sheathing my blade.

“Eh?!” She exclaims. I’m not entirely sure why she’s blushing.

“You’ve got great reflexes,” I tell her. She turns pinker. “You’ve got even better reflexes than Kyoujurou, and he’s a Tsuchinoto.”

Kyoujurou puts his sword down, eyes still blown wide. “Hinoe, actually,” he pants. “After our last mission, the corps plans to promote us tonight.”

Nice.

“So if you want to be a demon slayer, you’d be great at it. But you’ll also most likely die before you turn twenty. So, it’s your choice.”

Kanroji Mitsuri will be dead in a few years, but maybe…

The girl blushes, turning a beautiful shade of crimson, and drops her sword to slap both hands on her face. 

The conversation evolves into something friendly, later. The thunder overhead lessens slightly, with the sounds travelling farther away and small patches of a sunny day leaking through the darkness. 

“We could still catch time for the communal hot springs,” I say, pointing upwards, in a similar fashion to before. “The weather’s clearing.”

Kanroji squints. “Are you sure? I mean, if you need to, but–.”

She rambles on a bit. It’s endearing now, so I wait until she finishes. “I grew up in the mountains. I know storm weather patterns like my sword arm.” Which hurts like a bitch now, thanks to the pressure drop. “We won’t get any lightning for another two hours.”

“Ehhhh…” she sighs, and blushes again, staring at me creepily. I swear, there are literal hearts exuding from her gaze.

The idea of hot springs reminds me of my first mission with Kyoujurou a few years ago. “Ah, Kyoujurou. Do you want to join us in the hot springs?”

He blushes, too. Everyone is blushing today and it’s getting out of hand. He steps back without noticing himself, sweat beads at his temple, and a hot flush erects from his face down to his collar. I stare at him. He looks… desperate. For something, I don’t know yet. “No thank you!” He says, definitive. The complete confidence in his voice juxtaposes against the red cheeks. 

Kanroji giggles. She must know what’s up.

Weirdos.

Chapter Text

The current gossip chain, courtesy of Shinobu, says that I’m in talks to become the new Water Hashira. It’s absurd, really, because I’m barely fifteen years old and my demon kill count is still entirely uncertain because half of my missions involve team-up kills, which kind of don’t count towards the official number for promotion material. But then the officials destroy any doubts when they come knocking on the door one day with a stamp in one hand and a letter from Urokodaki in the other.

I grab the letter from the official’s hand. Politeness can wait.

I hereby nominate the first student to… Although the second student displays more aptitude in the Water style, the first student is more…

“Dominant hand, please,” the official states blandly. It’s at this point when Sabito and Giyuu barge into the entrance foyer, suddenly curious why I’ve been taking so long to answer the door. It’s rare for all three of us to be in one place at the same time, but when we do, I like to bully and boss them around. 

“Who’s that?” Sabito asks.

The official coughs. “I am–.”

“Senpai, your dinner is getting cold,” Giyuu says.

Hmmm. Maybe I need to be a better role model for these rude brats. From whom did they learn this kind of behaviour?

I stick my sword arm in the official’s face. The faster this is over with, the sooner I can get back to my tempura. The official makes a face, twitching his nose, and gets on with the unofficial ceremony. The tsuguko mark is printed on the back of my right hand, my sword hand, and I watch in mild wonder as the effect of the ink takes place, sinking into the skin. Apparently these tattoos are meant to be invisible unless called upon, due to ancient demon slayer ritual sealing, but I hadn’t known that until I asked Urokodaki one day about the tattoo on his hand. It went a little bit like this: kid, you’ve got crazy fucking eyeballs.

Or so.

“This is new,” I say, showing off the mark. The boys are too emo to outwardly marvel over things like promotions or cute puppies or girls, but I can tell that they’re impressed. 

Dinner ends, and Giyuu brings out a bag of pastries he purchased from a recent trip to Tokyo. The entire country is starting to industrialise and enter a new era of technology and trade, which is weird to witness from this side of history instead of from a textbook or convenient online search tools. Damn. I miss the internet. So much porn.

“I prefer rice over this European bread,” Sabito says, but he still ravages an entire box of mini chausson aux pommes. 

Obviously, rice is better. But whoa, I could eat these pastries all day. “I want to go to Tokyo one day,” I grumble. “Why do I get all the missions in the middle of nowhere? It’s so not fair.”

We stew around a bit, bumping our legs underneath the kotatsu. The spring evenings are still a bit chilly, and there’s nothing better than being lazy fucks around the house whilst mindlessly eating sugary treats. The masks are off in the presence of family, too. But then Giyuu asks if I become Hashira, then who will become my Tsuguko, which leads to a terse silence of over-thinking and unfortunate teenage angst. The only way to solve this issue is to be even more of an outrageous bullhead to fizzle out the opposing side, so I proclaim that the both of them are stupid idiots who’ll never be able to match up to me, mwahahaha.

Evil laughter included.

“I’m just better than you guys,” I say smoothly, kicking them in the knees under the kotatsu before quickly diving out and escaping to the courtyard.

The brisk air feels rejuvenating on my exposed face. But if this is going to be a serious fight, I have to tie a thin cloth around my eyes to frame my vision more – still, I’m more alive than ever when I grab a practice blade from the engawa (the training equipment tends to just sit on the deck due to constant use when all three of us inhabit the house) and twirl and skip around the garden. It’s not really a garden because we keep on killing the flowers during training sessions, but it has dirt and grass. Thus, semi-garden?

It’s been a year since we last sparred. In that year, we’ve all bloomed into adolescence, shifting from childhood to adulthood, in regards to muscles, hormones, skin, beauty, and more. Giyuu grabs his practice katana with a hand of steel, pure corded muscle, sharp knuckles, and weathered calluses. His face has grown longer and more serene, fitting into all pretty boy aesthetics that belong on the cover of a magazine. There’s a small blemish on the bump of his nose, the protruding dorsal hump adding character to a face that would otherwise be considered the pinnacle of baroque beauty. All darkness and straight lines, with shadows upon shadows, yet a certain cool warmth to the way the moonlight falls on his delicate cheekbones. 

“I respect you a lot, senpai,” he says. “But I have to fight you anyway.”

“Understandable,” I reply.

And dodge the hell out of his quick jabs. Sabito joins the fray, jumping in from above, but I see his shadow in time and redirect the slash towards the dirt. It causes a dust cloud to form, and I use the distraction to feint a thrust-curve into Sabito’s testicles. Of course, he switches tactics immediately, and uses a blocking manoeuvre instead of an attack, which means I get to jump off from his momentum to kick Giyuu in the ribs.

“Makomo!” Sabito screams. Usually they pretend to be cowed by my bullying and call me senpai, so if he’s using my actual name it means he’s really angry. “What the fuck! Don’t aim at a guy’s balls like that!”

Hey, it worked.

This is what I communicate to him, but he garbles out an unintelligible string of curses and then says, “Then not me, at the very least! You can aim for someone else’s balls – like your male friends’ or something.”

“Like Kyoujurou?”

Sabito attempts a kickflip with partial success, where he’s able to outspeed my block with surprising strength, digging his heel right into the flesh of my shoulder. “Predictable!” He yells like jackass. Then, “Wait, when you think of balls, your friend Rengoku is the first person to come to mind?”

There’s a terrible silence in the air, Giyuu’s coughing from being hammered in the ribs barely affecting the awkward pause.

“He’s my only male friend,” I protest. “I don’t think about Kyoujurou’s testicles like that, idiot.”

Giyuu recovers from the sidelines, but still fights for breath. He feints for a kick sweep, which I dodge, and yells out, “Why are you talking about Rengoku’s genitalia? Senpai!”

“He lets you call him by his first name?” Sabito asks, suddenly treading backwards. His muscles are tense, but not in the right places – his forehead in particular appears to be veiny and stressed at the moment.

What the shit.

“I don’t want to talk about Kyoujurou or his balls,” I say very loudly. It’s a goddamn battle move to aim for weak spots like the crotch.

Horrified at something, I can’t even think as to why anymore, the boys share a look. Oh no. The spar concludes immediately afterwards without a word, the boys pushing each other whilst running inside to their rooms. I can see through the paper walls, the silhouette of their figures rifling through the adjacent walls – the storage sliding closets – and then shedding their homewear yukatas. They’re changing clothes to… go outside?

No. Wait. Back track. It has something to do with Kyoujurou. I can’t imagine why they're investigating his genitals, but it really doesn’t sound good, so I also retreat into my room to privately change, donning the mask and corps uniform. Then I trail after the two, knowing that they’re both lacking in the sensory department.

Actually, it would be better if I found high ground. Those two idiots are useless. So I climb up the neighbour’s tree, quiet as possible knowing that if the neighbours catch me trespassing on private property I’ll most likely get demoted or whipped or something, and look. 

What do these eyes see?

I take off the mask momentarily. I see starlight. I see aeons of history in the deep, dark night sky. The valley extends eternally, deep in this secret mountain chain, the wisterias bathing the wood of the houses and stone of the walls a flickering, delicate purple, in a spectrum that only I can see. This is avant-garde, unorthodox oil paint, with speckles of violet aura and cloudy unknowns. The light from the street lamps, the fire in compound hearths, and candles through individual windows forms a map for me, a guiding hand that illuminates the flax. The scene of the entire village as a whole cannot be anything less than wondrous, of the tiny people, houses, and communities, all bridging together into the drawing of a lifetime. No, this can’t be avant-garde; there are too many colours, dots, and highlights here. This is fauvism, in all its wretched, fierce brushwork and emphasis on the life that lives here. This is a village of people, a village made of homes.

A village with one of my favourite people – a man made of fire.

I spot Kyoujurou eight kilometres away, sauntering about the forest edges, sweaty and panting. His lips say, thank you for the spar, to the person next to him, a dark haired older boy with mismatched eyes, and the two depart to different paths of the fork in the street. Sabito and Giyuu are not far off, trailing the radius of the Rengoku family home, so I run quickly to cut him off.

“Ma-!” Kyoujurou tries to say, but his natural voice is too loud so I reach him to slap a hand over his mouth. His lips feel dry under my palm.

I put a finger over the mask’s cat mouth then beckon him over to follow me. “My brothers are hunting you,” I whisper. “Don’t ask why.”

So he asks, with his familiar intense stare, “Why?”

We find a quiet rooftop, a two-story property that belongs to the Kouchou family (who probably won’t be upset if we trespass), and lay down to look at the stars. Giyuu couldn’t give two shits about rules, but Sabito, surprisingly enough, is too chicken to think of travelling by rooftop. He’s a bit anal, too. 

“I think they’re just being stupid and protective,” I say. I’m not that dumb. Saying, because they think you’re a pervert making me think about perverted things because of the testicle conversation sounds like a reach, but it’s the only logical reason at the moment, and also the worst one because if I tell Kyoujurou that… Well. Hmmm. I could spin this in a different way, maybe, to make more sense. “Because they think I have a sexual interest in you.”

Kyoujurou immediately coughs. Yeah, I know, right? Ew.

He sits up. “What do you mean?!”

I slap a hand over his mouth again. “Shhh. I don’t know – they’re just being weird about our friendship.”

“I see,” he says, muffled, under my palm, still staring intensely, moving lips brushing against callused skin. Under the moonlight, with him sitting up completely straight and motionless, muscles and veins in his arms tensed in some sort of reaction to my words, he looks like a Greek statue. The neoclassical movement could not capture a better model than him.

We could touch forever, but I have to withdraw my hand before it gets too sweaty. Huh. The temperature suddenly got warmer. 

“So where are they now?”

I stand up to check. Fucking idiots, the both of them. Shit. I duck back down. “They’re breaking into your house,” I say numbly. 

“Which side?!”

“Left wing.”

Kyoujurou visibly relaxes. His jaw unclenches, but his eyebrows remain furrowed. “They won’t run into my father – he lives in the right wing. But there is a problem!”

“Oh, look, they’re leaving already,” I say, pointing at the distance even though I know Kyoujurou can’t see in the dark. “They look spooked.”

“Good.”

Okay. Weird response. I side-eye him. 

I follow Kyoujurou wordlessly to his house, leaping over the walls and bamboo plants, trailing behind him to the left wing. A silhouette moves behind the shoji walls, jittery and anxious. There’s colour leaking through the paper, a recognisable red and gold. He slides the door open, revealing a mini-Kyoujurou inside.

“Aniki!” The tiny doppelganger squeaks. 

“Senjurou!” Kyoujurou says, and bounds over to his little brother, who looks as though he’s seen a ghost. The boy must be about ten years younger than his brother – I’ve never asked the exact age of his brother, but from appearance, he must be six or seven at the oldest – with soft, round cheeks, dewy eyes, and fluffy hair. There’s less red in his hair, barely skimming the edges of his fringe, in what must be some sort of convoluted power system for the Rengoku men. More red equals more fire? Maybe? Or maybe the signature Rengoku mane develops with age, like big ugly flaming swans.

“Aniki, save me,” the little boy cries, swaddling himself deep into Kyoujurou’s robes. “Two ghosts appeared out of nowhere!”

He’s adorable. If I had a kid like that I’d want to smother him in hugs and kisses all day. No wonder Kyoujurou speaks of his little brother with dripping devotion – I get left with two big dumbasses who freak out small children for no real reason.

“Don’t worry, otoutou. Makomo, I am going to fight your brothers tomorrow.”

From the engawa, behind them, I say, “Understandable.”

Senjuro notices me and shrieks. Tears well in his eyes, and oh shit, I don’t want to make my friend’s kid brother cry. So I wave my arms around helplessly, trying to make human-like emotions with my body language. The boy still looks absolutely terrified of me, so I resort to the last thing anyone expects.

“No, no, see? I’m a person just like you,” I say, adding emotive cheer to my voice, shifting the mask up slightly, revealing a human chin, jaw, then mouth. The lower end of the mask sticks uncomfortably right below my nose and I try my best not to sneeze. I smile, pointing at the white and nubby non-monstrous human incisors. Kyoujurou stares intently at the crumbs I’ve given, the slope of my exposed neck to my jaw, to the gentle smile I curate for the little boy – this is where I quickly pull the mask down, suddenly hot and flushed. “Look, look, I don’t have fangs. I’m sorry, Senjurou-kun, for upsetting you. Do you want to chat for a bit until you feel better?”

He blinks, the tears stopping. There’s more red in his irises than gold, so perhaps my colour theory is wrong. They’re big, round, and innocent, with a simple kind of beauty that’s rare to see. The composition of his eyes is cherubic and tantalising, haunted by something greater than his own mind can handle. The worst of humanity must want to eat this child alive.

“See? I’m Makomo, your brother’s friend. Nice to meet you, Senjurou-kun.”

Senjurou doesn’t say anything, but he hugs his brother tighter before the boy slowly leaves his brother’s embrace. He makes a noise in his throat of confirmation, looks to his brother then back at me, and waves in greeting.

“Aniki’s talked about you before,” he mumbles. 

From there, an actual conversation evolves into being. Once the boy gets over his shock at seeing “ghosts,” he becomes more animated, asking questions about the missions his brother and I go on. He eventually falls asleep, and Kyoujurou and I work together to tuck him into the futon. This is the quietest I’ve seen him, in the comforts of his own home, and it feels too personal, too quick, too much. I can’t go back from this.

“Kick their asses good,” I say, then leave before he can respond. My head feels fuzzy.

There is a mission. It’s more dangerous than any of our other missions combined. Shinobu and I will be in charge of keeping stray demons out of the sphere of the Hashiras, to not distract them from their work. We’ll be partnered with a platoon of grunt workers – newbies, a group of fourteen soldiers from the first three levels of the demon slayer corps – for our whittling of the cattle, to keep the Hashiras focused on investigating the main part of the mission. Because as rumour has it, with multiple Kasugai crows flocking into the village over the course of several days, an upper moon demon has been traversing the Tanigawa mountains. The validity of the information is to be questioned, of course, but the higher-ranked officials appear to be so certain that the rumours have some degree of truth to them that all of this security is warranted. 

Kanae and Uzui, the Flower and Sound Hashira, are the central forces to the mission, hunting down this upper rank demon. They’ve shown a considerable amount of teamwork before, on her fateful mission a year ago, and so they’ve been elected to make this first move. To be safe, Shinobu reads from the mission documents, the hunt begins close to dawn, so that if the worst case scenario happens and the Hashira aren’t able to contain the demon, then there’s less than an hour of leeway.

Demons of that level can kill entire armies in less time than that, but nobody says that out loud.

I try to remember which upper moon demons there are, but my mind continues to blank on them, because I’ve been distracted with other things recently – my own personal failing. A mistake that never should have been. Number six should be taken care of in a few years. Number three should be taken care of by several strong women. The others? Continuous survival of the fittest.

This mission is so sudden and hateful. This didn’t happen before, I know it. The only considerable change so far that I’ve forced into play is Kanae’s survival, so I know that this must be a ripple in the pond of her own doing – the upper demon that they’ve found, is the one she must suspect to be her attempted murderer.

Number two. Douma.

My own abilities blind me. I feel strong, powerful, on top of the world. Kanae and Uzui are stronger than ever, almost doubly so when fighting side by side. I’m almost the Water Hashira. Shinobu is also incredibly talented, in the fields of medicine and battle. Fighting an upper moon demon should be a bad idea, but I fall victim to my own arrogance and shortsightedness, out of the feverous glee of my continuous string of successes. And if or when the battle is over, Muzan will have to reconsider his plans. It might fuck up my own ability to guess the future. It might make him more cautious. It might make him more bold, more stupid, more vulnerable.

Life feels beautiful. The mission starts one hour before daylight.

Chapter Text

The Flower and Sound Hashira follow the rumoured trail half-way up the mountain. There’s a small onsen retreat meant for women only at the half-way point, which is basically a buffet for the upper moon demon called Douma.

I don’t remember his story. I remember, instead, his cruelty. 

The information doesn’t lie, I think, but we still make mistakes upon mistakes, because I see a spray of blood from kilometres away, at the lowest point of the valley by the mountain, and I climb up a tree to check everyone’s positions. With information I learned months later, in an infirmary bed, it was because Uzui incorrectly guessed the location in the mountain chain that would most likely be hit, in a direct path towards the onsen retreat, and then they arrived to the actual location too late. Its quickest and darkest route would be through the waterfall path, as the upper moon demon uses similar elemental blood demon arts, and demons are victims to their greedy comforts. However, from the top of the tree, what no one could have guessed was that maybe Douma doesn’t like waterfalls from volcanic springs – hot, steamy water. He must not have used his abilities that much in front of Kanae, then.

I stare in horror at the upcoming massacre. Because the next quickest route would be the hiker’s path, with our backup legion.

“Flare!” I yell. 

I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly. The blur of speed jumps in the air, a kilometre in only a few seconds, and grabs the flare with his claws. What happens next is pandemonium. I whistle, knowing Uzui should be able to hear from this distance at this pitch, and whistle some more just to be sure. Then I join the battle, amidst lost limbs and spilt blood, slipping on intestines and stray eyeballs. Shinobu orders a retreat, to get the Hashiras hear as fast as fucking possible, and I think some of them get away.

Then Douma appears between Shinobu and I, the powerful demon having sensed us to be the leaders of this de facto troop, and aims killing blows at the both of us. She doesn’t get her newly made batch of wisteria oil bombs out in time, and he knocks her into a tree. Shinobu passes out instantly, blood seeping down her forehead. I see her wake up, slump down, then wake up again. She might be able to get back into battle, then.

I stare. I clench my tanto with both hands. I prepare a fighting stance. He’s tall, well built, with a fascinating face. This kind of ethereal beauty is wasted on a monster who’ll do nothing but purport falseness. White hair, face, and skin, with a crown printed on his head. I wonder what he sees through eyes like those, of stained glass and unholy worship.

Then we fight.

Douma extends a slashing claw, which I narrowly dodge, and I set up the failed momentum to try to curve the tanto upwards and cut into the meat of his torso. He’s too fast. I’m not ready for this, for any of this, I can’t keep up with this speed and I doubt that even Uzui will be fast enough to run from his watch to the forest base. All I can do is wait for Shinobu to wake up to set up the wisteria bombs in time, so I push my body to the absolute limits, overextending again with my right arm to form a back-angle on a new feint.

“Pretty girls shouldn’t waste themselves fighting demons,” Douma whispers, purring in my ear. I don’t know how he got there so fast without me noticing. I duck to build strength in my thighs to jump backwards, but in lightning strokes, he reaches down to pin me down with a foot on my chest and nails digging tightly into the meat of my sword arm, preventing any further movement with the tanto.

“Probably not,” I say.

He rips the mask off with his other hand, ignoring the burn of the wisteria oil infused paint as he crumbles the material in his hand with little issue. I suppose the poison needs to be more potent to affect a monster of his level. The chunks of wood splinter and explode in a cloud of dust, then tossed aside. He smiles. “That’s better.”

I can’t move because he’s already breaking into my ribcage. I feel my sternum squeak and the upper ribs cracking from the pure force exerted from his foot, and the humerus bone of my upper arm fracture.

“It’s such a pity to hurt pretty girls,” he says seductively, with a sugar sweet smile. Douma’s eyes are psychedelic, a rainbow of drugs, drowning me in lust and cannibalistic hunger – he stares at me with thoughts of perversion in mind, of eating and licking and chewing and devouring and more. 

Wanker.

“That’s a lie,” I choke out, breathless from the weight on my chest. But it’s worth it, momentarily, to see the indignation rise in his forceful calm.

Douma bares his teeth, with wretched icy fangs and dripping saliva, reminding me that our conversation is just a demon humouring its meal. He wants to eat me. “What isn’t a lie is that I like to play with my food.” And then he steps off, stretches, and goes for round two. I stand up and immediately side-step a massive claw swipe – but it still hits my shoulder. Luckily, it’s a numb sort of pain, where I can’t feel the effects immediately. He then swats me with the back of his hand, into a tree, and I nearly pass out.

Fight.

I need to fight.

Douma stands in the clearing, holding a limb – must be from the numerous corpses of the platoon we were meant to protect. It’s small, white, and limp, holding onto a sword. Then he tosses it aside, directly to my parallel tree, and laughs.

This is where I see Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 

The judgement is swift and kind, with the presumed God telling me my fate without unnecessary applause or starfall. I have sinned, is what is being said, and this is my punishment. Strip away my wings, break my halo, let the storm clouds immerse me as I fall from the clear-blue, watery skies and into the hellish landscape of thunder and despair. Falling comets. Tornados. Earthquakes. Torrential storms. Polar lights. Tidal forces. For a moment that stretches into eternity, I imagine that I can witness the Earth from a heavenly, judicial view, amongst the holy and the wretched. This is your own mistake, a disembodied voice tells me, this is of your own doing. I cannot blame anyone but myself.

I look to my side, reach for my sword to keep fighting, but then I see that I’m still holding my sword. It’s odd, because I’m holding my sword, except my sword is several metres away, but I can see my hand clearly grasping the handle. I try squeezing it, but my fingers don’t move, and I listen helplessly as Shinobu finally wakes up from her bloody daze, screams, and holds off the Kizushi demon as long as possible with an assortment of putrid violet bombs. 

The particles of the wisteria bombs float in the air helplessly and innocently. I see spots of colour, prismatic in nature, capturing the barely-there light of the minutes before daybreak and fading hint of stars, full of winking tears and gingham zephyr. The colour purple looks the way acid tastes, cruelly painful and arrogantly royal. It stings my tongue and wets my eyes. The colour purple looks the way a haunted orchestra sounds, of wailing ghosts and storm-drenched violin strings. The colour purple is now everywhere, in everything. Douma’s wintry smile awaits in a stinging bath of wisteria, calming down before the battle against my best friend can begin.

Shinobu. Shinobu. Shinobu.

She’s alone in the fight now. She needs help. So I get up, because my arm isn’t responding for some reason, but then as I sit upright, I see that my arm is holding my sword, laying limply by the tree base, completely severed from my body.

My arm is over there.

The sun breaks through the treeline. The demon flees. My arm is still there. Shinobu picks it up and puts it in a big box. Reinforcements have arrived. They put me on a stretcher. My arm is gone. It doesn’t even hurt, yet

“Shinobu,” I call out on the stretcher. 

“I’m here, Makomo,” she responds immediately, by my side in an instant. She’s thrown on a medical smock and mask. The sun is up. The medical team, a dozen or so black-cloth workers, carry me around. “Do you need anything? Do you need painkillers?”

I don’t feel pain, yet. It’s all numb and aching in my head. Everything is fuzzy. “Where is it? Shinobu. Shinobu.”

She turns to talk to one of the people carrying my stretcher. “Give her an oral dose, now. Check for concussion and spinal damage when we reach the carriage,” she orders. Then she looks at me, with the same purple-fear-panic in her eyes, the same colour of the wisteria bombs. “We have the appendage in an ice box. Stay with me, Makomo. You’re going to be alright.”

There are no hiccups in the trail. We reach transport carriages in no time at all, and three people from the medical team lift me up in a way that my injuries don’t get tousled by the intensity of the horse’s pace. I can’t see their faces, they can see mine, and all the drugs and herbal remedies they make me swallow creates this hallucinogenic-type trance, where all the lights are dialled up to a hundred and shadows no longer exist. Before we reach the village, Shinobu places a damp white cloth over my face for my own comfort – they mention I was drooling and frothing at the mouth from the potency of the visions. 

Someone else mentions that we’ve made it in under three hours and there’s a collective sigh of relief. 

“Reattachment surgery is time-sensitive,” Shinobu says. She narrates the entire journey for me, as people lift me out of a gurney and into the Butterfly Manor, then into a high table surrounded by expensive electricity-run equipment. It’s weird seeing lightbulbs here, outside of a major city.

Then they make me drink something that makes me woozy, but not fully unconscious. Too much nerve damage, someone else says – it sounds like Kanae. They can’t let me fall asleep yet, without assessing how much I can still feel. Rudimentary Taisho era medicine does not think of the patient’s comfort in mind, no matter how much I try to spit out the rope they stuff in my mouth, and no matter how much I try to kick myself off the table.

It’s not an experience I want to be awake for.

I hear words going in and out of my ears, but none of them make sense when stringed together. I see gold and blue even when I close my eyes. Cleaning. Scalpel. Alcohol. Nerve damage. Lost sinew. Uneven break. Blood vessel. Claw marks. Ice. We need to boil more cloths. Sew it together. Pinched artery. Forget about it, why are we doing this? Most likely unsuccessful. A surgeon, I can’t even tell who it is anymore, pokes something cold into my flesh and this is when I start to be able to feel things again, and I scream.

They shove the rope back in my mouth. 

The pain is indescribable. An artist stabs a paintbrush into a canvas over and over again, wailing and moaning, letting dried and new paint ebb away. What’s left is a total mess of brutality, of torn paper and broken wood. I feel the surgeons stick their tools inside the decaying hole in my side, root around for things that will rot, and rip them out with scissors and scalpels. I feel them rip out a small string of muscle in the remains of my armpit because it’s been infected. They try to break the bones again, fingering the porous material with their silly gloves, violating my insides – but it’s all for naught. A woman’s voice barks at them, shrill, saying something about too much nerve damage. I feel all their hands and tools dig into my exposed shoulder, digging in so far that my entire right breast feels the pricking, too. I didn’t know that I could feel pain from the inside.

I don’t know when it ends. I might’ve fallen unconscious mid-way, who knows, but I wake up vividly out of the blue and realise that I’ve been reallocated into a private room.

Days have passed.

Shinobu is here.

“Makomo,” she says quietly, sitting on a chair on my right side. The limb is back, resting on a half-desk thing attached to the bed. “Makomo, look at me. Look at me, please. You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

My arm looks pale and lifeless. The fingernails are all bloodshot. The Tsuguko tattoo stares at me, mocking. “I can’t feel it,” I say.

“Look at me,” she demands, and holds my face in her soft hands, forcing me to stare into her gaze. 

“I can’t,” I whisper. There are no signals coming from my arm. I can’t feel the desk.

“Move your fingers, Makomo. Do it.”

Her eyes are demanding, yet sad – the greatest terror of them all. I wonder why they’re so sad, this isn’t happening to her, it’s happening to me. What would make her sad? And they’re purple. Too much purple. “It’s not working,” I tell her, emotion stuck in my throat, and I try not to cry like a big baby. The ache of my shoulder streaks up the right side of my neck down to the entire length of my spine, and every single one of my nerves reacts like I’m being doused in wildfire when I attempt to strain my head to look away, in protest. “Don’t lead me on like this. I can’t fucking feel my arm.”

This infirmary room was made to torment and tease me, for things so out of reach it's not even funny. I want to hate her for being cruel.

She slaps my cheek gently. “You’re moving your fingers. Your body didn’t reject the reattachment.”

Shinobu lets me look back at my arm. All five fingers are tap-tap-tapping at the desk. I can’t feel any of them.

“Oh,” I say. 

I listen to her physiotherapy schedule. Six months minimum of massages, light exercise, and warm baths to regain a fraction of sensation back in the nerves from shoulder down. Absolutely no stretches. After a year, at best, I might be able to start building muscle – but I can’t continue as I had before, she says. Fifty percent loss of dexterity in the arm and shoulder region. Fifty percent at best, but most likely forty percent. I’ll never be able to raise my sword arm above shoulder level, nothing higher than a ninety degree angle, and the arm will never be able to move faster than the pace of a slow afternoon stroll.

“Get some rest for now,” she says, after reciting all of this.

“Okay,” I say dumbly.

And I sleep.

Giyuu stops by first. He wraps a dark strip of cloth around my eyes when I ask for my mask, knowing that it’s been shattered into a million pieces. Sabito comes next, later in the day, with a cheap wooden fox mask, completely white and blank, most likely hastily purchased from some costume vendor in a nearby village. He offers to paint the flowers back on it, but I know that it’s not what I deserve. I lost a battle, and this is my prize. 

Kyoujurou doesn’t visit. I hear he’s on a long term assignment in the north, and probably hasn’t even heard the news yet. It’s fine. Kanroji drops by every few days to eat apple slices in front of me, so that I can enjoy the sweet smell and her conversation – I can’t eat solid food yet. 

Three weeks after sitting in bed and letting Aoi rub my shoulder with a tool that looks like a rolling pin, sensation trickles back in. The nerve openings awaken, the night after the latest session. Or, it doesn’t “trickle” as much as “shoot” back into my system, violent and obnoxious. There are a lot of things I can’t do anymore in the recovery process, and it’s painfully demeaning – but the new hired help, a set of three little girls, are young enough to not be uncomfortable about the hard and embarrassing labour. It’s not the lack of movement that’s bothersome – my legs work fine and the other arm is completely normal – but the residual, healing pain. Reawakened nerves completely cripple me some days. 

It’s a good day when I only feel the hot, feverish sensation of lava pouring through my veins in a localised area.

After two months I can feel my fingers, hand, wrist, and a part of my forearm. I’ll likely never be able to feel my shoulder and armpit ever again – too much damage. The raised, bumpy white-pink scar circling the connection between arm and body is an ugly reminder of my own foolishness.

This is when the demon slayer corps no longer allows leeway for their uncertain future. An official stops by with a stamp in one hand, and nothing in the other.

Kanao shows the guest in, and disappears instantly once she senses the grim environment.

“Ubuyashiki-sama can no longer keep the corps in limbo,” the official says quietly, respectfully. It’s a different man from last time. “The Tsuguko stamp will be removed. However, our leader has allowed you to retain your rank of Hinoe into retirement, for your great service these past years.”

I stare at my right hand.

In truth, I never wanted the promotion. I didn’t care about being called Hashira or not, as long as I lived a fulfilling life, protecting my friends and family. Rank matters so little in the grand scheme of things, yet… Yet. The idea of losing this symbol that represents everything I’ve worked for is too much to handle. I can’t speak, so I nod and slowly move my arm to him. It trembles despite all the work we’ve put into therapy.

He looks sorry. I am sorry.

The door bangs open with another unwanted guest. It’s loud, sudden, and makes me forget about the lingering pain that haunts me, out of pure curiosity and who the fuck is that.

“Wait!” The guest bellows. “Just fuckin’ wait, you goddamn pricks!”

And he pants, sighs, leans against the doorframe, then stomps over to shove the official aside. It’s an elderly man, probably older than Urokodaki, with a stature tinier than mine, an unkempt grey moustache, and a poorly healed scar under one eye. He looks like a tiny ball of fury, a shock of a person, with such power contained in that small mass that he might as well be making his own waves of atomic force, dredging up the charged particles of air towards his centre. The old man can move impressively fast even with a missing right leg.

Peg leg Kuwajima.

“Impatient ingrates,” he grunts out, and whacks the official with a cane in the knee. Then he points at me with the same offending cane. “You. Girl. Your sensei sent me here, so you better be mighty thankful to that son of a bitch.”

The ex-Thunder Hashira is… feisty.

“Get out, shoo!” Kuwajima tells the official, who nervously complies. The door closes shut again, and the air in the room turns heavy and cold. My ears start to pop.

“You’re Kuwajima Jigorou,” I say.

He smirks, then quickly turns it into a foul expression. “And you’re Urokodaki’s brat. He owes me big time. I like em fresh and new, not all big and moody like you.”

Someone knocks at the door. The official’s voice mumbles behind the wood, saying something about how his boss needs this to happen today or else they’re going to have to do more paperwork.

“No, shut up,” he shouts. “You’re not going to remove that tattoo, brat! She’s still the heir to a Hashira, and to one of the major breathing styles.” And he looks at me, stomping his peg leg. “Oh, stop being a wuss.”

My head rings in anticipation. This is the most action I’ve had in weeks, but reality still hits, trapping me inside this drowning ship. “I can’t lift my arm over my head. I can’t do ninety percent of the Water Breathing katas because my dexterity and flexibility has gone to shit,” I say, but I can’t feel my mouth. “How are you going to help me?”

He smiles. There are hints of actual compassion hidden behind the annoyance, here, and he says, “Fuck water. The breath of thunder is ninety percent in the legs.” I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or not. “I lost my leg. You didn’t. That fucker Sakonji knows I’ve been to a dozen shrinks and mind healers after my forceful retirement and asked if I could help you with injury counselling. But he also knows that I’ve been looking for an apprentice for the past thirty years. So we adapt, girl. You have both of your fuckin’ legs, one and a half arms, and a filthy bastard of a sensei who wants to teach at least someone desperate before I go off and die in a ditch after pissing my pants, all senile like.”

I haven’t tried lifting a sword at all since the incident. I don’t know if the therapy will even take. Right now, we’ve only successfully gotten up to twenty-five percent dexterity, with an uncertain future. 

But I want to fight so bad I could sacrifice my morals over it. I see the water in the air, the moisture seeping in from the window and the vents, in multicoloured prisms. I see an ocean of my past potential, gone and dead and dark, inaccessible because I can’t reach over my damn head when all Water style katas need is flexibility and full-body movement. I see the energy crackling in the air, the hints of static rippling about in waves and waves of unpredictability. This is a current I can’t even begin to fathom.

Kuwajima holds his hand out, waiting for an answer. “Learn the ways of Thunder, girl,” he says. “Once you finish healing, come find me.”

I want to cry. This is what I worked for since I was nine years old. Letting go feels like abandoning a part of myself, straight into the depths of hell. I am the ocean. I am the sea. I am water itself, connected deeply and intrinsically to this element I’ve carved my soul into. People don’t just switch breathing styles like this – unheard of. Obscene. Lightning arches down my spine, stress causing the pain, nerves alighting in emotional damage, and I see in brilliant hues of a palette of white and gold. 

So I sit there, holding back tears whilst glaring into the pits of damnation.

Then I say yes.

Chapter Text

Four months pass by.

I hadn’t thought time to be a precious commodity because in my youthful foolishness, I think that my skin will never weather, my eyes will never droop, and my soul will never dim. I’m a paralysed shell of someone who’s never fully experienced adulthood, and the changes that puberty brings, even in a hospital bed, are wholly unwelcome.

After four months, the medical team is finally confident enough that I can travel alone without risk of infection. Kanroji – or just Mitsuri now – tries to come with, fussing over all the little details, but Sabito and Giyuu hold her back. Shinobu smiles that same creepy smile from the first time I met her, so I call her an idiot and leave.

Even after all this time, I have to keep to a strict physical therapy regiment, with a harshly worded note from the Kochou sisters for Kuwajima to keep me on track. When I find him in the south, in a beautiful peach orchard town on Shikoku island, he reads the letter, rolls his eyes, asks if I’d like a drink, then demands a spar about twenty minutes in.

“And throw that away, you don’t need it,” he says.

I blink.

What– my sword?

“You want to spar… hand to hand?”

Kuwajima snorts. “No, girlie. With swords. I’ve got a collection in the back – go find a katana and prepare for the shitstorm.”

And so, with years of manners instilled in me from three different sets of parents throughout two lifetimes, I politely say, “The fuck? I have a tanto, old man.”

I whip Jinsoku Ude out. The blade shines in the warm southern light.

“Huh?! That kiddie blade? You’re way too old for a tanto, girl, grow the fuck up. Meet me in the field by the sycamore tree in five minutes. I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Then he stalks off. 

Fundamentally, the tanto and katana are both samurai swords, with similar hilts and techniques – the difference in length and weight should be negligible for any expert in the sword arts, with little practice needed to attain decent skill in either category of fighting. At fifteen, maybe I am old enough to use a smaller katana. Ignoring the arm injury, my musculature is greater than Shinobu’s, so I don’t actually need to limit myself to a needle blade like hers.

But… But. The tanto is all I know.

Is that bad?

I know I’ve grown up – no longer that precocious nine year old, at the start of this adventure – but the reality seems terribly earth shattering when I find the shed in the back and realise that the old practice katanas are, indeed, now my size.

Just a bit heavy.

“Alright old man,” I say, twirling a katana hilt in my fingers. The weight of the sword puts a strain on my arm, but it’s not like I can suddenly switch to complete control of the left arm. That’s some Jaime Lannister, fantasy world shit. Even after getting my right side ripped to shreds by an ugly demon, it’s still my dominant arm. Besides, relearning the basics of swordplay with the left side will take at least a few years of deconditioning. “Come at me.”

The first few parries are weak and unsteady. Kuwajima bats away strikes with his cane – which is surprisingly durable against metal – and we increase the pace until it’s at a comfortably high level of basic swordplay. 

I don’t move my arm above my head or backwards. 

No, this isn’t basic. This is pathetic.

Kuwajima increases the intensity of the spar until I can’t hold out any longer, with his cane stabbing into my wrist, making me release the grip handle so that the katana falls to the ground with a loud thump. Then, with the same cane, he slams it upwards against the chin of the fox mask. The cheap fabric bands tear off instantly from the force, where the mask explodes off my face, into the air, then lands on the other side. My opponent picks it up.

I pick up the fallen sword and try to stab his hand to get it back. He easily dodges the weak thrust, dances around my form, and kicks me in the shin. I can barely digest my surroundings from the sudden intrusion of all this visual input, with the intensity of the sun this far south, and the extreme contrast from the safety of hidden eyes to the full exposure.

“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Kuwajima barks. He waves the blank mask around carelessly with a wrinkly hand. Even with the peg leg, he’s faster than me. “You lost an arm, not your skills!”

It hurts. It still hurts, months later. The sinews are stretched as tight as they can be, the bones are still subtly unaligned and can’t be fixed without causing even more nerve damage, and the cartilage left is pretty much nonexistent. I don’t have to do anything but if I even think about my arm for too long, my scarred shoulder burns icy-hot and electricity shoots down all the way to each fingertip. My thumb shakes on the katana’s hilt.

“I need the mask to fight,” I say. I want to spit in his face.

The old man frowns, his bushy eyebrows furrowing together at an impressive angle. “No you fucking don’t, girl. If you want this mask, you better earn it. I’m not a wuss like Urokodaki – if you want to keep relying on a crutch like this, you better fucking earn it!”

I scream. He screams. We go back and forth like a merry-go-round, slinging absurd insults in the heat of battle, letting all aggression loose. He darts around me, light as a feather, punching finger jabs into delicate spots whilst I yell and parry with the flat edge of the sword. It’s too heavy with my dominant hand, and deep down, I know that I’ll never be able to hand a sword with the skill I used to have. The truth burns, and all I can do is scream.

After a brutal beat-down, I lay on the ground, utterly exhausted. The grass scratches at any hint of exposed skin. 

“Get up, girl,” he says.

I don’t want to. I want to close my eyes and sleep. The sky is a collection of different shades of blue, taunting me with the wiggly patterns of periwinkle versus the deep, dark hues of a galaxy beyond, of cobalt and lapis lazuli and sapphire. There’s depth to the heavens, a heaviness that no one else but me can see, and it’s haunting. Others must see a blank slate of pitch perfectness. My eyes are witness to a spectrum that hides from the world. There are universes beyond, of planets, nebulas, blackholes, and more. In a few decades we’ll be able to send men to walk amongst the stars. 

“Get up!”

He kicks my hip. A bruise immediately forms. The galaxy must be pressing down on my body, keeping me down here.

“I warned you this was gonna be shit. Reality is, you were always a prodigy child, didn’t you know? Hinoe, was it, at fifteen – that’s too young for most. And now that you’re faced with something even slightly challenging your worldview, you’re just gonna lay there and play dead like a dumb dog. You were a genius kid, and now you’re nothing just because you lost your sword arm? Wake up. Let the demons eat you alive, for all I care! I don’t care that you used to be special, just get up!”

I don’t care about his words. I want to spite him, out of all this churning anger and fire, so I kick his leg from the ground, watch him jump over the attack, and kick-flip into a starting position with the sword in my left hand. The katana blade stops hardly a centimetre from his neck.

Pant. Pant. Breathe. Cough. Pant.

The world is trapped in honey. Kuwajima grins, a big ugly spectacle, and slides through the syrupy environment like he’s made of oil. He grabs the flat end of the blade with one hand, and pushes it aside. I spin with the blade. He attempts to kick me in my exposed ribs, so I bend down in an arabesque to cudgel his face with my shin. He catches it, again, and tightens his grip on my calf instead of letting it go.

“Under me, you learn to use all you got to your advantage, girl!” He crows. “Look at the sun, look at the sky, look at all these fucking peaches and tell me what you see. Sakonji babied you, let you hold onto a handicap when no one else uses one. Are you really that special? Are you really that powerful? You can get this mask–” Here, he waves it around with his other hand. “–when I say you can.”

My arm hurts. Still stuck in an arabesque, I jump off the other foot, then wave around in a big arc to try to land on his person. Expectedly, he lets go, but then kicks up with his peg leg and nearly stabs a cork-shaped hole in my stomach.

Right. I’m a flexible motherfucker, this senile piece of shit can’t outmanoeuvre me when it becomes a battle of the legs. So I bend down, kick, sweep, sidestep, and dance with him, in a tango of self-hatred and frustration. I see his every movement, from the twitch of his muscles to the weight pooling on either side of his dance form, and finally, finally, the battle ends.

I drop to my knees. My arm aches.

“Good,” he says, completely calmed down. “Very good. But what the hell is this?”

Kuwajima concludes with the spar to crouch down like a little goblin, to roll up my pants, all the way up to mid-thigh. He slaps the pale skin, in the fatty parts of my legs, from the soft curves of my calves to the hardness of my thighs.

If he’s not doing a medical check then I might actually spit on him. “What are you doing, you old letcher?”

“Your legs!” He exclaims, sounding offended to high hell. “Weak. Weak! You need to have strong, muscular thighs to even pull off the first form of Thunder Breathing. Two hundred squats, right now, then we’ll eat dinner. We’ll be eating lots of meat and rice tonight!”

The first eighty or so are great. One hundred squats is when the burn really kicks in, hard. But by the one hundred and twenty mark, my knees turn to gelatin and my muscles feel like over-smacked gum. This is wrong. This is entirely wrong. I can’t build too much bulky muscle or else my full-body flexibility will be hampered – Urokodaki as a teacher and Shinobu as a medical expert both suggested, years ago, to keep a lean body to best suit my fighting style. This is not the way of water, this is the way of thunder, and it’s not for me.

But it’s the only option I have.

The katana is too heavy.

I become explosive, hyperdrive, going hundred in a fifty track, adrenaline made, caffeinated, running and running and running until I reach the end of the world. Kuwajima makes me eat and eat, with barrels of fresh fruits and vegetables coming in from the local farming villages, and about five bowls of rice a day. I grow heavier in a way I’m not used to, sacrificing hard earned flexibility in favour of bulk, with the soft fragility of girlhood transforming into something mature, curvy, and womanly. But even with an extra few kilos, the katana is still too heavy. 

The continued therapy exercises reach a stand still. It caps at just below forty percent. I can’t extend my arm backwards at all. 

The way the katana works is through the use of both arms, in a combined grip. One hand, the dominant hand, provides the guidance and manipulation through the air, and the other weaker hand provides the strength required to force the blade into a swing in the first place. I’m not physically strong enough, nor do I have the stature necessary to even think about it, to attempt a one-handed grip. The katana is not compatible with my new body, and neither is a little kid tanto. 

I sift through Kuwajima’s storeroom for something in between, then arrive at the next sparring lesson with an old wakizashi. 

In a rare moment of serenity for him, he asks, “Your reach isn’t improving?”

There is no sympathy or empathy. He looks at me with pity in his eyes, frustration in his bones, and a familiar ache of disappointment in his own memories of himself by the tremble in his one-legged footstep and weary knuckles. 

“I’m not giving up,” I spit. “Fight me, old man.”

The wakizashi, despite being fundamentally similar to the katana, is still different in the style of wielding. It’s smaller, thus traditionally used in close-quarters or indoor combat by the samurai class, with a distinctly more efficient cutting edge and quick-draw technique. The perfect bridge between the tanto and the katana; despite all my growing up, I’m a melee fighter.

“You asked for it,” he snorts, and readies his cane like a sword.

With the wakizashi, a fifty-centimetre blade, it takes a few more months – but easier than before, with the katana – for Kuwajima to allow basic conditioning to conclude, and let the real training commence.

The Breath of Thunder.

Despite all noncompliance with the idea of being an arrogant snob, Kuwajima takes on the Jaime Lannister route and I practise the Thunder breathing form with both sides. Inigo Montoya made it look cool, first, but it’s not all that practical for swordsmen unless strong ambidexterity can be established. Darth Vader had equal use of both arms, too, but that was only because he literally didn’t have a choice. Someone burned off his limbs.

I’m not any of these characters, fighting against the odds. I’m right-handed and I still have a right arm, no matter how mangled.

But there is some amount of wisdom in Kuwajima’s thoughts, oddly enough. If I only fight weaker enemies with my left arm, then I can save the remaining cartilage and flexible muscle fibres for the battles that matter.

The time limit of my health ticks on.

We battle nearly every day. He pushes every button, shouts every expletive, and hammers me into the ground until I cry in the dirt. It’s not pretty at all – in fact, it’s worse than the opposite. The training isn’t just ugly, it’s every single negative emotion showering down in an outpour of my worst nightmares. I get rebuilt, reformed, reclaimed, engineered to heights I’ve never wanted to reach, and prodded back into the field like cattle. The sun in the sky burns, I gain colour in my face for the first time in years, and we fight.

Only later, much later, do I realise that the valuable time Kuwajima spends with me could’ve been the time he spent with another apprentice – a boy made of anger and greed.

Too late.

The months fly by. Kuwajima finds a new kimono for me, something yellow, flower-patterned, and warm, for the upcoming winter. It doesn’t snow in these parts, in an island with palm trees and year-round blossoms, but the weather sours enough for yet another lesson in vanity.

When I say I’m pushed into the dirt, I don’t just mean physically, but also in every other way. This is the type of failure and desperation that doesn’t come easily to most people, and is thus difficult to describe. It’s the pain of dark blue, grey skies, swinging willow trees, regretful nights, empty streets, dead fish, broken bikes, abandoned cities, and more. My heart tears apart in my chest, ripping itself to shreds, in the echoing hatred of pity of used-to and want-to. I’ve lost a part of myself, my abilities that I used to be so proud of, and it’s gone.

The second strongest practitioner of the water style – that was my entire identity. Urokodaki made me. Before this, I can barely remember existing.

Then Kuwajima drags me out of the house for a hike to the beach.

This kind of cliffside is familiar, with the empty drop to the clashing seas below, the churning winds, the horrible skies, and the building of a massive storm just kilometres away, in the imaginary lands of the ocean world.

“I ain’t your daddy, girl,” Kuwajima says from behind, as I stand on the edge and watch the weather worsen. “But damn it if you haven’t become a special brand of annoying in my side. I’ll trust you with the mask again if you watch. And watch carefully.”

Right now, it’s the only thing that I’m still good at.

I watch.

Thunder crackles. Lightning flashes. Waves crash. The sea roars hellishly. Foam and water spray attacks the cliff side and drenches my clothes. Everything is terribly cold and wet, but I’m rooted in place because I see a legendary painting unfold, greater than any Hokusai woodblock, surreal and abstract. The unbridled imagination of the world sets itself on centre stage, here in the play of the weather’s making, before my very eyes. The world is irrational, cut in wavy lines from sharp palette knives, spontaneous and primal. 

The pale lines of electricity vibrate the air itself, distort the natural space, and zip through the earth in what should be a heavenly power. It’s white, gold, yellow, pink, blue, and colours that don’t exist on a normal spectrum. The lines zig-zag, form a shape with a pattern that only I can see and predict, and suddenly I think I do understand the prayers of Kuwajima.

Lightning flows, just as water does.

The pressure drop causes my shoulder to flare, but it must be worse for Kuwajima, suffering from phantom pains. I tell him to go home.

“You’re gonna catch a cold if you stay out too long,” he warns, but the agony must overtake him, because he hobbles away without putting up a strong fight.

What a time to be alive, right here in this moment.

The storm is beautiful.

Zenitsu doesn’t expect to be saved from bullies by the lady that lives with the old, retired samurai guy at the end of the peach orchard, but it’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to him, really. He wants to thank her profusely, to ask her hand in marriage, to hug her and smell the sweet scent of peaches from her fair lady skin, but the blank white fox mask is a little creepy and he’s learned the hard way by now to not ask out older women.

“I owe you,” he swears, getting to his knees not because of her, but because the nerves from the day have caught up to him and he can’t believe that the bullies have finally disappeared.

But they’ll come back tomorrow. And the day after that. And more.

“You do owe me,” she responds, with a type of meanness in her voice that’s unnaturally familiar. “And you’re going to make it up to me, Agatsuma-kun.”

“Wha-what?!”

The lady then holds his hand – HOLDS HIS FUCKING HAND HOLY SHIT – and drags him away.

The concern only catches up to Zenitsu a minute later.

“Am I being kidnapped?” He squeaks. “Wait, wait, no, miss, I’m sorry, I can’t–!”

Faster than he can catch, she sidles up to him and places a slender finger over his lips. Zenitsu feels his cheeks explode from red-hot heat because she’s touching his face. “You owe me a favour, don’t you, Agatsuma-kun?”

She’s probably really pretty under that mask, if she has to hide her face from the village – maybe the old samurai guy (is that her dad? granddad?) ordered his precious little girl to keep herself hidden for her own safety. A princess. A beautiful, beautiful lady from far away lands, a spirit from the skies, a wonderful girl, a fair bride of the island.

But wait. She’s older.

“Yeah… Yeah. Yes,” he says, twitching. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

They walk together this time, but he’s almost glad that she’s not holding his hand because then he’d most likely faint from embarrassment. 

“I’ve been watching you, Agatsuma-kun,” she says, playing with each syllable of Zenitsu’s name in her mouth. He blushes at the attention. “You’re a good, strong boy. The entire village knows that you’re a fast runner, you know. And now that you’re old enough, I want to help you channel your abilities into a good talent and job.”

A samurai?

A samurai? Aren’t they all dead? The old crazy guy with a peg leg is poisoning this fair maiden’s mind with nonsense!

Zenitsu blubbers all this and more, but the girl only hums lightly and pokes his head. “Kuwajima-sensei isn’t a samurai. He’s a… well. He’ll explain it more later, but he’s interested in training you to be a… private guard. Of sorts. Nothing scary, don’t worry.”

Oh. That doesn’t sound too bad.

“Well, I’m off,” she says, once they reach the crazy guy’s house. This is when Zenitsu realises that there’s a bag on her back, an old blue travel haori over her pretty kimono, and a sword (to chase off bandits?) at her side. A fat crow caws menacingly on her shoulder.

He gapes.

“What? Wait, no, nee-san, you’re leaving me to train under this crazy guy by myself? Don’t you live here? Where are you going? I don’t even know your name!”

Zenitsu enjoys the idea of a home and future job security, and being a private guard in this current era of peace sounds great, but what the heck, why is the lady leaving?!

“Fair enough,” she says. She bends down incrementally to look him in the eyes, body language coy. “Urokodaki Makomo, seventeen, at your service. You won’t understand this until a lot later, but you can yell at me then, Agatsuma-kun. But I’m leaving for a job promotion – it has to be in person, see.”

He hears her heartbeat slow down. The tempo matches the soft fall of peach blossom petals falling to the ground in the soft spring breeze. Her footsteps, as she walks away, back facing him, go thump-thump-thump, in a soothing melody.

Far away now, in the break of the trees, she speaks softly, as if knowing that he can hear her from inhuman distances.

“If you want to find me, Agatsuma-kun, ask for the new Storm Hashira.”

And she disappears.

Chapter Text

The flame that burns twice as hot, burns half as long.

Rengoku Kyōjurō arrives home.

It’s not the sort of journey to be proud of – months in the north, chasing rumours and hearsay, struggling to kill demon after demon in order to gain a title that he doesn’t even know the real meaning of. And the boy arrives home a man, taller, stronger, handsome, in the turning point of the end of childhood, barreling straight into a mirror. The image of his father stares back, hardly able to speak, and Kyōjurō has to force himself to look away.

His little brother stares up curiously, into the reflective surface, then quietly slinks away as soon as their father’s voice beckons entry.

Cold. Empty. Pale. Dead. Lonely.

“Father,” Kyōjurō says. “I’ve come back home.”

His father still loves him, the memory of his children, the simple peace of the idea of a family, back when mother was here and chiding them all. And his father hates that his eldest son, the prize of the family, the heir to the Flame title, has fulfilled the requirements to become a Hashira and take up the wasted mantle of power and responsibility. Yet Kyōjurō, ever so filial, has to stand for himself, now. For the future.

The silence is deafening, moreso when his father reaches into the closet to pull out an old cloak with little purpose now. 

The old, tired, drunk man orders, “take it,” in the same tone as begging on his knees for forgiveness. 

And the begging continues to the next day, but not within the family, and not by his father. Because the mirror never lies, and Kyōjurō has returned to a new year wherein everything has changed far beyond his comprehension. Oyakata-sama calls for a meeting to introduce the new Flame Hashira, in which afterwards Obanai asks about Makomo.

“Flame, in the north? You should’ve switched with Urokodaki,” Obanai mumbles.

Kyōjurō stops moving. “What?”

A curious yellow-glare snake slithers out from Obanai’s sleeve and hisses at the both of them menacingly as the creepy man blinks, one eye at a time. “You… haven’t heard?”

What.

And it shouldn’t be a failure but it feels just like one, weighing heavily on his soul, leaving an imprint on the very shape of it, holding him down, suffocating, hot and heavy and foul. He can taste the bitterness, the sour citron, the dandelion weeds growing on his tongue, rocket forming from his oesophagus and pungent rice wine staining his breath. Dragon smoke leaves his system, wrapping around his head.

Kyōjurō chokes.

“Urokodaki suffered a terrible injury,” Obanai murmurs, except there’s a wideness to his face that wasn’t there a minute ago, with half-moons for eyes and a shininess to his cheeks. “Nobody told you, Flame? I have to say, I’m quite surprised – I thought you’d be the first to know about… well. She’s down under now, in the deep, deep south.”

And for a second Kyōjurō thinks she’s dead.

He can’t describe what he feels in that split second, in that minutiae of the eclipse. He can’t describe it, because it’s an inhuman emotion that should never exist – these sorts of depths are vast, ugly, and stricken with an unnatural horror that smells of old bones and sea salt. His mother’s grave. His father’s pain. His brother’s shivering embrace.

“–ku island. Oi, Rengoku.”

Someone snaps their fingers in his face.

“Honestly, you’re such an ass sometimes, Snake. Makomo’s on Shikoku island, she’s not freaking dead, you.”

Shinobu gets up in both their faces, scowling, making passive comments on Kyōjurō’s long absence whilst saying, in a clinical voice, the amount of time Makomo is expected to recover – anywhere between two to four years. They don’t tell him the injury, but he knows the cause.

Demons.

“Shove off, Kochou,” Obanai snipes. “What are you doing over here, anyway?”

She holds up a basket of medical supplies. Both men step back and let the full time healer pass through Oyakata-sama’s outer courtyard, watching her tiny figure move gracefully with the white smocks and bulky luggage. Perhaps, earlier, Kyōjurō would’ve been surprised at Shinobu’s transition to a non-combatant role given her personality, but he’s seen the ragged scar bisecting Kanae’s face and heard about the career-ending injury on Makomo.

In the end, they all make sacrifices for the ones they love.

Kyōjurō doesn’t think of himself as a coward, but the gripping fear that takes over his heart at the thought of her -- cold, lifeless, fighting for breath, reaching up to a sunless sky, causes a revolution in his entire being, to be brave . Obanai says something else, something sarcastic about Shinobu’s dramatic exit, but Kyōjurō’s jaw tightens and he looks at the other man with a passion that can be mistaken for rage. It’s a constant emotion, something that pollutes him without meaning to, with the sweltering of indignation and the need to be better, and Kyōjurō grits his teeth then walks away. “Don’t,” he warns, facing away, and the heavy baritone surprises him, reminding him of his father’s voice. “Don’t joke about her, Snake.”

Was she scared? Was she thinking about him? Why does she have to be far away?

Because now all Kyōjurō can think about is her, in quick slide sequence, flipping through the pages that blur through his memories. She’s chasing a kite, running away in a field of wildflowers and ivy, her image becoming smaller and smaller until she’s but a speck on the horizon. Then she’s gone.

He’s had time to reflect on his emotions in his long term mission, and it’s always led back to a giant, looming question mark over the kanji of her name. Kyōjurō isn’t the type of person to back down from a fight or wait by the sidelines anxiously – he’s a warrior, he’s always been a warrior, and this is a battle of the epics. He faces everything head-on, listening to his mother’s lessons on ethics and observing patterns of preventable weakness.

A crush.

He likes Makomo – it’s that simple. 

Until it isn’t.

He loves her. It’s more than a crush – it’s deafening. It’s breaking. It’s suffocating. It shouldn’t be love, not at this stage, because he’s been gone and she’s been gone and they should both still be kids but his body’s growing and everything’s uncomfortable. 

Why does he love her?

The coyness in her voice, the soft cherry tones when she teases him, with lips of roses and voice of river streams. The mystery, too, is appealing, and he dreams everyday of seeing her say yes – a quiet yes, in character, hardly a nod – as he reaches out and unravels the secrets behind the mask. A pointy chin sloping into flush cheeks, moonlight skin, brushing his thumb up the curve of her nose, and bright, bright eyes that change colour no matter what. He thinks of her with blue, green, brown, kaleidoscope eyes, shifting and twirling and spinning in and out around the pupils. He imagines staring into them for hours and hours, mesmerising by this siren, this seductress, this girl who’s stolen his heart.

It all started, really, when she saved him from drowning.

Kyōjurō jumped off that cliff, dove into the abyss, and dragged Makomo out of the deep. That first breath wracked her entire soul, choking, hacking, wheezing, making all sorts of ugly noises out of desperation for life. She puked up salt water, coughed out a mixture of snot and seaweed, and it was gross, but so unerringly human that the noise of her first breath has been stuck in his head ever since. His mother choked and choked and choked until her lungs gave out. Makomo choked until her lungs came back.

He felt her come back to life with his hand on her back, a reanimated puppet, the first person he considers to have saved. Life wasn’t just about fighting demons anymore, it’s about holding onto that initial sensation of shock and blistering awe in the joy of saving lives because she came back.

The anger is normal. Obanai crossed a line. So Kyōjurō goes home to his brother, lets Senjurō nap in his lap, and imagines Makomo sitting next to them, quiet, familiar, and homely.

She’ll come back.

This is walking back home from school on a rainy afternoon, this is lazing around a pool during the summer, this is meeting old friends as an adult during a reunion. This is a homecoming, a celebration of nostalgia, a torrid affair. 

I find myself, again, in this place called home.

The trees are the same, the grass is the same, the house is the same, but the people are different. Urokodaki is thinner, imperceptibly so, with an extra degree to the stressed hunch in his spine and deeper wrinkles in gnarly parts of his hands. In only two years, he’s become older in a way I can’t contextualise. It may have to do with his new wards – a boy and a demon.

He says, “Welcome home.” 

A boy and a demon. The protagonists of the main event. The ones that survive and live to tell the tale. Is it a time for excitement or dread?

“I’m back,” I say, but it’s not a response to him. 

We stand on the crossroads, waiting for the traffic to overtake us, so instead I hurry forwards, skipping across the zebra lines, and towards the greener pastures. The light dings, and I get to hug Urokodaki again, one arm slung over his shoulder, the other tucked into a makeshift sling of my haori. His warmth is terribly familiar.

Oh Makomo, he doesn’t say, but I can see, feel, and hear the words anyway. The embrace is gentler on my weaker side, lasting longer than the descent of dewdrops to the fresh soil, and the clouds part for the heavens to come down and sing a song of harmony. 

It’s hard to describe the emotional connection to a father – it’s just there, prevalent and forever. It’s respect, it’s admiration, it’s reverence. 

“You will tell me why there’s a demon in your house, though?” I ask.

The boy, hidden behind the door, gasps loudly. 

Urokodaki sighs. My arms become cold. The boy takes the silence to make his entrance, sliding the door open in a rush, aiming straight into a ninety-degree bow. He yells his name, fists clenched, and waits for my approval. Someone has been telling this boy stories about me, it seems.

Kamado Tanjirō.

He’s a youthful boy of tanned skin, wide eyes, and hair burnt with the remnants of a blood sun. There’s ash in the air, whispers of smoke and flame, wrapping around the tremble of his hands and the quake of his boots. I look at him and see the embers of a dying sun, so beautiful and bare, just like the last hints of light before an emerging storm. The premature crow’s eyes say more about his character than anything his cheery voice can bring. And he’s just a boy.

I think of the times that I could’ve prevented that tremor in his voice and the melancholy in his smile, in this boy, and how I didn’t. I could’ve said something. I could’ve searched for the Kamado family at any point in the past few years. I could’ve stolen away their children, one by one, dropping them off to a shelter point. I could’ve saved this boy’s family, and I didn’t.

“You don’t have to bow, Kamado-kun,” I murmur. “I don’t deserve it.”

Because we need him and his demon sister. I would burn the entire world down if it meant ensuring the happiness of my friends and family. What other time is there, to be selfish?

Perhaps in another time, I would’ve devised some great plan to keep this one innocent family out of harm’s way whilst managing to convince Kamado Tanjirō to risk his life over the things of nightmares, but that ship crashed long ago. The ocean catapulted me into a riptide of my own making, ripping off limbs and emotions alike. We’ll save the world starting from here, in this new beginning, as the sun peeks through the pines and shines a vivid gold on the boy saviour’s halo.

I stay in Urokodaki’s cottage for a few days, helping with chores and observing the kids. 

Urokodaki and I talk. A lot.

Whilst Tanjirō trains on the mountaintop during the day, Urokodaki tells me stories he hadn’t told me before. Of war and battles. He was conscripted as a young man to fight the imperials, the last shogunate, then against the Chinese, Taiwanese, and Koreans. It wasn’t just fighting demons that made him the man he is today, it was war itself. He tells me he’s old, far older than anyone has ever guessed, and he was born into hell and will be sent to hell when the gods are finally done with him. 

He killed men before demons.

It’s not a forgivable crime, but he doesn’t seek forgiveness. Urokodaki tells me these stories for a different reason.

The demon sleeps next to us soundly.

I arrive at the demon slayer corps residence in the early morning, a new sword at my hip – a long wakizashi – and wearing Urokodaki and Kuwajima’s gifts. A storm haori, a yellow kimono, and a freshly painted fox mask of forget-me-nots. 

From upwind, only Uzui and Himejima can sense my presence, as I sneak on the rooftops like a ninja, waiting for the perfect dramatic entrance.

Ubuyashiki starts the announcement to the Hashiras gathered on their knees, in the wake of the young master’s courtyard, and the ghost of a smile signals the cue. Blatantly abusing the freaky cool thunder breathing forms (Kuwajima can suck it, that old coot) for a theatrical opening, the curtains swing open as I appear in the blink of an eye before the young master’s feet.

I bend down. The air hasn’t settled yet when I say, “Oyakata-sama.”

His name is a prayer in my mouth. Ubuyashiki touches the top of my head in blessing, tilts my face up, and runs pale fingers underneath the straps of the mask.

Makomo-chan, I imagine him saying. Are you keeping any more secrets from me?

Instead he announces, “Storm. Everyone, say hello to our newest Hashira, Storm.”

Because she’s quite a clever little fox, wittier than everyone but me.

There’s just something in his face, in his secretive smile, that tells me to run, to save my skin, to wriggle away naked like a worm. He knows something I don’t. He’d sent a letter just two weeks ago to Kuwajima, asking for my induction after he heard about my progress, but I hadn’t imagined today to be anything other than pure, unbridled joy at being back home.

The young master cups the pale graze of my neck, just below the chin, his blind eyes searching.

Then the moment passes.

The young master brightens, taunting, and unties the straps. The wood clatters to the ground.

“Oyakata-sama,” I whisper. He runs his hands with expert precision to my face, feeling the curve of my jaw, a jaw that’s grown angular and slim in the lateness of my teenage youth, to the delicate shapes of my nose. The master’s blindness does not mean he has to be so physical with everyone, but I understand that he’s pulling a power play here, goading on the other Hashiras to be curious. Curiosity makes friends. I’ve been gone so long even the dirt beneath my knees feels foreign.

“Makomo,” he says coyly. “I’ve always been curious. What colour are your eyes?”

The mask is made in a way where others can’t see through the eye slits. But with my clarity, I’ve always assumed that people could create a basic image of my appearance based on a few strong educated guesses. Blue has always seemed obvious, but maybe not to them.

“My eyes are blue, Oyakata-sama,” I say. 

He smiles faintly, the movement tugging on the scars of his face. “I haven’t seen the sky in a long time,” he muses. 

“They’re not of the sky,” I tell him, because he must be searching for something else now. “They’re a strong, darker blue.”

Like blue spider lilies.

I see the shadows faintly shift from the corner of my eye. I still face away from the Hashiras, towards the master, yet I now focus deeply on the reactions of my peers, to this tease of a face reveal. Blue eyes. Rich, strong blue. I wonder what kind of expression Kyōjurō makes right now.

“Then I haven’t seen the ocean in a long time,” he quips, then reaches for the mask in my hands. He gingerly ties it back on my head, and suddenly I miss the freshness of the spring breeze on my skin, and the faint scent of cherry blossoms from the young master’s gardens.

He stands.

Seven shadows bow behind me. I can tell who they all are based on the height and width of the shadow silhouettes on the ground, so I try to open my ears for any clues. How curious are they? Had they heard the news of my arrival? Are they glad to welcome a new Hashira? How did I even end up in this position in the first place?

Oyakata-sama lets us go.

The Water Hashira is the first to welcome me into the fold. A strong, firm hand clasps my left shoulder from behind, as I’m allowed to stand back up, and the familiar warmth of the boy – no, this man – greets me with reserved joy.

“It’s been a while,” I say. “Sabito.”

Then I turn around to meet the others. Sabito’s grip is steady and comforting, and I want to lean into the brotherly love except he’d probably hiss like a kitty cat at showing anymore affection than this and run the fuck away.

Or not.

“You took your time,” he replies gruffly, then gently rests his masked face – a scarred fox, red and white patterns, with a new splash of blue patterns to celebrate his promotion – on mine, the smiling fox, honouring my new identity. The wood clinks, echoing, and I’m inappropriately reminded of the idea that he could headbutt a demon into submission (did Tanjirō take inspiration from him?) if he reinforced the wood well enough. The benefit of masks!

Sabito then shows off his brand new adult-level maturity by sticking to my side and trying to scare everyone else off. He murmurs something about Giyuu being on a mission, but I ignore him to observe the others

There’s Stone, Wind, Serpent, Sound, Flower, Water, Flame, and now Storm.

Eight Hashiras.

They all say their basic greetings, some better than others. Shinazugawa is notably the worst as basic human interaction apparently, and ends his introduction with, “And if you need any help, I can lend you an arm, Storm. But I suppose you can strongarm your way through, since Sabito-chan says you’re handy enough.”

Damn.

I don’t need a knight in shining armour to handle (okay, they were pretty funny) the puns, but one pops up anyway. Or two. Or three.

Kanae rolls her eyes and elbows the Wind Hashira in the gut, Sabito growls, twitching for the katana at his side, and the Flame Hashira… Kyōjurō steps forward and voices, “That’s enough, Sanemi.”

Warmth.

Heat curls around the air, in little wisps of vapour and quivering debris. It’s not the dying sun of Tanjirō’s breath, but of something shallow, vibrant, and distractingly colourful. Kyōjurō doesn’t sound angry or irritated, but simply passionate about something of importance. The jokes were funny, shove off.

Ugh, boys.

I swear, I’ll never understand them.

“Pleased to meet you, Shinazugawa-san. And please, those jokes don’t bite. Arm yourself with better ones next time.”

What? I can take a joke. I’m not some emo brat anymore, I promise.

The greetings end shortly, seeing how I already know half of them and the other half aren’t terribly interested in my presence. Uzui disappears after saying hello, Himejima runs after a stray cat that appears on the grounds, Shinazugawa stalks Kanae home, and I’m left with Flame, Water, and Snake.

Iguro Obanai stares at the mask for a long time. 

Then he asks, “Wanna fight?”

Oh god, he’s one of those people. Bullheaded little adrenaline freaks who get off on having a bigger dick.

“Buy me dinner first, Snake,” I reply quickly.

Sabito makes a disturbing noise, something in between a cough and a sneeze, which makes Iguro stare a bit longer then take a few zig-zagging steps backwards. Sabito cough-sneezes again. After a full awkward minute, Iguro walks away. 

What.

“Hmmm,” Sabito muses. “Alright, let’s go home now. You stopped by Urokodaki’s on the way here, right? We have a lot to talk about.”

I wave back at Kyōjurō, standing agape in the courtyard, and let Sabito drag me away. The smell of firewood follows me home.

Chapter Text

Giyuu arrives home the day after me, and Sabito sits us all down in the main tatami room, busting out the fancy seating mats and expensive tea. We talk about the Kamado siblings, because apparently Giyuu holds whole-hearted, foolish belief in the boy’s determination to find a cure for his sister, whilst Sabito is only barely holding on, more interested in keeping the demon girl alive long enough to figure out how the fuck demons are created in the first place. 

“The boy would sooner kill his sister than let her succumb to monstrosity,” I say, half-heartedly swirling the floral drink.

“I vote that we tell Oyakata-sama and hear his wisdom,” Sabito replies. His unruly hair flows down his back, with the cogs of time growing it out into something resembling an obese hedgehog. I want to poke it.

There’s an unusual situation, I heard from Shinobu after a particularly emotional reconnection last night, wherein Giyuu is strong enough to be a Hashira, but chose not to in order to be the faithful second-hand to his best friend. Everyone expects jealousy, but there’s only love in their relationship – and love from the outside, too. New fans? Nevertheless, the Breath of Water has grown in popularity by the sheer quantity of new recruits vying over both of the men’s attention.

It’s… certainly a situation, indeed.

Giyuu pours another cup. Thirsty motherfucker. “We can tell Oyakata-sama, now that senpai’s here. Any update on the demon?”

Still a sleeping beauty.

I shake my head, inching surreptitiously closer to hedgehog-hair, as he spews out emo literature of the misfortune of the Kamado siblings. Seriously, that headpiece belongs in a taxidermy museum. 

“I’ll tell him once she’s woken up from her nap,” I murmur, trying to fade into the background as the men make gooey eyes at each other in their macabre poetry slam. Then… BAM.

Sabito’s on the ground, face down. I sit on his back, legs trembling from the lightning-speed without any proper breathing preparation, holding him down with appropriately named thunder thighs. I grab his full fucking mane, equal parts amazed and disgusted at all the tangles, and pull.

Neigh, horsey, neigh!

“Makomo?!”

“Ugh,” I complain. “Your hair, holy shit. Do you ever brush it?”

He tries to get up, but the power of squats is on my side because I slam him back down with my ass and thighs and pull on his hair until he makes a squeaking noise. “Get off!”

Giyuu remains on the sidelines, drinking tea peacefully. I snap my fingers at him. “Oi, get me a comb from my room. The bamboo one with the blue handle, not the red one.”

Because he’s a smart man, he obliges wordlessly.

“Tomioka! Don't listen to her!”

In the end, we have a salon day. The men emerge with silky smooth hair, long and luscious, flowing like water – keeping up with the namesake, at least. They don’t let me braid it, but I’ll find a way to make them cower into submission. Eventually. My own hair has grown out a fair amount over the past few years, but I can’t be bothered into beautifying myself (my brothers are enough to handle as is) and I instead just tie up the bulk of it.

The days of fashion and fixer-uppers don't end, because Mitsuri bursts into my house the next day to make me congratulate her on officially becoming a demon slayer a few months ago.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” 

She blinks innocently. “Eh?”

Maybe we’re too different in terms of style, because I’ve layered every possible clothing item over my uniform whilst she… doesn’t even wear undergarments, apparently. Doesn’t that leave a smell? Does she have top tier hygiene powers to go along with that snake-like agility?

“Your…” I try to say, gesturing helplessly at the boobs. “Aahhh. Nevermind. Do you have back problems?”

I wear six layers: basic undergarments, a cloth-wire corset brace to keep my shoulder injury from affecting balance and spine alignment, the corps uniform shirt and pants, a white hiyoku inner layer for warmth (if my arm gets cold I will literally scream from the nerve pain), a yellow kimono, and a storm haori. In the winter I wear up to three hiyoku layers. 

Meanwhile, Mitsuri has… one layer. Just one.

“Well, I’ve always had pain, but keeping in shape has helped a lot!”

The cogs whir. “I’m going to reinvent the sports bra,” I mutter. Stupid, stupid Taisho Era. Why haven't all the cool things been invented yet?

She asks for clarification.

I tell her no.

She pouts.

“Okay you anthropomorphised peach,” I say. “Let’s do something fun to celebrate your entrance into demon slaying – wait, tsuchinoto? Already?”

Reconnecting with friends is a delight, especially as my new Hashira status brings in new eyes that don’t feel right and the concern with Ubuyashiki weighs on my mind everytime I walk past his main house and gardens, the fluttery cherry blossom towering over the tall gates mockingly, teasing me for what’s to come. They laugh. Mitsuri speeds through the ranks, a natural born talent, in the direct opposite to Shinobu, who’s decided to put down her sword.

It’s against everything I’d ever expected for my best friend, but… But.

Her pain is understandable.

She hand sews all my back braces and corsets, weaving in new designs with bamboo, metal, and variations of plastic, testing out durability against mobility and support. I’ll never be able to quit physical therapy. I’ve regained almost forty percent dexterity in my right arm, but there’s the potential for it to degrade without supervision every now and then. I might have to wear a brace for the rest of my life.

I pass by Kanae in the halls of the Butterfly Mansion. Shinobu’s been working on new scar creams, and even if imperceptible to normal sight, I see the miniscule fade in redness of the line bisecting the Flower Hashira’s face. It’s working.

All these friends of mine are blessed and beautiful. I want to eat them and hold them in my stomach forever, never to escape into the outside world. 

Unfortunately, Kyōjurō has different ideas.

He returns from a week-long mission and immediately seeks me out. He finds me in a teahouse and I follow him to the outskirts of the village, to a quiet garden owned by another family that I can’t remember off the top of my head. 

“Oh? Are we to feed the ducks or to sneak away into the night?”

He blinks, suddenly and immediately awoken from an empty stare into the trickling waters of fish, insects, and lotus flowers. The day’s nearly over and he almost blends in with the colours of the sky.

The sky is the same colour of the twilight during my last dinner with my family, with the first mother and father in this world; it’s red, pink, gold, and burnt orange, fading away over midnight blue and the faint glimmer of a moon and stars. I can imagine seeing two lovers sitting next to each other on tatami mats, holding hands even in death. The noise of chewing becomes the noise of grass crunching under Kyōjurō and I’s feet as we walk over a small bridge over a stream in the isolated part of the village.

“I mean,” I say, drawling the words and smiling secretly, to lull him out of strange reverie. “Is this the moment you declare revenge on an old enemy? You’re awfully quiet in such a beautiful garden, my wonderful old friend.”

It’s not unusual for us to have long periods of silence during missions – but this isn’t a mission. This is… something else. An oncoming heartfelt talk about how happy he is to have me back, now that my brothers are away? The distractions gone?

He frowns. It’s almost cute on him. “No. We’re here because I respect you and I can’t stand by and do nothing whilst we have this time.”

What?

I lean in, pretending to leer. “Oh? How respectable of you, Hashira-san.”

Kyōjurō looks at me. His expression turns softer, in a strange way that elicits even more strangeness in my chest.

“Ah,” he says. It’s quiet yet loud, in the deep tones of his matured voice. “You’ve changed, Makomo.”

Is that… a bad thing? Did I used to be better or worse, in his opinion? Has my personality shifted so irrevocably that he can barely speak, now? Does he not want to be my friend anymore?

Well, fuck him. I think I’m amazing.

Instead of fleeing like I usually would’ve done when confronted with something out of my control, I stand my ground, in front of an old friend who may or may not find me insufferable now. Ouch. 

“Fascinating,” I respond.

Then I immediately feel bad because of course he’s not going to disavow me as a friend and close confidante just because I grew more subtly snarky instead of flat out impolite. So I straighten my back, about to apologise, when he mirrors my actions and opens his mouth before I do.

This is the midway point. This is the turning point in my story. This is the reason why it’s lasted so long. What it feels like, right now, is the first breaths in the snow, hot and white and blowing out into pretty crystals. A laptop with personal stickers scattered all over the dashboard. A well worn suitcase shoved into an aircraft overhead carrier for the millionth time. It’s familiar, warm and gentle, yet new and interesting all at once and at the same time. Everything, everywhere, always.

“Makomo!” He says, winter in his throat and summer on his face. “I wish to court you.”

And he… wait a damn minute.

Court?

Kyōjurō turns red in the face, lovely rose pink cheeks glowing against the background that zooms in and out, blurring, pixelating, unfocusing like a wonky camera lens. 

The world stops spinning. There’s something caught in my throat, something heavy and scratchy, that takes ages to swallow down a burning oesophagus and reach an endless zoo pit of butterflies. He wants to court me. He likes me. There’s romance involved in his mind, a promise of sex and marriage. 

Upon reflex, I almost move to reject his feelings.

“You–.” I say, but then the thickness of my voice cuts off the rest of the sentence. You, what? What was I going to say?

We stand there in silence. He steps forward. 

This is a man who lives every day to its fullest. He lives passionately and beautifully. I see nothing wrong with him, yet there’s fear in my heart and a quiver in my limbs. What did he say? Did I hear that right? Why is the backdrop of his hair against the twilight invisible?

“These are my true feelings,” he announces, head held high. “They are yours to hold onto! I…” He takes a deep breath. “I will wait for your answer. I will ask permission from your father and brothers. I will ask you to continue being my friend of six years just as I will always be here for you.”

On the outside, others might not spot the weakness, but I see the tightness of his jaw in the jumping muscles and veins of the neck. The wetness sticking to his dark eyelashes. The shiver in his breath. He wants to maintain his image of strength so badly that he sacrifices the ability to relax, as to be the ultimate role model of passion is to never falter.

Again, I think, he likes me.

“Why?” I ask.

And then wince, because Kuwajima spent two years beating the rudeness out of me and it’s already appeared within the first week after leaving that old geezer.

I don’t expect to hear him say, “you saved me from drowning,” just as I don’t expect to be recalled back to when we were twelve and thirteen, just kids, playing in the sand carelessly, hardly aware of the worst terrors yet. And because it’s not true – he’s the one who pulled me out of there, from the black ocean in the pits of the abyss itself, from hellish damnation and insanity –  his next words rattle me to the core.

He loves me.

I own him – I own everything that’s made him. And he wants to be the slave to it all.

I see it in the desperation of reciprocation, in the steady state of anxiety, in the perfection of his confession and the longing to be saved in his speech. I saved him from suffocating from the failures thrust upon him, as he felt my heart beat-beat-beat from the power of his own strength. He saved me, so now he’ll lay down like a dog at my feet, let himself be shackled with iron to protect the reason for his head being held so high in the air, about to take off with the clouds. Is this what love is?

Do I love him?

Kyōjurō takes another brazen step forward. The distance between is minimal. 

“I won’t disregard how you felt that day, Kyōjurō,” I whisper. It feels sacrilege to speak any louder than this, as if a simple shriek will shatter the barrier between us wholly and completely, thin glass and thin distortion. “Thank you. I’m alive because of you.”

What else is there to say?

When do I say yes or no? Can I tell him to ask me later? Can I run away before I’m forced to answer?

He loves me.

What do I feel about him?

I think of what he wants from me and if I can provide it to the extent that he deserves, because he deserves the world. 

“I won’t force you to make a choice – it’s not your responsibility to bear my burden,” he says.

What does he look like now? A man, yes, but what kind of man? Someone who laughs freely, enjoys the little things, and strives to be the hero that everyone looks up to. He wants to be trustworthy. He wants to be strong. He wants to be passionate. But he doesn’t solely want to be loved for who he is as a person, because that doesn’t matter to him against the forces of everything else he fights to represent. Strong jaw, prominent nose, wild eyebrows that manage to look like the centre shadow of Monet’s ‘Woman with a Parasol,’ in epic glory and overwhelming potency. 

Handsome. Kind. Compassionate.

My fingertips turn to ice. “Your love is not a burden,” I say.

The only burden is the burden of proof, because he’s asked a simple question and I’m the one digging into the pile of evidence.

What makes Kyōjurō special?

He’s this precious thing, a masterpiece, a whisper of words that sends gooseflesh shivering down the skin of my forearms. Here’s the thing about love: there are always two sides to the coin. I think, sometimes, irretrievably so, that it’s impossible to perfectly mimic someone’s affections back to you, because there’s never a fifty-fifty split. And I think that I’m the one who’s less enamoured, less entranced by the vision of fluttering doves and pink hearts, because the incendiary passion he exudes from every pore scares me. 

I don’t love him the way he loves me, but maybe, in the future, I can and I will.

But there’s nothing lacking, yet, in my opinion, because I reach out with shivering fingers, sliding through the air between us, and graze upon the curve of his cheekbone, to feel the strength that I see with my own touch. The onset of warmth is unsurprising. What did these hands do before they held him?

He closes his eyes, dark eyelashes sending butterfly shadows down his cheeks, and breathes in deeply the scent of reciprocation. Thank you, he says but doesn’t actually say. And with closed eyes, the deepest form of trust he knows for me, he leans into the spiderweb touch, into icicle fingertips and the glimmer of hope. I can’t move my hand now, mesmerised by the face of October, an opus to the dawn.

“But how can you love someone you’ve never seen?” I ask, quiet.

There isn’t even a moment of hesitation.

“But I have,” he exclaims, and it’s sudden and loud and beautiful. His open eyes are flames and his mouth is a dragon. “Everyday I see you, Makomo. I see you fight, I see you laugh, I see you walk and fight alongside me – you’re everywhere. You told Oyakata-sama of your blue eyes, and maybe one day I’ll deserve the opportunity to look into them and tell you I love you, but I respect your fighter’s creed and your religion. Because I–.”

Wait, what?

I make an awkward, shrill noise from the back of my throat. Kyōjurō stops his monologue.

“It’s– it’s not a religion. Or a creed. What are you talking about?”

The confusion is palpable. “Your…” He says, trailing off, mouth open and eyebrows knit upwards. “Your mask. Is it not a testament to your family’s demon slaying legacy?”

I want to say no, what the fuck, but instead I die inside a little bit.

“No?”

“What?”

“It’s not–” Fuck. What the fuck. I step back, fingers outstretched in awkwardness instead of anything else. “This mask was a gift from my father, woven in with protection charms. And the slits helped focus my sight when there was too much visual stimulus, when I was younger – but Kuwajima-sensei helped me get rid of the dependency. It’s not anything… like that?”

It’s like paper peeling from a notebook, thin and flimsy, crisping up at the edges from dried watercolour, when I reach around to untie the knot. The paper tears, leaving small paper cuts, and the blood drips down my fingers, stinging unbearably, turning into little red robins chirping away in my ears. The god of paper must be laughing at me right now. 

The canvas drops. The blacks crackle. The paintbrush clatters to the sink basin.

“My face is not a secret, I assure you,” I say, tongue numb, using words that don’t feel quite right but there’s nothing to take back now because my hand is already there and the wood is already slipping and we’re already here, quintessentially turnt. 

And I blink in the unfiltered evening light.

I feel guilty for reasons I can’t explain, mouth blubbering words that don’t make a lick of sense as the evening breeze hits my face. Kyōjurō stares, truly stares without composing himself like he usually can, like the sun gazing at its newborn Earth for the first time, as the rays of light cross the void of space. If I put myself in his shoes – if he were the one with a face I’d never seen – how would I react? 

There is purple in the air. The red, gold, and violet colour of the sun stains the sky in watercolour, hyperbolising the affair. There is purple on his face, a bright, blinding shade that mixes with the shadows left from the dying light, burlesque to the dimness of our surroundings. But I can’t stop looking at him looking at me, dreaming up about how I imagine him to feel about what he sees of me, in an uncovered face and the dancing flickers of the horizon. My eyes aren’t even blue right now, they can’t be in this angle of darkness, they must be–.

Kyōjurō reaches to touch my face, mirroring my own actions. I don’t know why, but he says thank you again, in an impossibly soft tone, in rabbit down and rose petal softness. “Thank you,” he repeats, and I savour the way his words look like jasmine and buttercup, “for trusting me. For giving me this opportunity.”

Then he bows his head.

The respect doesn’t feel earned, doesn’t feel right, but I know in all his traditional sensibilities, that he needs this. So I let him bow. 

I might love him. All I know for certain is that I love the tenderness in his joy, the glitter in his gold-fire eyes, and the determination to let it be known that he resurrected me just as I resurrected him from the clutches of the underworld. My blood feels gooey in my veins when I dance around in the battlefield with him, all dandelion fluff and illegible nonsense. I could kiss him. I could lay down next to him and indulge in endless warmth.

Because you’re you, he says, many years later. It’s always been you.

“Then court me,” I snap back. The world spins again. “Court me, Rengoku Kyōjurō, the Flame Hashira. We’ll see what comes of it.”

I am the tsunami and he, the fisherman waiting to drown.

Chapter Text

Courtships are usually proposed by an entire family, by official recognition of house names and joining of families. The idea of dating someone doesn’t exactly exist yet, because to pursue anyone with romantic interest must be followed with respect to traditional conventions to honour the woman’s purity. I couldn’t give two shits about that nonsense but Kyōjurō very much does. 

Honour!

Wait, no, wrong show.

The entire event precedes an official union of marriage, thus both sides are forced to take it seriously. My family has to visit his family and so forth, but the problem is that Kyōjurō has taken the responsibilities of his family and estate, acting as his own father. My own father won’t leave the mountain, so Sabito, as the Water Hashira, subsumes him as heir into the current role of man of the house.

Ugh. Blegh. It’s difficult to imagine a silly boy in that kind of light.

Am I supposed to tell my family that I’m dating someone? Or is Kyōjurō supposed to show up one day wearing his most formal kimono to bow down and beg for my hand? How does all this inanery work?

“Ah, you’re home late,” Giyuu notes.

I slide the door closed. He’s snacking on takeaway dumplings from a small eatery near the local clothing repairs shop, staring intently at me with comical chewing noises.

“Yeah,” I say, hanging up my mask next to his and Sabito’s by the entrance. “I got caught up in a courtship.”

Plop.

The dumpling falls from chopsticks into the soy sauce platter.

Oh no. Well, it’s better to tell them now instead of them being surprised by Kyōjurō showing up at random in the next few days to request permission for my hand. I don’t doubt the fierceness of their protectiveness of anyone in this family, but a few days off can help cool their heads and realise that yes, I want this. Mostly. 

I leave a twitching brother in the main room to head upstairs to find the dumber one.

Then stop.

Full pivot, walk back down, mouth agape, fully traumatised and in need of a deep cleanse in bleach and brain-eating amoeba. The walls upstairs are fusuma – opaque sliding panels, thick and heavy – which I can’t see through, but if improperly secured through the flooring, the panels separate slightly then I can see everything through the tiny cracks in the wall.

I walk backwards and sit in front of a stuttering Giyuu, who manages to say, accusingly, “You’re getting married?”

Oh my god. Someone really needs to close the door when taking a shit.

“It’s a proposed courtship which may or may not lead to marriage,” I say, pressing fingers on my forehead to staunch the oncoming headache. “I’m almost eighteen, it’s not that bad, I think.”

For this era.

He inhales deeply, then chokes whilst exhaling. I can almost see him thinking about the situation from the grit teeth and forced poker face. Then, finally, he looks me dead in the eye with numb celadon and says, “I am happy for you.”

What the fuck was that long pause for, asshole?

“Rengoku-san always talks to me whenever he can and he’s very friendly,” he continues. “I like him.”

I’d expected bickering or a fight, not easy acquiescence. So I goad him on by smiling devilishly, leaning over the low table, and ask, “Thank goodness – so, did you want a niece or a nephew?”

A pause.

One, two, three breaths.

“Are you pregnant?” He asks, perfectly composed. A chopstick breaks in his hand.

After a few minutes of teasing my stupid emo brother about my recent love life (resulting in two broken chopsticks, by the end), I fess up and tell him that no, Kyōjurō only just confessed his feelings today and I accepted the formal invitation, so there’s no reason to worry about indecent behaviour.

That’s when Sabito comes tumbling down the stairs, muttering something about dinner.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck–.

I whine and bury my face in my hands. “Oh my god, close the door next time, shithead.” Because it’s gross and horrible and disgusting and Sabito actually needs to learn how to lock the doors properly or else I’m going to burn the house down and stomp on his testicles.

“What?”

Giyuu gasps and stands up. “Did something happen?! Wait, so something did happen? What did Rengoku-san do?”

“What?!”

I remove my hands from my face, welcoming the terrible world of vision. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?”

Sabito races down, slams his hands on the table, and hovers over me menacingly – but the vitriol isn’t aimed at me, it’s aimed at some internal, narrow visage of imagination. He speaks with dragonbreath, a colossus, large and louder than life. He looks like bitter hydrangea buds, juice slipping from his mouth, poisoning the room with half-moon fingernail indents in his palms and palpable, fruity horror. “Your boyfriend did what? Makomo, I’m going to kill him.”

I shout at him. He shouts at me. Giyuu stands in continuous horror, having done his part to reap the seeds of chaos.

“I’m gonna fucking kill him–!”

“He’s not my boyfriend! Or, no, he is now! He asked to court me! Today!”

Wait, Sabito thought Kyōjurō and I were already romantically involved? That might explain a lot of things, actually. 

There’s a temporary stop to the madness. The boys settle down – still squirming a bit, but that’s forgivable – like the nice children I know they are and awkwardly scuttle a bit before plopping down by the table. Good boys.

Slowly, stupid Sabito explains that he’d thought we were already dating. Giyuu and I take turns to judge him silently with our most passive aggressive faces.

“I mean, you were already making eyes at him all the time.”

“What eyes?” I ask. “We wear masks; nobody can see our faces.”

“I think he means figuratively,” Giyuu chimes in. I tell him to shut the fuck up. He sulks.

There’s another pause, a bit more tense than the last one. I break the ice by hashing out the story, leaving out zero details because they need to suffer through the embarrassment and my capacity for deciphering lovey-dovey emotions is spectacularly low despite everything, and these two dumbfuck numbskulls are going to be apart of this whether they like it or not. I’m from a culture where dating consists of sending heart emojis and slurping the same spaghetti noodle until an awfully anticlimactic, tomato sauce-y kiss, and the romance in this era has not yet been hammered into my head. 

Not spaghetti, wrong country. Sharing a soba noodle? Slurping until our faces are close and his chapped lips and hot skin is centimetres away from mine and…

Giyuu coughs.

I blink out of reverie, realising I’d been drifting out whilst trying to professionally explain to them that the courtship was a formality and I was waiting to see if I could also catch feelings for a good, strong man like the Flame Hashira. Then I grab my sword and start a brawl.

The next mission is great.

Then the next. Then the one after that. And the next, and the next, then soon enough it’s been two months and I’ve been cramming in mission after mission even though it’s total overkill for a Hashira to take up whatever there is for grabs. I’ve talked to more demons (shit-talking, usually) than I have humans this whole season, which probably isn’t great for my psyche because I’m the one viciously murdering them.

Hmmm.

Serial killer fantasies aside, I find a train. It’s a nice train. It’s also called the Mugen Train and it’s new on the market and about to be released for the first time in public to celebrate Japan’s continuous mechanical ingenuity. Oddly enough, travelling to every single train station in the very large prefecture of where the fuck am I is incredibly time consuming and not recommended if you don’t want crows from your friends asking where the fuck are you.

I wait in line to ride the new train to Yokonama station, central Tokyo, from our little forested mountain station in the northern part of the prefecture, ready to be a total winner and scout out a train that’ll be the death of a special someone in a few years. The concierge punches a hole into my ticket and I stare at the paper a little too long, feeling the soft, dusty material under my fingertips, staring into the thousands of fibres interwoven with splashes of faint sawdust and blue dye. I want to eat the paper.

Then the person behind me makes a disgruntled noise and I hop on.

This train is meant to be on the rail for the next five years before they send it back to the workshop for innovation adjustments – this is what I ask the conductor during his rounds. He’s a short, jolly old man, complete with a bulbous nose and a tightly-fitting uniform, pleasantly surprised by the curiosity from an unsuspecting young woman. I make up a lie about my little brothers being interested in trains and pepper him with more questions. It’ll be kept on the same track for the entirety of its run, following only this private transport line. No, it won’t be moved. Yes, it runs through several forests and flower fields – what a beautiful view!

I thank him and settle in for the long journey, fingertips tapping a chaotic melody on the seat table. 

Scouts are plenty reliable, but they die off too fast and too soon. They’re just bobbing fish, targets for the mighty, good and bad. What the demon slayer corps needs is fast, reliable information that doesn’t come with an imminent death to their most necessary support group. I can see everything. I’d be a great scout. I’d see the danger before it even appeared, as long as they point me in the right direction. I should be on all the dangerous missions. I’d save all of my loved ones. I should be on this train in the future – I’ve looked through everything nook and cranny in every carriage, I’d kill that Lower Moon demon in a flash, save the kids and…

Itachi caws through the window. A passenger in front of me startles at the appearance of the fat bird behind the glass. He caws again.

At the next stop, I climb onto the top of the train, padding along the cold metal, to open a letter tied to Itachi’s leg. The fancy font and expensive parchment betrays the identity of the sender before I even read the first sentence.

Your expertise is needed.

Return from your mission soon.

Ubuyashiki couldn’t have clarified the letter a bit better? Really, being vague doesn’t suit him at all, I’d much prefer the manipulation to come with more brute honesty and a dedication to prompt word choice. 

This stop is in the middle of nowhere, hailing any kind of vehicle is next to impossible here, so I wait until the conductor ushers everybody back in from their smoke breaks, where the coal burns again and the gears whir and chirp, so that I can run atop the carriage rooftops and off the tracks. The dead of night has never been more peaceful despite the thumping in my chest, going off in rhythmic staccato. Two months. I’ll see Kyōjurō again soon. Stupid, stupid, running away as soon as things start going good in my life. I like him – yes, I really do. He’s hot. He’s handsome. He’s strong. 

And he’s, best of all, kind.

He’s supposed to die because of the stupid train chugging farther behind me, the steam engine escaping into the midnight beauty, fading into the darkness of the inky black. I’ll remember this noise for the rest of whatever lifespan I have left, in the beating of my heart and the terror in the background. I run on the tracks with lightning feet and ocean waves crashing around my head, going on and on and on until I reach the previous town in less than an hour. The station master gapes, points an accusing finger, but I ignore him and head back home.

The journey is fine. Really, nothing happens other than some latent teenage angst. 

Then I approach the demon slayer corps residence and the gates greet me with all sorts of interesting eyes that aren’t there, the wood panelling coming alive with its knots and twists. Faces that weren’t there before taunt me, laughing and jeering. The sky is too blue. The clouds are too white. The people make too much movement. Too many birds flapping their wings. Too much everything all at once.

I blink behind the mask.

Still too bright. The colours are past saturated, delving into a sixth dimension of an unnatural light spectrum.

“Urokodaki… sama?”

I blink again. There’s some short twerp on the street with a standard-issue corps uniform. He looks vaguely familiar – one of Giyuu’s fanboys, probably. Tanaka or Tanagawa something.

“You don’t have to be so formal,” I say.

Tanaka or Tanagawa makes a funny noise then says, “yes. Ah – okay! Urokodaki-san, I’m here to tell you that Oyakata-sama is waiting for you in the fourth sector graveyard. Have a good day!”

What a cute kid.

The fourth sector – appropriately named, hah – is unofficial graveyard land, stretching on beyond the forest limits and into the nearby flower valleys by the cliff edges. I take a step, and another, then another, and I can almost see hidden colours in the imprints on the crushed grass. My sandals pierce through the soft layer of earth, upsetting little white wildflowers hanging between weeds, flattened under the varnished sole. I feel a bit like a crushed wildflower at the moment, wanting someone to lay on me so heavily that all the circulation in my stem is reduced to the pure bliss of nothing. Vascularity has never sounded more unappetising. 

One step, two step. Look up. Man. Child. Woman. 

The wife and oldest son leave the property upon my entrance with barely even a hello – or maybe they do speak but I just don’t hear it, what with the brightness of the sun attacking my blurry ears.

“Makomo,” he says, cutting through the static. The background noises stop once I look into his blind eyes. “You’ve adjusted well to your promotion. How’s your arm?”

Swallow. Relax. Smile. Ignore the pain. “It’s doing as well as it can, Oyakata-sama.”

His face softens. “That’s good to hear – but that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. Today might be a bit… unorthodox.”

I don’t respond in words.

He tells me about Muzan, common knowledge that all Hashiras should know by the time of their promotion. I’ve been away, he mentions briefly but not dismissively, and that there may be holes in my knowledge set compared to the others of my rank. Speeding through several high-ranked, difficult demons since my promotion has only aided his satisfaction of a brand new Storm Hashira, but power must be assisted with this kind of intelligence. Muzan is the first demon. Muzan needs something. Muzan mascarades with several unknown disguises. 

These are all things that I know. 

“But, of course, these are all things that you know,” he murmurs, blind eyes searching a blank mask.

At first, there’s panic at the accusation. Then, there’s fear at what will happen next, because the silence drags on for so long. I see fear, and fear looks like the echoes of the abyss staring right back into you despite its emptiness and inability to understand the very human emotion of candy wrapper delicacy. It withers away.

“Oyakata-sama?” I ask. It’s not a denial – lying to him is difficult.

The sun shines brighter than ever. The light waves dance in rays in red and orange, lighting imaginary fires in the lush grasses of the graveyard, deadlier than Kyōjurō can ever dream of. The sun, oh the sun.

“Five years ago,” he says, “do you remember? You saved Kanae and I cannot thank you enough for this, but I remember quite vividly the tremors in your hand and the terror in your voice.”

I’ve never been a good liar.

Misdirection, charisma, and teasing go a long way in direct manipulation – but lying? Never lying. 

“You were lying, but I could never figure out about what,” he continues, rose petal soft, and reaches out with a diminutive gesture. I step forward and let him pull off the mask. It doesn’t do anything but help me see the wavering lights even better, against the reflection of shiny tombstones and dew drops on verdant leaves. “Makomo, I have never been able to sense any surprise from you since I’ve met you, even now. Perhaps your sight helps with sensing things faster than others, but… I’ve had my doubts.”

Ubuyashiki asks if I’m a spy from Muzan.

So I inhale deeply, stretch my fingers out, and submit to the truth. 

For the remainder of the afternoon, I tell him a story.

Chapter Text

The estate in the demon slayer’s village isn’t Ubuyashiki’s main home, and I can tell from the lack of proper decoration, the ashy dust in the air, and uncertain footsteps. He and his family live far away, hidden deep within the countryside, away from potential demon threats. The swordsmith village exists far away as well, but that’s for another time.

“There’s someone behind that door,” I say.

Ubuyashiki smiles genially. We’re both sitting down in a room I’ve never been in before, in the dead silence of a near-abandoned mansion. “That would be my son,” he says. “Everything I know, he will learn, eventually.”

Fair enough.

If I really were a spy, then the entire Ubuyashiki family would be dead twice-over by now. Might as well extend trust over to an unknown party to seduce them into compliance.

He asks for the beginning.

And, well, in the beginning, there was nothing but pain. There was death, but there was also hope in the aftermath. I submitted to a watery grave, then came back, wide-eyed and awake. Perhaps it’s cathartic to vent, because I tell him what it’s like to drown, for my lungs to fill with water until they’re about to pop, for my eyes to cave into my skull from unimaginable pressure, for my skin to tear away in the scraping salt and rock of the torrentuous waves. I know water, but I don’t know calm water. I only know the terror of storms – the stories written in grand epics, fighting against the titans of the sky.

This is why, I think, I would not have made a very good Water Hashira. The power is there, but the subtlety is not.

“You died,” he says. “And you learned of demons in…”

Hell.

I think he means to say hell, to ask if I went down to the pits of the underworld. It might as well have been hell.

“Dead people can’t speak of death’s secrets,” I say. “Or he’ll eat you up.”

The truth is, I don’t know and I don’t much care for the reasons I could blink and breathe again, but the misdirection works better than flat-out lies and I continue on with the story. I doubt anyone would be able to understand the idea of the twenty-first century, so I leave enough gaps for him to fill out his own assumptions. 

There’s little I know, but it’s enough to satiate the master. I’d never thought I’d come to a possible future where I’d spill the beans, but better now than never, in this scenario. The last time I met an Upper Moon, I got my arm ripped off, and Douma was just fooling around. I don’t want to see the faces of anyone disappointed or terrified at what’s really going on in my mind – secrets that are rightfully theirs to keep – so I ask Ubuyashiki to keep my identity secret.

“What are you?” He asks. “A seer? A prophet? A reincarnated spirit?”

“Unlucky,” I say.

Here’s how it’s supposed to go: the demons die, but almost all of the humans die at the same time. I tell him who and what the Upper Moons are, lacking detail but it’s more information than anyone’s been able to discern in hundreds of years. I tell him about the flower. I tell him about the Kamado siblings. I tell him about the deaths of his wife and eldest daughters.

Then I pause and disassociate for a moment because oh fuck did Urokodaki tell Ubuyashiki about Nezuko yet?

“Do with this information as you will, Oyakata-sama,” I say. And these are my last cognitive words, because all the pressure in my head seeps out like decaying mildew. Nothing makes sense anymore. 

I hope he plans out a glorious battle. I hope he does it well. 

After I finish talking, I’m sent away again, to go searching for more answers to the ones that I lack. A close confidante, he wishes to call me one day, and the stickiness of proximity has never been more sweet. He’s grateful, he’s near to tears, and I want to put plectrums in my ears. And over the course of the next few days, Ubuyashiki sends letters to all the Hashira about new locations, new demons to keep eyes out on, and steadily intensifying training regimens for new recruits. The source is unnamed.

The secrets are out. The question is – how will the master deal with them all?

Everything starts at the end, I think. The beginning tells the ending, and the ending completes the beginning. This is foreshadowing for future events. 

I find a dragon in his own backyard.

There aren’t many people living in the Rengoku estate – a father, two brothers, and a handful of housekeepers that tend to keep to themselves. The land in the back of the estate is closed off by tall bamboo and a fence that’s interwoven with the forest’s edge, and I sit on a pine tree branch overlooking the weathered yard until Kyōjurō notices my presence.

His situational awareness really needs some work, or maybe I’m sneakier than I thought, because it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to look up from his sword practice and see me.

I wiggle my fingers at him.

Kyōjurō blinks, sheaths his sword, and waits for me to hop down and walk to him. 

“We should sit down,” I say, and bluster on to the engawa, afraid to look back until I hear his footsteps pattering after mine. 

He doesn’t say anything boisterous or powerful, and the fear clogs my throat with insidious terror. 

Nevertheless, I swallow it down, square my shoulders, and look ahead. “When I was nine years old and learning the Breath of Water, my dad told me to jump into a river to learn how to swim. I was a natural, a prodigy, and swimming should’ve come so easily to me since I was almost a master of the style. But then he had to pull me out after a minute because I was drowning at the bottom of the riverbed.”

Kyōjurō breathes in sharply. I want to look at him, but I can’t. Not yet.

“He didn’t know that before I met him, I went on a boat once, during a storm, and when it toppled, the waves pulled me down so fiercely that I felt my lungs crush under the pressure of the ocean. I knew how to swim, but I couldn’t, because I was so afraid of the memories. It’s hard to move when you’re so afraid, y’know, except at the bottom of a river or an ocean not moving spells out certain death. So once I was fully submerged, I just knew that I was already dead, and staring into the abyss as it reached its hands out to me left scars in ways I can’t even find the right words for. I could only just stare. Helpless. I was – I kept drowning, over and over again. Dragged down.”

There’s dancing in my peripherals. Anxious movement. Clenching hands. Horror.

The compassion leaks out like a faulty hose.

“But it’s beautiful,” I say. “It’s so goddamn beautiful. Urokodaki-san eventually taught me to handle rivers and pools, but I don’t think I can handle the ocean ever again. But to me – to me, you’re an ocean. I – I look at you and you’re this overwhelming pit of emotion that I don’t know how to handle. I’m afraid of the strength I define my entire life over because it’s so vast and endless and I… I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The breeze blows into the engawa. I pulled up my hair today into a tiny little ponytail that sticks out in a puff, but the flyaway hairs and bangs flap in the warm wind.

I hear him swallow. This is when I dare to turn my head to look at him, to see what he’s thinking, and it’s all just impossible softness and cloudy eyes that are lost in thought. He looks younger, somehow, despite the obvious maturity in his features and the difference in size – I’m curled up like a prawn on the wood step whilst he’s splayed out, bigger than a titan. Our bodies are almost touching.

It’s his turn to speak, now.

Kyōjurō says, looking into the sky, “when I was nine years old, my mother died.”

The world feels stewed in cinnamon and cream. There’s blurriness in my ears and loudness in my skin, and even though what he states is fact, I can’t help but find myself daydreaming along to a story of fire. He speaks as if every word is a declaration, with vivid rawness in every single note.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He smiles faintly. “For the past ten years, I’ve prayed to the ghost of her memory. I ask if I’m doing the right thing and if I’ve been the dutiful son. I want to protect and save people, just as the man she married did before me, and I pray to her every night so she’s proud of me.”

She is. Of course she is. There’s nobody else his mother can be prouder of. So I tell him exactly this.

“Then,” he says, and turns to me. His eyes are ablaze with passion. “Then believe me, Makomo, that I’ll do my best to keep you proud. Lift your head up and smile, because I’ll be strong for you, if you can’t.”

It’s not exactly an acknowledgement of my awkwardness around him, but I hadn’t directly apologised for leaving him without a concrete explanation in the aftermath of the confession, so I leave it at that even though he deserves better. There’s nothing that can stand in the Flame Hashira’s way of what he wants, even if it’s a mess like me. But at least I can keep him alive, even at the expense of any freedom I could gain. I want him happy.

I take the mask off, set it to the wood floor gently, and bask in the sun. If this pattern continues around Kyōjurō, I might actually develop a tan for once in my life. 

Then I lean over and kiss him.

Here’s the funny thing about hunger: usually, you don’t realise how hungry you are until you start eating. I kiss him and suddenly all I can think about is more, wetter, deeper, warmer, closer, against chapped lips that taste like the red bean wagashi he must’ve eaten earlier. I want to devour him. 

He breathes heavily into my mouth. It tastes like heat. I’m going to burn alive and enjoy watching the fire take my skin, blood, and bones. 

There’s a moment of heart-pumping, gut-wrenching fear when he pulls away first, and I stare a little cross eyed at him, waiting for a response. Instead, there’s a smile that turns into a laugh, upturned eyebrows, wetness pricking at his eyelashes, and utter relief. He’s going to be the death of me one day.

I love you.

And wow that’s a beautiful pink tongue.

Then I sit up, frantic, and get on my feet. My lips tingle with the flavour of red bean and I now have no idea where the horny confidence came from.

“Mak–?”

“Let’s fight!” I shout. “Your temperature! Let’s get it to thirty-nine degrees! And your heartbeat – two hundred beats per minute!”

Kyōjurō doesn’t usually stutter over his words. But his tongue forgets how to work and he stammers out something incomprehensible in the face of my absurdity. But I’ll give him a power-up, and I’ll give it to him fast. He’s only nineteen, and in less than two years everything will be going to shit, so as long as Ubuyashiki knows what’s going on, it should be fine. He just needs to avoid Himejima if this succeeds.

“No thank you!” He says. “If my heart rate reached two hundred beats per minute, I would surely die!”

He won’t. Probably.

“Not here, in battle, I mean,” I say. And I reach my hand down to help him to his feet. His hands are warm and callused, no different from the worn leather of a sword handle. “You trust me, right?”

Here, Kyōjurō pauses. 

“I can’t tell you much now, without Oyakata-sama’s approval, but everything I’m doing is for you,” I tell him. 

And it’s true. Everything changed because of him. Kyōjurō’s the blind instigator, the unaware puppeteer, the reason for the turmoil. I think I would’ve been fine if I hadn’t wanted to change anything, and lived my life out the best I thought I could. I didn’t care about friends I hadn’t made yet. I lived selfishly, and now I don’t think I can.

“Well then!” He says, suddenly vivacious. “Let’s go find some demons.”

This is what I like about him. He’s fairly no-nonsense and straightforward – what a charmer.

“I’ll race you?”

I win the race, obviously, with borrowed forms from Breath of Thunder supplementing hard-earned speed, but Kyōjurō isn’t too far behind. I’m technically on a break at the moment, but Kyōjurō isn’t, so I get to tag along as he demands for his crow to give him any kind of mission in his region of jurisdiction. With a mask, of course, because I’m not about to dazzle the Kanto region of Japan with my devastatingly creepy smile.

It’s sweet fun, because I’m a glass cannon and I’ll devour any win I can get.

Finally, a kasugai crow deposits a mission, to a western village in a swelling valley, and we find a demon terrorising an old shrine. It’s a low-ranked, newly turned beast, with sallow yellow skin and sunken red eyes. Buddhist beads on leathered ankles clink with its every footstep.

“I’ll immobilise it,” I whisper, as we stand, arrogant, in the middle of a field. “You can cut off the head.”

Two Hashira against one pitiful demon is overkill, indeed, but we won’t let it suffer. Besides, it barely knows anything about this world in its new form, it may as well learn of the greater evils to its existence before it can dare terrorise itself into the pits of Hell. 

Breath in.

I see thunder in the horizon, blood in the air, ghosts of the present. A storm is wild, violent, and inevitable – but, to most, invisible. Storms start with birds flying off in the distance, squeaking about annoying and useless chitter. Then, the land creatures, squirrels and mice, scurry away towards the high ground, into tree homes and basements. Then the skies darken and all that’s left is a formless sky of wispy grey. The sun stops shining so the leaves turn down and the air falls, forgotten and alone. Then the world becomes darker, darker, and darker, and all that’s left is meagre manmade light. 

Then BOOM! You see that? That’s – that’s lightning! It soars through the night, glowing so bright in the puffy bundle of thick clouds that everything, for a split second, turns violet.

“Sixth Form: Violet,” I say.

In one smooth motion, I shake the demon blood off the blade and sheathe my wakizashi. This form relies on obscuring my footwork with uneven steps, then a violent burst of speed in the middle of a calm, lulling step. 

The lowly demon gasps as it falls to the ground, torso and legs separated from each other.

Kyōjurō doesn’t waste any time. He breathes in, deeper than he usually does, and his forehead turns pink and veiny from the forcibly raised blood pressure. When he’s had enough, blood boiling, he bursts out into the Breath of Flame’s third form, and decapitates the beast.

I reach out to tap his forehead.

Damn. Not hot enough.

“Fever, not fervour,” I say.

He looks delightfully confused. “I still don’t want a fever.”

Whatever. This is stupid anyway. The Hashira shouldn’t receive their demon slayer marking too fast because they’re all contagious and Himejima might die earlier than expected. 

“That’s… fair,” I say, then plop down next to the decaying monster and look up at the starry night sky. After a moment of awkward silence, Kyōjurō joins me on the damp grass.

I can’t imagine how demons can even stand being in his presence – he’s like sunlight incarnate.

“What does Oyakata-sama have to do with me becoming very ill?” Kyōjurō asks.

Oh. Right.

“Shush,” I say, and roll over to nest my head in the crook of his shoulder. The grass tickles my hair, so I shift again, half on top of him, so that my cheek is on his chest. “Not allowed. Silence, you fiery heathen.”

The grass is far more wet and annoying in Kanto. Sabito (and, by extension, Giyuu) and I are in charge of the mountainous Tohoku region, which, in my opinion, has better weather and flora. Tokyo can just go die, I guess.

“All silence or silence pertaining towards Oyakata-sama?”

“The latter.”

“Ah,” He says, and hums, thinking. “I haven’t seen you in action in a long time, Makomo. Your storm breathing looks very impressive.”

It’s a compliment, but it also has depressing connotations – our fighting styles might not mesh together anymore. We’d been partners for so long, water and fire, complementary opposites, that a swift turn in a different direction may as well mean that we’ll no longer have any reason to have missions together. And, besides, having two Hashira anywhere is total overkill. 

The only exception would be when fighting an Upper Moon but– well. That’s a morbid thought.

“Thank you,” I say, because it’s what you’re supposed to do when a potential fiance compliments my ability to viciously brutalise bloodthirsty beasts. And then, because now that he’s really really close and I can smell his skin and hear his heartbeat go thump-thump-thump, I can’t shut my stupid mouth anymore. “Hypothetically speaking, how do you see yourself in the future?”

He hums. Everything that comes from his mouth sounds deep and throaty and I can hardly feel the tips of my fingers.

“That’s not a question I was expecting you to ask. I’m also unsure how that’s hypothetical,” he says.

Fair.

“But,” he continues, weathering on. “I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in the next five years – but! I would be…”

Kyōjurō doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t choke on his words, or abruptly shut up, and it’s instead like he’s forgotten that he’s supposed to continue the sentence. As if words are no longer central to his voice.

I can imagine what he wants to say, but I can’t at the same time.

Is this what it’s like to not know?

“...I would be as I am now,” he finishes. The stars are louder than him. “And you?”

A lot of things stop making sense, with his words. What does he crave the most? What does he see in his future? Why don’t I know it? There are pins and needles under my skin and stabbing static in the folds of my brain. There’s a void unravelling in my mind’s eye, a galactic curtain standing by to laugh at me, as abyssal horrors unwind inch by inch, like a spool of flimsy thread with spiders in the middle. One of the spiders comes out and bites me.

“Maybe I’ll take on a Tsuguko in the future,” I say. 

Ghosts nip at my earlobes.

Two lovers in embrace, awash with a glossy clear-coat, the matte blocking out the elements from eating away at our image. I’ve seen this frame before, but I can’t quite recall the memories. But whatever this disturbance is, the feeling quickly fades, because we finally gather ourselves and walk back to base camp. 

The panic kicks in the next morning, as I lay in my futon and stare at the dusty ceiling. Stupid brothers haven't been doing their chores in my absence, it seems. 

Oh god. I kissed him.

What.

Oh no. How? Why? Why did I do that?

Did he even like it? Well, he was obviously kissing back, but he also pulled away first and there were some tears but it shouldn’t be that bad. Nah, it’s fine. Just a bit of couple-stuff. Couple-things. Couple-activities. Like kissing. Lips on lips. I want to slap myself and scream, but that would hurt and I don’t want to move.

Am I supposed to tell someone this? Do Taisho-era manners imply having to update my family on everything that happens in the courtship? Because I’m one-hundred percent sure that if I told Sabito and Giyuu anything about my physical love life they’re going to commit a plethora of crimes against the Rengoku name.

Oh no oh no, I have to tell Shinobu. She’s going to sniff it out anyway, just from the vibrations of the sun or something.

After a long mental debate, I finally get up and scramble out.

“Oi, Makomo, can you–?”

“Nope,” I say, and rush out the front door. Mask, sword, haori, wallet – yep, that’s everything. Sabito makes a confused noise behind me, but there’s no need to pay attention to him today, I’ve got more important things to do.

Like suffering.

The Butterfly Mansion sits deep in the edge of the village, nearly hidden by the thick, luscious greenery and wisteria trees. And like a severely unwell Tarzan, I loop through the tree branches and hop up to the top floor to find my friend. She’s not in her room, so I jump down the stairwell all the way to the railing on the third floor and peer into the research centre.

She’s mixing potions in her laboratory. Perfect – there aren’t any screaming almost-corpses to distract us.

“Shinobu! I have to tell you something.”

Shinobu startles and looks my way, a thundering well of despair. “Yes?”

I’m tempted to call her Nobu-chan and flutter my eyelashes to ease the pain of what I’m about to say, but I’m pretty sure she’d be more upset than humoured. “So there’s this thing, right–.”

“You didn’t – really?!”

I step back. “Wait, what?”

Shinobu sets her pestle down, slowly and calmly. It still feels aggressive, somehow, and her eyes turn blank. “Does this have to do with Rengoku-kun?”

“Yes,” I say, but it comes out sounding like nyeemph because of all the hot emotions clamming up my throat.

She sits back in her lab stool and makes a dark face. I don’t know how she does it – whatever I do, I look like I’m constantly daydreaming about toes or some shit, whilst she always has the face of a child indulging in mild psychopathic tendencies. It must be the smile. It has to be her smile.

“How was it?” She asks, leaning in. “No pain? He’s an idiotic brute and if he hurt you, just know that I’ll stick a hairpin up his–.”

“No? It was– fine.”

It was more than fine. Damnit, I really want red bean candy now. So I go around Shinobu’s lab, looking for a tin of sweets she usually keeps on one of the shelves. I’m pretty sure the sweets belong to Ao or Kanao, because Shinobu prefers salty snacks.

“Are you having cravings?”

I find the tin and take a whiff. Damn, they’re all expired. I make a nauseated noise. “Not anymore.”

Out of the blue, the room becomes utterly silent.

“Makomo,” Shinobu says softly, in her scary voice. “How long have you and Rengoku-kun been… physically attracted?”

Well, I’ve had a crush on him for a few months now. He was always pretty fit, but I never saw him as attractive until I was about fourteen or fifteen? Ah, typical Shinobu. She’s always digging around for odd bits of information to build up her treasure trove of blackmail material. And I can tell that she’s excited, because she’s smiling incredibly evilly, just like any cartoonish villain would.

“Ahhh,” I whine, and lean against a wall. “It’s just–. I initiated! I went in first and then he did and it was really weird and wet – is that normal? And now my stomach is going insane.”

So many butterflies in my gut. They’re birthing a new kingdom, from my oesophagus down to my intestines. I liked the kiss, but–.

But.

Sheer panic.

“Anyway, I think I’m going to take a nap,” I say. I feel light and fluffy. Is that normal? It was just a kiss, from yesterday. Was my brain not working then?

Shinobu stands up and her stool rolls away squeakily. There’s a very interesting expression on her face. “That imbecile. I told him about the new shipment – did he not tell you about the rubbers I keep in the clinic for this exact reason? Protective material?” 

I think we’re on two very different wavelengths at the moment.

It’s probably not that big of a deal.

“What does rubber have to do with courtships?”

“He just– what a fucking piece of shit.” Then Shinobu smiles kindly, none of the anger pointed at me, but there’s now a pointy sword in her hand that hadn’t been there before. “Aaah, Makomo-chan, you can rest in one of the free beds here. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault, and thank you for telling me. We’ll get through this together. I think I’ll tattle to his father first, that useless, cock-brained prick.”

She bursts out of the window.

Wow. Okay. That was weird. I think I’ll go take that nap now.

Chapter Text

I wake up to chaos.

And a bit of fire. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, to be honest.

Itachi pecks at the back of my hand, and I shoo him away because he’s not supposed to be inside rooms with sensitive materials like Shinobu’s room – chock full of lab equipment and scary looking needles. The dumb bird caws angrily, I finally get up, cotton-brained, and tuck away the spare futon into the closet.

An innocuous clock on the wall tells me it’s half past three. 

Huh. Nice nap. About an hour or so?

“Hashira! Meeting! Now!” Itachi cries, then flies over to stab my fingers with his beak.

There are, on average, about two Hashira meetings per year. The last one was a few months ago, so it’s not strange that there would be one right now, but the last I checked, Sabito, Giyuu, and Kyōjurō are all currently out on the mission roster and should be at least a day away. It’s not against the rules to start a meeting without full attendance, but nobody likes it, least of all Ubuyashiki. 

But first of all, I really have to pee and there’s a terrible crick in my neck despite the short nap. So I promise my crow that I’ll get to it, shut up, and I head off to freshen up. Something seems wrong with the wall calendar so I ignore it, but the oddity burrows into my mind, curious. I pat down my clothes, put the mask back on, and pass by Aoi in the hall, who looks angry and terrified at the same time (her default expression, I can’t blame her), holding a glass of water and a handful of pills.

“Oh, good, you’re finally awake,” Aoi says. “Here, take this.”

“Um,” I say.

My voice sounds terrible.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s just vitamins. Shinobu-nee told me to give it to you once you woke up.”

Wow. She’s really being picky about my health today, a bit more than usual.

“Well, thank you,” I say, and take the water and vitamins away into the toilet, to get away from the weird feeling in the mansion. Then I leap out of the window, Uzui-style, and hop from rooftop to rooftop towards the central estate.

I arrive about the same time as Sabito, Giyuu, and Kyōjurō, who all smell like they’ve been on the road – pine needles, old bark, topsoil – and haven’t showered recently. I’m pretty sure they just got back from their solo missions, which doesn’t make sense because I know for a fact that none of them can run that fast because I can’t run that fast.

“Oh my,” Kanae whispers, and I try not to look too awkward because she doesn’t usually approach me first. There’s an unofficial order to our line-up and she’s breaking it for whatever fucking reason. She better get back to her spot before Ubuyashiki shows up. “Are you alright? Shinobu says you’ve been curled in her room for the past day.”

What.

Ah, makes sense why I felt off earlier. The calendar subconsciously freaked me out because it’s the next day.

I slept for twenty-five hours. Bummer. Well, not that much could’ve happened in one day, so I’m not afraid of having missed anything out, and I’m more concerned about the sudden exhaustion. I must’ve showed off a bit too much with the Breath of Storm’s sixth form, channelling that excessive amount of body heat and pumping arteries just to show Kyōjurō how he was meant to do it.

“Just tired, I guess,” I tell Kanae.

Nothing too bad.

But then she makes a sympathetic noise, places a gentle hand on my back, and doesn’t fucking move. Girl time, woo hoo, but the break in formation starts to make the others curious. For example, Iguro looks seconds away from committing multiple war crimes.

I can’t believe I slept for twenty-five hours, but that shouldn’t earn this much of Kanae’s concern.

“Shinobu and I–.”

Her next words are cut off upon the arrival of the master. Although confused, it doesn’t seem like a pressing issue, so I bow reverently before Ubuyashiki and behave. His footsteps are light, twinkling stars in the night, and he asks us to raise our heads to begin the meeting.

As his close confidante, I’d hoped to get a heads-up about the subject material of the meeting, however, and calm reverie quickly turns into oh shit oh fuck panic.

“It came to my attention a few months ago of a demon under the care of the Urokodaki family, a demon that the former Water Pillar is still caring for to this day, in his home,” Ubuyashiki says, with his bullshit serene smile and cadence. “The demon was attacked by Kibutsuji Muzan himself, so we may be closer to the enemy than ever before.”

Fuck fuck fuck.

Sanemi stands up, breaking formation. “They’re keeping a pet demon?! Alive?”

His fingers itch for his scabbard. I can’t really blame him.

“Quiet, fool,” Iguro hisses. Sanemi sits back down, still murderous. “What do you mean by this, Oyakata-sama? Have we betrayals in our midst?”

The other Hashira are keeping their tongues, but there’s a palpable tension in the air that wasn’t there before. Sabito and I share an awkward glance, Urokodaki mask to Urokodaki mask.

Ubuyashiki takes his glorious time to explain the events of the matter. He received information (from me, unmentioned) that the demon’s surviving human brother, a boy called Kamado Tanjirō, knows of the lost art of the breath of sun – the core of all breathing styles. And given his help, great strides can be taken against the demons in our war. His demon sister has not eaten anyone in the past year, hibernating in a self-induced coma to prevent her hunger. The Kamado siblings are a boon to the corps.

“Makomo and I represent the Urokodaki family,” Sabito says, after a moment of silence. “As we provide the demon Kamado Nezuko refuge, we also take responsibility for her actions. If she ever eats a human, we will commit seppuku.”

There are a few gasps. Some wide eyes. I don’t want to look at them all, least of all Shinobu’s sister and Kyōjurō. 

Sanemi stands up again. Oh no. He brandishes his katana, a ripped up blade stinking of iron and plastic death, and points it directly at my stomach, taunting. “Well,” he says. “Why not commit seppuku now, for harbouring a fucking demon in the first place?”

The tip of the sword nearly pierces into the obi cloth and I try not to be offended.

This is when Kanae reveals why, exactly, she broke formation.

“No!” She yells, and grabs me so I stumble backwards a few steps. “Don’t hurt the baby!”

What the fuck.

The peanut gallery munches on. Gyōmei starts muttering a prayer to break the silence, and I continue to stand, digesting what the holy fucking shit is going on, wondering how we got to this place in the first place.

“Wait,” Kyōjurō says. Everyone turns to look at him. “How are you pregnant?”

Sanemi explodes. “How the fuck do you not know?! And what, does the mask stay on during sex, too?”

I kind of want to kill myself right now. I’m also pretty sure everyone’s had to sex talk by one of the Kōchō sisters at one point. Simply being engaged does not make a baby, what the fuck. Why does Kanae think I’m pregnant? Did I gain weight recently? Am I getting fat? Have I been eating too many sweets lately? By nature of my career, it’s difficult to not be fit and lean, but women biologically carry more fat around their hips compared to men, despite any hard-earned athleticism, so it’s not completely unbelievable to make such rude assumptions.

Sabito stands up and points his katana at Kyōjurō. “You had sex with my sister?” And then he looks down at me, looks back at an open-mouthed Kyōjurō, then tightens his grip on the katana handle.

Whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I speak up, flabbergasted. “No, what the fuck? I’m not pregnant.”

Then I have a very long and awkward conversation with Kanae in front of everyone else about the mishap with Shinobu’s impromptu medical diagnosis and my newfound eating habits. I want to disappear into the wind and be smited off the face of the earth, but then the conversation ends on a somewhat high note wherein Kanae says she takes full responsibility for the confusion.

Sabito sits back down next to me, high strung but no longer visibly angry.

“Do not worry,” Kyōjurō confidently exclaims to Sabito. “I will keep your sister’s integrity intact. We have not had sex yet! And either way, children would not be on our minds until after marriage.”

Why.

I think I’m more pissed off at the fact that Kyōjurō looks so proud of himself for being an honourable fiance, not realising that his wording of literally everything he’s saying could be loads better. Why did he have to say it like that? Just– why?

“Yet,” Sabito restates. “You– you…”

And he stops speaking, far too outraged to make any more noise. 

Uzui bursts into laughter, boisterous and annoying, cutting the conversation off. “Even if Makomo were to be bursting with child, she has great child bearing hips, so I’m sure there would be no difficulties!”

That’s supposed to be a compliment. I think.

“Thank you,” I say.

I do believe that we’d all forgotten about Ubuyashiki’s presence until the master lightly coughs and claps his hands to get our attention. 

“Oh my,” Ubuyashiki says, wearing a faint smile. “This has been an interesting day. I believe we can conclude our meeting here, everyone. The Kamado siblings are set to join our organisation in our fight against Kibutsuji Muzan. Any objections?”

“If Oyakata-sama approves, then so do I,” Kanae says first, pleasantly.

The rest begrudgingly agree, I think out of fear of disagreeing with Ubuyashiki more than their own personal beliefs.

Kyōjurō swallows. His throat bobs up and down. “I do not approve of letting a demon live,” he says slowly, staring into the master’s face. “It is not a certain thing.”

There’s silence in the courtyard.

“Kamado Nezuko is a nonlethal accessory,” Sabito says, because the words are all clogged up in my mouth. If I were a rat, I’d be dead by now because I can’t squeak. “Do you disagree with the decision made by your fiancée’s family?”

The meeting ends here, with seven ayes and one uncertain, unsaid answer.

If she proves herself, then this headache will be over. I’ll have to visit the Kamado siblings soon, to check up on her progress for myself, and rid of anxieties born from change. And then the Hashira slowly filter themselves out with Ubuyashiki’s exit, until it’s an apologetic Kanae wishing her goodbyes, and a thundering Sabito over my shoulder, half-guarding my body against the remaining person, the Flame Hashira.

“What the fuck was that?” Sabito murmurs, in low enough volumes that I doubt anyone can hear.

“I don’t know,” I say back, matching his pitch. “Urokodaki-san sent a letter several months ago – I didn’t know a meeting would take place today, so late.”

“No, I’m talking about Rengoku’s reaction. Are you okay?”

He’s still there, waiting, across the yard. The trees whisper in the background, in jewel greens, against the starkly blue skies. This is not the family to family meeting I’d hoped for.

“He’s just worried,” I say. “I think Shinobu’s diagnosis scared him.”

Sabito leans down into the space next to my ear. “The letter makes more sense now, at least. This morning, I received an invitation for you to officially visit his father. Should I come with you?”

Rengoku Shinjurō.

Wow.

Okay, then. This is going to be awkward to explain.

“Best not to. If he sees the head of the household then I’m pretty sure a fight’s going to break out.”

He pats my head. “Good luck. And if that motherfucker touches you, just remember that Giyuu and I will hunt him down to the ends of the earth and fillet his dick to feed it to the koi fish.”

Noted.

Sabito watches behind me, as I leave the courtyard with Kyōjurō. It’s a bit funny at first, because Kyōjurō’s eyes turn big once he realises why I was invited in the first place (which made him scratch his head quite a bit this morning, he says, wondering why his father was looking at him weirdly today), due to the misunderstanding, but it’s not so funny in the enduring silence of serious conversation and greeting his father in his own home.

My first thought upon seeing Rengoku Shinjurō is admiring his handsomeness. It's, well, really fucking weird to admit it, but Shinjurō looks exactly like his eldest son, but only older and more rugged. There are calluses on parts that don't form in youth, wrinkles and discoloration in his face, and a speckled, scruffy shave from neck to lip. 

The alcohol damage is less noticeable in the face of old beauty, but once I spot it, intrusive and invasive as always, I shrink away into myself and ignore all the burning self-hatred of my abilities. There have never been any rose tinted glasses for me. 

"So it was a misunderstanding by the Kōchō girl," Shinjurō says, after a rushed greeting and the haphazard explanation of well actually you see…

His voice barely holds any emotion.

"That is correct," Kyōjurō says. "But my feelings towards Makomo will remain steadfast despite the possibilities of the future. Will you continue the invite?"

We sit in a tea room in the centre of the main household. I've heard that Kyojuro's father barely leaves his room anymore, and the offer for a formal meeting is met with equal parts excitement and embarrassment from the reason contrived from falsehoods and misunderstanding. 

Shinjurō doesn't bother with the formal seating style of seiza. He lays sprawled across the mat, one leg bent outwards and his hands supporting his chin propped up against elbows on knees. Meanwhile, Kyōjurō and I uphold formal sitting, presenting our best selves to a man who has barely a care in the world. 

I think I get it now. I want him to get better, too.

"If you love her, then yes," Shinjurō says. The growly, chainsmoker voice lowers with each descending syllable.

This doesn't feel like a household of smiles, but yet, the father's words betray his uncouth fatigue. This is a man who lost his world. This is a man who wishes no regrets for the last remains of his family. He looks like watercress floating in the polluted Thames, drifting away with each addition of blackened sludge joining in from shore. Silver fish glance at him with pity.

The meeting doesn’t last very long, either out of his inability to keep his attention focused or his lack of hold over certain emotions. I see muscles flex, from a thigh and calf, as he stands up on creaking bones and saunters over towards a lower, hidden level of the estate. He barely knows who I am and it shows, because no polite convesation is made, inquiring of my health or otherwise. But he cares for his son and the idea of who I could be, in the future, once vows have been made.

Shinjurō explains something called the fire torch ritual. His voice is flying away, not really there, but grounding all at the same time. I can see the remnants of power and I could cry with him.

A long time ago, in the first era of demon slayers, the Rengoku warlord made his pregnant wife stare at a fire torch everyday for two hours so that his son would be given a blessing from Ameterasu. And lo and behold, a boy was born with fire hair and fire eyes. Magic does exist in this world, quietly so, and it manifests in these interesting times, befuddlingly so. The Rengoku wife gave birth again and again and again until she lost her vision from the arduous ritual and the wife and last child were killed for having black hair.

Besides me, Kyōjurō stills.

“Mother did not tell me that part of the story,” he says accusingly.

Shinjurō glares into the centre of the basement room, where a flickering, centuries old torch lives. It lights the room with unease. “It was never necessary to learn until now. You’re of marrying age now, boy, so today you can learn.”

I’d never given much thought into children. It’s a second priority to the craziness of my life – maybe in the future, I’d like one or two of them squealing little things, pink-faced and pretty. But when I do imagine them, I can’t see myself as just a mother to a different family’s name and legacy. The breath of fire is theirs, but the breath of storm is mine, carved into my own lungs from blood, sweat, and tears.

The emperor decreed that a married couple ought to take one name and one name only, a scant few years ago. There are still couples with separate family names – if Kyōjurō or his father take insult to my wanting to keep the Urokodaki name for myself, then they can shove it.

“I want to keep my name,” I say.

Both men look at me, then Kyōjurō looks to his father.

Shinjurō glances off, again, into the fire. “I don’t care,” he says emptily. “But the lesson is over now.”

And he leaves without a goodbye.

It’s a sad thing, desperation. He’s a felt maker, a martinee, a dog with no feet. He wants us to live the happy life that was stolen from him and everything makes sense.

My threads are all mangled up and knotted, bunched together uncomfortably close, with overlocking and overlapping layers and layers of material. I feel like a ball of felt. This is a playground extravaganza, except the uniform’s all felt and the tables and chairs are all felt and we’re falling into the fibres of disarray. 

Make a felt doll out of me, you savage craftsman.

Rengoku Shinjurō wants us to live so badly he would sell his soul for us. Whilst my opinions on his ability to be a father are here and there, under absolutely no circumstance can anyone question his love for his children. He wants us to live so badly it’s almost sad, in a hilariously morbid fashion. If I were anymore cruel I would laugh.

Unfortunately for him, our current passions appear to outweigh our lives. Kyōjurō is the type of person to sacrifice himself, no matter the circumstances. He’s the hero, the star, the masterpiece. He’s the archetype of light.

What a man, that.

But then there’s a common saying that everybody knows: the flame that burns twice as hot, burns half as long. Parents always warn their children with it, to not play around with candles and to keep a middling light and temperature, or else the energy will be all spent up. It’s a metaphor for life.

Everything’s a metaphor for life.

So I stare at the fire, the flickering red-gold, my betrothed Rengoku man, and then to my own pale, slender hands that are shaking in an emotion that takes a long time to recognise. And when I do recognise what I am feeling, it’s hours later, when I’m sitting on the engawa with Kyōjurō again, overlooking his mildly overgrown back garden on the east wing. I think it’s an era-appropriate household-supervised date. Most likely. Either way, there’s romance and sighs and fingers inching towards each other, begging to be held. I recognise what I am feeling and don’t enjoy the pain.

I am hurting and I want to disappear.

I think, whatever the definition of humanity is, this is the direct antithesis to it, and there is now no going back to a sane state of self; my youth has perished; perhaps, if I wished for a sign of adulthood, this is it, as the rage inside swells with the destruction of innocence. The luxury of time has abandoned me. I want to scream.

The four walls of reality close in on me. Until this moment, I’d never viewed reality as nothing more than a far-off concept, but now, it feels effervescent and present, pressing down inside and outside, bubbling up enough to be vomited up in a spiral of black-white hypnosis. Is this death? I’d forgotten how much it hurts. It hurts. There is nothing more terrible than the denial of humanity when the darkness is all I fear.

I realise, with startling clarity, that my story is telling me that Kyōjurō is going to die.

Chase me, fate taunts. Chase me all you want, you living dead girl.

Life has a future. Death does not. I should know death better than anyone – after all, I’ve smited death’s name, spat in its face, became a blasphemous creation from the depths of watery carcasses, emerging from forbidden pools. There’s nothing deeper than the bottom of the ocean, that a human can reach. The search for knowledge results in this hellscape – I should’ve known better than to unearth secrets that should be kept secret. Knowledge is power, knowledge is key, knowledge is fear.

This is my own undoing.

So, I suppose, the only thing to do now is embrace all the facets of life and hope that the heavens tether him in place long enough that the darkness forgets that it’s supposed to claim him.

“Let me love you,” I say. 

Kyōjurō takes a moment to turn his head, in obvious confusion. Confusion is for babies. He’s too old to be confused. His responsibilities lie beyond having the time to be confused. The clock is ticking. 

He hesitates. “I don’t understand.”

“Let me,” I say again, quieter. “Let me keep you, Kyōjurō. I want you to be selfish. Do everything you want to do to me.”

I see his throat bob. The adam’s apple. The thirst. The hunger.

“Where is this coming from?” He asks.

Let me love you. Let me hold you. Let me kiss you. 

We’re long past the midway point. I’m half expired by now. I want to be held in my rotting flesh with warmth that can carve past a legion of bacteria and filth. Hurt me. Kick me. Kiss me. Eat me. Lick me. Slap me. Fuck me.

“Nothing much,” I lie, because I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending. Desperation is for fools, and I must be the greatest fool of all. “Close your eyes.”

To survive is to acknowledge death and to tell it to fuck off.

I remove the mask first, then kiss his forehead, and I let my lips graze down the curves of his face, breathing delicately over his skin, until I tear away and slip the mask back on. Lovers in the night. Swans in a lake. Sunflowers smiling at each other. Please, God, let him be selfish enough to live.

Kyōjurō blinks his eyes open. “All that…” he says, quizzical. “...to kiss me?”

Would it be unfair to proposition him? Most likely, because he would, in good faith, say no to any premarital advances out of his strict code of honour, all whilst dying inside from a horrible case of blue balls. 

“Yes,” I say. “You’re fun to tease.”

He doesn’t respond, instead staring curiously and intensely, most likely recognising the absence of a full truth. Despite being denser than a brick most times, he’s surprisingly good with delicate emotions, knowing when to keep quiet and when to smile bravely and forge on against all odds. The evening is warm with him next to me, the perfect companion, as I charge forward with my life and destiny in my own hands, grasping tightly at the reins.

The reason I am still alive is to bask in the light. I’ll sit on my sunrock, stubbornly, and drag everyone into the warmth with me, at the expense of my own ability to feel. I refuse to be dragged around – there are wants, and there are goals.

Life is the goalie. Who is the scorekeeper? What is the ball?

I receive a letter a few days after the disastrous Hashira meeting from Kuwajima that says he’s visiting Urokodaki soon. It’s about time that I’ve visited my father and teacher, those who cured me into sanity, and in between mission requests I take a trip to the mountain. There are many things that I’ve realised since I last saw these adults, with and without nostalgia, because I’m the precious daughter, all grown up.

“It’s been some time,” Urokodaki says. “I heard–.”

“I heard everyone thought you got knocked up by the Rengoku kid,” Kuwajima butts in, laughing. “How’s that courtship going for you?”

These old coots, I swear…

“Well,” I say, stretching my fingers out. “Terribly awkward. How’s your arthritis going?’

We’re sitting around a pot of stew in the heart of the mountain house. The scent of miso and boiled vegatables fills the air and if I had any less self-control, I’d be salivating like a dog right now. There’s a sleeping demon girl in the corner and a teenage boy by my side who’s much bulkier than the last time I met him.

Kuwajima viciously slanders my snippiness and I ignore him to fill a bowl of rice for Tanjirō. He thanks me profusely for the rice, fingers shaking from an exhausting day of katana exercises, and politely waits to dig in once everyone else gets their meal.

“You’re getting married, senpai? Congratulations!” Tanjirō exclaims with bright eyes. 

He’s way too happy to be a real person, wow.

“You can use my name,” I say. “I make my brothers call me senpai as a joke, not because I think I’m in a higher position or anything. But– thank you.”

He nods, a touch spaced out, and devours an entire bowl in seconds.

Urokodaki exhales something fierce and lowers the ladle. “The Rengoku kid – Sabito and Giyuu approve of him. How does he treat you?”

Ah, yes. The precious daughter, returning home, and my annoying dads are pestering me for every single detail about my new beau, searching to see if he truly deserves to be with me. I suppose this is a part of growing up, too, as they’re preparing to send me away into another household. But no matter, I’ll still keep my name. It’s the first gift I’ve received in this world that I’ve ever truly thought of as my own.

When dinner ends, Urokodaki and Kuwajima finally stop asking me questions about Kyōjurō, and instead bug each other for old war stories by the fire, next to sleeping demon.

Tanjirō asks to talk to me outside and watch the sunset.

And when I speak with the boy, I come to understand two simple facts.

I realise, again, with startling clarity, that my story is telling me to die. But I also realise that my life is my own, and not even the storm can take me down when I’m in control, standing on the clouds of angels.

What happens is, I speak with Tanjirō that evening, as we sit on a cliff edge off the side of the mountain, overlooking a valley of dark, pine forests. He is made of tapered strokes and overlapping ellipses, in perfect form of renaissance artistry. The dying sun glows so harshly that it paints him in chiaroscuro, of blinding presence and deep outlines that cut against the backdrop. There are many colours that make up Kamado Tanjirō, and I can see them all.

What majestic beauty.

“Makomo-san,” he starts, then hesitates. I’ve never met someone with a voice so kind. “Can you tell me what you think of my sister?”

Ah. Insecurities galore.

“I wouldn’t know – I’ve never interacted with her.”

He chews his lower lip. “I heard from Urokodaki-san that the demon slayer higher-ups recently held a meeting about her existence,” he says. “Would it be too much to ask if you have any information about their thoughts?”

Does he not know?

“I was at the meeting,” I say. “As a higher-up. We’re called Hashira, you know. ”

Any potential embarressment is thrown out of the window with the boy’s desire for information on his sister’s potential fate. He asks how the meeting went, what the corps thinks of the demon girl, and whether or not anyone has researched a cure for her condition yet.

“She’s my sister,” he says, begs, pleads, mourns. “She didn’t eaten anyone. She’s been asleep for almost two years now and hasn’t hurt a soul – they can… they’re not going to kill her, are they? She hasn’t done anything.”

“Oyakata-sama has approved the continued safety of the Kamado family,” I quote back to him. “But I can’t speak for the feelings of others.”

And this is when it gets tricky.

This is because Tanjirō, the boy of high hopes and dreams, asks if I think his sister is still human.

She’s not; objectively speaking, the girl is a demon, thirsting after human flesh and horror alike; the monster not only exists in her hunger, but in the metaphysical and spiritual form of her own body, having warped the delicate rosebud fingernails into monstrous claws and gummy smile into wolf teeth. But what does it mean to be human? Is it biological? Is it a mindset? Is it a strong enough desire inside oneself? 

“I don’t know how to quantify a human,” I say, vines growing from my insides and penetrating each squishy organ in defiance of the natural world. “But to be human is to be alive. To bask in the presence of life and to reach out with both hands for the future. Do you think she can still enjoy life, Kamado Tanjirō?”

To be human is an increasingly complex topic of life, death, and human experiences. It’s not just one or the other, it’s all three.

“I want her to,” he says.

There is no continuation, in his despair.

But then he asks about my family. I don’t see how the two topics are related in any way, but we’ll get to that later. 

“My family was eaten by demons,” I say. 

Tanjirō frowns in sympathy. “Did you have any siblings, Makomo-san? A younger sibling that you have to protect, no matter what?”

Because that’s what Nezuko is to him, I completely understand. But what does that have to do with…

Oh.

I try not to remember. It’s difficult to breach that kind of question without an abudance of people-skills, and I tend to surround myself with those who are lacking it. There were two lovers in embrace, yes, but there was one more, hidden from sight. There have only been brief mentions of his name in my past memories, and the guilt eats away at my heart.

I’m a coward.

What was his name supposed to be? I don’t want to say it out loud, because saying it out loud would make it real again, and reality is often the most frightening part of existence.

But then again, denial has always been my forte. Let’s switch things up now, in the name of progress and hope for the future, because the only way to be better is to heal. Catharsis exists, and so does the neverending regret of childhood blusters raging on till adulthood. There are things I want to say to an unborn, forgotten brother, and things I want him to say to me. 

I think there are many emotions swelling up inside, namely guilt. I haven’t thought about death as much as I should’ve, being a product of the overarching darkness that exists before and after the infinitesimally small period of light, as I’ve pushed away the memories that hurt too much. Out of guilt and horror and rage and passion. These emotions were so visceral that I immediately clung to the creation of a new family, a new structure, a new order in a world of confusion and chaos. 

This is my coming of age. This is my bildungsroman. This is my story.

I will not forget the beginning. After all, the beginning foretells the end, and it would be quite a shame to be caught off guard over such easy things. I can be a precocious little nine year old girl and a seventeen year old on the cusp of maturity – these two realities can coexist together. I am Makomo; I am growing up; I am my thoughts, words, and actions.

Sei.

His name was Sei.

“Not anymore,” I tell Tanjirō. “And I’m the younger sibling to Sabito and Giyuu, you see.”

He then rambles on about his family, his younger siblings, his mother and father. I lend an ear, because that’s what’ll help him heal. Lend me your weary heart, strange traveller.

But I’m distracted throughout, due to the mentions of what it means to be human. Am I human, when I’m so sensually touched by death, over and over again? 

Death is continuously trying to take from me, to curse me for me blasphemous existence. Death reminds me of my fallibility by carving an unforgettable scar into my person. I’m weakened by death. Death keeps trying to throw me back into the ocean, but I’ve resisted only through the facets of life – love, friends, family, and wanting to see the future.

I don’t want to die.

Red flags, red flags, the world screams. I don’t belong here, in this present, but I persist because despite it all, I am still human.