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Chapter Text

Urokodaki says, “Do you think about Sabito?” 

Giyuu keeps his eyes on the burning hearth. He answers, “Sometimes,” because saying he never stops thinking about him would earn follow-up questions laced with terms like “concerned” and “time off” and “all right”. 

The only time Sabito leaves Giyuu is in Giyuu’s dreams. Even then, his most recurring dream is of Sabito: they are standing in a clearing on Mt. Fujikasane, and Sabito’s eyes in the half light are unseeing. He holds out a shard of the boulder that he had cut, and says, “Giyuu, can we bring it back to life?” 

Urokodaki must suspect Giyuu is lying, because all he says is, “Let’s have dinner.” 

And it’s good, sitting there with his old master and eating rice porridge that sears the roof of his mouth, their knees knocking together. Giyuu has missed the feeling of people entering his space, not out of disrespect, but out of history. Out of ease. 

With his haori and nichiren blade out of sight for the first time in five years, he can imagine that he is thirteen again, finding surety in Sabito’s hand clasped in his. (Sabito habitually forgot to cut his nails, and they would leave tiny half moons in Giyuu’s palm.) 

Sabito’s mask takes shape in the spitting fire, and flickers away, and Giyuu cannot be sure he saw it at all. His whole body aches with the wish that he could live in a world with Sabito in it, even if they were not friends, even if they never spoke. 

Urokodaki hands him a cup and a bottle that smells of acrid rice wine and says, “Free for a fellow Water Pillar. Don’t take more than a few sips.”

They finish the bottle. 

***

Giyuu bleeds out on his back, with Akaza’s disintegrating ribcage blurring in and out of focus. 

Tanjiro is hunched above Giyuu, shouting something, his eyes huge, but Giyuu cannot hear him. Giyuu’s face grows wet, but the feeling is soon lost. There is no pain. There is nothing at all. He watches, as if through a window fogged with old dirt, as Tanjiro rips off a strip of his haori, balls it up, and presses it to Giyuu’s stomach.  

Tanjiro is not unharmed, but he is alive, and this is the best Giyuu could have done. This is the only way Giyuu will accept death. He has already robbed the world of Sabito; with him alive, Muzan may have been long defeated. 

He has overstayed his welcome. Tanjiro will manage the rest. 

***

The scent of azaleas. Gravel pricking into his cheek. A line of ants marching along the dirt.

“Didn’t I,” Giyuu thinks, “die?” He sits up, pats himself down, and frowns. Wrapped around him is an undyed, scratchy kimono and a hakama. His Demon Slayer garb and nichiren blade are missing. 

He hauls himself to his feet, ignoring the dizziness that sweeps him. His wounds have all disappeared. When he checks under his kimono, he finds no scars from the fight with Akaza, though older ones have remained, even the first one he ever got: a puckered, diagonal slash across his diaphragm. Demon. The same night Tsutako was dismembered.

This is not the afterlife.

He looks around. Mountains, hulking into the sky, quasi-familiar. Branches scratching in the soft wind. The first licks of sunlight on flat, tattered clouds. Tanjiro, the Demon Slayers, Muzan: nowhere. The road stretches down the mountainside and disappears into the gloom. Giyuu starts to trudge along it. Without his haori, his skin pebbles. Without his blade, he twitches at every rustle and creak.  

He will find a village or town, and get his bearings, and return to –

To where?

Is Tanjiro alive? Is anyone alive? 

He stops, regulating his breathing and dabbing at his forehead with his kimono. There is no sense in overthinking. For a moment, he allows the shrill song of the crickets to crest over him. 

It is a presence, not a sound, that makes him turn around.

The scar must tilt differently. The eyes must be blue, not lilac. It is a Blood Demon Art, or a doppelganger, or a ghost. Giyuu gropes for his sword, remembers he does not have it. His underarms itch with sweat.  

The line of the man’s mouth is hard. His Demon Slayer uniform is buttoned to the collar. “Everything all right, sir?” He talks abruptly, like he can’t bring himself to ignore someone who might be in trouble, but is still in a hurry and wishes he could be on his way. 

Giyuu sinks down to his knees. He thinks of the snap of tendons pulled apart. He thinks of the crack of a wooden mask split down the middle. He wonders how fresh a corpse must be to be reanimated. 

“Hey.” The man’s voice is deep, husky. It swallows the whole mountain. “Are you hurt?” 

Between Giyuu’s ears an avalanche kicks off with rocks the size of toolsheds and they keep crashing. 

A hand cups the back of his head, and something cool presses against Giyuu’s mouth. “Drink,” says the man, tilting the bottle. Giyuu gulps down water, sputters and coughs. 

“I’m Sabito.” The man puts away the bottle and kneels. Just outside Giyuu’s space. “Now, I believe you have me at a disadvantage.” 

If Giyuu tells the truth, he will sound insane. But he does not care. He wants to say, Giyuu, my name is Tomioka Giyuu. Did you know me? Do you know me? So he does. He grabs Sabito’s upper arms, and they are tough as tree roots, and Giyuu wants to skate his hands over them, over the calluses that have no doubt made a home on his palms. Sabito’s brows tick, but he does not rear back or flinch. 

Giyuu says his name, with all the breath in his chest.

No sound comes from his throat. 

He tries again. And again. 

Sabito’s expression is growing increasingly puzzled. He pries Giyuu’s fingers off him. “It appears you can’t speak right now. Don’t worry, I’ll still find a way to help you. Can you point in the direction of your home? Hey, breathe. Do you need more water?” He takes Giyuu’s shoulders, gives him a little shake, and says, “Focus on me, on me, that’s right. Now, point to three types of trees. There we go, good.” He continues in this vein, until Giyuu no longer feels like his brain is about to ooze out of his ears.

“Do you know where to go from here?”

Giyuu shakes his head. He strokes his throat with a trembling hand. 

He would head straight to Master Ubuyashiki, but he has no way of knowing if the Ubuyashiki mansion is where it was in his timeline, and no way of asking otherwise. He does not even know if the Demon Slayer Corps is organised the same way; the Master could be someone else. 

Sabito hums. His haori is covered in that green-and-yellow block pattern – there is not a stitch of red on it. Giyuu’s chest hurts. Who is Sabito’s closest friend? Where is Makomo?

Did Tomioka Giyuu ever exist in this world? 

“It’s not a good idea to be around me. Whether you believe it or not, my job is to hunt demons – ” 

Giyuu nods calmly. People tend to react with disbelief, which can be frustrating and lead to bodies piling up. 

Sabito’s shoulders relax somewhat. “It’s dangerous. I can protect you, but only for now. As soon as I can, I will direct you to a place where you can be taken care of.”

Giyuu does not need to be taken care of – he needs a brush and paper and a nichirin blade. 

“Stop making that face. A man doesn’t complain.” Giyuu had almost forgotten; Sabito often spoke like he was reading out of a rulebook, like he thought it would help others memorise the things he found sacred. 

Giyuu starts to count to ten. He gets to four before he sends a prayer of patience to the gods. 

“I’m timebound, so I can’t stop for long. You’ll have to keep up. My destination is Mt. Kumotori.”

Giyuu goes still. Mt. Kumotori is where Tanjiro used to live. 

Shuffles mark this timeline – late spring, not winter, Sabito, not Giyuu – but if the world has not shifted immensely, it should be the second year of the Taisho era, or thereabouts. 

Sabito has gone ahead. He looks back – something he might not have done if he had thought Giyuu capable of speaking. “Don’t get left behind!” 

They keep a brisk pace. As the light grows stronger, Sabito’s form crispens: his hair has darkened from peach to russet, and a barely discernible scar bisects his upper lip. His skin had never been delicate, but it is more sun-weathered now, with fine, premature lines around his mouth and eyes, like the work of a light sketch. He moves as if he is above what anyone else says about him. Giyuu thinks of a great lone serow he saw when he was twelve, picking its way slowly through a crust of snow down the mountainside; it had stopped and looked right at him with old dark eyes, and it had seemed a god, or a divine sign.  

Sabito is silent like that serow. Giyuu keeps hoping that he will say, You look like an old friend of mine or You seem familiar , but he only maintains his easy, assured stride. 

They break their fast seated atop a moss-mottled pine log. Sabito brings out skewers of salt-grilled fish, and Giyuu gazes at them till Sabito frowns, after which Giyuu takes one quickly. 

When he had first arrived at Urokodaki’s house, salt-grilled fish was the first thing they had eaten. Or, Giyuu, who was not hungry and whose stomach had always turned at the look of the fish, refused to eat them, and Sabito jumped up, almost knocking over the table, and said, “You should be grateful you’re getting food at all. We should make you gut and scale the fish yourself to appreciate the work that goes into it.”

Urokodaki, perhaps feeling sorry for Giyuu, grunted from his seat, “It’s fine, I’ve got some porridge.”

But Sabito leapt over the table, grabbed Giyuu by the front of his oversized kimono, and shook him like a sack of coal. His eyes glowed in the firelight. “You won’t disrespect Master Urokodaki. We’re settling this with our fists.” 

It proved to be too much for Giyuu, who was still wobbly from the loss of his sister, and he curled up into a ball and covered his ears with his hands. Urokodaki swept Giyuu outside, rubbing his back, and Giyuu clung to him like a monkey, howling. 

Two evenings later, Sabito marched up to Giyuu, who was crouched beneath a pine tree and doodling a fox in the snow with a stick, and shoved a rice ball at him. “You’re,” he ground out, “all right with this, no? It’s salmon.” Giyuu suspected that Urokodaki had had words with Sabito, but accepted the rice ball, and said salmon was his favourite. 

They slept hand in sticky hand that night. 

Giyuu still does not enjoy salt-grilled fish, but he will not say no to it. As he eats, his stomach settles and his thoughts slow down. Sabito demolishes his fish in a few bites and starts to pace when he finds that Giyuu is not halfway done. Dust browns his socks.

Giyuu stops chewing. He looks at the road. Of course; he has been foolish. All he needs is a stick, or even his finger. He can write out his name and where he comes from and ask everything he wants to ask and – 

Sabito’s brow is crimped. His fingers curl and uncurl. 

Giyuu swallows his fish and it goes down as an aching lump.

No, he should wait. Sabito is impatient to cull the threat he has been informed of; Giyuu should not compromise the mission. There will be time enough for explanations later. 

He makes himself finish his food. 

Around noon, they halt at a fork in the road. Deep grey clouds are closing over the sky. Sabito says, “I’m going to start running. You follow the path over there down to the base of Mt. Sagiri. You’ll find a man named Urokodaki Sakonji. I’ll give you my – ” 

Giyuu is shaking his head. He makes a swoop with his hand to indicate, Let’s run together . He is not worried about Tanjiro or Nezuko – this world is as it was meant to be, with Sabito’s breath mingling with the air, Sabito’s feet patterning the earth. It is only that he does not want to separate from Sabito. Not again. 

Sabito’s unruly eyebrows go right up. “You’re not understanding. If you are in the vicinity of a demon, it will kill you.”

Giyuu repeats his gesture. 

“I am going to run fast, and for a decent distance. There’s a difference between being a man and not knowing your limits.”

Giyuu taps his foot and stares at him hard.

Sabito bristles, looking like he wants to knock Giyuu out cold, but cannot because that would mean leaving Giyuu senseless in a place that is strange to him. “If you see or hear something odd, let me know at once. Just. Tug on my sleeve, or something.” 

Sabito was not lying; he is swift, a fast-moving current. In their races, Giyuu would always have a view of his back. Sabito never slowed his pace, even when Giyuu wheezed and tripped and called his name. Only after winning would he turn around, flushed and grinning, and say, “Come on, I’m waiting!” 

Even now, Giyuu almost has trouble keeping up. He hides a smile as they run together, well-matched, a fresh coldness in his lungs and the wind carding through his hair. His fading shadow dances over the foliage. 

Sabito glances at him, lips parted, as if he’s seeing him for the first time. “Are you a distance runner?”

Giyuu keeps his eyes on the road. 

“You’ve been quiet for a long time now. Is it that you can’t speak at all?”

Giyuu is not sure of that himself. He does not know if the reason is Blood Demon Art, or injury, or some form of magic. He does not know if it is reversible. He swallows the sourness filming his mouth and shrugs, and Sabito scowls at him. 

By the time they reach Mt. Kumotori, the clouds have thickened, threatening rain. Sabito clasps Giyuu’s shoulder and says, “Stay behind me. Do not wander off or try to fight. I will not have your death on my conscience.”

I already have yours on mine, Giyuu wants to snap. 

Sabito points west. “I hear voices,” and Giyuu starts, realising that he can just about makes them out, shrill and frenzied.  

They rush towards the sound.

It is the same as in Giyuu’s memory. Tanjiro, on his back, shouting. Nezuko, above him, unmoving, like a puppet. A weight in Giyuu’s chest lifts; he wants to gather them into his arms, tell Tanjiro that they will be fine. Once Tanjiro becomes a Demon Slayer, Sabito can train him; Giyuu pictures Sabito jostling Tanjiro awake before dawn for an unplanned run, telling him to stabilise his core, inviting him over to make rice balls once they are done for the day, breathless and grass-stained. 

Sabito shoots towards Nezuko, putting the full weight of his torso into his strike. Giyuu flinches when his blade slices through Tanjiro’s hair, almost taking off part of his scalp – had it really been that close a shave, back then? He waits for Sabito to hang back, to ask why Tanjiro protected her. Once the scene plays out, they can go back to the Corps Headquarters, and communicate this mess to the Master, and Giyuu can sit with Sabito and listen to him talk about the life he has built for himself. 

Sabito does not pause to examine the siblings. He does not pay attention to Tanjiro, who is tottering and shouting, “Who are you?” He does not make to drag away Nezuko. 

He dashes forward, his blade glinting. 

Giyuu does not think about moving. 

His body collides into Sabito’s, and then they are landing hard on the forest floor, rolling and grunting. The smell of scarlet crimson ore is in Giyuu’s nose. Sabito’s face is murderous. For a moment, Giyuu is paralysed, and the world is icy, endless lilac. A memory flickers, distant, without sound: Urokodaki’s house. Giyuu eyeing the slats in the dark window and whispering, What if the demons come? Sabito saying, Then we fight, and lifting his blanket for Giyuu to crawl in.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sabito snarls. He swings a vicious hook at Giyuu’s jaw. Giyuu blocks it with his forearm and his teeth rattle. 

Time, he needs time. Tanjiro has to take Nezuko and run. 

He knees Sabito between the legs. 

Sabito grunts and curls up, and Giyuu leaps to his feet and puts some distance between them, his back bumping against a rough tree trunk. Tanjiro and Nezuko are gone –  good boy – and Giyuu takes a moment to reorient himself and fall into a fighting stance. 

Sabito struggles to stand up. Strands of frizzy hair have fallen over his face like weeds. His eyes are wild, his teeth bared. “You,” he says lowly, “were sent here to hinder me, weren’t you? You’re one of Muzan’s men.” 

Giyuu shakes his head frantically. He is going to die twice in as many days. 

Sabito lunges at him, swinging his sword in a downward arc.

Giyuu’s hands slap together against the blade. 

Sabito’s eyes bug, and Giyuu snaps the sword in half before Sabito can recover. The pieces clatter to the ground. 

Giyuu pants harshly, sweat soaking his clothes. He has only stopped a sword with his hands twice in his life: once in a practice match against Shinazugawa, and once in a practice match against Urokodaki on an anniversary of Sabito’s death. He rubs circles in his sternum; it is firm and whole, firm and whole. 

Sabito’s jaw is slack. “Who are you?” he murmurs. 

Giyuu sucks his teeth. He tries to mouth his name clearly, slowly. To-mi-o-ka Giyuu. Gi-yuu. He pleads with his eyes, hoping Sabito will pay more attention than when Giyuu tried telling him before. 

His back is slammed to the ground. All the breath is knocked out of his lungs. A hand crushes his neck and he chokes. “How dare you say his name,” Sabito hisses. “How dare you use it to deceive me.” He’s got Giyuu’s arms pinned, one with a knee, the other with his other hand.

Tears are sliding into Giyuu’s hair. 

“Where did you hear that name?” Sabito is demanding. The hand around Giyuu’s neck tightens. Stars burst across his vision. He kicks out impotently. “I know you can talk, you filthy little rat.” He loosens his grip, just enough for Giyuu to suck in a thin string of air and hack his throat raw. When Giyuu opens his eyes he finds the splintered end of Sabito’s blade pricking against his belly; blood has already bloomed on his kimono. 

Sabito’s hand on the hilt is steady. “I advise you to choose your words carefully.” He could not have always been this difficult to reason with. Giyuu’s body goes lax as he searches Sabito’s furious expression. 

Sabito will not help Tanjiro. He will not direct him and Nezuko to Urokodaki. 

In this world, Muzan’s arm might stretch long into the future.

Giyuu’s stomach ties into a knot. He does not want to dwell on the implications of that – that it was always meant to be Sabito who died. 

Impossible. Ridiculous. There is no world in which Sabito’s worth weighs less than Giyuu’s. 

His palms sting, and he relaxes his fists. Tanjiro, he has to stay alive for Tanjiro, at least until the Demon Slayer Corps accept him. 

Sabito is tilting his head. He presses his blade farther into Giyuu’s stomach, and Giyuu hisses, but does not move; if Sabito startles, he might slit Giyuu open on a knee-jerk reflex. At length, Sabito retracts his sword. “You really are a mute,” he says with some disbelief. “Since you can’t tell me your circumstances, I won’t kill you, though it goes against my better judgement.” He steps off and away. 

Giyuu rolls to his side and covers his face. In, four. Hold, seven. Release, eight. Repeat. The birds are screaming. He stands up on shaking legs, watching as Sabito wraps the shards of his blade in a cloth he’d been using to carry food and says, “You’re not going to let me find those siblings, are you?” 

Giyuu would rather lick the soles of his own sandals than get in another tussle, but if it comes down to it, he will, until he faints or is killed.

Sabito puts away the cloth. “I’m taking you to our headquarters, where you will be questioned. I don’t know who you are, but you almost went toe-to-toe with me, and you seem to have some connection to demons.” He narrows his eyes. “Don’t think you’ll be let off easy – if you fail to explain yourself properly, you will be executed.”

Giyuu presses down on his belly, where Sabito had cut him.

Sabito’s face is a stone. “You stopped me from decapitating that demon. She’ll kill people, and it will be your fault.” He buries his face in his hand, says, “My fault, too,” and curses softly. 

If Giyuu took Sabito’s hand, would it be damp with his breath?

“If she takes the life of even one person, I will kill her, you, and myself. I will not make our deaths painless.”

Giyuu’s heart pulses into his throat. Tanjiro and Nezuko are safe for now, but he does not know where they have gone, or where they will go. The search for them could take months. Years. By the time he is cleared by the Corps – if he is cleared – they could be all the way in Hokkaido. They could be seeping nutrients down in the soil. 

An image comes to him: stealing supplies, glancing at the closed doors of the Water Pillar Estate, slinking out on a moonless night with only the persistent dryness in his mouth as company. Blisters cracking open on his feet as he walks and walks. 

Sabito snaps his fingers beneath Giyuu’s nose. “Look sharp, we’re heading to the town in the valley for the night. You will remain within my sight. If you try to run, I’ll break your legs.”

It’s the kind of thing that should make Giyuu want to retreat somewhere alone and meditate for an hour, but instead he feels removed from Sabito’s words, as if Sabito is a fever dream, or Giyuu is a fever dream in Sabito’s head. 

They begin their march down the steep incline. Along the way the path thins into barely a path: loose rocks, gravel. Nothing to steady yourself against. 

Unlike Giyuu, Sabito does not stumble even once. “At worst, you are with our enemy. At best, you require guidance. You need someone to show you how the world of demons is laid out.”

Chapter Text

Sabito buys a rope and knots Giyuu’s wrists behind his back right before they reach the Ubuyashiki Estate. When Giyuu tugs, his skin burns. 

“They won’t be happy if they see you walking free.” Sabito is not looking at Giyuu. He hasn’t looked at Giyuu in the eye since they began their shamble down Mt. Kumotori, though he sometimes glanced at him, frowning deeply, when Giyuu was focused on something else, like untangling his hair from its hemp cord or plucking burs out of his kimono. 

Two days ago, Giyuu had tried to usher Sabito towards a ramen shop, because they’d been eating nothing but dried fish and rice balls and he thought Sabito’s mood could have been improved by something hot and toothsome. But Sabito curled his lip at the shop and said, “We’re not here for pleasure, and I’m not indulging you.”

They enter the courtyard. Butterflies are swarming the bushes, looping around the trees. One weaves out of Sabito’s way as he marches Giyuu towards the Pillars, who are gathered by the porch. Giyuu notes with mild surprise that, barring himself, the lineup is identical – he realises he had expected that one or two Pillars would be different, that Makomo herself would be donning the gold buttons. Perhaps she refused the position for some reason he cannot place. She must still be high in the ranks. 

Rengoku bellows a welcome, the afternoon sunlight haloing his hair. Once, after his death, when Giyuu had been getting salmon daikon, the whiskered man on the seat next to him proclaimed, “Delicious,” and Giyuu got up and scampered away, leaving his bowl three-quarters unfinished. 

Everyone’s eyes are on Sabito. Almost everyone wears a smile or half smile. Tengen rocks Sabito by the shoulders and Sabito says, “I’ve told you a hundred times not to do that,” but does not bat Tengen’s hands away. 

Tengen laughs. “I’ll still be doing it when your hair’s all fallen out.”  

Giyuu shrinks against a nearby pine tree. He had rarely initiated conversation with the other Pillars, and brushed off their attempts to speak to him; after a while they stopped inviting him for after-dinner drinks. “It’s only right,” Giyuu thought to himself. 

Shinazugawa swaggers up to them and puts his hands on his hips. “Thanks for the delivery, Sabito. I get dibs on cutting off his head.” 

“My crow should have told you that we’re here to talk,” says Sabito, rolling his shoulder. It cracks. He must have slept during their travels, but he’d be meditating when Giyuu nodded off at night, and staring into some elsewhere when Giyuu woke. Whether it was from insomnia or suspicion, Giyuu does not know, but he felt guilty and ended up sleeping only in fits and starts himself. Now his eyes are burning. 

Shinazugawa grips the hilt of his sword. “What’s there to talk about? He hindered a Pillar and defended a demon. Or did your crow deliver the wrong message?”

Sabito rolls his shoulder again, looking past Shinazugawa. 

Shinazugawa turns to Giyuu. “This pansy-ass looking bastard gave you a hard time? We should demote you.” He leans close enough for Giyuu to smell the tea on his breath. “Hear that? The Water Pillar seat might be vacant.”

Not while Sabito lives, Giyuu thinks, a little gleefully. 

“What’s the matter? He stupid or something?”

Giyuu reminds himself that head-butting Shinazugawa would be beckoning death with a finger. For Tanjiro, he thinks. For Tanjiro.

Sabito says, “He’s mute.”

“Eh? How do you know?”

“I threatened to kill him and he didn’t talk.”

“Maybe you didn’t threaten him well enough.” Shinazugawa unsheathes his blade. 

“Shinazugawa,” Kocho warns. But neither she nor anyone else makes a move to stop him.  

The Demon Slayer Corps, Giyuu thinks, has a serious empathy problem. He has known it since he joined the Corps, in an abstract, murky way, but the thought first crystallised when almost every Pillar was willing to execute a fifteen-year-old boy without trial, or to watch. Giyuu had stood there, dazed, thinking, Surely not, someone is going to say stop, someone is going to, someone is, and ended up hoping Iguro wouldn’t draw his sword on him. 

Shinazugawa crowds against Giyuu, but Giyuu barely shifts his eyes. Shinazugawa never reacts well to displays of fear or hesitation. 

“What’s that dead-fish stare?” The tip of Shinazugawa’s blade pricks Giyuu’s shoulder. “The Pillars not impressive enough for you?”

“Stop that,” Sabito snaps.

Shinazugawa rams his blade forward, pinning Giyuu to the tree. Giyuu’s mouth falls open in a silent cry. 

Sabito is grasping at Shinazugawa’s haori, shouting at him. He does not push or jostle him, casting a helpless look at Shinazugawa's sword. 

Giyuu’s shoulder is a wildfire. The back of his head cracks against the tree trunk. Black dots explode across his vision, and his breath gets shorter with every draw. 

Shinazugawa makes a considering sound. He twists his blade, slowly.

Giyuu blacks out. 

When he comes to, the sun lances his eyes. His knees scuff the gravel. His back is against the tree. His kimono tacks to him, sticky, warm. Kocho is crouched before him, staunching his wound with Sabito’s haori; she has cut his ropes. 

Sabito is red-faced, fisting the collar of Shinazugawa’s uniform. He sounds like he is speaking underwater. “You’re pathetic. Hurting a man who’s already restrained. Have you no shame?”

“So he’s a mute!” Shinazugawa yells, sword still in his hand. “We know for sure now!”

Rengoku’s cheerful holler punches in. “As much as I dislike Shinazugawa’s method, I think it’s a valid one!”

“I. Don’t,” Sabito grinds out, looking like he wants to bash Rengoku and Shinazugawa’s skulls together.

Someone has placed a nail against Giyuu’s head and is slowly tapping it in with a hammer. Kocho is saying, “You’re lucky that your subclavian artery is intact. We’ll get that disinfected and sewn up.” The courtyard spins. “Let’s take you to the infirma – oh.”

Giyuu almost does not catch Ubuyashiki Kagaya being led onto the porch by one of his daughters.

Kocho slings an arm around Giyuu and hauls him to where all the other Pillars are lining up to kneel, and he clenches up to suppress the nausea. It has been a long time since anyone stabbed him through; he had almost forgotten the heat, the blowtorch intensity of it. 

He folds on one knee beside Sabito, holding his haori to his shoulder and breathing harshly through gritted teeth. Ubuyashiki must hear him, because he turns to Giyuu and says, “And I assume this is the man who stopped Sabito from killing a demon? Does our intrepid guest have a name?”

Sabito raises his head, and looks like he is about to stand up. “He lied and said – indicated – that he is Tomioka Giyuu, a late friend of mine.”

“Does he look anything like your friend?”

Sabito glances at Giyuu. He says, “Hard to tell. Lots of people with dark hair and dark eyes,” and looks away. 

Shinazugawa snorts.

Ubuyashiki’s silence is oppressive in its patience. When Sabito speaks again, he sounds like a man who is certain he will never see the sun again. “Giyuu had a kind face.”

Giyuu’s heart lurches, and he sways. The courtyard is spinning again. In his mind, Sabito holds out a rock and says, Can we bring it back to life? 

Ubuyashiki tilts his head. “And you can’t reconcile that with this person.”

Sabito closes his eyes, just for a moment – it could almost be a blink. “I would know Giyuu even if he came to me disguised. I would know him if he came to me a demon.” 

The wind has tailed off; sweat creeps along Giyuu’s thighs and throat. The gravel beneath Kocho’s sandals crunches like bones as she shifts. At the edge of the line, Himejima warbles Namu amida butsu and it echoes in the crevices of Giyuu’s teeth. 

Ubuyashiki says, “Is that why you think this man was trying to deceive you? Could it not be that that Tomioka Giyuu is simply also his name?”

“Giyuu is not a name I have heard elsewhere.”

A bluebottle butterfly descends on the tip of Ubuyashiki’s ear. Flutters away. “Perhaps it was hasty to rule out the possibility.” 

Sabito dips his head, but looks unrepentant.

“Now, then. Mr. Tomioka, was it? It is good to meet you. Hinaki, what is his condition?”

“Bleeding from a stab wound that Shinazugawa seems to have given him.”

“I apologise for the rough welcome, Mr. Tomioka. Are you able to read and write?”

Giyuu nods, and Ubuyashiki Hinaki says, “He indicates yes.” 

“Excellent. Shinobu, please have him taken to the Butterfly Mansion to treat his wounds and give him a meal. Once that is done, Mr. Tomioka, I would like to communicate with you regarding who you are and what you know. Hinaki will also be there to interpret for me. This meeting is adjourned.” 

Giyuu stands up on legs he cannot feel. The blowtorch is gone, and now he shivers and daydreams of a blanket. He watches as Sabito bows and walks stiffly away, as Tengen and Rengoku come up to flank him, to pester him to join them for the midday meal. “I’m thinking ramen,” Tengen says, and Sabito shrugs. 

***

Giyuu conveys everything of importance in writing. He had hoped that Kocho would be able to fix him, but during the checkup, she shook her head. Said that she couldn't identify what caused Giyuu's muteness. That she couldn't fix him.

A neat stack of paper starts to pile up as Ubuyashiki and Hinaki inundate him with questions. Giyuu is itching to pause and ask where Makomo is, but it seems ill-timed, and he would rather hear it from Sabito; he had not raised the topic with him before because every time he touched on something that they must have shared, Sabito tensed as if expecting a slap. 

Ink taps onto the page beneath his hand as he hesitates at the Mugen Train incident; if they avoid Rengoku’s death, they will have more firepower in the fight against Muzan, but Giyuu has no way of guaranteeing that it will not somehow make things worse. 

“You are doing as much as you can.” Ubuyashiki’s voice is seafoam, but it still knocks Giyuu off-kilter by the ankles. “The corps will decide what to do with the information you supply us with. What happens after does not rest on your shoulders alone.” 

Giyuu’s nail scrapes over the handle of his brush. He will grieve Ubuyashiki Kagaya in every reality. 

By the time Giyuu wraps up, the sun is touching the treeline. 

Ubuyashiki thanks him, and then says, “Hinaki, have some fresh tea brought in. I do not think our guest even touched his cup. And bring Sabito here as well.” 

Giyuu’s stitches pull as he jerks. 

“Don’t bolt yet, Mr. Tomioka. I know you are tired, but Sabito deserves to be brought up to speed. I’d rather be present when that happens, to prevent him from doing anything rash.” 

Giyuu is somewhat embarrassed for Sabito, and then feels foolish for being embarrassed; he is not Sabito’s keeper.

In a few minutes a Kakushi brings a tray of tea, and Sabito follows. His face twitches when he sees Giyuu, but he sits down with his back straight and hands unmoving over his lap. Ubuyashiki urges him to drink some tea.

“I don’t want any, thank you.”

“It is a good blend. From Uji.” 

Sabito’s eyes dart between Ubuyashiki and Giyuu. He takes a sip of his tea as though it is spiked with a sedative. 

Ubuyashiki says, “Much is to be relayed to the Pillars and the rest of the Corps, but for now, a formal re-introduction is in order. Sabito, this is Tomioka Giyuu – the very one of your childhood. He comes from a different world, where you died on Mt. Fujikasane. Of that world, he is the late Water Pillar.” 

Sabito’s hands jerk, and tea sloshes across his trouser leg. Outside, crows shriek into the sky. “That’s a lie,” Sabito says. He keeps blinking, like there is something in his eye. 

“I’m afraid that, after communicating with him, I cannot provide a good explanation as to how this gentleman knows that Sanemi’s favourite food is ohagi or that, as a boy, you used to wish your nichiren blade would be red.”

“He could be a spy. You can’t prove that he isn’t one.” He sets his cup hard against the floor. 

Ubuyashiki speaks like he knows what your thoughts will be before they form in your head. “True. And you cannot prove that he is one. What is more, he had to have been spying on each of us concurrently for many years. I am inclined to believe Mr. Tomioka.” 

Sabito looks at Giyuu for a long moment, the way a man might look at a creature he has never heard of or seen before. His mouth is parted, revealing a slight overbite. Giyuu used to tease him, saying that he liked the warding mask so much because it hid his teeth when he smiled or laughed. Sabito never wore it when he was around just Giyuu. It was something Giyuu only realised the autumn after Sabito died.

It is easy to hold Sabito’s gaze. He imagines Sabito embracing him. If Sabito says his name, what will its texture be now? He used to say “Giyuu” like he was holding something close. 

Sabito stands up. He is blank-faced as he stumbles out of the room onto the porch. Ubuyashiki calls after him. Giyuu watches him go, unable to make himself reach out and try to stop him. 

Hinaki brushes his forearm briefly with her fingers, as a comfort, perhaps; he cannot remember her ever touching him before. 

One cup of tea later (forced onto him by Ubuyashiki), Giyuu slumps into the room he has been assigned at the Butterfly Mansion. He opens the sliding door that leads to the garden to let in the pine-scented air, puts away the briefcase with the fountain pen and blank notebook that Ubuyashiki had presented him, and collapses onto his futon. He has been exhausted for days, but now that he has time and is not affected by Sabito’s rhythms, he cannot sleep. 

He watches the last of the light fade across the wall. Someone outside his room calls to say she has his dinner. He gets up and it takes a moment for his knees to unlock. When he opens the door, a Kakushi holds out a tray, and Giyuu nods a thanks, but feels like she is standing on the lip of a cliff an ocean away, where he cannot touch her. 

In the morning he wakes before dawn. Inside his left shoulder are a hundred centipedes and they are all eating at his flesh. He tries to go back to sleep, but can’t, so he wraps himself in one of the fresh kimonos from the cabinet, picks up his briefcase in case he runs into someone, and steps outside. He lumbers around the mansion, once, twice, and then his feet start to carry him along a familiar path, and he vaguely thinks, No, don’t go there, but soon he finds himself at the open gates of the Water Pillar Estate.

In a clearing, Sabito is slicing off the heads of wooden training dummies, and he is a moving painting against the pale pink hydrangeas – the sort Makomo used to compose haiku with unnecessary detail about – planted along the walls. He swirls, and his cuts are sleek and clean. Powerful. Giyuu wonders if Sabito could maintain a fight with Himejima. He wonders if he could win. 

Sabito halts mid-swing, tripping a bit, when he sees Giyuu, and pulls his haori – a clean, plain one – closer about himself. “Good morning,” he says, but it sounds less like a greeting and more like an exclamation of surprise. 

Suddenly Giyuu’s knuckles are white. Something has been building in him since he landed in this world and is about to split him apart at the joints. He strides up to Sabito, points at the house, and mouths “Talk”. He is owed that much. A small part of him wonders if he is overstepping; another says, This is Sabito. There is no overstepping, but the first part is louder.

Up close, a part of Sabito’s cheek is faintly welted, like he’d scratched at it on and off, and a button on his uniform is askew. “You died quietly.”

Giyuu rears back.

“When the hand demon crushed your spine, you didn’t make a sound. It was all I thought about, after the Final Selection. It was all I thought about for a long time.” Sabito fingers his uniform, where it is buttoned wrong. “I don’t think of it so often now.” 

One evening, while sparring with Urokodaki, Giyuu was considering confessing to Sabito that he didn’t even want to become a demon slayer, and did not notice Urokodaki’s bokuto swinging at him. The blow knocked every thought out of his head, and for a few minutes, his tongue refused to even work. 

“What did you…” Sabito coughs, a parched, painful sound. “What did you want to talk about? We can go inside and you can write it out.” Polite, but uninterested.  

I am, Giyuu realises, being selfish. Sabito has dusted his knees and left Giyuu on Mt. Fujikasane. If Giyuu were a good man, he would have expected him to do so.

Giyuu goes to sit on the porch, takes out his pen and notebook. His arm is numb as he writes. 

Sabito’s face shutters when he reads Giyuu’s note. “I’m sorry,” he says, bowing his head. “I wish you a fast recovery.” And he walks away, drifting around a corner, leaving Giyuu with the decapitated dummies and hydrangeas. 

I should go, Giyuu thinks, but his legs are sacks of sand. It should feel louder than this, the knowledge that, even with both of them alive, there is no Sabito and Giyuu – just Sabito or Giyuu. 

He tears the page out of the notebook, then tears it again, right between where it says You don’t have to make yourself look at me. 

Back in his room, he lights a candle and burns the pieces over the flame. A Kakushi brings him breakfast, but Giyuu indicates for him to take it back. He sits at his desk and maps out the places that Tanjiro would have likely gone. He lists out possibilities of what could have happened to him and Nezuko. The process does not take enough time; by afternoon he is chewing on the edge of his thumb. 

The days fade and merge together after that. Giyuu asks Kanzaki if he can help in the maintenance of the Butterfly Mansion, and Kanzaki, looking like she is reluctant to shift her focus away from the sickle hare’s ear she is grinding, appoints him as junior inventory clerk. Thenceforth, half his day is dedicated to stock checking along with the girls, and the other half goes to learning sign language. He has a knack for it, but suspects it will not ease his life overmuch; Ubuyashiki has mandated sign language education for the Pillars, but no one else, and the majority of people will not understand him, even in the big cities. He keeps his notebook and pen close. 

When Ubuyashiki first gave him the items, Giyuu had thought that most of the pages would be filled with things meant for Sabito. But Sabito never comes by, and Giyuu never visits the Water Pillar Estate, and they do not bump into each other when Giyuu takes his morning walks. 

In a way, Giyuu thinks, he has been offered clarity, like a straight path lit with sunlight: there are no more “what ifs”, which are always the worst part of anything. Sabito has made his choice, and there is nothing for Giyuu to do but accept it and focus on finding and retrieving the Kamado siblings. 

And what after that? his mind whispers to him. He tells it to shut up.

His shoulder throbs in the midst of his stock counting and he curses; if it weren’t for the wound, he could have started searching for Tanjiro and Nezuko by now. The thought of failure makes him seize up, and he draws deep breaths like Urokodaki taught him. 

Before dinnertime, he asks Kocho how long it will be till he recovers enough for a solo mission.

Her smile is the same as ever: sweetness glazed over condescension. Giyuu has almost missed it. “It’s been a couple of weeks since we patched you up. You can go now if you hate yourself, but I’d recommend a minimum of six more weeks.”

Giyuu signs now, even though the idea of changing his dressing every day while travelling makes him grimace, and Kocho shrugs. “You still need permission from the Master. I can ask him, if you’d like.”

A day later, Ubuyashiki calls Giyuu to his mansion, requesting him to bring his notes. Hinaki sits at his side. “Kocho told me you made plans to find the Kamado siblings. I appreciate you taking incentive, although I personally feel that you should stay here and recover while we send out teams.” 

Giyuu signs no. He is anxious to retrieve them, even if he knows others are on the case. He has to do something about it himself. He has to. He imagines eggs in his fists and tries not to break them.

He had originally intended on going back to Mt. Kumotori and the village in the valley to ask around, but decided that that was too optimistic. Visiting Tamayo in Asakusa is one of his more hopeful bets, and it is best if he goes to her in person rather than sending some quaking junior slayer who has never encountered a demon capable of restraint. 

Ubuyashiki says, “I am assigning a Pillar to accompany you. Forgive us, but our trust in you does not extend so far as to allow you to go on your own. What’s more, you may have difficulty communicating with people.”

Giyuu ducks his chin. He had been looking forward to the sanctuary of a solo job. He does not want to fumble before the other Pillars again, does not want to watch as the openness in their faces shrinks. Right now, he has the (fraying) excuses of shock and recovery to sequester himself, but he will not have any when he and someone else are together on the road for weeks, perhaps months. And if he deprives the corps of necessary firepower and Muzan decides to strike – 

Sabito sits down on his knees beside them. His hair is ruffled. 

Giyuu had not seen him enter. He looks sharply at Ubuyashiki. Why is he putting Sabito in a position he clearly does not want to be in? Sabito will end up hating Giyuu if he is forced to be around him, and Giyuu doesn't know how he would react to that – doesn't know how he would cope. His shoulders hunch forward; the urge to get up and leave makes his fingers tingle. 

Ubuyashiki declares that they should discuss Giyuu’s notes. Giyuu hands them over to Hinaki; the papers have side notes scribbled everywhere, lines crossed out, corners blotched with inaccurate outlines of prefectures. 

They seal the plan. Giyuu’s kimono sticks to his back. He hopes that the junior slayers being sent out to hasten the process will be safe.

Sabito scratches his wrist. He seems to do it subconsciously; Giyuu cannot picture him finding the action appropriate in front of the Master. He says, in a careful, controlled tone, that he should get his new sword within a week, that he and Giyuu will be able to leave on schedule. It sounds like a door snicking shut. 

As they walk out into the garden, Giyuu skims a hand across Sabito’s elbow. When Sabito turns to him, Giyuu signs, “I’m sorry,” and then folds his arms against his stomach, strokes along the soft fabric of his kimono. He wonders if an apology is not what Sabito wanted, but cannot think of anything else he could have conveyed. 

Sabito’s jaw sets. His shoulders are pushed back. Strong. He says, “I take missions with pride. I’ve never refused one.”

Chapter Text

Sabito makes a face at the single futon taking up almost the entire floor of the inn room.

The must in the air films Giyuu’s tongue. He has half a mind to ask the innkeeper if he can sleep in the hallway – not a promising start to the first night of their journey to Tokyo – but instead he wrenches open the jammed window so he can breathe.

Sabito tosses their bags in a corner – he had insisted on carrying both – and gestures to the futon. “Take it. I’m not letting you aggravate your injury. And sit down, your dressing needs changing.”

Giyuu sits cross-legged on the futon and slips off his layers. The wound is almost closed. Until now, the girls at the Butterfly Estate had been charged with his dressing, and after his first bout of awkwardness, he grew used to their cheerful efficiency. Sabito kneels in front of him, fishing out the medical kit from one of the bags and snapping it open.

They had taken care of each other before, many times. Sabito, holding Giyuu still by the jaw, slitting open a leech latched onto his ear with Urokodaki’s paring knife. Giyuu, washing Sabito’s vomit from a bucket in the snow-rimmed river, lugging it back home in numb hands, and doing it again.

Now, he tenses as Sabito prepares to clean his wound.

Sabito brushes Giyuu’s sweat-coiled hair away from his shoulder. Static sparks up Giyuu’s spine, and he scrubs his forearm to soothe the raised hairs. Sabito is not as gentle as the girls while he irrigates the gash, but he is careful. Thorough.

After he knots the fresh gauze, his fingers linger on Giyuu’s shoulder. He studies the scar slashing up his diaphragm. Perhaps he is mapping it over the scar in his memory, checking if the edges match. He rips away his hand and packs up the medical kit. “Good night,” he says. The first “good night” he has offered. His words feel like a benediction.

Something unfurls to life between them. Giyuu wants to tell Sabito everything. That he would rather mind a ramen stall or mend clothes than kill demons. That he had left Tanjiro alone to fight Muzan and the other Moons and does not know what happened after that. That he has forced himself to stay alive only because Sabito once told him, “You can’t die, ever.”

He should sign, Thank you. He should sign, Good night.

He signs, Where is Makomo?

Sabito frowns. Digs a fist into his thigh. “Makomo is dead.”

Giyuu tries to shift the words around, because Makomo is lodging with the other demon slayers, dedicating haiku to hydrangeas and slipping flea-ridden cats bits of salmon and conducting plant funerals when she’s not working. Sabito was spared, so Makomo must have been too.

“She was killed by Lower Moon One. She was unwell at the time, but insisted on coming since we were short-staffed.” Sabito’s sheath creaks as he grips it. “I was protecting junior slayers from other demons. I didn’t realise – not until I saw her. I should have forced her to stay home. Or been more aware of what was happening in the fight. I failed.”

You could never fail sits on Giyuu’s tongue, but then he realises what he wants to say is, You could never fail me, and that would be audacious and selfish. So he does not reach for his notebook.

“That whole week, I kept asking other Pillars to fight me, from morning to night. Shinazugawa left mid-fight and I struck Kocho so hard I broke her arm.” Sabito releases the sheath with a jerk. “Shit, I – I didn’t mean to say all that. Let’s – I’m going to sleep.” He extinguishes the lamp and curls up against the wall.

Giyuu finds that his arm has reached out to Sabito, and retracts it. He remains in the same position for a while, unsure if he hallucinated that conversation. Then he lies down, huddles in his blanket, and looks out the window. A half moon peers through rolling shrouds. If he cupped his hand against the sky, he could nestle it in his palm.

Hours pass before he falls asleep, and in his dream, pink hydrangea petals drift down a swift-running stream, so many that someone must have poured them in by the bucket, and he kneels and tries to catch them in his hands, but they all slip away.

Over the next three days, Giyuu tries not to think of hydrangeas, tries not to imagine Makomo’s corpse the way he had tried not to imagine Sabito’s. Sabito acts as their guide and changes Giyuu’s dressing, but speaks little. Their crows glide overhead. Giyuu pretends one of them is Kanzaburo.

They reach Asakusa on the third night by cart, and Sabito slips the doddering driver more money than is warranted. From his own patched-up purse, not the one Ubuyashiki gave him.

Giyuu feels like he has seen Sabito for the first time in this world. His mind is replaced with a zigzagging scrawl, like someone dragged along a crayon so hard their arm shook. He is grateful for the hollering of people selling their wares, the tang of simmering sweet soy sauce, the lines of rice-paper lanterns that march on forever – they smother the scrawl.

Sabito tucks away his purse. His hemp cord droops towards his nape. “If nothing’s on my face, lead the way.”

Tamayo’s clinic is not difficult to find. Giyuu is anxious that Sabito will not sieve disdain from his expression and voice, and that Tamayo and Yushiro will punt them out.

But Sabito remains even-toned, even when Yushiro hisses at him, “Bow lower to Miss Tamayo.” Giyuu wonders if Sabito is bridling himself for the mission, or if he is making a good impression for Giyuu, because these are people Giyuu was affiliated with. He wants it to be the latter.

After tea is served and Sabito explains their situation, Tamayo leans forward in her chair. “Two nights ago, I was on my way to buy some angelica root, and I saw a boy and a girl matching your description.”

Giyuu grasps the edge of the table to stop himself from sprinting outside. In, four. Hold, seven.

“They were at an udon stall, just off the main street. The girl seemed to be asleep. I can mark the place for you on a map.”

Sabito ducks his head. His hemp cord curls open, and locks of hair skim his cheekbones. A sequence that should be part of a skit, but is not. “You are very kind.” He picks up the cord from the floor and re-ties his hair.

Yushiro slurps his tea. Taps his foot.

Tamayo says, “I don’t know if they are still in Tokyo, but it would be worthwhile to search for them. It’s still only dinner time; they may be out on the streets right now. I would recommend asking at a police station, but…”

“That will draw attention to the Demon Slayer Corps,” Sabito finishes. “Hospitals are possible, but still tricky.”

Tamayo pulls out a map from her desk drawer, swirls a dot with a red pen, and presents it to Giyuu. He wonders at the warmth of her smile; he has done nothing but lighten her tea caddy. “Yushiro and I will aid you in your search as well. You can leave your bags at the clinic.”

Yushiro snatches away their teacups before they can thank her.

Outside, Sabito says, “Let’s start with asking that udon vendor if he’s seen them again.”

The vendor says he has not seen them and does not know where they went. Sabito and Giyuu move on, question a seamstress, a doll-maker, a dango shop owner. Same answers, same darting glances at the outline of their swords through their haoris – civilian clothing has helped them little. Some of the people they talk to gawp at Sabito’s scar. He has never been self-conscious of it, but now he drags two knuckles across the tissue, like he can wipe it off.

Giyuu pulls Sabito’s fingers away, and only realises the boldness of his gesture when Sabito’s lips part to reveal that little overbite. He thinks of half moons, of salt-grilled fish. He releases Sabito’s hand.

A breeze toys with glass chimes in a shop, and rainbows spark across Sabito’s eyes, nose, cheeks. Catch on his lashes. Down the street someone shouts, You wanna go? and the racket of a brawl erupts, but Giyuu cannot look away from Sabito’s face.

Sabito rubs the back of his neck. “Let’s check farther away. By the Hongo Theatre.” The rainbows slip off as he marches ahead.

People stream past. Teenagers passing around a bottle. Women with fat babies clinging to their hips. A Christian missionary roving ravenous eyes over them.

But no Tanjiro. No Nezuko.

The shops begin to shutter.

“We should stop,” says Sabito. “They probably won’t be out this late.”

Giyuu has jittered with energy since he held Sabito’s hand. He could not sleep tonight even if he downed one of Kocho’s soporifics; the last time he took one, after a spell of insomnia, he woke after twelve hours and could have drifted through another two. He signs, I’m staying out.

“Why?”

Giyuu crosses his arms.

“I’m not letting you walk around on your own.”

Giyuu wishes he could snip, Because the Master ordered it?

They amble for hours in circles, still empty-bellied, still sticky with the sweat and filth of their travels. Sabito does not complain. He never complains. Used to say it makes men without chests. Giyuu wants to press a hand over Sabito’s mouth even though he isn’t talking.

In Koishikawa, near a crossroads, Sabito says, “Let’s go back to the clinic. We can get some sleep, then resume the search.” It must be just before four in the morning. Giyuu nods, stifling a yawn.

A presence snaps him to attention.

The man – no, the demon – had not been standing by the crossroads a blink ago. His kimono falls without a crease, as if worn for the first time. He moves like he has not had to unsheathe his blade in a thousand years. Moonlight-languid.

Giyuu has never seen a demon with a sword.

“Nakime informed me of a Pillar travelling to Tokyo,” the demon says, and the sound is the earth splitting in two – a rumble that resonates in Giyuu’s belly, that must be felt on the far side of the city. The characters for “Upper” and “One” are just discernible in his lamp-like eyes. “I must praise her for her thoroughness. Often I feel she is more competent than the other Upper Moons combined, myself excluded.”

Run, Giyuu thinks, his hand soldered to his sword hilt. We have to run. And right after: There is nowhere to run. We’re in the middle of Tokyo. The death toll will cross fifty.

Sabito is already in position, his breathing even, as if this is any other battle, on any other night. Upper Moon One regards Sabito’s sword, impassive. “I am somewhat disappointed. I never found a memorable fight in a Water Pillar. They are good teachers, but middling swordsmen.”

Sabito lunges at him with Striking Tide, so fast even Giyuu can barely make out his movements. His blade nicks Upper Moon One’s cheek, before it is parried, and the clang sours Giyuu’s teeth.

Eyeballs blink across Upper Moon One’s sword. “Perhaps you are an exception. No Pillar has made me draw my sword so early.” He glances at Giyuu. The weight of it is a mountain range; Giyuu feels as though his organs are being slowly compressed. “I had not heard of another Pillar accompanying the first. Which one are you?”

Sabito attacks with the Dance of the Swift Current. “He is none of your business,” he snarls through the winding slashes. “Your opponent is me.”

His opponent is neither of them. They will not win alone or together. The only thing they can do is hold out until sunrise. That gives them half an hour. Giyuu unclenches his jaw. The fight with Akaza had lasted about as long, and they did not win; Akaza blew himself up. He was only Upper Moon Three.

Upper Moon One bats Sabito away, and Sabito skids till his heels collide with a raised sidewalk.

“I should attack as well,” Upper Moon One says, “to show my respect.”

Giyuu unsheathes his sword and races to Sabito, kicking out Sabito’s ankles so he’ll be on the ground and less likely to be ribboned by the oncoming attack. He activates Dead Calm just as Upper Moon One says, “Breath of the Moon: Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy.”

The buildings outside the range of Giyuu’s technique shred apart and tumble down in a thunderous rumble. A shroud of dust billows up.

He uses breathing, Giyuu thinks. A wet splotch spreads over his stitches. He adjusts his grip on his hilt; even Dead Calm could not nullify the attack; his body stings with cuts. He cannot be certain, but it seemed that Upper Moon One performed the technique without even swinging his katana.

Sabito leaps to his feet and spits dirt.

Shrieks shatter the air. Around them, civilians have started to flee. Shove against each other. Trample each other. The missionary from before lurches into the middle of the street next to a singed rattan chair, blood streaking from hairline to chin, a Bible in his hand.

I’m sorry, Giyuu thinks. I’m sorry and it will never be enough.

The missionary clambers onto the chair and cries out: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.”

The rivers overflowed Giyuu nine years ago. He has since learned to breathe underwater. Never mastered it.

Upper Moon One steps through the debris. “I have not seen that technique before. You must have created it. What is your name? I will bestow you the honour of remembering it. I am called Kokushibo.”

Sabito charges at him, creating a fierce whirling motion with his blade, while Giyuu comes at him from the opposite side with a barrage of strikes. His stitches rip. He scores Kokushibo’s collarbone before Kokushibo’s blade almost takes Giyuu’s arm off. Giyuu skips away, beneath a bare plum tree, reorients himself. Waits for the optimal moment to attack.

Sabito is faster than Shinazugawa. Stronger than Rengoku. He wedges his blade into Kokushibo’s neck with a roar, and Giyuu’s breath snags. Sabito can do this. He can –

“Black Ring, Lunar Eclipse.” Kokushibo twirls his sword into slashes that could be part of a cyclone. Crescent blades whirl out from those slashes, debris from a disaster.

Giyuu rushes Dead Calm – too slow – as Sabito flips back.

Blood pours from Giyuu’s shoulders and chest. He does not feel the lacerations. Look out! he wants to yell, but he can’t. He can’t.

Kokushibo’s blade slices down into Sabito’s belly. Sabito grunts and sinks to his knees, pressing against the wound with a reddening hand.

No. No. Sabito will die, again. Giyuu will be protected, again.

The Mark burns across Giyuu’s cheek.

Giyuu swings his sword at Kokushibo’s neck. Kokushibo dodges and sweeps his katana up in a strong arc. Giyuu blocks, and the collision sends shocks up his arms. A hot skewer drills through his shoulder. Nothing exists outside of him and Kokushibo. Neither past nor future.

Feint.

Deflect.

Giyuu swirls and thrusts his sword forward. Kokushibo parries it, whirls around, and slashes diagonally, and the blade catches on Giyuu’s hair as he ducks, rips out his tie. He leaps back, putting distance between them.

The adrenalin drains out. His shoulder is a throbbing mass of pain, tendriling down his arm and across his chest. Sweat drips into his eyelashes, tickles his ears.

Kokushibo stands like a tower pointing at heaven. He is so much larger than Giyuu. The size of fear.

Giyuu collapses to one knee, leaning on his sword. A crack spiderwebs from the base. He wonders how long it has been since the fight started, and if he can stand up. He screws his eyes shut and then blinks rapidly, willing the world into focus. He has to stand up. He has sewn Sabito’s kimono into a haori before. Opened it up and restitched it to fit around his body, made it grow with him the way Sabito could not. He will not do it again.

His legs tremble as he rises. His lungs cramp.

Kokushibo says, “How can such brittle creatures exist?”

Giyuu assumes a one-handed stance. Dead Calm will not work anymore. He is too torn up. The best he can do is avoid attacks.

“Giyuu!” Sabito cries, tottering to him, and –

This is the first time he has spoken Giyuu’s name.

It should feel larger. More momentous. A rush of air long after the rivers overflow you.

It feels like none of that, but it centres Giyuu. The lines of the world solidify.

Sabito has stitched himself up. Blood smears his teeth. Rivulets down his chin. His eyes gleam. Alive. “I’m not leaving your side.”

Kokushibo says, “It will do you no good. Mirror of Misfortune, Moonlit.”

Hundreds of slashes explode outward. Giyuu and Sabito jump out of the way, then attack as one. Giyuu’s hands are slick with blood and sweat. He wonders if he is dreaming, because his body cannot be dodging, twisting, darting. He has nothing left in him.

He aims for Kokushibo’s throat again. His sword slips out of his grip and careens into a pile of rubble.

“Move!” Sabito yells. Giyuu scrambles away as Sabito blocks Kokushibo’s downward swing. He staggers under the force of it. Blood weeps from his uniform onto the ground.

Giyuu kicks Kokushibo’s sword, but Kokushibo anticipates it and moves away, so Giyuu’s foot only grazes the metal. Giyuu sags, drawing wet, rattling breaths. If he lifts his head, his neck might crumble. He lifts it anyway. The stars are beginning to fade. Sabito is prone on the ground, straining to stand up.

“Disappointing,” Kokushibo says.

“Giyuu,” Sabito rasps. “Run. Please.”

“It was barely even a fight.”

“Please!”

Kokushibo’s hand tangles itself in Giyuu’s hair. Pulls till Giyuu is supported by just his toes. Giyuu convulses as every nerve alights with pain. “Wasted potential,” he says, raising his blade to Giyuu’s breast. His brow furrows. Pink linen ruffles behind his ponytail. He drops Giyuu and ducks as a leg swings at his head.

Nezuko lands on all fours, in her adult form. No muzzle hides the gleam of her teeth.

“It’s you!” Tanjiro flies in and drops to his knees beside Giyuu. His cheeks are not as round as they used to be, and his hair glints with grease. “The man who helped us!” He hooks his hands under Giyuu’s armpits, drags him away from Kokushibo and Nezuko, and pillows Giyuu’s head in his lap.

Nezuko’s next kick at Kokushibo is intercepted. “Shameful. A demon without loyalty to Muzan,” Kokushibo says, and tears off her leg from the knee. Giyuu cringes at the wet, cracking sound, at Nezuko’s drawn-out wail. Kokushibo flings her into the side of a half-ruined house. Tanjiro’s cry is ragged.

Sabito plants himself in front of Giyuu and Tanjiro. Haori snapping in the wind, as if he is running. Giyuu claws for him, even though he is too far away to reach him. “There’s a place waiting for you in Hell, Upper One,” Sabito says, hoarse. He shifts into the position for Constant Flux.

The first rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds.

Kokushibo does not flinch, does not scurry. He looks from Sabito to Giyuu, says, “I will see you again,” and disappears. Paint wiped off a window.

Sabito remains unmoving with his sword still at the ready, before his shoulders slump. The breath Tanjiro releases tickles Giyuu’s face. A few paces away, low flames crackle across detritus, where a tea shop used to stand.

Nezuko whimpers and growls. The place where her leg was ripped off bulges, erratic, tumorous, before spawning a fresh limb. She shields her face with her hands and shoots away into the gloom of an alley. Tanjiro calls after her, and then turns red eyes to Giyuu. His hand skates over Giyuu’s brow.

No, Giyuu thinks. I am not leaving you again. Akaza is dead, but I am not leaving.

“Oh, gods, you – are you – uh, hospital! We need – there’s one near – ”

“We know someone,” says Sabito, hobbling over. “Her name is Tamayo. I’ll send my crow to her so she can prepare to treat us, and her assistant can meet us halfway to help us get to her clinic. Kamado, I must insist that you come with us. I’ll explain on the way.”

A thump signals that Tanjiro has set down his cedarwood box. “I was planning to come no matter what you said, since I wanted to make sure you both were all right. I’ll go get my sister.” He trots away into the alley.

Every breath Giyuu draws stabs his lungs. Sabito’s face blurs. Civilians are still shouting, but the din starts to fade. Nausea billows in Giyuu as he is guided to a sitting position, as his kimono is peeled off. Sabito says, “I’m going to cauterise our wounds, or we’ll bleed out. Giyuu, you’re first.”

Tanjiro snaps off branches from the plum tree, gathers them into a pile, and uses the fire from the detritus to light it. Sabito wipes his blade with a handkerchief that Tanjiro presents to him, and then heats it over the flames. When he burns Giyuu’s flesh, Giyuu gasps and hisses, too weak to thrash. Why is he not passing out? Sabito whispers, “Sorry, I’m sorry,” and eases hair clumped with blood out of Giyuu’s eyes. Giyuu must truly lose consciousness then, because when he blinks next, Sabito is sliding his sword back in its sheath.

Giyuu is lifted to his feet. Sabito and Tanjiro support him on either side. Together, they trudge into the sunrise. One step at a time.