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“I’m sorry.”
Bloodstained tears dampened the tattered haori sprawled out beneath him, the patterns faded beneath drying blood.
Beside him, Nezuko wept, holding onto his remaining arm like an anchor.
With the rising sun, golden rays of precious light poured over them, crowning them with laurels of victory. It weighed heavy with loss, barbed with thorns of grief. No success came without its sacrifice, and for the price for a world without demons, they’d paid in red.
Tanjirou, in spite of his aching spine, pressed his head against the floor.
“Please forgive me.”
His lips grazed dry sand with every word, granules clinging onto his blotched face.
“I couldn’t protect you as you did with me.”
The calm after a war chilled the strongest of men to the bone.
In the wake of his death, Muzan’s stubbornness remained a stain upon humanity. Harrowing absences where their comrades once stood served only as reminders of his influence. He left holes in many lives, caverns that were impossible to mend or fill.
Yet the world moved on. Doing its best to remedy the sinkhole the bastard left behind. Even the sun seemed brighter today, driving the shadows from every crevice.
The Kakushi worked tirelessly, treating survivors and recovering bodies. For them, the real battle had only just begun.
For the remaining slayers, with trauma wards’ worth of injuries plaguing their bodies after a grueling night, were given the luxury to grieve. They had time now, to embrace the pain rather than hone it. One day, their callouses may fade, and they may hold kitchen knives rather than blades.
For Tanjirou and Nezuko, they knelt side by side, leaning into each other for a lifeline. His sister had been returned to him, but at a cost he could never possibly hope to repay.
“Thank you,” he wept. “Thank you, Giyuu, for everything.”
As the sun reached its peak, blazing the earth—
—the corpse of Tomioka Giyuu stirred.
Through the haze of tears, Tanjirou hiccuped, wiping his tears only to smear blood, snot and dirt across his face.
“I’m sorr—”
A pair of bright blue eyes stared up at him.
Tanjirou blinked.
Giyuu blinked back.
Tanjirou blinked twice.
Giyuu blinked thrice.
Tanjirou wiped his face with Nezuko’s sleeve and checked again.
Giyuu was still staring at him.
Tanjirou pinched his cheek, then his sister’s for good measure.
Still laying on the side, Giyuu raised what was supposed to be his severed arm, and asked in his characteristic monotone:
“Are you—” His lips parted, revealing sharpened canines stained with blood, “—crying?”
Later on, if you asked him about the source of the high-pitched, ear-piercing scream, Tanjirou would fervently point you to Nezuko with the ugliest grimace on his face until the day he’s six feet under.
“Giyuu!” Tanjirou sputtered, his arm flailing around as his demonified mentor pushed himself upright, casually resting an arm on his knee as if they were simply talking about the weather. “Giyuu, you’re—!”
The Water Pillar turned to him, his brows furrowed not with confusion but with concern, his mouth falling ajar into a wince. “Your arm,” he said. “Have they treated you?”
Tanjirou didn’t know if he should begin sobbing or run the remains of his nichirin sword through Giyuu’s head before the other could realize. Now that they were face to face, Tanjirou could see the blue in Giyuu’s eyes take on a startlingly bright sapphire, his once empty irises filled with veins and slits, somehow appearing more alive than when he was still human.
“Mr. Tomioka,” Nezuko stammered, holding onto Tanjirou’s arm, “you’re a—!”
Giyuu’s porcelain skin burst into cinders, his flesh charring and smoking under the sun.
The siblings screamed.
In the face of their panic, Giyuu merely studied his turning hand, which was rapidly disintegrating into ash right before his eyes.
“Huh,” was all he said, eloquent and deadpan as ever, never mind the fact he was actively grilling alive. “I see.”
He rose to his feet and walked away from the siblings, grabbing a fallen sword in his path. When he reached an open field, he turned to the sun while still smoking like a barbeque on the fourth of July, and raised the blade to his neck.
“WAIT!!!!”
Two figures tackled the pillar at the same time: Tanjirou, with the tatters of his own haori; and Kanao, who had emerged from the shadows, arm poised to strike not with a sword, but with a needled vial—one that missed the mark catastrophically due to Tanjirou’s appearance, and was now stabbed firmly into the boy’s ribs rather than Giyuu’s neck, eliciting a pained howl from the former.
The three’s bodies crashed into each other in a cacophony of surprised screams, collectively crashing into the floor.
Good news: they had successfully thwarted Giyuu’s express ticket towards Sabito and Tsutako.
Bad news: Giyuu was still burning alive, and it smelled just as pleasing as a dumpster set on fire.
More bad news: they had inadvertently destroyed the only, impossible-to-replicate, remaining cure.
Even more bad news: Tanjirou may now be suffering from wisteria toxicity and his body was quickly going into anaphylactic shock.
Even bigger bad news: they might have accidentally thwarted Giyuu’s only ticket to reunite with Sabito and Tsutako.
“WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOIIIIIIIIIIIIING????!!!!!!” Nezuko shrieked incomprehensibly.
“Namu Amida Butsu…” chanted Gyomei, who returned to life just for the sake of shedding tears and insight. “May these young souls find enlightenment and wisdom in their path of salvation… (Which reminds me that 90% of underaged slayers lack structure and education during their formulative years, and 60% of those remain illiterate at large. Perhaps it is such that a majority of our members continue to remain ignorant of the world’s economic crises and growing capitalist greed, coming to learn of demons only in the literal sense and not those conglomerates entities masquerading as approachable, relatable personas.)” Then he perished once more, returning to his afterlife of veganism.
In the end, it was the Kakushi who came to their rescue, working in tandem to heft a jagged wooden panel over to shield their pillar from the sun. The moment Giyuu was shrouded in show, his skin popped back to normal as if he hadn’t just been roasting a second ago.
“You two—”
Giyuu paused his impending lecture when Tanjirou’s lips had begun turning purple from overdose.
“Medic!!”
“... of course, you just had to go get yourself turned into a demon right after we defeated Muzan…”
After two consecutive hours of Yushiro’s rant, Giyuu had long tuned the demon out about 2 minutes in. Nezuko, too, had been unwittingly subjected to the same long winded spiel, having offered her own experience and blood as a former demon for studying Giyuu’s physiology.
“I should have been executed,” Giyuu interrupted him, stating his own self-orchestrated demise like it was God's given prophecy. “You should have allowed me to burn in the sun.”
And that had been the wrong thing to say, because both the demon and former demon leapt into a whirlwind of protests.
“I don’t like you!” Yushiro snapped instantly, which made Giyuu a little sad. “But what use is your self-righteous suicide when there is a proven alternative!?”
“You can’t die, Giyuu!” Nezuko agreed. “You gave me a chance when I was a demon, so why shouldn’t we do the same to you?”
Giyuu wanted to argue that they were incomparable: Nezuko had been an anomaly, the driving force for change that ultimately resulted in Muzan’s downfall. She was kind, as a demon and human, a symbol of hope for a kinder future. Living proof that humanity persists in the most unlikely of corners in spite of the bastard’s attempts, and they would always prevail.
But Giyuu?
He’s the last demon created by Muzan, a reminder of the man’s cruel reign. He was walking evidence of a demonic era, a period of time that they should have left behind, and instead lives on through him in blood and body. For as long as he was alive, they would never be able to put the past to rest. He could never subject his allies to the weight of his existence, not when they deserved to live in a world without demons.
“Kocho and Lady Tamayo have fallen in battle.” Their names tasted of floral incense and bittered blood. “The cure is obsolete. The Corps is a shadow of its former self. Even if I were human once more, the mark will soon take my life.”
Nezuko frowned. Yushiro looked constipated. Ah… maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned Tamayo.
“Thank you for your faith,” he continued, “but it would be in your best interest to regard Tomioka Giyuu as dead.”
Sanemi had not believed the medics when they claimed he had slept for four months. Not when it had felt like two hours.
But the evidence was undeniable: his body, once filled out with muscle, was all skin clinging to bone. His throat gave him hell every time he so much as breathed, and the trees in the courtyard had withered from the bite of winter.
It had taken another three weeks for him to recover some semblance of normalcy, to move around without assistance. He spent longer writhing in his bed, screaming and plagued by nightmares of the battle, Genya’s mangled corpse and spilt intestines often taking center stage in his mind palace.
He was improving now, slowly but surely, and the knowledge of Genya’s ascension with their family soothed him in darker nights. With the mark, he would soon reunite with them, but until then he would live the rest out of his life.
So with crutches, he limped over to what was meant to be the final Pillar meeting of the Demon Slayer Corps. Four children, three of them being the Master’s children, and the fourth sitting across rather than with them, dressed in oversized clothes and suffocating layers of fabric.
“Sanemi,” greeted Kiriya, the raspiness of his youthful voice still yet to mature, “it is good to see you in good health. Please, have a seat.”
Sanemi dipped his head into a nod, but his eyes refused to leave the vacant floors, the emptiness creating an illusion of vastness. It had been designed to comfortably accommodate a dozen pillars, and now…
He already knew of the other pillars’ fates, having read the reports as soon as he was coherent, with the help of a Kakushi holding the papers. He was no stranger to loss, and he had and would have time to come to terms with their deaths, but witnessing the spaces they left behind carved his chest hollow.
As soon as he sat down, the child next to him bobbed his head presumably from sleep, and—
Tomioka, or a child that looked like him, was casually dozing off before the Young Master and a (former) pillar. There was so much wrong with him that Sanemi didn’t even know where to begin, but the most glaring issue was the piece of carved wood tied around the boy’s mouth with blue cloth, because wasn’t the Kamado girl already cured—!?
“What the fuck—”
Tomioka snapped up to attention, blue eyes flying wide open. In an instant, his body grew at an alarming rate, filling out the clothes that were previously too large for him.
“Hello,” he mumbled, hoarse voice thick with sleep. “Shinazugawa,” he added in greeting, every syllable muffled by the muzzle. “You look well.”
Sanemi turned to the Young Master, then to his sisters, to Tomioka, and spun on his heels. He must be still asleep; he had to be, because the only explanation he could possibly come up with was that he’s still dreaming up a storm in the infirmary. Hell, were the last few weeks even real?
“Sanemi,” said Kiriya, catching him in his step, “please sit down. There is an explanation for this.”
There’s always an explanation for everything, no matter how outlandish. But this was an entirely different ballpark of malarkey even for them.
“We may address Giyuu’s… predicament… first, if that will put you at ease.”
“There is nothing to address,” Tomioka said simply. “It seems rather straightforward, as a matter of fact. I could simply—”
“You will not.”
Tomioka’s murmurs sounded a lot like a dozen colorful methods to sneak veggies into the kid’s diet. “With all due respect, I disagree.”
“Then we shall agree to disagree.”
A faint, barely audible yawn put their conversation on hold. Tomioka’s half-lidded eyes fluttered shut, his body swaying back and forth before unceremoniously falling on his front. He shrunk once more, practically disappearing under his blue-tipped hair and clothes, and curled up on his side with his breathing evening out.
It would have looked adorable if a) it wasn’t Tomioka fucking Giyuu; b) it wasn’t a bloody fucking demon; c) it wasn’t a demonified Tomioka Giyuu. But it was, so the only response Sanemi could muster up was a confused wail.
Fuck, maybe he wasn’t asleep but dead. Maybe he’d beaten up too many slayers during training and God decided he was worthy of his own personal level of hell.
“Ah, maybe I should have postponed the meeting… no matter. Tanjirou?”
What—
The sliding door on the outside, one that led into the gardens was slammed open, revealing Kamado standing guard with no less than three umbrellas each. They looked suspiciously enthusiastic and bright for a kid who’d barely scraped through hell with the skin on his teeth.
“Kiri—Master! Did Giyuu run away again?”
“No, not this time.” There were other times?? “He’s only fallen asleep. He tried staying awake for Sanemi, but it seems he’s asked too much of himself. Again.”
Sanemi observed the rest play out like he was nothing more than a stone cold statue, which he certainly felt a lot like. Kamado knelt down to gather Tomioka and his clothes, bunching the fabric so that Tomioka’s head was resting on Kamado’s shoulder.
“I’ll get him to some water,” Kamado offered. “He said this meeting is important to him. He’d hate to miss it.”
“No need,” said the Master. “I had Murata prepare ahead of time for this particular event.”
As if on cue, a third door opened up from the back (how many doors does this place have?), and from within emerged a man in a dark blue yukata, dragging along a half-filled wooden tub on wheels. Without hesitation, Kamado lowered the still sleeping Tomioka into the water, head and all—wait, were they trying to drown him awake-!?
Tomioka’s adult form burst forth from the water surface the second he was submerged, moonlit eyes shining and alive, more than when he was still a human. Wave-like markings rippled across his skin, framing his collarbones and cheeks with the very ocean.
His muzzle hung by his neck, sharpened teeth gleaming with his parted lips as he spoke.
“... Apologies.” His cheeks dusted pink. “It seems that I have underestimated my own exhaustion and overestimated my willpower against it.”
“You should have stayed in the tub, Giyuu!” Kamado complained. “What’s going to happen if you pass out without anyone nearby?”
Giyuu spun to him in a perfect 90 degree angle, stabbing his finger into the boy’s forehead repeatedly with every spat word. “You and your minions would have to leave me alone for 10 minutes for that to happen, you little shit. You should find a better way to spend your time, like finding a new hobby. Something that doesn’t involve trailing behind me like lost ducklings, how does that sound?”
“Ah, Giyuu! That hurts!”
“What,” Sanemi screeched, and only then it seemed that everyone only just remembered he was here and was forced to witness these clusterfuck of events, “the hell did I miss?”
(Un)thankfully, Tanjirou had been more than willing to share a summarized tale of what transpired since the defeat of Muzan Kibutsushit.
Survivors: Healing, but now so immensely traumatized that their descendants would feel it in their balls.
Kakushi: Though a majority of them resigned to pursue civilian lives, a handful of them remain serving the Ubuyashiki household out of loyalty, devotion, or their unwillingness to shed their uniforms, their second skin.
The Butterfly Mansion: Still housing the injured from the Final Battle, but plans have been drafted for its conversion to a public hospital. Aoi Kanzaki had begrudgingly taken up the mantle of Head of the House in the meantime.
The Pillar Estates: For the estates that were left vacant, they were repurposed to communal homes for the remaining slayers, former Kakushi, and related personnel. The Water and Wind estates were left untouched, and now officially gifted to the pillars under their names.
As Kamado rambled on, Sanemi’s mind began to wander. These updates were great and all… but wasn’t there still a Tomioka-shaped elephant in the room they needed to address…?
Thankfully, in an impossible moment of clarity, Tomioka coughed into his fist to politely cut Kamado off. “Tanjirou,” he spoke. “We are still in a meeting with the Oyataka. You may catch up with Shinazugawa after.”
The Water Pillar, still seated on his folded legs in the tub, looked startlingly alert and alive. Even more so than all the times they met before Muzan’s death, an unnatural light returning to his eyes in place of where his humanity should be.
“In Muzan’s final moments,” he began, voice monotonous as if he were reading off an objective report of the events, “he must have known his end was near. Dawn had come. He had no castle, no shadows to fall into.”
He raised his hand to his neck, sharpened nails ghosting the skin over his adam’s apple. “He made a desperate bid to absorb Tanjirou.” Crimson liquid trickled down his skin, the tip of his nail piercing flesh. “He failed. I made sure of it.”
Kamado grabbed Tomioka’s wrist, firmly putting it down as if they’d done this a million times over.
“When I came to, I was a demon.”
Sanemi sputtered. “But there’s a cure, isn’t there?” he demanded. “Didn’t they already cure the Kamado girl? Did it not work for you?”
At that, Murata, Tomioka and the Oyakata’s eyes all simultaneously glanced at Kamado, who was already pressing his forehead on the floor before the demon.
“I’m so sorry, Giyuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!” he wailed. “I’ll make it up to you with my entire life, I swear!!”
Tomioka’s resigned sigh practically haunted the halls of the Master’s estate. Whatever that was supposed to mean, Sanemi wanted no part of it.
“How are you idiots alive?” he cursed. While he was asleep, nonetheless! Newly turned demons were notoriously dangerous to approach for their lack of intelligence, which oftentimes allowed their bodies to surpass any limits their coherent mind would’ve imposed on them. And if Tomioka, a pillar was turned after they’d run dry of strength…
Tomioka sighed again. “Oftentimes I wonder the same.”
Kamado’s head shot up. “Giyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!”
The meeting went nowhere.
Mostly because Tomioka and Tanjirou ended up strangling each other. On one hand, it’s somewhat of a relief to see the aloof bastard capable of expressing himself; on the other, Sanemi felt like he needed another four-month nap.
Life as the last (Muzan-turned) demon in Japan was a grueling one. Not because of his lethal allergy to the sun, nor was it his severe but nonlethal allergy to wisteria (in low doses), nor was it caused by his sudden dependence on water, nor was it because of his inability to taste simmered salmon daikon (which was, admittedly, the worst fate that could ever befall upon someone), nor was it because of his impending damnation—
The list could go on and on. They may have parts on the pedestals of his misery, but they did not take center stage on the pyre of his ire. No, that honor belonged solely to Tanjirou and his friends, but not for the reasons someone would expect.
Muzan had despised them for their tenacity and resistance; and frankly, so did Giyuu, and he hated having anything in common with that scum. The only difference was that while the children were furiously plotting for Muzan’s demise, they were just as enthusiastic in preventing his, if not more. A task they had taken upon themselves after the catastrophic aftermath of the battle, unwittingly orchestrated by spontaneity and desperation.
“We’ll cure you, Giyuu!” they promised. “We did it for Nezuko, so we can do it for you!”
It was a simple yet noble cause, but they seemed to have forgotten it had taken them years to manufacture their original cure, and that was with Kocho’s and Lady Tamayo’s combined intellect. What they would need was time: not just for the cure’s development, but to build the knowledge and fundamentals that went into manufacturing it to begin with.
Time that they simply didn’t have.
Tanjirou had been marked. He would die when he turned 25. Giyuu did not want the boy dedicating the remainder of his life fixating on him, on the past. He should be allowed to shed the pain of demons and return to a life of normalcy, finding a wife and settling down. Not lingering in the Water Estate waddling around Giyuu every waking moment.
Which was, unfortunately, the only thing he and his friends were interested in these days. He supposed when one’s dedicated the better part of their teenage years into slaying demons and walking alongside ghosts, they wouldn’t develop the healthiest of coping mechanisms. Not that Giyuu had any floor to stand on when his idea of a good time involved terrorizing the local eateries and their stock of salmon.
Naturally, Giyuu had protested, argued, and even outright wrestled the children (mostly Inosuke), but they wouldn’t budge. For every line he drew against them, they rolled over three and treated the rest like hopscotch. In fact, they made themselves at home in the Water Estate (or rather, now known as the Tomioka Estate) without consulting him beforehand.
So now as Giyuu looked up mid-draft of his letter to Urokodaki, temporarily distracted by a high-pitched howl piercing through the estate’s gardens, he couldn’t help the deja vu creeping up his spine like clammy fingers pinching at every vertebrae.
He’s seen this somewhere before, in a time where demons still prowled the land. (Oh Kami, they were multiplying…) That seemed like an eternity ago, when realistically it should have only been a few years.
Sighing, he shook his head and returned to the letter.
—yet to progress. Kanzaburo seems to be in—
The world before him swayed. His vision blurred.
Giyuu forced himself to snap up, eyes narrowing at the letters.
—high spirits, but he has mistaken Inosuke for—
His head dipped, the fingers around the brush loosening. He felt his body lurch forward, and—
“Giyuu?”
Giyuu shot upwards and turned, blinking at the sudden flicker of light, held by Nezuko as she gently shut the door behind her, returning the room to its complete darkness.
He stifled a yawn, putting the brush away from the smudged ink and ruined letter, and placed his hands on his lap. “Nezuko”
She didn’t respond immediately; instead adjusting her haori to sit across him, setting the lamp between them. Although it illuminated the space in a cusp of golden light, it did not make much difference in his eyes. He had nearly forgotten that unlike him, the children couldn’t see in the dark.
How many more human experiences is he going to forget, at this rate?
Pink eyes glanced down at the letter, then towards his dry clothes. “You’re out of the water again.” When Giyuu did not react, she added, “You feel tired. Like you’re amidst a dark sea, refusing to be pulled under.”
If only she knew how apt the description was, but reminiscing his early days as a slayer was of no interest to him.
“I don’t know how other demons would feel,” she said, “but I know myself. And I was very, very tired.”
A pause, then: “Like you now.”
She didn’t elaborate more, but Giyuu had started learning how to read between the lines. Kocho would be proud.
“If I’m under,” he started, voice low, as if any louder and it’d become reality, “it will likely be years until I am pulled ashore.”
“But water helps,” she argued. “I didn’t have that option. You do.”
“Nezuko.” The firmness in his voice left no room for rebuttal. “What are you here for?”
The girl sighed, the creases in her brows deepening. Soon, she will be a woman. And later on, she would be an old one. If Giyuu were still human, the only memory he’d have of her is a tenacious young soul who’s barely grown into her own skin. If he remained a demon, he’d have to bury her alongside her brother and friends.
“It will be new year’s in a few weeks,” she said. “There’ll be a festival tonight. In a town an hour’s walk away. Half, if we make haste.”
Like before, he caught the intention behind her words. If only he understood when Kanroji and Kocho were still here…
“No.” Giyuu never liked crowds, and festivals were no exception. Especially now that he’s a flesh eating monster whose predecessor earned a reputation for wearing sheep’s clothing.
“Uzui and his wives invited us,” Nezuko revealed. “Shinazugawa’s going too.”
The mention of their names stung his unbeating heart in a bitterness he hadn’t felt since he was a human. Uzui… Shinazugawa… He had been trying to befriend them, wasn’t he? When they were still pillars and he had significantly duller teeth.
How would they accept him now, as the very thing they’ve dedicated their lives to destroy? That he’s a reminder that demons still plagued this world despite their best efforts? That he was selfish enough to cling to life in spite of what his existence could imply?
“It will be nighttime," she continued. “The town doesn’t know of demons, nor the Corps. They won’t know what to look for.” They won’t know what you are.
Which makes them all the more vulnerable, if Giyuu suddenly had a change of heart and decided to follow Muzan’s footsteps. They’ve all lost their edge, their honed instincts sharpened by constant battle. He was a liability and a ticking time bomb.
Nezuko chuckled. “Actually, my brother wanted to be the one to ask you,” she confessed. “And we know how intense he can be once he sets his mind on something.”
Giyuu couldn’t suppress a shudder at the reminder.
“I don’t want to force you.” Her gaze met his, and at that moment, the only thing he could think of was how clear they were when they’re not clouded by her former demonic haze. Just like her brother, steadfast and firm, but no less kind. “But I don’t want you to let yourself rot in your own house, either. You haven’t left the estate grounds ever since the Corps disbanded.”
“Why are you here?” he blurted, the question slipping out before he could help himself.
Nezuko blinked. “The festival—”
“Here,” he interrupted, the words molten metal on his tongue, dripping and spilling against his will, “in my estate.”
His shoulders sagged. He rested his elbow on the desk, resting his forehead on his palm as he dragged out a sigh.
“Why are you here,” he reiterated, “when you and your friends could have gone home.”
Back home, on the mountain of snow and charcoal. The very home that Muzan ripped away from them, now made safe and open by their own hands. He did not see the point why they would linger when they could so readily return to their original lives before demons.
Nezuko’s lips pursed, her brows furrowing. “Do you… want us to leave?”
No. “I want you to look towards the future.” To a world without demons.
“You’re not our past, Giyuu.” Her voice turned an octave higher. “You may be our beginning, but you’re still our present.”
“Should I start wearing a bow?” he deadpanned, unamused.
Nezuko shot him a heatless glare, but it quickly dissipated into softness. “Did you know we returned home recently?”
Giyuu paused, looking up and now resting his chin on the back of his hand. No, he did not. He rarely knew anything that happened beyond his estate, nowadays.
She drew in a breath. “It- it was a mess.” Her chuckle sounded drier than a newborn demon’s throat. (They would know.) “The roof caved in, the kiln crumpled, and an entire generation of raccoons started living in the floorboards. I barely recognized it.”
“My family was murdered in the house. I remembered Rokuta bleeding out in my arms. Him, Hanako, Takeo, Shigeru, Mother… all gone. Slaughtered like cattle.”
She met his gaze. Giyuu pointedly looked away, at a loss for words.
“Yet, for some reason, the house was clean. Not from the weather, not from animals, but of blood.”
Giyuu’s heart seized when she shifted in her position, groggy fog lifting in an instant. His panic calmed when she didn’t bow her head, and instead placed her hand on his lowered one. (These siblings were going to be the death of him, one day.)
“You didn’t know us. Not our names, our family trade; even our existence.” She shook her head. “You were a pillar, one of the highest ranks in the Corps, and the busiest. You must’ve seen hundreds of broken families before us. Yet you took the time to clean their bodies and cover their wounds, all so we wouldn’t have to.”
“You weren’t special.” Not at the time, anyway. Before the world realized they’ve been harboring a second sun. “And I did not do it for you nor your brother.”
“Would you have done it if it were anyone else?”
“Yes,” he answered in a heartbeat. They were lives lost because of his incompetence, so the least he could do was atone for his weakness. Oftentimes, most families weren’t fortunate enough to be remembered by the survivors, for demons did not discriminate between young or old, man or woman. “But you and your brother were… different.”
A demon who protects rather than consumes. A charcoal seller with sunlight in his blood. Different was an understatement.
“So are you.” A slayer sparing a demon, scrubbing floorboards with biting water from the frozen well, fitting clothes over the deceased to dignify their final moments. “You’re a kind person, Giyuu. You give people chances, even if the world condemns you for your mercy.”
Nezuko retracted her hand. His skin cooled upon the loss of contact.
“I just wish you’d give yourself the same one you gave me,” she concluded. “The chance to feel human again.”
He lowered his head, refusing to meet the Kamado brand of determination. They always shone so bright, melting away his glacial defense with such simple words.
“I will think about it,” was all he could give her. “You should return to your family.”
She nodded, but did not pursue the topic. Perhaps sensing that was the best answer she could get out of him. She took the half-burned lamp in her hands, padding across the room only to stop at the door, turning to him with a pinched brow.
“But Giyuu,” she said. “You are our family.”
Giyuu, like always when he’s faced with the unknown, remained silent. He kept his eyes on the ruined letter, and only allowed himself to close his eyes once darkness returned to the room.
To many, the night was once Kami’s only blessing for the demons, transforming the world itself into their personal hunting grounds. To Giyuu, it was when his dulled instincts came alive with moonlight, his body ablaze with the drive for survival as his blade cleaved through twisted heads and veins, all for the sake of seeing the coming dawn.
Now that the world had been freed of demons, the night was simply… that.
No more predators with human faces prowling the streets, no more need for treks in forests for cold trails. Left without monsters to hunt, the only thing left for Giyuu to do was exist.
The children had gone to sleep, and Kanzaburo had made himself comfortable by his side, curled into a mass of frayed feathers. The old bird had tried to keep him company, cawing and pecking his side, but he ultimately lost to the woes of his own biological clock.
Giyuu used to dread the nights. Demons returned faster than they could kill, and he knew no matter how many ones he fell, there would always be another feasting away on cooling bodies and broken dreams. He never allowed himself to linger when he knew that there were demons out there, ones he couldn’t reach, crawling through the cesspits of humanity.
Nowadays, the night and its stars were the only things that tolerated his existence.
And what a lonely one it was.
Perhaps that was why Muzan created demons; to force others to share his anguish. Misery loved company, but Giyuu had no intention of sticking fingers into skulls for minions anytime soon.
Tanjirou and the others have tried to adjust their sleep schedules, so that they could accompany him in the dark. But humans weren’t meant to lurk in shadows, and even the strongest of Hashira needed nights off to recuperate lest they crumple.
Giyuu’s will may falter in the face of the children’s battering insistence, but by some grace of god, they did not push back. Or rather they were picking their battles wisely, and after half a decade of demons, they deserved to rest however much their hearts desired.
Rest…
His chin arched upwards, the moon a jewel in his eyes.
He wondered how long it would take for his own body to betray him. His exhaustion was kinder in the nights, but his body would turn to stone as the horizon bled gold. If this was what Nezuko experienced in her first years as a demon, it was no wonder she would spare herself from this agony.
The moon… was bright. If he squinted hard enough, maybe it would look like the sun, and he was enjoying the estate’s silence by nursing tea in his garden while the children left for the markets. The illusion barely lasted five seconds before a chilling wind swept through the estate, brushing hair strands from his face, as if it were patting his head like a mother would do to their children playing make-believe, Of course, you’re the strongest hero I’ve ever known!
He was far too old and weathered to indulge in these fantasies, but there was no denying the false, yet comforting warmth it brought.
“Mr. Tomioka.”
Giyuu’s eyes snapped towards the house, spotting a bright colored figure approaching. It was alarming how he’d failed to sense his presence when any other demon would’ve noticed before the boy blinked. (Not just the demons; his former self, the other Hashira, the children.)
“Agatsuma,” he greeted in turn. Why was the boy awake? Had Giyuu been too loud?
“You’re out of the water, Mr. Tomioka,” he mumbled. He must’ve just woken up: with crumpled clothes and frizzed hair. “You sound tired.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Did I wake you?”
“Your sound woke me up,” he confirmed, but not the way Giyuu surmised. “It’s very disconcerting.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, though he’s not sure what the boy wants from him or what else he could do other than leave his estate. “Go back to sleep.”
Unlike the others, the younger murmured agreements in breaths of delirium, already shuffling back into the room. But before he did, he spoke: “You should come tomorrow.”
Giyuu didn’t respond.
“Tanjirou and Nezuko spent all day worrying if you’d go with us,” he continued. “You should go. If not for yourself, then for them.”
The shoji door shifted shut.
Giyuu, with his hands tucked in his sleeves, turned to his loyal companion by his side. “What do you think, Kanzaburo?” he asked, despite the words lost on the old crow’s slumber. “Should I go?”
The bird merely snored in his sleep, offering only an unassuming hum.
The coming morning arrived. They drew baths, prepared breakfast and performed maintenance chores. Kanao and Kaburamaru arrived around the afternoon, a few hours earlier than their scheduled rendezvous and buzzing with excitement, but the residents were more than delighted to assimilate her into their tasks.
After lunch, they began final preparations for the trip ahead, because although an hour’s journey may not be significant to them as demon slayers, they had long lost the muscle and training required to make the trek without wheezing. One of the many tradeoffs of their victory, and perhaps one of the sweetest ones. There was no point in reaching the pinnacle of one’s strength after the festering rot had finally been cleansed.
“The wagon’s a bit too small, isn’t it?”
Kanao tilted her head. “It looks like it’s the right fit.”
Tanjirou placed the last of the water gourds into the cart, and stepped backwards to eye the carrier from a distance: a simple wagon with a wooden box as the storage, compact and discrete, and pulled by a human.
It was an old wagon they’d brought from the Corps, originally meant for transporting medical supplies in precarious terrain. He had tried to buy it from the Butterfly girls, but they insisted he’d take it for free, so they compromised by Tanjirou sneaking a sash of coins in one of the trays of food.
“For our things,” he agreed, resting a hand on a side and studying its packed interior of rice balls, gourds, designated space for anything they’d inevitably purchase, and heavy duty cloth. “I’m not sure if Giyuu can fit.”
Kanao blinked. “Tomioka…?”
Tanjirou nodded, as he began rearranging the layout. Maybe the gourds can be stacked together, or maybe they didn’t need that many rice balls… “Yeah! For when he gets tired,” he explained. “It’d be bad if he fell asleep as an adult! I don’t think any of us can comfortably carry him anymore.”
The girl merely stared, her lips ajar as if she were weighing her words, each syllable tilting the scale until she favored the outcome.
“Even so,” she began, and pride and warmth blossomed in Tanjirou’s chest, knowing just how far Kanao had come to speak without prompting, “did Tomioka say he’d go?”
That same warm fuzzy feeling fizzled out in an instant, like Kanao had dumped a metaphorical bucket of ice cold water the embers of his optimism.
“Well I mean—!” Tanjirou grimaced. “He didn’t say he wouldn’t go—!”
“But he’s…” Kanao’s voice trailed off, letting the implication settle between them like falling debris.
Tanjirou shook his head. “Nezuko didn’t look twice at a human when we were at a festival! I have full faith in Giyuu too!”
Ah, but it’s not really about faith or discipline, was it?
“Nezuko said she’d talked to him,” he said. “She’s always had a special talent to connect with people! If anyone can get him to go, it’s her.”
Despite Tanjirou’s vote of confidence in his sister and former mentor, his appetite gradually diminished through an unhealthy intake of keratin and epidermis. By the time the sun dipped over the horizon, there were more chewed nails in his stomach than rice grains.
“I can go check on him,” Nezuko offered, shuffling in her cherry blossom patterned yukata. “Maybe he’s just lost track of time.”
“I’ll go with you,” Tanjirou said instantly, leaving Inosuke, Kanao and Zenitsu’s side to join his sister into the estate. “We’ll make him go, no matter what!” He’ll drag the man out by his shoulders if he has to! They needed to make him realize that he’s only allowing himself to rot away in the darkness!
The Kamado siblings stormed down the hall, blatantly making their presences known to the estate. This was their only warning and heads’ up to Giyuu before they resorted to unsavory methods (in which, they might need to smoke him out with wisteria incense).
“Giyuu!” Tanjirou shouted just outside Giyuu’s shoji door. “Please excuse us! We’re coming in!”
Here goes nothing!
“Giyuu—!”
Tomioka Giyuu stared down at them with a high ponytail and black yukata, the door between them seemingly evaporating into thin air. The siblings yelped, taken aback, only belatedly noticing the splintered wooden frame crushed into the sides, mangled by a veined, outstretched hand.
“Let’s not keep the others waiting,” said the former Hashira, his impassivity betraying none of his anxious energy.
How Giyuu didn’t spontaneously disintegrate from the combined might of the Kamado smile, the world may never know.