Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t tell me it’s over. I won’t have you dying on me.”

Rengoku stands before the demon, blood dripping on the ground between his feet, and tries not to shudder at how strangely blank the expressive creature has become. I am dying, he wants to say, and it is because of you. I am going to die when the sun rises, and I will take you with me. Just us.

Behind him, Kamado and the Boar Boy watch and fret, and he hates the demon most for this. He is glad, proud even, to give his life for his juniors. The duty of a Hashira calls for it, and the boys will understand eventually, but that they have been forced to watch this is an injustice that adds to the fire in his chest.

Akaza gestures to the wound on his chest as it heals while naming his, as though he isn’t intimately aware of them. That offer is made again; to remake him into something the demon can keep for eternity.

From the corner of his eye, he sees the sky growing brighter by the second. Just a few more moments, that’s all he needs. Victory will be his; no one will die on his watch.

Though it hurts his ribs and lungs, he sucks in a deep breath and pushes the oxygen through every cell of his body. He stems most of his bleeding, floods his muscles with energy, and reaches deep into his memories of hours poring over the Flame Chronicles. This is what he was born to do, what he promised to do, and he will not allow anything to deter him.

“I will fulfill my duty!” he proclaims, lifting his sword and planting his feet. There is one technique he still has; he’ll do the most damage he possibly can at once. Even if it isn’t enough, the sun will shine down on them and end this.

Akaza looks dumbfounded, then exhilarated. His shoulders draw up and excited shivers run up and down his body, a manic grin stretching his mouth.

“Now you must become a demon!” he cries as Rengoku pushes, pulls, floods every part of his body with oxygen and fire and strength.

“Esoteric Art.”

The dust in the air around Akaza swirls as he drops into a deep stance, elbows tucked close to his body. “Annihilation Type!”

Behind him, he thinks he hears yelling and maybe a shout of his name. His blood is pounding in his ears, and he wills the boys to stay put.

“Ninth Form!” He has never attempted this form, but there is no room for doubt on this battlefield. It will work, because it must.

“Disorder!” Akaza stretches his arms out, crosses them and brings them back in, and the air around him is disrupted.

And, as they are both putting their first foot forward, a figure appears between them.

Rengoku’s focus is pulled back to Kamado and the Boar Boy screaming unintelligible words, not just at him he realizes, but at the young man who has put himself squarely in the path of both of their attacks. The fire in him can’t be extinguished like that. He can’t just stop this attack with his body already in motion.

Yellow eyes blow wide, panic on the demon’s face. Rengoku wonders if the sun is rising over the ruins of the train, if time has run out for him regardless of the interruption of their stand-off.

(He wishes he could find satisfaction in that, but he’s simply too consumed with horror and regret and confusion—)

His ninth form finishes, tearing a groove into the ground as his sword swings through empty air. Blue fingers had snatched the man—who had been facing the demon—out of the way and Rengoku whirls around to see them rolling through the dirt. Fists and feet are flying as they go, and he waits to see the telltale red spray of blood and brain matter as the man’s head is obliterated.

Instead, a crater forms in the ground beside the man’s ear, though he cannot tell if that was the intended target. A fist hits Akaza’s jaw before the man pulls his feet between them and kicks hard at the demon’s stomach, which causes him to leap backwards towards the tree line.

As the man gets to his feet, Rengoku wills his body to move, but the execution of the Ninth Form and his injuries are finally taking their toll on him. It’s all he can do to stay on his feet and turn to face them. The stranger unerringly keeps himself between Rengoku and Akaza, and he yells at the same time the demon does.

“That creature is dangerous!”

“You have no business here!”

The demon is so agitated he’s trembling, and Rengoku winces at the malice dripping from his words. At this moment, he looks more like an animal—more like a beast—than he has since he appeared.

“I disagree,” a strange voice intones. The man doesn’t look back, but Rengoku still isn’t sure who he’s speaking to.

Akaza leans forward slightly, muscles tensing and mouth pulling into a snarl—

And then, his eyes blow wide, flying up above them both to the sky. All three of them move at the same time, but the demon is simply faster. Akaza turns on his heel and leaps to the tree line, using a thick trunk of one as a springboard and disappearing into the forest. The man runs after him, surprisingly fast, and Rengoku stumbles as the sun breaks over the horizon and light shines across the grass.

Just before the man follows the demon into the trees, Kamado catches his arm with both hands and topples them both to the ground with a grunt.

“Kamado!” he shouts, finally prying his fingers loose and lowering his blade. Everything hurts, every injury suddenly screaming at him to stop moving and lie down, but the boy surely reopened that belly wound and he is in need of some answers. So, he drags his feet forward, leaving a bloody trail in the grass behind him.

Kamado is a fast learner, and Rengoku can tell before he reaches them that he’s managed to staunch his own bleeding again. He’s impressed; the boy will make a fine Tsuguko. His attention shifts to the man who put himself between a demon and his sword.

The man has gotten to his feet and is staring blankly down at Kamado. And, looking at him in profile, Rengoku begins to take in the uncanny details.

Short, spiky hair the color of ink. Thick, muscular arms with only three tattoos, dark bands around each forearm. Soft, round cheeks that give the impression of youth. Thick, pale eyelashes framing wide eyes. Then he looks up and the sun shines off the color of them, even as he squints against it. Blue, like hydrangeas; like the sky.

“That was incredibly dangerous!” he says, unable to muster a smile.

He should put his sword away. The demon is gone; the sun is shining on the man’s face and he isn’t turning to ash or screaming in agony. Though he is a spitting image of Akaza, the man before him is clearly human.

“What is your relation to Upper Moon Three?” he asks, knees shaking. His vision is blurring, but in his periphery he sees several figures in black appear, racing along the tracks. The Kakushi have arrived. “Are you a human descendant?”

“No. He has no human descendants.”

Rengoku sways dangerously on his feet, jolting when the stranger’s hands wrap around his upper arms and help guide him to his knees. “Then… who are you? Why didn’t he kill you?”

“Well… I’m him, and he’s me. We’re the same person.”

Chapter Text

The Hashira that had been fighting his other self—Kyojuro, that’s what the scattered memories tell him—stares at him silently, even as the black clad figures crowd around them and lay out a stretcher clearly meant for the slayer. He backs off to allow them to do their work, grateful for the opportunity to look away from all the blood on the man’s face and uniform. Guilt lodges itself in his chest, sticking to the inside of his ribs. It’s always there, but standing in front of one of Akaza’s—one of his—victims makes it heavier. When the slayer is surrounded, he can finally peel his eyes away and glances down again at the boy that had stopped him.

Kill the slayer who wears Hanafuda card earrings.

The man remembers the order well, even if it no longer applies to him. If he focuses, he can even remember the searing urgency of the order, the way it had consumed every part of his—of Akaza’s—of their being. Looking down at the boy, he isn’t quite sure he understands it.

“Sir?” When he looks up, he sees that one of the black clad figures is standing in front of him. “Are you injured?”

“No,” he mutters. The trees aren’t far, and the burst of energy that allowed the boy to catch him has run its course. He might still be able to….

“He comes with us!” Kyojuro booms. “And it is possible he has a connection to Kibutsuji!”

Oh, he hates that. Do all the slayers throw that name about so casually? It makes his skin crawl.

His tongue lays still as his wrists are grabbed and pulled behind his back. If he’d had an opportunity to flee, it’s gone now.

“He saved Rengoku-san!” the Hanafuda boy says indignantly next to him. Both he and the brave soul tying his hands glance down at him, surprised at the anger in the lines of his face. He’s sitting up between two people who are wrapping bandages around his bare midriff.

“Yes… he did,” Kyojuro says. The man’s head cranes around to look at him, noting that he’s been laid out on the stretcher and tied down. It’s a bit of a miracle he’s still conscious, really, but even as he speaks again, he is fading. “I think… perhaps only the blindfold is necessary.”

Between those words and the glare that the boy is still leveling over his shoulder, he feels the hesitation in the hands holding him before they slide off. He should move, but his feet feel rooted to the floor and his mind still feels like it’s catching up with the events of the last few minutes.

After days and nights of running, he’d finally caught up to Akaza, and now he was….

As the blindfold is secured over his eyes and his hands are directed to someone’s shoulders so he can follow, it seems to slide into place like a lock in a door. They’re taking him with the Hashira, to the demon slayer corps or somewhere related to it.

“This is a mistake,” he hears himself say before he’s suddenly hefted up onto someone’s back. The strength surprises him, because he knows he isn’t light, but whoever is carrying him is keeping pace with the rest of the group.

A hand touches his shoulder briefly before the boy with the earrings speaks again. “Thank you for saving Rengoku-san! I’m sure it’ll be alright!”

That wasn’t really my goal, he wants to say. He’s glad for it, of course; any life snatched out of Akaza’s hands was a good thing. He hadn’t cared for the fight happening beside the train when he’d arrived. There had only been the giddy elation that he’d finally found him, finally caught him. That nagging in his chest, in the back of his mind, that demanded that he look the other in the eye had finally been abated. It hadn’t quieted since he woke up like this, and even now he can feel it beginning to grow again.

Something important is going to happen when he and Akaza are around each other long enough. What that will be, the man isn’t wholly sure, but he has a few suspicions.

“This is a mistake,” he whispers again. But there’s no changing it, no going back, so he drops his head forward and lets himself drift as the countryside flies beneath them.

Wherever they end up is full of voices, some laughing and chattering and others speaking more urgently. The noise brings him out of his jumbled thoughts. The blindfold is still on, but light peeks through the edges of it, which he takes to mean the sun is still high. The person carrying him enters a building, the air smelling clean and crisp, and the noise gradually dies down until it’s a low hum in the background. He’s set down on something soft and released. His hands drift down to his thighs, trying to rub the feeling back into them, and he waits until he hears light footsteps enter the space before there’s a sharp click.

Whoever is with him now is simply watching him. The gaze seems to crawl over his skin, like they’re peeling him open and peering within. It’s enough to make his chest tight, and he finally reaches up and removes the blindfold.

A young woman stands before him. His eyes take in her baggy uniform, swallowing a short stature. Behind her head, he sees the wings of a butterfly secured in her hair, and the scaly patterns are mirrored in the haori she wears. When his eyes meet hers, he finds them to be deep purple and carefully vacant. Her smile—a small, fleeting thing—is equally as blank.

“Good afternoon,” she says in a melodious voice. It might be soothing, except he has had quite a bit of experience in listening to carefully blank voices for what is underneath. This woman does not like him. “I am Kocho Shinobu, the Insect Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps. If you’ll indulge me, I have some questions. The reports I’ve received from the boys are… inconclusive.”

After a moment, it clicks into place that she is waiting for an answer. “Okay. What kind of questions?”

At that, her smile tightens just slightly. She sits primly in a chair beside what he’s sitting on, which is one of those raised frames for bedding. He hasn’t really paid attention to anything in the room since seeing her, but now he glances around and sees that it’s some kind of hospital room, full of medical equipment he’s never seen before.

“Well, perhaps we could start with your name.”

His cheeks burn a little. “Oh. My name is Hakuji.” It feels surreal to listen to his own voice say those words again.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hakuji.” Her hands fold in her lap, graceful and poised. “The boys have told me that you appeared at the site of the Mugen Train crash and put yourself into the middle of the battle between the Upper Moon Three and Rengoku-san. Is that true?”

Hakuji shifts uncomfortably. “Yes.” When he doesn’t elaborate further, her fingers twitch, and he grimaces. “I wasn’t focused on your Hashira, though. My only goal was getting close to Akaza.”

Shinobu’s smile thins even further at the demon’s name. “Yes… the boys also said that, when asked about your connection to Upper Moon Three, you responded that you are the same person.” An icy undercurrent has come into her voice, and Hakuji feels his shoulders draw up. “Except, you arrived here under the light of the sun. So clearly you are not a demon!”

Hakuji knows she wants an explanation, and he chews on his lip as he thinks of how to give one. Fortunately, she seems patient, and though the smile slowly slips from her lips, she stares at him wordlessly.

“I’m not a demon. But I did come from him.” Her mouth opens and he soldiers on before she can speak again. “We were in a fight with another demon, and its blood demon art did this.”

The silence stretches between them, her face twitching minutely as she processes what he’s told her.

“And… the demon that did this is still alive?”

“No. I wasn’t close to the battlefield when I woke up, but when I went back I saw the pieces of it scattered on the ground.”

Purple eyes widen minutely at that. He understands; he’s a bit perplexed by it too.

Shinobu stands and brushes imaginary dust off herself before folding her hands and smiling again. “Thank you for your cooperation. This information is very useful.” She turns before he can formulate an answer to the pointless niceties, and when she leaves, the click of the door shutting sounds too loud in the room.

Left alone, Hakuji isn’t sure what to do with himself. Though the equipment in the room fascinates him, he doesn’t dare to touch any of it. He itches to run do something, but he has a feeling that if he opens the door he’ll be met with someone who will report him to the Insect Hashira, and he isn’t sure he wants to deal with that.

The light slanting through the window slides across the room as the hours crawl by. On the other side of the door, he hears footsteps coming and going, voices talking and whispering, but his door stays shut until the light in the room is silvery and his body has started to remind him that he needs things like food and sleep.

(The hunger is familiar, of course it is, it always has been, but he hasn’t been tired in over two hundred years. It’s deeply unpleasant, and he doesn’t care for it.)

The door opens to Shinobu again. That smile is still in place on her face, but Hakuji can tell by the way her chin dips slightly and the light furrow between her eyebrows that she is tired too.

“Is Kyojuro going to live?” he asks before she can speak. She pauses before setting down a tray with two cups and a kettle on the table beside the bed.

“Yes… Rengoku-san will live. He’ll have a long recovery ahead of him, however, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to resume his duties as a slayer. Although, knowing him…” she mutters the last part, as though it wasn’t really directed at him. As she speaks, she also pours two cups of tea and hands one to him before settling in her chair again.

Hakuji holds the teacup awkwardly, even as she sips at hers. After a few minutes of silence, he also takes a drink of the steaming liquid, feeling it wet his lips and tongue again. Shinobu’s shoulders relax slowly as they drink, and he wonders what the point of all this is.

When she finishes, she places her cup back on the tray and faces him with her hands in her lap again. “This is a rather… complicated situation that we’ve found ourselves in, no? May I ask you one more thing?”

Hakuji finishes his tea and sets the cup aside before looking at her again. “I guess. What is it?”

“Why were you following Upper Moon Three? Or rather, what was it you had hoped to achieve upon catching him?”

Hakuji narrows his eyes. That question seems a bit foolish to him. “I want to kill him, of course.”

Shinobu’s face doesn’t change at his answer, and she opens her mouth again. He wants to cut her off and remind her that she’d only wanted to ask one more question, and has already gone over that limit, but very abruptly his head swims and his stomach tumbles. His mouth still opens, but only a hard exhale comes out as he sways a bit on the bed.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me,” she says, standing suddenly and placing small, cold hands on his chest to push him backwards. “A situation this complicated needs to be dealt with by my master, you see, and I cannot allow there to be a possibility that his position is compromised.”

Drugs. His back hits the bedding hard, heart thumping even as his breath goes deep in his chest.

As his eyelids grow heavy, he feels a spike of anger. But it goes as quick as it comes; with his body and mind already exhausted, the drugs don’t take long to pull him under.

Everything is warm when Hakuji comes to. Light shines through his closed eyelids, and voices start to filter in as he shifts.

“Come on, Kocho, tell us what’s going on,” a gruff voice says. Several murmurs of agreement rise, and he forces himself to blink his eyes open.

Gravel is the first thing he sees when he peels them open, and he scoffs out a laugh. Shinobu is kneeling next to him, and several strange looking men are looking down at them.

“Shinazugawa-san,” Shinobu replies, that undercurrent of strain to her voice, “I’ve already told you, we’ll have more answers if we wait for Oyakata-sama.”

“The last time you said that, you brought a boy and his demon sister,” says a man with one green and one yellow eye, who also dons bandages around his face and a snake around his shoulders.

“This guy is in the sun though, and he doesn’t have any box,” interjects a very tall man with white hair and strange accessories. There’s also a bright red spot around his eye that Hakuji can’t help but focus on as the man looks him up and down. “Pretty unflashy, this one.”

“You guys,” says a feminine voice closer to Shinobu. He tips his head back to see a pretty young woman with bright pink hair and a very interesting take on the slayer uniform. “We really should wait for Oyakata-sama. This is also about Rengoku-san facing an Upper Moon and living!”

Hakuji isn’t completely sure that bringing that up was the right thing to do, because it only makes the young boy with teal tipped hair and the man in the two toned haori look over at him as well. Before anyone else can add on, two voices chime from somewhere above him.

“The Master has arrived.”

The group of slayers all turn and kneel respectfully in a line, seemingly content to leave him lying on his side. Suits him just fine; whatever Shinobu gave him is making his head pound.

“Good afternoon, my children,” a soft voice says. There’s a warmth to it, a comforting nature almost, and he can see it working on the Hashira in his line of vision. Shoulders soften, jaws unclench, eyes brighten.

It’s an impressive display. There is no fear here, only trust and respect the likes of which that man couldn’t fathom.

The man who’d knelt next to Hakuji — the tall one with the strange eye marking — grabs his shoulder and pulls him none too gently onto his knees. He peeks up through his eyelashes and feels his breath stutter in his chest when his eyes land on the unseeing man on the engawa.

Sickness. At every turn there is more sickness.

“Good afternoon, Oyakata-sama,” the gruff voice from before says. It comes from a man with white hair and lots of scars on his face and arms. “We are pleased to see you in good spirits, and we pray it gives you strength.”

“Thank you, Sanemi,” the master says with a gentle smile. “This meeting does bring good tidings, children. For the first time in over a century, a Hashira has crossed paths with an Upper Moon and survived.”

Beside him, Hakuji feels a shiver of tension run through Shinobu’s body. It shakes through her frame quickly and her fingertips dig lightly into the gravel for a few seconds before she lets it go.

“How flashy of Rengoku-san!” the man  with the strange eye marking says. Rather boisterously, at that. “And against Upper Moon Three, no less!”

“May his experience be a boon for all of us,” another voice says, and Hakuji glances down the line to see an enormous man with prayer beads wrapped around his hands.

“Yeah!” the chipper woman from before says. “Even hearing second hand accounts of a battle like that could be really useful!”

“Respectfully,” the scarred man cuts in, jerking his head towards Hakuji, “what about him?”

Silence falls as everyone present — the master included — turns their faces towards him. Despite the sun beating down on them, it makes a shiver run through his bones.

“Yes,” the man says, smile never faltering. “I hear that we owe our Flame Hashira’s life to you, child. Please, tell us who you are.”

Hakuji stares at him for a moment, words tumbling around in his head. Something about the man makes him want to answer, almost more than he wants to argue about the absurd claim.

“My name is Hakuji,” he croaks when his tongue finally unsticks from the roof of his mouth.

“Is that the name we can expect from Upper Moon Three?” Sanemi asks, a strange smile curling his lips. Hakuji wonders how much these people know already.

“No. His name is Akaza; he didn’t remember that Hakuji is the name he had as a human.”

“Wait, what?” the tall man says, shifting away and looking down at him.

“If you’d paid more attention earlier, Uzui-san—”

“Children,” the man says again, although looking between him and the Hashira, Hakuji is sure some of them are older. They all quiet down again, still looking at him but holding their tongues. “Hakuji, there are clearly some things that need to be clarified. If you would?”

He doesn’t want to. No matter how soothing this man is, he doesn’t want to lay out any more details than absolutely necessary.

But then, he’s not really under any delusions of having a choice. He can’t say he knows much about the Demon Slayer corps beyond the Hashira he remembers killing with blue fists, but there’s so much hostility in the yard they’ve gathered in that he can almost taste it.

“I don’t exactly understand it all myself. Akaza — a few days ago, when we were still together — was in a fight with another demon. Before he killed it, it hit us with its blood demon art. I don’t remember the rest of the fight. I woke up just before sunrise, and when I got back to where the fight happened, Akaza was gone. I’ve been trying to find him again ever since.”

“Wait a minute,” the man with the snake says, narrowing his eyes. “You expect us to believe that a blood demon art somehow made a human spring out of a demon?”

Hakuji glances over at the man, keeping eye contact as he answers. “Whether you believe it or not is up to you.”

“So, are you still connected to Muzan?” Sanemi asks, a mean glint coming into his eyes as he sees Hakuji fight a cringe at the name.

“No. That presence isn’t in my head at all.”

“Oh yeah? Go on and prove it then.”

“He’s telling the truth,” that calm voice says, effortlessly cutting through the air and silencing everyone again. Hakuji supposes it shouldn’t be surprising that the man can tell such things.

After the beat of silence, several questions fly at him all at once. The master keeps things orderly, for the most part, and a sort of interrogation begins.

“Did one of the other Kizuki do this to you?” the woman with pink hair asks.

“No; the demon that did it was old and reasonably strong, but not a Kizuki.”

“And it managed to hit an Upper Moon with a blood demon art?” the man with the snake asks.

“It was triggered by proximity,” he mutters, trying to keep his voice even. Why do they care about the demon that did this? “Akaza fights hand to hand.”

“What did it feel like?” a soft, almost dreamy voice asks.

Hakuji is about to ask why that even matters, but Uzui speaks before he can.

“Seriously, Tokito?” he says incredulously. “What kind of a question is that?”

Hakuji suddenly wants to answer just to waste the guy’s time. “It had the same kind of burning feeling as a nichirin blade, actually,” he answers, looking directly at the young man that had asked. “Just not as clean.”

“Historically, blood demon arts stop afflicting their targets once the demon is dead,” Shinobu says. “So, are you sure that the demon that did this has perished?”

“Pretty sure,” he responds. She arches an eyebrow at him, and he’s reminded of their previous conversation. Such a bland answer isn’t enough. “When I got back to where the fight took place, the demon that did it was smeared across the ground. His head had been stuck on a tree branch, and I’m not sure where his legs ended up. The organs and bones weren’t even trying to regenerate when the sun rose, and since the head was kind of high up, all the smeared pieces burned up on the grass before the head went.”

An uncomfortable silence has fallen over the yard when he finishes, and he clenches his fists on his thighs. Details like that don’t bother him, and he can’t imagine them bothering the Hashira, but his eyes flicker over to the sickly man on the engawa and he feels ashamed of himself.

“Well then,” Shinobu says after a moment, “is it suddenly becoming common for demons to develop a demon art that lasts beyond death? I’m sure you can understand why such information might be useful to us.” She’s smiling again, so wide it crinkles her eyes shut (it’s fine, he already knows what they look like) and her voice is light and even, but Hakuji has an inkling that she wouldn’t mind hitting him.

“I’ve never heard of it happening before.”

“Am I to understand that you possess Akaza’s memories?” the master speaks suddenly. All of the attention is drawn back to him momentarily, and Hakuji feels himself sigh.

“Most of them, although some of the earlier ones are blurry,” he answers, tone softening.

“If you are a manifestation of the human the demon once was, does that mean you possess those memories as well?” asks the giant with all the beads. Watching them roll around the man’s wrists makes Hakuji miss the weight of his own beads on his ankles.

“Yes,” he answers after a minute. “I remember my human life. But Akaza doesn’t remember any of it, and he never has.”

“Most demons don’t remember anything,” Sanemi spits, fingers digging into his own arms.

“The Kizuki do,” he mutters without meaning to, starting to cough. Personally, he’s got a couple of theories regarding that but his head is still pounding from whatever Shinobu gave him, his mouth is dry and he wishes they’d get to whatever point it is they’re going to make.

(He knew from the moment the master started speaking that this little meeting wouldn’t end in his execution. They’ll find a better way to make use of him, surely.)

“Oh, I apologize,” Shinobu chirps from beside him, unhooking one of several flasks from her belt and holding it out to him. Her smile tightens when he narrows his eyes at it and makes no move to accept it. “It’s only water! And I already apologized for the incident with the tea.”

When he glances around, the other Hashira are looking between him and Shinobu with expressions that range from confused to concerned to exasperated.

Another cough starts in his chest and he takes the flask, sniffing at the spout before taking a drink.

“Hakuji,” the master calls with a smile. “Thank you for being so patient. I only have one more question, if you don’t mind.”

Hakuji doesn’t know what exactly is wrong with the man, but his illness — great, purple swathes of skin rendering him blind and delicate —is clearly taking a toll. A pang of guilt goes through him. Perhaps he should have focused on having a one-on-one conversation with the man and ignored the Hashira, so he wouldn’t be outside for too long while sick.

“I don’t,” he answers, ignoring the glares cutting into him.

“You have been pursuing Akaza since you awoke like this. What is it you hope to achieve when you and he are face to face?”

Hakuji shifts, pebbles crunching beneath his knees. It sounds like such a simple question, just like when Shinobu asked it, and it should carry a simple answer, but….

“I want… I want to kill him.”

There’s no way it will be that simple.

“Wouldn’t that also kill you?” It’s the first thing the man in the two toned haori says, and Hakuji peers into his fathomless blue eyes to see if the tiny note of awe in his voice is reflected there.

“And how would you go about killing Upper Three, anyway?” Uzui tacks on, crossing his arms. “Honestly, I’m not sure why it didn’t just kill you.”

Yes, Hakuji has several theories on that as well. Once he drags his eyes away from those blue ones he looks back to the master, who has a thin sheen of sweat on his cheeks.

(Too long, they’ve been outside too long and the winter chill might have passed but the spring winds are just as unforgiving on her fragile lungs—)

“It probably will kill me,” he answers, shrugging when he hears a little gasp, “but on the off chance that it doesn’t, I’ll slit my own belly open, so you all don’t have to worry about that. ”

Chapter Text

The venture between her estate and the Ubuyashiki manor is a short one, and Shinobu is more grateful for that now than ever before. Walking at her side is a man, one who sprang from a demon, and she hasn’t really decided how she feels about that yet. For the moment, it definitely leans towards negative.

The meeting with the Master had drawn to a rather abrupt end at Hakuji’s little bombshell. Part of her wonders if escaping his interrogation was his intention; from the moment he’d removed the blindfold, she’d been able to see plainly how tired the man was.

As they exit the grove of wisteria that protects the Master’s house, Hakuji sneezes twice beside her. Wordlessly, thoughtlessly, she goes into her pocket and withdraws a plain white handkerchief, which he takes with a muttered thanks. Fortunately, he doesn’t do something stupid like try to pass it back to her.

She must admit, though, that it was a good thing he’d brought the meeting to such a halt. Oyakata-sama had begun to look unwell, especially with the day being so hot, and she herself had been thinking about how to respectfully address it. When Hakuji had said what he’d said, the Master had frowned so deeply it pulled on his infected skin, and he’d responded gravely that he would pray for Hakuji. Then he’d excused himself, waving off their concern and leaving Lady Amane to finish the meeting and deliver a verdict.

A little part of her is pleased at how visibly uncomfortable the Master’s reaction had made Hakuji. He deserved it.

It also hadn’t ended his interrogation; despite the Master being absent, the Hashira had rounded on Hakuji and continued asking him questions, which he answered, albeit reluctantly. That pleased her, too. Every bit of information he’d given had been heard by Lady Amane as well as the crows lingering in the yard. Shinobu would bet every bit of information has already been relayed to him.

But despite how pleasing she found most of the meeting, it had ended with the unpleasant realization that he would be accompanying her back to her home. Amane-sama had decided that he was to stay at the Butterfly Estate until such time as a Hashira agreed to take him in. She’d had half a mind to ask that he be blindfolded again, but…

The thoughts tumbling around her head are frustrating. She trusts Oyakata-sama, unconditionally, and she will honor this decision. Just as she took in Kamado Nezuko, she’ll take in Hakuji.

‘Besides,’ she reminds herself, ‘this is only temporary. He’s only coming with me out of necessity.’

When they arrive at the gate of her estate, the triplets swarm around her legs with sweet greetings and pleading eyes. They ask her for sweets while she greets them, and she ruffles three different hairstyles as she replies that any sweets she might have will have to wait until after dinner. She doesn’t have to argue that point as she normally would, because at that moment they seem to realize Hakuji is there.

“Girls,” she says with a smile, “this is Hakuji. He’ll be staying with us for a while. Hakuji, this is Sumi, Naho and Kiyo, I trust that you’ll be able to stay out of their way; my estate is a very active place, you see, and people being where they shouldn’t be can cause problems.”

Hakuji stares at her some more. The blue of his eyes reminds her of a painting she once saw depicting a great iceberg glittering in the sea; the sunlight catches on them and makes them seem even brighter, almost see-through (and makes him squint, as though that light is painful to him).

Those eyes are tired. Several other emotions have come and gone – confusion, anger, exasperation – but they don’t linger, as though he doesn’t have the energy to hold on to them.

“I can stay out of the way,” he mutters to her before looking down and the girls. “It’s nice to meet you all.” Just as it had with the Master, his tone softens for the girls. His lips even quirk into a little smile for them.

“This way,” she says, stepping through the doors of the estate and gesturing down a hallway. She isn’t looking forward to giving up one of her private patient rooms for him, but the idea of putting him in one of the recovery rooms with other slayers… that doesn’t sit right with her, either.

“Here,” she says, opening a door and allowing him inside. “If you have any questions or needs, ask one of the Kakushi. They’ll also let you know when mealtimes are.”

Hakuji stops in the middle of the room and looks over his shoulder at her. “So, I’m supposed to just… sit here all day?”

‘That’s about all you look capable of,’ she thinks. The words hover on the tip of her tongue before she pulls them behind her teeth and smiles again. “This arrangement will be temporary, but for right now, at least, yes. Clearly, I cannot be the Hashira to take you in permanently, and after today’s meeting… well, anyway, I wasn’t prepared for an extra resident when I woke up this morning. I’m sure we’ll find a place for you before you get terribly bored, though. There’s always work to do.”

“Right, because this estate is so active. Because it’s a hospital, right?”

Her hand shifts on the doorknob, rubbing the smooth metal along the lines of her palm as she observes him. She hadn’t missed the devastated way he’d looked at Oyakata-sama the first time, nor the way concern had grown on his features. There’s something there, some connection with illness, and the weariness in his voice when he asks that only fuels the suspicion.

“Yes,” she answers. “Slayers and occasionally civilians who are critically injured by demons come here. I guess you could say this is also something of a battlefield; we fight so hard to save them already, and that battle shouldn’t be made more difficult by people throwing themselves into it.” His face sours, even as her smile grows. The truth is, she isn’t sure she can trust him to any task around her manor, not for a few days at least, and the risk of him causing even more problems nags at her. “Once I’ve had a bit more time, I’m sure I’ll find something for you to do. Until then, though, I must ask you to sit tight!”

As the door shuts, she hears grumbling, but it’s half hearted at best. Too tired to hold on to any indignation or annoyance.

Three sets of eyes peer around the corner ahead, and she feels her mouth soften as she approaches them. They’re such curious things, and sometimes she wonders how to indulge that curiosity without upsetting them.

“Is Hakuji-san hurt?” Kiyo asks. “Did a demon take his family, too?”

All three already have sympathetic gleams in their eyes, and her chest pangs with pride and concern. While she believes them to be relatively decent judges of character, she has noted their tendency to attach themselves strongly to those who have suffered similar fates as them. A dangerous thing to do, more so for them than for normal people.

Crouching down in front of them, she nibbles her lip and thinks hard about her answer. She can’t very well tell them that Hakuji probably killed his family after becoming Akaza. (Not that she knows that; when asked about his life before being Akaza, he’d been immovable. The only thing they’d learned had been from Uzui pointing out his tattoos, and how in the Edo period they’d have marked him as a thief. His reaction had been strong enough that no one had needed Uzui to chortle and announce that he was clearly right.)

“He isn’t hurt,” she begins, “but no one knows what happened to his family. He’s going to be staying here while we find out who he should stay with instead! Personally, I imagine it should be Rengoku-san, since he’s the one that brought Hakuji here at all, but we’ll see.”

The girls all nod solemnly, already peering around her down the hallway. “Is he like Nezuko-chan?” Naho asks.

She makes herself laugh a little at that. “No, not quite. He is human, but… I guess you could say that he’s been stuck with a demon for a very long time.” All three girls gasp a little dramatically. Childlike curiosity and sympathy swim in their expressions. “Now girls, I must as you not to bother him too much, alright? He probably doesn’t want to answer many questions, so do you best to focus on your tasks and leave him be, alright?”

Palpable disappointment comes off the girls, and she feels her eyebrows start to pull inward. They agree and dart off to find Aoi, but she has a feeling they’ll be back around this hallway soon enough.

Shinobu always hopes and prays for swift, complete recoveries for her patients and peers. When she says her prayers for Rengoku-san, she’ll put extra emphasis on swift and throw in a fervent hope that he takes responsibility for what he’s done.

Hakuji sits on the bed – that he supposes is his, until further notice – and looks around the sparsely furnished room.

He estimates it takes about four minutes before he’s seriously contemplating climbing out the window.

Shinobu’s distrust is understandable. The blood soaked into Akaza’s hands doesn’t simply disappear just because he’s in Hakuji’s body again (except it isn’t really Hakuji’s body, and it isn’t really Akaza’s, because he’s… both? Neither?) and besides that, Hakuji’s hands aren’t clean anyway.

Not that they know that. If he has any say in the matter, none of them will ever know that. He’ll take that shame to hell with him.

On the other side of the door, the buzz of the hospital calls to him; he has never been built for sitting around doing nothing. His hands itch to do something, to be busy, and he has to press them under his thighs to keep them still. She is not wrong for not wanting him around her patients.

Still, with nothing to do or focus on, his mind inevitably wanders. There are so many memories crammed in his head now, and if he isn’t careful and selective then he risks thinking too hard about… well, any of them.

The Flame Hashira’s bloody face flashes in his mind, and he wonders where in this building he is. His mind supplies the injuries Kyojuro sustained, despite him not being present for the fight. A smashed eye socket, broken ribs, internal bleeding. Shinobu is correct; his recovery will be long, and it would be fortunate and foolish to return to his slayer duties.

That woman – the wife of the Master – had said that in the case that no other Hashira elected to take him in, Kyojuro would be asked. Hakuji, personally, can’t imagine a single one of them willingly saddling themselves with him.

‘What if Kyojuro says no?’ He could be stuck here for weeks. Months, even.

Part of him wants to scream and rage, to begin destroying things until the corps reconsiders whether they really want to keep him alive or around. The urge festers in his chest, crawls around the guilt stuck to his ribs until he feels too full of it. It should be oozing out of him, out of his orifices and pores, the violence overtaking his body like it was made for, but when he tries to pull it to the surface it drags him down instead, further into exhaustion.

The door creaks open, interrupting his thoughts and revealing one of the black clad figures. The Kakushi, Shinobu called them. Wary eyes peek out from under the black hood, and a striped mask covers most of his face.

“Kocho-san wanted me to take you to the bath,” he says, lifting his hands to show new clothes folded in them.

Hakuji blinks several times, waiting to feel like he’s crawled up far enough out of his mind to control his body before standing and nodding. When he doesn’t speak, the man shrugs before turning and leading him down the hallway. They take several turns before the clothes are wordless passed into his hands and a door is gestured to.

He doesn’t bother staying long in the bath; he rinses his hair until the water runs clear and makes sure to scrub his hands and the bottoms of his feet before quickly sliding into the new clothes. They’re comfortable, probably some kind of standard uniform for patients recovering here.

When he steps back into the hallway, it’s empty. There are voices echoing down the passageways, but no one is waiting to make sure he goes back to his room. And he could find his way back, sure, but the thought of sitting on that bed and staring at the wall some more makes his skin crawl. So, he turns the other way and starts walking.

The Kakushi are a very common sight here, he soon finds, but most of them are in pairs and pay him no attention. To them, he supposes he must look like any other patient.

He passes a doorway into a kitchen and stops. Whatever vegetables are being cooked smell good, and as he peers in he sees a young girl with a butterfly hairpin vigorously washing a pot of rice. She doesn’t wear the Kakushi uniform, nor had those three small girls, but they all wear butterflies in their hair like Shinobu. Since she’d told them that he was to stay out of the way, he assumes this one was told the same.

His fingers curl into the fabric of his pants as he passes the room. Though he wants to help, to be doing something other than trudging through memories, he doubts he would be allowed to.

‘Now I really am a demon child,’ he thinks. He tries to find some humor in it, but comes up short.

There’s an open shoji door leading out to a large yard. There, he spies the three girls hanging up a bunch of wet pants like the ones he’s wearing. There are several large, beautiful trees in the yard, all with abundant flowers clustered around their bases. Kokushibou would like it.

The new wing of the manor that he’s found is stiller and quieter. Hakuji is careful to put the balls of his feet down first for fear of disrupting the peace in the ward where the patients are housed.

Coming to a stop in the middle of the hallway, he looks around and sighs. Everything here looks eerily similar, and any one of the doors he passes could be his own.

While he stands there and wonders if he should keep going or turn back and find someone to lead him back to his room, a door opens beside him and he jumps. Standing in the threshold and looking up at him is one of the strangest little girls he’s ever seen.

She’s a demon, clearly. Hakuji feels an urge to wrap her in a large blanket and run far from this place with her, because surely she isn’t safe, but then he glances above her head and sees a dark, wooden box in the room.

The man with the snake had said Shinobu brought a boy and his demon sister, and Uzui said that he didn’t have a box. Those strange comments make more sense, now.

The girl’s eyes are pink, with catlike slits for pupils. They radiate warmth and curiosity, like a small child experiencing a festival for the first time. Though he can no longer see battle spirits, he can clearly see that there is no malice or bloodlust in this girl. He’s seen many children turned to demons, but never one like this.

The sight of the bamboo in the girl’s mouth makes him grind his teeth, but he swallows his anger and lets it fizzle out while crouching down to be closer to eye level with her. She’s tiny, absolutely drowning in her pink kimono, and she tilts her head sweetly at him when he makes his mouth smile at her.

“Hi there,” he whispers. “Is that your brother in there?”

She glances over her shoulder into the room before looking back at him. “Mhm!” she grunts, nodding twice at him. Then she’s grabbing his hand in both of her tiny ones, tugging insistently until he’s following her into the room.

“Wait – I don’t think I’m supposed to be in here,” he protests, trying to take his hand back and grunting at the way her grip strengthens on him. He stumbles after her, looking over at the bed as he passes it.

It’s the boy with the Hanafuda card earrings laying there, sleeping soundly. Bandages are wrapped around his head and one of his arms is exposed, attached to a thin tube leading to some kind of bag hanging from a pole. He wants so desperately to go over there, to take it all apart and figure out what it is and how it works. Humans have come so far in medicine, in treating the sick and injured, and he wants to know it all.

‘Why? Who do you have to care for anymore?’

The thought makes him shudder. That man’s voice isn’t in his head anymore, he knows, but sometimes those thoughts sound so much like him anyway, so saccharine sweet, laden with false sympathy and care.

The girl tugs him into the corner where the box sits. Up close, Hakuji can appreciate the craftsmanship of it. The wood is meticulously cut and pressed together to keep the sunlight out, and strong brackets are bolted onto the corners. They stand there for a moment while she looks up at him, eyebrows drawing down as the seconds tick by.

“It’s… a very nice box,” he tries after a moment, unsure of what she wants. His statement makes her huff, an angry crease appearing between her eyes, and she moves around him without releasing his hand, until his back is to the wall. Then she plops down suddenly, still holding his hand and jerking him down into a crouch. “What – you want me to sit down?”

The girl’s whole face lights up, eyes shutting and head tilting, and he knows if he could see her mouth she would be smiling brightly at him. For another moment, he considers taking that muzzle, but he makes himself shake off the anger. He slides down the wall, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his thighs.

Once he’s settled, she scoots herself over until she’s also sitting against the wall, hip to hip with him. His arm lifts automatically and she nuzzles into his side with a happy little sigh, eyes closing and knees drawing up.

Hakuji stares as she makes herself comfortable on him, even reaching up and pulling his arm down around her and resting her hands on it. The door is still open; anyone who walks by could see them. Should he call out when he sees someone? Does this little demon girl have a habit of snatching human pillows from the hallway?

Her breathing quickly goes deep and even, and his wonder grows. Demon are capable of sleeping, but he’d only ever known Douma to actually do so, and he was indulgent and useless.

His thoughts whirl as more of her weight leans on him, wondering exactly what she is. Not one of his demons, that’s for sure, but not a human either. He looks over at the bed, wondering about the boy there. Her brother. The one that man wants dead so badly.

Is it because of this girl? Vaguely, he can remember being told about a defector, a demon older than even Kokushibou who somehow managed to free herself from his influence. A demon who could speak his name, whose mind was safe. He was to kill her on sight if he saw her; if he hesitated to do so, his superior would be sent to do the job for him, and then kill him. Fortunately, he never had to find out whether or not he was capable of carrying out that order.

But as his mind races through the agitation and frustration that had suffused him when he’d received the order to kill the boy, he realizes that there’s nothing there about the girl. No orders to kill her, or to capture her and turn her over. As though…

As though that man didn’t know she existed.

Hakuji’s head aches as his mind struggles to make sense of it. Since he woke up like this, he’s only slept in short bursts (well, except for through the previous night and morning, no thanks to Shinobu) and it’s catching up to him. His eyes feel gritty, and aches are beginning to settle into parts of his body that he forgot could hurt.

The deep, even breathing of the girl nestled into his side and the boy in the bed lulls him, and he finds himself matching their rhythm without thinking about it. He supposes… well, he was going to fall asleep at some point. In here, with this oddly affectionate demon girl using him for a pillow, is far from the worst place for that to happen.

“Uh, Kocho-san?” Aoi says from the door of her lab. Shinobu’s smile doesn’t waver as she looks up. “Hakuji-san isn’t in his room.”

Her smile still doesn’t waver (she’s getting very good) though her fingers tremble a little as she sets down her pen. She’d hoped that perhaps he would listen to her, at least for a day or two, before becoming a disturbance.

“Thank you, Aoi,” she says as she stands. “I’ll go and find him.”

Just as well. Her eyes need a break.

Perhaps she can drag him back to his room by his ear. She knows that Goto-san had fetched him to go and take a bath, which she probably should have had him do last night before drugging him. Hakuji had seemed competent enough to find his way back to his room from the bathing room, but she may have overestimated him.

Even as she has the thought, she knows it isn’t true. Hakuji is competent; he made a choice not to go back to his room after bathing.

‘Perhaps he left,’ she lets herself think, just for a moment. She shakes the thought off though. While it may temporarily make her life easier if he left, Shinobu can stomach a piece of an Upper Moon staying in her manor if it means he gives her information on the demon with the rainbow eyes.

Besides, Hakuji is far too resigned to run away. Even if he tried, she thinks he would probably turn around and come back, because they’ve thrown him off the trail of his other self and now his best chance of finding Akaza lies with them.

An open door in a hallway catches her eyes, and she makes her way to the Kamado’s room. Now that she thinks about it, Tanjiro-kun had advocated rather passionately for Hakuji. That probably means something.

When she gets to the doorway, she finds Hakuji taking a nap against the wall, Nezuko-chan tucked into his side. The sight makes her stop in the doorway, eyes slowly drinking in the details. Sitting together, cuddling together in their sleep, they look so… human.

For a moment, brief but endless, she wishes Kanae were with her still.

Well, she always wishes that, but now it swells in her chest like a tide. Kanae would know what to do, what to say. She would be able to navigate this situation with calm compassion, to focus on Hakuji’s humanity and Nezuko-chan’s bloodless past instead of getting stuck on the irrevocable taint that Kibutsuji left on them. In fact, she wouldn’t even consider them tainted at all; she would welcome them with a smile not painted on and words from her heart instead of carefully scripted in her head.

But Kanae isn’t here, and her patience and compassion were left in shards that Shinobu is trying desperately to piece together against her chest without bleeding all over.

When she steps into the room, she makes sure her foot lands heavily on a squeaky board. Hakuji seems like a light sleeper, and she doesn’t want him jolting awake and lashing out at her or Nezuko-chan. The light shining in from the hallway catches on the sweat dripping down his clenched jaw.

The sound has his blue eyes snapping open, arm tightening briefly around the demon curled into his side. He looks around the room rapidly before his eyes settle on her and a deep breath comes from between pursed lips. Idly, she notes that he already has a good breathing technique; total concentration breathing might actually be suited to him.

“Apologies,” she whispers, “but I do believe I asked you to stay in your room.”

By this point, she’s close enough to cast a shadow on him, but she thinks his cheeks might darken slightly. “I went to bathe and couldn’t find my room again,” he mutters. She doesn’t believe him, but his voice betrays nothing but exhaustion; the typical tells aren’t there, which makes it harder for her to detect the lie. A frown tugs at her lips; she’ll have to watch him carefully.

“I see,” she says, not quite irritated enough to call him out on it. The sight of Nezuko-chan sleeping so soundly on him has softened her a bit. “Well, I see you met Miss Nezuko-chan. I’m a bit surprised she brought you in here with him. She’s very protective of her brother.”

Hakuji’s eyes flick over to the bed, lingering around it for a moment. Shinobu wants to ask what it is he’s looking at, but he looks back to her before she can decide if she wants to go through the effort of getting an answer. “What’s his name?”

“Kamado Tanjiro. He’s quite the promising young slayer, despite his… unfortunate circumstances.”

Blue eyes narrow at her, and she smiles primly. Hakuji shifts, stretching and groaning when his joints let out several sickening cracks. Nezuko-chan leans further into him, still deeply asleep, and he looks at her for a few seconds before slipping the arm not already around her under her legs and standing.

The casual feat of strength irks her. She’s sure the girl is light, and though he doesn’t look healthy, Hakuji boasts bulging muscles. If she could be strong like that, she wouldn’t have to….

As he shuffles to the bed with Nezuko-chan in his arms, she shakes away the momentary jealously. No point in focusing on what ifs. He deposits her gently onto the bed, on the opposite side of the IV tube, which his eyes flicker to again before he straightens and approaches the door.

Shinobu waits for him to pass her, also glancing back at the tubing before shutting the door again and leading him wordlessly to his room.

“I understand your hesitation.” Hakuji’s voice almost makes her jump. “I’m not asking to take care of patients or anything. I don’t even want to be around them. But I can’t sit in that room all day and night doing nothing until one of you decides to put up with me. You’ve got to give me something to do. Work or chores or even a space to train, I don’t care.”

Shinobu doesn’t answer as they approach his room and she opens the door, letting him in ahead of her. This particular thought has been nagging at her for hours; of course she couldn’t expect him to just sit quietly in this room. To force him to do so would border on cruelty.

“Yes,” she replies after a moment. “I’ve been thinking about that as well. Tomorrow, I’ll have Aoi collect you to help her. I must warn you though, she’s rather unforgiving.” A smile comes to her lips as she thinks of that girl barking orders at Kakushi ten years her elder, unphased by something like ranking.

“Sure,” Hakuji mutters wryly. “Unforgiving.”

She elects to ignore that, continuing as though he hadn’t spoken. “I’ll be sending her back with your dinner. So please, stay put so we don’t have to search for you.”

Her hand is falling on the doorknob when Aoi appears beside her. She looks a little uncomfortable, glancing between them for a moment before speaking.

“Rengoku-san is awake. And he’s asking to see Hakuji.”

Chapter Text

Awareness comes slowly, like dragging himself through a fog. Rengoku is familiar enough with the feeling of Kocho’s painkillers to know that he’s in the Butterfly Estate. He must have been injured during a mission… and he was on a mission, though the details seem to be hovering just out of reach.

Instinctively, he draws in a deep breath. It aches fiercely, in his chest, his head, and his eye, for some reason. He groans softly and tries to lift a hand, but his arm drops back to the bed like it’s made of metal.

And then the memory rushes over him.

The Mugen train. Yes, the demon train that made him fall asleep, the demon girl fighting and bleeding to protect the prone passengers, the boys that managed to best a lower moon.

The Upper Moon. Akaza. His fists, destroying the earth and disrupting the very air. That offer turned to pleading for him to abandon his humanity and join the demon in eternity. Unleashing the Ninth Form, and the man that had put himself between them.

“Rengoku-sama?” he hears distantly through the thudding in his ears. He tries to open his eyes and manages to pry the right one slightly open, but the effort makes pain lance through the left one. Through his blurry vision, the familiar mask of a Kakushi comes into view. The man keeps speaking, but the words sound like they’re coming from underwater.

Then another familiar face appears beside him, and he is very carefully helped into a reclining position. Kanzaki presses a glass of water into his hand, and holds it steady as he sips slowly at it.

“The man… that came with… where…”  he wheezes. Kanzaki nods firmly and hands the glass to the Kakushi.

“I’ll go get Kocho-sama and Hakuji-san,” she says, slowly and clearly so he can read her lips, and he feels a spike of gratitude for her. He also thinks it speaks to how often he ends up here that she is so used to making sure he hears her.

The door opens and closes, and he lets his eye shut. Kocho’s painkillers are amazing, truly, but the damage Akaza did to him is deep and aches persistently. He could fall back asleep as easily as breathing, but that isn’t an option. Not until he’s spoken to the man who had saved him from Akaza and then claimed to be the same person.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long. The door creaks open again and he lifts his right eyelid as high as he can. By the time he does so, Kocho has moved to his bedside and is examining his stitches. He wonders if he has stitches on the inside too, organs all tied back together with her miraculous dissolving threads that have saved so many lives.

Rengoku barely hears the words said to him by his fellow Hashira, because he makes eye contact with the man standing in the doorway.

He isn’t sure why, but the sight of him standing there, unharmed by the battle he’d thrown himself into, suffuses him with relief. His lips pull up as high as they can.

“I am glad… to see you!” he says with as much spirit as he can. The man’s face – which is already devastated – crumbles at his words. His blue eyes drop to his feet, and he shifts his weight as though he wants to leave.

“Hakuji-san,” Kocho chirps beside him, “don’t be so shy!”

The man – Hakuji, what a good, strong name – shakes his head but steps into the room, meandering up to Kocho’s side. His eyes end up flicking up to his exposed torso, and the guilt on his face only grows at what he sees. Rengoku decides that he’s grateful that he hasn’t really looked at himself, and when Kocho pulls his blankets back up over him, he sighs.

“As usual, Rengoku-san, you’re resilient. I wasn’t expecting you awake for a couple more days. Tell me how everything feels.”

His first impulse is to say pain but he knows she needs something far more detailed than that. He feels his tongue dart out to wet his lips, and Hakuji steps around Kocho to grab the discarded glass and refill it with a pitcher on the nightstand. The glass is brought to his face again, and the guilt and remorse in Hakuji’s face disappear briefly, replaced by deep concentration.

“Slowly,” Hakuji mutters when Rengoku tries to suck a mouthful of water in at once. Those hands only tip the glass in degrees, allowing tiny sips of water that slowly make his mouth feel less like cotton.

“I believe I feel as good as can be expected!” he says when Hakuji steps back again. “My abdomen hurts, and when I try to open my eyes it makes the left one smart something fierce!”

“Well,” Kocho starts, “yes, that is to be expected. You suffered multiple broken ribs, several lacerations to your internal organs, and your eye….” She trails off at that, a mildly uncomfortable look on her face. Behind her, Hakuji physically flinches.

“I’m assuming there was nothing left to save,” he says. She purses her lips and shakes her head. The news isn’t surprising, but it makes dread curl in his chest anyway. How is he supposed to fulfill his duties if he’s half blind?

‘Pull yourself together!’ he reprimands himself sharply. ‘Slayers of the past have surely fought through worse injuries; this is no excuse to quit or despair!’

“Very well then!” he says, pulling his lips up again for a moment. Kocho quirks an eyebrow at him. “I suppose I couldn’t trouble you for an estimated recovery time? I hate to think you all are being stretched even further because of me!”

Kocho sighs, bringing a dainty hand up to rub at the crease between her eyebrows. “Of course you do, Rengoku-san.” Hakuji gives her a look, and he draws in a breath to ask her what that means, but she speaks again. “Well, assuming you’re a good patient, you should be cleared to begin recovery training in a few weeks.”

As he tries to process that, a Kakushi steps through the door with a tray in hand. It doesn’t hold food, but syringes, and she takes one and inserts it into his IV line. The effect of the painkillers is almost immediate; his fingertips are tingling before she’s finished depressing the plunger.

“You need more rest, now, Rengoku-san,” she says in that melodious voice. “I’ll be back to check on you throughout the night, but try not to stress yourself too much.”

And Rengoku wants to listen to her, but he’s too caught on how intently Hakuji is watching her. His eyes are so focused on her hands, as though the syringe and its contents are riveting to him.

His eye droops as the drugs tug him down. He wishes he could say more, had more time to talk to them both, but….

“Stay,” he says weakly, peering at them through his trembling eyelashes. His gaze is focused entirely on Hakuji, who looks around as though there were anyone else in the room. “Please…” he murmurs, eye slipping shut. He doesn’t find out if his words were listened to as he falls.

Hakuji doesn’t know how to feel about his new situation. When Kyojuro had weakly asked him to stay, he’d expected Shinobu to protest and take him back to his room. Instead, she’d glanced between them several times before sighing. By that point, Kyojuro was already asleep, dragged under by whatever she put into that tube going into his arm.

(And if the sight of the clear liquid being put into his prone body had almost made him snatch the glass and shatter it, that was his business.)

“I’m not sure what it is he wants, but I suppose there’s no harm in you staying here for a few hours. If that’s something you’re comfortable with, of course.”

He isn’t. Not by a long shot is he comfortable sitting alone in a room with the battered, vulnerable body that Akaza had tried so hard to destroy. It might actually be worse than sitting alone with his thoughts.

There’s a chair in the corner of the room, and he drags it to the side of the bed and sits down.

“I’ll have Aoi bring your dinner here,” Shinobu says, slipping out of the room and leaving the door cracked to allow light to spill in. Hakuji nods, unable to tear his eyes away from the bandages winding around Kyojuro’s head.

Hakuji still hasn’t quite worked out all the little intricacies of what he is yet. Somehow, he possesses all of his human memories, and most of Akaza’s memories. And yet, Akaza only has his memories of being a demon. (That has to be all that’s left because if he remembered everything neither of them would be here. Right?) He can’t remember what his other self was doing in the days between being separated and seeing each other at the train, but in that brief instance they’d faced one another the details of Akaza’s fight with Kyojuro had seared through his mind. It hadn’t mattered that he wasn’t present for it; the demon’s memories of that burning blade were as good as his own, slotting into his mind like he’d been the one taking that damage and delivering those attacks.

And when Hakuji and Akaza had been rolling on the ground, when they’d been skin to skin, he’d seen the fear in Akaza’s eyes, the disgust and disdain he’d looked at his human self with. Were the memories he carried digging into the other’s mind, filling in the blank spaces?

The door creaking open distracts him from the spiraling theories. The girl who’d come and told he and Shinobu that Kyojuro was awake is standing there, a tray in her hands and a severe set to her mouth. He feels bad about making her wander all over the manor to feed him, but her expression had been the same earlier, so he thinks she might just look like that.

“Thank you,” he mutters as he takes the tray. The smell of rice, tempura fried vegetables and shrimp wafts up his nose, and he lays the meal across his lap and looks back up at her as she fidgets with the tube. Questions crawl up his throat and his eyes drop to what she’s doing.

She finishes whatever it was and shoots him another look. It seems like she also has a question, but she squares her shoulders when he meets her gaze and turns away.

Alone again, with the food and the cup of tea warming his thighs, he looks back to the Flame Hashira. He shifts the food off of his lap to the bedside table and leans in, keeping his hands securely on his thighs and being careful not to touch. The tubing is connected to the inside of Kyojuro’s arm, in the bend of his elbow, and it seems to… pierce him, somehow.

His skin crawls and he sits up straight, following the tube up to the bag it’s attached to. There’s writing on it, not that he can really read it, and the liquid inside is clear.

‘How does any of this work? What’s inside him?’

He doesn’t know how long he examines everything, imagining the inner workings of it, but when he finally turns his attention back to the food, it’s grown cold. It’s a little disconcerting, the way time keeps slipping from him while he stews in his thoughts. He eats the food methodically, fingers breaking the chopsticks and holding them like the last time he’d done so was yesterday and not two centuries ago.

When he finishes, his eyes drift back to the man on the bed. The white bandages wrapping thickly around his head, holding something against his eye, draws his gaze and his hands shake.

“I am sorry, Kyojuro,” he whispers, standing and looking down at the man. There’s a thin sheen of sweat building on his brow, and Hakuji’s hands itch to be useful once more. On the other side of the bed is a basin full of water, with several towels folded up beside it, and he drifts towards it like he’s not in control of his feet. It’s only natural.

The towel is white, and the water is cool, and his hands don’t shake when he lays it gingerly over Kyojuro’s forehead, shifting his hair back to cover more skin.

Then he takes the tray the girl gave him and almost runs from the room.

“Oh,” the girl says, looking over her shoulder. “You could have left it in there, I’d have come back for it.”

Hakuji freezes two steps into the kitchen and looks from the girl to the tray in his hands. “I don’t mind washing them. There’s nothing else for me to do,” he mutters. There’s a pile of dishes in the sink; he wonders what all the girl has to do before she can go to bed.

“Well,” she muses, shrugging and turning back to her own cleaning, “if you want, I guess.”

Hakuji feels some tension seep out of his shoulders and goes to where the dishes are, beginning to sort them before dunking them methodically in the hot water. Neither of them speak, and by the time he’s through with the dishes she’s cleaned up the counters and dried most of them while putting them where they belong.

“Thank you, Hakuji-san,” she says, giving him a curt nod.

“Just Hakuji,” he replies automatically. Only one person had ever called him that, only one voice could ever sound right saying his name that way, and she’s…. “And you’re welcome, Miss…?”

“Kanzaki Aoi,” she replies. Her eyes are scrutinizing, and he gives his own nod.

“You’re welcome, Aoi. Good night.”

He’s been moving towards the door the whole time he’s been speaking, and he turns as he finishes and comes face to face with a boar.

His fist moves automatically, swinging towards the snout of the creature, who lets out a startled yell and bends backwards away from his swing. The human body beneath it arches into a beautiful backbend, and a foot sails towards his chin as the… boar boy thing flips backwards. He slides backwards and leans sideways to dodge the blow, hands dropping back to his sides as he registers that the boar is just a strange mask.

“Hey!” the boy shouts, puffing his chest out. “You’re pretty fast, to almost hit the mountain king!”

“Hashibira-san,” Aoi sighs behind him.

Hakuji just stares at the boy, who has his fists planted on his hips. For a second, he almost wishes he could see fighting spirits, because this one would be a whirlwind.

“Fight me!” the boy hollers, making Hakuji wince.

“No,” he scoffs, skirting around the boy and down the hallway. Behind him, he hears the boy continuing to shout and Aoi scolding him for yelling inside, but Hakuji is suddenly too exhausted to register any of it. It’s all he can do to drag his feet forward and keep his eyes open until he reaches the room.

It’s so… uncomfortable, being human again. He shudders as he strips the yukata and barely refrains from letting it flutter to the floor, instead draping it over the back of the chair. Though the cloth is soft, wearing it for as long as he has is suffocating and itchy, and the cool air on his skin makes him sigh in relief. The food – more than he’s eaten at once since he woke up like this – is sitting heavily in his stomach, and he groans as he curls onto his side. Moonlight shines in through the window, the waning crescent sitting amongst the glittering stars.

‘What is he doing right now?’ he wonders. His gut churns as he considers it. After all, whichever lower moon had been on that train hadn’t been the only failure that night; Akaza hadn’t managed to kill the boy with the Hanafuda earrings or the Hashira. That man is surely furious, not only with Akaza but with the situation that created Hakuji.

A shudder rolls through his body and his diaphragm spasms. As nausea roils in his gut, he sits up and presses his palm to his mouth while breathing deeply though his nose. The memory of the pain carving through him as his blood vessels collapsed or ruptured was sickening enough, but the memory of that man chanting that name as he willed the punishment was almost too much.

There’s too much. The memories are too much, crowding before his eyes and blurring together unfathomably, until the only thing really sticking is hatred. Hatred for that man, hatred for the demon that did this to him, hatred for Akaza. Hatred for himself.

‘Deep breaths, now. All the way down to your diaphragm, atta boy. Let it out.’

Tears drip over his hand, still clamped over his mouth, as he obeys his master’s words. He clings to that memory, replays that welcoming voice over and over, until he finally drops his hand. 

The nausea dies down, brought under control by his breathing. He, more than most, understands how valuable food is, and he refuses to waste Aoi’s efforts or Shinobu’s resources. The memory of Keizo whispering reassurances to him echoes through his head as he slumps backwards onto the bed, eyes closing. He falls asleep thinking of Keizo’s smile.

As promised, Aoi collects Hakuji at sunrise and he follows her around, doing chores as she instructs.

The routine is easy enough to settle into; by the end of the second day he and the girls are moving around one another like they’ve been working together for years. He and Aoi go to the kitchen, where he impresses her with what he remembers of cooking for the Soryu dojo, and prepare breakfast. While the Kakushi disperse the food, he and Aoi eat before cleaning up the kitchen, sometimes with the help of one of the girls.

Then Shinobu calls him to her lab and takes several small vials of his blood. Her lab reminds him of that man’s the first time he sees it, with all the vials and glass instruments that he can’t fathom a use for. The second time she does it, she says something he doesn’t understand about his blood; something about it changing. Fortunately, she’s efficient and it never takes long.

Then Aoi goes from room to room with him in tow, checking on each patient and tending to their needs or gathering things for them. In this, she finds use of his strength, and he carries basins of water and piles of laundry for her.

(He doesn’t help directly with the patients, and she doesn’t ask him to, but he does study everything she does and she slows her movements so he can see it all.)

During the day, he cleans different parts of the manor as directed. Working alongside Aoi is almost pleasant, especially since she doesn’t feel the need to talk to him. They work quickly, and on the fourth day she props her fists on her hips around midday while he scrubs the last of the sheets in a wooden tub of soapy water.

“I’m not used to being done this early,” she comments, looking around. One of her feet taps on the ground as she seemingly thinks. “Let’s go check on Rengoku-sama when you’re finished with that one.”

Hakuji manages to disguise his flinch as a particularly rough scrub, knuckles digging into the washboard. He’s managed to avoid being with her when she checks on Kyojuro; seeing the other patients wasn’t bothersome, but he wasn’t the reason they were there.

His hands are wrinkled and sudsy when they come up with the sheet and plunge it into a different bucket. The same hands that crushed Kyojuro’s eye and demolished his ribs.

“Sure,” he mutters, “is there anything we should bring?”

She shakes her head as he wrings the sheet out and steps off the engawa, tossing it over a line and squinting against the sun. Even as a human, he can remember his eyes stinging from the light, even when he didn’t look directly at it.

Kyojuro is awake when they enter the room. Hakuji hears about his recovery, even without seeing him, and the speed of it startles him. Aoi tells him that it's common for Hashira to recover like that; somehow their breathing allows them to recover faster than ordinary humans. As the door opens, Kyojuro looks up from the bowl of rice he’s enthusiastically eating and smiles faintly at them.

“Kanzaki! And Hakuji, it’s good to see you!”

Hakuji stops as Aoi begins her usual routine of checking the fluid bag attached to the tube and prodding gently at the bandages wrapped around his head. When he doesn’t answer, Kyojuro’s smile wavers and he tilts his head just a little to the side. He purses his lips and tries not to visibly squirm at the concern that begins to grow in that strangely colored eye.

“Is everything alright?” Kyojuro asks, as though Hakuji were the one in the hospital bed. “Kanzaki says you’ve been a great help around here! But I’ve been hoping to speak to you, as well.”

As Kyojuro says the words, Aoi takes the empty bowl and makes her way to the door. “Sure, we’re not busy right now!” she says a little too forcefully as she steps into the hallway and firmly shuts the door behind her. Hakuji stares at it blankly before slowly dragging his gaze back around to see Kyojuro smiling slightly again.

“Did she just…?”

Kyojuro laughs at that, though he immediately winces and brings a hand to hover above his ribs. “I apologize!” he begins boisterously, “but I really have wanted to speak with you. Don’t blame her too much.”

Hakuji frowns and sighs, sitting in the chair he’d occupied a few nights before and thoughtlessly tucking his hands beneath his thighs. “I’m sorry,” he says before Kyojuro can speak anymore. It’s not right, all things considered; he should be on his knees with his head pressed to the floor for this apology but this is as good as he can do while Kyojuro is bedridden like that. His eyes stay on the ground as he continues. “I’m so sorry for what he did to you.”

Silence stretches between them, and after a moment he straightens up a bit and looks up. Kyojuro is staring hard at him, this time with a frown etched onto his face.

“Why are you sorry for what another did?” he asks after a moment. “If I remember correctly, Akaza was preparing to attack me again, and you stopped that.”

Hakuji digs his fingers into the backs of his thighs though his soft white pants. He really doesn’t like thinking about how that would have ended; as it is, it’s a miracle that Kyojuro is alive. “What did you want to speak about?” he asks after a moment. Maybe if they have this conversation, he can escape and find something in the kitchen to do.

Rengoku wasn’t wholly sure what he expected when he asked Kanzaki to bring Hakuji to him so they could speak, but it hadn’t been this… halfway lifeless caricature of a man. Hakuji barely looks at him, and though his face is just as soft and round as Akaza’s, there’s no expression to it that he can make out. Well, beyond tired, with those dark shadows under his eyes and the tight set to his jaw.

The truth is, he has lots of things he wants to ask, and lots of things he wants to say, as well. “Well, Kocho says that there was a trial and that Oyakata-sama has practically made you a member of the corps!”

Amane-sama paid him a visit the day before and gave him a basic review of the trial. She’d explained that, while generally unhappy about it, the other Hashira had come to the conclusion that Hakuji couldn’t be executed for Akaza’s crimes. They’d also weighed the value of the information he carried against the risk of allowing him to be near the corps, and had found it to be worthwhile.

Rengoku agrees with the sentiment, and while it irks him that such an important trial was held while he was laid up in bed, he’s happy with the outcome.

(He isn’t sure why, really, but the way Akaza had looked at Hakuji had chilled him. That glowing gaze had been playful, excited, and frustrated when they’d been fighting, but it had shifted to something irrational and animalistic when Hakuji had arrived. Somehow he’d felt even more dangerous, like a cornered animal. The thought of Hakuji – of part of Akaza – wandering around alone makes him shudder.)

“They want me accompanied by a Hashira,” Hakuji interrupts, breaking his thoughts, “probably so that if it looks like I’m going to betray you they can kill me.”

Rengoku wants to argue that point, to deny it. His mouth doesn’t move, and he looks down at his hands where they’re folded in his lap.

“Some of them are probably worried about that,” he concedes. “Whatever blood demon art it is that did this to you is unprecedented. But I don’t believe you’ll betray us!” he declares, lips quirking when Hakuji’s eyebrows draw together. He seems so surprised at that, like he can’t fathom someone thinking positively of him. “So I guess that means you’ll be coming with me once I’m out of here!”

Hakuji opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. His apology rings in Rengoku’s head again, and he bites the inside of his cheek as he considers how very guilty he seems to feel. It’s not necessary, but he knows as well as any that knowing that and releasing the guilt are very different things.

‘Well, that settles it,’ he thinks. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I doubt it will take the weeks Kocho estimated! I’m sure she’ll want my ribs fully healed before I begin recovery training, but once she sees that I can handle that she’ll send me to my own estate to finish recovering. With any luck, we’ll be out of here sooner rather than later!”

“You want to take me to your home?” Hakuji eventually asks. He says the words as though they’re fragile; like if he says them too loud, they’ll break.

“Hakuji,” he says, reaching out and laying his hand on one of his shoulders, “I owe you my life. And I take that very seriously! So unless there’s another Hashira you’d prefer to stay with—”

“No,” Hakuji interrupts, freeing one of his hands and laying it on Rengoku’s wrist. After a few seconds, he tightens his grip and pulls it away, allowing his hold to linger before breaking the contact. “You don’t owe me anything, but you’re also the only one who I can imagine saying yes.”

Rengoku tries not to frown at the space between them as the words tumble around his head. The aches that still persist in him are growing, getting harder to ignore, and though he wants nothing more than to get out of this bed, he can feel his eyelid starting to grow heavy. Keeping his eye open for longer periods is getting less painful, but his empty left eye socket still sends lances of pain through him and he can feel the lid trying to pull back if he isn’t careful.

But he’ll adapt, because he still has a duty. He wasn’t relieved of it that night at the Mugen Train, so he’ll continue carrying it forward. And, as Hakuji fidgets and makes an excuse to leave the room so he can rest, he adds his name to that duty. He promises himself he’ll find a way to pry that guilt out of him. He can’t imagine the burden the man must carry; if he thinks of himself as responsible for the actions of Akaza, the weight on him must be unbearable. Rengoku swears to himself that he’ll shoulder that weight with him until they can both be free of it.