Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Huh, weird. You’re early.” 

He is almost sixteen when he meets Death for the first time. 

The being stands tall, the books of life around him parting to his guidance, trailing as would a river around him. A single one opens, too far from its epilogue.

“Yeah. I’m going to need to talk to that bitch about this. Give me a second.” 

He’s rolled over to his stomach by the time Death gets the phone connected and starts cursing in some indecipherable language. His face is almost completely buried into his arms and there’s the call of sleep in the distance, but then Death raises his voice again.

“I said I’m not fucking taking him, Life! We’re fucking overpopulated down here alright? I’m not making someone pack up early just because your intern messed up!” 

A pause.

“What do you mean you lost his body?! He was supposed to die of old age, so what’d you do to it?”

Another longer pause. 

“What the f— HE IS SIXTEEN, bitch! You bring his murderer down here! I don’t care, you rewrote one lifetime, you can rewrite another! WHO DOES THAT TO A FUCKING SIXTEEN— Hey??? You’re hanging up on me? You’re fucking hanging up on me?!”

Death slams the phone down and groans deeply into his hands. 

He turns around to where the aforementioned sixteen-year-old has made himself very comfortable on the floor, legs swinging behind him as he stares up, awaiting Death’s next decree.

“So uh…” 

Death sighs, crouching down and resting a hand on his head. His fingers are cold, but they’re gentle, and they ruffle his hair just briefly, before he simpers, amused. 

“Wanna get isekai’ed, kid?”

Swordsmith Village is pretty nice. 

Being born again in this hidden village, Tecchikawahara Kanata was a quiet child that didn’t do much except observe from a distance. He spends his days helping out in odd jobs, leading slayers and Kakushi to the village and out, or, well, 

“Kanata. Don’t come this way. Go to the woodworking station today.” 

“Hmm.” 

Forgers in the smithy usually took their masks off, but those in the woodworks keep their on, if only because the dust kicks up everywhere in this place. 

“Kanata. You’re here to watch again? Can you tie some tsuka? A new batch of swords for new demon slayers just got done cooling, so we’ll mostly be doing polishing today.” 

“Hmm.” 

Life in Swordsmith Village is mundane. Hidden as it is, it’s peaceful. The children spend all day helping out the adults, apprenticing under their parents and endeavouring to eventually take over whatever those limited jobs are. 

Kanata didn’t have parents. He was found in the wake of a demon attack and brought into protection in the Swordsmith Village since he happened to be nearby. The chief bestowed him the name of the Tecchikawahara, and here he’s stayed for nearly a decade now.

(“He’s a Child of Brightness, don’t you see?” the Chief had said, when the Butterfly Mansion wanted the child too. “He must be in a family that works in fire. He will bring us luck in the Swordsmith Village.”)

(Kanata’s little swaddle had been found in sunlight that day, and it’s presumed by Kakushi that it was the only reason he lived through the demon attack. Similarly, only a portion of his front-left had hair a shade of vibrant red, as if the sun itself had dyed it so as an emblem of a debt incurred. His eyes were similar, just a segment of each had a strange flicker of red in the right lighting.) 

It’s not a very interesting place to be, but in this era of an endless war, being in peace and having a guaranteed job is already very much of a privilege.

So, Kanata isn’t complaining. Sometimes he gets to follow the adults out on deliveries, and that’s fun, too. 

Nevermind.

“What are you doing back here already?!”

He’s very happy to see that Death hasn’t changed a bit in ten years. Well, Kanata is shorter now, and dressed rather differently, but Death is still very fussy.

This time, Death picks him up by the collar, scowling from arm’s length as one would a wet cat.

“You did worse than last time! You couldn’t try to stay alive a little more than… oh wow, nine years. Almost half your previous age.” 

Death’s almost chastising him, but it’s more exasperation than anything. The book of life opened beside him isn’t any further progressed, and the disappointment is palpable.

“Look, you’re not supposed to come here for another good, long while. I don’t have a spot open for you until then. Take better care of the body I give you, alright? Life doesn’t want to give you any more.” 

“Kanata. You’re here to watch again? Can you tie some tsuka? A new batch of swords for new demon slayers just got done cooling, so we’ll mostly be doing polishing today.” 

Kanata lifts his head to Uncle Kiyoyuki, works the wood grinder. 

Then, at himself, his pristine clothing, not a speck of blood on the fabric. There is no gouge of a demon’s fangs in his shoulder. His arm is still with him. His eyeball is not staring back at him from two feet away. 

“Hmm,” he responds. 

“You’re such a hard worker, Kanata,” Uncle Kiyoyuki pats him on the head, endeared. “After we’re done, you can come with me on some deliveries, how about that?”

Kanata shakes his head. 

“Oh? You don’t wanna go out?”

Ah, wait. If he doesn’t go, uncle’s going to die. 

“Oh, so you want to go?”

Kanata’s clutching this man’s haori with all his might because he has no idea how to say anything without sounding absolutely unhinged. 

He just nods.

“KID. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?”

Kanata has his hands buried in his face. He is very sorry. But what is he supposed to do, they took a completely different route and still managed to get found by the demon! And they’re like, lower moon or something, Kanata saw some writing in that eye. 

But Kanata likes Uncle Kiyoyuki, okay? He doesn’t want him to die. 

“Look, kid. Your fate was sealed the first time you died. No matter what you do, you’re always going to die the same way… dismembered then eaten.” 

Kanata’s fist closes around his face. He really didn’t like that. 

“I can give you a longer, slightly more peaceful time in another world, but I cannot change the fact that you will one day end up back here again. So are you going to stay put in that village, and live as peacefully, as quietly as you can?” 

Kanata was not put into that world for some purpose. He was not put in that world to create a legacy, to set forth a saga, or to save the world.

He was simply sent there to make up for a life he was supposed to live. 

So, he didn’t have to do anything, and if he simply behaved he was guaranteed a fairly long life before dying again. 

“Decide what you want to do. You’re not using up any time if you keep repeating this day, and I don’t suggest you linger in this moment for too long.” 

“Kanata. You’re here to watch again? Can you tie some tsuka? A new batch of swords for new demon slayers just got done cooling, so we’ll mostly be doing polishing today.” 

Alright. 

Kanata will play this game. 

He tries a few things. He’s seen it before. If he’s fated to die gruesome and cruel, then he could do anything, as long as he isn’t put into that scenario. 

(If he’s fated to get dismembered and eaten, then isn’t he immortal, as long as he’s inedible?)

It takes him multiple tries to get as far as a fang to his neck getting abruptly pulled away to retching and choking. 

“You shitty brat! You poured fucking wisteria incense all over yourself? Is that what that dust was?!”

Lower Moon Six. How interesting. The rankings changed so often, Kanata couldn’t imagine seeing a young girl like this in what he knew of this world. The white hair and red stripes on her face rang some bells, but not too loud of one.

It didn’t matter.

Combing the wisteria powder through sawdust let it spread through the air and stick easier to things when thrown, and it was very useful paired with the steady stream of blood from his bleeding elbow where an arm was supposed to be. 

Uncle Kiyoyuki’s dead.

Well, that’s fine for now. Kanata will do better next time. 

“If it weren’t for Kanata’s quick thinking, we would have been in great trouble,” Uncle Kiyoyuki praises him dearly, once they arrive at the point of delivery.

“I— I really thank you so much for coming all this way!” 

Kumeno Masachika is a nervous and budding demon slayer, and though he’s well aware of how dangerous his place is, he’s so regretful to know such danger nearly came by when his swordsmith delivered his sword. Especially when the swordsmith’s apprentice is so young, too. 

“It’s no problem. We swordsmiths always carry incense with us. It just so happened this demon had been abnormally strong, is all,” Uncle Kiyoyuki assured. “Now, would you draw your nichirin sword? I would be honoured to envision its colours change.” 

Uncle Kiyoyuki held Kanata close— careful with his tender wounds, dearly wrapped by Kakushi. He’s warm and clean in fresh clothing, having taken a well-earned bath in Masachika’s house. Kanata’s very tired, but he feels this is something he would rather not miss out. 

And he watches, entranced, as the sword reveals a silvery green glow, shimmering in the dim house lighting. 

Kanata nods, nuzzling into Uncle Kiyoyuki’s side.

See? The dark green tsuka-ito was the right choice. 

“You’re not allowed to handle Kanata ever again.” 

“It’s not my fault we got attacked by demons! Give him back!” 

“Absolutely not! How do we give you a kid and you come back with him like this?”

They seem really devastated about him accidentally having his hair cut off during the demon attack. It’s the best possible outcome all things considered, but considering this was never supposed to happen to a Swordsmith that always carries wisteria, the fact that Uncle Kiyoyuki couldn’t hide its occurrence made things complicated. 

“You’re telling me the demons are stronger now, and the amount of wisteria we carry isn’t enough?” the Chief question. “Regardless, I am glad you’ve both made it home safely. Now, Kanata, eat some snacks. Let the adults talk.” 

“Hmm,” Kanata bows in gratitude before gorging on the sweet cane biscuits contentedly. He’s a kid and he doesn’t need to care about any of this. Thank goodness.

Kanata has no idea when he is. And the curiosity is a bit daunting sometimes.

“That doesn’t mean you get to come here just to ask me to get your manga for you!” 

Death slams the book of life over Kanata’s head, earning a sharp squeak before the child’s completely buried under a mountain of books that all wanted to join the suffocation-risk cuddle pile. 

“How did you get here?!”

Kanata blinks, confusedly. Oh! One of the books was the manga he was looking for. nice. 

“I’m not asking how did you die , of course I know that,” Death retracts, a little embarrassed for the outburst, “I’m asking how the hell you got dismembered and— I guess you don't necessarily need the eating part, fine— but you didn’t even go out of the village!” 

Kanata hums. 

But the book of life is already open beside Death. 

“What the— YOU THREW YOURSELF INTO THE WOOD SHREDDER?” Death is mortified. “I guess that’s one way to get to my realm, but… Kid! You can’t keep doing this! How many times do you think you’ve been here, just to figure out how to chase Mukago away? My assistants are treating you like a regular customer at this point!” 

Kanata simply hums noncommittally as a little black ent carefully balances over a tray with some hot chocolate in a cute cat-shaped mug. Another scales him, making its way to his face for a cheek hug. 

Death facepalms longsufferingly. 

Time passes, regardless. 

Even if Kanata knew of things that could happen, he didn’t quite have the permission to travel far, nor the strength to stop certain events from transpiring on his own. Nor does he have the privilege of extending his knowledge to someone greater.

If he attracts the attention of the demons, it’ll only be worse. 

Death told him that he wasn’t here to do anything. He didn’t need to fix the story, to save people, he wasn’t obliged to do any of that. And Kanata agreed. He didn’t really care for half of the people that were fated to die, anyways. 

So, for now, he’s just going to do what he can.

And that’s ‘live’.

He’s not very good at that, but it’s what it is.

“Chiefffff!! I don’t know how, but Kanata-dono took the key to Yoriichi Type Zero and I don’t know how long he’s been training with it, but he’s a good swordsman now!” 

The Chief pauses in the middle of his tea.

He doesn't blame Kogane for losing the key— he’s usually very careful with it, but maybe having his new child has made him flustered. 

But what?

Kanata?

“Is he still alive?” the Chief asks. Yoriichi Type Zero may be tuned for practice, but it was still very capable of accidentally killing unattentive swordsmen, especially a barely ten-year-old that has barely learned how to wield a sword at all.

No one in this village can wield a sword in a way that matters. 

Kanata didn’t stand a chance.

“...yes,” Kogane says, deeply apologetic. “Even more, he doesn’t have a single wound on him. He’s broken at least two of its arms, which I can fix, but…” 

“He what?”

“He broke… two of Yoriichi Type Zero’s arms.” 

Kanata has always been strange, but this is just impossible. That thing is a village secret for a reason— even Hashira may have to expend some effort against it. 

“And… how many times has he used it without our knowing?”

The Chief is very infuriated. What a selfish, danger-prone child…. He is going to be such a handful once he grows up, and seeing as he’s nearing his most difficult ages, they’re all quite dreading it. 

“That’s the thing, chief…” 

When they make their way up the steps, the answer appals everyone that rushes to see. 

“He said, and I don’t think he’s lying… ‘only once’.” 

(Specifically, his answer had been: ‘Only once, I guess.’)

And there, in the clearing, Kanata is being tended to by Uncle Kiyoyuki, who isn’t convinced that Kanata isn’t injured at all. Yoriichi Type Zero has been shut down before him on his knees, two of its arms broken off, swords laid out around him. 

Kanata isn’t injured. Rather covered in sand and very dirty after the scuffle, but he’s alright.

But what caught the chieftain’s eyes were neither the slash through Yoriichi Type Zero’s clothing, the new shatter upon its face; nor was it the undaunted, calm expression on Kanata’s face as he simply allows himself to be coddled.

It was the nichirin sword in Kanata’s hand, a newly bonded blade that should be too long for his size, and yet— 

—and yet, the blade spilled over with colour, a pure bronze in the sunlight. 

It’s not all that easy to learn Breathing Techniques, but once he got the basics down— from a Kakushi that was a former slayer— the rest came in its own way. 

It’s a bit tricky. 

The Kakushi didn’t teach him any sword technique breathing styles, just the basic concentration breathing that even the swordsmiths sometimes knew simply because of the harsh work they do daily— but Kanata tried to juggle that concentration over and over— and then messed up the rhythm here and there because each time he died, he came back a different breath, a new strength—

—and well, at some point while training with Yoriichi Type Zero, it became a Breathing Style unique to himself. 

“...I guess we’ll call it the ‘Sand Breathing Style’,” Uncle Kiyoyuki deems. Kanata kicks up a lot of sand when he’s fighting, “but how did he even know how to do all this?”

“Well, we only ever have one explanation for talented children in this village.”

“Oh, inherited memory, makes sense.” 

Silence. 

“So… Should we hide him, or should we let him take the Final Selection?”

“Absolutely NOT,” someone roars. “This child is TEN.” 

“But like, look at that potential. I’m pretty sure the crows already tattled.”

“Squawk! SQUAAWKKK!” a crows bellows overhead, “Oyakata-sama is calling! Oyakata-sama summons the Chief of Swordsmith Village. Bring Tecchikawahara Kanata along!” And then, repeat. 

Silence. 

Then, the Chief calls, “someone get Hotaru. He will kill that bird for us and we will agree that we have never received any message.” 

“CHIEF, NO!”

Chapter Text

If Kanata had something to say about his Breathing Style, a certain someone’s coined it much better than he can a long time ago:

Sand is coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere. 

“Appearing in sudden, explosive spurts, this breathing style enters with unexpected vigour, erupts out of nowhere before consuming its target fully… it was no trouble to me, but it is a rather impressive style, albeit self-taught.” 

A single training session with Himejima Gyoumei earned him some rather fine praise. 

They were bullying him, really. Why would you put sand up against stone? Though, if Kanata had about a couple more hours he swears, he could have done it, alright, but like, Himejima’s nichirin is a kusarigama with a morningstar of all things, so there was no chance Kanata could even reset. 

“I suppose… what do you want to do, Kanata?”

He’s surprised to be addressed directly, but he supposes this is just the kind of person Oyakata-sama is. 

“Do you want to remain a swordsmith in the village, or will you come out and be a demon slayer for the corps? Your service and talent is greatly valued in each way, and we will not fault you for choosing either.” 

Of course, becoming a demon slayer is much more valuable. Swordsmiths come in hordes and can be easily replaced. Demon slayers are always dying, and finding capable ones are difficult. 

“Ah— Oyakata-sama,” Uncle Kiyoyuki brings up, hesitantly, “for Kanata, speech is a little…” 

“Can I…” 

Uncle Kiyoyuki and Chief Tecchin whirl around, startled, indignant squeaks blurting from their throats. 

Kanata talks on, anyways, “can I… do both?”

He didn’t see a reason why he couldn’t be a demon slayer, but he also preferred to stay in the village. If he can do both at once, it wouldn’t be too different from just having a part-time job, would it?

Oyakata-sama smiles. 

“Then, so it shall be.” 

“What kind of idiot lugs so much up Mount Fujikasane?”

“He’s so obviously overexcited. Like some child. Does he even know what the Final Selection is about?”

“He really thinks he can defeat demons with that kind of weight?”

“What’s with the freaky hyottoko mask?” 

Kanata is twelve when he’s allowed to take the Final Selection.

Kanata really likes his new messenger bag that the leatherworkers in swordsmith village made for him. It can hold so much! A change of clothes, food and water, his hammer, coal to start a fire, a large gourd for sawdust, a few spare blades… and more! 

He definitely overpacked.

But he’s strong enough to carry it, and the swordsmith village really wanted him to bring more stuff because they were so worried. The Kakushi had to yell at them to let him go. 

“Oh geez. There’s another kid,” someone murmurs. “I’m so sad. I thought I’d be the youngest here, but you’re the third one already. Maybe Urokodaki-sensei was lying when he said it was too soon for me.” 

The girl sighs fondly, and when she approaches Kanata, it’s with no hostility at all. She smiles kindly, the mask of a fox with blue flowers upon its cheeks resting at the crown of her head. 

“See? I have a mask too. We’re twinsies.” 

Yeah, they really are. Makomo wears the Urokodaki’s cloud blue haori over her flower-printed kimono dearly. Kanata almost feels underdressed with his plain brown clothes. 

In the distance, someone scoffs. 

“Are you here to fucking play? The demon slayer corps are a fucking joke.” 

The boy with white hair and a multitude of scars is so familiar that Kanata spends a longer moment staring at him than he did the girl. Shinazugawa Sanemi is worn out all over, but his haori is white and neat for the day, clearly borrowed. 

He’s holding Masachika’s old sword, and Kanata recognizes it, even far away. 

Masachika had it replaced with one forged by Uncle Kanamori, but Kanata was allowed to polish this one on his own, as Masachika requested it to be repurposed as a practice blade. It still had the signature rich green of Masachika’s breath within it, and the frayed tsuka needed redoing from all the bloodstains in the string.

It’s red now. What a shame, it used to be such a pretty shade of dark green.

There’s a girl with butterfly pins in her hair, and Kanata understands, mildly, that if he gets too close, he’s guaranteed to die. 

Kanzaki Aoi is fated to survive this selection on pure luck alone. 

(Makomo mentioned there were three candidates younger than herself— so Kanata, Sanemi, and Aoi. It’s a rather fruitful lineup, knowing the future. Not as impressive as the Kamabokko generation, but an impressive one nonetheless.)

So… what is going on here?

“What… another human’s come to be my meal?” the demon cackles, chewing into an arm. Tearing through ligaments. Licking lips, savouring so deliciously, through the sickening squealch and stickiness of blood dripping down every new tear. 

The demon crunches through the butterfly pin as if it were a cracker upon his full-course meal. And the girl, dead and stomach engorged into, lays still, a terrified visage frozen onto her face as the life leaves her eyes. 

Kanata barely registers the other demon lunging for him before he’s in Death’s realm once more. 

“Kid. Who told you to walk into a demon’s all-you-can-eat buffet? You had one job and that was to not put yourself in situations that you’d get eaten in!” 

Kanata actually doesn’t feel a single bit chastised. He’s too focused on his manga right now, brows set in a deep frown.

“Kid, are you listening?”

He isn’t. He lifts the book, and points at a certain page: Kanzaki Aoi, alive and well, years in the future.

And then he turns to Death and squints with accusation. 

“Kid… I’ve told you time and again. All lives are fated to come here, to their own dues,” Death tells him. “Not just this girl, but the other as well. You are exceptional, but you are also part of the flow. You can’t disrupt it with your own power.” 

Kanata scowls, confused. 

It doesn’t feel right to let people die in front of his eyes, but Makomo’s nice. And Aoi isn’t meant to die now, so why is she dead? 

Luckily, Kanata still had the capability to save her— but why was she killed to begin with? That isn’t supposed to happen. 

“I wouldn’t recommend you rely on that book too much,” Death advises. 

A gentle hand, ruffling his hair.

“From the moment you entered that land, it ceased to flow in the same rhythm as this story you’re so familiar with. Take of that what you will.” 

“Kyaaahh!! You’re here again?!” Aoi balks. “Are you f- following me? Why?” 

Kanata pulls a shortsword free from his bag and holds it out in her direction. She stares at it, befuddled. Her own sword is held close to her chest, nervous. 

“What?”

Kanata tosses it in her direction, and she catches it with a yelp. 

She can’t express her discontent, because Kanata whirls around, pulling free his longest sword, the Oodachi, and with a fierce upward swing, the ground beneath him explodes in a burst of soil and sand, right into the jaw of an ambushing demon. 

Sand Breathing, Second Form: Dust Devil

砂の呼吸 ・貳ノ型・ 辻風 (Tsujikaze)

The demon howls in pain. 

But another leaps up behind Aoi, and she screams in surprise. She only has time to raise her arms in defense— luckily the demon’s teeth snags upon the sheathed shortsword she was still holding, instead of her arm.

And, with a resolving breath, her other arm comes up with her sword, a piercing, single-handed thrust.

Water Breathing, Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust

水の呼吸・漆ノ型・雫波紋突き

It plunges right into the demon’s eye, and sends it reeling back. Aoi hesitates as the demon wails—

— “Don’t stop! Kill it now!” 

Kanata raises his voice.

And she spurs forward, jerked into motion by the volume. 

He blade rises with water once more as she tosses aside the shortsword to wind up the long, horizontal slash that would go through the demon’s neck and hands, lopping it off entirely. 

Water Breathing, First Form: Water Surface Slash

水の呼吸・壹ノ型・水面斬り

Aoi falls to her knees as the demon disintegrates. Kanata sheaths his sword where the sheath was fastened upon his bag, and nods. Aoi lifts her head, terrified and teary, and murmurs out a broken.

“T- Thank you. I’m sorry.” 

Kanata extends a hand.

She picks herself up, with his help.

And she smudges away her tears on her sleeves. One of her clips has come loose along with her pigtail, and Kanata glances around, wondering where it’d gone. Not in the area, and if on the ground, probably trampled. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have come. I keep getting saved, and— I… it’s not even the second day yet…” 

Aoi has to pause in her sentence, when Kanata crouches down and starts carefully dusting her off. He pushes her to sit on a rock.

By the time she’s composed herself, Kanata has worked a wooden comb into her hair, tucking it in a very secure bun. Single butterfly pin adjusted accordingly.

Kind of like how Shinobu wears her own hair. 

Kanata steps back to look at his work and nods like a connoisseur, very satisfied. 

Aoi has no idea what is going on. 

But she bows anyway. “Thank you for… for helping, I—” She is interrupted again when he pushes something into her hands. It’s the shortsword, and a soft orange pouch. 

It smells like wisteria. 

Her own had been destroyed— the demons here are a little resistant to small amounts, mainly because they’re surrounded by so much more. But it’s still very assuring to have one again as a good luck charm. . 

“Ah… thanks.” 

“I’ll killed so many of Urokodaki’s students. The mask really helps with picking out my prey! How nice of Urokodaki to label them so kindly each year!” 

The demon giggles, so tauntingly, covering his mouth with his many, many hands, staring mockingly down at Makomo as he jeered and cackled.

“And you’ll be number twelve!” 

Makomo had been so composed, so brave when this selection began— but it was this moment where something snapped, and her heart cracked with her voice as she roared—

“BE QUIET!” 

Her mask is shattered upon her head and bleeding terribly down her shoulder. Her blue haori is torn, and she’d left it behind once it started to get in the way.

And tears, they spilled from her eyes as she grieved , so desperately, for the seniors she craved with all her heart. 

She leaps. 

“Don’t you dare laugh at them! DON’T YOU DARE LAUGH AT THEM!” 

That had been a mistake. A single flick of something— was it a stone? It broke her form, and as she tried to grasp it, it was too late. She’d lost her momentum. Her sword was no longer swinging down.

That was all the time needed for the demon to seize her shoulder, and then her waist. It took her ankle and her arm, and she knew what was coming next.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she screamed, terrified, and filled with despair. 

Sand Breathing, First Form: Sand Hunter

砂の呼吸・壹ノ型・砂狩 (Sunagari)

The shockwave of the blade flew in from nowhere, shearing through the trees right through each and every tree trunk in its way. It spliced three of the demon’s arms off, but the one at its ankle squeezed further.

Makomo howls as the demon’s surprise makes it wrench down upon her leg, destroying her leg from the knee and below.

The next moment a new blade brings forth from below.

Wind Breathing, First Form: Dust Whirlwind Cutter

風の呼吸・壹ノ型・鹿旋風・削ぎ

It lops off the demon’s arm, and takes off most of its neck— doesn’t cut through, though— and Shinazugawa Sanemi curses loudly. 

He flings past the demon and lands. 

“HEY, BITCH!” Sanemi yells. “Tormenting a young girl on her own, huh? You that much of a coward, you piece of shit?!” 

His arms are bleeding terribly already. 

“Forget the weakling! Won’t you rather have a good meal right over damn here?!”

Makomo lands on the ground harshly, cradling her broken leg with tears biting back. Usually she’d be much more offended at the implication that she was just a weak little girl, but she’ll have to complain about that later. 

A pair of feet stop before her.

Kanata picks her up by the shoulder, and someone hisses from the woods. A girl with a butterfly pin in her hair. 

“This way, hurry!” 

For now, she had to escape. Crawl, if she must. 

She was lucky enough to survive that . She has to get away.

But if she ran now, she won't be able to get revenge for those poor children on top of the mountain! They’ve all been waiting so long, is she going to fail them too?

She supposed she would have to complain about that when she was stronger. 

Honestly, Kanata is mildly annoyed.

Saving Aoi took ages. And then, Makomo was even worse. 

Even without Kanata’s influence, Sanemi was always just half a pace too slow to save her. He wasn’t obliged to save her either way, but he would have, simply because it didn’t feel good to watch someone helplessly die for a demon’s amusement— but he was too late anyways, and he would always just click his tongue and move on. 

Honestly, it should have been over once she got caught, but the Hand Demon always paused for a second, just so Makomo could realize she was going to die before she died— it was an asshole like that— and that second would be too late to save her. 

The Sand Breathing’s first form, a flying slash that resounded across the plains, engulfing it all in a wave of sand— it had range, but it didn’t have speed. It appeared abruptly, but didn’t travel across fast enough. Even a human could dodge it if they saw it in time.

So yeah.

Kanata has swung his longest sword for what felt like a million times at this point. Thank fucking god, attempt one million and one worked. 

He really should have tried the Oodachi sooner. But in his defense, he needed to really check that no one else was around before using it, alright? He’s usually only allowed to use First Form with the tachi. Something about cutting off the lookout tower or something. 

Shinazugawa Sanemi smacks Makomo over the head and she wants to yell a string of very organic expletives at him and make him cry, but unfortunately she’s getting rightfully scolded right now. 

“I don’t care if it killed your entire fucking family in front of your damn eyes! You want to be next? HUH? What’s that going to solve?” 

“Shut up, Shinazugawa! You’re so tactless!” Aoi snaps at him, furiously trying to clean Makomo’s leg, “not everyone is some suicidal fearless monster like you, okay?!”

“YEAH, which is why everyone else is fucking DEAD!” 

Day broke just in time for them all to escape the predicament. The Hand Demon isn’t dead yet, but now they’re setting up a camp to recover. It’s in as sunny a spot as Kanata can find and most of the supplies are from Kanata’s very well-furnished equipment bag.

Kanata comes under the makeshift roof— a blanket held up by rope and sticks— with a bowl of boiled water and a clean rag. 

“What the— what are you doing?!” 

Sanemi pulled away when Kanata tried to take his injured arms, but Kanata’s grip is solid as a rock even when he’s truthfully trying to tear away. 

“I don’t need it!” 

“Yes you do! I don’t want demons smelling that dried blood and zoning in on our camp before we can move!” Aoi snaps. “Sit the fuck still and get treated, self-harm!” 

“That’s not the insult you think it is!” 

“In your context, it is!” 

Sanemi’s so preoccupied by her yelling match with Aoi that he obediently allows his wounds to be cleaned. Makomo is still terribly sniffling, but she will most likely join the fervent argument once she’s recovered.

Kanata sighed. 

They could just survive the Selection like this, but he has a feeling this crowd won’t let him go. And if they die, it’ll make the future complicated, so…

…honestly, Kanata doesn’t really want to care, he just doesn’t want Makomo to die since she’s nice, but what if Sanemi dies? Everything he does has a consequence, and if Sanemi dies, then who else can step up to fill that hole in the plot except for him, Death-assigned isekai protagonist? 

Kanata wants to do a lot of things, things that are fun, things that are interesting, but it’d be easier to make sure Sanemi lives than go on and try to think about the possible repercussions if he died. Or try to fix them. Kanata hates fixing things.

Yeah. This is starting to sound like a pain in the ass.

Guess he’ll just defeat the Hand Demon here and be done with it. 

They attack the Hand Demon at night. They come up with plans all afternoon, and the strategy can be summed up in one phrase:

Please never let these four morons plan anything together. Ever.

Sanemi gets caught easily, but he breaks out quickly. Problem is he wastes too much strength and energy doing that, and thus never finds an opportunity to attack. He’s eventually cornered, and that’s the end for him. 

Makomo is agile, and her strikes are strong, but physically, she’s weaker than she needs to be. She tires easily, and just a moment’s carelessness gets her caught. And, of course, her fate has always been the same: torn to pieces, limb from limb. 

Aoi is too cowardly. She falters way too much, and it’s much better for her to stay back than attempt to fight. She guides away reaching appendages when Sanemi falters, and breaks apart the flow of arms from getting too far into the forest— but the second the Hand Demon finds her a nuisance, she’s done.

Kanata has had it. 

Blood rains down upon him. Makomo’s. Aoi is screaming behind him. Sanemi is roaring, hacking away at the demon from behind, bit by bit, but Makomo’s slowly, slowly, being wrenched apart as she whimpers, and whimpers— and finally, falls silent.

Sanemi roars. “LET GO OF HER, STOP IT! FUCKING PAY ATTENTION TO ME!” 

But he cannot cut through those barriers of arms. Not as discomposed as he is. 

Kanata sighs, standing beneath the gore, he sighs deeply. The blood is warm on his shoulders, flowing down his arms. They coagulate the sand dusted on his clothing, so he reaches to his messenger bag, and retrieves something.

A metal fan.

He flicks it open. 

Time to reset.

Sand Breathing, Fift— [ERROR]

“Oh, we’ve ruined you,” Death is mourning on his knees, face in his hands grievously, “we’ve ruined you, you poor baby child, what have we done to you.” 

Kanata doesn’t understand him, but he’s always dramatic, so he’s used to this now.

“You’re surrounded by demons. But no, getting one to kill you is too tedious. Getting the one in front of you to kill you is too difficult. So what do you do? You make a whole technique . Okay. Okay, I get it. Fine.” 

Death is miserable. Almost sobbing. 

“It’s okay, I’m not mad. I’m definitely not sad. Why are you like this? You had three forms when you came in here. Why are there five now?” 

Because they were necessary. Obviously.

Kanata folds his arms, tapping on his elbow with a pursed lip. He really wants to get back to the scene already.

“Won’t you at least stay for some hot chocolate?” Death says. “My assistants jump each time you come by only for you to leave before you even take a sip. They’re so sad it goes cold each time.” 

Kanata rolls his eyes. He glances at the black ent standing beside a cat-shaped mug, staring up at him with hollow eyes somehow just so pleading and hopeful— and he supposes he has a minute to spare.

“What do you mean, you didn’t literally create that technique to commit suicide?” Death says, disbelieving, pouty. “What else do you need something like that for?” 

“Shit— HEY! Kanata!” 

Sanemi yells at him, when Kanata gets caught. The hand still on his sword is broken, just barely hanging on the handle, there’s no way he can gather enough strength to retaliate here. His other hand is crushed beneath the Hand Demon’s grip, along with his ribs and everything under it.

The Hand Demon cackles as Kanata winces viscerally.

He’s really making this hurt as much as he can, huh?

“Hold on!” Makomo yells, scrambling for her sword again, gasping as she stumbles on her broken leg. “Aoi! Come on, we’ll do it together—!” 

But Aoi freezes.

The Hand Demon is staring at her, eyes wide with a wide, wide grin.

“Just try, you two,” he giggles.

And he tenses his arm, earning a sharp crunch from Kanata’s torso, and a vocal, grievous howl. Kanata’s sword falls, and the eyes that turn toward him are filled with horror. Bone pierces through skin, blood dripping from the Hand Demon’s multitude of fists all closed over the small, frail figure. 

“Fuck—!!” Sanemi hisses. “Stop it, you piece of crap!” 

“Maybe I should just squeeze him to death, bit by bit, just like this~” the Hand Demon taunts, knowing well enough these untrained slayers can never cut through his neck. 

Kanata lifts his broken hand, slowly, gradually— and Sanemi’s eyes are drawn to it, confused. Aoi can’t step forward, but Makomo senses, deep in her soul— that she shouldn’t move from her spot.

The Hand Demon frowns.

“A last struggle, when you can’t even reach your sword? How meaningless,” he scoffs. “Man, do I hate this brat. He’s all sandy and gross… I prefer you Water and Wind users… you don’t make mud when I crush you to pieces. You guys burst like balloons. I much prefer that.” 

Yeah.

Because sand is coarse, rough, irritating… and it gets everywhere.

Sand Breathing, Fifth Form: Shamal 

砂の呼吸・ 伍ノ型 ・シャマル (Shamaru)

The single snap of his finger, light but prominent, reverberates. A single burst of breath, and for a moment, nothing happens. 

Abruptly, the dust explodes.

The eruption sprouts forth from Kanata’s blood, and spears through flesh and bone and demon alike, in large, hedge-like geysers of pure red sand, shredding through everything in its path with laser precision. 

Too bad the Hand Demon decided to hold a handful of it, then. 

With a shriek, the demon chucks the bomb in his hands away, but the moment of discomposure is enough. Sanemi grasps this moment to rush forth—

Wind Breathing, Fourth Form: Rising Dust Storm

風の呼吸・肆ノ型・昇上砂塵嵐

The fury of blades rising forth shreds the arms shielding his neck apart. 

Kanata doesn’t need to catch his fall. Makomo is right where she needs to be, and she lunges forward to cushion it, at the very least. Aoi is running forward, tossing down Kanata’s messenger bag before leaping forward with her sword and an additional shortsword.

The demon’s hands are regenerating faster than they can reach its neck. So, they can’t stop yet. 

Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance

水の呼吸・参ノ型・流流舞い

Kanata hums at the sight. Her courage comes in bursts, and her flow comes the moment she has enough resolve to take the first step. Then, once she’s set forth, she’s unstoppable.

Kanzaki Aoi may be a coward, but it is this very story that cowards fight bravest.

“We need to land the final blow,” Makomo grounds out, forcing herself back onto her good foot, her sword before her. “I have to do it. I must.” 

And Kanata nods.

Sanemi can only gouge out an opening. Aoi can only shear it down. Ultimately, they need a spear, to reach the neck. Realistically, Makomo can’t do it, but she will figure it out because she can’t get closure otherwise. 

(Sanemi might prefer to do it, but Makomo cannot create an opening like he can. The casting has been set. But there’s still one piece missing.)

(Ah, right. Kanata. Kanata can give Makomo’s breathing the extra strength it needs.)

(But he can’t move anymore… oh well.)

“You impertinent BRATS!” the demon howls, “I haven’t survived this long to be taken down by brats like you!” 

Kanata reaches for his bag, and though he can’t quite get up, everything’s numb, he finds what he needs. 

Everything hurts so much he could die, but unfortunately— Kanata’s legally incapable of dying in any way except through dismemberment and cannibalism. 

So, even if every cell and organ in his body is crushed to mush, Kanata will never lose. 

— look forward to losing like this another ten thousand times, Mister Hand Demon.

Until Kanata figures out how to get out of this as, well, not a vegetable… this isn’t won just yet. He got really close this time, though… 

Well, it’s fine. He has all the time in the world to get this story beat down to perfection.

Until then, though… 

Sand Breathing, Fift— [ERROR]

Chapter Text

No one else survived, but the two Ubuyashiki kids find the survivors coming back in a group.

More specifically, Sanemi has Kanata on his back (that isn’t a broken foot, that is a smashed foot—) and Makomo in his arms, the girl slumped heavily over his shoulder, unconscious. Aoi trudges along with all of their swords, broken and intact, as well as Kanata’s bag and broken mask.

They hike all the way back up Mt Fujikasane, Sanemi and Aoi arguing the whole time about unfair loads, gender roles, and comparing injuries and contribution and shouting at each other about it.

“We all know you’re making me walk because you’re too weak to carry me, too,” Aoi says. Dryly.

“Fucker, is that a challenge?” Sanemi grumbles, “Fine. Ignore my broken ribs. Ignore my concussion. Ignore my heavily bleeding GUT. Climb the fuck on.”

“No.”

“THEN SHUT UP.”

“Be quiet! Makomo’s going to wake up! She cut off the demon’s head, she deserves to rest!” Aoi yells right back.

“I’d have cut it off faster than she could, I’m obviously stronger!”

“Yeah, which is why you were stuck holding off those arms the whole time.”

“She only got the opening because I DISTRACTED IT—”

“Oh SHHH!!! SHUSH! Look what you did, Kanata woke up!”

The end of the Final Selection finds Kanata sitting by the Torii with the two Ubuyashiki children, waiting for their ride. The others have left already, hoping to get back home before the sun sets.

Even so, Kanata doesn’t need to go home to Swordsmith Village. They’re coming to collect ores, and they’re going to get briefed by Oyakata-sama about the Selection results so they know better how to forge the swords.

Kanata’s better off waiting.

So, he settles on watching the two Ubuyashiki kids play temari with Kanata’s newly assigned Kasugai Crow, occasionally watching them bow in apology as the ball so much as rolls too close to him. But they’re not avoiding him either. They are very entertained by the existence of a very unresponsive human being.

But well, call Kanata a toddler, but it’s very interesting to watch them kick the ball back and forth. Put him in front of this on loop, he’ll be the quietest baby in the world.

He might even fall asleep to this.

(Ah, how long has it been since he’s slept in?)

(Well, it doesn’t matter.)

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE OYAKATA ARE YOU DOING, KANATA?!”

Kanata jumps in surprise. His hammer hits the metal wrong and, off-kilter, it snaps right in half, flips off balance and goes soaring like a catapult, flinging right past Kanata’s eye and to the wall behind him.

There’s a pause before he looks back. It left a scorch indent on the wall, and now the metal’s ruined and on the ground.

…oh wow, I nearly went blind.

“Kanata! You’re still injured! You’re supposed to be recovering! The ONE thing we said not to do was come to the workshops! The heat here is bad for your wounds, the sawdust is bad for your wounds, and the strain of forging a sword is bad on your wounds! WHY ARE YOU FORGING ONE, ANYWAYS?!”

Kanata is picked off the chair and carried up like a child out of the building. He’s not allowed to take off his boots or his gloves or his apron. He is being exiled to the rest houses right this instant.

His cheeks puff up in annoyance. He was almost done with that one!

“You came home TWO days ago! You still have all your stitches in, and we are literally still tallying the votes on who gets to forge your nichirin sword, so could you just calm down? Spend a day sleeping like you always love to do?”

Kanata sulks, slumping down on Uncle Kiyoyuki’s shoulder as he gets carried off like a misbehaving kitten.

He broke the Oodachi. And he let Aoi take the tachi as a souvenir. Sanemi stole an uchigatana on his way out because his sword chipped.

If Kanata doesn’t replace all of them before his first mission he is going to need one of them as backup in the middle of a loop and it’ll cost him so much time. Please, just let him fix the sword that Sanemi broke. Just that one.

“You know Oyakata-sama isn’t going to assign you too many missions, right? First missions are standard to ten days after the selection, but you’ll be helping us here after you recover for at least a month. We’ll be shortstaffed when some of our best go out to deliver them.”

Yes but he’s anxious without his emotional support sharp objects, okay.

“Kanata! Kanata! Rest!”

Maybe it’s because he’s quiet, but he got assigned a rather talkative crow. Even soaking in the onsen is rambunctious with this crow by his side.

Kanata leans over the rocks as his crow— Yashahane, it’s much too cool a name for a crow as silly as this one— gathers pebbles and arranges them equal widths apart in neat rows.

“Kanata! Kanata!” it’s like the only thing she can say, handing Kanata a small pebble that’s pretty, but just a bit too big to fit into her perfect rows. She deposits it into his open palm, and hops away to pick up another one.

Well, it’s peaceful.

“Kanata! Kanata!”

Yes, yes. He obediently opens his palm and receives another pebble.

Maybe it’s because she’s like this, that she was assigned to be Kanata’s crow. They won’t have a lot of missions, and they can always relax, just like this.

Peacefully.

“KANATA DO NOT SLEEP IN THE HOT SPRING!” Uncle Kiyoyuki shrieks, and Kanata jumps in surprise. Yashahane startles so violently she upturns all her pebble rows.

“Kanata! I said you’re not allowed to forge swords yet!”

Kanata knows he’s being insufferable, but he really couldn’t care less. He’s not getting his first mission yet, what else is he supposed to do? Die of boredom? He’s slept all of yesterday and the day before that. He could sleep today too, but then the Uncles will all forge the swords and leave without him!

“Look, I don’t want you hitting anything. That’s too much strain on your limbs. You broke twenty bones. You’re definitely not polishing either,” Uncle Kanamori says. Those are both things that swordsmiths here have died working too hard doing. “I know you’re excited because these are your friends’ swords, but forget the blade. How about you carve the tsuba? And once the swords are done polishing, you can tie the tsuka ito too.”

Kanata is sentenced to wood carving duty.

They didn’t even let him make the metal ones. Wood. It'll be reinforced with metal later, but come on. This is the kind of stuff you give a child. 

(Oh, wait. I'm twelve.)

Fine. He’s going to make the prettiest damn sword guards ever and the swordsmiths will henceforth have a horrible time trying to replicate the quality ever again. Peace was never an option.

“I said to carve sword guards. Tsuba. And how many of your handheld fans did you make— and is this a gun?? I’ve heard they were using it in the previous war, but do you have any idea what the elders will say if they find this in a swordsmith village?”

Well, Death had a book on medieval-era guns in his library, so. The wood shredder is a very tempting adversary in these trying times.

Kanata nods sagely. “Grandpa loves me, so it’s okay.”

“Ah so you KNOW?” comes the scandalised roar back, “you little punk! Don’t think you can cute your way out of things forever!”

Kanata is already standing up to go to the Chief’s room.

“Grandpa. Make bullets.”

“Ohh, Kanata, are you interested in something new so you want me to make something for you to imitate? What was it?” Tecchikawahara Tecchin is a pushover for his youngest most talented grandson, “bullets? Oh, those silly things? I’ll make some for you. You’re a smart child. Keeping up with modernization, eh?”

Kanata nods. He gets on his knees and lowers his head so the Chief can ruffle his hair dearly.

“Kanata! Listen to me!” Uncle Kiyoyuki groans, but he’s already been defeated, “Chief, stop spoiling him!”

Chief simply chuckles. “I’ll take care of Kanata.”

“I’ll leave him to you, chief…”

In swordsmith village, you don’t ask to be taught. You watch the older people work, and you absorb on your own. If there’s something you don’t know how to make, then you watch the Chief, who knows how to make anything, do it. If there’s something no one knows how to make, then you make it yourself.

There are no lessons. No guidance. Just ‘go watch’, and ‘try it next’.

“There’s not really a demand for guns in the corps, though. It’s too loud, the reload time can be lethal to a slayer, and most of all, nichirin’s colour-changing properties get in the way of its firepower when the gunpowder explodes.”

Somehow, a very detailed and informative lesson has started.

“Though, nothing’s wrong with experimenting. Be careful, though, last time it ended up with the Flame Hashira, Shinjuro, it exploded in his hands,” the Chief laughs. “Well, that was surely an experience! Hands are important for both swordsmiths and demon slayers!”

What. What the hell.

“It’s fine,” Kanata decides. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Alright, Kanata, that’s enough.”

Uncle Kiyoyuki has come to the point where he’s running to anyone else for help taming the child that will not stop producing luxury tsuba in the workshop. Some of those arne’t even practical enough to be actually used.

“Kogane, give him something to do.”

And Uncle Kogane lifts his head from where he was sculpting some spare doll arms. Kanata is staring back at him, waiting expectantly, as Uncle Kiyoyuki slams the door shut and leaves him up there on the hilltop hut.

“Uhm… I don’t think he’ll appreciate me letting you train with Yoriichi Type Zero yet, so how about you babysit Kotetsu?”

Kanata turns to Kotetsu, the young child currently winded around in string like a cat because his father does not understand choking hazards.

“Go play cat’s cradle with him or something. He’s very fascinated by patterns.”

Anyways. Kanata spends a few days playing with Kotetsu, and then, he does his rehabilitation training with Yoriichi Type Zero.

There’s really not much else to do here, since Swordsmith village has a scarcity of people that actually know how to wield the blades they forge to any meaningful degree.

He’s figured out how to use any type of sword, but not all of them suit him. The story of the metal fan begins in one of his older training sessions, in the two years before he takes the Final Selection.

“Most people just go with a standard sword, or they change the length or duel-wield to their liking, but you can’t seem to make up your mind, huh?”

There’s a Kakushi in recovery in Swordsmith Village, and when he found Kanata training, he asked and was allowed to watch.

His name’s Gotou, but Kanata didn’t bother to check if the guy’s relevant.

Daggers are too close range. His breathing style focuses on being widespread and sporadic, which means he’ll get caught in it too if he’s not careful. Standard-sized swords are too simple. He can fight, but not good enough. A long sword, like an oodachi, can throw down stronger strikes simply because of the added range.

Wider swords, broadswords or axes, give him more power. The longer his sword, the less precision he has over the raw power in the blade. So axes suit him better, but their range is much shorter, which leads to problem #1 all over again.

“You’re very elegant,” the Kakushi tells him, one day. “I mean, Kochou-san is elegant too, but it’s different. She’s a flower, you’re, well… I don’t know. A fan, maybe. Like, you’re both elegant, and flutter out. She’s light and graceful, but you’re rigid.”

And he doesn’t understand it at first.

“You gather, and then, you strike. Your steps are light, but your aftershocks are strong. Each of your steps reverberate, and when you burst forth— it’s blinding and forceful.”

Is everyone in this place a poet?

“If the Stone Hashira is an immovable rock that suits his kusarigama and spiked weight— and the Sound Hashira is a booming impact of two sharp beats against a drum… you don’t seem as straightforward,” the Kakushi admits. “Maybe you’re not even a blade. After all, sand cuts, but it’s not exactly something sharp either. But once it goes through enough heat and pressure—”

“—it turns into glass?”

The Kakushi seems surprised to hear Kanata speak to him.

But, he has a point. Sand is like him in many ways— from the way it’s soft and harmless when undisturbed. And yet, it kicks up restlessly time and again, and can always, out of nowhere, build up into something so formidable, it takes lives in an instant.

Kanata doesn’t need a blade.

He is Sand.

All he needs is the winds to blow in the right direction, to compel him into action. That’s right— these blades are all useful, but in the end, they are just the means to an end.

What embodies his style of the Sand Breathing is neither the widest nor longest blade he can find. It’s simple, undaunting elegance.

Sand relaxes, at all times. Even if it becomes violent, it is still sand. Even when it’s soft and warm and soothing to the tough, it is still sand.

So of course, the weapon that most suits him and his sword style must embody that.

Like a simple folding fan. A simple instrument for some relief in hot weather— and yet, in war, an indomitable ally in battle.

“...there’s something called Tessenjutsu,” he remembers. “I don’t know much about it, though. Maybe I’ll go read.”

“What?” Gotou, the Kakushi, asks.

“I’ll be right back.”

“What— WHAT ARE YOU DOING—”

And thus is the story of Kanata’s true nichirin blade— the simple metal fan in his pocket, which he doesn’t use primarily, as it’s only a last resort.

Kanata delivers a sword to Butterfly Mansion— it’s a very common order location— and he meets the newly instated Flower Hashira for the first time.

Kochou Kanae.

“You’re the swordsmith?” her much less friendly sister, Shinobu, scowls at him. “That sword is for Murata, right? He’s asleep right now, so come in for some tea.”

There’s an underlying threat of ‘do not disturb a patient’s rest’ unheard under her breath.

But Kanata is used to this treatment. This skepticism. Usually, only the older men of the village are allowed to go out frequently— dangers, and experience, and all that. So the impression is that the older the swordsmith, the more capable they are. It’s not really a trustworthy impression to have a young swordsmith be in charge of something as important as a demon slayer’s sword.

“Aoi, get some refreshments for our guest,” Shinobu calls over the hallway.

“Ah— yes, Shinobu-sama, I’ll be right there!”

Oh?

Aoi freezes when she sees the Hyottoko mask. She’s seen swordsmiths before, of course, but when Kanata takes off his wicker hat and musses his two-toned hair, Aoi knows exactly who he is.

“K- Kanata-san!” she sets the tea and snacks on the table, dropping to her knees to join him immediately, “it’s been a while! Have you been well?”

Her uniform is worn under an apron. Her hair is worn up neatly in pigtails again. She has her sword— both the standard nichirin and the shortsword bequeathed to her by Kanata way back then— holstered upon her waist, and her smile is full of relief.

Her nichirin is decorated with a rather intricate tsuba guard. Depicting a butterfly, landing upon a ripple of water that formed the base of the guard. Its wings stretched out with detail it didn’t need yet left ample space for her hand. The entire thing was made of wood and dyed carefully, and while the design was large, it was light.

“You know Tecchikawahara-san?” Shinobu demands of her younger sister, and Aoi jumps out an affirmative.

“We met in the Final Selection. He helped me very, very much back then!”

“...I see. Wait, a swordsmith took the Final Selection?”

“Yeah…” Aoi lifts her head slowly back to Kanata, her expressions morphing into confusion. “Wait. Why did you take the Final Selection to become a slayer?”

Kanata doesn’t answer that.

Is ‘I just felt like it’ a reasonable answer?

Kanae chuckles, taking a cup of tea for herself. “There’s nothing wrong with it, is there? Now, Kanata-kun, sit down, would you? We have snacks.”

And that’s how Kanata spends half his day simply listening to the Butterfly sisters talk around him.

He goes home with a new haori. Somehow.

It’s white, gradient down to brown speckled in powdery swirls. Gingko leaves speckle the majority of the design in gold. For movement, and because he already had a bag— it’s fastened it to his waist with a red and white woven rope, work tools and a tachi tucked around the band for easy access.

He pulls the haori over his uniform— it has a slight purplish-red tinge, to his amusement— and then, the bag over everything.

“Quite a weight, isn’t it?” Uncle Kogane says, “isn’t it a bit much? You’re small, Kanata. Don’t you need as much speed and movement possible?”

A twelve-year-old fighting demons would usually have their fighting style take advantage of their smaller physique, and while Kanata kind of fits into that mold, being born in the Swordsmith village means he’s got more than enough bulk to handle some heavy dragging.

The strap’s also made to unbuckle, so he can dorp it anytime, easily.

Plus, if he needs range, he has the oversized oodachi.

“Yeah. About that,” Uncle Kiyoyuki seems to read his mind, reaching to his back, where the Oodachi was slotted into the front of the bag’s straps. “This is going to get in the way when you walk through forests or literally any narrow space. Let’s make another strap for this one to wear on your back.”

“Do you even need that many swords?” Uncle Kogane asks, to which Kanata hisses at him. “Right. Right. Have your thirty knives, child.”

“And some metal fans, specially crafted by the chief himself. Made of nichirin. Instead of anything reasonable, like sandalwood or ivory,” is Uncle Kiyoyuki’s very defeated contribution.

“But Grandpa won the poll to make my nichirin blade,” Kanata says, clearly misunderstanding the direction of the exasperation.

“Yes, yes he certainly did,” Uncle Kiyoyuki sighs.

Kanata pulls yet another strap around his shoulders, for his longest sword to cross over the other way from his back. He’ll figure out how to carry these better when he’s taller.

He’ll figure out how to carry more swords when he’s taller.

“Kanata, I can tell what you’re thinking, and the answer is don’t.”

Kanata deflates. Curse the Hyottoko Mask tradition. Everyone’s learned how to read the subtlest of body language at this point.

Yashahane perches on his shoulder, screeching out a “south! South! Head south!” at them all, and they understand that’s an indication of a long road ahead.

“Alright, alright. That’s enough,” the chief shows up to see Kanata off at the break of dawn. “Kanata, have fun on your missions. Crows will be made aware of a travelling swordsmith as well, so look out for anyone needing on-the-go sword maintenance. It’s part of your duty as a member of our village.”

Kanata nods.

“Alright. For safe journeys.”

The kiribi clicks sharply, and Kanata gets on one knee as the Chief strikes the stone with the steel, against his back.

And then, without looking behind him, Kanata rises, and begins his journey forth.

He’s officially a demon slayer now, and he’ll be back here a lot less often than before. It’s the exact opposite of what Death asked of it, it’s not what Death expected of him, when he was told to live peacefully, simply waiting for his time—

—but well. It’s enrichment.

And if he was fated to get dismembered and eaten in the end anyways, there’s no point in secluding himself in the village. There’s a world out there, and he might as well spend as much time as he can sightseeing before his ride arrives.

Life as a demon slayer is, all things considered, eventful.

The ranks of the Hashira change with the times. Rengoku Shinjuro retires, and familiar faces begin to fill the roster. Kanata masters Total Concentration Breathing— and he has to admit, he knows it’s because the manga is a manga, but what rather insane pacing did the main characters have to go through? Demons were hardly as active as the story made it seem.

“To become a Hashira, one must be a Kinoe [1], have killed at least fifty demons, and be capable of killing one of the Twelve Demon Moons on their own,” Uzui Tengen tells him. “How far along are you, young prodigy?”

Kanata really isn’t a prodigy. They haven’t even found Tokitou Muichirou yet. It’s been a year since he became a demon slayer, and Oyakata-sama is very stingy on ranks the younger a slayer is, apparently, because Kanata just can’t get past Tsuchinoe [5] at all.

He swears he’s killed more than fifty demons. That requirement is just a standardised numerical value, anyways, it’s the latter part about the demon moons that really matters.

“Thirty! Thirty!”

Yashahane is much better at remembering things that he is, thankfully, because remembering the number would be impossible for Kanata. Not because his memory’s awful, but simply because sometimes he kills demon #4 a couple hundred times on the way to stronger demon #5, and if someone was going to make him remember all those as separate instances, he’s going to stab someone. Probably himself.

Uzui whistles, impressed. “You’ll be up here in no time! At thirteen, too! It's a new record! And you spend most of your time smithing, that’s a very impressive number!”

That is awful news. Why are you celebrating a child soldier? But then again, Kanata volunteered for this work, so he had no right to complain about that.

“Oh, are you done?”

Satisfied with the polished swords, Kanata rests the blade by the whetstones. He slides the cloth through the carvings of ‘Destroyer of Demons’ upon the heel of the blade, and decides it’s not yet due for a re-engraving.

“Don’t touch it until I fit it back in the handle,” Kanata says, walking away, wiping his hands dry as he heads out to retrieve the new parts from the other room.

“I won’t,” Uzui insists, like a chastised child.

Makio chuckles. “A child is treating you like a child, Tengen-sama.”

“Tecchikawahara-kun, can I clean up some of this over here?” Hinatsuru asks on the other side of the room, where the broken metal and burnt wood lay in messy piles.

“I got snacks from the town down the mountain!” Suma hustles in from outside to settle on the veranda, “are we done yet, Kanata-kun? I’m using the stove to make tea!”

Though Kanata spends a lot of his time in the village, he goes out every once in a while on trips to defeat demons. And each trip is a very, very long walk around the country that will last at least a month, because he’s expected to do a lot before he goes back.

Kanata now has several swordsmith camps around the country— a necessity, because of his work, and it’s also used by swordsmiths that pass by on deliveries to rest as well— but, honestly, why does Uzui have to bring his wives here every time?

Kanata sighs.

He tilts the mask just slightly. He still wore the mask, but he had an eye out to work, and his mouth was free for the refreshments.

Once he gets everything ready, he sits by the veranda with them, rethreading the tsuka over the handle as Suma insistently tries to feed him some kinako mochi on a toothpick. Makio is cuddling with Yashahane, and Hinatsuru chuckles at the sight while Uzui watches fondly.

“Red, huh?” Uzui says. “As usual, your tastes are flamboyant. We don’t usually get to see swordsmiths work our swords step by step like this. Don’t mind our gawking.”

Kanata minds, a lot.

They’ve been here since yesterday— Uzui went off with some of Kanata’s swords to hunt demons last night, too— why do they just think they can make themselves at home here? It’s his home, damn it. And he knows the Kakushi have been frequenting this place. Someone’s restocking his first aid kit.

“Kanata-kun, want some more? Want some tea?” Suma is very, very interested in this child that will literally eat anything that’s brought near his mouth, apparently. She’s so enthused by the idea of playing house with this very preoccupied child sharpening a murder weapon in his hands.

Uzui’s swords are rather beautiful.

Two shortswords, specifically Daos, chained together like nunchucks. And his blade shines a sharp gold. It’s not very practical, but Uzui wields it so well in a way only he can. Maybe that’s the point.

“Speaking of… you know where my territory is, right?” Uzui brings up. Yes, Hanamichi. Flower District. Red Light District. Yoshiwara. And so on, the many names people give that besotted location. “The geisha there dance like you, I’ve noticed. Were you the child of one?”

Wow Uzui. You don’t just ask someone if they’re a child abandoned by a prostitute.

But… he might be right.

The Swordsmith Village believes in inherited memories.

Kanata’s soul may not live in this era, and he learned all he knew about the style of fan dancing and battling from books in Death’s chamber— but the actual movements and expertise— it came to him on their own. The refinement and grace in each sway of his hands— they were second nature.

His body remembers, even though the soul no longer complements it.

Whoever this child had been before Kanata took his place, his mother had this dance in their very soul, cultivated from years and generations of living within the harsh environment of the red light district’s competitive field. A place where girls had no rights unless they rose the ranks quickly enough— she bore a child, and ran, and ultimately, died meaninglessly.

Quite pitiful. But there’s nothing that can be done about it now.

“You know, one day if we have an infiltration mission, I’d really like your help in it,” Uzui says. “My wives will do great, but nothing beats actually being able to assimilate and rise up. If any demons are hiding in the district, they probably have austere tastes, after all.”

He chuckles.

Hinatsuru grimaces, “Tengen-sama,” she warns.

“I know, I know,” Uzui begins defensively. “Come on, even if he does help out, I wouldn’t let anything happen. You know that.”

“That is a child,” Makio emphasizes. “Come on, aren’t we enough?”

“Or do you not trust us enough, Tengen-sama?” Suma adds, sounding pitiful.

And Uzui relents. They pounce on him and there’s laughter and— oh, come on.

Kanata tunes out the rest of their conversation and hurries with the string and handle in his hands. He needs to get this tied right now immediately as soon as possible, because he will NOT handle this lovey-dovey honeymoon a meter away from him.

He is going to chase them out, purify this house, and then leave to the furthest base from here and, hopefully, he can be light years away from civilisation for the next few weeks. 

Chapter Text

Is Sanemi, like, the world’s unluckiest asshole ever?

Kanata genuinely remembers that Masachika is meant to die, but, he had no idea when it happened or where they were, and there was no way he could have given them any support until he got the news about Sanemi becoming a Hashira. 

And of course, that raging dumbass broke his sword again. Kanata is beginning to feel unnecessarily homicidal. 

“Kanata! Kanata! New sword order! New sword needs to be made!” 

He’d been sitting in a dango shop in some nondescript town in the middle of his journey, when Yashahane makes the fervent report.

He had his usual Hyottoko mask set aside, a cloth mask tied over just his eyes so he could enjoy his meal. Paired with his fan and breathing style, he could be mistaken as a traditional dancer, which helps avoid cops in this age of sword bans. 

He doesn’t put much notice toward the child that served him the dango just yet. It’s common for children to help out in this era, and since this was a wisteria house, he wouldn’t be surprised if this child was an orphan survivor from a demon attack. That’s very common. 

“And! Shinazugawa Sanemi and Kumeno Masachika have defeated Lower Moon One! Shinazugawa Sanemi advances to the rank of Hashira!” 

Morbid. You don’t become a Hashira if you kill a Moon in a team, (at least, not usually,) so Sanemi basically only got the title because Masachika died. Damn. 

“A new sword is required! A new sword is required!” 

“Hmm,” Kanata thinks Yashahane is excited enough for the both of them, so he can just enjoy his dango, take his time, and figure out how long he’ll loiter around before making his way to the Butterfly Mansion. Sanemi definitely needs a long break, and the more Kanata dallies, the longer he has. Maybe he’ll go the long way around. 

“Wh– wait!” 

Something shatters. And the child serving him— oh, was that tea for me — rushes forward, forgetting the broken tray and crockery to grab at Kanata’s collar almost confrontationally. 

Yashahane yelps, scuttering away, not wanting to be a part of the conflict. 

“You!” 

They’re almost the same age. Kanata’s older by just a bit, logically speaking, but this kid is just naturally big in physique. 

The point is: “you know my big brother?!” 

Shinazugawa Genya has been living in Wisteria Houses ever since his brother left him behind to become a demon slayer. And this is most likely the first time in a long, long time he’s been allowed to learn any information about him. 

Oh wow. 

Sanemi’s the world’s unluckiest bastard, ever, and Kanata is going to go and shove this right in his face. Who cares if his best friend just died, Kanata just found his estranged younger brother. Perfect. Let’s double up the trauma on that guy, can’t possibly get any worse anyways. 

“Yasha, change of plans,” Kanata isn’t at all bothered by the collar grab, and this infuriates Genya as Kanata simply glances toward his crow. “Let’s go to Butterfly Mansion now.” 

“Hey, listen to me!” 

Kanata reaches up and pats him on the head.

Genya freezes. He lets out a horrified, “what?”

And Kanata nods. Yep, he’s definitely Sanemi’s younger brother. How cute.

“Oh, I have a gun,” Kanata remembers. “Do you want to use a gun?”

“What???”

Butterfly Mansion is always a fond sight. Slayers are recuperating here all year, healing after battle and getting back into shape. 

“Oh! It’s been a while, Kanata-san!”

Aoi has been off-duty for a whole year now at this point. 

Unprecedentedly, she takes her sword with her at all times even in the mansion and does sword and breath training drills in the morning. Corps members that notice it gossip all the time about her unfavourably, but she doesn’t let it bother her. 

“You’re here for the oaf, right? He’s been making a fuss, I heard he kicked up a ruckus at the Hashira Meeting and embarrassed himself. Kanae-sama hasn’t let him live it down yet, so he’s been a grump,” Aoi says, like a situational report as she takes down the laundry and loads the baskets. 

Kanata watches her go on like a housewife, and decides to take one of the baskets for her as they walk on inside together. 

“And who’s that?”

She finally takes notice of Genya, who’s nervously looking around, clutching a case containing a gun that Kanata shoved at him and refused to take back. He’s clutching it like a security blanket, and Aoi turns her gaze to Kanata, accusingly. 

“Why does he look like Sanemi?”

Genya perks up immediately at that.

And Kanata answers, “Shinazugawa Genya.” 

Aoi pauses. 

Then, “I am so sorry ,” she says, bowing with deepest sincerity to the boy. Doesn’t matter if Genya’s taller than her. “Live strong.” 

“Ah— right,” Genya stumbles, bowing because he doesn’t know what the hell’s going on, “no, I am… uh… sorry. For any trouble my brother may have caused as well.” 

“Kanata,” Aoi says, and since there’s no honorific, Kanata straightens to attention. 

“Yes.” 

“You’re bringing this kid to Sanemi?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. A single scratch on this kid and I’m pouring water into your bag.” 

“Please don’t. I will protect him with my life.” 

“You better.” 

“I swear. Don’t touch my bag.” 

Aoi opens the door, and immediately steps aside, hooking an arm around Genya’s so he stands by her. Kanata, who is simply confused about her movement, gets a faceful of feet as Sanemi lunges at him from his bed. 

“FUCKER!” 

They go flying to the far wall in a loud heap.

Genya yelps, but Aoi is unfazed. 

“The sword fucking BROKE! Apologize to Masachika, you little bitch!” 

It really isn’t Kanata’s fault that they decided to go fight Lower Moon One. That’s literally the highest-ranked a Moon has ever been spotted for the past hundred years. 

Kanata whines when his woven sash belt snaps from the impact, it’s a worn out thing but that seemed to be the last straw for it— and his haori, along with multiple things snagged to the belt, all scatter about messily in the corridor as he lands unceremoniously on it with Sanemi’s foot in his forehead, and the rest of his weight on his stomach. 

Sure, Sanemi is technically standing on his mask and not his literal face skin, but somehow, it’s worse. 

Kanata is now upset. 

“N-” Genya stutters, terrified that this is how he’s meeting his brother for the first time in years, “Nii-chan?”

“HUH?”

Sanemi whirls around and promptly flinches . 

The case in Genya’s arms, marked with the symbol of swordsmith village, answers his question— and Sanemi rips his eyes away from his brother to yell at Kanata again.

“You piece of shit! How’d you find him?! And why did you bring him here??”

Genya panics. .”Wha– no! It’s not Kanata-san’s fault, I—” he hesitates when the glare is shot at him with so much putrid anger he cowers, “I wanted to find you…” 

“So you brought him to fucking HEADQUARTERS?!” Sanemi’s volume goes another decibel higher, it’s still directed at Kanata. “I will fucking shatter your teeth you ignorant fucker! He’s a civilian!”

“Shinazugawa-san,” Aoi calls.

“When the FUCK did I become Shinazugawa-fucking-SAN?!” Sanemi whirls on her. “You’re creeping me out!” 

“Shinazugawa- san ,” she repeats with emphasis, just to be annoying. “Shatter his teeth or whatever, can you do it outside? Also, you broke his sawdust gourd and now there’s sand everywhere. Who do you think is cleaning this up?”

“Maybe once you explain to me why you brought HIM here!!” Sanemi roars back, pointing at Genya like he was some mortal enemy. 

Genya looked utterly shattered, “N- Nii-chan, stop stepping on him! I’m the one that asked to be here—” 

“You fucking GET OUT!” Sanemi howls.

Alright. Kanata has had enough.

“Back up—!’ Aoi notices it first, grabbing Genya by the sleeve and dragging him back. 

“Huh?” Sanemi notices a moment after her. A moment too late. And then his face goes pale. “Fu—” but it's too late to get off now.

Kanata’s hand is on his sword’s handle. All it takes is a sharp flick against the tsuba, and it unlatches from the sheathe. 

Sand Breathing, Fifth Form: Shamal 

砂の呼吸・ 伍ノ型 ・シャマル

The lurch of sand spears upward from underneath Kanata, ripping apart clothes, upturning every stray article on the ground, and shredding through Sanemi’s skin as he hurries to shield at least the important organs of his face. 

“OW!” 

Aoi roars, just barely out of range. “Kanata, that is an INJURED MAN!” 

Actually, that is a dead man if Kanata has anything to say about it. 

“Fucker— Kanata! I don’t have a sword right now! Fight me without your blades!” 

Oh, your sword’s broken. How unfortunate. Too bad you didn’t have thirty spare swords in your bag, like me.

“Wait— is that mine?”

Kanata picks up another sword. It’s nicely wrapped in a cloth, and the sword guard is an intricate fold of blades circling the hilt with a rich green tinge. It’s a gorgeous sword. 

Kanata tosses it in Aoi’s direction, and she catches it with alarm.

“Hold on now— don’t fight here–!!” 

Kanata’s not listening. He has his fan out, flicking them out with his wrist. Sanemi is cursing up a storm because you can’t just dodge the blades of those things, any wind it causes is in the range of his blade too and— he’s the Wind Hashira now, okay? He knows damn well how hard it is to dodge wind!

Sanemi is also very, very injured right now.

So, three more steps and Kanata has a closed fan pinned on Sanemi’s neck against the wall. He could retaliate but he’s not risking it. If that fan so much as shifts just a bit, Shamal will erupt all over again. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Kanata, I will kill you the second I get my damn sword!” Sanemi yells, “I said my bad, alright? I said it! Stop it!” 

No, you stepped on me. Die. 

Sanemi still doesn’t understand Shamal , but he knows two things: much like iaijutsu, the attack comes in a flash right after Kanata unsheathes any weapon, and two, it’s way more lethal when he uses his fan to do it. 

“Oh dear, you two are at it?” 

Chuckling, Makomo steps in from the courtyard, smiling wide at the sight. Why the hell does she just happen to be here today? Is this a class reunion?  

Behind her are two boys— newly-minted slayers, both with a fox mask on the sides of their heads that was similar to the one around Makomo’s obi. 

Kanata glances over with surprise. Those are some very familiar faces.

“This fucker started it!” Sanemi yells, using the distraction to snag the hand with the fan in it and hold it away by the fingers so Kanata couldn’t even wriggle. Kanata then pulls out his shortsword with his other hand and Sanemi yells, grabbing him by the wrist before it fully comes down. “Goddamn it, you are seriously trying to kill me! Stop it!” 

Kanata responds with a sharp kick upward between their arms, nailing Sanemi right in the jaw. 

Makomo bursts out laughing. 

Aoi groans, “Both of you, STOP IT!” 

“Sabito, Giyuu, these guys are from the final selection class as I was,” Makomo introduces them over tea. “Tecchikawara Kanata, the swordsmith; Kanzaki Aoi, secondary supervisor of the Butterfly Mansion; and Shinazugawa Sanemi, the newly instated Wind Hashira.” 

“Bitch. You’re supposed to introduce us in order of ranking.” 

“Yes. Was there a problem?”

“Fuck you.” 

Gathered around the tea table, Sanemi sits by the veranda while his brother sits beside Kanata, nervous about the blatant rejection.

Aoi serves the tea, taking the extra steps to walk over to Sanemi and deliberately drops it at head level so he has to yelp and catch it himself. 

“Wh–HEY! Bitch!”  

“You’re welcome.” 

Sabito is watching, amused, and Giyuu is honestly perplexed. Is this how friends are? Is he the only one that thinks this is weird?

Genya watches in awe. And slight guilt.  He’ll probably never get used to seeing his brother so curt and temperamental. The fact that it’s his fault only makes it all weigh down on him. The tea is bitter on his tongue and he can’t enjoy it at all. 

He doesn’t really belong in this mansion, and his brother is right. It’s one thing to stay in the wisteria houses as fellow victims, but the people here were born and raised among wisteria to care for the hardworking slayers. 

“A swordsmith is a demon slayer?” Sabito asks, “cool! So you make your own swords?”

Kanata nods. He lifts his mask just a little, blowing on his tea before taking a sip. 

“Oh! You’re quiet, just like Giyuu.” 

Kanata nods again.

They’re both older than him, but apparently, they’re only Mizunoto[10] at this point. Makomo’s already Kinoe[1] just like Sanemi was, and though everyone expects her to become the next Water Hashira just like her teacher, she hasn’t quite met the qualifications yet. She’s yet to defeat a Demon Moon. She’s not the only one of her kind, though. Rengoku Kyoujuro (currently Kinoto[2]) is quickly catching up and very eager to take his father’s mantle. 

There’s also Kanae’s Tsuguko, Shinobu. The Corps are flourishing with their current generation.

“Sabito-kun and Giyuu-kun. That’s rude.” 

Kanata didn’t mind, but Aoi called them out the second they started inching way too close forward in an attempt to look up Kanata’s lifted mask. They straightened at once. Genya had also been sneaking a glance, but upon hearing them be called out, he averted his eyes and tried to pretend he wasn’t doing it too.

Makomo smirks. “It’s a pretty face underneath it.” 

“You’re making us even more curious,” Sabito whines. “Right, Giyuu?”

Giyuu nods, “isn't it hard to drink like that?” 

“Nowadays Kanata takes it off when fighting, but since he’s doing swordsmith duty now, he won’t be taking it off,” Aoi says. “It’s vital for swordsmiths to hide their identities, anyways, so they can work and still be anonymous outside the village. It helps them stay safe. They don’t take it off even here, because it’s their tradition.” 

“Not that it matters for the piece of crap,” Sanemi grumbles from the veranda. 

A saucer goes flying through the air, and Sanemi swerves his head aside to avoid it without even glancing back.

“Kanata! No throwing the crockery!” Aoi hollers, even though she’s in the hallways now. 

Makomo giggles.

“See, you two?” she gestures vaguely at them, “this is why you should keep in contact with your classmates. They’re a riot, aren’t they?” 

Sabito and Giyuu settle back down.

“Even if you say that… the only other guy that survived is a— well,” Sabito averts his eyes, sipping his tea to avoid elaborating. 

“He’s a dick,” Giyuu says, and Sabito spits out his tea.

“Who taught you the derogatory meaning of that word?!”

“Makomo did.” 

“Makomo!” Sabito turns accusingly at her, and she only starts laughing harder. She laughs so hard she has to clutch her stomach and double over on the tatami. 

“There’s plenty of assholes around,” Aoi says, “there’s one right over here.” 

She nudges Sanemi’s side with her foot and promptly hops away when Sanemi whirls around to snatch her ankle in retaliation. He misses and his lower half drops over the side of the veranda with a yelp. 

Idiot’s rebruised his tender ribs.

“N- Nii-chan, are you oka—” 

“Shut up, Genya! LEAVE!” 

Genya ducks away behind Kanata, who pats him on the head. 

“What was his name? I might know him,” Aoi saunters away victoriously as Sanemi struggles to get back inside the room to strangle her. 

“I didn’t bother to remember,” Sabito’s too obviously being defiant. 

“Kaigaku,” Giyuu, however, is a traitor. 

Kanata expels his entire mouthful of tea onto Genya and is still violently choking. Genya is too baffled and worried about him to be mad.

Sanemi gawks .

Makomo laughs on. 

So, basically: what are consequences, again?

Kanata sighs as he watches Sanemi— insane. Utterly insane. He’s already testing out his new sword. What an idiot— and Genya’s watching too, adorably impressed. He’s still half-hidden behind Kanta, though, just for good measure. 

Sanemi stops at the Ninth form of Wind Breathing, the fierce guest of wind shredding apart the land beneath. He drops to the ground once more, straightens— and starts over from the First. 

“...Breathing Styles are so cool,” Genya whispers. 

They certainly are.

“There’s one thing cooler,” Kanata turns to him.

Genya’s head tilts. 

“Really?”

Kanata points at the box with the gun in it. 

Confused, Genya takes it and opens it. 

But Kanata tears his eyes away to see Makomo training with Sabito and Giyuu, and she laughs, surpassing them in strength and skill both. They’ve barely started slaying, so it’s to be expected— but she’s really gotten stronger since their Final Selection, too. 

“Hey, Makomo!” Sanemi calls, pausing between the Sixth and Seventh to point his sword at her. “One strike’s out.” 

Makomo pauses as well, swerving aside from Giyuu lunging toward her, snatching wrist and twisting his sword off his grip. Her sword is on a path to her back, clashing just right against a side slash from Sabito. 

Makomo chuckles at Sanemi. “Sure, why not?”

She straightens as Sabito and Giyuu lose their balance and yelp, sprawling to the ground. 

“You two, go take a break.” 

“Right, ma’am!” 

“Okay.” 

The two come to the veranda, settling in beside Kanata happily as Kanata pours tea into the two cups laid out for them. They’re very excited to see the battle happen, despite everything, and Kanata can’t help but realize how innocent they are.  Maybe he’s the odd one here.

Makomo reaches for her mask. 

“What the— hey! Don’t put your mask on!” 

“No, my kouhai are here. I’m not showing my serious face to them, what if they get scared?” Makomo pouts. “It’s just a good enough handicap for you.” 

“Motherfucker, I’ll make you regret saying that.” 

Makomo’s voice sings. “Hey, if I defeat you, do I become a Hashira?”

“Over my overgrown GRAVE!” 

He lunges, and Makomo doesn't immediately retaliate, only raising her sword to her shoulder, and then, swerving aside so Sanemi’s sword parries it and slides right off course. Makomo’s blade follows the line of the blade and Makomo finally steps forward—

Sanemi curses, knee dropping his center of gravity lower quickly. 

Makomo’s blade catches the tsuba and she falters. Sanemi twists, the tsuba a perfect angle to wrench Makomo’s sword off—

—she doesn’t let go, instead, she clutches the sword harder, allowing herself to leap over Sanemi’s form in a somersault. Her blade spills downward, before she wrenches it in a roll right back up, this time unlatching Sanemi’s sword from his grip.

Water Breathing, Second Form: Water Wheel

水の呼吸・ 弐ノ型・水車

It’s not made to hit a target. 

She reaches for the loose sword in mid-air—

—but Sanemi reacts first. He’s still falling from his initial maneuver, landing backward on his hands and immediately swinging a sharp spin all the way around to kick his sword by the hilt into a dangerous spiral. 

Makomo is forced to swerve away from the loose blade. 

She lands on one hand and quickly works to get up, but Sanemi has already retrieved his sword, a horizontal slash already coming from below, inching upward to her jaw—

Wind Breathing, Sixth Form: Black Wind Mountain Mist

風の呼吸・ 陸ノ型・黒風烟嵐

There’s a loud BANG!! and Sanemi pulls his sword back at the last second. This gives Makomo just enough time to barely fall back in time, and the slashes just barely graze her hair. 

A bullet flies past them, hitting the tree between them right in the center. 

Kanata slowly turns to the side. Genya is staring in horrified amazement. The gun is smoking in his hands. Sabito and Giyuu are alert as frazzled cats on the other side, eyes wide and utterly baffled . 

Genya slowly turns to Kanata, teeth chattering, hands trembling, “What… is this…?”

Kid. How did you figure out how to unlatch the fucking safety. That thing wasn’t loaded, either. Are you a genius?

“KANATA! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU GIVE HIM?”

Kanata lunges for his bag but Sanemi catches his leg first, flinging him right off the veranda, over his head, and into the grass with a mighty facefirst crash.  He was wearing his cloth mask instead of the clay hyottoko mask, so he was spared a faceful of broken shards. But instead, he got a frontal of direct impact.

That’s war.

“Makomo, why are the boys roughhousing again?”

When Aoi finally rounds back to this specific room, she’s utterly disappointed, both in her friends and their mental maturity.  Makomo chuckles, sipping on her tea as Sabito, Giyuu, and Genya watched.

“Kanata gave Genya-kun a toy, and Sanemi didn’t like it.” 

Aoi made a longsuffering face of utter disgust.  She sighs. “Sabito, Giyuu, just warning you, but if you two turn out anything like them, I’m going to kill everyone in this room.” 

“And then yourself?” Sabito knows the ending of that joke, so he reasons that she’s not serious.

Pause.

Aoi has walked right past the room and she is not stopping.

Sabito turns around and gets infinitely more concerned.  “Aoi-san, where’s the and then yourself?? Aoi-san??”

Genya sighs deeply as he brings the tray of food to Sanemi’s room. Aoi and Shinobu gave him permission to stay in the same room as his brother— he had a bigger room, since he’s a Hashira now and his injuries are technically serious enough to warrant a private room—

—but he couldn’t help but be worried.

Kanata had patted him on the back in some semblance of an assurance before leaving, and Makomo had consoled him. Sabito and Giyuu gave him words of encouragement before they left for their mission earlier in the evening.

But… now, Genya was alone.

And he anticipated the screaming that came right after he entered the room.

“What the f— who said you could come in, huh?!” 

A pillow is thrown his way and though it slides off his shoulder he’s glad the food isn’t toppled. Sanemi is standing up now, and every cell in his very being freezes up because he’s going to get hit, he’s going to get—

He squeezes his eyes shut and braces himself, but instead… the tray is simply taken off his hands. He opens his eyes to see it set down at the side.  Genya’s stuff is in there already— the Kakushi had moved it over. 

Sanemi whirls back around and grabs Genya by the collar and his breath hitches. 

“I– I’m sorry I found this place I—” Genya panics, “I just. I just wanted to— apologize– I’m s—”

“What is your apology supposed to fucking prove, huh?” 

He’s shaken roughly, and Genya whimpers fearfully. Genya may be the same height as Sanemi now, but Sanemi’s still so, so much stronger. 

“You’re weak and useless, Genya,” he snarls. “You’re no brother of mine and you better stop telling the whole fucking world that. I don’t give a shit what you’re doing or what you have to say to me, fuck out of my life and STAY OUT!” 

Sanemi shoves him out and slams the door.

Genya wilts immediately, tears prickling in his eyes. 

“But…” 

How could he say that? 

“But I’m your little brother…” 

If Sanemi heard him, he said nothing.

Genya sat outside the door from there, not moving even when the younger girls of the Butterfly Mansion asked if he was alright. 

It’s somewhere around the absolute dead of the night when Sanemi opens the door, sees him there, and grabs him by the hair dragging him inside. 

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE. YOU’RE A FUCKING MENACE.”

In hindsight, it’s quite funny that all it took was Genya staying outside the door for three hours for Sanemi to cave right in. 

“I can’t even fucking leave, hell if I’m sleeping with your annoying sniffling out there,” he snarled, shoving him to the tatami beside the food that was now set on a small tea table. “Fucking eat! And if I hear another cry out of you waking me up before sunrise, you’re dead!” 

Half the food’s been eaten, and though it’s cold now, Genya can tell Sanemi only ate about a quarter of all the dishes. 

Genya rubs his tears away from his slightly swollen eyes, and he can’t help but laugh. 

“You still don’t finish all your food, Nii-chan,” he says. “Aoi-san told me you do that all the time, too, when you’re here. It’s not like you have to share anymore, so you can finish it, you know. I can get seconds from the kitchen.” 

“I said,” Sanemi cuts in sharply, already dropping himself onto the bed and turning away. “Shut the fuck up, eat, and go to bed. Don’t bother me.” 

Genya settles onto his knees in front of the food.  True to his word, Sanemi doesn’t turn in his direction, not even once. He simply gets comfortable on his bed, and proceeds to ignore Genya. 

But Genya claps his hands together. 

“Thanks for the food,” he says, softly.

Picking up his chopsticks, he begins to eat. He tries his best not to cry anymore, but he can’t help it. Right now he’s the happiest he’s ever been in months. He never thought he’d get to share a bowl of rice with him again.

He’s so glad he found Kanata.

Chapter Text

He knew there was bad news when his mission location was Mount Natagumo, of all places. It’s way before schedule, so it’s not time to fight Lower Moon Five just yet. 

Which means that right now, Kanata is part of something he’s only seen in a flashback, and there are a variety of reasons why that is horrible, horrible news. 

The target is a female demon who’s been wildly active in the village nearest to the mountain. She’s killed dozens of people by dissolving them in her demon art— an acidic substance that corrodes as harshly as stomach acid. 

“Mizunoto, stay here.” 

His companions freeze in their spots.

“What are you talking about, Kanata-san? We came all this way and you’re going to go alone?”

Kanata’s expressions are unreadable behind the cloth mask obscuring his eyes. The kanji for fire in the center of his gaze, he looks at the ground and he feels it. 

The blood in this mountain, the blood soon to be in this mountain—

—Rui is here, but it is not yet Rui’s time to meet Death. 

Which means everyone here is going to die.

“You’ll be in my way,” Kanata says, shrugging on his bag. 

He takes his clay Hyottoko mask from his bag and shoves it at the one beside him—

—Sabito. 

“This is in the way, so hold onto it for me.” 

It’s his way of promising to return. Personally he never needs insurance like that— but it helps to assure the younger generation and encourages them to leave him alone to do his thing, so it’s a habit at this. 

Sabito was always fated to die in the Final Selection. Kanata may have subverted that fate somehow, but destiny will run its course, one way or another. And destiny has the most leeway to play when they’re stuck in the clash of irregularities. 

Rui is not fated to die yet.

But neither is Kanata, so, if only Kanata goes, they both have a higher chance of surviving. 

The only way this situation can end is if someone’s fate is changed, yet again— and if Kanata can help it, he’ll prefer if it’s this squad he’s been entrusted with. Including Sabito. Sabito can’t come up the mountain— the narrative doesn’t need him for anything anymore, so he’s almost guaranteed to die if he goes, and Kanata really doesn’t want to face Makomo after that. 

Kanata sighs. 

Death is going to be mad at him.

Sure, maybe he shouldn’t have pursued that demon when it was running so desperately into the woods, but come on. She’s killed dozens of people. It always feels like bullying after they start to lose, but it’s just part of being a demon slayer. 

(Kanata doesn’t get personally requested by Oyakata-sama for hunts often. He usually only takes out demons in his area when his crow finds one. Oyakata-sama expects a lot from him in this expedition, and he’s not about to disappoint the one angel on this earth.)

But when she finally stumbles, cornered against an abandoned hut— she spins around and desperately jerks back, trying to get away— 

—Kanata does not take a step closer. Lifting his head to the moon, he sees Rui, balanced upon a single spider’s thread, watching them both. 

“Hey, you,” Rui calls to the female demon, “do you want me to save you?” 

She lifts her head immediately. “Y- Yes, please! I’ll do anything! Anything you ask of me, so please save me!” 

“Then, become my family.” 

“I’ll do it!” 

Kanata feels the strings before he sees them, but by then, it’d already gone too far through his bones, and in the next instant, he found himself in Death’s office. 

He’d never been bisected so quickly before. 

He drinks his hot chocolate as the little ent crawls around him, wondering why he’s not in a hurry to leave today. Death hasn’t said a thing either, busy with his work on the other end—

—but all Kanata could think of was that he’d never died so painlessly before. 

It was almost amazing.He couldn’t even feel his death— it only lasted a second. He’d long gone numb from the pain of it all— but never has it felt so liberating . Like release. 

(Ah, he can’t.)

(He can’t think like that.)

(He’ll go insane.)

Keep your heart numb , he reminds himself. It’s no big deal. It’s just death like any other day, but even  you’re not some kind of masochist.

But if he’s honest… he knew he wasn’t stronger than Rui, but he didn’t think the ceiling was so high. 

Oh, crap, figuring this one out is gonna suck.

Rui’s strings cut through anything, flesh, bone, nichirin, ore. Kanata learns this after losing multiple limbs instinctively trying to use them to buy time. He could wrench out any number of his blades, he’ll still lose them all as if they were butter. 

Rui’s assault begins with a million strings descending upon Kanata from all directions. No escape— he can only block, but blocking is impossible. 

So, he has to cut them,

All millions of these strings, all at once. 

Sand Breathing, Third Form: Sandstorm

砂の呼吸・參ノ型・砂嵐 (Sunaarashi)

His fan flutters down in tandem with a blade on his other hand, each shudder and roll of his wrist lashing out a new tumble in the sand. Each flicker of his blade makes the strings pluck, one after the other, until the dance lowers his knees to the ground. 

The remainder of the strings encroach— but he rises right away, arms swirling outward as he spreads his blades apart, a turbulence rush searing a rising tornado around him that rips apart the rest of the web. 

Sand Breathing, Fourth Form: Antlion Trap

砂の呼吸・肆ノ型・蟻地獄 (Arijigoku)

He rises with the force of the wind, until he’s in the air, spinning with the momentum. He tosses aside his sword, forces his body’s momentum in mid-air to avoid the next wave of strings—

—ah, too slow. Forgot about the right leg delay. 

Once again, then. 

He figures out the trick to not getting cut. Like all sharp objects, handle them the right way and they won’t pierce flesh. In this case, parry it just perfectly, and he’ll be able to slide right onto the string, and hit it back. Not to retaliate, but simply to control its movements, step by step. 

He spins sharp, backs up, twirls his fan. Extend to the right, flutter down, and rise up with a jump. Let his heel swirl from one side to the next, slide his foot two paces to the left. Bend, and two steps forward, fan spreading open with the momentum. 

Just like that, like a gradual elegant dance— he finds himself right before Rui, fan spread open beside his face in the ending pose of the dance. 

With a ragged breath out, Kanata collapses to his knees before the demon, utterly exhausted. The other demon, hiding in the house at this point, stared out mortified— but Rui only watches as Kanata struggles to catch his breath, laid out in a heap before him.

“You’re interesting,” Rui says, with a scoffing smile. 

Kanata will take that. His hands are shivering so terribly, numb and painful, he can’t even grip his fan anymore. His legs are shaking, and with each breath his vision grows hazier. His head swirls and his ears rings and everything seems to go in and out of focus like a psychedelic haze. 

He’s so exhausted. He made it so far, one slash away from beheading him— but this is it 

Even if he dies right now, he doesn’t care— it’s the first time he’s gotten so far. He doesn’t have any strength to kill Rui anymore, so that’s as far as this turn goes. 

“What a shame,” Rui crouches down to pat Kanata on the head. “If you were a demon, you could join my family.” 

Huh?

He doesn’t make it any further. Never again. Maybe that one time was dumb luck, but every time he comes one strike before killing Rui— he can’t get through the demon’s neck. 

He’s never cursed this before, but he hates that beheading isn’t his forte. His wrist is flexible and quick, but not strong like Makomo or Sanemi’s. 

He only gets one chance, and he fumbles it every time. 

He sits in Death's office again as he tries to accept the reality that he can’t cut through Ruis neck, no matter how many times he tries again. Resetting gives him experience, reaction time, and a re-roll of pure dumb luck. It won’t cultivate his muscles, it won’t make his body older or more toned. 

This is the limit of his powers. 

“New plan…” 

“Wanna play cat’s cradle with me?” 

He makes a star with the strings in his hands, even though they carve into his fingers. It took him much too long to figure out how to make a simple star without lopping off all his fingers, honestly.

Rui pauses, stupefied. 

“I don’t know how to make anything else,” Kanata tries, before Rui’s shock gives way to murder, “can you show me?”

That’s a lie. He’s played enough cat’s cradle with Kotetsu to know how to make a damn Tokyo Tower. 

Rui blinks. 

Then, “aren’t you here to kill that weak demon?”

Kanata hums. “I think this is more fun,” he loosens the strings, around his fingers, and changes it to the shape of a butterfly. “Would you play with me, little demon?”

The ones in the building stare in horror as Rui’s sets his arms down. Kanata doesn’t need to look back to know a string was an inch to his neck. 

Rui smiles, “sure. But you have to survive transforming into one of my family, first.”

Kanata feels the pain before Rui’s hand flings upward, his claws shredding through the cloth mask and breaking the skin of his face and throwing him back with the force. Kanata gasps, the pain burning forth as his eyes squeezed shut—

—but he doesn’t scream.

Because he knows that he can’t die from the transformation. 

When his eyes bloom red and his hair turns white, Kanata honestly finds himself observing the spider marks around his face that lined up the same way as Rui had torn the skin apart that day. 

“So a swordsmith, a slayer, and now, a demon. You are a very peculiar one.” 

Kibutsuji Muzan drops by, because Rui is of interest to him. Kanata feels the blood inside him tremble and throb and scream , and he falls to his knees and he can’t get up. 

“But you’re far too weak.” 

He knows that. 

And without further acknowledgement, Muzan dismisses him, as he does the rest of Rui’s pretend family. 

That’s the end of that. 

Rui smiles and pulls him back to their fake family, and Kanata can’t help but think of how dear Rui is. To be so innocently happy about the little things. He plays house, he has fake dinner, he wants to be tucked into bed, he wants to play tag. He wants to be lifted into the air, even though he can do it with his strings, he wants to be swung around the sky and to be pampered. 

He is dear, and he is adorable, just forget that you’ll die if you refuse. 

Rui’s wants are simple. Kanata acknowledges that. And Rui is very happy to accept Kanata’s lack of expressions as long as he holds his hand and takes him on walks, tells him stories of the outside world. 

Unlike Muzan, Rui doesn’t want Kanata’s strength. Doesn’t care for his skills as a swordsmith, as a demon slayer that’s also a demon. Rui doesn’t care. 

Rui just wants an older brother. 

Rui smiles at him and holds his hand, and Kanata is now the older brother of the family. They play cat’s cradle together. He is not allowed to dance with the fan, for the spiders do not dance. Instead, he weaves and permeates, and a single wound he leaves is fatal to a human being. 

“The bleeding doesn’t stop!” 

“What is this?!” 

“Hey—!” 

When the backup arrives, Sabito at the lead, Kanata cuts him down. He stares Sabito in the eyes as he looks upon him with fury, with dishonour—

— “how could you? How could you betray us?”

Ah, was it the Chief of the swordsmith village that disemboweled himself to make up for Kanata’s sins? What a shame that was. 

“I will behead you, you demon,” Sabito declares, and there are tears streaming down his cheeks. He wears the fox mask at the side of his head, Kanata’s old mask at his hip. “Please repent for your sins in hell.” 

Sorry, Sabito. 

Kanata’s blades haven’t been sharpened in a long, long time. They’re dull, but they do the work just fine. He doesn’t pick up the swords that break, doesn’t replace them. 

He simply uses them, until he’s run out. To cut down anything in his way if it’s for Rui’s sake. It didn’t matter at the moment. 

I can’t die from beheadings, and Hell has no place for me yet.

“Just give me a bit more time,” Kanata says, before Sabito dies, as he cradles Sabito in his arms and comforts him in his last moments cursing him. “I’ll fix this.” 

I’m just taking a break.

I’ll be back on track soon. 

After Sabito, comes Makomo and Giyuu. 

“Makomo,” he calls. 

“Don’t call my name, you fiend,” Makamo snarls, swords raised. Her eyes are sharpened with rage. “Move aside. My target is the Lower Moon behind you.” 

Kanata knows. But he’s Rui’s older brother, it’s his job to protect his younger brother to the end of his life.

The haori that the Butterfly sisters had given him is stained red. Still he wears it, ragged, and in pieces, as he fights. He takes off skin as they peel back his fingers, taking off his hair and his arm—

—but Makomo cannot win. 

Kanata has watched her lose thousands of times. He knows how to defeat her. She may be quick, but she is small, and she cannot endure as long. That is why a single pierce of Kanata’s poison makes her bleed out. 

All that’s left is Tomioka Giyuu, who stares at her with eyes cold as the ones he’s known for in the source material. 

Ah, I’m so sorry. 

With Sabito’s death, you’re back to square one, aren’t you?

“I’ll kill you,” Giyuu declares. And his voice is wrought with rage, his heart a frigid wasteland as he breathes in, tears dried— 

—and Kanata watches, bored. Sabito and Makomo had aimed to behead. Even though he’s a traitor, they deemed him a friend, and thus, wanted to give him an honourable death. And Kanata cannot die that way, so he will never lose.

Kanata’s stuck in a precipice. He cannot reset unless he does it himself— but resetting now will bring him back to a dead end. There’s no reason to yet. 

“Goodbye, Kanata-san.” 

Kanata nods. 

“Goodbye, Giyuu-kun.” 

To be polite. 

Water Breathing, Eleventh Form: Lull

水の呼吸・拾壱ノ型・凪

Kanata doesn’t expect to wake up in Death’s office. 

It’s after his tenth hot chocolate upside down across the bookshelves, buried in manga volumes while some ents play othello on any horizontal surface of his body— that Death finally shows up to liberate him from his premature paper funeral. 

“What are you doing, kid?”

“Tomioka Giyuu dismembered me out of nowhere. I hate him.” 

“...are you really surprised? You brought that upon yourself.” 

“He’s an asshole.” 

“You have no room to talk.” 

The scar Rui gave him is gone. He’ll have to start over from that day again… but he still can’t win against Rui. He doesn't have the strength to defeat Rui.

Rui’s fate is to be decapitated by a nichirin blade. 

Kanata can’t beat him any other way. 

But negotiating a way to peace only leads Kanata to the worst possible future, where everything he’s worked for so far comes crumbling down by his own hands 

He hates that future.

He doesn’t hate Rui, but he doesn’t want that future. 

“I’ll be your family, Rui,” he says, when Rui accepts the offer of cat’s cradle. “But don’t turn me into a demon.” 

“Why not?”

That loop was a failure, too.

“Where are you going? You’re my family, so why are you trying to run away?”

Kanata sighs, as Rui catches him at the edge of the forest. He’s more accustomed to white hair than brown at this point, and he isn’t sure how to feel about it. 

“I have to go back,” he says. “If I leave my men out there, they’ll wait forever. They’ll kill the people I like.” 

Rui scoffs. “There’s no need. Once you’re a part of my family, there should be nothing else you treasure in your life.” 

Once again, he resets. 

“You betrayed the family,” Rui says, when he catches Kanata’s sword at his neck when his back is turned. 

The strings wrap around Kanata in an instant. 

“What a shame.” 

Kanata closes his eyes.

“Run away with me.” 

“Huh?” 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. He doesn’t even stop for Death to see him— he just falls to his knees, and, in all the weakness and the exhaustion carved into his very soul— he takes Rui’s surprised hands and holds it up, dearly. 

“Please,” he doesn’t recognize his own voice. “Run away with me. If you want family, I’ll be family for you. I’ll live for you, and only you. So please, I want you to live for yourself. Not for anyone else. Not for Muzan.” 

Rui doesn’t know how to react to this. 

“You don’t want a fake bond,” Kanata says. “You don’t want a family that only stays together because they’re afraid of you. You don’t want that. So, make a bond with me. A promise,” Kanata swears.

Rui tenses. 

“I want out of this eternal cycle of lies and deceit,” Kanata lays his heart bare. “Stop living like this. Travel the world with me, and you’ll see what you missed out when you were alive. I promise I’ll protect you, so…” 

He’s never talked this much in his life.

He’s never talked this much before, but he can’t stop. 

He’s so tired.

He’s so tired . 

So please…

Maybe it’s pure dumb luck that this is the loop Rui chooses to spare him. But broke by defeat, out of options, and losing the patience to try the same dumb trick over and over— all Kanata could do at this point was shove his head to the ground and beg for mercy. 

 “I’ll show you the true meaning of a bond. So— run away with me, and let’s become a real family, Rui.” 

“I don’t understand,” Rui says, when Kanata runs away with him, settles by the crest of the forest, in the branches— just resting. “Muzan-sama hasn’t killed me yet for turning away from him.” 

Kanata nods. Rui’s fate is to die by beheading. Whatever happens now, Muzan cannot kill him with his blood. 

They left behind the rest of the spider family in their lone hut, fearful and confused, but they don’t care enough to give chase. Kanata can’t even muster up a single word. He lays his head against the trunk, unable to move his limbs. He has no injuries, but his soul is weary. 

“You don’t fear I’ll kill you, when you rest?”

Kanata chuckles, weakly. 

“I still need to show you the world. So we’ll be together until you’re satisfied, Rui. If I die, or if I don’t— it’s all up to you.” 

Feeling the gentle cold of Rui’s temperature in his lap— Kanata closes his eyes, and slumps toward him, breaths evening out. 

He’ll go meet the group under the mountain when the sun sets again. And whatever happens after that, the fallout of his decision— he’ll deal with it all later.

It doesn’t matter what the corps will say. 

This is the path he’s chosen.

Perhaps it’s because Rui’s a Demon Moon, but he doesn’t need to feed. The hunger doesn’t ravage him— he’s comfortable as he is, sustained by his strength, and only requires the taste of human blood every once in a while. 

“Ground rules…” 

After a long night’s sleep— a very long night, because apparently he slept two whole days— Kanata dusts off Rui and the tiny spider demon finds Kanata’s duffel bag a comfortable seat as they trek down the mountain. 

“Don’t kill anyone. Humans, demons, animals, nothing.” 

Rui frowns. “You don’t order me around.” 

It’s not an order. Kanata takes his hands, and looks him in the eye at his level, getting on his knees. 

“Your hands are for playing cat’s cradle. They’re for weaving beautiful things,” he says. He wipes away some grime from Rui’s cheeks, fussing his hair into place. “Fighting and protecting the family, working— that’s the job of the big brother. So, you don’t have to do any of that anymore. It’s my job.” 

Rui blinks in surprise at that. 

“All you have to do is sit there, stay safe, and be happy.” 

“K- Kanata-san?!” 

Predictably, the slayers’ first reaction is to pull out a sword. 

“He doesn’t bite.” 

“Yes he does???” Sabito’s freaking out even as Kanata retrieves his hyottoko mask. 

(Which is a good idea. With the mask and the wicker hat, he can carry Rui around even in the sun, as long as he stays under the shade of the hat. So when he’s on swordsmith journeys, Rui’s secured. Problem is where to put Rui when he’s on demon slayer duties. He’ll figure it out later.)

“W- what about— is that the demon we were sent to kill? It’s not the one you chased into the forest,” Sabito says. “Are you sure you should be— Why is it being so docile?”

“Rui’s a good boy,” Kanata says. 

“Ru— Kanata-san!” he’s exasperated. “That’s a demon!” 

Rui doesn't pay any of them any mind. He simply sits there on Kanata’s arm, observing Kanata’s fan, trying to bite through it, wondering if demon teeth or nichirin steel were stronger. Apparently it’s the latter. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, he didn’t even seem to see any of the slayers. Didn’t raise an arm or eye to even consider killing them. 

When Yashahane descends on Kanata’s other shoulder, she hisses at Rui, who scowls back immediately. When Rui lunges for Yashahane, she soars away. 

“Let’s go,” Kanata says. “Back to Oyakata-sama.” 

Their mission in this accursed mountain is finally over. The demons up on the mountain won’t be trouble for a long time yet. 

Sabito follows, hesitantly, but with how Kanata stumbles with every step, he can’t help but be suspicious. It didn’t seem as if Kanata’s being controlled.

“Hey bitches.” 

Sanemi greets the recuperating patients of the Butterfly Mansion— Makomo, Sabito, Giyuu, and Aoi— with boundless fury in his shoulders and a deep slash through his face.

Genya’s chasing after him with the first aid kit. He’s been apprenticing at the Butterfly Mansion for the past few months. 

“Nii-chan! You’re bleeding too much! Hey!”  

Ignoring him. “New rule. Kanata ain’t trusted alone ever again especially on missions. Can’t trust that sandy fucker anywhere without picking up a kid that’ll cause trouble,” Sanemi pulls Genya’s cheek and drags him into view of the room. “I swear he sees a cute face and just thinks he can adopt anything! And the worst thing is that PEOPLE JUST FUCKING LET HIM!” 

Sabito whimpers into his hands, “the Hashira meeting went horribly, didn’t it. I’m sorry.” 

Giyuu is very concerned. “Oyakata-sama let him keep the demon?” 

They’ve heard the brief rundown from Sabito. The way he carried the demon the whole trip home, only Sabito at the end because the rest were deployed elsewhere along the way. And Sabito witnessed how he rubbed the sleepiness from Rui’s eyes, showed him buildings and commodities and told him bedtime stories, talked to him patiently about smithing— and when he let Rui try some human desserts, he even wiped the demon’s mouth clean. And he let Rui chew on his fan the whole time! 

Makomo bursts out laughing, wheezing so hard, “no but— I’m sorry just! Of course he did! Of course he did!” she cackles, punching the table, “I’m gonna die I can’t breathe—” 

Aoi grimaces. “I’ll have to say. Kanata has weird tastes. He keeps going for the feral, will-murder-you-if-you-look-at-him-wrong types. Is it safe to let Kanata out into society?”

“Is it safe to let Nii-chan out in society eithe–OWW!” Genya wails when Sanemi yanks at his ear, “I’M SORRY!” 

The aforementioned meeting went as such. 

Unsurprisingly, Kanata isn’t afraid of the Hashira meeting. It’s rare to die dismembered when in the presence of Oyakata-sama— it’s disrespectful, after all, the Master loves all slayers, even those that betray him— so he runs no risk of death. 

He, however, has to fight the current Hashira for their approval. It’s a good thing he already has a clear impression as an eccentric in the corps. 

“And we are supposed to accept your new… younger brother ,” Uzui emphasizes with disgust, “when he’s a demon that has killed at least hundreds of people, and plans on doing more?” 

Kanata hums, adjusting his wicker hat on Rui’s head, “Rui’s a good boy.” 

“He’s killed hundreds of people!” Sanemi groans. 

“You’ve killed hundreds of demons,” Kanata reasons. 

“That killed people,” Uzui says. 

“Like we kill demons,” Kanata says. 

“Kanata,” Himejima speaks up, “you can’t insist on your ignorance for the difference. I do not believe we need to argue about murders we’ve all committed— no one here is a good man, and that includes your demon. But do not consider us the same.” 

Kanata hums. He’s right. 

Unlike with Nezuko, who has never eaten a human in her life, Rui is an irredeemable monster, a Lower Moon. 

“Unless you’re donating him to science,” Kanae says, and it’s rare for the kindest butterfly sister to suggest something that cruel, “to which, we’d gladly accept the offer of a Lower Moon. It’d be a great help.” 

“All that aside,” Sanemi snarls, “i can’t believe you’d bring it without a leash to Oyakata-sama’s mansion! Are you insane?”

“Rui’s a good boy,” Kanata says, squeezing Rui on the cheek as Rui rolls around a temari ball in his lap. “He won’t harm anyone.” 

“And how are you so sure?” 

“Because if he does… this situation wouldn’t ever happen.” 

In Oyakata-sama’s meeting hall, only the essentials are allowed. Only his single fan, and no other weapons. He can reset, if he needs to. 

He decided from the very beginning that he’d reset, any time Rui acts out, so tragedy won’t ever happen. So he’d go back and fight once more and kill Rui from the start, if he had to. 

He hasn’t had to reset a single time thus far. 

And that leads him to believe that he never will. Maybe no one else will understand this reason for trusting Rui, but how could he even begin explaining?

“Rui is mine,” Kanata says. “So, I won’t let any of you kill him. And I won’t leave the corps either. I will have him, whether any of you like it or not.” 

There’s a scoff. 

“And you think you can win against us, if we execute you this instant?”

Kanata leans into Rui’s side, ruffling his hair dearly. 

“I can’t win,” he knows. “But I can fight forever, until you change your mind.”

And his expressions, firm and unreadable, spoke very clearly to all who were present— that he could, and he would. They didn’t know how— but at that moment, they all knew that nothing they did could change this fool’s mind. 

“You want us to let you keep a demon by your side… that’s just ludicrous!” Kanae sighs, “they’re not pets, you know? Are you sure you want to keep one, and then keep killing the others?” 

“Who cares?”

None of the slayers are the picture of rationality or morality. So what if it’s hypocritical, so what if it’ll make everyone uncomfortable? It’s all on a whim, too, and only Kanata can be completely sure he won’t kill more people. 

“He’s not a pet, he’s my younger brother.” 

Uzui groans. “Kid, we just can’t let you play house like this!” 

“Why not?”

That makes everyone pause. 

“What do you mean, why not ,” Uzui’s in disbelief. “Obviously not!” 

“But Rui is cute.” 

“Even then—” 

“Rui is a good boy, right? He deserves all the good things.” 

There’s mortified silence. 

“I…” Himejima’s so stunned his words stumbled, “while I do believe children deserve safety, peace, and cheer, this young demon has killed far too many.” 

Kanae has the look of immense conflict on her face. “Well… you know…” she falters, “I have to agree on the cute part.” 

“KOCHOU!” Sanemi, Uzui, and Himejima yell, in differing levels of accusation.

Kanae wails, “but isn’t he adorable and docile? If he listens to Kanata-kun, why jeopardize that?” she whines. “Plus…” fiddling with her fingers, “I’ve always wondered if we could coexist with demons. Isn’t this a good opportunity to start? From a demon that’s already stable and doesn’t need to hunt anymore?”

“This is the worst place to start!” Sanemi yells, “not that your weird flowers and butterflies paradise would ever happen, are you insane?”

“I mean… look at him… he’s so cute…” 

“Dammit Kochou! Isn’t that the reaosn you used when you picked up that slave, too?”

“Kanao is the cutest in the world and she can do no wrong.” 

“You’re projecting your sister onto this man-eating monster!” 

Meanwhile, Rui has gotten the strings out to play again, and he’s working on a fun formation with Kanata’s help, legs swinging about casually as they work towards it patiently, ignoring the war happening over their lives. 

“Goddammit, if Kanata gets a coolass demon accesory, I should get one too, then, huh?!” Sanemi roars, sarcastic, “how about all of us get one! We’ll be the laughingstock of the nation, how about that?!” 

“The risk is much too high,” HImejima says. 

“I’m not serious!” 

“But when you put it that way…” Uzui looks aside. 

“Uzui, not you too!” 

“I mean,” Kanae hums, “wouldn’t it be peaceful like that? Lessens the casualty count if we can befriend Demon Moons rather than try or fail to kill them.” 

Himejima falters at that. “...certainly, that would be ideal in the long term. While I falter to forgive those that have killed, I do acknowledge that it would be better for the future generations. It would be difficult for many to accept this, myself included, it seems idealistic…” 

“Plus!” Uzui is somehow on board with it, “demons don’t die as easily! If we can assemble some of them on our side, wouldn’t that be more helpful than sending a bunch of Mizunoto to die on the battlefield?” 

Sanemi loses his shit. “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” 

“I mean,” Uzui continues, “Shinazugawa is kind of as dangerous as a demon anyways. Wouldn’t be much different on the field.” 

“OH SO YOU WANNA FIGHT???”

By the time this entire sequence of events is relayed to Oyakata-sama, unfortunately, everyone’s on Kanata’s side, and Sanemi wonders when he became the sane one of the group.

Chapter Text

The Former Roaring Hashira’s estate is in the deep crests of a vast peach orchard. It’s a beautiful place, the smell of peach blossoms fragrant and soothing in the spring. Looking up was the sight of pleasant pinks, and looking down bore sight of the flickering leaf shades. 

Rui rests on one of Kanata’s shoulders and under the wicker hat, chewing on one of the overripe peaches that they’d found on the ground. 

He didn’t want to steal one from the trees. 

It probably wasn’t safe for human consumption, but Rui would be fine. Even if peaches didn’t sate a demon’s hunger, Rui had been curious about the taste. He didn’t get peaches when he was a child.

“It’s sweet,” he says, like it’s a marvel. 

When Rui pushes the peach into his cheek, Kanata relents and takes a bite out of a safe-looking part of the fruit. It’s very sweet. And kind of sour because it’s overripe, but still mostly sweet. 

“It is,” Kanata agrees. 

Kanata covers his face again with the hyottoko mask. 

He looked up again, and thought it was such a crying shame that Rui could not gaze up at this perfect scenery. Kanata spread out his fan, to catch the mosaic-like shadows upon its screen. Rui observes it with interest, but doesn’t reach out, not wanting to be burned. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The daytime.” 

Rui considers that. 

“I have seen peach blossoms when I was alive, never again once I’ve been a demon,” Rui says. “I don’t know if they’re beautiful. I just know it means winter is over.” 

Kanata’s content with that. “That’s good enough.” 

For children that died in winter, spring will always be beautiful. 

“It’s so peaceful…” Kanata sighs pleasantly. Walking down a gorgeous peach orchard, Rui in his arms and nothing in his way— it’s blissful, almost. Like the war with the demons isn’t happening— it’s so quiet and soothing, that Kanata wished this road would never end.

That he could wander down this path forever, and forget everything. 

“DIE, DEMON!” 

Yeah, what did he expect?

Luckily, his fan is already open, so it’s not all that difficult to divert the trajectory of the coming blade, find the hilt, and twist it out of the boy’s grip. He finds the boy’s wrist and pulls him forward— 

—and then snags him by the neck. 

Kaigaku chokes violently at the rough handling, blade falling out of his hands as Kanata raises him above the air. It’s a second of falter before Kaigaku’s instincts kick back in, legs raising skyward and missing Kanata’s face by a hair. 

It succeeds in getting Kanata to let him go, though. 

Kaigaku coughs, landing on his hands and feet and trying to locate his sword again— and then he realizes the demon is no longer in Kanata’s arms. 

Rui’s wearing the oversized wicker hat, sitting on a tree stump, still chewing on his half-rotten peach. Unimpressed. 

“You—” Kaigaku snarls, “you’re a swordsmith! What the hell are you doing, travelling with a demon? And bringing one here? ” 

Kanata’s a little confused. 

“I have come to deliver a sword for Kaigaku,” Kanata reports, stoically. “I have Oyakata-sama’s permission to travel. Former Hashira Kuwajima-sama is more than capable of handling any issues that occur.” 

Kaigaku makes a loud noise of disbelief. 

He finds his sword and raises it before him again. Ah, it’s got a worn blade— it’s probably a training blade, or the blade apprentices take to Selections. 

“You asshat, I’m not worried about Master!” he sheathes it, and moves into position for another attack— Thunder Breathing is iaijutsu. Kanata knows how annoying that is to deal with. “This is the sacred training ground of those that seek to learn under the Master, how could you bring a demon to this place?”

Kanata spends a moment in confusion.

And then it finally clicks. 

“Oh, you’re worried about your junior apprentices because they’re too weak to handle demons,” he says, like it all makes sense. Kaigaku lets out an unholy blushing screech of NO I DIDN’T SAY THAT and Kanata ignores it. “Don’t worry, Rui is a good boy.” 

Pause. 

Rui reaches up to cover his own ears. 

Kaigaku shrieks, “the FUCK do you MEAN HE’S GOOD? It’s a FUCKING DEMON! HOW THE HELL ARE YOU NOT DEAD YOU MORON??”

Wow, Sanemi would love this one. There’s not enough noise pollution in the Wind Hashira Mansion yet, is there?

Rui pipes up, “is it a Demon Slayer thing to shout all the time?” 

Kanata sourly says, “I don’t know, Rui. I don’t know.” 

Kaigaku is not accepting this. “You! You’re a swordsmith! What do you think you’re doing, taking him around and— swordsmiths are usually non-combatants, are you suicidal??” 

“Hey…” Kanata says, even though Kaigaku’s grabbed his collar and started swinging him back and forth at this point, “isn’t that sword too short for you?” 

Kaigaku freezes. 

“You put your sword on your back. That means the draw is longer than if it was at your side, and since your blade draw is a downward slash, rather than an upward rise…” Kanata gestures vaguely with his hands as he thinks all of this, “This means you move your body in a slight curve when you strike. You don’t do the one step, straight line lightning bolt stride Kuwajima-sama is known for.” 

Thunder Breathing strikes are impossible to control because they’re so fast. 

Kanata is actually very impressed. Uzui’s roots are in the same place, but he sacrifices speed for control and impact— and here Kaigaku is, trying to achieve both speed and impact while fighting for control against all odds. It’s impressive. He’s very stubborn. So stubborn he’s fighting a whole damn sword style for dominance because he can’t figure out why it’s not working for him. 

“Uhm. Wait,” Kaigaku begins. “I barely attacked you once and—” 

“Kuwajima-sama likes the wakizashi better because he’s not tall, but the standard sword length is a good choice for trainees. You’re controlling it a lot better, but the fact you’re trying to control it at all is making every other technique in Thunder Breathing a little harder… And it probably takes more effort to make sure those high-speed attacks actually reach your targets. You have to get very close with your sword,” Kanata continues. 

“Can you stop for a second—” 

“So have you tried an Oodachi? They’re much longer. I think they’d suit you better.” 

Kaigaku erupts. “SHUT UP SWORD NERD! BE QUIET! STOP TALKING FOR A SECOND! STOP GIVING ME ADVICE I DIDN’T ASK—!!” 

“Oh I have one here right now actually do you want to try killing me with it?” 

“I SAID BE QU— wait. What did you just say? Yes. Yes!” 

“Hey, Zenitsu! Weakling, where ar eyou?” 

“Huh? Oh, Nii-chan, are you okay to get up now? I thought Grandpa asked you to rest a little m— WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GUY’S CLOTHES? THOSE ARE LIGHTNING BURNS OH MY GOD DID THE SKY GOD STRIKE ANOTHER PERSON—” 

“Shut up! I did that. And don’t call me that. I’m not your brother.” 

“Oh, that’s okay then,” Zenitsu sighs in relief. Then it registers, “wait, THAT’S NOT OKAY AT ALL!” 

“Shut up! Just help him!” 

“Nii-chan, did you kill a man?!?! What happened to his face?? KYAAA!!” 

“That’s a MASK!” Bonk. “And don’t call me that!” 

Kanata sighs, holding onto his charred haori. Is it a Thunder thing to be shouting all the time? They certainly live up to the Roaring Hashira’s namesake, but oh, his ears…

(Rui is currently still where he’d been left, chewing on his peach, wicker hat on his head, and sitting atop Kanata’s duffel bag and waiting to be picked up.)

“...so I will be reforging Kaigaku’s nichirin blade. I will return in some days.” 

Kanata bows politely. It’s standard to speak a lot when on a swordsmith visit, but for some reason, he’s ended up speaking a lot today. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, stay here,” Kuwajima says. Completely loose of formality. “I spotted one of your safehouses a while back and had the Kakushi move it up to my orchard. You can work there.” 

…you did what to my safehouse?

Kanata stares at Kuwajima, hoping for clarification, but unfortunately, Kuwajima has Rui on his knee and he’s preoccupied with peeling and cutting them. 

Rui seems to like the peaches. He really likes it. He hasn’t stopped eating them. And Kuwajima, clearly endeared by this interesting creature, hasn’t stopped giving him more. He’s going to upset his demon stomach. 

Kanata’s lap feels very lonely right now. 

“Zenitsu will be mending your haori in the meantime,” Kuwajima says. “That boy’s very much a wimp in many sword-related matters, but he’s good with his hands. It’ll be good as new when he’s done with it.” 

Kanata wants to leave. 

“Can you just give me back my s— I mean,” he clears his throat. Polite, polite. Be polite. You can’t let your swordsmith upbringing get in the way of everything you learned on your independent journey. “Kuwajima-sama. With all due respect, I have other work to do.” 

“Oh, then go on,” Kuwajima says, “with your skill, you can go and come back by daylight, wherever it is. I’ll have Kaigaku prepare the workstation. He may be quite a rebellious tyke, but he’s diligent in cleaning. I’ll take care of Rui-kun while you’re gone, then your trip will be much shorter as well.” 

Kanata considers that. 

Yeah, no.

“Kuwajima, just give me back my son.” 

“...so in short, since I won, Kanata is my son now,” Kuwajima declares, keeping the expensive Karuta cards into a neat pile. “And Rui is now my grandson. Boys, greet your new big brother and younger brother.” 

Kaigaku and Zenitsu, despite their polar opposite personalities, now donned matching looks of absolute bafflement. 

And then synchronously, “HUH?” as they drop everything in their arms.

Kanata sips on his tea, Rui in his lap now happily discovering the wonders of peach tea. Kanata isn’t wearing his mask, and his eyes look dead to the world as he stares into the far wall, reconsidering his life decisions. 

“Rui…” 

“Hm?” 

“Remind me never to play a speed-based card game against a Thunder Breather ever again.” 

“Yes. That was foolish of you.” 

“GAH! Why do I have to let a demon nurse my wounds?! That’s the opposite of my job! That’s the exact opposite of my job requirement!” 

“Careful,” says Kuwajima’s voice from outside. “There’s a thin spiderweb at the doorway, if you run out like that you’re coming over in ten pieces.” 

He skids to a stop right before it, catching himself at the door frame and just barely getting the edge of his bangs trimmed for his efforts. 

He whirls back, “ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!” 

To which Rui, making a butterfly with his cat cradle strings, dryly states, “the idea is to stitch you back together. You were nearly bisected by whatever demon you encountered before me. The field stitches of you humans aren’t made to fix wounds this bad.”  

“You can’t stitch my wounds if I’m in ten more pieces than when I started!” 

“...is that a challenge?” 

“FUCK! FUCK! NO! MASTER KUWAJIMA! HELP!” 

The door slams shut. Kaigaku violently bangs on it. 

Sitting by the doorway, smoking, Kuwajima Jigoro sighs. “How many times have I told you, Kaigaku? Call me Grandpa.” 

“Uhm… Kanata-san? I’ve mended your haori.” 

Kanata smears away the sweat under his chin, the warm dirt remnant on his glove staining his cheek with a brush of coal. He looks back at the red hot nichirin steel on the workspace, and sighs out his exhaustion. 

He’s done processing the steel, now he needs to shape the blade…

(It’s a Thunder Breather’s sword, so it needs to be sleeker. The dull of the blade needs to be firmer, and blade as precise as he can. Most Thunder users only have one chance to get the killing strike in, so it’s completely the fault of the swordsmith if he’s unable to cut through the neck because of an incompetent blade.)

(So much to consider. It’s very different from forging for versatile Water Breathers, or violent Wind Breathers. The latter in particular tend to focus more on how sturdy a sword is than how sharp it is. They break swords even more often than Stone Breathers do.)

Zenitsu watches Kanata think through all the specifics of swordmaking deeply, and he stands there, in awe. 

“You’re very serious about your work, Kanata-san… uhm. Would you like some tea? You’ve been working nonstop for eight hours now.” 

Kanata hums. He accepts the tea when Zenitsu hands it to him, though, and then Zenitsu goes to hang the haori up. 

“Zenitsu…” 

Zenitsu jumps. “Eek! Don’t suddenly speak up! You’re so quiet! It startled me!” 

Kanata is much too tired right now to deal with that. He needs to conserve his energy to power through this sword smithing or he’ll die in the polishing process. So sipping desperately on his tea, Kanata continues. “Your Final Selection… when?” 

Zenitsu blinks, a little confused. 

Then, nervously, “G- Grandpa said… in three years. But I don’t think I can! I mean, it’s the Final Selection, I’m not nearly anywhere strong enough! I’m terrified of demons, I’ll die the second I’m out in the field!” 

Kanata takes off his mask. 

“AND THAT! THAT!” Zenitsu switches instantly into feral beetle mode, “why the hell are you wearing that dumbass mask when you have a face like THAT! Apologize to all the men of this world this instant! And the women while you’re at it!” 

Kanata puts his mask back on. Not doing that again. 

“Zenitsu, tie my hair back for me.” 

Zenitsu has to do a double take at the sudden request. Flabbergasted, he moves to do just that, grumbling all the way. 

“Sheesh, you keep changing the topic. You're a serious guy, but I just can’t get a read on you at all! It’s not like you’re hiding your thoughts either, you just don’t have much thoughts to begin with! You’re so weird!” his hands weave Kanata’s hair easily into a braid, and Zenitsu tied up the last bit with a ribbon that looked to be a part of Kanata’s haori belt. Complete with a bell at the end. 

Magical. 

“Ah, we couldn’t save the belt, but if it’s fine with you, Grandpa wanted me to make you a new sash out of the Kuwajima traditional fabric, if that’s fine?” 

Kanata thought that over. 

The haori he currently has— white to reddish-brown in a speckled gradient of ginkgo leaves— was given to him by the Kochou sisters. They’re definitely going to notice if there’s suddenly a new pattern on it. 

But oh well. 

“Can you make Rui something, too?” 

Zenitsu balks. “I’m not a seamstress! But okay.” 

Kanata quite liked it. The red sash was drawn over with white triangular patterns, the occasional silver spiderweb laden across it. It didn’t clash too much with the rest of his haori at all. 

“It seems strange to put a demon in bright red,” Kaigaku says. Rui is in his lap, entirely against his will but he’s physically incapable of doing anything about it. 

“Officially my grandson now,” Kuwajima says, like that’s some sort of crowning statement. 

Zenitsu sighs, helping Rui put the kimono on with an annoyed sigh. 

“Hey, do I do left-over-right or right-over-left? One’s for the living and one’s for the dead, but technically which one is a demon supposed to be?” he asks, entirely rambling but he’s already decided on a direction so he’s just ranting and doesn’t expect an answer. “And is it my imagination or did you get smaller since I last measured you, Rui-kun?” 

“Conserves energy.” 

“Ah yes that explains everything, that explains NOTHING!” Zenitsu snaps. “Tell me that earlier! Take that off, I’m readjusting the length!” 

“Just leave it,” Kaigaku mutters sourly. 

“He’ll trip over it!” Zenitsu growls. 

“Don’t give me attitude, you shit!” 

“I’ve been doing everything in the house these days, Nii-chan, you don’t get to talk!” 

“You wanna see how useful I can be, you little asshat?!” 

“Sit down, you fucking invalid! If you make Rui dirty his new clothes I will break your new sword even if it makes Kanata-san mad at me!” 

“You would NOT!” 

“TRY ME!” 

Ah, so peaceful. 

Kanata sits by the foyer, really getting addicted to the taste of peach tea at this point. He might steal a pack for his journey. All that’s left of the sword is to test the length with the actual user and finish tying the tsuka-ito, so he’ll be able to leave soon. 

(...this domesticity is nice, though.)

Usually, after forging a sword, Kanata rests for a day before delivering them. 

But since he’s doing a full job at the Kuwajima Orchard, Kaigaku gets it the second it’s done. If Kanata’s honest, he’s very proud of that one. He went all out with it, carving lightning streaks into the blade and everything, and tying the pattern of the tsuka as carefully as he can. He even carved a proper guard for them, and was intending on making them in reversed colours when it came time for Zenitsu’s blade to be honed. 

Needless to say he kind of wants to spend the next two days sleeping, but alas. 

“This is… amazing, holy shit.” 

Kaigaku draws the Oodachi, and it’s much longer than his old one. It stands just about as tall as him— and since he’s fairly tall, that’s perfect. The rim of the blade morphs a bright, crystal gold against the black lightning streaks carved into the forte. 

“It’s beautiful.” 

Kanata stays on his knees as he witnesses this, as is ceremony, and bows, as he always does. “The swordsmith village is honoured to offer a sword for the Demon Slayer Corps. May it serve you well, young warrior.” 

Kaigaku can’t wait to try it out. He’s been holding that temperamental brat expression the entire stay, since he didn’t even want to rest at home to begin with— but the second he laid his eyes on the sword, his gaze shone with childlike innocence. 

And Kanata liked that. 

“I’ve made two more accompanying pieces as a token of my gratitude for your hospitality,” Kanata adds, setting down two shortswords with their scabbards. “As Kaigaku wears the Oodachi on his back, these two shall serve as counterweights for his load, as well as secondary weapons.” 

“Woah!” Kaigaku reaches for them quickly, unsheathing them and watching similarly enchanting marbles of lichtenbergs bleed through the blade. 

“No need to thank us,” Kuwajima says. “You are always welcome, Kanata.” 

Kanata accepts that much. He knows better than to argue with this stubborn old man at this point. 

Kaigaku, however, is preoccupied with excitement. Sheathing all his swords and getting up with them cradled in his arms. “Can I go try it out?” 

“Of course,” Kuwajima says. “But before that… your manners, boy.” 

It’s really a statement to how much Kaigaku likes the sword when he, without any complaints at all, exclaims a loud “thanks, Kanata-san!” and charges out the door.

Even Kuwajima was baffled by that one. 

Kuwajima’s eyes leaked with tears. 

“That… That was the first time that boy ever smiled at me. And said thank you to anyone. Kanata, did you see that? Kaigaku said thank you to someone!” 

Kanata is questioning this man’s legal right to parent.

Kaigaku had been training with Kanata’s sword the moment he was cleared to regain his strength, so he adapts very quickly to the new sword. He’s actually doing better than before, and even Kuwajima’s impressed by his progress. 

“It seems you’ve managed to clear a slump he’s been in for a long time. At this point, I think if he attempted it again… he could perform the First Breath of the Thunder.” 

Kanata observes Kaigaku going through styles two to six in a routine, always pausing at the last and then starting disoriented at the second. He doesn’t attempt to perform the first, and Kuwajima does not force that from him. 

And Zenitsu fidgets, each time he sees it. 

“...Kaigaku-niisan is so cool, isn’t he?” Zenitsu says. “He’s strong, he’s got the resolve… and he actually wants to be a Demon Slayer. I could never catch up to him.” 

The Thunder disciples were flawed. Kaigaku could do all the styles except the first, and Zenitsu could only do the first. Only together were they the perfect inheritors of Kuwajima Jigoro’s role as the cultivator of Thunder Breathing. 

(If Kaigaku surpassed the border, would Zenitsu become obsolete?)

Zenitsu watches on, concern painting his features— and Kaigaku sighs, looking back. Sheathing his Oodachi to his back, he tucks the Tanto to the opposing side, strapped horizontally across the gap of his back. 

Then, Kaigaku unsheathed the Oodachi with one hand, and a Tanto with the other, holding it backwards as one would a dagger. He attempted this movement several times, before sheathing it once more. Winding back his feet, taking a breath—

Thunder Breathing, Third Form: Thunder Swarm

雷の呼吸・参ノ型　聚蚊成雷 

The lightning razed the target in two clean slices as he launched himself over the target. The Oodachi slices the target clean in a monk’s robe cut travelling through the neck, and the Tanto shreds it off near the eye. 

Kaigaku lands on the ground, sheathing his swords once more with a huff of dissatisfaction. 

“Missed,” he murmurs. 

Kuwajima laughs heartily. “Got a ways to go, boy! You’re not ambidextrous like Zenitsu, so you’re getting ahead of yourself trying to dual wield, idiot!” 

Kaigaku clicks his tongue, clearly annoyed. 

Zenitsu blushes at all that. “Grandpa, what are you saying?!” 

“Fine.” Kaigaku grumbles. He marches up to Zenitsu confrontationally, and Zenitsu squeaks, ducking behind Kanata. “Shortsword’s an emergency knife. I don’t need the other, then…” 

And Kaigaku shoves the second shortsword at Zenitsu. 

“Have it, dimwit,” Kaigaku snarls with all the friendliness of a wet raccoon. “It’s deadweight to me, so it fits you just fine, right?” 

Zenitsu takes the sword, holds the important weight in his hands— and his eyes teared up. He cradled it preciously. 

“Okay,” he chokes out, “I will.” 

As much as the Thunder Brothers were an awful combination of the worst parts of each other, one could not deny that when they were congruent, they made up one perfect set of disciples. 

Kuwajima Jigoro is incredibly proud of them. 

He pats Kanata on the back. “Thank you, Kanata.” 

The swordsmith had a feeling that gratitude wasn’t about the swords, but he wasn’t about to try and dissect that. 

Kaigaku is wearing the blue, triangular-patterned haori as he leaves on his next mission. He’s disgruntled to be seen off, but he bows in what might have been curt politeness to Kanata. And then he inclines his head so Rui can pat him on the head placatingly— and then, he’s off. 

“Ah— have a safe trip Nii-cha—” 

“Don’t call me that!” Kaigaku barks. 

Zenitsu squeaks. “H-Have a safe trip!” Very very softly, his petty rebellion, “Nii-chan.” 

Kaigaku considers that with such intense scrutiny Zenitsu would’ve folded in on himself if he wasn’t clinging to Rui like his life depended on it. 

Then Kaigaku relents, “I’m off.” 

Kuwajima Jigoro beams brightly as he goes off with his crow. 

And then, it was Kanata’s turn to go. He picks up Rui in his arm, the wicker hat hanging by his neck since the moon has come up. With lunch, peaches, and warmth, he sets off as well. Yashahane lands on his shoulder with orders for his next sword delivery. 

“It’s been a pleasure to have you with us, Kanata,” Kuwajima says. “I already think of you as my own son. So please, visit this old man when you have the time, alright?” 

Kanata nods. 

“Of course, Rui as well. Rui can come even if Kanata doesn’t.” 

Rui hums. “I liked the peaches.” 

Kuwajima beams, “Hearing that makes this old man the happiest grandpa on earth!” 

Zenitsu smiles nervously. “Please stay safe as well, Kanata-san. And uh… if you see that dummy Kaigaku out there, can you make sure he’s not reckless? You wouldn’t believe how bad he was when he was ordered by the corps to come here to rest!” 

Kanata could figure. If you're sent home instead of the Butterfly Mansion, it’s basically the Slayer equivalent of your teacher calling your mom during school hours for punching people in class. 

“And… and uh,” Zenitsu speaks up again, “if I… when I… if the time comes for my sword to be made too… will you forge one for me, Kanata-san?” 

Kanata is very endeared. He’s not even that much older than Zenitsu, but he already wants Zenitsu to have the world. 

“Of course,” Kanata says. 

Zenitsu’s smile at that moment could supply the city with enough power for days. 

Rui waves at them as they depart, to their next destination. Kuwajima and Zenitsu see them off until they’re no longer in sight, and soon, the bustling few days of warmth and family feels like a distant memory. 

“Did you like them, Rui?” Kanata asks. Just in case. 

Rui probably spent more time bullying Kaigaku and ordering Zenitsu around than anything else, though. 

Rui nods, resting his chin on his shoulder. 

“They’re nice.” 

Kanata would like Rui to experience every facet of a family. Every type of this warm, exceptional love. It didn’t matter if he’d had it, lost it, and failed to understand it— Rui deserved to have good things after being lost in this confusing state of grief for so long. And Kanata wanted him to have it all. 

“Hmm…” Kanata looks up to the moon. “Maybe, let’s go visit the Swordsmith Village on our next break. I haven’t gone home in a while.” 

Rui nods. 

Rui doesn’t mind where Kanata goes, as long as they’re always together.

Chapter Text

There’s something Kanata can’t deny when he sees the Kochou sisters. 

It’s bittersweet. Emphasis on the bitter for Kanata’s part. He can’t justify this emotion— so he swallows it back down, and sips on his tea. Like he does every other interaction in the world. It’s not a rational emotion, so he does not entertain it. 

None of them are related by blood. All of them have different last names except the two oldest. And they love each other unconditionally, no matter the paths they’ve chosen in their life. The butterfly pin ties them together as a family, and they would do anything for each other. 

They would mourn, if one of them died. 

(That’s nice. That’s so nice.)

“I don’t like the Butterfly Mansion,” Rui declares, after visiting once. They left in the night, so Kanata could make it to his next destination by sunrise. 

Kanata hums. Rui’s allowed to dislike whatever he dislikes— he doesn’t need a justification. 

But Rui gives one anyway. “Kanata hates it there, right? You hate that place, you don’t like that family, and everything there makes you sad. I would kill them all for that, but you wouldn’t like that either.” 

Kanata is very grateful for Rui’s self control, but now he’s concerned for a different reason. 

“I don’t hate it there.” 

“You’re lying to me.” 

Kanata doesn’t know what to do about this. He likes them all, individually, that’s not a lie. It’s not a problem he has with the mansion, or the sisters, or even them being a family. 

He doesn’t have the words to justify it. 

“I love what they have,” it comes out, like a voice he doesn’t own. 

He doesn’t acknowledge the person that speaks these words. But it’s his voice, from his throat, feelings churning up from his gut, and his brain refuses to deny it. 

“I love what they have, because it’s so unfair that I wasn’t allowed to have it.” 

No. no, no. Kanata needs to shut up. 

“You’re nice, Rui. And I’ll make sure your life is great. But when I look at them… I just can’t take it. Why were they allowed to be happy but I had to—”

He can’t control his breath and something in his chest is making his eyes prickle with the desire to scream and cry and that’s wrong . 

This is stupid. Why is he feeling like this? Kanata doesn’t scream and cry and whine about the cruelty of life. This isn’t Kanata. 

Kanata doesn’t— ah. Right. He can just—

— “Shamal.” 

He still remembers Rui’s startled expression. 

Of course Rui’s startled. Rui’s always confused when Kanata kills himself— mainly because he always has strings around to stop ambushes, and Kanata managed to surpass the speed of all those supplementary efforts to kill himself anyways.

But Kanata sips on the warm hot cocoa and thinks of nothing and— and that’s right . He closes his eyes, and thinks of nothing, feels nothing, does nothing. Says nothing. 

Nothing. 

Because Death is the mercy of nothingness, and Kanata craves it like a drug. 

And Death watches over him from a distance. He says nothing, too, but he scoffs in disapproval. 

Kanata doesn’t care. Kanata can’t care, because the second he remembers how to, he’ll stop being alright with everything about the life he now leads. 

Life is irrational. He ’d always known that. Kanata can’t allow himself to react to every single bit of it. 

A distraction. Anything will do. 

“Huh. You were doing pretty well. What brings?” 

The little ents serve him that nostalgically warm hot cocoa, crawling onto his face for cheek hugs. One of them is curled into his hair, getting tangled in. 

Kanata allows himself silence. 

The manga sprawled around him doesn’t have the answer he seeks. 

“I forgot that Upper Moon Two also uses a fan.” 

Death is baffled. “You are not fighting the psychopathic murder cult leader, kid.”  

Kanata scowls at him. Does he look like the guy that wants trouble?

“Yes. I can’t believe you just asked me that. Yes, you absolutely do. You have a track record, the answer is yes .” 

Now Kanata’s just plain offended. 

“And no,” Death adds, taking the manga away from him, ignoring the grabby hands Kanata makes and holding the book high up above his head because he’s a beanpole and he’s an asshole and he’s Death he can do whatever he wants, “I’m not letting you add ‘join a cult’ into your crazy bucket list. I let you do that with Rui and now I realize you’re severely lacking a voice of reason.” 

“Welcome, Tecchikawahara-sa… uhm. You forgot your mask.” 

Shinobu aborts her sentence to stare. She’s failing terribly at not gawking. She requires a system reboot, because she can’t quite register this right now. She’s actually trying to get comfortable, resting her chin in her hands as she drinks in this sight she probably won’t have a chance to witness again. Her eyes haven’t blinked once. 

“Shinobu-san…” 

“...yes?” 

“Come with me to kill a demon before it kills your sister.” 

Shinobu stares back at him in baffled silence. 

She reaches her sword at her bedside, “uhm, yeah, sure, just let me put my hair up before we go.” 

“So, why didn’t you bring your little demon with you?” 

On the way, Shinobu brings up a different conversation each loop. Kanata wonders if she’s hiding some weird Death-defying powers, or if she just didn’t care for all the questions at all, so it didn’t matter which question she gave.

Kanata’s answer to this one, “because Rui will die.” 

Shinobu’s offended. Or maybe she’s just annoyed. “And my life is worth less than the demon’s, to you?” 

Kanata hums. 

She sees it as an affirmative and attacks him. 

Kanata dodges, of course. Her small talk is different every loop, but the way she immediately goes for the carotid artery never changes. 

Rui will die when he is beheaded. Shinobu will die when she is consumed. But Rui’s time to die is overdue, while Shinobu’s time is not yet here. So, obviously, the best choice to bring in a fight against Douma is the girl that’s destined to win in this encounter. 

(Good thing Kaigaku was at the Butterfly Mansion today. Rui would’ve been more insistent on coming along if he didn’t have a distraction.)

“I will ask Grandpa to make you a special sword,” he bargains. Shinobu of this time has not mastered her Breathing Style just yet, so it’s hard to know if she’ll be as useful as her future self.

But if there’s something she is— it’s uncaring.

She won’t ask questions. 

“I need your knowledge of poisons,” he says. “All of them. That’s how we’ll win.” 

“You want me to concoct a poison capable of defeating an Upper Moon from now? I didn’t even bring my kit with me because you dragged me out of bed—” 

“Yes. Take your time.” 

“You’re unbelievable!” 

Douma is fated to die from poison. That’s the only way they’ll be able to defeat him. 

Kanata interrupts the battle with a shred of sand against ice, a burst of shattered pewter rending through the ice, interrupting it just before it could gouge into Kanae’s side. 

Kanae retreats, briefly, but doesn’t let herself be too delighted. 

“You’re not the backup I’ve requested,” she observes, eyes never leaving the enemy. 

“Oh?” Douma stands before them, calm and unfazed, and his smile only grows wider as he sees Kanata. He raises his own golden-plated fans to his face, hiding his lower face as would a courtesan. His eyes were filled with mischief.

Kanata mirrors the pose with his own fan, and with the lack of a mask on his face, his eyes narrowed upon his enemy’s with proper hold, for perhaps the first time.

“How curious,” Douma sounds endeared, “it’ll be like I'm fighting a mini-me~ Isn’t that just so adorable? You look delicious, what a treat I’m getting tonight!”

Demon slayers don’t really have the opportunity to work together often. Usually when they’re in a situation like that, one of them will die at the end of it. So, Kanata can’t say he knows how to fight alongside a Flower Breath user. 

But conceptually, they both understand their styles well. 

Flower and Sand have little in common, but they both flutter in the wind. While Kanae has never had dance trained into her, she had the elegance and poise that Kanata lacked in physique.

That’s why, instinctively— they knew that in some form , the both of them could mesh as a team. 

The problem was…

“Kanata-kun, haven’t you heard of ladies first?” 

“Huh—” Kanata’s befuddled , “in a waltz, the man leads.” 

“I’m stronger than you.” 

He’s flabbergasted. If he uses his future knowledge, they’ll get through this easily! “I’m leading!” he doesn’t have time for this nonsense—

“You’ve got to be insane if you think I’m going to let you jump into your death before me.” 

Kanata had prepared to deal with Shinobu— stubborn, strong-willed, and determined Shinobu, who is cruel and meticulous. He had prepared to use her, just as much as she would use him. 

But Kanae is different. Kanae is kind, strong, and full of so much incomprehensible compassion— and someone he knows nothing about.

Kanata knows nothing about Kanae, because this version of her does not exist in the books he’s read over and over again. He does not know how to handle her. 

“You’re Sanemi’s precious friend,” Kanae says. “Don’t you remember how devastated he was when Masachika happened? Don’t let this be a repeat of that— if not for yourself, then at least, do it for him.” 

Kanata can’t let himself listen to her.

She lives for people.

Kanata’s lived too long dying for people.

He can’t listen to her. Tecchikawahara Kanata is a carefully constructed sandcastle in this world, and he’s willing to rebuild it as many times as it takes, as long as the flag doesn’t fall from its peak. That’s all that matters.

Kanata will live like he should.

He won’t listen to her.

Douma’s fans conjure icicles, shattering into fractals upon contact. Kanata takes a single breath and Kanae yells out a warning. 

“Control it! Follow his fans and avoid them— you should be able to do this better than anyone else!” 

She’s right. 

It’s so cold, his lungs wheeze with only a graze, and they burn , as if frostbite were seizing them cell by cell and spreading and there was nothing he could do. It was cold, so cold, if he takes a Total Concentration Breath right now he’d die—

— even if he doesn’t it’ll spread through his lungs and once it’s all the way through, he’s done. Once his lungs give in, that’s it. All he can do now is wait —

(—ah, it’s so cold. So cold, Let me out. Let me out please— I’m alive, I’m alive—)

“Shamal!” 

He needs to get a grip on himself. 

“It’s a bad matchup,” Death relents. “I know you’re not a quitter, kid. But we’re going to be here a long time, and you’re unravelling on the first one.” 

Kanata sips on the hot chocolate, smiling at the little ents congregating for his attention. He ignores the words behind him.

He’s calm here.

He’s calm here, and he wishes he could be calm forever.

It’s been so long since it all happened. He wishes he could just forget about that very first death. He thought he forgot all about it— but everything right now seems to remind him of what happened. And it’s frustrating.

It’s so frustrating that after finding himself a life, a reason, a will in this new world— he’s still plagued by the lifetime he thought he could throw away forever.

Death’s hand lays on his head, gentle, but neither warm nor cold.

“Remember,” Death tells him. “Even if your Shamal bypasses the rules, it’s just a horrid coping mechanism. It’s not going to change the fact that you’re always fated to die the same way—” 

Kanata leaves. He doesn’t want to hear it. 

Kanata is the best choice for this fight. 

As a fellow Tessenjutsu practitioner, he would know better than anyone else on the field, the path of Douma’s attacks, and how to avoid them. He knows the path of the fan’s swings, how the slight twist of a wrist could shatter a tree in the other path, how footwork is vital to maneuver between your own wind, so you never go against your own momentum. 

“Oh dear, how nostalgic,” Douma sings, endeared. “I used to watch dances just like yours. They were always so graceful and synchronized. And so, so boring.” 

Douma is raised high up. Which means that no matter how crude and bizarre he is, he has table manners. He always finishes his meal after playing with it. 

“If you’re not careful, you really will die,” Death warns him. “The closer a situation is to your first death, the greater the chances. You can’t run away forever.” 

Kanata could have laughed. After so long, the prospect of his own death sounds ridiculous.Sure, he’s always known that his time, though late, will come eventually— but it doesn’t feel real. Why would anything, when nothing ever was?

But he doesn’t laugh. All noise dies in his throat. He feels betrayed.

That’s the first time Death has called what he’s doing running away.

He’s not as strong as he pretends to be, and he knows that. He hates that. He’s definitely pathetic for that. 

Each and every time, Douma notices Shinobu hiding in the shadows. The loop is finished when she dies, because there’s no meaning to a timeline without her in it. 

Kanata wants to admit he’s tired.

But that would be a lie. He’s never not tired, so this battle with Douma didn’t change anything. He is, however, unravelling at the seams, and that’s ridiculous. He didn’t even know he had any. 

But then again, maybe he just never noticed.

He was brought into this world in pieces, dismembered and never complete again. Without a vessel his soul would never be able to rest— that’s why, Death took all those shattered parts and sewed them together into some semblance of humanity, so he could continue pretending to be human. He was never whole. His instability was always meant to happen, he just never noticed he was so broken to begin with.

That doesn’t matter right now.

All Kanata has to do is run against that wall, over and over again, until it breaks. Death will always put him back together anyways, so what is there to fear?

“Kanata-kun, can you think of Rui-kun for a moment?” 

He pauses.

And glances at Kanae, confused. 

Why is she suddenly mentioning her, when she hasn’t in the past loops? Perhaps all the Kochou sisters have this odd thing about them— their conversations change, not because they don’t care for the topic or they’re indifferent to chatter— but because they’re observant, more so than others.

And because they see deeper than anyone else, they change their heart, just a little, for even the smallest situation.

Kanata’s apprehensive now.

What exactly is she seeing in his eyes, that brings that heartbroken gaze onto hers? 

“Think of him, and… just think of why you bring him along,” Kanae doesn’t have a lot of time in Douma’s curiosity to speak like this, but she’s sacrificing it anyways. “And think of why you didn’t, this time.” 

Because…

Because Rui will die. He doesn’t want Rui to die. 

Because Rui is adorable,  and Kanata cares for him. 

“Once you’ve learned to love one, you should remember to love them all, just a little,” Kanae says. “You don’t have to love them. But at least consider it, and that will make your sword so much stronger.” 

Love? Douma?

Ah, that’s right. Even until the bitter end, Kanae felt sorry for Douma. Because he never understood how to have compassion for others. He would one day die, unloved and unloving— that’s the fate of many demons. And Kanae felt sorry for them. 

If Kanata continued down this path, would he end up like that, too? 

“If you lose yourself, you’ll be no different from him.” 

-

So, Kanata thinks of Rui as he fights in his next loop. 

He thinks of the threads that come from all directions, thought about all the maneuvers he attempted, the many loops spent failing— he thought of it.

And he decided that Douma’s attacks were much slower, much less intuitive, and much less enchanting. They danced, in tandem, but Douma’s steps were wide, strutting, and confident— while Kanata allows himself to be guided onto his next step with every death, making his way through it all gradually. 

But with Douma—

—ah. 

He’s powerful, but that’s all. 

“What are you doing, Tecchikawahara-san?” Shinobu asks. 

“Your sword doesn’t suit you, so I’m fixing it.” 

Shinobu seems culturally offended when Kanata takes a chunk out of her sword in the fire, splicing the blade into smaller sections. 

“Are you sure?” Shinobu questions, evocatively, “the next time you enter Swordsmith Village, you may be stoned to death.” 

“It’s nothing of concern, I can’t be killed unless I’m beheaded and cooked into the village stew of the month. Stoning is nothing,” Kanata enlightens, “You carry your poisons around in vials of the same size, yes?” 

“...yes.” 

“They’re smaller than the hilt of your sword?”

“...yes,” she checks, holding her sword handle warily now. Kanata’s already destroying the blade, what’s he going to do with the handle, too?

Kanata takes out the magma-hot blade from the Butterfly Mansion’s spare smithy, and gouges a seam through the center to the tip of the blade. 

He takes the handle from Shinobu, and gores a hole straight through the center with an ice pick that was in his bag. 

Shinobu wonders if Kanata will be disowned after this. That sword was made by Kanamori-san, and he really hated it when his swords were defiled disrespectfully. Breaking was one thing— he was remarkably patient and understanding about swords being broken. But Kanata’s defiling it to the wonders of mother nature right now. 

Shinobu’s still reeling from being woken at the dead of the night by their weirdo swordsmith via the window, so she doesn’t know how to react. 

“I’ll explain on the way,” Kanata says, putting the sword pieces together and knotting up the tsuka-ito as he moves, shrugging his bag on. 

“Wha— what?” Shinobu gives chase, because what else is she supposed to do, “where are we going?” 

Kanata seems to remember something belatedly.

Then he says, almost blithely, “to save your sister, or she’s going to die.” 

Shinobu would like to hit him, but instead she just screams, “and you didn’t think to tell me that FIRST?!” 

Shinobu is faster than Douma. Accompanied by Kanata, who can read Douma’s attacks, and Kanae, who can counter them— they have a winning chance.

She hisses, when her back hits her sister and Kanata’s side, raising the much sleeker blade before her. She tilts it downwards. A vial of poison was stuck to the hilt’s end, so the contents followed the center of the wood toward the blade, and slid through the inseam of the katana all the wall to the tip. 

It’s a frantic addition to her arsenal, but words can’t describe how good these alterations are. She’s always laced her weapon with poison by pouring them on her blade as the battle went on. So this was much more efficient, and none is lost to the ground. 

And by reducing the sword’s width, the blade’s much more fragile— but it didn’t matter. Shinobu couldn’t behead a demon anyways, so the new structure helped her focus on the flexibility of her wrist, the accuracy of her thrusts— and it was still impeccably sharp. 

How did Kanata know to make these changes? And how is her body adapting to these changes so easily?

It’s as if she was always meant to fight this way. 

(And it’s a testament to how good a swordsmith Kanata is, that he makes swords for the user, and swords that are so perfect for the user, even the user isn’t aware how.)

(And he did it with moments to spare before coming here?)

They don’t win. They can’t.

But Kanata tries , he really does. 

“Well, that’s curious. My Blood Demon Art is in your veins, but you’ve stopped it from coagulating, you’ve stopped the ice from forming,” Douma observes with amusement, when the ice around his feet refuses to become more than shattered crystals. 

In a battle of sand and ice, it’s hard to tell who will win.

It’s an allergic reaction at this point. The second any ice bleeds into Kanata’s veins, his sand ejects it. Sand disrupts the freezing process, everyone knows that. Right?

The second Kanata’s blood feels water, the sand ejects it with a ripple of a new cut through his skin, bleeding out the poison before it can permeate. 

“That’s so interesting!” Douma chuckles, but his lips downturn into his mockery of concern as his voice lowers sweetly, “but you can’t regenerate, you know. Are you sure you should be losing so much blood?”

Kanata clasps both fans— and slams them shut. 

He’s invigorated by the sight of Douma’s body bursting into a spiral of blood, sandy geysers rupturing his skin and tearing open his seams as if he were a doll.

Douma, in pieces, laughs. 

Not dead, of course. 

“Oh, you’re really just like me!” he’s endeared. “That’s so cute!” 

Kanata can’t even feel insulted anymore. They really were similar, infuriatingly so. If even a particle of sand gets into a Demon’s bloodstream, Kanata can destroy them from the inside with Shamal . Douma can do the same with his ice particles. 

They’re so similar, it’s sickening.

But this similarity might be the only thing between Kanata and instant death. He wouldn’t react as quickly, or be as thorough with this purging of the ice, if he wasn’t already familiar with the technique.

But water particles are much smaller than sand particles, aren’t they?

“You’ve been here a while, Kanata,” Death reminds him. “Are you out of ideas?” 

Kanata frowns over his manga, trying not to seem too irritated. 

By fate, Kanae isn’t eaten by Douma. She dies from her wounds when the sun rises, because it’s far too late to be healed. The issue is, their medical technology right now isn’t good enough to heal all this— once the frost takes their lungs, they’re dead eventually.

It’ll be a while before Shinobu concocts a cure, but nothing would be able to save Kanae. She lasts remarkably long— testament to her status as a Hashira— and she’s the reason there weren’t more victims. She even got to be buried whole. That’s a luxury for demon slayers.

Point is, Douma doesn’t kill her directly, Douma doesn’t eat her. She survives. She survives until the sun rises, and dies from her wounds in Shinobu’s arms. 

Demon Slayers of this era have never fought an Upper Moon. There’s no way they can defeat one now. 

“Kanata, you were never meant to freeze to death,” Death tells him. “You were alive when you were dismembered. So just last that long, and it’ll be fine.” 

He was never meant to freeze to death. He was meant to be chopped to pieces and devoured— exactly what Douma was doing and in the same order. 

So, facing up against Douma pretty much guaranteed his own death. 

Unlike with Rui, determination and emotions won’t get him through this one. 

“Shinobu-san, would you hate me if—” 

“Tecchikawahara-san,” sweet as sugar, “you broke my window, dragged me out of bed to watch you defile my katana for thirty minutes and then had me change to go fight a demon, and then I had to find out my sister was in danger as I arrived. I already hate you with all of my heart.” 

“...yeah, that’s fair.” 

In the loops, Kanata grows fond of the way Kanae’s steps stood in line with his own. How she led their duet with a booming stage presence that Kanata couldn’t ever dream of surpassing. But it’s fulfilling, in a way that Kanata finds excelling at something fun. 

If they were two performers on a stage, Kanata felt like a dancer whose spotlight was taken, not for any fault of Kanae’s, but simply because she was much too beautiful. 

She’s a flower. Strong, gentle, and unrelentingly, against all odds, she blooms bright. 

She’a delicate, in a way that fans can never achieve. Someone in the Swordsmith once told him that fans imitated the blooming of a flower with the way it fluttered— sometimes, they said it was more like the flap of a bird or butterfly’s wings. 

Whatever it was, Kanata knew that he would never achieve that delicate, fleeting perfection that Kochou Kanae embodied as Flower Hashira. 

But that’s fine. 

The timeline he chose to keep would be an odd one, but he couldn’t bear to give it up. 

Somewhere between his steps, he parries Douma’s fan, his own fan gently lifting the demon’s wrist to swerve just slightly off target, so Shinobu could slide in with her piercing blitz of rapier thrusts. 

Douma flinches, head swinging aside to dodge the blade— and his hand follows his movements, an unintentional swing to the right heading right for—

—ah, no.

Kanae’s frozen there, between cradling her injury, the edging throes of her frozen lungs, and stumbling past her shattered foot— she rises, but not far enough. 

(Maybe he should give up on this loop, too,)

But Kanae turns to him and her voice is loud, “BEHIND YOU, KANATA!”

Kanata realizes, an embarrassingly long moment into his confusion, that he had moved, too. He hadn’t thought it through, but he had turned his attention from Douma, to reach toward Shinobu. 

His instincts screamed, save Kanae , so viscerally, he somehow forgot himself and reached out toward her, as if he could reach her from this distance. He couldn’t. 

And he also forgot that Douma had two fans . 

And he was right in the trajectory of the other. 

“You idiot!”

Shinobu had always been rude, but even Kanata had to be taken aback when he’s called an idiot to his face. Especially in this situation. 

She shoves him, clinging straight into the crook of his neck as her blade shatters in a single strike and her left side is consumed by the ice down to her wrist— the ice carves through her back, shredding through her hair, and rippling bright red icicles blooming upon her back in the shape of a lotus.  

Ah, that’s it , Kanata thought. That’s where this loop ends. That ice will gore through her neck, into her spine, through her lungs, and—

—oh. 

Douma’s face right now. He’s beaming brightly. He didn’t expect to hit Shinobu, but he’s delighted that he did. She was so fast, after all, and Kanae and Kanata have been taking hits for her so far, not even letting him touch her.

This is the perfect opportunity to hit him. Now.

But—

—if he strikes Douma, then it’ll be too late for Shinobu. There’s only one way to save Shinobu and land that crucial strike on Douma all at once.

“Hurry up,” Shinobu hisses, arms cradling Kanata’s side. She’s holding on, because she knows— she won’t be awake much longer. 

Will she survive? Kanata has to make sure of that.

“I’m sorry,” his hands wrap around her figure, and hold her firmly. 

Shinobu’s laughter rumbles in his chest. “You better be.” 

Sand Breathing, Fifth Form: Shamal

砂の呼吸・伍ノ型　シャマル

Kanae’s “NO!!” is drowned out by Shinobu’s scream.

Kanata chooses this outcome. Not because he was satisfied, but because dragging this battle out to sunrise and forcing Douma to leave a limb behind was far more than he’d achieved before.

Also, everyone was alive, even if the Kakushi didn’t think so.

“Tecchikawahara-san, are you—” 

“Get the limb! Don’t let the sunlight touch it,” he orders quickly. He’s made this mistake once already. “Gather some of the demon’s blood for research.” 

“Y-Yes, sir!” 

“Sir, please—” 

He dismisses her words with a sharp, “take her.” 

“R-Right!” 

The crows were reporting to every demon slayer around, at this point, and Kakushi were scrambling out of the shadows for damage control. Kanata ignores the ache in his abdomen and looks for Kanae again.

She’s looking toward them— at Shinobu, who’s unconscious, with more of her blood outside her body than in. Her hair was now cropped hastily short, and would likely be cleaned up shorter once she was able to wake up again. 

“I got all the Demon Blood Art out of her,” Kanata assures. “She’ll survive. With scars, but she should recover fully.” 

Kanae looks between conflicted and vengeful, but she sighs deeply with a mournful wheeze in her breath, and she allows the Kakushi to take care of her. The ice had entered her lungs, and though it only advanced briefly before being repelled by her Breath, the damage was too deep for Kanata to remove. 

Not that she would willingly subject herself to Shamal from the inside out. She looked queasy just witnessing Shinobu endure it. She didn’t think she’d survive it with her body already at its last ropes. 

She wanted to hate Kanata for it but— but Shinobu chose to do that. She resigned herself to that choice. All for an opportunity, and Kanata simply respected it.

Kanata was the wrong person to direct that anger. She knew that. 

So she settled with a harsh breath, a weak cry, and a painful smile. “I’m just glad we’re alive, Kanata-kun. Thank you. I wish I could have protected you two better.” 

Thank you. We all survived, and maybe that’s the best outcome we could hope for. 

She had no idea.

“Welcome home,” Rui greets.

Casually, sitting in the corner of the room they were given to recuperate in the Butterfly Mansion. As if Kanata isn’t covered in blood, as if he hadn’t snuck in through the window as the mansion searched for him. As if he wasn’t staggering each step, yet to receive any treatment for his wounds because he wanted them to focus on Shinobu’s and Kanae’s condition instead.

Kanata drops his bag heavily on the ground and stumbled, collapsing on top of Rui and hugging him tightly. 

Rui blinks, but curiously allows it. His hands rest on Kanata’s shoulders, perusing the ragged haori. Rui would have to mend it later while he was asleep. There’s blood too, and Rui licks it tentatively and his suspicions are confirmed. 

“I smell an Upper Moon. And ice,” Rui sniffs, his distaste for the colder temperatures scrunching his face up in a scowl. “I don’t like that smell.”

Kanata hums. “I don’t either. Get rid of it for me?” 

Rui wonders how he would do that.

“You’ve shredded them all through with your sand. There’s nothing to get rid of except the millions of holes you’ve left in your own body.” 

“Okay. Fix me then.” 

Rui considers that. He can do that. 

Rui can fix wounds down to the atom if he focuses hard enough, but he doesn’t quite grasp the fragility of a human being. Even with Kaigaku, he only carefully mended surface wounds, and Kaigaku was complaining the whole time. He can’t imagine how torturous it would be to fix all those internal injuries.

“But it will hurt.” 

Kanata hums. “It’s fine. I won’t die if you promise not to eat me.” 

Rui’s offended. “I would not—” he falls short.

Kanata’s asleep, breathing already evening out into the subdued version of Total Concentration that happens while he’s asleep. He’s sleeping rather deeply, which is a terrible oversight for a Demon Slayer. Right on top of a demon, no less.

But somehow, there’s something warm and comforting about this. 

Maybe it’s the job of a younger brother to comfort an older brother exhausted and emancipated after a long day of work. 

“Welcome home,” he says again, just to bask in it.

Chapter Text

Rui doesn’t like the Butterfly Mansion, but with the degree of injuries on everyone, it’s rather inevitable that they’ve ended up here for the foreseeable future. 

“Rui-kun,” Aoi teaches him, she’s standing in the sun and he’s just barely under the shade on the veranda, “you have to wring this out like this before you hang it up, or it’ll crease.” 

Rui stares at the sheet in her hands and turns to the shirt he’s been instructed to hold. When Aoi stretches her garment taut with a tight flub flub noise, Rui imitates the movement. And rips it cleanly in half in the process.

Aoi blinks. “A little less strength,” she prompts. 

Rui mends it with some string and this time, he does it right. The strings in human clothes are so needlessly fragile, but he supposes clothes for recovery— meant to be soiled or cut during surgery— only need to barely hold together to count as useful. 

“That’s so good! You’re a fast learner, Rui-kun!” Aoi brightens. 

Rui hums. He’s never had the experience of helping out in chores before, so this is all very odd to him. Aoi’s constant enthusiasm is very amusing to him.

Putting aside his bedridden human life, there wasn’t really a need for laundry to be done among demons. Even when they got dirty, a wash in the river would do. They didn’t really have to care for hygiene or comfort— it’s not like they would get sick, and while digging through human flesh and organs, you stop considering physical decency as a monster.

“Morn’.” 

“Kanata, we told you to stay in bed until noon!” Aoi scolds without looking over, clipping Kanata’s newly-mended kimono onto the clothesline. “Rui-kun, put him back in bed.” 

Rui glances over, but Kanata puts a bandage-clad hand on his head and dismisses her concern with a yawn. 

“I have to drop by the Flame Hashira estate. Obanai-kun’s sword was chipped in his previous battle, and no average swordsmith is trusted to fix that sword of his.” 

“Huh?” Aoi groans, “hold on, you’re in no condition to go polish a sword right now!” 

“I’ll be fine,” he dismisses. Then, turning down, “Rui, it’s daytime, so stay.” With his injuries, he can’t pick up Rui, much less carry him around on his hip.

Infuriatingly in Aoi’s opinion, Rui stayed.  

“Kanata-kun. Where are you and your six fractured ribs, ruptured hand ligament, reset elbow, broken hip, and third degree frostbitten legs going?” 

Kanata faces Kochou Kanae. 

“To the Rengoku estate.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot you couldn’t understand context clues,” Kanae sounds utterly irritated, and that’s so rare. Usually it’s Shinobu that’s mad like that. They’re definitely sisters. “ Absolutely not. Go back to your room right this instant. Shinjurou-san hasn’t been showing up to Hashira meetings, but at this point he shouldn’t, because I’ll be hitting him over the head the second I see him.”

Kanata wonders if he should point out that Kanae was more injured than he was. It’s only been three days since the battle, and she’s fully recovered because of Hashira vitality. 

Instead, he knocks on the door beside him, and when prompted, he opens it. 

“Good day to you, Kanata-kun,” Shinobu greets with the kind smile that usually belongs on Kanae. “I see you’re finally well enough to get up on your own.” 

Kanata wonders if he’s entered a parallel world where the Kochou sisters have switched personalities. For some reason, this one’s pleasant instead.

Shinobu will likely take at least a few months to heal. Her body had been severely damaged by both Douma’s ice strikes and Kanata’s cuts searing through his flesh. While Kanata had ensured there would be no permanent damage or poison left behind, she had been particularly shredded apart then literally stitched back together by Rui. The scars would only be faintly visible thanks to Rui, but she’ll have to start all her strength and mobility training from scratch after this. 

“Shinobu, you should be resting too,” Kanae says. “Put that book away, you’re coming up with new poisons, aren’t you?” 

“Well,” Shinobu chuckles, “Kanata-kun told me he’ll arrange for my new sword made by the Chief of the village himself, so of course I'm a little enthusiastic. He said my new sword won’t require me to try decapitating my opponents anymore. It’s the least he should do honestly, after violating me like that.” 

Could you have phrased that any more misleadingly? Kanata doesn’t say this because he knows it would be pointless.

“Kanata-kun,” Kanae begins longsufferingly. “Shinobu, stop ordering him around. I told Naho-chan and Aoi to make sure you rest— does that mean you’ve had Kanata-kun bringing you all your notes from the study?” 

Shinobu hums, “he scarred a young woman’s face and body for life. There’s very much more he should be doing for me. Ah Kanata-kun, if you’re dropping by the Rengoku estate, will you get some kinako mochi from the street stall three turns from there?” 

“Sure.” 

“Kanata-kun!” Kanae’s exasperated. 

“Tecchief requests Kanata come home!” Yashahane lectures him on the way, resting on Kanata’s hand rather puffily. “Funeral! Expedition incident, two dead! Tecchief requests Kanata come home!” 

“Yes I’ll go home after this.” 

Swordsmiths aren’t fighters (usually), so they aren’t usually granted the same amount of time off as slayers. While Oyakata-sama will allow leaves for recuperation, a swordsmith’s schedule is dependent on Chief Tecchikawahara. For swordsmiths, you’re only allowed leeway when you’re dead.

Swordsmiths die too often, after all. 

Unlike with slayers, in Swordsmith Village, mistakes and injuries are an indicator of your own weakness as a supporter of the corps. If you miss a sword order because you were resting, your client would simply be handed off to someone else. 

That’s why Kanata’s injuries are not an excuse to dismiss his duties as a swordsmith. He chose to do both, and thus, he must prove that one won’t affect the other. 

Swordsmiths are expendable.

(“In the recent trip out, Kogane-dono and Gantetsu-dono, both very well-respected swordsmiths in the village who have served for generations, were martyred in an encounter with a Lower Moon.”)

(“Their bodies were retrieved by Demon Slayer Makomo and her two apprentices, and would be buried in the Swordsmith Village after the funeral procession.”)

(Kanata had read that letter and simply understood that this was the world he lived in. He had no room to worry about them, not after he nearly died in battle with Upper Moon Two as well. They must want him home for peace of mind.)

But he can’t think about that now. He has work to do. 

He dons the clay hyottoko mask, shrouded in his newly-mended haori. With his wicker hat shielding the sun from his aching wounds, he approaches the Rengoku estate.

“I am called Tecchikawahara Kanata,” he introduces himself evenly, the long-winded formality taught in the Swordsmith Village as their traditional deep-seated respect for demon slayers putting his mind at ease. “I have come to repair Sir Obanai Iguro’s Nichirin Blade in place of Gantetsu-dono, who has recently passed.”

Professional, perfunctory.

Obanai Iguro. Having been taken in by the Rengoku family recently, he’s been working his way up as a member of the Demon Slayer Corps after swiftly passing the Final Selection within a year of training. 

Obanai doesn’t stay in the estate often, but he had to come back after being injured on a mission. This would be the first time his sword’s been maintained since he changed its design. 

“I have no problems with the sword’s shape, but I prefer it to be longer.” 

Kanata inspects the blade. 

It’s a kris sword. With how traditional to the country the swordsmith village tends to be, it’s no wonder Chief Tecchin wanted Kanata to take over for its maintenance. Gantetsu-dono was rather fascinated by foreign weapons used during the war, so it’s no surprise he jumped upon the opportunity to create a sword like this with Japanese forging techniques. It’s a magnificent blade.

But for now, it’s still a dagger at most. Probably because it was a first of its making, and the previous swordsmith kept it small to ensure its sturdiness. It was an experimental product at best. What a shame, Uncle Gantetsu would have loved the opportunity to master it. 

“Will the standard uchigatana length be to your preference?” Kanata inquires. 

Obanai’s brows furrow. “Yeah… but Gantetsu said it would be difficult and more fragile if it was longer…” 

“I will achieve it as you wish. I will return within three days with your sword reforged.” 

“Wha—” Obanai’s bewildered. He must not have experienced such an easy affirmation before. Gantetsu struggled very much to forge just this one to suit Obanai’s prodigiously self-made Breathing Style, after all.

“It’s no problem. All I will be doing is advancing upon the tracks Gantetsu-dono has already made. If you have any other requests of me, please extend them to me. Via crow, if that is what you prefer.” 

“Uhh…” 

Obanai’s rather awkward. He’s never had such an easy conversation before. 

Kanata didn’t make small talk, inquire upon intentions or justifications, didn’t get offended over imperfections, and didn’t seem particularly hateful nor too friendly. Obanai lives with the Rengoku, so he had no idea how to deal with someone that was equally as allergic to the Rengoku energy. It’s some kind of kinship. 

(Or maybe Obanai just doesn’t really understand how to interact with people here. His only healthy interaction with humanity thus far in his entire life has been the Rengokus, the Ubuyashikis, and his swordsmith, after all.)

(He’s like a stray cat.) (No wait. Stray serpent.)

(...do domesticated serpents exist in this era? Now Kanata has the odd urge to go to Death’s library to read that up.)

(He kind of missed the existence of Google sometimes.)

“Ah, Tecchikawahara-san!” Rengoku Kyoujuro beams, door slamming open, “it’s good I caught you! Kochou-san informed me to get kinako mochi for her before escorting you back toward the Butterfly Mansion! If we are done with this consultation, let’s depart!” 

Kanata has the odd premonition that Kanae is absolutely furious right now. 

Better not go back there, then.

“Please inform Shinobu-dono that I will be in my nearest workshop to forge Obanai-dono’s sword,” he says, rising with one of his spare staves as a crutch. “Will you accompany my crow to send for my young companion?” 

“Ehhh, you’re already leaving, Swordsmith-san?” the door opens wider in the other direction to reveal Kanroji Mitsuri. She’s not an official slayer yet, but she’s in training gear. The world knows her as the alarmingly adorable girl that joined the corps recently, quite intent on becoming Rengoku’s Tsuguko one day. “There’s no rush, Iguro-san isn’t cleared for duty for another week I hear!” 

Neither am I, Kanata wisely refrains from admitting. That’s why I’m escaping right now.

But it’s fine, three future Hashira aren’t capable of stopping Kanata from doing whatever the hell he wants. They’re not Hashira yet after all. (Kanata does not fear the future.) (No seriously, he doesn’t. Considering his track record, seeing the future at all is probably a good thing.) 

Also, he’s been stuck in that stupid Douma loop for so long that if he doesn't make a sword at this moment and add it to his collection, he’s going to burn a house down. 

“Now hold on, Tecchikawahara-san!” Rengoku beams, “you’re injured! How about you rest and stay the night? Good swords won’t be made impatiently, or so I’ve heard from my own swordsmith.” 

“It’s okay, I’m built different.” 

Rengoku lets out a befuddled “what?” as Mitsuri sneezes into watery laughter beside him. Obanai stares in exasperation as Kanata gathers up his things to evacuate out the window.

“HEY MOTHERFUCKER I’M COMING IN!” 

This time when the rest of the door slams open forward— yes, it’s a sliding door, which does not open forward. The entire thing has just been magnificently kicked off its hinges and Rengoku’s eyes are wide with fascinated horror— Shinazugawa Sanemi announces his presence with a baby spider demon held on his hip like a toddler.

“Yo Rengoku kid,” Sanemi points at him, glaring like he’s just found him even though he could’ve definitely seen him from the hallway, “I came in.” 

“Ah, yes,” Rengoku’s words are stilted and struggling to recalibrate, unable to understand what just happened, and is utterly confused on why he needs to fix a shoji door now, “welcome. Wind Hashira-dono.” 

Rui waves from his spot in Sanemi’s arm. He has a double stick of neri-ame in his mouth, and he’s curiously mixing up another swirl with his threads, fascinated by the brightly-coloured webs of absolute mess he could make with them.

Sanemi’s eyes are fixed forward on Kanata. Kanata meekly puts his leg down from where they were halfway out the window. They proceed to pretend that didn’t happen. 

“Fucker, we’re going to Swordsmith Village. Pack your shit.” 

Rui’s preoccupied with his candy and offers no enlightenment whatsoever, so after a moment of complete silence Kanata goes, “we are?” 

Did Chief Tecchin put in an order to make sure Sanemi gets Kanata back home or something? That sounds like him, but why Sanemi of all people? 

“We’ve got a funeral and a party on the damn agenda, so I ain’t waiting. You and your injured ass needs a fucking escort,” Sanemi snarls. He scowls at Rengoku (who’s still having an existential crisis), Mitsuri (flabbergasted) and then Obanai (wary) with a sigh. “You guys come too. Wait for your sword at the village.” 

“Huh?!” Mitsuri and Obanai are caught off guard.

It’s a second later that Rengoku registers and adds, “wait, whuh??” 

“Sorry for intruding,” Kanzaki Aoi comes, dressed in travelling clothes and carrying a gift box of expensive wagashi. “Deepest regrets for the commotion, please hand this to the Flame Hashira Shinjuro-san as an apology for the noise.” 

Rengoku can’t even respond at this point. “Uh– eh? Oh… oh?”

“Kanata!” Aoi calls, “we’re going to Swordsmith Village. Makomo wanted matsutake rice and sukiyaki from there, so that’s what the party menu’s going to be.” 

“Matsutake rice?!” Mitsuri exclaims, jealous already. “Wait, did you say we could go too? Really?” 

“Hold on,” Obanai tries to slow all this down. The extroversion is too overwhelming for a shut-in like him, “what about my sword…?”

Kanata is officially lost. 

“...A party? For what?” His head tilts. Maybe he’s just too tired and sick to understand all this, but he just feels like this conversation is going everywhere and nowhere at once. What about Makomo now?

Sanemi and Aoi level him with a look of utter disbelief. 

“What do you mean for what —” Sanemi’s eye twitches. 

Aoi spins to the crows huddled in the corner of the room, “didn’t your crow tell you?” 

Yashahane squawks, offended, “I DID!” while Sanemi’s crow laughs at him. 

“Oh yeah, and what was he doing when you told him?” 

“SLEEPING!” 

“Then you didn’t tell him shit, you stupid bird!” Sanemi yells. 

Aoi sighs longsufferingly. “What will I do with you boys…” she turns to Kanata, stepping forward to take his bag from him. “Listen. With the defeat of Lower Moon Four, Urokodaki Makomo has been officially promoted to the rank and title of Water Hashira!” 

Ah.

“Hold on, for real?” Kanata blurts out. 

They told him she saved them from demons, albeit two swordsmiths died, but they didn’t tell him she defeated that Lower Moon. 

“Yes!” Aoi says. “So we’re dropping everything and going to have a congratulatory party for her in the Swordsmith Village. Oyakata-sama already gave us the okay.” 

If anyone told Kanata to expect this congregation as his first homecoming entourage, he would have never believed it. Honestly, he still struggles to believe it. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not pulling the damn cart, the Kakushi can handle it.” 

Kanata sighs. They headed home with lots of food, supplies, and a fairly big group. Everyone except Kanata had to be blindfolded, but he and Obanai were still injured. He appreciated having the Kakushi pull the cart, but Kanata definitely couldn’t ease.

At least they’ll only be travelling when it’s bright out. The journey will take a while with such a big cart, but nighttime will be no problem. 

“I’m surprised the cart has such a nice box just for Rui-kun to sleep in,” Aoi said, leaning beside it, “as expected from Swordsmith Village…” 

Darn it. That has grandpa written all over it. He just wanted to see his grandchild.

“I’ll start moving, everyone,” the kind Kakushi duo warned as they picked up the cart and the second set himself at the back to push it along. “Please relax, Tecchikawahara-dono, the crows have our route handled.” 

Kanata supposed they were right. 

He wished he could work on Obanai’s sword but he supposed… that wasn’t really possible at the moment. He wanted to inspect his swords and perhaps restring some of the hilts, but his hand’s in several pieces, so he probably shouldn’t. 

He’s never been so idle in a long time. 

(He doesn’t like being idle.)

(In death, it’s fine, because Death is a place where you can’t really think straight. Out here in reality, he doesn’t like to be left alone with his thoughts. He wants to do anything, anything , if it means his mind won’t wander to places he doesn’t want it to.)

(As quiet as Kanata tends to be, he dislikes silence.)

(He's spent so long basking in all the chaotic turbulence this world had to offer. He's terrified, so terrified, when the whispers of the world creep up on him, reminding him of the part of him that used to be only human.)

“I’m excited! I’ve never been there before!” Rengoku beams. 

“I-I can’t believe we’re being allowed to go!” Mitsuri’s flushed with excitement, “a-are we sure I can go too? I eat a lot! I’m serious, I eat a lot, very much a lot!” 

“It’ll be fine,” Aoi says. “That’s why we’re also taking food to the village as we go.” 

“Eh? They’re not our provisions??”

“Don’t be spoiled, you brats. Fend for yourself,” Sanemi grumbles. 

“We’re foraging for food?” Obanai’s exasperated. 

Aoi assures, “I only packed lunch for myself, Obanai-san, and Kanata-san.” 

Rengoku laughs, “that’s fine! It’s good training! Shall we get some for the Kakushi and for Rui-kun as well?” 

Obanai balks. “We’re feeding the demon?!” 

Mitsuri gasps, “we’re not?!” 

Kanata wonders how they can be so easygoing while all being blindfolded and led away who knows where. The Kakushi are smiling mildly, endeared by the conversation. It’s also very boisterous, a far cry from his usual road trips.

…road trips.

That word makes his gut itch in an unpleasant way, but… looking at them all like this, chatting together, eating onigiri, trying to drink out of the thermos…

…it’s peaceful, somehow.

“Kanata, you gonna sleep? You haven’t moved,” Sanemi speaks, and Kanata jumps. He’d forgotten that Sanemi was a bit like a wild animal in that regard. Even blindfolded, he can tell when movement happens. And while quietness is normal for Kanata, stillness isn’t. “You better not jump off the damn carriage now, I’ll chain you on this thing I swear.” 

“You can sleep here!” Mitsuri beams, “I brought a pillow, so you can lie down here, face under the shade of Rui-kun’s box. It’s the most secure spot on the cart!” 

“Kakushi-dono! Could we stop for a moment?” Rengoku calls. “Let’s get Tecchikawahara-san settled first—” 

“Ah—” Kanata balks, I’m fine…

“Obanai, you too!” 

Obanai makes an incomprehensibly baffled noise. “I’m fine here.” 

“Just lean on the box at least,” Aoi prompts, “I’ll check all your injuries again later during lunch, so there better not be any problems.”

“I’m not leaning on the demon box!” 

“Then lean on Mitsuri.” 

There’s that strangled noise again. “HELL no!”

“You don’t wanna lean on me?!” Mitsuri sounds mildly affronted, like she’s so startled that she apparently stinks and thus people don’t want to get too close to her. 

It’s jejune. Peaceful. Bliss.

(Kanata thinks he might have a panic attack.)

Blindfolds are taken off for the moment as everyone settles in new spots. The Kakushi help ensure everyone’s comfortable, and that’s when Mitsuri musses through Kanata’s bag to shift out a soft spot to use as a pillow.

 “Ooh. you have so much pretty-coloured string!” She beams, “they’re all such good quality too. Such vibrant dyes must be expensive.” 

Kanata winces, “that’s the last I had…” 

“Swordsmiths have their own method of dyeing string for sword hilts,” the Kakushi enlightens. “While most focus on the unique steel they produce, in truth everything other than katana that’s made in the Swordsmith Village are traded as their main source of income.” 

“Woah, I didn’t know that!” Mitsuri’s eyes glinted with interest.

Rengoku takes the moment to admire the nichirin sword Obanai had on hand now, a spare from the household that was one of his father’s old ones. It’s just for self-defense while Obanai’s sword was being fixed, but they could definitely see the difference in quality between that one, Rengoku’s current sword, and Sanemi’s sword. 

Other than the sharper refining done on the blade, the string was tied differently, the pieces attached with flame-toned patterns, too. 

“He’s carved sword hilts for us too,” Aoi shows off her sword, where the hilt in the shape of a splashing ripple of water definitely looked too decorative to be practical. But the strings around her hilt were tied in a gentle gradient of misty purple to ice blue, and the pommel was decorated with a standing butterfly, the spread wings a sharp kunai’s edge of nichirin— it was a whole work of art. “Swordsmiths usually carve their signatures, but Kanata just lets the extravagant quality speak for itself.” 

Mitsuri swoons at the sight, “that’s so pretty!” 

Rengoku also admires it, “I’ve never seen a swordsmith that’s also a demon slayer before. Don’t your injuries from missions ever get in the way of commissions?” 

“Honestly we wish it’d get in the way more often,” the Kakushi mutters. “He overworks.” 

Sanemi scoffs in amusement, “even the damn Kakushi are criticising you, idiot.” 

Kanata whines. He acts like the Kakushi don’t complain about him and Genya’s shouting matches in the Butterfly Mansion… “...I agreed to be both,” Kanata tries to say instead. He’s not sure if his articulation makes sense, though. “So I have to be good at both.” 

(Because what else is he good for?) It’d be like betraying Oyakata-sama’s expectations. (But who, exactly, makes him follow that expectation that was never set straight?)

“That’s admirable!” Rengoku grins, “I have my hands full just with the household. I can’t imagine how much work you have to keep up with all the time.” 

“He does everything like he has twice the amount of free time as anyone else,” Sanemi grumbles. “Imagine. He made Kochou lose her patience.” 

“...that’s possible?” Obanai’s baffled. 

“It must get hard at times,” Mitsuri says, soothingly chuckling, reaching up to pat Kanata on the head. “There there. Since you have the day off, you should definitely relax!” 

(“It’s your day off, so relax however you want.”)

Kanata wants the voices to stop. He wishes he never has to hear them again. 

“That’s right. I was wondering what we’d do the whole trip,” Mitsuri picks up the rolls of string, “you have plenty, so let’s make friendship bracelets!” 

“Huh? We have to put the blindfold back on, you know?” Aoi says. 

“What a waste of time,” Sanemi grumbles. 

“Those really elaborate woven strings?” Rengoku asks. “Like the one you taught Senjuro the other day?” 

“Yep!” Mitsuri says, “I can do it blindfolded, how about I teach everyone blindfolded? I made one for Kaburamaru the other day, but it got frayed in the battle, didn’t it? So I’ll make another!” 

Obanai glances at his snake, who slithers closer to Mitsuri at that. Darn that opportunistic traitorous creature. 

“Kanata-san!” Mitsuri smiles at him, and it’s so bright, it hurts. “You should choose the colours! You won’t be blindfolded, and since you always make such great tsuka, I’m sure they’d look great!” 

It’s so full of kindness. The sky is warm, and the journey is gradual, calm, and peaceful. Nothing seems amiss, and the wind is just breezy enough to be pleasant. He’s surrounded by people who simply enjoy his presence, and he feels safe with them. 

(It’s suffocating.)

Kanata chooses the string, “how many colours do you want?”  

(It’s a poisonous trap, this world of love. A fleeting happiness he isn’t allowed to have, doesn’t have the right to keep.)

(He lets himself indulge anyways, like a fool addicted to misery.)

Chapter Text

Death is an odd event for Kanata, especially when he’s not the one going through it.  

With how familiar he is to it, he often feels taken aback when people speak of it with fear, or with grief. 

To him, death was always just a passageway to peace. A passageway he often has to traverse multiple times, over and over, because he’s just a little, powerless human that isn’t very good at this ‘living’ thing.

Everyone’s bad at different things. It’s normal.

(He’s not so sure how to feel about the reminder that most people don’t have the luxury of traversing the road and coming back.)

Yet, when he lays the flowers into the casket and gives him last greetings to the dead, he couldn’t help but gaze into those bare faces— finally revealed to the world, finally free from those masks that were necessary to hide their weakness— 

— I’m so jealous.

He doesn’t want to die. He quite exclusively tries way too hard to not die, actually, and yet, here, the envy wells up in his chest like a lump that needs to be thrown up like a hairball– disgusting, festering, and justified. 

He doesn’t truly feel this way. It’s a monster that whispers, he has to ignore it.

(People were contradictory like that, and despite everything, he’s human.)

The funeral for Kogane and Gantetsu is humble, mournful, and full of deep sorrow. And then they moved on.

“One day of rest for a swordsmith is ten lives lost to demons. One day of rest for a demon slayer is a hundred lives lost to demons.” 

The swordsmith village used to live with that belief. Perhaps it was because life was just much too fleeting— they began to host celebrations of life. Moments of silence for the dead, and rites for their anniversaries.

“This war has gone on for centuries. My family has been maintaining the Yoriichi Type Zero for that long… traditions are lost, skills fail to make it to the next generation. I think we’re all just tired of this war.” 

Kanata still remembered Uncle Kogane’s words to him. He tried to remember as many things as he could, but Kogane often spoke to him as he trained here, babysitting Kotetsu— so Kanata remembered these words, if nothing else.

“I know it’s dumb of me. I’m the only one left of my generation, and Kotetsu is my only son— is it selfish, that I don’t want to teach him how to fix Yoriichi Type Zero just yet?” 

He had been so tender with the only child his wife left for him. He spoiled that little tyke. 

“He’s watching. He’s learning. But I don’t want him to be like me. I want him to be free of this war— I want him to have interests, friends, and find love. I want Kotetsu to be the one to escape this loop of tradition our bloodline has been stuck in.” 

Kanata’s so, so, envious. He wanted dreams like those too.

(Alas, Uncle Kogane died on an expedition, and now, the skills are truly lost forever.)

“Kanata-san. Are you here to practice?”

Kotetsu greets Kanata at his house, far into the mountains of Swordsmith Village. They always stay away from the rest, but it’s not like they’re the only ones. 

Kotetsu’s voice is hoarse, his movements harried in a way that means he’s hiding something. He’d slipped his mask on quickly after swiping away some tears, but he couldn’t hide the shaking in his voice.

He was already imitating his father. In swordsmith fashion— that bitter and necessary professionalism that all of them had to learn the hard lesson to emulate.

If they didn’t steel themselves this way, they couldn’t last in this profession. And those born in the Swordsmith Village could not go anywhere— compromising the safety of the village was a cardinal sin, after all.

Kanata mourned for Uncle Kogane. He mourned for Kotetsu, because now that he was the last of his bloodline, he would never be the same.

“No. There’s a party, let’s go eat.” 

Kotetsu doesn’t move. “I’m fine. I have already eaten.” 

“Then eat more,” Kanata can’t pick him up, his injuries still aching, but he leans down and takes off his sword, laying it to rest at the veranda of their house. “We will not be forging today, and there is nothing to fight. Today is a rest day.” 

Kotetsu’s fists curl deeper into his clothing. “I have already rested yesterday. Slayers taking a break means more swordsmiths die. I will work, or I will learn to work—” 

“The sword will still be here when you return.” 

Kanata unties the cloth mask around his eyes, feeling the cold of the wind on his face for a brief, refreshing moment— before laying the Hyottoko Mask over his face instead.

He isn’t Demon Slayer Kanata, in this village.

He is Swordsmith, Tecchikawahara Kanata. One of the Chief’s many spoiled grandchildren, specifically one that was allowed to take his name. 

“But people die, when we waste time,” Kotetsu reasons. 

Kanata hums. 

“There will always be time,” Kanata says, and the way he says it feels realer than anything else he’s ever said in his life. “Don’t waste time trying not to die— that time is meant for you to live, after all. Everyone only has so little to spare.” 

There is a party in the hall. It’s a whiplash, how they were all quiet for the funeral, yet so quickly switched gears to make merry and get drunk celebrating the new Hashira. 

Perhaps it’s their professionalism that allowed them to put grief aside like it was a problem that could be snoozed like an alarm. Perhaps it was a cold, insensitive thing to do to their beloved family members, and it was clear the demon slayers felt this way at first.

“Are you really sure? Everyone’s in mourning…” Rengoku had managed to refuse all of three drinks before downing the third. And then he was patriotically batting away all the Swordsmiths blatantly ogling Kanroji.

For the rest, albeit reluctant at first, they began to lose themselves to the celebration. 

Swordsmith Village knew best how to read emotions, after all. Hiding for so long had made them sensitive. If there was anything they wanted to do, it was to care for demon slayers as their most important business partners. No one could ever say that they were bad hosts.  

“Like this?”

“Hmm.” 

“Oh, this.” 

“No.” 

“Eh?”

“That, that, that.” 

“Ohhhh.”

Kanata’s mildly distracted by Rui and Kotetsu. He had always known his cat’s cradle skills were decent at best— Rui had well humbled him on Natagumo Mountain, but clearly, he had been holding back. 

Kotetsu’s immensely fascinated by patterns. And despite being introduced to the game by Kanata with tsuka-ito as their instrument, he was now engrossed in learning new patterns from the spider demon. 

He wonders if anyone has told Kotetsu that’s a demon yet.

Regardless— they were both the youngest in the room. If you could consider Rui young. 

Despite having lived for ages, his mental age certainly never seemed to progress, as some demons tended to linger after death. It placed him approximately in synergy to Kotetsu— mere minutes after meeting, they had become able to communicate and entertain each other with just vague sounds and shared interests for hours on end. 

“Kanata, your rice.” 

Kanata finds a bowl of matsutake rice in his hands, Aoi having filled the bowl as high as it would go before moving on to serve someone else. Despite being a guest here, she seemed adamant in her position as the commander of food portions even in the village.

“Seconds!” Mitsuri chirps. 

“Yes, yes.” 

In Swordsmith Village, surrounded by forests, matsutake rice was common enough that they broke it out for every minor celebration. They had a lot of those, they found every excuse to have them. 

It wasn’t Kanata’s favourite meal choice or anything, but there was nothing else that truly felt like home. 

“Don’t TOUCH!” Sanemi snarls at Rengoku, who was trying to steal some of the meat off the pot. “It’s not DONE YET! And you’ve had plenty!” 

“I want more! It’s DELICIOUS!” 

He doesn’t notice Makomo sneaking some in the distraction, handing the meat to Obanai because he wasn’t really taking initiative to get more. 

“I’m fine,” he grouses.

“You’re shy,” is Makomo’s rebuttal.

“I don’t need your pity or charity.” 

“I’m not pitying you. I just know it’s hard to get used to the fact that you can eat as much as you want without permission,” her smile is so disengaging, so genuine, that even Obanai couldn’t come up with another argument for that. “So I’m just helping you until you figure it out.” 

It was odd to see so many slayers here at a time, both in training and of high ranking. 

Giyuu and Sabito chatted about their training with Rengoku, to varying degrees of enthusiasm. They recounted the battle with the Lower Moon— it was a miracle they had been too far to be involved in the fight, but they did get a view. 

Makomo, the newly instated Water Hashira, was now missing a mask— instead, the crack-shaped scar down the side of her left cheek, running through her eye from the forehead to the chin— it looked more porcelain than flesh, and no one had any idea how to let it heal. 

The Blood Demon Art that caused it had remained, even after the demon’s death. But she lived, so it was a cause for celebration. 

“Now now there’s plenty to go around,” the adult swordsmiths chuckle at the sight. “We will fetch more food, if there’s a need. Please eat to your heart’s content.” 

Because it could very likely be their last meal together. They had to treasure every moment— the funeral only reminded them more of how abruptly things could end.

Kanata couldn’t relate.

But the flavours of home felt savoury on his tongue and warm in his stomach, and he realized, maybe it didn’t matter if he could or not. 

Nothing brings family together like food. 

With the fall of a Lower Moon, they had a brief respite. They knew that. It would be a short rest before the demons would rebound, twice as violent for the chance to take that Lower Moon’s spot. 

They were all aware of it.

That’s why they enjoyed it now, as much as they could together.

The world could come crashing down later— for now, they shared a meal, and pretended the world was better than it was— because it’s the only world they’ve ever lived in, and if they didn’t enjoy its little beauties, what was the world made for?

“Grandpa—”

“Getting you to come home is like pulling teeth!” Chief Tecchin is very displeased with Kanata. “You’re unbelievable!” 

Kanata sits in seiza on the ground, opposite Chief Tecchin.

Rui is seated beside the chief, munching on the cane sugar snacks with his little spider teeth. It’s his first time eating something like this and he’s clearly very fascinated. Kanata knows best how addictive they are. 

Though that’s not the problem. 

“I’m already so old!” Chief Tecchin is upset, “how long were you planning on making me wait so I could finally see my great grandchild?! I can’t believe you let that Jigoro brat see him first!” 

Rui is preoccupied with his snacks, but he lifts his head when Tecchin pats him.

“There there little one, children should eat heartily,” that is a millennium-old spider demon who had killed hundreds, “you’re very well-behaved, dear. Children should be energetic and playful.” He’s deathly allergic to sunlight . “You can call me great grandpa. Now, do you want more snacks? What do you think about taking the Tecchikawahara name?- It has a nice ring to it doesn’t it, Tecchikawahara Rui—” 

Kanata does not get irritated easily.

But just this once he invokes, emotionally, “ stop, please.”

As usual Kanata loses the fight against grandpas (why does he never learn his lesson?) and the village is going to throw a ‘there’s a new baby in the village!’ party. Usually they only celebrate newborns, but apparently in the time he’s been gone, spider demons that look like children were now also considered babies.

Also, “I’m not letting that Jigoro lay claim on my great grandson before me! We’re going to start a vote on who’s making a blade for the new baby.”

“Why does a new baby need a blade?” Uncle Kiyoyuki, thank everything you’re still the one sane gleam of light in this sulphur-drunk community of clowns. Maybe the masks were a reflection of reality after all.  

“No questions are allowed.”

“Understandable. I’m putting my name on the ballot.” 

Uncle Kiyoyuki I trusted you! Kanata regrets his life decisions more every day.

“I’m envious.” 

Kanata feels a little disconnected, when Rengoku and Obanai tell him that. 

They’re in the hot springs— surprisingly, after the chaos of the day and everything surrounding it, bathtime was calm. It must be the exhaustion— they were truly trying to relax here, and even Sanemi wasn’t picking a fight about this. 

Giyuu and Sabito were more intimidated about sitting here with all their seniors than anything else, but they did behave. They were a little disappointed about Kanata wearing a cloth mask over his eyes, but they didn’t try to peak under it.

“Your family is huge, rambunctious, and there’s always something happening,” Rengoku says. “The liveliness is nice.” 

“There isn’t a quiet moment to be had,” Obanai groans into his arms, laying on the cool rock, “I thought the place would be quieter than this.” 

“It’s noisy,” Sanemi groans. “I kinda figured from the masks, but they’re all a bunch of weird old fools.” 

It usually would be. The village is usually calm, despite everything. It was only when it was about Kanata that they made a ruckus— honestly, he’s not sure why. He’s hardly the youngest of the swordsmiths, or the most eccentric. They just liked making a fuss about him in particular and he never understood it either.

But coupled with the funeral, the new Hashira, and Rui, they simply, coincidentally, had a whole slew of things to celebrate at once and they wanted to go all out on the fun while they could. They just wanted to get it done before Kanata left on his journey again. 

“You have such a big family, Kanata-san!” Sabito’s take is similar to Rengoku. “Especially with all of them wearing masks, how do you tell them apart?” 

“Haori,” Giyuu dryly says.

“People change clothes every day, Giyuu.” 

Giyuu doesn’t respond to that.

Then, Sabito, as if chastised, says, “oh.” 

The way Sanemi bursts out laughing at that slip up should honestly be a crime of insensitivity, but Sabito reacts with a violent water splash of embarrassment and now the bath is turning into a chaotic water fight. As things should be. 

It’s the best kind of chaos— the ones that are about living well. 

Most of them here have long lost their semblances of family. Kanata had more family than he knew what to do with, and maybe that too was a curse.

A confusingly good curse, perhaps. One that’s never left him in both of his lives. 

“Kaaanata!” 

The forests around Swordsmith Village had always been home to him, but mountainous forests in general were always home to just one other person.

His own haori, littered with speckles of gingko leaves, are a comforting contrast to the blue flowers on hers. She swirls off a tree and onto the fallen leaves, her steps light as a flower as she falls in step with Kanata.

“It’s so late. Where are you going?”

Swordsmith Village never truly sleeps— they just go a little quieter. 

Most commissions come late at night or are completed at the break of dawn after days of restless work, so while it wasn’t odd for Kanata to be walking around at this time of day, the demon slayers found it intriguing enough to all be awake and staring at him from their rooms in the hallway, like he’s sneaking out.

“It’s dangerous to wander around at night, you know?”

It’s not, because Swordsmith Village was made that way. 

It’s made to be a safe haven, for Swordsmiths to live their whole lives, never seeing the world outside unless they’ve been commissioned to deliver. They’re never allowed to sightsee. They lived to build weapons for war, after all.

“Is there something happening?” Sanemi asks. 

Kanata doesn’t respond, because he didn’t mind if they followed. Making his way down the steps into the city— it was quiet, even with so many people wandering outside with their lamps. 

Sanemi, Makomo, Rengoku, and Obanai follow. Rui trails, not far behind. Mitsuri and Aoi stay behind with Giyuu and Sabito, who were seemingly still asleep. 

He had brought a sword with him— just two, a pair he was proud of, that he had tied with brilliantly patterned tsuka along the journey to the village. He’d carved the tsuba— they weren’t anything fancy, but it was a quality the village could boast as its best. 

He brought them to the center of the village, where the ashes lay. There was no space in the Swordsmith Village for burials— cremations were the best any of them could offer. They didn’t have long funerals, so they were already ash, stored in carefully moulded ceramic vases. 

With his entourage looking from a distance, Kanata stepped up to the congregation, and pulled out his two katana— stabbing them into the ground upright among the countless already there, surrounding the two vases on the pedestal. There are swords of every shape— longswords, broadswords, axes. Every villager had come, to make an offering of their own. 

A single dagger lay nearest to Uncle Kogane’s ashes, a paltry dull thing without even a proper hilt or polish— but everyone knew that Kogane would love that one the most.

Uncle Gantetsu had been the village eccentric. No one denied that, no one ostracised it— he just preferred to be alone, and that was why he also got similarly eccentric clients assigned to him all the time.

Kanata approaches the vase, and places a single sword down— Obanai’s old sword, chipped and broken. Uncle Gantetsu’s final and proudest work, so he could bring it with him, and the world would only build stronger upon his legacy from there.  

Kanata stands there and breathes, for a long moment.

The world won’t change, even if he waits. People other than him die, and even though he couldn’t say he was close to them in any way that truly mattered— the sinking feeling of grief lays in his chest, a marble to be spit out, because there was no gain in feeling it.

This was just how things are. 

We will take care of the things you’ve left behind, his prayer doesn’t feel true. It just feels like a natural course of action.

Finally, he turns back around. Finding himself in step with the four demon slayers, they head back to the lodgings, without a single other word to be said. 

In Swordsmith Village, mourning was a luxury. 

They revered their dead as much as they could, remembered them, respected them with all their hearts and dedicated their honour to them— but in the end, they were dead, and it was all they could do to uphold quiet traditions, and move on.

Move on, because what else can people do, after death? 

They began training again.

“I’m leaving and you won’t see me off?” Makomo teases. She’d come up to the mountain lodge, where Kanata forged Obanai’s new sword in Uncle Kogane’s old workshop. 

Rui was there too, inspecting the Yoriichi mecha. 

Of course, parties were just parties— hosted, and end, and now everyone who attended would be assigned to missions separately. It’s barely midday, but Makomo would be leaving with her Tsuguko on her next set of missions. Sanemi had already gone in his own direction at daybreak, and Rengoku was training his sword strikes as he awaited his crow’s return. Aoi would leave in the afternoon with the Kakushi, but Obanai would stay here until his sword was ready, because it was the safest place to recover.

“This is such a homey place,” Makomo muses, admiring the structure. It’s a simple home with an attaching workshop— a basic fireplace and stove, a jar of water, a cavern for firewood, and humble, well-maintained tatami cut to intriguing patterns when the light hit. 

Makomo sat on it, admiring the tea cabinets, the tools littered around the place, and the papers and blueprints of the Yoriichi Type Zero strewn about among haruma carvings and toys. There’s life, here.

“I wouldn’t have expected it from you,” she admits. “You always have so much on hand, so I guess you also live messily? Much less weapons than I thought would be here.” 

“This isn’t Kanata-san’s house, though,” Kotetsu corrects her, “it’s mine and my dad’s.” 

Makomo blinks at that. “Oh? I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” 

“No, with how he’s made himself at home in the workshop so easily, I don’t blame you for assuming,” this child is so curt and blunt, it’s almost charming. 

Makomo’s head tilts, “but then where is your house, Kanata?” she wonders, “you’ve slept with us in the lodgings, and here you are working in someone else’s workshop, even if it’s no longer in use.” 

Kotetsu answers for him, “Kanata-san doesn’t have a house here.” 

That revelation takes Makomo by utter surprise. 

“There are only so many houses to be built in our limited space here,” Kotetsu says. “Everyone inherits from family, relatives live together, new families in shared spaces. Kanata-san wasn’t born in the village, so he didn’t inherit a house.” 

“You weren’t born here?” 

Kanata shakes his head in response. 

The swordsmith village refurbished empty and broken houses all the time, but they mostly stayed together, because it just made sense to. They ate together, because in between working on swords there wouldn’t be a lot of time or resources for meals. It just made sense to do everything as a community. 

Kanata lived in the Mayor’s Residence— not the Tecchikawahara house, but the Town Hall— all his life. He was raised by the entire village, because they decided that raising him should also be a community activity. 

In a village where inheritance was everything, Kanata had nothing to inherit. So they tried their best to give him as much as they could to belong here with them.

Now that Kanata was barely in the village, the need for an actual house was even less necessary. He didn’t have a room, traces of his childhood left to photos in the town hall rather than drawings on the wall. He had no toys that weren’t gone, passed down to other newborns, and even now, he would sleep in guest lodgings when he came home.

Maybe that was why Kanata left a safehouse everywhere in Japan. To work, to travel— to never stay in a place for long, yet leave his mark prominently. 

It was a special kind of loneliness. One in the midst of blessing. 

“So the reason you have so many weapons and tools in your bag is because you’re always travelling with all your belongings, like a nomad?” Makomo wonders.

“No,” Kotetsu, this savage little child, “that’s because he’s stupid and has a bad hoarding habit. I know. My dad said it all the time.” 

Uncle Kogane, why were you teaching your child everything except how to fix Yoriichi Type Zero?