Chapter Text

“You’ll never understand how happy it makes me to be needed.”

PRELUDE

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

The train hummed and clacked toward Niigata.

Four seats faced each other: Shinjurō Rengoku was asleep with his arms crossed; Kazama rigid by the aisle; Kyōjurō Rengoku bright as a lantern trying very hard and failing to sit still, humming under his breath; and “Renya” Asagiri—Renri—folded neatly beside the window.

Without thinking, she sat as she’d been trained her whole life, like a well-bred girl: knees together, ankles offset, hands stacked softly on her lap, chin tipped toward the glass.

Kyōjurō leaned forward, cheerful as a drum. “Asagiri-san,” he stage-whispered, “that is a very peculiar way to sit.”

Renri blinked at the reflection of her own poise, remembered who she was supposed to be, and—grunting—heat crept up both her swollen cheek

She uncrossed, opened her knees, slouched a fraction, and folded her arms the way she always saw her brother doing when their father was not watching.

“Forgive me,” she said, voice now lowered. “Long day.”

Silence resettled; only the train that rattled over a trestle.

Kazama did not look at her, which was how he looked when he was the only one who knew a secret and would die keeping it. Shinjurō snored. Kyōjurō’s smile only grew, delighted at her reaction.

Renri stared at their reflection in the window: the Flame Hashira and his golden son; Kazama sitting a fraction too close, a quiet wall; and the boy she was not staring back at her, too-short hair tied low, chest bandaged flat under her brother's training uniform.

Of course. Once again, how did I end up in this mess?

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

The day before 

Renri Asagiri shifted the bundle on her shoulder—the school’s practice naginata wrapped in purple cloth—and stepped toward the gate with the posture of a model pupil who did not intend to be stopped.

She had just left the inner courtyard of the Hōmeikan Girls’ Institute after classes, white hair ribbon rehung neat at her nape and boots clicking over the stone. The afternoon light washed the eaves of the school, white walls, dark beams, a new electric lamp sulking beside an old gas sconce.

“Asagiri-san.”

She turned because courtesy demanded it.

Three of her classmates stood in a neat little wedge in the school uniform, a white kosode and a purple andon-bakama, just like Renri's. Two hovered with small predator smiles; the one in the middle—Nanako, daughter of a shipping magnate and recently unbearable—wore her new hairpin the way a general wears a medal.

“You didn’t offer congratulations,” one said in fake concern. “Nanako’s engagement was announced this morning.”

“And you were the only one,” the other added eyes lifting to the naginata on Renri’s shoulder and back again, “who forgot to be happy for her.”

Nanako’s chin rose. “It’s a happy day,” she said. “One hopes even… the more independent-minded among us can find joy for others.”

Renri’s hands folded at her waist. “Ah,” she said, as if a small memory had just returned to her; she let her mouth soften into the agreeable smile the tutors drilled into her bones. “Of course. My apologies. Congratulations on your engagement, Nanako-san. May your marriage be… auspicious.” She bowed her head just enough to read as well-bred without inviting more conversation.

Honestly, what was there to celebrate in being bartered like fine porcelain?

“...That’s it?” Nanako’s lashes flicked. “So dry. Almost like you’re not pleased for me at all.”

“On the contrary, I am relieved,” Renri said mildly. “It means I am free to stop hearing about the color of your obi.”

The two other girls tittered behind their sleeves while Nanako’s smile tightened.

“Ah. Perhaps she's jealous. Some people would be more eager,” one girl said lightly, “if their own prospects weren’t… complicated.”

“Twins are bad omen, after all,” the other murmured, the way one says the weather is unseasonable. “And she does come to class with bruises every week. It suggests a temper. What husband would want to manage that?”

Renri’s fingers did not move, she kept her expression placid. Don’t rise. It’s not personal. It never is.

“I’ve heard she was suspended once,” the first girl added, confidingly. “Perhaps twice.”

“Such fine lineage and yet no suitable offers. I heard the Amenonagawa estate sent their refusal this very morning,” Nanako, mock-sad. “Such a shame.”

“Hm.” Renri nodded as if taking notes in class.

A breath, a narrowing of her eyes that anyone would call ladylike focus. Then she stepped forward—one, two, three—and stopped close enough that Nanako flinched, then held her ground because there were witnesses and she was supposed to be brave; she had learned that trick from watching shadows, slow the heartbeat until anger didn’t color her voice. Sweet as ever, she tilted her hand and flicked Nanako’s forehead with two fingers.

A light, precise snap.

Nanako recoiled, eyes watering. “How dare you—”

Renri’s hand rose as if to adjust a stray hair; instead, she caught Nanako’s chin between fingers and thumb, too firmly for comfort. “It would make me very sad,” she murmured, gaze flicking toward the purple-wrapped naginata on her shoulder, “if anyone thought I was impolite with you. See? I carry a naginata for schoolwork. It would be terrible to trip and swing it the wrong way. People would... talk.”

Nanako swallowed. The other girls’ laughter died. In the quiet, Renri could hear the far clack of geta at the outer gate and the hum of a distant streetcar.

“Do you understand?” Renri asked.

A small, frantic nod.

“Wonderful. I only wished to make sure you’d remember my congratulations.” Renri let go, stepped back, and bowed with perfect form. “Truly, Nanako-san, may your marriage be happy. A husband three times your age will have so many good stories to tell.” She straightened, smile luminous, and stepped aside to allow them the path.

The girls muttered as they retreated, small, safe words now that her back was turned.

Renri held her bow a breath longer than necessary, wondering if she had gone too far. The headmistress disliked reports. Her father hated them—

“Renri-sama.”

Renri straightened, already grimacing before she turned.

Kazama stood tall behind her by the gate in his retainer’s uniform, long black hair tied high in an old samurai tail. Western-cut plates reinforced his injured flank beneath the fabric, an old scar that  caused his retirement from the career. A former talented Demon slayer once, he had been the bodyguard for Renri and her twin brother since they could toddle, smoothing the worst of their father’s storms and teaching Renri footwork in the cracks of the day. He would die for either of them without argument; he would prefer not to, but would anyway.

Right now, his arms were folded the way he folded them when he had seen everything and approved of none of it.

“That looked worse than it—” Renri began, then flailed for a better sentence. “They started it, and—”

He lifted one palm. “The threat with the naginata was not veiled.” His gaze flicked to the girls scattering like quails, and a vein in his forehead choose this moment to introduce itself. “Your father already disapproves of you training at school. If you brandish the naginata like a threat, you will be confined to home tutors.”

“Geez.” Renri pressed the weapon into his hands as if that made her innocent. “Kazama, were you sent to scold me or to escort me?”

“Both.” He fell into step a respectful pace behind, adjusting the weight onto his shoulder as if it were his. “Your mother requests you return directly home. No detours.”

“And my father?”

Kazama’s jaw worked. “I am trying to prevent the lecture that will follow the last lecture that followed the last lecture.” His tone flattened. “Given the Amenonagawa retired the marriage proposal this morning, Asagiri-dono is not in a forgiving mood. Do not add friction.”

His tone stayed flat but the line of his shoulders told her the truth. He had served the Asagiri long enough to read weather before it broke and he had raised her long enough to try to stand in the rain for her.

Renri’s mouth pulled left. “It’s that bad?”

Silence. He didn’t bother with lies and it was answer enough. Renri rubbed at her cheekbone; habit, bracing for what might land there later.

They turned off the paved road onto a narrower lane where tiled walls hid gardens and a tram bell clanged somewhere toward the city. The outskirts of Edo had changed in small, stubborn ways after the Meiji restoration: electric poles next to torii gates, a bicycle leaning against a well’s old stone.

“It wasn’t my fault,” she said, glancing back with a small, childish pout she would never show anyone else. “With the Amenoma—anenoma—what was his name again?”

“Amenonagawa.”

“Right. I mean, I tried, this time, really. But their son panicked the instant I brought up Mori Ōgai’s latest essays He decided I made him feel stupid. If he’s embarrassed by his gaps, he should study, not withdraw the marriage offer.”

“Or,” Kazama said, rolling his eyes where she couldn’t see, “you could refrain from speaking at all and nod as befits a young lady of your rank. You did the same with the previous suitor. And the one preceding that.” Her glare was quick and small; he ignored it with professional skill. “And the one before—”

“I get it, I get it!” she groaned, indignant and a little wounded. “Next time I will be silent. If only so I can leave that house and all its stupid rules. ‘A woman mustn’t do this. A woman mustn’t do that’—” she mimed her mother’s voice with cheerful cruelty “—‘Renri, you’ve dirtied your hem again, Renri, you eat too much, look how obedient your brother is—’”

She stopped so suddenly that Kazama nearly walked into her.

“Wait! If Father’s home, their training in the woods is over, yes?” she asked, eyes bright as if she’d remembered the word for air. “Is Renya back?”

Kazama pinched the bridge of his nose but his mouth softened. He always yielded to that tone despite himself. “Renya-sama is home, yes, but—”

“Then let’s go!” she laughed, and the sound came out too bright, too fifteen.

Renri broke into a quicker walk, the long sleeves of her kosode flaring behind her and boots thudding over the boards of the small bridge before their gate. Kazama kept pace, reminding her to enter properly, to bow, to be quiet. She heard him as one hears the wind in pines.

The Asagiri estate breathed old power around them in the old outskirts people still stubbornly called Edo. A walled compound of dark wood; tiled roofs and clean lines; wisteria trellises; raked gravel broken by moss-soft stepping stones; sliding shōji glowing with late light; a formal gate carved with the family mon, a lotus. New electric wires hummed above an old garden that still kept tradition.

Servants startled at Renri’s dash and then relaxed as Kazama’s calm followed behind, smoothing her ripples by existing.

Renri slipped, crossed the engawa, and threaded the corridors like a girl who knew every creek and silence. The nearer family quarters opened onto a small inner court, and there, bokken in his hands, Renya traced form after form with the kind of attention that makes a boy seem older.

She stopped at the threshold, hands pressed together to keep from clapping, watching her twin brother.

Renya looked so like her.

Black hair, just like hers, but cropped to the shoulders and tied in a low tail that jumped when he pivoted. The same black eyesand yet different where it mattered; the focus hardened his face in a way that made her chest ache; it was a look she’d learned to fear on the man who had taught it to him. The Asagiri family had been a Demon Slayer lineage for generations, a lineage made of shadows, and their father, the retired Shadow Hashira, had made that inheritance the whole of his son’s world. For his daughter, he had other plans: a bright cage, perfect manners, and a marriage contract to vanish her into someone else’s ledger, to never again be his problem.

Renri watched the weight shift through his feet, the line of his shoulders, the pause before the cut. Without thinking, she moved her own toes, imitating Renya’s stance, ghost-holding a katana to feel the timing she had memorized after watching for too long.

Kage no Kokyū. Shadow Breathing.

Her father would never allow her to wield it, but her mind, hungry behind the smile, had already begun to memorize the shapes.

Kazama’s palm landed on her shoulder, hard. “Renri-sama,” he said quietly. “We’ve discussed this.”

“Oh, hush,” she whispered back, eyes never leaving her brother. “Father isn’t here.”

Renya’s head turned at the small scrape of her boot on wood. He blinked, then lit like a lantern.

“Renren!”

“Onii-chan!”

Renri forgot the manners and ran; they met in the middle of the court. Renya picked her up, spun once like a boy who hadn’t been taught to hide delight, and set her down with exaggerated care. “You got lighter. Did you skip lunch again?”

Renri tipped her head, pretending offense. “You got stronger,” she retorted.

Renya ruffled her hair with a smirk. “And taller. More than you, Renren.” He flattened a hand above her head to show the difference.

“Barely! I could still pretend to be you like when we were kids and no one would notice,” she teased,

Kazama bowed where he stood, halfway through their collision. “Welcome home, Renya-sama.”

“Kazama,” Renya said with a grin, setting Renri down. “You’ve grown weaker in my absence. Your scolding tone has softened.”

“On the contrary.” Kazama adjusted Renri's naginata on his shoulder. “It doubles with your sister.”

Renya laughed, and for a moment the house felt like a home until Renri caught his hand in both of hers, turning it over; calluses ridged the palm. Her smile thinned. “Was... training with Father hard?” she asked, tracing one with a thumb.

Renya gave the small, brave smile she hated. “Hard enough.” He lifted his chin in small pride and weariness. “You know how Chichiue is, but someone has to carry the legacy.” He hesitated, then brightened. “You knew? He’s made arrangements with one of his old comrade. In three months I’ll take the final selection and enter the Demon Slayers Corps.”

His eyes shone. It was his dream, he wanted this, despite everything, maybe even because of it: to step into the night and make it less frightening for someone else. And every day, he stepped a little further from her; the world would give him the name their father cherished; she would stay in the shadows of a house that did not want her.

The courtyard seemed to hold its breath.

Renri tucked everything that rose inside her into a perfect, miniature nod. “I see,” she said softly. “So you’ll leave. Father must be very proud. Meanwhile, I ruined things again for him and Mother.”

“Don’t say that,” Renya said, squeezing her fingers. “That Amenoma—anenoma—ugh, what was it?”

“Amenonagawa,” Kazama grunted.

“Right. Their son is a fool. Someone will see you properly one day, Renren.”

Kazama cleared his throat. “Perhaps. If Renri-sama learns to keep her observations unobserved.”

He leveled a look at her. She returned a miniature glare.

Renya snorted. “Don’t be hard on her, Kazama. Here.” He held out the bokken. “Spar?”

Kazama eyed it as if it had personally offended his injured side. “No thanks. Damp air aggravates the old wound.” He tapped his flank. “Consider it your victory, Renya-sama.”

Renya flattened him with a stare. “You always have an excuse.”

Renri lifted both hands like a child. “Onii-chan! Teach me—just—just one thing—”

“Renri.”

The voice dropped like a blade and all three of them froze.

Renri lowered her shaking hand, fingers suddenly clumsy, and turned slowly toward the engawa. Kazama’s bow went crisp and deep—“Asagiri-dono”—and Renya stepped in front of her without thinking, spine straight. “Chichiue.”

Their father strode into the yard with the easy gravity of a man who believed the ground should get out of his way; an austere man worn into shape by duty and the certainty that he alone knew its proper form. The former Shadow Hashira, freshly retired, who still wore his black haori with a silver lotus stitched on the back, as if he was waiting for the moment he could pass it down on his son; he looked at his children and then at the one who was not a son.

“...Chichiue,” Renri said, lowering her eyes.

Renya tried, strained smile held like a shield. “Chichiue. We were just greeting after a month—”

Their father's hand arrived first; it cracked across Renri’s cheek with a clean sound. The world stuttered as she caught herself, boots scraping, heat flowering across her cheek. A drop of blood slid from split lip to chin, then to the earth with a small, undignified sound.

Renya went rigid. Kazama, still bent, tightened his fists until the knuckles blanched. The rules were not written, but they were older than paper.

“So,” their father said to Renya but eyes never leaving Renri. “She interfered in your training, your progress. Again.”

Great, Renri thought distantly. Another bruise the instructors at school would assume came from a fight she had started.

“I thought I was clear,” he continued. “Your duty is to secure a proper marriage. Instead, you idle here, disrupting your brother’s training. The very day the Amenonagawa retract their proposal, no less. Perhaps I should just get rid of you—”

His hand lifted again. Renri shut her eyes.

“Dear.” Her mother’s voice came from the shadowed corridor, cool as porcelain. “If you continue to spoil her pretty face, no one will marry her.”

The hand paused. A click of tongue; then he lowered his hand and flicked two fingers. He did not look at his wife. “Kazama. Take her to her rooms. She is not to leave except for school and she will not disturb her brother’s training again.”

Kazama deepened his bow. “Yes, Asagiri-dono.”

Renri set her mouth and measured her breathing to the cadence Kazama had once made her practice in secret: in on four, hold on one, out on five, counted two heartbeats, and straightened. Her hands folded, her lips arranged a curve, the good daughter’s mask they had spent money to teach her: calm, grateful, untroubled, except for the swelling and the blood at her split lips.

“Of course, Father. Forgive this woman’s foolishness.” She turned toward Renya without lifting her eyes. “Renya,” she said first, bowing so low her black hair slipped forward like a curtain. “I wish you a good practice.”

A small, pained “Renren—” followed. She held the angle one second longer so he could add, in a whisper, “I’m sorry,” then rose, spine straight, and walked away.

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

“Ah, Renya.”

Renri heard her father’s voice before she saw him. Too soft, soft enough that she knew it wasn’t meant for her.

She froze on the evening-cool engawa, half-turned toward the outer gate, cheek still swollen and lip newly scrubbed of blood. When she lifted her eyes, his gaze dropped to her face, and Renri watched the instant the mistake registered; no, Renya did not wear a purple andon-bakama; no, Renya did not have waist-length hair tied with a ribbon; no, Renya did not have a swollen cheek.

“Ah,” he said again, tone shifting into the one reserved for daughters who disappointed. “Renri.” He passed a palm over his face, as if wiping away the mistake.

Good, she thought, brief and mean. Be embarrassed that you can’t tell your children apart unless one is bleeding. She bowed, neat and low; she did not want the other cheek to match. “Do not worry, Father. I was only going to the storeroom for calendula to bring the swelling down and—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He cut the air with a flick of his hand. “We needed to speak with you.”

Only then did she lift her eyes: he was there in full formal dress, kamishimo, family haori falling heavy from the shoulders, the lotus mon stitched in silver. His katana hung at his side as if it had never left after retirement. Her mother behind him, a fine purple kimono and a small fur wrap against the night breeze.

Announcement clothes. The kind you wore when you wanted the world to see abundance and lineage.

“You are… going out?” Renri asked. “Are we expecting someone?”

Kazama arrived behind her, carrying a small wooden tray. He took in the scene in one breath and bowed. “Asagiri-dono.”

“Kazama. Good timing,” her father said, without looking at him. “Her face must be presentable by morning.”

Renri didn’t need to see Kazama’s expression to know the muscle in his forehead twitched. He probably wanted to say, Perhaps avoid striking her, then. He did not; he never did, not where her father could hear.

Mother stepped forward and set a hand on Renri’s shoulder. From a distance it might have looked like comfort but Renri didn’t make that mistake anymore. “As you know,” her mother said, “your brother will enter the Demon Slayers Corps within months.”

Her father crossed his arms, chin lifting. “I have arranged his tutelage under an old comrade. The current Flame Hashira.” He said it as if it were a victory he had won alone, as he were not already measuring Renya’s Shadow Breathing for a mantle that had broken men. “Our Shadow Breathing derives from Flame Breathing. It is fitting that Renya trains under his eye.”

“I see,” Renri replied. She truly was not sure why they were telling her this; usually, they spared her the details. They called it protection and meant exclusion.

“Of course,” her mother continued smoothly, “we will return the courtesy Rengoku-dono extends. We promised to consider a fine marriage as compensation.”

Ah. Of course. Aways, always down to that. Another engagement. Another day in the same life.

Father’s mouth thinned. “His son is a promising Demon Slayer of fine family and not much older than you and Renya. Renri.” He used her name like a command bell. She looked up, permission to lift her eyes, taken. He thundered on anyway. “This is more than you could hope for. Do not ruin it. We will return by dawn with our guests.”

“Do fix your face,” Mother added, almost kindly. “It is the one thing, along with our family name, that might secure this match.” She tilted her head to Kazama with a polite almost-plea she did not feel. “Kazama-san, if you please.”

Renri and Kazama bowed together, the same flat “Yes. Have a safe journey,” in voices that might as well have been related by blood.

They stayed folded until the shōji slid shut and the click of sandals on wood faded down the walk.

Renri touched the ribbon-spot at her nape—a nervous tell she hated—and exhaled a long, flat sigh smoothing her purple andon-bakama where it didn’t need smoothing.

Kazama exhaled like someone setting down a weight. “They ask for dawn,” he muttered, peering into the medicine tray. “As if swelling takes orders.”

“It’s fine,” she said, pushing past him. “No one will blame you if you can’t manage it. They’ll say my skin is unruly, or that I frown too much, or that I—oh, you know.” She kept her eyes lowered because it helped. “Blah blah.” She felt his stare between her shoulder blades. “What, Kazama?”

“Renri-sama.” He had that careful tone he used when trying to steer her away from cliffs. “To avoid… further conflict with Asagiri-dono, please refrain from—”

“—bring up Mori Ōgai or any topic too cultured for a lady of my rank?” She glanced back with a crooked smile that tugged the bruise. “Don’t worry, Kazama. I won’t speak. The Flame Hashira and his son will take one look at this—” she gestured at her cheek “—and decide I’m not worth the trouble anyway, and somehow that will still be my fault.”

“Renren!” her brother’s voice called from the main hall.

She pivoted. “Mm?” Her brother's tone always pulled a real smile from her, no matter the day.

Renya, uniform loose at the wrists and a modest haori that echoed their father’s in miniature around his shoulders, leaned out with a grin and a box in both hands. “Kikufuku!”

She blinked, then lit up. “Kikufuku?!” She was halfway to him before she realized she’d moved, the grin breaking free without permission. “Onii-chan! For me? Why didn’t you say so before—you know I love—”

“I know,” he said, smug with the simple pleasure of it, and set the box on the low table. He propped his jaw on his palm and watched her with that brother look that said: eat first, complain later. “I knew you’d smile.”

They knelt opposite each other on the tatami, candlelight turning the room to a small, safe cave.

Kazama followed at a slower, resigned pace with his tray of bandages, the look of a man who would prefer to triage her cheek first and snack never. “Renri-sama. Renya-sama. I dislike ruining your… convivial moment, but your father returns at dawn with extremely important guests and we should—”

“—come on, Kazama,” Renya said, waving him closer. “Just one. When I enlist, I won’t have time for this. Please?”

“Please,” Renri echoed, palms together in dramatized prayer. “Just one. Then I will sit quietly and nod at the Flame Hashira’s golden son or whoever he is.”

Kazama held their twin stares for three full beats, then surrendered like he had been surrendering since they were small, and sank to the table with a noise that was not a word. He opened his kit, took a sweet he didn’t want, and still scowled while chewing.

Renya popped one into Renri’s hand and she ate it far too fast for a lady of good family and licked her thumb with the concentration of a thief. Renya mirrored her, because twins did that without meaning to.

“The Flame Hashira’s son?” he asked around a mouthful. “Don’t tell me—”

“Yup,” she said, mouth full, mocking herself with a tilt of head. “You get glorious training and a heroic early death, and I’ll have—” she made a face “—a dream marriage and a house too big and so many children and the honor of forgetting my own name.”

“Renri-sama,” Kazama chided mildly, already eating a second despite himself.

Renya flicked a kikufuku at her in retaliation. She caught it one-handed. “Kazama,” he said, grin slanting, “you should come back into the field with me. As you can see my sister can fend for herself. You’re wasted as her bodyguard.”

“Believe it or not. My life,” Kazama said dryly, “was simpler as a Demon Slayer than as a bodyguard to you two. But in my current condition, the demons would be delighted to meet me. My Wind Breathing is… not what it was.” He tapped his flank. “I buy seconds now, not victories.”

“Liar,” Renri teased. “You’ve gone soft after raising us and now you’re too old for the job.”

“I'm just thirty-seven,” he muttered.

Renya laughed. “Anyway, it sounds like a good marriage, Renren.”

“How can you tell? You know him?” she said, frowning as she reached for a second sweet.

“I’ve only glimpsed with Chichiue a couple of times,” Renya said, thoughtful. “He seemed… decent.”

“Decent. Well, it hardly matters,” she said, touching her cheek with a wince. “It will last just long enough to guarantee your entrance in the Demon slayer Corps. Then they’ll see this—” a helpless gesture “—and the interest will… evaporate.”

“Which is why,” Kazama said, frowning into the basket, “we should treat it now and not after—ah.” He lifted an empty clay pot. “Of course. The calendula is finished.” He stood, raked a hand through his hair, and looked between them like a man choosing which building to save from a spreading fire. “Without it, that cheek will not settle by dawn.”

“So?” Renya sprawled, unhelpful. “Go buy more.”

“Don’t worry,” Renri copied his sprawl. “We can behave. The house is full of servants.”

Kazama hesitated by the threshold, calculating where in suburban Edo one could browbeat a sleeping apothecary at this hour and not start a rumor. He made the impossible possible in his head, as always, and still disliked it.“You two,m do not trouble the servants. Do not leave this house.” He pointed at Renya. “Kamishimo, by dawn, or your father will die of apoplexy.” He pointed at Renri. “Proper kimono, or he will kill us both.” He shrugged into a heavier haori. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

The twins saluted him in perfect unison. “Don’t worry,” they said. “We’ll be exemplary.”

“That,” he muttered, sliding the shōji shut behind him, “is exactly what worries me.”

Silence washed in his wake; Renya stretched. “Well. Plenty of good impressions to make at sunrise.”

“Mm.” Renri lowered her head to the table, swollen cheek turned to the cooler air, eyes closing. “You with your future mentor, me with my husband-to-be. What a day.”

He brushed a careful fingertip along the puffy skin. “Does it hurt you?”

“I don’t know.” Her mouth tilted. “Does it hurt you to keep trying to be what father wants?”

“Fair,” he said, a breath of laughter in it. “Sleep a little, Renren. I’ll wake you.”

His voice drifted as she slipped toward it—farther, farther—until—

A thump.

Renri's eyes snapped open.

The room was dark and Renya’s haori had been tucked around her shoulders. She sat up, disoriented, rubbing grit from her lashes. How long was I asleep? She sat up too fast, pressed fingers to her temple, and slid the shōji a fraction to squint at the sky beyond the wall.

Not night, not yet morning; almost dawn.

Oh no. Father would return any minute—with guests—and she was still in her andon-bakama, hair a black tumble to her waist, face not fixed—

Another thump, farther down the engawa, then a thin cry. Renri turned, heart answering before thought. A glow licked along the engawa edge; smoke pricked her nose; the glow brightened.

Fire? An accident? Here?

“Onii-chan?” she called, moving toward the door. “Renya!”

A hand clamped over her mouth and an arm locked around her ribs, pinning her arms and hauling her backward into the dark. She fought out of pure panic—kicked, shoved, breath ragged—until the whispered curse hit her ear.

“Shh. Renren. It’s me. Stop—”

Renri stilled; Renya eased his palm away from her mouth slowly. She spun just as Renya slid the shōji shut with exaggerated care and put his ear to the crack. In the dim, she saw the tremor in the hand holding a bokken that was suddenly not a toy at all, the blood that ran from his temple, the soot that streaked his sleeves.

“What happened—why are you bleeding—why is there—”

“A demon,” he said, hoarse, listening hard. “It broke in. Killed servants. Set fires—”

His breath hitched. He grabbed his shoulder, pain curving him in. Renri caught him under the arm, useless hands hovering, her thoughts tripping over each other. A demon. Here. With father away and Kazama out and—

“You’re hurt,” she said, reaching without landing anywhere. “We need—we need to—”

He caught her hand, squeezed hard enough to still the spin in her chest. For the first time she saw not her twin, but the boy determined to be a Demon Slayer.

“Listen,” he whispered, eyes narrowed, one half-shut with blood. “I’m going to step out and draw it. When I do, you run the other way, get outside the walls—”

“No!” It cracked out before she could stop it. “Are you mad? In your state? You don’t even have a proper blade toslay demons and—”

“I can still do something unlike you!” The cruelty wasn’t true; the fear behind it was. His jaw set. “If you argue, we both die. For once in your life, do as your brother says—”

He didn’t finish; their voices, or fate, or simple luck pulled the demon’s eye. 

The shōji behind him exploded inward. Splinters and dust scythed across the room and flung them both against the back wall. Renri hit hard, vision flaring. Renya twisted midair, landed between her and the wrecked doorway, bokken lifted in both hands.

Something stepped through the drifting paper and smoke, unhurried, the air itself turning heavier around him. It simply entered the way someone might stroll into a shop to escape the rain. Pressure rolled off it in a quiet wave that pressed Renri into the tatami, into herself, until her body forgot how to tremble.

“Mm,” the demon said, as if to itself, voice almost bored. He set one barefoot step onto the tatami, and the air pressed down harder, like a hand closing slowly around the room. “I nearly missed you. Your fighting spirit is so low.”

The world narrowed to eyes like; short bright pink hair; yellow eyes afloat in blue sclera; skin so pale crossed and circled by thick indigo lines that curled under his eyes, around his throat, over his chest and waist and down his arms and bare feet; loose white pants bound below the knee; a cropped, sleeveless haori left open.

In his right iris, a kanji. Renri didn’t know its meaning. She knew only one thing with perfect, cold clarity:

Demon. The kind her house had sworn, for generations, to face and never taught her how.

Chapter Text

NAME

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

Demon.

The kind her house had sworn, for generations, to face and never taught her how.

The demon tipped his head, gaze sliding past her to Renya. “So? I was told a Hashira lives here. I felt his fighting spirit.” A small smile. “Where is he?”

A Hashira? He’s looking for Father? Renri thought, breath catching on the place where it had been knocked out of her seconds ago. She pushed up on stinging palms.

Renya shifted in front of her, the bokken raised and quivering until he forced his breath slower, smaller, steadier. “Renren,” he whispered, not looking back. “Can you stand and run? Can you?”

“Yes,” she breathed something she didn’t recognize as her own voice. “I—yes. But—”

“Then run,” Renya said, levering himself up, left leg braced, bokken set at his hip as if drawing a sword. His breathing changed in the way she’d watched so many evenings from the engawa, the way that made his heartbeat go quiet and his body go still.

“Shadow Breathing. Third Form,” he breathed. “Mirage Step.”

Two quick beats of footwork, a skip in his own shadow—

The tatami cracked under his heel as he blurred, gone from where he’d stood, reappearing behind the demon’s shoulder with a ghosted skip of footsteps. The demon turned as if they were meeting in a doorway, too easily, amused. 

Renri didn’t wait to see the outcome; Renya was right, she was useless here. She gathered her legs under her, sprinted for the doorway while the demon’s grin widened, while Renya’s breath hitched—

Something tugged at her, a twin-born sense she didn’t have a word for yanked her head around mid-step.

She saw the demon’s hips twist, a casual, side-on kick. She saw Renya’s forearms come up too late. The impact made a sound Renri had only ever heard from firewood: clean, horrifying crack, a joint, a branch, something that should never break like that. Bone gave; muscle crushed; the kick carried through the guard into his ribs. Something inside him popped and blood burst from his mouth as his body flew sideways into a sliding wall. The wood collapsed around him with.

Renri froze mid-run. Her body forgot how to be a body. She tracked his arc to the pile of splintered boards and plaster, to the shape under them that should have been her brother. Something inside her chest tore itself smaller.

The demon lowered his leg, frowning. “Huh,” he said, like a man realizing he’d overestimated a step. “I expected more resistance.”

Past his bare feet, Renri saw the scuffed length of her naginata, its wrap gone loose. The demon shifted a fraction toward Renya, just enough to light every instinct she had;  she lowered her breath the way she’d seen and clumsily practiced in secret with Kazama’s help, tugging the rhythm into her lungs until her head rang. The tatami gave a whisper under her boot when she pivoted, leaving a small gouge in the grain. She rolled forward, caught the naginata and came up in a clumsy crouch between the demon and her brother, blade head trembling.

Only then, eye to eye with the thing that towered over her, did the stupidity of it bloom fully. Her hands shook. The forced breath burned in her lungs and broke into panicked gasps. “D-don’t,” she said, the words tripping over the gasps. “Don’t touch my—my brother—”

The demon blinked at her, confused like a cat. He squinted at her, then his face flattened into sincere, almost weary disappointment. “A woman.” A small exhale. “Figures.” He flicked a glance toward the broken shōji, to the orange that pulsed at the edge of the sky. Smoke pulled a line across his nose. “Almost dawn,” he said, more to himself than to her. “And it doesn’t look like an actual Hashira lives here.”

He turned for the walkway. Not a backward look, not a second of care.

“W—wait—” Renri said before her common sense could catch her tongue

Wait what? Shut up for once in your life—

“No need,” the demon said, the smallest wave of his hand. “I don’t waste time on women. Or the weak.”

And he was gone. Just gone. A breath of pressure lifted; the room felt wrong in its own shape. He had walked in, turned everything inside out, and left as if stepping away from a dull play.

Renri stared at the space he’d vacated until her vision steadied and her lungs remembered themselves.

A wet, broken sound pulled her back.

She dropped the naginata that clattered, hollow, and she scrambled to the collapsed wall. “Renya—!” She dug the wood away with bare hands, catching splinters, tearing nails and slicing her palms without feeling it, bracing and heaving a beam aside with strength that came from somewhere awful.

There: her brother.

She dragged him free an arm’s length, cradled his head onto her lap, and saw everything.

Too much to fix. Too much for anyone to fix.

The forearm was bent in a way arms didn’t bend, splintered from the middle; his ribs had caved in with an ugly inwardness; every attempt at a breath bubbled blood at his mouth.

All of that from one kick.

Her hands hovered over him, useless. Bandages, she thought wildly. No—water—no—someone—Kazama— “I’ll— I’ll find someone,” she said, and her voice broke. “Hold on, Onii-chan. Just—hold on. Kazama'll be—”

Renya's hand shot up and caught her wrist. His grip was wrong, too tight and too weak at once. “Renren,” he breathed, and the way he said it made her want to smash the world flat. “No need. It’s useless.”

“The hell it is!” she snapped, clutching his fingers with both of hers, pressing them to her chest as if she could pin him in his body. Tears broke loose despite everything. “Kazama will be here, and Father, and his stupid old comrade, they’ll do something, so stop talking like an idiot and—”

“Right,” he said, in that too-level, too-far tone, one eye open and unfocused. He coughed—thick, red—and smiled like the boy he’d been at ten. “Renren, if Father finds us like this—” He coughed and spilled red. “If he finds you over my body—this time…”

He didn’t finish. If Father came through that door to his precious son’s corpse and his inauspicious daughter breathing, no slap would end it this time.

“...So?” Her throat burned. “What sense is there in living without you?”

“Sorry,” he murmured around the blood, eyes drifting. “I never… could… do anything about… him…”

“Don’t—don’t waste—” she begged, bringing his hand to her cheek, the unbruised side, because her body already knew to protect what would be seen. “Save your breath. Save your breath, please—”

“Please,” he echoed, so faint she had to lean to hear, eyes already losing focus. He swallowed, fought his voice up one more time as the first thin light slid across the floorboard. “Don’t let him… hit you anymore… Live. Be happy… Be…”

The sentence never ended; silence did instead.

Renri waited. And waited. “Onii-chan…?”

His eyes looked at nothing. His mouth parted, blood still. His chest did not rise.

“Onii-chan…?” She nudged his shoulder. “Onii—?”

Nothing.

There is a quiet that has weight. It lowered itself over her shoulders now, pressed the crown of her head until she folded. A small, strangled sound escaped first, cracked and ugly; then, when it found there was no answer to shame her for it, it opened into helpless sobbing. She covered his face with her hair; her tears fell hot on his chest; the sun drew itself higher across the ruined room, and somewhere in the compound voices rose, orders cracked, wood groaned. Father? Kazama? It didn’t matter. All that mattered lay still before her, the larger half of a whole that had never been two.

That was how Kazama found her, thundering through the broken shōji at a speed his bad flank shouldn’t allow, breath ragged, eyes already searching. “Renri-sama! Renya-sama—” he called, and then he saw. The destroyed wall. Renri bent over her twin. The blood pooled dark under her knees.

He shut his eyes, his jaw shuddered. A soft curse bled between his teeth as he dragged a shaking hand over his face. Then, before the grief could sucker-punch him, he turned and drove his fist through the last intact shoji beside him. The paper tore; wood splintered; his knuckles opened in blood. He breathed in, out, once. Then he crossed the room.

“Renri-sama,” he said, voice forced steady.

She didn’t look up. “Kazama,” she said into Renya’s hair. “Renya— Onii-chan— he—”

“I know,” he said, and for a moment the anger in his throat rang plain. “But your father will be here in moments. He cannot find you like this—”

“I don’t care!” she cried, lifting her head, eyes swollen. “I won’t leave him—”

“You will,” he thundered, dropping to his knees. He caught her shoulder, turned her, took her face in one steadying hand and made her look at him. Grey eyes, the only adult eyes that had ever looked at her and not seen inconvenience.

He glanced at Renya; pain cut him open before he shut it with a swallow. He reached and, with the same tenderness he’d used on her first scraped knees, lowered Renya’s lids. When he looked back at Renri, his stare was harder, but it held. “I’ve watched you both since you couldn’t stand,” he said, low. “May lightning strike me where I kneel if I let your brother go and then lose you in the same morning.”

“What is the point of—” she tried, raw. “After—”

“You saw it,” he said. “The demon who did this.”

She thought of pink hair and blue lines and eyes like cracked glass. She nodded, hiccuping. “He… left. As if it was nothing.”

“Good,” Kazama said. “That’s reason enough to live.”

She blinked at him. Oh. Right. Renya was not nothing. And the demon was still out there.

Renri wiped her cheeks with frantic fingers and sucked the sobs back down, making herself small, then square. She looked down at her brother’s hand, lifted it, squeezed; set it back down, careful. 

“Permit bluntness, Renri-sama,” Kazama said. “When your father returns and finds you alive and him dead, nothing I do will save you from his rage. After yours, he’ll take my head.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But—”

Kazama studied her and something decided in his eyes. She lifted her chin and met him; the thought rose between them.

“No,” she said, hearing her own voice change. “No, no, absolutely not.”

“Renri-sama,” he said. “Even your parents failed to tell you apart at times. With luck, in three months you can leave this house as planned, you could walk out in your brother’s place—”

“It’s madness,” she hissed. “It’s—”

True.

She bit her lip.

It was possible. Renya’s voice had dropped, his face grown a shade more angular, but they were still fifteen, still so alike that servants bowed to the wrong one in dim corridors. If she kept her chin higher, shoulders squared, if she didn’t speak—

Her jaw set. Kazama heard it happen. “It’s the only way. Let me help you,” he stood and offered a hand.

Renri looked at it, then at Renya, and bent to press her forehead to her brother’s. “Onii-chan,” she whispered. “I’ll find him, I swear it. Just you wait.” She rose without looking back and took Kazama’s hand. Her body protested. She ignored it and straightened until the Asagiri blood in her felt like a weight she could use. “Kazama,” she said, and her tone had an edge she’d never used at before. “Help me make this madness work.”

He measured her for a breath, then bowed as if sealing a contract. “I'll follow you until my last breath.”

She gave him the smallest, helpless smile. “Then… what now?”

“Now,” he said, melancholy pulling at his mouth, “we make you passable.” He slipped a short tantō from his boot. “Forgive me.” He stepped behind her, gathered her hair at the base of her neck, pulled it taut.

The blade whispered. Renri yelped as a heavy rope of hair fell against her shoulders, then to the floor.

“Same length as Renya-sama’s,” Kazama said, already gauging, then without ceremony he lifted her andon bakama just so and slipped the tantō inside her boot. “Keep a knife in your boot. Always. And lower your voice when you speak.”

“Like this,” she tried, dropping it comically low.

“Less play, more Renya-sama,” he said, pitching a sample cadence. “And your face—” He grimaced. “The swelling will betray you.”

Renri touched the bruise from earlier. “We can’t fix it in minutes,” she said, thinking fast. Her eyes lifted to his. “Hit me on the other side. I'll say I fought against the demon.”

“Renri-sama—”

“So it doesn’t raise suspicion.” Her shrug was light and awful. “Don't worry. I’m used to it.”

The look he gave her suggested he would rather punch his own face, but voices were rising in the outer court now, a stir like men arriving. He swore under his breath and set his jaw. “Clench your teeth,” he said. “And forgive the insolence.”

She shut her eyes, braced—

His fist landed clean on the untouched cheek. She staggered, swore between her teeth. “Kazama—damn you—didn’t have to be that enthusiastic—”

He caught her shoulders, mortified and unrepentant at once, eyes dipping to the fresh flush blooming under her skin and the blood restarting at her lip.

Renri wiped it with the back of her hand and smeared it wider. “No time,” she said, steadying. She tried to smooth hair that wasn’t there, felt the unfamiliar lightness, swallowed it down. “Move.”

Kazama nodded, scanning the room, then her. “Clothes,” he said. “I’ll fetch Renya-sama’s kamishimo. But first—” He stopped, eyes dropping to the body on the tatami as smoke from the outer fires curled into the doorway.

“What…?” Renri asked from the threshold, already turning toward the hall, already folding herself into the shape of her brother.

“Renri-sama,” Kazama said, eyes on the far flames. “You won’t like this. Wait outside.”

Renri stared at him; the understanding slid into place like a blade. Right. Useless to impersonate the living if the dead remained recognizable. She clenched her jaw against the bile that climbed her throat and nodded once. “Right,” she said. “Thank you, Kazama. I’ll wait here.”

She turned and stepped out into an air full of burned wood, singed paper, hot silk, and the other smell she’d never forget. She stood in it and breathed until the sting steadied her eyes, until the ache in both cheeks became one thing, until her heartbeat found a rhythm.

No second thoughts. Those are for after. After I find that demon. After I avenge my brother. I'll go to hell gladly afterward.

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

Morning made the ash look almost harmless.

Renri stood just beyond the threshold of her room—what used to be her room—where the wood still smoked at the seams and the paper screens curled brown. She tugged at the stiff folds of Renya’s kamishimo, the silver lotus mon of her family catching weak light. “Stupid cloth,” she muttered, the fabric biting at her shoulders. She thumbed the binding flattening her chest, trying to ease a too-tight loop. “And stupid bandage.” Both cheeks throbbed and matched.

Beside her, Kazama didn’t look; his voice dropped to a thread. “Careful, Renr—” She leveled him a glare; he bit the wrong name and corrected himself. “Renya-sama. Someone might hear.” He took a narrow white ribbon from his sleeve, lifted his hands. “May I?”

Renri turned her back, exhaled, and let him do her hair; his hands were steady as he gathered her newly shorn hair, smoothing it into a neat low tail, tying the ribbon until it lay clean against her nape.

The last tug clicked something into place that had nothing to do with hair.

She squared her shoulders the way men did when delivering judgments, chin a fraction higher, gaze thinner. The posture felt like someone else’s coat. “Well?” she asked, pitching her voice lower.

Kazama studied her face; something mournful passed behind his gray eyes. He offered the naginata out of instinct, then stopped, sighed, and lowered it. “Yes,” he said softly. “You are identical.”

She looked down, because it was easier. “Good,” she said in that borrowed voice. “Good for what it is.” She raised her eyes. “Kazama.”

“Mm?”

“From now on, my name is Renya. Renri Asagiri is dead.” She met his gaze and didn’t blink. “I won’t need the naginata anymore.”

Kazama held her look, then nodded once and sent the weapon skittering off the engawa into the blackened garden.

“Let’s get to work,” she said.

Her hands twitched toward a girlish fold at her waist before she remembered and crossed her arms instead, a pale imitation of her father’s posture. The compound breathed ruin: servants digging in char, counting the gone; beams ticking as they cooled; ash hissing in puddles; the hush that follows screaming. The numbers climbed. Every time she shut her eyes, she saw Renya’s face the moment after the breath ended, the blood bright against his mouth. She had to keep them open or drown.

Renri cocked her head, listening toward the open ruined and burned room that had been hers.

Her father had returned at dawn, honored guests in tow, to find the house a scorched lung and a puddle of blood. Concern had crossed his face, honest, for a breath; then cooled the moment he’d laid eyes on “Renya.” The valuables was safe: the son, the name, the legacy. Her mother had even embraced her—an actual pair of arms briefly around her shoulders—murmuring about her poor son's bruised face and how bravely she had “fought the demons.” It was the first time in fifteen years anyone in that house had held her without checking a hem for dirt. After that, relief had soon folded into irritation at the estate damages.

Ridiculous, she thought. You don’t even know which child you lost.

Now the discussion had moved into the burned room—Renri’s room—where Renya lay, unknown to all but two.

“A hard blow, Asagiri-dono,” an older, hoarse voice said inside, severe but not urgent in the way a voice should be when standing over a family compound gone to ashes and a corpse. “If they’d known a demon like this was sniffing at your walls, they’d have sent someone sooner.”

The Flame Hashira, Renri's mind supplied.

He had passed her in the engawa with his son trailing; she’d kept her gaze lowered out of habit and because she couldn’t trust her face. The sour sting of saké had reached her anyway. This is the great Flame Hashira Renya was meant to follow in three months? Men.

“Undoubtedly,” her father agreed at once, his grief neatly folded and put away. “Our Renri will be deeply missed.”

Renri almost laughed. As if. Careful, Father. If you pretend any harder your face will stay like that.

“We trust this does not jeopardize our prior arrangement,” her mother put in, voice turned soft as lacquer. “Our Renya distinguished himself facing the demons. He remains eager to enter the Demon Slayer Corps and train under you.”

“Mn.” A sigh, the kind people make when they pretend to be sorry, from the Flame Hashira. “It changes nothing. The boy has a place if he passes Final Selection, after that I'll find him something to do. Frankly, you were just doing me a favor in giving your daughter to this useless son of mine.” A shrug, almost polite. “Consider it thanks for attempting… all this.”

... Uh?

Renri blinked.;then narrowed her eyes. So that was the vaunted Flame Hashira: indifference and sakè wrapped in fatigue. No wonder he and her father had once stood back-to-back. They had clearly attended the same school for fathers.

A warm chuckle answered that coldness, young, affable, too bright for a burned house.

The Flame Hashira's golden son, her mind supplied again. The one your father was arranging your marriage with.

He had also passed Renri a moment ago and, unlike his father, had stopped in front of her. Waiting, for a nod, a word, a look maybe. Renri had stared at the line of his sandal and given him nothing. He could still be waiting for all she cared, she had more urgent work than humoring a stranger: namely, not letting her father see through a lie sewn with shaking hands.

Her eyelid twitched. What could possibly be so funny? Your father just called you useless, she thought, and cut a look at Kazama, standing taller by her side. He lifted one shoulder by a millimeter, the same question and the same tension knotted across his shoulders.

Inside, the young man's voice carried on. “A tragedy, Asagiri-dono,” he said, somehow booming and sincere at once. “Your home and what befell your daughter.”

Something scraped, furniture moved, a pause in footfalls, then a tight “Kyōjurō,” from the Flame Hashira that sounded like a warning disguised as a name.

“Mm,” said Kyōjurō—so that was the name—unbothered. “Strange.”

“Strange?” Renri's mother asked.

“Your daughter's corpse,” he answered without ceremony. “Unrecognizable. Burned down to bone. I’ve never seen anything so thorough.”

Bile climbed Renri’s throat; she clapped a hand over her mouth, sweat going cold at her neck, and glanced at Kazama. He had gone pale beside her; whatever he’d had to do to keep her secret would live with him. With both of them.

“Why strange?” the Flame Hashira asked, not much interested. “The whole compound burned.”

“Exactly!” Kyōjurō brightened, grateful for the prompt. “At first I thought: a demon able to manipulate fire. But apart from the house, no other body was reduced like this, no one was burned. Odd, don’t you think?”

Odd, Renri echoed sourly in her head. Just what we need: a boy who thinks too clearly and too quickly. She aimed a glare at his general direction without ever seeing his face.

“My daughter used to be… spirited,” her father said, forgetting to sound sad. “She may have said something that angered the demon to this extent.”

“Oh, I can believe that,” Renri muttered, side-eyeing Kazama. “Even this is somehow my fault.”

“Quiet, Renya-sama,” he hissed back.

“Is that so?” Kyōjurō asked, confusion dimming his cheer by a degree. “Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss. We’ll track the demon and avenge your daughter in no time.”

“No, we won’t,” the Flame Hashira replied, irritated.

“There’s really no need,” her mother added with an out-of-place laugh.

“Leave it to us!” Kyōjurō surged on, undeterred as if he hadn’t heard either. “A demon that strike a demon slayer lineage and a former Hashira's house, and wreaks havoc like this must be a formidable one. He cannot be allowed to roam free!”

The words hit Renri like a hand on the back of her neck. Strike. Demon. Havoc. She heard the Flame Hashira scold—“I said no, Kyōjurō. If you must, do it alone”—but it came from far away.

Smoke curled into her nose again and her lungs forgot the measure she’d forced on them. 

The house in flames.

The demon’s blue-lined face.

Renya folding under that kick.

The gurgle of his breath.

The red at his lips.

Blood.

Blood.

Fire.

Fire—

A sharp nudge found her ribs. “Breathe,” Kazama murmured.

“Asagiri-san?” another voice chirped, gentler, trying to be cheerful without being disrespectful.

Renri’s eyes snapped open to a view of a standard black demon slayer uniform, a black sword hilt, and, because the speaker had on purpose bent his whole tall self into her lowered line of sight, a face very close to hers to catch the gaze of the boy he thought he was addressing.

Amber eyes. Thick brows. Hair like a painted flame, gold bright at the crown, falling into red at the tips, untamed. A plain travel cloak thrown back from his broad shoulders. Even folded nearly in half he radiated the kind of open confidence that made people stand straighter without knowing why.

He looked like someone had painted a flame and then asked it to be courteous.

Renri blinked, delayed.

Crouched as if peering into a birdhouse, he didn’t blink at all; he just waited there, curious rather than nosy.

Then, after too long Renri’s body chose surprise over poise and snapped her back so fast she clipped the blackened pillar behind her with the back of her head. “Ow—” Pain flared; she clapped a hand to her nape, mortified, while she sensed Kazama beside her choosing not to collapse through the floor from secondhand embarrassment. 

Instead, he performed a perfect bow to cover the noise. “Rengoku-san.”

“Ah! I knew it!” Kyōjurō brightened—as if he hadn’t already been bright—and bowed in return, then lit back on Renri with all the subtlety of the sun. “You're Asagiri-san, right? Apologies for startling you!” He waggled a finger in her vague direction, posture that wanted to be formal and kept forgetting and turning into eagerness. “With those swollen cheeks you look exactly like a squirrel. Are you injured?”

A squirrel? Renri stared, baffled; he seemed to think this was a comfort.

“…I—beg your pardon?” she managed, voice thin, lifting her hands to her cheeks.

“I mean,” Kyōjurō said, still smiling, “for a moment earlier I didn’t recognize you.” He waited for the return smile from her; it didn’t come. He still put his hands on his hips, unabashed. “You do remember me, yes?”

Crap.

Renya had mentioned glimpsing Rengoku-dono’s “golden son” once or twice.

“No—I mean, yes! Yes.” Her voice pitched too high, too her. She fought it down. “How... are you doing, uh... Rengoku-san?”

How did, normal boys’ greeted each others? She had never had to be a boy her age; not like this. She flicked a look at Kazama for help; he had tilted his face to the almost-blue morning and looked like a man willing himself into another plane of existence.

Kyōjurō looked from Kazama to Renri and back, amused. “Excellent!” he said, then seemed to remember himself and softened. “No—sorry, not excellent. The circumstances are dreadful. Anyway!” he said, lifting a palm. “Kyōjurō is fine. We’re close in age, I’m only seventeen, well, almost eighteen! And you are, besides Asagiri-san…?”

“Right. I'm... Only fifteen,” Renri said, to mimic Kyōjurō's introduction, “well, almost sixteen.” She swallowed, unsure of how to introduce herself. “You can call me Ren—” Her tongue slipped toward the wrong name. She bit it. “Ren—”

“Renren?” he suggested helpfully.

“What? No!” She felt the panic at the old nickname only her brother used on her.

“That’s what you said,” he replied, mock-frowning, clearly enjoying himself.

“I meant—Renya,” Heat rushed to her already bruised cheeks. “Asagiri Renya.”

“Ah! Renya!” His grin stretched broader, as if she’d passed a test. “May I still call you Renren?”

“Absolutely not,” she said flatly, dragging a hand over her face.

He laughed, warm and unbothered, then tipped his head, studying. “Still,” he said, thoughtful now, “I recall you a little taller.” He measured with a hand, just so, one head shorter than him, taller than Renri-by-habit by a couple of fingers. “By—this much?”

Precise. Accurate. Too much.

Renri went rigid. How? Not even my parents—

“Forgive me, Rengoku-san,” she tried, reaching for logic like a rope but finding none. “I—ah—I’m a little… diminished. My twin sister died.”

The smile dimmed without dying; he looked honestly puzzled for a heartbeat, as if trying to map grief to height. Then his face cleared. He smacked a fist into his open palm. “Oh! That makes sense,” he announced, satisfied, as if sorrow and height obeyed the same master.

No, it doesn’t, she thought weakly. But thank you for believing anything at all.

Kazama saved her by sliding half a step between them, body a polite wall. “Forgive the discourtesy, Rengoku-san,” he said smoothly. “Renya-sama’s… shaken.”

Kyōjurō leaned sideways to keep Renri in his line of sight while Kazama leaned with him to block it, an awkward little dance of good intentions.

His cheer thinned to something simple and true. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about your sister. I mean it.”

Renri looked up, startled. It was the first true condolence anyone had offered her since the lie began, and it came from a stranger with furnace eyes.

“She sounded like a great person,” he added, “from what you told me last time.”

Ah. Renya had talked about her. Of course he had; he always did, about her impatience, her naginata footwork, her habit of eating sweets too fast and then pretending she hadn’t. The thought tried to rip a fresh hole through her. Renri pressed it down and bowed her head instead.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The Flame Hashira’s sandals rasped, followed by her father’s. Her mother drifted behind them.

“Are you certain, Shinjurō?” Renri's father said. “We can arrange accommodations despite our current condition.”

“Certain,” the Flame Hashira, Shinjurō Renri registered, said, waving it off, while his flame-edged haori flicked at his calves. “Kyōjurō, stop loitering.”

“Yes, Father!” Kyōjurō snapped to attention; the brightness didn’t dim, unhurt by the disdain it answered.

Renri smelled the sake again, saw the resemblance and the difference in a flash: same bones, but the look in the eyes—very different. One disappointed with everything in reach and the son in front of him; one determined to be delighted anyway.

Something ugly in Renri recognized the curve of that look. She looked away before it could be a mirror.

Her mother tested the agreement. “So—what we just discussed? Not a problem?”

“We must report this mess anyway,” Shinjurō said. “We leave for Niigata by the first train.”

Thank the gods, Renri thought, crossing her arms to hide the small, shaky exhale. The less time around the perceptive boy, the better—

“—and the boy would be at Final Selection in a few months regardless,” Shinjurō added. “So we may as well.”

Wait. Boy? May as well what?

“Renya.” Father’s voice cracked across the porch.

She turned just as his hand lifted. Habit acted first; she flinched, hands half-raised to shield a face she was no longer allowed to have.

Everyone froze.

A cough—pointed, not subtle—came from Kazama.

Right. Renri dropped her hands, one beat late. Her father studied her with severe curiosity, too much.

“Apologies, Fath—Chichiue,” she corrected fast, breath thin. “The demon… it was—” She tugged at the edge of the kamishimo as if it were an explanation. “—complicated.”

“Complicated,” Kazama echoed, bowing low.

The smile he gave her had weight and pride in it; it had never once been turned toward Renri. He set a heavy hand on her shoulder. “My son fought well in defense of his sister,” he said to the audience of men who mattered.

Shinjurō’s look said he didn’t buy any part of the sentence but nodded anyway. Kyōjurō nodded too, so vigorously it was almost a bow.

Relief loosened Renri’s spine by a hair. The lie held. For now.

“Prepare your things,” her father said.

“…my things?” She heard the smallness in her own voice.

“You will not be distracted from Final Selection by the chaos here at home,” he went on, gestured at Shinjurō, who was half-stifling a yawn. “You’ll go with them to Niigata. Be their guest until the Final Selection.”

Renri’s mind fell through the floor. “With… them?” Her finger lifted toward Kyōjurō of its own accord.

“With us!” Kyōjurō echoed brightly, pointing at himself.

“With us,” Shinjurō said, flat. “Don’t expect much. We have no time to coddle you with training.” He finally let the yawn escape.

Oh no, Renri thought, a whisper squeezed flat. She found Kazama’s gaze and saw twenty new years settle into his face.

The lie had already felt impossible. Now the floor had dropped away entirely.

The Final Selection, her thoughts ran in a panic. Train. Live under another Hashira’s roof. Train. Three months? With him watching? How? She had never drawn a real sword, she had a lie and a promise and a heartbeat that wouldn’t slow.

“I want Kazama with me,” she blurted before fear could stop it.

Kazama gave her a betrayed glare that said: really? But Renri didn’t back down. “Ren—Renri is gone,” she said, eyes on Father. “He isn’t needed here if I leave. He can help me train for the Final Selection.”

Two stern looks pinned her and she dropped her gaze suddenly very interested in the crescent chip in the floorboard.

Kazama stepped in. “Asagiri-dono. Rengoku-dono. I intended to re-enlist in the Demon Slayer Corps. Four years’ service before a bad injury, but I still handle Wind Breathing decently. If I may—”

Her father glanced at Shinjurō. Shinjurō sighed as if asked to move a teacup, then shrugged a tired “do as you like,” and turned down the engawa. “Hurry,” he told the boys without looking back. “Kyōjurō, help him.”

Kyōjurō snapped a bright “Yes!”

Her father squeezed Renri’s shoulder once—hard, approving—and moved off with her mother. Their steps faded, leaving the three of them in the thinned smoke. Renri watched their backs, every nerve braced to hold the shape of a son long enough to leave and squeezed her eyes shut.

Renya's voice rang in her head; “I can still do something unlike you.”

Right. There was no time for doubt or fear; she was alive when Renya was not. She couldn't waste her life just yet. She could do this. She would pass Final Selection. She would hunt the demon with the bored eyes. She would—

“Renren?”

She winced, snapping her eyes open. Kyōjurō had popped back into her orbit at shoulder height, bent too far again to beam up into her line of sight. “You held off all alone the demon who did all this? That’s no small feat! Your Shadow Breathing must be excellent!”

She shut her eyes. No. I was only lucky. “Mm,” she said instead.

“I can’t wait to see it once you join the Demon Slayer Corps!” he went on, clapping her shoulder with the kind of strenght that could knock down a fence. “Let’s work hard, hn?”

The slap landed right on the knot of tension in her chest. The nausea that had braided in her stomach for two hours chose that moment to find the nearest exit.

Renri turned her head to warn him; too late. She bent at the waist and emptied her stomach neatly, decisively—

Directly onto Kyōjurō Rengoku’s sandals.

Chapter Text

TEMPER

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

Noon in Niigata hammered harsh light over the rooflines until everything looked too clean.

Renri squinted up from the road and crossed her arms, determined not to be impressed. The Rengoku estate loomed beyond a traditional dark beams gate, an ordered sprawl of interlocking wings and engawa wrapped around multiple inner courts with stone lanterns in the moss, koi ponds, maples staked for winter, and bamboo.

It was, to her irritation, almost exactly the Asagiri estate, down to the curve of the corner eaves, only stripped of the lotus mon. Same old Edo lines. Same traditional austerity. Same weight of a family that believed itself inevitable.

She leaned left. Then right. The wrinkle between her brows deepened. “Uh,” she murmured. “This is—”

“Extremely familiar,” Kazama said at her left, with the bundle of her belongings balanced in one arm.

“Naturally!” Kyōjurō answered from her right—he always materialized on her right—cheer undimmed by traveling home from Tokyo barefoot thanks to her earlier… incident. He set his fists on his hips, chest forward as he beamed at the compound. “The Rengoku family has served as Flame Hashira for generations, every generation. Our home has stood since the Sengoku period.”

He said it as if the whole compound was his. Which wasn’t wrong, Renri thought; not yet his, but the way he stood made it easy to imagine.

Shinjurō did not bother to imagine anything; he swept past them with a grunt, under the gate, and didn’t look back. “Stop making it sound grand, Kyōjurō,” he said, bored and irritated all at once. “It’s nothing.” His hand flicked sideways without slowing. “Put the brat and his nanny somewhere far from my room.”

Renri watched the white haori with painted flames recede, the man inside it intent only on distance. As if they had never existed, he left.

“…Wait,” she said, pointing at herself. “I’m the brat?”

“And I am the nanny?” Kazama’s eyebrow twitched.

Wonderful. He’s worse sober than drunk, Renri decided, exhaling through her nose. She slid a glance at Kyōjurō and, for the first time since she’d met him, his face was small as he watched his father go with distant eyes. Ah, she thought, a little surprised. Not so untouched by it as you want the world to think.

“Rengoku-san?” she prompted, low.

“It’s Kyōjurō, Renren,” he corrected gently, the smile snapping back into place so fast it made her blink.

“Right. Kyōjurō… san,” she couldn't help herself, then jerked her chin toward Kazama. “Our things. Where can Kazama leave them?”

Kyōjurō took the question exactly as seriously as a battlefield order. He stepped beneath the gate, surveying the entry court with his hand at his chin. An elderly housekeeper slipped past in a gray yukata; he stopped her with a kind word. “Please show Asagiri-san and Kazama-dono the spare rooms—the east-wing building that faces the little garden. Where Kanroji stays when she visits.”

“Kanroji...?” Renri repeated.

“A ward I’m preparing for the same Final Selection you’ll attend,” Kyōjurō said as pride, not boast, warmed his tone.

Great, Renri thought. Another boy to fool. Another complication.

The housekeeper bowed low. “At once, Rengoku-sama.”

Kyōjurō fell back into a quick, friendly tour-guide cadence as they crossed the threshold. “This wing is mostly mine to use for training my ward. Father rarely sets foot there, so you may practice without hindrance, as long as you keet away from the main quarters where—”

Renri stopped listening; her eyes traced the turning of the hall, the exact turn that would lead to the family head’s rooms at Asagiri.

“Kazama,” she said, already peeling away down the opposite engawa without waiting to see if Kyōjurō stopped talking. “Follow the housekeeper and set our things.”

“Ren—Renya-sama, where—?”

Kyōjurō blinked, head tipped, politely perplexed. “Renren,” he called, falling easily into step beside her, a little worried beneath the delight. “That’s funny. This is exactly where I asked you not to go.”

She snorted and lengthened her stride. “If the Flame Hashira thinks he can dump me here without a word and ignore me until Selection, he’s wrong.”

“If I can offer advice,” Kyōjurō tried again, a shade less sunny, “it’s a terrible plan. It’s been a long night for everyone. Rest would be wiser—”

He saw she wasn’t listening, sighed, and matched her pace without effort as she navigated the walkways with uncomfortable confidence. The place was a mirror of her home. Left turn, shallow courtyard, two stone lanterns—there. Renri turned a corner she already knew would exist and walked nose-first into a white haori.

Shinjurō had stopped just beyond the bend, perfectly still, as if he’d known she’d come and decided to become a wall just to make a point.. When he looked down over his shoulder, the gaze had too much weight, just like her father's. Instinct clawed up at her—bow, hands folded, eyes down, make yourself smaller—but she dug her nails into her palms and stayed upright.

“Kyōjurō,” Shinjurō said, voice low. “You good-for-nothing, I told you to keep the brat away.”

Kyōjurō accepted the insult like rain, nodded as if spoken to kindly, but something in his shoulders drew taut. “Yes, Father. Asagiri-san, let’s—”

“No,” Renri said, before her good sense could catch it.

Both men paused: Shinjurō’s expression went flat; Kyōjurō made a soft “Ah.”

“…No?” Shinjurō repeated, not blinking.

Oh no. Renri swallowed. Too late to retreat, and she needed answers; she lifted her chin the way Renya did when their father tested him and pushed the words out steady. “Rengoku-dono, my father said you would explain how to—how to reach and... pass the Final Selection.” The last words shook.

That surprised him. It surprised Kyōjurō too; his brows knit, he glanced from his father to the “boy” and back again, then slid smoothly between them, smile tightening and a hand landing a fraction too hard on her shoulder. “Asagiri-san, I truly think now is—”

“How to reach—” Shinjuro repeated, incredulous as if she’d asked him to knit a scarf. Then he barked a laugh that had no humor in it. “Brat, I told you not to expect anything here. This isn’t your house where they coddle you, If your father didn’t tell you basics that’s on him not me!”

Coddle? Renri felt heat crawl up her neck. “Wait—aren’t you a Hashira?” she shot back, voice jumping a half-step louder than wise. “Isn’t it literally your job to advise—”

“Oh, you want a Hashira’s advice?” Shinjurō leaned down until they were eye to eye, pressure suddenly in the air; Renri flinched despite herself. “Give up.” Each word landed like a tap with a hammer. “It’s obvious at a glance, you’re weak, talentless, your voice shakes. Or go to Final Selection anyway and die. Your father’s problem, not mine.” He straightened, shrugged his haori off his shoulders as if it offended him, and let it fall. “There’s your advice. Satisfied? Now disappear.”

A beat held as he turned to leave.

“Ah,” Kyōjurō's smile tried to hold and didn’t; he squeezed Renri’s shoulder once, a fraction warning and a fraction apology. “Well, expressing your feelings aloud is healthy, Renren. It releases tension!” he said too brightly. “But let’s channel them productively.” He bent to pick the fallen haori with more care than it deserved; he folded it square and steady, and Renri’s vision went tight around the edges.

In—four. Hold—one. Out—five.

Not working.

Heat crawled up her neck, not grief this time: was she angrier at the dismissal from a man her brother had foolishly admired? At the jab meant for her wearing Renya’s face? At the casual contempt for the son who picked up after him either too good to be hurt or too practised at not showing it—?

Every answer was yes.

Before reason could drag her back, she took a step after Shinjurō. “Rengoku-dono,” she called, boots loud on the board. “Rengoku-dono!”

Shinjurō had reached his shōji, slid them open, dropped a curse under his breath. “The gods—enough!” he snapped, reaching for the shōji and starting to close them in her face. “Stop talking. Kyōjurō—just drag him away—”

Renri threw her shoulder into the gap on instinct and the door bit into her bruised cheek. Kyōjurō lunged with alarming speed at the same moment behind her and planted both his palms against the shoji, arms braced on either side of her head to brace the panels open before they sheared her in half.

From down the hall a young soft voice called, tentative. “Brother… is everything—?”

“—all good, Senjurō!” Kyōjurō called back in a too-confident tone. His forearms trembled from strain as Shinjurō shoved from the inside. “Just—a very spirited guest!”

Renri’s cheeks burned, at the word spirited, at being flattened between the web of Kyōjurō’s arms, an angry Hashira and a sliding door like kindling; she glared up at the Flame Hashira through the slit.

“I said,” she ground out, “you owe me how to pass Final Selection and enter the Demon Slayer Corps!”

“And I said,” Shinjurō shoved harder, “get lost! Don’t you have a nanny to pester?”

Kyōjurō huffed against her shoulder and leaned more of himself into the wood; Shinjurō just shoved harder; the shoji bulged under three stubborn people and a lifetime of bad habits.

“I can't believe this,” Renri threw, desperate enough to grab the only leverage she had. “So this is how you treat a old comrade’s son?”

All the wrong words, apparently.

“Old comrade—?” Shinjurō’s hands stilled a fraction. The he let go of the shōji; the pressure vanished and sent Kyōjurō stumbling and Renri pitching forward while Shinjurō’s hand shot, fisted the front of her kosode, and yanked her up onto her toes.

Renri froze. She reached for his wrist on instinct to keep the tug from loosening the binding concealing her secret under the kosode, but he didn’t budge; if anything, his grip tightened.

“I've had enough of you Shadow Breathing pretenders!” he said, low enough that it felt private. “Look at you. Presumptuous, like your father. You Asagiri, aways competing, always jealous, building a copy of our house, calling your line ‘distinguished’ when your Shadow Breathing is but a weak imitation of the Flame Breathing.”

“W—we—weak…?” Renri stammered. That was not the old comrades fairytale she’d been fed.

“Weak,” Shinjurō went on, almost conversational. “Do you know what they call it? Flame Breathing for the weak and cowards. Trick footwork and feints for boys who can’t meet a strike head-on. Your father is a petty climber who should have retired before he embarrassed himself.” He loosed a humorless breath. “Now he plague me for months to sponsor his foolish son!”

Silence.

Kyōjurō’s hand came down, too steady, on his father’s forearm. “Father,” he said, not smiling now. “I believe Asagiri-san understands.”

Shinjurō stared at his son for a long, hard second but Kyōjurō didn’t move. For a heartbeat Renri thought Shinjurō would hit him. He didn’t; instead, he dropped Renri so fast she had to catch herself

“Enough. It’s pointless anyway, there’s always someone stronger out there.” He batted Kyōjurō’s hand away and turned. “Out of my sight—both of you.”

Renri stood exactly where he’d dropped her, chest heaving, ears ringing.

Weak? Our breathing style? Renya— 

Renya’s last stand flashed behind her eyes; the the way his breath had gone quiet and still, the way he'd used Shadow Breathing, crumpling and still choosing to stand between her and death anyway. Weak? The demon’s voice drifted up like smoke: I don’t waste time on women. Or the weak.

Something in her snapped.

No. Renya was not weak.

Her breath slipped without permission into the shape she’d memorized after seeing Renya's training a thousand times, after tracing it with bare feet on cold tatami, mimed it with broom handles behind closed doors; heartbeat going quiet, body aligning to a line only he could find. Heartbeat hush, muscles quiet, a thin, dangerous stillness. 

“Shadow Breathing, Third Form—” She bent, tore the tantō from her boot, and let photographic memory take the reins, left leg braced, tantō set as if drawing a katana. “Third Form. Mirage Step.”

“Ren—” Kyōjurō started, alarmed.

Too late.

Two quick steps—beat-beat—her shadow skipped, her body blurring sideways, the engawa cracking under her heel as she vanished from where she’d stood and reappeared behind Shinjurō’s shoulder, tantō lifted for the smallest, stupidest moment—

—and her lungs locked. Pain knifed her ribs. Her momentum failed.

Shinjurō barely looked; his hand caught her wrist mid-swing, he turned her as if she weighed nothing, and slammed her chest-down on the woodboard. A knee pinned her spine, her arm was wrenched up between her shoulder blades until sparks burst behind her eyes.

Air wouldn’t go in; she sucked at it anyway, fast and useless, her eyes watered at anger or lack of breath, she couldn’t tell.

“See?” he said above her, vaguely disgusted. “A fake front and a sneaking strike, and you can’t even hold the breathing. What, your father never trained you—” He broke off, blinked down, a quick, split-second confused crease between his brows, as his gaze flicked from her face to the hand he held. There, he noticed the blade in her grip. He clicked his tongue, and twisted her wrist until the tantō clattered free. “Are you deranged?!” he snapped. “A blade in your boot, really? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Renri gasped, cheek pressed to the wood. “Always—always have a—knife in your boot—”

He stared at her like she was a problem the world had made on purpose to annoy him. Then he grimaced, irritation overtaking anger. “Fine. You want something to do that badly? Starting tomorrow, every morning you will fetch two casks of sake from Tsuki-no-Mori, over the river, through the foothill grove,” he said, picking a place that sounded far and rough on the map.

“Are you insane?” Renri wheezed, pushing up on a shaking palm. “I’m here to train, not—”

“Every day. No exceptions,” he rolled over her. “If you get help, if you miss a delivery, if I hear your whining voice only once again, I’ll kick you back to your father and make sure your pointless career as a Demon Slayer ends before it begins. Clear?”

A beat.

“I said clear?!” He levered her arm higher until she yelped.

“Clear! Clear—ow—ow—I said clear!” she choked, nodding fast.

“Good. Now, you have no one to blame.” 

The weight lifted from her back; the hold on her wrist lingered one breath longer, twisting, and then dropped. The sudden absence of weight knocked her wrist to the floor with a dull thud. She lay there while the door slammed and the house swallowed the echo.

Silence fell in a rush.

Her breath fought its way back, uneven, ugly, and one long, humiliating exhale shudder out of her; the anger drained into a heavy, useless ache, hating the helplessness almost more than the pain. She blinked, and tears pooled, hot and unasked for, and slid into the grain. She stared at the knuckles of her open hand until they stopped trembling; after everything she had promised in a burning house, here she was, face on the floor, nothing to show.

Small. Useless.

“Renren?”

Kyōjurō was crouched in front of her again, bright without being loud. Renri blinked up into his face, then at his offered hand, callused palm open.

“Up you go, hot-head,” he said. “I’ll help you stand.”

Renri didn’t take his hand; she pressed the heel of her palm to her eyes as if she could shove the tears back in and made a mortifying sound halfway between a snort and a hiccup. “Stop looking at me like that,” she muttered.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m not hopeless.”

“You’re not,” he said simply.

“I—” Her voice shook. She hated it; so much for sounding like a boy. “I knew it was stupid. I just… I needed him to say something that wasn’t—” she muttered into the floor, voice wobbling despite every effort to pin it steady. “This is pathetic, I’m—Sorry I’m literally crying on your engawa like a child.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. It didn’t help; the sting only pulled the rest loose. Niigata’s unfamiliar light, the distance from home, her brother’s last breath, the Flame Hashira calling her weak, and her own body proving him right.

If that was strength, then she had none.

“He’s right,” she whispered, hating how thin she sounded. “He said—he said I’m weak and talentless and I proved him right, I couldn’t even finish the form, I—” The last word dissolved into a tremor.

Kyōjurō didn’t withdraw his hand, he stayed where he was, still crouched, listening with that too-bright attention of his like she was giving a report and he fully expected her to succeed at crying. “Hm. My father went too far,” he said, kind in a way that didn’t feel like pity. “Don’t carry his words like stones.”

Renri let out something like a laugh that missed its mark. “He said I should die in the Final Selection. That usually sticks.”

He glanced toward the closed shōji, then back; the smile returned, more thoughtful. “He hasn’t always been like that. Until not long ago he was… another person.” A small breath. Then, with a brisker tone, “Also, Renren, you went too far too! Threatening a head of house, in his own home, after he’s taken you in?” He rocked back on his heels, thoughtful, and tilted his head: fair point, but also. “Bold! Also, a bad idea!”

Renri glowered at the boards. “I didn’t threaten him,” she muttered, swiping furiously at her face. “I… requested instruction.”

“Mm!” he said, as if she’d answered correctly. “I do understand your point. But from where I stand, I don’t think talent decides who stands up again. Effort does. Practice does. Working hard is more extraordinary than talent. Talent is convenient but the hard work is a noble choice, renewed every day And,” he added, the corners of his mouth lifting making the thought sound obvious, “I don’t think you lack talent.”

Renri dared a glance up. “You just watched me collapse mid-form.”

“Yes!” he said, delighted by his own logic. “You fell like a sack of rice halfway through your Shadow Breathing! Not what I expected!” He nodded, as if he’d found something encouraging and for a second she forgot to be offended. “But my father surely didn’t expect a tantō in your boot, and very few people make him that angry that fast. That’s a talent in itself!” 

“That’s not—” Renri’s laugh came out soggy and helpless. “That’s not comforting.”

“Anyway!” he hurried on, as if he’d remembered he was meant to be comforting. “The step itself—hn! Very interesting! What happened was not a moral failure, but a technical one. You ran out of breath, but you placed your feet well.” He nodded, satisfied. “We’ll build on that.”

We’ll? The word nicked something soft inside her. She blinked at him, not entirely sure if she was being comforted or given homework and hated him a little for how the corners of her lips wanted to lift.

“Besides,” Kyōjurō beamed, voice dimming to a steady warmth, “my mother always said it is the duty of the strong to help the weak. That is the duty that comes with strength, doesn't really matter if that strenght comes from talent or hard work.”

Renri’s head snapped up, mortification and a prickle of temper colliding. He’d just—called her weak while comforting her? “Your mother sounds like a great person, unlike your father,” she said, quiet. “I can... see who you take after.”

That put a pause across his face, like a bruise that hadn’t faded. “Yes. She was,” he said at last. The smile returned, smaller at the corners. “She believed strength meant kindness first My father believed that to, when she was still alive.”

“Oh.” Renri looked down. “I didn’t… know.” A beat. “I’m sorry. I mean it.”

Kyōjurō frowned, just a pinch, as if something clicked wrong inside his head. “You didn’t know…?” A beat in which he studied her, unblinking. Then the frown smoothed fast and without the usual fanfare his hand—gods help her—came down on her head.

“There there.”

Pat. Pat.

Renri made a strangled noise. “Why are you—why are you patting my head?”

“Because,” he replied, extremely serious, “from this angle you look like someone who could use it.”

She lifted her face just enough to glare, heat crawling up her ears, and immediately looked away because actually the broad, warm palm on her hair felt... good. “Stop doing that,” she mumbled, curling her fingers into her sleeves. 

“Why? You did well,” he said simply. His voice had lost its theatrical rise and fall, warm in a steadier way. “You stood your ground. Your sister would be proud, I think.”

Renri froze, feeling the heat where his palm lingered. It wasn’t the worst thing. “My bro—” she bit the word off, flipped it clumsily. “My sister used to… to do this,” she muttered, and his mouth curved faintly. “When… when I was upset.”

Kyōjurō’s eyes widened. “Oh! Then,” he said softly, “I will do it in her stead.” He patted again, twice, earnest and a shade too enthusiastic, pat-pat-pat.

“Enough!” Renri blurted, swatting lightly at his wrist but the protest came wrapped around a reluctant laugh. “You really have no sense of boundaries.”

“On the contrary!” He withdrew, still smiling unoffended, palm out again as if he’d done this a hundred times for fallen recruits. “Now, first lesson: you always stand back up. I mean, you can stay down there, if you like,” he said gently, “but the floor doesn’t listen very well.”

For a moment, Renri saw someone older than his years, the brightness worn like armor, not born of it. She sniffed, eyed the hand like a trap, knuckles scuffed pale from a thousand hours at a sword hilt, then—because lying on the floor was worse—took it.

Kyōjurō’s hand was steady, no joking this time. He pulled harder than necessary, a clean, efficient jerk meant for a heavier body, and Renri popped upright with a startled little hop, and only didn’t fall because he caught her elbow, paused surprised, still not letting go.

Renri hated how safe it felt.

“Ah. You’re lighter than I expected.”

Her breath snagged. The corridor swam for a half-second; she forced her face to stillness. 

Crap.

She yanked her hand back, but he held, thoughtful now, not because he’d forgotten, but because he turned it palm-up and studied it. “Wait,” he said, drawing her hand closer.

Renri stared as he rotated her wrist, thumb tracing the base of her fingers. Her heartbeat did a small, horrified flip as his thumb moved, heat slid up her arm for absolutely no reason.

“Wh-what are you doing,” she managed, pitching her voice lower.

Kyōjurō hummed. “No roughness at all. That's odd.” He tipped his head, brow knitting. “our hands are far too delicate for someone who’s trained with a sword since childhood. You’ve a scholar’s hands, not a swordsman’s.”

Renri yelped and snatched back her hand. “I—I use gloves!” she blurted.

This time he let go but for a second he looked too focused, assessing her face; then he smiled again, warm and confident. “Renren, you are without question a spirited guest,” he declared. “But look at you,” he pointed, pleased with himself. “The scowl you’ve been wearing since Tokyo is gone. Better.”

“It’s not—!” Renri felt something odd in her stomach, light and traitorous. She gave a frantic swipe of her sleeve across her face, hoping to smother it down. He’s just being nice, she told herself. He’s nice to everyone.

She turned her back under the pretense of adjusting her kosode, tugging the collar higher, too high, until it nearly strangled, fingers checking the binding beneath. The knot in her stomach loosened by a finger’s width as she risked a quick glance over her shoulder, embarrassed that she’d let him see her crumble and that now she wanted reassurance from him of all people. 

The words slipped out before she could stop them. “Do you… really think what you said?” She swallowed. “That if I work hard I can—” Her mouth flattened, hating how hopeful she sounded. Say it. “—pass the Final Selection. Even if I’m…” She hated the word. “Well. Weak.”

“Of course!” Kyōjurō said, naturally from her right shoulder. She jumped and slammed the Renya-mask back on, chin lifted an overconfident hair; he grinned, meeting her eyes directly. “As I mentioned, I’m already preparing another ward for this Final Selection. I’ll direct you as well and make sure you know what you need to know.” He lifted a palm, started to list things, stopped, and simply smiled, hands planted on hips, like a poster for good decisions. “Don’t worry!”

…Wait. Some ridiculous bubble of relief rose in her chest. Was something actually going right?

Renri’s head snapped toward him, hope flared so fast it felt foolish. For one suspended heartbeat, she saw him like a rope tossed across a gap.

“Wait. Really?” she blurted, fists curling at her chest, a ridiculous little grin sneaking up her face before she could stop it, small, then brighter, then bright.

The expression surprised her; it must’ve surprised Kyōjurō, too, because he did a tiny double-take, the kind a person got when a stray cat chose their lap, before doubling his smile to match. “Really! I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

“Really really?” she pressed closer despite herself.

“Really really!” He grinned to match. “I’d planned to offer regardless. I’m a Cultivator and a Kinoe-ranked demon slayer, as you said this is literally my job! I’ll introduce you to Kanroji; you two will be partners for drills.”

“Kyōjurō-san! Thank you! “I knew you weren’t like your father.” The words slipped before she could soften them and her fingers caught the edge of his sleeve—as if to make sure her savior didn’t vanish—and she wrinkled her nose, suddenly babbling promises: “I promise won’t waste your time, I won’t make you regret it, I swear I’ll work hard, I—I’ll do anything you say but please don’t ever make me talk to your father again—wait.” She froze, replaying the conversation, then squinted up at him. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I launched myself at your father like an idiot.”

Kyōjurō blinked at the pinch on his sleeve, then at her face; just a hint of awkwardness before he laughed again. “I tried,” he wagged a finger, scolding. “But you set off like a firework and ignored every word. Admirable spirit, truly!”

“It’s not admirable!” she snapped, almost sulky. “Now your father expects me to—oh. Wait!” She brightened, tightening her hold on his sleeve. “If you’re handling my instruction, that means I don’t have to do that stupid errand for him, right?”

“Ah.” Kyōjurō’s smile went very polite; he lifted one hand and tipped it side to side. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help with that. You did, in fact, infuriate him. These are the consequences.”

She shot him a betrayed look that was supposed to be a glare and got lost somewhere midway. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side!” He beamed harder, utterly earnest. “Good luck!”

 ─ ·蓮· ─ 

Morning came mean and pale.

Renri sat cross-legged on the tatami in her borrowed room, swaying a little like a boat tied to a post, wearing a white juban; it had slouched off one shoulder, and the air on her skin made her feel very, very human and—unhelpfully—very not-boy. 

“Kazama. You're cruel. Why?” She was only half awake and three-quarters stubborn. “It’s barely dawn. Five more minutes.”

Behind her, Kazama—already immaculate in a standard Demon Slayer uniform he hadn’t worn in years, hair tied—grunted as he dragged a comb through the short tail he’d forced from her sleep-snarled black hair. “Because,” he said, tugging with zero mercy. “Not only you must make up years of training in three months, now you have successfully antagonized the head of this house and owe him deliveries. So, you may not have five more minutes.”

She made a small offended noise that, regrettably, sounded like a whine. “Ow,” she hissed. “How are there knots in a low ponytail.”

“For the eleventh time, I would like to know what defect prevents your mouth from staying closed during critical moments.”

Renri folded in on herself, pulling her knees up so the hem of the juban covered more thigh. “Kyōjurō-san said he’d be my patron instead of his father,” she offered, small but hopeful. “He’ll take care of—”

“Ah. Of course Kyōjurō-san will take care of it. Kyōjurō-san. Naturally, it is Kyōjurō-san now,” Kazama muttered, the name turning into sand in his mouth and it was almost but not really respectful. “What a blessing: we have delegated all problems to an overly perceptive, overly friendly Hashira’s son who has no concept of personal space, believes he has the right to orbit you at will and has decided the sun rises by his authority.”

It sent a ridiculous flutter down her stomach. She pressed her face into her sleeve. Get it together, Renri. “He calls me Asagiri-san when it counts.”

“And ‘Renren’ the rest of the time,” Kazama grumbled. “

“Rest assured, he does not suspects anything. He’s just—friendly,” she said, but it came out softer than she meant. Her thumb rubbed absently at her palm.

“That’s what worries me,” Kazama said dryly.

She rested her chin on her knees. “He reminds me of Renya,” she said, smaller, drawing her knees up, chin against them. The juban slid farther and she yanked it up one-handed. “Not—not the loud part. The way he stands in front of things. Even the way he says Renren. I know it’s stupid. I just—” She swallowed. “I miss him.”

Kazama’s hands softened. “Yes,” he said. A breath. “I miss him too. He got up without complaint at morning, unlike some people.”

“That is a lie,” she said into her knees.

He cinched the ribbon at the base of her neck with a final decisive pull, then came around to face her, feet planted, arms folded like a general addressing a very small, very insubordinate recruit who was also somehow his child.

“Now, Renya-sama, listen carefully. I do not practice Shadow Breathing,” he said, softer. “But I can put you in the right shape to survive it. Your advantage is not strength, it is here.” He tapped his temple. “Your obscene visual memory; you see things once and keep them. Do not argue, I have caught you mimicking your brother’s footwork in secret more times than I can count.” His mouth twitched. “Every Shadow Breathing form's in your head.” Tap. “But until you master the breathing, using them will only hurt you like yesterday.”

Renri stayed very un-ladylike on the floor, hugging her knees. “Yesterday,” she said, and then, smaller, “the Flame Hashira said that the Shadow Breathing is… Flame Breathing for weak and cowards.”

Kazama tilted his head, considering. “I understand why he said that.” He didn’t sound offended, only factual. “Shadow Breathing’s principles are—”

“Feints, misleading steps, sudden repositioning, striking from an angle or from behind, using momentum that isn’t yours.” She recited them like a mantra, then slumped. “I know.”

“Not the noblest style,” Kazama agreed. “but nobility won’t keep you alive. Shadow Breathing suits you because you don’t have time to build mass for head-on aggression like the Flame Breathing. But it devours stamina; to reach that unnatural stillness and then explode from it, you alternate incredibly slow breathing with incredibly fast breathing. It drains you.” He pointed to her ribs. “Therefore: first, we build lungs.”

Renri groaned into her knees. “Don’t say it.”

“Renya-sama used to ran thirty laps around the compound each morning and each night.”

“Thirty?!” she squeaked, collapsing backward onto the futon and hugging the blanket like a shield. “That’s not running, that’s a pilgrimage—”

“Renren!” From outside the shoji, a voice arrived—too bright for any hour, let alone this one.

Renri and Kazama froze, eyes snapping to each other.

“Renren?” Again, but at least there was a knock this time. “It’s nearly sunrise. Time won’t wait!”

Kazama’s eyebrow twitched the way it did before he swore, staring at Renri’s very not-boy state—the slipping juban, bare shoulder, all of it—and paled. “Pretend you’re asleep,” he hissed.

“I am asleep,” Renri whispered back.

“Renren! We brought breakfast and clean uniforms. It's dawn. Perfect time for training!”

Kazama’s eyelid twitched; he cut her a side look that said, with perfect clarity, We? Now what? Renri gave him the look of a woman clinging to a cliff: Leave it; he’ll leave them outside and go.

“You’re in there, aren’t you, Renren?”

She wanted to lie down and let the floor take her. How many levels of insistence did one person come with?

“Renren! Wake up!”

Kazama scrubbed both hands over his face but silence fell, blessed. Renri exhaled, leaning her palms back, relief starting in her shoulders.

“I’m coming in!”

Renri’s soul left her body. “He’s what,” she whispered, tiny.

The shoji began to slide and survival reflex took Kazama. In a blur, he snatched the entire futon, and dumped it over her; Renri curled on instinct, cocooning herself until only her face poked out, squashed by cotton.

The shoji banged wide and Kyōjurō strode in already in his Demon Slayer uniform and being morning itself, too composed for someone who had no concept of personal boundaries. Then for a second he remembered himself and stopped. “Ah—sorry. Too early? Sometimes I forget not everyone wakes with the sun—” he announced, then blinked happily at Kazama, who had planted himself in the doorway like a polite hands-behind-back barrier.

“Excuse me,” Kyōjurō said, and then gracefully fake-stepped right to peek around him as Kazama cut right, swapped left as Kazama mirrored, and—somehow—appeared past him, kneeling before Renri with a triumphant, “Ha!”

He held up a folded stack of navy and white. “Renren,” he said with ceremony. “Fresh training clothes.”

Renri cinched the futon tighter, determined not to show even a whisper of skin until she resembled a large wrapped dumpling. “Kyō—Kyōjurō-san,” she said in her best boy-voice, which squeaked. “I—I didn’t hear you.”

“Impossible!” he said with perfect sincerity. “People usually tell me it is difficult not to hear me.” He studied her; tilted his head; studied again from another angle, eyes narrowing in comic concentration. His eyes lit. “Ah! I knew it. Wrapped up like that, you look exactly like a mochi.”

Kazama flinched as if personally insulted on his lady’s behalf. He slid in, trying to defuse with a brisk, “Rengoku-san, perhaps...”

Renri, dying inside, let out a laugh that sounded like a death rattle. “Thank you for the clothes, Kyōjurō-san, and now if you wouldn’t mind—”

“There’s more!” Kyōjurō declared, crossing his arms and sitting down cross-legged, oblivious to every mood in the room and somehow making that feel safe; he called over his shoulder, “Senjurō! Come in.”

A small shadow hesitated in the doorway. Renri peered over Kyōjurō’s shoulder at a boy half hidden behind the frame. The boy bit his lip, took a breath, mustered himself, and stepped inside with a careful bow, carrying a tray balanced carefully in both hands. He knelt beside Kyōjurō and placed the tray before her: a neat bowl of white rice steaming, miso soup with wakame and tofu, a grilled fillet of fish, pickled daiko, and tea.

Simple. Nourishing. Kind.

Kyōjurō rested a broad hand on the boy’s head in a quiet, fond ruffle, proud in that unguarded way older brothers have. “Asagiri-san, meet Senjurō, my younger brother.” 

Senjurō 's eyes flicked up, then down. The same amber as Kyōjurō’s, only dimmer, hair the same flame, as if a softer sketch of his brother. His kosode and hakama were training simple, much like what Kyōjurō gave her.

“Ah—Asagiri-san,” Senjurō tried, shy, tripping over the honorific. “My brother told me what happened in Tokyo. I’m… I’m very sorry about your sister.” His hands knotted in the fabric over his knees. “Please eat. It may not be what you’re used to in Tokyo, but if it helps…” He looked up a fraction, hopeful.

Kyōjurō watched as Senjurō offered the tray, his hand resting lightly on his brother’s shoulder in a silent steady now. “He made it himself,” he said. “He wanted to welcome you properly.”

Renri looked from the tray to the boy’s earnest face, and something in her went wobbly; he looked like a guest in his own house. Renri knew the feeling entirely too well. She reached for the chopsticks then remembered she was a cocoon and heat rushed to her face. “Ah—Kazama…?”

Kazama blinked, then recovered. “Of course,” he said, kneeling at her side with the resignation of a man who had lived through weirder mornings; he picked up the chopsticks and offered a bite. Their timing was disastrous; she snapped a second too early and nearly caught his fingers.

Out of the corner of his mouth, Kyōjurō stage-whispered to Senjurō, delighted, “Amazing. First time I’ve seen a mochi be hand-fed.”

Renri shot him a lethal look, then took the bite. Warm salt, clean sweetness, the little comfort of miso. She glanced at Senjuro, who was watching like a small, hopeful shrine statue, and the warmth in her cheeks had nothing to do with embarrassment.

“It’s delicious,” she said, meaning it, and for once didn’t have to fake the boy-voice. She wrestled one arm free of the futon and—ignoring every alarm bell in Kazama’s posture—patted Senjurō's head exactly as Kyōjurō had patted hers. For a strange, fleeting moment she could feel Renya in the gesture, her twin’s ghost brushing past. “Thank you, Senjurō.” Her smile arrived without permission, soft and unguarded. “I already feel better because of you.”

Senjurō’s cheeks pinked and glanced up properly for the first time, then smiled back, shy and private. “Th-thank you, Asagiri-san.” The boy’s shoulders eased at once.

Kyōjurō’s answering grin came slower, smaller, a small—“Ah!”—as if this had been a test he’d set and she’d passed with top marks. He blinked a fraction, then smoothed it by immediately stealing the chopsticks from a scandalized Kazama. “Excellent! Then you should eat more,” he declared, entirely serious, and with the confidence of a man feeding a stray cat, popped another bite straight at Renri’s mouth. She yelped, caught it anyway, and chewed with affronted dignity while he nodded, satisfied, ruffling Senjurō’s hair. “See, Senjurō? Told you he’d like you!”

Kazama, long-suffering, reclaimed the sticks and set them down with the calm of a man retying the world with twine, while Senjurō, encouraged, pulled a folded paper from the edge of the tray and held it out. Kazama accepted it, unfolded, and read as Renri leaned in. 

“Over the hill,” she read aloud, “through the woods, cross the northern river—ugh, these are—” she looked up, bleak “—directions from the Flame Hashira to the Tsuki-no-mori brewery, for his saké, aren’t they?”

Kyōjurō nodded, earnest. “He fully intends to hold you to the punishment.”

Renri made a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a prayer, then rolled as far as possible inside the futon and flopped onto her side like a caterpillar refusing metamorphosis. She shut her eyes, exhaled hard, and let the ceiling spin once. “Right,” she said at last, voice muffled by cotton and pride.

She shut her eye, then opened it again. The woble in her chest remained; so did the rice’s warmth; so did the punishment from the Flame Hashira; so did the vision of Kyōjurō and Senjurō offering comfort like a holy duty.

Right. Apparently, this is my life now.

“I suppose I’ll go fetch that wretched sake if I don’t want to be thrown out. Then,” she cracked one eye at Kyōjurō and Kazama, “I'll run those thirty laps around the estate.”