Building Up the Ruins: Part 3
Category: Demon Slayer
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Dimension Travel
Rating: Teens
Summary:
Giyuu is transported to a world where Sabito lived.
There's just one little problem: Giyuu can't speak.
Sabito makes a face at the single futon taking up almost the entire floor of the inn room.
The must in the air films Giyuu’s tongue. He has half a mind to ask the innkeeper if he can sleep in the hallway - not a promising start to the first night of their journey to Tokyo - but instead he wrenches open the jammed window so he can breathe.
Sabito tosses their bags in a corner - he had insisted on carrying both - and gestures to the futon. “Take it. I’m not letting you aggravate your injury. And sit down, your dressing needs changing.”
Giyuu sits cross-legged on the futon and slips off his layers. The wound is almost closed. Until now, the girls at the Butterfly Estate had been charged with his dressing, and after his first bout of awkwardness, he grew used to their cheerful efficiency. Sabito kneels in front of him, fishing out the medical kit from one of the bags and snapping it open.
They had taken care of each other before, many times. Sabito, holding Giyuu still by the jaw, slitting open a leech latched onto his ear with Urokodaki’s paring knife. Giyuu, washing Sabito’s vomit from a bucket in the snow-rimmed river, lugging it back home in numb hands, and doing it again.
Now, he tenses as Sabito prepares to clean his wound.
Sabito brushes Giyuu’s sweat-coiled hair away from his shoulder. Static sparks up Giyuu’s spine, and he scrubs his forearm to soothe the raised hairs. Sabito is not as gentle as the girls while he irrigates the gash, but he is careful. Thorough.
After he knots the fresh gauze, his fingers linger on Giyuu’s shoulder. He studies the scar slashing up his diaphragm. Perhaps he is mapping it over the scar in his memory, checking if the edges match. He rips away his hand and packs up the medical kit. “Good night,” he says. The first “good night” he has offered. His words feel like a benediction.
Something unfurls to life between them. Giyuu wants to tell Sabito everything. That he would rather mind a ramen stall or mend clothes than kill demons. That he had left Tanjiro alone to fight Muzan and the other Moons and does not know what happened after that. That he has forced himself to stay alive only because Sabito once told him, “You can’t die, ever.”
He should sign, Thank you. He should sign, Good night.
He signs, Where is Makomo?
Sabito frowns. Digs a fist into his thigh. “Makomo is dead.”
Giyuu tries to shift the words around, because Makomo is lodging with the other demon slayers, dedicating haiku to hydrangeas and slipping flea-ridden cats bits of salmon and conducting plant funerals when she’s not working. Sabito was spared, so Makomo must have been too.
“She was killed by Lower Moon One. She was unwell at the time, but insisted on coming since we were short-staffed.” Sabito’s sheath creaks as he grips it. “I was protecting junior slayers from other demons. I didn’t realise - not until I saw her. I should have forced her to stay home. Or been more aware of what was happening in the fight. I failed.”
You could never fail sits on Giyuu’s tongue, but then he realises what he wants to say is, You could never fail me, and that would be audacious and selfish. So he does not reach for his notebook.
“That whole week, I kept asking other Pillars to fight me, from morning to night. Shinazugawa left mid-fight and I struck Kocho so hard I broke her arm.” Sabito releases the sheath with a jerk. “Shit, I - I didn’t mean to say all that. Let’s - I’m going to sleep.” He extinguishes the lamp and curls up against the wall.
Giyuu finds that his arm has reached out to Sabito, and retracts it. He remains in the same position for a while, unsure if he hallucinated that conversation. Then he lies down, huddles in his blanket, and looks out the window. A half moon peers through rolling shrouds. If he cupped his hand against the sky, he could nestle it in his palm.
Hours pass before he falls asleep, and in his dream, pink hydrangea petals drift down a swift-running stream, so many that someone must have poured them in by the bucket, and he kneels and tries to catch them in his hands, but they all slip away.
Over the next three days, Giyuu tries not to think of hydrangeas, tries not to imagine Makomo’s corpse the way he had tried not to imagine Sabito’s. Sabito acts as their guide and changes Giyuu’s dressing, but speaks little. Their crows glide overhead. Giyuu pretends one of them is Kanzaburo.
They reach Asakusa on the third night by cart, and Sabito slips the doddering driver more money than is warranted. From his own patched-up purse, not the one Ubuyashiki gave him.
Giyuu feels like he has seen Sabito for the first time in this world. His mind is replaced with a zigzagging scrawl, like someone dragged along a crayon so hard their arm shook. He is grateful for the hollering of people selling their wares, the tang of simmering sweet soy sauce, the lines of rice-paper lanterns that march on forever - they smother the scrawl.
Sabito tucks away his purse. His hemp cord droops towards his nape. “If nothing’s on my face, lead the way.”
Tamayo’s clinic is not difficult to find. Giyuu is anxious that Sabito will not sieve disdain from his expression and voice, and that Tamayo and Yushiro will punt them out.
But Sabito remains even-toned, even when Yushiro hisses at him, “Bow lower to Miss Tamayo.” Giyuu wonders if Sabito is bridling himself for the mission, or if he is making a good impression for Giyuu, because these are people Giyuu was affiliated with. He wants it to be the latter.
After tea is served and Sabito explains their situation, Tamayo leans forward in her chair. “Two nights ago, I was on my way to buy some angelica root, and I saw a boy and a girl matching your description.”
Giyuu grasps the edge of the table to stop himself from sprinting outside. In, four. Hold, seven.
“They were at an udon stall, just off the main street. The girl seemed to be asleep. I can mark the place for you on a map.”
Sabito ducks his head. His hemp cord curls open, and locks of hair skim his cheekbones. A sequence that should be part of a skit, but is not. “You are very kind.” He picks up the cord from the floor and re-ties his hair.
Yushiro slurps his tea. Taps his foot.
Tamayo says, “I don’t know if they are still in Tokyo, but it would be worthwhile to search for them. It’s still only dinner time; they may be out on the streets right now. I would recommend asking at a police station, but…”
“That will draw attention to the Demon Slayer Corps,” Sabito finishes. “Hospitals are possible, but still tricky.”
Tamayo pulls out a map from her desk drawer, swirls a dot with a red pen, and presents it to Giyuu. He wonders at the warmth of her smile; he has done nothing but lighten her tea caddy. “Yushiro and I will aid you in your search as well. You can leave your bags at the clinic.”
Yushiro snatches away their teacups before they can thank her.
Outside, Sabito says, “Let’s start with asking that udon vendor if he’s seen them again.”
The vendor says he has not seen them and does not know where they went. Sabito and Giyuu move on, question a seamstress, a doll-maker, a dango shop owner. Same answers, same darting glances at the outline of their swords through their haoris - civilian clothing has helped them little. Some of the people they talk to gawp at Sabito’s scar. He has never been self-conscious of it, but now he drags two knuckles across the tissue, like he can wipe it off.
Giyuu pulls Sabito’s fingers away, and only realises the boldness of his gesture when Sabito’s lips part to reveal that little overbite. He thinks of half moons, of salt-grilled fish. He releases Sabito’s hand.
A breeze toys with glass chimes in a shop, and rainbows spark across Sabito’s eyes, nose, cheeks. Catch on his lashes. Down the street someone shouts, You wanna go? and the racket of a brawl erupts, but Giyuu cannot look away from Sabito’s face.
Sabito rubs the back of his neck. “Let’s check farther away. By the Hongo Theatre.” The rainbows slip off as he marches ahead.
People stream past. Teenagers passing around a bottle. Women with fat babies clinging to their hips. A Christian missionary roving ravenous eyes over them.
But no Tanjiro. No Nezuko.
The shops begin to shutter.
“We should stop,” says Sabito. “They probably won’t be out this late.”
Giyuu has jittered with energy since he held Sabito’s hand. He could not sleep tonight even if he downed one of Kocho’s soporifics; the last time he took one, after a spell of insomnia, he woke after twelve hours and could have drifted through another two. He signs, I’m staying out.
“Why?”
Giyuu crosses his arms.
“I’m not letting you walk around on your own.”
Giyuu wishes he could snip, Because the Master ordered it?
They amble for hours in circles, still empty-bellied, still sticky with the sweat and filth of their travels. Sabito does not complain. He never complains. Used to say it makes men without chests. Giyuu wants to press a hand over Sabito’s mouth even though he isn’t talking.
In Koishikawa, near a crossroads, Sabito says, “Let’s go back to the clinic. We can get some sleep, then resume the search.” It must be just before four in the morning. Giyuu nods, stifling a yawn.
A presence snaps him to attention.
The man - no, the demon - had not been standing by the crossroads a blink ago. His kimono falls without a crease, as if worn for the first time. He moves like he has not had to unsheathe his blade in a thousand years. Moonlight-languid.
Giyuu has never seen a demon with a sword.
“Nakime informed me of a Pillar travelling to Tokyo,” the demon says, and the sound is the earth splitting in two - a rumble that resonates in Giyuu’s belly, that must be felt on the far side of the city. The characters for “Upper” and “One” are just discernible in his lamp-like eyes. “I must praise her for her thoroughness. Often I feel she is more competent than the other Upper Moons combined, myself excluded.”
Run, Giyuu thinks, his hand soldered to his sword hilt. We have to run. And right after: There is nowhere to run. We’re in the middle of Tokyo. The death toll will cross fifty.
Sabito is already in position, his breathing even, as if this is any other battle, on any other night. Upper Moon One regards Sabito’s sword, impassive. “I am somewhat disappointed. I never found a memorable fight in a Water Pillar. They are good teachers, but middling swordsmen.”
Sabito lunges at him with Striking Tide, so fast even Giyuu can barely make out his movements. His blade nicks Upper Moon One’s cheek, before it is parried, and the clang sours Giyuu’s teeth.
Eyeballs blink across Upper Moon One’s sword. “Perhaps you are an exception. No Pillar has made me draw my sword so early.” He glances at Giyuu. The weight of it is a mountain range; Giyuu feels as though his organs are being slowly compressed. “I had not heard of another Pillar accompanying the first. Which one are you?”
Sabito attacks with the Dance of the Swift Current. “He is none of your business,” he snarls through the winding slashes. “Your opponent is me.”
His opponent is neither of them. They will not win alone or together. The only thing they can do is hold out until sunrise. That gives them half an hour. Giyuu unclenches his jaw. The fight with Akaza had lasted about as long, and they did not win; Akaza blew himself up. He was only Upper Moon Three.
Upper Moon One bats Sabito away, and Sabito skids till his heels collide with a raised sidewalk.
“I should attack as well,” Upper Moon One says, “to show my respect.”
Giyuu unsheathes his sword and races to Sabito, kicking out Sabito’s ankles so he’ll be on the ground and less likely to be ribboned by the oncoming attack. He activates Dead Calm just as Upper Moon One says, “Breath of the Moon: Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy.”
The buildings outside the range of Giyuu’s technique shred apart and tumble down in a thunderous rumble. A shroud of dust billows up.
He uses breathing, Giyuu thinks. A wet splotch spreads over his stitches. He adjusts his grip on his hilt; even Dead Calm could not nullify the attack; his body stings with cuts. He cannot be certain, but it seemed that Upper Moon One performed the technique without even swinging his katana.
Sabito leaps to his feet and spits dirt.
Shrieks shatter the air. Around them, civilians have started to flee. Shove against each other. Trample each other. The missionary from before lurches into the middle of the street next to a singed rattan chair, blood streaking from hairline to chin, a Bible in his hand.
I’m sorry, Giyuu thinks. I’m sorry and it will never be enough.
The missionary clambers onto the chair and cries out: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.”
The rivers overflowed Giyuu nine years ago. He has since learned to breathe underwater. Never mastered it.
Upper Moon One steps through the debris. “I have not seen that technique before. You must have created it. What is your name? I will bestow you the honour of remembering it. I am called Kokushibo.”
Sabito charges at him, creating a fierce whirling motion with his blade, while Giyuu comes at him from the opposite side with a barrage of strikes. His stitches rip. He scores Kokushibo’s collarbone before Kokushibo’s blade almost takes Giyuu’s arm off. Giyuu skips away, beneath a bare plum tree, reorients himself. Waits for the optimal moment to attack.
Sabito is faster than Shinazugawa. Stronger than Rengoku. He wedges his blade into Kokushibo’s neck with a roar, and Giyuu’s breath snags. Sabito can do this. He can -
“Black Ring, Lunar Eclipse.” Kokushibo twirls his sword into slashes that could be part of a cyclone. Crescent blades whirl out from those slashes, debris from a disaster.
Giyuu rushes Dead Calm - too slow - as Sabito flips back.
Blood pours from Giyuu’s shoulders and chest. He does not feel the lacerations. Look out! he wants to yell, but he can’t. He can’t.
Kokushibo’s blade slices down into Sabito’s belly. Sabito grunts and sinks to his knees, pressing against the wound with a reddening hand.
No. No. Sabito will die, again. Giyuu will be protected, again.
The Mark burns across Giyuu’s cheek.
Giyuu swings his sword at Kokushibo’s neck. Kokushibo dodges and sweeps his katana up in a strong arc. Giyuu blocks, and the collision sends shocks up his arms. A hot skewer drills through his shoulder. Nothing exists outside of him and Kokushibo. Neither past nor future.
Feint.
Deflect.
Giyuu swirls and thrusts his sword forward. Kokushibo parries it, whirls around, and slashes diagonally, and the blade catches on Giyuu’s hair as he ducks, rips out his tie. He leaps back, putting distance between them.
The adrenalin drains out. His shoulder is a throbbing mass of pain, tendriling down his arm and across his chest. Sweat drips into his eyelashes, tickles his ears.
Kokushibo stands like a tower pointing at heaven. He is so much larger than Giyuu. The size of fear.
Giyuu collapses to one knee, leaning on his sword. A crack spiderwebs from the base. He wonders how long it has been since the fight started, and if he can stand up. He screws his eyes shut and then blinks rapidly, willing the world into focus. He has to stand up. He has sewn Sabito’s kimono into a haori before. Opened it up and restitched it to fit around his body, made it grow with him the way Sabito could not. He will not do it again.
His legs tremble as he rises. His lungs cramp.
Kokushibo says, “How can such brittle creatures exist?”
Giyuu assumes a one-handed stance. Dead Calm will not work anymore. He is too torn up. The best he can do is avoid attacks.
“Giyuu!” Sabito cries, tottering to him, and -
This is the first time he has spoken Giyuu’s name.
It should feel larger. More momentous. A rush of air long after the rivers overflow you.
It feels like none of that, but it centres Giyuu. The lines of the world solidify.
Sabito has stitched himself up. Blood smears his teeth. Rivulets down his chin. His eyes gleam. Alive. “I’m not leaving your side.”
Kokushibo says, “It will do you no good. Mirror of Misfortune, Moonlit.”
Hundreds of slashes explode outward. Giyuu and Sabito jump out of the way, then attack as one. Giyuu’s hands are slick with blood and sweat. He wonders if he is dreaming, because his body cannot be dodging, twisting, darting. He has nothing left in him.
He aims for Kokushibo’s throat again. His sword slips out of his grip and careens into a pile of rubble.
“Move!” Sabito yells. Giyuu scrambles away as Sabito blocks Kokushibo’s downward swing. He staggers under the force of it. Blood weeps from his uniform onto the ground.
Giyuu kicks Kokushibo’s sword, but Kokushibo anticipates it and moves away, so Giyuu’s foot only grazes the metal. Giyuu sags, drawing wet, rattling breaths. If he lifts his head, his neck might crumble. He lifts it anyway. The stars are beginning to fade. Sabito is prone on the ground, straining to stand up.
“Disappointing,” Kokushibo says.
“Giyuu,” Sabito rasps. “Run. Please.”
“It was barely even a fight.”
“Please!”
Kokushibo’s hand tangles itself in Giyuu’s hair. Pulls till Giyuu is supported by just his toes. Giyuu convulses as every nerve alights with pain. “Wasted potential,” he says, raising his blade to Giyuu’s breast. His brow furrows. Pink linen ruffles behind his ponytail. He drops Giyuu and ducks as a leg swings at his head.
Nezuko lands on all fours, in her adult form. No muzzle hides the gleam of her teeth.
“It’s you!” Tanjiro flies in and drops to his knees beside Giyuu. His cheeks are not as round as they used to be, and his hair glints with grease. “The man who helped us!” He hooks his hands under Giyuu’s armpits, drags him away from Kokushibo and Nezuko, and pillows Giyuu’s head in his lap.
Nezuko’s next kick at Kokushibo is intercepted. “Shameful. A demon without loyalty to Muzan,” Kokushibo says, and tears off her leg from the knee. Giyuu cringes at the wet, cracking sound, at Nezuko’s drawn-out wail. Kokushibo flings her into the side of a half-ruined house. Tanjiro’s cry is ragged.
Sabito plants himself in front of Giyuu and Tanjiro. Haori snapping in the wind, as if he is running. Giyuu claws for him, even though he is too far away to reach him. “There’s a place waiting for you in Hell, Upper One,” Sabito says, hoarse. He shifts into the position for Constant Flux.
The first rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds.
Kokushibo does not flinch, does not scurry. He looks from Sabito to Giyuu, says, “I will see you again,” and disappears. Paint wiped off a window.
Sabito remains unmoving with his sword still at the ready, before his shoulders slump. The breath Tanjiro releases tickles Giyuu’s face. A few paces away, low flames crackle across detritus, where a tea shop used to stand.
Nezuko whimpers and growls. The place where her leg was ripped off bulges, erratic, tumorous, before spawning a fresh limb. She shields her face with her hands and shoots away into the gloom of an alley. Tanjiro calls after her, and then turns red eyes to Giyuu. His hand skates over Giyuu’s brow.
No, Giyuu thinks. I am not leaving you again. Akaza is dead, but I am not leaving.
“Oh, gods, you - are you - uh, hospital! We need - there’s one near - ”
“We know someone,” says Sabito, hobbling over. “Her name is Tamayo. I’ll send my crow to her so she can prepare to treat us, and her assistant can meet us halfway to help us get to her clinic. Kamado, I must insist that you come with us. I’ll explain on the way.”
A thump signals that Tanjiro has set down his cedarwood box. “I was planning to come no matter what you said, since I wanted to make sure you both were all right. I’ll go get my sister.” He trots away into the alley.
Every breath Giyuu draws stabs his lungs. Sabito’s face blurs. Civilians are still shouting, but the din starts to fade. Nausea billows in Giyuu as he is guided to a sitting position, as his kimono is peeled off. Sabito says, “I’m going to cauterise our wounds, or we’ll bleed out. Giyuu, you’re first.”
Tanjiro snaps off branches from the plum tree, gathers them into a pile, and uses the fire from the detritus to light it. Sabito wipes his blade with a handkerchief that Tanjiro presents to him, and then heats it over the flames. When he burns Giyuu’s flesh, Giyuu gasps and hisses, too weak to thrash. Why is he not passing out? Sabito whispers, “Sorry, I’m sorry,” and eases hair clumped with blood out of Giyuu’s eyes. Giyuu must truly lose consciousness then, because when he blinks next, Sabito is sliding his sword back in its sheath.
Giyuu is lifted to his feet. Sabito and Tanjiro support him on either side. Together, they trudge into the sunrise. One step at a time.
Notes:
- In the canon fight against Kokushibo, Shinazugawa stitches himself up. This means he - and probably other demon slayers - carry around a needle and sutures for emergency stitches.
- It took three Pillars plus Genya’s demonic skillz to kill Kokushibo. Sabito and Giyuu were never going to win. Especially since Giyuu was already injured and like. Lost a ton of muscle mass over his nearly four weeks of sedentary recovery.
- I don't know when crayons hit the mass market in Japan. I just know that Crayola was introduced in 1903 and Cray-pas was invented in Japan in 1925. If anyone knows whether Giyuu would actually know what a crayon is, let me know in the comments.
- The term "men without chests" was used by C.S. Lewis in his book "The Abolition of Man", published in 1943. It has been taken out of context in this fic. Sabito would not have heard of the term (he's a few decades too early), but I kept it because it seems like something he would say.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Dimension Travel
Rating: Teens
Summary:
Giyuu is transported to a world where Sabito lived.
There's just one little problem: Giyuu can't speak.
Sabito makes a face at the single futon taking up almost the entire floor of the inn room.
The must in the air films Giyuu’s tongue. He has half a mind to ask the innkeeper if he can sleep in the hallway - not a promising start to the first night of their journey to Tokyo - but instead he wrenches open the jammed window so he can breathe.
Sabito tosses their bags in a corner - he had insisted on carrying both - and gestures to the futon. “Take it. I’m not letting you aggravate your injury. And sit down, your dressing needs changing.”
Giyuu sits cross-legged on the futon and slips off his layers. The wound is almost closed. Until now, the girls at the Butterfly Estate had been charged with his dressing, and after his first bout of awkwardness, he grew used to their cheerful efficiency. Sabito kneels in front of him, fishing out the medical kit from one of the bags and snapping it open.
They had taken care of each other before, many times. Sabito, holding Giyuu still by the jaw, slitting open a leech latched onto his ear with Urokodaki’s paring knife. Giyuu, washing Sabito’s vomit from a bucket in the snow-rimmed river, lugging it back home in numb hands, and doing it again.
Now, he tenses as Sabito prepares to clean his wound.
Sabito brushes Giyuu’s sweat-coiled hair away from his shoulder. Static sparks up Giyuu’s spine, and he scrubs his forearm to soothe the raised hairs. Sabito is not as gentle as the girls while he irrigates the gash, but he is careful. Thorough.
After he knots the fresh gauze, his fingers linger on Giyuu’s shoulder. He studies the scar slashing up his diaphragm. Perhaps he is mapping it over the scar in his memory, checking if the edges match. He rips away his hand and packs up the medical kit. “Good night,” he says. The first “good night” he has offered. His words feel like a benediction.
Something unfurls to life between them. Giyuu wants to tell Sabito everything. That he would rather mind a ramen stall or mend clothes than kill demons. That he had left Tanjiro alone to fight Muzan and the other Moons and does not know what happened after that. That he has forced himself to stay alive only because Sabito once told him, “You can’t die, ever.”
He should sign, Thank you. He should sign, Good night.
He signs, Where is Makomo?
Sabito frowns. Digs a fist into his thigh. “Makomo is dead.”
Giyuu tries to shift the words around, because Makomo is lodging with the other demon slayers, dedicating haiku to hydrangeas and slipping flea-ridden cats bits of salmon and conducting plant funerals when she’s not working. Sabito was spared, so Makomo must have been too.
“She was killed by Lower Moon One. She was unwell at the time, but insisted on coming since we were short-staffed.” Sabito’s sheath creaks as he grips it. “I was protecting junior slayers from other demons. I didn’t realise - not until I saw her. I should have forced her to stay home. Or been more aware of what was happening in the fight. I failed.”
You could never fail sits on Giyuu’s tongue, but then he realises what he wants to say is, You could never fail me, and that would be audacious and selfish. So he does not reach for his notebook.
“That whole week, I kept asking other Pillars to fight me, from morning to night. Shinazugawa left mid-fight and I struck Kocho so hard I broke her arm.” Sabito releases the sheath with a jerk. “Shit, I - I didn’t mean to say all that. Let’s - I’m going to sleep.” He extinguishes the lamp and curls up against the wall.
Giyuu finds that his arm has reached out to Sabito, and retracts it. He remains in the same position for a while, unsure if he hallucinated that conversation. Then he lies down, huddles in his blanket, and looks out the window. A half moon peers through rolling shrouds. If he cupped his hand against the sky, he could nestle it in his palm.
Hours pass before he falls asleep, and in his dream, pink hydrangea petals drift down a swift-running stream, so many that someone must have poured them in by the bucket, and he kneels and tries to catch them in his hands, but they all slip away.
Over the next three days, Giyuu tries not to think of hydrangeas, tries not to imagine Makomo’s corpse the way he had tried not to imagine Sabito’s. Sabito acts as their guide and changes Giyuu’s dressing, but speaks little. Their crows glide overhead. Giyuu pretends one of them is Kanzaburo.
They reach Asakusa on the third night by cart, and Sabito slips the doddering driver more money than is warranted. From his own patched-up purse, not the one Ubuyashiki gave him.
Giyuu feels like he has seen Sabito for the first time in this world. His mind is replaced with a zigzagging scrawl, like someone dragged along a crayon so hard their arm shook. He is grateful for the hollering of people selling their wares, the tang of simmering sweet soy sauce, the lines of rice-paper lanterns that march on forever - they smother the scrawl.
Sabito tucks away his purse. His hemp cord droops towards his nape. “If nothing’s on my face, lead the way.”
Tamayo’s clinic is not difficult to find. Giyuu is anxious that Sabito will not sieve disdain from his expression and voice, and that Tamayo and Yushiro will punt them out.
But Sabito remains even-toned, even when Yushiro hisses at him, “Bow lower to Miss Tamayo.” Giyuu wonders if Sabito is bridling himself for the mission, or if he is making a good impression for Giyuu, because these are people Giyuu was affiliated with. He wants it to be the latter.
After tea is served and Sabito explains their situation, Tamayo leans forward in her chair. “Two nights ago, I was on my way to buy some angelica root, and I saw a boy and a girl matching your description.”
Giyuu grasps the edge of the table to stop himself from sprinting outside. In, four. Hold, seven.
“They were at an udon stall, just off the main street. The girl seemed to be asleep. I can mark the place for you on a map.”
Sabito ducks his head. His hemp cord curls open, and locks of hair skim his cheekbones. A sequence that should be part of a skit, but is not. “You are very kind.” He picks up the cord from the floor and re-ties his hair.
Yushiro slurps his tea. Taps his foot.
Tamayo says, “I don’t know if they are still in Tokyo, but it would be worthwhile to search for them. It’s still only dinner time; they may be out on the streets right now. I would recommend asking at a police station, but…”
“That will draw attention to the Demon Slayer Corps,” Sabito finishes. “Hospitals are possible, but still tricky.”
Tamayo pulls out a map from her desk drawer, swirls a dot with a red pen, and presents it to Giyuu. He wonders at the warmth of her smile; he has done nothing but lighten her tea caddy. “Yushiro and I will aid you in your search as well. You can leave your bags at the clinic.”
Yushiro snatches away their teacups before they can thank her.
Outside, Sabito says, “Let’s start with asking that udon vendor if he’s seen them again.”
The vendor says he has not seen them and does not know where they went. Sabito and Giyuu move on, question a seamstress, a doll-maker, a dango shop owner. Same answers, same darting glances at the outline of their swords through their haoris - civilian clothing has helped them little. Some of the people they talk to gawp at Sabito’s scar. He has never been self-conscious of it, but now he drags two knuckles across the tissue, like he can wipe it off.
Giyuu pulls Sabito’s fingers away, and only realises the boldness of his gesture when Sabito’s lips part to reveal that little overbite. He thinks of half moons, of salt-grilled fish. He releases Sabito’s hand.
A breeze toys with glass chimes in a shop, and rainbows spark across Sabito’s eyes, nose, cheeks. Catch on his lashes. Down the street someone shouts, You wanna go? and the racket of a brawl erupts, but Giyuu cannot look away from Sabito’s face.
Sabito rubs the back of his neck. “Let’s check farther away. By the Hongo Theatre.” The rainbows slip off as he marches ahead.
People stream past. Teenagers passing around a bottle. Women with fat babies clinging to their hips. A Christian missionary roving ravenous eyes over them.
But no Tanjiro. No Nezuko.
The shops begin to shutter.
“We should stop,” says Sabito. “They probably won’t be out this late.”
Giyuu has jittered with energy since he held Sabito’s hand. He could not sleep tonight even if he downed one of Kocho’s soporifics; the last time he took one, after a spell of insomnia, he woke after twelve hours and could have drifted through another two. He signs, I’m staying out.
“Why?”
Giyuu crosses his arms.
“I’m not letting you walk around on your own.”
Giyuu wishes he could snip, Because the Master ordered it?
They amble for hours in circles, still empty-bellied, still sticky with the sweat and filth of their travels. Sabito does not complain. He never complains. Used to say it makes men without chests. Giyuu wants to press a hand over Sabito’s mouth even though he isn’t talking.
In Koishikawa, near a crossroads, Sabito says, “Let’s go back to the clinic. We can get some sleep, then resume the search.” It must be just before four in the morning. Giyuu nods, stifling a yawn.
A presence snaps him to attention.
The man - no, the demon - had not been standing by the crossroads a blink ago. His kimono falls without a crease, as if worn for the first time. He moves like he has not had to unsheathe his blade in a thousand years. Moonlight-languid.
Giyuu has never seen a demon with a sword.
“Nakime informed me of a Pillar travelling to Tokyo,” the demon says, and the sound is the earth splitting in two - a rumble that resonates in Giyuu’s belly, that must be felt on the far side of the city. The characters for “Upper” and “One” are just discernible in his lamp-like eyes. “I must praise her for her thoroughness. Often I feel she is more competent than the other Upper Moons combined, myself excluded.”
Run, Giyuu thinks, his hand soldered to his sword hilt. We have to run. And right after: There is nowhere to run. We’re in the middle of Tokyo. The death toll will cross fifty.
Sabito is already in position, his breathing even, as if this is any other battle, on any other night. Upper Moon One regards Sabito’s sword, impassive. “I am somewhat disappointed. I never found a memorable fight in a Water Pillar. They are good teachers, but middling swordsmen.”
Sabito lunges at him with Striking Tide, so fast even Giyuu can barely make out his movements. His blade nicks Upper Moon One’s cheek, before it is parried, and the clang sours Giyuu’s teeth.
Eyeballs blink across Upper Moon One’s sword. “Perhaps you are an exception. No Pillar has made me draw my sword so early.” He glances at Giyuu. The weight of it is a mountain range; Giyuu feels as though his organs are being slowly compressed. “I had not heard of another Pillar accompanying the first. Which one are you?”
Sabito attacks with the Dance of the Swift Current. “He is none of your business,” he snarls through the winding slashes. “Your opponent is me.”
His opponent is neither of them. They will not win alone or together. The only thing they can do is hold out until sunrise. That gives them half an hour. Giyuu unclenches his jaw. The fight with Akaza had lasted about as long, and they did not win; Akaza blew himself up. He was only Upper Moon Three.
Upper Moon One bats Sabito away, and Sabito skids till his heels collide with a raised sidewalk.
“I should attack as well,” Upper Moon One says, “to show my respect.”
Giyuu unsheathes his sword and races to Sabito, kicking out Sabito’s ankles so he’ll be on the ground and less likely to be ribboned by the oncoming attack. He activates Dead Calm just as Upper Moon One says, “Breath of the Moon: Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy.”
The buildings outside the range of Giyuu’s technique shred apart and tumble down in a thunderous rumble. A shroud of dust billows up.
He uses breathing, Giyuu thinks. A wet splotch spreads over his stitches. He adjusts his grip on his hilt; even Dead Calm could not nullify the attack; his body stings with cuts. He cannot be certain, but it seemed that Upper Moon One performed the technique without even swinging his katana.
Sabito leaps to his feet and spits dirt.
Shrieks shatter the air. Around them, civilians have started to flee. Shove against each other. Trample each other. The missionary from before lurches into the middle of the street next to a singed rattan chair, blood streaking from hairline to chin, a Bible in his hand.
I’m sorry, Giyuu thinks. I’m sorry and it will never be enough.
The missionary clambers onto the chair and cries out: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.”
The rivers overflowed Giyuu nine years ago. He has since learned to breathe underwater. Never mastered it.
Upper Moon One steps through the debris. “I have not seen that technique before. You must have created it. What is your name? I will bestow you the honour of remembering it. I am called Kokushibo.”
Sabito charges at him, creating a fierce whirling motion with his blade, while Giyuu comes at him from the opposite side with a barrage of strikes. His stitches rip. He scores Kokushibo’s collarbone before Kokushibo’s blade almost takes Giyuu’s arm off. Giyuu skips away, beneath a bare plum tree, reorients himself. Waits for the optimal moment to attack.
Sabito is faster than Shinazugawa. Stronger than Rengoku. He wedges his blade into Kokushibo’s neck with a roar, and Giyuu’s breath snags. Sabito can do this. He can -
“Black Ring, Lunar Eclipse.” Kokushibo twirls his sword into slashes that could be part of a cyclone. Crescent blades whirl out from those slashes, debris from a disaster.
Giyuu rushes Dead Calm - too slow - as Sabito flips back.
Blood pours from Giyuu’s shoulders and chest. He does not feel the lacerations. Look out! he wants to yell, but he can’t. He can’t.
Kokushibo’s blade slices down into Sabito’s belly. Sabito grunts and sinks to his knees, pressing against the wound with a reddening hand.
No. No. Sabito will die, again. Giyuu will be protected, again.
The Mark burns across Giyuu’s cheek.
Giyuu swings his sword at Kokushibo’s neck. Kokushibo dodges and sweeps his katana up in a strong arc. Giyuu blocks, and the collision sends shocks up his arms. A hot skewer drills through his shoulder. Nothing exists outside of him and Kokushibo. Neither past nor future.
Feint.
Deflect.
Giyuu swirls and thrusts his sword forward. Kokushibo parries it, whirls around, and slashes diagonally, and the blade catches on Giyuu’s hair as he ducks, rips out his tie. He leaps back, putting distance between them.
The adrenalin drains out. His shoulder is a throbbing mass of pain, tendriling down his arm and across his chest. Sweat drips into his eyelashes, tickles his ears.
Kokushibo stands like a tower pointing at heaven. He is so much larger than Giyuu. The size of fear.
Giyuu collapses to one knee, leaning on his sword. A crack spiderwebs from the base. He wonders how long it has been since the fight started, and if he can stand up. He screws his eyes shut and then blinks rapidly, willing the world into focus. He has to stand up. He has sewn Sabito’s kimono into a haori before. Opened it up and restitched it to fit around his body, made it grow with him the way Sabito could not. He will not do it again.
His legs tremble as he rises. His lungs cramp.
Kokushibo says, “How can such brittle creatures exist?”
Giyuu assumes a one-handed stance. Dead Calm will not work anymore. He is too torn up. The best he can do is avoid attacks.
“Giyuu!” Sabito cries, tottering to him, and -
This is the first time he has spoken Giyuu’s name.
It should feel larger. More momentous. A rush of air long after the rivers overflow you.
It feels like none of that, but it centres Giyuu. The lines of the world solidify.
Sabito has stitched himself up. Blood smears his teeth. Rivulets down his chin. His eyes gleam. Alive. “I’m not leaving your side.”
Kokushibo says, “It will do you no good. Mirror of Misfortune, Moonlit.”
Hundreds of slashes explode outward. Giyuu and Sabito jump out of the way, then attack as one. Giyuu’s hands are slick with blood and sweat. He wonders if he is dreaming, because his body cannot be dodging, twisting, darting. He has nothing left in him.
He aims for Kokushibo’s throat again. His sword slips out of his grip and careens into a pile of rubble.
“Move!” Sabito yells. Giyuu scrambles away as Sabito blocks Kokushibo’s downward swing. He staggers under the force of it. Blood weeps from his uniform onto the ground.
Giyuu kicks Kokushibo’s sword, but Kokushibo anticipates it and moves away, so Giyuu’s foot only grazes the metal. Giyuu sags, drawing wet, rattling breaths. If he lifts his head, his neck might crumble. He lifts it anyway. The stars are beginning to fade. Sabito is prone on the ground, straining to stand up.
“Disappointing,” Kokushibo says.
“Giyuu,” Sabito rasps. “Run. Please.”
“It was barely even a fight.”
“Please!”
Kokushibo’s hand tangles itself in Giyuu’s hair. Pulls till Giyuu is supported by just his toes. Giyuu convulses as every nerve alights with pain. “Wasted potential,” he says, raising his blade to Giyuu’s breast. His brow furrows. Pink linen ruffles behind his ponytail. He drops Giyuu and ducks as a leg swings at his head.
Nezuko lands on all fours, in her adult form. No muzzle hides the gleam of her teeth.
“It’s you!” Tanjiro flies in and drops to his knees beside Giyuu. His cheeks are not as round as they used to be, and his hair glints with grease. “The man who helped us!” He hooks his hands under Giyuu’s armpits, drags him away from Kokushibo and Nezuko, and pillows Giyuu’s head in his lap.
Nezuko’s next kick at Kokushibo is intercepted. “Shameful. A demon without loyalty to Muzan,” Kokushibo says, and tears off her leg from the knee. Giyuu cringes at the wet, cracking sound, at Nezuko’s drawn-out wail. Kokushibo flings her into the side of a half-ruined house. Tanjiro’s cry is ragged.
Sabito plants himself in front of Giyuu and Tanjiro. Haori snapping in the wind, as if he is running. Giyuu claws for him, even though he is too far away to reach him. “There’s a place waiting for you in Hell, Upper One,” Sabito says, hoarse. He shifts into the position for Constant Flux.
The first rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds.
Kokushibo does not flinch, does not scurry. He looks from Sabito to Giyuu, says, “I will see you again,” and disappears. Paint wiped off a window.
Sabito remains unmoving with his sword still at the ready, before his shoulders slump. The breath Tanjiro releases tickles Giyuu’s face. A few paces away, low flames crackle across detritus, where a tea shop used to stand.
Nezuko whimpers and growls. The place where her leg was ripped off bulges, erratic, tumorous, before spawning a fresh limb. She shields her face with her hands and shoots away into the gloom of an alley. Tanjiro calls after her, and then turns red eyes to Giyuu. His hand skates over Giyuu’s brow.
No, Giyuu thinks. I am not leaving you again. Akaza is dead, but I am not leaving.
“Oh, gods, you - are you - uh, hospital! We need - there’s one near - ”
“We know someone,” says Sabito, hobbling over. “Her name is Tamayo. I’ll send my crow to her so she can prepare to treat us, and her assistant can meet us halfway to help us get to her clinic. Kamado, I must insist that you come with us. I’ll explain on the way.”
A thump signals that Tanjiro has set down his cedarwood box. “I was planning to come no matter what you said, since I wanted to make sure you both were all right. I’ll go get my sister.” He trots away into the alley.
Every breath Giyuu draws stabs his lungs. Sabito’s face blurs. Civilians are still shouting, but the din starts to fade. Nausea billows in Giyuu as he is guided to a sitting position, as his kimono is peeled off. Sabito says, “I’m going to cauterise our wounds, or we’ll bleed out. Giyuu, you’re first.”
Tanjiro snaps off branches from the plum tree, gathers them into a pile, and uses the fire from the detritus to light it. Sabito wipes his blade with a handkerchief that Tanjiro presents to him, and then heats it over the flames. When he burns Giyuu’s flesh, Giyuu gasps and hisses, too weak to thrash. Why is he not passing out? Sabito whispers, “Sorry, I’m sorry,” and eases hair clumped with blood out of Giyuu’s eyes. Giyuu must truly lose consciousness then, because when he blinks next, Sabito is sliding his sword back in its sheath.
Giyuu is lifted to his feet. Sabito and Tanjiro support him on either side. Together, they trudge into the sunrise. One step at a time.
Notes:
- In the canon fight against Kokushibo, Shinazugawa stitches himself up. This means he - and probably other demon slayers - carry around a needle and sutures for emergency stitches.
- It took three Pillars plus Genya’s demonic skillz to kill Kokushibo. Sabito and Giyuu were never going to win. Especially since Giyuu was already injured and like. Lost a ton of muscle mass over his nearly four weeks of sedentary recovery.
- I don't know when crayons hit the mass market in Japan. I just know that Crayola was introduced in 1903 and Cray-pas was invented in Japan in 1925. If anyone knows whether Giyuu would actually know what a crayon is, let me know in the comments.
- The term "men without chests" was used by C.S. Lewis in his book "The Abolition of Man", published in 1943. It has been taken out of context in this fic. Sabito would not have heard of the term (he's a few decades too early), but I kept it because it seems like something he would say.