"Are you sure we can stay here until we recover? Without having to pay anything?" Ayaka asked, without taking her eyes off the emblem on the door's house Tanjirou's crow had led them to.
A purple emblem made out of wisteria, a symbol that for all demon slayers meant rest and healing. She had heard once the family bearer of the wisteria gave their services to all demon slayers needing help, would it be just to heal after a long battle or simply a place to sleep.
Even so, it didn't feel right to go into a stranger's house. The idea of special treatment was even worse, even if she knew it should be a tempting idea for everyone with a brain. Just thinking about how the people working there would see her as someone the same status as the daughter of a rich family made shivers run down her back. False kindness never sit right with her, especially when she had grown up in a poor family. It was, certainly, an uncomfortable thought.
"Those injured will rest until fully healed! Caw! Rest, rest!" Tanjirou's crow answered, whose owner held it on his hands.
"Eh? We can rest?" Tanjirou asked, which made Ayaka raise her eyebrows in surprise.
"Don't tell me you've been going injured from mission to mission all this time," she said in a tired voice, crossing her arms over her chest as she left her crow settle on her shoulder and they exchanged a look, only one thought in mind. How irresponsible from both the crow and the demon slayer.
Ayaka didn't know why she was surprised about Tanjirou's broken bones.
The anger against her crow had slowly faded away. She had ran after him and shouted a few curses at him before reaching a common goal, they were both hungry.
A demon slayer couldn't disobey their crow's mission assignments, and if hers had wanted, it could have assigned her a close mission in revenge for wanting to turn him into stew, but there was a better solution for both parts. Her crow sent her to the wisteria emblem house (although she wasn't gravely injured) and she didn't made soup with him. Besides the unmentioned implication of giving him her leftovers, because of course, he was just as hungry as her.
Silently and softly a woman appeared, finally opening the door Ayaka had been so intently watching.
It was an old lady, small and thin with a big bun on top of her head painted in gray silver.
She looked at them with a disturbing air to her, like those who know things one doesn't and only refrain to see as one ends up on a tragic end. If the old lady was a supernatural being who had lived thousands of years, she would have fit the image Ayaka had of her, but after all, she was simply paranoid and this was just a simple old lady that looked at them in kindness, what she didn't know was if it was fake kindness, proper to servants used to work in houses as big as this, or if she really looked after the wellbeing of the people she took care of.
Even so, such an old and collected woman didn't give off any safety to her.
"Come in," the old lady said, merely peeking through the door. She was very small.
"We're sorry for bothering you this late," Tanjirou apologized to her, appearing particularly anxious. Ayaka scrunched up her nose at the sight of sweat on his forehead.
Behind her, as he clutched to her shoulders, Zenitsu started trembling just by giving the woman a look. Now that he didn't have Shoichi (who he still believed was the one to kill the demon even if he was a thirteen year old kid without any kind of training, Ayaka did so as well) he stayed as close to Ayaka as possible since it was clear after the Inosuke incident without needing to say it aloud that she was the strongest of them all. So Zenisu, naturally, had nothing else to do than hide behind her.
"It's a ghost… It's a ghost!" he muttered in panic, as he went from hiding behind Ayaka to taking peeks at her over her shoulder.
An scolding "hey you!" came from Tanjirou, since it wasn't a respectful thing to go around calling old ladies monsters. Ayaka couldn't care less.
"Monster?" she wondered aloud to herself, leaning her head to the side as she look at the woman's face more closely, her incredible amount of gray hair was the thing that stood out the most. She wondered then if it would be difficult to brush it every morning. "She doesn't look like a monster to me, just a weird lady with a lot of hair.
Another scolding in the shape of a "not you too!" was directed at her that time, to which Ayaka rolled her eyes lazily. She was sleepy.
"You are demon slayers, right?" the old lady asked, then bowing before them in respect. "Please, come in."
"She seems so weak," Inosuke muttered as he poked her cheek to try and prove his suspicions.
With eyes heavy and half closed, Ayaka went in too, giving the old lady a nod soaked in respect as she passed by her. If there was something she wanted to do, that was have dinner and sleep, ignore Tanjirou, Inosuke and Zenitsu (Nezuko the most) and go early on the morning to whatever mission her crow assigned her.
Inosuke, quite contrary to Zenitsu (who had turned it a permanent habit to stick by her at all times) didn't give her any trouble. He refrained to giving her nervous glances easily ignored and stayed quite away from her. He sure had to be intimidated by her to be like that, it appeared the only things he did were bother Tanjirou, headbutt trees and try and break rocks with his hands.
Besides, he didn't come too close to her, so she was mildly content with him, even as he was still strangely loud and uncontrolled. He also seemed not to get a clue about anything, but she could deal with that.
Having the old lady guide them to dinner, then clean and dressed in clean clothes, Ayaka seemed like a living dead that only wander around the place with half closed eyes.
Only playing with her food and not paying attention to the fact Inosuke was taking most of it with his greasy and harsh hands, she ignored the way her crow pecked at her hand, anxiously waiting for even a piece of tempura of the dinner the old lady had prepared that night.
"Aya, are you okay? Tanjirou asked, as he gave Inosuke one of the dishes of his meal, who, still angry, remained eating furiously. He had tried to provoke Tanjirou to fight him again, hadn't he? But Tanjirou never got angry with anyone, Ayaka knew that more than anyone. It must have been because of his thick forehead that didn't let anything get through his head.
She could only give him an unintelligible mutter, cheek leaning on one of her fists as she tried not to fall asleep. Everything started to feel blurry, it was a miracle she got to hear Tanjirou's voice, more so for her to still be on her feet.
"Ye-," she managed to say the second time in the middle of a yawn, her voice lazy and low. "I'm just… "she yawned", sleepy."
Her answer didn't shake the worry off Tanjirou's eyes, which stayed fixed on her and her small form.
"It doesn't look like just that," Tanjirou continued, which drew Zenitsu and Inosuke's attention, who peeked at her in curiosity.
"Your cheeks are red, is it because of me?" Zenitsu chuckled silly, face acquiring a nearly invisible pink tone, just as wrong as he had been with the girl from the day before.
"No, Zenitsu, it's not because of you," Ayaka muttered in annoyance, touching her own cheeks with a certain shaking to her movements to confirm that her cheeks had, really, heat up, and not only her cheeks.
«If I get sick now that will be a problem, worst of all here with these three», she thought, a pinch of concern drilling insistently on her mind.
It had been a while since she had gotten sick, at least for her, who usually fell ill every month. She tended to get bedridden every time she forced herself too much, and even if her stamina had gotten better in the last few years, it would be something she couldn't get rid of.
«I should sleep and ignore it, I'll be better in the morning. It wouldn't be good if Zenitsu panicked, and Tanjirou would be around me all day, what a stubborn brat», she thought, also being a stubborn brat.
Getting up, Ayaka walked off to the door without forgetting to leave food on the floor for her crow and ignoring Tanjirou's offer to get her to her room. She had been assigned a different one to the boys since she was a girl and the old lady opposed to the idea of letting them sleep together, for some strange motive she didn't understand. Ayaka didn't complain, she preferred it that way for other reasons that didn't have to do with her being a girl.
She still didn't understand why Tanjirou continued trying to be by her side. She had made clear he wasn't welcomed, at least she hoped so, and even he had agreed back when she had asked, what a liar.
Without warning the old lady appearing on the door, a man with a white coat and a leather briefcase by her side. Goddamn it.
"I took the freedom of calling a doctor to treat your wounds," the old lady explained.
Ayaka tried to quickly go around the old lady and the man, proclaiming she would go to bed, but the old lady tightly grabbed her hand and dragged her back in.
"The doctor will do a check up on all demon slayers," she said, without letting go of Ayaka's hands as she unsuccessfully struggled against her grip.
"I'm okay, I'm sleepy so please let me go to sleep, you should be worrying about those three instead of me. Let go of me, goddamnit!" Ayaka barked time and time again, but the old lady's grip was too strong.
"The doctor will do a check up on all demon slayers," she insisted, more harshly this time, and with a tug she made her sit next to Tanjirou, who eyed her in a strange satisfied expression.
Ayaka gave him an annoyed look, feeling her eyebrow nervously twitch, but that didn't make Tanjirou's smile waver.
The bastard was enjoying this too much.
"Okay, but make it quick, I want to go to bed as soon as possible," Ayaka finally said, crossing her arms over her chest, somehow defeated.
"I bet I can go to bed faster than you!" Inosuke yelled from the other side of the room.
"This isn't the moment for this you stupid boar! And I'd win that race!" Ayaka replied, even if black points started to appear on her vision. She made an attempt on getting up to throw herself at Inosuke, raising a fist to the air threatening only to end up weakly kneeling against the floor.
Inosuke seemed to give a step back because of it, or maybe it was the doctor who suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and made him sit back on the ground again in a harsh tug.
By the time the doctor reached Ayaka, he had confirmed the other three had at least two broken ribs each, and that they should rest for a few days to heal.
«And that's on being irresponsible», Ayaka thought in stubborn pride. They were stupid that was why they had gotten hurt. And contrary to them, she was perfectly fine.
That was what she would say if the room didn't feel so dizzy.
The doctor kneeled before her just to meet Ayaka's threatening gaze, because she didn't need him to do any check ups or anything for that matter. She only needed a goodnight's sleep and she'd be okay, she wasn't a little child.
That seemed to scare him because his shoulders tensed, nearly invisible but not for her. On his way to check her vitals, the way his fingers slightly trembled under the freezing winds of her stare, and yet he ignored her as much as he could.
"Your heartbeat is quite slow," he said out loud, as if that was something Ayaka didn't know. She had spent half her life under medical care, she knew her heart usually was slower when the first traces of a fever started showing up on her, but she preferred not to tell that to him.
It was somehow familiar, the way he carefully touched her as he checked her temperature and sharply noticed her heavy breathing. It nearly made Ayaka feel nostalgic, a strong "pang" right at her heart and for a moment she missed Kobayashi's parents, but they were already gone and she'd have to see other doctors.
It was still weird for someone else to take care of her, she should have gotten used to it by this point.
Finally moving away from her, the doctor put his instruments back on his suitcase, slight fear having disappeared of his system, and he smiled, probably because of a job well done.
"You sure have a murdering look, I'm sure you slay a lot of demons with it, don't you?" He tried to joke, to which he only received something. "You have a fever, not too bad, but you should rest for a few days and take this in the mornings."
As he said it he passed her over a jar with something of a familiar scent.
«Camomile… with a pinch of honey, he must have added that for the sweetness.»
Without letting go of the jar, Ayaka averted her gaze to the doctor, who stayed looking at her in a strange calmness her eyes couldn't pierce through.
"I don't get sick," she shamelessly lied. "So take your medicine with you and- AH!"
Without listening to her the doctor grabbed her eft foot and raised it to his face, making Ayaka inevitably fall back with a blink and for her head to loudly crash against the floor.
"Hmmm," the doctor muttered to himself, as he looked at it closely, slowly moving it from left to right, up and down.
A painful wave coursed through her leg from her foot and Ayaka muffled a yell, gritted fists and small tears threatening to escape from her eyes.
"Just what I thought, you've hurt your ankle. You slightly limped when you tried to go, that's why I noticed," the doctor explained, finally letting go of her foot as Ayaka fought against his grip. Even then, he continued. "Did you land harshly or hit it at some point?"
Ayaka moved back defensively, as she heard Tanjirou ask, with that kindness of his intertwined between his words, if it hurt.
Zenitsu got closer too, ending up face to face. He wanted to know what was hurting and Ayaka couldn't figure out if it was pure curiosity or if he was really worried about her.
"Did you hurt your foot? You should have told me, I made you carry me all the way back! I won't be able to marry you like this, I can't be such a bad husband!" The gesture was, on its own way, kind of sweet, but as Zenitsu got his face closer to her the more her insides churned.
It was true she had carried him on her back, it was better that way so he didn't run after Shoichi and Tanjirou didn't have to carry both him and Nezuko.
For some reason Shoichi hugged her once their paths came to a halt, wrapping his arms tightly around her as if she was worth his respect or affection even if the mission had been a total disaster and she had lost him and Zenitsu.
He also said he'd write her letters, without any apparent reason, and that only made things more confusing. (Both her and Shoichi had tried to ignore Zenitsu on her back who had endlessly fought to go with Shoichi. Luckily Ayaka's grip was tight and Zenitsu had a few broken ribs.)
All that worry, with Zenitsu and Tanjirou obnoxiously fluttering around her, seriously confused her.
"I… I don't know, I didn't even notice," Ayaka confessed to the doctor, as she pushed Zenitsu's face away from hers. "Can I go to sleep now?"
That time she looked at the old lady, who only gave her a nod.
With many "goodnights" behind her she didn't dare answer, she went to her room with the only thing on her mind being sleep. Sleep a lot.
That night she had weird dreams.
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She was all alone, but that was always the case, right? In a great blue sea this time.
She was drowning, her life hanging by a thread against the waves that tossed her from side to side without mercy.
She didn't know how to swim because she had never been taught how to, the only way to stay afloat was to fight uselessly with the sea and it was still not enough.
She gaped whenever she could to stay alive, then she sinked, soaked and in desperation, and sticked her head out over the waves, gaped some more and sinked again. A never ending cycle.
She was starting to become part of the sea and the sea to be part of her. Her lungs filled in with water she didn't know the taste of, because never before had she seen the sea and yet it was still terrifying. A giant lake, kilometers and kilometers of water everywhere she looked at without the possibility of clutching on to something to stay afloat or even of touching the bottom, she was always in a foreign place.
For a moment she believed to see her parents, but she sinked once again and lost sight of them.
The next time she peeked, she found her parents face to face. They knew how to swim, but they had never taken the time to teach her and she would drown because of it. They looked at her in compliance, safe and with happiness on their faces, smiles on their lips to prove so.
They stretched their hands and called out to her in sweet voices.
"A-chan, A-chan, come with us, we love you, why don't you come?"
But as much as she tried Ayaka couldn't go where they were, she sank deeper and deeper, chances to take in air growing fewer and fewer.
Her father's form became blurry through the waves, and even if she tried to reach out her hand towards something, anything to keep her afloat, at the end the only way she could go was down, so she gave up, leaving darkness eat her like the jaws of a giant beast.
Then she saw Takeshi.
The sea disappeared and she was eleven again and back on the fire, on the remainings of what had once been the Kobayashi's house.
«But that's not how it happened», she thought.
With a sword she didn't know how to use in trembling hands clutched to her chest and the smell of burned meat, ashes and blood drowning her nostrils, overwhelmed by such intense scents.
"Aya-san, you can't hide from me forever," he called in a sing-song voice, close to bragging. He had the advantage and he knew that, he enjoyed it, he enjoyed having her under her thumb like she was a small bug. "I was the one that did all that, you know, it's so easy to lead kids on to harm others that look different to them. Although Yuu did it all himself, isn't that surprising? I had to do nothing for him to belittle you and that was so much fun. It's just so fun to look at the limits of a weak thing, you have no idea, but it's even more interesting when it's humans instead of bugs!"
She was trembling, no clue if it was fear or rage flowing through her veins like poison.
She squeezed herself against the back of the tree she was hiding on, feeling herself paralyze, feeling herself weak, feeling herself useless.
She had believed she could do something, she had believed she could do something but she wasn't able to do anything, with a sword that was no use on inexperienced hands and a body that crumbled away with a light breeze. She had believed she could do something against that world so big and cruel she lived in. As if trying to contradict the natural way of things, what a joke.
"Aya-san, come on, get out already. You know you can't run away, I know your secret," Takeshi provoked, as if he carefully laid out a bait to lure his prey out.
He was mad, mad as a hatter, enjoying this like the deranged person he was.
Ayaka didn't move, she hoped that at least her death served as a distraction for Yuu to run away, that the villagers escaped as she did everything she could to keep Takeshi there, or at least what had once been him.
«No, it didn't happen this way.»
He wasn't human, she was sure about that. What kind of creature did he turn into? That she didn't know.
"You wanted to be part of something bigger than you, right? Because you feel small and weak against the world, and you are!" He continued, and she could hear his voice dangerously coming closer to where she was hiding, as if he was circling her. "The only place where you can belong is with pain and suffering, because that's what we were born for, to hurt and to hurt others. Did you enjoy they way they humilliated you? I know you did, because you become a part of something and the world doesn't feel so terrifying that way."
Suddenly his face appeared by Ayaka's left side and she jumped back in fear, pointing her sword at him. The trembling became stronger, shaking her violently. The moonlight shining on the sword's blade didn't make Takeshi's smile falter.
"What, you think this isn't what happened? You think you stood up to me and managed to kill me so easily?"
With a confident gesture he tightly caged both Ayaka's wrists on one hand. He came closer, closer and closer until the blade of the sword was touching his neck.
"When you can see the world on its entirety like you do you feel small in comparison, so you try to become something bigger, but the world is bigger than you could possibly ever be, and that's when you realize just how small you truly are," he tightened his hold on Ayaka's wrist with a crashing strength, the kind of strength only something inhuman possesed. His eyes told her to do it, to really cut off his neck, but Ayaka could only stare in fear. "To kill me you'll have to slash my head off, it's the only way to do it, to kill a demon. But you won't, you don't have the guts."
Ayaka let out a yelp as she heard a crack on her wrist. Takeshi loosened up his hold, eyes slightly softening.
"Don't worry, I would never hurt the person I love." As he said this he came closer and closer, taking a strand of her hair in the process and looking carefully at it. "Love is to be bigger thanks to someone else, and thanks to you I'm bigger and stronger, because you're just so small you make me forget I'm small as well." Ayaka's heart strongly beat against her chest, sweat dripping down her forehead. She knew how love felt like, this wasn't love. Takeshi looked over at her, somehow disappointed. "You don't believe me? I loved my father, I truly did even if he beat me up, I let him do it out of the kindness in my heart so he could be bigger thanks to me, just like my mother did. I'm not mad about that, I understand how he felt, even if I had to kill him because I was pretty sick of being the small one, you know?" He intertwined Ayaka's hair between his fingers some more, ending in long and sharp nails that shined under the night. "But he made me stronger, just like I did with you, don't you think so? You've done something! For once in your life you've fought back! So you can rest now, there will be no use to your newfound strength as long as you are with me."
Breathing shakingly, Ayaka only had the courage to apologize about his father and the unfair treatment he got.
"It doesn't matter now, there is no use for apologies, I would prefer to focus on you." He was smelling her hair, nearly hugging her, so close that if he had a breathing she would have felt it crash against her jaw. Her hands safely secured on his hold, made sure the sword stayed against the right side of his neck, where blood had slowly started to fall from. "Let's get married! You know, we can benefit from each other, I've become part of something bigger than this mortal world you live in, so I can make you feel just as big with me. Why not stay by my side?"
A stream of blood fell down Takeshi's neck and dripped towards his chest. It was sickening, disgusting, black like she imagined only the waters of hell to be.
«No, it didn't happen this way,» she thought again. «Then how was it Aya-san? How did this happen?»
"I don't understand," she muttered close to tears. What he had become part of or why did it have to be her or how he had turned into a demon, just like he had called himself.
It was sickening, both him and his rough touch.
"You don't have to worry about that, you don't even have to turn into a demon!" He vehemently continued, his eyes settling on her like he found her strangely alluring like a cat found a mouse entertaining. "It's your humanity what I like about you, your vulnerability. You need me just as much as I need you, the perfect fusion of a weak and a strong thing, a human and a demon. You'll make sure neither Yuu nor your family get hurt this way, everyone wins that way. Isn't that what you want, to keep your loved ones safe?"
Ayaka swallowed in fear, because that was the only thing she could do. Tears had started to run down her cheeks long before that, making her eyes burn and her throat get painfully blocked.
"It took me a while to find your core, but I finally discovered what moves you." At this point he was hugging her, a sigh away from kissing her jaw with those devilish lips. In false surprise, he continued. "It's your loved ones, who would have thought! I was greatly surprised, to say the least."
He buried his nose deeper on her hair, strongly inhaling her scent.
"You know, I don't like how your hair smells. Lilies of the valley, disgusting, I think I'll get you a new soap," he said, the cheerfulness of such a simple and mundane estate was strange for the situation, as if he really believed them to be a married couple.
Terror cold and heavy appeared on her chest, and she thought in what would happen if a being such as Takeshi wandered with such ease through the world.
His father's lightless eyes that didn't direct his weak warmth to her anymore, the cold lips of her mother that would never have smiles painted on them or rice on the edges again. The foam coming out of Mr Fluff's mouth, tongue slightly peeking through his teeth, that had so many times licked her hand in search of petting. The mutilated corpses of Nozomi and Tamaki that wouldn't go around the room nervously when she got a fever that was too high for comfort.
Yuu's gentle hands, covered in blood that would never hug her, but that had already happened.
Unintelligible mutters came from Ayaka, who spoke for the second time.
Takeshi slightly pulled apart from her, to stop her voice from being muffled against his shoulder.
"Did you say something? I didn't hear you, darling."
With a pulse suddenly steady, Ayaka tightened her hold against the sword's handle. Fury was the only thing that reflected on her eyes.
"I'm going to kill you," she sentenced.
She kept her promise, gathering courage for a moment and the strength enough to slash her sword against his neck for it to get soaked in the black of his blood, dark and thick.
Takeshi's head fell to the floor, and the sea came back around them, but they were both there this time, in the abyss and deepest corners of the darkest oceans. He was right, when against something stronger than you, it felt good to have something weaker to look at to forget the fact you are just as weak.
She wasn't the only one drowning, but Takeshi's head, on the ocean floor, appeared to drown too.
Despite everything, even if he was drowning and his body slowly turned to dust, he smiled up at her.
"You can't escape from me. I'll patiently wait for you in Hell, Aya-san."
Ayaka looked back, but she didn't smile. She suddenly felt a huge wave of pity. What a sad creature, what a sad human.
"If I go to Hell, at least I'll carry you there with me."
«No! This wasn't how it went down! I didn't kill a human, I killed a demon!»
And then she suddenly woke up, hazy mind and lost because of both the fever and the nightmare. She was welcomed by the wooden ceiling of the wisteria house, and that somehow calmed her down.
There was someone insistently knocking on her door, she already knew who it was. There was only one person on that house that would go to her door in the middle of the night. Tanjirou Kamado.
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