Ayaka's head pulsed with something close to a headache. But there was no time to worry about headaches or the cold that slid on her body without warning, and all of her trembled under Tanjirou's arm who got her closer to his body as if he didn't only want to protect Nezuko, but her too.
And for a moment Ayaka allowed herself to lean on his chest, reminding herself it will only be for a minute, enough so for Tanjirou not to notice she was there, trembling and giving herself a break for once.
She wanted to cry, she would if she had any strength left, maybe Tanjirou wouldn't care, maybe he wouldn't care if she cried, if she trembled, about her quirky traits, maybe, she wanted to believe, that Tanjirou liked her, even if just the smallest pinch, the slightest chance because he had no reason to do so. He must have hated her, either way, just like she expected Zenitsu to do as well as her parents and Yuu and Inosuke and Himejima-shishou and Genya.
But instead, Tanjirou got her closer to him because he distinguished the invisible way her bones trembled and he knew she couldn't fight anymore, at least not without collapsing out of exhaustion. Now it was his turn to wield the sword and finish the demon off, he was an older brother, he knew his responsibilities, always had.
"Your bonds have touched me. I have no words to describe this feeling, such a strong bond between siblings," the demon started, getting a hand to his chest. "But I have to kill you, you messed with my family. However, there's a way to avoid this. Give me your little sister, if you hand her over without trouble I'll forgive your life, and if you care, the girl's too, although I can kill her if she bothers you. She's the loud type, it would be best to get rid of her."
Tanjirou backed away dragging along with him Nezuko and Aya, that strangely didn't squirm against his touch. From the demon came a sour and sharp smell, he had to be careful.
"I don't understand what you mean, hand Nezuko over?" He asked cautiously, softly squeezing his sister's shoulder.
"Tanjirou, it's lying, it wants to trick you, you're gonna get killed the moment you hand Nezuko over," Ayaka muttered under his shoulder. She sounded the most fearful Tanjirou had ever heard her, voice weak and low not because she wanted to whisper, but because she had truly been crashed. "You have to run away, get Nezuko out of here. You can't win against the demon."
Tanjirou didn't like the way she said it, there's no bitterness or fury and that only meant there was something wrong, more than it usually was. Hopelessness swimmed on her eyes, a dark brown puddle that reminded Tanjirou of Tomioka's eyes, but his eyes were blue, like an abyss in the middle of the ocean, while Ayaka's were a hole with no end.
Tanjirou feared Ayaka wished to die, that she planned on doing so the moment he and Nezuko disappeared from her sight and even then burnt herself to the ground to end up being slashed into tiny pieces because she had no reason left for breathing that wasn't killing demons.
"You have to run away." He didn't want to think about the way there was no "we" in that sentence.
«And what about you?», he wondered, eyes fixed on the demon because he felt if he looked away he'd kill them one way or another, just like Aya warned.
"You can't win against the demon." Did she think she could? That she'd be able to defeat the demon as he comfortably ran away to a safe place? He had enough blood spilled over the walls and the floor as he safely slept on someone else's house, he wouldn't let that happen again, not if he could do something about it.
He wouldn't be able to see anyone else die, he wouldn't be able to see Aya die knowing she would leave this world as he did nothing about it.
«Are you planning on dying?», he wonders, looking over at Aya for a second.
Maybe she was full of herself, selfish, petty and many more things he didn't have time to list that night. He knew, he knew that better than anyone, but he didn't find an ounce of hate for her in his body, not enough to abandon her with how lost she looked, with the way she held onto him without noticing.
There were a lot of bad things to her, he could leave her alone, but he didn't want to. He prefered to smell the sweet kindness that naturally waves off her when she was too distracted to constantly be tough and smell like anger. He liked it when she smelled like that.
"I'll cut his neck off, I won't let him harm neither you nor Nezuko," Tanjirou whispered just for her to hear, because he had a hunch that the possibility of someone else listening as he tried to make her feel safe would annoy her.
"I guess you have taken quite a liking to her," the demon pointed. "But I don't care about non-blooded bonds. When you hand your sister over she'll be mine instead and that's what I care about, I don't want a little girlfriend."
Tanjirou felt something pulsing on his body, fury, maybe, and he had the instinct of standing up. He would have if not for Aya's hold, that pulled him back down so he didn't give in to foolishness. Even so, Tanjirou managed to take a step in his direction.
"Things don't work like that!" He yelled, the more agitated Aya had seen him ever since Inosuke's fight. She pulled on his sleeve, pleading in a hurry for him to shut up, that he was making everything worse, but Tanjirou didn't care as he continued yelling because the way the demon walked over his so called family infuriated him. "Nezuko isn't an object! She has her own feelings, she won't be your little sister!"
The demon dedicated a harsh look at him, close to coldness. Aya flinched, and with a tug made Tanjirou go back to her side.
"You're going to get us killed, stop it. The only thing you have to focus on right now is in surviving," she said. Her voice grazed fear, giving cautious glances at the demon as she talked.
Rui hissed in irritation and both of them turned around to look at him.
"My bonds of fear are stronger than yours." He distractedly played with the threads on his hands. "I'll show you what they're capable of."
Tanjirou threw Nezuko's box to the side, firmly holding onto what was left of his sword.
He was angry, very angry, she'd dare say enraged. Ayaka noticed in the way he moved, he wasn't the usual Tanjirou she found, it was that presence again, the one she saw when mentioning Muzan Kibutsuji what felt like an eternity ago.
"Poisoning your family with fear isn't a bond!" He yelled, as he walked to the centre of the glare. He wanted to fight against Rui, he was seriously gonna do it. "I won't hand over Nezuko! If you don't fix those basic concepts you'll never be able to get what you want! Families aren't tied by fear!"
He suddenly felt a tug that stopped him, and Tanjirou found Aya's gaze as she clutched to his sleeve, even if her legs were trembling she managed to get to him before he could make a mistake.
"Don't be a fool, you can still run away." Her eyes got close to what looked like desperation, she was nearly pleading on her knees. "I'll behead Rui, I can still do it, it's something I should have done from the start, but you have to go." Tanjirou looked at her, eyebrows fixing together in a frown, and Ayaka's hold became slightly weaker. "You won't run away, right? No matter how much I ask you to."
He had proven that time and time again, Tanjirou wasn't gonna leave and she would have to get used to the idea even if she liked it or not.
Letting out a dry laugh, a thin veil of bitterness, Aya got up, finally giving up.
"You're so stubborn, it's worse than dealing with Inosuke and Zenitsu," she muttered as she joined his side, grabbing her sword's handle. "Just this once, but we'll do it my way. Don't expect me to hold your hand."
Tanjirou smiled, recognizing the traces of her he had become so familiar with. She sounded tired, deeply sighing in between breaths, but the well known tone turned the situation in one of trust, not absolute, but enough so to offer comfort.
"Don't worry, I wasn't expecting that.".
Rui clicked his tongue and that made the both of them fix their eyes on him.
"How irritating, you are so loud," he complained, bringing a hand up to his forehead as if trying to muffle their voices. "Get your genuine bonds and your intimacy somewhere else and give me your sister already."
He could feel how Aya leaned on his back, ready to fight side by side with him. Tanjirou knew that ultimately she had accepted him, not completely, but at least a bit and that's enough for now. At least Aya had someone to lean on. Tanjirou hoped she knew she could lean on him, even if he hadn't said it.
"We won't let you take Nezuko," Aya said in a way that reminded Tanjirou of a ghost, sharp and deadly, threat under her voice as she looked with big unearthly eyes at Rui.
"You're so insistent, your efforts have been in vain and yet you throw hollow promises around even knowing how you ended up, why do you believe you'll kill me now?" Rui asked, only pasty boredom on his attitude. Tanjirou can feel how Aya's shoulders trembled, not in fear, but because of the few energy she had left. Tanjirou knew that, he would have to work harder to cover for what she wouldn't be able to do. "Whatever you say doesn't matter, if you don't step aside I'll kill you and take the demon myself."
"We'll cut your head off first," Tanjirou said, knowing the weight those words carried.
"Do you also have the habit of spluttering out nonsense? You sure must be powerful to say something like that." Rui brushed his hair from his face just like he had done to show Ayaka the mark on his eye, the shining number five appearing on his pupil, laughing like a mad lad. "Come at me if you dare. You won't be able to defeat one of the Twelve Demon Moons."
Tanjirou clenched his jaw. He knew he wasn't strong enough to defeat a Demon Moon and suddenly he understood how Aya had ended up like that, beaten to a bloody pulp with any kind of light on her eyes turned into smoke, she had ended up hopeless, whatever it was that demon could do, he was powerful enough to do that to a tsuguko. And Tanjirou wasn't a tsuguko, he wished he was but he wasn't, he wasn't like Aya, ruthless and powerful and determined, he was still weak, but that had never stopped him before and it wouldn't stop him now. If he couldn't win with pure strength he'd do it headbutt after headbutt in stubbornness until he did it. He hadn't inherited that thick headed forehead from her mother for nothing. Ayaka's hand, holding his wrist, made him go back to reality.
Tanjirou's body pulsed with too many feelings at once. Pulsed, pulsed, pulsed like an enraged bee.
"Calm down," Aya whispered into his ear and that act alone felt so intimate it sent freezing shivers down his back. For a moment he believed it to be the voice of his conscience, guiding him in battle, but he realized he had been confusing Aya's voice with his conscience for quite a while, so there was no difference at all. "I know it seems hard, but I have something on mind. I need you to get closer to its neck, can you do that, Tanjirou Kamado?"
Tanjirou nodded and Aya whispered her plan into his ear..
ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ
"Where is the other girl? Did she abandon you? I guess she isn't as dumb as I thought she was," Rui mutters. "You should follow her example if you know what's best for you."
Tanjirou couldn't answer that because he didn't know where Aya was either, she vanished in between the trees as soon as she had the opportunity, taking advantage of the darkness of twilight before the Sun fully rose over the horizon.
He wanted to believe Aya hadn't left him there, she had looked so confident when comforting him to trust her judgement, but even he started to have doubts.
Nezuko hung limp somehow in a symilar way to how Tanjirou had found Aya, because he was careless and allowed Rui to get his claws on his sister. He tried not to look at how Nezuko's blood flows through the threads. She was injured and it was his fault. Maybe the demon was partly to blame, but most of it fell on Tanjirou's shoulders who couldn't keep his sister away from danger like the older brother he was, just like the rest of his family.
«You can't focus on that now, wallowing on your misery and guilt doesn't help anyone. Do something more useful, become stronger and don't mourn», the voice of his conscience as Aya whispered, soft, softer than he had ever heard her and he swore he felt her whispering on his ear, grazing his chin with her fingers and wrapping a hand around his torso.
«You can do it, Tanjirou Kamado», she said once again. He felt if she was really a person, if she had really been Aya, she would be smiling. «Make one last effort, look for a way. You're intelligent, don't let that sharpness go to waste.»
He obeyed her, even if his sword was broken and there was no reason why he should have.
"Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux."
Through the increase in rotations, from one side to the other, his sword gains strength.
One rotation, two rotations, imitating a dragon that flies through the air, the course of a river kissing down the back of a mountain.
And he accomplished it, at the fourth rotation, he cut in half one of Rui's threads, fading away under the strength of his sword with a click.
He was two steps away from Rui now. If he managed to shorten the distance, if he managed to get closer.
«I could win», Tanjirou thought. And he allowed himself to feel excited about it for a moment.
By the corner of his eye Tanjirou saw a black shadow and he believed to see the deep brown of Aya's eyes along with her characteristic green tips that are only seen when her hair is down, free from the red ribbon she usually wore.
It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and Tanjirou found himself looking at the trees again, wondering if it had been an illusion.
"Do you think those are the strongest my threads can be?" Rui asked with something on his voice close to amusement. From his hands came the crimson of blood, that stained his white skin and followed on its way to his threads.
They had changed, Tanjirou could smell it. He wasn't able to cut off those that hovered around him like a wall he couldn't overcome. Just like the difference in power between them.
"Blood Demon Art: Cutting Thread Cage."
"That's enough. Goodbye," Rui said with a last wrist flick.
He was going to die.
«I'm going to... die?», Tanjirou wondered.
His life flew over his eyes.
Overall, Tanjirou saw a lot of people.
First he saw Nezuko, it was the biggest face and the one he remembered the most. Then, all at the same time, Zenitsu, Inosuke and Aya appeared. He saw a lot more, Urokodaki-san, Tamayo and Yushiro, Sabito and Makomo. He saw Tomioka-san too, Aya's family flew in a blur, but that didn't mean it was less comforting. The moment Haganezuka gave him his sword, all that people he saved and that still felt too little.
He finally reached his childhood and he got to see the faces of the family he missed so much. Rokuta, Takeo, Shigeru and Hanako, all of them gave him shining smiles and called him onii-chan, he was happy he had been able to give them the best of him every single day to protect their happiness. The face of his mother is the one that comforted him the most, that appeared warm in a cloud of smoke.
The exhausted expression of his father manifested before his eyes next. He was on his death bed, but that didn't make it any worse. He didn't care if his father appeared before him dying and with purple eyebags, he wouldn't care if he appeared as a blistering fireball and burnt his eyes as if he was witnessing the true form of a god, the only thing that mattered was that he was there.
«Tanjirou. Breath. Control your breathing. And you'll turn into the fire god», he said with a calm smile.
ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ
The water dragon turns into one of fire, alive and sparkling craving to devour. To devour Rui, to devour everything that got on his way.
"Dance of the fire god: Vals"
Ayaka witnessed how everything around Tanjirou turned into fire, the one that Ayaka had thought to see when she met him. It's everywhere circling around, and it really looks like it's dancing along with Tanjirou and his sword.
The fire of the passion on his heart manifested in large quantities that burn and throb and destroy everything on their way, including Rui's threads.
«It's beautiful». Ayaka couldn't help the thought from slipping on her mind. «Tanjirou is beautiful.»
If the warmth of the fire didn't dry her eyes tears would be running down the sides of her face, burning as rivers made out of lava just like Tanjirou's fire did.
Maybe the gods abandoned her, but the three of them had let their power fall on the mountain that night, and she was grateful.
They hadn't made her pleads true but they had answered her prayers for once, sending their strength to the land of mortals, because there was no way that could happen, that Tanjirou could be so beautiful, that something on this world could be so beautiful.
Wasting her time wasn't an option, she had left Tanjirou on his own for too long.
"I won't be of much help like this, we both know that, but if you're able to get close to its neck, it will focus solely on you and I'll be able to sneak off behind its back without it noticing," Ayaka explained. Tanjirou gave her a hesitant look.
"What do you want to do?" He pressed his lips together.
Ayaka smiles in mischievousness.
"I'll cut off its arms. I'll try something new, if it works it could be a great help," she answers without an inch of regret. "When I manage to cut off its arms, Rui won't be able to use his threads until they heal, so we'll be able to cut off his neck without worrying about those damn threads."
Tanjirou looked at her weird, Ayaka gave him a mischievous smile ignoring the way her bones creaked.
"Let's go, partner," she said, as arrogant as always. "Are you not up to the task?"
But it was Tanjirou the one that feared she wasn't up to the task, she recognized the feelings on his eyes, she was used to everyone looking at her like that anyway. But she wouldn't back down, she had never done so before, she wasn't gonna start now. After all, there was still one last thing she learned from Himejima-shishou.
ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ
"What... is this?" Ayaka muttered by Genya's side.
"Hell," he answered.
It might as well have been, because she didn't know how they'd come out alive from there.
Flames licked Himejima-shishou's calves as he repeated his prayers (the ones that his disciple had probably already memorized by now). He had on his shoulders three logs, and tied to them were many rocks that could have been twice Himejima-shishou's weight. And that was a lot, because Himejima-shishou was huge.
However Himejima-shishou stayed still under such great weight, praying "Namu amida butsu, namu amida butsu" without minding the smell of burnt hair was starting to appear and it was the one coming from his naked legs.
"Isn't the fire a bit over the top?" Genya asked in something close to fear.
It had been a calm morning, Himejima-shishou had come back from his missions earlier than usual and had dragged Genya and Ayaka out of their futons, even when the Sun still didn't rise over the horizon.
Himejima-shishou's determination had been so strong that, if they hadn't insisted beforehand, he would have dragged his disciples to training without having a mere cup of tea.
At least he had left them time to eat, because they might have as well starved to death that morning.
"I don't see why, facing the unbearable flames will make your minds stronger," Himejima-shishou explained, whose voice didn't waver as he continued putting up with that weight along with the overwhelming warmth of the flames. "You have enough endurance to survive the strength of the waterfall, you'll be able to continue on with the next trial. Train your limbs. If you clean your minds, you won't have to worry about the fire."
It was true they had managed to put up with the drumming pressure of the waterfall on their shoulders. Although the first time Genya nearly drowned and since then they entered a cycle of reviving one another after losing consciousness.
"You have to open up your legs and imitate shishou's pose," Ayaka advised Genya one afternoon. They had been eating watermelon after a training session in the waterfall, Genya lost consciousness seven times, as Ayaka only fainted twice. "The trick is to lean on your weight on your legs, that are strongest than your arms, since they are used to carrying the whole body all the time."
Genya seemed to listen to her, because fastly the time between revival and revival became longer until the point of neither of them fainting. Even so, they didn't expect for the next thing to be… carry twice their weight in the middle of a bonfire.
Both of them knew about Himejima-shishou's three step training, the first one being the waterfall. Ayaka sometimes trained for the third, to move a boulder to the village down the mountain and back. But they hadn't expected the second one to be like this, even if it aligned with Himejima-shishou's kind of training.
Ayaka could still reminisce about the first time she was victim to her master's teaching. Back then Genya wasn't still with them and just like him, she also fainted, being dragged by the river to the village down the mountain.
There was no one to take her out of the water, Himejima-shishou wasn't gonna do it, either. So they found her facing down, being lucky enough that one of the villagers saw her soon enough to get the water out of her lungs and get her back to life in a whim. Thinking about it still made her shiver.
Himejima-shishou ended his prayers and left all the weight he was carrying to the side. Then he came out of the fire like it was nothing walking off towards his disciples, with the ever present stench of the burnt hair on his legs that was, at the very least, really unpleasant.
"It's your turn now," he sentenced, clasping his hands together as his beads necklace rattled around him.
Genya and Ayaka exchanged a nervous look, lips tightening and faces hardening.
"Uh... are you sure we'll be able to stand that much weight, Himejima-shishou?" The first one to talk was Ayaka, hesitation on her attitude as her foot anxiously started to draw a circle on the floor, eyeing the huge logs and the rock that had been on Himejima-shishou's shoulders a moment before.
If she tried to carry that much weight she'd be crushed. No doubt about it, smashed with how small she was in contrast to Himejima-shishou.
"Of course not," their master answered. Ayaka and Genya smiled in relief, tension melting away from their bodies until Himejima-shishou pointed at two logs a few meters away from them. "Each one of you will take a log from there, if you improve you'll be able to carry three logs. When you reach that level of skill, you'll go to the last step."
Ayaka couldn't help but squeak, slightly trembling at the thought.
Every log could easily be three Genyas, Genya who was beefy and tall, more than her. Ayaka was sure she couldn't carry three Genyas, least of all nine if Himejima-shishou really insisted on carrying three logs.
But if Ayaka wanted to end her training and get to the last step, she would have to do it, right? So she would, Himejima-shishou must have been weak like her at some point, she just had to follow his example.
If Himejima-shishou trusted Ayaka would be able to carry three logs, then one would be nothing.
When Ayaka ended up feeling all the muscles in her body scream, pushing down the urges to vomit and get out her brief breakfast, she realized she was terribly, terribly wrong.
Luck was on her side, Himejima-shishou gave in and put off the fire, and she didn't want to imagine the pain that the burns she would surely have by now would bring her, if it had been like how her master planned from the start.
From the floor, eyes half closed and goosebumps all over her body, Ayaka looked at Genya, who was still on his feet, muttering something under his breath she couldn't hear. Although with his face painted of a bright red, he was in a better estate than her, and he didn't only have one log on his shoulders, but two.
That couldn't be, Ayaka had been months training under Himejima-shishou and if she couldn't do it Genya shouldn't be able to either.
If Genya was already catching up to her, then how much would it take for him to surpass her? Or even worse, how many distance was there really between them?
Genya wasn't even capable of using breaths, then what did that turn her into? In an useless Stone Breathing user?
It didn't take much time for Genya to collapse too. He ended his muttering, falling by Ayaka's side, who did nothing but look up at the sky, trying to recompose and try once again, but no matter how much she tried she couldn't move.
"I don't understand! What kind of lesson is he trying to give us by making us carry lodges on our backs!? I hate this!" Aya complained out loud, tugging at her bun and taking out stray strands of hair in frustration.
"Lesson? You have Himejima-shishou too up on a pedestal if you think he's trying to give us any lesson," Genya answered. His voice was hoarse so he cleared his throat.
Ayaka took out a water bottle from one of the many pockets on her haori that she brought for situations like that (he was lucky she took an extra because she knew Genya would forget his, but he didn't need to know that). With the few strength she had left she managed to lean on her arm as she closely looked at Genya, confusion written all over her face.
"What do you mean? If he makes us do this it will be for a reason, I'm sure there must have been some secret lesson on his steps we have to figure out by ourselves, some saying like be as persistent as a waterfall or something equally wise. If not, he would have never left me to drown that one time," Ayaka explained in raised eyebrows. Genya drank as he dodged her avid eyes, Ayaka insisted. "Himejima-shishou would have never left me to drown, right, Genya?"
Ayaka was sure by then the bottle must have been empty, but Genya payed it no mind as he continued acting like he was still drinking water, looking everywhere that wasn't Ayaka's squinting eyes.
Once Genya took his lips off the bottle, he could do nothing but reply. He raised his arms to cover his body in anticipation:
"Himejima-shishou sucks at teaching."
Ayaka lifted her small fists as she started to lightly tap him, since it was the only thing she could do with such little strength left.
"Take that back! Himejima-shishou is an amazing teacher!" She yelled time and time again. Her fists moved blindly in a tantrum, they barely hurt Genya as they crashed against his beefy arms, bouncing off them like pokes. "He's teaching me a lot of things! All the time he's spent on me isn't lost! Don't you dare say mean things about him!"
Although Himejima-shishou wasn't there and there's no way he could hear what Genya said about him, Ayaka felt the passionate obligation to defend him from every insult or bad thing thrown at his name, as such, she continued to blindlessly hit Genya with what weren't even light claps.
"Take it back! Himejima-shishou is the best master there is! Because he's my master and he sees potential in me! Take back every mean thing you've ever said or thought about him! He doesn't deserve for you to stain his name this way!" She didn't stop her hits until Genya had no other option but to apologize and promise he wouldn't say anything else that could stain Himejima-shishou's image.
It's not that Ayaka's hits in such a state hurt him, but when five minutes passed and he was restlessly having to put up with them, it was quite annoying.
He sighed.
"Okay, Himejima-shishou doesn't suck at teaching, but he isn't conventional either," Genya stared, receiving a somehow mocking mutter under her breath from her. "His method is one of watch and learn. If you aren't able to look closely and successfully follow his example then it's not use. I thought you already knew that."
Ayaka's eyebrow raised in uncertainty.
"How was I supposed to know that? I just try to pass his trials as best as I can. Sometimes I try to imitate him but that's not the only thing I do." Shrugging Ayaka allowed herself to fall to the floor, looking up at the pastel colours that rose over the sky along with sunrise.
Sweet, sweet sunrise.
Genya raised his eyebrows in muffled surprise and he turned to Ayaka with eyes as wide open as an owl's in the middle of the night.
"Wait, so you're telling me you managed to pass the waterfall trial through pure brute strength and you didn't use Repeating Actions?" He asked, not even believing it himself.
"Huh? Repeating Actions? What's that?" Ayaka blinked.
Genya's hands went up to his face, where he muttered muffled complaints about how stupid she was and how he couldn't believe it.
"Repeating Actions, you empty headed midget! The set of predetermined movements Himejima-shishou does in order to maximize his concentration!" He yelled, hitting Ayaka's nape with his knuckles.
"Himejima-shishou does that? I thought you meant imitating his poses, like with the waterfall." Ayaka rubbed at the place Genya hit her.
"The prayers," he finally mutters, and Ayaka's face lightened up.
"Ah, I never thought there was something weird about them! After all I also know my fair share of prayers, "she explains, pride on something as simple as knowledge of religious chants. "That's why you kept muttering on the waterfall, right? And before, too."
Genya sighed once again, allowing his muscles to relax.
"For someone that takes pride on her eyes, you can't see anything." A hand flew up to cover his face, too exhausted to let the sun rays burn his pupils.
"Oh, shut up I don't want to hear it coming from you." She lightly tapped his shoulder in what had been at first a slap. "Say, what were those Repeating Actions again? You haven't even explained them to me."
Ayaka finally managed to get up, making sure to avoid the vomit puddle that wasn't too far away from where she rested.
She brushed the dust off her clothes and turned around to Genya, who was still on the ground. He looked at her as if she was crazy.
"You aren't thinking about continuing, right?" He asked, merely raising his head from the floor to look at Ayaka who put the tree trunk on her shoulders paying him no mind. "You're gonna die at this rate."
Ayaka shrugged as best as she could.
"Damn you, wait at least so I can explain how Repeating Actions work," Genya asked and that made Ayaka turn around to him.
"You don't have to, that's something you've learned by yourself. There's no value in it if I don't discover it myself, that would be like cheating so I prefer to do it my way," she answered, clicking her tongue. "I already achieved the first step, I'll be okay."
Genya's feet made him get up and he grabbed the tree trunk from Ayaka's shoulder in an attempt to stop her.
"You advised me on the waterfall. That's not cheating, it's accepting help, you goddamn pipsqueak," Genya bit back in between strangled growls, barely being able to carry the tree trunk by himself.
Ayaka's eyes heavily rolled to the side, getting from under the tree trunk Genya held finally allowing him to let go of it without the threat of crashing her if it slipped from his hands.
"Okay, teach me then." Ayaka crossed her arms over her chest.
ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ
«To use Repeating Actions it's not enough to just do a series of predetermined movements. You must remember the memories that bring you more anger and pain. That will make your heart rate and temperature go up, keeping total concentration as you increase your strength and agility.»
That was what Genya had said, but no matter how hard she tried it didn't work.
Day after day, she wasn't able to repeat the directions Genya gave her, which were the only ones she got. Himejima-shishou's advice didn't help either.
It was useless, her mind was completely blank.
«The memories that bring me more anger and pain», Ayaka hesitated.
"Again. I have to try again," she muttered to herself, closing her eyes.
She held onto the harsh surface of the boulder, her hands were freezing so it took no time for them to get cut and for her palm to be ripped.
A pained hiss came out from her throat but she didn't let go of the boulder.
«Think, think about something», she encouraged herself. Yuu came to her like a ghost appearing before her to visit her in the middle of the night.
She harshly pushed him away from her mind.
His visit wasn't welcomed.
«No, don't think about that. I don't want to think about that. Think about something else», she tried again, pushing her fingers harder against the boulder but it was no use as the rock stayed in the same place.
She didn't know why but the face of her parents came up to her, blurry on the sides as they started to fade away from her memory.
«But they don't bring me any rage or pain », Ayaka told herself, pushing them away too. «They're cowards, I don't care about them. I gave them up long ago, it would be no use to remember them now.»
Then came her grandmother's face blurry at the sides just like her parents. However on her face there was a frown, pointing at Ayaka with her fan, and she knew her grandmother was gonna hit her.
Her, too, was erased from her sight.
«Selfish annoying hag. If there's a feeling she brings me is hate.» She unknowingly tightened her jaw.
The boulder was still on the same place.
An endless amount of faces passed over her mind.
The villagers, all of them, from the lumberjack to the most insignificant farmers. Faces, faces and more faces passed, they were all different and she recognized them all.
Nanami and Yumiko, that held each other's hand and whispered in between chuckles. "Aya-san, Aya-san, who do you think you are, running around believing to be someone?" Ryu didn't look at her as he preferred to avoid her at all costs, she was already used to it.
Yuu appeared once again, not like a ghost that visited her, but that tormented her with a cruel smile.
"Have you seen Ayaka? She's seriously so dumb, she doesn't take a clue. No one will marry her with that pale face of hers. She looks like a corpse, although she's close to being one."
All those that looked down on her, on both her and her parents, flew before her eyes.
"Kaori Iwamoto, she's so huge she looks like a man, a bear would fit her best as husband, at least it would be her size instead of that scrawny man of hers."
"Makoto Iwamoto, yes, that guy is so nice he's stupid, you can ask anything out of him and he'll do it, no matter what it is. He seriously doesn't have an ounce of common sense, he doesn't see everyone walks all over him wherever he goes."
"On its entirety, that family is made out of fools, it wouldn't be a surprise if they appeared dead one day because they starved just to give all the food they had to someone else."
«No, don't think about that! I don't want to think about that! Forget about it!»
All that time she spent on bed, her own weakness, the pitiful glances sent her way ever since she was a child, Yuu.
Yuu, Yuu, Yuu.
Yuu, that stabbed her on the back and abandoned her without a reason. Yuu, that threw her by the side of the road like one left a broken toy.
Was she something broken? Was that why he didn't love her, because she was broken? Because she was useless?
Frail hands white as marble, protected for so long like lilies of the valley in a garden, had no use.
"It's your humanity what I like about you, your vulnerability." That was what Takeshi had said, and his words repeated on her mind now, along with the sight of his face that changed in between his human and his demonic appearance in a twirl that never stopped as it went from one side to the other without being able to establish itself as one form alone.
«Stay away! Stay away all of you! I don't want to think about any of you! I hate you! I hate you al! Disappear from my sight!»
And they obeyed her, and when there was nothing else to think about, Ayaka found herself facing an empty void.
"This is stupid, I can't use such a silly method," she sentenced once she faced Himejima-shishou again.
«It's useless. Maybe it doesn't work with me. There's no other explanation.»
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«But I have to use it now, it's my last resource.»
She was dangerously close to Rui as Tanjirou went right didn't dare think about anything.
towards his head. If Ayaka got to cut off its arms… She wouldn't be able to cut off Rui's arm with her current strength, not with the way her own arms trembled. Just by getting more strength, even if just a pinch, and they would do it, they would survive a Demon Moon.
"Namu amida butsu," Ayaka prayed under her breath. But that wasn't enough, she knew that but she
She opened her eyes for a second. Tanjirou was face to face with Rui, Nezuko hanging high above them on the threads and her blood flowed through them. She didn't have the privilege to hesitate.
«To Hell with it!», she bitterly thought. And for once she dared to think about her parents.
She doesn't allow herself to think about nothing else in fear of all her other thoughts crashing into her mind and flooding her completely.
«Mom and dad, they aren't cowards.» Her body moves by itself on Rui's direction, from the corner she had been hiding in awaiting the moment Tanjirou got closer to its neck. She didn't need to open her eyes to see, she knew where her sword needed to be guided.
Her heart pulsed. Just like Genya described, she felt hot.
"Pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum"
It's the sound of her own heart, that pumped with the strength of a charcoal fed machine on her chest.
«Mom and dad, they're braver than me», she continued without looking for it, without wanting it without desiring it. She's too focused to stop now. Either way if she did she'd lose her concentration and she wouldn't cut off Rui's arms. She didn't have the luxury to stop. «They are not weak, I am. I abandoned them just like Yuu did with me, but no matter how much everyone walks over them, they never stop smiling.»
«That's worthy of admiration, Tanjirou, not something as pathetic as keeping oneself clean». Her mind interrupted her for the last time, and Ayaka opened her eyes.
She didn't need to think more, along with Tanjirou, Ayaka's sword flew right under his. It made an arc in a "u" form, slicing Rui's right arm and then its left arm. It appeared as if both arms stayed still on the air as they fell with her, who collapsed and fell against the tender earth.
«Damn Himejima-shishou and damn Genya, with their Repeating Actions», she thought in a sigh, but she was grateful, she really was.
If she had been more on her senses she would have noticed the tears that ran through her cheeks.
She turned around to look at Tanjirou, who was also on the floor not too far away from her.
"Tanjirou." She hoarsely managed to say his name, like the howl of an agonizing animal.
She believed to hear him say her name "Aya" but there was no way to confirm it.
She wasn't able to stop her lids, which fell heavily closing her eyes and wrapping her up in the unknown.
She didn't know what she would dream about that time, but she could swear that at some point on her brief dream appeared a headless figure rising from the dead.
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