The existence of demons had been no surprise.
And Kazuya had been desperate enough to accept a deal with one of them.
His grandmother had warned him about them every night, painting around the house with wisteria incense to protect them from the man-eating monsters. He had never really been scared, the war against the Russians and his father's life had been a bigger fear eating up his mind.
It was exasperating, how his grandmother worried more about monsters she knew from the mouth of the prior generation instead of the real danger of her son dying, and eventually doing so, in the snow and the cold for a country that failed them. But even so she continued, painting around the house with incense, even if no demon had been seen for centuries and food grew scarcer by the day.
When her legs were too weak because of malnourishment to do it herself, she asked Kazuya.
But Kazuya threw that goddamn incense across the woods, watched it disappear in the snow and the cold like his father had done, and that was how he lost them both.
It felt dirty, to work with the same kind of monster that killed his grandmother, but he couldn't care any less.
It smelled of metal inside the wagons, and in the distance he smelled the charcoal that fed the train. The awl with which he had to destroy the "spirit core" didn't feel heavy on his fingertips.
The hand with an eye looked at them from the floor, the sight didn't move him like it should have had.
"They're already asleep," he confirmed, using that mouth on the back of his hand, so proper to a creature such as a demon. Kazuya craned up his neck to look above the seats, at the sleeping humans. They must have been dreaming sweet fantasies, he envied them because of it. "You must tie the ropes around their wrists without touching them or you'll wake them up, the demon slayers' instinct is that sharp. The sooner you destroy the spirit core, the sooner you'll have sweet dreams."
"Then let's get started," pressed in a whisper the boy by his side, the one sick with tuberculosis. The hand appeared to give them a last nod and slid outside the wagon with his skillful fingers. The others, as miserable as Kazuya (or at least enough so to accept such an alternative) silently spread over the wagon, each of them choosing a swordsman.
"Hey," one of them muttered to draw their attention. He pointed a finger to the black haired boy that didn't wear a slayer's uniform. "This one too? Although he doesn't have a sword or anything, he's with them."
"Someone get on his dream," said the girl tying the rope around the blond swordsman's wrist, pushing his worries aside. "He's gonna die absorbed by the train either way, best not to risk it."
Kazuya looked by the corner of his eye as one of them tied their wrist to the boy's and proceeded to do it himself to the swordsman assigned to him.
He had to admit that the girl was pretty. When he leaned over her to take her wrist he was hit by a pleasant, familiar smell, and although she was as pale as a corpse, the mole on the cheekbone made her face look pretty. In other circumstances Kazuya would have asked her out on a date. Maybe a wife would be able to improve the crude and unpleasant reality he lived in, but the warmth of a woman would never wash away the guilt about his grandmother's death.
So with one last sigh, Kazuya sat down and started. "One, two, three…"
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There was no red.
There were no footprints or traces on the snow.
There should have been, Tanjirou felt he had to apologize, so he did, and that scared his siblings.
There was still no sight of red.
The white was comforting and enveloped him completely, burying his body and leaving his face untouched (the nose, maybe?). It was so cold he didn't even care, the burning fire vanished with the tears he spilled over his siblings when apologizing, time and time again, for something he didn't understand. But now Tanjirou didn't burn, there was nothing to burn for, nothing able to consume him, at the very was nothing bigger than him to spill his blood for, there was no colossus able to step on him if he had so desired. As small as it was, his family was more important than any giant in the horizon, at least not one he couldn't see.
When he mentioned to her mother that he couldn't smell anything, she waved a hand and asked just what he was supposed to smell. Since Tanjirou couldn't answer, he simply continued helping her prepare dinner.
"I just have the feeling I've had a terrible nightmare," he muttered over soup.
"So, have you?" Hanako asked, starting to get fed up about it all. Always so determined, or maybe she was just trying to imitate her older sister.
"I don't know," Tanjirou said again, and he ignored that Shigeru was trying to take some meat from his plate.
"Then if you don't know you just haven't!" Hanako finally sentenced, clenching her jaw. Then, she sent a glance towards Shigeru. "Don't eat Tanjirou's food, who already has a bad day!"
Shigeru left the meat fall from his chopsticks to Tanjirou's bowl again, squinting at her sister. Their mother made them stop fighting with a simple warning, and for once it wasn't Tanjirou who had to. For some reason that relieved him.
"A bad day for sure, as if you could have a bad day in this place," Nezuko had yet to appear for dinner since she had gone out (during the day?) But when he looked at his sister's usual seat, the pale face and the charcoal hair were the same.
It was red.
The girl he didn't know, sitting where his sister should be, stifled a chuckle with a hand over her mouth. Tanjirou couldn't figure what it was that she found to be so funny.
But in between the brown of wood, the white of snow and the slightly faded colours on his family's clothes, the red stood out so much it appeared to be the only thing Tanjirou paid any attention to.
It was a deep red, of blood and misfortunes, the one that painted the girl's clothes. And it was a deep red, of blood and misfortunes, the one on the red spider lily behind her ear, which was the only detail on her loose hair.
"Do you really not see it?" She asked again, and she looked to be on the verge of breaking into chuckles again.
"See what?" He asked, but the girl didn't answer. Instead she got up, tiptoeing to the other side of the room with hands raised to the sky as if she danced, or maybe she prayed. A requiem, would it be for her soul or Tanjirou's. He had the feeling she had never prayed for anyone that wasn't herself.
"You're so dumb," the girl said, turning around to look at him over her shoulder. "Please, what a pathetic thing, apologizing for his sins because he isn't able to protect anyone. This wouldn't happen if you had no one to protect, like me."
"Tanjirou." Takeo tugged at his sleeve and that made him pull his stare away from the stranger. Why was everyone looking at him like that?. "Who are you talking to?"
When he looked again, there was no red. And pure, white happiness was left in its place.
But when looking by the corner of his eyes, he got to distinguish a colossus in the distance. And for a moment he believed his mind was playing a trick on him. The colossus, Tanjirou noticed, he could smell it. As much as he had been able to smell the wisteria on the girl.
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The temple, home to the gods, was peaceful.
There, Ayaka prayed in silence, simply like how it had to be done. And for the first time in her life, they seem to listen to the prayers that echoed in their house.
The gods went down to the earth, just that in the form of Yuu.
On the way to the market, when they get out, he kissed her time and time again, holding her in between his arms as if Ayaka was the most precious thing they could have ever created.
The emperor had always been a god in the mortal world, the excellence in between mere humans, so it wasn't strange that when he loved her it felt just like if the gods did.
She felt as full as she could be, she loved and loved and kept loving and her chest never overflowed. Now that her body was able to stand the weight of her own heart she was able to do so without hurting, now she could fill her heart and love without limits. The ocean looked like a mere puddle now, deep? dark? Not for her and her infinite love, not with Yuu, who was an infinite being, who she could love in an equally infinite way.
Infinite was the affection that bloomed time and time again in her and infinite was the golden rice that painted everything her sight could reach. Not even she knew where it ended, and she really didn't want to.
Everything looked huge and full, there was no limit, maybe that was how Buddha had designed heaven. The idea wasn't unpleasant.
Yuu didn't leave her side. It was him who didn't stop peppering her skin, in between chuckles, with chaste kisses that tickled her. "I love you," a kiss on the cheek, "I love you," another one on the chin, "I love you," and a last one on the corner of her lips.
His affection was soft and pure. He hadn't kissed her on the lips yet, maybe not to draw any attention, although they already did with the way he fluttered around her. If they hadn't been a married couple they could have easily been confused by two kids on their first love.
Ayaka, in between huffs, laid a hand on his chest to stop his lips from sliding down the path of her neck, "wait," and got her hand on a pocket. Yuu raised his eyebrows, impatient and chest jolting, as he looked in between confused and what could only be drunk affection.
When Ayaka raised a tissue and realized she didn't know what she was gonna use it for, she blinked.
"Hmmm?" Yuu tilted his head, first looking at the tissue and then at Ayaka. His hands never left their place around her waist.
"Um." Ayaka reddened, hiding the tissue again in a hurry. "What did we… what did we have to do? Dad told us to buy something."
"I nearly forgot." Yuu finally took his attention away from Ayaka's neck and looked forward. "Do you think that they'll have run out of milk?"
"No, I'm sure they'll still have some left," Ayaka assured. "Maybe we should go to the apothecary too."
"The apothecary? What for?" Wonder painted itself on Yuu's face in the form of a single raised eyebrow. "If you feel something wrong with the baby we can go to my mother's house.".
"Oh," Ayaka muttered, not being able to help but to touch her still flat stomach. "Right, the baby," She sent a glance across the path leading to the village. "We should really get going."
Yuu whined in the gap between her neck and shoulder. Ayaka chuckled.
"Don't be childish," she said, forcibly pushing his arms away from her.
Yuu stretched out his hands to her as if he was a baby that missed his mother's touch. Ayaka slapped them away.
"Stop it. We can't be here all day," she warned, trying to sound more determined than she felt. At Yuu's insistent stare and his little pout, Ayaka sighed. "I guess… you can hold my hand in the way."
He did so with pleasure, and together, they marched down the path to perdition.
The river in the village had always been abundant, it was one of the gods' blessings. There would never be a drought and they'd never lack water for the fields. But the bridge had been a blessing from humans, not from gods.
For some reason, when they crossed it, big, wooden, and sturdier than necessary, Ayaka's gaze wandered to it, waiting for the kanji "stone" to be engraved there. Since this world was Buddha's heaven, she didn't find it.
"Hey," Ayaka started, whose eyes went down to the stream of water under their feet. "Who built this bridge?"
It was Yuu who tugged at her hand for them to continue walking. Ayaka's gaze was still on the bridge and its infinite waters.
"It's an old bridge," he said, shrugging. A furrowed brow made its way to Ayaka's face. "It was built before any of us was born."
"When, exactly?" Ayaka questioned harsher.
"I don't know, in the Meiji Era?" Yuu scratched his cheek. "I'm not sure, your grandmother must know. You're being weird today, are you okay?"
Ayaka shook her head.
"It's nothing." Her eyes finally took off the bridge that wasn't made out of stone and the next time she looked at Yuu she didn't find infinity, but charcoal.
It burned, burned, burned and burned, and it was the most emotion she had felt ever since she got married. Ayaka took her hand away from Yuu so harshly she fell back with a pained yelp.
There were no traces of scorching on her palm nor were there matches on Yuu's hands to burn her accidentally.
For a moment she believed to see a scar and red curls, the suns for eyes were a delusion. Yuu kneeled before her.
"What's wrong?" Ayaka stares in fear at how Yuu graced her forearm, she sighed in relief when he did and his touch didn't burn her again.
"Nothing," Ayaka whispered. "Nothing's... wrong."
It was just so cold.
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Kazuya sighed and slid in between the countless faces he didn't know.
The girl smelling of incense was close, chewing between the option of buying one or another bottle of milk. The boy that was with her said something "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" and she bursted into chuckles.
Kazuya got away from the market and crossed the bridge, looking from time to time over his shoulder at the girl, but she didn't notice him and he finally reached the forest.
His hands touched the air and he finally found something solid, when he teared through it with the awl he only saw… more forest.
But instead this one was covered in snow, and in the ground there was a path going up. He soaked his feet when going in, and he tripped against the half melted snow, abundant on the way.
The mountain was steep and it was even more difficult to go up with the snow that soaked his feet and the ends of his pants. Kazuya trembled and clutched to everything he could in order not to fall and roll down. It was difficult and everything was dark, although the Moon shone strongly.
"It seriously had to be such a weird core, goddamn it," he complained in between huffs, as his fingers started to freeze in between the snow. Despite it all, he continued, finding no trace of life on that place, as much of a mountain as it was.
There was nothing there. Kazuya would have believed it was but an extension of the other mountain if it wasn't because of how empty it was. There were no birds singing, no small rodents biting at green sprouts, not even bears, although that relieved him, but if it hadn't been so… inhabited, maybe it could have truly been a mountain.
"This is bullshit," he cursed again when the awl on his hands nearly slid out of his grap.
In the distance, very very far away, he saw something for the first time that wasn't infinite extensions of melted snow. A roof, goddamn it, a fucking roof.
"Finally, for fuck's sake!" He exclaimed, finding new strength to get up and start running.
He wasn't the only one to see the roof, the Thing had been staring at him ever since he got in. And it didn't like what it saw.
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