"You never cease to surprise me, Giyuu," she muses, trailing her fingers down his arm and into his open palm. "Just when I think I have you figured out, I turn another page and there is more. Were you always like this?"
"No," he murmurs, grasping her fingers and bringing them to his lips. He brushes her knuckles with his mouth, exhaling warm breath on them. "And yes. I suppose for a long time I couldn't access pieces of myself. I built up too many walls trying to control my grief and my guilt."
"What brought down your walls?" she asks, smoothing his hair away from his face with her other hand.
He leans slightly into her touch but looks away over her shoulder before he answers.
"Tanjiro Kamado. And his sister. They were the beginning."
The dreams started during his recovery after the final battle. He was comatose for three days after the fight that broke his body in dozens of ways and cost him his arm. He dwelt in a state of half consciousness for more days after that, feeling as though he had one foot in and one foot out of reality.
He dreamt of Shinobu who sat hidden from him by a screen. They were in a room shrouded in darkness and he knelt on a mat, hand on his lap. He could only see her profile in shadow, though somehow, he knew she still smiled. He supposed he could hear it in her voice.
"There is less weight upon your shoulders Tomioka," she teased softly.
"I did lose an arm," he replied drily.
She laughed quietly in her not-quite-so-nice way.
"Oh Giyuu, humor does not suit you. You know very well what I mean. Since you are being difficult, I will state it plainly. You've worn your grief as a shroud in that haori across your shoulders for many years. Most Hashira persist in the fight to seek vengeance. That is true for you too, though, I think you believe you fight to pay penance as well."
"Ah Kocho. Leave it be. I know who I am."
"Maybe," she said that day and he lost the thread of the dream.
"Coming down alive from the mountain after Final Selection is a tricky thing," she mused the next time she came to him.
He sighed.
More analysis from a dead friend. When will I wake?
"Many do escape triumphantly, having beaten back foes. Others turned left when they could have turned right and ended up injured or dead. For those who descend as you did, without great deeds other than the fact of their survival…it presents another choice."
"And what is that Kocho-san?" His teeth fitted together tightly, but he maintained an impassive tone.
"The stories we tell ourselves are powerful. If you had not lost Sabito I think you may have told yourself a kinder story. One where a boy was injured and through grace and luck managed to survive a trial. Instead, you told yourself a shameful story and you hardened your heart and made your face a mask of indifference. Either way the boy grew into a man who surpassed many, who fought with honor and integrity. A man who made another choice on a different mountain, one coved in snow. That choice made the difference between winning and losing the most important battle in a thousand years."
"You've given this a lot of thought," he said dismissively, though he felt as though she laid him out bare.
She sighed. "I have time to think about things now."
"Is there no one else you can burden with your insights?"
"I can see you are troubled today. You have a fever and there is concern for your heart. I will leave you to it then."
When he looked to the screen it was empty.
He wondered vaguely, who was concerned for his heart.
In her final visitation, Shinobu leaned close to the screen and whispered, though he could still hear her smile.
"I think you are going to live Tomioka and so I have a final word of advice for you."
He sighed and said nothing.
"I want you to remember who you shared the real story from the mountain with…when you said all of the words out loud. Do you remember?"
"Tanjiro," he said blankly, not seeing the point.
"That is right," she chirped.
As if I do not remember my own words. I lost my arm not my mind.
"You and I have been partners many times over the years, but you never showed concern for my wellbeing during battle."
"You did not require my concern Kocho -"
She made an impatient sound and interrupted.
"You need to hear this. You broke through the mask when you fought with Tanjiro. You feared for him, and you fought for him. I've never seen you so passionate in your concern for another."
"Seen me? You were dead. You weren't there." Giyuu said this dispassionately, but he felt a sharp pull in his chest.
"Don't be obtuse Tomioka! This is important." For once her voice wasn't smiling.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. He'd begun to sense things from beyond the dream and knew his time with Shinobu was short, so he remained quiet.
"The world will be very different now that Muzan is dead. What will a Hashira do? You are a young man. You may have many years ahead – "
"But the mark – "
"Do not concern yourself with the mark. The mark will do what it does. If it takes you before you are 25, do you not want to live the last few years of your life happily? And if it spares you? If you have longer, do you not want to make something of yourself?"
He sat silent in thought.
"I know you well Giyuu and you are at another moment of choice. Turn one way and you will end your days living alone on the side of a mountain, or worse, living with your old sensei as the heir apparent to an irrelevant vocation, with him telling you what to do day in and day out. You may come to wish for the mark to take you.
"But turn the other way and you may find a life worth living."
He found himself uncharacteristically moved by her words and he could not help himself. He was curious.
"What is the other way Kocho-san?" he whispered.
"I think you should ask Tanjiro. He will help you."
He felt a sudden pain on the right side of his body and realized that, in reality, he was lying face up even though in the dream he knelt on the ground. The disorientation made him suddenly dizzy.
"Shinobu!" he cried, startled by an intense feeling of regret.
"Yes, Tomioka-san?" Shinobu was back to smiling and he pictured her beatific face behind the screen.
Giyuu struggled to find the words, a common affliction for him under the best of circumstances.
"When we were paired in battle…I did not show concern for your wellbeing. But that does not mean that I did not feel it."
"And that, my friend, is the story of your life."
Her laughter was still ringing in his ears when he woke.