walk steady on this cruel world's path

By: Aviantei

Part Forty-Nine:

"The End of a Storm"

I walked through the darkness, hoping that in time I'd be able to see where I was going. Despite everything I'd just gone through, my body didn't even ache, and both my feet were whole beneath me. Thanks to that, when I saw a bright shape in the distance, I had no problem sprinting towards it, and once I could see what I was heading towards, I picked up the pace more.

"Jaden!"

I crashed into their arms, somehow not barreling them over with the force of my hug. Jaden's nostalgic hold wrapped around my waist, though they couldn't pick me up like they used to. "You've gotten so tall, Robin." They squeezed me one more time. "And muscular."

I laughed, my face already wet from tears. "Occupational hazard," I said. "You haven't changed at all, though." Jaden looked the exact same as they had before the crash, forever fourteen and untouched by time. "God, I have so much to tell you about. I mean, I can't let you know about how everyone's doing back home, but these past three years—I ended up in a goddamn anime I hadn't even watched before, can you believe that, and—" I caught myself, remembering to breathe. "Well, it's not like there isn't time to talk about it all, so I guess I don't have to rush."

But Jaden shook their head, their hand brushing some of my hair away from my face. "Not right now, Robin. It's not time for you yet."

"But—but that's it! I know there's the whole thing with Tanjirō-kun, but the others know, so that will work out without me. Canon's over. What the hell else do I even need to do anymore?" I'd done everything I could, sharing Shimizu's notes with the Hashira and fighting until my body gave out on itself. Jaden just kept giving me that sad smile, though, and I grabbed onto the front of their shirt, shaking them. "Don't tell me I can't stay with you, Jaden! I'm always, always the one left behind, and I can't take it anymore! I'm so fucking tired of it! It hurts too much!"

"I know." Jaden put their hands over mine, their smooth fingers pressed against my calluses. "I know it hurts. And I'm sorry that I left you like that. But I'd do it over and over again if it meant that you'd survive."

"What if I don't want that?! What if I just want to stay with you?!"

"Don't say things like that, Rairi-kun."

I froze, recognizing that voice anywhere. Shimizu, radiant even in death, smiled that same smile she always did, though I could well enough recognize the sadness in her eyes now that I knew to look for it. The sight of her was more than enough to make my heart ache, and I dropped my hands from Jaden, torn between staying close to them or holding onto Shimizu while I still had the chance.

"Please don't say that you want to die," Shimizu said, and I bit my tongue. "I know that living is rough, and it can feel like a struggle. But even I was able to realize that I wanted to live, despite what I thought." Tears shimmered across her eyes, and guilt stabbed into my heart for making her cry again. "I chose to sacrifice myself, but that doesn't mean that I didn't want to stay with you and everyone else, Rairi-kun."

All my emotions stuck in my throat, as if I'd swallowed taffy whole. I pushed the feeling back, reaching out to catch Shimizu's hands in mine. "Then let me stay with you now," I said—I begged. "You're someone I care about so much, Shimizu-chan. I'm sure it must have been hard, holding back talking about knowing anything, looking at the people around you and knowing who would die and who would get hurt, missing home and having no way to get back. I know, so I—"

"I know you know, Rairi-kun." Her fingers squeezed back at mine, and her voice was so tender that I could have just sunk into it forever. "You've had it rough, too, but that never stopped you. You talked like I was the brave one, but I was always terrified—but you could act in ways I couldn't. You helped save people in ways I couldn't." She hung her head, her hair obscuring her face, even with the hairclip I had gifted her fastened in her bangs, and I could feel her trembling in my grasp. "God, I admired you, Rairi-kun. I ended up loving you. I wish I could have stood on that final battlefield and fought at your side. But—" She pulled her hands back, looking at me with a watery grin. "If I can't live out the rest of my life with you and everyone else, I at least want you to make it."

"Stop it! You don't get to say that while you're crying. Besides, it doesn't matter, because I'm already de—gah!"

"You're sure making a racket for someone who's already dead," Sensei's gruff voice said, and I rubbed at the spot on the back of my head where his cane had struck me. Right after relief and sadness, pain was now on the list of reasons that I'd teared up in the last fifteen minutes. "You're going to give up just like that? I expected more out of you with your stubborn streak."

I growled, throwing my hands straight up into the air. "Why do you all keep talking like I have a choice in the goddamn matter?!" I gestured to the darkness around us. "I'm already here, so I'm fucking done for."

Sensei harrumphed, his unrelenting stare drilling into me. "You know better than anyone else that you can't give up at the slightest roadblock. I trained you, Child; I know what you're capable of." His cane jabbed me in the stomach, and I stumbled a few paces back. "I may have asked you to do something cruel when you served as my second, but I had no intentions of any of my apprentices following me for quite some time. You're far too young for that."

"Oh, yeah? Then sorry to fucking disappoint you, but I already lead one of your apprentices to his death, so what goddamn difference is another—"

"You don't have to take the blame for that, Rairi-senpai."

The words that were about to come flying out of my throat disintegrated at the sight of him. Kaigaku with a blue obi around his waist and his black kimono hung over his shoulders, the white collar creating a clear boundary between that fabric and the darkness of his Corps uniform underneath. Kaigaku, his eyes clear, his face unmarked, his ears rounded and his teeth an even line. Kaigaku, as human and as handsome as I'd seen him at Headquarters before sending him off.

"You can't stay here," he said, and I couldn't push the scream out of my throat, no matter how much I wanted to fight back, to have senseless arguments with each other until the end of time if it meant I wouldn't have to go through the despair of that loss again. "You need to keep going, need to help pass on Sensei's Thunder Breathing. You're the eldest of his heirs; don't back down from that responsibility. This isn't where you belong at all."

I sucked in a breath, though it was the most haphazard one I'd taken in years. "Stop making up excuses and just say it, Kaigaku!" I shouted, my hands clutched into tight fights at my sides. I was supposed to be dead; why could I even still feel the pain from where Sensei hit me, from where my nails were carving unmistakable grooves into my palms, from where my heart was shredding apart? "It's all my fault, and you're pushing me away from here because I fucked up with you so much that you don't want a damn thing to do with me anymore—"

"JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN!"

Kaigaku's voice echoed in my ears like the rumble of thunder itself, but it wasn't pure rage like he'd unleashed inside the walls of Infinity Castle, wasn't even the anger of when he'd exploded at the idea of all of us becoming Sensei's successors. His hands balled up in the front of my tattered uniform, and he shook me—once, but hard enough that the barrette (his barrette) at the end of my braid smacked into my back from the inertia. Kaigaku's eyes bored straight into mine, and all I could do was stare back.

"You think I don't want you around? I've done nothing but want you for the entire past goddamn year and a half!" Tears were spilling down my cheeks again, and Kaigaku's brow was furrowed, his whole face twisted up into that same uncomfortable looking expression he got whenever he couldn't process his feelings—but his words couldn't have been clearer. "If I had my way, I'd spend the rest of eternity with you around. But it can't be here just yet. I don't give a shit about any other sort of future, but I need you to live!

"I don't care if you weren't supposed to be in our world or what the hell ever; you're staying there! Plus Zenitsu's going to lose it if you die—and so will the rest of those little brats you made friends with. You need to go back, and be the goddamn incredible successor to Sensei I know you can be, and I don't want to see you again until you've had a long and fucking happy life. That's when come here and tell me and everyone else all about it. Do you understand me?!"

I choked on a sob. "What if it's too late? What if I wait that long and you're all gone?"

"Weren't you the one that told me? That reincarnation exists in this world?" I nodded, and Kaigaku's hands came up to cup my cheeks, his touch warm and gentle even with the calluses across his fingers and palms. "We'll find each other again, then. I'll claw my way out of hell if I have to. No matter where we are, no matter if we don't remember, I'll always be drawn to you, Rairi-senpai. Because you're home for me. Got it?"

"Got it," I said, my voice half drowned in tears. "I promise, Kaigaku, Jaden, Shimizu-chan, Sensei. I won't die just yet."

I moved to take Kaigaku's hand one last time—but he wasn't in reach anymore. There was a distance between me and him and everyone else, my loved ones still glowing in the dark, but far away enough that I could just see the smiles on their faces—though I could still hear their voices as clear as day.

(Rairi!)

"Robin."

"Rairi-kun."

"Rairi, my child."

"Rairi-senpai."

"Live."

Though I'd been so deep in the dark I couldn't hear it before, Zenitsu's voice reached me at last.

(Live! Don't you go, too! Rairi, please, you gotta live!)

I opened my eyes and breathed.

Forcing air through my slowing lungs hurt like a bitch. Then again, everything else hurt like a bitch, so maybe that feeling was just par for the goddamn course. The light of dawn had broken, the sky tinted yellow and lilac before bleeding into the barest traces of blue, and, for a good while, I stared up at it and past the Kakushi fussing over me, my body registering that my soul was still attached to it and my blood flowing with purpose to help heal my myriad of injuries.

There was a sharp gasp at my side, and a battered and bruised hand shot out towards me. "Rairi!"

"Zenitsu…"

My voice sounded godawful, my throat raw and horse, but Zenitsu wailed in relief at the sound of it regardless. I turned my head to see him at my side, though he was lying on his stomach with a couple of Kakushi attempting to redo the bandages around his stomach. His watering eyes met mine, and my body still had it in me to make tears torrent down my face.

"I'm sorry," I said, unable to produce more than a whisper. "I almost went away. I was so scared. I'm always the one left, Zenitsu. It's always me, and it hurts, and I'm so tired of being alone." Zenitsu managed to tangle his hand in mine, and I gripped on as tight as I could, though Zenitsu's hold was intense enough that I could feel my fingers already starting to go numb. "Please. Please stay with me, Zenitsu. I can't do it by myself anymore."

"It's okay, Rairi. You're not alone." He may have been sobbing, but Zenitsu still smiled, and the sight of that alone made my whole heart ache. "We're Jī-chan's successors, right? It's always going to be me and you, okay?" Zenitsu drew in another breath, though not one augmented for Total Concentration, and the next moment he attempted to sing, though his pronunciation was rough through his accent, "And there on the street…"

"…are so many possibilities," I sang, adding my voice to his, "to not be alone." If I hadn't already pissed off enough Kakushi with my recklessness today (not to mention Yushirō was so going to lay into me once it was safe for him to do so), I would have forced my body to move and dragged Zenitsu into a hug. His mouth opened, though he hesitated to speak as he blushed. "What is it?"

"Will you marry me?" My breath hitched, and even one of the Kakushi fumbled the gauze they were wrapping around some injury I hadn't even noticed I'd gotten on my other arm. Zenitsu's face burned a brighter red, but his honey golden eyes were earnest. "N-not right away. And I get it if you don't want to. But I promise I'll take care of you, and I know you'll take care of me, Rairi. That way, you know I'll always be at your side, no matter what."

"But—that's—" Oh, of course, I'd at long last found the one time that my mouth refused to work! "You—you're not just asking that because of what I said, are you?" Zenitsu deserved way better than tying himself down because he felt sorry for me.

Except I knew. That Zenitsu wouldn't do something like that. So then—

It was like waiting for the ripples to reach me on the shore all over again, except this time the waters crashed down on me in a full-fledged wave.

"I'm asking because I like you!" Zenitsu shouted at full volume, as if the whole remains of the Demon Slayer Corps needed to hear. I was too stunned to tell him to keep it down. Where the hell was this even coming from? Wasn't he supposed to marry Nezuko or whatever? I'd known that Shimizu and I had changed some bits of Canon, but there was no way— "L-like I said, it can wait until later. I can even court you first if you want. I'll take as long as you need. But I've liked you for years, and I'd love nothing more than to marry you!"

"Hold on! You know I can't be your wife, right? A-and I don't even know if I can give you an heir, and my leg just got fucked up and—" God, what was making excuses going to accomplish again? If I didn't want it, all I had to do was just say no. After everything I'd taught him, Zenitsu would accept that answer; it was that goddamn easy. So then, why—

Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Wow, I am so fucking stupid. Can I ever develop feelings and recognize them like a normal fucking person, universe? Please, I'm begging you!

Why, yes, I was drowning in that wave, now.

"Rairi, none of that matters to me," Zenitsu said, and it was hard to look him in the eye when I just wanted to spend the next twenty years curled up in a ball, lamenting my obliviousness. As it was, he pulled my hand towards him, dropping a kiss on top of my knuckles. "Marriage is a commitment to enjoy spending the rest of your life with someone, right? As long as I can have that with you, that's all I care about."

Which would have been super fucking romantic if I weren't having a crisis over how he'd just parroted my own words back at me. I groaned, wishing my other arm hadn't gotten messed up so I could press it into my face. "I said that literal years ago! Why do you still remember that?"

"Why wouldn't I remember that? It was important!" I kept my screeching on the inside, since I was pretty sure that the Kakushi didn't want to put up with that whole hot mess when they were already working so hard on taking care of us. Zenitsu also lowered his volume, apprehension slipping into his expression. "I know you don't need my permission, but you can say no. Though, correct me if I'm wrong and I'm just hearing what I want to again, Rairi, but the reverberation your heart's making right now…it sounds like you feel the same way as me."

Right, hearing feelings. How convenient of me to forget! But I didn't need Zenitsu to tell me what I felt, because I'd already figured it out. God, better late than never was just going to be the story of my whole damn life at this point, wasn't it? "You're not…just hearing things," I said, knowing my face must have been as red as a sunburn—but seeing Zenitsu brighten straight into that blinding smile of his was well worth it. "B-but we're dating before that. And everything with taking over for Sensei comes first. And we're gonna talk a lot about what this means for us, but—

"I know I'd be happy living the rest of my life with you, Zenitsu."

I'd always wanted that—to have that beautiful feature with all of my loved ones surrounding me. But even if the others were gone, Zenitsu and I were here, and we could carry them in our memories, living out our lives side by side.

"Uwah, Rairiii!" Zenitsu attempted to hug me, but the Kakushi tending to him kept him in place. "Come on, don't ruin the moment like that!"

"Would you rather end up dying before you can even get married?!" the Kakushi shouted, exasperated, and I gave a gentle tug on Zenitsu's hand to stop him from struggling.

"I'd much rather have you healthy than hurting yourself for a hug, Zenitsu," I said, catching his attention. "Besides—" I pressed a kiss into his knuckles, close to the spot where his own lips had been not too long ago "—we'll have plenty of time for that, later, right?"

The fresh flush and smile combo on his face was the most precious thing I had ever seen. How lucky was I again? An infinite amount, it seemed, since I got to watch Zenitsu stutter over his words. "R-r-right! I've been waiting this long, I can hold off until we're both okay, Senpai!"

I smiled, though the corner of my mouth tugged a little bit closer to being a smirk. "You don't have to call me 'Senpai' anymore, remember? Ze-n-i-tsu," I teased, and Zenitsu buried his face in the dirt. It might be more than a little bit challenging not to take advantage of my newfound powers, but there would be time for that, now that the future was open and unknown to us—now that the fighting was done. "Did everything go okay?" I asked, because even though I assumed, I needed to make sure. "Kibutsuji, Tanjirō-kun, Nezuko-chan?"

"Yeah," Zenitsu said, sounding winded, and I understood the feeling all the way in my bones. "Yeah, we got through it all. Aside from Yushirō-san, all the demons are gone." I expected relief to flood through me, but there was still a pit of undeniable grief rolling around in my stomach that I just couldn't shake. You would think it would be incredible to know that it was all done, but I felt like my world had been pulled out from me again—first dragged into another world, then my years of training and demon slaying, done for and no longer useful. "I…don't know about anyone else. I was way more concerned with making sure you were okay, so…"

So we don't know who else is alive and who's dead.

"Don't worry about it." I squeezed Zenitsu's hand one more time, the warmth between our palms enough to give me a small candlelight of hope among everything else. "We'll find out together. There's going to be a lot to take care of, so…" Gods, there was so much to take care of. The cleanup of the battlefield, the counting of and honoring the dead, the reorganization and redistribution of the Demon Slayer Corps, not to mention the pile of responsibilities that would be waiting for us back home.

"You've both done enough," one of the Kakushi said, and Zenitsu and I both glanced to them. "You two helped fight to keep the rest of us safe. Now it's our turn to take care of things here. All you two need to do is get some rest and recover." Yeah, that's right.

A little bit of rest didn't sound so bad at all.

[Author's Notes]

Hey, look at that, I'm officially done with rude cliffhangers. Time to enjoy your falling action fluff rewards for making it this far in this fic.

Thanks to Skygale, ForgeandGred4Ever, Starrylife, wazder101, sWoRd123, and Radioaktive9999 for the faves, follows, and reviews! The closer we get to wrapping this fic up, the more curious I get for everyone that's read this far, so Id love for you to share your thoughts with that review/comment button!

I'm just saying if Sanemi can have an angsty reunion in the near afterlife before coming back to life, then Rairi can, too.

It's time for a Taishō Era Secret! Engagement and wedding rings are a more western concept, and they didn't gain popularity in Japan until around the 1980s—and even now only some couples choose to get them. However, Rairi would later mention the concept to Zenitsu, and he would fall in love with it, so they asked Hanai to make them rings from some of the leftover Nichirin stores. After the rings changed patterns, Rairi and Zenitsu exchanged them, so Rairi has Zenitsu's lightning bolt pattern and Zenitsu has Rairi's golden yellow.

Next Time: Falling action, part one. Please look forward to it!

-Avi

[10.08.2022]