"It's been a while since I last had chocolate," her grandmother starts when she sees her coming. "Are you sure you don't want another slice? It's a really nice cake."

"No, thanks." Aya sits beside her on the edge of the roof. "I actually came to talk to you."

She plays with a loose strand of hair in between her fingertips. Kaede recognizes her determination as the same she sees when looking at herself in the mirror. It probably runs in the family.

"Sorry I didn't get you anything," she says, playing with the cake on her plate.

"You were a demon slayer before, weren't you?" Her grandniece's stare doesn't waver. It's hard to think of her as the little eleven year old girl that hid behind her, or the fifteen year old that yelled a little too much.

"Turning sixteen has made you grow up, huh?" Kaede notes, leaving the cake aside because she thinks that with this bravery, Aya deserves all her attention.

"I just think that this family has too many secrets and I'm fed up with it, so, as a birthday present" she leans back to take in the entire district with her eyes, as both share the same black sight. "Tell me, Kaede, what did you go through?"

"Brace yourself, then," it's hard to accept that shaky breath comes from her, who believed herself to leave behind such measly feelings, but there's no helping it. "Your grandmother isn't, nor wasn't, a very nice person."

She waits for a minute, waits for her to run away or turn back and regret her decision before it's too late. But Aya's eyes don't waver, so she starts:

ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ

I guess I should start by the beginning, shouldn't I?

I had not been born at the time, but it was something carved in our house and traditions that all of us learnt without the need to be told.

We were ten siblings raised to be soldiers, in an attempt to preserve the dignity of the Fujioka family, crushed under the emperor's heel once he deemed samurais to be unnecessary.

So like a prodigal son that came back to his father's home after losing everything he had, our family was welcomed back into the demon slaying corps after losing all our power in the Meiji Era.

I was the second youngest in the batch. My brother, Masao, came after me. I loved him more than anything.

Her grandniece's eyes shine with recognition as she brings a hand to her mouth. But she does not weep or mourn, maybe because she believes Kaede has shed her dose of tears and doesn't want her to do it one more time. Kaede has never liked being pitied, but she accepts it this one time.

My parents… well, you see. They did not enjoy having to kneel before someone else, and the loss of their honour affected them greatly. Not that I don't despise them any less for it.

In the house we kept up with the manners, the traditions, and tried to hold onto the only things that proved we were royalty instead of mere peasants after hundreds of years.

In turn, everything felt incredibly cold.

There were a few characteristics that followed someone with our blood. All of us were small, our hair was painted gold or silver, skin as white as porcelain, not to mention the eyes.

We treasured our blood because it carried the eyes with it. Those of yours, of mine, your mother's, are a miracle only seen in our family. However, they're usually colourful, purple, pink, green, blue, not the greys and browns we've ended up getting. But I guess it doesn't really matter anymore.

As a member of our family, I was uncharacteristically weak. I used my childhood days to train and become stronger, but nothing really worked. My strength is something I cultivated on my own.

The garden is empty except for the two of them. Masao has stopped training and his wooden sword lays on the floor now. Kaede grips at her own sword and follows his lead. There's a spider on the bushes, an insect bigger than her has been trapped by her silk, maybe a wasp, maybe a beetle.

"The harvestman is much smaller than its prey," Masao starts smiling at her, and they both observe. It squirms and tries to escape, but the spider's long legs give her small body the power she did not possess. "It doesn't have poison like most spiders do, but it doesn't matter."

Glue comes out of her and the prey is now useless, powerless against her. The harvestman bites and Kaede knows, with her eyes, that she has won this battle.

I managed to master the Flower Breathing thanks to my sight, and while I was small and flexible, I couldn't truly use it to its fullest potential. So I looked for a little bit of help in things around me.

"The bugs," Aya suddenly realizes with a gasp. "Did you use the bugs in all your battles to help you?"

"They aren't normal bugs." A smile tugs at her lips, because even after all this time, she's proud of her abilities. "But not just bugs, surely, you don't think your grandmother is that short sighted, do you?"

Aya pouts, but urges her to continue.

I became a Pillar faster than all my siblings at the ripe age of seventeen by killing fifty demons at the same time as two other demon slayers around my age.

Since we were the youngest compared to all the older pillars, we quickly became friends while working together on the battlefield.

We had drinks after fighting, told jokes in between pillar meetings, went together to restaurants and spent our free time enjoying each other's company. But the good times weren't the only things we shared; grief, tears, sweat, mourning, as one by one my siblings died in battles against demons and other comrades that travelled with us up the ranks fell in despair below us.

"We'll always be together," she whispers in a night where they share regrets and tears, souls bare under the eyes of the Moon.

"We will," echoes in the room of white walls. And they embrace one another in a tangle of limbs that resemble the harvestman she watched in her garden so long ago. This way, she feels safe.

"But only us. Just us, no one else."

I've tried to forget, but I find myself unable to do so completely. I guess Sakonji and Jigoro mean too much to me.

"Don't tell me you know Tanjirou and Zenitsu's masters!?"

Kaede sighs, rubbing her temple as Aya slides closer on her knees. "Yeah, I know Sakonji too well. And that little devil, Jigoro, Zenitsu is just as fast and twice as annoying."

She gives her grandmother a smile that tries to be comforting. "I never thought you'd know them, isn't that nice?"

Kaede does not answer.

After becoming a pillar, the next step was to look for a tsuguko. We were few, even back then, and the Oyakata-sama at the time didn't really expect us to live for too long. You're lucky to have such a caring lord now, we were treated like cannon fodder when I was still part of the corps. It's probably why this generation of the demon slaying corps is so weak.

I didn't want to make anyone my tsuguko, so I never took in any disciples. But Jigoro was my complete opposite, in turn, he trained whoever showed up at his door, I never liked it. To train kids so they could hold swords once I died, so they could fight my battles just like my parents did with their children. The sole idea was nauseating.

I don't know if Sakonji agreed with me, but he never took in any disciple at first either.

"Look at them," Kaede said bitterly, hair blonde instead of white, cheeks full instead of hollow. The tea lost its warmth a while ago and the back of her mouth feels bitter. "The kid doesn't know what he's getting himself into."

"He won't master Thunder Breathing, either." Sakonji moved to take the cold cup from her hands and change it for a new one. She embraced it against her chest and called his name, if only to catch his stare. They both knew that was not the problem

"Promise me you won't have any disciple," she asks, and her heart aches. "Not when they can turn out like us, not when they can end up like the others."

Sakonji wraps his warm, so warm hands around her teacup and smiles. He always looked so kind when looking at her. "It'll just be the two of us, then."

"Yeah," she says, cheek against his racing heart. "Even if Jigoro isn't here, that will be enough."

But he lied to me.

A few weeks right after I went to his house, I found a kid there, a sword in his hands. It was as if horror struck me.

Sakonji tried to give me excuses, that the child had no one and nowhere else to go, and that he wanted to take revenge on demons, that if he didn't train him, then he would die even earlier. It was useless to soothe my rage.

I felt so betrayed, so lied to. I had wrongfully believed that he saw things like I did, that he thought taking in disciples was dooming another child to death, but instead he trained a kid behind my back. And it hurt so much.

Two of my siblings remained beside me when I was sent on a mission to the red light district. Masao was one of them.

He had met a girl outside the corps, you know. He was hoping to get married and live a happy life, that was why he went with me in the first place, he wanted to defeat an Upper Moon and go home.

Masao was kind, just as kind as Sakonji was. The sword didn't fit his hands, the uniform didn't suit his face, and yet he had been forced to become a demon slayer only because my parents wanted to keep playing the game of war.

He was not like me and yet he admired me, trusted we would be victorious and go home under my command.

"I wish you could retire earlier." Kaede wraps her hands with bandages and tests the bow with them. It feels just fine.

"You know mother and father would never let me. They didn't let the others, anyway."

"I guess they'll never change." She grabs a handful of arrows and looks at her baby brother one last time. "After this, our debt with them will be done for."

And Masao smiled at the idea. "Yeah! Let's go."

He should have stayed home, should have never picked up a sword, and yet I set him off with a smile.

The fight turned in many unexpected ways, we were only three, the only ones still standing, I considered sending a letter to ask for backup at some point, but I knew that Sakonji and Jigoro would come if I did, and that my parents would scold me for making them look weak, so despite my brothers' worry, I refused.

That's why they died.

Sunrise was close, the Upper Moons panicked and slashed the building where the place was taking place. Both of my brothers were crushed under the rubble, but I, who was small, who was the weakest, could survive by squeezing under the remains of the building.

"I lost a leg in that fight," Kaede rolls up the kimono to show her the fake, wooden leg that replaces what should be flesh instead. Aya stares at it with something that's a little bit too close to horror. "I got a prosthetic, but it will never be the same."

Because not only her, but she knows, too. That they're not talking about the leg.

It had finally happened, I was the only one left.

Of course, my parents scolded me.

A cup of tea breaks into pieces against the floor. Her hands are trembling, she cannot stand the empty room that only holds her and her parents.

"Put yourself together, you're embarrassing," her mother hisses, expression covered by a sleeve like royalty would do. She does not make any attempt to help Kaede back to her feet.

The spilled tea stains her clothes with its water hue, it should burn but Kaede cannot feel it.

"I can't believe that it had to be you." Her father stares at her with cruel eyes. "The weakest child, who played god and shielded herself behind mere bugs and little tricks. We've truly been cursed."

"At least," this time it's her mother, whose words hit a chord that's been close to snapping for too long, "it wasn't Masao. That was surely a lost case."

"Always running around like a child, neglecting his responsibilities, I can't believe we had a son like that."

'That's right,' Kaede thinks, going back to her feet. 'Masao was nothing like us, he was nothing like this cruel and ruthless family.'

If she had been able to give her life for his, she would have.

The heads of her parents fall to the floor and it's their blood now what stains her clothes along with the hot tea. There's not even a blink, not even a word. For the first time in her life, Kaede Fujioka wields a sword like they had wanted her to.

Because she didn't deserve it at all.

There's a scream, ruckus, the maids and the servants all run to the main room to know what happened and find a young lord stepping on the corpses of her parents.

"Get out," she whispers at first, sword clicking against the floor once it slips out of her grasp. "Get out! You're all fired! And if I catch a word of what happened here you'll share the same fate!"

I watched as the mansion I grew up in, where generations and generations before me had lived their entire lives, burned to the ground by my hand.

I still remember the stickiness of blood on my face and my clothes. I don't think I'll ever be able to leave it behind, anyway.

"So then where did you go?" Kaede doesn't find any difference in the way her granddaughter looks at her now than she did just a few minutes ago. She thinks that's not a very good thing.

"To the only place where there was anyone left who loved me."

When I showed up at Sakonji's little house in the mountains, it was raining.

He took me in gracefully, dried my wet hair and gave me dry clothes, yet the only thing he knew was that I had given up my position as a pillar and that I turned my back to the demon slaying corps completely. If he had thought he could have gotten any answer from me, he would have asked me, but he did not.

"You should cut down," he notes, after coming back at sunrise with the child he was still training to his house full of smoke. "Lungs are important to demon slayers, you can smoke if you want but maybe you should try to slow down a bit. Just for your sake."

"Jigoro doesn't nag me as much when I stay over," Kaede chuckles, although she throws the ashes out the window without another word.

Sakonji makes a disapproving little hum, but they all sit at the table to have breakfast together and share a comfortable silence as the fire rumbles in a corner.

"This reminds me of my parents," the child whose name she refuses to remember says. "We would sit together during meals and they would look at each other without saying anything. I think that was how they told each other 'I love you', do you two do that too, Urokodaki-san?"

Kaede freezes on the spot.

"I bet your parents didn't love each other," she hisses. "I bet they despised one another, I bet they despised living together, I bet they despised having to look you in the face everyday, they probably let that demon kill them just so they didn't have to be together anymore!"

"Kaede!" Sakonji slams the table with her fists and she flinches. A second later, she's out the door, leaning against some tree on this mountain that can't be her home as much as she wants it to.

"Do you really hate me that much?" When he comes out to meet her, his voice is a little whimper, as if she's kicked his heart one and a hundred times just to place it back on his chest and hope it keeps beating alone.

"No," Kaede shakes her head, regret pooling in her eyes, "no, no, of course I don't hate you, I'd never be able to do such a thing."

"Then do you hate the idea of us together? Is that it?" She examines him carefully, doesn't say a word as he rubs at the back of his neck. "I know I'm just a silly boy from the mountains, I know you deserve so much more than what I can offer you right now."

"No, no, don't go on, please," Kaede pleads, but Sakonji gives a step closer to her and caresses her cheek, because he needs to say it.

"But I want to try." And that seals what she's been fearing for a while. "Wouldn't it be nice if what he said was true? Wouldn't you like to live with me? All three of us, Jigoro, you and me. And we could be happy together, we could even have children, a family of our own who won't suffer through what we did, is it such a horrible idea?"

'Yes, it is,' she thinks. 'How can I love you when I'm rotting from the inside? All the while you look at me with such a kind expression on your eyes? I don't think I'd be able to hold you in the night, with these bloody stained hands of mine'

"Will you try?"

"Why didn't you?" Aya asks. "You loved one another, what else did you need?"

Kaede looks at her sceptically. "Only a child believes that just love would be enough."

"My love would be," Aya says, clutching at the clothes over her chest. "My love would be enough." And she flushes a bit.

"How long are you gonna keep this up?" Her grandmother starts. "How long until Tanjirou realizes you've been fooling around with him the entire time?"

"That's not…" Aya's voice falters. "That's not what I've been doing." And stronger, she states, "I love him." But her grandmother's gaze only tightens.

"Right, so you've told him you can't have children? That you'll never be able to give him offspring?"

She gulps, drying her sweaty hands against the kimono. "We're still sixteen."

"You're already sixteen," Kaede remarks. "You know how important family is to him, surely, he'd want to do that one day. When are you going to tell him? In a year? Two? When you're in the bedroom on your wedding night?"

"Stop it," but Aya knows that what she's saying has a little bit (only a little bit) of truth to it, because the truth has always hurt her. "You're just saying that because you want to hurt me back, but it's not going to work. I can see through you, grandma, I know this hurt you just as much as it would hurt me."

There's no loose strands behind where her grandmother can hide her face, so she just looks away sheepishly.

"Do you want me to keep going?"

"Yeah," Aya huffs, gripping at her sleeves. "Yeah, go on."

The only thing I was thinking about when I asked my husband to marry me was how petite everyone in my family had been.

His black hair, his huge size and his dark eyes. Your grandfather was well-bred and had a big house where I would be able to live comfortably without raising a single finger in my entire life. I guess that was the only thing not so different from my past situation.

Big, strong hands check her prosthetic carefully. Kaede sees kind eyes everywhere, but not on this one.

"Hey," she calls, and he looks up. "Let's get married."

He had happily shrugged in reply, "sure."

I met your master many years later, once I had left the corps behind entirely.

A few years went by until I stopped receiving letters from Sakonji and Jigoro, though, but there's no use in dwelling on it.

Himejima showed up at my house with a little butterfly that would fall into a spiderweb many, many years later. And she looked just like my brother.

No other cultivator had been able to teach her. So he thought I would be able to, despite the fact that I had never accepted any disciples or 'tsugukos'. She was the most clever, kind child I have ever met.

"Kanae Kochou," Kaede says her name because this one, as promised, she had not forgotten.

"So you do know Shinobu," Aya squints.

"No, I don't know her," Kaede says, "although she came to visit Kanae once."

The little girl with purple on her hair and her eyes watches flabbergasted at the hundreds, millions of insects Kaede still keeps in a Butterfly House in her garden.

"Even though you are weak and small, these guys have helped you fight against demons?"

"Yeah!" Kanae exclaimed cheerfully, towering above her little sister. "Lady Kaede is super strong!"

Shinobu hums, staring too attentively at a black widow that walks too close to her face against the glass window. And Kaede can see the gears on her head starting to turn.

The only reason why I trained Kanae was because I knew she wouldn't leave the corps and the only thing I could do to help her was make sure she became strong enough not to die.

"Just like you." She taps Aya's forehead with her finger, but it's not scolding. "You may have been able to do so earlier, but now your eyes are set somewhere else, and you won't give up until you reach that goal."

Aya frowns a little as Kaede leans back again, hands placed on top of her lap. "Tanjirou and the others have taken root too deeply, it'd be useless."

She hopes that, at the very least, she's not sending this butterfly to her death as well, after waiting so long for her to hatch.

It was a stormy day when the news reached me.

As it was pouring outside, I only looked out the window, at the winds and the rain.

It was not the only place where it was raining though.

"I'm glad you told me, though." Aya's chin softly leans against the top of Kaede's head. Her soft breathing contrasts with her shaky one. "I'm glad, I'm really glad, grandma. Now you don't have to carry this burden alone."

And they mourn, and they mourn, and they mourn, until there's no more grief to pour out of their hearts.

Somehow, that makes it better despite the fact that she thought it never would be.

ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ

i'm pretty sure kaede sakonji and jigoro had sex once or twice

after around 200k words, kaede's backstory is finally revealed yayy

all my original characters are important in the story and have their own arcs, so please look forward to yuu and kaori in the future