"Girls are crazy!" is what Zenitsu screamed while arriving at the first reunion on the roofs of Tanjirou's team. "Bugs, bugs everywhere! And just when I thought they had disappeared, only more came! There was no way to get rid of them, no way! I could hear the cicadas' cries at night! Even their eggs sing, their goddamn eggs underground sing! What kind of cicadas are those!? I haven't been able to sleep for weeks! Weeks, I'm telling you!"
He incessantly scratched himself while talking, as if the sequels of the last wave of insects, the fleas, were still with him. Certainly they were still with Nezuko, who had attracted the most fleas and was covered in bites, and Tanjirou, too, as he had been by her side.
"The worst is the smell," Tanjirou butted in then, inadvertently touching his own nose. "Spiders already smell like vinegar, but this time there were so many I couldn't stand it."
He shivered at the thought as Inosuke stepped up and exclaimed:
"None of that compares to how much the fleas' bites hurt! Do you know how it feels to be bitten in my marvelous skin!? Despite the fact that they are small, those damn bugs didn't leave me alone no matter what I did!"
Instantly, a chorus of chuckles came from above them.
Aya, Kanao, Aoi and Kaede were all perched on the upper part of the ceiling, and their playful smiles said it all.
"How is your search for the demon going!?" Aoi started, brushing away her pigtails with a gesture that showed too much amusement for a single hand.
"We've already reduced the candidates to a handful of girls! I'm sure you are on par, aren't you, Pillar!?" Kaede continued, and her sharp gaze fixed on the huge form that had just appeared behind their backs.
"Uzui-san, weren't you a god!? Say something!" Zenitsu, who had never recognized that self imposed title until he had needed it, pointed with a finger at the girls.
The Pillar remained silent, not even the long stare he shared with Kaede, whose eyes only showed victory, made him utter a single word.
"This is incredible, then I'll do it myself!" Zenitsu, Pillar lacking, exclaimed at the top of his lungs. "You're not even that pretty, you hellish women!"
They only replied by breaking out into chuckles once more.
"Come on, Kanao, just like we practiced," Aya urged, elbowing the girl's stomach.
She turned completely red and played with her kimono, sweating as she yelled with a muffled voice, "F… fuck you! We're gonna kick your asses!"
"Say that to my face you shitty butterfly!" Smoke came out of Inosuke's ears when Tanjirou had to stop him by force from jumping to Kanao and starting a battle against someone he could not win against.
He didn't even want to think about it, Kanao would knock him out with a kick so fast that Inosuke wouldn't even have time to move his jaw to avoid getting it broken.
"Don't worry, in a week or so we will have defeated the demon so we can all go home! Rest now and leave everything to us!" It was significantly harder not to blush when Aya winked, but Tanjirou tried (and wanted to think that he did succeed) until Aya turned around and exclaimed on his direction. "See you later!"
To anyone else, it would only be an attempt to get a rise out of him (it was for Zenitsu, who started screaming like crazy and this time it was Inosuke who had to hold him so he didn't jump at the girls) but it has the opposite effect on Tanjirou, who was becoming increasingly familiar with feeling warm and fuzzy because he would, truly, see Aya later.
The moment the girls disappeared from their sight, only leaving mocking chuckles behind, Uzui's expression changed completely:
"And what did you guys find out, huh!? Useless, they made us bite the dust with those stupid bugs and we haven't even been able to defend our pride! What kind of team did I make with you guys!?" Tanjirou told him about Suma and the girls that 'lost her footing', but Uzui hit all three of them on the head and kept screaming. "That's not enough! I want you to go back to your houses and find out who the demon is, for fuck's sake, they're gonna win!"
"It's not my fault that I still haven't heard anything about your wives because of those stupid cicada eggs!" Zenitsu screamed, snot dripping down his nose as he rubbed where Uzui had hit him. Uzui only hit him again.
"Shut up and go look! Come on, everyone out! Your incompetence is irritating!"
Oh, if only Tanjirou could smell the demon's hideout instead of the vinegary smell of the spiders
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Ever since Oyakata-sama, at fourteen, asked him to join the corps, a long time had gone by.
He did not count and preferred not to. Sometimes they would say 'hey, you've already been three years in the corps, that's a long time!' and Himejima would be surprised not at the fact that he survived, but because he didn't seem to notice that time went by despite having in his conscience, as a monk, that everything faded away as it did.
Gyomei picked up his chains, destroyed demons with them and did the same the next day until he reached the most important rank in the corps. He protected people, took care of them, but none could touch him, he didn't want them to, he didn't think he could let them do so.
But then, when arriving home, what was left for him? what was left for him? what was left for him?
And the question echoed in his empty house, along with his weapon crashing against the floor.
Himejima wiped off a blood streak from his cheek that did not belong to him, as his stomach rumbled. He should have had dinner before the mission.
"Um, uh, mister, I, uh…"
The Stone Pillar had been alone for so long that sometimes he forgot he wasn't anymore.
There was a small form in the room that had been living with him for a few weeks now, it was no furniture or any ornament, it moved and breathed. It was hard to remember that.
"You should be asleep." He did not have the certainty of what time it was, but he did know it was late and that sunrise hadn't come yet because the demon he had just killed didn't worry about the Sun.
He made Ayaka Iwamoto his disciple just as a strategic decision. A little girl that killed a demon by herself had potential, raw and abundant, to succeed him once he wasn't there anymore.
She was just that, nothing else.
"I just can't… I can't…" A little sniff came from the shape he identified as hers and only then did he, judging by her sobs, realize that she was crying. "Nightmare and I… I can't… sleep…"
How funny that she looked for help in a bloodied giant.
"I know… I already know that you don't like kids, but…" At his expectant silence, Ayaka continued. "Can I sleep with you?"
"No." His answer was simple and cutting. He heard how the girl's lips trembled as she started sobbing louder, at which he started sweating, too.
Was she gonna be crying like that all night? Then he wouldn't be able to sleep and if someone were to hear that, with his history, that a little girl had been crying the entire night in his house, the rumours that calmed down a few years back would start to bubble up again.
«I know you fought to protect those people» Oyakata-sama's voice reminded him. «You're not a murderer.»
«I am not» he repeated. «But if I let this girl whisper things about me because of this, everyone will think so.»
"I'll get the bed ready."
Ayaka kept sniffing:
"B-but you said that-"
"Forget about what I said and come here."
He used a dirty rag to clean the places where the stickiness of blood could still be felt. Ayaka didn't seem to mind waiting as he stripped himself from the uniform in favour of a simple yukata, although she was still crying when Himejima finally laid down the futon on the floor and went under the covers without a word.
The difference in size was much bigger than what he had thought at first, he noted, when Ayaka snuggled against his side and her body covered a tenth of what the giant Himejima did. She was so small that Himejima feared he would crush her in his sleep and he would finally turn, by accident, into a murderer, so he stayed still, barely breathing, as every single muscle in his body tensed up, paying too much attention to such an insignificant ball.
A few minutes went by and Himejima had yet to be stabbed by the girl, he couldn't help but wonder what she truly wanted. Maybe once he fell asleep she would give a try to her malicious plan?
He did not know what part of this could ever be comforting, but he did not question it.
"Did you fall asleep already?"
"No…" Ayaka whispered, grazing Gyomei's clothes with her fingertips.
"Then do so."
But the slowing down of her breathing, the one that would have told him she finally fell asleep, didn't come. He would have known, he had taken care of selfish and treacherous kids for a very long time.
"What was the nightmare about?"
"Huh?" Ayaka got the smallest bit closer to him. Himejima could hear her heartbeat going a thousand miles a minute.
"You're too scared, aren't you? Tell me what the nightmare was about and maybe you'll fall asleep that way."
"Ah." She staggered slightly but he considered himself to be patient, waiting until her little voice picked up the correct words. "I don't really remember, it's too fuzzy, I…"
This time her fingers went from grazing to grabbing, holding tightly onto Himejima's sleeve, who noticed the way she trembled.
"I don't know what happens in my nightmares, I only know that I'm really scared and confused… and that it hurts." The first thing that came to his mind was that she was lying, but why hide something like that? He tried to think about it, but couldn't think of an answer. "It's always… it's always behind me. In the ocean."
"Behind you in the ocean?" He asked. "What's behind you in the ocean?"
Ayaka muffled a whimper, hiding her face against Himejima's chest, and went stiff.
He had the feeling that this, instead of helping her, had only made it worse.
«Think» Himejima told himself. «Come on, what would the old Gyomei do?»
But the old Gyomei had already been betrayed once, did he really want it to be twice?
The child he took under his wing was trembling, scared to death and grabbing onto him as if her life depended on it.
«Twice then» he sentenced.
"Go round, waterwheel, go round and call Mr. Sun." The deep voice of an adult man like him could not compare to the times he had heard her sing, but he did not deem it important then. "Birds, bugs, beasts, grass, trees, flowers."
Ayaka weakly joined him, voice cheerful as she recognized the song. "Bring spring and summer, fall and winter." Himejima nodded and gave her a smile. "Bring spring and summer, fall and winter."
"Flower, bear fruit, and die. Be born, grow up, and die. Still the wind blows, the rain falls. The waterwheel goes round and lifetimes come and go in turn!"
Not much time went by until both of them broke out into chuckles.
Ayaka snuggled against his side once again, but this time Himejima felt a smile against his skin, not tears.
She was just his disciple, nothing else. Although he had misjudged just how much meaning a single word could hold.
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"So this is the village that brought you so much suffering, my dear disciple."
He would have liked for the distant smell of ashes not to reach his nose, but it did. It was hard to decide if that brought him relief or not.
"Shishou, you should stop muttering nonsense and start focusing on not getting killed." The bullets clank as Genya loaded his gun once again, telling Himejima he was still by his side, as loyal as a good son. There were sometimes where he wavered on his trust, but he always decided otherwise.
The cold air mixed with the flames far away, making it hard to breathe. This time, at the very least, he was glad Genya didn't use breaths.
Himejima pushed him out of the way of the golden fan that came right at him, dodging it himself by a hair. "I guess you're right about that."
"Oopsies," the demon that mocked his faith chuckled. "Be careful, old man, or you'll seriously end up losing an arm!"
Genya was already huffing, he tried not to worry but the slight furrowing of his brow told the demon otherwise.
"This fight is already set in stone. The strongest demon slayer and the human demon, what a joke! You can't even touch Upper Moon Two! What do you think will happen if you go up against Upper Moon One!?" Himejima didn't give him the pleasure of getting a rise out of him, although the strength with which he swung the chains against him increased ever so slightly. The Upper Moon dodged it as if he were dancing and addressed the little demon that tagged along with him. "Dear child, is anything coming to mind?"
There was a small form, similar to the one he remembered but significantly bigger. Another remarkable difference between them was that this one was covered in blood and rests of human flesh were still in between his teeth.
He got up from the floor, blood dripping from the place his arm was supposed to be.
"Yeah, I think I'm starting to remember," he slowly said. "My name is Takeshi... And I was born here."
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i accidentally skipped posting this chapter, so here! have fun everyone im finally back