My friend recommended this anime to me and I love it :) I started writing just after watching the Final Selection arc, although I just finished writing this after binging the rest of the anime. I now know that Giyuu was one of Urokodaki's students too, but I don't know how he fits in here, so I didn't include him (I'm sorry I love him too). I never read the manga, so I'm definitely gonna get some things wrong, oops. Also, I just made up a bunch of names for Urokodaki's other students. I don't know what order they all died in, so I'm just making all this up.
Also, why is Makomo not in the character list? -_-
He found her drifting in a basket down the river.
Dark locks framed a pudgy, round face. Everything about her was soft—everything except her voice when she screamed.
It took him a while, especially considering he had no parenting experience, but when he thought to remove his mask, she stopped instantly and giggled, reaching out with soft fingers to touch his face. He winced when she pulled at his beard, but she looked so happy about it that he couldn't protest much.
Urokodaki went into the nearby town, asking anyone and everyone about her. All he got were sympathetic looks and apologetic head shakes. After a day of combing the village, he went home, at a loss.
She was awake. Her expression twisted up into distaste and fear before he realized that he was still wearing his mask, and he quickly took it off, relieved when her face morphed back into contentment. She stretched out her arms, begging to be held, and he didn't think for a second to do otherwise.
He'd protect her. No one else would. Something clenched painfully in his chest when he thought about how scared she must've been, alone in the dark at the mercy of the river.
Never again.
o0o0o
Those first few years were happiness embodied. It was just the two of them in the mountains, them and the fresh air and the wild animals and the forest and mountain that guarded them all.
When she tottered across the room all by herself and fell giggling into his arms, he picked her up and spun her around with a laugh and tears in his eyes, both of them feeling as triumphant as the other.
"Tou-san!"
He nearly dropped her when she exclaimed that so gleefully. He ought to have told her that he wasn't her father, she had it wrong.
But she looked so happy, and he was happy too, and selfishly, he thought he at least deserved that, so he didn't say a word and just kissed her head and asked what she wanted for dinner; of course, she couldn't really answer, but her laugh was the most beautiful thing he'd heard.
Between maintaining the house and doing whatever he had to as a demon slayer mentor, he spent all his time with Makomo. He made her a stuffed doll out of scrap cloth in the image of a fox. She named it Kitsu and never let it out of her sight.
She didn't like his mask, so he got into the habit of not wearing it. When an old friend came to call, he nearly forgot to put it back on before answering the door.
While they were catching up, Makomo came wandering into the room. He turned to look at her, and she flinched, her little fingers wrapping around the doorframe as she shrank back. He didn't think for a second before lifting his mask, and her expression brightened again as she ran into his arms.
His friend thought it was hilarious. "She's got you wrapped around her little finger!" he howled in laughter.
He scowled, but the little girl perched on his knee just giggled.
o0o0o
He didn't mean to.
He taught Makomo about demons, of course. He was a demon slayer. He'd be the last person to hide their existence, and especially not from her. A not insignificant number of enemies would love to have his head on a silver platter, and they'd use her at the drop of a hat to get to him. Best she know what could come after them, in case one day it happened.
He never meant to teach her to be a demon slayer. In fact, it was the last thing he wanted, especially not after Akihiro and Eiji and Himari and Daisuke and Genki and Ichika, they all left with swords at their hips and confidence in their eyes to walk the same path as he did once and make him proud, time after time after time after-
They all left and they didn't come back and he didn't think he could handle it if she went too.
But he was a trainer for a reason. It was in his soul, the desire to teach and pass on his skills and knowledge to the next generation. And Makomo, strong-spirited and bright-eyed, wouldn't settle for just knowing about the demons, she wanted to go out into the world like the rest of them and fight.
He relented, bit by bit by bit—first it was just telling her about demons, then it was explaining about the different types and their potential abilities so she wouldn't be caught too off guard if she happened to run into one, then endurance training so she could maybe outrun a demon and get help if it came to it one day, then rigging up that obstacle course again so she could learn to outmaneuver all the tricks that a wily demon could possess (just so that she could run and get help, mind you).
And then one day, he found himself showing her the kata, a wooden practice katana in her small hands, and he wondered how they got there, but there was no turning back; she moved so well that it was like she was born for this. He couldn't deny it, and he poured his heart into giving her everything she needed to become a demon slayer, and she flourished under his tutelage just like those flowers in the front yard flourished under her nurture and care.
o0o0o
"Take care of the flowers while I'm gone, okay? When I get back, I wanna see at least some of them still alive."
He frowned, only slightly offended at her total lack of faith in his gardening abilities. "How many is 'some'?"
"Tou-san."
Urokodaki held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay...I'm not making any promises, so you'd better hurry back."
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, her flowery mask sitting crooked on her head. It took him forever to get that shade of blue, in the likeness of the flowers she loved so much.
"I'll be sure to do that. Can't very well leave my poor babies at your mercy."
He almost told her. He almost opened his mouth and told her that there was a demon on Fujikasane Mountain that had killed so many students, six of them his bright-eyed, bushy-tailed pupils that he'd taught, children that he'd loved. He almost told her that he trapped the demon there so that it could kill and kill and kill and he almost told her that it would hunt her down and try to kill her too.
Instead, he just nodded with a gruff 'hmm'. Her smile widened, and she threw her arms around him with a hum; he hugged her back, patting her head a few times, and blinked back tears as best he could. This was why he wore that mask, dammit, but she would've seen through him with it on anyways.
He almost said, 'I love you', too. But he didn't, and neither did she, because then it would've felt like a goodbye, and she wasn't saying goodbye, not really, she'd come back after the Final Selection, wearing a demon slayer uniform, exhausted and probably bruised and battered, but she'd come back, and she'd rest while waiting for that old geezer to deliver her Nichirin sword, and then she'd set off on her new journey and her new life, and they could say it then.
"Ja, ittekimasu, tou-san," she declared, she and her mask smiling widely. He managed to raise a hand and wave before she turned and set off down the road, head held high without a backwards look.
He prayed that night, and the next, and the next, to his old pupils. Begging them to forgive him, and please, please protect her, because she'd done nothing wrong, she deserved to survive and live.
They couldn't protect her.
He waited two weeks. She was probably just moving slowly because of injuries, he told himself. She'd be able to rest once she got home. Then he could proudly show her that he had indeed kept most (some) of her flowers alive.
Come home soon. The house was too empty without two people in it.
He was watering the flowers when he heard the telltale cry of a messenger crow. His heart leaped, and water splashed over the dirt road as he lurched to his feet, whirling around, eyes scanning the horizon; some news is better than none, right?
The crow was carrying something in its talons. A cracked, broken piece of something dangling from thin, woven twine. It swung limply in the bird's grasp with each wingbeat. Lifeless.
They brought the pieces to him every time. After all, he was a highly respected demon slayer mentor, and the masks were easily identifiable as his work. Sometimes they came with the twine attached, sometimes not. Sometimes, rusty flakes of dried blood would come away on his shaking fingers when the crow dropped it into his grasp and banked away with a harsh caw.
He's wondered lots of times whether it would be kinder to just not know. Each day that he waits with no sign of his children that he sends off to die drives the rusty blade a little deeper in his heart, just a little; the hurt builds infinitesimally by the second. But when he sees the mask, broken and sometimes bloodied, the blade in his heart twists, and that's a whole new kind of pain. But it's not new, not really, not anymore.
He added her to the collection, set the piece of her mask as well as the stuffed fox doll he'd made her next to the others. Souls he'd cherished (and then snuffed out in his own hand), lined up in broken bits and pieces. Some were old enough that the twine had started to unravel. The blood would never completely come out, though. It covered all but a trace of the bright flowery blue on her mask.
"Take care of her," he choked out, pleading to his other pupils that he'd failed so miserably, even though he had no right to. He couldn't take care of her anymore.
o0o0o
His apprentice at the time found the boy.
Pink hair and gentle eyes. A ragged scar along his jawline. A strong grip when he pulled on the nose of the goblin mask, to Banri's great amusement, and the old mentor grabbed a practice sword with a scowl to poke and jab at the snickering young man.
Dancing out of reach with a laugh, Banri fled to the other side of the table, his grin fading slightly. "What are we going to do with him? No one in the village knows where he came from."
The little boy, not much older than a year, reached for the wooden sword with chubby fingers, and Urokodaki quickly set it aside out of reach. He pouted for a moment, looking as if he was about to cry, but then relaxed and hummed peacefully, to the mentor's relief.
He really had to stop picking up strays off the side of the road, but he couldn't help it. They looked so fragile, and he wanted to protect them, even though it was his fault that they would all end up-
Sabito would be different. Swordsman or not, he would be different.
Urokodaki would do better this time. He would learn from his mistakes in the past, he would make sure his children weren't joined by their new siblings too soon, he would do better.
He. Would.
o0o0o
They saw Banri off together. Banri was probably Urokodaki's longest apprenticeship (besides Makomo, technically, but she was different) at roughly four and a half years, but his strength was well-earned and his skills honed sharply. He got distracted a bit easily, though, and he came down from the mountains to visit Sabito often, despite how many times Urokodaki told him to focus on training.
"He's my little brother," Banri would say, swooping around the room with Sabito on his shoulders, squealing in delight. "A little brother needs a big brother."
He knelt in front of the little pink-haired boy now, reaching out to ruffle the messy locks, grinning. "Don't cause too much trouble for the old man while I'm gone, okay?"
Sabito blinked up at him with big lavender eyes. "Nii-san...gone?"
Banri didn't miss a beat. "Yeah, but I'll be back soon, and I'll tell you all about it, 'kay?" He said that, even though he knew why none of his mentor's former pupils ever visited—the lack of an answer when he'd asked was answer enough.
"You know that's against the rules," Urokodaki said gruffly. No one who'd undergone the Final Selection was allowed to tell anyone else about it, although he would break that rule in an instant to warn Banri and Makomo and all the others about that demon if only he could swallow down his guilt.
"Don't be such a stick in the mud," Banri teased, sticking out his tongue, and Sabito giggled, not understanding what the words meant but amused by Banri's expression.
"Stick in the mud," he parroted, and Urokodaki scowled at Banri (not that he could see it from behind the mask).
"See what you've done?" he groused.
Banri just laughed. Sabito reached out with one hand to touch the fox mask on his head, painted to the likeness of a playful joker, winking with a wide grin. By contrast, the expression on Sabito's young face was solemn, as if he knew what Banri was leaving to face.
He ambled forward and wrapped his arms around Banri, who returned the gesture with a low hum. "Nii-san...stay safe."
"Yeah," he agreed, smiling. "I'll come back safe."
Sabito's voice was muffled in Banri's coat. "Promise?"
Banri closed his eyes briefly before smiling again, this time looking up at Urokodaki too. "Promise."
As he pulled away and turned to leave, Sabito's hands lingered in the air a bit, as if wanting to pull him back. Together with the old mentor, he waved until they couldn't see Banri anymore, and then some. It was only until night had fallen that Sabito allowed himself to be led back inside, casting one last look back at the road before the door shut.
o0o0o
The grin on the cracked bottom half of the mask was the only thing that came back.
"Sensei?"
Sabito found him in his room, kneeling before the lost souls he'd condemned. His soft lavender eyes wandered over the pieces of the mask, over the blood-stained painted flowers, and came to rest on the mocking grin.
(Sabito didn't call him tou-san; he did once, and after wiping the grief-stricken tears away, Urokodaki corrected him to sensei)
"Where's nii-san?" He sounded so confused.
The old mentor didn't have an answer. He shook his head, tears splashing down onto white-knuckled fists. He deserved to suffer, but Banri didn't, and neither did Sabito.
"I'm sorry," he sobbed quietly, even as Sabito knelt down to hug him; he held the boy close as something wet seeped into the shoulder of his robes and the small form in his arms trembled. All he could say through his tears was, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"
o0o0o
Sabito was the only one to have seen the evidence, and yet he still said solemnly at the age of five that he wanted to be a demon slayer, his gaze steely with determination.
He didn't move nearly as well as Makomo. It took him some time to start to adapt to the obstacle course. But he was relentless, training until his body gave out, and each time he was knocked down, he got back up, bloodied and bruised and bent on avenging his classmates and siblings from the past.
He was almost a natural with the katana. He picked up the kata faster than Urokodaki had seen in any of his other students. Each swing was made with ruthless confidence—he believed in this path he'd set himself on, and he was intent on seeing it through to the end.
His mask was simple—piercing eyes, and a scar mirroring the one on his jaw, from the first demon that ever tried to kill him. He wore the scar proudly, and the mask as well.
As he set off down the road like nine others already had, Urokodaki hoped that this wouldn't be the end for him.
o0o0o
When he woke up, the pain was gone. This alone surprised him more than anything. After starting his training, he was almost always in pain of some kind, whether it was cuts and bruises or lingering soreness in his muscles. And right before...where was he? What was he doing?
The demon! He lunged to his feet, hand flying to his katana.
"Sabito."
He paused at the sound of a sweet, soft voice, and he turned around. He wasn't on Mount Fujikasane anymore, he was...home.
The boulder was there, tied with thick rope and resolutely unbroken, even though he distinctly remembered slicing it in two. Sitting cross-legged on top of it was a girl, her smile full of warm sadness. Her head was decorated crookedly with a mask, and his eyes were drawn to the blue and gold flowers. He remembered seeing a hint of those colors, barely visible beneath crusted blood, on one of the mask fragments in his mentor's room, a long time ago.
Even as he looked around in confusion, more silhouettes stepped out of the mist, all adorned with fox masks and katanas at their hips and sadness in their young faces. Some smiled to try to hide it, some didn't.
"Thought he might've been the one," sighed a boy with an X marked mask, hands tucked behind his head.
"He got close, though!" argued a girl with a black stripe over one eye. "Close enough to strike its neck!"
Another girl crossed her arms, koi fish leaping on her mask. "Close wasn't good enough. We're never going to find the right person."
A boy with a small black nose on his mask and purple whiskers made a noise of dissent, getting up in her face. "Don't say that! We are getting closer, we gotta find the right one soon!"
The realization washed over him, leaving him drenched in a cold shiver. He recognized pieces of these masks. He'd only seen them once, but once was enough when he knew what they meant.
"Hey, Sabito."
Banri smiled the widest of them all, like his grinning mask, but tears sparkled in his eyes too. He still looked seventeen, even though it's been ten long years since he was last alive.
Sabito felt like he was three years old again, and he clenched his teeth as his vision blurred with tears. "I'm sorry," he wailed, burying his face in Banri's shoulder. "I'm sorry I couldn't beat it...I'm sorry I couldn't come home…"
The other initiates watched in silence—some of them had acted angry and disdainful upon his defeat, some of them had pretended they had expected nothing more, but none of them felt much but defeat. They'd gotten their hopes up once again. Their mentor was the best there was, and each initiate seemed more and more promising.
This one would be different, they told themselves—them and their mentor. This one had something the others didn't, they thought each time. This one could do it.
They kept that fervent wish alive—for their beloved teacher to be set free of his guilt and his sorrow, and for them to be set free of their purgatory.
It looked like they would all have to wait a little longer.
o0o0o
"Ne, Sabito."
"What is it, Makomo?"
The two had gravitated towards each other after Sabito's death—perhaps it was the commonalities in their upbringing, having known no one but their mentor. They saw the others occasionally while wandering the mountain, looking for a way out and finding none. Banri came and went often, but the pink-haired boy found himself spending most of his time with the flower-masked girl. Despite the impossibility of it, she kept trying to make her way down the mountain, trying to find a way to see Urokodaki. The mountains twisted each time they got close, though, driving them in endless circles.
When Sabito had asked why she kept trying, she'd said, "Well, I can't just leave him to take care of my flowers all by himself."
Sabito hadn't had the heart to tell her that there was no flowerbed in front of the house anymore.
He glanced at her now from his perch on the boulder. She sat on the ground, braiding grass into a little basket. Her bare toes wriggled in the soft forest floor, shoes discarded.
"He found me drifting down the river in a basket," she told him before standing up and holding up the little grass basket. "Maybe if I put this in the river, it'll find its way to him again."
"Maybe." The mountain river had several steep waterfalls. There was no way the basket would make it past a single one intact. "You wanna go try it?"
"Yeah."
They watched the little grass basket bob and drift out of sight around the river bend. Further down, they could hear the crashing, tumbling water pouring over the cliff.
"Ne, Sabito."
He followed her across the stepping stones, though he could never hope to match the lightness of her fleeting steps. "What is it?"
"Do you think someone will kill the demon eventually?"
"...Yeah. Of course."
When they and the other initiates got really bored, they sparred for a bit with wooden practice swords. Sabito was usually the overall winner of such matches. Sometimes, a few of them would get together and skip rocks on the pond, acting like they were just teenagers with time to kill. With a deft flick of her wrist, Makomo could send a good pebble skipping at least ten times.
"Ne, Sabito."
"What is it?"
She surfaced from the pond with a splash, scaring a frog that leaped off her head with a ribbet. "We should do something."
"What do you want to do?"
"We should help the next initiate."
Sabito stared at her. He'd lost track of how long it'd been since he died, but it was certainly at least a few years, and probably dozens more for her. She wasn't the first, and he didn't know who was, but sometimes, she looked so tired.
"What could we do that sensei couldn't?" he asked, leaning on his wooden sword.
Makomo pulled herself up onto a boulder, her clothes dry as if she never dove into the pond. "I don't know. But we should try." She looked at him, her eyes so tired and so sad. "I don't want tou-san to have to suffer anymore."
It was tempting, to be able to actually do something for a change. "What if he doesn't take another pupil?"
"He will. It's what he does." A rueful smile tugged at her lips. "He didn't want to teach me either."
"Can they even see us?"
"I don't know," she admitted again. "It can't hurt to try."
They went to find the first student, a boy with a simple mask painted with swirling green strokes. But he wanted nothing to do with them, choosing to stay amongst the bamboo, whittling and carving sculptures mindlessly.
"I was the first one to face that demon," he'd spat out bitterly, ragged pieces of bamboo falling from his hands, "when it was at its weakest. What use would I be?"
Some others reacted similarly and refused to help. Others, like Banri, agreed to join in. Emboldened with a new hope, however weak of a flicker it was, they were content to wait until a new pupil was accepted.
o0o0o
When Jitsuko could see them and hear them and talk to them, they were overjoyed. They introduced themselves, telling her that they were former students of Urokodaki, although they didn't tell her they were dead—that wouldn't be very good for her morale or resolve.
They attempted to channel their mentor, helping to explain aspects of his training that were vague and confusing. They tried not to explain too much—Jitsuko had to figure some things out for herself, just as they all did. But maybe, just maybe, armed with the wisdom of their mentor as well as the students of the past, she could go farther than any of them had.
None of them could leave the mountain, so when Jitsuko left to take the Final Selection, they gathered by the split boulder, waiting in tense silence. Even the ones who wouldn't help them train Jitsuko were there. They'd claimed to have given up, but their masks couldn't disguise the hope they all felt.
So when she appeared before them, confused and scared, the blow was harder than it had been before. Sabito had never had to welcome another to their ranks, but he could see it in the others—even Makomo, who couldn't look Jitsuko in the eye.
"Sabito? Makomo?" She looked around at the other pupils, their expressions bitter and resentful and defeated. "Where am I?"
"How did you fail?"
Jitsuko gasped as Urokodoki's first student seized her by the collar, his expression twisted and wild with desperation. "How did you fail?! You were supposed to win this time!" He shook her roughly, tears dribbling down his face as he screamed, "You were supposed to set us all free!"
"Stop it!" Makomo, despite her slight frame, forcibly broke the two apart, steadying Jitsuko with one hand on her arm. "It wasn't her fault, okay? We'll—we'll get it right next time!"
He snarled, fisting one hand in his hair, nearly dislodging his fox mask. "Next time, next time, next time, there is no next time!" he howled, crumpling to his knees with a hoarse sob. "The demon just gets stronger with every one of us it kills. Just give up! They're all going to die anyways!"
The gathering quickly disbanded after that, the initiates going their separate ways. Banri took Jitsuko to explain more about the situation, leaving Sabito and Makomo in the clearing. The mist hung in thick, heavy wreaths around them, cold and suffocating.
"He must be waiting right now…"
Sabito lifted his head slightly at the sound of Makomo's small voice. The girl held her mask in her hands, tracing a thumb over the flowers.
"Tou-san must be waiting for Jitsuko to come home," she elaborated, her voice thick with unshed tears as she bowed her head. "But she's not going home."
"...Ne, Makomo."
"What is it?"
He clenched his jaw, stretching his scar uncomfortably, and the wooden katana trembled in his grip. "Do you really think we'll get it next time?"
Makomo looked up at Sabito, his posture as stiff and unyielding as the boulder he was perched on, now seamless and whole once more, and her heart squeezed painfully. They had staked all their hope on Jitsuko, and it ended up to be too heavy to carry. It wasn't her fault, but where was there any hope to be found now?
"Yeah," she said aloud, smiling, even if she didn't feel it. "Sure we will."
If there was no hope left, they'd make it with their bare hands and their blades, and they'd share the hope with each other, sprinkle it around; if there wasn't enough to go around, they'd fake it and make do anyway.
o0o0o
Two more came to learn, and two more joined their ranks. They were welcomed sadly as part of the family, like all the others, though not really welcomed at all—it was a family of broken swords and souls, and none of them should have to be here.
Others drifted away, others who were once hopeful. Makomo paid them no heed. She kept looking for the one who would set them free, relentless, driven by the love she had for her adoptive father. Sabito didn't want to lie down and give up either—that wasn't what sensei had taught him. So he followed her, waiting and searching.
"He's faint-hearted. He'll never even make it past the regular demons, let alone that one. What was sensei thinking?"
Makomo frowned, watching Sabito pace back and forth from her seat on the unsliced boulder. "Don't say that. Tou-san always has a reason."
Sabito lifted up his mask, revealing a frustrated scowl. "You really think he'll do it?" he asks skeptically.
"It doesn't matter what I think, and it doesn't matter what you think either," she retorted calmly. "The demon has gotten stronger and stronger with each Final Selection. We owe it to Tanjiro and tou-san to help him to the best of our abilities, and hope that he'll find it in himself to go the rest of the way. Besides, we all had our bad traits." She leaned back on her hands with a small smile. "You were so stubborn that tou-san had to pretty much tie you down to stop you from going out to train when you'd only hurt yourself."
Sabito narrowed his eyes irritably at her, but she just rolled her eyes at his expression. "And Tanjiro is not faint-hearted. He's stronger than you think, and he's kind. Maybe too much so, but any weakness can be tempered into a strength. And he's been working hard."
"Yeah. Working hard at all the wrong things."
"Sabito. I can't teach him swordsmanship like you can. You need to honestly give it your best shot, or Tanjiro won't learn anything."
Her half-chiding, half-pleading tone made him uncomfortable, as always. "Fine, fine. I said I would, didn't I? It's just us two left, after all."
Still, he was glad when her dismayed expression softened. He didn't like seeing her upset. It was his job to be the pessimist.
o0o0o
"Arigatou, Tanjiro."
The bewildered look on the boy's face drew a smile to her own. "What for?"
"Sabito seems to have fun when he's fighting you."
"He does? But he's way out of my league."
Makomo shrugged, picking at grass blades absently. "It's just the two of us. It gets lonely sometimes."
He tilted his head, wincing when it aggravated an injury. "I thought you said there were other children?"
"There are," she agreed a bit sadly.
o0o0o
"Tanjiro, why did you decide to train to become a demon slayer?"
His answer came without hesitation. "To save my sister." His young face became downcast with sadness. "She was turned into a demon." But the determination Makomo had grown used to seeing returned quickly. "She won't hurt people, though! So if I can defeat lots of demons, I can figure out how to turn her back into a human!"
Makomo smiled at his answer. There was no trace of doubt there. He couldn't afford it, just like she and Sabito couldn't afford to waver either.
This boy was the same as them. It seemed hopeless, and it seemed futile. Many others would've given up by now. The other children had already.
Maybe this one would be different.
How many times have they thought that now?
o0o0o
"You're smiling."
Sabito touched his face absently. The lingering traces of his smile faded, but the light in his eyes remained. "I'm relieved," he admitted, absently fingering the red twine of his mask. "He has a chance...No telling if it will be enough, but at least he has a chance."
One by one, the other eleven joined them at the boulder after Tanjiro left for the Final Selection. Sabito took his usual position on top of the split boulder, and Makomo sat down at the base of it, tickling a wildflower with one finger.
They prepared to count off the days and nights in a silent vigil, as they always did. These were the few times that they bothered keeping track of how much time had passed. Needless to say, they had never reached seven. On the edge of the treeline was the last pupil to fall, his hands clasped together in front of his chest fervently. No one in the clearing outwardly looked as desperately hopeful as he did, but Makomo doubted any of them felt as desperately hopeful as she and Sabito did.
It hadn't even been one night before Tanjiro appeared in front of them.
A soft gasp fled Makomo's lips, even as others averted their gaze in bitter despair. Her keen eyes could spot the details.
The bruise on his face. The mud on his haori. The awkward, pained way he held himself. His grip on his katana, trembling and white-knuckled. His mask, broken.
Hardly daring to believe it, she turned. Sabito was visibly trembling. Banri looked up to follow Makomo's gaze, and at his sharp inhale, the others did the same.
The boulder was still split.
One by one, realization dawned on the other initiates. Joy and disbelief, the good kind, transformed their expressions, fixed so long in numb despair. For those who still wore their masks, it was evident in their postures. After years, decades of hunching their shoulders, heads bowed under the weight of their defeats, they'd been released of their burden. The cycle had been broken.
The first and last ones to fall wept. No one else would have to suffer anymore like they did.
None of them could find the words as they turned back to Tanjiro. But he seemed to understand, and he nodded, proud and resolute. Then he turned and rushed back to battle, to finish his task.
He would survive.
Their beloved mentor wouldn't have to suffer anymore.
o0o0o
He wakes up to someone calling. Lifting one wrinkled hand to his face, Urokodaki looks around in confusion. Somehow, he's at the split boulder. He could've sworn he fell asleep in his own bed last night.
"Tou-san."
"Sensei?"
His breath hitches in his chest. Tears sting in his eyes, and even though he should know better than to hope by now, he turns anyways.
They're there. All of them. Smiling, just like they were when he saw them off last, their masks that he made for them sitting on their heads, unbroken.
Gratitude floods through him as tears slide down his face inside his mask. They helped Tanjiro. They were watching this whole time, praying just like he was for this one to be the one.
Makomo smiles the widest, with Sabito at her side. "Tadaima," she says sweetly. Tears splash onto the petals of the flower in her delicate hands.
He wants to say I'm sorry. To apologize for ending their beautiful lives so soon.
But they're smiling. He hasn't seen them smile in so long. And he's spent so many long, lonely years saying sorry.
So he takes off his mask, and smiles, and says, "Okaeri."