just like a blue gem shining

By: Aviantei

Part Five:

"High Tide, Rushing to Shore"

Shimizu has woken up here before, and the realization is enough to send her into a fresh panic attack, right there on the ground where she came to consciousness. She can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe —because the last thing she remembers is the searing pain across her stomach as Kibutsuji Muzan tears her guts right out of her stomach, easily overshadowing the stab all the way through her thigh, the missing sensation of her arm, and ohgodohgodohgod, even if she used Total Concentration to shut down her brain and body in a split second, the moments beforehand were nothing peaceful, and her mind is still in overdrive even if her body is whole, no signs of injury, just a pristine body, crisp and clean and almost made for Shimizu's soul to fall into the moment she died.

(If nothing else, her first death, self-inflicted wounds bleeding out and into the bathtub, had been numbed by painkillers and sleeping medications and the pulse of Depression ever-present in her veins, and it had been very much like falling asleep, though one she hadn't been meant to wake up from.

Despite her best efforts, Shimizu doesn't seem to be very good at dying.)

Well, at least this time she knows that back then it would have been pointless to try and kill herself again just to try and escape it all. For some reason, Shimizu's not allowed to die—but that doesn't mean her living couldn't have been a mistake. Did something else mess up enough that she had to get dumped back into Kimetsu again? This is the place she woke up the first time, but when is it?

Shimizu resolves to figure that important detail out once she can make her body drop out of panic to high heck and back mode. Learning Total Concentration helped with that, it giving her a nice rhythm of breathing to focus on, and Shimizu tries, though her lungs protest at the attempt of Total Concentration: Constant. Her brain knows what to do, but this body has no endurance, a fresh slate to work with—and this being a total reset is seeming all the more likely, so what happened? After she died, how did the rest of the war against Muzan go? There's no real way to answer those questions.

(The pessimistic part of Shimizu's mind comes up with an answer: Kibutsuji Muzan targeting Rairi, turning them to a demon, and that being enough to spill the blood of the Demon Slayer Corps, to make the victory that Tanjirō and the others worked so hard for in Canon turn to dust in the wind.

Surely, her notes would be enough? Surely, things would be okay?)

(Kaigaku's angry, desperate voice is still ringing in her ears: You don't get to talk about them anymore, you hear me?!)

Maybe, if Shimizu wears herself out enough with attempts at Total Concentration, she'll fall asleep long enough for her mind to calm down.

When she wakes up from her forced power nap, Shimizu feels—well, she doesn't feel okay, but she feels functional, and that's good enough as far as she's concerned. She at least has it in her to wander the streets and find something to eat (a little bit of day labor exchanged for coins) and figure out the date. And, well, would you look at the year, it's the exact same as when she ended up in Kimetsu no Yaiba in the first place.

"August eighteenth at twelve something noon," she mutters to herself, not even remembering the full lyrics trapped behind the haze of years and memory. It would be nice if this was a Heat Haze problem—but, nope, they never explained how that group got out of that mess in their Canon, so maybe that's not the best comparison to make. To be honest, at this point, Shimizu's just shoving all her anxieties under a rock, because what's she supposed to do with them in an era that has no concept of mental health? And even if it did, it's not like she'd be able to explain the whole trauma of dying twice and resetting to get the help for it.

Shimizu misses Rairi so much her eyes start to burn. Rairi may not have known what was going on (not before Shimizu's will presumably got dumped in their lap at any rate, and, haha, not thinking about it!), but they were comforting, an understanding presence that never pushed too hard and just let Shimizu be, her negative emotions and all. It's no wonder Shimizu fell for them, what with being treated to kindness like that.

(It's also no wonder that Zenitsu fell for them and Kaigaku—? Yeah, she doesn't feel like thinking about him right now, either.)

Part of her thinks about running to wherever Kuwajima Jigorō lives and finding Rairi again, assuming that they're already there and tossing herself into their arms with no abandon. At the very least, seeing Rairi will give her some hope that things in Canon can be changed, like they were before. The fact that Shimizu won't have to be alone is such a relief that she wants to cry all over again.

But also, Rairi would do everything in their power to save people, Shimizu knows that. And after being Tanjirō's pseudo-senpai, Shimizu knows the name of his hometown, could find her way there, even on foot, because the Kamado family isn't dead yet.

Not wanting any regrets, Shimizu resolves to at least try to save them all, which means she has a trip to plan.

Planning the trip doesn't go anywhere near as well as she hopes.

For one, it's a long way to where the Kamados live up north, and with Taishō-era technology, she so can't get her hands on a car, those the luxury of the rich living in urban centers. Before, running all the way across Japan wouldn't even make her blink, thanks to all her training—but this body doesn't have any of that training. It's nowhere near as bad as the dysphoria she had before transmigrating, no, but damn does it feel awkward to be missing all the muscle and endurance she worked so hard to get, to be missing a sword at her hip at all times.

If nothing else, she still has all her shōjo protagonist pretty going on, so it's easy to ask for favors from traveling merchants and the like, especially when she offers to help. Does she know a lot about business? No, but she's sociable enough to be able to manage customers, plus she volunteered at her school's concession stand what seems like a thousand years ago. She can handle herself well enough, though she'd feel a lot better if she could present herself as some kind of bodyguard instead.

Even with the wagons to help, though, travel still feels far too slow. Shimizu keeps herself occupied in the back of the cart by running through her Total Concentration exercises over and over again, wakes up before dawn at the camp to work through the training regimen Urokodaki all but beat into her very bones. Day by day, it gets easier, and Shimizu just adds more and more onto her regrowing endurance, but it's all just a way to try and make it feel like she's doing something, rather than just wasting time, chasing after something hopeless.

One month later, they've made it up north. Unlike the shots from the anime that have been branded into Shimizu's mind, there is no snow on the ground, as it's still summer. In comparison to where she started, the weather is much cooler, but it's still a comfortable warmth. Somehow, she made it, but now there's a question of what the hell she's even going to be doing. What, did she think she could just go up to total strangers and drag the entire Kamado family out to safety? And what is that even going to do to Canon, where Tanjirō and Nezuko were the keys to defeating Muzan?

So what? It's okay to let people die for the greater good? Is Shimizu just going to freeze up again, like she did whenever Rengoku almost died and it was Rairi who stepped in to fix things? Sure, just let Rairi carry all the burden again; you even dumped all your trauma on them in your will, you selfish little—

"Are you alright?"

The question is quiet and filled with so much kindness that Shimizu doesn't know how to process it. She blinks, finding that tears of frustration have started to spill out of her eyes without even her noticing they'd started. Because of that, it's almost impossible to see who's in front of her, but then it becomes clear who it is: a young girl, her dark hair pinned up behind her and eyes of a pretty, almost shining pink.

Nezuko-chan.

Kamado Nezuko, still young, still human, and enjoying the daylight, the basket hanging off her arm indicating that she's come to do some shopping in town. It's such a simple, mundane moment, one that she went three whole years not being able to enjoy all because of one simple tragedy.

Letting one young girl and her brother bear all that burden? No, forget that.

"Excuse me? Is there something I can do to help?"

It's a goddamn miracle that Shimizu doesn't drag Nezuko into a hug. Shimizu's already making a mess and menace of herself in public—no need to make it worse. Instead, she sucks in her snot, wiping off whatever's leaked out onto her sleeve, the one that's the wrong shade of blue from her usual haori. While Tanjirō became part of the home that Shimizu appreciated more than anything the last time, that's all the more reason that she can't allow them to go through the same tragedy they had before.

"Thank you," Shimizu says, her voice watery. Nezuko tilts her head, having no clue what's going on. "I just…" Shimizu draws in another breath, and it's watery, but it's a step towards feeling more stable again. "I remembered something sad, remembered people I care about that aren't here anymore. So it all just caught up with me, and I couldn't help it." No matter what, the Tanjirō and Nezuko that Shimizu spent so much time with aren't here anymore, and the hope inside her that would be the case withers away under Nezuko's gentle pink gaze. "Thank you for checking on me."

"It's okay. Onī-chan says we have to help others out where we can." Nezuko reaches out to pat Shimizu's head in a gesture she's been on the receiving end of before, but never with more than Nezuko's bamboo-muffled hums of reassurance. "It's okay to miss the people you care about. But they're always keeping an eye out for us. At least, that's what Kā-san always says."

"She sounds like a wonderful person."

"Yup! We all love her lots!" Nezuko's smile is wide and beautiful, her laughter the sound of bells. Shimizu's heart twists, the pain somehow even worse than the sensation of Kaigaku stabbing his sword into her leg, than Muzan's very presence as Shimizu's guts spill to the ground. This is what the world of Kimetsu ripped away for the story? This girl's happiness, her brother's happiness, their family's lives?

Not if I can help it, and Canon can go rot.

Shimizu's made up her mind.

If she thought she could get away with it, Shimizu would march right up that mountain and tell the Kamado family to their faces if they don't want to die, they need to yeet on out of their home for the winter and come back later. Sure, that would assume that there's not some sort of cosmic fate at hand that insists the Kamado family needs to go for the sake of the plot or whatever, but if the universe didn't want Shimizu messing around with the timeline, then it shouldn't have dropped her in such a point in the story that she can make a difference.

There's still time, though, so Shimizu settles into the town for a few weeks, sending her previous merchant ride off with gratitude. Lucky for her, almost everyone in Tanjirō's hometown is just as nice as the Protag himself, so it's easy to get a roof over her head so long as she helps around town, which she's more than willing to do. Of all people, it's Saburo-ojī-san—the man, the myth, the legend that kept Tanjirō safe during the Inciting Incident Tragedy—that takes her in, as he's got plenty of space. Since he knows about demons, Shimizu's low-key relying on him as a backup plan if she can't convince the Kamado family herself.

(Since he lost his family, Saburo-ojī-san doesn't ask questions when Shimizu wakes up from her own nightmares; he just makes tea and sits with her until they're both ready to rest once more.)

When asked for a name, she introduces herself out of pure habit as Urokodaki Shimizu, even if she hasn't been gifted that surname in this loop. If she could, she'd take it back, but information spreads around such a small town like wildfire, and so it goes. At least most of them will call her Shimizu when she asks, honorifics varying, so there's a little less guilt about that.

With one notable exception.

"Urokodaki-san, good morning!"

Tanjirō waves as he comes down the hill, waving at Shimizu in the garden. Once again, he's selling charcoal to the townsfolk—an essential for cooking, even in the warmer weather of late summer—and he's smiling wide. He's so much smaller than when Shimizu last saw him; his hair is still long and pulled back into a short ponytail; the scar on his forehead hasn't turned to the dark shape resembling Yoriichi's Demon Slayer Mark; he's just a boy—

Shimizu plasters on a shaky smile and waves back. "Good morning, Tanjirō-kun. Please, you can call me Shimizu-chan." It was a lot easier to get Tanjirō to call her that last time, when she didn't have a family name in the first place, but it's worth a shot, even if she doesn't intend to stick around any longer than it takes to ensure his family is safe.

(If I could've come back, just a little bit sooner—)

"But you're older than me, Urokodaki-san. It's just the right thing to do." Shimizu lets out a laugh she doesn't mean, trying to ignore the reminder of how that referral makes her heart hurt. At this point in the timeline in the last loop, she was already under Urokodaki-san's care, starting the training she's done her best to replicate on her own. Times have changed. "Do you and Saburo-ojī-san need any help today?"

"No, we're fine. The garden isn't being too much trouble right now. Besides, you have plenty of work to take care of, right?" Even if it doesn't take long to make the charcoal rounds, Tanjirō always gets roped into helping everyone and everyone, so Shimizu isn't going to add more to his plate. "You didn't bring everyone else along?"

"Nezuko took everyone else out into the woods to forage, so they were all excited to do that. Rokuta's still too small to go out, so he's at home still." Despite everything, the image makes Shimizu smile. It's stories like those that assure Shimizu that this will be worth it. And if she tries and fails? At least she can get Tanjirō and Nezuko where they need to know for training. "Oh! Kā-san was saying that you should come up and visit if you want, Urokodaki-san. Since you're going to be staying here a while, she wants to get to know you a bit better. Do you mind?"

As if there's anyway Shimizu can turn Kamado "Good Boy" Tanjirō down for anything. Even if he weren't the tragic shōnen protagonist, he has such impeccable vibes that he's a force to be reckoned with. So Shimizu finds herself saying, "I'd love to."

"Great! You can come with me whenever I head back home then." Tanjirō glances up to the sky, the position of the sun reminding him how much time has passed, and then he's racing off. "Sorry, I gotta get going. I'll see you later today, Urokodaki-san!"

"Call me 'Shimizu-chan'!" she shouts after him, but Tanjirō's already long gone out of earshot. Shimizu can't help the bemused smile that forms on her face.

And then she pushes her sleeves back up and buries her hands in the dirt, trying to not to think too hard about the minefield she's just wandered herself into.

Dinner is great. Dinner is wonderful. With Saburo-ojī-san's permission, Shimizu brings some vegetables from the garden, and Kie-san is glad for some extra hands in the kitchen. Each and every one of the Kamado children introduces themselves, even little Rokuta, and the meal is a bit bustling but happy, and that just makes Shimizu want to protect them all the more. With Kie and Nezuko working together to settle down the younger ones to go to bed, Tanjirō offers to make sure Shimizu gets back home safe.

"These mountains can get dangerous at night. It's better to be safe than sorry."

You so don't have to tell me that.

All of Shimizu's training hasn't left her, and she can't help but look back and forth, searching for any sign of demons that may be lurking. Muzan isn't due for arrival for at least a few more months, but there are hundreds of more demons that could wander by. Last time, there was no Shimizu to walk home this night, so no Tanjirō heading down the mountain, and that little bit of variance is enough to make her worry.

"Did you know," she finds herself asking, "that demons come out at night?"

Tanjirō looks at her, no doubt wondering if Shimizu's trying to tell a ghost story. That would be nice, but no, it's the truth. "I didn't know," Tanjirō says, playing along. Just what does Shimizu smell like right now, what can he tell? "What kind of demons are they?"

Nothing wrong with giving information where she can. "They eat human flesh." She doesn't want to outright call them monsters, since so many of them are tragic beings, but the way that Muzan and Kaigaku both attacked her is still fresh in her memories if she ever lets her guard down. "Sometimes they look like people, and sometimes they don't. But they can't go into the sun, and they hate wisteria. Even burning incense is enough to keep them away."

"Incense, huh…" Maybe it's something about her tone that's making Tanjirō not brush her off. "I wonder if we can get some…" Shimizu's footsteps slow, until Tanjirō's several paces ahead of her. His usual green and black haori is there, but the shape of his shoulders is so different, the pacing of his stride still like a civilian's. "Hm? Urokodaki-san?"

"Tanjirō-kun." Shimizu never considered herself worthy of being Tanjirō's senpai, but she lets a bit of that authority into her voice. He stops, looking back at her, eyes wide in the light of the lantern they brought along. "I mean what I'm saying about the demons. They're real. And if you don't do something, one's going to end up on your doorstep and kill almost all of the people that are important to you."

Tanjirō's gone stock still, his mouth hanging open in utter silence. Saburo-ojī-san's cabin isn't too far away; Shimizu could bolt for it and give up, like a coward. Instead, she locks Tanjirō's gaze in with her own, pulling a certified Rairi and barreling forward with whatever the first thing is that springs to mind.

"Please." Shimizu doesn't know how she expects that to work, but she grips onto Tanjirō's hands, as if she can impress her truth onto him with touch alone. "Please. I know you love your family. I know they mean everything to you. So please just listen to me. Go somewhere else for winter. I'll help you work to save up the money if I need to. But if you can leave, just for a few months, or even just stay in town instead of the mountains—" She's rambling, sounding less and less coherent as she goes, and it's this exact sort of situation she was worried about the last time, why it took her until her secret was pretty much exposed to confess what was coming. Without any of that evidence?

Tanjirō has no reason to believe her. She's failing, and in an even worse way than before, and Shimizu's absolute reset is worth nothing—

And then, a forehead resting against hers. It's a way different sensation than the headbutts Tanjirō is known for, but it gives Shimizu something new to focus on. Will she ever stop breaking down crying around the people she's trying to protect? If so, it sure isn't happening now! Tanjirō's smile is as full of kindness as ever, his empathy seeping out of every single pore.

"You don't smell like you're lying," he says, and it's so close to what he said in the days after Mugen Train that Shimizu doesn't know what to do with herself. Does he…believe her? Just like that? "You promise that you're telling the truth. That everyone could…"

"I would never lie about this." Even if she swore to never do anything that would ever get Muzan hunting her down again, Shimizu would still let Tanjirō know what's coming, every single time. "I know it's hard to believe. I know I'm no different from a stranger. But if there's anything I can do to convince you to go somewhere else, I'll do it."

"No. I believe you. I can tell, Urokodaki-san. That you're a genuine person." Shimizu's so relieved that her usual self-depreciating thoughts don't even kick in.

"If you think so, Tanjirō-kun," she whispers, "then please listen to me."

The rest of the walk back passes in silence. Up ahead, Saburo-ojī-san's cabin is lit up from inside, the man waiting for Shimizu to get back safe. She turns to Tanjirō and gives a short bow before taking the rest of the path on her own. After everything, Shimizu's more than ready to just collapse into her futon and pass out so she can regret all her mistakes in the morning.

"Um!" Tanjirō says, almost shouting the word. Considering what she's just dumped on him, the least she can do is listen. Shimizu turns back as a sign that she's listening. "I know this might sound weird, but you and I…have we…met before? Something about your smell is familiar…" The next second, Tanjirō seems to realize what he's just said, and he flushes red, waving his hands back and forth. "Sorry, sorry! I know that has to sound weird. I'm not saying you smell or anything, my nose is just better than others, and something about you is just—"

Shimizu can't help it; she bursts out into a fit of giggles, and there's no holding any of it back. Everything about Tanjirō is so much like he was whenever they first met, whenever Urokodaki-san brought that determined boy and sleeping girl up his mountain with every intention of making him quit before final selection. He was so conscious of himself, and it took him weeks to relax around Shimizu, let alone drop the habit of calling her senpai. Part of Shimizu aches, wishing she could save the Kamado family while still having Tanjirō along for the ride, both of them training from the crack of dawn to dusk, sharing Urokodaki-san's cooking and huddling around the fire to stay warm.

Not this time, though. This time, Tanjirō can have the life with his family that he always should've had, and someone else besides literal children can go and save the world. It won't be easy, no, not without the benefits that Nezuko's blood will bring, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. That just means I need to get to work sooner.

In other words, there's no time to be lingering here.

Shimizu's laughter dies down at long last, and poor Tanjirō is left staring at her. She offers him a smile that turns the tips of his ears pink. "It's okay. I'm flattered, but we haven't met before." At least, not the Tanjirō before her, and that's fine. "Now, you'll spend some time in town this winter, right? You promise?"

"Ah…yes, I promise!"

And Kamado Tanjirō keeps his promises.

With that settled, Shimizu knows what destination she's going next:

It's time to meet Tamayo-san in Tōkyō.

[Author's Notes]

Y'all have been asking for Shimizu, and here she is! Ain't no way I was gonna leave our girl out of things, though she's...having a rough time on her own.

Thanks to ToonyTwilight, NeonSilhouette, and especially Lucifer Archangel for the for the comments on the walk steady series! Special shout out to Lucifer for dropping several comments as they read; seeing all the live responses was amazing. And ofc thanks to Beta Noiz, for always putting up with mu update schedule. You're the best.

I'll be real: I have a lot of plans for what I wanna do with this concept, but I hadn't quite sorted out what was gonna happen with the Kamado family. Then I got back to working on Shimizu's parts, and she kinda made that decision for me. We're gonna be fucking up canon super hard with this one! Hopefully you're all as excited as I am to see just how far the ripples will go since were making way bigger changes way earlier than we did in walk steady.

Next month will have an update for sure, but I am still sorting through what Shimizu's up to, so whether it's blue gem or not is up to debate. The posting date is also variable, because [Twelve Shots of Summer] starts next month, and I still need to write my project for that... (good thing summer break is coming up for me, so I have some breathing room). In any event, I'll see you for more walk steady energy come June, so please look forward to it!

-Avi

[4 May 2024]