Chapter Text
Do not feel a thing.
That was a mantra that embedded itself in Tomioka Giyuu’s mind since he touched that doorknob. He still remembered how it felt that night. The cool metal of the knob grew warm with heat and magic, eyes wide with wonder as his gift was carved onto his door. The rain was wonderful that night, cooling sweaty and overheated flesh on a hot Japanese evening. He had opened his door to reveal a misty forest with waterfalls and lagoons, lilies and orchids. The cool smoky air of daybreak greeted him every time he opened his eyes, his body brimming with elation and anticipation for a day of service, a gesture of thanks towards the people who had gotten him to where he was. Sitting at the breakfast table wasn’t a chore or a date with judgment. It was normal. It was chatty. It curled his lips into a smile. He remembered people asking him things he had never pondered. What do you think gave you your gift? Can you make it snow on my birthday? I think you can bring an early spring if you tried enough. Do you think you can help take care of my bonsai tree with a little more sunlight? The requests were not chores. To Giyuu, they were blessings, God’s hand giving him an outlet to demonstrate his gift. Those days had the brightest skies the town had ever seen. There were no clouds in the sky, and the sun was as if gold had been poured from the gates of Heaven.
He should have known that those requests were like matches: ablaze and warm for just a few moments, only to sizzle with the blink of an eye. He wished he could have told himself sooner that the flattery and the prideful gazes were fool’s gold, that the hugs and words of encouragement he received were nothing more than falsehoods. It was like sugar, lingering on the tongue with satisfaction for just a second before dissipating. He wasn’t going to be happy forever. He knew that long before he got a gift. His tears met dirt roads and wooden floors since early childhood, usually being quelled and hushed by his sister’s loving embrace. He still remembered what it was like to have his mother’s nimble fingers comb through his hair that always seemed to tangle itself, even when freshly combed. His father would sit him on his lap on their front porch, pointing out the crows that would soar in the sky, telling him stories of the land of wisteria, the haven free from demons. Giyuu had not believed such a place existed. Their home would be on lockdown when Helios took a rest and Nyx laid across the sky amongst bedazzled stars. The blinds would be drawn. The door would be locked and reinforced with the kitchen table and any chairs they could find. They would sleep in the dark, urged not to make a sound. It was futile, as the talons of a demon could splinter wood without thinking twice, and human flesh was so easy to shred, they knew that. It was a gesture that allowed their eyes to slide closed and welcome sleep. He would be in his mother’s arms, resting his head on her chest with her still fingers in his hair as they embraced rest. Tsutako, his older sister, would be sleeping beside her father, her head resting by the blown candle that made their shared bedroom smell like roasted wood and human terror.
He didn’t realize he was covered in blood until he stirred in his sleep and frowned when he didn’t feel his mother’s fingers entangled in his hair like they were when dawn arose. He had slowly sat up when he noticed his mother wasn’t on the futon the family shared. In her place was sappy crimson blood that filled the futon like a bright red sponge. He couldn’t find it in him to scream. His eyes were glued to the abhorrent thing that gripped his mother in its arms, talons piercing porcelain flesh and licking the blood from the fresh wounds. It was a gluttonous demon, lapping at it like some kind of rabid dog. His mother’s eyes were wide with dead terror, lips parted as the demon sunk its teeth into her thigh and tore off a heavy lot of muscle. His eyes slowly turned to look at the door, which was nothing more than a few strips of splintered wood on the floor, claw marks digging into the polished finish. The kitchen table was nothing more than a few broken wooden legs and the chairs were scattered outside on the front lawn. The demon had dared invade a dark house, and found a bountiful feast before him, peacefully asleep.
Giyuu should have just let the demon eat him, but he didn’t. He felt this ember in his heart, this small flame flickering to life, gasping for air amongst the fear. His body pushed itself up, piercing blue eyes studying the demon that seemed too preoccupied with eating his mother to notice the small child was moving. The door was wide open, the sun’s brilliant light beckoning for him to embrace it. Demons were unable to walk into the light without fading into nothingness. All he had to do was make it past that doorframe. As he tried to move, his chest ached, flesh burning and blood vessels crying out. The demon had most likely slashed at him in his sleep to ensure a good kill. Then again, he was too small in his mother’s arms to make out a direct hit. His rising and falling chest could easily be hidden under her sleeping gown. His pale hands and knees kissed the aged wooden floor, his lungs unable to breathe as he tried not to make a sound the closer to the door he got. The demon suddenly paused as did he. His mother hit the ground with a thud, the wooden floor catching her mangled frame. He could only run, nails dragged across the floor as he scampered towards the door. He felt air tickle the back of his neck, the demon right behind him, so close they were nearly touching. Talons sunk into his chest. His throat burned. His eyes welled up with hot tears. His lungs ached. He kept trying to run despite the demon’s thin arms wrapped around his small waist.
Warmth blessed him and eased his breath. The grip around his waist lessened. Blood painted him in crimson. He was deaf to the mortified cries of the demon that had foolishly put himself under the sun’s eye. He couldn’t watch as it faded into nothing. He moved forward, hands pressing against the holes that had drilled themselves into his small frame. His fingers felt as if the flesh in between them were webbed, his hands growing sticky with syrupy blood. He could smell the copper but kept walking. In his mind at that time, his sister wasn’t dead. Neither was his father. They were peacefully sleeping and would look for him upon waking up and discovering his mother. They’d find him in the forest, bleeding and afraid, and scoop him up in their arms to hush his sobs. That’s right, that was exactly what was going to happen. He still had people who loved him, who wanted to find him after he vanished. He was so immersed in his childish fantasy that he was blind to the light-headedness that he felt, the way his body felt as if it were suspended upon nothing. He didn’t notice how his eyes were glazed over, or the grass rushing up to meet him before he saw darkness.
It was a member of the Demon Slayer Corps who found him that day. An older man who went by the name Urokodaki Sakonji. He had been given the gift of healing with food. He had parted the boy’s lips and poured in a warm broth, helping the barely conscious child swallow. The profusely bleeding wounds had sealed up in a matter of moments, and Urokodaki had scooped the child up in his arms. There was no need to look for his parents, or if he had any family. He knew what had happened without needing to see the carnage that lay within the house that was not that far from where he stood. The boy’s parents were surely dead by now, and their child had nobody to turn to. He had wrapped his haori around the child like a blanket before turning to return to the town blessed with a wisteria border. The candle-bearer would be able to find a rightful home for him when informed of the situation.
It was Urokodaki’s kindness that allowed the little one to flourish. He was vigilant in his training, though he often looked at himself with a critical eye. Urokodaki had also taken in another orphan before that went by the name of Sabito. The two sought comfort in their loneliness, their embraces sealing shut the wounds of the past that ailed them both greatly. Neither of them spoke about their lives before entering the wisteria border. They didn’t need to, as both understood the haunting possibilities. The whimpers in the night told wonders, clammy hands sleepily reaching to intertwine their fingers with the other. The shortness of breath upon first seeing blood in training. The icy feeling of horror that tainted the mind during the Final Selection. Those burdens were theirs to carry, but they were not alone in those early years.
They had heard rumors of a boy stumbling into the wisteria border with his little brother on his back. It had been raining that night, thunder cracking as the wind called out to the Corps, beckoning for them to find the child. He had wounds that were a sickly green, infected from going untreated. His face was painted in deep crimson gashes that would without a doubt scar like the burns from a brand, singes in uneven lengths and adding color to ghostly pale flesh. His little brother had been scarred too, but not as much as him, and he was warmer, in less pain. No matter what the Corps did, they could not remove the little one from his older brother, his grip as tight as an iron clasp. Urokodaki had been the one to nurse them back to health in the infirmary, using his gift to imprint a healing effect on the fresh ohagi he cooked in the kitchens. To his surprise, ohagi had been the older brother’s favorite, though he wouldn’t want to verbally admit that. He wasn’t exactly the talking type, not like anyone could blame him. He would only speak to his little brother in hushed whispers. It took three months for them to even learn the boys’ names. Shinazugawa Sanemi and Shinazugawa Genya. When asked about the whereabouts of their parents, Genya had burst into tears, and Sanemi’s pale purple eyes bore into the fool who asked. Urokodaki never made such a gesture, instead focusing on earning the boys’ trust, which was no easy feat in their traumatized silence.
He wanted boys Sanemi’s age to come to visit him in the infirmary. Giyuu was more on the shy end, walking in with twiddling thumbs and a gaze lingering on the grooves of the wood under his feet. Sabito was more ambitious, wanting to start conversations right away. They got silence for the first few days, Sanemi’s eyes following the songbirds that flew by his window every morning, not making an effort to have a conversation with the two completely different boys that began to pester him daily. Sometimes, they were the ones who brought him ohagi, a peace agreement cooked by Urokodaki. The last thing Sanemi wanted to do was hurt the man that had saved his life, beginning to break out of his shell in almost indecipherable mumbles. It was a start, a beautiful start to a relationship that touched the heart of fate itself.
Sanemi was skilled in fighting, something that could have been inferred by the pink scars that decorated his face. At first, he was insecure about the markings, but instead of developing a blossoming feeling of acceptance, it became more like tolerance. Giyuu and Sabito didn’t pay much mind to them, though. Sabito had even shown him his scar that went from one end of his lip across his cheek. Instead of feeling a sense of shame, the boy seemed excited to find someone else just like him. While not all of them were physically scarred, the damage done to their minds and souls left them homogenous, picking up the pieces of each other and placing them together, sealing them in gold.
When they got their gifts, none of them wanted to sleep alone. They had grown too accustomed to sharing a corner of Urokodaki’s large enchanted room in the casita walls, easily able to hold onto each other. The thought of sleeping alone had fear bite at their quickly beating hearts. Giyuu had volunteered his room to the two, as his bed was the largest. Looking back on it now, the casita probably understood that the boy was the one out of the three that needed the most touch to put him at ease. Sanemi had rejected the offer, not out of venom, but to continue watching over his little brother at night, the three understanding that the little one had nightmares that dragged him out of peaceful slumber. Giyuu remembered sleeping in his room, hearing the waterfalls that spewed from misty moss-ridden rocks pour into teal ponds and pools. The scent of eucalyptus trees hushed him to sleep. Sabito’s strong arms wrapped around him in a protective hold, Giyuu’s face buried in the crook of his neck. It was those nights that brought him peace, a luxury in the eyes of the tormented.
Days in the town for community service were a blur to him. As much as he’d like to forget his time in the Corps, there were very distinct things that he had no choice but to remember, a curse on memory. He would remember the disapproving stares, the way people’s lips curled down in disgust as he walked down the dirt roadways. He would reach out his hand to help with his gift, a blessing, yet all he would get was a shoulder to the face. He had started so ambitious, so excited to help those with the power of a miracle behind him. That ambition wilted to misery the more silence he got in return from his hushed voice asking if anyone needed him. He would see the people cheer when Kyojuro lit ablaze the fire pits in the town during long winters, winters that he extended when he happened to fall under the weather. He heard the ooh's and aah’s when Sanemi would deliver packages in mere seconds as he rode the wind. He felt the ground shake as Himejima seemingly moved mountains daily, carrying bridges and temples as if they were mere bags of flour. Kocho was proclaimed to be the next best healer as she worked alongside Urokodaki, creating antidotes for toxins that were once assumed to be one-way tickets to the afterlife. Sabito would ease the feverish with frigid bedrooms, creating ice rinks for people to skate on in the middle of winter. Kanroji would help matchmake even the most hopeless of couples, and Iguro would ward off the deadlier serpents by the border to grant people safe passage through. Why was he the only one people refused? When he was young, he loved the rain. It blessed his family’s crops with prosperity. It nourished wildlife and filled the rivers and seas. He never hated the rain as a child, an innocent child. Now, he loathed it, so much so that a storm cloud followed him wherever he went nowadays, leaving him soaked and cold. He forgot what warmth felt like quickly.
Only Sanemi and Sabito could get those storm clouds to vanish. They would hold him, run a hand through his hair. It was them that dragged him out of that dark place, allowing him to even see a glimpse of golden light. They kept him on his feet, grounded and ready to see another day. Walking out of the casita doors was a daily hell, but it was them that made him get up in the morning in the first place. Two men with pink lightning bolts on their faces and arms. Lavender eyes gazing at him, holding him close. It was with them that he found warmth. It was with them that he felt complete, that he was worthy of what he has been given. His powers were not a miracle to him, but the two of them were. When they had agreed to get married, the land surrounded by the beloved wisteria border was blessed with sunny days for months. It brought in an extended spring and peaceful summer. For once, people were tolerant of him, their verbal scrutiny silenced with the warmth he created, not just for himself, but for other people. This was the beautiful side of a gift like his. If it did rain, the water was warm like it had been during his gift ceremony. The crops would grow quicker with more bountiful gifts. It was during this time that people saw that he was a blessing.
He remembered the hurricane, he still felt it. The icy rain felt like daggers to his skin, digging into him mercilessly. All he could do was scream, his throat begging for air and relief, only to find more agony as he wailed. The sky was almost pitch black with the darkened clouds. It was impossible to see what was directly in front of him, the rain was pouring down so hard. His mind didn’t register right away that the corpse in his arms was Sabito’s. It was almost translucent, like it was made of glass. His hair was less pink than it usually was, lively coral turned drained salmon. His head throbbed from all of the noise, his skin prickling with static and panic. The blood had washed away from the powerful winds blowing about the raindrops, but the wound was still fresh. It was right across his beloved’s chest, but Giyuu didn’t investigate further, knowing that he would just see organs bleached from the water. He remembered Sanemi’s form making its way through the blinding rain, the horror on his face unseen up until that moment. Giyuu begged him to be angry, to shout at him and blame him for the murder of their Sabito, but that never came. Giyuu couldn’t even remember if it was just rain on Sanemi’s face or tears that blended in perfectly. He remembers Sanemi’s touch, cold from the wind yet loving. He was trying to talk to him, but all that he got in response was screaming. There was no talking to Giyuu during that time, or much afterward. He was completely shattered that night, and picking up the pieces was vital yet would not occur. The fragments were too small, and he was destined to fall apart until he was nothing but dust.
He remembered seeing the town after that night. Sanemi had to support him, he could barely walk on his own. Houses were hunched over, their support beams on the ground or struggling to keep even the smallest bits of the structure together. Drenched crops were sprawled across the ground, leaves torn off and stalks forcefully bent in ways deemed unnatural. Some people had bandages wrapped over their faces, limbs in makeshift splints. What he remembered the most was Urokodaki’s face when he saw Sabito’s corpse. His eyes were wider than Giyuu had ever seen them, and the wails that left his lips damned Giyuu to mental deterioration. There was no attempt to save face. There was no desire to justify himself. Giyuu had just openly accepted the glares and pained shouts like an old friend. He remembered some lifting hatchets and handsaws, attempting to tear him to shreds. It was Sanemi’s yelling and strong form that blocked Death from embracing him. Sometimes, Giyuu wished that he did meet the end of a hatchet or a handsaw. It would have been a greater mercy than whatever the hell he was experiencing now.
The funeral was the worst. He didn’t show up. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. The town wanted to honor Sabito, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin his beloved’s funeral by publicly mourning in front of the people who deemed him a murderer. He sat in his room alone, the waterfalls enveloping his horrific wails and sobs, his pleas to God to murder him, to bring back Sabito in exchange for his pathetic and useless life. Sanemi had come in the afternoon after most of the service was over. He didn’t say a word, and Giyuu had worried that he blamed him for Sabito’s death too. However, Sanemi pulled him into the tightest hug he could muster, and just wept. There were no words exchanged that night, no pointed fingers or a rush to defend. It was a moment of mourning, a feeling that Giyuu never escaped from.
People wanted to kill him, rallying to the casita doors with pitchforks and torches, like it was from a Western novel about monsters of men. Sanemi had wrapped his arms around Giyuu, gently moving his head away from the windows that reflected the amber glow of the furious flames. His scarred hands had covered Giyuu’s ears, an attempt to save him from the piercing cries to murder a traitor to the Demon Slayer Corps. This lasted for months and was only silenced when Urokodaki had packed his things and departed from the casita. He renounced his membership and refused to use his gift, a punishment he imposed on those who did not have enough humanity to sympathize with the broken and grieving. The miracle never took Urokodaki’s gift from him, finding him more worthy than before of it. This act of heroism was the last Giyuu had seen before he vanished into the walls. Looking back on it now, he could only imagine how Urokodaki felt upon his disappearance. He lost two of his three boys and watched as one returned just to make the miracle’s fickle flame breathe its last breath.
***
It was raining now, just like it had been on that dreaded day. Giyuu wasn’t sure how long and how far he had been running, but he could care less. He had to escape, surely they would want to kill him by now. He couldn’t blame them, even questioning himself why he didn’t just surrender himself to them and end his suffering. With the blinding rain and his blurred vision from hot tears, he stumbled every few feet, tripping on thick tree roots and smacking into branches. He wasn’t sure if he was bleeding nor did he care. He just wanted the pain to end. His mind was high on grief and fear, fear so great that it made his head light and body fickle. He internally scolded himself for not bringing a blade, surely he could have ended himself by now.
On the bright side, there were demons in these parts. The wisteria border was the only thing protecting the people from the ravenous beasts beyond that lingered within the wood. Giyuu knew that more than anyone, as even paradise lagoons by the border were still hunting grounds for the monsters of Muzan. He was sobbing far louder than he ever remembered, hoping to gain the attention of the bloodthirsty and malicious. He wouldn’t be mad if his death was painful. He deserved it, after all. He destroyed one of the most extraordinary acts of God, a miracle that protected humankind from the gnashing teeth of demons. Surely, he was hellbound now. He might as well give the people the satisfaction of only finding his bones picked clean by the enemy. They would know that he went down in pain, that his life was taken from him with force and agony. Perhaps his end could be a ransom to return the miracle and rebuild the society that he destroyed. Oh, how he longed for that.
It was far into the night now, and his body still was not tired of running. He begged for his knees to buckle under him, to leave him powerless to the demons that lurked behind trees and under the moon. To his relief, he paused upon the feeling that eyes were looming over him. His lungs took in brisk air that pained him more than helped him. He didn’t move to look around at first. After all, he didn’t want to even think about looking in the eyes of his murderer. He just closed them, feeling a few more warm tears cascade down his rosy cheeks. He was ready for the sharp talons of a demon to dig into his flesh, to tear him apart and send him to Hell. He was ready to become nothing more than bone and memories that would fade within a few months rather than years. However, that never came. Instead, all he heard was a huff.
“What’s a guy like you doing out here? It’s dark out and in these parts, you’re like a pig to the slaughter, it’s pathetic. Hold on a minute…that uniform. You’re part of the Demon Slayer Corps…interesting.”