Chapter Text
The Hand Demon is just as grotesque on the inside as he is outside.
Green skin wrinkles and bends as he lunges his appendages at her, movements cumbersome and heavy. She leaps nimbly over the attack, flipping through the air as wind whistles past her face. Somewhere behind her a tree cracks and splinters, shards of bark flying through the air and nearly embedding themselves into her skin as she ducks away.
The demon lets out a gurgling laugh, his limbs retracting to curl around its body once again.
"Ne, ne, fox cub," he chortles, blood-shot eyes widening in something like mockery, "You're going to be the eleventh you know, the eleventh! "
Makomo slides her foot back, sword raised defensively in preparation for another series of attacks. She blinks at the towering monster, the eleventh? She thinks, eyes trained on his arms, eleventh what? Eleventh person to be killed? Surely a demon this large has already eaten dozens of humans!
The demon laughs again, sucking in large gasps of breath, "You don't know! Oh my, little Urokodaki never tells his students anything it seems!"
She glares, eyes narrowing dangerously at the mention of her master, before dashing forward, I can't let him distract me , She thinks, her mind has always been one to wander— this new sliver of information already threatens her concentration.
"So brave, so brave!" he calls, "So futile, nonetheless!"
The demon sends out three more of his extended arms, she flips off of the ground, cocking her sword back as she twists mid-air.
"Breath of Water: Second Form!" She breathes, momentum carrying her as a wheel of water slices cleanly through the demons thick wrist.
She lands neatly on the floor, spinning around quickly as she moves her eyes to the demons covered neck. His hand is already regenerating by the time she turns around.
She's not strong enough to cut through the wall of flesh that surrounds his neck, brute force has never been her strong suit, but her speed will do her little good in this battle; tiring out her opponent isn't an option. She'll have to be clever.
"What did you say before, about the eleventh person?" She asks, stepping away, she'll have to keep him talking while she figures out a way to cut through the mound of skin that is its neck.
His eyes widen hungrily, and he lets out another giggle, "Why, the eleventh of your precious Urokodaki's students to be killed by my hands, of course," yellow eyes gape at her from above, "Urokodaki has always sent his children with those fox masks, never realizing he's marking them like lambs to slaughter!"
She goes cold with the realization, shock sinking into her small body.
And then she burns hot.
Rage fills her so quickly she feels it may boil over, and maybe it does, as she feels the sting of tears burst forth from the corners of her eyes.
Because how— how dare this vile creature hurt Urokodaki-sensei, the closest thing she has to a father, in such a way? An image of his weathered shoulders, hunched over at the loss of another child burns behind her eyes. She feels nauseous.
She has always prided herself in her temperament, calm and gentle like water stilled on a lake, pinned beneath the stare of the moon.
Now she feels like a torrent— a tempest of fury that begins in her gut and creeps up to clamp around her chest. The moon no longer offers its retribution, it cowers behind the shadows of clouds. She faces the Hand Demon in the bleak darkness of a moonless night.
She has to move— she has to cut his neck, has to make this despicable creature pay for the lives he has claimed, the grief he's delivered.
Sensei's voice echoes unbidden within her head, stay loose, Makomo, flow, like the channel of a river, don't become—
"Too rigid, Little Fox!"
Makomo wakes to a wet nose sniffing at her head.
Her eyes snap open at the sensation, staring straight into the brown eyes of a gray fox. It meets her gaze, unblinking, before stepping back and sitting neatly behind her. She stands slowly, surprised to feel her arms and legs intact, the sensation of them being ripped off her body like a ragdoll is still fresh in her mind. She checks her body for any other wounds, but not even the smallest of scratches remain on her flesh.
Her sword is also missing, the sheath no longer wrapped around her obi . She already misses its comforting weight. She feels airy, as if she's floating, the back of her mind seems as if it's stuffed full of feathers— The weight is far more comforting than it should be.
The clearing she stands in is surrounded by clusters of trees, their trunks strain towards the sky and cast looming blue shadows. A breeze rustles some leaves, knocking them off of thin branches, but she doesn't feel the chill of the wind as it passes. The emptiness startles her.
Makomo stares at her hands, fingers calloused from her years of sword training.
She's dead, isn't she?
The realization doesn't startle her so much as the thought that she let the Hand Demon win.
Death has never bothered her, a Demon Slayer's job is dangerous at best and fatal at worst. She knew that. She accepted that.
But— Urokodaki-san.
She lets out a muffled noise—something between and keen and a choked sob—and swipes angrily at her eyes. Willing the fall of her tears away.
She should have won, if not for herself than for sensei. He should never have lost another child. She should have been able to walk home proudly, bruised and battered, and hug him upon her return. They would have eaten a large feast. He would have been so proud.
She should never have died.
Behind her, the fox lets out something like a grunt. She turns around to face it, still rubbing her eyes.
The fox watches her boredly, its stare never wavering from her small form. It's an odd-looking thing, the fur on its neck sticks out haphazardly and there's a discoloration on its coat that starts just above its forehead and leads under its eye. But it seems tame, and she remembers legends of kitsune , intelligent fox spirits that mess with humans periodically, and the more this fox watches her, the more curious she gets.
"Hello," She mutters, bowing slightly. Its ear flicks in what she thinks is contempt, brown eyes narrowing minutely at her before it swivels its face and stares at something behind her, lips lifting to let out a low growl.
It's all the warning she gets before a hand lands squarely on her shoulder, she whips around, reaching for her sword, but her hand closes around empty air instead.
She's face to face with the shining brown eyes of a boy, his head so close that their noses touch.
"Congratulations," He says, grinning, "You're dead!"
She gapes as the boy steps back, a fox mask rests squarely on his head, twin red markings painted across porcelain cheeks.
"That's not how you're supposed to welcome her, idiot," a voice behind her says, she jumps, startled, and whips her head around.
The fox is no longer there, instead in its place is another boy, his spiky hair juts out behind his own mask, which harbors the same markings the tod had before.
"I'm just trying to be funny, nii-san," The first boy juts out his lower lip in a rather cute display of petulance, "You're so serious all the time!"
The second boy tilts his head forward and intakes a sharp breath for what would undoubtedly be a biting retort, but Makomo interrupts them swiftly.
"Excuse me," she murmurs, "What do you mean I'm dead?"
The first boy smiles again, "Right, right! We should introduce ourselves, my name is Shoji, and this is my twin brother, Kiyoshi!"
Kiyoshi takes off his mask and shakes out his hair, and she's met with an identical set of eyes as his brother, they're a light brown, like the color of the honeycombs Urokodaki-sensei would bring her after a hard day of training. "I apologize for my brothers... crudeness," He says, gripping his brother's hair and pushing him into a bow before following suit, "we're new at greeting people."
Makomo waves her arms dismissively, "no need to apologize! I would just like an explanation, is all."
Shoji perks up at this, shaking off his brother's hand, "well, it's pretty simple! You fought the Hand Demon, right?" She nods, but Shoji is already back to rambling, "He killed us too, and the others! All eleven of us, or, well I guess you make twelve."
She already knew this, these were the other eleven students the demon had been gleefully bragging about. "So is this just the afterlife? Are there other spirits here as well?"
"That's the problem," Kiyoshi spits, venom dripping with every word, "this isn't supposed to be the afterlife, we can't pass on, and it's all because of the damn demon ."
Shoji grips the edge of his faded yukata in tight fists, glaring at a pebble on the ground, "we're waiting for someone strong enough whose able to kill it. But the more people that try and fail, the stronger it gets."
"We love Urokodaki-sensei," Kiyoshi says, the affectionate words juxtaposed by his angry snarl, "We can't leave until that demon gets justice."
Makomo blinks, and then breaks into a small smile, "I'm glad," she says, "that you are all still loyal to our sensei."
Shoji blinks at her, his face burning in an indignant flush, "Of course! We'll never betray sensei! No matter what that Hand Demon says!"
Kiyoshi nods once, jaw clenched before he turns around and starts walking towards the trees.
"We should go meet the others, yeah?"