Chapter Text
It was a massacre.
A quiet family was attacked the night prior; their remains, left to rot away and be forgotten. A woman laid motionless on the matted floor, surrounded and covered in gore.
Hot, messy tears bubbled and pooled around her cheeks as her eyes fluttered open.
Her entire body was burning, and fatigue she had never felt before clung to her like the plague. The dead silence that filled the Kamado's home allowed even the drop of a pin to be audible from the next room over.
Kie shifted her head ever so slightly. It was as if moving faster than a snail's pace would have shattered her entire being.
Everything about her body, her limbs, they felt sluggish and off. They were foreign to her. Kie's hand was wrapped around something that, at some point, was once smooth. Now it splintered and jabbed at the skin on her palm.
The sheen of a knife’s blade moved across her view as the poor lighting of the early morning made it just barely visible.
Dry blood coated the tip and length as tendrils reached out down towards where the steel and wooden handle met.
It came back to her.
In one stroke, a man appeared in her memories, standing in the way of their only means of escape. His unforgivable plum eyes and slitted black pupils glared down at the motionless bodies of Nezuko and Rokuta.
"So they died from just a little amount of blood? What a shame.”
Kie’s fangs gritted against each other and dug into her gums, causing small rivulets of crimson to flood onto her taste buds.
Fangs?
She froze. Kie ran her tongue over her overextended canines, stiffening upon feeling the sharp tips prod at her.
Something wasn't right, her overexerted brain thought, piecing together her fragmented memories.
Kie shifted from her lying position, using her elbow to support her body, wincing when a dull thud of pain rolled down her spine. Another piece of the event that had transpired the night before waltzed across her conscience.
Right.
She had grabbed one of the largest kitchen knives she owned and rushed the man wearing a fancy western suit.
He was much quicker than a mother in shock, solely driven by a seething rage, and stopped the knife by allowing Kie to stab it straight through his hand.
He wrapped his fingers around the steel as his other arm mutated and whipped to the side, slashing across the middle of her back. She felt her spinal cord separate in one swift motion and dropped to the floor without any resistance.
”You’re older than her, ” the monster coldly stated, pointing to her beloved Nezuko, ”and you put up a struggle, even if it was rather pitiful. Maybe your body would be more suitable for the amount of blood required.”
Kie felt her consciousness slip before she could witness what the bastard did to her afterwards.
Kie fully sat up now, eyes shifting faster than she could think, her senses fully awakened. Hanako's body was the first thing she saw upon sitting up. A gasp, strangled by the already dry throat Kie had, crossed the room.
She couldn’t believe it.
She understood little, and her memories were still fragmented and spilled across the void that was her tired and broken mind. She knew this little girl was important to her, though, because of the excruciating amount of pain that tugged at her heartstrings upon seeing this child reduced to a corpse.
Why couldn’t she remember her name?
Another wave of tears prodded at the edges of her eyes, threatening to fall indiscriminately with any more emotional overloads. Her claws clumsily passed over the child’s body, checking anywhere for a pulse.
The amount of blood seeping into the tatami and the lack of a rising and falling chest made Kie’s heartache deepen.
She carefully pulled the lifeless girl into her lap, tears spilling over. Her sniffles and choked sobs abruptly collapsed into sorrowful wailing as the little body shared no warmth.
The thick scent of iron had been indifferent at first, but Kie soon caught the individual scents of four other people. She reluctantly pulled her head away from the little girl’s and looked behind her. Two more bodies, with faces just as familiar.
Kie staggered towards the two and kneeled next to the young boys, one with a shaved head and the other, a shaggy mane of black. The tears refused to stop, and she had no idea if they ever would.
Kie was reduced to nothing but an unfamiliar body and a shattered mind. She could only partially remember who these kids were, as well as herself and what had happened to them.
Why did her heart hurt so much? And why did she feel so disgustingly hungry from the massacre in front of her? Blood from the little girl had gotten onto and stained her hands red.
Something sitting in the back of her conscious wanted to lick them clean like a child after making some sweets. Her stomach growled as a torrent of drool overflowed, and her mind wrestled for control on whether she would take a bite or not.
It's nothing big! Just a little something to satisfy the itchy craving thrumming in your veins...
She shook her head violently to stop herself from going any further. It was wrong. She couldn’t eat people, and she definitely couldn’t eat children, especially if they were her’s.
It turned into one big cycle that fed into itself, making it unbelievably hard for Kie to keep herself under control.
The harder she cried, the more the dull pain in her back got worse. The worse the pain got, the more it stoked her hunger, and the more that hunger grew, the harder she cried. There was nothing else the poor mother could have done but hold the lifeless bodies of her children.
Her babies.
She cried until it felt like there was nothing left to cry and then cried some more.
“Aaaaagh!”
A deep, guttural scream ripped through the air, disturbing the high-pitched screech ringing in Kie's ears. Her hands instinctively wrapped around the bodies, her back arching over them to keep them away from said perceived threat.
Her fangs were bared for only a moment before she partially recognized the boy standing in front of her.
“M-Mom…?” he swallowed, placing one foot through the entrance.
His voice and eyes are so gentle...
Kie’s mind bounced back and forth between foggy and mismatched memories, trying to put a name to the face standing in front of her. A cold but firm hand clamped down on one of her shoulders before she could realize he sprinted over to her.
He was kneeling in front of her, eyes blown wide open and searching for injuries.
Tears threatened to overflow as he put his other hand on her cheek. “M-mom! Are you okay? W-w-what happened?”
“I want us to have a good New Year's feast, so I’ll go sell as much charcoal as I can…Even if it’s just a little.” His face was covered from chin to forehead in soot. Kie gently wiped his face down with a washcloth and tenderly stroked his cheek. “Thank you, Tanjirou.”
Tanjirou. It was Tanjirou. Tanjirou was standing right in front of her. One of her babies survived! Tanjirou was alive!
Why did she bare her teeth at the eldest and most caring and gentle son?
Her own hand brushed against Tanjirou’s cheek, and it mimicked the soft stroking that she had done just the day before. ”Mom…!” her eldest son choked, wrapping his arms around his mother’s body, heaving and sobbing with stutterers in between. ”I’m so sorry!”
”I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you guys!” Tanjirou dropped his head onto Kie’s shoulder and clutched her tighter with every rasp of breath.
"Please forgive me! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!"
Kie’s hands untwined from behind his back and rose up to his shoulders, pushing him back so he could look at her. He was just as devastated as she was while also placing all of the blame on himself.
It hurt her deeply.
How was it his fault? The weather had worsened before Tanjirou could have safely returned home.
He went down the mountain to make sure everyone could have full stomachs at the expense of his own safety. If he had stayed home, or if he had come back before the weather had gotten worse, he most likely would have died as well.
Kie clung to the idea that his late return was actually a miracle.
Despite her long and sharp nails, Tanjirou refused to flinch as Kie took his head delicately into her hands and pointed his face up towards hers.
A small smile of relief creased across her lips, and her now puffy, dark purple eyes stared back at Tanjirou’s red ones. It felt wrong to smile at a time like this, but she had to make sure her baby knew his mother was all right.
Well, as all right as someone who had been experimented on by the devil himself could be.
Tanjirou broke down even further. He understood what she had meant, but it didn't soothe him as much as they both wanted it to.
They couldn’t sit and grieve forever, though. Bodies don't stay fresh for long, and the smell of blood could have attracted unwanted scavengers or predators. The two surviving Kamados took some time to pull themselves together just enough so they could see and think straight.
The bodies were moved deeper within. The highest-quality blankets that a family of charcoal burners could own were used to cover them, but only after each body was checked once again in vain for a pulse. A part of each of them refused to accept that Nezuko, Shigeru, Takeo, Hanako and Rokuta were really dead.
Tanjirou kept quiet, digging into the hard earth with the spade they had around the house, quietly muttering apologies and asking for forgiveness from each one of the bundles. Kie dug with her hands, busying herself with anything to keep her mind away from the hunger that still hammered away under her skin.
It was exceedingly difficult, but Kie kept a firm grip on her resolve and refused to give in to such a basic instinct that came with her new form. She went as far as to bite her tongue or inner cheek and treat it like a punishment for straying away from the task at hand.
That man did this.
She was shocked by how light some objects felt as she moved them. Her strength was triple that then when she was in her early twenties, and the fangs that jutted out served as a reminder that she was no longer entirely human. Tanjirou had just finished digging out Hanako’s grave when a foreign pair of footsteps stopped their trains of thought.
Both Tanjirou and Kie turned to the source. The thing behind the crunching footsteps was a young man of average height, black hair, blue eyes, a black uniform and a half-and-half haori that sat over his shoulders.
The glint from the handguard sitting at the man's waist caught Kie’s attention. She immediately scrambled to get in front of Tanjirou, her arms fanned out and back to shield him from harm.
A harsh growl rumbled deep within Kie's throat as her lips peeled back, baring her fangs at who her body perceived as a threat. You’re not going to hurt him, was what repeated like a mantra in her mind.
The man stepped back, his thumb pressing on the handguard as his other unsheathed the katana in one swift motion. Black and blue evenly shared the length of the blade. Kie thought it looked intimidating as another feral sound tried to wriggle its way out of her.
“What are you doing with a demon?” the mismatched man asked, his mouth drew down into a frown as his deep, sea-blue eyes continued to stare down at the two. "Demon?" Tanjirou repeated out loud as one of his hands came up to his mother’s shoulder to calm her down. His eyes widened as he finally took the time to look her over.
"She didn’t kill them!" he found himself shouting across the yard.
"D-demons eat people, right? None of my siblings had any bite marks..." he reasoned. Now it was his turn to step in front of Kie. "Besides...Mom would never do that! She would never hurt her own children! I-i-it was someone else; it was another demon! There was a scent that I’ve never smelled before! That must have been from the one who did this!"
Tanjirou’s heart hammered in his throat as the demon slayer's sword twitched.
This man was most likely tracking the demon down that did this to us. If he hunts demons, then that meant the only surviving member—Mom—was held under suspicion...argh! Think!
“Please don’t kill her…” he suddenly pleaded, dropping down to his knees. “Please don’t take away the only family I have left…” The tension in the air was thick enough for the man to slice his sword through it. Kie watched and stiffened as the hunter in front of them tensed.
Kie had moved down to sit behind Tanjirou, her hand entangling with his. Her other came up to bring him closer. Her growling had continued, but she quickly understood that leaving her fangs out hurt the case they were trying to make.
The demon hunter kept his katana drawn, face becoming more perplexed by the situation unfolding right in front of him. Tanjirou swallowed.
The mismatched man turned his head down, teeth audibly gritting. It was probably difficult for the hunter to make such a choice, Tanjirou thought and kept to himself.
The tension that hung in the air like a fog finally dissipated some when the man hesitantly sheathed his blade. Both mother and son let out a collective mental sigh of relief.
“Let me...help you,” said the man. He approached the two cautiously and helped move Hanako’s body.
They worked in a continued silence that had now been laced with an undertone of tension. Kie kept to Tanjirou’s left, and the demon hunter stayed on Tanjirou’s right.
They dug out Takeo and Rokuta’s graves quicker than they would have with just two people and found themselves all sitting quietly in prayer. The hunter left momentarily. He awkwardly sat a few feet away after returning, only approaching them once Tanjirou and Kie said their final goodbyes and turned to leave the burial.
“It’s a muzzle,” he stated as he stopped in front of Tanjirou, dropping it unceremoniously into the young boy’s hands.
The demon slayer didn’t say anything else, though Tanjirou understood what it meant. Can’t take any risks on whether she bites someone or not.
The young man turned on his heels and began to leave, but Tanjirou still had things he needed to say. “Wait!”
The mismatched man stopped and turned his head towards the boy, his stoic expression cracked, turning into a slight grimace. “I still need to find a cure for Mom…” It felt odd talking to the man.
It seemed like he never wanted to respond to anything you said.
“...You could ask a demon, but they probably wouldn't answer you...Joining the Demon Slayer Corps may be your only option, but a lot of people don’t have what it takes to become one...I doubt that you would—”
Tanjirou shook his head, interrupting.
“I don’t care if I have to drag my broken body through hell and back! I just want to turn Mom back into a human! I’ll do anything if it means she can live like normal again!"
He bowed low, begging the man once more, "Please! We have nothing left!"
Silence.
It dragged on for an uncomfortably long time before the demon slayer grunted.
“There is…an old man named Sakonji Urokodaki who lives at the foot of Mount Sagiri. Tell him Giyuu Tomioka sent you.”
He paused, pointing at Kie.
"Your mother may be fine now because of the overcast, but don’t ever allow her to be exposed to direct sunlight."
And with that, Giyuu disappeared; gone before either of them could have processed the information given.
Tanjirou turned to look over his shoulder and gave his mother an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but we should listen to Tomioka..."
Kie knelt down and allowed her son to place the muzzle between her teeth and wrap the cloth around her head to secure it. The muzzle was uncomfortable, but it beat the chance of her not being able to hold back her unwanted demonic instincts.
It also allowed her some room to take out her stress. The bamboo flexed slightly as her jaws clamped around its base.
After the muzzle, Kie and Tanjirou turned back to the house while trying their hardest to ignore the pools of crimson still present. Kie took as little time as possible to changed into her usual purple and cream checkered kimono.
She ran her fingers through the long locks of hair that had grown overnight, ultimately deciding to leave it down.
Before they left the house, Tanjirou brought Kie her long-sleeved white smock and put it on for her. It kept the illusion that she needed it to stay warm alive.
They stood at the pathway leading down the mountain.
The future looked hazy and uncertain to the two.
Tanjirou looked to his mother for reassurance, and in response, he received a fond, gentle look with the edges of her cheeks pulled up into a smile. He took her hand in his and started down the path with a brisk pace.
Kie followed closely behind; her limbs were now more cooperative than when she had first woken up.
She stared at the back of her eldest son’s head and steeled her gaze. She was given a second chance, as cursed as it was, at life.
There was no way she would squander it this time. Kie would protect Tanjirou to the end and repent for the sin of failing to protect the others. She returned Tanjirou’s grip with one of her own.
Protect him. Even if it means your own life is in danger.