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The power and privilege of an Upper Moon means Akaza does not sleep. Lesser demons fell back upon the behavior as a crutch to hibernate through times they could not reliably feed. As power incarnate, Akaza did not want as they did and has never once known thirst.
Yet, unlike the other Moons, Akaza was familiar with strength as something beyond raw power. Akaza's aims required this of him, for he sought to destroy himself and find Anatta. His life as a warrior was multidisciplinary in a way the Moons did not bother. Having little experience with that state of being was did not sway Akaza, for he knew it was real through his studies of the lives of other martial artist masters.
Through various means, he hunted this state for himself - pushing his body, mind, and spirit to the ultimate limits. He fought, fought, and fought. But not every battle he fought drew upon "power".
Today he returned to the mountains to fight without his body. This was the place where he felt he could sleep in his own way.
Akaza sat seiza on the rocky ground of a mountain range. The extreme altitude sucked the oxygen out of the air, and visible life, plant or animal, was rare. No one, demons included, bothered to come here. Oxygen meant nothing to Akaza, so it was the ideal place for him to isolate.
In this place, if only momentarily, Akaza had felt something unique. In a time where his mind was near empty, he could sense a font inside him. The feeling danced on the edge of his senses like a mirage, but he could feel something bubbling inside, unmistakable. He wasn't sure if it was what he hoped, but it may be an important step in his journey.
Even if it wasn't anything related to Anatta, if it was inside him, he wanted to understand it.
Akaza's body stills completely for his first stage of meditation. A thin cloud passes through the range, and its mist falls over him. Water condenses on his warm skin, but as it permeates his clothes, it starts to freeze instead. A deep chill sets through his body, deep to his core. His eyes lull and Akaza slips into a trance.
If he could dream, it would be here, he thinks.
In that state, Akaza's raw instinct feels something outside of him.
Akaza reaches out. A sensation of contact spreads up his arms and presses against his chest.
A ghost of an object is being held in Akaza's arms. Akaza's hands grip a little tighter, and he hears a small voice. This is a body, and it is alive.
"You're so warm…" she says, voice deep and seeping.
The hammer comes down. A feeling near indescribable builds in Akaza's chest. His heart is racing, his throat constricts, and deep anxiety overtakes him. In an instant, he feels out of control. With horror, he realizes he truly is, and pressure akin to nausea digs its nails inside his heart.
That pressure in his body pushes the words out of him; but in a miracle, what his lips shape is the true expression of the feelings he didn't understand.
His body has reached it, but “Akaza” has not.
"I love you…" the thing called “he” whispers, lips brushing against her hair.
When she hears “him”, she looks up.
It was his bride, and this was their bed. His presence here in her room was routine over years upon years, yet never for this reason, and never before has he dared to cross the threshold over her bed’s edge. He, as her husband, now held her intending to consummate their marriage. The girl's eyes shone as she gazed back to him, knowing, accepting. She called his name, and his body thrummed in response.
He bent down. Again, she said his name, her breath hot on his skin, and her lips met his. Although it feels like his body is burning, the girl's lips are hot, and he melts beneath her contact. The kiss that he recalls before, shimmering in the heat haze of his mind, was chaste and fleeting. This touch his bride shared with him was heavy and real, for with it, she promised a new world where she was always at his side.
They break this kiss and embrace each other tightly, holding each other close. The force in her arms is strong, something she used to struggle to summon. She was healthy, vigorous, and matched his body's power like she was made to match him. She was fully intertwined with him as an equal. As spouses.
“I used to be afraid of touching you,” he feels himself say. “That if I even raised my voice, you would break."
She laughs but stifles it quickly. Her hands run up and down his back for a moment before squeezing him again, even tighter than before. “You don’t have to be, not anymore,” she says. “I won’t break... I can’t. I’m safe with you. There's no way you could hurt me.”
“You would tell me if it did, wouldn’t you?"
Her voice is deep and resolute. “Yes.”
He calls her name, and she purrs. Urgency is rising in him like a lava font. He gently pushes his weight against her and she falls back, her yukata riding up her leg. His eyes soak up the sight, ravenous. He says her name again, leaning forward and kissing her skin. The love falls from his mouth with no control, kisses cut off with each prayerful utterance of her name. His tongue laves across her neck and she whimpers. He's slipping, but she catches his spirit with her hands and strokes his shivering body, grounding him. He breathes in deep and says it again, deep from his gut --
Akaza awakens to his blood boiling and his body immediately reacts. Powerful nausea overcomes him and drowns out all thought. His posture breaks and the thin ice that had covered his joints cracks with high pitched screams as his body throws itself over onto all fours.
There, with Muzan's watchful gaze, he vomits.
Over and over he retches. The blood of Muzan in his body boils with a deafening roar, melting the ice and freeing his limbs fully. His whole body convulses, again and again, to rid himself of "it", the poison Muzan's blood hates. As the muscles of Akaza's body ripple, the thin sheet of ice is slowly shed off his body, and shards crash to the ground.
He's completely delirious. The blood is so hot, Akaza loses all sense of himself. He has no conscious mind to question what is happening, but it doesn't matter, for Muzan's blood takes over for him and leads him to purge all traces of what Akaza had touched.
Time passes torturously. The poison is expelled with brute force from his feverish body. After an eternity, all that remains inside Akaza is Muzan's blood.
When forever ends, Akaza is left kneeling over the pool of red gore his stomach had carried, a human he ate a while ago. His eyes slowly refocus, and he stares numbly at the human remains. He sees his reflection in the red. He looks wretched and weak, shaking from the exertion, with blood splattered all over his mouth.
Control is Akaza’s again, but the shame of losing it makes him seethe. Angry at himself and his weakness, he stands. His nails rake across his arm, peeling the rest of the ice off, and he throws the shards to the ground with all his might. They shatter on the rock into thousands of pieces, the fine dust then carried away on the wind like snow.
Akaza descends the mountain and does not return again.