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Kokushibo can barely remember the last time he had felt so pathetic.
The house he is currently camped in must have been quite the shoddy hovel when it was first built, but now full of rot and decay it was barely standing upright. He would never deign to grace the doorstep of such a disgusting, abandoned, abode, but as the sun rises in the east it becomes his only shelter from certain death.
He could slaughter a hundred slayers in a moment, he is a demon so powerful only the demon lord himself stands in front of him, he has mastered a hundred forms of a breath he himself created, and now he crouches in the corner of small room like a terrified child. His back presses hard against the rotten wood and as it creaks and for a moment his lungs still in the fear that the very wall that protects him may fall and expose him to the elements.
The wall holds; and Kokushibo releases the useless breath held in his empty lungs.
Kokushibo supposes he could call for that man, have him send Nakime to his aid, but his pride prevents him from doing so. What would the other moons think if they could see him now? Douma the pitiable idiot would cry his fake little tears and mock him endlessly; how could his great Kokushibo-dono allow himself to be trapped so easily, like one of the slayers they would face-so sure in their ability they could not see the gruesome death that stood before them. In this way, Kokushibo had never felt more like his human self, a version of his body he had buried for too many centuries. This helplessness now before the all-consuming sun felt too close to his first encounter with a demon, his men slaughtered, him the only survivor.
No…that wasn’t quite right; in that moment he did not feel such a blow to his pride, he was still a samurai at that time he would have died then with honor, fighting to avenge his men’s lives. It was the moment after, that shaped the emotions he felt now. His brother, shining, celestial, swooping in with a nigh-imitatable grace, a clean cut slaying the monster that had taken the lives of so many around Michikatsu. That irony, that all he had tried to run and leave behind now stood before him stronger than ever, stronger than him, was too much to bear. Even after all these years that moment still haunted him, still grated his nerves, and ground his teeth.
A piece of the roof fell in. Sunlight poured through the open hole in the hovel, the sunlight a near miss in its attempt to kiss Kokushibo’s skin. The Upper Moon shuffled impossibly deeper into the dark recess of his corner, his form unconsciously shifting smaller in an attempt to avoid the light streaming in.
The fear and pain bringing him back to the present moment. The present time, where Yoriichi was long since dead, his body rotted through and filled with maggots. Unlike the sun, Yoriichi’s touch could only burn for so long before it went out.
But Yoriichi’s touch was always burning.
Anytime his brother attempted any contact, a hug, a pat on the back, any sense of familial closeness with the family he had left, Kokushibo felt ever smaller, ever weaker. Like the Sun above, Yoriichi was untouchable, all-powerful, it did not matter how deeply he may try to care, the glare of light was too much for kokushibo to ever bear. His brother was never a person, just a figure that existed to make kokushibo’s life more difficult, the peak of a mountain he could never hope to reach. And like the sun, there was never an option to fight, even in the end of his life, as Yoriichi breathed weak and haggard, hair silvered and thin, face worn and weathered, his blade never faltered, and the sun always rose. So Michikatsu ran, he ran and he hid and he cursed in every whisper he had. Always the weak son, the weak swordsman, the weak brother. Kokushibo is an only child now, and he is still so weak.
The high noon light peels away layers of his skin, and Kokushibo’s anger almost burns greater than his flesh.