Chapter Text
The tree outside was blossoming in unusually vibrant colors as Kiriya spoke.
"Thank you for coming," he said solemnly. "Today marks the final Hashira meeting. Sanemi. Giyuu. You're the only two Hashiras left now."
Giyuu's mind was racing, but at the same time, it was slow as the drip of water off an icicle. How had he gotten here? What was going on? Why wasn't he feeling something more at the death of his comrades? But as hard as he tried to focus on the questions, no answers could work themselves out. It was like trying to make an ink painting on a river. As soon as he started, his work got washed away, and he was left confused and vaguely despondent.
Kiriya's words quickly turned mumbly and incoherent. The tree outside had become the cherry blossom planted at the Butterfly Estate . Sanemi's appearance was blurring and shifting, changing between himself and the other Hashiras. Whatever wall had kept Giyuu from feeling anything a moment ago had vanished. He was confused and frustrated, and the river was slowing down... his brain was slowly working through the logic of the situation at hand.
A few voices popped up, echoing over Kiriya's gibberish. They were saying words in a language Giyuu could understand, but he was too occupied to discern their meanings. He stood up, feeling like he was within arm's reach of the truth. And that was quite accurate, as well. As soon as he came to a conclusion, he looked to Kiriya, then back to the Hashira beside him-- the Insect Hashira, all of a sudden-- and reached out, grabbing onto both their shoulders for stability.
"Kocho, am I dreaming?" he asked loudly, ignoring the thought-consuming river's sudden appearance around them. But before Kocho could answer, there was the sound of a sliding door closing, and then...
...Giyuu opened his eyes. And as he stared at the ceiling, he couldn't help but think... what a stupid question . What was she supposed to tell me ? I was dreaming and she was a part of it ... she only knew what I did . Kocho only knowing as much as Giyuu was perhaps the least realistic part of the whole dream. The place he was lying in at that exact moment was evidence enough of that fact. The Butterfly Estate, he had deduced. He was no Tanjirou or Urokodaki, but he could tell from the smell in the room. It was a distinctive one. Giyuu felt a little spike of pride at that deduction; he'd only been awake for two or three seconds, but already he was back to his senses. His self-appreciation was interrupted by a voice, though.
"You were. She still is," they said.
Giyuu immediately tried to lift up his head, but a horrible pain flared up in his head and his right arm as he did so. The speaker didn't like that.
"Hey, woah, woah, calm down Tomioka," they ordered, annoyed. "If you try to move a muscle, I'll break your last two ribs."
Oh , Giyuu thought as he collapsed back onto his pillows. "Morning... Shinazugawa."
It was Sanemi, as he had correctly guessed. The sound of Sanemi's voice and the needlessly angry tone with which he spoke made him relatively easy to identify by hearing alone.
"What did you mean," Giyuu continued, "when you said that I was... but 'she still is'?"
Giyuu could hear the Wind Hashira walking across the room to stop next to his bed. He turned his head slightly to see Sanemi pointing behind himself to the bed directly to the right of Giyuu's. Unfortunately, Sanemi had apparently miscalculated. Giyuu had sunken into his pillows a bit. Whatever was in that bed, Giyuu couldn't see it.
"Words, Shinazugawa," he rasped, annoyed. "Explain with them."
Sanemi scoffed. "You're one to talk about talking. When was the last time you-- oh, forget it. You reached out, grabbed at nothing, and asked some imaginary Kocho if you were dreaming. Then you woke up before I could have a chuckle about it. Might have one anyway, though. That's the funniest thing I've seen you do, actually. You know what that looked like from over there, Tomioka?"
Giyuu didn't know what it looked like from over there. It wasn't the thought-consuming river this time, though. People always expected him to guess what they meant, but he never could. Kocho was harsh, but at least she was harsh in a way he could understand... Sanemi was harsh like a wasp. Why sting him? Stinging didn't get anybody anything so long as Sanemi didn't explain what Giyuu had done wrong. He just laid there, silent.
"Words, Tomioka," Shinazugawa said in his usual, passively mocking tone. "Explain with them."
"I don't know what it looked like," Giyuu replied in a strained-sounding voice. "But I know what you were saying before, partially. I was dreaming, but 'she still is'. Who is she?"
Sanemi groaned, lifting one hand to his forehead. Giyuu noticed with a twinge of shock that the hand was short two whole fingers. The index and middle fingers. Which of the Kizuki did that to him ? he wondered. Everything happened so fast that Giyuu hadn't gotten a chance to figure out who'd fought who. All he knew was that Kocho nearly died to Upper Rank 2, and probably would have, had she not been saved by her Tsuguko and the strange pig-headed child Giyuu had saved himself on Natagumo Mountain. The waters in Giyuu's mind were finally beginning to settle and clear. 'She '... must be Kocho, then .
Sanemi seemed to notice the realization on Giyuu's face as he lowered his hand. "Did you figure it out yet?"
"...Yes," Giyuu half-whispered. "Will she... wake up?"
For whatever reason, that looked to hit a nerve with the Wind Hashira. "Do you only ask dumb questions? 'Am I dreaming'? 'Will she wake up'? She will fucking wake up, okay? You know her as well as I do. She's tougher than either of us. If we survived this, she can."
Giyuu was no master at talking to people, or reading them, or anything like that. But even he could tell that Sanemi wasn't speaking to him right then. He turned his head away from Sanemi. Half to give him a chance to emote without being embarrassed, and half to check on something. Sanemi only lost two fingers ... it makes sense that he'd be awake . But what about the others ? The harder he thought about what might have happened to them, the more his right arm hurt. Nonetheless, Giyuu clenched his teeth and endured it. He returned his focus to the bed directly left of his. Somebody had recently gotten out of it if the messiness of the sheets was anything to go off of. Giyuu was no sleuth, but it was easy to notice a thin strand of pink hair on the bed. Kanroji was there. I see... so that was either her bed or Iguro's.
"They're all up," Sanemi explained suddenly. "You too, now. I was right when I guessed you'd be second to last."
"Why did you guess that?" Giyuu inquired.
"You got hit hard. Do you remember what the Kamado kid did to you?" Sanemi silently observed Giyuu's expression for a moment before continuing. "I didn't expect you to. He chucked you through a wall right after he became a demon. I had to drag you out of that damn place before it fell on you."
Giyuu thanked him, to which his only response was, "You would've survived."
"What... happened to Kocho, Shinazugawa?" Giyuu asked hesitantly. In truth, he was afraid of the answer. With Total Concentration Breathing, a Hashira could recover from even lost limbs in a matter of weeks. Whatever had happened to Kocho, it had to have been worse than what happened to Giyuu. And a lot had happened to Giyuu. His head still hurt from-- according to Sanemi-- being thrown through a building. He'd been slashed up by Muzan beforehand, as well. His right arm must've been the main focus of that, judging by how much it was aching. Sanemi clenched his three-fingered fist as hard as he could when he replied.
"Tsuyuri says she hasn't been using Total Concentration Breathing since they found her... says the demon she fought fucked up her lungs. Badly."
Tsuyuri... she knows about healing. I can ask her about her older sister's condition. Giyuu wasn't sure why he felt so desperate for an answer. Let alone why he felt scared of what the answer might be. "When can I talk to Tsuyuri?" he asked, putting up his typical façade of stoicism.
"I don't really know. She won't know any more of this shit than she did when I asked her, though." Sanemi seemed just as vexed by that fact as Giyuu was.
Giyuu's response was not a rational one. Even he knew that. But, being that the decision was irrational, his rational knowledge that it was irrational did little to discourage him from making it. He rose up slowly and arduously into a sitting position, visibly shocking the Wind Hashira. Giyuu did his best to ignore Sanemi's reaction as well as the pain in his head and right arm.
Sanemi looked like he was about to tell Giyuu to lie back down, but he didn't get the chance. The irrational response Giyuu had wasn't sitting up; the truly stupid thing he did was trying to stand. He turned to his side, ignoring the pain it caused him, and tried to prop himself up with his right arm as he moved to get up. Instead, for some reason, his arm didn't move at all... and he fell. He was numb for only a moment after the impact. Once that moment was up, the pain from before hit him like a freak wave. Under any other circumstances, it would've been overwhelming. But he was too busy being overwhelmed by a need for an answer. He barely registered Sanemi's attempts at picking him up and berating him.
"Arm", "hurt", "idiot" and "broken" were the only words Giyuu heard and comprehended, and even then, he didn't care. All he cared about was the door to the room, and how he needed to get through it. Once he did that, he had no idea where he'd go. He knew the layout of the estate, but Kocho's sister could be anywhere. She could just as well be relaxing on some mountain with Tanjiro, for all he knew. But there was only one way to find out. So Giyuu picked himself up with immense difficulty, focusing entirely on that door. Sanemi didn't seem to be trying to stop him, luckily. That could end up hurting him, after all. The Wind Hashira just walked with Giyuu, waiting for something to go wrong.
As Giyuu stumbled closer to his goal, his arm pain flared up again. He went to grab his right arm with his relatively unhurt left, but he only grasped air. Was he really so unbalanced right then that he couldn't even grab his own arm? Damn it, he thought, almost tripping on himself as he made it within arm's reach of the sliding door. I need to gather myself... I can't make it out of the room like this. Giyuu stopped in place and stood up almost straight, surprising Sanemi nearly as much as he surprised himself. Himejima focuses on mantras to control his strength better. What can I focus on?
He closed his eyes, resolving to 'observe' his own thoughts. The first image that popped into his head was a rushing stream. It turned into a pond, but the water was rippled and foaming. As he thought about the movement disturbing it, it slowed. The reflection in the water became clearer. Giyuu felt his muscles tense up instinctively. For the longest time, he'd only focused on the pond in order to perform his eleventh form. He relaxed, focusing on the reflections he imagined on the pond's surface. First, he only thought of irrelevant sights like the tree from his dream. Then, faces. His sister's, Sabito's, and, unsurprisingly, Kocho's. Her face may be more scarred than I remember it now... but that smile won't change. The short meditation had given Giyuu the control he needed to finally open the door.
He reached with his right arm out of habit, despite how hurt it was. Or, he thought he had. But the arm didn't move. Only his shoulder. Giyuu realized then that he hadn't checked his wounds since before the battle against Kibutsuji. At least, he didn't remember if he had, thanks to Tanjiro concussing him. So, with the worst in mind, he looked down to see what horrible injuries might have been inflicted on his arm. To his abject shock, there was nothing to see. He shouldn't have been feeling any pain in his right arm.
But no matter how long he stared at the stump, the phantom pain wouldn't leave.