Chapter Text
In one of his dreams, he remembers his sister.
He remembers her hair, which was always braided.
He remembers her eyes, which were always kind.
But most of all he remembers her smile, which stayed on her face even when half of it was covered in blood.
Even when the blood trickled down her neck onto his hand. Even when the blood seeped into the tatami mats below her. Even when the copper smell spread through the house. Even when her worried younger brother stumbled into the room. Even when the blood stopped flowing, and even when Tsutako Tomioka passed away.
-{-!-}-
The blood that dripped onto his hand this time was warm, despite the frigid air surrounding 19 year old Tomioka Giyuu. He absentmindedly wondered the age of the demon he was holding- though he tried not to focus on her face and instead the one of the child in front of him.
“Nezuko, don’t move!” The boy desperately yelled, his red hair and checkerboard haori blowing in the frigid wind.
Giyuu sighed, the snow covering his view temporarily as he glanced towards the hostile girl in his grasp. Was this kid stupid? Did he really decide it was the best idea in the moment to protect the violent girl who was trying to devour him? A voice in the back of this head that sounded suspiciously like Tsutako reminded him that The boy just lost his family, Giyuu, and This girl was probably his last living relative, Giyuu, but he ignored not-Tsutako and opted to assess the pleading child instead.
As he squinted through the snow he noticed the redhead had a scrape near his right palm. Maybe the demon girl had managed to scratch him? If so he would have to work fast, he didn’t want the cut to be tainted with demon blood. Then again there was also a mountain to his right, wasn’t there? It was a possibility the boy had fallen down from the top and encountered his demon sister at the bottom. After all, no one in their right mind would carry a demon on their back so far away from civilization, especially if they had no prior fighting experience.
While Giyuu contemplated the cause of the boy’s injury, the demon girl let out a growl and thrashed once more.
Right, the bloodthirsty monster in his grip. He’d better hurry this up.
“My job is to slay every demon I can find.” He spoke, with the most even voice he could manage. “In this situation, your sister is no different from any other demon I’ve killed, and I will have to decapitate her.”
As he watched the child look more horrified by the second he could practically hear Sabito saying, Yikes- brutal much? but whatever Sabito was saying in the afterlife right now would have to wait, because he noted that the boy began to speak again.
“But- Nezuko didn’t do it!” He swallowed before looking at Giyuu and continuing with a touch of hysteria. “When I was at my house, there was a smell I didn’t notice before. That person… they’re probably the one who killed my family!”
Giyuu readjusted his grip on the thrashing girl and attempted to look for any evidence of death on her. She seemed bloody enough to have commit the murder, but sure enough there was no gore near her mouth. If this kid was right- wow, was he really entertaining this- then maybe this feral demon wasn’t the one who made the kill.
“Even so.” Giyuu turned to the child with a calculative stare and monotone voice. “Do you truly believe that your sister is docile?”
As the demon girl let out another yowl he took a step forward into the snow at the boy’s hesitance.
“That she won’t hurt anyone if I let her go?”
He moved the demon girl in front of him as he tightened his grip on the bloody fabric. Giyuu could see the boy desperately searching for humanity in the demon’s eyes- only to find none. The girl was still clawing at the air, all while kicking and growling in attempts to be let go. He didn't know why he was indulging this child’s naivete. It was better to get this over with as soon as possible, then he could just go back to the water estate and sleep for as long as Kanzaburo would let him.
As he turned to finish off the demon however, he heard the boy speak once more.
“Please…” Giyuu faced the boy in time to hear his tearful voice while he knelt in the thick snow below him. “Please don’t take my sister away from me!”
-{-!-}-
“Tstuako are you-”
“No.. no no no no!”
“Please don’t take my sister away from me!”
-{-!-}-
Giyuu blinked and for a moment he could see it. He saw himself crying and hoping for someone, anyone to give him back his sister. He saw himself getting taken away from her body. He saw himself wailing in the streets, telling anyone he saw that Please, there was a monster there and Please, I swear it wasn’t me and Please, you have to believe me. He saw himself sprinting as fast as he could into the forest, saw himself falling deeper and deeper into the water before- before.
He didn’t want this kid to suffer the same fate he did, the same fate he almost didn’t escape.
In another universe Giyuu Tomioka would stab Nezuko, dodge pebbles and narrowly an axe, before leaving the siblings to train and grow. In another universe Giyuu Tomioka would have no reason to stay with the siblings for longer than necessary, content to watch the Kamado journey from afar as he drowned in his own guilt. In another universe he would live on with the knowledge of being disliked. In another universe every hashira but Uzui Tengen, Shinazugawa Sanemi, and Giyuu Tomioka would die, leaving the demon era in the past.
For better or for worse, this is not that universe.
In this universe, in a moment of clarity when Nezuko had slightly calmed and Tanjiro had slightly relaxed, Giyuu Tomioka said,
“How can I help?”