Chapter Text
Akaza abandoned Kyojuro to the sunlight, burning with regret and hatred. “I’ll kill that weakling!” he roared. The forest rattled with his rage. Tree splintered like twigs against his fists and feet. He couldn’t work the outrage out of his system. He had seen the fire in Rengoku Kyojuro’s eyes- how it had blazed and gone out, like a supermassive star turning to a black hole. It was only that worm’s pathetic caterwauling that had lit the spark again. “Why couldn’t it have been me ?! He nearly agreed!” The earth cracked as he brought his foot down on it. His breath hissed between his fanged teeth, and his muscles tensed so tight it felt they might tear themselves apart. I need to get it together before I speak to Lord Muzan…
And so the trail he took was slow, winding, and destructive. Night had fallen by the time he felt a gaze stabbing his hide with murderous intent. An acrid scent like burnt flesh stung his nostrils, only faint for a moment before it exploded, burnt away by the blaze of a familiar aura. He whirled, dodging just a few inches to the side. A clawed hand slammed into the trunk of the tree beside him, and he was looking into gilded red eyes with ghostly, glowing white slivers.
Kyojuro breathed hard, shoulders heaving. “ Akaza… ”
Akaza couldn’t help the sweat beading his skin. A baffled grin graced his lips. How did this happen? I never asked Lord Muzan to change him!
The former demon’s face shifted. Fury twitched in his brow. A vein bulged in his forehead. A feral grimace split his face in the semblance of a smile. “Thank you! Thank you for ridding me of my weakness!” He raised his other hand, and it spasmed with instability. It came together, adjusting to the demon blood with a gruesome crackling as his bones realigned and claws extended. “Let’s have our rematch right away!”
Akaza’s hand closed around Kyojuro’s face. He thrust him backwards and slammed his head into the stone floor. It cracked beneath the weight of the blow and continued to crunch as Akaza shoved his head deeper into the ground. “Is that all you’ve got?” Blood roared through his veins, and his eyes glowed with excitement. Four day straight fighting, and he had finally managed to pin Kyojuro. Enhanced speed, healing, endurance- the former fire pillar wore it as well as Akaza knew he would. He was terrible, fearsome, and breathtaking, even without a sword and unaccustomed to his new abilities. The older demon looked down at him with unrestrained glee as Kyojuro reached up to grab his hand, his claws severing Akaza’s fingers with an effortless slash.
His fangs were buried in Akaza’s palm, though, and he didn’t seem intent on letting go. Demon flesh ripped in his jaws and, not for the first time, the new demon’s eyes shined with hunger on top of their bloodlust.
Planting a foot on his chest, he ripped the quickly healing remainder of his hand out of Kyojuro’s mouth. "You really are starving," he laughed. "Let's go eat."
"I won't eat humans," Kyojuro asserted, swallowing the demon flesh and licking Akaza's blood from his lips.
"Sure you will, Kyojuro!" He caught the former demon slayer by the chin. Had Kyojuro wanted to avoid him, he easily could have, but from the hungry glint in his eyes and the drool on his lip, it seemed that Kyo would tolerate his touch if it meant another bite.
Still, as he ran his thumb over his lips, Kyojuro hesitated with his mouth open and his teeth bared. Even when Akaza pressed the pad of his finger against his fang, and blood welled up, he remained frozen, sensing that biting down was exactly what Akaza wanted. Despite the saliva pooling in his mouth and the sweat beading on his brow, he refused to give Akaza the satisfaction.
"Don't you know the reason I taste so good? I've eaten hundreds of humans. What you're craving so badly when you take a bite of me is the blood of hundreds."
His eyes burned, and though his lip curled, his disgust couldn't mask his desire.
"And it will taste so much better when you're killing those weaklings yourself."
Kyojuro's jaws snapped shut, cleaving his thumb cleanly off. He spat the finger into the dirt beside them. Shaking his head, he jumped to his feet and stalked away.
Akaza tailed after him, grinning toothily.
Kyojuro was leading them away from the distant noise of a city, ignoring him to the best of his ability. His gaze was fixed on the ground shortly in front of him, and veins stood out on his clenched fists. Unfed, there was a growing animalistic lean to the hunch of his shoulders and the way he stalked through the underbrush. He wasn't trying to get away, instead moving toward some destination.
But whether he realized that, himself, Akaza didn't care. He only watched with a grin, chatting Kyo's ear off with distracting nonsense.
"Quiet," he finally snarled, turning on Akaza with teeth bared.
Akaza beamed. When he went silent, they could hear it clearly; the clash of metal ringing through the trees and the inhuman scream of a demon.
Kyojuro broke into a run. The trees whipped past the two demons as they sprinted toward the battle. Akaza stopped short of a clearing where a demon slayer was hacking chunks from a lesser demon. It was regrowing limbs quickly enough to protect its neck, and the demon slayer was growing tired.
Kyojuro didn't stop at the edge of the clearing. He lunged at the interlocked fighters. The slayer scrambled to lurch away, but the fighters' movements were relatively slow. Kyojuro's true target had no chance of escape. He landed on the demon and severed each of its arm with parallel strikes before tearing out its throat with his teeth. He disassembled the lesser demon faster than it could heal, tearing off and gulping chunks of flesh. Akaza could read the hunger in his eyes shifting to something between frustration and boredom as he realized that eating such a low level demon was about as good as eating dirt. Still, by the time Kyojuro was done with it, what was left of the demon crumbled to dust.
The slayer was left standing in front of just Kyojuro, gripping their blade with white knuckles. They were already drenched in sweat: bruised and battered, but not bleeding. They had lost the rhythm of their breath technique to something more choppy, something weak. As Kyojuro took a step forward, their confidence buckled. Their grip on their blade nearly slipped as they turned and ran.
Kyojuro tensed. His hands curled into fists as he watched the human flee. When their footsteps faded into the brush, he started to relax, though his brow was furrowed deeply in disatisfaction.
"Hey!" Akaza snapped, springing forward. In just a few quick strides, he was upon the human. He aimed a blow at their side, ready to smash them against a tree as they ran. "Where do you think you're going?"
Kyojuro crashed into Akaza; still, the upper moon's blow blasted the slayer's arm off like a cannonball, spraying both demons with blood and throwing the human off their feet.
Akaza had learned to ignore the screams of humans a long time ago. His attention turned again to Kyojuro, who was clinging to him, wide-eyed. His chest was still as he held his breath. His claws were buried in Akaza’s flesh. Blood had sprayed his face and upper body, and his glowing eyes were dilated, fully aware that what he wanted so badly was easily within his reach.
"Are you done?" Akaza scoffed. "Are you going to make this any harder than it needs to be?" He turned and retrieved the slayer's arm. It had shattered at the shoulder and been blown off their body from the impact. Holding it over his shoulder like one might a blade, he approached its owner, who writhed in shock and pain. If they were aware of their surroundings at all, the futility of the situation was lost on them. Akaza raised his fist as he crossed the distance between them.
When he brought it down, however, The hard, unyielding thud of demon flesh was his only reward. Kyojuro crouched over the slayer, taking the blow to the shoulder and shielding them from death. Though slaver dribbled down his chin, and he was panting from the intense exertion of controlling himself, his burning gaze was fixed on Akaza.
The drops of saliva falling on their face snapped the demon slayer back to the present. Their eyes widened in horror.
"Will you knock it off?!" Akaza snapped. He slapped Kyojuro across the face with the severed arm before kicking him away from the human.
Kyojuro rolled across the ground and landed on his back. Fighting back would have thrown him into a frenzy, and Kyojuro must have known it. The internal battle to quash his hunger didn't give him time to react as Akaza jammed the arm into his mouth.
He swung his leg up and brought his heel down on the limb, smashing it and several teeth in the process. Gore flooded Kyojuro's senses. Finally, reality was inescapable.
Again, the former Hashira lay frozen for a moment. He tried to reject what he was feeling. But disgust couldn't last. His fangs healed around the crushed limb. A blush colored his bloody cheeks. He chewed and swallowed, the tension in his features disappearing. When he sat up, he was beaming- the first real smile Akaza had seen on his face. Everything about him seemed to shift, and he was glowing in delight as he declared, "TASTY!"