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Pain.
Stabbing, throbbing, excruciating.
Everywhere. Every part of him is in pain. His arm especially. Every second, his head gets lighter and lighter. It's so hard to focus. But he needs to focus, needs to gather what little strength he has to protect the only living family member he has left. But no matter what he does, he can’t move.
Muichirou was screaming. Is still screaming. But not in fear. An emotion that Yuichirou never heard before from his twin brother who’s always so soft, too optimistic, too gentle, too kind .
Why is Muichirou screaming? Because of that monster? Why hadn’t Muichirou run away yet? He needs to protect Muichirou from that monster. Get up. Move. You have to. Muichirou is in danger. Muichirou is in pain. So get up and go, Yuichirou.
But he can’t. His body too heavy to move, it takes all he has just to stay awake.
As Muichirou screams himself raw and the clangs of metal on metal, metal on flesh rings out around him, Yuichirou can’t do a single thing.
So he prays. To whatever god is listening. Please save his brother. Please don’t let his brother die. Please let his brother live. He prays and prays and prays even as it grows harder to breathe. Even as the coldness starts seeping through his body, even as his voice dies, even as his vision begins to flicker. He holds onto life for as long as he can, praying for as long as he can.
A warmth encloses around his hand, gently squeezing. It could only be Muichirou but it’s so light, it’s so faint, it feels imaginary. Like his dying mind is desperate to comfort him in the throes of death, like it’s desperate to tell him his prayers were heard and granted. Everything’s fine so die in peace .
The last thing he hears as it all fades away is a weak and broken, “Nii-san.”
Opening his eyes, the pain is gone. His arm is with him. And his mother and father stand before him, healthy and lively, weeping and tugging him close.
They apologize to him and begs for his forgiveness for leaving them so early, for burdening them, for being the cause of their fight.
Yuichirou’s eyes water as he grabs their yukatas with both hands, horror and shame bubbling up in him.
“You were watching over us this whole time?” he whispers in their embrace, “Are you mad at me? For being so mean to Muichirou?”
They shake their heads and hug him closer. It’s enough for him to burst into a sob, clutching their yukatas tightly in his hands.
“You were in pain, Yuichirou,” Father’s gentle voice tells him. “You two were alone and scared.”
“You did what you thought best to protect him,” Mother’s kind voice says to him, “We could never be mad for that.”
“But I was so harsh. I made him cry so many times. If I hadn’t — if I hadn’t pushed Amane-san away, if we had become swordsmen like Muichirou wanted, then maybe — maybe this wouldn’t have happened. And Muichirou and I wouldn’t have died. And—”
“Muichirou isn’t dead yet. Look.”
Yuichirou looks down and sees Muichirou on the ground — covered in blood, bleeding with deep cuts on his arms, but alive and not in pieces and … Ah. Muichirou’s holding his hand with his. He hadn’t imagined it then. Muichirou is alive. Muichirou is going to live. Relief and guilt crushes him. With the way he treated his brother… he thought Muichirou must have hated him. He had convinced himself he was fine with it. As long as they both survive, then he’ll be okay with Muichirou despising him. But looking at their connected hands, at the agony on his twin’s face, his heart aches. Muichirou hadn’t hated him then. He’s glad. He’s so glad.
“Muichirou,” Mother mumbles, face sadden with grief, resting a hand on his twin’s back, “You have to leave now.”
“You have to find someone to help treat your injuries,” Father says.
Muichirou continues to just lay there. Doing nothing but laying there and staring at Yuichirou’s dead body with a haunted, despairing expression. The light is gone from his brother’s eyes. Like he’s given up. Like he lost all hope.
“Get up,” he says to his twin. Not a single muscle moves.
Yuichirou clenches his fist. “Get up, Muichirou. You can’t die here.”
Muichirou just continues laying there, anguished and lost, and Yuichirou kneels, lowers himself next to his twin’s face and slams his fist on the tatami.
“Get up! You’re going to die if you don’t move! I know you can do it. So hurry up and go find help.”
But Muichirou just lays there, growing weaker and weaker and all Yuichirou can do is watch.
The sun falls and rises and falls for however many cycles, he doesn’t know. Enough for maggots to infest his body. They start on Muichirou’s too and it sends Yuichirou into a new frenzy, yelling for his brother to get up, to move, to at least please try to live. But days without water, without food, Muichirou is out of strength and Yuichirou wonders if he’s really going to watch his brother rot right before his eyes.
Lady Amane arrives with two children and he knows he has no right, not after all the times he chase her away, not after he threw water at her, not after all the verbal thrashings, but he pleads to her, ghostly hands clutching at her clean kimono and sinking to his knees as she kneels beside their bodies, a hand gently pushing Muichirou’s hair aside.
“Please save him.”
They did saved Muichirou. But not entirely. Not completely. When Muichirou opens his eyes in the Butterfly Estate, Yuichirou knows right away something is missing.
Dissociative amnesia is what Muichirou has. Shinobu-san explains it all to Muichirou and to his ghostly family unknowingly. To protect his mind from the trauma he experienced, Muichirou forgot about all of them. Mother. Father. Him. Maybe it was for the best for Muichirou to forget about him. Their last moments together were painful. The year after their parents died was unbearable. He made it unbearable.
Shinobu tells them that there’s a chance the memories could come back. Maybe in weeks, maybe in years. But there’s a possibility they could never come back. Muichirou listens to it all expressionlessly, eyes muted and dim.
The blank, vacant stare on his brother’s bandaged face is unnerving.
They change, darkening into ravaging storms, when Shinobu mentions demons.
Muichirou pushes himself off the bed, stumbling those first few steps and almost falling over before getting his balance back. Shinobu clicks her tongue and blocks his path with her small frame. “What are you doing?” she asks with an unnatural smile, strained and forced. It’s like she’s trying to imitate someone.
Muichirou stares at her hollowly. “It’s not obvious? I’m going to train and become a demon slayer.”
“My, my, that’s rather dedicated of you,” Shinobu says with another unnatural smile, words kindhearted, but Yuichirou can sense a raging current of anger underneath, “Especially after everything you went through. Admirable, really. But you should recover first before anything else.”
“What for?” The bluntness takes Shinobu aback. Them too. Yuichirou watches in alarm as his brother continues speaking, face emotionless, “You said I had no one left. If I die nobody will care. So it doesn’t matter what happened to me, right? Besides, don't you have better things to do than take care of someone as insignificant as me?”
The cold, callous way Muichirou speaks is frightening.
Shinobu is refuting what he said but Muichirou walks past her before she finishes. Yuichirou watches the mask Shinobu had on crumble away and she’s gritting her teeth, scowling at the ground with clenched fists.
The rage and fury in his twin’s eyes as he trains is soul-crushing.
“I don’t want you to join the Slayers Corp,” he says uselessly as Muichirou swings the bokken over and over in the pouring rain, slamming it into a tree with a ferocity that was never in his softhearted brother. “You’re going to die early if you do.”
His brother doesn’t stop, continuing swinging the bokken faster and harder, putting his whole body behind every strike.
“At least let your wounds heal first. Hey. Hey! They’re tearing open! You idiot,” he yells, stomping his feet when he notices Muichirou’s bandages are staining red.
Muichirou doesn’t stop for that either, not even when his body is swaying from exhaustion, not even when he’s wheezing, every single breath rattling.
Mother and Father are not here to see this, unable to bear watching Muichirou like this, but they are not far, conversing with Shinobu’s parents and sister somewhere in the estate. Yuichirou has to though. This is his punishment. For dying. For leaving his twin. For allowing him to become like this.
Yuichirou watches Muichirou train and train until he’s vomiting blood. The sight sickens him and he hopes this will finally lead to Muichirou’s taking a break. But Yuichirou watches his brother wipe his mouth with the back of his hand and prepare to continue training, the fury never once dimming in his eyes.
It’s only by Shinobu stepping in, smile wide and words gentle but voice firm and grip firmer as she tears the bokken from Muichirou’s hands and pushes him to the bed, threatening to tie him up if he dares to disobey her, that Muichirou finally rests.
Not for long. A few hours worth of sleep and Muichirou is back to training. Over and over until he’s vomiting blood again. Shinobu forces him to rest. But in a few hours, Muichirou goes back to training. A repeating cycle. Day after day until the Final Selection where Muichirou survives and receives his Nichirin sword.
The first demon Muichirou officially encounters as a demon slayer could barely be considered a fight. One second to look, another second to unsheathe the sword, and the demon is beheaded. Yuichirou grits his teeth and looks away from the burning hatred in Muichirou’s eyes when he lands his sight on the demon. They’re blank and dazed again as he sheaths his sword and walks away.
The second demon was no problem too. The third as well. And the fourth was just as simple.
Yuichirou watches his brother cut down each demon with ease, sees the coldness and fury in those eyes everytime he sees a demon. Yuichirou swallows down the sick feeling and tries to tell himself as long as Muichirou survives then this is fine. An alive Muichirou is far better than a dead one after all.
But he misses Muichirou’s smile. He misses Muichirou’s compassion and desire to help others. He misses the Muichirou that is kind and optimistic.
The fifth demon was a lower moon, leagues above the rest. That demon actually managed to land a hit on his precious twin that sent him flying into and through a building. Yuichirou screams until his voice is raw.
Run. You can’t win. Stop. You’re going to die if you continue. Don’t die, Muichirou. I don’t want you to die. Anybody but you.
But Muichirou doesn’t run. He stands back up, sword back in hand, blood trailing down his face as he charges forward, that now familiar searing loathing in those wrathful eyes. The fight almost cost Muichirou his leg, but he beheaded the demon. All by himself. Yuichirou wishes he could be proud, but he’s far too busy yelling at his twin to put pressure on his gushing wounds .
Muichirou became a pillar in just two months after picking up the blade. At just 11 years old. The youngest pillar yet.
The other pillars welcome him with open arms and praises, their faces looking at his twin with varying amounts of wonder and respect and worry. Anybody with a brain could see how painfully small and young Muichirou is beside the others. Gyomei is practically three times his height.
Tell him to give up, Yuichirou begs, pleading for the pillars to recognize how absurd this whole thing is, Tell him to just live a normal life.
But they all just smile tightly and look away. A pillar can save hundreds of lives. And what are hundreds compared to just one?
For three long years, Yuichirou watches over Muichirou as wanders the land and slays demons.
It hurts to see his brother like this, so emotionless and lost.
He can’t remember anybody except for Oyakata-sama.
He doesn’t rest unless he’s about to collapse.
He eats and drinks only when his crow or another pillar reminds him.
Muichirou is alive, but he’s not living.
He speaks truthfully and tactlessly, bluntly and callously, even if it’s cruel, even if it’s unneeded. It’s like looking into a mirror, a painful reminder of their last year together without Mother and Father, a reminder of how harsh he had been to his younger brother.
He thought it was needed, that he had to be harsh if he wanted to protect his brother. Selflessness? Tenacity? The qualities that led to his parents’ death, he thought if he abandoned those it’ll keep them alive. How wrong he was. Muichirou isn’t like him, ordinary, but special, a chosen one, someone who — for the sake of others — can do anything.
That’s why Muichirou needs to come back, why he needs to remember who he is again.
If someone could just wake him up.
If someone could reach him through that fog.
If someone could save him.
Please. God or Buddha. Anybody.
The boy with the hanafuda earrings. The boy with the demon sister. The boy who has the same eyes as their father. The words he said — Whatever you do for others comes around to help you, as well, in the end — word for word, his father’s exact quote. And his heart tears when the light comes back to his brother’s eyes. Quick as it comes, it goes just as quickly. But Muichirou came back for a second. For a second, he had his brother back. This boy with the earrings, Tanjirou Kamado, he could be the key to help his brother.
Muichirou just had to survive this sudden demon attack and this Tanjirou person can help him remember.
Muichirou just had to survive being blown meters into the air and he can go back to being his kindhearted brother.
Muichirou just had to survive and he can go back to living rather than just surviving.
Survive the giant fish with a weird vase on his back.
Survive the new demon that just happens to be Upper Moon 5.
Survive the poison from the Thousand Needle Fish Kill attack.
Survive the entrapment from the Water Prison Pot.
Survive.
Survive.
Surv—
Ah.
Muichirou’s giving up. Yuichirou can tell after that final thrust with his sword, the way his muscles relaxed, the way his body untensed, the way his eyes closed. Muichirou is giving up.
Yuichirous pounds on the water prison with his otherworldly body, but it does nothing. He screams like he has all the other time, but nobody hears it. No way. This can’t be how it ends. Muichirou, don’t give up. You can’t die. You absolutely cannot die . But his words fall on unhearing ears like always and Yuichirou screams again in frustration.
“What makes you think that? Nobody knows what the future holds.”
Their father speaks, calm and simple, and Muichirou’s eyes snap open, fixating on their father with confusion. Who is this person? The eyes say and it pains Yuichirou, for his own brother not to recognize their father. But the effect is undeniable. Muichirou is fighting again. Please figure something out, Muichirou. I don’t want you here for a long, long time . The savior comes in the form of the child that Muichirou was about to leave to die, a boy that Yuichirou would have left to die.
“Whatever you do for others comes around to help you, as well, in the end. Humans are creatures who can summon unbelievable strength for the sake of someone other than themselves.”
Yuichirou’s eyes tear up as the boy blows air through the water and watches as it reaches Muichirou’s lungs. In a swirl, Muichirou burst free from the prison. What had he said so cruelly about their father back then? ‘ You can’t trust the words of a man who died trying to help someone else ’. Worse than forgetting their father is vilifying their father’s beliefs.
“It’s okay, Yuichirou. I’m not angry with you,” his father says, always kind, always loving, a warm hand settling on his hair as his mother wraps him in her arms. “Don’t lose faith. Your brother is strong.”
Muichirou is strong. Yuichirou is not sure what those markings on his brother’s face are, but he’s far faster, far stronger than before. And far, far, far more quippier. He’s terrified for his brother. The demon is growing angrier and angrier with every witty remark from his twin.
But even with the sarcastic lines, Yuichirou can see the familiar burning fury in Muichirou’s eyes.
Unlike before there’s light in them, no longer clouded in fog.
A clean cut and the demon’s head falls.
“See? Everything turned out fine”
He doesn’t quite understand why these moments are happening now. Why can Muichirou hear and see them now? Why now after all these years?
Muichirou’s eyes focus on him, shiny with tears, face twitching like it does right before it breaks into a full-body bawl. Yuichirou kneels to hold his brother’s hand, now larger than his and calloused from years of fighting.
For the first time in three years, Yuichirou could finally talk with his brother.
There’s so much to say. There’s so much he regretted, so much he’s sorry for. But bursting into tears and apologizing will sour their reunion with remorse. He doesn’t want that. Muichirou looks up at him, eyes bright again with familiar hopefulness, and ah. He knows what words he wants to say first. He never really did compliment his brother as much as he should. When Muichirou dies, years and years and years from now and they finally reunite, he’ll lavish his twin with all the praises.
For now he has to settle with a smile. It feels strange on his face. It’s been so long since he smiled. He wonders if it looks as sad as he feels right now.
But the words he says, those come easily and truthfully.
“You did great."