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Akaza realized, just in this moment; in many, just what he looked like. Crushed by the weight of his master’s will, anguished and sightlessly trapped by it. Because, surrounded by a sea of Pillars and vaguely sickened by the white pebbles by his feet, Rengoku Kyojuro knelt in front of him.
In the wrong body.
The whirling hostility from the Pillars died to nothing, Akaza gazing upon Kyojuro’s own fracturing. Golden amber eyes listlessly stared, entirely lacking a glow and set ghastly wide with creeping horror. His pale skin was dyed even lighter and “Upper Moon Three” kept himself caged. Locked up tight in his kneeling position, blood and sickening cracks marring his body.
And, oh. Did it hit him, the burning eternal wrath igniting in this body. The flames lashing on his tongue, the severe weight crushing his chest. The most silent of vows lingering in his head - to protect the de- the man before him. The longing want to merely hold him, to be selfish enough to never let go. Unspoken rage and this putrid helplessness, how it began to bloom with sheer indomitable determination.
For him.
The body of Rengoku Kyojuro moved before Akaza could even dare to think. He closed the distance within a blink, dropping to his knees with him. Callused, blood warm hands hovered along deathly cold and tattooed cheeks. Akaza could see, in real time, how harshly his own body fought. How his face scrunched up and immediately dipping back into neutrality. The way he instinctively half-blinked, ready for tears, only to steel himself and close off. Blinking harder with a set look in his eye.
Akaza had thought himself a survivor, he had thought it was strength to endure the backlash of his master’s dreadful anger. Only now, he could see it was as close to lying Akaza could ever get. He looked.
He looked. So, so afraid.
Akaza’s hands shifted. As though he was merely breathing, automatic and thoughtless. White and flame-patterned fabric grazed his fingers and he flung it off. It faintly flickered against the wind before shielding “Upper Moon Three,” cloaking the stock-still demon.
“Rengoku-san! What are you doing protecting that demon!” One of the Pillars called.
Her voice was sweetened, viciously so. A dagger on her tongue at the ready, halted by her confusion. Kyojuro’s body carried the swirling guilt, the fear, and the man himself flinched; failing to hold himself together. Blue-gray hands clutched his own haori.
Akaza elected to stay silent, fighting to urge to roll his eyes. His gaze skittered to the sword at his side, the red-black blade gleaming under the light. His lips pinched. Kyojuro may have felt it second nature to wield his sword, it may have been a comfort. Something to ground him, yet Akaza clearly felt otherwise. His tongue felt like lead and he could admit.
Something like fear tangled and tore in his chest. At the thought of even holding it. Even if it was Kyojuro’s blade, even as he delighted in every kiss that sword gave him; blood spewing and limbs severing. Even if he so dearly, foolishly trusted the hand that wielded that sword, that he knew it was born to protect him, as well-
With a coiling, sharp twist in his stomach, Akaza’s hand swept to the sword. Fingers curled around the white banded hilt and he grabbed Kyojuro into an embrace. Muscle memory preceded his inexperience and terror, his grip firm and his form precise. A mockery of an execution was made, the blade just a breath away from kissing Upper Moon Three’s nape, with the tip of the sword angled to the floor.
Kyojuro’s breath hitched and the tattered, aged strings holding him together went taut, snapping. He so easily slumped into Akaza’s hold. He hid his face away, as if he could ignore the sight of his friends all eyeing him. Whatever horrors he must have faced in Akaza’s place. Kyojuro had returned, or rather, he was spat out carelessly by familiar shoji doors. The demented thrumming of a biwa ringing clear in Akaza’s ears.
Akaza finally took stock at the Pillars, catching the eye of three. His gaze skittered past sharpened yet perplexed maroon eyes, sweet and fretful lime green, and lastly, gleaming pale purple hiding behind a veil of delicate grace. When all he could sense was building wrath.
“The demon is no use to us confused! It’s sudden appearance before all of us is a boon!”
Akaza did not make for a convincing Kyojuro, he knew. However. This body brimmed with the sweltering desire to protect and Akaza could pick up a few things or two. The contempt flaring bright in his lone eye, how gravel low it would become if one; namely Akaza would poke and prod too much. The joy he did not let himself truly feel, despite the grand smile blooming on his lips, the little pleased laughs that would tumble from his throat. Every little expression. And hilariously, as they grew closer, their manner of speech would infect the other. Their actions or usual habits would be fit to blend.
Akaza once had sampled a dish from a slightly pushy but well meaning, sweet granny. And although he could taste nothing but ash and regret, his lips still curled into a smile and his mouth formed enthusiasm that left him utterly baffled. Amused, too.
“Delicious! I mean- it’s truly amazing, miss.”
And Kyojuro began to roll his eye a lot more, his contempt-filled stare lingering at the door his father just left. His anger, which he hid from the world, from himself, cracked bit by bit. His unfelt rage splattered beautifully on a canvas as he expressed it more and more.
“But! Um! Kyo- er, Rengoku-san, I really don’t understand!” The woman with pink-green hair cried out.
His body thrummed with a distant thought. A single word.
‘Sister.'
Akaza pressed his lips together, tilting his head.
“That is alright,” Akaza solemnly began, taking in a breath, “what is confusing you?”
The Pillar’s eyes rapidly flit from Akaza to Kyojuro. She eventually bunched up her hair with her hands, squeaking out a nouse of pure confusion. Her cheeks flushed as she tightly scrunched up her eyes, only to shake her head.
“Um,” The Pillar stared at Kyojuro, instinctively pulling back yet gripping her hilt at the weakened ink of ‘Upper Moon Three’ ringing in dazed amber eyes, “you’re holding him.”
Her words were hardly an accusation, her voice as quiet as a breath.
“He- it, he almost killed you and-”
“Yet, I still hold tight to my blade.” Akaza lightly countered, his lips faintly pressed into a discomforted smile.
“If this demon so much as moves, its head will be cleaved from its body,” Akaza’s eyes strayed from the woman’s, landing onto Kyojuro, “until then, its life is quite literally in my hands, and.”
Akaza’s voice trailed off. His hand found short pink hair and he threaded the sweet, soft strands.
“What happened?” Akaza whispered.
A hand crushed the back of his uniform, trembling.
“Mu-” Akaza watched Kyojuro jolt, then crumble, pure hysteria clouding his face before he shook his head, “it was him. That man-”
Akaza’s throat burned. With a towering, endless rage that wasn’t his.
“How much,” Kyojuro stiltedly asked, “how much must you endure? To let m-”
For a moment, Akaza went quiet. He was made to endure. A part of him just kept pushing, to refuse to buckle down and just take the punches. Whatever that dared to come his way, even if it was his master. His maker, that part of him would take the brunt of his callous wrath.
Kyojuro looked sick. With horror. With realization.
“This body reigns with strength, yet-” Kyojuro blinked, letting a few of his tears fall, “it just feels as though it’s never enough.”
The scarred white haired slayer scoffed. Akaza could feel his sneer without even looking, and Kyojuro withered further.
“Never enough? What, so you’re just gonna devour more people ‘til it does? All that carnage and that joke of a rank and it’s still not enough for you?”
Kyojuro rose from the dead, looking more like Akaza should. Golden amber eyes briefly lost the kanji, pupils pinning before slitting dangerously. His brows quirked, almost appearing unstable with incredulity. His mouth twisted into a sneer, sharp, bitingly frigid from red hot wrath.
“Do not mo-”
Akaza crushed Kyojuro’s shoulder in a bruising, firm grip. It served it’s purpose, redirecting Kyojuro’s attention.
“Demon.” Akaza called, resisting the urge to smile wryly.
Kyojuro shuddered. Clung to him.
“What happened?” Akaza repeated.
“I,” Kyojuro went deathly silent for some time, “that man. He said I failed. And. Failure wasn’t to be tolerated. Because. He pardoned me. Before.”
The same song and dance. Akaza would offer no such promises, lying through his teeth that he’d turn or kill Kyojuro. To turn him, and bargain for more finite time with the man he adored. Muzan would realize Akaza failed to do either. And once his maker was finished, he’d cast his greatest creation away, leaving Akaza sightless in the face of the Flame Pillar. Granting him just a slant of warmth, strong yet so fragile. Marked by a countdown, each and every time he so much as dared to stay close.
“Because I am still alive.”
Kyojuro stuttered to incline his head into a nod. He would say ‘thank you,’ with the softest of looks in his eye, forever grateful and paring with the light of the sun on his lips. Every time Akaza came to him, every time Akaza revealed what he had to endure for Kyojuro to keep living. Even when that sun waned and dipped with heartbreaking compassion. With fear for him.
“Whipped,” Kyojuro rasped, his voice muted and terribly distant, “ he. I was. He had whipped me. Why- why-”
The fury that lodged in his throat was almost too much for Akaza to bear.
“Why what?”
“Why did it hurt? Yo- I can withstand every strike, every attack you throw my way without-”
Akaza’s fingers brushed against Kyojuro’s shoulder, sliding down to hold an ice-dipped hand. The frigidness had him jump and he blinked down at their joined hands, huffing out a fond, warm laugh. Did Kyojuro truly not care at all? Surely, the chill of Akaza’s hands would have kept him away, gave him another reason to avoid his touch. Still, Kyojuro perserved, being willing to keep close to a ghost.
“It always does.”
Akaza could never figure out why. It was the only physical attack to have Akaza keel. It would leave him screaming into the night, the lashings. And he could never stop the tears, his entire body trembling. Even when he forced himself to stand, his legs would violently wobble, the floor beneath his feet would shake. Flashes of images would breathe and die out with each strike, feelings wriggling about his heart and burning him alive.
Kyojuro said nothing.
“I blacked out,” and Akaza could taste the dread coming from Kyojuro and a familiar feeling of something isn’t right sunk into his head, “Upper Moon Two.”
Kyojuro did not continue, despite the words Akaza knew were stuck in his throat. He did not need to see Kyojuro’s fighting spirit to know Kyojuro’s crown of flames dimmed to ash. Dread clawed at Akaza’s stomach, leaving it disturbed and in tightly coiled knots. One of the slayers; the woman with the butterfly hairpin jolted with a start.
“I awoke. I woke up to- to that thing on top of me-” Kyojuro paled, visibly fighting, determining how to escape Akaza’s hold, “how he said it was a shame that I was not awake. To. Enjoy anything.”
The anger Akaza felt would do nothing.
Nothing.
One of the slayers spared him of reacting with brutality, three large pink-green braids flying from motion as the Pillar raced towards them. She knelt down without any sort of fear, disgust and pure anger flashing in her glassy eyes. Tears blotted her waterline and they easily fell.
Yet again, Akaza found himself crippled by compassion, and his body reflected it. Kyojuro came to a complete stand still, ensnared by sweet pink, only to quietly sob.
“That’s awful,” the slayer sobbed, her breath hitching around her next words, “I’m so sorry. You’re a demon-! But- that- you didn’t- that shouldn’t have happened to you!”
The woman pointlessly wiped her face with her sleeve. More tears slipped down her cheeks. She turned to Akaza, her smile brittle and pained.
“No wonder you want to protect him.”
It would have put Akaza slightly at ease, yet he felt the harsh burn of another gaze land on him. The same person he passed. Cat-like maroon eyes sharpened to a point, scrutinizing both. The slayer’s broad shoulders were taut with tension. His jewelry glinted as his eyes smoothly flit to the demon, the building, seething wrath cooling from gentle compassion.
“Kyojuro.” The man called, soft.
Amber gold eyes widened, darkened and unfocused. He raised his head to hold the man’s gaze. The man withheld his sigh with a fractured, knowing look. Though, his lips were pressed into a solid, bleak line. The man strolled forward, and by the time he sat down with the three of them, a grand, unbelievably bright grin found his face.
“Uzui-san.” Kyojuro breathlessly replied.
Akaza kept the Flame Pillar closer, gripping the hilt of the sword tighter. Enough to actually feel the strain, to see his skin go white from the pressure. Hell caught in his eye, shooting towards Uzui. The man cocked his head to the side, smiling faintly as he shook it.
“This feels like a repeat performance,” Uzui said with a wry laugh, “you gonna headbutt anyone who dares to harm him?”
Akaza sneered, “Get any closer and I’ll see to-”
Uzui dismissively waved his hand, “Alright, alright. Your sounds are both so loud, especially since they're overlaid like this.”
“Sorry.” Kyojuro whispered, his voice painfully small.
Before Uzui could reassure him, the other slayer next to them yelped. She looked to them, eyes yet again skittering to each person.
“Wait, wait, wait! Kyojuro?! Kyo-kun?!”
Kyojuro’s tattooed shoulders rose to his chin.
“So- you-”
The woman’s face paled before coloring bright red. Stress lorded over her, angry and brutalized tears rolling down her cheeks. She wasted nothing, looking into Kyojuro’s eyes and frantically shaking her head. The slayer bolted to wrap her arms around him, sobbing. Kyojuro’s hair bled all black before washing back to dark pink. A wave of chills cascaded across Kyojuro’s bare arms.
“What the hell is going on?!” The scarred slayer barked.
From across from him, a man with a ratty long ponytail and distant, dark blue eyes spoke up.
“Maybe a Blood Demon Art.”
“Nobody asked you!”
“But you-” The slayer stopped, giving up.
“‘But you,’ what, Tomioka-san?” The Pillar with the butterfly pin replied.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing,” the woman echoed, tilting her head, “if it’s nothing, then why do you look so nervous! Does it have something to do with the demon? I mean, it did just arrive to us on a silver platter, no less!”
The slayer’s black brows furrowed, troubled. His dark blue eyes briefly went cloudy as he turned to stare at Kyojuro.
“He looks afraid,” Tomioka observed the obvious, continuing after staring at them for longer, “and he’s surrounded by the others.”
“He? Why do you think it deserves to be called that? Just because something ba-”
“Kocho.” Uzui snapped.
“You too, Uzui-san?”
“Yes, me too, Kocho. That’s not the demon.”
The woman looked at Uzui as though he was particularly foolish. She blinked, smiling at him as if Uzui was a child.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s not the demon,” Uzui repeated, a challenge in his voice. Without looking away, he gestured to Akaza, “he is.”
Her laugh sounded distinctly like a scoff, and she smiled serenely. Yet, even that was a farce. Uzui only rose a brow.
“It’s as Tomioka said. An unflashy Blood Demon Art must have done this,” Uzui promptly ignored her, turning back to them, “any way to undo it?”
“Why-” Kyojuro started.
“Why am I not upset with you?” Uzui finished.
“I-I allowed the demon to li-”
“You know,” Uzui drawled, “your sound gets so unhappy when you say ‘the demon.’”
“I don’t understand.”
Uzui’s hand landed upon Kyojuro’s shoulder. It was a bit awkward, given how close the woman and Akaza were nestled together. Kyojuro gave him a weak smile, a laugh cluttering up in his throat.
“Don’t worry about things so much, Ren- ah. Kyojuro.”
A pleased smile flared on Uzui’s lips, delicate and warm.
“There we go,” Uzui’s eyes went half-lidded as his gaze swept to Akaza, “I think it’s flashy. Flashy, but real stupid of you, though, I’d be a hypocrite and you would no doubt laugh at me.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, no,” Uzui deflected with a cat-like grin, “I just thought it was interesting. Risking your neck to keep our dear Kyojuro alive? For another demon to protect rather than maim and devour. Really, when the story usually is - the demon finds its meal and a human is killed.”
“And what does that matter? I am only ‘protecting’ what is mine.”
The woman gasped, her head whipping to Akaza. Her cheeks went red and she strangely squealed. Uzui gave him a funny look like he didn’t believe a single word.
“Oh, so, since he’s yours,” Uzui’s smile grew, sly and much too knowing, “you know what? I’ll save you the embarrassment!”
Akaza scowled at him. Uzui briefly blinked, wide-eyed in shock before realizing, most likely, it was not Kyojuro. He then snickered.
“Seeing how quick you were to hold him-”
“Shut your mouth.”
Uzui cleared his throat, his voice louder, “Seeing how quick you were to hold him,” he let loose some laughs before that grand, teasing bluster leveled to something soft, “and Kyojuro’s own sound going crazy, you two.”
Uzui stopped himself, only smiling with wry amusement, “You two are insane, you know that?”
Kocho drew in a terse breath, “Uzui-san, are you implying Rengoku has fallen for a demon?”
“Well I didn’t say that, and whether or not he loves the damn thing is not important. They’ve swapped bodies, Rengoku- san got picked apart by Muzan, and-” Uzui’s face darkened, murder dulling his maroon eyes, “and now we’re here. Clear enough for you?”
Kocho stared at them all, her dull purple gaze lingering on Kyojuro. She hummed like she was considering something.
“If Rengoku-san is currently in the body of Upper Moon Three, then surely I can study it, right?”
Uzui winced, his lashes fluttering. Akaza did not have to guess why, as “Upper Moon Three” shrank into himself, untouched betrayal flashing in hazy amber gold eyes. The sight of the crackling, surging wildfire that was Kyojuro, dying out left an awful, awful feeling in Akaza’s chest. The ash that he so easily became.
“Sh-Shinobu-chan?! Why was that your first question,” the pink-green haired woman tearfully asked, “are you alright?”
Of course, and of course, Kyojuro would feel so deathly afraid. Not yet ready to be angered.
“Rengoku-san could endure it, couldn’t he?”
Kyojuro’s dark pink hair bled all black, his amber-gold eyes dimly flaring an unfocused azure. Drying crimson stained his face and clothes. Hints of heavy scarring peaked out from his rigid back, half concealed by Akaza’s haori.
Because someone he thought was a friend, turning around and speaking so callously to him? To his face? To want to harm him, knowing Kyojuro was in the wrong body. In spite of that. Akaza could tell. Kocho was an angry person. With how her eyes flashed with a hatred to level and cripple an army, how quickly she cast her gaze onto Kyojuro after he spoke of that bastard. Douma. Demons, clearly, were her target. The same way slayers were his. Breaking them apart. Careless in their carnage.
It was a betrayal. To have realized, even Kyojuro’s life, his safety meant nothing to a comrade he’d known for years. That trust, gone to ash and dust, in a single moment.
“But why should he? He’s- he’s our friend! Even if he’s in, um,” the woman blinked, looking at Akaza, “what’s your name, demon-san?”
Akaza stared, wide-eyed.
“Um.”
Akaza’s gaze fractured at the pink in the woman’s hair. He opened and closed his mouth.
“Um. Akaza. It’s um. Akaza. My name.”
“Acchan!”
Akaza drew back. His mouth fell open. It was utterly ridiculous, how red his face felt.
“What?”
“You’ve hurt him! You- would have killed him, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for that! Ever!”
Akaza utterly hated how he shrunk back. No words flowed from his mouth. Cluttered, frantic apologies spread like a disease in his throat, burning it to ash.
“But! I’m starting to realize that,” the woman smiled, melancholic and sweet, “it’s possible to be healed by another. It’s a little strange for that person to be you, oh! Not because you’re a demon!”
“Because I- it does not matter, truly. We have to get rid of the Blood-”
“It does,” the Pillar argued, fierce and unrelenting, “you did cause Kyo-chan a lot of pain, and you also soothed it. And I think, I think it means a lot.”
“That you did enough, and you’ve done that for years, but maybe I’m wrong! Who knows!”
“There is something wrong with you, slayer.”
“Kanroji! Kanroji Mitsuri.”
“Mitsuri-san, something’s wrong with you.”
Mitsuri only laughed, smiling at him, “Maybe, Acchan! And, Blood Demon Arts aren’t permanent so I think you’ll both be okay!”