Chapter Text
The inn is a moldy and ramshackle assortment of whatever happened to be on hand to construct a building. The arches sag tiredly, the ceiling is leaning to one side like a drunk, and Kyojurou’s room is hardly fit for rats, let alone a human. Which is why, he supposes, that the demon would of course be puttering around a place like this.
“Akaza.” He hardly needs to turn around, having become accustomed to the demon’s presence long ago. It hangs in the air, lingering, unimpeded by the human auras teeming throughout the inn.
“Kyojurou.” The demon winds an arm through his, falling into marching step beside him. Kyojurou does not do him the service of looking over.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to spend time with my favorite Hashira!” Akaza punctuates that with a laugh, his hand crawling to meet Kyojurou’s, who slaps it away like it’s a bothersome insect.
“Don’t,” he warns.
“Aw, and here I was thinking you missed me.”
“I miss broken bones more often than I miss you. I miss the delectable silence of not having a demon following me at every interval of my life. I miss having two functional eyes.”
Continuing on beat, the demon says, “we could remedy that last one you know,” to which Kyojurou pushes him into a conveniently placed wall.
“When will you learn?”
“I am hundreds of years old,” Akaza says, rubbing a nonexistent injury on his arm with a pitiable expression written across his face. “I will never learn.”
Kyojurou increases the pace of his lockstep march. There is little chance he could leave the demon behind, but there’s always a possibility, however small. “Start.”
“Don’t be so cold with me, we could do great things together!”
“The greatest thing you could do for me is die. I mean that with absolute sincerity!”
Akaza turns to hide a smile under his hand. If Kyojurou had it his way, the demon would have naught to smile about. Kyojurou unfortunately didn’t possess the capabilities of slicing the smile off Akaza’s face, so there it stood. “You’re so mean to me, and for what?”
Kyojurou jerks back, ripping his arm from the demon’s. “Leave me. I really don’t know how to make it clearer to you that I don’t want you here.”
Akaza inclines his head to acknowledge he’s heard Kyojurou, but makes no move to leave. Kyojurou resigns himself to a night spent with the parasite, again.
“What do you want?”
“Your time. Your attention. Your sword.” The demon says. His eyes glow like the filaments of a bulb. Kyojurou can see his own image reflected back at him in the ink stain of his pupils. He looks tired.
“You have all of those.”
“Maybe I want something more, then.”
“Maybe you could–” he grits his teeth, taking a slow, deep breath. Anger would lead to an argument, a convenient excuse for Akaza to take hold of him and drag him into another spar. His muscles complain at the thought of it, of crossing his sword against Akaza’s fists. “What else could you possibly want?”
The demon’s hand slides across his skin, across his back, slithering, snake-like, to rest on the point of his hip. He pulls Kyojurou towards him. “You.”
Kyojurou has heard of the phrase ‘seeing red,’ and thought it to be metaphorical. His sword is in his hand before he can properly process the action,the tip aimed at whatever is within his reach. He winds up stabbing it into Akaza’s left eye, tearing through vulnerable grey flesh, splintering bone, the blade emerging coated in viscera on the opposite side of his head. The demon seizes, automatically flying to protect his neck. “I’ll take that as a no,” he says, blood dripping from his pulverized eye socket to soak the ridges of his lips.
“Fuck you.” Kyojurou says indignantly, sweeping away. This time, Akaza doesn’t follow.
The next time they meet, Kyojurou is caught in a bit of a bind.
The mission had been theoretically simple: Chase a water-controlling demon through a forest, wherein hopefully there would be no water to control. The practical had been much more complicated.
Kyojurou dodged aside, flicking his wrist and the blade of his sword through the gargantuan hose of water aimed at him. The cut did nothing to alleviate the pressure of the water as he floundered in the stream, wiping mud and clumps of nettles from his face. Everything hurt; his legs, his arms, parts of him that he hadn’t realized existed now ached and complained at him with every movement he forced them through.
He must separate the demon from the source of its power to win. Spinning on one heel, he breaks for the treeline, listening intently to the sound of the demon’s footsteps crashing behind him.
Turning, still in rapid motion, he catches a slash of the demon’s claws on his sword and pushes it away, hoping to skewer it before it could put several new holes through him. The opening thread gleams bright winter white, and he brings his sword to bear, exploding into action, catching the demon in the chest with a heavy-handed swing that leaves it staggering. It still manages to block the arc of his sword, but with only half its limbs intact. Other demons might have tried to run or retreat. This demon bites into the meat of its palm and spits the resulting hunk of bloody flesh at Kyojurou, who realizes its intentions a second too late.
The drops of blood rain down on him like needles, and he looses a scream of pain and surprise. His foot catches a particularly muddy rock and quite suddenly he’s looking at the sky, wondering how it was that he had arrived to be in this situation. He lands on his back, all of the air evacuating his lungs with a sound like an off-tune whistle. White-hot agony lances through him, feeling like a burning poker being stabbed into his back, his every sense shot.
“Got you!” The demon says, and Kyojurou is sinking, a chasm of water opening under his feet to swallow him whole. The surface of the chasm glitters overhead, revealing the demon waving a mock goodbye as he drifts aimlessly down.
“Oh.” He coughs out, losing seconds of precious air. How unfair. He hadn’t lost, he had been unlucky, and what a distinction that made to his muddled mind, not that it would change his fate in any way.
His luck continues to sour as a shock of horrifically pink hair comes into sight. Akaza’s features are indistinct through the muddied water, but his tattoos cut a sharp, obscene path into Kyojurou’s vision. He is smiling.
“Do you need help?” Akaza asks, peering into the water with barely contained glee. His smile is similarly bladed.
“I would rather suffocate than allow you to help me.” Kyojurou says, though it comes out so bubbled and muffled that he doubts Akaza would understand.
“I caught one!” The other demon says proudly, craning its neck and bobbing its head like a vulture. “Look, I caught one!”
“So you did,” Akaza replies languidly. He scoots closer to the edge of the chasm, assessing Kyojuruou through the heaps of dirty water. Kyojruou glares right back.
He can see the end approaching, quite literally too. His vision fades into shards of black and gray, his muscles growing sluggish and uncoordinated. Akaza’s horrid, greasy hair has congealed into a pink blob, the silt in the water popping like static, every color a distant memory. He tries to console himself. His death will be from a weak demon with hardly a kill to their name, but it will have been Akaza’s fault for previously injuring him. A stupid death, but it will be partly worth it to stick it to Akaza.
“Here.” Said demon mouths, sticking his hand through the silt filled water and wiggling his fingers, adding horrible effect. “Don’t be stubborn,” Kyojurou hears through the burbling of water.
He proves himself stubborn. He refuses the imploring hand, clumsily dodges Akaza’s attempt at grabbing his cape, and bites his hand once he does manage a good fistful of his cape. Suicidal ideation is better than being saved by his worst enemy.
He surfaces with Akaza pulling him out like a wet cat, coughing and spluttering.
The other demon looks halfway to a heart attack. It backs away, squawking, trembling, pointing a gnarled finger at Akaza. Kyojurou can read the expression on its face even with only one functional eye. ‘What the hell?’ It blares.
“That would’ve been a silly way to die,” Akaza says.
“I–” Kyojurou coughs up water first. “Hate–” Next, he coughs up algae, the slimy texture of it is hideous in his throat as he retches. “You.” He finally finishes. The statement is made less acidic as Akaza pats his head condescendingly.
“Woe is me. A thank you would’ve been nicer, but what can you do?”
He rips his fingernails into Akaza’s vest, using it as an anchor point as he hauls himself and what feels like an extra fifty kilograms to his feet. “Die.” He hisses, water spitting from between his teeth like a demented fountain ornament.
The other demon lows animalistically, and decides that whatever relationship Kyojurou and Akaza have, it’s not worth coming between them. It skitters away, glancing backwards with terror rounding its eyes. “Should I get that or–” Akaza begins. Kyojurou, who is in immense pain, has not breathed properly in what feels to him to be years, and with mud solidifying his hair into a single heavy mass, punches him in the teeth. He leaves Akaza reeling, confusion clouding his face, holding his bloody nose with both hands.
Somehow, Kyojurou had kept hold of his sword. Equally surprising: the other demon had not gotten far even with a minute’s head start and Kyojurou half-dead. It jumps in surprise as he comes into view, shrieking something that sounds vaguely like an insult. Kyojurou couldn’t care less. He swings his sword in a sloppy arc, the cold wind biting chunks out of his strength, and barely manages to decapitate it before it can register its impending death.
“Good job,” Akaza says from behind him. The top portion of his teeth sit crooked and his nose is bent to his left side.
In response, Kyojurou turns, makes a rude gesture at him, and collapses.
He wakes to a bowl of fluffy oats, a fresh bath, and– he makes a sound like death warmed over. “Akaza!” He howls. “Where are my clothes!” Akaza doesn’t come waltzing through the door, which leaves Kyojurou unsure if he wants the demon to come over so he can throttle him and interrogate him over the case of the missing clothes, or if he doesn’t want the demon to come over because having Akaza pop in and see him stark naked was more embarrassing than almost dying to a no-name demon.
He tests his strength and is delighted to discover that not only can his legs hold his weight, but that he is in fact able to walk, albeit with a limp. Next, to survey his surroundings.
Akaza, or whoever had killed and replaced Akaza with an equally infuriating version of him that cared not a lick about Kyojurou’s weakness, had brought him to an inn, where it seemed they were doomed to always meet. It smells clean, which constitutes a mix of lavender soap and wisteria incense. A pot of the incense burns on the floor next to two futons that have been graciously laid out, and the room is brightly lit despite the hour.
It reeks of a trap.
Kyojurou glances over at the bath. The surface of the water beckons invitingly, whispering to him about cleanliness and serenity. It is a regular bath. It is such an ordinary bath that it invites suspicion. Kyojurou gingerly dips a toe into the water, expecting something or someone to come lunging at him.
There is an overabundance of nothing.
He makes his decision. Sinking into the water brings to mind nirvana. He washes clods of mud from his hair, scrubs at himself until his skin is red and smarting, and finally relaxes into the water’s warm embrace after a handful of minutes. The water does not smell like sewage, he does not feel like he is two steps away from dying, and most comforting of all, there are no demons, of which Kyojurou has had his fill of for the next month, thank you very much.
“You called for me?” Akaza says from the doorway.
Kyojurou immediately seeks the nearest throwable item that could conceivably do the most damage and rockets it at Akaza, who ducks just in time for Kyojurou’s sword to give him a splendid new haircut.
“Get out!”
“Which one do you want?! Do you want me to come over or do you want me to leave?!”
“I want both!”
“You can’t have both!” Akaza yelps.
“Well– Well! Where are my clothes then?!” Kyojurou half-asks, half-shouts.
“I took them off for you!”
“I still have one eye you fool, I can see that! Where are they?! Why did you do that?!”
“Washing,” Akaza says meekly.
“Washing?” He repeats. An image of Akaza playing obedient housewife washes over him. The thought of Akaza scrubbing diligently to rid his uniform of blood and dirt is so incongruous with the reality of the demon in front of him that it causes physical pain. He feels a titanic headache coming on and pinches the thin column of his nose to stave it off. “Give them to me once you’re done. I’ll leave. We’ll never speak of this again.”
“Are you admitting that we’re going to speak again?” Akaza asks.
“I–” Kyojurou chokes on his outrage. “No! I will kill you!”
“Do try,” the demon says. “Here.” He tosses Kyojurou’s uniform at him.
Kyojurou’s arms shake as he catches the minute weight of it, and that generates an explosive rage within him again. He chews the inside of his cheek to bloody shreds as he rises from the water, toweling himself dry, throwing his uniform on haphazardly. His hakama hangs crooked, his tabi are nearly unsalvageable, and his poor cape has several new rips in it that will have to be patched before the next mission.
Akaza thankfully has found an interesting spot on the wall to stare at intently while he changes. It’s so consumed his attention that he doesn’t notice Kyojurou approaching him until it’s too late.
Kyojurou slowly says, “thank you,” around an uncooperative tongue. Akaza's gaze shifts from the wall to Kyojurou, looking stupefied.
“What?”
“Don’t make me repeat it, once was difficult enough.”
“You’re welcome,” the demon says, being unexpectedly hospitable. “Don’t worry about repaying me.”
Kyojurou tosses his head, churlish. “Trust me! I was not worrying.”