Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sound of a man’s panicked yelling rips Sabito out of his dreams. There’s still sleep in his eyes as he hauls himself out of bed and onto his feet. He doesn’t bother changing out of the light yukata he was sleeping in, if someone is at the clinic in the middle of the night then they don’t care how he’s dressed.

He follows the trail of blood droplets from the genkan into one of the private rooms that’s reserved for the more gruesome injuries that come through their doors.  

The coppery scent filling the room chases away the last remains of sleep from Sabito’s mind. He pulls his hair up into a high ponytail, securing it with the leather band from around his wrist, and pulls on a pair of gloves takes his place by Etsuko’s side. 

‘He’s unconscious but his pulse is strong,’ the older doctor says as she continues to stitch a wound on the man’s thigh. ‘His eyes don’t look right. Check them.’

‘Is– is he alive?’

Sabito glances up at the pale stranger standing by the window. ‘There was so much blood. Was it a bear? We don’t have bears here but the blood ! There was so much.’

‘Please try to stay calm. Take deep breaths,’ Sabito tells the man, ‘we will do everything we can for him.’ 

The man nods, his lips pressing into a thin, white line. His hands shake. 

Sabito watches him for a second longer before turning his full attention to his patient. It takes him a moment to realise that he knows this man. He’s unconscious and there’s a bright smear of blood on his cheek but Sabito can recognise Tomioka Giyuu even after six years. 

He swallows and for a flicker of s second, he toys with the cruel idea of walking away. He could leave right now and Giyuu could find out what it’s like to be left alone in a hospital bed when he’s scared and fragile. 

Closing his eyes briefly, Sabito breathes out the acidic, childish thought and starts to work. 

This is a patient that needs Sabito’s help. He took an oath and he’s not going to throw it away for some petty revenge. This man is a patient like any other. That’s all he is. For now, everything else can fall away to the wayside. 

He peels back the left eyelid and clicks his tongue when he’s met with shattered blood vessels and a thick cloud of white covering sharp blue. The right eye is no better. The man is surely blind and as concerning as that is, it is not life-threatening so Sabito lets the eye fall closed and moves on to help Etsuko with the rest of the patient's wounds.

His clothes have already been removed and Etsuko has finished stitching the long laceration that runs along the outside of his left thigh. If the stained towels are anything to go by, that's the wound that dripped on the floor and filled the air with the scent of blood. 

There are twin cuts on his collar bones but they are easy enough for Sabito to clean and sew closed with four neat stitches.

The rest of his wounds are a conglomeration of cuts that have already scabbed over and soot-black bruises spreading over his torso and forearms. Sabito palpates his abdomen. He doesn’t find anything concerning but he is well aware that internal bleeding can be hard to find. 

Shigeru enters the room with a fresh basin of water to replace the one by the bedside that has turned a frothy pink. Etsuko thanks her husband and quietly asks him to escort their patient's rescuer to a vacant room to rest and eat. 

Sabito is honestly impressed that the man hasn’t passed out from shock.

Together, the two doctors clean off the remaining blood from the patient’s skin, get him into a yukata, change the sheets, and write down his vitals. 

By the time they are done, Sabito’s back is stiff and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his face.

‘How were his eyes,’ Etsuko asks as she scrubs the flaking blood off of her wrists. 

‘It looks like severe ulceration. There’s likely to be extensive vision loss but I don’t know if it’s temporary or not yet.’ He dumps an armful of blood-soaked rags into a bucket to be disposed of later. ‘I’ll make some eyedrops in the morning.’

Etsuko nods, looking down on their sleeping patient. ‘A bear attack,’ she scoffs, ‘how absurd.’ She places two fingers against Giyuu’s pulse point again. There’s a few seconds of quiet before she hums thoughtfully and straightens. ‘He’ll live,’ she says before yawning. ‘I’m much too old for this level of excitement in the dead of night. I’m going back to bed.’ 

Sabito is quick to follow her out of the room. ‘Sensei?’

The old woman stops, raising an eyebrow at him. 

Sabito drops his gaze as he considers how to phrase his request. ‘I can make his medications but…’ He lowers himself into a shallow bow. ‘I would appreciate it if you do his direct care.’

‘Why?’ 

Sabito lifts himself from his bow, glancing back into the room where he can see Giyuu lying on the bed. ‘I knew him a while ago and we…didn’t part on good terms.’ It’s not a good explanation but he’s sure Etsuko will be able to understand what he’s left unsaid. When Giyuu is unconscious and bleeding out, Sabito can push aside the past and work but he’s not sure he can do the same when the other man is awake and talking. 

He clenches his fist, his blunt nails biting into his palm. He doesn’t want to hear what Giyuu has to say.

His mentor’s gaze flicks down to his fist and then back to his face. ‘You cannot pick and choose your patients just because you personally don’t like them.’ 

‘I know.’

She purses her lips. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Tomioka Giyuu.’

Etsuko crosses her arms and stares at him until he starts to fidget. ‘Fine, but you’re taking up my laundry shifts.’ 

Relief floods through Sabito and he grins at her. ‘Deal!’

She shakes her head at him before wandering off to her bedroom. Sabito is eager to follow her example but something keeps him from doing so. 

Frowning, he cautiously goes back towards the front entrance. Shigeru has cleaned up the blood and the doors are closed but they aren’t locked. They are never locked for this exact scenario. If someone needs to come in the dead of night, fiddling with locks can and will waste precious, life-altering seconds. 

Now though, Sabito is distinctly aware that anyone and anything can get through.

They have a demon slayer, a Hashira if Urokodaki’s letters are to be believed, who has come from a fight that’s left him blind, injured, and unconscious with Sabito having no way of knowing if he won or lost the fight. 

He supposed a lock wouldn’t make that much of a difference. It didn’t for his family. 

In his mind's eye, he can see a demon tracking Giyuu through the scent of blood and ripping its way through the thin, wooden door to devour them all. The image alone is enough to make cold sweat prick at his skin.

Sabito swallows. He hates that he’s afraid. He hates knowing that if the demon is alive and if it comes here there is nothing he can do to stop it. He’s an easy meal.

Despite that, he goes back to his room and pulls out the colourless nichirin blade that Urokodaki gave him for passing the Final Selection. He’ll never be able to wield it but he appreciates the gesture even now. 

It offers false comfort as he takes his place at his open bedroom window and watches the front gate of the property. He has no plan for if the demon does arrive but at least he won’t be caught unaware.

The demon never arrives.

Sabito keeps watch until daybreak. His muscles ache for the constant tension and his eyes feel heavy but he breathes a sigh of relief as he puts the sword away, and begins the same daily routine. 

He bolts down a mandarin for breakfast once he’s gotten dressed and then disappears into the medical supply. 

The little room is stuffed full with floor-to-ceiling shelves, blocking out any sunlight from coming through the window so he has to light the lanterns even with the sun shining outside. 

It’s organisation in its most chaotic form. The clinic is the only healthcare facility this side of Mount Hachimori. As such Etsuko has curated a vast collection of medical supplies for almost every situation. From the multiple types of bandages to the extensive collection of herbs and oils to gynaecological tools and scalpels.

Sabito gathers a mixture of oils and herbal extract and sits down to make a basic formula for eye drops. He’ll be able to fiddle with the ratios and herbs once he knows more about the damage that has been done. 

Eye problems aren’t something they encounter regularly but it’s a solution Sabito has made enough times over the years that muscle memory takes over. 

He caps the little glass vial when he’s finished and puts it in one of the baskets waiting on the table that Shigeru has already labelled with Giyuu’s name. It’s already full of fresh bandages, wipes, and the folded paper with Giyuu’s vitals. Currently, it’s the only full basket since they don’t have anyone else staying at the clinic.

He kneads the tight muscles in his lower back as he leaves the room and sets about doing his usual chores. Around noon Etsuko informs him that Giyuu is awake and coherent. 

He feels a rush of impersonal relief that leaves him with a strange feeling of almost-guilt. It’s the same kind of relief he always gets when he’s informed that one of his patients is making progress. He half expected to feel something more when being told his childhood best friend is doing better but there is nothing. Just…vague relief.

The following day starts with significantly less commotion. 

Sabito finally resigns himself to holding up his end of the deal and doing the clinic’s laundry. The metal wash tub is already filled with water. Shigeru, even with his arthritic hands, always keeps the basins and tubs in every room full of clean water. All Sabito has to do is sit down and do the work. It doesn’t make him enjoy the task. 

He starts with Giyuu’s clothes since they will take the longest. He avoids looking at the white kanji embroidered on the back of the demon slayer uniform as he inspects the damage. The fabric is thick and durable so, excluding the large cut on the thigh of the pants, there’s very little damage. Even the blood stains are hidden by the dark colour.

He dunks the uniform into the water and works the blood out of the fibres before letting it sink to the bottom of the top to soak and reach for the next item. 

The next piece of clothing is a lot softer. He picks up the red haori but pauses when he catches a flash of green. Frowning, he pulls the haori closer, the bottom dropping into the water as he smooths out the fabric to inspect it.

His lips twist into a snarl as soon as he realises what he’s looking at. His grip threatens to break the seam that connects wine-red with geometric green and yellow. 

He wants to rip it to peices. 

It’s not fair! 

It’s not fair that Giyuu gets to pretend like he’s the one who lost Sabito . He’s cut Tsutako’s haori in half to make room for Sabito’s as if he sees them of equal value. Giyuu would never have chosen to leave Tsutako. They are not the same. This is nothing more than a sick joke. 

Pure, visceral rage makes his stomach clench. He stumbles to his feet with the haori clenched in his hands and storms through the clinic before his mind can catch up with his actions. 

He slams open the door to the recovery room, it bounces forward when it bangs against the wall. The sound makes Giyuu jerk upright, his right hand twitching towards his left hip, searching for a sword that isn’t there. He is defenceless, sightless and Sabito hopes he’s scared.

Sabito stalks towards the bed. ‘I’m not fucking dead,’ he snarls.

He hurls the half-soaked haori at the demon slayer, hitting him square in the chest. It drops into his lap with a wet slap.

‘I’m not fucking dead and you don’t get to pretend that I am! What? Did you decide that you wouldn’t feel guilty if I died?’ 

Giyuu tangles his fingers in the sodden fabric as he turns his head to blindly look toward the person screaming at him. ‘Sabito?’ 

‘Go to hell, Giyuu.’ Sabito’s whole body is trembling. There’s a lump in his throat that makes his voice rasp. ‘You’re a piece of shit and I hope you know that,’ he snarls venomously.

His chest shudders as he breathes in and takes a step back because if he stays too close he will punch him. He waits, strung out and shaking, for Giyuu to say something. Anything!

It’s been six years, he must have something to say but he just sits there, like a lifeless doll. He is not sure why he thought he would care like Sabito does.

‘Fuck you.’ There’s so much more Sabito wants to say but he’s not going to break in front of Giyuu. 

He grinds his teeth together and slams the door shut when he retreats from the room. 

Sabito, all of thirteen years, woke up to a hazy world of agony. He whimpered as his head throbbed and the thick bandages wrapped around his abdomen rubbed at his raw skin. 

Exhaustion clung to the very marrow of his bones.

He wanted to fall back to sleep but a large, warm hand squeezed his shoulder. It didn’t make the pain worse but the pressure kept him from drifting away. He whined low in his throat, wordlessly cursing out the person for keeping him in that painful waking world. 

‘I know, I know,’ a voice said gently, ‘but the doctor needs you awake.’ 

Urokodaki.

Sabito peeled his eyes open and the red tengu mask came into focus. It’s comforting to know that his teacher is with him. Everything else felt too distant and too big at the same time. Sabito’s thoughts weren’t fitting together quite right.

Sabito wanted to ask why he needed the doctor but his tongue felt thick and it stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was so thirsty. 

He was very, very thirsty.

Thankfully, Urokodaki placed one hand on the back of Sabito’s head and tilted him up. He pressed the rim of a glass to Sabito and the boy drank greedily until his stomach felt bloated and the pain in his throat was gone. He lay back down just as the doctor came into the room.

Doctor Hanjo– a name Sabito never forgot– a mousy-looking man, rolled the bottom of the blanket up to expose Sabito’s legs. 

Sabito didn’t feel the material as it brushed against his legs. He didn’t feel the cool air pricking at his skin. That was the first sign that something was wrong.

The doctor told Sabito to press the ball of his foot down into his hand. Sabito, staring up at the wooden beams above him, obediently followed his instruction. The exercise was repeated on the other foot. The doctor didn’t say anything. 

There were more tests. Doctor Hanjo poked a thin metal rod into the muscles in Sabito’s calf. He kept repeating the action, gradually moving the rod higher, until he reached the skin just above Sabito’s hip and finally, the boy could feel the now warm metal.

He knew something was wrong but the resulting anxiety felt so far away.

Eventually, the doctor straightened up. He spoke about many things but only one word stood out: Paralysis . 

What a silly thought. Sabito was not paralysed. He was strong, flexible, and agile. He was just in the Final Selection. Only people in top physical condition go to that mountain and only the best survive and clearly Sabito was still alive ergo he’s not paralysed. 

Urokodaki had taken him to see a quack. 

‘Sabito-kun…’

The boy let his head loll to the side and looked at his teacher. The tengu mask was gone. The doctor was gone.

‘Did you hear what the doctor said,’ Urokodaki asked slowly like Sabito was a stupid child. He didn’t reply and Urokodaki reached out to cradle one of Sabito’s hands in his. ‘Did you hear about the paralysis?’

There was that word again but it still didn’t apply to Sabito. He was not paralysed. He was thirteen years old, almost fourteen, his legs worked fine. He told Urokodaki exactly that and the man rubbed his thumb across the top of Sabito’s wrist in response. 

‘You got injured. Your spine is broken, Sabito.’

Sabito shook his head. The movement made his stomach roil. ‘I was just at the Final Selection.’ He kept getting stuck on that little fact. He was just at the Final Selection

Urokodaki stayed silent for a moment, his thumb still tracing patterns into Sabito’s skin. ‘That was four days ago.’

‘It was yesterday,’ Sabito corrected him. 

The world began to blur. ‘Giyuu was injured. He hit his head.’ Sabito’s breath hitched. ‘but I protected him,’ he quickly told his teacher, ‘The whole week, I kept him safe.’ 

Urokodaki nodded solemnly. ‘Do you remember what happened in the last hour? The demon you fought?’

There were lots of demons on that mountain! They all blur together eventually. How is Sabito supposed to remember one particular demon? 

His body seemed to remember though and it started to shake as a tear slipped down his temple and soaked into the pillow by his ear. ‘There was one demon.’ Was it the last demon he fought? ‘It was bigger than the others.’

Green with hands. So many hands and it smelt like rot. A burning sensation in his leg. Giyuu’s screams. A moment of weightlessness and then…pain. 

So much pain. 

The weight of the memory caused Sabito to double over. He wrapped his arms around his stomach in a poor imitation of a hug. ‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ he repeated to himself. ‘I’m fine.’ He focused on Urokodaki. ‘Where’s Giyuu? He’s alive…right?’ 

‘He’s alive,’ Urokodaki confirmed quickly. ‘He’s alive, he’s safe and he’s fine.’ 

Sabito closed his eyes and breathed as the relief untangled the knot in his chest. ‘When is he going to be here?’ He hoped the answer was soon because it felt like the world was crumbling and he needed Giyuu’s steady calm. He did not want to be alone right now, not when each time he tried to move his legs the blanket remained motionless. 

Urokodaki stayed silent and it grated on Sabito’s nerves. ‘When is he going to be here?’

Urokodaki squeezed his hand. ‘I don’t think he’s going to come.’ 

‘He’s my best friend.’ Maybe even more than that. ‘Of course he’s going to be here!’ He wiped at the snot dripping down his nose. They were always going to watch out for each other. Giyuu would be there for him.

Urokodaki didn’t argue with him. He kept his mouth shut while Sabito wiped at the tears that kept slipping from his eyes. 

Together they waited for Giyuu. 

He never arrived.

Chapter Text

Dizziness makes Giyuu sway as soon as he leaves the bed. It’s not the same kind of vertigo he associates with a concussion or blood loss. This is a sickening floating feeling as the physical world falls out from underneath him.

There is no visual or physical anchor. He doesn’t know how big the room is. He doesn’t know where the windows are, what’s on the floor, if the door behind him is open or closed, or if there is another person nearby. All he knows is that the edge of the bed is barely a hand’s width away from the back of his knees and yet it might as well not exist. 

He lifts a hand to his eyes and brushes against the bandage that the elderly doctor wrapped around his head. He wants it off. It’s rubbing against the thin skin under his eyes and when he turns his head he can hear it shifting against his ears. He wants it off but the memory of the splitting headache thundering through his skull when his pupils reacted to light he couldn’t even see, makes him drop his hand back to his side.

The rustling of feathers catches his attention and it’s embarrassing how relieved he is to hear the sound.

‘Where’s my sword?’ 

‘Behind you! Behind you against the wall.’ Kanzaburo’s claws click against the metal as he walks along the bar at the foot of the bed. ‘Injured! You should be resting.’ 

‘I will rest,’ Giyuu tells him. ‘Just not here.’ 

Using the bed as a guide, he shuffles towards the head of the bed until his bare foot knocks against the propped-up sword and sends it clattering to the ground. He winces at the sound but no one comes to investigate. He keeps a death grip on the mattress as he crouches down to gather his sword. 

‘Why not rest here? This is a good place. I checked.’ 

Giyuu slips his sword into the koshihimo of the yukata he’s been given and wraps his hand around the hilt of the blade as he slowly rises to his feet. Keeping one leg pressed against the side of the bed, he lifts his other arm as a silent command for Kanzaburo to come to his side. The elderly crow complies without hesitation, flying from the metal bar to land on the sleeve of Giyuu’s damp haori. He weighs so little. 

‘Is it not a good place,’ Kanzaburo asks with concern. 

‘It’s a good place,’ Giyuu assures the bird.

‘Then stay. Rest.’ 

Giyuu huffs at the bird’s insistence. ‘It’s not that this place is bad…’ His brow furrows as he tries to figure out how to explain what’s wrong without raising more questions. ‘But I hurt someone here.’ He takes his hand off his sword and fiddles with the left side of his haori. ‘It’s better if I leave.’ 

Kanzaburo seems satisfied with the answer because he climbs up to Giyuu’s shoulder and sets about preening Giyuu’s hair. ‘Knots,’ Kanzaburo admonishes. 

Giyuu doesn’t have the heart to tell him that his grooming is only going to make more knots in his hair. 

The rhythmic clicking of Kanzaburo’s beak is a welcome distraction when the floaty-dizziness returns as Giyuu steps away from the bed. He braces himself while he waits to adjust to the slow spinning sensation. It’s mildly nauseating but manageable. He survived the second half of the fight with the demon without his sight. He’ll survive this as well. 

It takes a few minutes but eventually, he’s confident enough to move and asks Kanzaburo for directions. Between keeping a hand on the wall and Kazanburo’s muttered instructions, Giyuu finds his way to the genkan and slips his shoes on before fumbling for the door handle and sliding it open. The night breeze tugs at the yukata, making the thin fabric brush against his lower leg. He misses the sturdiness of his uniform but that hasn’t been returned to him and asking for it back will just bring up too many questions.

He has to work up the confidence to let go of the clinic’s door because he knows once he takes another step there won’t be another anchor to cling to. Shinobu’s voice echoes in his head, chiding him for making stupid decisions. He ignores her like always and takes his first shuffling steps into the endless void of black. He doesn’t like how it feels like he’s being watched.

‘There’s a step,’ Kanzaburo informs him. ‘Watch your step!’

He doesn’t snap at his crow that if he could watch his step then he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. He pauses, using the front of his foot to find the step’s edge before he moves down onto a gravel path.

‘Turn around and get your ass back inside.’

Giyuu’s steps stutter as his hand flies to the hilt of his sword, ready to fend off whoever or whatever snuck up on him. It takes a moment before the voice fully registers and the realisation that it’s Sabito’s settles his jackrabbit heartbeat almost immediately. Six years and it’s still woven into the very fibre of his soul that if Sabito is close then Giyuu is going to be ok. He hates himself for that. He has no right to take comfort in Sabito’s presence.

Kanzaburo’s claws prick into his shoulder as he turns towards Sabito’s voice. ‘I’m leaving now.’ He dips into a shallow bow and the bruises on his abdomen ache in protest. ‘Thank you for your care.’ 

‘Is there something about hospitals that you don’t like,’ Sabito asks. His voice is frigid and Giyuu gets the distinct feeling he’s walking into a trap. 

‘No,’ Giyuu says although it sounds more like a question.

‘So you’re just running away because…’ 

Giyuu frowns, running his thumb over the silken cords that wrap around the handle of his sword. ‘I’m not running away.’ 

Sabito scoffs. ‘Aren’t you? You’re leaving in the middle of the night without anyone knowing. That’s running away.’

‘Why does it matter to you that I’m leaving?’ 

‘Because I don’t want to have to tell Urokodaki-sensei that you went and got yourself killed and I could have prevented it,’ Sabito snaps. ‘And that’s ignoring the fact that you’re at my clinic. You’re my patient and therefore my responsibility.’

‘I am not your responsibility,’ Giyuu seethed. He will not be Sabito’s responsibility and he will not be the reason that he sacrifices something else for Giyuu’s sake. ‘You only need to look after yourself.’ 

Sabito’s gaze is a physical weight on Giyuu’s shoulders. His whole body feels stiff with tension. 

‘The nearest hospital is more than a day's walk. The nearest town is half of that. Don’t make me follow you that far,’ Sabito says, his voice softer but there’s a hard edge to it. A challenge. 

‘Then don’t follow.’

‘I’m not going to let you throw your life away!’ 

‘I’m not going to die!’ 

‘One demon,’ Sabito snarls, ‘one demon or hell, even a steep cliff would do the trick. You’re blind! How can you be so willing to throw your life away after everything everyone has done for you?’

And that’s the problem with fighting someone who knows you. No matter how blank Giyuu goes, Sabito knows his weak points and with unnerving accuracy, he’s twisted a knife into Giyuu’s gut. 

Giyuu’s life has never been his own. Tsutako. Urokodaki. Sabito . They all have done everything they could to keep Giyuu alive. The least he can do in return is inconvenience the last living two as little as possible and he thought that was staying out of their way. Now, Sabito is telling him to do the exact opposite and Giyuu’s not sure what to do. His presence is never welcome but now his absence isn’t either. 

He lets out a frustrated breath. Sabito knows he doesn't have a rebuttal that doesn't undermine the people who have protected him. He could still leave but Sabito would just follow him and that would become a whole other issue unto itself. 

Fortunately, neither Sabito nor Kansaburo say anything as Giyuu turns around and shuffles back into the clinic. 

Sabito sat by the fire pit, absorbing whatever warmth remained in the smouldering embers. Snow whipped against the outside of the house. Sabito pouted and buried himself further in the thick winter blanket.

Urokodaki should have been back. He was just supposed to get more firewood but it was already late into the night and his teacher still wasn’t back.

The ten-year-old sniffed, wiping his nose against the back of his hand. There was no reason to be worried. Urokodaki was the strongest person to exist. He was capable of beheading demons far bigger than him so a little bit of snow and darkness wouldn’t hurt him. 

Worrying was stupid but Sabito still refused to take his eyes off the front door.  

Just as Sabito was beginning to wonder how he would survive on the mountain alone, the door slid open and Urokodaki stomped into the house with white snow billowing around his ankles. He was holding a bundle that was too large to be firewood. 

Sabito sat up, straining his neck to try and figure out what his teacher was holding. Urokodaki slams the door shut, effectively locking the cold outside, and Sabito catches sight of ink-black hair peeking out from the blanket in Urokodaki’s arms.

Sabito’s eyes widened and his lungs stuttered on the next inhale. He knew that hair. That was Makamo! Makamo was home!

His sister was home!

His feet got tangled in his blanket as he rushed to get to Urokodaki’s side. He knew Makamo wasn’t dead. He had watched her train every day since he arrived and she was too strong to die in the final selection. Utokdaki said her attacks were flawless. There wasn’t a body so it was silly to assume she was dead.

He bounded into the genkan, nearly smacking into Urokodaki’s side. 

‘Sabito,’ Urokodaki said warningly.

The child ignored him, grasping onto Urokodaki’s bicep and lifting himself onto his tiptoes so he could see Makamo’s face. He realised his mistake very quickly. The child that Urokodaki was clutching to his chest was not Makamo. It wasn’t even a girl.

He dropped back onto his heels. ‘That’s not Makamo.’ 

‘It’s not,’ Urokodaki confirmed, sounding so very sad, ‘but he still needs help.’ Sabito looked up at Urokodaki with wide eyes. ‘Get the fire going again and boil water for the yutanpo . We need to get him warm again.’ 

Sabito nodded, pushing his disappointment to the back of his mind. He had a job to do. He ran back to the side of the fire pit. They were still low on wood but there’s enough to get a good fire going for a little while. He dropped to his knees and began coaxing flickering flames to climb up the tinder. Behind him, Urokodaki stripped the unconscious boy of his wet clothes and began briskly rubbing warmth back into a whip-thin body. 

The growing fire turned Sabito’s cheeks red as he blew into the fire. He set a pot of water over the flames before shuffling over to Urokodaki.

He helped his teacher wrap the boy up in the still-warm blanket Sabito was originally huddled under. Urokodaki doesn’t let him move the boy closer to the fire. 

‘He will overheat,’ his teacher explained. 

First, this child was too cold and now he might get too hot! It’s baffling to Sabito but he listened to Urokodaki and instead went to check the water.

Sabito waited until the water was just shy of boiling before pouring it into the yutanpo . He wrapped it in a thick woollen casing and handed it to Urokodaki. The old man stuffed between the boy and the blanket and then sat back on his heels.

‘When is he going to wake up,’ Sabito asks. 

‘I don’t know,’ Urokodaki admitted, ‘he’s gone through quite an ordeal and it takes a lot of energy for the body to warm itself back up so it’s best to let him rest.’

Sabito nodded sagely. ‘That’s why we are supposed to stay inside when there’s a snowstorm.’ That was the rule Sabito’s parents had put in place and it’s one Urokodaki maintained. Either this boy’s parents didn’t teach him that rule or he wasn’t very smart. ‘What’s his name?’ 

‘We’ll have to wait for him to tell us,’ Urokodaki said, brushing his calloused fingers over the boy’s forehead. 

Sabito frowned, drawing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. ‘Is he going to become a demon slayer too?’ 

‘That is for him to decide, not me.’ 

‘So we don’t know anything about this boy.’

‘That's correct,’ Urokodaki said, sounding amused.

Sabito huffed. He hoped the boy woke up soon. He was not a fan of mysteries or guessing games. 

He watched as his teacher started wiping away the dirt that caked the child’s face. Sabito couldn’t see his face behind the mask but he could recognise the tenderness in the man’s actions. He always cared so much. 

Sabito has seen the masks. He saw Urokodaki’s hands shake as he lowered a newly carved twelfth mask into the box that was hidden away under the floorboards. Care leads to grief. Sabito has already made a promise to himself that Urokodaki will not add a thirteenth mask. Sabito would make sure of that.

‘No matter what he chooses I’m going to protect him,’ Sabito declared to Urokodaki. When the eyes of the tengu mask focused on him he pulled up his sleeve to show off the muscle growing on his upper arm. ‘I’m going to become super strong! And I will beat any demon that tries to eat him.’ 

‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate having you there to watch his back.’ Sabito could hear the fond smile in his teacher’s voice.

Sabito shakes out another white sheet before hanging it onto the clothesline and pegging it into place. He flicks his attention between his task and Giyuu who, despite Etsuko’s protests, has begun to run through training drills on the other side of the garden. 

The injuries and blindness do little to mask the skill with which Giyuu moves. He is nothing like the swordsman Sabito trained beside when he was a child. The fluidity of each turn and twist is something that can only be achieved through experience. Experience that Sabito never got. 

Sabito works his jaw and tries to focus on hanging up the washing. He manages to hang up another sheet and two towels before his eyes are dragged back to Giyuu and he’s left watching him with a sickening conglomeration of awe, heartbreak, pride, and envy.

Despite the flowing material of the white hakama pants and blue kimono, he can see the lengthening and contraction of the muscles in Giyuu’s shoulders and arms. Sabito shouldn’t be surprised, he got an eyeful of Giyuu the night he arrived but muscles slack from unconsciousness are very different from this.

It’s a harsh reminder of just how different his body is from Giyuu’s. He’s made peace with what happened but watching someone do what he always dreamed of…it hurts. The farmers that Sabito regularly treats are all in good physical condition and the space between them and Sabito is tangible but manageable. This is a gaping chasm that Sabito will never be able to cross. 

Sabito is by no means unfit. His stomach is flat but it’s soft. His arms are strong by necessity but his biceps don’t have the same definition and his legs, his uncooperative legs, do not have the same strength and competency. If he tried to pivot on the ball of his foot like Giyuu does as he moves between the first and fourth water-breathing forms he would fall flat on his face. 

They started in the same place and somehow Sabito got left behind.

He’s still proud of his childhood friend though. He’s proud of the work Giyuu has done because he knows the training must have been grueling. Sabito is old enough to respect a man’s hard work regardless of how he feels.

Giyuu was always skilled with the sword but his lack of confidence in his own decisions always caused him to hesitate and that left him, more often than not, flat on his back with Sabito standing over him. 

Sabito spent countless hours trying to get Giyuu out of his head and it appears Giyuu has managed. Mostly. A smile tugs at Sabito's lips as he remembers Etsuko complaining that she tried to give Giyuu the option to choose what he wanted for dinner and he ended up just staring at her blankly until she chose for him. 

Despite all the years Giyuu hasn’t changed that much. 

‘Good god, is he at it again?’ Etsuko clicks her tongue as she walks up to Sabito and sets another loaded laundry basket at his feet. ‘I’m not sure if I should be alarmed or not that he’s running around with a sword but no eyesight.’ 

‘It’s fine,’ Sabito mumbles as he glares down at the extra laundry he now needs to find a place for on the lines. 

Etsuko hums, sounding unconvinced. She watches her patient with her hands on her hips and the corners of her mouth turned downwards. ‘It’s been a week and his eyes aren’t getting better.’ 

Sabito drapes a yukata over the line, stretching out the creases. ‘They aren’t?’ 

‘I think a different type of eye medication might do better.’ 

‘Sure. Tell me what you need and I’ll mix something up.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Etsuko jabs her finger into his ribs. You’re going to do your own examination, not piggyback off mine.’ 

Sabito scowls. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t whine like a child.’

‘It was a question.’ 

‘It was whining,’ Etsuko shoots back, ‘and you know why. A second opinion is always best, and word of mouth is not the proper way to treat a patient.’ 

‘There’s nothing I’ll pick up that you haven’t already,’ Sabito mutters. 

‘Children! Both of you!’ She jabs her finger into his ribs to emphasise her point. ‘He also protested when I said you would do another examination.’

‘See? The patient doesn’t want me to examine him.’ 

Etsuko gives him a deadpan look. ‘He protested because he said you wouldn’t want to examine him.’ 

‘And he was correct,’ Sabito says, refusing to look at his mentor.

‘I don’t know what happened between you two and frankly, I don’t care. Personal grudges should never affect your work in the medical field so suck it up and do your job.’ 

Sabito scowls but doesn’t dare argue with her. ‘I’ll look at him tonight.’ 

‘Good. And be professional.’ 

Sabito has to count himself down before opening the door. It takes courage to step into the room and restraint not to give in to the years-old anger that simmers up when he sees Giyuu in a hospital bed. Sabito is here, why couldn’t Giyuu have been when their places were reversed? 

The kusagai crow on the window sill perks up at Sabito’s entry but quickly goes back to preening its bedraggled feathers. The relaxed posture is not passed on to its slayer. Giyuu’s back is dead straight as he sits up in bed, chin dipped down as he listens intently to every move Sabito makes.

Taking a breath, Sabito sets his equipment on the table beside the bed and turns away to rinse his hands in the basin. He lets Giyuu know that it’s him and that he’ll be examining his eyes. 

Calm. Professional. Easy. He’s done this routine a thousand times. 

Sabito takes his time picking imaginary dirt from underneath his fingernails and drying his hands thoroughly but, eventually, he has to face Giyuu. It’s just Giyuu. Sabito is working himself for no reason.

‘Has there been any improvement in either your vision or pain level,’ Sabito asks as he moves to his patient’s side. Predictably, the answer is now. ‘That’s fine.’ This is fine. Calm, professional, easy. 

Sabito reaches out, his hands tangling in Giyuu’s hair as he finds the pin that holds the bandages in place. He’s careful to keep his knuckles from brushing against Giyuu’s skin as he unwinds the bandage and discards it in the bin. Sabito grimaces at the sight of Giyuu’s long eyelashes being gummed together by thick, yellow discharge. He keeps quiet as he cleans up the mess with a damp cloth, noting the reddened skin around Giyuu’s eyes. He’s been rubbing them through the bandage.

‘Open your eyes, please.’ 

Sabito watches the muscles in Giyuu’s jaw jump as he grinds his teeth together. His eyelids flutter shut momentarily before he forces them to stay open. Sabito leans in closer, one hand coming up to touch Giyuu on the cheek, and angle his head toward the light. The contact makes the Giyuu twitch. 

‘I’m not going to bite you,’ Sabito says, rolling his eyes. 

‘...I didn’t think you would.’ 

‘Then stop being so jumpy!’ Sabito takes a breath, forcing his shoulders to relax. 

Calm. 

Professional. 

Easy.

This time Giyuu stays still as Sabito pulls down the lower lid on his right eye. Etsuko’s right, his eyes look the same as they did the day he arrived. The conjunctiva is swollen, the veins are broken, turning the sclera red and a thick white cloud covers Giyuu’s iris and pupil. The left eye looks no better. 

Sabito mimes tapping Giyuu in the eye but he doesn’t blink or flinch away from the threat. ‘You can’t see anything?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Sabito frowns. It just looks like a severe case of ulceration. There should have been improvement by now. He lets go of Giyuu's face and his patient immediately closes his eyes, the tension in his jaw relaxing marginally. 

Sabito winces. Ah. The bandages were for light sensitivity. He knew that. He should have asked if he needed to close the curtains. That’s a basic thing Sabito should have known to do and it only makes him more frustrated. 

Sighing, Sabito grabs the eyedrops from the table. They aren’t helping much but they aren’t making things worse. At this point, they are just an overly fancy saline flush still Sabito coaxes Giyuu’s eyes open just long enough to administer the medication.

‘You’re going to be moved onto a different kind of eyedrop,’ Sabito informs him as he winds fresh bandages around his head. ‘Hopefully, the new ones will do something.’ They don’t have any of the ingredients he thinks might work so he’ll have to head into town to get them. He’s certainly not complaining about that. 

‘These ones help.’ 

‘With pain maybe but we want to see actual improvement with your vision.’ Although, Sabito does feel a little better that they aren’t completely useless. Sabito gathers up his supplies and the bin with the used bandages. ‘It would also help if you stopped rubbing your eyes.’ 

‘They itch.’ 

‘Don’t rub them,’ Sabito reiterates. ‘Etsuko will bring you dinner soon.’ With the examination done, Sabito is quick to retreat out of the room. 

Calm. Professional. Easy.

Chapter Text

A child screams. Giyuu freezes, his sword stretched outward and his weight braced on his front foot. There’s another shriek but it’s pitched with amusement. An answering series of giggles follows after and Giyuu can track the sounds as they move along the road outside the clinic and towards the gate.

Giyuu draws himself into a standing position just as the gate swings open. It’s a muddle of sound after that. Half a dozen feather-light feet come bounding down the garden path. There’s laughing, shouting, talking, clapping, and beneath all the noise Giyuu can pick out the crunch of wheels rolling over the ground. He heard this morning when Sabito left to go shopping in the village proper and it’s the same sound he’s heard around the Butterfly Mansion. 

Giyuu hates the sound.

He’s not sure why it bothers him so much. He knows that Sabito cannot walk for long periods, he all but said so the night Giyuu tried to leave. ‘Don’t make me follow you that far,’ was practically an admittance of weakness coming from Sabito. The fact that Sabito can walk at all is a miracle but somehow him needing a wheelchair for long walks feels wrong. Sabito has never needed aid from anyone. It’s a dichotomy between Giyuu’s hero and someone who is nothing more than human. 

Out of habit, Giyuu flicks his sword free of non-existent blood before sliding it into its scabbard. He’ll take the back entrance and avoid being noticed by Sabito or his small flock of children. 

There’s a loud gasp from behind him. ‘That mister has a sword!’ 

‘Awesome!’ 

Giyuu should have walked faster to the back door. 

Quick, bare feet sprint across the grass and skid to a halt in front of Giyuu forcing him to stop. 

‘Hey, mister, that’s a really cool sword! Can I hold it,’ the boy asks. 

‘You can’t hold a sword,’ a little girl says. Giyuu suppresses a sigh as she comes to stand at his side. 

‘I can if he says yes.’

‘No, you can’t. Ma’s won’t let you.’

The boy groans. ‘Ma’s not here .’

‘Why are your eyes bandaged,’ another boy asks and Giyuu becomes distinctly aware that he has been surrounded by Sabito’s pack. ‘Did you look at the sun for too long?’ 

‘You can’t go blind from looking at the sun,’ the first boy points out. 

‘Can too!’ 

‘Nope. I look at the sun all the time and my eyesight is fine.’ 

‘You wear glasses,’ mutters the little girl. Her shoulder brushes against Giyuu’s thigh. She’s terrifyingly small. 

‘Oi,’ Sabito shouts, swiftly catching the attention of the children. ‘I’ve told you before to stop bothering my patients.’ 

‘But he has a sword! I want to hold it.’ 

Giyuu keeps his chin dipped as the wheelchair rolls off of the path and begins to putter over the grass. ‘No,’ Sabito says in Giyuu’s place. ‘You’re going to hurt yourself or someone else.’ 

‘I’ll be careful,’ the boy promises 

‘The answer is still no. It’s a weapon, not a toy.’ 

‘I told you,’ the little girl says and for a moment Giyuu fears he’s going to end up in the middle of a fight between two children. 

‘Can you show us how to use the sword,’ another boy politely asks from behind Giyuu. 

‘Oh, yes!’ The little girl claps her little hands together. ‘Can you? Please?’

Giyuu frowns behind his bandages. He’s not sure why the children want to see his swordsmanship. He highly doubts they have any concept of the different breathing styles and, without understanding the nuances of what is being shown, it would be nothing more than a worthless display of skill. A party trick at best. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘There would be no point,’ Giyuu tells her. He really should have walked faster. 

‘Is there a point to anything,’ chirps one of the other children. 

‘I don’t know,’ he answers honestly. 

Then, quite inexplicably: ‘Do you have a headache, Sabito-nii?’ 

‘No,’ Sabito says although he does sound exasperated. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

There’s a moment of blessed quiet before the first boy speaks up again. ‘Please, show us something, mister!’ 

Giyuu vaguely considered tying the boy in front of him to a tree and walking far away from him. 

‘They aren’t going to leave you alone, they are pests like that,’ Sabito cuts in. The children around Giyuu seem to wilt. ‘Just show them the third form and they will promise to leave you alone.’ It sounds a bit like a threat but the group perks up again, spouting a mix of encouragement and excited coos. 

‘Wait, how’d ya know the “third form”,’ another one of the girls asks.

Giyuu stiffens. He presses the pad of his thumb into the corner of his sword guard as he waits for Sabito’s answer.

‘I was interested in kenjustu as a kid.’ He doesn’t give the children time to ask any other questions. ‘If you want him to show you anything you will need to get out of the way.’ 

Giyuu isn’t sure when he agreed to any of this but the children have started moving away from him and if this is the price of freedom then he is willing to pay.

‘They’re all on the path,’ Sabito tells him from his own faraway position.

Giyuu can feel the children watching him. He’s not worried about their judgement, he couldn’t care less what they thought of him but he knows Sabito is watching too and that sets his teeth on edge. He shakes his head, drawing his sword back into the open air. He has no reason to be nervous. Sabito has watched him before and this is no different. At the very least his opinion of Giyuu cannot drop any lower. 

One breath out, one breath in and he starts moving through the intricate motions of the Flowing Dance. The nearly healed cut on his thigh stretches uncomfortably as he follows the surging motions and vicious swings of a form that has all but been engraved in his bones. Over the whistle of the blade, he can hear the children gasp in awe. 

It’s almost annoying to hear people gasp over one of water breathing’s easiest forms. There are no flips or hyperflexibility needed for this form, one just has to be competent on their feet. Still, somewhere at the back of his mind, he has a vague recollection of amazement when Sabito, focused but clumsy, first showed him Flowing Dance. He supposes he can’t fault the kids. 

The children clap when he stops moving, blurting out compliments that roll off his shoulders like water. Sabito stays silent. 

Giyuu now knows why he was nervous. Always, without fail, Sabito would pick apart Giyuu’s swordsmanship but he’d always, always, follow his criticism with something sugar-sweet. ‘Your hand placement was great!’ ‘The rotation on that was perfect.’ ‘At least you didn’t fall on your face this time.’ 

There’s nothing like that now. It’s just one more moment where Giyuu gets to be starkly reminded of the friendship he shattered. 

‘I wanna do that too!’ There’s a moment of scuffling. 

‘No, he moved like this.’ Pebbles skitter away from unpracticed feet. 

‘You’re doing it wrong.’ 

‘No, I’m not .’ 

‘Ask him then!’

‘He can’t see what I’m doing, stupid,’ the boy snaps back. 

A pause. ‘Sabito-nii, is he doing it right?’ 

‘You’re slouching as you turn,’ Sabito informs him, ‘keep your back straight and your chin up.’ Another pause. ‘That’s better. Good job.’ 

Quietly, Giyuu sheaths his sword and turns away from Sabito and his gaggle of children. He makes it back to his room without interruption this time.

Tension thrums through Giyuu’s body that evening as Sabito applies new drops into his stinging eyes. The saccharine smell they give off coats the back of Giyuu’s tongue. They help ease the pain Giyuu has reluctantly become familiar with.

He closes his eyes as soon as Sabito steps away from the bed. Running his fingers along the seam of the blanket, Giyuu finds a loose thread and begins to pick at it. He cannot fathom how Gyomei manages to live in a world of floating nothing .

‘What are you doing?’

Giyuu lets go of the blanket’s thread and pulls his hands into his lap. 

‘Not that,’ Sabito says like his original meaning was obvious. ‘Your breathing. It’s Total Concentration but I’m just giving you medication.’ The floorboards creak under Sabito’s shifting weight. ‘You do it a lot actually.’ 

Giyuu’s not sure how he feels about the fact that Sabito has been watching him closely enough to be able to catalogue how he breathes. ‘Constant.’ 

‘Huh?’ 

‘Total Concentration Breathing Constant,’ he elaborates, keeping his chin tucked down. ‘It’s maintained during all waking and sleeping hours.’ 

‘So you’re always using Total Concentration,’ Sabito asks, sounding bewildered.

‘Yes.’ 

‘Your lungs will fucking explode!’

‘They don’t,’ Giyuu assures him. ‘It’s an advanced skill.’ He winces internally as he realises it’s just another skill Sabito will never get to learn. He goes back to destroying the blanket. His skin prickles underneath Sabito’s gaze although he cannot pinpoint exactly where the other man is. 

Sabito lets out a strained, ‘Fuck.’ Giyuu jolts when Sabito slams his hand down hard on the bedside table. ‘ Fuck , I hate this! I hate this!’

‘Hate what,’ Giyuu asks even if he knows the answer. He keeps his voice quiet so maybe, if he’s lucky, Sabito won’t even realise he’s said anything. 

‘All of it,’ Sabito snaps because he’s always heard of Giyuu. ‘Everything. Nothing .’ Sabito drops into the chair that’s against the wall of Giyuu’s room. ‘I was good. Great! A fucking prodigy and now there’re whole techniques that I’ve never even heard about. And I just —’ 

Sabito releases a sound that’s a strange mix between a groan and a scream and Giyuu’s chest aches . It feels like the Final Selection again. Sabito is hurt and Giyuu doesn’t know what to do. He couldn’t fix it the first time and he can’t fix it this time. ‘I’m sorry,’ he tries, dropping his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘...What are you sorry for?’ 

Giyuu chews on the inside of his cheek but Sabito doesn’t fill in the silence. He waits Giyuu out with a patience he never had as a child. ‘For being the reason you got hurt. For being weak. For not doing more. For not saving you. For needing to be saved.’ There’s a list in his head with everything he is sorry for but if he says all of it he’ll never shut up so he clamps his mouth shut and picks at the fraying thread.

‘You must think very highly of yourself if you think you had any control over what happened.’ 

Giyuu raises his head, frowning. ‘You blame me as well.’ 

‘Yeah, I do,’ Sabito spits out. ‘I blame you for leaving me in a hospital bed,’ his voice grows louder as he talks, ‘I blame you for making me go through hell by myself. Urokodaki tried but he wasn’t my best friend. No, my best friend decided that a cripple wasn’t worth his time and fucked off to who knows where!’

It’s cold. It’s summer but he’s cold. Giyuu swallows. ‘You didn’t want to see me.’ 

‘Is that what you decided?’

It’s not what Giyuu decided it was just a fact. No one wants to see the thing that ruined their life unless it’s burning on a pyre.

‘You were the only person I wanted to see!’

Giyuu doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Sabito gets up and leaves the room. Etsuko takes over Giyuu’s treatment again the next morning. It takes three days for Sabito to stop avoiding him.

Chapter Text

Tucked against the base of a cliff, about an hour's walk from the village centre, there was a rundown house. Apparently, the man who had lived there was a recluse. He grew his own food, milked his own goats, and hunted for his own meat. He spoke to no one and no one spoke to him.

One day, in the dead of summer, his emaciated goats broke out of their paddock and wandered into the village. Out of neighbourly concern, a group of men went to check on the man. They found him partially mummified with his head resting on the chabudai. 

The rumours started after that. People talked about age, illness, poison, suicide, vengeful spirits, curses and demons. The tales grew more gruesome and the children were warned away from the area. 

The house then lay forgotten and empty until little Koji went missing. 

Sabito, still new to the village, had sat on the engawa of the empty clinic and listened to the distant calls for the lost child. The search lasted two days before Koji's thirteen-year-old sister finally stepped forward. 

She, along with five other children, had taken Koji up to the recluse’s house in the dead of night and dared him to go inside and fetch a trinket. Koji, with the reckless bravery of a child, had charged but the moment he was inside the sister closed the door behind him. 

It was a prank. It was a harmless prank until they couldn’t get the rusted door open again. They tried to break through the boards covering up the windows but the wood held solid. They tried to smash through the walls and the roof and maybe the house was cursed because, as old as it was, it didn't break. 

When the sky began to brighten and the fear of punishment for breaking the rules became too great they ran back to the village and left Koji in the house.

They assumed that, given some time, Koji would find a way out and would wander back to the village. They would ask him to keep quiet, the adults would be none the wiser and all would be forgotten. So they stayed quiet even when the search was organised. They stayed quiet as the search ran into the night. And they stayed quiet well into the second day. 

They only spoke out when the villagers began whispering about empty graves.

Three hours after that Sabito learned how to place an IV on a severely dehydrated child. Two hours after that Sabito witnessed a seizure for the first time. In the end, Koji lived and the recluse’s house was broken down into rubble. 

Thirteen-year-olds are stupid. Yes, they are smart enough to understand the consequences of a decision but lack the selflessness and confidence required to face them. A slap on the wrist feels like an execution and in the end it all becomes too overwhelming and an overwhelmed child hides.  

Sabito understood all of that. It made sense that the risk of punishment felt more real to a thirteen-year-old girl than a slow death from dehydration and heat exhaustion. Children are stupid but for some reason he feels like Giyuu should have been smarter, braver, kinder. He should have been better because he is Giyuu; Sabito’s best friend. 

‘Why didn’t you stay after the Final Selection?’ 

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Giyuu says with his hands tangled in his hair as he wrestles it into a low ponytail. 

‘It does.’ 

Giyuu stays silent as he finishes tying his hair back and Sabito has to bite his tongue when he rubs at his unbandaged, sightless eyes.

‘I was scared,’ Giyuu says after a while, just as Sabito's patience is about to snap. 

‘Of what?’ 

‘Breaking,’ Giyuu answers simply.

Thirteen-year-olds are so incredibly stupid.

‘Sabito?’ 

Sabito glances up at Giyuu standing awkwardly in the doorway of the storage room. Raising an eyebrow, Sabito runs an automatic visual check over his patient. He doesn’t find anything physically wrong but he does notice the tightly folded letter pinched between his fingers. 

‘Ah.’ Sabito pushes the half-finished honey poultice away from the edge of the desk and reaches for the letter. ‘Give it here.’ 

He’s familiar enough with the kusagai crows and their letters. Urokodaki and that other retired Hashira frequently sent letters with the birds and once a year a crow would land on the roof of Urokodaki’s house and call out the date of the final selection. There was a crow after Makomo as well.  

It’s been weeks since Giyuu arrived at the clinic and, while it hurts Sabito’s pride, he has considered transferring Giyuu’s care to someone with more experience with the effects of demon blood arts. They could probably figure out a way to get him through the mountain pass without dropping one of the corps pillars off a cliff. Sabito just hasn’t asked yet and Giyuu doesn’t seem that eager to move anyway. 

Either way, Sabito has been expecting a letter enquiring about Giyuu’s whereabouts so he’s a little surprised when his eyes flick down and catch Urokodaki’s familiar signature. Clearly, the letter isn’t about the corps then. 

‘I hope this letter finds you in good health,’ Sabito starts to read aloud, ‘I feel obligated to inform you that, even after two years, Nezuko has not —’

Giyuu snatches that letter back with unerring accuracy. It doesn’t make a difference though, Sabito has already seen the rest of the sentence. 

Nezuko has not consumed human flesh.

The chair creaks as Sabito leans his weight against the back of it. ‘Human flesh,’ he says slowly. It feels like a joke.

‘You misread.’

‘Bullshit!’ Sabito lurches forward in his seat. ‘I’m not illiterate so please, please , tell me Urokodaki-sensei has a bear, or a leach or something .’ 

Giyuu isn't one for lying but he does omit information and his silence deafens Sabito. It’s not a bear and it’s not a joke. 

‘Urokodaki has a fucking demon,’ Sabito shouts. He’s not sure if he’s asking or stating but his hands begin to shake regardless. 

Giyuu shushes him immediately. ‘The whole world doesn’t need to know,’ he says as he steps further into the room and closes the door. 

‘Doesn’t need to know what,’ Sabito asks in a strained whisper, ‘That apparently a hashira and a former hashira know about a demon and have been letting it live for two years ? You could both be killed for that!’ 

‘Which is why it needs to be kept quiet.’ 

‘What the fuck, Giyuu? You’re letting a demon live ?’

Giyuu sighs, like Sabito is the one being unreasonable. ‘She hasn’t eaten anyone, correct?’ 

‘It’s a demon ,’ Sabito stresses even though that should be obvious, ‘it’s going to kill someone eventually.’ 

‘And I will cut my stomach open if that happens.’ 

Sabito freezes. He feels so sick and his lower back throbs. ‘No.’

‘I knew the risks when I let her live,’ Giyuu says as he brushes his thumb against the hilt of his sword. ‘I’ve accepted the consequences.’ 

Sabito clenches his jaw until his teeth threaten to crack. ‘Why,’ he whispers. 

Why are you accepting them? Why did you let a demon live? Why did Urokodaki let a demon live? Demons kill people. Demons eat people. They laugh at you when you fall down the stairs in fear. They don’t care that your mom is still breathing as they crack open her chest cavity. Demons don’t care and demons don’t get to live. 

‘She protected her human brother.’ 

Sabito stares at Giyuu slack jawed and disbelieving. ‘They don’t protect people.’ 

‘She did,’ Giyuu tells him. ‘She protected her —’

‘—Her human brother. Yes, I heard you the first time,’ Sabito snaps. He drags a hand down his face, letting it come to rest over his mouth. ‘You are…It’s not—.’ Sabito shakes his head to try and clear it. ‘It wasn’t Tsutako. You know that right?’

Giyuu’s knuckles turn white as he clenches his hand around the hilt of his sword. ‘I know.’ 

‘Do you?’ 

‘She protected her brother.’ 

‘It was defending a meal! You and Urokodaki-sensei must know that! You are risking your life— sensei’s life— over a demon.’

Giyuu doesn’t waver, he keeps his spine straight and his weight centred. It’s unfair. It’s unfair that he remains so unaffected while Sabito is shaking in his chair. 

‘She was a freshly turned demon. New demons don’t defend their prey,’ Giyuu explains slowly, ‘They are starving, and eating is the only thing they can do. She defended her brother despite that.’ 

‘And that’s enough of a reason to keep it alive?’ 

Giyuu nods. ‘She is an anomaly. Nothing has changed in our war against the demons for hundreds of years except her. That must mean something.’ 

‘It means shit,’ Sabito mumbles. Leaning forward he puts his elbows on the desk and rests his forehead in his hands. He closes his eyes. He feels drained. ‘What happened to the brother?’ 

‘I sent him to Urokodaki-sensei. He wants to find a cure for his sister.’

That’s going to be another useless mission. Sabito presses his forehead harder into his hands. He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and counts to ten. ‘Give me the letter.’ 

Cautiously, Giyuu places the paper on the edge of the desk. Sabito stares at it for a moment before dragging it towards himself. He opens up the letter again, rubbing his hand over the creases to smooth it out. 

Urokodaki’s spidery handwriting greets him again. ‘She’s been asleep for most of the two years,’ he reports, ‘Urokodaki-sensei thinks she’s regaining her energy through sleep rather than eating humans.’ It all sounds rather naive to Sabito. ‘And Tanjiro, that’s the brother, right?’ 

Giyuu nods. 

Sabito folds the letter up and shoves it to the edge again. ‘He cut his boulder. He’s going to the Final Selection.’

Giyuu dips his head in acknowledgment. If he feels as disturbed as Sabito does then he doesn’t show it. 

‘He’s going to die,’ Sabito says. ‘What happens to the demon when he’s gone?’ 

‘He’s not going to die.’ Giyuu runs his fingers over the wooden table top until he brushes then against the letter.

‘Is that demon still on the mountain?’ He doesn’t need to be specific. There’s only one demon behind the wisteria border that matters.

‘Yes.’

‘Then he will die or be maimed for life.’ Sabito can smell wisteria flowers. ‘That demon has it out for Urokodaki’s students and you’re telling me that some random boy will kill that demon by himself? I couldn’t do it.’ 

‘When he was protecting his sister from me he had an axe. I saw him running through the trees with it just before he came directly at me.’

Sabito snorts bitterly. ‘A frontal assault against a stronger opponent is idiotic.’

Giyuu hums in agreement. ‘I knocked him out. Only after I realised he had thrown an axe at me. The frontal assault was a diversion.’ 

He understands what Giyuu is trying to say; that the boy is smart and resourceful. To some extent, Sabito hopes he’s right but hope doesn’t get you very far where demons are concerned. 

‘All you’ve done is set Urokodaki-sensei up to bury another student.’ Sabito uses the desk to support himself as he stands up. ‘He hopes you’re well, by the way.’ He pushes past Giyuu to get to the door. ‘Don’t let anyone else find that letter.’ 

His back gives a warning shock of pain but there’s a restlessness settling into his muscles so Sabito goes to his room, avoids his bed and fetches his sword instead. 

He slips out the back entrance and into the unused field that spreads out along the back of the property. The summer-yellow grass reaches up past his hip and, as Sabito stumbles through the foliage, he absently wonders if someone will bring their cattle to graze it down.

He comes to a stop at the centre of the field. It’s warm even though the sparse clouds are starting to catch the pink light of sundown. Sabito breathes, draws his blade and tosses the scabbard onto the ground. 

Dredging up the memories of his childhood, he shifts his stance, dropping his weight slightly. His legs protest the strain. 

Sabito isn’t stupid he knows he will end up in the dirt sooner or later. He’s not even sure what he’s trying to prove. That his will to fight still exists? That he had once trained to be a demon slayer? Because that’s what he was going to be: A demon slayer . Not whatever Giyuu has become. 

He tightens his grip on the sword, and slices easily through the grass stalks. The seed heads scatter around his feet. 

It’s a caricature of what Urokodaki taught him. He trades control for momentum, speed for strength, and twists his torso to extend his reach instead of dancing through the footwork of water breathing. 

Pain radiates from his lower back causing his legs to spasm. He lets out a yelp as he dops to the ground like a rock. He doesn’t let go of his sword. Urokodaki always told him to never let go of his sword so he clings to the weapon. At least he can follow one thing Urokodaki taught him.

He sheaths the blade in the discarded scabbard and digs the tip of the lacquered wood into the soil. His sweaty palms slip on the hilt as he uses the sword to leverage himself to his feet. His legs tremble but he’s standing and that’s enough for him. 

Sabito redraws the blade and repeats the routine again and again and again. Fight, fall, stand up until even sheer will cannot get him back on his feet. He’s left gazing up at the darkening sky with a rock digging into his hip and the smell of freshly cut grass clogging his nose as he heaves in deep breaths. 

This feels like failure.

The flutter of wings pulls at his attention and his head lolling to the side as Giyuu’s crow half lands, half falls beside him. The old crow tilts his head, regarding Sabito thoughtfully before he begins to snap up the scattered grass seeds. He continues eating even when Sabito runs his fingers over glossy black feathers.

He wonders if a crow will be sent to inform him of Urokodaki and Giyuu’s death. The thought leaves his body feeling hollow. 

They might die. 

Giyuu might die.

Would Sabito be told? Outside of childhood memories and monthly letters, there isn’t anything tangible tying Sabito to the two of them. There would be no reason for the corps to inform him of their deaths. Maybe he would have to figure it out himself when Urokodaki’s letters abruptly stop coming.

Sabito would be the only one left. Only he would remember how Urokodaki seasons his rice with foraged herbs. No one else would know the stupid little hand flutter Giyuu did when he first managed to land the water wheel. Makomo’s memory would be his alone. 

Logically, he knows that Giyuu is somewhere inside the clinic behind him but, flat on his back, looking at the first stars of the night, Sabito feels like he’s already gone. It surprises him how much it hurts. It feels just like it did back in that shitty hospital bed. Sabito shakes his head, he can’t go through that again. 

‘Would you tell me if Giyuu died,’ Sabito asks the crow.

The bird pauses in his scavenging. ‘Giyuu won’t die,’ he states before scratching in the dirt again.

‘You can’t guarantee that.’ The crow either doesn’t hear or can’t be bothered to answer him. 

Giyuu won’t die. 

Sabito wishes he had the simple-minded certainty of the bird.

He stays on the ground for a long time before he leverages himself up and begins the arduous process of getting back onto his feet. The crow is long gone. It takes several attempts before his shaking legs accept his weight and even then fire singes the nerves running from his lower back into the bottom of his feet. A mortifying whine escapes him as the need to lie back down blocks out any other thought but he knows better than to sit in a field in the middle of the night. 

He sends a silent apology to the swordsmith who forged his now glorified walking stick as he begins to limp back to the clinic. 

When he reaches the backdoor, he finds Etsuko standing in the candlelight with her hands on her hips and a worried pinch to her brow. He offers a sheepish smile that turns into a grimace. 

He must look worse than he thought because she herds him into his bed with only a tongue click in place of a lecture. He’s eternally grateful when he’s able to collapse onto his mattress and curl up under the thin summer blanket with the warmth of willow bark tea sitting in his stomach. He hopes Etsuko gave Giyuu his evening medicine.

Chapter Text

One thing Gyomei has never mentioned about being blind, or at least one thing he’s never mentioned to Giyuu, is the relentless paranoia. 

Tonight it's especially bad. 

For hours Giyuu tries to sleep before the feeling of being watched drags him out of the hospital bed and sends him patrolling around the property in the dead of night. 

He draws his sword when the breeze snags on the dry brush and he jerks to the side when a cicada flits past his left ear. 

He is starting on his tenth loop around the garden when he hears a thud followed by a poorly muffled shriek coming from inside the residential wing of the hospital. 

Giyuu moves instinctively. His foot catches on the stone step as he sprints into the hospital although he manages to keep his feet underneath him. 

His shoes are too loud on the wooden floor, giving away his position and ruining any possibility of an ambush but he doesn't dare take the time to remove them. He keeps his blade drawn as he moves through the corridor towards the room that the sound came from. If his mental map is correct then he ends up outside Sabito’s room. 

He throws the door open and braces himself for an attack. The cloying smell of nettles is the first and only scent Giyuu can pick out. He keeps his blade drawn regardless. 

‘Sabito?’

The answering, punched-out grunt draws Giyuu one step further into the room. It’s dizzying going into a room he hasn't mapped out without some kind of anchor. He tilts his head, holding his breath until he can pick out Sabito’s own staccato breaths on the floor a few steps in front of him. Given the earlier thud Giyuu isn’t surprised by this fact.

‘Did you fall?’

‘Fuck off,’ Sabito rasps. A nail taps on the floor one, two, three times before Sabito grunts and another, softer thud can be heard like Sabito has flipped himself over in one quick, uncontrolled movement. 

Giyuu doesn’t know what to do with the whimper that follows. He wants to help. He really wants to help but there isn’t a demon to slay so he’s left standing uselessly on the sidelines while Sabito wrestles his pain back under control. 

Standing starts to feel like looming but leaving isn’t an option, so Giyuu folds his legs underneath him and lowers himself onto the floor. He hunches his back slightly in an attempt to further decrease the height difference between him and Sabito in any way that doesn’t include flopping onto the floor next to the other man. 

He counts out the length of every inhale he hears from Sabito. It takes a long time before they are anywhere close to what Giyuu would consider and normal rate for breathing. 

‘You’re still here,’ Sabito observes.

There isn’t any response Giyuu can give so he settles on a question instead. ‘Why are you on the floor?’ 

‘Why are you skulking around in the middle of the night,’ Sabito counters. 

‘Nightmares,’ Giyuu answers plainly. It’s mostly true. The nightmares just happen to be when he’s awake. 

Sabito huffs. ‘Same fucking boat.’

Giyuu inclines his chin in understanding. The breeze slips in through an open window, stirring up the honey-sweet smell again. It’s a rather nostalgic scent. He has half a mind to ask about the smell but Sabito speaks up first.

‘Should we have told Urokodaki? About the warding masks?’

Warding masks? Ah, the ones Urokodaki made for all his students. He hadn’t considered that Tanjiro would receive one. His own lay shattered under a floorboard at the water estate. He cannot throw away a gift from his teacher but he doesn’t want to see the thing that inadvertently marked him and his best friend for slaughter. 

‘He doesn’t need to know,’ Giyuu eventually says. 

Sabito hums out a vague agreement. ‘But your mountain boy’s odds would be better if he knew.’ 

He’s right. Sabito usually is but how do you tell someone their actions are responsible for more than a dozen deaths? You don’t, is the answer Giyuu came up with years ago and he imagines that Sabito, given his current musings, came to the same decision.  

Whatever pain Sabito is in must surge up because he hissed through clenched teeth and bangs his fist against the floor. He recovers from this bout of pain faster than the last one although Giyuu still catches the smell of his sweat. 

‘Sometimes I dream,’ Sabito rasps, ‘of going back to the mountain and killing the demon. I want it to beg for mercy and then I want it to die anyway. Giyuu? Why is it still alive?’ 

‘Because no one has killed it.’ 

‘Obviously but why has no one killed it?’ There’s anger in his voice. ‘I can’t imagine it would be difficult kill for a Hashira.’ 

The underlying accusation makes Giyuu’s fingers curl into the light fabric of his yukata. He doesn’t like how flimsy it feels. 

‘Why haven’t you killed it?’ 

Giyuu can feel Sabito watching him. 

‘Does it living really not bother you,’ Sabito pushes.  

‘I tried to kill it,’ Giyuu confesses. And oh, did he try. Once as a mizunoe, twice as kanoto, once as a hinoto and four times as a kinoe. 

‘So why is it still alive?’ Then a more venomous, ‘did you grow attached to that one too?’ 

‘I didn’t,’ Giyuu bristles. Does Sabito really have such a low opinion of him? ‘I was stopped and ordered not to kill it.’ More than once he had to suffer the indignity of Gyomei scruffing him like a cat and dragging him off the mountain. 

Sabito’s breath hitches as he shifts again. ‘Why would anyone want that thing to live?’ 

Giyuu has an answer to that but he doesn’t like it. Sabito won’t like it either. 

A slayer must be able to assess an opponent and recognise when they are outmatched. A good slayer knows how to run . 

That last part makes Giyuu’s blood boil. Sabito was the best swordsman and to imply that he was anything less than ‘good’ is sickening. So Giyuu keeps his mouth shut and hopes its enough for Sabito. 

Nothing is ever enough for Sabito. 

‘Who the fuck is ok with keeping it alive,’ Sabito seethes, ‘it’s killing children ! At the very least there should be a fucking warning; hey, doesn’t fucking matter how hard you trained there’s a fucking monstrosity in there that’s going to kill you anyway!’  

The wind shifts again and the scent grows even stronger coating the back of Giyuu’s tongue. He deepens his breath and catches the thin notes of lavender. Finally, his mind is able to match the smell to the one in his memory. 

‘Are you ignoring me,’ Sabito asks incredulously. 

Giyuu nods. ‘Magic ointment,’ he says as a way of explanation.  

Apparently, it's not enough of an explanation because Sabito goes quiet and Giyuu gets the distinct feeling that he’s gaping at him. 

‘I hate you,’ Sabito says eventually but it doesn’t have the same bite as when Sanemi says it. Sabito says it in the same tone of voice he used when they were kids and Giyuu stole his last piece of salmon. ‘Have you spent this whole time trying to figure out what you’re smelling?’

‘It smelled familiar.’ 

‘Glad to know that you’re blind as a bat and dumb as a rock but at least your sense of smell is fine.’

Giyuu thinks he should be offended by that but instead something in his chest that he didn’t even know was tight loosens. It feels right. This — the smell of Urokodaki’s pain relieving ointment hanging in the air while Sabito needles Giyuu — feels right. 

‘Oi, you don’t get to smile when I say something like that!’

Giyuu ignores the comment. ‘Do you collect the nettles yourself?’ 

There’s a long pause with the weight of Sabito’s stare sitting heavily on his shoulders.

‘I do the actual grading and making myself,’ Sabito says slowly like he doesn’t know what to do with this situation. ‘I get the village kids to do the gathering for me.’ 

The skin on Giyuu’s arms itches as another memory is dredged up. ‘That’s cruel.’ 

Sabito laughs. It’s pain-tinged but real. ‘It’s called delegating. I did my time collecting stinging nettles for Urokodaki. It's time for the younger generation to suffer. Builds character. Turns them into men.’ 

Giyuu feels his lips jerk upwards. ‘I don’t remember it building character just being really itchy and sore.’ 

‘It would have been less itchy and sore if you weren’t clumsy enough to fall into a patch of nettles.’ 

‘You pushed me,’ Giyuu points out quietly.

‘I was guiding you out the way,’ Sabito corrects. His voice is smiling. ‘You’re just skittish.’ 

‘Your “guiding” gave me hives for a week.’ 

‘And it was a good thing we had Magic Ointment, wasn’t it?’ 

Giyuu glares in Sabito’s direction. All it does is make Sabito laugh harder with the occasional ‘ow’ interspersed with wheezing breaths Sabito’s laughing. Giyuu misses the sound the moment Sabito’s chuckles die off and the room turns silent. 

‘Do you think things would have been better if we hadn’t gone to the selection,’ Sabito says softly.

Giyuu dips his chin down in a single slow nod. He’s replayed the Final Selection a hundred times in his mind, dissecting every moment and choice leading up to, during and after that week. He thinks more than half the scars he’s earned during his stint as a slayer is because he was running through what happened on that mountain rather than focusing on the fight in front of him. 

No one can change the past but he’s been told that one can learn from previous experiences so he will continue to study that god awful mistake. It’s doubtful that he has learnt anything but he has tried. 

‘Giyuu?’ 

‘Hm.’

‘I’m kind of sick of lying on the floor.’ 

In the space of two heart beats Giyuu figures out the implication of that sentence. 

He knows Sabito is injured permanently. He knew that when he heard the crack of his spine against the tree. He relearnt that fact when he heard the wheelchair. Yet, somehow he is once again discovering that Sabito, strong, independent Sabito, has been left permanently maimed while Giyuu gets to walk freely through the world. 

It’s a hard to swallow around the realisation that if Giyuu left the room right now Sabito would likely be stuck on the floor until someone else came in to help him up. 

Not for the first time Giyuu wishes he could take Sabito’s place. The world would have lost a lot less if it was who Giyuu was confined to a bed. Giyuu would have lost less. 

He consciously has to stop his hands from shaking as he shuffles forward and slips one arm under Sabito’s knees and another behind his back. The minute movement causes Sabito to gasp in pain and Giyuu freezes, wondering what he did wrong and how to fix it. 

‘Don’t drag it out,’ Sabito snarls, sweat-damp and trembling, ‘ move !’   

Giyuu does as he’s told, hefting Sabito into his arms and stepping forward until his knees crack onto the side of the bed. He deposits Sabito onto the mattress as quickly and gently as he can. 

Sabito chokes on air and Giyuu is left to marvel as his own uselessness. He’s not Kocho, he doesn’t know how to soothe a patient. He doesn’t know how to distract a victim like Rengoku or Misturi. He doesn’t even know where that pain relieving ointment is. It’s probably near Sabito’s bedside but he doesn’t want to risk knocking something over and creating a bigger problem so he’s left waiting. 

‘Thanks,’ Sabito grits out when the worst of the pain seems to dissipate again. He sounds exhausted and frayed. 

Giyuu bows his head, staying by the bedside for a few moments longer in case Sabito asks for something else but the other man stays silent and Giyuu takes that as a dismissal. He hopes that Sabito manages to find sleep. He knows he won’t so he goes back to the garden with the ghost of a living demon following in his footsteps.

Sabito startles awake with the feeling of rot clogging his nostrils and mud caked under his fingernails. He lies on his back, shaking as he breathes through the panic and electric pain that radiates from his back down into the soles of his feet just like that first doctor taught him.  

The panic recedes. 

The pain does not. It never really does. 

Clenching his jaw, Sabito leverages himself up using his arms. It’s a painful, arduous process that leaves his hair sticking to the back of his neck and his vision going grey. He digs his knuckles into the small of his back to massage out the thick ball of muscle tension. It doesn’t really do anything to relieve the pain but at least it feels like he’s actively doing something. 

He’s not going to get back to sleep so he might as well do some research. He turns on the oil lamp by his bedside and drags a thick medical textbook off the table, depositing it into his lap. He thumbs through the pages, catching on the dog eared page half way through the poisonous plants section that he’s been methodically working his way through the last two days. 

He’s been playing around with the idea of adding wisteria into Giyuu’s eye drops because of its demon repelling properties but the section on wisteria is disconcertingly small. The book mentions its poisonous effects, most of which Sabito is intimately familiar with given that there is a senile woman in the village that has tried to make tea with the flowers every time she gets ahold of the blooms. There is a little sentence, right at the bottom of the page that touts the flowers as a ‘deterrent for the clinically sadistic and insane.’ He supposes that a medical textbook that spoke of demons would be quickly discredited so he applauds the author for sneaking that bit of information in. 

Sabito has never been good at sitting still and reading, something Urokodaki used to reprimand him for, so before long he decides to shelve the theoretical aspect of his research and move on to the more exciting experimenting. 

With moonlight streaming through his window, Sabito manages to shift himself into the waiting wheelchair and heads out of his room and into the medical storage room. The journey takes an embarrassingly long time given his need for frequent breaks to avoid passing out in the hallway. 

He is delighted to find a dusty bottle of dried wisteria buds at the back of the herb wrack. With the bottle in hand and several other herbs and oils in his lap he wheels himself to the work bench and sets up a little station for himself. 

He has to take a break before he truly gets started. His blunt nails dig into the padded armrests of his wheelchair as he waits out the fresh waves of fire licking through his body. 

He knew the pain would get worse now that he’s sitting up. It’s not a surprise to him but somehow it still freezes the air inside his lungs.

Its fine, he tells himself, pain is just a warning. It can be ignored.But a hashira's absence from the demon slayer corps can not. He decided to be in charge of Giyuu’s care so it is his responsibility to make this work. So he grits his teeth and starts to create a poison potent enough to destroy the lingering effects of the blood demon art but mild enough to not blind Giyuu permanently. Hopefully.

Chapter Text

Etsuko looks ready to murder Sabito when she finds him in the workroom with the sun barely peeking over the horizon. Her mouth presses into a thin line and she rudely grabs the handles of the wheelchair and physically drags him away from his work station. 

Sabito is too exhausted to put up much of a fight other than a token protest of, ‘I’m not done yet.’ 

‘Yes, you are,’ Etsuko tells him, ‘you’re paler than a ghost. Do you think fainting will help get your work done.’ She wheels him through the hallway and into his bedroom. ‘If I catch you out of this room for anything other than going to the bathroom then I will tie you down to the bed.’  

Sabito works his jaw but doesn’t call her bluff. He sulks silently as Etsuko maneuvers the wheelchair beside the bed and offers support as he pulls himself across the gap and onto the devastatingly, perfectly soft mattress. His pain level drops as his weight is taken off his lower back and it’s only now that he can register how tightly wound his muscles were. Still, he could have kept working and he tells Etsuko as much. 

He gets a doubtful snort in return as Etsuko, in what the villages have dubbed as ‘full-blown mother hen mode,’ fusses with the blankets and pillows. ‘What has gotten into you,’ she scolds, ‘You aren’t this stupid, never have been, but now you’re cussing out patients, yes, I know about that, and you’re running around playing with a sword of all things and -’

‘I wasn’t playing,’ Sabito snaps, ‘I’m not a child.’ 

Etsuko’s hands go still, arthritic knuckles tangled in the blanket. She looks at him with narrowed eyes and a crease between her eyebrows. ‘You’re right,’ she says eventually, her face softening as she goes back to her fussing, ‘You weren’t playing and I apologise for insinuating that you were. I am only worried about your health.’ 

Sabito leans his head back on the pillows and closes his eyes. How are you supposed to stay angry at an elderly woman after she gives such a sincere apology? She wasn’t exactly wrong either. What else had he been doing if not playing pretend? He certainly wasn’t training or even moving in that fluid, meditative fashion Giyuu starts his mornings with. 

The bed dips under Etsuko’s weight as she sits down. ‘Tomioka-san was a bigger part of your life than you let on.’

It’s not a question but Sabito nods anyway. 

‘He reminds you of what you used to want to do, yes?’ 

Sabito shakes his head, opening his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. ‘I’ve done this already. I’ve done the bargaining and denial thing. I’ve accepted that this is my reality and it’s fine. I’m happy.’ 

‘Take it from an old woman,’ Etsuko pats his hand, ‘grief isn’t linear and it circles back to you. Easier every time but it still circles back. For the first time in a long time, you are being confronted with what you’ve lost.’  

‘I know that I’m injured every day. Kind of a hard thing to forget,’ Sabito says, vaguely gesturing towards his legs that are useless to him today.

‘You’re not confronted with your injury. You’re confronted with your what-ifs. What if you had the strength and mobility of Tomioka-san? What would you do? 

Sabito hates how his eyes sting in response to her words. ‘Stop tragedies before they happen.’ He wants to behead a demon before another child loses their family. He wants to save someone from experiencing pain rather than doing a patch job in the aftermath.

‘Tragedies will always happen,’ Etsuko tells him, ‘no one can prevent them all from happening and that’s why there must be someone there when the aftermath comes. The frontlines are important but what comes after is no less so.’ 

She sighs, reaches forward, and squeezes Sabito’s hand. ‘Get some rest. Tomorrow you can look at whatever concoction you’ve made and assess it when your mind is clear.’  

Later, Sabito wakes up with a spit-wet pillow and the sun hanging high in the sky. The pain has lessened to something a little sharper than his normal. The nausea has faded and has left him feeling like he’s on the verge of starving. 

He sits himself up, fully prepared to make the long trip to the kitchen until he notices a plate of onigiri sitting on his bedside table. The rice is still warm to the touch and Sabito marvels at Etsuko’s ability to just know when her patients are going to wake up and what they are going to need. 

He plops the plate onto his lap and shoves half of a rice ball into his mouth. He is not expecting the citrus notes that spread onto his tongue. Blinking down at the remaining rice ball in his hand he can make out the flecks of yuzu zest scattered throughout. It’s a substitute, one Sabito himself has used when trying to replicate the tang of the broad-leafed shrub that grows behind Urokodaki’s house. 

Sabito rolls his eyes and finishes the rice ball, licking his fingers clean before moving on to the second one. 

Giyuu has always been… weird about food. He eats like he’s starved, hunched over and hyper-focused on whatever is in front of him. When Giyuu is eating one has to talk at him because getting him to pause long enough between bites to reply is a near impossible task.

As a child, Sabito just took it as one of the many quirks of his best friend but now, after seeing one too many impoverished patients, he knows it's a behaviour born out of trauma. The months between Tsutako’s death and Urokodaki bringing him home left Giyuu half-dead and skeletal. The experience as a whole left Giyuu with a higher appreciation for food than most.

When they lived with Urokodaki, Sabito would always wake up to some kind of food next to his pillow the morning after fights. Small disputes usually resulted in a bundle of nuts or berries while more vicious ones yielded noodles and soups.

If Giyuu had his sight, Sabito probably would have woken up with a seven-course meal surrounding him because he knows what this meal is supposed to say: Sorry for putting their teacher in a dangerous position. Sorry for dragging up memories Sabito would rather forget. And thank you for everything. 

Sabito finishes the last of the onigiri before sinking back into the bed. He buries his nose in the blanket despite the summer heat. 

The following day Etsuko lets Sabito leave his room. He wheels himself right back to the workroom bench. 

Everything is as he left it so he plunges straight back into his work, only stopping long enough to help Estuko set a broken arm on one of the village boys. He pays the same boy to go to the village apothecary and collect fourteen more samples of dried wisteria blooms.

It’s another two whole days of non-stop work before Sabito has a finished eyedrop solution. The final mixture is clear like water but the wisteria smell is strong enough to make it astringent. For the first time in a while, Sabito feels unequivocally proud. This is something he made with the sole purpose of killing whatever demon venom is lingering in Giyuu’s eyes. It’s not the same as beheading an actual demon but, god, does it come close. 

As the afternoon turns into evening, Sabito goes in search of Giyuu to administer the first dose. It doesn’t take long to find him as Giyuu has sat himself down on the engawa and is staring up at the glass windchime. 

It’s a sight that makes Sabito stop in his tracks as he realises there is nothing around Tomioka Giyuu. The realisation dims the bubbling excitement that Sabito has held for most of the day. Giyuu has been here for weeks but as far as Sabito is aware no one has visited him. Urokodaki is the only one who has sent him a letter, arguably a plain business letter, and Giyuu has never sent one out. The only flowers in Giyuu’s room are the ones Shigeru puts there periodically.

A plate of onigiri is the only interaction Giyuu has initiated that wasn’t out of necessity. Giyuu has always been introverted but this is isolation. Sabito gets the sudden sense that his younger self is cursing at him because he has been letting his best friend suffer and Giyuu, by default, must still be Sabito’s best friend because no other person has taken that place. 

Isolation can kill. If you have no one supporting you and no one to protect then why bother fighting at all? Patients heal faster when surrounded by people who care for them. That is an indisputable fact. It raises the question of whether the demon venom is the only reason Giyuu still remains here. 

Sabito shakes himself out of his thoughts. Pondering these things now won’t help anyone. 

‘Can you see it,’ Sabito asks in lieu of a greeting as he walks closer. 

Giyuu doesn’t startle at his sudden appearance and Sabito vaguely wonders when exactly the Hashira clocked his approach. 

‘The light,’ Giyuu says just as the glass twists and catches the dying light in a burst of brightness.

‘That’s not much but I’m going to fix that.’

The declaration is enough to get Giyuu to tilt his head toward Sabito. 

‘Come on.’ Sabito bends slightly and tugs at Giyuu’s arm. There’s not enough strength in the motion to haul him up but Giyuu complies anyway, getting his feet under him and standing up with enviable grace. He doesn’t fight even when Sabito refuses to let go of his arm and instead pulls him into the clinic.

He leads Giyuu the whole way back to his room and deposits him onto the bed. Everything is already set up on the bedside trolley and Sabito’s heart does a little somersault in anticipation. 

‘I think I’ve figured out a solution that’s actually going to work,’ Sabito starts explaining as he washes his hands in the little basin. ‘It’s wisteria flower-based and is admittedly closer to a poison than a medicine.’ 

Giyuu doesn’t seem fazed by the comment so Sabito carries on. ‘Ideally, I would have used fresh flowers but I couldn’t get a hold of ‘em. The dried ones should work fine as well; it just means the dosage will need to be higher. Take this.’ 

Giyuu holds out a hand and Sabito gives him a wad of tissues. ‘Your eyes are going to weep a lot. It’s a poison after all,’ Sabito explains. ‘It will also sting a little but it shouldn’t last more than a few seconds. If it does, tell me because it means the ratio of wisteria to carrier oil is wrong and I’ll need to rinse your eyes or risk permanent damage.’ 

‘This could make me permanently blind?’

‘Unlikely but it’s possible,’ Sabito answers honestly. ‘How much can you see at the moment?’ 

‘Bright lights.’ 

‘Any colours?’

‘No.’  

‘Any questions?’ 

‘No.’

Sabito uncaps the eyebrow bottle, the pipette clinking against the lip of the glass vial. Giyuu, long since gotten used to the routine, tips his head back without Sabito asking. 

It takes seconds to put two drops in each eye and it feels like an anticlimactic finish after a month of research and almost a week of experimentation. Regardless, Sabito recaps the bottle and watches as Giyuu blinks quickly to ease the stinging. 

Sabito gingerly sits down in the chair by Giyuu’s bed. It will be at least fifteen minutes before he’s certain the eyedrops won’t make Giyuu’s eyeballs fall out or something so he waits as Giyuu sniffs and periodically wipes at his eyes. 

‘Giyuu,’ Sabito starts when it’s clear the other man won’t protest them sitting in stifling silence, ‘is there a medical team for the corps?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

The answer isn’t surprising and Sabito has long suspected that there must be some form of medical facility but... ‘Then why not contact them? I’m sure they would have better ways to handle this.’ 

‘Kocho does not need the inconvenience.’ 

‘Kocho?’

‘The doctor.’ 

Sabito hesitates. ‘The…only doctor?’ 

Giyuu hums out a yes. 

‘One doctor,’ Sabito repeats slowly, ‘Only one doctor? For the whole of the Demon Slayers?’ 

Giyuu shrugs. ‘Minor injuries can be treated by civilian doctors.’ 

‘And major injuries,’ Sabito presses.

Giyuu makes a face like Sabito just asked a stupid question. ‘Major injuries rarely make it back.’ 

That’s a thought that sends cold realisation flooding through Sabito’s body. The only real ‘battlefield’ Sabito has seen was Mount Fujikasane. He knew the risks then and he suffered one of those major injuries but he’s not sure if he ever considered the outcome as lucky. He certainly never truly considered what it would be like to go into those citations again and again and again. 

As a child, he imagined the ending of the fights but they never ended with his death. In his mind families would embrace each other in relief, a demon would be disintegrating at his feet and he would be showered with well-earned praise. He didn’t consider the numerous occasions where the slayer died with the demon or perhaps even instances where the demon is the one to walk away. What was the mortality rate for the demon slayers?

‘Still,’ Sabito says, his thoughts tumbling out of his mouth, ‘one doctor isn’t enough for the slayers. For the victims.’ 

‘It’s not,’ Giyuu agrees.

Of course, he agrees. If he didn’t he wouldn’t be sitting in Sabito’s hospital with clouded eyes. 

‘Why aren’t there more then?’ 

‘There just aren’t.’ 

Two crows arrive the next morning.

The first is Urokodaki’s loyal crow who swoops through the window with practiced ease. She lands on the bed next to Giyuu and belts out, ‘a letter for Tomioka Giyuu!’ 

The second crow bursts into the room in a flurry of feathers and shouts. ‘KAW! A letter for Kaji Sabito! A letter for Kaji Sabito! KAW!’ The unfamiliar crow drops down on Sabito’s head without warning or invitation. Its sharp claws tug on his hair as the bird continues to beat its wings and shriek at the top of its lungs.

‘Oh, fuck - shit, stop that!’ Sabito waves his arms above his head in an attempt to dislodge the crow and only succeeds in having his fingers bitten. ‘Who the fuck do you even belong to,’ Sabito shouts in an attempt to be heard over the racket. 

‘Kamado Tanjiro,’ the crow squawks back.

Sabito freezes, his arms still held above his head as he looks at Giyuu with wide eyes. The Hashira’s own lips are parted with surprise.

‘The boy training under Urokodaki,’ Sabito tentatively confirms.

The crow finally hops onto Sabito’s forearm and can be brought down to eye level. ‘Yes!’ 

‘He passed,’ Giyuu says quietly, like the idea can’t be real unless the words aren’t spoken. 

‘He passed,’ Sabito echoes incredulously. ‘Your stupid mountain boy survived.’ 

Urokodaki will not have to bury another child. This one survived. Wordlessly, Sabito takes the letter in Giyuu’s hand and unfolds it, careful not to disturb the crow that is finally sitting quietly. 

‘Giyuu,’ Sabito starts to read aloud, ‘I hope this letter finds you in good health. Tanjiro has passed the Final Selection and has joined the Demon Slayer ranks. Nezuko is awake and in his company.’ Sabito looks over the paper’s edge to gauge Giyuu’s reaction but there is nothing other than an untensing of his shoulders. ‘I believe they will do well.’

Sabito hands Giyuu his letter back before extricating his own from the string tied around the bastard crow’s leg. Both birds take off the moment the letter is in his hand. 

He fiddles with the corners of the paper, smoothing down the creases as he tries to guess what is written in the letter. When his mind comes up empty he takes a breath and starts skimming over the words.

He gets halfway through the letter before the ink lines start to blur in front of his eyes. Three-quarters and the paper becomes wet. He barely makes it to the chair before his legs give out. A loud sob slips past Sabito’s lips and he immediately claps his free hand over his mouth to catch the ones that follow. 

‘Sabito?’ 

Sabito feels bad for making Giyuu sound so worried but he’s struggling to draw in enough breath to explain everything. He’s glad for the privacy Giyuu’s blindness provides him because Sabito knows he must look like a mess. 

‘I’m ok,’ Sabito manages to say as another fat tear drips off his chin. He shouldn’t be crying. The hand demon is dead. Giyuu’s mountain boy killed the demon that shattered Sabito’s previous life. He should be celebrating, not breaking into pieces. 

‘Did you-,’ Sabito clears his throat and forces air into his lungs, ‘-did you speak about Makamo? The others?’

The concerned look on Giyuu’s face only grows deeper. ‘No.’ 

‘Oh…Ok’ Sabito stares down at the letter in his shaking hands. ‘Tanjiro said they trained him,’ Sabito blurts out, ‘Makamo and the others. He can’t be lying right? Urokodaki said he didn’t say anything. Your boy shouldn’t know about them.’ 

Sabito’s heart aches and a fresh wave of tears chokes out any else he wanted to say. Urokodaki doesn’t speak about the children who passed. Sabito only knows about them because he knew Makamo and Makamo only knew because she knew everything and Giyuu only knows about them because Sabito told him. There should be no way for Tanjiro to know about them. Even if he did know saying that they trained him would be a sick joke and Sabito isn’t willing to believe that a boy saved by Giyuu and Urokodaki would be so cruel. Which leaves only one option that Sabito can barely dare to believe. 

‘She made it home,’ Sabito croaks out, ‘I always worried that she…She liked it on our mountain. She liked the sunrise. I’m glad she got home.’ He hiccups and curls forward until his back protests. She was his second sister. She was too gentle to be trapped in a godforsaken graveyard. They all made it back. 

Hesitant arms wrap around Sabito’s shoulders. The pressure is feather light but Sabito follows it and slumps forward until his head rests on a solid abdomen. His nose is snotty and he bites down on his knuckles to block the worst of the keening sounds that work up his throat. He’s happy and it hurts. He’s grieving and it’s cathartic.    

Calloused fingers begin to draw meaningless patterns into Sabito’s shuddering back. It feels like a lifeline as Sabito continues to tremble. With startling clarity, he decides that things might be ok.