Chapter Text
Happiness is fleeting, its like a small and delicate leaf that gets carried by the wind landing each time in a different place over and over again until it reaches the end of its short life span, becoming wrinkled, losing its vibrant green colors… the insignificant part it took in all of existence being quickly forgotten. That analogy could be applied to all living things, plants, animals, humans, demons.
Yumeko stopped dead on her tracks, the forest was silent, only the howling of the wind and the occasional caws from her kasugai crow would interrupt it. The silence reminded her of that summer night, when the silver moon was at its highest point in the sky, when she had desperately tried to run the fastest her injured legs could handle, she had lounged at full force at the demon with her naginata but it wasn’t enough, nothing would had ever been enough. Even now as the recently-named Dream Pillar she doesn’t think she would have been able to reach her father to save him in time, and the guilt of it ate her alive from the inside.
It felt as if a vein would pop out of her head each time the memory came to plague her life, she remembered that man… that thing, that monster. The demon cut her father in half, he didn’t even eat him, he left his body to rot while the pool of crimson blood would spread across the forest floor slowly reaching where she was kneeling, covering her star and moon patterned haori in blood.
She blinked, reality hitting her face as she no longer imagined the forest from that night, instead she looked at what seemed for Yumeko to be an endless snow-covered forest. Foolish thoughts, she tried to reprimand herself, her focus shifted back on the track. Kurayami, her kasugai crow, had led her to this place where rumors of a demon started to appear around the area, although it was daytime the cloudy weather would most likely give this ‘demon’ a chance to move through the day, she hoped to catch it before it hurt anyone.
It all happened so fast, one moment she was walking through the forest and in the blink of an eye Yumeko was holding her double-edged naginata, pointing one of the ends to the man in front of her.
To her disappointment, the man in front of her was in fact not the demon she was searching for, instead the distinctive haori with one half being a plain pattern of carmine color and the other a geometric pattern of green, dark green, orange and yellow made her want to groan. “Mr. Tomioka?” Yumeko called out to her fellow hashira, “What a surprise to see you here!” she said, trying her best to mask her annoyance, it’s not that she hated him no, but she was truly hoping to simply deal with the demon and go home without the need to socialize, “It seems we both got the same mission, it doesn’t matter, this just means it will all end quickly.”
“You’re late.” He replied, short and direct, very characteristic of him.
Yumeko blinked, “Oh is that right?” she used a tone of disappointment to mask the feeling of relief that the news brought to her. “My apologies, I would have arrived hours earlier if a certain crow here hadn’t gotten lost five times.” The antique jade-eyed girl shot a murderous look to Kurayami who only fled from the scene.
The two hashiras stood in silence looking at each other under the falling snow, small snowflakes stuck on her pitch black hair. Yumeko was a person who prided herself in at least noticing what other people around her felt, but her skills couldn’t be applied with the man in front of her. The Water Pillar never seemed to look anything else other than bored or focused at the task at hand, despite this, Yumeko had managed to learn the smallest patterns in his personality which contradicted the state he was currently in. His shoulders were too tense and there was a slight tremble on his hand.
“There is a town by the base of the mountain,” the younger girl said, “perhaps we should rest there before-”
“I have another mission.” The dark haired man said, moving to walk past her.
Yumeko stared at the empty space that Tomioka left, how infuriating this man could be. Seriously, the Dream Pillar had tried multiple times to befriend or at least get to know her fellow hashiras better ever since the master had named her as one, but it seemed impossible to even start a small conversation with him! She huffed, her breath was visible under the cold weather and the scarf around her neck wasn’t helping anymore against it or against her growing annoyance.
Just as she was about to turn around and go off on him, there was a sudden shift in the air. It became more dense and that characteristic putrid smell of dead bodies reached her nose, and with it she sensed the presence of the enemy. Tomioka stopped Yumeko from running towards the source of the smell by grabbing the collar of her uniform, “Wrong direction.” he said, but Yumeko noticed the smallest tone of uncertainty or nervousness in his tone.
Did he hit himself in the head? she thought.
She slapped his arm away from her and stumbled forwards when he released his hold on Yumeko, “Before going to your next mission you should perhaps go see a medic first, Tomioka.” She spoke calmly, but there was a clear tension in her voice. “Even as hashira we can make mistakes, the stench of death clearly comes from that direction.”
“What you smell are the remains of the demon.” His voice was calm but what was odd to her was that Tomioka didn’t make any move, he didn’t walk away to where he was supposedly needed nor did he make any attempt to stop her, he simply stared at her as if waiting for Yumeko to let go of the topic.
“Caw! Caw! Northeast! Northeast! There are demons northeast! Caw! Caw!”
Saved by the crows, Yumeko thought as she placed her naginata comfortably on her back, his behavior was indeed strange, too strange even for someone like him. Yumeko couldn’t shake that annoying and persistent feeling that something was not right, but no matter how much she tried she could not name it. With her patience and time running short, she resigned herself to follow hers and Tomioka’s crow to the northeast side of the mountain after all she could come back later to investigate whatever it was that he tried to hide from her.
By the time she had finished with the mission, the moon had already risen from her slumber. Yumeko found herself back on the trail that would lead her where she had been originally assigned to go, with the Water Pillar long gone the antique jade-eyed girl didn’t worry about having any unwanted interruptions this time.
What she found was a house in a small clearing amidst the dense forest, the presence she had felt earlier that day had vanished as Yumeko couldn’t find any sign of a demon anywhere near the house. She carefully slid the shoji door open with one hand while the other hovered just above her weapon in case the demon was hiding inside and attempted to take her by surprise, instead her eyes widened like plates when she was met with the sight of blood-covered walls as well as pieces of broken wood thrown all around the place.
She covered her mouth and nose with the sleeves of her haori to avoid smelling the results of the carnage that the demon had caused. Yumeko searched every corner of the house for any sight of life while grimacing from time to time, but with the deep dark red that tainted the walls as the only evidence left behind Yumeko couldn’t do anything but accept the grim possibility that most likely there had been no survivors.
Her thoughts were proven right the moment she stepped out of the house, her eyes noticed a part of the terrain by the border of the clearing that seemed ‘malformed’ from where she was standing. It was until she approached it that Yumeko discovered five bodies covered by dirt.
Bit by bit she began to remember everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours. As much as it hurt her ego Tomioka had been right, there weren’t any signs of a demon anymore and as much as her instincts told her otherwise the only logical outcome was that whatever she had sensed earlier that day were indeed the remains of the demon, but even that answer made no sense to Yumeko even after thinking about it over and over again. It is known by all demon slayers that demons after being decapitated didn’t rot, they vanished into the air like ashes in a matter of seconds. Why then would she still feel the presence of one if they had died long ago?
And why would he stop her from checking the area?
Yumeko kneeled in front of the graves and prayed for the victims, she prayed for them to find peace in the afterlife and to be reborn with a better future. While doing it, her mind couldn’t help but wander back to those questions. Shame, she thought, and perhaps that was the answer, although Yumeko wouldn’t use the word shame to describe the feeling of impotence after not being able to save a life, the responsibility of it weighing down on one’s shoulders for the rest of their life until they drown due to it.
She didn’t know why but suddenly Yumeko felt a tear running down her cheek.
Using her naginata as support, Yumeko stood from where she was kneeling wiping away any traitorous tear from falling down. Leaving her with no clues nor any answers Yumeko resigned herself to leave the place and head back home with an increasing headache due to her lack of sleep. It was because of the headache that Yumeko did not notice the trail of two set of footsteps that were slowly being erased by the snowfall.