Chapter Text
May 1st
Four Years Old
Senjuro doesn’t know where the person appears from, all Senjuro feels is a gust of wind around him as he runs. It’s a second later he bumps face-first into someone. He grasps onto the pant leg of the person, trying to right himself before he falls completely into them.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Senjuro apologies backing away from whomever he’s carelessly bumped into, though he’s sure there was no one in front of him! Well he had been running so maybe he just didn’t see this person, he was so late returning from the village.
When he looks up there’s a man standing in front of him.
His skin is so white and pale, almost glowing in the moonlight. There is some type of lined markings that are all over his body, Senjuro also notices his bright pink-colored hair that matches his eyebrows and eyelashes.
When Senjuro meets the man’s eyes he gasps, are those letters? Some type of lense that covers the eyes? He watches as a smile beings to spread on the man’s face, so wide it stretches his skin in a way that looks painful. It exposes two of his unnaturally sharp teeth.
Perhaps it’s because he’s only four and hasn’t meet many people in his life but Senjuro quickly concludes this man was very strange. From unnaturally pale skin, odd hair and eyes to the weird markings across his body, he was different.
Aniue had told him that many of the Hashira were strange and colorful like this man was. Yet no matter how strange they were aniue always said they were strong and saved people like Senjuro. He also remembers aniue saying Hashira patrolled the night, protecting people like him and aniue from demons at night!
Senjuro watches as the man raises his hand in the air, that smile on his face seeming to grow even wider, this Hashira was so kind!
A smile spreads across Senjuro’s face returning the man’s smile, his vision blurring slightly from the strength of it. But he couldn’t believe his luck, he ran into a Hashira! This Hashira could help him get home, everything was all right now!
When his vision clears he’s confused to see the man’s hand poised at his face, those sharp nails inches from his nose. He hesitantly inches his head around the hand, confused by the Hashira’s strangeness.
He’s even more confused when he looks at the Hashira and sees his smile dropped, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and mouth agape.
“Uhm, Hashira-sama will you take me home?” Senjuro asks hopefully, just in case there are monsters out!
“Huh?”
—-
Akaza hates children. They were such easy meals, unexciting meals as well. Eating other demon slayers or particularly strong humans was Akaza’s favorite hunt, children were not. He tended to avoid them, not because of any morality behind it, but because children were worthless as food. They were too small to provide any real nutrients to any Upper Rank demon.
Especially weak children and the boy in front of him oozes weakness. He smelled the child before he saw him, running through the village he was hunting in. Everyone in this village locked their doors at night and lit useless incense to keep demons like Akaza out.
So it was especially surprising to see the bright-haired kid running away from the village, alone no less. The sword smith he planned to kill was forgotten when he spotted the brat. Akaza darts in front of him from the roof of the home his sword smith was in, what a lucky guy he was today.
The brat doesn’t even notice when Akaza appears in front of him, instead, he runs right into him. His small face is squishing into Akaza’s pants leg, he feels tiny hands try to steady himself and Akaza resists the urge – for now – to kick the weak brat off him.
“Sorry! Sorry!” The child says quickly, stepping back and staring at Akaza.
He watches curiously as the child examines him, he’s surprised he smells no fear from the child. Was he unaware of what demons were? Unaware of the dangers of the night? He had to be for a child to be outside alone at night, running no less out of darkened villages.
Akaza’s sure the boy probably lives somewhere around here, if not in the villages he must live down the path. If Akaza remembered correctly there were two Hashira estates in that direction. This boy was most likely related to a demon slayer, maybe even a Hashira.
A malicious grin begins to stretch across Akaza’s face at the thought of one of the slayers finding their poor slaughtered son on the road, so close to home as well. Afterward, he could probably kill the slayer this child was related to, humans were so off-kilter after the death of someone close to them.
Akaza raises his hand, intending to strike. He’d make it quick at the very least. He moves his hand to pierce the child’s head.
Only for Akaza to falter, his hand stilling in the air as he watches the child begin to smile at him, not just smile but beam at Akaza as if the brat is happy to see him.
He looks into fiery red eyes, and he sees no fear – he sees relief.
“Hashira!” He hears the boy shouts relieved, and Akaza stares nonplussed.
This idiot thought he was a Hashira? What?
Was this kid stupid? Did he not realize Akaza was a demon, did the child really not know what demons were? Akaza throws out the idea of the boy being related to any demon slayer in any way.
It takes a few moments for the child’s next words to process but once they do Akaza stares back in complete loss, the boy wants him to bring him home?
Akaza slowly lowers his hand, blinking at the child as he does. Akaza’s brain is blanking on what to say or do, never has he been left so dumbstruck. He doesn’t know why he isn’t killing this child, this stupid brat who couldn’t even recognize a demon standing in front of him.
Akaza realizes he’s just glaring at the child when the smile falls from his small face. His hands twist anxiously in front of him and his eyes dart away.
The weak display disgusts Akaza, knocking him from whatever frozen stupor he allowed the child to place him in.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Hashira-sama! I – I will be fine by myself! Thank you!” He says quickly, bowing respectfully to Akaza.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Hakuji!” A woman’s voice whispers in his mind, the words overlapping with the child’s.
That voice, that voice is familiar. So very familiar, it causes Akaza’s chest to tighten briefly with emotion. Emotions he hasn’t explored in decades or more, emotions he doesn’t have or shouldn’t have.
Hakuji.
He feels as if he should know that name, was it the name of a slayer he killed, a Hashira? Maybe a name his master had mentioned in passing, yet he couldn’t understand in what scenario he’d be taking care of anyone as a demon.
He’s frozen again, trapped in whatever state that voice has left him, his brain moves a mile a second trying to figure out where he’s heard that voice and name, but he speaks before he even knows what he’s saying.
“I will take you home.”
“I will take care of you!”
The words are out of his mouth and flashing through his mind simultaneously. He doesn’t know why he tells the brat that. He also recognizes that voice in his head, it’s him.
Akaza shakes the thought from his head, he was a demon, he would never take care of someone. He couldn’t think of any scenario he would ever say those words, that voice didn’t even sound like him. He hated weaklings, just like this child here.
He doesn’t understand what’s happening, why this child is causing him to hesitate, to hear and remember such strange things. He raises his hand again, he’ll behead this brat. He’ll kill this brat and never think about such useless things again.
He watches as the boy bows repeatedly, overjoyed Akaza’s changed his mind. Akaza's hand flies to the top of his neck, centimeters from it when the boy speaks.
“Thank you for helping me!”
“Thank you, Hakuji.” Instead of a voice, Akaza catches a glimpse of purple eyes and black hair.
He freezes, unable to move as Senjuro’s neck bumps into his hand as the boy comes back up from bowing. His eyebrows furrowing in confusion but otherwise looking hopefully at Akaza.
The child’s fiery red eyes mix with that of the glimpses before it fades entirely, leaving only the child. Familiar purple eyes fade to reveal burning red eyes, black hair fades to the bright orange of the child’s.
Akaza doesn’t realize his hand is trembling before he grits his teeth and seizes it’s shaking. That voice, that name again. What is happening to him?
He glares down at the brat, pushing and burying whatever thoughts and images the boys brought forth. He doesn’t want to decipher them, he doesn’t want them yet conversely he wants to see more. Wants to know to who that voice belongs to. As the conflict rages inside of him he still can’t bring himself to kill this brat.
Somehow this weak, pathetic child stayed Akaza’s hand. Well, he did tell the he’d take him home.
“Get on my back brat, you run pathetically slow,” Akaza grumbled but makes no move to bend down. The child does nothing but stare as if in anticipation and Akaza refuses to bend down for the brat.
He lifts him by his yukata and throws him on his back, causing the boy to squeak in surprise. Akaza almost flinches when he feels the child wrap his arms around his neck to secure himself. The feeling so foreign and strange Akaza resist throwing the boy off him. Instead he grips him tightly, nails unintentionally digging into the brat's skin as he takes off into the forest.
It’s easy to track where the boy lives by scent, he wasn’t very far from his home. When he arrives it’s an estate, the estate of an Hashira. He smells one person inside but there is another human who lives there, an older child and a adult human. So this boy was related to a pillar.
Regardless he’ll let the brat live for now, Akaza tosses him off his back by his arm, unconcerned as the brat falls on his ass before standing again. Unfazed by Akaza’s rough treatment he thanks him, bowing respectfully.
“Thank you Hashira-sama!”
Akaza scoffs, not bothering to correct the fool. Akaza would remember this child, this annoying brat that stayed his hand for the night.
“Whatever brat,” Akaza muttered, turning to dart into the night and get away before he changes his mind, still undecided if keeping the boy alive was a weakness on his part.
“Wait!” Senjuro shouts, grabbing onto Akaza’s clawed hand. The Upper Moon freezes, every instinct telling him to shove his hand through the child’s head for touching him.
“What’s your name?” Senjuro asks, eyes wide with anticipation and excitement. “I’m Senjuro!”
“I didn’t ask your name brat.” Akaza hisses, snatching his hand out the brats grasps.
“Sorry, Hashira-sama!” The boy apologies, eyes flashing with hurt at Akaza’s words. “W-well thank you Hashira-sama, sorry to have troubled you!”
Akaza looks down at the brat with zero survival instincts, whose weakness radiates from his very being, who should have died by his hand ten times over tonight. This brat brought forth something, thoughts, whispers and words Akaza had only heard in dreams. Whispers from memories so vague he convinced himself they weren’t real.
He sees a candle being lit in the estate, he can smell Senjuro’s father moving towards the entrance.
“Akaza, brat.” He finds himself muttering, looking away from the child. He can feel the brat smiling at him again.
Senjuro face brightens immediately, “Thank you, Akaza! I hope I see you again!” Senjuro waves to him, running to meet his father who appears at the entrance.
Akaza takes off into the forest before the father can spot him, questioning himself the entire time.