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Kie wishes her eldest son would tell her what he’s thinking.
“Are you sure you don’t have a fever, Tanjirou? You seem a bit tired today.”
“I’m fine!” He gives her the blinding smile that she’s grown to distrust.
Tanjirou always smiles. It wasn’t until after Kie buried her husband that she learned that this particular smile of his is used to deflect. To disguise. She keeps her own expression carefully schooled.
“Well, you’ve been working hard these past few days. Take a break tomorrow, okay?”
“Are you sure? I’m fine, really!”
“I’m sure,” she says firmly. “You’ve sold enough charcoal. Rest is important too, you know?”
“Alright! Thanks, Mom!”
This smile is more genuine. Kie reaches out to cup Tanjirou’s face with both hands, taking a closer look at the faint stress lines across chapped and rosy cheeks. There are bruised shadows under his eyes.
“You’ve really been working too hard,” she murmurs, half to herself. When did her little boy begin to look so burdened by the world?
Her son startles at the contact, then gives her a hesitant grin. “...Mom?”
Kie chuckles ruefully. “Ah, don’t mind me. Just wondering where the time’s gone. You’re all grown up now. Already doing a man’s job, and never with a word of complaint!”
Those mahogany eyes soften, swimming with affection. “It’s what I ought to do, Mom. I promised Dad I’d take care of everyone.”
“Look at you, little man!” She ruffles his hair, and he giggles under the sudden assault. “Just don’t forget that you’re a kid, too, okay? Mom’s still here to take care of all the adult stuff. Don’t take on too much of the burden by yourself.”
“Yeah!” Shigeru pipes up from where he’s busy cleaning the sweet potatoes he and his sister harvested. “I can help you sell charcoal, Tanjirou!”
Of course, Hanako has to jump in right after. “Me too! We’re old enough now. Right, Mom?”
Kie shakes her head sternly at them both.
“For the last time, no.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Please?” Hanako wheedles, sweet potato in hand forgotten. “Please? Please?”
She does not budge. “Not until you’re twelve, dearest. End of discussion.”
“Ughhhhhh. Not fair!” Her younger daughter throws down her sweet potato in a sudden rage that dissipates as quickly as it comes on. “Shigeru, get him!”
Her twin kicks his own sweet potatoes aside (Kie lets out a quiet sigh) and jumps up, grabbing a clean (!) sheet from the folded laundry to smother Tanjirou with. Her eldest allows the tussling good-naturedly, laughing along when the wrestling devolves into giggling all around.
“Boys. Boys!”
“I’m gonna get you, I’m gonna get you!” Shigeru shrieks.
It looks like all Tanjirou is “getting” is an aggressive hair makeover. By the time Shigeru is satisfied, entire chunks of his brother’s maroon locks are slipping out of his frazzled-looking ponytail.
Kie is about to berate him when she notices: Tanjirou’s face is flushed and happy in a way it hasn’t been all afternoon. Whatever’s been weighing on her eldest son’s mind seems to finally have been lifted. Almost as if not intending for anyone else to hear, he whispers under his breath. Kie thinks she’s the only one who hears it.
“I guess it was all just a bad dream.”
The strangeness doesn’t abate the next day.
“Wake up, Tanjirou!” Kie shakes him gently by the shoulder. “Ready for a day of fun and relaxation?”
He springs awake, blinking hard. “I—Mom?” For a moment, he looks disoriented. “I—you—what?” A glance to the window makes him gasp and slap himself on the cheeks. “I overslept!”
“Calm down! I told you to take it easy. I’ll even cook your favorite rice crackers today! Tell you what: if you’re really itching for something to do, why don’t you draw the bath?”
Tanjirou leaps up at this, eager to be useful. She thinks this will be the end of the strangeness. She’s wrong.
Tanjirou comes back from the stream soaking wet and empty-handed.
“Tanjirou!”
The pan clatters from her hands as she watches him step over the threshold. “What - did you fall in the water? Get changed this instant—you’ll catch your death in this cold!”
He ignores her, steps robotic as he trails water over the tatami floor. Warning bells multiply in Kie’s head.
“...Tanjirou?”
He jerks to a halt in the middle of the room, back towards her.
“Dearest? Are you alright?” Kie goes up to him, close enough to see the river water beading on his skin. His breaths are coming in fast, shallow pants. He still doesn’t look at her.
She places a hand on his shoulder. This, at last, gets a response. Tanjirou almost jumps in his haste to get away from her. His eyes, when they swing over to her, are wide and unfocused.
“I—”
She waits for him to go on. His mouth flaps wordlessly. Then, he closes it with a click of teeth. Tears well up in his eyes instead.
Kie takes hold of him on both shoulders, and he allows it this time. She scans her son’s body quickly, noting the lack of injury. He’s trembling from the cold, his body wet and clammy under her grip.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes and into something warmer, okay?”
He nods numbly, allowing her to strip off his soggy layers and maneuver him into a soft and dry yukata. She dries his drenched hair with a clean rag to the best of her ability. The kitchen fire is already stoked, so she manhandles him into sitting near the warmth of the flames. Gradually, color comes back into Tanjirou’s face. His expression, however, retains its lost quality.
“...Mom?” he says softly after a long while.
“Yes, dearest?” Kie responds. She flips a rice cracker over the stove before glazing it with a mixture of mirin and soy sauce.
Tanjirou is quiet for long enough that she thinks he isn’t going to reply.
“Did anything happen at home while I was selling charcoal in the village?”
“Did anything…happen?” Kie thinks hard as she flips another cracker. “Like what?”
Her son shrugs, tugging the collar of his yukata tighter around himself. “I don’t know. Was everyone safe?” He swallows. “Did something bad happen?”
She turns to face him. “No, not at all. Why do you ask?”
His eyes dance dully with the reflections of flames in the hearth. “...No, no reason.”
“Tell me what’s wrong, dearest.”
He shivers. “Nothing. I—nothing.”
“That’s not true, and I can see it. Where are the water buckets? Why did you come home dripping wet?”
He shivers harder, curling in on himself without replying.
Kie can’t help it. Frustration colors her voice. “Why won’t you ever tell me what’s wrong? I want to help you! I’m your mother!”
This, at last, gets him to look at her. His eyes are wide with shock.
“Why do you always hold everything in, like the world’s problems are yours to carry? They’re not!” Tears prick at her eyes. “You’re only thirteen; you shouldn’t have to worry about so much already.”
“Fifteen.”
She stops. “What?”
“I’m fifteen.”
Kie feels her brain stall. “What? No, you aren’t.”
“I am, but you don’t remember!” Tanjirou is yelling now, his face twisted with abject misery. “No one remembers what happened! No one but me!” He stands suddenly, upending a jug of water that was at his feet. He doesn’t even seem to notice. “None of this is real!”
Kie looks around herself. The cabin looks the same as it ever had. The rice cakes crackle on the fire. The sound of chatter is audible from the next room. Outside, snow is falling softly. The sun is watered down, muted.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Tanjirou lets out a sound of pure frustration. He begins to pace the room. “ I need—I need to wake up. I need to wake up.”
When his agitation seems to be growing without stopping, Kie stops him.
“Tanjirou.”
His reddened eyes meet hers.
“Take deep breaths.”
His ragged inhale sounds painful, but he obediently matches her breathing.
“Whatever it is that’s bothering you, it won’t be helped with your emotions running wild. Calm yourself.”
He nods slowly, sagging in her grip. His eyelashes flutter with sudden tiredness that seems to settle over him. She peers at him, searching for a clue to end his suffering. His eyes, pools of maroon, offer up nothing but pain.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong? Please?”
He looks away and shakes his head. Kie sighs and lets go.
“Alright. I won’t pry.” She checks the rice. It’s done. “Lunch is ready, anyway. Will you call your siblings to come eat?”
The meal is, as usual, a noisy affair. What’s more unusual is how Tanjirou is noticeably withdrawn from the conversation, not even responding when his siblings address him directly.
“You’re such a pig, Takeo,” Hanako jeers. “Eat from your own plate!”
Takeo crosses his arms huffily. “Oi, who’s a pig? Besides, Tanjirou doesn’t even like pickled vegetables! What’s wrong with giving them to me?”
Kie watches her eldest son worriedly. He hasn’t touched a single piece of food. “Tanjirou, you should eat.”
His eyes flicker to her, then away.
No response.
Kie knows that Tanjirou doesn’t really dislike pickled vegetables. In fact, pickled radish was one of his favorite foods as a young child. However, as he grew older, Tanjirou began subtly giving part of his share of food to the younger children whenever money was tight and food became scarcer.
The younger children think that Tanjirou is just picky. Kie knows better.
“Eat,” she repeats gently.
His throat bobs in a dry swallow. His mind seems a thousand miles away. Kie wishes he would tell her what he’s thinking.
“Hey, can I have your pickled vegetables?” Hanako turns to Tanjirou and asks.
Pink-tinged flames explode from Tanjirou’s body.
Takeo, being the closest, is the first to react by leaping away from the flames. Hanako stumbles back, face a mask of fright.
Kie is on her feet in the next instant.
“TANJIROU!”
Her mind is a mess of terror; thought does not coalesce from pure noise as she looks upon the sight of her child on fire. She tears at his burning clothes with bare hands before she can come to her senses. Before she can register the odd calmness that has Tanjirou standing still, despite the wreath of flames around him.
As if the fire is not touching him.
The same, however, cannot be said for Kie.
As soon as her hands make contact, the pink-tinged fire burns. The pain is unlike anything she has ever experienced. It’s not the same kind of pain as burning herself cooking. It’s not the sharp burn of fire, nor the bright pain of cutting herself with a knife.
When Kie looks down, her fingers are burned down to their stumps, the singed edges crumbling into ash.
“Your hands!” Hanako screams.
She begins to shake.
“What—”
“I have to go,” her eldest son cuts in. When she meets his eyes again, they are—for the first time—fully present. He meets her gaze square on. There is resolve in the steel of his face. “Sorry, everyone.”
He runs from the house.
Kie and her children stand in stunned silence. The dishes at their feet are overturned. No one moves to clean up the spilled food. Only little Rokuta seems not to be frightened, his little face puzzled.
“Where’s big brother going?” the toddler asks.
Kie finds that she has no answer.
“Come on—we have to go after him!” Hanako yells. Without even changing into warmer clothes, she tears out the front door after Tanjirou. A moment later, Shigeru yelps, “Wait for me!” and follows.
Takeo looks between Kie and Rokuta, emotions warring on his face.
“We’ll follow him,” Kie decides. “Takeo, will you—”
“On it,” he says, and squats down to give Rokuta a piggyback ride. As soon as he clambers on, Takeo straightens and lumbers out the door after his siblings.
Before following, Kie pauses to look down at the remains of her burned hands again. Although the sight is disturbing, she finds that there is no longer any lingering pain. Past the charred stumps, her fingertips seem instead to just have faded out of existence.
As if there had never been anything there at all.
”None of this is real,” Tanjirou had said.
She shakes off the strange shudder this sends through her and follows her children outdoors.
In the end, Tanjirou gives no explanations.
“I wish I could stay,” he says.
“I wish things were different,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
Then, without another word, he sprints off into the woods. Kie shivers in the snow, holding Rokuta back from stumbling after Tanjirou.
“Mom, should we…” Hanako murmurs at her shoulder.
She hesitates. “No. I think…he needs space.”
She turns to the rest of her children. Hanako is deathly pale, while Shigeru’s brows are drawn low in a confused frown. Takeo’s mouth is pressed into an anxious line as he picks Rokuta back up. She makes a decision.
“Dears, head back to the house. It’s too cold out here.”
Shigeru reaches for Hanako’s hand, then turns to face Kie when she stays rooted in place. “Mom? You’re not coming?”
“I…” Kie glances down again at her painless injury. “I’ll come after. I just need to make sure Tanjirou’s safe.”
He shrugs. “Okay.”
Soon, the sounds of her children’s footsteps fade behind her. Kie trudges forward in the snow. Warmth is leached from her feet, her hands, her face by the biting frost. She had come outside in only a kimono and sandals. It’s freezing.
“Tanjirou?” she calls.
The trees seem to have no end. Has the forest always been this dense in this direction? Where is the road?
”None of this is real.”
“Tanjirou!”
As if summoned by the sound of his name, a glimpse of green appears through the trunks of trees. Kie picks up her pace.
The blurry figure in Tanjirou’s checkered haori has a sword in his hand.
“Tanjirou? TANJIROU!”
The figure does not turn around, even though he must be close enough to hear her.
The figure puts the sword to his neck.
“KAMADO TANJIROU—” Kie slips in the snow. Her heart is hammering out of her chest. She sees red. “YOU PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW—”
Oh.
Oh.
She.
Now, she sees red.
Her son’s body falls to the ground.
A sound of wood hitting the floor. The slosh of water.
Kie looks down numbly. She doesn’t understand what she sees: an upturned wooden bowl lying in a pool of water that is already beginning to soak into her socks.
She stands unmoving.
She doesn’t—understand.
She had been in the woods. She had been cold earlier. Freezing.
She had seen—she had seen—
Kie claps a hand over her mouth to strangle the scream that rises and the nausea that follows.
She had seen—
The front door bursts open, making her jump. Shigeru tumbles in first, holding a basket of dirt- and snow-encrusted sweet potatoes. He’s laughing his head off. Hanako stumbles in a moment after, poking fun at something Shigeru had said.
Lastly, bringing up the rear, Tanjirou comes inside.
Her boy is rosy-cheeked and laughing so wide his eyes are crinkled into half-moons.
Her boy is.
“Mom?” he asks in surprise when she strides—no, runs—to meet him. Her trembling hands pull the scarf from his neck.
It’s smooth. No cuts or slashes to be seen, just a little sweat.
“You’re okay,” Kie breathes. Her voice is shaky with emotion. She hugs him tightly. He’s just as tall as her, now, she realizes.
After a moment, he hugs her back. “Hey,” he says gently.
Kie is just beginning to get her breath back.
Then, between one breath and the next, he changes.
Kie jerks back. Tanjirou is no longer wearing the clothes he had worn out to town that morning. Instead, he’s clothed in a strange black uniform under his green-and-black checkered haori. There’s a sheathed sword at his belt.
The sight of it is like ice down her spine.
“T-Tanjirou?”
Gone is the laughing boy. This Tanjirou’s eyes are like iron.
“Sorry,” is all he says. Faster than she can blink, he unsheathes the sword in one smooth motion.
Fear churns up her throat.
She grabs his arm.
“NO—”
He shakes her off as if her vice-grip were no more than a light touch.
Kie watches her son splatter the walls with his own blood.
Again.
A dull sound of wood.
A splash of water.
Kie kicks aside the bowl she’s dropped, making directly for the front door. Before she reaches it, it bursts open of its own accord.
“—bet I could do it ten times faster than you!” Shigeru guffaws, trailing in dirt and snow.
“Maybe if your brain was ten times bigger!” Hanako shoots back as she removes her shoes at the door.
Kie only has eyes for the third person.
Tanjirou.
Tanjirou comes through, unharmed. Laughing. His eyes widen at the crazed look on her face, and he stops in the doorway. “Mom—?”
Kie grabs him. Leans in. Ingrains the sight of his face, happy and whole, in her mind.
“What—” he starts to say.
She feels the tears in her eyes well over.
Out of the corner of her vision, Hanako comes over to lay a soft hand on her arm. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Tanjirou looks alarmed. “Yeah, what’s—”
She knows what’s coming this time. Between one word and the next, her eldest son’s figure blurs and shifts. This Tanjirou is taller. Weary. Mouth set with determination. This close, she notices that his scar looks different.
He knocks her aside. Draws his sword.
“WAIT, PLEASE—” Kie sobs.
He doesn’t wait.
Thud.
Splash.
Kie doesn’t even feel the water soaking her feet. She runs to the door and rips it open.
“Woah!” Shigeru stumbles to a stop, hand inches from the door. Hanako, a step behind him, shrieks a little.
A few meters behind them is Tanjirou.
He looks up in surprise as the warm yellow light of the cabin falls across his face. His mouth is open mid-laugh.
Kie ignores the twins and tramps outside, beelining toward her eldest son. She falls to her knees right there in the snow.
“Mom?!” Tanjirou kneels with her, trying to lift her. He’s saying things that she can barely hear. “—What’s wrong? Are you alright? You’re crying—”
The only thing Kie can bring herself to say is, “Please. Please, don’t. Please don’t.”
One moment, Tanjirou’s eyes are filled with innocent confusion. “Don’t what—”
The next, he’s shifted.
He draws his sword.
The scream comes from somewhere deep and primal in her chest.
“NO!”
Kie rips the sword from his hands. Flings it away. It thuds down into the snow a meter away.
His face is slack with shock. It bleeds back into determination.
He lunges for the sword.
Kie dives for it, too, but he gets his hands around the hilt before she does. “I’m sorry!” he yells as he brings it down on his neck.
His blood sizzles in a wide arc against the white of the snow. Kie’s hands are painted red.
This time, Kie flies out the door like demons are on her heels.
“Mom—?”
“—What—”
She shoves past Shigeru. Dodges Hanako. Tanjirou is still mid-laugh when he looks up, eyes turning to saucers. When she crashes into him, the collision knocks him clear off his feet. They land with a jarring impact barely softened by the snow.
Tanjirou coughs. “—Mom?!”
“Don’t do it,” Kie begs him with tears running down her face. She holds his wrists down with her own trembling hands. “Don’t do it!”
Shift.
Tanjirou bucks her off easily, reaching for the hilt of his sword. Kie lands hard. Her body leaves grooves in the snow. Immediately, she scrambles back up and tackles him again, making him lose his grip. She bares her teeth. She feels like a wild animal. Everything about her is stripped away except for a bone-deep fear and grief.
A knee catches her square in the ribs. “Let me go!” Tanjirou yells.
She will not let him go.
She is fighting for her son’s life.
Tanjirou shoves hard, sending her sprawling. His sword is already drawn before she can get back up. The sharp edge gleams under the colorless sky as it’s raised to his neck.
Kie yanks the blade back with bare hands.
As she does so, the edge sinks into her flesh like a knife through wax. For the first time, it is her blood that stains the white snow.
“Mom!” Tanjirou gasps, face draining of color.
Kie blinks back tears of pain. The sword shifts, and she feels it: her fingers are cut down to the bone. Ignoring the sickening sensation, she tightens her grip on the blade instead of letting go. Tanjirou looks as if he’s going to cry. He doesn’t loosen his grip.
“None of this is real. You’re not real.”
”None of this is real!”
Her mutilated hands pulse in agony. Her blood continues to trickle down softly. Her son looks as if he’s the one who’s been cut by a blade.
“I need to wake up. Mom, let go. PLEASE!”
“No!” Kie grits through the tears.
“Then…”
Tanjirou’s face hardens.
In one smooth motion, he swings the sword.
Through her fingers.
Kie screams in pain, jerking her bleeding hands back. Her severed fingertips land in the snow with soft thuds. She doesn’t even turn to look because he’s—once again—raising the blade to his neck. This time, she doesn’t have the strength to stop him.
Slash.
Kie stands in her kitchen for a moment, clutching her newly-whole fingers to her chest, eyes staring at nothing, and feeling the fibers of her socks soak up water.
She inhales.
Exhales violently.
Then, once again, sprints out the front door. Past the twins. Past their wide-eyed looks and half-formed questions.
She draws in a deep breath, feeling her diaphragm draw in and her lungs expand.
Her scream shatters the still morning air. “TANJIROU!”
Her eldest son flinches, sword already drawn and raised.
Last time was lesson enough. Kie knows that, no matter what, she cannot best him in physical strength. Her options are limited—but her resolve is ironclad. She refuses to stay trapped in this nightmarish cycle of watching her son take his own life, over and over again.
”None of this is real!”
The repetitions. The strange feeling of unrealness she’s glimpsed. Most of all, Tanjirou’s alien mood and behavior. The clues are right there, just out of reach. There’s something Kie hasn’t grasped. None of this is real.
None of this is real?
Once she comes back to reality, the edge of Tanjirou’s sword is already poised at his throat.
“None of this is real!” Kie yells, desperation making her voice shrill. “None of this is real, right? That’s what you said!”
He hesitates, just for a moment.
A moment is enough.
“Tanjirou, please!” She’s begging, on her knees, begging. One more moment. One more moment, please. “Your life is so precious, my dearest one!”
“That won’t work, demon.”
Despite his words, his hands are visibly shaking as they clench the hilt of his sword. Kie reaches toward him, weeping.
“Whatever’s wrong, just tell me. Please. You don’t have to be scared anymore—Mom is here to carry it for you.” She’s babbling, but she doesn’t know how to carve out the feelings in her chest and string them into sentences. “I’m here, Tanjirou, I’m here. You’re not alone! Please don’t hurt yourself—it hurts me, it kills me inside—”
“STOP IT!”
Her son’s face contorts with rage. Whether out of anger or lack of caution, the motion digs the edge of his blade into his skin.
“DON’T YOU DARE PUT WORDS INTO MY MOTHER’S MOUTH, DEMON!”
Demon. That word, again.
“I don’t know what you mean! No one is putting words in my mouth!”
“How stupid do you think I am?!” Tanjirou swings the sword toward her, brandishing the point between her eyes. All she can feel is relief that it’s farther away from his throat. “I know you’re not her! You’re just the demon of this train! You’re just wearing their faces to get at me, but guess what? I can see right through it! It’s sickening! It’s absolutely disgusting!”
Demon? Train?
Kie shakes her head. “I. I am your mother.”
“Then say it. Kibutsuji Muzan.”
This is the longest it’s ever gone, but Kie is too afraid to get her hopes up. Tanjirou bares his teeth, a spark of madness in his eyes.
“Say it if you’re not the demon! SAY IT! KIBUTSU—”
“Kibutsuji Muzan.”
As soon as she utters the name, it’s as if a shockwave has left her lips. The very air shudders, ripples spreading outward like water. The snow, the sky, the trees—for a fraction of a second, they become translucent as the ripples pass through them. Ephemeral. As if there was nothing there in the first place. An alien fear bleeds into the very marrow of the world. Into her bones. She feels hollow, she feels thin, like paper.
“None of this is real,” Kie whispers.
The sounds of children chattering are gone—they have been for a while, she realizes. She knows without turning around that Shigeru and Hanako will not be there. They, too, were not real in a sense. She knows that now. Like shadows upon a paper screen, they were only pale imitations of her real children. Had that been all there was? Just shadows of a shadow?
“Tanjirou, where are we? What am I?”
Tanjirou is frozen, staring at her. He’s waiting for something, she realizes. A reaction of some sort. As the seconds tick by, his sword hand lowers centimeter by centimeter. His voice is small. “M-Mom?”
“I don’t know what’s happening, but time keeps returning,” she continues with a steadiness she does not feel, “to the moment you come home from the village. ‘What happened when you were gone,’ you asked. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But something had, hadn’t it? Something had happened.”
She looks up at him.
“What happened while you were in the village, Tanjirou?”
Her eldest son’s eyes fill with tears.
“Mom.”
She lets out a soft oomph at the sudden impact. He’s hugging her—tightly—as if he never wants to let go. His face is tucked into her neck, as if he has returned to a younger version of himself. The only thing she can see of him are his heaving shoulders. Like a child from a simpler time, he cries. “Mom, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The sword is cast carelessly aside. She shushes him, smoothing tender hands over his back. “Mom’s here, Mom’s here.”
He turns his head into her chest, blubbering. “I missed you, I missed you so much, Mom, Mom, Mom.”
“Shh. Shh, dearest.”
“Mom.”
“Shh.”
She holds him for an eternity in that snow, on that ground, as the world flickers and thins around them. She rocks and soothes him, the rhythm etched into her bones from long nights spent soothing her babies the same way by the fire.
“I—” Tanjirou pulls away reluctantly, sniffling. “—I have to go. I have to wake up.”
Kie doesn’t want him to go. He also doesn’t look like he wants to go. His grip hasn’t relented around her arms.
“I have to wake up,” he says to himself, blinking rapidly through blurred eyes. “He—Inosuke—Nezuko—they need me!” he stands, inadvertently pulling her up along with him. “I need to wake up right now!”
Wake up.
“This is all a—a dream, then?”
I’m just a dream, then?
“Yes,” he says.
“Oh. Just a nightmare.”
I’m just a—
“Yes.” He pauses. “No.”
“No?”
“First I thought it was a nightmare. Then—” His exhale is shaky. “I don’t know. I’m just happy to have you back. Even if just for a little while.”
“Just a little while?”
“Just one last time.” His smile breaks her heart. “I love you, Mom. I miss you.”
“Oh, Tanjirou.”
“And I’m so, so sorry.”
The next flicker, when it comes, takes a bit of Kie along with it. She knows that whatever she is will not last for much longer. Perhaps it was speaking that name out loud. Something had weakened the foundations of this world—this dream—beyond its capacity to bear.
Knowing, therefore, that she doesn’t have time left, she tries to imbue all her love in one last smile. “I love you.”
Another, stronger flicker. She comes back into existence fraying at the seams.
“I will always love you.”
She wipes the freshly flowing tears from his cheeks.
“And I will always forgive you. My love for you is greater than any wrong you could ever commit, do you know that? I’m your Mom—that’s what being a mother means.”
He’s crying too hard to reply.
She knows it’s time.
“Time to wake up, Tanjirou.”
His hand twitches at his side. “My sword—”
“You don’t need it.” She places her hands on the sides of his face. “Live on, Tanjirou. Find it in yourself to forgive yourself.” Leans in close, forehead to forehead. “WAKE UP.”
The world pulses.
Tanjirou vanishes.
In the last moments, before everything ends, Kie watches flakes of snow fall. All is quiet now. The snow really is beautiful.
She thinks of her children.
She loves—