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Tanjirou’s journey to the Water Estate was the most interesting path he’d ever walked along.
The wisteria trees surrounding the estate’s pathways were marked by sword slashes. It was a well-known fact that the Water Pillar preferred to train by himself, deep in the treelines, rather than out in the open with his peers. Tanjirou understood why. He’d grown up in the mountains with Mr. Urokodaki, and he’d probably trained relentlessly by himself, just like Tanjirou had—for the most part. Tanjirou would never attack trees, per se, since they were a (technically) living part of nature, but he could see himself going after boulders if he ever got a break from demon-slaying while he wasn’t severely injured.
In the meantime, Tanjirou was recovering his strength so he could obtain valuable training from the strongest of the demon slayer corps. The Water Pillar had yet to accept any students, placing himself at the tail end of the Pillar Training Regime, just before the finale with the Stone Pillar, Gyoumei. However, he wanted to see Tanjirou while he was still recovering — something about a one-on-one talk before whatever major attack Muzan Kibutsuji was certainly planning, now that Nezuko had overcome the sun.
Tanjirou had never been to the Water Estate, but he was comfortable enough with Sabito to slide open the door when he didn’t answer to Tanjirou’s knocking.
“Mr. Sabito?” Tanjirou peeked his head through the door. “Mister—”
Tanjirou froze. Sabito wasn’t in the main room of his estate. In fact, the room was empty of everything but dozens of paintings on the wall.
“Wow,” Tanjirou muttered to himself. He stepped further into the room, halting his intentions to find Sabito in favor of studying the paintings. They were abundant, and they were beautiful. As far as Tanjirou could tell, every painting depicted the same person. It took him a moment to recognize who it was.
“Giyuu,” Tanjirou whispered. He was the happy, blue-eyed boy who helped Tanjirou overcome his hardships when he was training for Final Selection. Giyuu had been the final push Tanjirou needed to cut that boulder, and he’d been so proud of Tanjirou when he accomplished the nearly impossible task.
How did Sabito know Giyuu? Did he visit Urokodaki? But Urokodaki said Sabito hadn’t visited him for a very long time. . . .
It seemed Sabito knew Giyuu extremely well, though, assuming he was the one who had painted all of these portraits. They all exuded a melancholic but soothing feeling, something bittersweet, as if Tanjirou was sifting through someone’s personal collection of sad love letters. Giyuu’s whole life was painted on the walls. He was very young in some paintings, around the age he was when Tanjirou met him. In others, he looked more mature, maybe around Sabito’s age. They were all portraits, albeit at different angles. Sometimes, his hair was tied back. Sometimes, it flowed freely around his shoulders. He was usually smiling, but he did wear a neutral expression in some — one of every 10 or 11 paintings, approximately. Regardless, there was always brightness to him, exactly how Tanjirou remembered him looking on the mountains. Even in his most intense moments, his eyes were kind.
Whoever had painted these really loved Giyuu.
Just as Tanjirou stepped up to a painting to look for a signature of some sort, Sabito walked into the room.
“Tanjirou.”
Tanjirou jumped away from the painting, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. Maybe he had been. Maybe he was never meant to see this. It all felt so intimate and private. Is this why no one ever visited the Water Estate?
“I wasn’t gonna touch it!” Tanjirou promised.
“I don’t mind,” Sabito said. He approached Tanjirou, and his eyes lingered on the painting Tanjirou had just begun to inspect. It was a waist-up portrait of an older-looking Giyuu, maybe just breaking into adulthood, and he was staring straight ahead, smiling softly. He was reaching a hand out, as if he was about to help someone stand up.
Sabito slowly shifted his gaze away from the painting after a moment. “Are you recovering well?”
“Yes, I am,” Tanjirou said. He glanced at the painting again, and he couldn’t help his curiosity. “Did you paint these?”
“I did. Every single one,” Sabito said. He reached out to touch the painting next to his shoulder. Giyuu was young in that one, maybe around Nezuko’s age, and he was laying on the grass. It was painted from the perspective of someone laying right next to him. He was smiling so wide that his eyes were squeezed shut, and all of his teeth were showing. It looked like a beautiful memory.
“How do you know Giyuu?” Tanjirou asked. Sabito’s head snapped back to look at him, “How do you know his name?”
“Oh, I met him on the mountain. He helped me cut Mr. Urokodaki’s boulder so I could go to Final Selection,” Tanjirou said. Sabito stared at Tanjirou as if he’d turned into a demon on the spot, completely bewildered and maybe hurt, or scared, or . . . well, Tanjirou couldn’t tell. But even his body was responding to Tanjirou’s words; his fingers slid slowly down the painting, limp, until they fell to his side, bouncing against his thigh.
Eventually, Sabito turned, and he started walking further into his estate. He wordlessly gestured for Tanjirou to follow him, and he did with no complaints. He wasn’t sure what he’d done, or what he’d said, but it was very clear that he’d upset Sabito, somehow. He didn’t want any more of his words to hurt Sabito, nor did he want any questions or complaints to irritate the Water Pillar.
Together, Sabito and Tanjirou walked through the dining room of the Water Estate, which held bare walls and very little furniture. They breezed down the hallway and into another room. It was much brighter in there—more windows. The paintings lining the walls were so much different, too. Where Giyuu was painted beautifully throughout his life in the dark room at the front of the house, he was painted as a fierce warrior in the bright room deeper into the estate. These paintings depicted him with streaks of water around him, flowing out of his sword, and coming face-to-face with the hand demon Tanjirou remembered slaying during his final selection.
“Giyuu’s family name was Tomioka,” Sabito said. He stood in the center of the room, and he scanned the paintings calmly. Tanjirou did the same, as he listened to Sabito repeat his name, “Tomioka Giyuu.”
“He didn’t tell me that,” Tanjirou said. Actually, he had assumed Giyuu didn’t have a family name at all, perhaps too young to remember it.
“I’m sure he didn’t. He was only 13 when he died,” Sabito said. The words were like a bucket of ice water dumped down Tanjirou’s back. He was dead? How old was Giyuu when they met? How had Giyuu died — when had he died?
“You saw a ghost,” Sabito said, which prompted far more questions than answers, but Tanjirou didn’t interrupt. “But I’m not surprised he would stick around. Giyuu always wanted to help people.”
Sabito tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, and he whispered to Tanjirou, or maybe just into the open air, “He never deserved this.”
Tanjirou, stupidly, looked up to see if, perhaps, Sabito was looking at another painting—but, no, there was nothing on the ceiling. He must have been looking at the Heavens, searching for Giyuu. Or, he was trying not to cry. Either way, it tugged at Tanjirou’s heartstrings, and he felt guilty all over again. If he’d known, he would have said something sooner, or maybe not at all. Tanjirou wasn’t sure which one would hurt Sabito less. Maybe it was bound to hurt no matter what.
“Giyuu was also a slayer,” Sabito said. “He didn’t survive Final Selection.”
“Oh,” Tanjirou mumbled. He finally found the courage to ask, “How do you know?”
“We grew up together. Urokodaki trained both of us,” Sabito said fondly. His voice dropped, another whisper, “He was my one and only.”
Tanjirou barrelled through, assuming he wasn’t really supposed to hear that part. “So he used water breathing, too?”
Stupid question—Giyuu was surrounded by water in all of the paintings that depicted him with a sword in his hand. But there was an air of happiness in Sabito’s voice, when he talked about Giyuu. He was in pain, of course; Tanjirou could have seen that from a mile away, and the air certainly smelled like despair. But there was enough happiness for the air to be bittersweet, like grapefruit and lemon — a beautiful taste, a terrible experience.
“He did,” Sabito said. He stood there for another moment, staring at the ceiling, but soon walked over to a portion of the wall that was covered by a red piece of fabric. It was a stark contrast to all of the blue in the room—expect it wasn’t. It was the exact same shade as the haori Giyuu was wearing in each painting.
“This was his haori.” No wonder.
Sabito traced the length of the fabric with his pointer finger. “It belonged to his sister. A demon killed her right in front of him, when he was still young, 10 or 11. When he found me and Urokodaki, he agreed to be a slayer, too.”
Sabito smoothly took the fabric off the wall, revealing a small painting of a gruesome scene. It was the hand demon, the one Tanjirou had been so terrified of in Final Selection. It was crushing the limp body of a bloody little boy—with black hair, a red haori, and morbidly shredded skin. Tanjirou felt the gore pulse through his body in shock. He’d seen people killed by demons, but this . . .
“He died protecting me,” Sabito said. He didn’t take his eyes off the painting. “I was about to kill the hand demon, but my sword broke. It was going to kill me, but Giyuu . . .”
Sabito was still and silent for a while. Again, Tanjirou chose not to interrupt, as the air shifted to something intense—fear, mourning, grief. It felt exactly like the morning Tanjirou had found his family slaughtered. The moments made his heart race, and he didn’t say a word.
“He was already injured,” Sabito said. “I told him to stay behind, but he didn’t listen. I saw him die right in front of me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tanjirou said. Sabito’s pain was a thick cloud in the room, suffocating but natural. And Tanjirou understood exactly how he felt. He remembered how devastated he’d been when Kyoujurou died protecting him, and he hadn’t even known Kyoujurou for long. If it had been Inosuke, Zenitsu, or, God forbid, Nezuko . . .
“It’s the world we live in,” Sabito said. He hung the haori back on its nail, covering the gruesome death of Tomioka Giyuu. He finally turned around, only to walk out of the room. He didn’t gesture, this time, but Tanjirou followed him anyway.
The next room they walked into was also bright, and the scenes in there were much gentler. Of course, every painting depicted Giyuu, but he was older in all of them, hanging right around Sabito’s age — which clicked in Tanjirou’s mind. He must have been the same age as Sabito when he died.
“This is my ‘what if’ room,” Sabito said. “This is what could have been, if only.”
In these paintings, Giyuu was all over the place. He was drinking something out of a mug and looking out of a window. He was asleep in bed, his hair unruly around him, while the sun shone over his resting body. He was even holding a baby in one scene.
“We have to defeat Muzan together,” Sabito declared. “We’ll get rid of demons once and for all. That—” Sabito waved his hand in the general direction of the room on the opposite end of the hall, where Giyuu’s death was forever depicted on a canvas. “That will never happen to someone else’s love.”
Tanjirou clung to that word for a moment, love. Sabito had described Giyuu as his “one and only,” not his friend. Hell, the baby Giyuu was holding had Sabito’s eyes. That only made Tanjirou feel worse for the Water Pillar, who still smelled like grief and despair. He didn’t just lose a friend; he probably lost his soulmate.
“We’ll defeat him,” Tanjirou promised.
“Yes.” Sabito stepped forward, until he was close enough to place a gentle, but firm hand on Tanjirou’s shoulder. “And you are not going to die. You’re not going to lose any more of your loved ones, either. You’re going to look out for yourself and your friends, and you’re going to let me and the other pillars handle the bulk of this war. Got it?”
Tanjirou couldn’t morally accept Sabito’s terms. He wanted, so desperately, to avenge his family. He wanted to see the death of Muzan, the death of all demons. How could he even think about looking out for himself? He was a demon slayer; he had to look out for everyone else.
Apparently, Tanjirou’s silence lingered for a moment too long. Sabito dropped another hand on his other shoulder, firmer this time.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Sabito said. “You are young. Most of the slayers are very young, and none of you deserve this. Myself, and the other pillars, we’ve resigned ourselves to dying for this cause. We’re the soldiers put in place to defeat Muzan, and we’re all happy with that. You are not going to die. Got it?”
Tanjirou nodded slowly. Sabito dropped his hands, and he stepped back. He took another deep breath as he looked around the room.
“I’m going to die,” Sabito said, which jolted Tanjirou.
“What? What do you mean? Are you sick?”
“I’m going to fight until the very end,” Sabito said. Another tear slid down his cheek. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, focused on a painting of Giyuu sitting next to the waterfall Mr. Urokodaki lived next to. “I’ll see that Muzan is defeated, and I’ll meet you again. Very soon.”
If Tanjirou felt like he was interrupting something before, he felt even more like he was intruding now. The room was clouded again, but with happiness, this time. Hope. Sabito was happy to resign himself to death, and he was hopeful that he would see Giyuu again soon.
As deeply pained as Tanjirou was to hear someone else he knew well, who he admired, who saved his life, might die — wanted to die — he couldn’t say he didn’t understand Sabito. Tanjirou himself had never been in love, but he had love in his heart. He’d do anything to see his family again. Maybe he wouldn’t resign himself to death, not when he still had Nezuko to care for, but, if he was like Sabito, and he had no one left on his earth, he, too, would want defeating Muzan to be his very last feat on Earth.
“Giyuu will be happy to see you again,” Tanjirou said in an attempt to extend some comfort to Sabito.
“Thank you. I can’t wait to see him.” Sabito looked at Tanjirou, and he nodded proudly. He smiled even as another tear rolled across his scar. “Now go, finish recovering. I’ll see you when it’s time to train.”
Tanjirou left the Water Estate feeling heavy but hopeful, reminiscent of leading Nezuko through the woods in search of Urokodaki. The past was the bitter past, and the future was unknown, but there was hope, and there was determination. There was the knowledge that he would see more death, but he would live his life honorably, protecting the innocent and the ones he loved.
He hoped, one day, he, too, would meet Sabito in the afterlife, just so he could see that he was happy, having reunited with Giyuu. He hoped they could be reborn into a world without demons, where they could grow up happily and fulfill all the desperate fantasies Sabito had painted on his walls. He hoped they would all meet in their next lives, free of death and the lingering grief that followed.