Chapter Text
Geniro has known he’s been strange since he can remember. It’s not exactly a secret.
His mom knows it. His dad knows it. His siblings know it. His very close knit hometown knows it.
Almost everyone knows that Geniro is a very, very weird boy.
But only Geniro knows the full extent of his “weirdness.”
It started when he was five. He’d found a stick and it was almost broken and looked like a gun. He picked it up and fired “fake shots,” and then images flashed through his mind.
A gun. Forest, trees. He’s running, running. Running from a monster, with a gun in his hand and a sword in the other. He turns a corner once he’s gathered enough space, faces the demon, and shoots.
Geniro is scared shitless, drops the stick, and runs crying to his mother.
Everything starts going downhill from there.
Geniro starts having strange dreams. Dreams of people and faces he doesn’t know, but he does know. He can’t explain it, really. He feels familiar with them, but he doesn’t know their names.
Most of the time, the dreams are nice. He’s laughing, or eating, or playing with these people. He realizes early on that they’re his friends. (Were his friends? Are his future friends? He doesn’t know.)
Sometimes, though, they’re nightmares. People are screaming, maybe he is screaming. There is blood and so much death and suffering and horrifying monsters.
When Geniro talked about these dreams to his family, they thought he was making it up. They told him he had a great imagination and moved on with their days. They comforted him after the nightmares, though, and told him that it’s all made up and nothing like that exists, and that they were only dreams.
Only dreams.
That started to change when Geniro got to go to his first fair when he’s six.
He and his siblings are having fun, trying win as many prizes as they can and eat as much food as possible with the small allowance their parents gave them. He’s had fun and eaten maybe too much, and he’s getting tired of games when we sees it. A gun. A very, very old gun. Geniro runs towards it, and realizes it’s part of a stand. The man operating it looks at him and wiggled his eyebrows.
”That’s not a toy, Y’know kiddo?”
“I know!” Geniro chirps, because he’s seen the damage his gun has caused in his dreams. The man looked at him funny again.
”Look, kid, if you’re not going to play the game—“
It was then that Geniro realized that the gun was part of a carnival game. A game where you shoot things, of course. He was suddenly embarrassed that he’d only been focused on the gun. He eyed the prizes to see if they were any interesting, and there was an huge stuffed crow. And Geniro immediately knew he had to get that crow. He then looked at the man running it.
”How much to play?”
“800 yen.”
“And for the crow?”
The man laughed. “Oh, you gotta get first place for that, buddy. Wanna try your luck?”
And Geniro gave the man 800 yen and did not need any luck, because he’s done this before. He’s used this gun before. He shuts one eye, lines up his shot, and—
PLAM
He’s on a mission somewhere. He doesn’t remember, eating demons always kinda sorta messed with his memory. Not that he’d told anyone that. And now, said demon he’d eaten a finger of is right in front of him, mouth wide and agape, but it’s neck is wide open for a shot—
PLAM
It’s Hashira Training, and while everyone else is practicing their breathing styles during a “break,” (because are there ever any breaks when training with Hashira?) he’s doing target practice. Said target is a fish. Shooting fish sounds easy, but it’s not. The reflections in the water trick your eyes, and fish are small and skinny and slimy and not easily killed in one go. So, he waited patiently, lined up his gun, and—
PLAM
Inosuke is getting him to shoot an apple on Zenitsu’s head. Apparently, Zenitsu was trying to get himself to balance an apple on his head and bring it to Nezuko without “destroying its purity with his measly human hands,” or something. Genya knows somewhere deep inside that they’re going to get in trouble for this, and some Hashira will lecture them on “Inappropriate use of Weaponry,” but that’ll be another problem. He carefully aimed his gun, and—
PLAM
Zenistu had not been shot, and the apple had! Zenistu, however, had screamed and run off crying to Tanjiro. Inosuke looked at him. He looked at Inosuke back. He’d snorted, and then Inosuke giggled, and it wasn’t long before they were both rolling on the floor, howling with laughter.
Geniro blinked. He’d remembered names this time! Names! He knew their names—wait, what was he doing again? Oh, yeah, he was playing a game. He looked up at the man running the stand, now pale, probably wondering how a child hit every bullseye possible with such a shitty, outdated gun. Geniro smirked.
”Crow,” he pointed.
When he went back to his parents, they asked him how he won a prize that big, and he said he’d won it by doing really good at a game. He was a good kid and didn’t lie, but “not lying” did not mean “not telling half truths.”
Geniro realized something very important that night at six, with a very large, very fluffy plush of Hashibami.
He was weird but for a reason very different than what everyone thought. People thought he was weird because he told elaborate stories about his fake dreams. Geniro knew he was weird because he remembered his past life, for some reason.
He didn’t remember all of it, not at that time, but he knew. He knew that he was seeing his old life. His family had talked about past lives from time to time, but the recurring theme was that you weren’t supposed to remember them. At first, Geniro felt terrified. Was something wrong with him? Why could he remember it when no one was supposed to? Once the initial shock settled, Geniro felt a bit special. He must be a hero or something, destined by the gods to have his memories back to save humanity from some great evil. He then decided to never, ever share this power with anyone else. Because heroes need their special identities, of course, and revealing your power to the world is a very stupid thing to do.
Geniro really, really, really hates math. It’s a thing that hasn’t been lost on him. Genya hated math, too. At the very least Genya could apply it, like knowing wind-speed and velocity and being able to gauge the probabilities of a shot killing a demon. Geniro just sucked at it. He was good at writing though, which was a bit of a surprise. Genya hadn’t even known how to write until Tanjiro taught him and Insouke, and even then Genya hadn’t written all that often. Yet, Geniro is good at writing and Genya is good at math, so they’re even.
It’s times like these that Geniro remembers to differentiate himself from Genya. He is Genya, but…not quite? He’s a reincarnation of the dude, but he’s not the dude, obviously. Sometimes, Geniro wished he was Genya. All tough and cool and a hero who saved the lives of others from man-eating demons. Other times, though, he was really glad that he was Geniro and not Genya. Geniro’s father wasn’t an abusive, alcoholic piece of shit, Geniro’s family was alive (alive!), and Geniro didn’t have to worry about almost dying every other day.
Geniro and Genya were two different people, but the same. Two different sides of the same coin, almost.
Almost, because if there’s one thing Geniro and Genya have in common, it’s having the best aim in town.
Children are cruel. Children can bully him for not knowing his exponents and his multiplication tables, and they can tease him for his visceral reaction to the smell of alcohol, but they can’t comment on his shooting skills.
And he has the trophies and medals and certificates on his shelf to prove it.
So, it’s really no surprise that he gets recognition for it. He just never really expected “recognition” to come in the form of a police academy.
It’s better than school, at least, and it’s a well paying job, and he gets to save people, but he’s a bit worried that the thin line between Geniro//Genya will get blurred. Wasn’t the whole point of reincarnation to have a completely new life?? At this point, he’s practically just living Genya’s life in a new century. Is it wrong? Is it bad? Maybe. But police academy gets to take his mind off…things that he had to deal with at school. He’s not too good at making friends, and the other cadets don’t really talk to him, and he’s okay with that.
He hasn’t had dreams or visions in a while. He knows enough, more than enough, if he’s being honest, and he doesn’t need that interfering with the life he’s finally making for himself.
Everything is going according to plan, at least according to the half-assed plan he made when he was six years old years ago.
That is, at least, until he meets Sanehiro.
And then everything goes downhill. Again.