Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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“Aniki, you’re alive, thank goodness.”

Relief coursed through Genya, sharp and fleeting as fire. The one respite he had, his reason for fighting still breathed, and that was enough. Himejima-san laid Sanemi's body beside him and the world narrowed to that single heartbeat —alive, alive. That single truth eclipsed everything else.

But with the weight of that realization came a profound loosening. If Tokitou had survived. Himejima-san, his shishou, had endured, and Sanemi was safe. All at once, it no longer mattered, Genya no longer needed to weigh his brother down anymore.

So his body began to falter, and started the process of letting go. His fingertips flaked to dust, crumbling in ways no human’s should, pain dulling into numbness as darkness blossomed across his sight.

Then, a sound Genya felt more than heard made him want to look up. His brother’s sudden cry, ragged and raw.

The wind Hashira’s voice had cracked in the rage he had always hidden behind, always shrouded himself in. Silly Aniki. By now Genya’s ears were gone, crumbled with the rest of him, and still he knew, still he listened.

“Agh! Genya!”

Actions were always spoken louder than words with this brother of his, fluent only in the language of blows and glare. In the sting of practice and in the weight of silence. With arms that would throw him onto the training mat again and again, and sharp eyes that burned holes into him when he thought no one was watching. Always harsh, always unyielding, always there.

Now those same arms held him again like they once did, long ago, before everything broke, before the pain and the blood and the loss, not as a soldier, not as a failure, but as a brother once more. Only this time he is cradled in slipping pieces.

And he would’ve been blind not to see it. See it in the way Sanemi clutched the lapels of his yukata, hands trembling. See it in the storm behind his eyes, a tangle of hate, worry, rage, grief— yet threaded with something older, something he almost doesn’t recognize, something half-buried.

it’s something Genya only barely remembered,

the warmth of a smile,

of secrets whispered beneath a futon,

of too-small hands twined together in a promise,

and oh.

How could he not have noticed?

Love.

Unspoken, yet undeniable, it burned in Sanemi’s gaze, steady as any vow. A sentence his lips had never uttered, but one that his eyes confessed all the same, saying the words his mouth never could:

‘I’ve got you. My little brother.’

And something stupid and fragile stirred in Genya — hope, rough and ugly, that unfurled like a wound that insisted on forming new edges. It reached for him, clumsy and persistent, toward the only family he’d ever known.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do something— ‘Nemi’s gonna figure something out!” Sanemi barked, panic palpable with tears that streaked down his scarred face, a map of anguish.

His eyes were darting at a frantic pace, as if searching in the air would snatch him a miracle that could stitch his brother back together whole.

Here a sense of wrongness gnawed at Genya. Why is his Nii-chan crying for him? Crying for the burden who dragged him down, the brother too weak to master a breathing style, the one who had to resort to devouring demons, to dirty tricks just to scrape by, who lived by cheap, ugly shortcuts to even come close to his brother’s light? How could Sanemi weep for someone so unworthy?

Genya tried to knit his brows, to scowl, to fold his face into the usual armor but found that his body wouldn't obey. The thought nested in him like a bitter seed, ‘Nemi must be disappointed— of course he was. Genya was a failure, even in death that will not change.

There was an apology that clawed up through whatever hollow is left, Genya forced his mouth open, heavy as lead, fangs in grotesque display, because this might be his only chance. The only chance to tell his big brother he’s sorry.

“Aniki… Nii-chan, I’m sorry.” The words scraped out as he forced the confession and strained with the effort. Genya felt the need to press these feelings into the fissures of the world with the last of his strength. Each breath was a struggle, yet he persevered. He had to do this. “Back then… I blamed you. I’m sorry. For being a burden… I’m really sorry.”

Sanemi’s face crumpled, as if struck. The expression that crossed him wasn’t just pain but a stunned, terrible tenderness, the sort that makes grown men look like children.

The hurt those words leave is cruel, harsher than any Blood Demon Art meant to tear through flesh. Yet even within that rupture, Genya felt a flicker of relief, fragile but real. He had said it. At last. Forgiveness, or its at least its shadow.

His body began to truly deteriorate at this point. He felt it falling apart, not merely the bone and skin turning into nothingness, but the deeper cords that tethered him to the world were snapping thread by thread

Unable to accept the reality they found themselves in, Sanemi’s voice clawed at the fraying edges of Genya’s being. Broken and furious, holding him back for a fleeting moment.

“You were never a burden to me,” Sanemi ground out, every syllable a blow and a promise. “Not even once! So don’t you dare die before me!”

The words struck Genya like a bullet. Fierce. Unrelenting.

For years Genya had carried failure like a cross; the confession had anchored him to shame. Because for as long as he could remember, Genya believed the only weight he bore was of being useless, broken, the little brother forever trailing behind.

Something in Genya shifted the moment Sanemi chose to tell the truth. Something he hadn’t allowed himself to name, threaded its way through the pain and took hold. For the first time in a long time, the idea was not a faraway dream but a possibility, that love, silent and stubborn, might be enough to steady him.

But now, seeing the tremor in Sanemi’s shoulder, something else broke through.

Something truer.

Something he had never dared to let himself believe.

“Thank you… for protecting me,” Genya rasped. The admission was dragged from vocal chords no longer there, each one weighted with dust. His lips snagged on his teeth; he tasted iron. It was only when wetness slid along his cheeks did he realize— there were tears. When had he begun crying?

“I didn’t protect you for shit, moron!” Sanemi snapped sharply, but it splintered at the edges, brittle as wood under strain. Beneath the snarl, Genya sensed the weight of his brother’s heartbreak seeping into the embrace he was held in. Sanemi’s voice dropped softly, almost as if he were confessing to himself as much as to Genya. “I didn’t protect you.”

But that wasn’t true, wasn’t it? Genya had known his brother cared since the beginning. Sanemi had guarded him in ways he could never name, through discipline, through distance, through fists meant to harden and not to wound. He had never done anything to warrant this kind of dedication, and yet it had been there all along. Even now, as he rose in height over the brother he had grown far apart from, the man that surpassed him in age and strength, Genya still felt small beside that shadow.

His Nii-chan had always been his shield. The one who bore all the damage. Was there ever a time Sanemi hadn’t protected him, in one form or another?

“You were trying to protect me,” Genya insisted, vision back flickering at the edges, “And I was trying to protect you, nii-chan. We feel the same… because we are brothers.”

Then the memories rose again, curled through him like smoke from an incense. Cold winter nights softened by siblings huddled together, hiding candy under the floorboards for their secret stash, sneaking out after dark to watch the stars from their yard, new years spent with eyes tight hopeful for the future ahead.

He missed them— Sumi, Teiko, Hiroshi, Shuya, Koto. He longed for them as if the river beyond already called their names. The emotion is so vivid it hurts. Other memories followed, heavier, darker. The cramped house, the constant pangs of endless hunger that gnawed at their bones, a father’s cruelty, a mother too gentle for the world’s talons. He carried them all now, his regrets spilling loose. What he had wanted, more than anything, was simple. He longed to protect Sanemi as Sanemi had always protected him.

The phantom of Genya’s chest constricted, his breath snagged as if time itself seemed to beseech him, urging him to hurry, to speak before silence claimed him permanently. Before it was too late.

“You had so many horrible memories,” Genya murmured, “and I wanted you to be happy.”

And some last corner of his consciousness, what little remained of his awareness. Thin and faded, admitted the truth: that this was the end.

“Because my Nii-chan is the sweetest person in the world.”

The words hung suspended, unbearably gentle against the ruin of the battlefield. And with them, something within Sanemi finally gave— a fissure shot through the storm, the armor, the silence, through the years of fury worn as thorn, ravaged and beaten until all that remained was a boy begging the heavens.

Sanemi’s scream tore through the labyrinth, a howl more prayer than rage, torn from the depths of a soul that has lost too much too young. “God, don’t take my brother away. Please. Please!”

Sanemi’s fingers seized up, white knuckled and bloodied. With a grip so tight it had desperation carved into the bone. It seemed an act of defiance to the unravelling happening in front of his eyes, as if the sheer force of will alone could stitch flesh to soul.

As if Sanemi’s scarred hands, scarred and trembling, could defy death itself.

“Thank you, Nii-chan.” The words left Genya soft, steady, and final. A farewell, shaped like a gift he had carried in silence his entire life. A goodbye.

Sanemi’s sob tore free, vulnerable and hopeless, rending the battlefield as his hands clutched only fragments, ready to reach through life itself and hold Genya back. Holding, until even those slipped away like ash between his fingers.

“GENYA!”

They said every soul must one day come to the Sanzu River.^[1]

Some would find a bridge of stone and cross with steady steps. Others would wade through its waters, cold lapping only at the ankles. But there were those who sank without trace, drawn into depths no lantern-light could reach, never to surface again.

Almost always, a pull awaited you. A current that bore each spirit through to the other side. 

So it had always been. So it would always be. That was the way of fate.

Yet once in a millennia, when the moon rose round and silver as a coin, the river was said to betray its own course. The flow turned upstream, as though time itself had recoiled.

The village elders whispered then, voice lowered like prayer: If ever you see the river run against itself, do not follow.

For those who chased its defiance were never seen again.

They said the backward current belonged to no world, claimed by neither the living nor the dead. 

It was something in between.

To be carried by that stream and to be swept along its path was to slip from memory itself, 

To drift outside the order of the Heavens. To be unmoored from the weave of life and death.

As if the thread of one’s being had slipped from the loom of time, left loose and untethered.

—

Genya found himself standing amongst a field of red spider lilies, their stems bowing like a crowd of quiet witnesses. The sunlight warmed his face in a way that made the moment feel absurdly ordinary. He knows at once where he is, and for an instant the world zoned on the river that faced him.

His mother had told him, long ago, whispered to him and his siblings like a warning within a lullaby— the old wives’ tale came back to him unbidden, the river that carried you across, the current that met you at the edge of everything. It had been said to him as a child, a thing to keep in the corner of the mind like a reminder. Now it felt less like a tale and more like a foretelling.

He thought, without surprise, that perhaps this was his time. Exhaustion sat deep in his bones, weary beyond the years on his face. He took a slow step toward the water’s edge. He would look into the river, he decided; he would measure the weight of every sin, every wrong turn, measure just how badly he has ruined this life, and see what he must drag with him into the next.

Alive again, unnervingly whole, body unbroken, he knelt at the shore and leaned over the surface. The water lay almost unnaturally calm. He expected ruin, roiling shadows, reflections mangled by accusation. Instead, he sees a reflection—his own.

For a moment, he almost doesn’t recognize the eyes that stared back at him. Not violet, but the telltale hinge of the thing he had feared he was. Black, tinged red, sharp and monstrous. The sight seared something open in him. Emotion rushed in like a tide that had chosen this precise moment to break.

Devastation, fury, insecurity, love, regret, cowardice, guilt, weakness, hatred. He could name them as they rose and fell, one after the other, crude as stones in a stream.

How fitting, he thinks, that he should die as a demon.

The anger came first, as it always did. Blunt, immediate, the old companion that had kept him moving on nights when nothing else could. Even here, even after death, he could not escape it. He had always lived with that war inside him, with rage streaming through his veins until he thought he would die with it. 

He was furious at demons for all they had taken from him, furious at the world for its small cruelties, for what it had stolen, but most corrosive of all was the rage he kept for himself. It was a cold, precise thing, it hollowed him out in places he could not name. He hated the weakness he believed lived in his blood, the half-thing the world used to mark him. 

He hated with equal measure, and threaded through those feelings, impossibly, no matter how deep it went, his hatred never outweighed the one thing more unbearable than all. It was love for his older brother.

It was a gut-level, unreasonable affection, a fondness that made the rest of his fury feel ridiculous. He hated that, too he hated that he could not sever himself from his Sanemi; couldn’t turn away from him. That love could hurt as much as any wound, that love still bound him, still bled from him, could unmake him from the inside out.

Eventually the storm spent itself of its fury, the overwhelming wave of emotions stilled, quieted. The fervor sank back into him, cold and distant, buried once more in the prison of his heart. Folded into the deeper, dull ache he had carried so long it had become a companion. He found himself staring again into the water, the face there steady. What remained, now that the rest of his feelings had been named, was the old, familiar pain: a slow, patient absence that had followed him like shadow.

That pain swelled into a more physical ache, sharp and immediate, and his hand rose almost of its own accord. They settled there like a root lodged deep at the back the confines of his mind, unmoving, as he fixed his gaze upon the water again.

He watched as his reflection followed how he curled a clawed finger toward his eyes, an ugly, private impulse to erase the thing that marked him: the cursed ability, the reminder of all the ways he’d failed. He wanted to claw the offending organ out, remove the proof of his weakness,  the curse that sat in his veins like rot.

He hesitated, the fingertip hovering. For a second the world held. The lilies leaned in, a silence like a witness settling over the riverbank, and for the first time in a long while Genya felt less like a weapon and more like a man who had been allowed a moment of mercy — small, thin, but real.

He was cornered.

Panic coiled like a trapped thing. Genya lashed out, fist meeting the river, and the water only sighed, indifferent, an answer that mocked him. Then, from somewhere under the sun’s washed light, a voice rolled over the bank, low and patient as distant thunder.

“Namu Amida Butsu.^[2] That boy was always too stubborn for his own good… Sometimes I wonder if he even realizes how much he desires to be seen, not just feared.”

Genya froze, breath stuttering before he spun, "Shishou—!", muscles snapped tight around to find the source of the voice. The motion was animal, blind, urgent, searching, like prey desperate to spot the predator before it struck.

Himejima-san stood there like a cliff, a massive frame, immense, immovable, his silhouette carved against the mellow landscape. His words fell in a monk’s cadence, scripture softened into consolation, spoke of release, of letting go, of stepping beyond, “You did well, Genya. I am proud of you.”

Yet his unseeing gaze told another story. Sorrow clouded them, but not with acceptance, more like an accusation.  They bore at Genya as though at a monster.  The man’s mouth and his expression warred with one another, and Genya felt that dissonance start to ring alarmingly through his head.

The riverbank closed in. More faces surfaced around him—judgmental, still, their disapproval like a weight, silent, small tribunals that pressed in with the weight of disappointments and old grievances. 

Each time he searched for an opening, a route away from blame, he found one had closed, someone he knew had already shifted to block it, though Genya could’ve sworn they hadn’t been there a second ago. The more he wished them gone, the more the crowd multiplied like a nightmare’s echo, the circle grew denser until he was trapped in a suffocating half-circle of accusation, with nowhere left to run.

The Insect Hashira and Water Hashira watched him from a little ways off, their eyes glinting with a cool contempt, yet their arms were oddly held open in something like a welcoming embrace, a mock hospitality that felt like a trap.

Tokitou-san stood nearer, his young face pinched in the reproach shadowing his gaze, but at the edges of that look a helplessly soft smile flickered at the corners of his mouth.

Tanjiro’s face took up the expression of amicability, of the easy friendliness that masked his warrior stance, ready to strike him at any time. 

And farther still, beyond the pall of witnesses, across the stream, Genya saw the impossible clearness of childhood. His siblings, small and unscarred, running through the spider lilies as if the world had not yet learned to hurt them. Their baby faces glowed with laughter, bright and unknowing, voices rose like a chorus of bells, ringing in cruel contrast to the heaviness of his chest.

His chest hammered, a heart frantic drum against the ribcage. Something in him tried to answer that distant laughter, an old muscle reaching for comfort, pulling his body like a bowstring taut and quivering. For one terrible, honest beat he could imagine stepping into that light, joining the small faces he loved, letting the river take the rest. The impulse was raw, simple, to follow the memory home and let the world stop asking for more than he had left to give.

Then the voice came. So certain, so familiar that it made his blood go cold. The voice that had slept beneath his bones for years, one that had haunted his nightmares, the one he had tried—and failed—to bury in silence, to compartmentalize, to lock away. 

 “What are you waiting for?”

His father swayed forward like a drunk man pushed by some cruel gravity, bitter, compelled, as the cruel sneer cuts into Genya once more, “You should go, child.”

Genya saw red. Panic burst into rage.

“Like hell I do!”

Without thinking, without the slow courtesy of reason, his hand moved, intent clear. With a single thrust, his sharpened nails had already plunged into the yellow-robed chest. Blood answered him in a hot, indiscriminate gush, spilling from a mouth that was no longer sneering. A strangled gasp tore free—but the sound was higher, softer, more feminine than he expected.

His vision whited out, his mind stuttered along with it. Blank, even as fresh entrails followed when he ripped his hands away. The body crumpled, torso folded awkwardly. The knees hit the ground with a lightness that did not match the weight of a man, striking the ground lighter, far too light, for his father.

And when he looked again, the truth struck like ice. Black hair cropped short in a marumage^[3], the plain knot of a poor woman. A faded obi tied around a homespun yellow kimono of meisen silk^[4], the kind worn by those who worked themselves raw.

Not a man’s garments. Not his father at all.

Genya’s vision swam. His throat closed around a soundless cry. Numb as he realized father had already been dead for years—

Then who had he just...?

Invisible hands crept around his throat, cold and rough, pressing until his breath snagged in his chest. He turned in panic, eyes darting from face to face, but the crowd that had hemmed him in only moments before had thinned.

Where there had been a wall of accusing figures, now none remained, no longer blurred shapes at the edge of his vision.

The tension pressed heavier than the hands at his neck.

Against his will, his gaze drifted downward.

At his feet, small and impossibly exposed, a pale face gazed back at him, luminous even in its frailty. White as paper, cheeks washed of color wide blue eyes shone with disbelief, wet with pain, searching his own as though begging for some explanation. His heart lurched.

“Genya…” 

Her lips barely moved, and then the light in her eyes feathered out. His mother’s body collapsed at his feet, folding in on itself like a marionette severed from its strings, lifeless.

Genya froze where he stood, horror rooting him to the ground. His claws trembled in front of him, slick and burning, stained in blood that was not his own. It dripped hot against his palms, down his wrists, each drop branding him with a guilt too vast to comprehend.

“What… what is this?” His voice sounded foreign as he struggled to speak. “What nightmare… have I stepped into?”

No answer came. The lilies did not whisper. The river did not answer. The silence itself felt like judgment.

With a broken sound, Genya dragged his claws down his own skin. The motion was desperate, vicious, as though tearing at his own body might strip the vision away. His sharpened nails found his eyes, digging past lashes, past lids, tearing until wet heat spilled down his cheeks. Sinking to his knees, pain did not stop him, he gouged deeper, a beast cornered by his own mind, his face coming undone beneath his hands.

“Wake up. Wake up.” His voice climbed with each word, straining higher until it broke apart into a scream.

“WAKE UP!”

The world snapped.

He lurched upright with a hoarse gasp, heartbeat hammering in his ears. Red specks crowded his sight, swimming like embers against the dark. His chest heaved as he doubled forward, palms pressed hard into his ruined sockets, grinding until the colors burst brighter. He clung to the scriptures drilled into him, sutras stumbling past his lips in frantic succession. Frantic, the old words dragged from memory. Wards against evil. Prayers to steady the heart. Words against shadows

He whispered them until his throat burned, until his breathing evened out into rhythm, steadied enough to draw him back from the edge.

At last, when he finally dared to open his eyes, they were whole, somehow healed.

The world had shifted.

Nighttime cloaked the riverbank. Blue and silver washed the landscape, the moon round and weighty overhead, a lantern hung too close to earth. Stars scattered themselves across the surface of the water like offerings. Grass bowed along the shore, gentle and untouched. For one heartbeat it was almost beautiful.

But Genya’s heart did not settle.

No red. The lilies were gone. Only the hush of open grassy fields devoid of spider lilies.

Then Genya looked down at himself, and his heart nearly stopped. Brown stains clung to his hands, dried and flaking, but unmistakable. His purple yukata was worse—stiff with it, soaked through so heavily that the fabric no longer felt like cloth but something ruined, heavy and alien against his skin.

Panic seized him. Frantically, he scrambled to the river’s edge and plunged his hands into the cool water, scrubbing until his nails bit into his own skin, until wisps of brown drifted away in the current. But the stains would not leave his robes; no matter how he clawed and rubbed, the fabric seemed saturated beyond redemption. There was too much. Far too much.

Something’s wrong.

The realization struck deeper than thought, more of a gut feeling, an instinct, primal and certain. His chest heaved as he yanked his hands free from the water. He had grown up around rivers, spent his childhood afternoons wading at their banks; he could tell when something in them was off. And this—this was not right.

There was definitely something very wrong here.

He forced himself to try again, dipping one hand into the stream. The pull was strong, cold to touch against his skin, but the riverflow…

The water came from the wrong direction.

It was going backwards.

The hairs along his nape lifted, a chill cutting through the night air. The current was running against itself, violently, unnaturally, as though time itself had recoiled.

And then he saw it, his reflection. No red tinged demon eyes. No monster staring back at him, no trace of the creature he always believed himself to be. Only Genya.

His breath caught, but understanding struck just as swiftly. The tales had been true—the warnings his mother sang him to sleep with, the old spun tale in cautions about rivers that turned in defiance. Every word had been a map to this moment.

He’s not stupid, far from it. He knew what this was.

A chance.

The river was flowing upstream, harshly at that.

In an instant he forced himself up, his legs unsteady but driven forward. He staggered first, nearly collapsing, then surged into a wild, stumbling run on the riverbank, chasing the impossible current, trying to follow the stream. The river’s current beckoned, impossible and irresistible, and he chased it like a man possessed. Forward, forward, forward towards—

“Genya”

He froze.

The voice rose above the rush of the water, familiar, steady, undeniable.

“Genya.”

Stronger now. Clearer.

His blood turned to fire. Holy shit—that was definitely his brother.

Suddenly, he can feel his feet carry him faster, as if driven by the sound. Panic gave way to momentum, nausea to motion. He can feel himself stumble from the previous queasiness and cursed himself for having attempted to gouge his own eyes out. Good that it did him now that he’s crashed to his knees in a fit of disorientation, it felt extremely providential now.

Acidic bile back surged up his throat, sour and burning, making him gag. The stench of dried blood clung to him like an insult, refusing to wash away.

But a clarity was beginning to seep through the cloudiness.

Think, Genya, think. The Sanzu River—his mother had told him the tales. He’d heard the folk lore all his life, the stories near hearth-sides, even Himejima’s sutras rolled through his memory. Spirituality had stubborn truth in it; he had learned that the hard way at the edges of blades and in the lessons of the Stone Hashira. That memory could not fail him now.

And now here he was, chasing an endless stream, sprinting with purpose alongside a river that snaked towards a horizon that refused to show its end.

He pressed an arm against his mouth to keep from retching, almost barreling over. He couldn’t falter now. Hesitation would be fatal here. The current that ran upstream allowed no pauses, no turning back. It was a one-way thread pulled tight toward some impossible weft. All he could do was follow.

As long—

“Genya.”

He reeled back onto his feet and kept running.

The name, when it came, braided with the water’s tone, a thin, younger echo shaped like his brother. It rose above the stream’s tinkling and steadied something inside him. The syllables were different somehow, a younger Sanemi folded into the voice, less a warrior’s command than a brother’s call. It became an anchor in the fog.

It was the only safe thing he could cling to in this purgatory.

He did not know where it led; he only knew he could not let it die away.

He had to reach it. He simply had to.

The voice whispered again, clear as a bell across the silence of the night.

Genya was never the one blessed with sharp hearing, that was Zenitsu’s domain. But now he wished for it desperately, wished he could track the voice, find its direction, find the way out of this gods-forsaken place and towards— towards what? He didn’t know.

His sprint dropped to a slower stride.

When his pace allowed for his mind to wander, the familiar skepticism that never left him crept back in. Genya had swallowed enough fairy tales and hard truths to know wishful thinking when it gleamed at him.

Genya had seen and learnt enough in his lifetime. Life had taught him never to dismiss old tales outright, there was always some shard of truth buried in them, and demons were proof enough of that. Yet even as the novelty of his death wore thin, he couldn’t shake the thought: this particular tale had to be utter horseshit.

Rewrite and change the course of history? Nothing could grant that sort of power. No God or myths would hand such authority to someone simply for stumbling along the banks of some fate river. Hell, ‘Shinazugawa’ even his own name had spelled out his fate from the beginning^[5]. He could only apologize for bringing shame onto their shared name and hoped that his brother could at least avoid that state of affairs and live peacefully. Really, If any deity truly looked upon him now, it would be only to laugh at the mess he had become.

Then there was the matter of timing. Spirits, if they existed, followed patterns, returning on anniversaries, on dates taken into memory. They did not appear at random intervals, sometimes separated by years. Such irregularity was anything but typical.

Far more likely, this was nothing more than a trick of nature, some strange current or omen that had caught human imagination, Heavens knows he’s out of it. The moon already commanded the tides, why not bend a river’s course now and again?

Yet here he was, confronted with the unthinkable, wrestling with the impossibility of it. Genya’s thoughts felt scattered, circling the edges of absurdity.

Empty tales, nothing more. He knew better.

Still, even as the mockery moved at the corners of his mind, the river’s backward pull felt less like a trick and more like a hinge left unlocked. He could scoff; he could surrender to cynicism. Or he could run until his lungs tore and hope the current carried him into something softer than the life he’d left.

“Genya.”

A plea, faint but unmistakable, carried across the water. He stiffened, then without thought, he was moving again.

—

Moon swallowed by night,

the river forgets its way,

flows against its course

those who walk the backward stream

tread a path no soul should know.^[6]

—

“Genya.”

What the fuck.

There it was again. He hadn’t stopped running, hadn’t dared stop, but somehow he was right back where he started. The same damp mud clung to his knees, the same clearing stretched before him. The river mocked him with its endless churn. Hunched over, panting hard, chest burning.

He couldn’t move mountains. Couldn’t make the world bend to him. He had no power over rain, storm, or miracle. So why?

Why the hell did his strength have to follow him here, of all places? Endurance had kept him alive through blades and hunger, it was supposed to serve him, not drag him back into the same circle.

If fate wanted someone strong, they’d gotten the wrong brother. He was Genya Shinazugawa for fuck’s sake. Talentless, a weak thing that couldn’t even cut up an upper moon, not at all built for the shit he’s being put through right now.

His muscles seized, a cramp seared down his calf. A bruise throbbed where his knees had kissed rock, every step since reopening the ache. Gods, if he could just sit, just sink into the dirt and let the pain ease for one damn moment—

“Genya.”

What the fuck.

The voice again: softer now, almost gentle this time.

His resolve withered immediately, curses spilled out as he willed himself to move again. He wanted to stop, to stay down, to give in. But the sound moved him, in some sick twisted way, it felt necessary to reach.

Genya dragged himself upright. Forwards again.

—

Circle without end,

all returns to where it starts,

What is bound shall be

Those who tread the weary path

arrive at their birthplace still.

—

The years had mellowed him out, he thinks.

Worn down and blunted the rage that once kept him alive. He was no longer angry, only dulled, too jaded to care about the world’s cruelties. That resignation steadied him, made him calmer, more aware. Perhaps it was that stillness that let him notice what he had missed before.

A pale white light floated far ahead, in the middle of the stream, hovering like a lantern adrift.

This second run was different to his first one, this light flickered gently in the wind, beckoning him to come closer.

Genya did, though at a much slower pace, unwilling yet compelled, eyes fixed on the faint shape that he can make out amongst the brightness, until he could squint and see the edges of a cropped haori, long white sleeves and hair as pale as the glow itself.

He clenched his fists, teeth ground together as he pushed himself onwards. He pretended he wasn’t afraid, though every step betrayed him. Genya tried to wear this fear lightly, as though pretending not to feel it might make it true. But the closer he drew, the more he understood: there was no turning back. He had chosen, and the river would not let him return unchanged.

It felt the same as when he had first stepped into Final Selection. He had wanted to become a Hashira, desperate for his brother’s acknowledgement. He had thrown himself into that path with everything he had, chasing honor, chasing love, finding a strange stillness in the promise of violence and sacrifice.

But the truth was simple:

He gave it his all.

But it was beyond him.

—

When all else is gone,

a man casts his fate away,

bartering his soul.

The backward river surges

Defying the loom of time

—

The light tugged at him still, and reason dictated this must be where his brother’s voice had risen from all along.

Step by step, he closed the distance. When no more than a meter remained between him and the glow, the sound abruptly changed. No longer the steady call of his brother’s voice, but the broken rhythm of a child’s sobs.

Genya halted.

The memory of Sanemi’s voice on the battlefield was still an open gash, freshly cut and bleeding. But this was different. Innocent. Guileless.

He realized, with a jolt that left him cold, he had never once heard his brother cry as a child.

He had never heard it, not until Sanemi held him in his final moments before he was torn away to this place.

Not even on the nights when their father’s fists turned the house into a battlefield. Not even when dawn came cruel, burning away what was left of their mother, Sanemi had never shed a tear in front of him. Too strong and proud, he’d always been the pillar of strength that guarded their family.

Despite having Genya promise to take care of their family together, Sanemi had always been the boy who stood between their family and despair, the one who shouldered everything alone, and later the Wind Pillar who hurled himself into every storm as if daring it to break him.

Never tears. Not once.

To hear it now, to hear that strength falter, was almost unbearable. Genya’s chest twisted with grief, and beneath it, a sick kind of awe. It felt wrong to hear it, like intruding upon something private— like catching sight of a hidden wound, to glimpse a truth he was never meant to see.

—

Rebirth asks a price,

a toll paid in blood or tears,

the path bends aside

neither blessed nor cursed it waits,

veil of hope or dread concealed.

—

Up close, the light was not what he had thought. It hovered just above the river’s skin, piercing and small, like a shard of glass catching moonlight. From afar, it might have been mistaken for a star’s reflection, some ordinary gleam. Easy to miss. But here, within reach, it glared back with an unnatural clarity, steady and deliberate.

Genya stopped at the bank, body sagging from fatigue, mud caked to his boots. The sobbing inside the glow had tapered off, leaving only his uneven breathing puffing white in the night air.

Perhaps the light was not a person, but a confluence of will, a scar in the fabric of fate where every regret and unfulfilled wish of his lost to the river pooled into a single, conscious current.

For a heartbeat the atmosphere felt thick, like he’d walked in on something sacred. Maybe this was the point where he was meant to stop, to wait, to bow his head for some rite of passage, to accept blessings before being shuffled on to the next life.

Yeah, no. Genya had no patience left for rites. “Aniki? Are you there?”

The world around him didn’t stir at his outburst. Nor punish him for his irritation. The stream kept its steady rise upstream. The forest didn’t flinch. But a sudden draft slid cold over his shoulders, and the ache in his body seemed to lift—too sudden to be natural.

“You poor unfortunate boy.”

“?!” Genya flinched, teeth bared before he could stop himself, trying again to battle the sense of wrongness erring in his conscience. Creepy. That was so creepy.

The voice skinned him raw. It wasn’t his brother. Not really. It only wore Sanemi’s cadence, slipping the syllables around his ears like a knife tip testing flesh..

“What is it you want in this life, or the next?”

The question coiled tight in his gut. He hated how it sounded, how it borrowed Sanemi’s tongue to twist at him. Mimicking. Mocking. And that unsettled him more than anything else had so far. Not to mention he didn’t even know what the hell to say or how to respond.

“I want my big brother to be happy.” Was almost the first thing that slipped from his mouth, because his whole life had been built on that single truth: I don’t want him to suffer anymore. He’s already carried enough pain for me. I want to take that burden away. Even if it cost him his life, Genya would be content. But when the moment came, he found he couldn’t say it.

He’d run half the night after this cursed glow, chasing it like a starving dog, desperate for something to hold, and now it asked him to speak a truth he wasn’t sure he had. His mouth went dry. His hands twitched useless at his sides. Ironic how now that he stood before it, he had nothing to say. Nothing that would come out right.

Genya Shinazugawa was selfish, that much was true. Because if he wasn’t, then why did he want so badly?

I want to go to town on New Year’s and watch the fireworks.

I want to eat good food with my friends.

I want to serve my shishou tea.

I want to make ohagi with my brother.

“I want to live,” understanding crashed into him, even if I don’t deserve it, remained unspoken.

He shook his head slowly, as if the weight of the question might fall loose if he didn't move carefully enough. “I’m not unfortunate,” he whispered, as if to convince himself more than the invisible force in front of him . His sleeve slipped back, fingers tracing the skin of his arm until the motion steadied him.

The light blurred in his vision, shifting like it might dissolve at any moment, and he clung to the thought that this,— whatever the hell it was—had to mean something. That it wasn’t just another cruel trick.

“I can still make it right,” Genya tried, quiet but certain, “And don’t you dare tell me otherwise”

The core of the light seemed to look at him, and smile. Which was absurd, considering it had no face at all. Yet the feeling pressed in on him unmistakably.

The gaze wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either. It was measured. Calculating. Almost sympathetic. And, disturbingly, familiar, as though the thing had studied Sanemi long enough to wear his manner, his aura with ease. He had no idea how a fragment of light could carry emotion, but it did.

“It can all be changed.” the voice answered in his brother’s voice, borrowed and bent. A beat of silence, then the light amended itself with an afterthought, “Whether it can be fixed? That is up to you,”

“Aniki—wait!” Genya lunged forward, hand outstretched as if he could catch it before it vanished. The light broke between his fingers like thin glass; one blink and it was gone, leaving only the sound of rushing water.

He stood there wide eyed at the empty space it had occupied, quite a bit dumbfounded, every breath sharp in his throat. The air clung heavy to his skin, thick with heat that refused to settle. If he narrowed his focus, he could almost see the afterimage of the glow, etched into the dark as if the world still remembered where it had been. The thought twisted in him, reckless—half desperation, half resolve.

And that’s when he noticed the stream had undergone another change.

Where it had been calm before, a new sound stirred in the distance, low and rolling. The water ahead picked up its pace, surface flashing, the promise of a flood beginning to rise

Genya exhaled, half a laugh, half a curse.

“Fuck it.”

And hurled himself into the river.

The first thing he felt was cold. It was really cold. Two steps in and the water was already past his waist, and Genya realized his mistake.

By the third step it swallowed him whole.

It was the kind of cold that chewed straight through to the bone, scrambling his thoughts into static. For a few heartbeats he couldn’t even remember why he’d jumped, Instinct thinned to a single edge,

Breathe.

When his vision just started to steady, then came the pull. A brutal, downward drag that clamped around his chest and legs. Distantly the thought came, unbidden and cruel, the river had measured him, found his sins too heavy, and its currents were set on dragging him under.

And yet—he couldn’t move. Something unseen kept him suspended in place, like the river wanted him trapped exactly here, neither swept away nor allowed to climb back up. Intent that he remain exactly where it hung, caught on the seam between being and nothing.

Hell if that’s going to stop Genya from trying.

He fought it, but the river was deeper than sense allowed. No bottom, no edges, just black weight pressing in. Moonlight fractured high above, a thin smear of silver across the surface. The current tore past, strong enough to spin him like driftwood, ready to scatter him anywhere it pleased.

He thrashed, lungs searing, he needed air, but the depth was endless, more vast than he’d ever imagined.

His body screamed, but still he pushed, and then—

He stilled. Let the current pull him deeper down. Surely this was when something would happen. Something to prove the river meant what it promised. If something true waited below—then perhaps surrender would manifest the miracle.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

—

If I soon leave here,

I’ll lay where our haven was

Looking for us

The stream softly tugs at me

it begs me to understand

—

The water was peaceful.

Genya remembered the pond near their house, Shuya splashed clumsily in the shallow parts of the water, Hiroshi flicked droplets at him and pretended it was an accident.

It had been their haven, a place the Shinazugawa children could claim for themselves, where the siblings could frolic and forget, just for a moment, about the pain of home.

Ripples softened Sumi and Teiko’s delighted cries, cool water eased bruises no one admitted to, and for a while, the cool element became a balm for their restless, discontented hearts.

Sanemi always lingered near the edge, Koto tucked safe against his side, keeping watch with that wary protectiveness of his, warning them only not to slip.

On rare occasions, their mother would join them. She’d let down her hair, and the muddy, giggling children would do their best to braid it. The results were always a catastrophe, but only Sanemi had the courage to look sheepish about it. The others never noticed, too entranced by the way she gazed at them as though they had given her the world. In her eyes, there was pride, and warmth, and always, always love.

And the water had always been clean. Pure. Life-giving

But this river was not. A cruel inversion of the sanctuary he remembered.

Genya could last underwater longer than most—longer than any ordinary man. Hashira or not, he’d trained, forced his body through the breathing drills until his lungs learned endurance if nothing else. But even he had limits. Already he can feel the way his lungs were shrinking, heaving inside his chest, begging for relief.

He tried to kick back towards the surface, but the river’s grip was iron, unyielding, wrapping around his body like chains and keeping him agonizingly in place. His head was growing light, vision swimming, pain bursting like fireworks behind his eyes. His chest convulsed, an animal urge clawing up. Shit—if only he could find an air pocket, anything.

In a desperate fit of panic, instinct betrayed him. And against his better judgement, he inhaled.

Liquid surged into his lungs, cold and scorching all at once, filling inside him. FUCK. Wrong decision. Reflexes forced his mouth open, and even more water rushed in, flooding him, drowning him from within. His body jerked as his lungs filled, heaving and failing, burning every nerve alight and screaming.

The river ground him down to nothing, and his form wavered. Colors smeared together, light and dark bleeding like ink in water.

And then—something reoriented. Through the haze, he saw light, growing larger, brighter. His mind, half-gone and probably delirious from oxygen loss, sank into a strange equanimity, a terrible calm.

Darkness blurred at the edges, the river now took the form of his brother. Sanemi as a child, small again, with that same sad smile that had Genya aching, the figure reached out through the current, lips mouthing words that broke only into bubbles—but Genya knew what they were. The mirage closed their distance, and Genya felt a soft pressure brush his forehead, as though in blessing.

“Find me, Genya.”

Then the water swallowed everything, the pain dissolving into nothing.

—

Though the sun has risen,

I know I can see you again,

When it sets at dusk

Yet even so, how I hate

this cold light of dawn^[7]

Out of all the ways he thought he might die, drowning had never made the list. Demons, sure. Losing control of the thing in his veins and being cut down for it? He had rehearsed that mortality a dozen times. ‘Nemi finding out his little brother had eaten demons? The memory made him shudder. But water? Quiet, patient, unremarkable water pulling him down? It felt ridiculous.

Yet when his eyes snapped open—though he swore he had just lost consciousness a moment ago— he found himself still under the surface, bare hints of moonlight spilling down in fractured beams through the clear depths. He couldn’t command his body properly, and from the way the water was moving, he could tell he was still sinking. The world slid slow and soft at the edges. His skull throbbed in the absence of air, his mouth sat numb from disuse and aside from the reflexive involuntary twitch and jerk of his limbs, there was no real fight.

It did not feel real. He did not feel real.

Move, a voice urged inside his head. You’re dying.

'Would that really be a bad thing?’ The thought rose unbidden, almost polite, curling around him as he folded inward. There was a sweetness to the surrender, quiet, absolute. Maybe that would be mercy.

Find me, Genya.

That voice again. A bitter laugh nearly bubbled out of him. Find you for what? You’ve never wanted anything to do with me. They’d been torn apart for so long that Genya no longer knew if there was anything left to salvage… He wished that there was something to salvage.

He didn’t know why he had woken beneath the surface, nor how he was still alive, only that he was somehow closer to it now. What his body was telling him was that he was cold, exhausted, and every inch of him hurt like hell. All he understood was the raw ache that lanced through every joint. He let the thought of ending come soft and steady, the body’s final courtesy.

Can this just end already? His feelings clashed with reason, and at last, blessedly, he felt the fight leave him. His organs seemed to will themselves into silence, his body betraying rationality, survival, at last. And this, this is where Genya Shinazugawa’s story ends, slipping quietly into the dark.

Then the world erupted.

There was the sound of a splash, something heavy plunging into the water. A frantic grip locked around his wrist, clamping tightly, dragging him upwards, upwards towards the surface, until he was coughing and retching on the muddy shore. He coughed and choked on grass and river, convulsing as water tumbled from him. More fluids spilled spewed from his body as a panicked hand thudded against his back in rhythmic beats, grounding him with every hit. One strike, another—until at last he coughed air into his ribs instead of water.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ Genya thought between heaves, spit clinging to his tongue. The moon above shone brightly, taunting him, and the hand that had kept him living would not stop its work.

—

As Genya struggled to gather his wits, centering his core to regain balance.

His body was still spasming with aftershocks, when the sound of a voice began drilling into his ears.

“—so as I was saying, I was walking and I thought I smelled something. I assumed it was a demon, so I tried to check the area, but then the scent suddenly vanished. I felt it was really odd and I was about to leave, but then I still smelled someone, I couldn’t just leave somebody! So when I looked, I saw the pond’s surface rippling and—”

The words tumbled out, bright and frantic, all edges well intentioned enough. Familiar too, though in a way he can’t quite place. He knew this voice. Or thought he did.

But his skull was full of fog, his vision painted in black blotches that bled into soil. The world slipped, uncertain. He wasn’t real. None of this was. Most of all, the figure speaking beside him couldn’t be real either.

Because he remembered the castle. That damned endless palace, disorienting stairs folding into themselves, walls humming with power, the air curdling under Muzan’s tricks. He remembered the sound of bodies torn apart. It was a hell no one should’ve survived.

(He could still hear it: the wet ruin of flesh stretched past its limits, bones snapping, limbs wrenched apart—)

“Hey? Hey, are you with me? You’re drenched. You must be freezing. Did you fall into the pond while washing your face? Did you happen to hurt anything? Do you think you can move? It’s okay—it’ll be dawn soon. I can help carry you to the checkpoint, the Final Selection is almost over!” the figure intoned, looking over him with increasing concern.

… Final Selection?

No. No, that couldn’t—

The figure crouched beside him, voice low, careful not to draw attention from unwanted visitors. A hand waved repeatedly over Genya’s blank stare. “Hey… uh, can you hear me?”

Genya’s fingers,— strange they were, smaller and thinner than he remembered, clawed into the clumps of wet earth, shaking with effort as they tightened around the mud as though it could anchor him and stop the spinning in his skull. Slowly, reluctantly with effort like hauling stone, he dragged his gaze upward from the ground.

Eyes. Bright, earnest, burgundy red, met his own. It's with a shock that he recognizes who this is. He knew this boy. He knew that face, the dark hair heavy with sweat, bouncing with the way he was swaying on his feet, framed a young countenance marked by exhaustion. The Hanafuda earrings swung softly with every tilt of his head, That boy’s voice spilling over itself in a hurry, every word tumbling out of his lips in rapid succession, because he cared too much to measure them.

Tanjiro.

That beaming face wasn’t smiling for once, his brow pulled in worry, probably for Genya’s sorry state.

It was Tanjiro. Familiar. Too familiar. But wrong. Wrong. Wrong body. Wrong voice.

Whatever this thing was, it wore a face far too young.

Because this wasn’t Tanjiro, not as Genya knew him, not as he was supposed to be. This boy’s face had no place here, he didn’t belong. Not in purgatory, not in hell, not whatever threshold Genya stumbled into.

They were in a clearing, moonlight cutting pale strips through the trees. The redhead was crouched in front of him, voice soft, coaxing, saying things Genya couldn’t catch. Telling him to calm down, probably. As if that were possible.

Genya’s hand found Tanjiro’s shoulder, alive, fingers digging in.

Warm. Solid.

Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw them.

Red spider lilies. A ring of them blooming from the dark, their petals curling like flame. In their center stood something small and white, still as bone.

He blinked,—

— and Tanjiro’s head shifted, blocking his view.

“Move, idiot,” he hissed, shoving at the boy’s shoulder.

Tanjiro startled, frowning and trying to look over his shoulder to follow Genya's gaze, “Huh? What happened?”

But when Genya looked again,

There was nothing.

—

Tanjiro pressed a few berries into Genya’s palm, “Eat.”

The brat had all but dragged him out of the clearing, buzzing with concern, treating Genya’s less than superb state like it was his personal responsibility to fix. Genya’s stomach turned at the thought, he was older now, in his head at least, mentally older than this version of Tanjiro. Older, yet back inside the thin, wiry body of his youth. It was almost funny. Almost.

He shifts his burning gaze back into the offering in his palm. Small, bruised yamamomos^[8]. Meager. Tanjiro must’ve foraged for these, scraping from what little the mountain gave. Food was scarce here. It was a battlefield with every man for himself. And yet here was Tanjiro, the idiot, giving it away as easily as he breathed.

Genya almost hated how much it warmed him, how much he appreciated the kindness. Almost wished it had been anyone else. Any other cadet would’ve left him in the dirt.

Genya didn’t feel hungry. Truthfully, he didn’t feel much of anything at all. But Tanjiro had a tight-lipped smile and that light, steady air about him told Genya he wasn’t asking. From years of training alongside the brat, the quiet weight beneath all the gentleness. Refusal in disguise. This wasn’t a request. He knew when Tanjiro was dead serious. So grudgingly, he shoved one of the berries into his mouth and forced himself to chew.

It tasted sweet, cloyingly so.

Once reassured that his new companion was at least eating, Tanjiro allowed himself a breath of relief and busied himself with his belongings. The boy had taken it upon himself to set up a small camp, first collecting some dry leaves then turned his attention to coaxing a fire to life, attempting to chase the chill from Genya’s bones. Sparks caught, flame licked up, pushing back the damp coolness. Always putting others first. Always himself last. That was Tanjiro’s way.

Genya sat stiff, staring into the flickering light, trying to understand or make sense of his situation. It had to be real. He’d followed the call of the river upstream, been dragged under, nearly drowned, and now he’s here. Final Selection again, as promised, a point where time turned back. The chance to undo history, though he still couldn’t fathom why this moment.

Realistically, everything was in order. On the surface, everything had fitted into place. So why didn’t he feel real? Why did his body feel so drained, cold, heavy—not his own at all? It looked like his body, though a lot younger than he remembered, he was scrawny, there was no muscle, but it did move when he told it to move. But not like before. Slower. Sluggish. Almost lifeless.

He’d have to get used to it. Adapt to the feeling of being a weakling again, back when all he had was the skin on his arms. He’d get by. He always did. He’d have to.

Tanjiro plopped on the ground across him with a small grunt, back braced against a tree, chewing wild berries with considerably far more enthusiasm than Genya could even think to match at his current state. “Feeling any better?” He asked around a chew, licking the juice from his thumb, head tipped in curiosity waiting for an answer.

Genya rolled a shoulder, the half-lie leaving him easily. “I’m fine.”

Tanjiro nodded, seemingly somewhat at ease, though his frown lingered as he picked at berry pulp stuck to his fingers. Then his expression softened, as his relief spilled into a soft smile, “Good. For a second, I really thought I’d lost you.” The sincerity was so disarming Genya felt the start of a matching grin tugging at his own mouth.

Then, just as quickly, something seemed to strike him. He shot upright, nearly smacking his head on the tree. With a loud clap of fist to palm, his face lit up, beaming like an idiot who’d just discovered the sun existed. “Ah! Where are my manners? I’m Tanjiro. Tanjiro Kamado.”

He leaned forward, earnest enough to make Genya want to recoil, and beamed wide enough to split his face. “It’s great to find a comrade! Shame we didn’t meet sooner, we could’ve teamed up.” His laugh came quick, sheepish, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Honestly, I was starting to get worried. I hadn’t seen a single person out here.”

Genya nodded dumbly, words stuck somewhere in his throat.

Tanjiro’s questions came in a rush, rapid fire and a smidge too quick for Genya’s lethargic brain to catch up with. “And your name? You’ve gotta be strong to make it to the final day of the Final Selection.” His hands were already busy feeding another stick to the fire, the glow catching in his wide eyes as he motioned wildly. “But man, it really scared me that the first person I finally ran into—outside of a demon—was drowning.”

He beamed, so guileless it almost stung. Earnest in that ridiculous way that made it hard to stay annoyed.

Genya shifted to the side, shoulders tight, eyes skating over the fire, the ground, anywhere but the boy in front of him. “...Genya. Genya Shinazugawa.” His own voice startled him, the name slipping out soft, and he prayed Tanjiro wouldn’t pry any further.

“Oh, that’s a nice name!” Tanjiro’s dark eyes brightened, though when Genya glanced up, he caught an almost affronted look, as if the boy couldn’t believe he’d kept it to himself until now. “Is the Genya in your name the same ‘gen’ as in the kanji for ‘mysterious’ right?^[9]” He sounded genuinely intrigued, rolling the syllables as if testing their weight. “That’s really cool… ‘mysterious, all the more’—it suits you.”

Genya let the boy ramble, keeping his eyes on the fire, letting Tanjiro’s words pour into the silence like water filling cracks.

But inside, his mind clawed at the edges of reason. Was it possible that the river, what it had done, had really dragged him back to the past? Is it not just a really elaborate hallucination? Could that even be real? Yet how could he deny it, when living proof sat right in front of him? He’d seen it himself, his reflection in the water, younger by years. Black hair, round cheeks, the baby fat he’d long since lost. Proof that something had shifted.

But no. It couldn’t be.

Because if Tanjiro was here, alive, breathing, babbling about names, then none of it had happened. None of it. His chest seized, breath catching like thorns in his throat. Pain bloomed sharp behind his eyes. The future pressed down on him, crushing, suffocating. Panic was rising like bile, clawing at the edges of his mind. The sound of water was rushing in his ears again, the torrent was going to sweep him away. Fast. He can’t keep up. Everything was happening too fast.

“Oi, look at me, look at me!”

As if sensing the turmoil brewing under his frown, Tanjiro moved with that freakish nose of his, leaping into action.

He caught Genya’s face in both hands, turning it toward his own, shaking him with surprising force. “You’re okay. You’re alright, yeah? Just breathe. Yes, breathe. It’s all okay. Everything’s going to be okay, alright?”

Genya stared into Tanjiro’s face, suddenly so serious, so worried, and the words sank in by degrees.

“It will be okay,” he echoed shakily, breath trembling. He nodded once to himself, then again, and again, until it felt like he’d forgotten how to stop.

Genya’s muttering slid into a whisper, “Yes, it will be okay. Because it didn’t happen. It never happened. So… so…” His head jerked to the side, denial replacing affirmation, and the thought of the future-that-was made his stomach twist.

Seeing it all laid bare before him. The proof that this was his second chance, standing right there in front of him. Tanjiro’s eyes, still soft, not yet haunted by death, not yet honed into a weapon meant for killing. Genya felt something settle inside him, a newer, sharper determination.

“It’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine,” he repeated, the words steadier this time, like he almost believed them. This time, he wouldn’t let any of his comrades fall. This time, he wouldn’t let Sanemi stand alone.

Tanjiro clearly didn’t understand a word of his rambling, that much was obvious, but it seemed enough nonetheless. He eased his grip, let Genya’s face go, and stepped back with a cautious kind of reprieve.

As Genya stared into the fire and the boy who was proof of an impossible world, he thought, a little hysterically, ‘this isn’t the same world at all.’

He really was back in the Final Selection.

A laugh burst out of him, short, broken, strangled. Then he pitched forward and threw up.

Chapter Text

The first thing that struck him was the scent. Wisteria. 

It invaded the air, heavy and honey-sweet, a cloying perfume that clung to the back of the throat with the insistence of a ghost. To the others, this fragrance was a promise; safety, sanctuary, the invisible boundary that had kept the demons at bay, proof they had endured the seven-day hell of Final Selection. 

For Genya, it was more of a funeral shroud. 

Only four.

The number echoed in the vast silence, a verdict. Tanjiro’s shock was a more physical thing, a tremor that seemed to radiate from him. His wide, honest eyes shone wet under the last dregs of the night’s darkness, reflecting horror at how many had fallen. His lips parted as if to recount, to give a name to the terrible arithmetic, four out of how many? Twenty? More? But no sound emerged. 

Genya could sympathize. The final selection had a high cost.

There was an uneasy chill and a mutual understanding shared amongst the four survivors, thrummed with the weight of all the names that would never be spoken again, all the futures snuffed out in the dark of Mount Fujikasane. He stood rigid as dawn bled across the clearing, the sky paling to a lavender at the edges.

Genya dragged his gaze across the few living left, a grim tally. Kanao stood among them, a human carved from a doll. Her expression was still and luminous, a porcelain calm that felt alien in this place, amidst the lingering stench of blood and fear. If he didn’t know any better, he’d judge her as aloof. He remembered her older, the once impassive face that managed to bleed with emotions that were no longer strangers to her, how her blank stare gradually grew a deeper kind of warmth.

But here… she was delicate. Almost fragile. The protective urge that rose in him was dull, mulled by exhaustion and a strange, distant goodwill. She’s just a kid, he thought, the realization a fresh wave of disorientation. They all are.

A frantic, gasping sound shattered the quiet. Zenitsu stood quivering as if his very bones were trying to escape his skin. “I-I-I don’t even want to be here!” he wailed. “I should have died in there! It would’ve been better than- than this! Surviving only means I’ll die later anyway, and it’ll probably be even more painful and horrible!” His voice cracked, high and reedy with such despair it was uncomfortable to witness.

Genya found himself squinting at the boy, trying to reconcile this sniveling, terrified wreck with the fighter he had once seen. The devastating, lightning-wreathed slayer that could unleash a Thunder Breathing technique with god-like precision. There was no flicker of that storm now—just a boy, scared and trying.

Zenitsu continued shaking like a leaf, “Will die, will die, will die, will die… even if we survived, we’ll still die in the end.” 

And looking at him, Genya thought, with a lurch of his stomach: I was like that once. Not that much of a coward, God no. But he was too eager. Too reckless. All sharp edges and unbridled fury with nowhere to channel it. The first time around, he had stood in this very clearing vibrating with a desperate, toxic energy, ready to bite the world apart if it would just acknowledge him. He’d been desperate to climb the ranks, desperate for his brother’s attention to fall onto him, if only in scornful recognition. He’d been a raw nerve, a live wire of want and inadequacy.

Not this time.

The fatigue that clung to him now was a different beast. It was in his bones, a weary weight settled deep into his soul, sanding down his sharp edges into something quieter, more resigned. He felt years older than the body he was trapped in, in a literal sense as well.

For a moment, he thought the wait might split him open. No river, no battlefield, no brother, just the mountain’s stillness pressing on his ears, waiting to see what he’d do with this borrowed time. Genya almost laughed at the thought. What could he possibly do now? He had been dragged back into the skin of his youth, forced to walk again through a trial he had already failed once. Damn it. If this was mercy, it had a cruel sense of humor.

Then the twins appeared. Their arrival was so silent it was as if the air itself had coalesced into two small, pale forms. They moved with an unnerving synchronicity, their presence as quiet and inevitable as snowfall. They spoke in unison, their cadence clipped and precise, carrying an eerie, ageless weight that belied their childlike appearances.

“Welcome back. Congratulations, being safe and sound is better than anything else.“

The hairs along his neck prickled. Genya found himself remembering too well the last time he’d stood here. The way his temper had run wild, how he’d lunged, desperate and graceless, seizing one of them by the hair as if violence could force anyone to bend for him. How he’d barked for a blade like a half-starved cur, snapping at the hand that might’ve fed him. Good, that did him, ending up with a broken arm and retreating with his tail between his legs.

The memory made him wince. Shame crawled hot and ugly across his face, heat coiling behind his ears. Idiot. He’d been such an idiot. Rash, clumsy, loud, a selfish child still clawing at scraps as if he hadn’t already lost everything.

Now he knew better. Patience had been beaten into him, washed into him, carved into his very bones by none other than the relentless discipline of one Gyomei Himejima. Memories of the hours that stretched into eternity beneath freezing waterfalls, his heart working on overdrive to pump blood through his body, chanting sutras until the water inevitably made him sputter. The sheer force of the thing pummeling his head until all his panicked thoughts gave way into a blessed empty reticence. It was hell.

His body trembled, lungs clawing for breath, while the torrent hammered down until thought itself drowned. He remembered the ache of muscles locked in prayer stances, the bruises from a staff correcting him again and again until stillness ceased to be a punishment and became its own strange refuge. Of Himejima-san, resonant, immovable, telling him that vengeance was not the only path, that resentment was not the only weapon, that true strength was often found in stillness.

So this time, Genya stood still. He watched. He listened. He forced his hands to remain loose at his sides, his jaw to unclench. He was a stray rock in the river of this familiar nightmare, and he would not be swept away by the current of his own impulsiveness. Time was a fragile thing, a river, and one move thrown wild could warp the whole stream into a new, unpredictable course.

The script unfolded exactly as he recalled. The twins’ voices rang soft and chiming, like temple bells, their words practiced and ritualistic. Uniforms. Ranks. The naming of Mizunoto, the lowest rung.

“Today, you will each choose a chunk of tamahagane alloy. Your blade will be completed within ten to fifteen days.”

Around him, the group shifted in different ways. Tanjiro, alert and eager even in exhaustion, straightened as if the promise of a blade was something holy. Beside him, Kanao, with the vacant expression and a coin clasped tight in her fingers, tilted her head the slightest degree, as if the announcement was just another sound in the wind. And then there was the blond one, Zenitsu, whose legs seemed ready to give out beneath him, muttering what sounded like a prayer that the sword might also come with a coffin. Genya bit the inside of his cheek; at least someone else here understood what kind of “gift” they were being offered.

“And from now on, Kasugaigarasu will be following you all.”

The wisteria trees rustled as the crows descended in a storm of black feathers and raucous cries, their shadows sweeping across the clearing like falling ash.

He listened as the twins explained that the kasugai were special crows, bred for communication, for orders carried across the battlefield.

Then his own crow arrived.

Hashibami slammed into his shoulder with the grace of a falling brick, claws snagging rough fabric and pinching skin beneath. The bird beat its wings once before settling, talons digging in like it had every right to perch on him as if he were a tree.

Somewhere off to the side, Zenitsu’s high-pitched wail broke through the noise: “Eh? Isn’t this a sparrow?”

Genya laughed, but the sound caught in his throat and came out as a choking noise. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Because this was his crow. His Hashibami. The loud, stubborn creature that had been with him from the start. He hadn’t appreciated it before, had treated it like an annoyance, just another piece of baggage. But now, standing in this second chance, he realized how much that damned bird meant to him. His first companion. His proof he wasn’t walking this road completely alone.

Genya nabbed the thing off his shoulder, and the crow let out a startled squawk, wings flapping wildly in a blur of black feathers. Without thinking, he pulled it tight against his chest, arms locking around it in pure content, pressing the bird so close its feathers brushed against his jaw. Hashibami fought him with an indignant thrashing, screaming about like he’d just been snared in a hunter’s trap.

A sharp, disdainful caw cut through the one-sided reunion.

“Caw! What a disgraceful sight! Cawddled like a fledgling! Caw! Hashibami, you weakling, submitting yourself to such a brute! Pathetic!”

The words dripped with spite, and when Genya looked up, the culprit was clear: perched on Kamado’s shoulder, feathers gleaming in self-importance, was another crow, this one puffed up with aristocratic disdain, wings flaring as if to punctuate its scorn.

Tanjiro and Zenitsu both recoiled in shock, “A—A talking bird?!” Zenitsu yelped, nearly falling over himself, while Tanjiro just looked extremely abashed.

“Hey!” Tanjiro’s face went crimson as he hastily tapped his own crow on the head, more flustered than angry. “That’s rude! Apologize right now!”

Matsuemon Tennoji only ruffled his feathers, looking even more smug for having been scolded.

Genya, still clutching Hashibami like a stolen treasure, didn’t say a word. The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself. Trust Tanjiro to end up with a crow even louder than Zenitsu.

The problem wasn’t over yet, though. Offended, flustered, and thoroughly overwhelmed, Hashibami decided to double down. With a furious snap of wings, the crow flared and screamed back at Matsuemon, and in an instant the two birds were locked in a volley of screeches, an unholy duet of ancient avian insults and shrill outrage. Feathers flew like battlefield banners, the cacophony ridiculous enough on its own, but all the more absurd given that one of the combatants was being smothered in Genya’s grip like an oversized chick.

Genya chuckled, unable to help himself, the kind of sound that escaped before he could stop it. “Doesn’t bother me,” he muttered, tightening his hold, ignoring the indignant caw in protest. He pressed Hashibami closer, ignoring its halfhearted thrashing, a gesture warmed by affection and something like defiance. A shield, for both of them, a new promise.  I’ve got you, you stupid bird. We’re both in this now.

And then strangely, as if the fight had burned itself out, Hashibami gave one last furious squawk at Matsuemon before relenting. Stilling in Genya’s arms. The crow burrowed stubbornly against his chest, feathers ruffled, choosing the lesser of two evils. Its heart thudded a frantic rhythm against his own, a wild reminder that for all the chaos and mockery, he wasn’t alone here.

When Genya looked up from the bird, he caught Kanao looking at him again. Her gaze was flat, unreadable, yet it lingered for the briefest fraction longer than before. It was enough to make something twist uneasily in his chest. He broke the contact first, dropping his gaze to the dirt. The twins’ voices rose again, calm and implacable, summoning them forward for the choosing.

Before them lay a heap of ore, rough stones glinting faintly beneath the light of sunrise. They looked ordinary at a glance, like the kind of rocks you’d kick off the road, but the air around them carried weight, a hush of expectation, the unspoken knowledge that within these stones slept the blades that would decide their futures.

The others hesitated, the choice a tense one. Then Tanjiro stepped forward first, crouching with a grace so natural it almost felt rehearsed. His nose twitched, subtle but steady, each inhale deliberate. He wasn’t just smelling, Genya realized, he was reading the stones. His fingers brushed one, then another, reverent in their touch, his brow furrowed in concentration until at last he chose. He lifted a single piece of ore with both hands, holding it with the kind of certainty that made it seem he already saw the sword it would become.

Genya crouched after him, his movements less graceful, more utilitarian. His eyes narrowed at the pile, searching not for destiny, but for anything that might fit in his grip. He had no nose for this. No gift, no quiet intuition to guide him. All he had were his two hands, his clenched jaw, and the instincts of a street kid who had learned long ago to trust nothing except what he could break, bite, or bleed.

He rapped his knuckles against one ore; the sound was hollow, brittle, unpromising. He set it down. Picked up another. This one was heavier. Denser. The weight of it sat well in his palm, solid and real, promising in a way the others weren’t.

Then the impulse hit him. An odd desire, a relic of the boy he used to be, rising before thought or etiquette could intervene. He lifted the ore closer, scrutinizing the rough grain under, and with a reckless defiance that had never truly left him — he chomped down.

The crunch rang shockingly loud in the quiet clearing, a sharp, discordant note that did not fit the norm. The metallic, gritty tang of rock and ancient metal spread across his tongue.

On either side of him came a sharp intake of breath — two simultaneous gasps, unmistakably, the kind of sound that said what the hell did he just do?

(CLICK HERE to view the image!)

Zenitsu shrieked in an impressively high pitch. “IDIOT! That’s not food! You can’t just EAT it! That’s- That’s an ore! You’ll break your teeth! You’ll die of rock poisoning! We survived Final Selection just for you to keel over here?!”

Tanjiro stumbled forward, his hands raised in a placating gesture as if coaxing a wild animal to drop the food in its mouth. “Genya-kun, wait! Careful- you’ll hurt your teeth! You can keep it, I promise, just… maybe spit it out first, okay? Please?”

Genya spat the shard of rock and grit into his palm, tongue scraping against the metallic dust coating his teeth. His jaw ached, but his grin only widened, feral, crooked, childishly triumphant. “I’m taking this one,” he said, smirk curling like victory, as if biting into solid earth had somehow proven his claim beyond all argument.

Kanao blinked silently.

Tanjiro looked rather constipated, startled out of his concern. He stared at the ore, then at Genya’s defiant expression, and after a moment, he nodded in understanding. His lips curved into a relieved, almost admiring smile, as though reassured that even this bizarre method was a valid one.

The twins did not comment, but their pale, identical eyes lingered on him. Measuring. Judging. Their message was clear: You are a strange one.

With the rites concluded, the pile of ores dwindled, the clearing settling into a heavy blanket of exhaustion broken only by the faint, restless rattle of feathers. The twins lingered a moment longer, silent as carved idols, their gazes unfocused and yet unbearably sharp. The other three stood back, waiting in uneasy stillness, as though already dismissed.

Genya knew he should have done the same. He should have turned away, accepted his plain sword, his Mizunoto rank, and let the script play out exactly as it had before. To ask for more was greedy. To try to change things this early was dangerous.

But as he watched the pale shapes of the twins recede into shadow, the thought gnawed at him, sharp and insistent, like a rat chewing through rope. The blade alone wouldn’t be enough. Not for him. Not for what was coming.

The memory surfaced: the solid, reassuring weight of a gun in his palm, the powerful kick of its recoil against his shoulder. The thunderclap crack of the shot, louder than his heartbeat, drowning out the chaos, had given him a fighting chance where his own hands and his broken breathing had failed. A weapon that had bought him precious seconds, bought him survival, when his own hands and his broken breathing hadn’t been enough. He needed it. It was part of him, an extension of his will to survive. Even if this younger, unscarred version of himself hadn’t yet earned the right to ask.

His legs moved before his courage could fail. He stepped forward, boots dragging through the dirt like they were weighted with lead.

The twins halted and turned, smiling at him in unison, expectant. Waiting.

Behind him, he felt the shift ripple through the others. Tanjiro shifted his legs, waiting for his next move. Zenitsu’s nervous muttering cut off abruptly. Even Kanao, silent as stone, tilted her head the slightest degree away, as though granting him a sliver of privacy. A small mercy, awkward but deliberate. He was oddly grateful for it.

At the attention, Genya’s mouth went dry as dust. His jaw locked tight. He bent his head slightly, bowing just enough that it looked more like a show of respect and less like the words could only be forced out under his sheer audacity.

“Uhm. Excuse me. I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but I… want more than a sword,” he said. The request grated in his throat. Was that polite enough? Did it matter? “If it’s possible. A blade, yes — but also… a gun.”

The last word hit the clearing like a stone tossed into still water. Gun. Crude. Modern. Unrefined. Out of place. An insult to tradition, an affront to the old, clean lines of steel. The air thickened instantly. Even the crows went rigid, rustling uneasily.

Heat flared across his face as he fought a furious blush of mortification. He could feel every ear straining to pretend it wasn’t listening, could hear disbelief pulsing in the hush like a second heartbeat. Embarrassment crawled up his spine, hot and suffocating, though some corner of him still bristled with stubborn pride: if his way of survival was an offense, then so be it.

Surprisingly, the twins did not laugh, nor did they scold. More importantly, they did not react with the mockery or reprimand he half-expected, half-feared. Their mirrored faces remained placid, porcelain masks refusing to betray even the flicker of a thought. Only one mouth, the one of the black haired heir, pressed into the barest line before the other spoke.

“We shall report. We shall think.”

Nothing more. No promise. No denial.

But it was enough for Genya to hope.

Genya dipped his head again in what he hoped passed as gratitude. His fists curled tight at his sides, nails biting moon crescents into his palms. Ego be damned. Don’t regret it. Don’t take it back. He had to try, even if the request sounded absurd here— now, even if he had sounded like some foolish boy begging for a dangerous toy.

His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. Bitter humor tugged at him, sharp in his chest. Trust me to get handed a second chance at life and immediately use it to humiliate myself in front of the most terrifying little girls on earth. Still, he straightened. Shame was easier to bear than regret.

He stepped back into line where the others were, shoulders squared, spine stiff, forcing pride into the shape of his posture even as their silent judgment dragged like chains behind him.

Idiot, he thought savagely. Sounded like a damn fool. You don’t even deserve the sword they’ll hand you, let alone more. Who do you think you are?

But another presence, quieter, steelier, cut through the self-loathing. If I don’t ask, nothing changes. If I don’t try, this second chance is worth less than nothing.

When Hashibami swooped back to him, landing with a ruffle of feathers and burrowing into his chest, Genya pressed the bird close, steadying himself, as if to remind himself that this ridiculous was… real. 

As it felt, the backward-flowing river had carried him here for a reason.

The tickle of feathers at his throat and a too-bright-eyed kid were already proof he wasn’t entirely alone in this madness.

It didn’t matter. It was worth a shot.

The mountain path was narrow, the air rich with the clean scent of pine and damp earth after the cloying wisteria. Dawn filtered through the branches, painting everything in pale silver. They walked in peaceful quiet at first, boots crunching loose gravel, the tension rife with the memory of those who hadn’t made it down alive.

Tanjiro led the way, shoulders squared with all things determination as he trekked through the mountain terrain. Genya followed without complaint. When Tanjiro glanced back, a silent question, Genya only shrugged.

“Nowhere better to go,” he muttered. “Not in this state. Vulnerable as hell out here. I might as well follow you.”

Tanjiro nodded, and Genya spotted a flicker of relief before the boy turned back around. He didn’t say anything, but the tension in his shoulders eased. Maybe he was just glad not to be alone.

They walked like that for a while, the world reduced to the crunch of stone underfoot and the distant calls of birds. But honestly? Genya could feel the other boy thinking too loudly, the kind of restless energy that meant something was coming whether he wanted it to or not.

Sure enough, Tanjiro slowed. “Genya… can I tell you something?”

He carried a nervous edge, not fear exactly, but an unspoken plea for someone to listen.

Genya cocked an eyebrow. “Huh. What’s it about?”

Tanjiro hesitated. Drew in a breath. “My sister… she’s a demon.”

The words simply hung among them like a guillotine, sharp and waiting. At his silence, Tanjiro’s face went an interesting shade of green. Something he’d be more concerned about if there wasn’t such clear guilt and worry warring behind that brat’s eyes, like he’d just confessed to something worse than it was.

Genya blinked. He’d known, of course. But having it said aloud was entirely new in this life. There was something disarming about hearing it spoken, like watching someone set down a burden they shouldn’t have been carrying alone. So for Tanjiro’s sake, he schooled his face into something more neutral.

He snorted softly. “…So?”

Tanjiro stopped in his tracks, sending Genya a look that was part shock, part doubt. “So? That’s-! It’s not just ‘so!’ She’s my sister, and- I’m trying to find a way to turn her back into a human again.” His hands moved animatedly as he spoke, restless and uncertain. “But she’s still asleep. She hasn’t woken since before Final Selection. And I…” He faltered, anything he would have said, thinning to a whisper. “I don’t even know if she’ll ever get to… you know…?”

For a moment, the forest seemed to hush around them. Tanjiro’s body sagged, as if saying that had wrung all the remaining energy out of him.

Genya watched him, with all his earnestness, the way he carried his sorrow like it was proof of his love. It was a feeling he understood too well. Maybe that shared understanding stirred something, or maybe he was just tired of the quiet pressing in, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.

“Okay,” Genya said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You’re still breathing. She’s not trying to eat you. Seems it’s working out fine.”

Tanjiro exhaled, “Yeah. You’re right.”

The redhead gave him one long stare before making a move to walk away, looking noticeably less unruffled.

Yeah no. That response unsettled Genya. The ease of it. The calm. Where was the happy-go-lucky kid from earlier? Something in his gut twisted, as though he’d walked into a territory he didn’t mean to touch.

Shit. Shit.

Tanjiro was already turning away, that slump of his shoulders probably a silent verdict on this failed interaction. Socializing had never been Genya's forte; most things aren’t his forte; his default settings were glares and grunts, a language perfectly suited for driving people off. He had to say something, anything! He couldn't let him leave like this. Not with that look on his face.

“Wait!” The words were out before his brain could stop them, “To make you feel better, I’ll… I’ll give you a secret of my own.”

Tanjiro froze, then turned back. He blinked owlishly, the sadness in his eyes momentarily displaced by surprise. “A… secret?”

Genya let out a deep shuddering sigh. The words lodged in his mouth, an admission of his big fundamental flaw. But here, on this path illuminated by the morning rays, it felt less like a weakness and more like a step forward.

“It’s okay, Genya-kun, you don’t have to –”

“I can’t use Breathing Styles.”

Simple and cut dry. Great going, Genya! He had just laid his greatest shame at the feet of the boy who moved with the rhythm of the sun itself. Tanjiro, who would one day command a flame so pure it could scour the demons. Compared to that, he couldn't even manage the water breathing.

Genya braced for pity, eyes shut to save himself from the inevitable confusion that would follow such an awful truth. He waited for the judgment.

But then he heard sniffling.

What the hell?

Safe to say, Genya’s brain short-circuited because before he could process the sound, Tanjiro was already in front of him, bowing at an impossible angle. Wait, are people even supposed to bow that low?! 

Then Tanjiro snapped upright, his body brimming with something fierce and bright, his lips trembling as if he could barely contain the force of his own conviction.

“Genya-kun…!” He wavered, then his face morphed into something brilliant and unshakable. “I am now certain of your character! You are a good person!”

Genya stared at him, utterly blank. “…Hah?!”

Tanjiro nodded firmly, as if everything had been settled. He seized Genya’s hands, shaking them with such vigor that he’s surprised they haven’t turned to mush yet. “To share something like that so openly, without hesitation! You must be honest. You must be brave! Only someone truly good would trust another with something so important!”

Genya gaped at him, his fists curled at his sides. “How the hell did that-? How did you twist that into that?!” His voice cracked, somewhere between outrage and utter disbelief. This guy’s brain worked on a completely different wavelength.

Tanjiro only beamed at him, earnest to the bone. “Because it’s true. You trusted me, so I’ll trust you. That’s what makes people good.”

Genya groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “You’re insane. Absolutely insane.”

But as they walked on, the ghost of the exchange lingered in his chest. It sat there, heavy and persistent. He had bared a piece of his rotten weakness, expecting to be met with the disgust he so rightly deserved. Instead, Tanjiro had taken his failure and proclaimed it as a virtue? He had looked at Genya’s shame and seen… honor.

And now, the boy was chattering on about how Water Breathing wasn’t the only branch of demon slaying. That there were other styles, unique to the user. That he would definitely help his new friend find the one that matched him.

And Genya didn’t know whether to laugh, or to scream, or to be quietly, secretly grateful for the first real connection he’d made in this second chance at life.

—

The path back to Mount Sagiri dragged on for what felt like an eternity, each step a labor under the weight of the scorching sun. It was a brutal, indifferent heat that pressed down upon them, sapping the last of their strength. Tanjiro staggered more than once, his body finally succumbing to the sheer exhaustion beaten into him by the Selection. Each stumble drew a sharp grunt of annoyance from Genya, and with each falter, he pulled Tanjiro’s arm more securely across his own shoulders.

“Keep steady, dumbass,” Genya muttered, slinging more of the boy’s weight onto himself. “We’re almost there. Don’t go passing out on me now.”

Tanjiro gave a weak, wobbly smile. “Sorry, Genya-kun… I just—”

“Don’t ‘sorry’ me. It’s good that you’re not flat on your ass.” The gruffness in his tone couldn’t quite bury the sentiment beneath it, and I’m sure as hell not letting you drop after all that.

By the time they reached the base of the mountain, the sun hung high, unrelenting heat pressing against their backs. The climb up Sagiri’s slopes had dragged on without mercy, but as they approached what he assumed to be Tanjiro’s master’s dwelling, the sight that awaited them was a pleasant surprise.

In the clearing in front of Urokodaki’s house. A blur of pink kimono and dark hair bounded energetically around, bare feet pounding across the earth.

Nezuko.

She was awake. Alive, and Tanjiro must have said something because when she heard his footsteps, her head snapped toward him, eyes wide with light. Then she ran.

She collided with him with the force of a small typhoon, small arms wrapping tight around his middle, face pressed to his chest. Tanjiro staggered back with a soft grunt, laughing through the relieved tears that spilled down his cheeks as his hands clutched back at her.

“Nezuko! You’re awake! You’re really awake!” He cried. “I—I-I was so afraid— I thought you’d never open your eyes again!”

Nezuko hummed against him, the sound warm and bright even though it was muffled through the bamboo muzzle. Her eyes squeezed shut in pure unadulterated joy, fingers clutching at his haori with the look of someone with absolutely no intention of letting go.

Behind them, Urokodaki appeared in his doorway, the long nose of his tengu mask tilting slightly as he took them in. He didn’t speak at first, but pride and relief radiated from the way he stood. In two short bounds, he closed the distance between them. His calloused hands came to rest on Tanjiro’s shoulders, then on Nezuko’s, drawing both of them into a teary, wordless embrace.

“You’ve returned,” he said at last, voice thick with emotions. “Alive. That’s all I could ask for.”

Genya decided to give them a moment of privacy, shoving his hands into his pockets. The scene was too… warm. It reminded him of his own family in a way. He felt like he was intruding on something. Hearing the soft cries fade into something quieter, Genya scuffed his boot in the dirt and pretended to be very interested in a nearby tree.

—

The inside of the hut was cozy and warm; the firelight flickering from the irori ^[1] filled the space with a comforting scent of wood. Nezuko was curled against Tanjiro’s side on the floor, sleeping like a rock now that her previous excitement was over. Overall, it made for a very domestic sight.

Genya hadn’t met Urokodaki before. He’d only heard of him in short fragments: Tanjiro’s old teacher, the man behind the tengu mask, the one who’d trained a whole generation that’d seldom come back down the mountain. Seeing him in person was something else. The mask was unnerving at first; its carved features caught the light in strange ways, but the figure behind it wasn’t what Genya expected. Calm and composed in a way that didn’t demand attention but held it all the same. There was nothing showy about him, really.

Said man listened carefully as Tanjiro spoke, recounting his experience with the Hand Demon, its grotesque size, its hatred, its power, and the way it had a long history of devouring every disciple Urokodaki had sent before him. Urokodaki didn’t interrupt. Didn’t even move, it was only the slow rise and fall of his shoulders beneath the haori that signaled any kind of distress.

“It was a Blood Demon Art,” the old man said at last, gravely. “Not every demon possesses one, but those who do… their abilities can be unpredictable. You must never underestimate them.”

Tanjiro bowed his head, the information filed away into resolve.

While they spoke, Genya found himself drifting toward the small kitchen area. His hands itched for something to do, anything to keep from sitting there feeling useless. He spotted a pot of cooling broth, a bit of leftover rice, and a few freshly foraged vegetables. The smell hit him, and his stomach twisted. He’d kill for a proper meal.

He grabbed the Jizaikagi^[2] and coaxed the fire higher, embers sparking upon the sunken hearth..

He caught Urokodaki’s questioning glance from behind the mask, but the old man said nothing. Genya stopped his work under that scrutiny. Or at least until the man gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod of approval before turning back to Tanjiro. Figuring that was as much permission as he’d get, Genya started moving around the small space. His hands worked without thought, a bit clumsy but efficient. He’d process the rice, chop up the vegetables, and reseason the broth. The motion was amateurish at best, but it soothed his nerves and helped him focus on his own kind of meditation.

When the food was ready to be served, simple zosui^[3]— they sat around the low table. Nezuko picked at her and Tanjiro's shared bowl, more for the latter’s comfort than any need of her own. 

For a while, the room was filled only by the sounds of chewing and the soft crackle of fire. That was, until Urokodaki’s masked face turned its attention towards Genya.

“And you. Genya, was it?” Urokodaki asked, curious but not unkind. “Where did you come from, before Final Selection? Who was your master?”

The question lingered in the warm air. Tanjiro looked up, curiosity flickering in his eyes. Even Nezuko tilted her head slightly, her gaze soft and wordless.

Genya stared into his bowl, jaw tightening. He could lie. Shrug it off. But the warmth of the hut, the companionship, the smell of rice and smoke, the easy acceptance, had unwound something he’d kept bound too long.

“Didn’t have a master,” he finally admitted. “Was… on my own. I did odd jobs and earned enough to get by.” He gave a short defensive shrug. “My family was gone. Demons. It left me with nothing but… this.” 

He didn’t bother explaining what this meant, his anger, his hunger to prove something, his will to keep crawling forward even when there was nothing left to crawl toward.

The ensuing silence that followed wasn’t pitying. It was still, and full, and strangely gentle.

“Well, there’s someone important to me too,” Genya added after a moment, almost an afterthought, “Someone I want to protect. Just like you and Nezuko.”

It was more honest than he meant it to be. But Tanjiro’s face lit with understanding, and he leaned forward, a sense of solidarity falling on his features. “Just like me and Nezuko,” he echoed.

Urokodaki huffed and crossed his arms, “Yeah? Whatever it is, kid, I hope you find this thing you hold so damn close to your heart.”

Genya felt the corner of his mouth twitch faintly in response.

The days that followed established a domestic normalcy Genya hadn’t felt in years, maybe ever.

Urokodaki’s hut became a place of quiet, simple labor. He helped Tanjiro repair the roof where the sun leaked through, maintained the training grounds in the damp chill of dawn, and shared meals that were cooked and eaten in companionable silence. Nezuko drifted between waking and napping, a silent, comforting shadow always near her brother. Genya found himself working without being asked, his hands splitting wood, tending the fire, stirring simmering stews. The ache in his muscles was clean, honest. Useful.

His crow, Hashibami, squawked incessantly from the rafters. It got especially bad when Matsuemon Tennoji swooped close just to provoke him. Their sharp, indignant caws filled the air until even Urokodaki’s sighs started to sound less than amused. Genya pretended to be annoyed, but more than once he caught himself smiling at the sound.

Tanjiro trained with a fierce, unwavering focus under Urokodaki, his determination a constant burning ember. Genya trained beside him occasionally, his own forms clumsy and earth-bound in comparison. His failures were frequent, but they weren’t met with disappointment, only with Urokodaki’s patient corrections or Tanjiro’s encouraging shouts.

And each day ended with a shared meal and a lesson in swordsmanship, he's even picked up a few useful tricks from the old man.

Over time, the cold, hard knot of dread that had taken root in his chest since the river transported him here began to taper off. Not gone, but it had gone soft, a dormant weight instead of a screaming one.

For one week, on that mountain, they lived. And for Genya Shinazugawa, for the first time in a very long time, the world felt almost, impossibly, like something he could belong to.

—

“Sabito. Makomo.” Tanjiro bowed low, his forehead touching the ground. “I came back. I lived. Thank you.” 

Genya lingered behind him, feeling like an intruder yet again on something intensely private. His hand drifted up to scratch awkwardly at the back of his neck, an old habit, then dropped to his side when the gesture felt too casual, too discourteous for this place. He didn’t know these people.

He shouldn’t have followed the kid, that much he knew. But Tanjiro had been sneaking off for days, vanishing before dawn, then acting as though nothing happened the same morning. Unfortunately for him, Genya’s patience had an expiration date. Curiosity and concern were the same thing when you didn’t know how to name either, so against his better judgment, he trailed Tanjiro through the underbrush, muttering curses as some particular branches slapped him across his face.

So imagine his surprise when he realized he’d been led to a makeshift graveyard.

Tanjiro struck a match, the flame catching with a brief hiss before swallowing the incense tips in gold. For a heartbeat, the light clung to his face, washing it in that yellow glow before retreating into a calm red ember. Smoke rose in thin ribbons, curling upwards into the air.

For a moment, he almost turned back. This wasn’t his grief to bear.

But Tanjiro looked over his shoulder then, and without a word, offered Genya a few sticks of osenkō ^[4].

… He must’ve noticed he was being followed sometime along the journey then.

He watched for a long while, then followed suit slowly, still not quite kneeling. “What the hell am I even supposed to say?” he muttered under his breath.

Genya’s hand shook as he took the three remaining incense sticks, using them to catch Tanjiro’s ember and coax it to life. For a moment, the flames were weak; then they steadied, soft and breathing. He planted them beside the others and watched the smoke coil, twisting into one another until they were inseparable.

“For my family,” he said outloud.

Sumi, Teiko, Hiroshi, Shuya, Koto, Mother. He’ll never forget them, won’t forgive himself if he lets himself. He hopes that they are happy, wherever they are. Because it's been so long, and he still wonders what he could have done differently that day. What if he’d follow Mom out? Could he have protected her? What if he grabbed Sanemi and didn’t let go? Could things have gone differently then?  

And then, without really meaning to, he glanced at the last stick. Lit it. Pressed it into the soil beside the rest.

For himself.

This smoke too climbed in pale spirals, carrying the faint scent of sandalwood and something heavier he refused to name. He stared at it far too long, the smell strong enough to sting his nose, and thought how stupid it was—selfish, even. A ridiculous and pointless offering to a life he still didn’t understand how to live.

“For me.”

“For you?” Tanjiro echoed, not accusatory, just curious.

Genya huffed, immediately defensive. “What, am I not allowed?” He couldn’t look at him.

“No, no, of course you are,^[5]”Tanjiro said quickly, his expression complicated, misinterpreting the gesture.“I just… I think it’s good. You deserve to be remembered, too, Genya.”

Genya looked away, jaw tight. “Tch. Whatever.” 

Tanjiro nodded, then bowed his head again, his lips moving in a silent prayer for his friends. But Genya stayed as he was, crouched in the dirt, hands curled into loose fists on his knees. “…I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” 

The confession was for the smoke, for the higher powers, and for the ghosts that refused to stop breathing through him. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have another chance. I don’t… I don’t deserve it.”

His chest ached, his pulse pounding against his ribs. He pressed the heels of his palms against his face, but nothing came. No tears, just a dry aching. The incense kept burning unbothered, its ash falling gently toward the earth.

“But if I keep dragging the old shit with me,” he went on, now whispering, “I’ll choke on it before I can do anything. So…” He swallowed, the sound loud in his own ears. “I’m leaving it here. All of it. The mistakes. My family. Every way I failed them. Every way I failed…  myself. If I don’t put it down now, right here,  I’ll never be able to move forward.”

He pressed his forehead against the ground, the soil gritty against his skin, and let the silence of the mountain answer him. It wasn’t forgiveness, not quite, just the quiet recognition of a boy unburdening himself to no one in particular. It felt like a surrender and the faintest beginning all at once.

When he finally lifted his head, Tanjiro was watching him, eyes wet with unshed tears and something steadier beneath it. His smile was small, almost fragile, yet it held that strange, immovable kindness that had no need for words.

“That’s enough, Genya-kun,” Tanjiro said, his tone soft but certain. “You don’t have to say it perfectly. You don’t have to pray the right way. Just meaning it… That’s enough.”

Genya rolled his eyes, or at least tried to. The motion didn’t quite land the way he intended. Tanjiro’s words settled somewhere deep. He turned back toward the incense, watching the last threads of smoke unwind into the sky until they vanished against the open blue. He’d been through plenty of firsts lately, some earned, most accidental— but for once the ghosts behind him didn’t pull. They lingered, yes, but without weight. Maybe, he thought, after all that, maybe he could still walk forward, even if every step was still unsteady.

When they finally turned to leave, the mountain wind tugged at their clothes, carrying the last fragrant traces of sandalwood into the empty air. Genya shoved his hands deep into his pockets, scowling as though to hide the strange, new lightness pressing behind his ribs.

“Let’s go, dumbass. Standing around in graveyards won’t make us stronger.”

Tanjiro fell into step beside him, his smile faint but persistent. “Maybe not. But it helps us remember why we have to be.”

Overhead, Hashibami cawed, a clean, living note that seemed to mark the line between what had been and what might still be. Together they made their way down the mountain, the incense left to burn itself to ash. Behind them, the past smoldered softly in the dirt. 

“How’d you even know I was following you?”

“... You weren’t exactly subtle”

Genya huffed, a corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. Because for the first time since that backward river had spat him out, Genya Shinazugawa allowed himself to truly believe that this life, this second chance, was his to claim.

—

The smoky smell reached them first, borne on a current of mountain wind,  a raw, metallic promise that something had changed.

It carried the bite of iron and ember, sharp enough to sting the throat and wake the lungs. Fire lived in that scent, along with purpose, the kind that came from hands that shaped steel until it sang. It crept up the path to Urokodaki’s hut, slipped beneath the sliding door, and settled in the room like an announcement.

Genya wrinkled his nose, pausing mid-scrub, the pot still dripping suds. He’d learned to recognize every kind of stink on the road: sweat, fear, cheap alcohol, blood gone to rust, but this one stood apart. Clean. Honest. Acrid in a way that made the world feel sharper.

By the time the knock came, a solid, confident rap-rap-rap that rattled the old wood of the door, Tanjiro was already halfway to his feet, his bowl of breakfast rice forgotten. His gaze lit with that strange nervous eagerness that only ever meant one thing: he’d been waiting for this.

When the door slid open, morning spilled in around two figures standing framed by sunlight.

One was lean, wiry, vibrating with a coiled intensity that made the air around him hum. Both men sported Hyottoko masks, comical on the surface, though nothing was amusing about the energy they brought with them. In the wiry one’s arms rested a long bundle swathed in dark cloth. His voice, when it came, was sharp and carried the unmistakable pride of a man unveiling his life’s work.

“Kamado Tanjiro. I am Hotaru Haganezuka. I am a swordsmith. I forged your blade.”

Tanjiro nearly folded himself in half, bowing so fast, Genya thought he might topple over and use his skull to break the floorboards. “Thank you! Thank you so much! I’m—I’m so grateful for your work! Truly!” The words spilled out in that wholehearted rush of joy that only Tanjiro could manage.

Genya exhaled through his nose, half a laugh, half a sigh, and turned back to his pot. The kid’s sincerity could be exhausting. But, he supposed, it wasn’t the worst thing to have around.

But the other man was different.

Where Haganezuka burned with restless energy, this one stood still, solid, anchored to the ground, eerily reminiscent of his old shishou. Broad-shouldered, darker-skinned, his Hyottoko mask bore a single scar carved across one cheek. A thin, jagged reminder of something sharp and deliberate.

He didn’t linger in the doorway. His hidden gaze swept the room, then stopped. On Genya.

Two fingers lifted in a curt beckon. “You. Outside.”

Genya froze, the pot still in his hands. For a second, he was certain he’d misheard. But the man’s stillness left no room for interpretation. That kind of focus wasn’t asking. With a grunt, Genya set the pot down and wiped his hands on his pants. He stepped out into the crisp air, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft thud.

The man waited a few paces down the path. He didn’t posture or threaten, just studied Genya with an appraiser’s patience.

“I am Orinokawa Haruto,” he said at last, his tone even, deliberate. “Mixed blood. Father was a Western smith. My mother was from this village.” He knocked at the scar running across his mask. “That means I do more than blades.”

Genya blinked, brow furrowing. “…Noted?”

“I know guns,” Orinokawa went on, unbothered. “How to shape them. How to fold steel for barrels that won’t burst. Your request was received.”

That made Genya pause. His request was actually heard? Actually taken into consideration?

Instead of answering, Orinokawa reached into his pack, pulling out a worn, utilitarian scroll. Not the fine paper used by the Ubuyashiki estate, but something practical, smudged with soot and handling. A plain wax seal bore the crest of the Swordsmith Village’s logistics office. He held it out.

“No one’s ever gotten this privilege before,” he said. “Consider it a trial.”

Genya broke the seal, trying to contain his excitement. The message inside was brief, written in efficient, bureaucratic script.

Request for specialized armament (firearm) for Mizunoto, Genya Shinazugawa, has been reviewed and provisionally approved. Ore has been allocated from the general mines. Swordsmith Orinokawa is assigned to forging. Projected completion: 6-8 weeks. Standard sword issue to be provided in the interim.

He read it twice, because the words themselves sounded like a trick. Provisionally approved. Ore allocated. Orinokawa assigned. Six to eight weeks. A standard sword until then

A stamp of approval from some village clerk. He had asked for a tool, and the organization had provided the means. It was a transaction. A neat red stamp marked the bottom of the scroll, a clerk’s seal, impersonal and absolute. Just ink, paper, and procedure. Yet the weight that gathered in Genya’s chest wasn’t irritation or pride; it was awe, and the strange heaviness of being acknowledged. He’d asked for a gun, and the system had answered. Nothing divine about it. Just a transaction made official. Surely it wasn’t that easy?

Orinokawa’s finger snapping cut through his thoughts. “Don’t look too excited. Approval’s approval. Means someone up the chain figured your idea had merit. Or that you sounded crazy enough to be useful.” He tilted his head, the faintest shrug pulling through his frame. “Either way, if you’re good enough you get your gun.”

From his pack, the smith produced a small, dense bundle wrapped in rough linen. He held it out, and Genya took it with both hands. The weight was unyielding, honest. When he pulled the fabric back just enough, sunlight flared across a solid block of refined dark ore. That same one he nearly bit a chunk out of.

“I’m on my way to my personal workshop, you’ll meet with me in three weeks time to determine your skill.” Orinokawa said simply. “It will take time. You’ll fight with the sword until then.”

Genya clutched the ore, the reality of it settling in. Its surface was cool, its promise heavier than he’d expected. This wasn’t some miracle tossed from the heavens, not really; it was a task, plain and conditional. A promise built on work. On proving himself worth the material he’d been given, “…Right.”

Orinokawa gave a short nod. “Don’t waste the ore. Or my time.” With that, he turned and walked back toward the hut, leaving Genya standing alone, holding not just a dream, but a responsibility to boot.

—

Inside the hut, Haganezuka had already torn through the wrappings with theatrical glee, muttering something along the lines of good potential. The katana within gleamed under the morning light, so clear it could as well be a mirror. Tanjiro’s hands shook as he reached for it. When he drew the sword, the air itself seemed to pause.

A collective gasp filled the room. Even Urokodaki’s breath caught behind his mask.

The metal flashed— then dimmed, settling into a deep, impossible black.

Tanjiro looked around him in alarm, “Black? This- This feels ominous, this isn’t a bad omen or anything, right?”

Meanwhile, Haganezuka was restrained by Urokodaki as he tried to barrel over to the kid, screaming something about not getting a red blade.

From the corner, Genya felt the heat rise beneath his collar, slow and stinging. Pride for the kid, sure, but his pride always came with a shadow. He didn’t have to look to know the eyes had turned toward him. Waiting. Measuring. He felt the weight of it—the unspoken dare to prove himself, the promised disappointment.

With stiff fingers, he reached for the sword laid before him. The lacquered sheath was cold. The balance felt wrong the moment he lifted it, grip biting into his calluses like it knew it didn’t belong.

He drew it.

Steel gleamed. Plain. Silver-gray, sharp and serviceable, but nothing more. No shift. No color. 

Figures.

A dry, bitter laugh scraped out of his throat. He shoved the sword back into its sheath, the sound too loud in the small room. 

Of course, his would be ordinary.

Tanjiro got the black blade, maybe not red, but it still signified he had skill. And him? Genya got nothing. Blank. Unremarkable. The kind of weapon anyone could pick up. It fits. It honestly did. He could almost hear Sanemi’s sneer. ‘What did you expect? That the world would finally hand you something special? Wake up, Genya. You’re not chosen, just small fry.’

The words hit like a gut punch, his stomach twisting against itself.

But then, through the sour churn of self-pity, something new took the rein of his rapidly deteriorating thoughts.

Wait. What the hell am I doing?

He glanced at Tanjiro, who was cradling his black blade like it was holy. The kid had earned it. If anyone deserved a blade, it was him. The bitterness in Genya’s chest shifted, cooling into something quieter. Maybe it wasn’t about the color at all. And Genya—Genya could work with what he got. The Katana was still a weapon. Sharp enough to kill, to defend, to make something of. What mattered wasn’t what it was made for, but what he made of it.

Sanemi’s imagined sneer still lingered in the back of his mind, mean and familiar. But this time, Genya didn’t flinch. His brother wouldn’t mean it, not really. And if he did—then fine. Let him. Genya would carve meaning into this plain steel until it cut through the doubt that shaped it.

He let out a breath, rolling his shoulders back. The sword was ordinary. So was he. Maybe that wasn’t a curse. Maybe it meant there was nothing to lose and everything to build.

Genya tucked the sheath at his side, lips quirked in something that wasn’t quite a smile but close enough to count.

“Figures,” he muttered again, but softer this time, like he’d made peace with it.

—

Back outside, the smiths took their leave with formal bows that lasted all of three seconds before Haganezuka broke the illusion entirely. He was already launching into a rapid, clipped tirade on how to maintain the black steel. Tanjiro nodded earnestly through every word, trying and failing to look serious under the barrage.

Orinokawa, by contrast, said nothing. He gave Genya one last, assessing look, the kind that felt more like a 'see ya kid' than a farewell, and offered a single curt nod. Then both men turned and made their way down the mountain path, their forms swallowed by the trees almost as quickly as they’d appeared.

“It’s a good sword,” Urokodaki said suddenly, startling them both; he’d been so still, he might as well have been part of the hut. “It will serve you well. A blade does not need to be legendary to cut true. It only needs a steady hand and a determined heart.”

Genya grunted, unsure whether the words were comfort, instruction, or a challenge. Probably all three. He adjusted the sheath at his hip, fingers resting lightly on the hilt. A steady hand. A determined heart. He had one of those for sure, at least. The other? He’ll call that a work in progress.

—

The rest of the day passed by uneventfully. The excitement from the Smiths' visit had burned itself out, leaving behind the reality of what came next. They would leave soon. This temporary peace on Mount Sagiri was coming to an end soon, and they could all feel it looming. As evening drew in, Genya found himself on the porch snacking on some pongashi^[6] Urokodaki had slipped him earlier. He heard the door slide open behind him, and Tanjiro stepped out, holding two steaming cups of tea. He hesitated for a moment before handing one to Genya.

“Thanks,” Genya muttered, setting the snack aside in favor of the drink. The cup was warm against his palms, the scent of bancha^[7]bitter.

They sat there watching the sky as the sun started to dip down, casting hues of orange across the orchard.

“You could… You could come with me, you know,” Tanjiro said suddenly, as if he’d been holding them back. “After. When my mission is done. We could look for your brother together.”

The offer hung in the cool air, generous and impossibly naive. Genya looked down into his tea, his reflection warping across the surface with every small ripple. Tanjiro was probably under the impression that his brother was missing. The truth was far from that, too complicated, too ugly to explain. Nevertheless, the thought was tempting, a lifeline thrown to a drowning— Hah!— man. The idea of not facing Sanemi alone would solve a lot of his problems.

But he shook his head. “Your path’s with your sister,” 

“Mine…” The words caught for a moment. “Mine’s one I have to walk alone. He’s my family, not yours.”

Tanjiro frowned slightly, a begrudging acceptance in the motion. He didn’t argue, which Genya appreciated. He only nodded,  “Okay,” he said, tone low but sure. “But the offer still stands. Always.”

Tanjiro’s loyalty was so simple, his kindness so boundless, it was a mystery how neither had managed to make him any weaker a person. Genya took a sip of the tea that was still too hot, welcoming the sting against his tongue. It was easier to focus on that than on the tangled mix of gratitude and grief coiled in his chest. They fell quiet again, though the tension between them felt a fraction lighter than before.

The comfortable atmosphere of the hut was shattered not with a knock, but with a thunder of wings and a cacophony of furious shrieks. The door, already slightly ajar, slammed open inward as two dark projectiles hurtled into the room, locked in mid-air combat. 

It was Hashibami and Matsuemon Tennoji, a whirlwind of black feathers, scrabbling claws, and furious, snapping beaks.

The pair crashed into the room, each trying to overpower the other in what could only be described as avian warfare. They dislodged a small shower of dust and sent Urokodaki’s hanging herbs swaying violently. A moment later, their squabbling overtook their balance, and they tumbled back to the floor in an undignified heap of ruffled plumage and outraged squawking.

“You insufferable! Caw! feather-duster!” Matsuemon screeched, managing to extricate himself first. 

“You! Caw! Bumbling! Melodramatic! Dirt for brains! Caw!” Hashibami shot back, flapping wildly to right himself. “You couldn’t find the sun at noon!”

“Oi! Hashibami! Stop biting his tail, you damn bird—!” Genya lunged forward, grabbing his crow. Hashibami twisted in his grasp, a feathered whirlwind of indignation, and one powerful wing slapped Genya squarely across the cheek with a stinging thwack. He blinked once, then let out a sharp breath through his nose.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

The poor thing probably didn’t mean to do that because it immediately looked immensely guilty, or as guilty as a crow could be. With a final, irritated caw, Hashibami gave up the fight and burrowed stubbornly against Genya’s chest, its little heart hammering against his ribs.

Across the room, Tanjiro was having far less success. Matsuemon was puffing his feathers to twice his size, a furious mound of misplaced pride. “Pathetic!” the crow shrieked, though whether at Hashibami or Genya was unclear. “Rough little brute! Caw! Disgrace to the noble Kasugai line!”

“Apologize!” Tanjiro yelped, face flushed with secondhand embarrassment as he swatted gently at his own crow’s head. “Matsuemon, you can’t just say things like that! It’s incredibly rude!”

The crow settled down and ruffled his feathers further, clearly unrepentant. “Truth is not rudeness! It is a service!”

Genya barked a short, sharp laugh despite himself, rubbing his stinging cheek. The serenity of the hut was utterly demolished, replaced by the chaotic energy of the two feathered messengers. It was a mess. 

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, both crows straightened up on their perches: Matsuemon on Tanjiro’s shoulder, Hashibami still tucked under Genya’s chin. Their petty rage vanished, replaced by a sharp, military urgency that crackled in the air. Their caws, when they spoke again, lost all traces of their squabble, becoming clear, formal.

“Kamado Tanjiro!” Matsuemon announced. “Your orders! You are to proceed northwest! Young women have been vanishing without a trace! Caw! A new victim was claimed tonight! Investigate and eliminate the threat!”

Tanjiro’s open expression hardened in an instant, gentleness giving way to resolve. His hand went unconsciously to the hilt of his new black blade. This was it. No more drills, no more waiting. The real work had begun.

Before the gravity of the moment could settle, Hashibami shifted against Genya’s collar. “Shinazugawa Genya!” he declared, beak slightly muffled against Genya’s yukata, but no less urgent. “Orders! Proceed northeast! Caw! Reports of disappearances—young women vanishing from their homes! A demon’s work is suspected! Investigate and eliminate!”

Genya froze. The order didn’t quite add up at first. “Wait,” he said, addled with confusion. He looked from his crow to Tanjiro’s. “The same mission? We’re both going to the same town?” A hopeful spark ignited in his chest. At least he wouldn’t be going alone. At least  Tanjiro would be there too.

“No!” Hashibami snapped, pecking lightly at his chest in emphasis. “Separate! Northwest and Northeast! Caw! Two directions! Both urgent! No time to waste!”

The hope collapsed as swiftly as it had risen, leaving a hollow feeling in its wake. Of course. Why would it be easy? The Corps didn’t pair up Mizunoto for fun. They were sent where they were needed, alone.

Genya sighed, the sound long and weary, and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was his life now. Guided by a dramatic, argumentative bird to his probable death, alone.

But then he looked across the room. Tanjiro met his gaze, and despite the grim news, the boy’s eyes still held that unwavering strength. There was no fear in them, only a determined acceptance, and a silent offer of camaraderie that transcended their separate paths.

“At least,” Genya acquiesced, “we can start the trek down the mountain together.” It was a small comfort, a tiny fragment of solidarity.

Tanjiro readily agreed, his expression brightening at the same thought, “We’ll walk together until the paths part.”

That simple agreement felt almost like a promise. A promise that even alone, they weren’t entirely on their own.

The Serpent Estate breathed a silence that was deliberate, cultivated. Gravel paths were combed into pale, perfect ripples, each curve deliberate, every imperfection erased by careful hands. Boasting a karesansui^[8] that rivalled the stone hashira’s. The walls were made out of thin sliding screens painted with sinuous coils of serpents and delicate reeds in muted greens, their eyes half-lidded as though watching, always watching, all who entered. The air smelled faintly of incense and metal, sharp and clean.

Sanemi Shinazugawa never could get comfortable here. It wasn’t that he disliked Obanai’s company—hell, for a Hashira, the guy was one of the few he didn’t actively want to strangle on most days. But the itch scratched at his skin. The obsessive order of it. His own estate was a beautiful wreck, a scarred courtyard and crooked planks, and whatever mess his students were made to clean. This place felt too precise, too still, as if every breath he took too loudly might knock some priceless vase out of its position.

So he sprawled across the porch, toothpick twitching between his teeth, the late sun glinting across his arms, a map of old brutality and survival. He sat with deliberate insolence, scars on full display, bared to the tidy air, just to see the perfect stillness of the place flinch at his presence.

Inside, Iguro Obanai knelt at a low table as if he were part of the furniture, neat piles of reports spread before him with the same meticulous order as the scales of Kaburamaru, who coiled across his shoulders in a lazy, living shawl. His pen moved with a steady, deliberate scratch, as though even the act of writing had to be performed in measured, perfect rhythm. The snake flicked its tongue toward the pages, as if tasting the words for any imperfection.

“Another Final Selection completed,” Obanai said, his voice flat, calm, barely disturbing the hushed air.

Sanemi grunted, unimpressed. He leaned back on his palms, his gaze more fixated on the unnervingly raked garden outside. Seriously, there were circles everywhere, even in the arches. “So? Kids come, kids go. The demons eat the weak. Nothing new.”

“Five survived,” Obanai continued, turning a sheet with a precise flick of his wrist. “Twenty-some went in. The usual.”

“Five, huh.” Sanemi rasped with barely disguised pessimism. “Won’t last. A few months in, maybe a year if they’re lucky. The Final Selection’s a trick. A taste of the real thing. The true test is out on patrol. That’s when the demons chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out. Bones and all.”

It wasn’t malice on his part; it was a cold, hard fact. He’d watched it too many times to believe otherwise. Names would flash bright and desperate for a season before they were carved into memorial tablets, their memories carried off by the mournful cries of crows. He didn’t waste thought on them anymore. Not after…

Obanai didn’t answer immediately. His attention stayed fixed on the page, lashes lowered, pen hovering just above the margin. Kaburamaru shifted across the back of his neck in a slow, deliberate coil. Then, casually offhand, Obanai spoke.

“Usually true,” he said. “But this time, there’s a familiar name.”

Sanemi’s brow twitched upward, a scar pulling taut. He didn’t look away from the garden. “Oh yeah? What, some noble’s brat thought they could swing a sword? Serves ‘em right for thinking they could play soldier.”

Obanai’s gaze lifted from the report, steady, unblinking. He turned another sheet, movements precise enough to be surgical.  “Shinazugawa.”

“Yeah?”

“Not you.”

That earned him a look, Obanai gave him a searching one in return, and the meaning dawned immediately.

The toothpick snapped between Sanemi’s teeth.

“Says it right here.”

For one long, stunned breath, Sanemi went motionless. Even his lungs forgot their rhythm. Then he exhaled, a short, scornful sound that cracked through the air.  “Coincidence,” he said. “Shinazugawa ain’t some rare name. Could be some kid from a shithole village. Doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

Obanai didn’t move. His calm was infuriating, deliberate. When he spoke again, it was soft, almost measured, as if anticipating his friend’s next reaction. “First name. Genya.”

The world tilted.

Sanemi’s throat locked, feeling like he had the floor swept under him. His heart went hollow, then raw, as if something had been torn open beneath the scars he’d long convinced himself were healed. The air in his lungs turned thick, useless. For a heartbeat that stretched too far, he stood up abruptly, mind stripped to white noise, before words scraped out of him, jagged, gasping.

“What. That—fuck.” The curse fractured mid-breath, bitter and strangled. “That idiot,” and stumbled like he had the wind knocked out of him.

Obanai cocked his head lower a fraction, expression unreadable. Kaburamaru’s tongue flicked through the air, tasting the sudden tension that cut through the room. “You know him, then.”

Sanemi didn’t answer. His body moved before his mind could catch up— a violent, reflexive jerk of his elbow snapping into Obanai’s table, hard enough to drive a sharp grunt from the Serpent Hashira. Kaburamaru hissed, a sound like steam, recoiling as his coils tightened in sudden agitation around his master’s neck.

“The hell was that for?” Obanai rasped, steadying the ruined table with one hand. His tone was clipped, more irritated than truly angry. He knew. He understood the kind of man who spoke in violence when words failed him.

Sanemi was already back on his feet now, breath jagged, fists knotted so tightly that scar tissue blanched pale. His body vibrated with the need to lash out, to fight, to break something to bleed off the seismic pressure building in his chest. But there was nothing to fight, no demons; it wasn’t Obanai or his damn snake he wanted to break. It was the Gods, the world, the unfairness of it all. Himself.

He turned away hard, spitting the splintered toothpick into the perfect lines of the garden. The sound was small, but it broke the spell of order around him.  Then the strength just left him. He sank, knees hitting the wood with a dull thud that barely registered. The world narrowed to the rush in his ears.

“...Sorry.”

It wasn’t clear who he meant it for. Obanai, the table, the kid brother he’d failed. Maybe all of them.

Genya. Alive.

The name echoed in his skull like a curse.

He had buried it with everything he had. Rage. Guilt. Grief. Shoved it all down until it hardened into until it calcified into a burden he could live with, until it was just another scar among hundreds. He had made himself believe, truly believe, he’d told himself Genya was fine. Better off without him. Maybe apprenticed under some merchant. Maybe cooking, maybe learning medicine—anything that kept his hands clean. Anything but this.

That was the lie that let him keep breathing.

Fucking hell. He’d saved his pay for years, scraping together what he could, planning for a someday that would never come. He’d give it all to him once it was over. A small house, a steady life, enough coin for his brother to live quietly, away from blood and night and corpses. Genya had a big heart, his baby brother with innocent eyes and a love that eclipsed the sun. He had clung to that picture until it became a shield. Because the alternative—the thought of his little brother alone in the dark, the same soft-hearted kid who once cried for stray cats—would have made every day since unbearable.

Now a name on a fucking report. A new Demon Slayer.

Obanai calmly cut through the storm in his head. “You don't look pleased.”

Sanemi barked a laugh, harsh and hollow, devoid of any humor. “Way to point out the obvious if you think this- ” He gestured at himself, a coiled spring of tension and fury. “Looks pleased. He’s a damn fool. A reckless, stupid kid. Shouldn’t be here. Should’ve stayed gone. Should’ve found a quiet life somewhere far the fuck away from all this.”

Kaburamaru hissed again, a low, sibilant sound that seemed to call the lie for what it was.

Obanai didn’t press, not directly. He didn’t need to. Instead, he reached out and rested a hand on Sanemi’s shoulder, a gesture too knowing. The kind of touch that said more than pity ever could. The kind of friend who knew the shape of your scars without you having to name them.

Sanemi’s hands trembled at his sides. He despised the sight of it. Despised that something so small could betray him. He hated that somewhere beneath the fury, a treacherous, fragile hope had cracked through the bedrock of his grief. Hope. At what? Reconciliation? It felt infinitely more terrifying.

Obanai’s grip shifted minutely. “You’ve carried a grave on your back a long time, my friend,” he intoned, almost gently. “Maybe it isn’t as empty as you thought.”

Sanemi’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. His throat burned with words he could never shape, emotions he could never name.

That same evening, He marched outside the manor, in perfect silence, and felt the foundations of the lonely world he’d built for himself tremble.

If the Gods had been kinder, maybe it would have been different. Maybe the house wouldn’t have run red. Maybe his siblings would’ve grown old and lived to see their grandchildren. Maybe Genya would have lived a simple, ordinary life, far from war, far from demons, far from him.

But not here.

Not in this world.