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For all that the demon slayers exist outside of normal society – operating as an organization unrecognized by the government, hunting beings that exist as a fiction to so many of the common folk and forgoing many of the habitual habits of everyday life – there are still a few customs that some choose to adhere to. Demon slayers are still humans, after all, and their hearts still yearn for the traditions of a more peaceful time.
Giyuu breathes out slowly, his breath misting around his face from the cold. In a few short hours, it will be shogatsu – the New Year.
As a whole, the demon slayer corps does not break for holidays, nor do they officially celebrate any; their duties are tied to demon behavior, and most demons never grow beyond their animal hunger instinct to remember human traditions. Demon slayers must always be alert, no matter the time of the night or period of the year, but these are exceptional times, and so there are exceptional decisions.
For the first time since its inception, the demon slayer corps is officially celebrating the new year.
There are some demon slayers who choose not to join the festivities, of course, finding it too painful or too facetious; there are some who have no one they wish to celebrate with. Demons tend to be more active on festival days that provide opportune chances for feasting, and so the patrols must go on regardless. But Giyuu hears of pockets of celebrations cropping up wherever a group of demon slayers manage to meet up this night, all with Oyakata-sama’s blessings, because these are indeed exceptional times: a demon has conquered the sun, Kibutsuji has pulled all his demons back into the shadows to consolidate his power, and the demon slayer corps has come together as one to train in earnest, in the lull before what many are believing will be the final and most important battle they will ever fight in.
Giyuu hates the thought, but he now lives in a world of cold hard fact and practical judgments. Most demon slayers, despite the special Pillars training, will likely die in the fight to bring Kibutsuji down.
So, all the more reason to celebrate life and new beginnings while they can, then.
He moves between on-duty demon slayer groups, checking in briefly, but mostly Giyuu prefers to patrol on his own, with only his kasugaigarasu for company. The pockets of celebrations, he avoids outright; very few of the lower ranks can truly relax in a Pillar’s presence, and it would be rude to crash in on what should be a night of rare enjoyment. So Giyuu keeps to himself, staying to the shadows and stalking the night so others can relax in his stead, and lets the distant sounds of celebration – from the villages and small towns he protects and from the demon slayer gatherings alike – carry him through the bitter cold.
He’s fast enough – quiet and skilled enough – that no normal demon slayer has a chance of finding him if Giyuu doesn’t want to be found.
So of course the person that eventually waylays him is a Pillar herself.
Kochou, like her name, usually moves silently and unobtrusively – the delicate floating flight of a butterfly rather the swift trajectory of a hawk – until the point where she has her target in her sight, after which she stings with all the violent efficiency of an enraged wasp. She darts out from the darkness with her blade leading, and Giyuu’s body reacts before his conscious mind catches up: his blade whips out to deflect her stab even as he kicks up and leaps over her head, landing neatly behind her, snow whirling up around them in a hazy cloud.
Kochou, when she glances over her shoulder, is smiling her usual serene smile, but the play of shadows over her face makes it look like a smirk.
Giyuu resists the urge to just run off, and sheaves his blade instead, setting it back into its scabbard with a quiet little snick.
“Do you need something, Kochou?” If the question comes out a little exasperated, well – it’s a freezing night in the dead of winter, and although breathing techniques keep all of them operational enough despite the extreme temperature, standing still gives the cold an opportunity to bite its way through all of Giyuu’s uniform layers.
He might endure the cold, but it doesn't mean Giyuu has to like it.
“Just checking if your reflexes are still sharp, Tomioka-san,” Kochou says, sheathing her blade in turn. “I’ve come to take over the patrol from you.”
Giyuu tracks time as a matter of course, but he still glances skyward to reconfirm. No, the moon hasn’t mysteriously skipped forward on its nightly journey – it is still more than an hour to midnight.
“You’re ahead of schedule – a schedule that Himejima made us swear we’d adhere to.”
The schedule in question is a massive endeavour that Uzui cheerfully took upon of his own volition, and the end result is a manic timetable of demon slayer shifts deployed across all Pillar territories so everyone (if they’d like) can get some time off at some point during New Year’s eve and the early New Year hours.
(“If you don’t like your shift, feel free to organize a switch yourself, or else come talk to me,” Uzui declared when the roster went out. To no one’s surprise – all the lower ranks went through Uzui’s hazing training after all – no one approached the former Sound Pillar about their place in the roster).
The Pillars, on the other hand, currently number eight, and only that many because Uzui counted himself in for the New Year patrol schedule – “I might be missing a hand and eye, but my wives make up for that, see?” – so unlike the lower ranks, their night is split into two shifts with four active Pillars moving and alert at any given moment. The territory they have to cover is much more vast, and in return for the long hours of duty, Himejima had made them all promise to take their off-duty time seriously.
(And because Himejima – the oldest and most senior amongst the Pillars – is no fool, he’d tilted his head at Shinazugawa’s protests and Iguro’s narrowed eyes and simply added, “It is Oyakata-sama’s shogatsu wish for us, that the Pillars not lose themselves to their duties on this one night.”)
“He did,” Kochou says. “But we have to be adaptive in our line of work. I’m sure Himejima-san will understand.”
And the other Pillars keep claiming that Giyuu is the one who breaks the rules.
“And Oyakata-sama’s wishes?” he asks pointedly.
Kochou lifts one hand and carefully tucks a lock of hair behind her ears. “Honestly, Tomioka-san,” she chides, “You’d think I was burdening you by cutting your shift short instead of doing you a favour.”
Giyuu’s sigh is noiseless, but the huff of air escaping him is only too evident in the cold.
“I don’t need favours from you.”
“Not even if it’s a request from Tanjirou-kun?”
Despite himself, Giyuu’s eyes go wide, and Kochou’s smile deepens in response.
There are very few people in the world who are able to move Giyuu’s quiet, tranquil heart – a serenity that he’s spent years forcibly instilling in himself. Kochou is one of them, through her utter disregard of his boundaries and her persistent and extremely well-aimed remarks that seem to find all of Giyuu’s weak spots.
Tanjirou is very much another.
The question hovers on the tip of Giyuu’s tongue, and from the gleam in Kochou’s eyes, she’s waiting for him to ask and enjoying every moment that Giyuu hestitates – it’s Tanjirou, so Giyuu wants to know, but it’s Kochou he has to ask, and she will probably spin him in a dozen different directions just to annoy him instead of giving him a straight answer.
“Master,” a soft voice comes from behind them, and the glint in Kochou’s eyes immediately goes soft, replaced instead by fondness.
Giyuu turns his head to study the speaker, because there are very few people who can move Giyuu’s quiet, calm heart, and there are even fewer who can make Kochou Shinobu look like that.
He’d registered her presence the moment he deflected Kochou’s strike earlier, and dismissed her as a non-threat and an ally to concentrate on Kochou. Tsuyuri Kanao, after all, rarely speaks at the best of times; in fact, Giyuu has met her on numerous occasions – back when she’d first arrived at the Butterfly Estate a skinny slip of a child, and then more frequently as Kochou’s successor – and has never properly exchanged words with her.
Now, this usually silent and passive girl is staring at Kochou with an uncharacteristic furrow between her eyes.
“Master,” Tsuyuri says once more. “Tanjirou-san didn’t say anything about Pillar patrols.”
Tsuyuri’s soft voice is barely audible above the wind, and so it takes a moment for the meaning of her words to truly sink in. Giyuu turns his gaze back on Kochou, arching one eyebrow. “A request, you said?”
“He didn’t say it out loud,” Kochou concedes. She tilts her head, staring right back at Giyuu. “But some of us know how to read the atmosphere, of course.”
Giyuu lets the remark go unchallenged, because Kochou can and will twist his words if she’s in a mood to be contrary, and he’d very much just like an answer right now.
Kochou’s smile actually bends into a pout for a second before it smooths out again. “You’re no fun as always, Tomioka-san,” she sighs. “Fine. Tanjirou-kun and the others have gathered to celebrate shogatsu. It would make him happy if you joined them.”
Giyuu just stares at her. “Why?”
Kochou narrows her eyes right back at him. “If you need me to spell out why your presence would make Tanjirou-kun happy, then—”
“No,” Giyuu cuts in, because he might be ‘absolutely useless in social situations, honestly Tomioka-san, were you raised by bears?’ but he’s not stupid. “I know you’re fond of Tanjirou, but I can always find him after my shift is over. You should spend your last free hour with—”
He pauses.
With cherished companions and fellow demon slayers , is what Himejima said. With loved ones, is what Okayata-sama would say.
“—with your important people,” is what Giyuu finally settles on.
Kochou hums quietly under her breath. “The Butterfly Estate has always celebrated the New Year, in our own small ways. Aoi and the girls – it’s something for them to look forward to.” She looks to the trees. “Tanjirou-kun invited Kanao to join their gathering, after their patrols. A reunion of the five who passed their Final Selection. But my, they had quite a number of visitors dropping by, even for the short time that I was there. Tanjirou-kun truly does make friends wherever he goes, doesn’t he?”
Giyuu thinks of all the letters that Tanjirou has penned him, of all the people he has come to know second-hand without ever laying eyes on them, simply through Tanjirou’s poignant anecdotes of them.
“He does,” Giyuu says softly.
Kochou betrays no sign that she heard him; her attention has drifted to Tsuyuri. “And now, Kanao is with me. Oyakata-sama would be happy with how I’ve spent my time.” Then, with the swiftness of dragonfly darting through the air, her gaze flicks back to Giyuu. “Tomioka-san,” she says with light and sweetness in her voice, and Giyuu braces himself, “which important people are you planning to spend shogatsu with again?”
Giyuu has to fight not to look away, to hold Kochou’s gaze. He’d planned, as he does every year since he became the Water Pillar, to do what he always does when he’s not on a mission – to return to his residence and pass the night in company with his territory’s murder of kasugaigarasu. And after the distant bells have heralded in the new year at the stroke of midnight, he would pen his first letter of the year to Urokodaki, with wishes of good health to make up for the fact that he never visits.
He doesn’t say any of it out loud, but Kochou knows him far too well – she must read some of it off his utter silence, because she shakes her head. “You’re such a bore, Tomioka-san. You’re lucky I caught you here. Go ring in the new year with actual people. And if you won’t go for Tanjirou-kun’s sake, then Nezuko-san is there as well. Tanjirou-kun is more than capable of protecting her, but there’s no harm having a Pillar watching over her as well.”
Giyuu opens his mouth to retort, because she can’t keep using his concern for the Kamado siblings to manipulate him. Then he stops, and he looks at Kochou – in her familiar haori with the usual butterfly clip in her hair and her mouth set in a stubborn line, her eyes gleaming with challenge – and feels a dozen times a fool.
The wind rustles through the forest, rattling at bare tree limbs and whipping flurries of snow around their feet, and under the faint moonlight, Giyuu swiftly puts the pieces of the puzzle together.
Kochou, to the world, is serene and composed and perfectly put together. As the demon slayer corp’s most talented healer and chemist, she interacts with many more demon slayers than the rest of the Pillars do, and they all revere her in some way – for her prowess in battle, for her healing touch or her sheer serenity in face of adversity. Goddess, Giyuu has heard some of the lower ranks name her.
But here’s the thing: Giyuu had worked with the Flower Pillar, and Kochou Kanae was the goddess, the one with the sincere smiles and serene demeanour and the gentle, compassionate heart. Kochou Shinobu, back then? Oh, Kochou Shinobu was the goddess’s righteous protector, fiery and fierce and sharp-tongued against any who would dare disrespect her sister. And she was kind in her own right, in ways that involved throwing money at a slave trader and stealing a lost child right from under his nose, and yelling at stubborn and half-dead demon slayers until they finally dragged themselves to the Flower Pillar for treatment.
That spirited, passionate girl disappeared the night that Kanae died. But Giyuu remembers her.
(It’s one of the reasons why he lets Kochou constantly snark and snipe at him without challenge. Sometimes, it’s because Giyuu truly doesn’t know how to react or respond to her jabs. But mostly, it’s because a part of him misses the old Shinobu. She’s only ever this belligent and sharp with him, and Giyuu thinks it’s because he’s knew her so well before Kanae died – that no matter how much she tries to smother her true personality under her sister’s image, that fiery part of her is always simmering just below the surface).
The old Shinobu would probably smack Giyuu over the head and then drag him bodily back to wherever Tanjirou and his friends have gathered. Kochou Kanae – the person Kochou tries so hard to style herself after – would smile earnestly at Giyuu and coax him with light conversation and gentle teasing and Giyuu wouldn’t realize he’d followed her every instruction until they were halfway back. So it makes sense that Kochou now – this version of her that is not quite her old self and not quite her sister’s replica, the one who only emerges around Giyuu – would use Tanjirou and Nezuko’s names to hide the fact that she’s doing this for Giyuu’s sake, so he wouldn’t spend the turn of the year alone.
At the end of the day, Kochou Shinobu, no matter which persona she wears, is kind.
Giyuu should have realized this earlier. Kochou is right, he really is useless in social situations sometimes.
“Tomioka-san. Hey, To-mi-o-ka-san, are you seriously ignoring me? It’s not going to work.”
“I’m not ignoring you,” Giyuu replies automatically.
The look Kochou gives him is full of skepticism. Even Tsuyuri, normally so expressionless, has a doubtful furrow between her eyes.
“Are you going or not?” A hint of exasperation finally makes it into Kochou’s voice. “The longer you argue with me, the longer neither of us are patrolling, you know.”
“Yes,” Giyuu finally concedes. “I’ll drop by wherever Tanjirou is for a while.” He glances over at the other two demon slayers. “But after how much you’ve chided me, I’m surprised you’re taking your successor on patrol.”
“It was Kanao’s choice,” Kochou simply says, and the soft fondness is back in her eyes, her smile taking on a proud slant. “She insisted on coming along, and I won’t deny her wishes, not tonight.”
Tsuyuri doesn’t return her master’s smile; instead, she coolly meets Giyuu’s gaze, and instead of the quiet passivity he is used to, there is steel in her eyes now – a spark of determination like beaten gold, and the shadow of heartbreak.
She knows, then, what Kochou has planned.
Life expectancy amongst active demon slayers is frightfully short – at Kochou’s eighteen, she’s already considered a veteran; Giyuu himself is one of the rare few to make it to his twenties – and the upcoming battle against Kibutsuji means their chances for making it out alive are even lower. But there’s a difference between the possibility that they could fall in battle, and knowing that your beloved master and older sister will sacrifice herself to destroy her most hated foe. Giyuu knows of the wisteria poison coursing through Kochou’s veins, and that the path she has chosen will have only one successful outcome: the Upper Moon who killed Kochou Kanae utterly destroyed, at the cost of Kochou’s own life.
Giyuu thinks of Sabito, the press of his hand against Giyuu’s cheek somehow warmer than the blood spilling down Giyuu’s face from his head wound, and how very, very cold he’d gone when Sabito whirled away, charging off towards imminent death to buy Giyuu and the other Final Selection candidates time to get away.
Giyuu often wishes he’d been stronger, both then and in the months after.
There’s strength in Tsuyuri now, as slight and delicate as she appears to be. She carries the heavy weight of Kochou’s dearest wish on her shoulders – she’s enduring it and she’s standing tall, and Giyuu knows then that she will fulfill whatever role Kochou gave her in her suicidal plan.
This is the Insect Pillar’s successor, the Flower and Insect Pillars’ younger sister. She doesn’t need Giyuu’s acknowledgment, but Giyuu gives it to her nonetheless.
Without breaking eye-contact, Giyuu dips his head in a brief nod.
Tsuyuri’s eyes go wide, and Giyuu turns away to grant her privacy, arching a look in Kochou’s direction. “I hope the two of you will share many firsts of the new year together, then,” he says.
Kochou is smiling – not with her mouth, not the empty curve of her lips, but with her eyes. “Well, since Kanao and I will be together at midnight, it seems inevitable. First patrol of the new year, first conversation, first sighting of the moon. But,” she flicks a dismissive hand in Giyuu’s direction, “I’m not having my first argument of the year with you. Shoo, Tomioka-san.”
“I am not a cat,” Giyuu murmurs under his breath, but he moves anyway.
They drift past each other, Kochou and Tsuyuri taking up the path Giyuu had been on, Giyuu now heading the direction they came from. For some reason, none of them break into a run quite yet, and Giyuu is almost across the small clearing when the impulse – a formality from his old life – hits him.
He turns and calls out, “Kochou.”
Tsuyuri, not hearing her name, continues forging ahead, disappearing amongst the bare-limbed trees, but Kochou stops, glancing over her shoulder.
“Happy New Year,” Giyuu tells her.
Kochou blinks at him. Then, she turns to face him, her eyes crinkling in amusement.
“Well, well, look at you – finally managing to get some social niceties right.” Then her usual smile transmutes into something both more wistful and sincere at the same time. “Happy New Year, Tomioka-san.”
---
Giyuu wanders long enough – following his kasugaigarasu’s guidance, taking shortcuts through the wilderness instead of traversing more beaten tracks – that he wonders if he’ll end up spending the turn of midnight, the old year slipping into the new one, on his own after all. But his crow has always steered him true, and she steers him true now.
He watches them for a while, from a distance far enough that none of them notice his presence.
It is night time, and they are demon slayers, and so they’ve made their gathering outdoors where they can immediately set out if an emergency arises. The one concession they’ve made towards creature comforts is the fire pit they’ve dug in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by rough logs that serve as impromptu seating. The flames in the pit burn high, throwing fleeting plumes of light and colour into the darkness, but it is a tamed fire, well-contained, and Giyuu remembers then, that the Kamado family were coal burners – the fire is their closest element.
Tanjirou is an unmistakable figure, crouched though he is near the fire pit to tend the fire, and Giyuu recognizes the others. Hashibira has his boar mask slanted over his head; out in this cold, he’s been forced into a fur-lined vest and arm guards. Agatsuma is the golden-haired one, his voice piping loud but indistinguishably over the crackle of the fire, and in the corner, far away enough that he’s sitting half in shadows, in Shinazugawa’s younger brother, who everyone now knows after that huge raucous at the Wind Pillar’s training session.
Some days, Giyuu thinks that maybe with a bit of effort, he and Shinazugawa might finally get along better. Other times – like now, thinking about Tsutako-nee-san and how Giyuu would give almost anything to have another day, another hour, another minute with his beloved sister – Giyuu just wants to crack Shinazugawa over the head for his idiotic stubborness.
These four, together with Tsuyuri, are the newest demon slayers to join the ranks, and already they’ve honed their blades in battle against the Upper Moons and survived to tell the tale. But here, they are just a motley group of friends bickering over containers of food and laughing at each other and Giyuu doesn’t blame them for their inattentiveness; Giyuu isn’t a demon, after all, and as a Pillar even these exceptional slayers with their mastery over breathing techniques and heightened senses would be hard-pressed to detect him when Giyuu doesn’t want to be found.
So of course, it’s Nezuko who finds him first.
She slips into sight right in front of him – noiseless, her presence barely registering to Giyuu’s battle-honed senses. For a strange, jarring instance, Giyuu feels like he’s been dropped right into the past, nearly three years ago: they met just like this, in a forest with snow drifting uncaringly around them, the silence and the tension of the moment nearly a shriek in Giyuu’s ears, and blood – Nezuko’s own blood – a coppery tang in the bitterly cold air.
Now, however, she is taller. Her eyes are wholly her own, slitted though her pupils still are, and although there are fangs peeking under her lips, her smile is a brilliant, dazzling thing.
Kamado Nezuko has a will so great that she overcame her demonic nature mere minutes after her transformation, and now she has conquered the sun. And although she is not yet human, Giyuu thinks that she is one of the purest beings he has ever seen in his life.
Then Nezuko darts forward, crashing bodily into Giyuu in a tackle-hug, and in that moment, she is undoubtedly and unmistakably a teenage girl.
He catches her weight and his balance before her momentum can send them both tumbling to the ground, although mentally, Giyuu is reeling from the surprise of it. Nezuko doesn’t seem to care; she hugs his waist – even in her normal form she barely comes up to his shoulders – and tips her head back to grin up at him.
Absurdly, Giyuu notes that her irises are a shade lighter than Tanjirou’s, almost an unearthly hue of crimson, and wonders if that’s her natural colouration or a consequence of being a demon.
He’s not sure what to do with his hands. Giyuu prefers his personal space – cultivated that bubble of untouchability after Sabito’s death – and not even Tanjirou, who sits too close and cheerfully follows Giyuu everywhere, quite dares to casually breach it. But Nezuko is a force of nature all of her own, and as she stares up at him expectantly, Giyuu finds himself smiling faintly before he reaches over to gently stroke her head.
“Hello, Nezuko.”
Her eyes curve almost shut with happiness – Nezuko loves head pats, Giyuu remembers Tanjirou telling him in the letters – and then, in a sweet lilting voice, she says, “Welcome back, Giyuu.”
She definitely got that from Tanjirou; no one else other than Oyakata-sama calls him by his given name, after all. But before he can dwell on the thought, Nezuko finally steps back, only to seize his arm in both hands.
There’s a touch of demonic strength in her pull, to get Giyuu moving through his initial surprise. But as Giyuu follows her insistent tug, he suspects that even if she were human he would be powerless against her will.
The Kamado siblings have always been one of Giyuu’s soft spots.
Nezuko drags Giyuu into the clearing and right into the circle of light and heat cast by the fire pit, and suddenly there are four pairs of wide eyes staring at them.
Giyuu would reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he always keeps his dominant hand clear to draw his blade at a moment’s notice and Nezuko still has firm hold of his other arm. Unbidden, his eyes go straight to Tanjirou – just in time to catch the tail-end look of astonishment on his face before it shifts into genuine delight.
“Giyuu-san,” Tanjirou says, scrambling to his feet, and then, on the other side of the fire, the other three seem unfreeze from their shock.
“Nezuko-chan, you shouldn’t wander around with strange men, even if he’s the Water Pillar,” Agatsuma screeches, and for a brief second, Giyuu wonders if he should feel affronted.
It’s hard to tell in the flickering firelight, but Tanjirou’s ears seem to have gone red. “Zenitsu, Giyuu-san is not strange!”
“He just showed up out of nowhere, like, we’ve gotten better after all that Pillar training but we still couldn’t detect him, how is that not weird?”
Tanjirou turns to Zenitsu to argue in earnest, and it lights a pool of warmth in the pit of Giyuu’s stomach to hear Tanjirou defending him so. In the periphery of Giyuu’s vision, Hashibira looks like he’s contemplating pulling down his boar mask and charging forward in an open challenge. Unobtrusively, the younger Shinazugawa reaches over and fists a handful of Hashibira’s vest, probably to forestall that charge.
A strategic move. Giyuu always carries rope amongst other supplies when he’s on active duty, and he’d hate to have to string Hashibira up in a tree yet again – it probably wouldn’t be very celebratory of him to do that.
“No, Zenitsu,” Tanjirou huffs before he turns back to Giyuu, obviously deciding to shelve the argument for now. When he meets Giyuu’s gaze, however, the smile that spreads over his lips chases the rest of his annoyance from his face. “Giyuu-san, are you still on patrol? Shinobu-san said the Pillars have seven-hour shifts, splitting the night in half.”
Giyuu shakes his head. “I’m done for the night. Kochou has taken over the patrol from me.”
“So you’re free to stay with us to ring in the new year?” Tanjirou asks earnestly, and then immediately rephrases it as a demand. “You’ll stay, right?”
The liberties that Tanjirou feels free to take should grate against all of Giyuu’s sensibilities, but instead, it’s now just—endearing.
“Yes,” Giyuu simply says, and Tanjirou’s smile grows even brighter.
Behind Tanjirou, Agatsuma groans softly, and Giyuu tilts his head, pitching his voice to carry.
“I’ll be sure to add advanced enemy detection to my training session. It will be a prerequisite before the rest of my session on battle tactics.”
He doesn’t even tone it as a threat, but Agatsuma lets out a squeaky “eep” anyway, his face going dramatically pale.
“Battle tactics sounds really useful,” Tanjirou says, his eyes shining. “I’m really looking forward to training with you!”
Being the last Pillar to set up his sessions, Giyuu hasn’t had many demon slayers head his way yet, most of them getting tied up at Tokitou, Iguro or Shinazugawa’s trainings. But Giyuu can admit to himself that he’s looking forward to Tanjirou making it to his.
“Concentrate on getting through Himejima’s challenges first,” is what Giyuu says out loud.
Tanjirou nods emphatically. “Right!”
There’s a soft tug at Giyuu’s arm then, and Giyuu looks down at Nezuko.
“Sit?” she asks.
Tanjirou immediately nods. “You’re right, Nezuko. Giyuu-san, please sit. We have tea, and mochi the Butterfly Estate girls gave us when we stopped by after our shift.”
Hot tea sounds heavenly, after hours of the cold sinking its grip into Giyuu’s bones. “Tea is fine.”
“Okay!” Tanjirou chirps, and darts back to the firepit.
Nezuko gives his arm another light tug, and Giyuu follows her to one of the log seats.
On the other side of the fire, Shinazugawa’s brother and Hashibira are actually scuffling, and over the sounds of their fighting, Agatsuma is wailing about power-crazy Pillars, they’re all insane.
It’s noisy and disorderly, everything that Giyuu normally dislikes. But at his side, Nezuko is carefully tracing the patterned side of Giyuu’s haori, lightly enough that her sharp fingernails don’t scratch the fabric, and Tanjirou keeps darting quick looks back at Giyuu over the small kettle he’s watching over, his face an open book of happiness.
There are worse ways to pass a night, Giyuu thinks, and finally, finally allows himself to relax.
---
Giyuu doesn’t particularly like to talk, especially with people he isn’t close to, and so he’s content to sit and simply listen, a hot cup of tea warming his hands. It also takes time for him to wind down after coming off even something as mundane as patrol duties. Tanjirou seems to sense that; he chatters lightheartedly with his friends, although every lull in the conversation ends with Tanjirou flicking a quick look back at Giyuu, just to check on him. Nezuko chooses to stay at Giyuu’s side, and she quietly echoes the others’ words at times, as if she has to relearn spoken language one word at a time.
It’s easy to let those voices wash over him, and it takes a sudden change in Nezuko’s body language for Giyuu to tune back in and pay attention.
Tanjirou and his friends are talking about New Year’s traditions, an innocuous subject that doesn’t explain why Nezuko has gone still beside Giyuu, a look of startlement on her face.
“Nezuko?”
Nezuko’s head turns in Giyuu’s direction, but her eyes are fixed on her brother. The surprise is gone now; instead, her eyes are narrowed in contemplation.
“New Year,” she says, echoes – not surprising, considering what the conversation the past five minutes has been about. Then— “New Year’s eve.”
“Yes,” Giyuu says. “It’s New Year’s eve now; in less than an hour, it will be the New Year.”
Nezuko stands, and Giyuu has a flash of premonition, that instinct that guides him so unerringly in the heat of battle. But Nezuko is fast, faster than even Giyuu when she puts her mind to it – she slashes the sharp nails of one hand across the palm of the other, and then flings out her injured hand in a wide arc so her blood splatters against the branches high up in the trees, ten splotches of vivid colour against gnarled brown.
“Nezuko!” both Tanjirou and Agatsuma exclaim.
Nezuko ignores them; she clenches her injured hand and commands, her voice low and ringing, “Burn.”
Around the clearing, the splatters of her blood burst immediately into flames. Instead of burning through the wood and leaping from branch to dry branch, they stay contained by Nezuko’s will, ten balls of dancing flames suspended high in the trees surrounding them, coral pink and searing, an otherworldly contrast to the amber glow of the natural blaze in the pit.
“Nezuko,” Tanjirou breathes, and it’s clear from his tone of voice that the positioning of Nezuko’s fireballs hold some significance.
“Onii-chan,” Nezuko replies calmly. “Fire dance.”
They lock gazes for long seconds, the two Kamado siblings; in the end, it’s Tanjirou who looks away first.
“The Dance of the Fire God,” Giyuu says, putting the clues together, and Tanjirou’s head snaps up. “Your father’s technique, the one you’ve begun using in battle.”
Tanjirou tilts his head, an odd movement like he’s caught between a nod and shaking his head. “It’s not really a proper technique. It’s just—our family had this ritual ceremony that we practiced every new year.” His voice takes on a rhythmic cadence, like he’s reciting a lesson from memory. “Our family worked with fire, so to keep us safe, we offer a dance and prayers to the fire god at the start of every new year. That is the Dance of the Fire God.”
Giyuu looks at the stubborn glint in Nezuko’s eyes. “The start of the new year?”
Tanjirou ducks his head. “We’re supposed to repeat the twelve forms of the dance over and over, from last sunset of the year to the first sunrise of the new one.”
Silence falls over the group, interrupted only by the crackle of the natural fire – Nezuko’s demon flames don’t make a sound. Giyuu holds his tongue – it is painful for most demon slayers to reenact rituals from their past lives, back when they were ignorant of the existence of demons. No matter how curious Giyuu is to see the fabled dance forms, every demon slayer’s past is their own.
Unexpectedly, it’s Shinazugawa’s brother who speaks up. “Tanjirou, you should do it. Your sister has been asleep for two years, right? She hasn’t seen the dance in a long time.”
Giyuu has to suppress a sigh – from the guilty look in Tanjirou’s eyes, he didn’t perform the dance for the two new years he passed when Nezuko was asleep either.
“A dance and prayer for safety seems worthwhile,” Giyuu says, in hopes of motivating Tanjirou with something other than guilt, “in light of the demon slayer corp’s current circumstances.”
Tanjirou bites his lower lip. “I don’t have the regalia. And I’ve already missed sunset.”
“I don’t think any of us would want you to dance the entire night,” Giyuu says, and he’s not sure why he’s suddenly advocating so strongly for this. “And just like you can perform breath techniques with a wooden sword just as easily as with a nichirin blade, I imagine the dance would be just as respectful and meaningful without your usual adornments. Intent is what matters, Tanjirou.”
Nezuko suddenly whirls on her feet, the sharp movement catching everyone’s attention. Her head turns back and worth, as if hunting. After a moment, she ducks, and comes back up with a smooth stone, the size of her fist, in one hand. Her injury, Giyuu notices, has already healed over.
She stares at the stone intently, long enough that Tanjirou’s face starts to scrunch up in amused confusion. Then, she flicks her fingernail against the side of the stone, which rings like a resonant bell.
Nezuko looks up, triumphant, and Tanjirou lets out a choked up laugh, like it’s been startled out of him.
“Okay, Nezuko,” he says through his laughter. “Okay. We don’t have drums or Father’s bells, but we still have each other.”
Nezuko nods emphatically. She begins tapping the stone, setting a steady cadence, and Tanjirou draws in a deep breath and takes off his haori.
Giyuu blinks, because the Dance of the Fire God is a Kamado family tradition, and the checkered haori – a pattern that is echoed in Nezuko’s obi – is a symbol of the Kamado family. Tanjirou folds the haori with light, careful fingers and hands it wordlessly to Giyuu, and when he turns away, displaying the bold kanji for destruction on the back of his uniform—
Giyuu gets it.
The Dance of the Fire God is not just a dance to Tanjirou now. He honours the memory of his family with it, but he also wields it in battle as a demon slayer, in defense of all humankind.
And as Tanjirou takes his stance in an empty stretch of ground, drawing his nichirin blade, Giyuu feels his heart buoy with—
Between breathes, between the rhythmic chime of the stone in Nezuko’s hand, Tanjirou moves.
Tanjirou learned this technique as a dance, and Giyuu can see it, the way one form flows seamlessly into the next. But even as a dance the forms are potent, full of strong slashes and graceful, economic movement designed to capitalize on the wielder’s speed and transmute that into power. From the beginning, Tanjirou’s blade emanates a bright glow that streaks through the darkness in his wake, similar to Rengoku’s Breath of Flames attacks, but not quite the same. Rather than the flickering swiftness of the Flames there is something more fluid about the Fire Dance technique, like it’s a mix between the Breath of Flames and the Breath of Water, like the magma of a volcano—
—or perhaps, the incandescent plasma of the sun.
It is breathtaking even to Giyuu, who has been practicing total concentration breathing every second of every day since he became a Pillar.
There are twelve forms to the Dance of the Fire God, and Tanjirou repeats the entire set twelve times over. With his speed and agility, it doesn’t take long, and when he finally comes to a halt, afterimages of brightness linger in Giyuu’s vision for long seconds before finally fading away.
Tanjirou isn’t breathing hard, and in his dark demon slayer uniform and his blade now still, he would fade completely into the darkness of the night if it isn’t for the way Nezuko’s demon fire lights up his hair, the way Tanjirou’s eyes seem to burn in his face, ruby bright.
Nezuko drops the stone in her hands and walks towards her brother. Her measured steps leave neat indents in the snow; under Tanjirou’s feet, however, the ground is bare, all the snow worn away from the exertion of his movements.
Nezuko’s arms reach up when she gets within a step of her brother, and she folds her hands around the back of his head, his neck, tugging him down. The demon fire goes out with a force that makes even the natural fire in the pit splutter out for a quick second. But Giyuu is used to abrupt environmental changes during demon battles and his eyes adjust quickly, and in that split-second of darkness he watches the way Tanjirou seems to collapse into Nezuko’s embrace.
Then, the flames in the pit blaze back to life, and Tanjirou gives Nezuko a quick squeeze before letting go. Nezuko’s smile is gentle despite the fangs in her mouth, and her eyes flick once to Giyuu before she turns on her heels and heads to the cluster of Agatsuma, Hashibira and the younger Shinazugawa.
Giyuu doesn’t have time to watch her for long; Tanjirou, after all, is walking towards him, and Giyuu’s attention immediately shifts, focusing on Tanjirou.
The other demon slayer sheathes his blade and takes a seat at Giyuu’s side. Wordlessly, Giyuu unfolds the green-checkered haori and drapes it over Tanjirou’s shoulders – he doubts it’s the cold that’s making Tanjirou shiver like that, not when Tanjirou’s eyes are glimmering with a sheen of tears, but Giyuu hopes that the familiar family memento will be comforting nonetheless.
Tanjirou draws in a shaky breath, and then he shakes his head ruefully. “I don’t feel like this, when I’m using the Dance in battle. I don’t know why I’m crying.”
As he speaks, the tears in Tanjirou’s eyes finally brim over, spilling two thin streaks down his cheeks.
Because you are kind, Giyuu thinks, and carefully reaches over and wipes away the marks with his fingers. He himself hasn’t cried in years, not after smothering himself in calm and numbness; he builds his walls high to protect himself, because if Giyuu allowed himself to cry, his tears would never stop.
It takes a certain kind of strength, to allow yourself to feel enough to cry; in this, Tanjirou is one of the strongest persons Giyuu knows.
“It’s fine.” Giyuu strokes his thumbs lightly under Tanjirou’s eyes to catch any other stray tears. “No one minds.”
Tanjirou’s mouth quirks in a lopsided smile. “I miss my family,” he says, matter of fact, tears still shimmering in his eyes. “I miss them every day. But I’m grateful for this life too. Nezuko and I have been helped by so many people on our journey, and now, we can celebrate the new year with people like Zenitsu and Inosuke and Genya. And Kanao and Shinobu-san.”
Then, he leans over and rests his head against Giyuu’s shoulder, a startling gesture of vulnerability, and murmurs, secret soft, “And you too, Giyuu-san. I’m glad you’re here.”
Giyuu’s steady heart has been swayed by Tanjirou a long time ago, but this sudden surge of emotion coalescing in his chest is new. He isn’t normally moved by emotion – calm steadiness in battle has seen Giyuu safely through countless demon encounters – but now Giyuu finds himself moving on impulse: he lifts his arm and curves it behind Tanjirou’s back and shoulders to gather him close, pulling Tanjirou into his side.
Tanjirou’s head tips back against Giyuu’s shoulder in surprise, his eyes huge in his face. Then he melts into the embrace, and Giyuu turns away, has to stare into the depths of the fire instead in self-preservation.
Giyuu knows why the mark appeared first in Tanjirou, why it’s the leading theory amongst the Pillars that Tanjirou is the catalyst for the mark appearing in Tokitou and Kanroji as well. Tanjirou is compassionate and pure-hearted. He moves people, changes them for the better, and he is kind even to demons, the ones with flickers of redemption and regret at the end of their unnatural lives.
Tanjirou brings hope.
And hope spreads.
“I’m glad to be here as well,” Giyuu murmurs, and feels more than sees Tanjirou smiling, from how Tanjirou has his face half tucked into the curve of Giyuu’s neck.
Neither of them has to say anything else, after that. They sit there until the flutter of wings suddenly rustles above the wind, and all five kasugaigarasu, who have been roosting high up in the trees, suddenly burst simultaneously into loud caws.
They call eleven times, and then Giyuu’s kasugaigarasu’s voice rings out across the clearing.
“Greetings from Oyakata-sama!” she proclaims. “Well wishes to you and safe tidings to all demon slayers on this first day of the new year!”
“Well wishes! Safe tidings!” the other crows call out in turn, a litany of salutations, and then, as one, they fall quiet once more.
The silence rings out for a long instance, and then Hashibira hurls himself to his feet and howls up at the crows.
The others must be used to this behaviour, because Giyuu can hear Agatsuma and the younger Shinazugawa exchanging new year greetings normally, Nezuko’s voice rising high and sweet in echo. But under the shelter of Giyuu’s arm, Tanjirou doesn’t add his voice to their exchange; instead, he shifts so he can stare up at Giyuu, and the happy glow in his eyes could put all the shine of the stars to shame.
“I hope for your favour again this year,” Tanjirou says, a formal greeting, the very first personal words that Giyuu receives in the new year, and Giyuu thinks—
I will fight to my very last breath to bring down Kibutsuji; I will fight just as fervently for the both of us to greet the next new year together as well.
“I hope for yours as well,” Giyuu responses.
Tanjirou breaks into a wide grin. “You have it,” he says cheekily, and then he lifts his head to holler his new year’s greetings at the others – all without moving out of Giyuu’s embrace.
Giyuu tips his head back and stares up at the open sky above their heads. The stars above are beautiful in their distant, remote way, and the wind is chilly against Giyuu’s bare skin, moaning quietly through the trees. But the sound of bright voices – especially Nezuko’s – is joyous, and in Giyuu’s arms, Tanjirou is wondrously warm.
And if Tanjirou’s pulse and breathing remains heightened long after his emotions should have calmed, well, only Giyuu is close enough to feel it. And if Giyuu’s hand tightens just a little on Tanjirou’s shoulder, protective and a touch possessive, well—
Only Tanjirou gets to know.