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After the first night they had to move him to his own cell.
The problem with people was that they didn’t listen. For example, last night when they put him in the community cell, a guy kept running his mouth. Spouting nonsense about his good for nothing kids and how none of them would ever amount to anything. That his wife was lazy and ugly.
When Sanemi had enough he told the man he would break his legs if he didn’t shut up.
The guy didn’t listen…and now he had broken legs.
It came down to the man’s poor choices, really.
When Giyuu appeared at the door to the cell, Sanemi wasn’t surprised. So much so that he didn’t even turn to look at him, but continued staring ahead at the wall in front of him as he had been for most of the day. It was curious that Giyuu was able to get this far into the jail without detection, but he’d always been better at stealth when he put his mind to it. Unlike Sanemi, who barreled into every situation like a tempest. He vaguely wondered if it was a breathing style thing. He blustered like a storm, while Giyuu slipped in and around obstacles like a slowly rising flood.
Not that water couldn’t be destructive. Sanemi knew very well it could be one of the most destructive things on earth.
“I was wondering if you’d show up sooner or later,” Sanemi stated flatly.
Giyuu was silent for a few moments before he answered. “You didn’t come, so I started looking in the usual places.”
“Hmm,” Sanemi intoned, still staring at the wall in front of him intently.
“Are you ready to go?” Giyuu asked laconically, as if he couldn’t care less what Sanemi’s answer was.
Sanemi just got up off the floor and turned to face the door. But he still didn’t look at Giyuu.
Giyuu must have lifted the keys from somewhere, because he got the door to open with a smooth click, and then they were walking down the corridor. They wove in and out of some areas that were clearly cordoned off, but which were deserted and silent, their progress going completely unnoticed.
They exited the jail into an empty alleyway, the ground littered with rotten food and broken pottery. The night sky was overcast and a light rain fell, making the alley very dark and dank.
Giyuu turned and walked away and Sanemi wondered if he expected him to follow, or if he just didn’t care one way or another. He’d done his part, he’d gotten him out.
Now it was up to Sanemi to figure out what to do with himself.
When the war ended, after he was released from service, he entered a period of calm that he hadn’t ever really known. When he was young his father was the disruptor. Then his mother became the destroyer. And then he’d become a killer. But after he left the Demon Slayer Corps, for a time, he was just a man in the world who was allowed to be. And he was grateful.
And he’d tried, he really had. He wanted to see some of the world, to make a life.
But as he traveled he noticed that something in him called to the dark. The darkness of other people and the world; the dark that lived in him. He was disconnected, adrift.
That was what made him send the first crow to the Water Estate if he was honest with himself. He had no real idea what it would be like to try to get along with Tomioka Giyuu, because he’d spent the entire time he was a Hashira relishing his dislike for the man. But Giyuu was one of the few people who had fought the same battles, lost the same people. And he, most importantly, was one of a very short list of people left who shared the same curse.
“What landed you in there this time?” Giyuu asked quietly over his shoulder. Sanemi looked up and realized that he’d followed Giyuu out of the alley without making a conscious decision to do so.
“Oh you know me,” Sanemi sniped irritably. “Can’t seem to mind my own business.”
Of course it had been a domestic dispute he stumbled upon. It was curious how often it happened. He wondered in an offhand way if people were so frequently awful to one another or if he somehow sought it out without realizing he was doing it.
“Some asshole punched a kid. I don’t even know if it was his kid, he just hauled off and hit him, really fucking clocked him. And I just…”
Lost it. He’d been on the man in seconds, sweeping his legs out from underneath him before the guy even knew he was there, pinning him to the ground as he beat the man’s face with his fists again and again until it was nothing but blood and pulp. He’d barely been able to check his strength, but thankfully he had, otherwise he would have undoubtedly killed him. And then he would have been in jail for murder instead of assault.
He said none of this to Giyuu, but he didn’t have to. Giyuu knew Sanemi’s patterns enough to work it out himself.
They threaded through the crowded streets of the city, Giyuu entering a restaurant, taking a seat near the back of the counter. Sanemi slid in next to him. Giyuu didn’t look at him, just kept staring forward. A server came, and Giyuu placed an order for food for both of them, sake as well. Sanemi realized Giyuu would have to pay the bill, since his money had been confiscated at the jail, and likely had disappeared into the prison guards’ pockets anyway.
“I’ll get it next time,” Sanemi said, his tone an edge.
“Hmm,” Giyuu intoned placidly, seemingly unaffected by any of it. Not his lack of money, not his disheveled and unwashed state, not even the small specks of blood that stained the front of his shirt and rimmed his cuffs.
Sanemi flashed on meals that had been passably pleasant that they’d shared periodically over the past couple of years, back when he could still convince himself that he was grateful for his freedom, for his survival, for a chance to make something of himself with whatever time he had left.
At first their meetings had been so forced. The dislike he’d felt for Giyuu when they were both Hashira had apparently been mutual, though for Giyuu’s part it ended up being more defensive. As it turned out they didn’t really know one another at all, and the dislike was mostly due to misunderstandings and surface things.
Like Sanemi really hated Giyuu’s blank stare. He couldn’t stand his ugly haori. Or how aloof and arrogant he acted.
But after a while he came to understand that his behavior was just that, an act. And that his blank stare was a mask. And his haori…that was a shroud.
It took time, years in fact, for them to come to the point where there was something like ease between them. Conversation with Giyuu was difficult in the beginning. He was still taciturn to a fault, but as time wore on communication became easier.
They made the most headway by sparring with one another. It was the only thing they really had in common, and the physical release of battle left them both more pliant and willing to be patient with one another.
The food arrived, and Giyuu poured each of them bowls of sake.
“To another successful jailbreak,” he said cooly, but his mouth turned up at one corner.
“Asshole,” Sanemi mumbled under his breath with a sigh, but he still lifted the bowl of sake before he downed most of it.
They ate and drank in companionable silence. Sanemi was quite hungry, as he hadn’t eaten at the jail and he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d been arrested yesterday or the day before. The sake went down easily. Too easily.
Giyuu was an interesting drinking companion. He was the type who showed no sign that he was drinking at all until suddenly, after an indeterminate amount of time that was highly variable, he became almost incoherent.
Of course that was also when he would start talking.
When Sanemi drank it was a slow and steady decline. Interestingly he wasn’t an angry drunk, which would have made sense. Instead he was a rather melancholy one.
At some point after dinner was cleared away and they remained seated at the counter Sanemi asked, “Why do you think you are getting better, while I just keep getting worse and worse?”
Apparently he was also a philosophical drinker.
Giyuu was silent, staring into his bowl.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he replied. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. “You’ve always been prone to violence, especially in defense of others.”
“And you aren’t?” Sanemi asked incredulously.
“No.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sanemi muttered, chuckling when Giyuu gave him a sidelong look, before finally turning to face him full on for the first time that night.
Sanemi's smile faded and he became uncomfortable as Giyuu regarded him, imagining what he must look like.
A man who was falling apart, who was in fact spiraling out of control.
“I used my training to defend others. But use of force isn’t in my inherent nature,” Giyuu stated calmly, his eyes skating over Sanemi’s face, probably seeing evidence of violence in all the small scrapes and bruises in various stages of healing that marred his already scarred countenance.
Giyuu looked into his eyes, his expression unreadable, but he sighed before continuing.
“You should come to Tanjirou’s with me. I’m going there in a couple of weeks. Get out of the city where it’s a little quieter.”
Sanemi started shaking his head before Giyuu finished speaking.
“No. The last thing I need is to play house with the Kamados. Things are too chaotic with them and their friends. Inosuke, I can handle. But Zenitsu? Just thinking about that kid's mouth makes me want to hit something.”
Giyuu nodded in a way that Sanemi interpreted as agreement.
“What about returning to the Wind Estate?”
He just shook his head. He couldn’t tell Giyuu that it felt like a monument to a life that was no longer his, that when he tried to stay there after the war ended, it felt like a tomb haunted by ghosts from his past.
A small furrow appeared on Giyuu’s brow, his eyes gliding over Sanemi’s face again, and he appeared to have something he wanted to say, but he held his tongue.
“What? Spit it out,” Sanemi snapped irritably. “I can tell something is actually going on in that empty head of yours.”
Giyuu’s eyes narrowed slightly, seeming to weigh something before he spoke.
“Let’s get out of here. You’re a mess. You need a bath and a change of clothes.” He placed the money on the counter and abruptly stood and walked out.
Sanemi toyed with the idea of not following, but in the end he decided he was probably right.
Giyuu was staying in a ryokan nearby that had a bath, which Sanemi was grateful for. His own place was clear across the city and it had no such amenities. He was exhausted and more than a little drunk, and the thought of going to a public bath at this hour was unappealing.
Also, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if he could be trusted out on his own tonight. He’d likely be drawn into some kind of conflict and then he would just end up back in jail.
As he lowered himself into the hot water and tried to relax, he reflected that he had the means to move around more, that he could choose to stay in places like this if he wished, instead of the tiny, stale room where he kept his few possessions. That was in fact what he started to do just after the war. But he fell out of the habit, if it ever even was one.
When he was finished he made his way back to the room. There he found that Giyuu had laid out a futon and yukata for him. His clothing was nowhere to be found, so he assumed it had been given to the management for cleaning and repair.
Another thing he would owe Tomioka for.
Giyuu was absent, perhaps to go have his own bath, so Sanemi changed into the yukata and lay down on the futon. He tried to stay awake, but he’d been up for at least a day and night, if not longer, and the sake made his eyes heavy. He drifted off into dreamless sleep.
When he woke the next morning Giyuu was asleep on his own futon across the room. Without his carefully crafted stoicism his face appeared very young, and he seemed somehow smaller, as if the things that made him who he was withered and went dormant while he slept. At that moment, he could be anyone. Just a regular person, and not the bulwark upon which Sanemi had come to depend.
Sanemi rose and left without waking him.
Months later
If it had been anyone else who had stepped in to block the punch they would be dead.
As it was, Giyuu's arm was broken. In two places. Sanemi worked on splinting it as Giyuu stared off out the window placidly, as if he was sitting on an engawa drinking tea, and not sitting in Sanemi’s shitty apartment getting patched up by the very person who had caused the damage.
“You would have killed him,” Giyuu stated.
Sanemi felt something that might have been shame, or possibly regret, but he did not reply.
It was true – he’d checked none of his strength and aimed straight for the man’s temple. He tried to remember what he’d been thinking, but he couldn’t, which made him think he probably wasn’t thinking at all but acting on autopilot, as if it was a demon he was fighting, and not a piece of human garbage in an alley.
It had all been a blur and when he tried to remember things in detail his brain seemed to want to skip around and delete certain parts of it. He remembered eating dinner with Giyuu and that they’d recently taken their leave of one another. Sanemi had been walking away for only a minute or two before he’d heard it – very soft sounds of struggle, of a stifled cry. In his experience, such things were rare, as most demon encounters were loud, until they weren’t, and then it was just a matter of getting to the location where the noise had been. But this was different. It was of someone doing harm but trying to stay quiet. Sanemi’s mind wouldn’t really allow him to recall the details, but there had been a woman on the ground and a man threatening violence kneeling over her.
Sanemi did what he always did, which was to act, and on some level he knew it was good that he did, because something that he didn’t want to think about had been about to happen. But whatever it was made him so angry that he’d gone into a rage that had become almost a frenzy. And after he’d hit the man a few times, enough that the man was nearly unconscious, he realized that there was nothing stopping him. They were in an alley alone. The woman had fled. And this man did not deserve anything like mercy, because he was just as predatory as any demon Sanemi had ever hunted.
The next moment was a blur because it happened so fast. One moment he was pivoting and drawing back his fist and in the next moment he was bringing it around and throwing the full weight of his body and all of the monstrous power he’d developed during the war at the man’s head. And then suddenly there was a person standing in the way, thrusting an arm up to block. Sanemi was thrown backwards from the force of the block and also by the other person’s forward momentum as they spun and threw their shoulder into his solar plexus.
That person turned out to be Giyuu. They’d both gone down hard and Sanemi had hit his head during the fall, but other than a minor bump he was fine.
Giyuu, unfortunately, had not come away unscathed.
“What made you come?” Sanemi asked numbly, trying to focus on the task of fixing the splint, trying not to see the swelling in Giyuu’s hand.
His only hand.
“A woman ran past me crying from the direction you’d gone and I had a feeling something had gone wrong. Whether it was you or something else I felt I should look into it,” Giyuu explained.
Sanemi nodded. On some level he felt validated that he wasn’t the only one who responded to trouble, but he knew that wasn’t the issue. Many people responded when others were in trouble. But most people wouldn’t have tried to do what he almost did, if not for the intervention of Giyuu.
“If I’d killed him, no one would have known.”
“You would have known.”
Sanemi sidestepped the implications of those words simply because he didn’t want to believe he was programmed to care if a low life died.
“So what if I got away with it….”
Giyuu flicked his eyes toward Sanemi in what appeared to be irritation.
“It would have made it easier next time. And maybe you wouldn’t get away with it then.”
“And what –” Sanemi cut himself off, trying to master his voice because it was close to shaking. “What if you’d missed the block? You would have stepped right into my fist.”
Giyuu lifted his eyebrow a little and tilted his head.
“ If I missed the block, which was unlikely, you would have killed me, Shinazugawa.” Giyuu let the words hang for close to a minute as Sanemi refused to meet his gaze and fumbled with the splint pointlessly as all of the knots had been secured.
Sanemi finally raised his eyes and looked at Giyuu, but he was met with the same calm and empty gaze as always. No anger. No reproach. Not even a request for an apology. After a few moments Giyuu looked away and then he stood and appeared to be busying himself to go.
“How does the splint feel?” Sanemi asked, knowing it didn’t scratch the surface of what he should be saying.
Giyuu regarded it before replying, “It’s passable. I’ll stop at the Butterfly Mansion on my way to Tanjirou’s. Kanzaki will likely have to re-splint it but it is fine for now.”
“Wait, you’re traveling? How are you going to do that without the use of your arm? And your hand, it’s very….” Sanemi trailed off as his throat grew tight.
“I’ve traveled farther with worse injuries in the past.”
Sanemi felt something that he didn’t like start to bubble up in his chest.
my fault my fault my fault
“Tomioka, just stay for a few days. We’ll go to a proper infirmary…get it splinted by a physician with more experience than just field dressing. Your hand doesn’t look great.”
“I’ll be fine –”
“No!” Sanemi snapped. “You’re not fine, you stubborn bastard! I broke your arm. You aren’t leaving until this is fixed.”
Giyuu scoffed and moved to walk out.
Sanemi stepped towards him, perhaps to block his progress. Giyuu stilled, fixing him with a look that was stark and glacial.
And Sanemi knew that if he pushed, something very ugly was going to happen, something that might be harder to come back from than him breaking Giyuu’s arm. There was still a part of him that wanted to go there, partly because he was concerned, but also because something in him itched to see what would happen if he pushed too far.
Sanemi stepped back, and Giyuu moved past.
As the heat of the moment dissipated, Sanemi’s guilt returned, though he still could not find it in himself to apologize.
“Tomioka,” he called to Giyuu’s back as he walked away. Giyuu paused.
“Thanks,” Sanemi mumbled self-consciously.
Giyuu looked back over his shoulder, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“For being so fucking fast,” Sanemi clarified.
“It’s better that he lived,” Giyuu said simply before turning and walking away.
As Sanemi watched him go, the smile slid from his mouth, and a dark look clouded his face.
And then he started to shake.
Months later
Sanemi walked into a room that was painted with blood – it was sprayed on the ceilings, the walls dripped with it, it pooled around his feet and made unsettling sucking noises with each step. The air smelled so strongly of metal that he could taste it. And he could hear voices, so many of them, all blurred together in a din. Some were talking, others laughing. Some screamed. He reached his hands up to cover his ears but it did no good. The voices were in his head too. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to block out as much as possible.
“Sanemi,” one voice spoke out clearly, though he didn’t know where it was coming from. “Sanemi.”
He opened his eyes.
Kumeno Masachika stood before him. He was wearing his uniform from the Corps. It was immaculate – pristine as if it was brand new. He smiled and it was the same gentle smile that Sanemi remembered from so many years ago.
“Masachika,” Sanemi gasped, choking on a sob. Even in this room in such a terrible state, Sanemi felt his heart lighten as if a heavy burden had been lifted. He reached out his hand, gripping Masachika’s shoulder for a moment before he pulled him into an embrace.
“Where have you been?” Sanemi asked, his voice anguished. The other man wrapped his arms around Sanemi, returning the embrace. He spoke quietly, as if they were not standing in a house filled with blood.
“I’ve been…elsewhere. It isn’t important. I’m here because I have a question for you,” Masachika intoned.
Sanemi pulled away slightly, but did not release him. He stared at Masachika as tears slid down his face. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, his throat was so tight with grief.
“I wonder what it is you plan to do with your life?” Masachika asked gently, moving his hand up to grip the back of Sanemi’s neck. “Because from here, it looks like you have no path. Like you are wandering through the woods again, just looking for things to hurt. Only now it isn’t demons you hunt.”
Sanemi swallowed hard, trying to get his voice to loosen. He closed his eyes and it was with great difficulty that he mumbled, “I’ve missed you.”
“That’s not an answer to the question.” Masachika said kindly.
The question didn’t mean anything to Sanemi.
“Sanemi,” Masachika pressed gently in the way that he always did, because he’d understood Sanemi in a way that no one else ever had before.
And, Sanemi feared in his secret heart, it was in a way no one ever would again.
“I’ve lost everyone. My family. Genya. Kanae before that. Almost all of the Corps.”
And you.
The last words went unspoken, as if Sanemi was afraid to break the spell, that perhaps it was a dream.
(He knew it was a dream.)
His eyes remained closed. “I have no path anymore, nothing to guide me.”
“I think we both know that isn’t true.”
Sanemi squeezed his eyes tighter, pushing the words away because he feared what the truth might mean. He pulled back and opened his eyes, and he was alarmed to see that Masachika’s face had changed. It still held his gentle countenance, but he was covered in blood – it was clotted in his hair and eyelashes, it was dried and sticky at the corners of his mouth. As frightening as it was, he could not pull away, such was his desire to not let him go.
“I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t anymore,” Sanemi admitted and fresh recognition of the fact that he missed so many people was like a razor in his chest, slicing at his heart. “Anyway it is too late for me. The curse of the mark will take me in a couple of years. And before that I will lose…” he trailed off.
The voices began to grow louder, particularly the screaming, and the Lower Moon that they’d killed together so many years ago walked into the room. Sanemi felt a ripple of something like joy, because now he was a Hashira – killing this demon would be nothing, it would be like breathing. But then, to his horror, Kokushibo entered the room out of the corner of his eye. Rage whipped through him, and he finally released Masachika, making his body a shield.
But it was no good. The Upper Moon’s blood art ripped through him, forcing him to his knees. He heard Masachika hit the floor behind him. He turned in time to see someone he loved die yet again.
(He felt a hand on him, shaking him gently.)
“I failed you too,” he murmured.
(The hand gripped him tighter, the shaking more insistent.)
And Sanemi woke, his face pressed to a table in a room he did not recognize.
“Shinazugawa?” a concerned voice implored quietly. “Wake up.”
He picked his head up from the table, wiping his face absently, unsurprised to feel tears.
He looked at the person who woke him.
Giyuu stood there, clearly freshly woken, hair askew, eyes half lidded.
“You were dreaming,” Giyuu said gently. “You were…loud. So I woke you.” He seemed unsure of his decision.
Sanemi felt ill, recognizing the symptoms of a bad hangover.
“I’m going to be sick,” he muttered. Giyuu moved out of his way as he rose and stumbled from the table, sliding open the door to the engawa, barely making it to the edge before he started heaving. His head was screaming in agony, but it was nothing compared to his heart. He stayed on the engawa for many minutes, taking deep breaths of the crisp air, trying to get himself together. But control had never been his strong suit. He began to shake.
“Shinazugawa, come inside. It’s freezing. I have a tonic.”
When he entered the room again, his head swam, but he felt a blanket descend on his shoulders awkwardly, as the person doing it only had one arm, so he couldn’t settle it properly. Sanemi reached up and pulled it around himself.
Giyuu busied himself with preparing the tonic, occasionally looking at Sanemi with something like concern, which annoyed him, so he glowered at Giyuu, who merely sighed as he stirred the contents of the cup.
“Do you ever dream of the dead?” Sanemi asked, his voice sounding distant and unreal.
Giyuu brought him the tonic. “Sometimes,” he answered quietly, pushing the cup into his hand.
Sanemi drank it, wincing at the bitter grittiness. Once he swallowed it all down he continued. “About people you loved?”
The question made Giyuu still and Sanemi could swear he stopped breathing. He remained silent for a long time, staring off over Sanemi’s shoulder. “Yes,” he finally replied.
Sanemi wondered who those people were, but he wasn’t going to ask. Kochou came to mind, but that had never been confirmed, and he imagined there were others he didn’t know. Giyuu knew he lost Genya, but he knew nothing about his childhood family. Most of the Hashira knew there was a friendship between him and Kanae. And although a connection was implied by his presence in Masachika's will, the reality of what they meant to one another was known only to him.
All of the people that he loved who he'd failed.
They were silent then.
“I set out a futon for you, and a yukata. There are blankets as well if you are cold,” Giyuu stated, nearly whispering. He put a hand on Sanemi’s elbow leading him toward the futon. Sanemi allowed himself to be led, feeling his hangover and exhaustion overtaking him.
Sanemi changed out of his clothes in a daze. Giyuu turned his back but he did not move away. Sanemi laid down and Giyuu picked up a blanket, holding a corner of it under his chin so that he could open it. He covered Sanemi with it, his gaze averted the entire time, and then he walked away wordlessly.
The last person Sanemi remembered covering him with a blanket like that had been his mother.
Terrible guilt and grief washed over him, but he held it in, not wanting to burden Giyuu any further.
Giyuu got into his own futon, saying nothing about the whole thing. He didn’t seem the least bit fazed and before long his breath took on the cadence it did when he was asleep.
Sanemi stayed awake, unable to sleep for fear of having another dream. It had been a nightmare actually, but seeing Masachika was a welcome thing, even if he’d been in a house of blood, and in the end he lost him. Soon he turned on his side and faced Giyuu, stared at his sleeping face, wishing that he knew who the man dreamt of when he was visited by the dead.
Maybe he would ask him one day.
Months later
Sanemi sat with his back against the wall, staring at the window across from him, feeling dazed by the light. He was aware that he felt deeply unwell, that he was in fact very weak, but he couldn’t muster the energy to care.
(He was also aware that he was forgetting something, and the fact of it itched at the edge of his consciousness.)
All at once he became aware of a presence in the room. The person walked in front of the window, so Sanemi could only make out the hazy outline of them and they came in and out of focus.
“Shinazugawa,” the person said, the voice breathy and stunned. “What have you done?”
Giyuu.
The recognition was detached, fractured, but he did remember that Giyuu was what he’d forgotten. They were supposed to meet for dinner yesterday. Or was it the day before?
He felt an arm grip him beneath his arms, pulling him across the floor away from the wall, and as his head fell back he stared up at the ceiling.
He was dragged onto his futon, a hand coming up quickly to the back of his head as it was lowered.
He heard the sound of fabric being ripped. His consciousness faltered, his vision rippling out.
He awakened to the feeling of pressure on his arms and chest, of things fastened tightly, and it hurt but it was also correct that it should be there in some way that he didn’t quite understand.
Giyuu was mumbling something about him needing to drink some water and he heard shuffling and felt his head lifted awkwardly, a cup brought to his lips. He took a few sips and choked, the coughs increasing the pressure on his chest, but it didn’t matter. It all had to be just as it was.
He drifted again.
He woke sometime during the night, and though he was still very lightheaded and ill, his mind was clearer. He looked to his left, where Giyuu sat near to him, his back to him. He seemed to be either staring out the window or possibly meditating. The moonlight lit the room in front of him, illuminating the edge of him perfectly. His breathing had the precision of a clock.
Sanemi lifted his hand and bumped Giyuu’s back. He saw him stiffen and hold himself still for several moments before he turned.
The moonlight cut across one side of his face, and his expression stunned Sanemi. Gone was the mask and any trace of indifference. It was replaced with something like rage, but also hurt, his eyes red-rimmed.
When he spoke though, his words were pure ice.
“How long have you been doing this?” Giyuu asked, his teeth fit tight together.
Sanemi knew very well what Giyuu meant by this but he elected not to answer.
Giyuu pressed.
“You have no reason to cut yourself any longer. Your blood is not special anymore,” he bit out. “I see that you have fresh scars that are almost healed. And now this…” he trailed off. He turned around, kneeling next to Sanemi. “This time you did not just make surface cuts, Sanemi. You actually severed a vein. If you’d gone much further, you would be dead.”
Giyuu’s face was now shadowed, the moon at his back, so Sanemi couldn’t see his expression anymore. But the fact that he’d used his given name so carelessly, that Sanemi could hear the emotion in his voice as it shook, even as he tried to hold it back, Sanemi knew he’d never seen Giyuu like this before. It frightened him a little.
“What are you trying to do? Why are you trying to leave –” Giyuu cut off the thought, snapping his jaw shut.
Sanemi sent breath into his body, willing the muscles to do the work that they’d always done – holding him together when he should have been ripped apart. Sanemi realized that Giyuu probably didn’t know that he had this ability, and it almost made him chuckle, the secrets they each kept.
Though he hadn’t actually meant to cut a vein. That had been a miscalculation and he’d been rather drunk at the time so he guessed there was a chance that what Giyuu said about him dying was possible.
That thought did make him chuckle.
Giyuu was up and on his feet, standing across the room by the window, his movement so quick he was a blur.
“Bastard,” Giyuu hissed under his breath.
And then Sanemi knew Giyuu must be really pissed for him to say something so crude.
“It was a mistake,” Sanemi said, his throat terribly dry. He struggled to sit up, coming to an elbow. He looked at the bandages up and down his arms, at the ones tied across his chest. A random question entered his mind.
“How did you tie these knots with one hand?”
“With my teeth,” Giyuu answered, suddenly sounding very tired, not looking away from the window.
The thought of Giyuu doing such a thing, of tying bloody bandages to his body using his teeth, to fix the mess that he’d made of himself, made something turn over in Sanemi’s chest and for the first time he felt something like remorse.
“Shit,” Sanemi said dimly. “That’s….”
But he couldn’t find the words for what that was that were enough, so he fell silent.
Giyuu turned to him, seeming to have willed himself back to being composed.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” he stated, clearly not willing to let the subject go, and at that point, Sanemi thought he probably owed him at least some kind of an explanation.
“When I first learned about my blood, I was captivated by the idea of it. That it could be used as a weapon. Back then, cutting myself was for practical reasons,” he paused, weighing his next words, not wanting to say them, but pushing ahead anyway. “I didn’t know until a while after the war that I had other reasons for it.”
Sanemi stopped speaking and he hoped that Giyuu would somehow understand and that he’d just let it drop.
“And what are those reasons?” Giyuu asked, his voice mechanical.
Sanemi pushed himself up further, though his head swam. He drew breath again, holding it, imagining it reaching between the fibers of his muscles, tightening them to knit together what he could.
“It helps,” Sanemi hissed and it was all he could manage by way of explanation. He shot Giyuu a look in warning, and for a moment it seemed like Giyuu was going to push back, but instead he just stared at him stonily, going cold and silent.
Giyuu turned away, and Sanemi half expected him to walk out. Instead he started walking, shifting around the room, looking around.
“I know…this place is a dump,” Sanemi said sheepishly after Giyuu had paused to stare into what was likely a platter of half rotten food that he’d left on the counter. Giyuu ignored him and continued his examination of the space.
“When you are well enough to travel, we are leaving,” Giyuu stated.
“Oh are we?” Sanemi snapped.
“Yes.”
“And where the fuck are we going?”
“Away. Somewhere else. It doesn’t matter.”
Sanemi’s head felt like it was about to explode.
The heavy handed bastard! Who did he think he was? His damn mother?
The thought pulled him up short. He had shadowy memories of a strong arm clutching him and dragging him across the room, of a cup of water being lifted to his mouth. The question of how Giyuu had managed to lift his head and help him drink suggested a level of physical intimacy and care that Sanemi had no memory of ever receiving in his life. He barely ever went to the Butterfly Mansion to deal with his injuries. He’d depended on the strength of his own body to keep him alive.
The man had used his fucking teeth to tie my bloody bandages.
Sanemi took a breath before he spoke.
“Listen Tomioka. I’m not trying to die or anything. I just fucked up. It was stupid.”
“Hmm…yes,” Giyuu agreed, the quiet anger in his voice the edge of a blade.
“You aren’t responsible for me!” Sanemi suddenly snapped. “If I want to flay myself alive or bleed out on the floor that is my fucking concern, not yours.”
Giyuu turned slowly from the counter where he was standing, his expression completely unreadable. But his gaze was ruthlessly penetrating. He stared at Sanemi for close to a minute before he turned and walked out.
Sanemi was actually a little stunned. In the couple of dozen times they’d met up over the past few years, they never said goodbye to one another, but they’d never parted like this, after having such a fight. Sanemi was used to sniping and mild agitation between them. But nothing like what just occurred. It unsettled him and he thought about following him out. He started to move to do so when the door slid open sharply, slamming into the wall.
Giyuu walked calmly toward Sanemi as if nothing happened, not the door, not the fight. He stood before him, regarding him in a way that Sanemi couldn’t read.
“You're wrong Shinazugawa,” he said, his voice as calm as still water. “What happens to you is my concern. And it is so because I choose for it to be. The question you need to ask yourself, if you are even capable of such a thing, is whether or not you feel the same way about me.”
Sanemi was at a total loss for words. Of course he cared what happened to Giyuu, but to say it like that, so boldly? He had to look away for a moment, his vision becoming blurry, a tightness in his throat.
Sanemi cleared his throat. His gaze was still averted when he said in a whisper, which was all his voice would allow, “I do care.”
There was a silence that descended. And it lingered for a while. But Sanemi was afraid to move and he still couldn’t look at Giyuu.
“Then will you come with me?” Giyuu finally asked.
Sanemi’s eyes lifted to meet the other man’s, and damn if his face wasn’t a blank fucking slate, completely unreadable.
Sanemi sighed, resigned to losing this fight.
“Sure Tomioka, in a day or two, we can leave for a bit. A change of scenery sounds nice.”
Months later
Sanemi wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Giyuu this drunk.
They were at the Water Estate, Giyuu having convinced him to leave the city for this visit. Sanemi knew it was out of concern, as their last few visits had gone poorly, not because of any unusual conflict between the two of them (occasional conflict being a normal part of their relationship), but because of Sanemi’s animosity toward life in general.
It was Sanemi’s twenty-fourth birthday, and for reasons that were both obvious and unsettling, since the end of the war they always met up on their birthdays. Oddly, Sanemi realized, it was also something unspoken, because neither of them ever acknowledged that it was the reason why they were together, nor was there ever mention of it during the visits.
One thing was for sure. The mood was never celebratory. And it was doubly so that night.
Giyuu stared gloomily into the middle distance between them.
“What’s gotten into you tonight?” Sanemi snapped irritably, while he internally berated himself for being so coarse.
Giyuu didn’t seem to mind, and he eyed him, something flashing in his eyes that Sanemi didn’t recognize, but then a barrier slammed down. He didn’t answer.
“Come on Tomioka. I can tell something’s wrong.”
Giyuu stood, moving away from the table, his steps an unsteady shuffle, but he moved to a wall, pressing his hand into it, leaning against it for support, his head lowered.
Sanemi got up and approached him, making sure to drag his feet.
It was dangerous to approach a Demon Slayer without announcing your presence, especially one like Giyuu.
“Hey,” Sanemi said quietly, like he was speaking to an animal that he might spook.
Giyuu’s shoulders sagged and then he turned. His face was still blank but he raised his eyes to look at Sanemi. He waited, seeming to search for words, the silence growing heavy. He took several breaths before he spoke.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said quietly, the words slurring together slightly. “That this might be the last one…that we’re both still –” Giyuu whispered morosely, cutting off the thought.
“Tomioka –”
Giyuu interrupted. “Stop…just stop calling me that. We’re not…we are beyond that. It’s just Giyuu.”
Sanemi shifted uncomfortably. This was not like Giyuu – he was comfortable with boundaries, with propriety.
“Fine. Giyuu,” Sanemi said, the name foreign on his tongue. “I think that it’s late. We can talk tomorrow.”
Giyuu started speaking as if he didn’t hear Sanemi.
“I know we don’t know what’s going to happen. But I’m worried. If it’s going to happen,” Giyuu moved toward him, crowded him in a way that he never did unless they were sparring. He gripped Sanemi’s shirt. “You need to promise me, if I go, you won’t do what you’ve been doing…that you won’t keep punishing yourself.”
“What the fuck? Punishing myself?” Sanemi hedged angrily, as if he didn’t know the truth of the words. He pulled away, but Giyuu hung on, and moved his hand, his grip on Sanemi’s arm like iron. He was of a slighter build than Sanemi, but still insanely strong.
“I hate the idea of you dying alone,” Giyuu murmured, his chin dropping to his own chest. “The strength this has taken…just living with the past. I know you mourn for Genya, and I know there were others.”
Sanemi stiffened.
“I’m sorry…I don’t mean to say things that hurt you. But our time is getting short. A month…maybe two. If I go, you need to go to Tanjirou. To Nezuko. Please don’t let yourself be alone.”
Sanemi hesitated, weighing the very dangerous words he was about to say, before something in him broke.
Fuck it.
“And before then?” Sanemi asked, throwing all caution away. “Should I let myself be alone? While you are still here?
Giyuu raised his eyes, looked at him with his head still bowed.
“It’s too late,” Giyuu said softly, but he didn’t move.
“Is it?” Sanemi said, looking in Giyuu’s eyes bravely, daring him to defy him. “And if we live?”
Giyuu made a sound that may have been a derisive laugh.
“The world we live in doesn’t allow for such things.”
“Fuck this world,” Sanemi stated boldly. “We pledged our lives to save it. And we did. It owes us.”
“No one owes us anything,” Giyuu said, and he tried to rally his mask, but his tone betrayed him. He sounded mournful. “If I’ve learned anything I’ve learned that.” He turned to walk away, but Sanemi trapped him in his own steely grip, pulling him into an embrace.
His mouth went to his ear.
“And if we live,” he repeated. “What would we do?”
Giyuu pushed back, placing his hand on Sanemi’s chest. He stared at him, his gaze as composed as ever, the mask crashing down like an avalanche.
“Ask me again if we live,” he said tonelessly, his eyes suddenly sober.
“No,” Sanemi stated. “I’m asking you now.” He pulled him closer, fingers clutching at Giyuu’s clothes, pressing his body against his.
“Sanemi.” Giyuu breathed his name carelessly, before he whispered a plea for reason. “We will only break one another’s hearts at this point, no matter what happens.” But Giyuu stared at Sanemi with clear eyes as he too moved closer, his nose sliding along Sanemi’s cheek.
“So be it,” Sanemi said plainly, tilting his head so that his lips slanted over Giyuu’s, the words spoken against the other man’s mouth.
Giyuu only hesitated for a moment before he closed the scant distance, pressing their lips together. Sanemi opened his mouth, inhaling Giyuu’s breath, wanting to take all of him in, to keep him in his lungs and heart forever, come what may.
Giyuu sighed, seeming to give up, and Sanemi just held him, their hearts pressed together.
That night they pushed their futons together. They stayed up all night telling one another their secrets. When dawn came, they fell asleep in one another’s arms and when they woke later in the morning, they shared a meal, their fingers entwined together.
As it was their habit to part without a goodbye, Giyuu gave him a small smile before Sanemi walked out of the door.
Two months later
Shinazugawa Sanemi,
Nezuko and I are about to depart for the Water Estate. We’ve received news that Giyuu is unwell, and as it is so close to his birthday, I fear that this is the curse of the mark. I don’t know anything for sure at this point. I don’t know if you and Giyuu have maintained a correspondence, so I just thought you should know. If you are able to come to the Water Estate I think that now is the time.
I'm sorry to send such bad news. I hope it turns out to not be true.
Kamado Tanjirou
Sanemi crushed the paper in his hand, rounding on the crow at his window who fled, and released a scream of grief and rage toward the sky. He pressed his fists to his eyes, and though he knew this was a death sentence for himself, that was not what he mourned. He dropped his hands, a sudden irrational calm overtaking him. He moved around his room, packing a few supplies for the journey. He looked around the room trying to figure out if anything there meant enough to him to merit taking it as he would not be returning. He threw two months worth of rent on his futon and walked out of the room.
Much of his progress was made at a sprint toward the Water Estate, barely stopping for rest, pushing himself to his physical limit, and reveling in the pain.
When he arrived a couple of days later, he couldn’t help but remember the last time he was there, and he realized that Giyuu had been right.
They’d done enough to break one another’s hearts.
He took a breath, steadying himself, telling himself that it might be nothing, though he didn’t feel convinced.
He entered the house, noting people standing in the kitchen who he expected to be there, and some he didn’t – Nezuko, he’d anticipated, but Kanzaki was also present, and most ominously, Urokodaki. His heart dropped, but he schooled his voice to sound like himself when he called out Giyuu’s name; people expected the irascible bastard.
Nezuko approached him carefully.
“It is good to see you, Sanemi-san. It has been too long. Giyuu-san is in the sitting room with Tanjirou.” She indicated the direction of the hallway but did not follow when he walked away without a word of greeting to her or the others.
When he reached the sitting room he saw Giyuu seated quietly near Tanjirou, his back turned.
please don’t please don’t please don’t
As soon as he rounded the sitting area and took one look at Giyuu, he knew.
The drawn expression and hollowed out flesh of his face, the too tight press of his skin against his neck and collarbones.
The darkened circles under his eyes.
The diminishment of his light.
Sanemi was aware that he lacked Giyuu’s stoicism, so he knew it showed on his face.
But Giyuu regarded him kindly, though he didn’t get up from his cushion. A look of regret crossed his features.
Tanjirou stood and approached Sanemi, speaking softly. “I’m glad that you came. I’m going to make some tea. Would you like some?”
Sanemi had to break his eyes away from staring at Giyuu, trying in vain to comprehend the question Tanjirou had just asked. He could only shake his head. Tanjirou frowned and nodded before he retreated down the hall without another word.
Sanemi’s gaze shifted back to Giyuu.
“I was afraid…you’d come,” Giyuu said quietly.
Sanemi couldn’t find the words, so he merely nodded.
“I was also afraid that you wouldn’t,” Giyuu murmured even more softly, his brows lifting and the corner of his mouth turning up.
“You didn’t send Kanzaburo,” Sanemi stated woodenly, finding his voice.
“We never talked about it. I suppose….” Giyuu paused, seeming to search for the words. “Maybe I wanted to leave you in peace.”
“So you’d just disappear? Without anything…without a goodbye?” Sanemi snapped quietly, but he imagined his voice carried. He could barely muster the strength to care.
“That was always our way.” Giyuu stood, and when he reached his full height, he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was steadying himself.
Everything in Sanemi screamed at him to reach out, to put a steadying hand on his back, but he was hurt and angry.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Giyuu said, turning to walk out. As usual. Like he just knew that Sanemi would follow him.
Which he did. As he always did.
-
Later, after they’d parted, Sanemi wandered through the thousand-year bamboo forest aimlessly. He could not cry, though he had a lump in his throat that was so thick he could barely breathe.
(Which was a feeling that he suspected would soon become rather familiar.)
And though that scared him, it did not disturb him nearly as much as what he’d seen on Giyuu’s face.
The acceptance. And the resolve.
Giyuu was not one to test this way…he would take action. Death would not have its way with him, not without him making his stand.
And though there was still some time left, weeks, he imagined that Giyuu wouldn’t let it go that much longer, and Sanemi knew, he just knew , that Giyuu would be gone soon.
Which meant he couldn’t go far. He’d keep in touch with Tanjirou. So that he knew when it was time. He would return. It was the only thing he could do.
Sanemi finally slowed and then stopped, dropping to his knees. Tears filled his eyes, spilled over onto his face. And he felt bitter. That the end should be so perfunctory, almost casual.
That someone like Tomioka Giyuu could just pass out of existence.
Sanemi filled his lungs with air and screamed and then he screamed again, over and over, until he grew hoarse, and still, until his voice broke and he could make no more sound.
-
Giyuu died in the morning on a Saturday as Sanemi held his hand.
-
And Sanemi followed along with all of the formalities and customs of laying a Hashira to rest. To everyone else he just seemed quiet, perhaps grieving, perhaps mourning his own fate. They couldn’t know. They’d only ever known them as adversaries, really. He couldn’t blame them for any confusion. It’s possible that Tanjirou may have smelled something on him. He sometimes looked at him, concern written plain on his face. But it didn't matter.
He returned to the Water Estate, making arrangements with the Ubuyashiki family to live there until the end of his life. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to stay, but he didn’t know where to go and it felt more familiar to him than the Wind Estate. He secretly hoped that Giyuu haunted it, though he never sensed such a thing.
He stayed through the spring without meaning to but by summer it was a habit. He watched as the wind and rain ruined Giyuu’s dry gardens but Sanemi didn’t care, he rather liked the idea that the two elements could destroy something in such a way. By the fall it was home to him.
He never dreamed of Giyuu. The closest thing he’d come to such a thing was a vague dream. It was nothing like the one he’d had of Masachika. It happened during the first week of November.
This was a dream of sense memories, of things slipping through his fingers, and a feeling of terrible regret. It was as if someone lingered just visible out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head they were gone.
He woke suddenly near dawn and after initial confusion was unsurprised when his breath left him. He sat up, struggling to draw in air, but it was difficult to the point of pain. Finally he was able to pull it in with a wheeze, but it was close to a minute before he was able to draw a normal breath. Sanemi stared down at his hands, studying the hand with mangled and missing fingers. A sensation that he recognized as dread spilled from his gut and spread throughout his body, leaden, but with an edge.
Fuck this shit.
He called to Kanzaburo, who lingered near the house, though he didn’t recognize Sanemi even though he’d been feeding him for the better part of eight months.
Kamado,
It’s started. I’m not waiting. Come to Giyuu’s grave. I’ll be there.
Shinazugawa
Though he’d certainly lost his patience with the senile crow many times in the past, he was gentle when he affixed the note to his leg. As he murmured the directions to Kanzaburo, he stroked the bird's feathers gently, realizing that this was likely the last time he’d speak to another living soul. The bird seemed to lean into his touch.
“Giyuu. Giyuu.” The name was spoken as a susurration, and then Kanzaburo looked up to the sky, readying himself to take flight. Sanemi reminded him gently that he needed to get the communication to Tanjirou.
But really, it didn’t matter.
Sanemi regretted he didn’t have a proper sword, but he took Giyuu’s broken Nichirin sword from its stand.
He tested the broken edge of the blade. It had a sharp enough point and the blade itself was still razor-edged. It would do.
He sprinted from the house, hoping like hell that his breath wouldn’t fail him.
He reached Giyuu’s grave within an hour, falling in front of it onto all fours. The ground beneath him was unyielding and the wind was cutting. He reached up and began to undo the laces of his shirt, pushing it from his shoulders but letting it pool at his waist. He stared at the stone in front of him.
“I don’t know what to expect,” he stated calmly, a cold resolve gripping him. “But I won’t wait to die gasping like…”
something pulled from the water
Sanemi considered seppuku, but this was not a matter of honor. It was a matter of closing a circle. And he didn’t need honor to get it done. Just resolve and courage.
He never once faltered in battle.
He placed Giyuu’s blade to his chest, pressing the point of it between the two most vulnerable ribs gently, adjusting the angle in such a way that he knew would allow it to slide between them easily. He took a breath, steadying his grip.
“You didn’t break it. You reminded me it was still there,” he whispered on his out-breath.
With one sharp thrust, he drove the blade deep into his heart. The pain was blinding. But it only lasted a few seconds. He felt the warmth of his own blood spill over his hands, his vision blurring out, and if he took another breath, he didn’t feel it.
Sanemi awakened standing on a familiar road. Giyuu waited for him.
They stared at one another for many moments without speaking.
“There are many others who deserve to be here before me. I’m honored that you chose me,” Giyuu said in his calm manner, though his eyes held great emotion.
“I did?” Sanemi asked, honestly curious.
“Hmm…yes,” Giyuu intoned, the corner of his mouth turning up. “But they are waiting for you.” Giyuu looked down the road. He started to turn when Sanemi spoke.
“Wait, I want…I just want to be here for a moment. While it’s just us.”
“Well, just so you know, none of this is just us. Turns out it never has been.”
“Ugh, don’t ruin the moment,” Sanemi snarked. “Barely could get two damn words out of you in life, and now you’re spouting fucking philosophy.” His words were characteristically harsh, but he smiled, hesitating for a moment before he took a step toward Giyuu.
Giyuu reached out a hand, and Sanemi noticed he had two again. He looked down at his own hands, seeing they were both whole.
He reached his hand out, entwining his fingers with Giyuu’s.
“Now that it doesn’t matter anymore, I have a question for you,” Sanemi said, his tone pensive.
Giyuu smiled in a way that made Sanemi suspect he already knew the question. But he had the grace to let him ask it.
“If we lived. What would we have done?”
Giyuu regarded him, and for the first time ever, Sanemi saw him as someone capable of being charming in a quiet and dignified way. “We were Hashira. And we helped defeat the Demon King. I don’t know that there are too many things that we couldn’t have figured out if we put our minds to it.”
Sanemi smiled and squeezed his hand.
“Are you ready?” Giyuu asked gently.
Sanemi stared down the road for a moment, breathing easily. “Hell yes,” he answered definitively.