Summary: The city keeps breathing, the mornings still come, and her memory lingers in every corner.
Warnings: major character death, grief, mourning, depictions of fire, bittersweet ending, fem!reader, dick grayson feelings™
Words: 1.6k
Tune: Not About Angels- Birdy
Notes: in response to the “make reader die” ask, you got your wish. i hope you’re happy (and crying). no use of y/n. @6000-fandoms
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───
Dawn still battled with Blüdhaven.
Light streaked between towers, spilling across windows too dirty to reflect much back. The city didn’t glow anymore; it endured.
Dick walked without really thinking about it. His hood was up, his head down, but every corner still remembered her: the mural she’d stopped to photograph, the bakery she’d sworn made the best cinnamon rolls in the tri-state area, the café where she’d once pressed a daisy into his palm and said, “Even Blüdhaven needs flowers.”
He hadn’t thrown that daisy away.
It sat in the cup holder of his car, brittle, yellowed, but still holding shape. Like it refused to give in.
He still drove by her building sometimes, though someone else lived there now.
New curtains. New plants on the sill.
He wondered if they ever heard the way the floorboards creaked at midnight, or if they noticed the faint coffee stain on the counter, the one she swore looked like a wonky heart.
He wondered if they ever felt the warmth that used to live there, or if they managed to pretend the walls didn’t remember her voice.
He couldn’t.
The café door chimed when he pushed it open.
New staff. New paint. Same window.
The same faint smell of espresso and sugar that would cling to her after a long shift.
He ordered her drink without meaning to.
Automatic, the way breathing used to be.
When the cup hit his palm, the warmth bit into his skin, and the world tilted, just slightly.
For a heartbeat, she was there.
“You’re predictable,” she said, laughing, sunlight tangled in her hair.
“Reliable,” he corrected.
“Same thing,” she teased.
He blinked hard, and the vision bled away. The barista asked if he wanted sugar, and he couldn’t make his mouth work. He just shook his head and left the note on the counter.
He walked the long route to the park, her coffee cooling in his hands. Every few steps, the sound of her voice surfaced, small fragments, bright as glass.
He passed the florist’s window. The one that had the burst pipe, she had never managed to revisit. The same old woman was inside, trimming stems, humming to herself. A flash of yellow caught his eye, a bucket of daisies, petals freckled with dew.
He stopped walking for a second. Just stood there, heart doing that quiet ache it did now instead of beating properly.
She’d loved this street in the mornings. The sound of vendors setting up. The smell of rain before the sun burned it off. She’d said it made the city feel like it was a living thing.
By the time he reached the park, his chest hurt from holding it all in.
Their bench was still there.
The paint still flaking.
A new plaque adorned it now, her name glinting in the sun.
He read it once, thumb brushing over it before he sat down.
The paper cup wobbled in his grip. A breeze stirred the trees, carrying the faint, far-off scent of smoke, sharp and metallic.
It wasn’t strong, barely there, probably just a food cart somewhere down the block, a burnt batch of something sweet. But his chest locked up all the same. His brain didn’t know the difference anymore. Smoke was smoke.
He looked up. The light bent through the haze, gold through grey, and the city around him dissolved.
Suddenly, he was back there, the heat, the shouting, the glow bleeding across the street. The moment everything went wrong.
────────────
The call came through his comms at 2:17 a.m, a structure fire downtown, near the docks.
He didn’t think much of it until the dispatcher read the address.
The building two doors down from hers.
His heart stuttered once, then the world narrowed to instinct.
Grapple. Launch. Run.
The city blurred beneath him, rooftops bleeding together in streaks of steel, gravel and shadow. He rerouted the signal to his phone as he moved.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said, already vaulting a gap between buildings. “There’s a fire near your place, just checking you’re home. Pick up, okay?”
He hung up before the tremor in his voice could finish the sentence.
He called again on the next rooftop. Still nothing.
“She’s asleep,” he muttered, out loud, like saying it could make it true. “She’s asleep. She’s fine.”
But his gut was already twisting, that old sixth sense that had never once been wrong.
The smell of smoke reached him first. Thick, chemical, heavy enough to sting his eyes.
By the time he hit the street, the air shimmered orange.
The flames were eating through the building, an old tenement with peeling paint and narrow windows that trapped the heat. Sirens wailed, water hissed, and people stood barefoot in the street, clutching each other, faces grey with shock.
He landed hard, scanning the crowd. “Anyone still inside?”
A man turned, coughing through his sleeve. “The girl from down the block, she ran in!”
Another voice called over the noise. “Yeah, she just took off when she heard the kid screaming! Doesn’t even live here!”
For a second he couldn’t process the words.
Doesn’t live here.
Of course she didn’t.
Of course she had to help anyway.
He was moving before his brain caught up. Through the barricade. Through the smoke.
The heat rolled over him like a wave, but he didn’t slow down. His grapple fired into what was left of a window frame, and he swung inside, shouting her name.
“Here!” a small voice cried.
He followed it, kicking through what used to be a door.
The room was half collapsed, one wall already gone. A boy, maybe eight, was crouched beside a fallen beam, eyes wide and wet.
And beneath it…
“You have to help her!”
She was there, pinned from the waist down, soot streaked across her face, hair matted with ash. Her eyes found him through the haze.
“You came.”
“Of course I did,” he said, brushing the hair out of her eyes, already straining against the beam, heat biting through his gloves.
She winced but still tried to smile. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you,” he shot back. His voice cracked. “You don’t-”
He pushed again. The beam didn’t move.
Her hand caught his wrist. “The kid,” she said, urgent now. “Get him out.”
“I can get both of you-”
“Dick.”
Her voice was calm, too calm. “You can save him. Please.”
He wanted to argue, to promise something impossible, but the ceiling groaned above them, and dust rained down like snow.
He could feel it, the seconds slipping.
He grabbed the boy, holding him close. “Hey, don’t look back, okay? Just hold on to me.”
The boy nodded, sobbing into his shoulder.
Dick looked at her one last time, “I’m coming back for you, I promise.”
She gave him that same small smile, the one that made everything feel possible and nodded, a hand reaching for him weakly, mouthing one word, go.
He ran.
The building screamed behind him, the sound of wood splitting and air collapsing.
He burst into the open air as the roof gave way, heat chasing him out.
He didn’t stop until his knees hit the pavement, the boy still in his arms, coughing, alive.
The firefighters rushed past him, hoses cutting arcs of water through the dawn, but he already knew.
The noise of the world fell away.
He stood there, covered in ash, watching the flames chew themselves to silence.
When the sun finally broke over the horizon, it hit the smoke and turned it gold.
She’d told him once that Blüdhaven was trying.
He’d told her she could say anything and he’d believe it.
But in that moment, he didn’t believe in anything at all.
────────────
Since then, the city had healed in fragments.
A new coat of paint here.
A window replaced there.
No one talked about the night the fire took the building near the docks, not anymore. Blüdhaven had too many stories like that, and the world moved on whether Dick was ready or not.
But some things didn’t move.
Some things stayed.
Her name was one of them.
It lingered on the lips of the people she’d helped, the neighbour she’d carried groceries for, the shop owner whose kid she’d watched after school, the boy who’d survived the fire and still left wildflowers by the rebuilt steps every week.
Sometimes Dick saw him there, and the sight always hit him the same way, it was mercilessly gentle. It was enough to make him take a breather, step away from the suit for a while.
Tonight though, he took the long way home, cutting through the market where she used to stop and talk to every stranger who smiled at her.
A vendor he had seen her helping handed him a daisy wrapped in brown paper.
“Someone left this here, said to give it to you” the man said. “Said it was to remember the one who saw the good in things.”
Dick stood there for a moment, the paper rustling in his hand.
The petals were slightly bruised, the stem bent.
But it looked like hope.
He took it home. Set it in a glass of water on the kitchen counter and retrieved the old, dried one she’d once given him.
When the morning came, the first light of dawn caught both flowers, one new, one dead, and turned them the same shade of gold.
And for the first time in months, Dick smiled without flinching.
He still walked her route.
He still stopped by the café.
He still caught himself waiting for her voice when he sat on their bench.
But sometimes, on good mornings, he swore he could feel it in the air.
That quiet, impossible warmth that said: Keep trying.
I can't wait until I'm older. Maybe then I'll ask my parents to have a sleepover for once. When I get there I'm probably gonna pack all my warmest clothes and just the necessities a kid would need for the harsher seasons. I'll never have to talk to my family ever again and nobody will ever know where I left to that night. I'll never have to listen to my mom yell at me to end my life or wait for my grandma to finish telling me about my parents' failing marriage and how its all my fault for not listening to her and how I was the one that made them miserable, or my titas switching out of English to talk shit about me like I haven't been learning to speak it with them. I'll disappear for years into an apartment and dye my hair and do my makeup and dress differently and find a new accent or a new language to learn maybe. I'll never talk to them again.
But then I'll drive by the old house in a moment of weakness one day and still see that business sign posted up. I'll read the numbers and make a call when I get back home, but now it doesnt really feel like home now that I'm taking to the man that helped me learn to live even when I couldn't love. Maybe then I'll drop by the house when mom is visiting her sisters and see my father on the couch, heavy in the gut from years of marriage, eyes heavy with depression because he never thought he would kiss his baby goodbye one day when they finally get their first taste of true freedom and never see them again. I'd watch his eyes light up in recognition or love— or maybe it was guilt— when I step into the room, because even though my voice is different from screaming into a microphone and my hair is thinned from bottles of bleach and dye and my nails are short and chipped, as I fall onto his side at the couch, ugly tears ruining my makeup, he knows its really me that's back.
i'm so bad at endings please dont talk about that
also i only read through this once
word count: aprox. 3.8k!
cw: spoilers(?), character death.. alive sabito AU !,, sabigiyuu
title;; Us Against the World
Urokodaki had always said that one of the worst liabilities someone could have in battle was having someone the demons could threaten, causing their overall decisions to be made recklessly, costing them precious time. Of course, never yet experiencing this before, neither Sabito nor Giyuu took him as seriously as they should've. But they still made a promise to each other, just in case it did happen. They planned to always stick together after passing Final Selection. It was always going to be them against the world, they swore.
"If you get kidnapped, or me, the other person has to ignore the instinct to save the other and the first other has to..." Giyuu paused, frowning. "No, that's confusing."
Sabito laughed. "If I get captured, you can't try to save me unless it's your only choice. Same thing the other way around," he added.
Giyuu nodded. "Yeah. Or if one of us turns into a demon, we have to kill the demon. I mean us. Whoever's the demon," he clarified.
Despite the lightness of their tones, Urokodaki watched with a frown behind his mask. He knew, from personal experience, that this was not anything to be smiling about. He hoped dearly they never came across either of the situations, wanting the best for the two.
Shortly after, about a week, from their conversation, they managed to cut their own respective boulders and Urokodaki reluctantly sent them off to Final Selection, pronouncing them ready for the test. Despite the many injuries acquired and the long, dreary week in the Wisteria cage, the two made it out in relatively one piece. They had managed, although admittedly it had been primarily Sabito, to kill nearly every demon there except one with many hands, which had retreated to the shelter of the trees when the sun peeked through into the clearing.
Back at their mentor's hut, they were cuddled up in bed, their futon's pushed close together. They were antsy with the excitement of passing and, because they had slept during the day after arriving from the Selection, they were unable to sleep. Giyuu rolled onto his back, lifting his left arm. Sabito lifted his right and their hands intertwined. They stared up at the silhouette of their hands for a long while—until Giyuu claimed his arm was tired and they dropped them down to the sliver of floor between their beds.
"Sabito?" Giyuu asked, after a long moment of silence.
"Yeah?"
"You promise to stay with me 'till the end?"
Sabito shifted to look at Giyuu. Vaguely, in the dim light of the moon that filtered through the curtain over the window, Giyuu saw a gentle smile forming on his best friend's face.
"Of course. Us against the world, right?"
Giyuu smiled back. "Yeah. Us against the world," he echoed, his voice a soft murmur in the night.
Years passed. Sabito seemed always to be a step ahead of Giyuu, which only fueled him on. They were given their own katana's and Kasugai, sent on mission after mission. Considering that Urokodaki's hut was too high in the mountains and far from their mission places, they only visited him from time to time, usually residing temporarily in Wisteria Houses. Urokodaki had always encouraged them to find ways to still relatively find ways to live 'normally,' despite the circumstances. Several times, both Giyuu and Sabito found boyfriends (though Sabito wasn't completely exclusive to women, he found himself having a preference towards men). Somehow, none of their relationships worked out. Especially since their partners seemed to see something between Sabito and Giyuu, though the two themselves had yet to register it.
Most of their missions were duo ones and they had the luxury to constantly have someone at their back. Of course, they had many solo missions as well, which made it a bit trickier, but they developed rendezvous points where they would meet after their missions (they could've had their crows guide them to each other, but Giyuu was dubious of Kanzaburou's ability to do much more than totter around at this point).
On one of Giyuu's birthdays, when he turned 16, Sabito asked him out. It had been cold that night—of course, it was winter. Sabito had only just remembered in the evening that it was Giyuu's birthday and, as his mind raced for something he could give him, Giyuu entered the room. They were in a Wisteria House once again, that had been nearby their last mission. The woman who owned the house had let them bathe quickly before giving them supper and two beds.
Sabito watched as Giyuu settled into the borrowed futon, pulling the covers over himself. Their futons were close together as they had been back at their old mentor's house. Hesitantly, Sabito reached his left arm out. For a moment, there was only the shifting of blankets as Giyuu moved to a more comfortable position. Sabito considered pulling his arm back in, then he felt Giyuu's hand intertwine with his own. The owner of the house was turning off the lanterns now. She poked her head in the room, murmured a quick goodnight, and defused the light. They were plunged into darkness and it took Sabito a moment to adjust, blinking quickly. He turned to face Giyuu, their hands still locked together.
"Giyuu?"
A moment of silence. "Hm?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"You just did."
Sabito rolled his eyes. "Something else, besides this?"
"Okay." A smile could be heard distinctly through Giyuu's voice.
"Hypothetically, if I liked you, would you date me?" Sabito asked. He wasn't sure what Giyuu would say, if he saw him as a brother or just a friend. So he tread carefully, trying to adjust his tone to not sound so hopeful.
"Hypothetically?" Giyuu paused. In the darkness, Sabito could barely make out Giyuu's form turning to look at him.
"Yeah."
"Hm." Another beat. "I guess, yeah. Hypothetically, right?"
Sabito turned to face the ceiling, hiding the smile that crept up his face. "Right. What about... really dating me? If I asked you to be my boyfriend now, would you still say yes?"
Giyuu propped himself up on his elbow, breaking their hand bridge as he gazed at Sabito. "Are you asking me out, Sabito?" His voice was teasing but there was a slight quiver to it—nervousness? Anticipation?
"Maybe." Sabito sat up, mimicking Giyuu's recline. "Are you accepting? Or no?"
In response, Giyuu scoot out of the comfort of his futon, moving to kneel in front of Sabito. Carefully, leaving extra room for rejection, he pressed his lips to Sabito's. When he pulled away, a dark blush had spread across his face. Sabito was sure he looked the same.
"Then... yes?" Sabito mumbled, unable to see clearly enough to search Giyuu's eyes for an answer.
"Are you an idiot?" Giyuu huffed, his change of mood so sudden that Sabito nearly laughed. "Yes!"
Sabito grinned, shifting to one side of his futon and lifting his blanket. Giyuu settled in next to Sabito. Between them, their hands met, closing around each other. As sleep began to overtake their minds, Sabito murmured: "By the way, Giyuu. Happy birthday."
"Is it already...?"
"Yeah."
"I love you, Sabito."
Sabito leaned closer to Giyuu, wrapping an arm around him. "I love you, too..."
Their relationship lasted until the end of Sabito's life. Which meant about a year... and a half.
Both Demon Slayer's strength had increased beautifully in the last months and they were being sent on more back-to-back missions. Giyuu, who'd gotten injured in one of the last ones, was given a break to recover. Sabito, however, had only acquired a few scratches here and there and was sent on some solo missions. After returning from one and getting only an hour or two's worth of sleep, Sabito joined Giyuu on their following mission. They had both been sent on this one; reports of a stronger demon making their way to the ranks higher than the Mizunoto—which was the lowest. Despite being wracked with fatigue, Sabito told Giyuu that they should split up and cover more ground. Since they were in the middle of a village, it would be better this way. If they'd been in a forest, perhaps sticking together would've been better. But here, the streets could be weaved around more easily and therefore they should use it to their advantage the best they could.
They split up. As Giyuu searched the hauntingly empty streets, he realized that not a single light was on—which, despite it being night time, was strange. Besides that, the village looked relatively unused, at least there couldn't have been any residents here recently. Every here and there, a house had a window or a door that had been broken in. Uneasy, Giyuu peeked into one and found the whole room in disarray, as if there had been a fight here. He glanced at the window sill and found a thin layer of dust beginning to collect. It looked new.
He frowned. Turning, he kept one hand on the hilt of his katana handle, making his way through the streets again. There was something else about this place. It was quiet. Not nighttime quiet. Deathly quiet. Not even a bird dared to chirp, nor a tree to rustle. He couldn't even hear his own breathing. This was peculiar on its own, demon or not. Even the sounds of screaming might comfort Giyuu. Then—a snap of a branch. It was loud, like a flash of thunder in the muffled silence. He flinched, turning towards the sound. Nothing. Another noise. He glimpsed, briefly, peach colored hair. Sabito!
He raced towards the color and—
Crashed into a world of sound. It disoriented him and he felt like it was all pounding against his head like a giant hammer. He clutched his ears, trying to block out the noise. It would've been normal, distant, background sounds before. But after the silence, it made him dizzy. He nearly fell until he heard a familiar shout. His head snapped up and he was met with what looked like makeshift wooden cages. So, so many of them. In them, there were hundreds of people. Yet he pinpointed on one.
"Sabito."
He tried darting forward but a demon intercepted his path. It was taller than Giyuu, symbols that could've been their own language framing its body. Its eyes were different than the average demon. In one of them, the number 3 was scrawled into it. It smirked at Giyuu, teeth glinting.
"You and that boy together?" it slurred. Its voice sounded loud, much too loud. It wasn't just Giyuu's state. It was confusing him, changing the sound level up and down, creating a dizzying effect. "Both of you have swords. Even have matching fox masks." It barked a laugh. "Brothers? No, you don't look alike. Friends, then? Acquaintances? Something more?"
Giyuu unsheathed his katana as the demon spoke, clutching the handle tightly. It wasn't that he was new to this—he'd been fighting demons for years now! It wasn't that Sabito wasn't by his side either; he'd faced demons alone, as well. It was that Sabito had been caught. His lack of sleep was part to blame, of course, but if Sabito got captured? Then what? Was Giyuu even a match to this demon?
The demon grinned gleefully in the tremor of Giyuu's hands. "Scared, are we? What are you to this boy? I've been stock piling all these people," it said, waving flippantly at what Giyuu was supposed were the villagers, "but I'll let you take them in exchange for your...?"
It was prompting him. Urging an answer from Giyuu. He didn't care, really. He just needed Sabito safe. "Boyfriend," he mumbled. "He's my boyfriend."
The demon raised an eyebrow. "Even better. Your fear is delightful," it said with what was probably supposed to be an alluring tone—except Giyuu's full attention was on the people behind it.
Now that he looked closer, he realized that all the villagers were actually in one large cage. He supposed that Sabito would be transferred to that cage too, in a bit. Maybe if he just waited a moment... Then he could cut the whole thing off and set them all free. Except—it looked as if it was made of wood. If so, Sabito could've easily cut it. There seemed just enough room inside there for him to move. He was sure some of the women in the other cages could've used their pins and hacked away at the wood until it broke. So why...? Unless it was enchanted, in some way.
The demon snapped its finger impatiently, regaining his attention. "Okay, lover boy. No more spacing out. Back to me. Of course, feeding on humans is more ideal, but emotions are great all the same. I can hear your anxiety for your pretty little boyfriend there, it's almost delectable. But I need more. So! You have two options: I let go of Peach and get to eat the rest of the people and watch you deal with his disappointment, or I let go of the others—and you should be glad I'm in a good mood today, I did take a couple days to round these all up—but kill your boyfriend. Either way, I get a nice feast of tears," it concluded, humming gleefully.
Giyuu's stomach churned. Fuck. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't get the rest of the people killed—the demon was right, Sabito would be more than disappointed—but if he saved them and Sabito died...?
He glanced up at all of them, keeping as steady of a hold on his katana as he could. He could practically hear their pleading through their stares. Even if they were too terrified to speak, their eyes said more than words could. There were children there, too. Everybody who had lived in the village, huddled in the one cage yet none touching, unable to pass some sort of charm the demon had worked, keeping them all apart. And then Sabito. Oh, Sabito, his gaze strong and insistent, urging him not to save him. To save the villagers instead. But he couldn't. He didn't know what to do. He was freezing up, unable to decide. Sabito called out.
"Giyuu!" Sabito shouted. Despite their proximity—Sabito's cage sitting behind the demon—his words were muffled. "Our promise! Please—remember!"
Promise? Which promise? To stay together forever? Giyuu frowned. No. Sabito wouldn't say that now. Then a different promise. Oh. That one.
"I- I can't!" Giyuu choked out. He hadn't even realized the words had been building in his throat until they were already out.
"Please, Giyuu," Sabito pleaded. "You can't let them die!"
'If I get captured, you can't try to save me unless it's your only choice.'
The words had been delivered after a laugh, a smile still lingering as they left Sabito's lips. Now, there was no laughter. No smile in Sabito's eyes. Nothing but a plead to let himself be killed. No. Giyuu couldn't do it. He couldn't, he couldn't, he-
Even so, he managed to rasp out a shaky, "fine. Leave them be."
The demon tilted its head mockingly. "Who?"
"The villagers."
"Then I kill...?" it prompted, amusement lacing its tone. As if this was no more than a parent trying to teach their child. A game.
Giyuu nodded towards Sabito, not wanting to say it.
"Tell me," the demon insisted. "Tell me who I kill. Give me a full sentence."
"I- Shit, I-" Giyuu swallowed hard, refusing to meet anyone's eye as he whispered, "You can kill Sabito..."
The demon's lips curved into a cruel smile. "Lovely." It sauntered over to the larger cage and the people inside it shrank back. Giyuu raised his katana, waiting for an attack. The demon, however, kept its side of the negotiation, releasing the villagers. They all sat there on the ground for a full moment before scrambling hastily behind Giyuu, sobs shaking the bodies of the younger ones. Giyuu wished he could cry too. But he still had to try. Try to save Sabito.
As he ushered the people back, he started to step forward, katana raised. Then the demon slashed down at Sabito. There was the sharp cry from the boy as blood blossomed from his now-ripped uniform and he slumped down, though not yet dead. Giyuu didn't need to know much to realize this was a fatal wound. For a moment, he stood stockstill, shock freezing his body. Then the demon lunged towards the villagers and Giyuu realized it had never intended to let them go. It knew it was stronger. But, in the spur of the moment, Giyuu's fury hit him so suddenly he had no time to react as it guided his arms, his legs. He plunged his katana into the demon's throat, slicing its head clean off with only a second's struggle.
He waited only enough to see it begin to disintegrate before he rushed to Sabito, abandoning his katana, his preservation. He knelt down into the pool of blood that spilled around his boyfriend. A sob threatened to spill over as he grasped for Sabito's hand trying to put pressure on the wound but knowing full well it was in vain.
"Sabito... Sabito, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry I couldn't save you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm-" Giyuu was cut off by his own cry and his shoulders shook as he hugged Sabito to his chest.
There was a soft voice, hoarse and barely there, that made it to Giyuu's ears albeit reluctantly. "Giyuu... Giyuu, it's fine. It's fine. You did... good. Don't cry. Us against... against the world, right?" Sabito was sapping up all his strength trying to speak. A trembling hand lifted, cupping Giyuu's face.
Giyuu held his breath, resisting the sobs that tried to cut through him, wanting to catch Sabito's every word. He leaned into the touch, placing a quivering kiss to Sabito's cheek. "Against the world," he repeated quietly.
The life was seeping out of Sabito's eyes but he managed a small smile. "Just... us," he murmured.
Giyuu watched, in horror, as Sabito's hand fell limply to his chest, his previously shaky breathing diminishing to a wisp and then nothing.
"No- No, Sab- Sabito!" he shouted. He clutched him to his chest, unwilling to believe it. If he hugged him tightly enough, Sabito would come back to life. Warmth would spread in his body and he'd hug back and Giyuu would feel safe and—
A hand was placed on his shoulder. For a short, blissful moment, Giyuu thought it was Sabito. Then he looked up and flinched, finding a woman there. He turned away, not wanting to look at her, not wanting to see the inevitable pitying stares of the others. Or disappointed ones. But in the end, she didn't do anything. She simply stood there for a while before starting to leave. As she left, she murmured, "We'll prepare a burial for him later, if you wish it. A place to sleep and eat will be provided for the night as well."
He didn't glance back when she left, nor did he follow later. He sat there for a long time with tears streaming down his face and his arms still clutched around Sabito.
The following days were a blur. He barely registered them. He supposed he must've gotten up at some point. Buried Sabito. Had he been buried? Cremated? It didn't matter. Either way, he was dead.
He remembered, vaguely, going to Urokodaki's. Staying there for a while. Sharing his grief with the man. He wasn't sent on any missions. Or if he had been, he didn't remember them. He knew that the days after Sabito's death had been painful. Most likely, he had spent them dehydrated. Alone. But when he thought back to them, he remembered only a haze. Muffled noise, blurred pictures, incoherent words. As if it had been years ago. He snapped out of his daze a week later. He remembered this part clearly.
He had been sewing that night. Somewhere, in his and Sabito's old room, Urokodaki had found one of Sabito's spare haori's. He'd gifted it to Giyuu. Giyuu, who was in no rush to get rid of the red kimono he'd kept in memory of Tsutako, decided to merge the two fabrics together into one haori. However misshapen it might be.
A crow arrived. It wasn't Kanzaburou, however. It had a ribbon tied around its neck and spoke better than either of Giyuu or Sabito's Kasugai crows. Its words, at first, were delivered and that only. They didn't reach Giyuu's ears. But then it repeated itself and Giyuu froze. He was being promoted to the highest rank a Demon Slayer could achieve. A Hashira.
He frowned. That couldn't be right. He had just failed to save Sabito! How could he...? How could he be a Hashira if he had let the life of the person most precious to him slip from his fingers? The crow explained, noticing his incredulity, that on that very same mission, he had killed one of the 12 Kizuki; the most powerful of the demons. The demon that had mocked Giyuu, taken Sabito's life, was Lowermoon Three. The Kizuki were split into two groups of six: the Uppermoons, the most powerful ones, and the Lowermoons, following second. Because Giyuu had killed one of the Lowermoons, he had become a Hashira. In a week's time, Giyuu must go to a specific coordinate where he would be guided to the Master's estate where the Hashira had their biannual meetings with the leader of the Corps.
There had been a long silence after the explanation, broken only by the crow's uncomfortable shifting. It was dubious about Giyuu's reaction. Shouldn't he be happy? Instead, Giyuu could feel anger rising in him all over again. How could this have happened? Sabito should've killed the demon. Giyuu had only killed it because he had been fueled by anger. He didn't deserve this title. Sabito had always been stronger, anyway. Why hadn't he been promoted? This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!
He hadn't realized he'd said it aloud until the crow ruffled its feathers, opening its beak to speak. But then Giyuu raised a shaking hand, the needle he'd been sewing with pricking his hand as he closed his fingers into a fist. Black feathers floated down as Giyuu only caught the crow's tail. It squawked indignantly, flying up into the air. It left then, muttering angrily about how it was only trying to help. Giyuu dropped the needle as blood started streaming down his arm. He glared at it furiously, tears blurring his vision. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! This. Wasn't. Fair!
In the end, however, he did attend the meeting. Fair or not, if the Head of the whole Demon Slayer Corps was bothering to send for Giyuu, he should go. Also, Urokodaki threatened to deliver him there personally, maybe restraining him beforehand, too. So, he went.
He made sure, however, to finish sewing the haori. He wanted his first impression on them to be with it on. He had also decided not to speak much. Isolate himself from the rest of them. After all, he would forever be different than them. He didn't have what it took to deserve the title as a Hashira. They did. He would never be one of them. He would only ever belong with Sabito. It had always been him and Sabito. Without Sabito, Giyuu wasn't anyone. He was alone.
An excerpt from my WIP — a very dark, intimate, and intense story to come. Sharing fragments as I draft; reader impressions and interactions are always welcome 🖤
