i'm still (yes, still!) thinking about the fits hashira au remix where ayame is the sabito to tanjirou's giyuu, and...
the rengoku family.
ayame's story has always been intertwined with the rengokus, and this au is no different. we still have shinjurou, kyoujurou and senjurou, but maybe ayame's shishou is shinjurou this time.
shinjurou finds ayame not long after her entirely family is slaughtered. he isn't quite as cynical as we see him in canon, so he offers to train her. he makes her his apprentice, and she trains alongside kyoujurou in those early years.
ayame is a year older than kyoujurou, but she teasingly calls him senpai. he's been training with shishou longer than she has, after all! between her training sessions with kyoujurou under shinjurou's steadily clearing eyes and helping them look after senjurou, she finds her smile after a couple years.
sometimes she leaves to train with tanjirou - with shinjurou's and urokodaki-san's blessing, of course. kyoujurou is hard-working, but shinjurou knows the importance of constantly sparring with a peer. he still thinks his apprentice and son have no talent for swordsmanship, that they would be better off doing something else, but it eases something within him to know that kyoujurou will have ayame to look out for him.
shinjurou never imagines ayame wouldn't come back from final selection.
senjurou is the one who greets tanjirou at the entrance. it's been a week after final selection and shinjurou already has a sake bottle in hand when he stumbles out to the genkan with kyoujurou.
instead of his apprentice, it is urokodaki-san's boy standing before him. he holds out ayame's seigaiha kimono with shaking hands, tears streaming down his cheeks.
ah, shinjurou thinks. so she died after all. just as he suspected, breath of flame simply isn't powerful enough.
"i'm sorry," whispers tanjirou.
shinjurou lifts his sake jug to his lips and takes a long drag. the bitterness in his throat, he tells himself, is merely the alcohol.
kyoujurou unfreezes himself. he pulls a crying senjurou into his arms, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"how?" he asks, even if the answer is plain to see.
"there... there was an oni. i was - i was injured, and she - she protected me. she took my mask and my - and she... she protected me. she protected everyone."
"ridiculous," shinjurou growls. "utterly useless."
at her strength, she should have known better. he thought he taught her better than that, but he was wrong. he should have known better; he wasn't a teacher. the only things he could teach fell apart when it mattered most.
what good is a flame hashira when they can't even protect what matters most?
he always knew she would never become a hashira. he just never thought she would fail to become a demon slayer.
"it's my fault," tanjirou sobs.
"no." shinjurou takes another swig of bitter, bitter sake. "it was her own fault. she was weak, and now she's dead."
"chichi-ue," kyoujurou gasps, pressing senjurou's face into his shoulder to muffle his brother's sobs. "don't say that about ayame-neesan!"
"don't be absurd! she was never going to amount to anything!" of course she wasn't. she was his apprentice. "of course she died. she was merely average. stop your pathetic crying."
perhaps this will serve as a lesson to kyoujurou. he should throw away his ambition of becoming a demon slayer. just like ayame, he wouldn't even survive final selection.
shinjurou spirals.
he drinks enough to blackout when kyoujurou leaves for final selection anyway. he doesn't try to dissuade him. let him learn that lesson the hard way.
kyoujurou makes it back - alive - but shinjurou knows it must be luck. sheer, foolhardy luck. none of his students will amount to anything.
he drinks to forget, but he always remembers.
until one day he can't even fulfil his duties. kyoujurou steps up, fiercely and without hesitation. a fool.
an idiot.
(he is as much shinjurou's apprentice as ayame was.)
"how do you know that name?" kyoujurou asks.
it's another bout of luck that he survived a battle with upper three. he will never be able to use breath of flame again, but he is alive.
sake is still bitter on shinjurou's tongue.
"huh?" the peach-haired boy who headbutted him utters.
"ayame-neesan," senjurou whispers, loud enough to be heard through the paper-thin walls. "no one... we don't talk about her."
"... she was rengoku-san's apprentice, wasn't she?"
"yes, but..." kyoujurou clears his throat uncomfortably. "she died long ago. years ago. before i joined the kisatsutai."
"did... d-did kamado-san tell you?" asks senjurou.
"ha! that depressed loner? i don't think he speaks to anyone, really."
"th-then how...?"
"eto... it's difficult to explain. do you - do you believe in ghosts, rengoku-san, senjurou-san?"
ghosts. of course they exist. shinjurou is haunted every single day.
he tunes out the foolhardy boy - the one who is a descendant of breath of sun users. someone who wields such power would never understand the loss that shinjurou knows intimately.
"she told me she had a message," sabito says. "she wasn't sure if that guy ever had a chance to give it."
"kamado-san doesn't speak to us," kyoujurou says, surprisingly frustrated. "if he relayed it to chichi-ue, we were unaware."
"oh." a pause. "well, ayame told me - that is, ayame-san said she wanted her shishou to know that she was grateful for everything. she wouldn't have gotten so far if it hadn't been for everything he had taught her."
"oh." then again, in a softer voice, "oh."
"ano..." sabito is speaking again. "that guy... his haori. it's... unique."
"seigaiha. because he's the water hashira." kyoujurou makes an uncertain sound. "senjurou and i gave it to him. it was ayame-neesan's."
"ah. i see."
"he blames himself," kyoujurou continues. "no matter how much i try to talk to him, he always avoids me. i guess it'll be easier now. for him."
"ah..."
"if you have something to say to - to kamado-san, you should say it, sabito-san. if it's really true... if you can talk to ayame-neesan even now..."
"somehow," a shaky laugh, "i feel like i shouldn't tell him."
"you should try anyway," kyoujurou says bluntly. "you're his tsuguko. he'll listen to you."
"... mn."
"don't pressure him, aniue."
"but - "
"thank you for your time," sabito interjects. "i learned a lot."
senjurou gives sabito a flame-shaped tsuba.
"it isn't mine," rengoku-san assures him. "it was actually meant to be ayame-neesan's. you should use it."
sabito jolts. "me?"
"yes. i think she wants to protect you. that was the kind of person she always was."
in some ways, sabito is glad that ayame only appears intermittently. she would be embarrassed otherwise.
he thinks about their last conversation - how she said something bound her to this plane of existence. for a really long time, he thought it was guilt over how she had left things with kamado-san.
maybe that wasn't all.
senjurou fidgets with the hem of his sleeves. "she would have preferred it if you had used it, aniue..."
rengoku-san laughs. it's wheezier than his booming laughter from before, but just as boisterous. "then i would have still passed it on to sabito shounen!"
"aniue..."
rengoku-san's expression turns solemn. "the one thing ayame-neesan always hated was feeling helpless. this way, at least a part of her can still offer protection - for your hands and katana, if nothing else. take care of it, sabito shounen."
the tsuba is brand new. there isn't a single scratch on it. it hasn't seen a day of battle. only where it was kept in rengoku-san's pocket all these years.
sabito wonders what ayame might have been like, if they had a chance to meet in this living world. he can see traces of her in senjurou's kindness, in rengoku-san's beautiful arcing movements. even if death, there is still something that remains.
ayame would be embarrassed to know that.
he should tell her the next time they see each other, he thinks.