That one SusaYaha AU I didn’t come up with, but it’s an improvised drabble
@akaza-s-bitch @kimetsuno-yaiba-imagines So you know that feeling when inspiration suddenly strikes at 1:30am and you just HAVE TO write? Yeah, me too. Me too.
Also my first time ever trying to do anything involving Yahaba so I’m sorry if I’m terribly ooc.
“You don’t have to come with me!”
“Don’t think I’d just let you leave me behind.”
“Even if it’s something like this, you still think you have to look after me?”
“It’s not that I think that! But if you’re on your own, you will just die soon anyway!”
Ah, it’s this dream again... The strange dream with a tinge of dust and a scent of ash and blood. Thousand times has he tried to go beyond what he sees. Beyond vague shadows and distorted voices, corroded by the screams and cries of his meals, covered by the thick layer of power crawling just under his skin.
This is why demons sleep so little. The line between their supressed memories, the boundary keeping them in check, weakens so much when they lay to rest. And yet, Yahaba finds himself returning to the tranquil state between the present and the past more often with each passing month. In hopes of finding something – anything – of value. A lead, something he’s been missing up till now. Something. Alas, his mind is as hazy as always, everything drowns in the darkness that had accompanied him most of his human life.
Why did he become a demon again?
It wasn’t to save himself. And it wasn’t to grow strong. These desires have only manifested themselves way after the initial act. No, it was something else. And it was powerful enough to leave an imprint in his mind. One that he couldn’t access but that always stayed just out of reach, taunting him and teasing with incredible lightness, yet causing wounds harsher than any demon slayer’s sword.
He’s been wondering for a long time just why was he drawn to that one part of that onw town. Unimportant and abandoned, it wasn’t like there was anything for him to do there. And yet, every time he would get lost in thoughts, he would wind up there. In front of a house with fallen-in roof, a broken porch, a dried out well and a dying apricot tree. And sometimes – just sometimes, he would catch shadows disappearing in the moon’s silver light as it slipped out from behind the clouds.
And other times, he would run into a peculiar demon girl. They would never talk. They would never attempt to stay in each other’s presence for longer than neccesary and it would usually be him who withdrew first. They wouldn’t see each other for a few weeks and then they would accidentally return to the same place at the same time. Sometimes, she would look at him, and sometimes, she would just watch the house in silence, a confused look on her face and a storm behind her eyes.
And just why was it that he could never peel his glance away from her when she stood there like that?
A splat echoed the empty hallway, followed by a string of curses and sounds of quick steps heading in his direction. Not this time, this time he wouldn’t let her have the upper hand. Hiding behind a large chest, he waited before she had ran around him and then he sneaked out and sprinted towards the door. He had almost made it when a powerful blow knocked him off his balance and he fell face-first right on the floor. There was something wet on his back and only after reaching there, he found a pile of mud.
His blood ran cold. His mother was surely going to be so mad about this! He knew she had spent so much money on the new yukata for him and now he got it dirty the first time he took it on. He felt tears burst into his eyes as he begrudgingly sat up, pulling his knees up to his chest.
“Are you alright?” She asked in a tone that only she could make sound so innocent, yet so mischievous.
“Look at what you’ve done!” He scolded her, holding onto his dirtied yukata. She looked over it but didn’t seem the least bit sorry. Of course she wouldn’t, it wasn’t like she ever had to worry about her clothes in the first place.
Or so he had thought.
But she just pulled him up by his hand, a smile as bright as a dozen suns playing a symphony with the stars in her eyes. “Then we just have to wash it before you go home, right?”
And there goes another one of his dreams. Is he going to see all of them? But something is different. For a moment, for just a brief, fleeting second, he feels like he knows. He knows her and he knows why he’s here the way he is and he knows why that place attracts him so. But the feeling is gone as quickly as it’s come, leaving him empty yet again, chasing after the wind.
He has been assigned a mission. No, that’s not correct. They have been assigned a mission. Together for the first time since... since what?
Why has his heart fluttered just a little when he saw her by his side? Why is it that when she’s around, it sends jolts of electricity through him, touching something deep within? And why is it that when she smiles, the heaven sings and all the angels dance?
What was it they came here to get? He doesn’t know about her. But he knows there’s something important. A deal? A reward? A promise.
A promise?
It makes no sense. Who would promise him anything for doing what he’s supposed to as a demon? Why would anyone go to such lenghts to ensure he’s carried out his mission well? The only one responsible for his performance during this task is himself. So the only one who could’ve promised...
“Do you... hate me?”
Why is she all alone?
“Do you want me to just get lost?”
He doesn’t. He wants to take her hand and never let go. He wants to hold her tight and tell her everything is alright. He wants to wipe her tears after a nightmare and listen to her excited rambling about her sweetest dreams. And there is more.
“Do you want to retain your lost memories?”
That’s right. The reason he’s been assigned to hunt down that boy. The reason she’s there with him. He made a request some time ago. He had to know. He still has to. There is nobody to promise to but himself anymore. And he has promised himself to find out the truth.
“You don’t have to come with me!”
And it is a voice he knows. Voice of a little girl who loved to play in the mud, who would chase him around the house and dirty his clothes before helping him wash them again. It’s the voice of a young woman who had lost everything and there wasn’t anything else for her to do. And it’s the voice of a demon whose blood arts match his with perfect accuracy, who takes his advice as a given and who follows his every word instead of going against him like he would expect.
Her smile is the sun. Her eyes are the stars. When she laughs, heaven sings and angels dance. She’s wild and vile and dirty. And she has the kindest heart he knows.
“Curse you! Curse you! Curse you!” Words he doesn’t even remember thinking off spill from his lips as a harsh slap lands him back in reality. “All I had to do was bring back your head! And I would’ve won his approval!”
The boy in front of him, the pathetic slayer who couldn’t even see his blood arts on his own, why is it that he should be the one getting out of here? Of course, his memories are in-tact. Untainted and untouched and clear, without any haze in the way.
“I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never ever forgive you!”
Not after he has finally found her. Not now that the fog has finally lifted. Not now that he has finally figured everything out. If he has to die here, what was the point? What was he trying to hard for? If this really is the end of it for him... will she ever even know?
While this boy would walk away with his demon sister who was nothing but a mistake, not even working as a proper demon, he would disappear into nothingness, never to be remembered, seen, or cared for ever again. And then...
It only now hits him. The horrible truth of what is about to happen once he is out of this slayer’s way.
“You’re going down with me!”
Why did he become a demon again?
Ah, he remembers now.
It was to protect.