Something There - Akaza x Fem! Reader Chapter 3: Deep Within the Cedar Woods
Author's note: I recently updated AO3 and my other cross-posting sites with chapter 5 for the story, so I thought I'd go ahead and post chapter 3 on here in the meantime! c: I hope you guys come to enjoy the rest of the story as it keeps progressing forward! <3 As always, warnings can be found in the first chapter of this series, and if you'd like a more in-depth review of tags/warnings for the fic as a whole, you can check out the story's page on AO3 as well! <3 Thanks for the support and as always, happy reading and God bless! <3
Chapter 3: Deep Within the Cedar Woods
When her eyes closed, she told herself she wouldn’t open them again until she absolutely had to.
The last thing she gazed upon was the image of the irori’s flames brightly and fondly bidding her farewell hazily through the opaque sliding door of Akaza’s cabin. That’s the image she wanted to rest with in her mind while she was held taut to this peculiar demon’s chest, wrapped up in his surprisingly comforting warmth. She assumed it wouldn’t matter whether she paid attention to where they were going or not. He didn’t make her stir nor bothered her to open her eyes, so she took advantage and simply allowed herself to sink into that familiar warmth his body was able to mimic so well.
With her eyes closed, she could tell herself she was somewhere else. She was was wrapped up in the arms of her friends, laughing and smiling to the stories they told on one of their scarce breaks between missions. The scary reality they lived in didn’t exist during times like those. Their world, their lives, their bubbles; all that existed was just good times and cheesy jokes. Smiles were everywhere, bright eyes gazing towards the cloudless sky, fantasizing about what they would all be doing once the world was a place everyone would be safe to live in without fear nor apprehension. What they themselves would be and where they would be in the future didn’t matter. What mattered was that they swore they’d stick together until the end and watch the world they lived in change for the better, hand-in-hand and in each other’s arms.
The light sway she felt as Akaza walked between trees and through the forest reminded her of what it felt like to be rocked back on her heels when one of them would rush to her, arms wide, before jumping at her in a huge hug. The force of the affectionate display would always make her stumble on her feet, nearly fall back on herself as well, but it never failed to get her to beam a smile from ear-to-ear even in the darkest of times – and boy, was a hug like that needed in the aftermath of the scariest of battles. It always helped to remind her that they were still alive. That there was still hope. For that moment in time, the scariest part was over and they could simply admire the oncoming sunrise together as the resilient trio they used to be.
What she wouldn’t give for a hug like that right now.
While Akaza’s warmth came close to their own, the purposefully measured strength in his thoughtful grasp didn’t compare. Sometimes, the way her friends would hug her left her breathless. They would squeeze the air right out of her, but even if it hurt a little sometimes, the loving pressure was something she always craved from them. They’d laugh at her whenever she’d dramatically gasp for breath and whine about their ridiculous strength, but the glint in their eyes would never fail to bring a smile of her own back to her lips.
The light blowing of the breeze brought different scents to her, reminding her of many places the three had been to together on their travels during their work as Demon Slayers. It brought swirling memories to her mind of what the two of them smelled like whenever she nuzzled her head into the crook of their necks, scents she couldn’t properly describe in words, personal to them as people.
The best she could do was describe them as the scents of Botan and Keisuke.
How long will it be before I forget what they smell like? What it felt like to hug and be hugged by them? How long before I forget the sound of their voices? Their laughter? Will the image of them fade away too? Will I forget what their smiles looked like? How bright their eyes would become whenever we were just having fun together? How long will it be before they’re just distant memories and blurry faces tied to stories I’m the only one left to tell?
Her brow furrowed deeply at the thoughts which quickly began to hit her, interrupting her blissful state of pretend. She curled up further in Akaza’s arms, ducking her head closer to his chest to shield her face away from the blowing winds which threatened to take her precious memories away with it.
I don’t want to forget…I can’t let myself forget. Not Botan, not Keisuke…and not Rengoku either…
Yet, how was she supposed to keep going? How was she supposed to muster the strength to survive when it had become unbearable to watch the sunrise alone?
All those happy times, loving embraces and glistening eyes were gone now. She’s the only one left to remember, and that in and of itself is a fate worse than death.
She knew it was the coward’s way out, but…she would’ve given anything to have died hours ago. She was scared when she approached the Upper Three demon – who wouldn’t have been? Not knowing fear when staring into the face of death itself isn’t human. Regardless, the anxiety didn’t matter. She just…wanted things to go black. She had hoped a demon as strong as him – as strong as the man who took Rengoku’s life – would be enough to make her pass like the flickering light of a dying candle. It was her easy way out, her cheat card, but it seems there were different plans prepared for her that she simply wasn’t ready for quite yet.
The threat of tears began to nag at her insistently, but she refused to cave in. She didn’t want to cry in the arms of a demon tonight – especially not this one. She knew it mattered not at this point, but despite her own weaknesses and how much of a traitor she felt she was right now for comingling with the man who killed such a wondrous person, she didn’t want to worsen the situation by letting her most intimate vulnerabilities out to him as well.
Akaza, however, had already noticed something was wrong with her almost as soon as he walked the two of them out of his lonely cabin. He noticed it when she fell into his grip, the feel of her head resting on his bicep calling for his curious attention.
He caught her with her eyes already closed, losing herself into a world of her own. He thought of trying to strike conversation with her on the way to the lake he was taking her to, but in the end, he decided not to disturb her. It didn’t take extensive guesswork to see there was a storm brewing in that human mind of hers, considering everything that had happened up to that point. Perhaps time alone with her thoughts is what she needed for a little while, even if only for a few minutes. So, he opted for silence, and simply observed her on his trek through the massive cedars.
Gradually, the deeper into the forest he walked them, he watched as her expression faltered and grimaced until she eventually nuzzled her face further against his arm to hide. It seemed that whatever she was thinking about, it was causing her a great deal of pain. He felt perplexed by it, that strangely familiar feeling he felt when he was making that medicinal tea for her tugging at his chest once more. It poked and itched at long forgotten parts of his memories in a way he wasn’t quite sure how to describe. He didn’t know whether to be frustrated by the fleeting, hazy feeling or to simply let himself be within it to see where it might lead him.
Although, if he was quite honest with himself, he subconsciously knew he already chose to absently follow the whispering, lost memories.
Something about it felt right despite knowing how absurd all of this technically was.
Guided by the tug at his chest which urged gentleness from his person, he carefully squeezed her in closer. He adjusted his grasp on her enough to bring her head near to his chest for her to better hide herself away. With her eyes closed, he took the chance to make it seem as though the motion was due to a curt step he had to take by a fallen cedar tree. Peering into her face, he could tell she was none the wiser of his intentions.
A small smile took his lips at the sight, and shortly afterwards, a steady breath pushed through his nostrils.
He wished he knew where this side of him was coming from.
These instincts and feelings were his own, but they felt like they belonged to someone else at the same time.
He knew he’d likely never know who he used to be, but the allure of these questionable inclinations continued to hum for him, and he found himself unable to deny their call.
It felt…good, in a way, to take care of someone.
He almost laughed at the thought.
Him? Taking care of someone? A human woman?
It never would’ve crossed his mind, given his solitary lifestyle and peculiar disposition.
Stuck between the cedars together.
The entire trail he led them upon was walked in silence.
He didn’t want to disturb the woman curled into his chest. From what he could tell, it looked like she settled down comfortably against him after a while, and that illusion of comfort was something he wanted her to maintain. Thus, he simply wandered on paths he knew by heart while keeping his thoughts to himself. He did everything he could to stop from disturbing the bubble she had created around herself.
He was aware she had crafted a fantasy behind her closed lids she preferred in exchange for her current reality. Though he tended to be blunt and brutish in nature, he didn’t want to be the pin which ruptured the world she was creating for herself, so he did everything he could to keep her bubble safe. When walking by the tall cedars, he’d lean her figure away from their reaching branches, keeping her luscious locks and lulled head from their gripping leafy fingers. When hiking over inclines and declines of the low grassy hills, he’d hug her tighter to keep her from feeling the impact of his firm steps too brusquely. Whatever he could do, he would do. His reasonings were far from reach, but the instinct was so natural within him, he decided to follow its current and search for answers at a later point in time.
Though the dense woods were full of many lesser demons of different shapes and sizes, the areas in which the Upper Moon roamed were devoid of all demon presences aside from his own. It was as though the sun had breached through the dense cedar canopies bordering his paths and the tall trees gave way for its brilliant light, ridding the land of the hellish beings of the woods. In turn, the faithful cedar canopies rolled out a darkened carpet of shadows for himself to walk the human woman upon, safe from the light of day. He was a proud man, proud of his prowess and might, and knowing his mere presence caused the others to cower away from him as if he were the sun itself always allowed him to step through the cedars not only with confidence, but with pride for his status upon his darkened carpet.
Eventually, that long carpet gave way to the lake’s clearing, the overarching cedars spreading around the perimeter almost obediently to his very existence.
The lake itself wasn’t enormous in size, but it certainly wasn’t small either. It formed a rare large nook within the dense forest which gave way to the light of the moon outside of the grasp of the suffocating canopies surrounding it. All around its edges, those tall cedars overlooked the body of water, forming what felt like an impenetrable wall to guard the luminous lake and its inhabitants within. If a passerby were innocently unaware of the reality hidden beneath the deceitful canopies, they would fall into a false sense of security in a sublime place like this. They would feel protected from the perils of the outside world, all the while completely unaware of what truly lay waiting between bark and leaves. With Akaza there, however, the security was anything but false. They may as well be the only two living beings in that forest as long as he was there with her. The moon was a welcomed alliance of light while he was by her side, but had it been just her, its inviting light would quickly turn into her biggest foe.
He stared down at her intently as he came to stand by the water’s edge, the thought poking at that curiosity in his mind once more for what felt like the umpteenth time this evening.
Multiple times tonight, he had asked himself what would’ve happened to her had their paths not crossed.
If she had run into anyone else other than him tonight, she would’ve died long before she would’ve reached the lake. She never would’ve gotten to see the way the moon’s reflection shimmered on the surface of the lake’s still waters. She never would’ve gotten to feel the gentle laps of those waters on her skin nor the smell of its pristine existence. In fact, if she even did manage to make it to the lake, she would’ve just been cause for its clear waters to be stained crimson and for its once untouched surface to be riddled in chaotic ripples and waves before the world plunged into natural silence once more.
His temper bubbled as the thought came to him.
He had always been the type who dons a short fuse. Easy to anger, Akaza seldom kept his rage to himself when someone provoked him – something others (such as the second Upper Moon) were all too familiar with.
Still, it had been a long time since he last felt rage on behalf of someone else.
It wasn’t as though he knew this woman in his arms nor as if anything connected the two of them. Her existence would’ve continued unknown to him and unimportant had they not met on this mundane evening, but for some reason or another, fate had intertwined their paths and tangled loose ends together. A jumbled knot formed between the two of them with those loose, wandering threads, and now, he felt rage on her behalf.
The intense emotion made him want to grip at his hair and shake his head as vigorously as he could. He was frustrated with himself and the confusion she forced into his stable lifestyle in the matter of a couple of hours, but despite it all, he still refused to react so callously. Rather, he harbored it within himself as he had done all evening, refusing to stir her with such gravity and lack of respect. Still, that rage he felt towards all of those what ifs she could’ve run into had it not been for the way they met left him with a tight, uncomfortable feeling both in the pit of his stomach and deep within his chest – a pressure of anger he didn’t even need to remember to know he dealt with ever since he was human all those centuries ago.
Calmly, he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose before allowing his head to fall back on his shoulders. His posture slowly relaxed as he stood there listening to the sounds of nature. Cicadas buzzed and cricked in the distance, a familiar chorus people either enjoyed or absolutely detested. Thankfully for him, he found their chorus to be soothing in its own right. Along with the cicadas, cedar leaves would flutter and crinkle with the occasional wind or the movement of the small woodland animals living upon their branches. When the wind would gently blow and coo, the reeds by the lake would gracefully sway and bend like a wave on the edge of the water, joining the natural ambiance.
A few moments of losing himself in the nature around him helped him to regain his composure, willing the sudden, puzzling anger to fade.
His golden eyes finally opened, his lashes of sunset pink lightly grazing over his inked brow. His numbered gaze set upward towards the moon, and there he remained a few moments longer to stare at its unobstructed appearance.
The moon was full and almost appeared engorged in the sky. It stood out prominently with its ethereal, soft white glow, but it never outshone any of the stars which gathered around it. The evening was cloudless, and thus their stage was clear for all of them to shine together.
It felt like it had been decades since he last took a chance to just stare up at the sky and watch what was happening beyond the clouds. It was such a mundane activity, something he knew humans tended to love doing, but the longer he stared at the cloudless evening sky, the more out of place he felt. Finding the feeling both unnecessary and uncomfortable, he promptly turned his gaze back to the human in his arms. A part of him expected her to be looking back at him when he did, but no, she was still huddled close to his chest and hugging the basin he gave her tight to herself.
A small frown angled his lips at the sight of her. He had hoped she would’ve popped her own bubble after he stopped moving for a while, but it appeared that she was determined to stay in her own space for as long as she could. He tutted, glancing towards the water’s edge as his tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth.
He supposed he would have to be the pin to pop her bubble after all.
Forward the demon began to walk once more, his footsteps relaxed and light. He trekked along the dirt trail naturally formed by the weeds beside the water, kicking stones as he went, until he eventually came upon the lake’s bank where he had cleaned himself up earlier during his first solitary trip over. Rather than stepping straight into the water this time, he carefully kneeled himself on the dirt, crossing his legs beneath himself to sit down only when he was certain he wouldn’t jerk nor haphazardly sway the woman in his arms with his movements. Though he found himself comfortable seated on the lake’s bank, he kept the woman in his arms elevated in the air, hesitant on how he should proceed. By instinct, he almost brought her to lay upon his lap, but he stopped himself midway before he did, uncertain whether that was truly the best way to go about this.
He looked to her unchanged, troubled expression in hopes of finding the answer there, but she left him feeling as profusely confused as he did so himself. Huffing lightly to himself in slight frustration, he decided while staring at her in her bubble to simply do what felt right. One way or another, now that he chose to walk this path with her, he had to wake her from whatever dream or fantasy she was having. Thus, he finally settled her down on his lap, making sure she was securely resting against him.
His brow furrowed deeply as he placed her weight upon himself. The actual weight she had didn’t make much of a difference to him with his unnatural strength, but there was definitely something strange about the way it felt to have her laying atop of him as opposed to him carrying her around. The weighted warmth her feminine figure brought him in that moment was practically something alien to him. Rather than it being a deliberate action on his part of holding her to himself to move her around with him, her warmth flooded his senses all from her own accord as she slumped comfortably into his muscular frame.
For centuries, he had lived a mostly solitary lifestyle. Companionship was never something he held in high esteem nor did it ever hold much importance to him as a demon, and yet, thanks to her, his mind stirred with distant, faint nostalgia once more.
How many centuries has it been since he last felt the touch of another on his person? The warmth of another soothing his roughened skin? Did he have loved ones when he was human that he was able to hug and hold? Did they feel just as warm as she did? Did their weight on him make him feel as strangely as hers did? Did they fit as perfectly in his arms and upon his lap as she did? Did he know a woman like her back then? Did he have a woman to call his own when he led a normal human life? Did he stir or was he ever taken aback the way he was right now? Did he like it? Was companionship like that something he sought out like the necessity it is to most humans?
He can’t even remember when the last time was that he had spent a few moments with someone he enjoyed the company of, so that sudden flood of questions was something that caught him completely off guard.
The onslaught of it all which began to flood his mind felt overwhelming to him. It was as if he had lost his identity, as if he had gotten some extreme case of amnesia and was only left with very shattered, very small bits and pieces of the person he used to be. He supposed, in a way, that’s exactly what was going on with him, but he had never cared about that sort of thing before. Sure, on rare occasions he would feel the whisp of a long-lost memory in the back of his mind, but that seldom ever occurred, and when it did, he’d dismiss it entirely after considering it only for a moment’s breath. Tonight, however, the vague memories of someone he no longer knew felt more constant, and all he could amount them up to was the fact that she continued triggering them without even trying.
Always mindful of his strength with her, he gently slipped his hand out from beneath her knees and brought it up to rub at his face, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Everything about mingling with the human woman felt confusing, but so familiar and oddly comforting. He swore her very essence tried to beckon memories of his human life forward with honeyed words and soft humming, but none of it was strong enough to muster an image in his mind’s eye. She confused and shook his stability to his very core, and he didn’t even know her name nor where she came from.
Breathing in deep, he let out a soft sigh and pulled his hand away from his face, deciding the mystery of his past was one he’d rather leave where it was for the time being. For now, he simply shifted his gaze back down towards the woman’s undisturbed figure to continue following the mystery of her instead.
“We’re here.” He finally spoke, his voice rough and low.
Deep within her fantasies, she could hear his voice calling for her. Despite how hard she tried to envision herself in a different place and a different time in the arms of the past, there was nothing in this world that could definitively rip her away from her true reality the way she so wanted.
_______ didn’t want to open her eyes. With her eyes closed, she could continue to dream and lie to herself. She could continue to be with the people she loved, could continue to feel their embraces and hear their sweet voices. If she opened her eyes, all of that would go away. The whole point of her coming here tonight was for all of this to be over, for her to fall and slip away from this world she felt she didn’t belong in anymore. Why is she still here? Why is she still breathing? Why can’t she just slip into her dreams and never wake up again?
She didn’t want to open her eyes to the same old world she tried to leave behind.
Rather than respond to the demon’s remark, she curled tighter into herself and hugged the wooden basin in her arms closer to her chest. As long as she didn’t open her eyes, she didn’t have to face any of it. She didn’t have to face the world again, didn’t have to face the truths, didn’t have to face the pain.
“Mm. You’re gonna pretend like ya don’t hear me, huh?”
His voice was so strong. So deep, reverberating and strong. She could hear him, loud and clear, like running water in a river. The rapids of his voice threatened to submerge and drown the fantasies she tried so hard to stay within, so she clung to the daydreams with all her might despite knowing the battle was already lost.
“Come on,” He urged lowly, tenderly reaching down to stroke locks of hair away from her face so he could see her better. “I know you’re tired and rest would be the best for you right now, but we can take care of that when we get back to the cabin. The faster we wash you up, the faster you can close your eyes again.”
Her brows knitted together tightly and a deep frown took her lips in response to his rough fingers brushing through her hair and along the surface of her skin. It didn’t matter how hard she tried to fight against the current, she knew this. His voice, the feel of his touch, the smell of the dried blood on her person; it all forced wave after wave on her, the violent waters grabbing onto her arms and clothes, dragging her away from the life she knew no longer existed.
The peace in her mind of being lovingly held in the arms of the people she longed for most was fading away. The images of their smiling faces blurred, the sound of their voices became static, and all she was left with was an empty, dark room she stood in all by herself with the echo of the demon’s voice ringing within. It felt like a room she was far too familiar with, vast but suffocatingly small all at the same time. His voice was incredibly loud within its boundless walls no matter how tender he feigned to be.
It felt like she couldn’t breathe when she was stuck in that room, and so at long last, she was forced to open her eyes to the real world again.
Slowly, she lifted her head and allowed for her eyes to scan over her surroundings. She took note of the secluded lake, the still waters it harbored, the way the tall cedars bowed their heads of bushy leaves to the clearing and the gracefully waving reeds by the water’s edge. She blinked her eyes hazily and squeezed the basin in her arms to herself, unwillingly recalling why it was he had brought her here to begin with.
When her sights returned to the two of them, she realized he had her draped over his lap, snuggled close to his frame. It was certainly an odd position she never thought she’d find herself in tonight, but the warmth he gave off was something she didn’t want to reject. She knew she should’ve jumped out of his grasp as soon as she came to, but nothing within her willed her to do as such. There was something about his warmth that helped numb the excruciating ache of how lonely and worthless she felt, and selfishly, she wanted to stay within it a while longer.
At the thought, she turned her gaze upwards and met his unnatural sight. His eyes peered strikingly into her own, large and spectacular in their deceiving colors, and almost as if he had read her mind, they turned to crescents in response to her hazed, inquisitive expression.
“I take it you managed to get some kind of sleep in ya during our trip.”
Sleep…Ah, yes…It was all just dreams at the end of the day.
“Yeah, I guess I did…” She muttered, her voice barely more than a weak croak. “Where did you bring us to…?”
“I brought you over to the lake I’m familiar with so we can get you washed up. I’m sure getting clean with some nice, cool water will help make you feel better.”
Groggy from her somber slumber, the demon’s words only resulted in furthering the stupor upon her. She swore she sometimes forgot she was speaking to one of Muzan’s Upper Moons whenever he talked to her. In place of rage, anger, hate, sadism and violence she expected to receive from him tonight, he instead received her with care, tenderness, gentility, concern and attention. She still didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about any of it nor how she was meant to react, but for all it was worth, she didn’t quite care anymore. To her, her life was nearing its end. She didn’t see very many tomorrows left for her in the great horizon despite the failure of her initial plan for the evening. Perhaps having this strangely comforting demon accompanying her on one of her last nights will help make letting go easier when the time did ultimately come.
“Right…” She eventually nodded. “Washing up would be nice…”
“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up then.” He hummed, taking the basin from her hold with his free hand and setting it down beside the two of them for the time being.
He felt her fall into his chest again when he freed her arms of the basin, and it was cause for him to pause for just a time. He watched as she laid her head against his chest, her hair lightly tickling his bare skin with the way it splayed and rubbed against him. The stare she gave into the distant cedars was long and vacant, as if she were still lost in her own world despite him having pulled her out of it.
After a second or two, he took the towel from the basin and draped it over his shoulder before hooking his arm beneath her knees again. When she was secure in his grip, he stood to his feet and began to walk them forward. He only needed to move them towards the still water so he could sit her down right by the shore. When his bare feet stepped into the crystalline shallows, he kneeled down and allowed her legs to rest in the waters, their submersion causing ripples to distort the lake’s surface for as far as the eye could see.
_______ watched her legs dip beneath the waves. The crystal-clear waters aided by the shimmering light of the moon granted her the perfect view of them beneath the surface. When her eyes trailed up the length of them, she took notice for the first time that evening that he had removed her boots and socks. When he had done that, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t mind. The water itself was, indeed, cool and refreshing to the touch, not cold nor hot. The lake bed was host to many different aquatic plants, but the only ones which grazed her calves were like the blades of grass overlooking the hills of the woods. The sand she sat upon was soft and inviting, offering no sense of discomfort, and a harboring of the warmth the bank must’ve gathered during the light of day.
“Are you comfortable here?” She heard him ask her from behind as he reached back for the basin.
She didn’t need the basin. Instead, she cupped her palms together and dipped her hands in the still waters, watching as it seeped in through the spaces between her fingers. Like this, she brought the water to her face and began to scrub the dried blood off of her cheeks with the pads of her fingers and the heels of her hands. When the blood began to streak down her skin, as if revived from the dead, she grimaced heavily. The repugnant scent of iron overtook her senses all over again as drops of crimson lake water dripped over her uniform.
She was desperate to get the blood off of her, to mute the scent of iron from herself once and for all. Quickly, she continued to fill her palms with water over and over again, scrubbing at the skin of her cheeks as hard as she could, until they felt raw and sensitive.
Akaza simply watched her as she took care of herself, having taken a seat by her left in front of the lake’s edge. Upon his lap was the wooden basin, the towel still sitting draped over his shoulder. Patiently, he waited for her to finish cleaning her face, his gaze soaking in the image of her desperation to rid herself of the crimson staining her pure flesh. He watched the reddened drops of lake water slide down the edges of her jaw, some even clinging to the skin of her lips and the tip of her nose. Several of the drops gathered along the edges of her brows, but she was always quick to wipe all of them away. It didn’t take long for her to clean herself of the blood, but she kept going a couple more times, and he waited patiently for her through it all.
Eventually, her hands simply rested on her laps, her eyes fixed on the rippling waters before her. His golden gaze followed her own, and gradually, they both watched their reflections appear on the lake’s surface once the waters calmed. From the surface, he watched an anguished scowl morph her expression as her reflection stared back at her, and like that, she turned her sights away from the water entirely.
He observed her for a little while longer on the lake’s surface in silence. Only the sounds of nature and their quiet breathing intermingled between the two of them. She had turned her face away from him, avoiding his eye. It drew his curiosity, but he also knew to respect the space she wanted around herself.
After a while, he lifted his sight from the lake’s waters and faced the back of her head. His eyes scanned over her luscious locks in the silence until a small smile came to him.
“Why don’t you let me wash your hair for you?” He offered. “It’ll help you relax. Maybe it’ll take any headache you might have away too.”
_______ didn’t respond with words this time. It took her a moment to consider, but she did ultimately nod her head at him as her answer, deciding not to question it for now.
His gaze softened at that.
Subconsciously led by the nostalgia of his memories, he gripped the basin by its rim and turned to dip it into the lake, scooping it nearly to the brim with water. From there, he first moved himself to sit behind her away from the shore so he could face the back of her head and she could watch the lake’s waters in her own space more comfortably. Once he found himself content seated behind her, he firmly placed the basin into the sand beside himself, shifting it from side to side until its bottom was buried in the bank. Once he was sure it was secure, he faced the back of her again and watched as she lifted her head to make it easier for him to work with her hair.
He didn’t want to wet the back of her clothes, though. She was already so weakened from whatever hell she went through that drove her into his arms; he didn’t want to try their luck by making her spend the evening in soaked clothing. So, he took the towel draped on his shoulder and unfolded it on his lap. With his large, ink-dipped hand, he carefully scooped her luscious locks from the base of her neck and lifted. Then, he used his other hand to drape the towel over her shoulders before allowing her hair to fall back to where it naturally would.
When he was sure she was properly covered, he finally began to scoop water into his cupped palms from the basin and brought his hands to the very top of the back of her head. From there, he steadily allowed the water to cascade upon her locks. Back and forth, he repeated the process, allowing the water to rain and drip over different areas of her hair until it was completely soaked. Obviously, they had no shampoos, conditioners nor soaps with them for this trip, but that was fine. In place of washing her hair with flowery aromas, he instead leisurely and gently ran his fingers through it, soothingly combing through her mighty waves and currents as if it were second nature to him.
_______ couldn’t remember the last time somebody had washed her hair for her. She reckoned it was likely all the way back when she was a child and her mother still bathed her. Those days felt so far away now; she could hardly remember what it felt like. Yet, having this strange demon’s fingers running through her wet locks, softly detangling and gliding through in relaxing repetition, soothed her in place. The previous anxiety she felt over the blood on her face was being washed away from her. She felt herself sink into the sands beneath her and her gaze lifted towards the distant shores of the lake without much focus. Her mind was filled with vacant, hazy static and didn’t feel present in the moment at all, but oh, how well those fingers of his knew to glide.
Staring out at the water in the midst of it all, she finally seemed to genuinely notice the still reflection of the sky on the surface of the lake. When there were no ripples nor movement, the water mirrored the image of the moon and stars above perfectly to the last detail. She hadn’t paid much attention during her trek into the forest earlier, but there was a full moon tonight, large and bulbous, and the sky was chock-full of stars. A deep sadness befell her as she looked over the picturesque scene.
“Has the moon looked like that all night…?”
Her voice called for his attention, and he hummed in response to her, his gaze lifting towards the sky.
“Yeah, I guess it has. It’s full tonight.”
“Lonely?” He echoed. “What do you mean? It’s just a big ole rock in the sky; it can’t be lonely. Besides, it’s not the only thing up there – it’s surrounded by tons of stars, ya see?”
She shook her head, her eyes lidding solemnly at the moon’s reflection on the water.
“No, don’t you see? No matter how many stars gather around it, no matter how many comets or shooting stars or anything in between, it’s still all alone up there. While the stars all shine beautifully with their very own lights, all the moon can do is steal its light from the sun on the other side of the world. The moon is just as you say: a big ole rock in the sky – but that doesn’t make it any less alone up there, surrounded by so many others it can never compare itself to…”
Akaza contemplated her words with a soft hum, his eyes caught up in the sky for a few moments before a little chuckle left his lips.
“You humans sure like your poetics and romanticism.” He murmured. “I guess I don’t really see it that way.”
“Why? What makes you see it differently?”
“Well…” He paused, gathering his thoughts as he reflexively ran his fingers through her now detangled, silky hair over and over. “I’m not sure, now that you ask. I’ve been alive for so many years, it almost feels like the moon is just as much a constant as I am. The stars come and go, they flicker and fade out, but the moon is always there, going through its phases and changing on its own timing. I also wouldn’t say it just steals its light from the sun. After all, the sun would kill me, but the moon almost seems to cover for me and my kind. I think that makes them plenty different and unique in their own rights. Can you imagine how many eyes have looked up at it by now? Demon and human alike? Nobody can stare straight at the sun itself, but everyone can look up at the moon for as long as they want, whenever they want. If it could feel anything, I doubt it’s loneliness.” Shortly after he finished his thought, he laughed lightly to himself and smiled in amusement. “Well, damn, would ya listen to me go? Maybe I still got some of those poetics in me somewhere too.”
_______ silently mulled over the demon’s words as her vacant stare hazily scanned the surface of the moon’s reflection. Their viewpoints differed significantly, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his interpretation. All she felt in that moment was the loneliness of the moon’s reflection, and no matter how hard she stared, she could never see beyond that.
“You killed my mentor, Akaza.”
His hand stopped mid stroke; fingers caught in waves of (hair color). Her sudden, blunt remark rang in his head, echoing over, but it took him a couple of seconds to really register what her words meant. When it finally sunk in, he lowered his gaze from the sky and faced the back of her head. Curtly, his smile fell and was replaced by a serous, unreadable look.
She hadn’t moved. Her gaze remained on the moon’s reflection on the lake, though she wasn’t really focusing on anything in particular anymore. Lost in her mind, lost in the world of painful realities and the vivid memories she would never feel again, she spoke by instinct. She spoke because there was no more room left in her head for the words to bury themselves in silence and fake ‘I’m okay’s.
“I see…” He muttered softly. “Who was your mentor?”
“Rengoku.” She didn’t skip a beat. “Rengoku Kyojuro. You killed him the night the Mugen Train was attacked by another demon.”
“Kyojuro.” He echoed the name, instantly remembering the man she referred to. Akaza never forgot a worthy opponent, and Kyojuro had definitely been one of them. Little did he know, however, that he would hear the name again after the night of his defeat.
“You killed him.” She repeated. “You killed him and took him away from me, away from all of us. He gave everything in him to protect the passengers of the train until dawn, and like it didn’t mean anything at all, you took his life for it.”
He remained silent for a while, staring at the back of her head in thought of how he should formulate a response. If she had been a man, he wouldn’t have cared for this conversation nor his reality of it. He’d say bluntly and proudly that he did, indeed, strike the Hashira down by his own hand. He’d declare the Hashira’s last moments a foolish waste of potential and power due to his blatantly stupid denial of the offer to be turned into a demon. He would’ve gone beyond his human limitations and become stronger than he could’ve ever imagined, but his humanity was a drawback and a fault up to his very end. If she were a man, he’d have no mercy with his words and say it as he saw it to be – but obviously, she wasn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to speak to her the same way he would’ve a man.
“Kyojuro was a very talented fighter,” He began, his tone leveled and respectful to match his measured words. “He was a worthy opponent, and a man with an insurmountable spirit and fierce determination. The passion he had within him to defend those weaker than himself was admirable, as was his unmovable will and beliefs. From one fighter to another, he died an honorable death.”
He didn’t say more beyond that. He didn’t apologize for the act, because not only would it be an empty gesture, but it would be a backhanded one at that. Apologies, no matter how sincere or insincere, mean nothing when someone is dead and gone. Death meant very little to him, but to humans, he knew it was an agonizing goodbye no one was ever ready for. He knew there was nothing he could say to make it any better, and he didn’t intend to try to soothe the pain nor to comfort it away with false words and empty apologies he didn’t mean. His hands were forever stained crimson with the man’s blood, and that wasn’t something anyone could change anymore.
_______’s eyes began to water with each word uttered from the demon’s lips. More and more, her expression scrunched up in pain as fat, wet tears quickly began to trail down the same old paths on her cheeks. Before she knew it, she began to tremble on the spot, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the shakes which selfishly quaked her frail form. The trembles forced her shoulders to stiffen up in a false attempt at control, but she knew she had lost all sense of the word long ago. Downcast, her head lowered in shame and distraught while her hands curled into painfully tight fists upon her laps in the shallow, cool water.
His words, so thoughtfully interlaced with considerate respect, strummed at olden, rusted strings deep within her caged frame, forcing them to life. It hurt. It hurt in ways she didn’t know they could when they sang and vibrated within her very being. She wanted it to stop as soon as it started, but there was nothing that could stop it now.
She felt so disgusted with herself.
She felt like a complete hypocrite.
She should hate him. She should absolutely deplore him. She should want to behead him with every single ounce of her being. She should want to wipe the earth clean of his existence. She should want all of these things – but she didn’t.
She couldn’t bring herself to.
Rengoku gave his life for what he believed in. He gave everything up to defend and protect those weaker than himself. His entire life, he dedicated his everything to help everyone he could, and for some reason, she was part of that group in his eyes as well.
She knew he had no regrets when he died.
He gave his life for what he lived it for, and he passed away in peace knowing he was victorious in his selfless goals up to the very end.
Hating Akaza would take away from Rengoku’s legacy. It would be as if there were pity in his death. It would diminish the work he gave his life for, the lives he fought so hard to save, the young Slayers he inspired and watched grow before his very eyes, destined to become the future.
She should absolutely abhor Akaza, but she didn’t.
She couldn’t even if she tried.
All she felt was a massive, cold emptiness within her that Rengoku’s magnificently bright, fierce and warm presence left behind.
All she felt was a consuming, drowning grief she didn’t know how to cope with nor escape from. It followed her every day of her life, leeching off of her, attached to her shoulders by flesh and bone. It was a part of her and she a part of it.
“H-how am I supposed to move on…?” She wept out to the demon behind her. “He was s-such an amazing person…You know, he used to have s-so much faith in me and who he thought I would become…Hah,” She laughed bitterly. Wetly. “I wonder i-if he’s still looking at me with those same proud eyes from Heaven…D-does he still have that same faith in me? I-isn’t he ashamed of how far I’ve fallen? I’ll n-never be able to amount to what he saw in me, s-so does that leave him feeling disappointed? A-am I saddening him with my inadequacies while he’s supposed to finally be at peace after h-how hard he fought his entire short life?”
Her hands shot up and hid her face behind her palms as those rusted strings strummed with forlorn passion. She gripped to her forehead and cheeks by the pads of her fingers and out she sobbed without restraint into her open hands. Her mouth fell agape as smothering cries left her broken, trembling figure. The heels of her bare feet dug into the sand of the lake’s bed, kicking and pushing before bending her legs closer to her body in an attempt at a false sense of security, but no such feeling ever came to her. The pain within her only grew and grew with each second which tick, tick, ticked. It became unbearable, forcing her to twist and turn in an attempt of spreading that hurt to other areas outside of her shuddering chest, but it remained dormant, locked behind her ribs.
“He was m-my teacher and a very good friend, and just like that, he’s gone…! Kyojuro is dead, but I’m still alive! What am I supposed to do with this breath in my lungs?! H-how am I supposed to keep going!? How?!” Her cries grew louder, carried by the wind through the cedars who bowed and swayed in somber grievances along with her.
“Why am I still alive?! Why do I get to keep living wh-when people like Kyojuro die from one day to the next?! W-why am I allowed to keep living while I watch person after person fall and die around me?! People who deserved so much more to have a million tomorrows instead of someone as useless as me! What am I supposed to do?! Where do I go from here a-and how am I supposed to keep living a life I never deserved?! Akaza!”
She pried her hands away from her face and abruptly turned to face the demon behind her. Her puffy, tear-filled eyes met with his sunset hues, and in them, she didn’t know what she saw. Whether it was pity or sympathy was beyond her, but there was definitely something there that she didn’t expect to find in the eyes of her mentor’s killer. There was a kindness within his unnaturally numbered gaze that confused her beyond all understanding. She knew everything about him was wrong and terrible and awful, she knew she should curse him to the furthest abyss she could think of along with the rest of his kind, but everything in his eyes called for her to come in for comfort. For reassurance. For warmth and care.
She hated herself beyond all definitions of the word for the sense of safety that took her when she looked into those peculiar and confusing sunset hues.
“How do I cope?! What am I supposed to do with this breath in my lungs?! P-please, tell me something! G-give me some guidance, tell me how to s-start, tell me what to do, j-just tell me…!” She choked on a heart-wrenching cry of immense pain, one of her hands gripping tightly at her chest in a desperate attempt to find stable ground. “T-tell me how to make it stop…! Tell me how to make it stop hurting so damn much! I-I can’t take it…!”
At that last, pain-stricken plead, Akaza reached forward and pulled the human woman tightly into his embrace. Strongly, his arms wrapped around her unsteady, quivering frame, one of his hands cupping the back of her head to guide her to the hiding place against the crook of his neck. His ink-dipped fingers dug into her soaked locks, firmly keeping her in place to prevent her from stubbornly struggling against him. In place of the struggle he anticipated, however, he instantly felt her sink in and latch onto him when he gave her the opportunity to. Her arms hugged around his torso as tight as her feeble state allowed once she collapsed against him. Her hands desperately clawed and grabbed at his back until she managed to gain an iron-grip on the loose cloth of his haori, and when they did, she clung to the foreign fabric for dear life. Against the crook of his neck, she wept inconsolable wails and sobs of a pain he once thought he didn’t know, but something about the way she cried to him and the way she clung to him with such hopeless devastation stirred bygone emotions deep within him he never knew existed.
All he could attach them to was a familiar sense of grief, lost to space and time.
So, he said nothing. Nothing he could say would make the pain go away. Nothing he could say would change things.
He didn’t have the answers she was looking for, but at least he could hold her for the night. He could hold her through the weeping, could gather up her feminine figure back upon his lap and rock her while he offered her a secret place to let those buried, bitter tears go beneath the glow of the moon and the watch of the stars. At least for tonight, he could be an odd place of refuge for her to cry, a place to let out everything she’s bottled.
Distantly, his sights fell beyond the far end of the lake and passed the mourning cedars. His mind was both cacophonously loud and drowned in quiet.
He wasn’t built for moments like these.
He didn’t exist for people like her.
Through the course of the night, his lost memories bombarded him with a barrage of questions, but as his protective embrace tightened around the human Slayer, he came to the understanding that there would be no answers for either of them tonight – and that’s okay.
He’s lived this long without knowing anything about his past; he could survive centuries more without it.
Her life, however, was a blink of the eye in comparison to his own.
Humans were so fragile and short-lived, like the tail of a comet luckily caught in the night sky.
He couldn’t imagine an entire lifetime spent dwelling on the past and those lost to time. It was illogical to him. Yet, seated there with her on his lap, he felt her wave of grief crash upon him like the rapids of a raging river, and he knew not how he should respond.
His hands were stained red, and seldom did he ever care, but something about this instance moved him.
All he could do was pay witness to her heartbreak and devastation alongside the cedars and reeds whom grieved with them. All he could offer her was his embrace and himself as her hiding place and safe haven. Though she sought him for an end to her life, he chose to offer her a space within the cedar woods to properly mourn in secret instead – and so she did.
Deep within the cedar woods, by the lake once untouched by human and demon kind, she mourned in his blood-stained arms.
It felt like they were in that position for hours. The moon gradually descended in the sky as he held her in the clearing, and with each inch it fell, he noticed her cries grew quieter. Eventually, when the moon was just above the canopies, silence enveloped the world once more.
His shoulder felt wet, soaked by her tears, but she no longer shook nor cried. He could feel her warm breath against his neck, and the grip of her hands on him remained strong, but at long last, she had relaxed. He peered softly upon her expression, careful not to disturb her, and noticed she seemed to have exhausted herself of the little energy she had left. There on his shoulder, she had fallen asleep, her face riddled with tears where there once was blood.
He held her protectively in his arms for a while longer within the clearing, watching over her, curiously examining her face of exhausted slumber. Once he was confident she wouldn’t stir for a long time, he gently began to stroke her hair with the hand he used to cup the back of her head. Tenderly – almost affectionately – he pet her as she slept, lost on the idea of how someone like her managed to find someone like him on a night like tonight.
He supposed it didn’t matter.
He sighed softly at the thought, and at last, stood to his feet. Cradling her close to his chest and keeping her head comfortably on his shoulder, he walked them into the dark embrace of the cedar woods once more.
When _______ next opened her eyes, another unfamiliar ceiling stared down at her.
The grains in its wooden boards greeted her with their deep mahogany colors accented by the sweet light of day. Where the sunshine seeped through, she wasn’t quite sure yet, but it was definitely there. Not only could she see it blanketing the natural wooden boards above her in a beautiful golden glow, she also felt its warmth welcomingly embracing her person. It nearly felt like the sun itself was fondly cupping her cheek within its hand, rubbing at her sensitive skin with tender digits.
Slowly, groggily, she blinked her eyes and grimaced lightly. They ached quite a bit. Had they ached that much when she last fell asleep? She couldn’t remember. What happened before she fell asleep? The question encouraged her to look around, expecting to see the small cabin belonging to the demon in the woods, but rather, she was in a different room than the one she remembered.
This room was more spacious and more homely decorated than what she could remember of Akaza’s cabin. She was laying on a mattress propped on a wooden bedframe, its sheets a simple white color. The screen walls which encompassed the room were an aging eggshell white, outlined with supportive dark wooden beams and decorated with a couple of hand-painted illustrations of different scenes in nature. By the right of her bedside, there was a table, and on it, a porcelain vase filled with flowers. She didn’t recognize what kind of flowers they were, but their blooms were beautifully round and pale pink – a lovely accent. To the left of her bedside was a window, its panes closed to keep the breeze out, but its forest green curtains were spread wide open to allow sunlight to warm the room within. The warm lighting drastically differed from the dark she recalled of the demon’s lonely little home, self-imposed by the boards he nailed up to keep the sun from touching his skin.
In contrast, she could see the sky from where she lay. It was bright blue, and a few white, puffy clouds lazily drifted by. A couple of birds flew passed her view as well, their chirping a lovely sound she felt she hadn’t heard in a long time. The difference between then and now was astronomical, and that fact caused her to wonder.
Tiredly, she sat herself up in bed and continued to stare into the great beyond of the boundless, bright blue sky as she attempted to recall the happenings of the night prior.
Last she remembered, she was talking to Akaza about Rengoku and his passing. She could remember crying to him about things she hadn’t spoken about aloud to anyone before. She could remember him pulling her securely into his strong hold as she broke down in front of him…He wasn’t crude nor cruel nor thoughtless concerning what she wept to him about. Despite being the cause of all that anguish, he treated her with compassion and care. He held her like he understood her, like he would never let her go until he was sure the pain dulled itself out.
If all of that really happened, then where was she now? They were by the lake deep within the cedar woods when he held her. Now, judging by the sound of casual chatter outside and the sunshine proudly beaming through the window, she could only guess she was back in the small village she was stationed to protect. Akaza couldn’t be anywhere near here, otherwise the pandemonium would be as plain as the day was bright.
Nevertheless, she knew last night wasn’t just a dream. She knew it wasn’t, because she could remember everything to the very last detail as well as her reasonings for seeking him out to begin with.
She could remember the strength she felt emanate from his being perfectly. No matter how hard she tried not to focus on that, he was a being whose mere presence demanded the attention of those around him due to his unnaturally intense prowess. Despite that, she remembered he never used his immense strength to hurt her in any way – not even verbally. Rather, she felt how strong he was in the way he held her, in how tightly he squeezed her close to himself, in the way his hand had cupped the back of her so she could hide against him as much as she needed to.
She could recall the sound of his voice and the words he shared with her. When she expected him to tell her vile things about her mentor’s death, he instead offered her measured words of both respect and consolation.
When she couldn’t speak any longer, his silence spoke for him as well. In his arms, she could vividly remember how easy it was to fall apart.
In his eyes, she could remember how safe he made her feel.
She closed her eyes at the thought only for images of him and his sunset hues to flash before her mind’s eye. She groaned at his image and brought a hand to her face as she recalled his intricacies. Rubbing at her eyes and cheeks, she recalled his bewildering care for her, how sympathetic he was to her situation, and a part of her continued to question if any of it was real at all.
Did any of that actually happen? Was it all truly real?
Did a demon of Muzan’s twelve Kizuki really comfort her last night?
Did the third Upper Moon truly try to nurse her back to health in his lonely cabin after protecting her from a rampaging demon?
Did he really care about the way he touched her? About the way he spoke to her?
Did he really take her out to a hidden lake in the woods where he allowed her to spill her heart out to someone for the first time in the real world?
He should be her number one target. As a Demon Slayer, he was someone she was meant to eradicate from this world. He should be someone she hated with every fiber of her being, especially considering what he had done to Rengoku, but when she thought of him, all she felt was…loss. Loss and confusion as well as a new, small feeling of longing and warmth.
“What the hell is wrong with me…?” She whispered aloud, groaning against the palm of her hand before allowing it to fall onto the bedsheets.
Last night was very real, and she didn’t know what she was supposed to make of it now. Demon and human interacted in the cover of night as if they had known each other for decades. It made her a traitor to humanity, she was aware, but…why couldn’t she see it that way as well? Why couldn’t hate surface at the image of him in her mind?
Why did she feel unhappy that she hadn’t woken up to the sight of him sitting in front of his irori pit, stirring another nasty medicinal tea for her?
The sound of footsteps in the hallway pulled her attention away from her own ceaseless, unthinkable questioning and drew it towards the door. It opened with a soft creak, and a familiar face walked inside. It took her a moment to recall, but she soon recognized she was one of the village’s few healers she remembered speaking to when she brought injured villagers to their recovery rooms. Momoko, she remembered was her name. In her hands, she noticed she was carrying a tray with what appeared to be a plate of onigiri and a steaming cup of something to drink.
“You’re awake!” Momoko chimed, a bright smile angling her lips when she caught sight of the Slayer seated upright in bed. “I’m so glad to see you up again! We were all so worried about you, but I knew you’d wake up in the morning!”
_______ observed her, a perplexed look befalling her as the young woman approached her bedside with such zealous vigor.
“Where am I, Momoko? What happened? Why were you all worried about me?”
“You mean you don’t remember?” Momoko shook her head and frowned at her sympathetically. “No, that’s right – how could you? You were so beaten up when we found you…It’s no wonder you can’t remember anything…We found you at dawn by the entrance of the village. It looked like you had dragged yourself out of the woods after fighting off the demons all night. We guessed you must’ve collapsed from exhaustion before you could make it back to one of us healers. To tell you the truth, we don’t know what happened while you were away. We noticed your room was empty in the early evening, but by then, you had been out for quite some time.” Sheepishly, she averted her gaze to the tray in her hands. “None of us were brave of enough to go beyond the village to find you…We assumed you had gone with some kind of plan to help protect the village, and we thought we would only be a burden to you if we got in the way by sending anyone after you, so we chose to wait until dawn for you return. If you hadn’t shown up, we didn’t know what we were going to do…” A deep sigh of relief left her. “Thank God, we found you safe and sound in the morning…”
Momoko paused for a few seconds after that, her gaze still set on the bed’s comforters. _______, taken aback by the tale, didn’t know how to react at first. She simply stared at the village healer, bewildered by the tale, and watched as a saddened and guilt riddled frown took hold of her expression.
All of a sudden, Momoko tightened her grip on the tray in her hands, closed her eyes tight and deeply bowed her head in respect to the recuperating Slayer before her.
“Because of how hard you must’ve fought through the night all on your own, the village was safe from attack for the first time in months! Throughout the entire evening, not a single demon was spotted nor were there any reports of villagers injured or going missing! Whatever you did worked, and for the first time in a long time, we were able to sleep peacefully in our homes without the fear of losing any of our loved ones! Thank you! From all of us here in Tatsukawa Village, we can never thank you enough for how bravely you’ve battled and how many times you’ve risked your life on our behalf!”
_______’s eyes widened and gooseflesh rose upon her arms as she allowed the healer’s words of deep gratitude to sink in. A mix of bewilderment and horror formed a massive, tight knot at the pit of her stomach, and all at once, it felt like the world was caving in on her again.
She…hadn’t done a single thing last night to fight any demon off. For weeks, she had been stationed in the village, fighting with all her might from the very first day she arrived – back when one used to be three. Those days, however, are a figment of the past now.
_______ was the lone Slayer in charge of protecting Tatsukawa Village up to date. It became apparent to her that, no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn’t be able to complete the mission her friends left in her hands before she was able to join them where they’ve gone. Thus, before making her trek into the cedar woods, she had sent off her Kasugai Crow to call for reinforcements. Her greatest hope was that the demons in the forest would be too distracted by her wandering between the cedars to really care for the villagers that one night. Effectively, she had planned to use herself as a sacrifice to keep the village safe while they waited for a new squad of Slayers to arrive so as to complete the work she could no longer carry on her shoulders.
Yet, things very clearly didn’t go the way she had planned.
The demons found their interest in her, yes, but that didn’t last long at all. When she crossed paths with Akaza, they avoided him like a plague.
Nevertheless, the village was still safe.
Nobody was missing, and nobody was hurt – not even herself.
Before she could say anything in response to Momoko, the young woman stood up straight and extended the tray of food towards her, resting it upon her lap. The smile she bore beforehand had returned to her much softer, a look of gratitude radiating from her being.
“Because of you, our village knew a night of peace once again after months spent in fear of the dark. Thank you for being the answer to so many prayers. Thank you to you and your friends, may they rest in everlasting peace. Nobody here will ever forget what you’ve all done for us. So, thank you. I promise we healers will take the best care of you that we are able to provide. Please,” She beckoned to the food on the tray. “Enjoy this breakfast we put together for you. It isn’t much, but we weren’t sure how well you would be feeling for a meal after the state you were in. We put together some Kombu Onigiri for you along with a nice steaming cup of tea. Don’t be shy and eat as little or as much as you’d like! I’ll come back in a little while to clean up and bring you some medicine to help with the pain.”
With one last, thankful bow of the head, Momoko turned on her heels and left, leaving _______ with just the sound of the creaking door and the chirping birds outside, the distant chitter-chatter of bystanders mere white-noise to her.
For several seconds, she stared at the door to her room with that same large-eyed, dumbfounded look on her face, still trying so very hard to properly understand the barrage of information that was just given to her.
As each and every single word echoed and reverberated in her mind repetitively, her breathing quickened steadily until she was nearly to the point of hyperventilating. Her eyes quickly filled with bitter, stinging tears, but before a cry could threaten to loosen itself from her raw, scratchy throat, both of her hands shot up to firmly cover her mouth.
Into her open palms, she muffled her whimpered, broken sobs as the tears of a pathetic waste of life rolled down the skin of her cheeks for the millionth time.
She tightly closed her eyes as she wept into her palms, hiccupping and trying with all her might to catch up to her own breathing while doing her best to be as quiet as possible.
How could she do this to these poor, sweet people?
How could she be such a terrible person?
They saw her as some kind of blessing.
Yet, all she could see when she looked at herself was a coward.
She didn’t deserve any of their kindness, didn’t deserve a single word of praise nor hospitality. She should’ve been left for dead, but here she is, alive once again. Rather than getting what she so clearly deserved, she was spared one more time, and now, all she could do was hopelessly wail over her own insufficiencies and faults against her hands towards the open skies beyond her window.
“W-why, Akaza? Why didn’t you just kill me when you had the chance…?”
The rest of the day felt like a foggy fever dream to _______.
After Momoko had left her alone in her room that morning, she had cried her eyes raw and red for as long as she could muster the tears. At some point, they stopped coming no matter how miserable and guilty she felt, and from then on, she felt nothing but gray.
She shut down. She felt like she had gone through an entire lifetime in the course of just twenty-four hours, and she was exhausted from it all. She didn’t want to feel anything anymore, so she did everything within herself to prevent those emotions from resurfacing. Around others, this was an easy enough task. Nobody asked her about why her eyes were red and puffy whenever anybody would walk into her room to check on her, which was something she was grateful for. She was so used to hiding everything she felt, that doing so around the villagers was practically instinctual to her by now.
She could manage being alive when people came to speak with her like the village head, or when the healers came to check on her or offer her some kind of medicine. When she was around the others, she could force a smile and hold conversation for a short while until they would be on their way to let her rest – but when that door closed behind them, it left her trapped with culpability, regret and self-loathing.
To top it all off, mixed within that terrible concoction of dreadful emotions was also the thoughts, images and recent memories of the demon of the Upper Moons.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to stop thinking about him throughout the entirety of the day. It didn’t matter what kind of mood she was in at any given time; Akaza would arise in her mind regardless of whether she was faking peace or just mourning the loss of it on her own.
Is he still in the cedar woods?
Was he the one who left her at the entrance of Tatsukawa Village?
Did he have something to do with the constant attacks on the village?
Why did he take such good care of her?
Why did he care about the way she felt, emotionally and physically?
How was it possible that a demon like him would come to share such kindness and compassion with a human like her?
Silence was the only answer she ever received to her questions, but she continued to find new ones to ask herself even as day leisurely turned to night.
By the time the moon rose above the clouds beyond her window, Momoko returned to her bedroom to say goodnight and ask if she needed anything before she went to bed. The only thing _______ asked for was to have her window opened, so as to watch over the village better and to feel the evening’s cool breeze.
It was now far passed midnight, and she couldn’t bring herself to sleep; she had been too afraid of what she would dream of if she allowed her head to fall on her pillow. Instead, she remained seated in bed for hours into the night, resting her back against a pillow she propped on the bedframe behind her. Beyond her open window, she watched as stray dark clouds joined the moon and the stars in the night sky. Despite their presence, the clouds did little to obstruct the view off the full moon hanging over the world, lighting up darkened paths with its counterfeit shine.
All night, anxiety had wracked her body, thinking there would be an onslaught of demons falling upon the villagers’ homes now that she was no longer in the woods to distract them all. However, for hours, nothing happened. She simply paid witness to the world passing her by. The villagers went about their day, mingling with neighbors and loved ones, exchanging affectionate gestures or a few words by dingy home fences. With time, the crowds of people thinned until only a few stragglers walked down the dirt roads, but even they eventually wandered out of view.
It appeared that, for another night, Tastukawa Village would be able to sleep in peace.
Still, _______ watched the world, though she no longer knew whether she was keeping a vigilant watch or simply existing in the dark.
As her eyes fixated on the moon above, her head lulled towards her shoulder on her pillow. It had never looked so unfamiliar to her before the way it did this evening. She didn’t know if it was the same moon she gazed upon anymore, for all she saw when her eyes locked on its brilliant splendor was a liar trying desperately to blend in with the twinkling stars at its side.
“It must be hard,” She whispered to the moon. “Living up to that lie all the time. Do you ever get tired of it? Do the stars ever notice just how dim you really are? I guess he had a point in one thing…If it weren’t for the sun, you really would just be a big floating rock in the sky.”
Her expression fell as the words left her and a breath escaped passed her lips as she kept the moon solemn company. Her eyes softened at the twinkling of the stars, and as they did, a soft breeze swept through her window to playfully ruffle her hair and cool her skin. Unable to help herself, she took in a deep breath of the fresh evening air and slowly closed her aching, tired eyes to rest by the moon’s side for just a few minutes. The breeze picked up once again, stronger this time, and enveloped her within its wispy arms, encouraging her to lower herself properly in bed for the night despite the anxiety of what would come attached with rest.
As she turned her body towards her open window, she could hear the chittering of leaves belonging to the cedar woods in the distance, calling her name in a longing, mysterious whisper.
Within the strong embrace of the breeze and beneath the watchful gaze of the moon and stars, she fell asleep to the image of sunset hues by an untouched lake deep within those cedar woods.
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Thank you so much for making it this far! I hope you enjoyed this chapter to my Akaza fic! :D If you're eager for more, consider checking out the story on any of my cross-posting sites! They're up to date with the recent chapter, so you'll have two more parts to read aside from this one! :D Thanks so much for the support! Much love as always and God bless! <3
