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ruiniel · 2 months

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Fandom: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Pairing: Kokushibō x fem!Reader

Count: 1.9K

Rating: 🔞

Tags & Warnings: Multichapter, POV Second Person, Darkfic, Angst, Ambiguity, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Reincarnation, Toxic relationship, Codependency, Blood Drinking, Non-con, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Kokushibō's wife, Her name is Hisami, References to childbirth but nothing graphic, POV Tsugikuni Michikatsu, Emotional Sex, Mild Smut, is it gratuitous yes and no, Human!Kokushibō, Kokushibō | Tsugikuni Michikatsu-centric, Sengoku Period (1467-1590), If there's anything Upper Moon One fears it's his memories

On AO3

Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V

Summary:

"...and I can't remember my wife's or children's faces..." —Kokushibō Taishō era, 1915. A lonely young woman's life changes after a strange encounter where the surface of a hidden world is revealed. A story of contrasts.

You foolish girl...

You run shaking fingers over your dry lips, feeling a sear that rushes through your veins like hot, poisoned wine.

It was not supposed to happen this way, and maybe it was indeed all your fault. You’d been weak, tried to show him you didn’t care what he was or what form he took, no matter how divorced from reality it appeared. You only wanted to show him that... that you wanted.

And what precisely did you want? You gaze up at the sky, where the night is cloudless yet there is no moon or stars: as if they, too, fled the aftermath of his fury.

Once, you said you did not fear him, standing like an unmovable pillar before the potent dread and despair that seemed to consume the living breath of everything in his presence. You didn’t know better, and it was easier that way.

“We should never have crossed paths,” you tell the nothingness outside. You wish he could hear it. Then you’d have your dignity back, and maybe he’d be satisfied knowing he was right.

A spring evening. It was early April, the air drunk on the bloom of cherry blossoms. You were returning from the festival, feeling too warm even in your thin yukata, strands of hair sticking to your temples. It was the herald of a mercilessly hot summer.

Alone, you took the streets towards home, yearning for your refuge after the day’s agitation. You felt safe in your small town and thought nothing of the steps echoing behind: until it was too late.

You offered them whatever money you had, but that was not their intent. Terror paralyzed you, choked you so you couldn’t even yell for aid. You tore at their faces, kicked and thrashed. You’d never known true hatred, but as you cried in despair you wished the grizzliest death upon them.

“How pitiful.”

Words echoing like a hollow wind, words you’ll never forget until your years are spent and the spark of life fades from your body. The grip on your arms froze, and in your own heart fear unending spread like rot.

There was nothing there when you looked, though, only a shadow in the shape of a... man?

“Humans have not changed. You all remain disgusting… and weak.”

His voice was deep. Cold like a winter moon, resonating within you like the shuddering vibrations of an earthquake. A speech strange and antiquated, the tone laced with contempt, and through the blur of tears you couldn’t see his face.

“Even to your kind, preying on others seems to be the norm.”

They... there were two of them, both of which had simply forgotten all about you and turned to run.

You must’ve cried, you must’ve screamed. Your mind couldn’t comprehend what your eyes showed you. You could not even move.

But where two men stood a moment before, now were merely two widening pools of blood, flowing into one another.

The stranger stood there, turned away from you.

You retreated back on your hands and legs, your back hitting the nearest wooden hedge. You tried to speak, but what would you even say? “Will you kill me?”

He looked over his shoulder at you. He had long, shining dark hair, tied back from his face. He wore a kimono and hakama. Was that a blade fastened at his waist? His features were still muddled, or perhaps it was your fear toying with perception but try as you did, you couldn’t discern them.

The stranger—the murderer—turned back ahead, saying nothing.

For a mere moment the paralysis in your limbs eased, and you took the chance: you up and ran, as fast as your legs could take you, never looking back.

You sit alone on your bench, wiping your forehead. An early summer evening falls. It was another hard day of labor, but you are pleased: the garden now looks as you’d wanted it to, and that brings a sense of peace as you watch the silver slice of the moon, set like a brooch in the velvet sky.

The sensation of being watched is sudden. The surprise is great when you gaze ahead and see the Shadow. The now familiar frost encircles your heart, and the world has become eerily still as even cicadas stopped their endless chirping. You stand.

That night, that gruesome, surreal experience still lingers in your memory, no matter how many times you tried to forget. And now it’s here, a living nightmare having taken two lives that you know of—saving you from your fate in the process. But your curiosity of all things unexplainable is innate, and instead of fear, you find a voice to speak. “Have you... Have you come to take your due from me?”

What does one even ask a revenant? Is this presence such an entity? You’d never been deeply spiritual or religious, but now, this feels like a haunting.

He is not looking at you, as though he’d not heard your question. He appears taken with the small pool mirroring the golden light from several lamps, highlighting the crimson tips of his hair.

You try again. “Am I being haunted?”

No answer comes. He is as still as the stones in your garden.

“Did you make this arrangement… yourself?”

You recall that timbre and odd fluctuations, soft and umbrous. His archaic speech, as from another age. His voice akin to an ill omen. But within, you feel no threat or peril, not this time. Might as well humor him. Or it. “I did,” you answer. You are surely mad… surely, you think, even as your feet drag your body closer until you stand at his side.

His long locks hide most of his features, but despite that you can tell they are youthful, those of someone in their prime. He feels very present, for a ghost.

You watch the water in silence, the sickle moon reflected in the shallow pool. In its mirror-like surface, you, too, look like a shadow next to him. A single petal falls, causing a ripple that breaks the vision.

“I did not thank you, sir. For... that time.” When you blink, you are alone. “Wait!” You look around, darting to and fro in the garden, finding not a wisp of him.

“Well, then. It seems I am being haunted after all.”

At first, it is morbid curiosity. You go, night after night, sitting in the same place, waiting. The wraith does not show itself again, but still, you go.

One night, you play the flute—an old thing your late father used to entertain you with once upon a time, until you begged and insisted you wanted to be taught too. You’d use the pastime to fill the empty spaces in your day, and it became a habit. It reminded you of him.

An intriguing meld of thrill and fear unfurls in your chest, and you know.

This time, he is seated on the same bench, back straight, posture dignified. His sheathed blade rests over his knees. He never looks at you, your haunting spirit. But he’s returned and this time, you don’t speak at all, you ask no questions. You keep playing, and he listens, and an ancient joy fills you to the brim.

You play the flute often after that. Sometimes, you also sing, alone. When the moon is full, he stays longer. Now he speaks more than before, though his words are measured and at times even curt. Some questions he never answers: such as his name, his origin.

Once you asked who he’d been in life.

“Different.” Not quite an answer, but the most you’d gotten on the topic.

You slowly set down the flute. “Do you play?”

A hand twitches nervously on his knee: the most human reaction you’ve seen from him to date. It charms you, that same meld of unease and thrill flowering through your body. Wordlessly, you extend your hand, offering him the instrument.

The shock is great: for the brief moment in which his fingers brush yours, there is no other sensation but that of calloused human skin touching skin. He feels as solid as any other man. And this, now this gives you pause.

Your fingers close around his without thought and you gaze upward, finding...

Him, staring back at you, lips parted, revealing... fangs.

His features are indeed young, but like a veil lifted you see him: three pairs of eyes stare back at you, at first in surprise, then narrowing. The next moment he is on his feet, the flute fallen on the ground between you.

“You... You are no wraith.” What are you, then?

He turns around faster than you can see.

You’re shaking, you remember the deaths, his manner, and now the inhuman, impossible make of his physiognomy. Are you hallucinating? You must be. Perhaps loneliness has sickened your spirit, perhaps the effect of his presence instills madness in minds. But you’re boldly pulling at the sleeve of his patterned garment, rounding and facing him.

“Upper Rank… One,” you read in his eyes. He is still as Death, the void of silence surrounding him stronger than ever before. “Is that your name?”

You stare, fascinated. Your body cries flee but as in a spell you lean closer, balancing on your tiptoes. He is tall, taller than any man you’d seen or known; what are you doing? Your arm wraps around his neck and finds hot iron beneath silk. His lips are just as warm as the rest of him, but the rumble of a growl bursts through your chest.

You cannot breathe; the air refuses to enter your lungs.

He faces you, standing a distance away now with veined hands balled into fists.

“You foolish girl...”

His icy voice hurts your ears, the raw hatred in it so scathing your legs fail you as though severed, and you fall to your knees.

“How dare you... I could crush you like a fallen petal.” That same voice, dripping malice withering the life around you. The crimson in his eyes is aflame. “Perhaps, I will...”

“Yes I’m human, and I'm flawed, and overstepped! But you do not even have the courage to say what you are. Why? ... Why do you keep coming here?”

He stares you down, silent, cruelty twisting his mouth.

“Please, tell me. At least tell me, and then do what you will… but why?”

Please… tell me why.

His expression morphs from cruelty to utter horror, yellow pupils blown so wide they nearly swallow the red. His entire presence disrupting the world around you now seeps... regret?

Why? Why must you leave?

He raises a hand as if to ward you off, even though you still kneel and plead.

He takes one step back—away from you—and whispers, for the first time in a trembling voice. “You... your face...”

Michikatsu, please...

He retreats another step, a hand to his head.

We are a family... are you not happy? Are you not...

You slowly rise, against all reason trying to reach him again.

“Begone!” he thunders, and though you near him, though you wrap your arms around him driven by a need so deep its roots reach beyond your own life, you find yourself alone again; unscathed, holding nothing.

The song of cicadas fills the night. Your chest hurts, your heart feels bruised and broken behind your ribs. An overflow of emotion wells in your eyes.

I will never see him again.

A voice within, your own and not your own. But you wish...

You wish it were his fingers playing through your hair instead of the empty wind.

The moon above is blood-red, partly hidden beneath a cloud. The flute lies at your feet, abandoned by the bench.

Part II

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