Chapter Text
A slash, like a crescent moon splitting over the treetops.
Beautiful and haunting and oh, so sharp.
Genya hadn’t even seen the demon swordsman until his glistening eyeball-studded katana had already cut down through his mohawk, splitting the left side of his brain from his right.
It continued its deadly arc downward like a moonbeam piercing through dark clouds, splitting his vision, splitting his front two teeth apart, and splitting his tongue with the taste of steel as sharp as hate.
It split his jaw and vertebrae and lungs and intestines and a million tiny blood vessels spewing scarlet streams of sorrow before his left leg was separated from his right, and the two halves of Genya fell to the battle-scarred floor of Kokushibo’s lair.
Blood splattered before him in every direction. It soaked into the diagonal and crisscrossing ridges in the stone blocks beneath him, slowly leeching warmth away from his body.His heart stopped for a moment, then spasmed in painful lurches, trying with all its feeble might to keep blood circulating through ruined veins, to keep him conscious, to keep him alive for just a moment longer.
The left side of Genya couldn’t see the right side. It had fallen away somewhere behind him, and was likely already dead as it wasn’t the side with his heart. He hated to think of the alternative, that it was somehow still alive, the two halves of his brain working independently of each other but both able to experience this blinding, all-encompassing pain.
God, how death would be easier.
A rattle of a gasp escaped his fragmented lips as his remaining lung took in a great, desperate gulp. His exposed trachea acted as a vacuum against the stone, making him inhale his own blood. He couldn’t even cough against it, the reflex muscle of his throat no longer responding to the urge.
But with the inhale also came air. Sweet, precious air. A moment of relief that dulled his pain for a moment and sharpened his vision to the figures of the Hashira fighting their fearsome opponent. The figure of his brother, darting to and fro across the battlefield with wild and erratic movements, swinging his sword with the speed of a hurricane gale. The figure of Himejima-sensei, rolling in midair as his spiked ball struck against Upper Moon One with enough force to rattle dust from the great pillars around them. The figure of Muichiro, or rather, the upper half of him, somehow still clinging onto his blade with enough force to turn it bright red inside the demon’s torso.
They were giving it their all. Genya could too. His bullets were still inside the demon, after all, and he still had a little life left.
“Blood demon… Technique…” He wheezed.
The tree erupted from Kokushibo’s back, splitting through his skin and throwing him off balance as its roots twisted under his limbs.
It was a power Genya had cultivated himself, after a few years of eating demon flesh. Demons were only good at destroying. He wanted the opposite, something that could create life even in the darkest moments. If it was useful in taking down a demon, like in this instance, then that was all the better.
There, he thought, his vision buzzing out as his body flooded with pain again. I did it… I bought them some time… Maybe… Maybe now they can…
His eye glazed over, blocking out the rest of the fight. He didn’t even have the energy to think in this state. The pain faded away, and a light washed over his body, warm and comforting.
There, in the distance, the sounds of little voices, familiar to him somehow even in his unresponsive state. Were these sounds… the voices of his siblings? Were these sensations on his battered body the feelings of tiny palms resting gently on his wounds?
Yes, they were here. The spirits of those children with nothing but love in their hearts for their older brother, lighting their hands upon his head, shoulder, leg, and arm. He had a feeling they must have been with him all this time, clinging to his living spirit like moss on a river rock, grounded even through the swift current. Only now that he was close to that blurry afterlife himself could he feel their touch, like sweet flower petals on his skin.
A strange tingling sensation washed over him. The cells of his demon body were trying to reconstitute, to reform and regrow and revitalize this shattered frame, but deep in his bones, Genya knew. He couldn’t come back from this.
And then, his master Himejima Gyomei was before him. The mountain of a man stared down with eyes unseeing, though their trademark constant watering seemed to increase as the blind man gazed down on his severed pupil. No. It wasn’t time for Genya to go just yet.
“Hime…jima… san…” Genya rasped as a tear of blood trickled from his eye, “Aniki… Tokitou… San…”
“We’re alive.” Himejima responded, his low voice steady and comforting as the solid hand he laid on Genya’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”
Gyomei’s hand should have landed with a bit more force than it did, if he was expecting Genya’s body to be whole, missing where Genya’s shoulder should have been and landing harder where it truly lay. But it didn’t. Gyomei’s hand was as gentle as it had always been to Genya. He must’ve known the state of his pupil. Smelled it through the blood and heard it in the echoes of his raking breath. For the first time in his life, Genya was grateful that the gentle giant couldn’t see, so that he couldn’t witness the true horror of Genya’s current condition.
Genya muttered Tokitou’s name a few more times. The young pillar had lost a hand, been stabbed through the shoulder, and cleaved right in two. He needed help more than Genya did.
“Don’t… Mind me…” Genya forced his dying throat to say, “Tokitou-san… treat… him… Hu… Hurry…”
His master did not move for a moment, no doubt assessing the total damage to Genya’s form through his near-supernatural perceptive ability. It seemed as if he didn’t want to leave Genya’s side, which Genya appreciated, but now was not the time for such sentiments. The mist pillar needed help. Relief filled him for a moment as the man rose, but it turned to dread as Himejima returned to set the limp form of his white-haired brother next to him.
Sanemi. God and Buddha above. Genya hadn’t been this close to him since the man had tried to poke his eyes out. His uniform was stained and battered, his torso riddled with self-done stitches, and a nasty wound still leaked blood from the right side of his head, above a green pinwheel marking on his scarred cheek.
Genya’s eye widened. That was a mark. A genuine demon-slaying mark, there on his brother’s face. It must be why he’d been able to face Upper One at all, but Genya knew the legends about such a crest. It was a terrible price to pay.
An equally terrible thought crossed his half-mind as he looked at it. Was Sanemi dead already? Had he succumbed to his wounds and the mark both, and Himejima-san had lain him to rest near his dying brother, so that he could see him one more time?
Himejima himself was nowhere to be seen, though a low rumble from a few yards away told Genya he was talking to someone, probably the Mist Pillar. Good. At least he’d be alright.
In front of him, Sanemi’s eyes cracked open, then snapped to focus.
“ WAAAAAAAAGGHHH!! ” He screamed, his voice filling the cavernous room like a maelstrom. He lurched to his knees, scrambling over to Genya’s prone body.
“What the f*ck happened here!!” Sanemi panted, hands pressing against Genya’s head and side. “Why is your body crumbling like a demon’s?!” He screamed. “f*ck!! f*ck!! ”
He was crumbling? Like a demon? Huh. Well, that made sense, he supposed. And it explained the strange tingling sensation enveloping what was left of his body.
“Ani… ki…” He muttered.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do something!” Sanemi screamed. “I’ll do something about this!”
Tears spilled from Genya’s eye. He’d wanted to talk with Sanemi for so long. Now, here, this was his last chance. He sucked up one last shaky breath in his collapsing lung, and began.
“Nii… chan… Sor… Sorry…”
Sanemi blinked, jaw trembling in frozen horror.
“Back… then… I… blamed you… Sorry…”
He couldn’t feel the back of his head anymore. He supposed it was melting away like dust on the wind, scattering his ashes through the depths of the Infinity Castle.
“And for being… a burden…” Genya continued, “Sorry…”
“You were never a burden to me!” Sanemi screamed, bending over Genya’s head as tears leaked from his wild eyes, “Not even once!”
Oh.
That… that was news to Genya. Did Sanemi really mean it, had Genya never burdened him? That couldn’t be. He was probably only being nice because Genya was dying. Well, that was fine too. It was nice of him anyway.
“Don’t die!! Don’t you dare die before me!!”
“Thanks…” Genya said, “for… protecting me…”
“I didn’t protect you for sh*t!! You moron! AGHHHH! FUUUUUUUUUUCK!!”
Sanemi’s gasps of desperate rage were heartbreaking. More and more of Genya’s flesh was sliding away into the ether. He had to say this now.
“You were… trying… to protect… me… And I… wanted to… protect you… nii… chan…”
Sanemi’s broken face looked down on him in horror, his hand hovering slightly over the back of Genya’s disintegrating head.
“We feel… the same… because we’re… brothers…” Genya’s vision glazed over. “You… had many… horrible memories… and I want… you to… be happy… I want you… to not die…”
Warm tears dripped on his face. His own eyes had dried as the moisture sucked out of his decaying body, so he could only assume they were Sanemi’s, looking down above him.
“Because my nii-chan… is… the sweetest person… in the world…”
It was true. It always had been. Sure, Sanemi had a gruff exterior, but he’d loved Genya more than anything else. It was why he had forcibly distanced himself from Genya, after all, to keep him out of this dangerous work. And it was why he was crying so hard now, because he had failed.
“ AAAGHHH! COME ON, GOD!” Sanemi screamed, wrapping himself over Genya’s body, trying to keep him whole. “PLEASE! PLEASE! DON’T TAKE MY BROTHER AWAY! PLEASE!!!”
“Thank you… nii… chan…”
His last words floated up from him like dandelion seeds on a warm breeze. The decay had taken his eyes. His ears. His mouth and nose and finally, the last of his thoughts.
It was over. The tunnel of light opened before him again. The tiny hands pressed against his form once more, gently guiding him forward. Their touch increased in substance the closer they got, and soon enough, Genya could make out faces smiling up at him.
You did so well, Genya. Their voices said, sweet and small and layered in praise.
Now it’s time to come home.
Home… Genya thought, a swell of relief blooming within him. If this was what waited for him at the end, it wasn’t so bad.
A stab.
A sharp, hostile pain, flooding into the left side of his chest, right above his heart.
What? Genya grimaced as he doubled over, What is this? I’m dead now, aren’t I? It’s supposed to be over.
One by one, the hands slipped away as he fell back into the darkness. The faces of his departed siblings looked sad to see him go, but wore smiles anyway.
No! Genya thought, his mind racing as he reached forward, Don’t leave me! What’s happening? Come back! Let me go with you!
His heart burned. The light faded away, and he plunged into the darkness, nothing but him and the splintering pain. His mind froze as a new thought entered it.
Hell. That must be what this is. I’m going down to burn in hell forever. That must be what Shinobu tried to warn me about when I told her I was eating demons. I died as a demon, and this is my punishment.
Tears burned in his eyes, but he let it be. If this was the price of being untalented, he would pay it willingly. He had helped people. He’d saved lives as a slayer, both in the swordsmith village, and before when he was just starting out in the corps. He’d helped take down Upper Moon One, for God’s sake. He’d done his duty to humanity.
Yes. If hell was the price of protecting others, it was worth it.
Voices came to his ears, murky and distorted. Like the bones of shipwrecks rising from black water. His hearing twisted and flared, but as he focused, he began to make out words.
“Hold him steady.” A voice said. “The serum’s restarting his heart. Look there, see? His ear has grown back already.”
Grown back? Genya thought, What-
His thoughts were interrupted as the pain of his severed body crashed into him again, and he screamed.
Wait. He screamed. That shouldn’t be possible, his mouth had dissolved, his throat and vocal cords should be nothing but streaks of decaying matter on the wind by now. He focused through the blistering pain, and found that his form had weight to it again. There was his left hand, scraping against stone. There was his left knee, pooled in the warmth and wetness of his own blood.
“ Genya! ”
Sanemi’s voice. No question.
“Just keep going! Keep going! You can do it!”
“Grab his other half there,” the first voice said, “before it completely decays. We’ve got to put him back together.”
“Right.” Himejima said. Heavy hands lighted on his body, putting him upright as though he weighed nothing. Another mass pressed up against him, oozing against his shattered insides.
“You. Wind Pillar. Cut off my hand.”
“What the f*ck did you just say?”
“I’m a demon, idiot. This boy is the one who eats demons, right? The one Lady Tamayo and that insect woman talked about? Cut off my hand. If he can digest it, it’ll help him heal faster.”
The sound of a blade whistling through the air cut across Genya’s hearing for an instant. Then came the solid thump of a severed limb landing nearby, and the splatter of blood on stone.
“Good. Now open his stomach and put it in.”
The unpleasant shuffling of his internal organs came next. Genya grunted in pain.
“He’s coming back to us. Here boy, open your mouth, before my hand grows back.”
Genya did as he was told. A stream of blood fell onto his tongue. He’d tasted much more than his fair share of demon blood over the years. It was all vile as sludge, with strange and rotten textures and undernotes of mad homicidal rage. But it gave him power, let him fight the beings on equal ground. That was all that mattered to him.
This demon’s blood was different. It was still unpleasant, though more in a medicinal sense. Something about him tasted sterile, like licking a glass vial or the alcohol Shinobu used to disinfect wounds. He swallowed. A deeply unpleasant feeling twisted within his guts.
“His stomach sealed back together!” Sanemi exclaimed. “Keep going Genya! You’re doing it! Don’t give up!”
“Be careful, Shinazugawa.” Himejima cautioned. “Do not disturb his body too much as he heals.”
“Piss off.” Sanemi said, but there was no venom in it.
Flesh knit together. Bones cracked back into a rough estimation of their previous shapes. A hollow burning radiated through him as his nerves reconnected, letting him know exactly how much pain being severed in two could cause.
“Nnngh, gah…” Genya twisted where he lay.
“That goes for you too, young Shinazugawa.” Himejima’s strong hand came to Genya’s right shoulder. “Please try and stay still.”
His right shoulder. Genya breathed out in surprise. He’d been reconnected after all. His lungs both inflated. His guts were in the painful process of sorting themselves out, but seemed to be settling down. Slowly, his face was reforming. Slowly, his sense of vision returned to him.
Sanemi was leaning over him, his hair wild and his pupils little more than dots against his crazed eyes, which leaked wet tears the moment Genya met his gaze. He screamed in relief, collapsing over Genya’s chest, careful of a vial of purple liquid dispensing through a long needle, straight into his heart. Above him, Himejima’s blind eyes turned to Genya as if he could sense his gaze. The corners of his mouth quirked upward, despite the man’s battered appearance. Genya’s heart clenched. He’d never seen the pillars so beat up.
“Nii-chan… Himejima-san…” Genya wheezed.
Gyomei laid a broad hand against Genya’s right cheek, the red prayer beads around the man’s wrist rubbing against his newly-reformed right ear and clacking against the stone floor.
“I am very proud of you, young one. It is time to rest now.”
He glowed at Himejima’s praise, but it clouded quickly.
“Can’t rest…” he gasped, “Muzan-”
“Will be dealt with.” That third voice spoke. “But not by you.”
Genya looked up. His head was being held by a young man with curious mint-green hair, which darkened to black at its tips. His pale blue eyes had a slight slit to their irises, and his stoic expression told him argument was useless.
This was Yushiro, no doubt. Tanjiro had told him of his encounter with the strange, helpful demons, and he’d caught a glimpse of the lady Tamayo and Yushiro with Shinobu in the Insect Hashira’s lab. Aoi had been giving him his routine inspection in place of the doctor, but made plenty of notes for Shinobu to review later.
“They’re working really hard in there.” Aoi had said, casting a worried gaze over to the closed door. “They haven’t taken a break all day. Whatever they’re doing, it must be really important.”
Genya hadn’t expected to see Yushiro again, let alone here of all places. But here he was, those slitted eyes monitoring the reconstitution of his skull and his own left hand slowly reforming from his wrist.
“ KAW! ” A crow cried, flapping into the broad room along with a troop of lower-ranking demon slayers. “ Medical aid! Medical aid! Himejima and Shinazugawa have defeated Upper Moon One and need medical aid! Hurry, hurry!”
The troops poured around the pillars and the demon, supplying bandages and antiseptic and recovery elixirs. Others swarmed around Muichiro, blocking the young pillar from view.
I hope he’s okay, Genya thought. Himejima-san helped him already, so he has to be.
“Take this one out of here.” Yushiro said to the soldiers, “Get him to safety.”
“Whoa, he’s all sliced up!” One said.
“What happened? How is he alive after that?”
“Look, he’s still bleeding, let’s bandage him up!”
A makeshift stretcher was furnished in less than a minute. Genya was placed on top of it after two slayers bound him head-to-toe in gauze.
“Nii-chan,” he called weakly, reaching out to Sanemi. “Please… stay safe.”
“I will.” Sanemi nodded, a quirk of violent mania returning to his face. “You just focus on getting better, okay? Muzan will regret f*cking with us.”
Genya craned his reformed neck for as long as he could, eyes on his brother and his mentor as he was carted away from the battle.
Please… he prayed as he slipped into unconsciousness, please be safe…
