I will always follow

Go to hell

What would her last words be?

It wasn't a question Shinobu hadn't asked herself before. She had spent long hours crafting the perfect ending, piecing together final words that might grant her some semblance of control over her own demise. But life had never been perfect, and neither was death. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be. Maybe it was meant to be messy and raw and putrid.

Just like him.

Beneath the cloying, sickly-sweet perfume, Douma reeked of rot. The stench of decay clung to him, thick and suffocating, as if the very air around him had soured. The scent of a creature that had consumed too much, too greedily, and yet would never be satisfied. And she—beneath her own strong, flowery perfume—she reeked of poison.

A slow, mocking clap filled the frozen air.

"How admirable! You've tried so hard! I'm impressed—a weak little girl like you, struggling so much." His voice dripped with feigned sympathy, his painted lips curving into an almost fond smile as he hugged her motionless body close to his chest. "You don't have your sister's talent, but look at you! You've done so well as a Demon Slayer. It's a miracle you're still alive!"

Her blood boiled at the sound of Kanae's name on his lips. He had no right. No right to speak of her. No right to remember her. No right to exist after what he had done. But her rage was a cold, restrained thing—not an outburst, but a simmering, calculated fury. She refused to give him the satisfaction of watching her break.

Because he hadn't won.

Not yet.

"Everything you do is pointless," he continued, his voice laced with amusement, as if her struggle were nothing more than a passing joke for his entertainment. "You know it, yet you're stupid enough to keep trying." He sighed, shaking his head with a theatrical pout, fake tears sliding down his painted face and splattering against her Demon Slayer uniform. "This shows both the stupidity and the wonder of human beings, I suppose. But without a doubt, you are someone worthy of being devoured." His false crying intensified, his exaggerated sobs rattling through his chest as if he felt anything at all.

How stupid. What a stupid way to die.

"Let's live together for all eternity," he said, voice filled with honeyed deceit. His grip on her tightened, bone-crushing, suffocating, unyielding. He was already trying to absorb her, his arms the only thing holding her upright, keeping her from collapsing onto the bloodstained floor.

"Your last words?" He tilted his head, just slightly, as if granting her the illusion of choice. "I'm listening."

What are last words worth if no one is left to hear them?

Just something meaningless to be carved into a grave. No, her last words would matter, just as her death would.

Writing that letter had been the best decision she had made in a long time. There was nothing she regretted at the end of her life, and that was more than most people could say.

She had sat in front of the empty paper for hours, the candle beside her burning low, wax pooling at its base. The inkpot sat untouched, the brush resting beside it, its bristles clean and dry. The day had not been cold; in fact, it had been quite the opposite. And yet, she had felt as if she were freezing from the inside out.

Maybe it had been a premonition.

Maybe death had already reached her then.

She had learned long ago to wear a smile, to make herself appear untouchable, unshaken. It had been Kanae's final wish—that she remain strong, that she not drown in grief. But what did strength mean when it felt like an endless performance, a mask she could never take off? When the act of smiling became less of a choice and more of a duty, a fragile lie stretched over the hollow ache in her chest?