A/N: Kudos if you get the reference in the title.
Next chapter is THE chapter. If you know, great, if you don't, then I oop-
♪───Ｏ（≧∇≦）Ｏ────♪
"Okay, I'm going to the Wisteria house," You warn, "It's gonna get more uncomfortable because there's a lot more Wisteria flowers, so I'll try to hurry inside."
"Alright," Sekido responds from inside the box.
The sun had just set when you arrived at the town. You were so fucking tired, and you really needed to change your fucking pad.
You noticed that this town in particular had a lot of Wisteria flowers around. And there weren't many people outside either. They must all be aware of the existence of demons, and are taking precautions at night.
You could rest up for tonight, then ask around for the demons tomorrow. There's not a lot of people out right now to talk to anyway.
Tu Cielito comes back to sit perched on your left shoulder as you walk towards the gate to the Wisteria house.
Every hour or so, she'd leave your shoulder only to come back after a few minutes. You figured it was so she could do her business, but you'd honestly expect her to just leave you be once you got to the town.
But an hour ago, she had left and only now just came back. Maybe Tu Cielito had a date with a fine bird her age. Or something...
You were about to knock on the gate, but it opens before you could make contact.
On the other side was a middle aged woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She had a black and red robe on her body with a lot of cleavage showing.
If you knew if homosexuality was acceptable in this time period, you'd definitely flirt. She was really fucking hot... if she didn't smell like your mother after a long smoke.
"You're the Slayer the parrot informed me of? (L/n) (Y/n)?" The woman asks monotonously, eyeing the parrot.
Oh, Tu Cielito went to notify the owners that you were coming. That's why she was gone for that long.
"Yes," You nod, "That's me."
She eyes your kama before sighing and pushing the gate wide open.
"Get in, then. You must be tired," She said, "My name is Ena Akina."
You smile and offer her a short bow, "Thank y-"
"-Just get in." She yawns, "The sooner you get settled in, the sooner I get to sleep."
Aight. Respect.
You walk in and follow Akina quickly towards the building. The house was pretty simplistic, and the volume of Wisteria flowers in this small Estate was astronomical.
Poor Sekido.
"I was told you were to stay with another Demon Slayer," Akina says, "So you'll be sharing a room with him. I can always arrange a separate room if you want, though. He looks like he would stab you as a warning. Seriously, he needs eye drops."
You never realize how Tanjiro and the others made the effort to dumb down their words for you to understand until this woman started talking to you.
"Uh, okay."
You just hoped she didn't suddenly tell you her grandmother died.
Akina leads you up the engawa and down the hall. You two stop at the second to last door where the light was shining through the paper sliding door.
Akina doesn't bother getting on her knees to knock against the floor. Instead, she knocked against the wooden frame of the door.
"Hey, the Demon Slayer is here," Akina said loudly.
You hear shuffling from inside the room, of someone getting up from the floor.
Ubuyashiki did mention that you would have a surprise waiting for you at the Wisteria house. Was the surprise a Demon Slayer? Was it Akira?!
The door opens from the other side.
"..."
"..."
"Hey, Shinazugawa!" You smile nervously.
Sanemi-in his nice pink robe-was giving you a blank look.
"Right," Akina clicks her tongue, "Like I said Lady (L/n), I don't mind getting you a separate room if you want it. I'll bring you a change of clothes to wear and some food. I'll be back."
Akina leaves you and Sanemi be.
"Can... I come in?" You ask, "At least so I can leave Sekido here so I can use the bathroom."
Sanemi flicks his gaze to Tu Cielito, "That parrot better not shit in the room."
"Mi Cielito is a good girl!" You grin as you step inside the room, "She would never do something like that!"
Tu Cielito flies off your shoulder so you could take off the box from your back. You gently set Sekido down and knock on the box. Tu Cielito gracefully lands the box, waiting for something to happen.
"Hey, hurry out the box," You spoke, "I need a tampon. Now."
Right when Sanemi closes the door to the room, Sekido pushes the lid open to crawl out.
He had your phone and earphones in his hands, and in the box laid your backpack. You felt bad making Sekido hold the bag in there, but you didn't know how else to carry it!
It's not like it was full, only medical supplies, a change of clothes, and your pads. It still didn't make you feel better for smothering Sekido with your things.
Sekido doesn't bother changing into his full size, he puts your stuff down before reaching in to pull out your backpack. He unzips the front and pulls out the feminine bag for you.
You take the item before looking at the Wind Pillar who watched silently the entire time.
"Bathroom?"
"Uh, last door down the hall on your left."
"Thank you."
You throw off your haori and hastily clip off your kama from your waist. You drop the weapon to the floor and rush out the room, slamming the door close as you ran for your fucking life.
"She just started her period today, too," Sekido laughs as he grows into his normal size, "Lucky you, huh?"
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Sanemi frowns, "I needed someone of a higher rank, not some fucking noobs who didn't even take the Final Selection."
"Don't start shit with me," Sekido stood up to stretch his limbs, "We got a letter from Master Oyakata himself telling us this was going to be our first solo assignment."
"Bullshit. Where's the letter?"
Sekido crouches down to search through your open bag. He pulls it out from a side pocket and hands it the Wind Pillar.
"Master Oyakata did say there was going to be a surprise here," Sekido added as Sanemi read the letter, "And he said not to fight the surprise 'cause (Y/n) would get her ass handed to her."
"And I was the surprise," Sanemi mutters.
"But you said you needed someone of a higher rank. I'm guessing it's bad if you're here as a Pillar and still requesting assistance," Sekido takes the letter to put it back into your bag.
Sanemi sits on his futon in a cross-legged position: "Let's wait for (L/n) to come back so I don't have to explain it all twice."
Sekido lays flat on the ground and turns his head to Sanemi: "Pink is a good look on you."
"Don't fucking patronize me."
"Don't be a cunt," Tu Cielito squawks, "Play nice."
Sanemi gawks at Tu Cielito as Sekido bursts into laughter.
"What the fuck is (L/n) teaching that bird?!" Sanemi holds back his urge to laugh.
"Parrots don't really talk, they mimic," Sekido laughs, "She probably remembers what (Y/n) had said earlier."
Sanemi huffs and shakes his head, "Poor bird."
You open the door and rush back in towards your backpack.
"What's the matter with you?" Sekido asks.
"Stained," You mumble as you search through your bag for spare underwear.
"Yikes."
There was a knock against the door frame.
"Lady (L/n), I brought you some clothes," As Akina spoke, Sekido shrunk down to hide behind the box, "May I-"
You ball up your underwear with your feminine bag in your other hand and rush to open the door once Sekido hides.
"-Hi!" You greet Akina.
"...Hi..." Akina holds up folded clothes, "A robe, undergarments, and towels. I prepared a bath for you, and your meal should be ready once you finish."
You understood some of it.
You smile at the blond as you take the clothes and towels, "Thank you! Can I have some fruits as well?"
Akina raises an eyebrow at you before looking at Tu Cielito who was hopping in circles around Sanemi. Sanemi was just looking at Tu Cielito with a blank look.
"Sure," Akina nods, "Follow me to the baths."
——
"Had a good shower?" Sekido asks when you came into the room.
You had a soft pink robe on, your hair was still wet from your shower, but you did the best you could to dry it.
Now that you weren't rushing yourself, you took this chance to check out the room.
The room was pretty big, there were two futons on the right side of the room.
Sanemi was sitting on the futon away from the wall, Tu Cielito was (still) hopping around the Wind Pillar in circles.
Sanemi doesn't seem to mind it though.
Sekido's box was against the wall on the left, your backpack was leaning against it. The demon was sitting not too far from Sanemi. Your food tray was across Sanemi and Sekido.
You close the door behind you: "Yeah! You should try to sneak one in."
"I'll think about it," Sekido smiles.
"Your food came a few minutes ago," Sanemi was leaning his elbow on his leg while resting his chin in his palm, "Hurry up and eat so I can discuss what's been going on.
You nod as you toss your feminine hygiene bag on your backpack before making your way to the tray. You sit down cross-legged and sigh.
You put your hands together in a prayer position: "Thank you for the food."
"Your Japanese is shit," Sanemi comments.
"Thanks, I try." You laugh, "Mi Cielito, want some fruit?"
Tu Cielito waddles towards you before flapping her wings to sit on your leg.
"So I'm really fucking tired, can't you just tell us what's going on already?" Sekido yawns.
Sanemi huffs, "Fine. Not too long after I left the Butterfly Estate, I received an immediate report to this place. When I got here, there uh..."
Sanemi looks at you; you were chewing on some noodles while cutting a piece of banana for Tu Cielito.
"What is it?" Sekido asks.
"There..." Sanemi almost felt bad for saying it while you were eating, "There were 6 men dead; their bodies were torn and mutated beyond recognition. When I arrived, they were cleaning up the mess and trying to identify the men."
You scrunch up your face, suddenly losing your appetite. You force yourself to keep eating though, so you haven't had any food all day.
"Actually it turns out, those men were Demon Slayers," Sanemi adds, "They've been summoned here as well, but they all went missing and now suddenly they show up like that. That's why I'm here as a Pillar."
"Did you need someone of a higher rank to play as bait?" Sekido asks, "Someone to be able to handle themselves if they were suddenly attacked?"
"Yep."
"There's a lot of Wisteria flowers here," You chime in, "The demons wouldn't have been able to get very far here. But, if it's a powerful demon, or even an Upper Moon, that might explain their "immunity" to it."
"Upper Moon?" Sanemi hums, "I don't think I'm lucky enough to run into an Upper Moon, it's probably one of the Lower Moons."
Sekido shakes his head: "Impossible."
"It's not going to be a Lower Moon." You say with certainty.
"Huh? How the hell do you know?" Sanemi asks.
"The Lower Moons were disband-er, well, they were killed," You correct yourself, "Back when we ran into Akaza, Lower Moon One was there. But only because he sweet talked his way into receiving more blood from Muzan. But he died, so there are only Upper Moon demons now."
Wait.
Ah crap.
It just slipped.
Your Weeb Brain™ wanted to provide accurate information since you were able to remember due to rereading the manga.
"Clairvoyance is fucking weird," Sanemi huffs, "How does it work, by the way?"
Oh.
Right.
That was your cover story.
"It's kind of like..."
Pooping.
"Deja vu." You decide to say.
"Well, can't you use your clairvoyance to see who the hell is behind all this?" Sanemi asks.
"That would be fucking spectacular, would it?" Sekido laughs as he tries to make an excuse for you, "I asked about shit like that before, but (Y/n) did a shit job at explaining it. She first started to talk about one thing, and 15 minutes later, the conversation ended with a different topic."
"Let's hear it then."
"Uh, okay..." You feed Tu Cielito another slice of banana, "Did... you ever have a dream or a memory that was so realistic, you can't really tell if it was actually a dream, or if it was actually a memory?"
Sanemi furrows his small eyebrows together, "Um... I think so...?"
"It's kind of like that.-"
Where the hell are you going with this?
"-By definition, fate is something you cannot change; destiny is something you're meant to do. This implies that your destiny leads you to your fate, and that your fate is already determined the moment you were born."
Just talk until it sounds like you know what the hell you're talking about.
"Kyojuro was supposed to die fighting against Akaza, that was his fate. I saw it happen; he was born to die that way. I saw Kyojuro die." You cut off a piece of red apple for Tu Cielito, "But that was Kyojuro's fate because I was never involved."
"My visions-my premonitions, I don't see them as a dream or a memory, I see it as if I was reading a manga book," Was it safe to say that? "And in this manga that I'm reading through, I never existed. Sekido never existed."
"Now that I'm here, now that Sekido brought me here, everyone's fate is changed because of our very existence. I can't tell you the future because this"- You make a vague gesture to everything, -"never happened. You never come in contact with an Upper Moon demon, at least not that I know of l right now."
Sekido had to hold himself back from shaking his head. He knew you were just trying to say as much bullshit you can come up with to confuse Sanemi.
"I've seen far, far into the future, but now that something like this-something unexpected happened, my visions are... 8/10 useless now." You admit, "I don't really get new premonitions, I can only remember the ones I've already seen."
"But since Kyojuro didn't die, that vision of him dying feels like a dream, but I saw it happen. I remember seeing it happen."
During your (not really) bullshit rant, you didn't look at Sanemi.
At first, you were just talking out of your ass, but by the end, you just rant out your frustration of a very serious problem you have.
You finally sneak a peek at Sanemi.
He was hunched over with both of his elbows on his legs to hold his chin up. He was looking at you with a deep and focused look, like if he-
"-Yeah. I get it."
Ah.
You wanted to confuse him.
But you completely forgot that Sanemi is a theater nerd; he lives for this shit.