"Does it hurt?" Giyuu said as he put the bandages on his left arm.
The wind hashira said nothing in return, simply staring at the man taking care of his wounds as the rest of the remaining kakushi headed over to take care of even more injured people.
Ten months had passed since Tanjiro became the new demon king. No other information apart from new demons appearing had been found about the Kamado siblings.
"The new upper moons, they seem to be weaker than the last ones even though they are more resistant to the sun." Giyuu heard the rest of the slayers talk from behind. That part was obvious, they had only started appearing and those who weren't resistant to the sun had all gotten killed instantly, not by them but by Tanjiro.
His eyes met those of Sanemi, who instinctively started to look away from him.
Giyuu sighed, finally finishing the bandage that Kanzaki, her tsuguko, had shown him how to do so.
"Good job taking care of an upper moon." He said, finally standing up. Just then he thought of something that might help Sanemi, but since he couldn't do a real one, he faked a smile like the one Shinobu had learned to do.
'Punch.'
The kakushi and slayers alike, all turned their eyes to the two hashira, it had turned into complete silence.
"You fucker." Sanemi muttered under his breath as Giyuu's hands grazed the cheek where he had been punched from.
"W-wind hashira p-please cal-m dow--" Giyuu stopped the trembling kakushi before putting on that smile again.
"That's alright."
He deserves it. He was the reason he was still out there killing demons.
Sanemi mustn't be alone in this, or so Giyuu thinks.
He's sure that the other diseased hashira are looking down at him, in disappointment, in disbelief.
Why didn't he kill Nezuko.
Why didn't he kill Tanjiro.
If there was a way to reverse it all, maybe he will try to fix Sanemi's life first.
After all, he was the only hashira that was still suffering with him until the end.
____
"Does it hurt?" Giyuu said as she kept the cotton around his jaw.
"Mn, thank you." He replied with a small smile on his face, one that calmed her nerves but also rose the butterflies in her stomach.
She needed to focus.
The place was silent as Giyuu kept treating his wounds with ease. Giyuu was, after all, always the most injured hashira in the corps. Apart from the eleventh form, he didn't have anything to make him stand out as special so all of the demons knew exactly what to expect from her, in rather dream Giyuu would often be in butterfly state, or even before that, at Urokodaki's house.
Even now, while she trained with the hinokami kagura, her body would always be too weak to try and get up after one single night. She couldn't even imitate it, much less perfect it like Tanjuro, no matter how hard she focused on her breathing or moves even from the smallest fiber of her muscle.
And as a demon slayer, well, she has seen her fair share of injuries and wounds, ranging from mild scratches to broken bones and life threatening wounds in just a year.
"There. It won't bleed as much anymore if you hold it like this. Be sure to apply warm water and don't eat a lot of hard food for the time being."
Sanemi listened as Giyuu organized the things she ordered at the pharmacy they were outside off.
The fact that he had been almost quiet all this time had felt odd considering his personality back in the dream, though it felt better than a hothead who used to fight with him for no reason, or at least there was not one she could think of.
Giyuu turned to him, watching his mouth go from close to open, yet with no words coming out.
Once the sounds of the people passing by fell deaf to her ears, he started to talk. "How are you-"
"Nemi!"
"Sanemi!"
Both of them turned to the front to find Genya holding a woman that seemed to be around his height, maybe even less than his younger brother, but either way, the gasp of the woman and the fact that Sanemi sat up from the bench to run towards them was enough to tell Giyuu that they where relatives.
Maybe it was her sister.
"Kaa-san!" Giyuu blinked, tilting her head to look at the so-called mother.
"Oh Sanemi I'm sorry, I should have gone in your stead," She said while cupping his face, being careful not to hurt him as she looked at the wound. All red and more purple than the color of his eyes. "You should have told me he was still asleep so that I could have carried him-"
"Kaa-san, I'm fine," Sanemi held his mother's hands. "I had more strength and you need to take care of Shuya."
"No, I knew it would have been dangerous yet I was too careless-"
"Kaa-san! But then you would have gotten hurt even more than me."
"Even so! You would have such a bruise on your face now!"
Well now she knew where he had his persistence from.
As both mother and son kept talking about who should take the blame or not, Giyuu went back inside the pharmacy to ask for Masachika's medicine.
There, he saw the doctor still treating the old man's wound, who was still unconscious from the hit.
I didn't kill him right? She didn't remember cracking him that hard, maybe it was just the drunkness.
"Ah, Tomioka kid, they sure did a number on him didn't they?" The doctor said, a chuckle falling out from his mouth as he saw the injury.
"Uh huh…" Giyuu gulped, hiding a lie as always.
The fight obviously didn't last long.
Just right after she had stopped his hand, he tried to shove her away, but with her anger still controlling her mind, she shoved him up closer to her and punched his skull the exact way he had punched Sanemi.
After that he just laid there on the floor, making her regain her senses and panic. The three promised to not say anything about who or what did it.
"Tch, this man, it's always either him or his wife that comes here every time."
Intrigued at the doctor's words, Giyuu asked. "Why?"
"Oh? Are you not familiar with them?" She shook her head. The doctor kept going. "He is really hated around here you know, so there are times he would come in bruised or have others beaten to a pulp after going to the bar. It's quite rare for him to be fully knocked out considering how strong he is, they must have kicked him with some kind of metal." She avoided his eyes again.
"How often does he go?" Giyuu said, her eyes looking back outside as she heard a small laugh come from one of the kids, it was Genya telling something embarrassing that seemed to make Sanemi pout.
"As long as he had money, then every day. And if he wasn't fighting in the bar, he would be hitting his wife and kids."
"What?!"
Giyuu was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and just say that his drunkenness must have caused it this time to hit his kids without knowing who they were.
"Here, this medicine will work for your friend."
She took a deep breath in or else she would have broken the constant breathing yet again.
"Mn, Thank you."
"Thank you. Have a nice day." He smiled.
It hurt to pay the doctor for the man's injuries, but she had caused it and should have the blame for it. Although the doctor did silently give her a small discount for the medicine since that old man deserved the punch after seven years of the constant abuse her wife suffered.
"Hey, Nee-san, how strong are you?" Giyuu blinked as she was given back the boxes that Genya had been holding on to. A grin was plastered on his face as he waited for her answer.
"Ah, quite."
"I wanna be strong like you! Can you teach me? Please please please!"
Not once has Giyuu ever interacted with Genya in the dream, so she was worried as to what kind of person it would be.
"He was kind of mean at first but I managed to befriend him! I also have a tooth from him though he doesn't want it back. I wonder what I should do." Tanjiro's letters depicted him to be mean, was he as mean as his brother?
"Mn, It took me years to become strong."
"Oh! That's alright! I can wait!" Giyuu patted the boy's head, such an energetic energy, it reminded her of Nezuko in a sense.
"I also want to hunt demons!" She flinched, taking her hand away as the boy looked at her confused. She still wasn't able to answer Nezuko and Tanjiro once they told her they wanted to become demon slayers.
Remembering the letters, she doubts Sanemi would even want that, and the frown on his face as he walked up behind Genya to hit him lightly in the head also proved her point.
"Ah! Nemi!"
"Let's go now."
"But Nemi don't you want to be strong?" He didn't say anything in return. Instead Sanemi looked over to her.
"Thank you for the help." Then left with the others, his mother also asking who she was as her purple pale eyes looked over to her on a few occasions.
___
He opened his eyes to the sight of a bed and the doctor Satoko arranging some medicine in his cabinets again.
"Where?..."
"You were brought back here again, though be careful since the wound on your head hasn't healed yet." He said, the back facing him only for his head to turn around at the sound of the foot heading farther away.
It didn't matter really, the girl already paid. Satoko sighed as he watched the man sway in his footing, not drunk as before but rather sick since he hasn't thrown up the alcohol he had from today.
His grey eyes turned back to the sight of his cabinets once the man was gone, gasping at the sight of the empty cabinet.
"Here I thought I had enough." He muttered under his breath, gathering a quill and paper to write the things he needed again
"At least Kibutsuji-san will come next week, so there is no need for me to be worried so long as no one gets hurt this week."
____
"Morning..." Masachika said as he put his hand over his belly, still not being able to stand a lot due to the dizziness in his head. Although the pain almost stopped as he smelled the soup coming from the kitchen.
"You should have just made the udon if you were so good at it."
"I brought it."
Masachika cracked a small laugh, earning a small hit to his head making him even more dizzy.
"Ah, and here, from the pharmacy."
"Thank you~" Masachika said as he grabbed the food and medicine before heading back again to his room.
"Say, how did the patrol go?"
"The demon isn't anywhere as far I've seen, though it's still better if we were to keep this place on the lookout."
"How so? Is it because of the marechi kid?"
"... You remember that…" She heard the laugh coming from the other room.
"Yes," Giyuu sighed, maybe she should stop talking like before, or else the others might think she is crazy.
"Then it will be better to tell Oyakata-Sama or the Kakushi so that they can put some wisteria around the place."
"How long will that take?"
"A week probably."
Then she will just have to stay here for a week, it doesn't sound bad at all, once she delivers the message to Oyakata-Sama then he will do the recruiting just like he had done with Kanroji in his past life and Iguro a year ago. He was great at convincing people to his side after all, which was something Giyuu was impossible at just by words alone.
"Caw! Caw! Kamado letter! Makomo letter! Ubayashiki Letter! Caw!" The exhausted bird said he flew to Giyuu's head, making a nest for himself that made her snap out of her thoughts.
Too many letters in just one sitting, she almost wanted to leap of joy, but she knew that she had to be focused instead as these letter weren't just from anyone but rather the people who had a lot of work in their hands, and if any of them had encountered a problem then it could be devastating to her too.
First she started with her family, the one that seemed bigger than the others.
Before she could open the letter, Giyuu had noticed how colorful it was, and very decorated too, filled with drawings of flowers everywhere. A small smile made her way, these were definitely Nezuko's and Tanjiro's drawings.
-
Nee-san, good morning!
Nezuko and I wrote this because we started learning to write now.
Takeo can now read with Nezuko.
Also Shigeru can crawl.
We want to see Nee-san soon.
Bye bye!
-
Everything was so messy but it seemed as though Kie had been strict on them about their calligraphy since there wasn't even a stroke left, hopefully they hadn't wasted a lot of paper. Everything was written in hiragana it seemed. She flipped the letter to find another small handprint of Nezuko, before safely putting it back in the envelope and reading the other.
-
Giyuu dear,
I hope you are eating well these past few days. The more time passes the less we get to see you and the more I fear that your siblings won't remember their sister unlike us. So I hope one of these days you can return to us at least for a meal.
On the other side of things, Tanjuro has gotten less sick now, and it just so happened that his dance has also been perfected to the best of its abilities, one that I only remember his father doing when I was just a young girl.
It's quite amazing, he seems more lively, almost as if his body had never been affected even though the signs of a fragile body are still there. And as much as he spends more time playing with the kids and teaching Tanjiro the Hinokami Kagura, he too also wishes to greet you again.
Best wishes Giyuu. We'll pray for you.
-
The page was wet by a single tear, one that Giyuu quickly cleaned before the rest tried to flow in.
Thank you, thank you for not taking Otou-San away from me too.
Giyuu put the paper away, heading to the second envelope, a letter to Oyakata-Sama. And quite the rare one too since he seemed to always give his messages by crow.
-
Tomioka Giyuu, my child.
Congratulations on your promotion to Hinoto, it truly is an amazing feat for someone of your age to advance the ranks at such speeds, I'm proud. Be sure to come to the state so that your rank is changed.
Now for the real reason as to why I wanted to write to you.
Even with just a few petals of the blue spider lily, our doctor has made wonderful progress about their origins as well as the roots for blood demon arts. It seems that they are close to finally discovering a new method of digestion for demons instead of relying on pure human flesh too.
However there are still a lot of things which are unknown. For this reason, since you know how the blue spider lily works, then I wish for you to help them in whatever they can.
A week from now, Tamayo shall visit you, so I need to know where you will be.
Sincerely Ubuyashiki.
-
This was all but great news for her, and if a doctor who specializes about demons where to come then she could also examine the Shinazugawas siblings in case another one of them could be a marechi or a half demon like their brothers.
With the smile still on her face, she read the next letter.
-
Hello again little Giyuu~.
We might have problems.
From Makomo.
-
She read the page again and then turned it around, nothing. That was it.
This could mean a lot of different things and she was sweating about all of them.
Meanwhile Giyuu had a stressful thinking session, two people had encountered a problem in the Fujikasane mountain.
With Iguro being knocked out, his snake trying to wake him up, while Sabito kept his stance up against the demon.
"Lucky me~ Lucky me~ If it hadn't been for the little girls killing that hand demon I wouldn't have gotten my fair share of meals in the last final selection~ uhehehe."