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Blood leaked onto the ground, soaking into the dirt and dead leaves, leaving the ground damp and sticky. It clumped against Kyojuro’s face, in his hair, and it itched. Why did he care that it itched? There was blood gushing from a gash in his chest, and he focused on the fact that it itched.
Well, it did, and it was more annoying than the pain. Kyojuro was used to the pain of injuries, ultimately. But this itch… Dirt and leaves and blood—Gods, it was irritating.
Or maybe he’d lost too much blood, and his thoughts were further gone than he realized.
That might also be why he wasn’t trying to get up. Why wasn’t he trying to get up? He needed to stop the bleeding, he needed to get to a doctor, if he lost much more, he was going to pass out, and then—
Well, no one was going to find him out here in the woods. He’d bleed out and die.
Was this seriously how he was going to die?
No, because he was going to get up, and get the itchy dirt and blood off his face and out of his hair.
His eyes are slipping shut… His uniform is plastered to his chest with it, melding with the gore of the wound. It might have to be cut off…
Get up.
Kyojuro grit his teeth, attempted to move his limbs, but they refused to obey him, heavy and sluggish, and why wasn’t his body listening to him?
It was just a slash across the chest. He’d suffered far worse injuries, and the demon responsible hadn’t even been difficult to kill. Kyojuro had just been caught off guard when it attacked, slicing fearsome talons across his chest. But then… those claws had ripped into still tender wounds.
The wounds Akaza left.
Shinobu had warned against missions by himself. She’d insisted he wasn’t ready, that the injuries could still flare up, and restricted his movements and stamina more than he realized. He’d claimed it was fine. After all, what better way to recover than to get back in the swing of things? Facing a demon, even one any other member of the Corps could handle, would be good for him!
It would prove…
It would prove he could still do this…!
Except now he was bleeding out, alone, on the forest floor next to the corpse of a disintegrating demon.
He’d survived Akaza, but this was going to be what killed him?
How pathetic…
His eyes slipped shut, and a metallic tang bubbled up his throat. Even the incessant itching began to fade, the sharp pains in his chest dulling to blunt aches. The dirt wasn’t soaking up the blood quick enough anymore, leaving it to pool around his limp body.
He was going to die here.
Strangely, he felt very calm about the whole situation. After all, how many times had Shinobu and the other Hashira told him he technically should have died after his battle with Akaza?
Should have died…
Should have…
The itching vanished.
Died.
Someone was moving him. The world spun, tree branches and stars all swirling together in a horrible mixture that left him nauseous. His eyes fluttered, but refused to stay open, heavy, just like the rest of his body.
So, so heavy. Who was moving him? Lifting him up like he weighed nothing.
A weak laugh worked its way up his throat. He was so heavy he couldn’t even move himself right now.
“The hell is wrong with you?”
Did Kyojuro know that voice? He thought he did, but he couldn’t place it. The arms lifting him up were strong, and he thought he might have been pressed against someone’s chest. His fingers twitched, and finally he was able to coax his arm into moving, shifting and weakly pressing it against the person’s chest.
Hm. For a brief moment, he’d wondered if Mitsuri was the one who carried him. It would explain the familiarity, and she could probably lift him with ease…
But that was definitely a man’s chest. Not Mitsuri’s.
Odd. Maybe Tengen…?
“Kyojuro—”
His hand drifted up further, finding the person’s sharp jaw, their lips. He couldn’t definitively say it wasn’t Tengen, but that didn’t feel right…
“How much blood did you lose?”
Kyojuro pried his eyes open, only growing more confused when he saw familiar, eerie yellow eyes peering down at him, cracked and splintered like shattered porcelain. Those were demon eyes… Those were his eyes.
Was Akaza carrying him?
Well this was an interesting development. He should be bleeding out on the forest floor. Why was Akaza stopping that?
No, this couldn’t be right.
Kyojuro shoved his fingers into the supposed demon’s mouth.
“Hey!”
Fangs pricked against Kyojuro’s bloodied fingers, and they certainly felt real enough, but none of this was adding up.
Akaza jerked his head, forcing Kyojuro’s fingers out of his mouth. “Stop that! What the fuck, Kyojuro?”
Well, whatever was happening, he couldn’t do much to stop it, and his limbs were growing numb again. Anything had to be better than dying alone in the woods, so whether he was hallucinating, going mad, or the demon really had picked him up for some reason, perhaps Kyojuro should just let it happen.
His head lolled against Akaza’s chest, and his eyes slipped closed.
There was a hand in his hair, soft, gentle, as it ran through the locks, detangling them. How long had it been since someone other than himself had touched Kyojuro’s hair? His mother used to brush it when he was younger sometimes, but other than that… Even after he’d grown his hair out, no one had taught him how to take care of it, how to style it. It had been a lot of trial and error.
So this was… strange, to say the least.
But not unpleasant. Definitely not unpleasant. It felt… nice. Was this why Mitsuri always preened about Shinobu helping her with her hair in the mornings? If someone playing with his hair always felt this nice…
Kyojuro leaned into the hand with a satisfied hum.
The hand paused, fingers tangled in the roots of Kyojuro’s hair, much to his disappointment. Why had they stopped?
“Kyojuro…?”
Kyojuro’s eyes snapped open, because he knew that voice. It’d haunted his dreams ever since that battle, the days— weeks of bedrest, waiting for those horrific injuries to heal.
And they still hadn’t.
“Kyojuro—”
Why the hell was Akaza here? Why had Akaza been touching him? Gently? He scrambled up, resolutely ignoring the searing pain in his chest, and the blood soaking into the bandages wrapped around him.
Who had put bandages on him?
His hands scrabbled for his sword, scraping against the floor of the abandoned, rundown house he’d found himself in, but the blade was nowhere near him. Instead, it was propped against the opposite wall.
With a pained groan, Kyojuro forced himself to his feet, biting his tongue to keep down a sob. He would not cry in front of this demon. He would grab his sword, and finish what he should have on that battlefield.
“Kyojuro, you’re going to make the injuries worse.” Akaza’s arms wrapped around Kyojuro’s waist, with a familiarity he did not understand or appreciate.
“Don’t touch me!” he hissed, wrenching himself out of the demon’s hold, but his precarious balance couldn’t handle the abrupt movement, and he tumbled to the floor. Splinters from the brittle wooden floor bit into his palms.
A deep growl thrummed from Akaza’s chest. “You were going to bleed out and die if I hadn’t been there, Kyojuro.”
“Why were you even there?” he demanded, whipping around to face Akaza.
His lip curled up in the beginnings of a snarl, though Kyojuro couldn’t read any of the emotions on his face. His arms were crossed, and he looked just as he had the night they’d fought. Just as brutal, just as… beautiful, in a deadly way.
“Gonna finish me off?” Kyojuro held a hand to his chest, cringing at the blood soaking through the bandages and tattered remains of his uniform. At this rate, he was going to pass out from blood loss again, and with his previous injuries still not completely healed, he knew he didn’t stand a chance in hell against Akaza.
It didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to slice the monster’s head off, even if his sword was still several feet away.
“If I wanted you dead, I would have left you to bleed out.” Akaza backed away a pace to lean against one of the sturdier walls of the house. “Why did you let a demon as weak as that get the better of you?”
Anger ignited in Kyojuro’s gut, and the pain dulled as he shot to his feet.
He ignored Akaza’s gaze going to the blood dripping onto the floor.
“It is only because of you that I am in such a compromised physical condition!” Kyojuro shouted, his hands curling into fists.
What did Akaza want? Why save his life, after doing his damndest to snuff it out before?
Become a demon, Kyojuro!
Akaza ripped his focus away from the blood on the floor, to instead stare at the bandages on Kyojuro’s chest. “Why did the Corps send you on a mission if you are still injured?”
“Why do you care!?”
“Because you were going to let yourself die back there!” Akaza shouted, something akin to panic flaring to life in his eyes. “You never lost your hope during our battle, your Fighting Spirit never wavered, so what happened?”
Kyojuro scoffed and turned his head away. “I’m not answering any questions you ask me! If you want to fight again, let’s fight again!”
“I don’t want to fight you if you’re just going to use it as an excuse to die!” Akaza snarled. “I want nothing to do with a battle like that. And you—you—” The demon bared his teeth. “You gave up, and you let another demon defile the scars I gave you!”
What…? What?
Was Akaza jealous? Jealous that another demon might have finished what he started? Of course, Kyojuro knew demons were territorial, coveting beings, and he had seen those instincts apply in strange ways over the years, but this was… It was—
“Fuck you!” he spit. “You almost killed me! You don’t get to be upset that someone else got to finish what you failed to do!”
Akaza lurched forward, any gentleness he had shown earlier vanishing. “I am not upset that another demon nearly killed you! I am upset that you nearly let it!” He reached his hand out, like he wanted to touch Kyojuro’s face. “You—”
Kyojuro slapped his hand away. He’d already almost died once. So what if Akaza lost his temper and killed him? Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe Akaza would follow him around until he finally took that chance, until he got what he wanted and was the one to finally end Kyojuro. “What I do has nothing to do with you. Either fight me and kill me, or move on! Why were you here?”
Kyojuro was no fool, and he knew that Akaza was not here by mere coincidence. It had been a random, low level mission from the Corps, that, admittedly, Kyojuro should not have even been on, because Shinobu was not convinced he was far enough along in his recovery to be on active duty again. Akaza had been here because he sought out Kyojuro, for some god forsaken reason, and he’d stumbled upon him after that demon had landed a strike against his old wounds. Akaza had carried him away, had bandaged his wounds, and had combed his fingers through his hair.
Why?
“Because I do not want you to die!” Akaza shouted. “Why else would I have left you alive on that battlefield? And as soon as you were able, you went off and tried dying again!”
Kyojuro scoffed and turned his head away. “It’s not that I want to die, but what is the point in being alive if I’m not helping others? Even if it means I die, I need to fight, I need to protect, I need to—”
“You need to live!” Akaza took another step forward, leaving barely inches between them. “Why are you so convinced you must die in order to be worth something? I think you’re amazing, but only because you are alive.”
Kyojuro blinked, his mind going blank as he tried to comprehend the words that had just came out of the demon’s mouth. “What…?”
Akaza huffed, shook his head, and backed off. “Forget it. You’re hopeless, Kyojuro. Be careful of your wounds as you return to the Corps.” He turned on his heel, walking towards the door halfway clinging to the hinges as if Kyojuro wasn’t there at all.
“What?” Kyojuro repeated. Akaza was leaving. Leaving. As if Kyojuro wasn’t anything at all, like Akaza hadn’t just told him he was amazing.
Akaza waved over his shoulder, nonchalant. “See you around, Kyojuro. Do try not to die without me around.”
Kyojuro’s hand drifted to his chest, to the bloodied bandages that had been wrapped around his wounds by a demon.
What the hell had just happened…?
“Akaza—!”
Akaza didn’t so much as look back as he left, and with Kyojuros wounds, he had no hope of keeping up with the demon.
With a heavy sigh, Kyojuro stumbled over to grab his sword. He needed to get back to the Butterfly Mansion so someone could give him actual stitches, and replace the soiled bandages.
And he could worry about whatever the hell that had been later.