Chapter Text
Why was I born, Yorichii?
The thought follows him to the afterlife. It rattles inside his mind, both violent and horrifically demure and brings his knees to the floor.
Why was Tsugikuni Michikatsu born? He looks down at his hands – human for the first time in centuries – and wonders.
There is nothing here in this afterlife. No flames of hell nor loved ones to greet him. Nothing but black abyss and his own human visage. A perfect place for Michikatsu to end.
He was the first twin, but the meaningless, useless one. The one who left nothing but scorch marks across the flesh of humanity, who laid fallow and never bore crop nor fruit no matter the eons that passed.
Rotten, useless, wasted thing. There was never a reason for him to exist.
Michikatsu's chest twists in on itself as the truth drives stakes into his core.
“Aniue.”
The voice startles him from his reverie. He forgot what it sounded like somewhere along the long winding path of his demon life. But still, he recognizes it instantly.
Michikatsu looks up.
And meets the warm gaze of his brother. Yorichii stands in front of him, looking down upon his kneeling form and something in Michikatsu burns.
A smile, small and just like the one he had when they were kids, curves at Yorichii’s mouth.
“You were born to be happy.”
#
Kokushibou awakens to light; it bleeds red into his eyelids and trails warm fingers across his skin. He opens his eyes.
The brightness consumes his vision, and it takes too many seconds to blink it away. And then… And then…
Blue.
He is staring up at the sky and it is a sweet pale blue. White and yellow clouds cut across the expanse of it and Kokushibou’s mind stalls at the sight. This is– this is daylight. He hasn’t seen this in centuries.
He must be dead, he thinks. This must be the afterlife.
It’s beautiful. And that’s not right. This could only be heaven and Kokushibou belongs in hell. Something ugly stirs within his ribs.
There is a breeze, soft and crisp and cold. It plays with his hair and carries the scent of blood and destruction on its back. Hunger rises and the beast within perks.
And that makes him pause. Dead things do not feel hunger. Dead things do not desire to hunt, to satiate the need for food. The dead do not yearn for blood.
Kokushibou sits up. And stops.
There is rubble all around. Fallen and crumpled buildings line what remains of a street. And Kokushibou sits right in the middle of it.
Sunlight gleams off of errant puddles of ever darkening red. And it’s interesting, the way blood looks so different in the light of day. Meters away, a mangled arm sits under a fallen wall, crushed. And the more Kokushibou looks around, the more bodies he can make out littered around, some intact and others torn to pieces, all red and bloodied and pale with death.
He must still be alive.
Odd.
All six of his eyes blink.
Ever so hesitantly, Kokushibou pushes himself up to stand. Taking in his condition, he cannot stop the small huff from escaping his lips. His kimono is still torn up, the remains of it dangling uselessly off of where his hakama is tied around his waist. And his sword and sheath are gone.
He returns his focus to the world at large. The only humans in his immediate vicinity are dead, killed by something monstrous, no doubt. So he turns to his other senses, expands his awareness outwards, more and more and then– oh.
Someone is approaching.
Racing steps run towards his direction, and the scent of bleeding human closes in. Kokushibou looks to the way they come from and waits.
Morning birds chirp and crows cry their raspy calls.
And then the human comes. They stop in front of him, eyes wide and heart squeezing blood through their veins at an increasingly rapid rate, frantic.
A demon slayer.
#
They put him in a prison beneath the ground. Kokushibou lets them. He doesn’t know why, just knows that he doesn’t have a reason not to let them do so.
The hunger is not too strong right now, and with Muzan dead, he has no reason to pursue the destruction of the demon slayer corps.
He has nothing now. No reason to keep going or do anything. He just is. Just exists. A man out of time, a man without a legacy.
So he simply stays in the basement prison.
Its walls are made of nichirin steel and are lined with wisteria. The foul scent of those flowers permeate the air around him and block his senses from the outside world. There is a great steel door, barricaded from the outside, that leers at him, teasing and asking for him to try to escape. He pays it no mind.
He will leave if he so desires. He stays by his whims alone.
It is quiet here, cold and dilapidated and void of any furniture or comfort – near pitch black save for the oil lamp that hangs in the corner. A perfect place for him to look within without any distractions.
So he thinks.
He thinks about his past and his human life. He thinks about his sons and his last remaining descendent and his wife. He thinks about Muzan’s outstretched hand, his promise of power and eternity, and he damns himself for taking it.
Mostly, he thinks of Yorichii.
“ You were born to be happy.”
Was that really him? Or was it a mad delusion conceived in a half dead state?
Born to be happy, what a ridiculous notion. Life is not so simple as that. It turns and twists and bends and plunders on and on with little regard to emotions. They matter little in the grand scheme of things.
But still…
Something about those words make Kokushibou ache.
So he sits and he thinks and he waits.
Waits for the reason he was spared from death.
#
He doesn’t know how much time passes before the first visitor arrives. Time is strange to Kokushibou, moving both too slow and too fast for him to measure without the assistance of the stars. And here in this square, empty room, there is no way for him to map out its passage.
But suddenly the quiet is split in two by a rattle outside the door. Kokushibou looks to it.
Then there is a knocking. It’s not an intrusive sound, but a polite one, someone asking for entrance or attention.
Kokushibou blinks.
“...Yes?” He says.
A loud, metallic clanking rings out, and then the door pushes open.
A child enters.
It is a young boy, with shoulder length hair and peculiar purple eyes. Behind him, on either side of his shoulder and towering over his small stature, are two men. One an elderly man in an oni mask and the other a slightly unkempt Rengoku, both with swords at their hips.
Kokushibou pauses.
The yellow and red eyes and hair are just like he remembers, just like every flame he has come across, and the sight fills him with the same pang of bitter nostalgia. He itches to grab for a sword. To be rid of this reminder of his past.
He stands and faces them.
The door closes shut behind the humans.
And the child stops a meter away and speaks, “I apologize for waiting so long to see you, Former Upper Moon One. The demon slayer corps is busy recovering from our battle against Muzan, and we did not have the time to address you until now.”
The child offers no affect of fear or emotion. He remains an oddly stoic and still being in Kokushibou’s presence.
“That is… understandable,” Kokushibou says to the child, he must be the one in charge, “What is the reason… for your visit?”
“I have a few questions for you.”
“I see.”
It must be enough of an answer, because the child dives right into his questions. “How did you survive?”
Kokushibou cocks his head, “I… do not know.”
“Do you intend to continue to eat humans?”
Another pause, “I do not know.”
That elicits the faintest flicker of feeling from the child, something dark and too reserved to graze the face of such a young thing.
“There is a cure that will turn demons into humans. We are out of samples, but more is being made,” The child levels out after a moment, “Will you take it?”
A… cure?
There is a cure?
Kokushibou stalls. The thought that he could become human again never entered his consciousness, was something he never considered possible. Would he want that? What if the slayer mark stays? Would he take it only to die shortly after?
Thoughts, one and then another and another, rise and ricochet about his mind, cacophonous and frantic. His heartbeat rises and his breath draws in ever so faintly sharper and a rage blooms from something dark and deep within.
His hands clench to fists.
“... I do not… know,” He relents.
The child nods. “I see,” He says, “Thank you for answering my questions.”
And with that, he turns and leaves.
The two men follow after, but the Rengoku stalls for a second. He looks Kokushibou up and down briefly, assessing, before following after the others.
The door closes behind them and Kokushibou is once again alone.
#
In his isolation, Kokushibou continues to think.
There is, it seems, much to think about now; so even as time continues to pass in its strange, warbling way, he does not grow empty minded.
And then a knock on the door drags him from himself. It’s a quick, lazy sort of tapping, two clicks of the knuckles and that’s it.
“Demon,” The voice that sounds out from behind the door comes from below, as though the person it comes from is sitting on the floor just on the other side of it. It is gruff, male and aged enough to belong to neither a young man nor a particularly old one.
Kokushibou blinks all six eyes.
“I have… a name.” He says.
“I forgot it,” The man on the other side of the door says, unbothered, “I’ve been guarding your cell for awhile now.”
“How long?” Perhaps he may get a semblance of how long it has been since he saw the stars.
“Two months.”
Ah. “That… is not long.”
The human scoffs, “Do demons always go so long without talking to anyone?”
That is an odd question, but it makes Kokushibou ponder. He brings a curious hand to his chin, “I do not know… if it was normal… for others beyond myself.”
“So it’s normal for you?”
“Yes.”
The human makes an odd noise at that, something guttural and thoughtful. But he does not respond.
Kokushibou does not attempt to speak further. And so the silence returns.
But now aware of the company, Kokushibou can pick up the very faintest signs of life beyond the door – a sense of the barest hint of a temperature change, of a human scent, ones so small he didn’t notice them before. But it is proof.
He is not alone.
For two months, there was someone on the other side of the door.