Building Up the Ruins: Part 2
Category: Demon Slayer
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Dimension Travel
Rating: Teens
Summary:
Giyuu is transported to a world where Sabito lived.
There's just one little problem: Giyuu can't speak.
Sabito buys a rope and knots Giyuu’s wrists behind his back right before they reach the Ubuyashiki Estate. When Giyuu tugs, his skin burns.
“They won’t be happy if they see you walking free.” Sabito is not looking at Giyuu. He hasn’t looked at Giyuu in the eye since they began their shamble down Mt. Kumotori, though he sometimes glanced at him, frowning deeply, when Giyuu was focused on something else, like untangling his hair from its hemp cord or plucking burs out of his kimono.
Two days ago, Giyuu had tried to usher Sabito towards a ramen shop, because they’d been eating nothing but dried fish and rice balls and he thought Sabito’s mood could have been improved by something hot and toothsome. But Sabito curled his lip at the shop and said, “We’re not here for pleasure, and I’m not indulging you.”
They enter the courtyard. Butterflies are swarming the bushes, looping around the trees. One weaves out of Sabito’s way as he marches Giyuu towards the Pillars, who are gathered by the porch. Giyuu notes with mild surprise that, barring himself, the lineup is identical - he realises he had expected that one or two Pillars would be different, that Makomo herself would be donning the gold buttons. Perhaps she refused the position for some reason he cannot place. She must still be high in the ranks.
Rengoku bellows a welcome, the afternoon sunlight haloing his hair. Once, after his death, when Giyuu had been getting salmon daikon, the whiskered man on the seat next to him proclaimed, “Delicious,” and Giyuu got up and scampered away, leaving his bowl three-quarters unfinished.
Everyone’s eyes are on Sabito. Almost everyone wears a smile or half smile. Tengen rocks Sabito by the shoulders and Sabito says, “I’ve told you a hundred times not to do that,” but does not bat Tengen’s hands away.
Tengen laughs. “I’ll still be doing it when your hair’s all fallen out.”
Giyuu shrinks against a nearby pine tree. He had rarely initiated conversation with the other Pillars, and brushed off their attempts to speak to him; after a while they stopped inviting him for after-dinner drinks. “It’s only right,” Giyuu thought to himself.
Shinazugawa swaggers up to them and puts his hands on his hips. “Thanks for the delivery, Sabito. I get dibs on cutting off his head.”
“My crow should have told you that we’re here to talk,” says Sabito, rolling his shoulder. It cracks. He must have slept during their travels, but he’d be meditating when Giyuu nodded off at night, and staring into some elsewhere when Giyuu woke. Whether it was from insomnia or suspicion, Giyuu does not know, but he felt guilty and ended up sleeping only in fits and starts himself. Now his eyes are burning.
Shinazugawa grips the hilt of his sword. “What’s there to talk about? He hindered a Pillar and defended a demon. Or did your crow deliver the wrong message?”
Sabito rolls his shoulder again, looking past Shinazugawa.
Shinazugawa turns to Giyuu. “This pansy-ass looking bastard gave you a hard time? We should demote you.” He leans close enough for Giyuu to smell the tea on his breath. “Hear that? The Water Pillar seat might be vacant.”
Not while Sabito lives, Giyuu thinks, a little gleefully.
“What’s the matter? He stupid or something?”
Giyuu reminds himself that head-butting Shinazugawa would be beckoning death with a finger. For Tanjiro, he thinks. For Tanjiro.
Sabito says, “He’s mute.”
“Eh? How do you know?”
“I threatened to kill him and he didn’t talk.”
“Maybe you didn’t threaten him well enough.” Shinazugawa unsheathes his blade.
“Shinazugawa,” Kocho warns. But neither she nor anyone else makes a move to stop him.
The Demon Slayer Corps, Giyuu thinks, has a serious empathy problem. He has known it since he joined the Corps, in an abstract, murky way, but the thought first crystallised when almost every Pillar was willing to execute a fifteen-year-old boy without trial, or to watch. Giyuu had stood there, dazed, thinking, Surely not, someone is going to say stop, someone is going to, someone is, and ended up hoping Iguro wouldn’t draw his sword on him.
Shinazugawa crowds against Giyuu, but Giyuu barely shifts his eyes. Shinazugawa never reacts well to displays of fear or hesitation.
“What’s that dead-fish stare?” The tip of Shinazugawa’s blade pricks Giyuu’s shoulder. “The Pillars not impressive enough for you?”
“Stop that,” Sabito snaps.
Shinazugawa rams his blade forward, pinning Giyuu to the tree. Giyuu’s mouth falls open in a silent cry.
Sabito is grasping at Shinazugawa’s haori, shouting at him. He does not push or jostle him, casting a helpless look at Shinazugawa's sword.
Giyuu’s shoulder is a wildfire. The back of his head cracks against the tree trunk. Black dots explode across his vision, and his breath gets shorter with every draw.
Shinazugawa makes a considering sound. He twists his blade, slowly.
Giyuu blacks out.
When he comes to, the sun lances his eyes. His knees scuff the gravel. His back is against the tree. His kimono tacks to him, sticky, warm. Kocho is crouched before him, staunching his wound with Sabito’s haori; she has cut his ropes.
Sabito is red-faced, fisting the collar of Shinazugawa’s uniform. He sounds like he is speaking underwater. “You’re pathetic. Hurting a man who’s already restrained. Have you no shame?”
“So he’s a mute!” Shinazugawa yells, sword still in his hand. “We know for sure now!”
Rengoku’s cheerful holler punches in. “As much as I dislike Shinazugawa’s method, I think it’s a valid one!”
“I. Don’t,” Sabito grinds out, looking like he wants to bash Rengoku and Shinazugawa’s skulls together.
Someone has placed a nail against Giyuu’s head and is slowly tapping it in with a hammer. Kocho is saying, “You’re lucky that your subclavian artery is intact. We’ll get that disinfected and sewn up.” The courtyard spins. “Let’s take you to the infirma - oh.”
Giyuu almost does not catch Ubuyashiki Kagaya being led onto the porch by one of his daughters.
Kocho slings an arm around Giyuu and hauls him to where all the other Pillars are lining up to kneel, and he clenches up to suppress the nausea. It has been a long time since anyone stabbed him through; he had almost forgotten the heat, the blowtorch intensity of it.
He folds on one knee beside Sabito, holding his haori to his shoulder and breathing harshly through gritted teeth. Ubuyashiki must hear him, because he turns to Giyuu and says, “And I assume this is the man who stopped Sabito from killing a demon? Does our intrepid guest have a name?”
Sabito raises his head, and looks like he is about to stand up. “He lied and said - indicated - that he is Tomioka Giyuu, a late friend of mine.”
“Does he look anything like your friend?”
Sabito glances at Giyuu. He says, “Hard to tell. Lots of people with dark hair and dark eyes,” and looks away.
Shinazugawa snorts.
Ubuyashiki’s silence is oppressive in its patience. When Sabito speaks again, he sounds like a man who is certain he will never see the sun again. “Giyuu had a kind face.”
Giyuu’s heart lurches, and he sways. The courtyard is spinning again. In his mind, Sabito holds out a rock and says, Can we bring it back to life?
Ubuyashiki tilts his head. “And you can’t reconcile that with this person.”
Sabito closes his eyes, just for a moment - it could almost be a blink. “I would know Giyuu even if he came to me disguised. I would know him if he came to me a demon.”
The wind has tailed off; sweat creeps along Giyuu’s thighs and throat. The gravel beneath Kocho’s sandals crunches like bones as she shifts. At the edge of the line, Himejima warbles Namu amida butsu and it echoes in the crevices of Giyuu’s teeth.
Ubuyashiki says, “Is that why you think this man was trying to deceive you? Could it not be that that Tomioka Giyuu is simply also his name?”
“Giyuu is not a name I have heard elsewhere.”
A bluebottle butterfly descends on the tip of Ubuyashiki’s ear. Flutters away. “Perhaps it was hasty to rule out the possibility.”
Sabito dips his head, but looks unrepentant.
“Now, then. Mr. Tomioka, was it? It is good to meet you. Hinaki, what is his condition?”
“Bleeding from a stab wound that Shinazugawa seems to have given him.”
“I apologise for the rough welcome, Mr. Tomioka. Are you able to read and write?”
Giyuu nods, and Ubuyashiki Hinaki says, “He indicates yes.”
“Excellent. Shinobu, please have him taken to the Butterfly Mansion to treat his wounds and give him a meal. Once that is done, Mr. Tomioka, I would like to communicate with you regarding who you are and what you know. Hinaki will also be there to interpret for me. This meeting is adjourned.”
Giyuu stands up on legs he cannot feel. The blowtorch is gone, and now he shivers and daydreams of a blanket. He watches as Sabito bows and walks stiffly away, as Tengen and Rengoku come up to flank him, to pester him to join them for the midday meal. “I’m thinking ramen,” Tengen says, and Sabito shrugs.
***
Giyuu conveys everything of importance in writing. He had hoped that Kocho would be able to fix him, but during the checkup, she shook her head. Said that she couldn't identify what caused Giyuu's muteness. That she couldn't fix him.
A neat stack of paper starts to pile up as Ubuyashiki and Hinaki inundate him with questions. Giyuu is itching to pause and ask where Makomo is, but it seems ill-timed, and he would rather hear it from Sabito; he had not raised the topic with him before because every time he touched on something that they must have shared, Sabito tensed as if expecting a slap.
Ink taps onto the page beneath his hand as he hesitates at the Mugen Train incident; if they avoid Rengoku’s death, they will have more firepower in the fight against Muzan, but Giyuu has no way of guaranteeing that it will not somehow make things worse.
“You are doing as much as you can.” Ubuyashiki’s voice is seafoam, but it still knocks Giyuu off-kilter by the ankles. “The corps will decide what to do with the information you supply us with. What happens after does not rest on your shoulders alone.”
Giyuu’s nail scrapes over the handle of his brush. He will grieve Ubuyashiki Kagaya in every reality.
By the time Giyuu wraps up, the sun is touching the treeline.
Ubuyashiki thanks him, and then says, “Hinaki, have some fresh tea brought in. I do not think our guest even touched his cup. And bring Sabito here as well.”
Giyuu’s stitches pull as he jerks.
“Don’t bolt yet, Mr. Tomioka. I know you are tired, but Sabito deserves to be brought up to speed. I’d rather be present when that happens, to prevent him from doing anything rash.”
Giyuu is somewhat embarrassed for Sabito, and then feels foolish for being embarrassed; he is not Sabito’s keeper.
In a few minutes a Kakushi brings a tray of tea, and Sabito follows. His face twitches when he sees Giyuu, but he sits down with his back straight and hands unmoving over his lap. Ubuyashiki urges him to drink some tea.
“I don’t want any, thank you.”
“It is a good blend. From Uji.”
Sabito’s eyes dart between Ubuyashiki and Giyuu. He takes a sip of his tea as though it is spiked with a sedative.
Ubuyashiki says, “Much is to be relayed to the Pillars and the rest of the Corps, but for now, a formal re-introduction is in order. Sabito, this is Tomioka Giyuu - the very one of your childhood. He comes from a different world, where you died on Mt. Fujikasane. Of that world, he is the late Water Pillar.”
Sabito’s hands jerk, and tea sloshes across his trouser leg. Outside, crows shriek into the sky. “That’s a lie,” Sabito says. He keeps blinking, like there is something in his eye.
“I’m afraid that, after communicating with him, I cannot provide a good explanation as to how this gentleman knows that Sanemi’s favourite food is ohagi or that, as a boy, you used to wish your nichiren blade would be red.”
“He could be a spy. You can’t prove that he isn’t one.” He sets his cup hard against the floor.
Ubuyashiki speaks like he knows what your thoughts will be before they form in your head. “True. And you cannot prove that he is one. What is more, he had to have been spying on each of us concurrently for many years. I am inclined to believe Mr. Tomioka.”
Sabito looks at Giyuu for a long moment, the way a man might look at a creature he has never heard of or seen before. His mouth is parted, revealing a slight overbite. Giyuu used to tease him, saying that he liked the warding mask so much because it hid his teeth when he smiled or laughed. Sabito never wore it when he was around just Giyuu. It was something Giyuu only realised the autumn after Sabito died.
It is easy to hold Sabito’s gaze. He imagines Sabito embracing him. If Sabito says his name, what will its texture be now? He used to say “Giyuu” like he was holding something close.
Sabito stands up. He is blank-faced as he stumbles out of the room onto the porch. Ubuyashiki calls after him. Giyuu watches him go, unable to make himself reach out and try to stop him.
Hinaki brushes his forearm briefly with her fingers, as a comfort, perhaps; he cannot remember her ever touching him before.
One cup of tea later (forced onto him by Ubuyashiki), Giyuu slumps into the room he has been assigned at the Butterfly Mansion. He opens the sliding door that leads to the garden to let in the pine-scented air, puts away the briefcase with the fountain pen and blank notebook that Ubuyashiki had presented him, and collapses onto his futon. He has been exhausted for days, but now that he has time and is not affected by Sabito’s rhythms, he cannot sleep.
He watches the last of the light fade across the wall. Someone outside his room calls to say she has his dinner. He gets up and it takes a moment for his knees to unlock. When he opens the door, a Kakushi holds out a tray, and Giyuu nods a thanks, but feels like she is standing on the lip of a cliff an ocean away, where he cannot touch her.
In the morning he wakes before dawn. Inside his left shoulder are a hundred centipedes and they are all eating at his flesh. He tries to go back to sleep, but can’t, so he wraps himself in one of the fresh kimonos from the cabinet, picks up his briefcase in case he runs into someone, and steps outside. He lumbers around the mansion, once, twice, and then his feet start to carry him along a familiar path, and he vaguely thinks, No, don’t go there, but soon he finds himself at the open gates of the Water Pillar Estate.
In a clearing, Sabito is slicing off the heads of wooden training dummies, and he is a moving painting against the pale pink hydrangeas - the sort Makomo used to compose haiku with unnecessary detail about - planted along the walls. He swirls, and his cuts are sleek and clean. Powerful. Giyuu wonders if Sabito could maintain a fight with Himejima. He wonders if he could win.
Sabito halts mid-swing, tripping a bit, when he sees Giyuu, and pulls his haori - a clean, plain one - closer about himself. “Good morning,” he says, but it sounds less like a greeting and more like an exclamation of surprise.
Suddenly Giyuu’s knuckles are white. Something has been building in him since he landed in this world and is about to split him apart at the joints. He strides up to Sabito, points at the house, and mouths “Talk”. He is owed that much. A small part of him wonders if he is overstepping; another says, This is Sabito. There is no overstepping, but the first part is louder.
Up close, a part of Sabito’s cheek is faintly welted, like he’d scratched at it on and off, and a button on his uniform is askew. “You died quietly.”
Giyuu rears back.
“When the hand demon crushed your spine, you didn’t make a sound. It was all I thought about, after the Final Selection. It was all I thought about for a long time.” Sabito fingers his uniform, where it is buttoned wrong. “I don’t think of it so often now.”
One evening, while sparring with Urokodaki, Giyuu was considering confessing to Sabito that he didn’t even want to become a demon slayer, and did not notice Urokodaki’s bokuto swinging at him. The blow knocked every thought out of his head, and for a few minutes, his tongue refused to even work.
“What did you…” Sabito coughs, a parched, painful sound. “What did you want to talk about? We can go inside and you can write it out.” Polite, but uninterested.
I am, Giyuu realises, being selfish. Sabito has dusted his knees and left Giyuu on Mt. Fujikasane. If Giyuu were a good man, he would have expected him to do so.
Giyuu goes to sit on the porch, takes out his pen and notebook. His arm is numb as he writes.
Sabito’s face shutters when he reads Giyuu’s note. “I’m sorry,” he says, bowing his head. “I wish you a fast recovery.” And he walks away, drifting around a corner, leaving Giyuu with the decapitated dummies and hydrangeas.
I should go, Giyuu thinks, but his legs are sacks of sand. It should feel louder than this, the knowledge that, even with both of them alive, there is no Sabito and Giyuu - just Sabito or Giyuu.
He tears the page out of the notebook, then tears it again, right between where it says You don’t have to make yourself look at me.
Back in his room, he lights a candle and burns the pieces over the flame. A Kakushi brings him breakfast, but Giyuu indicates for him to take it back. He sits at his desk and maps out the places that Tanjiro would have likely gone. He lists out possibilities of what could have happened to him and Nezuko. The process does not take enough time; by afternoon he is chewing on the edge of his thumb.
The days fade and merge together after that. Giyuu asks Kanzaki if he can help in the maintenance of the Butterfly Mansion, and Kanzaki, looking like she is reluctant to shift her focus away from the sickle hare’s ear she is grinding, appoints him as junior inventory clerk. Thenceforth, half his day is dedicated to stock checking along with the girls, and the other half goes to learning sign language. He has a knack for it, but suspects it will not ease his life overmuch; Ubuyashiki has mandated sign language education for the Pillars, but no one else, and the majority of people will not understand him, even in the big cities. He keeps his notebook and pen close.
When Ubuyashiki first gave him the items, Giyuu had thought that most of the pages would be filled with things meant for Sabito. But Sabito never comes by, and Giyuu never visits the Water Pillar Estate, and they do not bump into each other when Giyuu takes his morning walks.
In a way, Giyuu thinks, he has been offered clarity, like a straight path lit with sunlight: there are no more “what ifs”, which are always the worst part of anything. Sabito has made his choice, and there is nothing for Giyuu to do but accept it and focus on finding and retrieving the Kamado siblings.
And what after that? his mind whispers to him. He tells it to shut up.
His shoulder throbs in the midst of his stock counting and he curses; if it weren’t for the wound, he could have started searching for Tanjiro and Nezuko by now. The thought of failure makes him seize up, and he draws deep breaths like Urokodaki taught him.
Before dinnertime, he asks Kocho how long it will be till he recovers enough for a solo mission.
Her smile is the same as ever: sweetness glazed over condescension. Giyuu has almost missed it. “It’s been a couple of weeks since we patched you up. You can go now if you hate yourself, but I’d recommend a minimum of six more weeks.”
Giyuu signs now, even though the idea of changing his dressing every day while travelling makes him grimace, and Kocho shrugs. “You still need permission from the Master. I can ask him, if you’d like.”
A day later, Ubuyashiki calls Giyuu to his mansion, requesting him to bring his notes. Hinaki sits at his side. “Kocho told me you made plans to find the Kamado siblings. I appreciate you taking incentive, although I personally feel that you should stay here and recover while we send out teams.”
Giyuu signs no. He is anxious to retrieve them, even if he knows others are on the case. He has to do something about it himself. He has to. He imagines eggs in his fists and tries not to break them.
He had originally intended on going back to Mt. Kumotori and the village in the valley to ask around, but decided that that was too optimistic. Visiting Tamayo in Asakusa is one of his more hopeful bets, and it is best if he goes to her in person rather than sending some quaking junior slayer who has never encountered a demon capable of restraint.
Ubuyashiki says, “I am assigning a Pillar to accompany you. Forgive us, but our trust in you does not extend so far as to allow you to go on your own. What’s more, you may have difficulty communicating with people.”
Giyuu ducks his chin. He had been looking forward to the sanctuary of a solo job. He does not want to fumble before the other Pillars again, does not want to watch as the openness in their faces shrinks. Right now, he has the (fraying) excuses of shock and recovery to sequester himself, but he will not have any when he and someone else are together on the road for weeks, perhaps months. And if he deprives the corps of necessary firepower and Muzan decides to strike -
Sabito sits down on his knees beside them. His hair is ruffled.
Giyuu had not seen him enter. He looks sharply at Ubuyashiki. Why is he putting Sabito in a position he clearly does not want to be in? Sabito will end up hating Giyuu if he is forced to be around him, and Giyuu doesn't know how he would react to that - doesn't know how he would cope. His shoulders hunch forward; the urge to get up and leave makes his fingers tingle.
Ubuyashiki declares that they should discuss Giyuu’s notes. Giyuu hands them over to Hinaki; the papers have side notes scribbled everywhere, lines crossed out, corners blotched with inaccurate outlines of prefectures.
They seal the plan. Giyuu’s kimono sticks to his back. He hopes that the junior slayers being sent out to hasten the process will be safe.
Sabito scratches his wrist. He seems to do it subconsciously; Giyuu cannot picture him finding the action appropriate in front of the Master. He says, in a careful, controlled tone, that he should get his new sword within a week, that he and Giyuu will be able to leave on schedule. It sounds like a door snicking shut.
As they walk out into the garden, Giyuu skims a hand across Sabito’s elbow. When Sabito turns to him, Giyuu signs, “I’m sorry,” and then folds his arms against his stomach, strokes along the soft fabric of his kimono. He wonders if an apology is not what Sabito wanted, but cannot think of anything else he could have conveyed.
Sabito’s jaw sets. His shoulders are pushed back. Strong. He says, “I take missions with pride. I’ve never refused one.”
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Dimension Travel
Rating: Teens
Summary:
Giyuu is transported to a world where Sabito lived.
There's just one little problem: Giyuu can't speak.
Sabito buys a rope and knots Giyuu’s wrists behind his back right before they reach the Ubuyashiki Estate. When Giyuu tugs, his skin burns.
“They won’t be happy if they see you walking free.” Sabito is not looking at Giyuu. He hasn’t looked at Giyuu in the eye since they began their shamble down Mt. Kumotori, though he sometimes glanced at him, frowning deeply, when Giyuu was focused on something else, like untangling his hair from its hemp cord or plucking burs out of his kimono.
Two days ago, Giyuu had tried to usher Sabito towards a ramen shop, because they’d been eating nothing but dried fish and rice balls and he thought Sabito’s mood could have been improved by something hot and toothsome. But Sabito curled his lip at the shop and said, “We’re not here for pleasure, and I’m not indulging you.”
They enter the courtyard. Butterflies are swarming the bushes, looping around the trees. One weaves out of Sabito’s way as he marches Giyuu towards the Pillars, who are gathered by the porch. Giyuu notes with mild surprise that, barring himself, the lineup is identical - he realises he had expected that one or two Pillars would be different, that Makomo herself would be donning the gold buttons. Perhaps she refused the position for some reason he cannot place. She must still be high in the ranks.
Rengoku bellows a welcome, the afternoon sunlight haloing his hair. Once, after his death, when Giyuu had been getting salmon daikon, the whiskered man on the seat next to him proclaimed, “Delicious,” and Giyuu got up and scampered away, leaving his bowl three-quarters unfinished.
Everyone’s eyes are on Sabito. Almost everyone wears a smile or half smile. Tengen rocks Sabito by the shoulders and Sabito says, “I’ve told you a hundred times not to do that,” but does not bat Tengen’s hands away.
Tengen laughs. “I’ll still be doing it when your hair’s all fallen out.”
Giyuu shrinks against a nearby pine tree. He had rarely initiated conversation with the other Pillars, and brushed off their attempts to speak to him; after a while they stopped inviting him for after-dinner drinks. “It’s only right,” Giyuu thought to himself.
Shinazugawa swaggers up to them and puts his hands on his hips. “Thanks for the delivery, Sabito. I get dibs on cutting off his head.”
“My crow should have told you that we’re here to talk,” says Sabito, rolling his shoulder. It cracks. He must have slept during their travels, but he’d be meditating when Giyuu nodded off at night, and staring into some elsewhere when Giyuu woke. Whether it was from insomnia or suspicion, Giyuu does not know, but he felt guilty and ended up sleeping only in fits and starts himself. Now his eyes are burning.
Shinazugawa grips the hilt of his sword. “What’s there to talk about? He hindered a Pillar and defended a demon. Or did your crow deliver the wrong message?”
Sabito rolls his shoulder again, looking past Shinazugawa.
Shinazugawa turns to Giyuu. “This pansy-ass looking bastard gave you a hard time? We should demote you.” He leans close enough for Giyuu to smell the tea on his breath. “Hear that? The Water Pillar seat might be vacant.”
Not while Sabito lives, Giyuu thinks, a little gleefully.
“What’s the matter? He stupid or something?”
Giyuu reminds himself that head-butting Shinazugawa would be beckoning death with a finger. For Tanjiro, he thinks. For Tanjiro.
Sabito says, “He’s mute.”
“Eh? How do you know?”
“I threatened to kill him and he didn’t talk.”
“Maybe you didn’t threaten him well enough.” Shinazugawa unsheathes his blade.
“Shinazugawa,” Kocho warns. But neither she nor anyone else makes a move to stop him.
The Demon Slayer Corps, Giyuu thinks, has a serious empathy problem. He has known it since he joined the Corps, in an abstract, murky way, but the thought first crystallised when almost every Pillar was willing to execute a fifteen-year-old boy without trial, or to watch. Giyuu had stood there, dazed, thinking, Surely not, someone is going to say stop, someone is going to, someone is, and ended up hoping Iguro wouldn’t draw his sword on him.
Shinazugawa crowds against Giyuu, but Giyuu barely shifts his eyes. Shinazugawa never reacts well to displays of fear or hesitation.
“What’s that dead-fish stare?” The tip of Shinazugawa’s blade pricks Giyuu’s shoulder. “The Pillars not impressive enough for you?”
“Stop that,” Sabito snaps.
Shinazugawa rams his blade forward, pinning Giyuu to the tree. Giyuu’s mouth falls open in a silent cry.
Sabito is grasping at Shinazugawa’s haori, shouting at him. He does not push or jostle him, casting a helpless look at Shinazugawa's sword.
Giyuu’s shoulder is a wildfire. The back of his head cracks against the tree trunk. Black dots explode across his vision, and his breath gets shorter with every draw.
Shinazugawa makes a considering sound. He twists his blade, slowly.
Giyuu blacks out.
When he comes to, the sun lances his eyes. His knees scuff the gravel. His back is against the tree. His kimono tacks to him, sticky, warm. Kocho is crouched before him, staunching his wound with Sabito’s haori; she has cut his ropes.
Sabito is red-faced, fisting the collar of Shinazugawa’s uniform. He sounds like he is speaking underwater. “You’re pathetic. Hurting a man who’s already restrained. Have you no shame?”
“So he’s a mute!” Shinazugawa yells, sword still in his hand. “We know for sure now!”
Rengoku’s cheerful holler punches in. “As much as I dislike Shinazugawa’s method, I think it’s a valid one!”
“I. Don’t,” Sabito grinds out, looking like he wants to bash Rengoku and Shinazugawa’s skulls together.
Someone has placed a nail against Giyuu’s head and is slowly tapping it in with a hammer. Kocho is saying, “You’re lucky that your subclavian artery is intact. We’ll get that disinfected and sewn up.” The courtyard spins. “Let’s take you to the infirma - oh.”
Giyuu almost does not catch Ubuyashiki Kagaya being led onto the porch by one of his daughters.
Kocho slings an arm around Giyuu and hauls him to where all the other Pillars are lining up to kneel, and he clenches up to suppress the nausea. It has been a long time since anyone stabbed him through; he had almost forgotten the heat, the blowtorch intensity of it.
He folds on one knee beside Sabito, holding his haori to his shoulder and breathing harshly through gritted teeth. Ubuyashiki must hear him, because he turns to Giyuu and says, “And I assume this is the man who stopped Sabito from killing a demon? Does our intrepid guest have a name?”
Sabito raises his head, and looks like he is about to stand up. “He lied and said - indicated - that he is Tomioka Giyuu, a late friend of mine.”
“Does he look anything like your friend?”
Sabito glances at Giyuu. He says, “Hard to tell. Lots of people with dark hair and dark eyes,” and looks away.
Shinazugawa snorts.
Ubuyashiki’s silence is oppressive in its patience. When Sabito speaks again, he sounds like a man who is certain he will never see the sun again. “Giyuu had a kind face.”
Giyuu’s heart lurches, and he sways. The courtyard is spinning again. In his mind, Sabito holds out a rock and says, Can we bring it back to life?
Ubuyashiki tilts his head. “And you can’t reconcile that with this person.”
Sabito closes his eyes, just for a moment - it could almost be a blink. “I would know Giyuu even if he came to me disguised. I would know him if he came to me a demon.”
The wind has tailed off; sweat creeps along Giyuu’s thighs and throat. The gravel beneath Kocho’s sandals crunches like bones as she shifts. At the edge of the line, Himejima warbles Namu amida butsu and it echoes in the crevices of Giyuu’s teeth.
Ubuyashiki says, “Is that why you think this man was trying to deceive you? Could it not be that that Tomioka Giyuu is simply also his name?”
“Giyuu is not a name I have heard elsewhere.”
A bluebottle butterfly descends on the tip of Ubuyashiki’s ear. Flutters away. “Perhaps it was hasty to rule out the possibility.”
Sabito dips his head, but looks unrepentant.
“Now, then. Mr. Tomioka, was it? It is good to meet you. Hinaki, what is his condition?”
“Bleeding from a stab wound that Shinazugawa seems to have given him.”
“I apologise for the rough welcome, Mr. Tomioka. Are you able to read and write?”
Giyuu nods, and Ubuyashiki Hinaki says, “He indicates yes.”
“Excellent. Shinobu, please have him taken to the Butterfly Mansion to treat his wounds and give him a meal. Once that is done, Mr. Tomioka, I would like to communicate with you regarding who you are and what you know. Hinaki will also be there to interpret for me. This meeting is adjourned.”
Giyuu stands up on legs he cannot feel. The blowtorch is gone, and now he shivers and daydreams of a blanket. He watches as Sabito bows and walks stiffly away, as Tengen and Rengoku come up to flank him, to pester him to join them for the midday meal. “I’m thinking ramen,” Tengen says, and Sabito shrugs.
***
Giyuu conveys everything of importance in writing. He had hoped that Kocho would be able to fix him, but during the checkup, she shook her head. Said that she couldn't identify what caused Giyuu's muteness. That she couldn't fix him.
A neat stack of paper starts to pile up as Ubuyashiki and Hinaki inundate him with questions. Giyuu is itching to pause and ask where Makomo is, but it seems ill-timed, and he would rather hear it from Sabito; he had not raised the topic with him before because every time he touched on something that they must have shared, Sabito tensed as if expecting a slap.
Ink taps onto the page beneath his hand as he hesitates at the Mugen Train incident; if they avoid Rengoku’s death, they will have more firepower in the fight against Muzan, but Giyuu has no way of guaranteeing that it will not somehow make things worse.
“You are doing as much as you can.” Ubuyashiki’s voice is seafoam, but it still knocks Giyuu off-kilter by the ankles. “The corps will decide what to do with the information you supply us with. What happens after does not rest on your shoulders alone.”
Giyuu’s nail scrapes over the handle of his brush. He will grieve Ubuyashiki Kagaya in every reality.
By the time Giyuu wraps up, the sun is touching the treeline.
Ubuyashiki thanks him, and then says, “Hinaki, have some fresh tea brought in. I do not think our guest even touched his cup. And bring Sabito here as well.”
Giyuu’s stitches pull as he jerks.
“Don’t bolt yet, Mr. Tomioka. I know you are tired, but Sabito deserves to be brought up to speed. I’d rather be present when that happens, to prevent him from doing anything rash.”
Giyuu is somewhat embarrassed for Sabito, and then feels foolish for being embarrassed; he is not Sabito’s keeper.
In a few minutes a Kakushi brings a tray of tea, and Sabito follows. His face twitches when he sees Giyuu, but he sits down with his back straight and hands unmoving over his lap. Ubuyashiki urges him to drink some tea.
“I don’t want any, thank you.”
“It is a good blend. From Uji.”
Sabito’s eyes dart between Ubuyashiki and Giyuu. He takes a sip of his tea as though it is spiked with a sedative.
Ubuyashiki says, “Much is to be relayed to the Pillars and the rest of the Corps, but for now, a formal re-introduction is in order. Sabito, this is Tomioka Giyuu - the very one of your childhood. He comes from a different world, where you died on Mt. Fujikasane. Of that world, he is the late Water Pillar.”
Sabito’s hands jerk, and tea sloshes across his trouser leg. Outside, crows shriek into the sky. “That’s a lie,” Sabito says. He keeps blinking, like there is something in his eye.
“I’m afraid that, after communicating with him, I cannot provide a good explanation as to how this gentleman knows that Sanemi’s favourite food is ohagi or that, as a boy, you used to wish your nichiren blade would be red.”
“He could be a spy. You can’t prove that he isn’t one.” He sets his cup hard against the floor.
Ubuyashiki speaks like he knows what your thoughts will be before they form in your head. “True. And you cannot prove that he is one. What is more, he had to have been spying on each of us concurrently for many years. I am inclined to believe Mr. Tomioka.”
Sabito looks at Giyuu for a long moment, the way a man might look at a creature he has never heard of or seen before. His mouth is parted, revealing a slight overbite. Giyuu used to tease him, saying that he liked the warding mask so much because it hid his teeth when he smiled or laughed. Sabito never wore it when he was around just Giyuu. It was something Giyuu only realised the autumn after Sabito died.
It is easy to hold Sabito’s gaze. He imagines Sabito embracing him. If Sabito says his name, what will its texture be now? He used to say “Giyuu” like he was holding something close.
Sabito stands up. He is blank-faced as he stumbles out of the room onto the porch. Ubuyashiki calls after him. Giyuu watches him go, unable to make himself reach out and try to stop him.
Hinaki brushes his forearm briefly with her fingers, as a comfort, perhaps; he cannot remember her ever touching him before.
One cup of tea later (forced onto him by Ubuyashiki), Giyuu slumps into the room he has been assigned at the Butterfly Mansion. He opens the sliding door that leads to the garden to let in the pine-scented air, puts away the briefcase with the fountain pen and blank notebook that Ubuyashiki had presented him, and collapses onto his futon. He has been exhausted for days, but now that he has time and is not affected by Sabito’s rhythms, he cannot sleep.
He watches the last of the light fade across the wall. Someone outside his room calls to say she has his dinner. He gets up and it takes a moment for his knees to unlock. When he opens the door, a Kakushi holds out a tray, and Giyuu nods a thanks, but feels like she is standing on the lip of a cliff an ocean away, where he cannot touch her.
In the morning he wakes before dawn. Inside his left shoulder are a hundred centipedes and they are all eating at his flesh. He tries to go back to sleep, but can’t, so he wraps himself in one of the fresh kimonos from the cabinet, picks up his briefcase in case he runs into someone, and steps outside. He lumbers around the mansion, once, twice, and then his feet start to carry him along a familiar path, and he vaguely thinks, No, don’t go there, but soon he finds himself at the open gates of the Water Pillar Estate.
In a clearing, Sabito is slicing off the heads of wooden training dummies, and he is a moving painting against the pale pink hydrangeas - the sort Makomo used to compose haiku with unnecessary detail about - planted along the walls. He swirls, and his cuts are sleek and clean. Powerful. Giyuu wonders if Sabito could maintain a fight with Himejima. He wonders if he could win.
Sabito halts mid-swing, tripping a bit, when he sees Giyuu, and pulls his haori - a clean, plain one - closer about himself. “Good morning,” he says, but it sounds less like a greeting and more like an exclamation of surprise.
Suddenly Giyuu’s knuckles are white. Something has been building in him since he landed in this world and is about to split him apart at the joints. He strides up to Sabito, points at the house, and mouths “Talk”. He is owed that much. A small part of him wonders if he is overstepping; another says, This is Sabito. There is no overstepping, but the first part is louder.
Up close, a part of Sabito’s cheek is faintly welted, like he’d scratched at it on and off, and a button on his uniform is askew. “You died quietly.”
Giyuu rears back.
“When the hand demon crushed your spine, you didn’t make a sound. It was all I thought about, after the Final Selection. It was all I thought about for a long time.” Sabito fingers his uniform, where it is buttoned wrong. “I don’t think of it so often now.”
One evening, while sparring with Urokodaki, Giyuu was considering confessing to Sabito that he didn’t even want to become a demon slayer, and did not notice Urokodaki’s bokuto swinging at him. The blow knocked every thought out of his head, and for a few minutes, his tongue refused to even work.
“What did you…” Sabito coughs, a parched, painful sound. “What did you want to talk about? We can go inside and you can write it out.” Polite, but uninterested.
I am, Giyuu realises, being selfish. Sabito has dusted his knees and left Giyuu on Mt. Fujikasane. If Giyuu were a good man, he would have expected him to do so.
Giyuu goes to sit on the porch, takes out his pen and notebook. His arm is numb as he writes.
Sabito’s face shutters when he reads Giyuu’s note. “I’m sorry,” he says, bowing his head. “I wish you a fast recovery.” And he walks away, drifting around a corner, leaving Giyuu with the decapitated dummies and hydrangeas.
I should go, Giyuu thinks, but his legs are sacks of sand. It should feel louder than this, the knowledge that, even with both of them alive, there is no Sabito and Giyuu - just Sabito or Giyuu.
He tears the page out of the notebook, then tears it again, right between where it says You don’t have to make yourself look at me.
Back in his room, he lights a candle and burns the pieces over the flame. A Kakushi brings him breakfast, but Giyuu indicates for him to take it back. He sits at his desk and maps out the places that Tanjiro would have likely gone. He lists out possibilities of what could have happened to him and Nezuko. The process does not take enough time; by afternoon he is chewing on the edge of his thumb.
The days fade and merge together after that. Giyuu asks Kanzaki if he can help in the maintenance of the Butterfly Mansion, and Kanzaki, looking like she is reluctant to shift her focus away from the sickle hare’s ear she is grinding, appoints him as junior inventory clerk. Thenceforth, half his day is dedicated to stock checking along with the girls, and the other half goes to learning sign language. He has a knack for it, but suspects it will not ease his life overmuch; Ubuyashiki has mandated sign language education for the Pillars, but no one else, and the majority of people will not understand him, even in the big cities. He keeps his notebook and pen close.
When Ubuyashiki first gave him the items, Giyuu had thought that most of the pages would be filled with things meant for Sabito. But Sabito never comes by, and Giyuu never visits the Water Pillar Estate, and they do not bump into each other when Giyuu takes his morning walks.
In a way, Giyuu thinks, he has been offered clarity, like a straight path lit with sunlight: there are no more “what ifs”, which are always the worst part of anything. Sabito has made his choice, and there is nothing for Giyuu to do but accept it and focus on finding and retrieving the Kamado siblings.
And what after that? his mind whispers to him. He tells it to shut up.
His shoulder throbs in the midst of his stock counting and he curses; if it weren’t for the wound, he could have started searching for Tanjiro and Nezuko by now. The thought of failure makes him seize up, and he draws deep breaths like Urokodaki taught him.
Before dinnertime, he asks Kocho how long it will be till he recovers enough for a solo mission.
Her smile is the same as ever: sweetness glazed over condescension. Giyuu has almost missed it. “It’s been a couple of weeks since we patched you up. You can go now if you hate yourself, but I’d recommend a minimum of six more weeks.”
Giyuu signs now, even though the idea of changing his dressing every day while travelling makes him grimace, and Kocho shrugs. “You still need permission from the Master. I can ask him, if you’d like.”
A day later, Ubuyashiki calls Giyuu to his mansion, requesting him to bring his notes. Hinaki sits at his side. “Kocho told me you made plans to find the Kamado siblings. I appreciate you taking incentive, although I personally feel that you should stay here and recover while we send out teams.”
Giyuu signs no. He is anxious to retrieve them, even if he knows others are on the case. He has to do something about it himself. He has to. He imagines eggs in his fists and tries not to break them.
He had originally intended on going back to Mt. Kumotori and the village in the valley to ask around, but decided that that was too optimistic. Visiting Tamayo in Asakusa is one of his more hopeful bets, and it is best if he goes to her in person rather than sending some quaking junior slayer who has never encountered a demon capable of restraint.
Ubuyashiki says, “I am assigning a Pillar to accompany you. Forgive us, but our trust in you does not extend so far as to allow you to go on your own. What’s more, you may have difficulty communicating with people.”
Giyuu ducks his chin. He had been looking forward to the sanctuary of a solo job. He does not want to fumble before the other Pillars again, does not want to watch as the openness in their faces shrinks. Right now, he has the (fraying) excuses of shock and recovery to sequester himself, but he will not have any when he and someone else are together on the road for weeks, perhaps months. And if he deprives the corps of necessary firepower and Muzan decides to strike -
Sabito sits down on his knees beside them. His hair is ruffled.
Giyuu had not seen him enter. He looks sharply at Ubuyashiki. Why is he putting Sabito in a position he clearly does not want to be in? Sabito will end up hating Giyuu if he is forced to be around him, and Giyuu doesn't know how he would react to that - doesn't know how he would cope. His shoulders hunch forward; the urge to get up and leave makes his fingers tingle.
Ubuyashiki declares that they should discuss Giyuu’s notes. Giyuu hands them over to Hinaki; the papers have side notes scribbled everywhere, lines crossed out, corners blotched with inaccurate outlines of prefectures.
They seal the plan. Giyuu’s kimono sticks to his back. He hopes that the junior slayers being sent out to hasten the process will be safe.
Sabito scratches his wrist. He seems to do it subconsciously; Giyuu cannot picture him finding the action appropriate in front of the Master. He says, in a careful, controlled tone, that he should get his new sword within a week, that he and Giyuu will be able to leave on schedule. It sounds like a door snicking shut.
As they walk out into the garden, Giyuu skims a hand across Sabito’s elbow. When Sabito turns to him, Giyuu signs, “I’m sorry,” and then folds his arms against his stomach, strokes along the soft fabric of his kimono. He wonders if an apology is not what Sabito wanted, but cannot think of anything else he could have conveyed.
Sabito’s jaw sets. His shoulders are pushed back. Strong. He says, “I take missions with pride. I’ve never refused one.”