Chapter Text
“Did you ever consider,” Miroku asks Setsuna once, a year into their fight with Kirinmaru, after he’s resealed her demon powers for a third—or is it the fourth?—time, in the aftermath of a particularly vicious battle, “that when the dream butterfly curse is broken, you may need to make up a lot of borrowed time?”
At the time, Setsuna shrugs it off.
Now, three years later, as Kinmaru finally implodes beneath a wave of their combined power and the dream butterfly dissolves into nothing, she wonders if she should have paid more attention.
-v-
It isn’t supposed to be like this. It shouldn’t be like this—in a reasonable world. She’s given her dreams, all her nights, to her mother. They should be gone forever.
But nothing in life ever goes as you expect, no logic is ever foolproof, especially not in the chaos of the feudal era.
Setsuna might be a half-demon, but she can’t go forever without sleep. The moment the dream butterfly’s spell is broken, she collapses, the built-up debt from so many nights like a weight crushing her to the ground.
She has a faint impression of somebody catching her—perhaps it’s Towa, perhaps Hisui. Someone carries her, huffing faintly with exertion—Hisui, then—and lays her gently on a bed.
-v-
Setsuna dreams.
She dreams of her parents--of her father, watchful, gliding through the forest. Of her mother, trapped in the tree of ages--now awake. Setsuna, my dear Setsuna, look how you’ve grown.
She dreams of the battle with Kirinmaru. In her dreams, she fights him over and over, sometimes with the others, sometimes alone, sometimes with weapons, sometimes without. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, sometimes he laughs at her before he dissolves.
She dreams of the past—her adventures with Towa and Moroha, and before that, training with Kohaku and Hisui to be a demon slayer. She dreams of turning full demon and rampaging through the village, of being sealed by Miroku, of herself and Towa, running through the forest as chidren.
Sometimes, without knowing why, she dreams of Hisui. She has no call to be dreaming about him—it’s not like there’s anything between them—but he invades her dreams anyway. These dreams are more pleasant than most of the others. They’re also more embarrassing, and she would wake up red-faced and blushing—
If she could wake up at all.
-v-
She doesn’t know how long she sleeps.
Only that one day, she is not asleep anymore. The shadows are lengthening; it must be almost dusk; and a familiar figure stands above her, one she recognizes instantly in the absence of the dream butterfly’s spell.
“Father.”
She remembers now—some of it, anyway. It’s still a haze in her head, blurred with the dreams she just lived through—but the pieces are starting to fall into place. Her and her mother and Jaken, on the run after Towa vanished, constantly moving from place to place. Her parents’ pact with the dream butterfly, a last-ditch effort to protect her from Zero. Her father had visited them sometimes, when he wasn’t staying away to keep them hidden, and even when he wasn’t there, she’d sometimes caught his scent and known he was in the area, close enough to come if something happened.
He’d pulled her and Rin out of the fire when she was four.
He’d also taught her how to hunt.
Setsuna forces her eyes open, tries to struggle to her feet. Her father shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, and she falls back, her strength spent. Her nails, she realizes, are no longer pointed; they are human, fully human. She glances down and swallows at the sight of her hair—fully black, no longer tipped with red.
“Did I—” she starts, and then breaks off, assailed with worry. Did I do the right thing, did we all make it through. “Is everyone—”
“You did well, Setsuna. Sleep.”
She relaxes. Her father would not lie to her, so everything must be all right.
She drifts in and out. Voices reach her sometimes, and her eyes flutter open, only for another wave of sleep to drag her down. Normally her weakness would have terrified her, but the voices are familiar, the scents are familiar— Mother, Jaken, Towa, Hisui, Moroha, Father, Kaede. Their voices drift in and out, a steady hum at the back of her consciousness.
When she next wakes, it’s morning, and Towa and their mother are whispering beside her.
“She’s slept for so long. Will she be all right?”
How long have I slept? Setsuna wonders. She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know her nails are still curved, and her hair is still black—human still, but for how long?
Rin’s voice is soft, as though concealing a smile. “She’ll be fine, Towa. Give her time.”
“She’s been human for over a week now. What if she’s—”
“I can hear you, Towa,” says Setsuna, not opening her eyes, and their mother laughs. A hand brushes her hair and she falls back asleep again.
The third time she wakes, Towa is gone, and Hisui's sitting beside her.