Chapter Text
To say that Tamayo is worried would be like saying that Muzan is a little evil. Quite the understatement.
Worry and dread are Tamayo’s constant companions. They’ve been around even before Muzan turned her into a monster, back when she wondered if she would ever live long enough to see her beloved children grow up.
Years later, when her hands became covered in her children’s blood, hatred became her third most familiar feeling. Towards Muzan, herself, it doesn’t really matter in the end. Hatred has become one of her most loyal companions.
Tamayo feels her heart stop as she notices how the illusion that has kept them hidden for so long vanish until their home appears in plain sight once more.
And then Tanjirou and the others arrive, bruised and blooded with no Yushiro in sight, and Tamayo feels her heart break all over again, before her entire being shakes with another feeling she knows all too well.
Tamayo isn’t one to feel anger easily.
It’s just so hard, so tiresome, to be angry. Even more so when you’re a demon. After centuries walking Japan, seeing humans die of diseases and of old age, it all seems irrelevant. Those persons who are disrespectful are humans, they will die regardless of what she does, so why stay angry?
The only one who managed to win her eternal hatred and anger is Muzan.
And yet. Despite all of this, Tamayo blinks away her tears, looks at the broken cup in her hands and at Giyuu’s clenched fists, and realize that the growing feeling in her stomach isn’t sadness or tiredness or pity, but anger.
She is furious.
The Demon Slayer Corps has always generated mitigated feelings in her. On the one hand, they are the only ones standing against Muzan, fighting and fighting despite the time and the deaths following them. Truly, even if she is a demon, it is hard not to admire such dedication.
On the other hand, they hurt Yoriichi.
It seems like such a small thing, in the grand scheme of things. Why does the banishment of one slayer matter so much to her? Why, when he lived a long life even after being chased away?
He was the key, the one who could have saved them all - the one who saved her.
The years following the fight between Yoriichi and Muzan were strange and incredible. She was free, she could fight back – even if it took time, even if she had to modify her own body to keep escaping him – and all thanks to a single, broken man.
Tsugukuni Yoriichi lived a long, miserable life, haunted by failures that weren’t his and by a guilt that should have never been put on his shoulders.
After meeting this slayer with empty eyes and with a gentle heart, after he helped her get settled as a doctor, she watched this being, a god among men, wither away as the monster called Muzan hid and hid like the coward he was.
“They told me I should kill myself for this,” Yoriichi once told her, after they could finally call each other friends, and it was one of the only times that Tamayo wanted to make a human bleed.
Her saviour's despair, her friend’s emptiness – how could she ever forgive the ones who pushed him away?
But now. Tomioka’s eyes, so similar to Yoriichi’s in their sadness, stare at her, guilt written on his features, another slayer chased away for doing the right thing. Her fangs pierce her lips, a growl growing in her throat but hastily pushed down.
She cannot allow this to continue.
“Tomioka-kun,” she says, and grips his hands. Her skin is pale, almost white next to his, and her sharp nails could easily pierce his skin. Yet, the former Hashira doesn’t pull away, only sending her a desperate glance.
There’s trust, in this simple gesture, and it reminds her so much of Yoriichi that it aches, her friend long gone but still dearly missed.
“Tomioka-kun,” she repeats, more firmly this time. “We’re going to get him back.”
She won’t settle for anything else.
Guilt is a familiar feeling for Tanjirou.
It’s been following him for a long time. It started small, when he couldn’t help his father as much as he wanted – You’re too small, Tanjirou – and when he couldn’t sell enough charcoal to buy the food he wanted. It became an almost physical weight ever since he found his family cold and bloody in the snow, his sister a demon and their lives utterly destroyed.
These last months, that guilt kept getting heavier and heavier as people risked themselves to save him. Giyuu, who felt everything behind to protect Nezuko and him. Zenitsu and Inosuke, who followed him even though he did nothing for them. Tamayo, who worked hard to find a cure for his little sister.
And now Yushiro, who willingly faced demon slayers to save them.
Everyone is always saving him, and it feels like Tanjirou has done nothing besides being a burden to pay them back.
He just can’t do anything right. Every time he tries, something breaks and hurts someone he loves.
(A broken sword and a broken family – the ones he loves most lying cold and bloody in the snow. How do you move past that? How are you supposed to keep going after something like that?)
And so he lies in his futon, unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling. His body aches, but that's nothing compared to the pain Tamayo must be feeling after losing her oldest friend.
Losing her friend, as if Yushiro were—
No. Don’t think about it.
To his right, Nezuko is also lying on her futon, silent and motionless, reminding him of the two years he spent training with Urokodaki.
A gasp to his left startles him, and Tanjirou takes his eyes off the ceiling and turns his head towards the person lying next to him, and feels his heart plummet to his stomach.
Giyuu is no longer lying down, sitting on the futon and staring at the wall with empty eyes. Tanjirou notes with dread that his shoulders are shaking. Upon catching Tanjirou’s eyes, Giyuu turns away, but not fast enough to hide the way his hand wipes his eyes. A muffled sound slips from his throat — not quite a sob, but close.
Tanjirou hurriedly pushes his blanket aside, kneeling next to his companion and hands hovering over Giyuu, unsure whether his touch will be welcome or not.
“Giyuu-san?”
At first, only silence answers him, heavier than a silence should ever be, before it is broken by a soft voice.
“It’s my fault.” Giyuu whispers, and the words are so strange, so confusing, that Tanjirou takes a few seconds to reply in horror.
“Of course not!”
But Giyuu doesn’t seem to be listening.
“I’m sorry.” he whispers, and Tanjirou watches horrified as the man in front of him breaks.
Giyuu’s cries aren’t loud – that’s the worst part. It is as if he’s afraid of being heard, of being seen, and it fills Tanjirou with so much sadness and anger that he feels like he could burst from it.
It’s all so unfair. How can life be so unfair?
“Please,” he tries to speak, voice hoarse, “Please don’t say that. Don’t ever speak of yourself that way.”
The former Hashira doesn’t answer, keeping his face buried in his hands now, silent tears slipping through his fingers. His chest rises and falls in unsteady bursts. Giyuu doesn’t even seem to hear him, as if stuck in his own world. Tanjirou doesn’t know what to do upon seeing the one who gave everything to help him and his sister collapse this way.
“Giyuu-san,” he says, “I’m sorry. This is my fault, please don’t cry-”
The former Hashira shakes his head violently, as if Tanjirou’s words physically pain him.
“No, no,” he whispers, blinking away his tears and meeting Tanjirou’s own wet eyes, “Don’t say that please, I’m begging you. Don’t say that.”
He can’t stand this – seeing his saviour, his brother in all but blood, blaming himself when he had done everything right, is unbearable. Tanjirou grabs Giyuu's wrists, unable to remain still in front of such a sight. Words escape him, but that doesn't stop him from showing his love in another way.
Despite himself, tears stream down his face, and Tanjirou can't help but hug Giyuu, hiding his face in his shoulder.
He does not know how long they remain like this, crying together, but after a while, a third person approaches them and embraces them.
Nezuko does not speak, but her arms cover those she calls brothers as if she could protect them from the outside world.
Surrounded by his family, Tanjirou allows himself to breathe.
We can get through this, he thinks, We’ll get through this.
They fall asleep like this, hugging each other, and Tanjirou feels as if the ghosts of his family are watching over them.
It is two days later, when they are in a deep discussion on what would be the best way to break into the Corps Headquarters, that things take an unexpected turn.
The room is quiet – too quiet, especially since they’ve gotten used to having someone screaming. Zenitsu, Inosuke, Yushiro – always fighting for one reason or another. It used to exhaust Giyuu, and now he would give anything to hear Yushiro’s complains.
The map on the table is a mess even though it’s brand new, smudged with fresh ink and wrinkled. Circles and symbols clutter the margins, most of them scratched in without care – Giyuu has never been a good writer, and he stopped caring about what his writing looked like a long time ago. Drawing the map of the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters from memory could have been a challenge, but Giyuu was a Hashira for years, and despair has a way to motivate in ways rarely expected.
Tamayo sits at the head of the table, staring at the map with a blank face. Her voice is steady, but her eyes don’t lift from the page.
“We’ll have to act fast. Even if they’re not planning to kill him, they won’t take long to act.”
“That Hashira said they were under orders not to harm us.” Zenitsu points out, then frowns. “Well, he said they were ordered to “be nice”, whatever that means.”
Tamayo purses his lips. “His word means little.”
Her voice remains soft, but there’s a touch of harshness in it that none of them has ever heard before.
Inosuke shifts where he stands near the door, arms crossed. “Let’s just barge in and take him back.”
His voice is muffled, both by his mask and the bandages covering him. They’re all bandaged – the fight with Upper Moon Six, while leaving them with no permanent injuries and in better state than the fight with Upper Moon Three, still took a toll on them.
But this time, they can’t afford to rest – not when one of them was taken.
“Getting in isn’t the main problem,” Zenitsu points out with a grimace, “It’s getting out that’ll be the hardest. All of them will be on the lookout for us, remember? There’s no way we can leave without being noticed.”
It’s a good point, and Giyuu frowns. Getting in without being stopped is possible – they still have their old uniforms, and though their faces and hairs are pretty recognisable, there are ways to work around it. Finding Yushiro and escaping with him will be another story entirely.
But before they can dwell on it further, there’s a knock on the door.
Giyuu glances at Tamayo before asking. “Were you waiting for a patient?”
The demon stares at the door with a frown.
“No. No one should know we’re here – Yushiro’s blood art kept the manor hidden, and even though it vanished, past visitors would have trouble finding it.” Tamayo tells them, frowning. “I thought we would be safe for some time still, it’s only been a few days after all. The death of an Upper Moon should have kept attention away from us.”
A strange and uneasy silence falls as they all stare at each other.
Inosuke scoffs before striding towards the door, soon followed by a panicked Zenitsu.
“Wait! Inosuke, you don’t know who it could be-”
The boar-masked boy doesn’t seem to be interested by his friend’s worries and slams the door open. As soon as he does, Zenitsu’s voice stops as if struck speechless, and Giyuu hurries to join the two boys at the entrance.
He doesn’t know what he expected, but it isn’t the ordinary if short old man standing before him.
He is not someone that Giyuu recognises, but Zenitsu looks at him as if seeing a ghost, paler than Giyuu has ever seen him – which is saying something, considering Zenitsu’s penchant for dramatics.
And then he notices the sword on the old man’s hip, and his shoulders tense.
A demon slayer? He thinks, alarmed, but he doesn’t move yet. Even if he is, Giyuu has no doubt that he won’t cause a problem when all of them are here.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Zenitsu says, bewildered. “Am I dreaming?”
The old man scoffs. “Have some faith, brat! Did you truly think I wouldn’t come for you once I received your letter?”
Zenitsu pales so quickly that Tanjirou grips his arm as if afraid to see him faint. It paints quite the picture, since Tanjirou also looks close to fainting himself.
Giyuu doesn’t understand why until Nezuko runs past him and tackles the man who has been standing behind Zenitsu’s old teacher in a hug. By the time his eyes fall on the familiar man standing before him, he himself feels like fainting with how fast his heart starts to beat.
Urokodaki’s mask is the same, hiding his emotions, but the way he hugs Nezuko is incredibly soft. That has not changed, and even though his face is hidden, Giyuu can feel his kindness as he stares at his students – if they can even still call themselves that.
“Apologies for disturbing you.” the former Water Hashira bows, and Tamayo stares, mouth slightly open. Urokodaki’s scent of smell is just as incredible as Tanjirou’s – he has to know that the woman in front of him is a demon, but he doesn’t seem worried or surprised to see her with his students. “But I believe we have a lot to talk about, yes?”