Chapter Text
It was a mistake.
Like a missed punch to the chest, striking but not killing; like an off-balanced kick, strong but messy; like the nick of a blade to the throat, far too close and far too lucky.
Awkward, juvenile, overconfident. A mistake.
Akaza made plenty. When toying with prey that squealed, the back-and-forth batting of little mice that consumed every part of his broken glee and cracked smile, until he became as much a pawn to the game of chase as his food.
Distractions, he called them.
Ludicrous petulance, Master always retorted.
The boiling blood that followed, heated by the coal-furnace that ignited the very depths of Master’s glare, was by no means a mistake. Not when the pressure mounted behind his eyes and between his ears, not when everything around one breath and another grated like ten thousand versions of the single, perfect claw pointed his way. Mistakes made the performer crumble and bleed and die. Master was never anything less than exact, and the torturous blood he sent spraying from Akaza’s nose and mouth and eyes every time was done meticulously, seriously, and intentionally. Master did nothing but excel.
Akaza did nothing but disappoint. In front of the six eyes of Upper One, they all blurred with the same disheartened lines, where with every action out of step on Akaza’s part smudged the hope that respect would be obeyed. Below Master, expectations were constantly crushed, exploded and annihilated, then shallowly repurposed, reformed and restored through small missions that sent him running after his own tail. Each turn brought it further away and forced Akaza into an endless, dizzying loop—a whirlwind, where the wind itself was at a disadvantage against the world it was restrained within. Finally, to the reflection that frowned down from the moon, from the still lakes, from the polished steel of deadly blades. Wasp-gold eyes and stone-sharp teeth stung and bit through the only part of himself that failed time and time again to heal. Mushy, breakable, weak. Every failure carved itself anew into an endlessly bleeding soul with the promise that each strike would be the last.
A mistake, yet it filled him, however briefly and delicately, with indescribable peace. What was a mistake if it brought a moment of joy?
Akaza went to see the fireworks.
The first sound of the night shattered the dew-frozen air. The clap was familiar; a bomb, a piece of thunder, a landslide of boulders breaking apart the village nearby. The seconds after were foreign; no screams, no stampede, no death. Humans were as puzzling, as inconsistent, as adaptive as they were weak. They were cruel and greedy and most definitely cowardly.
With the absence of scampering mice, Akaza itched to find if there was even a cat present to cause disarray.
Another explosion shook the rain-clogged leaves and the shivering branches. He looked up when he neared and watched as a flash tore through the retreating clouds and splattered the blackening-grey sky with red and purple and green. The sound, deafening in its proximity, was forgotten.
His eyes traced the lights as they curved and fell and faded out, picturing them dancing through the sky when all they left behind was streaked darkness. Hungrily, he searched for the next round. His desperation was satiated the moment more streaks flew, wings expanding to the very border of stars, predictably going off again and again in a flock of dazzling explosions.
Humans climbed the roofs of their houses, the ledges of their fences, the summit of their hills, with the hope of seeing more. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Akaza copied them. The tallest tree became his house, the branches his ledge and the topmost of the canopy his hill.
Sticky sap and pine needles clung to his palm as he clung in turn to the thin bark. His weight bent the tree and the slightest of shifts made it tremble under the strain, but when the next firework broke the sky, he wasn’t worried about falling. He wasn’t worried about anything. The display frazzled his brain, muddled his thoughts, warmed his heart, as it always seemed to do. His hand twitched with the feeling of something brushing past and he rubbed at the side. There was no sap, no needles, nothing but the gentle tease of wind. Somehow, his hand felt warmer.
He breathed in, deep enough to fill his lungs with wet dirt and musky plants and crisp campfires and—
Human. Close, closer than any that muddled and gawked and cheered inside the barricades of their village, and far sharper than the average weakling of their species. He twisted around, one hand gripping the treetop as he leaned out. The tree complied with his tug, bending and bending until it threatened to snap, and he stopped leaning to scope the ground below.
He let his compass expand outward, pinpricks springing up along his arms as his needle switched direction as fast as his mind allowed. One person’s spirit to another, it sprang around and around and around, zeroing in first on a single aberrant. Then, as Akaza turned and caught sight of red and green fabric lurking in the shadow, a second spirit flared.
In time with the next firework, he broke free of the tree, panic clearing out his mind instantly, and found himself caught in a rushing free-fall. The thunderous thought that questioned the person’s ability to sneak up behind him was shot the moment his legs shattered against spongy earth.
The pinpricks stretched down to his shins as the bones mended, there and gone in a flash when he was forced back on his feet to evade a slashing katana.
Deep blue eyes tracked each stumbling step Akaza took, expression unfazed, sword centred once again. Emotionless, stoic, fearless—not an average slayer facing impending death.
Just his luck to have run into a Hashira. He grinned, teeth hurting with the anticipation for a good meal at last.
“Almost caught me there,” Akaza beamed, widening his stance and raising his fists. “Show me what else a strong fighting spirit can do.”
Like his prey always did, the Hashira tensed and tightened the grip on his sword, silently unnerved. Akaza let his needle fix itself on the man and soaked in the even-headed way his spirit remained the same.
Oh, the fun he would have pushing it to its limits.
Akaza threw the first punch. His strike slashed through the air, curving as an arrow with a fixed mark, followed quickly by more when the first was parried.
The Hashira moved efficiently, quickly, like rain in a torrential storm, and his blade even more so, spurred on by wild rapids so different from the wielder’s demeanour.
With a giddy laugh, Akaza danced away, blocking with arms that were sliced just as well as they sliced themselves. With every step back he took, the man followed with one of his own. The blood that sprayed the ground was a minor detail. Grass slick from the earlier downpour, moon hiding behind its wall of clouds and firework smoke, the added liquid hindered nothing of the fight. They circled around trees and shrubs, burrows and rocks, graceful beyond the twirl of feathers in the wind.
“That’s it, you’re getting there!” Akaza goaded as his chest was sliced from shoulder to hip.
The Hashira frowned with gritted teeth.
‘There,’ Akaza thought as he took another step back. ‘Finally, some emotion.’
With a sharp jab, the katana licked through the markings on his cheek, fraying them clean in half. Another found the blade whistling for his jaw, crunching against bone and bouncing off when the joint didn’t give. With the force of the rebound, the Hashira spun on his heel and brought his weapon streaking right around. Sharper than a dime on its edge, the nichirin swept through Akaza’s forearm with a clean chill, and continued at such a speed that the Demon hastily bent his other elbow upward. Hardening his muscles, forcing the quick regeneration of bone over the laceration, he halted the blade so abruptly the cold splash of wind taunted his neck.
His fun almost cost him another tally on the mistake tablet. If Master decided to hone in on Akaza’s mind, the punishment for yet another drawn-out victory would be most severe.
Choking down a huff, he locked the grin painfully to his face and spoke through drawn lips, “No matter how many times any of you twirl your little swords, the result will always be the same. Humans can not best Demons. You are too weak, Slayer, and I must finish this up quickly.”
Sometime during the fight, the show had the stopped, and the forest rested anew in the absence of trembling sparks. Despite the promise of a strong meal and the certainty of being spared at daybreak—a win of the grandest honours when it came to Master—irritation chewed up his excitement. What point was there to even be here if the fireworks were no longer present. Such marvels, wasted on a stronger weakling.
Akaza growled from deep in his throat and lunged. Just as his hand formed a blue fist that rattled with frustration, his death compass swivelled with a pinging sensation.
A mistake, more awkward, more juvenile, and more overconfident than dropping his guard in the face of fireworks. Akaza dropped his guard during a fight where death took the shape of a misstep, a misfire, or a missed presence. He forgot the Hashira that had managed to sneak behind him at an impossible height.
For that, a thin blade went straight through his chest between one blink and another. He stumbled sideways, feet slipping on kicked-up mud, balanced knocked askew from the slightest of twists.
Heat streaked down his abdomen and up his throat, burning and charring with every inhale, though no fire tinged the grass with ash.
Knees wobbling, vision greying, he latched onto the damned blade—paper thin, smaller than a child’s hand—and snapped it with searing palms. The wounds closed slower than blood dripped, pooling into the hem of his pants until the river’s sourced mended itself.
Standing on the patch of flattened grass he’d left behind, shoulder to shoulder with the stone-faced Hashira, triumphant purple eyes and a tight smile jeered at him for his stupidity.
“My apologies.” She dared lather her words in nectar, wings of fabric unraveling as she extended an arm like some freakish butterfly. “But we have no intention of letting you leave this forest.”
His mind pulsed, anger-bloated and seething. Her spirit was weak in comparison to the boy beside her, as frail as her body and her sword. How dare she even think that her and her comrade could stop Akaza’s victory. Grinding down on his teeth with a snarl, Akaza charged.
The tree line blurred, his compass flickered, and then he was skidding to a halt, dizzying fog coating his brain. “The fuck is this?” he spat, tongue heavy, words slurred, hand pressing to his eye.
Thin eyebrows sprang upward, stretching her face away from the little smile that changed in no way at all. A mocking light flashed in the depths of her lilac eyes, so similar to the flowers that had swayed and waved and teased on a fruitless goose-chase for something grander.
“Oh my,” she said, voice high and carefree. “It seems you have managed to tire it, Tomioka. Good job!”
Disoriented, Akaza did not notice when she rushed forward, wings fluttering, until her hand sprang forward just before his face.
‘Move,’ his mind screamed, but already a scratchy cloth was cupping over his nose and mouth, forcing his head back and his body down where it writhed against drowsy-shackled limbs. A sweet scent burned down his nostrils; a musky taste lathered itself at the back of his throat. He bucked and panicked and gasped when his lungs seized and closed and begged for untainted air. Feverish sweat coated his arms, the back of his neck, the skin of his forehead where a too-warm hand held him down.
He coughed once, twice, guttural and deep against the fragrance of wisteria leaking into his saliva. The cloth remained no matter the threat of sharp teeth and productive heaves.
Above, silhouettes blocked the deep-green canopy, leaving two gaping holes that gouged out the moon.
Akaza thrashed, but nothing in those shadowy blurs moved, and eventually he lost feeling in extremities that were once so easily felt.
“That’s it, Demon,” the sweet voice of flowers said. The shadow loomed and expanded and covered far more efficiently than any firework before. His eyes fluttered and his ears buzzed with the sound of restless crickets and beetles nestling in his head. “Nice and easy. No need to make this anymore difficult for you when you wake up.”