💗Horny For Sawft💗

It’s never when you expect — when the weight of his past bears down on him so hard he can’t breathe, or when the number of comrades lost stings more than any superficial cut he carves into his skin. Sanemi’s insecurity means he needs to take back control, and you let him. For however long, in whatever way; anything to push back the shadows in his eyes that never fully go away.

It’s when he feels on top of the world, that Sanemi craves submission. When he’s boastful and invincible, coming fresh off the back of a particularly gruesome fight. Sanemi always wins his battles, but that doesn’t mean he escapes unscathed. In fact, he always comes back to you worse for wear, limping and bruised and with at least three or four new gashes to boot. Always excessive and usually always unnecessary, yet Sanemi wears his battle wounds like oozing badges of honor.

So when he comes limping to your doorway, snowy hair speckled with blood and a feral little smirk on his lips that suggests he took this most recent battle personally — that he imparted far more suffering and pain than he endured, you know Sanemi is feeling extra full of himself.

Which means he needs to come crashing back down to earth. Hard.

And that’s how he ends up under you: panting and grunting, broad hands pinned firmly down against the rumpled blankets of your futon, your fingers vices around his wrists. There’s still blood in his hair, but it’s mixed with sweat not from the ardor of battle, but from the passion with which he bucks up into you. He tries, every so often, to set the pace, but you draw up each time he does; pull up off his cock until only the tip remains inside your entrance and wait. Wait for him to beg. Wait for him to remember he needs to give up that control he so desperately clings to.

“Baby — baby, please —“ his voice is sultry and rough, and it makes your knees tremble. You keep holding still, though, raising one eyebrow in question as you wait.

Finally, he gives in. “Get down here and fuck me right. Please, dammit.”

That’s right.

With a soft smile, you slowly sink back down the thick length of Sanemi’s cock, the two of you moaning in unison.

The pace is easy to pick back up; you’re so wet that it doesn’t take much to have him sliding in and out of you, even if your thighs are quivering with exhaustion. But Sanemi is far more gone than you, his eyes glassy and unfocused. He’s close; already, he’s surrendered his pretenses. Those he left at the door, scattered among the discarded pieces of his uniform. All that’s left for him to do is surrender his restraint to you.

And he does; with a tensing of his arm, signaling his request that you relax your grip. You release one wrist, eyes narrowed in warning even as your lower lip trembles at the way his cock twitches deep behind your navel.

Groaning, Sanemi catches your newly freed hand and brings it to his throat, squeezing once in pleading.

There’s that last white flag you’ve been waiting for.

Your fingers tighten against the sides of his neck in perfect harmony with the circles of your hips; the gentle pulses of your walls around him. When Sanemi moans again, it is not demanding; it is not insistent.

It is only relief.

The muscles and tendons in his neck flex beneath your fingers, but he does not throw you off. He only arches his back a little, lets his eyes slide shut and gives himself over to his undoing, salty pleasure spilling into you fast and hot.

His submission is what brings you over your last line. It spreads through you like honey poured into your veins; a warm, gooey pleasure blooming in your lower abdomen, mixing with your own slickness. Your movements turn lazy, but you ride him through it, the mixture of your combined pleasure squelching out of you, coating your thighs and his groin.

Sanemi’s hands are sliding up your hips just as the last wave of your high ebbs and then he’s guiding you down, laying you atop his chest so he can bury his face into the side of your sweat-dampened neck.

For a moment, neither of you speak. You never do, and maybe that’s because neither of you know quite what to say. Speaking risks cheapening the moment, threatens to shatter this tenuous vulnerability you both know he can’t show anywhere else, and you want to cling to it just a breath longer.

So too, it seems, does Sanemi. Enough so that he is the first to risk it, his voice low and gravelly in your ear.

“Let me stay a while longer. Please.”

(Y/N’s POV)

At first, she thought she was in the afterlife.

Her eyes struggled to focus as the brilliant white lights above her nearly blinded her, and for the briefest moment, the Ice Pillar had felt a flood of relief, because at least she could then rest.

But then the pain hit.

It hit her like one of the heavy training rocks Himejima used on lower-ranked slayers, and briefly, Y/N wondered if she had misjudged the situation — wondered if she was, in fact, in hell.

Her heart was slamming against her chest, however, and the pain was far too acute for that to be a plausible explanation, especially as the lights above her sharpened into focus.

The light was not the soft, beckoning afterglow of a world beyond; rather, it was the collection of sterile utility lights that the Insect Hashira had specially installed in the recovery rooms at the Butterfly Mansion.

To her slight disappointment, the Ice Pillar found herself alive.

Fuck.

She was alive and her body felt like it had been dropped off the tip of a mountain. There was not an inch of her body that did not feel as though it had been smashed open and flayed.

“L-Lady Y/L/N!” A surprised squeak came from Y/N’s right.

It took a great deal of effort to turn her head to see one of Kocho’s girls standing in her doorway, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the now-conscious Ice Hashira.

Y/N truly had meant to greet the young girl, but the only thing that came out was a long, pained groan.

“I-I’ll go get Lady Kocho, right away!” The girl hastily bowed before scampering out, the sounds of her excited yelling growing dimmer as she ran away.

Y/N had briefly fallen back out of consciousness before she felt a pair of cool, soft fingers brushing against her forehead, and her eyes fluttered back open.

“Good morning,” Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira and her dear friend, said, smiling down at her, her eyes full of relief.

“We were starting to worry about you, you know.”

Y/N responded with something between a smile and a grimace as pain wracked through her once more. “How long have I been out?” Her voice was weak and cracked, which led Y/N to conclude it had been at least a few weeks since the battle in the Entertainment District.

Shinobu’s smile faltered for half a second, before her friend recovered. “Almost two months.”

Y/N’s eyes widened, what little breath she had in her chest wheeze out, as the horror of Shinobu’s words sunk in.

She, a Hashira, had been unconscious for nearly two months. She’d be surprised if she was allowed to keep her title at all.

“Uzui?” Y/N asked quietly, remembering that her comrade had also been quite injured following the battle with the dual Upper Moon Sixes.

Shinobu smoothed Y/N’s hair back, an affectionate move that eased some of the tension she felt. “He was in rough shape as well, but not nearly as bad as you were.” Shinobu pressed her fingers against the pulse point on Y/N’s neck, silently counting the number of beats. “He managed to carry you back most of the way before his body gave out — luckily, just as the two of you came across the Kakushi team dispatched to assist you both.”

Shinobu’s gentle fingers pried Y/N’s eyelids back to check her pupil dilation. “He’s back home with his wives. I discharged him about two weeks ago.”

Shinobu motioned for one of the girls to fetch pain medication, now that she had sufficiently apprised herself of all Y/N’s vitals, and Y/N felt a rush of gratitude for her friend.

“How bad was I?” Y/N asked after a moment, once she and the Insect Pillar were left alone.

Shinobu’s practiced smile finally dropped, and for once she looked tired. “Uzui said you took a direct hit from the Upper Six’s blood demon art. Not only did he manage to impale you, but he discharged a massive amount of poison into you.”

Shinobu’s lower lip wobbled slightly. “That poison should have killed you — it would have, had you not used your Ice Breathing to lower your body temperature. Doing so kept the poison from spreading as quickly, but it also made you hypothermic.”

“You were…near death when you were finally brought in. Your body temperature had dropped so low in an effort to keep the poison from reaching your vital organs, but it was already doing so.” Shinobu sat back into a stool she’d rolled over beside Y/N’s bed. “Honestly, you were so touch and go that I thought I was merely prolonging the inevitable.”

Y/N swallowed hard, nodding. Perhaps her initial reaction when she’d awoken hadn’t been too far off — she had nearly died.

The two were silent for a moment, the weight of the events of the day weighing heavily in the air around them.

Shinou broke the silence first. “Your vitals seem relatively stable for now, but I’m going to need to keep a close eye on you over the next few days to judge your recovery.” She stood, brushing non-existent dust from her lap. “Do you feel like eating anything at all? Or drinking some tea?”

Y/N shook her head as much as she could, though her movement was limited by the stiffness in her neck. “No. I’m in pain.” She groaned.

The Insect Pillar smiled softly at her. “I’ve held off on administering any pain medicine to you – I didn’t want to risk prolonging your coma.” Shinobu paused. “I suppose I can mix a good dose in with some broth – I would really prefer you to have something nutritious, if you think you can stomach it.”

Y/N nodded again, her lips suddenly feeling cracked and dry. “Broth would be wonderful. Thank you, Shinobu, truly.”

Shinobu patted her friend’s hand in response. “The medication will likely put you to sleep for the rest of the afternoon – but your body needs rest now. I’ll check in on you in a little while. You’re in the private infirmary room just down the hall from my office – I wanted to ensure you wouldn’t be disturbed by the regular chaos wrought by the younger slayers.”

Shinobu made to exit the small room, but paused in the doorway, her back turned to Y/N.

“Y/N…I am so thankful that you’re all right.”

Y/N smiled, and for the first time since she’d awoken, she felt glad to be alive.

—————————————————————————

Shinobu had been right – the medicine she’d mixed into the warm miso broth had been potent. Y/N had barely consumed half the cup of the soup before she’d felt drowsy, slumping back against the soft down of her bed and falling back asleep.

Hours later, judging by the darkness of her room, Y/N had awoken briefly, and in her disorientation had cast her eyes around her private recovery room in alarm until she distantly remembered that she was safe and in the comfort of her friend’s hospital.

As she looked blearily around, she’d noticed a pair of vaguely familiar amber eyes staring owlishly at her from the wall across from her bed. Y/N, however, had collapsed back against her pillow, unconscious once more, before she could investigate any further.

But she dreamed of fire.

—————————————————————————

When Y/N awoke the following morning, she was still in a great deal of pain.

“I don’t understand why I can’t use my breathing to help,” she’d complained to Shinobu’s second-in-charge, a pig-tailed, severe-looking girl who bustled around Y/N’s room as she restocked the Ice Pillar’s medications.

“Lady Kocho was very clear that you shouldn’t be using your Ice Breathing for a while yet, Y/L/N-San,” the girl, Aoi, said as respectfully as she could, though Y/N could hear the slight reprimand edging its way into her tone.

“After all, when you arrived, your body temperature was barely 75 degrees — and it had been lower than that already, according to Lord Uzui”

Y/N’s head snapped up and she pinned the girl with her icy stare. “That’s not possible,” she said sharply, “I may be a Hashira, but a body temperature below 75 degrees will kill anyone.”

Aoi audibly gulped. “Well, it was probably because of Mr. Rengoku-“

“What?” Y/N snapped, sitting up straighter in her bed. “He was there?”

The awkward girl nodded frantically. “Yes! He was the one who brought you here!”

Y/N sat silently in her bed, jaw slackened as she stared at the pig-tailed attendant.

Aoi fidgeted under the intensity of Y/N’s gaze. “He met you and Mr. Uzui a few miles outside of the Butterfly Mansion. He carried you the rest of the way because Mr. Uzui had passed out.” Aoi busied herself with replacing the used towels next to the small sink in Y/N’s room to avoid looking at the Pillar.

“Lady Kocho said he had turned up his body temperature while carrying you to keep yours from falling any further.” Aoi finally turned back to Y/N, tears sparkling in her eyes. “You were so cold and so blue by the time he barged through the doors, that Lady Kocho assumed you had already died. Mr. Rengoku kept you alive long enough for Lady Kocho to intervene.”

Y/N didn’t remember getting out of her bed, nor did she remember the way her legs shook as she took her first steps in nearly two months, stumbling awkwardly down the hallway to her friend’s private office.

-------------------------------------------------------

(Shinobu’s POV)

Shinobu startled at her desk when Y/N flung the lacquered wooden door open.

“Y/N! You should not be up-“Shinobu began to reprimand her, but Y/N cut her off.

“You lied to me, Kocho.” Shinobu froze at the terse, formal way that Y/N used her surname — a sure indicator that she was irate. “You told me the Kakushi found me. You never said anything about Rengoku.”

For once, Shinobu felt sheepish.

“I wasn’t lying to you, Y/N,” she promised, her palms turning up towards the Ice Pillar in supplication. “Please, I’m happy to explain everything, but you need to get back in bed.”

Her friend swayed in the doorway, hand shooting out to weakly clutch at the frame in an effort to remain upright. It seemed that she had only managed to make it all the way to Shinobu’s office out of pure spite, and now that it had worn off, her weakened body threatened to fold beneath her.

Y/N may have been as stubborn as an ox, but she was not a fool when it came to recognizing her limits. Her chin dipped once in a jerky nod, and Shinobu clapped her hands. A Kakushi appeared in an instant, lifting Y/N onto her back and whizzing her back down to her private quarters.

Once Y/N was settled back and bed, and the two women were alone, Shinobu pulled a chair over and sat down.

“I wasn’t planning on keeping the details from you for very long,” Shinobu began, holding Y/N’s searing stare evenly. “But the circumstances of your arrival were…extreme, and equal measures had to be taken.”

Y/N’s mouth set into a hard line. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

“Y/N, when the Flame Pillar kicked down the front door, with you unconscious in his arms, I thought you were already dead.”

Y/N’s eyes widened softly. Though Shinobu had devoted years of carefully crafting her emotionless mask, she could not stop the small shake in her voice as she recalled that horrible night.

—————————————————————————

(Two Months Prior)

Shinobu had flown into the entry hall of her estate the moment the loud crash reached her ears. Her hand had been on her blade, ready to eliminate any threat that had come knocking on her door, but she came to a skidding halt when she beheld who stood in the ruined splinters of her doorway.

For half a heartbeat, Shinobu’s world had come crashing down around her for the third time in her life. Because there was the Flame Pillar, looking wild and frantic and angrier than she had ever seen him.  His uniform shirt had been missing completely, and his eyes were bright and glassy with the first signs of what Shinobu knew to be a high fever.

Clutched in his arms was the woman that she’d considered as much a sister as Kanae and Kanao were to her. Beneath the streaks of red and odd purple and black staining on her skin, Shinobu could see she was deathly pale, the areas around her mouth and eyes turning an unsettling blue.

She wasn’t moving.

She was barely breathing.

“ANTIDOTE.” Rengoku bellowed, his volume jolting Shinobu into action as she began barking orders at the Kakushi that arrived behind him.

“Get her over here and lay her down on the floor — we don’t have time to get her into an examination room.” Shinobu shrugged out of her late sister’s haori and spread it out on the floor — Y/N was one of the only two people left in the world whom she would be willing to do such a thing for.

In a matter of seconds, Shinobu had deduced three, critical facts:

First, Y/N had been poisoned — severely so, and was mere minutes, if not seconds away from death.

Second, that she was bordering on hypothermia, given the chill of her skin and the discoloration around her orifices.

Third, the only reason she’d not succumbed to said hypothermia was because of the bare-chested Hashira who held her like she was his entire world, who was willingly burning with a near-deadly fever in an effort to keep Y/N alive.

Shinobu dug into the pocket of her hakama pants and produced a sharp pair of medical scissors — the only pair she owned sharp enough to cut through the resilient fabric of the Demon Slayer Corp’s uniform.

Rengoku had made to lay Y/N on the floor and pull away, but Shinobu lunged to stop him.

“Don’t you dare let go of her, Kyojuro Rengoku,” Shinobu snarled as she cut Y/N’s shirt from her body, exposing the purple-mottled skin of her chest where the Upper Moon’s poison had spread. “Keep her warm— her body is going to try to keep fighting the poison.”

Rengoku maneuvered so that he sank to the floor of the Butterfly Mansion hall under Y/L/N, the Ice Pillar still pressed to his bare skin.

“Aoi,” Shinobu called for her second-in-charge who appeared instantly by her mistress’s side. “Bring me the wisteria antidote and the amphetamine,” she ordered as she checked for Y/L/N’s pulse, her mouth settling into a hard line as she realized the Ice Pillar barely had one.

Rengoku was burning, his skin nearly sizzling against the now-bared skin of Y/L/N. “She just keeps getting colder, no matter what I do.” He readjusted his arms to grip around Y/L/N’s waist and press her tighter against him.

Shinobu inspected where the poison had turned the veins beneath Y/L/N’s skin black. “She’s been using her ice breathing to slow the poison by lowering her body temperature,” she said quietly. “It stopped the poison from spreading long enough for Uzui to bring her back, but this is the most potent poison I’ve ever seen.”

Y/L/N’s chest rose shakily once but it did not fall.

“AOI.” Shinobu half-shrieked, and the girl finally came flying around the corner, the two syringes clutched in her hand.

She moved her scissors beneath the bindings around Y/N’s chest, cutting them open in one fluid motion and exposing Y/N’s breasts to the air. Out of reflex, Rengoku turned his head up towards the ceiling, if not to help preserve the girl’s modesty.

“We don’t have time for that nonsense,” She snapped at him, her tone forcing him to look back at her, frantic.

Aoi handed the two vials to her madam, who began flicking her index finger against the cylinder glass to dispel any remaining bubbles within.

“The sternum is the thickest bone in the human body,” Shinobu began, turning her attention to the second vial, filled with a clear, thin liquid. She unscrewed the top of the second vial and dumped its contents into the syringe full of purple liquid, repeating the process of tapping out any bubbles. “It takes an alarming degree of strength to penetrate it.”

She pinned Rengoku with her sharp eyes. “I do not have that strength,” she said plainly and moved to press the syringe into his hand.

“But you do. When I tell you, you need to slam this into her heart, right here.” Shinobu tapped her index finger precisely in between Y/N’s breasts, directly over her heart. “And then push down on the top of the syringe until all of that liquid is gone.”

Rengoku clutched the syringe in his hand tightly as he looked down at Y/N. Her heart had slowed to the faintest patter against her chest, and her breath had become nearly nonexistent.

There was no more time. He brought the fist clutching the antidote up over the spot that Shinobu had marked.

“Forgive me, Y/L/N,” Rengoku said, and without hesitation, he slammed the syringe down into the Ice Pillar’s chest, pressing every ounce of the purple antidote directly into Y/N’s heart.

Syringe still buried in her chest, Y/L/N bowed out of his arms with a deep, guttural gasp, her eyes flying open for the briefest of moments before she collapsed back against him, unconscious once more.

But breathing.

“What— what was that, Kocho?” Rengoku breathed, looking in wonder at the feebly breathing but alive Ice Pillar.

“The strongest antidote I have,” Shinobu grimaced. “And an amphetamine. To restart her heart.”

Rengoku’s eyes shot up to meet hers. “Re-start?”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes. For a moment, we no longer had an Ice Pillar.”

The Flame Pillar swore under his breath, his arms unconsciously tightening their hold against Y/L/N.

“She is not out of the clear yet,” Shinobu warned, her fingers brushing against the skin of her friend’s wrist as she measured her pulse. “Until the antidote is able to fully abate the effects of the poison, she will continue to subconsciously try to freeze her body.”

She winced. “As a doctor, I shouldn’t even be asking, but it appears you’re the reason she hasn’t fallen to hypothermia — “

“I will stay,” Rengoku promised, looking back down at the woman barely clinging to life in his arms. “Of course, I will stay.”

(End of Flashback).

-------------------------------------------------------

“Rengoku stayed with you until your body temperature rose back to normal,” Shinobu said, her tone entirely clinical. “Though by the time that happened, he’d given himself a nasty fever from the amount of time that he’d kept his body temperature so high.”

A faint smile ghosted over her face. “He actually put up a bit of a fight when the Kakushi came to pull him away. His fever had made him delirious.”

Y/N flushed. “I’m sure that was quite the sight - two half-nude Hashira in a bed together. The poor Kakushi.”

Shinobu’s eyes flashed. “Not a single person thought it was anything more than a persistent effort by the Flame Pillar to keep his comrade alive,” she said sharply. “And I will discipline anyone who may suggest otherwise.” 

Her friend smiled at her, unmistakable gratitude in her eyes.

“I ended up having to keep him here for three days before his fever broke. He kept trying to come see you, too,” Shinobu chewed on her lip in thought. “I don’t think he understood that you were just unconscious and not half-frozen to death.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Y/N asked, softly. “I understand — and appreciate — you telling me what happened immediately after Rengoku brought me here, but…”

Shinobu reached for her friend’s hand and gently took it into her own, squeezing lightly.

“I just thought you should know the lengths that man went to to keep you alive.”

————————————————————————

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N laid awake for a long while after Shinobu had left.

Shinobu had told her that the Flame Pillar had visited her on a nightly basis for the entire period she’d been unconscious.

But that news hadn’t been able to hold a candle to the larger revelation that Shinobu had shared with her.

Kyojuro Rengoku, the Flame Hashira, had fought to keep her alive; and she didn’t know what to do with that information.

At best, her relationship with the fiery man had been complicated.

The two had survived and endured Final Selection together and had risen through the ranks of the Demon Slayer Corp at about the same rate. Their breathing styles were symbolic opposites – so much so, it was almost comical that they had been drawn to one another at all.

For years, their relationship had been defined by a series of almosts.

She’d almost asked him to accompany her on an overnight mission in the far-off mountains – what would have been their first solo mission together.

She’d almost accepted his haori when he’d offered it to her after her own had been shredded in a battle against a lower moon when they were Kinoe.

He’d almost brushed his hand against hers at the last Hashira meeting they’d attended – the one right before that fateful mission he took involving that cursed train.

She’d almost kissed his forehead when he lay unconscious in his bed at the Butterfly Mansion after Upper Moon Three had nearly stolen him from her for good.

But this game of cat-and-mouse they had played since they were Mizunotos hadn’t ever actually led them anywhere. Y/N had always assumed they were doomed to long for one another from afar, both too emotionally closed-off and too stubborn to ever confess their true feelings.

And in spite of the series of almosts that had defined their relationship, Kyojuro Rengoku had also been her biggest pain in the ass. The man burned as bright as the Sun itself; he was warm, jovial, and supportive to every Demon Slayer regardless of rank – even her.

Until it came time for her to actually do her job, in which case, Rengoku would never fail to corner her and demand her to sit out, or to let him accompany her, despite the fact that she had become a Hashira before him.

Truly, she thought he gave her emotional whiplash; he flirted with her one moment before openly questioning her competency as a Pillar the next. But she could not deny the slight flutter of her heart at the thought that he had been so concerned with her well-being, that he had checked on her every night since he helped to save her life.

There was no way he could have known that she had regained consciousness – at least, Shinobu had not mentioned that anyone had told him -- and so, Y/N felt slightly giddy at the prospect of finally confronting him. Perhaps she’d even goad him into admitting that he cared for her.

Pressed against her pillows in the dark, she waited.

But the Flame Pillar never came.

————————————————————————

(Kyojuro’s POV)

He’d been training when he’d received the news.

Y/L/N had awoken after nearly two months of being in a coma.

His crow had flown to his estate the second it had observed the commotion within the Butterfly Mansion, having lingered just long enough to confirm that the Ice Pillar had regained consciousness and was being attended to, before rushing to inform its master.

Kyojuro dropped to his knees as the crow reported its news, the relief he felt almost overwhelming.

He’d begun to lose hope — they all had — that she would ever recover. These last days, he’d half expected his crow to return with the dreaded news that the Ice Pillar had finally succumbed to her injuries and left them all — left him — behind for good.

A Hashira being unconscious for that amount of time was nearly unheard of; after all, his fight with Upper Three had only knocked him out for three weeks.

Then again, Kocho had said the amount of poison Y/L/N had taken, coupled with how much time had passed before Uzui had limped into the Corp’s territory, with her cradled in his arms, would have killed most people. Including the other Pillars.

But she had lived. She was conscious.

Anger, righteous anger, chased away the relief he’d felt.

Now, Kyojuro was downright furious, nearly shaking with his rage.

It had not been her mission to go on.

It had been his. But he had been too injured after the battle on the Mugen Train, too wounded after his encounter with Upper Moon Three, that Kocho and the Master had refused to clear him to accompany Uzui to the Entertainment District.

So Y/N had gone in his stead.

 ----------------————————————————-

(Two Months Prior)

“I refuse to allow this,” Kyojuro said severely, leaning heavily against the door frame of the Butterfly Mansion’s recovery room, panting. His rehabilitation training had been underway, and he was making steady progress towards full recovery — but not enough so that the Master would permit him to resume taking missions.

much less one against a suspected Upper Moon.

Y/L/N had come to the Insect Pillar’s estate to retrieve some last minute supplies before she was due to depart with the Sound Pillar for the Entertainment District.

“I don’t believe you’re in a position to give anyone orders,” Y/N said frostily, turning her back to him as she continued to organize her supplies.

She moved to brush past him when his hand shot out to grab her by the upper arm, stilling her.

“Orders be damned,” he snarled under his breath, his grip tightening as his fingers dug into the muscle of her bicep. “This is my mission, not yours. You have no business going there.”

Y/L/N bristled at his words, her smaller hand coming up to wrench his from its grip on her arm. “I am a Hashira, the same as you. You do not get to dictate what I do or what missions I accept.” She shoved him off her. “You do not get to play God, Rengoku.”

And so, he’d been powerless to stop her from breezing by and joining Uzui as the pair set off towards the Entertainment District.

In his fury, he’d reduced nearly half of the training dummies the Butterfly House kept to splinters during his rehabilitation training.

More than a week had gone by before they’d received any word from the Entertainment District — or, what was left of it.

Uzui and Y/L/N had succeeded in taking out the two Upper Moons, becoming the first Hashira in nearly one hundred years to do so — the victory had been immense, but not priceless.

They’d heard that there had been a near-total destruction of Yoshiwara as a result of the battle with the Upper Moons, as well as a number of civilian casualties. But by the time the Kakushi had arrived on scene, neither the Sound nor Ice Hashira could be found.

The Master’s crow had nearly exhausted itself flying urgently back and forth between the ruins of the Entertainment District and Headquarters as it searched urgently for the missing Pillars.

Kyojuro had been restlessly pacing the grounds of the Butterfly Mansion when Kocho’s raven swooped down from overhead.

“The Butterfly Mansion must send out a group of Kakushi!” It had cried, causing the staff mulling about the Estate to freeze. “The Sound and Ice Pillars are two miles east and both critical! Go now!”

Had Kocho been around, she might have been able to stop Kyojuro from taking off at a full sprint after her crow, but she had not been within earshot; and so, Kyojuro raced for his comrades.

The night was dark, and the light from the waning moon had been feeble. The crow led Kyojuro and a trailing group of Kakushi to a small clearing before the edge of a forest on the outskirts of headquarters.

With bated breath, the group waited as a shadow emerged — slowly, and gasping for breath, from the dark cover of the trees.

The glow of the moon had been just enough to illuminate Uzui’s bloodstained, and ashen face as the Sound Pillar limped into the clearing.

He was carrying someone.

Though bloodied and bruised, Y/L/N somehow still looked ethereal, her skin glowing beneath the faint moonlight. Her arm hung limply to her side, swinging idly back and forth with Uzui’s movements. Kyojuro squinted and saw that a great chunk of her haori had been torn away, exposing the bare skin of her arm — and the veins that had turned black beneath her skin.

After a considerable pause, Uzui crumpled to his knees, Y/L/N still clutched tightly against his chest, and Kyojuro rushed forward to catch him before he and Y/L/N fell to the earthen floor.

Kyojuro had moved to help him stand, but the Sound Pillar feebly shrugged him off.

“Not me,” Uzui panted out, “Take Y/L/N — she doesn’t have much longer.”

Kyojuro dared to look down at the unconscious woman cradled against Uzui’s chest, and felt his heart seize.

Beneath the splatter of blood crusted to her skin, Kyojuro could see that she was devoid of any and all color, her face frozen and hard. The skin around her slightly parted lips had turned a sickly shade of blue.

He reached out to check her pulse but snatched his hand away in shock before he could feel it.

Y/L/N had been colder than ice beneath his touch.

“Bastard impaled her on his poisoned blade,” Uzui managed, laboring for breath. “Got me, too. She used her ice breathing to help stop the poison, but she fell unconscious right after we decapitated the pair of ‘em.” Uzui pushed Y/L/N towards the Flame Pillar. “She’s just been getting colder since. I couldn’t even hear her heartbeat for the last mile.”

“Get her to Kocho, Rengoku. Now.” Uzui begged.

Kyojuro growled in frustration as he tore at his uniform shirt, ripping it in one clean stroke down the front and exposing his burning flesh to the cool wind.

As he gingerly plucked the rapidly fading Ice Pillar from Uzui’s arms, he burrowed deep within himself to use the breathing technique that would increase his body temperature beyond that of even the most dangerous of fevers. He felt his skin begin to burn and cradled Y/L/N tightly against his chest as he took off towards the Butterfly House at top speed, willing his body heat to seep into her icy skin and to burn life back into her.

Don’t you die on me, he thought as he flew towards the Mansion. Don’t you try to fucking leave me, Y/L/N.

————————————————————————-

He had expected her to awaken within a few days after Kocho had administered the antidote, but she’d remained unconscious.

Each day had followed the same pattern: he would wake up and wait for his crow to return with news from the Butterfly Mansion, and when the bird inevitably informed him that there was no update, he would engage in his rehabilitation training until his still-recovering muscles gave out.

And late each night, once he was sure most of the staff had either left on assignments or were peacefully asleep in their chambers, he would return to Kocho’s manor and keep silent vigil over Y/L/N’s comatose form.

But after the first month of that littke routine, Kyojuro had lost his patience.

“It’s been a fucking month, Kocho,” Kyojuro had growled, bursting through the door of the Insect Pillar’s private office and slamming it shut behind him. “Have you made any progress in finding out why she hasn’t woken up?”

Kocho hadn’t bothered to look up from where she sat at her desk, charcoal stick in hand as she made notes from a hard bound book spread open before her.

“Y/N sustained massive trauma from her battle in the Entertainment District,” her voice had been strained under her effort to keep it cool and clinical.

“So did I, and I awoke after three weeks,” he grit out through clenched teeth.

Kocho finally looked up at him, a vein in her forehead growing prominent in her ire. “You endured significant injuries, yes,” she conceded, though her tone was not kind. “But Y/N also was infused with a massive amount of highly potent poison — almost double what even Uzui took. That, combined with her blood loss, was in some ways worse than your injuries, Rengoku.”

“There is only one other person in the Demon Slayer Corp who would have survived that kind of poisoning,” the Insect Pillar had said frostily, “And that is me.”

He’d been annoyed at that, though he’d known it was irrational. “She’s a damn Hashira. Her recovery time is supposed to be better than that of an average slayer’s.”

Kyojuro scoffed. “She shouldn’t have gone on that damn mission at all if she was that weak.”

He’d regretted his words the moment they’d left his mouth, but it had been too late. The Insect Pillar slammed her charcoal stick down and rose from her seat, her eyes narrowed dangerously at him.

“Strong words from someone who had to be sedated after he tried to beat down the infirmary door to get to her,” Kocho had said coldly. “Your anger fools no one.”

She’d walked swiftly past him and opened her office door, refusing to meet his eye.

“You may leave now.” She’d said dismissively, and Kyojuro had known better than to fight her anymore.

Wordlessly, Kyojuro had slipped out of Kocho’s office, the latter slamming it behind him the moment he’d cleared the door jam.

He’d wondered the emptied halls of the Butterfly Manor until he found himself outside of Y/N’s private room.

Dejected, he’d pushed the door open and shut it behind him, leaning against the wall to the side of her bed and watching her, willing her to just wake up.

He had tried cursing at her, insulting her, goading her back into consciousness, all in hope that maybe he could incense her into opening her eyes.

But it had all been to no avail.

So that night, he knelt beside her bed, took her limp hand in his, and brought it to his lips.

“Wake up, Y/N,” he’d murmured against the cool skin, brushing his lips over her knuckles. “Please, open your eyes.”

Under the glow of the moonlight that beamed through her window, Kyojuro swore that he would tell her the truth about his feelings if she would just reawaken.

[End of Flashback]

———————————————————————-

He had sworn that he would tell her the truth, but she hadn’t kept up her end of their one-sided bargain; she hadn’t awoken.

At least, not for damn-near another month. By the time he received word that she’d finally, finally opened her eyes and rejoined the world of the living, Kyojuro’s heart only felt cold and leaden.

He had gone to see her once — while she’d been asleep — just to confirm for himself that she truly had not left him.

At first, she’d looked no different sleeping soundly in her bed than she had every night for the prior two months.

But he’d been able to discern a difference between that night and those prior by the stringent smell of the pain medication Shinobu used — a drug that she would only administer after someone had regained consciousness, given its tendency to make the ingestor drowsy. 

Kyojuro had only been watching her for a few minutes before she’d shot up in her bed, eyes glazed and unfocused as she looked around the room in alarm.

He’d been silent as she’d fixed her eyes on him, he knew she likely hadn’t even recognized he was there at all, given how quickly she’d slumped back against her pillows, asleep once more.

He’d not since returned to the Butterfly Mansion.

And, though the thought filled him with bitter self-hatred, he found that he could not make good on his promise.

So Kyojuro stayed away.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Don’t worry friends, Y/N will get her shit rocked in part two.

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