THE DIVINING ROD โ PROLOGUE
Obanaiโs Tell Me to Stop
A/N: the prologue to Obanaiโs installment of Tell Me to Stop, first teased here.
CW: canon setting AU โข Reader is the Vine Pillar โข blood โข angst โข scars โข mentions of past torture โข panic โข this fic will be HELLA NSFW so MDNI
From the first day he drew his sword, Obanai Iguro knew life within the Demon Slayer Corps meant accepting two, twin truths.
The first was this: a career as a swordsman of the Corps means oneโs life expectancy is cut drastically short. Few make it to adulthood; even fewer to retirement.
The second truth is that your time within the Corps is marked by one or two events: either you live to see another day, or you do not. There is no in between; it is either life or death, and more often than not, the Slayers themselves do not have the luxury of choosing between the two. That choice is finite and there is no gray. Members of the Demon Slayer Corps do not go missing; either they are torn apart and devoured by the very monsters they fight, or they live to see the next sunrise, only to await nightfall once more and thrust their lives back into the fickle, shifty hands of fate.
No slayer is spared that perilous dance, no matter their rank. Mizunotos and Hashira alike all know that their tether to the world theyโre trying to save is little more than a fraying thread which grows more tenuous by the day, with every battle won at the expense of the lives lost.
The crows; it is the crows, the harbingers of both victory and death, who keep them apprised of their numbers. Slayers do not go missing; they are either dead or they are not. If there is nothing left of a Slayer to bury, their crow will say as much, and they will still get a headstone in the Masterโs ever-growing graveyard. The crows always return, even when their assigned masters do not. It is the expectation; a given.
There is no protocol in the event neither Slayer nor crow returns, and it is that absence which blows a gaping, jagged hole right through Obanaiโs understanding of his nature not just as a Hashira, but his very existence as a swordsman.
Because the Vine Pillar has vanished and there is no trace of either her or her bird to be found. There is no frantic, bleating announcement that sheโs fallen at the hands of some formidable foe, no mournful sobs of the Kakushi as they solemnly carry a box bearing whatever of her remained to be buried with her brothers and sisters in death.
There was only silence; thick, oppressive, loud silence that is punctuated by the conspicuous gap in the lineup of Pillars gathered for an emergency meeting at Headquarters.
The air between the Sound and Insect Pillars is still; a tear in the fabric of reality, pulled back to reveal that something is wrong, something is out of place.
Obanai cannot stop staring at it; that space between Kocho and Uzui, the utter absence of matter that should form that familiar face, that signature haori, everything that makes up her and her warmth and her comfort.
โThen she is dead,โ Uzui declares once the Masterโs children finish explaining their summoning.
โWe donโt know for certain,โ a soft voice, feminine and evocative of that which is distinctly pink, rises above their heads at the opposite end of their line. โMissions often take weeks, and she may simply be unable to answer โ,โ
โNo one has seen or heard from her in weeks, nor has there been any sight of her crow.โ The Sound Pillar challenges, though not unkindly. He is familiar with the friendship between the Vine and Love Pillars, and he does his best to deliver the blow as painlessly as he can. โEven Y/L/N would not ignore an emergency summons from headquarters, no matter how deep in her mission she might have been.โ
Obanai is still staring at the void between his comrades where she should be, but Uzuiโs words make his fists clench, the skin of his knuckles white. Beside him, the Wind Pillar shifts, sensing his growing agitation.
Though he is inclined to voice his agreement with the pinkette at the end of their formation, Serpent Pillar does not speak. He cannot; not while he is busy retracing the last weeks in his mind, mentally calculating how much time would have passed between that night and the mission she did not return from, and whether there was a chance it was different from the one that haunted his every waking moment.
โWhere was she assigned?โ Rengokuโs voice was strong and commanding as ever, though if he listened hard enough, Obanai could discern the faintest tremble as the Flame Pillar, too, worried after his absent friend.
โA fishing village in the east.โ One of the Masterโs twins answers, and it feels like an accusation only he can hear, as Obanai feels the very ground beneath his feet break apart and open wide.
How he wishes the oblivion below the earth would swallow him up.
โSheโs dead.โ Uzui repeats, his head bowing solemnly.
โSheโs not,โ both the Love and Flame Pillars insist in unison.
Wide, anxious green eyes peer over the heads of their comrades at him, and Obanai can feel how they burn into his head, beseeching him to say something, anything, but he does not; cannot.
The Masterโs pristine garden falls away, as does the rising bickering of the other pillars as they debate the merits of a search and rescue operation; whether they have the numbers or time to spare it any consideration. Whatever they decide, it is without the Serpent Pillarโs vote, because he cannot hear them over the roaring in his ears; the new truth he is forced to bear.
That truism is this: the Vine Pillar is missing.
And it is entirely his fault.
