@firebonds.
... she isn’t who Rui’s expecting to see.
She’d been gone, hadn’t she? She’d been gone. She’d been here, for a time, and she had -- Nezuko had left the city again. And yet... here -- here she is. Why now? It’s weird that his heart pangs in his chest so instantly, a flood of worry bubbling up inside of him like she was his to worry about. Rui does’t know if it’s the same Nezuko... because the city can do that, too, can’t it? He’s heard talk of it, but he isn’t sure if it’s something he’s experienced.
It doesn’t matter. She’s not with Tanjirou. Rui doubts Tanjirou’s back, too, which just causes his heart to do whatever it’s doing again. And if Tanjirou’s not here --
-- Rui wants to make things up to Nezuko, as it is. He knows he doesn’t deserve that, but that hardly matters right now. The city’s in shambles around them and he’s already decided who he’s siding with, so what’s a little more selfishness? He needs to make sure she’s okay.
He couldn’t forgive himself if he let her get hurt when he had the chance to stop it.
Hopping over the rubble (this isn’t like before, the last time he the city fell apart; this isn’t some strange flickering in-and-out, this is permanent, and Cotes shakes and crumbles around them), Rui closes the distance between the two of them and grabs a tight hold of Nezuko’s wrist.
“You can’t just stand there!”
His own tone of voice startles him. Rui sounds so concerned, so unlike himself.
“It isn’t safe.” He’s heard them, off in the distance; the damage that those who sided with NULL have been able to inflict isn’t something that can be easily missed. “You’re not safe out here.”
