#mentor

Chapter CW: Death, canon typical gore.

"Roost, Raven One here. I’m at the specified location. Come in.”

“...”

“Roost, this is Raven One. Over.”

“...”

“Roost? …Shit.”

The radio clicks when you turn it off, useless now that you’ve concluded there was truly no signal.

‘No wonder she couldn't reach him’, you think to yourself, readjusting your shoulder harness one more time before continuing to advance through the dark hallways of the underground facility. Some kind of abandoned military base from the time of God knows which war—your brain is too fried to try and figure it out.

It’s been a long day. Your cat woke you up way too early to feed him, you burned your toast for breakfast, missed your metro stop, and then proceeded to have the longest most tedious day of filing reports and answering emails. That was the life of a DSO agent outside of trauma-inducing missions: even more trauma in the form of clunky keyboards and multicolored paper clips.

But right before you were ready to call it a day and finally head home to enjoy some takeout and pass out on the couch, dear old Hunnigan came in with an emergency request—well, more like an order—telling you you need to join your favorite person in the world on his tedious mission after he’d gone MIA.

Leon S. Kennedy.

The one person you’re sure you’d sacrifice just about anything for just to keep around. Your DSO partner, your colleague, your mentor, your friend.

Hunnigan was breaking protocol—Leon wasn't gone for nearly long enough to deploy another agent to get him, and if he was, a team would be sent out rather than a lone person. But she had a hunch that things went to shit, and when Hunnigan has a hunch, you listen.

Especially when it’s about him. You don't take risks when it comes to him.

When you later arrived at the location of the last ping of his whereabouts, geared up with weapons you’re not cleared to take out, you were surprised to find two familiar faces who were coincidentally deployed to the same facility by a different group: the BSAA.

“Jill? Is that you?” you had asked confused when light caught the silhouette of Jill Valentine surrounded by still-warm bodies of fallen guards, blood staining her clothes. You would've been scared shitless if you didn't know and trust her already.

Jill’s eyes widened in surprise as she called out your name, “did Leon manage to call you?”

“No, but Hunnigan said he’s gone MIA and sent me to his last ping. I’m not exactly here on official terms… What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“Well, look who joined the party,” a voice rang out behind Jill as Chris Redfield came in through a metal door.

“Chris? I take it you two are on a mission? What happened to Leon? Where is he?” you fired up questions as you already started to feel worry settle in your veins.

“He was supposed to go after Adams—the one responsible for this clusterfuck of BOW hell—while we were supposed to take out the incubating tanks. But that was hours ago and he’s made no contact since. Signal seems to be jammed around here,” Chris replied grimly, all traces of humor gone from his tone.

“We couldn't get through to reach the lab yet with all the bullshit we’ve encountered in this place, but destroying those tanks is still the priority if we don't want things to get even worse,” Jill added with an almost apologetic tone before placing a comforting hand on your shoulder, “hey… I’m sure he’s fine, he won't be taken down that easy. But since you're here to find him, just promise you won't do anything too reckless. And find us as soon as you can, I’m begging.”

Your jaw clenched in determination as you nodded, “I’ll meet you as soon as I’m able to locate him. You stay safe too.”

“Start with the west wing through that hallway. We haven't cleared that area yet and I’d guess that's where you’d find him,” Chris gestured to the corridor on your left, and that is all you needed to hear before you left them to go on your search.

You recall Chris's directions and Jill's reassurances as you keep the grip on your gun steady. Walking with quick, measured, steps you try to keep yourself from being detected by roaming guards. Lucky for you they are few and far between, probably thanks to the two agents giving them a hard time and keeping them busy.

You search through the west wing, going through door after door, and ,after subduing a standing guard near a set of double doors silently, you find what looks like prison cells.

Ah. Typical.

As you shine your flashlight through each cell, heart racing from adrenaline, you find yourself hoping—praying—that if you do find him here, he’s somehow still okay.

And the universe delivers, because when the LED’s beam reveals a familiar silhouette in the far end cell, you hear yourself let out a sigh of relief at the sight of him, all limbs attached, and breathing. Bound, gagged, and unconscious on the floor, but breathing.

You direct the light’s direction upwards to see the hinges more clearly and notice bulky rusted door pins. It’s a wonder he’s being kept in such an old place, it means all you have to do is jam away those pins and get the door to unhinge, you’ll just have to use some brutal force and hope no one’s nearby to hear it.

With your trusted knife and more than a little elbow grease, you manage to complete the task, but not without scraping your arm on the rusty door in the process. You’ll have to get a tetanus shot. Again.

The ruckus of the metal gate being pushed and prodded somehow did not wake Leon who’s still unconscious when you come to crouch beside him, removing the cloth gagging him. Your heart aches at the sight of the bruises on his cheeks, and even more so when you lift his eyelids to find pinpoint pupils, a sign of opioid sedation.

You don't waste anymore time. You take out the naloxone from the small medical pouch stripped to your hip, and you hastily bring it to his left nostril and press the plunger, releasing the mist into his airways. “Come on, Leon…” you plead.

A second later, his body jerks when he takes in a sharp gasp, eyes flying open as he’s jolted back into consciousness.

Gently grabbing his head to steady him, you speak softly to his confused state, “hey, hey, it’s me. You’re okay. I’m here.”

It takes him a minute before your words and his surroundings register, blinking rapidly as his breathing evens out.

“What the hell are you doing here, kid?” he asks in a gruff tone as he sits up with a grunt.

You sigh. Because of course that's the first thing he asks.

“I’m here to save your ass, you know, like the capable agent and colleague I am?” you huff before circling around him to cut off the restraints on his wrists.

“You’re not supposed to be here. Did Ingrid send you?”

“Yes, because you’ve been MIA for hours, and clearly she was right to send me. You were overdosing."

Leon tsks stubbornly, “Chris and Jill are here, they would've gotten me out eventually. You didn't have to come.”

You stand up with another huff after freeing him and cross your arms as you look down at him with an exasperated look, “you know a thank you would be nice.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, it's that I know you probably broke protocol to get here and put yourself in danger. But fine. Thanks, kiddo.”

You purse your lips and look away, feeling the familiar frustration rising whenever he insists on treating you like some kind of fragile, clueless child. You hate that he still sees you the same as he did nine years ago when you first met. You were sixteen, a powerless teenager—a kid—and he has continued treating you like one nearly a decade later.

Noticing your scowling expression, Leon softens his tone when he extends a hand with a warm smile, “help me up?”

Rolling your eyes, you take his gloved hand in yours and pull him up to a standing position. However, you both quickly realize that may have been too soon post overdose reversal when he stumbles into you and your back hits the wall with his weight pressing on your body.

“Shit… Are you okay?” you ask worried, trying to deliberately ignore the way your heart skips a beat at the proximity, your hands reflexively moving to his biceps to help support him.

Leon’s breath tickles your neck before he pulls back enough to look down at you, one hand on the wall, the other on your shoulder, “yeah, sorry, just need a minute.”

You’re unable to maintain eye contact, feeling like your heart might stop, or you might do something stupid like look down at his lips and lean in for a kiss—

Get it together.

Leon catches your fleeting gaze, a ghost of an amused smile on his face when he squeezes your shoulder, “I am okay,” he murmurs reassuringly.

“I know."

Your answer is curt, even if you do relax a little bit at his reassurance. You know why he is reassuring you. He thinks you're nervous because you're worried for him—which you are—but you're mostly nervous because you've been in love with him since the day he saved you.

There isn't a day that passes by when you don't remember it. That afternoon, when you came home from high school, expecting to find your depressed dad lounging on the couch with a drink like he always did, everything changed when you instead heard groaning noises coming from the upper floor.

You had walked up the stairs with careful footsteps, calling out to your father with a shaky voice and your mind running a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out what the noise was. Nothing would have prepared you to find his standing corpse in the corner.

Unbeknownst to you, your father had turned into a cannibalistic monster after he didn't take the medication that kept his transformation at bay for the previous six years. Since he kept you in the dark about his military work and what he’d endured in Penamstan, you had no idea you’d ever come home to this one day.

It happened so fast, but you remember every second. One moment he was standing there, all gurgling noises and rotting flesh, and the next he lunged after you as soon as you called out a weak ‘dad?’

You never ran as fast as you did that day, your untrained legs carrying you through the house and back down the stairs, tripping on the last step with a thud but quickly scrambling back up for the front door and yanking it open.

He had been right on your tail, way too fast for something that’s supposed to be dead. You recall how your life flashed before your eyes—literally—when he grabbed the back of your hoodie as you got out on the front porch, pulling you for what you could have only guessed would be a generous bite to your neck.

That’s when a bullet whizzed past your head and hit him right between the eyes, sending your zombified father sprawling on the floor—actually dead this time.

And then, you looked up and your eyes met his.

Leon.

It was spring 2006, Leon was investigating the ex Mad Dogs unit members after deducing Jason was about to execute a bioterrorist attack. He thought questioning them would give him more information about Jason and his infection with a possibly mutated T-Virus.

Leon had quickly come to find out all the men of the defunct unit were dead by suicide, except for Jason and your father. So when he came to your home that day to talk to the latter, he came prepared to deal with the worst.

Unfortunately, his intuition proved to be right when just as he parked his car by the driveway and stepped out, a screaming girl came running out into the front yard with an infected closing in her.

Leon’s limbs moved on pure muscle memory when he withdrew his gun and shot the zombie right in the head, and then watched with a tense jaw as its blood splattered on the pavement, brains spilling on the floor.

That was the first time he felt grateful to having lost his parents as a kid. Because as harrowing as hearing the gunshots of the men that took their lives that night through the thin walls of his bedroom was, he’d still prefer that to having them turn into zombies who try to eat him, and then watch as they get put down like rabid dogs.

When you had fallen to your knees in sheer shock and horror, Leon did not hesitate to crouch by your side to tell you ‘you’re gonna be okay’. He couldn't help offering some kind of reassurance, even if he was aware of how hollow the words sounded to a girl who’d just lost her father in the most gruesome of ways possible.

But you believed him as you met his ice blues, his eyes so full of care you had no choice but to cling to his every word, and continued to do so ever since.

Another squeeze to your shoulder brings you back to the present moment, still leaning on the wall with him leaning on you.

“Don’t tell me I’m too heavy for you,” he quirks an eyebrow with a playful smile.

“Damn right, you’re too freaking heavy,” you respond in a grumble, poking his side—still not meeting his eyes.

“That means I need to train your ass some more, then. We can't have you slacking off, rookie,” he flicks your forehead with the hand that was on the wall.

You immediately scoff and shove him—carefully—off you, “I’m not a rookie anymore!”

Leon chuckles, swaying lightly before he finally regains a steady balance on his feet, “you’ll always be a rookie to me.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that clear enough,” you grumble under your breath before handing him a spare handgun, “come on, grandpa, we need to find Jill and Chris.”

“Grandpa?” Leon scoffs in mock offense as he takes the weapon, reloading it with a nonchalant precision that only comes with fifteen or so odd years of experience.

“Well, you insist on still calling me ‘kid,’ so, I shall retaliate. Just so you can feel how annoying it gets.”

“Yeah, except I’m not a grandpa. You, on the other hand, are a kid,” he smirks—way too smug—and then proceeds to walk past you, gun held firmly as he prepares to lead the way.

He always leads the way.

Next chapter.

you weren’t supposed to be out this late.

the moon hung low over the forest path, painting everything silver. it was quiet—almost too quiet—and you were just enjoying the cool night breeze, humming softly to yourself, when you heard it.

that low, wet growl.

you turned your head, half expecting a wild animal. but then you saw it—pale skin, jagged teeth, claws like knives.

a demon.

you froze, brain short-circuiting for a solid three seconds before blurting out, “oh, hell no”

the demon lunged at you. you screamed—not a delicate, terrified scream, but one of pure offense. “no, no, no, no! am i going to die?”

and then a blur of blue and silver moved faster than your eyes could track.

a sword sliced clean through the demon’s neck, and the creature disintegrated into ash before it even hit the ground.

you stood there, blinking through the fading mist, and then you saw him.

black hair tied loosely, uniform clean despite the battle, and eyes that looked like deep water under moonlight. calm. unbothered. slightly sad.

you stared.

and just like that, you were gone.

“...oh my god,” you whispered. “he’s beautiful.”

•

giyuu sheathed his blade quietly, barely sparing you a glance. “you should go home. it’s dangerous here.”

you nodded, very seriously. “yeah, you’re right.”

he turned to leave.

you followed.

“where are you going?”

“with you,” you said instantly. “i’ve decided. that was so cool. you’re so cool. teach me how to do that. i’m becoming a demon slayer.”

he blinked at you once, twice, as if trying to process if you were joking.

“no.”

“yes.”

“no.”

“yes. you literally saved my life, so this feels meant to be. like fate.” you grinned, clasping your hands together. “do you train people?”

he sighed quietly, the faintest crease forming between his brows. “you need to go home. demon slaying isn’t something you just—decide.”

“well, i just did.”

“...why.”

“because you look cool,” you said bluntly. “and because purple’s my favourite color now.”

he stopped walking, turning to give you a look that could only be described as perplexed exhaustion. “...what?”

you gestured vaguely at him. “you. the whole thing you have going on. the serious vibe, the mysterious aura, the blue haori with the red side—it kind of looks purple in the dark. very aesthetic.”

he just stared at you for a long moment.

then, under his breath, he muttered, “this is why i don’t talk to people.”

“what was that?”

“nothing.”

you quickened your steps to keep up with him, your sandals crunching against the gravel. “so—when do we start training?”

“you’re not training with me.”

“when do we start training?”

he didn’t answer.

you took that as a sign to keep going.

“can i at least hold your sword?”

“no.”

“can i hold your haori?”

“no.”

“can i walk next to you?”

he hesitated for a fraction of a second before mumbling, “...fine.”

you lit up instantly, walking beside him like it was the greatest honor in the world. he glanced at you briefly—your bright eyes, your determined grin, the way your steps matched his despite your clear lack of any plan.

he didn’t get it. at all.

but for some reason… he didn’t tell you to stop.

•

the next day, you were still following him.

he had gone to report back to the corps, quiet as always, and there you were, skipping along the path like an excited puppy.

“you’re persistent,” he said at last, tone flat but not unkind.

you smiled up at him. “thank you.”

“that wasn’t—” he sighed again. “you shouldn’t be here. it’s dangerous.”

“so teach me to make it not dangerous,” you countered.

his jaw tightened. he said nothing, just kept walking.

you noticed, though, that his pace slowed a little.

and that night, when you almost tripped over a tree root and he instinctively caught your wrist before you fell, his hand lingered for a brief second—long enough for you to catch the faintest pink dusting his ears.

“you’re very serious, huh?” you teased.

he looked away. “someone has to be.”

you smiled, tugging lightly at his sleeve. “then i’ll make it my job to bother you until you smile.”

his eyes flicked toward you, calm and unreadable.

“good luck,” he said softly.

and though his tone was as quiet as ever, there was something there, something faintly amused.

you grinned, utterly undeterred. “challenge accepted.”

•

later that night, while the two of you rested near a small campfire, the silence between you wasn’t uncomfortable—it was oddly peaceful. you were watching the flames flicker when your stomach betrayed you with a loud growl.

giyuu looked up from his seated spot, blinking once.

you groaned, covering your face. “ignore that. i swear it’s the forest echoing.”

he didn’t respond. just blinked again.

you peeked through your fingers. “what’s your favorite food?”

his brows furrowed. “...what?”

“favorite food,” you repeated, scooting a little closer, chin in hand. “come on, everyone has one. something you like eating after a mission or whatever.”

“that’s… irrelevant.”

“humor me.”

he hesitated, clearly not used to being pressed like this. “...simmered salmon with daikon.”

you gasped, eyes widening. “no way! that’s my favorite too—well, maybe tied with sweet potatoes, but still!”

his lips parted, like he wanted to argue but couldn’t quite find the words.

you grinned wider. “see? we’re meant to be training partners. the food gods agree.”

“that’s not how fate works,” he murmured, turning his gaze back to the fire.

“sure it is. you save me, i follow you, we like the same food, you look amazing in blue—boom. destiny.”

for the briefest second, you thought you saw the corner of his mouth twitch upward.

just barely.

but it was there.

and you sat back, satisfied. “knew i’d get you to almost smile.”

he gave a soft sigh, the kind that sounded half defeated and half amused. “you’re annoying.”

“and you’re my new favorite person,” you replied easily.

he didn’t say it aloud, but as the firelight danced against his eyes, giyuu thought—just maybe, you weren’t the worst company after all.

•

by the third day, everyone in the corps had heard about the mysterious civilian who wouldn’t stop following giyuu tomioka around.

“are they together?” tanjiro had asked once, confused.

“no,” giyuu said immediately.

“so she’s…?”

“stubborn,” he muttered.

•

the next few days were… chaotic, for him.

everywhere he went, you were there.

if he went on patrol—you followed.

if he tried to train—you watched, eyes shining like you were studying a god at work.

and when he told you again not to follow him, you just nodded and kept walking behind him anyway, pretending not to hear.

“you really don’t listen,” he muttered one afternoon, glancing over his shoulder.

“i do,” you said cheerfully. “i just don’t obey.”

he blinked slowly, visibly regretting saving you. “you’re exhausting.”

“but, you would be bored without me around,” you teased.

he didn’t reply to that—he just turned away, but his ears were red again.

•

the funniest incident happened two nights later.

you were wandering near the hot spring he’d stopped at, promising yourself you’d finally convince him to train you tomorrow. you’d been curious where he disappeared to every evening—so, naturally, you decided to investigate.

you crept quietly through the bushes, tiptoeing like a professional stalker.

and there he was—half-submerged in the steaming water, his dark hair loose around his shoulders, the moonlight turning everything around him a silvery blue.

you froze, halfway between awe and panic.

“oh my god,” you whispered to yourself. “he’s… ethereal. like some kind of mountain spirit or—”

“why are you here.”

you yelped.

he didn’t even sound surprised—just mildly done with life. his tone was as calm as ever, eyes fixed on you like he’d already accepted your antics as his permanent curse.

“i—i was just making sure there weren’t demons!” you said, waving your hands defensively. “you know, guarding the perimeter! i take my future demon slayer duties very seriously.”

he gave you a flat look. “turn around and leave.”

“right, yep, totally! leaving! not staring at your shoulders or anything!”

his sigh echoed through the hot spring, quiet but heavy.

“you’re unbelievable.”

“and you’re lucky to have me!” you called over your shoulder as you scurried away, tripping over a rock but recovering with dramatic flair.

he stared after you for a long moment, then looked up at the moon and muttered, “why me.”

•

still, when morning came, you were right there waiting outside the estate with a bright smile.

“so,” you said, hands on your hips. “training starts today, right?”

“no.”

“perfect! i’ll go grab some sticks to practice with.”

he gave you one long, exasperated look before walking past you.

you followed anyway.