I Love Them, Your Honor @warm-obsidian - Tumblr Blog

Hi! I really love your work. Is there any way I could request something with Gyomei? Maybe the reader almost dies and how he'd react to that? Also maybe a bit of Shinobu being kinda their daughter? Thank you so much!

A/N: ask and you shall receive! I hope you are prepared for the deviation :)

Keeping a Promise

(Gyomei Himejima x GN! Reader & Shinobu Kocho)

Summary: An intel gathering mission goes sideways and you disappear in the wreckage. The corps --- Gyomei and Shinobu above all --- are left to mourn your absence, assuming that you must have died.

But you had a promise to keep, and you were nothing if not true to your word.

{~Masterlist~}

Tags/TW: slightly graphic injuries, Hurt/Comfort, established relationship, Gender-Neutral Reader, Happy ending (kind of)

Word Count: 7.8k

You take one step, only one, but it feels as if you drag mountains with you. You move your feet slow, tired, uneven when you lean on the left one. Limping, stumbling forward, hardly making it anywhere. The crushing weight soon becomes too heavy to bear, your legs buckling underneath it all. In an instant your sword digs into the ground, your white-knuckled grip keeps you from falling any further. You wince, cough, wheeze. Something warm drips from your lip but you don't have the energy left to wipe it away, though the falling rain does at least offer that kindness for you; the downpour dragging the thick liquid until it seems almost as light as the water that captures it. You stay there, stiff, tired. Your vision is blurry, your mind can hardly make out up from down.

There is the briefest second where you can't bring yourself to continue. Where each of your muscles starts to give way and you are content letting the mud below you be your final resting ground. Your eyes shut, threatening to finally give in. Images pass, fleeting ones. Your life, your purpose, the fight you lost. Entire days pass in the stage of your mind. Quicker and quicker and quicker until you settle on a final memory.

Your husband, all broad shoulders and bulk, hunched over with a bag that seemed so very small in his hands. ‘In case the road is long,’ he'd told you, like he ever needed the excuse. You remember how his eyes welled with unwilling but common tears, how you smiled before holding his face. You remember the briefest sensation as you laid a kiss on his lips, warm and comforting, the feeling of home. How you soothed him with a mutter of words when you pulled away. ‘I will be alright. I always am. ’

But your assurances never did very much to ward away his concern. Even now you can see the look on his face so vividly, so fully. The trust he held for you mixed with the fear he tried to hide. ‘I know,’ he had answered, the quiet sound of his voice calming you, melting you. Your grip on the sword slips further, like you are falling towards the sound. ‘But I fear the day that you are wrong.’ he'd said.

You remember how you scoffed at that, the idea so absurd at the time. You? Wrong? As if.

The memory makes you laugh, though the sound chokes out of you, strained and gargled. The world around you is fading fast, your hands are falling too far.

But for a moment it is peaceful. For a moment you are so engulfed in the warmth of home that you forget you are so far from it. You forget the pain, the searing holes left bleeding across your skin. You forget the strange sensation of your arm not being entirely in its place, the pieces of you that are beyond shattered. You forget it all in the memory of him, in the very idea of his warmth against the bitter cold that currently held you.

And then you remember what you said to him. The words you chose to soothe him in that moment before you left.

‘I promise that I'll always make it back to you.’

Your eyes open suddenly, a sharp breath fighting back the slow drawls that were trying to take you to the ground. You heave shaky sounds, throat sore and dry, lungs on the verge of no longer expanding. But you force them just as your hands find the strength to hold on again, refusal in the sheer rage that pulls a snarl on your lips. That's right you– you'd promised him. You told him you'd come back, you assured him that you wouldn't die out here. You couldn't die out here.

Your eyes glance at the path behind you, a bloodied trail showing just how far you've come, how long you have fought your own body to get here. You can see the rain already washing away the crimson you left in your wake, but you still notice its stark color shine where the trees drip instead of cascade.

You can't stop now, not yet. Not until you see him again, not until your promise is fulfilled.

And so you force yourself back on your feet, slowly, like it was your first time ever trying. You grunt when you manage a hobbled stance, one hand coming to rest on the bloodied ache of your shoulder, your arm barely holding on. You push on because you need to see him again, because you have to. Even just once. Even for a moment.

You stumble your way down the path again, leaving unsteady footprints that are sure to wash away under the raging storm. A drag, a drop, a couple too fast and a few that take full minutes. It's only then that you see something from your place on the hill. Through the trees and down the steep drop a dim light shines, almost too dark to notice in the downpour. You set your sights on it, moving closer and closer. You would get there; you had to, you…

You had to.

-

The night is quiet, humming a soft breeze and carrying an unease that is hard to ignore. Especially now, his eyes closed as he prayed, a stride away from the nearby river. It felt almost as if the air was stilted, strange, lacking the normal song that usually calmed him. As if the world was holding its breath, anticipating something. He couldn’t ignore this worry; this bone-deep, heavy, sinking feeling that something wasn't quite right. That the night was holding back, waiting for its time to strike.

But he would receive word on you soon, he was sure. It had been long enough. He waited here for the simple fact that his crow hadn't returned with said news yet. But he was a patient man; he had no problem waiting. All in due time. Even if the seconds felt like they stretched longer than normal and his hands began to restlessly fiddle with his beads.

The call of a crow overhead is almost a relief, up until he realizes it caws something urgent. The bird swoops down quickly. Too quickly. Its trajectory is off, though he only realizes when it narrowly misses his head. He snatches the crow before it can hit the ground, confusion burning into his brow at the warm wet feeling of its wings that are far too small to be Zekka’s. His grip turns suddenly gentle at the strange sensation, knowing now that it must be hurt. He tries to fret over it but can't get a word past its flapping. Its quick breaths sound almost like it had flown from a battlefield and hadn't stopped since. A strange sight, a most worrying sight.

And then the news came.

“They are missing! They are missing!” It squawks and rattles. He recognizes the sound quickly.

This is your bird.

His hands shake before he can steady them, a sudden caught breath in his throat. He doesn't move for a long moment, frozen there, like he hardly believes it, as if only half his mind can bear it. But slowly, agonizingly, the shock wears away, understanding meeting him in the cruelest way possible.

You were gone.

“What happened?” he's quick to ask, a thousand thoughts running through his mind at once.

Are you hurt? Of course you are; you're missing. How could this have happened? It was just supposed to be an information-gathering mission; it wasn't supposed to be so dangerous. How could your crow have lost you? Was it attacked? Where could you have gone? Are you still alive?

He’s still reeling, but he knows now is no time for hesitation. He has to act.

“A surprise attack! An unexpected upper rank! When I returned they were gone!” The bird explains, quick and to the point as always. A trait he is most thankful for in this moment. He nods as he stands, quickly making his way.

“There were other slayers with them. Did they see where they might have gone?”

“Killed! The building collapsed!”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Some of the others! Not enough! Not everyone!”

“Are you well enough to fly?”

“Yes!”

“Then find Zekka. Have him inform the others and then return to me. I will need your help once we get there. We will see to your injuries on the way,” his voice is stern, heavy with duty as his estate comes into view. The bird takes flight not a moment later, off to fulfill its charge.

He stiffens in the sudden silence, the seriousness of the situation pressing firmly down on him. He feels inevitable tears streak down his face, impossible to hide as sheer dread twists his stomach. His feet don't let up even when the tinges of panic begin to shake his very being, muttering prayers under his breath next to pleas for your safety. He can't lose you, not yet, not yet.

He knows he shouldn't hope. He knows the chances are slim even now. He knows he should prepare to hear the worst. But he can't help that part of him that clings on anyway. The one that reassures him with weak certainties that you're alright, that you have to be.

You always are.

The search stretches, hours passing into two full days before he even arrives. By then he's already a mess, trying to calm the worried parts of himself. But he is determined in his march to find you; he will stop at nothing. Not until some sign of you is found, not until he knows. He remains hopeful; he has to. It's what keeps everyone looking. It's what keeps him from breaking.

But days stretch to a week, each second more desperate than the last, more hands and eyes and feet scouring the battlefield you had left behind until it goes well beyond its borders. But there is no sign, no trace, nothing. It's as if you disappeared into thin air.

The only thing worse than the search is the uncertainty; the questions, the worry, the tumbling thoughts of the only logical solutions left. Were you eaten? Taken? Burned to ash? Pulverized from existence entirely? Every conclusion is more gruesome than the last. There is no telling the fate you might have suffered at the hands of any demon, let alone an upper rank. But he doesn't stop; he refuses. He has to find something.

The others take their turns trying to talk him down, to speak sense to the man in denial of the building grief. At first his will is strong enough to deny them, to speak with such conviction that even they believe for a moment it might still be worth looking. But with each attempt, with each day that passes where there is still no sign of you, his resolve begins to whittle down. Until slowly, finally–

“Himejima,” Shinobu speaks carefully, his thoughts pulled away to the present, snapping his focus as he turns to the noise. All the others had turned in, sure that you were nowhere to be found. She was the only one that remained. And he knew then, just by the sound of her voice, that she, too, was faltering.

There is silence between them, an infinite one. Like the world stopped and time stood still. Like all of existence knew what was coming next and was allowing him the time to finally embrace it.

He feels her hand on his own. He almost flinches at the touch before she speaks.

“I don't want to say it,” she begins, hesitant, almost afraid. “But I think we both know we can't keep doing this,” she finally falls.

Something snaps in him when she does, like the foundation of him finally crumbles and reality comes crashing down. He stands taller, pulling in a deep breath as he tries to find a rebuttal. She simply didn't understand; they all didn't. You would come back; you had to, you always did. You promised.

A jumble of unclear words and sounds pass her lips, noises that fade into the distance, entirely missed by him. He means to steady himself, to focus, to pull the crumbling pieces together. But when he finally accepts your fate his held breath comes out broken. And that small shake is enough to send him over the edge and to his knees, sobbing into his own hands, finally losing the last of his restraint, the last of his hope as the week of exhaustion and worry hit him all at once.

He has never been a man ashamed of his own emotions. He felt freely and fully; he wept when he felt he needed to. But never before had anyone but the master seen him in such a state. Inconsolable, nearly hysterical. She does what she can to comfort him, but this hurt isn't something that heals so easily; it isn't something her words can mend. She had stolen his last hope.

He calls off the search quickly after, announcing your likely death before returning to his estate alone. Upon hearing the news many come to comfort him, some even marked by their own grief at your loss. He appreciates their efforts, but they do nothing to calm the unsettled part of him that's left in the coming days. He chooses solitude.

His grief is a quiet thing, fading into the background and becoming something so entwined with him that it goes without speaking. Yet he remains who everyone needs him to be, standing tall and pushing on. He buries himself in duty, responsibility, whatever comes next. He tells himself it's part of moving on, but in reality it's to avoid it entirely. To pretend like there wasn't an irreparable hole torn through him. Because he should have known better. Because he, of all people, should have anticipated a day like this. But as wise as he is even he is no match for what loss can do to a person. No amount of logic made the pain any easier to deal with.

This avoidance does nothing to quell the feeling. Inside he's breaking, fighting a war within each day just to get up. He had never meant to need someone so deeply; he hadn't even truly known the full extent of the emotion until he'd lost you. He assures himself near constantly with words that seem pointless. Ones that give him no comfort at all as they race through his mind, spiraling quickly into something harsh.

There is nothing he could have done, no one could have known, he knew this was a risk, he knew this might happen, he should have been prepared for this, he should have held tighter, he shouldn't have let you go, he shouldn't have- he couldn't have- he needed to- he didn't.

In some way it feels as if he had failed you. The blame rests in his chest, the guilt sitting in the grave your absence left. He prays that he might somehow find peace from it, that he might be shown how he is supposed to live fully without the other half of him. He asks why these unfortunate events persist, plaguing his life no matter how tightly he holds on and regardless of his efforts. Is there any reason at all? Anything? Any sense in the misery beyond this hollow feeling? He is trying to find it, believing there has to be a meaning for it all. A reason you couldn't stay. He searches for the beauty left in a world without you and nearly scares himself when even the idea is difficult to swallow.

Each day the silence grows deeper, louder, more encompassing. His home loses your touch, his routines lack your presence. Sometimes it felt like some horrible nightmare he'd wake from. That the walls of the home you once shared couldn't have stood without you. But each day he wakes and somehow the world continues.

He finds himself waiting beside the river when his mind becomes too much of a storm to settle. Like his body hasn't yet registered your absence, like it somehow expects you'll return if he just sits there long enough. How long would he wait for you, he wondered. How long would his absent mind return to this place, listening for your footsteps? How long before his soul would mend enough to consider letting it go? Letting you go?

Deep down he didn't feel he ever would. He could see himself, decades from now, sitting along this same stream. He'd hear the words of you echo in place of the forest; he would smell the essence of you bleed into the trees and grass and dirt. On kinder nights it was a happy thought, knowing that a part of you still stayed with him. That he could always be sure he would remember the entirety of you as long as he sat there.

On bitter nights it was a tragedy. This thing he could not rid himself of, this ache that would never fade. He would be haunted, your voice an echo in his mind too distant for it to bring any comfort. Like the whisper of a word in the air, a sound he could never fully grasp. Out of reach, just beyond his fingertips. Gone.

For right now the pain was still fresh. Each memory of you played through his mind as if he were reliving them, still too soon for the fuzziness to morph your voice, for the smell to fade. Bittersweet. A medium between misery and solace.

Three months pass far too quickly. The seasons change, lingering hope having long faded down to ash. There is no reasonable way he could hold onto it any longer, no reason to. He knew you were gone after the first week. Yet knowing and feeling have always been very different things for him. Knowing you were gone was accepting a nightmare as reality. Feeling you were gone was when he learned not to set aside food anymore. It's when your cup sat untouched as he made tea. It's when he stopped reaching for the empty spot beside him at night.

It's when he said your name, and somehow it sounded foreign in his tongue.

-

It's foggy at first, a bit like drowning really. Your lungs are heavy, each breath an effort. You can open your eyes though you almost feel like you shouldn't. Your body moves on its own anyway, opening to the world as darkness fades, soft beams of light drawing your attention, the subtle change all that you can bring yourself to focus on. But it's strange. Half the world is lost to you, fuzzy, unclear. You can't understand it; you don't understand.

“Oh! They're awake!” a voice, soothing and somehow distant. You notice how you only really catch the sound with your right ear, the other entirely muffled. Either way you turn to the noise, regret flooding you when even the slight movement of your head sends shockwaves of pain. You wince, eyes closing again as you take a second to assess the situation. Your mind is nearly on autopilot as you begin to feel every twitching nerve and aching joint, trying to understand just how bad it was. You notice that the muffled sound of your right ear doesn't fade, the subtle noise of the room gone on that side. Deaf.

The next thing you notice is the ache in your ankle, twisted and wrong in enough places for you to know it was likely beyond useless at the moment. Though you don't quite feel like testing that theory just yet.

The next realization is your arm. The subtlest shift reveals the disturbing lack of weight on your right side. It takes two breaths for it to register, then it sinks in.

Your arm. Where is your arm?

Your eyes open in a panic, still tight jaw clenching harder. You finally go to speak when you pause, horror sinking deeper when you notice the fuzziness of the world hasn't even begun to fade. All you can see are shadows casting on darker shadows, streams of light that outline shapes.

“Hey hey, easy now–” you reach over, grabbing the stranger by the arm, their sleeve bunching in your fist as you pull them suddenly closer. You feel them; you know they're inches from you.

But all you see is an outline.

“I– I can't–” a wheezed cough stops your words before they can hope to be anything else, your grip loosening immediately. Your body feels weaker than it ever has.

“Get the doctor!” The voice yells, a harsh sound that makes you snarl at the sharpness of it. Your head is killing you.

There's a flurry of movement after, a mess of voices and names you don't quite catch. You try to find anything familiar, anything at all that will help you understand where you are right now. But nothing made sense. You couldn't see, could hardly hear, you couldn't move. The last thing you remember was walking, falling, dying.

Your body's instinct has always been to fight, and when these hands grab at you some part of it makes some pathetic attempt to try, more out of confused desperation than anything. But they hold you down easier than anyone has in years, like your body didn't know a day of training as they do whatever they wish with you. It's sickening, terrifying. It's a blurred mess and all you can think about is getting the hell out of there — of going home.

It takes hours before you settle, the pain dulled by whatever bitter liquid they'd forced down your throat. You're too tired to move anymore, even as every part of you tries. But eventually it all fades again, drifting back into that dark, endless void you were so sure must be death.

The next time you wake up goes much better. You have enough of a mind not to move anymore, instinct cooling as you finally realize the situation you're in. Where before these strangers saw a hurt animal thrashing out they instead found something much more tamed. You are quiet, solemn as you accept the entirety of your situation. Injured, nearly dead, and in the hands of people who were no Kakushi. You still don't entirely understand how you got here, but you are finally well enough to ask.

You learn that you had been found along a path, saved by the near divine luck of a rare traveler caught in the downpour. But how exactly did you get there?

You remember running, somehow getting away– running from what? A demon most likely. That's the only thing that makes sense. You must have been on a mission. How did you get so hurt? You had been with others, about a dozen or more demon slayers. What–

The fire. You were all in a building when it collapsed. No one survived, no one but you. Then that demon showed up. An upper rank. Too far outside of your league, especially injured and alone. It took nearly all you had just to escape the thing, saved only by the few minutes of rising sun before the storm hit. And now you’re injured, tired, and in the middle of nowhere. Your crow isn't nearby and from the doctor's explanation this mountain village isn't known for its visitors. You are helplessly and hopelessly stuck. You have no choice but to wait and heal.

It's another week before you gain enough strength to have a conversation again. You learn of this village, small in number and hidden between mountains, so obscured and insignificant that it hardly ever appeared on maps. Likely why no one ever traveled in or out of the place.

Next you learn that it’s already been a month since you'd first arrived. Your reaction to the news is to immediately try to stand, to make any effort to get out of bed. You knew what that time meant. With the destruction left in your wake and no crow at your side you might as well have died there. At least that's how it must have looked.

They manage to bring you to enough of your senses to settle down again, but only after you collapse to the ground. Never before had you felt so weak, so powerless. You wanted nothing more than to return home, and yet you could do nothing about it.

You had thought to write a letter and send it away, but these people had very few means of contacting the outside world. They would normally send someone as a messenger to the nearest town two days away, but such a thing was useless to you. Even if you sent a letter, the likelihood that they would find anyone who knew you was incredibly low. You'd have better luck shouting your name from the mountaintop and hoping they heard you.

So you stay, receiving treatment that even you know is inadequate for your condition. It's keeping you alive, but that's about all it's doing.

The days pass slower, one after another as you gain only slivers of the strength you once had. You learn to stand, walking with a crudely carved cane. It splinters in your hand at times before you use the bandages to cover where your hand holds. But it is a crucial tool, as it not only keeps you on your feet, but helps you see. Eventually you get good enough with it to move on your own.

You try to make the best out of your circumstances, talking with the people who treat you and taking the time to understand your new condition. You adapt well, more quickly than any of them would have guessed. This is partially due to your training, of course. The strength of your spirit couldn't have been snuffed out so easily. But also because of your familiarity with life altering injuries. You did often spend time with the Kochos, after all.

You learn that these people are quite the curious bunch. Being so long separated from the outside world will do that, you supposed. You find a certain joy in telling them your stories, if only so you can taste a piece of home in them. Though it is your caretaker, someone you have grown to enjoy the company of, that you find yourself talking to the most.

“Is your vision returning?” She had asked one day. You turned up from your meal, meeting where you believed her eyes were.

“No,” you answered simply, already knowing where this was going.

“Are you sure? You haven't been struggling with moving as much as I originally thought you would. Many of the others don't believe you've lost your sight at all,” she explains and you can't help but snicker at the words. Fate sure did have a funny way of repeating itself.

“I have more experience with it than most people,” your tone is amused, though there is a strain to how your smile pulls.

“How so?” You feel her lean closer. You wonder if this is what he meant when he said he could feel the warmth of you near him.

“My husband is blind,” you hear her breath catch at the words, though it is strange to you when you can't make out her expression. Something you're still getting used to.

“I'm…very sorry to hear that.” Her voice is all remorse and sympathy, but you bark a laugh at her words. You hear the jolt of her chair when you do.

“Don't be. You would hardly notice it in him either. The only reason I've adapted so well to it myself is because of how he's told me he’s learned to deal with it. My senses aren't nearly as keen as his, but what I have learned from him is certainly helping,” your words are all mirth and joy, your smile wide as you speak. You can't help it when it comes to him; you've always found joy in even just the thought of him.

There is a pause, the air almost fragile before she speaks again.

“You miss him,” she states, more fact than question. At that your smile falters, hands twitching around your chopsticks, food hardly halfway off the plate before it falls back onto it. You look away from her, knowing your expression is anything but joyful anymore.

“More than anything,” you sigh the answer, eyes shutting through the breath. You know you can't do anything about it. You know that. Yet still you felt that guilty pit in your chest, knowing he must be worried sick about you.

With the rate of your recovery it would be so much longer before you could travel on your own, if you could even do such a thing anymore. That thought terrified you, the potential of being truly stuck here looming over you. How much longer would it take, you wondered. Two months had already passed, perhaps a month more? Though that seemed like a childishly hopeful thought. In your condition it would be a year in recovery under even the best circumstances. And as dedicated as these people were to saving you, the best wasn't a title they could ever hope to achieve in this isolated place.

So you waited, and waited, and waited. And on days when you felt just a bit more hopeful than the last you would have someone write for you. The letters might be useless, but it seemed better to try. You hoped that perhaps the messenger might get lucky enough to happen upon someone in the corps, and that they would believe them enough to send the letter higher in the chain. Impossibly atop of greater impossibility, but you had to hope.

And then one day you heard an all too familiar sound.

“Enjoying your vacation, I hope,” a voice chirped, your groggy eyes snapping in the direction of the noise. Your eyebrows knit, entirely sure you must have heard the sound wrong.

“Shinobu? Is…Is that you?” Her steps pause, silence held in the air. Eventually she moves to sit beside you.

“Do you not recognize your favorite–?” you cut her off when your arm flung around her shoulders, pulling her in close. She hesitates for a moment, her body stiff in your grip.

But eventually she softens, her hands clinging tight enough to bunch clothing as she rests her head against your chest.

“I can't believe you're alive,” she mutters there, something more vulnerable in her tone than you'd heard in some time. She was, after all, like a daughter to you. You can't imagine the turmoil your absence had brought her.

“I can't believe you found me!” you almost laugh the words, the sound of joy and relief so profound it nearly consumed you. Then the thought of just how unlikely this was truly hit you, the inevitable question following soon after, “How did you find me?”

“I was making a visit up here when one of the messengers stopped me,” she admits, a slight shake in her tone. “They recognized my butterfly clip from your descriptions. A miracle, really. I only went up that path because the other was so muddied,” she continues just as you pull away. You may have lost most of your sight, but even now you were sure her smile wavered, tears perhaps threatening her eyes. “You’re alive.”

“Just barely, yes,” you agree, the sigh in your voice and the wince on your face revealing the amount of pain you were still in. “I've lost most of my sight, and I'm deaf in one ear. I'm not sure about the state of my legs, but I'm not very hopeful–”

“I know,” she cuts you off, her voice suddenly serious. She takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I can't move you yet, not safely anyway. But I have some Kakushi bringing more supplies. And I'll be personally looking after you, of course,” her tone is final, no room left for argument. Not that you were going to try. Instead your hand finds hers. She fits in your palm, always so much smaller than you remembered. You smiled, a hundred different memories following the gesture.

“I'm so happy you're here,” you speak softly. You feel her grip tighten.

“You should focus on resting. I'll be around–”

“Wait,” you stop her, the silence encouraging you to continue. Something not so kind rests in the air, some form of dread that's followed you since you'd first awoken here. You almost didn't want to speak it into existence, like it would somehow make it real.

But in the end you had to. You had to.

“Gyomei, is he…is he okay?” The question comes softly, drowned in your care for the man. She sighs heavily, like weight leaves with the breath. Her head tilts away, unable to look you in the eye.

“I have hardly seen him since we called off the search. He's been keeping himself…busy,” you can hear how lightly she's trying to let you down. But you know, of course you know. Asking her was only a formality. You'd known since you'd first woken up that he was grieving you.

“Could you do me a favor?” you ask, voice growing weaker by the second. Whatever your request you know you don't have much time left to make it before you would need to rest.

How you loathed how weak you've become.

“When you call him here, don't tell him it's about me. The house is so far; I don't want him to be worried the entire way. He'll be doing enough of that when he gets here.” you manage the words, though not easily, and she hums an acknowledgement. You imagine her nodding in agreement as she flashes that common smile of hers. One that you’d never see again.

“Of course.”

-

It’s back along the river's edge that some sickly repetition finds him; a crow once more cawing obsessively above him. He knew by the strength of its wings that it’s his, which does at least help calm that nauseating feeling in his throat. But the bird is no less urgent.

“North Northeast! A village between mountains requires you. On orders of the master,” his crow, proud and strong, relays the message to him. He lets out a heavy breath, allowing Zekka to flutter to his shoulder as he stands. His nose crinkles, discomfort forming in the twitch.

“Very well,” he answers, though it takes immense restraint to not fall back into the grass and ignore the order entirely. He always found this place hard to leave. Like it beckoned him in and hoped to keep him here, like it couldn't bear the thought of his absence. Sometimes it felt as if you'd walk just over that hill as long as he was there to greet you. Or maybe he just hoped to calm the restlessness of his body that would pace, the lingering feeling of forgetting something haunting him.

But he knows he can't stay. He still has a job to do, a role to play. Even grief-stricken he cannot allow himself the luxury. Demons waited for no one.

He makes haste, knowing better than ever that he can't afford to waste time. A second too late and another life might slip through his fingers, another burden laid heavy on his back that he would have to carry for a lifetime.

It takes an entire three days to get there and he receives no further information in the meantime. It is odd, disquieting even. Something about it didn't feel right in a way he couldn't prepare himself for.

His hands twitch, fiddling with his prayer beads on his travels in hopes the feeling would fade. He convinces himself that he’s just overwhelmed. That it is all in his head. It was terribly close to a place he never wished to see again, after all. The same direction you'd disappeared in and nearly the same distance away. It was just a case of bitter memories that put him so on edge.

He arrives at that small village and finds Shinobu waiting for him, the sound of her voice calling far too unique to be anyone else. His pace slows as he approaches, hesitant and careful. He bows once he's close enough, a pit settling low in his stomach.

“Lady Shinobu. I take it we are sharing this mission," he returns to standing as he hears her hum an acknowledgment.

“Something like that.” Her words reveal nothing as she gives a careful tug of his sleeve, beckoning him to follow her down the path. By the smell of the dew-dropped air he guesses it must be morning by now. The silence of the streets solidifies the idea, the only sounds being the stirring of houses and the patter of his footsteps along the worn dirt path. His already unsettled feelings grow, now knowing for a fact this was no simple demon-killing mission.

“Do you have any more details on the mission? I fear I wasn’t properly informed on what we’re doing here,” He questions, his weariness slipping into his tone. Though she doesn't seem too surprised, given that her pace doesn't stutter.

“I have special orders to wait until we get there to tell you anything,” her hand once more gently tugs the sleeve of his shirt when she turns. Just the one, so he knows exactly where she's going. Usually he wouldn't need the help, having long honed his other senses well enough to picture the environment around him. But it always took more effort to do so, and he had found himself too tired as of late; something he was reminded of with each new bruise and scratch he'd gotten from running into some corner or another. A fact she'd clearly noticed if she felt such a need to direct him. A small guilt blooms at that but he knows it better than to say anything, lest she begin to fret over him even more.

“And where are we going, exactly?” He pushes, trying to busy his mind with the task at hand. He needed her to give him something to focus on, something that he could accomplish.

With his mind so focused on finding something to occupy it, he doesn't even think to question why she knew more than he did about whatever this mission might be.

She stops, her hand placed flatly against him. He turns to her, noticing then that her head is turned to the building beside them. He follows where he believes her gaze points, trying to gain any knowledge he could about where she’s brought him.

He hears the clang of something, distant and muffled behind a door, far too busy to be anyone's early morning home. There is a warmth that radiates, like the building hadn't slept, the wood left burning and maintained through the night. Most strikingly of all is the smell, sharp and medicinal, coated in herbs.

“A medical building?” he murmurs, almost unheard. His thoughts spin at the possible meaning. The answers are logical at first. Why are they here? What purpose was he meant to find? A wounded slayer with information, perhaps? Or maybe a doctor had seen a demon nearby? But in the back of his mind an echo forms. Slow, hesitant, like warm ash swept by the wind and sparking against a dry leaf. A hope he denies wholeheartedly, like he can't afford the softness of an easy letdown.

But then she speaks again.

“They shouldn't have survived, given the state they were found in. The fact they did is a miracle. Even more so with the limited medical capabilities of this village,” her voice is soft but clinical. Like she was relaying a purely medical assessment to him in that sing-songy voice of hers.

He tries to listen, to absorb her full meaning. But the more she speaks the brighter that flare burns. Denial bleeds through him, like a final attempt at trying to protect against the flicker. He silently prays that she will stop speaking entirely, in spite of how cruel the thought is.

“They survived Gyomei,” she says suddenly just before turning to him. He can sense her smile in the slightest huff, but he knows it is more for his comfort than hers. “We found them.”

His next breath is sharp, sudden, held back as if it refused to leave. Tears form in his eyes, his entire body tense as stone.

“You mean…” He hesitates to ask, more out of shock than disbelief. He knows she would not have lied about such a thing. Such false hope would have destroyed him. Yet he can't help the lingering thought that he had heard her wrong.

“Yes,” she confirms, leaving no room for denial. “They're sleeping inside.”

At those words his resolve collapses all over again, tears streaking endlessly down his face, steady breath a hopeless thing to wish for. He turns towards the doors again, hardly concealing his want.

“Take me to them,” his voice crackles, but holds strong nonetheless. He has to be sure. He wouldn't believe it until he'd seen it for himself.

“Of course.” She moves ahead, opening the door. There is a warning in her voice he doesn't catch, something that lingers just below it that he is too distraught to pick up on.

At first he hears voices, her hand guiding him forward once more. Those voices stop when he steps in, like his arrival had been anticipated for quite some time. He can feel stares even as the strangers continue with their work.

The two move down the hall and it feels like the world is collapsing around him again. Like that day just before he snuffed out the last of his hope; the embers ignited again, yet too afraid to blaze. It all seemed so unlikely, so far from reality. Like his mind was playing its cruelest trick yet and he'd soon wake from this dream and feel emptier for it.

It isn't until he's standing right outside another set of doors that he stops hard in his tracks. It's the smell first, something distinct in his memory. It's been so long since it was so strong in his nose, being that it was the first of you to begin fading from his life. Something he could not have held on to if he tried. But it is clouded in something else. So many months away had changed it, a fact he should have expected. Though the hint of something stinging under the scent is what worries him the most. Like alcohol and medical wrappings.

His hand reaches for the door, sliding it open slowly, like he was afraid any sudden movement would make this too real.

His next steps are slow, hesitant, like he doesn't mean to move at all as he passes through the barrier of the doorway. It is quiet, as so much of his life has been these days. But there is the sound of someone; a ragged, wrong, pained breath in the second bed to the left.

“They are changed from the last you've seen them,” Shinobu speaks more carefully than she ever has, a continued soft warning in the whisper of her words. But he hardly hears her, the buzz of the world fading away again. He didn't need any explanation to know the state you were in. He could sense it in the air; he could feel it in his skin.

He walks closer, as carefully as he can as he makes it to your side. Some part of him still wants to believe it's a lie, that all this time and all his grieving wasn't for nothing. That you didn't suffer, that you had been at peace all of this time. To know you were alive was to know he could have found you. That you had gone through hell and he hadn't been there with you. That he truly had failed you.

But another part of him, some selfish part, wanted it to be true more than anything else. He wanted to believe it. No matter the cost, no matter the guilt, no matter what else might be taken in the process. He wanted you back.

He reaches towards the bed, trying to find your hand to hold in his own. When he is met with bedsheet where it should be he nearly winces, the absence stinging, deeper and deeper. Yet he still searches, his hands trailing with the most gentle touch, tracing, trying to find familiarity. But your arm is nothing more than a pinned shirt sleeve, removed all the way up to your shoulder. He feels the pain of it as if it is his own. It should have been his own.

When he makes it to your face he isn't surprised to find bandages there, though it only digs that searing ache in him deeper. Nothing is how it was; he can't recognize you.

It's only when his hand falls to the other side of your face that unusually cold skin finally meets his own. He is able to hold there, still searching, looking, trying to find you. He finally does when his thumb traces over an older scar, one he'd memorized, something finally familiar in his palm. He knows then, beyond any doubt, that it is you.

The rest of his composure shatters at the confirmation, hot tears streaming freely down his face as a heartbreaking sob chokes out of him. He lays his head against yours, his shallow, shaky breath almost matching your own. He holds you there like he'd given everything just to have you again, like he'd stolen you from death itself and had no plans of ever letting you go again. He wouldn't; he swears he wouldn't.

He would not survive losing you again.

And then he heard your breath catch, the light stroke of your hand carding into his hair, stunning him still.

“Hey…” you whisper the word, your voice more frail than he'd ever heard you. He pulls you closer then, tighter, like every inch of space is too much.

“You're alive,” he chokes on the words, like he truly can't believe them. Your hand trails down to his face, a thumb wiping away tears just as he hears you choke up with your own.

“Of course I am,” he hears your smile even as your voice shakes. You place a chaste kiss on his lips, the salty taste of mixed tears hardly a complaint either of you dared make. You hold him tighter, your only wish left being to see his face again.

“I promised I’d always make it back to you, didn't I?”

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