Chapter Text
The first thing that he noticed was the smell. The rotten stench of iron that made him recoil. The second thing he noticed was the bodies, Rokuta and Nezuko laying motionless in the snow, red liquid making cursed snow angels around their unmoving bodies. Okaasan, Hanako, Shigeru and Takeo with their insides coating the walls of the home they had lived in.
The home he had so many memories in, the home his father had died in.
It was stupid if he thought any of them had survived but it didn’t stop him from checking. He frantically searched for a pulse, begging every god out there that someone would be alive.
He checked each and every one of them, with each failure to find a heartbeat making his chest constrict more until he finally went to check the last member of his family, Nezuko.
She was still warm so maybe there was a chance? He waited with baited breath the longer there was no pulse the tighter the feeling in his chest twisted. He knew it was useless now it had been too long without a beat, there was no way Nezuko could be alive.
That admission made the dam finally break, so he screamed. Heartbroken sobs for the family he had just lost escaping in between each yell. A yell that reverberated through the forest alerting everyone in the area of his emotion.
His yells were full of a grief so raw it would bring tears to most people's eyes. His screams got less sad and more painful and angry. Tanjiro’s screams told of an agony in his very soul as everything he had ever known fell out of place.
His voice was starting to crack and his screams started to taper off into the quiet sobs he was more acquainted with.
A pang of rage struck him full force in the chest, so familiar it made him feel sick. The ocean of anger he had worked so hard to suppress was welling up in him and this time his family couldn’t help him with it.
He heard careful footsteps behind him so quiet they were almost unnoticeable but the silence his rage left was making him hyperaware. Tanjiro’s hand drifted towards his axe wondering if he could take out a bit of his anger right off the bat. His hands wrapped around the handle and he prepared to fling it at the person's head.
He shook his head in shock, ‘what kind of thought was that?’
He looked at the person behind him, his clothing was questionable at the least, he had a mismatched haori draped over his shoulders. The man had long raven hair swept into a low messy ponytail.
The man's face was blank and apathetic, his uncaring face fed at the anger he was struggling to beat back.
“Who are you?” Tanjiro asked, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
“Giyuu Tomioka, I’m sorry I couldn’t save your family” A self loathing look crossed through his eyes, startling Tanjiro
‘Why is this random guy apologising?’
“Did you kill them?” He asks, his knuckles were turning white from how tight they were clenched around his axe
Tomioka blinked in surprise “No,” of course not
“Then don’t apologise” Tanjiro smiled bitterly “it’s my own fault I’m not with them anyway” If he had just gone up the mountain maybe he could’ve done something and even if he couldn’t he would at least be with them.
The man's eye twitched, a subtle thing but Tanjiro was on edge. It may have started as a twitch but soon Tomioka’s entire face had morphed into an expression filled with pure disgust. What was happening? What was with the sudden mood shift?
You have such disregard for your own life!” Tomioka roared “be grateful that you survived!”
Tanjiro felt the ocean inside him roar back, crashing down furiously. “What do you know about how I’m feeling?”
“How do you know what it feels like when you're so far up on your high horse that you don’t think to ask a crying child if they’re okay? Not even mentioning you didn’t even ask for my name!”
Tomioka’s face twisted into a snarl and he turned away “My orders were to kill that demon, not make small talk with some charcoal seller” He spat the words like they were poison.
The sheer disrespect and apathy were just enough to push Tanjiro over the edge. He lifted his axe to his shoulder and took aim at the back of Tomioka's head.
He took a breath revelling in the feeling of the sea -the one he had been suppressing for so long- engulfing him completely, the water was cold and violent but to him? It felt like home.
He flung the axe at the back of his head waiting almost excitedly for the splatter it would leave in the snow. It would be much more beautiful than the accursed circle of red that surrounds Nezuko and Rokuta, yes it definitely would be.
The axe reached the peak of its height and it was spinning faster and faster in its descent. A mere half a second before it struck true Tomioka twisted out of the way so it embedded itself in his shoulder instead.
He laughed angrily “Fuck!” He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes “Why… why did you have to move? Your blood would have painted such a beautiful picture in the snow!”
He looked up at Tomioka whose face was frozen in shock.
“What!?” He snarled, spittle flying from his mouth “do you think I’m insane? That I’m so utterly and devastatingly consumed by my grief that I made an ‘oh so horrible mistake’?”
Tanjiro clutched his face in mock agony, laughing all the while.
“You’ve got it twisted I’m afraid,Tomioka-san” He walked over to the man getting right up in his pained face. He lowered his voice to a whisper “my family, my stupid little charcoal selling family, were the only thing I kept myself from going off the rails for!”
He saw Tomioka start to recover from his shock, he watched as his hand started to stray to his katana handle.
He scoffed and quickly pulled his axe from his shoulder making Tomioka gasp in pain. The man’s arm spasmed, from pain or from hitting something vital Tanjiro didn’t know, and quite frankly? Right now he didn’t care.
“So if they were what was keeping me sane? Then you remove them from the equation, what do you think that makes me?”
This feeling of letting go was amazing, he felt like he could walk on water. Some distant part of him was screaming at him about how this was wrong, about how this wasn't what his family would want him to do but all he could think about was how amazing the weight of the axe felt in his palm and how exhilarating it felt to throw it.
He lifted the axe above his head for another strike and Tomioka recovered, hitting the axe out of his hand and pinning him to the floor with his blade at his neck.
Tanjiro sighed, closing his eyes and waiting for Tomioka to kill him. He knew he was unmatched the second he drew his sword. He unsheathed it with such fluidity even with his mangled shoulder. It was obvious he was a trained swordsman.
He let his head fall back onto the cold ground, the snow was soft around him even if the cold was getting unbareable. The cold surrounded him everywhere, the ocean in his mind was cold, his family were cold, the snow was cold and the metal of Tomioka’s sword was cold.
He was still waiting to be killed. He opened one eye to see what was taking so long and was baffled at the sight that greeted him.
Tomioka was above him, his sword pressed into his throat but something was off, he looked like he was frozen. A reddish aura pulsed around Tomioka’s shoulder, the same shoulder he had hit with his axe. The energy pulsed and Tomioka flung himself to his feet sliding into a defensive stance.
He frowned but when he opened his mouth to speak he received a scalding glare from Tomioka. He dropped his head back into the snow, he stared at the sky, it was completely covered in clouds.
Shigeru loved the sky, he would stare at it for hours on end until someone dragged him inside, he loved the stars and the clouds as much as his own family. Tanjiro huffed out a fond breath as he thought about all the times he had to drag the boy inside kicking and screaming to eat his dinner and warm up.
A smile started to form on his face as he calmed down, his senses becoming less pointed and more relaxed. He took a deep relaxing breath and was met with the cruel stench of iron and misery.
The familiar smells of his family mixed with fear so visceral he could taste it and then the stinging smell of defeat. The smells were faint and fading already but the thought of his youngest brother—he was barely four— having to feel such a thing made anger shoot through his nerves.
He sat up properly to look at Tomioka.
“What’s wrong” he asked his voice a whisper “why are you on edge”
Tomioka ignored him in favour of continuing to scan the tree line. What was so important that he had released Tanjiro who had already proven to be a threat.
“Tomioka-” He was interrupted by a beast crashing through the forest, the previous silence shattered by ground shaking stomps.
The creature hissed sniffing the air, this monster smelt foul, like rotten eggs left out in the sun, it was short and muscular but at the same time it looked like it was being starved. Something about the look in its eye portraying an unquenchable thirst or an insatiable hunger.
“It smells so good” the beast whined dragging it’s hands down its face “sweet marechi and a whole feast of others” it squealed in childlike excitement
Its eyes were taking in the scene of his family hungrily as if deciding where to start.
No. That’s not happening. He scowled and stood up, slowly picking up his axe as he made his way in front of the beast.
He let the blunt side of his axe rest against his thigh. He stood in front of his family, his back facing the graphic scene. He inhaled slowly, his lungs filling with the smell of iron and fear, he ignored that. Instead focusing on the monster in front of him.
The beast was already running towards his family, its face eager and excited. Tanjiro aimed his axe once more and waited for the creature to run past him. The second the creature was in his reach he swung his axe as hard as he possibly could towards its chest.
The blade lodged itself in its chest and the beast coughed slightly but otherwise didn’t really react, Tanjiro kicked it hard in the back of the knee making it fall. The second its knees hit the floor its attention was on Tanjiro, a slightly shocked look crossed its features but not before it swiped at him, catching him on the face.
The blood dripped down his face from the place his eye used to be. Warm wet and sickening. He pressed a palm to the socket and laughed. It wasn’t a harsh laugh, it was one of relief. Relief that it was nearly over, relief that he could at least join his family after defending them, relief that he wouldn’t be the only one left.
The creature pulled its hand back for another strike—this one sure to be fatal—when it froze. The monster froze mid motion and its head slowly, in an almost comedic way, toppled off its shoulders and onto the ground.
Tanjiro felt the crushing weight of all his failures crashing back down onto his shoulders, and he knew that he had survived.
That wasn't what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to die right there, he was nearly there. He just needed one last push.
His vision was getting blurry, and he couldn’t see anything at all from one side of his head. The blood was dripping down and getting in his nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe.
Ripped his hatchet out of the headless body. The handle was covered with blood from his hands making it slippery. He held it with both hands and swung down into the monster’s chest relishing in the spray hitting his face and the crack.
He swung again crack, and again crack, and again crack. He was getting more aggressive with each swing. The sight of the beast headless and fading, its chest mauled by him made him want to laugh.
He gasped a breath, gagging on the smell of pure pain and despair.
‘Where is it coming from?’ He looked around frantically, getting frustrated at his lack of balance. His eyes landed on the head of the beast and he stopped moving completely.
It became abundantly clear where the smell was coming from. The creature's face was contorted in a grimace of excruciating pain and acceptance. There were tears dripping down its face. Had he just made a horrible mistake? Was this a person? Had he misunderstood what was happening?
He distantly noticed that his breathing was picking up but he was too far in his own head to hear himself choking on his own blood.
He was a murderer, the person he killed had probably had a family, a family who would be waiting for them back home, but the man would never return to them,
‘And whose fault is that?’ A cruel voice sneered in his ear ‘you killed him for no reason, he was trying to help your family you idiot, maybe they would’ve survived if you had let him’
He wanted to turn to see who the voice belonged to but his eyes wouldn’t move off the man on the ground. He dropped to his knees, his entire body felt weak like he was wading through an ocean of water.
Black spots appeared in his already distorted vision. He swayed towards the ground but before he hit the snow he felt a hand around his collar keeping him up. He was far too tired to look up to see who it was but he noticed the hands were as cold as ice