Chapter Text
The quiet night that Tsugikuni Yoriichi died, Amaterasu above wept. For it had been his destiny to slay the demon king, Kibutsuji Muzan, and end the madness that came from the malicious creatures.
The goddess of the sun turned away from the earth, for her brother Tsukuyomi had reign over the night. The moon god’s eyes looked over Amaterasu’s chosen hero, and his own wayward apostle Tsugikuni Michikatsu.
Both were born to save the world. One failed, for the gods above had waited until Kibutsuji was too powerful to be killed even by a demigod among men. The other had rejected his duty, and became a man-eating monster of the same type that the demon king was.
It was their third sibling, the god of storms Susanoo, that had come up with the solution. It was Susanoo, who had learned from his previous errors; who made the plan that would succeed, ending Kibutsuji’s wicked reign.
Not by killing the demon, for he was too close to a god for anyone to kill now.
But through changing his heart and the hearts of the other malicious demons that became too powerful.
And it all started with the Ubuyashiki clan that they had so long ago both blessed and cursed.
You lit the incense in the kōro before leaning back on your knees, your legs gracefully folded under you.
[kōro - incense burner]
Every day, without fail, you would come out to the shrine and pray for the souls of the deceased and those that remained. The shrine was tended to by your family line for generations, placed in the center of a tiny wisteria forest and hidden from the other half of your clan.
You grew up hearing about stories of the Ubuyashiki clan that you were born into. In the Sengoku period, when the Ubuyashiki clan head - and leader of the Demon Slayers - cast out the man who breathes the sun, the clan had split into two.
[Ubuyashiki - (産 “ubu” - bear; give birth to), (屋 “ya” - house; shop), (敷 “shiki” - spread)]
One lineage leads to the current leader of the Demon Slayer Corp., following a line of succession in the male line. You don’t even know his name, and you doubt that he knows yours.
The other lineage ends with you, your mother before you, and your grandmother before her(and her mother leading all the way back five hundred years ago).
At the start, when an Ubuyashiki princess married the head of Kibutsuji and birthed the progenitor of demons, and heir apparent Kibutsuji Muzan went mad, the Ubuyashiki clan was cursed by the gods to live a short life for being a part of that monster’s creation. But also blessed with intuition and foreknowledge, in order to better combat the rise of demons.
You’re grateful for the split of the Sengoku period. The curse doesn’t affect women of the Ubuyashiki clan as it does their men, so when your great-something grandmother gave birth to her daughter, she passed down a diluted version of the curse. And when she gave birth, the curse was diluted further.
And here you stand today, the curse no longer lethal on its own. You still had a weaker constitution than anyone else, and had no hopes of defending yourself against mortal or otherwise, but your days were still numbered.
Your silent praying came with a soft cloth and a basin of water, touching over the names engraved on stone and cleaning them of dust and dirt. Your ancestors’ names were all here, as were the names of those they married. Your mother’s name was here, as was your father’s.
As was your mother’s sister, Rengoku née Fujishiki Ruka.
[Rengoku - (煉獄 “rengoku” - purgatory)]
[Fujishiki - (藤 “fuji” - wisteria), (敷 “shiki” - spread)]
[Ruka - (瑠 “ru” - lapis lazuli), (火 “ka” - fire)]
Ah, right. Fujishiki is what your family line had gone with in order to prevent confusion. At least, that’s how it had originally been. Generations passed and now, it’s just because there are no real ties to the male line anymore.
You actually paused at Ruka’s name, thinking about her.
How was she doing? Was she happy? You know that the Rengoku family had been in the Demon Slayer Corps. before the sun breather had even been born. You know that she married into the Rengoku family because she found love in the man Rengoku Shinjurō.
You wondered about him too, what kind of person he was, as you cleaned the kanji of his name idly.
The incense burned out when you finally got to your own name, picking up a grasshopper that had jumped onto your stone.
You picked up the kōro, careful to not touch the hot parts, as you left the water basin and cloth at the foot of the shrine, letting the grasshopper go free when you reached the base of the stairs and stepped onto grass.
Now it was time for you to take care of your garden, and prepare tea for yourself.
Such was your life everyday, for the past five years.
It was the next day that the storm swept in, furious roaring winds and a downpour of the heaviest rain you’ve ever seen. The heavens rumbled with thunder, and flashes of blinding white lit up the dark sky.
But not even the raging weather stopped you from waking up that morning, gathering your kōro and grinding dried herbs for the incense.
The winds and rain would prevent you from spending too long outside, as you would get sick from the cold and wet. And with no one around for miles, getting sick would leave you to nurse yourself back to health with no medicine other than the herbal remedies you have made. That is, if you were lucid enough to care for yourself, let alone keep stock of your medicine.
So, falling sick is something you cannot allow.
You clutched the neckline of your kimono tightly as you stepped into the storm outside. Immediately, you were almost blown off your feet and into the mud, and instantly drenched with rainwater.
Your fingers grew clammy around the kōro, the cold already affecting your dexterity. But you trudged to the stairs of the shrine, looking up at the set of stairs.
The crack of lightning was closer than you expected it to be, your ears ringing with the noise and sending you in motion; you ran up to the safety of the shrine’s protective stone tiled roof, falling to your knees and shivering. Your kimono clung to you like a second skin, and you dreaded having to feel the sensation of peeling it off of you when you got back inside your home.
But still, you lit a spark and blew the embers in the incense until you could smell it begin to burn.
You shuffled until you were in proper position, and prayed as you always did.
Occasionally, as you prayed, you would get flashes of scenes. You could hear whispers from strangers that would feel so familiar. Sometimes, you could smell something that had nothing to do with the incense you were burning, sometimes you could taste fruits or meals that you had prepared for yourself in advance-
You tasted blood.
You smelled smoke.
You felt cold, but incredibly muscular arms wrap around your body from behind.
You saw pale skin, and navy fingers, and the flash of white fangs-
The crash of thunder rattled your bones, and the sound of a tree shattering, and the smell of ash and wet soot and- You gasped, startled out of your visions, seeing one of the wisteria trees that encircled your house in splinters.
Small fires were put out in the rain, and the ground was blackened. Lightning had struck the tree.
And instead of the worry of losing your protective barrier against demons filling your heart, somehow you felt safer than ever before.
The future seemed to be bright, despite the walls of wisteria being breached.
You wondered what the gods have in store for you, if demon’s bane burning was good.