Collab:
@Haha
Quietly Kousai sat in a quaint booth in the corner of the onsen, his nichirin blade nowhere to be seen. He knew the rules if he wanted to see Mura and it would feel good to finally talk with someone. A week had gone by since he had spoken with anyone, even Himari had gotten the cold shoulder. Unexpected actions accompanied the sadness he gained from that day, not even doing his duties as a slayer diligently. Grief wrecked his soul, his heart heavy at what he deemed a failure to the memory of his twin brother, so conversation was the one thing that he needed at this point. Mura was one of the few he enjoyed his time around, opening up when he could. He just wanted a moment of reprieve and hopefully the capacity to fix his crashing emotions.
But that was how things went sometimes. You could control your own actions, but not those of others, and emotions were more tumultuous than the weather itself. Still though, nothing healed wounds quite as well as time— and Mura even in her curdling rage of preventable consequences did those emotions wane with each passing day. She did not forget. Demons as old as she had a habit of remembering old wounds no matter the ticking of time, but her heart ruled over her more than most of her kin. So she could forgive, to at least some degree. If Kousai had brought his coveted blade along with him, perhaps things might’ve been different, but young warriors who followed the rules garnered a soft spot for the old fox.
“I had expected you to come sooner, but I suppose letting me cool off was a wiser decision. I’d expect things to be quite tense back at the headquarters?” The proprietress stepped past the Rumble Hashira with a small wooden crate in her arms, the other employees of the establishment had been busy tending to patrons so she was getting her hands dirty for once.
“Honestly, yes. I haven’t been to headquarters but I've heard things. With my cousin captured and another dead, the world is starting to look a bit bleaker to the Corp.”Kousai stood from his seat, a smile etching itself upon his face. There was a genuine feeling of reprieve from seeing Mura and not garnering her ire. He never believed that he would have a fondness for a demon. No matter how calm he was, there was a deep seated hatred for demonkind and yet he didn’t feel that toward her. A demon making itself a staunch ally to humans was a sight to behold, and he barely trusted Jae-un even then, another demon ally in a similar vein to Mura.
“I apologize for my actions a week ago. May I be of service?”Kousai bowed to the patron, his voice as sincere as possible. He lifted his hands as came up from his bow, implying he’d take the crate from her.
The crate was swiftly handed out to Kousai, sparing no time to rid herself of the relatively heavy crate filled with liquor bottles jingling and clanking as the slayer took the burden from her. There was no swift reply in answer to Kousai’s words, rather, she squinted her crimson eyes upon the man with some sort of burning inquisition. Her hands were dusted along the fabric that covered her legs before beginning to hum to herself— transitioning into an old tune she’d heard once before as Mura’s mind wandered.
“Truthfully, not right at this moment. The days following that terrible series of altercations have been peaceful in my corner of the world, but that never lasts.” She’d wriggle her nose at those words, it was a habit of displaying her own uncertainty.
“If you are eager to earn some favor with the Onsen and its many denizens, I’d wager you just— try to keep trouble out of our midst as much as you can. I do what I must to steer unruly kin away as much as I can, but it would paint me in a poor light to steer them all, and as you know— I do like to keep this neck of the woods as pacifist as possible.” Mura would bounce her shoulders as she stepped behind the oaken countertop of the bar and grabbed her pipe, still lit, and plopping it between her lips to chew.
Kousai gave a small smile, showing he was at least in some form of good spirits. The box wasn’t heavy for him, a positive from his training. He followed Mura closely, heeding on her orders on where to put the box.
“If I may be so bold, how do you know Mr. Former Blood Moon number 2? I know you haven’t spoken a lot of your past and you probably weren’t the helpful demon you are now but I was just wondering.” “Knowing him, is a strong word. But demons need to have a basis of familiarity, whether they’re chummy or not is another matter.” Mura clicked her tongue before taking a slow drag from her pipe, then plumed out a long wispy trail of smoke.
“I don’t recall when I met the 2nd, but in truth, he is a lesser evil of the many I’ve met.” There’s a small amount of hesitation following her words, where she looks out towards the windows facing the front of the onsen.
“Well, so long as issues aren’t brought to my establishment.”“Interesting.” Kousai spoke with curiosity, rubbing his chin with his free hand before looking up to see he probably looked like he was planning something.
“Sorry. I may not like the majority of demons but it is always interesting learning the behaviors of the higher tier demons.” A smile etched itself upon his face as he began to speak his next set of words.
“I would like to help keep things from escalating around your establishment and I’d like to build trust. I am of the opinion that allies with deep bonds have a better chance of surviving in this world. So how about we learn something about each other? You tell me something and I’ll give you insight into me. Let’s build an actual friendship if that’s possible between a human and a demon.”“How quaint,” Mura hummed out quietly before she set down her pipe and leaned forward to rest her elbows upon the surface of the countertop. Her unblinking eyes stained by the blood necessary to forge a demon of her ilk stared forward, heavy upon Kousai, sharing the weight of her century old wisdom.
“I’m not fond of boring deals, young hashira, so my counter off— how about a game instead?” Her lashes fluttered, then seemingly out of nowhere a gold-nibbed pen was held between her fingers. She twirled it a few times before bending at the knees to open a drawer behind the counter and from it she would pull out a faintly beige piece of paper that would be carefully placed upon the table.
All the while this happened, a few curious patrons would pass by with idle looks in passing to see whom the proprietress was speaking to. But that curiosity would pass, seeing as she appeared to be busy in talking with Kousai, to such a degree that her vision would not peel from the man for not a single moment. When her attention was undivided, it was difficult to distract Mura, with the only exception to that being danger to her or those she cared for.
“A game?”Kousai was a bit perplexed at the notion of a game but he would not turn it down. A tinge of disappointment crossed his face as he would have liked to know, instead taking a deep breath in preparation for whatever Mura had in mind. It would not surprise him to know a demon that’s lived over a century would have learned over a dozen games. He returned to the smile he wore before the mention of a game.
“I’ll gladly play your game.” “Very well,”The proprietress grinned from ear to ear as she suddenly began to scratch ink onto the parchment. Words formed with each strike until a complete sentence lied before them, when read it took the form of a question: [What is your greatest desire?]
She mentioned a game. But this seemed to be a means of offering the young hashira what he sought for, though it was obviously twisted in a way that allowed Mura to have some sort of upper hand in the means of obtaining information. What were the rules? How did the game work? Perhaps he would learn by playing, perhaps not.
He stared at the sentence for a minute straight, his mind attempting to puzzle together the mystery of his desire. Could this just be a way to learn about him or was there more? Kousai would oblige this question, a noted expression of confidence in the words he spoke next.
“My desire? I want to say revenge but I killed the one that took my brother’s life and yet I can still feel it burning. Revenge in hopes that no one has to watch their family murdered in front of them ever again. A naive sentiment.” Kousai placed an arm on the countertop and leaned forward with a grin, copying Mura to an extent.
“So is it my turn to ask a question or?”The black ink etched onto the paper caught fire, slowly burning the script away until the top of the paper smoldered away just above where she wrote. The ashes left behind were scooped up, in one motion Mura brought black and gray into her hand and clenched it— gone, like the question was never asked. “The parchment deemed that your answer was incorrect, so it has been ordained that I must go again.”
Without hesitation the proprietress leaned back down to begin scratching the pen to paper once again. Little time passes before she is complete, and once she is, Mura unveils the next question with a snicker bubbling out quietly between her teeth. This question read: [What is your most painful memory?]
He squinted his eyes at the paper, wondering just what he said might have been wrong. The paper had deemed him incorrect but why would it? Did the paper have some form of sentience? Demon magic that could read the mind? Or maybe it was a trick of some sort? The next question hit his ears and a sigh left his lips. A sigh of confidence and an unshaken look, Kousai answered the next question.
“Losing to Keodis. My twin’s death hurt my heart but it left me with resolve and determination. But this…this made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. That it was all for nothing if I couldn’t beat a demon higher than a consort.” Kousai stared deep into Mura’s eyes before speaking again.
“These eyes bare my pain.” The paper did not burn this time, instead the ink remained and not only that but Mura seemed more amused by Kousai’s answer. Pain was good, it was convincing— so whether it was the most painful memory now or in passing didn’t matter. So with a knowing nod and a look of approval, Mura rotated the parchment towards Kousai and offered out the pen.
“Your turn it is, young hashira.”Pen firmly grasped in hand, he brought pen to sheet. In the moment the idea of what to ask Mura traveled from his brain to his hand. He needed not another moment, there was hope that the question he asked would give more vulnerability to the proprietor of the onsen. Once finished, the paper was placed in front of her, Kousai staring intently.
The question read: [What are your hopes and dreams?]
A broad question, but one likely aimed to sniff out the demon’s motives for her actions on a larger scale. Mura didn’t answer quickly, instead she allowed some time to fill the void, allowed the chatter of people entering and exiting the business she had so painstakingly worked to build. Fostering both humans and demons was a difficult burden to have placed upon her shoulders, but deeply in her heart she knew that the heaviest of weights often yielded the most growth to those who surpassed that hardship.
Distant was her gaze, red sclera cast out through Kousai and into the wall behind him. The smell of her herbs and tobacco smoke filling the air; this was home, but equally though, this home was a well-crafted facade with a larger intention that superseded her well-meaning intentions. A fox is a fox, no matter what you did or what attempts of domestication were had, it would still break into your chicken coop and slaughter roosters and hens in blissful bloodshed only to eat their fill and leave in the night.
“To be the silent hand that grooms and waters the sprouting of the greatest swordsman the Corps has ever seen— and then reap that flower, to selfishly hold and cultivate for myself.” Her lashes fluttered with no fear or shying of confidence. Mura smiled even, her sharpened canines pressed down onto her lower lip as the truth was explained naked for Kousai to understand.
Taken back just a bit, Kousai was not surprised by her answer. He figured there would be a twist of the knife. On a surface level, there was a belief in the words that were spoken, a bit biased due to his own temperament toward demons but he felt there had to be something deeper. The way she had helped the corp but not just the corp but the people of the town. For now, he would choose to believe her.
“You know, you are the most interesting person in town.” Kousai chuckled as the paper remained unburned, signaling a shift to Mura’s turn.
The unburned paper was met with a slow outstretch of her hand to pluck the pen from Kousai’s grip, and then a waning nod of her head that came to a halt as her eyes lowered to the paper. The scratching this time was a bit slower, each stroke or purposeful lines having a calculated intention.
“There are many interesting people out there, young hashira— you simply have to seek them out.” Her nose wriggled and finally the question she wrote out would be finished.
Her red painted nails sprawled across the textured parchment before she twisted it for him to read. This time the question was a little more specific, perhaps to spark a reaction, or maybe to see how much Kousai was comfortable to disclose. [How would you feel if your brother could be brought back from the dead?]
“I’d feel nothing. He died for a reason and his death, while it haunts me, helped me go on. That’s the beauty of humanity. We live. We die. Our lives bring a positive or negative to those that knew us, and we can only hope that it was positive. Tousai’s death made me who I am and to bring him back would be a perversion of his sacrifice. Of why he joined the Corp in the first place.” Kousai spoke calmly with an unbreaking gaze, every word flowing from the heart.
Once again, the paper does not burn but the smile on Mura’s face melts away into a deep and morose frown. The answer was truthful, but the response wasn’t what the proprietress wished to hear, and thus she simply extended the pen out to Kousai.
“A very human response.” The driest words she had spoken to Kousai since his arrival were uttered, and paper remained still only burned from the first answer he had given.
Kousai slid the pen to his side before he began writing on the paper. Her words did not bother him. Being human was something he cherished, something that could never be used against him. The words he spoke is something he felt that every human should feel. To keep themselves moving. Even if at times it was a complete lie. At the end of his train of thought, he had finished his question. The paper read: [Since becoming a demon, when was the last time you were in genuine love with someone?]
What sort of reaction had Kousai expected with this question? It was as if the very air stood still in the Onsen, as if every person within the building hushed to silence as the very words left the rumble hashira’s lips. And there in that moment of eerie serenity that Muragarasu stared through her masquerade to Kousai with a killing intent so focused and narrow that only he could feel it— ice floes coursing and the coldest winter gales cast from the heavens and oblivion all the same to freeze the man in place. But her expression remained stiff and statuesque, frozen more than he may have been himself.
She pursed her lips, and blinked one slow singular time as that question struck through her chest like a steel-tipped arrowhead to render the old entity asunder. It was by all means, a low blow to the woman, and it quaked her very soul— she wondered then in that moment if this was why he had the breath of rumbling. Had the information she had slowly been fed all been a ruse? Her pristine silhouette crumbled for the briefest of moments, and that frown shrunk until it had vanished, leaving a deadpan expression as she peeled her eyes away from him to stare off into a memory older than the dirt of the foundations they stood upon.
“So long ago..” she answered simply.
That reaction. The strong feelings attached to his question. Kousai tried to hide his smile but it was so genuine that he couldn’t. He wanted to know her mindset, know her feelings. Every moment was a chance to learn about her beyond the facade she put on. The killing intent pressed upon him and did nothing to bring him fear. This expression did more for him than any answer to the question could have done for the most part.
He could only wonder how after being with the Yakuza for so long that he and Mura had not had a moment like this. This game did more for them than all their small banter combined. There was something about this fox woman that pulled at him, made him want to figure her out. At times she could feel like the most open person but at the same time she was shrouded in mystery. Was it the mystery that appealed to him or could it be more? For now, that paper didn’t burn and his attention was purely on Mura, letting the world fade to a blur.
“Go ahead.”A deep sigh escaped the demon’s nostrils, faintly traced with the scent of blood and chrysanthemums. The young hashira had always been nosey, which did work in her benefit from time-to-time. But then again, there’s that old proverb about curiosity killing cats— and what was a tiger other than a very large and vain feline? Her tongue clicked against her sharpened teeth as the parchment was turned back towards her, and no longer was this a friendly game of a predator and a plaything. That last question stirred the swarm of bees in her stomach, and stung along her guts up into her throat.
Was it agitation? Was it a friendly challenge? Not even she knew right at this moment, as even through her wisdom, Muragarasu was a creature ruled over by emotions. It was the clay that formed her newfound self, and to turn away from that was antithetical for a creature forged within that sphere. Once again she wrote, faster, even pushing that nib a little too hard at some point and cutting a thin slice through the paper into the wooden surface below; where the paper opened the smell of old charcoal could be smelled and the paper while not combusting seemed to singe ever so slightly.
The question read: [Do you believe the Demon Slayer Corps is still necessary in this era?]
A snicker escaped the lips of the hashira as he watched press the pen through the paper. Her demeanor had changed and by this point he believed he fully understood the game. It wasn’t about right or wrong or else the paper would not have burned earlier. No, this was a game about belief, deception, and finding truths. Kousai at the moment seemed to ooze an aura of calm. By Mura’s own mannerisms, this game had become something more and the heir to Agatsuma line was enjoying himself after a week of wallowing in pity.
Then the question came and he wondered just why she had asked something so easy for him to answer. Kousai had never hid his feelings about the Corp, hating how they acted and treated those below the hashira. Even under Yushiro, things still felt the same as the stories that Grandfather Zenitsu told him about his years in the Corp. He placed his right hand on his, holding it with his thumb and pointer, thinking intently about his answer.
“Yes. The Corp still abides by traditions which have lost more slayers than demons and as you know I joined with the Yakuza due that dissatisfaction but their presence has created people like Himari and Kairi, slayers that stand by their convictions no matter what the Corp says. That is needed right now and hopefully we evolve beyond the Corp.” Kousai knew he was a bit wordy with his answer but he wanted to express himself clearly and decisively. He wanted to say no with the passion and intensity of a thousand suns but he knew that would be the obvious answer. Mura wanted something more from him. From the answers that he would give. A surface level truth would do nothing here.
Once more the paper burned, sparking along the edges and eating down past all the questions they had written down until only the bottom of the paper remained. At this point it seemed as if one more wrong question would consume the last of the page, and Mura knew exactly what to ask to claim her victory.
The vulpine smile stretched across her face, almost unnaturally her cheeks tugged upward and her hand still gripping the one began to write. There wasn’t any flair or dramatics, no pompous fanfare to her final question. She simply wrote gently with slow fine strikes of ink to parchment until the question was written.
Surrounding the written words were some decorative doodles, butterflies, small flowers, and beneath them was what looked like thorned briar bent into a wreath. [What are you willing to sacrifice to save the ones you love?]
Kousai was taken aback by the question, wondering how to answer. For a second he wanted to scream that he’d sacrifice himself and then his mind shifted to the genocide of demon kind. The back of his mind knew that answer he was to give and it was not what anyone would have thought.
“I don’t know.” Kousai shrugged his shoulders as he spoke,
“And ya know? That actually scares me.” And just like that, the rest of the paper catches until the flame consumes its final remnants leaving nothing but ash and dust. Mura looked where that deep scratch left a singular black line through the countertop and pondered whether she should clean it or leave it for a story at the Onsen. After some time she would decide on the latter and simply dipped her head to the side and smiled at Kousai.
“It appears you’ve lost, and that I’ve won— meaning no information will be shared through idle chitchat on this eve. My prize, is the request of a favor.” Kousai could only smile back, for it was at this point that he knew that he would never win this game. Well never win it for now. He intended to one day play her game again and win. Maybe it was a competitive streak or he simply wanted to learn about her in a way that she couldn’t twist and hide. Whatever the case may be, he had lost this time and was obligated to accept her favor.
“Ah yes. What favor would that be? Am I going to clean the Onsen bathrooms? A fate worse than death.” “Huangxian, was once the name of a demon slayer originating from Taihoku, but that was many-many years ago. Yet?.. I’ve still heard rumors of their existence persisting. I would like you to bring them to me. Alive, if you are capable of it.” The words escape Muragarasu’s lungs with ease, and with each spoken word the smile on her face grows and her cheeks warm.
“If you can do this for me, not only will I owe you a favor; but I will be able to give you any information that your heart may desire.” Mura wriggled her nose and her teeth flashed out for the briefest of moments, hopeful if anything, that the young hashira may grant this wish of her own.
1x Thank
