𝐸𝓅𝒽𝑒𝓂𝑒𝓇𝒶 ; ᴷⁱᵐᵉᵗˢᵘ ⁿᵒ ʸᵃⁱᵇᵃ ᴼⁿᵉˢʰᵒᵗˢ (discontinued until further notice)

ᴡᴏʀʀʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴀʟʟᴜᴄɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴs * ˚ ✦

He definitely didn't like it, the pain. The sensations that couldn't seem to stop no matter what he did. And they had been getting worse lately, and more frequent too. This particular one had happened time and time again. It wasn't excruciating or anything, but the fact that it was happening in the first place horrified him. No, the pain certainly wasn't the worst part at all.

He just wanted it to stop, he wanted them to just leave him be. He wanted the peace that they obstructed. But no, they wouldn't grant him this. After all the people that had died and left him alone, why couldn't they too leave him. Why did they, out of everyone, have to stay.

Did they even really count as people? Giyuu had long pondered this. He could never seem to find the answer. He had thought that maybe since they hadn't left him, they weren't really alive. It never occurred to him that they didn't actually exist in the first place, besides in his mind.

He punched himself in the side of his head, desperately trying to swat away the disembodied hand that was tearing at his hair. It had been there on and off for a while, and the hands couldn't seem to leave him alone. Always longing to inflict pain in him.

They sure loved pulling his hair, and he had no idea why. They also liked other things too, most of them were far more harmful though. What would happen would often get worse if he was alone, or feeling especially upset.

He was being stared at now though, and not by the figures that he couldn't see, though he could often feel them staring at him. These were real people as far as he could tell, but he could never know for certain. These endless doubts plagued him often, wondering if this was real or simply a horrible nightmare of some kind. But these people he did know, the pillars they were called. And if it weren't for him being occupied by the hands clutching his hair, he might have laughed at their concerned expressions. Truly, for people who often made fun of him, they certainly could look like they cared.

"A-are you okay, Tomioka?" The love pillar, Mitsuri squeaked out. She, by far, was the most likely to actually care. She cared about pretty much everyone and everything.

"I'm fine." He dismissed, his voice was a bit shakier than he would've liked. But nonetheless they went back to ignoring him, as usual. He didn't mind it too much though, that meant they kept their distance. Distancing himself meant they would be safer. He had to remind himself occasionally that he could not get attached to them, it wouldn't be good for anyone.

He had managed to keep silent, so far. The pain was definitely manageable, especially for a demon slayer. He had been unable to stop himself from forcefully trying to remove the invisible fingers from his head, though. He just had to hope that the meeting would end soon. Best case scenario he would be able to escape to some secluded area where he could let his pain show without being seen.

Unfortunately for him, the invisible figures decided to trip him up, literally. They grabbed onto his ankle and pulled hard. Hard enough for his foot to leave the ground and for him to almost be sent tumbling.

"Let go of me!" He muttered, but of course the invisible figures would never listen. Why do they never listen? Luckless as he was, naturally, somebody picked up on his words. And of course they noticed that he tripped, over thin air from their eyes. It was the serpent pillar, whom he may have disliked. But Iguro brought up what he said suspicious as ever.

"Who is holding onto you, Tomioka?"

"N-nobody is." He couldn't keep the light stutter from his voice, and silently cursed himself for that.

"Not according to what you just said, but I think you must be going insane, Tomioka. Iguro responded, "That and you just tripped on air. Are you really that clumsy?"

Giyuu had no explanation for that, none that would do him any good anyway.

"Oyakata-sama? May I be excused?" He just requested instead, much to the annoyance of the rest of the pillars, not including Mitsuri or Gyoumei, who both couldn't seem to get annoyed.

"Of course, Giyuu." Came Ubuyashiki's answer.

And with that, Giyuu left. But of course, as expected, the attacking didn't stop. He could barely stop himself from starting to hyperventilate right then and there.

An almost painful grip on his shoulder sent him anxiously looking back from his path that he was briskly walking down, not quite running, but close. No one was behind him though, at least no one that he could see. But someone had grabbed his shoulder nonetheless.

Then there was nothing, no hands gripping his hair, nor holding his ankles or shoulders. He breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that they had maybe actually decided to leave him alone.

But he was wrong, that was made known when a strangled scream-yelp escaped his throat as his oxygen was cut off by a visually undetectable hand grasping his throat tightly. He had begun to relax and couldn't have prepared himself for this. His hands clutched desperately at his neck, trying to remove the hand blocking his oxygen flow. But it had already been probably almost a minute.

His time until he would pass out due to lack of air was getting steadily closer. He was starting to lose strength in his limbs and the world was getting blurred. Tears left his eyes as it got to the point where it felt as if his lungs were bursting.

Everything was just getting so grey, and Giyuu thought that sleep seemed like a wonderful idea as the world around him dulled. He realized too late that he was gonna lose consciousness and only had time for a single panicked thought before he was dragged into darkness.

—

After the meeting had finished, Obanai convinced Sanemi to follow that path that Giyuu had gone on so they could do a little snooping. Obanai didn't like how Giyuu had been acting and Sanemi was equally suspicious of the water pillar.

They didn't see anything besides an empty path until a little while after they started walking. They had almost concluded that they had possibly gone the wrong way as there was no trace of him.

That was until they walked around a bend and saw, about ten meters in front of them, a body crumpled on the ground. This body, they found to belong to the one and only Giyuu Tomioka. More disturbing than the fact that he was unconscious with simultaneously none, yet a few signs of struggle, was that he wasn't really breathing. That and his pulse was almost nowhere to be found.

"Shit." Sanemi mumbled when he noticed his almost lack of a heartbeat. He promptly scooped Giyuu up, not caring about being gentle when seconds could probably mean him surviving.

"Iguro, run ahead, get Kocho." Obanai nodded and started off, normally Sanemi would be much faster, but granted that he was carrying a grown man and constantly checking whether or not he was still alive, he would be slowed down a fair amount.

So Obanai ran, he wasn't fond of the water pillar, but it was his duty to try and keep him alive if possible. They needed as many good slayers as they could get.

Thankfully when he got back, Shinobu was still there and was chatting lightly with Mitsuri.

"Kocho. Tomioka is..." Obanai started, but got cut off by Sanemi rushing up with Giyuu still limp in his arms.

"Oh my. What happened?" Shinobu questioned.

"We found him passed out with a barely beating heart, do something." Sanemi explained.

A/N: Am I evil for ending it like that? Yes. Do I care though?
I am sorry for writing this though, I feel bad for having ¾ of the chapters so far being Giyuu angst.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.
Chapter requests are encouraged.
Thanks for all the reads and votes btw.