Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

31. What doesn't kill you stays with you for the rest of your life

"It's been a while since I last had chocolate," her grandmother starts when she sees her coming. "Are you sure you don't want another slice? It's a really nice cake."

"No, thanks." Aya sits beside her on the edge of the roof. "I actually came to talk to you."

She plays with a loose strand of hair in between her fingertips. Kaede recognizes her determination as the same she sees when looking at herself in the mirror. It probably runs in the family.

"Sorry I didn't get you anything," she says, playing with the cake on her plate.

"You were a demon slayer before, weren't you?" Her grandniece's stare doesn't waver. It's hard to think of her as the little eleven year old girl that hid behind her, or the fifteen year old that yelled a little too much.

"Turning sixteen has made you grow up, huh?" Kaede notes, leaving the cake aside because she thinks that with this bravery, Aya deserves all her attention.

"I just think that this family has too many secrets and I'm fed up with it, so, as a birthday present" she leans back to take in the entire district with her eyes, as both share the same black sight. "Tell me, Kaede, what did you go through?"

"Brace yourself, then," it's hard to accept that shaky breath comes from her, who believed herself to leave behind such measly feelings, but there's no helping it. "Your grandmother isn't, nor wasn't, a very nice person."

She waits for a minute, waits for her to run away or turn back and regret her decision before it's too late. But Aya's eyes don't waver, so she starts:

ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ✿ᵒᵒ

I guess I should start by the beginning, shouldn't I?

I had not been born at the time, but it was something carved in our house and traditions that all of us learnt without the need to be told.

We were ten siblings raised to be soldiers, in an attempt to preserve the dignity of the Fujioka family, crushed under the emperor's heel once he deemed samurais to be unnecessary.

So like a prodigal son that came back to his father's home after losing everything he had, our family was welcomed back into the demon slaying corps after losing all our power in the Meiji Era.

I was the second youngest in the batch. My brother, Masao, came after me. I loved him more than anything.

Her grandniece's eyes shine with recognition as she brings a hand to her mouth. But she does not weep or mourn, maybe because she believes Kaede has shed her dose of tears and doesn't want her to do it one more time. Kaede has never liked being pitied, but she accepts it this one time.

My parents... well, you see. They did not enjoy having to kneel before someone else, and the loss of their honour affected them greatly. Not that I don't despise them any less for it.

In the house we kept up with the manners, the traditions, and tried to hold onto the only things that proved we were royalty instead of mere peasants after hundreds of years.

In turn, everything felt incredibly cold.

There were a few characteristics that followed someone with our blood. All of us were small, our hair was painted gold or silver, skin as white as porcelain, not to mention the eyes.

We treasured our blood because it carried the eyes with it. Those of yours, of mine, your mother's, are a miracle only seen in our family. However, they're usually colourful, purple, pink, green, blue, not the greys and browns we've ended up getting. But I guess it doesn't really matter anymore.