demon slayer x female reader

Should Have Been (3)

I awake in a jolt and look around. Nakano is beside me and yells for mom.

"You're awake! We were so worried when you wouldn't wake up. We even had the town doctor look at you."

"I'm fine, Nakano. I just had this crazy dream."

"Oh really, what was it about?"

"I'm not sure."

My mom bursts in and jumps on me and hugs me. I hugged back somewhat harder than what I thought I could.

After I'm told by my whole family, "How worried they were even Kyoka, who's just four and can barely say some words."

We soon have lunch together when mom takes some time off work at the blacksmith, and we have Katsu Curry. It's what makes my family's hair red and white even though the original dish is orange. We have a special recipe that makes the skin of the chicken almost red with flavor, and we always have white rice for a side. Rengoku literally yelled so loud when he tasted it that all the hashira heard.

'Wait. Who's Rengoku? Probably someone I met in town.'

After we get done eating, mom gets to stay home since the main blacksmith got a bad burn and decided to take the week off, so that means they all do. I have a small job that only takes a few hours, which is delivering newspapers for fair pay.

Once I get to the building, the reception girl asks me who's delivering the papers.

"Asuga Rengoku... I mean, Asuga Kojima!"

'Who's this Rengoku person? I even thought I was this person. Weird.'

I get the papers and start delivering.

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Once I'm near the end of my job, I look down the road and see a little girl walking away with her hands out.

I walk to her just in case she's lost, and she stops abruptly like she ran into a wall.

"Hello."

She gets scared and almost jumps out of her skin.

"H-H-Hello!"

"Are you lost?"

She ramble about how she's not lost and she's hiding something behind her back.

I get this gut-renching feeling like I did back then.

'Back then? The only time I've had this feeling is when... when... wait.'

I drop my dewspapers and stare at her in anger. I've never seen her but I'm sure of it. Whatever "it" is.

"Where are we."

"What?" She says.

The feeling keeps growing, and I'm reminded of what this feeling is from in a flash.

A tornado of fire swirls me and burns my clothes into what I really am wearing. My hair is turned to what it actually is, and I grow vertically.

I unsheathed my katana and held it to her throat.

"Where. Are. We."

She is scared beyond belief, but I'm distracted when I hear a familiar call.

"Asuga!" My family is running to me, and a flash of white changes me to my old self.

I fall to my knees, and they do too before me.

"Why are you out here?" Mom says.

I cry and hug them all as tight as I can. I stand up, and another flash of white changes me back.

"I love you all, so very much."

I turn around and look at the tear the girl makes into the air. It's just pitch black, but I see her, and I enter the tear in reality.

I see her running to a red glowing ball. I quickly catch up, and before she touches it, I hold my katana to her neck.

"What is this place, and what is that?"

"Uh. It's your soul. And this is your spiritual core."

"Then why is everything so dark."

"I've never seen someone hold this much hate and anguish for something. And that thing is scaring me."

"What thing?"

"Up there."

I look up and see red eyes. But once I look closer, I see myself just very dark and almost camouflaged with my soul, but it's definitely me just giant. More red eyes open around us, and I know some of them like Rengoku, Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and that former lower rank two Hairo All looking at me with red eyes. But they are among millions of red eyes just staring.

The girl can't move from the terror she feels. She drops the thing she had, and I see it's something she could stab with.

'She was trying to kill me by destroying my spiritual core!'

I ask her.

"How do we get out of here?"

"You're supposed to kill yourself. That's the only way unless I kill your core or the spell is lifted, and that's not gonna happen."

"Oh ok then you have fun."

"Wha-"

I throw her to the red eyes, and they all start devouring her, except the still human people I see.

Her screams make me smile, and even more so when they stop.

I get on one knee and put the blade to my neck for a quick kill.

I breathe heavy as I never thought I'd do this, but I'm in a dream, and this seems reasonable to me.

I grip my blade and cut.