boketto || t. kamado

forty-four

A/n; I was today years old when I realized forty is spelled 'forty' and not 'fourty'. Why.

Finally, what we're all here for. Sorta. Kinda. I'm enacting one of my favorite troupes and no one can stop me. Long chapter too, cause I had too many ideas and couldn't stop myself.

Blood.

Crimson, sticky and wet, coating the palms of my hands. I could hear my own breathing but everything else felt like it was underwater. I was on my knees, sitting in a pool of blood. I could feel it soaking my kimono.

I could only stare at my hands. My heartbeat was furious in my chest as if threatening to break through my rib cage. Two corpses were outside my vision, surrounded by a flurry of shadows that mocked and laughed at me.

What have I done?

What have I done, what have I done, what have I done-

I sat up straight in bed with a gasp tearing through my throat. My hand flew to my chest, covering my heart in some stupid attempt to calm my raging heart.

My total concentration breathing had long been broken as each breath struggled to be full enough for my liking.

Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on being calm. Everything's fine. I'm back in the butterfly mansion, laying in the same bed I always did, with the moon's light shining through the curtains and casting a soft glow.

Inhale, exhale. Careful and slow, letting it flow through all my nerves and down to my toes. With each breath, the next one was deeper until I was just sitting up in bed, staring down at the white cover. My book was still open in my lap - one Lady Shinobu had lent me, teaching me of various different poisons she used. Her desire to teach me how to use poisons hadn't left, and when I came back, she had already prepared lots of material that I had to learn. She had even already begun preparations for me to have a similar sheath to hers - where medicine would be stored and infused with my sword.

Placing my bookmark back in its pages, I set it on the nightstand next to me and gave a glance at the small clock.

I'd slept for 5 minutes - that's a new record.

But still very poor, and I could feel the bags beneath my eyes increase with every day. I'm sure the only reason I wasn't going crazy at this point was my training as a Demon Slayer.

It'd been over a week and a half now since I'd gotten a good night's sleep, though I don't suppose you could call the nap on the train a good sleep, so maybe it's been longer. Tanjiro had disappeared yesterday for a few hours, too, so that had caused a bit more of a drain on me as I had searched some parts of the town for his aura.

He'd been at the Rengoku residence, so I left him to his devices and returned back to the Butterfly mansion with the news.

Gently, I placed my head in my hands and sat with closed eyes. I wouldn't go back to sleep, since that was fruitless, but there really wasn't anything else I could do at the moment. For a few nights, I'd tried training through them but was interrupted by an upset Lady Shinobu who told me that if she ever saw me training at night again, she'd knock me out with force herself.

She had been joking. I think. I'm not entirely convinced of that, but it's hard to tell with her cheerful voice. The way she said, "I may just have to take matters into my own hands, haha!" gave conflicting messages.

I yawned and glanced toward the covered window. Nezuko wasn't in bed, but that was typical at night. Would a walk at night count as training? That sounded nice. A good way to keep me busy and try to get the image of dark red out of my head.