Burn to ash

Until The End

Everything settled nicely. The girls decided to travel around on their own after a while sending us postcards once in a while from their travels. I honestly miss their company but they seem happy to be able to enjoy life without missions . The last we'd heard from them, they were near my birth town so I happily recommended a certain Inn for them to stay at. 

It took my now fully human body a bit longer to fully recover but as soon as I was allowed to leave the butterfly estate, that was the beginning of my new life. Tengen was determined to show me off to anyone who was willing to give him the time of day. 

"Visit when ever you'd like. You are always welcome here." While Tengen ran around preparing a new home for us during my stay at the butterfly estate, Father came time and time again and slowly we repaired our relationship but all is well, or to me it seems all was well. It seemed as if Tengen had planned the rest our lives. From the moment we stepped into our new home until he took his very last breath. Perhaps it's what's in my blood or maybe luck but i lived longer than most. I watched all our friends live and die. I can very happily say that they all passed satisfied with what they'd done and when it came time for me to go, there was only one other who remember the time of demons slayers they way it truly was. 

" they're surely waiting for you" he says holding my hand. The precious son of our dear Kaguya-sama. The only familiar face in the room. 

"Once I've closed my eyes, don't write anything on my grave, bury me where i can rest in peace. I don't want to be remember as anything other who i was. Hoozuki; named after the flowers that guide the dead. What people called me and what i meant to them, i want to leave that all behind and leave this world as what I came into it as. Just Hoozuki. My memory is only for those who have already left me." I feel him shifting closer to me. 

" All will be done." His children as well as grandchildren all sit outside waiting for the news of my pass. With me, it will be the end of the demon slayer, the last of the demon slayer, the end of an era, of a traumatic time for many, and yet no one remembers the tragedy and only of the victory. History won't remember the lost lives, only that we had won against a great darkness. 

I don't remember exactly but as i open my eyes once more, a familiar face smiles at me.  Everything feels right, as if wrong does not exist. It's bright but not blinding, warm yet comfortable. 

" Houzuki." I will always know his voice, in every life time. He smiles with his love that i can't help but to melt. He hold my hand so gently that I instinctively want to follow and yet I can't.

I can see him in the distance,  waiting for me, waiting to say our final goodbye. I can see his faint smile, and I watch him turn as if he has no regrets. 

" I can't go with you Kyojuro. I love you but I ..." He doesn't even let me finish. He knows, he knew. 

" One day, we'll meet again. I will always love you, i can feel it in my soul, I will always love you nomatter where we are, in every life, I will always love you so go, go to him. Be his light. One day we'll meet again and when we do, I'll make you love me again." He pushes me towards him with a light laugh and I feel light even as I feel the fire lick my skin and burn my feet. 

" Where are you going without me. This is supposed to be a trip for two." He spins around fast to face me with an astonished look on his face. 

"Hou, what are you doing.  You're supposed to go with him. " He says and I shake my head. "Who am I to abandon you, we swore to go together. This time I'll guide you, I'll be your treasured light through this hell, you told me so all those years ago. Houzuki and not hoozuki right? " I grab hold of his arms and look up at him. 

" Until our sins burn to ash, 

                                                                   I'll be with you until the end"  

 On the coast in a city that was once known as the abandoned capital, there's an inn named after the most beautiful Oiran to have existed. Chiyonohana, a homely inn that rarely fills up except certain nights that the story tellers come to perform. They tell various stories from comedies to tragedies to horror but the most famous one tells of a girl. No one knows if she really lived or not but the story has been told the same way a million time. They remember her as Houzuki; a girl who was kind, who loved, and forgave.