devil hunter | bnha x chainsaw man! reader

yumi

❞⁀➷♡'ˎ˗
in the end, you were dying.

the atmosphere was cold, stars swim in the sky like water and the inky floor beneath her feet reflected her form from above it.

yumi stares at the sky of her creation. living within you as a separate persona meant she could furnish her living space as she pleased, and so she did. yumi liked the stars, it reminded her of simpler times.

yumi didn't think much of you, at first. you were stupid, naive, and headstrong. you let kids bully you and you fell for anything adults said without any skepticism. you were a complete idiot, especially because at night you'd snuggle up to her like a lost little girl even if it meant cutting your chubby cheeks or small hands on her claws when she carelessly cradled your youthful form.

yumi didn't think much of humans at all, actually.

it was merely her responsibility to watch over the tribe that she had come across, given to her by mamoru. who was the closest thing yumi had to a mother. faint, wispy memories of bygone eras would occasionally slumber behind yumi's eyes back then. her life before her contract with you was one of desolation, loneliness and lost contact. though it didn't feel like that at the time, she can't imagine going back to those times of isolation let alone understand how she managed it in the first place.

when she arrived at her slaughtered camp of tribesmen, she was a bit confused. why had they all been killed? the camp reeked of the zombie devil, and yet, all of the mutated humans had been slaughtered. claw marks piercing their chests as their blood seeps into the grass that it would later fertilize. the lone survivor was a young girl, who must've killed all the zombies herself. for whatever reason, you were under the impression yumi had killed them.

it was when you were old enough and you and yumi had bonded enough to communicate that yumi understood she could never tell you the truth.

she learned more about humans through you every day, and one of the things she learned was that when someone can't handle intense levels of guilt, they will sometimes change the chain of events that occurred in their head to prevent themselves from losing their mind. in order to keep yourself sane, you had convinced yourself yumi had killed your parents, your friends, everyone you ever knew. when really, it had been you.

regardless, it really wasn't your fault. if you hadn't killed them, you would've died too. they were zombies, after all.

and at first, yumi thought that was good. she had been the one to hold you in those nights spent under bridges near railroad tracks where you cried yourself to sleep in her arms wondering why you couldn't have a mother. why god had taken your family and left you here instead. so, she thought it'd have been better if you died. that way, you'd be with your family.

she tried to rationalize. if you were to die, if she were to take your place... then you'd be with your family again. you weren't fit to lead this body, to harbor this strength. you were too soft, too gentle. someone like you deserved peace.

however, she couldn't even convince herself of that.

maybe she was selfish, but yumi had spent so much time by your side that she couldn't imagine a life without you. before you, life had no purpose. it was black and white, colorless flashes of places and things that meant nothing to her. before you, yumi was not yumi. she was a specter drifting amongst the world, enacting the demands of her master like a mindless beast.

you had shown her color, given her a name, a purpose, and a friend. no, not a friend. you had shown her family. how could life be life if you were not apart of it? yumi was your protector. she lingered in the background of your mind at first because she intended to take control of your body and protect you, since you'd never protect yourself. now, she comes and goes to have conversations. was she really becoming soft, too? or, maybe she already was.

without you, there was no yumi. without yumi, you'd be okay. maybe that's why she began encouraging you to make connections, maybe that's why she had gotten so friendly with sora, maybe that's why she had begun to reject the demands of mamoru in favor of doing what she thought was best for you.

in the end, you were dying. two souls occupying one body. one of you would have to go.

yumi would see to it that it would not be you, no matter how her creator felt about it. why would she continue to exist if it meant you'd disappear? if it meant she'd be alone again, without the one person to give her a reason to live? and the sickening part was how accepting of it all you were. yumi lived in your mind, she was intimately acquainted with every feeling and thought in your mind.

you weren't slightly against giving up your life for hers, letting your soul fade away for her to take your place in this body. in your body.

she would not allow it.

for yumi, there was no world without you.

one of you would have to go.
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