Their Tale [Kimetsu No Yaiba Oneshots]

Soulmate

[This chapter contains spoilers. If you want to avoid such things, I advice you to skip this chapter]

prompt. when your soulmate receives an injury, flower tattoos show up on your body at the same place as them.

When she was nine, marks akin to butterfly bush suddenly appeared all over her skin for the first time.

It was preceded by a tingling sensation. It didn't hurt at all, but it still freaked the hell out of her to find flowers bloomed on her arms, legs, and face out of nowhere. She thought she was going to be strangled by this peculiar mark and die.

But Kanae laughed at her fear, placing her warm hand on her head and said there's nothing to be afraid of, it's just a mark that showed her connection with someone out there, her soulmate. If anything, according to Kanae, she should feel lucky, because this condition was extremely rare.

"The colour and the intensity of your tingle indicate how grave the injuries are," Kanae said, touching the faded blue flowers on her cheek. "Judging by the colour, the injuries should not be life-threatening... But why would they show all over the place?"

She thought the same. It's not that she particularly cared for this so-called soulmate of hers, but knowing a person was connected to her, she couldn't help but worry for them, even though she didn't have a clue of who they were.

In her heart, she prayed, hoping that person was alright.

---

One and a half year later, her forehead throbbed so hard she dropped the plates she was holding. A cluster of butterly bush showed up on her forehead, with colours so vibrant they could pass as a painting on her face. But underlying the beauty was an intense pain that made her head spin

It frustrated her, this mark. Not because she experienced pain randomly in her daily life, but because she couldn't do anything when someone was in need of help. It reminded her of the helplessness and the fragility of a human being. She knew someone was injured, possibly on the verge of their death, but she literally couldn't do anything to help them. She didn't know who this person or where they were. What if they died because of those wounds? She didn't need that on her conscience.

So she found herself hoping for another butterfly bush to blossom after the one on her forehead had disappeared, though she wished it wouldn't come with an excruciating pain like last time. It would tell her that they were alive, an indication of someone was holding on.

When Shinobu felt her cheek tingle out of nowhere right before she went to sleep three months later, she breathed a sigh of relief and fell asleep as blue petals formed a line on her face.

---

Less than two years since then, when she was eleven, she became acquainted with creatures known as demons in the worst possible way. Right in front of her and her sister's eyes they killed their parents, making disgusting noises as they slurped and feasted on their parents' corpses. She remembered clearly how one of them inched closer to them with a sick grin on its face, Kanae's arms around her holding tighter to protect her, and the moment Himejima came and lopped the head of those vile creatures.

As she treaded the path of demon hunters, she had heard so many agonising cries, witnessed so many deaths. Then Shinobu thought of the one who's connected to her, the one who painted butterfly bush on her skin from time to time. Despite the frequency, they only came with a tingle, at best a thump of her blood vessel. The most vivid flowers she had ever received since the forehead wound was placed on her leg, but the blue was a lot less vibrant, probably coming from a broken bone. Of course it worried her every time they got injured, but at the same time it relieved her, receiving flowers that were light in colours, as they signalled her that no harm had come to that person.