Heart Of Fire; Veins Of Ice | Kimetsu No Yaiba Fanfic (Kyojurou's POV)

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Warning: Attempted Self Harm

It's like a dream.

How easy it was for dream and reality to get lost in a haze of exhaustion as his mind was lulled into a deep, dark tunnel. A maze, a broken hour glass, a dream aboard a train to nowhere. Where reality and dream melded together, memories splayed and shattered...

The slightest suggestion could change a fact so deeply embedded in the mind.

His father lost it after his mother left. Falling into a state of depression, and drowning his sorrows in alcohol, as he quit his job as the Flame Hashira and did nothing but sleep and curse the world for such a large betrayal. Kyojuro had to raise his brother alone once he realised his father was not going to do anything. Senjuro, his little brother, whom he would do anything for. The remnants of what should have been a happy family if his mother had not left them.

The cold guides his hands as he stabs the blade though someone's thigh.

The day his father started to hit him, was the time he knew that they needed to leave. But he was too young, and he couldn't do anything for his brother. As he gazes into the eyes of his brother, he pulls him into a hug as he shields him from his father's shouting, his father's anger, and takes the pain for him.

Humans are no better than demons.

His father is a prime example of it.

Except it's not completely that.

The hands dig into his left eye, as leaves scratches against his left eye.

His father treated them like shit. By the time he was twelve, he wanted to run away from home, and bring his brother with him away from the hell they called home.

More ice and glass.

For his brother, he would do anything.

He vows never to follow in his father's footsteps. 

He never becomes a demon slayer. 

He never becomes a Hashira.

As he stared into the eyes of Hiromi, he sees Senjuro on the ground, in a pool of blood.

"What did you do?"

He sees red, as his sword moves to her throat.

Hiromi can't react, as she holds a hand out and reaches out to him.

The blade clashes with another, as it breaks under the weight of the blackened silver staff.

The scent of blood arouses his senses, as Kyojuro falls to the ground, the same staff used to hit and beat him to the ground. It hurts, but he doesn't care.

There is nothing but deathly silence.

"If it does not work, kill him."

Humans are no better than demons.

A voice, cold, harsh and realistic as an arrow pierces his shoulder and through his right arm and palm. The metal burns his skin, as Kyojuro looks up and sees the others looking at him.

Hiromi's eyes were filled with shock, pain, and unshed tears as Yousuke helps her to her feet and far away from him.

Realisation is like a burning poker against his skin, setting his mind and senses alight as his mind clears. The demon retreats, as it watches him with a cruel gaze from afar. And it leaves him to burn.

He tried to kill her.

Could have killed her.

He killed her.

His mind is in pieces. Lost, fractured, as somehow, he still remembers what he has to do.

His left hand reaches for the black blade around Naki's belt as he snatches it, twists it, and plunges it into his own throat.

He lost to the demon.

Using the blade, he knew was made of nichirin, he uses it to slit his own throat.

Before a hand catches the blade, and a wire wrapped itself around his neck, as two hands pulled it taut behind him while another used a blade to pin his left hand to the ground. Masahiko hands the blade, as he pries it out of his now bound hands, back to Naki.

"Kyojuro-kun,"

"Kill me."

He'd become the very thing he swore to kill.

Masahiko's heart fractures.

"Tell me who's around us."

"Kill me." He did not want to be a liability to others.

"Not until you answer me."

"Yosuke...Naki....Himura....Kaori....Nagi....Hi-Hiromi," Masahiko knows Kyojuro was shaking, from the tone of his voice alone.

"What did you see previously?"

Kyojuro can't speak. He doesn't know what to say, because he did see them. As human silhouettes, meaningless, nothing but shadows in the cold wind, out to harm him and to kill him. Everyone is waiting for his answer.

"Well, what did you see?" Kaori's voice is painfully sharp on his ears.

Masahiko kneels down as he looks at him at eye level.

Demons.

"Humans." He doesn't know what to speak. What to feel, as his lungs hurt in the wind.

"What happened?" Masahiko's voice holds an eerie calmness to it, which is lulling.

"I...don't know,"

"You tried to kill us. To hell with I don't know!" Naki's voice, as he becomes painfully aware that Hiromi was leaning onto Yousuke, her weapons left on the ground.

"You tried to kill Hiromi." Yousuke's voice, held restrained anger for the first time he had ever heard him express as such. It was like a storm over an ocean, its waters raging, powerful and crushing, and he was drowning in it. Hiromi, who had done nothing but treat him kindly and given him a hug.

He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know what happened. Hedoesn'tknowwhathappened. Hedoesn'tknowwhathappened.

The voices pile on him, bit by bit as each seems to be louder than the last, like snow atop a fragile sheet of ice, and it breaks.

Humans are no better than demons.

"Silence!" Masahiko raises his voice, as Kyojuro pulls his hands, cutting through the blades which chained them down into the snow and bound them together, regardless of how his flesh parted, and he covers his ears with them, as he looks down and peers at the ground.

His hair and clothes are stained with his own blood, as he doesn't care anymore.

Except he does.

He cares so much for what he has done, in a moment of what he couldn't describe, that tears pool in his right eye and he wants to hurt himself so badly for letting the demon win.

She obliges, as it constricts his lungs, and reopens all of his major wounds.

He was hers. His flesh, his blood, his bones, his mind, his thoughts, it was hers and hers to consume, to mould, to shape and to change. Fire fought against snow, but only one could exist. 

He had always been vulnerable to tricks of the mind.

To fall asleep aboard the train of infinite possibilities, where dream and reality melded together, he could not tell them apart. His body might have protected him, but now, his body was hers. 

There is no pain, only a cold numbness as blood drips from his lips, and stains his clothes a bright, flaring crimson red.

He wants it to hurt.