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

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When she had dispelled her blood demon art, she melted the ice all around them, and she picked him up and carried him over to an empty spot of land, away from the river and underneath the light of the moon. He is light, strangely so as if his spirit had been what gave him weight to his life, weight and meaning.

She finds a plot of land and she digs. She wonders if he has a crow who would find him. Even then, his corpse would likely be picked apart by the scavengers and animals of the wild. Nature would not be denied what belonged to it. And so she took off her outer cloak, and wrapped his body in it, and using her broken blade, she dug a place for his body.

She left a mound of soil at that top, placing his blade at the top of his grave as a marker. If he had a crow, it would find his body. The cold would protect and preserve his body for as long as it could.

The sun rose just as she was done, and she retreated once more into the shade of the forest and the mountains. This encounter had left her much to think about. Rengoku Seijuro. She would remember him forever, for as long as she lived. A demon slayer who had sought to try and understand a demon, and in a fight which lasted from dusk till dawn, pushed her to her limits. He had earned her respect. For the same, she would give him the same respect. For teaching her so much in the span of a single night, a fight to the death became something more.

She would dare say he made her more human, even as a demon.

For her to stay by his side till his final breath, even by her own hands, she could not have healed him either ways. Death was final for humans, and it was filled with melancholy, but also respect. Humans could feel. They were capable of empathy for others, and they could feel more than what she as a demon felt. This empathy was a great weapon, but a double edged blade who brought about his own death as well. Yet he so nearly managed to remove her head from her own shoulders.

Perhaps the two of them were not all that different. Demons were all once humans, and humans were beautiful creatures. Some worthy of respect, and Rengoku Seijuro was one of them. It was a pity he had to die by her hand, but there was no other way this fight would have ended. Not if she wanted her story to continue, to continue to live. Humans were indeed dangerous to them, but in a way demons posed a threat to them as well.

She would remember him, as Rengoku Seijuro, a demon slayer who wanted to be an artist, who died at the age of 25, with a family left behind. A man who studied the breath of the flames, one who had sought to understand her, one who had apologised to her, and most importantly. One who had sought to ask and remember her name.

Rengoku Kyojuro.

This was how your past and my own are connected.

You and your ancestor are very much alike. Stay strong and fight to live, for you too have my respect.

-

This encounter had left a mark on her, and Kyojuro could understand for a single moment, who she was in her entirety. A demon who had chosen to stay and accompany her ancestor to his dying breath, despite all that had come before it. Out of simple respect and companionship. She understood the sadness in dying alone, and her own blood demon art was proof she had hidden herself, isolated from everyone and her own humanity, from the rest of the world. Demons were once human after all.

He knew it had caused a shift in her, both in her mentality, her thoughts and her attitude. Why else would she have stayed for his ancestor, and waited quietly for him to pass? Perhaps she was not entirely as merciless as he thought her to be. She was only doing what she thought was necessary.