9. in envious memory

9. in envious memory.

Death is an odd event for Kanata, especially when he's not the one going through it.

With how familiar he is to it, he often feels taken aback when people speak of it with fear, or with grief.

To him, death was always just a passageway to peace. A passageway he often has to traverse multiple times, over and over, because he's just a little, powerless human that isn't very good at this 'living' thing.

Everyone's bad at different things. It's normal.

(He's not so sure how to feel about the reminder that most people don't have the luxury of traversing the road and coming back.)

Yet, when he lays the flowers into the casket and gives him last greetings to the dead, he couldn't help but gaze into those bare faces— finally revealed to the world, finally free from those masks that were necessary to hide their weakness—

—I'm so jealous.

He doesn't want to die. He quite exclusively tries way too hard to not die, actually, and yet, here, the envy wells up in his chest like a lump that needs to be thrown up like a hairball– disgusting, festering, and justified.

He doesn't truly feel this way. It's a monster that whispers, he has to ignore it.

(People were contradictory like that, and despite everything, he's human.)

The funeral for Kogane and Gantetsu is humble, mournful, and full of deep sorrow. And then they moved on.

-

"One day of rest for a swordsmith is ten lives lost to demons. One day of rest for a demon slayer is a hundred lives lost to demons."

The swordsmith village used to live with that belief. Perhaps it was because life was just much too fleeting— they began to host celebrations of life. Moments of silence for the dead, and rites for their anniversaries.

"This war has gone on for centuries. My family has been maintaining the Yoriichi Type Zero for that long... traditions are lost, skills fail to make it to the next generation. I think we're all just tired of this war."

Kanata still remembered Uncle Kogane's words to him. He tried to remember as many things as he could, but Kogane often spoke to him as he trained here, babysitting Kotetsu— so Kanata remembered these words, if nothing else.

"I know it's dumb of me. I'm the only one left of my generation, and Kotetsu is my only son— is it selfish, that I don't want to teach him how to fix Yoriichi Type Zero just yet?"

He had been so tender with the only child his wife left for him. He spoiled that little tyke.

"He's watching. He's learning. But I don't want him to be like me. I want him to be free of this war— I want him to have interests, friends, and find love. I want Kotetsu to be the one to escape this loop of tradition our bloodline has been stuck in."

Kanata's so, so, envious. He wanted dreams like those too.

(Alas, Uncle Kogane died on an expedition, and now, the skills are truly lost forever.)

"Kanata-san. Are you here to practice?"

Kotetsu greets Kanata at his house, far into the mountains of Swordsmith Village. They always stay away from the rest, but it's not like they're the only ones.

Kotetsu's voice is hoarse, his movements harried in a way that means he's hiding something. He'd slipped his mask on quickly after swiping away some tears, but he couldn't hide the shaking in his voice.

He was already imitating his father. In swordsmith fashion— that bitter and necessary professionalism that all of them had to learn the hard lesson to emulate.

If they didn't steel themselves this way, they couldn't last in this profession. And those born in the Swordsmith Village could not go anywhere— compromising the safety of the village was a cardinal sin, after all.

Kanata mourned for Uncle Kogane. He mourned for Kotetsu, because now that he was the last of his bloodline, he would never be the same.

"No. There's a party, let's go eat."

Kotetsu doesn't move. "I'm fine. I have already eaten."

"Then eat more," Kanata can't pick him up, his injuries still aching, but he leans down and takes off his sword, laying it to rest at the veranda of their house. "We will not be forging today, and there is nothing to fight. Today is a rest day."

Kotetsu's fists curl deeper into his clothing. "I have already rested yesterday. Slayers taking a break means more swordsmiths die. I will work, or I will learn to work—"

"The sword will still be here when you return."

Kanata unties the cloth mask around his eyes, feeling the cold of the wind on his face for a brief, refreshing moment— before laying the Hyottoko Mask over his face instead.

He isn't Demon Slayer Kanata, in this village.

He is Swordsmith, Tecchikawahara Kanata. One of the Chief's many spoiled grandchildren, specifically one that was allowed to take his name.

"But people die, when we waste time," Kotetsu reasons.

Kanata hums.

"There will always be time," Kanata says, and the way he says it feels realer than anything else he's ever said in his life. "Don't waste time trying not to die— that time is meant for you to live, after all. Everyone only has so little to spare."

-

There is a party in the hall. It's a whiplash, how they were all quiet for the funeral, yet so quickly switched gears to make merry and get drunk celebrating the new Hashira.

Perhaps it's their professionalism that allowed them to put grief aside like it was a problem that could be snoozed like an alarm. Perhaps it was a cold, insensitive thing to do to their beloved family members, and it was clear the demon slayers felt this way at first.

"Are you really sure? Everyone's in mourning..." Rengoku had managed to refuse all of three drinks before downing the third. And then he was patriotically batting away all the Swordsmiths blatantly ogling Kanroji.

For the rest, albeit reluctant at first, they began to lose themselves to the celebration.

Swordsmith Village knew best how to read emotions, after all. Hiding for so long had made them sensitive. If there was anything they wanted to do, it was to care for demon slayers as their most important business partners. No one could ever say that they were bad hosts.

"Like this?"

"Hmm."

"Oh, this."

"No."

"Eh?"

"That, that, that."

"Ohhhh."

Kanata's mildly distracted by Rui and Kotetsu. He had always known his cat's cradle skills were decent at best— Rui had well humbled him on Natagumo Mountain, but clearly, he had been holding back.

Kotetsu's immensely fascinated by patterns. And despite being introduced to the game by Kanata with tsuka-ito as their instrument, he was now engrossed in learning new patterns from the spider demon.

He wonders if anyone has told Kotetsu that's a demon yet.

Regardless— they were both the youngest in the room. If you could consider Rui young.

Despite having lived for ages, his mental age certainly never seemed to progress, as some demons tended to linger after death. It placed him approximately in synergy to Kotetsu— mere minutes after meeting, they had become able to communicate and entertain each other with just vague sounds and shared interests for hours on end.

"Kanata, your rice."

Kanata finds a bowl of matsutake rice in his hands, Aoi having filled the bowl as high as it would go before moving on to serve someone else. Despite being a guest here, she seemed adamant in her position as the commander of food portions even in the village.

"Seconds!" Mitsuri chirps.

"Yes, yes."

In Swordsmith Village, surrounded by forests, matsutake rice was common enough that they broke it out for every minor celebration. They had a lot of those, they found every excuse to have them.

It wasn't Kanata's favourite meal choice or anything, but there was nothing else that truly felt like home.

"Don't TOUCH!" Sanemi snarls at Rengoku, who was trying to steal some of the meat off the pot. "It's not DONE YET! And you've had plenty!"

"I want more! It's DELICIOUS!"

He doesn't notice Makomo sneaking some in the distraction, handing the meat to Obanai because he wasn't really taking initiative to get more.

"I'm fine," he grouses.

"You're shy," is Makomo's rebuttal.

"I don't need your pity or charity."

"I'm not pitying you. I just know it's hard to get used to the fact that you can eat as much as you want without permission," her smile is so disengaging, so genuine, that even Obanai couldn't come up with another argument for that. "So I'm just helping you until you figure it out."

It was odd to see so many slayers here at a time, both in training and of high ranking.

Giyuu and Sabito chatted about their training with Rengoku, to varying degrees of enthusiasm. They recounted the battle with the Lower Moon— it was a miracle they had been too far to be involved in the fight, but they did get a view.

Makomo, the newly instated Water Hashira, was now missing a mask— instead, the crack-shaped scar down the side of her left cheek, running through her eye from the forehead to the chin— it looked more porcelain than flesh, and no one had any idea how to let it heal.

The Blood Demon Art that caused it had remained, even after the demon's death. But she lived, so it was a cause for celebration.

"Now now there's plenty to go around," the adult swordsmiths chuckle at the sight. "We will fetch more food, if there's a need. Please eat to your heart's content."

Because it could very likely be their last meal together. They had to treasure every moment— the funeral only reminded them more of how abruptly things could end.

Kanata couldn't relate.

But the flavours of home felt savoury on his tongue and warm in his stomach, and he realized, maybe it didn't matter if he could or not.

Nothing brings family together like food.

With the fall of a Lower Moon, they had a brief respite. They knew that. It would be a short rest before the demons would rebound, twice as violent for the chance to take that Lower Moon's spot.

They were all aware of it.

That's why they enjoyed it now, as much as they could together.

The world could come crashing down later— for now, they shared a meal, and pretended the world was better than it was— because it's the only world they've ever lived in, and if they didn't enjoy its little beauties, what was the world made for?

-

"Grandpa—"

"Getting you to come home is like pulling teeth!" Chief Tecchin is very displeased with Kanata. "You're unbelievable!"

Kanata sits in seiza on the ground, opposite Chief Tecchin.

Rui is seated beside the chief, munching on the cane sugar snacks with his little spider teeth. It's his first time eating something like this and he's clearly very fascinated. Kanata knows best how addictive they are.

Though that's not the problem.

"I'm already so old!" Chief Tecchin is upset, "how long were you planning on making me wait so I could finally see my great grandchild?! I can't believe you let that Jigoro brat see him first!"

Rui is preoccupied with his snacks, but he lifts his head when Tecchin pats him.

"There there little one, children should eat heartily," that is a millennium-old spider demon who had killed hundreds, "you're very well-behaved, dear. Children should be energetic and playful." He's deathly allergic to sunlight. "You can call me great grandpa. Now, do you want more snacks? What do you think about taking the Tecchikawahara name?- It has a nice ring to it doesn't it, Tecchikawahara Rui—"

Kanata does not get irritated easily.

But just this once he invokes, emotionally, "stop, please."

-

As usual Kanata loses the fight against grandpas (why does he never learn his lesson?) and the village is going to throw a 'there's a new baby in the village!' party. Usually they only celebrate newborns, but apparently in the time he's been gone, spider demons that look like children were now also considered babies.

Also, "I'm not letting that Jigoro lay claim on my great grandson before me! We're going to start a vote on who's making a blade for the new baby."

"Why does a new baby need a blade?" Uncle Kiyoyuki, thank everything you're still the one sane gleam of light in this sulphur-drunk community of clowns. Maybe the masks were a reflection of reality after all.

"No questions are allowed."

"Understandable. I'm putting my name on the ballot."

Uncle Kiyoyuki I trusted you! Kanata regrets his life decisions more every day.

-

"I'm envious."

Kanata feels a little disconnected, when Rengoku and Obanai tell him that.

They're in the hot springs— surprisingly, after the chaos of the day and everything surrounding it, bathtime was calm. It must be the exhaustion— they were truly trying to relax here, and even Sanemi wasn't picking a fight about this.

Giyuu and Sabito were more intimidated about sitting here with all their seniors than anything else, but they did behave. They were a little disappointed about Kanata wearing a cloth mask over his eyes, but they didn't try to peak under it.

"Your family is huge, rambunctious, and there's always something happening," Rengoku says. "The liveliness is nice."

"There isn't a quiet moment to be had," Obanai groans into his arms, laying on the cool rock, "I thought the place would be quieter than this."

"It's noisy," Sanemi groans. "I kinda figured from the masks, but they're all a bunch of weird old fools."

It usually would be. The village is usually calm, despite everything. It was only when it was about Kanata that they made a ruckus— honestly, he's not sure why. He's hardly the youngest of the swordsmiths, or the most eccentric. They just liked making a fuss about him in particular and he never understood it either.

But coupled with the funeral, the new Hashira, and Rui, they simply, coincidentally, had a whole slew of things to celebrate at once and they wanted to go all out on the fun while they could. They just wanted to get it done before Kanata left on his journey again.

"You have such a big family, Kanata-san!" Sabito's take is similar to Rengoku. "Especially with all of them wearing masks, how do you tell them apart?"

"Haori," Giyuu dryly says.

"People change clothes every day, Giyuu."

Giyuu doesn't respond to that.

Then, Sabito, as if chastised, says, "oh."

The way Sanemi bursts out laughing at that slip up should honestly be a crime of insensitivity, but Sabito reacts with a violent water splash of embarrassment and now the bath is turning into a chaotic water fight. As things should be.

It's the best kind of chaos— the ones that are about living well.

Most of them here have long lost their semblances of family. Kanata had more family than he knew what to do with, and maybe that too was a curse.

A confusingly good curse, perhaps. One that's never left him in both of his lives.

-

"Kaaanata!"

The forests around Swordsmith Village had always been home to him, but mountainous forests in general were always home to just one other person.

His own haori, littered with speckles of gingko leaves, are a comforting contrast to the blue flowers on hers. She swirls off a tree and onto the fallen leaves, her steps light as a flower as she falls in step with Kanata.

"It's so late. Where are you going?"

Swordsmith Village never truly sleeps— they just go a little quieter.

Most commissions come late at night or are completed at the break of dawn after days of restless work, so while it wasn't odd for Kanata to be walking around at this time of day, the demon slayers found it intriguing enough to all be awake and staring at him from their rooms in the hallway, like he's sneaking out.

"It's dangerous to wander around at night, you know?"

It's not, because Swordsmith Village was made that way.

It's made to be a safe haven, for Swordsmiths to live their whole lives, never seeing the world outside unless they've been commissioned to deliver. They're never allowed to sightsee. They lived to build weapons for war, after all.

"Is there something happening?" Sanemi asks.

Kanata doesn't respond, because he didn't mind if they followed. Making his way down the steps into the city— it was quiet, even with so many people wandering outside with their lamps.

Sanemi, Makomo, Rengoku, and Obanai follow. Rui trails, not far behind. Mitsuri and Aoi stay behind with Giyuu and Sabito, who were seemingly still asleep.

He had brought a sword with him— just two, a pair he was proud of, that he had tied with brilliantly patterned tsuka along the journey to the village. He'd carved the tsuba— they weren't anything fancy, but it was a quality the village could boast as its best.

He brought them to the center of the village, where the ashes lay. There was no space in the Swordsmith Village for burials— cremations were the best any of them could offer. They didn't have long funerals, so they were already ash, stored in carefully moulded ceramic vases.

With his entourage looking from a distance, Kanata stepped up to the congregation, and pulled out his two katana— stabbing them into the ground upright among the countless already there, surrounding the two vases on the pedestal. There are swords of every shape— longswords, broadswords, axes. Every villager had come, to make an offering of their own.

A single dagger lay nearest to Uncle Kogane's ashes, a paltry dull thing without even a proper hilt or polish— but everyone knew that Kogane would love that one the most.

Uncle Gantetsu had been the village eccentric. No one denied that, no one ostracised it— he just preferred to be alone, and that was why he also got similarly eccentric clients assigned to him all the time.

Kanata approaches the vase, and places a single sword down— Obanai's old sword, chipped and broken. Uncle Gantetsu's final and proudest work, so he could bring it with him, and the world would only build stronger upon his legacy from there.

Kanata stands there and breathes, for a long moment.

The world won't change, even if he waits. People other than him die, and even though he couldn't say he was close to them in any way that truly mattered— the sinking feeling of grief lays in his chest, a marble to be spit out, because there was no gain in feeling it.

This was just how things are.

We will take care of the things you've left behind, his prayer doesn't feel true. It just feels like a natural course of action.

Finally, he turns back around. Finding himself in step with the four demon slayers, they head back to the lodgings, without a single other word to be said.

In Swordsmith Village, mourning was a luxury.

They revered their dead as much as they could, remembered them, respected them with all their hearts and dedicated their honour to them— but in the end, they were dead, and it was all they could do to uphold quiet traditions, and move on.

Move on, because what else can people do, after death?

-

They began training again.

"I'm leaving and you won't see me off?" Makomo teases. She'd come up to the mountain lodge, where Kanata forged Obanai's new sword in Uncle Kogane's old workshop.

Rui was there too, inspecting the Yoriichi mecha.

Of course, parties were just parties— hosted, and end, and now everyone who attended would be assigned to missions separately. It's barely midday, but Makomo would be leaving with her Tsuguko on her next set of missions. Sanemi had already gone in his own direction at daybreak, and Rengoku was training his sword strikes as he awaited his crow's return. Aoi would leave in the afternoon with the Kakushi, but Obanai would stay here until his sword was ready, because it was the safest place to recover.

"This is such a homey place," Makomo muses, admiring the structure. It's a simple home with an attaching workshop— a basic fireplace and stove, a jar of water, a cavern for firewood, and humble, well-maintained tatami cut to intriguing patterns when the light hit.

Makomo sat on it, admiring the tea cabinets, the tools littered around the place, and the papers and blueprints of the Yoriichi Type Zero strewn about among haruma carvings and toys. There's life, here.

"I wouldn't have expected it from you," she admits. "You always have so much on hand, so I guess you also live messily? Much less weapons than I thought would be here."

"This isn't Kanata-san's house, though," Kotetsu corrects her, "it's mine and my dad's."

Makomo blinks at that. "Oh? I didn't know, I'm sorry."

"No, with how he's made himself at home in the workshop so easily, I don't blame you for assuming," this child is so curt and blunt, it's almost charming.

Makomo's head tilts, "but then where is your house, Kanata?" she wonders, "you've slept with us in the lodgings, and here you are working in someone else's workshop, even if it's no longer in use."

Kotetsu answers for him, "Kanata-san doesn't have a house here."

That revelation takes Makomo by utter surprise.

"There are only so many houses to be built in our limited space here," Kotetsu says. "Everyone inherits from family, relatives live together, new families in shared spaces. Kanata-san wasn't born in the village, so he didn't inherit a house."

"You weren't born here?"

Kanata shakes his head in response.

The swordsmith village refurbished empty and broken houses all the time, but they mostly stayed together, because it just made sense to. They ate together, because in between working on swords there wouldn't be a lot of time or resources for meals. It just made sense to do everything as a community.

Kanata lived in the Mayor's Residence— not the Tecchikawahara house, but the Town Hall— all his life. He was raised by the entire village, because they decided that raising him should also be a community activity.

In a village where inheritance was everything, Kanata had nothing to inherit. So they tried their best to give him as much as they could to belong here with them.

Now that Kanata was barely in the village, the need for an actual house was even less necessary. He didn't have a room, traces of his childhood left to photos in the town hall rather than drawings on the wall. He had no toys that weren't gone, passed down to other newborns, and even now, he would sleep in guest lodgings when he came home.

Maybe that was why Kanata left a safehouse everywhere in Japan. To work, to travel— to never stay in a place for long, yet leave his mark prominently.

It was a special kind of loneliness. One in the midst of blessing.

"So the reason you have so many weapons and tools in your bag is because you're always travelling with all your belongings, like a nomad?" Makomo wonders.

"No," Kotetsu, this savage little child, "that's because he's stupid and has a bad hoarding habit. I know. My dad said it all the time."

Uncle Kogane, why were you teaching your child everything except how to fix Yoriichi Type Zero?