"L/N!" Tanjiro's voice ripping through your ears was truly frightening. It was guttural and cut in and out within its fire. Your body ran cold and distant from yourself at the sound. Or was that from something else?

You looked down. A deep gash, too deep, was shredded across your middle. An alarming amount of blood was flowing out and down your black pants in unrelenting sheets. A sudden dizziness fell over you as you stumbled back, tripping on debris and heavily landing flat to your back. The air knocked from your lungs, and remained difficult to reclaim.

Inosuke was close by. After hearing Tanjiro's horror he looked over to his mentor of three years. "L/n!" He cried out, slashing the head off the pair of demons with powerful swings of his serrated blades as he sprinted to your side. He slid on his knees to a stop as his hands hovered over you at random before finally shoving down, trying to bring the edges of your wound together.

A sharp grunt of pain elicited from you as he did so, but he weathered your cries. His warriors nature wasn't fit for healing but it was talented at staying undeterred under circumstance's like these.

But, what circumstance was this?

A wave of horror threads through your body as you stare up at the darkened night sky. Were these boys about to watch another mentor die?

You pawed weakly at your wound, trying to press the blood back in.

Inosuke swatted your useless hand away. "Don't!" He demanded before wheeling around. "Menitzu! Gonpachiro! L/n is hurt!" He yelled through a battle cry.

Who even hit you? You didn't see it, you didn't expect it. You supposed it didn't make a difference to know, you were swarmed by demons for too long to ever figure it out. There was bound to be a moment you didn't catch an attack in its swing down upon you, and here it was, bloody and gruesome proof of your incompetence.

The demons seemed to swiftly lose interest in you and turned their fury towards Tanjiro, who had a fury to match, it could possibly burn them from the looks of it. They must've known you were on borrowed time now.

You forced your slow neck to turn the way he was yelling. The swarm of demons had only thickened with less targets to share amongst us. Tanjiro and Zenitsu were getting more and more overwhelmed despite Nezuko taking multiple at a time. They were doomed to face the same fate as you without aid.

Your eyes slid back up towards Inosuke who was frantically attempting to close your wound with nothing but his blood-slicked hands. He was getting frustrated, flustered by the flickering of consciousness in your eyes. He tore the fur he had wrapped around his waist and frantically pressed the skin against you. "Don't you die!" He demanded severely.

A sudden flow of tears poured from your eyes. Something about this was so painfully familiar, there was nothing you wouldn't do to ease his mind. He was your child, they all were.

"Ino," you cough out, gripping his red stained wrists. "You have to help them," you command sternly despite how difficult it was to form the words.

His boar mask stares down at you while he attempts to fashion the fur securely against your wound. "I can't leave you here!" He yelled as he remained steadfast in his work.

A stray demon began to run up behind him, claws raised and ready for a fast strike. But just as the warning was about to leave your mouth, you used what strength you had left to lift your upper half and aggressively whip your weapon into the demons leg, causing it to miss its mark and stumble. The boar-headed young man was wise to the demon now and caught its neck on one of his blades, sawing half it neck while yanking the rest apart.

You coughed and fell back to the ground, blood bubbled into your mouth from what was left of your shredded stomach. "Ino... suke," you mutter through the mouthful of blood, spitting it out next to you.

His attention trained in on you.

"It's okay —kff— I promise it is." You managed a smile which wavered erratically, weakly lifting your hand. He catches it in his desperately. "It was my joy... to train you all..." you spit more blood up as your vision began to blur.

He shook his head, restraining himself from shaking you as his hands tightened around yours. "Don't say shit like that! You aren't dying!" His hands were firm, calloused, the last thing you could really feel aside from the cold seeping into your bones.

You frowned up at him weakly and brought your other hand atop his, meeting the boar's eye as steadily as you could. "I am."

He stilled and his heart skipped.

The frown slipped away as strength bled from your stomach. You reached up and lifted his mask. There were tears pouring down his cheeks as he stared down at you.

You placed a cool, bloodied hand to his tear-stained face; it made his body tremble at the reality.

"You are my son, Inosuke... just as Tanjiro and Zenitsu are my sons... just as Nezuko is my daughter." You proclaimed, fighting your consciousness to stay just a little longer. "I'm proud of you... I'll always be proud of you..."

Inosuke's crying morphed into a choked sob. "You can't leave. I have to beat you in a fight! You have to teach me how to make those orange potatoes! You're—! You're my family!!" He yelled through his tightening throat.

You laughed sharply before a guilty sobbing began to kick through. "I'm sorry." The vision finally began to fade at the edges of your sight, instilling a cold reminder of the few seconds remaining. "Go. Help them now," You command, "Don't wait for me... they still have a chance." You reel your hand back after fixing the boar mask back over his face, concealing the tears you hadn't seen from him in years. With the fizzling muscles in your arm, you nudged his shoulder away from you.

He didn't hesitate. After capturing both your hands and squeezing them in his, he ran off to join the fight.

You watched him run to the others aid, cutting down two that were surrounding Nezuko. But as selfish as it was, you didn't want the last thing you saw to be war. So you stared helplessly at the stars far past the forest canopy. You wished your hearing went before your sight, the night sky was so peaceful in comparison to the chaos singing through the air. But even as your vision blurred to nothing you knew the tears still poured.

The guttural screams of your name from the others was agony, but all you could do was try to think through it. They didn't need you anymore, they learned all they could learn from you and that was all you wanted. You've given them tools to not only stay alive, but protect those who can't protect themselves.

The ground beneath you that had been painted red fell away into a numbness that cradled your bones that no longer ached.

You'd done what you had promised. You had taken care of them as best as you were able and more. That was the last thought that slipped through your brain before it completely failed, consumed by darkness.

Silence.

Sweet silence.

"Y/n?"

Your eyes snap open. Soft, lush grass reached long above you towards a bright blue sky. A long, painless pull of air satisfyingly filled your lungs. You reached for your stomach, only for it to be completely in tact.

As you sat up quickly your eyes scanned the nature born surroundings. An open meadow full of wild prairie flowers and foxtails said hello with gentle waves in the wind.

But... that voice... there was a voice.

The area ahead was clear of any intruders, so you turn to look over your shoulder.

A paralyzing sensation froze the blood running through you while staring wide-eyed at Kyojuro Rengoku smiling like he always had. A simple white and blue yukata loosely held around him as the fabric caught every stray gust of wind with a hypnotizing billow.

A distinct, familiar pain throbbed harshly within your ribs. You'd dreamed too many dreams of him to be tricked into believing this beautiful lie again.

His chest filled with air at the sight of you. "You're here." He stated, almost surprised as his owlish eyes remained fixated upon you.

Despite yourself, tears started to well the longer you stared at him. The ache in your heart turned to sharp blades of ice. Was this truly what your mind wanted to do to you in its last moments? His eyebrows jolted up at the sight of your torment, as if this spectre didn't know what it was doing. Grief submerged your mind as you could no longer look at him; turning away, you sob.

"Y/n!" He cried out in alarm and rushed around, taking a knee before you while placing his hands on your shoulders. "Y/n, it's alright! You're safe now!"

It felt so real.

You shrug him off harshly, but your eyes never lift. "Leave me," You mutter in dismay.

There is a shocked silence on the prairie wind. "Leave you?" He asks, almost disheartened.

An anger like no other blazes into your body. "Why must you torment me?! I've had no restful night since he died, am I not allowed a peaceful passing either?" The flames lick at your heart as you glare down onto your hands.

"Oh Y/n." He cooed, gently brushing a hand under the curtain of hair and tucking it out of the way. "I'm not here to torment you," he says gently, a soft tortured smile of his own appears. "You've joined me." He says just over a whisper.

You peek from your hands to meet his sincere eyes.

"You're here..." his eyes crinkle in slight humour and solemnness "albeit a bit earlier than I would've wanted for you... but God if I'm not selfishly happy that you are."  He speaks through a breath while slowly petting your hair.

It manages to calm your mind enough to think. Had I truly died? Is... this what has awaited me? All this time? He was waiting for me?

He cups your face, thumb trailing over your tear stained cheeks. "There you are."

"It's really you?"

He smiles and grabs you hand in his, pressing it to his chest; His heart. "Yes, it is."

A shaky, wet smile breaks across your face in elation. "Kyo!" You cry, lunging into him. He fights the momentum for a moment until you both slowly and ungracefully fall back into the lumpy prairie land.

He laughs and collects you in his arms a little tighter as you grin into his neck, pressing your head up against his, "I've missed you." He says, softly, warmly.

As you pull away, you meet his lovely eyes. "You've done incredibly by them." He cups the back of your head and presses a long, loving kiss to your forehead.

Your heart races as he pulls back and meets your eyes earnestly, smiling. "Thank you."

Tears well again as your grin widens shakily.

His fingers rub your scalp. "Rest."

And so, you do.