Chapter Text
Sanemi had to prove that this demon brat wasn’t what they claimed she was. He had to. The alternative was considering, wondering, if . . . No. He doesn’t want to think about that. So he runs his katana across his scarred forearm, long since used to the pain, as he did it so very regularly, and prayed that top purity marechi blood would be enough to make this girl’s mask drop.
He was so desperate, he even dared to step up on oyakata-sama’s roofed engawa so that the sun-hating creature could come and attempt to feast. But she didn’t. She turned her head away from him, towards her brother, and something inside Sanemi broke. Thoughts of his past, the history he always failed to forget, and his guilt, the everpresent guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt flooded his mind. Only a hastily constructed barrier of rage, a fragile thing, as rage always was when without a good target, kept the grief and guilt and tears from spilling out of his head into the world.
There was something odd going on with Sanemi. Tengen could hear it, in the rhythm of his heartbeat, throughout the ordinary meeting that followed all the drama with the kamado boy. It was . . . discordant. Slowing in an odd, uncharacteristic way, then speeding with familiar rage, but . . . hollow, somehow. Not so . . . real, he supposed, as Sanemi’s rage usually was. It was . . . disconcerting.
He didn’t think anyone else could tell what was going on. Giyuu might be able to sense it, with his nose as sharp as it was, but while Giyuu was good at scents, he was uniquely horrible at feelings. He really did wonder what was going on with Sanemi. It really was worrying, anything this far from any of his comrade's baseline’s would be.
Perhaps he should try to talk to him, after the meeting. Ask him what was wrong. Not here though, he knew in front of so many nobody would want to really talk. Maybe he could visit the wind estate after the meeting, based on the new info they had discussed he was pretty sure no missions would come in for either of them for at least a day. Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.
Sanemi did not pay attention, throughout the whole meeting that followed. He knew he should, but he was too busy forcing his thoughts back away from dangerous areas every 5 seconds. He wanted to go home to the wind estate, and collapse into his futon and sob for an hour where nobody could see him. He wanted to go home, to Mom and Genya and Sumi and Teiko and Hiroshi and Shuya, and help Mom with dinner, and brush Teiko’s hair, and- No. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about them. He wouldn’t allow himself to.
The meeting was wrapping up. He had no idea what had happened, but that was fine. He could ask Iguro to fill him in later, as he sometimes did for him when the shorter man had one of his worse days at the same time as a meeting. Later, though. Right now, he pushed off his friend’s attempts to make conversation with him, and moved through the courtyard where the other hashira were hanging around, catching up as was customary after a meeting.
Once outside the grounds of the headquarters, Sanemi set off jogging back towards his own estate. If he was running a bit faster than the speed he would usually use for simple travel, nobody noticed. Tengen might have, but he was talking to Kyojuro about his wives just then, and everybody knew how Tengen got about his wives.
The dam in Sanemi’s mind began crumbling as he ran, the thoughts of what if no longer able to be fully restrained. Sanemi picked up his pace even more, practically sprinting now in an attempt to get back to his house before the shiny feeling in his eyes turned into full on tears.
He arrived at the gate to his estate, a couple quiet tears escaping as he fumbled with the latch on the gate. Once inside the quiet estate, he made his way through the empty hallways until he reached his bedroom, closing the sliding door behind him. Once there, hidden away from everyone and everything, away from any prying eyes, he began to sob in earnest. Curling himself into a ball in the corner of the room, he shook with tears that he didn’t even try to restrain anymore, far too overwhelmed with memories and emotions.
Inside his head, he was back with Genya, promising with him that they would protect their family, together.
Then he was bursting through the door, tackling the demon, their mother, away from killing the one thing he had left, barely even having time to register the horrifying sight of Sumi, Teiko, Shuya, and Hiroshi’s still, lifeless bodies, covered in their own and one another’s blood, Shuya cradled, unmoving, in Genya’s arms.
Then he was outside, fighting for his life against what then had been an unknown enemy, but who he now could see as nothing but his own mother, her face twisted and distorted into something horrific and demonic, full of hunger and fury.
He was taking his cleaver from its sheath, and slamming it, again and again, against her, until she was lying on the ground unconscious as the sun began to rise, looking more peaceful than she had as Sanemi was fighting her, looking almost like herself.
Then his Genya, his all-he-had-left, had come, bleeding from a fresh cut on his face that matched one of Sanemi’s own new wounds, and he had seen her, and he had screamed at Sanemi, calling him a monster, a murderer, and Sanemi couldn’t be mad at him for that; after all, Sanemi was a murderer, and he could definitely be called a monster.
The flashbacks, the relivings, finally let up, and Sanemi gasped for breath as though coming up from deep water, curled in his ball in the corner, before being dragged back into his own mind, this time into something somehow worse, into a quagmire of what if.
That demon girl today, she had been calm. She had been alive, even after meeting the hashira. She hadn’t been violent, or aggressive, she hadn’t even had that glint of hunger in her eyes that all demons he’s even met had had, (that his mother had had), that he hated hated hated. How had she gotten like that? How had she managed to get free from That Man’s control? What had she done, what had her idiot brother done, to save her?
Could his mother have been saved like that? If he had tried harder, if he had been less stupid, less violent, less like Kyogo, could Shizu have been okay? Could she have been calm, free of hunger, free of Him, if only Sanemi had done better? Was the nightmare that was his life even more his own fault than he thought? Was-
“-anemi? Sanemi? You okay?” Somebody was next to him, hand on his shoulder, calm voice shaking him free, for a moment, from the bog of his mind.
“I- I’m-” Sanemi couldn’t speak through the tears that still flowed freely. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if he could.
“Silly question, huh? You clearly aren’t,” the person, whoever it was, said. The man, Sanemi was pretty sure it was a man, sank down on his knees next to him, grabbed his shoulders, and quite suddenly, pulled him into a hug. For some reason, this only made Sanemi sob harder.