Chapter Text
The cemetery was quiet, but not eerily so. It was quiet and it was peaceful, but it was a polar opposite of the raging emotions that resided in the visitors’ hearts. Inosuke threaded on the unfamiliar territory carefully, unsure of why his companions looked so uneasy, amazed by the rows and rows of solid stone atop fragile bones.
“There’s so many of them! Who put all of these rocks here? I can do it too!” He ran over to the nearest gravestone and almost wrapped his arms around it to lift it into the sky before Zenitsu stopped him.
“What is wrong with you?!” Zenitsu screamed in a panic, grabbing Inosuke’s wrists with his sweaty hands. “Do you want to be cursed?!”
“Why would I be cursed?” the boy asked, like he was actually confused. Though he was raised in the mountains and by boars instead of humans, Zenitsu was so frustrated that patience seemed like an unreachable achievement and he thought he would eventually pluck all the hair off of Inosuke’s head.
“Because you have to respect the dead, idiot! Don’t mess around in a cemetery!”
Truthfully, Inosuke understood what Zenitsu was saying, and found his sentiments logical. However, a part of him was spiteful, and still kind of wanted to cause trouble just because Zenitsu had instructed him to do the opposite. Around this time, Tanjirou would then speak up, advising them in a kind voice to stop fighting. Inosuke looked to his right, anticipating the oldest Kamado son’s words.
Aoi saw him turn to her and shook her head, sighing. “What? You should listen to Zenitsu.”
He clenched his fists.
He had forgotten Tanjirou was dead. He had been so accustomed to quarrelling with Zenitsu and then being counselled by Tanjirou, he had just assumed the three of them would all be present. He had assumed that they would all be alive and well, playing the roles they’d established since the day they first met. Inosuke was the idiot, and so was Zenitsu, and Tanjirou was the mediator. But… but that wasn’t how things were anymore.
He really was a complete idiot. But who was going to help him now?
“Fine,” he grumbled softly, heartstrings pulled. He hated every time he forgot Tanjirou was permanently gone, and he hated every instance where he would remember once again that his best friend was dead. It was like his brain was trying to play cruel tricks on him. It was a dumb, stupid joke. He was the dumb, stupid joke.
After a few more minutes of walking, Inosuke eventually reeled back from his emotions and sniffed inaudibly. He tried to summon the kind of stupid unawareness people expected from him and pointed out, “Hey, what are you carrying on your back?”
Zenitsu glanced behind his shoulder, the back of his head grazing against a wooden box covered tightly with cloth. “Grandpa’s ashes,” he said dully. He sounded drained of all emotion, too. They were all tired.
“Ashes? Can I eat those?”
“No, you dumbass!” Zenitsu scolded, his expression flashing with anger like lightning in a thunderstorm. Inosuke held his breath, expecting the Thunder Breath user to chide him further, but Zenitsu didn’t say anything beyond that shallow insult. The boar-masked boy frowned. Recently, Zenitsu couldn’t even yell at him as much anymore— what was wrong with them? Sure, one member of their trio was missing, but it didn’t mean they had to lose their whole dynamic. Things could still be normal between Inosuke and Zenitsu— they could still shout at each other as much as they wanted, squabbling like they always did. They didn’t need Tanjirou to come in between them, did they? They didn’t need a babysitter to ensure they ended on good terms.
Yet, deep down inside, Inosuke knew he was just trying to convince himself. He knew that they would always need Tanjirou, no matter what, no matter where, because he was someone they both loved. And after losing Tanjirou… Inosuke hated to admit that the thought of also losing Zenitsu made him feel lonely.
“Alright, you can stop bickering now,” Aoi said sternly, her eyebrows curving downwards. She placed her hands on her hips and forged ahead. “We’re reaching Shinobu-san’s gravestone soon, and Kanao and Nezuko will probably be there, so behave.”
Inosuke let out a grunt of obedience, but he wasn’t really paying attention to anything she was saying. He was still stuck in his thoughts— something that didn’t happen often, but was reoccurring more as of late. He thought about all the things he would miss now that Tanjirou was gone forever— all the jokes they would miss, all the stupid conversations they could no longer have in the brink of midnight. How there used to be three but now there was two, and somehow Inosuke had to make up for the sunshine-like boy who’d died. His warms hands, warm face, warm smile, his warm heart.
There were a lot of things Inosuke would miss. There were a lot of things that no one but Tanjirou could do.
He sighed, and wondered for the thousandth time why it had to be Tanjirou that had died. Why couldn’t it have been anyone else? Why did Inosuke have to survive, bearing the weight of Tanjirou’s last words and dying wish? To Inosuke, no one was more important than Tanjirou, not really. Not even Zenitsu or Nezuko or Kanao, who had fought alongside him and mourned Tanjirou’s death together with him. No one could be like Tanjirou.
“We’re here.” Aoi stopped slowly in her tracks, eyes hard and expression stony. She looked like she didn’t want anyone to read her emotions, but Inosuke could tell that she felt the same as the rest of them. Sadness ran in their veins like a secondary blood. The only difference was that their misery didn’t leak out in the form of battle wounds, instead it clung stubbornly to their systems, refusing to be overpowered, sucking away at the happiness they should’ve felt after winning a war. These days, it hardly felt like they had even won a war. Aside from the absence of demons, all of them felt like big fat losers who had given up everything for close to nothing. “Shinobu-san’s grave.”
Inosuke peered through his mask and stared at the smooth stone, watching the two young girls that knelt beside it. Their eyes were tainted red, their noses the same colour. They had been crying, probably. He could understand why.
“Aoi.” Kanao stood up slowly, not quite looking them in the eye. It broke Inosuke’s heart to see that her expression was mild and blank, like she no longer had any reason to feel positive emotions. “What are you doing here?”
“We wanted to visit Shinobu, too,” Aoi responded gently. She looked worried. “Are you…”
Her words died off before she could ask if Kanao was okay. Her gaze remained on Kanao, who stood in front of Shinobu’s gravestone like she didn’t know how else to spend her time, and Aoi decided that she already knew the answer. There was no point in asking— she wasn’t fine, and that was fine. Because none of them really were, either. They wouldn’t be for a long, long time. It was only natural.
“Did you come here just to visit Shinobu?” This time, the Flower Breathing user directed her question at Inosuke and a teary-eyed Zenitsu.
“No, I came here for Tanjirou too!” Inosuke announced proudly, placing his arms on his hips. He looked around eagerly. “Where is he?”
Behind Kanao, Nezuko shifted uncomfortably. It was the first time she’d moved since they got here, and Inosuke was dismayed when she looked at him with the same blank, sad stare that she had directed at Shinobu’s gravestone. “Onii-chan isn’t buried here,” she said softly. Her eyes were cast downwards, like she was trying to hide the tears that brimmed in her sweet pink eyes.
“He isn’t? Then where is he buried?” Inosuke asked, furrowing his brows. Aoi covered her mouth with her small hands, realisation and devastation filling her expression as if she had only just fully realised that Inosuke was completely clueless. Everyone else had gone quiet.
“Inosuke…” she said hesitantly. “Tanjirou… he isn’t on this mountain.”
“Did he get a special burial place or something?”
“No, stupid.” Zenitsu sniffed and smacked him. The hit was soft and lacked any real anger— Inosuke knew Zenitsu was just doing it because he had no idea what to do with himself. “Tanjirou turned into a demon, so he disintegrated when he died. We couldn’t collect the ashes.”
Inosuke stared at him.
Oh.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry until crying didn’t even feel like enough— until he was doubling down on his knees, retching from all the tears that choked his throat.
Tanjirou couldn’t even be buried.
How was that fair? He had contributed the most to the war. He had protected endless lives, his sacrifice saving the whole of Japan. And yet, he was the only demon slayer that couldn’t have a place to rest in the physical world. All of the Hashira had been buried amongst the other soldiers that had passed, yet Tanjirou, who fought with them— fought for them— was nowhere to be found.
There’s nothing left of Tanjirou anymore.
The warmth of his hands, the warmth of his voice… Not even his ashes remained. This world was sick and cruel, but it was even worse now with Tanjirou gone. To Inosuke, it was nothing. The world was empty and vacant without his best friend.
“But… but how are we supposed to pay our respects to him then?” Inosuke’s hands balled into fists, his nails digging into his thick skin. “What are we supposed to do?”
Was there even anything they could do? He found himself asking that same question again and again every single day, because he felt so helpless and wished desperately that he would one day find an answer, and maybe feel less devoid of hope.
“Tanjirou told you to take care of Nezuko, right? Those were his last words,” Kanao said eventually, breaking the silence, her face smoothening with newfound faith. Her watchful gaze observed Inosuke with one hundred percent trust, like she was determined to fulfil his final request. “What we can do now is to honour his wishes.”
“I don’t need to be protected or anything,” Nezuko said stubbornly, but all of them could tell that she was touched by Kanao’s words. She looked like she wanted to cry again. “I’ll be fine… on my own.”
On her own, huh? Inosuke thought to himself. He had always been alone, his biological mother sacrificing her life for him, the boars that had raised him dying over time. And yet, even though he had only known Tanjirou for a short period of time, he was already so wounded by his death. He had had a gift, that Kamado kid, for being able to connect with almost everyone he met, quickly becoming precious to people who barely knew him. The entire Demon Slayer Corps was shaken by his passing, but it was even worse for Nezuko, who had known him all her life. They had grown up under the same roof together, finding solace in their isolated home in the mountains. They had gone through good and bad times as a family, and when she’d been robbed of her parents and her other siblings because of Muzan, Tanjirou had been the only one she had left. Now, he was gone, and she was an only-child. It was unfamiliar. It was painful.
She would really be on her own, without her family to guide her. It was something she’d never had to go through as a child, and now it was something she was abruptly forced to face.
“You won’t be on your own,” Kanao said. Her voice was firm and reassuring. “We’ll be there for you, and not just because Tanjirou had wanted that. No one can replace him, but… I hope you know you can find a family in the rest of us.”
A tear slipped down Nezuko’s cheek, and she was unable to hold it in anymore. She let out a shaky breath, and then cried. “Thank you, guys,” she said in between sobs, reaching out to hug them. “It means so much to me.”
Inosuke didn’t resist her embrace. The warmth of their skin and hugs was apparently heritable in the Kamado family, because some part of him felt like Tanjirou had been brought back to life when Nezuko hugged him. He noted subconsciously that she spoke the same way as her older brother, both of them sharing similar tones when they talked. Then he realised with more consciousness that, over time, he would probably forget the sound of Tanjirou’s voice, and gradually he would forget his appearance, too. It sucked to think about— they could pretend to be a family, but ultimately they would be a family without their older brother, and it just wouldn’t be the same that way.
They would be forced to live on without Tanjirou, following the road that lacked him, trying their best not to lose their way.
It felt wrong, and Inosuke hated it. But that was just how things would be from now on.