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Sanemi’s chest heaved with exhaustion as he staggered to his knees. His hands sprawled across chipped stone tiles, uneven surfaces digging into calloused fingers.
The rippling film of rain on the ground flashed a blinding white as lighting cut a vengeful path across the darkened sky. Thunder reverberated between his ears with a deafening roar. But none of it could distract him from the fatigued relief engulfing him right now.
Because he was finally here. The final resting place of Tomioka Giyuu. A figure of the past memorialized between the pages of history.
It was no easy feat finding Tomioka Giyuu. Or at the very least, his alleged grave. A man from countless lifetimes ago. A legend who made a name for himself a thousand years before Sanemi came into this world. Recounts of the figure inked in paper and carved in stone, more myth than man at this point. Sanemi hunted down every last detail, set foot in every last site that carried even a trace of his presence.
Sanemi went searching for answers, only to stumble out with more questions.
Sanemi was not sure what exactly he would find. But he was hoping there could be some clues, secrets, anything, that could help turn the tide in the war against demons.
Demons had plagued the lands for over a thousand years. No one knew where they came from and why they were here, but the desire to kill them was more than enough to call people to arms. To fight back.
But this war had been going on for far too long. Humans needed a breakthrough. Some strived to live years ahead of their time, pursuing victory in innovation. Some decided to look back and find inspiration in the past.
One of which included seeking answers within legends from history, hidden secrets awaiting discovery.
Sanemi knew they were spinning speculations out of stories. But he was no close to finding a solution as much as the next person. The end to this war was frustratingly out of reach, they needed something to close the distance.
They needed hope.
So Sanemi took up the mission and began his quest.
Till his body returned to ashes and dust, he would not permit himself a moment of rest nor weakness. While demons still walked on the same soil as humans, he would not allow the flame of humanity flicker into nonexistence.
That said, as he hauled his head up, he swept a skeptical gaze across the rock before him. Unmarked and unassuming, it sat no taller than his hip at his standing height. There was nothing about it that hinted at the identity of the body buried in the earth below, if there was even a body to begin with.
Sanemi’s gut sank with foreboding dread. A clumping, cloying sensation whenever he found himself tumbling into yet another dead end. The rain traced woeful tears down weathered ridges.
As Sanemi reluctantly wrote this off as another disappointment, the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. Tensing with alertness, he spun around, sword in hand—
—and came face to face with a demon lunging straight at him. With a grit of his teeth and instincts driving the swing of his arms, Sanemi cut its head clean off. Any second slower, its teeth would have found purchase in his shoulder.
The moment its head fell to the floor with a wet thud, more demons emerged from surrounding trees and into the clearing. They crouched and bent in odd angles, slitted eyes glinting with voracious bloodlust.
Pushing himself to his feet with a sharp grunt, Sanemi shot them a wicked grin as he flicked the blood off his blade.
“Doing me the favor by lining up for me to kill, huh.”
A bated-breath second passed. Then, all at once they leapt at him.
Unfazed, Sanemi prepared himself for the attack. Narrowly avoiding a lethal swipe, he cleaved the closest demon’s head off. His sword cut through the air with a whistling arch, separating heads from necks before they could even blink.
He dived to cut another demon, but the tips of its claw slit across his arm.
Amidst the scuffle, his blood splattered across the rock behind him.
Sanemi barely registered the sting. Cursing at himself for letting the demon slip past his defences, he slashed it in half with vindication.
Just as it collapsed before him, another wave of demons pounced at him, reeking of bloodlust. Sanemi braced himself to fight them off. His legs coiled with mounting tension. He kicked himself off the ground and sprang at them. But then a blur of blue soared out from behind—
And beheaded all the demons in one fell swoop.
Sanemi skidded to a stop, breath lodged in his throat. His gaze fixated on the mysterious interferer as his mind worked to catch up to his eyes.
The figure descended with their arms outstretched, cerulean robes fanning and fluttering like wings of a captured sky. The sword in their hand glinted with the shade of midnight. Rain glided down their hair, past the tied tresses at the base of their neck to the strands ending at the bottom of their shoulder blades, giving Sanemi the impression of an everflowing evening river.
They turned around. The first thing that held Sanemi’s attention was their eyes.
Azure. He stared into an endless ocean, its depths unfathomable yet calling Sanemi into its chasm.
Under his keen eyes Sanemi left no details unnoticed. They bore the appearance of a young man around his own age. Inky frames curled around a pale angular face, quietly inviting his attention. If not for the gleam in his eyes, Sanemi would have believed him to be carved from stone.
The man struck a sense of familiarity in Sanemi, tugging at the edges of his memory like a phantom echo from a forgotten dream. But he swore he had not seen a man like that before, for a presence that exuded such tranquil abyss would have etched itself into his memory.
The stranger blinked. Then, shock melted the carved stillness from his face, like breathing life into a statue.
“Sanemi?”
A hushed timbre, as if any louder would shatter the earth they stood on. A jolt surged through Sanemi’s body. It numbed his tongue and it took him a few conflicting attempts to make it work again.
“...How do you know my name?”
The man stiffened, as if the stunned bewilderment ought to be reserved for himself instead.
“You do not recognize me?”
Sanemi frowned. Paired with the nagging sense of familiarity, he began to doubt his own memory. “Should I?”
The mysterious man stared at Sanemi. His eyes weighed with something profound that he lacked the means to decipher. But before he could even begin to decrypt it, his gaze dropped.
The thread between them, in its nascent stretch, snapped.
“I suppose not.”
The man fell silent, slotting a stopper to their conversation. But Sanemi itched for answers, his stubborn indignation from hurdle after hurdle building up to an obstinate refusal to let go, to give up without a fight.
“Who are you?”
The man’s chest sank with a sigh, imperceptible if not for Sanemi’s sharp fixation. Impatience simmered beneath Sanemi’s skin, but battle-earned lessons had taught him that sometimes patience could reap greater rewards than swift action.
Eventually, the man answered.
“My name is Tomioka Giyuu.”
Sanemi felt his world tilt on its axis.
“...You're Tomioka Giyuu?”
The man’s gaze snapped back up. The abyss stared back.
“You have heard of me?”
Sanemi almost scoffed. “Heard of you? I've been looking for you.”
At that, Giyuu frowned. “Looking for me?”
“Yes,” Sanemi bit back a sigh as he sheathed his sword, mulling over his next words in his head. “The land is still full of demons. Nothing works, we kill one demon and three come and take its place. We're running out of ideas, so we try whatever we can think of. I know it sounds ridiculous, but we’re hoping to find new answers, even if it means chasing myths and digging graves.”
Giyuu regarded him, silently, somberly. Sanemi fought down the urge to fidget under the weight of his stare.
“You are right. It is ridiculous.”
Irritation sparked in Sanemi, crackling under the fuel of exhaustion. But before he could snap back with a retort, Giyuu spoke again.
“But perhaps it is fate.”
Sanemi shot him a puzzled look, but Giyuu offered no elaboration as he sheathed his sword. Giyuu took a deep breath.
“Sanemi—”
“Shinazugawa.”
Giyuu blinked, almost flinching at the interruption.
“My name is Shinazugawa Sanemi.” Sanemi clarified.
Giyuu’s expression shuttered. His eyes dulled. Sanemi had an odd feeling that those were the wrong words to say, and only served to push them further apart. But he was unsure as to how he had erred.
Before a clumsy apology could roll off his tongue, Giyuu squared his shoulders in recovered composure.
“Apologies, Shinazugawa.” There was a frosted clip in his tone and it left Sanemi strangely disoriented. “We should find shelter from this rain. We can plan our next course of action afterwards.”
He turned around and walked off in resolute conclusion, a wordless expectation that Sanemi would follow.
Shaking the off-balance from the whiplash in behavior, Sanemi quickly caught up with him in begrudging acquiescence.
They eventually found a small abandoned hut not far from where they were. The land in this corner of the country was most infested with demons, the previous owner seemed to have left in a hurry, leaving most of their belongings behind. Sanemi only hoped that they had made it to safety.
They found some water in a nearby well. Stale, but still safe for consumption. As Sanemi brought a pail into the hut, his shuffling pulled at the gash on his arm. His pained hiss did not go unnoticed.
Giyuu looked at his arm, clotted with dried blood.
“You are injured.”
Sanemi shrugged. “It comes with the job. I’ll take care of it later.”
Instead of letting it slide like Sanemi expected, Giyuu started rummaging through the cabinets and cupboards until he pulled a small box of bandages and fabrics. Stepping towards Sanemi, he gestured to the elevated floor next to him.
“Sit.”
Bristling at the curt command, Sanemi sneered in willful refusal. “I’m not a child. I can wrap my own bandages just fine.”
He received a blank countenance in return. Unfazed, there was barely a flutter of expression on Giyuu’s face.
“You are here for my help, are you not?”
Sanemi tempered the urge to call him every unsavory name under the sun. Perhaps beneath that frozen chasm churned a vehement current after all.
“Not for something trivial like this.” He grunted out one final objection before easing himself onto the floor. Giyuu settled next to him, selectively unresponsive.
Despite the distant apathy wafting all over him, Giyuu’s hands were careful, even gentle. He did not pull the bandages too tightly, making sure they wrapped over his cut. He devoted his attention to Sanemi’s wound, so in turn Sanemi devoted his attention to Giyuu.
Downcast eyes half-veiled sapphires from Sanemi’s line of sight. A shift in the neck coaxed tucked hair to the side of his face, silhouetting a line along his jaw for Sanemi to trace with his eyes. Sanemi was observing a painting in motion, words from the past piecing together to form a figure now more man than myth.
There was something arcane about him that Sanemi could not quite put a finger on. A mirage that refused to fade between his combing fingers. Perhaps an effect of his unusual circumstances.
“Are you really Tomioka Giyuu?”
“Yes.” He responded with nary a falter in movement. “Were you not hoping to find me?”
“I was, but I wasn't sure I actually would. I thought I’d find some information, secrets or even weapons. Not a living, breathing person from the past.”
A light hum came from Giyuu, contemplative. “I took down those demons. At the very least, I am not your foe. Would that be proof enough?”
Sanemi offered a shrug. It was as good as any.
It seemed that it was Giyuu’s turn to satisfy his curiosity. “Are there others like you?”
Sanemi nodded. “There are, I was tasked to find any records that you might have left behind that could aid us in this war.”
“I doubt I can be of any help,” Giyuu reasoned. “We could not eradicate the demons during our time.”
Defensiveness snapped Sanemi’s back straight as he ignited with galvanized fervor. Refutation spilled out of him before he could stop himself.
“But you are Tomioka Giyuu. You singlehandedly protected a city from a horde of demons. You developed a defensive technique that many could use to protect themselves.”
Sanemi leaned forward, bright-eyed and fuelled by the incitement that blazed him when he first heard of the historical figure before him. Stories that people like him shared to stir up hope while fighting under a common cause, replayed in his head like epic retellings. “You were a hero. You saved countless lives.”
Not a single word left Giyuu. All of Sanemi’s vigor bounced off of him, unflinching. His hands, once gentle, now carried a stilted stiffness to them. He finished bandaging Sanemi and leaned back, dimmed gaze casted downwards.
“Not a hero.”
The words escaped, barely a murmur. Sanemi flinched, narrowing his eyes in puzzlement. Before he could push, the abyssal gaze lifted back up.
“I didn’t save everyone. Couldn’t save everyone.”
Grief enshrouded his eyes like a hazy fog, speaking of a sorrow beyond any word or image Sanemi could conjure. And despite their cloudedness, they lingered on Sanemi. As if seeing something that was not there.
Sanemi’s tongue numbed with helpless uncertainty. Words of solace stuck at his throat as he struggled to pull the other man out of the chasm of his own making. His bandaged arm twitched, jolting Giyuu’s hands which rested on it still. The involuntary motion snapped Giyuu out of his musing.
With hasty chagrin he stood up and began to step away. Sanemi, compelled by a reason he could not understand, leapt to his feet and caught Giyuu by the arm before he could slip away.
Giyuu startled, widened eyes meeting Sanemi’s. It was the first time Sanemi saw them disarmed of their perpetual guardedness.
Aged exhaustion plagued Giyuu’s eyes. Grief bruised the skin along the bottom arches, stark against his pallor. With the pinched distance Sanemi realized he was taller than Giyuu. It had not registered in him prior, with the way Giyuu had chiselled his presence into, untouchable, unfathomable.
Sanemi reckoned he could see the sliver of something once human between the cracks.
“What are you, a god? No one is all-powerful, there are times when we aren’t strong enough to protect everyone. Don’t let that stop you from saving more people.”
Giyuu gawked, awfully mute after his spiel. Then, when he regained some semblance of his bearings:
“Are you sure you are not Shinazugawa Sanemi?”
Sanemi scowled, disgruntled at the brusque slight. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? That’s my name, which I told you at the start. How could it not be me?”
Giyuu blinked, then made an aborted shake of his head. “Sorry. It’s just—you reminded me of someone.”
Sanemi fell quiet, indignation snuffed. Silence hung heavy between them with a shared cognizance that it would be someone from a lifetime ago. Someone lost within the used myriad of fate’s threads.
Giyuu lowered his gaze. Sanemi followed it until it stopped at the point where his hand was still encircling Giyuu’s arm. He snatched his hand back, as if scorched. Giyuu was less hurried in his retreat, though Sanemi caught a hint of a clenched fist when it slipped under his sleeve.
Sanemi cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” was the brief reply.
The quiet between them pulled taut with uneasy awkwardness. Sanemi coughed into his hand before either of them buckled from the tension.
“How did you live that long, anyway? You’re human, aren’t you?”
“I am human.” Giyuu tilted his head. “I think.”
Sanemi snorted. “That’s reassuring.”
Giyuu crossed his arms, deep in rumination. “The last thing I remember doing was fighting demons. It was an arduous battle which thinned our numbers. One of the demons started chanting at us, probably a curse. I tried to interrupt it, but I don’t think I was able to stop it entirely.
“The next thing I knew, you stood before me facing off demons. So I stepped in and took them down.”
Sanemi had known a few demons with troublesome abilities. But something was not adding up. The truth was lost within the tangled threads of mystery and Sanemi was driven to pull them apart, strand by strand.
“Do you know why you could have woken up at that moment, after so long?”
Giyuu’s lips pursed with contemplative silence. “I have an inclination.”
Sanemi stared at him. When Giyuu made no indication that he would explain further, he clicked his tongue in annoyance and urged him to continue. He saw the corner of Giyuu’s lip twitch, and felt curiosity gnaw at him.
“It was probably you, Shinazugawa.”
Sanemi straightened his back. “Me? Why me?”
“I saw the rock before we left. There was blood on it. It was yours, was it not?”
“I guess so.” Sanemi was not paying much attention to that, he was too preoccupied on staying alive. “But why would my blood break the curse?”
Giyuu stewed in his thoughts for a while. Then, lifting his hand, he traced featherlight fingers along Sanemi’s bandaged arm. Even though he could hardly feel the touch between the wrapped layers, they drew a searing line in their path. Sanemi’s gaze trailed after the movement, hypnotized.
“I am not too certain either, perhaps it’s something we will uncover eventually.”
Suspicion nagged at Sanemi with the cautionary imploring that Giyuu was withholding vital knowledge. But he knew he could not wheedle information out of him, so he decided to steer the conversation in a direction that he could still extract value out of.
“Any places you know that could be of use?”
Giyuu inclined his head in thought. “I have a few in mind, though I am not sure if they still exist after so long.”
“Only one way to find out.” Sanemi pulled out a map which Giyuu began marking with places of interest. The closest one, worth two days of travel, was a forest which used to be one of their main bases. It was as good a place as any to start.
Exhaustion crept up at Sanemi as the night crawled on. He decided it was best to call it a night if they were to head out early the next day. Pushing past his weariness, he stole a glance at the other man. Shadows danced on Giyuu’s face with the steady flicker of the candle nearby. The amber glow colored his face in an illusion of warmth, a false belief of someone within reach.
Perplexed wariness dug deeper into him. The intrigue itched at him ever since he first saw the man. Sanemi doubted he could sleep until he got that out of the way.
“Tomioka.”
Giyuu glanced at him.
“Have we met before?”
The words rang odd to his ears even as they left him. There was no logical way a man who lived a millennium ago would have known a man from the present. But it was the only way Sanemi could explain how his own name slipped past Giyuu’s lips like an unearthed memory, how his chest ached with a foreign longing as if his soul remembered something his body had forgotten.
Something shifted in Giyuu’s eyes, currents twisting beneath a murky surface. The abyss stirred. For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he stepped forward. Sanemi tensed but he stayed his ground. Giyuu walked until he entered his space. Their chests a whisper's breath apart, and Sanemi’s lungs constricted with tight breaths.
The candle next to them shuddered, and Sanemi saw a hint of waver behind that obscure veil. The cracks creaked with telltale fissures.
“What would you do, if I said yes?”
Sanemi stared at him. The endless depths in Giyuu’s eyes pulled him in, he could not look away.
Just as his mouth parted around his first word, lightning tore through the sky and thunder rattled their bones, startling them both out of their trance.
Sanemi whipped his head to look out the window on instinct. When he turned back, Giyuu had already stepped away. The gulf between them yawned back open.
“Get some rest, Shinazugawa. We move at first light.”
Sanemi’s gaze lingered on Giyuu’s retreating back, and found himself reluctant.
Despite himself, they found some bedding and turned in for the night. They lay on separate beddings, backs turned towards each other. While Sanemi waited for sleep to find him, the pads of his fingers unconsciously ran over the bandages around his arm. If he pressed hard enough he could probably cajole the fading warmth from Giyuu’s hands back to the surface.
As darkness enveloped him, he felt a hand on his head. Gently, fondly. A longing caress, unsure in its careful affection. It was achingly familiar, yet Sanemi had no recollection of such tenderness.
Faintly a soft murmur drifted to his ears, a hushed promise that he would forget by morning, “This time I will protect you, Sanemi.”