#kakushi | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fanfictionalhooligan · 9 months

Text

Wounds of the Final Battle〚Haganezuka x Kakushi!Reader Oneshot〛

Preface: Being happily married won't stop you from doing your part as a Kakushi to help the Demon Slayers defeat Kibutsuji Muzan, even if it means risking your life. Hotaru, your beloved husband, struggles with this reality.

Just like the original chapter of this continuity, this can be read as an independent story. See the AO3 version (link) if you prefer third-person over second-person narration!

“Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would you do something so stupid?!”

You recoil at his sharp words. Hotaru has never yelled at you like this before. At everyone else, yes…but not at you. Not with those kinds of words.

“Hotaru, I have to!” you tell him hopelessly. He's stormed off towards his workshed and you desperately follow him; it's something he tends to do in order to calm down, to pick up a sword and start sharpening it or begin forging another one.

The two of you are starting to attract onlookers, and although you can't see their faces behind the Hyottoko masks, you can still register the shock in the sharp turn of their heads and the gasps as the hotheaded swordsmith – your enraged husband – goes off the handle and begins kicking and throwing aside any objects in his path.

“Stop that!” you yell after him, but he picks up his pace, oblivious to all your attempts to console him. It's as if he can't stand the sound of your voice right now.

...Or rather, he can't stand to hear another reason why you have to be there to fight Kibutsuji Muzan with the Demon Slayers.

You might be just a Kakushi with absolutely no swordsmanship skills, but this battle is going to take every person and every ounce of strength that can possibly weaken the progenitor of all demons. Many Demon Slayers will be wounded if not killed, and every Kakushi counts to keep them alive as best they can.

Hotaru has a problem with the fact that you, his wife, aren't able to protect yourself the way the Demon Slayers can. The Kakushi are completely at the mercy of the demons if the swordsmen are taken out. You can't even blame Hotaru for going off the handle right now. You would be angry and terrified in his shoes, too. You're trying your hardest not to cry seeing his pain manifest into livid rage.

The two of you eventually make it to his workshed, and Hotaru nearly slams the door in your face until he sees your expression; you must look pretty awful and he simply doesn't have it in him to drive you away. When he'd asked you to marry him, he had promised you that he would support you through everything and do all that he could to help you endure as a Kakushi. It's starting to creep into his conscience now, you can tell.

Unable to think of any words to say, Hotaru turns on his heel and marches to the back of the workshed. He's trying to find anything at all to work on, to channel his absolute focus that can tune out the painful world, but he's distraught and ends up knocking over a basket of dull blades. “Fucking hell!” he roars.

You have never seen your husband so shaken before. “Hotaru…” you call to him softly. He pauses, fists clenched as he stares toward the ground at all the scattered Nichirin Sword blades. There are a lot more of them than usual because, lo and behold, the entire village is also preparing the Demon Slayers to fight Muzan. It doesn't help Hotaru at all right now.

You quietly make your way over to his side as he simply stands there and stares at all the spilled blades. “Do you want me to be here right now?” you ask him gently. There really are no words to say that would make the situation better.

To your dismay, Hotaru shakes his head violently. “Not if it’s going to be the last time I see you alive!” he scowls.

“Don’t say that -”

“Then can you guarantee you’ll survive this suicide mission?” Hotaru shouts, causing you to flinch. “Go ahead, say it – tell me you don’t have any real chance of being butchered by a demon this time!”

You hang your head. “I…I can’t.” The words drop like a dead weight and the room feels heavy. “I’m so sorry, Hotaru. I can’t.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and grabs his head with both hands, his fingers digging into his scalp as he turns his back to you.

“But you know why I have to go, don’t you?” you tell him desperately. “It’s my duty as a Kakushi, just like yours as a swordsmith, you know – like how you didn’t stop honing that sword while a demon was attacking you -”

“SHUT UP!” Hotaru screams, without warning. “SHUT UP AND GO AHEAD AND FUCKING DIE SINCE YOU WANT TO SO BADLY! I obviously don’t mean shit to you, anyway!”

You recoil and the tears begin to run down your face. Your husband has completely lost it and has gone somewhere you can't reach him. “Hotaru…” Your voice is shaking now, and it hurts to speak at all.

Your husband wheels back around at the sound of your tortured voice, his fingers still digging into his scalp as you stand there trembling. “Oh, God.” He has returned to you, and it makes you want to cry even harder. “Oh, God…" he whispers. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Your eyes widen. You can count on your fingers the number of times you've ever heard of Hotaru apologizing in his life, and you didn’t see this one coming. His good eye looks wild and distraught, unable to process the horror at himself and at the reality of the battle that he is completely helpless to stop.

“I’m sorry, too,” you tell him meekly. “I don’t want to leave you here…”

Hotaru’s arms lower from his head; one of his hands covers his face instead. Is he about to cry? He probably doesn't want you to see it. “T-there are hundreds of Kakushi going to this battle…” he mutters. “What difference does it make if just one of them sits out?”

“Everything,” you reply automatically. “Every action builds upon the next. Every person counts.”

Your husband knows that there is no stopping you. You wish you could turn away from the battle, to stay home safe and sound with him and let him hold you for the rest of your lives as you promised each other. But your duty as a Kakushi is more important to you than the possibility of dying, like how Hotaru can't even tell when his eye is being crushed or when his body is being slashed repeatedly once he starts forging a sword. You've devoted yourself to doing your part to help the Demon Slayers after watching your entire family be slaughtered by the monsters several years ago.

…But Hotaru is so precious to you, too. Ever since he came into your world, you've had something dear to hold onto and someone who can make you smile no matter how beaten down you are after carrying dying or dead Demon Slayers back from battle. A lot of times, he carries you on his back himself when you return to the village looking crestfallen and your uniform stained with blood that you haven't been able to wash out despite your best efforts. He gives you a place to rest, as he promised. “I-I want to come home, Hotaru,” you tell him hopelessly. “I want to come home to you so badly. It will help me stay alive, I promise.”

‘Help’ is far from good enough to comfort him, but it's all you can manage.

Hotaru finally lowers both his arms. “I know.” He looks away for a moment and yes, those are tears. “I just… At the very least, I want to be by your side if you die out there.” Your heart breaks as his voice cracks. “But I don’t even get that luxury. I can’t fix you if you’re gone, not like swords that can be reforged and honed again - I can’t do a damn thing -”

You can't bear to watch him like this and before you know it, you run forward and throw yourself into his arms. “I love you, dear Hotaru. I love you so much. I’ll do everything I can to come home.” He goes still for a moment, but you feel his strong arms wrap around you and squeeze you tight enough for you to fear that he plans on staying like this to stop you from taking a single step away from him.

“I love you, too. More than you can ever imagine.” His voice is shaking just as much as yours is, but both of you close your eyes and cherish the fleeting memories. Like how the sun had never shined so brightly before when you were married on Mount Yoko a month ago, the place where Nichirin Swords themselves come from. Hotaru had taken you to his most sacred place on earth just to promise himself to you. Tecchikawahara-san, Kanamori-san and even Kotetsu-kun had been bawling with happiness for the both of you. A crowd of Kakushi who were close to you had shown up as well, and even Tanjiro – who is more terrified of your husband than anyone else – was there alongside his closest companions in the Demon Slayers, and his smiling sister repeated “Congratulations!” like a broken record. It was the most beautiful day of your lives.

“I don’t know how to handle this. I’m a damn wreck,” Hotaru finally admits. You wrap your arms around him tightly as you feel his chest heaving with a sigh. “I…I thought that swords were all that mattered in the world. But you, you are like – the most beautiful of blades, you know. Like one that has just lit up and changed colors beneath the sun and outshines the rest. You came into this world more beautiful than all of them and you are the last one that I want to see broken.”

Your husband’s analogies to Nichirin Swords being the only way he knows how to compliment anything or anyone always makes you giggle. “Dearest husband, you’re making me blush,” you tell him, almost playfully, if only the tears weren’t streaming down both your faces and your voice all crackly. You bury your head in his chest to listen to the sound of his heartbeat, and he has no choice but to give in.

“Please come home…okay?”

"Heave, heave, heave!"

"Don't retreat!!! No matter what happens!"

"Do not fall back! Continue to push!!! We're all together! We are not afraid!"

...

Dawn has arrived.

The frantic voices surrounding you are like distant echoes. Your consciousness is fading in and out and you're vaguely aware of the massive pool of blood soaking the stretcher beneath you. You're dizzy and your blood-drained face is pale.

“DON’T YOU DARE DIE, YOU HEAR ME?” Goto’s voice registers somewhere between your lapse in conscious moments. “Your crazy husband will kill us all if you do!”

Your crazy husband.

That's right. Your crazy husband is waiting at home with a row of knives laid out for every person he's going to deem responsible for your death if you leave him behind. “H-Hotaru…” you call softly as you picture that image, which looks endearing probably only to you.

“YES, keep talking! Stay awake!” Goto yells next to you. The air is whizzing past your face, and you're surrounded by fellow Kakushi members hauling your body along to who-knows-where. Your head rolls to the side, and suddenly you notice the blankets covering endless corpses laid across the ground. There is sobbing everywhere around you.

You remember that you were crying, too, when you had pulled a blanket over the young Mist Hashira, who’d passed away far too young. A second later, Kibutsuji Muzan came rampaging and fleeing for dear life – you will never forget that horrifyingly hideous body – burning in the sun. Everyone, Demon Slayers and Kakushis alike, charged after him and resorted to utilizing everything possible in the environment to stop him from getting away.

Your memory is fading, but you faintly recall Goto and two others jumping behind the wheel of three cars before driving straight at Muzan in a crazy, suicidal effort. You were with a crowd of fellow Kakushis pushing a bus with all your might to stop the hideous Demon King from escaping. He clawed at everyone and cracked open the wall behind him, thrashing and causing massive chunks of bricks and debris to rain down upon the Kakushi. A stop sign was uprooted, and its broken pole sailed straight at you…

You look down at yourself and finally register the thick layer of bandages around your abdomen.

...Oh. You've been impaled, haven't you?

But for some reason, it doesn't hurt that much. You wonder if this is what it feels like to die, and it's actually not as bad as you thought. Your eyes begin to close, ever so slowly.

Please come home…okay?

Your husband's voice, so raw and somber and hopelessly praying for your safety, echoes through your head and hurts more than any wound from that hideous Muzan. You suddenly feel tears pooling beneath your eyes and snap them back open. “Hotaru – where is he?” you ask deliriously.

“On the way here! JUST STAY ALIVE!” Goto bellows back, though his eyes carry a new relief at your first coherent sentence.

“O-okay…” you reply weakly.

Everything fades to black.

“Out of my way!”

“Haganezuka-san, she’s still resting -”

“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY! I’ll kill you!”

It's the sound of his voice that stirs you awake. It's a familiar chorus to you, filled with yells of terror and the sharp sound of a knife – or multiple – being unsheathed. And above them all, the wild screams of rage from your husband. It makes you smile.

You feel heavy footsteps shaking the wooden floor itself as they rush over to your bedside. You slowly open your eyes.

There are two of him, for some reason. Hotaru's face is doubled and the two images cross each other for a moment before solidifying into one. “…Hotaru?” you murmur groggily.

You hear all the knives clatter to the ground as he throws his arms around you, lifts your entire upper body from the bed, and holds you tight. You hear countless protests from frustrated Kakushi across the room, something about ‘You’re going to open her wound and make her bleed to death!’ but you soak in the warmth of your husband's embrace and none of it hurts.

“Y-you’re alive..." Hotaru whispers, his voice trembling. “You’re alive.”

“Mmhmm…” you reply faintly and rather anticlimactic, mostly only aware of how safe and warm his arms feel around you.

“We’re about to start another blood transfusion,” says someone behind him.

“Go away or I’ll kill you,” Hotaru replies murderously.

“She needs that to live, you know.” Goto’s grouchy voice is easy to recognize. He’s always had a limited tolerance for others’ carelessness, no matter their seniority or even if they happen to be waving knives at him.

“Hotaru, it’s okay.” You smile and lift your arms weakly to wrap around your husband. He hasn't loosened his grip around you one bit, and it grows even tighter if anything. “Let them help me. It’ll make me get better sooner.”

He lets out a heavy sigh and loosens his arms just enough to lean back and look into your eyes. “Then I’ll stay with you.”

You could swear that there are subtle groans coming from the others around the room, who probably aren't keen on having Hotaru for company while tending to your wounds. But neither of you are paying much attention to it. You lean forward and plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’d like that.”

Nightfall comes, and Hotaru manages to fit himself on your bed with you. He's never going to let go of you again, nor you of him. The demons are gone, and so are the deepest terrors of losing each other to them. It's the most peaceful sleep you've ever had in your life and before you drift off, you smile knowing that the sun will rise and you will get to return home with the love of your life, hand in hand.

- The End

Thank you SO much for reading! 💚

Post-credits and Commentary:

This was requested by a commenter on AO3 but adapted to the traditional second-person narration on tumblr. As far as writing goes, the story ends here but there are a series of miscellaneous comics requested by tumblr users here if you'd like!

References to the bus scene (and used in header image):

Drawing references: - Stretcher- Hugging- Sleeping

All fanart and comic: link

Original Story (in third-person)

#haganezuka x reader #haganezuka x you #haganezuka #hotaru haganezuka #demon slayer haganezuka #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #kakushi #oneshot #fanart #my fanart #demon slayer fanart #kny fanart

193 notes · View notes

kakushino · 5 months

Text

The Queen

Ryomen Sukuna x F! Reader

He never orders you around - rather, he requests.

Tags: slight gore, suggestive, fem reader, true form Sukuna Word count: 1,7k

Masterlist

AN: Fanart used in banner made by the amazing @innaillus - be sure to check out their divine fanart Written as a Secret Santa's gift for @zoyakuna - Merry (early) Christmas! (and pls stop slandering Giyuu, it's causing me undue stress)

There was little to amuse you in your secluded throne room underground.

Correction - there had been little to amuse you out of your throne room, so you had retreated back into your palace - and even then, was it a palace, when there were no servants, no great halls, no music, and no consort?

Just you - the Supreme Sovereign - and your throne made of roots and vines.

Which made it odd to hear a sound echo in your chamber. You feared nothing, no one, and your heart remained steady, not a beat out of place, your eyes closed as you rested from lifetimes of exhaustion.

“Who goes there?” you called out, not moving from your reclined position.

You were it to him, the holy grail of his searching - the Queen of Curses. Your name was feared enough that it had been scratched out from all written sources, the feats accredited to you terrifying… yet thrilling to Sukuna. He had needed to meet you, though he knew not why… A deep hunger for companionship, another who could stand at his level, who could reign with him from his Shrine, a craving so consuming he nearly went mad with his searching.

And he did find you, though hardly in the condition he thought he would.

“This is what You have become? The cynosure of all mortals reduced to a wretch.”

The voice was rough, forceful - distinctly male - though the tone held a hint of remorse and confusion. “All beauty is short-lived,” was all you said, a slight irritation churning your stomach for the first time in - decades, centuries, millenia? Who knows?

“Not for curses. We are eternal.” You felt the way cursed energy swirled around him - violent, and intense. It lashed out at your own, but like water parting around a blade, yours did too, accepting and redirecting the angry force, dispersing it, and eventually absorbing it. It was like taking a deep breath of fresh air after being suffocated under the weight of the world, a drop of water quenching a soul-deep thirst in the desert of life.

You opened your eyes and sat up properly as you studied him.

The man - curse - was tall, broad, and regal. A king would be a title befitting his posture. His hair was a light color you could hardly make out in the darkness of your abode. The dark marks adorning his face stood out starkly against his skin, as did the shape of the disfigured flesh on the right side of his face. Four gleaming eyes were focused on you, four arms relaxed at his sides.

This man was fascinating, and beautiful; he could easily sway the hearts of humans, bring them to their knees. Too bad you were not human.

“Join me, your Majesty.” Despite the wording, it was a plea. How odd.

“Who are you to ask anything of me?” You blinked slowly. You felt the way cursed energy swirled around him - violent, intense, … defensive, lonely. It enticed you, spoke to you in a language you understood all too well. It wasn’t in your nature to deny an honest request.

“Ryomen Sukuna, your Majesty,” he introduced himself. There was a sense of pride in the way he spoke, as if his existence was created, carved out, into the world by his own hands.

Perhaps Ryomen Sukuna would be the cure to your continued boredom.

You stood up from your throne, your figure hardly atrophied as your cursed energy kept you in peak form. The roots and vines retreated into the cave walls, leaving no trace of your royal seat, the chamber empty again for centuries to come.

“Very well.”

Living with Sukuna was hardly boring. Each day, you felt your apathy falling away as you spent time with the King of Curses, until you smiled freely in his presence. The day you realized he softened you to this degree came all too suddenly.

His cruelty to humans who sought to undermine him was but a flimsy curtain of who he truly was. Like a displeased cat, claws exposed, he scratched up those daring to approach him, but with you -

With you he was as playful and borderline affectionate as the tabby you used to feed back in your human days. It warmed your heart, and your cheeks, to feel his eyes on your figure. It made you feel unsteady on your feet. It made you question who was the ruler of the other, who held the power over the other; the power imbalance slowly became a balance - your energy dimmed by the way he could play you like a puppet.

All these feelings weaved together and knotted around your heart, snaring you in a complex web too tight to escape, exposing your throat to him like a delicacy to be gorged upon.

Only if you let him know, that is.

You somehow felt that a man like him wouldn’t settle, and more importantly, he was a man; just another one of the hordes who wanted a demure consort, you could bet. You were not a dainty flower he likely sought; you were a weed - growing strong despite the harshest of conditions, clawing out a place for your existence where there had been none before. The Curse of Curses.

So you buried those feelings like a female buried herself under layers of junihitoe - though you refused to wear that monstrosity despite the latest fashion in Japan, as all the fabric was too heavy for comfort. You made do with the yukata you stole from Sukuna’s wardrobe. It was definitely not because it smelled like him.

You kept away from the humans and the ruling in his Shrine, spending time with Uraume, him, or alone in the gardens - until you could not. He’d left you in charge of his Kingdom when he had business to do.

Human men were deplorable, thinking you were just a weak curse to be manipulated and slandered. You didn’t raise your voice at all, yet it shut everyone up in the hall - save for one local lord thinking himself too mighty to listen. No amount of flattery would have kept him alive after that. A wave of your hand made vines grow out of his guts - burrowing through his flesh as easily as tearing paper apart; sweet-smelling white flowers bloomed from the mess of red-coated plant matter in the middle of the chamber.

You sat in Sukuna’s throne of bones, regal and untouchable.

That was how he found you - presiding over his subjects like the Goddess you were, and bloody Spring sprouted in front of him, rubies glinting upon the stone floors like a grotesque decoration.

At first, he had wanted to study you - the Queen of Curses, the Supreme Sovereign, older than him, wiser, more powerful. Forgotten, yet not forgotten enough for him not to find any sources mentioning your title. He had been curious about you, and then he became curious about the feelings you evoked in him. Your presence in his home converted from an adornment into an emollient to him, smoothing the rough edges and softening the spikes of his defenses against you, yet you remained the centerpiece of his attention, even when you weren’t in his presence. He found himself thinking about you in all his waking moments.

“Everyone, out.”

He could not hide his devotion to you if he tried now - it had grown roots in his soul and fed off of his life-force, yet strengthened it twice as much. His heart was set ablaze every time he laid eyes upon your form, the blood in his veins searing hot, branding him from the inside - a slave to you forevermore.

And so he knelt at your feet, the bottom two of his arms supporting him as he leaned forward, his top pair carefully reaching for your foot and raising it to his face.

The King of Curses kissed your ankle, closing his eyes in silent worship to his Goddess, his World.

“Your Majesty,” he greeted you in a whisper, his lips caressing your skin.

Your eyes grew soft as you studied him, your posture proud but your expression fond. “Sukuna.”

Wet, hot tongue darted out to taste your skin, making you jolt and tear your leg from his grasp with pursed lips. The tabby was particularly impertinent today.

“You have no respect for your Queen, do you?”

“On the contrary, I hold all the respect for you.” His smirk was mischievous, he knew as well as you did neither of you were serious about this. Just a harmless teasing, if a bit skewed.

You used your foot to lightly push against his chest to tip him over onto his back - which he let you do, for he could have as easily resisted. Even falling down, he looked graceful. It made you feel warm inside your ribcage as you pushed a joyous smile down.

Sukuna turned the fall into a backwards roll, ending up on his knees again.

“At least you know your place - on your knees before me…”

“I-” he licked his lips, “I would gladly be on my knees for you all day, Your Majesty.”

Oh? It was your turn to give him a smile full of mischief as he slowly moved back to you. You remained silent.

“Has a cat got your tongue?”

Sukuna shuffled forward on his knees, his top pair of arms resting on the bones of his throne as he came even closer. Palms trailing to your thighs and covering them with his hands - an easy feat with his size.

You could do naught but marvel at the contrast of your limbs and his - each powerful and deadly in their own right, each in a different way. There was no tremor of fear in your muscles, only anticipation, even while he lightly spread your legs to fit his torso between them as you lounged on his throne.

“Let me feast on your nectar.” His voice, smooth like silk, a plea rather than an order, the nuance of his tone telling all you needed to know. He appeared unreadable to others, but he was as exposed and vulnerable as a newborn babe to you at this moment.

Even so, your lips parted in surprise at his request for you didn’t expect him to say it out loud at last. “Forward, aren’t you?”

His carmine eyes - all four of them - focused on yours with an intensity you were only just getting used to with him. Sukuna said nothing as he waited for your response.

The devil didn’t bargain, after all.

“Very well… Show me how you would worship your Queen, my King.”

dividers by the divine @benkeibear

network: @enchantedforest-network

3K notes · View notes