Chapter Text
The moon hung high over the hushed night, its pale light spilling silver across the forest clearing. Giyuu stood with his blade lowered at his side, each breath blooming white in the cold air. It was the tense stillness that precedes a killing strike—only this time, the blow he would deliver was made of words.
“Kokushibou,” he began, steady but pained. “This… whatever this is between us—it’s over.”
The words that the demon heard felt sharper than any sword pierced through his chest. Not fatal, but deep enough to rattle something ancient inside him. His six eyes blinked once, slowly, as though giving Giyuu’s voice a chance to take the words back.
Over?
Kokushibou didn’t move. His six eyes stayed fixed on his lover in an unblinking, suffocating gaze.
Ridiculous.
The demon's jaw tightened, and when he finally spoke, his tone was calm — dangerously so.
“No,” Kokushibou said simply.
Giyuu fought the urge to step backward, yet Kokushibou advanced forward nonetheless, closing the space between them until the Water Hashira slowly yet surely began to feel the weight of the demon’s imposing presence in his own lungs.
“Giyuu, I have given you more than you could understand,” he said softly, almost gently. “Time. Patience. Restraint. And you think to discard me?” His claws traced Giyuu’s jaw with deceptive care, pressing in just enough to promise they could be pierced if he wished.
“This is not a choice,” Kokushibou continued, his face tilting toward Giyuu. His hand gripped the Hashira’s chin firmly, not harsh enough to hurt, but with enough pressure to remind the human how easily he could do so. “You are mine.”
Giyuu’s heart quickened its pace, a harrowing feeling thrumming dangerously inside his chest. “I’m not yours. Not anymore—”
“You misunderstand,” he interrupted, voice low and resonant. “You do not end this.” Kokushibou leaned closer, each movement deliberate, his towering frame swallowing almost everything else that surrounded Giyuu’s view at the moment. “You are mine. Until the last breath leaves your body.. and even beyond. That is not something you can merely cut away.”
Kokushibou's free hand twitch, his fingers brushing against the hilt of the sword dangerously displayed by his hip. He wanted to make it clear that this gesture was not in threat, but to remind Giyuu that he could tear the world open just to keep what belonged to him.
“You swore to be with me,” Kokushibou’s voice mirrored a pained lover, yet almost immediately, his tone shifted to speak the words seemingly laced with venom. “That vow was not one you can dissolve with mortal words.” His eyes roamed over Giyuu’s face, memorizing every flicker of defiance, every glint of hurt, every conflicting emotions that hid within. “You speak of leaving, but you do not truly wish to go.”
“I do. And if you care about me, you’ll let me—”
“I care,” he cut in immediately, the word almost foreign on his tongue. “I care so deeply it consumes me. That is why I cannot let you leave. You… complete the stillness I have searched for across centuries. You are the one thing I desire in this endless life.”
The Hashira willed to shove the other by the chest, but it was like trying to move a wall. Looking at anything else but the demon, Giyuu averted his solemn gaze.
“Kokushibou—”
Tilting his lover’s head upward until his eyes met his, Kokushibou commanded, complete authority etched in every word.
“Look at me,”
All six were locked on Giyuu, unblinking, suffocating in their intensity. “You are not leaving. Not tonight. Not ever.”
Giyuu’s breath quickened, and he reached for his sword — but Kokushibou’s hand caught his wrist mid-motion. In one smooth step, Upper Moon One had the Water Hashira pinned against the trunk of a tree, his body caging Giyuu’s own completely. The moonlight now framing his hair, but his presence blotted out the rest of the world.
“Refrain from taunting me, and I will not harm you, Giyuu.” he said, voice low and deep, though the tension in his grip betrayed the edge beneath this promise. “But I will not release you, as well. Not until you remember what you are to me.”
His free hand slid to touch the side of the Giyuu’s neck, fingers splayed against the rapid beat of the human’s pulse.
“Mine,” Kokushibou murmured, almost reverently so. “Every breath you take, every heartbeat — I will claim them until the end of eternity.”
Giyuu’s pulse once again hammered in his own ears, yet he refused to give in to the demon he once gave his heart, his mind and his body to.
“I’m not yours anymore,” he spat defiantly, uttering the words that meant a lot to him, even as his own throat tightened.
For the briefest moment, all three pairs of eyes softened, almost deceptively human— and yet the storm returned. “You are wrong, my love.” he said, his voice low but absolute. “The moment you swore to be beside me, the moment you allowed me into your life… you became something I cannot, will not, ever, release.”
In a blink of an eye, Giyuu jerked his wrist free and shoved the other back with all of his remaining strength. Kokushibou barely moved.
The hashira’s blade flashed in the moonlight as he drew it up, slashing for the gap in the demon’s guard.
Steel rang against steel — his katana was out of his grip before Giyuu even saw Upper Moon One move. The Hashira’s sword flew from his grip and landed in the dirt a few feet away.
“My love, you would raise your sword against me?” Kokushibou asked, his entirety almost unreadable yet just as terrifying.
“I’ll do more than raise it,” Giyuu hissed, pushing against the demon once again, with every ounce of strength left.
Before Giyuu could dive for his Nichirin blade however, Kokushibou instantly caught him by the arm and spun him back against the tree.
The bark scraped Giyuu’s shoulders, the searing pain making him wince and gasp simultaneously. During this momentary distraction, the demon’s hand pinned his wrist above his head.
“I warned you,” Kokushibou murmured, close enough that Giyuu could feel his breath. “Do not test the limits of my restraint.”
Giyuu kicked at the other’s legs, twisting against him. For a moment, he managed to slip from Kokushibou’s hold — but the latter was faster.
Upper Moon One’s arm wrapped around Giyuu’s waist, hauling the human back against his chest, his blade sliding up to rest near Giyuu’s shoulder. Not cutting, but reminding.
“You fight well,” he said, his tone almost admiring. “But I have hunted countless numbers of Pillars for longer than you have been alive. You can not escape me.”
Giyuu’s breath was ragged, sweat beads decorated his forehead, and there was an undeniable unpleasant warmth spreading on his back, he had no doubts it was blood.
“You can’t imprison me here with you, forever.”
Hearing this, Kokushibou leaned down until his lips were near Giyuu’s ear, his voice as steady and cold.
“I have eternity,” he said. “And you… are worth every moment.”
Giyuu’s hands clenched into fists. “You can keep my body, but you’ll never have my will, nor my heart once again.”
Kokushibou merely sent him a gaze that is close enough that the chill of his presence seeped into the Hashira’s skin. His cold hand rose, brushing a stray strand of hair from Giyuu's face — gentle, yet possessive.
“I do not need to take your will, or your heart.” Kokushibou rewarded him with a smile.
“You will give those to me. You will see its inevitability soon.”
And in that moment, Giyuu understood—cutting it off had never been an escape. It was only an invitation for the demon to hunt.