"Giyu! Let's eat!"

A woman with short, black, tied hair, paired with eyes of a deep shade of blue, called for his younger brother, also her last remaining family, to eat after the day had come to pass.

It was evening, the color of the sky almost matching her eyes, the mood of the surroundings almost matching herself.

It was calm, and pleasant, but it was melancholic.

Alone, they lived in a small wooden house on a small mountain. There, they lived peacefully, utilizing every part of the nature to sustain a living.

They caught fish, picked fruits, hunted animals, and raised plants. It was a hard endevour, but it was worth it.

Since their parents died due to an unknown disease, Tomioka Tsutako had since raised her younger brother to what he was today. A strong, resilient, and matured child.

Despite being young, her younger brother, Giyu had taken the initiative on most of their food bearing jobs, so much that exhaustion is evident on his posture.

He's rugged, bruised, and seemingly injured. Not only that, but the fox that he's carrying on his shoulders proved to increase the difficulty of his life just by bearing it on his shoulders.

"Nee-san. What should we do with this?"

He handed over the fox to his older sister, one that's been neatly seated on one side of a table, food set up on top of it.

"I'll sell it later when I come down the mountain."

As Giyu let go of the fox by putting it on one side of their small house, he swiftly positioned himself on the other side of the table and took a pair of chopsticks.

"It's too dangerous, nee-san."

With a serious tone, he quoted. Ever since they were young, they had to work overtime only to be able to sustain themselves with the increasing market.

Even with the fact that they get almost all their food from the mountain that they live under, the price of expenses like coal, clothes, soap, and many other things are still to be considered, one of those are maintaining this old house that they live in, one that's barely standing at the moment.

"Like what your doing doing is not dangerous too, Giyu."

She retorted gently. Day until night, her younger brother had always danced with death all to sustain their current state of living.

This was their every day lives. Albeit mundane and bland to the highest degree, the two had settled with it happily and is going through their days surprisingly smoothly.

But little did they know, that those days of their lives are already counted. One to give her life for the sake of one, and the other to give his life for the sake of many.

This...is the Tomioka siblings.

OoO

"Giyu..."

Tsutako called her younger brother, one that's now once again preparing to finally take a rest, while she, on the other hand, is preparing to come down the mountain, hoping to sell what small amount of fish her brother managed to catch on the night market.

She prefers it this way because the prices are often higher, and that there's less competition. So as fate may allow, she's gonna go down the mountain in the middle of the night, only having her mind as a weapon to fend off the evil.

"Be very careful, okay? Nee-san?"

Giyu, now with tired, squinting eyes, looked back at her sister, sending his regards before his sister finally went down the mountain to sell.

"What do you take me for?! I'm you sister, you know? To-Mi-O-Ka Giyu's older sister!"

She replied brightly, despite the tired visage that she's barely being able to hide.

With that, she closed the door of their small cabin, prohibiting the moonlight to illuminate the room, making it dark. Giyu's eyes felt heavy as he slept along with it.

Tsutako took the big, woven bag of freshly caught fish on the side of the door, some of them still wiggling about, trying its hardest to escape.

She walked. Facing south as she faintly smiled on a trail devoid of any trees or even grass, she started her travel.

It would take at least an hour for her to get back down considering the heavy load that she's carrying, so she decided to just doze around while walking.

Needless to say, she was careful of her path, it's just that walking on the dark along is both scary and boring, so she filled that empty void fascinating herself with every single thing that she saw at her little sightseeing trip.

She saw owls turn their heads creepily ad their glowing eyes blinked slowly at him, one that made her awkwardly scared, but happy at the same time.

She saw snakes, some that look intimidating at first, but crawled away as soon as they felt something but bigger than them.

She saw spiders, emitting such creepy sounds while travelling at trees that made her skin crawl.

All these small things basically make up most of her way down the mountain. She sees them nearly everyday.

She sees them, everyday.

Except one.

While sitting at the side of the road as she tried to reach out for a certain oversized cicada, she heard a rather loud sound that consisted of twigs breaking, winds rustling, and the most important of them all, footsteps.

She heard them come from the way to the way down the mountain, and disappear to the way back to her house. It all happened so fast that she decided to drop what she was gonna do, and check it out herself.

Suspicious, she followed the track, slowly but surely catching up to the source of the sound, seeing it settle on a branch of a big tree.

It was a silhouette of a person. A woman to be more accurate, the curves in her body and the long hair revealed it for Tsutako.

Her brows furrowed intently as she saw the other woman pause senselessly at the direction where her place was. Curious, she called up to the woman...or was supposed to.

"He-"

"Delicious human. Young, but very firm. He will be very delicious..."

Deep in her mind, she knew it was trouble, but hearing those words, a switch flipped inside her.

'Giyu!'

She screamed internally, gritting her teeth, and abandoning her bag of fish as she silently made a run to her house, denying all parts of common sense as she stopped caring about her path and just ran through everything, hoping to spare even one minute of her arrival.

'Giyu! Giyu! Giyu! Wake up!'

She uttered to herself, restless and impatient to see their small wooden cabin, the place where her younger brother's currently at, most probably deep in his slumber.

Amidst running, her already racing heartbeat achieved record high as she realized that someone else is behind her, traversing on the trees as she heard ominous sounds behind her back.

"Human. Young, and tender. You'll also be delicious."

Tsutako ran wildly. Shoving anything she sees in her path, getting hope after seeing the end of the trail, signalling that she's nearly at their cabin.

"Giyuu! Wake up!"

As she was running towards her house, she took an axe that lied beside a tree stump and armed herself with it.

At the same time, she slashed down as she looked back, assuming something like the other girl that she saw instantly lunging at her. Luckily, her assumption was right, and her swing managed to cut down an arm as the girl recovered on her jump, stumbling a few times before sliding on her feet.

"Stubborn human..."

She said as her former arm disintegrates into ashes, regrowing another arm on the process.

Having witnessed this, Tsutako's breathing was halted as she ran sloppily to her cabin, smacking the door hard like it's a person who hasn't paid a debt in years.

"Giyu! Wake up!"

She pleaded as she continued smacking the door, ultimately being opened up by a still wobbling Giyu.

"Nee-san, why are you so-"

As he was about to complain to his older sister for waking him up in the middle of the night, Giyu was shocked awake after someone of similar stature lunged at her sister, driving her to the ground.

He watched the still unknown girl struggle as her sister hold her arms down, looking desperate as she do so.

"Gi- Giyu! Help me!"

Giyu, now panicking, looked around and saw the axe, deciding to pick it up as she smashed the unknown girl's head with it's blunt side.

He was about to smash her again, but hesitated to do so. Instead, his sister held his hand and ran down a different path compared to last time.

With a panicked mind, a clouded judgement, and a tired body, Tsutako mistook the path upward the mountain to the path down, realizing her mistake even before they actually stepped on the tree ridden path only to know that it's too late to turn back.

So, in the end, all they could do is continue to the mistaken path with the sliver of hope she had left.

'I slashed her arm and it regenerated!'

She reminisced the moment that shook her the most.

'Maybe I didn't...No! I did!'

Doubt started to cloud her mind once again, thinking hard if she actually just hallucinated on her memory. Since for as long as she remembers, no person in the world regenerates a limb after being cut. No. There's actually no creature on that matter.

While they were running aimlessly, the girl once again jumped into someone. This time it was Giyu.

Giyu was quickly overpowered to the ground as they rolled a couple of times before settling in a position.

The unknown girl was above him, seemingly trying to take a bite out of his face, hands restraining the girl from shoving what looks like razor sharp nails to his neck.

"Get away from him!"

Tsutako instinctively launched the strongest push kick she's ever did her whole life, pushing the other woman out of Giyu.

She helped him up again as they ran the same direction, Tsutako looking back, trying to watch the movements of the unknown woman. But to no avail, she looked there finding out that the woman has disappeared once again.

With that in mind, they ran.

OoO

"Tomioka-san?"

One small, annoying mosquito, as someone would call it, tapped the back of one Tomioka Giyu as they head to the top of a mountain after recently finishing rather grueling mission.

The demon was far from being even on the level of a lower moon, but its blood demon art is very troubling for average demon slayers.

So just as much as Giyu's luck would give him, he's stuck with this.

"Tomioka-san~"

Shinobu called out to him as he seemingly fell into a trance, looking at a cliff while at it. His head dropped to the ground beneath the cliff, eyeing an azure blue lake on the way.

"Tomioka-san?! That's one reason why people hate you, you know?!"

He immediately turned back, shocked at the sudden comment of his annoying companion.

"Never mind it."

He answered back, cold and ruthless.

OoO

"Giyu! You go that way, I'll go here!"

Tsutako pointed at a dense part of the mountain, then pointed at a cliff. The moment Giyu understood what she meant, his face became distorted.

"No! Nee-san, you c-"

Tsutako gently closed his brother's mouth with her right hand, closing on him with a hug.

"Sister is always with you, okay?"

Tears started to fall off of her eyes, dripping on Giyu's clothes as she tightened her hug.

"Always with you, Giyuu..."

With that, she released her hug as she ran over to the cliff. Waving Giyu to run as well as she positioned herself near the cliff.

Giyu, with wet cheeks and reddened eyes, ran over to the other side of the mountain as he continuously wipe his tears to prevent them from restricting his vision.

The demon, jumping off from a tree, took a glance at them both, assessing which to desert, and which to eat.

"The boy is younger, more firm, and will feel like wild game. Meanwhile, the older woman is more delicious, and is more tender due to females' body composition..."

The demon decided to pursue Tsutako. A fortunate decision for the demon, and a scenario worth being suicidal for for Tsutako.

"Live, Giyu."

She whispered in a passing wind as she braced herself after the demon jumped on her, causing her to fall off the cliff.

OoO

"You're very spiteful, Tomioka-san..."

Shinobu, after being ignored multiple times, finally snapped and threw a genuine insult at her companion.

Giyu's been wondering some parts of the forest after the end of their mission, and despite her multiple attempts of knowing what's going on, she remains in the dark. Courtesy of being ignored for most of their trip.

As he finished his mysterious rendezvous, they went back down the mountain. Most of the time, with Shinobu nagging at him even for the most subtle things that he do.

The nagging didn't stop there, when they were told by the kasugai crow to stay on one of the wisteria estates, she nagged at him, teased him, and played with him even when he's asleep.

There's that one time he found his eyelids drawn with some more eyes, and his chin bearing some sort of tounge drawing on it. He grew extremely furious of it and was about to wreck the place if not for the extremely old lady that owned it.

Shinobu, beside the old lady, was seen glamorously sipping tea as she stared at Giyu with sinister eyes. Giyu's sweat dropped at the sight.

"Tomioka-san~! We have another mission coming right up!"

She waved at him, barely suppressing a laugh at the sight of Giyu's heavily drawn face that's nothing short of funny.

"Kochou...I'll kill you after this..."

Giyu's eyes squinted at the sight of the teasing lady, one that which immediately stood up, carrying her sword as she swiftly exited the place.

Giyu bowed slightly with his head as he followed suit with his sword, his face still badly drawn.

Some time later

It was a rice field. A long, plain patch of a rice field that is almost too beautiful to watch.

The synchronized swaying of each wheat after every gentle breeze, the near perfectly carved watering system on each of the patches perfectly seperating each into different pieces. And the shape and positions of each patch, almost depicting the wisteria logo if you look on a bird's eye view.

There, is where their next mission is supposed to start, but instead, they were greeted by a perfectly plain setting.

Also there, a different kasugai crow approached them, holding a letter on one of its talons. It's encased in a small bamboo container, tied on the crow's foot.

It landed on Shinobu's shoulder, said girl checking it out immediately.

In it was a letter addressed to both pillars standing beside each other, entailing a rather short content.

Before reading, they both looked at each other's eyes. Shinobu, trying her hardest to not laugh at her personal "art" after seeing Giyu blink a couple of times.

Giyu disregarded Shinobu and squeezed his head beside hers, not caring about her sense of private space. Like that, he started to read as the other girl started to fluster.

It seems like they've been given a vacation. A nice day off of their everyday suffering.

Shinobu, upon finishing reading, flailed het hands up the air and shouted to the top of her lungs before unbuttoning the top button of her uniform.

"A day off!"

She exclaimed, making her way on one of the wooden houses around. It had a wisteria mark, and a young lady waiilting inside, bowing as Shinobu entered the place jolly.

She expected a certain someone to follow suit, but instead, she saw Giyu finally rinsing her face with some water from a nearby well.

Giyuu had a serious expression, paired up with the dark circles beneath his eyes. Creating a picture perfect moment. A look of grief, anger, and regret.

Instead of coming inside the house next to where Shinobu came to, he walked away from the direction that they came from, Shinobu's eyes never trailed off of the man until he finally disappeared off of the horizon.

'Fool.'

She whispered within her mind.

OoO

"I'm home."

Giyu, with a heartfelt tone, returned back to the cabin that he once owned.

It was still there, even after all these years.

It had molds, grass, and piles of dirt inside, but it was still there. Even the small futon that he last slept on, and the clothes that his old sister once wore still resided inside that place.

Giyu gritted his teeth in hopes of preventing himself from crying, looking at some of his own belongings while at it.

He stepped inside. For every step that he took, cracks of the old wooden floor reverberates all over the insidenof the cabin, releasing some of the pent up dust while at it.

He picked up a hairpin- No. It looked more like a cylindrical object that women tends to wrap their hair onto. He didn't know what it was called, but he knew it was his sister's.

He took it, stored it inside his sleeve as he left.

It was night. The chirping of the cicada heard clearly. The place looked extremely dark and even his enhanced vision didn't do much to help at it.

He then saw something. A grass ridden path that lead upward the mountain.

His memories played back. How he was that old mysterious woman jump atop his sister. How he smashed her head with an axe. How utterly pointless his efforts truly were.

He followed the track, reminiscing the old traumatic memory that once became the turning point of his life. He watched and memorized any details that he can while strolling.

But he was stopped halfway after hearing an unnatural rustling of a certain bush.

"Guess you're still alive..."

His constant water breathing stopped momentarily as he waited for the creature to appear.

"Human!"

It was a man. A male demon.

His eyes closed disappointedly after flincing his head, having to accept that reality isn't so forgiving that it'd allow him to avenge his sister.

'That demon's probably already dead.'

He whispered to himself before instantaneously leaping and slashing the demon's neck before landing back on the ground.

Sheathing his sword, he looked up in front of him, seeing the cliff that his sister once jumped into.

'It seems I jumped a bit too far...'

He concluded. Reaching out to his left sleeve before making his way into the cliff.

There, he started to dig out the dirt just beside the impending doom of the cliff with his hands, making quick work of it with his breathing.

A moment later, after digging as deep as he wanted, he took a medium sized stone and sliced it into a shape that's as recognizable as a gravestone. He buried half of it, picked some flowers, and carved out his sister's name. Oddly enough, along with his.

He took the hairpin that his sister once owned and put it on top of the stone, along with the flowers that he leisurely picked.

He also took his sword, and scabbard off his waist, thrusting it deep into the ground with one swift motion. With that he sat cross legged on the cliff, moonlit as he just stayed there, silent and unwavering.

He smiled faintly, before turning his body weight to the edge of the cliff, eyes closed as a fragrant smell clouded his sense of smell.

He was about to fall down, but a certain hand held onto his haori and pulled him back.

"Can't do that."

A certain, airy voice came from behind.

"Kochou..."

His eyes closed again as he sighed. This time, unsure whether to retaliate to the girl behind him, or to just sit there in silence.

His fingers suddenly formed a fist, bulges of his veins visible on his arms. He wanted to commit suicide. He wanted to die.

Deep down, he asked himself. Why? But his own self didn't answer. Silent like the tranquil lull of the calm sea.

He bit his lips in anger, drawing blood from them. At that moment on, he remembered his sister's smile, her voice, her stride, her hug. He remembered everything he loved about his sister.

Everything his sister threw away just for him, for this weak, measly him.

Deep inside he knew he's not weak. But he just can't bring himself to call his own self strong either.

If he is indeed strong, then Sabito wouldn't have died. Tsutako wouldn't have died.

But they did. They died. Much worse, they both died for him. And that fact's slowly tearing him apart at the moment. He wanted to self destruct. He was about to.

But then he felt a soft, warm sensation coming from his back, a pair of arms enveloping his body with its soft flesh.

Unbeknownst to him, Shinobu hugged him from behind, leaning her head on his shoulder while doing so.

"You know...All you have to do, is ask."

She whispered on his left ear, hugging him even tighter than she initially did the first time, giving him all his attention as tears started to fall off Giyu's eyes, finally breaking free from his control.

"I don't know your past, but I know your hurting, Giyu."

Giyu. She called him by his first name.

A memory of his sister smiling heartily at him flashed on his mind, repeating the same name over and over.

Giyu.

It's been such a long time since anyone mentioned his name. One with such love that even the coldest of people like him melts down at mere contact.

"Sometimes, all one needs is a person to lean on..."

She repositioned her face, now looking at Giyu's.

Giyu, now crying, looked to his left shoulder, seeing the violet eyed girl stare at him so affectionately.

"For now, I can see, feel, or hear...nothing."

Her eyes closed and her lips curved into a lovely smile. Giyu's heartbeat accelerated wildly, hard and painful, but pleasurable nonetheless.

The walls of his mind cleared. He looked back at the far horizon of the cliff, seeing the ever beautiful moon shining in front of them.

There, he clinged on one of Shinobu's arms as he continued crying. Sometimes, Shinobu using her yukata to wipe his tears.

OoO

And...That feels very disappointing!!

If you look at the original Understand you the most one shot of mine, you could see one of these at the ending--OoO

It actually originally meant that I'm going to add more happy going one shots about this ship...Then I read Shinobu's...you know...so I got discouraged

Anyways, as always, thanks for everyone who supports my fanfics on this fandom! I love you all! One thing to say though...

The announcements for the next releases of this compilation of mine could be seen on my other story, the "Breath of the blazing sun" one, so check that out(hooray for smart marketing, gooray for FF!)to be updated.

As always! This is it for now, and do tune in for more fanfics!

I am accepting requests, just pm me! And no 2nd person ones, that's out of the question.

That's all for now, Bye!