#fits ayame as sabito au

[minteayoongimakesmewoozi]

i'm still (yes, still!) thinking about the fits hashira au remix where ayame is the sabito to tanjirou's giyuu, and...

the rengoku family.

ayame's story has always been intertwined with the rengokus, and this au is no different. we still have shinjurou, kyoujurou and senjurou, but maybe ayame's shishou is shinjurou this time.

shinjurou finds ayame not long after her entirely family is slaughtered. he isn't quite as cynical as we see him in canon, so he offers to train her. he makes her his apprentice, and she trains alongside kyoujurou in those early years.

ayame is a year older than kyoujurou, but she teasingly calls him senpai. he's been training with shishou longer than she has, after all! between her training sessions with kyoujurou under shinjurou's steadily clearing eyes and helping them look after senjurou, she finds her smile after a couple years.

sometimes she leaves to train with tanjirou - with shinjurou's and urokodaki-san's blessing, of course. kyoujurou is hard-working, but shinjurou knows the importance of constantly sparring with a peer. he still thinks his apprentice and son have no talent for swordsmanship, that they would be better off doing something else, but it eases something within him to know that kyoujurou will have ayame to look out for him.

shinjurou never imagines ayame wouldn't come back from final selection.

senjurou is the one who greets tanjirou at the entrance. it's been a week after final selection and shinjurou already has a sake bottle in hand when he stumbles out to the genkan with kyoujurou.

instead of his apprentice, it is urokodaki-san's boy standing before him. he holds out ayame's seigaiha kimono with shaking hands, tears streaming down his cheeks.

ah, shinjurou thinks. so she died after all. just as he suspected, breath of flame simply isn't powerful enough.

"i'm sorry," whispers tanjirou.

shinjurou lifts his sake jug to his lips and takes a long drag. the bitterness in his throat, he tells himself, is merely the alcohol.

kyoujurou unfreezes himself. he pulls a crying senjurou into his arms, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

"how?" he asks, even if the answer is plain to see.

"there... there was an oni. i was - i was injured, and she - she protected me. she took my mask and my - and she... she protected me. she protected everyone."

"ridiculous," shinjurou growls. "utterly useless."

at her strength, she should have known better. he thought he taught her better than that, but he was wrong. he should have known better; he wasn't a teacher. the only things he could teach fell apart when it mattered most.

what good is a flame hashira when they can't even protect what matters most?

he always knew she would never become a hashira. he just never thought she would fail to become a demon slayer.

"it's my fault," tanjirou sobs.

"no." shinjurou takes another swig of bitter, bitter sake. "it was her own fault. she was weak, and now she's dead."

"chichi-ue," kyoujurou gasps, pressing senjurou's face into his shoulder to muffle his brother's sobs. "don't say that about ayame-neesan!"

"don't be absurd! she was never going to amount to anything!" of course she wasn't. she was his apprentice. "of course she died. she was merely average. stop your pathetic crying."

perhaps this will serve as a lesson to kyoujurou. he should throw away his ambition of becoming a demon slayer. just like ayame, he wouldn't even survive final selection.

shinjurou spirals.

he drinks enough to blackout when kyoujurou leaves for final selection anyway. he doesn't try to dissuade him. let him learn that lesson the hard way.

kyoujurou makes it back - alive - but shinjurou knows it must be luck. sheer, foolhardy luck. none of his students will amount to anything.

he drinks to forget, but he always remembers.

until one day he can't even fulfil his duties. kyoujurou steps up, fiercely and without hesitation. a fool.

an idiot.

(he is as much shinjurou's apprentice as ayame was.)

"how do you know that name?" kyoujurou asks.

it's another bout of luck that he survived a battle with upper three. he will never be able to use breath of flame again, but he is alive.

sake is still bitter on shinjurou's tongue.

"huh?" the peach-haired boy who headbutted him utters.

"ayame-neesan," senjurou whispers, loud enough to be heard through the paper-thin walls. "no one... we don't talk about her."

"... she was rengoku-san's apprentice, wasn't she?"

"yes, but..." kyoujurou clears his throat uncomfortably. "she died long ago. years ago. before i joined the kisatsutai."

"did... d-did kamado-san tell you?" asks senjurou.

"ha! that depressed loner? i don't think he speaks to anyone, really."

"th-then how...?"

"eto... it's difficult to explain. do you - do you believe in ghosts, rengoku-san, senjurou-san?"

ghosts. of course they exist. shinjurou is haunted every single day.

he tunes out the foolhardy boy - the one who is a descendant of breath of sun users. someone who wields such power would never understand the loss that shinjurou knows intimately.

"she told me she had a message," sabito says. "she wasn't sure if that guy ever had a chance to give it."

"kamado-san doesn't speak to us," kyoujurou says, surprisingly frustrated. "if he relayed it to chichi-ue, we were unaware."

"oh." a pause. "well, ayame told me - that is, ayame-san said she wanted her shishou to know that she was grateful for everything. she wouldn't have gotten so far if it hadn't been for everything he had taught her."

"oh." then again, in a softer voice, "oh."

"ano..." sabito is speaking again. "that guy... his haori. it's... unique."

"seigaiha. because he's the water hashira." kyoujurou makes an uncertain sound. "senjurou and i gave it to him. it was ayame-neesan's."

"ah. i see."

"he blames himself," kyoujurou continues. "no matter how much i try to talk to him, he always avoids me. i guess it'll be easier now. for him."

"ah..."

"if you have something to say to - to kamado-san, you should say it, sabito-san. if it's really true... if you can talk to ayame-neesan even now..."

"somehow," a shaky laugh, "i feel like i shouldn't tell him."

"you should try anyway," kyoujurou says bluntly. "you're his tsuguko. he'll listen to you."

"... mn."

"don't pressure him, aniue."

"but - "

"thank you for your time," sabito interjects. "i learned a lot."

senjurou gives sabito a flame-shaped tsuba.

"it isn't mine," rengoku-san assures him. "it was actually meant to be ayame-neesan's. you should use it."

sabito jolts. "me?"

"yes. i think she wants to protect you. that was the kind of person she always was."

in some ways, sabito is glad that ayame only appears intermittently. she would be embarrassed otherwise.

he thinks about their last conversation - how she said something bound her to this plane of existence. for a really long time, he thought it was guilt over how she had left things with kamado-san.

maybe that wasn't all.

senjurou fidgets with the hem of his sleeves. "she would have preferred it if you had used it, aniue..."

rengoku-san laughs. it's wheezier than his booming laughter from before, but just as boisterous. "then i would have still passed it on to sabito shounen!"

"aniue..."

rengoku-san's expression turns solemn. "the one thing ayame-neesan always hated was feeling helpless. this way, at least a part of her can still offer protection - for your hands and katana, if nothing else. take care of it, sabito shounen."

the tsuba is brand new. there isn't a single scratch on it. it hasn't seen a day of battle. only where it was kept in rengoku-san's pocket all these years.

sabito wonders what ayame might have been like, if they had a chance to meet in this living world. he can see traces of her in senjurou's kindness, in rengoku-san's beautiful arcing movements. even if death, there is still something that remains.

ayame would be embarrassed to know that.

he should tell her the next time they see each other, he thinks.

[minteayoongimakesmewoozi]

oh no..... had a thought about the au where tanjirou is giyuu and ayame is sabito.........

tanjirou and ayame face the hand oni, but they're both so unprepared for it. tanjirou's rib is broken, his forearm is probably fractured and he's been limping since they managed their escape. it's almost too dark for ayame to see where they're hiding in the cave, but she can feel the terrible tremors of the hand oni as it hunts for them.

the terrified expression on tanjirou's face is what makes her decision for her.

the hand oni said "sweet little fox".

maybe if he sees the fox mask and cloud jinbei and nothing else, then they might have a chance.

or, well, tanjirou might have a chance. urokodaki-san would be sad if he didn't return. urokodaki-san doesn't have anyone anymore.

ayame tears the jinbei off tanjirou's shoulders, replacing it with her kimono while he's still disoriented. she pulls it loose around her, then snatches the mask off his head.

"what - ayame, what - ?"

"stay here," she says quietly, her expression hidden behind the mask urokodaki-san carved for him. "i'll lead the oni away. don't make any noise, then make your way down to the wisteria trees as soon as the coast is clear."

"the mask - "

"tanjirou." her voice is solemn. "whatever happens... tell my shishou i was always grateful for everything."

she disappears from the cave before tanjirou can demand answers.

murata finds tanjirou and helps him through final selection. there is only one casualty for final selection that year.

kamado tanjirou is the water hashira, and he wears a dark blue seigaiha haori, the pattern dyed red. he's the water hashira, so no one wonders why he wears seigaiha. the charcoal half of his haori is hard to explain, but no one will ask.

when sabito is faced with the boulder, a girl in a fox mask appears before him. she holds himself the way a master swordsman does, and her strikes are swift and merciless. she knocks him out in ten seconds and doesn't bother to wait for him to wake up.

he begrudgingly admits that the way she moves is beautiful.

another girl, also with a fox mask, but with the mask resting against the side of his head, is the one who greets him when his eyes open.

"sorry about ayame-san," she says with a rueful chuckle. "she isn't very patient."

ayame-san, sabito learns early on, doesn't speak much if she can help it. she doesn't linger, even if sometimes he feels like he's being watched when he's alone. she continues to use a bokken while he wields a live sword, but it doesn't matter; she is always the one who deals out the first strike. often the last one as well.

"ayame-san doesn't want to show off too much," hikari says as she braids a flower crown. "she's a bit different from the rest of us, that's all. she doesn't stay for urokodaki-san after all."

"then who does she stay for?" asks sabito.

hikari's smile is secretive as she rests the daisy crown in her dark hair. "one of these days, you should ask her, sabito. you might be the only person she answers."

three months later, ayame stands before him with a steel katana at her hip. she draws it slowly - almost reverently. sabito notices that the curve of it is slightly different; it's steeper, the kissaki almost menacing.

"so," she says in a measured voice, "after six months, you can finally face me as a swordsman. hikari-san did well training you."

"you had just as much to do with it, ayame-san," hikari calls out from the side.

sabito snarls. it pulls the scar on his cheek, making him look more dangerous.

"today is the day i win," he declares, unsheathing his own blade.

ayame tilts her head. he wonders if her lips follow the same downward curl of her mask, or if she smirks at him like he always imagined she has.

"then you'd better hit me with everything you have, sabito."

time slows around him. his nose twitches, picking up a strange scent. it's metallic and sharp, like a freshly polished katana. it winds through the air, and he finds his blade following its arc.

for the first time since they met, his blade reaches ayame first.

there is a moment of stillness.

sabito can't believe his katana sliced downward first. her arms are still raised, and she doesn't move as her sleeves fall downwards, exposing the kumihimo cords she has wound around her left wrist.

the fox mask splits in half - sliced vertically in a perfect line. when the wood falls to her shoulders, sabito is shocked to meet shockingly blue eyes.

ayame's lips are parted in surprise. as he watches, her lips curl into a small smile. the slightest twitch of the corners of her lips is both happy and sad.

"sabito..." she murmurs.

sabito can never catch ayame's scent. for the first time, there's a hint of charcoal and something floral lingering in the air, muted by the scent of a summertime rain.

"you did great. remember what you just did, ne?" her voice lowers. "win, okay, sabito? beat that guy too."

sabito glances at hikari in disbelief. she smiles at him encouragingly.

"ayame," he hears himself say, "who do you stay for?"

surprise flits across her features.

"hey," she chuckles sadly, "next time you see tanjirou, be sure to say hi to him. he's so gloomy nowadays."

sabito glances at hikari, but she's disappeared. when he turns back to ayame, she's gone too.

the only thing left in the clearing was the boulder, sliced in half. exactly the same way he had sliced ayame's mask.

[minteayoongimakesmewoozi]

feel free to ask me for more headcanons about the ayame as sabito/hashira au remix! i don't answer very fast, but i will get to it eventually ~w~ having ghost!ayame brainrot rn

(kinda wanna write ayame and tanjirou having a convo during the final battle...... eheh)