If I Could Do You One Right...

Dealing You In

~Rumi's P.O.V~

When I first came to visit the Rengoku household to find Kyojuro now a grown man and now speeding through the Demon Slayer ranks, I still naively assumed I'd see him as the same child I'd seen so many times before when I trained to be a Demon Slayer myself. He even had the same wide eyes and shining smile, not to mention the scorching passion in every slight thing he is and does.

This quickly changed once he asked to spar. Of course I initially declined for my general health and to further my personal objective, but the look he gave me pushed whatever personal concerns aside so that I can add fuel to the flame that was his heart. And sure I succeeded on that front, but once we clashed blades I finally got to see where all that "passion" had been put to. It was like fighting an actual wildfire. He was engulfing, and suffocating, every pass by me, he'd steal my breath away and he'd keep moving after, like he was just letting the wind take him to the next place where he should strike. All I had was to watch predict and follow his flow. Even so the best I could do was protect myself, but even that would eventually fail me as he stopped himself from cutting my neck.

"Hahaha. That was fun, don't you think Rumi-sama- Rumi-sama?" from laughing towards the heavens, to look down at me, he sees me hunched over holding in whatever just disagreed with my choices of the day. " Rumi-sama! Are you okay? Did I hurt you or something? Hm... You must be pretty sick."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sick, I'm always sick you jerk. sheesh, your old babysitter comes to visit and decide to wail on her? You didn't even ask me out for dinner or anything." Despite being on the same page as my breakfast, I push it back to the depths of my stomach to be re-digested. I stand straight and look at the boy begins patting my back.

"My apologies. I just wanted to gauge how bad it was. From the moment you walked in, all I had to do was look to see you've become weaker- Agh!" I stopped him there by sneaking my hand to pull on his ear. For all his skills and extreme prowess... well... Y/n didn't get those skills out of thin air. Certainly didn't get them from his parents, whoever they are.

All I can gather was that their genes made a baby that could do just about anything, yet far too... out of his time and weak to push anything very far on his own. Day one he does fine, day two he's stuck. then you wait a weak, he seems like a professional until tries it alone and trips all over himself, and overtime; POW! Suddenly he's stealing kuni's from hashira because he didn't like the knife I gave him. I really got an earful that day. Tengen apparently intended to use it to cut a demon's head off. Chopped it, and the monster started doing laps like a chicken... well with it's head chopped off. Of course he killed it eventually but was furious in only the most 'flamboyant' way. If I could concentrate on his words better I may have felt even more guilty, but here I am.

"So, Rumi-sama what brings you back after all these years?" Kyojuro asks now that I've let go of his ear. He smiles once more and stares at me earnestly. I smile back and look around for his father before responding.

"Actually I wanted to talk to your father about something." My response makes Kyojuro flinch. His expression does not waver, but his breath stiffens briefly. I try not to assume anything, but I mentally prepare for about anything.

Kyojuro seems to brace himself before speaking, "Rumi-sama... I should be blunt; my father is not the same man you have once knew him as. His once fiery passion has been doused." He folds his arms and looks down to them and takes a long sigh.

"Oh... I'm sorry to hear." I rub my arm a bit and stare off away from the boy. I'm suddenly struck with the need to cough and take the pause in conversation to do so. Kyojuro quickly looks up at me, making me flinch and even flush a little wondering what's going on in his strong mind.