Tanabata (Kibutsuji Muzan x Reader)

Chapter 2

Previously:

The moon was gone and the sun would soon rise. The blood was red on the grass, there was even more of it than last time. And yet, again, he believed that a miracle would happen and fate would carry that old soul back to this place once more. So they could meet again, cross the bridge over death like the lovers of Tanabata cross over the river of stars. He would see her again, he knew it. He wanted it. He wanted to feel the peace, the magic, even if he had to wait another century for her.

(L/N) (Y/N), the person who, even if only for one night, could make him feel human for a while. Make him feel human and see no faults or imperfections in that.

88 years later, a little girl woke up in the morning and had to blink a few times and shake her head to make sure she really was awake. But her room looked as she left it in the evening and the sun was hanging low above the horizon, early morning light illuminating the garden of her family's estate. But the memories in her head... they weren't there when she went to sleep.

In that one single night, she relived two whole lives in her dreams. Two entire lives of two girls who used to look the same as her when they were her age and grew up into two identical young women. Identical in their looks, their names... they had the same soul but the second one was just a continuation of the first one. And the little girl realized in that moment that she was the next one to carry that soul. Once again, (L/N) (Y/N) was alive in Japan, 8 years old and fully well knowing that she might never see herself pass 20. Because even if she already died twice on that hill... she promised that person to see him again. There was a bond between them that not even death could break. Or maybe it was death that forged that bond in the first place, connecting them with the red strings or fate, made of the blood spilled that fateful night. And since she died there again, the bond didn't break but only grew stronger.

"Kibutsuji Muzan..." she whispered the name under her breath.

With a sword like this, you could never kill me.

A small smirk formed on her lips as she recalled his words.

"So I just need a different one then, right?"

---

It took years to figure out that demons weren't all that scarce in the world, no, there were many more. So many in fact, that an entire organization existed just to hunt them down, hidden away from the public eye. And they had a way to kill them. Not only by sunlight as old legends suggested, they had swords capable of slaying the monsters. Nichirin swords they were called, blades that changed their color when they were first held by their owners.

So that was the kind of sword he meant.

(Y/N) has trained tirelessly from a young age, honing her sword skills from the previous life, eyes set on her goal of facing Muzan once more when the time of their meeting came. But when she found out about the Demon Slayers, she was already 19 years old. Entirely too late, she convinced an old retired demon slayer to train her for a while. She excelled thanks to her prior experience, but it still took more time than she'd wished it did. When her teacher finally sent her to Final Selection with his katana, merely 3 days remaineduntil Tanabata.

She would never arrive to her destination on the Fujikasane mountain. She never planned to do so in the first place. That sword wasn't for slaying demons trapped on a mountain for youngsters to prove their worth. It was for killing Kibutsuji Muzan.

Or for trying it anyway.

---

It was a long way from where she had been staying and the sun was already setting when the grassy hill came into view. The oak tree was still there, a beautiful wooden giant she has died under twice already. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time, it would be Muzan dying under the old crooked branches. When (Y/N) finally climbed up to it, the first star has already lit up the sky.