𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 // Akaza x reader (+18)

Chapter 40 | Between

You travel higher as the sun dies. The cold isn't what chills you. It's the wind-wrong somehow. Alert. Like something just beyond the treeline is holding its breath.

You've moved higher into the mountains, where even demons don't come often. The air is thin. The trees are pale. Snow drapes the underbrush like a silence no one dares break.

But you feel it.

Pursuit.

You don't know from which direction anymore. You should've kept running. Should've picked one path and burned it behind you. But the moment that crow screamed you knew it was too late for straight lines.

They'll come. The Corps doesn't ignore its dead rising from ash.

A whisper of wind trails across your cheek. You pause. You know that kind of quiet. It's not natural.

It's serpentine.

Akaza's POV

Dusk breathes him awake. His eyes open beneath the mouth of a cave. The stone above is damp, veined with roots and old blood. He pushes to his feet before the light has fully gone. It burns a little-but not enough to stop him.

Not tonight.

The moment the shadows stretch long enough to cover the treeline, he moves. Her scent is here. Faint now, wind-scattered and frost-touched-but it's hers. Smoke. Fear. Resolve. And underneath it, like iron beneath silk: blood. She's close.

But so is something else. Two somethings.

Akaza halts near the edge of a cliff, bare feet pressing into stone that cracks beneath him. His breath clouds around him, slow and silent.

And then-

He sees it. Two figures crossing the ridgeline below, between the trees. One is all white and green and too-bright hair-a ribbon of warmth and sunlight. The other is a shadow with eyes, silent and coiled like a blade still in its sheath.

Love and Serpent.

Hashira.

His jaw tightens. They know she's alive too. His mouth curls, but not into a smile. If he moves closer, they'll feel him. He's powerful, but not invisible. They've fought his kind too long not to notice.

So he waits. Eyes fixed on the ridgeline above. He knows she's up there. He knows.

She hasn't left. And that makes no sense. If she was smart, she'd be long gone.

Unless she's waiting.

Unless she wants the hashira to find her.

A bitter wind cuts through the trees. He doesn't flinch. Night deepens. The mountain will soon belong to demons again. And if the Hashira don't leave-

They'll see what the mountain shelters.

Y/N's POV

The last light bleeds out of the sky, and something in your chest twists. It's not fear. It's anticipation.

You feel him before you see him. Like a current in the dark. A hum in your bones. It prickles along your skin.

He's here. He's close.

You crouch low behind a crag of rock. The wind shifts.
From the hollow below, you feel it-

A presence like a held breath. Coiled. Waiting.

Akaza.

And with it, something else.

Rage.