✾ BLOOMING ✾ Tanjiro Kamado ✾

TWENTY THREE

"This is the only thing I have left of her," Naminé said while palming the delicate silver locket. "No matter what I do, it refuses to open. But even still, it helps me feel as if she's with me."

Moonbeams filtered through the leaves, the wind eerily quiet as it swayed their branches. For a moment, it felt like the two slayers were the only people left in the world once Naminé's story finished.

"After everything, I was to stay with my neighbors until whenever the police decided otherwise. But my mother had always told me tales of the slayers and their masters as bedtime stories. On occasion, she mentioned the whisperings of a master that dwelled somewhere in the mountains south of our village. A woman that held the sting of a viper's bite behind her blade with a heart like a blooming sunflower." Picturing the withering smile of her master, Naminé's heart clenched with the weight of missing her. "I traveled to the mountain on my own for five days before I eventually came across a home somewhere near its peak. I convinced her to take me in and that's when everything began . . ."

There was a silence that fell between the two. One filled with dread and understanding. Understanding because Tanjiro knew that sort of loss all too well, amazed by the amount of drive such a young girl could have to travel alone all those nights to reach someone that may not have even been there. All with the hope that she might have a chance to walk down a dangerous path that few followed.

Staring at the girl next to him, a swell of emotion filled out his chest at the determined eyes beneath her long lashes. There was such a need to support and protect her just as she did for him and Nezuko. And after listening to this . . . knowing that both had lost their families--Naminé the only family she had left . .

Tanjiro's hand reached out to slip through Naminé's own, bringing her knuckles up towards his lips.

"You're a part of our family now, Naminé."

At his declaration, her eyes widened slightly. Not necessarily by the sensation of his lips grazing against her skin--though that was rather pleasant--but by the earnest candor behind his words.

As if realizing his own boldness, Tanjiro dropped her hand, his skin suddenly a striking hue which her own began to match.

"I just mean--ah--I want you to know that you have us, Naminé. Always. You're very important to me. A-And Nezuko."

"And you are to me," she answered without hesitation, a smile on her face as the heaviness on her chest began to fade. "I don't want to leave your side, Tanjiro. If I could have one wish, it would be to remain with you and help Nezuko. I'm glad that that is my path now."

For so long, her path had only been heading towards cruel revenge. Revenge against the one-eyed demon with the mismatched haori and finally gaining an answer as to just what happened that merciless day.