aiko's otter den

scent of smoke - They are kept together by the thread of the fire god. Or maybe its will. Whatever it is, they will not be separated again. Digimon!AU Reincarnation.

---

1. Ring

There had never been a wedding day in Kocho Kanae’s future.

And now, this time, she has a ring and it’s all hers, but all it does is cause her pain. It clangs against her brain when she hits a stair incorrectly, when her eyes swell up and it brushes the bruised skin beneath her fur.

She imagines Shinobu’s outspoken fury, her gentle fingers carding over each bruise with paste, each cut with gauze, her voice clear and ringing her dislike and this is why you get hurt, Nee-san.

Kanao isn’t like that, but she’s soft and curious and when she’d died gods when she’d died she’d been stuck with a coin and yes it had worked but at what cost?

But even in this tiny body that wasn’t human, even if the person she’s waiting for is just a pipe dream, she is comforted by the fact that her sisters must be alive, must be happy, must be somewhere that isn’t here.

That has to be the truth.

2. Mindless

Anxiety doesn’t have a thought process in particular.

It has a sense, but not a thread or a line or a sound barring the heartbeat it steals from other people and important things.

Before, Zenitsu wouldn’t have known the word anxiety, never mind what it meant. He knew what fear was, and dread but having this diagnosis, this awareness was new.

Course, he thinks through his glasses and sweaters and things, that doesn’t make it any easier. He can scream a lot less. Weaker body and all.

Still. Anxiety doesn’t think but ignoring it helps him try to.

It’d be easier if he wasn’t alone.

3. Bait

Rui had followed his parents expecting hell and now he’s starting to think he got much worse. Too many years being frail, then strong has left him clumsy, unprepared to live with human power.

He’s too used to being able to do what he likes, what he wants that he says things to this mother without thinking about it.

And then he loses his brother.

Well not loses, he’s still alive. But he’s not with him and it aches to lack him and the father who is also as clumsy.

They aren’t the same parents, Rui knows. But they love him more than they should if they knew what he had done before.

He vows to himself to never tell them, and let that be enough for him, if nothing else. Let him bask in love he may not deserve again, just this once.

4. Freeze

Inosuke’s just not the thinking type.

He was raised by boars before, in comparison, Yukidarumon is a genius. Firm and loving and kind, the mother he’d wanted when he’d remembered he’d had one. The one he’d thought Shinobu was. But that had been wrong.

He is going to enjoy this.

But then she dies. Then she dies. Then they kill her.

They’ll pay, they’ll pay, they’ll all suffer and die and pay underneath his weapons.

If only one of them was a sword. Things would go much faster.

Well, he has Falcomon. That’ll have to do. He can’t wait to eat the bastards.

Humans. Feh. As long as they’re not demons it doesn’t mean shit. His minions aren’t here. But he’ll find them. They’ll understand. They usually did.

5. Build

Kyoujiro doesn’t like education in this life.

He’d been blessed with it before of course, and this sheer amount of knowledge is a treasure trove of possibility! He could use it to grasp his situation. But they deliver it so dryly. It’s like they’ve forgotten childhood! How unacceptable!

Still, he lingers in it. He has a friend now, and she’s so quiet these days, after the death of—

Well, neither of them bring it up! But he understands! Still, he will shoulder on. He is still a good man by his mother’s word, even if he must grow into it a second time.

Perhaps Tanjiro is even willing to be his tsuguko properly now.

6. Husky

Genya wonders about Sanemi. If he’d lived long, or if he’d died there. He doesn’t remember much of that time. He doesn’t remember much of, well, anything. Everything had gotten so red after a while. It had been hard to think. But now it’s peaceful. Or as peaceful as this world could ever be. Sure, he only has his mother now, but this mother isn’t trying to kill him. This mom is trying to live herself day by day and make things good for them.

But Genya is not the kind of girl she wants. Too roughshod, too violent, too… used to battle.

Even in the vaguest way, fighting is what Genya knows best.

But grandma understands. Maybe she had to fight too, once.

It’d be nice to have a comrade to fight with. Though Genya would never say that aloud.

next →