Nezuko wakes up shaking.
Is it really waking up if you were already conscious, just out of control? As she looks at her brother's bloody form it certainly feels like the first time she’s opened her eyes since arriving in the forest. But who can really be sure?
His throat has been torn out. His clothes have been ripped to shreds. Underneath the ragged strips of cloth there’s barely anything left of him. Just some bone, some gristle. The inedible parts. His face is almost entirely whole though. As tears fill her eyes Nezuko wonders if this is because something deep down stopped her from being able to destroy her brothers face, but she knows that the only reason that part of him was left untouched is that there isn’t that much flesh there.
His eyes are glassy and unseeing.
Dead.
“No,” she whispers, the magnitude of this atrocity finally settling on her shoulders. “No, no, no, no-“
Her refrain only stops once she jams her hand in her mouth. Her jaw keeps moving as if trying to continue the refusal to accept reality and soon her hand is bleeding from the places where her teeth sink into it. The taste of her own blood sends a disjointed euphoria shooting through Nezuko’s brain and she jerks her hand back in horror. Desperate to somehow scrub away what she just did she shovels snow into her mouth to wash away the taste. She keeps chewing on it, pain zapping through her teeth from the cold, until she can spit it out without a trace of pink in the puddle of drool and bile she creates.
She scrubs the blood from her face so desperately that the snow makes small cuts in her skin. Better to be covered in her own blood rather than her brother’s though.
The thought makes her look back towards Tanjiro’s body. Her tears finally begin to fall.
“I did that,” she admits, the salt of her tears stinging as it floods her cuts and scrapes. She kneels down next to Tanjiro’s body. He looks peaceful and Nezuko hates it. Hates the way it reminds her how kind he was. How he would have forgiven her for doing this without question. “I did this. And I won’t ever let it happen again. Not to anyone.”
The forest grows silent for a moment in acknowledgement of her vow. Or maybe in shock that a demon would commit to such a thing.
After she’s said her prayers over his body she carefully takes out Tanjiro’s earrings. Nezuko doesn’t have her ears pierced yet so she just forces the metal through her ear lobes and is surprised by the lack of pain.
All that’s left is to bury him.
~
Almost as soon as she’s finished heaving snow back on top of the grave dawn begins to break. Before the first rays of light can inch above the horizon a primal fear takes hold of Nezuko and she sprints for the nearest cover. A cave that she digs herself into, deep enough that the sunlight will never touch her with its poison. It’s before she even realises it’s what she’s doing that she falls unconscious and begins to dream of brothers and blood and hell.
Nezuko sleeps for a very long time.