After Rengoku falls, the world tilts—flames dying, sunrise bleeding into the sky. Tanjiro lurches after Akaza, his broken body straining for one more swing. But you catch his sleeve and hold, because you know that if he runs now, he will probably faint right away.

Akaza turns—only a heartbeat, only a glance—and sees you. Not Koyuki. But the echo of her : the steadiness in your gaze, the way your breath settles, a softness that shouldn’t exist on a battlefield.

The sun forces him to vanish, but the damage is done. Memory ruptures: a dojo, cool water, a hand that once anchored him. You are not her—yet something in you drags his humanity to the surface and leaves it gasping. He leaves with your face burned into the part of him that refuses to die.

Several nights later, on your patrol around the training camp, the wind quiets. Lantern light stutters. He is there—upright, unarmed, still as carved stone.

“Don’t draw your blade,” he says, voice low, unthreatening as he goes down from where he was. “I didn’t come to fight.”