Tanjirou can hear Akiko singing.

Now, Akiko isn't the greatest singer.

In terms of talent, she's on par with Tanjirou. She can never grasp rhythms or hear notes in her head, and she can't even repeat songs that are taught to her.

The only thing she can sing is the old lullaby Kie taught Tanjirou and she.

"Knock knock little bunny from the little mountain," Kie would start, and she can see the small heads from under the futon pop up in excitement.

"Why are your ears so long!!" The two would yell, with no particular sense of the melody. Nezuko isn't a big fan of the two singing, and she'd tell them that they're doing it all wrong, and Akiko isn't a big fan of being told that she's wrong.

"When she was small, my mother ate the leaves of a tall tree and that is why my ears are so long," Akiko struggles to sing out, and Tanjirou claps his hands with glee.

They'd beg Kie to sing the lullaby over and over again, and with new siblings to sing to, Kie didn't mind at all. Tanjirou would hum to Akiko and he wouldn't be able to match the same notes, but they're trying together.

"Knock knock, little bunny from the little mountain."

Tanjirou and Akiko would whisper the words to themselves, hands held together and nodding on the offbeat before stopping and repeating the words again.

Akiko even goes as far as to ask her parents for a music teacher in Tokyo, but no music teacher accepts the mess that is Akiko.

"Why are your eyes so red?" The two try with Takeo, Shigeru, and Hanako.

But they'll shake their heads and run away, clutching their ears with false pain just to poke fun at how awful Akiko and Tanjirou are at singing.

So Nezuko becomes the official singer of the family, her voice so fluid to listen to that everyone feels as if they're being cradled by the stars.

Later, Tanjirou would listen to Nezuko, Akiko no longer by his side. He'd listen to Nezuko and ask both his mother and she to sing to him, claiming that he wants to sing to Akiko one day.

Their hearts would melt, and they'd sing for him, encouraging Tanjirou to sing along with them.

"When she was small, my mother ate the fruit of a red tree," Tanjirou finishes singing to Akiko, and her eyes shine as bright as the morning sun.

He's finally learned the song, and now it's Akiko's turn to catch up.

So he patiently teachers her, the two singing together with Tanjirou acting as a crutch. They'd lay under the trees and look up at the sky, lazily mumbling the words then moving on to play with everyone else, but they'd always come back to each other to learn the lullaby.

Tanjirou isn't in any way a good teacher either. He'd just sing the song and stare at Akiko with bright eyes in hopes that she would finally be able to sing with him.

Tanjirou and Akiko learn to listen to each other.

And the day they both finish the lullaby with a flourish, Rokuta sleeps peacefully on the futon, a smile on his face and his small hands wrapped around their fingers.

They cry together after their shared memory.

"And that is why my eyes are so red."

Nezuko finally relinquishes her bloodlust, the marks disappearing and her body slowly becoming smaller. Tanjirou can hear her wail and his hands become speckled with tears, but she's finally stopped her rampage.

Tanjirou cries too, heart aching for Akiko and his mother. He's so relieved that Nezuko is asleep again.

"She's asleep mother, she's finally asleep!" Tanjirou cries too.

Tanjirou can hear Akiko singing.

---

"Fuck!"

Akiko pricks her finger, a dot of blood trickling out. She quickly sticks her finger in her mouth before setting back to her work.

Kanon has a deep gask running down her arm, and her shoulder's been bitten. For now, Akiko can stop the bleed as she stitches up the gash. Kanon's shoulder will have to be fixed at the estate.

Despite her drowned thoughts, Akiko can still hear the roaring of blood in her ears and she can't help but shake the least bit. It's causing problems for her needlework, but Akiko can't help it.

She doesn't know if another demon will claw her eyes out or if another will leap from behind to pierce an arm through her left lung.

There's nothing Akiko wants more than to just go to sleep or eat some of Kanon's cooking, but she might even be able to do that if she fails-

Akiko brushes a few stray tears from her face, muttering another curse under her breath to recollect herself and sort her mind out again, and she returns to stitching Kanon's wound.

Miruna isn't anywhere nearby so Akiko has to assume she dodged a bullet, but her bones still creak and her blood continues to trickle from her scratches. There's dirt and grime on her skin and she feels anything but clean.

Akiko's killed, and she can't take that back.

She can't see all too clearly anymore, her eyes tired from its overuse.

She feels for the bottle of rubbing alcohol nearby, popping the cap open before pouring some of the content across her arm. She tries not to use so much, but Akiko doesn't have any water to clean herself with so she'll have to deal with the painful stinging.

Akiko winces, biting on her tongue as her nerves are set on fire. But she dabs at her cuts with a clean cloth, then binds herself with bandages. Cuts are littered across her arms and abdomen, and there's a bad one from her neck to her collarbone.

If she didn't move fast enough, her whole throat would have been cut open.

A familiar cawing overhead catches her attention, and she can make out Miruna's shadowed figure on a low hanging branch.

"A kakushi is on their way! Once done saving Kanon, report to the red light district with Iguro Obanai!"

Akiko clicks her tongue with annoyance, not allowed to breath for even a second, and she continues to stay alert for any nearby dangers while waiting for the kakushi.

Not just one kakushi shows up, but rather two.

"Goto?" Akiko wonders aloud, and he's bent over his knees panting.

The other kakushi quickly picks Kanon's body up, careful with her shoulder before setting off to the Butterfly Estate.

"I thought we were only getting one kakushi to help?"

Goto rolls his eyes, slinging Akiko's body over his shoulder and apologizing for the pain he's causing before picking her physician's bag up too.

"You're a fool to think I'd let the Demon Corps' head physician to run back to the estate on their own," he snaps, and Akiko can't help but smile despite her heavy eyes.

"Just take a nap. You did well, and you're gonna have a long night ahead of you," he tells her, and Akiko shuts her mind off from the rest of the world.

When Goto can feel her soft breathing against his cheek, he takes a quick second to brief his eyes over her dirt covered face.

Even when sleeping, Akiko looks like she's at war.

He's never seen Akiko look so defeated in his life.

All he heard from Miruna is that Akiko and Kanon came under attack by a demon, and when they arrived there was no demon. Both with erratic breathing and bodies as cold as the night air.

It's dark and there's hardly any moonlight, but for some reason Goto has never seen Akiko's eyes shine so dangerously. Almost like she's verging insanity and might break down any minute.

Goto can only hope that Akiko can pick the pieces of herself back up, though he worries that she left a bit of herself behind in the forest.

It feels like she fell asleep for only a second, but Akiko finds herself being shaken awake a second later. Aoi is in tears beside her, and the girls are also crying, grasping at the hems of Akiko's torn kimono and wailing her name.

"Is the OR prepped?" Akiko asks, and Aoi brushes the last of her tears away. She knows not to even try to fight Akiko to rest, so she nods her head and ushers the girls to get to work.

"But Akiko-san-!" They don't know any better, and Akiko lets herself down from Goto's shoulder.

"OR. Now. Kanon," are her simple orders, and they rub their tears away, choking the ball in their throat down before nodding their heads.

Aoi takes Akiko's bag to the OR, two bowls of water and a pot of boiling water nearby for her to quickly sanitize the equipment. She hand washes the tools in one bowl of water, tosses them into the boiling pot, then fishes everything out to drop into the other cold bowl of water to quickly cool.

The girls are the ones to wash Akiko up as fast as possible, taking soap to wash the grime of her arms and face and giving her a fresh set of clothes. They wait outside the bathroom with a robe to help her slip into, and Kiyo hands Akiko her gloves.

Goto is amazed by the speed at which everyone works, and the five of them walk into the OR within 10 minutes. Aoi has a bag of Akiko's blood on standby for Kanon, and Akiko dives into her real line of work.

"Scalpel," she orders, and one is placed into her hand.

What happens next causes Akiko's eyes to widen in surprise, and even Aoi lets a gasp out. The girls start running for another scalpel, hearts beating wildly.

Akiko's scalpels have turned a different color.

"Clear..."

Her scalpels become almost invisible in her hands, and Akiko can see straight through the metal.

"A- A new one!" Kiyo cries out, but Akiko tells her to stop where she is.

"I can work with this," she says, cutting away dead tissue from Kanon's shoulder.

In fact, she works even better with her new scalpels. She never would have known them as nichirin, since they didn't turn the first time she received them. And she isn't a swordswoman, but she must have proven herself in some way to be allowed to wield a true nichirin tool.

The same thing happens with her bone saw and the needles of her syringes. Akiko has to remind herself to stop touching random tools in her bag and to focus on Kanon instead, but there's an amazing sense of pride that fills up within her.

"Can you even see where you're cutting?" Aoi asks, handing Akiko some clean scissors from the ice water. The scissors lighten up too, and they become clear to Akiko's touch as if she's some sort of deity.

There's a dangerous glint in Akiko's eyes, an almost insane smile on her face when she realizes the power behind her eyes.

"I can see it all."

Aoi shivers and the girls look uncertain, but Akiko continues to work.

They have to use another bag of blood almost immediately, since Kanon's already lost so much on the way to the estate. Kiyo is ordered to grab another one, and Naho rushes out of the room to tell Shinobu and Miyuki that Akiko is back safely.

Akiko can hear them thunder down the hallway, but she makes sure to tell Sumi that they aren't allowed in. She can't have anyone interrupt her work, and Naho looks a bit guilty when she walks back in.

Luckily, Akiko works the fastest she's ever worked and finishes the procedure in under an hour. There wasn't anything to really cut away either, just infected tissue that the demon bit into.

Akiko skillfully wraps Kanon's shoulder with a roll of bandages, instructing Aoi to change them every hour or so to make sure that it doesn't get infected.

When Akiko walks out of the OR, Miyuki carefully wraps her arms around Akiko in relief, happy to see that she's alive.

Miyuki's about to tug Akiko to her room to rest, but Shinobu holds a hand up to stop the worried pillar.

"Akiko? Iguro-san is waiting for you," Shinobu smiles. Akiko can see her concern instead.

"Tell him he can wait," she turns and the girls follow after her heel.

Indeed, Iguro waits for the head physician by the front entrance, an irritated look on his face. Sumi holds up another change of clothes for Akiko, and she quickly washes up again before setting out.

"Here, my bag," Akiko tosses it into Iguro's hands, and he looks at her with a fearsome glare. She doesn't seem to care though, finishing the last of the knots of her hakama. She even slaps her cheeks a few times, ridding herself of exhaustion.

"Had Oyakata-sama not ordered this, I would have left you here to run and catch up," Iguro snaps at the girl, but she stares at him with a half lidded gaze.

"But he ordered it."

Iguro wonders who will actually miss Akiko, nearly drawing his blade to cut her down. But with all the effort within himself, he places his hate aside and unceremoniously slings Akiko across his shoulder, her bag in his other hand.

Akiko doesn't know why she's going to the red light district. She doesn't even know who's there.

Just another job.

This is a good place to remind you that the eyes of Tamura Akiko are cursed.

---

鬼滅の刃の漫画とこの本もちゃんと読んだの？読んでないみたいw。
お可愛いこと。