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Been busy with stuff lately, but what do you think of Hashira centric arc ideas?
Set during the Entertainment District arc, a few days before the fight against Uppermoons 6.
Two Hashiras -- Obanai and Mitsuri -- are sent to investigate a village rumoured to have a demon hiding in it. The villagers have that sacrificial ritual that hasn't been done for a few decades and suddenly resumed back out of nowhere.
Obanai finds a familiar face of his remaining cousin during his stay there, and to his horror, discovers that she was the cause of this.
A demon had captured her children and made a bargain for her to sacrifice other people in their stead. She manipulated the villagers in doing the rituals again until the demon is satisfied and will return her children. Obanai has to settle the dispute with the villagers who think he's trying to bother the ritual and endangers their lives while Mitsuri goes to save the hostages the demon has a hold onto.
A stand off between Mitsuri and the demon. She manages to defeat it, but not without some costs when the people she was trying to protect didn't listen to her warning to stay put. About three people died, and one of them was the cousin's child.
" Why do you have to go and ruin everything again?! " The cousin screams at Obanai as she clutches her dead child's body. " You've always been the one to cause disaster! All you had to do was stay put! LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!!! "
Obanai can only stare and stare and says nothing, even if inside he knows that he should defend himself at least, to do something to make up for when she blamed him in the past. But his mouth remains sealed.
Later, when the villagers chase away the Hashiras due to still in confusion belief, Obanai and Mitsuri get to talk a bit.
He doesn't reveal much, just something along the lines that the woman was his cousin, and he wasn't even considered human in his family's eyes. That his cousin blames him for everything, for getting everyone killed, for not just to stay in his role.
" I am tainted with dirty blood, " he says in a soft breath, " this I will carry until I die and reborn. "
Mitsuri wants to tell him that his family doesn't define what he is, that he's not them, and that he's not dirty. In her eyes, he's such a strong and amazing person fighting for the innocence.
But as she keeps her gaze on him, and he doesn't even look at her since the moment they left the village, she realizes that it's not easy. Those comforting words would fall into deaf ears.
Perhaps her words would be listened, but not accepted.
So she takes his hand gently, noting the flinch as his response but no withdrawing.
" You're not alone, Iguro-san. I'll always support you. "
And at that moment, Obanai knows that he really doesn't deserve Mitsuri at all.
(he wants to love her, to show how much she means to him but she deserves so much better than what he is. She wants to love him, wants to give her heart but how can she, if he refuses it?)