Chapter Text
Clad in naught but his anklets, Akaza ran from the two hashira as fast as his legs could carry him, post-nut clarity hitting him like a brick through a window.
He was supposed to kill or turn the slayers at the train, not mount one of them then run away with cum dripping down his legs.
Muzan-sama was going to skin him alive. There was no question about that. The only thing up for debate was how long he would be punished and if there was anything Akaza could do to limit his master’s rage.
Akaza knew for a fact that if he turned up stinking like sex and the enemy, Muzan-sama would be pissed. But if he wasted time cleaning up and finding clothing he would be late to his report, which would be an insult to his master.
Akaza chose punctuality over appearances, knowing he could not hide what he had done and hoping that his willingness to receive his punishment sooner rather than later might earn him something like mercy.
Akaza knelt before his master, head bowed obediently, trying to keep his heart rate calm and mind blank as he waited for Muzan-sama to acknowledge him.
The King of Demons, wearing the guise of a small child, stood in front of the bookshelf, nose deep in a Western textbook as he had been for the last five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Something warm slid down Akaza’s leg.
“You’re leaking on my floor,” Muzan-sama said in his own, deep voice.
“I’ll clean it,” Akaza said quickly, desperate to appease the all-powerful beta.
The Demon King slammed his book closed and cast a disgusted look down his nose at his servant.
“Rage is a funny thing, Akaza,” he said dispassionately. “It can reach a point so explosive and all-consuming that it leaves you feeling nothing but an empty calm.”
Akaza said nothing, not daring to move-- to think .
“What is the purpose of my Kizuki?”
“Destroy the Demon Slayer Corps and their leaders, find the blue spider lily, and serve your every need,” Akaza recited obediently.
“Yes,” Muzan-sama said drily. “Your job is to rid my world of demon-slaying cockroaches… And what did you do when I sent you to mop up that lower moon’s mess? To kill every slayer there? ”
Akaza swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out across his brow. “I fail--”
“You deliberately disobeyed me, presented yourself to a hashira like a mindless bitch in heat, and let the bastard mark you.” Muzan-sama wasn’t yelling, his tone utterly passive as he spoke, which frightened Akaza more than the threat that came with each dawn.
Then his brain scrabbled after something his master said like a juggler who’d fumbled his balls.
“He marked me?” Akaza asked stupidly.
“Were you so enslaved by your body that you really didn’t notice?”
“Y-yes…”
Muzan-sama made a disgusted sound. “ I am the one who owns you, Akaza. You are my property. And you let yourself be defiled by the first mutt to give you so much as a sniff. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Pointing out that Kyojuro hadn’t been his first-- just his first alpha-- was probably the worst defense he could muster, even if it was his first instinct.
Instead, Akaza prostrated himself before his master, his forehead touching the floorboards. “I deserve whatever punishment you deem worthy of my crimes.”
Then he braced himself for an agonizing death.
“Clean up your mess and report to Upper Moon Two. You are to obey his every command as if it were my own. Now get out of my sight.”
Akaza swiftly obeyed. It was only after he was miles from his master and on the hunt for clothing did the upper moon allow himself the revelation that he’d been sentenced to a fate worse than death.
“I don’t like it,” Kyojuro said as Tengen ushered him into their room and the private bath attached to it. “It feels… dirty.”
“Dirtier than fucking a demon in a literal dirt hole?” Tengen said, brow arched so high it all but left his face.
“Will anyone believe it?” he asked, desperation tinging his voice as his stomach turned in knots.
Kyojuro did not want people to believe the lie Tengen had concocted to explain away his mateless mark.
The Sound Hashira heaved a sympathetic sigh. “It’s a lot more common for alphas to mark an omega or beta without asking, but some omegas are… desperate and mark well-off alphas in the hopes that their honor will make them stay.”
Kyojuro was about to protest what abandoning his omega would say about his honor when he remembered that he’d already fallen as far as a slayer could without turning into a demon.
“Alternatively,” Tengen said, motioning for Kyojuro to strip, “you could say it was another alpha in rut pulling a power move. No one will believe a beta had the audacity, even though they absolutely do. Makio was the first of my wives to mark me.”
Kyojuro carefully set aside his solid clothing and nodded. “I’ll say it was an alpha.”
He’d rather people think he was a deviant than guess at how little integrity he had left.
“Are you sure? You can’t change your mind. You have to live like that’s the truth or you’ll rouse suspicion,” Tengen said, picking up Kyojuro’s haori to give it a light sniff. “ Woo! Yup. Your clothes are gonna need a bath, too.”
Kyojuro crawled into the spacious, bowl-shaped tub, shamefaced and half ready to commit seppuku, if only to search the vessel of his soul for anything that might have ever been good and noble. “I can’t believe I defiled my family’s heirloom like that.”
“It was the gentlemanly thing to do,” Tengen said as he took off his jewelry and started to wipe off his make-up. “Now start scrubbing. The smell of rut, sex, and anxiety is starting to give me a headache.”
Kyojuro did as he was told as his omega friend started to school him in the lie that was to become his life; that Tengen had found him lost in the woods, hungry and dehydrated but otherwise fine, the upper moon having long since given him the slip.
From there the two hashira had gone into town, where Tengen had finally convinced him to have his first drink to celebrate him surviving an upper moon. The third strongest, no less!
Six shots later and Kyojuro had vanished with another rutting alpha who had been flirting with him the whole night. Kyojuro woke up, marked and alone, with a pounding headache and little memory of the event.
“Tengen,” Kyojuro said once his friend was satisfied the Flame Hashira would remember the story without error. “Why…”
“Why help you out of the grave you dug for yourself?” he asked, finally getting his turn in the tub. “Because you didn’t hurt anyone, and letting my favorite person-- aside from my wives-- die over a mistake made with a perfectly willing partner in the height of their seasons would be an incredibly unflamboyant thing for me to do.”
“I let a demon go free,” Kyojuro said as he toweled himself dry. “That’s far from harmless.”
“Oh, hon,” Tengen said as he wet his hair. “Your crow told me the whole story. That demon let us go. Not the other way around. I could feel how strong he was even as those sweet cheeks bounded off into the distance. I suppose I should thank you for showing him such a good time. You fucked his brains out so thoroughly that he forgot the advantage was his. Your dick’s a hero for that!”
“Uzui!” Each word the omega said scandalized Kyojuro more and more until his face was so hot he could fry an egg on it.
“What? Too far?”
“A bit!”
Tengen just shrugged and set to washing while Kyojuro dressed in night clothes.
Eventually the Flame Hashira untensed. “Thank you, Tengen. If there’s anything I can ever do to repay you…”
Tengen smiled softly. “Just have my back if I ever do anything as dramatically stupid as this. How you managed to do something this crazy before me, I’ll never know.”
“If I ever find the alpha who did this to you,” Kocho said while wearing her sweetest smile, “I’ll pull out all their teeth.”
Kyojuro chuckled nervously. The Insect Hashira was the smallest alpha he’d ever met and was simultaneously the single most intimidating person he’d ever met. Submitting to her medical exams was more stressful than fighting demons. Not to say that she had poor bedside manners!
No, Kocho had the power to order bedrest for everyone but Oyakata-sama, and she was very liberal in her use of that power.
If Kyojuro had so much as a broken rib, she could and would order him to take time off duty.
“Well,” Kocho said at last, “you can put your shirt back on. Nothing’s broken and there are no signs of internal bleeding. You can return to duty.”
“Thank you, Kocho!” Kyojuro said, nearly drowning in relief as he got dressed.
He’d been terrified of having to sit and stew in his thoughts with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs.
He was halfway out the door when Kocho said, “And don’t forget to keep an eye out for any of those symptoms I mentioned. You don’t have to tell me, but you will need to see a Corps doctor if the worst happens.”
Kyojuro blushed fiercely, nodded, and slammed the door on the way out, equal parts grateful for Kocho’s practical, non-judgemental approach to medicine and the fact that demons were immune to diseases.
If Akaza did not fear Muzan-sama’s wrath more than he despised Douma’s every breath, he would be dragging his feet like a petulant child. As it was, he had walked to the compound instead of running.
But that could only put off the inevitable for so long. The walls of Douma’s compound loomed on the horizon like a spider web hanging menacingly in the middle of a well worn path.
The road to the compound was hard-compacted earth, beaten down by decades of foot and wagon traffic. The walls of the compound were simplistic, yet sturdy, made from stone and constructed well-enough to withstand siege and severe weather.
The nauseatingly sweet scent of blood and flowers told Akaza that Douma was waiting for him long before he saw the bastard.
Akaza heaved a resigned sigh as Upper Two met him halfway to the gate with wide-open arms.
“Akaza-dono!” Douma practically sang, his voice reaching a near ear-splitting pitch as he wrapped his arms around Akaza with the crushing strength of an anaconda.
Akaza bristled but did not lash out like he normally would, doing his best to remain calm and collected even as Douma buried his nose against the omega’s scent glands with all the gusto of a questing pig rooting through the dirt for food.
Akaza cringed against the alpha’s icy skin but refused to react further.
“Wow,” Douma said when he finally let him go. “His Lordship must have given you quite the scolding! I’ve never seen you this docile before.”
Akaza grit his teeth. “How much do you know?”
Douma made an innocent sound and manifested a golden fan to hide his smile behind. “Enough. But don’t worry! I have no intention of holding your indiscretions against you. Nor will I abuse my newfound authority over you. I swear it on my honor!”
Akaza couldn’t stop a single, manic cackle from escaping him. “Just tell me what you want me to do first. I’d rather get this over with.”
Douma closed his fan and tapped it gently against his chin. “Could you hide your demonic features? I want to show you how I keep my humans-- and introduce you to your helpers-- and I’d rather you didn’t scare them.
“Helpers?!”
“You’re my honored guest, Akaza-dono!” Douma said, all too pleased with himself. “It’s only right you’re treated with the same level of reverence that I am.”
Akaza tightened his hands into fists as he shifted to look more human. “I don’t need servants,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“And you won’t have any!” Douma said in mock surprise and offense. “You’ll have helpers! Just a beta and omega who’ll make sure you have everything you’ll need while you settle in.”
Akaza wanted to argue but knew it was in his best interest to keep his mouth shut and play along.
His only hope as he followed the chittering idiot to the compound’s gates was that Kyojuro’s mark would be enough to dissuade Douma from trying to court him while he was here.
It was a blatantly false hope, but it was a good enough lie to keep his head held high as he walked through the gates of hell.