┌───────────┐
暖かい
└───────────┘

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DISCLAIMER

Akaza's backstory from the
manga does not apply here.
(Y/N) is not a replacement of
Koyuki, who does not exist in
this fic. In addition, this book
was requested, and therefore
written slightly based off of a
prompt given by the person.

This book will contain slight
manga spoilers.

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PROLOGUE

꧁꧂

The elongated feeling of his death was one he suffered painfully through.

To feel the loving arms of the woman he longingly adored hundreds of years ago embrace his cold, demonic skin—it was cherished warmth at least, and prized intimacy at best.

Akaza, in the midst of his body regenerating itself during the final battle with that Sun User and the Water Hashira, was forced to recall his human past like moving pictures right before his senses. He did not know why his human memories were returning to him only now, but he was required to sit through it.

Just the sight of thankful, glowing (E/C) eyes staring lovingly up at him in the darkness of the night was enough to make his entire body freeze. Feelings of familiarity and longing suddenly filled up his senses, and it was almost unbearable.

Those eyes made him feel a sense of warmth—it was a type of warmth that sheltered him with love and with care. It was one he subconsciously longed for over the course of his demonic life.

But due to his memories being stolen from him during his transformation from human to demon, he had no idea what he was missing.

This warmth was something he almost cursed at himself for forgetting, because it was given to him by the entity he so loved most.

The ghost of his past lover, (L/N) (Y/N), appeared right before him, gentle eyes and soft arms marking his senses. She took hold of his tear-stained face, and he waisted no time leaning into her arms.

Seeing her just made him feel human again in this damned Infinity Fortress.

He let himself loose in her embrace, allowing her to lull him into eternal warmth.

꧁꧂

It was the modern era.

To be granted the gift of reincarnation was frankly not one he expected, nor desired.

He had honestly figured that the lives he took in his previous life would weigh down his chances at a new one. Karma would play against him, and he knew he was going to be condemned in Hell. Living for centuries and killing countless of people surely wouldn't allow him to have a new, peaceful life, he thought.

And yet on his eighteenth birthday, the exact age he became a demon, all of his memories returned to him in a dream.

The absurdity of it all made him collapse for a moment when he woke from his slumber that morning, and he almost fell off of his bed. But he knew everything he saw in that dream wasn't some hallucination or hoax—it was truly his past life—it just felt too real to be falsified.

His suspicions were only confirmed when he picked up a phone call from one of his best friends.

"Hakuji-kun!"

Now, it honestly felt weird going by his original, human name again, but Hakuji had to get used to it. What made it weirder, was the fact that he had no knowledge of his former demon name, until this morning when he awoke from that dream.

But now, with his old memories crammed along with his new memories, both Hakuji and Akaza just felt odd to him.

"Rengoku-san?" Hakuji responded, still a
bit dazed from his burst of memories.

Rengoku Kyoujurou was his training partner in this new life.

The two of them regularly met up at the gym to strengthen themselves, as well as help each other record their improvement. They were definitely good friends, and they even spent time together outside of training.

The moment Hakuji said his name, however, he flinched. The former demon suddenly recalled what happened in his past life, in which he killed his present training partner one night on a train. With knowledge of this happening, talking to him so casually just felt completely odd now.

Well, that was awkward.

Both memories were clashing in his mind (from deadly enemies, to training buddies?), and he felt like he was going to end up with a headache from this confusion alone.

"Happy birthday!" Kyoujurou, the former Flame Hashira greeted. He seemed delighted on the other end of the line, contrasting Hakuji's current feeling of dread and bewilderment.

"Thank you," Hakuji sighed out via an exhausted chuckle.

A hum came from the other end of the line, and Kyoujurou asked, "Are you alright? You sound a bit shaken up—did something happen?"

"Yeah, I'm good!" Hakuji quickly attempted to reassure, his hand rapidly combing through his hair so he would wake himself up a tad more. "I just woke up from a weird dream—that's all."

"'A dream'?" Kyoujurou echoed.

The former Flame Hashira went silent for a moment, almost as if he went into thought. Hakuji waited for him to speak, and then suddenly remembered that in this life, Kyoujurou was over a year older than him.

If everything he saw in his dream last night was true, then he inwardly wished on the off-chance that his training partner over the phone remembered everything as well.

After all, according to Hakuji's theory, he should've gotten the dream before him, right?

Kyoujurou, suddenly with a more serious, prodding voice, questioned, "What was the dream about?"

Hakuji figured that if he did not admit what he saw, he would never find out if Kyoujurou saw the same thing. But at the same time, if he ended up being wrong, then his training partner would surely think he was crazy.

"Uh," he began to stammer out, suddenly realizing the absurdity of his dream, and how insane it all sounded. Hakuji decided he would just vaguely summarize it. "It was like, me? As a demon, or something?" He tried to sound unsure of himself so he could always pass it off as some weird dream if it ended up being false. "And you were there, as well as other people—"

"Did you kill me?" Kyoujurou interjected, cutting right to the point.

Well, that was remarkably straightforward.

"I don't want to say yes," Hakuji awkwardly mumbled, "but yes."

"Oh."

That was all Kyoujurou said before an ample pause took over their conversation.

Hakuji shifted a tad awkwardly on his feet, very uncomfortable with the sudden tenseness on the morning of his birthday.

"Well," Kyoujurou started up again. "Congratulations!"

"Huh?"

Hakuji had to do a double-take due to the congratulatory tone his training partner had suddenly adopted.

"You remembered!" Kyoujurou remarked. "A lot of us already knew for awhile now, and I was just waiting until you remembered," he explained rather casually, leaving his training partner across the phone a bit shell-shocked. "Hey, let's go somewhere to celebrate your birthday so we can talk about it, yeah?"

Hakuji took a moment, but ended up sighing at his offer and replying, "Sure."

But none of Rengoku's answers or explanations could tie to his memories of (L/N) (Y/N). At the end of the day, he had no idea if she was even reincarnated with him in this life.

It seemed that Hakuji had to find her again on his own.

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┌───────────┐
WARM
└───────────┘

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Book commissioned by:
mistbaby

Thank you so much for
your support!! ♡ Since
you asked for around 5
chaps, I also added in a
prologue & an epilogue
for you as well. :3  I am
very grateful, so I hope
you'll enjoy this book!
Thank you, love! ♡

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