Chapter Text
Ever since he was thirteen, he had been a ghost, efficiently concealing his face and voice. No other hashira, dead or alive, had seen his face, only the painted one on a fox mask.
The grief and guilt of his best friend's death had caused this. He felt unworthy, like a stain in the beautiful corporation of Demon slaying. So he kept himself hidden, only appearing in meetings to just sit there, completely still and stoic.
Whenever the hashira spoke to him, he merely turned his head, before setting it forward once again and focusing on something else. The other hashira, or at least some of them, saw this behaviour as being egotistical or arrogant, when it was really the opposite.
However, being the quiet man he is, he never said anything when Sanemi Shinazugawa or Obanai Iguro insulted him for a reason untrue. His voice was distant even to himself. Every noise he made was like it came from a different person, spiralling him into confusion at times.
Was that me?
Would be the only thought on his mind when he accidentally made a noise.
A stranger, once a close friend.
The other hashira never noticed him, acting like he was a blank space in the middle of a paragraph. A John Doe, an unnamed grave.
One day, there was a hashira meeting. All of the hashiras collected, sitting in no specific order, yet their stances remained calm and organized. Two knees on the ground and hands placed on their laps neatly, each man and woman a copy and paste of each other.
There was still nearly an hour before Ubuyashiki arrived. With that news, the hashira conversed, some twisting around to speak to a comrade or close friend, chatter beginning to fill the room.
But Tomioka remained indifferent, locked into position like a machine, where they, were flesh and bones, yet had uncontrollable movements at times.
His gaze stayed ahead, his vision blurring into disarray and blotches of dark colors. His body felt hot, unusually warm. He wasn't supposed to be... warm.
You see, back when Tomioka was still a boy, he had gone unconscious in the snow, laying like a dead Raven in the pure snow, that only continued to pile onto him as it fell from the sky.
A hunter, honorable and proud, saved him. Submitting the boy to an older man, Sakonji Urokodaki, who became his mentor along with Sabito, who also went under the wing of Urokodaki.
But the snow did not leave Tomioka, not even when his cheeks flushed with the rush of hot blood.
No, it left an everlasting mark on his autonomy. He was forever frozen, in comparison to a fish in a frozen lake. His core body heat was so low, lower than hell, where the hottest of flames bared their ferocity.
So when Tomioka felt this sudden warmth, a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead, beneath the fox mask he indefinitely wore. The red scarf wrapped around his neck writhed and begged to be removed, the black gloves squeezing his hand tightly.
He needed to take it off, get it off of his body before he showed any sign of humanity towards his "superiors".
His unusually flushed cheeks glowed in the dark room as he untied the red rope around his head, the mask accidentally clattering to the ground. He only sought to adjust the mask, make it more breathable.
The machine man scrambled to pick up the mask before any of his "superiors" saw his face, covering his face with his void black hair in place of the nearly pure white mask.
The clatter caught the attention of the others, their heads now twisted towards the dark haired machine man. None saw the face of this machine, which he thanked his low level of luck for.
As soon as his mask was planted back on his face, he relaxed back into his firm position, shoulder set down and hands shaking in his lap.
"Tomioka?!" An enthusiastic voice called out, almost too loud for anyone else in the room.
Tomioka turned his head slowly to the left, making eye contact with the flame haired man next to him. Bright eyes burned into his icy cold ones, yet they didn't know if they were truly gazing back.
Tomioka was still too warm, feeling somewhat irritated by this. He uttered no words back to the Flame Pillar, Rengoku Kyojurou, only turning his head forward once more, his face slightly downturned as if to express a sort of guilt, or shame.
The other hashira give off looks to the sudden commotion, yet it fades into chatter once again, and Tomioka couldn't be happier that he wasn't the center of attention again.