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It’s in the midst of spring when they first meet- trees blossoming and butterflies alighting their weightless feet upon the flowers, freed finally from the cold winter. It’s Kanae who introduces them, ever hopeful that her younger sister will make friends her own age, will stop glaring so harshly at those who try to talk to her.
Shinobu is hot-headed and angry by nature, but for her dear older sister, she will do anything.
She steps out into the garden and sees her amongst the peach blossoms, and feels an entire garden bloom to life inside of her heart. Shinobu is fire and Shinobu is ice, the scorching sun of summer and the piercing cold of winter- but under Mitsuri’s warm smile, she feels spring burst into life through her veins.
“Shinobu, this is Mitsuri- she’s training under Rengoku at the moment.” Kanae speaks, yet Shinobu’s ears are filled with birdsong.
“Your eyes are so pretty!” Mitsuri shouts, then trips over her own feet and almost goes toppling into the tulip patch. She’s loud and clumsy, a little all-over-the-place and a little too much, but Shinobu finds herself offering to show her around the Butterfly Estate regardless. Mitsuri doesn’t look like much of a fighter, as she coos over the bright rooms and the butterfly hairpins, but there’s a sturdy sort of definition to her shoulders and a faint scar on her cheek that convinces Shinobu otherwise.
The girls of the estate love Mitsuri, overjoyed by her pink hair and bright, blushing smiles- and Shinobu can hardly blame them.
It’s like they’ve propped all the doors and thrown open all the windows, and spring has come flooding in. Kanae is still out in the garden, tending to the wisteria trees, and Shinobu can practically hear her laughter, her jokes about the way Shinobu had stood starstruck under the peach trees.
Mitsuri recounts a story of a demon with two heads and the most terrifying fangs, and Shinobu listens, propped up on one of the infirmary beds as Mitsuri talks with her hands and brings the smell of flowers indoors with her. Shinobu doesn’t listen to anyone- never has done and doesn’t believe she ever will- but for Mitsuri, for the spring air she breathes into the furthest corners of the estate, she will make an exception.
“It’s like she’s tamed you,” Kanae laughs later, ever so predictable. “I’ve never seen you look so calm.”
If it was anyone else, she would deny it, would kick up a fuss and start a fight. But it’s Kanae, and all Shinobu can do is smile.
“I think I’d like to see her again.”
-
Mitsuri is all the flowers that spring has to offer, a garden in full bloom- and Shinobu has never felt more like the butterflies she sees so often in the estate grounds.
-
The seasons turn, and Mitsuri makes herself at home in the forefront of Shinobu’s mind.
-
Summer is the season of life and all things beautiful- flowers and sunshine and warmth. So why- Shinobu asks, begs, pleads- why did summer take her sister away from her?
-
It’s autumn and the blossoms on the trees wither and fall to the ground with brown-edged petals. Shinobu doesn’t cry for them, because a winter’s frost has lingered in her heart since midsummer. She walks with Mitsuri in the estate garden, a little wilder and a little more untamed without Kanae to watch over it, and tries to cling so desperately to those last few pieces of spring.
“You smile a lot more now,” Mitsuri turns to her, a little too worried and a little too kind. “But you don’t seem too happy.”
No, Shinobu thinks, but she doesn’t say it. She doesn’t speak her mind as much, not any more. No I’m not happy.
Shinobu hasn’t been happy since spring, since the peach trees bloomed and butterflies filled her heart somewhere near the tulip patch that Kanae loved so much. Yet still, she doesn’t think she’s smiled this much in her whole life.
“Kanae always said she liked my smile.” Another leaf spirals down and lands at her feet, and Mitsuri steps around the flowerheads like she’s afraid to hurt them.
“I like your smile too,” Mitsuri slips her hand around Shinobu’s, warm and gentle and hesitant enough that it makes Shinobu’s heart ache. “But I like you when you’re not smiling too.”
When Shinobu finally finds the courage to turn and look at her, there’s tears in Mitsuri’s eyes and a look upon her face that pries Shinobu wide open, letting her heart spill out amongst the flower petals.
Shinobu thought she’d cried as much as she could, until she didn’t have a single tear left, until she could smile and move on in the way Kanae would want her to.
But there, in Mitsuri’s arms, her heart thaws and she breaks all over again. Mitsuri is soft and warm and gentle, a Pillar in more ways than one as she holds Shinobu up and keeps her steady.
Autumn bleeds into winter and the leaves crumble from their branches, but around Shinobu, it’s like spring has rolled around once again.
“I’ll like you no matter what,” Mitsuri tells her, mumbling it against the top of her head. “I’ll like you if you’re happy, or sad, or angrier than anything.”
Don’t say stuff like that, Shinobu would say if she was a little more reckless. You already have a place in my heart- what more do you want?
Mitsuri doesn’t let go of her hand, not when they walk back up the pathway, not when Naho offers them food from the kitchens, not when a crow lands at the window and calls them loudly in opposing directions.
Shinobu barely hears, because all she can think is that Mitsuri’s hands are just the right size to wrap around hers perfectly.
-
Even as Pillars they rarely get the chance to fight alongside each other, often far-flung to opposite corners with barely a day in-between to walk in the Butterfly Estate garden and wait for the peach blossoms to bloom again.
Yet now they run alongside one another, dancing through the treetops as the demon runs below them, attempting to slice them down from the branches. It’s caused them far too much trouble- with tough skin and a blood demon art that has left Mitsuri’s hair with singed ends and Shinobu with a burn on one arm.
They don’t need to speak, as Mitsuri shoots her a look, and they descend from the treetops.
The way they fight; both of them are elegant. But in the same way Shinobu’s elegance comes from precise strikes and hands that aren’t quite strong enough for anything else, Mitsuri’s elegance comes in careful control and flexibility, weaving her way around her breath style as if she were as fluid as the air in her own lungs. She fights like she’s dancing, intense focus and perfect control, like she’s aware of every cell in her body all at once- and Shinobu doesn’t know how anyone could find it anything other than hypnotic to watch.
Shinobu knows Mitsuri’s strength- from hugs that leave her breathless to the way she could hoist taller, stronger demon slayers up on her shoulders with ease, to the time Shinobu watched her break a demon’s leg with nothing but her bare hands.
Mitsuri is strong- yet still she fights like she’s lighter than air.
Shinobu strikes the demon with her strongest poison yet, and in the brief moments it stumbles, Mitsuri removes its head in one clean slash.
As it crumbles into dust at their feet, Shinobu feels almost sad- because Mitsuri in full motion is enough to knock the breath clean out of her lungs.
-
There’s no sudden realisation, no shock and no hesitation- because Shinobu thinks she must have loved Mitsuri in the peach blossoms and the spring weather, long before they even met.
-
Mitsuri loves the world around her with every piece of her soul, loves it with such an intensity that her heart almost seems to overflow with it- so how could Shinobu not love her equally in return?
-
She tells her one day under the wisteria trees of the Ubuyashiki Estate, ever more prosperous than the ones in her own estate (it’s just about sunk in now, that the Butterfly Estate is hers alone).
It’s summer once more, yet Shinobu has left her heart somewhere in spring as Mitsuri blushes in the purple-stained light.
She tells her assuredly, because she doesn’t think she’s ever been more certain of anything in her life. Sure as the seasons shall come around once again, Shinobu will always love Mitsuri with every piece of her cold, angry heart.
And Mitsuri loves her too- but in the same way she loves the stars at night and the flowers in the garden, the same way she loves the whole world and everything in it. Mitsuri holds her hands there under the wisteria blossoms, and, for the first time since that autumn in the garden, Shinobu smiles a fake smile in return.
Somewhere inside her, spring bleeds into summer- fades and dies into her least favourite season.
-
Nothing changes aside from the seasons- and Shinobu loves Mitsuri enough for the two of them.
-
Still, it’s hard to ignore the way her heart skips a beat when she sees Mitsuri standing by the tulips once again.
-
Shinobu knows what she has to do, and the taste of wisteria lingers like a stain upon her tongue. She doesn’t tell her butterfly girls, doesn’t tell the other Pillars, doesn’t tell Mitsuri- because she knows they would try and stop her.
Just this once, she will take her fate into her own hands- and not a single force on the face of this earth could ever hope to stop her.
-
Mitsuri sometimes comes to the Butterfly Estate bruised and torn up, claw-marks in her skin and a weary fire burning itself out somewhere in the back of her eyes. Every time, Shinobu will try and be there, will lead her through the corridors (on the verge of spring, regardless of the seasons outside), will lead her up to her own room and treat her wounds with careful hands.
She bandages injuries and presses salve to dark bruises blooming along Mitsuri’s arms, and tries to ignore the way Mitsuri’s gaze is almost enough to burn her.
“Try and be more careful.” She scolds her each time once she’s finished, despite knowing they’re nothing but empty words. Mitsuri will always fight with her whole heart, regardless of the danger, regardless of the situation.
The demons who jeer at her breath style and lovestruck eyes will shrink in fear, once they find the strength of a heart that feels so much joy and warmth and life bearing down upon them.
Shinobu feels her hands linger just a little too long over a bruise near Mitsuri’s wrist, just a little too tender and a little too longing.
“I think I made a mistake back then,” Mitsuri tells her suddenly, her face flushed pink in the sunlight that pours in through the open window. “I love you in a different way to everything else.”
There’s wisteria petals in Shinobu’s stomach, and an entire springtime garden blooming to life inside of her heart.
She’s careful to avoid the graze near the corner of Mitsuri’s lips when she kisses her in the early autumn sunlight.
-
The way Mitsuri watches her- it almost has her weak at the knees.
-
There’s a butterfly in the garden that orbits around a flower like it’s the sun, the centre of its universe, the only thing keeping it from spinning reckless off into space. Shinobu watches it, and knows the feeling all too well.
-
They don’t get much time together, but the time they do get, they make the most of.
In one of the rooms of the Butterfly Estate, window propped open to let in the springtime air, Shinobu kisses Mitsuri like she’s a lifeline, the only force holding her roots in the earth. She’s a breath of fresh air and something that scorches and burns and hurts all in one, and Shinobu wants every piece of it- while she has it, while she still can.
Mitsuri’s hands are somewhere in Shinobu’s hair, butterfly hairpiece abandoned upon the bedsheets. She’s warm and comforting, and Shinobu doesn’t think this small room with a garden view feels like home unless she’s in it.
She can hear her butterfly girls playing out in the garden, birdsong in the trees and spring bursting into life as the peach blossoms pull themselves out of their slumber and into full bloom- and Shinobu almost feels that anger that curls deep in her heart thaw away with it.
Mitsuri pulls away in surprise, leaving Shinobu’s head spinning in her wake. She opens her mouth, and inside there is a single wisteria petal- one that mustn't have been crushed properly, must have gotten caught between Shinobu’s teeth. It sits on the tip of Mitsuri’s tongue like a question, and Shinobu feels sick.
“How did that get there?” Mitsuri removes it and stares at it like she can’t quite believe her eyes, and it’s all Shinobu can do to stop herself from tearing it from her hands.
“Must have just come in from outside.” Shinobu can’t quite meet her eyes, but she can still tell Mitsuri doesn’t believe a word she says.
-
“Something tastes weird.” Mitsuri looks almost sad, and Shinobu feels her heart break just a little bit more.
“Ah,” She laughs, one of those fake laughs she knows Mitsuri can see right through. “Must be something I ate.”
-
Shinobu commandeers her own fate, yet Mitsuri’s smile almost makes her want to turn her back on everything she’s ever worked for.
-
She wonders sometimes, what it would be like if she were a little less stubborn, if Mitsuri loved the world a little less.
She’s not quite sure she knows the answer- but she likes to think they’d grow a garden together.
-
She faces that demon, with his cold, heartless smile- and lets all the ferocity of the summer sun consume her from the inside out.
-
It’s under the springtime blossoms that she takes her sister’s hand, and walks into the sunlight.
-
Mitsuri doesn’t receive the news until that impossible fortress breaks around her and she stumbles, broken and bleeding but alive into the sunrise. She asks after Shinobu- because she wants nothing more than to hold her, to cry into her arms because they won and it’s over.
The ones that are left tell her, quiet and subdued, because the crows never reached her, never told her.
Mitsuri cries, but no longer out of joy of being alive.
The wisteria trees of the Ubuyashiki estate are no longer there, wiped out along with the building itself, but she falls to the ground where they grew once, ashen petals and splinters of bark scattered upon the earth like fragments of something long gone, something lost.
The sun rises steadily above the treeline, and the first day of spring breaks above her.
-
She plants a peach tree in her garden- because spring had always been Shinobu’s favourite season.