Work Text:
Inosuke is pretty sure his mum is hanging out with the yakuza.
It’s nothing life-threatening, yet . She’s still happily going to work, talking to him, seeing the local yakuza, then coming home and resting up for the day. There is no concrete evidence that she is in association with the shady fan man who may or may not be a cannibal and into preying on pretty women! That’s dangerous! Mother is a bit all over the place and they are trying to reconnect. He may have been chilling with Grandfather at the temple ever since he’s young but it doesn’t mean he wants her to die horribly by munching.
It’s odd being worried for someone else’s safety. He usually doesn't bother. The people frequenting, unasked for, in his circle, are all very capable. They take care of people instead of the other way around. For the most part, Mother can very much handle herself. He’s not about to intervene in something that his mother can verily handle with much less flair and brandishing swords.
“But how do you know she’s,” Naho frowns, holding out her palm for him to place the needle in, thin and delicate in the harsh sunlight. “...associating with the yakuza?”
Inosuke turns a look to her, eyebrows pinched, as if she’s being an idiot to spite him.
Kanao almost swiped his head clean off with her bare hands, had he not swerved out of the way.
“Maybe,” he looks up at the sky for divine interruption. There’s none. “Because she went to the yakuza district and the guy had like, a billion yakuza tattoos?”
Aoi’s eyes are still frowning at him. “That’s not enough to go on. Kaigaku has tattoos. He’s not in the yakuza. I think.”
Inosuke doesn’t deign that with a response because there’s absolutely no confidence in her claims.
“What’s so wrong with the yakuza?” Sumi wonders, steering the half-finished work away from Aoi’s increasingly frantic ministrations, since she’ll put more holes than patch them in the knitted piece.
Inosuke stares at her. “Nothin'. I don’t care about ‘em. Just worried about me ma. She’s hanging out a real dangerous guy, and I heard bodies of women keep turnin’ up near his estate.”
At this, the other two girls pause, dead quiet. Even the clouds stop breathing for a hot second.
“I’m sorry,” Kanao smiles, somehow appearing to get incredibly Shinobu-esque in the press of her lips, “a lot of what turn up?”
.
It’s how Inosuke finds himself, perfectly free from wounds and scrapes and mortal danger, at the presence of not only a smiling Kanao, but a smiling Doctor Kochou. Like being stared down by a pair of ghostly twin fireballs in front of an inari shrine, he crouches in a defensive stance, ready to run when the need arises.
“Hashibira,” Shinobu smiles, a knife’s edge to her teeth, eyes closed. “Would you care for some tea?”
It wasn’t a question of courtesy. That’s a command. He has to take the tea.
“Kanao told me your Mother has been… keeping company with dangerous vagabonds of our society.” She continues, as bloodthirsty as one can be while smiling and brandishing a pot of green tea, as she expertly serves three cups of steaming and perfectly brewed tea for herself and the two of them there.
He takes a hasty sip, ignoring the scalding burn.
“Yeah. I don’t know his name, but she won’t let me come near the place and the guy’s barred from enterin’ our place, so I don’t got much on him. I tried followin’ her steps, but she’s quick and the meeting places always changes every coupla weeks or so. I only saw like, a side profile, but he has those yakuza markings and I deffo saw that face before on some wanted poster. I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but I just want me mam to be safe. Bodies turn up soon after she meets up with that guy and I don’t want her to be,” he swallows the tea, the leaves stuck in his throat. “- in trouble coz of ‘em.”
Dr Kochou stops smiling for a while, putting a pause on her reign of terror, while she spares him a single assessing look. She’s ruthlessly protective of her sister and the kids she adopted into the research medical facility she keeps here at the Kochou ancestral grounds and most of the time prefers to wear a benevolent smile of sheer blood lust to scare people off. A capable doctor, she likes pragmatism just as much as she likes people with an ambition to protect their own - it must be why she’s so fond of the oldest pair of Kombucha kids.
“You,” she declares, eyes glinting with something that could be akin to approval. “I like you.”
He shudders. “Yeah, don’t need it. Why am I here?”
Kanao looks to her - adopted sister? Aunt? Mother? Guardian - Who knows. He can't care less. She’s a ward of the Kochou clan and Inosuke doesn’t care enough about fostering laws to pry into the intricacies of her past. As long as he can run faster than her in hurdles, then their acquaintanceship can stop there.
“Why did you take him here, Kanao?” Shinobu turns to her, eyes gentler. Inosuke felt vivisected like a fish on a science practical lab, but Kanao is treated like fine china, carried in a crate with a billion bubble wrap and cotton balls, her entire being too precious and pure for this mortal world, even if she has deadly accurate aim and had nearly killed a fly in midair by flinging her pacer at it from the third story at school.
Kanao fidgets for about three seconds before she caves in. “I thought that since we have a common ground, we can all work together. For Kanae.”
Shinobu’s pat to her head is teasing. “It’s sister. Come on, you can say it. Sis-ter.”
Inosuke wrinkles his nose in distaste and starts to steal Kanao’s cup of untouched tea that she placed back on the table, swirling the tea leaves at the bottom and upending the thin ceramic cup, slamming it back down when he’s done. The leaves clump together still at the bottom, and he squints as he holds them to the light, attempting to read what’s in his future.
“Whatcha doing, brat?” Shinobu’s voice brings him back to the present. He can see, like, a bunch of butterflies, but he doesn’t know what’s up with that. Aren’t those like, harbingers of death or something bad? Is he about to die?
Or worse, is Mother going to be hurt?
“Staring at the bottom of your cup,” he places the cup gently on the table surface. “What’s the verdict?”
“Hmm,” she hums, then grins, crooked, eyes uneven. He likes this look more than the usual ‘I will feed on your intestines’ look. “You can play on our side after you get to know where your mother is meeting this yakuza member next.”
He stands, snorting. “I’m already doin' that.”
Shinobu smiles back, beaming with murderous intent. “Good. Be on your way. Kanao will be our liaison.”
He tips his head - only to Kanao, because he only ever acknowledges rightful adversaries at his departure - before bowing to the good doctor, because he can’t die before he gets to the bottom of this deal with his mother. She’ll be heartbroken. Also he doesn’t want to anger Kochou Shinobu. That just seems like a terrible idea.
Kanao lifts her hand in goodbye, one hand brushing over her lucky coin. He sees himself out by the side gate.
.
Getting more information from Mother is...suspiciously easier than he thought.
They do get along quite well, but not in a deep, emotional connection that other mothers and sons seem to be hopping on the wavelength of. It’s not superficial or perfected in the least - Inosuke has his temper and mother is stubborn to a fault, both of them terrible communicators - but they try their best. It’s good that they’re honest to one another a lot of the times, so no offence is ever taken at face value when they’re talking.
He’s always been a curious child. He asks about where she hangs out, volunteered information about himself serving as a bargaining chip. He tells her about Benitsu. Kamakos. The Butterfly Estate girls. Terrifying teachers at school. How he’s doing in kendo. How he’s thinking of joining kyudo too, after seeing Tanjiro to practice.
In exchange for this barrage of information, she tells him about her job. Where she goes when she’s feeling overwhelmed. She tells him about a friend of hers - Douma - who she seeks out when she’s having a hard time and doesn’t want to burden Inosuke about her thoughts. He protests, because what’s the point of being a family if they can’t tell each other things they’re going through.
"You're a good kid, Inosuke," Mother pats the side of his head, bangs growing longer and more unruly the longer he lets his hair be. "I will be going to that marketplace, the one behind the newly reconstructed town hall, this Thursday. Be good at home, okay?"
Little does she know, the minute they finished gossiping, that he's using his phone for the first time that week to send a text to Cocoa.
Oi Thursday at the marketplace behind town hall, tell Shinobu
Her reply is instantaneous -
It's Doctor Kochou, Hashibira
He snorts. Tomayto tomahto, Cocoa beans.
She doesn't respond, but he can bet on all his fencing gear that she is contemplating whether she should kill him when she sees him next or not with that guillotine coin flip of hers.
Thursday comes, and Shinobu marches into Kimetsu, lab cost billowing like a cap in the wind. Inosuke is trying to goad Zetsu into doing a backflip down the stairs with Kokoro yelling at him to stop peer pressuring Zenitsu, he’s going to cry and hurt himself!
With an expert hand in handling unruly children, Dr Kouchou removes Benitsu from danger, has him by the collar of his school shirt and hauls Cocoa off to see Miss Kochou, footsteps deadly silent in the otherwise rambunctious hallway full of running kids.
The teacher is overlooking her lesson plans for the week when she notes the three intruders, setting aside her work, eyes benevolent. This kindness is genuine and is not wielded like an intimidation tactic. Inosuke immediately bows, because he wasn't raised in a barn.
"Ma'am," he coughs. Kanao turns her eyes down at him. "What."
She turns away. Inosuke pulls a face that shouldn't be shown in the company of polite, upstanding adults of society.
"Sister, this is about the rat," the Doctor speaks over his head, right to Miss Kochou. "We can mobilise, surround him today."
The teacher shakes her head. "No, Shinobu. This is much too dangerous. Stay put."
Inosuke flinches. "Fuck is this, the SAT?"
The Doctor flicks her eyes down at him, a smile curving. She looks back up at her sister, bowing. "Shush now, brat."
The good news is - There is a plan. Unauthorised and illegal, but there exists a Plan.
The bad news is - The plan includes his participation. See previous point about illegality and lack of authorisation.
"Seriously, what are you lot," he snaps as Sumi aggressively dresses him in another outfit. Kanao is shaking her head as Aoi tuts, flinging a brush at Naho. Inosuke is trapped. This is a cursed existence. He is doing this for his mother.
"Don't talk when you're in," Kanao threatens him. Aoi shakes a loose fist.
"Only observe, yeah, yeah, I know." He rolls his eyes. He is under twelve thousand layers of makeup and powder and dresses. "Who's going in with me?"
"Naho. Don't lose her." Sumi frowns immediately. "We trust you."
"To do what?"
Naho does not explain, only drags him in the car and they are driven off to fuck-knows. Fancy private nouveau riche place. Minimalist building. Shiny, pretty ladies flow out from car doors. Only pretty ladies are permitted entrance. The dresses make sense now. They are told to leave their possessions before entering the grand ballroom. Naho roves her eyes around, marking the space. Inosuke clomps beside her, the slight height on the shoes uncomfortable. People don't yell when he comes by them. They have a kind of glazed look, all of them. He squints. Hang on.
"They on drugs or what," he hisses to Naho who shushes him.
They are on drugs. This is a drug cartel. Why are they in a drug cartel?
"Let's split up," she detaches herself from him. He bites back a yell. No! We had one job! To not do that!
But she's very fast on heels and this dress has straps and all. He struggles to coordinate everything to be cohesive, looks up, poof, no more Naho.
He swears, clomps around heavily in heels until he hears a familiar tinkling laugh. Wait. Wait hang on a mo -
Inosuke and Mother make sudden, violent eye contact across the hall, where she hangs off the arm of a dude with gross tinted hair and abnormal eyes. He has yakuza tattoos. Inosuke turns away, bolts into the cloak room. A while later, someone comes in. That's Mother. She's coming in. Inosuke comes out of hiding, throwing his heels away, one at a time. Mother is frazzled, her makeup and jewellery immaculate, as she whirls down to him.
They simultaneously burst out at one another -
He hisses - “What are you doing here?”
She hisses back - “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to get you out!”
“I’m here to keep you out!”
A noise like the keen of a dying cow erupts from both of their throats. No wonder they're related.
"It is dangerous." Mother murmurs to him, eyes agitated. "What were you thinking, running headfirst into these places?"
He makes an affronted noise. "I could say the same for you?!"
"This is work, Inosuke."
"Hah, kinda work d'you even do, ma? Come on, let's leave."
She pulls away as he advances. They have the same steel in their eyes. He knows she won't exit without a whole scene.
"Seriously?" He groans. "Fine, I'll come with. Get this done and leave."
"You really shouldn't be here, Inosuke," her mouth twists in worry. "It's dangerous."
"Again, pot, kettle."
She appears by his elbow, soundless, clipping on an ear cuff onto his lobe, sliding a ring over his thumb. Mother breathes out, steadying herself.
"Be good. Make a scene only when I tell you to."
"Make a - wait, why, ma?!"
She winks. He makes a scene, throwing his heels at a champagne fountain, splintering a thousand flutes onto fancy floorboards before beating his chest, whooping as he dives headfirst into the fondue cart. Naho's panicked shriek tells him she's not dead at least, with vague shapes of people moving in, tackling guests. Inosuke screams as his mother is seized and pointed at with a sharp dish shard at her throat. He jumps, no thoughts, at the offender. Another shape also jumps. Mother tells them no, don't do that!
In the aftermath of everything, Dr Kochou is picking Kanao and Inosuke off the unconscious body of Douma, second in command to the notorious yakuza boss, Muzan. Inosuke cannot overstate how much he doesn't care about gangsters and their hierarchy, he's here to accomplish an objective, he's done his job. He's going home.
"Splendid job, Agent Hashibira." The Doctor informs his mother, who vacillates between frowning down at him and smiling at the Butterfly girls.
"Indeed," Miss Kochou enters next, with the Mayor Ubuyashiki. "Our many thanks. Even if you did defy orders to stand by."
"Whoops," the Doctor shrugs, zero remorse. "Our bad." Her sister rolls her eyes.
"You must be Inosuke," the Mayor greets him. Kanao stiffens off to the side. Oh come now. Inosuke can behave. Probably.
"Yes," he grits out. "Sir," he tacks on, because he wasn't raised in a barn.
"Would you like a ride back?" The Mayor continues to speak in that mild amused tone. Inosuke tips back his head, makes eye contact with Mother.
"No offense, sir, I'd like to walk with me ma. We got a lot of talkin' to cover."
"No offense felt, young one. I will see you later, Agent," he bows, a perfect gentleman, before escorting the young Butterfly girls to the proposed drive out somewhere.
"So," he prompts. "Yer a SAT or somethin'?"
Mother laughs, looping a hand through his elbow. They're both walking barefoot.
"Or something," she tells him, eyes twinkling.