Chapter Text
“Kochou Kanae encountered Upper Moon Two on her patrol last night.”
The news comes at the break of dawn, courtesy of a fully-armed Stone Pillar. There’s leftover blood that drips from the flail end of his weapon. The way it was burning away in the meager sunlight tells Sanemi that it did not come from a human.
He swallows thickly. “And…?”
Himejima puts his hands together. It’s not the usual clatter of his wooden prayer beads that resound with the impact of his palms, but the tinkle of battle chains. Tears spill over his blinded eyes as he recites from impressive memory what was presumably the unofficial diagnosis of the first-aid kakushi.
A dislocated shoulder. A few or more broken ribs along the left oblique of her torso. While they had managed to pop the arm back into its socket no problem, it was uncertain if a lung had been punctured by one of the ribs. The way she had been coughing up blood, however, was probably an indication that it was. There was a sheen of thin ice coated along the shattered blade and hilt of her sword. Telltale signs of a superficial frostbite were scattered all over her hands. Freeze burns coated her chest and face in patches, and every inch of her skin was more frigid than a corpse’s.
But all of that was nothing compared to the state of her legs. Both feet and ankles were split open, soaking red that the black of her tabi socks couldn’t even hide. Some of her toes had been discolored, others swollen to twice their usual thicknesses. Several grotesque, gaping holes had been punched through the muscle in her right calf, and any part of the skin that wasn’t punctured or covered in blood was hideously purple.
“Icicles,” one of the few surviving lower-rank slayers had said through her tears. “It’s all my fault. I couldn’t move. If Flower Pillar-sama didn’t shield me, I would have died. It’s all my fault…”
Himejima and some of Kanae’s tsuguko, including her younger sister Shinobu, had been deployed as soon as Kanae’s crow came screeching. By the time they arrived, the sun was just a few minutes away from rising and the demon was already gone.
There wasn’t much to do at this point, but to wait and see. At least she had a chance. If the reinforcements hadn’t gotten there on time… If the sun wasn’t on the verge of rising…
Sanemi feels his hands shaking.
“There will be a meeting with The Master and the other Pillars soon,” Himejima continues. “Very few know of her condition, but I thought you should be informed. You were fond of her.”
Sanemi’s embarrassment pales in comparison to the dead weight that settles at the pit of his stomach. The irregular choice of tense does not escape his notice.
“Himejima-san…will she make it?”
“Visit the Butterfly Mansion,” the Stone Pillar deflects. “Have some words ready before it’s too late.”
True to Himejima’s message, the next Pillar meeting is impromptu, called later that same afternoon. Despite the urgency of the meeting, all Pillars arrive already somewhat debriefed about the situation. The atmosphere is heavy when The Master himself enters the room.
Kuina or Kanata or one of The Master’s other daughters (Sanemi can never tell them apart) is holding a small stack of papers.
“These are reports from the surviving slayers who had been fighting Upper Moon 2 alongside Kanae,” Ubuyashiki explains to the Pillars. “Kanata, if you would please.”
At her father’s bidding, the young girl reads aloud a terse report on the demon’s appearance, the Tessenjutsu combat style it employed with dual metal fans, and what little information they got about its blood demon art. Many of the injuries Sanemi had heard about from Himejima start to make sense.
Ubuyashiki rubs his chin thoughtfully. “That does sound like the Upper Moon 2 described in my family’s records. The blood demon art is new to me, however.”
“To my recollection, Upper Moon 2’s appearances are rare,” Himejima remarks.
“That is correct,” Ubuyashiki nods. “It hasn’t been mobile since my great-grandfather’s time. In comparison, we’ve lost two Water Pillars to Upper Moon 3 in the span of just five years, and that was during my father’s time. Even Upper Moon 1 had a more extensive record of activity.”
“I say it’s not just the upper ranks,” Uzui asserts, crossing his embellished arms. “You won’t believe the number of kills I made just this week. Feels like even the Lower Moons are being replaced more often than usual.”
“I can vouch for that too,” Tomioka’s quiet voice agrees from the back of the room.
“This would not be the first time Kibutsuji has gotten impatient,” Himejima mutters, his beads gently clacking as he presses his hands together in a prayer. “Whatever he is up to, he grows ever more desperate.”
Ubuyashiki’s lips form a tight smile and he scans the room of Pillars through his one seeing eye.
“Well then. We will just have to be more prepared.”
The meeting with The Master adjourns with orders to increase the surveillance frequencies of the Pillars and higher-ranking slayers. The aim was to try and cover as much area as possible. With the current number of members in the Corps, that meant everyone would have to wear themselves thin with more traveling and less sleeping.
But with news of the Flower Pillar’s battle spreading like wildfire, no one dared complain about the extra work.
On one of his own patrols, Sanemi collides with a small body half his size. It takes him a solid few seconds to recognize it as Himari, one of the reinforcements who had been sent with the Stone Pillar to aid in that fight. The only tsuguko besides Shinobu who had seen what their teacher—eldest sister—looked like in the…aftermath.
She gives Sanemi a respectful bow. “Good evening, Wind Pillar-sama.”
“Hey,” he manages. “…are you doing okay?”
Himari nods twice and says that she is, but her amber eyes are dim. Sanemi says nothing about it. He knows from experience that it would take more than just words to bring that kind of light back.
“What about Shinobu?” he asks instead. “Where has she been?”
“Next to Kochou-sama all day.”
“And night?”
Himari nods tepidly. “And night.”
“I see,” Sanemi sighs, letting his feet trudge in the direction of his patrol path because all of a sudden, he didn’t want to hear any more. “Well, stay safe out there.”
“She’s sleeping,” Himari says.
“Who? Shinobu?”
“Flower Pillar-sama.”
Sanemi stops.
“…did she ever wake up?”
Himari doesn’t respond for a long moment. Finally, she shrugs, and the movement is a bit too shaky to come off as aloof.
“She’s breathing.”
Over the course of the next several days, there aren’t any updates regarding the Flower Pillar’s condition. If the injuries are as grave as the reports had said, it would not be impossible for her to have been asleep the entire time.
Lately, Sanemi finds himself staring at the ugly scars that crawled up along his arms and cut across his face and chest. Some were self-inflicted and all were well-deserved, but none were as deep as the injuries Kanae had supposedly sustained.
Why was it that the kindest of people tended to get the worst of what the world had to offer?
Sanemi steers clear from the Butterfly Mansion, doesn’t even go to the infirmary when he should. He isn’t sure if he’s brave enough to. Not when he'd have to see the faces of the young butterfly girls Kanae would be orphaning if she did end up…
There’s a daily obituary posted just outside of The Master’s garden. It’s something Sanemi normally wouldn’t cross within a ten-meter distance, but for some reason, he starts to scan it regularly for one familiar name. There’s a huge relief that washes over his nerves every time he doesn’t see it on there. He still refuses to get his hopes up.
Most mornings are spent staring at a blank piece of parchment with a brush pen poised between trembling fingers. So much time had passed since Himejima told him to have some words ready and Sanemi still can’t find them.
Kochou Shinobu has all but disappeared.
The exhaustion of making several long-distance journeys back-to-back completely escapes Sanemi. With a steady rise in demon encounters, he finds himself the busiest he’s ever been in years, reaching what he usually considered to be a month’s quota of kills in just under a week.
He slays his second ever Lower Moon 1 with ease. There are a few ravaged buildings near the center of the village, where the demon had concentrated its attack, but there weren’t any casualties.
He doesn’t dwell on the possibility that if he was as strong back then as he is now, then maybe—just maybe—Masachika would still be alive.
Pajama-clad residents emerge from their houses to express their deepest gratitude to the Wind Pillar. One elderly lady is kind enough to gift him with a bag of dried remedial herbs. She proceeds to explain what they are used for, but Sanemi already recognizes them, being key ingredients in the okayu porridge his mother used to make whenever he or his siblings caught a bad flu. It took a certain level of skill to dry and preserve them in a way that would make them last years, but once done correctly, they made for an effective healing meal.
Sanemi accepts the bag and departs the village. His mind races with old memories of a family he couldn't save, and his arm burns with the urge to just throw the bag away somewhere. But he also could not bring himself to waste the efforts of a kind woman for his own cowardice.
By the time he’s made his mind up about getting rid of the bag, he’s already in front of his doorstep. He deposits it on his kitchen table and departs to complete the last third of his patrol for the night.
He sees Kanzaki Aoi around sometimes, hurriedly running off to somewhere, someplace most wouldn’t know. Sanemi does though: a certain shop 20 minutes away by foot, to purchase ingredients to make whatever medicines they need for the patients in their infirmary. Nowadays though, it seems like those trips have become as frequent as his own patrols.
He knows the reason for that too.
Maybe he could have continued on with his way and avoided anything Butterfly, like he’d been doing the past couple weeks. But today, he sees her uncharacteristically frazzled twin pigtails and her abnormally anxious footsteps. The sun was angled in just the perfect way to show just how deathly pallid her face had become, depressingly unfit for a girl just shy of thirteen.
Sanemi chooses not to avoid today.
“Oh! Shinazugawa-sama, hello!” Aoi exclaims, out of breath, as she turns to greet the approaching Wind Pillar. Sanemi winces when she stumbles a bit over her own feet as she bows.
“Didn’t you already get your stuff today?”
Aoi blinks. “I am…surprised you know. But I am going for Kochou-sama this time.”
She smoothes down the front of her apron with a frustrated sigh and looks up, squinting at the grey clouds that have just begun to roll in. “This is actually my third time going to the shop today. I…did not have enough money with me, apparently. I do not understand why the owner has become so unreasonable with his bargains lately. I am trying to practice keeping my temper under control, too…”
“Let’s go.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s go have a little chat with this owner. You and me.”
“Oh Shinazugawa-sama, you really do not have to. I can handle—wait, wait just a second please!” Aoi calls out to Sanemi, who had already begun walking. “Do you even know the way to the shop??”
Sanemi did, because he’d (anonymously) sent some kakushi there on behalf of the infirmary several times before. But the Butterfly girls don’t know that, and they never will as far as he’s concerned, so he waits for Aoi to catch up and lead the way.
As much as Sanemi wanted to avoid, he knows full well he wouldn't just sit quietly if something was standing in the way of the Flower Pillar’s slimmest chance of recovery. Unreasonable shopkeep or bloodthirsty demon be damned.
By the time they head out of the shop, carrying a boatload of supplies that they’d successfully haggled for at half their original price, the clouds overhead have condensed, transforming the sky from a delicate silver to an oppressive slate gray. Just a dozen steps later, Sanemi feels the first few droplets on his face. A couple dozen more after that, it begins to pour. Aoi mutters a soft curse before instantly turning to him with wide eyes and hurriedly apologizing for her foul language. He didn’t blame her; he’d had worse words in his mind.
Sanemi swiftly removes his haori and covers the supplies with it to protect them from the water. Aoi does the same with her nurse apron, and they resume the trip back home.
When they arrive at the Butterfly mansion, there are dutiful kakushi waiting for them with umbrellas just outside the front gate. Sanemi, who had no plans to step inside even to properly unload the medical supplies into the infirmary, is saved from needing to prepare some kind of excuse.
The kakushi rush over to the pair to take the supplies from their arms and give them each their own umbrella to use. Sanemi refuses his, seeing little utility in the thing when he’s already drenched from head to toe. When the kakushi are out of the way, there is another, tinier silhouette waiting by the front gates in the shape of one Tsuyuri Kanao. She donned a thick hanten jacket over her usual pink attire and held her own massive umbrella upright with both her hands.
Something nudges Sanemi’s bicep from the right. Aoi was extending a small parcel out towards him.
“What’s this?”
“Your usual supplies, Shinazugawa-sama,” she explains. The rainwater had left her bangs plastered miserably to her forehead. “You have not visited us in…well…quite a while. Not that I do not trust you to be capable of…seeking medical attention if you require it.” She eyes warily at his exposed forearms, which have accumulated fresh scars in the last week.
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Would you like to stay inside and wait until the rain lifts up a little?” Aoi offers, using her now free hand to wring out some water in her pigtails. “After all your help, I would hate to be the cause of any cold you might catch. I can prepare tea for you.”
“Not necessary. Thanks. Again.”
Sometime in the midst of their conversation, Kanao had quietly placed herself directly next to Sanemi, who flinches at her sudden appearance. She stood on the tips of her toes, trying to cover the top of his head with her own umbrella. Despite the impeccable balance she’d developed while training as a Flower Pillar tsuguko, Sanemi bows down to make her job easier, if only by a little.
“Kanao-san,” Aoi addresses her. “What are you doing outside? Have you finished speaking to Kochou-sama?”
Kanao nods, changing nothing in her stoic expression.
Aoi turns her gaze to Sanemi with a taut smile on her lips.
“Kanao-san talks to Kochou-sama every day and every night. Even though she…has not awoken yet,” Aoi explains. “I have never seen her so talkative before.”
Sanemi cannot remember the last time he has genuinely smiled, but this time, one comes to his lips easily. He reaches out to pat the top of Kanao’s head before retracting it, remembering that his hand was covered in rainwater. Kanao’s gaze follows his hand, head tilted slightly in confusion.
“That’s very thoughtful for you to do,” he tells her in what he hopes is an encouraging tone. “Even if she can’t hear you right now, she’ll definitely appreciate that someone is talking to her.”
“She hears me,” the girl says. From the corner of his eye, Sanemi catches Aoi startle. “I know she can.”
Her tone held a conviction so strong, Sanemi almost believes it himself. At first, his eyes search for the unmistakable shape of a coin clutched somewhere in her hands, but they were already occupied with the umbrella, and her outerwear had no visible pockets.
Clearly, Kanao did not need the arbitrary outcome of a mere coin to tell her that her big sister would be alright. And Sanemi shouldn’t either.
“You’re right,” he replies. “Of course she can.”
Just under two weeks since Upper Moon 2, Kochou Kanae finally regains consciousness.
Excitement ripples across the entire Corps. As it does, Shinobu finally makes an appearance outside the Butterfly Mansion.
She looks terrible. Her cropped hair, usually swept back neatly by a single butterfly pin, now falls over her face in haphazard chunks. Her eyes are red and she clearly looked exhausted.
But she was indisputably happy.
Sanemi watches as various members of the Corps swarm around her for the latest news of their beloved Flower Pillar. Shinobu wears an unbreakable smile as she addresses each inquiry with a patience she is normally not known for. Some rumors get confirmed, others are denied (vehemently), and the rest are left ambiguous still.
Yes, there’s something wrong with her lungs.
Yes, her fever is still at an all-time high.
No, she is not ready to see anyone just yet.
“But she’s alive,” Shinobu sighs, blinking away fresh tears. “Shinazugawa-san, my sister is alive.”
And with that, for the first time in a long while, the world feels like it’s in motion again.
He is pursuing an errant demon when a chained, orange-tinted kusarigama blade shoots past his head and buries itself into the thing’s neck. The chain goes taut, and Sanemi has only a split second to roll out of the way as the demon’s screeching body is yanked straight back in his direction.
“Folks in the West say ‘run like the wind’, as if it’s supposed to be fast,” the Sound Pillar comments with a smirk. He twists his blade and severs the demon’s head with a sickening pop.
“Shouldn’t you be demon-fishing somewhere else?” Sanemi demands, brushing dirt off his haori. “This is my area.”
Uzui quickly executes a sequence of flashy, unnecessary movements with his dual swords before stopping at a dramatic pose. His palm covers the lower half of his face, fingers spread far apart for everyone in the whole world to marvel at his multicolored nails.
Sanemi does not marvel with them.
“Alas, my wives insisted that I consult you for some advice regarding our lovely Flower Pillar colleague,” Uzui continues. Sanemi frowns, confused. “We’re planning to go see her soon, but no visit of good meaning is complete without gifts! It’s unbecoming of the God of Festivities.”
He releases his pose and simply crosses his arms, giving Sanemi a toothy smile. “Tell me. As her closest friend, Shinazugawa, what kinds of things does she like?”
“I’m patrolling. And so should you. Can’t this wait until later?” Sanemi hisses, refusing to give any thought at being described as Kanae’s ‘closest friend’.
“Of course,” Uzui says, patting the Wind Pillar’s back so hard he nearly topples over. “Until tomorrow, in fact. We’ll be stopping by your place for lunch, where we could have a nice uninterrupted brainstorming session about the most extravagant gifts.”
Without waiting for Sanemi’s indignant spluttering to coalesce into a coherent response, Uzui sticks out his tongue and jogs up ahead.
“Don’t be late~!”
True to his word, Uzui shows up promptly at midday with two of his wives in tow. Suma greets Sanemi excitedly, bowing at an enthusiastic 90 degrees while proclaiming that it was good to see him well. Hinatsuru bids him a much calmer good afternoon, which Sanemi mirrors stiffly.
“Where is…where is Makio-san?” Sanemi asks, trying to be polite despite the intrusion and his impending headache.
Uzui waves his hand. “Busy with a personal mission. Don’t worry about it.”
With the dining table gathering dust and occupied by various clutter that Sanemi hadn’t bothered to sort out in weeks, they move to the main common room and sit on floor. In spite of their forcefully-scheduled visit, he apologizes for not having anything prepared in advance. The Uzui family did not seem to mind.
Hinatsuru, in fact, offers to prepare the tea as long as Sanemi tells her where the ingredients are placed. He refuses, rising up from his own seat to set it all up himself, but Hinatsuru gives him a surprisingly firm push on his shoulder which sends him straight back to the floor.
Right. Trained kunoichi.
“I have little to do in this conversation anyway,” she reassures him with a kind, but no-nonsense smile. “It was all Suma’s wonderful idea, after all.”
Before Sanemi could protest further, Hinatsuru pads along to the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves. When he looks to Uzui, the Sound Pillar merely shrugs, no comment.
“We just wanted to get some good get-well-soon gift ideas for Kochou-san!” Suma exclaims, beaming from Hinatsuru’s praise. “I heard some people are even trying to coordinate their visits to the Butterfly Mansion. Have you gone yet, Shinazugawa-san?”
“I–no. No…not yet,” Sanemi mumbles, looking down at his scarred arms folded over his lap. Of course he wanted to go. He’d been deliberately counting the number of days (three) since Shinobu had announced that she was well enough to receive guests. It wasn’t like he was too busy or didn’t have the chance to visit.
And yet, something was clearly holding him back.
Once, long before…Upper Moon 2 happened, he’d run into the Flower Pillar at the mountainside gravesite on his way back down from visiting Masachika. Kanae had had a jar full of incense sticks in one hand and a wide basket of hydrangeas balanced so expertly on the other, it was clear this was far from the first time she’d made this trip.
He’d asked her, anyway, if she visited often. She’d nodded solemnly.
“Though nowhere near as often as The Master, unfortunately,” she’d said, dark shadows in her rose eyes despite the gentle—always so gentle—smile on her lips. “These people weren’t just colleagues and patients of mine, but dear friends too.”
They’d continued to talk as they made their way to the gravesite, Sanemi retracing his steps back up the stairs with her basket of hydrangeas on his shoulder.
“Did you know, Shinazugawa-kun? Many of our friends here don’t have anyone left to grieve them.”
Of course. They all had the same story. It was what brought them all to the Corps in the first place.
“That’s why you’re doing it instead?” he’d asked.
“Someone’s got to preserve their memories, after all. I’m one of the lucky few to have so many loved ones still here with me today. The least I could do is share some of that warmth with them as their souls move on.”
And when she’d turned to smile at him, for the briefest moment, Sanemi had felt he was taking too much of it himself.
Once they’d reached the site, Kanae mourned freely as she made her way through the tombs, carefully placing one hydrangea and a lit-up stick of incense before each grave she passed. She’d prayed for the fallen and whispered softly about how much she missed this person’s jokes or that person’s advice.
At Masachika’s grave, she’d pushed the flower and incense into Sanemi’s hands and encouraged him to pray with her. As Sanemi placed the tributes on the grave per Kanae’s instruction, he could practically imagine his friend laughing at him from beyond the stars, gleefully accepting the respects he’d paid twice that same day.
Just a week ago, he had truly believed that moment would be his last one ever with the Flower Pillar.
Just mere days ago, he'd even finally managed to find the words Himejima had told him to find. Grief had emboldened him to write all the things he could never say.
Upon hearing about her awakening, he’d promptly shredded that parchment to pieces, face burning with delayed onset shame. Kanae was alive, and that was all that mattered. His thoughts and feelings, no matter how much more profoundly they’d grown in her absence, wouldn’t help her in any capacity.
Because he knows she does not feel the same way of him.
In the subsequent discussion with the Uzui family, gift ideas are proposed, supported, refuted, and replaced left and right. Suma had brought with her a few pieces of parchment and a (diamond-studded) ink pen to transcribe almost everything that is mentioned. Sanemi, failing still to see the significance of this meeting, lets her and her husband do most of the talking, occasionally responding with a curt opinion of his own, but only when prompted.
“How about some flowers?” Uzui asks, adjusting the (diamond-studded) headband on his head. He looks to Suma and nudges her gently with his elbow. “You like flowers. They’re good, right? We can get Kanae-chan the most flamboyant flowers from all around this neighborhood.”
“You can’t assume she likes flowers just because she’s the Flower Pillar, Tengen-sama,” Hinatsuru answers patiently, smoothly rejoining the party with a tray of four teacups. “I think we need to be more thoughtful.”
Sanemi recalls the multiple shelves of exotic plants and flowers lined up against all four walls of Kanae’s private office in the infirmary. Surely, Uzui was being thoughtful enough.
Seeing his chance to end this conversation and have everyone leave so that he could finally train for the rest of the day, Sanemi is about to say as much when Hinatsuru speaks again.
“I took the liberty of cleaning up your dining table too, Shinazugawa-san,” she says, passing him a mug of tea from the tray. “There was a bag of dried herbs on there. May I ask where you got it from?”
Sanemi accepts the cup with a frown. “Bag of herbs?”
“Yes! With ginger and shiso. I think I smelled a bit of mitsuba in there as well.”
Recollection finally dawns on the Wind Pillar. “A present I got from a villager during a mission some time ago.”
Uzui smiles over the edge of his own mug. “A ‘present’, huh? You girls think Kanae-chan would appreciate something like herbs?”
Hinatsuru casts a knowing smile back at her husband.
Suma claps her hands together. “We can cook her lots of food to help her get better! But I think it will have to be something that is easy to eat.”
“Soup?” Hinatsuru suggests. “Miso soup does usually taste better with some myoga in it.”
“Or porridge,” Sanemi mumbles, cradling his tea. Everyone turns to look at him, expectantly, but Sanemi doesn’t feel the need to elaborate. The women are smart and far more experienced cooks than he, so they could probably figure things out themselves.
Uzui downs the rest of his tea in one swoop and slaps his knee. “Then it’s settled. Tell me where this village is, Shinazugawa. First thing tomorrow, I’ll go and get us a batch. I wonder if that villager is regularly selling it as merchandise. Say, if I asked them to get me the ‘same bag of herbs you gifted to a white-haired, scarred freak with scary eyes some time ago’, would they recognize my request?”
Sanemi rolls his “scary eyes” and shakes his head. “That village is three days away with Total Concentration. You can just take the bag on my table.” He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly feeling a little sheepish. “It’s a little old, but preserved quite well. I didn’t use any of it.”
Suma bursts into a long prattle of gratitude while Hinatsuru merely bows to him once more, a thankful grin on her face. Uzui gives him a wide smirk and a thumbs-up. He rises from his seat with Suma and together, they waddle off into the kitchen to collect their gift.
“We’re indebted to you, Shinazugawa,-san,” Hinatsuru says, bowing once more. “We’ll be sure to tell Kochou-san of your generosity.”
“You don’t have to. It’s nothing,” Sanemi shrugs, looking away.
“Yes, I suppose you would be preparing your own gifts too,” she laughs. Then she schools her expression into something more sober. “Be sure to visit her soon. No one survives a life-threatening demon attack as bad as what she’d gone through and comes back…well, the same. Kochou-san and her family have always supported the Corps to their best abilities. If she sees just how many of us are here to support her in return, I’m sure she would be very touched.”
Again, Sanemi shrugs, though not feeling as nonchalant as the first time. And Hinatsuru must sense it somehow, for her gaze turns into a keen vigilance.
He knew she was right. Kanae relied on the Corps as much as it relied on her. And rely on her it did, as the proud and elegant Flower Pillar and the kind and patient chief physician. Because her selflessness allowed her take on far more responsibility than any one person should, and her sense of duty allowed her carry it all without a word of complaint.
So much wiser and stronger in ways that Sanemi was not.
Now, he’s not sure what might have changed after Upper Moon 2.
No one survives a life-threatening demon attack as bad as what she’d gone through and comes back…well, the same.
Perhaps that’s what was holding him back. The fear of not knowing what to expect. And…of what he might do if he couldn’t reconcile who she was before to the way she is now. Whatever that meant.
And so, here he sat, finding comfort in his usual routines and making up selfish excuses to delay visiting her just to protect his pride.
And maybe, his heart too.
But this wasn’t about him. It never should have been.
“I’ll go tomorrow,” he amends. Resolves.
Hinatsuru nods, finally satisfied. Together, they join the other Uzuis in the kitchen.
Six days after Kochou Kanae had regained consciousness, Sanemi enters the Butterfly Mansion.
Yes. Six days. Because contrary to what he’d promised to Hinatsuru (and himself), he did not, in fact, “go tomorrow”.
A much fresher-looking Shinobu leads him not into the common infirmary room he’s used to, but to the private interiors of the mansion itself.
“About time you showed up,” Shinobu pouts. “All the other Pillars have already visited Nee-san more than once. I honestly thought you’d be lining up to see her first.”
Sanemi frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Shinobu just shakes her head and comes to a halt before one of the many identical rooms. She raps her knuckles against the closed door. After a long moment, there’s a sharp jingle of bells from the inside, and she enters.
The room is fully immersed in all sorts of get-well gifts, assorted books, bowls of colorful exotic fish, and (lots of) flowers. There’s a miniature foldable table with a large soup bowl on top and an empty ceramic cup next to it. The windows are closed and the curtains are drawn.
Kanae is dressed down to a simple kimono and the odd bulkiness of it over her frame indicated the presence of heavy bandages underneath. Her massive volume of hair had been tied into a messy sokugami bun. Cloth masks the bottom half of her face, which was still visibly puffy, and her skin is flushed from hypothermic fever. Her breathing sounded incredibly labored behind the mask, and her back is propped up by a slab of wood leaning at an incline against the wall.
She doesn’t look as ghastly as Sanemi had feared. But that probably had to do with the blankets that were hiding her legs—which, he recalls, had taken the worst of the damage—from view.
If there even existed a merciful God for demonkind, then let it forbid Sanemi from ever crossing paths with Upper Moon 2 in the future. At his hands, it would suffer thousands of times worse than the amount the Flower Pillar was suffering right now.
Kanae’s eyes upturn into familiar miniature crescents when she sees Sanemi at the door, and he knows there’s a gentle smile hiding behind the mask. All the cowardly excuses that he’d used to justify the postponing of his visit melt away immediately, and he suddenly feels ridiculous for making them in the first place.
Shinobu strides into Kanae’s room and parts the curtains, sending a flood of light into the dim space. Then she adjusts the slab of wood to a more comfortable position, and tucks some loose strands of hair behind her sister’s ears.
“You can come inside, you know,” Shinobu calls over to Sanemi, who’s still standing frozen in the halls. “Don’t be afraid of catching Nee-san’s cold.”
“I’m not,” Sanemi snaps, taking two small steps into the room before sitting cross-legged. After a moment’s reconsideration, he folds his legs into a more respectful seiza.
After she’s finished adjusting Kanae’s hair, Shinobu lifts up the table with the bowl and cup and starts to walk to the side of the room. The task seems to take a significant amount of effort from her frail physique, and Sanemi doesn’t miss the way Kanae’s eyes sharpen as they hone in on her younger sister’s struggling form. One of many universal signs of an elder sibling’s worry.
Shinobu manages to set the table and everything else down gently and safely. All three occupants of the room exhale in relief.
“What is that?” Sanemi asks, pointing to the bowl.
“Miso soup.” Shinobu answers. “Makio-san kindly made it for Nee-san this morning. Told her to drink it up so that she could recover fast and ‘kick Upper Moon 2’s disgusting ass back to Hell’.”
She faces the Wind Pillar with a wink. “Thank you from all of us, for the herbs and garnish, Shinazugawa-san.”
“So she can…eat?” Sanemi asks, in a hurry to gloss over the undeserved thanks. Immediately afterwards, he wonders how he’d chosen such a stupid inquiry. The rapid speed at which Shinobu’s gratitude dissolves away from her face tells him she is probably wondering the same thing.
“She must eat. Mostly liquids though. She can’t handle solids yet, unless they’re soft enough. Like tofu or porridge.”
Sanemi nods. With the table out of the way, he’s able to see a small brass bell secured to Kanae’s left wrist. Next to her right hand is a fountain pen. There are papers scattered on her blanketed lap, with `thank you’, ‘I’m fine’, and other miscellaneous phrases written haphazardly all over the pages.
Ever-so-slowly, he watches Kanae lift her bell-adorned hand to pick up a sheet of paper with a previously-written ‘hello’ on it, and hold it upright for Sanemi to see.
Shinobu taps him on the shoulder.
“I have to go check on the infirmary. If you brought anything, please just leave them on the floor with the others. Don’t stay with Nee-san for too long because she needs to rest. You know the way out. Don’t touch her, move her, shake her hands, carry her—”
“Jesus fuck, what kind of imbecile do you take me for?” Sanemi demands. He had never done—never dared to do—any of those even when Kanae was unimpaired.
Shinobu gives him a humorless smile. “Just being cautious. She is still very weak.”
And with that, she’s gone. Kanae shifts her amused lavender eyes from the empty doorframe to the indignant Wind Pillar fuming in the middle of her room.
It suddenly occurs to Sanemi that he probably should have brought some kind of gift too. Uzui’s family was clearly not a minority here. Heck, he hadn't even thought of anything to say. Normally, their conversations were initiated by Kanae herself, but now, she…couldn’t.
Well. When in doubt, always start with the basics.
Sanemi clears his throat. “How do you feel?”
Kanae lifts the pen from the floor and draws a circle around the phrase ‘I’m fine’ with the motor skills of a newborn foal.
“Okay, I got it. You don’t have to…” Sanemi trails off as Kanae insistently lifts the paper up to show him the circled phrase with a trembling arm. She drops it back down on her lap and gingerly repositions her pen, ready to answer.
Sanemi had never been the type of person to overthink. He just did things his own way without a care about what others thought and often dove into action before thinking through the potential consequences.
But he seemed to think a lot when Kanae was involved. It’s why he decides to choose words that will minimize the number of times she would have to move her arms. He could also just get answers from Shinobu anyway.
“Sorry I didn’t…visit you sooner,” he says, scratching the back of his head. Then he clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. “I can tell you about what’s been going on. You won’t have to write anything.”
Kanae blinks at the statement. Then she drops her pen back onto her sheets and gives Sanemi her full attention again. He casts his eyes away from the intensity of her gaze and runs a hand through his unruly hair.
“Okay…um…..”
He could talk about their progress with the demons, or miscellaneous topics from their last meeting with The Master. But Sanemi has a feeling demons are the last thing Kanae would want to hear about right now.
God, he really should have planned out some list of things to say.
“…you know the bead things Uzui wears?” Sanemi gestures to his forehead. “One of Himejima’s cats chewed on it the other day and coughed it up.”
Kanae stares incredulously at Sanemi for some time before beginning to tremble with laughter. Her labored breathing becomes a little lighter with each intake of air. Sanemi figures that’s a good thing, so he keeps going.
“You should have seen the look on his face. But what was he gonna do about it? Beat Himejima up?”
Kanae continues to laugh. Just when Sanemi was about to move onto a different amusing account, the laughter quickly disintegrates into massive hoarse coughs. They increase in severity and sound, developing into unimaginable grating noises that he didn’t realize any human was capable of making.
It isn’t until Kanae’s upper body springs off the incline and curls over her sheets that Sanemi jumps up from the floor and begins shouting down the halls for help.
Shinobu arrives just as she begins coughing blood into her mask.
“You messed up, Shinazugawa-san.”
They’re standing just outside the closed door of Kanae’s room after Shinobu had stabilized her condition and put her to sleep.
“I thought I told you already, but I guess I didn’t. Nee-san can’t do anything that will rapidly change the pace of her breathing. That includes laughing.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Sanemi snaps, his hands still shaking. “What else can’t she do?”
Shinobu puts a finger to her lips with an impatient hiss and gestures to her sister’s closed door. She takes one last peek inside the room before closing it and starts walking down the halls towards the exit of the mansion. Sanemi follows her.
“What about her voice? What’s wrong with it?”
“Her voice isn’t the problem,” Shinobu explains. “Her lungs are, and so is her throat. I don’t know how, but I think they’ve been…frozen from the inside-out. Her breath was abnormally cold when we found her...you know.”
Sanemi thinks back to the impromptu Pillar meeting, during which the demon’s ice-based powers had been revealed to him for the first time. His trembling hands clench into fists and he feels his blood boil with the renewed urge to find that damned Upper Moon and slash it down to unrecognizable bits.
“Tell me everything,” Sanemi whispers, slipping back into a persona from just four days ago, when he’d been avoidant and perpetually braced to hear the worst. “What are her chances?”
Shinobu stops in the middle of the halls and turns around. She offers Sanemi a lukewarm smile that reminds him a little too much of her sister.
‘The real Kochou,’ Sanemi thinks guiltily. ‘Not the…bedridden version I just saw.’
“Well, Shinazugawa-san. As long as you avoid doing what you just did, it’s higher than you think.”
She explains that they’ve already gotten past the worst of the hypothermia. Her breath was starting to warm back to normal. There is a broken rib, but miraculously, it had not punctured her lung. Her once-dislocated shoulder was already healing well. As long as Kanae continued to keep herself warm, ingest food and medicine, and get lots of sleep, Shinobu was confident she would be able to make a steady, albeit slow, recovery.
Her legs were a different story entirely.
“We’ve already…well, taken off her right leg.” Shinobu places the side of her palm just beneath her knee as an indication. “The damage was too much. Her left one isn’t much better…”
She crosses her arms and shakes her head. “Nee-san will likely be forced into retirement from the Demon Slayer Corps.”