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Shinobu Kocho walked through the corridors of her own clinic with an odd sense of premonition, like she knew something important was about to happen but couldn’t tell you what it was. Be it womanly intuition or her own instincts, it was there and would not go away. Her feet hit the wooden-beamed floorboards as quietly as the passing sigh of the newly-deceased, or the flapping of a butterfly's wings. Her mind was absorbed in its own little tailspin and her surroundings may as well have been immaterial to her, for instinct alone assured that she didn’t walk into one of the walls or trip over.
In that moment, she supposed that she shouldn’t be feeling like this, what with the circumstances of the job. Injuries were inevitable for anyone, be they fatal or not. To be a member of the Corps meant to put yourself in danger constantly, with not even the guarantee that you would live to see tomorrow. Indeed, just because the Pillars were a different caliber of swordsmen from the rank-and-file did not make them invincible. They could make mistakes, and Shinobu knew this all too well. At the very least, the circumstances this time were perfectly understandable, thanks to the clarity and concise nature of Aoi’s report. Shinobu always liked that about her, she seldom wasted a word.
Speaking of Aoi, she had just closed the door to the patients’ wing behind her as Shinobu turned the corridor. A leather bag was fastened around her shoulders and she generally looked exhausted as she circled one of them.
“I’ve just given him some more painkillers and antidote,” she said, “Kanao-chan also gave him some medicine for his fever when he was first brought in a couple hours ago. The bleeding has stopped on some of his worst injuries, but the bandages will require regular redressing until they fully seal shut. Thankfully he didn't suffer any broken bones, just a few minor fractures. His condition is now stable for the most part, he’ll be fine.”
“Thank you, Aoi-chan”, Shinobu said and nodded. “I would like to take a look at him. You should take a break.”
But as she walked past Aoi to enter the patients’ wing, she called out to her.
“Shihan…”
Shinobu turned her head to look over her shoulder: Aoi glanced to the side for a moment, appearing apprehensive and maybe even a little bit afraid. The corner of her lip twitched and she blinked, then spoke.
“I’m just warning you… it’s not a pretty sight in there.”
A peculiar warning, out of context. Her occupation as Pillar and doctor both ensured Shinobu a constant stream of grisly, unsettling sights. To even be in the Corps, one had to have a certain tolerance for the grotesque; once you’ve seen your loved ones be devoured in front of you, everything else loses its saliency. But Shinobu knew, and Aoi knew that Shinobu knew, why she had imparted such a warning.
“Thank you, Aoi-chan. Please, rest for a little while.”
That uneasy, almost sickening feeling still coiled in her stomach. It stayed with her as she opened the door to the patients’ wing of her clinic, with all the curtains subtly fluttering in the cool spring wind and with the windows all open to let in both the shining sheen of sunlight and the scent of freshly-cut grass partly drowned out by that of antiseptic. It only intensified when she laid her eyes on one of the beds at the furthest end of the wing, the only one currently occupied.
Giyu Tomioka, the Water Pillar, looked to be wavering somewhere between consciousness and sleep: His eyes were half-shut – especially his left, since it was swollen black and blue. It appeared as if he were in some kind of stupor: His limbs static, breathing both shallow and ragged, gaze piercing evermore the window and wall on the opposite side. His back was arched and the pillows were arranged so that he was resting upright. A position optimized for his own comfort, yet there are only so many ways you can accommodate pain. The stubble on his chin and around his lips suggested, to Shinobu at least, a certain care that he had been denying to himself.
In a sight she had never seen before, his body was covered in bandages. One wrapped around his forehead and a quarter of his face, one on his left bicep, one on his right forearm, and one the entire width of his lower torso – not to mention the ones on his legs obscured by the blanket. Yet even they did little to conceal the scars accumulated from years of dedicating himself to his craft, years upon years of honing his body and mind to the cause, ever-increasing the physical strength that Shinobu so desperately coveted.
Her face transformed in an instant, seemingly-long gone was the Shinobu full of apprehension, in her place was one influenced by her elder sister who served as her eternal signpost in times of trouble: Kind, affectionate, warm.
Shinobu walked over to Giyu’s bed, the warm spring sunlight hitting her face with a pleasant hue, then took a seat at the conveniently-placed wooden chair by the bedside. Giyu, with what looked to be an inhuman amount of effort, turned his head and looked at her. He grumbled and sighed, like he wanted to say something but was in too much pain to say it.
“Tomioka-san,” Shinobu asked, “how are you feeling?”
“Nnnrgh,” he replied. His voice was harsh, groggy – it said a lot without actually passing a single coherent word. For a split second, Shinobu considered the possibility that her question was in bad taste before moving on.
“We don’t see you here very often, so I was… surprised to find that the Kakushi had taken you here for emergency treatment. Aoi-chan gave me a full breakdown of what happened, your encounter with Lower Rank Two. Tomioka-san…”
She stopped, her eyebrows were starting to furrow and that sympathetic side of her was threatening to engulf her. She pressed her lips together for a moment, blinked, then continued.
“Tomioka-san,” she said, “you really ought to have informed the Corps of your fever. You may be a Pillar, but you’re still just human. Another Pillar would have been sent in your place to investigate, I know Tokito-kun’s territories are nearby… you should have focused on recovery. That you went anyway and put yourself in an incredible amount of risk means that valuable resources are being spent to treat you. My, my…”
Giyu, his voice hoarse and faint, whispered. “Sorry… for all this...”
"Goodness me, really now? Why did you go out on a mission with a burning fever? What made you think that it would go smoothly for you? Why, Tomioka-san? Why?”
An uncomfortable amount of silence passed between them before he spoke back, seemingly trying to pick his words carefully, "I… underestimated... how sick I was. Had... job to do... Pillar’s duty..."
"You almost died."
"..."
She flinched her shoulders at his deafening silence before looking to the floor to hide her own face from him, which was now doused with frustration. As a doctor, Shinobu could never forgive the manner in which he so recklessly put himself in danger; if he was completely healthy, she knew that he could have killed that Lower Rank demon effortlessly... but a simple fever turned what would have been a rudimentary engagement into a dragged-out and demented struggle, one where Giyu made countless mistakes and became inflicted with the enemy’s poison. That was the problem with demons, but especially the Twelve: They were cunning bastards, always resorted to cheating and unfair tactics.
According to Aoi’s report, the moment Giyu took Lower Two’s head was the moment he collapsed from the accumulation of his injuries and the poison flowing through his system. Had the Kakushi not been on hand to respond and give him emergency treatment…
Shinobu looked back up to Giyu and smiled again, almost a perfect facsimile of her beloved older sister.
“Well, it can’t be helped. The important thing is that you’re alive and safe. The Kakushi’s treatment stopped the immediate spreading of the poison, but we’re going to need to keep you in here for a little while longer so that it can be completely dissociated. And you need the time to recover from both your injuries and the fever. We’ll keep giving you morphine and other painkillers to help with the symptoms. Unfortunately, you will probably be back on your feet much later than you’d hoped, a week or two at best. Until then, just rest and recover as quickly as you can. Okay?”
Giyu glanced to his side, his cheeks scrunched and he grunted. “Understood… Kocho.”
She took a moment to steal a glance at his torso, the one that would be bare were it not for the bandages. Her pulse grew that little bit erratic and she felt a warmth in her face when her eyes lingered on it for too long. Even with the multitude of battle scars collected from years of service, Shinobu couldn’t help but admire a certain perfection in his form.
“Kocho…” Giyu’s voice grounds her back into reality. She looks to him and nods.
“Yes, Tomioka-san?”
“Close...” Giyu gulps, then tries to gesture his eyes towards the window, “can you please close the... windows, Kocho? I’m feeling... cold.”
Almost as soon the request poured from his lips, Shinobu was up and methodically closing all four of the windows on his side of the patients’ wing. Maybe, she figured, she took to the task so promptly because she needed a distraction. A distraction from her own embarrassment, perhaps, at the fact that she was so easily swayed by his looks even if the situation didn't call for it. When she went back to his bedside, she took it upon herself to pull up the sheets as to cover more of his torso, until they stopped just on his pectorals.
“I’ll have the girls keep checking up on you. Don’t hesitate to ask them for anything you need.”
She turned around and was just about to walk away, but she quietly gasped when she felt something warm and clammy hold onto her hand. She looked back and saw that it was Giyu. He was holding her hand. Shinobu raised an eyebrow as she took note of the way it trembled, how it seemed to want to squeeze down more tightly on hers but lacked the strength to do so. In his eyes formed a strange, almost ethereal mist, like fog had entered his mind.
“Kocho… don’t go yet… please. Stay with me… if… if it's okay…”
Shinobu’s mouth was faintly open, exposing the tips of her teeth as she sucked air through it. She had a vague feeling as to what was happening, but was shocked that it was happening all the while. Again, she dispelled that shocked countenance and replaced it with a smile.
“Of course, Tomioka-san. My, my, I must say I’m very surprised to see you like this. Usually, you can’t wait for other people to leave you alone. What gives?”
“Sh-Shin… Shinobu...” Giyu stuttered, shivering as he held her hand, “I… I…”
A different Giyu had emerged, one that usually stayed hidden in his shell. The fact that he had shed away all those imposed formalities and called her by her first name was proof of such a phenomenon. His voice, still burdened with pain, was subtly changing in inflection – a little bit of a whimper began to appear. It closely resembled a sight Shinobu had seen a few too many times, that of the fear and confusion of the people she has saved from death with her own sword. Terror long-unrealized, now awake and trembling with life.
And Shinobu knew what he meant, what he wanted. It was as plain as day to her, as obvious as the moon which comes after the setting sun. So she didn’t resist when he slowly, achingly, agonizingly brought her hand to his cheek. He closed his eyes and savored the warmth, his face beginning to morph as if ready to expel tears.
"Shinobu, your hand is so... so warm."
Shinobu gave out a wistful, yet unpronounced sigh. The curious mix of medicine and poison could, she knew, induce fits of delirium in people. She had lost count of the number of times her, Aoi and even Kanao lingered by the bedsides of (sometimes terminally) injured Corps members, holding onto their hands as they teetered between life and death. Perhaps the fever had made it worse, and perhaps her presence had catalyzed something, but Giyu was treading along that very same path. He was, to her mind, probably not even fully conscious in that moment. He laid back on the bed, but took her hand with him. She watched on in pity as Giyu savored her warmth, that which could only come from another person.
“Giyu,” she whispered, “I’m here. Please don’t worry. You'll be all right here. You’re safe. Save your strength and rest, please.”
“It feels... nice. Just like... like...”
His forehead creased and his torso lightly convulsed. Giyu half-opened those mist-laden eyes, as blue as the clear blue sky, and appeared to be searching for something that he couldn’t find. He momentarily stared at the far corner of the room, but eventually looked away and up to the ceiling. It was like he was staring at something not of the real world, his gaze traveling a distance that lay beyond the material. Shinobu took note of the way his eyebrows raised and his facial features softened even more as he narrowed his eyes.
Giyu spoke in a higher pitch. “Tsu… Tsutako…”
It was yet another sight she had seen before. Again, she couldn’t even begin to recall the number of times she and the girls had been mistaken for the dead wives, fiancées or even daughters of the injured Corps members – the cocktail of drugs and poison inducing such vivid delirium within them all that they began to hallucinate. The same curse, or maybe blessing, had struck Giyu.
Shinobu was about to ask what he meant after the shock of his change in tone had subsided, but thought it best to keep her mouth shut. She thought it was perhaps the name of an old flame of his and, though the timing was far from ideal, that faintest bit of jealousy rose in her stomach. Giyu never seemed to be the kind of person to sleep around with other women.
But then he said something in that very same high-pitched tone that made her feel sickened by such thoughts.
“Tsutako nee-chan…”
She could feel the thud of her heartbeat reverberate through her bones as his clammy grip on her hand tightened. Her free hand covered her mouth and the fingers pressed hard against her own skin.
Her mind, of course, went to the obvious place: Giyu was just like her, he had an older sister. The man never imparted a single word about his past, even to her, so everyone was just left guessing as to the people who are or were important to him. Who was she to him? Had she also been killed by a demon, just like her own parents? Like Kanae? These questions swirled about her mind and refused to leave it, but she had a feeling that she knew the answer to a lot of them already.
Oh, Kanae nee-san, she thought, please give me strength.
Shinobu had been left in a treacherous predicament. Giyu clearly thought her to be his older sister in that moment, and she couldn’t bring herself to leave his side. So now she had to navigate a figurative minefield, playing the part of his sister and doing her best to act like she would... except she had absolutely no idea what this Tsutako was like. Granted, the delirium was so intense in most circumstances that it seldom mattered, but Shinobu still endeavored. She removed her hand from her mouth and put on a similar inflection of voice to the one she usually used.
“Uh,” she almost stuttered, but manages to press on, “G-Giyu… it’s all right, Giyu.”
“Tsutako nee-chan?” Giyu asked, his face tensed and he almost looked scared. “I can’t see you. I… I… c-can’t see you, Tsutako nee-chan. It’s dark and I can’t see you.”
The way he spoke with a higher pitch reminded Shinobu of a child, as did the nature of his language. That is when Shinobu realized that he must have regressed into a childlike state, which meant that his sister was a massive presence in his early childhood. She winced in pain at the vague flashes of recollection at her own memories, the comfort and mundanity of her old life so cruelly torn apart for no reason.
“Ah… no, Giyu. I’m right here, Giyu. I’m right here.”
Giyu’s nostrils flared as he seemed to put physical effort in forcing the next words out of his throat.
“Are you… angry at me, nee-chan? Did I wet the futon again? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to wet the futon again nee-chan, I’m sorry.”
Shinobu then experienced the feeling one usually has when they receive world-shattering news, that feeling like your head is spinning and you begin to lose your own sense of balance. Struggling to even process her own thoughts, they nevertheless prevailed to form around this idea that she had learned something she ought not to. She picked up on the hurt in his voice, how he sounded vaguely upset and afraid; it must have been a common occurrence for him to bring it up like that.
"I'm sorry, nee-chan… I'm sorry… I was… I was scared… a-and… and…"
The hand keeping hers on his cheek weakened its hold, like he was losing the strength to even hold onto her. With all that said, the sheets had not dampened in any way and there was certainly no untoward scent coming from them.
Tears were welling in his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I promise it won't happen again."
Shinobu then wondered why Giyu had made this assumption, outside of it being a supposedly common occurrence. She remembered how her own sister would refer to her when they were young. Shinobu-chan, she would say. ‘Nobu-chan even, in reference to how boyish she would act in their youth. The way Kanae shortened the name, spoke to her with palpable affection. Perhaps, then, it was the same with Giyu. Maybe hearing his sister say his name like that led him to believe he had done something bad, Kanae would only call her Shinobu if it was serious. She momentarily cursed her own lack of wisdom and for being burdened with this task to begin with; it was already quite enough to be the elder figure to all the girls who work at the clinic with her, let alone try to be one for a man she knew so little about.
Shinobu shook her head, then took her hand away from his cheek and held onto the sides of his face with both this time. Careful not to get her thumb anywhere near his swollen eye, she gently massaged his cheeks with her thumbs. Admittedly taking something of a gamble, she replied.
“Ah, n-no… ‘Yu-chan…” that name of affection came to her midsentence, inspired by her fond childhood memories, “you didn’t wet the futon, ‘Yu-chan, it’s okay. I’m here.”
“I can’t see you,” he muttered with more tears welling in his eyes, “I can’t see you, nee-chan. I can’t see you.”
Though relieved that her intuition was correct, Shinobu flinched at the scene at hand. She could even feel her own resolve weakening at the mere sight of Giyu, the Water Pillar, like this. She thought she was used to the sight of Corps members longing for their departed loved ones, teetering on the edge that separates reality from delusion. But seeing Giyu of all people, one of the finest swordsmen she had ever seen, spiral into the same bout of delirium made her skin crawl.
"It hurts everywhere and I'm scared, nee-chan. It hurts... it hurts so bad. I'm... I'm so scared... I can't see you, Tsutako nee-chan."
But as with everything else, she had to endure, to smile, to pretend everything would be all right and everything would work out in the end. As her life went on and on, she increasingly wondered when she could be supported for once, when she could lean on somebody else’s shoulder and sob and cry and let her emotions get the better of her.
“‘Yu-chan, don’t worry. I’m here, ‘Yu-chan. I’m here. I’m right here.” She put her palm to his forehead, perplexed by how sweaty yet cold it was.
Appearing possessed by some kind of otherworldly force that controlled his body like a puppet on a string, Giyu suddenly sat upright and, his limbs heavy from drug-induced stupor, wrapped his arms around Shinobu’s torso and leaned into her for a tight hug, quite possibly the tightest hug she had been subjected to. Owing to her superb instincts but nevertheless caught by surprise, she shifted her weight to act as a counterbalance, propping him up so that he wouldn’t fall off of the bed and make his injuries even worse. His own weight was incredible, not that she needed any further evidence of his physical superiority compared to her.
He buried his face into the purplish-black jacket of her uniform, right on her chest, and she could feel his tears slowly start to stain it as he held onto her like his life depended on it. He seemed to be trying to mumble something, his speech rendered utterly incoherent by both his position and delirium, before he descended into truly awful wails of agony. Giyu sounded less like a fully-grown man and more like a scared, hurt child.
Shinobu aimed to assail his worries and calm him down. She gently raked her hand through his hair and whispered.
“Don’t cry, ‘Yu-chan,” her voice shook as something began to form in her throat, “your big sister is here for you. Go… go to sleep, ‘Yu-chan. Your big sister’s right here…”
Shinobu then gently took him by the back and lowered him down. Giyu, trembling in her grasp, complied and followed her lead until he rested comfortably on the bed again. As she withdrew, she saw the dampness and paleness of his face and brought her hand to wipe his tears away. His eyes shut tight, Giyu’s own lips quivered and his whole form shuddered at the lack of contact. Shinobu then wrapped her hands around his and held it tightly, being sure to transfer as much warmth to him as possible.
“Don’t cry, 'Yu-chan, don’t cry. It’ll all be okay. Go to sleep, your big sister will be here when you wake up. I'll… always… be here.”
That lie only just managed to escape her throat; Shinobu wanted to kick herself in the leg after she came out with that. Even so, she stayed by Giyu’s side and held onto his hand until his tears stopped and his breathing calmed, as his pained expression loosened and as his body went limp. For what felt like an eternity, Shinobu kept clutching that hand and didn’t let it go for a single second. She watched with tangible pain as he descended further and further into a state of full unconsciousness, his mind liberated from the tyranny of memory-induced delusion.
Once he had fully lost consciousness and drifted off into a gentle sleep, she spent spare moment or two just thinking. Perhaps this had been her own fault: The way Shinobu treated him might have, she thought, made his guard figuratively go down. Viewing her as a source of comfort, it was possible that his drug-addled mind transposed an ideal image of someone very close to his heart onto her.
It was flattering in a way, she had to admit. But just as equally painful.
But then she escaped her own thoughts, and was left with nothing but an uncanny silence as Giyu’s soft and sleepy breathing went through her ears. She eventually realized that his hand was being kept up by her strength alone, so Shinobu gently lowered his arm to his side. She looked over him for a few seconds and marveled at how peaceful he looked, like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in far too long.
Shinobu exhaled, slightly dumbfounded at what just happened and what she was able to do. She tucked him into bed before turning around and, with footsteps as utterly silent as before, left the patients’ wing. As she closed the door behind her, she lingered in the corridor just outside and stared at the wooden floor beams beneath her feet.
After their episodes of delusion, Corps members always lost their memories of them ever happening. Giyu, too, would never remember a thing about that exchange, she knew this. All the things he had expressed to her, his secrets and fears (albeit unwittingly), they would be swept away to the shores of memory-death. And Shinobu knew that she would take these secrets to her grave, she could never utter a word about them to anyone. Not even to Giyu himself.
Perhaps right in that very instant, within the comfort of his own headspace, Giyu was dreaming of his sister. Maybe he was remembering a time when he wasn’t alone and still had people in this world that he loved. She reckoned it was a very comforting dream, one so vivid it may as well have been real. Maybe Giyu was holding his sister in the exact same way he had embraced her, and maybe she was telling him that it was all going to be okay, that she would always be there for him, that he didn’t need to be afraid.
"You fool… you damned fool! If only you didn't – if only I – if only… I'm so sorry, Giyu. I'm so sorry…"
Whenever Shinobu felt overwhelmed, confused or shocked, it was usually followed by a violent wellspring of her own rage. It threatened to consume her whole, resembling the flowing magma of a volcano. Her entire life was a series of deliberately-constructed efforts to stave off that sheer anger, to supplant it with the warmth and guidance of her dear older sister – her life was an exercise denying the depths of her own ugly emotions.
Nee-san, please... please give me strength. Please...
She could feel the twitching of her forehead, the popping of a few veins, the chattering of her teeth and the trembling of her jaw as she continued to think about all she had just seen. White-hot wrath boiled and brewed within her very gut as the faces and silhouettes of all those who had senselessly lost their own lives assaulted her mind. Even Giyu, Giyu Tomioka, arguably the most unflappable, aloof and professional of all of her fellow Pillars, was a victim to this. That man should have grown up with his sister and lived a happy, uneventful life. Just like the girls who worked in the clinic, like every single person who walked that path.
Like herself.
Her eyes bulged into a wide and white-hot fury, as she punched the wall next to her so hard that her fist managed to crack the plastering.
“He shouldn’t even be here!” Shinobu’s voice seethed and writhed with the venom of a thousand deadly spiders. “None of us should even be here!”
She struck the punctured plaster sixfold, until blood was drawn from her knuckles and rubble fell to the wooden-beamed floor. Beholding her own impotent destruction and feeling the pulse of pain in her hand, Shinobu stared at the magnitude of shame she had just brought upon herself. Her fist unclenching and her fingers twitching, she slowly withdrew her hand.
But in that moment, she was interrupted by Aoi turning the corner and stopping in her tracks, before staring in shock at the cratered wall partly strewn with Shinobu’s own blood. A sharp inhalation of air, a calming of the face and a fake smile later, she walked up to her and nodded.
“Aoi-chan,” she said, “thank you for all your hard work again. Please, continue to watch over Tomioka-san until he makes a full recovery.”
But Aoi’s eyes kept alternating between the ruined plaster of the wall and the bruised and bloodied hand that Shinobu had tried to veil but didn’t fully succeed at.
“Shi… Shihan? What was that? I came out here because I heard a loud noise, and-”
“It’s nothing,” Shinobu said as she patted Aoi on the shoulder with her good hand, momentarily exposing the swelling and bruising and bleeding of the one used to expel her own wrath, and walked straight past her.
They never talked about that moment again.