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"Tomioka-saaaan~" Shinobu called out in her sugary tone as she chased after the Water Hashira. "Kocho, we've been running for hours." The sun was blazing at this point, and it had moved a considerable distance from when they first began their marathon. "We can stop if you stop first." The smile never left her face, but the veins were becoming increasingly prominent.
"I'm not letting you brush my hair," he muttered, still in his usual tone. "Tomioka-san~ come here!" Shinobu exclaimed, picking up speed. She may have been one of the fastest among the Hashira, but she could only dream of reaching the level of Giyuu's footwork. Damn him.
Giyuu's hair frolicked freely as he ran, strands falling and obstructing his view. Every twist and turn made Shinobu stare harder. He was supposed to be on bed rest, but he was basically a demon with how fast he was recovering.
Did he really arrive a bleeding mess with several stab wounds, using his sword as a crutch, only a few days ago?
Upon arriving at the mansion, the first to notice him was Shinobu, who was walking back from what he assumed was a mission of her own.
"Kocho," Blue eyes stared into hers for a beat before rolling to the back of his head. "Tomioka-san?!" Her voice raised ever so slightly, her arms under his as she struggled to keep him up.
"Tomioka-san, please get up. You're quite heavy." The tremble in her legs was more than enough reason for her to drop him flat on his face.
"Hello? Tomioka-san? Please get up now," Shinobu called from the gate, hoping he wasn't passed out. In the back of her mind, she fervently wished someone would help get the rock of a man off her. Aoi emerged from the house, rushing over to aid Shinobu. The man was practically dangling off the Insect Hashira, and not a twitch came when they shifted his weight between them.
It was like moving a boulder. His clothes drastically distorted the actual image of his body. The difference between reality and imagination should've been a crime. Shinobu knew she wasn't exactly strong, but this was just excessive. A strangled noise escaped. "Wow, Tomioka-san! You're exactly like a stone dragging us to the bottom of a river. Are you perhaps trying to kill us?" Aoi struggled under his weight, fighting to keep them all up.
As a result of their valiant effort, Giyuu was dragged into the entrance of the house. It may not have been far, but it was no easy task, and to be frank, the Hashira was ready to let him die.
A menacing aura surrounded her as she glared. He had finally been dropped onto an empty bed. The room by no means had any sense of privacy, but it was the closest one. Certainly, Shinobu was weak; there was no denying that, but why was the pillar so hard to carry? It shouldn't have been as difficult as it was. "That was much too hard. If you were going to faint, you should have done it when you were already in one of the beds." A vein bulged in her face.
Shinobu had the girls help strip him to clean his wounds. "Sumi-chan, could you bring a basin and cloth? There's too much blood, I can't tell where the bleeding's coming from." How on Earth did he get this bad? What kind of demon was he fighting that he came bloody and battered like this?
With a grunt, she flipped him to his side, wiping the grime and cleaning the wounds. Pushing his bangs back, she let out an exasperated sigh. She just couldn't catch a break. "He's got a fever," And with that, it was bed rest, disinfectants, and lots of medicine for him.
In the end, he was unconscious for two days, battling the fever and recovering from his wounds. Moving his seemingly lifeless body was a workout in and of itself, and Aoi found it to be the most daunting task of her day. As the strongest of the four managing the mansion, she was tasked with caring for the Hashira. From training recuperating slayers to wiping up vomit, this toppled everything. His wounds needed disinfecting, the pus and blood had to be cleaned away, then she would wipe down his arms and redo his dressings, with the final touch being to resoak the cloth on his head.
By the second day, Shinobu had the girls take out his hair tie to wash his hair as he slept, making sure to call her when they were done. Each time she saw the man, whether it be on a mission, at a meeting, or in public, she could never fathom how he let his hair exist like that.
Yes, he was a man, so he didn't need to pay as much attention to his hair, but even so—how could he walk around with that head of knots and call it hair? It was not a pretty sight, especially when it seemed to have an affinity for the blood leaking from his wounds.
They did as asked, but Giyuu woke up a few hours later, wondering why he could feel his hair unrestrained when he wasn't at home.
'Where am I?' He stared at the ceiling, looking around. He was at the Butterfly Mansion. As he stared, the door slid open with a bang, and in the doorway was Shinobu. She held a comb in one hand as she smiled. "Ara, Tomioka-san, you're awake?" Giyuu felt the menacing aura and stood up to make a break for it.
Picking up his intent to run, Shinobu ran at him and tried to grab some part of him. She missed by a hair's breadth, watching him vanish before her fingertips. Purple eyes locked onto blue, "Aren't you lively?" He was wedged between the framing of the house that kept it standing.
'Drats,' she thought. 'He got away.'
"Tomioka-san, please come down. That's dangerous. I hope you don't fall and cause more trouble. Don't you know how hard it was to move your deadweight?" she chided with a smile. Giyuu didn't respond, only eyeing her with a concerned face. "Kocho. Why are you trying to catch me?" he questioned. Giyuu was wedged between two pillars that ran along the ceiling, his limbs spread like a star. She thought he looked quite silly.
He watched as Shinobu sighed. "Tomioka-san," she said, vanishing from the ground. "I'm a Hashira too, remember?" She appeared inches from his face, but Giyuu dropped down without a thought and bolted for the window. The irritation was starting to brew as she watched him fall. She'd have to make note of that. Never leave the window open in Giyuu's room. Either way, his hair would be brushed by the end of the day.
Waiting to hit the ground, she reached out to grasp his long, messy locks, but she missed, watching as he jumped out the window, his figure becoming smaller as he ran.
"Ara, looks like I'll be doing stamina training with Tomioka-san for today," Shinobu snatched the brush from its place on the nightstand, ready to chase him around.
= = = =
"Kocho, stop chasing me," Giyuu said from atop the Butterfly Mansion. "Water Hashira-sama! Please get down! You might injure yourself!" Sumi and Kiyo cried from below.
Shinobu stared from the roof of the gate. "Tomioka-san, just let me brush your hair, and you can get back to sleeping, seeing as you're still injured," she said, anger lacing her sweet tone.
'Or maybe he isn't as injured as I thought.'