Chapter Text
The wisteria is in full bloom outside of the window.
Shinobu watches the lilac branches, draping down like curtains against the glass, sway with the faintest touch of cool spring breeze. The moon is a crescent sliver in the sky, silver as it gleams down across the sprawling wisteria grove that surrounds the Butterfly Estate. All things considered, it is a lovely night.
A syringe of wisteria poison sits on the table in front of her.
It’s been a good month since Shinobu started injecting herself with poison. The first week had been, by far, the worst. She’d been in so much pain that she had barely been able to stand. Shinobu had spent the entire week locked in her lab, giving Aoi and Kanao some vague excuse of having to focus on an important piece of research and instructing the girls to leave her meals at the door. She’d informed Oyakata-sama of her absence. And then she’d grit her teeth and jabbed that needle into her skin, pressed the plunger in, and watched the purple liquid disappear as it drained into her veins.
It was the worst pain Shinobu had ever felt.
Her recollections from the first couple of doses are vague, her mind too overtaken by the wildfire burn of pain to consolidate memories of anything else. Shinobu recalls passing out and waking up on the cold floor of her lab. She’d stuffed some cleaning rag—the closest item she could find—into her mouth to bite down on, lest she sever her own tongue off. At some point, she had been conscious enough to drag herself to the door and take in the meal Aoi had prepared for her, afraid that negligence to appear alive and well would have someone barging in to check on her less-than-optimal-condition.
The second dose hadn’t been particularly better. The third, she’d passed out for a shorter period of time. She vomits, at some point, but she hadn’t eaten anything for—how long? Hours? Days?—so the only thing that comes burning up her throat is water and acid.
By the fifth dose, Shinobu was able to haul herself into her chair, grip a pen, and begin taking notes about the poison and the dosages. Her first few pages of writing are shaky, barely legible; her hands had been trembling too much to grip a pen properly, so she held it in a fist and forced herself to catalogue everything that seemed relevant.
By the eighth dose, she’d been able to hold down half a bowl of soup without throwing it back up, and her writing became uniform, less fever-induced rambling and more clear-cut.
Two times a day. This is the seventy-sixth.
Shinobu wraps her fingers around the needle. The first week, she’d been seized by gnawing trepidation before each injection. A survival instinct, she assumes, because after all, the human body was programmed to rear away from pain, much less pain that is self-inflicted. She’d dreaded and dreaded the feeling of wisteria ripping through her body; searing through her veins, tearing into the spaces between tissue, sinking past collagen and calcium until it was embedded right into the marrow of her bones.
Now, repetition has bred tolerance. It doesn’t particularly hurt less. Rather, her body has given up fighting and fearing it. It just accepts, knowing that pain is inevitable. Routinely.
Just as Shinobu is about to sink the needle in, there is a series of quick, patterned knocks on the window. She looks up to see En standing there, the crow’s tiny head tilted inquisitively, waiting.
A delay of two or three minutes of the dosage should not feel like a relief, but it is. Shinobu sets down the syringe and goes to open the window. En hops in with a gust of wisteria-scented wind, the breeze threading its cool evening fingers through the stuffy laboratory.
“LETTER FROM OYAKATA-SAMA,” En announces, lifting her wing to expose the carrier. “MISSION DETAILS. CAW.”
“Thank you, En!” Shinobu says, shooting another glance at her syringe. Later, then. She unscrews the lid and slips out the piece of paper rolled inside.
Oyakata-sama’s writing is familiar to the eye. The instructions are precise, to the point:
I hope you are doing well, Shinobu. The kakushi inform me that the Butterfly Estate continues to run smoothly under your guidance.
Recently, there have been reports of missing people in the eastern part of Nagoya. We have sent slayers to investigate, but none have returned, and all communications have been lost with them. Amane and I believe that the demon may be one of Kibutsuji’s Lower Moons.
I am sending you and Mitsuri to investigate. I have faith that both of you will be able to find and kill the demon. Please keep safe and watch each other’s backs.
Until we see each other again,
Ubuyakishi Kagaya
Shinobu blinks, surprised. She’s been dispatched on missions with other Hashira before—Tomioka once, right after she became a Hashira. She’d been assigned with Rengoku too, but that had been years ago, before Kanae died. They’d been low-ranking slayers, then. Young. Full of vitality and optimism. Then again, Shinobu supposes Rengoku hasn’t changed much—still loud and enthusiastic—even if she has.
And now… Kanroji Mitsuri. She’d become the Love Hashira less than a month ago. Shinobu had met her for the very first time at the Hashira meeting, three weeks back.
Shinobu has heard bits and pieces of Kanroji from other people, though they were all details that had done very little to form the concept of a person on anything deeper than the surface level. A year older than Shinobu. She was exceptionally strong. She had been Rengoku’s tsuguko, which was an impressive feat in and of itself, since Rengoku had the reputation of training his tsugukos far too hard and never managed to keep one except Kanroji. According to all rumours that travelled up the grapevine to the Butterfly Estate, Kanroji was perfectly qualified to be a Hashira.
And then Shinobu had met her, and she’d spent the entire meeting keeping Kanroji in the corner of her periphery, intrigued. She had brilliant verdant eyes. Sakura-pink hair, tinged green at the bottom, pleated in three long braids. She’d flushed redder than the poppies Shinobu grew for painkillers in her garden when Oyakata-sama introduced her, bowed to all of the other Hashira, looking flustered from all the attention. Love Hashira, Shinobu had thought absentmindedly. It fit Kanroji, it really did. Then Uzui had made some comment about her hair being flamboyant, and Kanroji had turned so red that Shinobu wondered if it could be classified a shade of purple.
Afterwards, she pulled Kanroji aside to give her a handkerchief and told her to dismiss Uzui’s comments. (“It’s what I do,” Shinobu had told her, smiling, and Kanroji’s eyes lit up in gratitude as she took the handkerchief from Shinobu.)
Kanroji Mitsuri is candy-sweet and so easily likeable. Even from that fleeting forty-five minutes of interaction, Shinobu had thought in the back of her mind: Kanroji Mitsuri is too kind and too bright-eyed for something like demon slaying. Their world is all grime and blood and loss. Over and over and over again.
Had they been anything else, anybody else, Shinobu would’ve lingered. Really, had she been fourteen years old and optimistic and egged on by Kanae’s teasing, she would’ve, too: invited Kanroji to share a meal, maybe. Asked to be friends, because female slayers were already a rarity; female Hashira even more so. Friendship wouldn’t be a gamble on another loss. In another world, Shinobu would’ve latched onto Kanroji, and they would be friends, good ones, even, in a perfect world where Kanae wasn’t buried deep in the dirt and her parents still did her hair and Shinobu wasn’t spending every night and every morning pressing that damn poison into her paper-thin skin.
But there is no perfect world; this is the one they’ve been given. It didn’t matter that she found it hard to look away from Kanroji during that meeting, and what-ifs held no weight when balanced against the heavy tolls of reality. So Shinobu had smiled at Kanroji, offered her the handkerchief, and told her there was no need to return it. It wouldn’t do her any good if she became attached, not with what Shinobu was planning to do. Not with the fate that awaited most Hashira.
And then they had parted, friendly but not much more than strangers, and she hasn’t heard of the other girl since—not until now.
Shinobu scans the letter again. Oyakata-sama’s instructions remain concise and clear-cut.
Well. All things considered, this is an ideal arrangement. With two Hashira, a mission wouldn’t take long. They’ll find the demon, dispose of it, and she and Kanroji will become closer but not too close, not enough for real attachment, none of that.
Shinobu takes a deep breath.
“I will write a letter to Kanroji-san detailing where we are to meet in Nagoya,” she tells En. “If you could please deliver it to her after I have finished!”
En lets out a caw of confirmation. Abandoning her syringe for an ink pen, Shinobu fetches a piece of paper and begins to write.
Dear Kanroji-san—
***
“Kocho-san!”
Kanroji is easy to spot in the sifting crowd with her bright hair. She’s waving widely with an open hand, earning a few irritated looks from passerbys that Kanroji doesn’t seem to pay heed to.
Unlike Shinobu, who is decked in her uniform and Kanae’s haori, Kanroji is wearing a canary yellow yukata, decorated with pink and purple flowers. Her sword is nowhere in sight. She’s all spring, personified. Not for the first time, Shinobu thinks that somebody like Kanroji doesn’t belong to the grime and blood of demon slaying, yet here she is.
“Hello, Kanroji-san!” Shinobu greets when Kanroji is within earshot. “I am glad to know you received my letter about meeting here.”
“Ah, yes!” Kanroji exclaims, beaming. “When Oyakata-sama delivered me the order that we were working together, I was so happy! The last Hashira meeting was so short even though I wanted to talk to you more! So this is perfect! More than perfect! Ah, Kocho-san, I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep last night!”
The smile that pulls at the corner of Shinobu’s lips is entirely unintentional. Kanroji’s enthusiasm isn’t the exhausting sort; quite the opposite, really. It feels revitalizing, contagious, and Shinobu can’t help the way her shoulders loosen ever so slightly, even in spite of every little pep talk she’d given herself the night before. Kanroji talks with not just her hands, but her entire body: animated expressions, moving her arms to punctuate her words. She’s compelling, a magnetic force to every little movement. Shinobu could listen to her talk for hours. A planet tugged into orbit.
Still. There is a mission they’re here to complete. “I feel the same, Kanroji-san,” she says. “Now… since it’s still daytime, shall we collect some intel about the demon?”
Kanroji nods. “Yes!” she says. “I’ve already spoken to a few kakushi and the woman who runs the wisteria house here. The disappearances have been pretty random and the demon doesn’t seem to have a clear target. I was thinking we could ask around this area of Nagoya during the day, and we’ll go searching for the demon at night. I even got us outfits to blend in! Yours is purple because I thought it would match with your eyes. I asked En about what size would fit you best when she came and dropped the letter off, and—oh! I thought that if we finished collecting intel before it got dark, we could go around looking at the shops because there were some really pretty trinkets, and I always buy things for my parents on my travels, and I—” She breaks off, a little out of breath. Kanroji flushes. “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to plan without you. We can do whatever you think works best, Kocho-san, I know I’m still new to being a Hashira so you’d know better! I’m fine with whatever!”
Had Kanroji been any other Hashira, Shinobu thinks she would’ve been baffled at this proposition. Probably turned it down—politely, of course, if not with a sardonic comment depending on who it was. (Or sheer shock—she cannot picture Tomioka proposing this.) Souvenir shopping was not part of the job description.
But she looks at Kanroji Mitsuri’s hopeful green eyes, her cheeks blushing cherry-blossom pink, and damn it all, Shinobu thinks, what’s the harm? And even if there were, she can’t bring herself to say anything but—
“That sounds lovely, Kanroji-san,” Shinobu tells her. “Why don’t I get changed first, then?”
***
The yukata Kanroji picked for Shinobu is rather lovely. A soft, lilac cloth embroidered with white flowers, each of which are stitched meticulously into the fabric. The obi is a pink that matches the patterns on Kanroji’s yukata.
When Shinobu steps out from behind the screen, changed, Kanroji lets out a little squeak of excitement. “You look so pretty, Kocho-san!” she exclaims. “Oh, I really hope you like it! I tried my best to pick what I thought would fit you!”
“It’s beautiful, Kanroji-san,” Shinobu replies. She tries to think back to the last time she’d dressed up. Perhaps half a year ago on a mission that demanded a little more blending-in and stealth. Even then, she’d chosen plain clothes. Rarely something as intricate as this.
Kanae used to buy them pretty kimonos. Kanae used to fill her closet with all sorts of colours. (“Nee-san, I’ll just outgrow them,” Shinobu had complained, and her sister had laughed and said, “Then I’ll just buy you more when you’re taller!”)
Shaking herself from the memory, Shinobu gestures towards the door. “Let’s get started,” she says, then after a moment of deliberation, adds, “So we can have more time to look around after.”
Kanroji’s eyes light up, and so they head out.
They visit a few places. The neighbor of a man who’d been killed two nights prior. The old woman who runs the ceramics shop nearby. Kanroji is quite the unintentional charmer. She has a way of making people let down their guards with her easy sincerity, and by the time they’ve finished in the early afternoon, they have mapped a vague pattern of the demon’s hunting habits.
“It goes after weak people!” Shinobu muses as they walk down the bustling streets. “People who are defenseless and have trouble fighting back. Children. Elderly. The sick. This demon’s a coward.”
“But it was powerful enough that the previous slayers sent were unable to kill it!” Kanroji’s lips are pressed thin, her brows scrunched. “Hm… do you think we can set up a trap?”
“A trap?”
“A diversion, of sorts!” Kanroji explains. “Maybe we can lure the demon out! I’ll pretend to be a bait, like I’m sick, or something! Maybe the demon will try to go after me! And then—then we can finish it off together!”
It’s a decent plan to find the demon, if anything. “I can be the bait,” Shinobu offers. “I’m smaller. It’ll make me look like an easier target.” And Shinobu isn’t exactly far from sickly, considering the wisteria poison rampaging through her veins, how she can feel its dull aches, even now. She doesn’t add that, though.
“Ah…” Kanroji worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “Okay! I’ll keep your sword with me. Are you sure you’ll be alright?”
“I’ll be fine.” She smiles at Kanroji. “We’ll find a pair of crutches before nighttime, and we’ll be set!”
They spend the rest of the afternoon wandering through the streets, stopping by little stores and vendor stalls to look at what they’re selling. Kanroji likes anything with vibrant colours, Shinobu finds out—though the knowledge is not necessarily a surprise. She coos over a hair clip adorned with cherry blossom flowers, gasps over a tiny bird whistle, and excitedly presents Shinobu a lavender flower pin. “It matches your dress!” Kanroji says. “Oh, Kocho-san, I have to get it for you, I must!”
Shinobu is smiling in spite of herself. “Only if you let me get you something in return!”
She buys Kanroji the cherry blossom hair clip. The flowers are pink, a shade darker than Kanroji’s hair, dotted with green leaves. They trade presents for each other, and Kanroji clutches the clip to her chest and gives Shinobu an absolutely radiant smile. “I’m so glad Oyakata-sama paired us together for this,” she says earnestly. “I don’t think I’ve had so much fun in a while!”
“Me neither,” Shinobu admits. She considers her next words carefully, and decides that it’s okay to let herself have this, because who knows the next time she’ll see Kanroji Mitsuri again. This is safe. “And I’m rather glad there’s another Hashira that’s a girl!”
“Mmhm!” Kanroji agrees. “Oh—now that you mention it, you don’t know how relieved I was when I saw you there. Everyone was so tall and intimidating but you were so sweet to me, and I didn’t feel as nervous after. I remember my hands were shaking when Oyakata-sama told me to introduce myself, and everyone one was looking at me, and it was like… ah, Rengoku-san told me I had nothing to be worried about before the Hashira meeting, but even then I couldn’t help but feel so scared! But you were there, and it really did make everything a lot better!”
Shinobu had been nervous at her first Hashira meeting too, but it had been for different reasons. She’d looked at all of her comrades and thought about how many of them had known Kanae, suddenly gripped by a petrifying feeling that they would pick apart exactly what she was: a pretender. Grasping at the fleeting, phantom vestiges of Kanae’s memory; a pale imitation of her sister’s kindness, her optimism. Rice-paper-thin smile, anger filling the bowl of what Kanae had once filled with care.
And then the full weight of Kanroji’s confession hits her, and suddenly the spring breeze is a touch warmer, brushing against the apples of Shinobu’s cheeks.
It’s such an inconsequential thing. Of course it makes sense for Kanroji to feel soothed by Shinobu’s presence; without intending to, the other Hashira were intimidating, and Shinobu had made it a point to make sure she didn’t come off as anything but friendly to Kanroji. Still, she’s not fond of the way her heart does a flip or two or three in her throat at those words, how Kanroji’s smile is suddenly taking up her entire field of vision because it’s all Shinobu can focus on.
She tears her gaze away. “I am glad, Kanroji-san,” and it’s the only truth she can offer without slipping too much into the well-intended, ill-ending fantasy she is far too many losses deep to indulge in, “I promise the meetings get less frightening as time goes on. You’ll find that the rest of Hashira are just human, too!”
“Mm, yeah!” Kanroji agrees. They lapse into conversation as they wind down the cobbled streets, discussing the rest of the Hashira. Kanroji starts talking about Rengoku, how he had trained her meticulously, always stern, but also treated her well and matched her appetite. In turn, Shinobu tells her about Shinazugawa, whom Kanroji had been a little terrified of during the meeting. (“He once lost an argument to my Nee-san after she offered him ohagi,” she says, and Kanroji giggles at the story.) Uzui is all bluster, with a concerning fixation on describing the world on a spectrum of flamboyancy. (“Don’t take anything he says seriously!” Shinobu suggests. “But if he happens to make any sort of… comment about you, let me know! I’ll deal with it!”) Tomioka is quiet and has the tendency to expect people to know what he’s thinking without uttering a word. (“Talk to him if you enjoy one-sided conversations!”)
It’s—gossip, really. Shinobu does not have a more apt word to describe it. She tells Kanroji about the rest of the Hashira, although Shinobu makes a point to keep everything surface-level, lighthearted. She doesn’t talk about who the two halves of Tomioka’s haori used to belong to; not about how Shinazugawa uses exposing his marechi blood to confuse demons as an excuse to cut himself to ribbons; not about how Tokito’s foggy demeanor hides memories of horror no child should have had to face.
Late afternoon is bleeding into evening when they finally reach the street they had started off on. Kanroji peers at Shinobu with curious, earnest eyes, and asks, “So why did you decide to become a slayer, Kocho-san?”
Shinobu blinks, and it flashes through her mind’s eye. Her parents, torn apart, defaced and unrecognizable behind the blood and wounds. Her beloved sister, sprawled on that dirty road, the ground darkened deep red around her. In the same breath that Shinobu had wept over her broken body, Kanae had looked up at Shinobu like she was mourning Shinobu too, because she knew what would eventually become of her little sister, come due time.
Then, before that: Let’s become strong and save other people, so they don’t ever have to go through this like we did. Promise, Shinobu?
Swallowing feels like forcing glass shards down her throat. Shinobu offers Kanroji a smile that she hopes doesn’t look like a grimace. “I’ll tell you later,” she offers, more lie than truth. “I just need to grab something from the inn room, and then we can go for dinner! Better eat before it gets dark, so we can catch the demon as soon as it comes out!”
“Oh!” Thankfully, Kanroji is easily distracted, and doesn’t seem to take note of Shinobu’s avoidance of her question. “Yes, of course! I lost track of time. I’ll wait for you down here, Kocho-san!”
It had been a flimsy excuse to get out of the conversation, but as Shinobu mounts the creaking wooden steps up to their shared room, she realizes that she does have something she needs to do—she’s due for her evening dose of poison.
The calculations all indicated that she needed consistency, precision. It was a delicate balancing-act of building up tolerance, keeping the poison inside her body, and making sure she timed the doses so her body could acclimate to it all. Every morning, every evening. Within the set hour. If things went well, Shinobu was safe to deviate off her schedule in a couple months.
For now, Shinobu can’t afford to miss a dose, especially not in this precarious phrase of her experimenting. Kanroji is also waiting for her downstairs.
Quickening her steps, she takes the stairs up two at a time until she’s at their inn room, shoving open the door and rifling through her backpack for the syringes of poison she had already packed.
Her pain tolerance has increased; what was once hours of gritted-teeth and curled-up-pain has shortened to minutes. Still, she had entirely neglected to tell Kanroji how long she’d take, and the last thing Shinobu needs is for the other girl to come up to check in on her while she’s writhing on the ground in misery, fingers stuffed in her mouth to stop herself from screaming from the agony of it all.
Shinobu allows herself a second of deliberation before she’s snatching up the syringe, flicking the cap off, and sliding the needle-tip into her skin.
Nothing, at first. Like always. It takes a few seconds to fully kick in.
And then it crescendos. Like a thousand fire ants marching up her veins. An inferno, rampaging from the injection site and spreading and spreading until it has reached every crevice of Shinobu’s body.
She crumples forward over her knees, gasping. This is familiar. This is nothing new. It will pass.
Eyes stinging, vision tunneling, Shinobu tries to cast her mind elsewhere. A good memory. One that soothes this hurt.
Breathe in.
There is a swing in the backyard of her parents’ home. She often played on it with Kanae.
Breathe out.
Shinobu pictures it swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The late afternoon sun casts rays through the thick canopy of green leaves on the tree from which the swing hangs from, the rich gold filtering through and printing the ground with dappled patterns.
Breathe in.
Kanae is laughing. Shinobu is afraid of being pushed too high on the swing and Kanae only laughs, and she says, It’s okay Shinobu, I won’t let you fall, you’ll be fine, because they are seven and ten and nothing bad has ever happened to them yet. The worst thing in the world is falling off the swing.
Breathe out.
Kanroji Mitsuri’s laughter spills out from between her parted lips, full and warm. Her fingers brush Shinobu’s as they trade gifts: for Kanroji, a cherry-blossom clip; for Shinobu, a lavender clasp.
There is a knock on the door.
Shinobu jerks upright, wincing at the sudden switch in position and how it amplifies the pain that still lingers. “Kocho-san!” Kanroji’s voice sounds from outside. “Are you there? Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she manages through gritted teeth. “Yes, sorry, just—just give me a moment!”
Thankfully, Kanroji doesn’t come inside. Shinobu plants her palms flat against the wooden boards. She swallows, throat sandpaper-raw, and grits her teeth.
How long has it been? Five minutes? Ten? From the way the pain is ebbing ever so slowly, Shinobu knows she won’t need longer before she’s—well, functional enough to walk straight and respond to conversation without doubling over in pain.
She counts up seconds. Twenty, thirty-eight, fifty-two. By the time Shinobu hits ninety, she’s shaking but able to pull herself to her feet and walk semi-normally towards the door.
Kanroji is standing right there when Shinobu tugs it open. Her green eyes go wide when she sees Shinobu. “Is everything okay?”
Shinobu feels as if someone just stuck a dozen nails into all her joints and poured molten nichirin into her veins, but that’s a daily routine, by now. She gives Kanroji a smile. “Just fine!” she reassures the other girl. “Now, should we head out for dinner?”
Unlike before, Kanroji isn’t so quickly deterred. She scans Shinobu up and down, brows furrowing, lips pulling into a frown. “Are you sure?” she asks, concern seeping into her voice. She leans forward as if to take a closer look at Shinobu. “You don’t look very well, Kocho-san.”
Shinobu forces another smile. The pain is more of an ache, now. Ignorable. She’s good at ignoring. “I really am fine, Kanroji-san,” she reassures. “I promise you have nothing to be concerned about!”
Kanroji looks at her for a few more seconds before abruptly tearing her eyes away and jerking back. She’s begun to flush. “Ah, I mean—I don’t mean to offend or imply anything! You don’t look bad, of course!” She turns redder at that, wringing her hands together.“Well, I always thought you were very pretty, Kocho-san! Just—” Her shoulders slope forward in defeat. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m getting at anymore. What I mean to say is that I just wanted to make sure you were alright. That’s all!”
Shinobu’s heart is a treacherous thing. Her only saving grace is that she’s had ample practice pretending to be something she is not, because it’s the only reason she manages to smile while maintaining all her outward composure. “I am, Kanroji-san,” she reassures. “But thank you for worrying about me. I really do appreciate it!”
“Of course,” Kanroji says earnestly. “If you don’t mind—I saw a restaurant specializing in cold soba nearby! Would you like to try it? We can head to anywhere else you’d like, too, I’m not picky! Honestly, I enjoy just about anything, so…”
“Cold soba sounds good!” Shinobu closes the door behind her. “Shall we?”
They head out of the inn. Her heart is still doing some sort of unwelcome dance routine in her ribcage.
Her parents used to call her pretty. Kanae always said the same thing. The Butterfly Triplets had called her beautiful when Shinobu once sat with them and they put flowers in her hair. But that was different.
Kanroji Mitsuri, with her spring eyes and cherry blossom hair and larger than life smile—she’s gorgeous, she really is, in the way that flowers are gorgeous when they bloom; Shinobu has always been a little too aware of it since she saw Kanroji at that Hashira meeting—calling her pretty. And all of a sudden they aren’t on a mission to slay a demon, Shinobu hasn’t just pressed five millilitres of poison into her bloodstream, and these pretty yukata won’t be traded for the Corps’ standard uniform in a few short hours time; for a very brief moment, she lets herself indulge in the seeping sweetness of Kanroji’s compliment and the implications of something more.
Then Kanroji is pushing open the door outside, the last rays of sunshine turning everything a rusted shade of gold, and the tether to reality snaps taut again.
Don’t get attached.
Shinobu keeps the conversation light but shallow on the way there. It isn’t hard—Kanroji is happy talking about every topic under the sun, and always has a lot to say about it. She prattles on about her favourite food, then her favourite sweets, and Shinobu catches herself absentmindedly cataloguing Kanroji’s preferences for the next time they (may) see each other again. Sakura mochi, nabeyaki udon; she’s fond of Western food, too. By the time Kanroji has switched to talking about the dishes she’s learned to make on her own, they’ve arrived at the restaurant.
They get seated in a quiet little corner. Kanroji’s eyes light up when she looks over the menu, excitedly pointing out the dishes she’d like to try.
“We should just get the whole menu!” Shinobu jokes as Kanroji bemoans over a few options, clearly unable to make up her mind.
Kanroji flushes. “Really?”
Shinobu blinks. “You can eat that much?”
Kanroji turns even redder. Her voice falls quieter. “I know it’s weird. My appetite, I mean. Everyone told me it isn’t ladylike, but I just get so hungry and food is just so—delicious, you know? But I guess we shouldn’t spend too much time here if we need to get on with the mission, and—”
“No,” Shinobu blurts. “No, we have plenty of time to spare, so get whatever you’d like, Kanroji-san.” She’s already chosen what she wants, but Shinobu lies anyway: “I’m having trouble deciding too!”
That seems to put Kanroji at ease. She waves the waiter over and, as per Shinobu’s suggestion, orders the entire menu.
“Thank you,” Kanroji says as the girl disappears behind the curtained kitchen. Her smile is a little shy, but it’s sincere. “I’m still not used to it even though I’ve been with the Corps for a year! Everyone is so accepting. I still feel embarrassed every time I eat with somebody, but at the same time, there’s always so much good food I want to try!”
Once, when Shinobu had been twelve years old, still praying she’d grow—even if it were just a centimeter or two—she had filled her bowl to overflowing, hoping that eating more would allow her to grow taller and stronger. Now, the poison leaves a perpetual nausea that makes food difficult to stomach. She keeps her diet bland. Easier on her stomach, and less side effects.
Oh, she and Kanroji really are opposites, Shinobu thinks. Kanroji’s unrelenting optimism and cheer, bursting from the seams, too genuine to be anything but sincere. Her appreciation and enjoyment of the little things like a hearty meal.
It isn’t just the poison—ever since Kanae died, Shinobu has felt like a husk of a person. Living, breathing, eating, sleeping: she performed everything a human did, but it was so empty. The anger had poisoned her long before the wisteria did.
“I think having a big appetite is a good thing,” Shinobu hums. She tilts her head, considering. “You and Rengoku-san must have gotten along quite well, then!”
“Ooh, we did,” Kanroji laughs. “It’s funny—he used to push me to train, and wouldn’t ever relent until Senjuro-kun brought him pastries! And then he’d drop everything to eat as well!”
Shinobu snorts at that. “Sounds like Rengoku-san!”
They continue chatting, jumping from one topic to the next. Kanroji is a natural conversationalist, and in spite of Shinobu’s best attempts to ground herself, she gets caught up with Kanroji’s easy enthusiasm. The only interruptions are when the waitress comes with their food, enough bowls to cover the entire table, but even then, they keep on talking.
It feels good. Shinobu’s days are full of strict repetition: research, demon-slaying, attending to patients in the infirmary. She can’t remember the last time she’s done something as simple as share a meal with a comrade—a friend, she supposes, that much she’ll allow herself to have—but this is an uncomplicated luxury she hadn’t even realized how much she missed.
The cold soba and clear broth is soothing on her stomach. Shinobu is glad that the discomfort is negligible. It seems right, that her body is feeling at its best while she’s here with Kanroji.
Kanroji is halfway through her eight orders of soba when she suddenly asks, “Is it okay if I call you Shinobu?”
Shinobu must’ve been too slow to hide her surprise, because Kanroji’s cheeks pink again and she lets out a squeak of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry if I am being too forward!” she says. “I just thought—well, we are friends now, aren’t we? You have such a pretty name, and I… I’ve been wanting to be friends with you ever since I saw you at the Hashira meeting, and I’d love to be closer if—if you want, of course! And obviously, you can call me Mitsuri too! But obviously, it’s no bother if you don’t want me to, and if that’s the case, we can both forget I ever asked. That’s—that’s okay, too.”
Shinobu’s mind catalogues the implications and the complications that this could bring. It comes to the logical conclusion that she’s taking teetering steps towards a place of no-return, and allowing Kanroji—Mitsuri, a small voice corrects—closer and closer will do no good for either of them. It’s Shinobu’s heart—beating too fast for her all that logic and reason to catch up and put a halt to it—that has her opening her mouth and saying, “Of course you can call me Shinobu.”
Mitsuri’s eyes light up. She beams at Shinobu. “I’m so glad we’ve been assigned to this,” she repeats dreamily for the second time today, and digs right back into her soba.
“Me too,” Shinobu replies. Her heart tumbles to the syllables of that name. Her most stone-set revolves are chipping under the chisel of Mitsuri’s smile, and Shinobu feels herself slipping. Mitsuri, Mitsuri, Mitsuri— “Kanroji-san.”
Don’t get attached.
Mitsuri wears her heart too obviously on her sleeve to stow away her crestfallen expression, even if it’s quickly covered by a sunny smile and proclamation (this one a little too enthusiastic) of how good the soba is. She wonders what Mitsuri is thinking: that Shinobu is cold, that she doesn’t want to be closer, that she is refusing the offer because she doesn’t want it?
Shinobu wants to reassure her; it isn’t a problem of want. It never was. But wanting is fickle in their world, and more so in Shinobu’s. If Shinobu got what she wanted, Kanae wouldn’t be buried in the dirt and she’d be testing the syllables of Mitsuri’s given name, instead of confining herself to the polite distance of Kanroji-san. If Shinobu got what she wanted, she wouldn’t have traded in her chance to live for this needle-in-a-haystack shot at revenge, she wouldn’t have let her sister’s absence rot her from the inside out.
But maybe it is about want, after all: that Shinobu had decided three years ago that she wanted to avenge Kanae above all else—above her life, above her relationships, above any long shot at a real future. She’d made her bed, and now the only thing she can do is lie in it. She can’t go back and remake her decisions because this path is a one-way road down to the grave. There is no turning back. She had wanted that. Hadn’t she?
A new mutedness hangs over the rest of dinner, no matter Mitsuri’s best attempts to keep things cheery and lighthearted. Shinobu’s fault, she knows, for taking Mitsuri’s offer of closeness and letting it shatter on the ground.
Not long after, they finish, pay the restaurant owner, and leave. In the time they’ve spent at dinner, the sun has sunken entirely beneath the horizon and the pearlescent glow of the crescent moon has dressed the night sky instead. Nagoya is still busy enough in these early evening hours, with decent-sized crowds rushing to-and-fro around them like flowing water.
They don’t say much on the way back to the inn. Mitsuri goes inside to change into her uniform and retrieve their swords and the makeshift crutches they picked up in the afternoon, while Shinobu waits on the street.
A breeze has begun to pick up. Shinobu leans against the wooden boards painted peeling white and closes her eyes.
Contending with Kanae’s death had never been easy. Three years later and her sister’s absence ached like an old battle wound that never closed, no matter what Shinobu tried to smooth it over with.
But ever since she’d started making plans to poison herself, ever since she’d resigned herself to the fact that she was going to die, poison in her veins, devoured by the same demon that had stolen her sister from her—reminders of what Shinobu would have to leave behind also became harder and harder to swallow.
Kanao. Aoi. The triplets. Shinobu leaves room for them in her heart—they were there already, anyway, and she can’t just cast them out—but everyone else, she doesn’t let burrow too close.
Because it’s an unbearable thought, letting Mitsuri in just for Shinobu to have one more person she’ll have to shed tears over leaving behind, come due time. Any chance at a possible future, a kinder one—she doesn’t want to have that idealistic fantasy to lose, too.
Soon, Mitsuri is coming back out of the inn. She’s in her slayer uniform, sword strapped to her hip, the words destroy stitched into her back.
The sight of her uniform is like cold water. It yanks Shinobu violently out of the murky depths of her wandering thoughts. A necessary reminder of who they are, their purpose, their fight. The necessity doesn’t make it feel less cruel.
Mitsuri hands the crutches to Shinobu. They stand silent and unmoving for a few seconds too long before Mitsuri straightens.
“Let’s go kill the demon!” she says. A valiant attempt at enthusiasm, but it ultimately falls short. They both know.
Shinobu slides the crutches under her arms. The night is suddenly so cold without the warm kiss of daylight. Gone are those hours they spent browsing the street stalls, talking about every topic under the sun as if they have no burden but the breaths they breathe. This is what they’re here for. To kill a demon. Nothing else.
Her heart stumbles, aches, all-too-tender. Ignoring it, Shinobu squares her shoulders and steels her spine. She’s done harder than keep a polite, cordial distance from somebody she wants nothing more than to let in.
“Let’s go,” Shinobu echoes.