𝙸𝚝 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙴𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚎 (𝔾𝕚𝕪𝕦𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕠) {𝓚𝓝Ⴘ}
𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 16: 𝓡𝓮𝓭 𝓑𝓮𝓪𝓷 𝓑𝓾𝓷𝓼
Shinobu POV:
I woke up in the morning with sunlight reflecting in my window.
Things had changed over the past couple of days. I'd received a short, formal letter from Himari informing that she and Giyu had broken up.
After that Giyu didn't attend training sessions or even Hashira meetings anymore. When we got joint missions he never showed up, and when I went to check on the area I found the demon had been killed already.
Their break-up probably explained Giyu's isolation. I hadn't seen him around in weeks, and it was unusual for a pillar not to show up at a meeting. I overheard Kaguya-sama worrying about him and saying he hadn't been reporting about missions either.
I was growing worried about him. From a scientific perspective, Giyu was mentally unstable and may do unspeakable things. Nobody had seen him for too long, and he was probably cooped up in his house.
However! I wasn't TOO worried. He was still one of my greatest enemies. (Douma was number one.) I still despised him greatly. I will admit sometimes I forget my hatred for him, but let him be. If he's doing bad things to himself, then so be it.
Mitsuri was the one who worried herself sick, so I decided to bring over a plate of Aoi's red bean buns to his house to check on him. Only to comfort Mitsuri, mind you. I'd never been to Giyu's house before, but my crow got me directions to his estate.
To be honest, I was a little happy Giyu had broken up with Himari. She was nice enough, but she always got on my nerves a little with her pernament smile. It reminded me too much of myself, except she was geniune. I was fake.
I was handling things better now. I only thought dark thoughts like that once in a while, and my anger at Giyu was subsiding. Perhaps time had smoothed the edges, and I was ready to become a better person now!
Or maybe not. Maybe I was going to be the same person forever and never change, with my own selfish thoughts and feelings.
"Miss Kocho!" Aoi's cheerful voice ran out from the kitchen. "The buns are ready!"
"Hai!" I rushed to the kitchen, throwing on my haori. "Coming!"
I skidded to a stop outside the best-smelling place in the estate, and picked up the glad-wrapped plate of Aoi's fresh, steaming red bean buns. They made my mouth water just looking at them!
"Oh! I apologise, Miss Kocho," Aoi bowed. "I'll have breakfast prepared immediantly! I was just engaged in making the buns and the feast for the pillars!"
"No need to worry, Aoi, I'll be fine without breakfast," I smiled, but then realised something. "Wait, 'feast for the pillars'?"
"Yes! You must know about it, since you'll be engaging in it after all! I was appointed to make lunch for the pillars. They're celebrating the end of no night patrols! I'm happy to hear everything will be patrolled now, and that the effects of the tornados have been repaired." Aoi smiled.
"A-ah... I see. Thank you, Aoi," My mind started to wander. "Say, when is the feast exactly?"
"I believe it'll be at 12:30." Aoi replied. "I woke up at six to get an early start, but I still don't know if I'll finish! I've heard some of the pillars are big eaters.."
I hid a giggle. "Yes. Yes, some of them are. Well, good luck!" I waved her off and carefully held the plate of buns as I walked outside.
I was already a hundred metres away from the Butterfly Mansion when I realised I had forgotten to pin my hair up. Oh, well, it doesn't matter if I don't wear it for a day. Kanae won't think I've forgotten about her.
I hope.
Today was really a nice day, compared the terrible rains and freezing tempatures from the past few days. It put me in a good mood. Maybe this visit won't be so bad after all? If I'm lucky, he'll have some mochi on the table and I'll make him give me some...
I checked the map my crow had given me. It wasn't very detailed- assuming the poor bird had only gotten the vague direction to Giyu's estate. When I'd asked around yesterday, turned out no pillar had ever visited Giyu's home. Although, they didn't have a reason to, so I didn't blame them.
Mitsuri's estate was most popular. She always decorated elebarotely and served the best guest snacks. Every pillar had visited at least twice (except for Sanemi and Giyu) and Mitsuri was happy to have them.
My estate was also popular- for different reasons, of course. Often pillars would get badly injured and need treatment at the Butterfly Mansion. Of course, dozens of lower-ranking Slayers would pile in endlessly as well.
However, lately there were more and more newer Slayers getting seriously injured. There were above ten fatal injuries in the past week. From my knowledge, it was proabably because they came across un-patrolled areas at dark.
But! Now that our evening patrols were back up, things would return to normal. To be honest, I was enjoying the break from the late-night patrols. I lost a lot of sleep to it, and didn't work as efficiently in the morning, but I guess that's a little selfish, isn't it?
Ah, Aoi's red bean buns smelt so good. If only I wasn't in a hurry to deliver them to Giyu's estate and get to the Hashira meeting as well.
Today's Hashira meeting wasn't really a 'meeting'. It was just a little celebration of the end of no-night-patrols. We were also going to vote if we wanted to contuine doing the training sessions. Personally, I wasn't gonna call it quits till I got a turn with Mitsuri. Apparently the crows just didn't want us to be partners, knowing the stuff we'd get up to.
We were also gonna have a delicious Aoi-prepared lunch together, do a little bit of bonding time and go for yakiniku for dinner. When the sun sets we were set to do sparklers. It was like a little celebration day, since New Years was only in a few weeks and Christmas one week.
Celebrations like Christmas and New Years, however, weren't really celebrated 'on the day' by Slayers, since demons often found them as targets. Everyone was out and about, and they assumed Slayers were also on holiday, so demons used holidays to target people. Unfortunatly, most pillars had to keep lookout at any fireworks shows, since demons liked to find prey there. It was the perfect opportuinity- dark, lots of people and everyone's attention fixed to one thing.
Therefore most pillars celebrated a few weeks earlier. Today's celebration was for New Years (they couldn't finish the Christmas decorations in time to do the Chirstmas party first) and I was hyped for it. Everyone was told to come in formal attire. It was apparently going to be really fancy, and was even indoors for once. (We mainly had our parties or meals on a picnic table outside.)
Mitsuri and I had went shopping together yesterday for outfits, and Mitsuri had bought possibly every cute dress she found. I didn't have much time for social gatherings anyway, excluding pillar-gatherings, so I only bought a gold strap dress, a pair of silver heels and some new earrings.
I'd worn my uniform to Giyu's estate because I didn't want to spoil my outfit to him, but he probably wouldn't care anyways. Different story if it were Tengen... or Shigeru.
Shigeru, obviously, wasn't a pillar (yet!), but we were allowed to bring any friends or family along to the New Years party, so I was bringing Shigeru. Tengen was bringing his three wives and Rengoku was bringing his little brother. I guess originally Giyu would have brought Himari, but now..
Ah, well. The sooner I brought him his red bean buns (and made sure he was coming, I was worried he would skip and spoil things for everyone), the sooner I could go get Shigeru and get ready.
Finally, after half an hour of walking, I got to Giyu's estate. It really was further away than everyone else's estates. It looked sad and lonely on the map, like it was obviously isolated.
The more I walked towards his house, the more I realised the town was starting to get duller and smaller, with less people milling about getting ready for the holiday season and more people looking out their windows. The blue skies also had more clouds in this area.
"Ara. Leave it up to Tomioka to pick the gray, moody part of town to build his estate," I sighed, "Really. And so far away, too. It's a bother to visit him."
After rustling around in some bushes for a while, I finally found the front door of his estate.
Honestly, though the mansion was huge, it looked... lonely.
The garden outside was had obviously been untouched for years and the old roses were wilted and gray. There were cracks in the walls that nobody had bothered to repair and the door had scratches on the surface.
There was an antique bell hanging beside the door, covered by a thin layer of dust. The crunch of the fallen leaves underneath my feet was the only sound heard. Not even birds roamed in this isolated area.
It really was different from the lively state of the Butterfly Mansion.
I reached out to ring the dusty bell.
Giyu POV:
I'd been up for hours, but I liked to pretend I hadn't been.
I forced myself to get up from the crumpled covers I'd been lying on for too long. In a dazed trance, I brushed my teeth and messy hair.
These days I didn't bother to wear pajamas or anything of the sort. For the short amount of sleep I got, I slept in my uniform. If it was damp or wet, so be it.
Today was the day of the pillar's New Year party. My crow had given me my invitation, but I read it and didn't bother responding. I wasn't going.
Which meant another day of doing nothing.
I had no missions today since because of the party, Oyakata-sama cut off missions for everyone. Again. At this rate, the amount of dead lost-to-demons people will triple. Well. I wasn't going to be responsible for it.
Walking down the stairs slowly, I gazed at my forlorn kitchen. It looked dull, empty, consisting of not even a salt-shaker. All the cupboards were empty, except for a few bags of raw rice. I didn't even have a fridge anymore. The only thing on the kitchen bench was a rice cooker.
My body felt heavy and not hungry in the slighest, but I hadn't aten anything in the last five days and I figured it was about time I had something, so I dumped a few spoonfuls of rice into the rice cooker and turned it on.
I turned to the full-length mirror I had established a few years ago. I didn't even know why I had put it there. All it did was cause me pain. Now I could barely see my reflection. The mirror was blurred by splashes of blood.
Oh, well. It was everywhere. I was used to it by now.
There were dull aches of pain radiating from my body, but yet I still felt numb. When I hurt myself, it was only ever a second of real pain... and then it would fade again.
Suddenly, I heard the distinct sound of a bell ringing.
Loud, clear, vibrating in my ears.
So distant.
So familair.
The feeling of dread...
A/N: I'm so sorry it took days for me to finish this, I've been pretty busy lately. Also, just an advance-note, I won't be able to upload anything next week for 3-4 days becuase of camp. I won't be uploading this as a message since it's not that long, but I would like to give you a heads-up. Thanks for understanding!
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