TWO NIGHTS LATER

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The actors were on form tonight. Zenitsu heard a lot of sniffling in the crowd as the jealous sun arrived, wreathed in silk flames, to spirit away the moon. Raising his fists to the heavens, the samurai cursed the sun for banishing his lover to the night. Zenitsu had felt that way about the sun sometimes.

He was one of three shamisen players but had quickly been elevated to complicated solo pieces. Once Ishii had realized Zenitsu could replicate any piece of music after hearing it once, the proprietor had thrown some of the more complex compositions at him that Chiba and the other two players had never managed.

Plucking at the shamisen, he kept an ear on the audience and listened for telltale demonic heartbeats and circulation. In nicer theaters, musicians—aside from getting the occasional turn on stage—would be hidden from view, but there was just room for the one peeling screen which hid the tiny chorus.

Already the crowd served to obfuscate his hearing and it was getting worse every night. More people just kept coming, to the point where Ishii, with a greedy glint in his eye, began threatening the possibility of two shows a night if this kept up. Two shows! Just when was Zenitsu supposed to do his real job? He hated working half as hard as he already did and now he was doing twice the work.

Three performances in and he hadn't gotten so much as an audible whiff of demon. Which wasn't saying much; in this crowd a demon would have to sit in the first few rows and heckle for Zenitsu to hear him. Demons didn't trail sound like they did scent, so you couldn't follow where they'd been, and at this point it was like listening for one stray note in a cacophony. But larger crowds should be attracting the demon's attention, right? (Zenitsu didn't know how he felt about that.)

One guy made him nervous, though. He wore spectacles, too, but was neater in appearance than Ishii, dressed in modern Western clothing. He'd been there all three nights so far, staring hard at Zenitsu. Did he recognize him? Zenitsu was sure he wasn't a demon but couldn't fathom his interest. He pretended not to notice the stranger, who he was positive he hadn't met before, but sweated through the performance.

With a wail, the samurai consigned himself to the stars to spend eternity with his beloved. Zenitsu ended the score with a quiver on the shamisen. Beside him, Hori lowered the flute, puffing like he'd run a race.

"If I have to do this twice a night, my lungs will cave in," the flutist muttered. He didn't look like he'd ever mastered a breathing technique.

Ishii had been right, the music really wasn't bad. Actually, it was extremely good, and of a way better quality than you'd expect from a place like this. Ishii's sister, wife of the brother-in-law of dubious talent, had written it. Women composers resigned themselves to cheap theaters because kabuki was largely a world populated by men. Zenitsu thought maybe the play would have tugged his heartstrings more if the moon looked a little more like Nezuko and a little less like the stringy, sallow actor he'd witnessed shaving his arms over a bowl that morning.

"This will puff his head up," predicted Hori, watching the moon's actor bow to the cheering audience. Sure enough, Baba looked immensely pleased by the throng and not at all surprised by the surge in their theater's popularity, and every bit like he considered it his long-awaited due.

Actors.

Zenitsu slung the shamisen over his back and bowed with the other musicians. Normally the applause would go to his head too, just a little, but he was so intent on listening for a demon that the clapping only annoyed him.

Afterwards, Zenitsu positioned himself by the door, ostensibly out of respect for the patrons. A toothless man known only as Zo took admission and, Zenitsu suspected, skimmed a little from the top. He was nodding off on his stool.

Many of the patrons lingered to compliment his playing. Some even gave him complimentary flowers. The man who'd made him nervous did not stop to speak on his way out, but merely bowed. Zenitsu returned it with an anxious bob of the head. None of them were demons. Unless the demon had found a separate exit, they had not come at all.

He resigned himself to making another round of the night markets. After each performance he did this, wandering through the stalls and crowds 'til dawn. Then he slept through the morning. Demon slayers kept odd hours.

There hadn't been any further disappearances. That was about his only consolation for three days' work and nothing to show for it. Would Ubayashiki, or whoever was calling the shots at this point, send another Corps slayer? That was just what he needed: to make this a party. He'd never live it down. For some reason he had a faster rate of closure on cases than most of the Corps, but all it meant was they made him go on the most missions!

Chuntaro chirped encouragingly from his shoulder. Zenitsu stepped into the market with foreboding.

A calligrapher. A Noh actor from another theater. A puppet maker. A kokyu player. A printmaker. A weaver. Dancers and more musicians. Chiba the shamisen player. No art was left unscathed.

Zenitsu had asked around the markets the other two nights. What connected the missing artisans was that each one seemed to be well-respected in their field—with the notable exception of Chiba, whose ear-splitting interpretation of 'Tread Upon Water' had reportedly brought tears to the eye in the worst way. Why was Chiba the standout? Was his disappearance unrelated to the others?

Sighing, Zenitsu finished a rice ball. At some point he began absently winding the flowers he'd received into a crown.

So far he'd gone unremembered in his old haunts, although spotting Fujita (who'd once threatened to pound his face in for looking twice at his girl) at the meat spit had almost given him a heart attack.

Then suddenly, as if a floodgate had opened, he began seeing familiar faces everywhere. They gnawed on chicken, strolled with fans held coyly to their mouths, lounged in doorways and huddled together to discuss repossessed debts in low tones.

Next he'd walked right by Aoki, the tailor whose cramped shop stood above a noodle shack. He'd once bought a threadbare haori from her. She'd sold it to him at half again its worth and he'd heard the cunning in her voice, but he bought it without haggling because she'd smiled at him. Across the street, Old Seki smoked a pipe from the stool he'd occupied for at least ten years, the equally ancient crow he'd gotten from somewhere cackling incessantly in his ear.

Pimply Terazawa, another street orphan, had shoved a staked fish beneath his nose and wafted the smell. With sudden daring Zenitsu had even bought one, looking straight into his eye with a pounding heart.

None of them betrayed so much as a flicker of recognition.

How could they not recognize him? Had he changed so much?

Zenitsu hadn't wanted to go home, had never wanted to see these people again. So when their eyes passed him over, why did it make him want to cry? He should be glad. He was glad. These people hadn't been friends to him.

Anyway, he was here to do a job, so it was better this way.

Some policemen on the corner caught his eye. They weren't such an noteworthy sight around here—the night markets were rough around the edges, but order was good for business—yet they seemed unusually watchful. A couple even carried pistols. Could they be on the lookout too? Even if Ishii dismissed the disappearance of artisans as misguided flights of fancy, it had surely drawn the attention of police.

Nezuko wasn't around for Zenitsu to give her the flower crown so he plopped it on his head. He was pretending to admire some artful calligraphy when a voice called from behind.

"Zenitsu?"

He froze.

No, no no!

"Is that you? Zenitsu!"

Damn! Damn! He knew people by their tread but he'd been so focused on listening for demons he'd tuned out everything else. Could he pretend not to hear? Oh, but she knew better. She knew how good his hearing was.

Slowly, he turned.

Of all the people to recognize him, it had to be her. Of course it would be her.

There she stood, dressed in finery lovelier than what he'd beggared himself to give her, a fan in one hand and the other resting on the arm of her companion. Pretty astonishment widened her liquid brown eyes; her mouth fell slightly open.

Sayuri.

"It is you," she breathed.

For a heartbeat Zenitsu wondered what of the cringing coward she'd still recognized in the set of his shoulders, the back of his head.

"I knew it from the shamisen," she said instead, still wonderingly. "You always wore it like that. Across your back."

Her companion was carelessly handsome and dressed in the modern Western fashion. He did not seem pleased by the interruption. There was something haughty in his gloved hands and slicked-back hair.

"What happened to your hair?" Sayuri asked Zenitsu, staring at it.

"I got hit by lightning," he said numbly. She put a hand to her mouth, taken aback. Was she really standing right there?

There's a demon around here somewhere, reminded his subconscious. It almost sounded like Chuntaro's chirps. Abruptly he realized he was still wearing the flower crown. Damn it! If he removed it now it'd look like he was embarrassed by it.

She was still looking at him as if he'd materialized from fog; she seemed strangely unwilling to walk away. "I heard... you'd gone to apprentice for a swordsman."

"Ah...that didn't work out," lied Zenitsu. "He—he released me from my debt."

"I see...that was kind of him."

And there it was. That single honest note of guilt he'd revered above every sham profession of tenderness she'd ever made. She lied to him, sure, but everyone lied, and at least she always felt a little bad about it—that was how Zenitsu had rationalized it then, even on the day the debt collectors came for him. A little honest pity was all he'd needed to forgive all the things she had to be sorry for. He was as much to blame for what followed.

He might have told her he'd become a demon slayer if he thought her hearing was good enough to know the truth in his words.

A demon. He was there to hunt a demon. Get a grip!

"Sayuri, won't you introduce us?" said her companion repressively. He bristled in his finery and reminded Zenitsu of a peacock he'd once seen in a rich man's yard. What was this guy getting worked up about? He was the one on Sayuri's arm!

"Oh, yes...Morifusa, this is Zenitsu. He—he used to live here." She turned her big brown eyes on him. "That is...are you back?"

"No, no," Zenitsu said fervently. "Just passing through for a week. Nothing more. Listen, ah—I gotta go." It felt like someone else was talking for him. If he didn't leave right then his nerves would boil over.

She looked like she wanted to stop him, and opened her mouth to speak when a jolt ran through Zenitsu's nerves.

Startling the pair, he straightened sharply and whipped around to scan the crowd, hand on his shamisen. His heart beat like a jackrabbit. The alley was congested and he leaned forward, listening intently.

There! A demon!

It ebbed almost in a flash, moving with the crowd. He couldn't see them!

"Zenitsu, what are you..."

"Gotta go!" he said breathlessly, darting forward, almost glad for the distraction. If ever a demon had a sense of timing!

He plunged into the crowd, edging past market goers and straining for a look. Vaguely he thought that not long past he would have been horrified by the idea of chasing after a demon. He was still horrified! He did it anyway. Even after getting blindsided by Sayuri. One day he'd end up as crazy as Inosuke.

Where was it headed? He brushed through the crowd, catching snatches of sound which slipped from his hearing like an eel. People cursed him for shoving by, which he ignored.

At last he skidded to a huffing stop before an establishment that sat on the fringes of the night market. This part of the street was better maintained; it led into more upper-scale neighborhoods, the kind of place where the rich "slummed it" without ever leaving the drooping cherry trees.

The establishment was a nickelodeon. His distracted mind lingered on the characters for a moment before wrapping itself around their meaning.

While it was less populated here, plenty of well-to-do strolled around nibbling at rice cakes and gossiping. None of them gave Zenitsu a second look, which was funny—whenever he'd strayed this far into the interior before, he could expect dirty looks from the milling locals.

He hesitated, then dug in his pocket, trying to focus. After a last glance around he turned and walked into the nickelodeon.

Fumbling, he at last pulled money from his pocket. His hands were shaking, as much Sayuri's doing as caused by any demon. It was dark inside, and cooler. He handed admission to the attendant, who yawned into one hand, inured now to the novelty of cinema.

The interior was cramped and crowded. The whirring of the projector sounded like cicadas. This moving picture was some five-minute farce of a Western cowboy with vision so poor he kept trying to ride cows, to the great amusement of the ranch hands. To his slight surprise, one of the laughing, black-and-white actors was Japanese. Baba, who played the moon at their kabuki, was always disparaging moving pictures as lower art but Zenitsu knew he'd kill to be in one.

Sayuri had talked of it, too. She hadn't found much success as a dancer and traditional theater didn't welcome women. Once, they'd heard about a theater operator in Tokyo who was going to put together Japanese-produced cinema, still a rarity. Sayuri declared she'd get to Tokyo and told a lovestruck Zenitsu he'd see her in nickelodeons, too, one day. He'd heard the absolute certainty in her voice and believed she'd predicted the future.

So what was she still doing in Dusky Town?

Row by row, Zenitsu pretended to search for an empty seat before giving it up. There wasn't any demon here. It'd never gone inside at all.

Zenitsu poked his head out of the nickelodeon and looked both ways like he was about to cross city traffic.

Nothing fishy.

"Damn it!" he cursed aloud, surprising a genteel couple parading past. They threw him suspicious frowns and he scowled at them.

For the next several hours he lurked around the area, hoping he wouldn't spot Sayuri again. He didn't get another lead that night. Now what? Dawn was arriving. Already the horizon looked a shade lighter. Wherever the demon was, it'd gone to ground for the day.

At least no one else had died. Just how selective was this demon? The beggar was a chooser, it seemed.

Sighing, he trudged back to the theater to finally get some sleep in his crate of a room.

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I'd love to know your thoughts! Thanks for reading.

Again, sorry for any historical inaccuracies regarding Japanese theater. I did do some reading on it!