The next day was a day of the same physical training, although it was completed by midday instead of the late afternoon. In fact, it went so much quicker that Hisaishi had to watch her student for almost an hour to make sure there was no cheating occurring. From what she saw, he was not the kind to pull any dirty tricks. At the same time, however, the growth in his physical prowess was hard to believe. From struggling to keep a plank and shaking in his horse stance, his push-ups became stable enough to carry a plate on and Hisaishi only needed to correct him once or twice while standing.
"How do you feel?"
"Me?" Gyomei was wiping his face with a sleeve. "I'm alright."
"You don't feel strange? Different? Perhaps, sick?"
"Should...I be?" He suddenly turned red. Oh no, was my performance poor quality?
"Did you eat anything strange? Perhaps medicine?" She approached and suddenly pulled apart his eyelids to search for possible drug side effects-perhaps bloodshot eyes or yellow sclera. Himejima screeched in response.
"KYAHHHH! W-w-what are you doing?" He reflexively jerked his head away, only to feel Hisaishi on him again, now pulling his mouth open to examine his teeth. "Gah-"
"Hmmm, seems all normal. " Hisaishi let go.
"I'm sorry, but I told you two days ago, I haven't taken the pneumonia medicine ever since it went away." Gyomei rubbed his now sore jaw. "Is there anything wrong? Do you think I'm sick?"
His teacher turned away to the direction of her shed. "No, no, there's nothing wrong with you, just unusual."
A silence then lingered until the cultivator returned, placing something heavy and long into Gyomei's hand. He shifted it a bit and tried to get a good feel of what it was. A long, wooden body around a meter and seventy centimeters, topped by a sharp metallic point.
"Come on. Remember about that waterfall I told you about?"
"This obstacle course is to train your defensive ability." Hisaishi gave Gyomei's hand and spear a pat. "This is why I gave you the yari first. My instructions are simple. The end of the course is marked by a chime which rings from the breeze moving it. When you move through the course, all kinds of projectiles and booby traps will be fired towards you, and you will try to use the yari to defend yourself. Any questions?"
Though her student was confused as to why he was expected to start using the spear without prior lessons in forms or techniques, he trusted her authority and did not say it out loud.
"No."
"Good." She gave him a light shove until he found a dirt road under his feet. "This is the path you're to follow. It's the only one here for miles, so as long as you stay on it you won't be lost." Hisaishi then yawned. "I am going to nap. Hope you come back alive. Take a few practice swings beforehand even, if you want."
He heard the footsteps of his mentor echo away. As long as he stayed on the dirt road...it was the right direction, right? Gyomei shifted his spear slightly, trying to gauge how one might wield it, having never used a weapon in his life. Was it meant to be swung like a sword? No, too awkward. Or maybe to goad. Better, but not much area for defense.
Perhaps just going ahead could give him an idea of what to do with it. He was getting nowhere relying on thinking itself, after all. It was a nice day. The sun beamed in the sky, a gentle breeze tousled the whispering leaves of trees. A magpie sang in a branch above. The warmth gave him a good bit of energy. He started to run.
It wasn't long before he could feel the ground starting to give way under his feet. A pit trap!?
"AGH!" A sharp object brushed against his heel, causing slight bleeding. If it wasn't for the spear being caught on the side of the wall, he might have been ripped to shreds by the blades protruding at the bottom.
If this is the first thing I encounter, this is going to be a long day.
After he had scrambled out of the pit, next came flying logs from the sides of the path, then a spiked net and various other contraptions which he had barely managed to avoid by the sheer luck of his flailing around. At least Hisaishi seemed to have made them extremely loud for those with visual impairments, as resorting to his sense of touch to detect them would have been unpleasant.
Hisaishi returned to the waterfall at sunset to find her disciple bathing his cuts and scrapes.
"You look like you were run over by a horse."
"I am alright." It seemed as if he had tried to maintain a calm demeanor by turning away from her, but the woman was seasoned and could tell that he was shaken by the experience.
"You learned to fear death, though." She handed him a few clean bandages.
"...It's not the same as being beaten. Touching a blade is like...feeling your skin on fire." He accepted them and started to patch himself up.
"Did you figure out anything, though? You're not skewered on the ground so you must have learned something about using the yari."
Himejima put his hakama top back on after finishing dressing the injuries. "I don't think I learned very much. But-" He took the spear and rolled it about in his hand slightly. "-When the log hit me first, I aimed the head at it, and it started to roll in my hands accidentally...I was able to drill through it and protect myself."
"So you learned part of the first form already." She smirked with satisfaction. "What else?"
"The knives, they were hard to avoid but swinging like this-" He stood up and moved the weapon around in a wide arc. "-managed to deflect many of them."
"Third form. See? You are learning already, even if I haven't taught you any forms." Hisaishi cleared her throat. "The Breath of Stone focuses on defense and precision in combat. Our long-range weapons such as the yari not only give the user a longer range for protection, but also more area for deflecting and shielding attacks. This is why I wanted you to go through the course and focus on defending yourself against attacks rather than say, evasion, to improve your defensive ability."
"I see. Will we learn breath forms next, then?"
"Is the sky blue?"
"I have no idea."
"Oh, right...in other words, does the sun rise in the east?"
Hisaishi ended up teaching him the basics to all five forms by the end of the day. After which, they returned to her residence for dinner. While they were having the meal, Hisaishi was pleased to see that Gyomei had managed a few more mouthfuls of food than usual. It seemed also his frame was filling out a bit.
"Ah, Sayo, what were you doing all day?" The girl demon crawled onto Gyomei's lap and started to play with his cheeks. He responded by gently ruffling up her hair. "Hmm? Did you make any trouble for shihan?"
"These two sleep all day. You should hear them in the dead of night." Hisaishi leaned back. "Sounds like a rat infestation if the rats were massive."
She was met with a glare from Kaigaku who had understood he was being badmouthed.
"Oh, come on, you know it's true."
"Shihan is joking. Don't worry." Gyomei reassured the boy. Sayo wandered off of her caretaker's lap and up to Kaigaku. She put a hand to tug on his sleeve, as if reassuring him as well. Her fellow demon responded with a huff sound and went to rest against Himejima's back, causing the latter to stiffen momentarily.
It was the dead of night when Hisaishi had grabbed her nichirin spear and stalked over to the doorframe to investigate a noise. It didn't come from Kaigaku and Sayo-the footsteps were way to heavy for them. Was it another demon? How did it get in when she set up wisteria incense every night? Did a breeze blow it over? Did someone put it out? (She did not have many enemies though.)
Whatever qualms were in her head disappeared upon hearing the sound get closer. Whoever the fuck this is will face my blade. She readied herself for battle, waiting for the visitor to approach so she could strike. Once a footstep sounded about a foot in front of her, the cultivator gave a sharp cry. "Breath of Stone, first form, Serpentinite Bipolar!" If it were not for the intruder crouching down quickly, they would have become a human donut. Hisaishi's yari spun fast enough to warm the air around its trajectory. Steam emerged from it after two strikes. The invader, however, seemed to be uninjured by the lax tone of their voice.
"Oi what the fuck." A tall figure picked themselves off of the ground. Hisaishi's alarm turned to irritation as she noticed who it was. She lit a nearby candle to expose a startled Sarumei rubbing her back from evading too quickly. "Hey, I came for an early greeting and you try to kill me? Fucking bitch."
"No, I know the reason you came." The teacher raised an eyebrow.
"Fine, fine. So I needed some free food. You got plenty here. You could spare me some, right? I got a bit of a hangover right now if you haven't noticed." As if no attempt on her life had just been made, Sarumei started rummaging through the kitchen. "Ah, you switched to vegetarianism again? Good for you. Having that kid around probably finally convinced you to go healthy."
"You know controlling your diet is useless if you still sin in other precepts."
"Yeah, but commercialized farming has extremely detrimental effects on the climate and uses more resources than many other industries which is why I like to argue violating the precept of vegetarianism has worse effects on the world as a whole than the others from a utilitarian standpoint. Oh fuck, agedashi tofu? This is the good kush." She managed to squirrel out a plate of tofu with dashi broth and started to heat it by the stove. "Bro I just need this. Today's mission was such a drag."
"Speaking of your mission tonight, are you skipping it to get here early?" Hisaishi's eyes narrowed with disgust. "You're potentially throwing away lives for hangover food?"
"Oh no, no. You're so hostile to me shihan, no wonder you don't get students anymore." Sarumei started to dig into her tofu with glee once it had warmed up enough. "I just got it done before coming. Guess I'm just running out of opponents who can last more than five seconds. I keep telling headquarters to send me to a lower moon, but guess what? Those are handled by the hashira." She chugged the broth. "Not that I mind. More time for eating, smoking, whoring for me."
"You know you could become one if you're tired of your current missions." Hisaishi decided to head back to bed. She turned and yawned.
"And have a foot stuck up my ass? No thank you. I might be part of the slayers but I'm no one's dog to beck and call." She let the plate fall to the table with a clunk. Her teacher whipped around in irritation. "I'd appreciate if you didn't make so much noise. You might wake up Gyomei."
"Gyomei? He's not here." The kinoe lit up a blunt.
"Go do it outside, and what do you mean?" The older woman's face suddenly fell in worry.
"Kid's at the obstacle course. I heard him on the way here." Sarumei went out to take in her weed.
"He's not supposed to go out at night! What if he is attacked?"
"He's dumb but not that dumb. Probably has one of your wisteria satchels with him. No demon's gonna go mess with that." She let the used up blunt drop to the ground, smashing it with the heel of her sandal.
Himejima tightened dressing around his cuts again and took a swig out of a water bottle. He was going to give the course another try after setting the traps back in place. Insects hovered around his sweat-stained skin.
I'm going to make the best of what shihan taught me. When I can make it out of this path without gaining more injuries, that means I've learned how to use the forms.
He set another five pebbles in a row of stones to represent the five injuries he received in the last run through the course.
"Let's try again."
He ran onto the path and after a while, found the ground caving below him again. Lever yourself! Gyomei shoved the end of his spear into the pit wall, stopping himself from falling and backing up out of the hole. He continued. Two large logs rushed in at him after the pit. Listening to their rustling through the air, Gyomei decided they were too large to deflect and went to drill through.
"First form, Serpentinite bipolar."
He gave the wood two quick strikes with a spinning tip, causing them to be drilled through before they could hit him. The friction of the handle caused them to stop. Pulling the spear out of the wood took some time, but getting the spear stuck was still an improvement from getting whacked in the face.
If you can do it strong enough, it should break through completely, Hisaishi had said.
I still need to improve.
The next obstacles were the flying knives shooting at his sides. They were too many to use a drilling move such as the first form, so a wider range technique was required. Gyomei wracked his brain to remember as the first knife slid past his cheek, undoing one of the bandages.
Shoot-Wait, fifth form, was it?
"Fifth form, Arcs of Justice!" He swung the weapon in a wide arc on both sides, causing most of the knives to disperse.
That was better than last run. You actually remembered in time. Come on, make it to the end.
A spiked net dropped from the direction above as he traversed the next obstacle.
Up ahead, up ahead! Come on, what attack can be used in that direction!? Isn't one of the forms meant for attacking upwards?
Gyomei could almost feel the spikes slamming into him until it all connected at the last minute.
"That's right...second form-" He scrambled to angle his spear. "-Upper smash."
Upon stomping on the end of the weapon, he sent the head flying at the net to deflect it away from him. Gyomei made sure to step around the fallen trap and proceeded to continue.
The last trial was one he had survived on his first run only because of lucky movements. The cage of shooting blades was not meant to be escaped. The only choice was to protect oneself with a weapon. However, as much as this one made Himejima freeze out of sheer flight instinct on the first few tries, he now already had a plan in mind.
"Third form. Stone skin." As if he had pulled up a shield, the blades reflected off of the spear's rapid-fire arched swings.
After finishing the course, Gyomei counted his new cuts. Three from the first obstacle of knives was all he had gained. Three more pebbles to the line.
He grabbed a roll of gauze to patch himself up. Then, he headed off to set the obstacles over again.
"Here comes sleeping beauty." Sarumei yawned while leaning against the doorframe.
Himejima's ears perked up upon hearing the familiar voice. As a little flutter of excitement bumped against his chest, he scampered over to the older slayer as a puppy would with a long-gone human.
"Hebiyama-san, you came to visit?"
She found his relatively innocent expression amusing.
"No, I came to beat the shit out of you. Heads up." An untrained person would have barely any time to react to the rock that she flicked from her finger. However, it never made contact with her junior's face-one deft sweep was all he needed to bat it away.
Both went silent in shock.
Did I just...do that? I did practice all night, but...I didn't expect to move that fast.
Huh. I knew this kid was gonna be insane but I'm seriously wondering if I'm still tripping balls right now.
"Huh. Not bad. You don't look like a zombie anymore either." It was true, he was filling out his hakama a little more.
"Thank you...I suppose?" He gave her a small smile. "Shihan's treated me well."
"Will you two come in for breakfast already!? I swear-" Hisaishi seized the pair by their collars and dragged them over to the dining area. "Treating me like I don't exist, eh?"
"Lay off, hag, I'm almost half-blind and Gyomei can't even see you." Sarumei let out a grunt as she was plopped in front of rice, pickled vegetables, and some miso soup.
"Oh I know he can sense me well enough by sound." The old woman gave her former disciple a solid smack. Gyomei winced and started tearing up in sympathy, but kept his head down.
"I'm sorry Shihan, that was rude of me."
"What have you got to cry about? She's not even scolding you." His senior loudly helped herself to some daikon from his plate. "Grow some thicker skin."
He said nothing more and started to eat after thanking Hisaishi for the food. Sarumei took another portion from him and waited for his reaction. He turned to face her for a second, then went back to breakfast.
Looks like I got my work cut out for me.
Since this was to be a sparring match, both parties were to use wooden staffs instead of actual spears. Switching to real weapons might have been appropriate for two equally experienced swordsmen, but Hisaishi knew that with one rookie swordsman and Sarumei's experience combined with her disregard for holding back, that idea would have ended up disastrously.
"Just tell me when you're ready." Sarumei yawned and stretched a bit.
"I think I'm alright now." Gyomei got into a starting stance and inhaled deeply.
They had done the warm-up exercises beforehand including the obstacle course run. No matter how quickly he had taken to complete it, Sarumei always seemed to be done in half the amount of time. She did not even seem the slightest bit tired afterwards. Whether it was due to an advantage with visibility or pure skill, Gyomei knew the gorge between him and the older slayer was a wide one.
Hisaishi stopped Sarumei before she went into a starting stance.
"Don't do anything permanent."
"This ain't up to you to decide."
She walked past the older woman, although still giving a slight nod in etiquette.
Gyomei heard her footsteps stop in front of him. He readied himself, expecting a start signal from either of them.
"So, what will be the signal to-"
It took him a few seconds to fully perceive the staff slamming into his arm. Gyomei sucked in air, trying not to grunt in pain.
"What's wrong? You should have detected me moving towards you."
Indeed, he had heard Sarumei's foot landing to his right without even realizing she moved. To steady himself, he instinctively planted his left foot out and moved to swing back at her. She batted it away as if it were a paper ball and answered with a sharp uppercut to his chin, scraping skin off. Gyomei only barely had been able to land upright. It seemed Sarumei was merely waiting before she slammed into him full force with her weapon.
I barely have time to think.
"Not a bad block." She put more pressure on her staff which strained against his. "If only you could put the same effort into that sorry excuse for a strike." Sarumei then proceeded to trip his right leg up with a hook kick, leaving his waist area wide open.
"Breath of Stone, Fifth form-Arcs of justice."
Gyomei managed to shift his weapon to block in time, but his defense broke under the sheer force of her strikes. He felt like his insides were crushed by that attack. Instinctively, he leaped back, panting heavily as his lungs started to burn.
How did she do that? That attack was much stronger than the ones she performed before. It's like she stopped being human for a second.
I can't move...but if I don't counterattack, Hisaishi-san's teachings would have been squandered.
He heard her plant her foot into the ground again to advance forward. Gyomei took a deep breath in, one which seemed to strain his diaphragm to the max. No matter how much it hurt, his lungs craved air and forced him to breathe in more and more.
"Breath of Stone, Fourth form: Volcanic rapid conquest." Sarumei prepared to bring her staff on him once again.
"Breathe of Stone-"
Her eyes widened a little in surprise as she heard him reciting the form.
"-Third form:Igneous Reflection."
Hisaishi looked on as the raging flow of lava collided into the wall of stone. Sarumei, for once, found herself unable to break through his defense. After the dust settled, Gyomei was still standing in the same place.
"So you finally used total concentration breathing, huh?" Sarumei's eyes seemed to change. Instead of the usually lax expression, they turned sharp, as if she had gone from a strong but laidback herbivore to a carnivore that had spotted new prey.
"Don't expect me to give you a cookie for that, though." Her grip tightened on the weapon.
"This will only end when one of us is unable to get up."
"SARUMEI." Hisaishi growled, which her student merely ignored and dashed ahead to land several blows on her opponent. Gyomei once again fended most of them off. However, when it came time for him to go on the offensive, his strikes were cat swats in comparison to hers.
"What is this, huh? I said this will only end when one of us is unable to get up." She nearly exerted zero effort to take his hits. Then, she spun around to drive a kick into his chest, sending him backwards. Following the kick was the first form.
"Serpentinite bipolar."
Taking advantage of the fact that he raised his pole in defense too high, Sarumei managed to drive her staff into his lower abdomen. The pain nearly caused him to vomit. Luckily, being a blunt pole, it did not impale him as it would if it were a spear. Nevertheless, he still managed another swing to force away Sarumei's next attack, though the strike he followed up with did close to nothing.
"Where is all the strength you used to block me with?" She caught his attack with one hand. "What are you going to do out there, defend yourself until the demon dies?"
To add insult to injury, she gave him a sharp kick to the crotch which left him curled on the ground.
"If you had put more power into attacking, you might have sapped my stamina enough to force me to counterattack with less strength." Sarumei kicked him again on his side, knocking the air out of him.
"Are you going to get up?"
"Sarumei, that's enough." Hisaishi gripped her arm, threatening to break it.
"Let go."
"He has yielded."
"You think a demon would stop attacking him on the ground?" She challenged the cultivator. "You think that would happen in a real-life battle?"
"So what do you suggest? Beating him out of condition? Healing long term injuries would waste training time." Maybe having these to together wasn't such a good idea. Sarumei's interest in him should have been a red flag in itself.
Hisaishi was now regretting arranging this spar.
Sarumei backed off to avoid a broken arm, which would prevent her from exerting her full power for a few weeks.
"He has no fighting instinct. That's dangerous."
"Don't you?"
She spat in his direction.
"Waste of space. How do you think you can live like this, taking bullshit and never dishing it back? You've probably never fought for something, only knowing to endure blows until you can run away like a dog with your tail between your legs."
"Sarumei, enough." Hisaishi growled. "This is asshole behavior even for you." Despite her age, the cultivator knew well through sheer skill that she could actually take on the kinoe and teach her a lesson.
The slayer only scoffed and rolled her ruby-sclera'ed eyes, undeterred. Perhaps due to her drugged-up state or cynical apathy. "And you know what's even worse? There were kids forced to live with this son of a bitch. I can't imagine them having to rely on someone who can't even stand up for himself."
Her voice seemed to turn almost as toxic as the chemicals she inhaled nearly daily.
"I guess that's why you only managed to save one out of eight. But even without that attack, I'm sure with your flimsy disposition you would have let them get hurt sooner or later."
She looked over her cultivator's shoulder to see her words seeming to take effect. Now to go for the neck.
"One of the other girls the corps found dead at your place looked about 12. She would have been a young woman in two or three years, then. If I'm not mistaken, that's when men will go after them, eh? But if I bet if someone did something to...hurt her, I know you still wouldn't have the spine to strike back to protect her. She's lucky she died. Living under a caretaker with no backbone...that would have been much harder."
"That's it." Hisaishi 's hand flew over to her katana handle. However, before she could draw it out, a loud clang rang by her ears.
Sarumei barely had time to block the trajectory of Gyomei's staff, and this time it even pushed her back a little. The weight of the wood was satisfying. The veins of anger on his face even more so.
Both combatants landed at the far right side of the practice area. Sarumei decided to push back and landed a first form, only to be blocked and showered upon by more hits. This time, she had to actually exert herself to parry them off.
This is what I'm talking about. That was fifth form, right?
"Let's see how far you can go then."
For the next few minutes, the sound of wood slamming against each other was the only sound that echoed through the forest. With each hit, Gyomei's attacks seemed to grow with force, though Sarumei was still parrying them aside with relative ease. A final roar of poles rang through the trees as wood splintered.
"You had enough?" Hisaishi finally managed to speak up between the opponents who were both panting hard, the remains of bo staffs in both hands.
First it was Gyomei who lowered his weapon. He looked a bit shaken after the entire experience.
"...Well, we can't fight like this anymore. Hebiyama-san, do you-"
His question was interrupted by a fist colliding into his face.
"Don't think a fight's over when you're lost weapons." She stood over him, blowing her fist. Of course, she never attempted to eat any of his responding punches because which sane person would try to take a punch from a man who can obliterate a demon's head.
She eventually became bored of this. He had already proved his potential anyways.
A sharp chop to the neck was what ended the battle. Gyomei's body landed, limp on the ground.
Sarumei slung the trainee over her shoulder, pausing to address a still catankerous Hisaishi.
"Did you really have to do that?"
"Trust me, it's gonna do good for him in the end." She yawned. "We going back? I'm starving."
Hisaishi sighed. "He's going back for sure. You, I'm not so sure if I want you in my house or among my students anymore."
"Tell you what, I'll let him decide. He hates me after this, I'll leave forever."
"...Are you serious?"
"Yeah, if I end up scaring away this one as well, I kinda deserve it."
"Well the chances aren't in your favor. You still want to bet?" Her eyes were only focused on the path ahead. "You did mock his dead family after all."
"Yeah, I'll give you a wide berth, old lady." She started to light another blunt. The sun started to setting.
Sensei.
Did you get mad at that lady for saying stuff about Mirai-nee?
Did I scare you, Takeo?
I'm sorry I'm getting bigger so fast.
My skin must be bursting at the seams. Are you afraid to look?
It's ok. We'll be here, even if you stretch into the sky. I'm actually glad...
So you agree. I should have realized it earlier.
I'm sorry. I hurt everyone, didn't I?
That lady still went kind of far.
You did fight for us.
So keep fighting.
The touch of a small hand on his caused Gyomei to jolt awake. He felt the kimono sleeve of Sayo shifting in front of him. He groaned, still groggy, and slowly lifted himself off of the ground.
"Sayo, what time is it?" He rubbed the part of the neck where Sarumei had hit.
"Oh right, you can't speak."
Something smelled. Hisaishi cooking? Was it dinner time already?
He made his way out of the bedroom, ambling over to the living room. "Shihan, I'm awa-"
A shifting sound in the living space caused him to stop in his tracks. It was too heavy to be Hisaishi, so it had to be Sarumei.
"Yeah, Hisaishi-san's cooking dinner." The slayer turned over on the tatami mat to face him while applying some ice to her own bruises. She had noticed he froze upon hearing her voice. Ah, guess I really gave him some PTSD back there.
However, much to her surprise, he finally decided to move after a few seconds to sit down next to her. No yelling, no scowling, no ignoring. Just quietly sitting next to her and taking a bowl of salve to spread over some of his scrapes. After doing so, he put the bowl down next to his senior.
"Hebiyama-san, are you alright?"
"Eh?" Sarumei leaned towards him, her strong breath creating a cloud of fumes around them. "Did I hit you in the head too hard? You think you could do actual damage to me?"
"Still I remember hitting you pretty hard..." Himejima started tearing up again upon thinking about the fight. "And I don't want to ruin your job with an injury."
"You don't think I deserved it?" She snorted and leaned back. Honestly she was a bit disappointed. It still seemed that he had not learned his lesson.
"I thought..." Gyomei took a deep breath in. He needed to collect the will to go forth with his words. "...what you said was not completely...correct. Maybe even harmful."
"...what was that?"
"It was not...completely correct. Maybe even harmful."
Sarumei was about to reply when she let out a sharp grunt and held her left arm. "Fuck."
"Hebiyama-san?" Gyomei scooted over closer to her and took her arm, feeling along it. "Can you role up your sleeve to your shoulder?"
"Bitch what the-" Sarumei rolled back her sleeve to find a huge, swelling welt on her arm which she had failed to detect under the clothing. "-Holy shit."
"Hold on, let me put some pain reliever on it." He took the bowl of ointment and started applying it over the area. Sarumei was surprised that it did not hurt a bit. The hands which had slammed a staff into her own now delicately hovered on her skin, careful to not exert too much pressure.
"After this, we could also put ice on it to reduce the swelling. Hisaishi has some in the cellar, correct?"
"Ah, but there's no need-" He had run off before before she could finish talking. Gyomei came back with a rubber pack of ice. He wrapped it around her injury with some gauze.
"Please keep it on until it goes down."
"Yeah I'm not a dumbass." She rolled her eyes. She thought she heard him say "Maybe you are", but it was so quiet that she was not sure.
"Can you still move with it?"
"I don't know, maybe it will take a few days." She rolled her arm in a circle. "Will have to send a note to headquarters to take some time off." Course I'm bullshitting.
"Oh." Between the start of their conversation and now, he had not stopped crying.
"Yeah you better feel bad for doing that to me, asshole." Are you going to actually take the false blame? She anticipated his answer. Even if he was to hate her and she would be driven away from the Stone cultivation estate forever, she at least wanted to see if he could learn to change.
"Hebiyama-san..."
"Yeah?"
"If you noticed me crying...it's not because I was at fault for your injury." A pair of glistening opals seemed to settle into her. "Getting angry...that was wrong. And not holding back was wrong. But...it's not right to say that about Mirai."
"So that's her name, eh? Ironic. What makes you think I was wrong?" She could see veins momentarily rise, then subside, on his face. But he merely stayed still and kept his soft tone.
"You assumed but don't know anything about people. Please don't do that."
It was still phrased in a way that was saccharinely polite, but Sarumei accepted his words.
"Alright, if you say so, asshole. So you cry just because you're a natural pussy."
She expected him to be a bit annoyed or saddened further by this comment, but his expression merely softened.
"It's just..."
"...Hebiyama-san, your injuries must hurt a lot, right?"
Upon hearing this, the woman shoved the pack of gauze against his torso roughly, causing him to keel over for a second in surprise. Muttering a "Fuck you., she stomped past a bewildered Kaigaku who had just come out from his room. Soon, the slam of a door could be heard.
The boy gave an irritated look in her direction. What was up with this crazy woman rushing around? The smell she gave off constantly was annoying enough.
He walked over to the man and planted himself in his lap. This broke Gyomei out of his shock, as he felt the little body on top of his legs warming him up. He started to stroke the boy's head.
"Hebiyama-san's a bit weird, huh, Kaigaku?"