Her mother was not in an affable mood.

She had failed, yes, but her main goal had been achieved. Rengoku Kyoujurou was alive, and she managed to evade capture. But it was not enough.

"I see," her mother had said, with a heavy finality to her voice, leaving no room for additional comments. Her mother's voice was coarse as it was powerful, yet she still found room to rebel in her mind.

What do you see? She asked in the silence. Like her mother's discontent, the thought never left her mouth, although around her, trees swayed with disappointment. She found it a bit unfair how she couldn't freely express her feelings while her mother was allowed to do whatever she saw fit.

"Perhaps I should've been less lenient on your training."

And that was all she said before slipping back into a peaceful slumber.

"You should let it dry slowly."

She tried, holding her arm in place as she clutched the clay in her other hand. The clay squeezed from spaces between her fingers the harder she held it. All the while it failed to connect to her handless arm, leaving nothing but a wet stain.

It's just a hand, she thought mindlessly. So why was it so hard to make the mud into a new hand?

"Mother?" she called silently, and the earth rumbled beneath her.

"Yes?"

"I can't make a new hand."

"Then you should've been more thoughtful before sacrificing it, no?"

The mud sat motionless in her hand, slowly spreading and about to drip onto the ground. No matter how hard she concentrated, she could not make the clay stay, and before long, a solid membrane dried above its entire surface. It was hopeless.

The sun set long ago, and the nearest village was a minimum of two day's walk, even without rest. Better to start now than later, she supposed.

She had almost fallen into a comfortable pace before a scream reached her ears, giving her pause. Stopping to resolve the issue would waste a decent amount of time, so really, it wasn't worth it. Moving forward, she took another step before a miasma of smoke reached her nose.

It left a foul stench across her body, making her shudder as though she were cold. But she didn't have muscles, and thus didn't shiver, which only left one possible solution: a demon.

The trees all parted as she raced towards the source, the presence of Yin only growing stronger with each step.

"A-Ah!" A boy stood with a shaky sword, pointed off-center from the demon's chest.

She knew she couldn't decapitate him with no weapon, and so she opted for a kick instead. Her foot collided with the demon's jaw, dislodging it with a sickly click.

"The hell!?" The demon's voice was low, but high-pitched at the same time, as though he talked like that on purpose.

With another lighter kick, she snatched the blue-tinted blade from the fallen boy.

"Hey! That's my–"

The blue of the blade faded the moment she held it in her hands, color reflecting the shiny silver of a newly forged sword.

"Breath of Earth, Third Form: Eternal Black Abyss."

She jumped, and brought the momentum of her weight into her sword, giving her more than enough to slice off his head. Her slash cut through without pause, yet the true power of the form was never released.

The third form was usually executed with a stab instead of a slash, but stabbing, in this case, would only drag the battle on. Stabbing would also rob the inflicted of their vision, though she had a feeling the demon wouldn't have cared.

Turning back towards the boy, she knelt down to grab his sheath.

"What are you doing!? "He gave a formidable effort, trying to pry her hands from his sheath, but in the end, she pulled through.

"Give my sword back right now!"

She wondered why he wanted it back, for the encounter just now proved his incompetence at confronting a demon. He didn't look like he'd give her a legitimate answer though, and so she decided to go for the shorter, quicker way to end the interaction.

The tip of her blade rested just short of his nose, almost piercing skin. "You don't deserve to wield this blade."

If he had resisted, she might've jabbed him in the gut, but thankfully, he did nothing more than tremble on the ground. She continued on her journey then, with a newly obtained sword and a missing hand.

It was another day of being off balance as she walked around, trying to find a way of fixing her hand. She could live with the titled balance, but her swordsmanship could not. Almost all her breathing forms were created to be used with two functioning hands, and since her mother wasn't helping, she could do nothing but stand around.

The village she arrived at was nothing special, but that didn't stop people from avoiding her gaze, on the premise that she was some poor, disabled beggar. Some gazes held curiosity, while others glowered with contempt, as though she were a smudge on freshly made clothing.

She held a few of their clouded stares, but as always, they were the first ones to look away.

She wondered why, and then stopped wondering, because Mother despises wonder. From the first day she was given life, she thought until she was told to stop. She had only started to wonder about obsolete things recently, and Mother warned her of letting it get to her head.

She supposed saying "don't let it get to your brain" wouldn't work, since she didn't have one. But her thoughts didn't untangle, and she wondered why she had only started having these questions recently, and not twenty years ago.

Maybe if she had started wondering from the moment she was born, then she would have an answer. She considered consulting Mother, already knowing what her answer would be.

Questions that didn't have a definite answer didn't need answering, she would say. And when asked, they would only make things complicated. She didn't need to be complicated, she knew. She needed to carry out what she was given, and that was it.

Mindlessly, her feet carried her away. With no hand to practice with, she wandered back to the road she'd traveled, taking care in avoiding the scorching sun.

Still the heat poured from the sky, and leaves of green blew around her. All the trees, bushes, and weeds were a part of her mother, and all of them had life woven into their core.

Spots of sunlight danced across them as she looked down at her own skin. Compared to the dull and cracky brown, the foliage around her was a lavish tapestry, and she wondered why Mother couldn't have made her out of leaves and branches instead.

Being made out of flowers would be nice too. It was nowhere near fall, but she saw some red leaves swaying amongst the green—an odd but gentle mix. Then joined yellow and orange, and eventually, a fully grown man.

Rengoku Kyoujurou.

"Hello!"

She didn't respond. Didn't even draw her weapon as she stood, captivated. Because as beautiful as his hair was, another color dominated his face and stole away her attention.

A black eyepatch covered half his features, even trapping the colors reflecting off his face. She thought back to his left eye on the battlefield before, about the blood-red that dripped from his eye.

Injured as he might've been, red suited him much better than an empty black.

"I'm here to bring you into questioning!

That shattered her trance, but he interrupted before she could draw her blade.

"I have been ordered to be as peaceful as possible, so I hope we can talk and come to terms without violence!"

Her hand didn't leave, but neither did his silence. His eyes—or rather—eye, looked bright and full of energy, while his arms rested calmly at his sides.

Finally, after she was sure he wouldn't try to apprehend her, she yielded.

"I apologize," she said, dropping into a deep bow. "If my swordsmanship had been better, you would've been able to keep both eyes."

"That's alright! I can still see with one eye, so it's perfectly fine!"

For a creature born with one eye, it may be natural, but to lose an eye for a human would deeply compromise their sense of perception. It could make everyday tasks such as catching and throwing difficult, and she wondered how he was able to brush it off so easily.

While she was busy thinking, he walked towards her, and she almost reached for her sword again.

"Let's have lunch, shall we? I'm hungry, and there's a town just up ahead!"

If she wasn't sure how to react before, she sure was now. Humans ate food, that she knew, but how much and what the process entailed was never explained to her.

During the one time she'd asked Mother, her only reply was that she didn't need to know.

"...I don't have money," she said in an attempt to avoid having lunch, as he called it. She should've known he'd have a perfect reply.

"No worries, it's my treat!"

She tried, but any excuse was countered immediately with a perfectly reasonable response and a smile. She had already found herself seated on a stool in a noodle restaurant, and when the food came, she had no escape.

On the table next to her bowl of food were two sticks, and she almost shoved them in her mouth before seeing Rengoku plunge them into the bowl.

He fished out a bundle of yellow strings before putting it to his mouth, and just like that, it was gone.

"Tasty!" He beamed, and his hair rivaled the yellow of the noodles. "Tasty! Tasty! Tasty!" With each bite he repeated the word, as though a button was triggered to make him speak.

Wait. He had already finished his second bowl when she realized. He kept inhaling the food in, but where did all of it go?

"Excuse me," she said, though it sounded more like a whisper. Rengoku, however, immediately paused and faced her instead.

"What is it?" Surprisingly, there were only a few drops of noodle broth on his mouth, whereas she had expected an entire chin dripping with oil.

Regardless, she asked, "where did all the food go?"

"In my stomach!" He patted his stomach, but she was not about to fall for such a lie.

He had three empty noodle bowls, and there was no way all three of them fit in his stomach.

"Where did it really go?"

"In my stomach!"

What on earth? What did he gain from lying to her? In a fit of pure confusion and something else, she picked the half-boiled egg from her bowl and threw it down her throat.

Expect she had no esophagus, and no stomach, so the egg landed directly in her lungs. It bounced around a total of three times before the echoes of movement faded, but by then it was too late.

She had no muscles to cough it back up, and since it had already settled, the only possible solution would be for it to decompose.

"I don't like human food," she coughed out, grateful her voice box wasn't damaged.

"Is that so?"

She was done coughing when she caught his gaze, the very same one he'd given her when the crow revealed her uniform to be stolen. The one she still happened to be wearing even now, though it was cloaked by a black and white haori.

"I see you have another sword." It was a statement, and she saw the curve of his smile flatten, yet it was still a smile nonetheless. "Who did you steal it from?"

It felt like an interrogation, but she answered his question anyway. "He was unskilled in his technique and didn't deserve to wield a blade."

"That's not for you to decide. His name is Yamato Rin, and that sword was forged for him. He may not have been an excellent demon slayer, but he passed the test and so the sword rightfully belongs to him."

That was a valid reason. It made sense, but she still hesitated. What if there was a way to cheat on this test? What if the test wasn't hard enough to let those who pass be worthy? Too many questions, all without a clear-cut answer. She settled on only asking one.

"Do you want me to return it?"

"Do you want to return it?"

Without a weapon, she was defenseless. Demons could tear her apart and smash her remains into the ground, but she wouldn't die. Even so, she wasn't willing to part with the sword, stolen or otherwise.

"...No." She could tell the conversation was over before he blinked, and so she turned away first, instead of leaving the space open for more words.

He turned back to his noodles, cleaning the bowls just as quickly as before, but without the bouts of "tasty!" in between each bite. By the end, he had a stack of twenty bowls including her own, which she'd offered to him.

She walked out of the restaurant first, already planning to leave for another village.

"Are you ready for questioning now?"

He was at her side before she was even two steps on the street. Her mind came to a blank before she remembered why he talked to her again. Right, she thought . She should probably run, and without losing a hand this time.

"No," she replied before walking away, at a pace that told him she was definitely running away.

"Maybe you'd like a trade?" he asked, catching up to her jog and keeping a level pace right beside her with no trouble. "I can give you something and you can come back with me for questioning!"

"What if I don't want to be questioned?"

"Then I'll have to use some force!"

The word "some" didn't belong there, because she had a feeling that "some" force actually meant a lot of force. Actually there was a word for this, she believed. Her mother had once told her when she was young, though in later years she was told to forget about it, as it would never happen to her.

"That's kidnapping."

"Yes! So I hope we can make a trade instead of resorting to kidnapping!"

There was some kind of gap in logic here, she could feel it. Maybe if she had a heart and a brain she could figure out what was missing, but as she thought about it, a trade actually made some decent sense.

That decent sense being she could ask for a task just short of impossible, and he'd have to retreat.

"In that case, I'd like my hand back."

"Of course!" Reaching into his belt, he brought out a loosely wrapped hand, perfectly intact.

Her pace came to a stop, and she stared at her severed hand. "Why do you have that?"

"You left it behind last time!"

"But why keep it?"

"I couldn't just leave it on the ground!"

She tried snatching it away, but he retracted even quicker, causing her to grab a fist full of air as he stepped back.

"Will you willingly be questioned if I returned your hand?"

She could make another one, she argued, she just needed some time and a lot of thinking. She could, or she could just be questioned. What's the worse they could ask her, anyway? With careful hesitation, she agreed.

"I'll need you to reattach it as well," she added. "I am made of clay, if that helps."

"Like pottery, then!"

"...I suppose." She wasn't alive, but to be rendered as an inanimate object felt a little degrading, to say the least. "Come, there's a mound of clay I made the other day not too far from here."

She trudged downhill, towards the desolate end of the river running through the village, and although some of the clay had dried away, the majority was fresh and moldable.

Reaching down, she grabbed a lump of clay with her left hand, before the sharp slash of a sword cut through her vision.

"I'll take care of that!"

The jagged ends of her handless arm were no more as they were cut clean off. Within a second, he placed a ball of clay onto her newly smooth stump, before immediately sticking her hand into the squishy element.

"That won't stay attached—"

A ring of fire bypassed her in the fraction of a second, with something along the lines of the second form of a breath. When she looked at her hand, the clay was seared solid, and it actually appeared to stay intact.

Her fingers trembled ever so slightly, and when she had regained full control, she reached for her sword. It had only been three days since she'd last practiced her swordsmanship, but to be able to perform her breaths once again was something she was itching to do.

Ignoring the way her actions could be interpreted, she unsheathed it with eager haste. Her haste likely made her look worse, as before her blade was even halfway out, a blanket of white came over her shoulders.

She vaguely remembered being wrapped around in a white haori before being lifted up and carried as her kidnapper broke into a sprint.

Her head was close to the ground as he carried her with one arm, and if she had to be honest, the view wasn't great. Neither was the ride, as it was bumpy, and his body heat equaled that of the scorching sun.

"Mother," she called, and this time, her mother responded swiftly.

"I understand, child. I will allow you to be questioned, but only because I know that the information they ask of you cannot be answered, for even you don't know the countless secrets of the earth."

"I thought you said I couldn't get kidnapped—"

"I assumed no one would kidnap you. Be patient, dear. I will assist in a moment, where I'll then leave it up to you to resolve this in a more civil manner."

The earth shook, and the trees rumbled with a force too natural to be foreseen, yet too forceful to be a mere coincidence. They had not yet left the forest, and a good thing too, because the branches surrounding them stretched to pry her out of Rengoku's grip, sending her rolling on the ground.

The dirt beneath her softened her landing, but when she stood, the haori stayed tied around her. The knot was made skillfully, and the haori's ends were snipped off into fiery flames. She shook aside these details as her mouth hurried to form words, before Rengoku could take her for another uncomfortable trip to who knows where.

"I think there has been some sort of misunderstanding."

He stood not at a talking distance, but not close enough to invade her personal space either. Without his haori, his hair was the only thing standing out in the dense forest.

"Firstly, I'd like to know why you tried to kidnap me."

"You immediately reached for your sword after I repaired your hand, so I thought you were going to try to flee!" His arms rested firmly at his sides, and she instinctively knew he was very ready to use them at any given time.

"You let your emotions override your thoughts," her mother whispered from afar.

Somehow, the egg lounging in her lungs felt heavier, as all attention turned to her. She saw the fault in her actions, but she didn't want to. For a moment, she wanted to disregard Rengoku's point of view, and say that he was the one that came to conclusions too quickly.

"An apology is due." She didn't need to look down to know who had said it.

Begrudgingly, she started to apologize.

"I hadn't been able to practice my skills with one hand, as you can see, and though it's only been a few days, I let my impulse control my actions and reach for my blade. I understand how I might have appeared to you, and I apologize." She dipped into a deep bow.

"I will be glad to follow you, but I'd first like to take this haori off."

Slowly, almost cautiously, he loosened the knot. Both his hands and eyes focused on the knot, and—she saw the way his fingers lingered, before undoing the final wrinkle of cloth—at last, all that was left was to remove it.

She stayed as still as possible during the whole procedure, and after the fabric came off, he stood around an arm's length from her.

"Well then, lead the way." The heat from the additional clothing dissolved quickly, as did the temperature of her body drop to a comfortable chill.

He led the way, gently at first, settling for only a few steps at a time, before seeing that she had no intention of running off. At this realization he beamed, and she couldn't see why.

The road to their destination would take around two days according to him, and though she had come to accept the silent ambiance of nature long ago, the company of someone as lively as Rengoku wasn't unwelcome, and she'd almost come to enjoy it just as much.