Shura Kirigakure had made some mistakes as of late and rather than resolving them as her common sense commanded, she decided it would simply me best to pretend they had never been made in the first place. The one mistake that was currently haunting her despite her best efforts to ignore it was Yukio Okumura. He wasn't hard to figure out, the self-hatred was something Shura understood all too well. Shura found that large quantities of cheap beer came in handy, but Yukio was a light-weight with a weak stomach. She had had to put his mind at ease with different methods that still left a bad taste in her mouth. In the back of her mind she reasoned that the attraction was so much alive because he resembled Shiro.

"I think I'm drunk enough," Yukio had muttered in her ear the first time she'd suggested sex to him. He burped and pounded his fist against his chest. "Sorry."

"It's fine." She was harrowingly sober. His efforts to undo her shirt were too sloppy so Shura ended up doing it herself along with her bra.

"Oh." Yukio's cheeks flushed and he placed both his hands over his crotch. Shura waited for him to undo his pants but instead he just rubbed the heel of his hand against the zipper.

"Ladies don't much appreciate it when you just come in your pants." Shura exhausted a lot of effort to keep the temperament of her voice even.

"You want me to put it in you?" Yukio was seventeen and Shura felt old. When he spoke, he didn't sound like Shiro, he didn't exude the same confidence. He was just a little boy again and all the thoughts of what she'd planned to do with him made her stomach turn. A simple fuck, why was that so complicated.

"No," she said slowly, "we don't have to do that. But let me take care of you, okay?"

Yukio's head lolled backwards as she undid his pants and slipped her hand down his underwear. He jerked backwards slightly when her fingers stroked the end of his cock, but relaxed almost immediately. It wasn't the ideal. She'd been hoping for-if not romance-at least some intimacy. A quick, drunken hand-job was something you paid a whore for when things weren't working out with the wife. And that's what Shura was, the cheap whore because Yukio had lost Shiemi to Rin. At the end of that first night, Yukio had fallen asleep after he'd come. It had left Shura enough quiet alone time to think, but she'd downed another beer and prayed that in the morning her hangover would distract from the ache in her heart.

Now, in the wreckage that remained of the old pharmacy, Shura found herself thinking too much. She shouldn't have left Rin to deal with Shima. He could barely decide whether or not to open a book. The paranoid itch at the back of her neck wasn't new. Arthur had betrayed her and all of Japan and when she'd gone to Kyoto for help, they'd been too caught up in their own tragedies to do much. It was far easier to simply go it alone, to trust her sword and her own two hands.

She bit her thumb and drew her weapon, stepping into the darkness of the destroyed building. The heels of her boots kicked up wisps of dust that haunted her steps.

"Yukio," she hissed. "Moriyama-san."

The broken boards creaked and shifted over head as Shura made her way to the back of the pharmacy. Behind a thin curtain was another totaled room, but this destruction looked more recent. A sickly bitter smell lay pungent in the air. Sulfur, brimstone, blood.

"Shit." Shura caught sight of a crumpled body against the far wall. Covered in debris and some books, Shiemi was laying in a pool of dark blood. She let out a soft moan as Shura knelt down beside her and started to clear off the rubble.

"Are you alright?" Shura couldn't be sure where the bleeding was coming from, which was more than a little worrisome. "Can you sit up?"

"Yuki-chan?" Shiemi's voice was hoarse and pained.

"He's not here, Moriyama-san. Do you know what happened to him?"

Shiemi sat up and clutched her stomach as Shura steadied her. The blood was coming from a nasty gash on her arm and from somewhere under her hair. Nothing too bad, at least she was conscious. Shura listened to Shiemi explain what had happened to Yukio before they'd been attacked. She kept her mouth shut and dressed Shiemi's wounds as best she could with torn up curtain and whatever salves were still good. Yukio's behaviour was troubling. It had been months since they'd actually had a civil conversation and weeks since they'd had sex. The only thing that upset Shura more was that Shiemi sounded more sincerely worried for Yukio than Shura could ever manage.

"We were just about to leave and then suddenly I was flying through the air and then I hit the bookshelf and..." Shiemi frowned as she tried to think through the pain. "I'm sorry, Kirigakure-san, I don't remember anything else." She balled the fist of her good arm and looked at Shura with uncanny determination. "We'll save Yuki-chan, right? We'll find him and save him."

"No."

Shura stood, offering a hand to Shiemi, who stared at her in utter disbelief.

"What?" she murmured.

"We're not going to find Yukio and save him. That's not the priority at the moment. The seven year anniversary of the opening of the gate is coming up and we can't waste time on suicidal idiots."

Shiemi slapped Shura's hand away and stood up on her own, never taking her eyes off the other woman. She looked more than angry, she looked demonic.

"You'll give up on him just like that? Are you really so heartless, Kirigakure-san?"

"Don't talk to me about things you know nothing about. I came here to get you and put Rin's mind at ease. Whatever's happened to Yukio, he'll have to take care of himself. Our duties- Shiemi listen to me-our duties are greater than this. Than Yukio, than even our own lives." The words burned her tongue, like she wasn't sure of them herself. It was true, it had to be true. That if she didn't matter to Yukio, then he shouldn't matter to her.

"Your duties maybe. My duty has always been to my friends and it always will be." Shiemi did her best to limp past, but Shura caught her arm.

"Don't be such a petulant child!"

"You're the one being a child! Can't you see he doesn't love you the same way you love him? That's why you hate him so much." It was a long silent moment before Shiemi realized what she'd said and clamped her mouth shut. Shura released her arm and let her hand swing down to her side. Shiemi ambled past her, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

"I'm going to find Yuki-chan," she said, taking her time to step over the broken beams as she wormed her way through the door.

Shura didn't reply. She couldn't. Her mouth was dry and her chest was constricted. It didn't hurt that Yukio didn't love her, it didn't hurt that she hated him, it hurt that everyone else could see it and she'd been desperately blind. Clinging to imaginary scraps of affection. For what? To feel worthwhile when everything else around her was black and white and duty over heart.

"What would Shiro think..." Shura bowed her head. Stop being such an idiot, Kirigakure. You know yourself better than this. You know what's important. With a deep sigh, Shura turned and ran after Shiemi.