the little paths we find ourselves upon

By: Aviantei

[Twelve Shots of Summer: DECK 2/12]

[Parameters: "II-High Priestess" & "III-Empress"]

February

Go at a slow pace
no matter the time passing
there's a road for you

"Come on! Don't give up! You're almost there!"

The last time I'd heard that sort of encouragement coming from Aoi, it had been all the way during early summer, whenever I'd dropped by Butterfly Manor to visit Zenitsu and Shimizu following their mission at Nagatomo-yama. At that time, I'd also met Tanjirō and Inosuke, and I'd watched the Protag Squad all go through their own rehabilitation training as they also learned Total Concentration: Constant. It had been a simpler time, all things considered, and yet, there was Aoi again, calling out encouragements.

Except now the one receiving encouragement was me.

Having benefited from the effects of Total Concentration: Constant for so long, it had been a while since I'd needed to undergo any long-term recovery. In fact, the last time I could remember was back in my original world, when I'd had to spend the weeks with my arm in a cast following the car crash—and even that hadn't been comparable, since I'd been so overwhelmed with the pure grief for Jaden that I had nothing but hazy memories of my arm healing.

The loss of my leg was much more intense than that.

Unlike the bone, which would heal in time, there was nothing I could do to get the limb back. The fact that it had happened from an attack I couldn't stop was kinda bullshit, but it wasn't like I'd go back and redo that final battle just for a chance to keep a limb. Now that we'd made it through Canon, I was more than happy to face the future as it was. So all I could do was put in the work to get used to life, and that involved going through rehab and getting fitted for a proper prosthetic.

AKA, using all my Demon Slaying physical conditioning to try and not fall flat on my face with my very, very, very fucked up balance.

"Two more steps!" Aoi called. "It's the last push!"

Two more steps. You can manage two more steps.

And manage them I did, though I caught myself on the wall the moment I was done, sinking down to the floor. Aoi managed to catch me, and I unceremoniously dumped my weight on her. To think, that just a few months ago, I could cross the countryside at a sprint, and now walking across the room was enough to wear me out and set the remains of my severed leg on fire.

I groaned, "This fucking blows," as Aoi helped shuffle me to the side of the room so I could rest and get out of the way of the others who were also working on similar rehabilitation. We were a giant mess, but there was something comforting about seeing a bunch of other people have the same shitty experience as you, in a schadenfreude kind of way.

"You've made a lot of progress," Aoi said, a lot gentler than her earlier sharp shouts. "You can make it across the room on your own now. That's nothing to look down on." Little Kiyo came across the room, bringing a gourd full of water for me. "Now sit down, breathe, and drink, okay? You'll want the rest for your next lap. Okay, next!"

Since I was all settled, Aoi turned around and called out the name of the next Slayer. I thanked Kiyo for the water, trying not to drown myself as I drank it down. It was still February winter in the dojo, but I couldn't tell through all the burning heat and sweat I'd worked up. "Good job today, Rairi-san."

I smiled at the young nurse. "Thanks, Kiyo-chan." It was encouraging, just because of how much of a sweetheart Kiyo was, though I still couldn't erase the sense of discomfort that someone pretty much half my age was taking on a massive responsibility. Yes, a lot of the Corps members had finished recovering and left Butterfly Manor, but the remaining injured were still numerous. The least I could do was be a well-behaved patient to lighten the load. "Medicine time, then?"

"Yup!" Somehow, Kiyo still had a bright af smile to offer me along with the cup of medicine, and I didn't bother to contain my grimace. Just because I knew the stuff was good for me didn't mean that I had to like it, and my meds were a very potent and very bitter herbal mixture that was enough to make my tongue want to shrivel up in the aftermath. "Don't worry, I heard that dessert is gonna be sweet tonight, so it'll be alright!" I chuckled a bit, bracing myself before I downed the entire cup in one go, not even bothering to prevent myself from grimacing. "Oh, and before I forget…"

Kiyo lifted up her arm. It took me a moment, seeing as Kaburamaru's white scales blended into the color of Kiyo's medical smock, but I noticed the snake and reached my hand out. In a flash of movement. Kaburamaru had slipped up my sleeve, the coolness of their body a welcome feeling after sweating me ass off.

"Thanks, Kiyo-chan," I said, knowing there was no point in apologizing for the extra chore; we'd had the conversation twenty times. What were we supposed to do? Blame Iguro for dying and wanting his pet to be taken care of after he was gone? "Hopefully they didn't cause you all that much trouble this time."

"Nope! Kaburamaru is very sweet." It had been just a few weeks with the snake in my care, so I couldn't say for certain, but my new snake companion was at least a lot less abrasive than their former owner—or maybe Iguro had had some hidden soft side I'd never gotten to experience? It was something I wouldn't know, but I wasn't about to disagree with Kiyo, not when Kaburamaru had slithered down to my water bottle and flicked out their tongue for a drink. "Well, if you're okay, Rairi-san, I'm gonna go check on everyone else. Call me if you need anything!"

"Will do." I offered a salute with my non-snake-laden hand. Though if I were to be honest, I didn't plan on doing much more than lying around, getting what little rest I could until it was my turn to get up and try walking all over again.

In the immediate aftermath of Kiriya bringing Kaburamaru to me, I'd pretty much panicked. It wasn't that I'd never had a pet before, but there was a pretty definitive difference between the collection of Hamtarō-named hamsters I'd had as a child and the reptile I was now in charge of. Like a whole different level of the food chain. I thought snakes were cool, but even before I'd woken up in Kimetsu, I'd had zero interest in owning one, and hence knew nothing about how to keep one alive.

While I'd been making plenty of progress, today was one of those days where the best thing I could do was stay in bed and get some rest, focusing on my breathing. If Zenitsu hadn't been busy with his own rehab, he would've insisted on staying by my side the whole time, but I'd managed to get him to go by reminding him he'd be able to help me out more if he recovered faster, so the whole thing was now a non-issue. Of course, that left me by myself, but I'd gotten permission to take advantage of Butterfly Manor's library.

Which I was using to research snake care to supplement the instructions Iguro had left for me.

"We're lucky you're pretty self-sufficient, you know," I said to Kaburamaru, where they were coiled around my arm. Every now and then, they'd wander off, then come back, which I assumed meant they were hunting, though there was something funny about the image of Iguro carefully picking out mice to feed his pet, the mental image bringing a sad smile to my face. "So far, you've just been using me as a heater."

Kaburamaru hissed and crawled up my arm to my shoulders. It was an interesting sensation, that of a snake crawling over you, I'd tell you that. Kaburamaru wasn't massive, but there was still a weight to him, and the pressure that came from his squeezing wasn't painful or anything, almost like a very cold hug.

Still, I couldn't deny that it was nice to not have to be alone with my thoughts, so you wouldn't find me complaining.

"…I do wish I knew how old you were, though." Snakes were one of those animals that could live for a while, and it would be nice to have a rough idea of how long to expect. I didn't like being so morbid, but our circumstances made such topics hard to ignore. "Are snakes like cats in that they wander off when they die, though?" Kaburamaru snapped their mouth in a bite, which I took as my cue to shut the fuck up. "Sorry, I bet you don't like hearing about that stuff, either. I'll keep quiet." If I could keep Kaburamaru from getting as snippy with me as Iguro-san had been, I'd take it, though I also wouldn't argue with having Iguro around still…

As if able to sense my thoughts, Kaburamaru hissed at me—or so I assumed, except they were now at alert, their head pointed off to the side of the bed, red eyes locked on someone I hadn't noticed.

I looked up, seeing Tsuyuri Kanao standing before me. She was a petite girl with her dark hair pulled up into a side ponytail by a butterfly clip much like her mentor's. Much like the rest of us, she was still dressed in her Slayer uniform, seeing as we tended not to have alternatives packed up. Still, she had a bit of flair with the uniform skirt rather than pants, as well as her tall white boots.

Aside from the things I'd read about her in Shimizu's journals, I didn't know too much about her personally. She'd been Kochō's Tsuguko, and Tanjirō liked her (like-liked her, should said journals be believed), and she was a quiet girl who'd begun to open up throughout the series. We'd crossed paths in Infinity Castle during the final battle, and of course she was helping with all the medical care at Butterfly Manor, but I'd be a liar if I said we'd had a proper conversation with each other.

So imagine my surprise to see a person I'd heard of as not showing much emotion staring at me with clear interest in her non-damaged pink eye?

"Can I help you with something?" I asked, not sure of what else to do. I hadn't done anything different today, had I? Was there something stuck on my face? No, that intense gaze wasn't focused on me, but instead the reptile perched on my shoulders, who happened to be staring right back. "Do you…wanna pet them?"

"Can I?"

"You should be able to. Just go slow." At the very least, Kaburamaru seemed to not mind even when strangers approached them, but I couldn't call myself an expert in their behavior at all. However Iguro had domesticated them, I had no clue, but at least I hadn't needed to do that kind of work. Kanao nodded, reaching out her hand, allowing Kaburamaru to sniff her fingers. When their tongue flicked out, Kanao took that as approval and ran a finger from the top of Kaburamaru's head and down the rest of their body with a gentle touch. "It feels interesting, huh?"

She nodded in earnest. "I've never…been able to touch a snake before." Given that I had no idea how common of a thing snakes were in Japan, I wasn't super surprised; if nothing else, running into a domesticated one couldn't have been common. "It feels nice."

I smiled, glad to see her looking so excited. "Well, I'll still be here for a little bit longer while I finish up my rehab, so you're welcome to come and see them." It might've just been my imagination, but I swore Kanao started to sparkle at the mention. "Did you want to try holding them?"

That earned me some more nods, and I instructed Kanao to hold out to hand again. Kaburamaru was smart enough to understand what was going on, and, after a moment, they deigned to start to slither up Kanao's arm. She tensed up at the initial contact, but soon she relaxed after adjusting to the sensation, a soft smile forming on her face.

It was such a relaxing moment that I was content to close my eyes and lie back, soaking in the sensation of peace. Maybe I'd do some Total Concentration meditation to help my healing along and take a nap before dinner. After everything, I deserved a bit of lying around doing nothing, right?

"…You said you'd be leaving soon?"

Kanao's question kept me from dozing off, though my mind took a moment to process the words. "Oh, yeah. I mean, I still have some recovery to do, but Total Concentration makes healing easier, so I should be okay enough for everyday life. Zenitsu and I have our Sensei's estate to take care of, so we're planning to live there." We had a home open for us, and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. "I know it's going to take some time to get back to my usual mobility, but I wanted to do my best to get used to it while at home, you know?"

"I see." Kanao paused, still petting Kaburamaru (who'd found a new perch on her shoulder). "I'm glad that you know what you want to do, Rairi-san. I'm…still uncertain what I want out of my future." Right. While part of me had been assuming what Shimizu had written in her notes about the end of canon to be fact, that wasn't how things worked—Zenitsu and I were proof of that. And even if Kanao did choose to follow the same path as her canon counterpart and marry Tanjirō, that was just one facet of her life.

How would she spend her days? What sort of profession might she choose? When I'd been her age, I'd had no clue whatsoever about my future, and that was without having grown up with a sword in my hand and only the possibility of slaying demons to keep me going.

"I mean, if it makes you feel better, I only half know what I'm doing?" Well, it had been some time since I'd gone ahead and run my mouth all over the place, so it was time to put that skill to use! "I mean, yeah, I know we're going back home soon and that we'll be staying there. But other than that, all we've decided to do is try and pass on Thunder Breathing somehow, and who knows how we'll pull that off. I mean, it's not like there are demons around anymore, so it might be hard to make anything out of that. At this point, focusing on getting well enough to go back home in the first place is about all I can manage to do, so I'm sure once I sit down and get through that, I'll be just as lost as you are for what to do, so don't worry about it too much." Hm, that sounded like an existential crisis and a half. And Kanao was staring at me, too, looking stunned. "Haha, sorry, I don't know when to shut up, so you can ignore all that."

"No, it's alright. I think…I need to hear more things like that." Kanao paused, but there was a subtle enough look on her face that it seemed that she was in thought, so I gave her a moment to pull herself together as she continued to play with Kaburamaru. "I'm finding it difficult to imagine anything past all this, though. Whenever Tanjirō-san is…"

Ah, yeah, that would do it. Even whenever you took the potential shipping out of the situation, it was still a strange situation to think that the one that had done all the Protagonist Things was still unconscious while the rest of us were trying to move on with our lives. And yet—we weren't just side characters. We had to make our own choices, regardless of what anyone else decided to do.

"Do you think having Tanjirō-kun awake will make it easier to figure out what you're doing next?" I asked. Kanao didn't blush, but she did get that cute little deer in the headlights expression that showed I'd surprised her. Kaburamaru's tongue flicked out against her cheek, but she still didn't move. "It's okay if you do, I was just curious. But even if you're worried about him, it's okay to take time to think about yourself, too." A skillset I was rather bad at, but that didn't make my point any less true! I offered Kanao a smile, reaching out to ruffle her hair on pure instinct from comforting Zenitsu so much over the years. "But it's also okay to be worried about him, or to be sad about Kochō-san, or anything else you're feeling. I mean, I'm worried things like that, too."

But even so, I'd already learned after Jaden died how to get up and move on, even if it was a slow, painful process. In that regard, it was a lot easier for me to accept what I had to do, even if it would be difficult some days. If it weren't for Zenitsu and I already agreeing on our future I didn't know where I'd be.

Kanao seemed to still be processing, mouthing my words to herself. It was nice to think that there were times whenever running my mouth was helpful—or at least I hoped so. In the end, though, Kanao's expression became much more peaceful, so I'd take it. "I'm still…not used to feeling things like this at all," she said, and I tried my best to not let the fact that I knew about the abuse she'd gone through as a child show on my face. "It's not bad, but it is a bit scary sometimes." I nodded, understanding that idea very well. "Um, while you're still staying here…would it be alright if I visited Kaburamaru-san every now and then?"

"Of course." No need to turn down a request like that at all. "Maybe if you like spending time with them, you could get a snake of your own?" Kanao's eyes lit up, as if she'd never considered the possibility in the first place, but her excitement was clear. "I mean, I'm not sure what would go into that, but I'm sure you could learn a lot if you asked around. Plus it could give you something to pass the time with while you wait for Tanjirō-kun. I think…it's important to take whatever you're interested in and enjoy it as much as you can."

I mean, that's what I'd done after I'd landed in Kimetsu no Yaiba. Sure, the first few months had been aimless, trying to survive over anything else—but then I'd watched Sensei's Thunder Breathing, and, well—

Learning that had kept me alive.

Even if it wasn't my responsibility as Sensei's student, I'd want to preserve Thunder Breathing, no matter what.

"Thanks, Kanao-chan." Not expecting the compliment whatsoever, Kanao blinked at me. Right, try explaining what you're thinking to even thank her in the first place, me. "I mean, talking to you got me thinking, and I feel a lot steadier about what I'm doing next. I mean, I love Thunder Breathing, after all." Having used it as a tool for my survival for so long, I'd almost forgotten that, but it hadn't stopped being true. "No matter what happens next, I'm sure I'll remember that. So thanks for helping me remember."

"Ah, you're…welcome." Was she blushing? Adorable. I had to stop stealing all the precious moments from the people around me; it just seemed unfair to everyone else. "I think talking with you helped, too. So thank you, Rairi-san."

"Glad to be of help." It was nice to be a senpai every now and then; I'd gotten pretty used to it over the past couple of years, and it filled my heart with joy. "Do you want to go for a walk together, then? I wouldn't mind getting up and out a little, and that way you can have Kaburamaru around a bit longer, too." Even if it was a rest day from rehab, I'd still need to go to the dining hall for dinner, so it would do me good to go out and about.

Kanao nodded her approval. With that settled, I pulled away my blanket and went to stand—

—and then I toppled right over, collapsing to a heap on the floor.

I, your local dumbass, had once again managed to try to put my nonexistent foot down first and suffered the consequences.

"I can't believe you, always causing trouble. Do you even know the definition of taking things easy?"

Yushirō was complaining as he always did, which I'd more than gotten used to. Every single helping hand we could have mattered now, and Yushirō often handled checking on patients at night so that the girls could get some sleep between all their work. It just so happened that he'd woken up for the evening and was the closest medical professional on hand when Kanao went for help, so it had been all but guaranteed I was in store for another lecture.

I did kinda deserve it, though. Unlike all the trouble I'd gotten myself into during the final fight against Muzan, there hadn't been a good reason to throw myself into trouble. All that'd been at risk had been making a bit of a mess, not someone's life.

"I swear, if you weren't already in rehabilitation to start walking again, I'd insist that you get strapped down to that bed of yours," Yushirō continued, and I took the lecture in silence. Off to the side, Kanao kept slipping in an apology every now and then, as if she'd done anything wrong. "Honestly! What are you planning to do if you get hurt enough that you can't walk anymore? You were lucky enough to be in a state you could recover from; don't go wasting all of it."

I reached for my right arm without meaning to, tracing the line of a break that had healed more than a decade ago. It was a good thing we'd made it through Canon, because I must've gone through all my luck already. "…I'll do my best."

Yushirō gave me an odd look that wasn't all that different from Zenitsu when he was dealing with Inosuke trying to pick a fight (a habit that hadn't faded at all, though we were all recovering from our injuries).

"What?"

"I'm trying to decide if I should check whether you hit your head or not." I huffed, and Yushirō's expression remained very unapologetic, the little shit. "It's just odd to see you being thoughtful instead of sassing back at me."

"I mean, I kinda deserve it right now, so…" I did, in fact, do something stupid I didn't mean to. I knew how to take a genuine criticism, believe it or not! Yushirō, judging by the look on his face, did not believe me. "I am in shock and awe, Yushirō-san. You'd compare me in the middle of a battle for the fate of the world to me resting and recovering?"

"You say that like there's any sort of reasonable difference between the two." Playing at being exasperated, threw up my hands, and Yushirō scowled in return—and I would've kept up the bickering if it weren't for the sound of a small giggle stopping us both short.

The laughter was coming from none other than Kanao.

As said, I didn't know her super well, but she was a quiet girl. Even when she'd been enthusiastic before, her voice had had a peaceful vibe to it. She wasn't quite ethereal, but it wouldn't have felt out of place to think of her as some sort of fairy (albeit one that could stomp an Upper Moon into the ground). But to see her laugh?

Well, based on what I did understand about her past, that could be nothing but a good thing.

Yushirō, who was not privy to such knowledge and tended to be a bit sour at times, seemed very unimpressed. "What are you laughing at?"

Kanao stiffened. "A-ah, sorry…"

"Oh, don't you mind him, Kanao-chan. I bet us griping at each other seems pretty silly." At the very least, I thought Yushirō and I had one of those relationships where we play-griped about each other half the time, but it wasn't like we disliked each other. "Go ahead and laugh if you want to. Oh, but fair warning it makes you adorable, so maybe you should do that around Tanjirō-kun when he wakes up, yeah?"

It was a faint pink that patched the pale tone of Kanao's skin super well, but I recognized a forming blush whenever I saw one. Kanao didn't launch into a panicked protest, but she was back to that same thoughtful look. Whoops, I had to be careful; if she started taking every random thing that popped out of my mouth seriously, we could have a real mess on our hands, and I'd have no one to blame but myself.

Yushirō let out a sigh that seemed even more long-suffering than before, which was just ruining the mood all around. "Don't you go being a bad influence, now," he said. "I'd hate to think of even more of you running around."

"You didn't know, Yushirō-san? I'm planning on being a teacher, so you'll have plenty more people like me to put up with through the years."

The disgust on his face was more than enough to make Kanao break out into another round of giggles, so I considered my work here as done.

Settling in back home had been both easy and difficult, but Zenitsu and I were doing our best to do so. The Thunder Estate was spacious, yes, and it felt like returning home after a long journey, but the comfort was also counterbalanced by how empty the place was in comparison to its heyday. Sure, we had Kimiko-san and her grandmother around to help with the house, as well as the pet quartet of Kaburamaru, Tadashi, Chuntarō, and Tanaka, but there was no Sensei barking orders to train, no Kaigaku insisting on sparring. That Zenitsu and I had chosen to wear Sensei and Kaigaku's old haori as replacements for our own tattered clothes made the scenario even more surreal.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel more relaxed than I had in a long time. Sure, Butterfly Manor had been nice, but it was still a place I associated with my time as a Demon Slayer, and part of me still felt like I should be on standby, ready to go at a moment's notice. Home, on the other hand, was somewhere I'd trained and never been in actual danger, despite getting worked to the bone during training.

So, just like what had happened once I'd sat down and realized all the fighting was over, even more of my bottled up emotions rushed up in me. Zenitsu seemed to be going through the same, seeing as how he would often come to sit by me, his head on my shoulder as we would sit in silence. Then again, anytime I felt bad, his ears would pick up on it, and he'd come and do the same thing, so the result was that we spent most of our days sitting in sadness together, talking every now and then.

I could think of worse ways to spend my days.

Just like I'd told Kanao, it was just one thing at a time, and that was all we had to do.

Even when taking it one thing at a time, I couldn't ignore the passage of time whatsoever. Soon enough, February was almost at its end. Under normal circumstances, that would just mean it had been two whole months since the final battles (a pretty surreal anniversary to consider in the first place), but for me, it had one more meaning:

My birthday.

My twentieth birthday at that.

Yeah, that number didn't seem real in the slightest, but I couldn't deny the math (even if my isekai status made things a little bit more complicated). I'd never been one to care about growing older, but the decade numbers tended to be a pretty big milestone, so I supposed I'd better care, at least a little. And yet, the big day found me staring into the sky, my mind wandering in and out of random thoughts as I sat on the porch around the courtyard. It was in the middle of that very important activity that Zenitsu found me.

"Rairi, there you are!" I looked up, offering him a smile. His hugs were already great, but I was chilled right through thanks to being outside so long, so the extra warmth was an excellent bonus. "You're so chilly. You should come inside. Kimiko-san finished up lunch, too."

"Yeah, good idea." I was sure spending so much time in the cold couldn't be making my leg happier, either, so I let Zenitsu help me to my feet. It was slow going, but my balance was improving bit by bit on my prosthetic, so we held hands as we walked. "Do I get eel because it's my birthday?"

"Of course you do! I went and picked it up myself, you know." Zenitsu puffed up his chest in pride, causing me to chuckle. Goddamn was he adorable. "Plus I prepared a special gift, too. Wait 'til you see it."

His excitement was more than obvious, and I was impressed he didn't just pick me up and rush me to the dining room. I picked up the pace the small fraction I could, and it wasn't long at all before we made it to our destination—though once we got there, I froze in my tracks.

I blinked at the table, trying to process what I saw. Though on occasion I'd gone to a western-style café in a city, the fare tended to be pretty limited. I didn't mind, having long gotten used to the Japanese cuisine, to the point that I was stunned by all the fast food I'd eaten before. Every now and then, I'd thought about learning how to cook old favorites, but that had yet to happen.

So why was there a cake on the table before me?

"We wanted to do something special for you," Zenitsu said, having stepped up to my side. There was that look on his face, the one of anxiety where he was worried he hadn't done something right; it had been a staple back in our training days. In any other situation, I'd hope that his hearing would be able to tell I wasn't upset, but I was feeling such a flurry of emotions in that moment that I doubted even his ability would be helpful. "So I went ahead and asked around a bit and found out cake was a Western thing…was that wrong?"

No, it wasn't, just a shock, but I didn't have it in me to verbalize any of that. Instead, I half fell onto Zenitsu in a hug, squeezing him tight. Yeah, the tears were welling up, and I wasn't going to bother trying to hide them. Zenitsu hugged me back, patting my shoulders and looking frantically between me and Kimiko-san, who had been waiting in the room with the others on our house care staff.

"…Thank you, sweetie," I managed to say, though my voice wobbled in the process. "It's all right, so thank you so much." Next year, I'd have to go into more detail so we could have an even more home-like experience—or why wait that long, I could surprise Zenitsu when his birthday came around.

"O-of course! I just wanted to do something special for you since we're partners now! I-I mean, even if we weren't, I still would've done something, but, like, I feel like I should do something, all things considered, ah, but I promise I wanted to—" Realizing he was rambling, Zenitsu gasped for breath, trying to collect himself, and my heart was so fucking full I thought I would burst right then and there. "Happy birthday, Rairi. I love you."

"I love you." Seeming to be convinced I was alright, Zenitsu relaxed, as did Kimiko-san and the others. "I'm just impressed you managed to make a whole cake since it's pretty unfamiliar here. It looks so good, too." I'd def been more of a chocolate lover back home, but it had been so long that even simple white icing topped with fruit seemed like something out of one of my dreams.

"I tried my best," Kimiko-san said, lighting up with pride. As expected, she could do just about anything, huh? "The couple of cakes I did for practice came out well, I think, but I'm hoping you like it—this is a gift for you, after all, Rairi-sama."

Helped by Zenitsu, I went to take a seat at the table, observing the spread before me. "In my experience, it's kinda hard to go wrong with cake. I'm sure it'll be wonderful." A part of me half expected candles and everyone to start singing, but it seemed their research hadn't dug that far in. Ah, well, the unexpected treat was more than enough. "Can I have some, then?"

"Of course!" Zenitsu said. "It's for you, after all." Yeah, I supposed so, huh? It didn't take long at all for the cake to be sliced and served up, and I dug in without any hesitation. Sweetness exploded on my tongue, the taste of pure celebration, baby. I polished off my slice at a speed that was comparable to Inosuke shoveling down a batch of tempura. Whatever I looked like in the process, it was amusing enough to make Zenitsu laugh, and even Kimiko-san failed to stifle her giggle.

I didn't even care. Not when I got to have a moment like this.

"You guys have some, too," I said, urging them on since they'd done nothing but watch my reaction. "You did good work, Kimiko-san. Enjoy some of your hard work." I wasn't going to be hunting demons anytime soon, so overindulging would leave me with a ton of extra calories I had no way to burn. Besides, even if I could eat a whole ass cake by myself, sharing was going to be a lot more enjoyable.

"Well, if you say so, Rairi-sama…"

"Okay, I'll give it a try…whoa, that's super good!"

Seeing the two of them smile filled up my heart with warmth, the kind I'd worried I'd might not be able to feel again. I pressed a hand to where Kaigaku's magatama rested against my neck, thinking about him and everyone else that wasn't there to celebrate with me. And yet, I knew it would be okay, because I still had people willing to walk with me forward, both here at home and elsewhere.

And if I happened to finish off two more slices of cake before the evening was over, then I'd say that I deserved it.

[Author's Notes]

Welcome back for week two! This is one where I kinda threw the two Arcana into the pile and you can kind of pick who you think they match better. I originally thought I was going for High Priestess for Aoi, but, in the end, I think the Empress archetype fits her better bc of her caregiver vibes, and Kanao can have the elegant High Priestess vibes. Can you tell I'm coming at this from a Persona character angle?

Thanks much going to CookieTheDark, patamon642, Punk Trash Noiz, Jiyai222, Worldnotesongs88, and marklangos1978 for the favorites, follows, and review left on the first part of this and walk steady over all. Seeing the engagement still happening on this story makes me very grateful, so I hope you continue to enjoy what you have in store!

I'm still a hack who hasn't picked a precise birthdate for Rairi, but the structure of this chapter indicates it's a later date in February. Somewhere in the late 20s? I'll say they don't have the 29th, but other than that there's no solid choice lol. Do what you will with this info.

Also this chapter has Kimiko in it, who did show up a few times in main walk steady. She's going to feature in a handful of shots in this collection, too, so I hope you have fun getting to know her like I have.

Want some more works made with the same prompts I'm doing? This week I'll shout out Chronic Guardian's Kairi Hearts, another one shot collection featuring sketches from his Kingdom Hearts concept of giving Kairi the agency she deserves and going on her own adventure. You can also write your own shots if you like, and we'd love to see them on the [Twelve Shots of Summer] forum!

Next Saturday: March, featuring the prompts "IV-Emperor" and "V-Hierophant." Please look forward to it!

[06.10.2023]