Shinobu's soul burned with abject fury when Reiji arrived at Butterfly Mansion with Lulu, yet the smile never left her face.
She gave them both rooms to stay in while waiting for their swords, healed Lulu's broken hand, and treated Reiji for pneumonia.
On the fourth day of Reiji's stay, she deemed him fully recovered.
"As to be expected for someone who's mastered Total Concentration Breathing, Constant." Shinobu nodded in satisfaction at the thermometer she used to measure him. "Your body's natural healing abilities have increased exponentially. It's impressive, for a reckless amateur with no proper training."
Reiji sat before her in the patient's chair dressed in the medical gown she provided him. His basket hat sat on his lap while Kanae hovered right beside him, grateful for the chance to be back home with her sister even if she couldn't see her.
"I'm flattered," said Reiji before jokingly adding. "Though it's a shame that this might mean I'll have to visit you less, Shinobu-chan."
Fury still burned inside Shinobu's soul behind the smile, but the mystery emotion he noticed in her during last visit made a resurgence. She held a dainty hand up to his face and flicked him on the nose way harder than she should've been able to.
"Careful, now," she warned. "You're an official demon slayer now. I could have your tongue for talking down on a hashira."
"Corps rules actually wouldn't allow that," said Kanae, her presence unnoticed by her much more sadistic sister. "She can still probably beat you up though."
It was definitely a bad idea to tease Shinobu. But then again Reiji just joined the Demon Slayer Corps.
Bad ideas must come to him easily.
"If you want my tongue then I'm more than happy to give it to you, Shinobu-chan," Reiji teased. The corners of his mouth curled into a smile. "You need only press your lips against mine to claim it."
Kanae rolled her eyes and stuck out her own ghostly tongue at him in disgust.
Meanwhile, abject fury and the mystery emotion from before threatened to overwhelm each other in Shinobu's soul.
"You haven't changed at all, have you Reiji-kun?" The emotions hidden within her soul caused her voice to tremble slightly, though Reiji couldn't tell if it was from rage or something else. "But I'm not the sort of woman to hand out kisses so easily."
"That's fine," Reiji replied with a smirk. "It'll make the ones you do give all the sweeter."
Shinobu let out a soft half-scoff, half-laugh. "What makes you think you'll ever taste one, hmm?"
"Oh, it's just a hunch," said Reiji. "You haven't slapped me yet, so that's a good sign at least."
"Maybe I should…" Shinobu leaned towards him. Her right hand on his chest as she whispered into his ear, every word tingling the walls of his skull. "But you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Maybe I would." Reiji hoped that the small hand on his chest wouldn't feel how quickly his heart was beating. "But there's only one way to find out now, is there?"
"Indeed there is…"
Reiji felt the soft tips of Shinobu's slender fingers trace up his chest, past his neck, and onto his face. She gently stroked his cheek while her soft breaths tickled the insides of his ear.
His whole face would've turned red if he weren't using Total Concentration Breathing to divert his blood elsewhere. Some might call it cheating, but neither of them ever established any rules to their little teasing game.
Her cool palm pressed against his cheek. Just as he was wondering whether or not she'd actually slap him and whether or not that'd be a good thing, her hand left his face. She poked a single slender finger on his forehead so hard that he was forced to lean back on his chair.
"But I have a better idea." Shinobu stood up from her seat. "Go wait for me in the courtyard, Reiji-kun. I'll be with you shortly."
Shinobu walked out of the medical examination without another word. She left the door open behind her for him to follow.
Reiji remained on the chair for a solid five seconds staring at the open door before Kanae pulled him out of his stupor.
"Uh, Reiji." She pointed at her own nose. "You got a little something there."
Something warm trickled down across Reiji's nose. He cursed under his breath when he realised it was a nosebleed.
"That woman will be the death of me," he muttered under his breath as he wiped away the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
"You know you don't have to flirt with my sister, right?" Kanae asked.
"I'll stop the day I see that stupid gorgeous face blush." Reiji shoved his head back into his basket hat and allowed his face to turn fully red. "One of these days."
Heart still beating out of his chest, Reiji headed to the courtyard.
Two figures were already there, standing beside a stone-rimmed pond surrounded by butterflies.
One of them was Lulu, whose nearly healed right hand was wrapped in bandages. She wore the same pale teal medical gown as him and was talking, or at least attempting to talk to, a young girl in a pink kimono whose soul burned with bashfulness and indecision hidden behind a smile so gentle it bordered on stoic.
"S-So, Signora," Lulu spoke in her somewhat disjointed, heavily accented Japanese. "Are you wanting to be slayer too?"
The mystery girl simply kept smiling at her with a blank look in her pale purple eyes. Her black hair was tied in a side ponytail by a pink-green butterfly hairpin exactly like the ones Kanae still wore as a ghost.
Reiji turned to Kanae and tilted his head to show his curiosity.
"That girl's my adoptive sister Kanao," Kanae explained. "Shinobu and I took her in when she was very young. She's training to become a demon slayer too."
Kanao took out a coin from her pocket, flipped it, and looked down at the result before pocketing the coin again. The indecision in her soul fizzled out and she continued to just smile at Lulu without a word.
Reiji approached the two girls. "Made a new friend, Lulu?"
"Ah, Signore Rei!" A sunny smile beamed from Lulu's face when she saw him. "I was just-a talkings to the young Signora here. My Japanese no good. Maybe you make better talk with her?"
Kanao, upon seeing Reiji, flipped her coin again. When she saw that it was heads, she gave him a wordless bow with a smile on her face.
"I really don't think your Japanese is the problem here, Lulu," said Reiji. "Some people are just shy."
Another voice joined in the conversation.
"Kanao-chan over there is my sister." Shinobu walked into the courtyard holding two training swords. Her face was still wet from being recently washed. "She recently finished her cultivation training and is staying here for some additional training before the Final Selection. I'm afraid she's not very open around others."
"Oh, capisco." Lulu shyly averted her gaze from Shinobu to fiddle with the bandages on her left hand.
Kanao bowed slightly at her older sister before her gaze shifted to the tip of her nose, where a white butterfly had landed.
Reiji looked at the wooden swords in Shinobu's hands. One looked to be in the rough shape and size of the average katana while the other was essentially a straight, slender stick.
"What are those for?" he asked, though he could already guess the answer from the bloodlust in her soul. "Are you going to train Kanao now?"
The corners of Shinobu's smile curled even higher, threatening to transform into a full-blown evil grin.
"This is your lucky day, Reiji-kun." Shinobu tossed him the normal looking sword, which he easily caught. "It's not every day that a mizunoto gets to spar with a hashira."
Reiji squinted at the wooden training sword, then at Shinobu holding her slender stick.
"This isn't just an excuse to beat me up within corps rules, is it?" he asked dryly.
"Why, of course not!" Shinobu didn't even bother trying to make herself sound convincing. "I just want to help you get stronger, that's all."
"...Are you still mad that I went to the Final Selection without visiting you first?"
"Now, why would you ask that?" Shinobu's calm tone and serene smile did nothing to hide the rage burning inside her soul. "Why would I be mad just because you recklessly risked your life charging unprepared into a mountain of demons dick-first when I already went through all the trouble of contacting a top of the line cultivator in preparation for your return? No, you're just overthinking it, Reiji-kun. Now be a good boy and assume your position."
Okay, now that Reiji really thought about it, he probably did have this coming from her perspective.
"Fair enough." Reiji steeled his mind and body for the beating of a lifetime.
He took position a few metres across from Shinobu, who turned to Lulu and Kanao.
"Kanao-chan, Lulu-chan." She spoke slowly but clearly out of consideration for Lulu's rusty Japanese. "Why don't you two take a seat on the porch? You might learn a thing or two from watching us spar as well."
Lulu's face turned red the moment she heard her name come from Shinobu's voice.
"Ah, o-of course!" Lulu turned to Kanao with a bright smile. "Come on, Signora Kana! Let's give them some room, yes?"
The butterfly on Kanao's nose finally fluttered away when she bowed to Shinobu, and she followed Lulu to sit on the porch. They both settled down at roughly the same spot Reiji used to practise his bamboo flute in, back during his first stay at Butterfly Mansion. Unbeknownst to them, Kanae sat right there with them.
"You're on your own for this one." Kanae shook both her fists at him in encouragement. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll survive!"
Reiji turned to squint at her, though his face was entirely hidden by his basket hat.
Kanao's pale purple eyes gave a constant, vacant stare at everything in front of her. Meanwhile Lulu's own pale blue eyes darted nervously darting between Reiji and Shinobu as if unsure who to root for.
Reiji turned his attention back to the tiny woman whose gentle smile sent shivers down his spine.
"Alright then." He raised his wooden sword in defence. "Are there any rules I have to follow for this spar?"
"For you?" Shinobu's smile widened. "Survive."
Reiji felt his chest, shoulder, and side explode in pain that made him doubled over. When he raised his head again, Shinobu was gone.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Shinobu from behind him, not sounding sorry at all. "I forgot to say go. Silly me."
Startled, Reiji swung as quickly as he could. He slashed his wooden sword at where Shinobu's neck should've been.
He barely caught a glimpse of Shinobu's head before she ducked under his sword. She thrust her sword at his head with such precision that it slid under his basket hat to hit him square in the chin so hard his feet left the ground.
'I didn't even see her move!' Reiji landed hard on his back. His head missed smashing against the stone rim of the courtyard pond by mere inches. 'Are all the hashiras this insanely strong?!'
The tip of Shinobu's wooden sword shot down towards Reiji's face. He just barely tilted his head to the side in time to avoid it. Even then it tore a gash through the side of his basket hat and burned a painful hot line against the side of his head.
"Oh?" Shinobu stomped on Reiji's chest and leaned down to peek through the eye holes of his basket hat. Her hand still gripped the wooden sword impaled beside his head. "You actually managed to dodge that?"
"I'm full of surprises, Shinobu-chan."
Reiji let go of his sword to grab Shinobu by the collar. Her eyes widened as her soul lit up in surprise and excitement. They overwhelmed her bloodlust for a split second that Reiji used to grab her foot on his chest with his other hand.
Regardless of how strong or fast she was, she was still just forty kilograms of weight at very most. Maybe even less. Still lying on his back, Reiji lifted Shinobu off his chest and threw her over his head.
The purple butterfly hairpin on Shinobu's head clinked against the stone rim of the courtyard pond before the rest of her tiny body tumbled into the water.
Reiji scrambled to get his sword again the moment she was off. He raised it as soon as he got up. His eyes fixed on Shinobu's sopping wet form slowly rising from the pond water that'd washed the smile away from her face.
"Dirty move, Reiji-kun." Shinobu wiped the water from her eyes with the sleeve of her butterfly haori. "Are you really that desperate to see me wet?"
"Maybe." Reiji's lungs filled with air. Every vein in his body expanded as they were engorged with blood that sent a surge of energy through his body. "Or maybe I just wanted the water weight to slow you down."
A steaming hot breath shot from Reiji's nostrils and seeped out the holes of his woven basket hat.
"Ghost Breathing, Seventh Rite." The pond water split clean in half from the speed of Reiji's movement. His wooden sword swung at Shinobu halfway across the pond, tearing a gash her haori as she just barely wormed her way out of the strike. "Message From Beyond."
Reiji continued dashing back and forth across the pond at Shinobu several more times. Each lightning fast dash split the water beneath them and made a new tear in Shinobu's butterfly haori as the wooden sword missed her actual body by a couple inches.
All the air in Reiji's lungs was exhausted by the eight dash, marking the end of his seventh rite. He sucked in another breath as he slowly backed away from Shinobu, who stood in the pond looking down at her hole-ridden haori.
"...No more games then." Shinobu stomped out of the pond and stabbed her wooden sword into the ground so hard it split a stray rock in half. The sword stayed impaled there while she took off her haori and wrung it dry. She held it out to one side. "Kanao-chan, please hold onto this for a moment."
Kanao quickly followed her sister's order and took the haori from her. She returned to her spot on the wooden porch and neatly folded it on her lap.
Reiji pulled off his own gashed basket hat.
"Lulu, catch." He tossed his basket hat to Lulu, who caught it with her face before it fell into her hands.
Shinobu locked eyes with Reiji, then vanished in a cloud of kicked-up dust. Reiji instinctively looked up to see her floating in the air towards him in a charging leap.
"Insect Breathing." She made eight near-instantaneous thrusts at him before landing in a graceful roll behind him that left the dirt damp with the pond water that soaked her. "Dance of the Butterfly: Caprice."
Reiji barely managed to block two of the eight stabs, and he turned around just in time to react to a ninth one aimed straight at his head.
"Ghost Breathing, Sixth Rite." Reiji deflected the tip of Shinobu's sword to one side in a circular motion that he quickly redirected into a rising counter attack. "Vengeful Spirit."
Shinobu leapt backwards in time for the tip of his wooden sword to miss her, though it still managed to knock one of the golden buttons off her demon slayer uniform. She didn't look too pleased by that fact.
"Dance of the Dragonfly: Compound Eye Hexagon."
A flurry of thrusts shot at Reiji so fast that for a moment it looked like there were six swords coming at him. Each thrust was aimed at one of his vitals. He just barely managed to block or dodge the ones headed for his head, heart, and throat while the rest hit him in the liver, kidney, and left lung. The last hit in particular forced him to retreat to give himself time to catch his breath.
Had Shinobu been using a real sword, he would be dead a dozen times over with or without the poisoned blade. If this was a competition going by points, there was no way he could overtake her now.
Still, Reiji was determined to hit her at least once before she put him back in a hospital bed. He backflipped onto the side of a fence to avoid one of her strikes. His lungs filled with air and his veins with hyper-excited blood.
"Eighth Rite: Passage to the Underworld."
Reiji launched himself off the fence at Shinobu so fast that he seemingly vanished from sight. He almost instantly reappeared right in front of her, his face inches away from his. Before she could wind her arm still extended back for another stab, his wooden sword came down on her shoulder.
For a moment, Reiji thought he might finally get that elusive first hit.
That moment was quickly dashed when Shinobu pulled a vanishing trick of her own. She dashed backwards, then forwards in dizzying criss-cross motions that turned her entire body into a blinding purple blue. The very earth beneath them cracked to pieces each time she pushed herself off it.
"Dance of the Centipede: Hundred-Legged Zigzag."
Reiji, having gotten somewhat used to Shinobu's speed, saw her aiming the tip of her wooden sword at him whenever she darted in any given direction. He realised then that she was trying to confuse him while building momentum for a single strike. One probably aimed at either his head or neck.
'Alright, two can play that game.'
Air filled Reiji's lungs to bursting. A fraction of that held breath shot from his nostrils and he vanished from the spot to almost instantly appear to one side of Shinobu, leaving behind a blurry afterimage to confuse her.
"Fourth Rite: Drowning Souls in the Sanzu River."
Afterimages from Reiji's speed surges and the blurred purple lines of Shinobu's zigzag dashes filled the courtyard for the next few seconds.
Reiji swung at Shinobu at least a dozen times or so during the exchange. He only ever managed to scratch her uniform while her body remained unharmed. The closest he got to actually hitting her was snagging another golden button off the top of her uniform jacket.
When Reiji ran out of air in his lungs to power his surges, Shinobu let loose a single powerful thrust aimed at his neck. He very narrowly redirected its trajectory into his shoulder with a half-parry that splintered his own sword into two and left him with just the handle.
The wooden tip of Shinobu's sword hit Reiji in the fleshy part of his shoulder, but it sent shockwaves so strong through the surrounding that he wouldn't be surprised if they got fractured.
With a deft flick of her wrist, Shinobu twisted the tip of the wooden sword in Reiji's shoulder and forcibly pinned him against a nearby fence.
"Good effort." Shinobu leaned in close so he could feel her breath on his neck. "But you're still a long way off from hashira level."
Shinobu tried to look smug, but Reiji could tell from the emotions in her soul what she was really thinking: 'This rookie got way closer to hitting me than he should have.'
Reiji tossed away the handle of his wooden sword.
"Perhaps I should get you to my level then." Reiji grabbed the loose fabric of her now open jacket. He pulled it to one side while kicking her little legs to the other in a judo move he picked up from a spirit he once channelled a long time ago.
Shinobu hit the ground on her back. Reiji pushed his knee onto the elbow of her sword arm to pin her there.
He grabbed the longer half of his broken sword on the ground. It was already on its way to Shinobu's neck when she retracted her legs under Reiji and kicked him full-force in the diaphragm, knocking all the air out of his lungs.
Reiji got launched backwards and fell on his arse before a knee to the face forced him onto his back. He tried to bring his broken sword up in defence but before he could, he felt Shinobu's weight on his belly and saw the tip of her slender wooden sword hovering less than an inch above his right eye.
Droplets of pond water and sweat dripped from Shinobu's face and hair onto Reiji's.
"You did well, Reiji-kun," said Shinobu. Though she hadn't been hit once throughout the fight, she was panting almost as hard as he was. "But there's no way you can win this."
Reiji sighed and tossed his broken wooden sword to one side.
"I concede defeat," he said. He failed to resist another opportunity to tease her. "Still, it kind of feels like I've won at something else."
His eyes drifted from the tip of the sword to Shinobu herself, her clothes covered in gashes that exposed the pale skin of her delicate body which was currently straddling his torso.
Realising their position, Shinobu let out an amused chuckle. She stabbed the tip of her wooden sword onto the ground far closer to Reiji's head than it had to be before bending down to speak so close that he could smell what she had for breakfast.
"If I scoot a little lower, will I feel a second sword waiting for me?" she teased, her hips sliding down his body to be uncomfortably close to what lay below his waist.
"Maybe," Reiji teased back, summoning every ounce of willpower in his being to not manifest said sword into existence. "But there's only one way to find out now, is there?"
"Indeed there is…" Shinobu gently ran her hand down the shirt of his medical gown, which was covered in even more holes and gashes than Shinobu's uniform. "Maybe I should strip you down to make sure you don't have any more surprises up your sleeves."
"It's not my sleeves that you should be checking if you want a surprise," Reiji teased.
Shinobu's smile widened. "Well, now you got me curious…"
Meanwhile, back on the wooden porch, Lulu muttered something in Italian under her breath. "Questa è così fottutamente calda…"
Both Reiji and Shinobu turned to look at the porch.
There they saw Lulu red in the face bleeding from the nose while Kanao stared at both of them with a blank expression that looked almost surprise. Only Reiji could see the wholly unamused glare Kanae was giving them in their compromising positions.
"Oh my." Shinobu got off from Reiji, who stood up with her. "What happened here?"
"Are you alright there, Lulu?" Reiji asked.
Shinobu walked up to Lulu and gently dabbed a handkerchief at the blood under her nose. "You didn't pick your nose too hard, did you Lulu-chan?"
"N-no," Lulu stammered with sweat dripping down her face.
"Hmm." Reiji pressed his palm on Lulu's forehead as Shinobu helped wipe the blood off her face. "Your head still feels hot. Are you sure your pneumonia is gone?"
"Y-yes!" Lulu's voice sounded like a squeaking mouse. She shoved Reiji's basket hat onto her own head and ran away shouting another Italian phrase no one understood. "Mi scusi!"
Reiji and Shinobu watched her run down the halls with surprising speed. She'd accidentally put the basket hat on backwards in her haste, causing her to smash blindly into a wall before she quickly corrected herself and continued running in another direction.
"My, my, what a lively girl." Shinobu pocketed her bloodied handkerchief. "I hope she doesn't hurt-"
The cold water from the pond finally caught up with Shinobu, causing her to let out an abrupt sneeze. It sounded almost comically adorable.
Reiji gave a light chuckle that he immediately regretted when it made the many, many injuries on his chest act up.
"Ugh, that smarts," he mumbled under his breath.
Kanae, nodded her transparent head in approval. "Serves you right, you scoundrel."
"Maybe you should take a cold shower, Reiji-kun," said Shinobu with a smile. "Wash off all that sweat and soothe those muscles I just bruised."
"And perhaps you should take a hot shower, Shinobu-chan," Reiji replied. "You wouldn't want to catch a cold because of that little pond dip, now would you?"
The corners of Shinobu's smile twitched, either out of anger or a suppressed sneeze.
"No, I suppose I wouldn't." Shinobu turned to Kanao, who still held her torn butterfly haori. "Kanao, please go give my haori to Aoi to wash and repair."
Kanao nodded and rushed down the hall with the haori to find Aoi.
"Well, I'm going to take a shower now." Shinobu shot a teasing smirk at Reiji. "Try not to think about me too hard when you take yours, yeah?"
Kanae gave her oblivious sister a look of abject disgust. "Excuse me, Shinobu-chan?"
"And don't you forget to dry off nicely once you're done with yours," Reiji teased back. "Walking around while still wet can't be good for you."
"Excuse me, Reiji?!" Kanae shouted at him.
Reiji wholly ignored her to focus on Shinobu.
Their eyes had locked again. For a split second they both considered getting into a verbal duel to go with the physical one they just had.
But the coldness and soreness won out in the end.
They both went to separate showers, turned the water to different temperatures, and both watched silently as a trickle of blood flowed from their noses down the drain.
Reiji didn't know it, but he got a hit in after all.
Taisho Era Secret!
Lulu is actually attracted to both men and women! Her missionary father often sent her to red light districts to preach the good book to the geishas there. She always enjoyed doing so, though not for the reasons her father thought.