The next day came far sooner than the young demon slayer anticipated. It almost felt as if a heartbeat had elapsed since he had closed his eyes and had ventured into a different realm. A rustling of clothes stirred the white-haired boy out of his dreamless slumber, putting him on high alert. For a brief moment, he had no recollection of the room. His innate and partially feral instincts urged him to flee and find anything suitable for a weapon. Though the state did not persist all that long, it was abruptly concluded by what seemed to be a flood of memories. Some were relatively new, contradicting his prior confusion. Others vary from his childhood to his last mission. Oh … yes, he remembered that night. That meant the next time Sanemi met that demon huntress; he would fulfil his promise and tell her everything about it. Kanae … yes, it was her name. Even though he knew the conversation they shared yesterday was real, he could hardly picture the girl in his mind. Well … it would be technically a lie. Out of everything he could have memorised about her … her big lilac eyes had been engraved in his subconsciousness.
Sanemi exhaled, letting go of all the trapped air in his lungs. With no intention of staying in bed any longer, he stood up and stretched a little, still feeling a burning sensation ravaging his body. It was a painful reminder that his wounds were still relatively fresh and not exactly mended. No matter; he would have been damned if he had allowed something like this to stop him from training. The white-haired teen became a demon slayer to fulfil a promise that only he knew about. It would be a real shame if his story ended like this.
Shinazugawa started pacing around the room, pondering when Kocho would visit him. After all, he had a story to tell and a few questions of his own to ask. Had he known where his belongings were stored, he would have come outside to train. However, it was hardly the case, at least for now. A pang of irritation flared inside him.
That being said, before the white-haired demon slayer exploded, the door parted, revealing Kanae carrying a wooden tray and some shorter girl following her every step. She was extremely pale and petite, with a slender build emphasised by the loose, snowy nurse uniform. Strangely enough, her eyes seemed deprived of pupils, instead filled with purple gradients resembling insects. Her relatively short raven hair was wavy, their end tainted dark purple, and decorated with harpins. Compared to Kanae's, these were much smaller and less detailed. However, this little detail gave a tiny hint of who that girl was.
"Good morning, Sanemi," Kanae greeted cheerfully.
"Morning, Kocho," the white-haired boy murmured, still examining the second girl.
"How are you feeling?" Kocho asked right away, approaching him fast. "Any luck with regaining your memories?" she continued with a delicate smile seemingly glued to her beautiful face, Sanemi realised.
"I still feel occasional ache, but nothing I could not endure," Shinazugawa retorted, shrugging nonchalantly. "As of these fragments … I think I remember everything," he murmured less confidently.
"That's wonderful!" the demon huntress commented, visibly happy. "Would you mind telling me what happened, then?" she questioned.
"Sister!" the second girl huffed, irritated. "Must I remind you we have a few other patients?"
"Of course not, Shinobu," Kanae responded immediately, turning towards the girl and flashing a broad smile. "I'm merely interested in his story."
"Why do you find him that interesting!?" Shinobu hissed, grimacing. "Have you already forgotten how he looked when they had brought him? He's just another brute who's not going to get far. So … why are you so interested in him!?" she continued, spitting negativity and hostility.
"Shinobu, please stop," the older girl remarked quietly.
"What's so special about him!?" the younger sister questioned, her anger visibly painting her delicate face with red.
"Does it matter?" Kanae asked, switching her usual sweet tone to emotionless. "I'm sorry, Sanemi," she referred to the white-haired boy without turning around. "I'm needed somewhere else, so, unfortunately, our conversation must wait. In the meantime, please enjoy your meal," the demon huntress added, placing the tray she carried onto the nightstand and offering an apologetic smile.
"Thank you," Sanemi replied, taking a short bow. "But … I have a question: where is my sword?"
"Pff," Shinobu scoffed, taking a step forward. "Stop asking stupid questions! Why would you need it when you're supposed to rest?"
"You want to train. Is that the case, Sanemi?" the older Kocho questioned. "I feel like it's too early for you to strain your body. Your wounds didn't mend entirely."
"I can walk, so training should not be a problem," Shinazugawa commented, shrugging nonchalantly. "I think the sooner I leave, the better. Many demons still linger in the shadows … I made my vow: I will kill as many as possible. So, please, where is my sword?" he repeated, focusing his sight on Kanae.
He could see the hesitation behind these lilac soul mirrors, but it dissipated relatively quickly, replaced with lively sparks he had noticed residing there the previous day. She offered him a small, genuine smile, nodding slightly before turning to her right and approaching a sliding panel built into the wall. Shortly, she returned, gently carrying his sheathed katana.
"We cleaned it," the demon huntress informed Sanemi, extending the blade towards its righteous owner. "Please, don't strain yourself too much."
"Thank you," the white-haired boy repeated.
"Don't you dare run back to us when you make your condition worse!" the younger of the sisters hissed. "We stitched you, but apparently, you're too impatient and brush to wait till you fully recover!"
"Whatever happens is on me," Shinazugawa remarked, intently examining his katana. "I will leave the first thing in the morning. I already overused your hospitality. Thank you for tending to my wounds … I appreciate that," he added, taking a much deeper bow.
"It's our duty … but you're welcome," Shinobu responded, less hostile than previously. "It's a miracle you're alive," she added quietly.
The white-haired demon slayer did not reply, deeming it unnecessary. After all, there was nothing he could add. What Kanae's younger sister said was a fact. Even though he was relatively young, he had tasted the death's embrace more times than he was comfortable with admitting. Though he had long accepted that wherever his path would lead him, death would follow suit. As Kocho had said previously, his body was scarred beyond recognition, and there was no hope that this situation would improve anytime soon.
Shinazugawa bid the sisters farewell as they scattered from the room in a hurry. It was only natural for them to leave as there must have been many other patients, some perhaps needing their help desperately. However, this realisation allowed him to distance himself briefly and assess his plan. After a mere moment, he shook his head aggressively, stirring back to reality. There was no point in making plans, for death awaited him in every step he would take. With this rather painful conclusion in mind, he sighed, turning towards the nightstand where Kanae left the tray. As if this simple action triggered something within the boy, his stomach loudly announced its discontent. Sanemi felt his face heating up, not entirely sure why his hunger had not flared earlier, though he was thankful for that. It was embarrassing, even if he was alone in the room. It would have been much worse if his stomach had started burping when the Kocho sisters had been there.
"Do not think about it!" he internally urged his body.
It hardly helped, but he could live with it. Slowly, the boy picked up the bowl generously filled with fresh rice and started eating, occasionally mixing it with the other sides the demon huntress had brought. For the next few minutes, his room was only filled with soft consumption sounds.
The Butterfly Mansion's backyard was spacious yet vacated when Sanemi finally made his way outside. As he slid the doors open, he noticed that a thick layer of puffy snow covered everything, blinding him with the reflected sun rays. Briefly, he considered retreating back towards the mansion's halls, but it was a cowardly thought quickly erased from his mind. Sanemi took the first step forward, allowing his weight to sink into the snow, only mildly affected by the cold. Uplifted by the partially surprising realisation, the white-haired boy pressed forward, heading towards what must have been a Sakura tree. It was a cold yet sunny winter day, but he cared little about the weather. For him, it was but another obstacle in his way.
Sanemi walked for a while, getting his body used to the slowdowns the snow would inevitably become, picturing a training regime in the meantime. As much as he would have wanted to say that the cold was not a problem for him, it would be a matter of before it would become. With that in mind, he devised a pattern which would strain his muscles and test his lungs. As the options were limited, he opted to fight an imagined enemy. The white-haired boy slowly exhaled, gathering his wits before closing his eyes and initialising the scenery. In the blink of an eye, he traversed reality, leaving everything he knew far behind and speeding towards the unknown. After a while, his movement ceased and died out, placing the young demon slayer in the midst of a spacious manor hall filled with damaged wooden furnishing and tattered pieces of fabric. Driven by his enhanced senses, he quickly looked around, memorising as many details as possible whilst preparing for an inevitable confrontation. His opponent was a twisted abomination created as a mixture of many formidable opponents he had faced thus far. There he stood, a man of dark hair tainted with strands of red, wearing a colourful kimono. His sheathed sword rested comfortably in his left hand, ready to be drawn in an instant. Sanemi stared with plain intent at the strange construct of his mind. The dark-haired man was taller than him, undoubtedly muscular; perhaps he might have been loosely based on that poor demon slayer he had faced during the Final Selection. However, all of this hardly explained why the man's face was hidden in the shadows, even though the whole place was lit with numerous lamps. More than that, his aura was menacing and terrifying, making Sanemi shiver. The boy's mind urged him to flee, assessing virtually no chance of victory over this particular opponent.
Shinazugawa forced his visibly trembling body to still, readying for the demon's first movement. Little did he know that it would be the last. With untraceable speed, the dark-haired man moved, becoming a blur. The demon slayer was certain that he was hit, yet no pain surfaced, proving this speculation. Oh … how foolish he was to believe the demon missed even for this brief, fading moment. Abruptly, a few deep wounds opened all over his chest and abdomen, flooding him with an unimaginable fiery sensation.
Unwittingly, tears rolled, leaving bloody trails on his scarred face.
When Kanae finished tending to her patients, she immediately headed towards Sanemi's room, more than a little intrigued by what the white-haired boy remembered about his previous mission, the one that had brought him nearly straight towards death's embrace. Her usual measured and steady pace was no more, replaced with haste and intensity. Even though she vividly remembered what the scarred demon slayer had told her earlier, she hoped he would stay in bed, valuing his recovery over the unexplainable need to get back to the training. That being said, expectedly, she found the room vacated with the beddings neatly packed. Her disappointment was immeasurable, but simultaneously, it gave her a drive to leave the warm mansion's halls in search of Shinazugawa. In winter, it was all too easy to follow back to harming tendencies. How trivial was it to stay close to warmth instead of venturing outside and improving? A piece of Kocho's mind already admired the white-haired boy for his devotion and willingness to disregard cosiness in pursuit of strength.
Nonetheless, finding Sanemi did not take the dark-haired girl all that long. After all, there were only so many places where he could venture within the manor's boundaries. Not knowing why, her mind urged her to check the cherry blossom tree. When it bloomed, it single-handedly brightened any day, no matter whether it was sunny or heavy rain. Trusting her intuition, she headed towards the tree, partially surprised when she spotted Shinazugawa training intensively not far from it. As she sat down on the veranda, she realised it was not the appropriate way to describe what the white-haired demon slayer was doing. With his eyes closed, he dodged, lunged, jumped, and slashed as if his life depended on each of these moves. It was a chaotic display, but Kanae would have lied if she had said she was not mesmerised by his sheer prowess.
However, the longer she spectated, the more worrisome the performance became. Akin to spelling a magic word, the situation abruptly changed. Sanemi's seemingly limp body was thrown backwards, his sword sinking into the ground soundlessly. The dark-haired girl could not move, intently observing as the boy's heavy frame hit the ground. The ever-present snow only marginally mitigated the fall's momentum, pulling out a muffled groan from Sanemi. It was a trigger that Kanae needed to pick herself up from the veranda and run towards him.
In what seemed a mere blink of an eye, she reached the boy. He was unconscious, lying on the snow, motionless. His broad chest rose and fell steadily, but the movement was too shallow. Thankfully, she did not notice any visible wounds or cuts. That, however, was the only positive note she could find about the current situation.
"Shinazugawa? Shinazugawa, can you hear me?" she called him. "Shinazugawa, can you hear me?" she repeated after a few seconds of silence, allowing herself to gently shake his shoulders. "Sanemi? Sanemi, wake up, please?" When the second attempt did not yield the expected result, she called him by his name, pleading.
As if someone above heard this plea, the white-haired boy moaned once more. Like previously, the sound was filled with pain.
"Talk to me," Kanae urged him, nearly unwittingly pulling him closer. "Please, open your eyes and talk to me," she continued, resting his head on her lap. As funnily as it might sound, she did not register the moment she had knelt into the snow, but it mattered little if anything at all. The cold might have been unpleasant, but she did not care.
Slowly, the man's heavy eyelids parted, revealing his pained, bloodshot eyes.
"I … I … could not win," Sanemi stammered, coughing extensively. "He … he … was different … from other demons … I have faced."
"Who?" Kocho questioned, relieved that Shinazugawa at least had regained consciousness. "Have you fought him previously? Was he part of your past mission?"
"It … it was … not … him," he mumbled. "Priest … the temple, the children," he continued, mixed emotions filling his eyes.
He must have been dazed, the girl realised, softly combing his hair.
"What priest? What did you fight against during your training?" the demon huntress continued asking, allowing her voice to be tainted with raw emotions.
"No … no … that thing … that thing was different … too strong to fight against," he stammered, visibly having problems with formulating coherent sentences.
"What priest are you talking about?" she opted to approach the matter differently, focusing on the seemingly only clear memory Sanemi had in his mind.
"No … a priest … he only … pretended to be one … hiding in … his brother's shadow … hurting young children," the white-haired demon slayer whispered. "He was … he was … the one who killed the … priest … his brother," Sanemi's face twisted in pain, forcing him to stop briefly. "He hurt people … long before he … was turned into a demon. Underneath… the temple … I found a lot of dark secrets," once again, the story was interrupted by abrupt coughing. "When … I faced him … he called them … his dirty little secrets," he finished, losing consciousness again.
For the next few moments, the dark-haired girl did not know what to do. These fragmented pieces must have been Sanemi's recollections of his previous mission. What happened beneath that temple? No … it could wait; she shook her head, discarding any ideas revolving around waking out the boy to hear out the full story. She should get someone to help her with moving Sanemi back to the mansion. However, strangely enough, she felt content with keeping him close to her and resting on her lap. No … now it was getting ridiculous. What was going on with her?
Then … the shiver ran down her spine when the meaning hidden behind Sanemi's fragmented words sunk in.
Author's notes section:
As I have mentioned previously, the main focus for this month (that is June 2024) will be rewriting as many "My home is where my heart lies" chapters as possible. That being said, I have already started writing this chapter, so I will publish what I have currently and I will release the full piece once I have it completed.
Hey, I managed to finish this relatively quickly. At the moment of publishing this piece, I have rewritten the 4th chapter of "My home is where my heart lies" in more-or-less 25%. Do tell me whether I did a better job at representing characters this time around :)
Please note that the dialogues written in italics are thoughts.
As always, I would like to thank you for everything. See you soon :)
Changelog:
[2024-06-12]: A preview was released.
[2024-06-16]: A major update applied, focused on concluding the chapter.
References:
- NESTOR - Caroline
- NESTOR - Victorious
- NESTOR - On the run
- NESTOR - Teenage Rebel
- Visions of Atlantis - Monsters
- Visions of Atlantis - Armada
- Avenged Sevenfold - Coming Home
- Bon Jovi - Thank You For Loving Me
End of the author's notes section.
