BUTTERFLY : SHINOBU KOCHO (PART ONE)

Part 1: Chapter 25; Right

The moment he blinked, it was gone.

"Huh?" He mumbled.

Shinobu still glared wide-eyed into Sakusa's eye in horror, until suddenly, the second the red-tipped Hashira blinked, the kanji in his iris had vanished and the familiar ruby returned, looking down at her with a dazed light in his eye.

The butterfly girl fluttered her eyes in disbelief.

What? Where.....

Where did it go?

In quite literally the blink of an eye, it had vanished. How could that be? Had Shinobu just imagined the shift in Sakusa's eye colour, casting the illusion on herself that her partner had become an Upper Moon? Was there a glow in the moonlight that made her see a false image of a kanji in his eye?

What was that, and what is Sakusa?

She'd come to find out the answer to that question soon enough.

As the boy looked down at her with a dazed ruby eye, he mumbled,

"I-Is......is that you, Kocho?"

"E-Erm, yes," Shinobu awkwardly replied, putting on a smile, "It's me, Kari-sa-

Before the butterfly girl could even finish her sentence, however, Sakusa began to sway on his feet, before he tumbled over like a tree onto his side, letting out a groan as his eye rolled back into his head.

"K-Kari-san!"

All suspicion leapt out the window the second Sakusa toppled over, with Shinobu's mind filled with worry over the redhead's condition.

The butterfly girl dropped to her knees and scrambled over to Sakusa's side, dread creeping into her heart as her eyes traveled all across the boy's body.

Shit, shit, shit, She cursed to herself, glossing over Sakusa's body, checking for any signs of wounds, internal bleeding and the like, something that would ever endanger him. Shinobu pulled Sakusa onto his back, and immediately began a physical examination to the best of her abilities.

The butterfly girl was visibly stressing as she felt along Sakusa's ribcage, feeling for anything out of place, following you his shoulders and arms, down to his hands, trying to see if there was anything that could hurt him.

H-He's hurting, he's in danger, I-I need to save him, he can't die, he won't die....

Yae stayed to the side for now, still unsure of what to make of everything, watching on as Shinobu ran away towards the boy, before the redhead fell over onto his side and the ravenette Hashira began to panic.

However, she refused to put down her rifle, clutching it tight and keeping it aimed at the Rage Hashira's neck. Yae continued to shuffle forward, though, towards the two, closing the distance between them with every slip of her foot.

Shinobu continued to panic, however, furrowing her eyebrows as she continued to look him over.

Don't die, Kari-san, I refuse to let you die out on me, n-....n-not after everything you've put me through!

All those insults about me and my sister, all those times you called my chest flat, all those times you pushed me down and yanked me right back to my feet just to shove me back down again, I'm not letting you vanish just like that!

Not.....not after you made me think of Kanae so many times!

Suddenly, her blurry vision caught a figure standing over top of her and Sakusa, one holding a gun barrel right to her partner's neck.