BUTTERFLY : SHINOBU KOCHO (PART ONE)

Part 2: Chapter 4; Mine.

*S C H O O L F U C K I N G S U C K S*

*I've never been this fricking busy in my life so I'm sorry for putting this chapter out so late*

*Once summer comes tho I'm finishing this story by like August lol*

"Hisao told me that they're at least a day out into the water by now, but apparently there's sightings of Seraphim around Shimabara Bay already, so we need to head out now!"

The duo rushed as quick as they could out of the Rage Manor, snatching their weapons from the armoury, throwing their packed bags over their shoulders and rushing down the mountain pass to the bay where it all began.

Tightening her belt around her waist as she ran, Shinobu felt her hairs stand on end as they dashed towards Shimabara Bay.

She didn't need any help understanding the threat they faced. She had already figured out the echelons of these demons.

If what I believe is correct, and that there are seven of these beasts, then we killed the sixth-strongest and the fifth-strongest in Irire and Razel....

....Sakusa told me that Irire referred to himself as the demon of the Sixth Day, and that Razel was that of the Fifth, being distinguished in strength by the number of wings on their backs...so by that logic, if there's three coming towards us now, they would all be just as strong, if not stronger than those two....

She clicked her tongue as they ran.

Damnit, this is going to get so much worse....

Last time she and Sakusa journeyed to Shimabara Bay it took them half a day, between a brisk but light pace and breaks, but the urgency of the matter called for an urgent speed.

They had to get to the coastal town by nightfall, or untold amounts of damages, possibly more than the invasion on Nagasaki, would come to pass.

As they ran, however, Shinobu had more time to stare at the man's back, biting her lower lip.

She still didn't know how to feel about him.

Don't ever think for a second that Kanae wasn't special to me, Kocho. She was special enough to me that the Demon Slayer Corps, a militia designed to slaughter man-eating demons and combat a life form capable of destroying all of Japan,

Feared what I, a human, would do to them, if she ever lost her life.

His words were as clear as the skies above in her head.

Those gut-wrenchingly powerful words that reminded her that Sakusa had a history with Kanae that was so frustratingly vague and inconclusive.

Despite the fact that he never explicitly said anything, she wasn't stupid, she knew what he meant when he said those words.

Something happened between Sakusa and Kanae.

It wasn't just the thought of them being anything more than professional colleagues that was making her feel so queasy. It was the thought of them having moments together.

Moments where they might have looked at each other and felt themselves unable to keep their smile from springing up onto their lips, moments where their laughter mixed together for hours on end.

She hated the idea of them doing things she had done with him.

She hated the possibility that maybe Kanae had been in the exact same position she was in now, slowly getting used to that smile, that eye, those little kind gestures that he unknowingly did, those sweet words he could so effortlessly speak into existence but get flustered over a second later.