Ｐｒｏｔｅｃｔ ||Tomioka Giyuu X OC||

Thirty-Ninth.

Third Person's POV.

Hanabi get up from her position to sit up on her futon. 'I can't sleep.'

She sighed, scratching her head. "I was supposed to feel tired, but why when I am already on my bed I can't fall asleep?" she muttered in distress. She gave up and throw her body on her futon again, staring at the ceilings above her, recalling what happened these past week.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't seen Kikyo-san these past few days," she thought aloud.

"You missed me?" Kikyo suddenly appeared above Hanabi, startling her awake.

"WAAH!" she scream out of shock. Kikyo giggled at her reaction. "You surprised me!" she yelled at her ancestor.

"Hahaha, sorry, I didn't mean to."

"Thank heavens I didn't die because of heart attack," Hanabi sighed loudly. She glance at the spirit in front of her that has the same features as her. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you since you explained those things at me."

"I am here all along. It is you that can't see me."

"Huh? Why is that?"

"It looks like you don't want to see me after I explained those things to you, and I fully understand. You have been lied all along about your family. It must be painful to think that you killed your own flesh and blood," Kikyo said to her with a sad smile.

She stare at her for awhile before replying. "I...was already prepared myself to do that, and I know what I did was right so I didn't actually regret it."

"But, it must be burdening you all this time, right?"

Hanabi took a moment to think about it. "Yeah," she replied. "I do feel my some of my burden have been lifted off when you said that they are not my real family. I...am thankful that I can continued my life without that burden."

"But," she continued, "I still can't shake the feeling about the fact that I killed my own mother with my own hand." She stare at her palms with sadness.

"Hanabi, that's-"

"I know, I know. She turned into a demon. I killed a demon that night. But..." she paused for a bit, remembering the time she first met with Tanjirou, "what if...what if at that time, I can somehow awake my mother from her demon form and let her live until now? Like what Tanjirou did to his little sister," she clenched her fist.

"Hanabi..." Kikyo look at her in concern.

"But, there is nothing I can do about it. It's in the past now," she said to Kikyo and smiled at her. "And you haven't answered my question."

"Eh? Which one?"

"Why I can't see you these past few days?"

"Ah, that one." Kikyo take a sit in front of her before began explaining. "It is because you don't want to see me, you didn't activated you Eyes of the Sky unlike before when you can't control when to activated it. Like before, you called for me right? That's why your skill activated and you can see me."

"What is this Eyes of the Sky? Is it part of the Will of Nature? Why there is nothing about it in the scrolls?"

"Because I didn't know it exist." Her answer only confused Hanabi even more.

"What? How?"

"The one who firstly used it was my sister, Shirokawa Ran. She saw me as a spirit after having dreams about my past memories. But she never write about it because she activated it two days before she died," Kikyo recalled the past memories and smiling sadly at it. "The second one is Shirokawa Sumire who was also a Miko and a demon huntress. She never knew about the scrolls because it is safely placed in the main house of the family, and the Shirokawa family was at hectic at that time, so she never able to wrote anything about it. And the third one who can finally used it is you."