Since setting out to sea, he has abided by a single rule as a pirate doctor - to not abandon any one of his patients. This time will be no different.
No matter the odds, Trafalgar Law will not let Murasaki Arisa die.
« Trafalgar D. Water L...
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Uzuki Towa returned to the main shrine the evening after a harried Koga arrived with her three escortees. But Arisa knew it wouldn't be until the next morning at earliest that she could expect to see her mother. The Nightingale's missions were typically followed up with lengthy debriefings by the ruling council, and there was no reason to believe that this time wouldn't be any different.
Arisa had grown familiar with this arrangement, even though there was still a part of her that bitterly resented it. But now that frustration seemed an insignificant thing indeed, compared to the dread prospect of the council meeting she was expected to attend tomorrow. She had been stubborn enough to hide her misgivings from the rest during the day-long journey to the shrine, but she had never been able to stop thinking about it.
On one hand, she was absolutely terrified – from what she remembered, everyone on that council had been so grim and unaccommodating. Well, maybe Kurowashi-sensei (now technically he wasn't her teacher, but who could blame her? That was what Shiori and Suzume called him!) was a bit more approachable; at least by now she'd seen him laugh a few times whenever she'd gone to Koga-nee's to play with Shiori. But everyone else had either left a neutral or distinctly negative impression. Shiori's father, Isseki Yanjirō, made a point of talking down to "brats" and wore a frown on his face wherever he went. Kushihashi Shichizaemon spoke so crudely and with such a booming loud voice that he outright frightened her. And then Uncle was just... Uncle.
On top of that, Arisa couldn't deny the fact that she was annoyed over the summons, either. Maybe it was petulant of her, but who could really blame her? It was unfair – criminally unfair! – that she had to listen to Uncle's orders and go through all this stress and anxiety...and for what, exactly? It wasn't even as if she were planning on becoming a yōgari, so why was she expected to do the exact sort of things Mother always had to do? Sitting in on boring meetings, dealing with the elders... What, would they be asking her to go on full-fledged missions next?
Suzume and Koga-nee could lecture her about responsibility and loyalty and how we're all living under Amenoka-ji's protection and yada yada until the sun went down... but Arisa didn't care about any of that. If she could have her way, her abysmal progress in Hokyū's calligraphy lessons would have been the most of her worries.
Besides, how was it reasonable for the elders to have any sort of expectations in a child like her? Sure, she was Kyōki-sensitive, but wasn't that the case for pretty much everyone else here? Like Koga-nee had said, Arisa was untrained – more likely to accidentally kill herself than an opponent if given a dagger! – not to mention a complete wreck when it came to dealing with yōkai. Even the nice friendly ones like Iroha had her freezing up. Wasn't Shiori always calling her a crybaby for that?
In the end, stewing away with these feelings left Arisa in no state to be able to fall asleep that night. But it wasn't until shortly after midnight that she finally mustered the courage to slip out from beneath her covers and creep out from her room.
