Nobility (Kimetsu no Yaiba x OC)

Chapter 6

"Shinjuro...you should stop for today," She scrunches up her nose, hiding her distaste behind her sleeve. "You reek of sake."

He fiercely turns to Kanjō, not caring to respect her in his drunken state.

"Shut up!!"

He can't find fault in her, not a thing about her could be yelled for. Yet, he couldn't stop himself from shouting at the woman who seemed to have it all in every which way.

"I don't want to hear anything from you! You don't fucking understand because you've never lost jack shit!!"

A flash of hurt flashes across her face, because she had faced her own share of hurt and loss. Hearing this only brought back the painful memories she had locked away. She pitied the man in front of her, a shell of what he used to be, but pity was not what he needed. Kanjō did not get angry, she was not allowed such luxury.

After all, most humans behaved this way towards her. It wasn't anything new.

"So shut up and leave!!!"

"Shinjuro..."

He lunges at her, hands wrapped around her throat tightly. It did nothing to her, she was different from him after all, and all she did was look at him sadly. This wasn't something she could fix for him.

The moon shined brightly against them, as the sliding door was open, and gave Shinjuro a clear view of what he was doing. His tears had dripped onto the flawless skin of her face as she stared back at him, emotionlessly.

"What would you have done if this Kanjō had been one of your sons instead...?"

He throws himself back and lays on the ground like that, crying.

Kanjō gives him one last stare before exiting the room herself. 

'What a pitiful man indeed.'

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She sat on the porch just outside her room, leaning against a wooden pillar with a cup of sake in her hand. Her armor was taken off and weapons laid carefully next to her.

The youngest Rengoku had found her wandering the halls after the....encounter, and politely showed her a free room they had. Then he proceeded to offer her refreshments and food, but she declined, saying that she didn't eat human food. He's a good child, raised well by the elder brother, and seemed not to mind her demonic features. 

"Admiring the moon, Kanjō-san?"

"...You could say so."

Kanjō barely turns her head to the voice as Kyoujuro approaches her from behind. He reaches for the two swords so he could make room for himself to sit, but they're quickly taken away by the owner herself before he could lay a finger on it.

Kyoujuro's smile falters, a bit confused and suspicious, but reverts back to his usual cheerfulness as he sits besides her.

"One is a blade that will possess you with the intent to kill everyone and everything, the other is one you cannot wield because you are not of Inu no Taisho's bloodline."

A short, curt explanation, though said out of slight concern, comes from Kanjō's lips. Tokijin, one of the swords, was forged from one of Naraku's incarnations. It took over the blacksmith that created it, imbuing the man with intense bloodlust. And Tenseiga was her father's blade, something she held close in her heart even if it was originally Sesshomaru's, something only she and her brother could use to its full extent.

Meanwhile, as they both sat in silence, the clouds cover the moon. They're suddenly shrouded in a dark shadow and Kyoujuro loses sight of the silver haired woman.

"Do you not need sleep, human?"

The moon is still up, but it is well past night. Kanjō is considering changing the training routine she's set up for him, though she might not like it, she knows a human needs sleep for energy. She's seen how utterly drained they are without it....and how haggard in appearance they become.

"I just woke up a few minutes ago, so it's no problem!"

"You are quite diligent. Does it not tire you to wake up so early?"

Ah, Kyoujuro thinks, no wonder why Oyakata-sama calls her Hahaue-dono.

"It's a habit by now, something I'm used to doing even with little sleep."

Kanjō moves her fur off her shoulder and sets it down on the porch. Kyoujuro barely hears her move, eyes focused on the moon, and when he feels the tug on his cape, he feels himself falling sideways. His head is met with a soft material.

'She's very strong!?'

Kanjō stays sitting, watching the moon, all while soothingly rubbing his head.

"Sleep. This Kanjō will train you in the morning."

Her mind wanders to her mother as Kyoujuro begins to sleep, and her body involuntarily shudders. Kanjō thinks that if her mother were here to witness this, she'd tease her daughter and give her second-hand embarrassment in the process.

To be honest, she was already flustered just by imagining the scenario and blanked out for a second before covering her face.

Kanjō is awake the whole time, watching the moon fall and the sun rise while Kyoujuro sleeps next to her, but she notices a lingering presence near the flamed haired man.

It's barely there, hanging back in the shadows rather than coming near, and simply just stares. 

So Kanjō waits next to Kyoujuro throughout the night, monitoring the figure and waiting for sunrise to dispell any caution. A hand laid on her one of her swords just in case.

"What business do you have with this man, yūrei?"

It moves closer and into the light. A woman, whose eyes reflected sadness, smiles at Kanjō so kind, it made her vision blur. Molten gold seemed to waver and tremble as tears slid down her face, the trail of liquid turning her cheeks red.

Kanjō gasps for air as she clutches her heart, the fabric covering her wrinkling with how much strength she put in. Her heart was filled to the brim with sadness, so much that it left her legs quaking.

Kanjō hasn't cried once in three hundred years, so the surge of this almost foreign emotion is strange.

Her clawed hand pulls out Tenseiga harshly, and flings it at the yūrei just as the sun rises. As the figure fades away, and the blade is stuck in the wall behind it, she says something in a soft voice.

"Protect my son....please......"

Kanjō still feels the lingering emotion rooted in her heart, even when the spirit is gone.

She narrows her eyes at the flame haired man who was still sleeping on her fur.

"Why is it that the first one this Kanjō has to teach is already so troublesome..."

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{[ Taisho Secrets ]}

Kyoujuro's mother thinks Kanjō is very pretty. Crosses her fingers in the afterlife that he wifes her up.