мѕ.gяα¢є αη∂ мя.муѕтєяу •𝔐𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔨𝔢•

𝓝𝓸𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓫𝓸𝓾 𝓢𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓭 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻

"that's much better."

࿇ ══━━━━✥◈✥━━━━══ ࿇

"Greetings." Shinju smiled, entering with manners. Kusuriuri, on the other hand, remained quiet.

"Hello..." The woman responded.

They both sat down in front of her. There was a tense ambiance surrounding the three, but Shinju's tender smile was able to tone it down a bit. The woman had spoken to them, that was some progress. Her knowing that they had greeted her and responded accordingly proved that she wasn't in a state of shock and that she could talk.

"Just... What did you do?" The extravagant man asked with a straight face.

He received a smack in the head. Kusuriuri sighed.

"Please, forgive him." Shinju's face turned into a nervous smirk.

"If you keep hitting people, I'm the one who is going to be apologizing to everyone for your actions."

"That's a sight I want to see, then." She mocked. "I can't even imagine you apologizing for something."

"Maybe I won't have to apologize. Instead, I'll have to clean up after your messes, like before."

"I-I told you that I was trying to help...! Let's just focus!"

The prisoner looked at them, her eyes devoid of any kind of positive emotion. She was tired.

"Who... Are you two?

"As you've likely surmised, we're prisoners too." He answered her question with a low voice. "I am a medicine seller by trade, she's my apprentice."

"My name is Shinju." She tried to be polite, but she was still scanning the situation. She was standing before a death row criminal, meaning that she had done something awful. She didn't know if the woman in front of her was someone she had to be respectful to.

"We had a rather rude customer, you see. He said that the pills I sold him did nothing for his condition." And thus, he began explaining what they were doing before arriving at the cell. Instead of speaking slowly, he was chuckling while talking. That was new.

"This is quite odd, don't you think?" The criminal's defensive state was still active. She didn't trust them, and it was for obvious reasons.

"Why do you think so, miss?" Shinju asked, before asking Kusuriuri for help with a side-eye.

"A man and a woman should not share the same cell."

"Oh, yeah. The officer was very dumb and thought Kusuriuri was a woman. Haven't you seen how he's dressed?" Now it was the time for her to be smacked in the head.

"At any rate" the medicine seller glared at her ", you're set to die.

"So you knew." The empty stare that the prisoner gave them was unnerving. She was too calm for a person being on death row.

"Oh, well yes." Slight nervousness in his voice could be noticed with a bit of concentration. "The populace is abuzz with rumors of your crime. Ochou, the devil woman who killed a samurai's entire house, including her husband and father-in-law."