boketto || t. kamado

fifty-eight

Unlike most prominent cities in Japan, the entertainment district was calmer in the sunlight rather than beneath the cover of night. I doubted my absence would be noticed in the Yamamura house, but I'd placed pillows beneath my bed sheets anyway, just in case.

It felt nice to be back in the daylight - the time of humans rather than demons. We spend so much of our time lingering in the world of evil that I sometimes forget that humans are meant to live and thrive beneath the warm sun. That we're meant to rise with the sun and set with the moon. I can't honestly remember a time when I held a more natural and consistent sleep cycle that way. The longest I've been able to do such has been when I'm injured and have to rest - but that's at most a month at a time.

Still, I reveled in the sun as I nimbly dashed and hopped across rooftops toward the meeting place. I was careful to lay low so the few humans still roaming the streets wouldn't become suspicious or confused at the woman in a kimono dashing on rooftops.

The sky was clear and blue, with a few white clouds dotting the area. From up here, you could see the landscape in the distance stretching far, both with the rest of the cities and the farmland beyond that. I wondered what it would've been like to grow up within a city - I visited them often as a child but never lived in one. My old home was the only one I have ever resided in.

Now I don't really have a home. A nomad, constantly drifting.

...Hm. To be frank, it doesn't concern me as much as it did previously. Perhaps that's because I finally came upon our agreed meeting place where Tanjiro and Inosuke were waiting patiently.

Well, Tanjiro was. Inosuke was angry as ever and waving his arms around. It felt weird to see him without the boar mask on, but even more odd when I landed on the roof and his attention spun towards me.

He pointed an accusatory finger, "What took you so long?! There's a demon at my house! We need to go kill it!"

"A demon..?" I repeated, lifting the front of my kimono so I wouldn't trip as I walked up towards them. I drifted closer to Tanjiro's side than Inosuke, admittedly. However a small glance at his face made me swallow thickly and prefer to check out the black shingles instead.

"Yes!" Inosuke shouted, "Like this! Do you get this, then?!" Before gesturing his hands in an odd motion. It looked oddly like... a spider, maybe? Oh gods, please not another spider demon. I grimaced.

"Uzui and Zenitsu should be coming soon to check in, so-" Tanjiro tried to reconcile, but Inosuke made another large gesture with his hands.

He cried out, "It was like this, okay?! It was clear to me!"

My brow furrowed and I softly hummed, "We can see, Inosuke."

"Zenitsu won't be coming."

I flinched, the presence of an aura flooding over me scarily fast. My mind could hardly even register the newfound person until they finished speaking, and I whipped my head to see Mr. Uzui sitting on the ledge of the roof, crouched comfortably. He couldn't have been there for more than a minute. Right..? What an insane guy - the Hashira are incredible. They make us look like mortals compared to gods.

Wait, Zenitsu? As per usual, Tanjiro seemed to share the same thoughts as me and said, "'Zenitsu won't be coming'. What do you mean by that?"

Uzui's back was still towards us, his aura a wide mixture of emotions. As if I was glancing through a prism and seeing a unique mix of a rainbow. The most prominent was a deep maroon, amethyst, and green color. Negative through and through, that was for sure.

It took the Hashira a moment to respond, but he eventually did without looking at us, "I feel bad about putting you through this. I wanted to... rescue my wives so badly, I made some bad decisions."