A faint aroma of food came drifting from the side of the road.
And with it, that oh-so-familiar voice.
"We meet again, Kanao. Want something to eat?"
This time, Kanao's eyes curved ever so slightly.
Following the trail of the smell and the voice, she moved forward. She didn't even realize that in those few steps, her pace had become noticeably quicker.
…
Three minutes later.
Beside a small campfire, Marcus offered her a piece of roasted rabbit sprinkled with a few grains of coarse salt and a bowl of wild mushroom and herb soup that gave off a fragrant steam.
"..."
Kanao looked at the food, then looked at Marcus, and a flicker of mild surprise crossed her eyes.
She hadn't expected him to know how to cook…
Across from her, Marcus was already tearing into another rabbit with a ferocity that seemed aimed more at his emotions than his hunger.
"I try to team up with you... chomp chomp chomp... and it's tails every time, but when it comes to eating... chomp chomp... heads comes up no problem…"
As if she hadn't heard his grumbling at all, Kanao took a small bite of the rabbit.
The skin was slightly crispy, the inside tender and juicy; the simple touch of salt brought out the natural flavor of the meat perfectly.
She took a sip of the soup. Her eyes lit up for an instant.
As a child, she'd had nothing to eat. After that, she'd always lived at the Butterfly Mansion, where she ate refined dishes.
But this had something that neither of those two experiences had ever given her.
Without realizing it, she started eating just a little faster—though she still kept her manners…
Marcus, even as he kept letting complaints slip between bites, watched her from the corner of his eye with a smile he didn't bother to hide.
Two years of training on the mountain with the old man. Two years honing his cooking skills between combat sessions… They were finally good for something.
…
After eating, Kanao watched as Marcus gathered the stone pot and the wooden bowls and set them by the side of the road, ready to be left behind. She seemed to feel a twinge of regret.
Marcus narrowed his eyes with a grin: "Lugging this stuff around makes fighting a pain. On my own, I've got no choice but to ditch them. But if… there were someone willing to watch my back while I cook…"
Kanao was stunned. She was far too sharp not to understand what he was getting at.
Instinctively, she reached for the coin, but halfway there she stopped.
She remembered Marcus's "luck."
If she flipped the coin… it would almost certainly come up tails again. And if it came up tails… she'd have to survive the next seven days eating nothing but wild fruit and stream water.
She hesitated.
Since she'd received the coin, it was the first time she'd ever hesitated about whether to use it.
And yet, the inertia of habit is a terrifying thing. Even though somewhere inside her she'd already realized that Marcus's company wasn't unpleasant to her, her fingers completed the motion out of sheer routine: she pulled out the coin and flipped it into the air.
She caught it. Closed her palm. And opened it with a care she had never given any flip before.
Heads.
The figure engraved in the metal seemed to smile at her.
Kanao smiled too.
She showed the result to a Marcus who was holding his breath, calmly turned around, and stayed right where she was.
Waiting.
Marcus's smile, in that instant, became the most radiant one of the entire night.
"Then... Miss Kanao, from here on out, I'm in your care~!"
Kanao didn't respond and kept her back to Marcus, but her small hand rose with unwavering resolve, pointing at a very specific spot on the ground: the stone pot and the two wooden bowls he had just discarded.
…
The rule of Final Selection was to survive seven days in the areas of the mountain not covered by wisteria.
Combat, food, watch duty, rest. Every aspect was a trial in itself.
Combat. For two people who had already mastered Total Concentration Constant, the selection didn't pose a real challenge. It was enough to remember that in the anime, Kanao had shown up at the starting point after seven days without a single stain on her clothes.
That said it all.
Food. This fell entirely on Marcus. After more than two years living on Mount Sagiri, foraging for mushrooms, hunting small animals, and tracking down ingredients came as naturally to him as breathing. The real challenge he set for himself was something else: not repeating dishes. He wanted every meal to draw that gleam out of Kanao's eyes. So during those days, he climbed trees to steal bird eggs, raided beehives for honey, dug up wild roots. He didn't always manage three meals a day, but the two he did prepare almost never repeated.
And every time they ate, there it was: that spark in Kanao's gaze.
Though, to be fair, what the girl enjoyed wasn't so much the flavor itself. It was the novelty. Each dish was a small discovery, and for someone who had gone from having nothing to eat to the refined monotony of the Butterfly Mansion, the unexpected had a value no seasoning could match.
Watch duty and rest. During the day, demon activity practically ceased, especially under direct sunlight. All it took was picking an open spot to sleep in relative peace.
Nighttime was a different story.
Even so, letting your guard down completely was unthinkable even during the day. Nobody could guarantee there wasn't some demon lurking in the nearby shadows, and even if it couldn't come out to attack them directly, with a demon's strength, even a rock thrown from a distance could kill.
So they took turns standing watch: half a day each.
As for Tanjiro…
Hehehe, well. That poor kid—Marcus had tossed him out of his mind without the slightest shred of remorse. With Kanao by his side, who was going to spare a thought for that loudmouth? Besides, with Tanjiro's skill, he wasn't going to go down… Probably.
...
As the days passed, an unspoken bond grew between the two of them.
Together they killed demons, together they searched for water, together they ate, together they rested... and above all, they talked.
Of course, it was mainly Marcus who did the talking.
He talked about training on Mount Sagiri, about Tanjiro's naivety, about the masks and the tsundere ways of his master, about how adorable Nezuko was (leaving out certain comments), and about some ridiculous stories he made up on the spot.
Kanao, most of the time, simply listened. Every now and then, when Marcus asked "right?" or "isn't that too much?", she would give a slight nod or blink once.
Throughout all of it, Marcus maintained a subtle, steady flow of his Breath of Desire, letting a rosy air of serenity wrap around them both like a warm current.
As for the system, although the analysis was slow, it kept progressing. But for the moment, Marcus wasn't paying it much attention.
Walking like this, shoulder to shoulder, breathing in the floral fragrance of Kanao up close—that was already a reward in itself.
And under the warm influence of that rosy current, Kanao was feeling, gradually and imperceptibly, that the distance between them was shrinking.
…
Third day... daytime, rest shift.
The plan was the same as always: Marcus would take the first half of the watch, Kanao the second. But maybe it was the exhaustion built up from days of combat and irregular schedules. Or maybe Marcus's presence was just too comforting. Or maybe—just maybe—Kanao had let her guard down around him in a way she herself would never have thought possible…
The thing is, when Marcus's shift ended, Kanao was still asleep.
Not that light, alert sleep she could snap out of at the slightest creak. Truly asleep. Her breathing slow, her shoulders relaxed, her brow smooth for the first time in days.
Marcus looked at her for a moment. Then he settled back into his watch position without making a sound.
…
When the sun set and the darkness of night enveloped them, Kanao's eyes snapped open.
The first thing she saw was a back.
Marcus was holding his sword with both hands, standing in front of her, motionless.
Kanao sat up immediately, and for the first time, expressions appeared on her face: panic, guilt, a flush that crept up her neck to her cheeks.
She opened her mouth to apologize, but Marcus had already turned around.
"Sleep well?" There was no reproach on his face—just that radiant smile of his, same as always.
"Why didn't you wake me...?"
"You looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn't want to bother you." He shrugged. "You're a girl—getting a little extra sleep is good for you."
"But... you need rest too…" Her voice was barely audible.
"Eh, it's no big deal." Marcus waved his hand. "Isn't protecting a girl just the obvious thing to do?"
Kanao froze.
'Protecting a girl... is obvious?'u
The words were like a small stone falling into a lake that had been still for years.
Sold as a child. Dragged from one place to another. With no one to protect her, with no one who even considered that she should be protected.
Later, Shinobu rescued her and brought her to the Butterfly Mansion. There she learned to be independent. To be strong. To protect others. Never the other way around.
Kanao blinked.
In her entire life... no one had ever told her that she deserved to be protected… As if it were something she was entitled to by right, without having to earn it.
Marcus's blunt, straightforward words struck her as deeply strange—almost incomprehensible.
But...
She said nothing. She simply stood up and placed herself at Marcus's side, in silence.
She knew perfectly well that she didn't need protection.
And yet... the feeling wasn't unpleasant.
…
The seven days were over in the blink of an eye.
When the light of dawn once again bathed the starting point, at the edge of the sea of wisteria, two figures emerged walking side by side.
————
Marcus stayed up all night keeping watch so Kanao could sleep peacefully. Show some respect for our gentleman and drop your Power Stones before you leave!
________
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