"Desire Breathing, Fifth Form: CRIMSON CURTAIN!"
The pink curtain of light flared to life once again.
Shinobu's sword struck the Curtain and produced nothing. No sound, no crack, not the slightest vibration.
Upon seeing this, she pulled back gracefully, landed several meters away, and looked at Marcus with a flicker of surprise in her eyes.
"Ara, ara~…" She tilted her head. "You can still move?"
Marcus took a deep breath. A stream of pink air flowed in and out of his mouth and nose, once, twice. Then he shook his head hard.
The dizziness had dropped considerably.
"You seriously thought that little bit of sleeping draught was gonna do anything to me?"
Shinobu blinked and her smile widened slightly.
"How impressive," she murmured in clear praise, "Though I don't usually deal with humans very often, that dose would have knocked out a bear no problem."
She looked him over carefully.
"And Marcus-kun's body really is something special~"
"Wanna know why?" Marcus licked his lips. "It's not that I can't tell you, but you'd have to—"
"Hold on a sec~"
Cutting him off, Shinobu raised her sword and carefully examined the blood on the tip of the blade.
Then she brought it close to her nose and sniffed.
Her eyes lit up.
"Now it all makes sense… So it's a unique type of blood."
Marcus was left with his mouth hanging open.
'I was gonna use that as a bargaining chip, dammit!'
Technically she had figured out his secret, but he couldn't shake the annoying feeling off.
Shinobu didn't consider there to be anything inappropriate about what she'd just done.
After all, besides being the Insect Pillar, she was a pharmacist.
"No big deal~" She waved the blade of the sword with a cheerful, sing-song tone. "If it doesn't work the first time, you just up the dose. The sleeping draught will end up kicking in sooner or later, right?"
With that said, she twisted her wrist and slid the blade back into the scabbard.
And Marcus knew right away what she was doing. Mixing a new cocktail.
Sure enough, when she unsheathed it again, the tip of the blade gleamed with a wet shine under the moon.
!
Marcus's eyelid twitched.
How much did she put on it?!
"You really think I'm gonna let you poke me again?"
"Hmm…" Shinobu tilted her head and seemed to think it over with total seriousness.
Then, she smiled.
"Probably not~"
Marcus started to breathe a sigh of relief.
"But you see," she continued, without her smile shifting a single millimeter, "I don't need to catch you by surprise anymore~"
As she said this, her gaze drifted toward Rui, who was still floating motionless in the air.
"The condition for keeping him under control isn't that you can't move. It's that your eyes have to be on him at all times. Am I wrong?"
!!!
Marcus's eyes went wide as saucers.
"I've been watching you for a little while now," Shinobu explained with the giddiness of a little girl who's just solved a riddle. "It doesn't matter if you move, if you defend, if you jump, or if you block. You're always oriented in his direction. Not even once have you turned your head."
She brought a finger to her chin. "Which means… if I attack you from behind on a diagonal, or from the side…"
Her smile widened.
"You won't be able to turn, will you?"
"..."
'It's over.'
"Fufu~" Shinobu shifted her gaze to Giyū, who remained standing there with his usual expression of nothing.
"You didn't really think I was going to be as dense as Tomioka and not notice, did you?"
?
Giyū looked at her with something that could be interpreted as doubt.
"I'm… dense?"
Shinobu waved her hand, "Oh, goodness, it was just an example. Don't take it to heart~"
"..."
A few seconds later, Giyū defended himself, "I'm not dense."
"Sure, sure, sure," Shinobu nodded dismissively, "you're just not quick~"
Marcus, despite everything, almost burst out laughing. But he had more pressing matters to deal with.
Shaking his head, he counterattacked strategically: "And so what if you figured it out? If my senpai couldn't break my defense, what makes you think you'll be able to?"
"Senpai?"
Shinobu, who had already dropped into a combat stance, stopped.
She looked at Marcus, then at Giyū.
"…Are the two of you fellow disciples?"
It was obvious she had arrived in the middle of the fight and had missed the entire conversation before.
Giyū, who was still stuck in his own world processing whether or not he was dense, answered on reflex.
"His name is Anonymous. He's a new disciple that the Master has taken in. Though the MASTER doesn't want to acknowledge him."
"Quit making stuff up! The old man likes me just fine! And my name is Marcus, you piece of—!"
"I'm telling the truth."
"JUST BECAUSE IT'S TRUE DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO SAY IT LIKE THAT?! Do you have any idea how hurtful that sounds?!"
Giyū listened to him in silence. Then he turned his head toward Shinobu, as if wanting to add: 'You see what I mean?'
At that moment, Shinobu's expression had turned quite colorful, and she looked them over again.
"I have no intention of disrespecting Urokodaki-senpai…" she murmured in an unusually serious tone, "But… his eye for picking disciples is…"
She searched for the right word.
"…hard to describe."
"..."
For the first time, Giyū and Marcus fell silent at the same moment. And for the first time, they shared the exact same thought: 'Did she just insult us?'
"I won't allow you to talk about my master that way!"
Tanjiro suddenly stepped forward, his face flushed with seriousness.
?
Shinobu froze once again.
"Master? You're also a disciple of Urokodaki Sakonji?"
This time, she observed Tanjiro with genuine attention, along with the small demon girl clinging to the edge of his clothes.
She could feel it: that creature was different from ordinary demons.
Her eyes narrowed.
"The one at your side is…"
"Her name is Nezuko, she's my sister!"
Tanjiro puffed out his chest.
Then, as if that felt insufficient, he added solemnly, "My blood sister!"
Behind him, Giyū silently covered his face.
"…"
Shinobu stayed silent and swept her gaze across the scene.
On one side, Tanjiro, shielding his demon sister behind him.
On the other, Marcus, shielding his two demonesses behind him.
And in the back, Giyū, whose mere presence made it clear he wasn't about to let anything happen to them.
"I see…" Her smile took on an unclassifiable quality. "Urokodaki-senpai really knows how to raise disciples."
It was impossible to tell whether it was a compliment or the knife going in.
What you could tell was that the atmosphere turned delicate, and Shinobu didn't press further.
After all, she now found herself in the center, surrounded by three disciples of the same school, and if she acted by force, the outcome was unpredictable.
And at that very delicate instant, another figure emerged from the forest.
"Shinobu-nee-san, the wounded have already been tend..."
The figure's voice cut off mid-sentence.
Every gaze turned toward her.
It was a young girl dressed in the dark blue jacket of the uniform, paired with a short skirt and tall boots. A white cape fluttered at her back, and her side-tail hairstyle framed a delicate face that gave off a wintry air.
She was standing next to Shinobu, her hand still on the hilt of her sword. But she had frozen completely.
Her eyes — beautiful, normally steady eyes — were locked onto a fixed point in the clearing.
And that face that never expressed anything… turned red all at once.
Like a tomato.
'Kanao?!'
Marcus was left stunned.
Shinobu looked at her in astonishment.
Her tsuguko. Her Kanao. The most stoic, unflappable girl, was standing there, her face the color of a cherry, staring fixedly at… Marcus.
Shinobu's gaze slowly shifted toward Marcus's face, which looked just as surprised as hers.
______
🦋 Well, well, well… what do we have here? The ice queen melting for our MC…
If this chapter got even a laugh out of you, you know how to show your thanks: FLOOD IT WITH POWER STONES! 💎
Let's hit the goal of 300 PS and another chapter drops today.
__
More chapters ahead of time? Find me: P-a-t-r-e-o-n → Athome790