"Found her! Over there!"
The moment Shinobu spotted the crimson figure standing in the wind, she grabbed Kanae's sleeve and called out, voice tight.
Spotting a girl in red in the dark was almost too easy — from a distance, that vivid color might as well have been a signal fire.
"I see her, Shinobu."
Kanae patted her little sister's hand, the measured, cool tone saying slow down. From what she'd seen of this girl called Inori's capabilities, she almost certainly knew they were coming — and yet she was still standing there, perfectly relaxed.
That left only one possibility: she was waiting for them.
"Onee-san... the sun's almost up. Why isn't she hiding?"
The first light of morning had already crept over the horizon. The sun was about to climb above the eastern ridgeline — and yet the one called Inori still stood there. Didn't she know she'd burn?
Shinobu stared, those deep violet eyes wavering between wanting Inori incinerated and bracing for something stranger.
"I don't know."
"Let's go closer. Something about this doesn't add up."
Kanae tightened her grip on her Nichirin Sword — its tsuba carved with flower petals, blade still undrawn — and moved forward. Logically, the moment of sunrise was when Demon Slayers had least to fear. And yet this was the moment both she and her sister felt the same uncertainty. Could the girl have been telling the truth after all — a human with some bizarre affliction?
—But what disease in the world made someone grow feathers?
...
...
She stood there without moving.
Her pink hair and the red-and-gold ribbons moved together on the morning air, unhurried. The pale expanse of her bare back caught the early light, and the skirt lifted at the hem as the breeze turned, offering brief glimpses beneath.
On any ordinary person, Shinobu would have called that outfit shameless. But this girl wasn't ordinary.
The Kocho sisters drew close without a sound. Shinobu's hand had nearly reached her blade — and then Inori spoke first.
"You took your time."
She turned without warning, a smile already in place, as natural as if she'd just stepped out of a pleasant daydream.
"Though I'm very patient with pretty girls."
"What are you talking about?!" Shinobu could not begin to parse this person's mind. She'd been ready to open with her pre-prepared indictment of the demon's crimes, but then her eyes caught what was behind those crimson ribbons — a shape on the ground. A person. No — a demon.
"Ah! Onee-san! Another demon!"
Kanae said nothing. She stepped forward, placing herself in front of her sister, and raised her undrawn Nichirin Sword with one hand, unhurried.
She looked steadily at the demon collapsed in the dirt. Something was embedded in his skull — not a pleasant image. That was... a feather? Had Inori killed him?
"He's Lower Rank Three. I don't know his name."
Inori glanced briefly at Wakuraba and raised an eyebrow.
"The one who killed the young Demon Slayers — it was him, not me." She tilted her head slightly. "I've already handled him. So you believe I'm innocent now?"
"...Demons can't kill demons!"
Everything she'd presented was compelling. But Shinobu wasn't ready to simply give in.
She had a point, technically. As far as she knew from her seniors, there were only two ways to kill a demon — sunlight and a Nichirin Sword. Or the wisteria poison she herself had developed. She had never once heard of a demon killing another demon.
"He's still alive."
"Barely."
Inori didn't press the argument further. She simply lifted her gaze toward the brightening sky, and waited.
A breath later, the first genuine ray of morning light cleared the mountain ridge and struck the earth.
—The sun.
"Wh— Ahhhh—!!"
The scream that tore out of Wakuraba could have split his own lungs — and lasted barely a moment. Even the softest first light of early morning was enough to ignite a Twelve Kizuki's body completely. There was no contest here: the absolute opposition between demon and sunlight was as natural and final as any law of the world.
Shinobu had never witnessed a demon burn before — she was young, and most battles where that happened had been Kanae's to finish. She stood with her mouth open, those dark violet eyes wide, not a word ready.
Oh, she thought. So that's what it means to turn to ash.
— And her?
Shinobu's head snapped back to Inori — and she nearly lost her grip on her blade.
The girl who should have burned alongside the demon was standing there with her back to the sun, awash in morning light, the warmth playing across her pink hair and skin and those impossible ribbons as though she'd been born to stand in it.
"Told you. I'm not a demon."
There was no arguing with that. Demons and sunlight had been irreconcilable enemies for centuries — even Muzan Kibutsuji himself would not stand in sunlight like this.
"I'm something more than either humans or demons."
"..."
Kanae stood wide-eyed, watching the pink-haired girl in the early morning light — this girl who looked like something between a fairy and a creature from another world entirely.
Those bright violet eyes — Kanae's — caught the light and burned like cut diamonds. Between the two sisters, looking only at their eyes told them apart: Shinobu's were darker, the pupils larger; Kanae's were smaller and lighter, with more of that crystalline highlight.
"I'm... I'm sorry. I had you wrong — I'm sorry, Inori!"
Shinobu bowed quickly, genuine remorse on her face. She'd misjudged her. And in the end, Inori had killed the demon who'd taken those young lives — done what Shinobu herself had sworn to do. For that alone, she couldn't bring herself to keep dwelling on the earlier teasing.
"It's fine. We won't be seeing each other again anyway."
Inori said it without malice.
"Where are you going, Inori-san?"
Kanae came back to herself, and asked.
A simple question — and yet it stopped Inori for a moment. She raised one hand, and the Feather Blade still lodged in Wakuraba's remains rose with it, disappearing back into the satin of her sleeve.
"I don't know. But there'll be somewhere."
She smiled — easy and clean, like someone who had long since made peace with not knowing.
This journey had no visible end. But she had a few clear goals, at least. Pull out the roots buried in her memory, one by one. Something different would come of the work. She believed that.
"Why won't you come to the Demon Slayer Corps?"
Kanae pressed again, gently, persistently.
"I want to know more about you. I want to help you."
Kanae was a person of rare gentleness — the kind that reached people. That warmth, that earnestness, actually touched Inori in the moment. As if in every world she passed through, there was always one girl who took her in — and if she said yes right now, she might as well call it fate. After all, the Kocho sisters mattered to everything in Demon Slayer.
But she was in a hurry.
She didn't know how long she would spend here if she joined the Corps. In the Guilty Crown world, two years. In Morioh, less than a month. This time — how long? She had spent two years biding her time through hardship in the Guilty Crown world, enduring all of it to defeat Eve — hiding everything, not daring to move openly until she awakened Epitaph. She didn't want to go through that again. She didn't want to hide her true strength and follow the Demon Slayer Corps along step by step.
She wasn't just another Stand user anymore. She was a Stand user with an immortal body.
—She wanted to go straight to Muzan.
"Thank you, Kanae-san."
Inori's shoulders lifted in a small shrug, and she raised her face — an unhurried smile in place.
"I'll come with you."
"But you have to take me to find Muzan Kibutsuji."