Chapter Text
The silence in the great room of the Ubuyashiki estate felt heavier than usual.
The wind through the paper walls was soft but chilling, and despite the presence of eight of the strongest swordsmen alive, no one made eye contact. The scent of pine smoke from a nearby brazier curled in the air. Somewhere outside, a crow cawed once, then stopped, as if it too knew to hold its tongue.
Sanemi Shinazugawa’s arms were crossed, jaw clenched so tight that the muscles in his neck twitched. The left side of his uniform was flecked with dried blood. Whether it was his or someone else’s was unclear and irrelevant.
Across the room, Giyuu Tomioka stood with the same expression he always wore: blank as still water. Not calm, not at peace, but unreadable. This stillness made Sanemi want to throw something at Giyuu just to see if he would react.
Ubuyashiki spoke, his voice as soft and clear as ever.
“In the last ten days, three villages in the northern region have fallen completely silent. Not a single response. No civilians. No scouts. No bodies. Just… nothing.”
The Hashira did not shift or gasp. But the tension in the air thickened.
“Our crows reported signs of movement in the snow. Multiple tracks. And then… silence from them, too.”
Ubuyashiki paused, letting the gravity land. Then continued.
“This is unlike the usual demon behavior. There are signs of planning. Coordination. Pack tactics. I believe we are looking at more than one. Possibly four or more acting together.”
A flicker of movement, Tengen, his fingers tapping against the hilt of his blades, said softly:
“A flashy little bloodline experiment, maybe?”
Ubuyashiki nodded, eyes closed.
“That is possible. Or worse a small nest, hiding something larger. We must know which.”
He opened his eyes again.
“For this mission, you will be sent in pairs.”
Now came the flicker. The Hashira didn’t argue not aloud but a few eyes narrowed. Sanemi’s shoulders tensed. He hated partnerships. So did Giyuu. For opposite reasons.
Ubuyashiki’s pale hands rested lightly on his lap.
“First: Tomioka and Shinazugawa.”
A beat.
Two seconds of stunned silence.
Then
“The hell I am.”
Sanemi’s voice broke like thunder across the room. He stepped forward, white hair catching the brazier’s light, his teeth bared.
“What kind of pairing is that?! He doesn’t talk, doesn’t listen, and fights like he’s alone even when he’s not. You want me dead?”
He gestured violently toward Giyuu, who hadn’t moved.
“He’s a ghost with a sword.”
Ubuyashiki’s voice, still gentle:
“I believe both of you will benefit from cooperation.”
“I’d benefit from a real partner,” Sanemi growled.
“Oh, please,” came a flat voice from the side.
Obanai Iguro, coiled and unimpressed, tilted his head. Kaburamaru slithered lazily around his shoulders. He didn’t look at Sanemi when he spoke.
“You talk like anyone survives longer than three days with you anyway.”
Sanemi’s glare turned on him instantly.
“Better than sitting around hissing in corners like a goddamn crypt lizard.”
“Boys, boys.” Tengen’s voice rolled in, smooth and amused. “Let’s not pretend this wasn’t inevitable.”
He stepped forward from the shadows of the room, his gold-bangled hands raised in mock surrender.
“You two have the highest kill counts in solo missions. And the lowest partner retention rates. You’re not just bad at teamwork, you’re tragic.”
He gave a toothy grin toward Giyuu.
“He didn’t even talk to me the entire two weeks we were paired. I thought I’d gone deaf.”
Giyuu blinked slowly. Tengen beamed. Sanemi looked ready to snap the floorboards.
Ubuyashiki raised his hand slightly. The room quieted.
“You leave tonight.”
“You want us to get each other killed,” Sanemi muttered, half to himself.
But he didn’t walk out yet.
Not until Giyuu finally spoke.
“I didn’t ask for anyone.”
It wasn’t loud. Barely above a whisper. But Sanemi heard it.
And he hated how much it hit.
The silence that followed should have been still.
But it wasn’t.
It moved, almost physically, through the room—like a cold wind brushing across bare skin. The kind that made you want to look over your shoulder, made you feel watched. Sanemi stood in the center of it, fists clenched at his sides, jaw twitching with the effort not to yell again.
Giyuu had gone back to stillness, the kind that wasn't peaceful, but empty. Not ignorance, no. He was listening. Listening and watching and staying so quiet that it grated across Sanemi’s skin like a whetstone.
He didn’t ask for anyone.
Not "I don’t want you." Not "I refuse."
Just that bland, grey wall of indifference: No one.
No one was better than me.
Sanemi’s lip curled before he could stop it. The firelight behind him caught on the edge of his scars, casting long lines down his face like old battle maps. His eyes darted to Ubuyashiki but the master remained as still as ever, gaze lowered, hands folded with that eerie, gentle calm he always wore like a second skin.
Sanemi opened his mouth.
Obanai beat him to it.
“You know,” Obanai drawled, from where he leaned against one of the painted beams, voice slow and dry as bone, “it’s not entirely a bad pairing.”
Sanemi turned, glare sharp enough to draw blood. Obanai didn’t flinch.
“At least if you two end up killing each other,” Obanai went on, idly stroking Kaburamaru’s neck, “it saves the rest of us the trouble.”
Sanemi took one step toward him.
Not a lunge. Not a threat.
Just a shift—subtle, but enough to make Mitsuri flinch and glance between them. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but no sound came. Even she knew better than to interfere in this particular stormfront.
“Say that again,” Sanemi said, voice low.
Obanai’s gaze didn't change. It didn’t need to.
“You think it’s sabotage,” he said, turning Kaburamaru’s head to let the snake rest on the crook of his collar. “But the truth is, you’re both walking blade wounds wrapped in uniforms. The only difference is he bleeds quieter than you.”
He tilted his head toward Giyuu.
“And at least he has the decency not to drag the rest of us into his tantrums.”
A few feet away, Tengen gave a long whistle, low and amused.
“Oof. You’re really putting the non in non-constructive feedback today, Iguro.”
Sanemi’s hand twitched at the hilt of his blade. Just once.
Giyuu hadn’t moved.
Still hadn’t looked at him.
Not even a glance.
And that—that indifference infuriated him more than Obanai’s knife-point commentary ever could.
“You got a lot to say for someone who never shuts up,” Sanemi snapped.
“I do,” Obanai agreed. “But I don’t waste my time shouting at shadows.”
The room didn’t breathe. Kaburamaru’s tongue flicked once, almost thoughtfully.
Tengen broke the tension—or tried to—with a clap of his hands loud enough to make a few nearby crows scatter from the rafters.
“Alright, alright, alright,” he said, stepping forward with the wide, gleaming grin of a man who found joy in the discomfort of others. “Let’s stop flirting and start strategizing, hm?”
Sanemi turned on him.
“Don’t start with me.”
“I’m always starting with you,” Tengen replied cheerfully. “Mostly because it’s so easy to tell when you’re upset. You puff up like a very bloody, very angry pufferfish.”
“I will end you.”
“Oh, come on.” Tengen’s tone dropped just enough to be heard clearly not mocking now, but blunt. “You two are the best blades we have for a recon job that might turn into a massacre. And if we’re being honest ” he gestured lazily between them, “ you’ve been dancing around each other’s throats for months. Maybe it’s time you finally got it over with.”
“Got what over with?” Sanemi snarled.
“The part where you figure out if you want to kill him or ” Tengen raised an eyebrow, “connect emotionally. Or whatever it is you’ve both been pretending not to do.”
Sanemi froze.
Not visibly. Not dramatically.
But just enough that his shoulders didn’t quite rise for the next breath.
“You’re all full of shit,” he muttered.
Giyuu still hadn’t looked at him.
Ubuyashiki, as always, let it all unfold without interruption. He trusted the chaos to sort itself out.
The silence returned.
And this time, it sat heavier.
Giyuu finally turned his head.
Not to Sanemi.
To Ubuyashiki.
“When do we leave?”
Ubuyashiki’s expression was unreadable.
“Before sunset. You’ll be expected to reach the lower ridge trail by morning.”
Giyuu nodded.
Sanemi said nothing. Just stalked toward the open doors, boots scraping wood, shoulders tight as bowstrings.
He didn’t look back.
Giyuu followed him moments later, quiet as shadow.
The room stayed silent even after they were gone.
Then, slowly, Tengen folded his arms and smirked toward Obanai.
“Ten coppers says they either come back bonded for life ”
“...or dead in a ditch,” Obanai finished flatly. “You’re on.”
Kaburamaru hissed in something like agreement.
//
The last echo of Sanemi’s boots hadn’t even faded down the hallway before the room exhaled.
Like a storm had passed or perhaps just retreated to circle back later.
Tengen turned with a dramatic sweep of his arms, pacing toward the open shoji door as if waiting for the next act of a play. Behind him, Obanai folded his arms and leaned deeper into the shadow of the pillar.
“He’s getting worse,” Mitsuri murmured, her voice low but laced with that soft ache of concern that always curled behind her words. “Sanemi, I mean.”
She had remained seated throughout the entire argument, hands resting carefully on her lap, eyes downcast but listening to every word. Her eyes now flicked to the doorway, as if she could still see him, all fury and scar tissue, vanishing down the hall like a thundercloud with legs.
“He’s angry all the time lately. Like something’s eating him from the inside.”
Obanai didn’t reply. His expression didn’t change, but Kaburamaru flicked his tail once in agreement.
Tengen chuckled but not cruelly. It was a quieter sound this time, a thoughtful one.
“That’s what happens when you keep grief on a leash and feed it gunpowder.”
At the far corner of the room, Kanao Tsuyuri tilted her head.
She hadn’t spoken at all during the exchange hadn’t needed to. She watched people the way others watched the sky before rain: quiet, calm, and prepared for the storm.
“Giyuu-san is quieter than usual,” she said, more like an observation than an opinion.
Tengen gave her a sharp look, then nodded.
“Mm. That’s the real problem.”
“His silence?” Mitsuri asked gently.
“No,” Tengen said. “That Sanemi can’t stand it.”
They all paused.
Somewhere down the hallway, Sanemi’s voice rang out, distant but sharp as ever.
“What’re you walking back there for? Gonna ghost your way through the forest too?”
A long pause. No reply.
Mitsuri winced. “Poor Giyuu…”
Obanai made a soft noise too dry to be a laugh.
“Don’t pity him. He’s not helpless. He’s a vacuum. He sucks up other people’s noise until they start choking on the quiet.”
“That’s poetic,” Tengen muttered.
“That’s accurate.” Obanai looked toward the window, his voice like cracked stone. “I’ve seen people scream their hearts out at him just to get a reaction. Sanemi’s halfway there already. Next thing you know, he’ll bleed in haiku.”
Mitsuri frowned, eyes flicking between them.
“You all make it sound so… tragic.”
Tengen’s grin returned, sharp and bright.
“It is. That’s why it’ll be fascinating.”
Kaburamaru slid slowly along Obanai’s shoulder as the Wind and Water Hashira disappeared into the shadows of the compound.
Sanemi’s voice rang out again, fainter this time.
“You got something to say, say it! Or do I gotta beat it out of you like everything else?!”
Nothing.
Just the wind.
Kanao stood slowly, brushing invisible dust from her uniform. Her eyes lingered toward the exit.
“They’re going to say too much… or nothing at all.”
“Either way,” Obanai muttered, “it’ll end in blood.”
//
Sanemi didn’t slam the door of his estate.
He wanted to. Every muscle in his body was begging for it. But the wood was old, weatherworn, and still carried his mother’s lacquered scent—camphor and pine—embedded in the grain. Slamming it felt like it would betray something.
So instead, he shoved it shut with the heel of his hand and stalked inside like the walls had insulted him.
His quarters were clean, spartan, and cold. The air smelled like old steel, colder steel, and oil. The only personal effect in sight was a wooden frame tucked beside his bed, face-down.
He didn’t look at it.
The mission pack was already half-ready. He’d kept it prepped since the last raid. Not because he was eager to fight—no, not anymore—but because it meant he never had to unpack. Never had to settle. Never had to sit still long enough to think about
He shoved a roll of gauze into the side pocket hard enough to rip the stitching.
“You got something to say, say it!”
The echo of his own voice from earlier grated across his skull like glass underfoot.
Giyuu hadn’t said anything.
Hadn’t defended himself. Hadn’t even looked at him.
And now they were partners.
Sanemi Shinazugawa, paired with a fucking shadow.
He tightened the leather straps on the bag, fingers flexing around the cords until his knuckles turned bone-white. It was too tight, but that was the point. He needed something to cut off circulation. He needed to feel something in his fingers besides the echo of nothing.
Outside, the sky was bleeding.
That strange violet-red of sunset just before it gives up the last of the light—that fleeting, feverish shade that looked like a battlefield sky just before the ash settled.
Sanemi stepped out with his pack slung over one shoulder and a scowl carved deep into his mouth.
He expected to walk alone.
He was good at that.
What he didn’t expect—what made him stop in his tracks—was the figure standing at the edge of the gate.
Leaning, not quite casually, against the post. Waiting.
Waiting for him.
Giyuu.
Of course, it was Giyuu.
Of all the people who could be standing outside his estate—it was the one person who made silence feel personal.
Sanemi’s steps slowed as he approached, not from hesitation, but from pure disbelief.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
No answer.
Giyuu looked over at him, expression unreadable as always, arms folded beneath his cloak.
“Well?” Sanemi barked.
Still nothing.
Just that stare—not cold, not blank—just… steady.
Sanemi stepped closer. Too close. Within reach.
“Don’t stand there like you’re doing me a favor. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Or do you only speak in riddles and trauma now?”
Giyuu blinked once. His breath steamed faintly in the cooling air.
“You were late,” he said simply.
Sanemi blinked.
“What?”
“I thought you might’ve fallen asleep.”
Sanemi stared at him.
A slow heat climbed up his neck—not embarrassment, never that—but something uglier. Something he didn’t have a name for. Something that made him want to grab Giyuu by the collar and shake him just to see if he’d blink again.
“So you came to check? What are you, my crow now?”
Giyuu looked at him again. And this time, something flickered in those sea-glass eyes. Not annoyance. Not concern. Just… quiet.
“No.”
He turned away and started walking down the path toward the main road.
“Just didn’t want to leave without you.”
Sanemi didn’t move for a second.
Just stood there, heart pounding against the edge of something he wasn’t ready to name. A strange pressure bloomed in his chest hot and wrong and too soft to be allowed.
He breathed like it hurt to inhale.
Then followed boots crunching in the frost, just loud enough to break the silence. Giyuu always carried them like a second uniform.
“Don’t make a habit of it,” he muttered.
“I won’t,” came the reply.
Simple. Flat.
But somehow, it made his stomach twist worse than if Giyuu had shouted.
They walked side-by-side into the dying light, two silhouettes cut from opposite storms.
Neither of them said another word.
But the silence had changed.
Now, it waited.
//
The trees grew taller as they moved north, their spines straight and gray, like they had been burned once and grew back out of spite. Pine needles layered the ground so thick they muffled every step, and the wind smelled of snow that hadn't yet fallen. The sun had already dropped below the ridge behind them, painting the air with a fading amber that looked warm but felt like nothing.
Sanemi walked ahead, shoulders square, jaw set, as if he were trying to outrun the sound of Giyuu breathing behind him. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even irregular. That was the problem. The man could walk like a ghost through brush and gravel, make no sound at all. It made Sanemi feel like he was being followed instead of accompanied.
He adjusted the strap of his pack for the fifth time in an hour. Not because it was too heavy. Not because it hurt. He simply wanted to occupy his hands with something other than reaching for the hilt of his blade.
Behind him, the brush shifted.
“You’re dragging your heel,” he muttered, not bothering to turn. “Sounded like a corpse for a second.”
“I’m not.”
Sanemi exhaled sharply through his nose, then swung around.
Giyuu had stopped walking. His eyes were fixed calmly on Sanemi’s chest, not his face, as if waiting for the heat to pass. In his left hand, he held something.
Sanemi squinted. One of his shoulder straps had torn halfway down the seam, loosening the weight of his pack just enough to tip it unevenly.
“Give it here,” Giyuu said, voice flat but not unkind. “I’ll carry it until you can fix the seam.”
Sanemi stared at him.
The offer wasn’t a command. It wasn’t mocking. It was simply a gentle hand extended towards a river.
He stepped back.
“Don’t fucking touch my things.”
The silence that followed wasn’t new, but this time it throbbed in the middle. Giyuu didn’t move. His hand stayed where it was, offered without pressure, but still there.
Sanemi turned and kept walking.
Behind him, the hand dropped, and footsteps resumed.
The trees closed in tighter the deeper they went. What little sky remained above them shrank to pale ribbons through the canopy. A hawk screeched somewhere high, unseen, the sound sharp enough to pull Sanemi’s shoulders up around his neck.
They crested a bend in the ridge just as the light gave up entirely.
Below them, tucked in the elbow of a frozen river, the outlines of a small village slumped beneath sheets of blue smoke and sagging rooftops. Ten houses, maybe eleven, all quiet. No lights in the windows. No fires in the hearths.
Sanemi stopped walking.
Giyuu came up beside him, not close, but close enough that their shoulders shared the same wind.
Smoke drifted from two chimneys, but not thick. Not fresh. The kind of smoke that meant something had been put out, not stoked.
Sanemi squinted.
“There’s ash on that roof,” he said. “Second one from the west. Still dry. Fire didn’t spread. But it started close.”
Giyuu nodded once. “You smell that?”
Sanemi inhaled.
Smoke, yes. Old blood. Damp rice. Nothing sweet. Nothing burnt. There was something else lurking beneath the surface. Something that didn’t belong in the cold.
“Yeah,” Sanemi said. “I smell it.”
They didn’t move for a long moment.
The village lay below them like a held breath. Not empty. However, it was also devoid of life.
Something was wrong.
Something had already been here.
The village looked worse up close.
They hadn’t stepped off the trail yet, hadn’t crossed the bridge that split the woods from the first thatched-roof home, but the quiet down there was the wrong kind. Not peaceful. Not grieving. Just stripped bare. Even the wind sounded hollow as it passed through the gaps in the windows.
Sanemi crouched near the ridge’s edge, boots dug into wet pine needles, eyes narrowed beneath the sharp shelf of his brow.
“Doesn’t look raided,” he muttered. “No blood at the doors, no broken shutters.”
Giyuu remained standing, arms crossed, gaze sweeping the perimeter without comment.
“They weren’t dragged out. They left.”
Sanemi’s tone curled like smoke around the word. Left. It was a word that had a different meaning when he said it.
He stood, brushed his fingers on the edge of his uniform, and adjusted the strap again even though it didn’t need adjusting anymore.
Giyuu moved first this time, stepping down the trail toward the village edge, slow and silent. Sanemi followed, faster, overtaking him in three strides. He didn’t like being behind Giyuu. It felt too close to trailing him.
They passed the first house. The door was open. A rice bowl sat on the porch beside a straw mat, the rice inside hardened into a single congealed lump, gray at the edges. The smell was faint. Not fresh, not rotten. Just old.
Sanemi pointed at it with his chin.
“Must’ve scared them off in the middle of dinner. Real polite type, these demons.”
No reply.
They passed the second house.
A child’s sandal sat in the dirt. One. No tracks around it. The ground was too dry to hold a print.
Sanemi kicked a stone and sent it clattering into the side of a rain barrel. The sound echoed through the empty square like a cough in a crypt.
Still nothing from Giyuu.
“You always like this?” he asked suddenly. “Or is it just me?”
Giyuu looked at him.
Not sharply. Not like he was annoyed. Just looked. Steady. Like someone reading a note they’d already memorized.
“You talk a lot when you’re bored,” he said.
Sanemi barked a laugh.
“Bored? I’m walking through a ghost town with a man who’d rather marry silence than use his goddamn voice. You think this is me bored?”
Giyuu didn’t respond.
And that somehow only made Sanemi angrier. Not white-hot rage. Not the kind of fury he used to break jaws or scare off lesser slayers. This was a different heat. A confused one. A low, bitter burn in the pit of his chest that made him want to shake something just to feel it rattle.
He turned and walked backward for a few paces, facing Giyuu as he came.
“You know, it’s a miracle you ever passed your Final Selection, with that attitude. Let me guess. You stared the demons into submission? Stood there blinking while they disemboweled someone else?”
Giyuu kept walking.
Sanemi stopped.
The question had hit too close to something. He didn’t know what. But it made the back of his neck prickle.
Giyuu’s voice was quiet when it came.
“Sabito died instead.”
Sanemi blinked.
The name wasn’t one he expected to hear.
He said nothing. He didn’t ask who Sabito was. He didn’t want to know why that name sat so quietly in the air. He didn’t want to hear Giyuu say it like that like a thing half buried in his throat.
He turned around again and kept walking.
Fine. Giyuu could have his silence.
It didn’t mean Sanemi had to stop throwing stones at it.
The trees thinned slightly past the village, but the air thickened.
The road became less of a road and more of a suggestion—broken stone and tree roots weaving through each other like old arguments no one had resolved. A stream whispered somewhere nearby, its voice small and fast, tucked between roots and moss.
Sanemi was tired of looking at Giyuu’s profile. The man didn’t emote. His face didn’t twitch, didn’t strain, didn’t even try. Sanemi had seen stone lanterns with more readable expressions.
The silence had started to feel padded. Not empty, exactly. Just layered. The kind of silence that collects in a room before a fight starts or after one ends and no one admits who lost.
He kicked another stone off the side of the path.
“You’re doing it again,” he said.
Giyuu didn’t turn.
“Doing what.”
“That thing where you breathe like you're not part of your own body.”
Still no reaction. Just trees. Just trail.
“I’ve seen corpses more animated than you. And at least they have a reason to shut up.”
There was a rustle in the trees above.
A crow landed low on a branch ahead of them, wings folding slowly, beady eyes fixed on them like it had been watching the whole time.
Sanemi paused.
No scroll tied to its leg. No message.
Just the crow. Watching.
Giyuu stopped a few steps ahead. Reached into his coat. Pulled out a strip of something—dried meat, lean and dark. Held it out with two fingers. Didn’t whistle, didn’t speak. Just offered.
The crow tilted its head once, then glided down and landed on a flat stone. It hopped once, then took the meat and fluttered back into the low branches. No caw. No noise.
Giyuu watched it for a second longer, then resumed walking.
Sanemi caught up beside him, brow furrowed. He didn’t say anything at first. Just walked, chest tight, the burn in his lungs not from the cold or the pace.
He glanced sideways.
“You feed them now?”
Giyuu didn’t answer immediately. Just blinked once, slow.
“They get tired too.”
Sanemi scoffed. Not mocking. Just confused.
“They’re crows.”
“They fly for days.”
“They’re crows.”
“They deliver death notices.”
That shut Sanemi up for a few seconds longer than usual.
The crow flapped once behind them, taking off into the upper branches. The sound of its wings against the still forest felt louder than it should’ve.
Sanemi shoved his hands deeper into his sleeves, eyes forward, mouth pulled tight.
“That was stupid,” he muttered.
Giyuu didn’t reply. But his head tilted slightly, like he’d heard the words and chosen not to argue with them.
Sanemi didn’t understand it.
Why it bothered him.
Why the way Giyuu fed a crow like it meant something—like it was his thing to carry, like it was his quiet gesture in a world built for shouting—made him feel… wrong.
Not angry.
Just wrong.
They kept walking. A few paces apart now. But the silence felt different again.
Not peaceful.
But not painful.
Not anymore.
The forest grew darker in a way only cold forests can—not the thick black of night in summer, but a thinner, more skeletal dark. Everything was gray. Smoke-colored. The trees looked like ribs, and the wind moved like breath caught between them.
They set up camp near the base of a slope where the ridge curled back on itself, forming a shallow cove of earth and root. Shelter, barely. But enough. Pine needles softened the floor underfoot, and the slope shielded them from the worst of the wind.
Sanemi threw down his pack without care, the straps smacking the ground with a wet slap. He pulled off his haori, shaking out the snow that clung to the hem, then crouched low, squinting at the ground like it had done something to offend him.
Giyuu didn’t say anything. Just moved a few paces away, kneeled, and started clearing space for the fire. His hands moved with that same careful rhythm he used for everything—deliberate, quiet, annoyingly calm.
Sanemi watched him work for a while before he realized he was watching.
“Didn't think you knew how to make a fire,” he said. “Figured you just sat in the cold and stared at it until it got embarrassed and lit itself.”
Giyuu didn’t look up.
“It tried that once. Burned my eyebrows off.”
Sanemi blinked.
The silence that followed wasn’t tense. It was… off-balance. Unexpected.
He snorted.
Not loudly. Not a bark or a sneer—just a real, human snort. One he hadn’t meant to let out.
He reached for a stick beside him and threw it pointlessly into the trees.
“That was stupid,” he muttered.
From the branch above them, the crow cawed once—not loud, just once—and settled down to watch.
Giyuu, still kneeling by the kindling, glanced up.
“Don’t tell them,” he said to the bird. “It was a long time ago.”
The crow tilted its head. Stayed silent.
Sanemi’s mouth twitched again, and this time it stretched into something resembling a grin. Quick. Mean. But not fake.
“Did you just talk to it?”
“It listens better than most.”
Sanemi shook his head, biting back the rest of the laugh before it made it to the surface.
“You’re really something, you know that?”
Giyuu didn’t respond.
He struck the flint once, twice. The third spark caught.
The flame curled slow and low, barely a fist-sized flicker at first, then climbing with a reluctant glow as the kindling caught. The light hit the underside of Giyuu’s jaw, casting his face in warm shadow as if the flame wasn’t lighting him, just drawing the parts he didn’t show.
They didn’t speak again for a while.
Sanemi sat cross-legged, chewing through a strip of dried meat like it had offended him. He didn’t offer. Neither did Giyuu. Not at first.
After a while, Giyuu reached into his coat, pulled free a wrapped rice ball—plain and cold—and set it beside Sanemi without looking.
Sanemi glanced at it, then up at him.
He didn’t touch it for a full minute.
Then he picked it up and ate it.
Not all of it. Just a few bites.
He said nothing.
A little later, Giyuu passed him the water skin without a word.
Sanemi took that too.
Still no thanks. Still no eye contact.
But his fingers brushed Giyuu’s in the exchange.
Not deliberately.
Not accidentally, either.
They sat that way for a while. The fire small between them. The crow a lump of feathers in the tree above, head tucked back into its wing. The wind curling around the edge of the ridge in soft whines, brushing over their ankles like a cold dog begging for something it couldn’t name.
Neither of them laid down.
Sanemi leaned back on his elbows, eyes on the sky, teeth set hard against the quiet.
Giyuu sat with his legs drawn up, arms resting loose on his knees, watching the fire like it might say something worth remembering.
Neither of them asked why the other wasn’t sleeping.
And neither of them offered, either.
The fire was burning low. Not dying, but close.
The heat had gone shallow, reaching only a few inches beyond the flames, and Sanemi’s breath came out in thick white ribbons that faded fast in the freezing dark. He hadn’t moved in twenty minutes. Giyuu hadn’t moved in thirty.
The crow had long since left.
The trees around them no longer swayed.
Somewhere above the ridge, the moon hung behind a veil of thinning clouds, not quite full, but bright enough to give the forest its bones. Every branch was sharper. Every shadow more deliberate. The whole world had narrowed itself down to cold breath and watchful firelight.
And then something shifted.
Sanemi didn’t hear it. He felt it. In his spine, in the way the hairs on his arms prickled without a gust of wind, in the way his lungs paused mid-breath like they were waiting for permission to continue.
Giyuu sat up straighter. Just a little.
Sanemi’s hand moved slowly toward his blade. He didn’t grip it. Just found the familiar shape of it under his palm. His fingers twitched once.
No sound came from the forest, but something was out there. Not just passing by. Not just foraging.
Watching.
Sanemi stood without a word. Not fast. Not dramatic. Just up, knees unbending, body turning like he’d been waiting for this.
At the same moment, Giyuu shifted his stance as well—not to stand, not yet, but to ready. His body was still relaxed, but his feet repositioned under him, subtly drawing back into balance.
Neither of them said a thing.
Sanemi took a few steps toward the treeline, eyes scanning the split between trunk and shadow. He didn't draw his blade, but his fingers hovered near the hilt now, tension carried in every knuckle.
“You hear it?” he muttered, just loud enough to test the night.
“No,” Giyuu said.
Sanemi glanced back.
The answer didn’t make sense. But Giyuu was already watching the trees, his expression unreadable.
“What do you mean no?”
“I don’t hear it. But it’s there.”
That was enough.
Sanemi turned forward again, shoulders square, one foot planted in front of the other like he was expecting to block something—or welcome it. His mouth was set in a firm, flat line. Not anger. Not fear. Just readiness.
They waited.
No attack came.
But the forest was listening.
The silence felt dense now, like it had mass. Like if they swung their blades, they’d cut through more than air.
Sanemi didn’t flinch when Giyuu came to stand just behind him. Not beside him. Just off to the right, covering the angle. No footsteps. No breath.
They hadn’t agreed on formation. Hadn’t said anything at all.
But it was perfect.
Two sentries, shoulder to shadow, trained in the same kind of damage. Mismatched, yes, but not misaligned. Not when it mattered.
They stayed like that for a while, watching the dark.
Listening for the second breath.
When it didn’t come, they stepped back from the edge of their instincts. Slowly. Quietly.
Sanemi sat down first.
Giyuu waited until the fire sparked again before taking his place.
Still, they didn’t speak.
But this time, the silence wasn’t absence.
It was understanding.
The cold came in all at once, like the forest had inhaled behind their backs and then exhaled frost into their lungs. It hadn’t been snowing when they broke camp. The sky was pale, the trees brittle but clear. But by the time they crossed the next ridge, the first flakes had already begun to fall slow at first, then sideways with purpose.
Sanemi tasted iron on the wind.
It wasn’t blood. Not yet. But it was close.
Giyuu hadn’t spoken since they left the fire behind. Not that Sanemi expected him to. But there was something tighter in the man’s silence today. Like he wasn’t walking beside Sanemi anymore—just beside a thought.
The trail narrowed as they descended into a bowl of pine and stone. The light changed here. It was still morning, but it felt like dusk. No birdsong. No wind. Just white falling soundlessly over a world that had already shut its mouth.
Sanemi stopped.
Giyuu did too.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
Something had shifted. Not in the world around them—but in the air inside it. A pressure, light and low, like the second before a migraine or the moment before a blade slid free of its sheath.
Sanemi turned his head.
Just a flick of his gaze.
And there, between the trees—not thirty paces off—stood Shuya.
His brother.
Not as he’d last seen him. Not bloodied and gasping. But whole. Too whole. Eyes too wide, too calm. Standing without weight. Without breath. Like a photograph left too long in the sun.
Sanemi didn’t move.
The snowfall seemed to slow.
Shuya raised one hand in a soft wave.
Sanemi’s mouth went dry. The heat in his body vanished.
“Hey,” Shuya said. His voice was wrong. Too warm. Too steady.
Behind him, Giyuu stiffened.
Sanemi turned his head—and then he saw it.
A girl, standing just ahead of Giyuu in the same snow-drowned clearing, barefoot, her black hair tangled with melting flakes, her hands folded gently in front of her.
Tsutako.
Her white kimono was clean.
Too clean.
Her eyes found Giyuu’s with the kind of ease only a sibling could manage. The kind of unspoken language only shared blood ever learned.
Giyuu didn’t speak.
He stared.
Sanemi stepped forward once, hard enough to crunch snow under his boot.
“Don’t,” he hissed.
But it was already happening.
Shuya took a step forward.
So did Tsutako.
And just like that, the clearing fractured.
The trees pulled them apart, like a throat closing mid-word.
Sanemi lunged toward his brother’s shape, sword half drawn before he even realized it, but the brush thickened, the snow rose, the shadows yawned wider between them and Giyuu was gone from his side.
No voice. No cry. No sound at all.
Just memory made flesh.
And a cold that was no longer coming from the sky.
Shuya didn’t move like a demon.
That was the first thing wrong.
Sanemi had seen demons for years. He knew their rhythm—how they twitched, too fast or not fast enough, how their limbs bent just slightly wrong even when they stood still. They breathed too shallow or not at all. Their weight was all wrong.
But this thing?
This thing moved like Shuya.
It stood just like he used to—that same tilted lean like he wasn’t sure whether to brace or flinch. It held its arms close to its chest like the cold bit harder than it should. The eyes weren’t wrong either. They weren’t glowing. They weren’t inhuman.
They were Shuya’s eyes.
And when he smiled—slow, crooked, stupidly hopeful—Sanemi felt something break deep in his ribcage.
“Don’t,” Sanemi said. His voice was a thread pulled too tight. “Don’t wear him.”
But the thing in front of him didn’t blink. It stepped forward through the snow, barefoot, leaving no prints behind.
“Why?” it asked, tilting its head. “You left me behind. Don’t you want to talk to me now?”
Sanemi’s sword was already out.
He didn’t remember drawing it. Didn’t remember moving. One second his hands were at his sides, and the next, his knuckles were white against the hilt.
“Shut your mouth,” he said.
The thing didn’t shut its mouth.
“I waited, you know,” it said. “For you to come back. I thought you’d at least bury me yourself.”
Sanemi’s feet pounded forward without a conscious thought. The blade came up in a tight arc, slicing at the shoulder—but the demon slipped sideways, light as a ghost, and came around his right.
“Still fast,” it said. “You always were faster than me.”
He pivoted, swinging again, and this time the tip grazed the thing’s cheek.
No blood.
Just a smile.
“You got stronger.”
The voice shook him.
Not just because of what it said—but how it said it.
Exactly like Shuya would have.
No dramatics. No mocking. Just quiet admiration, laced with something that used to sound like pride.
Sanemi screamed.
The sword came down again and again, but the demon was quick, or smart, or just cruel enough to keep dodging by a hair, turning every miss into a question Sanemi didn’t want answered.
“You should’ve told me, Nii-chan.”
Another swing missed. The demon ducked and came up behind him.
“I wanted to help.”
A fist landed in Sanemi’s ribs, hard. Not inhumanly strong. Just hard enough to knock the breath sideways.
“You think I wanted to die like that?”
He turned, slashing low—the blade tore through the demon’s midsection. It stumbled, coughed. The smile wavered.
But still, no blood.
Only snow.
“You were scared,” the demon whispered. “You always were. You couldn’t even look at me after I changed. After I started eating like them.”
Sanemi staggered back two steps.
His breath was ragged now. Not from the fight.
From something else.
“No,” he said.
But the demon stepped closer, dragging its foot just the way—Shuya used to after practice, when his ankle had swollen from bad form.
“I forgave you, you know. I still do.”
Sanemi screamed again, but it wasn’t a sound of rage this time.
It was loss.
It was denial.
It was every word he never got to say, every second he thought staying away would protect the boy who looked up to him like he was made of steel instead of guilt.
He charged.
This time, the blade went clean through.
The torso split diagonally, shoulder to waist. The face twisted—not in pain, but in something far worse: disappointment.
“Still too late, Nii-chan.”
The body hit the ground, folding in two, and finally—finally—the blood came. Black. Rotten. Wrong.
But the face didn’t change.
Even as it rotted.
Even as the flesh peeled away and the smell of demon bile filled Sanemi’s nose, it still looked like him.
He stood over it, chest heaving, fingers clenched so tight around his katana that the leather grip cracked beneath them.
His sword was shaking.
No. He was.
But there was no one to see it.
No one to hear the awful, half-choked breath that escaped his throat. Not even the trees watched him now. The world had gone back to quiet. The snow fell again, gentle now, like nothing had happened.
He looked down one last time.
The corpse was gone.
Nothing left but black stains in the white.
And for a moment, Sanemi thought he’d imagined it all until he tasted salt in his mouth and realized he’d bitten his tongue hard enough to bleed.
The trees whispered in a tongue he didn’t understand.
The snow had begun to fall again—not harshly, but thick, like a silence made visible. Giyuu’s boots left no sound behind him as he stepped into the narrow clearing where the demon had gone. The ground dipped gently, as if the earth was bowing its head.
Ahead of him, she walked barefoot across the snow.
Tsutako.
Not an image. Not a specter. A woman with a spine, a shape, a shadow.
The curve of her neck was the same. Her hair the same. Her steps—light but careful, like she was still afraid of making noise.
She didn’t turn around.
But she was waiting for him.
Giyuu’s hand hovered near the hilt of his blade. Not touching. Not ready. He hadn’t moved like a swordsman since he saw her. His body wouldn’t let him. Every part of him screamed not to raise the blade. Not when she moved like that.
He could almost smell her—lavender soap and rice powder. A memory that lived under his fingernails, stubborn and small and never truly gone.
She stopped.
She stood at the edge of a shallow stream. The water was mostly ice now, but still moving—a soft thread of sound in the still air. She looked back over her shoulder.
“Otōto.”
Her voice was wrong.
Because it was perfect.
No rasp. No demon growl. No mockery.
Just her.
Just how he remembered it. Not even louder than it should’ve been. Like she hadn’t died at all.
Giyuu’s throat closed.
She turned slowly. Folded her hands in front of her, like she was preparing tea.
“You’ve gotten taller,” she said, smiling.
He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. His voice was trapped somewhere under his ribs.
Her eyes looked at him like he was thirteen again. Like she’d just caught him sneaking out past curfew, or hiding bruised knuckles from another fight he didn’t win.
And then she did something that destroyed him.
She stepped forward.
Not to attack.
To hug him.
Arms open, slow and unthreatening.
He took a half step back, hand jerking toward his blade at last but she stopped there, arms still open, face soft.
“You always do that,” she said gently. “Back away when someone tries to love you.”
He flinched.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
He gripped his sword with shaking fingers and said, finally, “Don’t.”
She tilted her head.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t use her.”
The figure smiled. It was Tsutako’s smile—patient, warm, a little sad.
“I’m not using her. I am her. You just don’t want to believe it.”
“You’re a demon.”
“And you’re alive.”
His grip tightened. The katana felt wrong in his hands, like it didn’t belong in this moment, like it wasn’t made for killing things that looked at you like they missed you.
“Tsutako’s dead,” he whispered.
The demon’s expression flickered.
Only for a second.
Then she said, “And whose fault was that?”
The trees leaned closer.
“You stayed behind,” she went on. “Do you remember? You let me go out alone.”
“I was a child.”
“You were strong enough. You were fast enough. But you stayed.”
He didn’t respond.
“You let me walk out that door.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask.”
The snow was heavier now. Giyuu’s breath came short and thin, clouding the air in front of his mouth.
“You thought if you said nothing,” she said, “you’d be blameless.”
“I didn’t ”
“But it wasn’t silence that killed me, Otōto. It was yours.”
He drew the blade.
Finally.
But not to fight.
He held it out between them like a wall, point downward, arms shaking. His shoulders hunched like he was waiting to be struck.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“I don’t blame you.”
That broke him worse than everything else.
Because it was true.
And that’s what he couldn’t bear.
She stepped forward again.
He didn’t stop her.
“Would you have died for me, little brother?”
“Yes.”
Her hand touched his cheek. Cold. But not lifeless.
Her mouth moved.
“So die now.”
That was when she changed.
That was when the voice deepened.
When her teeth lengthened.
When her skin began to split at the seams.
Her eyes stayed the same; that was the worst part. Even as the face contorted and her nails curved into claws, the eyes never stopped being hers.
She lunged.
Giyuu moved without thought.
The fight had begun.
The blade struck first, but it did not silence her.
Giyuu had aimed for her neck—clean, swift, precise—but her body twisted like smoke in wind, and the sword sank instead into the meat of her shoulder. It went in too easily, like cutting into thawed fruit. Warm blood spilled across the snow, hissing faintly as it met the frozen ground.
She did not scream.
She laughed.
And her voice was still hers.
“I knew you’d hesitate.”
He wrenched the blade free and stepped back, pivoting into defensive form, but she was already on him.
The first blow came with the full weight of a body that had once held him as a child, now warped into something too fast, too wrong. Her hands were claws now, but the shape of them the slender curve of her fingers still belonged to Tsutako.
She raked across his chest.
The fabric tore before he felt it.
Then the heat came—a flash of pain along his ribs that bloomed into blood.
He didn’t cry out.
He didn’t speak.
He moved
His blade surged upward in a vicious arc, cleaving through the wrist that had just brushed his skin. Flesh tore. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed thick, oily, black and the hand hit the snow like a dead bird.
The demon staggered back, cradling the stump with her other hand.
Still smiling.
Giyuu was already on her.
He didn’t lunge. He crashed into her, shoulder slamming into her chest, driving her backward through the underbrush. They struck a tree trunk hard enough to split bark. She hissed, reared up with claws, but he was already ducking under them. His foot hooked around her ankle and yanked she went down.
He drove his blade for her throat.
She caught it.
With the hand that still looked like his sister’s.
“Don’t be so cold,” she breathed, blood running down her chin in ribbons. “I came all this way just to see you.”
The smile twisted, and Giyuu saw it finally saw it the mistake in her eyes. Not Tsutako. Never Tsutako. The pupils weren’t human. Not even close. They were thin slits, wolfish, predatory, pretending to be sad.
He shoved forward, blade biting into her collarbone.
“Say her name again,” he growled, voice ragged. “I’ll carve out your tongue.”
She screeched and twisted, too fast, sending him sprawling. His back hit the ground. She was on him a heartbeat later, claws slashing. He rolled not away, under and came up with a knee to her stomach, forcing her off.
They separated.
Breathed.
Snow fell between them like ash from a slow fire.
She laughed, breath fogging the air, mouth still bleeding.
“You’re angry,” she said. “That’s good. Makes the meat taste better.”
Giyuu didn’t answer. His blade trembled in his hand not from fear, not from weakness, but from restraint. From the effort it took not to scream.
The demon’s body shifted twitched at the joints, cracked at the shoulders. Her spine flexed with too many bones. Her arms lengthened. The illusion broke and came back in pieces, like a face in shattered glass.
His sister’s lips on a jaw that no longer fit her skull.
“You look like him, you know,” she whispered. “The one who bled out next to you. Sabito.”
Giyuu charged.
She met him with a shriek.
Their clash sounded like iron tearing itself apart.
Steel rang as he struck again and again, forcing her back step by step, blow after blow. She dodged fast, but she wasn’t graceful anymore. Her feet dragged. Her claws lashed out like a beast, no longer a woman. The moment she dropped low to sweep his legs, he jumped, flipped midair, and kicked her square in the chest. She flew back, landed hard, skidding across the snow, carving a gash in the earth.
But she laughed.
Louder now.
Even with her ribs shattered, even with black blood gushing from her mouth.
“Oh, Tomioka,” she said. “So serious. So empty. They never told you, did they?”
He didn’t speak.
He stalked forward.
Her next words came through broken teeth.
“You weren’t meant to be the only one. We were coming. All of us.”
Giyuu’s pace slowed.
“Too bad,” she said, tilting her head even as her jaw hung loose. “They’ll just have to kill him without you.”
He moved.
Faster than she expected.
She swung wildly , too slow.
His sword passed clean through her neck.
The head hit the snow.
It was still smiling.
The body crumpled a moment later, limbs twitching, mouth still gurgling that last syllable. Her blood soaked the roots. The tree she landed against hissed as her decay touched it.
The sun began to rise behind the trees.
It was pink. Stupidly beautiful. The sky bleeding light through the frostbitten branches.
The sword slipped from his fingers.
He didn’t fall.
Not at first.
He stood there, shoulders drawn tight, chest heaving like it didn’t know how to breathe.
And then
He gasped.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
A terrible sound. Raw. Deep. Not a sob. Not yet.
His knees buckled.
He hit the ground hard, hands catching him in the blood and slush, and the breath left his lungs in a rush that didn’t come back.
He couldn’t inhale.
Couldn’t exhale.
He started to shake.
Sobs broke out of him like his body didn’t want them there. Like they were being pulled up from somewhere inside, forcefully, violently. Choking him. Collapsing his ribs. His mouth opened wide, trying to drag in air, and got nothing.
His body began to pitch, to convulse.
And then a shadow stepped through the trees.
Sanemi.
Bloodied. Scratched. Eyes wild with something close to panic. He looked around—saw the body, the wreckage, the sword lying forgotten—and then saw Giyuu curled into himself, face pressed into the dirt, gasping.
“Shit.”
He dropped to a crouch beside him.
“Oi. Tomioka. Hey hey, breathe. What the fuck what are you— ”
Giyuu didn’t respond. Couldn’t. His hands clawed at the earth like it had taken something from him.
Sanemi hesitated.
Then grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Breathe! It’s over! You killed it, you idiot— ”
Giyuu gasped.
A wheeze.
Then another. Broken. Ragged. Ugly.
“Stop doing that,” Sanemi muttered, voice cracking.
“I don’t—I don’t know what to do when just breathe, damn you.”
But Giyuu wasn’t there anymore.
He pitched sideways, eyes rolling back.
Collapsed in the snow.
Unconscious.
Sanemi caught him before his head hit the ground.
Held him there.
Didn’t speak again for a long time.
Just listened to the silence.
And hated how much it sounded like blame.
The light came in cold.
Not warm, not golden — just pale and dry, the kind of light that made everything look slightly unreal. It spilled through the splintered gaps in the temple roof and painted stripes across the stone floor like bars
Sanemi sat leaned against the broken spine of a support pillar, arms crossed, legs half-curled under him. He hadn’t slept properly. Not since dragging Giyuu’s unconscious body in from the trees hours ago. He’d managed to clean the blood off both of them, wrapped what wounds he could find — and then waited.
Across the room, Giyuu lay bundled in two rough blankets, face turned away, hair sticking slightly to his forehead where the fever had broken.
He hadn’t moved in hours.
Until now.
A small sound first. The kind of noise a body makes without knowing — a tightening of the throat, a soft exhale through clenched teeth.
Then another. A jerk of the leg beneath the blanket.
Then—
“…Tsa…”
Sanemi sat forward.
“…ka…”
This time the sound was clearer. Sharper.
The name slid out like it had been trapped in his chest all night.
And then, all at once:
“Tsutako!”
It wasn’t shouted like a warning.
It was screamed like a child calling for his mother while drowning.
Giyuu’s entire body jolted. He sat up too fast — almost violently — and the blanket slid from his shoulders.
But his eyes were still closed.
Not asleep.
But not awake either.
His breathing was too fast, his hands clenching and unclenching like they were searching for something. His head turned to the temple’s entrance — a shattered doorway half-covered in vines and drifting leaves.
And he started walking.
“Shit—”
Sanemi scrambled to his feet.
“Hey—hey! Stop!”
Giyuu didn’t stop.
He crossed the room in long, even strides — like he knew where he was going, like he was answering a call from someone just outside the door.
Sanemi caught him just before he reached it.
His hand closed around Giyuu’s upper arm, pulling him back.
“Wake up!”
But Giyuu twisted sharply, knocking Sanemi’s grip loose with more strength than expected.
His eyes snapped open — but they weren’t right.
They weren’t focused. They were clouded, soft and fogged with something distant. Panic. Disbelief. He blinked rapidly but didn’t look at Sanemi — he looked through him.
And then he fought.
A sudden shove. A swing of the arm.
Sanemi took the hit to the shoulder and caught him again, this time both arms locked around him, dragging him backward.
“Giyuu, it’s a dream. Wake up—hey, wake the fuck up—!”
“No—she’s—she—let go—”
“Wake. UP.”
The shout echoed through the temple like a thrown blade.
Giyuu thrashed once more, arms flailing blindly — then suddenly stopped moving.
His chest rose.
Fell.
Then rose again — slowly.
He froze in Sanemi’s grip, limbs gone stiff.
A shiver passed through his spine.
“…what…?”
Sanemi felt him go limp.
He let go.
Giyuu stumbled back a half-step, caught himself, swayed — then looked up.
Truly looked.
His eyes cleared.
And then — the realization hit.
He blinked hard, face tightening. The disorientation twisted into horror, then shame — but only for a breath.
Just a moment.
Then his expression closed like a trapdoor.
Emotion: gone.
He straightened his shoulders, adjusted his haori, and looked at Sanemi with the kind of blank civility usually reserved for superiors and strangers.
“…Thank you.”
The voice was hoarse, flat, utterly detached.
Sanemi scowled.
“What the hell was that?”
Giyuu didn’t answer. He turned and walked back to the fire pit like it hadn’t happened at all.
The room went quiet again.
But Sanemi’s mind didn’t.
He watched Giyuu sit down, cross his arms, and stare at the cold embers like they were nothing. No shame. No apology. No curiosity about what he’d said. No embarrassment about how he’d screamed.
And that’s when Sanemi realized:
This wasn’t new.
This wasn’t the first time Giyuu had done this.
Wasn’t the first time he’d walked into the past in his sleep.
Wasn’t the first time he’d been pulled back.
Sanemi stood there, jaw tight, hands still half-curled from where they’d grabbed a man in a nightmare.
And for once, he didn’t know what to say.
So he said nothing.
And Giyuu didn’t ask.
Sanemi sat with his back to the wall again, legs stretched out in front of him, arms crossed tight enough to make his biceps ache. He stared across the ruined floor at Giyuu, who sat the same way he always did — perfectly still. Spine straight. Hands folded in his lap. As if they were in a meeting. As if none of it had happened.
The wind scraped lightly against the edge of the doorway. Somewhere outside, a crow called once and then went quiet.
Sanemi drummed his fingers against his arm.
Once.
Twice.
Then looked directly at the other man and said, flatly, “So.”
Giyuu didn’t look up.
Sanemi narrowed his eyes.
“You always sleep like that, or is this just a special treat for me?”
Still no answer.
Giyuu reached down and picked up a small piece of firewood from the scattered pile beside him. Didn’t use it. Just held it. Turned it once in his hand, like he needed something to fill the space between thoughts.
Sanemi watched him.
“You know,” he said, “for a guy who acts like nothing bothers him, you sure talk in your sleep like someone being gutted.”
Giyuu blinked, slowly, then placed the wood back down.
Didn’t respond.
Didn’t flinch.
Sanemi’s jaw flexed.
“You said her name.”
That got a flicker — not in the face, but in the breath. A shift. Barely there.
Giyuu kept his eyes on the dead hearth.
Sanemi tilted his head, voice sharpening.
“You do that a lot? Call for ghosts?”
“I said thank you,” Giyuu replied, finally. Quiet. Cold.
“Yeah, you did. Real convincing too.” Sanemi’s voice dropped to a mocking deadpan. “Thank you, Shinazugawa. Appreciate you dragging my ass back here after I passed out crying in the snow.”
No response.
“And don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to walk straight out the front door mid-dream. You were damn near ready to fight me. If I’d waited another five seconds, you’d have been gone.”
Still nothing.
Sanemi shifted forward, elbows on his knees, voice lowering.
“What exactly were you looking for out there?”
Giyuu finally looked at him.
His expression didn’t change. But his eyes had sharpened. Not defensive. Not angry. Just… tired.
“That isn’t your concern.”
Sanemi stared at him. The firelight would’ve shown the twitch in his jaw if there had been any light.
“No,” he said. “I guess it never is.”
A pause.
Giyuu looked away again.
Sanemi leaned back and let his head knock gently against the wall. Closed his eyes for a second. Exhaled through his nose.
“You know what’s funny?” he muttered.
Silence.
“I used to think you were just stuck-up. The silent, mysterious type. Thought maybe it made you feel better than the rest of us. Like not talking made you stronger.”
He opened his eyes.
“But now I think it’s something else.”
Giyuu didn’t move.
Sanemi tilted his head against the wall and watched him through half-lidded eyes.
“I think you don’t talk because you’re scared of what’ll happen if you do.”
That got something.
A flicker of something behind Giyuu’s face. Not emotion. Just tension. A single thread pulled taut.
But then—nothing.
That same flat breath.
That same heavy stillness.
And then:
“We should move soon.”
The words were neutral. Distant. Practiced.
Sanemi stared at him. The moment hung for too long.
Then he barked a soft, humorless laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course we should.”
The room fell still again.
No warmth.
Just cold bones and cracked wood.
And two men sitting in the kind of silence that had nothing to do with peace.