"I risked my life killing demons, risked my life doing experiments, and became a Hashira! But... but why do you always act so high and mighty in front of me, like you can solve everything!"
Shinobu's voice trembled with tears. Every accusation was like a dull knife cutting into Rokuya's heart.
Rokuya stood where he was and let her vent. He looked at the sixteen-year-old girl before him, at the feelings buried so deep in her eyes that they were almost suffocating her.
But what could he do?
He was Takanashi Rokuno, someone from another world who bore a system and the mission of slaying Muzan. He was destined to fight on the most dangerous battlefields, and he did not know whether he would survive to the end. Besides, Kanae... Kanae was already his lover.
In this cruel world, his greatest wish was to find them a safe haven and keep them away from Muzan's curse.
Shinobu finished venting. She panted heavily, her hands hanging limply at her sides. The laboratory was so quiet that only their mingling breaths could be heard.
The atmosphere grew heavier than ever before.
Shinobu raised her head, her purple-rimmed eyes fixed on Rokuya's. This time, she did not back down, did not act coy, and did not hide behind her sharp tongue.
She asked the question she had once used an excuse to evade in the Butterfly Mansion's kitchen.
"Rokuya." She called his name without an honorific. "Tell me, in your heart... what exactly are we to you?"
She had not asked about "me," but "us." Yet Rokuya knew she was asking about herself.
Rokuya looked at her, and a trace of profoundly complicated pain flickered through his usually cold, piercing eyes.
He knew that if he simply stepped forward now, held her, and