Has Your Lady Shinobu Always Been Like That?

Cold sweat beaded on Kiyohiko's forehead from the pain, but he did not lower his hand. Instead, he held the wound ravaged by poison bare before her.

He looked at the flesh as it struggled to writhe and regenerate, only to be corroded and broken down again and again by the lingering poison. His voice was a little hoarse, but unusually serious.

"My regeneration would let me struggle on even if my neck were cut by a Nichirin Blade. But now, just that tiny bit of poison left in your blood has made my cells act like they've encountered their natural enemy. They can't function normally at all."

He raised his head and stared intently at the girl standing there, her expression somewhat frozen.

"If it does this to me, what kind of strain must your organs, your blood vessels, and your nerves be under, when you're human and put this stuff into your body every day?"

The pain was more than a wound to the flesh. It felt as though countless tiny needles were traveling through his blood vessels.

Kiyohiko could not imagine how the petite girl before him, who always wore a gentle smile, maintained a concentration of poison potent enough to kill an Upper Rank Demon inside her body as though nothing were wrong.

"Why go this far? Even if it's to kill demons... is this suicidal method worth it?"

A deathly silence fell over the dojo.

Only the skin-crawling sound of Kiyohiko's palm corroding echoed through the room.

Shinobu Kocho looked down at her own uninjured left hand, then at Kiyohiko's gruesomely damaged right hand.

A flicker of extremely complicated emotion passed through her purple eyes, which always seemed to be smiling.

Surprise, confusion, and a trace of irritation at having her trump card seen through.

This idiot demon! He doesn't know anything, and he's a demon. What gives him the right to say these things to me? Why is he doing all this...

But she soon tucked it all back beneath her mask with practiced ease.

"The experiment was a great success."

Shinobu Kocho's voice suddenly turned light, as though the tense atmosphere of a moment ago had never existed.

She took a handkerchief from inside her clothes and gently wiped the blood from her fingertips, then raised her head, her trademark, flawless smile back in place.

"You can transfer a wound completely, and even take the poison in it along with it... What an astonishing ability, Kiyohiko. It seems keeping you at the Butterfly Mansion really was the right decision."

She completely ignored Kiyohiko's questions about her physical condition.

It was as though the question had never been asked.

"Hey, don't change the subject! I'm asking you-"

"That's none of your concern, Mr. Demon."

Shinobu Kocho interrupted him. Her tone was gentle, but it carried an aloofness that kept him at a distance.

She turned her back on Kiyohiko and adjusted the cuffs of her haori.

"Everyone has their own way of fighting, and a mission they must fulfill. As for my physical condition..."

She turned her head slightly, leaving Kiyohiko with a view of her profile, her expression impossible to read.

"I'm a doctor, and a Hashira. I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't need a demon to teach me how to take care of my life."

With that, she headed for the dojo doors, her footsteps light and firm.

"That concludes today's test. Since your hand is injured, you should get some rest. After all... it's a deadly poison even a demon can hardly endure."

Though her words were barbed, Kiyohiko keenly noticed that she did not seem as calm as she appeared.

Kiyohiko narrowed his eyes and watched Shinobu Kocho walk away. A sizzling, tearing sound continued, but he acted as though nothing were wrong.

"Tch, what a contrary woman," Kiyohiko muttered.

To stop the Wisteria poison from spreading farther up his arm, Kiyohiko expressionlessly dug the fingers of his left hand into his right palm, gouged out the blackened, smoking, foul-smelling rotten flesh, and flung it to the floor.

"Hss-hah... That really packs a punch."

With the poison no longer in the way, bright red flesh writhed wildly, and within a few breaths, his right hand was as good as new.

But the price was a rush of hunger that went straight to his head, as though the walls of his stomach were rubbing against each other.

If he didn't eat something, he would probably lose his reason again in a few days.

The midday sun was a deadly poison to demons.

Although the Butterfly Mansion's corridors were sheltered by the eaves, sunlight covered almost the entire courtyard at this hour, and the reflected light made Kiyohiko's skin prickle in waves.

As a result, a bizarre sight appeared at the Butterfly Mansion.

A boy was upside down on all fours, pressed against the shadows on the corridor ceiling, crawling swiftly along with his hands and feet like a giant humanoid gecko.

"So hungry... meat... blood... or protein..."

Muttering to himself, he followed the aroma of food drifting through the air and crawled all the way to the kitchen door.

In the kitchen, Aoi Kanzaki was wearing an apron and directing the Butterfly Mansion's three little ones-Kiyo Terauchi, Sumi Nakahara, and Naho Takada-as they prepared lunch.

"Naho, make sure that fish is cooked through! And cut up the radishes over there!"

Aoi wiped the sweat from her forehead. True to her personality, even cooking was like fighting a war to her.

Just then, a shadow dropped down from the ceiling.

Kiyohiko hung upside down, his pale face hovering directly in front of Aoi Kanzaki's, less than ten centimeters from the tip of her nose.

"Yo, Sunflower Seed. Is there anything raw for lunch? Something bloody would be best."

"Aaaah!!"

Aoi Kanzaki was so startled that the ladle flew straight out of her hand. She jumped backward, knocking over a basket of greens.

Once she saw that it was the ill-tempered demon from earlier, her terror instantly turned to rage.

"You demon! Don't pop out of the ceiling like a bug! And! How many times have I told you?! My name isn't Sunflower Seed! It's Aoi Kanzaki!"

"A-! O-! I-!"

She shouted the last syllables practically into Kiyohiko's ear.

She picked up the ladle and pointed it at Kiyohiko as though warding off a beast trying to steal food.

"This is the patients' kitchen! There's no raw meat for you! And certainly no blood! If you want something to eat, there's only cooked fish and radish miso soup!"

Kiyohiko flipped to the floor and nimbly took cover in the shadow on the far side of the stove, disappointment written all over his face.

"Tch, so stingy... Then give me ten fish. No need to gut them. The fishy taste makes them passable."

Though he complained, he obediently took a plate of half-cooked spare fish Aoi handed him and wolfed it down.

As the food reached his stomach, the burning hunger finally eased a little.

Watching Aoi rearrange the ingredients while grumbling and cursing, Kiyohiko chewed on a fish bone and spoke as though asking casually.

"Hey, Sunflower Seed. Let me ask you something."

He swallowed what was in his mouth, and his expression grew a little more serious.

"Has your Lady Shinobu... always been like that?"