Who Would Want to Go Near That Woman!?

Aoi Kanzaki paused as she sliced the radish.

"What do you mean...?"

"I mean... the kind who can bring herself to be downright ruthless with herself."

Kiyohiko pointed at his newly healed right hand. Although no trace of the injury remained, the phantom pain still lingered. The memory of that exquisite agony sent a shiver through him.

"What normal person would put poison... What normal person deals with poison every day? Did something happen to her in the past that made her push herself so hard? Or can she just not see a way out?"

This was probably that awful woman's little secret. Since she was so opposed to it, he had better not let anyone else know for now.

The kitchen suddenly fell silent.

The three little girls, who had been chattering away as they helped, stopped what they were doing and looked worriedly at Aoi.

Aoi Kanzaki lowered her head and tightened her grip on the kitchen knife, her voice growing somewhat somber.

"Don't talk about Lady Shinobu in that flippant tone."

She turned her back on Kiyohiko and resumed chopping vegetables, but her movements were noticeably heavier than before.

"Lady Shinobu... didn't use to be like this. She used to be a little quick-tempered, but her smiles were genuine. She'd get angry and raise her voice, too."

"But she changed after Lady Kanae-Lady Shinobu's older sister-passed away."

"Her sister?"

Kiyohiko stopped chewing.

"Lady Kanae was a very gentle person. She was always smiling... Lady Shinobu forced herself to smile all the time so she could carry on Lady Kanae's will."

Aoi's voice caught slightly, but she quickly suppressed it.

"As for the poison... that's how Lady Shinobu fights as the Insect Hashira. She isn't strong enough to cut off a demon's head, so she has no choice but to study poisons. She's willing to do anything to kill demons."

Aoi spun around and glared at Kiyohiko, her eyes slightly red.

"So! Don't think saving a few people gives you the right to tell Lady Shinobu how to live! You have no idea how heavy a burden she carries! Finish eating and get out! Don't get in the way!"

With that, she grabbed a handful of pickled ginger and slapped it onto the plate in front of Kiyohiko, as though it were a plug to shut his mouth.

Kiyohiko looked at the pile of pickled ginger on the plate, then at Aoi, who was so eager to defend her mistress.

Though he had been scolded, a clearer picture was coming together in his mind.

Was the girl who always smiled while saying such terrifying things imitating her dead sister?

A moment later.

On the corridor ceiling, a dark figure was crawling at great speed on all fours, a plate clenched between his teeth.

It was the spoils he had just "borrowed" from the kitchen.

The midday sun poured into the courtyard like molten gold. Get a little too close to the edge, and a warning heat would flare across his skin. Kiyohiko had no choice but to press close to the shadow of the inner wall as he had before, like a startled gecko, his movements both comical and awkward.

On the way, Kiyohiko suddenly figured something out.

It seemed Shinobu Kocho was treating him as a stand-in for the demon that had killed her sister. No wonder she had despised him so much from the start, so much that she wanted to force a ton of medicinal soup down his throat.

Was this some kind of stand-in story?

She spoke of humans and demons living together in peace and acted so gently, yet deep down she wanted to kill every last demon.

Wasn't she afraid she'd develop a second personality from bottling it all up?

Besides...

"'Mr. Demon,' 'Mr. Demon'... That rolls right off her tongue, doesn't it?! I have a name! My name is Kiyohiko! I'm human! Apart from not being able to go out in the sun, occasionally wanting to drink blood, and being able to regenerate, what part of me isn't human?!"

Muttering complaints all the way, he raced back to the guest room that had been specially arranged for him, its windows nailed shut with thick wooden boards.

Bang! He kicked the door shut with his heel, shutting all that annoying sunlight outside.

The room was pitch-black, with only a sliver of light shining through the crack beneath the door.

The gloomy surroundings instead allowed his taut nerves to relax.

Kiyohiko sat cross-legged on the tatami and set the plate down in front of him in a huff. Apart from a few pieces of raw fish he hadn't finished, the plate held the pile of pickled ginger Aoi Kanzaki had given him.

"'I don't need a demon to teach me to value life'! Ha! I try to help and she throws it back in my face!"

He grabbed a piece of raw fish, shoved it into his mouth, and chewed hard, as though he were chewing on the name of a certain woman who always smiled with narrowed eyes.

"She's the one who's crazy enough not to value her own life! Drinking poison every day? To avenge her sister? Turning herself into a poison person? What is that supposed to be? Performance art?"

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.

That expression of hers, smiling while her eyes looked as though they were fixed on something filthy, the way she spoke the cruelest words of rejection in the gentlest voice...

"What an... unlovable woman."

He reached out and grabbed a handful of pickled ginger, then, without giving it much thought, stuffed it straight into his mouth.

"Mmph?! Cough, cough, cough, cough!!"

The next second, a fierce spiciness exploded in his mouth and shot straight to the top of his head. Mixed with the fermented sourness unique to pickles, it nearly brought tears to his eyes.

"Pah! What the hell is this stuff?! It's even worse than Korean kimchi! It's so spicy?! So pungent?!"

Kiyohiko stuck out his tongue and panted desperately.

"Sunflower Seed said that woman loves this stuff most? Her sense of taste must be broken, right? Or is something this intense the only thing that can suppress the taste of poison in her mouth?"

He looked at the pile of unremarkable brown pickles on the plate, his brow furrowing deeply.

Spicy.

Pungent.

Yet the aftertaste carried a hint of sweetness.

"Just like her," Kiyohiko muttered.

He had no desire whatsoever to eat it. One bite made him think of that awful woman, and his appetite vanished.

Who would want to eat this stuff?

Who would want to go near that woman?!

Kiyohiko had been about to throw the pickles away, but he pulled his hand back halfway.

As if compelled by some strange force, he pinched up another small piece and put it in his mouth.

This time, having been prepared for it, the spiciness didn't seem quite so unbearable.

"Hmph, I'm going to eat it! I'll eat up all your favorite food! Then you won't have any left! That'll make you furious!"

As he vented in such a childish way, he mixed the remaining fish and pickles together and swallowed them in great mouthfuls.

At last, his hunger was satisfied, and what his body had expended on regeneration was replenished.

With his fill of food and drink, Kiyohiko sprawled on the tatami, arms and legs spread, and stared at the pitch-black ceiling.

The taste of ginger still lingered in his mouth.

"Her sister, huh..."

He stretched out a hand in the darkness and closed it on empty air.

"Is it worth living like this for someone who's dead, Shinobu Kocho?"

"Your sister probably wouldn't want you to be like this either..."