Kanao, the Problem Girl

Three days had passed since Shinobu Kocho had beaten him to a pulp, and Kiyohiko had noticed something strange creeping into his life.

It wasn't because of Shinobu.

The Insect Hashira still mocked him as often as ever, but whenever she finished berating him, a faint smile would linger at the corners of her mouth. Her mood had visibly improved. Even last night's dinner had been much more lavish than before.

What gave him the creeps was a gaze.

It followed him like a shadow, omnipresent, devoid of emotion yet intensely penetrating.

At first, he thought it was his imagination. But the feeling followed him everywhere: when he ate, when he slept, when he snuck into the kitchen for food, and even when he sparred with Shinobu. He could always sense someone silently watching him.

"Hey..."

Sitting on the wooden floor of the veranda with a cup of cold tea in his hands, Kiyohiko sighed helplessly at the empty courtyard.

"I know I'm a demon and don't need a fancy human right like privacy, but isn't it a little rude to stare at me like that...?"

The courtyard remained still, as though Kiyohiko had been talking to himself.

With no other choice, Kiyohiko went on, "I know you're there. That azalea bush isn't hiding you at all. Your butterfly hairpin is sticking out."

The wind blew through the courtyard, rustling the leaves.

After several seconds of dead silence, the round, neatly trimmed azalea bush stirred.

Then a petite figure slowly "rose" from behind the flowers, her face expressionless, like a female ghost crawling out of a television screen in a horror movie.

Kanao Tsuyuri.

The Butterfly Mansion's successor, Shinobu Kocho's tsuguko, and the future Flower Hashira.

With several leaves on her head, she stared straight at Kiyohiko with large purple eyes that seemed unfocused.

She blinked those purple eyes, clear as glass yet vacant. She said nothing, merely maintaining her signature polite but distant smile.

[Target detected: Kanao Tsuyuri. Current Bond Value: 15]

If the system hadn't occasionally alerted him over the past few days, Kiyohiko would never have guessed that the problem girl Kanao was the one who had been watching him all this time.

"Miss Kanao."

Kiyohiko felt himself becoming just like Shinobu, the veins on his forehead throbbing wildly. "Tell me, are there flowers growing on my face? Or do I look like a giant coin right now?"

Kanao said nothing.

Kiyohiko rubbed his temples with a bit of a headache. "If Shinobu sent you to keep an eye on me to see whether I've been sneaking off to eat people, you can go back and tell her my stomach is cleaner than a monk in a temple."

Kanao still said nothing. She pulled a coin from her sleeve and flicked it gently with her thumb.

Clink-

The coin spun in the sunlight, flashing silver-white before landing squarely on the back of her hand. She glanced at the result, then continued smiling. Without answering Kiyohiko's question, she silently took a small notebook from her pocket and wrote something down.

"What are you writing?!" Kiyohiko felt his blood pressure soaring. "'The subject voiced a meaningless complaint at two thirty in the afternoon'? Or 'The subject attempted to interfere with the observer through speech'?"

He really didn't like being treated like a lab rat.

But he couldn't just rush over and snatch her notebook. Leaving aside whether he could even beat this tsuguko, the mere thought of making her cry-and of that overprotective woman Shinobu smiling as she dried him into jerky under the sun-was enough to make him abandon the idea at once.

"That wicked woman... what on earth has she been putting in this child's head?" Kiyohiko raised his teacup, using the act of drinking to hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Could it be because of that misunderstanding a few days ago? Does she still suspect I have designs on her, so she sent someone to watch me around the clock?

At the thought, Shinobu's ever-present fake smile involuntarily appeared in his mind, and a shudder ran through his body.

Tch. Who would have designs on a woman with such a nasty personality, a head full of poisons, and no way of solving problems except violence?

However, while Kiyohiko was busy steeling himself, Kanao suddenly moved.

She stepped out of the shadows and walked straight up to Kiyohiko. Under his wary gaze, she placed a small object wrapped in a handkerchief on the floor beside him.

"What's this? A new kind of poison?"

Kiyohiko raised an eyebrow and leaned back, putting a safe distance between them.

Over the past few days, the medicinal soups Shinobu had fed him in all sorts of ways had given him PTSD.

Kanao shook her head. She pointed at the bundle, then toward the kitchen, and finally at Kiyohiko.

"For me?"

Kiyohiko reached out, still skeptical, and carefully unwrapped the handkerchief. Inside lay two round rice balls, giving off a rich, meaty aroma. They were clearly stuffed full of meat.

"Is this... a bribe?" Kiyohiko took a bite, and the familiar meaty aroma and salty flavor burst across his tongue, making him forget his annoyance at being watched these past few days.

"Forget it. For the sake of these rice balls, I'll forgive you for what you've been doing to me these past few days."

Chewing his rice ball, Kiyohiko mumbled, "But what exactly are you writing? Can I have a look?"

Some distance away, Kanao flipped her coin again, then shook her head.

She watched Kiyohiko chewing the rice ball, then took out her little notebook and made another entry:

[Subject: Kiyohiko]

[Status: eating]

[Threat level: extremely low, not aggressive, looks very stupid]

[Note: seems to like Master a little]

Kiyohiko swallowed the last bite of his rice ball and glanced at Kanao in the distance.

The girl was as quiet as a plant. Apart from the occasional blink and breath, she hardly made an unnecessary movement.

She looks... easier to talk to than that wicked woman, right?

Kiyohiko began making plans in his head.

Although he had received Basic Swordsmanship Mastery as a reward, he still lacked actual combat experience. Besides, he couldn't rely on rewards for everything; he had to practice and improve his own strength too.

During his time at the Butterfly Mansion, Shinobu had set aside time every day to train him to recover his physical functions. But rather than training, it was more like one-sided abuse: every session ended with Shinobu single-handedly grinding Kiyohiko into the floor in all sorts of positions.

Kiyohiko felt that he badly needed a sparring partner who wouldn't smile while beating him half to death.

"Um, Miss Tsuyuri."

Kiyohiko cleared his throat and put on what he considered his most harmless expression. "Now that I've eaten, how about... getting a little exercise? After all, as the saying goes, walk a hundred steps after a meal and live to ninety-nine. I'm already a demon, but I still hope to keep myself in good physical shape."

Kanao stopped what she was doing. She didn't ask "Why?" or "What do you want to do?" She simply reached into her pocket out of habit.

The familiar routine followed: toss, landing, check the result.

Kanao glanced at the back of her hand, then looked up and nodded at Kiyohiko.