Kanae Kocho was punctual to a fault. Whatever she set out to do, she planned it in advance and gave it everything she had. She'd said she'd be back in two days—and she was back before the sun had fully set.
She'd also said Zenitsu would be up and about within three days. It was exactly three days.
Not every exceptional person was strict with themselves—but every person who was strict with themselves was exceptional. The logic ran only one way.
The moment she stepped through the front gate, she didn't bother changing her clothes. She went straight for the small back courtyard, moving like someone who already knew exactly where she was going. The rest of the Butterfly Mansion saw it and said nothing to each other. They'd all understood for some time. There were things that didn't need to be said aloud.
The Flower Hashira humming something to herself, face soft with a happiness she didn't bother hiding, was not unlike a husband rushing home from a long trip to see his wife. It was not a thought she'd entertained about herself—she only knew that she found Inori interesting, that time with her passed quickly, that it felt full in some way she didn't have a word for.
"Inori~!"
She knew the room by now. She pushed the door open without knocking.
"Oh?"
The pink-haired girl on the tatami spun around—the corner of her mouth dotted with red crumbs, pale lips slightly shiny, expression landing somewhere between caught and startled.
"Hm~? Sneaking around eating again?"
"I didn't think you were coming back today."
Inori let out a small breath and reached for the table napkin, dabbing her mouth.
—Come to think of it, there was nothing surprising about this. No one except Kanae ever dared walk into her room without knocking.
"That unwilling to see me~?"
"What did you buy me this time."
Kanae smiled, and the hand she'd been hiding behind her back emerged.
Between the two of them, things had long since reached a kind of comfortable saturation—the formality was gone, and there was nothing left to perform. In front of Kanae, Inori was something like a little sister, easy and small, and she knew it was partly a role she'd cultivated on purpose. Kanae's warmth had a way of pressing forward—more insistent, even, than Hare Menjou's had been.
"Ta-da!"
She was beaming—eyes half-crescent with delight—holding out a jet-black haori. The hem and sleeves were stitched with many short, loose strips of cloth; at first glance it looked intentionally distressed, but the design was clever, something genuinely thought through.
"Put it on. Let me see."
"Why do you keep buying pointless things."
She said it—but was already setting down the box of hazelnut pastries and getting to her feet.
A haori was roughly the equivalent of a modern overcoat: warmth, formality, presence. The main difference being that it couldn't be fully closed. Back in Funeral Parlor, only Gai Tsutsugami wore one—it was the mark of the person at the top. Shu Ouma ended up wearing one eventually too, in the original story. Here, ordinary Corps members got standard-issue uniforms; only Hashira had distinctive-colored haori.
Tanjiro and Zenitsu didn't fit that pattern—but then, they were the main characters.
"And this!"
Once the haori was on and Inori stood still long enough to let Kanae adjust the trailing strips—fussing over each loose piece of fabric like an attentive mother dressing her daughter—Kanae produced something else from nowhere—a flower, elaborate and strange. Blood-red pistils, surrounded by petals that curved sharply backward like dragon claws. Those petals were black.
"A spider lily?"
"It's a hair ornament! Here—try it on."
Kanae flipped it over. A plastic clip underneath. Artificial, naturally—there was no such thing as a black spider lily in the real world. They came in infernal red, or the pale bluish-white of the heavens, and nothing else.
Though this material was almost too convincingly lifelike.
"I feel like I've become your daughter somehow."
Inori sat and surrendered her hair to Kanae's hands.
"Maybe a little." Kanae laughed—two small dimples surfacing in her cheeks—leaning in to fasten the clip. "But what can I say—Inori is just so adorable. Every time I look at her it brings out my maternal side~"
She stepped back two paces. She looked. She looked again.
The more she looked, the better Inori looked.
"I don't want to be~"
Inori stuck out her tongue.
"Save your maternal instincts for Kanao."
"I treat everyone equally! I brought plenty of clothes and treats for Kanao too." She patted her chest with great sincerity. "I swear."
"What were you even doing out there... I thought you had a Hashira mission?"
"Shopping for you doesn't conflict with that."
Her smile was always the sort that couldn't be refused—that was, perhaps, her greatest quality. A warmth you could drown in.
"Kanae, I..."
The words stopped coming.
Inori knew she couldn't keep drifting like this. A day or a week was fine. Any longer and she'd genuinely become someone's adopted daughter mooching off a household that wasn't hers. This wasn't where her road ended.
And yet she couldn't bring herself to say it plainly: I want to leave.
—This is really hard.
"What's wrong? Something on your mind?"
"Nothing—the pastries were too sweet. I'm going to get some water."
She pushed out a smile that didn't quite work, rose from the tatami, and walked toward the door.
—Just wait a little longer. When the right moment comes... there'll be a way.
She opened the door. Silver moonlight had spread across the small, quiet courtyard. Leaf-shadows moved like weeds in water. Past the familiar flowers, past the pond—wooden posts and stone weights in the open area. Training equipment Kanao had moved out here.
—The little one has decided she's training here for good.
Inori smiled to herself. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that there were advantages to crossing this many worlds. Travel meant meeting more people—more and more of them.
"Inori!"
An urgent voice. Shinobu was sprinting in from the courtyard gate, hastily sliding the bolt home and locking it behind her.
"What is it, Shinobu? Slow down."
Something uneasy stirred. This was the Butterfly Mansion. Shinobu was the Flower Hashira's little sister—what in the world would make her look like that?
"...The Wind Hashira—the Wind Hashira and Flame Hashira have come! They're here to take you. Use the back gate and run, now, go!"
"Take me?"
"Yes! It's that bastard—the one you injured! He didn't take Zenitsu back to Mount Momoyama at all—he ran straight to Headquarters and reported us! He says the Butterfly Mansion is hiding a demon and is demanding we hand you over. I've sent people to stall them, but they'll be searching this way any minute! Go—now!"
"Why would I run?"
Inori's calm was deeply unsettling against Shinobu's panic.
"I'm not a demon."
Inori reached out to put a steadying hand on Shinobu's shoulder—and then the world answered before she could say another word.
BOOM.
The gate shattered under a single domineering surge of sword aura. Splinters flew.