SUN.

If only Shinjuro knew that this man was the very same man whose very works, brought him down low. Alas it will never be said unless it was. But for now there is only confusion in his eyes as he looks at the man again, his garment somewhat familiar is a bit outdated. 

 “I’m getting some tea… Do you want some?”

   The proposal surprised him, took him completely off guard. Yet... yet he didn’t have to heart to turn it down. Even more, he craved a bit of tea as well.   ❝ Sure. Care to lead the way? I know some places here but not as much. ❞  Yoriichi replied calmly, taking a moment to decide if this was wise. Well, it didn’t matter at this point. 

 “…You need something?”

All Rengoku men, down from the very first demon hunter. had the same genetics and tended to look the same. Though expressions varied between each descendants, there is no mistaking the hair that each one had and the passion [that used to be there].

Reading the newspaper, slightly sweaty still and a towel around his neck, it looks like he came from training. 

   ❝ Not at all. Sorry to bother. You just looked a lot like someone I knew some time ago. ❞  It was a weird mixture of familiriaty  and... shame. The flame pillar of that time was the most vocal about how he needed to atone with suicide. Every horrible feeling he experienced during those hours, that fateful day in the Ubuyashiki household still haunted him to this day. 

   A rather empty feeling scorched his very being as he stared at the decorations and signs for ‘Father’s Day’. 

His lack of reaction caused great confusion upon Daki. 

“Hey, what’s with that resigned attitude?” A voice often harsh softened, provoked by the mere fact she had no means of understanding his lack of care. She wasn’t intentionally stopping him nor she would push on the issue but it certainly bothered her, staying silent was not an option. 

It wasn’t like she was ignoring the fact he was someone important and terrifying, someone even Muzan feared – she was merely too much of a child to stay put and let things be for the sake of her own survival. 

“At least pretend you have some spine, even I feel bad when a dog doesn’t barks back.”

“Maybe if I poured hot tea on your head, you will actually react.”

    ❝ How do you want me to react? ❞ Yoriichi inquired, turning towards her once again, legitimately curious about what this was was expecting out of him.  ❝ Do you expect me to engage in a fruitless argument with you? I have nothing to prove to you. ❞  It may have sounded cruel or tactless but it was the most honest thing he could say in the moment. 

    Someone who so obviously charges forwards others with nothing but hostility doesn’t have anything meaningful besides that hostility to offer. He just didn’t want to make a scene or make the few people wandering about uncomfortable. 

“Ah, yes, it started on May 1st, 2019…though…you wouldn’t know what that means, hm?” She puts a hand to her chin, and sighs. “I apologize, but I’m not well-versed in how time was kept in feudal Japan. But I think it’s safe to assume, at least, that I’m from hundreds of years in the future, and that this place is more akin to my time.”

She’s not 100%, but she’s fairly certain he must’ve lived at some point during the endless wars that tore Japan apart from the 15th through 17th centuries. That’s good enough for now. “Well…I can tell you–at least, in my world–that those days did end. Japan is now a fairly prosperous country, all things considered.” There wasn’t too much reason to get into the current state of global politics, especially considering how she had no idea how her stopping a nuclear weapon from detonating had changed it.

“Though I suppose too much prosperity does lead to silly things like this.” She gestures at the maid café in front of them, bringing everything full circle.

    A very soft, subtle chuckle was his immediate response to it. He was just amused not only of how silly this idea was but the fact that he was indeed lost in time in space. Lost in the endless stream of time.  ❝ Still, it is wonderful, isn’t it? ❞  He said with a smile on his lips.   ❝ That people can live without much worries, enough that they can come up with ideas like these. ❞

   Bizarre, yes. But this kind of peace was the thing he always longed, not only for himself but for every single human around him as well. Free of wars, free of demons. A world where unnecessary tragedies are avoidable, where people can go sleep at night without a worry. Where people can die at old age having lived a fulfilling life.  ❝ If this place is four hundred years in the future, then that would explain why I feel so alien.  ❞

   His right index finger calmly traveled through the backs of every book in that shelf as he wondered about what exactly to read. Strange how he seemed to be able to understand every book’s title and contents despite the fact he wasn’t that good reading at all. He did only polish his skills at it at a later age, after all. A book in particular called: Theory of forms, a compilation of Plato’s works was the one he took out on a whim. 

     A familiar sound, as if air istelf was being cut quickly, precisely, fiercely reached his eardrums as he walked through the Bamboo Grove. Lazily, the younger Tsugikuni scanned his surroundings in an attempt to pinpoint its origin and, sooner than later, he found it. A young male practising his swings. The decision and arc the practice sword described betrayed that he was no beginner. 

Doubt they would welcome him? Huh? Rui tilted his head in response to that, though honestly wasn’t interested enough in prying further. He would have thought slayers were… better together, weren’t they? Didn’t the lot of them usually stick together?

This fear, the fact he was Kokushibou’s brother, the fact he ‘wouldn’t be welcomed’… what was with this man?

“… I don’t know.”

“I did die.” No point in keeping that a secret. “I shouldn’t be alive here regardless. I died, I remember it, and he isn’t here. It has to be something about this city – I can’t explain it.”

He was thankful, though, but still … scared. The stronger he got, the more likely it felt that the same could happen to Muzan if he were ever to return, or the more likely that Rui would simply… stop existing.

“I don’t know how long it might last, but – we all seem to be able to live without him just fine, but we’ve all also been killed. Take that as you will, I suppose.”

… spoken out loud like that, it felt like he was lying, didn’t it? And yet, the fear seemed to subside slightly, just saying ‘he isn’t here’ out loud again. How strange.

   Although what was in front of him was undoubtly a demon, his reactions to this whole thing eased his mind a little bit. The fact that were all indeed free from Muzan remained rather curious for him. Perhaps the fact that they were supposed to have already died played a part on it? Again, it didn’t seem like he was the only one brought back to life or something like that. 

   This definitely wasn’t some kind of afterlife then. There should be a lot more demons, a lot more slayers and they were supposed to go to different places after their eventual death. His head could dwelve into the nature of this place but the more it did, the more it seemed like way out of his reach. If someone had the power to bring in deceased people like it was nothing, could he truly do something in this context? The answer was surely no. 

   Even less in this state. 

  Yoriichi squatted before the other party, mainly wanting to speak eye to eye with him. ❝ Will you help me find him if he comes back? ❞ His look was serene as he inquired, devoid of any kind of emotion as if he were asking the most casual question of the book. 

         why sun hasn’t visited a hot spring before, he’s not entirely sure. cotes has never interested him much but given that he lives here now, best to make do with what the ward has to offer. and while the hot springs are made for relaxing, this monkey faunus refuses to do just that. completely submerging his entire body aside from his eyes – which are darting around in the steam like a hawk – sun carefully, tactically squirts a stream of water from his hands in the other’s direction. 

         ❛ ba – ❜ as soon as he opens his mouth, bath water starts gushing in…

    For someone as regularly stoic as him, he sure was having a hard time finding out how exactly he was supposed to react to that. He was behaving just like a child. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with that, at all. The slayer just found it difficult to properly break the ice with someone that had way higher levels of energy than him. Even after all this time. Guess Bad habits don’t change at all.