hehe

Instead of Kanao just wordlessly grabbing Aoi & Naho (already a big step for Kanao, the other girls were stunned), she instead takes to yelling like she did at everyone to shut up because Tanjiro was asleep. Uzui is probably not impressed, but then after that when Kanao grabs on, he decides that since she's a Tsuguko and has a higher rank, she'll probably be more useful anyway, so he agrees, but they have to make it quick. Before they know it Uzui has ninja'd off and Aoi & the little girls are stunned and by the time Tanjiro gets back they're all going to be sobbing messes. Tanjiro will try to track Kanao down by scent, but he won't get very far. They all wait for Shinobu to get home so they can tattle on her fellow Pillar, but she doesn't go home that night... or the next night... dang those Pillar missions being so demanding! Rather than hoping for her to come soon they all instead start dreading her return.

So Uzui takes Kanao off and gives her the same talking to that he gave the boys. His word is god! Whatever he says goes! If he says to be a monkey, she's a monkey! If he says to be a dog, she's a dog!

And Kanao, being very, very good at following instructions, replies in all seriousness, "Yes."

Uzui wasn't totally expecting that, it steals his thunder with how bland a response it is and he just says "tch" and they get going. Since she's a girl and it would be looked at differently than taking a bunch of boys around, he skips the tour and goes straight to the Wisteria Mansion to give her the briefing. The goal is to have her get inside the houses his wives have disappeared from. They try to target Tokitoya first where Suma was, but the yarite from Ogimotoya where Makio was spies Kanao first by to take beautiful Kanao for a handsome price. Uzui responds well on the change in plan, Kanao is a little more bewildered because she was supposed to go to Tokitoya first, and she runs back from the yarite to whisper a question to Uzui.

Uzui supposes this is important to the mission and he squats lower so she can reach his ear. He can hear her fine among the crowd, but it's important that no demons hear.

She asks, "What do I do?"

"What? What do you mean, 'what do I do?'"

"What am I supposed to do at Ogimotoya?"

"Look for Makio, dummy!! Cook and clean and sing and play cards for all I care, but that's your mission!"

"Is there some problem?" the yarite comes back. "I believe we had a deal."

"Sorry, sorry, she's feeling nervous! Don't worry, I told her you'd show her a-a-a-ll around Ogimoto and that she'll learn all the ins and outs! Bye, Kanao! Be a good learner!"

Kanao has no idea what she's in for, and does everything she's told. They are thrilled to have not only found such a pretty girl, but a docile one who does everything she's told! What a good find! Although Kanao is still being used as a general servant while she's new, she's very aware of what staying here longer would mean. While looking around for clues about Makio, she ponders how sad and trapped the women there are, and how close she came to this having been her life. She'd have stayed completely closed off and numb, had that happened, so maybe it wouldn't had actually bothered her all that much, but Tanjiro's words echoing, 'live according to your heart,' makes her feel pain in her chest.

She happens to hear of Makio being sick, and goes to investigate, and opens the door just in time to see the obi swallow Makio up and slip away. There's no chase necessary, for Kanao has seen that it moves between the cracks, and she already knows it's long out of her reach by the time she's started chasing it.

She of course reports this to Uzui, and this is valuable intel which makes sense of a lot of tricky parts of this mission. He's worried for Makio, but also knows that it's useless now to keep Kanao at Ogimotoya because the demon knows it was spotted there (Kanao's flustered, she already had jobs to do as a servant in Ogimotoya waiting for after she made her report to Uzui). He'd like to backtrack and go to Tokitoya next, but it'll be difficult since that annoying yarite from Ogimotoya will probably recognize her property over there and cause a fuss. Maybe he should had brought one or two more of Shinobu's girls after all, at which Kanao frets and insists that she'll do everything.

Uzui gets crabby; how is a know-nothing like her going to make a promise like that!! There's no weight to her words!! What was she even thinking when she offered to go?

At this, Kanao answers him honestly, she was doing what her heart told her to. Uzui finds himself curious about the tone of voice she used to say this, and with a wide-eyed stared with interest, he tells her to go on. She isn't sure there's much more to say, and explains that she had always not cared one way or another about anything, and nothing ever hurt that way, just to do what she's told or flip a coin. It was all the same to her. But now that she's been told to live according to her heart, she's trying, and it's harder to live this way... but it's nicer. She likes it better, even if it's hard.

Uzui, having also had to listen to his own heart after spending all his life doing what he was told and to be unfeeling, feels some sympathy for her. He asks, "Well then. What do you want to do?"

"Eh?"

"You're on your own for this mission. Kochou's not here to tell you what to do. You've got to think for yourself. What do you want to do out here, in the pleasure quarters? What's your heart telling you?"

Kanao furrows her brow and thinks a moment, then asks, "I have a Corp salary. How many girls here can I buy?"

Uzui nearly falls off the roof. "WHAT!?!?" he recovers, "THAT'S what's on your mind when you should be doing the mission!?!?!"

"Eh? But--their contracts--if I buy them--then they get to be free, right? I'm sure--I'm sure Shihan would let them live at the Mansion--"

"That's not what I asked about it!! The mission! The mission, Tsuyuri, we're here to fight a demon! It's an Upper Moon, you got that!?!?"

"H-Hai---"

"I don't hear you!!!"

"HAI!!"

"Drab!! Weak!! Do you use any Breath in those lungs or not?" he pinched her cheek and jostled her back and forth. "LOUDER!! MORE FLAMBOYANT!!!"

"HAI!!!"

"That's more like it," he let go of her cheek and rubbed her head, pushing and pulling her hair into complete disarray. Though he meant to be light, the grip of his thumb had left a big, unsightly red mark on her face. His first inclination was to be sorry and his second was to be aggravated with himself for how that would make her a harder sell, but then he got an idea.

That evening, he brought Kanao to market again, covered in thick white makeup, cheeks like apples, and eyelashes for miles. To his irritation, however, even with the thickest of his charms, he couldn't get Tokitoya to take her, so in a crabby mood, he brought her over to Kyogokuya to dump her off for free to clean toilets and such. He then sent his mice to go investigate every nook and cranny an obi could slip through (unfortunately for the mice, many of them found themselves too bulky to fit).

As soon as the makeup was off, Kanao was the talk of the establishment the following early morning, which of course made their resident star, Warabihime-oiran, curious for a look at the newcomer. Kanao could tell with one look that the woman smiling at her was a demon, and she was terrified to her knees and knew she had to hurry and tell Uzui, but how? Run? Escape? Get the demon's attention? Tell everyone she's a demon they're in danger? Scream for Uzui? Risk being caught in the obi? Coin? Shihan? Coin? The mission? Hinatsuru-san? Coin?

She makes it through most of day keeping her head down and doing exactly as told, but then when that little girl was being abused, Kanao's heart makes up its mind and Kanao decides she wants to protect her.

Flamboyantly. With her sword. She calls for it from the mice while going in first with a hidden weapon laced with wisteria poison. Daki already saw Kanao coming as soon as she had murderous intent but didn't foresee Kanao sproinging out of the way of her swift backhand intended to know her head off, much less Kanao twirling over her with a knife sticking out the heel of her sock. Startled, Daki swoops the obi toward her, but Kanao rips it and the wisteria poison momentarily immobilizes it, given the mice just enough time to stomp holes through the ceiling and drop Kanao's Nichirin-to down to her, and for Kanao to catch and take to a low ready stance.

As she and Daki stare at each other hatefully, the little girls scream, two at the door, and one inside the room.

"You demon hunters sure know how to make an inconvenient fuss. Look at the mess in here, I can't work like this."

Kanao says nothing in response. She knows she's against an Upper Moon and without being conscious of doing so, she's analyzing her opponent and making judgements for what to do next.

Dropping the part of the obi melting under the poison, Daki then shoots a healthy part of it toward the girl in the room, forcing Kanao to move to protect her. As soon as she kicks off, though, another part of the obi goes for the two girls in the hall, forcing Kanao to have to choose between them.

Coin--coin---Shihan--live by her heart--coin--defeat demons--just take the demon's head!

She again takes Daki by surprise by not fruitlessly trying to save any of the girls and instead going straight for a shot at Daki's neck. Daki snaps the obi back to defend against the blade, but their stride is in Kanao's favor, and with their strikes and parries she forces Daki back and toward to the window, notwithstanding sharp cuts and scrapes, giving the girl inside the room a chance to run for the hall and for all three to get away and alert the others to evacuate.

As their fight gets louder, so do the screams, and Uzui is alerted to the commotion. He shows up just as Kanao takes a hard hit that threw her backwards hard enough to break through a wall. Fortunately for Kanao Uzui was sturdier than a wall, and a better catch.

"Nice going," he assures her, "Your mission was to find my wives, not the demon, but I'll accept this as a pass. Hmm... then again, not the right demon. Get everyone out, things are going to get a lot more flamboyant after this one."

Kanao runs downstairs to tell all the people to leave, but the obi comes from the walls--from seemingly everywhere in the walls!--to block her path and taunt her with a big ugly face, and Kanao takes quick notice of a person in part of the obi. She fights and frees that person, then before some of the rest of the obi can retreat, she grabs it and pulls, exposing another person, whom she cuts free. It's Makio and Suma! They pin the obi to the walls and leave room for Kanao to make it down the stairs to ensure that everyone is evacuating. The owner, having known something was wrong with Warabihime-oiran and sorely missing his wife Omitsu, is cooperative and uses his position of influence to start telling other places to evacuate too. Kanao, still having a mission to complete, desperately asks him where Hinatsuru is, and he tells her she's in the kirimise. Kanao barely gets a chance to pass this info off to Makio and Suma, for Gyutaro's already entered the party upstairs, and Kanao needs to go back.

And then.... Iiiiiiiiii don't know, things get ugly, Kanao is probably really, really gonna struggle, and I don't know that she's able to take Daki's head on her own at this point. But look, see, I'm fixing things by already having started the evacuation!! Look at all these lives getting saved!

Anyway... eventually Shinobu had to get home. Everyone is very, very sullen to see her and Aoi is really doing her best to say everything she's rehearsed to explain and apologize for everything, but she's making no sense. Tanjiro tries to help, but he smells that Shinobu is already really tired and not in the mood for bad news, and he struggles, and finally Inosuke just butts in and says Kanao went off with some flashy guy. Zenitsu yells at him that he's insulting Kanao's maidenly honor by putting it that way, but some key words caught her attention.

"Flashy guy?"

"Yes," says Tanjiro, wilting with bad news, "the Sound Pillar, I was told..."

"Even though he said he couldn't take her without your permission," cried Aoi.

Shinobu smiles her hardest and thanks them and assures them she'll handle the matter. Unfortunately none of the teary-eyed children heard where he was taking Kanao, so Shinobu had to sacrifice her sleeping hours to send out a few crows and pay a visit to Oyakata-sama to inquire where Uzui's mission was. Kagaya sighs and says he wishes Tengen wouldn't had borrowed Shinobu's Tsuguko without permission because rules are rules and that is how they run the Corp, and he'll scold Tengen for it later. However, he had allowed his because his understanding of the situation was that this was Kanao's choice. Shinobu's a bit shook by that, but is understanding. Kagaya assures her that Obanai is nearby so he'll send him over right away to help.

Iguro, getting a mission from Oyakata-sama, of course drops everything he is doing to start running in that direction, listening to the details as he goes so as not to delay. He's already made it a long way before the crow mentions anything about it being Yoshiwara, and Iguro grinds to a halt. Then then says to the crow, "Yoshiwara? That place is crawling with women."

"C-A-A-A-W. YES. YOSHIWA-A-A-R-A-A-A, C-A-A-A-W."

"But that--you see, I--hm," he looks back and forth at the ground, until Kaburamaru bites him and Iguro realizes he's being ridiculous and a mission is a mission. He continues running and arrives when Kanao is in dire straights. He winds up saving her from getting sliced to bits, and Uzui feels just enough freedom in his fight with Gyutaro down below to smile and yell his thanks up to him, after all, he's just borrowing that Tsuguko.

"I may have saved her," he says, with Kanao under one arm like a rolled up rug, "but I can't do anything for you once Kochou gets her hands on you."

So then we get SNAKE BREATH .VS. OBI and it looks a-m-a-a-a-zing especially because Ufotable likes to show off with twisty objects throughout the air snaking their way through and against each other in the first place. Kanao finds herself back on the ground, helping Uzui against Gyutaro. She manages well in avoiding Gyutaro's attacks, but dodging isn't going to get her any closer to Gyutaro's neck! She considers using the Final Form to find an opening, but then she's distracted by the perilous state Uzui is in under the poison. His hand gets chopped off, he's going down, stopping his own heart... but fortunately for Uzui, this is Shinobu's Tsuguko, and she is well-supplied! She pulls a surprise all-purpose anti-poison potion from her belt (she has a lot of those, it seems) and stabs Uzui with it, Uzui gets the recharge he needed, and having been so close to death, he gets the last burst of inspiration he needed to complete his Score! Plus, all that stuff about Red Blades? Yeah, let's give him one. Uzui uses a Red Blade to behead Gyutaro, with Kanao's help to do stuff like hit Gyutaro with a wisteria-laced sneak attack and slice off his arm before he gets a shot at Uzui's eye. Look! I'm not just saving lives, I'm saving eyes!!

So Uzui and Iguro take the heads at the same time, Iguro not taking much credit because of course Daki wasn't an Upper Moon, she was weak, Uzui might as well deserve the credit. It was only Upper Moon Six, after all.

"Only Upper Moon Six? My, my, then I suppose you didn't need any extra help from Kanao."

"Kochou... hi..."

Shinobu was late to arrive, but she's armed with medicine to treat Uzui right away. He'll need some time to recover and won't be walking off the battlefield without extra help to keep him from toppling over, but the poison isn't going to have lasting effects. Shinobu has let him off easy for now, he knows she's going to give him an earful later.

Actually, what she has in mind is worse, and sends chills down his smile as she smiles and says, "Oyakata-sama would like a few words with you once you're feeling better." As for Kanao, she goes up to her already intending to do the lecturing herself, and though she's very angry, she can't fight the tiny tears in the corners of her eyes now finally finding their way out, for she was so worried.

"Hey, Tsuyuri!" Uzui calls over his shoulder to her just before Shinobu is about to open her mouth. "Looks like you got to do what you wanted to!"

Shinobu looks over her shoulder at him and Kanao blinks, confused. "Eh?"

He smiles, looking over all the wreckage. "They're all free now, aren't they? Phew! That's one flamboyantly selfish heart of yours, better keep listening to it and don't let anyone stand in its way."

Kanao smiles, then feels some peace come over her nerves as she faces Shinobu. "I'm sorry, Shihan. This was what I wanted to do."