Chapter 5

ｎｏｗ ｌｏａｄｉｎｇ．．．

“無意識の防衛”

Muishiki no Bōei

「 ｖｅｒｉｆｉｅｄ」

The tea ceremony was exactly as stressful as you anticipated, which is to say, it felt like being a character in a period drama where everyone has a sword, and you only have a deep-seated desire to crawl into a hole and stay there until the 21st century.

You sat on your heels, your knees screaming in a language that translated roughly to Why are we doing this to ourselves?, and watched Tanjiro perform the most earnest tea preparation in the history of mankind. Zenitsu was vibrating so hard he was practically a blur, and Inosuke was currently trying to eat his tea bowl because he didn’t understand the concept of “porcelain” enough yet.

Shinobu sat at the head of the circle, watching you with that same, unblinking butterfly stare.

“You’re very still, ______-san,” she noted, her voice cutting through Zenitsu’s muffled whimpering. “Is the tea not to your liking, or are you just busy observing the structural integrity of the floorboards again?”

“I’m just practicing being a guest,” you said, taking a sip of the tea. It was bitter, hot, and tasted like it was judging your life choices. “It’s a very underrated skill—”

“WEIRD-CLOTHES!“

Suddenly, a blur of blue and grey exploded from the side. Inosuke, apparently bored with his tea bowl, had decided that the “mysterious villager” looked like a prime target for a spontaneous wrestling match.

“Fight me, weird-clothes!!” he roared, launching himself across the tatami mats with the grace of a runaway freight train.

Oh, god, not the headbutt. Anything but the headbutt.

Your body moved before your brain could even decide.

It wasn’t “breathing style” fast. It wasn’t Hashira fast. But it was trained fast.

Years of that one self-defense class you took because your neighborhood was sketchy, combined with a decade of “not-dying” reflexes by being in a busy city, kicked in. You didn’t run. You didn’t scream.

You dropped.

You sank your weight low, pivoting on your left heel and used Inosuke’s own momentum against him. You caught his wrist, guided his charging form past your shoulder, and gave a sharp, technical shove to the small of his back.

Inosuke went sailing past you, tumbling over a stack of zabuton cushions and landing in a heap of boar fur and confusion.

The silence that followed was so heavy you could have carved your name in it.

Zenitsu’s jaw hit the floor. Tanjiro froze with a teapot mid-pour. Aoi, who had been standing in the doorway with a tray of snacks, dropped a rice cracker.

And Shinobu.

Shinobu didn’t move. But the air around her suddenly felt like it had been sucked out of a vacuum. Her eyes, those bottomless violet pits, were locked onto your hands—specifically, the way you were still holding a defensive posture, your center of gravity perfectly balanced, your thumbs tucked in.

“Interesting,” she said, the word barely a whisper.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit—

You immediately stood up, smoothing your samue and trying to look like a person who had just gotten lucky. “Whoops. Slippery floor. You okay there, boar-guy?”

“That… That wasn’t a slip!!” Inosuke scrambled up, his boar mask huffing steam. “That was a throw! You did a throw! Do it again!!”

“I really didn’t,” you immediately denied, backing away toward the door. “I just… panicked. I’m a very aggressive panicker.”

“A panicker with perfect weight distribution?” Shinobu rose to her feet, her haori settling around her like a warning. “A panicker who knows how to use an opponent’s momentum to clear a path? That’s a very specific kind of panic, ______-san.”

Tanjiro stood up too, his expression shifting from surprise to that terrifyingly perceptive I can smell your emotions look. “______-san… your scent changed just now. It wasn’t fear. It was… focus. Like a warrior.”

Tanjiro, please—shut up. I am begging you to be less observant for five minutes.

“You know what? I forgot something… I’m going to go… help Aoi with the laundry,” you said, practically vibrating with the need to be anywhere else. “Loooots of laundry. Very busy. Bye!”

You turned and bolted before anyone could stop you.

· · ─────── · 𓅪 · ─────── · ·

You spent the next hour in the courtyard, aggressively scrubbing a sheet that was already clean.

I messed up. I messed up so bad. Why did I do that? I should have just let him headbutt me. A fractured skull is better than Shinobu Kocho’s undivided attention.

You knew why you did it. Because in your old world, you weren’t just a girl with a dry-cereal habit. You were the person who walked home alone at 3 AM. You were the person who took self-defense classes until they became muscle memory. You weren’t a master, but you weren’t a victim either.

And your body, apparently, hadn’t forgotten that just because you’d been teleported into a shonen jump series.

“The sheet is going to disintegrate if you keep doing that.”

You didn’t even jump this time. You just sighed, your shoulders slumping. “Is there a rule against clean laundry in this mansion? Because I feel like I’m being persecuted for my work ethic.”

Shinobu was leaning against the porch post, her arms crossed. She had ditched the pleasant “tea ceremony” smile. This was the doctor. This was the Insect Hashira.

“Where did you learn to move like that?” she asked, just out of pure curiosity.

“I told you. A village far away. We had… problems. I learned to protect myself.”

“That wasn’t the movement of a villager protecting themselves from a bandit,” Shinobu said, stepping off the porch. She walked toward you, her eyes fixed on yours. “That was technical. Economical. You didn’t waste a single centimeter of movement. You’ve been trained.”

“Not for this,” you said, gesturing vaguely at the sword on her hip. “Not for demons. Just for… people. It’s different.”

“Is it?”

Before you could blink, she moved.

It wasn’t an attack—she didn’t draw her blade—but she lunged toward you, her palm flat, aiming for your shoulder.

You didn’t think. You didn’t have time to. You parried.

You swiped her hand away with the edge of your forearm, stepped inside her guard, and brought your other hand up to check her elbow. It was a standard close-quarters response.

And then you realized what you were doing.

You froze, your hand inches from her arm, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird.

Shinobu was looking at your hand, then up at your face. Her expression was unreadable, but there was a spark of something in her eyes—curiosity, yes, but also a strange kind of recognition.

“You don’t have a breathing style,” she mused, her voice low. “Your lungs are ordinary. Your muscles aren’t particularly developed for a swordsman. And yet… You have the instincts of someone who has lived through a hundred fights.”

She stepped back, releasing the tension in the air.

“Who are you, ______-san? Really?”

I’m a girl who watched you die on a 15-inch screen and cried about it for three days. I’m a person from a future where your entire life is a story sold in volumes at a bookstore. I’m a person who wished that I did not have this kind of knowledge.

“I’m nobody,” you said, your voice cracking. “I’m just a guest. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to be a slayer. I just want to stay in the background where it’s safe.”

Shinobu looked at you for a long time. The wind rustled the wisteria, and for a moment, the mask slipped again. She looked tired.

Bone-deep, soul-deep tired.

“Safe,” she whispered, the word sounding foreign in her mouth. “There is no such thing as safe in this world. There is only ‘not dead yet.'”

She turned away, her haori fluttering like the wings of a moth.

“If you can fight, you can train,” she said over her shoulder. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll join the boys for basic conditioning. If you’re going to be in my mansion, I want to know exactly what you’re capable of.”

“But—”

“That wasn’t a request,” she said, her voice regaining its pleasant, lethal lilt. “And ______-san?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t try to hide it again. I hate it when people lie to their doctors. It makes the diagnosis so much more… painful.”

She disappeared into the shadows of the mansion, leaving you alone with a damp sheet and the terrifying realization that you were no longer a background character.

You were on the roster.

God help me, you thought, looking up at the moon. I’m going to end up in a uniform, aren’t I? I’m going to be the only Slayer in history who tries to kill a demon with an eye-gouge.

From the training field, you heard a distant roar. “Weird-clothes! Get back here and fight me!!!”

“Shut up, Inosuke,” you whispered, sinking onto the engawa.

You looked at your hands—the hands that had parried a Hashira. They were still shaking.

I can’t change the story you told yourself. I won’t. I’ll just stay alive. That’s the only goal.

But as you watched a single purple butterfly land on the railing beside you, you had the sinking feeling that the story had already decided otherwise.

꩜

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

大正コソコソ噂話 – Taishō Kosokoso Iwasubanashi

During the tea ceremony, Inosuke didn’t just drink the tea—he actually tried to eat the porcelain tea bowl because he didn’t quite understand what “porcelain” was yet. Also, Aoi was so shocked by your self-defense move that she actually dropped a rice cracker.