DEViL (Kimetsu no Yaiba Fanfic)

3. fold the fan and bow to the crowd.

-

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE OYAKATA ARE YOU DOING, KANATA?!"

Kanata jumps in surprise. His hammer hits the metal wrong and, off-kilter, it snaps right in half, flips off balance and goes soaring like a catapult, flinging right past Kanata's eye and to the wall behind him.

There's a pause before he looks back. It left a scorch indent on the wall, and now the metal's ruined and on the ground.

...oh wow, I nearly went blind.

"Kanata! You're still injured! You're supposed to be recovering! The ONE thing we said not to do was come to the workshops! The heat here is bad for your wounds, the sawdust is bad for your wounds, and the strain of forging a sword is bad on your wounds! WHY ARE YOU FORGING ONE, ANYWAYS?!"

Kanata is picked off the chair and carried up like a child out of the building. He's not allowed to take off his boots or his gloves or his apron. He is being exiled to the rest houses right this instant.

His cheeks puff up in annoyance. He was almost done with that one!

"You came home TWO days ago! You still have all your stitches in, and we are literally still tallying the votes on who gets to forge your nichirin sword, so could you just calm down? Spend a day sleeping like you always love to do?"

Kanata sulks, slumping down on Uncle Kiyoyuki's shoulder as he gets carried off like a misbehaving kitten.

He broke the Oodachi. And he let Aoi take the tachi as a souvenir. Sanemi stole an uchigatana on his way out because his sword chipped.

If Kanata doesn't replace all of them before his first mission he is going to need one of them as backup in the middle of a loop and it'll cost him so much time. Please, just let him fix the sword that Sanemi broke. Just that one.

"You know Oyakata-sama isn't going to assign you too many missions, right? First missions are standard to ten days after the selection, but you'll be helping us here after you recover for at least a month. We'll be shortstaffed when some of our best go out to deliver them."

Yes but he's anxious without his emotional support sharp objects, okay.

-

"Kanata! Kanata! Rest!"

Maybe it's because he's quiet, but he got assigned a rather talkative crow. Even soaking in the onsen is rambunctious with this crow by his side.

Kanata leans over the rocks as his crow— Yashahane, it's much too cool a name for a crow as silly as this one— gathers pebbles and arranges them equal widths apart in neat rows.

"Kanata! Kanata!" it's like the only thing she can say, handing Kanata a small pebble that's pretty, but just a bit too big to fit into her perfect rows. She deposits it into his open palm, and hops away to pick up another one.

Well, it's peaceful.

"Kanata! Kanata!"

Yes, yes. He obediently opens his palm and receives another pebble.

Maybe it's because she's like this, that she was assigned to be Kanata's crow. They won't have a lot of missions, and they can always relax, just like this.

Peacefully.

"KANATA DO NOT SLEEP IN THE HOT SPRING!" Uncle Kiyoyuki shrieks, and Kanata jumps in surprise. Yashahane startles so violently she upturns all her pebble rows.