To the Flames of the Sun

Chapter Ten

For someone who is a nurse, this one here sure has some anger issues.

Midori's POV

"Kanao nee-san, wake up!"

"Wha-"

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

I yelled while frantically shaking the girl in an attempt to pull her out of her futon bed, huffing when she sat up at an annoyingly slow pace and looked around in a daze.

"What time is it?"

"Rain time! It's rain time!"

"What?"

Kanao nee-san finally seemed to snap out of her drowsy trance, eyes slightly widening, and I grinned before rushing towards the doors of the room that opened onto the engawa. And once I pulled open those doors, a powerful gust of wind scented by the fragrance of moist earth struck me right in the face, triggering a soft sigh of content to escape my lips. The beating of my heart calmed as my eyes beheld the sight of the gentle downpour occurring beyond the shade of the engawa while my ears captured the sweet lull of drops splashing to the soil.

I truly did love rain. I had loved rain since I was a child, however, considering how protective my father had always been, he had never permitted me to go play or dance in the rain. Kanae nee-san, though, was an entirely different case. Being as attached to nature as she was, which was a feature most expected of the Flower Hashira, she never discouraged Kanao nee-san or me from playing in the rain whenever we caught sight of even the faintest traces of grey clouds dominating the blue skies. She made sure we never fell sick by warming us up with hot towels and soup the second we returned home, after which she would also send us in for a hot bath.

Consequently, most of us Butterfly Sisters had grown a little too fond of the rain.

Aoi was the only one we had to fight with to convince to join us out in the downpour, having to deal with her constantly yelling about how she wished to keep working indoors with the rest of the nurses. She always tended to forget that other than being a nurse, she was also a young girl who deserved the joy of doing things that other young girls her age did. I, for one, knew very well what it felt like to be isolated from other people my age. Unlike her though, Naho, Kiyo and Sumi never refused to join us no matter the time of the day.

Ah, Takada Naho, Terauchi Kiyo and Nakahara Sumi.

They three of the sweetest little girls I had ever met, which made the story of their tragedy all the worse. Their fathers had worked together in a textile mill in Osaka while their mothers had been the closest gossip buddies of all time (at least according to what Naho had told me) by virtue of living in the same neighbourhood. Consequently, the three girls had grown up together, and life was good and peaceful for them until, one fateful night, a demon attacked their tranquil locality.

Naho, Kiyo and Sumi were the only survivors of the massacre that had been unleashed that night, and even they too had survived only because Rengoku-san had made it to the cellar their parents had hidden them in before the demon could. He had then brought them to the Butterfly Mansion and left their fate to Kanae nee-san, mainly because they had no one else to go to and Rengoku-san hadn't been able to find a decent orphanage nearby.

That was either true or he had been too drunk to notice a decent orphanage nearby even if there had been one, because he definitely had been wasted senseless by the time he showed up at our home with three little girls quivering behind his large form.

Giyu had not been kidding when he had said that Rengoku-san truly went out on missions with a bottle of sake in his hand.

And the very sight of that bottle of sake in his hand had pissed me off.