I will always follow

Not yet. Not ever

The pain was unbearable. The only thing keeping him upright was his broken katana, deeply embedded in the floor, bearing a weight he could no longer shoulder alone. His muscles screamed in protest, every aching fiber straining beneath the weight of exhaustion. His limbs trembled with effort, his body half-numb from fatigue, half-overwhelmed by pain. He couldn't remember lowering himself into seiza—perhaps his body had done so out of habit, muscle memory, a desperate attempt to keep from collapsing entirely. His knuckles were bloodless from how tightly he gripped his sword, despite being coated in his own sticky blood and his fingers were locked around the hilt as if letting go would send him tumbling into an unseen abyss.

His vision blurred—a mix of sleep deprivation, blood loss, and the relentless pounding in his skull from the head wounds he had sustained earlier. He barely registered the sting of open wounds or the slow, sticky trickle of blood down his temple, seeping into the torn edges of his uniform. The bite mark at the base of his neck throbbed dully, pulsing in time with the rapid beat of his heart—almost healed already, yet still aching, as if his body refused to forget. His wrists, raw and wounded, burned with every movement, the skin scraped down to torn flesh.

A deep, wracking cough forced its way up his throat, and he barely had time to turn his head before blood gushed from his mouth, splattering onto the floor. The taste was sharp and metallic, a cruel reminder of the battle he had barely survived. Of the days of suffering. The torture. There was water in his lungs—he could feel it with every ragged breath, heavy and suffocating.

The Water Hashira, who never should have been a Hashira to begin with, was drowning.

Even without water.

Pathetic.

The bruises littering his body—dark, swelling reminders of the blows he had taken—throbbed beneath his uniform, pressing against fractures that sent lances of pain through his ribs with each breath.

His breath came in ragged bursts—too shallow, too fast. The room felt too small, the walls pressing in, the air thick and suffocating despite the open space around him. Another wave of dizziness swept through him, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if it was from exhaustion, the head wound, or the fractured ribs digging into his lungs. But it hardly mattered.

He had no choice but to keep going. Even if he had no strength left.

"Kochō Shinobu is dead."

The words echoed in his head like a curse, relentless and inescapable.

For a moment, his mind refused to process them, rejecting the very possibility like an instinctive recoil from a fatal blow.

Shinobu—dead? It didn't make sense.

She had always been there, her sharp tongue laced with poison, her delicate frame belying a will of iron. She had been too stubborn, too clever, too alive for death to claim her so easily.

His throat constricted. His stomach twisted, nausea creeping at the edges of his consciousness. His grip on the hilt wavered.

This was the plan she hadn't wanted to reveal to him, wasn't it?

His breath hitched. His fingers clenched tighter, nails biting into his palm. He forced himself to stay still—to steady his breathing, to swallow back the emotions clawing their way up his throat.

Their friendship had been tumultuous, to say the least, but she had been the closest thing to a friend he had in a long time. They had made mistakes along the way, but they had also been there for each other—a silent understanding, an unspoken promise that, should one of them fall, the other would be there to catch them, whether they wanted to admit it or not.