The moment he blinked, it was gone.
"Huh?" He mumbled.
Shinobu still glared wide-eyed into Sakusa's eye in horror, until suddenly, the second the red-tipped Hashira blinked, the kanji in his iris had vanished and the familiar ruby returned, looking down at her with a dazed light in his eye.
The butterfly girl fluttered her eyes in disbelief.
What? Where.....
Where did it go?
In quite literally the blink of an eye, it had vanished. How could that be? Had Shinobu just imagined the shift in Sakusa's eye colour, casting the illusion on herself that her partner had become an Upper Moon? Was there a glow in the moonlight that made her see a false image of a kanji in his eye?
What was that, and what is Sakusa?
She'd come to find out the answer to that question soon enough.
As the boy looked down at her with a dazed ruby eye, he mumbled,
"I-Is......is that you, Kocho?"
"E-Erm, yes," Shinobu awkwardly replied, putting on a smile, "It's me, Kari-sa-
Before the butterfly girl could even finish her sentence, however, Sakusa began to sway on his feet, before he tumbled over like a tree onto his side, letting out a groan as his eye rolled back into his head.
"K-Kari-san!"
All suspicion leapt out the window the second Sakusa toppled over, with Shinobu's mind filled with worry over the redhead's condition.
The butterfly girl dropped to her knees and scrambled over to Sakusa's side, dread creeping into her heart as her eyes traveled all across the boy's body.
Shit, shit, shit, She cursed to herself, glossing over Sakusa's body, checking for any signs of wounds, internal bleeding and the like, something that would ever endanger him. Shinobu pulled Sakusa onto his back, and immediately began a physical examination to the best of her abilities.
The butterfly girl was visibly stressing as she felt along Sakusa's ribcage, feeling for anything out of place, following you his shoulders and arms, down to his hands, trying to see if there was anything that could hurt him.
H-He's hurting, he's in danger, I-I need to save him, he can't die, he won't die....
Yae stayed to the side for now, still unsure of what to make of everything, watching on as Shinobu ran away towards the boy, before the redhead fell over onto his side and the ravenette Hashira began to panic.
However, she refused to put down her rifle, clutching it tight and keeping it aimed at the Rage Hashira's neck. Yae continued to shuffle forward, though, towards the two, closing the distance between them with every slip of her foot.
Shinobu continued to panic, however, furrowing her eyebrows as she continued to look him over.
Don't die, Kari-san, I refuse to let you die out on me, n-....n-not after everything you've put me through!
All those insults about me and my sister, all those times you called my chest flat, all those times you pushed me down and yanked me right back to my feet just to shove me back down again, I'm not letting you vanish just like that!
Not.....not after you made me think of Kanae so many times!
Suddenly, her blurry vision caught a figure standing over top of her and Sakusa, one holding a gun barrel right to her partner's neck.
She glanced up and came face to face with Yae with her finger on the trigger, and suddenly, Shinobu snapped.
"Just say the word, Miss Kocho," the hunter girl declared, "I'll get this demon right-
"What the hell are you doing, you idiot?! Get that thing away from him!"
Yae flinched in shock before the barrel of her gun was swatted away by the back of the ravenette's hand, and most surprisingly of all, Shinobu then took Sakusa in her arms and pulled his head into her lap, shielding him from the hunter girl.
"Don't ever point that at him again!" Shinobu spat, "That could kill him if you're not careful!"
Yae didn't even move to speak, she could only stare with a look of astonishment at the ravenette, as well as her actions.
Shinobu took a minute in the silence between them, but when she realized what she had just done, she flushed a shade of pink and coughed awkwardly and put on her best fake smile once again.
"E-Erm, I mean your energy could be better used in checking up on Sadao and Umiki, no~?" Shinobu reasoned with a nervous chuckle.
"Uh, y-yeah, sure Miss Kocho." Yae replied, still unsure what to make of what she just experienced.
As she walked away from the duo and towards the couple lying on the courtyard, Yae thought to herself with furrowed eyebrows,
Is....she really not Mister Kari's lover? She's real protective over him, at least.....
Holding Sakusa's head in her lap as he lay unconscious became something of a pleasant feeling to her as the minutes passed.
Shinobu sat with the boy laying peacefully on her thighs, with not even a fever burning up on him.
Much to her delight, Sakusa Kari was going to be alright.
The butterfly girl watched as Yae managed to wake up Sadao, who thanked the girls for managing to save them, and for keeping his injuries to only a fractured rib and head cut.
However, he explicitly said that Yae was not to wake Umiki just yet, as when he saw the state his beloved home was in, he was certain that she would not be able to bear it, he was struggling to believe it all happened himself.
When Yae explained the situation to him, he never once thought that Sakusa was to blame, despite the damages.
"He was just as much as victim as the rest of us, and even if he was quite cruel, he was an effective ruler of the region surrounding Nagasaki, and for that I am forever thankful. I am quite sure that Umiki would feel the same way, as well."
Now, though, as everything lay calm under the moonlight glow, Sakusa was under Shinobu's care.
She has mellowed out after a little while, and apologized to Yae for her outburst, but even still, she couldn't understand why she blew up so suddenly.
She was more than capable of containing flashes of anger much more potent before she had met Sakusa,
So why did she do that, over him?
She didn't know, but some tiny part of her may have been glad she was able to do that. Because now, she was able to sit in comfort with Sakusa in her lap, with the freedom to get a good look at him once again, just as she had all those weeks ago when they first met.
He always slept on edge, as if he had one eye open at all times, but now, knocked completely unconscious, he was perfectly relaxed.
His lips lay open ever so slightly, letting out the tiniest of breaths with every exhale he let out from his lungs. His dainty nose was small and girly, it made Shinobu laugh to herself. Such an intimidating figure, Sakusa was, and yet, upon closer inspection, looking at his thin, groomed eyebrows, bright red eyes, thin lips and defined jaw, he did have quite a feminine face.
He was.....pretty.
Looking down at the boy in her lap, as time continued on, Shinobu found herself drawn towards his hair, and how soft it must be.
During his comatose, she tried to wash him, but unfortunately could only get to his hair and face before the threat of a nosebleed became all too likely.
So, her hands slowly inched towards the crimson-stained locks atop his head, before she was blessed with the privilege of feeling the softest and fluffiest thing in humankind.
Soft like a cloud, thick like a lion's mane, and as long as Kanae's hair used to be, Shinobu was utterly sucked into the feeling of his hair, squealing internally as she ran her hands through it all.
She could do this for a while, this whole 'protecting Sakusa' thing.
It was nothing like what he had done for her, which was fight off two Upper Moon-level demons for the sake of keeping her and the city safe. But, as she traced her fingertips along the boy's jawline with a gentle, genuine smile adorning her cheeks, she was sure that she could be willing to do this enough times to catch up.
Hm.....you're...not so bad, Kari-san....
It was only when the crimson-tipped boy's eye fluttered open did Shinobu finally realized what she was doing was incredibly weird for her to do.
O H S H I T -
"H-Huh?" Sakusa mumbled, squinting a bit as he woke.
The butterfly girl immediately flushed a deep shade of red and moved to shove Sakusa's head right off her lap with both hands, but just before she could, her wrists were caught and she let out a little whimper when she realized she had been caught.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Good going, Shinobu, now you just look like a total creep!
"E-Erm, I-I can explain, K-Kari-san," the butterfly girl managed to stammer out in a flustered tone, "Y-You see, you were-
"Who.....who the hell do you think you are, Kocho?"
Shinobu immediately flinched when she heard her name called in such a bitter, hoarse tone.
S-Shit, he's pissed!
"K-Kari-san, do you not remember anything about before~?" The butterfly girl chuckled nervously as a bead of sweat formed on her forehead, "Y-You fell unconscious, so I had to keep your head up so you don't choke on your own vomit if you were to throw up, you know~?"
Shinobu mentally facepalmed.
Vomit, Shinobu?! Really?! You are such an idiot!
Sakusa's eye remained squinted, however, as he muttered, "I....don't really care what excuse you have, Kocho....."
"I just want to know.....who you think you are...." he continued, slowly raising a hand from his side as he murmured.
Shinobu's embarrassment grew with every passing second, panicking internally over the less-than-professional position she had just been caught in, and most embarrassingly of all, for the second time since she's met Sakusa.
As flustered as she was, though, things only got worse for the young butterfly girl.
When Sakusa's hand fell onto Shinobu's cheek, and the drop-dead smile he flashed once again came to his cheeks, her world turned completely on its head.
"Who....gave you the right," Sakusa smiled with a familiar glimmer in his ruby eye,
"Who gave you the right, after all this time of being without you, to look so unfathomably and flawlessly beautiful, Kocho~?"
Complete silence overtook the two.
Shinobu could only stare with wide eyes down at the boy in her lap, with a furious blush on her cheeks, watching powerlessly as Sakusa's eye slowly shut, and his arm fell back down to earth, the boy slipping down into unconsciousness.
Flustered didn't even begin to describe how Shinobu Kocho and her racing heart felt.
H-He.....called me beautiful.....?
Wha-.....w-what are you even trying to pull here, y-you....y-you.....you...
Shinobu wanted to be mad so badly, to feel the urge to pull Sakusa right out of his slumber and smash him into a pile of mush and chop him up into little pieces.
She wanted to explode, to call him every slur under the sun and snap him in half like a twig to give him only a glimpse at her wrath for the crime of calling her such a name.
She wanted to be mad, she really did.
However, running her hand aimlessly through his hair as she drifted back off to sleep,
Shinobu realized she could let this slide, just this once.
Y-You......big dummy.......
Even if she was still burning red.