LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 9: Feelings
A.N: Sorry about the delay. My computer broke down and I had to bring it a shop.
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The next morning, I wake up and heard knocking as Aoi called out "Ren-san, may I come in?"
"Yeah, you can come in." I replied as the door opened and Aoi came into the room.
"Ren-san, where were you last night? I went to look for you when dinner was ready, but I couldn't find you on the roof so, I searched the whole forest behind the mansion thinking you were training like usual."
"When I couldn't find you, I got worried, so I went to Kocho sama but she told me you were asleep in your bed. Do you know how mad I was!... but you were sleeping when I got there so I decided to let you rest." Aoi said with a frown on her face.
I made a weary smile, scratch the back of my head and said "Ahahaha. Sorry, Sorry. I forgot. I won't do it again! I'll even make it up to you by cleaning the mansion today!" I clapped my hands together and waited for her answer.
"*sigh* Fine. But you are cleaning the whole mansion! Now, go get ready for breakfast." She said and leaved to what I assume is the kitchen.
"Yes ma'am!" I said and walked to the bathroom to clean myself.
After finishing my morning duties, I washed myself and headed to the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and saw Aoi cooking while Sumi-chan, Kiyo-chan and Naho-chan were running around setting up the table.
While I was standing at the entrance of the kitchen, a voice called out to me. "Ara. Good morning, Ren-san." I looked toward the voice and saw Shinobu sitting on a table with a cup of tea in her hand.
"Good morning to you too Shinobu." I greeted her and went up to the table and sat beside her.
"I like Anpan and Ramen." She said suddenly out of nowhere.
"Huh?" I let out a confused sound as I looked at her.
"My answer for last night... you know.... That." Shinobu asked quietly with a small blush.
"Oh..." I felt my cheeks became hot and turned around not having the courage to look at her face. We both sat in silence until the girls finished setting up the table and Aoi finished cooking.
Shinobu, Aoi and I sat next to each other with Sumi, Kiyo and Naho opposite to us as we said "Thanks for the food." and begin to eat.
"Wow, Aoi-san, these dishes are amazing." I complimented her with my honest thought.
"Thank you for the praise but I can't take all the credit. Lady Shinobu made some of the dishes." Aoi replied and continued eating.
"Shinobu, you can cook?" I asked surprised.
"Well, only a little."
"Kocho-sama is great at cooking!" said the three girls while eating their food.
"I used to cook in the past but nowadays I'm busy with my Hashira duties that I can't usually cook. So, I let Aoi do the cooking but today is special case."
"Can I ask why?" I asked, intrigue at her reason.
"Fufufufu, it's a secret." Shinobu replied with a smile that made my heart throb.
We continued having breakfast and after we finished, Shinobu left but not before she told me to come to the roof again tonight. I helped Aoi clean the dishes and went off to clean the mansion after asking her for supplies.
(I've already sent a message to Rengoku-san that I've finished recovering, I need to wait for him arrive here. But for now, it's cleaning time.)
I started cleaning the mansion and finished late in the afternoon. After cleaning the whole mansion, I lie down on the floor near a window and looked at the clouds passing by.
After falling asleep I woke up as I felt my body shaking. I opened my eyes and saw Sumi-chan trying to wake me up.
"*yawn* What is it Sumi-chan?" I asked feeling drowsy after waking up.
"Ren-san, I heard from the Kasugai Crows that your new katana is coming. I was going to the back to hang the laundry when I saw you asleep and wanted to let you know about that."
"Oh, Thanks Sumi-chan." I said after fulling waking up.
"You're welcome. See you later Ren-san." She bowed and ran across the hallway.
I walked out of the mansion and as soon as I saw Haganezuka in the distance, I readied myself knowing what was coming. As I expected, the moment he saw me, he carefully put his hat and a bag on the ground and he ran toward me with a sword gripped tightly in his hand, and I can hear him screaming "Damn you! Damn you! I'll Kill You!"
However, just before he could stab me, I sidestepped from the blade path, tripped him with my foot and elbowed him at his neck with enough force to knock him out.
BAM
"Whew, that should do it. Now, let's go find some rope to tie him up." I went back into the mansion after going over to carry Haganezuka's hat and my new sword onto an engawa.
After that, I asked Kiyo-chan for some rope strong enough to hang a man and tied Haganezuka onto a tree in the courtyard and asked Naho-chan to buy some mitarashi dango to calm him down when he wakes up.
I unsheathed my new Katana, and it changed its colour into a blue hue on the edges with a yellow thunder bolt across it but the yellow is brighter than last time.
(So, no changes in blue but a brighter yellow huh? Oh well, guess I'll just have to train more using water breathing. *yawn* My muscles are a little sore from sleeping, let's warm my body up.) I went into the courtyard and began my training.
After a while, Haganezuka woke up and started struggling while shouting "I'll kill you!" very loudly. So, I fed him some mitarashi dango and he calm downed after eating them.
I untied him form the tree and with a smile and said, "Sorry about that but if a man holding a knife come at me while screaming "I'll kill you!" the normal response for me is to try to incapacitate him."
(For someone I know that is. If he is a person that I don't know, his head would be rolling on the ground. Now, to defuse the situation...)
"But I can say that your craftmanship is improving day by day because the sword this time is better than the last one." I gave him a thump up.
He stared silently at me before "Hahahaha, of course the quality of this katana if better than the last one because I used.... and then.... that's how...." Haganezuka-san continued talking about sword until evening when it was time for him to return.
(From the time explained the quality of his swords, I zoned out until he finished. Wow, that must be a new record for me, I never zoned out this long even at school. Anyway, let's go test my new sword.)
I went into the forest at the back of the butterfly mansion but not before telling Aoi that I won't be having dinner.
I arrived near a big tree and imagined myself battling against me. We both draw our swords at the same time, and he slashes my legs. I jumped over him landed behind him, but he used spins around using the blade momentum.
Just when the blade was about to hit me, I did a back flip over the blade and tried to strike him with my katana but when he saw me jumped over the blade, he let go of the katana in his right hand and catches it with his left hand and shielded himself from my strike.
Clang
He blocked my strike but got a cut on of wrist. I landed on the ground, he followed with a kick to my stomach. *Bam* *cough* I got kicked with enough force to send me flying toward a tree behind me.
He follows after me and swings at me with his katana but I blocked it with mine. *Clang* We broke off and started using breathing techniques against each other.
Fuuuuu
He used Water Breathing Fourth Form: Striking Tide to cut me down but I used Water Breathing Third Form: Flowing Dance to maneuver around his strikes.
After a while, he uses my favorite move Water Breathing Sixth Form: Whirlpool to cut me but I quickly used Seventh Form: Drop Ripple Thrust to stab him between the gap of the whirlpool.
I opened my eyes to reality where I saw my sword stab into a large tree trunk.
"I think that might be enough."(Now, let's go get clean before going to meet with her.)
At Night, I climbed up the roof to see Shinobu and found her sitting while gazing at the stars lost in thoughts. I went up, sat beside her and waved a hand in front of her. Shinobu finally came out of her thoughts and said, "Ren! Sorry, I didn't see you there. I was lost in my own thoughts."
"It's fine, So, what were you thinking if you don't mind me asking?"
"It's nothing, just random thoughts that comes into my head." Shinobu said while shaking her head.
"But enough about that, I called you up here because I wanted to ask about the demon slayer anime." says Shinobu while patting the roof tile beside her.
I sat beside her and began telling her the story, "Demon slayer tells a story about a boy named Tanjiro and his demon turned sister Nezuko..." I finished telling her about the demon slayer manga till finished.
"I see, I died at the end." Shinobu became quiet, and she started holding my hand.
"But now that I'm here, I'm not sure about how but I won't let anyone, especially you, die." I say with a serious voice and look into her eyes. When I finally notice her action, I tried to let go but she was holding my hands very firmly.
"Um, Shinobu? can you let go of my hand?" I said but she didn't let go.
"Do you not like holding... hands with me?"
I looked up at the night sky and said, "*sigh* It's not that I don't want to hold your hand, but I won't be able to forgive myself if I don't keep my oath of defeating you and winning."
"Is it because I'm a girl?" Shinobu said with her voice raised.
"It has nothing to do with gender, but... I at least want to be strong enough to protect someone I care about. Beside I'm quite possessive you know." I said trying to scare her off. But I didn't expect Shinobu to get up from beside me and position herself on top of my lap and she replied in a chilling voice.
"I don't mind. I'm quite possessive myself but... I respect your wishes. But at least holding hands is fine right?" said Shinobu as she leans her head on my shoulder and whispered into my ears.
"*shivers* yeah... hand holding is fine." I say not being able to (and not wanting to) deny her advances and we stayed like that for a while.
"Hey Ren?" asked Shinobu while still leaning on me.
"Yeah?"
"If we can be together only when we've battle each other then, do you want to fight right now?"
"Shinobu if you're planning on going easy..."
"I'm not. Let's battle with all we've got and decide right now and if I win, I want you to be MINE. And before you refuse, remember you owe me a favor from last time." Shinobu said with a dangerously low voice and empty eyes.
I smirk and says "You are wrong about two things. First, who said I was going to refuse and second, you are the one that's going to be MINE."
"Fufufufufu, we'll see." Shinobu says and got off my lap. We decided to go in the forest behind the mansion to not disturb the rest of the girls sleeping.
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Shinobu POV
My name is A***** or at least it used to be in my previous life. I'm just a normal girl with possible mother issues. My parents were always fighting with each other and got divorced when I was 10.
I grew up with my mom who was a horrible human being! She always demanded me to have top grades in my class at medical school, never even said a good job and when I get less than 1st at school, she beat me for hours, after that she would usually leave me alone and doesn't feed me for days.
Before my father left, he gave me a phone to remind me of him. I hid the phone from her and in those times, I watched animes and TV-shows as a source of entertainments and joy.
At the beginning, I cried for hours alone in the dark, but I numb to it after 20 times. Deep in my heart, I wanted to KILL her! And I thought about doing it multiple time, but I was worried. Not of my mother but for myself and my future. So, I endured constant abuse of my mother and one day when I was 22 years old, I just couldn't hold it in anymore and KILLED her.
After that, I killed myself and when I woke up, I was reborn in this world. The first thing I saw when I woke up was my new parents and my sister crying tear of joys. After that I slowly learned Japanese as I grew up and to be honest, I didn't feel much care for my new family, but I played along as a normal girl.
But I regretted my decision of not realizing their love when a demon showed up, I realized that my new family in this life truly cared for me when my new parents didn't try to run but the first thing they did was to shield us when the demon attacked. I saw their blood and at that moment something inside me broke again and I blacked out.
When I woke up to my sister hugged me tightly and started crying. I hugged her back while crying and I vowed to protect my only family member left. I abandoned my old name and took the name my parents in this life gave me to remember them.
After letting me out of her embrace, my sister said that a demon slayer named Himejima-san saved us. When I found out about demons and demon slayers, I was excited about have the power to defend myself and to protect someone I cared about.
We both trained hard to become demon slayers but because of my short built I wasn't strong enough to decapitate a demon so, I tried to use my knowledge from my last life as a medical student and decided to use poison against demons.
At some point my sister killed a lower moon and became the Flower Hashira. One day my sister and I were travelling across a village, we saw a girl being drag by a man holding a rope.
This scene reminded me of my past and I wanted to protect this girl. I asked my sister if we can take her and after that took her from the man and bathed her, dressed her and named her Kanao.
After her we took in four more girls named Aoi, Sumi, Naho and Kiyo. We were like a big family but on one mission both of my sisters were killed. My sister Kanae told me before she died that their killer was an upper ranked demon with two fans and a blood stain on his head.
In my last life no one ever loved nor care for me and in this life when I had people who cared for me, they were all KILLED! my parents, my sister and even my adopted sister were all KILLED!
In this life when our parents got killed, I was sad, but I still had my sister, so I stayed strong for her and started learning how to sew and cook from my sister to cheer her up. But after my sisters got killed, I shut myself off from people completely and focus only on training myself and hunting down THE demon who killed my sisters.
I rarely interact with my fallow Hashiras and distanced myself from the girls at the mansion and decided to act more like my sister and wear her haori to remember her. I spend years looking for that demon, but I couldn't find him. I started getting frustrated that I couldn't find that demon and I couldn't sleep peacefully at night with constant nightmares.
I met Ren when I was returning from a successful mission of killing a demon. I notice a noise coming from the top trees and suddenly a figure jumped at me when I notice him wielding a katana.
When I asked him why he attacked me, he answered that I looked like a demon. That ticked me off so, I decided to teach him a lesson but to my surprise, he managed to cut a piece of my sister's haori.
Which normally would've made me anger and killed him BUT the thing that caught my attention was that he challenged me and if he wins, he asked me out on a... a date.
He asked ME on a date. In my last life and even this life, I never had a boyfriend nor a romantic pursuer.
I won in our battle, but he swore that he'll defeat me and go on a date with me. I thought about his proposal but everyone I care for will die sooner or later so, as a defense mechanism I tried to forget about him, telling myself that he'll die if he gets close to me but after one month or so, he managed to defeat a lower rank demon!
I went to kill the demon with Giyu-san to Mt Natagumo as an order by Oyakata-sama. We spread out on the mountain to search him, and I found him first. My thoughts at the time were that he would be at least lose a limb and at worst die, but he managed to defeat a lower moon with only a sprain ankle and a few cuts on his back and face.
After he was taken away by a Kakushi, I found his red coat torn apart so I took it back with me to sew it at a later date.
I took care of him while he was injured, and one day when I went out in the courtyard, I heard him singing 'Fly me to the moon' one of my favorite songs in English. I went up to him and asked if he was a reincarnator when he attacked me, I could dodge it, but I let him hit me to see what he was going to do.
He tackled me and we went rolling on the roof. He grabbed me on the throat and locked our legs together. He asked me "Who are am and what did you do with Shinobu" which means he knows that I am a reincarnator and is a reincarnator himself.
I replied to him the truth that I've always been Shinobu and told him my backstory with a few information left out here and there and controlled my heart beats with my breathing technique so he can't detect any lie. But I didn't know what came over me, when I finished telling my story, all my bottled-up emotions come pouring out in front of him.
He pulled me into an embrace which made me felt safe and warm and I cried while leaning into his chest. After I cried, I asked him about his life before this one.
When he talks about his past, I felt similarity in our past, but his mother in his last life at least cared for him. He talked about a movie that gave him hope, I listened to him talking and he said a fact that surprised me. He said he would even kill a child if he/she try to kill him.
That moment I felt that same feeling that I felt when I first saw him. I responded to him mocking himself over that with an answer that came from my heart.
"Not at all... Believe it or not, Even I won't hesitate to kill a child either if he/she is trying to kill me."
I was afraid that he would become scared of me after remark, but he didn't get scared of me nor called me a psychopath and continued talking.
He said he died because of a grenade and a R.O.B gave him 5 wishes. When I asked him what his wishes were, but he said they were a secret. Clever Boy, If I was asked this question, I wouldn't have said anything either.
We talked about anime and what we liked until I asked him about this world. He asked how I didn't know about this world and then he asked me which year I died.
I answered that I died in 2018 and he said that he died in 2022. It surprised me that we are 4 years apart but that means he knows information that I don't. I asked him about the state of the world out of my curiosity and He told me the world has gone to shit.
He changed the subject he asked me what I would like on a date and that he still has feelings for me when I revealed the truth. If his feelings were this easy to remove, then he wouldn't call himself a man. That was really cheesy, but he looked kind of cool.
After that he got embarrassed and tried to leave the roof. It was quite cute. After he left, I stayed on the roof to determine how I feels about him but every time I think about him, my heart gets warm and fuzzy inside.
(Is this...love?) I questioned myself. After a while, I reached a decision for this question. (I don't know if this is love or not, but I'll show him my true self slowly and if he responds positively than... I'll accept his feelings.)
After I came back down from the roof, I saw Aoi who was out of breath coming toward me with a worried expression. She said "Kocho-sama! I can't find Ren!"
"Ren is in his room sleeping. Have you checked there?"
"His room sleeping but he said... *tch* that little..."Aoi said with a vein on her forehead.
"Excuse me Kocho-sama." She said and headed to the direction of his room.
I don't know if it's because I cried or not, but I slept really well that night.
Tomorrow morning, I wake up feeling good and decided to cook breakfast. I went into the kitchen after cleaning myself up and saw Aoi cooking.
"Kocho-sama? What are you doing here."
"Isn't it obvious, I'm going to cook breakfast."
"Huh? Is today special or..."
"Don't worry about it. Now, hand me those pots please."
I cooked a couple of dishes, and when he arrived, I replied to the question he asked me last night by telling him my favorite food. We ate together at the table, and he complimented my cooking which made me feel happy inside. After that I spend the rest of the day watching him from a distance that he can't detect.
At night, I went onto the roof and thought about our time together while waiting for him. I finally noticed him when he called out to me, and I asked him about demon slayer anime.
He talked about the storyline, and I found out that I or at least the original Shinobu died in the battle against my sister's killer, but that demon also died. But he said that he won't let anyone especially me die while looking into my eyes. I don't know why but his words made me feel safe.
I started holding his hands and he asked me to let go so I asked if he didn't like holding hands with me. He replied, "It's not that I don't like it, but I won't be able to forgive myself if I don't keep my oath of defeating you and winning."
I asked if that was because I'm a girl feeling offended, but his reply caught me off guard. He said that he said that it had nothing to do with gender, but he at least wants to protect someone he cares about and that he quite possessive.
I replied to his words by deciding to show my true self a little bit. I got onto his lap and said "I don't mind. I'm quite possessive myself but... I respect your wishes. But at least holding hands is fine right?" while leaning on him.
He responded positively and we stayed like that for a while. (If there's only one way for us to be together then let's do it. Let's decide if I can put my trust in him by battling him against all I've got!)
I suggested that we battle right now to him and that if I win, I want him to be Mine. (If I win than I won't let him out of my sight and protect him but if he wins, I'll let him go around as he please without following him.)
He replied to my suggestion with a grin and said that I was the one who was going to be his. It made me feels a warm fuzzy feeling and he looked really cool. So, I replied to him with a smile "Fufufufufu, we'll see."