stolen time

Ch72 horrible situation

His words struck her like a punch, cracking her disguise as she lost control from shock. Ayame violently turned around with an expression of horror, the colour on her pale face drained making her look ghostly as zenitsu's bright smile played in her memory.

"W-what? But he was just there with us in the lobby yesterday"

"Indeed he was but uzui stopped receiving letters from him, and he never showed up at the meeting spot, uzui has ordered the other two boys to head back and has deemed whoever stopped replying as dead"

she cupped her mouth shut feeling a sense of guilt wash over her like a strangling hand, wondering why she hadn't said anything before, why had she kept her mouth shut about warabahime being a upper moon ultimately leading to zenitsu's disappearance.

In the heat of the moment and with a boiling rage and worry inside her, her feet were already carrying her out of the room with her bare undisguised face, kyojuro's eyes turned down beside him noticing what ayame was about to do his hand immediately snapped towards her arm pulling her back in the room shutting the shoji.

"Kyojuro let me go! I have to go look for him, it was my fault I didn't say something sooner"

She yelled struggling to escape from his iron grip around her body, her aura started to build up as her mind filled with thoughts of death resulting in her negligence, panicking she was about to explode, ignorant of Kyojuro's constant calls trying to calm her down.

He caught sight of her bell stuffed within her sash, releasing an arm around ayame he struggled to contain her, with a frown he dug out the bell ringing it beside her ear. Her eyes shot open and her mind went blank into a dead calm, sliding down to the ground her eyes slowly narrowed regaining her composure.

"Ayame... it wasn't your fault no one anticipated this, I'm sure young agatsuma and uzui's wives are still alive, once the sun sets we'll start making our move to save them, but for now we'll continue with what we've been doing while looking out for any signs of them, uzui's familiars will deliver our weapons when the time comes"

Ayame stayed silent a chilling silence like a sleeping beast in waiting, she took in a deep breath and changed her appearance once more. She looked back towards kyojuro with a dejected smile.

"You're right, sorry for loosing my composure"

She said holding out a hand, kyojuro smiled back as he returned her bell dropping it in her hands and so they waited for the countdown of time to bring the night where blood will be spilled in this town.

*******

The sky became dark and the time was here ayame could hear the demon running rampant in the town, she wanted to quickly receive her weapon and join the battle, but a slight inconvenience occurred when the only thing the mice brought her was the yukata she was wearing the day they left to the wisteria estate. Realizing that tengen failed to grab her weapon when he practically kidnapped her from the butterfly estate.

With an irritated smile she bolted out her room, without an effective weapon she was rendered to being a support as horrible as the situation was. She arrived at kyojuro's room sliding open the shoji she was bewildered to see two mice standing in the middle of the room with his belongings.

"Where's kyojuro? Where could he have gone off to without his sword and uniform?"

The mice shrugged, ayame tried to locate kyojuro with the spell she placed on a ribbon she gave him only to realize it wasn't with him as it traced back to under his uniform that the mice were holding.

With a frown she quickly grabbed his katana and uniform realizing that something may have happened to him, "nothing is going right today" she thought running through room to room like a wind, bumping into Inosuke along the way as he was digging into the wooden floor.

"Inosuke! What're you doing?"

"I'm trying to make way to the demon under here gah!!"

He said digging with smoke erupting from his mask.

"I'll help you but I need you to help me locate kyojuro he went missing as well"

"Tsk isn't that guy a hashira?!? What kind of strong person let's themselves get captured!"

"Inosuke please"

He scoffed plunging both of his blades besides him he went silent.

"Breath of the beast seventh fang spatial awareness"

"He's at the top floor, now help me make a hole woman!"

"Thank you Inosuke"

She said with a smile walking up to the hole he had already made she closed her eyes.

"Kekijutsu ashen eye"

Blood trickled down her cheeks and once she opened them a powerful blast cut through the ground exposing a tunnel with sashes hanging like a spiders web, Inosuke immediately jumped in while ayame headed upstairs with a blurry vision.

She made it to the end of the hall rubbing her squinted eyes with the palm of her hand she slid open the fusama and there kyojuro sat, his hair disheveled with what seemed as daki's demon art binding him.

"Kyojuro! What on earth happened"

Ayame gasped hurriedly walking to him, she knelt down unsheathing his katana she carefully hacked at the sash.

"Unfortunately I wasn't careful enough, because it was daytime I didn't expect the demon to make a move, so when I bumped into her while investigating without a weapon I was captured, but never mind that what happened to your eyes"

"It's a demon art, they'll regenerate in a few minutes, once I free you I'll go help evacuate the people, tengen san forgot my weapon back at the wisteria estate somewhere so I won't be of much help"

She quickly explained while freeing him from the sashes, once ayame successfully freed him she returned his sword and jumped out the window where uzui's two wives were already helping with the evacuation. She landed down in between the two startling them as they went into a defensive position holding two kunais.

"Calm down, I'm tengens subordinate I'm here to help"

Once she said that with her hands held up high, their expressions lightened up into a relieved smile.

"I see I'm makio I'm assuming you're ayame? Thank you but we much prefer you go help with fighting the demon we'll do just fine ourselves"