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A kasugai crow flies, and does not stop.
Her black form speeds across the night sky, silent and swift and sombre.
This is the last order, the last duty her master has given her, and so she will not falter, even as her soul fractures around the edges as she knows that she left too soon to save him and if she had flown just a little earlier-
But it is her master’s last order, her master's last wishes, and so she does not defy.
Her job, this time, is simple, far simpler than it usually is. No demons to dodge, no slayers to warn.
Merely messages to deliver, to the safety of the Hashiras’ estates and their skill.
No heavy nichirin swords to carry, to bring to swordsmiths and slayers that slow her flight.
Merely letters, a stack to be sure, but for a kasugai crow, they, by all measure ought to be as light as one of her down feathers.
But they weigh her down, and though her flight is as quick and as effortless as ever, her mind feels like it's wading through a waterfall, too slow and stuck in the past.
She thinks of her master’s smile when he gave her the duty, teary eyed but genuine, with an odd sort of tenderness she will never see again, because she will never see him again.
She knows, because she has always perched on the same branch outside her master’s estate, high enough that not even the Hashiras could sense her.
She knows, because neither could the Uppermoon. The Uppermoon who walked into the Fog Estate, into her territory like he owned it, who made her master curl into a shivering ball after his departure.
She had revealed herself, after that, comforted her master. He ordered her never to tell another soul of her presence, much to her displeasure. She obeyed his order, all the same.
She never revealed herself afterwards, not even when her master truly lost his temper for the first time in years, not even when he was himself for once and not someone else.
Someone better than him, he had confided in her one sunrise, when the household was asleep and the world was coming to peace, if only for a bit.
Better than him, she scoffs. Knowing exactly who he was talking about now, she is derisive of that sentiment. Her master, as far as she is concerned, is the best. Against that scum, there isn’t even a contest.
Upper Five, she recites in her mind, ready to spill everything she knows to the Master as soon as her duties are fulfilled. Upper Five.
Her master’s twin brother.
Her mind wanders, as she flies.
She wonders, for him to be an Uppermoon at just eighteen, just eight years after being turned, just how prodigious would he have been as a slayer?
How prodigious would her master be, without the memories and grief weighing him down, slowing his feet and dulling his blade?
How much happier would he be?
She wonders, and she does not know the answer.
She would like to think that her master is as happy as he can be, that this is the world that he is happiest, with all that she has done for him. But try as she might, she simply is not that selfish.
She is not that selfish, and so she hopes, fiercely, until her little chest hurts with an intense ache, that in some other world, in any other world, that her master can be happy with both his families.
She hopes that this is the only world where her master has to suffer so.
She lands on the Swamp Hashira’s windowsill. Her beak reaches down to release a letter from the bundle tied around her leg. Ignoring Sansui’s confused questions, she takes off with a great beat of her wings, and takes off to the next estate.
She can hear a frantic order, and soon the tell-tale wingbeats of Sansui’s own crow follow behind her, but their paths diverge as Kazumi lifts higher, and swoops towards the Master’s estate.
Kazumi sends an acknowledging caw at her that she returns.
She continues on.
The wind is louder than it has ever been, and her feathers almost feel like falling off as she angles herself into a perfect dive into the Wolf Hashira’s estate.
A random kakushi catches her and takes her message, runs into the estate.
She takes off once more. It is dusk, the moon high up in the sky. The prime time for demons, and it is a miracle that even just Sansui isn’t out on a mission.
Her master will be dead by now. Dead, or a demon.
But in the face of everything, he had told her, stroking her head as he wrote the letters she carries now, being dead is the preferable option.
She cannot agree with him. She wishes she could, but she simply cannot.
If her master becomes a demon, he can live. And for as long as he lives, he has a chance to escape that man’s control. For as long as he does that, then he can live. Properly, this time, without risking his life every night and risking leaving others behind.
He can live.
She is selfish, she knows, her heart a shrivelled shrunken husk that holds no affection for anyone other than her master and his kin.
So she will be selfish for her selfless master, who spends his mornings pacing and praying for those he failed to save, for those that he was late for when the late message and late arrival could only ever be her fault.
She will be selfish for her foolish master, who drinks scalding tea and trains until he collapses after those terrible mornings, when she does not stop him.
It never occured to her that she could. Because that was his wish and so she would obey.
She will obey.
But for once, her path of action is clear.
For once, she breaks his order.
She skips the other estates, flying straight to the Master’s.
She enters through a window and lands on his dinner table. The Master startles, but she does not care.
Kazumi will have delivered the message Sansui has asked of her, she knows. Kazumi is the swiftest crow she knows, and so she will have, so she spills her selfish little heart out and cries.
Ginko cries, for the future, for regrets, and for her master.
Tokito Yuichiro will be dead by now, and in light of that, nothing else matters.