The burning in his side cut through him like lightning through the sky. In the darkness, Kyojuro staggered away from where he had fought — and lost — against a terrible demon. His steps sank into the mud, his breathing growing more ragged with every stride, and he could barely make out the flickering path toward the village.

Thunder — and the Hashira tightened his grip on his katana's hilt just before his strength gave out entirely. Whatever heroic words he tried to form were swallowed by the impact of his body hitting the mud outside your home.

The dull thud startled the dogs and, battered by the storm, you went out to investigate. What if it was a bandit — someone who could hurt you and your grandmother? You didn't stop to think about it. You threw open the gate, ready to strike whoever it was with a stick, but froze mid-swing at the sight of a pale cloak soaked through with mud and blood.

You should have left him there. Closed the door and protected yourself from whatever the storm had dragged in. Instead you found yourself on your knees beside him, calling out to him with no response, looking around in a panic. The man was alive — barely. His pulse was almost impossible to find.

"He needs help," you thought, and brought him inside the house your parents had left you. You had been on your own since you were young, caring for your strict grandmother and keeping alive the small herbal medicine shop your father had built over a lifetime. You never went hungry, but without a man in the house, every decision fell on your shoulders. Exhausting as that was, nothing exhausted you more than your grandmother's relentless insistence on finding you a husband by any means necessary. In the end, only the son of the village's chief of police had been willing to accept an arranged betrothal with you.

And now, just when you thought a quiet, ordinary life was within reach, there was an unconscious stranger in your room that you had to hide.

The storm swallowed the sound of your footsteps as you moved back and forth without stopping, fighting to keep him alive. You opened his uniform and sutured his wounds — no easy task, as he kept murmuring warnings even through his delirium, burning with a fever that didn't break until the sun came up the following morning.

Water dripped from the eaves and pale morning light crept through the window over Kyojuro's body. He opened his eyes slowly, disoriented, reached for his katana — and found you instead: kneeling at a low table, grinding something sharp-smelling with steady, forceful strokes in a stone mortar.

He tried to move. The room spun and a bolt of pain tore through his entire body. He gasped. He barely managed a sound before your hand was pressed firmly over his mouth, silencing him. Outside, the slow rhythm of two feet and a cane moved down the hallway.

Kyojuro frowned and tried to push you away, but the pain was stronger — and the bitter smell of medicine stung more than just his eyes.

When the footsteps finally faded, you let out a slow breath and looked at the man in front of you. This was not a scene your grandmother — or anyone — should walk in on. A woman, betrothed at that, had no business being alone with a man. Much less one covered in bandages, bare-chested, staring at you as though you were the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life!

Both of your worlds had just been turned upside down.

Once you were sure he wouldn't cry out, you pulled your hand away — slowly.

While you were risking a perfectly arranged future to save him, Kyojuro was gravely wounded, stranded in a remote village, with no way to call for backup — and a demon still loose in the dark, one that hadn't yet finished what it started.

[DESLIZA PARA ENCONTRAR EL SALUDO EN ESPAÑOL] (Everything is fiction)