[center][color=red][sup][h1][b]Jae-eun Yoshihide[/b][/h1][/sup][/color][img]https://i.imgur.com/tirnYfj.png[/img]

[b][sup][color=red]Location:[/color][color=white] Torigaya Onsen[/color]
[color=red]Mentions:[/color] [@Dane][@Haha][@Arminwraith][@Randomguy][/sup][/b][/center][hr]Of course. Just when things couldn't possibly get any more complicated, they did.

For a single, precious moment, Jae-eun felt the tension in his shoulders ease. Keodis had paused. The negotiation had worked—or at least delayed the inevitable. A small victory, but in a night like this, he'd take what he could get. His smile remained fixed, pleasant, as if he hadn't just talked down a demon with a six-foot nodachi from storming an onsen full of his juniors.

[color=red][i]Thank god for small mercies,"[/i][/color] he thought, the relief flooding through him like cool water.

And then the world seemed to warp.

A sound that wasn't quite a sound. A displacement of air. A subtle pop of pressure, like reality folding in on itself. His eye widened fractionally. Inside the onsen, where Guen had been moments ago—where her suffocating bloodlust had been radiating like a winter storm—there was now nothing. No heartbeat. No breathing. No presence at all. Gone. Not faded, not suppressed, but completely and utterly gone, as if she'd been plucked from existence. A spatial Blood Demon Art. Jae-eun had heard of them, but never encountered one. He didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified.

[color=red]
[i]"Of course she was,"[/i][/color] Jae-eun thought, his internal voice dripping with exhaustion. [color=red][i]"Because tonight couldn't just be simple. Someone had to intervene. Someone had to—"[/i][/color]

[b]Crack.[/b]

The sound was distant, but his enhanced hearing snatched it from the night air with horrifying clarity. A gunshot. Unmistakably. It came from within the district. The sound was unmistakable. Tenko, her custom firearm that Jae-eun thought was archaic and undignified for a Demon Slayer. Call him old fashioned, call him an old man, but there was something satisfying about the feel of steel parting flesh and bone. 

[color=red]"Tenko-chan,"[/color] he breathed. Dread, cold and visceral, crashed over him like a tidal wave. His pleasant mask slipped for half a second—just long enough for his expression to go blank, his eye wide and unblinking. Tenko had fired her weapon. Why? At what? Was she hurt? Was someone attacking her? Was she? [color=red][i]"I should be with her,"[/i] [/color]is internal voice cracking with frustration. [color=red][i]"I should be protecting them. That's my job. That's what a Hashira does. That's what—"[/i][/color]

Then, a new wave of pressure rolled out from the onsen, but this one was different from Guen's. It wasn't the icy malice of a grieving killer. It was hot, furious, and ancient. The proprietress, Muragarasu. The proprietress. The demon who ran this place with a veneer of hospitality and carefully restrained power. That veneer was cracking. No—it was shattering. Her anger was a palpable force, a promise of retribution. The edict went out like a silent scream: no nichirin swords. A declaration of war against the Corps itself, or at least a severing of ties. The woman whose territory they had so thoroughly disrupted was now an enemy. The woman he had jokingly invited out for a drink despite this night's craziness.

Then, another sound. Paws on stone. Heavy, deliberate. The low rumble of a growl. A massive wolf, a creature that shouldn't exist, leaped from the building, a ghost from a bygone era carrying a vendetta. Jae-eun watched it go, his mind racing. He'd heard stories about the Onsen proprietress. About her network, her influence, her demons. And now her wolf was here, glowing and angry, and Jae-eun could feel the shift in the air like a storm front rolling in. Muragarasu was sending her familiar somewhere. To a kindred spirit? To enact her revenge? He didn't know. He didn't care.

He was tired. So profoundly, bone-deeply tired of this night. Tired of rogue Hashira and vengeful demons and political maneuvering. Tired of being the calm, smiling center of a hurricane of other people's problems. His own grief, the ever-present weight of his sister's memory, felt like a distant hum beneath the blaring sirens of the immediate chaos. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He wanted to sit down on the cold pavement and just stop. Stop smiling. Stop negotiating. Stop pretending he had any control over the chaos spiraling around him.

[color=red]"Whatt a terrible evening."[/color] he murmured aloud, his voice still light, still pleasant, but edged with something brittle. [color=red]"Really, truly, what a night."[/color] Guen was gone. Tenko might be hurt. Muragarasu had just declared Nichirin wielders persona non grata in her territory. And somewhere, in the back of his mind, Jae-eun could feel the scarlet ore dust in his bloodstream starting to burn, a reminder that even his own body was a ticking time bomb.

[color=red]
[i]"Stupid,"[/i][/color] he thought.[color=red] [i]"So, so stupid."[/i][/color]

[color=red]"I really just wanted a drink."[/color] he said, and for once, his tone was completely, utterly sincere.