"Kaw! Kaw"
"Hmmn…" Kanae woke up groggily when she heard a familiar sound.
She looked around and find herself hugging Shin in the bed.
"What was I doing?... Ah!"
'I was catching up with Shin. We got a bit emotional. He brought me into his embrace and midway while cuddling, I fell asleep without noticing.'
She recalled her memories of what happened earlier.
"Hmm… Hehehe ~" Kanae looked at Shin's face and giggled.
'Even after reincarnating in a new world, it hasn't changed that whenever he sleeps, he still had that indifferent look. And Oh god! he's cute ~ ❤ '
Kanae had been basking on this sight since early morning but still couldn't get enough of it.
Looking at Shin's figure, he was unconsciously emitting a cold pressure while asleep.
'It never fails to amaze me.'
Normally, people in general sleep while having a peaceful expression on their faces.
Shin, however, was different.
Not only his face was looking firm, but observing him, he was as if staying sharp and fully guarded.
However, Kanae knew otherwise.
'That's just how he is…'
Contrary to what he was showing, Shin is in a deep sleep. No one could wake him up if he was like this unless something of a very hostile nature was directed towards him or coming from a 50-meter radius around him.
"Krrr… Krrr." Then she heard that sound again.
This time it was clear that it was coming from a bird — kawing.
Kanae moved her head to find where that sound was coming from.
A moment later, she found a black crow, near the door entrance, standing on the floor. Behind it, was a hole that could fit its size inside.
It was a traditional Japanese door, so it was made of soft materials such as the paper screen. And that was where the hole was made.
Kanae knew what this creature was.
"MS crow?"
It is a short terminology of 'Message crow Kanae had thought of.
It was a courier used by the Demon Slayer that carries out messages. It was somewhat of a way to communicate.
There could only be two particular senders of this crow.
These are:
HQ — A crow that carries out the HQ's command and disseminates it among the members.
The second one is called Personal Dial.
Every member of the Demon Slayer owns one. They used it to communicate personally and send some reports back to HQ.
All couriers have the perfect, identical look.
However, there is a difference that could differentiate which is which.
And they can be recognized by some specific details attached to their body.
HQ-crow has a white paper with an eyeball drawn in it, attached to their head.
Meanwhile, Personal-crows have a yellow paper with some codes written, tied on their hind legs.
This paper is not just any normal paper, but rather, a functional talisman. It can record sound frequency, and the message is transmitted with the help of the crow vocalizing it.
It may sound easy, but it is not as simple as it seems.
Kanae looked at the crow from a distance and concluded that it was a Personal-crow, as she found out there was a yellow paper on its legs.
"Whose is this?"
Kanae came near the crow and look at the code written on the paper.
*[□ - 16]*
"Box hyphen sixteen?" Kanae read it aloud.
"Bob?"
The code, basically, was an ID number, that allowed Kanae to recognize the identity of whom this crow belongs to.
Bob was the slayer under the stone pillar which accompanied Kanae on this mission.
"What's going on?" She asked curiously, no one in particular.
"I've sent Bob and the rest who accompanied me on this mission 2 weeks ago…"
Kanae had a thoughtful expression.
Kanae was expecting a message coming from HQ, not from Bob. She had, after all, sent her crow with them to report that it was a failed mission.
"..." Kanae was curious that the timing is off.
Yes, Bob and Kanae communicated like this since then.
'As far as I can remember, Bob wouldn't bother to use this type of communication if we weren't on an ongoing mission.'
To tell you something about Bob, well, in short, he was a hard-core believer of the demon slayers.
Bob treated MS crows as something divine. He would only use Ms-crows if it is of great relevance.
He wouldn't casually use it and more importantly if not for the benefit of a mission from the Demon Slayers.
In conclusion, something is happening.
And something about this made Kanae feel unsettled.
'What's going on?' Kanae once again questioned.
"Kaw! Kaw!" Kanae heard the crow resound again.
She couldn't understand what the crow was saying.
She look for her demon slayer uniform and took a green talisman in its pocket.
Kanae then went back near the crow.
Holding the talisman, she said:
"Decode Bob's message, Box hyphen sixteen."
Then something happened.
What previously was an uncomprehensive sound made by the crow, changed.
{"Escape from the village!"}
{"Escape from the village!"}
Kanae heard Bob's desperate voice.
What Kanae did was, use a specific talisman to decode the message.
Demon Slayer uses this extra precaution to establish information security.
This is a countermeasure to prevent any 3rd parties from accessing the information that demon slayers are passing.
These crows aren't uncapturable after all.
They are putting disguise tools such as an obscuring talisman on the crow. Only members of the demon slayer would be able to see it.
But who knows what will happen?
So having coded communication is reasonable to protect any information from leaking.
"… Why?" Kanae was confused. She was sure that there were no signs of any demons in this village.
However, Kanae didn't linger thinking about it for long as she realized what was going on.
The message was telling her to run away and escape from this place because of something.
But it was also clear from the message that Bob needs some help.
It was a distress message asking for rescue — Kanae interpreted it that way.
It came from Bob, one of the men who had helped her train in the past as her punching bags. Kanae was someone who values camaraderie and so she will help a friend in need.
"I'll go and check it out."
Kanae with haste went to the cabinet, took her uniform, and wore it.
She got her sword that was hidden behind some article of clothing from the cabinet and strapped it on her waist.
She wore white tight socks and sandals similar to ninjas.
Lastly, she put her trademark Haori, which has butterfly wing webs printed on the back, ready to go.
She did this work in just a mere 30 seconds.
They were trained to be as snappy as possible like how soldiers were. She was quite fast when changing but she couldn't beat her sister from it who has the fastest record of about 20 seconds to do all these things.
Kanae then was about to take the next step to go out of the room but stopped when she remembered she forgot something.
She looked back.
'I forgot to inform him…'
She wanted to tell Shin she was about to go out for a while.
Kanae believed that if she want to become his wife, then it was only right for her to inform him about her being a demon slayer.
She believed that Shin has a right to know.
However looking at his cute sleeping face, at least for Kanae, she rather not wake him up.
'I'll for sure, seriously going to tell him about it later."
Instead of waking Shin up, Kanae took a piece of paper somewhere from her study table, used the feather pen, dip some ink, and wrote something.
After that, she put the letter on the table.
Kanae came near Shin and planted a kiss on his forehead, nose, and both sides of cheeks.
"..." She was contemplating kissing him on the lips, but eventually decided against it.
"It's better to have my first kiss with him when he is conscious and… I hope it's done as romantically as possible… Hehehe ~"
She giggled with a blush on her cheeks. She was imagining a scene of her and Shin kissing at night, with stars shining in the skies and a big round moon in the background.
"Oh no… " Kanae went out of her stupor. She almost got lost in her fantasies.
"I gotta hold myself back…" Kanae shook her head and said to herself.
She remembered that she need to go as soon as possible.
But before that, she had one last thing to do.
She bend over and whispered in Shin's ear:
{"I'll come home as soon as possible and I need you to start treating me as a wife from then on. We'll have our ceremony but, I can't wait to act as an official 'wife' anymore. So do it okay?"}
She did so seductively and her eyes went blank and had swirls forming in them.
Well, Kanae was still affected by her fantasies that she thought Shin would've registered the message somehow like how characters in fiction stories do.
She looked to the side and saw Syri, also asleep curling at the top corner of the bed. She came near her and hugged the creature, and said:
"I'm sorry about earlier Syri. I'll let you have my Shin, but you can't become her wife okay?"
Kanae kissed the little fox on the forehead which made the creature sound, "Ning!" — a satisfying noise and a smile formed on her mouth.
Kanae came out of the room and glanced one last time in the back and said with a loving voice,
"I love you Shin ❤."
She then pulled the hood and an extendable black cloth from the neck to cover her face.
Kanae went out of the house.
Then finally took off, dashing from the place, running quickly with a speed that every step would leave only a trail of dust behind.
