Cold Cry went back to his coarse linen clothes and five-a.m. wake-ups, picking the pre-assessment training routine back up exactly where he'd left it.
One evening, a new face showed up on White Dragon Mountain.
The waterfall crashed into the pool below with its usual thunder, and a girl in a pink haori came skipping down the rough mountain trail.
She had a sweet smile and a full figure, both bouncing along with every hop down the path.
At the bottom, she spotted a set of coarse linen clothes folded neatly on the shore, with a dark crow sprawled out on top of them, dozing.
Smiling, she crept closer and reached out to poke gently at one of its little clawed feet.
Annoyed, the crow kicked out a couple of times before cracking one beady eye open. The moment it registered who was standing there, it shot upright off the pile of clothes and started shrieking with delight. "Big-Chested Sister! It's you! You came all this way to see me? You missed me, didn't you?"
The new arrival was Kanroji Noe.
Her face went crimson at the nickname. She grabbed the crow by its wings, yanked it off the clothes, and snapped, "I told you not to call me that. Why do you keep doing it?"
"That's right!" Her own crow chimed in from her shoulder, launching itself at the other bird and beating its wings against it. "Watch your mouth, feather-brain that's coming out of your pay."
"Ow!" Cold Cry's crow yelped, twisting around to shout toward the pool for backup. "Cold Cry! Someone's attacking your bird, no, wait- someone's got it out for your bird! Aren't you going to do something?"
"Still squawking?" came a muffled voice from underwater. "Squawk one more time and I'll pluck you clean and put you in a pot."
"Cold Cry! She's trying to pluck me! Save me, boo-hoo!"
"Where is he? Tell me, and I'll let go of you. Otherwise," Noe glanced at the pool. "Otherwise I'll dunk you in there myself."
"Ha. Won't work on me. Cold Cry and I are practically brothers." It puffed its chest out for exactly one proud second before deflating. "...Fine, he's underwater. I still won't tell you where."
Noe burst out laughing and let it go.
The crow took off, still shouting toward the pool as it went. "Cold Cry, this violent woman is your problem now! I'm heading back up for dinner, caw, caw!"
"Coward," Noe's crow muttered, hopping onto her shoulder.
She reached up and gave it an affectionate pat.
Noe was the shy one, and her crow was the mouthy one. Cold Cry barely spoke, and his crow never shut up. Somehow the two pairs balanced each other out.
Noe settled on the shore to wait. It had been almost two months since she'd last seen him.
She'd only just come down from Fujikasane Mountain and spent a full week at Butterfly Mansion before her sister pulled her away before he'd even woken up.
She'd worried the whole time, asking her sister for updates on him every few days, and finally breathed easy when word came that he was awake.
Two weeks ago, with her sister's blessing, she'd gone back to Butterfly Mansion to see him, only to learn from Kochou Shinobu that he'd already left to train in seclusion.
It had taken her half a month of arguing to talk her sister into it again, but she'd finally won Roubee over and joined his tutelage, training alongside Cold Cry under his guidance.
Bubbles broke the surface of the pool, and a moment later Cold Cry came up out of the water, soaked shorts clinging to him, shirtless, blade in hand, a heavy iron weight lashed to each ankle dragging at his steps as he walked.
Noe caught sight of his bare chest and dropped her gaze, cheeks warm.
He crossed to the shore, sat on a flat stretch of rock, and started working the weights loose from his ankles.
He'd known she was there the moment she'd arrived. But everything that had happened on Fujikasane Mountain had left him too uneasy, too embarrassed to face her directly. He'd stayed under the water an extra half hour on purpose.
He'd been hoping she'd get bored and leave. She hadn't moved an inch. Eventually he had no choice but to swallow his pride and come out.
"Turn around. I need to change."
She fidgeted with her fingers and obediently turned her back.
Once he'd changed, he didn't say a word, just grabbed his blade and started up the mountain. Noe had to hurry to catch up.
"How are you feeling?"
"Almost fully healed."
She nodded, casting around for something he might actually want to talk about. "I went to Butterfly Mansion looking for you. Sister Kochou told me you were training in seclusion."
*Of course it was her.* He'd left her a note specifically asking her not to tell anyone where he'd gone, and she'd sold him out without a second thought.
"What do you want?" he asked, flat.
"No, nothing. I just wanted to see how you were doing."
His flat tone caught her off guard. He felt like the same person, mostly and also somehow not.
"I heard what happened on Fujikasane Mountain. Thank you. For saving me."
She felt a small flicker of relief that he'd been the one to bring it up.
"No, no, it was you who saved us. I didn't do anything. It was Akino who saved you."
She remembered giving him that last breath, back on the mountain, the cold of his lips, the faint metallic taste of blood. Heat rushed to her face, and she wished, fiercely, that she could just disappear.
"You... do you know Akino and Yuka joined the Kakushi? Yuka wrote to me she wanted me to tell you they're both grateful, and that she hopes you're not holding what happened against Akino. He didn't drop out of the Corps only for your sake. Some of it was for her too."
He knew that already. It didn't make it any easier to let go of.
"It's getting late," he said instead. "Shouldn't you be heading home? Why are you following me?"
"You don't know yet? I've joined Master Aoe Yanrobei's school. I'll be training here on White Dragon Mountain with you from now on."
"What?"
He stopped cold, the exact thing he'd been dreading, and turned to look down the steps at her.
Feeling the weight of his stare, she dropped her eyes, awkward.
"Why would you join that old man's school? Isn't your sister the Love Hashira? She's clearly strong enough; she should be the one training you. And let me tell you something about Aoe Yanrobei: the man has a foul temper. He yells, he hits, sometimes he doesn't even feed you."
Desperate to talk her out of staying, he broke from every habit he had and started making things up on the spot.
It clearly cost him something he wasn't built for: talking this much, let alone for coaxing and pleading. Knowing how much she loved food, he even tacked on, "and half the time he won't feed you either," casting Roubee as some kind of tyrant starving his own students.
"No, actually Grandpa Aoe Yanrobei's temper is lovely. I told him I could help with the laundry, the cooking, cleaning up, and he practically begged me to stay. He even said he'd take me on as a proper disciple."
*What?! Is this old man trying to set himself up for a comfortable retirement?*
"Cold Cry, you don't actually want me gone, do you?"
*Unbelievable that you'd catch onto that.*
He trudged the rest of the way up the mountain, thoroughly defeated, silently cursing Roubee's family line eight generations back.