~Three days after the fight~ (mention of suicide and blood ahead in this chapter)

You opened your eyes to the sight of a very excited looking Shinobu looking directly at you. A cursory look at your surroundings revealed that you were at the Butterfly Estate, where Shinobu took care of her patients and lived with her students. Right now, none of her students seemed to be around, and none of the other beds were occupied. It was just you and her.

"Ara ara, Y/N... you look beautiful when you first wake up," she said. She was teasing but you could hear relief in her voice. Was she not expecting you to wake up this early after using Dark Side of the Moon? You wondered if that was the case.

"Stop teasing, Kocho," you said, unintentionally a little more aggressively than you had intended. "Where are the hashira at right now?"

"They're all here, actually. So is Oyakata. He was told about the foolish way you charged ahead in the fight, and he wishes to speak to you about it."

You winced at this, knowing that Oyakata would be quite angry at you charging into a fight that wasn't supposed to even involve you. The hashira probably hated you right now, too. This made you feel terrible, because you liked the hashira, and you didn't want them to dislike you at all.

"Oh, well I can go talk to him right now, right?"

"You can try, but your leg is beat up from getting stabbed by that lance. If you can stand and walk on it, that would be a miracle," Shinobu responded.

Despite Shinobu's doubt in you being able to walk, you could actually stand and walk, which she seemed shocked about. You practiced walking across the room a few times before walking out to the garden, which was where the hashira were waiting to speak to you.

As soon as they saw you, they all gathered around you for a group hug, and expressed how much they had been concerned about you when you had fallen unconscious. When they pulled away from you, you noticed that Muichiro wasn't among them. This concerned you, especially since you had seen him get knocked unconscious by your sword shockwave earlier. Hopefully he wasn't dead or seriously hurt.

"Where's Muichiro?" you asked Obanai, who happened to be the closest hashira to you.

"He's not doing too good, to be honest," Obanai responded, stroking his snake's neck lovingly as it coiled around his arm and wrist. "He came with Oyakata... I think he's serving him and getting him ready before he appears to you to talk to you."

You heard the sound of footsteps coming towards you, and you turned around to see Oyakata approaching you, a smile on his face. You noticed Muichiro walking behind him, and the way he looked terrified you.

He had a bloodstained bandage around his wrists, a sign that he had most likely tried to slit them earlier, and he had black circles and bags under his eyes. He walked unevenly, and when he saw you, he dashed behind Oyakata and held onto his waist, hiding behind the leader of the hashira like a young boy would his father.

"Muichiro," you called his name softly, and held your hand out for him to take it. "What's wrong, love?"

Oyakata gently removed Muichiro's hands from around his waist and told him, "Sit down with the other hashira, please, my child."

Without speaking, he obeyed, and went to sit next to a concerned looking Mitsuri.

"So, Y/N," Oyakata said, "we should talk about how you charged forward into battle like that."

"Alright..." you said, anxious even though Oyakata hadn't even said anything yet.

You gasped when you felt him throw his arms around you and say, "Never ever throw your life away like that again, okay? You made all my children worried, and you sure worried me! If you want to become a hashira, learn how to do what you're told, alright?"

You stood there for a minute, totally shocked by the hug he just gave you, and unsure about how to respond.

Then you noticed tears in Muichiro's eyes, and was even more shocked. At this point, your mind was just a mess. So you responded with a simple, "I'll be more careful next time," then rushed over to Muichiro, whose crying was turning into sobs.

"What's wrong, Mui?" you asked him, running your hands through his hair. "Why are you crying?"

"Y-Y/n... you... I thought I lost you..." he sobbed, burying his head in your chest.

"Oh, my darling! It's okay, I'm here, I'll never leave you," you said, holding onto him tightly so that he wouldn't go.

"I... I forgot you, and then I remembered, and I... and I couldn't..."

He couldn't speak anymore, overcome by sobs. Oyakata finished his sentence for him.

"The poor boy forgot all about you, probably to erase the trauma, and when we mentioned you to him and told him that you were hurt, he ended up trying to slit his wrists to kill himself, hence the bandages. I managed to stop him, but he still cut his arm badly, so I bandaged it up. He's still not doing too great though. My precious child..."

You looked at Muichiro, who had nestled his head in between your breasts and was not leaving from that location. His tears had made your kimono wet, but you didn't care one bit.

"Muichiro," you whispered to him, "I will protect you with my life."