A Certain Fluid Stability [Toki, Nao]

She was just on her way home when she saw him, now what was he doing here at this time? Nevermind that. She couldn't waste any time ruminating on these things when she was a creature of instinctive deduction, so she pounced like a tiger to rush him and heave him up over her shoulder and kick the gate open.

"Toki! What are you doing here? Why aren't you just letting yourself in? You just have to knock like you mean it."

Nao explained to him like a chiding older sister. With her package over her shoulder she stepped over the threshold into the sancutary of the Sawachika to put him down on the estate's land. He had entered into this sacred space of hard work and grit now, all was right.

"Aha! So that's it. I see I see."

She rushed out to say while looking at him thoughtfully. A break from hard work was good though to Nao, hard work was broken up with more work! To improve something else and polish another area of oneself after they've exhausted themselves of their current task.

"Well you're in luck. Big sis Nao is always here for you, Toki."

Nao assured with a puffed out chest, conveniently rejecting the fact that he was her senior. If he wasn't so damn tall she'd have reached up to pat him on the head too. Maybe if she got him in a headlock...

Hmm.

Why that little brat, she pouted at him when he teased her over it. He was lucky he was here as a guest right now or she'd have taken his butt straight to the training grounds and whoop his butt until he meant it.

Maybe later though, Nao was smart enough to know that the last thing his body needed was to be worked more. He needed a different kind of working, the spiritual kind that cultivated the internal aspects.

"Family is important, but I don't think there's anything special about the Sawachika spirit. It's pride, hard work, and most importantly family. You just need a wife, Toki, and then I bet you'll have your own Hinamori spirit too."

Nao explained sagely. She could've been more forthcoming and explained about how her parents, and her father's parents before them, were only able to foster this strong environment because of the bond they shared being the strongest mortar one could hope for and how it was an elaborate architectural metalanguage at play....

But she honestly just expected him to understand all that from the layman's terms of it. Nao always tried to summarise her thoughts in the simplest and most straightforward way possible, and as a result it tended to have the adverse effect of what she wanted.

"Aha, so that's your game, hmm? Don't be a fool Toki. You should not deprive yourself of an opportunity by waiting on others!"

Nao stated with a chiding tone even if he was poking fun at her. Even if she had to work for a hundred or a thousand years to find a worthy man in her life it would not dissaude her. No, if anything she welcomed such a trial of her patience as it meant she could cultivate herself all the more until that time.

"Wha!! Toki! Don't be absurd. That would be so strange because you're like Kyo. You can't marry your big sister, and either way, you have a lot to learn about being a man still, Toki."

She declared, he had a naïve idea of the "tenka musou". A man could absolutely arrange flowers but he didn't have the drive that she was looking for. Hinamori was gentle and considerate, important qualities certainly but she had never seen Toki get mad. She'd never seen a fierce passion to defend what he held dear.

"Don't worry. I have all the faith for your success."

Nao assured and gave him a solid pat on the back which might send him flying since she had no reason to hold back. It wasn't like her dad knew how to hold back in showing his affections.