Readers sometimes talk as if Kagurabachi covers decades on camera. The present-tense plot is weeks and months. The years sit in flashback: the Seitei War, Chihiro’s childhood in the shop, the three years between Kunishige’s death and the first page. This page is the calendar of the story you are actually watching. The long timeline, including Mikaboshi exile and Shokoku rising, lives on the world page.
October — the book opens
Chapter 1 is an October night in Tokyo. Chihiro is eighteen and already working. Shiba is already the adult in the room. The Hishaku raid is already three years old. Yura sells Cloud Gouger to Sojo in early October. The city does not know it is in a sequel. You do.
The Tokyo underworld chapters stay in that autumn. Cafe Haru Haru, Char, Madoka, the compound, True Realm in chapter 14, Enten bisecting the weather. These are October problems that become November problems because they are not solved cleanly. A girl in a hospital does not reset the month. Street file: underworld. Arc: Vs. Sojo.
Known present-tense ages on this site: Chihiro 18, Shiba 39, Sojo 30 at death, Kunishige 37 at death. Birthdays: the five printed dates.
November — the 208th Rakuzaichi
The auction is dated. The Sazanami clan runs it on a schedule the underworld already knows. Chihiro walks in with Cloud Gouger’s stump. Hakuri wakes Isou, then the Storehouse. Kyora lists Shinuchi. Prisoners leave. The building has to live long enough for that.
After the auction the book does not hand you a winter skip. Chihiro hands Magatsumi to the Kamunabi and keeps Enten by joining them. Sword Bearer Assassination is the next political season, not the next year. Headquarters, Kyoto, the massacre — the same war, still in the same clothes. People have not had time to grow new faces. They have only had time to lose people. Arc: Rakuzaichi.
The three years that are already over
Chihiro is fifteen when the house falls. He and Shiba spend three years in the Tokyo underworld before page one. Cafe Haru Haru is the sit-down between jobs. The hunt is recover the swords and kill the men who ordered the raid. He does not start knowing his uncle is the Sword Master or his mother is a princess in a fire. The book is the education. The raid.
The Hishaku formed about four years before the present — one year of method, then the workshop. Sanso fortresses go up after Ibuki’s murder. Those boxes are three years of the state’s idea of safety. The Hishaku’s idea of a contract is a kill. Sanso.
Eighteen years earlier
The Seitei War ends eighteen years before the present. Kunishige was nineteen when he made the wartime blades. The Sword Bearers were the people who used them. After the treaty, Akemura used Magatsumi anyway. About 200,000 civilians. The Kamunabi filed it as victory. Kunishige confiscated the six swords and disappeared.
About fifteen years after the war, every attempt to destroy the wartime blades having failed, Kunishige and Chihiro forge Enten. The seventh is a counter, not a weapon of state. Its True Realm is Magatsumi’s death. When a chapter flashes back, it is usually flashing to that war or to the shop. The present is short. The past is the only place the book has room to be long. War file: Seitei War. Family math: lineage.
Part 2’s “now”
Part 2 does not open a new decade. It opens the next room. Chapter 116, “Princess.” Irishima, Chiaki, the talks, the kiln Kunishige has not yet looked at. The Enchanted Blades are still the same seven-plus-problem. The Hishaku are still the same ten. Chihiro is still eighteen. The calendar has moved. It has not jumped.
If you are dating a scene, prefer the manga’s own markers: an auction, a hospital stay, a festival the magazine bothers to name, over a fan day-count. This page will not invent a Wednesday the book has not given. The dated table is the timeline. Official chapters: VIZ / MANGA Plus.