The scent of sun-baked stone filled the compound.
Birds had long fled. The wind, usually laced with incense and lilies, carried something foreign now—burnt flesh, iron, fear.
Kuzan—just a child then—sat in her mother's lap, brushing the edge of sleep as soft fingers combed through her raven hair. Askari's voice hummed in quiet lullabies, barely audible over the bubbling koi pond nearby. For that brief moment, everything felt eternal.
Then it came.
A sound like lightning cracking the earth. A flash of pure sun.
The door didn't open. It **exploded**.
And from the cloud of ash and splinters stepped a man the world would never forget—**Yoriichi Tsugikuni**, the Sun Breather. Eyes like fire. Aura like the judgment of heaven.
Muzan stood up so fast, the koi in the pond flinched. He was dressed in quiet elegance—flawless, calm, unreadable—but something in his stance betrayed him. Not fear. **Dread**.
"Askari. Take Kuzan and go," Muzan whispered, but Askari remained still, arms still around her daughter.
"I will not run from light," she said softly.
Yoriichi's hand rested on the hilt of his blade.
"You harbor evil, woman. You've given your heart to a demon."
Askari didn't respond. She didn't flinch. Not when the sun-shaped earrings glinted in the light. Not even when Muzan's form began to warp—black veins stretching, limbs bubbling.
And then it began.
The **clash**.
Sunlight against blood, fire against shadow. Muzan lashed forward, monstrous and fast. But Yoriichi—he moved like prophecy itself. Each breath, each step, carved Muzan's immortality into fragments. The ground shattered beneath their feet.
Kuzan screamed when she saw the blood—**Muzan's** blood.
He was losing.
He was breaking.
For the first time, the Demon King was afraid.
Yoriichi's sword lifted again—final, unwavering. A slash that would end Muzan. But just before it fell, a shape blurred into its path.
Askari.
She did not attack.
She did not shield.
She simply **stood** there, arms outstretched, a mother shielding both monster and child.
The blade did not pause. It split her open like silk.
Askari collapsed in silence.
No scream. No hatred. Just the sound of Kuzan's voice shattering in grief.
"**Mama!**"
Yoriichi didn't move as Muzan howled in rage—not sorrow. Not love. Just rage. In the smoke and panic, he grabbed the crying girl in his arms and **fled**, leaving Askari's lifeless form in the sun.
Kuzan's tears stained his robes.
She kept reaching behind them, as if somehow her mother would rise and follow.
She never did.
---
That was the day Kuzan died.
The girl who had once smiled in flower gardens.
The girl who loved koi and lullabies.
From her ashes, something colder was born—**Kinsuko**.
A name whispered in shadows. A daughter of mercy, raised by the embodiment of cruelty.
And though she would become feared, powerful, hunted...
She would never forget the warmth of her mother's lap.
Or the day the sun split the sky.
---