Kenji Nakamura adjusted his tie one final time before stepping out of his apartment, the same pristine smile he wore every day already settling into place. At twenty-four, he had mastered the art of being exactly what everyone expected him to be—responsible, mature, the kind of person others turned to for advice. His coworkers praised his level-headedness, his family relied on his sensibility, and his friends considered him the voice of reason in their group.
If only they knew what occupied his thoughts during those long commutes to work, or how he spent his evenings hunched over his laptop, completely absorbed in worlds of chakra and jutsu, of demons and demon slayers, of heroes who weren't afraid to show their passion for the things they loved.
The latest Demon Slayer movie had premiered the night before, and Kenji had been among the first to see it. Even now, twelve hours later, his hands still trembled slightly when he thought about those final scenes. Muzan Kibutsuchi—that manipulative, cruel monster—had finally met his end, but not without taking so much with him. The sight of Tanjiro's possessed form, the sacrifices of the Hashira, the sheer devastation left in the demon king's wake... it had left Kenji feeling hollow and furious in equal measure.
He hated Muzan with every fiber of his being. The character represented everything Kenji despised—selfishness disguised as superiority, the willingness to destroy others for personal gain, the complete absence of empathy or remorse. Even in death, the bastard had tried to corrupt Tanjiro, to turn the purest soul in the series into something as twisted as himself.
The walk to the train station usually helped clear his head, but today the familiar route felt suffocating. His phone buzzed with messages from his group chat—probably his friends discussing weekend plans or sharing memes. He didn't check them. Instead, he found himself taking a detour through the residential district, desperate for something, anything, to distract him from the angry knot in his chest.
That's when he heard the voices.
"Come on, Hiroshi, just give us your lunch money and we'll leave you alone."
"Yeah, it's not like you need it. Look at you—you're already fat enough."
Kenji rounded the corner and saw them: three middle schoolers surrounding a smaller boy, their school bags dropped carelessly on the sidewalk. The victim—Hiroshi, apparently—clutched his backpack to his chest like a shield, tears streaming down his round face.
Every instinct screamed at Kenji to intervene. This was exactly the kind of situation where his "perfect" persona would shine. He'd stride over with that authoritative adult presence, scatter the bullies with a few stern words, maybe even walk the kid home to make sure he was safe. It would be the right thing to do.
But something held him back.
Maybe it was the frustration still churning in his gut from the movie. Maybe it was the exhaustion of always, always being the responsible one. Maybe it was just cowardice, plain and simple. Whatever it was, Kenji found himself stepping back into the shadows of a nearby building, watching but not acting.
*Just this once,* he told himself. *Just this once, let someone else be the hero.*
The bullies seemed to grow bolder in the absence of any adult intervention. One of them—a lanky kid with bleached hair—shoved Hiroshi hard enough to send him stumbling backward.
"Stop being such a crybaby," the bully sneered. "It's just money."
"I-I don't have any," Hiroshi stammered, still backing away. "I forgot my wallet at—"
"Liar!" Another shove, harder this time.
Hiroshi stumbled again, and Kenji realized with growing horror that the boy was now dangerously close to the street. The residential road wasn't particularly busy, but cars still passed through regularly, and from his position, Hiroshi wouldn't be able to see—
The roar of an engine cut through the air. A delivery truck, moving far too fast for a residential street, barreled around the corner.
"Watch out!" the bleached-haired bully shouted, but it was too late. With one final, vicious push, he sent Hiroshi tumbling directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle.
Time seemed to slow. Kenji saw the truck driver's eyes widen in horror, saw his hands yank the steering wheel in a desperate attempt to swerve. He saw Hiroshi's face, frozen in terror as he realized what was about to happen. He saw the bullies scattering like roaches, their earlier bravado evaporating in the face of genuine consequences.
And then, without conscious thought, Kenji was moving.
His legs carried him forward with a speed he didn't know he possessed. The world became a blur of motion and sound—the screech of brakes, the panicked shouts of bystanders, the thundering of his own heartbeat in his ears. He slammed into Hiroshi with all the force he could muster, sending the boy sprawling safely onto the sidewalk.
The last thing Kenji saw was the truck's grille, growing larger and larger until it filled his entire field of vision.
---
Pain.
That was the first thing that registered when consciousness returned—a deep, bone-deep ache that seemed to permeate every inch of his body. Kenji groaned, the sound coming out as little more than a rasp, and tried to open his eyes.
The ceiling above him was rough wood, darkened with age and smoke stains. Definitely not a hospital, then. The air smelled of herbs and something else—something metallic that made his stomach churn. He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as his head exploded with fresh agony.
*What happened?* The memories came flooding back in fragments: the bullies, the truck, his desperate dash to save Hiroshi. *Did I make it in time? Is the kid okay?*
The futon beneath him was thin and lumpy, nothing like the sterile comfort of a hospital bed. In fact, everything about his surroundings felt wrong. The walls were paper and wood, the floor covered in tatami mats. It looked like something out of a period drama—or an anime set in feudal Japan.
After what felt like hours of struggle, Kenji finally managed to pull himself upright. His body protested every movement, muscles screaming as if he'd been beaten with sledgehammers. His head pounded with a rhythm that seemed to match his heartbeat, and there was a strange taste in his mouth—copper and something else, something that made his throat burn.
The nausea hit him like a physical blow. Kenji doubled over, dry-heaving violently as his body tried to expel something that wasn't there. He needed water, needed to rinse the awful taste from his mouth, needed—
There. In the corner of the small room, partially hidden behind a paper screen, he could see what looked like a washroom. Or at least, he hoped it was a washroom. At this point, he'd settle for anywhere he could be sick in private.
Each step was agony, his legs shaking with the effort of supporting his weight. The floorboards creaked ominously beneath him, and more than once he had to stop and brace himself against the wall to keep from collapsing. Whatever had happened to him, it was worse than just getting hit by a truck.
*Though getting hit by a truck is usually fatal,* a small voice in the back of his mind pointed out. *So maybe you should be grateful you're alive at all.*
The door to the washroom slid open with a soft whisper of wood against wood. Inside was... disappointing. No toilet, no sink, no modern amenities at all. Just a single wooden container filled with clear water, sitting on the floor like some kind of primitive basin.
The nausea struck again, even more violently than before. Kenji fell to his knees beside the container, his body convulsing as it tried to rid itself of whatever was causing this reaction. Nothing came up but bile and that awful metallic taste, leaving him gasping and shaking.
When the worst of it passed, he scooped up a handful of water to rinse his mouth. The liquid was cool and clean, offering blessed relief from the burning in his throat. He gathered more, splashing it over his face and neck, trying to wash away the cold sweat that had broken out across his skin.
It was then, as he leaned over the container to splash more water on his face, that he saw it.
The reflection staring back at him from the surface of the water wasn't his own.
The face was pale—not just pale, but alabaster white, as if it had never seen sunlight. Sharp cheekbones cut harsh angles beneath skin that seemed to glow with an inner luminescence. The eyes were the most striking feature: deep red irises with slit pupils that seemed to burn with an inner fire. Black hair fell in waves around the face, longer than Kenji had ever worn his own.
But it was the expression that made his blood run cold. Even in the wavering reflection, he could see the cruel intelligence in those crimson eyes, the subtle curl of lips that suggested a capacity for both charm and unspeakable violence.
He knew this face. Had stared at it in hatred just hours before in a darkened movie theater. Had watched it smile as it ordered the deaths of innocent people, had seen it twist with rage as its thousand-year reign of terror came to an end.
Muzan Kibutsuchi.
Somehow, impossibly, Kenji was looking at the face of the Demon King himself.
His hands shook as he touched his cheek, watching the reflection mirror the movement. The skin felt different—smoother, colder than human flesh should be. When he opened his mouth to scream, he saw the flash of fangs where his canines should have been.
This wasn't possible. This couldn't be happening. People didn't just wake up in the bodies of fictional characters, especially not ones they despised with every fiber of their being. This had to be a dream, a hallucination brought on by head trauma from the accident.
But the pain felt real. The confusion felt real. And when he looked down at his hands—pale, elegant, and tipped with nails that were just a little too sharp—they felt real too.
Kenji—or whoever he was now—stared at his reflection for a long, long time, trying to process the impossible. He had died saving a child, and somehow woken up as the very monster he had watched perish on screen just hours before.
The irony was so cruel it was almost poetic.