"Doma… why haven't you resigned from your position in the cult, challenged Yuri, or, once again, followed my order to remain discreet?"
Muzan posed these successive questions in a calm tone, but the air was thick with palpable, dangerous tension.
Yet Doma completely ignored him.
A "bad" habit that Muzan was beginning to recognize as a pattern.
The ice demon nonchalantly moved a shogi piece before picking up a cup of human blood.
Doma could easily preserve his food, and this blood came from a system established in two regions where his cult had recently strengthened its influence.
The Eternal Paradise Faith cult now purchased the bodies of the deceased from their families, provided the families completed documentation proving the deceased had given consent during their lifetime.
Moreover, Doma's cult never acquired bodies of unknown origin or those that had been dead for too long.
As for where the bodies officially went? Doma claimed they returned to the earth itself.
A truthful statement… after all, he consumed them.
This explained the current situation:
Muzan had come to see Doma because, once again, the latter had drawn too much attention, and the demon king wanted to inquire about his upcoming battle.
'Is he so curious about my movements because of that "incident"?'
The "incident" Doma referred to in his subconscious was a tragic event caused by Yuri in a neighboring region: thousands of people had fallen ill for no apparent reason.
Doma would have remained ignorant of it had he not inherited Kokushibo's knowledge.
'The power to create and spread diseases… a truly troublesome blood demon art,'he thought, clearly intrigued by Yuri.
Indeed, her power was troublesome, but utterly useless against him.
Doma was literally her natural enemy.
How was that possible?
The answer was simple: below a certain temperature, microbes lost some or all of their properties.
Add to that his vector-based power, capable of temporarily countering even the particles emitted by the sun itself… Yuri was definitely not his match.
Yet Doma hadn't challenged this woman to take her position as Upper Moon Two.
There were two good reasons for this.
The first: he didn't want to rush things, especially since Muzan wasn't watching him as closely anymore.
Doma appreciated this privacy.
The second reason was his desire to lead a tranquil evolution, taking his time, given his longevity as a demon.
He preferred to savor rare blood, feed regularly, and maintain a routine life.
"Muzan-sama… I already stepped down from my position as cult leader a few months ago," he replied, pointing to his coat and hat hanging on the wall.
At that moment, Doma was dressed casually: a deep burgundy haori with wide sleeves, edged with golden and pale yellow patterns, paired with loose dark purple hakama and a purple obi holding it all together.
"Are you implying I'm mistaken?" Muzan's tone grew more threatening. "Doma… don't test my patience."
If there was one thing that irritated Muzan more than failure, it was being contradicted… even when he was wrong.
He had killed and devoured for far less.
The only person capable of calming him, and who held a certain level of authority in his mind, was Kokushibo… but the latter rarely intervened.
The reason for this influence was simple: his strength.
Yet Muzan made no move against Doma. What was the point of striking or threatening a creature without fear?
Especially since Doma remained, after Kokushibo, his most reliable subordinate.
Muzan expressed his displeasure out of habit, but he considered Doma a madman, given his situation.
Of course, all this "understanding" of Doma was nothing but a web of lies, woven by the blood demon art of the Paradise of Vanity.
Without it, the ancestor of demons would have noticed the rare flicker of emotion Doma felt.
"Ara, ara ~ Muzan-sama, far be it from me to be so bold," Doma replied, opening his fan.
"I'm merely stating the truth. As for Yuri… I didn't deem the situation urgent, since I still have time according to your orders."
Muzan fell silent.
Though he refused to admit it aloud, Doma was right.
The cult was indeed gaining popularity and influence, but its current leader was no longer Doma.
He was now the former leader.
The ice demon had simply changed his title and no longer held any official power.
Thus, he ruled from the shadows and adhered to the order to remain discreet, avoiding public exposure.
'I must have acted unreasonably because of those damned Hashira.'
Due to Yuri's actions, the Demon Slayers had become far more active.
Muzan had recently lost four Lower Moons in less than a decade, ever since Doma's promotion to Upper Moon Six.
His bad mood was reflected in his somewhat unreasonable behavior toward Doma.
"You have three days…" he said simply, his tone leaving no room for discussion.
Muzan stood without resuming the shogi game Doma had started without his approval.
The ancestor of demons rose elegantly and left Doma's quarters.
The sight of such an "elegant" woman leaving a twenty-nine-year-old man's quarters in the middle of the night drew the attention of the servants and a certain individual, but neither Muzan nor Doma paid it any mind.
…
As Muzan left Doma's residence, he sensed a murderous intent hidden behind a monastery pillar.
With a fluid motion, he turned, but no one was in his line of sight.
'Strange… I sensed the scent of a human, but it's familiar.'
Muzan had no human friends, yet this scent reminded him of something.
The image of a certain ice demon before his transformation flashed through his mind, but he dismissed it quickly.
He had just parted ways with Doma and could, through his connection with his subordinates, sense that Doma wasn't there.
A look of curiosity crossed his face as he slowly approached the pillar.
The sound of his footsteps echoed in the silence of the night.
His breathing became more distinct, but an unexpected event occurred.
The heartbeat he had recognized as that of a child rapidly moved away.
The owner of the scent nimbly climbed the pillar and vanished through the monastery's roof.
Muzan could have stopped them, but he thought of Doma and his own warnings about discretion.
Above all, this wasn't the time for unnecessary slaughter.
'A pity… it was an interesting specimen,' he thought, picking up an object from the ground.
Where the child had been spying, Muzan found a small surgical knife, a tool used in medicine.
Its presence in a monastery was odd, but that wasn't what intrigued Muzan most.
"Rare blood… but not ordinary."
The slightly "deformed" knife bore a trace of blood that Muzan identified as abnormal… and delicious.
…
It took an hour for Muzan's spy to descend from the monastery roof after his departure.
"W-Who… who was that woman?"
An immature yet curiously analytical voice escaped the young boy's mouth.
The child wore an outfit similar to the one Doma had worn when he became the leader of the Eternal Paradise Faith cult.
"Mori-kun! Where were you? Your mother's worried."
"S-Sorry, Onee-chan… I got a bit lost."
The rational, analytical expression gave way to the naivety of a child his age when he saw his servant.
Yuzuru Nishimiya.
"Sigh… don't ever do that again. You worried me and your mother."
As he was scolded, the boy displayed a guilty look, but his eyes remained fixed on the spot where Muzan had disappeared.
His breathing returned to normal, and the tension gripping his body eased.
If Yuzuru had looked closely at his hand, she would have noticed the boy had injured himself by gripping an object too tightly.
Ogai Mori was no ordinary boy.
Since birth, he had never understood adults or other children.
To him, things had always been clear and simple… but no one had ever grasped his explanations, except one person: Doma.
Yet he had always felt an invisible wall between himself and his "father."
It was also thanks to this sharp mind that Doma had been able to entrust the cult to a boy barely nine years old.
Thus, Ogai had always believed he was some sort of chosen one, destined to "control" others and make them see the obvious.
To him, leading the cult didn't mean guiding people toward salvation.
Far from it.
Mori saw it as enslaving others for a higher purpose, rather than guiding them.
Technically, the result was the same in the end, but the essence differed.
However, Mori's worldview changed that night after his encounter with Kibutsuji Muzan.
Another person who inspired the same feeling of a "wall" as his father did.
'In the end, Father was right… there aren't just sheep to guide in this vast world.'
A predatory smile stretched across the boy's face as Yuzuru led him to his mother.
That day, Muzan gained a self-proclaimed rival.