"L-Lord Dōma, what's going on?" After knocking out Mori and Gyutaro, an elderly follower cautiously approached.
The demon recognized him, just as the old man had nodded approvingly toward him when he carried Nakime during the festival.
'Is this guy a carrier of the Hans factor? I run into him twice in 24 hours, and major events happen…'Dōma thought, scrutinizing the elderly follower.
The Hans factor.
Dōma recalled that Jay had once read a story about an office worker who became his video game character, alias Bjorn, son of Jandel.
(Image)
Bjorn was a lesser-known protagonist by the standards of Jay's world, but he was one of Jay's favorites due to his rationality and morally questionable decisions.
Why bring this up? Because Bjorn had noticed something during his journey in the game world: every time he encountered a character named "Hans," trouble loomed on the horizon.
Did he gain great fortune after his misfortunes, like the protagonist of "Shadow Slave"? No. Bjorn even suffered financial losses.
This situation led an atheistic and rational man to suspect that people named Hans brought bad luck.
'I'm in a fictional world; the hypothesis of a "flag" can't be entirely dismissed,'Dōma concluded mentally, glancing around.
A crowd of cult followers had gathered at some point during the confrontation.
Dōma flashed a relaxed smile to ease the tension he sensed in the air.
"Sorry for the disturbance; I just wanted to teach these little rascals a lesson, haha." Though his words seemed reasonable, his choice of words puzzled the old man.
'Rascals? They're all in their twenties…'
Still, the follower didn't show his confusion and decided to go with the flow. After all, he hadn't earned his current position by chance but because his experience allowed him to read situations well.
"I understand, Dōma-sama. We'll disperse the believers. Do you, by any chance, need assistance?" he said, glancing at Mori and Gyutaro.
Dōma bent down, grabbed the collars of their clothes, and casually lifted them as if they were kittens.
"It's fine; just handle the crowd."
With that order, Dōma returned to the room where the fight had begun.
Kikyo and the other girls wore conflicted expressions.
'Was I too aggressive?' The thought briefly surfaced before Dōma dismissed it.
'If I hadn't disciplined Mori now, that boy might have had questionable ideas later,'he told himself.
Why this assumption? Because Dōma would have done the same—and still does, even now, with Muzan.
If you're under someone stronger than you and you see them as a potential threat, what would you do?
Dōma would eliminate them at the first opportunity or flee.
That's how Mori was disciplined, and it's also why Dōma beat him.
The kid hadn't been as patient as Dōma was with Muzan.
The result was his defeat.
"Sorry for showing that side of myself, but…" Dōma wanted to reassure his women, but Kikyo interrupted him.
"You weren't wrong. Mori went too far with the wisteria, and… I'm sorry for talking about your nature," she said, biting her lip.
Dōma easily understood that Kikyo felt partly responsible for the situation.
He casually dropped the two unconscious men and kissed his wife on the forehead after gently holding her chin.
"It's okay. Kikyo got caught up in all this, didn't she, Kaguya?"
After pulling his lips away from his wife's smooth, soft forehead, Dōma's multicolored eyes locked onto Kaguya's.
The petite woman, standing not far away, quickly averted her gaze with a soft "hmph," feigning innocence despite clearly having encouraged Mori's actions.
"Ume-chan?"
At the sudden call of her name, the young girl, standing near Kaguya, stiffened slightly before responding as best she could.
"Y-Yes, Dōma-sama?!"
Though Ume still struggled to meet his gaze, Dōma decided to entrust her with a task.
"Can you drag these two to the guest quarters? I'll talk to them tomorrow," he said gently before calmly shifting his attention back to Kaguya.
Ume felt an odd premonition tighten her chest but carried out the task nonetheless. She grabbed her childhood companions and headed toward the guest quarters.
"Now, it's time to punish this naughty mother~" Dōma murmured, a mischievous glint sparkling in his eyes.
'No… He's not going to do *that* here, is he?' Kaguya thought, her heart racing as she glanced at Kikyo, who was still unaware of the looming danger.
The last time she'd made a mistake was when Mori was still very young.
Kaguya had tried to gain influence in the cult through Mori, but Dōma had "punished" her in his own way.
Since then, Kaguya had discovered a side of herself she'd rather not have known existed.
She secretly wanted to experience it again, but as a proud merchant, she refused to let Dōma see her as a… masochist.
Kaguya simply couldn't openly ask her husband to play that kind of role-play game again.
Thus, Mori's suspicion of his father became the perfect opportunity to be "punished" by Dōma.
Kaguya didn't know that the demon feared wisteria, yet she was the one supplying the cult's provisions.
How could she have missed that Dōma consumed it daily without flinching?
She had planned everything after learning about Dōma's true nature from Kikyo.
Yet, she hadn't anticipated that Mori and Dōma would settle their differences so drastically.
That's why she'd slightly panicked when she saw her son reach for his katana.
'If she really wanted to be punished, that fool could've just asked… tch,'*•Dōma thought, mentally clicking his tongue.
He left Kikyo's side and slowly approached his first wife.
At this sight, Kaguya blushed but voiced her opposition due to Kikyo's presence in the room.
Even though she'd used Mori's suspicion to get a punishment from her husband, she wasn't an exhibitionist.
Kaguya didn't want anyone but Dōma to see her like that.
"W-Wait… n-not here… K-Kikyo's still here!"
In the end, the mysterious premonition Ume had felt came true.
…
After comforting his second wife and punishing the first, Dōma stepped out of the hallway, adjusting his clothes.
After glancing left and right and noticing no one around, he nodded in satisfaction.
'Honestly, I should give Taiga a raise,' he thought as he began walking toward the guest residence.
At the start of Kaguya's punishment, the leader of the shadows had slipped out from the ceiling of the room and cleared all the servants from the area.
Dōma appreciated Taiga's foresight, acting like a brother rather than a pervert.
The ice demon wasn't sure how he'd have reacted if Taiga had had the bad idea of watching his game with Kaguya.
As for Kikyo… sooner or later, Dōma planned to try a threesome with his wives.
She'd need to get used to seeing Kaguya in that "state."
"Interesting… you didn't run," he said after opening the door and seeing Gyutaro and Mori awake.
Though Dōma's words might have sounded mocking, he was serious. He'd almost expected to find the room empty after his little game with Kaguya and Kikyo.
'Thanks to the Blood Demon Art: Vanity's Paradise, I could always track them down,'he thought as he fully entered the room.
"Father… when and how did you become a demon?" Mori asked, breaking the silence after Dōma's entrance.
Dōma narrowed his eyes slightly before shrugging and indulging his son's curiosity.
"Is that really important? I'm a demon, and you've become a Hashira… isn't that the crux of it? But if you keep looking at me with those lifeless eyes, I guess I'll have to spill the beans."
With that, he grabbed a chair and sat between their two beds.
"I've been a demon for twenty years."
As he said those words, Dōma realized the weight of his age.
He was forty now.
'Weird… time flies so fast when others are around,'he thought before being interrupted in his introspection.
"So… you became a demon shortly after having me with Mom," Mori stated in a neutral tone.
Unfortunately, his calculations were off by a few months.
Dōma had become a demon before Mori was even born, but he chose not to reveal this, sensing a certain presence lurking in his mind.
Mori stared at his father with a conflicted expression, but his eyes betrayed a dominant emotion: powerlessness.
'If only I'd been born earlier…'
That thought crossed his mind before being swept away by the weight of his own weakness.
"Uh… Dōma-sama, have you been eating humans for twenty years?" Gyutaro asked the most awkward question in a hesitant voice.
Mori shot him a glare, but Dōma flashed a fake smile and answered honestly.
"Indeed, I've been devouring humans for twenty long years, and…" Dōma pulled out his fan to reveal his rank.
"I'm the third strongest demon 'officially.' My rank is Upper Moon 2."
After the shock of learning their father figure was a demon, Dōma's title left the two young men frozen.
If Mori felt powerless after realizing he couldn't change Dōma's past, he felt utterly hopeless upon learning his rank.
'If number 2 is this strong… then number 1?'
With that thought, the image of a woman leaving Dōma's quarters at night resurfaced. It overlapped with the woman standing beside Dōma during the cult's annual festival.
The woman didn't seem to have aged a day since the last time.
Just like… Dōma himself.
'That woman must be very important to that swordswoman… and Father seems inferior to her based on her aura alone,' Mori concluded, piecing together the puzzle in his mind.
"At the festival… the woman guarded by two men… Is she Muz—?"
Mori didn't have time to finish his sentence before his father's hand covered his mouth.
Dōma placed a finger on his lips, signaling silence, before writing something on the paper on the table.
[Muzan is listening…]
****
Author's note: Yes, Dōma falls victim to the Hans effect (flag).
But he won't kill the old man, since he's a cool guy.
Another bonus detail: I noticed a small inconsistency (sorry), which is leading me to tweak the next chapter — under the premise that Dōma can manage it thanks to the 20-year time jumps.
In short: the small inconsistency concerns the use of the Vanity Paradise.
Dōma can't use it while Vector is active during the day (the latter is literally managing Vector at that moment).
So it makes sense that Muzan's presence is noticed, but not that Dōma uses this power to uncover all of Mori and Kaguya's scheme.
That's why I'll need to adjust a future chapter to fix this.