The series of training ended, and now that I can speak, I must be able to report too! For that reason, I finally made my mission debut. It hasn't even been a year since I came to this mansion, but I've finally come this far.
The mission content is patrolling an area with suspicious deaths. It's an errand to find traces of demons and bring back information. If a demon is found, I was told to cut it down if it seems possible.
Meaning, if it seems unreasonable, run away.
Is it okay with such a lax attitude? Don't we have to risk our lives to exterminate them? I thought, but it seems it's okay.
'Rather than recklessly facing it and getting eaten to become nourishment for the demon, just get the info and run like hell' was Myouju's line. 'You're still too young to risk your life' were Suuju-san's words. 'You are Lord Michikatsu's successor, so you must not overdo it' was Enju-san, stroking my head.
I was slightly surprised at the word successor and looked at Michikatsu-san, but he didn't particularly deny it.
Is that okay? I might get conceited? I'll go on the mission with my tension skyrocketing? Should I sing? Dance? Cossack Yosakoi Hula Dance? Should I go 'Let's party hee~hya~'? With that feeling, to the mission site, Here we go!
Receiving a send-off with an atmosphere of 'Can he manage the errand alone?', I left the mansion as the sun set.
"North-northeast! This way! North-northeast!"
Guiding me, who knows nothing about the local geography since it's my first outing, is a talking crow. A special crow trained for messaging, this one is Trainee No. 1. It seems they decided to try using it for my low-risk mission, thinking it a good opportunity.
Thanks to the crow, I safely arrived at my destination and first surveyed the area around the village. Night had deepened, people were asleep, and the village was wrapped in silence. No suspicious sounds or smells. I was the only one moving around.
Tonight, clouds hid the moon, a perfect night for eating people. Thinking a demon might be hiding somewhere, I extended my steps further outward.
I plodded along the bumpy path without moonlight, without even a lantern. Though sunlight makes my eyes sting, instead my vision is bright at night. On such nights, I could see particularly well.
Walking for a while searching for demon traces, I discovered a small, old temple in a remote place. No light was on, the roof looked long tilted, a place where no one could possibly live, yet I sensed someone's presence there.
It might be a demon.
Holding the sword hilt ready to draw anytime, I slid the door open with a "Excuse me."
A dusty, moldy smell, and from the darkest part inside── I discovered a familiar face.
＊
"Muzan-kun!"
Kibutsuji Muzan does not know the boy pointing his finger this way.
He does not know those red eyes.
He does not know the white hair.
He does not know the serene expression.
He does not know this voice, awkward for his age.
He doesn't know.
"Long time no see, Muzan-kun! It's me, me me! Ah, I'm not a fraud!"
What is this?
Why does he know I'm Muzan.
Why does he know my face.
Why is my heart so agitated like this.
He doesn't know.
"That's right, Muzan-kun, doing, bad things, aren't you? Then that's no good, causing, trouble for others. Muzan-kun, also, disliked, that, right?"
He remembered.
Kibutsuji Muzan has 'seen' this boy. It was about a year ago. There was a demon he had personally breathed wisdom into, making humans offer sacrifices to eat.
This child speaking to him familiarly was a sacrifice 'seen' through that demon.
He forgot about it soon after, but yes.
Back then too, his heart was agitated like this, not knowing what to do.
"Muzan-kun, are you listening?"
It's unpleasant.
Very unpleasant.
As if maggots are crawling inside his chest.
What is this. What is this. Just what is this.
Someone's corpse is living in his heart.
"I'm sorry, but child. My name is Tsukihiko. Just who are you mistaking me for?"
It would have been easy to bare his fangs out of unpleasantness. But for some reason, he felt he shouldn't kill the boy. He didn't know the reason for this intuition. But he couldn't bring himself to bare his fangs. He couldn't do it.
He didn't know. He didn't know.
He didn't know. Anything.
"Uh, huh? I'm… I'm sorry. You look, so much, like a friend."
"No, it's fine."
When he pretended to be someone else, the child easily believed it. Hiding his fangs, deceiving with his gaze, he disguises as a harmless human with a gentle face.
"By the way, what were you doing alone on such a deep night, little one?"
"An errand!"
The boy has a sword at his waist, and above all, knows Muzan's name. There's only one answer that can be deduced. A demon slayer. The foolish, rude crowd that chases Kibutsuji Muzan.
Then all the more he should be disposed of.
But still, Muzan's hand couldn't hold killing intent, resting on his knee as if glued.
"Won't your father and mother worry? This area is dangerous, you know. Just today—"
No matter how much he thought, he couldn't find a reason. He couldn't figure out why he couldn't kill the boy. Muzan concluded this in a way favorable to himself.
It's natural not to kill him.
Because such a child is a trivial existence not worth dirtying my own hands over.
"Just today, a ghost-like fellow has been loitering in that wasteland over there."
Such things can be left for other demons to handle.
"At a glance, it seemed to be heading toward the village across the way. It's dangerous, so you should hide here tonight."
No, this guy won't do that.
He'll definitely go to save the village.
Muzan strongly believed. Not because he was a demon slayer, but because he firmly believed it of this boy. But Muzan himself didn't realize where his conviction came from. Kibutsuji Muzan didn't know. Couldn't know.
"Oh, that's serious!"
As Muzan predicted, the boy turned and dashed out of the temple.
"It's dangerous. Come back, child."
"It's okay! Tsukihiko-san, you too, lock up well!"
Leaving only those words, the boy's figure melted away into the darkness. Watching the small back that had merged with the night with seemingly worried eyebrows── he erased his expression and closed his eyes.
Peeking into the vision of a demon prowling nearby, he briefly ordered that demon heading toward the outlying village, tonight's hunting ground.
――A young demon slayer will head there now.
――Understood? You must kill him.
If he does that, this agitation in his chest will disappear.
The unpleasantness that has nested in his heart will be eliminated.
Firmly believing that, Muzan continued to peek through the demon's vision to confirm the boy's corpse.
While having forgotten. While not realizing.
While not knowing. While not remembering.
＊
"Fufu."
"What's so amusing."
"No, there are many names related to the moon."
"Is that a problem?"
"Not at all. Rather, it's good."
Paying no mind to Michikatsu's glare, Enju wore an extremely gentle expression.
In the middle of the night, lit only by candlelight, papers scattered beside Michikatsu sitting at his desk. All had characters written on them. People's names. They were names Michikatsu had thought of for Young Moon.
Let's think of a name for Young Moon by tonight! With that, Enju, carrying a calligraphy set, stormed into Michikatsu's room about half an hour after Young Moon left on his mission.
Before he could say he disliked it or liked it, Enju sat him before the desk with spread papers and made him hold a brush, leading to the present. This man's momentum is greater than Yoriiichi's. He always lives charging forward with all his might.
"Lord Michikatsu, do you like the moon?"
"I don't know. But well, I don't dislike it."
He thought Enju would also offer his opinion, but that didn't happen; he just smiled brightly while looking at what Michikatsu wrote. Enju especially softened his cheeks when seeing names related to the moon.
The names of the two children he left behind in his hometown were both given by his father. So giving a name to someone else was also a first for Michikatsu, and though he suffered various headaches, he swung his brush thinking 'how about this,' 'this might be good too.'
His head was tired, but strangely he didn't dislike it. It was a feeling of his heart fluttering subtly, like small bird footsteps.
"Hey, what seems good to you?"
"You decide, Lord Michikatsu."
"I'm asking because I can't decide. I have no choice, shall I let Young Moon choose from among these?"
The number of papers scattered on the tatami exceeded ten, and since they were all names squeezed out after much thought, just thinking of deciding one from among them made him feel distant.
When he voiced the thought of letting the person himself decide instead, Enju quietly shook his head. Erasing the smile from moments before, with a grimacing face.
"That won't do. You must decide, Lord Michikatsu."
"Why? Wouldn't it be better to let him choose himself?"
"It won't do. A name is something given, a gift. It's entrusting the child's future."
Enju's gaze illuminated by the candlelight also seemed to burn. Those flame-like eyes stared at Michikatsu silently with seriousness itself. But soon, his expression softened again.
"You needn't feel so burdened, Lord Michikatsu. Didn't I say before? If it's something given by you, Young Moon would surely like it."
Young Moon is your successor.
Your future itself.
Enju continued his words like that.
"So, just call him with a name that suits that."
As Enju whispered gently, the very moment an answer was decided within Michikatsu.
A sudden wind entering the room.
The candle flame sways ominously.
The sound of crow wings flapping in the middle of such a night.
"Support request! Support request!"
From the sky, a black ominous sign,
"Young Moon, demon, encounter! Sword, broken!"
A dire report descends.
And, the night of tragedy arrives.
＊
He grabbed his sword and dashed out of the mansion before even hearing the crow's report to the end.
Because from the sporadically reported characteristics of the demon, he had a guess.
A large demon that moves targeting nights when the moon is obscured, making it difficult for the Demon Slayer Corps to operate. Attacking remote villages to grow its power, cunningly evading blades, having passed through many eras; not a few Demon Slayer Corps members have been sacrificed to this demon's subjugation.
Though not as much as Muzan, it was a dangerous demon whose name was often mentioned.
It was sighted recently on the opposite side, far from that child's mission area.
So he had been optimistically thinking there was no problem——
He dashes through the night's darkness where not an inch ahead is known. Pushing his Breathing to the limit, inflating his lungs, making his heart beat, expanding blood vessels, making muscles flexible. A gallop faster than the alarm in his chest.
Yet the passing scenery felt terribly slow, his body strangely heavy. As if his heart was impatient to reach you. He grew anxious as if it was running ahead of his dashing body.
Has he ever worried about someone's safety like this.
Has he ever prayed for someone's safety, truly, until now?
"───!"
His extremely honed hearing captures the sound of sword strikes and the Breathing responding to them from afar. He ran straight toward the sound, parting the night's darkness.
"───!"
In the distant black wasteland covered by the cloudy sky. Beside a demon so large it could be known even from afar, a small moon was dancing.
Alive.
Scolding his legs that nearly went slack with relief, he advances toward the moon dancing in the darkness.
Young Moon's Nichirin blade was broken around the middle. But wielding that shortened weapon skillfully, the child cuts down the demon as if dancing.
"Eeyah!! You tiny little thing!!"
Cutting anywhere but the neck won't be a fatal wound. But for a demon to be countered by a physically immature child, and with a broken Nichirin blade at that, it must be severe humiliation. With blood surging to his head, he swings his arm violently toward Young Moon.
Large, monotonous movements filled with anger are easy to dodge. As if aiming for that, Young Moon reverses his grip and climbs along the demon's arm.
A moon flashed in the night sky.
The demon's severed head, with a shocked expression, hovers in the air.
At that moment, I finally slowed my steps with relief.
He did it. Against a demon stronger than himself, Young Moon splendidly completed his first sortie.
The only loss was the broken Nichirin blade; there were minor wounds but no major injuries.
Young Moon, landing lightly on the ground like a feathered robe, seemed to finally notice my presence. The moment he recognized me, his serene eyes instantly sparkled. Like a child of his age.
Could he be thinking he'll be praised? Don't be presumptuous.
Since he disobeyed the order to run, first a knuckle sandwich. After taking him back to the mansion and treating his wounds, I'll sit him down properly and calmly scold him about how worried I was. Be prepared.
Praising him comes after that.
When Young Moon tried to take a step this way, I thought that, complacently.
Foolishly, I was thinking that.
I had let carelessness onto the battlefield.
"You're coming with me toooooooーーー!!!"
With a roar that seemed to pierce the sky, the colossal body that should only have been collapsing with its severed neck swung its arm with its last strength. The moment Young Moon, who had just relaxed his posture, hurriedly looked back at his opponent, a vicious claw grazed his abdomen.
"───!!"
Was that soundless scream mine? Or was it Young Moon's?
Young Moon's blade cuts the demon's arm. The corpse of the demon that got in one hit despite its defeat turns to ashes and disappears as its final act.
Putting the broken Nichirin blade into its sheath, Young Moon tried to Breathe to stop the bleeding── but staggered backward. Letting out a *gurgle*, an unpleasant sound, he drops a dark red splash at his feet. The familiar smell of rusty iron brushed his nose.
"Young Moon!!!"
The hand stretched out while shouting didn't reach, and the boy buckled at the knees and fell backward. Not caring about his clothes getting dirty, he knelt in the pool of blood and lifted up Young Moon's body, who was still coughing up blood.
"Ah…ah…"
"Concentrate and Breathe, stop the bleeding quickly, it's okay, you can live."
No, with this wound, already.
The part of his heart that was coldly making that judgment, the part that wasn't, shook its head not wanting to admit it. A sigh that seemed mixed with blood and foam rang in Young Moon's throat. As if trying to vomit something other than blood.
"M…master."
At death's doorstep, calling me in such a situation.
The voice squeezed from a throat that grew up not knowing human conversation was terribly thin.
"Shut up, don't speak."
Young Moon's chest swells.
It's not Breathing to survive.
Just to speak, the boy was breathing.
"Last, failed, but… I, …beautifully, did it, right?"
"I told you not to speak!"
A person alive yesterday dies today.
A person sent off today returns tomorrow as a silent corpse.
In the fight against demons, there's no guarantee of life. To hunt the other's life, one must stake their soul too.
I know that much, understand that much, no need to tell me now of all times!
"There's, something, I want, to say…"
He had experienced comrades' deaths many times.
He had seen innocent people killed by demons to an uncountable degree.
He had felt pity for their deaths. He had felt anger.
But never had his heart been gripped and torn apart by fear like this.
"Master is, a, great, person."
Young Moon's heavily lifted hand gropes through the air. He couldn't help but grasp that hand—the hand wandering as if searching for its mother, the hand hardened with calluses, the hand that knew only effort.
The hand lacking softness, unchildlike, was proof this child had continued training toward the summit. He had followed behind me like that.
Though it should have been a hand grasped to reassure Young Moon, touching that hand, for some reason, I felt a strange relief.
And not long after, even that relief would be stolen away.
"For, saving me… thank, you… Master."
Something hot streams down his cheek and drops onto Young Moon's face.
At the droplet too heated to pretend was rain, Young Moon narrows his red eyes and says.
"The moon, is beautiful."
Just where in this terrifying world wrapped in night is there a moon.
Not answering that, Young Moon only left a gentle smile for me and closed his eyes as if falling asleep. Merciless fate takes even a child who grew up without receiving a name to the next world meaninglessly.
Please stop. I beg you, stop it.
Don't go, don't go, child who would succeed me.
Because I have nowhere else, but you, to entrust the future to.
＊
Young Moon's corpse was stolen.
Wanting to let this child, who would never open his eyes again, rest peacefully soon, leaving him not at the mansion but at a nearby house with a wisteria crest became the cause of disaster.
When he delivered the obituary to the mansion and visited the wisteria-crest house again at dawn, all that remained there were lumps of flesh and a sea of blood.
The house owner, his wife, the maid, the young child, even an innocent newborn baby were brutally murdered, and in the house vibrating with the smell of corpses, the only thing missing was Young Moon alone.
The wisteria-crest house has the protection of wisteria.
To endure that and invade, it couldn't be an ordinary demon.
And yet the demon only killed everyone, didn't eat a single piece of flesh, and only took Young Moon's body. As if that was the only goal from the beginning.
Other swordsmen cocked their heads at what this meant and suspected there must be some meaning.
But to me, it didn't matter.
Now everything, didn't matter anymore.
・
・
・
If what he had learned was Sun Breathing, would Young Moon have survived?
A thought crossed his mind while looking at a demon's head flying from his younger brother's strike during a subjugation several months after Young Moon's death.
A demon that loses its head to Sun Breathing instantly turns to ashes and disappears. Without even a chance to struggle to get even one hit back, so quietly it wouldn't realize it died.
If I could have mastered Sun Breathing, could I have taught this to Young Moon?
Moon Breathing, nothing more than a derivative, is still incomplete no matter how much its techniques are honed to the extreme. It was clear that this literally waning Breathing like the moon fell far short of Sun Breathing, which was complete from the beginning.
No matter how much I struggle and suffer, moonlight doesn't reach the sun, and the distance I chase doesn't shrink.
Young Moon. You were hated by the sun, so the moon must have been more dear to you than the sun.
So maybe you wanted to learn my sword. But the Breathing you asked me to teach was a blade so twisted because it reached for an unreachable sun.
The moon (me) you smiled at saying was beautiful was a crescent moon eroded by hatred.
The anxiety that grows daily about the severing of Breathing technique succession.
The unbearable humiliation of honed techniques disappearing from the world.
When I voiced those, Yoriiichi, you acted as if you had nothing to lose. You treated my anxiety as trivial. You passed over my humiliation with strange optimism. You even smiled peacefully, saying someone surpassing our talent would be born again.
It was disgusting.
Infinitely irritating.
Hatred surged thinking 'Is this the one loved by God?'
About letting go of the sword talent received from God,
about what was built up crumbling,
Yoriiichi has not a shred of fear.
Because he's the one loved by God.
Perhaps he can see the distant future in his eyes.
If I could reach the extreme of this path and stand in the same place as Yoriiichi,
could I too smile about the future likewise?
But because I cannot see such things as he does.
The future is already lost, and the child that filled the moon (me) has waned.
No matter how madly I train, only emptiness fills my heart.
Mark bearers die one after another. Their lifespans stolen in exchange for power.
I too will breathe my last before long.
Without reaching my younger brother. Without attaining the extreme of swordsmanship. Without leaving anything behind.
"Then wouldn't it be fine to become a demon?"
Young Moon.
Now, where in the cycle of rebirth are you wandering?
I can no longer wait for you to be reborn. I can't wait any longer.
Having lost you as my future, I must continue living.
I must wield the blade in your place.
I must reach, my younger brother.
I must seek, the path.
I must leave behind, this sword.
If I reach the extreme of this swordsmanship, perhaps even the moon will reach the sun someday.
He believed that. He had no choice but to believe.
Even if it means falling to become a demon, even if it means devoting my body to endless training, even if it means burning my body with hatred and jealousy for my younger brother, I cannot let myself be destroyed.
Even if this is a Breathing that lags behind the sun, I cannot let the moon you smiled at saying was beautiful sink.
I cannot betray the young full moon that believed in me.
Only the moon was watching.
Me bowing my head to the demon progenitor, only the moon.
＊
When that boy cut the demon's head, Kibutsuji Muzan secretly sighed.
Not a sigh of disappointment.
It was a sigh of relief.
When the demon's claw embedded in that boy's abdomen, Kibutsuji Muzan screamed.
Not a cheer.
It was a scream of lamentation.
When that boy was carried to the wisteria-crest house, Kibutsuji Muzan stole the corpse.
Not to eat.
It was to save him.
Along with his own lamentation, Kibutsuji Muzan remembered.
What he found unpleasant saying he didn't know, what he dismissed as unknown, what he didn't even remember having forgotten.
The someone's corpse living in his heart was once his friend.
Why had he forgotten until now the face of his only friend, left as nothing but a head after being eaten by him?
He finally realized the identity of the maggots crawling in his chest.
They were memories with him. Those clear years like glass beads. The beautiful memories scraped away along with his humanity while being eroded by the demon's personality. Ah, my conscience must surely have taken your form.
When he remembered, everything was too late.
His friend had already stopped breathing, and would never smile for him again.
Why couldn't he remember when he called his name?
Even though he crossed five hundred years of rebirth to come find him, the helplessness of being unable to repay him made his heart feel like it would break.
"Please, open your eyes, please…"
On the roof, holding the limp corpse, he pleads.
He tears the boy's dark red clotted wound and pours blood there in torrents.
When a human becomes a demon, physical strength is consumed. Healing wounds would require blood and flesh too. He prepared plenty of meals so he could fill his stomach. Women, men, adults, children, newborns—he killed them all because he didn't know what you'd like. What do you like?
If you want softness, children would be best, but women's meat is sweeter, and for fullness, men are best. Come on, open your eyes quickly. The meat's freshness is declining. Especially newborns decay fast. Rotten blood has its own deep flavor, but it's too early for you.
He poured, and poured, and poured an enormous amount of blood he had never given anyone before.
But he doesn't move.
Demon blood can save the dying, but cannot summon the vanished dead from the afterlife.
Ah, the voice that spilled from trembling lips was cracked.
――Muzan-kun, doing, bad things, aren't you?
――Then that's no good, causing, trouble for others.
I know.
Because my heart, stained by being a demon, has now regained human memories like this. Because it regained them.
The human me understood how great a misdeed the demon me committed. Painfully, to the point of wanting to cry, to the point of wanting to die.
But what am I to do now. There's too much sin to pretend not to know, and the demon personality has become too familiar to atone.
What the human me thinks is wrong, the demon me believes is right.
The sin that makes the human me want to die, the demon me lives without feeling an inch of it.
Both the demon personality and the human memories are now Kibutsuji Muzan. Remembering my old heart might only be a miracle for now. By tomorrow, I might be stained again by the evil spirit that is me.
For these five hundred years, I have consistently not been human.
For the next five hundred years too, I surely will not be human.
A demon with a human heart, a not-human with a demon's heart.
Then now.
Then now, I have no choice but to live.
If I cannot die as a human, then as a demon, as the demon progenitor, as Kibutsuji Muzan, holding human memories, there is no other path but to survive like a coward.
A strand of wind clears the turbid clouds tangled with the moon. His friend's corpse illuminated by moonlight is terribly pale. He quietly gritted his teeth at skin that looks like it never knew sunlight.
Child meat is tasty.
A body trained by demon slaying is nourishment for demons.
With the two combined, it should be a great delicacy.
But then, why does this guy taste so terrible?
It's a horrible taste.
Truly a horrible taste.
Only the moon was watching.
What flowed down the man's cheek, only the moon.