No matter how dark the night, morning comes without fail to sweep it aside. Ordinary people would never know that a great evil—one that had haunted this country for a thousand years and authored countless atrocities—had been quietly extinguished. The age of demons was not over, not yet. But it was a beginning.
Without Muzan, new demons could still arise. Kokushibo and Doma, among the highest Upper Ranks, both possessed the ability to infect and convert ordinary humans. The Demon Slayer Corps did not celebrate. They did not loosen their guard. Instead, Ubuyashiki Kagaya called an emergency Hashira Meeting and set the course for what would come next.
The conclusion: regardless of whether Inori—the most likely suspect—had truly been the one to kill Muzan, the Corps' fundamental mission had not changed. If anything, it called for heightened vigilance. Every demon's movements were to be tracked without exception, and every member of the Corps was to commit this to memory: the moment anyone encountered a woman with pink hair and a black kimono, the location was to be relayed to headquarters immediately, by Kasugai Crow.
Meanwhile, Inori's instructions to the Twelve Kizuki were simple. Lie low for now. Keep away from human settlements as much as possible. Avoid direct confrontations with the Demon Slayer Corps above all else. Just buy time. She'd drawn on her experience running Funeral Parlor, strung together a few paragraphs of advice that sounded reasonable and was ninety percent improvised, and they'd believed every word of it.
Even so, what she could actually control was limited to the Twelve Kizuki. The countless small demons scattered across the country were beyond her reach. Demons, unlike the Corps, had no unified command structure. It had always been clear to her that Muzan hadn't created his demons out of any particular desire for domination or the pleasure of ruling over others. They were camouflage. A smokescreen. His whole strategy had been to create enough noise around him that no one could see clearly.
That said—he'd never been displeased when one of his demons managed to kill a Hashira. The resulting chaos was useful enough to merit a reward: more of his blood, or a higher rank within the Twelve Kizuki.
In short, Muzan's death had not de-escalated anything. If anything, tensions had climbed to heights not seen in years. A rumor was already making the rounds inside the Corps: Muzan had been killed not by a demon slayer, but by another demon—and that demon had now taken his place as Demon King and was quietly planning something.
Half-true. Inori had indeed become the new King of Demons. The second half was nonsense. She wasn't planning anything. Since the meeting had ended, she hadn't laid eyes on a single demon besides Doma at mealtimes and the occasional glimpse of Kokushibo sitting in silence somewhere, conserving his strength. She had been spending her days locked inside whatever room she'd claimed in the maze of the Infinity Castle—sleeping, or... spending quality time with Mana.
People were creatures of habit, and Inori was no exception. She had clawed her way from the world of Guilty Crown through blood and chaos into this one, only to finally get half a month of something like a vacation at Butterfly Mansion—and then Kaigaku, that brainless wretch, had ruined all of it. Satisfying as it had been to see him reduced to ash, it did nothing to undo the chain of events he'd set in motion.
One could say Kaigaku's selfishness had indirectly led to Muzan's death. But the problem was—Inori, having had a taste of rest, found it very difficult to summon the energy she'd had when she was hunting Kira Yoshikage. That razor-sharp momentum, the kind that had her assembling a crew one day and kicking down someone's front door the next. She knew what she needed to do: arrange things properly, create a safe environment for Mana, and then descend into the depths of her own soul to find the truth. But she couldn't make herself move. Beyond simple laziness, there was also a vague, inexplicable feeling nagging at her—the sense that something hadn't been taken care of, some important thing she'd left undone. She couldn't name it. Just a hunch. The kind that refused to go away.
...
...
Inside the Infinity Castle, somewhere in the labyrinth of shifting corridors, in a small room tucked into one corner of the space—a woman with long pink hair and a black-feather outfit was slowly pulling her heavy, layered kimono back over her bare shoulders.
A visible flush still clung to her face. She was clearly savoring something pleasant, the corners of her lips curving upward without her permission.
...The old saying about the soft embrace of a warm hearth being where great warriors meet their end had survived this long for a reason. Alone in her room, she obviously couldn't spend all her time sleeping. When boredom set in she'd drift, and when she drifted she'd think, and when she thought she'd involuntarily circle back to the memory of that first time—and then she couldn't stop herself from going back and reliving it again.
Which was frankly depraved, and she was well aware it was depraved, but here she was anyway—taking full advantage of the fact that Mana couldn't exactly retaliate. Though, to be fair, Mana didn't seem to have any objections. Not even a token one.
No. Stop. That's enough of that. Starting right now—Inori was going to go find Doma and get an update on what the Demon Slayer Corps had been up to. Starting from this exact moment. I'm back, baby. Time to get things done—figure out the Stand mystery, and get out of this world.
Even while thinking this, her hands kept moving, working through the familiar steps of dressing without needing to be told what to do next. It was when she was tying the sash that she noticed it—sitting on the small table by the incense burner, the black spider lily hair ornament. Kocho Kanae's gift from the night before everything fell apart.
She must have set it down carelessly at some point. The ornament had toppled onto its face, bending the black petals under its own weight.
Inori felt a small, quiet discomfort. She walked over and picked it up, turning it in her hands—and in that moment, the fog that had been sitting in her chest for days went transparent all at once. Everything clicked into place.
She was not without connection in this world.
Think it through: once she entered deep memory mode, how was she supposed to guarantee Mana's safety?
Mana couldn't use the Nameless Monster to pass herself off as Demon King, which meant leaving her in the Infinity Castle would only paint a target on her back. In that case, joining the Demon Slayer Corps was the obvious answer.
The path ahead became suddenly, completely clear.
Go find Kocho Kanae. Tell her that soon, a certain "little sister" of hers would be coming to join the Corps, and ask her to look after the girl and teach her some swordsmanship. Simple. Airtight.
Inori fastened the spider lily ornament into place and spent a moment making sure her reflection was appropriately flawless. Then she pushed open the door and stepped out. Nakime, ever attentive to Inori's movements, immediately activated her Blood Demon Art and transported her to where the Twelve Kizuki had gathered.
There had been nothing there originally, but at Inori's direction, Akaza had enlisted a few of the smaller demons living in the Infinity Castle to renovate the space into something suitable for conversation and meals—a long dining table, and an elevated, comfortable seat that served as her throne, both installed at Inori's request.
The arrangements unsettled them a little. But compared to Muzan, who had never once let his expression soften into anything warmer than cold condescension, Lady Inori—beautiful, pleasant-voiced, fond of cracking jokes with her subordinates, easy to be around—was so much better that a little unfamiliar furniture seemed a very small price to pay.
She walked in with the intention of announcing her departure, and found the hall almost entirely empty. Only Doma was there to greet her.
"Doma? Where's Akaza?"
Kokushibo rarely stayed in one place—she'd long since stopped keeping track of him—but Akaza's absence was unusual.
"Lord Akaza felt an impulse to revisit a place he used to live. He couldn't reach you at the time... so he asked me to pass the message along."
"I see." Inori nodded, then looked Doma over—he was dressed unusually formally today—and tilted her head with mild curiosity. "And you? Are you heading out too?"
"Ah, you noticed~"
He gave his customary smile.
Most days Doma wore something comfortable and casual. Today he had changed into a deep crimson formal robe of distinctly antiquated cut—the silhouette of a court strategist from the Warring States era. On his head sat a crimson hat in a shape and color that, when Inori looked at it honestly, resembled nothing so much as a menstrual pad placed squarely on someone's skull.
She wanted to laugh. She managed not to say anything about it.
"Your hair ornament is quite distinctive, Lady Inori."
Doma didn't rush to explain himself. Instead he introduced a new topic.