After our father abandoned the two of us, Mother raised me without a single word of complaint. Gravely ill, she still did everything she could so that I might live well. In the end, she even tried to take her own life so as not to become a burden to me. I finally managed to make her abandon that thought—only for the village to be attacked by demons soon after. Mother was brutally murdered, and the entire village was wiped out. I alone survived…
Mr. Sanemi's family had so many children that merely surviving was already a tremendous struggle. And yet the most important person of all—their mother—became a demon. Of his six younger brothers, only one lived. He was even forced to kill the mother he loved most with his own hands…
And then there was that pair of siblings…
Demons keep stealing away the people we hold dear. They treat humans as playthings, delighting in our suffering, our grief, our deaths…
They were once human too, weren't they? Then why did it come to this? Why did creatures like demons come into existence? And that one called Kibutsuji Muzan—just how ugly must he be? How filthy?
Listening to Kazuki's words, Rokuro felt baffled. He said indifferently, "What does that have to do with me? We demons killing humans is only natural—"
Before he could finish, Rokuro froze, staring at Kazuki as the boy stepped toward him, one step at a time. Another voice rang out inside his head.
"What's so interesting about it? What's so funny?"
It was a voice equally heavy with suppressed rage, accompanied by an image that appeared in his mind. A man who looked strikingly similar to the youth before him—his forehead marked with a strange flame-shaped pattern, black hair edged in red tied into a high ponytail, clad in crimson garments as he stood beneath the moonlight.
This is… Lord Muzan's memory…
Rokuro understood at once. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
"You were human once too, weren't you? Then why slaughter humans?"
Kazuki's voice sounded again—and the voice in Rokuro's mind echoed once more.
"Why did you choose to forget?"
The Nichirin blade slid from its sheath. The black steel gradually turned red…
Sweat poured from Rokuro's brow. Terror radiated from his very cells, making his entire body tremble.
"Damn it! Go to hell!"
Panicked, Rokuro shook his head, trying to shake off the state he was in, and charged at Kazuki with a punch.
The sound of a blade slicing through flesh rang out. In an instant, all four of Rokuro's limbs were severed. Four strikes had been made, yet the speed was such that only a single sound could be heard.
"AAAHHH!"
Rokuro screamed as he collapsed to the ground.
Kazuki walked up to him, Nichirin blade in hand. The black steel had turned completely crimson, identical to the sword held by the man in Rokuro's memory.
"In your eyes… what does life truly mean?"
"What do you take life to be?"
Two voices sounded together, overlapping. At that moment, the figure of Kazuki holding the crimson blade perfectly overlapped with the image in Rokuro's mind. The fear emanating from Rokuro's cells surged to its peak.
No… how could I be this afraid of a human? And how could Lord Muzan fear a human? This has to be fake. Humans are weak, insignificant creatures—there's no way they could ever defeat beings like us who do not age, fall ill, or succumb to wounds.
Rokuro frantically tried to suppress the terror coursing through his body, yet he couldn't stop trembling.
"Hah… hahaha! Don't think this means you've won. Your blade touched my body just now, didn't it? I'll destroy it right now and see what you do then. Blood Demon Art—Wheel Spin!"
His voice trembling, Rokuro shouted as he stared at Kazuki's blade.
The atmosphere fell silent for a single second. Nothing happened.
Kazuki slowly raised the crimson-red Bright Red Nichirin Blade. His expression was calm, but the fury hidden deep within his eyes was unmistakable.
"That's impossible! My Blood Demon Art can control anything I touch, making it rotate however I want! Why is your blade unaffected?" Rokuro yelled at Kazuki in disbelief.
His Blood Demon Art, Wheel Spin, allowed him to control anything he touched, forcing it to rotate at his will. Unless his head was severed in a single strike, a Nichirin blade would be twisted into a useless coil. If he touched someone's body, the affected area would be twisted until it necrotized—the longer the contact, the longer the control, and the stronger its effect.
Relying on this Blood Demon Art, as long as the difference in strength between him and a Demon Slayer wasn't too great, his chances of victory were nearly one hundred percent.
And yet now, his once-invincible Blood Demon Art was utterly ineffective.
How could this be? His blade cut off my limbs—my body definitely touched that sword. Then why didn't my Blood Demon Art activate?
Cold sweat drenched Rokuro's body as his fear continued to grow. He even forgot, for a moment, to regenerate his severed limbs. But even if he tried, it would have been impossible—wounds inflicted by a Bright Red Nichirin Blade were difficult to regenerate even for an Upper Rank, or even Muzan himself, let alone a Lower Rank Two like him.
The failure of his Blood Demon Art was also due to that Bright Red blade.
Kazuki naturally did not answer Rokuro's questions—nor did he know the answer himself.
Stepping up before Rokuro, Kazuki asked his final question. The earlier ones had been spoken purely from hatred for demons; he had never intended to receive answers from a demon's mouth. This last question, however, was the one he truly wanted answered.
"Where is Kibutsuji Muzan?" Kazuki asked coldly, looking down at the fallen Rokuro.
It was precisely because he wanted to learn Muzan's whereabouts that Kazuki had not used a Breathing Technique to sever Rokuro's head in a single strike. Other demons might possess fragments of tragedy worthy of pity, but Kibutsuji Muzan—who endlessly created demons, forced kin to devour one another, and brought countless tragedies into the world—deserved not the slightest shred of sympathy.
Bathed in moonlight, the figure before him looked almost like a god. Everything Rokuro had once believed about humans found no reflection in this person. He seemed to surpass demons themselves—more perfect than demons.
A demon's strength required devouring humans, abandoning sunlight, and existing only in the night. Yet the strength of the man before him was utterly unreasonable. He looked no more than a teenager, yet his speed and power far surpassed Rokuro's, a demon who had consumed countless humans.
He was like a god walking the mortal world. Such overwhelming strength was simply natural to him—it was an intrinsic part of his being.
"I… I don't know… I don't know…"
Fear filled Rokuro's eyes as he muttered repeatedly, shuffling backward—half in terror of Kazuki, and half in terror of Muzan himself.
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