"My offer still stands, human."
Kibutsuji Muzan stretched out his hand to Nightingale, his cold, arrogant voice carrying on the wind tinged with blood.
"Hand over the Blue Spider Lily, and I will grant you the same eternal life as myself."
In the night-shrouded bamboo forest, only Muzan and Nightingale stood face to face.
Muzan was deliberately trying negotiation over violence, uncertain if cornering them would only drive Nightingale to destroy the Blue Spider Lily and die together with him.
That flower was the last hope in this world—the one thing he could not allow to be lost.
The Demon Slayer Corps were nowhere nearby. Nor were Muzan's own followers.
He'd created this scene precisely for this private conversation.
"What are you hesitating for?"
His voice sharpened with impatience, muscles twitching, the air growing ever more pungent with blood and rot.
"Dead men cannot be brought back. Once you die, there's nothing—your body rots into dust, your feelings and mind fall into oblivion. No matter what wishes or ideals you have, you can only achieve them by surviving! But human bodies are so fragile, so small—just a little illness or accident can snatch life away in an instant!"
Muzan wasn't wrong. Having witnessed it herself, Nightingale understood perfectly.
Human life is this fragile. Every second, people die—many before ever achieving anything, leaving the world full of regrets.
In death and disease, all are equal. Rich or poor, man or woman, old or young... everyone will die. There will always be lives you cannot save, no matter what you sacrifice.
Her hands were always too short, unable to grasp the outstretched hands of those fighting for life as they fell into death.
Her voice was always too small, powerless to shout away the messengers who come to reap souls from the land of the living.
Nightingale's wish was to purge this land of all that is toxic and harmful, to eliminate everything that brings people suffering or pain.
To her, everyone—rich or poor, man or woman, old or child—was a patient, an injured soul, someone who deserved to be protected, someone whose fragile life must be saved.
And Kibutsuji Muzan, once, was also a patient.
From birth, Muzan had been shadowed by death—his heart stopped in his mother's womb more than once, and at birth, he was declared stillborn for lack of breath or pulse, only to cry out at the very moment before cremation.
Though he survived, his body was always frail, death always near. His family hired a doctor.
After taking the doctor's medicine, Muzan became a demon—mistaking the agony of transformation for worsening illness, he killed the doctor in rage, only realizing after that he had gained a healthy body—at the cost of sunlight as a deadly weakness. It was only through the dead doctor's notes that he learned of the missing "Blue Spider Lily"—but only the doctor had known where it grew.
One of the earliest "doctor-harming" incidents, I suppose...
The Muzan before her was another victim of sickness and pain—but once he chose to become a taker of life, he no longer deserved sympathy.
"I... have a dream I must fulfill."
Nightingale's eyes lowered, her voice trembling with complex emotion.
"To drive out every poison and harm from this land. To save every life that reaches for my hand. It's a dream not even the gods can realize. There's no beacon to light the way ahead; I crawl through darkness alone... I know, even if I burn myself to ash, it won't help those who come after. Still... I believe the day will come, when humanity conquers sickness and pain. When greater people will follow the path I leave behind, leading mankind into the sunlight."
"I have been lost before... Demons fear the sun because they lack the Blue Spider Lily. With your blood and that flower, maybe I could make a medicine to free humanity from illness. Maybe the day I long for would finally come—a world where everyone is healthy."
"But... that's not the answer."
Her gaze steeled. "Eternal life is far beyond humanity's reach, Muzan. You prove that yourself. Instead of healing, you obsess over taking. Instead of seeking happiness, you spread only pain. Your existence shows that even if humanity overcomes disease, if we cannot walk forward together, we'll create new disasters even worse than illness—born from our own evil."
"Kibutsuji Muzan, the moment you killed without hesitation, you ceased to be human. To me, you are disease itself! You are the illness humanity must overcome—the trial we must surpass!"
Muzan's red-tinged eyes trembled; he bared sharp fangs, veins crawling like snakes up his face.
"All that's irrelevant, isn't it? None of that matters to me! Only surviving matters—whatever the cost! If others die, that's just fate! What did I do wrong?!"
"Are you people crazy? Avenging the dead? Fighting for the living? If you survived, why run toward death? Why not just cherish your own life?!"
"So what if your family died? So what if friends died? At least you're still alive, right? Just be grateful and move on—don't cling to what you can't change, just make a living and live in peace, isn't that enough?"
"Hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes—no one ever thinks of taking revenge on nature for killing people. They just feel lucky to survive and keep going, just as always. Only you crazy Demon Slayers keep hounding me, again and again—I'm sick of it! My patience is at its end!"
With arrogant certainty, Muzan compared himself to a natural disaster, inverting every human value as if it were obvious truth.
To Nightingale, such twisted reasoning was almost laughable.
"Don't underestimate humanity, Kibutsuji Muzan. You think people never fight back against nature? The truth is, we've never stopped trying to understand it. In ancient times, we called disasters the anger of gods, worshipped them out of fear—but now we know they're just natural phenomena. If we can understand, we can overcome. Lightning, once the king's weapon, will soon become an everyday human energy source. Who's to say, before long, humans won't create their own sunlight?"
"And as for you... Don't flatter yourself. You think you can compare to storms and quakes? Don't make me laugh."
"One day, humanity may conquer even natural disasters—but you'll never see that day. Because tonight, you die here."
The suffocating aura of blood and killing intent swept in like a storm tide.
Muzan's rage twisted the very air around him.
Grinding his teeth, his blood-red pupils fixed on Nightingale with murderous fury.
To Muzan, all humans were food, to be consumed at will. And now, prey was mocking and looking down on him.
He longed to tear Nightingale limb from limb, but forced himself to stay calm—because the Blue Spider Lily was still in her possession.
"So... is that your answer?" Muzan's voice dropped to a near whisper, his eyes glinting cold as frost, "What a pity. I had hoped you'd make the wise choice. For your insolence, even if you hand over the Blue Spider Lily, I'll kill you all the same."
"You really think, at this point, I'd hand it over?"
"Of course. Because you madmen always put others' lives ahead of your own."
Muzan's voice was cold and steady as he forced down his fury. "Let me be honest: while we've been talking, I've already sent eight Upper Moons and over a hundred demons as strong as Lower Moons. On my signal, they'll attack the Demon Slayer Corps. The Upper Moons are already near the Ubuyashiki estate—when the moment comes, every elite of the Corps, every member of the Ubuyashiki clan, will die."
At this, Nightingale's pupils shrank.
"You—!"
"Are you angry? Confused? This is your fault. You made the wrong choice. But now, you have a second chance—I hope you'll give me the answer I want."
Muzan narrowed his eyes, his words cold as a winter wind. "Hand over the Blue Spider Lily."
"Giving it to you is the real mistake. That would turn the world into a living hell."
"At least then, I'd take my demons and leave. You and the Demon Slayers would get a chance at survival."
"Your promise means nothing."
"But you have no choice."
Muzan's voice sank lower, his impatience clear. "Come on, choose—for those comrades you know so well in the Demon Slayer Corps, or for strangers you've never even met. Choose!"
"..."
Nightingale fell silent. The only sound was the blood-scented wind slashing through the bamboo, the leaves moaning like a chorus of lost spirits.
Wind, leaves, breath, heartbeat—every sound was magnified in the crushing stillness.
Moonlight spilled coldly through the clouds, air growing thick and heavy as if time itself had slowed to a crawl.
Finally, Nightingale moved.
Muzan's heart leapt into his throat as he watched her lower her gun, returning it to her travel bag, and draw out a wooden box.
"The Blue Spider Lily is in here."
She shook the box gently. "You probably don't know, but the Blue Spider Lily only blooms during the day—usually in places drenched in sunlight, and only rarely, with a short blooming season. Without special preservation, it wilts and dies quickly without the sun."
Muzan's eyes widened, a savage emotion flickering there.
No wonder...
No wonder, after all these years and so many demons searching, he'd always come up empty-handed.
How could demons, who can't endure sunlight, ever find a flower that only blooms in broad daylight?
For a moment, Muzan felt a chill of terror.
If he hadn't learned this truth from Nightingale today, his chances of ever finding the Blue Spider Lily would have been near zero—no matter how long he searched.
From the wooden box, Muzan could sense the hated aura of the sun—clearly, it was made from scarlet ore and scarlet iron sand, like a Nichirin blade.
A box like this was perfect for storing a flower that needed sunlight to bloom.
Right in front of Muzan, Nightingale opened the box.
In the next instant, a blue blossom appeared before his eyes.
Muzan's breath came heavy and ragged.
This is it!
This is it!
This is the Blue Spider Lily! There's no mistake!
This was Muzan's sole obsession for a thousand years—he had read and reread the notes left by the doctor who'd medicated him, memorizing the flower's appearance, features, even its scent. He'd dreamed of this flower, night and day.
He knew the Blue Spider Lily so well that he had tried again and again to create a substitute—always in vain.
But today—at last! The Blue Spider Lily he had chased for a millennium was finally within his grasp!
---
T/N: SIKE