Everyone accepts that defeat as a matter of course.
No one who encountered the divinely favored talent right before their eyes had their spirit remain unbroken.
A human standing before overwhelming power cannot even become a loser. Only despair is given to the ant trampled by the lion; there can be no victory or defeat in a match whose conclusion is decided before the fight even begins.
Talent that everyone acknowledges. Power that everyone worships. The sun blade that melts even jealousy. No one thinks it's frustrating to lose to that blade, or hates that talent.
And yet.
─The sound of striking from the training hall reached even outside, separated by the door.
Swinging the wooden sword as if striking down a sworn enemy was the child he had picked up not long ago.
─In regions with customs of mountain sacrifices, demons generally hide.
A certain village visited for a mission also had that custom deeply rooted. According to the report, they would isolate and raise newborn babies from the world, then offer them as mountain sacrifices to demons once grown. That would certainly cause less backlash than choosing one from among the villagers living there.
The mountain sacrifice of that night was this boy.
A red-eyed, white-haired infant must surely have been regarded as a thorn in the village's side.
It was a new moon. In the bamboo forest he headed to, expecting a demon lured by the sacrifice, a moon that shouldn't have been there was dancing. Round like a full moon, white hair playing in the night.
The moon—the boy who was the sacrifice—was, surprisingly, toying with the demon without being eaten. Leaping from bamboo to bamboo, fleeing from the demon with light movements. Not only that, bamboo was stuck in the demon's body like spears, and that was undoubtedly the boy's doing.
One raised as a mountain sacrifice would have no home to return to, and no place to go either. After cutting down the demon with one strike, I brought the boy to the mansion.
To be honest, bringing him was somewhat hesitated. Perhaps due to living as a sacrifice, the boy had almost no expression, and moreover, could not speak. It overlapped with my detestable younger brother's childhood. This boy's appearance evokes the first cries of my hatred.
The boy seemed to be of that constitution. Going out into sunlight, his skin would literally 'burn'. When he suddenly clung to my back on the way back to the mansion, I wondered what was happening, but thinking now, it must have been to avoid sunlight. With this strange appearance and inconvenient constitution, he wouldn't be able to live in the bright world.
Above all, the movements with which he had toyed with the demon were recognized, and the boy came to belong to the Demon Slayer Corps. As the one who picked him up, I felt responsible and looked out for him, but avoided further interaction. I had no intention of getting involved. That's how it should have been.
──In a body too small for it, bursting with burning jealousy and suffocating hatred, the boy now before my eyes is swinging his wooden sword recklessly.
What enrages you so? What drives you to such extremes?
Whom does this boy, not yet of age, hate so soundlessly?
Thinking that, what comes to mind is my younger brother.
It was a Demon Slayer Corps initiation rite. Newcomers first spar with Yoriiichi. Regardless of age or swordsmanship skill, even a young boy became a victim of that tradition.
Who first started the custom is unknown. But it certainly didn't begin because the other half of my flesh desired it. Would a man who abandoned the sword, saying the sensation of striking down people was disgusting, enjoy sparring with humans?
If he dislikes it, he could just refuse, but that's probably a difficult story for a man filled with goodness from root to branch tip. Every time asked by those around him, he always takes up a wooden sword with a serene face.
With that attitude, such foolish customs arise. Reasons for the sparring vary—to make them understand Yoriiichi's skill, to spur on the newcomer—but to me, it's a trivial event.
Don't waste Yoriiichi's god-like sword. How many times have I gritted my teeth thinking that.
In last night's sparring, which proceeded without exception, that boy lost to Yoriiichi. Unable to use any techniques, barely taking a stance, he was struck with one blow and cleanly lost consciousness.
While carrying the unconscious boy to his room, I remember my chest feeling tight from the sudden interest that arose—what feelings would the awakened boy hold towards Yoriiichi?
Would those eyes shine with respect? Would his cheeks flush with admiration? Would he worship him like a god, kneel and bow his head? Or would he feel awe at the power transcending humanity and have his spirit broken like other swordsmen? Probably one of those, I thought.
Until now.
What burned in the boy's eyes wasn't respect. Not admiration, worship, or awe either. It was hatred like raging flames. Jealousy that seemed to burn his innards from within.
Madly yearning to be Yoriiichi, despairing at being unable to become so, yet thrashing about, the boy swings his blade of anguish. With soundless roars, he reaches for the sun he will never reach, again and again and again.
That figure. That figure that knows no surrender. I find it, nostalgic.
As if reuniting with a brother separated for a hundred years.
"─Don't cry. It's unsightly."
I hadn't intended to speak, but before I knew it, the words left my mouth. The boy, burning with hatred, mad with jealousy, despairing at himself and shedding tears, turned as if bounced by the voice of this intruder.
As told, the boy stopped crying. His brilliantly crimson eyes were flames just beginning to ignite. They were the color of a forge. The sound of striking iron echoes from deep within his pupils. Scattering sparks of hatred and jealousy, the boy's blade remains unshaken, unbent, straight.
From that day.
I began to frequently pay attention to this young child.
＊
There is nothing wrong with his throat, lungs, mouth, or anywhere in his body.
So to Yoriiichi, it was simply strange why the boy his brother picked up couldn't speak.
"When a person makes sound, this part of the throat constricts. Consciously breathe─"
It was goodwill.
Tsugikuni Yoriiichi's actions here were completely out of goodwill.
Deep night when even plants sleep. On the mansion's veranda. Teaching vocal techniques with the child seated on his lap was undoubtedly born of goodwill.
Tsugikuni Yoriiichi, who acted from goodwill, couldn't see the boy on the male's lap whose eyes were dead. The boy's face was filled with an emptiness far more severe than Yoriiichi's default state.
If explaining why Yoriiichi made him sit as a chair, it's simply because this position, holding from behind, is easiest to teach.
Placing his right hand on the boy's throat, Yoriiichi says, "Make this tremble." And pressing the boy's solar plexus with his left hand, he instructs, "When making a loud sound, gather strength here. Be conscious of your lower abdomen."
But the boy couldn't hear Yoriiichi's teachings. He had no time for that, busy cursing his own misfortune of running into Yoriiichi returning from a mission after training late into the night. He felt like going back in time and beating up his past self who had ignored Michikatsu's words that a child should rest at night and swung his wooden sword wildly.
He sends a telepathic distress signal to his past life's friend: Save me Muzan-kun. Muzan-kun isn't psychic and doesn't answer. The boy isn't a demon either, so he's not contracted to the Kibutsuji Muzan network.
"It's not that difficult. Now, try it."
Tsugikuni Yoriiichi was a maverick. A national treasure-level maverick. Having mastered the world seen from birth, able to perceive through a person's blood, flesh, muscles, organs, skeleton, everything, yet he was clumsy at gauging people's feelings. He paid no mind even though the boy was emanating an 'I want to run away quickly' aura with his entire body.
To add, this boy had detested Yoriiichi like a parent's enemy ever since Yoriiichi rejected Toki-chan, his first love from the pharmacy, in 0.1 seconds. It's a deep-seated grudge.
Tsugikuni Yoriiichi, the ultra swordsman born of the Warring States period, was a man who seemed given not two but a hundred things by heaven, but what he lacked, he thoroughly lacked, so the only one unaware of the boy's surging resentment was Yoriiichi himself.
"Construct the throat while exhaling. Use here, this part of your stomach."
Even seeing the boy showed no sign of making a sound, Tsugikuni Yoriiichi didn't give up and repeated the same explanation. This guy's goodwill isn't easily broken. Because it's Tsugikuni Yoriiichi.
"…What are you two doing."
The vocal guidance that created an infinite loop where he couldn't go home until success. Just as the boy's continuously dropping SAN value was about to go mad from a failed dice roll, a saving voice—not a hand—intervened.
Turning towards the voice from across the way, there stood Yoriiichi's brother, the very one who picked up the boy, Tsugikuni Michikatsu himself. Though it was night, he wasn't wearing simple sleepwear but his usual hakama attire.
"We were briefly training so he can speak. Are you heading out on a mission now, Brother?"
"Yes."
Answering his younger brother's question coldly, the older brother looked at the boy's face nestled in Yoriiichi's arms and flinched in surprise. He's… dead… (the eyes)
With eyes that had lost their light like a dead fish, the boy looked at Michikatsu as if pleading. Though he couldn't speak, those eyes eloquently said everything. The red gaze was unmistakably saying, help me.
What was fortunate for the boy was that Michikatsu was a man who noticed that gaze.
"…Such training is merely a waste of time. Let him go."
"But if he cannot speak, wouldn't he face difficulties in daily communication and reporting when going on missions in the future? And—"
Yoriiichi stopped there.
After showing a momentary pretense of thought, he continued.
"If he cannot make a voice, he cannot call for help either."
Indeed, until age seven, Tsugikuni Yoriiichi did not speak. Not an 'ah' or 'yes', not a single sound.
The day when, for the eerie child thought to be deaf or mute, he was given a handmade flute by Michikatsu with the words 'if something happens, blow this, your brother will come help' remains vivid in Yoriiichi's memory to this day. The flute, now too small for his hands, is cherished and kept close to his body.
Yoriiichi had a brother. There was Michikatsu who gave him the flute.
But, what about this boy?
"There's nothing wrong anywhere in this child's body. He hasn't lost his voice. If so, then"
"Yoriiichi."
Michikatsu called out to his younger brother, who was calmly continuing his words, in a strong voice. Stopped, Yoriiichi closed his mouth. His brother was looking down at them with moon-cold eyes.
"That child was raised in that village. You must have received the report."
The village that made a contract with a demon to offer mountain sacrifices in exchange for not being attacked. The boy sitting on Yoriiichi's lap was raised as a mountain sacrifice from birth in that village.
"His body may certainly be unharmed. But why can't you realize that his heart may not be the same."
Hah. Yoriiichi opened his eyes.
Yes. Brother is right. This boy was raised from the beginning as an unnecessary existence in the village, only to be discarded. To be eaten by a demon like livestock.
He must have spent his days without parental affection. Days with nothing to smile or cry about. A hellish daily life like chewing sand.
Yoriiichi reflects on his own childhood. That time confined to a three-tatami room, treated as non-existent by his father. He had his mother and a brother who cared for him. But this boy likely had no such small salvation.
"...Brother is right. I apologize, my thinking was shallow."
Yoriiichi was grateful for this brother who complemented his deficiencies like this. Unlike dull him, his revered brother was adept at understanding people's hearts. A true possessor of insightful vision worthy of standing above. As expected of Brother, Yoriiichi peeked at his brother with eyes of respect.
The light returned to the dead eyes of the boy who had been listening to the series of conversations. Seeing this as the flow leading to his liberation, as if escaping death, as if seeing Buddha in hell, as if witnessing Christ's miracle, he directed that worshipful gaze at Michikatsu.
Feeling somewhat awkward under the boy's gaze, and quite uncomfortable under Yoriiichi's gaze, Michikatsu gave a single fake cough.
"But if the child cannot call for help, it would indeed be inconvenient as you said."
"Brother..."
"Next time I'll make a flute or something, so for now─"
"Huh? No, no need to worry, Brother. I'll make him able to speak by tonight, so please don't concern yourself."
"Huh?"
'Huh?'
Yoriiichi, who should have been dejected after being scolded by his brother, somehow instantly regained his usual attitude. Moreover, this fast speech. 'You could talk that fast?' The inner voices of Michikatsu and the boy overlapped.
The boy, who thought he'd be released now, turned pale as the arms holding him strengthened. He tried to shake off Yoriiichi's hands but they didn't budge like rocks. The boy tried to ask Michikatsu for help with his eyes again, but,
"A boy must overcome heart wounds to become strong. Yes, I heard this child learns quickly too, so he'll soon learn how to speak. No flute will be needed. There's no need to trouble Brother's hands. Now now, Brother. Weren't you on your way to a mission? Though I think it unnecessary for Brother, best of luck. Have a safe trip."
It was an outrageous Yoriiichi.
Pushing his brother with the fastest speech he'd ever seen. Nobunaga's three-stage shooting had more leisure than this. What is that, it's not a machine gun.
Overwhelmed by the first fast speech from Yoriiichi he'd ever heard in his life, Michikatsu could only nod, saying, "R-right." The boy's eyes filled with despair.
Turning his back on the veranda, Michikatsu left for his mission. Yoriiichi placed his fingers on the throat of the boy trembling in despair. It was like, the fangs of a lion biting the nape of its prey.
"Don't worry. I'll stay with you until you can do it."
The boy despaired. He screamed a soundless scream. But no one would help. Of course not. The boy's cry was silent. As long as no sound emerges, the boy cannot call for anyone's help.
From Yoriiichi, kindly explaining teachings to the boy on the veranda bathed in full moonlight—
a very slight scent of jealousy drifted.