His senpai was dead.
That single sentence quenched every last ember of rage that had nowhere to go. Maybe his senpai had never given him a moment of warmth. His senpai had bullied him over and over. But Zenitsu was, at heart, a kind boy. Whatever else was true, he couldn't make himself feel that his wrongs deserved death.
—Inori-nee... are you really a demon? You were always so gentle—why would you be a demon?
"Let's move. Stop wasting time."
Sanemi looked at Zenitsu curled in on himself and couldn't bring himself to say another word. He turned and pushed the rest of them forward.
...
...
Inside the estate, three Hashira knelt on one knee in the covered corridor.
The figure standing before them, beneath the eaves, was a slender man. Long hair parted down the middle. From the nose up, his face was grotesquely disfigured, both eyes sightless. Even so, the lines of his features were sharply defined, and the facial features were, setting aside the ruined skin, those of a remarkably handsome man.
This was the current head of the Demon Slayer Corps. Kagaya Ubuyashiki.
Rengoku led the account from the front, laying out every detail of the incident for his Master, nothing omitted, nothing embellished. No coloring from personal feeling. Out of the trust and respect he held for this man, he made every effort to reconstruct the truth as faithfully as he could.
"...This is my fault."
When Rengoku finished, Kagaya bowed his head and let out a long, quiet breath.
"That thing is a demon, Master! You have no need to hesitate. Send the word out and have her hunted down!"
Sanemi didn't understand what was going through Kagaya's mind. He assumed Master was grieving a missed opportunity.
"This may have been... a chance that comes once and never comes again. A chance to draw out Muzan Kibutsuji."
The Ubuyashiki family had a past too painful to speak of plainly. The Demon Progenitor—Muzan himself—and the Ubuyashiki family shared the same blood. The demon Muzan had become was a stain on the entire clan. It was a connection like the bloodlines in the JoJo world, the same blood reaching across generations to leave its mark. And Muzan's existence had left a mark on every Ubuyashiki descendant born since, the sons most of all.
Kagaya Ubuyashiki's illness was born of exactly this. Every child born into their family was frail and sickly, dead before they had truly lived, and though advice from shrine priests had helped somewhat, not a single Ubuyashiki child had ever lived past thirty.
Inside the Corps, only the innermost circle—the closest of the Hashira—knew the full truth. No one had more reason to want Muzan dead than Kagaya. This was the fate that had followed his family for a thousand years. Killing Muzan was the only way to lift the curse from his children.
"He has been in hiding for a thousand years, searching for a way to overcome sunlight. And the answer to his search was sitting right before us. That was my failing. I should have come myself. Whatever it took, I should have kept her here."
"Master, this is not your fault!" Rengoku said quickly. "No one could have guaranteed that person wasn't lying, or trying to frame Kanae-nee."
If every questionable report demanded Master's personal presence, what were his subordinates for? Kagaya's words had both Rengoku and Sanemi turning the blame inward: if only they had been sharper, more thorough, this would have ended differently.
"Master, do you intend to use Inori to draw out Muzan?"
Kanae's complexion was paler than usual, her whole bearing listless. She hadn't spoken since they'd arrived, not even when Rengoku mentioned the suspected romantic relationship between her and Inori.
"Kanae. I have no intention of harming her. I only want to talk."
"I hope to see Muzan Kibutsuji ended in our generation. And to force him out of the dark; we must make him move."
Kagaya didn't reproach Kanae for concealing the truth. The Corps was built the way it was: hard lines drawn between human and demon, no gray area between them, and most of its members had joined out of deep, consuming hatred for demons. Taking Inori in would have invited resistance and resentment from many quarters, and a fractured organization was more dangerous than any demon. He understood completely why Kanae had done what she did.
"I'm sorry, Master... I don't know where she's gone."
"That's all right. We'll all keep trying together. Whatever else, this is a good sign." Kagaya smiled, warm and quiet.
And it was. A demon who could endure sunlight had appeared. It could only mean the long standoff between the Corps and demonkind was at last drawing toward its end.
"Starting tomorrow, notify everyone to watch for a pink-haired girl dressed in black. Any sighting of a possible match: report back to me, or to Gyomei, immediately."
"Yes, sir!"
...
...
The Taisho era came after the Meiji Restoration, a strange transitional period when Japan's modernization had ripened enough to feel nearly complete, yet old and new still pressed against each other hard enough to feel the seams. Walking the city streets gave Inori an unsettling sense of having jumped worlds all over again.
The city was alive. Trams sliding past, buildings ablaze with light, the foot traffic unceasing. By comparison, the place she'd been living before really had been out in the middle of nowhere, but even so, she preferred the quiet of the Butterfly Mansion.
She'd wrapped a pale pink scarf around her head to cover her hair. It concealed part of her face too; the last thing she needed was idle thugs or a drunken troublemaker picking a fight and ruining her evening.
"One udon, please. Extra cilantro."
Inori found a noodle shop and took a seat. The dinner rush had passed, and the shop was empty except for her.
She liked having the place to herself. The small shop was thick with the smell of food, the stove behind the counter burning hot and steady.
"What flavor, miss?"
The owner at the counter looked up with a smile.
"Hmm... as spicy as you can make it."
She hadn't eaten since leaving the Butterfly Mansion—just a little mountain spring water, but she felt no real hunger. That was one benefit of this body.
"Sure thing~"
He answered with a drawn-out, playful note.
Inori's brow furrowed slightly. Something felt off. She glanced up at the owner.
How to put it. He was unreasonably young. Pale skin. Hair a shaggy, long white-blond, tinged with a faint yellow—the color of white oak. Eyes narrowed to slits as he bent over a ledger, writing something.
He didn't match the image in her head of what a noodle shop owner should look like.
Weren't these places usually run by enthusiastic uncles in aprons, sweating cheerfully over a stove?
Inori tilted her head, but didn't think too hard about it. She set her hands on the table and waited. Before long, he carried over a steaming bowl.
"Here you are~"
"Mm—you're the owner here?"
Inori looked at his face, and couldn't help a flicker of curiosity.
He had a startlingly handsome face. Eyes like iridescent glass, every color at once. Voice soft and carrying a low, magnetic quality. If she had to put it into words: perfect casting for the male lead of a Mary Sue story.
"No—my father went out to buy groceries. I'm watching the shop for him."
"Ah. I see."
Inori returned the smile.
"You've got a nice face."
"Thank you for the compliment."