Darkness.
Not the kind that came with nightfall, but something thicker—a darkness that clung to the bones. Muzan's stride was fast, ruthless, not sparing a glance behind as his castle shimmered into view through shifting mist. His grip on Kuzan was iron-tight.
She hadn't stopped crying.
She couldn't.
Askari was gone.
Kuzan had seen her eyes go still. She had reached out, lips trembling, hand shaking—but all she'd felt was the warmth fading from her mother's skin. And now that memory screamed inside her like a second heartbeat.
The castle gates groaned open, and demons scattered at the sight of Muzan—wounded, panting, his flesh still reknitting over charred muscle.
"Leave us." His voice shattered the air.
He descended into the lower chambers, where light never touched and time twisted like roots underground. He placed Kuzan gently on a stone floor, his hands bloodstained, his face unreadable.
She curled up, small and shaking.
Muzan knelt beside her.
He didn't speak for a long time.
Finally, he asked in a tone more chilling than any scream:"Do you know why she died?"
Kuzan didn't look at him. "Because she was kind…"
"Yes." Muzan's crimson eyes narrowed. "Because kindness is weakness. Mercy is a lie. That samurai—Yoriichi—would not have hesitated to kill you, too."
Her hands balled into fists. "But she didn't fight… she could've—she—"
"She chose to die for nothing," Muzan hissed, his words sharp as daggers. "And now, you must choose to live for something. Or you'll end up just like her."
Kuzan lifted her tear-streaked face. Something in her gaze shifted—grief cooling into something bitter, slow-burning.
Muzan saw it.
The seed.
And he smiled.
Years passed.
The girl called Kuzan disappeared, name swallowed by silence.
She studied alone. Trained in the shadow of monsters. Spoke rarely, but when she did, demons listened. She refused Muzan's offer to become a demon for years, and he never forced her. Instead, he raised her like a weapon waiting to be unsheathed.
But in quiet moments, when no one watched, she would sit in the garden—Askari's garden, now long withered—and hum the lullabies she barely remembered.
She never smiled.
But she never forgot.
The man with the fire-colored blade.
The mother who gave her life for mercy.
The blood on her hands that day—even if none of it was hers.