"No, you can't kill him. He's my younger brother. I won't let you kill him."
A girl in a white pleated skirt spread her arms, shielding a man behind her.
The man was shrouded in a cloud of black mist, making his figure and features impossible to discern. Only two scarlet points of light shone where his eyes should have been. He was like a ghost, utterly sinister.
In the snow behind the girl lay a boy on the verge of death.
He was covered in wounds, his white robe long since dyed red with blood. Severed human limbs littered the ground around him. Blood had melted the snow, then frozen together with the meltwater.
The scene was too horrific, nothing less than a battlefield from hell.
"Qi An, enough. You've already killed everyone in the village. Spare him. As long as you spare him, I'll agree to anything you say."
The man swathed in black mist slowly approached the girl.
She looked eighteen or nineteen. Her pretty face was frozen red, tears had congealed into icy flecks on her cheeks, and falling snowflakes quickly turned her long black hair white.
Facing the ghostlike man, she did not retreat a single step. Her gaze was resolute, without the slightest trace of fear.
The man stopped before her and met her gaze. They stared at each other for a moment.
A ghostly hand emerged from the black mist. Its sharp index fingernail lightly touched the center of her brow. Though it had only touched her forehead, the nail was clearly razor-sharp, and a thin line of vivid blood ran down the bridge of her nose.
The man withdrew his ghostly hand and brought the bloodstained nail to his lips, licking it.
"What would sparing him change? He's already in this state. Do you think he can still survive? Why not let me turn him into a demon? Then the three of us can be together forever. You, don't you want to be with me forever?"
"Qi An, let Xiao Qi go. As long as you spare him, I'll stay with you forever. You said it yourself—he won't live long in this condition. In that case, leave him here. Whether he lives or dies will depend on his own fate. Besides, I don't want him disturbing us."
The man remained silent. Two scarlet lights stared fixedly at the girl, as though weighing whether she spoke the truth—or whether he should kill the boy.
Seeing that he said nothing, she continued, "I don't know what becoming a demon is like, but voluntarily becoming one must be different from being forced into it, right? Qi An, Xiao Qi is my final request. If you kill him, I will never willingly become a demon. Of course, you can force me to become one, but I don't know whether that would give you what you want."
"Are you threatening me?" The man suddenly bent down, his mist-shrouded face drawing close to hers.
She neither dodged nor flinched. She did not even blink. Through the mist, she seemed to see the man she had longed for, standing in the darkness and looking at her.
That man was not the man before her. The man before her was a devil.
"You can take it as a threat. I said it was a request, and it is also the truth."
A pale strip of dawn appeared on the eastern horizon. Daybreak was coming, and the night was retreating at breakneck speed.
The man straightened and turned toward the horizon. Sunlight pierced the darkness like sharp blades, racing across the snowfield with incredible speed.
The snow was blindingly white.
"Let's go."
The man spared the boy and extended a hand to the girl.
"Wait."
She turned and went to the boy, laboriously helping him to his feet and bringing him beneath a large tree. She carefully propped him against its roots.
Looking at the boy barely clinging to life, she could not stop tears of anguish from falling. She removed the pendant from around her neck and placed it in his palm, then gently wiped the blood from his face with her sleeve.
His deathly pale complexion carried an air of lifelessness. Without prompt treatment, he would clearly die before long.
"Xiao Qi, you must live well. Don't come looking for me, and don't think of revenge. Your sister only wants you to live—to live on for both of us."
She tenderly stroked his icy face. Her boundless reluctance became tears that streamed freely down her face. She knew that once she left, they would be separated forever. The next time they met, she would likely have become a monster who did not even recognize her own younger brother.
The man came up behind her. "Enough. The sun is out. We should go. No need to be so reluctant to part. If he is lucky enough not to die, you will meet again. Though I hope he dies just like this. Otherwise, the next time you meet... heh heh."
The next time they met, he might see her as a monster, and she might see him as prey.
Ignoring the man's hysterical laughter, she rose expressionlessly. After one last glance at the boy, she turned, took the hand he offered, and resolutely walked into the black mist.
The black mist drifted toward the depths of the pitch-dark forest.
The boy shook his heavy head and used every last scrap of strength to raise his arm, trying to grasp that graceful figure disappearing into the darkness. But it was all futile.
He could only watch helplessly as his sister went farther and farther away, until she finally merged with the darkness.
His arm fell limply. He felt himself sinking into darkness as well. Everything around him was silent, as if he had fallen into a pitch-black ice pit. His body sank bit by bit, growing colder bit by bit.
Not long afterward, sunlight drove away the darkness, yet it brought him no warmth at all.
He felt himself still sinking, while his consciousness grew increasingly hazy.
Then he suddenly caught the faint scent of wisteria. It was exactly like the scent on his sister. He thought she had returned, and his sinking body finally stopped.
"Big... Sister."
The boy desperately raised his head. In his blurred vision, a beautiful butterfly fluttered down before him.
As his vision cleared slightly, he saw that what had descended before him was not a butterfly, but a person—a beautiful girl.
Her smile was as warm as a spring breeze. She had beautiful violet eyes and the same scent as his sister.
"You... you're not my sister. You... who are you?" After saying that, the boy's head drooped weakly, and he fainted.
"Eek, he's dead! He's dead, he's dead!" A girl wearing a butterfly hair ornament and twin ponytails stood behind the violet-eyed girl, covering her mouth with both hands as she cried out in alarm.
"Aoi, don't make such a fuss. He merely fainted. Ah, what a pitiful child. Have the medical team take him back."
The violet-eyed girl was Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira and one of the Nine Pillars of the Demon Slayer Corps. The girl she called Aoi was Aoi Kanzaki, a member of the Butterfly Mansion's medical staff and one of the few Demon Slayer Corps members under her command.
Shinobu Kocho stood and surveyed the small village around her. Blood and severed limbs scattered across the bright snow were especially glaring.
A male Demon Slayer Corps member hurried over to Shinobu Kocho. "Miss Shinobu, we searched everywhere. There isn't a single survivor."
"My, my. How tragic."
Shinobu Kocho wore a smile as though she were discussing something of no consequence, yet endless hatred welled up in her violet eyes as she turned to look at the boy on the stretcher.
"Everyone else is dead, yet you're still alive. Why would a demon spare you? Don't tell me your flesh doesn't taste good. My, my. It seems I'll have to properly discipline you."
Before you continue