Late at night.
Yuko woke from her sleep feeling uneasy. She had already forgotten what she had dreamed about, but she had not felt this way in many years—not since becoming a Demon.
Demons did not actually need sleep, but Yuko had not lost her human emotions and had grown accustomed to it.
Humans who became Demons generally gradually lost the emotions they had possessed as humans. This was especially true of those who had only recently been transformed into Demons; their minds often held nothing but the thought of eating people.
Only after eating humans would their rationality gradually return. The more people they ate, the closer their intelligence approached that of a normal person.
The reason she had not suffered this fate was most likely the Blue Spider Lily, along with the fact that Kokushibo had injected her with enough of Muzan's blood.
Given Kokushibo's relationship with Muzan, that was entirely possible.
After waking, the unease in Yuko's heart still did not fade. It was as though something was about to happen—or... was already happening.
The pressure in her chest was exactly the same as when she had dreamed of Kokushibo becoming a Demon.
Yuko regulated her breathing and walked out of her room, trying to relax her mind.
The open front gate caught her eye. Yuko hurriedly sensed for Yoriichi's presence.
Nothing.
Yuko's heart jolted. She went to Yoriichi's door and knocked. When no one answered, she immediately pushed it open. Sure enough, there was no one inside.
Where could an eighty-year-old man have gone at this hour?
Yet, for some reason, her sixth sense gave her an answer: outside the city.
A scarlet blood moon hung at the edge of the sky. The pagoda outside the city stood close at hand, and the unease in Yuko's heart grew even stronger.
When she reached the open ground before the pagoda, mottled moonlight reflected off the earth, and a familiar smell of blood drifted into Yuko's nose.
Kokushibo...
Her heart gave a sudden thump.
Yuko's gaze extended farther ahead. Under her excellent eyesight, a pile of shredded cloth lay scattered there.
Yuko's pupils contracted sharply, and her breathing stalled.
She walked over with heavy steps. What appeared before her was Yoriichi's body, severed at the waist.
Yuko stood dazed for a moment. Her wine-red eyes instantly transformed into golden slit pupils, and savage blood vessels spread across her eyeballs.
Yuko ground her teeth together and forced two words, filled with hatred, from her throat.
"Kokushibo!"
Even when he had betrayed his lord to become a Demon, even when Kokushibo had transformed her into a Demon, Yuko had never resented him.
But this time...
That was your own younger brother, born of the same father and mother! Had becoming a Demon made you lose your humanity?!
Yuko clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her flesh. Cold blood trickled from her palms, but she did not notice in the slightest.
Under the extreme fury, her wine-red hair showed faint signs of turning white.
"Yuko..."
All of a sudden, a gentle voice rang out behind her.
Yuko turned around instinctively.
A head of fiery red hair fluttered in the air. White Light radiated faintly from his entire body, and Yoriichi, appearing as a young man of twenty, gazed at her gently.
Yuko was too stunned to speak. She merely stared blankly at Yoriichi.
A Demon?
No, it would be more accurate to call him a ghost.
Otherwise, there was no way to explain what she was seeing before her.
She remembered... Tanjiro seemed to have experienced something similar.
"Brother..." Tears glimmered in Yuko's eyes as she gritted her teeth in grief and fury. "That bastard. I will definitely cut off his head!"
Someone so disloyal and unrighteous—she had actually once foolishly hoped to change him!
How ridiculous!
Yoriichi watched her for a while, then suddenly reached out and stroked her head.
There was clearly no physical sensation, yet somehow it made her feel warmth.
Yoriichi's gentle voice rang out.
"It's all right."
Just as she had comforted Yoriichi back then.
"I don't have much time left. From now on, you'll have to rely on yourself." A trace of reluctance colored Yoriichi's voice.
Yuko took a deep breath. Though a glimmer of tears remained in her eyes, she spoke with absolute resolve. "I will definitely cut off Muzan's head."
Yoriichi smiled gently. "If it's you, Yuko, you'll definitely be able to do it."
Yuko opened her mouth, still wanting to say something, but Yoriichi's body suddenly began to fade.
"Brother..."
As soon as she spoke, she heard Yoriichi's voice.
"If you feel tired, you should stop and rest for a while."
Yuko's eyes flickered, and she fell into a daze.
Yoriichi's smiling face vanished into the air.
Yuko stood rooted to the spot in a daze for quite some time before solemnly gathering Yoriichi's corpse and Nichirin Blade.
The flute Yoriichi had always carried with him was gone. He had probably been taken by Kokushibo.
The thought disgusted Yuko so much that she wanted to vomit.
Yoriichi had left no final words about where he wished to be buried, but Yuko thought he would probably want to sleep beside Uta.
As winter approached, Yuko came to Tanjiki's home under the cover of night.
Things had changed, and Tanjiki and his wife had passed away many years ago. Yuko did not want to interact with their descendants, lest it only add to her sorrow.
Heavy snow had sealed off the mountains. When Yuko passed by Tanjiki's home, she was drawn to the firelight shining from the courtyard.
She hid in the forest beneath the dusk and watched Tanjiki's descendants perform the Sword Style of Sun Breathing.
Sun Breathing had indeed been passed down.
Yuko withdrew her gaze and carried Yoriichi's remains to Uta's grave. After clasping her hands and praying for a while, she dug open Uta's grave and buried Yoriichi's remains inside with her.
She had become alone again.
But this time was different.
She had nowhere to return to.
Yuko wrapped Yoriichi's Nichirin Blade in white cloth and secured it at her waist. She wound the cloth especially tightly around the sword guard, so that no Demon would recognize it.
Together with the snow-white Demon Blade at her waist, they formed a pair.
The Nichirin Blade slew Demons, while the Demon Blade slew humans.
With no home left, Yuko wandered aimlessly across the land.
Under the night sky, sporadic lights appeared in distant villages, while wisps of black smoke floated through the air.
It was the Sengoku Era, when warlords divided the land and smoke from battle rose everywhere.
In this era of survival of the fittest, burning, killing, looting, and massacring entire villages were not uncommon.
A thick aura of Demons flooded into her nostrils. There was more than one source.
It was obvious that the village, which had just suffered through war, had already been occupied by Demons.
Yuko had encountered few Demons over the years. Even by the Taisho period, Demons mostly existed only in legends and storybooks, serving as boogeymen to frighten children.
But since she had encountered them, she would not ignore them.
Yuko entered the village. Severed limbs were visible everywhere, and corpses covered the ground.
Compared with war, the impact caused by Demons could only be described as insignificant.
Yuko did not stop. By this point, such food could no longer sway her will.
Yuko walked toward the place with the densest Demon aura—a clearing in the center of the village.
The farther in she went, the more corpses there were along the road.
The bodies had also begun to show signs of being gnawed by animals.
Yuko knew that they were not animals.
They were Demons.
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