It Didn't Even Deserve to Be Called Weak

Broken whimpers came from the ball of flesh curled up on the ground.

Yaha didn't move.

One hand still rested loosely in his pocket. His posture was casual, as though he were waiting on a street corner for some boring drunk to finish rambling.

The Hand Demon had wrapped itself into a rotten cocoon with its dozen or so remaining arms.

It squeezed half a bloodshot head out of the ball of flesh, its mouth opening and closing in nervous spasms.

"Please... don't kill me."

Yaha tilted his head.

This lump of rotten meat had actually started talking like a human.

Gone was the shrill, excited voice that had toyed with people as though they were snacks. Now it sounded hoarse and breathy, thick with sobs.

Red veins covered its eyeballs, its pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

They reflected the black Cursed Markings writhing across Yaha's face. This terror came from the depths of its soul, a shudder written into its very genes.

"I... I used to be human, too..." Its vocal cords trembled.

"I had an older brother. We depended on each other growing up. He was five years older than me, and he always let me have my way. I thought... I thought he'd always protect me."

Its voice suddenly grew quiet as it spoke.

Like a child afraid of being beaten, afraid of waking some sleeping beast.

"Then famine came, and we had nothing to eat. My brother sold me to human traffickers... for three sacks of rice."

The mountain forest was utterly silent.

Only the faint rustling of the night wind through the leaves remained.

"The traffickers locked me in a cage. Hunger drove me mad. I was so hungry I started chewing on my own fingers. I was the one who ate someone first..."

It shakily raised a mangled arm, palm up.

Its gray-white skin gleamed with a sickly, oily sheen beneath the moonlight.

"I just... wanted to survive."

Yaha's gaze lingered on its palm for a second.

A demon's memories were always twisted by self-pity.

Even the vile truth that it had eaten its own older brother first after becoming a demon could be rewritten in its subconscious, turning it into an abandoned victim.

It was so pathetic it made him sick.

"So?"

Yaha spoke, his voice as flat as if he were asking about tomorrow's weather.

The Hand Demon froze.

"You were sold, so you started eating people. You ate people, so you were locked on this mountain for fifty years."

Yaha took a step forward.

His combat boot landed on the blood-soaked leaves with a dull thud.

"Those children you ate were Master Urokodaki's students. Every one of them called him their master."

"What the hell are you to think you can play the victim with me?"

The Hand Demon's sob caught in its throat.

It didn't know what to say.

It had lived for fifty years, and those pitiful pleas had worked every time on the human swordsmen it had faced.

Some had cursed it in rage. Some had closed their eyes in anguish. Some had even felt an unwarranted flicker of pity at the last instant before swinging their blades.

But no one had ever looked at it like this.

There wasn't the slightest shift in emotion.

As though he were looking at a stinking lump of mud by the road, unwilling to spare it even the most basic disdain.

"I was wrong..."

The Hand Demon's vocal cords had warped completely. The sounds it forced out resembled leaking bellows.

"I shouldn't have eaten those children! I'll be your slave! I'll find other, stronger demons for you! However many you want to kill, I'll help you find them!"

It stretched out its few remaining arms.

Five thick fingers spread, trembling as they pointed toward its curled-up torso.

"There are other things on this mountain! Some are ten, a hundred times stronger than me! I can take you to them, I can-"

"Sabito."

Yaha cut off its babbling.

He turned his head and glanced at the ground.

Sabito braced himself against the muddy earth, down on one knee. Thick blood still clung to the corner of his mouth, and his broken ribs throbbed with every breath.

He looked up, his gaze shifting between Yaha and the Hand Demon.

His face, usually so full of justice and fiery conviction, now held a bewildered uncertainty.

"It used to be human, too." Sabito's voice was horribly hoarse. "If what it said is true..."

He didn't finish.

But Yaha understood what he meant.

This overly passionate idiot was wondering whether, if the monster truly had such a tragic past, it deserved at least some form of forgiveness before it died.

That kind of weakness had never existed in the King of Curses' vocabulary.

"Shut up, trash."

Yaha looked away. His tone didn't waver.

The Hand Demon's whimpering froze instantly.

Yaha raised the right hand that had been hanging at his side. He brought his index and middle fingers together.

His ten fingers spread slightly.

Black Cursed Markings crawled up from beneath his collar. They crossed his jaw, spread over his cheekbones, and finally claimed half his face.

An ominous gleam lit his blood-red pupils in the darkness.

Cursed Technique Eight.

An invisible web wove itself through the air in an instant. Finer than spider silk, sharper than the finest Nichirin Blade.

The Hand Demon didn't even have time to let out a final scream.

Squelch.

Its torso froze in place.

Its dozen or so surviving arms all fell off in the same second, crashing into the mud and throwing up a cloud of foul-smelling dust.

Then came a denser barrage of snapping sounds that set teeth on edge.

Chest, abdomen, hips, thighs...

Every part covered in flesh broke apart at the same instant, becoming countless finger-sized cubes of meat.

Every cut surface was as smooth as a mirror, glistening wetly in the moonlight with a nauseating sheen.

The enormous mountain of flesh collapsed.

Like an unfinished building whose foundations had been hollowed out, it crumbled into pieces across the ground.

Only a relatively intact head remained, rolling to a stop in front of Yaha's combat boots.

The head was still alive.

Its eyes spun wildly in their sockets, filled with utter terror and the despair of being unable to comprehend such an overwhelming attack.

"What did you do..."

The voice sounded like bloody bubbles squeezed from deep in its throat, broken and faint.

Yaha looked down at it.

It was still trying to speak. Halting syllables escaped between its shattered teeth.

"I just wanted to survive... I just-"

Yaha raised his right foot.

"I already told you."

The heavy sole hovered directly above the head.

"Shut up."

He stomped down.

Splat.

It was like crushing an overripe, rotten apple. Red and white matter squeezed out around the sole and splashed onto the sides of his boot.

The Hand Demon's screams ceased completely at that instant.

The headless chunks of flesh twitched a few times beneath the moonlight. Then they rapidly charred and turned to ash.

The night wind swept up the ashes, carrying them away into the boundless darkness.

Yaha drew his foot back and casually wiped the sole against the grass beside him.

In his mind, the cold mechanical voice arrived right on cue.

[Ding! Host detected displaying absolute contempt for the weak in battle.]

[Roleplay level +7%. Current roleplay level: 25%.]

[Reverse Cursed Technique (beginner) unlocked.]

Yaha let out a long, weary breath.

Beneath the moonlight, the black Cursed Markings on his face rapidly withdrew below his collar like an ebbing tide. Those terrifying blood-red eyes dimmed as well, returning to pure black.

Part of Sukuna's template receded.

Human exhaustion surged over him at once.

It wasn't just physical overexertion. His sense of smell regained its sensitivity, and the thick stench of blood rushed into his nose, making his stomach spasm faintly.

The empathy he had forcibly suppressed to unlock his skills was trying to reclaim this body.

But he forced down the urge to retch.

He couldn't shed this monster's skin yet.

Only after the night wind had dried the few drops of filthy blood splashed across his cheek did he turn his head and look back at the two on the ground.

He deliberately drained all warmth from his eyes.

"Still alive?"

His voice sounded distant, as though it were drifting down from some lofty perch among the clouds.

Sabito was still down on one knee.

He made no attempt to cover his bleeding wounds. He simply stared hard at Yaha's face, looking at him as though he were a stranger.

Fear and awe churned in his eyes.

And a faint trace of almost instinctive rejection.

Makomo huddled behind Sabito. Her fingers dug into the dirt, her lips pale. Trembling, she tried to say something, but no sound would come.

Yaha stayed silent for two seconds.

His mind was a mess.

He had meant to toss out something like, "It's your buddy," or tease them with, "Scared you pissless, huh?"

But now those lousy lines that usually came so easily stuck at the back of his tongue. He couldn't get them out.

"Get up."

Yaha walked over and crouched down.

He reached out and gave Sabito's blood- and mud-covered head a smack.

It was much gentler than usual. But his tone was hard.

"The seven days aren't over yet. There are still demons to kill."

The smack stunned Sabito for a moment. Veins stood out clearly on the back of the hand clutching his broken mask.

Makomo finally found her voice.

Like a frightened rabbit, she called out softly, trembling.

"Yaha..."

Yaha stood up and slipped both hands back into his pockets.

"Let's go."