The smell of blood and burning houses filled his nose. Haruto lowered his head and saw his own beautiful feathers.
It was a dream.
It was... Sōma's dream.
Haruto looked around in bewilderment, his pupils contracting slightly at the scene before him.
Blood thick in his nostrils, burning homes, a boiling uproar, and figures in Demon Slayer Corps uniforms sprawled every which way on the ground before him.
He tilted his head slightly, trying to find Sōma.
The low, pained gasps were barely audible amid the clamor, but Haruto soon found his grandfather.
A young man with long hair draped over his shoulders and a white haori patterned with wintersweet leaned against a broken wall, waiting for death.
Something had pierced his chest, exposing the organs shifting inside.
With their hair now the same length, Haruto and Sōma looked even more alike.
His head was raised, his handsome face covered in blood. He already looked utterly exhausted.
"Ume."
Sōma's voice was soft, broken and breathy, forcing bloody foam out of his mouth.
His lungs seemed to have been injured.
A female demon stood before him, crying.
"Why? Why are all the men in the world like this?"
The female demon wiped the huge tears rolling down her face with the back of her hand, smearing blood all over it.
Judging by that, her hand must have been what pierced Sōma's chest.
Ume? Was Daki's name Ume?
Why was she the one sobbing her heart out?
"Brother! Brother!"
Daki cried, "Why do all the men in the world love to lie?"
At her words, a dark shape rose from a man lying on the ground in a dark haori.
Only then did Haruto realize there was a second demon there.
The second demon was terribly thin, little more than skin and