As the sun's last rays faded, daylight slipped away, and night descended.
Legend had it that whenever darkness fell, terrifying demons would emerge to devour people.
So few people ventured out late at night. Every household shut its doors and windows, and the bustle of daytime had long since given way to silence.
On a night like this, however, a small, frail girl stepped outside. She had lovely pink eyes, though her gaze was somewhat vacant. Her pale beige clothes clung to her thin body, making her look even more slender.
As the soft moonlight fell on the girl's delicate face, it accentuated the pallor left by malnutrition.
Ordinary people could barely make out the road in the pitch-black night, let alone walk through such darkness, but the little girl's eyes seemed special. They picked out everything before her with remarkable keenness. By the faint, gentle moonlight, she found her way, avoided muddy puddles, and walked through the town's streets, her pink eyes searching her surroundings.
Whenever night fell and her stomach ached with hunger, she would sneak out while her parents weren't looking to search for anything edible. Perhaps some scraps thrown out by a restaurant, or a half-eaten rice ball...
What others might consider discarded rubbish was, to the girl, delicious food that could fill her stomach.
Other girls her age had warm rooms, tasty food, and their parents' tender care. She had none of those things. Her parents never cared for her. They would even beat and berate her and her older sister for no reason.
No, they no longer beat and berated her sister for no reason, because they had already beaten her to death. Now she was the only child in the family still alive.
Today, her father had spent the whole day gambling before coming home without any food. There was nothing to eat in the house, either. She was so hungry that she had sneaked out to find food while he slept.
Passing a restaurant, the girl hurried to a rubbish heap nearby and rummaged through it. This was the likeliest place to find food.
She seemed lucky today. Before long, she found a rice ball wrapped in a lotus leaf. Delighted, she clutched it tightly in her little hand.
She took a small bite of the rice ball. As the grains of rice reached her stomach, the taste brought a look of bliss to her pale little face.
After another bite, she noticed a long shadow stretching across the ground and looked up.
A man in simple robes sat quietly on the restaurant's roof, gazing at the moon.
That man. She'd seen that strange man again.
Lately, she saw him whenever she came out at night to look for food. He appeared every night and sat high up on the roof for a very long time. Sometimes, even after she had spent ages searching the town and returned, he was still there.
Though they had seen each other many times, they had never spoken.
At first, she had been quite frightened to venture out alone at night with everything so quiet around her. The first time she saw him, she had nearly mistaken him for one of the demons from the legends. But after seeing him a few times, she was no longer so afraid. In fact, his presence even made her feel safe.
"Out looking for food again today?"
The man's voice drifted down from the roof.
"Ah! Y-yes."
The sudden voice made the girl stammer. This was the first time the strange man had spoken to her.
"My name is Su Mu. What's yours?"
Su Mu looked at the girl and asked softly. He had noticed that she looked a great deal like Kanao Tsuyuri.
He wasn't from this world. In another world, he had been an ordinary employee at a small company, living an unremarkable life. Outside work, he enjoyed watching anime, movies, and television shows. He had never imagined he would end up in a world like this-the world of the anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
When he first arrived in this world, he had been quite excited, imagining how he would make his mark here.
But before he could even begin, he encountered Muzan Kibutsuji, the first demon, who had lived for over a thousand years and held absolute dominion over all demons.
Then Muzan turned him into a demon-one of the demons under his control, a monster that fed on humans. It left Su Mu deeply despondent, even struggling to see a reason to go on.
Ever since becoming a demon and losing the ability to stand in sunlight, he had spent every night here, often encountering the girl as she searched for food.
At first, he hadn't paid much attention to the little girl's search for food. Only when he saw her face did he suddenly realize how much she resembled Kanao Tsuyuri.
That resemblance had put him on his guard. After all, Kanao Tsuyuri was a swordswoman of the Demon Slayer Corps. If that demon-hunting organization discovered a demon like him, they would behead him with a Nichirin Blade without hesitation.
Though he had become a demon, a pitiful creature unable to face sunlight and forced to feed on those who had once been his own kind, he had no desire to die.
But after watching her carefully, he realized she wasn't what he had imagined. She wasn't a swordswoman of the Demon Slayer Corps, just a pitiful girl who sneaked out every night to search rubbish heaps for food.
"I... I don't have a name."
The girl answered quietly.
"How can someone not have a name?"
Su Mu shook his head.
The girl pressed her lips together without speaking.
"Then what does your family call you?"
"My older sister used to call me Xiao Ba."
The girl spoke softly.
"Oh, you have an older sister?"
Curiosity showed on Su Mu's face. The girl had always been alone, so he hadn't expected her to have an older sister. It seemed she merely resembled Kanao Tsuyuri rather than being the Kanao Tsuyuri of the Demon Slayer Corps. After all, he had never heard of Kanao Tsuyuri having a biological older sister.
"She's gone."
The girl pressed her lips together.
Su Mu fell silent for a moment, feeling awkward.
But the little girl no longer seemed particularly bothered. Or perhaps being bothered wouldn't change anything. She simply held the rice ball she had found and ate it in small bites.
Embarrassed by the painful question he had just asked, Su Mu changed the subject. "I see you out looking for food every night. Don't your parents cook for you?"
"Father spent all day gambling today. He didn't bring any food home."
"You can't live on this stuff alone. It isn't nutritious."
"Having anything to eat is already good enough."
The girl answered softly.
"How about this? Whenever you come out at night from now on, I'll bring you something to eat. You need some nourishment. You're far too thin."
The little girl raised her head and looked at him with bright eyes, then lowered it again. Her young voice rang out. "Sir, why are you so kind to me?"