Although he had become a demon, his memories of being human had not disappeared. As time passed, if nothing else changed, Su Mu would gradually forget those memories just like other demons, until he lived entirely as a demon.
This was the fate of almost everyone whom Muzan Kibutsuji turned into a demon. No matter how fiercely they clung to their former humanity, they would eventually forget.
At least for now, however, Su Mu still retained a clear sense of self. In his heart, he continued to think of himself as human, and the upbringing that had taught him to maintain boundaries between men and women left him somewhat hesitant.
But the situation was different now. Kanao Tsuyuri could not bathe on her own, and he could not go find a woman to help her at this hour.
Besides, Kanao Tsuyuri was still only a child. There was really no need to overthink it.
"Let me help you."
Looking at Kanao Tsuyuri, who was still standing there blankly, Su Mu spoke with a helpless sigh.
Kanao Tsuyuri merely tilted her head up to look at him.
Kanao Tsuyuri's clothes were already in tatters, and the grime on them had practically hardened into clumps of mud. Yet even with clothes like these, she was deeply reluctant to part with them when Su Mu took them off and tried to throw them away.
Su Mu could understand that. After all, this was her only set of clothes. Thin, worn, and filthy as they were, they could at least offer her a little warmth on cold nights, however negligible that warmth might be.
Once the filthy clothes were removed, Kanao Tsuyuri's tiny body was revealed. She was all skin and bones, covered in grime, and he could clearly see scars of every kind across her body. Some were fresh, still streaked with blood, while others were old.
She was covered in wounds.
It was almost unimaginable.
At that moment, Su Mu even regretted killing her father so easily. He should have made the man endure the same torment before letting him die in agony.
"You really... have suffered."
He looked at Kanao Tsuyuri and sighed softly.
Kanao Tsuyuri raised her head, confusion in her lovely pinkish-purple eyes. She did not quite understand what he meant by "suffered." Her life had always been like this, and she thought this was simply how the world was.
Su Mu said nothing more. He picked up a towel and began wiping Kanao Tsuyuri's body, easing his touch wherever he encountered a wound.
Being touched where the wounds had already scabbed over did not hurt, but even the lightest contact with the fresh ones, still marked with blood, brought a needlelike sting that made Kanao Tsuyuri instinctively shrink back a little.
"Did that hurt?"
Su Mu asked with concern.
She immediately shook her head. She did not feel hurt. Although Su Mu's towel brought a needlelike sensation when it touched those wounds, she had long since grown accustomed to that feeling. Instead, it was the light, gentle touch of the towel, that tenderness...
It seemed she...
Had never been treated so gently before.
It was like someone who had long grown accustomed to shivering in bitter ice and snow suddenly encountering the warmth of sunlight for the first time. Her first response was not to savor that long-absent warmth, but to feel rather unaccustomed to it.
Though it felt unfamiliar, she instinctively craved it.
Dipped in warm water, the towel washed the grime from Kanao Tsuyuri's body little by little.
"Close your eyes."
Warm water poured down over her head, soaking her messy, tangled hair.
Kanao Tsuyuri obediently closed her eyes. Water flowed down from the crown of her head, rolled over her forehead, and fell onto her long eyelashes.
Su Mu had never bathed anyone before and was quite clumsy, but even so, to Kanao Tsuyuri, this was a tenderness she had never experienced.
By the time the bath was finished, the basin of once-clean water had turned pitch-black, revealing just how much dirt had coated the girl.
But once she was washed and dressed in clean clothes, with the dust removed from her face to reveal her clean little features, she looked almost like a different person. Like fine jade buried in dirt, she revealed her own radiance once the grime was washed away.
Kanao Tsuyuri stood awkwardly in place. Suddenly, she was clean, no longer coated in grime, and wearing clothes cleaner and warmer than anything she had ever worn. Even her perpetually messy hair no longer poked her in the eyes.
All of this felt unfamiliar to Kanao Tsuyuri.
Yet
For no reason she could explain, she liked it. She felt happy.
Liking something. Feeling happy. These unfamiliar emotions that suddenly welled up in her heart again left Kanao Tsuyuri standing there in bewilderment, like a silly goose frozen on the spot.
Su Mu, too, gazed at the girl who seemed to have become an entirely different person.
Her slender frame still looked tiny. The scars that covered her body, along with her painfully thin limbs, were hidden beneath her clothes.
With her slender figure, supple waist, and straight legs, the girl, now washed clean, plainly showed the promise of a future beauty.
For an instant, looking at her, he felt as though the Kanao Tsuyuri from the anime had stepped out of the screen. But Su Mu quickly remembered that the girl standing before him really was Kanao Tsuyuri. Compared with the beautiful young woman she would become, brimming with youthful vitality and quiet grace, the Kanao of today seemed far more childish and blank.
"You're so pretty."
Su Mu could not help praising her.
At his compliment, the girl tilted her head and looked at him, confusion in her eyes.
Seeing Kanao's blank expression, Su Mu could not help laughing. He held out a hand, and the little girl rushed into his arms like a young swallow returning to its nest.
He gently stroked Kanao Tsuyuri's head and said, "Let's leave this place."
Kanao Tsuyuri seemed to have few thoughts of her own. She merely tilted her head and looked at him, and he smiled as he lightly brushed the tip of her nose with his finger.
Kanao Tsuyuri blinked her lovely eyes.
Holding Kanao Tsuyuri's hand, Su Mu walked out of the room. Gentle moonlight fell over them both.
As they passed the woodshed, Su Mu paused briefly. Kanao Tsuyuri tilted her little head to look at him, seemingly puzzled about why he had stopped.
Su Mu glanced toward the woodshed.
Kanao Tsuyuri's father's body had been left there. Su Mu had ended the man's life with his own hands, killing her only blood relative himself.
For any child who had lost a father, this was undoubtedly cruel. Kanao Tsuyuri did not understand what it meant now, but would she understand in the future?
But then he could not help laughing at himself. What could any child miss about a father like that? What reason would Kanao Tsuyuri have to care about him?
"Kanao, once we leave, we won't ever come back."
Su Mu lowered his head and looked at the girl, who was gazing up at him with her head tilted.
Kanao Tsuyuri obediently nodded.
Su Mu led Kanao Tsuyuri away by the hand, and throughout it all, she never once glanced toward the woodshed where her dead father lay.