Rokuya froze for a moment.
"After he was expelled from the Demon Slayer Corps, he shut himself in his room in despair and didn't drink a drop of water for three whole days and nights!" Reiko's voice trembled, as though she had returned to that despairing afternoon. "I went to see him... he'd wasted away beyond recognition, like a ghost! He held me and cried like a child... he said, Reiko, I'm sorry. I've been expelled. I'm a coward. I'm afraid I can't marry you anymore..."
Reiko suddenly clawed at her hair, her eyes becoming utterly vacant. "Do you know what he told me? He said... he ran away back then because I was all he could think about! He said that if he didn't run, if he died there, he'd never see me again! He only wanted to come back alive to see me one more time!!"
Rokuya watched her coldly without interrupting her frenzied outpouring.
"And then?" Reiko gave a bleak smile, her laughter as shrill as a night owl's cry. "Then, that very night, he hung a rope from a roof beam. Tanaka killed himself! Because of you! Because you exposed him, because you ruined his reputation, because not only did you refuse to save him, you trampled his dignity underfoot! After that, I rose all the way from a Mizunoe swordswoman to a Hinoto swordswoman, just to get close to you and take revenge."
"So?" Rokuya's voice was unusually calm, so calm it was frightening. "For a coward who fled in battle and abandoned his comrades, you chose to betray humanity and throw in your lot with man-eating demons?"
"Shut up! He wasn't a coward!" Reiko screamed. "You said he deserted in battle and deserved to die, right? You said you represented the justice of the