Sleep had always been Nezuko's sanctuary.
For six months since her transformation back to humanity, her dreams remained mercifully empty—no memories of blood or hunger, no echoes of the creature she'd been.
Tonight, that sanctuary crumbled.
Whispers drifted through her consciousness like smoke through water. Too faint to understand but too persistent to ignore.
She shifted restlessly on her futon. Her fingers clutched the blanket as something cold pressed against the edges of her mind.
"Sleep, little sister. Let the memories flow."
Nezuko's breathing deepened. It shifted from the steady rhythm of human sleep to something more primal.
The voice came again, clearer now. It carried an intimacy that made her skin crawl.
"You remember us, don't you? You remember what you were."
"No," she mumbled through dream-heavy lips.
Her voice carried a rasp that shouldn't exist anymore.
"I'm human now. I'm human."
The assertion felt hollow even in sleep.
Around her, the familiar walls of her quarters dissolved into shadow. Rough stone walls that wept moisture replaced them. Phosphorescent fungi flickered in the darkness.
The scent hit her enhanced senses immediately. Damp earth, decay, and underneath it all, the metallic tang of old blood.
---
She stood in a cave system she'd never seen before.
Yet her feet found secure footing on the uneven floor with disturbing familiarity. Her body moved with fluid grace that belonged to something other than human anatomy. Joints bending at angles that should have been impossible.
"Welcome back, sister."
Multiple voices echoed from deeper chambers. The words overlapped until they became a chorus.
"We've been waiting."
Red eyes gleamed from crevices in the stone walls. Dozens of them, all focused on her with hungry intelligence.
Demons emerged from the shadows. But these weren't the mindless beasts she remembered from her brother's stories.
They moved with purpose. Spoke with clarity. Gathered in organized formations that suggested hierarchy and planning.
"I don't belong here," Nezuko said.
But her dream-voice sounded hollow even to her own ears.
"I'm not like you anymore."
"Aren't you?" The nearest demon tilted its head with predatory interest. "Then why do you move as we move? Why do you hear as we hear?"
"The teacher promised you would return to us," another added.
Its voice carried genuine anticipation rather than malice.
"What teacher?"
The question hung in the phosphorescent air as the gathered demons exchanged meaningful glances. Their coordinated silence spoke of shared knowledge, of secrets carefully guarded. In the distance, footsteps echoed through stone corridors—measured, purposeful, approaching with the confidence of absolute authority.
Someone was coming. Someone they all waited for with the reverence of devoted disciples.