Three weeks later...
I have learned much in this tedious charade.
The Kibutsuji household operates like clockwork predictable, boring, utterly beneath me. Father handles his merchant business with all the vision of a mole digging in dirt. Mother fusses over everyone like a hen with her chicks. And my "siblings" Hanako and Shiro stare at me with those nauseating expressions of admiration.
A perfect, mundane family.
It makes my skin crawl.
But I play my role flawlessly. Every smile calculated. Every word of respect measured. Every gesture of affection toward these insects precisely calibrated to maintain the illusion.
They see the dutiful son. The prodigy. The perfect heir.
They don't see the apex predator sharpening his claws in the darkness.
With each passing night, I feel it growing stronger this magnificent power thrumming beneath my skin. The hunger has become my constant companion, a beast pacing in the cage of my ribs. During the day, I suppress it, but at night?
At night, I let it whisper its dark promises.
I need to feed. Soon.
But first, I need to truly understand what this body can do.
Tonight, the moon hides its face. Perfect.
I wait until silence blankets the compound, until even the servants have surrendered to sleep. Then I move.
Dark clothing. Silent steps. I slip through the compound like a shadow given form, making my way to the storage building at the far end of the property. A structure forgotten by all except during inventory isolated perfect for experimentation.
Inside, surrounded by crates and the musty scent of stored goods, I finally release the iron control I've maintained for weeks.
The transformation is glorious.
Power floods through me like a dam breaking. My muscles swell, my senses explode into razor-sharp clarity. I can hear every cricket singing in the garden. I can smell the sleeping humans in the main house the sweat, the warmth, the blood pumping through their fragile veins. I can feel the earth's subtle vibrations through my feet.
And the hunger...
Oh, the hunger roars to life with such beautiful intensity.
I stagger, gripping a support beam to steady myself. My fingernails have become proper claws now gleaming black talons that could tear through flesh like paper. I run my tongue over my teeth and feel them transformed: every tooth sharpened to a wicked point, perfect instruments for the feast I crave.
"Magnificent," I breathe into the darkness.
This body this wonderful vessel that fate has granted me exceeds even my most optimistic expectations. Whatever supernatural properties this world's demons possess, combined with my vampiric soul...
I am evolution incarnate.
But theory without practice is worthless.
I approach one of the support beams thick timber that would require multiple men to move. I place my palm against the rough wood, feeling its grain, and then with casual contempt—
I drive my fist straight through it.
CRACK!
The beam explodes into splinters, barely whispering as it shatters. I withdraw my hand, examining it in the darkness. Not a scratch. Not even a bruise.
"Strength confirmed," I murmur with satisfaction.
Next test. I retrieve the small kitchen knife I smuggled earlier. Without hesitation, I draw the blade across my palm in one smooth motion.
Deep. Clean. The kind of cut that would send a normal human screaming for help.
The pain? Negligible. Barely worth mentioning compared to what I've endured.
More importantly I watch with predatory fascination as my flesh begins to knit itself together. The bleeding stops within seconds. The wound seals within a minute, leaving nothing but a thin line that fades even as I observe it.
"Perfect regeneration confirmed."
What else can this body do? In my previous life, I could manipulate flesh like clay create tendrils, reshape limbs, shoot pressurized fluid that could slice through steel.
Can I do that now?
I focus on my hand, willing the flesh to respond. For a moment, nothing. Then—a tingling sensation. My fingers begin to elongate, bones and muscle stretching like liquid under invisible hands.
But the transformation stutters. Incomplete. My fingers extend perhaps an inch before the process stalls, leaving them grotesquely distorted rather than purposefully enhanced.
I release my concentration with a scowl. My hand snaps back to normal with disturbing speed.
"Limited control," I mutter. "The ability exists, but it requires refinement. Either this body operates under different rules, or I simply need practice."
Frustrating, but expected. This is a new existence with new laws. I will adapt, as I always have—
Footsteps.
I freeze, every sense suddenly laser-focused. Someone is prowling through the garden. The rhythm is wrong too heavy for a woman, too purposeful for a servant making a late-night trip to the outhouse.
An intruder.
My lips curve into a predator's smile. How fortunate. I've been wondering how to test my combat capabilities without arousing suspicion.
It seems fate has delivered me a convenient test subject.
I move to the entrance and peer into the darkness. At first—nothing. Then a shadow detaches itself from behind an ornamental rock. A man dressed in black, face covered by cloth, moving toward the main house with practiced stealth. His hand rests on a tanto blade at his belt.
Thief. Assassin. The distinction is irrelevant.
What matters is that he's prey.
The hunger surges within me, stronger than ever before. This is it. The moment I've been waiting for. The chance to truly test my power and to finally, finally feed.
I move.
Like smoke given form, I slip out of the storage building. The thief never hears me coming. He's reaching for the main house entrance when my hand clamps around his throat and lifts.
His feet leave the ground effortlessly. He weighs nothing to me less than nothing.
The thief's eyes bulge above his mask, wide with terror. He claws at my arm, but he might as well be trying to move a mountain. His tanto clatters uselessly to the stone pathway.
"Shhh," I whisper, my voice carrying a hypnotic quality that makes his struggles weaken. "Struggling is useless. Let me give you two choices. First you can die quickly. Relatively painlessly."
I lean closer, letting him see what I truly am. The sharpened teeth. The inhuman eyes that glow faintly in the darkness. The monster wearing a child's skin.
"Or second... you can die slowly while I satisfy my curiosity about the taste of human blood in this new life."
He manages a strangled scream but I simply tighten my grip, crushing the sound before it can carry. Too late, he seems to realize what he's encountered. Not a boy. Not human.
A predator.
"Since you seem incapable of deciding," I continue conversationally, "I'll choose for you."
I drag him back toward the storage building. His feet scrabble uselessly against the ground, leaving pathetic scratch marks in the dirt. Once inside, I release my grip just enough to let him breathe I want this to last. Want to savor every moment.
"Tell me," I circle him slowly, deliberately, "did someone send you? Or are you simply an opportunistic parasite hoping to steal from my family?"
He's hyperventilating, backing away until he hits a stack of crates. "P-please... I have a family... children..."
"How wonderful for you." My tone is pleasant, almost friendly. "I, too, have a family now. And you were about to rob them. Perhaps worse."
I tilt my head, studying him like a specimen. "Do you know what that makes you?"
My form blurs.
"PREY!"
I'm upon him faster than his human eyes can process one moment I'm across the room, the next my hand is buried in his chest, gripping his still-beating heart.
His eyes go wide. His mouth opens in a silent scream.
"Let me show you something interesting," I purr, twisting my wrist slightly. "In my previous life, I could stop time itself. Here, I lack that ability. But speed? Speed, I have in abundance."
I release his heart and withdraw my hand. He collapses, gasping, not yet understanding that he's already dead—his body just doesn't know it yet.
"Three seconds," I inform him clinically. "That's how long you have before your punctured heart fails completely. Any last words?"
He opens his mouth. Blood bubbles out instead of sound.
"No? Then allow me."
I strike.
Not with my fist this time, but with my teeth. I tear into his throat with vicious efficiency—not the neat puncture of romantic fiction, but a savage bite that rips through flesh, muscle, and artery.
Hot blood floods my mouth and—
Oh.
OH.
This...
This is transcendence. This is revelation. This is perfection.
The blood doesn't just nourish it IGNITES me. Liquid fire singing through my veins, awakening dormant parts of my power, filling the hollow places I didn't even know existed. I feel my strength multiply. I feel my connection to this body deepen into something fundamental, something TRUE.
This is better than I remembered. Better than anything I experienced in my previous life.
The thief's struggles grow weaker. Feeble twitches. Pathetic attempts to push me away that I barely notice.
I drink deeply. Greedily. Not stopping until his heart gives its final, fluttering beat
thump
and then silence.
I release the corpse and step back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The body slumps to the ground, looking small and pitiful in death.
But I? I feel ALIVE.
I feel like myself again no, better than myself. More complete than I ever was before.
"Much better," I murmur, examining my hands. Already I can feel the difference. My control over my flesh has sharpened, like a limb that had fallen asleep tingling back to full sensation.
But I can't leave evidence. That would raise questions, attract attention I don't need.
Not yet.
I crouch beside the corpse and place my hand on its chest. If my flesh manipulation works on myself, then perhaps...
Yes. There it is.
My fingers sink into the dead flesh like it's water. I feel my cells reaching out, consuming, breaking down the tissue into raw materials. The body begins to dissolve, transforming into nutrients, fuel for my continued evolution.
This world is generous with its gifts.
Within minutes, nothing remains but scraps of dark clothing and the discarded tanto blade. I collect these items evidence to dispose of elsewhere and step back into the garden.
The night air tastes different now. Richer. More alive with possibility.
I have fed. I have killed. I have confirmed that my powers are real and growing stronger.
Most importantly, I've learned something crucial: in this world, I can exist not merely as a creature of the night, but as an apex predator. The thief's blood contained no strange properties, no hidden dangers. Humans here are exactly what they appear to be.
Prey for those with the strength to take them.
Dio returned to his room as silently as he had left it, hiding the thief's belongings in a place where they would never be found. He cleaned himself meticulously, ensuring no trace of blood remained on his skin or clothes.
When he finally lay down on his futon, he felt satisfied in a way he hadn't since his reincarnation.
But satisfaction bred contemplation, and contemplation led to questions.
The name "Muzan Kibutsuji" continued to haunt him. Ryōta's memories contained only fragments whispered stories, glimpses of fear in people's eyes when certain topics were discussed. But there was something there, some connection he hadn't yet unraveled.
If demons existed in this world and they clearly did, given what he had become then there must be a hierarchy. A structure. And if the rumors were true, then Muzan Kibutsuji stood at the apex of that structure, the progenitor of all demons.
The question was: what would happen when two apex predators met?
Dio smiled in the darkness. He was looking forward to finding out.
But first, he needed to grow stronger. Much stronger. Strong enough that even a demon king would have to bow down to his power.
The path forward was clear: he would continue to play the role of Kibutsuji Ryōta by day, the perfect son and heir. And by night, he would hunt, feed, and grow in power. He would learn everything he could about this world's demons and those who hunted them.
And when he was ready, when he had accumulated enough strength and knowledge...
Then the real game would begin.
Dio closed his eyes, not to sleep he found he needed very little now but to plan. Every great conquest began with a single step, and tonight he had taken his first.
There would be many more to come.
Outside his window, the night continued its quiet vigil, unaware that something ancient and terrible had been reborn into its embrace. Something that viewed the world not as a stage to walk upon, but as a kingdom to conquer.
And conquest, as Dio Brando knew better than anyone, always began with hunger.