Late at night.
Yuko jolted awake from her sleep, uneasy and restless. She had already forgotten what she had been dreaming about—but ever since becoming a demon, she had not felt this way in many years.
Strictly speaking, a demon did not need sleep. But Yuko had never lost the emotions she once had as a human, and the habit remained.
Most humans who turned into demons gradually lost their human emotions. Especially those freshly transformed—their minds tended to be filled with only one thought: eating humans.
Only after consuming their first victims would their rationality gradually return. The more they ate, the more their intellect approached that of normal people.
The fact that she had never experienced that loss of reason was likely due to the blue spider lily, combined with the significant amount of Muzan's blood that Michikatsu had poured into her body.
Given Michikatsu's relationship with Muzan, that was entirely possible.
After waking, the uneasiness in Yuko's chest still lingered, as if something was about to happen—or was already happening.
The dull weight in her chest felt exactly the same as when she once dreamed of Michikatsu becoming a demon.
Yuko steadied her breathing and stepped out of her room, trying to calm her spirit.
But the sight of the wide-open front gate froze her in place. She immediately tried sensing Yoriichi's presence.
Nothing.
Yuko's heart skipped a beat. She hurried to Yoriichi's room and knocked. When there was no reply, she pushed the door open at once—empty, just as she feared.
At this hour… where could an eighty-year-old man possibly go?
Yet her sixth sense whispered an answer: outside the city.
A crimson blood moon hung on the horizon. The pagoda beyond the city walls stood clearly in sight. The anxiety in Yuko's heart intensified.
When she reached the clearing before the pagoda, the uneven moonlight reflected on the ground. A familiar scent of blood drifted into her nose.
Michikatsu…
Her heart lurched.
Her gaze moved farther ahead. With her excellent eyesight, she spotted scattered fragments of torn fabric.
Yuko's pupils constricted sharply; her breath froze.
Her steps grew heavy as she approached. And there before her—was Yoriichi's bisected body.
She stood stunned for a moment. Then her wine-red eyes turned into golden slitted pupils, veins of blood spreading through them in a feral pattern.
Yuko clenched her jaw so hard it could have shattered, forcing two bitterly hateful words from her throat:
"Michikatsu!"
Even when he betrayed his lord and became a demon—even after being turned into one by Michikatsu—she had never once resented him.
But this time…
This time was unforgivable.
This was his own brother of the same parents! Had he lost all humanity after turning into a demon?!
Yuko's fists tightened until her nails dug deeply into her flesh. The cold blood dripping down her palms went completely unnoticed.
Her extreme fury made strands of her wine-red hair faintly pale.
…
"Yuko…"
A soft, gentle voice suddenly sounded behind her.
Yuko instinctively turned around.
A young man with long, fluttering, flame-red hair floated in the air, faint white light radiating from his body—Yoriichi, as he had looked in his twenties, was gazing at her gently.
Yuko was so stunned she couldn't speak, only staring blankly at him.
A demon?
No—more like a spirit.
There was no other explanation for what she was seeing.
She remembered… Tanjiro had experienced something similar.
"Brother…" Yuko bit down hard, eyes brimmed with tears. "That bastard—I'll cut his head off myself!"
Such a faithless, heartless person—she had once foolishly believed she could change him!
How ridiculous!
Yoriichi looked at her quietly for a moment, then reached out to pat her head.
There was no physical sensation, yet somehow it felt warm.
His gentle voice echoed:
"It's all right."
Just as she had once comforted him.
"My time is short," Yoriichi said softly, with a hint of reluctance. "From here on, everything will depend on you alone."
Yuko took a slow, deep breath. Her eyes still shimmered with tears, but her voice was unwavering:
"I will cut off Muzan's head. I swear it."
Yoriichi smiled softly. "If it's you, Yuko… you can definitely do it."
Yuko opened her mouth, wanting to say more, but Yoriichi's figure suddenly began to fade.
"Brother…"
Just as she spoke, his voice came again:
"If you ever grow weary, it's all right to stop and rest."
Yuko's gaze trembled, her thoughts drifting.
The smiling image of Yoriichi disappeared into the air.
After standing there numbly for a long while, Yuko finally gathered Yoriichi's body and Nichirin blade.
The flute he always carried was gone—no doubt taken by Michikatsu.
The thought made Yuko feel sick to her stomach.
Yoriichi had left no instructions about where he wished to be buried, but Yuko believed he would want to sleep beside Uta.
…
At the end of winter, Yuko traveled under the cover of night to the house of Sumiyoshi.
The home remained—but the couple had long passed away, many years ago. Yuko did not wish to meet their descendants; she did not want to stir up needless sorrow.
Snow blanketed the mountains. As she passed by the house, she noticed firelight flickering in the courtyard.
Hidden among the trees at dusk, she watched the descendants of Sumiyoshi practice the forms of the Sun Breathing technique.
Sun Breathing… had truly been passed down.
Yuko withdrew her gaze and carried Yoriichi's remains to Uta's grave. After praying with her hands together, she gently opened the grave and buried Yoriichi beside her.
…
Once again, she was alone.
But unlike before—
She no longer had any place to return to.
Yuko wrapped Yoriichi's Nichirin blade in a white cloth and secured it at her waist. She wound the hilt tightly, hiding it completely to prevent demons from recognizing it.
It now formed a pair with her own snow-white Demon Blade.
A Nichirin blade that slays demons.
A demon's blade that slays humans.
…
With no home left, Yuko wandered aimlessly across the land.
Under the night sky, distant villages flickered with scattered flames, thin black smoke rising into the air.
It was the Sengoku era—warlords clashed, chaos reigned, and flames of war spread endlessly.
In such brutal times, burning, killing, plundering, and massacring villages were hardly rare.
A thick demonic scent reached her nose—multiple sources.
Clearly, the war-torn village before her had been overtaken by demons.
Over the years, Yuko had encountered few demons. Even by the Taisho era, demons existed mostly in folktales and stories meant to scare children.
But since she had come across them now, she would not ignore it.
Yuko stepped into the village. Severed limbs lay everywhere, corpses scattered across the ground.
Compared to the horrors of war, the destruction caused by demons was almost insignificant.
Yuko did not linger. At her current level, such "food" no longer tempted her in the slightest.
She headed toward the densest concentration of demonic scent—the open clearing in the village's center.
The deeper she went, the more bodies she found.
And now, the corpses bore marks of being gnawed.
Yuko knew immediately: these were not animals.
They were demons.
---
Currently at chapter 234 for advance chapters
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