The hall was no longer a place of learning; it was a slaughterhouse.
In a blur of impossible speed, the man in the black fedora—Muzan Kibutsuji—moved through the crowd. To the human eye, it was just a gust of wind, but the results were visceral. Takuma's friends, the boys he had laughed with under the cherry blossoms just yesterday, were gone in an instant. Hiroshi didn't even have time to scream before his life was extinguished on the polished floorboards.
Takuma stood frozen. His mind, rooted in the logic of a modern schoolboy, fractured. The "Gilded Dream" had become a nightmare.
"Hiroshi...?" he whispered. The silence that followed was louder than any scream.
Muzan turned his gaze toward the front row. His eyes, cold and bored, landed on Takuma's parents. He raised a pale hand, his fingers elongating into lethal, obsidian claws. "Imperfect," Muzan murmured. "All of you. Just more noise to be silenced."
As Muzan lunged toward his mother, something in Takuma finally snapped.
It wasn't a physical break, but a spiritual one. The Curse of Hatred, dormant and waiting, surged from the base of his brain to his optic nerves like a flood of dark, raw energy. His vision blurred, then sharpened into a terrifying, high-definition clarity. The world slowed down. He could see the individual dust motes dancing in the air, the rhythmic pulse of Muzan's jugular, and the exact trajectory of those killing claws.
In his mind, the faces of his fallen friends flashed—their smiles, their jokes, their blood. A roar of pure, unadulterated malice erupted from his throat.
"GET AWAY FROM THEM!"
Takuma didn't just move; he exploded forward. For the first time in over a thousand years, Muzan Kibutsuji felt a genuine chill. He saw a mere human boy moving with a speed that rivaled his own, his eyes glowing a predatory, incandescent red with a single black tomoe spinning wildly in each iris.
Takuma lunged, his small fist connecting with Muzan's chest with a force fueled by the pure, volatile energy radiating from his spirit. Muzan recoiled, more surprised by the malicious pressure pouring from the boy than the blow itself. This wasn't the "Sun" energy he feared—it was something darker, older, and entirely alien to this world.
Muzan narrowed his eyes, his interest piqued but his caution overriding his hunger. "Those eyes... they aren't of this world."
Unwilling to risk a public spectacle before he understood this "Red-Eyed" anomaly, Muzan dissolved into the shadows of the rafters, disappearing as if he were never there.
The silence returned, heavy and suffocating.
"Takuma!" his mother cried, rushing forward to pull him into a desperate embrace. "Are you okay? Your eyes... what happened to your eyes?"
Takuma stood limp in her arms. The red glow faded, leaving his vision stinging and raw. He looked around the hall at the broken bodies of his friends. The confidence, the pride, the "wealthy heir" persona—it all disintegrated. He fell to his knees and began to sob. It wasn't the cry of a hero; it was the broken wail of a boy who had just watched his world turn to ash.
"They're gone," he choked out, the Curse of Hatred already beginning to fester in the vacuum left by his grief. "They're all gone because I was too slow..."
"My, my," a soft, melodic voice drifted from the doorway. "What a tragic scene for such a beautiful day."
Takuma looked up through tear-blurred eyes. A woman stood there, draped in a Butterfly Haori that seemed to flutter in a phantom breeze. Her purple eyes were wide and seemingly kind, but they held a stillness that was unsettling.
Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira, tilted her head as she looked at the carnage, and then at the boy on the floor. Her smile never wavered, but her grip on her sword tightened. She could still smell the lingering scent of the progenitor—and the strange, dark residue of the boy's awakening.
"It seems," she whispered, stepping over the threshold, "that the night has claimed more than just lives today."
******
The silence in the hall was broken only by the rhythmic dripping of blood and Takuma's ragged sobs. His mother held him tightly, her silk kimono stained with the remnants of his world.
Shinobu Kocho stepped over the threshold, her gaze sweeping the room with a clinical, yet hauntingly calm, detachment. "A demon did this," she said, her voice like a soft chime in a graveyard. "More specifically... He did this."
Takuma's father, standing pale but resolute over his family, tightened his grip on a broken chair leg. "A demon? You mean the legends? The things the old merchants whisper about in the dark corners of the Yoshiwara?"
He looked at Shinobu, then at his son's shaking shoulders. As a man of industry and power, he had heard the rumors—the secret organization funded by the Ubuyashiki family, a shadow army that fought the things that go bump in the night.
"The Demon Slayer Corps," Takuma's father whispered. "I thought they were myths told by the superstitious."
"We are very real," Shinobu replied, her eyes drifting back to Takuma. "And it seems your son has caught the attention of the progenitor himself. That boy... his eyes... they flared with a pure, ancient energy I have never felt before."
Takuma suddenly pulled away from his mother. His sobbing had stopped, replaced by a terrifying, hollow silence. He looked at his hands—the hands of a "prodigy" who couldn't save his best friend. He remembered Hiroshi's face. He remembered the feeling of absolute weakness. All his wealth, all his modern knowledge, and all his "talent" had meant nothing against the monster in the black fedora.
The Curse of Hatred began to coil around his heart like a serpent. The "confident schoolboy" was dying, replaced by a cold, burning furnace of malice.
"I want to kill them," Takuma said. His voice was no longer that of a child; it was low, steady, and sharp.
"Takuma, no!" his mother gasped.
"I have to," he said, standing up. He looked at Shinobu, his gaze piercing. "If I don't, another boy will stand over his friends' bodies. Another family will be destroyed. I was weak today. I will never be weak again."
His father looked at his son and saw a stranger—a boy who had aged a century in ten minutes. He turned to Shinobu. "If he goes, he goes with the full backing of the Akutsu name. I will fund your blades, your medicines, your hideouts. But you will teach him to destroy the thing that did this."
Shinobu's smile didn't reach her eyes, but she gave a small, graceful bow. "A wealthy benefactor and a boy with eyes like embers... how very interesting. But be warned, Takuma Akutsu. This path is not one of glory. It is a path of blood and shadow."
"I don't care about glory," Takuma replied, his eyes briefly flashing that predatory red once more. "I only care about the result."
In that moment, the pact was sealed. The Akutsu heir was gone. The Avenger was born.