Chapter Text
His limbs burned.
Whether it was a roaring wave of agony or a dull ache, the pain was always there.
When he was young, he coughed and coughed until he started spitting blood, hoping the scratchiness in his throat would stop. Hoping his lungs would grow better. Hoping his body would grow better.
And now that he was older, much, much older now, he was cursed with some other affliction.
Kibutsuji Muzan could not bear sunlight. Worse, he could not stand the humiliation of being unable to move during daytime. Once again, his body was holding him back. His flesh was marred from injuries over a century ago, baked into his skin and into his cells and into his very being.
The memory of that night never left him. It was always playing in the back of his mind. It fueled him. It frustrated him. It repulsed him.
Oh, how he hated it, the after-images in his mind’s eye.
Himself on the ground, shocked, dirty, as if he was begging, with him standing tall in front of him, ready to strike the finishing blow.
The adrenaline drowning him, the rush of panic at the sudden realisation that nothing was working. It was all futile. There was nothing he could do.
The sword came down and down and even lower, until all that he could feel was endless pain again.
Kibutsuji Muzan’s eyes widened. The ceiling was rather plain. He focused on it. His eyes never left it. They could not leave it. His head was spinning, his breathing coming out in sharp wheezing gasps.
There was another illness.
It was a secret one that no one else could know about. It was shameful, it shouldn't even exist. But even so, it continued to pollute his life, maybe even more so than any other condition he may have suffered from previously.
He saw his face everywhere.
In the darkest corners of the halls.
In the split-second moment when he turns a sharp corner.
In the bustling crowd his shadow remains, living and breathing alongside him.
Whatever he did, he was always there. A forever warning. A forever threat.
The simple truth was that Yoriichi’s memory was eating him from the inside.
His presence, that thirty minute encounter, had such an impact on his life that it acted as some sort of cataclysmic event. There was a pre-Yoriichi and a post-Yoriichi. Ever since, he had not known peace.
His body burned and his mind burned.
It put him in such a state of disgust that he felt like he wanted to puke, even if his mouth was too dry for that. The only thing that came out was a pitiful retch.
The feeling coursing through him now, his own patheticness, made him want to claw himself from the inside out.
So instead, he moved to inflict his feelings on someone else.
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
He’d been feeling restless recently. Was the latest Upper Moon meeting the cause of his frustration?
Akaza and Douma were fighting, others egged them on or hid. He was pretty sure Kokushibo hadn’t blinked for 10 minutes. And Hantengu was making such a racket, screaming and moaning like this wasn't a regular occurrence for the past century or so.
It was all extremely ordinary.
The same thing he’d seen last time they congregated, the same reactions, the same useless bickering. Again and again and again. Douma caught his eye and smiled, bored and unfeeling, like he knew they were just going through the usual preestablished charade. Bastard.
He wanted eternity, not stagnation.
Pointless. This was all so pointless. When were they going to make some progress? Centuries upon centuries they'd been on a wild goose chase searching for some flower and being terrorised by the fuck ass sun.
And the Slayers. God, the Slayers, how utterly embarrassing.
He gives his servants an infinite lifespan and incredible power, and yet they still manage to get cut down by mere humans. It was completely beyond him.
His enemies were intent on continuing a pointless fight for as long as they could, and his followers were useless hedonists who all shared one brain cell. A brain cell that was probably inherited from him, as it was. God help him. He'd had more than enough of this.
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
It was certainly a quaint little village, buried in the snow.
Ha, what a joke.
In reality, it was nothing but a pitiful little spot in the middle of nowhere, with inhabitants as pathetic as they were inconsequential. Nothing of worthy of interest, nothing of note.
No, he was always someone who preferred the city, its busy lights and idiotic little entertaining people, the noise, the activity. But it was precisely for that reason that if the elusive blue spider lily were to be anywhere, it would be in this kind of stupidly desolate location.
Who would even suspect it?
The object of his pursuit for almost a millennia hidden here, of all places. And it made perfect sense: all of this time he had spent combing through the most secretive, distinguished places in Japan. Temples, castles, palaces and countless more. Hell, he even took the risk of spreading the demon species in order for them to be his eyes and ears, yet still, nothing.
No, this time he would find it. He’d received a tip from a reliable source that a rare blue flower had been sighted in the area. If it was Gentians again someone was going to get a very nasty surprise. He let out a frustrated sigh surrounded by a forest of naked trees, snow falling gently around him.
Just then, the sound of a twig breaking could be heard.
As he turned around he was met with... his personal nightmare, in the flesh. It came with a rounder face and a higher pitched voice then he remembered but the eyes were oh-so familiar. That shade, and those earrings what the hell, there was no doubt about it. He even had the stupid forehead mark, for heaven’s sake. There it was, the face of his long dead nemesis spat out and regurgitated onto the body of a child.
The shiver of pure terror that came over him against his will was so strong that he almost eviscerated it on the spot. He was torn in between the will to cleanse, to purge, to maim, to scream, to bolt. It would be so easy. It would be so satisfying, ridding the world of any semblance of the thorn on his side that had plagued him for so long.
Staring at him with disarming innocence, almost concern, like some kind of mockery, the thing asked with a touch of uncertainty:
-”Mister, is everything alright?“
The sheer audacity of this child, to assume that he was delicate enough to be weakened by nothing but his mere presence. And the nerve of him being right. Muzan immediately wanted to punt him into the nearest village house.
-”I’m fine”, he said in a tight voice. “Why do you ask?”
-”Oh, it just seemed, the way you were staring at me, that you had seen a ghost"”
Muzan felt sick. Just looking at the thing was almost too much for him, let alone talking. He focused on its forehead, trying to forget the rest of its face. The only thing that was stopping him from gripping the thing by the neck and squeezing him like a squeaky toy till he had nothing but pink mush in his hands was his concern about where it even spawned from. As far as he knew, Yoriichi didn't have any children (thank god) so he must be.. one of Kokushibo’s? With that face though, was it even human? Was it even possible to inherit a face like that 4 centuries in the making?
No, couldn’t he be dealing with some kind of spiritual intervention? He had always thought he had avoided divine retribution, but maybe that was ending now…
-”You are a disgusting creature”, he told the small Yoriichi, his voice no more than a trembling whisper. “I do not think you deserve to be alive.”
-”Wha-”, it said with teary eyes. It looked like it was about to cry.
The words kept slipping out of Muzan’s mouth. He couldn’t control them anymore.
-”You are so ugly it makes me want to barf. You should not exist.”
The tiny thing sniffed, trying pitifully to hide its sobs. It turned and ran away from him wailing.
The noise of its cries faded into the distance until Muzan was surrounded by nothing but silence.
He went back to his search, feeling oddly lighter after getting all of this off his chest. He didn’t find anything, but the area he had to search was vast. He resolved to interrogate his information source more thoroughly when he got back.
He returned a few days later at dusk, the snow crunching under each of his steps.
Once again, the apparition was there. It stared at him petrified. He stared at its forehead as well.
-”You again”, Muzan said.
It looked up at him face creased, visibly upset but not bawling its eyes out like last time.
-”What is it?”, the small Yoriichi said in a soft but defiant voice.
-”You should kill yourself”, Muzan told him matter-of-factly. “Before it’s too late.”
It scoffed, equal parts offended and shocked.
-”You.. Your-..” it seemed to struggle to find words potent enough to insult him. “Your hair is weird”, it settled on. It was Muzan’s turn to scoff. It seemed that this version of Yoriichi had weak wit on top of weak physical performance. Embarrassing.
-”And also you stink.”
-”Oh yeah?” said Muzan, voice steeped in vitriol. He knew this was a big fat lie. Demons did not sweat and he made sure to spray himself with one and a half doses of perfume every time he was out in society. “You are a deceiving piece of garbage. Take it back.”
The corner of its mouth twitched a little bit, as if it knew that it had struck a nerve. It turned on him with a determined frown.
-”I am telling the truth.”
-”You are not.”
-”I am so!”, it shouted in an excruciatingly annoying whiny voice.
-”I do not smell.”
-”You carry the stench of despair around you.”
There was a sudden hush. He felt shivers run down his spine. This felt familiar, somehow.
It was at this point that Muzan decided to strategically leave.
-”Hi”, said the small Yoriichi the next time they met. There was a hint of smugness on his face.
-”Hello, hideous abomination”, greeted Muzan with a scowl. He could almost look him in the eyes now.
-“I told my sister about you. She said you are a bum.”
-“Your sister should die a very painful death”, he said calmly.
Then he did a double take.
Sister?
In front of him small Yoriichi was glaring at him, face contorted in rage.
-”How dare you say that about my family!!!!”. The puny thing was radiating genuine hostility. Muzan ignored it, as much as he could.
-”There’s more of you?”
It looked taken aback for a moment.
-”What..What exactly do you think I am?”
-”An evil spirit. I don’t know how you multiply.”
-”I thought you were an evil spirit!”. This made him pause for a bit. The small Yoriichi.. wasn’t that far off, actually. He had been called similar things, once or twice. In front of him the thing’s hands slowly reached for its pockets. ”Why would you think I’m an evil spirit?”
-”You are a wicked being.” Muzan said with absolute certainty. He glanced at the earrings. “You have a twisted heart.”
-”You were literally just threatening my family right now.”
-”Yeah whatever.” He rolled his eyes. It wasn’t anything personal. Muzan was of the opinion that anyone that got in his way should simply perish.
He felt something hit his coat.
The small Yoriichi was looking at him attentively, as if waiting for something to happen. Muzan wanted to skin him alive.
-”What. was. that.”
-”Salt”, it said innocently.
There was a tense silence.
-”You didn’t melt.”
Another silence.
-”I need to go now.”
-”Yes”, Muzan said through gritted teeth. “You should probably do that.”
-”Before you go”, Muzan started, voice resonating. He figured if the thing was some kind of supernatural being it should at least be able to be useful to him somehow. He really had nothing to lose. ”Would you have happened to see a blue spider lily around here?”
-”What’s a spider lily?”
Muzan gave up.
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
-”Oh Tanjirou, where have you been!? Be careful out there. Did you know, they say the village across the mountain has not a soul left!! They were all found bloody and bruised, Tanjirou!!“
His mother rushed over to him, worry clear on her face. He immediately felt guilty. He really didn’t mean to stay out so late, he just got distracted talking to that mysterious man. Because the man behaved so badly, it encouraged Tanjirou to behave badly as well. He sincerely hoped no one in his family would ever hear what they had said. Even he had enough common sense to know that if the man was an actual person, the salt incident was awfully rude.
-”Mooooom, that’s just a rumor. You know if something that serious happened, everyone would be up in arms about it! It’s probably Auntie Kochiyo making up stories again.”
-”You can never be too careful! You’re back so late, how could I not worry?”
-”Sorry… I just wanted to help gather wood. Like that you and everyone can stay warm!” He held up the pile of sticks he gathered as a peace offering. It seemed to make his mother frown more, which really wasn't what he was aiming to accomplish.
-”Tanjirou. You are a child, just let me handle it and go have fun with your siblings, okay? “
-”Right..”He trailed off, not quite sure what to say more. Until-
-”Hey Mom? “
-”Mmh?”
-”Do you know what a blue spider lily is?”
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
It had been a few months since Muzan had seen the Apparition.
After each encounter, the shadow of Yoriichi followed him closer than it had in a while, the image of a man he hadn’t seen in centuries given a more concrete form.
Only, that form started looking less and less like his spine chilling enemy and more like the piddly little human thing he met a few months ago. It looked so stupid. It was so soft, it would probably be easy to squish him into fleshy blobs.
The more he saw of him, the more the grip Yoriichi had on him faded. Finally, the looming shadow that made his life hell for the past 500 years was pulling back. And it was all because of it. He had even been able to sleep once or twice, which he hasn’t been able to do for years. Maybe he was finally starting to make some progress.
Only.. he couldn’t rest easy now, not completely. He had to know where it came from.
His eyes closed, the ringing of the mental telephone echoing inside of his head.
“Kokushibo. We need to talk.”