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{This is my first time writing a story. I never wrote one for someone else to read. I took inspiration from many different stories. I'm not claiming all the ideas i will use in this story as mine, maybe they have already been used in a much better way. Conclusion, I'm a novice. I'm not claiming that you will like this story. Hope you give constructive criticism.}
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{Oh and English is not my first language. I use AI to correct mistakes, but you can be damn sure I won't use it to just GENERATE stories, I write everything myself and I will try to convey the story in a way that most people can understand, atleast I hope so.}
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In the midst of a big village, a Japanese-style mansion stood.
Its traditional structure and calm surroundings had the effect of making people want to stay there.
Yet, in the shadows of this mansion, guards who looked particularly tense and stern made those thoughts of staying go away.
In the upper courtyard of the mansion, in a naturally dark room, a man sat on his futon. A woman, his wife, sat beside him, gently supporting his back with attentiveness.
And this attentiveness was well-reasoned. The man had purple, scar-like injuries all over his body; even one of his eyes was white, and the surrounding skin was scarred. He looked weak and fragile, coughing in between the talks that were going on here.
Which changed the focus onto the third presence in the room.
In front of the man stood a crow, a talking crow.
A Kasugai crow.
These were specially bred crows, used by the Demon Slayer Corps to deliver messages. Intel, mission reports, and in extreme cases, cries for help, all were handled by these dependable creatures.
The man sitting on the futon was the owner of the house and the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, Ubuyashiki Kagaya, and beside him was his wife, Ubuyashiki Amane.
The Kasugai crow relayed the message it had gotten from the slayers and the Intel Department.
"Other than a few demon reports, which were later proved to be animal attacks, there have been no sightings of demons for the last two months, Kagaya-sama!!" the crow said in its shrill voice. It almost seemed just as distressed as the man, Kagaya himself.
This was a good reason to be distressed.
Kagaya Ubuyashiki thought deeply for a few minutes, coughing in between while keeping his eye, his single eye, steady.
"This has never happened before. The demons, and their master, Muzan, must be up to something," Kagaya murmured to himself, but he wasn't worried that his wife or the crow would hear. It wasn't some big secret in the Corps.
"Perhaps they're planning something big," Amane suggested, her voice tinged with worry. "Could it be they've discovered this place?" she asked, worried but not scared. Her voice was steady, and her hands never trembled.
She had prepared herself for this long ago, just like many others.
"That is what I'm worried about," Kagaya murmured softly in affirmation. He also thought so.
And he also did not fear.
Kagaya was not worried for himself; he was worried that this resistance, this war against demons, was soon coming to an end. He could feel it, his intuition suggested so, and it worried him. Because currently, he did not believe the Corps could take on the Demon King.
Muzan was extremely powerful, and he'd lived a long life. His caution and cowardice had made it hard for anyone to even catch a glimpse of him. And now, the demons had disappeared in just a single week, and none had appeared after that for months.
"Perhaps I can clarify your doubts."
A voice cool as ice, yet tinged with subtle mischief, echoed in the room, and a new man stepped inside from the inner hallway.
He looked at the three occupants of the room, and before the crow could take flight and fly away, it was struck down. No, it was caught.
The man's hands had morphed into a cage, trapping the crow, a cage of flesh, sinew, and bones.
The man patted the trembling crow. His hands seemed to pass through the cage as if it were an illusion, a projection. Yet no matter how much the crow struggled, it could not get out.
"Now, now, I don't want my talk with Kagaya to be interrupted too fast."
The trembling crow stopped, as if, if it even moved, it would be devoured. It was like meeting your natural predator in an open setting, where you couldn't do anything but watch as it stepped forward.
The man finally turned away from the crow and towards the tense, yet already understanding, couple.
"Kagaya Ubuyashiki, and you must be his wife, yes," the man declared rather than asked.
And in turn, Kagaya Ubuyashiki also declared.
"Muzan Kibutsuji."
There was not a flicker of fear nor reverence in his voice, but recognition and a hidden depth as he said, "So you've finally come out."
The man, now recognized as the Demon King, Muzan Kibutsuji, shrugged nonchalantly and said with a smirk,
"What? Were you expecting me to hide away for another few centuries? Please, I don't have enough time to waste on you and your prized Demon Slayer Corps."
Kagaya was surprised. Yes, surprised, because he did not expect this.
See, Kagaya was a man who could lead the Demon Slayer Corps successfully while being terminally ill and in pain most of the time.
This was because he was an Ubuyashiki.
The Ubuyashiki family had vowed to eradicate the demons from the face of the entirety of Japan almost a thousand years ago. He was raised for this very purpose, just like others before him, and just like how he supposed his descendants would be raised, if he even lived past today.
But the main focus right now was that Kagaya was someone who was born and educated to lead. He was naturally adept at reading the emotions of people and using them.
While he didn't use this knowledge for what he considered a misuse, he did have the knowledge. And right now, Kagaya didn't need that knowledge to see the visible satisfaction, humor, and was that joy in Muzan's voice.
Kagaya tensed slightly and asked probingly,
"Then I suppose you're here to finalize what you've been aiming for? All these years hiding like a rat from beings you consider lesser than you must've been very hard on you."
Kagaya couldn't help but let the jab slip. He was ready for death anyway; might as well.
But he was surprised again, because Muzan chuckled.
He didn't lash out, nor did he get annoyed. Kagaya could almost feel the deep sense of satisfaction in Muzan's voice.
"Kagaya, oh Kagaya, no need to be so tense."
Muzan sat down on the mat with no care for decorum or maintaining an image.
"But yes, you're right. I am here to finalize everything."
Muzan raised a finger towards Kagaya, and from it, a red ray, a blood ray, shot straight into Kagaya Ubuyashiki's forehead, and he fell backward.
Amane was so surprised she couldn't even react in time. Finally, as she came to her senses, she turned towards Kagaya to check, to wail perhaps, but Muzan silenced her with a single sentence.
"Be quiet," Muzan said in a tone that did not tolerate refusal.
What Amane did not know was that Muzan was tense as well. He was focused, because what he was doing was honestly very hard.
On the futon, Kagaya tensed and started convulsing, spasming as if something was crawling under his skin.
"What are you doing?!" Amane finally couldn't hold it. Her love and devotion to Kagaya won out against her fear of Muzan.
"Tsk. Just shut up for a minute. He'll be fine."
Amane was shocked hearing this. Fine? Do you think this is fine?
"He's"
Her words were cut off as a bag, no, it was skin. A thick skin bag covered her head and bound her mouth together, leaving only a single hole under her nose for her to breathe through. Even as she clawed at it, the flesh bag stayed without any damage.
Because while looking thin and flexible, this piece of skin was much harder than iron.
Muzan continued, unbothered, and the convulsions of Kagaya continued. They even got worse.
Sweat glistened on Muzan's forehead as he tensed, but then he finally relaxed.
"Phew."
Muzan wiped the sweat away with a handkerchief from his pocket and then put it back in before releasing the hold of the flesh bag on Amane's head.
Amane lunged towards Kagaya and held him in her arms. Kagaya's body was warm, almost feverish to the touch. His skin was glistening with sweat, and there was a hoarse sound to his breathing.
Amane teared up. No matter how much she prepared herself, she still felt pain in her heart seeing her husband like this.
Finally, Muzan said,
"Relax. He's just unconscious. He'll wake up in a few minutes."
As if waiting for that very moment, Kagaya stirred and suddenly sat up, his eyes wide in disbelief. His single eye focused on Muzan, and his hand clutched Amane's hands with a strength that had been long, long gone from his body.
"You," Kagaya started, but cut himself off. No, the real question was, "Why?!"
Kagaya threw the futon covering him away, lunging forward as if to confront Muzan right there, but he stopped just short, not by himself, but because a fleshy red tentacle had slapped a pillow onto his face, making him fall back.
"Stay away from me. You're sweaty," Muzan said with a face of disgust, yet he couldn't help himself and let out a chuckle.
Kagaya stared in disbelief. Then he sat up again and asked, a little more tense and properly,
"What did you do? Cure me?"
Kagaya said the words like a question, but he already knew the answer. He could feel his body without that deep numbness. He could move without spasming pain.
He was cured.
"Why?" Kagaya's voice trembled, in rage, in confusion, in something else entirely. His heart ached from this sacrilegious way he had been cured.
How could he, the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, a corps whose whole reason for existence was the eradication of demons, take this life-changing debt from the very Demon King himself?
"Whyyyy?" Muzan drawled, squeezing out all the amusement from such a tense situation.
Then, with a chuckle, he said,
"Because it's over, Kagaya Ubuyashiki."
His voice held finality, as if he were announcing the result of some long-played game among friends.
"Over?" Kagaya asked, in disbelief and confusion, but then realization hit.
Clarity returned to him, and his single eye focused on the veranda, the courtyard still brightly lit because it was noon.
It was day.
It wasn't dark yet.
It wasn't night yet!!
Kagaya trembled all over.
"No," he choked out.
"No," he repeated.
"You, you must've been hiding here all along, since yesterday night, yes!"
Kagaya yelled in an almost mad tone, because that was the only reason he believed in. Because he refused to believe that Muzan had won.
That. That.
"Sigh."
With a sigh, Muzan stood up and slowly walked towards the veranda.
"No!"
Kagaya reached out, as if he wanted to stop him, stop him from going outside, stop him from dying in sunlight. Demons died in sunlight. That was their biggest weakness. That was also the weakness of the Demon King himself.
"Heh. It's almost ironic, isn't it? You, the leader of the slayers, are trying to stop me, while the whole of the Demon Slayer Corps would be trying their hardest to push me into the sunlight."
Muzan chuckled, and then, with deliberate, teasing slowness, he put one hand outside the range of the roof, outside the shade, where the sun was.
Kagaya's breath hitched. He wished, oh how he wished, Muzan would disintegrate right there.
When he wanted to stop Muzan, it wasn't because he wanted to save him. No. What he wanted to save was his belief, his belief that Muzan could still be killed, that they still had a chance.
Yet his beliefs crumbled like sandcastles made too close to the edge of waves the moment sunlight touched Muzan's skin.
His hand, pale white, with perfect lines, no callouses, no imperfections, stayed in the sunlight without any damage. Without anything happening at all.
"No," Kagaya whispered.
Then his eyes widened even further as Muzan jumped merrily onto the sunlight-lit ground and stood there, unharmed, his handsome face untouched.
"Well? Now you believe me?" Muzan asked and came back in, sitting down in front of Kagaya, who now looked lifeless, as if everything he believed in had been reduced to nothing.
"I told you, didn't I? It's over," Muzan said with a little more seriousness.
"Get your family over here. I'll treat everyone's body, and then you won't have to see me ever again."
Kagaya's body trembled as he asked,
"Why?"
"Hm? Why, huh?" Muzan sighed. He knew where this was going and didn't want to waste any more time, so he took control of the conversation.
"Listen and understand this. I'm not giving you grace right now. I'm just ending this war."
"I've already achieved what I wanted. I'm immortal now, and you can't do anything about it, Kagaya. I'm not pursuing death or war with demon slayers either."
Muzan shrugged, then announced news that shook Kagaya to his core.
"The demons are gone."
Kagaya asked in a trembling tone, "Huh?"
It was disbelief more than confusion.
"I won't repeat myself. The only reason demons existed was to find ways to make myself immune to sunlight. Now that I've achieved that, there's no need for their existence or for all these troublesome things to continue."
Muzan thought for a second.
"You know what? I know you won't believe me, but I don't care."
He stood up and finally said,
"You won't see a single demon ever again. Ever."
Muzan created a few bones in his hands, vials of his blood. He had already turned these into a cure for the terminal illness of the Kagaya family. The time he spent curing Kagaya was valuable experience in their making.
"Here. Have your children drink from this. It'll cure them, and the Ubuyashiki curse will be no more."
"Also, you won't see me ever again. You probably won't even hear of me again, so"
Muzan smiled and extended his hand.
"This is goodbye, Kagaya Ubuyashiki."
When he didn't receive a reply or a handshake, he shamelessly took Kagaya's trembling hand and shook it himself.
Then he crossed the room, out into the courtyard, and was gone, like the wind, without any sign of how or where.
And just a few moments later, the door burst open, and a few very fierce-looking individuals stormed in.
"Kagaya-sama!!!"
Their voices were tinged with worry and rage,
Half for Kagaya, and half for the man no one in this world would ever see again.