Akaza could feel that his head had already completely crumbled away, yet he could still think.
His body had not collapsed. If anything, he could now see even more clearly the person telling him to stop.
She was a very petite girl, wearing a kimono patterned in spotted colors fading from pink into blue. Snowflake-like embroidery bloomed along the hem. She looked delicate and beautiful.
Akaza stared at the blue snowflake-shaped hairpin in her hair. It felt deeply familiar, and yet he was still full of confusion.
"...Why are you stopping me? Who are you?"
"Hakuji-san... please..."
Tears streamed from the girl's eyes as she clung tightly to Akaza's hand.
"Please remember. Please, don't let yourself be stained with blood anymore... Hakuji-san was never this kind of person!"
"Hakuji... ? But my name is Akaza. A-ka-za."
The girl's expression instantly turned even sadder. The eyes that had seemed to hold blooming flowers dimmed at once.
"Hakuji-san... please, try to remember. I finally managed to get my voice through to you..."
[ Remember... ? But what exactly have I forgotten? ]
Was it why he became a demon?
No. He had not forgotten that. At that time, he had lost all hope, and Muzan-sama was the one who let his life continue. That was why he was grateful to Muzan-sama.
But why had he lost all hope?
Ah. That was it.
It was because everyone important to him had left him.
That was why he hated the weak.
The weak could never settle things openly and fairly. They only relied on underhanded tricks. They were ugly.
The weak also lacked endurance. At the first setback, they gave up on themselves and made excuses for their own stupidity.
The weak... could not protect anything important beside them.
Just like himself, who had protected nothing.
Yes. He had protected nothing.
If only he had been a little stronger, he could have escaped with the money he stole.
If only he had been a little stronger, he would not have been powerless to resist when retaliation came.
If only he had been a little stronger, he would not have been caught by the magistrate's office and sentenced.
If he had been strong enough, none of that would have happened, and his father would not have left behind a note and hanged himself.
[ Hakuji, live honestly. You can still start over. ]
How am I supposed to start over?
[ I haven't fallen so low that I'd steal other people's money at the cost of my own child. ]
Then I'll work properly from now on! I'll pay back all the money too! But you...
[ Sorry for causing you trouble. ]
Shut up...
I never thought you were a burden.
Why are you apologizing?
You didn't do anything wrong.
Even being punished for theft never made me suffer. Whether it was the whip coming down on me or my bones being broken, if it was for you, Dad, I could have endured being beaten for hundreds of years.
Reflect?
Don't screw with me, bastard!
There wasn't enough money!
Medicine really was expensive!
Without medicine, people die!
I never gave up, so why did Dad give up on himself?!
Are poor people not even allowed to live?!
Why do those worthless scum get to live while my father had to die?!
To hell with a world like this!
All those pampered fools who do nothing but spout smug nonsense can just die!
[ You've got talent! Beating grown men without even using a weapon. You really are something else! ]
Shut up! What would someone like you, who's never suffered a day in your life, understand?! I'll kill you!
[ Ha! In that case, boy, let's start by remaking you from the ground up! ]
...
That was the first time he had ever been knocked unconscious in an instant.
The fist that hit his face was painful and hard, even worse than the punishment rods he had suffered before.
After he lost consciousness, that man cleaned up the trouble he had caused, then brought him back home.
[ Well now, I expected you'd be tough, but you're really built sturdy! My name is Keizo. I run a martial arts dojo called Soryu, where we practice unarmed combat. I usually make a living selling odds and ends. It's a little late to ask now, but would you like to become my student? You'd be my top disciple! ]
[...]
[ Hahaha, that expression of yours is pretty funny! If you don't want to be my student, that's fine too. With that tattoo, it must be hard to find proper work, right? I'd like to hire you instead. Think of it as repayment for me cleaning up the mess you made with those people. ]
[ ...What would I be doing? ]
[ I want you to help look after my sick daughter. Of course, there's other work I'd want your help with too, but that's the main thing. A few days ago, my wife... she was probably worn out from caring for her, and she threw herself into the river. Honestly, I'm at my wit's end.
People are creatures who can only live by helping each other. I just can't manage everything alone... though really, it's because I'm useless. I made my wife and daughter suffer far too much with me. She must have had no other choice. ]
[ Is it really alright to leave a house with only your daughter in it to a criminal like me? ]
[ Hahaha, didn't I just beat the stuffing out of a criminal and straighten him out? It's fine! Trust between people matters too! I trust who you are now! ]
That was the first time he met Koyuki.
The small girl looked exhausted. Her face was flushed with an unhealthy redness, her forehead covered in cold sweat. She coughed constantly and looked terribly frail.
That carefree man had simply left his gravely ill daughter in his care.
Even he did not know what he had been thinking, but somehow he stayed, taking care of the daughter of the man who had beaten him senseless.
Koyuki's body was truly weak. He had to stay by her side through the night, repeatedly changing the towel on her forehead, her sleeping clothes, and her bedding once they were soaked with sweat, so she would not catch a chill.
He also had to make sure she drank water often. When she needed to use the toilet, he would wrap her up carefully and carry her to the doorway, then wait there to avoid any accidents.
He had already been doing things like this for ten years, day after day, so he did not find it especially hard.
If there was one thing he felt awkward about, it was only that she was a girl.
Koyuki was always apologizing to him.
[ Sorry for making you take care of me. ]
Yeah, of course. You must want to do things yourself.
[ Sorry, my coughing is so annoying. ]
What are you saying? It's not like you can stop yourself from coughing. If you could breathe normally, you obviously would.
[ Sorry, I can't move around freely. ]
Don't say that. Aren't you the one suffering the most?
[ Sorry. I'm always causing you trouble, and because of me you can't go train or go have fun... ]
[ It's fine. I never really thought about going out to have fun anyway. And I can always find time to train on my own, so don't worry about it. ]
[ But you should relax once in a while too... I heard there's a fireworks festival tonight. You should go. ]
[ That's true. Then once your dizziness gets better, I'll carry you to the bridge so you can see it. ]
[ Eh? But... ]
[ Even if we miss the fireworks today, there'll be fireworks next year and the year after. We can go then. Right now, you're more important. ]
[ ...Sob... ]
Ah, there she went again. One moment she had been speaking normally, and the next she suddenly started crying.
Was it because she had been bedridden for so long that she had grown too gloomy?
In any case, whenever she cried, he became unbearably uncomfortable. Even though he was not the one who made her cry. Probably... right?
The man named Keizo eventually took him in as a disciple, half by force, and often joked about his name. He said the koma in Hakuji was the same koma as in komainu, the guardian dogs at shrines. A person like that, he said, could never live in peace unless he had something to protect.
While caring for Koyuki and training under him, he also learned why his master, despite having neither samurai rank nor any other special status, owned so much land and a dojo.
It was because, while traveling in the mountains, he had once rescued an elderly man from bandits. The old man had been so moved that he transferred to his master the land and the old dojo that had no heir to inherit them.
It was an absurdly dramatic transfer. The sort of thing that would make a fine story in rakugo.
But to the people who wanted that land and dojo for themselves, it was hardly amusing. The Kinkaku Sword Dojo frequently came to harass the Soryu Dojo. That was the real reason the Soryu Dojo had never been able to take in more students.
Three years after he entered the dojo, Koyuki was no longer bedridden. She had recovered enough to live like any other young lady from a respectable household.
It was then that Master came to him and said he wanted him to inherit the dojo.
He also said that Koyuki liked him, and that he hoped to give Koyuki to him in marriage.
At the time, he had been utterly stunned.
A man marked with a criminal's tattoo had never once thought about the future, much less a future like an ordinary person's, being loved, marrying, and having children.
Maybe life really could begin again.
A faint hope began swelling inside his heart, and once it started, it would not stop.
[ ...Are you really choosing me? ]
[ Hakuji-san, do you remember when I said as a child that I wanted to go see the fireworks? ]
[ Eh? No... ]
[ All those little things I talked about with you, Hakuji-san, made me so happy. I could never even imagine myself still being alive next year, or the year after...
I was so frail, and I knew it. Back then, somewhere in his heart, Father must have already given up on me. Mother, too, must have killed herself because she could not bear to watch me die.
But Hakuji-san saw a future for me. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, you spoke to me about next year and the year after. That made me so happy.
As long as I have Hakuji-san, that is enough for me. So, may I ask you to become my husband? ]
[ ...Yes. I will become stronger than anyone else and protect you for the rest of my life. ]
Once that was decided, he returned to his old home in Edo to visit the grave of his father, who had died long ago, and told him that he was about to be married.
Then, before sunset, he returned to the dojo.
And in that single day, disaster struck.
The two people he would have given his life to protect had been poisoned to death.
A man Master had once helped was standing guard outside the dojo together with officials, and the moment he saw him, he rushed over to deliver the terrible news.
Someone had poisoned the water.
Because they could not defeat him and Master, they had resorted to poison to kill them.
Even Koyuki, who should never have been among the targets, had died from it too.
Ah, look at that.
Whenever the people important to him faced danger, he was never there.
He had promised to protect her forever, yet in the end, all he had done was say useless things. Not one of them had come true.
Why had this happened?
Because he was weak.
That was why he could protect nothing.
But even the weak have pride. Even the weak take revenge.
Late that night, he went to them.
Using the Soryu martial arts Master had taught him, he killed them one by one.
Some had their heads crushed. Some died with their organs shattered. With fist and palm, he slaughtered all sixty-seven disciples of that sword dojo in the outskirts.
By the time the magistrate's office arrived after hearing the news, what remained at the scene were corpses smashed beyond recognition.
Jaws, brains, eyeballs, limbs, entrails... they were scattered everywhere. Some of them were even stuck high up on the ceiling.
It looked like a painting of hell spread open in the living world.
But what was the point of any of it?
Even if he killed the true culprits who had escaped the law, Master and Koyuki would never come back.
Master had been right. He really was like a komainu.
Without something to protect, he had no idea how to go on living.
Revenge did not fill the emptiness in his heart. It only left him even more lost than before.
There was no better way to describe his state at the time than utter despair.
[ I heard rumors of a demon in a place where no demon was supposed to be, so I came to have a look. And it turns out it's only a human. How boring. ]
It was a beautiful man with long hair, dressed in a fitted black kimono. His plum-red eyes shone brilliantly under the moonlight.
But what did any of that have to do with a stray dog like him?
[ Get lost. Or I'll kill you too. ]
In the next instant, the man's arm pierced through his skull.
And the first thing he felt was relief.
At last, he could die too.
[ I intend to create twelve powerful demons. Can your body withstand my blood? ]
[ ...Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters now... I've already lost everything. ]
[ Is that so? How pitiful. Let me help you, then. Hmm... Those useless memories from your human life need to be erased. From this day on, you are Akaza. ]
[ Akaza...? ]
[ That's right. Akaza. Become strong as quickly as possible, and serve me. ]
How ridiculous.
The most useless man of all had survived by a twist of fate.
Even though there was nothing left he wanted to protect, even though he did not want to go on living in this world where he had no one, he had simply repeated one meaningless act after another for more than a hundred years.
It was boring, ridiculous, and laughable beyond words.
At last, his head, which had turned to ash, fully regenerated.
Akaza looked at Tanjiro and the others again, but he did not attack.
Instead, he turned in a daze and looked toward the place where the girl had been standing. Reaching out as though trying to grasp something, he asked softly,
"Did I... disappoint you?"
But no one could answer him.