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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. You may find a few errors but I will try to convey the story in a way that most people can understand, atleast I hope so.}
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If you asked Muzan how long he had been in that white space, he would've shrugged and said something dramatic like, "Long enough," maybe roll his eyes and pretend he wasn't counting.
Well, he wasn't counting.
Or more like he had stopped counting somewhere after what he thought was year twelve. It honestly felt really sad.
Is that even the right word? I don't know.
It was somewhere between sad and despairing, although he still pushed through it.
At first he thought it was just volume, you know. Just numbers. That there were many.
'Fine, okay, fair enough.' He'd thought.
He had enemies. That wasn't news. When you spend your life turning people into demons, killing demon slayers, ruining families, devouring strangers because you can, of course there's going to be a queue. That part he understood. He really hated Muzan for this bull****.
But he wasn't delusional. This was karma and all that mystical stuff. It was confusing, but it was real, so he had to take care of it.
However! What he did not understand, and what genuinely pissed him off, was why every single one of them came at him like they'd been training for revenge under the same divine boot camp where Yoriichi lived!
The first time a former Lower Moon nearly ripped his head off, Muzan actually paused mid-regeneration and went, 'Excuse me, wtf?'
After the third time an unknown demon slayer forced him into a defensive position for hours, he demanded answers.
And the system, oh, the system answered, and it answered so calmly it almost felt smug.
[Notice: Equal right to confront includes equal right to contend.]
He had blinked.
'Contend how?'
[Notice: Participants are adjusted to ensure meaningful confrontation.]
'Adjusted?'
[Notice: Adjusted.]
That was the first time he felt hopeless.
'You BUFFED them?'
[Notice: Equalization parameters have been applied.]
"You BUFFED them!!!" he had actually shouted that one out loud, because sometimes internal screaming wasn't enough.
So it wasn't just that there were many. It was that every single one of them had been raised to meet him.
Not exactly a copy of his power or stats, but what they already possessed, adjusted enough that the fight meant something.
No instant annihilation. No overwhelming dominance. No lazy brutality.
None.
It was all about a meaningful confrontation.
The worst ones were the already strong ones.
Upper Moons who had once trembled in his presence now stood in front of him with steady eyes and said things like, "Prove you're still strong, Muzan-sama."
Previous demon slayers and Hashira who had died thinking of him as an unreachable nightmare now met him head to head, matching his speed, forcing him to think, to adapt, to bleed.
People he barely remembered, people he had hunted in passing because they were inconvenient, because they saw something they shouldn't have.
The ones that most benefited from this "BUFF" were the unknown ones, and that's because they had potential.
Potential they hadn't been able to realize.
And this category annoyed him the most, the talented nobodies!
People who never got to bloom because the gap between them and him was a canyon. Now? Now that gap was gone. Boosted. Elevated. Given their "equal opportunity."
He had lost count of how many times he thought he'd figured someone out only for them to evolve mid-fight because the system considered their "resentment unresolved."
It wasn't just fighting either. That was the real cruelty here.
It wasn't enough to defeat them. He had to make them forgive him.
Not defeat them. Not make them submit. But forgive him.
And forgiveness, he learned very quickly, was far more exhausting than combat.
Demons, ironically, were actually the easier ones.
Most of them demanded strength, stuff like, "Defeat me properly," or, "Show me you're still just as strong, Muzan-sama." That line sounds like déjà vu, no?
That's because it is!
Every second or third demon would repeat those same words. Some actually had enough audacity to ask him to kneel and submit to them. But these were actually the easier ones, relatively at least.
As long as he proved he was still superior to them, he won.
And that's something he could do. He could do strength above all or whatever.
Strength was clean anyway.
Punch, regenerate, adapt, overpower, and then eventually win.
While some had side quests for him, a little more troublesome but still doable.
Akaza, for example, was almost polite about it.
"Respect women," he said very seriously.
Muzan had stared at him. 'That's it? That's all you need?'
Akaza nodded like it was the most obvious condition in existence.
He explained how he'd never had any resentment for Muzan. While he didn't like that he became a man-eating demon, he remembered that he'd already lost all will to live the day he had been turned.
Muzan did remember that part of Akaza's backstory. After his fiancée died, he killed the people who were responsible for that.
A total of sixty or so humans, alone, bare-handed.
'This guy is another human monster. Not Yoriichi level, sure, but still in the upper tier, especially in hand to hand.' Muzan had thought with a sweatdrop.
He'd of course felt all those talented punches in his face just a few minutes ago.
He had sighed. 'Fine. I respect women.'
It wasn't even difficult. He wasn't particularly invested in disrespecting anyone in the first place.
That one resolved relatively quickly after a few brutal rounds and a very awkward nod of mutual acknowledgment.
Douma was, well, he was just Douma.
He smiled. He chatted. He tilted his head and said he held no resentment at all.
"I adored you, Muzan-sama."
'Bullshit,' Muzan had replied immediately. 'If you didn't resent me, you wouldn't even be here, you bitch.'
Douma had laughed.
They still fought, though, because even if he consciously didn't resent Muzan, something in him did. And that something demanded to clash.
But demons were straightforward.
Humans, on the other hand?
Humans were complicated.
They all knew. Everyone in this space knew. Everyone who was made here to confront him knew, and that was the frustrating part.
They knew he wasn't the exact same Muzan. The soul had shifted. That this Muzan's perspective was different. He wasn't the one who made those exact choices.
But emotions do not care about metaphysical technicalities.
A father doesn't care that you're technically not the guy who murdered his daughter.
A child who watched their parents be devoured didn't care about reincarnation disclaimers.
So it became this endless cycle of fighting, talking, arguing, bargaining.
One demanded he perform one hundred magic tricks.
One hundred.
'Why?'
"Because you terrified me when I was alive. I want to laugh at you," the child said, as if it was the best justification in the world.
He learned sleight of hand in a void. Learned card manipulation with fingers that could shred steel. Spent what felt like months practicing until he could pull coins from behind ears and make flowers bloom from empty palms.
The kid forgave him after trick number eighty-seven, but he still finished the hundred out of stubbornness.
Stubborn kid.
Another confronted him about missing his mother's birthday.
That one confused him at first.
'I didn't even know your mother. You never invited me, did you?'
"It's not you who missed it. It's me. You killed me on my way home."
Oh. That made sense.
He didn't have a recollection, so maybe someone who died randomly or in crossfire?
He had to promise, sincerely, that in every world he went to, if he ever crossed paths with someone's mother in need, he would help. That he would treat mothers well.
He made that promise, and he planned to keep that promise.
It wasn't even hard. It was just that he knew way too many good mothers. Mothers who would do anything for their children. Sigh.
Then there was the man who demanded he marry a beautiful girl and live a peaceful life.
Muzan had blinked at him and firmly shaken his head.
'I don't plan on marrying. I've got a very long life ahead of me and a whole lot of things to do.'
The man exploded.
Started cursing him out about the wonders of love, about companionship, about warmth, about dying surrounded by family instead of enemies.
Muzan listened, argued, lost the argument.
Not in action, but in spirit.
He didn't promise marriage. But he promised not to reject the possibility simply because he feared attachment.
That one took twenty fights and three separate debates.
Some demands were absurd.
"Bring back my entire clan."
'First of all,' he snapped, 'I didn't even kill your entire clan!'
"Then suffer." The crazy guy had yelled before charging at him.
And boom. Back to fighting.
Over and over, I fought and fought and fought. Some were just not willing to give up, not because they wanted their demands fulfilled, but because they wanted to keep him there. Stuck. Not able to go out and enjoy himself.
'F*ck!!!' Muzan cursed under his breath.
Those were the worst kind of people. But in the end, Muzan's will turned out to be stronger than these guys.
Because sometimes the only way to settle grief is to exhaust it.
There were nights, if you could call them nights in a place without any day or night, when he collapsed in the white nothingness, body regenerating slower not because of injury but because he was tired.
And that he actually was. He was tired.
He had never been tired like that before. He'd never fought like that before. He'd never talked like that before.
Before this whole isekai stuff, he'd been a normal guy. Normal stuff was going on in his life. He had just an average and boring life.
He learned things, never used them, just a normal back-end job, and nothing cool ever happened in his life.
The only relief he had was entertainment. Anime being the best kind, because they were so cool. The characters, the scenarios, the action, the sound, the substance, and emotions, they were just so colorful. He liked that, and so it became his only escape.
He of course wasn't the only one. He had at least at one point thought he was the weird one, the only one around his living place who liked anime, but online he found way too many people like him, some even worse than him.
And so, when this new isekai adventure was presented, he'd smiled, because he could have his own adventure now. He could also be a protagonist now.
When his multiverse system activated, he'd laughed, because now he could meet those characters, those people he admired. He could participate in those scenes he'd watched, and he could change some things that had torn his heart apart. Truly, they had.
So he endured. He will continue to endure.
He had to endure if he wants to live out those adventures, those scenarios in his head, those thrills he wanted to participate in so bad.
And he will!
But being here wasn't wasted, not even a bit.
While the constant fighting and arguments were actually tiresome, he did learn a lot. And he learned things he never really paid attention to before.
He learned techniques. He made new abilities. But more than that, he learned about restraint, about the consequences one's actions can have. And that unless you are willing to endure those consequences, never even think about committing the actions.
He truly learned, very intimately, how easy it had been for the original Muzan to reduce lives to inconveniences.
And how heavy those inconveniences became when given equal footing.
That's all they lacked, equal footing.
There were moments when he hated the system.
'You could've told me it would be this hard!' he'd screamed once. Sigh.
There were moments he hated Kokushibo, moments he hated the original Muzan for committing all these sins, moments he hated himself for dreaming too big and enduring this hell.
But every confrontation ended eventually.
Not because he crushed them, but because something settled.
A demon's hand lowered from hurting him. A demon slayer exhaled in relaxation. A human stopped trembling from rage.
Forgiveness was never dramatic. It was quiet and came suddenly.
It was someone looking at him and saying, "Fine," or just turning away instead of raising their weapon again.
It was acceptance that he was not the same monster, but he carried its weight.
It's been years. He was sure of it. This time of being beaten, arguing, promising, fighting, learning, adjusting. He was sure it has been a long time.
If you asked him now, he would still say he didn't regret taking the chance at a second life, but he would also admit that the system's version of punishment was disgustingly thorough.
And then, one day, poof.
Nothing hostile. No one tense. No shout of rage. Nothing.
It was empty.
He stood there, alone.
Just silence.
'Is that it?'
[Notice: Confrontation sequence complete. Evaluating the host's condition.]
He stared upward into nothing.
'It's finally time?' Muzan thought to himself, a tear in his eye.
[Notice: The negative karma has been settled into balance and will not affect the host's travel anymore.] [Total duration: 98 years.]
He froze.
'What.'
[Notice: Host has completed required confrontations.]
Ninety-eight?!
He looked at his hands, flexed them a bit. They were still the same.
He didn't feel older or changed at all.
At least in the body.
"I'll need to get used to this. Demons have a VERY long life, after all."
'You're telling me I've been in here for ninety-eight years?'
[Notice: Correct.]
He laughed at that.
It wasn't hysterical or crazy or anything like that. Just relief layered over exhaustion layered over something almost like pride at having survived so much bull****.
'I better go somewhere good after this.'
The white space trembled again, but this time it was more like snapping open a soda bottle, like something was bubbling up, or like a door unlocking.
Let's just go with the door.
For the first time in almost a century, there was a direction.
An opening. It was a crack in space, even whiter than this white space!
'Damn flashbang!' Muzan laughed while squinting his eyes, but not blinking for a second.
As if he was afraid the opening would disappear.
'Alright,' he muttered to himself. 'Next world better have good food.'
And without hesitation, because hesitation had been burned out of him in these ninety-eight years, Muzan stepped forward, leaving behind the white space that had been his prison, his arena, his courtroom, and, in a strange, twisted way, his teacher.