"I-I... don't want to die…"
The words came out on their own, without thinking, as if the pressure of having Marcus standing right there had broken something inside her and everything she'd been holding in started spilling out.
"I d-don't want to die... but I c-can't do anything either... if I run, Rui will... Rui is going to…"
She remembered those days: the beatings, the strangulations, the skin being torn from her face, her body cut to pieces, and then the regeneration forcing her back together so it could start all over again…
Over and over. Without end. Without reason. Without escape.
She hugged her knees and the tears fell harder, soaking her kimono.
"I didn't ask for this... hic..."
When Muzan turned her into a demon, she was nothing more than a little girl. Seven years old. Maybe eight. She didn't remember exactly. And since then, decades had passed, but those decades had given her nothing.
Nothing except running from slayers, obeying Rui, and learning through beatings and torture how to play the role of a loving mother in a fake family that meant nothing.
If the act wasn't convincing, they punished her. If she smiled wrong, they punished her. If she didn't say the right words in the right tone, they punished her.
Decades of life, and the only thing she'd learned was how to pretend and how to endure pain.
"Sometimes... sniff... sometimes I think I wish they'd never turned me at all..." Her voice kept getting smaller, more childlike, as if the adult woman were dissolving and underneath there was only the little girl she'd always been. "That I wish I'd just... died that day and that was it…"
In front of her was Marcus, who could kill her with a single gesture. Behind her was Rui, waiting for her with that cold face and those eyes that promised something worse than death if she didn't complete her mission.
She finally broke down.
"WAAAAAAH!!"
She burst into wailing sobs.
She didn't care anymore about the puppet in the distance, didn't care about Marcus standing right there.
"I c-can't take it anymore! I can't, I can't, I caaaan't!" She pounded the rock with her fists, over and over. "I'm sick of pretending! Sick of being hurt!! Sick of being afraid of everyone!! WAAAH... WHY DO I HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS?!!"
Through her tears, blurry, she saw Marcus's silhouette in front of her, looking down at her.
And she simply stopped fighting. She closed her eyes and raised her neck.
"Do it... hic... cut my neck..." She hiccuped, sniffled, hiccuped again. "It should hurt less than... sniff... than when they tear off my face, right...? waaah…"
With that, she waited for the blade to fall.
Several seconds passed.
…
The blade never came.
But what did come was a warm finger that brushed her cheek.
It traced across her skin slowly, wiping the wet trail of tears with such delicate care that her crying stopped short.
Not by choice. By shock. Because that caress, that simple, warm, nonviolent touch, was something she hadn't felt in decades... Maybe ever.
Shuddering from head to toe, she opened her eyes wide.
Marcus was leaning over her, at the same distance as before, with the same smile as before. But the sword was no longer in his hand.
"Who said I was going to kill you?"
"..."
Spider Mother stared at him, stunned. She looked at his hand, then raised her eyes back to Marcus's face.
"Y-you're not going to kill me...?" Her voice came out hoarse, wrecked from so much crying, threaded with disbelief. "W-Why...? I... I killed your people."
Marcus didn't even flinch. "And why would I care?"
"...Huh?!"
Marcus raised his eyebrows, confused. "You didn't kill me. Or anyone I care about. So... what's the problem?"
"B-But you... but aren't you—?!" Spider Mother even forgot to cry and pointed at Marcus's uniform. "You're with the Slayer Corps! Aren't you... aren't you going to avenge your comrades?"
"Comrades?" Marcus chuckled. "Avenge? Haha. Look, if you'd killed one kid in particular, then yeah, we'd have a problem. But the rest… Forget about it."
He meant it. Completely. And that was the most disturbing part of all.
He was never a hero. He was realistic to a degree most people would call selfish, and he wouldn't argue with anyone who said so. What had always mattered to him was himself and the handful of people he'd chosen to keep close.
The rest of the world could burn and he'd sit and watch the flames as long as none of his people were inside.
If Kagaya knew what Tamayo's experiments could mean for the fight against Muzan, the Corps leader himself would sacrifice ten times as many slayers without batting an eye. That's how things worked. That's how the world worked.
Why would Marcus lose sleep over someone else's subordinates?
And now, the woman in front of him—trembling, tearful, face swollen—was precisely the person he'd come looking for.
First: she could give him a new Form, and having her close by would amplify it. That alone made the trip worth it.
Second: after living with Yushiro, insufferable as the little runt was, he'd discovered that having someone by his side who served him, who obeyed him, who took care of the annoying things, was surprisingly comfortable.
Addictively comfortable.
And third... she was very beautiful and sensual.
So at that moment, the weepy, trembling, pathetic Spider Mother weighed more on Marcus's scales than all the slayers on that mountain combined. (Except Tanjiro… probably.)
"..."
Spider Mother was left completely dazed, eyes swollen, stunned by Marcus's dismissive expression.
He wasn't going to kill her…
He didn't care about the dead slayers…
He wasn't going to avenge them…
None of what was happening made any sense. And in that void of logic, a face appeared in her mind with the brutal clarity of a nightmare.
RUI!
If she didn't die here... if she went back without completing her mission... if Rui found her…
The trembling returned to her body with twice the force. And with it, a simple thought lodged itself in her head and crushed everything else.
Die.
If the alternative was going back to the beatings, the fingers around her throat, having her face ripped off and stuck back on just to be ripped off again—then dying here, now, quickly, was the closest thing to a gift life had ever offered her.
With her hand shaking, she reached out and, under Marcus's curious gaze, grabbed the hilt of his sword.
Her little fingers slipped, she had no strength, but she clung on as best she could.
Raising her face, she bared her teeth with her eyes still full of tears, trying to look threatening.
"K-Kill me! If you don't... I-I... I'll kill you!"
"..."
Marcus looked at her in silence for a second, then laughed. 'She really is adorable…'
"D-Don't laugh!" Spider Mother, embarrassed and angry, drew the Nichirin sword, gripping the hilt with both her small hands. "I'm... I'm fighting back! Can't you see?! Why won't you just kill me already?!"
The tip of the blade was trembling so much from fear it looked like it was vibrating.
But she was still doing her best to maintain an endearingly fierce appearance, which Marcus found increasingly adorable.
"Can you cook?"
This absurd and sudden question left her stupefied all over again—she'd been expecting to be finished off by Marcus's other sword.
"...What?"
"I asked if you can cook."
"...Rui made me read a lot of cookbooks…" she answered automatically, not understanding why she was even responding. "But I've never actually tri—"
"And making beds?"
"I can do that!"
"And cleaning the house?"
"I can do that!"
The answers came out on their own—fast, obedient, like a reflex burned in after years of living under someone who didn't accept hesitation or silence.
But when they asked about the one thing she was actually competent at, something changed in her eyes. A tiny glimmer, like a small candle flickering to life in a dark room.
Nodding with satisfaction, Marcus patted her head.
"Then we're good. If you don't have anything to pack, come with me."
"...Huh?!"
The glimmer went out and panic rushed back in. Spider Mother stumbled backward, still gripping the sword she'd already forgotten she was holding. "What are... what are you talking about? D-Does the Slayer Corps capture demons now? You want to take me so you can... t-torture me?"
Marcus plucked the sword from her hands with two fingers, effortlessly, and slid it back into its sheath.
"Nope. I just need a maid."
He leaned slightly toward her, and his smile softened into something Spider Mother couldn't read, because no one had ever looked at her that way.
"And I fell in love with you, so all you have to do is come with me and that's that."
"..."
"...EEEEEH??!!"
She turned red all the way to her ears, as far down as her kimono let show, and started gesturing in every direction without any control whatsoever. "Wh-wh-what?! What are you saying?! B-but I killed your people! I'm a demon! You're human! A slayer! What are you thinking?! Did you lose a screw?! How can you just say that so—?!"
"SENPAI!!"
Right at that moment, Tanjiro's shout cut through the scene: "That headless demon suddenly stopped moving! Did you handle things on your end?"
Marcus turned his head toward the trees and, instead of answering, opened his arms with an enormous smile.
"Nezuko-chan~!"
Nezuko, who'd been trotting behind her brother, saw Marcus and her little face lit up as she came running to him.
She jumped onto his back, hung from his shoulders, and peeked her little head out from one side, looking with curiosity at the white-haired woman in front of her. "Mmh?"
Marcus stroked her hair and then looked back at Spider Mother, who was frozen with her mouth hanging open.
"Let me introduce you: this is my fiancée."
Spider Mother pointed at Nezuko in disbelief: "B-b-but... she... she's a demon too!"
"Exactly." Marcus adjusted Nezuko in his arms. "If even my fiancée is a demon, do you think I care about having a demon maid? If anything, it just makes sense."
"..."
Spider Mother was left speechless before this unreality.
At that moment, Tanjiro emerged from the trees followed by Inosuke, and the first thing they saw was Marcus standing in a moonlit clearing with Nezuko in his arms and a beautiful white-haired demon in a low-cut kimono sitting on a rock in front of him, red as a tomato.
Tanjiro nearly fell flat on his face.
No… No, no, no…
NOT AGAIN!!
But before he could open his mouth, Inosuke had already moved.
From his perspective, the situation was that Marcus was too close to a demon and wasn't attacking. That meant the demon had him under control—hypnotized, immobilized.
She was a demon that manipulated people, and Marcus was her victim! So if he killed her now, he'd not only save him but also score a win. Perfect!
He leaped with everything he had, nice and high, placed both swords in a cross aimed at Spider Mother's neck, and let out his battle cry.
"DIE, DEMO—?!!"
But mid-lunge, he froze in the air the instant Marcus looked at him.
His arms shot out to the sides, his legs snapped together.
Once again, he made a crucified Jesus.
"BASTARD!! THIS AGAIN?! LET ME GO!!" Inosuke thrashed furiously. "WHEN I GET DOWN I'M GONNA—!!"
Ignoring him, Tanjiro walked over covering his face with his hand, his entire body radiating a helplessness so visible it practically had a gray tint, and planted himself in front of Marcus with a serious expression. "Marcus. You really can't with this one."
"Why not?"
"Because she killed people from the Corps!" Tanjiro clenched his fists. "Slayers! Our comrades!"
"Killed people?" Marcus tilted his head. "Tell me something, Tanjiro. Do you think Tamayo has never killed anyone?"
!
Tanjiro went rigid.
Marcus raised his gaze toward the moon. "Tamayo was at Muzan's side for over a hundred years. She's killed more people than you've seen in your entire life. In fact..." he lowered his eyes and locked them on Tanjiro, direct, without softening a thing, "...the first two people she killed were her own husband and her son."
"..."
The clearing went silent. Even Inosuke stopped struggling.
Tanjiro's face was already pale.
Marcus looked at him without blinking. "So tell me… Do you want to kill Tamayo too?"
____
Marcus just dropped a massive reality check on Tanjiro! 😨
How do you think Tanjiro will respond to this?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and please drop your Power Stones! 💎
________
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