On the far end, beside the train tracks, the trio was still standing guard over Enmu.
"Is it… over?" Looking at Akaza's body, Tanjiro loosened the grip on his sword.
Inosuke tilted his head. "Why did he kill himself?"
"How the hell should I know?!" Zenitsu was scrunched up in a corner, his face still completely pale. "Demons are all messed up in the head! ALL of them! Without exception! They're a bunch of psychopaths, the…!"
Tanjiro turned his head toward him.
Zenitsu froze for an instant, cleared his throat.
"…Except Nezuko."
Tanjiro didn't look away.
"…And Tamayo-san too."
Satisfied, Tanjiro turned his face back to the front.
Meanwhile, Zenitsu kept adding.
"Ivy… Pearl… they're pretty nice too…"
"…"
"…"
….
Marcus was already crouched down beside Akaza's mangled body. Rengoku, at his side, was still standing, his brow furrowed.
He wasn't only looking at the demon beaten to a pulp, he was also looking at the empty syringe resting on the ground.
"What is that?"
Watching Akaza closely and, after making sure his eyelids were still moving, Marcus sighed with relief.
"A letter of resignation."
"…What?"
"A letter of resignation," Marcus repeated, this time without smiling. "With this injection, Akaza will completely sever his relationship with Muzan, and he's not going to have any need to eat a human being ever again."
"Not eat humans?!" Rengoku's pupils dilated in surprise. "You were really able to develop something like that?!"
"To be exact…" Marcus glanced at him sideways. "we'd already developed it a while ago."
"…"
"The thing is that the previous formula needed months, or even years, to take full effect, and this one here… a single injection is enough."
Rengoku furrowed his brow even more. "Can it be mass-produced?"
Marcus nodded, and then shook his head.
"I know exactly what you're thinking." Straightening up with some effort, he brushed the dust off his knees. "Inject the serum into every demon, one by one, and leave Muzan completely alone."
"But it's not that simple. Most people, when they turn into demons, don't keep their soul intact waiting to be rescued; their mind and their heart rot away at the same time. Demons like Akaza, who deep down has always resisted eating someone who didn't deserve it, are a rarity."
"…"
"Even if we injected the serum into others, there's no guarantee they'd turn into 'good demons.' And besides that, there's the cost. That's the big one."
"Muzan can turn one person, or ten, or twenty, into demons with a single drop of his blood. This little vial here, on the other hand, costs more than a hundred thousand per unit. And it only works for one individual. If we wanted to mass-produce it…" and he spread his hands, "not even Kagaya could afford it."
Rengoku lowered his gaze.
"I wasn't thinking about that," he whispered with an expression considerably more complicated than one might expect. "I was just… thinking it would be good to keep a few for the Corps."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"In case in the future," Rengoku went on, his voice a touch hoarser. "some comrade, or some family member, ended up turned into a demon. So that at least…"
Marcus understood perfectly, and after thinking it over for a moment, he nodded.
"When we get back I can set aside a few for the Corps, however…"
"However what?"
Marcus gave him a smile that was a little too radiant. "However, they're going to have to pay for them~"
"…"
"Clear accounts make for long friendships! But hey, I'll give them a nice discount! Half a million per unit!"
Rengoku's eyes went wide. "Didn't you just say the production cost was a little over a hundred thousand?"
Marcus's eyes went even wider than his.
"And what about the labor?!" he exclaimed, with absolute indignation. "Is labor free? Do you have the slightest idea what a patent costs? Do you know what intellectual property is? This is handcrafted, man! Exclusive!"
Rengoku opened and closed his mouth several times.
He was completely at a loss for words.
And after a few seconds of internal struggle, he managed to put something together. "…Isn't the laboratory supposed to be funded by the Patron?"
"You can't look at it that way." Marcus answered calmly. "We already had the formula developed before Kagaya invested a single cent. Therefore, technically, legally, and morally…" He counted on three fingers. "It belongs to us."
"…"
Rengoku, unable to find a way to save Kagaya a bit of money, opened his mouth to protest again, and then froze.
Because he saw that on Akaza's face, something was shining under the moonlight.
"…Is he crying?"
Marcus looked down.
And yes. Sure enough.
On Akaza's mangled face, a silent row of tears was tracing a clean little path through the blood.
Crouching back down, he watched him for a few seconds and sighed.
"It's good that he's crying… he saw the person he wanted to see."
Rengoku didn't take his eyes off him.
"Marcus."
"Mmm?"
"Everything you said a moment ago… was it true?"
"What? I said quite a few things."
Many emotions that were complicated to describe passed across Rengoku's face. "Is it true that… before you die, you can see the person you miss so much?"
Hearing those words and that tone, Marcus snapped his head up with an expression of absolute horror.
"Don't you even think about doing anything crazy!!"
Rengoku was stunned. Then, he smiled softly.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to go to the extreme of killing myself. I was just wondering… whether, when my time comes to fall in battle, my mother will come to receive me."
Contemplating that face under the moonlight for a few seconds, Marcus smiled. "Of course she will. Count on it."
"…That's good."
Sighing, Rengoku stayed silent for a moment… and then immediately got his spirits back.
"Just the thought that I'll be able to see my mother again when I fall in combat makes me even less afraid to die!"
As they talked, the line of the horizon began to light up with the first traces of dawn.
Seeing this, Marcus extended his arms toward Akaza with the intention of lifting him up and taking him away, when a hand closed firmly around his forearm.
"Even though I feel sincere compassion for him…" Rengoku looked at him seriously. "At the end of the day he's still a demon. Even if he never eats anyone again in the future, his sins aren't erased with a simple injection... Let the sun do what it has to do."
"…"
Marcus held his gaze. Then he lowered his eyes to Akaza, who was crying.
And, in spite of everything, he carried him in his arms.
Because the truth was that the Akaza of right now probably didn't even want to keep on living.
But he did. He wanted Akaza to live.
Personally, he liked the character. Direct, sincere, short-fused but with principles. A person who says what he thinks and does what he says.
Professionally he had a great capacity for execution, superior skill, and unshakable perseverance.
He was a person who got results.
If just one day earlier you'd asked Muzan "who's the most reliable demon you have?", Muzan would have answered Akaza without batting an eye. Especially this Akaza, the one who no longer feared decapitation, the one who had just torn out his one and only mortal weakness, Koyuki, by the root.
And if we're being totally honest: if in the final battle Koyuki hadn't "rescued" him, Akaza, together with Nakime, without Muzan even needing to lift a finger, would have been perfectly capable of wiping out the entire Demon Slayer Corps all by himself.
Who wouldn't want a subordinate like that?
He couldn't care less what anyone else thought. He wanted him.
But, first of all, he had to convince Rengoku.
And upon seeing that expression so stern and upright, Marcus broke into a smile.
'This'll be easy.'
"He's Upper Moon Three. The subordinate in whom Muzan places the most trust. He knows practically everything about him, and what's even better, he knows the information on the rest of the Demon Moons."
"And now that I've given him the injection, the curse of Muzan's blood has disappeared from his body completely. Which means that, right now, he can reveal absolutely any secret. So tell me, are you sure you want to let him fry under the su—?"
Before he finished, his arms were empty.
With a speed that was simply inhuman, Rengoku had snatched Akaza out of his arms and was already plunging into the forest at a dead run.
"…"
Marcus was left with his arms still half-closed, blinking, and then he chuckled under his breath.
"STOP LAUGHING!!"
Rengoku's anguished voice reached him all at once from the thicket. "Come quick! AKAZA'S ON FIRE!!"
Marcus's smile froze.
'On fire?'
Without thinking about it any longer, he shot off toward the forest.
__________
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