Present, January 25, 1914

James looked on at the devastation wrought upon the area of Yoshiwara that the battle had taken place in and remarked to himself, "Fuck, we really blew this place up, didn't we?"

"And to think," Mukago replied to him as she walked up behind him. "They had a fire here last year."

They both heard Nezuko crying nearby and turned around, feeling bad for her. James said to Mukago, "Damn, that sucks… I can't believe he's really gone. I'm tired of havin' to bury my buddies, Mukago. I really am. I've done it way too many times."

Mukago placed a hand on his shoulder and told him, "It sucks. I know that feeling all too well."

Nezuko's wails of grief continued to fill the air as she wept over the body of Zenitsu. It seemed clear to everyone around him that indeed, Zenitsu had passed away due to his injuries. Tanjiro thought to himself as he tried and failed to contain his own sadness, "Tell me this is a dream. Tell me this isn't happening. For fuck's sake, tell me this is just a nightmare! Please!" The idea of Zenitsu being dead was unacceptable to both of them, but they knew that death was something no one could truly come back from.

However, perhaps it was Nezuko's cries of grief that turned what was a moment of mourning and sorrow over a suspected loss into a miracle, as Zenitsu was suddenly heard breathing by Nezuko, who stopped her weeping as he began to moan in a soft and pained tone. "Ne… Nezuko-chan…"

Nezuko whispered in disbelief as tears continued to pour down her face, "Wait… What… No way…" She was sure he had died, and yet here he was, speaking to her.

Inside Zenitsu's mind, he thought to himself as his eyes adjusted to the darkened skies adobe him, "Where am I? Am I dead? What happened?" He was perplexed, still believing he was dead. Instead, he was in fact alive, and the girl of his dreams was holding him. "Nezuko-chan is holding me… Am I in Heaven? There's no way any of this is real… It has to be the afterlife…"

"Zenitsu-san," Nezuko reacted immediately as the shock of him being alive hit her. "You're… You're alive!" Her tears turned from those of grief to those of joy as she hugged him. "You're really alive!"

Zenitsu asked her as he began to regain full consciousness, "What happened to that Upper Moon? Is she dead?" His eyes had by now fully adjusted to the outdoors, and he could see everything clearly around him again.

Tanjiro crawled over to him, overflowing with joy at the fact that Zenitsu had survived. "Zenitsu! You're alive! Thank God!"

"She's dead," Nezuko then informed him. "So is her brother, and all the American demons, too. We won, Zenitsu-san."

Zenitsu smiled and told her, "That's nice…"

Mitsuri then walked over, still holding her documentation camera in her hands. "Hey guys! Are you guys okay?! It looks like it was a pretty rough battle!"

"We're fine," Tanjiro tried to assure her. However, as he tried to get up, he stumbled back onto the ground and muttered in pain, "Agh, shit…"

"No, you're not," Nezuko then warned him. She then told Mitsuri, "Get some help for these two. They're gonna need it."

"On it," Mitsuri replied as she snapped another picture of the area. By now, she had taken about twelve pictures, and she had estimated in her head she would need to take at least thirty more for the final report on the battle.

As Mitsuri went to get more Kakushi to tend to Tanjiro and Zenitsu, Nezuko told the latter in a far happier tone than her first love confession, "I love you."

"Wait… What?"

"You heard me right," she clarified to him before she caressed his cheek and gave him a kiss. Zenitsu's face lit up with a deep red blush as she then split from him and repeated, "I love you, Zenitsu-san."

"No way… I have to be dreaming…"

"You aren't."

Taking her word for it, Zenitsu smiled and told her, "Well… I might as well say it again… I love you too, Nezuko-chan."

As several Kakushi rushed over to attend to Zenitsu and Tanjiro, Nezuko got up and walked over to James and Mukago, the only other two parties to have not been injured severely in the battle. The three of them looked over the site of the battle and the clothes that Daki and Gyutaro had left behind upon their deaths with a sense of both triumph and sadness. Mukago then said to the trio, "We gotta bury their clothes together."

"I was gonna say the same thing," James replied. "Nezuko, get on it. Where should we bury them?"

"Joukan-ji," Mukago explained. "It's a temple and graveyard for Yoshiwara residents."

As Nezuko solemnly gathered and neatly folded what was left of their clothes, she said to the other two, "Let's head over now so we can get back to the Butterfly Estate with the others."

…

Several hours later, at a modest grave within the walls of Joukan-ji, the trio of demons plus a bandaged-up Tengen and all three of his wives paid their respects to their former foes. All seven of them silently prayed for several seconds before they stopped. Tengen said to the group, "Even after fighting them, a part of me still feels somewhat sad. Even so, we did what we had to do."

"Indeed," Mukago admitted. "At least both of them finally turned against Muzan in their final moments."

"And Gyutaro proved that demons can break free of Muzan," James pointed out. "Maybe one day, more of them will."

"If that day comes," Tengen said. "He'll be completely fucked for sure. I've always suspected that many demons aren't following him willingly, and this just proves them right."

As the others all left, Mukago stayed behind, telling the others, "I'll catch up with you guys in a bit. I just wanna say goodbye on my own, too." Once she was alone with the grave, she knelt down and whispered to the two siblings, "I will avenge you two. We will not let Muzan go unpunished for what he did to us and what he made us do." She then stood up and took a deep breath to clear her mind. "I'm sorry it had to end like this. No matter what happened between us, you two will always be my closest friends. Perhaps one day, I will be reunited with you."

…

At the Ubuyashiki Estate, the mood among everyone present was that of joy and celebration after several Kasugai crows had delivered the news, followed by a telephone call made by James to confirm. As several Kakushi and the children of Kagaya all partied in the courtyard, Kagaya himself and his wife Amane watched on from his bedroom, the former largely being bedridden due to his worsening illness. He smiled and said to himself, "The corps will fight again soon, but tonight, we shall celebrate. We haven't killed an Upper Moon in over a century, and now, we've not only killed two, but we've also killed three American Moons at the same time." He then coughed up a small amount of blood.

"Kagaya," Amane said to her husband as she wiped away his blood. "I'm here, I'm here… Didn't they say that those two demons turned on Muzan at the very end?"

"Yep," Kagaya replied in triumph. "They've proven what was long thought impossible… We can get Muzan's own kind to turn on him. Maybe… Maybe the dream of Kocho Kanae, or should I say Shinazugawa Kanae… Maybe her dream will come true."

"Peace between us and demons?"

"Indeed… And an end to this horrible war with our victory against Kibutsuji Muzan! We will defeat him in my generation!"

Amane smiled and told him, "So adding Colby-san to our ranks was a good decision then?"

"It was the best decision we've made in several years," Kagaya clarified. "Of course, he can't do it alone, but with him on our team, we'll win for sure."

One of Kagaya's children, a girl named Kanata, then came into the room with some flowers from the small party in the courtroom. "Here you go, papa! I got some flowers for you!"

"Thank you, Kanata," he replied as Kanata laid the flowers out in front of him. "They look really beautiful."

"Thank you, papa!"

…

Meanwhile, a far more solemn and tense meeting was being held in the Dimensional Infinity Fortress. All of the remaining Upper Moons were summoned immediately to appear before Muzan with the twang of Nakime's biwa. All of them suspected that someone among their ranks had died, and as they looked around and saw that neither Gyutaro nor Daki were present, their suspicions were confirmed. Akaza looked around as all five of them bent down to pay their respects, clearly worried about what Muzan would do to them in response to the first losses among their ranks in over a century.

Hantengu, taking his regular form of an old man, quietly whispered to himself in fear, "Please don't harm us, please don't harm us, please don't harm us, please don't harm us, please don't harm us…"

Doma, however, did not stay down for long as he realized that Muzan had not yet arrived. As he stood up, he smiled and told Akaza, "Hey there, Akaza-dono. It's been a while since I've last seen you. What brings you around these parts? Are you curious to see how the fortress has changed?"

Clearly annoyed by his presence, Akaza replied harshly, "The same damn reason you're here, because our master summoned us!"

"Right, right," Doma cheerfully replied. He then turned to Gyokko as he began to emerge from a pot and waved to him. "Hello there, Gyokko!"

"Doma-dono," Gyokko replied. "It's nice to see you again. Did you like the pot I gave you?"

"I loved it so much I put it in my shrine," Doma replied. "I even stuck a girl's severed head in it."

"But severed heads don't grow…"

"Who gives a fuck? It looks nice!" He then turned back to Akaza and asked him as he wrapped an arm around his shoulder, "So, how's your day been? Your week? This whole month? How are you?"

"Get the fuck off of me!" Akaza then split his mouth wide open with a cut across his face before pushing him away. "God damn it, how much more fucking annoying can you be?!"

Kokushibo then warned all of them, "I sense Muzan-sama's presence! Quiet down!" All five of them then immediately went back to kneeling and going silent just in time for Muzan to make his appearance to all of them.

"So," their master then said as he approached them wearing the clothes of a chemist, having emerged from a laboratory within the fortress to attend the meeting he had called. "Gyutaro and Daki are dead, and to make matters worse, both of them somehow escaped my curse. I'm not one to choose my words carefully, so I'm just gonna say this right now: I'm fucking pissed."

"Is that so?" Doma then half-heartedly apologized to Muzan with, "I'm sorry for that. It was me who introduced Gyutaro and by extension Daki to you all. How should I make up for this, Muzan-sama? I'll let you gouge an eyeball out if you want. Maybe that will help you vent some of your frustrations."

"I'm not in the mood for your damn eyeballs," Muzan replied to him. "Look, I've had problems with those two for years. I always knew Gyutaro was too human-like to truly advance, and his death only confirms that. I've written Daki off for years, of course, and I wish Gyutaro had done the same damn thing." He then sighed and told everyone, "Even with the help of the Americans, I'm still getting nowhere. I haven't moved at all in the direction of killing off the Ubuyashiki family, and the Blue Spider Lily? Forget it, that's a fucking lost cause at this point with the way we're going. We have no new information about any of this shit at all. We're fucked if we can't make any progress."

As the other Upper Moons remained silent and cowered in fear, Gyokko spoke up, hoping to impress Muzan. "Muzan-sama, I have some new information that might help you! This could lead to something great for all of us! Trust me on this o-"

Muzan walked up to him and ripped his head off of his body, keeping him alive to talk to him. "When the fuck did I say you could talk?"

"Muzan-sama…"

"The one thing I hate most in this world aside from those damn slayers is the word 'change,' Muzan then explained to him. "Changes in circumstances. Changes in the body. Changes in emotion. Changes in progress. Most of the time, these so-called 'changes' are no more than degradation, and I despise degradation. Instead, I prefer the opposite of change, which is, of course, permeance. If something doesn't change for a long time, that must mean it's perfect, right?"

"Yes, Muzan-sama…"

"I'm angry because for 113 years, I haven't had a single Upper Moon get killed, and now, I've lost one thanks to not only that Kamado Tanjiro boy and his traitor of a sister, but also because of that God damn American traitor who's managed to keep the Breath of Flames going past the death of the last Rengoku in the Demon Slayer Corps. I have every fucking right to be angry at any and all of you for your failures leading up to today. Instead of pestering me with unconfirmed information, how about you team up with someone and see if it's true or bullshit?!" Muzan then threw Gyokko's head back into the pot it had come out of. "Go work with Hantengu and make yourself useful."

Gyokko excitedly replied, "Yes, Muzan-sama! Anything for you, Muzan-sama!"

Hantengu told Muzan with fear in his voice, "I will work with, uh, with Gyokko and do whatever you say, Muzan-sama…"

Doma asked Gyokko's head as it rolled over to him, "Can I come to? Whatever you have planned sounds really fun, Gyok-!"

Akaza immediately cut him off by chopping off half of his head at the nose level with his bare hands, an indicator of his massive strength despite losing a hand in the process. "Shut the fuck up! Did Muzan-sama say you could go?!

"I'm getting out of here," Muzan then said to the others. "Don't get too crazy." He then told Nakime before he snapped his fingers and disappeared, "Nakime, send these assholes back whenever you want."

As Akaza grew his severed hand back, Kokushibo walked over to the two of them and sternly warned him, "Akaza, you're going too far."

"It's okay, Kokushibo-dono," Doma assured him. "I don't mind it at all!"

"Shut up," Kokushibo dismissed him. "I'm not saying this for your sake. I'm saying this because it's creating problems in our organization. If you two hate each other that much, organize a blood battle to rearrange the ranks."

The prospect of a blood battle with Doma and/or Kokushibo worried Akaza. "Well, I…"

Doma then told Kokushibo, "There's no way Akaza-dono could ever beat you or me. Sure, I may have become a demon later than him, but I moved up a lot faster, and that's what's really pissing him off!"

Kokushibo replied, "So that's what it is…"

Nakime then interrupted the group with a message after being handed a note by an American demon dressed in a Confederate uniform. "Thank you," she said to the messenger before she read the note and then read it out to the group. "Everyone, listen up! Stonewall Jackson is requesting the presence of an Upper Moon demon in his office. He will divulge more information when you meet with him."

"I'll go," Akaza offered. "Anything to get me away from that bastard Doma."

Nakime then told the messenger, "Go tell Jackson-dono that Akaza-dono will be comi-" However, before she could even finish her sentence. Akaza left for Stonewall Jackson's office as quickly as he could on foot, jumping from platform to platform to make his way to a hallway. "Nevermind. You won't be able to arrive sooner than him anyway."

"Very well," said the messenger before he left.

Kokushibo sighed over what had transpired and muttered to himself, "This happens every fucking time…"

Doma then asked Nakime, "Has Muzan-sama said anything about what Jackson-dono requested of us?"

"No," she replied. "He hasn't mentioned it to anyone. I didn't even know about it until this very moment."