January 11, 1804

Ume was alone with a customer in a small room. She had been working as a courtesan for about two months at the age of thirteen, but had already built up a solid reputation and was even starting to attract clients of the upper classes. Among those clients was the man who sat opposite of her, a samurai. "So," Ume said to the samurai. "Are you ready?"

"Hell yeah," he replied, eyeing her up.

Ume noticed this and said to him before sipping on tea, "You know, you could have paid the extra fee to actually have sex with me. I can notice you staring at my body." The samurai ignored her as she set her tea cup down. "I'm not a virgin, but I haven't had sex with a lot of clients yet, only two of them so far."

The samurai tried to reach over and touch her chest underneath her kimono, but Ume backed away. "Huh?"

"You didn't pay for sex," Ume warned him. "Back off."

"But you look really nice under that…"

"I don't give a fuck how nice I look under my kimono," she told him off. "I know I look pretty damn good under this. It still isn't coming off unless you pay the extra fee, and neither is your's."

"How about I shut you up a bit?" The man undid the belt on his kimono and tried to grope Ume.

"Woah, hey! Back the fuck up!" Ume tried pushing him away, but the man still managed to partially expose her body. "Come on! Pay up!"

"God damn it, be lucky I'm even paying you at all!"

"No!" Ume was then forced onto the ground and pinned, but she was able to grab a small needle with her right hand before she was held down. "Get the Hell off of me!"

"No! You'll do as I say!"

"Fuck you!" Ume then first slashed the samurai in his arm before then pushing him off and stabbing him in one of his eyes.

"AGH, FUCK! MY EYE!" The samurai was in extreme pain from the injuries Ume had inflicted on her. He exclaimed as loudly as he could, "YOU FUCKING BITCH! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE SLUT!"

Ume, realizing what she had done, ran out of the room and onto the street, not caring that her kimono was mostly undone and the fact that the samurai's blood was on her arm. She took a deep breath as she stopped and looked around, telling herself, "I had to… I had to… I had to…"

The samurai, covering his now blinded eye, emerged from the building Ume had ran out of and pointed at her, yelling, "That bitch stabbed me in my fucking eye! She attacked me!"

As a crowd formed around Ume, she watched in fear and thought to herself, "I can't escape. I'm trapped… Oniichan, what do I do?!"

…

As Gyutaro returned from another day as a debt collector, he saw a pile of ashes and wood on the street up ahead. "Huh… Someone had a fire in the street? Fucking dumbass… This whole place could light up if the wind blew even slightly the wrong way…" Aside from the dangers of having an open fire in a place as crowded as Yoshiwara, Gyutaro paid no attention to the pile until he got closer. "Wait a minute… Is that… No way…" As he walked up, he noticed the outline of a person within the pile. However, even still, he did not recognize the body within the pile until he stopped and took a good, hard look in it. When he did, he dropped a bag containing his and his sister's dinner onto the ground in shock. "Wait, what the fuck?!"

The body in the pile was in fact Ume. As he picked her up, his heart racing from the shock of seeing his sister burned almost beyond recognition, he suddenly heard her begin to breathe and cough, indicating she was still alive, even if just barely. "Haaah… Aaah… Oniichan…"

In utter shock, he yelled, "No… NO! NO FUCKING WAY! FUCK THIS! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!" He looked up at the sky with tears flowing down his eyes and asked the gods above, "WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?! WHAT DID SHE DO?! WHY DID YOU DO THIS SHIT?! BRING MY SISTER BACK RIGHT FUCKING NOW, GOD DAMN IT! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL IF YOU DON'T! NONE OF THE GODS ARE SAFE FROM ME!"

Before he could yell anymore, however, the same samurai from before slashed Gyutaro's back with his sword to shut him up and hopefully kill him. He now wore a bandage around his face to cover his blinded eye. As he fell to the ground from his wounds, he asked a woman standing next to him, "Is this the one bastard causing you trouble?"

"Hell yeah it is," said the woman. "Thank God he's finally dead. This piece of shit's caused nothing but trouble. Now that this nuisance is dead, we'll be at peace in Yoshiwara. He was nothing but a savage. All he did was stir shit up and cause trouble with the people he collected." She then pointed out, "It is a bit of a shame Ume had to die, but hopefully, I can get another pretty young girl who won't be so resistant to your advances. So… About the money you owe…"

"Yeah, yeah," said the samurai as he readied his sword again. "Let me just finish the fucker off."

Before he could truly kill Gyutaro, however, his victim jumped up into the air while wielding a metal sickle. Neither he nor the woman had time to react before he stabbed the woman in her face, killing her instantly. As the samurai turned around, stunned that Gyutaro had the strength to launch a counterattack, his victim told him, "That's a really nice kimono you got there, man. I bet you have a pretty damn good life based on your fancy clothes and your smooth skin. Yeah, I bet you even get to have great food and a nice, clean bed to go home to. You've probably never known what it means to be dirt fucking poor, huh?"

"What the Hell…"

"I bet your house is nice, too. I bet you can't even feel rain or snow seep in. You've got a good life, and, well… Good for you… Good for you!" As Gyutaro got up, he told him, "But that also means you don't have the God damn right to complain! Losing an eye is nothing compared to the shit we have to go through every fucking day!" The samurai attempted to swing at Gyutaro, but Gyutaro was able to hit him first, slicing his head open vertically with his sickle. "It makes me laugh… And it also makes me sick…"

…

Gyutaro was now carrying Ume's badly-burned body in his arms. Despite walking around for over half an hour, nobody he passed by offered any help to him. After walking aimlessly, he eventually collapsed from both exhaustion and blood loss, falling to the ground while still clinging onto Ume. "Fuck it… I can't go on… I'm sorry, Ume… I failed you…"

As snow fell from the sky and landed on them and the ground, Guitar began to feel himself pass out. Before he did, however, he heard a voice above him. "You two don't look so good. Oh, you poor things…"

"Huh…"

Gyutaro looked up and found Doma standing before him, carrying the dismembered limbs of the two people Gyutaro had just killed, and even carrying the woman's head. "You two lucked out by getting found by someone as good-natured and kind-hearted as me. I hate to say it, but the girl you're carrying is almost dead. However, maybe some of my blood can fix that. What do you think of that?"

Gyutaro, confused, asked the man, "Your blood?"

"You two can become demons if my master approves of you two," Doma explained to Gyutaro. "You know, life is far too sacred to waste it, and you should treasure it when you can." He then dropped the woman's head and told them, "Maybe you two could rise through the ranks and become part of the Twelve Demon Moons. Hell, maybe you two could even become an Upper Rank like me…"

In desperation, Gyutaro weakly looked up at him and answered, "Ye-... Yes…"

"Excellent," Doma replied. "This shouldn't take long. You two will feel more alive than even when I'm finished…" On that day, Ume and Gyutaro died as humans, and were reborn as demons with the help of Doma and later Muzan. The very name Ume would soon also die, and Daki would take its place.

…

January 11, 1884

It had been a little under three months since Kensuke had found out the truth about Daki, or at least the partial truth that she was a demon. She, of course, had never told him about her true status as one half of the Upper Moon Six position within the Twelve Demon Moons, nor had he found out. As far as Kensuke was concerned, Daki was just an oiran that happened to be a 'normal demon,' if one could call a demon normal, of course. The two had kept up their relationship, even with Daki's own business resulting in her having sex with some customers, though she did start to lower the amount of customers she did such activities with.

On this particular day, Daki was meeting with Muzan privately at the Dimensional Infinity Fortress, having been called there separately from her brother, who had been left behind in Yoshiwara. As she sat in a small office, she eagerly awaited her master's presence, thinking to herself, "I wonder what he has in store for me today. This meeting is rather sudden, so it must be something urgent."

"Daki," Muzan then said to her as he appeared before her in the blink of an eye. "Bow down."

With a snap of his fingers, Daki went down to her knees and bowed before him. "Muzan-sama…"

"My apologies for calling this meeting so suddenly," he said to her. "Now, the reason we're meeting today concerns that boy you're close to."

"Wait… You mean…"

"Let me finish," he told her. "That Kensuke boy is the one I'm talking about."

"What about him, Muzan-sama?"

"I don't want you getting too attached to him," Muzan warned her. "He's a human, and humans are still our enemy and our prey. I may have to step in and put a stop to things if the situation gets out of hand."

Daki did not want Muzan to have to step in, but knew that he would regardless of how she felt. "Yes, Muzan-sama."

"I suggest you break things off with him," Muzan told her. "After all, you should still be devoted to me, most of all." He then knelt down and held her face up in his hands to meet his. "I still think of you as a very pretty woman, Daki, and don't you forget that."

"Yes, Muzan-sama…"

"You have served me well for eighty years," he then pointed out. "Don't let your service end on a bad note, okay?"

"Yes, Muzan-sama…"

Muzan then asked her, "In fact, do you want to serve me now in a more intimate way?"

Daki sighed and decided that it would be best if she did 'serve him in a more intimate way,' which was the term he preferred for when the two would have sex. "Yes, Muzan-sama." While she did enjoy sex with Muzan in the past, she was growing less and less fond of it with every passing day. As she took off her clothes, she told him in the best fake enthusiastic tone she could give, "Anything you want, Muzan-sama."

Muzan undid the belt on his pants and dropped them before telling her, "Perfect. Let's enjoy ourselves, shall we?"

…

January 17, 1884

Daki was faced with a difficult choice: Break up with Kensuke, or potentially face Muzan's wrath. As Daki sat in her room at the brothel, she thought to himself, "The fact I'm even hesitant is amazing. If he had asked me a year ago, I would have done this with zero hesitation at all. Maybe being with him has changed me too much. Maybe he's right…"

Kensuke then walked into the room and told Daki, "Hello there! Ready for another night of work?"

Daki immediately forgot about what was bothering her for the time being and turned around to give Kensuke a kiss. After the kiss, she told him, "I sure am. I got some new makeup, and I plan to use it tonight."

"I can't wait to see it."

"Maybe I can show you a bit more after we're finished for the night," she playfully told him. "Would you be in the mood for some fun afterwards?"

"Hell yeah." Kensuke then gave her another kiss, surprising her. When he split from the second kiss, he told her, "I wish we could do some stuff now, but I know you gotta work."

"And so do you," Daki pointed out.

"I know, I know." He then patted her on the shoulder and told her, "Don't get yourself in too much trouble now."

"I won't," Daki playfully assured him with a soft push. "Go out there and keep us safe."

"Gladly," he replied as he walked out of the room. "And before I go… I love you."

"I love you, too." Once Kensuke was out of the room, Daki sighed and said to herself in a state of despair over what she had to do, "How am I going to break the news to him? I don't want to, but…"

Gyutaro then interrupted her thoughts by emerging from her back. "You do realize you have to, right?"

"I know," she told him as tears began to fall from her eyes and mess up her makeup. "God damn it, why am I crying now? It's fucking up my makeup."

"You need to be strong," Gyutaro told her as he patted her head in an attempt to comfort her. "You know this wasn't meant to last, right?"

"I want it to last," Daki replied to her as she wiped her eyes. What she said next to her brother would be a massive bombshell. "Oniichan… If it was up to me… I'd run…"

Shocked by her words, Gyutaro replied, "You'd run?!"

"I'd run as far away from this place as possible," she continued. "I'd take him with me, and we'd live together somewhere far away where no one can bother us. Fuck everyone else. I want it to just be the two of us."

"Daki…"

"It's true…"

"Daki, I… I know you want to, but you can't. You can't hide from our master, you know?"

Daki sobbed into her hands to stifle her cries as she said to him, "I shouldn't have said anything… A part of me regrets ever meeting him, but I can't get away from him… Fuck, why do I have to make this choice? Why?!" She was clearly very distraught over the idea of leaving her now-boyfriend.

Gyutaro hugged a crying Daki as he thought to himself, "If there's anyone to blame for this, it's me. I'm the reason my sister was led down this road. I'm the reason we're both demons. If only things were different… If only you were born to someone else, Ume… Maybe you'd have lived a normal life, gotten married, have had children, and grown old… But alas, it's too late now. We can never go back to what it once was, even if it was still bad back then."