January 25, 1884
Daki screamed as loudly as she could, "No! Don't do it! Don't take him from me! Don't kill him!"
Muzan coldly ignored Daki as he stabbed a young man around the same age as Zenitsu with his hand while the three of them were in a back alleyway, cutting right through his chest and ripping his heart out. As he stared at his own heart being shown to him, he then passed out and died in a matter of seconds from blood loss. "There we go," Muzan said to himself as he then removed the heart via the entrance wound he made and ate it in front of Daki.
As he chowed down on the heart he had just taken, Daki wept. "No… No, God, no… Kensuke, why…? What the fuck… No!"
Annoyed with her crying, Muzan glared at her after finishing the human heart and ordered her, "Stop your whining and go to sleep!"
"Fuck you, you can't make m-" In an instant, Daki passed out in front of him, lying motionlessly on the ground. As she lay still, she thought to herself as tears still flowed out of her eyes, albeit at a slower pace, "Kensuke… No… I can't fight back… I'm sorry."
Muzan smiled to himself, finally free of Daki's pleas for mercy. "Finally, some peace and fucking quiet." He then snapped his fingers, causing Doma to appear before him. "Doma, I have a favor I need to ask of you."
With a flash of light, the man he requested appeared before him. "Anything you want, Muzan-sama," the Second Upper Moon replied with a polite bow. "What do you require of me?"
"Dispose of this human body," Muzan ordered him. "I then want you to take Daki back to the Dimensional Infinity Fortress so we can erase her memories of this young man and return her to her mental state before she met him."
Doma nodded. "Understood." He then picked up the body of the young man that Muzan had murdered, followed by a still unconscious Daki. "Give me about two or three days to clear her mind."
"That'll be fine," Muzan assured him as he looked down at Daki. "Just make sure she has no recollection of him ever existing."
"I can do just that."
As Doma left carrying an unconscious Daki with him, Muzan said to himself in frustration, "This has been a giant fucking mess. I can't believe she got herself mixed up with a human. If she wasn't an Upper Moon, I'd have killed her instead."
…
Eight months earlier, May 20, 1883
In front of a different brothel from the Kyogoku House, a disguised Daki, who had taken the name of Sakurahime around that time, was walking slowly alongside a troupe of other girls guarding her in the middle of the night. She looked around as a giant crowd formed around her, watching her elegantly take slow but steady steps as she thought to herself, "All these people would bow down and kiss my feet if I ordered them, even if I did the most benign and mundane thing."
As she walked along the streets, a young man about the age of sixteen to seventeen was watching her. "Woah…" He was amazed to see her in all her glory, and was mesmerized by the extravagant clothes she wore and the grace she used in every step she made.
A young man of a similar age shouldered him playfully and asked him, "Hey, Kensuke-kun, that oiran sure is hot, huh?"
"Yeah," he replied. "I can't imagine what it must take to pay her a visit."
"Only rich men could dream of that," the other young man told Kensuke.
"I wonder if she's ever had any offers to buy out her contract," Kensuke wondered out loud. "I imagine that men would be lining up to see her. Surely a few of them would want to marry her."
"Maybe…"
"I wonder what house she works at…"
Another man in the audience then told Kensuke, "I doubt you'll be able to get her for a night, but she works at the Fujimori House. Her name is Sakurahime."
Kensuke replied to him, curious about the aforementioned brothel, "Fujimori House, huh…"
…
As Kensuke walked up to the Fujimori House to see what they had to offer, he noticed a sign out front that seemed to advertise a job being offered at the brothel. He read it out loud as he stopped to look at it, saying, "Help wanted. Need guard, preferably strong, to work during the night time. Accommodations provided for. Good pay." He then nodded and said to himself, "I have been looking for work recently…"
A lower-ranked courtesan noticed him in the doorway and asked him, "Hello. Can I help you?"
"Oh, right. Sorry, I was just reading this sign over here."
"Are you interested in a position here?" The courtesan then walked over to him, asking him, "How old are you anyway? You look to be about my age. Not many people as old as me come around these parts. It's all older men usually."
"Oh, I, um… I'm sixteen," Kensuke replied.
"Wow, that's young for a customer. I'm seventeen, and I think the youngest I've entertained in any capacity was like twenty-one."
"Entertained… What do you mean by that?"
The courtesan sighed. "You know, we don't just fuck our customers. We play music, talk to them, serve them tea, play cards with them, serve them food…" She then admitted, "Okay, yeah, we can also have sex with our customers, too, but that's not guaranteed, you know? The more years you have here and the higher up the ranks you are, the more money it costs to do any visits, let alone have sex with us. I've only been actively servicing customers for about a year and a half. Other girls here have been doing it for like five or even six or seven years."
Kensuke, intrigued by the information she had given, asked her, "Really… So, who do I talk to about that job?"
"Come with me," the courtesan told him. "I can take you to our house manager. If she likes you, you could possibly meet our head oiran, Sakurahime." She then gave him her name, "I'm Kinako, by the way, but my performer name is Himawari."
"I'm Shinomiya Kensuke," he introduced himself to her with a bow.
"Nice to meet you. Come on in."
…
Inside a small meeting room, the manager of the Fujimori House, an older woman named Kaori Tanezaki sat across from Kensuke and Kinako as she explained the job to him and asked him several questions along the way. "So, before we even begin, let me just make things very clear: When you work here, this is not a place for sexual intercourse. Don't expect to be able to fuck any of the girls here, for free or otherwise. You have a job to protect them from asshole clients who want to go too far and anyone else we got a problem with. I'm not saying you aren't allowed to do certain things in your free time. All I'm saying is that when you're working, focus on your job and not on the girls. I understand that you're younger, so your impulses and urges are a bit harder to control, but keep that in mind if you want to keep your job, assuming you're hired by us, that is."
"Understood," Kensuke replied. "I won't bring harm to any of the girls here under my watch if I'm hired."
"As expected," Kaori replied. "Remember, you will see many odd things here. Have an open mind and try not to judge others too much. Do you have any experience in combat or guarding others?"
"Not formally," Kensuke replied. "I have lived quite a bit of my life on the street, though, so I've had to get my hands dirty with others a lot before. I know how to hold my own in a fight."
"I see… So, do you have any family?"
"Not really," Kensuke replied, shaking his head. "My uncle is my only living relative aside from my older sister. Everyone else is dead. My sister got married a year ago, so I haven't seen her in a while. I want to move out from my uncle's house and make a living of my own. He took me in about a year ago after he tracked me down. Prior to then, I lived on the streets for a few years after I left school at the age of twelve. Even so, I still spend a lot of time on the street."
"I'm sorry to hear about the rest of your family," Kaori replied with a sympathetic tone. "With all that said, how are you at handling weapons?"
"Weapons such as clubs and knives?" Kensuke then reached into his coat and pulled out a small knife. "I always carry a knife with me. A few times, people have tried to mug me, but this scares them away. I've had to use it a few times, too. I've never killed anyone, but I've left a mark on a few people who tried to fuck with me."
"I see you're already armed," Kaori noted. "Perfect, actually. Just use common sense when waving that knife around, okay? I don't want any of the ladies getting stabbed, after all."
"Neither do I."
Then, both of them heard a knock on the door, followed by the door sliding open. On the other side was none other than Sakurahime herself, who was in fact Daki. "Hello," Daki said to the two of them. "So, who's this young man?"
"He's interested in that guard position we have posted here," Kaori said to her with a very, very slight hint of fear in her voice. "That's all, Sakurahime-san."
"I see," she replied as she walked in and shut the door behind him. "He seems a bit young for that." She then asked Kensuke, "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," he replied to her with a bow. "I'm sixteen years old, Sakurahime-oiran."
"Hmmm…" She then asked Kaori, "Did you give him the whole talk about not fucking the girls already?"
"Yes," Kaori replied. "I told him not to touch you or the others."
"Okay… I was just curious. I know how boys can be at that particular age." Daki then chuckled. "Thinking with their dicks rather than their brains. Even the girls aren't much better, in a way thinking with their pussies rather than their brains, too. You'll find that out very quickly in an industry filled with sexually-active girls."
"I have self-restraint," Kensuke then told both of them. "I'll take this job seriously. You have my word that I won't have sex with any of the girls here. I want them to trust me to protect their lives, and if I slept with them, that would break their trust in me."
Daki nodded and then bent down to whisper something to Kaori, telling her, "Hire him."
Kaori whispered back, "I'm not so su-"
Daki angrily whispered in response, "HIRE HIM OR ELSE!"
Fearing for her life, Kaori acquiesced. She then turned to Kensuke and told him, "Okay, you're hired."
"Wait, really?"
"Correct," Daki replied with a warm smile. "You'll start tomorrow night, okay?"
"Sounds good to me," Kensuke replied with a grin.
"I'll get some utility out of him," Daki thought to herself. "And then I can eat him when I no longer require his services. I gotta say, he actually looks really good for someone who's spent some time out on the streets of this otherwise dirty city. He'll make a good meal."
