Revised: 7/28/24. Author note: I hope this message finds you well. I owe you an explanation for my prolonged absence. Over the past several months, I've faced personal challenges, including chronic health issues, severe writer's block, and family matters. These have significantly impacted my ability to write and engage with my creative projects. I'm slowly finding my way back and hope to bring you new chapters and stories soon. Your patience and understanding mean the world to me. Thank you for your continued support and for being such an amazing community.
The next thing Daki knew was that she was in a world of eternal darkness. She was scared. "What is this place?" She squinted and swiveled her head around, looking for anything recognizable, but her eyes had not yet adjusted. In all directions, it was pitch black. She reached out a grasping hand into the darkness, but there was nothing to touch or see. The void seemed to stretch on endlessly, like a bottomless abyss. The silence was broken only by the sound of her own breathing echoing hauntingly in the emptiness of the darkness.
"Gyutaro!" Her voice came out as a helpless squeak of a mouse, no longer did she sound like the powerful demon she once was. A crippling pain surged in her chest as she became overwhelmed with panic. "Gyutaro! Gyutaro! Where are you?" She took off full speed, but she never reached a wall or her brother. She never reached anything. Her knees buckled under her and she collapsed on the floor, but there was no floor to see, just feel. No matter where she looked or how hard she flailed, her surroundings had been replaced with an empty abyss.
"You look..."
Gyutaro's calm voice broke through the darkness and Daki shot up her head. He stared at her, pale green eyes studying her.
"Gyutaro!" She gasped loudly and bounced to her feet. Streams of tears coursed down her cheeks and down her chin.
There were so many things that Daki had thought of to say to Gyutaro when she finally saw him again. But just now, she could not think of any of them. All she could do was say Gyutaro's name, over and over, and wrap her arms around him. She pressed her face into the tattered kimono over his deformed waist, half-expecting the pain to come flaring back to life inside her body—whether it would be from the immolation or from the Demon Slayer's beheading—she didn't know. Yet she felt nothing but warmth. She looked down at her chest to see that not only was she unharmed, but she was barefoot and wearing her scratchy, pale pink kimono that she'd worn when she was a human.
"I'm….Ume…again…" The girl realized. Daki is not my name. It never was. It is just Ume. Small-looking, scrawny thirteen year old Ume with disheveled white hair and lime-green eyes that framed her lovely face.
Ume released Gyutaro from her hug and looked up at him with anticipation.
"I don't like this place! Do something!"
Gyutaro was silent, he didn't seem to acknowledge her presence at all.
"Hello! Wake up!" Ume began to shake his arm to draw his attention. "Gyutaro! Are you listening to me? Hello!" She demanded.
Gyutaro responded by roughly yanking his arm from Ume's grasp and turning his back to her. "Stop it! Don't follow me!" He snarled.
But Ume responded by reaching out to him and grabbing his arm once again. "What? Wait, hold on..."
"I'm going this way. Go walk that way. It looks brighter."
Ume quickly glanced over her shoulder to squint into the blackness and saw the small glimmer of a white light glowing in the far distance. It was something that she swore wasn't there before. Nevertheless, she dismissed it with a shrug before turning back to her brother.
"So," she said, trying for an air of nonchalance, "Do you think that way is the exit?"
"Broth—"
And then without so much as a warning, Gyutaro gave her a push that sent her staggering backwards and he began walking in the opposite direction.
"Don't follow me. We're not siblings anymore."
"We're not siblings….?" Ume froze, unable to fully register what Gyutaro was saying. Vivid fear crippled her speech and her mind went blank as she watched her brother walk further away. "Are…are… you still mad about earlier?" She called after him almost beggingly, but he didn't stop.
"H…Hold on, Big Brother!" Ume's voice trembled as she stepped closer, her fingers brushing against his arm. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. But he jerked away, turning to face her with a twisted expression of rage.
"DON'T COME WITH ME!"
His explosive words vibrated through her, thunderous and thick. The savage look in his glare held her captive, freezing any protest in her throat.
"I'm sorry, okay?!" Ume shrieked, the cracked words slipping out of her lips. "I was just mad that we lost. You are my big brother! I don't think you're ugly, I swear I don't! I just didn't want to admit we lost because of me! I'm sorry! I was just upset that we lost, I said I'm sorry. So just forgive me, okay!"
Gyutaro still said nothing as he walked further and further. The prolonged silence filling the space between them grew almost suffocating; Ume tried to breathe as best as she could, trying to calm herself down, but it was futile.
"Come on! I said I'm sorry! Why are you…still angry…at me?" Ume swallowed to ease the dry tension forming in her throat, silently berating herself for even asking such a question. Of course, he was angry…but..
Why… Why was he still this angry now?
Then, Ume remembered Gyutaro's enraged expression as they both lay dying.
Underneath that intimidating contorted rage flashed on his features, she saw something else…
Ume had always been able to see her brother's rare little flickers of emotion if she could dare say so herself. There was something else to Gyutaro's rage in that brief moment, some sort of pain underneath the coldness of his eyes, Ume had realised.
He was hurt. He was hurting. And it was all her fault.
Tears were pouring down her face again, but she hardly felt them this time. The girl chased him down, shouting after him. "I'm sorry about always holding you back! I'm sorry that I'm never helpful! Please just forgive me! Why can't you forgive your sister—"
Gyutaro finally stopped, but he never turned to face her.
"We aren't siblings anymore. We aren't anything. I'm going this way. You go the other direction towards the light."
His calm words vibrated through her, low and thick in the air. She shuddered, and the finality in his words trapped all protest in her throat.
Then with that, he walked away without another word.
Ume ignored his pleas and picked up speed, disregarding what could happen next. It didn't matter if he pushed her away or yelled at her again. As long as they were together, she didn't care. With a shrill sob, she rushed at him, colliding with him while she was still at what was nearly a full-on run and leapt on her brother's back.
"AH!" Gyutaro let out a cry and gave a violent tremor.
"Hey…stop…!"
Ume clenched her arms around his neck as tight as she could. "No!" Her voice came out awfully shrill. "No…No! No! No! You can't leave me! You mustn't leave me! We have to stay together! No matter how many times I might be reborn, I'll always be your little sister!"
A raw, tense silence hung in the world as both siblings stood there.
Ume could sense Gyutaro's shock from his apprehensive silence, but she couldn't discern what exactly he was thinking.
Suddenly he spoke. "Ume, look."
No sooner did those words leave his mouth, there was a change within the darkness.
"Oh no…" thought Ume, her eyes wide with terror as she watched the darkness before them unveil a pathway of orange-red flames rising from nothing, hardly penetrating the darkness outside of it. Ume felt miles of heat and pulsing infernal light flow into them. She could see the field of roaring crimson, surrounded by pools of lava, sprawling spires of brimstone reaching towards a ceiling that seemed limitless. The unbridled flames roared as if it was a living, breathing creature, carrying out a heavy stench of rotten flesh that overwhelmed Ume so much it made her gag. There were screams amongst the flames, sharp, penetrating screams of millions of people in great anguish pierced the air.
It was Hell.
"Ume,"
"Yeah.."
"I don't want you to come in here with me." Gyutaro spoke firmly, his features intertwining with each other. He looked vulnerable and despaired for a second, his fearless facade cracking before he hurriedly sealed them back together.
Ume grimaced, something about his expression made her chest constrict uncomfortably. In a response, she reached out and pulled his ear hard until he hissed with pain. "No! I'm not leaving! What part of that do you not understand! You are my brother—"
"And as your big brother, I can't let you follow me anymore." As he said this, Ume detected something in his voice–something solemn and saddening. There was a pang of hurt in her chest, and it struck deep. For a moment, Ume observed him silently, watching the pain that he held in multiple. The sadness, the regrets, the agony—Ume could see it all, hear it in his very tone. And she hated it more than anything.
"W-wait a second!" Ume gulped, trying to keep the words from choking her on their way out. "I only made it this far because you were with me, Gyutaro. Don't you understand? You made me strong, Gyutaro. Because of you, I became an Oiran. Because of you, I became an Upper Moon. Because of you, I lived. Don't you get it? You made me strong, Big Brother. You saved me…
"That day, you were dying, and there were no other options. I thought I was doing what was best for you, that I could make a difference. I wanted you to have the world, to become what you couldn't in your first life. I wanted you to be revered and cherished, so no one would dare to harm you. I wanted you to collect the good fortune you've worked for and forge your own path. I wanted you to live and...be free." The cracks in his quiet tone were palpable, yet his facial expression carried his regrets the most. "But in the end, I just turned…you into Daki."
The way he spat out her former name dripped with such revulsion that Ume could almost see it oozing from his lips. She clawed at her chest with one hand, desperately trying to quell the tightening in her heart. "I would've... died that day... if you hadn't... I had to change..."
"And here you are. Somewhere between hell and heaven."
There was so much conviction in his low voice that Ume tried to reply, but her jaw trembled and she felt more stinging tears rising to her eyes. It was like a splash of icy cool water on a fresh wound, and she couldn't exactly pinpoint this strange influx of emotions. It was only seconds later did she finally have a name for this odd feeling.
Remorse.
Her thoughts cast to Tanjiro, recalling their brief talk on the rooftop that triggered those flashes of deep-seated memories of Muzan-sama's cells.
"A life that's lost can never return. It's gone forever."
"A demon's body..isn't made of human flesh."
"Why do you steal people's lives? Why do you ruin them?"
"Even you were once human, weren't you? Surely, you struggled against pain and suffering. You must have shed tears."
Ume remembered that she actually froze at the chilling tone of his voice when he uttered those words, causing her to be too distracted to listen to the meaning. He had just snuck behind her at such a jarring speed and managed to tear off her foot with his bare hands. The seemingly pathetic prey she was overpowering moments before just transformed into a ruthless predator in the blink of an eye.
She could tell he was mad. Hell, mad was an understatement. Enraged, livid, infuriated beyond words was a far better description. He looked so monstrous, so inhuman that Ume couldn't help but to feel intimidated. His eyes were bloodied, framed with a bloodlust-filled contencance. His lips were twitching, even his hair seemed to be rising like spikes on his head, and Ume knew he was hell-bent on ending her for slaughtering that neighbourhood.
At the time she dismissed his words as ignorance. His questions genuinely sounded like a humourless joke to her ears. She was a demon, an eternal, powerful creature of the night that had the means to do whatever she pleases with no scruples. Why should she bear any woes over the loss of meaningless human life? What did he even expect to accomplish with his questions at that point? To make her apologise? To make her bear tears? To make her express some form of repentance? What did it matter? It was all meaningless. She had already done the horrible deeds, and much more even before that. Cruel and vicious things, void of any compassion. His words made no sense.
Until now…
She understood him. About the remorse, the inner turmoil of humanity, and accountability that he was trying to remind her of, she could understand it all. Now she felt this myriad of images weighing on her—from the glistening deep red blood painting the ground. The fragments of what was left of the deceased stuck to the grounds in mottled patterns, the bloodcurdling cacophony of the living within the demolished buildings screaming and pleading to the fallen to arouse them from their permanent slumber. Tanjiro writhing in agony from his deep wound in his shoulder. All of which Ume initially turned a blind eye to.
Now…she understood why his words chilled her to the bone.
Because Tanjiro made her remember that there was once a time she wasn't like this, and deep down, she knew innately that she was once a person who valued life more than anything. It was why she felt so upset when Tanjiro admonished her for stealing lives. It was why she felt so angry when he said that. He made her remember who Daki once was.
Ume. That destitute, ill-named child of a diseased prostitute, withering in the deepest, most repugnant recesses of Yoshiwara. The gnawing hunger, the crippling fear, the rampant filth and diseases, and the countless cruelties she and Gyutaro suffered were still etched in her memory with painful precision.
"It's my fault that we're here… all of it." Ume's voice trembled, barely above a whisper, as she broke the heavy silence. Tears burned her eyes and her lower lip trembled. "I'm so sorry… Big Brother…"
A haunted shadow flickered in her brother's solemn green eyes, deepening the lines of worry etched on his face. "Don't think like that. This isn't your fault, Ume, okay? I…"
No, I get it now. Tanjiro was annoying, but he was right about everything he said on that rooftop," Ume murmured, her voice barely a whisper. She wanted to say more, to show her repentance, but the words caught in her throat. It was too late. Far too late for apologies.
Instead, her mind retreated on Tanjiro's parting words to her and her brother, words she now held closely to her heart. It reminded her of her brother's boundless love for her, further solidifying her resolve to remain by his side no matter what. "But just as Tanjiro said, we mustn't just turn on each other," Ume began in a soft voice but it got stronger with every word. The conviction in her tone teemed on the very top of her voice so that he could hear it clearly. "We need to stick together till the end, Big Brother. Remember? We're all each other has. All we have always had. Nothing's changed. Come on, Big Brother, don't you get it? We—"
"No, Ume," The subtle urgency in his voice caught Ume's undivided attention. His dim green eyes held her without flinching. It scared her, how truly grave he appeared. "You're a good kid, always have been. Honest. Forthright. Sweet. It's a rare quality. Don't waste it here, on me," His words were soft, almost a lament, as if he was reminding her of that notion rather than informing her. "In another life, you'd be cherished by good people. Picture it, picture yourself. You can go to heaven and be reborn, Ume..."
Ume gritted her teeth, a stubborn glint in her lime-green eyes, a distinct obstinance in the set of her jaw. "So? What's your point? I don't care if I can go to heaven, I am not going, not without you. Because before anything, you're my brother, and I'll never forsake you! I will never leave you! Come on, Big Brother, did you not hear a thing that Tanjiro said? Don't you even remember our promise? Don't tell me you don't! Did you really forget our promise?"
At her last words, Ume saw Gyutaro's green pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy.
Please, please, show something else... Ume begged silently. Anything, just a small sign that you remember.
"Come on, Big Brother, you do remember our promise! I know you do!" Ume cried out desperately. " Stop acting like you don't, okay…I…"
"I was wrong for turning you into a demon."
Ume gasped sharply at his final words, then drove her knee forcefully into his back. Gyutaro let out a grunt of pain, his body jerking forward as he tried to regain his balance.
"Don't say that! Never say that! Big Brother, listen to yourself! Stupid!" She kneed him again, causing him to hiss out of pain. "I do not regret turning into a demon, I am grateful that I was. You saved me. You've kept me alive, taught me everything. The fact that we lived for centuries proves that you were right. You and I were always together because we're stronger that way, you idiot! Obviously, me and you are stronger than people gave us credit for. And you know this, so stop playing dumb already!"
"No…just…" He tried to say more, but Ume silenced him with a hard kneecap to the back of his head with such immense force, that the impact reverberated through the darkness.
"No! No! Don't say another word! Don't hate me! Don't leave me! Just don't! I won't forgive you if you left me behind!" Ume's throat constricted and streams of tears streamed down her cheeks. "I am not leaving you! Never! I am coming with you no matter what. I don't care where we go, as long as it's just us!"
"Ume…" Her name died on his lips.
Ume released a long sigh of relief as she heard Gyutaro heaved an exasperated breath. Through her blurring veil of tears, she watched Gyutaro's contorting features in bated silence. It was definitely there in his ragged features and in his low voice: resignation. The sight of it made Ume completely relax, as though an invisible, heavy tension had been lifted from her shoulders.
Finally. She finally managed to knock some sense into him.
"So that settles it," Ume said with an air of finality before moving her gaze to Hell, feeling a terrible shudder run down her spine. Though she was not that close to the flames, the boiling heat felt so intense against her skin that it was on the verge of knocking her to the ground in absolute agony. But she did not care. She entangled her arms around her big brother's neck, her face pressed into him. Her mind was written in stone and Gyutaro knew very well that there was no way of changing it.
She sucked in a deep breath and braced herself.
"Now let's g—"
Ume let out an involuntary shriek as a sudden, violent jolt catapulted her small frame through the air like a pebble. She crashed onto the ground with a bone-jarring thud, the impact leaving her dizzy and breathless. Her mind was still whirling in shock, but she was still able to shoot up to see the sight of Gyutaro striding into Hell, allowing the flames to engulf him whole.
"No! Please!" The tiny, flailing form of Ume came crashing down after him with a shrill scream, made up of sheer terror. "Nooo! Big brother! Gyutaro!"
And just like that as suddenly as Hell had appeared, it just disappeared.
And then Ume was left alone with the one single ray of light in a world of neverending blackness.
Before she knew why, she was running again. She was running from the light and running after Gyutaro, hoping that eventually they would reunite in the pathway of hellfire.
But no matter how far she ran, Hell never returned and the white light remained like a beacon in the darkness, growing brighter, flooding light through the darkness like a lit lantern in a dark room.
Ume ran deeper into the blackness, fleeing from the illuminative light like a small child running from a monster. However it seems that no matter how far she ran, the single light grew its unrelenting brightness more than before as if it was directly behind her as she ran forth into the blackness. It was gaining on her and she was not making it far.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound or words came from her mouth. Her breaths came in short bursts as her tears coursed freely down her cheeks. Ume could feel a dreadful drag on her limbs as she sprinted through the darkness. The further she ran, the more she felt herself tapering off, every step seemed heavier than the last, every breath more shallow .
Was it fear that weighed her down, or was the void tightening its grip on her? She didn't know. She had no way of knowing how far she had run, how long she had been struck within this darkness or how long she had left.
The only thing she did know with absolute certainty was that Gyutaro was deep within Hell, and she was here, fleeing from her fate of being reborn without him by her side.
Soon enough Ume felt her legs give way underneath her and she crumbled to her knees, all her strength abandoning her. The tears burned like vinegar as they cascaded freely down her cheeks until her face was blotched and swollen, the lovely face that Gyutaro had cherished.
In the corner of her blurring eyes, Ume could see the white rays of heavenly light ebbing into her vision. It was as bright as the engulfing flames that once burned her alive. The sight chilled her bones and extinguished her fury in an instance; extinguished her desire to fight and her resolve to keep up her tough girl act and revert her to that insignificant scared little girl that she was long before, that weak, helpless little girl that depended on her brother to save her from their mother's wrath, that useless, pathetic scared little girl bounded and broken in that ditch, praying for her big brother to come and save her.
What…changed after all this time…
Gyutaro always protected me, helped me, saved me…he saved me in more ways than one…
And yet in the end, that useless, pathetic, scared little girl who couldn't brave the touch of flames to save her own brother still existed.
Her shaking intensified as each of her senses began to shut down. The white light remained there, waiting, almost beckoning her to resign to her fate…
"G-get up…move it…" The words barely made it through her sobs as Ume fought to push her trembling body off the ground that clung to her skin. "Gyutaro is alone…he's suffering…I'm going to find him, save him...help him…"
Yet, as she repeatedly told herself that, she tried not to acknowledge the fact that even she herself wasn't entirely convinced by her own statements.
Ume tried to desperately steady her nerves, fighting to stabilise her trembling legs. The deafening silence that pierced through her was daunting enough. But what petrified her even more was the mere thought of it being permanent. That she would never hear her brother's raspy voice, never hear his comforting words, never hear him. All she could think of was the singular terror that just by that thought, her deepest fear would be confirmed and that she would be all alone in this world.
Get up. That's right, get up….
Ume shot up abruptly and charged forward. She should've known that it was a futile attempt—that her little strength would've held her back. It did. Ume barely managed to lift herself before gravity yanked her back down, slamming her into the ground with brutal force.
She groaned in agony when the ghost of what was left of her strength all but vanished. All Ume could do was sit there on her knees helplessly, staring tearfully out at the vast, open expanse of blackness where her dear brother had entered Hell alone, praying, hoping that the flaming pathway would just unveil itself once again.
But Hell mocked her with its absence.
This is the end for her. She couldn't fight any longer. She was suffocating. The agony and fear that she was experiencing were unimaginable.
As she crumbled to the floor in a pitiful heap, Ume's mind was consumed by Gyutaro's words, echoing through her thoughts like a relentless storm.
"That day, you were dying, and there were no other options. I thought I was doing what was best for you, that I could make a difference. I wanted you to have the world, to become what you couldn't in your first life. I wanted you to be revered and cherished, so no one would dare to mess with you. I wanted you to collect the good fortune you've worked for and forge your own path. I wanted you to live and...be free."
"But in the end, I just turned…you into Daki."
Ume felt her lips trembling involuntarily at that. Oh, Big Brother…I'm so sorry…
She shut her eyes in agony, slowly accepting her inevitable fate. Ume was exhausted, both mentally and physically. After all the tragedy that she had been through, Ume wanted nothing more than to succumb to her fate. But oddly enough, just as she thought that despair would envelop her at a moment like this, instead, a singular thought bloomed in her subconscious.
It was a foolish, desperate, and selfish thought that was so little, yet so profound that it made her clench her fists, grit her teeth, and drag herself up as far away as she could from the heavenly light. It was a thought that made her ignore the pain, the fatigue, and the fear. It was a thought that made her cling to the last remnant of hope she had left.
Ume prostrated herself on the floor with her throbbing forehead kissing the floor, warm, salty tears dripping down her lashes. "Please.."
"Please, please," she whispered. "I'm sorry! I must be with my big brother! I can't stand to be apart from him! I want to make a difference for him, just as he did for me. I'll do anything you request of me! I don't care what the price is…I do not care what I'll lose, I'll pay what's due! I promise! I'll set everything right! I swear!" her hoarse voice cracked, reaching out to the void. "I will give anything to be with my big brother again! My heart, my soul, my looks. Everything! Collect it all and do whatever you want with it! I don't care! Please, I beg you, grant me a debt and I will pay for it no matter the cost!"
As soon as those words left her mouth, Ume's heart stopped when a jarring sound of a deep guttural cracking seemingly uttered from nothing piercing the air. She stilled. A few seconds passed without her even breathing. The guttural cracking echoed. The floor underneath her trembled and rumbled in such a way it threatened to cave in at any second.
Splintering, cracking, crumbling…
The floor underneath her was breaking.
She lifted her head as she felt herself heightened with anxiousness. Then, she finally came face to face with the 'it'.
Colours.
Colours of green. Colours of blue. Colours of yellow. Colours of a beautiful red. The core of a rainbow blemished her eyesight. Ume felt her entire world threatening to topple on a deadly axis, her perception multiplying in a sickening kaleidoscope as she felt pulled in incomprehensibly many directions—but all she could focus on was just one colour, hot pink.
Pink flames.
Bright pink flames engulfed her entire body. But this time, the flames weren't burning her in the slightest bit, she didn't even feel a hint of heat coming from them. The blinding light of the flames chased away the blankness soon after. A succession of images from someone else's point of view played around her like a picture book. Strange images that did not belong to her. Shards of memories that weren't her own.
A small, wooden cabin nestled in a land of snow.
A clouded sky hung like a grey sheet over the white landscape filled with snow-capped peaks.
The beaming face of a bright-eyed toddler boy tucked in a thick white sheet on the memory owner's back.
A young boy carrying a basket of wood on his back, dressed black-and-sea-foam-green haori over a white robe and black pants. His reddish-black ponytail flaked with white, his distinct pair of hanafuda earrings flowing in the gentle wind—Tanjiro.
A rustic room filled with three lively children dart around, their laughter echoing off the walls. Pots and pans hang from hooks, clanging softly as they brush past. A beautiful woman cladded in a tengui cleaning utensils in the sink, gently hushing them.
Master Muzan standing in the doorway, besuited in a simple outfit consisting of a dull grey suit and matching dress pants. An immeasurable inferno of obsidian flames radiating off of him before the memory owner's eyes, set to consume everything in its fiery embrace.
Masses of dark flesh expelling from him and into the memory's owner, the horrifying squelches drowned out the symphony of anguished-filled screams that filled the air.
The bodies of three small children and the woman, all bloody and broken, strewn about on the glistening red floor like broken dolls. The fading sounds of their final breaths shutting in the memory owner's ringing eardrums in a chorus of suffocation.
The stark red of blood against white snow filling the memory owner's vision, the pungent taste of iron suffocating their throat with each choking gasp.
A tearful Tanjiro pinned down on the ground, clutching what appeared to be the wooden handle of an axe, fear embedded in his expanded eyes.
A towering black-haired man adorned in a beautiful mismatched haori of red and a collage of green-yellow arched a blue-tinted Nicchirin sword with a fine obsidian blade to her, in a pose to strike the memory's owner's heart.
And finally...the last image appeared…
Callused hands clutching the memory's owner tight to their chest, the voice of Tanjiro echoing a passionate promise into the ear of the owner. "I swear your big brother will save you no matter what…."
Ume sucked in a strangled gasp when she returned to reality. Thick breaths of dusty, cold air coated her aching lungs through her nostrils. Her nails dug into the fabric of her kimono, still hosting the tremor of horror, as if by doing so would make the horrifying images go away from her mind. It didn't. Even the faintest image seared her clenched eyes, and the tears that filled her eyelids burned like liquid fire. But she did not open her eyes, not because she didn't want to know where she was, but because she feared what she would see next if she opened them.
T…the blood, the fear, the pain, those faces—they're not from my life. But still…seeing…seeing them…those corpses...Master Muzan…it's all so cruel…
Her mind just wanted to remain in the darkness.
What the fuck was all that?
They're not Master Muzan's memories. It couldn't be. She's dead. She never had a vision like this before. So why? Why was she getting these memories? What did it mean—
"Nezuko…what's the matter?"
When she heard the voice, Ume felt a great fear take hold, her body straightening like a pole. It was so distinctive that she had no doubt it was him.
Tanjiro.