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Chapter Text

The air was chill and thick with humidity, the demon Douma’s heavy breath puffing small clouds of vapor before him as he stared down at the bloodied form of a young, slender, dark-haired woman crumpled on the ground before him.

“How unfortunate,” he drawled, the taste of her dark blood still thick and fresh in his mouth. The substance dribbled down his chin as well as dropped slowly from his matching fan-blades, which were limp in each hand as he studied her body.

He hadn’t intended for her to die this way, at his own mercy. When she had arrived at his feet weak and in tears, explaining to him that she had no one to go to in her flee from an tumultuous marriage, something in him had stirred. Not empathy, clearly, as he was unable to experience that, but perhaps some sort of sense of obligation.

After he’d butchered the people who had chased her and driven her to that state of panic he recalled in her, he’d made plans to keep her at his side until she died naturally, not to slaughter her like this. She wasn’t ever supposed to discover his true nature, never supposed to lay eyes on his atrocities towards humans. She wasn’t supposed to learn he was a demon.

But alas, it was too late to ponder any regrets or previous intentions. She had run, he’d stopped her from leaving. That was all that mattered, she couldn’t leave him now. He didn’t want her to leave.

“My sweet Kotoha, you naive girl,” Douma muttered as he crouched, turning her bloodied face with a gentle caress of her cheek. He wasn’t smiling as he normally would be, instead his face was at its most natural state; empty and stripped of any signs of emotion, whether genuine or false.

Suddenly, a shrill sound broke out in the silent tones of the forest, Douma snapping to attention with a slightly furrowed brow. The demon let go of Katoha’s face and stood, cocking his head as he looked around for the high-pitched tones that seemed to scratch at his mind like nails on a chalkboard.

Then he saw a small white bundle in the grass not far from Kotoha’s corpse, the pale fabric splattered with her blood. The sharp sound of human wailing appeared to be coming from somewhere within the lump of layered cloth.

Douma recognized the bundle almost as soon as he saw it, a false smile creeping across his face as he crossed the space between himself and the small pile of white blankets.

“Inosuke,” he whispered as he crouched down, extending his messy hands in order to very gently lift the human baby up, cradling him in his arms as he gazed down at it him fondly. “So you still live.”

The blue-haired baby within was crying uncontrollably, his face pink and puffy from the tears as he kicked and flailed in Douma’s arms. The demon shushed him softly, bringing a cold hand to the boy’s tiny face very gently.

“Hush now, it’ll be alright,” the pale-haired cult leader told the baby, cocking his head as the infant seemed to calm down. “I won’t hurt you, little one…”

Surprisingly, the baby boy stopped crying after a moment, hiccuping with a distraught expression as he stared up at Douma with wide, beautiful green eyes.

The demon smiled. “You look just like Kotoha.”

The baby then promptly sneezed, starling Douma for a moment. Little Inosuke seemed caught off guard by his own sneeze, his face crumpling to start shedding tears again. Not wanting to hear the repulsive sound of the child crying, Douma thought back to everything he’d seen Kotoha do when calming her infant son, and the first thing that came to mind was her singing to him, rocking him gently.

He’d long memorized her beautiful voice and unique song, and so he started to gently rehearse the song from memory, his smooth and androgynous voice blending with Kotoha’s song almost flawlessly. The little boy slowly paused, his face shifting into one of pure innocent wonder as the bloodied demon sang to him gently.

Once the short lullaby was over, Douma looked down at the little baby lying comfortably in his arms, the demon realizing how foreign this experience was to him. Infants and children were not his forte, yet holding Inosuke in his arms like this seemed entirely natural to him.

“Gracious Founder, are you alright?”

The cult leader paused and turned, looking behind him to see one of his younger followers standing several yards away in the bright moonlight. He recognized her voice and laughed loud enough for her to hear.

“Ah, hello!” He started to approach her, the naive young woman smiling when she saw he indeed seemed to be safe. “Thank goodness you arrived, I could use your help.”

“Oh!” The girl exclaimed with an eager nod. “Yes, founder, anything!”

“Take this back to our home, could you?” Douma asked, holding out the baby in his arms. She didn’t seem to notice the blood on her leader’s hands; likely because it was too dark for her to see properly.

The girl gasped, nodding as she took the little boy. “Oh, dear, Inosuke,” she said softly as the baby started to tear up again, seemingly upset to have left Douma’s arms. “Oh no, please don’t start crying…”

“Just take him back, I’ll follow you soon,” Douma told her as he started to walk back towards where he’d left Kotoha, knowing it was too dark for this girl to notice the mangled body of her friend.

“Where are you headed, founder?” the girl asked, Inosuke still flailing and weeping in her arms. It seemed a struggle to hold him still.

Douma waved her off, smiling back at her. “Don’t worry about it, darling, I’ll be home soon.”

The girl stared at him for a moment longer, as if unsure, before she nodded her trust and turned on her heel, taking off at a brisk jog back towards the Eternal Paradise Cult. He watched her leave, grateful she was so trusting of his word.

Waiting until the girl was out of sight, Douma turned and started walking back towards where he’d left Kotoha’s crumpled form. She was still lying at the very edge of the cliff, right where he’d taken his blade to her throat before she could do anything else drastic.

“What a shame,” he mumbled again, crouching down next to the dark-haired woman. He reached down to gently roll her body, so the the young woman was on her back. Her beautiful emerald eyes were still open; glassy and lifeless as she seemed to stare blankly up at the stars.

He didn’t want to eat her, but he also had no intention of leaving her body to rot and serve as fuel for crows and insects. It would be painful, but he couldn’t by any means leave her there.

Which is why after a moment of sitting with her; examining the carnage he’d laid upon this woman; he decided to pick her up, lifting her thin her heavy frame into his strong arms not unlike he’d held her son earlier. He absentmindedly hummed her song to himself as he carried her back gently and carefully, a soft smile still adorning his pale lips.

He didn’t want to consume her there, she deserved far better than to be devoured at the edge of a cliff surrounded by her own blood. No, she was something truly special in comparison to other humans, she wasn’t simply an unfortunate victim of his hunger. She was unique and beautiful, a person who had captured his interest unlike any before her.

There was no way she would be treated like any other meal, when she was nothing close to any other woman.

Chapter Text

Douma didn’t end up returning to the grounds of his cult until much later into the night; not realizing how far he and Kotoha had traveled in their chase. It had seemed like mere seconds of chasing after her, but they had to have been closer to twenty minutes away.

As he walked in, holding the bloody corpse of the well-known young Kotoha, all the other members of his following were thankfully asleep. The demon was grateful for this, as he’d rather not go through the effort of having to kill yet another unfortunate follower that night.

He wondered briefly where the woman he’d spoken to earlier had taken young Inosuke, but he decided he’d worry about that later as he carried Kotoha to his own luxurious chambers, his favorite room in the little mock palace. He used to sit there with her often, just talking and dreaming and sharing experiences with the beautiful lady that he’d come to regard as his favorite human.

Laying her down gently across his usual cushioned perch, Douma kept a thin smile as he stood and crossed the room, removing much of the expensive clothing and jewelry that his parents had adorned him with since his birth. They were heavier than they looked, offering a mild sense of relief to the demon, having removed them from his body.

He paused as he turned, having just shed his headdress when he spotted something sitting on the floor, next to the cushion he’d placed Kotoha on.

On the tatami flooring lay a beautiful white lotus flower, the navy-haired woman’s blood-spattered fingers merely brushing against its milky petals. The lotus was slightly wilted, enough that it was just barely wrinkled but still soft and delicate.

The demon’s rainbow eyes lingered on the lotus, setting his headdress down and crossing the room again as he shed his cloak as well. He simply dropped it on the floor as he walked, disregarding it existence as he focused on the flower.

He stepped up onto the raised platform that he usually sat open when meeting with guests and offering advice, the space adorned with banners, ornaments, offerings, and gifts of all different varieties. It was truly a beautiful sight to behold, and usually he found the space enjoyable, but tonight Douma found the aura of this room to be far more surreal.

Bending down, the man picked up the pale flower with thin, careful fingers, lifting it up and examining it with a bare expression. He blinked slowly and cocked his head as he stared at the translucent petals.

He knew this lotus in particular had been the one he’d placed in Kotoha’s silky hair only mere hours earlier, not long before she’d unintentionally uncovered the cult leader’s gruesome secret. He had plucked it right out the water with her standing there, and had gently and affectionately placed it in her hair. The light colored petals had contrasted against her dark hair so beautifully.

He still had a similar flower in his own light-colored hair, tucked behind his ear. He reached up and brushed his fingers against the blossom he was wearing, as he continued to study the one in his hand. Kotoha had placed it there herself, after he gave her this one.

He found himself wondering when she’d removed hers, and how it had ended up in here. Had it fallen out of her hair? Had she taken it out on purpose? Maybe it had been her clumsy son - Douma knew the curious infant was prone to grabbing at things that caught his tiny emerald eyes.

He glanced from the flower to Kotoha, eyes flicking over her gory shape. The wound in her neck was quite grisly, deep enough that he could see the bloodied white bone of her throat far within. He had sliced her pretty effectively, and he had aimed well, severing her carotid artery and causing her to bleed out in mere seconds while he’d stood there and watched without an ounce of remorse seeping through his veins.

Still holding the flower in one hand, Douma crossed the space separating him from her corpse, moving her gently so he could sit with her across his lap.

He pulled her closer once he was comfortable, carefully tucking a thick lock of her navy hair behind her ear in order to slip the lotus back into place, the man smiling ever so softly as he gazed down at her in an affectionate manner.

“So pretty,” he mumbled softly, caressing her cold cheek in one hand as he supported her neck with the other. “You really are the most stunning girl in our home, Kotoha.”

Douma gazed upon her delicate, empty features, from her round jawline to her plump lips; which had started to turn grey by now from lack of blood flow.

He soon found himself missing the way she looked when alive. Her cheeks had been so rosy and warm, and her lips were always flush and pink. He couldn’t hear her beautiful laugh or delightful voice in this state, either. Her charming and soft voice was something he had grown fond of in her, among all of her wonderfully unique characteristics.

Now, the demon could only gaze upon her cold, lifeless face, and try to preserve his memory of her tragically short life with him as long as he possibly could.

“Do you know how much I adore you?” he found himself asking her, though he knew she could not respond. The thing was, he didn’t even know the answer to that question when applied to himself.

How much did he adore her? Is adoration an emotion, or a concept? He wasn’t even sure he understood what it meant to love someone, what that looked like, what it was supposed to feel like.

Had he truly loved her?

…He had no idea. He could only take the warm feeling in his chest at the thought of her and slap the label of “love” over it. He didn’t know what else to call it, as he’d never felt it before with anyone else. She had been the very first individual, along with her son, to invoke such a pleasant sensation in him.

And yet… here he was, holding her cold and limp body close as if trying to garner warmth from something long dead. He didn’t really like how freezing her hands were in this state, it was so stark and contrasting from the gentle and warm way she used to trace his jaw when alone with him.

He reached up and gently brushed his own tapered fingers across her cheek, his brow twitching slightly. He disliked this, the cold, dead expression on her face. It might have made him angry had he understood what anger felt like.

He had of course witnessed anger before, on more than one occasion. He had seen it clouding his mother’s eyes the day she killed his father, before proceeding to take her own life. He had also seen it burning underneath Kotoha’s supposed family the day she arrived at his feet - the husband and mother in law who had reeked of raw fury before he’d taken his weapons to their throats.

He had dumped their bodies in the mountains, if he remembered right. Since that day, he had never thought of them again, not until now.

“What a cruel twist of your supposed destiny,” he all but whispered to the deceased woman, “that you, my dear Kotoha, would end up befalling the same fate.” He didn’t believe in destiny, no, but hell if it wasn’t painfully ironic.

Douma gazed over her inanimate face, blinking slowly before he realized that his rainbow eyes were brimming with tears.

At this realization, he sat up a bit, mildly confused. Lifting a hand and dabbing lightly under his eye, he pulled it away and stared at the tears glistening on his fingertips in wonder.

Douma blinked again and another silent tear fell, the demon wiping it away with a small shake of his head. He found himself deeply confused as a sob rose in his throat, the apathetic man hiccuping before another tear fell softly onto Kotoha’s cold cheek.

He hadn’t involuntarily cried in well over a century, and even then he hadn’t been quite sure the reason for the liquid falling from his lashes.

So why were there tears on his face now?

He glanced down at Kotoha’s lifeless expression again, and he found that his fangs almost ached with how close and fresh she still was. And yet, he still hadn’t sank his gluttonous teeth into her soft, nutritious flesh.

It would be easy to just absorb her. To pull her in and become one with her in less than a few seconds. To hold her close, and let her cold body meld and sink into his own flesh.

But no…

Douma gently took her by the back of the neck, lifting her heavy form upwards and towards his face. Leaning down, the demon closed his rainbow eyes and took a deep, savory breath of the natural and earthy scent of death, that mixed with the flowery and gentle smell that was Kotoha. It was comforting to him, like the smell of one’s home when they first walk in after being away for a while.

He pulled her closer, pausing only a moment before ducking his head down, licking his lips, and sinking his razor sharp teeth into the tender flesh of her breathless throat. Her thick, cold blood filled his mouth, the demon ripping his head back with a sharp jerk - taking a nasty chunk of Kotoha’s flesh with him.

He chewed her bodily tissue quickly, but not without savoring the delectable taste of a woman’s skin. Her blood dripped down his chin, dripping down onto her own cheek before he bent down and took another ruthless bite.

His shoulders shook with another stifled sob as he continued to consume her, tears still washing over his pale cheeks and mixing with the blood smeared in his jaw. Part of him almost wanted to spit out the meat in his mouth, his stomach churning slightly as he swallowed.

What a strange sensation, he thought, to feel so revolted to be eating this beautiful woman’s flesh. Never had he ever felt this way before, but then again…

Never had he been so fond of another woman the way he had considered himself fond of Kotoha.

Chapter Text

A few years passed.

Douma’s footsteps were soft as he crossed his favorite space, the normally pearly sharp teeth of his smile stained with blood so dark it almost appeared like some sort of black sludge.

He had just finished a quick meal, the repast having consisted of two of his younger followers. He almost regretted having chosen teenagers that time, craving the slightly tougher meat of an adult, but alas, he’d already eaten. No point in dwelling, and besides, he had plenty of women to choose from next time hunger struck him.

“Those poor, desperate girls,” the light-haired man said with a sigh as he took a seat at his usual post; in his comfortably cushioned seat. “So eager for purpose that they’d spend their lives dedicated to a false deity…”

Good thing he was there to free them, then. That was why he was born, after all, wasn’t it? To make the little humans happy, to cure the illness that was pathetic human thought? To free the lonely, feeble-minded people when they could not free themselves? After all, with no gods, no Buddha, no other living savior, who could save these pitiful beings from their short, meaningless lives?

That was his purpose, to save them. That’s what he had always been told and that’s what he’d always believed.

The rainbow-eyed demon sighed as he looked around his space, a soft - albeit fake - smile still adoring his lips. His gaze went over the countless polished gifts lining the walls around the room, along with the various small plants, tapestries, and flowers, finally landing on the small pot gifted to him by fellow Upper Moon Gyokko - one Douma had planted the pristine skull of a young woman inside, to add to the decor.

Turning his head as he heard the sound of fast, uncoordinated footsteps approaching, Douma grinned. He was a very good actor and an even better conman when it came to faking emotions, but it was hard even for him to tell whether this smile was real or not.

The heavy pitter-patter of tiny feet got louder as they got closer, before a toddler boy with dark blue hair burst into the room, a goofy smile on his puffy face as he stumbled clumsily over to the demon. The tiny child was dressed in a small kimono of scarlet silk, the design closely resembling Douma’s tightly knit top.

“Hello, Inosuke,” the cult leader greeted as the little boy - only two and a half years old - threw his chubby arms around Douma’s neck. “You seem excited today.”

Inosuke grunted with a little smile, letting go and taking ahold of Douma’s face in order to make sure he was looking. The fat toddler then began to make unintelligible baby noises, gesturing about and throwing his body this way and that as if to illustrate what he was excited about for the much older male.

Douma, unable to understand what the boy was trying to tell him, just laughed and reached forward to pat Inosuke’s fluffy locks. The human boy growled and stomped his foot at this, his lips turning up in a pout as he glared at Douma with all the ferocity of a newborn puppy.

The demon cocked his head, slightly amused. “What is it, flower?”

Inosuke just continued to pout, stomping his tiny foot again in frustration at Douma still not understanding. Then his beautiful emerald eyes brightened and he smiled again, stomping over to take the demon’s sleeve in his chunky little fist. He was babbling and warbling the entire time as he turned and tried to drag the older to his feet.

“Alright, alright,” Douma said with an amused snort, getting to his feet gracefully as the surprisingly strong toddler tugged him out of the room.

He had to bend down pretty far for Inosuke to still hold on, given the chubby toddler was barely even a full foot tall yet and broad-shouldered Douma was nearly seven feet.

Inosuke was still babbling as he led the demon forward, bubbling with excitement and mumbling with rather  aggressive toddler sounds.

“Where are we going, hm?” Douma asked the two year-old as they walked down the hall. Of course, he know Inosuke couldn’t actually answer, but Douma did get a reply of exciting incoherent rambling, which made the man smile.

Inosuke tugged Douma around a corner now, leading the man towards an open set of double sliding doors. The demon knew exactly where he was being taken, but what he was being taken to see wasn’t clear yet.

Inosuke snorted at him as he took Douma into the big, beautiful chamber that the demon usually liked to devour people inside. The water was pristine and wooden walkways shining, and there were even a few followers on the other side of the room.

“Good evening, Gracious Founder!” one of the women called, she and her three companions all tending to a small patch of lotus plants near where they were sitting.

“Hello, girls!” Douma called back, waving with the manicured hand that wasn’t being gripped by a toddler.

One of the other, older women giggled and whispered to her friend, before waving back. “Hello, my lord! And hi there, Inosuke!”

The navy-haired boy looked up with a snort, stomping his foot and shaking his head like an animal at the woman. She just chuckled.

“He’s so funny,” she whispered to her friend.

Douma smiled as he overheard this, opening his mouth to agree with her before Inosuke roughly tugged him again, the toddler babbling frantically and glancing at Douma repeatedly as he pointed at this thing that was apparently making him so excited.

Douma looked in the direction Inoksuke was obsessing over, but he didn’t spot anything immediately. He cocked his head and squinted, searching the water, before finally, he spotted it.

A single butterfly, with silky, translucent green wings, fluttering over a bed of lotuses. It’s antennae we’re swaying softly as it flew this way and that, trying to find the perfect flower to get a drink of nectar from.

“Ah, you found a butterfly!” Douma said quietly so as not to frighten it, crouching down next to Inosuke and pointing at the insect gently. “Is that what you were so excited about?”

The blue-haired boy giggled and nodded, chubby hands coming up to his chest as he watched the winged creature with wonder and awe in his vivid green eyes. Douma studied the way this youngster’s face seemed to glow with an avid curiosity, a warm feeling settling into the hollow space of his chest.

That feeling, ah, he knew it well. It reminded him of this toddler’s beautiful mother, who had been one with his body and memory for nearly three years by then.

“You remind me more and more of her every day,” the demon told the child, reaching up to stroke his dark hair gently. “Hey, Inosuke.”

The toddler slowly pulled his gaze away from the butterfly, staring at Douma with unfocused eyes for just a moment before he blinked and smiled. He cooed gently in a questioning tone.

“How about you and I try to find more butterflies later,” the light-haired demon proposed. “Maybe we can find more colors.“

Inosuke’s eyes lit up with joy, and he giggled happily and nodded, stepping forward to throw his arms around Douma’s neck again in a tight embrace. The demon paused, before releasing a breathy laugh and hugging the tiny boy back.

Words couldn’t truly account for how fond he was of this chubby, loud little human.

Chapter Text

“Douma.”

The deep, commanding voice echoed softly through the small space. The tall male being addressed scarcely reacted to his name being spoken in such a grim manner, not even after the speaker had arrived here without notice or reason. 

The light-haired demon just smiled and looked up at his master, who was seated on Douma’s own favorite seat, a little ways away from him. 

“Yes, Muzan-sama?“

“…You’ve been awfully quiet lately, much to my surprise.” Muzan’s scarlet eyes narrowed as he said this, his gaze unreadable even to the perceptive other male. “What have you been doing the past few years?” 

Douma chuckled, waving one of his slender, closed golden fans as he spoke. “Oh, you know, the usual! Tending to my followers, killing all the stray little slayers, helping create a few new demons here and there, heading to any mission you wanted me to attend. Nothing new.” 

“Is that so.” The demon lord’s eyes flickered with soft light. “Anything else?” His tone was dreadfully low.

“Hmm.” Upper Two paused to think, racking his brain for the biggest events he could think of from the past several years, since he had last been visited by his creator. It had been unexpected for the cult leader to suddenly find Muzan within his own chambers that night.

Douma tapped his chin with his closed weapon as he considered his words. “Let’s see, I killed another little hashira, I suppose, but not much else. Hm…” 

He paused and shrugged lightly, purposely choosing to leave out the fact that he’d been raising a human boy for six years now by then.

“Not much else than that, honestly!” He declared. “Things have been rather quiet.”

Muzan stared at Douma with a hard, tactful glare. “That is all you’ve accomplished in the last several years?” His eyes narrowed. “And what of the Blue Spider Lily?”

The cult leader chuckled. “Just as before, I have yet to find any record of its location, my lord.”

Muzan’s eyes suddenly widened, and the veins in his pale face bulged with pressure as he gave a dark, cold glare. Douma felt a sudden, crippling pain shoot through his entire body all at once in an agonizing torrent, causing his rainbow eyes to widen and his breath to falter. 

He normally didn’t mind pain - he maybe even enjoyed it as it was something he could actually feel - but this time it managed to catch him off guard. 

Blood spurted from his mouth, nose, and eyes as an unseen pressure seemed to build up within his body, the tall demon’s body trembling violently as he began to choke on his own vital fluids.

Muzan stood up, circling the upper moon as he coughed and shook. “Almost ten years… and what have you accomplished in that time?”

He paused as if waiting for Douma to answer, but the large demon was still leaned forward, gasping for air.

Muzan stopped directly in front of him. “You’ve accomplished absolutely nothing,” he hissed slowly, teeth audibly grinding.

Douma was breathing heavily as his body involuntarily shuddered from the power Muzan had enforced over him, rainbow eyes wide as he fought the urge to cough up more blood. He wasn’t affected emotionally by any of this, but his body was certainly reacting. 

Suddenly, the pain began to ease up, and the pressure released itself. Douma gasped for breath and coughed again, reaching up a slender hand to cover his mouth and catch the blood that was still pouring from his throat.

“Tell me about the boy,” Muzan said as he walked another slow, predatory circle around his subordinate. 

Douma paled, rainbow eyes watching his leader as blood continued to stream heartily from his face. “Boy?”

“Don’t play ignorant with me, Douma, I know you’re far more intelligent than that,” Muzan snapped, his pale blue claws flexing as he walked as if in warning. He repeated himself in a more venomous tone. “Tell me about that boy.”

The light-haired demon stared at the floor for a moment, before he wiped some of the blood from his chin and spoke. “His name is Inosuke.”

Muzan followed up with a question quickly. “How old is it?” 

“He’s six years old,” Douma obediently replied. 

“Hm.” Muzan’s formal leather shoes were thumping ever so softly as he walked. “Where did you find it?”

Douma’s chest suddenly tightened for just a fraction of a second, inexplicably, before he responded. “He’s the son of one of my followers.”

“I see… Where is this ‘follower’ now?”

The rainbow-eyed male was quiet for a moment, but the hesitation didn’t last very long. “I ate her.”

“You ate the mother.” Muzan’s face was unreadable, even to someone as perceptive as Douma. “So why do you still have this woman’s son?”

The light-haired demon didn’t respond right away, mostly because he didn’t know what the answer to the demon lord’s question was. Then he exhaled and spoke. “I’ve grown quite fond of having him around, my lord.”

“Fond of it?” Muzan’s voice was severely unamused as he stopped walking and narrowed his eyes, staring right at Douma with that same unwavering expression. “You mean to tell me my Upper Two has allowed a mere pathetic human to taint his life?”

Douma blinked, a bead of sweat forming on his face despite his perceived lack of fear in that moment. “I assure you, his presence in the cult has not wavered my abilities or my loyalty.” He chuckled. “I’m just the same as always.”

Muzan’s glare seemed to harden. “If you truly expect me to believe those words, then you’ll have to prove to me that this child you’ve taken in means nothing to you.”

The light-haired demon sensed the dark implications behind this sentence, and the hairs on the back of his neck seemed to rise. “How so, my lord?”

The demon lord’s face remained as dark and simultaneously blank as ever. “I want you to kill it.”

At these words, Douma’s chest seized up, his glittering eyes going wide as he seemed to struggle with processing the command. “You… You what?”

“Kill it.” Muzan repeated, crossing his arms and stepping back just slightly. “I want you to kill the child, and prove it means nothing to you.”

The cult leader stared at his master, for once at a loss for words as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. He didn’t know what to say, nor what to do.

Kill Inosuke? The only fragment of his sweet Kotoha that still lived? How could he possibly be expected to carry through with that?

“That’s exactly what I thought.” Muzan clenched his jaw and shook his head as if ashamed of the lesser demon. “You can’t do it.”

“I…” Douma struggled to find the words, looking for any vocal escape route to get out of this with his loyalty intact and Inosuke alive. It was one of the first times he’d found himself in a situation where he didn’t have the words to dodge his way through. 

“Fine. I won’t make you kill it,” Muzan finally said after a moment, once again crossing his arms and raising his chin to stare at Douma. “Yet.”

The cult leader felt a loosening sensation on his chest, like his mind relaxed immediately upon hearing that Inosuke would live. He didn’t speak yet, however, he wasn’t stupid.

“For now, I’ll allow this human child to continue living with you.” The demon lord’s eyes flickered again with dark crimson light. “On one condition.”

Upper Two blinked. “…Yes?”

The raven-haired progenitor narrowed his eyes, his tone as serious and low as ever. “The moment I find out its presence has caused you to stray from my execations, I’ll see to it that I kill that thing personally .”

The words struck a chord from somewhere within Douma - was it dread, perhaps? The light-haired male knew with full certainty that Muzan was not crafting an empty threat in order to scare him into compliance, as that type of leadership had never had any affect the cult leader. The demon lord meant what he was saying.

“Do you understand me, Douma?”

The rainbow eyed demon nodded, before closing his eyes and taking a short bow. “I understand, my lord. I will not let you down.”

Chapter Text

“Inosuke, sweetheart, that’s not how you should handle the lotuses.”

Douma smiled softly at the six-year old across the room, cocking his head and gesturing to the blossom that the child was holding. Only a few days had passed since Muzan’s surprise visit, and the unnerving promise he’d been forced to make in order to keep the boy alive.

The two of them were alone in the vast, open room in which Inosuke had taken him to see the butterfly a few years prior. Only this time, Douma was seated quietly and contentedly, watching over the youngster while he played near the water. There was no one else in the room but them, given they were likely the last members of the cult still awake.

“It’s not?” Blue-haired Inosuke glanced at the crumpled flower in his hands, which he’d accidentally crushed when he had picked it up in his small fist without much consideration.

“No, we have to be more delicate with them. Here, darling, I’ll come show you,” Douma said as he gracefully got to his feet, crossing the short distance between them before crouching down next to the child.

Inosuke turned to face him, holding out the lotus as if unsure what to do with it. The demon smiled and gently took ahold of it, setting it down on the floorboards between them before he turned to look towards the water.

As Inosuke had been playing on the very edge of one the various wooden walkways running across the large room, he’d been able to pluck a lotus right from a small patch of them nearby. Douma could even see the severed, damaged spot that the boy must have ripped the flower from in a very childlike fashion.

“See, flowers like these are very delicate and fragile.”  Douma reached out and brushed his hand across one of the flowers as he spoke, before going on and simplifying what he’d said for the child at his left. “They can be broken very easily.”

“Ohh…” Inosuke glanced down at the crushed flower laying at his feet, his face crumpling slightly as he looked back up at Douma, a very distraught expression on his plump face. “I didn’t mean to hurt it…”

“Ah, I know that, darling, of course you didn’t,” Douma said as he reached up and carefully pulled up Inosuke’s clothing to better cover his smooth, bare shoulder.

A few months before, Douma had asked for one of the seamstresses among his cult to sew the child a bigger kimono when he’d grown out of his last one, but the garment had actually ended up being a size too big, so one of Inosuke’s shoulders was constantly exposed when he wasn’t careful. A simple mistake.

The fact that the cult leader had devoured the woman shortly after was pure coincidence, truly.

Inosuke swallowed, his lips wavering. He still looked quite upset, and Douma quickly decided he didn’t much like that negative look being on the boy’s face, so he tried to put Inosuke at ease as soon as he could.

“I did say I would show you how to hold them, right?” The upper two demon said as he tucked some of Inosuke’s chin-length hair behind his ear.

“Mhm…” The child nodded gently, watching Douma’s manicured hands. 

“Since they’re so fragile, we have to be very gentle.” 

The light-haired male said this as he reached down into the water, cupping his hand underneath a pale pink-colored lotus and cleanly plucking it from its watery womb. 

“See how careful I was?” He went on to ask as he pulled the blossom out of the water, holding it by the stem between his two fingers for Inosuke to see. 

“Yeah!” The blue-haired child quickly extended his hand; about to reach out and take the flower; before he hesitated and glanced up at Douma as if he were doing something wrong.

“You can touch it,” the cult leader assured him, and then gave a small gasp as an idea came to him. “Better yet, here.”

Douma pulled the flower closer to himself, carefully snapping off part of the dark-colored stem. He then smiled brightly as he reached up and smoothed Inosuke’s chin-length hair back, before very gently sliding the lotus into the dark locks behind his ear - just like he had once done for Kotoha almost daily, when she was still present in her own flesh and blood.

Because she wasn’t dead, of course, if she lived on as one inside of Douma’s body.

“There!” The demon declared happily, watching the six-year old’s face shift from mild confusion, then into wonder, and finally to joy. 

Inosuke gave a high-pitched giggle with the kind of excitement only a child could experience, bouncing a few times as he happily touched the lotus tucked behind his hair. His vivid green eyes then widened as he came to an idea of his own, and a look of mischief crossed his face.

Douma cocked his head and simply watched as Inosuke lowered himself onto his stomach, his scarlet kimono once again slipping off his tiny shoulder as he reached forward and into the clear blue-green waters, hand extended clumsily towards the closest lotus he could reach - a small one with pure white petals.

“Careful,” the upper two demon said softly. “Remember how I showed you.”

Inosuke made a small grunt as he hesitated, fingers twitching. He then emulates what he had seen the cult leader do earlier, as best as a child could, anyway. The boy leaned forward  - with Douma at the ready to grab him in case he fell - and reached underneath the flower. He then grabbed the stem in his little fist, and plucked it out with an excited cry.

“I got it!” Inosuke declared joyfully as he stood up again, bumbling over to Douma and proceeding to clumsily attempt inserting the pale blossom into his caretaker’s hair. “Boom!”

The blue-haired child stepped back and looked at his work proudly. The white lotus was just barely hanging onto Douma’s hair, but the demon carefully adjusted it so it would stay put, and then laughed.

“Why thank you!” He reached out to gently pat the boy’s head. “Now we match.”

Inosuke nodded with giddy enthusiasm. “Mhm!”

“That flower looks awfully cute on you,” Douma said as he gently tapped the child’s noise. He then stood and lifted Inosuke up in a swift and fluid moment, twirling the giggling little boy high up in the air.

“Wheee!!” Inosuke squealed as he was spun, before Douma pulled him close and nestled him on his own hip with one arm. 

The boy’s round face was pink with joy as he weaved his tiny fingers into the fabric of Douma’s top, leaning his head against the demon’s muscular shoulder and exhaling with a delighted squeak.

“Again?” Inosuke asked as he looked up at Douma with those big, beautiful eyes that were always so filled with nothing but pure and innocent wonder. 

The demon hummed as he shook his head, adjusting his grip so that Inosuke was held closer, and the boy could rest his head on his chest. “Hmm, I think it’s time for you to sleep now, my flower.”

Inosuke gave a soft whine of protest, but it was half-hearted in a way that easily indicated the child had blown through his energy for the day with the burst of excitement that came from the flower. 

Douma gave a soft chuckle as he shook his head and began to make his way out of the room. “Did you have a good day, my sweet?”

“Mhm…” Inosuke said passively, the boy clearly very tired.

“That’s good, I’m glad.” Douma shut the doors to the room they’d been in previously as he left it, then exhaled softly as he carried the child through the darkened halls of his shrine. “What was your favorite part?”

“Hmm…” The blue-haired boy lifted his head, looking up at Douma as he considered the question. Then he hummed softly and rested against the demon’s chest again. “I liked playing with the other kids…” 

It took Douma a moment to realize that he must have been talking about the offspring of some other followers - after all, several parents and their children had found sanctuary under his roof.

“Ah, is that so?” The cult leader rubbed Inosuke’s back as he entered his own personal quarters. “You must have had a lot of fun for that to be your favorite part, huh?”

“Yeah,” Inosuke replied as he looked up again, likely to see where they were now. As Douma set him down in order to change his own clothes, the boy cocked his head at him. “Were you ever a kid?”

The innocent question made Upper Two pause as he’d been taking off his cloak, blinking his rainbow eyes. “Me?”

Inosuke giggled. “Yeah, you!” He seemed much more awake now that he was up and standing, even if he was just waiting for his caretaker.

Douma was quiet for a few seconds as he removed and carefully laid out his headdress, taking a few moments to consider what had been asked of him. 

Had he ever been a child?

Well, when it came to the biological definition of a child, of course he had. Everyone started out as a helpless infant at some point, even the strongest and most formidable of beings, such as the powerful Upper Moon One, Kokushibo. Hell, even Muzan had been a frail newborn at some point.

Despite knowing these facts to be true, Douma still wasn’t sure he’d ever been part of what was considered to be a child.

He’d been declared a miracle and a blessing the very moment he was born, when he could barely even keep his own eyes open. Even when his own skull was too heavy to lift up on his own, he’d been holding on his shoulders. the weight of being a faux messenger of the gods.

His parents had forced that on him, and he’d simply played along, even at such a seemingly tender age as five years old. 

Douma quickly came to the conclusion that the answer was no. He’d never been a child. Not like Inosuke was - an innocent, wide-eyed youngster whose mind was filled with nothing but wonder about the dancing colors and strange sights around him. 

Douma himself had been a mature being his entire lifespan. He’d had to be in order to head the religion his parents had created in his name.

He essentially had no childhood to speak of, not in the same sense as other young people. He knew that didn’t need to tell all of that to Inosuke, however.

“Of course I was a kid once,” he said gently, smiling down at the little boy as he was changing into a plain, kimono style robe - the red and black pattern of which matched his usual attire. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re just so big!” Inosuke replied, jumping and spreading his arms as if to illustrate his statement. He then placed his hands on his chest, expression confused in the most childlike way. “There’s no way you were little like me or Lea!”

Douma cocked his head as he was carefully tying his kimono. “Oh? Is this Lea one of your friends?”

Inosuke’s green eyes glittered at this question, and he nodded happy as he was again scooped up into the cult leader’s arms. “Yeah! She’s my best friend!”

The light-haired man laughed at the emphasis, carrying him towards where he usually put the boy to bed. “Ooh, is she now?”

“Mhm, Lea is the best!” Inosuke exclaimed giddily.

The little boy held on tightly to Douma’s shirt as the demon sat them both down upon a sleeping mat made of a very soft, high-quality material. They were in Douma’s personal quarters, after all, everything in here was intended to be as luxurious as possible for the cult leader. 

Only a select few members of the Eternal Paradise religion were allowed to enter this space, Inosuke being one of these said members.

“Ha, I’m glad you have such a wonderful friend, my darling,” Douma said as he ran his manicured fingers through the back of six year-old’s silky locks. 

“Did you ever have friends?” The curious little boy asked, shifting in the man’s lap and looking up at him quizzically. 

The cult leader grinned. “Of course! I have lots of friends!”

Inosuke giggled and bounced upon his caretaker’s lap. “Really? What about a best friend, do you have a best friend?”

Douma nodded. “Why of course!”

Inosuke gasped softly, before he immediately launched into another question. “What’s your best friend’s name then? Is it Lea too?”

Douma found this conversation to be very enjoyable.

The demon chuckled and shook his head. “No, my best friend isn’t named Lea. My best friend’s name is Akaza.” At the thought of the fellow demon’s irritated tattooed face and fluffy,  coral-collared hair, Douma’s smile widened.

“Huh, Akaza…” Inosuke giggled after repeating the name. “Is Akaza the best too?”

“He is!” Douma replied without skipping a beat. “Maybe you’ll get to meet him someday.”

Inosuke gave another little gasp, then leaned forward and whispered as if sharing some kind of secret. “Maybe your best friend could meet my best friend!!”

Douma returned the enthusiasm, speaking just as soft as the child. “That sounds like a wonderful idea!”

The child giggled his excitement at this, before he leaned forward and threw his tiny arms around the much larger man. “Okay. I’m ready for bed now.”

The cult leader snorted softly at the sudden and very matter-of-fact shift in Inosuke’s demeanor. “Pft, okay, my sweet.”

“Oh, oh, wait!” Inosuke jumped up again, cheeks pink with spirit as he spontaneously remembered something. He cocked his head. “What’s a brother?”

The demon hummed. “Hm, a brother is a person who has the same mother or father as you do. Usually brother is for a boy person, while sister is for a girl person. I suppose anyone can be whatever called they’d like, though.”

He quickly added that last bit as an afterthought, hoping to leave room for gender inclusivity in the boy’s understanding of vocabulary. That topic was somewhat significant to him, given he knew of a few living examples of people who defied what was typically expected of sex and gender — a certain six-eyed demon he adored, as one example. 

A female human being transformed into a male demon at their own request wasn’t exactly a “normal” phenomenon.

“Hmm…” Inosuke frowned, the tiny gears in his head turning as he considered what he’d been told. “But… I don’t have the same mommy as Lea.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Inosuke fiddled with the fabric of Douma’s robe as he spoke. “Lea said she wished I was her brother. But I don’t have a mommy, so I can’t be a brother.”

Douma’s body went cold. All faux emotion immediately drained from his face, at the same time as that warm feeling Inosuke brought to his chest flickered out in an instant. The entire mask suddenly dropped all at once, just from a few honest words spoken by a six year-old.

Inosuke had never mentioned his mother before. Or rather, his lack thereof. 

The demon’s normally bright rainbow eyes were glassy when he spoke, his usual bright smile completely vanished as he looked down at the boy. “You have always had a mother, Inosuke. She’s just… Not here at the moment.”

The child looked up sharply, immediately starting to pepper the demon with enthusiastic questions. “I do??Where is she then? Do you know her? Is she nice like Lea’s mom? Is she here?” He then gave a soft gasp, and his tone got a little softer. “…Can I meet her?”

“Quiet.” 

Douma said the singular word firmly, the softest of frowns etching its way onto his brow as he stared down at the bright-eyed child in his lap.

The thrill in Inosuke’s tone quickly faded out along with his voice, the boy pausing to fully look over his caretaker’s face. He saw the most blank, dead-eyed expression on the demon’s face - something he had never witnessed before in his roughly five and a half years under the man’s care.

The six year-old’s skin began to almost painfully crawl, the purely physical sensation screaming at him that something was deathly wrong.

This experience unnerved the child deeply, who quickly leaned away from Douma and as his green eyes filled with fearful tears.

“No…” he wailed in a soft tone, shaking his head in a desperate manner. 

He was begging for the man to go back to normal.

The demon stared at him for a moment, no discernible reaction flickering within him at the sight of Inosuke being in such obvious distress. The sound of human crying grated on his ears. 

Was him dropping the mask really such an unnatural phenomenon that it could make people shed tears of fear?

After a few more moments, everything suddenly kicked in. 

Inosuke was sobbing and frantically trying to get out of his caretaker’s lap. The look on the child’s face was red, puffy, and very unsightly. Douma immediately decided that he detested seeing such a displeasing expression upon his beloved Inosuke’s cute face.

“Oh dear, did I frighten you?” He asked, his usual milky tone having made a full comeback. 

Douma plastered a soft, comforting smile on his face again, reaching forward and gently pulling the boy closer by the back on his head. He pressed Inosuke to his chest as he embraced the trembling little kid, whose tears were still spilling and now soaking into the demon’s shirt. 

“Hush now, it’s alright,” the cult leader cooed, physical discomfort rippling across his body at the sensation of Inosuke’s tears against his pale skin. “I didn’t mean to scare you, my flower.”

Inosuke murmured wordlessly into the man’s chest, shifting as he shook his head and pressed closer. 

“Everything’s okay, Inosuke.” Douma gently caressed the back of the child’s head. “You’re okay.”

When the blue-haired boy’s trembling and sniffling still didn’t stop, the demon racked his brain for another solution to put an end to the insufferable noise of human distress. His eyes glinted when he remembered what he’d done all those years ago, when he’d discovered the infant Inosuke mere yards away from the bloodied corpse of his own mother.

“Shhh…” Douma said softly, petting the boy’s hair before he exhaled and again began to rehearse that beautiful song. 

Even though the lyrics Kotoha sang were different every single time, her voice seemed to be forever branded into the man’s sound memory. 

The one thing that never changed about the little lullaby was the melody itself. Douma liked poetry, and had heard countless beautiful songs in his tragically short time knowing Kotoha, so the lyrics were easy to substitute to be more fitting to the current moment.

He edited the lyrics as best he could to be more closely matching him, but without referring to himself as this child’s parent. 

Within a few moments of the demon gently singing in the best emulation of Kotoha he could manage, Inosuke’s body stopped shaking. He was still softly sniffling, but he wasn’t actively crying anymore. Relief washed over Douma’s senses.

“There we go,” Douma said softly once he’d finished the lullaby, still caressing Inosuke’s soft hair very gently. “See? Everything’s alright now.”

When Inosuke didn’t give an immediate response, Douma blinked and glanced down at the boy. He found himself exhaling softly though his nose to express mild amusement when he saw that the dark-haired six year-old was fast asleep - likely having crashed from the emotional stress he’d placed himself under.

“Oh, my dear Inosuke,” Douma whispered with a shake of his head. “You’re just as stupid as your mother.”

Chapter Text

The soft-handed woman was near completely silently as she tended to her child’s pale hair, her skilled fingers pulling each little leaves and twigs from the light-colored locks in a very meticulous and careful manner. The young boy, only five, was seated directly in front of her, facing in the opposite direction. Her pale face was empty. She knew she had to address how her offspring’s hair had gotten so messy soon enough. She continued to wait, however, until she could speak face-to-face with the adolescent.

She didn’t normally get time alone like this. Most of the time, she would dress and carefully shape her child to be the perfect figurehead for the following her husband had founded - the Paradise Faith religion. Most of her daily duties and activities were decided by her husband, something she rarely struggled against as it made her feel like she had purpose.

There weren’t many opportunities to simply sit and be with her son outside of the roles they both played for the Paradise Faith following. Day in and day out, he was to bless the followers, and she was to support her husband and his wishes for their son.

The mother pulled what looked to be the remains of a dead beetle from the adolescent’s hair, carefully removing it and setting it aside. She had a rapidly growing pile of debris and junk at her side from everything she’d cleaned off of the child’s soft silk clothing. Finally, after tugging out a few wads of mud and carefully combing out a few more tangles, the woman sighed and relaxed her hands.

“All done,” she said, the boy turning to look at her with those wise, bright eyes the color of a shimmering rainbow itself. Her son blinked at her with a soft smile, one that seemed far too practiced for someone so small. 

“Thank you, mother,” the light-haired boy said softly, those cursed and blessed rainbow eyes glittering back at her. 

The child figurehead of the Eternal Paradise Faith didn’t even have a name - the father had decreed at the unique child’s birth that a messenger of the gods was simply too above such a human standard to be given one. And so, he was simply the child, the blessed one, their leader. A nameless and divine young being.

The woman didn’t reply, instead quickly shifting to her next topic of conversation as she stared downwards at her son. “Should we discuss why you left the temple again?”

The adolescent exhaled, his face neutral and eyes oddly mature. “I was following a creature I saw.”

She cocked her head at him, brow twitching. “An animal?”

“Yes.” The boy blinked slowly at her. “A small one, with wings. I wanted to catch it, so I could ask you what it was.”

The mother stared for a moment, silently noting how adult this child’s speech seemed to be. Had she contributed to this premature wisdom? 

“Was it a bird?” she asked.

The youngster shook his head of pale hair. “No. Smaller. Its body was thin and black, but its wings were wide and all different colors.” A smile spread across his pale, round little face. “It was very pretty.”

The woman was silent, staring at the child with an expression devoid of emotion. “A butterfly.”

The adolescent’s eyes lit up a bit, those unique rainbow irises catching the light and scattering it like a prism. “A butterfly, so that’s what it was called.”

“Yes.” The mother frowned slightly as she reached up and pulled another small piece of debris from her son’s front bangs, setting the small object on top of the pile before setting her hands on her knees. “You know that you are not allowed to leave this temple.”

That glimmer from the five year-old’s eyes dimmed slightly. “Yes… I know,” he said slowly.

The woman raised her chin slightly. “Then why did you leave again?”

The boy sighed, his tiny, soft hands clenched tightly into the soft clothing the mother and her servants had handmade just for him. He swallowed before looking up at her again, lips pursed. “Sometimes I just like to pretend I’m like other children.”

The mother didn’t even hesitate. She reached out and firmly slapped her offspring across the face, hard enough to knock the young boy hard to the side. The five year-old made a soft squeaking noise, surprise flashing across those soft features, before that face settled into complete and utter numbness.

“You are nothing like other children, and you’re never going to be,” the mother snapped firmly, her own palm stinging slightly from how hard she’d struck her boy. “You are special. You are blessed.”

The pale-haired adolescent didn’t look at her, slowly straightening and keeping his rainbow gaze blankly on the floor between the two of them. The soft glimmer from within his wide, multi-colored eyes had been completely snuffed out the moment she laid a hand across his round face. Those eyes seemed dull and devoid of life.

“Do you understand me?” the woman asked firmly as she raised her chin, eyes narrowed and the smaller individual. There wasn’t even an ounce of care or gentleness in her cold, hard gaze. 

“I understand,” her child said after a moment, his eyes still trained on the floor between them, and his soft hands limply clinging to those soft clothes.

The mother’s posture then softened, the woman reaching out with an exhale and taking her child by the cheeks. 

“You are perfect, my child,” she said as she forced the boy to meet her eyes. “There is no one as special or gifted as you.” 

She smiled very softly, did it appear too forced? The child’s gaze remained as blank and devoid as before. 

“It’s my duty to ensure you stay pure and loved,” she concluded as she pulled the five year-old to her bosom, embracing him in a gentle and soft hug.

“Yes, mother,” the pale-haired adolescent said instead, tone devoid of any detectable feeling. 

The boy didn’t hug her back.

Chapter Text

Sitting across the plush throne of his beautiful, serene audience chamber, Douma found himself rather bored. He was leaning with his chin in his pale hand, while an old man of maybe sixty years old laid out his entire life story at his feet, hoping for the cult leader’s sympathy and mercy. 

This old man had only just found his way into the gentle arms of the Eternal Paradise following, having heard rumors of a blessed savior living in a secluded temple amongst the mountains. He had decided to come and seek shelter within the cult’s walls, and was now telling a very long and grueling tale that was almost irritatingly familiar. Almost . 

His story was just like any other - a life of poverty and tragedy, struggling through a pathetic existence with a weak body, a plague mind, and no penny to his name. With no children and a dead wife, this man had no aim or purpose in life as he walked alone across the sodden, cruel earth.

Douma had heard it all a hundred times before.

As it was his duty and responsibility to listen to people like this, the demon was doing his best to pay attention to the pitiful human’s tale and get through the entire sob story without yawning. His mind kept wandering as he tried to listen, until he eventually snapped out of his thoughts and came back to the present moment.

Right then was another of these instances. The cult leader was quietly wondering about the two little children he had so kindly saved just under a century before - Daki and Gyutaro. When they first became demons, he’d cared for them dutifully, even taking them back to the cult and taking care of them for a while before they left upon reaching the rank of Upper Six together. 

It had been a long time since the two came to visit, though he enjoyed it whenever they did decide to drop by. He wondered if he’d seen them anytime soon as he sat there, before he remembered that he was supposed to be meeting with this man. 

Some dedicated leader he was, how humiliating. His glazed-over eyes focused again on the stranger kneeling in front of him, once again focusing on his plain face and tuning in to what he was saying.

Oh, look at that. He was crying now.

“I… I just, after my wife died, I have nothing else left to live for,” the old man whined in a broken voice, tears streaming down his weathered, wrinkled face and his bony hands softly trembling. “I don’t know what to do with myself besides to give up and let the earth take me… So that’s why I came here, after I heard of your graces and your mercy!“

He looked up, soft brown eyes meeting Douma’s rainbow gaze as he then began to beg, like every other desperate man, woman, and child before him.

“Please, your grace, accept me as your follower and lead me into the light of true paradise!” He pleaded earnestly, sobbing as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the floor in a groveling manner. “I beg of you, give me purpose and take me to eternal heaven!”

Douma lowered his hand and cocked his head as the man profusely sobbed his eyes out on the floor, blinking slowly as he exhaled softly. He then put on a very soft and delicate smile as he stood, crossing the pace between himself and the crying man. 

“You don’t need to beg like that anymore. I’ve already accepted you.”

The old man paused and looked up, his kind old eyes welling up even further. His smile was a cross between broken and beautiful. “You have…?”

“Of course,” Douma said in a comforting tone as he crouched down gracefully and took the old man’s face in his gentle hands, lifting him and smiling at him. “I decided as soon as you entered here that you, despite your brokenness and your failures, would be coming with me to paradise.”

The stranger then began to sob again, tears rolling down his face like a baby as he thanked Douma profusely, his words mixed between gratefulness and apologies for crying. His weak hands came up to hold onto Douma’s forearms as he cried, his body trembling with how overwhelmed he seemed to be.

The cult leader gently wiped his tears with his manicured thumbs, smiling and holding him like a parent would - no, should - hold their own child. “Don’t apologize. You are not at fault for the hand life has so cruelly dealt you.”

Douma truly meant that. It wasn’t this foolish man’s fault he was born into the world as a human, nor that he was so painfully dumb and naive. 

The old man heaved another sob, this time with joy filling his bright eyes as he moved up to grab onto Douma’s wrists. “Thank you…” He laughed softly through tears, before repeating himself. “Thank you, your grace…”

~~~

After meeting with the poor man and accepting him into the arms of his religion, Douma was informed that there were no other visitors that day, not yet anyway. Bored and uninterested in anything his present followers had to say, he decided to go try and find Inosuke. The little boy was seven now, having just recently turned that age a few weeks before.

Last he recalled, Douma had left the boy with a woman named Ami, someone Inosuke liked and Douma trusted - as much as he could trust a feeble-minded human, anyway. Ami was in fact the very same woman that had come after him the night Kotoha had become one with her leader’s flesh and blood - and had been assisting him in Inosuke’s care ever since that day.

The cult leader hummed softly to himself while he walked through the halls of the vast temple he had lived in for over a century, his feet barely making a sound with each gentle footstep. He was calm and softly smiling, hoping to find his little Inosuke and take the boy out to catch dragonflies that day - he’d come to learn that Inosuke adored insects of all kinds. 

As soon as he had learned this, Douma had made it a point to try and nurture that love of nature and make the child as happy as possible. It was an almost daily occurrence that Inosuke would catch something and come rushing with the little creature trapped in his hands in order to show his demon caretaker.The demon had always found the little bugs to be pretty as well, so the two of them caught all kinds of them quite often. Butterflies, grasshoppers, ladybugs, anything either of them could get their hands on - besides cockroaches, that is. 

Douma had a few specific memories about cockroaches from when he was human, and while he found the creatures interesting to say the least - such as the stubborn way they refused to die - he preferred to avoid the nasty, savage little creatures. The buzzing sound they had made as they crawled over the grisly bodies of his parents was something that had stuck with him over the years, for some reason.

After a little bit of walking, the cult leader found that he could hear Inosuke and Ami speaking to one another within the large open space of the lotus room. Douma chuckled to himself on approach, finding it rather amusing that the last few chapters of the story he was starring in had taken place in this room as well, and now here he was again. 

As the demon turned the corner and entered the wide room, he spotted dark-haired Ami holding Insouke high in her arms, both of them laughing as she spun him around in the air. Douma paused at the sight of this, his rainbow eyes going glassy a split second as his vision blurred, before coming into focus again.

For a brief, fraction of a moment, he could have sworn it was Kotoha lifting up the beloved little boy, that it was her laughter blending with Inosuke’s, that she was in her own body and once again standing just a few feet away from him. Then he snapped back into focus a moment after and realized that it was just another follower.

He smiled at the two humans as he approached them, Inosuke being the one spot him first.

“Douma-san!!” The boy cheered at the sight of his caretaker, wriggling in Ami’s arms before she set him down, at which point he came barreling towards the demon for a hug as soon as his little feet made contact with the ground.

“Hello, little one!” Douma replied as he bent down and returned the child’s embrace, grinning with glittering teeth. 

“Hello, your grace,” Ami said softly as she took a bow of greeting, her cheeks lightly dusted in his presence like it usually was. 

Ami was a beautiful woman of around thirty years old, and she looked quite youthful in appearance. A little under two decades before, she had come to him from a tragic accident involving her own children and a demon back when she was a teenager. Douma had always found it a little bit amusing that she would end up here, a follower of him, considering whose blood ran through his veins. 

He cast her a soft smile, standing once Inosuke had let go of him. “Hello again, sweetheart.”

This nickname made Ami glance up in surprise, the soft dusting of soft pink blush over her face deepening in color as she blinked at him, before she swallowed and looked down to break what she probably felt was awkwardness.

Douma avoided a laugh - finding her flustered behavior quite funny as he’d seen it on so many young men and women of the cult dozens of times before. He was well aware that Ami was one of the misguided members of the following who wanted him as more than a leader, but he hadn’t been anything specific by the nickname he’d addressed her by. He called everyone things like that. 

He wouldn’t go as far as to say he would reject her, but he wasn’t actively trying to get such a reaction out of her. This individual was one of the strongest women Douma knew, and yet she got flustered so easily.

The light-haired male smiled as he chuckled softly, choosing to change the subject and praise what he’d seen a moment before. “Inosuke is getting quite heavy these days, it’s amazing that you could lift him so high!” 

Ami looked up at him again, before smiling, her usual, aunt-like vibes returning quickly as she rested her hands on her hips. “He is getting heavy, isn’t he? That just means he’s being well taken care of.”

Douma chuckled, his eyes darting to Inosuke, who was standing on the edge of the walkway a little ways away, talking to himself about water bugs in very soft tones. The seven year old wasn’t quite chubby for his size, but he was plump enough that the cult leader had to agree with Ami - the child indeed looked well fed and healthy. 

“Well, I suppose part of that credit goes to you, Ami-chan,” Douma said as he turned back to the woman, smiling warmly. “If I didn’t have you helping me out with him when I’m busy, I could never raise him.”

That was a lie. He could have done it on his own easily, and he had dozens of other followers who would gladly assist with the rearing of the boy if he truly needed it. 

Ami returned his smile, but shook her head. “Please, founder, spare me. I enjoy spending time with Inosuke.”

The demon lightly squeezed her cheek, like a parent would a child. “Oh come on, give yourself some credit where it’s due, darling.”

Ami just laughed in response to this, her cheeks flushing again. Douma exhaled softly and lightly shook his head in amusement as his gaze drifted to Inosuke again. Ami also turned to watch the boy play as she and the cult leader stood there, each silent.

“…It’s such a shame what happened to his mother,” Ami suddenly said softly, drifting subtly closer to Douma. “Running away like that without her boy… Poor thing must have been so frightened to run the way she did.”

Douma didn’t answer her, his body cold as he watched Inosuke and silently listened to the woman’s words. He’d almost forgotten about the story he’d fed the cult members who had noticed Kotoha’s disappearance - that she’d fled the cult without Inosuke, hoping that the following would care for him better than she could. 

“I truly hope she’s doing better nowadays.” Ami heaved a sigh, turning to look at Douma as she gently reached up to rub his arm, her hand making contact just beneath his bicep. “…You’re a good father, you know that?”

He glanced at her, his brow twitching in the most subtle of ways as he blinked. “…You see me as Inosuke’s father?”

Ami’s face showed a vague look of confusion as she cocked her head hair slightly, still touching his arm. “Well, of course, your grace. We all…” The woman trailed off, looking back towards Inosuke.

Douma furrowed his brow and stared at the golden-eyed woman, admittedly rather confused by her words, as well as being a little bit… What was the word for it again? 

Bristled. He was bristled. 

“You all what, exactly?” He asked her.

Ami glanced at him again, squeezing his arm gently and smiling softly. “We all think you’re a good father to him, that’s all.”

He stared at her for a moment, rainbow eyes attempting to search her rosy face for some sort of clue to tell him what made them see him as this boy’s father. He looked away upon finding nothing of interest hidden in her expression, instead focusing back on Inosuke.

The blue-haired adolescent was holding a lotus in his hands now, still softly talking to himself as he plucked the leaves from the stem and dropped them back into the lake one by one. Despite the demon’s advanced senses, Douma couldn’t quite pick up on what Inosuke was saying.

He was still almost painfully aware of Ami’s gentle hold on his arm, the touch both acting as an odd comfort to the large man, as well as making him feel very exposed in some wordless way. Her hand was very warm against his flesh.

“Douma-san!” Inosuke suddenly declared as he stood up, coming bounding over to the demon and proudly holding up the flower. “Look!”

Ami dropped his arm when the boy approached, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the cult leader.

“What a lovely flower, Inosuke!” Douma said happily, bending down in order to better see the child. Inosuke had gotten taller lately, but he was still small. “What do you plan to do with it, darling?”

“It’s for you,” Inosuke replied, lifting his free hand and raising it towards Douma. “Com’ere.”

The demon blinked, one eyebrow raised as he lowered down into a full crouch so Inosuke could reach him. The little boy stuck out the tip of his tongue as he reached up with defter fingers than he used to possess, carefully placing the flower - which was soft pink in color - right behind Douma’s ear.

“There,” Insouke said as he stepped back, nodding in approval at his own work. 

Douma smiled, cocking his head as he watched this marvel of a boy. “Why thank you, butterfly!”

“That was very sweet,” Ami chimed in with a small chuckle, her knuckles brushing against her chin and a smile gracing her soft pink lips.

“Wait, stay there!” Inosuke turned sharply, running back towards the water and dropping to his knees, leaning down towards the water as he brushed some of his long bangs out of his face. “I have to get another one!”

“Oh, what a sweetheart,” Ami said as she watched the boy, shaking her head and sighing in an affectionate way. 

“He’s grown up so fast already, but he’s always been very kind,” Douma said in agreement with her, raising himself back into a standing position.

“Just like his daddy!” Ami replied lightheartedly, laughing to punctuate the joking nickname. 

Douma should have laughed with her, if he wanted her to believe he could experience jokes just like everyone else. Instead, the word “daddy” stuck on his mind, the man’s sharp teeth fearing softly inside his jaw as he watched Inosuke pull out another flower and again begin to pluck it. 

He gave her the most lighthearted glare he could muster. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

She blinked at him, slightly surprised, before nodding and chuckling to try and break whatever tension she though filled the air between them. “Heh, sorry!”

As he looked away from her, Douma did roll his eyes this time, mostly because he found humans pathetically insufferable. He just turned back to look at Inosuke.

“You know, the older he gets,” Ami started to say in order to change the subject, “the more he looks like his mom.”

Douma’s chest tightened slightly, the man knowing Ami’s words to be true. “He does, doesn’t he.”

“Lots of people actually mistake him for your daughter,” Ami said as she glanced at him, watching carefully as if gauging his reaction. She must have picked up on his odd behavior surrounding the idea of being the boy’s parent. “I can see why, honestly…”

“He looks very much like a little girl sometimes.” Douma felt something cold in his chest as he said this, as if his own words had stirred some old memory inside him.

“So small and pretty… Like a little girl.”

The cult leader went cold upon remembering these words being spoken to him at some point in a low, husky voice filled with ardor. He stared forward with glassy eyes, his mind elsewhere as he tried to recall where that memory had come from. 

The more he thought about it, he started to recall the sensation of cold hands against his bare skin, and a sweaty palm clamped tightly over his mouth. The vague memory was foggy enough that he guessed it had to have come from the earliest years he could remember - his childhood.

“Your grace, are you alright?”

The sensation of Ami’s fingers lightly brushing against the back of his hand was enough to bring him back to the present. He shook his head as if the shake away the out-of-place memory and turned to look into Ami’s golden eyes. Her irises were the color of bright amber, with darker flicks of deep honey cutting through them like arcs of lightning.

“Of course, I’m quite alright,” he assured her with a warm smile. “Why do you ask?”

“Your hands were shaking,” Ami replied, concern in her voice, “and you seemed… not all there.”

“Ah, I apologize for worrying you, I was simply reminiscing is all.” He gave her the most reassuring smile he could manage, before glancing back towards Inosuke.

With perfect timing, the little boy came prancing back over to them, this time with a white lotus in his hand. “Ami-san, this one’s for you, come down here!“

Ami’s face was warm with endearment as she bent down and tucked her hair, sitting perfectly still for the little boy to slide the blossom into her black locks. She then stood up and smiled very warmly at the little boy, her cheeks happily pink.

“Thank you, my sweet!” She said as she opened her arm for a hug, Douma simply watching in silence as Inosuke all but threw himself into her embrace.

“You’re welcome!” Inosuke declared proudly, hugging the woman tightly with her strong yet tiny arms. “You got one and Douma-san got one, because you guys are the people I love the most!”

At these words, the cult leader’s own mind seemed to drown out the words Inosuke and Ami continued to share. Their mixed voices seemed slurred and far away, almost like Douma was suddenly submerged underwater.

Why did Inosuke say he loved Ami? She was just another expendable follower, not anyone worth the boy’s time or deserving of his love. She was no one to him. Or at least, she was supposed to be no one.

“Douma-san, I’m talking to you!” Inosuke shook his caretaker again, holding tightly to his belt. “Helloooo?”

The demon suddenly blinked back into reality again, glancing down with an unfocused gaze to see Inosuke directly in front of him, shaking him. “Oh, sorry, yes?”

Inosuke pointed towards Ami, his eyes glittering with innocence. “Can Ami-san take me outside to pick flowers?”

He glanced at the woman in question, a brief vision of singular icy chord stabbing through than slender throat of hers flashing through his mind before he smiled down at Inosuke. “Of course!”

The boy’s emerald eyes lit up with pure joy as he looked back towards Ami as if asking her if she’d heard, before he turned back and threw his arms around Douma’s thick leg for a hug. 

“Thank you, Douma-san!” the boy sang, before he let go and made a dash towards Ami.

As the woman took the beloved seven year-of by the hand, she turned and waved at Douma, her golden eyes glittering. As she turned away to lead Inosuke out of the room, Douma silently studied her back. He took note of every small detail about her, like the way her hips swayed subtly when she walked, or the way her jet black hair framed her body like an inky waterfall.

He narrowed his eyes as the two turned the corner and disappeared from sight, his right hand clenching into a fist for a reason he wasn’t sure. His sharp nails cut deep into the pale skin of his palm, his thick and dark blood trickling down his hand and splattering gently to the flooring beneath him.

Chapter Text

Several weeks went by with Ami’s influence becoming ever clearer each passing day. It seemed that Inosuke spent more and more time with her than he did with Douma, a fact that the cult leader found incredibly irritating but had not yet acted upon. She treated the young boy like he was her own flesh and blood, and it almost made Douma physically sick to watch. 

Not to mention how touchy she had become with the demon himself - every day she seemed to test the boundaries of her servitude to him, letting her hand rest absentmindedly upon more and more intimate parts of him as time went on. First his arm and wrist, then his back and shoulder, and eventually his hip and waist. 

Douma didn’t know if Ami was purposely trying to test how far she could go with the man - given the fact that he knew she was smitten with him - but he did know that the touch made him feel physically awkward for some reason. Almost as if it were out of place. He really couldn’t blame her - she was a naive, primitive human girl who idolized him among men, but that didn’t change the fact that he found physical contact with her strange.

One night, long after the sun had gone down outside the temple and the following had sent themselves to their quarters, Douma had found himself sitting in the audience chamber idly, as Inosuke had chosen to spend the night in Ami’s quarters yet again. 

He had been by himself and frankly quite bored, so upon spotting a tall bottle of high-quality wine sitting in a basket not far from him - a gift from a follower - an idea had sparked in his head. The demon had been gifted various other bottles of strong liquor over time, so he had quite the collection of alcohol at hand. Just looking at what he had, the man had made a spontaneous decision to simply down as much of it as he could physically handle - which was, in fact, a fuck ton of alcohol.

He did this mostly out of boredom, or so he told himself.

He always felt very odd when he was drunk, especially since his astounding metabolism made it highly difficult for him to become intoxicated. Alcohol was, after all, essentially a poison, and his body was highly adaptable to toxins. This meant that he had to drink several times more than the average alcoholic to actually feel any effects of liquor.

His mind wandered as he sat there by himself, and his body felt the tiniest bit strange, almost like his actions were delayed by a fraction of a second. He didn’t get drunk very often - in fact, the last time he’d been intoxicated was probably around thirty years ago at a quick guess. He had always felt exactly like himself, just the tiniest bit off. It was almost as if he were viewing himself in the third person, and was trying to live like that.

At that moment, the tall demon was splayed on his back across his stupid violet seat, hand extended above him as he stared at the ceiling blankly. His rainbow eyes were slightly glassy and his head felt like it was filled with a thick fog. He stared at his shining, carefully manicured nails, face empty and body heavy. 

In his other hand, which was hanging off the edge of the cushion, he still held a bottle of thick, delectable wine, which was only about a quarter of the way full by now. His breath tasted of delicate fruits and sharp liquor from how much of it he had drank, and his face was flush and pink from the effects of the alcohol.

The demon lowered his outstretched hand as he exhaled deeply, before lifting his other arm for another drink. He held the heavy bottle above his head and simply poured what was left into his mouth, some of it missing and dripping down his chin and onto his neck. When the bottle was empty, he swallowed and tossed it aside, the glass item rolling off to somewhere he couldn’t see, just like all the others. He briefly wondered how many were littered across the room, and what his followers would think when they prepared the room for prayers the next morning.

Douma burped softly and wiped his mouth, sighing again as he leaned back and continued to silently stare at the ceiling. He distantly wondered why he had chosen to drink instead of any other pastime, given he didn’t even like being drunk in the first place. He quickly moved on from the thought, however, as he was a person who preferred not to dwell on pathetic lines of thought such as those regarding regret. 

He was aware of someone coming down the hall towards his chamber before he could actually even see the individual, the demon slowly turning his clouded head towards the entrance with a distant look on his flushed face. Upon seeing a small woman with long dark hair and a slender form, he narrowed his rainbow eyes, trying to discern which random follower it was with his hazy gaze.

When he saw that the woman was wearing a thin kimono of an eerily familiar pale green shade, his eyes shot fully open and he sat bolt upright, staring at her in disbelief. Even as his head throbbed from how fast he’d gotten up, his first thought was that his drunken eyes were purposely deceiving him - there was no possible way he was seeing her , in her own flesh and blood, standing across the room.

“…Douma-sama?”

The woman spoke his name softly, her hands clasped together over her chest as if nervous. Her voice was soft and familiar, but he very quickly recognized that he had in fact misjudged her identity - admittedly, much to his relief, though a small part of him did wish it had been her, and the time spent with nothing but her memory had been merely a lengthy dream. 

Regardless, Douma knew that was not Kotoha standing in the entrance as he’d at first thought, but instead golden-eyed Ami, dressed in a pale green robe that was eerily reminiscent of the kimono the other woman had once worn. He could see now, however, that the pattern was different. He also noticed that her hands weren’t threaded together, she was actually holding her clothes closed over her chest.

He stared at her, cocking his head as he thought back to the fact that she’d informally addressed him by his name, regardless of the sama honprific. No one in the cult ever referred to him by his first name unless they truly believed had the right - such as his past lovers, or his closest attendants.

“Did you need something, Ami-chan?” He asked her, eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Where’s Inosuke-kun?”

He heard her softly inhale when he said her name, the woman shifting on her feet and clasping her robe a little tighter over her breasts. “He’s asleep, and… I, um…”

He resisted rolling his eyes again at her rather annoying stalling behavior - why did he feel the urge to do that so often around this particular woman? “It’s quite late, darling, you should be sleeping. If you need something, you can tell me.”

Ami looked down at the ground, shaking her head very slowly. “No, it’s not…” She trailed off, before swallowing. “Do you have a moment?” She looked up at him as she asked, her voice sounding incredibly nervous and earnest.

Douma was about to respond to her, before he placed a hand over his mouth and quietly hiccuped into his palm. He then pulled it away and smiled at her, nodding. “Of course, what is it?”

Ami started to step closer to him, before she paused after accidentally kicking a discarded bottle, which rolled across the floor audibly. She stared at it for a moment, before she glanced up at the cult leader, studying him in the low lighting of the room. 

“Have… You been drinking, sir?” she asked, a wary edge to her soft voice.

The demon laughed softly, shrugging as he waved his hand almost dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about that, sweetheart.” Despite his words, his cheeks were still hot from his intoxication, and his vision swam just the tiniest bit.

She stared at him for a moment longer, before she swallowed and moved towards him. She kept her robe tight around her body as she walked, Douma wondering what she could possibly have needed so badly as to come to him so scantily dressed, not to mention well past midnight. 

When she reached the raised platform that Douma was perched upon, she came to a stop, her bare feet barely making a sound against the soft, cushioned flooring beneath her. She could probably smell the alcohol on him the moment she got near.

He leaned over and rested his cheekbone against his delicate knuckles, quietly waiting for her to speak on whatever it was she needed at such a late hour. When she didn’t say anything, just silently watching him as if trying to decide what to do, he raised an eyebrow.

“Ami,” he said calmly, “what is it?”

She stared up at him for a moment longer. The drunk demon could that she was very warm - based on the characteristics of her tender meat. She then swallowed and shifted in her feet again. “How… How do you see me, sir?”

He felt like he was being asked a trick question. He smiled softly, cocking his head at her as if endeared. “Hm… I see you as a strong and beautiful woman who is well deserving of her place among my followers,” he told her gently, his words notably clear despite being quite tipsy. “Why do you ask, darling?”

The woman, her amber eyes glittering earnestly, lifted her eyebrows as if pleading, a small smile forming upon her round mouth. “…You think I’m beautiful, my lord?“

He noticed his mild mistake in that wording when she asked the question, but he was honestly too drunk to notice the implications and too detached from her to care. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

Douma sensed it. The way her heart fluttered within her chest at his words. Yet still, he hardly paid any mind to it - such an out of character thing for an observant and tactical man like him. He was in an oddly careless state towards this idiotic woman, one that was induced by the intoxicants.

When Ami suddenly and boldly stepped up onto the platform with him, however, Douma blinked, dumbfounded - No followers had ever been allowed upon his pedestal besides Kotoha and Inosuke, both of whom had been mere exceptions to a rule that had existed for over a century. The founder was the only person who was supposed to occupy this sacred space, so why in the hell was Ami up here?

When she stood on the same level as him, her face was above his, because he was sitting. The woman stepped closer to him as he blinked up at her in confusion, wondering what in the hell was going on and what exactly it was that this individual wanted from him.

When Ami suddenly reached out with a soft hand and traced his strong jawline with her fingertip, Douma’s skin went chill. He stared at the bold woman in front of him, suddenly all too aware of that eerily familiar look of a quiet lust in her normally bright amber eyes. When she let her finger run down to his chin and very carefully point his face just the tiniest bit upwards, his mind glazed over.

In that moment, as she looked down at him with her gentle fingers wandering down to his collarbone, he understood what it was this stupid woman wanted.

A woman of the cult coming onto him before he did wasn’t really an uncommon occurrence, but it happened more often with male followers than it did with females. Maybe that was why he felt so pinned underneath her warm gaze, why he didn’t know how to react to her oddly subtle advances. It would normally be so easy for him to accept something like this, and yet when it came to this woman he had come to almost detest, he had no idea what he was doing. 

“Ami, wait,” he started to say, a bead of sweat forming upon his brow as he tried to reach a hand and stop her from getting any closer. Before she could let him, however, the woman leaned forward, hand against his plush yet muscular chest, and pressed her soft lips against his. 

He didn’t know what to do at first. She kissed him in a chaste manner for just a moment, before his body suddenly seemed to kick into gear for him by memory as he instinctively deepened the action without actively meaning to, at which point he mentally checked out of what was happening.

Everything that unfolded next would be remembered as a strange and hazy blur by the cult leader, come morning. Small things would stick out to him when he tried to recall the sex itself, such as the sticky sensation of her bare skin against his, or how tiny her body was compared to him, but otherwise the incident would blur over into something he couldn’t quite remember in full detail besides the aftermath.

Douma didn’t know how much time he had spent with her. It was, however, still nightfall by the time Ami finally ran out of stamina, the sweaty woman collapsing against his strong chest as her body heaved with mixed sensations of pleasure and exhaustion. His hands were gently gripping her forearms, seeming to engulf the entire limb and even further dwarf her pitiful human frame. Hers, meanwhile, rested against his strong chest, as they had remained for almost the entirety of the intimacy between them.

He was still wearing a majority of his clothes, but it had turned out that Ami had been wearing nothing underneath her robe, so she was completely bare against him, her back softly glistening in the low lighting.

He came to understand that sex had been exactly what she to him for from the start, if her lack of proper clothing weren’t enough of a hint on its own. She reminded him so unnervingly of multiple people from the time when he was still a human, and yet he couldn’t place who any of them were.

Ami’s breath was hot and heavy against his flesh, and she seemed quite content with what unfolded between herself and the cult leader she seemed to adore so much. Douma, on the other hand, didn’t feel the least bit satisfied. Instead, he felt physically out of himself, as though his skin were almost painfully crawling. He nearly felt like he needed to bathe himself and wash away what remained of this woman’s DNA off of his flesh. Why, he had no idea.

“Founder…” Ami said softly as she shifted her head, the side of her face still pressed to his chest while her eyes met his in a look of tranquil delight. “You’re very warm.”

He looked down at her quietly, his face empty for a moment until he put on a very soft smile and reached up to stroke her long hair, which was sticky against her sweaty skin. He simply gave a hum of acknowledgment as he did so, unsure what to say to her. His mouth still tasted of alcohol, but it was now twinged with the tangy, sweet flavor of this woman.

Ami sat up just slightly, one hand lifting from his chest in order to silently trace his jaw again in a way that was appraising and slow. The motion was so reminiscent of the gentle and caring way Kotoha used to touch him that Douma almost felt shot into the past for a moment, his eyes once again briefly deceiving him as the vision of Ami blurred and became Kotoha for a split second. 

That was, until he suddenly became aware again of the stark differences between the sweet, naive young woman he had grown so fond of in their short time together, and this tangy-tasting girl who seemed to be desperately seeking to replace her.

Kotoha was soft, gentle, and endearingly stupid. Ami, on the other hand, was bold, annoying, and glaringly audacious. Kotoha smelled of flowers and sweet nothings. Ami tasted of sour fruits and bitter candy. Kotoha’s green eyes were bright, innocent, and filled with wonder. Ami’s yellow eyes were sharper, and she looked upon the cult leader with a different kind of love than what Kotoha had always shown.

Kotoha’s love was sweet and soft, built on her naive yet pure trust in the demon who had rescued her and her son. Ami’s love was physical, based on how attractive and endearing she found the leader of the following.

When Ami pulled back her hand and lowered her head again, Douma found himself almost glaring down at her, even if she was no longer looking at him. Her breasts were pressed against his own chest and her soft skin was warm against his body - both seemingly normal things about a human being that close to someone, and both factors just made Douma’s skin crawl even further.

The demon’s brow furrowed into a soft frown as he stared at her, before he felt a familiar, dull ache in his razor-sharp canine teeth. The hairs on his neck slowly pricked up one by one, and his rainbow eyes took on a dim, inhuman glow. He lifted his slender hand slowly and placed a singular claw right beneath her chin, applying gentle pressure in order to lift her rosy-skinned face.

“Hm?” She looked up at him quizzically, those honey-colored eyes glittering with what looked to be interest.

He studied her for a moment, his gums seeming to be almost painfully cold as he drank in the ethereal smell of a human female. He didn’t smile at her, his eyes flicking from her face to her slender neck - much to her apparent interest as she watched him. Her face flushed a slightly deeper shade, and he sensed her heart fluttering again within her delicate ribcage. 

Douma leaned forward slowly, his sharp claw still pressed gently to her chin. His liquor-soaked breath danced along her jaw and collarbone as he got closer, and he saw goosebumps rise against her pale skin where his breath ghosted her flesh. A soft exhale of pleasure escaped her lips when he lifted her head even further, his own mouth mere breaths away from her neck. 

“Douma…” she said softly, and the demon could sense her lust reigniting just from such a small, nearly touch less action from him - leaning close and simply breathing against her neck.

Humans were so funny.

Without any further hesitation, the cult leader turned his head suddenly and snapped his teeth like a predator in the wild, his fangs sinking into the succulent flesh of Ami’s throat easier than a hand gently dipped into tranquil waters. Her blood gushed through the wounds and directly into his mouth within the subsequent second. Her blood tasted far more bitter than Kotoha’s had seven years ago.

The woman went rigid as soon as his teeth penetrated her skin, a pained gasp escaping her as shock and pain rippled over her bare, exposed body. Her shaking, seemingly cramped hands came up to his strong shoulders, her weak fingers digging into his skin as she futilely tried to get him to let go of her, despite the fact that he had pierced one of the most vulnerable parts of her body. She would be dead in minutes.

No words left Ami’s mouth as she feebly struggled, and Douma barely moved while the woman began to choke on her own blood. He just stayed where he was for several moments, teeth embedded in her flesh.

Finally, he jerked his head backwards from her, brutally ripping off the hearty piece of her flesh that he’d been holding onto in his teeth. She stayed alive for barely a second longer, the look in her eyes one of pure shock and confusion, before the blood pouring like a waterfall from her shredded throat caused her to slump forward against him, her body completely limp.

Douma chewed Ami’s flesh thoroughly before he swallowed, his face practically drenched in her fresh blood while she continued to bleed out against his clothed chest. As he lifted her slack and frail body in order to push her weight off of his chest, he thought of how much she now resembled Kotoha with her own blood soaking her entire chest and neck.

The demon took ahold of Ami’s limp forearm in his large hand, his chin dripping with her scarlet life fluid as he sharply and cleanly twisted the limb, which snapped off of her body with several sucking crunches and a gush of fresh blood. 

It was as he was lifting her detached arm to his bloody teeth that another masculine voice suddenly cut through the silence between himself and his meal, catching him off guard.

“You sick bastard…”

Douma’s glowing eyes snapped upwards as soon as he heard the voice. The upper two demon paused the bite he’d been about to take, his gaze locking onto a relatively small and rather sticky silhouette standing in the dimly lit doorway - the same space that Ami had appeared in a short time earlier.

Given that he was a demon and could see quite well in the low lighting, his eyes flicked over the newcomer’s form and quickly took in the details about their appearance. Short fluffy hair, dark stripes against pale skin, golden eyes that glowed like precious stones in the darkness.

Douma’s eyes glittered with gleeful recognition as soon as he laid eyes on the unannounced visitor, face flushing with an excitement he wasn’t sure was faked or not. Even with his face covered in blood and a nude corpse against his body, the drunken demon grinned and addressed the newcomer with an eager and affectionate tone of voice.

“Why hello there, Akaza-dono, what a surprise!”

Chapter Text

As soon as Douma said his name, Akaza lifted his chin in disgust, arms crossed over his strong chest. The coral-haired demon’s gleaming eyes flicked over the gruesome scene before him, but he didn’t say a word. There was disdain written all over his delicately featured face.

“Seeing you here really is a rare occurrence!” Douma went on to say, putting on a gleeful smile as he cocked his head affectionately. 

Akaza bared his teeth from across the room, his nose twitching. “I’d rather be anywhere else besides here.”

The upper two demon laughed, a few specks of blood flying from his lips and splattering against the pale chest of Ami’s corpse. “Ah, you’re so funny, Akaza-dono!” He then held out the woman’s bloodied limb in his hand. “Do you want some?”

The coral-haired demon’s frown deepened, and immediately he shook his head. “No.”

Douma shrugged. “Very well! So, what brings you to my temple then, hm?” He cocked his head at the upper three demon, reaching up to take a bite of the arm Akaza had refused. He chewed the chunk as he waited for an answer.

Akaza rolled his eyes and uncrossed his arms, stepping farther into the chambers and taking a short glance behind him into the darkened halls of the cult, before looking back towards Douma. “Muzan-sama sent me.”

The lighter-haired demon’s eyes brightened a bit with mild interest, the man swallowing down the chunk of flesh he’d torn from Ami’s arm. “Oh, did he really? What for?”

The upper three demon rolled his eyes, setting one fist on his hip and letting the other fall slack. “To check on you and your stupid pet human.”

Douma snorted with amusement, looking away from Akaza as he dropped Ami’s arm, and then pushed her body off of him altogether, the dead woman falling limp onto the floor with a heavy thunk. “Pet human, is that what Muzan-sama is calling him?”

Akaza grimaced at the naked, bloody body sprawled across the tatami flooring, his eyes lingering on it for a moment before he looked back up at Douma again. “Isn’t that what it is?”

“I wouldn’t really call him a pet, but…” Douma trailed off, standing up and also staring at Ami’s body as he shrugged again. “Well, you can call him whatever you want.”

The striped demon glanced down at the woman again, and jutted his chin towards it almost gingerly. “Who’s that?” It was like he couldn’t resist asking, despite how uncomfortable he obviously was.

Douma - who had been refastening his belt as he was asked, given what had happened right before Ami’s death - looked up and chuckled. “No one important, just a very pushy woman.“

Akaza’s eyes flicked to Douma’s belt with another frown, then up at the taller demon’s flushed face and rumpled clothes, before finally looking at Ami’s bare corpse. A look of irritated realization crossed his pretty face as he finally put the pieces together of what must have happened before his arrival. 

“You make me sick,” he said with a slight growl to his voice.

“Hm?” Douma finished what he had been doing with his belt and cocked his head, blood still coating his face. “What do you mean?”

Akaza shook his head and looked away, not answering. He then sniffed the air a few times, and crossed his arms, slowly turning to stare at Douma again. “You’re drunk.”

The cult leader laughed, stepping down off the platform and picking up Ami’s dismembered arm again. “I was bored.”

“Bored…” Akaza nodded slowly as if trying to follow along. “You were so bored that you purposely got drunk off your ass?”

“Exactly!” Douma replied cheerfully, looking down at the limb in his hand and noticing that he’d already eaten off her entire hand without paying much attention. “My body’s so adaptable and stuff that it’s hard to get drunk, so I guess I wanted to see how to get around that!”

The smaller demon stared at him, eyes cold and calculative as if trying to make sense of the man before him. “…Whatever. Where’s your little pet?”

“He’s sleeping, of course,” Douma replied, absentmindedly pressing what was left of Ami’s arm to his chest, letting the nasty chunk of human meat melt into his flesh as he kept talking. “A little boy like him needs a healthy amount of sleep.”

Akaza watched the other demon with a look of pure revulsion on his face, yet with a glint of guilty interest, like he wanted to look away and yet just couldn’t. Noticing the peculiar expression, Douma suddenly realized that the lower-ranked male had never actually seen him absorb anything. 

“Oh, sorry! You’ve never seen me do that, have you?” The rainbow-eyed demon laughed, finally reaching up and wiping some of the blood from his lips while the rest sank into his skin like water on dry stone - much to Akaza’s further disgust.

“…Have you always been able to do that?” He asked, golden eyes flicking to the other’s face as the blood soaked into his pale skin.

“Mhm!” Douma nodded, taking a seat on the edge of his raised platform. “Ever since I became a demon.” He then looked away, grabbed Ami by the ankle, and dragged her closer to him, leaving a macabre smear of blood in the wake of her body. 

“That’s…” Akaza shook his head, nose twitching. “Disgusting.”

The larger demon laughed as he dragged Ami’s bare, cooling corpse into his lap, sitting her up so he was supporting her upper half with his left arm. “Ha, sorry about that, Akaza-dono!”

Akaza watched in disgusted silence as Douma pressed his arm around Ami’s shoulders, her much smaller body beginning to meld into his just like before. His flesh seemed to soften and distort as he pulled her into him, and it came with a very odd sensation for Douma - like his flesh had been literally liquified, in fact - but he had had long gotten used to it.

“…Why don’t you just eat like a regular demon?” Akaza asked, despite the fact that eating women made him deeply uncomfortable. It would just be easier to watch than this shit.

Douma shrugged, Ami’s body halfway absorbed into him already, as he had taken her in remarkably fast. “Just not in the mood to, I suppose!”

“Tch.” Akaza rolled his eyes and looked away, his golden gaze tracing the room around him with an irritated glare. “Can’t you just go wake up the little shit so I can get the hell out of here.”

Akaza flinched upon suddenly sensing the presence of Douma at his side instead of across the room, the smaller demon turning with a fist raised to strike the other. Douma, however - having fully absorbed Ami already - just grinned down at him, resting one hand on the other’s shoulder gently.

“Don’t call Insouke that again,” he said with a smile, before squeezing Akaza’s shoulder. “And no, I can’t wake him up! I just told you that he needs to rest.”

The coral-haired male, feeling caught off guard and unnerved by Douma as usual, slowly lowered his arm, continuing to eye the other warily. “Why are you taking care of the thing, anyway?”

Douma shrugged, his demeanor much more carefree and relaxed by Akaza asking that it had been with Muzan. “Mm, not sure, really. He’s such a delight, though! He’s wanted to meet you for a while now.”

“Me?” Akaza narrowed his eyes, watching Douma as the taller demon let go of his shoulder. “So he knows about demons, then?”

“I didn’t say that…” Douma said with a slightly different kind of smile, like he was trying to hide something. He was avoiding eye contact with Akaza as he instead looked upwards and to the side. “He just wanted to meet my best friend.”

The upper three demon’s frown instantly deepened upon hearing this, and his eyes darkened noticeably. “He’s going to have to keep waiting, then.”

Douma snorted again, understanding the implication and finding it amusing. “Oh come on, we’re friends.”

“No,” the other male replied with a slight growl to his voice, “we’re not. I can’t stand you.”

The cult leader didn’t miss a beat, reaching over just to gently place his index finger beneath Akaza’s chin, tilting the smaller’s face up slightly. He smiled down at the other demon, who was caught off guard and simply stared back up at him with a softly surprised look on his face.

“You sure about that, Aki?” Douma asked with a hint of honey dipped into his voice. Akaza could smell the alcohol on his breath.

The tattooed male stared up at him for a second as if processing and trying to figure out how to respond, before he swatted at Douma’s hand and pulled his chin away, scoffing and looking away. “Fuck you.”

Douma just giggled, reaching up his fingertip to trail the thick navy tattoo that ran along the bridge of Akaza’s nose, before tapping the other demon’s nose and stepping back. Akaza's nose crinkled at this, but Douma was sure he saw the subtlest of flushes upon the other's cheeks.

The upper two demon hiccuped from the alcohol as he folded his arms across his chest, one hand coming up to rest against his own chin. “It’s still pretty early for Inosuke to be up yet, you know, he’ll probably sleep for another few hours.”

“Inosuke,” Akaza repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Is that its name?”

“Oh, yes!” The cult leader said with a warm smile. “Inosuke Hashibira.”

The smaller demon raised one eyebrow. “He has a last name…”

“Of course he does,” Douma said with a cock of his head, as if confused. 

“Does he not have yours?” Akaza asked, eyes narrowed.

Douma paused, blinking as if he hadn’t processed properly. Then he laughed. “No, I let him keep his mother’s. I don’t think I had a last name! I mean, I didn’t even have a first name when I was human.”

The smaller demon stared at him. “What kind of parents don’t name their kid?”

“The same kind of parents who use their child to get money and sex, I guess,” Douma replied without missing a beat, shrugging. “My father thought I was above a human name and whatnot, so everyone just called me the founder or the blessing until Muzan-sama came along and gave me a name of my very own.”

At the first part of what Douma said, Akaza’s eyes briefly glinted with a mild horror, as despite the way Douma could sometimes boast about his cult, he hadn’t ever truly told anyone the extent of his human life. Then, Akaza quickly pushed away any sympathy he felt and rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” he muttered. 

The cult leader just smiled and sighed as he glanced back towards the bloody smear he’d left upon his platform, already planning to have someone clean it up and then devour that same person afterwards, to avoid any difficult questions. 

He knew of a few followers who would do just about anything when asked, even going as far as to boast about how they’d kill without hesitation if their beloved leader just said the word. He figured one of these misguided individuals would gladly clean up a bloody mess for him without causing too much of a fuss. 

Eating them would just be a precaution, though the bonus snack would be nice. The cult leader couldn’t have anyone going around talking about the things they’d done for him, or spreading any rumors about the source of such blood. If anything suspicious got to little Inosuke’s ears and the bright boy started asking questions, Douma didn’t know what he would do. He just knew that he had to avoid a repeat of history, and keep Inosuke from learning the secret that ripped his mother away for as long as possible.

“What are you plotting about?” Akaza asked in an annoyed and muttering tone as he stared at Douma.

The taller demon’s gaze bounced back to Akaza’s pretty features, before he smiled softly. “Hm? What did you say, Akaza-dono?”

The other chose not to repeat himself, leaving Douma standing there idly before he realized that the question must not have mattered if Akaza wasn’t going to say it again. He shrugged and began to walk back over towards his pedestal, planning to retrieve the fans that Ami had slipped from his belt and dropped to the floor when she had been partially undressing him. 

He suddenly paused, however, upon sensing another presence in the room, one he knew very well. He turned around sharply, rainbow eyes locking onto the small shape in the dark doorway just as the little boy standing there had opened his mouth to speak.

“Who is that?” Inosuke asked as he rubbed his tired eyes and pointed groggily at Akaza, who stared at him with a look that could be expected of someone who’d never been so close to a human child before.

The blue-haired little boy startled at Douma’s sudden presence at his side, the man quickly wishing the child into his arms and turning all the way around so Inosuke couldn’t see the blood splattered across the room. Even if it was dark, the boy was sharp like his mother. The way he held the boy, Inosuke faced the hallway, Douma faced the rest of the room - and the closely watching Akaza.

“That’s a friend of mine, my flower, why are you awake so early?” Douma’s eyes were on Akaza as he rubbed the little boy’s back, trying to discern what Akaza thought of his reaction for child’s sudden presence.

Inosuke murmured softly as a reply, his words too sleepy and slurred to be understood.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” Douma asked, and he felt Inosuke’s skin softly beneath his hand as if he’d been awoken again.

“I couldn’t find Ami-san…” he said softly, yawning and turning to press his face to Douma’s cold neck. “I was lookin’ for her.”

Akaza saw the way Douma winced slightly, and the upper three demon quickly made the connection between this “Ami-san” and the dead woman that Douma had just devoured mere minutes prior to the boy’s entrance to the room.

“Ami just went to do something for me,” Douma explained, giving the first excuse he could think of. “I'm sure she’s okay, but aren’t you sleepy?”

“Mhm…” Inosuke nodded into Douma’s shirt. “When will she come back?”

“Uh…” Douma’s eyes flicked to the bloodstain across the room, then to Akaza, and back to the blood. He just changed the subject. “Let’s just get you back to bed, my flower. Would you like to sleep in my room?”

He felt Inosuke nod again, and Douma glanced at Akaza. They quickly came to a silent agreement that the smaller demon would stay and wait there, while Douma went off to put the child back to bed. This decision was mutually made just through eye contact.

As soon as they agreed, Douma nodded at Akaza before backing out of the room, making way down the hall with a heavy exhale as he no longer had to worry about the boy seeing the blood. 

Inosuke was already feeling heavy on his shoulder, so the boy had probably already fallen back to sleep. Laying him down would be easy, and then he could get back to Akaza as soon as possible and speak to the other demon.

As Douma was laying Inosuke down in the personal quarters once again and gently pulling a blanket over the seven year-old’s shoulders, the boy stirred, shifting and reaching up towards the demon with grubby hands.

“Mama?” the boy whimpered softly, earning a stunned reaction from Douma as soon as he heard the unexpected word leave Inosuke’s mouth. 

Was he trying to call for Kotoha? Did he remember her without being aware of it?

It took the man a moment to lean down and return the hug that Inosuke was looking for, and the little boy wrapped his little but strong arms around Douma’s neck with a gentle snort. After a moment, the boy’s hands relaxed and slipped off of Douma’s neck, the demon remaining where he was for a moment before straightening and staring down at the human.

He had no idea what to make of what had just happened. He just stood up slowly, eyes lingering on the child for several moments, before he turned around and left in that same stunned silence, shutting the doors behind him softly. 

Chapter Text

When Douma arrived back at the audience chamber with a slightly distant look in his eye, he found fluffy-haired Akaza farther back in the room, towards the platform. He seemed to be wandering as his judgmental and critical gaze scanned all the various trinkets, gifts, and decor that scattered the room.

The upper three demon turned his head when Douma re-emerged, his deep frown yet distinctly soft gaze begging the question without him having to say anything.

“Yes,” Douma confirmed with a small wave of his hand. “That was my Inosuke.”

Akaza’s golden, cat-like eyes tracked the larger male as Douma crossed the room and stepped back up onto his platform in order to take a seat again. The coral-haired demon crossed his arms and turned his body fully in order to glare at the cult leader as the larger man passed by.

“You sent him back to bed,” Akaza said with a narrowed gaze.

Douma, now sitting cross-legged on his mock throne while supporting his jaw against one palm, nodded. “What an astute observation.” 

Despite the soft smile on his face and the carefree body language he was exhibiting, his words reeked of sarcasm - something that was extremely out of character for a seemingly kind-hearted man like him.

Akaza picked up on the strange behavior immediately, his brow twitching as he cocked his head just slightly, as if seeing Douma at a different angle might help him understand the other man even the tiniest bit better.

Douma blinked right back at him, raising one eyebrow as he smiled a little wider, cocking his head as well in order to get a better look at the smaller demon. “Hm? Did you need something?”

The coral-haired demon just stared, before shaking his head and scoffing as he looked away again. “Nothing.”

The upper two demon raised an eyebrow at Akaza, curious as to what was going on within the smaller’s pretty mind. Then he shrugged, deciding he didn’t really care as he turned and reached out for yet another nearby bottle of liquor, one he apparently hadn’t opened yet.

“Don’t do that,” Akaza muttered as he glared hard at Douma’s hand, inhaling deeply. “You’re going to get yourself sick by drinking human shit.”

“Mm, I think I’ll be alright,” Douma replied as he pulled the bottle into his lap, using one of his sharp blue nails to pop the fine wax seal. Then he glanced over to the other demon, whom he noticed had drifted a tiny bit closer to the pedestal. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re worried about me, Akaza-dono?”

The upper three demon let out an audible hissing noise, as if personally offended by Douma’s teasing remark. Knowing him, he probably was.

“I’m not worried, you fool, I don’t want to be responsible for you,” Akaza snapped in clarification, his eyes almost as icy as Douma’s blood demon art. “There is no world where I would find myself worried about a freak like you.”

As he was lifting the bottle to his lips to take the first sip, Douma hesitated, his brow furrowing just slightly as he lowered it again. “Freak?”

“Freak,” Akaza repeated, a little bit harsher. 

Douma just stared at him for a moment, silently wondering if the odd way his skin was buzzing was a sign he was supposed to be upset. Then he just shrugged it off, lifted the bottle again, and took a long, slow sip of the sharp, bitter liquid.

Mid-drink, Douma startled softly when he found that Akaza was suddenly upon the platform with him - Douma saw a flash of Ami’s earlier actions for a split second, before the female’s visage disappeared and became Akaza again. The other demon actually snatched the bottle from his hand and lifted it for a drink of his own. 

Douma blinked as he watched the other demon gulp down the wine, slightly stunned. His rainbow-colored gaze slowly drifted to Akaza’s throat. He watched as the other demon’s neck rippled with each hearty swallow he took, before the coral-haired male finally lowered the bottle, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and tossed the empty vessel aside with the others - he had guzzled it dry.

Unlike when Douma had discarded his own empty bottles, the one Akaza threw shattered on impact with the flooring and caused a large crash to resound through the chambers - most likely because Akaza’s physical strength manifested differently than Douma’s.

The Upper Two demon raised a slender finger to his lips as he made a shushing noise at Akaza, smiling. “Shh, unless you want my followers to come in here and start asking questions!”

Akaza’s head turned slowly towards him, brow furrowed as if looking down on something pathetic and revolting - perhaps like a slug writhing in cold mud. “…I don’t want to speak to any of your delusional livestock.”

Douma’s eyebrows raised slightly, his smile wavering. The idea of the cult members being similar to cattle almost made him want to giggle, it was so accurate to how he treated and kept them. He then cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at Akaza, something else coming to mind.

“Didn’t you say I was going to get sick?” He asked, reaching out to wipe a small drop of burgundy wine from the corner of Akaza’s mouth. “What about you, hm?”

Akaza frowned deeply when Douma touched him, jerking away mildly from the touch and staring at Douma’s hand as if it were a weapon. Then he exhaled sharply through his nose like an animal, and looked away. He said nothing about the question that had been asked.

The light-haired demon chose not to repeat himself, instead sighing heavily and leaning backwards in his seat until his eyes faced the ceiling. A soft groan escaped him from the depths of his throat, but it was soft and hardly noticeable.

“I’m awfully tired.”

Douma blinked his eyes a few times after speaking, truly feeling a bit drowsy - most likely from the alcohol, the meal he’d consumed, or both - as he laid there. 

“And bored,” he added.

Akaza turned his head away from the bloodstains he’d been studying - the only physical evidence that remained to prove Ami had ever truly existed - and stared with disdain at Douma while the other man stared aimlessly at the ceiling above him.

The tattooed man’s face showed nothing but irritation. “And?”

Douma hummed softly, drifting his eyes off of nothingness and focusing fully on Akaza. He was still smiling like always. “Hm?”

Akaza openly glared at him. “What’s your point?”

The other upper moon chucked softly and looked away,  before raising his arms and shrugging. “Dunno.”

Amusement crossed Douma’s face at the way Akaza rolled his eyes following that answer. He smiled almost with endearment at the tattooed fellow demon, blanking away a bit of cloudiness from his rainbow eyes.

“You could just come back later, you know,” Douma said with a cock of his head. “Once Inosuke is ready to get up?”

“No,” Akaza replied. “Orders.”

Douma hummed. “Ah. I see then…”

“Besides,” the upper three demon said as he moved to sit on the very edge of the platform, his back to Douma, “the sun is rising soon.”

Another drawn-out hum was the only reply Akaza got that time.

For a few moments, things were quiet between the two men. Douma sat idly, head lulled to the side as his gaze traced the strong muscles of Akaza’s lower back. Akaza himself, meanwhile, stared slightly downwards at nothing in particular, his golden eyes glazed over as if he was thinking about something distant.

After a bit, Akaza inhaled and straightened his back, turning his hips to raise an almost skeptical eyebrow at the cult leader. “…You have more of that stuff?”

Douma looked at him quizzically. “Hm? You mean the wine?”

The coral-haired demon nodded, brow furrowed. “Yeah.”

“Ah.” 

The lighter-haired man took a breath and leaned forward, shifting his posture and position until he was halfway between laying down and sitting up. From there, he pointed one long, slender claw towards a nearby basket of finely woven cloth, which contained yet more alcohol.

“There might be something you’ll like in there,” he said as he lowered his arm. 

Akaza said nothing in reply, just getting up and making his way over to the basket. Douma’s gaze tracked him as the smaller demon dropped into a crouch, carefully pulling out a bottle and turning it to inspect the contents. After seemingly deciding that one wasn’t to his taste, he put it back with a soft glass clink, and removed another. That one was apparently what he was looking for, and as soon as he picked it up he removed the seal. Once he got it off he tossed the lid aside and took a drink, rising from his crouch and throwing his head back.

“…Drinking really doesn’t seem much like you,” Douma said as he watched Akaza move back into the place he’d been sitting before, the sentence more of an observation than anything to be replied to.

“Being here in the first place isn’t like me, either,” Akaza replied rather saltily, shooting a subtle glare Douma’s way.

The cult leader gave a closed mouth chuckle. “I suppose that’s true.”

Douma looked away with a soft smile, his eyelids heavy as he blinked slowly. Soon, a wide yawn was pulled from his teeth, the man cracking his neck to either side as he stretched and shifted how he was sitting into a slightly more comfortable position.

The demon then turned his head again, his gaze once again dragging slowly along the muscular shape of Akaza’s toned back for a few moments. There was something inherently beautiful about Upper Three, at least through Douma’s eyes. Not just that he was a physical marvel of unique features, but in the turmoil that Douma could sense within him — the cult leader may not have been able to feel his own emotions, but he was keen at sensing that of others. 

There was an unspoken, mysterious sadness lingering within Akaza, Douma could see it behind the disdain that glinted in his golden eyes. Some sort of longing, a silent grief that swirled about inside the demon like a poison.

Douma inhaled deeply as he blinked again, his long dark lashes fluttering slightly. “Akaza-dono?”

Upper Three, in the middle of another drink, swallowed and lowered the pilfered bottle, turning his head just slightly as he wiped his mouth. “What.”

“…I can trust you if I fall asleep, right?” Douma asked, his head pulling slightly to the side. His digestion of Ami was causing him to feel far more exhausted than eating a human normally would - perhaps the alcohol had in fact weakened his body a little. 

Akaza turned his head a little more, so Douma could more or less see him in side profile. “What are you talking about?”

“That girl has taken quite a bit of energy out of me,” the light-haired male replied with a breathy laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’m about to fall asleep.”

Akaza’s eyes narrowed, and Douma saw his nose twitch, as if confused. “…Whatever.”

Douma raised an eyebrow, before taking a deep breath and shifting again. He was a bit too large to sit comfortably in this seat, but his drunken body was starting to feel a bit too heavy to move.

“Wake me up when Inosuke comes back?” he asked rather softly, cocking his head and fighting to keep his eyes open.

Akaza turned fully around to face Douma, a deep frown etched into his face. He clearly didn’t like the idea of being more or less alone in the temple, but after a moment, he exhaled through his nose and looked away. “Yeah. Sure.”

Douma smiled, waving his hand as he looked towards the ceiling again. “Hah, thank you.”

Sure enough, the Upper Two demon had fallen fast asleep across his cushion a moment or two later.

Chapter Text

It took Akaza a few moments to notice that Upper Two had gone completely silent.

Confused by the lack of annoying noise coming from the talkative fellow oni, Akaza furrowed his thin brow and glanced towards Upper Two, only to find him laying across the cushion, quite comfortably by the looks of it, with one hand folded over his body, eyes closed, and lips parted - just slightly.

He was almost completely motionless, and honestly, it was quite the odd sight - Two was constantly moving, never sitting perfectly still. Always doing something with his hands, always touching something or someone, always constantly in motion in one way or another.

Seeing him so still and silent was almost jarring to Akaza.

At first, Upper Three didn’t quite connect the dots, despite the short conversation they’d had moments earlier. He simply stared at the cult leader, taking in the way his chest slowly rose and fell at a rhythmic pace, and how his long eyelashes fluttered every few seconds as if softly stirring. After a few moments of staring, Akaza’s golden-blue eyes widened subtly as it dawned on him.

His body stiffened slightly with the realization that Upper Two had fallen asleep, a look of suspicious confusion on his face. He couldn’t remember hearing of a demon who actually still benefitted from sleep, let alone an upper moon willingly going into slumber on a whim. Did Akaza just hate other demons so much that he didn’t even know some could do that, or was this a situation where Two was weird as fuck and therefore the exception?

The martial artist continued to stare. In this state, Upper Two’s battle spirit was small, a dwindling, barely glowing orb at the center of the demon’s heart. Even when awake, Two hardly had a battle spirit to speak of despite his rank - one of the many reasons Akaza showed no respect for him - but now it was even smaller than usual. Barely flickering with each breath Upper Two took.

Was it the alcohol that had caused Two to go into a comatose state? The unfortunate woman he had consumed? Akaza didn’t know all that much about what Upper Two did day-to-day, nor how his body reacted to meals (especially when eaten in a such an unconventional manner), so he really had no way of knowing whether this was out of character for the other demon or not.

After a moment, Akaza slowly turned back around, a frown on his face as he turned his back to the cult leader and slowly pressed the bottle of wine back to his lips. The tart liquid tasted rather foul to him, too sour and too bitter for his liking. The odd sort of numbing buzz it brought to his skin was a sensation he didn’t exactly like - yet he kept drinking it.

Admittedly, he had only wanted to try it in the first place out of pure curiosity - he couldn’t remember ever having tried any alcohol before that - and had found himself chasing that buzz with the next bottle, for reasons unknown.

The oni exhaled heavily as he pulled the drink away from his cold lips, reaching up to wipe his chin with the back of his tattooed hand, leaving a red smear reminiscent of blood. His ribcage seemed to softly thrum with irritation and discomfort as he sat there, the man shaking his head and stifling the urge to smash the bottle and let its liquid contents stain the floor.

All of this was absolute bullshit.

Upper Two was asleep, and so was the kid he was supposed to come here to evaluate. Why had Muzan-sama decided to send Akaza, of all people, when he knew how much he loathed everything about Upper Two? Maybe it was some kind of test of Akaza’s loyalty, or his self control, perhaps? Muzan was anything but predictable with his demons, he could have chosen Upper Three for any number of reasons.

What Akaza did know was that he wasn’t allowed to return to his master until he had something significant to report on, whatever “significant” meant to his leader. Even if he was allowed to leave at will, however, the sun was starting to rise outside the temple walls, so he couldn’t if he even had the option to.

He couldn’t stand being here, in this stuck-up cult. The humans who lived here were all naive and rather pretentious through Akaza’s eyes, and he detested the idea that there were probably close to hundreds of them sleeping in various places within these walls that kept Akaza inside. Countless weak humans who dedicated themself to an arrogant false god like Two, and for what? Did any of them ever see the supposed “paradise” their leader promised them?

He just severely hoped that he wouldn’t have to speak to a single one of them besides Two’s stupid pet human.

Akaza wasn’t able to fathom why the hell Muzan was allowing the tiny thing - what was its name? Inosuke - to stay with Two in the first place. The martial artist hadn’t even known about the child until he was summoned by the demon king, and yet Two had apparently been raising it for a few years without mention.

He didn’t understand why the cult leader even wanted the kid, nor what the thing saw in Two to apparently trust him so much, but he had been able to tell even at first glance that it was receiving good care. Its hair and skin looked clean and soft, it was dressed in fine, well-fitting clothing, and it had a fair amount of meat on its frail human bones.

Akaza had no way of knowing if Two was actually doing any of the work himself (upper three assumed the boy’s care was being left to the naive followers), but regardless, the kid was clearly well cared for. He almost found that odd considering Two’s true views towards humans; their kind being pathetic and stupid and all that; yet this tiny human child looked healthy and loved. Even though he’d only seen it tired, the kid’s battle spirit had appeared feisty and strong as well, stronger than Akaza would have expected of someone that age.

The short-haired demon sighed as he sat there, his gaze drifting down to stare at the alcohol on his hand. The bitter substance was making his head feel cloudy, not to mention the nausea that was starting to settle in his stomach - he had probably been right about the idea of it making demons sick - and yet he lifted it for another slow sip.

The red liquid pooled across his tongue and filled his mouth with a sharp and sour taste. He swallowed once, twice, and a third time, before finding that the bottle was then empty - he held it up to guzzle the very last drops, then frowned and lowered it from his lips.

The upper three demon glared at the empty bottle of wine as if personally offended that it hadn’t lasted longer, before he shook his head with a quiet scoff and let it roll from his hand. The bottle didn’t break on contact with the floor that time, luckily, just rolling away in virtual silence as Akaza’s eyes tracked it until it had disappeared from sight.

He exhaled heavily, turning to warily glance at Upper Two’s sleeping form. Akaza pondered the question the cult leader had asked him earlier, in that low and oddly vulnerable tone of voice.

“…I can trust you if I fall asleep, right?”

Akaza’s eyes narrowed as he watched Two sleep, wondering why such a powerful demon would need to ask that question, and in such a manner. His voice had almost quivered when he spoke the words, and his eyes had narrowed just ever so slightly. Akaza just couldn’t fathom what a man with that much power at his hands would need to ask a question like that for.

His gaze was fixed on Two’s sleeping form. As his amber-blue eyes slowly dragged over the muscular yet oddly delicate shape of the cult leader’s body, Akaza wondered how easy it might be to take him down right then and there. Even when he inevitably woke up, his mind and body clearly weren’t in top shape - surely, surely Akaza would be able to overpower him, kill him , take his rank…

“Don’t be dumb,” he muttered to himself as he snapped out of the train of thought.

Akaza gritted his teeth and pulled his eyes off of the other demon’s peaceful face. Upper Three could be a stubborn, arrogant man, but he had never been called a stupid one.

One of the many reasons his skin seemed to itch around Upper Two was because of the way the cult leader’s entire being practically breathed power, despite his irritating lack of a strong battle spirit. The concept of the borderline insane power Two held the potential for at his fingertips combined with that nearly nonexistent battle spirit flickering in his chest made for an essentially unpredictable opponent.

Upper Three hated that about him. Akaza never had any way of knowing what the cult leader was going to do next, what was going through his mind, what he wanted at any given time. Akaza hated unpredictability, it took away his sense of control and his advantage over others, making him feel inferior to those around him.

If Akaza hated anything above all else, it was feeling weak in any sense of the word.

Two suddenly made a soft humming noise in his sleep, almost like he was in pain, prompting Akaza to glance at him again. The Upper Three oni shifted where he was sitting, eyes still closed as his lashes fluttered, hand noticeably clenching into a loose fist as he moved.

Akaza’s brow creased. It was weird seeing the man like that, so he called out in a low, flat tone.

“Two,” he said, firm and dry as he addressed the man by his rank.

When the other demon didn’t react, but remained with a fist clenched so tight Akaza saw blood filling the creases of his palm, the Upper Two demon lifted one eyebrow.

“Hey, Two. Wake up.”

Again, nothing happened, Two’s face remaining twisted in the weird, out of character way - was he dreaming about something? Did demons even dream when they slept?

Akaza gritted his teeth and reached out to lay his hand on the closest part of the other demon be could reach, which happened to be the man’s thigh. He shook the man gently in order to try and stir him out of whatever was happening. He could hear the man’s heart pounding.

“Hey. Douma.”

As soon as Akaza’s hand made contact with the other demon’s muscled leg, the tension in Two’s hand faded, the fist loosening. Akaza exhaled with a small amount of relief, grateful it seemed like he wouldn’t actually have to wake the other cult leader up again.

He soon found himself staring at Two again. His critical gaze dragged over the man’s frame, lingering on his pretty, now blank face. It was almost surreal to look at him when he was asleep, when not a trace of emotion was visible in his expression. He looked devoid of life entirely, and yet somehow, Akaza got the sense that this was one of the most honest moments he had ever witnessed with the rainbow-eyed man. When he was expressing absolutely nothing, if only because he was asleep.

After several long moments, Akaza finally turned away again, grumbling to himself softly, before he suddenly yelped and harshly cursed in surprise upon seeing the tiny pet human standing directly in front of him before the platform, green eyes narrowed and skeptical.

“Fucking—!!” Akaza exclaimed before cutting himself off, the man leaned back with a fist raised and ready to strike - fight or flight had quickly kicked in. Where the hell had this kid come from, he hadn’t even so much as heard him!

“Are you Douma-san’s friend?” The child asked immediately, cocking its blue-haired head to the side in a quizzical manner.

Akaza was silent for several moments, frowning deeply as his face flicked across the human’s small body. It had a decent battle spirit. As he very slowly lowered his arm, he silently noted the fact that the child’s kimono pattern matched Two’s top, then cleared his throat.

“Not exactly,” he replied, hesitantly.

“Then why are you here?” The human asked, looking Akaza up and down. “I’ve never seen you before. And you’re in Douma-san's worship room.”

“Uh…” Akaza glanced back at Two, as if hoping that the stupid cult leader would come rescue him. Then he turned back to the human. He didn’t know what to say.

“You look funny.” The human said, cocking its head as it gazed up at the demon with big, wide eyes of a bright green color.

The martial artist’s frown deepened slightly. “That’s a little rude.”

The human blinked at him, disregarded the words as it walked a full circle around Akaza, crawling up onto the platform in order to see the oni’s back. It was a miracle the lighting was too dark for a human to be able to see the blood on the floor.

“What’s your name?” The child asked. “Are you a boy?”

Akaza shifted, turning around in order to keep his eyes on the kid, whose face really looked like a little girl up close. “…Akaza, and yes.”

A gasp was heard as the human’s eyes widened and lit up, a look of joyful shock on its face as it jumped forward, clapping its hands on the older male’s face. “Akaza? You’re Akaza? Are you sure?”

Am I sure of my own name? Well, actually no, but…

The demon’s gaze bounced away nervously, before he swallowed and tried to change the subject. “Err… Isn’t it… Still early for you to be awake?”

“Not sleepy anymore.” The child’s hands were surprisingly strong as it held Akaza’s head firmly in place, frowning with focus as it looked directly into his inhuman eyes. “Are you sure you’re Akaza?”

Upper Three felt a small bead of sweat trickle down his temple, oddly intimidated by the human child’s unwavering green gaze. He felt out of his element here, being completely unsupervised with a human child like this.

He swallowed. “Y—Yeah. That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

The child’s eyes gleamed giddily, gasping again. It let go of the demon’s face, moving to shake his shoulders instead with clammy hands. “Akaza! That’s the name of Douma-san's best friend! You’re Douma-san’s friend, you lied to me!”

With that, the child prompt punched Akaza’s collarbone. The oni hissed and coiled back, brow furrowing as he stared incredulously at this borderline insane child - the punch had hurt more than he expected. Does this thing know what I could do to it?

The human suddenly paused again, forgetting about the apparent lie. “Woahhh… Wait. Open your mouth again.”

Akaza yelped suddenly as the child shoved its hands onto his face again, using its hooked thumbs to open his mouth and inspect the inside of it. Akaza frowned deeply, confused and slightly overwhelmed, but he didn’t fight it right away — he’d rather not have to explain to Upper Two why his pet was missing a finger or two.

“Your teeth are so cool…” the kid mumbled as it leaned down and looked into Akaza’s maw, the pad of its finger gently brushing over one of the sharp canines. “You have fangs!!”

Akaza jerked his head away, the human’s fingers slipping out of his mouth. “Yeah, and they’re sharp, don’t touch them…”

“How come you guys get fangs?” The kid asked, pouring slightly. “Douma-san has them, too, but I don’t. The other people don’t, either…”

“Uhh…” Akaza’s tongue absentmindedly flicked over the sharp tip of one razor sharp tooth at the question, accidentally drawing a bit of blood that he quickly swallowed down. “…I don’t know why.”

The human pouts slightly. “Mm. I want fangs.”

The coral-haired oni stared at him, his nose twitching. “Maybe… You’ll get ‘em some day. I don’t know.”

The child hummed, a sound that was eerily reminiscent of its caretaker, before it took a deep breath, shifting to take a heavy seat on the tatami flooring. “My name’s Inosuke.”

“I know,” Akaza replied, still all but glaring awkwardly as he stood in front of the platform.

Inosuke cocked its head. “Did Douma-san tell you that?”

The demon nodded. “Yeah.”

The kid giggled, then look back up at Akaza with a very curious, yet completely serious gaze in its wide green eyes. “Why do you look so different?”

I was wondering when it would ask that.

Akaza stared for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond - it didn’t seem like Two wanted his pet knowing about demons. “…I just do,” he finally told the child, unsure of what else he could say.

Surprisingly, Inosuke took that answer. “Oh. Okay.” It then cocked its head at him yet again. “Have you seen Ami-san?“

Akaza’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t know who that is.”

“She’s a nice lady with pretty yellow eyes…” Inosuke said in a tone that indicated familiarity and perhaps affection. “She left while I was sleeping.”

Upper Three shook his head, before an image came to mind - the way Douma’s eyes had flicked to the blood when Inosuke had interrupted earlier. Ami was the woman who had been dead upon the floor at Akaza’s arrival.

Discomfort rippled across Akaza’s body, and he didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want to lie…

Thankfully, the kid answered its own question after a moment too long of silence. “Douma-san said she went to do something for him.”

After a second, Akaza just grunted in reply, unsure what else to do or say.

Then, the kid flopped onto its back slowly with an irritated groan, staring up at the ceiling a lot like Two had been doing not so long ago. “I miss her… She always has ideas when I’m bored.”

“Hm…” The demon took a slow, deep breath, moving to sit on the edge of the platform next to the little kid. He sits crisscross, placing an elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. “…I’m bored, too.”

Inosuke rolled its head over to look at the male. “What do you do when you’re bored?“

Akaza regarded him with an inhale, then looked away. “I… Fight people, I guess.”

“Whoa, you’re a fighter?” Inosuke sat up again, looking over Akaza’s body before coping his pose to the best of its ability. “…Do you like bugs?”

“Bugs?” Akaza’s brow furrowed. “…Why?”

The demon swore he saw some sort of explosion happen behind the kid's bright green eyes, the child’s gaze sparkling with excitement. Its battle spirit gleamed beautifully.

“Mm, I have an idea now! Come on!” It stood up suddenly, body practically shaking with excitement as it grabbed the demon with both hands by the wrist, tugging him. “Come on, I want to show you my bugs, please, come on!”

“Wait, okay, okay, hold on—“ Akaza didn’t expect the kid to be as strong as it was, and he allowed himself to he be pulled to his feet as practically dragged towards the exit of Douma’s quarters.

“Come on, hurry up, and be quiet!” Inosuke chimed as it pulled Akaza along. “Everyone’s still asleep!”

Chapter Text

Upper Moon Two’s little pet was fucking fast for a human, let alone such a small one.

It annoyed Akaza to every end to find himself struggling to keep up with such a small, comparatively weak creature. The little thing’s hand was still tightly wrapped around the demon’s wrist as they both scurried down the halls of the massive, elaborate temple—it’s grip was scarily strong, too.

Inosuke was practically dragging Akaza along at this point, rambling the whole way down in a manner that was a little too similar to the way the kid’s demon caretaker often ran his own fat mouth at every chance he got.

“There’s also this long, skinny green one with the weird little head,” the kid was saying as it pulled the Upper Moon along—Akaza was more or less unaware of what the hell it was talking about. “I think they’re called man… Mant… Mantises! Yeah, mantises. Douma-san told me that the female mantises rip the heads off the males, and that she eats his guts. Isn’t that gross?”

“Uh—Yeah,” Akaza replied, really unsure what he was agreeing to as he trotted along at an uncomfortable slouch.

“But it’s kinda cool, too, right?” Inosuke looked back, shooting Akaza a happy grin. “Right?”

“Right,” Akaza agreed when he registered he was being spoken to.

“Yeah!! You understand.”

Inosuke pumped its other fist in the air almost proudly, before it came to a sudden stop where the hallways split into two different directions perpendicular to the hall they’d just been traveling down. Akaza almost crashed into the tiny human from how suddenly the two had come to a stop.

“Oh, uhhh…” The blue-haired miniature human tapped a finger against its chin, another action that was eerily reminiscent of the cult’s leader. “I forgot which way it is…”

“Where exactly are you taking me?” Akaza said with creased brows, looking down the two hallways in either direction at the same time as the boy.

“Well, uh…” Inosuke’s lips fell into a tiny pout for a moment, before it let out a gasp of realization and began to tug Akaza down the hallway leading to the left. “Mm! I remember now! Come on!”

“Agh—Coming…”

Inosuke’s tiny bare feet made very soft slaps against the flooring beneath the boy as it moved, followed by the slightly heavier thumps of Akaza’s own while he did his best to closely follow.

The martial artist was frowning deeply as the human all but dragged him along, but he kept his mouth firmly shut. He wasn’t an idiot—He wouldn’t dare make some aggressive or condescending comment to the one thing Upper Two actually seemed to have some attachment to in his life.

“I knew it! It’s in here!”

The blue-haired child finally let go of Akaza’s thick wrist as it darted forward towards a pair of sliding doors, throwing them open with a grin. Akaza straightened up, finally, rubbing his wrist where the kid had been holding onto him. He frowned as he walked up, peering into the room he’d been led to with skeptical curiosity.

It was a library, and a rather grand one.

The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with tall bookshelves of a deep oak color, hundreds upon hundreds of various books stacked up end to end across every single shelf in sight. There had to be over a thousand books of various shapes topics in sight, and they were all neatly and categorically organized by size, color, and type—The display was impressive to say the least, even to a somewhat… wild man like Akaza.

The martial artist was silent as he followed Inosuke slowly into the temple’s modest library, noticing that the room was even larger than it had initially appeared from outside. He almost felt intimidated by the covers he saw everywhere he turned, as if the words contained in every single clasped page might run him in circles.

“Where did that imbecile leave it?”

Akaza frowned deeply and jerked his head around to find Inosuke, spotting the little boy rifling through a pile of larger books on a table.

“What did you just say?” The martial artist asked, eyes narrow.

“I can’t figure out where they left my book,” Inosuke replied with a small frown of focus, tiny hands struggling to lift a book that was several inches thick.

“You called someone an imbecile,” Akaza said as he came over to lift the book for Inosuke, not really thinking about the fact that he was helping. It was just instinct.

“Yeah, it means stupid person,” Inosuke told him as if he didn’t know, shaking its head when Akaza picked up the book as if to tell him that’s not what the kid was looking for.

Akaza set the book aside, then lifted another. “Where did you learn that?”

The kid shook its head again, and the demon set that one aside, too. “I heard Douma-san say it.”

Upper Three resisted the urge to roll his eyes—of course he did. “Did he now. Who was he calling stupid?”

“Fin-san,” Inosuke replied, again denying one of the books Akaza held up before biting its cheek and moving away from the table, its green eyes scanning the bookshelves behind it. “Fin-san is the bath guy and he likes Douma-san a lot, but Douma-san doesn’t like him. So he called him an imbecile, but Fin-san didn’t hear him.”

Bath guy, likes Two, imbecile. Akaza quickly put together the pieces and built up what he imagined was the situation—This Fin, who sounded like the man in charge of the temple’s baths, was probably misguided and liked Two as more than a cult leader.

Since he manned the baths and had a more than intimate chance to do so, perhaps he’d attempted to come onto Two, or maybe he already had. Akaza knew that Two rarely rejected a sexual advance on him regardless of his own desires, for reasons the martial artist didn’t really understand.

He could perfectly imagine Two being sweet and kind to the man’s face, then rolling his eyes and calling him an imbecile under his breath as soon as be turned away. He could also perfectly picture Inosuke, probably at Two’s feet, overhearing and asking about the word, or maybe it had just inferred what it meant. He could tell this was a smart human.

“…You shouldn’t call people that,” Akaza finally said with an exhale as he moved to stand behind the child, looking over the various books as if he knew what they were looking for.

Inosuke paused to look up at him. “Why not? The person who lost my book is stupid, because they didn’t put it where it belongs.”

A pretty direct and moderately fair point, but it still didn’t convince Akaza. “It’s rude.”

“Then why did Douma-san say it?” The kid cocked its head, staring up at the demon.

“Because Douma is an idiot,” Akaza remarked without much consideration.

Inosuke frowned, and he could see the gears in its head turning as it stared up at him. “…Didn’t you just say it’s rude to call people dumb?”

Akaza paused, realizing his mistake as soon as he hears the comment. He stared at the little boy beneath him, and all the sudden, he feels a lot more connected to the child. He can’t help the smile that pricked at the corners of his mouth, the fluffy-haired demon exhaling a breath of amusement through his nose.

“I guess I did, didn’t I,” Akaza said with a smirk, reaching out to gently ruffle the little boy’s short blue hair. “Smart kid.”

Inosuke giggled when his hair was messed up by inked fingers, a sweet and melodic sound that made Akaza subconsciously smile even wider.

“I think I like you, Akaza!” The little boy sang with another giggle, reaching up to grab onto the demon’s wrist again as it rested on the crown of his head.

“Oh yeah?” Akaza said with a grin and a cock of his head, pulling his hand back as the kid still held onto it.

“Yeah!” Inosuke declared loudly, his sweet laughter an almost musical sound. “You’re funny, and you listened to me about my bugs, and you’re a fighter, and you look so cool, and you have a nice voice, and you’re Douma-san’s best friend!“

Akaza tactfully decides to ignore the “Two’s best friend” part in favor of the rest of the joyful sang praises, his smile almost hurting his cheeks. He loved being told how cool or how good he was—It just really boosted his morale, even coming from a seven year old.

“Well, good,” Upper Three said with a nod, “because I like you, too.”

The comment made the little boy squeal, almost sounding like an excited piglet as he moved forward to wrap his arms around Akaza’s meaty thigh in an embrace. He giggled and looked up at Akaza, the joy shining in his beautiful emerald eyes making Akaza’s chest feel warm.

The martial artist chuckled and gently patted the boy’s azure locks again, before exhaling with a smile. “Okay, kid. What book are you looking for?”

~~~

It turned out that was Inosuke had been trying to find was a huge encyclopedia of various insects, one that had been in the library already but that Douma had told him he could have.

The book, written in a language Akaza couldn’t read, contained all kinds of bugs from all over the world, and Upper Three had to admit, it was kind of fascinating—but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the fact that Inosuke had the entire book and every single insect in it memorized down the page numbers.

“Oh, what the hell is that?” The coral-haired demon asked as he reached out to point at a picture of a creature he didn’t recognize with huge, elegant green wings. It sort of resembled a butterfly.

Sitting next to Akaza on the floor, with the large book splayed put in front of them both, Inosuke hummed. “That’s a Luna moth,” he told the demon with a smile. “I think it’s from North America.”

“The West?” Akaza’s eyes glimmered with interest as he stared at the graceful drawing of the moth. “It’s so pretty…”

“Yeah, it is!” Inosuke shifted on his hands and knees, pointing to the foreign words on the page as he read them out. “It says that it’s a member of the silk moth family, and that it’s one of the largest moths in America.”

“Woah...” Akaza, who sat crisscrossed on the floor, paused, cocking his head as he pulled his eyes off the nonsensical letters and onto Inosuke. “…You can read that?”

“Mhm, it’s English,” Inosuke replied, leaning back into a sitting position that matched Akaza as he continued to stare at the book. “I can’t really speak it, that’s really hard, but Douma-san taught me how to read it pretty good. I can spell my name in English, too.”

“…Huh.” Akaza’s golden-blue eyes moved back to the letters on the shiny pages, feeling a mild sting of jealousy.

He couldn’t even read basic Japanese, he’d never been taught, even in his well over two-century lifespan. He’d just never had the time, but meanwhile, this seven year old human child could not only read Japanese, but he could read a whole different language from another goddamn country?

It was a little embarrassing.

“Did you know Douma-san can speak English?” Inosuke asked with a cock of his head, hands perched in his lap. “It sounds stupid when he does.”

“He can?” Akaza found the idea both unexpected and very unsurprising. “Huh…”

“Sometimes people who need help don’t speak the same language as us,” Inosuke explained absentmindedly while he sat forward again and moved to turn the page of his encyclopedia. “Douma-san can speak in a lot of languages.”

“Tch.” Akaza can’t help but roll his eyes. “…Of course he can.”

Inosuke’s tiny hands still on the book’s pages, the bot softly frowning as he turned to side-eye the demon. “…You don’t like him.”

“Mm?” Akaza make a soft grunt in reply, the sound almost resembling a question. “What?”

The blue-haired boy’s eyes narrowed, and he sat back again. “You don’t like Douma-san. He says you’re his best friend because he wants you to be, but you don’t actually like him at all.”

The coral-haired demon stared at the child for a few seconds, dumbfounded, before he narrowed his own kanji-marked eyes. “…What makes you say that?”

“I’m a kid, but I’m not stupid,” Inosuke replies with a tiny little exhale, looking back to the page of his book, which displayed various kinds of butterflies. “It’s okay. You don’t have to like him as long as you’re not mean to him. I still like you.”

Akaza couldn’t help the frown that marred his pretty face as he stared at the side of Inosuke’s head, eyes still narrow as several emotions he couldn’t discern mixed together into an odd fog within his tactful head.

“…Do you like him?” he found himself asking, for some reason.

“Oh, mhm!” Inosuke nodded, smiling as he still leaned over the book. “Of course I do. He’s my favorite person in the world.”

Akaza cocked his head. “Not your mother?”

Inosuke’s entire body froze, his right hand flinching as it hovered over the book. Akaza saw tension ripple through the seven year-old’s body, and it was almost like the glorious movement of his battle spirit had suddenly stopped churning, too. The moment the words left Akaza’s mouth, the boy’s entire aura had changed completely.

“…I’m not allowed to talk about her,” the child said in a low voice, hand still lingering over the page.

Upper Three felt like he could hear his own heartbeat with how silent the kid had suddenly gotten. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not ,” Inosuke all but snapped back in reply, and Akaza felt the hairs on his tattooed neck rise as if as some kind of warning that he was crossing a dangerous line.

The silence stretched for a moment, before Akaza softly cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, brow creased.

Inosuke was quiet for a moment longer, before he let out a heavy breath as if he’d been holding it, his body visibly relaxing and his battle spirit slowly shifting back to life.

“That’s okay,” he said, turning to give Akaza a smile that was almost creepily similar to Two.

Akaza watched as Inosuke turned his attention back to his book, going off on some ramble about a specific butterfly species as the demon subconsciously tuned him out in order to hear his own thoughts.

Even for a child of his age, Inosuke was a person with a surprising amount of duality in his personality. There was the side that Akaza had met initially—rambunctious, loud, excited, and somewhat naive. Then, on the other hand, there was another side—quieter, sharper, more serious, more cunning .

It was, once again, so similar to Upper Two that began to wonder how much time this child had truly spent with him over the years. Akaza didn’t know how long Inosuke had been in Two’s care, but it certainly seemed like a lot, since the boy had picked up so many mannerisms and character traits from the annoyingly cheerful yet extremely intelligent demon.

“Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

Akaza’s softly flowing eyes suddenly refocused on the scene in front of him, finding Inosuke now sitting directly in front of him, glaring something fierce at the martial artist.

“Huh?” Akaza leaned back, one palm coming out to hold his weight as he again found himself caught off guard by this very strange young boy. “Wh—What, sorry?”

“I was telling you all about swallowtails,” Inosuke said with a slightly pout as he crossed his arms, “and you weren’t even listening.”

“I…” Akaza trailed off, really having no excuse for the way he’d been ignoring the child. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“That much was obvious,” Inosuke huffed put with an air of extreme sarcasm, sighing as he slammed the big book shut.

A bead of nervous swear formed on Akaza’s temple as he watched Two’s pet stand up, picking up the massive book and hauling it back over to the table they’d originally found it on, buried under a stack of medicinal guides or something like that.

The demon swallowed thickly when Inosuke came back over, wondering if the child was truly upset with him. Then, Inosuke heaved another deep sigh, and crossed his arms.

“I want to go see Douma-san,” the boy declared, looking down at Akaza. “I’m still bored.”

“Oh, uh…” Akaza shifting, moving to stand as well while he spoke. “He’s still asleep.”

“He never sleeps for very long,” Inosuke replied very matter-of-factly. “He might be awake already.”

Awake already? It’s barely been an hour…

“Come onnn, let’s go!” Akaza suddenly became aware that Inosuke was tugging on his left wrist as he all but whined. “Come onnnnnnnn, I miss him.”

“Right, sorry,” Akaza muttered in reply, turning to watch as Inosuke ran out of the library, pausing in the doorway to wait for him.

“Hurry up!” Inosuke loudly complained, bouncing with impatience. “Morning prayers start soon, I want to see him before the day starts!”

“I said I was coming!” Akaza all but hissed back, softly muttering to himself as he exhaled and began to follow the boy at a jog back down the halls the way they’d come.

Chapter Text

Inosuke was right about two things. That morning prayers would be starting soon, and that Douma very rarely slept for long, despite being one of the very few demons who chose to do do in the first place. He couldn’t help this, however — he had an odd relationship with the concept of sleep.

At that moment, the upper moon was standing in the middle of his quarters, having awoken shortly after Inosuke had run off with Akaza, as Douma presumed had happened, as the boy rarely would have wandered off by himself, anyway, and Douma knew he’d heard the boy’s voice at some point while asleep. He hoped the demonic martial artist he considered a friend was faring well — he had a feeling Akaza wasn’t too experienced when it came to children of any kind. Still, the man was gentle at heart, so Douma had full faith that everything was surely fine with those two.

“Lord Founder,” came the soft voice of one of the many females surrounding him at that moment, “could you lift your chin, your grace?”

Douma gave a small hum, doing as the woman had asked and lifting his chin upwards slightly. This allowed her better access to his long, pale hair as she stood behind him on a stool, brushing the locks out carefully. There were several other women around him, too — all attendants of various ages and appearance, each carrying their duties and preparing their beloved leader for the day ahead of him. 

While two younger women tended to either hand and managed his fingernails with gentle hands, another middle-aged female was meticulously moving around him and making sure his top and hakama were properly fitted, adjusting the fit on his belt and gently tugging the collar of his turtleneck. At his feet, a teenage girl guided him with careful hands into stepping into his silky tabi socks, while a different elderly woman dusted off and prepared his headdress nearby. Yet another female was fixing his bangs and styling his hair as the first woman brushed it out. Before all of this, Douma had already been dutifully bathed, gently dried, and just about slathered with various rich oils just before this as well.

It was quite the arrangement of people around him, as there was every morning — he was sure this was supposed to feel lavish, or pampering, but even back when he was a child, it had always felt quite unnecessary and very frankly, boring. He was perfectly capable of doing all of these things himself, and, besides — there was absolutely nothing for him to do except look pretty, follow their guidance, and let his mind wander. 

Still, he had been allowing this to happen for several decades — these people had to feel helpful somehow. Humans had a tendency to feel guilty if they couldn’t return kindness or care to someone who had given it to them. So, Douma continued to set aside his own boredom and let them tend to his person, for the sake of their fragile human egos.

As the women around him continued to so meticulously tend to him despite his lack of need for it, Douma’s chrome-like eyes became rather unfocused as his mind, indeed, wandered as he waited patiently for them finish — hopefully soon. 

Normally, Inosuke would be with him by now, preparing for his own busy morning routine alongside his father figure. In fact, it would have been the late Ami who was most likely to rouse him out of bed and do the most of the work grooming his hygiene alongside the boy’s own assembly of attendants. This early morning, however, Ami was, of course, rather… unable to bring Inosuke for this purpose, and it had several other humans in a rather useless panic.

“Has anyone seen Inosuke-kun yet?” the youngest girl around him asked a slightly older teen very softly as she tugged Douma’s tabi snugly around his ankles, leaning towards the person she was speaking to and trying to keep her voice down.

“Not that I’ve heard,” quietly replied one of the girls filing his well-kept nails, lifting her chin to glance at the other.

“It’s worrisome,” whispered the first girl as she finished with the first sock, moving on to the second. “News travels fast, and still no sign of him.”

“Girls, please,” Douma said with a slight smile as his head was tilted again in order to fasten the cloak. “I would know if something had happened to him.”

The first woman who’d spoken yelped softly as soon as she realized their conversation had been overheard by the acute cult leader, while the first paused her work on the man’s nails to gaze up at him. 

“Your grace, are you certain?” she asked earnestly, the hand cupping his palm slightly sweaty with worry. “You know he’s okay?”

“You dare doubt the founder’s word?” a third attendant hissed back in a sharp tone, a stubborn older woman and the one who was now carefully styling the back of his hair, as she had been for years. “Focus!”

The first girl flinched slightly, a little fear filing her eyes for a moment at the notion that she might have questioned her leader’s word. She then pursed her lips, sealing them firmly shut as she lowered her head and began to move her hands again.

“She hasn’t doing anything wrong, Hatsuko,” Douma chided gently as his feet were released, referring to the woman behind him. “She is simply worried about our dear Inosuke.”

“But, beloved founder, she is being disrespectful of your—“

“Hush, I understand you’re very serious about our faith,” he said with a firmness that was still soft at the same time, leaning into every feeble religious teaching his parents had relentlessly drilled into his early memory. “However, there is no need to be short with our siblings in faith. We all coexist under the same roof and follow the same divine teachings. We cannot be harsh towards one another, nor can we punish mere innocent concern.”

As the worried woman finished with his hand and sat back nervously, the demon moved to lift his finger to her face, one bent knuckle stroking her delicate cheek so gently as he smiled warmly at her. Her eyes glimmered with a foolish adoration as she lifted her head, moved by his deliberate and gentle touch, as the eyes of most naive believers would be at his touch.

“I’m certain Inosuke alright, darling,” the man told her in a reassuring and soft tone, as several of the other women were finishing their duties and pulling away from him. “In fact, I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. He’s an excellent hider, but he can’t escape us forever.”

The young woman seemed to visibly relax at his words, the tone of his voice almost affecting her like some sort of intoxicant as she nodded and blinked her doe-like eyes up at him. “I trust you, your grace.”

He smiled warmly back at her, before his hand retreated a moment later to beckon the attendant who was waiting dutifully with his headdress. The one who he’d soothed seemed to visibly mourn the loss of her perceived savior’s touch, before the stern older woman ushered her to her feet.

Douma tipped his handsome head downwards to the girl who approached as he’d gestured, sitting still for the woman to set the familiar weight of that heavy headdress on his skull, then lifted his head and waited for her to position the tassels so that they laid elegantly over his shoulders and chest.

The entire assembly of dutiful women then stepped back from him, each looking over their own job from afar as if afraid they hadn’t performed their individual duties to their fullest. Every single one of them went through this misguided routine each and every morning, but Douma indulged their worthless doubts and reassured them as always.

“Thank you, darlings,” he said with a slightly dip of his head to indicate his false gratefulness to the small collection of women.

Several of them bowed back to him. A few others blushed just slightly, one looked down as if unsure how to react. The older woman who had chided another member just earlier bowed the deepest, however, hands clasped gracefully over her waist as she spoke.

“Please, spare us your gratitude, Lord Founder, for we are unworthy,” she said as she bent at the waist to maintain her elegant, but unnecessary bow. “It is us who have been so fortunately blessed with the opportunity to care for our gracious savior.”

Blah, blah, blah. 

Douma smiled warmly as she straightened again, the corners of his eyes crinkling with how well-practiced the gentle grin was. “You flatter me, but a leader is nothing without their servants.”

Most of the women in the room smiled and blushed slightly, and Douma could have laughed with the stupidity of it all. Then, a certain dark-haired child came bounding into the room, pushing between the entourage of women with another man in tow that Douma almost didn’t recognize, the vaguely unfamiliar man dragged along by the arm.

“Good morning, Douma-san!” Inosuke called as he pushed past the various women and into the room, grinning widely as he came to a stop.

Behind him, he was dragging a muscular young man with pink hair and stunning amber eyes — it took Douma a moment to register the fluffy hairstyle, the unmistakable beauty of those lashes, and the distinct, pretty frown on Akaza’s face. The disguised upper moon had altered his outfit, too — now dressed in an open-chested white kimono that blended him in well with the other followers. Akaza had shifted his skin tone and had managed to hide his tattoos, as well as masking parts of his eyes. The cult leader’s eyes brightened upon recognition, impressed that Akaza possessed such precise control over shifting his appearance.

“Ah, good morning, little one!” Douma replied in a singsong tone, extending his hands to the boy and lifting him up high after Inosuke ran to him.

The green-eyed boy laughed loudly, his giggles filling Douma’s chest with an odd, warm sensation, before he lowered Inosuke to hold him on his hip. Akaza’s arms crossed as he watched this, upper lip curling slightly while he lifted an eyebrow, before looking away.

“…Who is this strange man?” the older female from before suddenly asked in a low tone, as the the various attendants were still gathered, awaiting their permission to leave. She was all but glaring at Akaza, who blinked and stared right back at her with a deep frown. She seemed perturbed by his appearance.

“Hm?” Douma hummed, looking up from messing with Inosuke’s hair in order to see what the stubborn woman was asking about. “Oh! That’s Akaza, what do you mean?”

“Akaza…?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. 

“Yes,” Douma said, cocking his head and shifting Inosuke on his hip slightly. “He’s been here for a bit now, did you truly never notice him?”

At this, her frown deepened exponentially, while Akaza glanced warily at Douma. “Lord Founder, with all due respect, I know the name and face of every member of your following. I have never in my life seen this man among our numbers.”

“Are you questioning what I’ve told you, Hatsuko?” Douma asked with a calculated, so seemingly genuine frown, one brow lifting slightly and his head tilting to the side as he blinked at her.

The woman’s stern, wrinkled expression then wavered, brows lifting to suddenly find her own earlier words practically thrown back at her by Douma himself. Her mouth opened like a fish gaping for air, before she shut it again and bowed deeply.

“Forgive me, founder,” she whispered, embarrassment and shame in her tone.

Douma hummed again, then flicked his hand when the woman straightened again, gesturing for their dismissal. The group quickly dipped their heads and scurried out of the room like rodents fleeing a potential threat, and Douma sighed softly as soon as they left, moving to set Inosuke down on the floor.

“Is Akaza-san going to stay for a while?” Inosuke asked as his tiny feet made contact with the floor, curious eyes glimmering up at Douma.

“Perhaps!” Douma replied, tapping the child’s nose before fixing a lock of his hair. “Could you run and get dressed for me, darling? Prayers start very soon, and you’re not ready!”

The little boy made one of his characteristic grunting noises, before nodding and running off toward the miniature dresser in the corner of the room that held all his things — a piece of well-crafted furniture made of fine wood and carved with various shapes and designs, ranging from lotus flowers to abstract lines that flowed and danced along the reddish surface of the lacquered wood.

“Bring me your hairbrush once you’re done!” Douma called after him, humming at a seemingly positive tone when Inosuke grunted his acknowledgment.

“…You really know how to manipulate those girls, don’t you,” Akaza remarked as he crossed his muscular arms, upper lip curling slightly to expose the fangs he apparently still had in his shifted form.

“Manipulate?” Douma stuck out his own lower lip a bit, briefly making a slight pouting face as he lifts a brow at the other man. “What would ever make you use that choice of words?”

The other upper rank stared at him with an unflinching gaze, before Akaza seemed to realize that Douma was being serious, at which point his expression fell flat.

“…Tch. Never mind.” The disguised demon said with a roll of those lovely golden eyes, which caught Douma’s gaze like they were precious stones.

“Hm… what did Inosuke say about your little makeover?” the cult leader asked as he all but appeared in front of Akaza, seizing the man by either side of his face and turning his head this way and that as if to inspect his new look. “How long did it take you to master that? Did Muzan-sama allow it?”

Akaza’s eyes widened as his brow creased, disturbed and taken aback by the sudden proximity and contact, before he hissed and batted Douma’s hands off of him. “Stop touching me. It took a while, and of course he let me. Your pet didn’t really say anything. Not raising him to be very smart, are you?”

“Ahh, that just means he’ll ask me about it later.” Douma pulled his hands back from the other demon and held them up as if surrendering, stepping back. “He’s a very inquisitive little thing.”

Upper Three frowned again, shaking his head and rubbing one cheek as if Douma’s freezing touch had left a lingering stinging pain upon his ashen, yet slightly more human-looking skin. “He’s certainly something.”

“Something, you say?” The pale-haired cult leader couldn’t help but softly giggle. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

Before Akaza could answer, the sound of small, heavy footsteps was heard as Inosuke came bounding back over to the two men, snorting triumphantly and holding up a small, glittering ivory comb for Douma to take. The little boy was now dressed in a tiny, black silk kimono whose design was the inverse of Douma’s rather than the identical mirror — it had red dripping patterns cutting through the black silk, giving it almost a more ominous look than what his caretaker wore.

Douma took the little comb with delicate hands, smiling warmly at the adolescent ho’d presented it to him. “Thank you, sweetheart! You look lovely.”

Inosuke grunted softly as he straightened his back and held perfectly still for Douma to brush his hair, a positive little hum leaving his tiny mouth. “Mm! Mhm.”

Akaza watched only for a few seconds before rolling his eyes and making another “tch” noise, crossing his arms while he looked away and muttered something about wishing he could just leave this place already. Douma wasn’t surprised to hear this in the slightest, but it did make him sigh softly, shaking his head as he finished up tying half of Inosuke’s hair back from his face.

“Alright, all finished,” he remarked with a little pat of Inosuke’s head, at which point the boy whirled around and grinned excitedly at his guardian, pulling on the man’s wrist firmly and trying to drag him towards the sliding doors to this room. 

“Yeah! Let’s go then, before prayers start!” he exclaimed as he tried to pull Douma out of the room, straining. “Come on, we’re gonna be late! Akaza, you too!”

Douma glanced at the lesser-ranked demon as Inosuke grunted his name, the cult leader lifting one brow. “Well? Are you coming, Akaza-dono?”

Upper two saw the way the disguised demon’s jaw clenched as he tightened his body slightly, teeth gritting and frown deepening. Then he sighed heavily, the sound bordering on a growl, before he rolled his eyes again and uncrossed his arms. “Fine, yeah, whatever. Nothing better to do in this god forsaken place…”

“Why are you guys just standing here?” Inosuke asked almost incredulously, glaring at the older two men who clearly were not taking their duties and the day’s events seriously. 

“Right, yes, Inosuke is right, let’s go,” Douma said with a hum as he inhaled and put his smile back on, taking Inosuke’s strong little hand in his own slender one and allowing the boy to lead him swiftly towards the door and out into the hall. 

The cult leader could hear Akaza all but sulking after them, his footsteps heavy with annoyance. Douma found this oddly amusing, but he didn’t laugh, simply keeping his expression set in a gentle, benevolent smile as Inosuke carefully led him towards the prayer room, where dozens of stupid, lost people awaited for his words to guide their hearts like the holy shepherd of a really… really dumb herd of wounded sheep.

As he was dragged into the room, heads turning and whispers ceasing, Douma felt that odd sensation like annoyed boredom towards these people who needed him like a lifeline, and as he and Inosuke stepped into their pedestal like platform and sat down, and as one of the priestesses lit the incense, and as Akaza sat down amongst the humans and shifted with a deep discomfort, Douma just sighed softly. 

As all of these humans looked at him as if waiting for a god to take a single breath, Douma just wondered what Akaza was going to report to Muzan-sama about all of this.

Chapter Text

Whatever Akaza reported back to Muzan-sama after his inevitable departure must have satisfied their harsh, unforgiving master, for Douma didn’t hear further from any demons once the martial artist was gone as quickly as he had unexpectedly arrived. He had been slightly disheartened in a way to see Upper Three go, as disappointed as an apathetic man like him could be. He liked being around other demons, especially Akaza, since the man’s reactions to him were unique and were often punctuated by violence. It was an odd sort of ego boost to be so hated — especially when Akaza didn’t really seem to hate him all that much at all, when it came down to it.

Douma had been fascinated to watch Akaza remain within the cult’s walls playing as a follower for that day he spent there. His eyes had been critical and sharp the entire time, yet the superior demon had noticed what he thought may have been a slight curiosity to Akaza’s demeanor as he went through the day like any other disciple of the faith. Douma wondered — or perhaps hoped — that the encounter may have given the martial artist a slightly better understanding of Douma and his character. Though, maybe that was just wishful thinking, given Akaza’s “goodbye” come nightfall and been brief and brisk as always.

Inosuke, on the other hand, had been greatly displeased to see the demon go. There had been a lot of pouting and wobbling lips involved, with Inosuke trying to run out of the temple to “chase after him” once Douma had informed the boy that Akaza had departed while he was asleep. Inosuke hadn’t even gotten out of the room, but when Douma caught the six year old by the waist and hoisted him up, that was when the tears had started to fall. It had taken much comfort from the religious leader (as well as plenty of small bribes in the form of sweet treats) to get the sweet young boy to eventually calm down.

He had liked Akaza very much, apparently. Douma hoped he’d come again, at some point — it had seemed to him like Akaza hadn’t minded the boy, either. 

Ami’s disappearance was, surprisingly, easier to cover up than Akaza simply leaving was. The story the cult leader crafted was that the young woman had reached enlightenment and moved on to Paradise along with the rest of the dead acolytes who had gone before her — which is what everyone in his following had strived for for over a century. Douma had always thought it strange that humans bought that so easily, did they lack the critical thinking skills that should have made them wonder what really happened to Ami, Kotoha, the rest of the men and women who had disappeared over the years they had been here? Humans really were blissfully stupid and desperate enough to believe anything, he supposed. 

Even Inosuke had been relatively quick to accept this when he heard alongside the rest of the following, though he still pouted with a soft sigh of disappointment at the thought of his caretaker being gone. Douma sometimes wondered if he was doing wrong by Kotoha’s son by letting him believe such foolish, nonsense teachings. He pondered at times whether he ought to tell the boy the truth — that paradise was a sweet lie. Douma had never outright taught Inosuke these things like the demon’s own parents had — though, he supposed his parents had much more… extreme methods of teaching than Douma could ever offer his charge — but he didn’t refute what Inosuke heard from the other apostles, either. He was still young and impressionable — did Douma have an obligation to be honest with him?

He would decide later down the line. Inosuke was so young and innocent he couldn’t quite be trusted to keep his mouth shut about such things. Perhaps when he was older and more readily able to understand things… Douma would explain it all to him.

Well, not all of it. He would probably never share the truth of what he was with the boy he was raising. He would never dare risk repeating what had happened with Inosuke’s beloved mother.

Unlike what the strict rules had been for most of his dehumanized childhood, there were times when Douma ventured out of his temple simply for the sake of it. It was nice to walk around somewhere that wasn’t the massive cage he had been born and raised within, there was a strange sort of freedom in being able to walk outside of those walls that had been erected in his image, in his lack of a name — all without the sting of his mother’s harsh disapproval. Dead as he had been for decades, Douma still sometimes heard her voice in the very back of his mind. 

There was an odd sort of bliss in ignoring it, even if he hadn’t even known what bliss actually felt like.

On some outings outside the Eternal Paradise Faith, he remained himself, venturing out under the cover of nightfall to fulfill a mission from his master. Other times, he escaped from the worship and the blind adoration in the evenings, covering himself in soft silks and shielding veils around a traditional straw hat so that he could hide his demonic and natural features alike, walking around the towns under sheets of fabric that made him look like any other ordinary man.

He knew that Muzan-sama likely disapproved strongly of him doing this (and that his mother would have as well), but Douma was intrigued by his own charade anyway. It was fascinating to him, to cover up and play the role of an unassuming man minding his own business, to exist around humans and not be fussed over, to hear only voices of ordinary conversation and not whispers of his radiance, his grace, his appearance. He did it only rarely, pretending to be human, and he rationalized it easily. He was doing no harm, and it could, in theory, be considered reconnaissance, anyway — maybe one day he’d hear a whisper of that fated blue flower, leading him to be the one out of thousands of demons to fulfill his master’s undying goal. 

Wouldn’t that be something? 

A few weeks after Ami’s death and Akaza’s visit, Douma found himself on one such outing. The town he wandered the streets of seemed normal if not modest on the outside, with small wooden homes, paved cobblestone roads, and strung-up lanterns lighting the streets with a dim orange glow like any other town — but Douma knew it was rather impoverished despite its appearances. The people here weren’t as friendly as he had seen in other places.

As he passed through the evening crowd, the disguised demon didn’t hear the same soft gossiping and playful discussions that he had heard within other towns. Instead, the people here were eerily quiet, averting their eyes from one another. Even though the streets at night were as busy as he’d imagine them being while the sun was high, there was a thick, silent tension in the air despite the calm warmth of the young night’s atmosphere, making it seem as though everyone who lived here was only looking out for themselves, viewing everyone else as nothing more than a potential threat. Any hushed tones he did pick up with his advanced demonic senses consisted of harsh judgements and insults muttered under breaths.

It wasn’t any less interesting to Douma than the more peaceful villages he had visited. These people were shady, selfish, paranoid — it reminded him a bit of the slums of the Entertainment District, where he had met and rescued Daki and Gyutaro a century before. Impoverished, dog-eat-dog, a bit filthy in places. Fascinating.

The demon’s softly glowing, chrome-colored eyes were watchful beneath the silk that concealed his face from view, his expression temporarily dull except for an empty, habitual smile as he gazed at the people passing by him curiously. Not a single one of them ever spared a glance his way, something so foreign to a false god like him that it was borderline exhilarating to be seen as no one, as just another passing face in the filthy crown rather than a blessed messiah among men.

Douma’s eyes lifted upwards towards the rest of the city as he stood motionless on a wide wooden bridge, people passing by him in small droves as he narrowed his eyes, waiting for something interesting to catch his gaze. There were no bright lights or inviting signs here like there were in Yoshiwara, only crudely hand-painted signs advertising various ordinary services — tiny restaurants with embarrassingly short menus, self-owned shops who hadn’t seen customers in weeks, hopeless little taverns that just so happened to be the most popular places in this sickening town.

Upper Two drank in every detail of the disgustingly pathetic little city. It was so much different than what he was used to, he felt like a bored rich man playing at commoner for his own entertainment. Though, he supposed that’s exactly what he was, in a way, wasn’t he? Immortal demon with hoards of disciples pretending to be a useless human in a town wreaked by poverty.

As the pale-haired man inhaled a breath of minute excitement and stepped forward to make his way into the heart of the cruel town, he felt something small and light collide with the backs of his legs, his calves hardly even wobbling as the tiny, near-weightless mass ran smack dab into him from behind.

”Oh!”

The veiled man blinked in mild surprise and made a small show of just barely stumbling forward unnecessarily, hoping to seem as human as possible as he turned around to face whoever had crashed into him. He was confused for a moment to at first see nothing behind him at all, before his gaze lowered to notice the tiniest little girl he had ever seen collapsed at his feet, moving to pick herself up off the wooden planks below in utter silence. She was small to the point of malnourishment and unnaturally pale for a human, her dark hair a messy nest around her round face and her threadbare clothing filthy and worn.

Douma’s brows raised as he studied her, before his head cocked, the man lowering himself down into a crouch as he reached out to take the girl by the elbows in order to help her up, his nails blunt in order to avoid detection as a demon. He noticed two things as he did this — that despite her size, she had to be closer to seven or eight years old and not the initial four or so that he had guessed, and that she flinched slightly upon him making contact with her. He found his brow knitting slightly at these rather worrying facts, but he put on a warm smile and a gentle tone as he spoke to her, just as he would with any other child.

”My, that was quite the fall, little one!” he said as he reached out to dust off the front of the girl’s clothing as much as he could. “Are you quite alright?”

The little girl did not answer him. Cocking his head, the cult leader hummed and then brushed some of her hair out of her face so he could see her better, revealing big, beautiful pink irises that were glazed over, never looking in his direction in any way. There was something harrowing and haunting in her gaunt, emotionless expression, the demon's chest filling with pity as he watched the girl take a small step away from him.

”Hey! Get back here, you runt! Where do you think you’re going?”

Douma’s head lifted when he heard the brash shouting of what sounded like an angry older man, his eyes narrowing when he saw a large, bald man making his way across the bridge towards the girl, a rough and frayed rope in his hand as he shook his fist above his head. Distaste and annoyance flickered within the demon almost instantly, especially once he noticed the way the child flinched upon hearing this man’s voice.

The pale-haired upper moon stood up and straightened himself as the brazen man approached with his rope, which Douma was now able to see had an untied loop and knot at the very end, like something had managed to slip out of it and escape.

When the stranger laid eyes on the little girl who had accidentally run into Douma, his face darkened ever further, the anger across his face making him look a bit like a fat pig through the demon’s eyes.

”There you are, you stupid girl,” the brute grunted as he stopped a few yards away from them. He pointed at the disheveled child with one thick finger, his teeth gritted and his voice bearing no signs of fondness as he barked at her. “Get over here, now.”

Despite the signs of fear the small thing was visibly displaying in the man’s presence, the little girl showed no signs of reluctance as she slowly turned around to face the man, her head lifting just enough to see him through her messy bangs, before she lowered her tiny face again and began to shuffle silently towards him — that was, until Douma found himself putting his body between her and the man, his hand cupping the back of the child’s head as he cocked his head at her apparent guardian.

”Excuse me, sir, are you this girl’s father?” he asked, noticing the girl’s confused hesitance at his side, though she said nothing and made no move to respond to the demon inserting himself into the situation.

The hog of a man seemed slightly stunned to see Douma — tall and broad, mysteriously hidden behind fabrics, soft-voiced yet serious — stepping in front of the little girl, but his brief surprise morphed into anger fairly quickly. “Doesn’t matter, I paid good money for her and I expect to get my penny’s worth. Mind your own damn business and move along, creep.”

Douma stared at him through his veil for a moment or two, sizing him up, quickly deducing that this was an insecure, angry man who didn’t think of himself in very high regard, and most likely actively thought of himself as being the scum of the earth. He was the type to take that out on others while he looked for purpose and bliss in things like gambling or alcohol, though of course, all of this was futile. Whatever hole visibly existed within this man could only be filled by his own forgiveness of his flaws. The demon was able to guess all of this within seconds, and he had fairly good reason to assume it was accurate — he had plenty of experience reading pathetic human beings, seeing right through them and into their psyches with ease. It was a skill that aided him greatly within the walls of the cult, but it had its uses outside of it, as well. Douma quickly decided he disliked this man.

”Is that so?” he asked as he continued to shield the little girl, making no move to let her go to the stranger who was claiming he owned her. “How much did you pay for her?”

”None of your business — what’s your deal, eh?” The man lifted his rope, brandishing it like proof as he shook it again. People around them had begun to stop, watching the scene with curious, judgemental eyes. “She’s my property, and she got loose. I want her back, she belongs to me. Get your nose out of my business and get the hell out of here!”

“Hm, I see…” 

Douma turned his attention away from the man for a moment, instead turning towards the child next to him, his voice much warmer for her than the cold seriousness it had taken on for her apparent owner. It seemed apparent she had been sold for some nefarious purpose or another. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

”She doesn’t have one,” the man barked for her, the little girl never having opened her mouth to reply, anyway. “Her parents never gave her one. If you want to talk to her, pay up!”

At this, Douma felt his interest pique. He had never heard of another child without a moniker, a nameless being treated more as an object than a living, breathing being,  — the same sort of child he had been, though it seemed he and this young girl existed on opposite ends of the spectrum. He had been dehumanized by pure worship, compared to this little girl who seemed to have been cast aside entirely. He quickly decided on a whim that the girl would not be returning to her master.

The cult leader hummed thoughtfully as he turned back to the man, who was approaching by now, his feet stomping against the wood as he made his way over to them. When Douma held up one slender hand, he seemed to hesitate.

”How much?” he asked once the man had stopped moving, still keeping the child close. “I’m interested in this girl’s purchase.”

The brute blinked, processing for a moment, before his eyes narrowed, staring Douma down. “Are you serious?”

The demon nodded solemnly, his tone ambiguous even as he gave the affirmative. “I am, depending on your price.”

The man seemed to gnaw on the concept for several moments, considering hard, before he lifted his chin and pridefully set his price. “Ten thousand yen.”

This must have been considered expensive by this town’s standards, as the small crown who had gathered around that evening’s small spectacle murmured and gossiped among themselves. To a rather wealthy man like Douma, however, this was nothing, and he hardly batted an eye to the number — not that he had any intention of paying it, regardless.

”You have yourself a deal,” Douma affirmed with a nod, apparently much to the man’s surprise. He started to come over, dumbfounded, as Douma made a show of reaching towards his side as if retrieving the funds.

The man seemed giddy and altogether shocked as he came over, his eyes practically glowing with the idea of having that much money, and having the apparent nuisance of a girl out of his hair. He watched Douma’s hands closely, leaning over to try and see, as did everyone else around them.

What Douma grabbed from the folds of his kimonos, however, was not currency. Instead, there was a lovely metal shing! that resounded through the air, followed by a beautiful flash of golden light visible only for a moment by the many people upon that small, darkened bridge, before the man suddenly let out a garbled scream of agony while his hands flew to his neck, bright crimson blood spraying and then pouring generously from his freshly slashed throat while everyone around them gasped or yelled out in pure, utter shock.

Douma and the little girl — whose eyes he had quickly shielded before making the lethal swipe of his shimmering fan at the truly revolting man — were gone in an instant, before anyone could even fully react to the sudden carnage. He had picked her up under one arm and all but disappeared with his immense demonic speed, reappearing on the pathway out of the town, in the nearby woods, just a few moments later, his veils shed and his demonic visage fully on display by then. The upper rank glanced back at the town with an absent look on his face, able to hear people shouting as chaos erupted around the man he knew was either dead already or dying as the seconds went on. 

Good riddance.

After a moment or two, Douma turned to look at the little girl he was holding, one of his arms hooked under her rump while he held her up high, near his shoulder. She looked the tiniest bit stunned by the direction the night had taken, but otherwise, he didn’t see much else on her absent, eerily empty young face. Her eyes were still hazy and she still wasn’t quite looking at him, but Douma didn’t really mind. 

He reached up to stroke her messy hair with one hand, smiling warmly with closed eyes as he chuckled to her gently. “You won’t have to worry about that man anymore, darling, or any others. I’ll bring you back home with me, and you’ll never have to face misfortune ever again.”

This time, the girl’s empty gaze moved subtly to look at him, her sight finding and focusing on his face, his unique and brilliant eyes. She still didn’t say anything, her face empty and quiet, almost as if she were dead to the world, simply awaiting whatever came next with a dreadful, eerie sort of acceptance. Douma didn’t shun her, though he was slightly confused, but he took it in stride as he began to walk down the path in order to return to the temple with her on his arm, speaking to her gently and sweetly the whole time.

”He said you didn’t have a name, right? What do you think of Kanao, hm? I certainly think it sounds lovely — it only seems fitting, doesn’t it?”

Of course, the little girl did not respond to his suggestion,simply silently staring back at him with a detached absence in her eyes, but he simply hummed approvingly at the name as he nodded, continuing along the path. It sounded right to him. 

Kanao she would be, then, he decided.

Chapter Text

“Douma-san?”

As the cult leader was gentle using his delicate hands to comb through Kanao’s silky black hair with a fine ivory comb, he acknowledged the boy sitting across from them both with a soft hum.

“Hmm? Yes, Inosuke-kun?”

The blue-haired child leaned forward on his knees, gazing at Kanao’s face, though the little girl was not looking at him. Her soft eyes were cast downwards towards the floor, just as they had been for the past week or so that she had been living at the temple. 

Inosuke continued to stare at Kanao, studying her blank expression. His own was filled with genuine curiosity. “I have a question.”

Douma hummed again, slightly distant as he focused on his task, setting down the comb at his side while holding her hair in a side ponytail, before he instead moved to pick up a small lotus-shaped clip with which to tie the girl’s locks. “Mm, go ahead.”

The young boy’s eyes lifted onto Douma’s face as he sat back again, cocking his head quizzically. “Is she broken?”

The upper rank hesitated, his entire body freezing for a brief moment, a mild surprise on his features. Then, after a few seconds, his thick brows furrowed as his hands returned to motion, carefully pinning up the little girl’s hair. “No, Inosuke, Kanao is not broken. That is a rude question.”

Inosuke blinked at him as if confused or surprised, those big emerald eyes curious and eager. “Then how come she never talks?”

“Kanao can speak,” Douma replied, frowning just barely, more in his brows than anything else as he tried to apply the large pink clip at the same time as he humored the little boy he’d raised. “She’s just a bit quieter than you.”

“Hmm.” Inosuke looked around as if thinking, then cocked his head again. “Why doesn’t she play any games? All kids like games.”

“I didn’t play any games when I was your age.” Douma finally secured the clip, humming softly in approval of his own work once he got the girl’s hair successfully pinned to the side. “Kanao, can you turn around to face me, dear?”

“You didn’t?” Inosuke asked, unaware that Douma had grown up idolized, and therefore didn’t have the luxury of play. “Really?”

In front of the upper rank, Kanao did not make any noise, the tiny girl shifting her weight and turning around on her hands and knees until she was facing Douma, before he then used his hands to guide her to sit again. He had noticed that the child needed to be told or guided to do… well, almost anything. She didn’t even eat on her own.

“Thank you, darling,” he said to Kanao, smiling warmly down at the reactionless child as he ran his fingers carefully through her neatly trimmed bangs, checking the length and style of everything, all while he sighed and answered the boy. “No, Inosuke, I did not. Not all kids are the same. Kanao is just fine, she is simply adjusting to her new life with us. We all need to be patient.”

Though the demon’s eyes were on the doll-like child directly in front of him, he could hear the sound of Inosuke huffing with mild disdain as he flopped onto his back upon the padded flooring, lifting his arms up and staring at the ceiling as if the boy were going through one of life’s great and toughest mysteries.

“But I am only seven!” he said as if exasperated, his blue-tinged hair in an azure halo around him as he spoke up to the sky. “I’m not very good at being patient!”

Douma had to resist a small snort, shaking his head as he continued to fuss with Kanao’s hair, which had been freshly cut the day he had brought her to the temple. “Believe me, little one, I’m very much aware.”

Inosuke let out another puff of air, his arms landing heavily on either side of him, the boy now stretched out like a snowflake. “Being patient is boring. I want her to play with me now.”

“Well, she isn’t ready yet, flower,” the cult leader replied with a gentle sigh, finally pulling his hands from Kanao’s face once he felt he was adequately satisfied with her appearance. “Are you ready for your classes, Inosuke?”

“Oh!” The young boy immediately popped upright, eyes wide. “I forgot about classes!”

In an instant, Inosuke was gone, his feet making loud but rapidly fading footsteps as he ran off down the hallway attached to this room, most likely heading to find the books or the journals that he had been supplied with for his teachings. There was a system within the following for young children to learn simple basics such as reading and writing, as well as various helpful information on the faith itself and the various duties both boys and girls were to eventually perform within it once they were deemed old enough. Most of Douma found some of quite foolish and other parts rather indoctrinating, but he supposed the literacy was probably important. Inosuke quite liked reading, and he had heard once that such things were good for small children. The boy could still use work on his kanji handwriting, however.

In front of him, Kanao — who he guessed was slightly older than Inosuke, perhaps eight years old — had not moved in the slightest since she had turned around for him, the girl staring silently down at the floor, as she often did. She looked so much different than the rough, decrepit state he had found her in. As soon as he had arrived with the neglected and disheveled girl, he had arranged for her skin to be gently scrubbed, for her hair brushed, cut and cleaned, for fresh, nice clothes to be gathered for her, and for a decent meal to be prepared as soon as possible. His attendants had followed his instructions in an obedient and timely manner, all while singing the praises of how lovely and gracious he was, saving another unfortunate soul and whisking her away to the safety of their walls. He more or less ignored their worship while he oversaw the caretaking of Kanao.

The following, along with their leader, had learned somewhat quickly that Kanao was a relatively strange little girl. She hardly seemed to react to anything they did — from the strong-smelling soaps on her filthy skin, to the tugging of the hairbrush through her tightly matted hair, she showed no discomfort, or any emotion whatsoever, really. They had to physically guide her into her fresh silky kimono and hakama, and when they had placed food in front of her, she had stared at them all blankly. Upon being asked if she was hungry, she did not answer, but when she was advised to eat, she cleared the entire plate despite looking slightly green — Douma was sure her stomach had never handled something so rich. 

Over the next few days after her arrival, caring for her had proved to be a hassle for the human apostles of Douma’s cult. They became frustrated too quickly, especially the older women he had hoped would look after her. It had only a day and a half before Douma had assumed full control and responsibility for her, and since then, it was him and only him who had been caring for her. He brushed and did her hair every morning, he helped her into her clothing, he helped her wash her face and body at night, he sat with her while she ate, she slept on a futon next to Inosuke’s in his quarters. 

In just a short bit of time, she seemed to have already shown the tiniest bit of progress under the demon’s direct eye, such as picking at her a much gentler food a bit more slowly than the way she had previously swallowed it all down despite her discomfort. He continually reassured her whenever she could that she did not have to rush to do anything she was asked, that she was free to do just about anything she wanted. The girl was still very quiet and needed to be told to do most everything, but he had at least been able to get her to relax the very slightest amount. She had even spoken a few words to him here and there, easing his worries that she had never learned how during her time with her previous captors.

“Kanao, sweetheart,” Douma said in a very gentle, easy voice, using one hooked finger to delicately lift her chin. “Would you like to join the classes with the other children today?”

The young girl’s soft eyes took a moment to fully fix on his face, the demon able to pinpoint the moment her gaze fully focused. She looked up at him through her thick, dark lashes, not saying anything, not making any real attempt to answer or acknowledge him at all. He did not mind in the slightest — if anything, he felt an odd sort of kinship with this strange, emotionless little girl, though he got the sense that she was something of an opposite to him. Douma felt nothing at all but played all the parts to ensure this remained private, while Kanao seemed to have buried and hidden her own emotions for survival.

Unperturbed by her silence and lack of communication, Douma simply hummed and move to cup Kanao’s round, adorable face with either hand, smiling down at her for a few moments.

“Kanao,” he said after a minute or two, “you’ve always been told what to do, right?”

She blinked her heavy lashes as she looked up at him, before she managed a tiny nod. It made sense, he had asked her a direct yes or no question about a fact — no feelings or opinions, the answer was objective. She struggled with subjective things, such as being given options or being asked what she wanted. The demon narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and cocked his head a little, considering how they could get around her difficulties with options and decision making.

Then, an idea formed in his mind like lightning, the man humming chipperly and lifting one hand to snap his long fingers. “Ah! I’ve got an idea! Hold your head up, dear, I’ll be right back.”

Kanao leaned back from him as she had been told, the demon letting go of her in order to scoot back and get to his feet, moving towards the open door to the hallway in order to lean out of it, looking left and right for the nearest follower. When he finally spotted a young man going by with a basket of flowers, Douma pointed at him, to which the man grunted and stiffened in surprise.

“Ah! You.” Douma smiled and becked him over, gesturing for him to put down the basket right outside the door. “I have a favor to ask.”

The disciple seemed tense and nervous to be directly addressed by the leader he worshipped, the young man swallowing tightly as he nodded, shoulders tight. “Y—Yes, your grace?”

“First, please relax,” Douma said somewhat briskly, waving his hand as if to ward off the human’s tension, before he cocked his head. “Can you fetch me a coin from the treasury?”

“A… A coin?” the young man questioned, frowning slightly as if confused.

“Yes, that is what I said.” Douma made a motion with his hand as if shooing the other off. “Hurry up now!” 

“R—Right away, founder…”

As the man turned around and jogged off on the errand he had been sent on, Douma moved to turn back around as well, before he hesitated, leaned over to pluck a fresh flower from the basket, then went back into the room and came around in front of Kanao again. 

“Hello again, darling,” he greeted lovingly as he sat back down before her. “I’ll tell you my idea as soon as that man comes back, okay? Then we’ll decide together whether you’ll go to class today. Does that all make sense?”

The small child looked at him for a rather long time, before she finally nodded again subtle and nearly imperceptible. 

Douma clicked his tongue, reaching out to gently tap her nose. “We are supposed to reapond when others speak to us, remember? Let’s try again. Did you understand everything I said?”

Her voice was so soft and high pitched, so quiet, as if she had hardly ever used it. “Yes.”

The upper moon smiled again, cocking his head. “Do you need me to repeat anything?”

Kanao seemed to think about it for a moment,  wrote she gently shook her head. “No.”

“Mm, okay, good,” the man said with another hum. He then reached out to hand her the beautiful red flower he had picked out — a spider lily, though it was, of course, not the sacred type his master was lookiig for. “This is for you.”

The little girl blinked, looking down at the flower. She didn’t make any move to take it, showing no reaction to it at all as she looked up at him again. He realized that she had likely never been given a gift before.

“Here, sweetie, take it,” he told her gently, taking her hand and carefully guiding her fingers to wrap around it. “It belongs to you now.”

Kanao took the flower when he let go of it, pulling it towards herself and absently looking down at it again.

“Isn’t it pretty?” he asked, watching her reaction closely.

The young girl continued to look down at it, silent, before she finally nodded. “Yes…”

Upper Two made a small sound of delight as he clapped his hands together, making an effort to do it softly so as not to make the little girl flinch as she sometimes did at loud noises. “Mm! Do you know what that else is pretty, little one?”

Once again, Kanao did not vocalize any answer, looking up from her flower and back up at him. Her soft, purplish-pink eyes were so lovely, making the vibrant pink ends of her ponytail stand out and accentuating the gentle rosey tones of her clothing.

Douma chuckled and tapped her nose again, smiling. “You, Kanao. You are very pretty.”

For a moment, there was an expected lack of a reaponse, before the child’s eyes widened as her face took on a soft pink hue, her tiny lips pinching just slightly before she looked down as if embarrassed. The subtle display was the most strong reaction Douma had seen Kanao have since her arrival, and it took him a moment to realize that she had probably never received a compliment in her life. It made him want to embrace her in a hug, but he knew that unexpected touching such a child as her may cause her more distress than comfort — and, besides, the follower appeared in the doorway with perfect timing, quietly clearing his throat in order to interrupt as politely as he felt was possible.

“I, uh, brought the coin you asked for, founder…” he said unassuredly, holding the item between two fingers. “I picked… the shiniest one I could find.”

“Ah, excellent!” The cult leader exclaimed somewhat excitedly as he quickly stood up, crossing the room.

The young man swallowed again as he held out the requested piece of metal, gingerly dropping it once Douma approached and held out his palm. “Here you go, your grace…”

“Thank you kindly!” Douma replied as he closed his manicured fingers around the coin, before he reached out to pat the man’s cheek twice. “Eyes up when you speak, and be more sure of yourself! You have no reason to be so nervous.”

He saw the way the man’s face lit up with color when he was touched by the demon, as was the typical reaction of such feeble minded people when they were touched by what they saw as their beloved savior. Douma quickly dismissed the man’s presence with a smile and a nod, resisting the urge to roll his eyes when he turned away and made his way back to Kanao again.

“Okay, here we are!” he said with mild delight, holding out his palm to the youngster once he was kneeling with her again. “This will hopefully help you from now on!”

Kanao lifted her chin enough to stare at the small circle of genuine gold in his hand, still slightly flustered in a childlike way as she lifted her eyes a little bit to see him, though she did not pull her face all the way up.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay if you’re confused. See, a coin like this usually has two sides — you call one side heads and the other tails,” Douma explained as he sat back, placing the coin on his thumb and flipping it upwards. “Watch.”

The little girl looked up all the way as the coin went up into the air, spinning and catching the light so that it glinted flashily, before she grunted very quietly when Douma’s hand swiped to catch it once it started to fall. She watched him with a very curious expression as he put his hand towards her and opened it again, revealing that the opposite side of the coin was now facing upwards. She looked up at him again.

“See how it flipped over?” he asked, taking her hand and gently removing the flower, before he helped her to hold the coin as he had before. “You try. Flip it like I did.”

The dark-haired child gazed at the coin a moment, looking up at him as if making sure she was doing alright, before she attempted to flip the coin — though, she didn’t get it on the first try. The medallion fell off of her hand when she lifted it, hitting the floor with a thump before it started to roll away from them.

“Oh, that’s alright!” Douma quickly said as he reached out to pluck the upright coin of the floor, before he hesitated upon turning back to Kanao.

The little girl’s entire body was trembling like a fragile tree in a windy storm as she stared hard at the floor between them, her fisted hands tucked tightly into her lap and her shoulders hunched to her sides. He could see that her pale skin was sweating and her lower lip was trembling — and he quickly recognized the signs of a person bracing themself for an incoming blow. She must have faced serious consequences in her past for “failures”, if even something as small as dropping a coin on her first attempt to flip it made her entire body go rigid and cold. 

“Oh, Kanao, you didn’t do anything wrong, sunshine,” he said in as gentle of a voice as he could use, lowering himself slightly so he could bend down and see her face. “It was an accident. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Kanao’s body did not relax, still shaking almost violently as only her eyes moved, flicking upwards to look at his face. The fear that like in her gaze was downright heartbreaking, even to a heartless man like the upper moon demon kneeling down in front of her.

He lowered his voice even further, this time letting his smile slip away, his tone becoming as genuine as it had ever been in its sort of emptiness. “I promise. I will not hurt you. Can you sit up for me?”

It took a moment. She continued to stare at him intensely, her brows slightly tightened, her entire mood on high alert, her gaze vigilant. She was searching his face for any sign of deception — or perhaps she was seeking the opposite, desperately looking for some sign she could trust what this man was saying to her. 

Eventually, the little girl’s head very slowly lifted up, her postured still tight as she swallowed, hands pressed hard into her lap. Douma’s smile was gentle and subtle as he stayed down on her level, cocking his head at her just so.

“There you are,” he said so very gently, watching the way she visibly tracked everything he did. “You’re alright. Would you like to try again?”

Unsurprisingly, Kanao did not answer him. He realized his mistake in asking a subjective question again, the man making a soft “ah” noise as he finally straightened up, keeping his smile steady and his voice calm.

“Okay. We’re going to try again.” His hands were light and easy as he reached out for one of her tiny hands, helping her hold the coin as he had before, but he held her steady this time, his palm under her hand as support. “Alright. Try to flip it, like I showed you.”

She hesitated at first, before she tightened her lips and tried again — successfully, this time. The coin did not go nearly as high as it did when Douma had flipped it, but it went up enough to turn a few times in the air, before falling back down into her hand, which Douma had opened and cupped so she could easily catch it. Her brows lifted slightly in interest when the coin landed harmlessly in her palm, her gaze lifting up at him again.

“There, see, you did it!” he cheered in an easy voice, smiling widely as he let go of her hands, squeezing her cheek gently. “See! I knew you could.”

There was a split second, the briefest of moments where Douma thought he saw the very tiniest of smiles on Kanao’s face, before she looked again again at the coin sitting in her upright palm.

“Okay! I was thinking that you could use that coin whenever you need to make a choice,” he said, reaching out to tap it, his nail clinking against it. “Let’s say tails means ‘no’, and heads means ‘yes’! Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Kanao continued to look down at the coin, before she nodded again, the movement punctuated with the very softest of grunts as she lifted her head again.

“Ah, excellent! Let’s try it now, to decide if you should go to lessons with Inosuke!” He pointed to the coin. “Go on! Flip it again. You’ve got this.”

Though the child still looked slightly nervous and not fully relaxed, she took a breath and flipped it by herself, almost perfectly. She cupped both her hands like before, her gaze expectant as it landed face-up. 

“It says heads,” she said softly, looking up at him for reassurance.

“Well, then that means yes!” He chuckled as he sat back on his calves before standing up, reaching his hand out to help her up. “Right, come on then! Let’s go! I’ll take you there.”

Kanao grunted softly when he got up, the man truly towering over her tiny frame. After a moment, she fisted the coin and reached out for him with her other hand, gripping his index finger and allowing him to pull her to her feet, before he guided her down the hall towards the lesson room, humming gently.