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The wind is cold through the pine needles and the king's summon burns hot in his eye.
After centuries of living this routine, Kokushibou is accustomed to the pain. Muzan does not call them kindly. Beneath his thin veneer of civility, the king is angry, and he takes pleasure in drawing out the pain he inflicts upon his subjects. Those that succumb prove themselves to be weak; those that persevere will grow ever greater.
Muzan does not humiliate him, but he does like to test him. With practiced apathy, Kokushibou accepts the latest of his summons. He waits out the phantom sensation of claws digging into his skull, the cold venom crumbling his limbs, painted nails digging into his eye and scraping out the flesh until only the hollowed sclera remains: all of this nothing but a ghost of feeling, a reminder that the king, should he want to, can make anything real.
Kokushibou does not flinch. The nio at his side, misshapen and grey, grunts in pain.
"Quiet."
"It hurts," Seiun says, staring up at him with a single baleful eye.
"Your weakness shames me," Kokushibou disdains.
"To draw it out this long was unnecessary from the start," Seiun says, instead of bowing her head. "He did not need to make it hurt."
She has recently developed the aggravating habit of defiance. Kokushibou does not spare her a glance. He refuses to encourage her behaviour.
When humans are turned into demons, their souls are transformed too. Molded anew, or stripped bare. The nio that trail after them, the manifestations of their souls, are converted—from their physical forms they turn into pure spirit, becoming one again with their humans in the endless pathways of nerve and vein.
It is Douma's theory that the combining of the two separate entities into one is what makes demons so powerful. It's believable enough, surprisingly rational for a theory cultivated by what is nothing more than a glorified cult leader. Akaza takes enough interest in it to only hunt humans whose nio have interesting forms, though he still scorns Douma for the way he toys with his prey.
Akaza's honour remains, even when his memories have long vanished. How bizarre for a demon to hold such foolish ideals, but he retains that trace of humanity nonetheless. Were he anyone else—Douma, perhaps, or even Daki, prone to gossip as she is—he might have been curious about what shape Akaza's soul had taken when he was human.
But Kokushibou has not cared in a long time for such things as that.
And yet they still plague him.
Seiun digs in her heels when he makes to leave.
"I'm not hungry," she says.
"You are not the one who eats," he replies.
She snarls at him, then realises what she has done. "I'm sorry," she says, wings drooping. "I didn't mean to."
He gazes at her, his failure of a beast.
Her claws, sharp and gleaming. The ropes of muscle that stretch along her legs, showing only where her long fur has rotted away. Her wings, all three of them growing only from the left of her spine, twitch beneath his scrutiny, and she closes her mouth to prevent her drool from reaching the ground.
Only Kokushibou's nio had rejected him instead of being absorbed into his body. Whatever he has gained after becoming a demon, he has gained with his own strength.
Seiun meets his six with her one dark eye, set deep into the centre of her ghastly mask, unreadable.
"Get up," he says.
She follows. There is nowhere else for her to go.
The bamboo is thin and reedy, tender leaves sprouting from the young green stalk.
Michikatsu picks at the fibres sticking out of the messy end of the stalk where he had cut it with his sword.
"This one's all wrong," he grumbles, tossing it to the ground. "This is stupid."
His words clatter to the ground, dropping among the carcasses of the rest of his failed attempts. An'un scampers around his feet, tiny paws galloping back and forth over the polished stones of the garden. He'll clean up after. Or maybe, he considers, realising that he has lessons soon and that father will be upset if he sees the mess, he'll clean up now.
"You can always try again later," An'un says, nipping at his fingers. "You have lots of time."
Michikatsu frowns. "That's not the point."
An'un doesn't understand. For all of Michikatsu's maturity, she seems to be the inverse. Michikatsu's nio is the most unruly and mischievous creature in the household, and even father seems bemused at how to handle her. All the tutors he has say that she should be trained to sit still, rewarded with food and praise when she obeys, but the only thing that stops her in her tracks is the sunrise, bizarrely, and that cannot work when Michikatsu is unable to make the sun rise on command.
Some mornings, he wakes up to find her sitting outside, head propped up on her paws.
These are only the mornings he wakes up to see. She does the same for all of them, whether or not he knows, and each morning she slinks away from it in a strange and fretful mood, lashing out at Michikatsu with claws and teeth, calming eventually as the day drags on.
Some days, he wonders what's wrong with her, and then what's wrong with him.
"You can finish it after class, can't you? You can give it to him tomorrow morning. I'm sure he'll be okay until then. You know that, right?"
Michikatsu sighs.
He fancies briefly something else:
A falcon, to perch on his armoured shoulder, to come at his beck and call. A hawk, more grand, more noble and great than his dumb, mad, little dog. A warhorse, majestic and striking, to ride into battle, or even a tiger, armed with iron claws and iron will. There are rumours, even, of a rare few with nio in the shape of gargantuan beasts, so large that they could carry an entire household on their backs, hidden in the depths of the sea.
Unfortunately, all he has is this. This stupid, dumb puppy.
An'un wriggles, throwing up dust all around her. The claws on her back foot catch on Michikatsu's clothes. He untangles her.
"Do you think Yoriichi and Hio will travel alongside us when we become samurai, Michikatsu? We can fetch them later from the temple, after we've grown up. Wouldn't it be fun to be a ronin and a travelling priest?"
In the distance, Yoriichi dances in the grass and Hio soars high above his head, both of them glowing in the light of the sun.
Perhaps out of guilt for her difficult pregnancy, their father had left the naming of the others to his wife. Michikatsu, the eldest son and rightful heir, had been named by their father; Yoriichi, by their mother, and the tiny creatures that had come to life beside them soon after they were born, named by their mother's nio, a sleek, soft-furred dog called Botan.
Mother had told Michikatsu the story of their naming. "For the dark clouds we had seen on the horizon, An'un. For the red sun, shining the last of the day's light upon us, Hio."
She is as superstitious a woman as their father is superstitious a man.
Michikatsu doesn't understand.
"You have to go to the temple," he says to Yoriichi one afternoon, a few days after their parents had come to an agreement concerning Yoriichi's uncertain future. Father had wanted to drown him in the river or send for an exorcist's expertise so that Yoriichi's bad luck wouldn't befall the household, but mother had pleaded him into merely sending Yoriichi to the temple to be raised as a monk.
Yoriichi doesn't respond. He stares at Michikatsu with his great big eyes, Hio as motionless as a statue at his side. She's taken the shape of a heron today, her beak sharp and tucked safely under her wing, her waterlily feet splayed out clumsily on the engawa. Michikatsu checks every now and then if there is anyone nearby, because he's sure that if father were to see, he would be upset.
All Tsugikuni are hounds, he says. Noble hounds. Not only has Hio never taken on the shape of a dog, but he thinks her name is presumptuous, which he thinks also of Yoriichi. It's bad fortune, he says. Such a noble name is too generous for an unlucky child like that. Even the sight of Yoriichi causes him unease.
"Having to go live at the temple is better than drowning, so you aren't completely unlucky. You can just be one of those monks that don't talk. That's probably easy for you," Michikatsu says, comforting his brother. "They like birds at temples. Hio will blend in."
Yoriichi, as always, only stares back.
Michikatsu steals a glance down at the beetles. They still aren't fighting yet. It's not without trying; he has been poking them with a stick, trying to provoke at least one of them into retaliation. If he times it properly then the one on the right will lunge at the stick and miss and then finally tackle its opponent and then they can have something to watch, more exciting than the empty shadows Yoriichi amuses himself for hours with or the endless void of the sky above. Father used to play with beetles when he was younger.
But neither of them react.
Instead of rising to battle, they hunker down on themselves as no samurai would ever do. Michikatsu rises from his crouch, frustrated. As soon as there is space around his knees, An'un comes nosing around. By the time he realises what she's going to do she's already snapped her jaws around his prize fighter.
"An'un!" he cries. He tries to wrench it out of her slippery mouth, but she ducks away from him to hide behind Yoriichi. He threatens her: you'd better not squish it! Or else!
An'un makes the motion of biting gently down. The beetle squirms furiously in her mouth. Michikatsu glares, trying to make her come back and sit at his feet, but she only tumbles around the clearing with even more reckless abandon than before. Tsugikuni are always difficult as puppies, father says, but An'un just doesn't listen at all!
As he storms after her, he spies Hio, sitting off to the side. Her feathers are pretty and sleek, and she is always well-behaved. She sits nicely and never makes Yoriichi run around to catch her, and whenever she shifts form, her proportions are always perfect—never paws too big for her body, teeth too crowded in her mouth.
"Why are you like this?" Michikatsu finally snaps. "What's wrong with you?"
An'un ignores him, increasing the pressure of her jaw until Michikatsu thinks he can hear a faint crack. She only stops when Yoriichi reaches out his hand, fingers curling around the beetle on her tongue until his grip is secure enough to pull it out, legs waving wildly in the cooling air. She lets him, loosening her jaw and looking at him with pleading eyes.
There is a strange expression on Yoriichi's face. His forehead is ever so slightly creased. It only lasts for a moment, and soon after, Michikatsu is distracted by the motion of Yoriichi setting the beetle out in the grass, ruining the game Michikatsu had wanted to play. Soon after, he sets the second one free too, Hio unfolding her long legs to follow them as they wander thoughtlessly in a world they are too small to see for its entirety.
Cowed by Yoriichi's disapproval, An'un slinks into his side, barely batting an eye at the disciplinary tug he gives to her ear. She chews on his hem, ruining the fabric, whines and shoves her cold, wet nose against his hand.
Michikatsu sits alone, watches his beetles crawl away. He wishes she was more like Hio.
Hio is beautiful.
She has always been beautiful. She has no flaws, no disgusting, pitiful imperfections. She strides up to them on bamboo legs and waterlily talons, her eyes warm and round, her neck the immortal stroke of a master's brush.
Like Yoriichi, she doesn't startle at Seiun's appearance, the crest of venomous spines, moon-pale and pointed, tinged purple at the tips. She only looks at her, at the both of them, with a sorrow that seems almost unspeakable. Fitting, really. Neither of them had been prone to conversation. But that was in the past, and this is the present.
Kokushibou pretends he doesn't see the twitching of Yoriichi's hand, as if he longs to reach out and touch the matted fur beneath Seiun's scales, stroke her ill-fitting wings. But damn him. Damn him for his pity.
Yoriichi draws his swords and Hio ignites. Her feathers blaze into pure, red flames.
When Kokushibou cuts him down, Hio continues to burn, but no ashes fall from her feathers. She lowers her head over the bisected halves of Yoriichi's body and covers him with her wings. She goes up in flames, burning and burning right up into the sky, and when Kokushibou stares into the moon, he can see her scarlet crown bowing at its base.
Only her. Only she does not turn to dust, when everyone else's souls grow gold and crumble.
Fury consumes him. Yoriichi's organs have spilled out onto the ground, smelling only of rust and water, with no trace of refuse or waste.
Only after being cut apart does it show that age had touched him; despite the wrinkles, he had been as limber as he was in youth, his voice as clear as it had been the very first time he spoke. But even though he had lived past his curse, his body now shows how the years have touched him: the joints worn away from use, the thinness of his brittle bones, the reedy muscle along his limbs.
His appetite must have faded as he stepped closer to death and as his spirit prepared itself to leave this world. Even in death, Yoriichi is clean. Even in death, he is graceful. Perfect. The unrivalled sun.
Staring at the sun causes his eyes to sting. Kokushibou allows water to well up in them to wash away the ash, watching in sudden apathy as Seiun ghosts over the corpse. She lingers over something pale and twisted, splayed pathetically across Yoriichi's split chest.
He turns his face away.
Transforming is not difficult. It is seamless, like slipping into a second skin that had been crafted just for him. An'un weeps as it happens, screams and shrieks and cries. Her new body is unique and astounding, with scales and talons and dripping fangs.
"Michikatsu," she whispers, horrified. "What have you done?"
"I have made us stronger," Kokushibou says, gazing down at the hands before him.
Pulsing blood, throbbing veins—he knows that he will not run out of breath for as long as he stands under the night sky. Limitless power injected into him, an eternally green fruit ripened in an instant. He swallows down his giddiness.
"We are more powerful now, Seiun. Do you not understand what I have done? Now, we are strong."
She looks at him and says nothing, her eyes still hurt and confused. The limp imitation of wings protruding from her back hangs low and slack, the feathers caught between colours, shedding one by one to the ground.
It tilts its head, tipping it back to stare up at the sky.
Gyomei watches him with a swollen desperation catching heavy in his throat, each wound and gaping ache burning with the strength of his hope. The demon doesn't move to attack, or even to dodge their blows.
Finally, Upper Moon 1 lets himself fall.
His beast howls, tearing itself from the ground. Careless to the pain and consequences, it rips its wings free of the swords that had pinned it to the ground, dragging its crippled, bleeding body to its master. Red pours from the gaping gash that Tokito had made in its chest and from its ruined wings, only two remaining of the original three. It seems to take no notice, mumbling instead at the crumbling body of the First Moon.
"Michikatsu," it weeps.
Its body drips away. Scales begin to distort, sloughing off in waves, and the odd, ugly wings that had been the bane of their battle slip off it like an ill-fitting coat. The spines that had spiralled out from its single black eye melt away like water and trickle down its cheeks, a miasma burning away the leathery skin of its mask, giving way to something with sable fur and a long, sad face.
"An'un," says the First Moon, his tone as if recalling something.
His voice is low and nearly inaudible. The top of his head has blown away into dust and his torn robes sag into the hollow space at his sides where his arms had once been.
When humans become demons, they cannibalise their own souls for power. Demons do not have nio, because they have forsaken their humanity. Gyomei can only pray for their lonely souls; he cannot imagine being without his Kokuo.
"I see his face, An'un," repeats the First Moon. "I am never rid of him, An'un. I can never forget his face."
The nio, because that is the only thing it can be, leans forward and rests its forehead against the demon's chest. Stripped out of hiding, its true form is revealed: a wolfish snout and pointed ears, a deep-chested body enfolded in dense black fur. Its thick tail is half ash.
"I only wanted to look at the sun," the dog murmurs. "I'm sorry."
"I wanted to be him," the demon says.
"I know."
Shinazugawa kneels on the floor in a pool of blood, hugging his brother, his weasel clawing his knee into a bloodier mess than it already is. Young Tokito lays to the demon's side, his eyes lifeless, dull with a blankness possessed only by the dead. Shinazugawa makes a noise and Genya degrades completely, the gold dust of his body mingling with his badger's.
The black dog whines softly.
"I have killed my own descendant. I have abandoned my honour. I have thrown my humanity away. And yet, I could never reach you, Yoriichi. No one could touch you, Yoriichi."
"Michikatsu," the nio whispers. "What have you done?"
It lays itself down beside him, decaying limbs tangling in the purple cloth.
"Nothing," the ashes breathe. "I have done nothing of worth."
The last of his remains are swept away in the breeze. The dog weeps and dissolves into dust.
Then, the only thing left of the both of them are the blood-stained robes and the cleaved halves of a bamboo flute, carved by childish hands, clattering to the floor under the pale light of the moon.
They settle themselves in for bed, Hio ruffling her feathers to gather more air. Yoriichi had seen on the clouds and smelled on the wind that it would be cold tonight, and the fluffier she is, the warmer she can keep both herself and Yoriichi until morning.
They would have to check on mother first thing tomorrow. The cold couldn't be good for her illness.
"Why are you surprised?" she asks the other half of her soul.
Yoriichi cradles the flute in his hands. In his eyes is a look so reverent that Hio almost laughs. As they are not meant to make much noise, ever, as well as when within their room, she remains quiet, but a small warble escapes.
"Brother says he'll come whenever I call him," Yoriichi says.
"Do you not believe him?" Hio says. She lowers herself slowly at his side, covering his bare legs with her feathers. Soon the gooseflesh smooths out into plain skin. "An'un told me they spent two days making it."
Yoriichi smiles, small and secret.
He wraps the flute up in a spare cloth that mother had left with one of their meals and places a hand on Hio's back, between her wings, to scratch at the spot she can't reach on her own. She rattles with approval.
As he lays down to sleep, Yoriichi pulls the thin sheet over both of their bodies. His heart echoes in her chest; her eyes mirror his joy. She tucks her beak into his hair, smoothing it away from his face, and the heat flush from the lingering contact warms them both. "Yes. I believe him. I think he will be the strongest samurai in the country. My brother, who is so kind."
Hio shuts her eyes. Yoriichi's fingers flutter over her neck, pressing the feathers flat.