The Demon Queen

Prey

One evening, we went into a city and searched around for potential servants. We walked through the streets, observing the people that were out after dark. To our fortune, the days had begun to get shorter, and so there was still some life in the city after sundown.

We ended up passing by a home that gave off a peculiar energy. The two of us stopped and waited to observe the building some more. Inside we could faintly hear the voices of two men standing by the door. Among the words we could make out, we heard "disease" and "severe".

The situation greatly sparked Muzan's interest. He stood there staring at the house with a concentrated, intent expression on his face.

The door slid open.

"There's nothing more I can do for your wife," a middle-aged man said and stepped out onto the veranda. "I would guess she has two months left." He bowed to a distraught-looking younger man who was standing inside past the threshold of the door. "My apologies, sir."

Muzan and I waited until the older man, who appeared to be a doctor, made his way away from the house. Muzan then took my hand as the defeated younger man slid the door shut.

"Let's try here," Muzan said and walked with me up to the door. "After all, I've known medicine for a very long time." He raised his hand and knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, the younger man inside opened the door. "Watanabe-sensei?" he asked, expecting the doctor to have returned. When he saw us, he paused and stared at us.

"Good evening," Muzan said in a pleasant tone. "My apologies if I seem to be intruding, but my wife and I happened to be passing by and overheard your parting with the gentleman. May I offer my assistance?"

The younger man hesitated to answer.

"I studied medicine myself," Muzan continued. "From what I overheard, your wife is in a rather desperate state. It would be my duty as a physician to offer my services, if you don't protest --"

"No, I don't protest at all," the man interrupted. He bowed his head. "I would be forever grateful if you would take the time to see if you can treat my wife. I'll find a way to pay you, even if I have to pay piece by piece over years to afford your fee."

"There's no reason for that," Muzan said. "I couldn't possibly demand payment in an emergency situation, and from how it sounds, this is an emergency situation."

"It is," the man said. "My wife, Tamayo, is very ill." His eyes looked back and forth between Muzan and myself a few times. "Please come in." He stepped to the side, giving us room to enter his home. "I'll introduce myself. My name is Hiraga Asato."

"Kibutsuji Muzan," Muzan said with a bow of his head. "And my wife, Sakura."

I bowed my head.

"She'll assist me in the treatment," Muzan said as he entered the house. "We both studied together and she's always my partner when we treat a patient."

I followed Muzan inside.

His assistant, yes, I thought. But in something like this?

Asato shut the door and stepped in front of us. "My wife is in the other room," he said. "Please follow me."

We followed him.

Normally, I didn't care at all when we took someone's life into our own hands and made the decision to turn them into a demon. But here ... the more I looked in their home, the more I didn't feel right about what we were about to do. Inside there were two children playing together who paused to watch as their father brought a pair of strangers into their home. As Asato led us to the back room his wife, Tamayo, was in, the children followed.

They were going to witness the entire thing.

Two children, a boy and a girl, similar to my long-deceased older brother and myself. Or even, like Kenta with a younger sister, if he would have had one. The boy looked like he was maybe a year younger than Kenta was when he died. Their eyes stared at us curiously. They were still too young to grasp the fact that their mother was dying.

And they, too ... if Muzan would decide to turn their mother into a demon, and if she would go completely berzerk as new demons normally did ...

They, too, would die.

I didn't know how I felt about that. Maybe I had started to forget exactly what death meant. I knew that Muzan was well-aware what death was. He still feared it more than anything.

"Tamayo," Asato said as he went over to a young woman laying on a futon. "Believe it or not, some luck has possibly come our way. By chance, another doctor was passing by on the street."

"I can almost guarantee you, Asato-san, that we will cure your wife," Muzan said. He took my arm and leant very close to my ear. "How grateful she'll be for us," he whispered.

I said nothing in response. The entire situation was starting to creep me out, especially the two young kids that had continued to follow us into the room. 

There's something wrong with these people, I thought.

But then, as I got closer to the woman named Tamayo and saw her face, it all became clear to me.

There was something wrong with her.

Her.

There was something wrong with her.