The Demon Queen

Plans for the New Servant

"What did we just do?"

Muzan stretched his arms and yawned, laying in our futon dressed in his sleepwear. "Hm?"

"You know ... Tamayo ..."

"I brought her to the servants' quarters and sealed her in with a barrier," Muzan said. He yawned again. "You know that. You were there."

"I don't know, Muzan. We blindfolded her so she wouldn't know the direction back home and then you sealed her in her wing and sealed us in ours."

"What's wrong with that?"

"If we find her really that untrustworthy, maybe it's not a good idea to have her around. Maybe we should just kill her."

"Don't worry about it," Muzan said. "I found a good hold into her heart. But of course we need to be careful. Tamayo has to earn our trust piece by piece. She's mentally deranged right now and she knows it herself."

"I guess," I said.

"Don't worry. I'll all work out with time." He started to caress my shoulder. "I'm taking all the necessary precautions."

"But she won't come into our wing."

"Of course not."

I rolled my eyes. "So, we have this Tamayo as a servant to clean around the castle but she won't even be cleaning in our area."

"I don't want her in here."

"But don't you think this is all a bit illogical?"

"I don't want her in our wing."

I sighed. "Muzan .."

"Don't tell me that you'd want her scurrying around here."

"No!"

"Then we agree," he said. "She won't come in here. I have all of my work for the blue spider lily synthesis in here. I don't want her around that."

"Yeah."

"But we can leave our wing and not have to deal with dust and insects to clean. The property can be maintained as it should be for those of our social status. That's the purpose in having Tamayo. And also to see how this can be done."

I looked at him curiously. "This?"

"Domesticating a demon."

I started to laugh.

"Think about it, Sakura," Muzan said, gaining enthusiasm in his voice despite his earlier yawning. "It's a rather exciting development. All the successful demon transformations have turned them into rather monstrous, deformed creatures. We never tried to make one with the intention of it being, well, tolerable to be around. Tamayo is an entirely new breed of domesticated demon."

"So, another one of your experiments, basically."

"Of course. And a servant for the sake of our position. For the sake of feeling our position."

No one cares about our social position, I thought. Sure, the other demons recognise the hierarchy but it isn't the same as when we were human. We aren't nobles anymore, Muzan, we're just strays.

It would be too much of a bother, jumping into an unnecessary argument, to tell him that.

Muzan yawned. "Just let's keep the barriers in place and neither of us should teach Tamayo any demon skills. She can't get too strong, after all." He yawned again. "But I know that's easily understood."

"And we shouldn't give her much food," I said. "The minimal of human flesh and blood will do. The more humans a demon consumes, the stronger the potential of their Blood Demon Art, you know?"

He laughed a little. "Ah, that's right, too," he said. "I'll tell her something like that she needs centuries for her body to get used to devouring humans, so we can only give her a little. Well, she'll gain some strength over time anyway. It doesn't matter. You and I will still become 1000 times stronger than her. We have nothing to worry about."

"True. But I want to keep her development to a minimum."

"That goes without saying," Muzan said. "After all, she's a servant and has a safe place to live. She doesn't have to fend for herself out there. There's no need for her to develop her demon powers too much." He shifted himself closer to me and kissed me on my lips. "I'm exhausted," he said.

"Putting up those barriers took so much out of you?"

Muzan repositioned himself so his neck was on his pillow. "Not so much out of me, no."

Sure. Right, I thought.

He extended his arm towards me. "Will you come to my chest?"

"Of course," I said and snuggled up to him, pulling the blanket up over both of our bodies.

Muzan took a long, deep breath. "That's perfect."

He continued to mumble something until he drifted off to sleep. I didn't pay much attention to what he was saying. I kept thinking about Tamayo. I needed to try to figure out just what I was sensing off of her that made me uneasy. Unfortunately, trying to concentrate so hard on the wispy sensations I had only made everything more vague.

"Red hair ... scars ..." I murmured as I started to fall asleep.

It made no sense. Tamayo didn't have red hair. And she didn't have scars.