The Demon Queen

Finding a Hooligan

Still, close to two years later, we hadn't killed Tamayo. However, she gave us no particular reason to act. Ever since the incident before, she never once stepped out of line. She even stopped making those small, irritating mistakes.

I should have killed her for that, because it proved that she had been performing some of her tasks incorrectly on purpose, but I couldn't really kill her without Muzan's consent. For him, it was still not the time. Instead, he needed to document my observations and conclusions.

"Oh, it appears we frightened her," Muzan had said with a snicker. "And she consciously fixed everything she was doing wrong out of fear for us. Tell me more."

He really could be an idiot. He had an entire chest full of scrolls with his notes on the "domesticated demon" that he hardly looked at. But still, he insisted that he didn't have enough.

Fine. I wasn't going to argue.

One evening, he packed away his updated log on Tamayo's health checkups and asked me what I found to be a very obvious question.

"Did you hear those people talking last night? Some of those demon slayer hooligans are dying off."

"Yeah. We talked about it after we came home."

Muzan snickered within a closed mouth and came behind me to rub my shoulders. "I'm thinking we can finish off Tamayo pretty soon. Maybe in a couple months," he said. "Does that please you?" He kissed me behind my ear.

It wouldn't please me much, since I had been suggesting it for a long enough time already.

"It would," I replied to him.

Muzan sighed onto my ear with hot breath. "Perfect," he said and then lightly nipped my ear. He then licked off the small droplets of blood before the puncture wound quickly healed. He sighed again and then moved away from the side of my head. With his hands still on my shoulders, he turned me around to face him. "Do you want some?" he asked and tilted his head to one side, baring his neck in an open invitation.

I smirked at him. "Maybe later," I said and tapped him at his neck. "I want to go out and walk like we were going to. Don't you, Muzan-kun?"

He agreed that he wanted to walk around and listen in case we could overhear any more rumours about the demon slayers. So, we left the castle and went into the city. It was a quiet night without too many people around, but everything was well-lit with the silvery full moon. Muzan smiled a lot as we strolled holding hands through the streets. The moon as a source of some kind of natural light greatly lifted his mood. It was romantic to him. Not that I didn't understand where he was coming from, but I was not as sentimental to these things as Muzan was.

Eventually, after strolling down many streets to an area of the city that was completely empty, both Muzan and I picked up on some strange energy. It was definitely coming from a human, but it wasn't normal human energy. It was even stronger than the heightened human energy we associated with samurai and war assassins. It was oddly ...

... as if the human energy had demon qualities mixed into it.

We slowed down in pace. Muzan held my hand tighter as we tried to locate the exact spot the energy was coming from.

"Do you think ...?" I asked.

"One of those hooligans," Muzan said.

"I think they're alone," I said.

Muzan nodded. "The energy is stagnant."

A couple blocks later, we both stopped in front of a building.

"On the roof," I said.

We both looked up. On the roof of the building was a silhouette of a long-haired man who seemed to be practising sword swings. From what I could sense, the man wasn't in a combative disposition at all. In fact, I could only pick up fear and resentment in his energy.

"Let's check this one out," Muzan said. He looked at me. "Yes?"

I nodded. "Let's go."

We jumped up to the roof together.