The Descendant (A Retelling and love story of Demon Slayer)

Nineteen

***SPOILER WARNING***
***SPOILER WARNING***
***SPOILER WARNING***

** Trigger Warning**
Talks of blood consumption and death.

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     There are few things in the world that are quite as vexing as having something that you want but can't touch flaunted directly in your face. For Kibutsuji Muzan, the all-powerful origin of demon kind, it was even more so. There wasn't much that the thousand-year-old demon king couldn't obtain. Knowledge. He had an abundance of it as being immortal granted him the time to learn whatever he wanted. Money. It was never truly on his mind. If he wanted something he could just take it and on the occasion that he did carry coin it was only to not raise suspicions of his whereabouts by slaughtering the people he stole from. Power. He was the demon king. Not only did he possess inhuman strength and near-instantaneous regeneration abilities, but he also commanded an army of weak-minded simpletons that were easy to manipulate. No, there wasn't much he couldn't wrap his claws around...

Except for three things.

One of those things was the medicine known as Blue Spider Lily. It was the only thing he needed to be whole. To be perfect. A millenniums-worth of research has awarded him the knowledge that the medicine must contain legitimate blue-colored spider lilies, the only problem was he could never find evidence as to where they were located. He knew they existed, his research had told him so, but their whereabouts continued to elude him. Red spider lilies he could find easily and has tried to use in his experiments on numerous occasions, but it seemed it had to be the blue variant. The red ones never gave him the results he was after. That result was the second thing that he couldn't seem to obtain.

The ability to walk in the sun. No matter his power, no matter his strength, Kibutsuji Muzan was at the mercy of sunlight just as any other demon in his command. One touch and he would start to burn away just as they would. It was insufferable, and being in the presence of weak humans who could do what he couldn't was just as maddening. So in an effort to hopefully create a mutated variant that might be able to withstand the sun, he would create new demons. All he needed was one. If he could just find a single demon that could do it, he could absorb them into himself and take their abilities. Negating the need to find that infernal blue flower altogether. These were the two things that had always plagued him. Now, as though the heavens were mocking him, there was a new one.

Glossy pink irises were locked on his figure. Alert, defiant, and knowing. She saw right through his human facade the moment she approached. Easily offered a lie to the two humans he kept around him as a front. The young woman standing before him radiated confidence, composure, and competence, yet at the same time gave off hidden tones of underlying rage and malice. She hid those negative emotions almost expertly, but he could see it all the same.

His gaze traveled her form, and though she wasn't wearing the hanafuda earrings, he was aware of exactly who it was upon spying the mask she'd pulled to the upper right side of her head. She shielded her marking from his view, but it didn't matter. This was the female sword wielder he had ordered the capture of. She was standing right in front of him, her arm slung over the neck of a boy, and lying through her teeth in his face. When their eyes met, he felt a spark ignite within himself. A shudder worked its way down his spine. The abhorrent emotion he felt now drowned within his rising hostility. He was determined to ignore it. Refusing to believe that this mere mortal could get such a reaction out of him.

~

Originally when Upper One had reported about her he hadn't been all that interested. What was one more weak human added to his ever-growing annoyance? Still, though, he ordered Kokushibo to test her skill if he had deemed it necessary. After all, he'd be remiss if he ignored her, and she ended up being the chosen demon he'd been after for so long. 'Leave no stone unturned' as they say.