The red-black world of flesh was gone. He was back in the tatami-floored room, and the demon who had been in front of him was now standing behind him. Glimpsing her over his shoulder, he leapt away to put some distance between them.
What was happening?
Looking around, Sanemi saw that the room wasn’t quite the same as it had been before. The snow-white beds were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the children were lying directly on the tatami mats. The doors, walls, floor, and ceiling all bore slashes from Sanemi’s blade. In a moment, it all came together.
Illusions.
The white beds he had seen in the beginning, the terrible world enclosed by walls of flesh—they had been phantoms created by the demon to confuse him and conceal the truth. No wonder none of his attacks had landed.
As he pieced things together, Sanemi realized the rotten-sweet scent was gone as well.
Now that he knew he’d been dancing along with illusions, Sanemi was more enraged than ever. How dare that demon toy with his mind? She’d had him convinced he was locked in some alternative space, even if he didn’t believe it was really the womb of a demon. He’d been focused on escaping that space, and it had blinded him to reality. He’d fallen for every one of her tricks.
But how had her spell been broken?
A familiar voice shouting his name answered that question. “Sanemi! Where are you?”
“Masachika! I’m here!” Sanemi called back.
He heard feet thudding down the hallway. A few seconds later, Masachika flew in through the open doors.
“Sanemi! So I figured it out in time.” Beads of sweat stood out on Masachika’s forehead, but he wore his familiar bright smile. “You’re okay.”
The moment Sanemi saw that smile, his friend’s relief writ large across his face, he knew that Masachika was the one who’d saved him from the demon’s trap. His anger melted away at once. Even if they hadn’t been able to see each other, Masachika had been there, fighting alongside him.
He felt his face stretch, unprompted, into a smile. “You saved me, Masachika.”
His friend grinned back. “What are big brothers for?”
Relying on the image in the mirror, Masachika cut through the display case with his Nichirin Sword. He heard the sound of porcelain breaking. With that, the hateful scent dissipated. He glanced down at the shattered fragments of the incense burner. Then, afraid to waste another second, he ran down the hallway, calling for his friend.
When Sanemi shouted back, Masachika raced in the direction of his voice. What had been a dead end when he was searching the house now opened up into a room. He charged through the open sliding doors and found the demon, two children, and Sanemi, thankfully still alive.
“Sanemi! So I figured it out in time,” he panted, looking his friend over. No new injuries. No bleeding. So Sanemi hadn’t become desperate enough to use his rare blood. The situation was still serious, but Masachika broke out into a smile. “You’re okay.”
Sanemi ran over, meeting Masachika’s smile with his own. “What’d you do? How’d you break the illusion?”
“There’s a mirror in another room that’s a charm against evil,” Masachika explained. “It was handed down for generations by the family that lived here.”
He told Sanemi about the letter he’d found, written in blood by a girl who was murdered by her own mother. He guessed that the daughter’s spirit had gotten its revenge by showing the truth about her mother in the mirror. He described breaking the hidden incense burner to make the demonic fragrance disappear.
Sanemi caught on immediately. “And the woman who killed her daughter...”
“It’s gotta be her.” Masachika glared at the demon.
The demon’s smile was like ice. “Well, well. Who knew that old mirror had some power in it after all?”
Masachika noticed the number inscribed in her left eye. Lower Rank One. So she was one of the Twelve Kizuki, closer to Muzan Kibutsuji than any demon Masachika had faced before. Even so, no fear rose within him. Nor was he champing at the bit with fighting spirit. Inside him, there was only rage.
She had killed Sae. Even before she became a demon, that woman had been a monster wearing human skin.
“It certainly didn’t do anything to stop my husband from beating me,” the demon continued, sounding little more than annoyed. “I always thought the family stories about it being a talisman were bunk.”
“Sae helped us,” Masachika said, half to himself. Had Sae’s spirit cursed her mother, or was she trying to save her from adding to her sins? As he tried to imagine the dying girl’s state of mind, Masachika felt his hands clenching into fists.
In lazy, self-pitying tones, the demon sighed. “So the girl betrayed me again, did she?”
With a gasp, Masachika exploded in rage. “That’s a lie! You betrayed her! You killed her by inches! Every time she started to get better, you hurt her again! You poisoned her, crushed her throat, slapped her head, broke her legs! How could you do that to the child you gave birth to?” Anger made his voice shrill.
In the face of this outburst, the demon betrayed no emotion. If anything, she looked bored.
The rage inside of Masachika melted into sorrow. “I won’t let you get away with this, Yae.”
The demon flinched at the sound of her human name. She’d been unmoved by talk of her daughter, but now her face darkened and her voice grew harsh.
“I abandoned that name long ago,” she said. “My name is Ubume. A gem of a name bestowed upon me by my lord when he gave me this wonderful new form. I was named by the only one who’s ever understood me.” Now she sounded ecstatic. “All I ever wanted was happiness.”
The demon described how she’d endured her husband’s violence, hoping that someday they could be a happy family. Despite her patience, he ruined her, robbed her, and finally threatened to run off with some woman he met in a gambling den. She killed him and made it look like an accident, and no one questioned her.
But even with her abuser gone, her heart remained empty. She wondered why, no matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t be happy. Then, when her daughter fell ill, Yae discovered that nursing the sick girl filled her with a peace she’d never imagined. As she cared for Sae, she felt the desire to live that way forever.
“But she tried to run away.” The ecstasy on Ubume’s face dissolved into disappointment. “She crawled across the floor, bent on leaving. I was so kind. I did everything for her. And that was how she repaid me.”
“So you killed your own daughter? Is that what you’re saying?” Sanemi said in a strangely even voice.
“Yes. I did.” Ubume smiled gently. The look in her eyes was completely different when she gazed at Sanemi than it was when she stared Masachika down. It was as soft as if she were regarding her own beloved child. “But I regretted it immediately. Once she was dead, I was no longer the brave wife devoted to an abusive husband or the patient mother caring for her sickly daughter. I was nothing. That was when he appeared before me.”
He shared his blood, understood her feelings. He told her she would make a powerful demon. To that end, he informed her, she must devour as many humans as she could.
“What do you think my first meal was?” she asked with a smile. “Sae’s corpse.”
Masachika groaned, disgusted. It was just as he’d imagined. His fists clenched even tighter.
The euphoria returned to Ubume’s face. “Since then, I’ve snatched up so many, so very many children. I eat them, return them to the womb, make them my own. At last I’ve given this house a happy family.”
The demon turned to Masachika. “You see, it’s easy to find a way into the hearts of children who have been hurt. If their parents won’t love them, they’ll turn to anyone who will. More than one of my little ones has clung to me, thanking me, right up to the moment I swallowed them. Truly a blessing. I’ve been so happy. But I have no place for a child who holds his head high and meets a parent’s eyes without fear. I prefer someone like your friend here.”
Ubume looked at Sanemi with a blood-red smile of boundless benevolence. “You’re hurting, my child. Not just your body, but your heart as well. I can always tell when a child comes from cruel parents. I want to comfort you. I want to love you.”
Masachika felt a sudden rush of blood to his head. He was too enraged to spit out even a word of response. Instinctively, he attacked with every ounce of strength in his body. “Wind Breathing: Third Form! Clear Storm Wind Tree!”
Ubume tried to deflect his blade, but the power of the attack overwhelmed her. Her left arm, ripped from her body, tumbled to the tatami. Her red eyes glanced indifferently at the arm before turning back to Masachika.
He glared back. “Sanemi’s no pitiful child. Not even close. His mom loved him. She loved her sons from the bottom of her heart.” Emotion left his voice ragged. He hated the demon so deeply he could hardly bear it. This monster didn’t know what kind of life his friend had led. She had no right to talk that way about the most loving soul Masachika had ever known. She couldn’t imagine how he’d put his own body through hell, again and again, for what was left of his family.