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Chapter Text

You got cozy in your bed, shifting under the sheets before settling down into a surprisingly easy slumber after a hard day.

You slept wonderfully.

Only for you to wake up somewhere else completely.

Panic was the first thing you felt as you stared out into the vast forest, then, much to your confusion, hunger. A gnawing sensation in the pit of your stomach, trying desperately to crawl its way up your throat and out your mouth. You felt like vomiting, hurling. You felt like crying, sobbing. You felt like eating, consuming.

You stood on shaky legs, still wearing what you had fallen asleep in, and began walking. It did nothing to soothe the persistent ache in your stomach. Yet still, you walked and walked. The ground dug into your bare feet, small stones painful yet easily ignored in comparison to the hunger. Suddenly you stopped and turned, hurrying foward like a feral animal without even realizing it. Something smelled delicious, delectable and you just had to have it. You had to, you had to, you had- you stopped, confusion temporarily overriding the hunger fueled daze she had fallen into. Was..was that a cosplayer? No, it couldn't be, making the small limbs move like that would be impossible, the fluidity of them basically negated any possibility of it being machinery too. And yet, it had to be, it couldn't be a statue afterall, or maybe it was? Machinery mixed with a statue? A really good robot or maybe a puppet? But why would anyone do that?

You somehow didnt flinch when the strange, possibly a contraption, thing moved to look at you, seemingly angry as it shouted.

“what do you think you're doing in my territory you brat!?” It asked angrily, you only blinked in response.

How could you even begin to process that, apparently, it wasnt a statue, or a puppet or machinery? That something too akin to being real was standing before you, angrily at that. The kanji marked eyes stared at you with nothing but contempt.

“i asked you something, you brat! How annoying! I'll just get rid of you!” Suddenly, a pot appeared from within the being's hand, and you fully realized what you were seeing was the real deal. You barely managed to dodge the barrage of fish hurled at you.

You continued to stare at it, him.

Gyokko, Uppermoon five, form the anime which you so dearly adored.

And you felt nothing but hunger towards him.

What the hell was happening?

You barely dodged another barrage of fish by throwing yourself to the side, looking at the wriggling fish with confusion.

Your nails dug into ground and you stood up and ran, to your horror, towards him. Claws, claws?, outstretched and ready to dig into skin and flesh alike. And to your surprise and continued horror, you did. Sharp nails dug into white flesh, one digging through a kanji marked eye, rather easily. Shouldn't an uppermoon's flesh and bones be harder to pierce? They really should be...and yet, both felt like butter under your hands. Your body was moving without your say, clearly so, as you crushed bone, leant down, and bit into brain. Then pulled, and ripped, and chewed. It tasted delicious, surprisingly enough. Sort of like a mix of fish and meat, freshly cooked and still hot. It was delectable. You couldn't help but get lost in the flavour, easily and unintentionally ignoring the cries of pain and anger coming from her new delicious meal. You only continued eating, gulping down chunks of flesh and an absurd amount of blood. You didnt seem to be able to eat faster than the other regenerated, which a part of your brain loved. Gave you more, much more, to eat, to feast on.

You continued eating for awhile, apparently using your grip on him to prevent him from getting away or retaliating in any shape or form, like a starved animal. Your clothes and skin were completely sullied by blood, but you couldn't bring yourself to care. You just continued on until you felt full.

You stopped, breathing heavily as you pulled away, standing on up still shaky legs and taking a couple steps backwards, the back of your hand came up to try and wipe the blood away from your mouth, but it only worsted the mess that was your face. Eagerly, you licked what you could off your hands. A catlike purr kept coming from deep inside you, pleased as ever. Wait, purr? You stopped suddenly, yanking your hand away from your mouth and staring at the demon infront of you. You seemed to have done a number on his regeneration, if the slow movement of flesh sewing itself together was any clue. Oh gods, what the hell had you just done? You were eating him. You gasped, taking another shaky step backwards. Something swished behind you and you grabbed it out of instinct, only to let it go when pain made itself known.

You had grabbed a tail. Your tail.

...were you a fucking cat?

Your hands drifted to the top of your head, and sure enough, two pairs of fluffy ears met you. What in the?..

“-ou brat! Who the hell do you think you are you-”

You turned to look at your mea- at the uppermoon as he slowly regenerated his mouth, one of them atleast, sputtering curses and insults all the while he did. You stared, somewhat nervously, mostly confused. Right... Gyokko. A fictional character. Didnt really feel fictional when you were chowing down on him now did he. Ugh, don't think about it...it was gross, and yet seemingly a big part of you didnt regret it. Whatever blood you had consumed allowed for the before small voice telling you to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted to grow larger, stronger, louder. It came with a striking realization.

If Gyokko was here, then you must be in Demon Slayer.

And if you had ears and a tail, inhuman features, along with claws and an unbridled hunger...

Then you were most likely a demon.

An immortal, man-eating, demon.

Or well. Demon eating in this case. Hey, why had you eaten him when he was another demon? How in the world did that fill you up? You suppose those were questions for another time, for a time where the ground under you and the uppermoon wasnt opening itself up and into a cacaphohony of infinitely expanding structures.

Chapter Text

You fell, and fell, and fell. Yelping as you did so, you were too scared, confused, to even scream. Scared, because you knew this place. You knew who resided in it, and what being here meant. Confused, because it smelled delicious in here. It smelled like someone had just cooked a big juicy steak, and the smell was still lingering. You continued falling, your body involuntarily moving to have your arms and legs facing downwards, as if ready to land on all fours. You really were a cat now, huh. Despite the situation, the falling, you couldn't help but feel annoyed. You were a damn cat? Seriously? I mean, cats were cute yes but being one was another thing entirely! Oh god would you hiss at people now? You already had purred of all things, so it didnt seem implausible. Yo- aCK-

You were driven out of your thoughts when a pillar struck you from the side, squishing you against it and pushing you towards another platform until it suddenly stopped, leaving you to fly towards the platform. You hit it hard, rolling for a long moment until your nails dug into floor, your feet also digging into it. Woah, something smelled amazing. Like, better than the fish- um, Gyokko, had. Your head flicked upwards, your mouth already watering in preparation for entering the same hunger fueled daze from earlier before a absolutely dreadful feeling came over you, and suddenly, all you felt was pain. You screamed, grabbing onto yourself in an attempted to ease the waves of absolute pain that eched itself into your body. Your skin bled as your nails dug into your skin, skin that appeared to be cracking.

“Mh. You certainly are unusual.”

You barely heard the deep voice over the sounds of your pain.

“a demon-eating demon. You were more than ready to try and eat me right there. How bold. Don't do it again.”

The pain stopped and you gasped, staying kneeling on the floor, your arms hugging yourself with you forehead touching the floor. You breathed heavily, tears falling from you face. Your ears were pulled back tightly against your head, tail swishing against the floor like a broom. You continued to try and calm down, the aftershocks still running through you. They came with the realization that standing before you, waiting for you to get your act together, was none other than the demon king himself.

“your smart enough to realize who you're talking to. Good.”

His voice was nothing short of commanding, mature, shameless and powerful. Overwhelming in a sense, yet calming. The type of voice that you had to listen to no matter what, easing the constant issue of overthinking life itself. As you hesitantly looked up, you could see him raising an eyebrow at you. You realized pretty easily by his expression, and by the unusual and somehow red colored fuzziness that hanged at the edges of your thoughts, that he was, infact, inside your thoughts, and had most definitely heard that little string of thoughts. You would've been pretty embarrassed, if you weren't still in pain. Not that you weren't embarrassed, you most definitely were, just not as much as you could, should or would normally be. Not that anything about this was normal. You looked back down, staying in your kneeling position silently. That..was probably the safest bet, right? Yeah... probably. Hopefully. He stepped forwards, towards you and, with a wave of panic, you suppressed the hiss eagerly trying to escape your throat. Do not hiss at the demon king you dumb fuck, thats like- a sure fire way to get killed! Smartass of a demon body.

“raise your head.”

You flinched, but tried not to hesitate, looking up at him nervously, a clearly worried expression on your face. With your head raised you could see a still regenerating Gyokko standing, standing or sitting?, off to side from the corner of your eye. You didn't dare take your eyes off the demon king, nervously staring into red eyes. Pr- no, stop it, hes still in your head, stop saying, er, thinking! dumb things!! You almost grumbled, unused to the idea of someone being in your head, unused to reigning in your thoughts when they were usually a safe space. Not that you could do much about it, of course. Demon king do what demon king do. Without turning his gaze away from you, he spoke.

“Gyokko.”

“y-yes! Muzan-sama?..”

“You're free to leave.”

“yes, Muzan-sama..”

Your ears, literally, perked up at the sound of what you assumed to be a biwa. The pluck of strings sent the uppermoon away, leaving you basically alone with the older demon. He moved, taking something out from within the back pocket of his more western clothing. He held out a vile filled with something red, blood maybe? He popped the cork keeping it closed open, and the smell hit you. Yeah, definitely blood, but... Strangely enough, unlike with the last time, you didnt feel any urgency to eat it, or any need to at all.

“do you know what this is?”

He asked, you hesitated.

“..blood?...”

He hummed, swirling the liquid around. The fuzzy feeling inside your head got stronger for a moment, as if he was intentionally searching for something, before dissapearing all together. You almost sighed in relief, even as you felt confusion at the fuzziness's inability to expand into your memories. A wall seemed to have been made, and you wondered if he was being merciful in not touching it. He looked down at you, calculating.

“open your mouth.”

“huh?”

“dont make me repeat myself.”

Calculating turned to cold, and you hurried to comply, holding your mouth open. He tilted the vile, letting its contents fall into your mouth. Immediately your face scrunched up in not at all hidden disgust. The demon king only raised an eyebrow at your reaction, finishing emptying the vile.

“swallow it.”

You almost wanted to say no. It tasted disgusting. You hesitantly, begrudgingly even, swallowed it down, the horrid flavour following you all the way down your throat. You were visibly regretting everything in your life just because of it. Almost immediately, it came right back up, leading you to desperately clasping your hands over your mouth, lest you vomit on the demon king's shoes. That. That would most certainly get you killed. Absolutely it would. You held on for barely a couple of second, before having to turn and puke to the side.

“urgh...bleh..”

You grumbled, staring at the stain of blood you just hurled. You froze. You really, really hoped that the older demon didnt take it too personally that you had just puked up his little...uh..gift? Actually, what had he given you? It certainly wasnt demon blood, so...human blood? No, you were a demon, surely that would taste well. And yet, you saw no reason he would give you animal blood. So why?...

“Nakime, take us to my laboratory.”

Another pluck of strings and you were somewhere else completely, you hesitantly looked around, finding yourself in, as said, a lab type place.

“stand up, sit on the cot.”

You stumbled to your feet, your tail twitching and wrapping around your leg without really wrapping around it protectively. You walked over to the only cot in the room, sitting down on it and fiddling with your fingers. You wondered what the man wanted from you, to do to you. You hoped it wasn't anything to do with your new and probably there regenerative abilities, since you were a demon, you assumed you had one. Not that you particularly wanted to test that out.
You flinched back into attention when Muzan began approaching you, needle in hand.

“arm.”

You stared at him, confused. He sighed.

“hold out your arm. Im getting a blood sample.”

You flinched, hastening to hold out your arm as instructed, too scared to do much else. You winced slightly when the needle pierced your skin without much preamble, the syringe filling itself up slowly but surely. You felt a small electric shock as you came in contact with Muzan's skin, chalking it up to static. You watched your blood fill the syringe, suprised. It held a golden bits in it, like someone had dumped those thin edible gold leafs in it. That... wasn't normal. Definitely not. You stared at it with unhidden curiosity, ears and tail perking up to attention. It was, admittedly, pretty.

Once the syringe was full, he pulled it away, holding up to the light, probably noting the golden bits fluttering about in it like you had. He hummed, before walking over to a desk and filling an empty vile with the liquid inside the syringe. He left a little inside the syringe, turning and placing the remaining liquid on a small piece of clear material, placing something ontop, before moving to place under a microscope. He leaned down to look through it, apparently finding something interesting as he leaned back and grabbed a book, that upon closer inspection only appeared to have empty pages so a notebook, before noting something down. He stopped, as if remembering something, before turning back to you. You flinched into attention once again.

“you. Nakime will make you a room, you're to stay there unless i say otherwise. Ask Nakime if you need anything. Oh, and take a bath. You smell awful.”

“ah- o-”

A pluck of strings.

“-kay...oh.”

You blinked, suddenly somewhere else. You stood up from the floor, where you had been placed in a sitting position. You dusted yourself off, only to grimace at the wet mess that was your clothing. Yeah.. you probably did smell awful, between the sweat and blood. You felt a wave of embarrassment at the realization that you had met the demon king in your dirtied pajamas. Right, the demon king... You still couldn't believe you were in an anime, it was insane. You were here and yet you still had a hard time believing it. You walked over to what appeared to be a window, looking out to find infinitely expanding structures. Definitely real. You sighed, moving to see if there was anything you could change into.

You looked around the room, realizing it was a bathroom, a wooden bathtub full with steaming water. Right, take a bath. You really weren't going to complain about it, easily ridding yourself of your clothing and dipping yourself into the already made bath. You sighed, looking around to find something to scrub yourself down with. You moved to grab a nearby rag, using it to scrub the blood off you. You felt a strong urge to lick yourself clean, ignoring it with another wave of embarrassment. Right...cat demon. Why did you have to be a catperson? Cat Hybrid? Technically tribrid? Whatever.

You sighed, cleaning yourself quickly before leaving the bathtub, once again looking around before finding a towel and using it to dry yourself. You wrapped it around yourself, suddenly struck with the realization you had no clean clothing. You sighed, looking around and desperately searching for a clean change of clothing. You couldn't find anything. You hesitated, worried at what you should do. Maybe?.. he did say to ask her if you needed anything so like...

“um, Nakime? Can i have a change of clothing?.. please?..uh..”

The silence was awkward, and you were about to get back into your dirty clothing with a defeated sigh when a strum rang out, folded clothing appearing infront of the sliding door leading out. You sighed in relief, walking over and picking it up.

“thank you! I mean- um, thank you, miss Nakime..”

You smiled, opening up the first piece of folded clothing and looking at it with renewed worry. If you recalled correctly from your limited research, this was a juban, a traditional japanese undergarment, the most common one since most people still wore kimonos. It made sense, obviously. You were in Japan now, but still...you weren't actually sure how to put it on. You had watched someone, once or twice, put on a juban before putting on a kimono or yukata, thanks fyp page, so you vaguely knew how to, but you still weren't all that sure. You sighed, unwrapping the towel from around you and instead wrapping yourself in the juban. You put on your undergarments, before closing the juban, holding it there. Next what you assumed to be a yukata, light purple in color with slightly darker flowers. You looked down to find under it had been what you also assumed, this time with more confidence, to be an obi belt of sorts, along with three long thin strips of white fabric. You took a deep breath in, using one of them to hold close the juban. You assumed, again, that that was what they were for.

You hesitated before grabbing the yukata, holding it up and inspecting it for a moment before moving to put it on. A weird feeling overcame you, like there was fog in your mind. Weirdly enough, after that your movements were fluid and crisp as you tied the first string, fixing the fold that situated itself right below the obi before tying the last string around your top half. Muscle memory not quite your own flooded your mind, and, almost as if in a trance, you grabbed the obi, pulling it up and holding it to your waist as you wrapped it around, folding and maneuvering the fabric until you had a small bow at your back. You froze as the fog dissipated. How did you?...

You studied your clothes carefully, seemingly perfectly put on despite your basically non-existent knowledge about them. Whatever trance like state you had entered had done a damn well job, as everything felt completely comfortable. Still, you wondered how or why your body knew how to do that. You weren't Japanese, you couldn't even speak Japanese!...wait. Then- how had Nakime understood you? Wait, no, how had you understood anyone here? They had to be speaking Japanese, there was no way they all weren't, so how?

Oh god you hadn't taken over someone else's body and mind had you? You hurried to find a mirror.

You found a small one sitting on a shelf, taking it and looking through it with clear worry. Whilst the face that met you was still your own, there were several key differences. For one, your skin was completely without any prior blemishes, only two small flicks of red remained under your eyes, almost like decorative makeup. For two, the front of your hair was now white in color, whilst your eyes had picked up a red hue, mixed with gold just like your blood had been. Your ears and tail both started out as your normal hair color before fading to an almost pitch black, like a void that was fluff shaped.

Well. You suppose you didnt look awful. Still didn't answer any of your questions tho.

You set the mirror down, walking over to the sliding door and hesitantly opening them. You found a traditional japanese room, futon in the middle of tatami floors and everything. While there was a window, the door that presumably lead outside was nowhere to be found. Okay, right, no leaving. That was fine.. probably. You sighed, walking over and sitting down on the futon.

Guess you were waiting.

Chapter Text

You got bored pretty quickly, eventually gathering enough courage, and boredom, to rummage around the room, thankfully finding a notebook and pen that you eagerly took. You began drawing random doodles, whatever came to mind. From random frogs to clouds to characters, you drew as the silence bore on. You were particularly interested in drawing the demon king, having seen him up close giving you plenty of reference. You noted that your memory seemed alot better as a demon, recalling fine details well enough that drawing him was easy. You drew him a couple different times, all different ways from different angles. You were surprised at how satisfied you were with the myriad of drawings. You didn't even notice the soft purring noise you started to emit as you lay there, still drawing random things alongside different characters. Strangely enough, only the drawings of the demon king looked good to you. All others held an air of wrongness. Uncanny valley and all that. Weird, but you ignored it.

You weren't sure how much time passed with you just doodling, but it was enough time to have you flipping the book over to draw on the other side of the pages. So most likely a long while. Eventually the feeling of fullness from earlier was replaced by hunger once again, not quite as ravaging as the other time, but still increasingly painful as time continued to pass.

You smiled, finishing on butterflies wings when the strum of a biwa rang out, immediately making you sit up to attention from your spot lounging on the futon. It was the more comfortable spot to be in. You looked around, you were still in the room so what had the strum done? You turned far enough, looking behind you to find a newly created door. You immediately turned your entire body, snapping the notebook shut as you stood up, leaving it on the futon lest you bring too much attention to it. The pen was still in your hands tho. You looked at the door as it opened, nervous and slightly cautious of who could be opening the door. Some part of you hoped it was uppermoon 5 so you could take a bite out of him again. Some other part of you was embarrassed at the thought. Either way, the door opened to reveal three pairs of eyes.

You knees immediately buckled out from under you as you tried to take a step back, a small 'eep' noise unintentionally escaping you as you fell onto your bum. You blinked, staring. The eyes blinked back, staring. You didnt dare look anywhere else, too focused on keeping the first uppermoon in your sights out of pure caution. Not that you would be able to do much if he actually tried anything, uppermoon one and all that. As he stepped into the room, you barely held back a hiss of warning, the noise instead replaced by a soft 'shink' as your nails extended into claws. You hadn't even noticed they had become blunt at some point, too focused with everything else. With your ears pinned backwards to your head, and your tail swaying impatiently, you hesitantly stood back up. You couldn't help but notice how delicious he smelled, probably because you were hungry again. Your mouth watered, and up just gulped it down. You, unknowingly, were hunched over ever so slightly, in a more cautionary stance, almost as if ready to pounce on the other.

“does...he need more of my blood or something?..”

You asked after a long moment of you two just staring at eachother. You hoped it was that, and not that the demon king had decided to dispose of you. But then again, why would he send his strongest to round up a low level demon for something as simple as a blood sample? Then then again, you had been able to overpower Gyokko...somehow. Not that you believed yourself strong enough to be a threat, just more...an annoyance, most likely. You tail swayed impatiently, and the other demon's lower set of eyes caught and followed the movement from a moment before returning to stare at you. He finally spoke up.

“No. I am to... accompany you, to hunt.”

His voice sent shivers down your spine, almost distracting enough for you to miss what he said. Almost. You, literally, perked up at the mention of going out to hunt, your brain immediately wanting to lose all caution at the mere thought of food. Like a starved animal immediately getting all cuddly with whoever decides to give it food. It was embarassing, almost pathetic. You slowly dropped the cautious stance, straightening up and relaxing your hands from their rigid position. Having drawn for so long did not help as they now ached with over use. You almost winced.

You, still looking at the other, dusted off your clothing before speaking again.

“alright then... lets, um.. get going?..”

He nodded, turning and walking out, you hesitated for a moment before following behind him. He looked alot more intimidating up close and, well, real, that was for sure, even with his back turned to you, you felt like you were the one in danger. And of course you were, the title of Uppermoon One wasnt one that had been given willy nilly afterall. You gulped down the immense amount of saliva gathering in your mouth again, being so close to him without pouncing and eating him was becoming increasingly hard. Hard enough that you started shaking ever so slightly as he walked over to an already ready door leading to what looked like a forest. You followed, letting him go a bit farther ahead lest you actually try and attack him. That more than surely wouldn't end well.

You finally passed through the door, the sound of it snapping shut behind you making you jump. You stared at where it had been with something akin to worry. You duly, worriedly, noted that you didn't particularly know how to hunt. Demons usually used their sense of smell to find prey, god that felt wrong to say, didnt they? It was kind of hard to do so when the uppermoon smelt so strongly he blocked everything else out. You hesitated before looking back at him, flinching slightly when you found him already staring at you. You gulped again, fiddling with your fingers nervously.

“are you...just, going to follow me around? Cause..its kinda hard to focus with how delicio- er, strongly, you smell..i mean- not like, bad smell-”

Thankfully he spared you of your stumbling words by literally dissapearing from sight. Your body seemed to immediately class that as threatening, if the hiss and lowered position was any clue. You looked around, finding him nowhere. Well, visibly atleast, you could still faintly smell him somewhere, the smell teasing your nose. You sighed, straightening your body and beginning your trek to find food.

You groaned as you realized you were still shoeless.

Chapter Text

You walked for awhile before finding anything, the smell of something akin to cherries with an undertone of meat enticing you to follow it. You found a demoness getting ready to eat a little kid, and by his strong, horrible, smell you could only guess he was sickly or something of the sort. The kid turned out to be more afraid you when you pounced on the demoness without warning than they had previously been of the demoness. You easily tore through skin and bone, the crunch noise making you both squeamish and delighted. You ate as the kid ran away, leaving nothing but blood splatters behind as you licked your hands clean.

You stood, and continued walking, following the faint smell of oak and meat this time. Then of olives and meat, then of fruit and meat. Everything you could eat seemed to hold an undertone of meat to it, you noted, so you continued following those smells specifically. None of your meals were as enticing or delicious as the uppermoon had been. You almost whined at that. Whatever remained of your rational mind refused to do so out of pure embarrassment.

It wasn't until the fourth demon that you really regained conscious thoughts, blinking the hunger-fueled daze away as you licked at your palm, crouching down and near the ground as realization kicked in and you stopped licking yourself. You stood up, surveying your surroundings before surveying your kimono. It was basically ruined, the front completely covered in blood. You winced. So much for that bath you took. You looked around, staying silent for moment as your ears twiched before following the noise of running water, coming across a small river. You dipped you hands into the water, cleaning off the remaining blood from them before cleaning off your face. You shook your hands once they were clean, drying them as best you could before looking around again. You should probably go back now, before you started testing the demon king's patience. He had told you to stay in the room, er, your? room, unless he said otherwise, so he probably wouldn't like it if you spent too much time outside it. Then again, he might not care at all what you did, his interest in you more than probably only superficial.

You sniffed, the smell of the first uppermoon still vaguely present, far off. You began to follow it, calmly as to not make the other think you were still in the hungered daze and trying to eat him. That would be, well, not good. The smell got stronger as you approached, eventually close enough to see the uppermoon, who was patiently sitting there, all eyes closed, looking like he was mediating. You blinked, tilting your head in curiosity as your ears perked up. The other had to know you were here, with you not knowing how to hide your presance and all that, and yet he made no move to even acknowledge you. You looked around for a moment, before looking back at him. What...what were you meant to do? It seemed rude to interrupt his, uh, mediation session? You weren't quite sure what he was doing to be honest. You stared, and looked away, then went back to staring. You blinked, taking a step, then another, then another until you were a couple steps infront of the uppermoon. You blinked again, nervously standing there as he continued to not move. Your tail swished, almost impatiently.

You knelt, copying the other's position on the ground. You grabbed a stray leaf, fiddling with it while you waited for the other to finish whatever it was that he was doing. You looked at your nails, back to being blunt, curiously watching them as you willed them to be long again. Surprisingly easily, they extended again with a soft 'shink'. You smiled, then moved back to the leaf. You looked up, his eyes were still closed, then looked back down. You began slashing small bits of the leaf off, slowly shaping it in the shape of a star. You sat quietly, shaping the leaf until you felt the eerie feeling of something watching you. You stopped and brought your gaze up, this time not flinching when you found him staring at you. You could almost say that his gaze was curious.

You set the now star shaped leaf down on your lap, looking up nervously at the other. A moment of silence followed. You were aware that he didnt talk much, but this was a bit overkill, wasnt it?

“um. Im done with hunting..”

You mumbled softly, nervously. He blinked before nodding, he stood up and you hurried to do the same. You dusted your clothing off, grimacing slightly as you remembered how badly you had messed up your kimono. The smell probably wasnt all that pleasant, if the demon king's previous reaction was anything to go by. You supposed that like with most humans not liking the smell of human blood, most demons must not like the smell of demon blood. You looked back up quickly, making sure to never have the other out of sight for too long. You didnt even realize you were doing as such.

A door opened out of nothing, making you flinch. The uppermoon stared at you, almost expectantly, and you swallowed as you hesitantly moved to go through the door, the older demon right behind you as you did so. You didnt like having your back to him, if you quickly turning to look at him again was anything to go by. The door closed with a pluck of strings, then another brought you into your room again. You noted that the door outside was still there, but gave it little thought. You almost deflated with how much tension you released now that the uppermoon was no longer around, tension you hadnt even realized was there. You sighed, sitting back down onto the futon, careful of your bloodied sleeves touching it. You promptly stopped being all that careful when you realized the blood was already dry and wouldn't spread. The blood coating your front was still somewhat wet. You hummed, standing up and walking over to the door that lead to the bathroom area. You entered it and looked around, eventually finding your still dirty pajamas. You grabbed them and turned to the bathtub, it was empty this time around. There was, however, a bucket filled with cold water. You dipped the clothing in the water, scrubbing the blood off them before wringing them out ontop of the bathtub when they were clean enough. You placed them on the edge of the bathtub to dry before moving to throw the dirty water away. You duly wondered how water worked inside the infinity castle.

You huffed softly, drying your hands with the same towel you had first used. You shivered slightly, the hairs on your tail frizzing up before going flat again. You looked at it incredulously. You moved to walk out of the bathroom, back into the room area, looking around to see if anything had changed. There was only one change, where a chest of drawers had been now sat a desk, ontop of it a couple more empty notebooks and pens. You didnt want to know if someone had seen you drawing, much less seen your drawings. You flushed with embarrassment at the thought, before taking a deep breath in and sitting down. You grabbed a pen and the almost full notebook from before, opening it to see if anything had been messed with. Nothing had been, so you moved to close it and grab a new notebook. You used this one to write down, realizing in the process that while you could speak and understand Japanese, you still wrote in your native language. Huh. Okay then, you supposed that was fine. Better maybe, considering it might be best to write your thoughts instead of thinking them now that your mind was no longer a safe space.

You wondered if the demon king would look through your memories and see that you weren't from here.

You wondered why, or rather how, you were here to begin with.

You wondered how you'd get back home.

You wondered if there even was a way back home.

You really hoped there was.

Chapter Text

It had been about three weeks now.

You were pretty sure of it even with how hard it was to tell.

You had made a sort of routine in that time.

The first uppermoon came about every five days to take to you hunt, whilst the demon king took your blood every seven. The amount of gold in your blood was increasing, and so were your inhuman features, the more you consumed. Your nails grew longer, sharper and tougher, your ears bigger and your tail longer and fluffier. To your dismay, and somewhat curiousity, the bottoms of your feet had started turning soft and pink, like paw pads, making you so silent you could almost scare yourself. Your extremities as a whole got the most drastic change, considering they all started forming a gradual gradient into black. Your nails, also black, now blended into your pitch black hands. Not that you looked bad, just...very obviously not human. It was a bit striking hoe fast you were changing the more you ate, everyday being able to point out something new. Maybe it had to do with your sudden transformation? You still had yet to figure out how that worked. You didnt think you would be able to figure it out however, somethings were a bit... impossible to figure out. Still, you wrote down whatever you could find out diligently.

You had managed to get a change of clothing too, the weird feeling as you felt last time that allowed you to dress yourself correctly returning. You didnt know what it was, but the more you tried grasping at it the easier it got.

It was on the third day of the fourth week that your routine deviated.

“For the upper ranks you are incompetent.”

You had been invited, or rather randomly placed, into one of the upper rank's meetings. You were just sitting there, looking downwards as the uppermoons were chewed out by the demon king. The red fog you had come to associate with the demon king being in your mind, an ability you were pretty sure you shouldn't have, never leaving your mind even as he spoke. Instead, it remained dormant, far off and more like an afterthought than anything else. You could only guess he was more focused on his upper ranks than he was on you, the random demon-eating demon. You continued sitting there nervously, looking akin to a kicked puppy. Or, in your case, a kicked kitten.

The demon king continued yelling, insulting and berating the uppermoons. He sighed as he stopped, one hand coming up to massage the space inbetween his eyebrows in his clear and utter annoyance. He turned to you, and you could immediately feel his gaze. You flinched, mildly wondering if you were next on the cutting board.

He called out to you.

“You, come here.”

You stood up on somewhat shaky legs, walking over with your head hung low. You ended up standing infront of him, bowing as you learnt was done to one's superiors. Kokushibo might be a man of very few words, but not one of lose beliefs. He seemed to have begun to tolerate your presance more when you began greeting him by bowing. If it kept you alive, you honestly didnt mind it.

He continued talking.

“this, will be your punishment if you fail me again.”

Was...he going to use you as a demonstration? You quickly braced yourself for pain at that thought, eyes squeezed tight. The red fog in your mind almost chuckled at your fear. His hand was outstretched, coming towards your head until it placed itself inbetween your ears. Yet, no pain came.

“This is a demon, who consumes other demons. Your punishment will be to be eaten, harmed, by someone lower than you. As such, you are not allowed to attack or harm them. In any occasion.”

You flinched, eyes opening wide in shock. You desperately wanted to look up and ask what he meant, yet you obviously didnt dare to do so. So the punishment wasn't just pain, but pain and a form of humiliation. That...was cruel, on brand, yet still cruel. You couldn't think of an uppermoon, expect the second uppermoon, that wouldn't be outright annoyed at the idea. For the sake of not gathering suspicion about how you knew so much, you didnt continue with that line of thought. The red fog in the corner of your mind swayed with something akin to curiosity.

You couldn't see it, but his eyes narrowed as he looked at you, calculating.

He continued onwards.

“Dont fail me again. Meeting adjourned.”

A strum of a biwa, and the overpowering presance of the demon king was gone. You sighed as you straightned up from your bowing position. You were somewhat suprised you weren't immediately sent back to your room, but it didn't matter all that much, you'd send yourself back. You were too nervous to be outside it without good reason, especially with so many powerful presences around, even if some of them left almost immediately. Mainly upper one and three. Both had better things to do than socialize. You turned to look at Nakime, your own voice ringing out.

“Nakim-”

“aw, leaving so soon?”

You flinched as a cold, too cold, arm wrapped itself around your shoulders, effectively pinning you in place and shocking you into silence. Like static electricity, a shock went down your spine at the touch. You leaned as far away as you could from the freezing touch. Unluckily for you that meant getting closer, close enough to bump into, the arm's owner's chest. His entire being was ice cold, the smell of mint and meat lingering strongly, making you shiver as you ducked low and moved backwards, out of the grasp of the man's cold arm. The smell made your mouth water ever so slightly. He watched you with mock suprise and curiousity as you wrapped your arms around yourself with another shiver. He cooed at you almost immediately.

“aw, im sorry, am i too cold, for you, kitty?”

He spoke softly, thankfully keeping his distance from you. You looked up at the tall man, flinching again as you finally registered just who he was. The second uppermoon, Douma. You moved backwards a bit, a frightened expression on your face. He only chuckled at it.

“aww, no need to be so afraid! We cant harm you after all...hey hey, how did you get the Master to like you so much? Is it cause you're so cute? Id buy that!”

He smiled.

It didnt reach his eyes.

You weren't surprised at his lack of meaningful emotion.

You grimaced slightly at his words, wondering what the hell he was talking about. The demon king didnt like you, probably much less find you cute, more like he just tolerated you out of curiosity, intrigue. You were an anomaly after all, that warranted some intrigue from someone hell bent of finding out how to conquer the sun. Well, you were an anomaly in more ways than that but none that you would tell anyone. You swore you heard a short chuckle at your thoughts, before something retreated from within your conscious. You realized at that point that the red fog hadn't retreated when the demon king had left. Your eyes widened. Had he heard every thought? As in, you knowing the second uppermon's name and lack of emotions? So much for not arousing suspicion.

“mhh? You look surprised! What, didn't know you were cute? Do you not have a mirror where you stay?”

You looked at the uppermoon, face falling flat. You had forgotten how...chatty, the second uppermoon was. Chatty, fake, and somewhat annoying. Annoyingly pretty. You huffed and straightened up. He was right, the demon king had explicitly said no one could harm you, so you could stand to be a little more bold, right? Duly, you noted that the presance of the fifth uppermoon retreated with an annoyed huff. Guess someone wasn't enjoying the show

You turned, blatantly ignoring the uppermoon.

“Nakime, please tak-”

“hey, are you ignoring me? Thats not nice!”

“...please take me back to-”

“hey..”

He whined, coming up to you and making you flinch back with a hiss. He seemed suprised at that, tho it didnt last long as he quickly rebranded to amusement as he watched your tail flick back and forth.

“ah, you look so fluffy, can i? Please?~”

His voice held a tone of teasing, and you could hear the scoff of uppermoon six as she too retreated. You relaxed a slight bit, having been nervous about your little audience, who'd clearly stuck around to see you grovel at the feet of someone stronger than you, a ploy to make themselves feel better about the fact you were their possible punishment. You took a deep breath, collecting yourself. Bold, act more bold. You could do it. Pulling at the weird feeling helped, like as if you were using someone elses confidence.

“no.”

He stopped for a moment, almost as if not expecting that. Then he continued his whining.

“aw..why? I promise id be gentle!”

“because..em.”

You hesitated, thinking for a short moment.

“because... i dont know you? You're..not, my friend of anything..”

Your words, despite your earlier confidence, faltered as you lost your grip on the weird feeling. It was beginning to become slippery, like oil. Your boldness continued to falter because of it.

“oh? Okay then! Lets be friends then, yeah? Oh, friends should know eachother's names! I'm Douma, and you can be..mmm, kitten fits! Now we're friends, yeah?”

He smiled, and you were halfway through nervously returning the smile when he decided to moved faster than you could see, grabbing at your ears. A yelp quickly left your throat at the cold touch.

“aww, i was right, they are soft! And- oh, are you purring? Thats so cute!”

Your face flushed a dark red, your own body betraying you as it started purring of all damn things. You panicked, completely and utterly embarrassed. Using your remaining grasp on the weird feeling to gather all your strength and push, smacking your hands against the uppermoon's chest as you pushed him away with your eyes screwed shut. At the same time, you yelled.

“Nakime! my room!”

A strum rang out, and you waited a moment before opening your eyes, falling to your knees out of pure exhaustion when you saw the familiar sight of what you had come to call your room. You took a deep breath in, then out, then in again. Your hands placed themselves over your ears, as if protecting them. You almost wanted to cry.

Its okay now. You were okay now. The moment had passed, and the embarrassment would dwindle with time. You still were very much in shock.

Chapter Text

You had spent the rest of your time writing about whatever to get your mind off the embarassing encounter with the second uppermoon. Things seemed to return to your new normalcy. You were, right now, sitting in the same cot you always sat on when the demon king wanted more of your blood, for the first time since the uppermoon meeting. You wondered what he did with it that he needed so much, but never asked out of fear.

Things were, admittedly, a bit awkward on your end. Clear worry shown in the furrow of your brows, wondering if he was going to mention your little slip up. Said slip up being you knowing things you shouldn't in any way. Maybe he rationalized it somehow? Maybe he thought Kokushibo had mentioned something? No that would be dumb, he wouldn't think the stoic tight-lipped upper rank would say anything... would he. Had you just called the demon king dumb? That. That would not be good. Not at all. You swore you meant dumb as in improbable not idiotic! Wait, why were you even panicking, the tell tale sign of him being inside your head, the fog, wasnt even there!...what if that sign wasnt to be trusted tho? What if it was him being merciful and letting you know he was there? Merciful or threatening. What if-

“Arm.”

You flinched and quickly held out your arm. No use in overthinking it, was there? You watched the needle fill with blood. He backed up once it was full, holding it up to the light and giving a small flick.

“so. Explain to me how exactly this blood art of yours seems to work.”

You flinched at his voice, before registering his words. You looked up at him in clear confusion. Blood demon art? You didnt have a blood demon art. Not that you knew of anyways, sure there was that strange you could grasp at, but you had just assumed it to be some normal demon thing. Like an alter ego, when humans turned into demons, they naturally became more aggressive, more bold, more confident. You'd just assumed your weird and unnatural transformation meant that instead of constantly being ahold of it you had to grasp consciously at that feeling, those attributes. Your mouth made itself into a thin line as you thought, looking down at your hands. You really couldn't think of anything else that might constitute as a blood demon art.

“i dont...know what you're talking about.”

He looked at you, calculating. The red fog surfaced in your mind before retreating, almost as if checking in on something. Was he checking if you were being truthful?

“the gold inside your blood, its part of a blood demon art. Considering it moves around and does changes to your blood, id assumed you were already aware of, and using, your blood demon art.”

He explained, confusing you even more. You were still looking at him as he turned to place your blood into a vile as usual.

“no matter. Inform me when you can control it. You're dismissed.”

A strum and you were back in your room, still looking onwards with clear confusion. You slowly looked down at your hands, processing the information given. Okay...so, your possible blood demon art was moving around in your blood? And changing things? That was...mildly concerning. If it was "doing things" in there, did it have to do with how much your apperance changed? You sighed, standing up and grabbing the small mirror you had taken from the bathroom, you looked into it. You couldn't note anything different today, as if your transformation had stopped as suddenly as it started. You did, however, notice you felt a bit more sluggish than usual. You body felt weak, like it was time to get a new one.

...

That...was a weird thought, why would you get a new body? Or rather, how? You couldn't just magically switch bodies!... right?... right?

You thought about it for the next two days.

You didn't have much else to think about anyways.

You were currently laying on your futon, waiting patiently for the first uppermoon to arrive to escort you to hunt. You weren't quite sure why he still escorted you but who were you to say anything about it? You could ask if you could use the hunting time to experiment with your possible blood demon art, that might be a good idea. You sat up, your fingers patting your ankles in a rhythmic movement. Some random song you could remember the name of right now. It helped calm you down to start building courage to ask.

“Nakime, can you relay something to, uh, 'the master' for me? Its alright if not...just, um, wondering if it'd be fine to make my hunts longer to experiment with the blood demon art...”

The more you talked the less confidence you had, the more you regretted opening your mouth. Luckily for you, you didnt have the time to overthink much, as merely a few seconds passed before the red fog entered your mind, the demon king's voice inside your head was a weird feeling.

“Yes, that'd be fine. You'll be picked you up to go hunt earlier to accommodate.”

You smiled, somewhat excited. I mean, who wouldn't be at the thought of having magical superpowers?

To your suprise, the fog chuckled at that. You flushed red at the sound, embarrassed. He continued on, his tone holding something akin to amusement.

“Kokushibo will be there to pick you up in a moment.”

You hummed softly, affirmatively. The fog retreated soon afterwards. You sighed, standing up and dusting yourself off. You were really excited! You wondered what your blood art could possibly do? If it was changing your blood, maybe something akin to the demon king's? That being biokinesis, the ability to manipulate cell and body, basically overpowered shapeshifting. Tho, that would be unlikely, such a blood demon art was incredibly powerful, what were the chances you'd get one with even a fraction of that power?

You really hoped for something like daki's, her blood demon art was cool. Or Susamaru's! Wait would your whole cat thing affect your blood art? Your ability would be throwing around yarn balls, would it? That...would be awfully humiliating. Somewhat cool if you could use it similar to Rui's threads, but still humiliating! You were overthinking it, it was probably going to be something normal like...er. what was normal for blood demon arts? Uhm.

The smell of fresh rain and meat interrupted your thoughts. Oh, Kokushibo was here. You turned to the door, walking over and opening it to find, as expected, the first rank standing there. He looked at you, as he always did, whilst not saying anything. You smiled softly at him, bowing in greeting. You straightned up at the same time he moved his body, moving to an open door leading outside the infinity castle with you right behind him. Your feet were near completely silent as you stepped through the door, it closing behind you with a strum. You looked around, before looking at the uppermoon. He nodded and dissapered, his smell still lingering around as it always did. He was off somewhere, meditating as he waited for you to do your thing.

You smiled, taking a deep breath to pump yourself up. Today, you'd try to use your blood demon art to get your meal- prey- sustenance? agh, there was no good way to say it. Whatever, your food. You sighed, beginning to walk whilst sniffing at the air. No undertones of meat, excluding the uppermoon's, hit you. Huh, were there no demons around this area? You sniffed again, all you could smell was...huh. You didn't actually know what that smell was. Smelt..flowery. And it made your nose burn, making you hiss. You shook your head, trying to dispel the burning smell.

Your ears moved, tail perking into attention.

Footsteps?

Running, someone was running at you.

Wait.

SOMEONE WAS RUNNING AT YOU-

You barely managed to dodge the blade aimed at your neck by ducking, immediately using an arm to push the person away whilst also jumping back. You looked up in clear suprise, suprise that bleed into horror as you saw who attacked you. The uniform was nothing short of recognizable, a demon slayer.

Despite the fact you couldn't recognize them, you recognized the butterfly pin they were using.

That was one of Shinobu's pins!

Why was some random demon slayer wearing one?

No one apart from the many sister's of Shinobu had any.

Wait, no, Shinobu said she did have multiple tsugoku's that had died, was this?..

You barely dodged another strike at your neck, by jumping up and over the demon slayer this time. Oh, okay. Uh. You could do that. Apparently. You were in a battle, it was not the time to overthink things! Just attack! You landed and turned, moving to kick the human's back. They flew foward with a yelp before catching themselves with a roll, landing crouched on the ground. You looked at them again, only to find pure terror in their eyes. You sniffed the air, ah, Kokushibo was standing right behind you wasnt he? You straightned yourself, looking behind you to find the uppermoon staring at both you and the demon slayer. His lower pair of eyes were fixed on you, whilst the other two weren't. You blinked, the pair of eyes blinked back. Okay then.

You slowly turned to look back at the human, who was trembling in fear, standing there with their sword at the ready. Poor thing must be frightened beyond belief, encountering the first uppermoon.

“are you not...training your blood demon art?”

You flinched at Kokushibo's voice, turning to look at him again. Ah yes, yes you were. You turned back at the demon slayer, looking at their still terrified but determined expression. You blinked, right... Train your blood demon art, that was what you were here for...you.. you were a demon, you didnt need to feel sorry for your actions, especially against a human, especially especially against a demon slayer... Yet you still did.

You took a hesitant step forward, lifting your hand and focusing on grasping the feeling you had grasped when talking to the second uppermoon. You held your hand out a bit infront of you, facing the demon slayer. You held it tight despite its attempts to slip away, focusing on your open hand. You couldn't help but wince at the headache it was giving you.

Slowly, the pads of your fingers turned gold.

The gold extended, the demon slayer burst forward to attack you.

The gold formed a small ball infront of your palm.

Their sword was lifted high in the air, ready to strike down. The uppermoon behind you moved to grab at his sword's hilt.

All at once, their sword struck down,

His sword was moved to be unsheathed,

And the gold in your hand exploded along with your own arm.

With a strangled yelp, you felt yourself be thrown back, hitting against, and taking with you, the uppermoon. He moved to grab you as the two of you flew backwards, easily stopping the both of you. You grunted, your legs giving up on you almost immediately from pure exhaustion. Your knees buckled and the grip on your arm only got tighter, helping maintain you up. You mind felt like it was on fire, as did your throat. Suddenly you were wrenching, nothing but gold coming from inside your throat.

As suddenly as everything had happened, you were losing consciousness.

Chapter Text

The first upper rank watched as you fainted, the the gold that had erupted from your throat like a volcano slowly moving until it burst forward, as as if with a mind of its own. It wrapped around the recovering demon slayer, forcing itself down their screaming mouth, slashing at skin and forcing itself in through there aswell. If he wasnt as much of a seasoned warrior as he was, he would've been deeply disturbed by the sight.

The gold started pouring out from the demon slayer's face, from their nose, eyes and even ears as they screamed. Said screams stopped abruptly, and they started grasping at their face as it was covered by the gold, blood tinging it the more skin it covered. He could've sworn he heard begging coming from the human, and he wouldn't be surprised if they were indeed begging for their life. As the gold covered their face completely their arms suddenly went limp. Their body followed after a moment as they fell. The gold retreated back in through their eyes, and suddenly, what met the uppermoon was your face instead of their's. He looked down at you, what was meant to be you, finding your body beginning to disintegrate. His eyes widened a fraction, immediately grabbing your disintegrating body in a bridal hold, calling on Nakime and returning to the infinity castle in a haste, almost as fast as one could blink.

He wasnt aware he left your current body in the forest.

You slept wonderfully.

Only for you to wake up somewhere else completely.

You awoke inside a house, blinking away the grogginess of a good nap. You felt amazing , like you had a completely brand new body. You didnt know how true that statement was. You sat up with a gasp, grasping at your arms, covered in bandages. You breathed heavily as you looked around. You weren't in your room, but rather in some random home. You could tell it wasn't the infinity castle by the open windows, showing the lush forest outside. You blinked, looking around the room before looking down at your arms. You lifted the bandages to find nothing, everything already healed. Huh. Weird. You wrapped it back up hastily when you heard footsteps approaching, slow and steady. Your nose picked up the smell of soap, almost as if whoever was approaching had just taken a bath. The footsteps continued approaching, and you hurried to stand and be on the defensive. The footsteps stopped as they presumably heard your panicked shuffling. They picked up again, this time with more hurry in their step as they approached the door, opening it without any caution. You hissed in warning, nails extended and ready to slash when-

A kid opened the door. Couldn't be older than 10.

You blinked. He blinked back.

He smiled wide.

“mom! dad! The cat spirit's awake!”

He giggled, running away to, presumably, find his mom and dad. You blinked again, confused. Had he called you a cat spirit? Did he really think you were a spirit? You blinked again, straightening up and taking the moment of calm to asses your situation. Your hands drifted up, finding both a pair of suspiciously butterfly shaped pins attached to your hair right below your ears. You turned your head and easily found your tail, its usual color feathering off into a void type of black. Okay so your hair was still its normal color, or atleast your tail was. You huffed, looking around in hopes of finding a mirror. None were in sight.

It took you a moment to realize you weren't in your earlier clothing, looking down in horror as you realized you were wearing a demon slayer's outfit. The same one the demon slayer from earlier had been wearing. What the hell?... Upon closer inspection, you saw that the sleeves were completely torn off a bit below your shoulders. What in the world had happened while you were out?

You heard two sets of footsteps approaching rapidly, and immediately stiffen up again, the door flying open to reveal what you assumed to be the kid's mom and dad. Both looked disheveled, as if they had gotten up in a rush from being asleep. The woman straightened herself up first, pulling out a small pouch of something. You sniffed at it, tilting your head in confusion. Smelt like cinnamon.

“l-look, i dont know what you are, nekomata or bakeneko, but we helped you! Er, saved you from the sun?...So please, leave us alone this year, we dont want any trouble...”

She was cowering, and you couldn't help but feel bad. You straightned up again, still slightly stiff. You hesitated before saying anything.

“bring...me a mirror. I'll leave afterwards.”

She nudged at her, presumably, husband, him getting the hint rather quickly as he left in a hurry to find the requested mirror. You and the woman stared at eachother with caution. He returned soon after, holding both a mirror and a small bag, a bag that had the demon slayer's sword attached to it. For some reason, you really wanted it in your grip again. Again? It was never in your grasp to begin with.

He stepped forward cautiously, flinching when you moved to hold out your hand. He placed the mirror on your open palm, your nails grazing him slightly as you quickly pulled the mirror towards yourself, looking at yourself through it. Still your face, and yet, you were sure this wasnt your body. Your extremities were no longer dark in color, your tail and ears were small again. Your eyes remained the same, like your face, but everything else was different. Your hair color stayed the same, tho the white tuff at the front was now the color of the demon slayer's hair. You grabbed it, examining it before letting it go.

You looked surprisingly good with the gold and white butterfly hair pins.

Not what you should be thinking about right now.

You turned to look at the man again, who flinched and placed down the bag on the ground, the sword clanking against the floor.

“h-here. Provisions, and, um, your katana.. now please, leave..”

You looked down, picking up the bag and examining the contents. Food and some water. You hummed, placing the mirror inside the bag before grabbing the sword. The weird feeling surfaced, and this time you could see it with more clarity as you hooked the sheathed sword to your belt. You slung the bag over your shoulder before turning and jumping onto the open window, crouching on the window sill for a moment before bursting foward and into the night.

You jumped upwards, suddenly alot more strong and agile, and onto a tree branch. You continued foward, hopping from tree to tree until you were far enough away that you couldn't smell the strange house you were previously in. You stopped, standing ontop of a tree branch. You weren't even panting.

You were struck with the realization that your body was so much better because it wasnt yours.

It was the demon slayer's.

You had taken over their body instead of creating your own like you had originally done, this time, your body was without mistakes.

You looked down at your hands, rough and calloused from training with a sword.

No need to continue changing your blood in order to maintain your fake body.

You puked again, emptying your new stomach of whatever remained of the human's earlier meal.

You hadnt felt any hunger towards the humans, so you assumed that you still consumed other demons.

Your transformation must've happened whilst you were asleep.

Just like last time.

Fuck this was all so weird.

You sighed, hopping down from the treetops with ease. No matter how weird the process of gaining it was, your body felt awesome. Light and agile, fast yet also strong. The power was distributed evenly throughout your body, making no aspect of it feel lacking. If you ever needed to change bodies again, you were going for a demon slayer's again...that. oh god that was such a horrible thought. Okay, focus on something else.

Um.

Wait.

What the hell were you meant to do now?

Not in regards to your new body, no, but in regards to your earlier standing as the uppermoon's punishment and demon king's latest study subject. Were you meant to go back to the demon king? If so, how? Were you meant to find an uppermoon to take you back? Call out to Nakime? Would she answer to a seemingly random demon? Gods you didnt know what to do.

Your stomach grumbled.

...

Okay well, you knew what you were going to do right this instant, just not what you would be doing in the foreseeable future.

You huffed, sniffing at the air as you began running. Even your sense of smell was better! You found food in no time.

You finished your hunt, amazingly remaining completely conscious throughout it all. You managed to not get even a drop of blood on your clothes! That was new, and highly appreciated too. You did eat alot, having consumed around six demons before feeling full. Now you had no excuse. You had to figure out what you were going to do in regards to the demon king.

He probably wasnt looking for you, most likely simply expected you to be dead and therefore useless.

You were unaware of the rage state that the demon king was in right now.

Chapter Text

You continued onwards for the rest of the night, eventually finding a cave and settling down inside it when the sun came back out. Your skin tingled, and you shivered at the awful sensation of mortal danger. Damn, you really were sheltered up until this point, weren't you?

You opened the bag of food, searching through it for the mirror. You took it out and looked at yourself again, staring at your reflection for a moment. Not having your tuff of white hair was weird. Otherwise, nothing had changed. You sighed, putting the mirror down and emptying the bag of its contents. All food, human food, inedible food. Well, to you. Still felt a bit weird to consider yourself inhuman, but you were pretty sure that feeling was never going to go away.
You were only going to puke it up again if you ate it, so you just tossed it outside where an animal would eventually get to it. If your demonic presance didnt scare them off, apparently animals were particularly perceptive about demons and avoided at all costs. You put the mirror back and and closed the bag, a simple sack with a string sewn into it for pulling closed. It wasn't the prettiest thing, but then again, why would it be?

You sighed, looking out towards the sun covered, and food covered, ground.

...Maybe you should've been more careful with your food tossing.

You stood up, heading further into the cave to give yourself some salvation from the annoying tingling of your skin. You sat down against the back of the cave, curiously unsheathing the sword tucked at your waist, looking at its pink coloration. This body was probably a flower breather's, if the color and hairpins were anything to go by. You assumed that, like Kanao, any tsugoku of Shinobu's would learn insect breathing's predecessor, flower breathing, instead of insect breathing itself, unless they had the same issue with beheading demons that the Hashira did, considering that it was objectively stronger.

You wondered if what Breathing style would've suited you had you been a demon slayer.

With nothing better to do, you spent the rest of the daylight painstakingly carving out doodles into the stone. They were awfully messy.

You stopped when the tingling of danger did, looking out to find the ground now covered in moonlight. You took a deep breath in and sheathed the sword, the movements distinctly yours yet holding an air of practice you didnt have. Seems like you still held some of the body's original skills. Useful, creepy, but useful. You wondered if tugging at the feeling like you had in your other body would allow you to better use said skills. Something to try out the next daylight you supposed.

You walked out of the cave, never straying too far from it lest you not find another one in time, whilst hunting down demons to eat. You ate heartily and until you were completely and utterly full. The sword got in the way sometimes, making you grab it to steady it and ,unintentionally, making some of the demons figthing against you flinch. Their fear was somewhat amusing, and you were slightly saddened at the fact you'd have to give the sword up if, or rather when since you weren't sure how much good it'd do you to try and hide from him, you returned to the demon king.

Your skin tingled with danger after a long while, and you hurried back to return to the cave. The sun approached shortly after you reached the cave. You sighed with relief at not being caught out in the sunlight, even if it hadnt been a close call at all.

You spent that night much like the other, craving in stone, humming random tunes, quieting up whenever you heard distant rustling only to realize it was a spooked bird who got too close

You prefered it back at your room in the infinity castle, where you could draw, read and write comfortably and freely instead of in the dumb cave you were stuck in.

You built a routine in those two days, one that would last for the next three. Hunting everyday was making you less and less hungry, more and more strong.

You deviated in encountering a human on the fifth day.

You tried to ask where you were, hoping to gain some clarity of how to even begin to find a way to get back to the infinity castle, but they only ran away at the sight of you. You returned to the cave soon after and spent the rest of the day trying, and failing, to shapeshift your demonic features away.

Five days then turned into six.

On the seventh day you found an injured bird, and tried to care for it only for it to bite you. You still did your best to take care of it by giving it food before leaving because of the sunlight.

On the eight day the bird was gone, and so was any deviation from your routine.

Nothing happened on the ninth, nor the tenth.

The eleventh had a human show up again, the same one in fact! He pointed at you and shouted 'i told you it was real' before running away with its friends again.

You left on the twelfth to find food at the spot where you had seen the humans. You concluded that, much like the other humans you had met, these assumed you were a spirit and attempted to appease you to leave them alone via food. You took the food before dumping it back at the cave, with nothing better to do, you might as well humor them.

The thirteenth and fourteenth were much the same.

And as such, a boringly uneventful two weeks had passed.

It was... boring. Incredibly so. But you persisted, eventually gaining enough courage to run farther away from your little cave. You started to map your way through the dense forest, the scribbles on the cave wall decipherable only to you, hoping to find something, anything, that would deviate you from your mind numbing routine and allow you to return to your not-quite-home home.

You were completely and utterly bored, using the sword to cut marks into trees as guides for your crude interpenetration of a map.

You sighed, slumping against a tree and the letting yourself fall into a sitting position. You lifted the blade, looking at the pink hue under the moonlight. You rolled your eyes, groaning as you stood up again, cant waste any nighttime.

You had decided at some point that your best bet was to search for the entertainment district, to find uppermoon six and see if either of the siblings could take you back. You had not had any luck up until this point, running around randomly as you were. Hell, you hadnt even been able to find the damn village where these humana kept coming from! You didn't know what to do anymore. You missed having a phone. God, would it be useful at this very moment. Just open maps and search for your location, but noo.. phones dont exist yet!...well, actually, do they? They might, just not in the form you knew.

You continued walking, eventually coming across a particular smell. A demon's smell, for sure, but it was heavier, stronger, than a normal demon's. Your eyes opened wide and you rushed foward, sheathing the blade as you searched for the owner of the smell of fireworks. Please be a twelve kizuki, please be a twelve kizuki, please be a twelve kizuki-

You stopped, a wide smile appearing on your face.

The demon turned, his annoyed expression turning to shock when he saw your face. Ah, he must recognize you from the meeting you had attended.

Uppermoon 3, Akaza, stared at you in shock.

You guessed the news of you missing was told to the only uppermoon who could be referred to as the demon king's loyal 'pet'.

Despite how much you hated referring yo yourself in that way, you might actually fit the role of 'pet' better. He fed you, housed you and you returned to him when lost, or atleast tried to.

You stepped forward, opening your mouth to speak when he burst forward in a flash, blue inked fingers grasping at the collar of your clothing. You let out a startled yelp when you were pulled forward, with him grabbing the sheathed sword at your hip and yanking it out from your belt, throwing it away to the side.

“ah, okay, well, hi, look-”

“shut up. Do you even know how much of a mess you caused?”

You were interrupted easily, the uppermoon's shock leading to something more akin to annoyed anger. Up close, he looked scary whilst angry, enough that you forgot that he wasnt allowed to harm you. It made you shut right up, your mouth quickly closing with a clank of your sharp teeth. You blinked in confusion, Wonder what mess he was talking about. How could you have caused a mess when you werent even there? You opened your mouth to ask, only to be pulled further along by the collar of your clothing as he turned and began walking, more like stomping, away with you in tow.

“Biwa lady! Open us a door and alert Muzan-sama.”

“i mean thats what i wanted but would you slow down-”

“shut.”

He hissed, not literally, at you. To which you hissed back, literally, at him. His face tinged with confusion for a moment before he shook it off with a roll of his eyes and continued on, a door quickly opening infront of you two. Beyond it, you could smell the wooden smell of the infinity castle. It was oddly comforting and you couldn't help but smile at the familiar structures that made up the infinitely expanding domain.

Suddenly, almost as if coming in a rush, you felt the demon king's presance arise.

It felt furious.

Your smile faded, and you gulped.

Your hand drifted to where the sword was meant to be, obviously finding it missing. That might be for the best, walking up to the demon king after being missing for two weeks brandishing a sword might not be the best of ideas.

You looked around until you heard the fast and very clearly angry approach of footsteps. Besides you, Akaza quickly let go of your clothing to kneel down. He still managed to look annoyed specifically at you even with his eyes closed.

You turned to look at the direction he was kneeling to, finding the demon king approaching. He looked down right terrifying, and you couldn't help but flinch in fear.

You quickly moved to bow, unsure whether you should continue doing so or if you should get down om your knees and beg for your life. The red fog pushed into your mind almost painfully, scouring around for something. You realized duly that he was looking for your memories, probably of what had happened the past two weeks, and you willingly brought them up in a vain attempt to appease him. He stopped infront of you, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look up at him. You forced yourself to do so, fear making your body tremble as he watched your memories play out, from the moment you woke up to the moment you stepped through the door opened by Nakime.

His eyes narrowed, almost as if thinking before his hand moved from your chin to inbetween your ears. One sharp nail tapped against your hair as he thought, still intermittently shifting though the presented memories. He sighed, his rigid and angry posture relaxing into the calm and collected one you has grown all too accustomed to during your blood taking sessions.

“Akaza. You're dismissed.”

A strum and the presance of the third uppermoon left the spot besides you, presumably going back to where you had originally found him. The demon king's eyes never strayed from your own as he dismissed the other. You gulped.

“So. Your blood demon turned out to be quite an interesting one, mh? You gave us quite the scare, did you know that your body started disintegrating when you left it?”

Ah, so you weren't missing to them, you were simply dead.

“between your interesting physiology, and your ability to know things you shouldn't, losing you was quite the annoyance.”

He sighed, his hand moving to pet one of your ears. A purr built in your throat at the unexpectedly soft touch. Your cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the soft noise, yet you didnt dare move away like you had the second uppermoon. He seemed to eye the butterfly pins for a moment, narrowing his eyes with a hum. Was he mad you hadn't taken them off, being from a demon slayer as they were?

“oh im not mad, not at you. Tho you probably should take these...things off. If you want hairpins, you can ask Nakime for some and she'll get them for you. No need to keep some filthy demon slayer's decorations.”

Ah, so the look came from superiority to a demon slayer. You were slightly suprised at his offer of Nakime getting something so trivial for you.

“of course, you are one of mine after all. You are infinitely superior than some mere mortal, you're an immortal being. Maybe not as much as i or one of my uppermoons, but like Nakime, you dont need to be an uppermoon. You work just fine at the rank you're at. Tho, i have no doubts you'll soon be at a similar strength level, dear.”

You blushed darker at the petname. He only chuckled. His hand drifted from you ear to your chin, then your neck. The weirdly gentle touch made a shiver run down your spine. Your purring ceased soon after, apparently displeased with the lack of petting.

“i suppose you deserve a treat for coming back so eagerly, afterall you did well in doing so.”

His hand wrapped around your throat, holding it gently as a burning sensation grazed your throat. You winced, flinching at the painful sensation but otherwise not moving despite desperately wanting to. Fear found you rooted in place despite the gentleness of the man's movements. The burning sensation stopped and you let out a pained breath, your skin tingling with the aftershocks. The hand holding your throat left, moving to pat your head one last time before retreating completely.

“Return to your room, and do get rid of your outfit. Ask Nakime for anything you should need.”

You nodded, the strum of a biwa placing you back in the familiarity that was your room. You straightned up before relaxing, looking around and inspecting it for any changes. You found none, minus the scattering of your notebooks. They were everywhere, as if someone went grabbing them one by one before tossing them randomly. You hoped that no one had read through them, whether your writing ones or your drawing ones.

You began picking them up on by one, before placing them at the small desk tucked away in the corner that you always used. Your hand touched the wood gently, smiling softly in relief. Despite the scariness of beings you couldn't hope to compare to, you were glad to be back. Our of the corner of your eye, you caught your reflection in the small mirror sitting on the desk, eyes immediately widening as you hurried to grab it and inspect yourself.

There was a black band tattooed around your throat.

Like a collar.

You...really were just a pet now, weren't you?

You flushed hot with embarrassment as the deep voice of the demon king rang out through your mind.

'yes. Yes you are.'

The fog chuckled before retreating completely, leaving to remain blushing and embarrassed.

The possibility that the demon king might actually like you hadn't crossed your mind until that very moment.

Chapter Text

After getting over your embarrassment, putting away the butterfly hairpins and putting on one of the three, now only two since you dont know what happened with the one you were using when you swapped bodies, kimonos you had you settled down to write, trying to figure out one important thing you had been overlooking up to this point.

The plot.

Where in the timeline even were you that Shinobu had a tsugoku outside of Kanao? Whilst Hashira could have multiple tsugokus at one time, the way that it was written implied that the tsugokus had died far before the viewers even met the Hashira. So that gave you some reference atleast.

You groaned, putting down the pen you were holding and moving to hold your head instead. You sighed, a finger tapping against your head impatiently. Your cheeks blushed at the reminder of the demon king's earlier actions, making you stop the action immediately. The demon king...he'd probably have a field day with what you knew. He already acknowledged he knew you knew stuff you shouldn't, but he never specified how much he knew you knew.

You let go of your head and attempted to continued onwards, trying to figure out where the hell in the timeline you were. You failed so spectacularly you layed down to nap clear your head.

You are, infact, a demon and therefore cannot nap.

You sighed, exasperation coating every inch of the sound. You decided to just lay there for awhile instead.

Two days passed with you doing alot of basically nothing, and, despite your now more common bouts of embarrassment every time you caught a glimpse of the not-actually-a-collar collar around your neck, thanks desk mirror, you were enjoying being back in your room, lazying around, writing and drawing. Like a pampered cat. The realization hit you soon after that you were, infact, a pampered cat. You only grumbled at it at this point.

Strangely enough, this time around your physical changes were taking longer to occur. The start of the changes, your tail and ears becoming bigger, was happening, yes, but way slower. You found it slightly weird, but attributed it to the new body being harder to transform.

You were once again doodling in one of your many notebooks, happily scribbling away at the page when the smell of another demon hit you, making you look up from the page with curiosity. The smell stayed still for a moment, almost as if waiting to be acknowledged. You stood up and walked over to the door, opening it to find six pairs of eyes looking at you. You moved to bow, the movement making the upper rank release a breath, an action that confused you. You straightned up, looking up at the other with some confusion. He bowed his head to you, much to your complete shock. He stayed like that for a moment before straightening up.

“my.. apologies, for leaving...you in the forest.”

“ah- no, its alright, really- um, neither of us could've really predicted what happened until after it did...”

You hurried to excuse him, both truly finding no problem with him not immediately assuming 'ah yes, you changed bodies' and instead being focused on your disintegrating body whilst also simply finding discomfort in the ever powerful Kokushibo apologizing to you. He let out a small hum, nodding before lifting his hand, almost hesitantly patting your head. You blinked, processing the touch for a moment before sighing. Apparently it was becoming very common practice for people to pet you, and you were begrudgingly starting to hate less and less that your body loved it. Like a good massage, didn't matter if your worst enemy was giving it to you, your mind might protest it but it was still awfully relaxing to your body.

The purring took a moment to start up, like a computer turning on, the soft noise filling the space inbetween you two. He stopped shortly after, letting his hand fall back in place. He moved to speak again.

“Muzan-sama... Says you are not to hunt for the time being...”

You sighed, ears flopping down in something akin to disappointment. You smiled still, waving your hand as if to say it was fine. It wasn't, you were hungry, especially after having to switch from eating everyday to not suddenly, but it was okay, you would have to accept it either way. No real place for argument, is there?

“its okay, i understand..with what happened last time its understandable, right? Haha...”

You realized you were beginning to ramble pretty early on, stopping yourself with another sigh. You just let your hands fall, you shook your head slightly before looking back up at the upper rank.

“thanks for informing me.”

“..yes. I..shall take my leave now.. goodbye.”

“goodbye-”

You barely had time to finish the word before he was dissapearing with a nod, faster than you could blink. You sighed, taking a step back and closing the door infront of you before turning and flopping onto the futon. You sighed into the pillow, extending and tapping your nails against the floor in a rhythmic pattern. Since you weren't going to go out hunting any time soon, you should find something to entertain yourself with. But what? Figuring out the timeline gave you a headache, so did trying to focus on shapeshifting, and you didnt have enough creative juices to draw or write forever. Maybe you could write down what you already knew of the plot? Just to make sure you didn't misplace any events? But what good would that do for you?

Plus, if the demon king were to find such a notebook, detailing his own death and failures, you were pretty sure he'd run out of gentleness to give to you.

You shivered at the thought.

You sat up, looking up towards the ceiling with an idea in tow, one that would, atleast for a little while, keep you entertained.

“Nakime, could i get some story books to read?”

Over an entire week passed with you reading the frankly impressive pile of books Nakime brought you, noting down the days in your notebooks whilst immersing yourself into the stories written inside the story books. It kept you decently entertained, your eyes never tiring and your brain obsessing over them in a way you didnt realize was even happening. It was fun, until you ran out of books to read, then reread, then rereread. Eventually you were able to recite the lot that Nakime brought you like a preacher their sermon. Atleast they helped bring your mind off the hunger.

You were back to sitting on the futon, legs crossed as best you could with the somewhat restricting nature of your clothing. You were rereading your own writing at this point, with nothing better to do. You actually were starting to kind of miss being outside, hearing animals sleep and wake alongside being able to move around freely. You kind of regretted not interacting with other people more, even if they more than probably would've just ran away from you. You took an exaggerated deep breath in, tapping the pad of your fingers against the cover of the notebook you were reading, the notes you had decided to take on the books you read written down on it.

The strum of a biwa caught your attention, and you looked up to find yourself in another place entirely. You notebook was left in your room, you assumed, and you hurried to stand up to recognize what was happening. Three smells caught your attention, one you recognized to be of the demon king, and another two you didnt. One smelt... acidic, sharp, you'd bargain to say it smelt like poison, mixed with undertone smoke and meat. The other smelt like roses and sweet perfume, sharp aswell just in another sense. You turned around, finally facing the three owners of the distinct smells. You flinched when you found yourself facing the set of siblings that made up the 6th upper rank.

Much to the visible dismay of Daki, the demon king's lips upturned at you as he approached you, placing a hand on your head before you could even bow. Your cheeks flushed as immediately as he did so, looking down nervously. The red fog entered your mind silently, just as it always did when in the demon king's presence, making you even more nervous. You wondered what was happening. His smile was gentle as it always was, the gesture continued to feel weird to you. He hummed at the thought.

“You're wondering whats happening, ill explain shortly. This is uppermoon six, Daki and Gyutaro.”

You didn't care much for the introduction, but nodded anyways to be polite.

“ive recently decided to disband the lowermoons for their incompetence, and as such-”

Your ears perked up almost immediately at the tidbit of information, eyes widening as you internally panicked. You were that far ahead already? You stopped the thought abruptly there when you realized the demon king stopped to stare at you for a long moment. He continued;

“..mh. As i was saying, as such, ive decided it important that all my closest demons be competent enough to at the least hold their own against their weakest fellow demons. Currently, you're the lowest rank considering you have no rank, yet like Nakime, you're still regarded as one of the higher ranked demons. The next lowest rank would be upper six, and as said, id like for you to be able to atleast hold your own against them.”

You listened intently, wondering where exactly this was going. You had a bad feeling you'd need to fight your way out of this one..

“Yes, you are going to. You're going to fight against these two, every ten days, you're going to do so, the days inbetween you can do as you wish, tho id suggest training.”

Oh dear.

“a fair reaction. Remember this is for the best for you, growing in power. Ah, well, if you need more motivation-”

He removed his hand, turning and beginning to walk away much to your dismay.

“-this will be how you eat. Gain power, get to eat. Dont worry about starving, im confident you wont get to that point. Ah. Daki and Gyutaro, you're free to move now.”

A strum of a biwa rang out, opening a door for the demon king to disappear through as you looked at him in pure panic. You werent going to just start right now, were you? Surely you'd get atleast a moment to prepare! You raised your hand as if to oppose the fact, only for a pink belt to slice it off, causing you to yelp in pain and move backwards. You gripped right above the slice, as if to stop the bleeding, in vain as it shortly stopped itself. You watched for a moment as your skin began to bulge out, forming new skin and slowly regrowing your lost hand, before quickly switching to look towards the two siblings with panic clear in your every movement.

They both, mainly Daki, looked awfully determined to treat this as a real life or death fight. With the death being on your part.

“oh dear.”

Chapter Text

It had been what, an hour? Two? And all you could manage to do, or rather all you tried to do, was dodge uselessly, both regenerating limbs and excruciating poison causing you immense pain as you moved around swiftly. You suprised yourself with how fast you could be when in threatened. You couldn't remember the amount of time you had gotten cut, scraped, much less bruised. You didnt attempt to attack, despite that being the whole point of this whole ordeal. Unlike with the lower demons you had eaten during your time outside the infinity castle, these were uppermoons. They held an air of terror to their very presence that kept you from trying much of anything.

At what you assumed to be the three hour mark, a biwa note rang out, a wall appearing between you and the two siblings.

“this session is adjourned.”

You startled at hearing Nakime's voice for the first time, before being promptly spewed back into your room. You had all but fallen onto the futon, absolutely drained of the usually endless energy you had. Then again, it was supposedly endless only because you never did anything to use it. You spent an entire day just laying down, regaining lost energy or attempting to considering you couldn't eat. Hah, this felt like a punishment more than anything else..

You spent the remaining nine days stressing over what to do, how to possibly begin to beat the two siblings. On the tenth, you were randomly dropped back into the same area that you originally fought it, confusion leading to pain as you barely had a moment to process before a colorful obi belt was piercing your guts.

This process repeated about three times, thirty days, or rather, an entire damn month of getting your ass handed to you. You were slightly more prepared each time, faster to move away, faster to react. The hunger grew bigger, tougher to fight away. You did your best to suppress it, lest you actually lose your mind to it. You spent alot of time with your arms wrapped around your stomach, curling in pain and crying silently.

With the knowledge that you had managed to eat upper 5, you couldn't understand why this was hard. No, actually you could. And it was for several observed reasons.

1. Gyokko had probably been caught of guard by a demon-eating demon, not having ever seen anything like it before, you had almost definitely caught him off guard, a perceived weak demon running at him like he was a marechi.

2. The siblings had something you didnt, numbers. Every time you got close to one of them, close enough to bite flesh that practically screamed at you to consume it, the other would toss you to the side like a rag. Thats another thing they had over you, strength. You had plenty of speed, but not much else in the other departments, atleast compared to upper six.

3. Back then with Gyokko you had relied fully on instincts, something you weren't doing now. You were dodging consciously, you weren't letting your body move by itself. You were stiff in your movements, and that made you sloppier.

4. Uh...Was there actually a fourth reason? Those three seemed like they covered everything that you could observe.

You also noted, this time to your favor, that your nails apparently had similar properties to Nezuko's flames, as you briefly observed (before getting your heart stabbed, which hurt like a motherfucker) that the injuries you inflicted with your nails took longer to heal than the ones you inflicted by kicking or punching the two siblings. Demon-eater things? Did your fangs have the same ability? If so, that would also count as a reason you had managed to disarm Gyokko for so long.

To sum it up, you had two, possibly three, things over Gyokko, speed and suprise. The siblings, however, had three things over you; strength, numbers and suprise.

You sighed, impatiently walking around your room. It was the tenth day again, and you were bracing yourself for being dropped into a fight again. You had no plan, unable to think of one that would actually work without you overthinking and fucking it up. That seemed to be your worst downfall, the lack of confidence in your own movements. You couldn't move fluidly, you moved more like a slow robot trying to hurry.

You wondered if you could spare trying to give into the instincts that had allowed your body to move fluidly during your skirmish with the demon slayer whose body you were inhabiting. Or, well, whose body you stole.

It would almost definitely hurt.

But maybe it could help you?

The floor under you changed.

You near immediately jumped upwards some feet, dodging a fast-flying and bloodied sickle. You landed and looked up, immediately having to dodge again by throwing yourself to the side when the sickle circled back to the other demon's open hand, sort of like a boomerang. The thought made you chuckle the first time you realized the nifty comparison. You only grumbled at it now. A sharp obi belt followed it.

You were quick to start moving, running around on relatively quiet feet. You kind of missed the paw pads that made them fully silent, they were infact coming back, just alot slower. Knowing that never staying in one single place for more than a few seconds did you good, you continued to run around, jumping and sidestepping multiple other attempts to be harmed by the demon siblings. Your movements were easy, steady despite your still there discomfort about having to fold your kimono in a way that would allow you to move, and uncomfortably so, show the expanse of your leg. You weren't sure how Nezuko dealt with it, it was so embarassing. Honestly she probably didn't even realize it was happening, with her whole near-constantly-disassociated from reality thing.

You hissed out breath as an obi bely flew past your head, grazing the ends of your hair. Honestly you were lucky you hadn't gotten an impromptu haircut with all of the flying sickles and obi belts. It still scared the living hell out of you each time one came even close to doing so, knowing that your neck would be the next target if they knew they could reach.

You were really hungry, and it made things harder on you, you could actually feel yourself building up enough insanity to try and get a bite. The image of you biting down, tearing through flesh and gulping down blood had you drooling. You swallowed before it could drip out of your mouth, having to do so multiple times as you continued to run around and away from the demons, their joined smells didn't help at all.

The stronger half of the pair approached you quickly, and some part of you wanted to let him get close, close enough to bite and eat. Another part of you screamed at you to continue your plan to run away until the session was over. Your stomach grumbled and twisted painfully at the thought, protesting it adamantly. You slowed down a fraction, as if searching for a fight before speeding up again and running far away. You could hear him protest with a grumble from behind you.

Ah, the hunger was really getting to you..

Should...you let it?

No that was a dumb thought.

Was it tho? Hunger had been enough to overpower the fifth rank, would it not do the same for the sixth?

You hissed under your breath, shaking your head as if trying to dispel the thoughts that only continued coming.

Hey didn't demons become better at going with their instincts when they turned into demons? Ya'know, especially with fighting and stuff? You supposed that came more with the cockiness of immortality. Cockiness which you, a being fully aware you could die the instant you did something the demon king didnt like, did not have. You held onto the human fear of pain, the fear of death, all despite now being an immortal being. Guess having a weird and sudden transformation never really let you have that moment to yourself where you fully internalized that you were an undying creature now.

Your stomach twisted impatiently.

Apart from your almost slip-up, the rest of the session went smoothly, or as smoothly as it could with your inability to let yourself fight.

The next time wasnt as smooth.

Four weeks of this, of starving. You were absolutely ready to drop all rational thinking and consume whatever you could, even temporarily wondering if eating the infinity castle would give you any viable sustenance.

The instant you were dropped into the familiar room, you steeled yourself to attack, only for one smell to hit you.

You looked around in confusion, only spotting one of the two siblings. The green haired demon scratched at his neck, his free hand raising to throw a bloodied sickle your way. You confusion must've been evident, because he held off for a slight moment to explain.

“Daki is busy today...she wont join us..”

Your stomach growled, the ravenous part of you upset that you only had one being to possibly consume today. The more rational side, or whatever remained of it, cheered that it was better for you, to only face one sibling instead of two, making it easier on yourself to consume without being attacked. You growled, the sound low in your throat, making the other raise an eyebrow at you.

The instant the sickle waa thrown at you, you ran.

Not away, but towards him.

Seemingly suprised at the action, he did nothing more than take a step backwards as you dodged the sickle and continued foward, drool dripping from your mouth in your hunger. He dodged your pounce, moving to slice his sickle sideways and down the expanse of your back. You couldn't dodge, the smell of your own blood filling your nose and making you dizzy. You continued onwards despite the pain, moving to pounce again on the demon. You managed it this time, your speed winning against his as you both fell down, with you perched on his chest. You hissed, raising your hands as whatever remained of your rationality left and grabbing at his face, letting your nails break through skin and bone before pulling, ripping chunks of flesh and bone out. You burst forward, biting down on the flesh you ripped out. The body under you groaned, a sickle piercing your side.

You couldn't even feel the pain.

Your own red eyes latched onto his, a hiss being the only warning before you raised your arms and brought closed fists down onto his head, aiming to do the same thing you had when you ate the fifth. Without a brain, the body couldn't fight back, and with your nails slowing down your prey's regeneration, it meant you had a laughably easy time eating. You leant down, moving your body to be at face with your prey's torso, ripping into the flesh there and chowing it down heartily.

You continued like that for a long while before you started to regain your consciousness, immediately taking ahold of it the instant you realized you could.

You leant back, breathing heavily as you stared down at the not yet corpse. Tho if you continued you might actually just kill the other by consuming him whole. You drooled at the thought. Hesitantly, you pulled yourself away from the regenerating demon, wiping at your mouth with your sleeve. How long had it been?

“almost three hours, around two and three quarters.”

You startled at the voice, a hiss leaving you as you jumped to your feet, absolutely covered in fresh blood. Your eyes met the demon king's, and after a second you yelped before bowing down. When did he? had he been watching the whole time? A blush came over you, a mix of embarrassment and pure horror flowing through you.

“no need, you did well. It took a while, but thats fine. You managed to do it, as expected. Good.”

He walked towards you as he talked, stopping infront of you to place a hand on your head. The weight of it was an odd mix of comfort and even more embarrassment. You hadn't even realized he was there, watching you and listening to your thoughts.

“Nakime, take Gyutaro so he can heal.”

A strum rang out, and the slowly recovering body of the demon dissapered. You felt a tang of disappointment at the fact, one you quickly buried deep. The hand on your head moved down to grab your chin, pulling your head upwards to look at him. You hesitantly meet the demon king's eyes. His expression almost seemed proud.

“you did well. Good job. From now on, your meals will be brought to your room. No need for more fighting, you'll get better at multitasking with time, tho you wont be needing to do much of it to begin with. You can return to your room.”

You nodded, standing straight when the grip on your chin moved you to do so. He smiled, the gesture sickeningly sweet and so out of character. Despite the sweetness, his eyes held a glint of danger to them.

“now, tell me, what do you know of the outcome of Lower Moon One's Mission?”

Chapter Text

You sat, anxiously. You were kneeling down infront of the demon king, your hands gripping the fabric of your kimono as you let your head drop. You waited as the demon king processed the information you had given him, about how lowermoon one's, Enmu's, mission was supposed to go. He simply stared at your nervous form, an you couldn't tell whether he was angry or not. Hell, you couldn't even tell if he believed you, then again, who the hell would? You had just told this man the supposed future. In detail at that. Maybe bringing foward your memories of watching the mugen train movie was too much, but you were desperate to convince him lest he find you delusional and kill you.

He let out a small sigh, and you flinched in response. Was he done thinking over it? Had he decided you were delusional or did he actually believe you? You were nervous to find out the answer.

“so. Enmu will fail, as will Akaza, at their respective missions. The hanafuda boy will live.”

It wasn't a question, a statement rather. You couldn't figure out whether or not his tone held a tone of disbelief to it. He sighed again, and this time you could tell it held a tone of annoyance to it. It worried you.

“You can leave, go back to your room. Ill call you after his mission is complete.”

You flinched again, nodding almost immediately. Soon after, a strum rang out sending you back to your room. You let out a long, shaky, breath as you fell foward, onto your arms, from your kneeling position. You could tell you were on the verge of hyperventilating, your panic clawing at your throat, trying desperately to escape. You curled up, your forehead touching the floor as you wrapped your arms around yourself. You let out another long, shaky, breath, then another, and another.

Slowly, you calmed yourself down.

After a while, you leant up, letting your sitting position relax. You slowly, carefully, crawled to the futon on the floor, dropping yourself onto it. You curled up again, this time on your side. You let out a long sigh, tucking your legs into your arms while you closed your eyes. You let out a a breath, letting yourself relax. You didn't sleep, you couldn't, but you still rested for as long as you could.

You spent a couple of days simply going through the motions, anxiety and worry eating at you from the inside out.

You were sitting at your desk, pen hovering over the paper. You had nothing to draw or write about these days. The boredom didn't help your anxiety.

The sound of your door opening roughly startled you. You dropped the pen, immediately instincts you didnt have as a human urged you to stand up from your desk, turning to look for a potential threat. Footsteps approached you as your upper arms were gripped tightly and you were lifted off the ground. You hissed immediately, but the person holding you didn't seem to realize much less care as he simply continued... laughing? You finally clocked who exactly was holding you, letting out a small 'ep' of suprise when you came face to face with a deranged looking demon king. He continued on rambling about something in between his laughter.

“a gift, it must be! A gift from the gods, accepting me as one of their own! Yes, yes!”

He chuckled, looking at you but not really looking at you? If that made sense. Your ears pinned themselves against your head, resisting the urge to scratch at his face and free yourself from the still tightening grip on your arms, a crack soon ringing out as pain radiated from them. You let out a small hiss, more of pain than of warning or anger. This seemed to finally snap the man from his rambling, his eyes focusing on your own. He smiled widely, softening his hold until he let go completely, leaving you to fall forward, your healing arms desperately trying to catch you as you fell against his chest, his arms immediately wrapping around you in a hug you couldn't really escape. His arms tightened slightly, but didnt become painful. Just...restrictive.

“yes...a gift, a wonderful, powerful, gift. All for me. Yes, a gift made for me. That damned Ubayashiki will die! I will finally become a perfect being...yes...”

You wriggled slight, placing your hands against his chest and moving your head to look up at him. He was looking down at you, still smiling widely. You flinched at the expression, shrinking in on yourself, or well, trying to. He seemed to calm himself down, as his smile turned ever so slightly softer.

“oh my little pet. Who could've known that id be granted a demon who could tell me the future? If i didnt like you before, i certainly do now, ha!”

He placed a small kiss on your forehead, making you flush despite your confusion and worry. What in the world was happening? What was he talking about, and why, of all things, was he hugging and kissing you? It confused you to no end. The admittance of him liking you in some form made your cheeks and ears flush just the slightest bit more. And by slightest you mean alot.

“um- hi?...”

He smiled with his eyes closed, actual joy on his face.

“Hi dear.”

“whats... um. Happening??..”

You asked, trying your best to return the close eyed smile despite your discomfort.

“Whats happening? Whats happening is that I've got myself a future-telling demon now, dear. Why would i not be particularly pleased about that? Even with lowermoon one's failure, with you, i can prevent any more failures, I can finally kill that hanafuda boy and find out how to conquer the sun, I'll become a perfect being-”

He moved closer, his face moving to nuzzle into your neck. The action flustered you further, if that was even possible at this point.

“-all with your help.”

You swallowed, wondering how exactly you should break it to him. In your flustered-ness, you only registered the red fog a second too late.

“break what to me, mh?”

You could tell his voice got a tiny fraction of a bit lower, more...dangerous. You froze in place, fear mixing into and almost completely overtaking all previous emotions. You weren't sure how to put it, not without blurting it out and getting your head cut off.

“Dear..speak, or your head will get cut off for different reasons.”

“....well..um..i kind of...only know one future? I dont know THE future, but rather one...i-”

You took a deep breath, continuing onwards.

“-cant guarantee the future i know will play out correctly if things are changed, if events are interfered with...”

You did your best to explain cohesively, believing you did atleast a decent job at it. Your existence was already a deviation from the original story, as far as you were aware. Things wouldn't have ended up the same way they did if you existed in the story you remembered, would they?

“mh. I see, that...makes sense, if makes it a little annoying.”

The demon king hummed, his arms getting a slight bit tighter around you, vering on the line before it became painful. His arms moved down, hands interlocking and picking you up with his hands acting somewhat like a seat for your upper thigh. You yelped slightly in suprise, hands moving to grab onto his shoulders for more stability. Without any preamble, or acknowledgement for your now visible and flushed face, he began walking, exiting your room.

You didn't dare ask him to put you down, and he seemed content to simply ignore any discomfort you had about it. You briefly wondered if he'd pay more attention to your discomfort if it stemmed more from not wanting what was happening rather than being unused to it. He didn't comment.

You walked for a bit, thankfully passing no one in your embarassing state on your way to... somewhere. You tried looking around, but recognized nothing. You also had half the thought to ask, but decided against it rather quickly. You had already, probably, soiled his good(?) mood with your previous statement, better not make it worst.

Eventually you reached a door, the demon king easily hauling you off onto one hand to open the door before stepping inside. This time when you looked around you did recognize where you were, the demon king's lab, where he used to take your blood. You briefly wondered what he did with all the blood he took, obviously tests and examinations but what kind? The 'for what' was a but more obvious. The thought was breif, and you quickly moved on to what exactly you were doing here. This time, your constant thoughts were answered.

“you, are going to write down everything you know.”

Oh! Yeah that made sense...but.. also might be a bad idea.

“a bad idea?”

Uh. Well.

You panicked slightly, very plainly looking away from the man. You could feel his eyes bore into you, and it only made you more nervous. You swear you'd write down what you knew either way, so your own thoughts on how good or bad of an idea this was weren't important haha...

The silence dragged on, and the overwhelming feeling of being stared at by someone who could kill you in less time than it took you to blink was almost too nauseating to handle. Eventually, you heard a sigh, one that sounded more 'done with your shit' than anything else, before you were being moved again. He walked over to the cot you usually sat on whilst he took blood, placing you down on it before moving to the nearby desk, opening a drawer and taking out a notebook. He flipped through it, probably checking it was clear before grabbing a pen and walking back over and giving them to you. He smiled again, and you noted it was back to holding a glint of danger.

“write. I dont need to know exact details, just the outcomes, for now.”

You nodded, grabbing the notebook and pen before beginning to write down what you knew would be happening from this point onwards as the demon king began working on his own things.

—

Your hand throbbed duly by the time you were done, and you stretched it absentmindedly. You hesitantly look up at the demon king. His expression was back to its usual calm, a stark difference from how it was earlier. You weren't sure if you were glad it was back to normal or not.

“um, im done?..”

He stopped mid-writing, turning to you. The red fog reappeared, having dispelled at some point. He walked over, holding a hand out. You quickly handed him the now partly full notebook, hoping your shaky words were clear enough to be read. He hummed reading over the pages as you stared at the ground near his feet, too nervous and scared to look back up. You desperately hoped he stopped reading whilst you were still here, otherwise it might not end well for you.

“Considering your worry, I'm assuming something i wouldn't like will happen?”

He asked plainly, stopping and moving upwards to look at you. You only knew cause you could once again plainly feel that you were being stared at once again. You swallowed and nodded. Between what would happen to his highest demons, and what would happen to him, he was bound to be furious, even if it was at the messenger.

“mh.”

He didn't say anything else, moving away to place the notebook down on his desk. Your hands grasped eachother, almost like a prayer. You hoped your usefulness to him didnt end with that single notebook, otherwise you were screwed whether he read it right now or not.

“you worry alot, don't you. Stop thinking about it and head back to your room, ill ask someone to take you outside. You...”

He smiled again, walking over as he talked to put a hand between your ears. The gesture drew a small unintentional 'mrp' from you.

“shall be rewarded for your.. cooperation.”

He paused, seemingly finding the correct words before continuing. You nodded softly, doing your best not to nudge his hand too much as you did so. Soon after, the strum of a biwa rang out, brining you to be sitting on your chair, inside your room. The red fog swirled before retreating. You took a deep breath in, using your hands to push your hair back as you looked upwards at the ceiling. You exhaled, taking the moment to calm your nerves.

You let go of your hair and looked back down, footsteps quiet as you walked back from the desk a bit, watching yourself from the mirror on it to fix your kimono from when the demon king had grabbed you, both picking you up and grabbing/breaking your arms. While it was one thing to know how strong he was, it was truly frightening to feel it. You felt a shiver run down your spine.

You walked back over, hesitating for a second. He said someone would come to take you outside, a thing that pleased a part of you immensely despite you just having eaten a couple days ago. More food never hurt, did it? You sat back down and began tidying up your desk, putting away books and notebooks towards their respective places, pens aswell.

You were closing a drawer when you smelt something, someone, approaching. You had assumed Kokushibo would be the one to take you, since he had been before, but his smell wasn't what hit you. Rather, it was that of gunpowder, with the ever present smell of meat that all demons had. Wait, wasn't that Akaza's smell?

Footsteps stopped at your door as you stood up, walking over and expecting to have to open the door only for it to, basically, slam open before you could get to it. You flinched, claws extending as a safety measure as you lowered your body. In the open doorway stood the third uppermoon, glaring at you. Was..was he still angry at you for whatever reason? You gulped and straighten up after a short moment, opening your mouth to speak and-

“shut it, lets go.”

You didn't get a chance to say anything as he interrupted you, turning and beginning to walk, or more accurately stomp, away. You stood there for a second before deadpaning, huffing, and moving to follow.

“biwa lady-”

She has a name..

“-take us outside.”

A strum rang out, and you were once again transported, this time outside into a forest. Immediately standing before you was a demon, which suprised you, and seemingly the two other demons aswell. You all stared at eachother for a moment before the now nervous demon spoke up.

“uppermoon thre-??”

You pounced on demon before they could say anything else, immediately pulling your fist back to smash into their brain before pulling your upper body down to gorge. You were slightly ashamed to say you had more than gotten used to your more... animalistic way of eating. You barely registered the face of disgust that the uppermoon had, seeing it barely out of the corner of your vision.

Oops.

Well.

Not quite your problem, now was it.

Chapter Text

You hunted for a bit, finding a few demons, most either eating themselves, which was a terrible smell, or arguing amongst eachother about territory. A bit.. dumb, but oh well. Didnt mess with their taste.

You jumped up into the trees, landing on a branch and only slightly wincing when it creaked ominously. You sniffed the air, several smells leading you everywhere. Fresh water, which you could also hear when you focused, the blood on your claws, the smell of gunpowder a tiny farther off. But no more eatable demons, only the looming feeling of being watched from time to time. Akaza was... being very..um. protective? For lack of a better word. He was sticking real close and you could feel him stir whenever you approached any human bodies. Was he worried you'd change bodies again? He must've heard what happened with Kokushibo. Like you would take such busted up bodies, you deserved fresher ones...wow okay that was a disturbing string of thoughts you didn't even realize you were having. You shivered and moved on.

With no more demons to catch, you went towards the smell of gunpowder, finding Akaza from your spot in the trees easily. He appeared to be training or something of the sort, as he had his leg high up in the air in a kick. Hey wait you've seen this move! He retracted his leg and then kicked it out again in a flurry of movement, what should've been one kick instead being multiple that spanned a small triangle. Each of them sent blasts of compressed air with them, rattling the trees in their path even if they were far off. You watched with stars in your eyes.

Apart from gyokko's, which was just a bunch of slimy fish, and, kind of, your own, you hadnt actually seen any blood demon arts in use, and it was just as awesome as you thought it would be. You were mesmerized watching the movements, so much so you didnt actually notice the branch you were on creaking and groaning, only registering it a second too late.
You dropped with the branch included, a small hiss sound coming from you. You were scrambling to find right your body and land when someone caught you midair, throwing you over their shoulder as they did so. You let out a huff aa you both landed, opening your eyes to find yourself over Akaza's shoulder. Okay, embarrassing position.

You groaned and tried to lift yourself up, only managing to lift your upper half a bit with the hold he had on you.

“uh- hi?”

“you're not the smartest pet are you?”

Okay ouch. While you could tolerate Muzan calling you a pet, mostly because you had to for your continued survival, out of the uppermoon it was just derogatory.

“look whose talking...”

You could see veins bulge on his neck and cheek, probably from anger at your comment, whether he interpreted it as you calling him dumb or a pet. You almost wanted to say more, but a quick and very pissed off glance back from the demon was all it took to keep your mouth shut. Scary...hey atleast it saved you from any 'dont cats always land on their feet?' comments.

You swallowed, waiting and expecting him to put you down. You realized he wouldn't when you had to grab at his vest in suprise at his sudden movement, said movement being him jumping up into the trees. He landed effortlessly before continuing to jump from branch to branch, like you had been, much to your confusion.

“wh- hey! Put me down-”

He promptly ignored you, continuing to move farther and farther. Not exactly on purpose, your nails dug through his vest and into his back, the muscle barely denting any. And well, that wasn't all that surprising, it wasn't exactly a secret the guy was jacked as all hell. It also probably aided his... unharmed-ness(?) that your nails were currently in their blunt state. You huffed and struggled against him, trying to dislodge yourself and get off from over his shoulder. It was somewhat timidly at first, but after a few seconds you gained more confidence with your movements. Still, he didn't budge an inch, instead asking;

“do you want to fall?”

“no, i want to be put down!”

You yelled, not really caring much for your safety with how embarrassed, annoyed and confused you were.

“where are you even taking me!?-”

You could practically feel him roll his eyes. Your ears pinned themselves against your head in response, tail swishing, both gestures based in anger. The uppermoon seemed to be able to tell your growing irritation because he huffed in return.

“calm down, Master Muzan said you were having this hunt as a reward. Im just finding you more food.”

That!- was actually kind of nice of him? Maybe? Huh. It made your ears perk back up, going out of what was commonly referred to as 'airplane mode' back where you were from. The subtle reminder you didnt belong here made you tense. Your tail continued swishing, a bit more aggressively even.

“quit it, you're hitting me.”

You huffed in response, making your tail stop its movements and instead wrap around your lower leg. You both continued moving for awhile, without any further protest, until a smell caught your attention, making you straighten up and look around. It smelt strongly, and of mint, along with weirdly familiar. You couldn't place your finger on it for a good few seconds, until you did, and you tensed up again. It seemed that the other demon also realized who you were approaching, because he froze, groaned and turned around to begin going another way, all in a matter of seconds. Too much time apparently, because the smell of mint began coming closer and closer.
You groaned aswell, shaking your head for a moment as you resigned yourself to your, current, fate.

“Akaza-dono! Hey! Hello!”

The stripped demon grumbled again.

“Hey! Akaza-dono...dont ignore me, thats rude!”

When it came to you? Yeah, the other demon could, and would be, more than rude.

Hey atleast he hadn't noticed you?

“oh- hi kitty! Can you tell Akaza-dono to slow down?”

You just had to say something.

You grumbled, crossing your arms as your voice came out just a tad bit annoyed. And who could blame you, the blonde one knew batshit about boundaries and any interactions with him were hell because of it.

“when you said you were finding more demons, i hadnt imagined you meant him...”

And in an even more annoyed tone came:

“Neither had i.”

You sighed, somewhat resigned.

“Hey, why dont we just end it here and call Naki-”

“Hey, you're both being really rude.”

Suddenly the smell of mint was closer, too close, and you turned from the stripped demon to find Douma face to face with you.

To say you jumped would be, in short, a massive understatement.

“you-”

Akaza started, momentarily distracted enough that your violent flinch back actually managed to dislodge you from his hold, meaning you were falling again. And for once, without the need of starvation, you actually followed your instincts when they told you to move, right yourself mid-air like you had tried to the first time, making it a breeze to land perfectly on your feet. Huh. Okay, guess cats can land on their feet.

You let out a breath you didnt realize you were holding after a moment, loosening your rigid posture and idly fixing your kimono. Behind you, both demons started to approach.

“Awe, sorry kitten, did i scare yo-?”

“shut up, Douma.”

You dusted yourself off before turning around towards the two, just in time to see Akaza throw his fist back and through the other demon's head, making him freeze in place. The smell of his blood was awfully enticing, so much so you stumbled forward like a demon drunk on the smell of marechi. You hastened to swallow down the saliva that pooled in your mouth, holding to hands up to your mouth and nose to cover both as you took a step back.

The stripped demon shot you a weird glance, before seemingly putting two and two together and grimacing slightly. Atleast you didnt have to explain how much you wanted to eat his colleague... co-worker? Associate? Whatever. Anyways.

You took another step back, looking away form the very enticing and equally as disturbing scene of Douma regenerating his head, very, very, slowly. You had a feeling the fucker was doing it on purpose to mess with either you or Akaza, or more probably both. Briefly you compared the situation to your own means of eating, how harming a demon's brain mad them freeze, and in your case that was accentuated by your nails, which from your continued observal were getting in their anti-regenerating effect.

“you're so mean Akaza-dono!~”

The ice demon whined, and you almost could feel bad for him, if you didn't know it was more than impossible for him to actually feel hurt by what was being done to him, if you didnt know it was all an elaborate act, carefully crafted like a stained glass mural. You shivered as he approached, the air chilling ever so slightly. Your hairs stood on end, and your free hand moved to smooth your tail over from its porcupine-like state.

You took a deep breath before removing your hand form your lower face and turning back to the demons. Just in time considering that's when Akaza reached your spot, grabbing your wrist and beginning to lead you away. Thankfully, he didnt move to throw you over his shoulder or into the trees. The first would be once again embarassing, whilst the other worried you, thinking that you more than likely would have some trouble keeping up with uppermoon three's speed, even with how good your own was.

“hey! Where are you two going?? Can i join? Im a much more comfortable carrier!”

“shut up already. We're here on Master Muzan's orders.”

“oh? Whatever for?”

You shivered again at the sharp edge his voice gained, like he was working out the best way to force himself into the situation. Which, in hindsight of that thought, he more than probably was.

“Food.”

“food?...”

He titled his head, one hand coming up to his chin. He hummed, seemingly mulling over it. He snapped his fingers, clapping his hands together as he smiled.

“Oh, for the kitty!”

Suddenly your other hand was grabbed, making you yelp as you were stopped in your tracks, being pulled from both sides. You turned to look at the ice wielding demon, finding him pointing at himself.

“i can find you food!”

“im already doing it.”

Akaza responded before you could, pulling you a bit harder and attempting to continue walking. It worked, for a split second. Then your arm ran out of give and caused you to snap backwards. You all stood there for a solid moment before the pulling began again, now from both sides.

The pain was harsh.

Your wrists felt equally painful sensation, one ice cold and the other under a bruising grip. The stripped demon really did allow himself to get consumed by his emotions too easily...
The thought remained you of Kokushibo, and how this would most certainly not be happening with the silent demon. You groaned softly, trying fruitlessly to pull your wrists back to yourself. It didnt work. You winced, and it didnt go unnoticed.

“Akaza-dono..come on!”

“let go.”

They argued amongst eachother, ignoring you. One pulled harder, so so did the other. You were, very clearly, not vibing with it, if the hissing noise building up in your throat or the way your ears pinned and your tail swished was any indication. Promptly sick of it, you came up with a quick, simple, plan that would, hopefully, work. You quickly moved, grabbing both of their wrists and pressing on their bone with your thumb, hard, before yanking on them, hard. Suprised or confused, both demons gave in to your weird attempt to get them to let go, allowing you to move back and, unintentionally, let them fall forward, bonking eachother on the head before falling backwards slightly. All of you froze.

...

...

...

Uh.

“oops.”

Quickly as you made the two demons hit eachother on the head, you just as quickly turned and ran. As you did, you basically screamed;

“naKIMEEEE-”

—

The two demons stayed frozen for awhile, with him unworried about his orders concerning keeping the pet in his sight considering that they, loudly, went back to the infinity castle.

Silence bore on.

Until the bastard infront of him broke it.

“...well. That was unexpected! How fun!”

“oh shut it.”

—

Time passed, a couple days, and you spent it in your room. Luckily, no angry demon king had barged in, so maybe he didnt take the whole 'you fail and die to the successor of the person you loathe most' to badly? One can hope, and only hope.

You felt a bit... restless. You wanted to hunt, to move, to run. You weren't hungry, but you desperately wanted to chase down demons like a cat would a mouse. It...might also maybe be more graceful for you if you started comparing yourself to big cats, say a lion chasing a gazelle, rather than typical house cats. The opposite of 'hear hoof beats and think horses not zebras'. Ah whatever.

You rolled the pen you were holding around in your hand, a nice little trick you painstakingly managed to learn out of pure and utter boredom roughly before your whole body changing thing. It had been...Over a month? Roughly, since you returned. Having every day to hunt was fun, tho it'd probably get boring after awhile just like the books did. Dont be dissuaded, you still liked reading but..in moderation.

Suddenly an idea occurred to you and you stood up from your bed, you walked forward into the room a bit, gathering courage for a moment before speaking, loud and clear.

“Nakime, can you ask if i can go practice my blood demon art-?”

After a very short moment you added;

“-..alone, so that i uh, dont take anyone's body.”

You waited for a painstakingly long moment, which in reality was pretty short, before promptly being dumped into a wide arena like place. You blinked, looking around confusedly.

So...yes?

“uhhhh, i mean, thank you Nakime!”

You yelled out before settling near a wall, you were in a box of sorts, surrounded by walls that stretched up until a certain point, from there it was open into the rest of the infinity castle.

You swallowed before realizing you had no idea what to do. How do you even start? Dont panic, just...try? God, you weren't convincing an ant with that, much less yourself.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, holding your hands in an cupping motion.
You focused real hard, just like you had the first time, eyes staring at the small golden blob that began forming inbetween your hands with clear uncertainty. You extended your hands out, palms pointing at a wall as you willed it to shoot out. Much to your suprise, it did! The small blob shot through the air like a bullet, splattering against the wall and beginning to drip down.

...Okay, well, it was something!

You smiled. Attempting it again but with one hand. You extended your hand and focused, the blob being bigger this time. You were smiling like a child at this point, interrupted by a pang of pain from your palms. You looked down at them to find your skin broken, a small crack bleeding blood that was awfully devoid of it's usual gold flecks. Was the gold coming directly from your blood? And if the gold was also how you transfered consciousness... Okay so maybe throwing the gold wasn't a good idea? But how else could you use it? You tried to think, eventually coming across two thoughts, one of 'what can i make with it?' and the other of 'can i return it?', both were immediately put to the test. If you just keep the gold attached or are constantly bringing it back in, then the problem is solved, right?

You walked over to the splashed gold on the wall, focusing and almost mentally asking it to do what you wanted. It worked wonderfully to ask nice apparently, because the gold obediently started rolling up the wall before moving into your hand, back through the crack that had not healed. The crack immediately healed once the gold was returned. Good to know. It also kind of reminded you of water bending. Maybe you should focus on it like that, and it'd help you more?

You moved back from the wall, into the center as you continued experimenting with the gold, your gold. Eventually you managed to make a small dagger-like object that was attached to your skin via small tendrils. You swung it around experimentally, too excited to keep focus, which lead to your gold shivering(?) before seeping back into your skin. Right, focus, that was important!

You spent a couple of hours making different weapons, trying them out and trying to keep focus for as long as you could. It was a work in progress, but the progress made you smile with glee.

At one point, you covered your entire arm with your gold whilst you sat in thought. Focus.

“what to make next...oh, how about- huh?”

You stopped and moved to stare at your arm, which was fully liquid now, not just covered by it.

You blinked, experimentally moving the arm around, something telling you to spread the feeling, and so you did, letting the gold spread all over your body. Suddenly, all of you was liquid, your vision a pleasing golden color, everything shades lighter or darker of said golden color.

You moved, and way faster than expected, it felt... natural, to move around like this, more than your usual way felt. And so you did, moving around the space eagerly in one fluid motion, like a lone wave of sentient water. You were struck with yet another idea, to amazed by your findings to find it anything other than brilliant.

You moved around in the gold, against the wall in a hopping motion, before landing atop the pillar making the wall up. You grinned like a Cheshire cat as the gold willingly retreated.

You looked down and noted your limbs were back to fading into black, and you once again felt the now near overwhelming urge to change bodies. Seemed like your new form of movement degraded your body faster than simply residing within it did. Made sense, but still, what a bummer, it was definitely super fun.

You enjoyed the view for a moment, before becoming aware of the demon king's presance. You looked around before looking down, finding him inside the box you had maybe just escaped. Thankfully he was facing the other way.

Quickly, and almost as easy as moving your arms, the gold over took you again and you jumped down, prompting the demon king to turn to look at you. You straighten up before bowing, retracting the gold with a dull sense of sadness that you could always be like that.

The demon king hummed, a hand on his hip.

“straighten. I see your having fun?”

You straightened, hesitating slightly but nodding nonetheless. You tried your best to keep the smile off your face, the red fog rolling around almost pleasantly in your mind. You had thoughts.

“you can speak.”

A pro of having someone in your head? No need to ask something verbally, especially useful when talking could get you killed! The fog seemed to get upset by that, but he made no comment on it.

“um-”

You weren't sure what was the best way to refer to him as.

“mmmmaster? Master.. Muzan. Um. I think, i uh, might need a new body...?”

You said, looking down at yourself and your now truly demon-like apperance. Distantly, you wondered if you had what would be considered a full form. The demon king seemed weirdly pleased you said his name, smiling. Or, rather, smirking.

“that can be arranged, the higher the quality the body the better, correct? Your bodies human capabilities translate to your demonic ones, and the body has to be alive.”

You nodded to both things.

“good. Return to your room for now, ill call on you when i have a body of suitable quality ready for you.”

You nodded again, calling for Nakime this time before a strum placed you back in your room.

You couldn't help but be slightly disturbed by how eager you felt to have a 'high quality' body.

Chapter Text

True to his word, barely a couple days passed before you were being called on by the demon king, and you were both excited and disturbed by said excitement.

A door opened whilst you were reading in the corner of your room, making you snap the book shut and fumble with it for a solid second. You looked over at the door, finding Kokushibo standing on the other side. He vaguely tilted his head in something akin to a question, making you flush in embarasment and stand up, the book staying on the ground. You took a couple steps towards the other, much stronger, demon. You bowed quickly before straightening up.

“Ah, hello! Um. Did..you need something?”

He blinked.

“Muzan-sama...'has a suprise'..for you.”

You could practically see the way he was quoting him rather than saying it in his own words. You blinked in return, nodding along after a second.

The demon turned and began walking, you following right behind him. You walked a little ways into the forest with, slowly approaching what sounded like the sounds of something, or someone, struggling. You hesitated for a moment before peeking infront of Kokushibo, only for his nearest hand to come up and cover your view. You both stood there for a moment, before you looked up at him, confused.

“he...wanted to see your...reaction.”

“ah.”

And that was all you could say.

You both continued a bit more, eventually getting to the curious sound. You really wanted to peek now, but doing so again would probably be rude towards the other demon.

“Muzan-sama.”

“Kokushibo.”

You flinched into attention at the voice, ears perking up and tail curling slightly. You swallowed as you heard footsteps approaching, only slightly flinching when the demon king peeked at you from infront of Kokushibo. He smiled at the same time as the red fog filtered into your mind. Somehow, at some point, it had become much easier to become comfortable around the intrusion. It preened slightly at that thought.

You bowed, more quick footsteps leading to a hand placed inbetween your ears. You let out a small 'mrp' sound at the gesture. You were pet for the while that he talked.

“Hello there. Theres a suprise waiting for you, dear. Come on, straighten up, you're coming with me.”

You nodded, straightening up as footsteps moved around you, finding cold hands infront of your eyes when you finally did so. You blinked for a moment in confusion before quickly accepting it when you realized it would probably be a bad idea not to. Red swirles in vague disappointment for a second before settling again. You were urged foward, walking a few more steps before being urged to stop, all by the red fog. It was weirdly gentle in its approach.

“close your eyes.”

You closed them with a small amount of nervousness, feeling the hands pull away. You flinched when someone yelled angrily, cursing you out. You hesitated backwards, a hand placing itself on your shoulder to sort of keep from moving. The sound of a something hitting skin and a wail of pain rang out. More cursing followed.

“you damned demons, i swear when i get my hands on my sword im gonna-!”

“you can open them now, dear.”

His voice tinged with annoyance, a sense of coldness along with it. After having spent so long not hearing it, it made you slightly nervous. You opened your eyes after a moment of hesitation, finding a demon slayer tied up infront of you, carefully secured to a tree. You blinked. A...demon slayer?

“the hell you staring at, scum?”

You blinked again. Right, suitable quality. The demon king needed his demons to be strong, so it only made sense he'd want you to be strong aswell, right? You had kind of assumed suitable quality and high quality meant you would simply get a healthy body, but a demon slayer's one is even better. Agility, strength, reaction time, all were pretty massively better than a normal human's, and therefore, increased in your own. Safe to say, your suprise turned out to be more than lovely. You turned to the demon king, aiming to thank him. You instead stopped and blushed slightly at his half-happy half-smug expression, like a cat who caught their prey. You didnt give much thought to the fact you were a cat who was being handed your prey, in contrast.

“um! Thank you! Er,..Master Muzan?”

Despite you not saying the title with much confidence, you knew your point got across well by the smile he gave you, urging you forward with a hand. As you nodded and walked forward he spoke again.

“of course, dear. Oh, and you haven't heard the best part yet. This slayer's rank is of a-”

“Kinoe, motherfucker! I'm basically a Hashira, just wait until i get my hands on you, grimy demons!”

You paused, unaware of the scathing glare the slayer was getting, instead much more focused on something else. Kinoe? Basically a Hashira? Must be the rank right below. Woah. Okay, no, your excitement now fully overwhelmed any disturbance you had with your actions. You wouldn't get the body of a Hashira, not when they had their own moments to die, but a Kinoe? That was the next best thing! So, like, strong. Very strong. Your tail must've given away your excitement, because you heard a small chuckle from behind you. You flushed a bit, shaking your head a bit to get yourself together before approaching the slayer.

You held out your hand out, a small bit of gold forming at your request. The red fog moved in curiousity, probably at the fact you were asking your own blood demon art to do things for you instead of demanding or commanding it. Or simply, ya know, using it like one would a muscle. You hadnt exactly gotten there yet.

“you think im gonna be afraid of some no body demon just cause you're friends with upper one!? Bastard aint even here, so i can take you on all alone!”

Ah, um. Cocky one, weren't they? They kind of reminded you of the Wind Hashira. Minus the scars. Also had they specifically neglected the whole 'Master' and 'Muzan' thing? Cause. Like. Cmon man, how do you miss that? You grimaced slightly, wondering for a second if a body dumbness would affect you. Hopefully not!

“What, you gonna use me to test your shitty blood art? Try me, motherfucker! I can take-”

The gold burst foward in a rush, moving into the skin of the slayer, and taking your own along with it with a hiss of pain.

“WHAT ARE YOU-!”

The gold forced itself down the slayer's open mouth, making a disturbing gurgling noise. Your consciousness got foggy, and you were soon falling unconscious.

—

You slept wonderfully.

And woke up wonderfully.

You were purring wholeheartedly as a hand moved to and inbetween your ears, petting you with a lovely gentleness. Your purring only heightened.

Then, you froze in place, but the purring continued.

Wait, what?

You forced your eyes opened in a panic, looking around to find your head resting on the demon king's lap. Lap. Demon king. Fuck.

You forced yourself upwards onto your hands, blushing furiously as you moved to look at the demon king, finding him smiling at you. His smile brightened slightly as he talked.

“hello dear, awake now? You slept for less time this go. It was... quite interesting to watch your transformation.”

Your ears drooped in embarrassment and you hiccuped slightly as the blush on your face grew. Vaguely you wondered if, like a human's, your blush extended to your drooped ears. He chuckled at the thought but didn't confirm nor deny it. Atleast he enjoyed watching your body do the transfer? You weren't sure if it made you more or less embarrassed that he did.

“Why dont you check out your new body? Make sure its...up to standard.”

You nodded, standing up carefully as to make sure everything was in order. Everything seemed to be fine, amazing even. You could hear alot more than before, like,, alot more. It was both slightly overwhelming and kind of awesome. A weird feeling hit you after a moment as the demon king stood up aswell. You were slightly taller than him now.

“well then, im glad you're enjoying it and-”

“hold on-”

You didn't mean to interrupt him, truly you didn't. But as the weird feeling quickly got stronger you very easily placed what it was, covering your mouth with your hands in attempt to stop ot before having to turn around and puke whatever was in your body's stomach. So. The Demon Slayer had eaten recently. Your face burned with embarrassment.

“...a good thing to note for the next time.”

He spoke up after a moment, a contemplative look on his face when you turned around to look at him.

“im sorry..”

“Nevermind it, lets head back to the infinity castle now. For the sake of not repeating this process too often, you should hold back from using your golden form.”

“yes, Master Muzan...”

You nodded along, moving to follow him when he began walking. You quickly stopped and shivered, feeling as the air shifted right before a door opened from nothingness. Wait, woah, could you feel Nakime's blood art now? That was certainly an upgrade....wait, did all of the uppermoons feel it?? No wonder Kokushibo stared at you weirdly earlier. You almost huffed, only holding back because you were still in the presence of the demon king. The red fog, that seemingly remained all throughout your bodily transfer, swirled in something akin to... displeasure? at your restraint. You were probably just misinterpreting it, which you recognized as vaguely dangerous. The displeasure seemed to grow.

He stopped infront of the door, making you flinch and stop aswell, looking at him in confusion and worry. He turned to look at you, holding his hans out as if for you to shake it.

“Lets..make a deal, shall we?”

He smiled, his expression vaguely displeased. You swallowed down whatever nerves you could.

“a deal?...”

“yes. One where we both say, and do, the things that we both really feel, without repercussion.”

He tilted his head, looking at you with an intensity you hadn't really seen from him since his whole 'gift from the other gods' thing. You blinked, looking down at his outstretched hand. Without repercussion... You wondered the extent of that statement, or why he was even providing you with that out to begin with.

Maybe it was fear, the fear of finding out what happens when you disobey someone who has control to your very being.

Or maybe it was curiosity, the want to know where such a deal would lead if it was truly kept, how it would change the shaky relationship you had.

In either case, you moved to shake his hand with no shortage of hesitation, worry and, somewhat strangely, relief.

Chapter Text

You had been summoned again, two months after the whole body changing thing, if you were counting correctly.

You'd figured out eventually that, as immortal demons, time wasnt a concept one dreaded. Long stretches of time passing before being summoned or spoken to were not unusual.

That let you build up a routine for yourself; hunt, train, read or draw, train.

And then it was broken again.

Atleast you were actually getting used to your routine breaking? It was almost becoming part of the routine, funnily enough.

Tap.

Back to the subject at hand; you were, while being very nervous about it, sitting besides the chair the demon king was on as he scolded, or rather just pressured with his presence, the two demon siblings that made up Upper Moon 6.

Tap tap.

He had asked them a question at some point, something along the lines of 'why do you believe you failed?', before sitting back and waiting for an answer. They weren't able to answer, they didn't even know what he was talking about, afterall.

Tap tap tap.

You cautiously turned your gaze from your book, a new one! It was very good so far, towards the two nervously kneeling demons. You could very well smell their confusion, their fear. The red-feeling fog wasn't there in your mind, so you hesitantly allowed yourself to not be uncriticizing the demon king everytime you said something that even vaguely meant to say he was in the wrong.

Tap.

You turned your gaze upwards and to the side, towards the demon king. One hand was on his chair's arm, tapping, the other on your head, simply there rather than actively doing anything. He was as scary as the first time you two met, presence oppressive and near physically crushing. It wasn't directed at you, and you weren't even sure why you were here to begin with. Maybe he just wanted company? No, that-... Maybe?... No no.

Tap tap.

You looked back down at your book.

Tap tap ta-

You got through two more pages before the demon king's patience seemingly ran out.

“well?”

His voice nearly startled you, your newly enhanced hearing barely hearing his inhale beforehand. Your brain was surprisingly fast on the uptake, in realizing what said inhale meant would happen. Maybe it was the new body? Seems like having an, honestly, idiot's body didn't mean you'd become dumb in any way. Nice!

Anyways.

Neither demon sibling responded, seemingly unsure how to. Who could blame them. It was harsh, yes, but not unprecedented from the demon king. You wished you could say something.

‘One where we both say, and do, the things that we both really feel, without repercussion.’

You nearly flinched at the memory.

Right, the deal. You were still confused by it, but...

You looked at Daki, her face very much portraying how close she was to crying. You looked at Gyutaro, and how his face barely portrayed a better emotional state. You felt bad for them, despite their previous and clear animosity towards you. You didn't blame them, you were competition for their livelihood afterall. You... You wanted to help them, in some way.

They were kids.

You swallowed nervously before turning your head to look at the demon king. He felt that, since his hand was still on your head, and turned to you. His face softened from its scary expression, into a more curious one. You hesitated, but spoke nonetheless.

“Master Muzan-”

The two demon siblings flinched. Had they forgotten you were there?

“-they... Er. Dont know what you're talking about, it...”

You needed to convince him, in some way, give him a reason to not enact a hell of pain on them. You needed something to exchange. Your mind worked faster than before, thoughts that would've taken minutes to form ready in seconds instead. Your words were still uncertain, but they were held with more purpose.

“wouldnt it be better to take advantage of it?”

He hummed, tilting his head as he looked at you.

“and how would that be done?”

He asked inquisitively, seeming genuinely interested in your answer.

“They.. failed, because of Kamado awakening the mark, because the Hashira had poison immunity, because they were outnumbered. The demon slayers were on the cusp of being defeated, but everything just... went their way.”

You began, staring nervously at the demon king. Once the words started, it was hard to stop them.

“So, why not send in someone stronger? Its less likely they'll be killed, and more likely they will be able to kill the demon slayers. Or even just tell Daki and Gyutaro what to expect? If they both attack Kamado at first before anyone else even arrives, then its very likely he'd die.”

You hadn't spoken this much in a long while, if you weren't a demon, then you probably would've felt your throat ache with the use. The demon king hummed contemplatingly before smiling. The hand on your head gently petting you. Near immediately, you began to purr, much to your embarrassment. You weren't sure you'd ever get used to purring.

“Thats a good idea, in theory. If i send someone else in, the way the fight goes will change, and the outcome will be unpredictable. Is that better than letting these two die and retaining my other uppermoons?”

He questioned in return, surprising you with the lack of malice in his tone. It felt more like he was genuinely discussing this with you, and enjoying doing so, than questioning your intelligence in a malicious manner. You were surprised to have that thought. It eased your concerns just as much as it confused you.

“why not use a moon thats either guaranteed to win, like Douma or Kokushibo, or one thats dispensable, like... Gyokko? He gets killed by one kid without much of a true fight, plus his blood demon art is more suited towards the sound Hashira's capabilities, since it doesn't majorly rely on poison.”

You responded, still quietly purring as he continued gently petting you. Despite your words, you weren't sure Tanjiro even could be killed. Maybe he shouldn't bee killed even, atleast not until Nezuko overcame the sun. That was the demon king's ultimate goal, but even so, you were unsure of what reaction he'd give you if you told him to wait.

“is that just your dislike for him speaking?”

He questioned, tone sounding amused, dare you say almost teasing. You flinched, not shaking your head no simply to not disturb his hand. The words 'you dont like him either' nearly escaped you.

“no! No, i mean, i don't... Dislike him necessarily, he's annoying but hes yummy. Er-”

You cringed at your own words, though, thankfully, he seemed to find them amusing rather than weird. He chuckled, chuckled!, and patted you twice on the head before removing his hand. He used it to prop up his head as his expression went cold and his gaze moved to the two siblings.

“well. With that said, i was going to send you to your deaths but...i suppose my dear does have a point. Your blood demon arts are useful... Hah.”

He sighed, seemingly feigning disinterest.

“fine then. You two will continue getting stronger, but you will not stay in the entertainment district any longer than to place uppermoon five's pots around.”

The two demon siblings nodded, Gyutaro solemnly and Daki near frantically. You sighed quietly in relief, daring to look back up at the demon king. He met your gaze after a moment, and, in thanks, you gave him a small, nervous but genuine, smile.

He...looked happy.

Like, the type of happy you feel when you make someone else you like happy.

...huh.

The thought, amazingly, made your cheeks redden.

You quickly turned away, back to the still kneeling siblings. You were glad you managed to, atleast temporarily, stop their deaths. A second, a shift in the air and then a biwa note, and the siblings were gone, sent away. You expected that much the same would be done to you.

Silence, for a couple seconds.

You were not sent away.

The demon king sighed, and you nervously turned back to him. He was looking forward, and not at you. He spoke up after a second.

“Do you really think that boy can be killed?”

He questioned simply. You blinked, then looked away, into the distance.

“i... don't know.”

You paused, hesitating. You supposed this was as good as a time to voice your concerns.

“im not sure he should. Atleast not right now.”

You could feel his gaze turn to you. You continued;

“If anything, its better to try and demoralize him. Not that it's really possible, the boy is sunshine incarnate, literally. I dont believe he can be killed, not until its his time. In a sense, you could call him the main character of the story. Main characters in stories don't die until the story wants them to, so the best we can do is make sure he doesn't grow stronger.”

You turned to look at the demon king, his expression mostly impassive yet almost, almost, surprised. You weren't sure how comfortable you were with damning so many people to death, but you were sure that this was the only way to survive.

And maybe, just maybe, a way to thrive.

If you could abandon your doubts.

You continued;

“Maybe it'd be best to take his sister from him, try and get her to overcome the sun while already being in your...possession. I'm not sure whether that would push him to train harder or give up completely. But in either case, its change, and that change is needed for the possibility of any of us demons surviving.”

You stared nervously at him, his impassiveness giving nothing away. Then he moved a hand, placing it on your head again.

He smiled at you, dare you say genuinely.

“Good work today.”

Was the last thing said to you before the air shifted and you were transported to your room again, atop your futon.

You slumped and then fell back onto it, staring at the ceiling.

‘Good work today.’

But you hadn't done anything. You hadn't worked.

Unless he considering upkeeping the deal he proposed as work.

Were...you being praised for being genuine with him?

Was... he liking you being genuine with him?

The thought filled you with warmth.

You slapped your reddening cheeks, tail tip swishing rapidly. Gods, you were going insane weren't you? To think the demon king, cold and ruthless as he is, would like you? You as you?

...

...Strangely, the idea of going insane and liking him 'back' didn't sound that bad.

Did... You want to like him? Did you want him to like you?

You'd like to say you weren't sure, to leave it at that and never approach the topic again.

But you couldn't say that.

Because you knew the answer, you'd just been ignoring it, haven't you?

...

You... Wanted to help him succeed, because it'd make him happy.

You wanted to help the uppermoons succeed, because it'd meant he would.

...

Okay.

Well.

If this was the route you were taking anyways, might as well commit to it fully, right?

Chapter Text

A week passed.

You trained, ate and read as normal. You were in the middle of doing the first right now even.

The gold, your gold, swished rapidly upwards before forming into a blade, akin to a scythe's balde but with the outer edge sharp instead of the inner. Then, it swung down in an arc, a whoosh of air and a large slice in the wall left in its wake. The gold wriggled after a second, trying to maintain its shape before shivering so hard it lost all definition. You called it back into yourself at that point, the golden liquid already attached to your veins through thin strings it used as guides back into your blood. You hummed slightly, walking over and observing the large gash in the wall.

You smiled as you realized that it was deeper than last time.

Thankfully, despite how hard it was to make it maintain shape for long periods of time, especially depending on how much you were going focusing on, you were infact making progress in making it more... Deadly. Lethal. You practiced on the infinity castle's walls alot, less on actual demons or humans. You called it progress anyways, because the few times you did attack the demons you ate, you sliced through em like melted butter! It was, admittedly, pretty cool. The blood splatters were less so, but eh. Potato Po-ta-to.

The extremes of your limbs were turning black again, but it wasn't progressing as fast, nor was the need to change bodies as powerful as before. It was good, changing bodies was a hassle, in many ways.

A shift in the air, a strum of a biwa ringing out and causing you to look around at your new surroundings.

The smell of a flowery perfume with an undercurrent of rot. You settled your eyes on one of the pair that made the rank of upper 6, head tilting in curiosity. Daki looked almost bashful, whilst Gyutaro was nowhere to be seen.

Almost suddenly, she grit her teeth and shoved a small bag into your torso, not quite making you flinch. You looked at the bag for a second before taking it, causing the other demon to snatch her hand back and cross her arms.

A second.

“well? Open it.”

She huffed, looking away. You blinked and looked back down at the bag, hesitating but eventually opening it. It...was three tassels? Oh! No, it was.... actually you had no idea.

Daki must've seen your confusion, because she quickly grabbed the bag and took the tassels out. She held the furthermost two in each hand, the third hanging in the middle of the two, connected by a thick string of the same color as the tassels. The two furthermost tassels had loops on one side aswell. You tilted your head at the adornment, assuming that was what it was.

“turn around and crouch down.”

She huffed again, and you blinked before doing as told. She moved closer, hesitated, and then affixed the adornment on you by hooking the loops gently on your ears, leaving two tassels below each one and a third in the back. You turned back around when she backed up, looking at her as she grabbed a mirror and handed it to you.

“as a thanks for...saving us. I heard Gyokko barely managed to survive.”

She clarified, huffing a third time and crossing her arms again as you took the mirror and inspected yourself. It was pretty, and honestly not uncomfortable in any way. You couldn't help but smile at the gift, lowering the mirror and moving closer to the uppermoon. She flinched, clearly confused and somewhat cautious, tho she seemed to seem more surprised than anything else when you placed a hand on her head, careful not to ruffle her hair too much so she didn't have to remake it later.

“thank you, Daki-san.”

You smiled, nearly missing the way Daki's eyes glinted with unshed tears. You assumed it was the first time in a long time someone had treated her with kindness, even more since anyone had treated her with genuine kindness. You lowered your hand from her head, still smiling softly. She was still a child, one craving validation and affection. If you could give her that, then you were going to.

“hey, lets... be friends! What do you think?.. Id love to spend more time with you.”

You said somewhat nervously, maintaining the smile on your face despite how it tinged with your nerves. You weren't sure how the girl would react to your request, especially considering its sudden nature, but you still wanted to try. She seemed surprised once again by your actions/words, but she quickly gathered herself enough to scoff. You didnt miss the slight and embarrassed blush on her face, nor the way her tone was slightly less nervous than yours.

“i mean, i guess you're pretty enough to be my friend.”

You brightened up, smiling brightly at the other demon. She huffed and puffed before turning on her heel, arms still crossed and head raised.

“i have to get ready now, you should....um.”

She hesitated, you took the moment to answer for her.

“i should get going, i dont wanna overstay my welcome...thank you again, Daki-san. Ill see you soon!!”

You waved her goodbye as she looked at you with an unreadable expression, before huffing and almost stubbornly walking off to, presumably, get ready to do her job.

You took a deep, satisfied breath before quietly shaking your hands back and forth to get out all your excitement. After, you quickly called out;

“Nakime, er, if you can uh, hear me, can you please take me back?”

At which point she did exactly that, taking you back to your room. You plopped yourself down, careful of your tail, onto your futon, quietly looking around the book filled room. You sighed, content.

But this wasn't were you were stopping.

You said that you'd commit to helping the demon king, so thats exactly what you were going to do.

Quickly, you grabbed one of your notebooks, specifically the one you use to draw the uppermoons. You picked a couple key pages and, almost painfully, tore them out. They were all doodles of the particular being that was uppermoon 2.

After placing them carefully inside a blank notebook as to not wrinkle them, you placed a pencil in-between your obi and kimono, and then looked up at the ceiling.

“Nakime, can i go to uppermoon two's place? Oh uh, is he, uh, even there?...”

A moment of silence before a shift in the air, and then your padded feet were suddenly being plopped onto another type of floor. You quickly looked around at your surroundings, the calm and almost eerie atmosphere hitting you immediately. The smell of mint and lotuses hit you aswell, along with the fact that it was daytime. Thankfully, the place was very well accommodated for demons, on account that their 'deity' was one. Not that any of the members of the cult knew that.

You calmly, quietly, walked through the hall you were in, searching for and then following the sound of people. On the way, you did your best to reign in your presence, despite never having done it. Eventually, you reached a room where you could hear the people in it talking, or, well, praying. You quietly peeked though the open door, observing the situation.

There were alot of people, humans, gathered kneeling on the ground, all facing none other than their supposed saviour, uppermoon 2. He was sat in a beanbag chair, cross-legged, and with a book in his hands. He was reading from it, his voice calm and loud. Not as in yelling loud, but rather as in protecting loud. He didn't seem to notice your presence as you quietly watched for a couple of seconds.

After said couple of seconds, you quietly stepped past the half open door, missing the way the uppermoon's eyes shifted towards the movement, and continued down the hall. You sniffed the air, and, with just a little embarrassment, then followed the smell of mint towards what you assumed to be a room Douma frequented.

You looked around, appreciating the pretty lotus themery all around. You approached a relatively empty chest of drawers, taking out and placing the drawings atop it.

You stood awkwardly for a second before deciding; fuck it, and sitting down atop the nearby beanbag chair. You quietly pulled the nearest short table closer and placed the notebook and pencil atop it. You maneuvered yourself around to be on your stomach before beginning to doodle away.

A little while passed with you doodling, until suddenly you heard footsteps fast approaching. You almost startled, but instead quickly propped yourself up from your slight hunching position, just as the door opened too.

Douma stood there, seemingly surprised before he smiled wide.

“kitty!”

He exclaimed, stepping inside and quickly closing the door behind him before walking over. He stopped short when he spotted the papers on his chest of drawers, exaggeratedly raising an eyebrow at them.

“gifts.”

You clarified with a small, almost uneasy smile. He 'ouh'ed and quickly walked over to pick them up, blinking blankly before his expression shifted. He seemed.... Genuinely surprised. You couldn't help but smiled a little wider at that.

You were going to become his friend.

And you were going to help him feel.

He composed himself after a moment, smile ever so slightly strained in some distinctly emotional way.

“wow! You're really good with a pencil! What an artistic kitty.”

You smiled slightly in response, getting up from the beanbag chair and pushing the table back to its place. You picked up your pencil and notebook, hooking both in-between your obi and kimono. You then turned back to Douma, still smiling slightly at him.

“i- wanted to apologize.... None of our meetings have gone exactly... Well.”

You said nervously, fiddling with your hands.

“awe, no worries! My interactions with my best friend never go well!”

He said happily. You blinked, moving your hand to your mouth to hold back a laugh. You quickly gathered yourself and smiled at him.

“i see, well, i was actually hoping we could maybe be friends?”

You asked with a tilt of your head, tail swishing slightly. He gasped dramatically after a second, smiling like a goof as he burst forward and wrapped his arms around your neck in a hug. You did flinch at his ice cold touch, but you did not move away, instead looking up at him (because damn mans is tall as fuck).

“id love that!! We'll be the bestest of friends, yeah??”

He said, his excitement surprising you with how not-fake it felt. It wasn't as genuine as it could be, but it was no longer down-right fake either. Interesting.

“yeah!”

He grinned wide, sharp canines on full display. He went to say something else, you weren't sure what, but a knock interrupted him. He looked up at the door, blinked and then frowned, puffing out his cheeks as he did so.

“aw... i forgot, i need to meet with some of my followers today!”

You chuckled lightly, pulling yourself out from under his arms gently.

“its alright, go meet with them, we'll have more opportunities to see eachother.”

You said, nodding wisely. He nodded very excitedly, moving towards the door as you called for Nakime.

A shift, then a door opened Infront of you, the familiar smell of the infinity castle filling your senses. It made you feel safe, you realized.

“goodbye, Douma! See you later! ”

You waved, he waved back, and you then entered the infinity castle, the door shutting behind you. You couldnt help but smile wide. Whilst it might've only been the two easiest people to befriend, or rather Douma was, you were still happy!

You were going to get closer to everyone, you were going to make sure they survive but also thrived!