The Demon Queen

Confronting Douma

I entered the Eternal Paradise Faith Cult to find Douma in the back room of the temple preying on a terrified young woman in a white robe. She sat shaking from fear, cornered against the wall as Douma stood in front of her, holding one of his fans in his hand and rather sadistically enjoying her torment.

The moment I entered, Douma sensed me and turned to look at me. "Sakura-chan, I'm busy right now," he said with a pout. 

He goes from that sadistic smile to a childish pout really fast. Typical Douma.

The frightened woman looked over to me with bulging eyes. "He-help me ..." she uttered.

Douma looked to the woman. "Oh, but my friend can't send you to Paradise to find eternal peace," he said and licked his lips.

Before anything else could be done, I effortlessly jolted to Douma and pushed him to another wall in the room. I roughly pinned him against the wall.

"No fair, Sakura-chan!" Douma whined. "I don't want to fight you and I can't beat you anyway!" He then smirked and looked at me with seductive eyes. "But, if you want to hold me here like this, we can start exploring new spiritual connections. Hmm, Sakura-chan?"

"Forget it."

I sensed that the young woman was about to escape from the room. As much as I wanted to let her go, it would risk her exposing Douma for his deeds and put us all in danger of being found out.

"I'll just hold you here as long as I want to," I said to Douma and unleashed a tentacle from my body to stab the woman through the belly.

"But you know I'm in that kind of mood tonight because I found a beautiful woman to eat," Douma said. He then blinked and looked past me at the tentacle impaling his prey. "Oh, you've killed her. But I wanted to devour her alive. Nice tentacle, though. When did you develop that?"

"Through Muzan," I answered and started to absorb the woman into the tentacle.

"No!" Douma cried. "Sakura-chan, that's my food! Women are so nutritious and I need more nutrition!"

"With that muscular chest of yours, I'd say you're doing just fine," I said and finished absorbing the woman.

"Sakura-chan!" Douma whined as tears rolled down his cheeks. "Why are you being so cruel?"

I sucked the tentacle back into my body. "Why couldn't you remember an earthquake and a festival?"

Douma stopped crying and stared at me in confusion with big, innocent eyes. "Huh?" he asked. "What earthquake? What festival?"

I glared at him with fire in my eyes. I felt my entire face burning up. Seething, I responded, "The one from when your father brought the Blue Spider Lily ..."

He snapped his fingers. "Oh! Now I remember! Right, I told Gyutaro-kun about that, didn't I?"

"Yes. And you didn't tell me," I growled.

An awkward and nervous giggle came from Douma. He scratched his head. "Well, it's complicated," he said. "That was only a couple months before my mother killed my father and then herself, so I blacked out a lot from that time." His eyes became full of tears. "It was just so much for my innocent little soul to bear!"

I stared at him. "You have a specific year and month that your father found the Blue Spider Lily ..."

The tears in Douma's eyes dried up. "Ehm ... yeah!" he exclaimed. "I guess so!" He laughed.

"You need to gather together a group of your followers to go to every location your father had been to and go there around the time of year this stupid festival and earthquake took place --"

"When I was a wee eight year old --"

"What year was that?"

"1708!" he replied with a beaming smile.

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you absolutely certain about that year?"

"Of course! I was born in 1700, so it's easy!"

I stared dully at him.

Douma laughed. "It's simple! It's simple! Don't worry, Sakura-chan, I'll get the information to my followers and send 'em off!"

I continued to stare at him.

"Ah? Ah?" he asked awkwardly and made some silly motions with his hands.

"1708. Festival. Earthquake," I said. I dropped him from the spot on the wall I was pinning him to. I walked away from him and went over to a corner of the room where Douma kept his father's records stored in a large box. I picked up the box. "I'll be taking these."

"Huh? What !?" Douma blurted out. His eyes popped open wide and he rushed over to my side. "Wait! Wait! You can't take those!"

I looked at him with harsh eyes. "I can take what I want," I said and started to make my way to the exit. 

"No! Not the records!"

"I'll bring them back when I'm done," I said and walked into his lotus-themed temple.

Kneeling and silently praying in front of Douma's shrine-like, ornate chair was a young man with a shaved head dressed in a long, white robe.

"Sakura-chan!" Douma called helplessly and followed me out into the lotus room.

I stopped next to the praying man and looked back at Douma. "You've got a follower here," I said, smirking at seeing Douma's face petrified in shock at the demeanour he let slip out in what had become a public setting.

The follower stopped praying and glanced up towards Douma. "Douma-sama?" he asked in a confused hesitation.

I snickered quietly under my breath and made my way out of the temple.

Douma sat down on the chair amongst his flower shrine and brought his attention to his visitor. "All right, my child, what brings you here so late at night?" he asked with a friendly smile.