The Demon Queen

The Drunks in the Alley

"Hey, you asshole! Watch where you're goin', huh!" the drunken man said in a slurred speech.

I looked at the man. He was absolutely disgusting to me. He reeked of alcohol and rancid sweat and his face was flushed to a bright red colour. Further down the alley I saw a muscular man with a shaved head and a woman, both also obviously intoxicated.

"Excuse me," Muzan said flatly, without looking at the man, and kept on walking with me.

"Hey!" The man grabbed his shoulder. "Whacha doin', walking away like that?" He moved in front of us and eyed Muzan. "Ooooh, fancy aren't ya?" he said in a mocking tone. "Why are ya comin' over in a place like this?"

Muzan just stared at the man.

The man let out a pathetic, drunken laugh. "Hey, what's wrong with your face? You're so pale, you like like ya'd drop dead any second, you fancy walking corpse!" He laughed.

Muzan's aura started to shake. He got a look in his eyes as if he would like nothing more than to see the drunken man's insides splattered on the wall.

"Ooh, and the fancy corpse's got a girlfriend!" the drunk continued. He put his hand to his chin and eyed me oddly. "Why's your girl dressed like a man? Is that what the rich folks do?" A perverted smile twisted on his face. "Mind if I take a try?" He whacked me on my ass.

Before I could even kill him myself, he was dead. Punched into the wall so that he died on impact. As the drunken man's body fell to the ground, a trail of blood was left staining the wall from the gaping open gash in his skull.

Muzan was beyond furious. Over 1000 years of time, there were few instances where I had seen him this angry. He looked like his eyes would explode from their sockets. The rage emitting from him was so strong that even a slight touch of his finger to a human would skull would cause it to fracture. 

"Shigeru! Shigeru!" the man with the shaved head called and ran to the drunken man's body. The woman followed, gasping when seeing the blood.

Muzan came to me and put his arm around my waist, holding me very close to him. "Those filthy rats ..." he murmured under his breath, his eyes shaking as he seethed in fury.

After verifying for himself that the drunken man was dead, the muscular bald man turned to us. "You killed my brother! You'll pay, you bastards!" He held up a fist, ready to punch, and stormed at us.

Muzan effortlessly kicked the man in the stomach, sending him flying high into the air. The kick immediately killed the man with the shaved head. He coughed out a massive amount of blood mid-air at his peak before his body fell to the ground with a smash.

Blood spurted from his body towards us. It almost sprayed onto the tip of Muzan's shoe, but luckily it just fell short. Muzan scrunched his nose in disgust.

Still holding me at his side, Muzan walked over to the last member of the trio that was still alive. The woman was on her knees against the wall, panicking over the first victim's dead body. As we approached her, she started at us with jittery, wide eyes. She panted heavily as her face became drenched in sweat.

"If your friend had not touched my wife, I would have chosen to let you go," Muzan said coldly. He let his arm slip off from my waist. He squat down in front of the woman, staring at her with his unblinking red eyes. "Do I look pale to you?" he asked in a bitter tone. "Do I look ill? Do you fear for my life?"

The woman said nothing. She cowered in fear with gasping breaths.

"Of course you do. They always did. But you couldn't be more wrong." Muzan leant his face close to the woman's face. "Because I am very close to becoming a perfect being."

I stepped forward and stabbed my finger into the top of the woman's head, injecting her with such a rush of my blood that it immediately killed her on the spot.

Muzan looked up at me. "What was that?"

"I was getting tired of all of this."

"Hm?" He seemed a bit surprised. "Oh. All right." He stood up, dusting off his white trousers as he rose.

The woman's corpse soon disintegrated into dust.

Muzan held me at my waist. "I won't be letting go again until we're home." He cleared his throat. "That mangy worm touched you ... I will not allow a piece of scum to even think about touching you ..."

"It's fine," I said. "Calm down, okay?"

Muzan let out a deep breath. He kissed me on my forehead. "I'm calming. I'm calming ..." He took another deep breath. "All right," he said in a serious tone. "Now back to business."

He snapped his fingers, and with that, two demons appeared on their knees in front of us. I recognised the short-haired girl in the orange kimono to be Susumaru and the man in the green kimono with eyes on the palms of his hands to be Yahaba.

Muzan didn't spare a moment before giving his order. "There's a teenage boy around here with Hanafuda earrings. I want you to kill him and bring me his head."

"Yes, Muzan-sama," they both said.

"Off with you."

"Yes."

They took off.

Muzan looked into the distance. "Those two better show some proof of their competency ... let's be on our way home."