The Demon Queen

Traitor One

Even though I was on the verge of bursting into tears through all of Gyutaro's final moments, by the time I stood up, I felt totally numb.

I was in shock.

And somehow, I was even in denial.

I knew that Gyutaro was dead. I saw him disappear from my eyes, beheaded and turning into dust as all demons did when they met their demise. But, something inside of me held onto the thought of his body still being out there and that by a fluke of luck, his head would have regenerated.

Of course, I came upon no such thing. I searched the entire area and found nothing. His body was completely gone, too. I soon heard the voices of humans in the distance, those coming to put out the fires and those who owned buildings and needed to survey the damage. I was about to leave when a pile of smokey rubble caught my attention. When I went over to it, I found, to my amazement, one of Gyutaro's sickles popping out from underneath the fallen wood.

I didn't hesitate to take it. I looked at it somberly and then absorbed it into my body. I didn't have time to test whether or not I could pull it out. The humans were approaching, and I didn't want to be involved in any conflict. I had seen more than enough death for a day.

No. Gyutaro's death alone served as more than enough death for a lifetime.

I got out of the Red Light District and took my time on the way back to the Castle. Oddly enough, I was spending more time in the daylight than usual, and there was not the slightest heat or irritation to my skin.

That was the least of my concerns at the moment, but it was an observation worth noting.

When I got back inside the Castle, it was eerily quiet. My first question was if Muzan had exploded and killed everyone inside, including himself. I didn't know if I should call out to anyone. Something about the energy inside was frightening me.

It's nothing, I told myself. You're distraught. You're tired. It's nothing. Everyone's just asleep.

BONG.

With the sound of Nakime's biwa, I was teleported into the wing I shared with Muzan. My feet had hardly touched the floor when I sensed Muzan's aura rush towards me. A clawed hand grabbed me at my neck and slammed me as it pinned me up against the wall.

The next thing I knew, Muzan's angry face was right in front of me, his eyes glowing red. Out of a reflex, my hands shot to his wrist and lower arm. It did no good. His grip on my neck refused to loosen.

"How are you alive?" Muzan snarled. "Or more specifically, how are you able to survive going out in the sun?"

I grit my teeth. He was hurting me, and I didn't know what to do.

Muzan pushed me rougher against the wall. "Answer me when I ask you a question, Sakura."

"Muzan, I --" I choked out.

"How long have you been betraying me!?" he demanded. There was a pained, tormented under tone to his voice.

I felt his fingernails dig into my neck. I winced at the pain. My hands holding onto his wrist, futilely trying to pry him off of me, began to jitter.

"Muzan-sama," I heard Kokushibou's hesitant voice come from a short distance behind Muzan. "She might not be able to speak in this condition."

"Silence!" Muzan screamed from the depths of his throat as he snapped his head back to look at Kokushibou. He panted a couple times. "I didn't give you permission to speak!"

Kokushibou fell silent. Muzan turned back to me, his fingers digging deeper into my neck. I could smell my own blood oozing out of the wounds and felt it roll down the sides of my neck.

"Betrayed by my own wife," Muzan snarled. "Betrayed by the one person I thought I could trust with my entire being. I trusted you ... I trusted you for 1000 years. You were the one I was supposed to count on all throughout my life, ever since --" He caught himself, his fang piercing his bottom lip as he finished the sentence in his thoughts: Ever since I was that pathetic, sick, dying child.

His grief didn't cause his grip to loosen. It only grew tighter.

I didn't want to harm him, even though I could. I kept hoping he would snap back to his senses and release me, so we could talk about this like mature adults. But I knew, too, that Muzan was capable of killing me, and if it came down to it, I would rot his flesh and burn him in the sun if it meant I would stay alive.

Gyutaro's killers would not remain on this Earth. I had to stay alive at least to fully avenge him.

"If I could go back, I'd throw you out in the sun once every 100 years to narrow down when you discovered this convenient little fib of yours ..." Muzan said. "You traitor!"

He pierced his fingers deeper into my neck. With that, my eyeballs spun back into my head and blood shot out from my mouth. I was just about to aggressively rot his arm off when I heard a swooshing noise followed by the sound of flesh being cut.

Muzan's hand immediately fell limp, though his fingers were still buried in my neck. I dropped to my feet on the floor. When I regained my vision, Kokushibou was standing to my side, his sword unsheathed and the blade coated with Muzan's blood.




A/N: Wow. I first started publishing this fic a year ago and I never would have expected it to come to this. I guess that's the beauty of writing.