The world burned at the edges.
Ren dragged himself through the underbrush, every movement sending fresh waves of agony through his poisoned body. Shinobu's toxin worked like molten lead in his veins, turning his demonic regeneration to syrup. The rising sun painted the forest in gold and crimson, its lethal light creeping ever closer.
A shadow fell across his path.
"Demon."
The voice was gravel wrapped in silk. Ren looked up into the hollow eyes of a tengu mask, its long nose casting a dagger's shadow. The old man wore a simple cloud-patterned jinbei, his white hair tied back in a loose knot. A massive wicker basket laden with strange herbs hung from his shoulders.
Ren's cracked lips parted. "Y-you... can tell?"
The mask tilted slightly. "Your eyes. The scent of blood. The way your flesh smokes in sunlight." A calloused hand gestured to Ren's blistered forearm. "The question is - why haven't you attacked me?"
Ren collapsed onto his elbows. "I... don't wanna eat humans." something he swore after remembering how he devoured his little sister.
A beat of silence. The forest held its breath.
The tengu's masked face gave nothing away. "All demons say that."
"Then kill me." Ren's voice broke.
"But it's the truth."
Sunlight licked at his ankles. His flesh sizzled. A whimper escaped before he could stop it.
With startling speed, the old man yanked a tarp from his basket and threw it over Ren. The heavy fabric blocked the deadly rays, leaving him in blessed darkness.
Boots pounded through the undergrowth.
"Oi! Old timer!"
Two demon slayers burst into the clearing - a broad-shouldered man with a jagged scar across his nose and a wiry woman with her hair tied back in a practical knot. Their nichirin blades gleamed in the dawn light.
The scarred one eyed the suspiciously large, tarp-covered lump near the old man's feet. "You seen a wounded demon come through here?"
The tengu didn't move. "No."
The woman narrowed her eyes. "That's an awful lot of tarp for just herbs."
"For keeping the sun off delicate plants." The old man's voice could have frozen lava. "Unless you'd rather explain to your commander why you're harassing an elder instead of hunting?"
The slayers exchanged glances. The man opened his mouth to argue when a distant shout echoed through the trees.
"Squad 4 found blood trails eastward!"
With a frustrated click of her tongue, the woman grabbed her partner's sleeve. "Come on. This old coot's not worth the paperwork."
As their footsteps faded, the tengu stood motionless for a full minute. Then, with surprising gentleness, he lifted the tarp.
Ren's vision swam. The poison was winning.
"You'll be dead by noon," the old man observed. "That poison works slow, but thorough."
A shudder wracked Ren's body. His fingers clawed at the dirt. "P-please..."
The mask tilted. "Give me one reason."
Ren thought of Suki's terrified face. Of his mother's cooling hand. Of the hunger that had taken everything.
"Because..." Bloody tears welled in his eyes. "I remember... what it's like... to be human."
The tengu went very still. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its edge. "Can you stand?"
Ren tried. His legs collapsed immediately.
With terrifying strength, the old man hauled him into the herb-filled basket. The last thing Ren saw before darkness swallowed him was the rising sun glinting off that impassive red mask.
_______
The world swayed nauseatingly. Ren drifted in and out of consciousness, each jolt sending fresh waves of agony through his body. At some point, cool liquid trickled between his lips - something bitter that dulled the pain.
When light returned, it came from flickering candle flames. Ren lay on a thin futon in a windowless cellar, his wrists bound in braided wisteria rope. The air smelled of medicinal herbs and old wood.
The tengu sat seiza before him, mask gleaming in the dim light. "They call me Urokodaki."
Ren's breath hitched. Even in his former life, he'd heard stories of the Water Hashira who trained slayers.
"Why... help me?"
The mask tilted slightly. "We'll see if I have." Urokodaki stood, his shadow stretching across the dirt floor. "Rest. The real test comes tonight."
As the door slid shut, Ren stared at the ropes binding him - not with nichirin steel, not with the brutal efficiency of demon slayers, but with the careful knots of someone who expected their prisoner to survive.
For the first time since the massacre, something fragile and dangerous kindled in Ren's chest.
Hope.
A moment later
The sun was beginning its slow descent behind Mount Sagiri, streaking the sky in shades of gold and bruised purple. The forest surrounding the old cabin was still, the hush of evening broken only by the occasional chirp of an unseen bird or the rustle of wind through pine branches.
Inside the cabin, a single lantern cast its dim glow across the wooden floor. Urokodaki knelt in silence, the blue of his tengu mask catching flickers of firelight as he adjusted the simple ropes binding the boy—Ren.
He tied them loosely, intentionally. Not out of trust, but acknowledgment. He knew this boy, this demon, could break free in a breath if he wished. The ropes weren't for containment.
They were a line in the sand.
"I hope you understand why I'm doing this," Urokodaki said, his voice deep and controlled, like distant thunder. "I've seen what demons become. What they're capable of. What they hunger for."
Ren said nothing.
His crimson eyes glinted in the lamplight, their catlike slits half-lidded with exhaustion—or restraint.
Urokodaki stood and moved to the far corner of the room, kneeling down before a small box nestled beneath a rolled mat. He opened it slowly. Inside lay a sheathed blade. Old, ceremonial. One of many he had retired long ago.
He unsheathed it with care. The edge was still keen. He turned it toward his palm and, without hesitation, dragged the blade across the flesh of his own palm.
Blood welled instantly. Thick. Red.
It fell with a quiet pat... pat... pat onto the floorboards.
Ren's eyes snapped toward the sound.
He inhaled.
The scent of blood hit him like a hammer to the chest. His mouth went dry—and then flooded with saliva.
The ache in his stomach returned, no longer dull but alive and gnashing.
His limbs twitched. The ropes, loose as they were, bit faintly into his skin as he instinctively pulled against them.
Urokodaki sat down calmly and placed the blade beside him, blood dripping steadily from his open hand. He didn't flinch.
"This is your moment of truth, Ren," he said. "If there is anything of your humanity left... if what you said is real... prove it."
Ren's breathing grew shallow. His eyes widened. Pupils dilated.
His nails extended involuntarily—long, blackened claws, curved like sickles.
The hunger clawed at his insides.
Eat.
That voice again. That low, serpentine whisper that slithered through his mind in the night ever since he'd awakened as a demon.
" Just a bite. A taste to feel what's it's like to be a demon."The voice spoke in his mind.
He trembled.
"Shut up," Ren hissed, voice strained.
His fangs elongated. His shoulders hunched. The ropes slid down his arms.
Urokodaki didn't move. His masked face remained directed toward Ren, the silence between them growing tighter with every drop of blood.
Ren rose to his feet.
His movements were jerky, animalistic. His muscles screamed at him to lunge, to feed. His eyes—red, blazing—locked onto the blood pooling by Urokodaki's side.
His mouth parted. Drool spilled down his chin.
"No..." he whispered. "No... no, no..."
He took a step forward.
The scent was unbearable. It coated his thoughts, drowning everything else in red. Urokodaki's breathing slowed, fingers brushing the hilt of his sheathed blade. If Ren lost himself now...
Ren raised a clawed hand.
He stared at it—at the sharpness, the death in its shape.
Then his eyes darted down, to the small pendant that hung from his neck—a simple piece of black cord, holding a smooth stone carved with the faint image of a camellia flower. His mother's.
His lips trembled.
And then... he remembered.
A smile—faint and soft—on a girl's face. Her laughter echoing through a mountain home. The warmth of her embrace.
Suki.
His little sister.
The one he had devoured.
"No," he growled. "I won't."
In a single, fluid motion, Ren snatched the pendant from around his neck and gripped it tight. Then, without hesitation, he turned the claws meant for killing... inward.
He rammed his hand into his own chest—Kafka-style—impaling himself just beneath the collarbone.
Blood burst from the wound, spilling down his torso. His knees buckled.
But he didn't cry out.
He let the pain ground him.
"I swore on her corpse," he whispered, voice shaking but clear. "On Suki... that I would never consume another human again."
The ropes fell away from his body as he collapsed to his knees.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Urokodaki slowly stood. He stepped forward cautiously, inspecting the boy without saying a word. The blood still dripped from his palm, but Ren no longer looked at it.
He looked only at the floor, breathing ragged, the edges of his mouth stained with red—but not human red. His own.
He had chosen pain.
He had chosen will.
Urokodaki knelt before him.
The demon slayer reached out with his uninjured hand and gently gripped the pendant still clutched in Ren's fist.
"I believe you," he said softly.
Ren blinked, a tear slipping down his cheek.
Outside the cabin, later that night...
The stars had come out. Crisp. Silent. Watching.
Urokodaki sat on the porch, his hand now bandaged, the blade cleaned and returned to its place.
He gazed at the moon hanging over the mountain.
Not all demons were the same.
Some had chosen it. Others had been robbed of their choice.
He knew that, after helping a certain boy with anafuda earrings and his demon sister a few months ago.
Inside, Ren slept restlessly—still half-curled in pain, but calm, at last.
A boy, not a beast.
And in the darkness of his dreams, a young girl with a camellia flower in her hair reached for him.
And smiled.