Chapter Text
The pain was unlike anything Douma had ever felt before. Burning heat enveloped him as he melted into nothingness, yet even still, he was not afraid. He felt nothing at all.
‘I’m going to die, aren’t I? It’s strange. Even now, I’m not frustrated that I lost.’
Emotions seemed like a distant dream. No matter how connected to them everyone around him was, he could not grasp them, not as a human and not after. They felt like some strange mirage that only Douma could not see.
A sigh escaped his lips moments before they disappeared entirely. His eyes fluttered shut. ‘Some things I will never understand, I suppose. So be it then.’
“Oh, did you finally die? Good. Now I, too, can rest in peace.”
Kaleidoscope eyes blinked open, taking in the form of the slayer who had just killed him and now held his hand in the palm of her hand.
“Ah… You’re Shinobu, right? Or are you Kanae?”
The slayer smiled with a tug of the lips so insincere that it was like staring into a mirror. “Oh, that’s all right. You don’t have to remember my big sister or me. You make me sick, so don’t say my name.”
Douma smiled in return, content to shift the conversation if the slayer wished it. “That poison was incredibly powerful, you know? I didn’t even notice it until it had circulated through me completely.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t have. A demon named Tamayo helped us make it, after all.”
“Tamayo?” Douma’s eyes widened. “Oh, her! So that’s where the traitor scurried off to. How odd it is… Demon slayers working alongside demons. I never would have imagined that.”
Shinobu ignored him entirely. “But it is frustrating. Very much so. I really wanted to put you in the ground with a poison I made myself. Still, I can content myself with the results being perfect. You are dead regardless.” Her smile became more genuine then. “Kibutsuji still remains, but I’m sure it’ll be fine now. One of my comrades will finish this. I’m certain of it.”
Something warm suffused him as a flush rose to his cheeks. “Whoa. What is this? What is it?”
Shinobu tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have a heart anymore, but… I feel like it’s beating. Is this what people call love? You’re something else, Shinobu.” She looked five seconds away from dropping his head on the floor, and that only endeared him to her further. “This feeling really exists, huh? So do heaven and hell also exist? Is that why we’re both here now despite being dead?”
He looked up at Shinobu with undefined emotions burning through him for the first time in his life, too numerous and confusing to even attempt to name. “Hey, Shinobu? Hey… Wanna go to hell together with me?”
The smile he received in turn was utterly condescending. It was delightful and irritating in equal measure. “After you, you worthless bastard!”
Douma closed his eyes once more, expecting to feel flames licking at his form, ice creeping through his veins, and pain that would make Tamayo’s poison feel like an affectionate caress. He felt none of those things.
A pair of rainbows peered into an endless void. He was alone in the darkness now, and something bitter welled up within him. ‘So this is how it ends, huh? Trapped in a realm of nothingness. Trapped… Isn’t that a familiar feeling?’
It was odd. Douma recalled much of his human life, yet suddenly much of it was cast into question. Emotions that he thought were never there had only lurked beneath the surface, painting a different picture than the one he’d seen prior.
“It’s not fair,” he whispered, heart aching with pains long forgotten, shoved away by a child until he could bear to cope with them all again. “I was damned from the start. Why? Why was I never given a chance?”
Tears welled up in his eyes for the first time that Douma could remember. His vision blurred as the void surrounding him splintered with cracks. Light leaked through the spreading fractures, casting an eerie glow upon the realm of nothingness as they spread further and further.
The sound of shattering glass masked the echo of a rusted, metal chain clattering to the ground.
-
Hues of red, white, and gold were the first thing he saw upon opening his eyes. Then he saw pale hands that were far too small to belong to him, yet they clenched and unclenched as he directed them to nonetheless.
Douma sat at the heart of the Eternal Paradise Faith’s sanctuary. A minuscule body was diminished further by the grandiose throne it rested upon, and a black crown tilted with his movements, too large to stay atop his head properly.
A woman he had not seen or thought about in over a century entered the room, convincing Douma in an instant that he was in hell after all.
“What news do the gods have for us?”
He cannot remember what he told his mother the first time. Douma always made up some trivial prediction, something to appease them all so that life could continue as normal, but the shock of finding himself back in this position made him hesitate a moment too long.
Ice blue eyes narrowed. “Have you not completed your daily communion? Oh, you foolish child, that simply will not do.” Douma could not explain why he felt so uneasy when his mother came to his side, kneeling and giving him a look that made it clear he should mirror the motion. He did so silently, still reeling from how real this all felt.
‘Emotions are bullshit,’ he decided. ‘I already miss being able to effortlessly go along with this sort of thing.’
He racked his brain for what had happened around this timeframe back when he was human, instinctively knowing that he’d need something bigger to appease his mother this time. ‘I look like I’m maybe eight or nine? Wasn’t there that drought around then?’
He “prayed” in silence for a few moments longer before whispering, “Mother? The gods say we will need to safeguard our crops from drought. We will be going without rain for quite some time soon.”
“What did I say about calling me that?”
Douma blinked. ‘Ah, right. It’s been so long that I forgot.’ He plastered a sheepish smile on his face. “Not to. I’m sorry, Mistress.”
His mother huffed, looking down at him with an exasperated sigh. “Just don’t forget again. He will not be nearly so forgiving. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
She straightened the crown on his head before stepping back and giving him an appraising look. “Acceptable. Maintain your link with the gods and you will be rewarded. Neglect it and you shall be punished. Do not forget to commune with them again, understood?”
“Yes, Mistress.” Douma watched with wide, confused eyes as she left the room. ‘How odd. I’ve never seen her act like that before. Then again, I suppose I typically supplied answers at random the second she asked. What an odd manifestation of hell, though. None of my followers ever believed it would be something like this.’
Douma watched the events that unfolded around him with an ironically child-like curiosity, soaking information in like a sponge. The drought did come, and the members of the Eternal Paradise Faith watched him even more closely after that. Eyes trailed after him like the phantom memories of Muzan’s steady presence at the back of his mind, haunting his every step.
“What prophecy do you have for us today, my child?”
“The drought is almost over. Rain will bless us soon, and it will bring great bounties with it.”
Not two days later, the first rain they’d had in months watered the dry, ravaged soil, nourishing the earth once more.
It wasn’t his mother that visited him this time. Douma stared into the pitch-black eyes of his father for only a fraction of a second before bowing his head as a chill raced up his spine. ‘This presence… Why does it remind me of him?’
“You know, I didn’t believe her at first.” Douma simply tilted his head, earning an approving chuckle in return. “I see she’s trained you well. You know better than to speak unless prompted to, don’t you, brat?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Good. Anyway, back to what I was saying before. I didn’t believe that stupid whore about your eyes being anything more than a freak mutation, but it’s true, isn’t it? You know things that you have no possible way of knowing without leaving this room.”
And Douma had not once left the throne room since he awoke in this place. He had known better than to ask permission to do so. He might be dead and in hell, but he was no less conniving for it. Douma saw no reason to make things worse for himself than necessary.
Douma nodded.
“I asked you a question, brat. I expect a verbal answer.”
“Yes, Master. I’m sorry, Master,” he murmured.
“Give me one of your damn prophecies, then.”
Perhaps it was only because he was unused to being spoken to like this now or perhaps it was the buildup of restless frustration that thrummed in Douma’s veins, but he found himself giving his father a wicked grin as he said, “Your hubris will be the death of you. Have more care in your affairs if you wish to avoid an untimely end.”
Calloused hands clenched around his neck as dark spots danced in his vision. Even when blood spilled over his lips with a cough, Douma continued smiling while dark malice shined in his eyes. He silently lamented the fact that he couldn’t kill the man before him as he was now, oblivious to the fact that an ordinary child would be long dead by this point.
The grip around his neck loosened as his father staggered back, reeking of fear and paranoia.
“Watch your damn mouth, you freak of nature.”
Douma’s father left him swiftly. His mother trailed in shortly after, looking at his bruised neck with something almost akin to pity in her eyes. Even still, she led with the only question she ever truly wanted him to answer.
“What prophecy do you have for us today, my child?”
And in a fit of gleeful vindictiveness, Douma uttered, “Master has not been faithful to you, Mistress.”
Typically cold eyes were alight with fury. “Is that so, my child? Did the gods tell you how many times? How many people? I need to make sure he receives a fair punishment, after all.”
“They did, Mistress. Twenty-three times with seven different people.” It was a rough estimate based on what he remembered, but the exact number did not matter, not when his mother’s fury grew so strong that she fell on a mask of cold indifference.
“You’ve done extremely well, my child. I thank you for relaying this to me.”
His mother walked away with the glint of a knife shining beneath her sleeve. The familiarity in this sea of unknowns was almost comforting. She hesitated at the room’s entrance, turning back to face him with completely foreign emotions dancing in her eyes. She revealed a second knife beneath her sleeve, holding it out to Douma in offering.
“How would you like to join your mother, my dear child?”
A genuine smile lit his face as he accepted it, tucking the blade into the folds of his robe with practiced ease. ‘Perhaps there are snatches of heaven to be found even in hell.’ It had been so long since he got to see the brilliant spray of blood. The speckles of it that now painted his lips were not nearly enough.
“I would love nothing more, Mother.”
She did not correct his form of address this time.
Douma trailed after his mother as the bloodlust emanated from her, struck by the same warmth that overtook him after Shinobu ended his life. ‘Oh. It wasn’t love at all, was it? Not in the way I thought it was, anyway. It was admiration.’
“Could you recognize the women who are trying to steal my husband from me, my dearest child?”
“Most of them!” he readily agreed.
“Good. Let me know when you see them. We have a few people to take care of before I have a talk with my husband. Best to remove temptation where you know it exists, no?”
“I could not agree more, Mother.”
They walked hand in hand, ignoring the shock and murmurs that arose from other members of the Eternal Paradise Faith. One particularly brave, foolish soul approached them. “Sister Miaka, are you certain this is wise? If His Brilliance saw him out of his room–”
“My husband can take any grievances with my actions directly to me. Do not think to speak for him, Sister Etsumi.”
Douma tugged lightly on his mother’s sleeve. Once he had her attention, his eyes flicked over to Etsumi before returning to his mother with a knowing glance. “Mother, you promised.” He pitched his voice up with a pitiful whine, taking full advantage of the form he was trapped in to make hearts twist with pity. “I don’t even remember what the sun looks like anymore. I’ve been good, haven’t I?”
“You know the rules, Sister Miaka! He is not to leave our sanctuary; it is not safe for him.”
“I will not treat my son as a prisoner,” his mother hissed. “And if you take such issue with it, then you may join us, Sister Etsumi.”
A stubborn glint entered Etsumi’s eyes, and if Douma were any less practiced in deceit, he would be wearing a wicked smirk that gave them both away. ‘What a fool. You’re falling for it hook, line, and sinker.’
“Then I will do just that! His Brilliance will not catch me letting this slide!”
When they stepped outside of the sanctuary, for a split second, Douma expected to burn away into ashes beneath the sunlight. It still stung, but it was a minor pain that could easily be shoved to the back of his mind.
Etsumi followed them both into a nearby forest. Douma feigned awe as he pointed at various flowers and shrubs around them, acting the part of an innocent, curious child that his mother was indulging. Gradually, Etsumi relaxed.
“Do you not see these things in your visions regardless?” she questioned.
“It’s not the same! Seeing is… It’s all fuzzy around the edges. It doesn’t feel real. It’s not like this at all.”
His mother’s knife gleamed under the light of the setting sun. Her eyes held an order he was all too happy to follow. Douma smiled, tilting his head as he asked, “Hey, Sister Etsumi?”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Have you ever wondered what it feels like to die?”
“Wha–?!” Her voice broke off in a wet gurgle, eyes widening as she turned to face his mother with horror painting her face as surely as blood painted her back. “S-sister you–”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? I’ve been gifted with a child of prophecy, and you thought your affair would go unnoticed?” Etsumi’s face drained of all color.
Douma leaned in close, resting his knife against her chest, just above where her heart pounded beneath her skin. “Mother was most displeased,” he whispered. “It’s a shame I can’t carve out your treacherous heart for her, but this knife is far too dull for that.”
“Y-you’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Maybe so, but I’m in good company.” He plunged his knife into her heart with unnatural strength for someone his size. ‘I suppose some traits carried over, even if I seem to be human again,’ he pondered as a spray of blood painted him red. He licked his lips with a smile.
His mother watched him like she was beholding something holy. Perhaps, to her, she was. “You would do something like that? For me?”
“Without hesitation, Mother. I would do anything for you.” Douma was shocked to realize those words were true. They were the most painfully honest thing he could ever recall saying.
Her face crumpled at his response. There was genuine emotion there too, to his surprise. “I am so sorry, son. I’ve been a terrible mother to you, haven’t I? I’ll do better from now on, I promise.”
“I forgive you, Mother.”
She pulled him into a hug, uncaring of the blood that drenched them both now. Douma melted into the foreign sensation. A massive, previously unknown weight felt as if it was taken off his shoulders, and he hoped he could experience more of this feeling.
“I suppose a name is the first thing on the list, huh?” his mother murmured.
A sheepish smile was his response. “Actually…”
“Did you have something in mind? It is only fair to allow you a choice in this. You receive so few options with everything else…”
He simply nodded. “Douma. It’s a reminder that I can always improve, no matter how far I’ve come.”
“Douma…” she whispered, tasing the name on her tongue. “It suits you.” She ruffled his hair, knocking his bloodstained crown to the ground with a fond grin. “But I want you to know that you’re perfect to your mother exactly as you are, okay? No improvement necessary.”
Something burned within him, choking him into silence as tears beaded at the corner of his eyes. “Okay,” he managed to whisper. Douma’s voice broke on the word, a fractured remnant of hope that he thought was long dead.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone genuinely cared for him. Douma wasn’t sure anyone ever had.
“Now, let’s clean up this mess.”
“Yes, Mother!”
One by one, the women his father was sleeping around with disappeared. He grew more paranoid by the day, clearly not forgetting Douma’s warning. Douma, on the other hand, was having an absolutely delightful time. He hadn’t expected his reunion with his mother to go over so well; they had far more in common than he’d thought.
Douma currently stood over the body of their latest victim, holding a still-beating heart in his hand as he presented it to his mother with a wide grin. “I got this for you, Momma!”
She ruffled his hair with a pleased smile, not in the least bit disturbed as she laughed. His mother was the most fascinating human he’d ever met. “Thank you, Douma. We’ll store it with the others, okay?”
“Okay!”
His mother bent down to press a kiss to his forehead, taking the heart from his hand and clutching it just hard enough to stop it from beating without damaging it. She had gotten quite good at doing that.
“We’re going after him next, right?”
“Yes, I do believe he’s sweated for long enough. It’s time he faces the consequences of his actions.”
Douma practically skipped after her. The other followers had long since learned to avert their eyes when they strolled through the halls, doing everything they could to avoid catching his mother’s attention.
Rumors spread fast around here. Even still, they clung onto Douma as some bastion of hope. They believed he was being held hostage by a wicked woman who wanted to use him for evil. He heard the whispers, even if his mother didn’t, and they irked him. He’d convinced her to kill more than a few particularly foul-mouthed members because of it, and though their shared kill count far exceeded seven at this point, his mother didn’t seem particularly bothered by that fact.
Two guards stood posted at the entrance to his father’s quarters.
“Lady Miaka, you know the child cannot leave the throne room. We must insist you return him at once.”
His mother simply smiled at them both, utterly serene and suppressing her killing intent to a mere ghost of a whisper. A single twitch of her finger was all it took for Douma to unsheathe twin daggers, hurling them at the guards with pinpoint accuracy. Their bodies were pinned to wooden support beams by the neck, blood staining the wood crimson as it flowed around the blades his mother had gifted him after their third shared kill.
“Good job, Douma,” she cooed.
He retrieved his daggers with a grin, glowing from his mother’s praise as he rejoined her side. ‘This sort of appreciation is addicting. I could get used to this.’
Paper doors were utterly shredded by his mother’s blade. A thick, cloying miasma of hatred emanated from her, as she strode into the room, and for once, his father’s presence felt akin to the pathetic trembling of a rabbit who was already trapped by a predator’s jaws.
“M-Miaka, honey, let’s be reasonable adults about this.” He backed away from her, moving even quicker once Douma stepped into the room behind her. His father held up his hands in surrender, eyes flickering between them both in terror. “There’s no reason to do anything rash! You’ve taken care of the problem, no?”
“There will always be another one so long as you breathe. You’ll find others.”
His father turned to Douma with a glare. “Shut the hell up about things you don’t understand, you twisted little brat!”
“Don’t speak to Douma like that!” His mother stalked forward with a snarl, wielding an intimidating meat cleaver that she did not bother trying to hide anymore. No one was foolish enough to say anything against her.
“You named the disgusting little thing? It’s bad enough that you brought him here in the first place.”
Douma’s head tilted at that, eyes sharpening at the odd phrasing. ‘Brought me here? Why would he say it like that?’
“Oh? Don’t tell me you hadn’t figured it out. With all your magical powers, you still didn’t know we’re not your parents?”
“Enough, Ryūsei!”
“What? Don’t want your precious little attack dog knowing the truth?” Douma had never seen his mother look so afraid before. He didn’t like it. “She kidnapped you, you stupid little creature! She took one look at your eyes and snatched you away from your home, insisting that you were blessed by the gods. I indulged her because she would not shut up about it and the deed was already done, but don’t you get it? She only ever wanted to use you.”
“So?” Douma chuckled at his father’s blatant shock. “I don’t care about any of that. Momma is the only parent I’ve ever known, so why would I care about the strangers she took me from? She only wanted to use me? So has everyone else. At least she loves me; that’s real. And for that, I would do anything she asks. Anything.”
He turned to his mother with a wicked grin. “Can I gut him for you, Momma? Please?”
She laughed. A soft, quietly disbelieving sound that was almost as beautiful as the relieved smile on her face. “Whatever you want, baby. Momma loves you so much.”
His father didn’t get two steps away before a dagger was lodged in his gut. Douma twisted until it got stuck in something internal, and he tugged the blade back to see what it got snagged on. His father’s intestine peeked through the massive wound, and Douma was struck with an idea. He stabbed and cut until there was a decent-sized hole for him to pull the organ out of, turning back to his mother with bloody hands and a deranged grin as his father’s screams faded into pathetic whimpers that faded into silence.
“His heart’s no good, but I wanted to get you something anyway. And you always said he was full of shit, so…”
She burst into laughter. “What a perfect way to memorialize that tool. I’m so proud of you, baby.”
Douma understood joy, then. And he understood perfectly well why humans would do so much, would fight the impossible, to achieve it.
It was the most wonderful feeling in the world.
-
Years passed, and to Douma’s surprise, he aged with them. He grew from a child to a teenager to a young adult, and though whispers of what they’d done echoed through the halls of their sanctuary, no one left. They were all too cowardly, too desperate to clutch onto the delusion they’d created for themselves, to see reality for what it really was, and his mother was just as derisive about their hopeless foolishness as he was.
Douma loved her; he really did. He was content to live out the rest of eternity by her side.
It was when he went to welcome the newest wave of members that Douma paused, overwhelmed by an intense feeling of deja vu. ‘There’s no way… Did he really get killed too?’
Glowing, red eyes appraised him once he stood at the entrance of his sanctuary. “So you are the one responsible for these disappearances. The scent of blood clings to you like a second skin.”
‘Wait a second. Isn’t that exactly what he said when we first met? Why is he acting like he doesn’t know who I am?’
“Hm… You would make quite the powerful demon. Say, what is it that drives you?”
‘This is the same conversation!’ Douma racked his brain, trying to figure out what had caused this sudden shift in his reality. His eyes widened when the realization hit him. ‘I’ve been given another chance! I’m not in hell at all; I went back in time. So much changed already that I hadn’t even suspected…’
“Liberation,” he whispered, answering in exactly the same way as he did last time, even if it didn’t quite ring true anymore. “Freedom from what binds me.”
“I can offer you that.” A clawed fingertip pierced his brain, pumping him full of blood. Douma felt even more powerful than he was last time, and he became certain in that moment that even more had carried over than what he previously thought. “Prove your worth to me and you will have all the freedom in the world. No one but I will be able to restrict you.”
Douma was starving. He tore through the members of the Eternal Paradise Faith with reckless abandon, devouring them and growing more powerful by the minute. He could feel Muzan’s pleasure through their renewed bond. Douma was absolutely drenched in blood, and he spared no mercy for any one of the cowards who had trembled in fear at the sight of his wonderful mother.
In fact, he spared no one at all until he stood before her. “Momma…” he whispered. “It’s time for me to go now.”
“I know, baby.” She cradled his face in her hands, eyes crinkling in the corners as she pressed one last kiss to his forehead. “You were always destined for greater things. I am grateful to have been part of your life for this long.”
“What will you do now?”
“I will stay here,” she said simply. “Someone must take the fall for this, and I refuse to let it be you. It is the least I can do after failing you for so long. Besides… Men think women weak, helpless, and harmless. This story will shock them all to their cores. It will start changing opinions, if only out of fear. If I can save even one woman from being trapped with a man like that bastard Ryūsei, then it will all be worth it.”
Douma wrapped his arms around her, taking in the now wrinkled face of his mother one last time and committing the image to memory. “I love you, Momma.”
“I love you too. Go change the world, Douma. I’m so very proud of you.”
He left his mother behind with a heavy heart, returning to Muzan who held thinly veiled interest in his eyes. “You remain oddly lucid for a new demon. You’re powerful for one who was newly turned as well… It has been quite some time since I stumbled across someone with so much potential.”
Douma preened at the unexpected praise, a clear difference from the last time when he’d left most of his cult members alive. The offer that followed remained the same, however.
“What would you say to becoming one of my most powerful demons?”
A fanged grin tugged at his lips. “It would be my honor, my lord.”
The kanji for Waxing Moon Six was engraved in his eyes. Muzan left him shortly afterward, informing him that he would be summoned should he be needed but otherwise was free to do as he wished so long as he kept an eye out for the blue spider lily.
It was only once Muzan was long gone that he allowed himself to linger on the shocking realization he had made only moments prior. ‘I’ve been given a second chance.’ He clenched his fists, blood welling up beneath the drag of his sharp claws.
‘I do not intend to waste it. It will not end the same way this time.’