A heavily breathing Ryosuke shoved open the King’s door and spotted Haruma and Jin-sama, both calm and indifferent.

“Haruma!” Ryosuke shouted. “You! You tell me what’s going to happen! Right now!”

Haruma ignored Ryosuke and looked at the King. “Get your door fixed.” He walked out only to be halted by Ryosuke. “What do you want, standing?”

Ryosuke clenched his teeth and grabbed Haruma by the shirt. “Ueda-san told—”

“What’s going on?” Mirai and her friends came by, followed by Ryosuke’s friends and Ueda-san. Seeing the men’s confrontation, Mirai came to Haruma’s rescue. “What are you doing to Haruma?” She put him behind her. “What my friends did was no harm to anyone.”

Jin-sama came to stand between Mirai and Ryosuke. “Konnichi wa, Mirai-san.”

Mirai bowed to greet him back.

“I’m sorry things are like this, but it seems that they’ve gotten into a small spat. It’s none other than my people’s fault, so, please, do take your leave with Haruma without worry.” He smiled. “I’ll take care of things from here.”

“Let’s go,” said Haruma, dragging Mirai by the hand.

“Ueda-san,” Jin-sama grinned. “Let’s talk, shall we?”

Ueda-san became tense. I’m in trouble.

Ryosuke defended Ueda-san. “Jin-sama, please don’t find fault in Ueda-san. Thanks to him, we know everything.”

Jin-sama was taken aback. “Who said anything about finding fault in anyone?”

“You’re not mad?” Everyone but Jin-sama asked.

Jin-sama pointed to himself confusingly. “Me? Mad? About what?”

Ueda-san shyly stepped forward. “That I had eavesdropped on yours and Haruma’s discussion that day...and then told them about what I’ve heard.”

Jin-sama laughed uncontrollably. “I’ll let this one pass. You helped a lot.”

“Helped?”

“I knew that after the recent happenings, I’ll be barraged with questions, and I wasn’t sure how to tell you guys about it...but it seems you had done the job for me.”

Ryosuke came forward with panic. “Jaa, is it true, then? Everything?”

“I told you almost everything I know that was passed down to us, but I didn’t tell you the ‘ending.’ As Ueda-san had probably pointed out, there are two. One for us, and one for them.” He gave the kids a serious look. “Whichever side she goes to...she must complete that ending.”

Ryosuke’s heart sank onto the floor. To him, both endings were tragic.

“Like what that demon had said that night, if she were to stay with us, the standings, we’ll have to kill her on her eighteenth birthday. If she gets in contact with her kin, she’ll be worshipped.”

“Why must we kill?’ asked Umika.

“For us, it’s any time before she turns eighteen. There are three years the royal demons celebrate: their sixth year, their twelfth year, and their eighteenth year.”

“Why those specific years?”

“They represent six-six-six, the demonic number. In the demonic community, once she’s eighteen, she’ll be considered an adult and will be forced to interbreed. Or worse…to be used as an incantation for something more disastrous. She’d no longer have control of her life or her body. And if they succeed,” Jin-sama gulped, “humans would cease to exist.”

The room was silent. The longest silence they had.

“Matte, Jin-sama.” Ryosuke interrupted. “These two endings are only for the demonic being who’s considered ‘The One’.”

Jin-sama lightly smiled, showing his sorrow. “That’s because...she is ‘The One’.”

*

“Y-yo,” Ryosuke said to Mirai, who was walking with Maki. He had been waiting for her at their building. “Can we talk? Just the two of us?”

Maki clung onto Mirai. “We’re—”

“Onegai?” he begged, shocking them. “Just for a quick while.”

Mirai and Maki looked at each other, unsure of what to do.

Mirai breathed in. “Maki, can you fix my futon too? I’ll come to bed as soon as possible.”

Maki scowled. “But Haruma has forbidden you to have any more contact with them.”

Ryosuke was shocked. He knows that I know about it and is trying to keep me away from her. Everything he does...he really is keeping her in the dark. He found himself saying something like what the demonic being, Hideaki, had said nights ago. If I start to think that way, it’ll be like I’m taking their side.

“Let’s go,” Mirai said, bringing Ryosuke back to reality, and he looked around—Maki was gone.

He asked her, “Where did she go?”

Mirai smiled, and his heart fluttered. She said, “I’ve asked her to keep this a secret from Haruma.” She came forward. “So, where to?”

*

“...Why here?” Mirai whispered to Ryosuke as she looked out for guards who might spot them.

He had asked for them to speak privately inside the hidden room of the Royal Library as it was the private room they had access to. Once the doors opened, he entered first to make sure everything was cleared and then signaled for her to follow. “It’s so no one can eavesdrop on us.”

“Will it be long?” she asked, worried. If Haruma stopped by her room and found out that she didn’t listen, she’d get a long talk from him.

As if reading her mind and sensing her worries, he said, “Don’t worry, he’ll never lay—”

“He plans on killing her himself.”

The words from Jin-sama from the discussion about the ending popped into Ryosuke’s mind, and it brought back the last part of their conversation.

“Mirai-san’s ‘The One’?” everyone exclaimed. They soon quiet down and made sure no one was outside listening, or at least, was nearby to hear it.

Jin-sama nodded. “I found out just recently too. Just a few nights before Meisa-san’s death.”

“She knew all along?” Ueda-san asked. “How did she get a Royal Princess like her? Aren’t Royal Demons highly well-protected?”

“She had faced death twice in her attempt to retrieve her. She was one great slayer.”

“TWICE?” Ueda-san became excited.

“Remember the story she told about receiving a plea from a demon she was to slay?” Jin-sama asked and received nods. “That was the first.” He saw the widening of eyes from his audience and only chuckled in response at how funny they looked. “The demon was Mirai’s mother, Yukie-san.”

Umika gasped because, for the first time, she felt like she had something in common with Mirai because she too had lost her mother at a young age.

“After Meisa pretended to have disposed of Yukie-san, she left on the same night to retrieve Mirai after hearing everything from Yukie-san, who led Meisa into their secretive location, but they were caught, and Yukie-san sacrificed herself to save Meisa. Meisa made it back and buried her body.” He exhaled. “That was the first time. The second time was when she had barged the first big ceremony—Mirai’s sixth birthday. She burned down the place and with luck, she bumped into an exhausting six-year-old Mirai who lost consciousness in front of her. Without rest, she brought her to the grave of her mother and was about to kill her.”

“What?” everyone interrupted, making Jin-sama flinch as he has been speaking non-stopped for the past few minutes.

Ryosuke questioned, “Why was Meisa-san going to kill her?”

“Listen, my children.” Jin-sama calmed them down. “It was the request of Yukie-san.”

The room became silent again.

“Yukie-san knew her child was the legendary ‘The One,’ and she couldn’t let that happen. She also couldn’t let Mirai-san be killed by humans who wouldn’t give her a chance, so she had asked Meisa to kill her daughter if she got her hands on her.”

Ueda-san started to tear up. “She really was like a mom...”

“But since Mirai’s still here with us, it shows that Meisa didn’t kill her. But that doesn’t mean no one would attempt again.”

“Eh?” everyone uttered.

“Haruma... That Haruma... He plans on killing her himself.”

“Why?” Ryosuke shouted, standing up and ready to confront Haruma again.

“Ryosuke,” Jin-sama ordered him. “Do you want to know why he and his friends pretended to betray Mirai? It was to test her decision.”

“Test her decision? What kind of sick way was that?”

“That was the only way. He knows that her kin is after her for only one reason—to use her, and he wants to give her a choice because she deserves it. So, we gave her a push.”

Umika frowned. “We?”

Jin-sama was quiet for a moment. “I allowed him to do what he had planned.” He got up and turned around to show his back to them, too ashamed to admit his next comment. “And again, I’m letting him be the one to dirty his hands.”

“What’s wrong?” Mirai asked.

When Ryosuke looked in front of him, he realized he had stopped to think back to that previous discussion.

“If you’re not feeling well, we can talk some other day.”

“I’m okay.” He looked at her. “You told me that you might not be human.”

She nodded, blankly.

“You also said you’re glad there’s someone like me. But you never answered my question when I asked you why.”

Why is he mentioning this? Is it because of what he witnessed? She pretended to be annoyed. “Is this what you want us to discuss?”

He nodded.

She waited before continuing. “Before what had happened, I was confused about who I am. I didn’t care where I came from or who my parents are. I only want to know one thing—am I human...or am I not.” She walked to the shelves of books in front of her and touched the spines of each book. “I knew I can’t be human because there was no sign of me being half a human, like a brand or a possessed. Deep inside, a dark voice echoes, ‘demon, demon, demon,’ but I kept pushing it away.” She turned around and gave him a confident look. “Now, I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to face and accept whatever I am.”

“If you do turn out to be a demon—or have demon blood, what do you want to happen to you?”

She smiled with no worries as if she already had an answer for that all along. “That’s where you come along.”

He perked up.

“Kill me.”

“...Kill you?” He, for the first time, couldn’t say ‘kill,’ especially not in front of her. “Why?”

She was taken aback. “Why do you sound so shocked?”

“Because we don’t know if you’re—”

“You were there, weren’t you, on that night Hideaki the demon spoke of it?” she rhetorically asked. “Anyone would’ve understood anything he was trying to imply. That’s why when you were against my staying here, I was glad that there was someone to observe my every move, ready to always get my head if I were to ever lose myself.”

He recalled her talk with Yuto nights before about losing herself. “But what makes you think I can just kill you?”

She smiled. “You’re a Demon Slayer.”

His heart sank.

“It’s your job to dispose of any monster posing a threat to mankind. If I’m going to be a monster, it’s only—”

He pulled her into a tight hug, cutting her off. “You think it’s easy to kill someone you know and cherish? You think it’s fine to fling a katana around? You think it’s okay to—” He stopped himself when he realized something. It’s not her fault she thinks this way of me. It’s who we are. It’s...our moral compass. With his moment of realization, he slowly pulled away from the hug, fearing his awareness.

She stayed frozen in place, confused at the weirdness he had just committed between them. She glanced at him and rested a cold hand on his forehead, and he flinched in response, so she apologized as she pulled back her hand, but he grabbed her hands, rubbed their hands together, and blew warm air into their hands while ignoring her confused expression.

“It’s okay,” she said, trying to pull her hands back. She noticed her face has gotten hot and hoped it wouldn’t be red.

He pointed to her hands. “It’s not okay. Look, they’re as cold as ice. And your face!” He cupped her cheeks. “They’re as pale as a ghost!” He playfully rubbed her cheeks, squeezing them together.

With a squished face, she managed to say with giggles in between smiles. “Stop...it right...now.” She grabbed onto his wrist and tried to push his hands away. “Your hands are cold too!”

As the two went back and forth, they stopped when they heard the front doors in front of them break open from the outside. They immediately knew to hide, and they hid behind a tall shelf at the back by a corner where there were plenty of big vases and boxes. Crouching down, they waited.

When the door slowly crept open, inside walked a dark figure.

Being at a far enough distance, Ryosuke and Mirai couldn’t spot who it was. However, they could tell that the figure was being secretive, way more secretive than they had been when they had tried to enter the Royal Library.

The figure swiftly moved from one place to another.

Knowing that the figure was a skilled person, Ryosuke and Mirai were ready to attack or defend if they were caught. They didn’t care if it was a palace guard. All they knew was this figure was suspicious and from its silhouette, it was a man.

They saw the figure search through the shelves, looking for a specific book.

Ryosuke and Mirai wondered to themselves why someone would want a book that only contained contents of the past. It was of no use to anyone, for it was a law passed down by the first Shogun, Shogun Toma Ikuta, to always write down daily events.

The stranger went through two shelves and was about to walk to the next aisle of shelves where the moonlight lit the area, and Mirai and Ryosuke hoped his face would come across the moonlight so they could see who the person was. As the man slowly stepped into the moonlight, only from his knees down showed as he stopped to analyze each book. Seconds later, he moved forward again, closer to the moonlight, revealing his body from the waist down.

Then, his chest.

Finally, only a step was needed before his face would be revealed, and Ryosuke’s and Mirai’s hearts paced out of excitement and fear.

But the intruder grabbed a book and rushed out the door, never showing his face.

*

The man had been long gone since hours ago, so that was a good sign. However, Mirai and Ryosuke regret not making a scene to catch the man, expose him, and question him.

A gust of wind outside broke the long peace, and Mirai shivered. She stood up, realizing it was way past the time she had promised to come back or else Haruma would know. “I’ll be going now.”

Ryosuke stood up too. “Where are you going?”

“Back to my room. We have nothing else to talk about now, right?” she questioned, doubting.

He didn’t want her to leave. At least, not yet. But he couldn’t come up with any ideas or excuses that would make her stay here with him even if it was just a second longer. When an idea popped into his mind, he hesitated for a bit, but his greedy side won him over. “You can’t leave yet.”

She turned around and faced him. “Why?”

“How will I know you won’t tell your friends what you saw?” He added, flustering his arms around. “It’s-it’s only natural that I should have you under my eyes until sunrise.”

“Jaa...where are you planning to keep an eye on me?”

He was thrilled. He knew she’d take the bait because of their previous discussion, but guilt hit him. He didn’t mean to make it as if he was okay with killing her. “Here’s fine.” He looked around the room. “Let’s stay here, and we can leave tomorrow morning.”

She tried to find a good sleeping spot, but everywhere was dark and cramped. She bent down and touched the cemented floor. It’s freezing cold!

“Let’s stay here.”

She moved her attention to him and saw him sit at the same corner where they were hiding.

He sent her a reassuring smile. “We have these to block us if anyone intrudes. It’s also far from the window, so we won’t be getting the cold air.”

“Where will you be sleeping?” she asked as she came over.

He blinked. “Uh...well, actually, I’m planning to sleep here too.” Didn’t she get the ‘Let’s’ part of what I said?

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