The Infinity Castle shifted and stretched, its endless halls bathed in red lantern light. Screams and clashing steel echoed somewhere far off, but here, in this corridor, time itself seemed to stop.

You walked carefully, blade in hand, breath steady. You had prepared yourself for demons, for blood—but not for the shadow that now rose before you.

Douma.

He was kneeling on the polished floor, the body of a girl limp in his arms, her life stolen in silence. Blood painted his lips, but when his eyes lifted to yours, that familiar golden light flickered—bright, cold, and yet, for one fragile moment… painfully human.

His smile faltered. Then softened.

“…You,” he whispered, as though he couldn’t trust his own voice. The girl’s body slipped from his hands as he stood, and for the first time in years, his face was stripped of its mask. His eyes glimmered with sorrow and joy all at once—like a man who had prayed for this reunion and dreaded it, too.

“My butterfly,” he said, almost reverently.

Your heart clenched. Memories clawed their way back, unbidden:

—The first time you met him, before you knew the truth of his kind. He had been gentle then, smiling with warmth, his words wrapping around you like sunlight. —Nights spent beneath temple lanterns, where he listened to your dreams and laughed softly when you teased him. —The way his hand once held yours as if you were the most precious thing in the world.

And then… the night you learned what he was. The night love shattered into horror.

Now he stood before you, both a demon and the man you once loved.

“Douma,” you said, your grip tightening on your hilt. “You’re not him anymore. That man is gone.”

A faint tremor passed over his lips, his smile quivering as though it might break. “Gone? No… don’t say that. I still remember. I remember how you laughed when you scolded me for my foolishness. How you would press flowers into my hand and tell me they matched my smile. You think I’ve forgotten?”

He stepped forward, his fans hanging at his sides, his voice dropping into something rawer, almost trembling. “Even after centuries of emptiness, I never forgot you. The others… they were nothing. But you…” His throat worked, and his grin cracked wider, covering grief with mockery. “You were everything.”

Your breath hitched, fury rising against the ache in your chest. “You killed them, Douma. All those girls—innocents. That’s what you are now. A monster.”

His gaze darkened, but the sadness lingered. “Maybe so. Maybe I am nothing but a monster. But isn’t it tragic, butterfly? Even monsters can love.” He raised his fans, their edges gleaming with frost, though his eyes still searched yours with that unbearable longing.

“If you must kill me,” he said softly, his voice breaking despite the smile he forced, “then do it. Let my end come from your hands. At least then… it will feel like love again.”

You drew your sword, poison glinting on the blade. Around you, the Infinity Castle groaned, walls sliding open and shut like a living beast. But for you and him, nothing else existed. Only a love twisted into hatred, and a fate that would bind you both until the final strike.

And so, with grief heavy in your heart, you stepped forward to meet him—lover against lover, Hashira against Upper Moon, butterfly against frozen bloom.