The walls scream.

The scent of blood, ash, and fire coils through the air. The mansion is falling apart, as though the world itself can no longer stand what’s happening within it.

You face him.

Muzan, the monster who made you. The god who bled your humanity dry. His body spasms as your drug tears through his cells, layer by layer—centuries of invincibility unraveling.

You move to speak, but then—suddenly—he lunges.

His arms wrap around you like a vice, pulling you against him, your cheek pressed to his chest, where no heartbeat lives. You fight—struggling, twisting—but he holds you with terrifying strength. Not the strength of dominance.

The strength of desperation.

“Let me go!” you shout, fists pounding against him.

“No!” he snarls, voice cracking. “You don’t understand. You can’t leave me—not now.”

His voice trembles—not with weakness, but something far more terrifying: long-buried emotion.

You freeze.

And for the first time in four hundred years, you hear it—not his arrogance, not his cruelty—but his fear.

“Come with me,” he breathes, close to your ear. “Tamayo… come with me.”

You blink, stunned. The firelight reflects in his eyes, wide and unblinking—like a child lost in the dark.

“What?” you whisper.

“We can disappear. I can… fix this. I’ll take you somewhere. Somewhere no one will find us. You were mine once,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “You still are.”

Your hands are shaking now. You could kill him. You should.

But he’s holding you like a man drowning, clutching the one soul he once knew and never understood.

“You don’t get to say my name like that,” you whisper.

“Why not?” he rasps. “I gave you eternity. I made you more than human. I saved you from death.”

“You condemned me,” you snap, your voice breaking. “You turned me into something I never asked to be. You ripped me away from my children, from my life—and now you want me to follow you into the dark?”

He grips your face suddenly, gently—but trembling.

“Please…” he whispers. “If I have to die… don’t leave me alone.”

You stare into those red eyes. For a second, just a second, you see something human beneath the monster. A soul cracking open under centuries of blood and fear.