The night was unnervingly still, the moonlight spilling like silver threads through the trees, casting long, haunting shadows across the forest floor. You stood in the clearing, your sword drawn, but your hand trembled slightly, as if the weight of it had become too much to bear. The world felt distant, like a dream slipping away from your grasp. Kokushibo, once the boy you had loved with all your heart, now stood before you, and the truth was inescapable—he had come to take your life.

The boy who had once held you close, who whispered promises of a shared future beneath the stars, was gone. Replaced by something unrecognizable. A demon, bound to Muzan's will, with no room left for the boy you had known.

His amber eyes, once so full of tenderness, met yours, but there was nothing left there now. Only emptiness. The love that had once thrived between you had withered and died long ago, replaced by the cruel, unfeeling loyalty to his new master. He took a step forward, his silhouette towering, and for a moment, you thought you saw a flicker of something—perhaps regret, perhaps pain—but it was gone before you could even reach for it.

“I don’t want to do this either,” he said, his voice low, but it didn’t carry the warmth it once had. "But I have no choice. You’re a threat now. If I don’t end this, Muzan will.”

The words hit you like a slap, but it was the finality in his eyes that broke you. There was no turning back. The boy you had once shared everything with, the one who promised to protect you, was now the one who would destroy you. And you couldn’t even hate him for it. How could you, when he was still the same boy, the same person in so many ways, even though he had become something else entirely?

His gaze softened for a moment, just a moment, before he nodded, as if he had heard the unspoken words of the past. And then, with a pain you could not see in his eyes, he raised his sword