jealousy

"Oh, really? It's surprising! Then you saw how he tilted his head when you told him about the dead people, right? Isn't it too much to lie to him like that?"

"There is nothing I can do about it. It is my great grandfather's order to hide this truth. All we can do is quietly follow orders. Besides, don't you think it makes him more interesting?"

"Interesting... I thought you hated him."

"Of course I hate him. What he has is the cause of our family's curse. Immortality... Just the think that he is Immortal made me feel hatred for him. But there is one thing that makes him my favorite person on this world."

Amane turned her head to look at the man she had devoted her life to, feeling as if she had been betrayed. But the kagaya kept talking like he didn't notice anything.

"Immortality... The reason why our family is what it is now, and also the reason why so many people's lives have been destroyed for so many years... It all began with his search for immortality. That's what I think of when I remember Yuto as immortal, but whenever I remember one of the poems he read, I find peace again... It's quite ironic, isn't it? An immortal who was trained to fight against someone who destroyed the lives of countless people in search of immortality. And this immortal's biggest desire is death..."

Amane knew how true what he said was, but unfortunately a certain phrase had been echoing in her mind for some time.

Amane slowly stood up and walked into the room without any facial expression or voice breaking.

First she went to the old hashira, Sakonji, and said a few words to him about how he shouldn't hang around any longer. Then she went to the kitchen and put all the food she could find on a rag and tied the corners of the rag together to make a lunch bag. Then she went to Yuto and gave him the lunch bag and returned to her husband. She told him that Sakonji and Yuto were about to leave.

Even though Kagaya's blindness was increasing every day, even with his body he could feel the warmth of the midday sun. So after a brief moment's thought, he sighed as if he understood what was happening and stood up to see them off.

But just then Amane stopped her husband from seeing the others off by telling him that he needed to take his medicine.

------ one hour later

"I just wanna die...

Such a death; that no one should hear my death, and my soul should go silently away from the world...

Such a death; that there should be a little blood on the corner of my lips and a huge smile on my face...

Such a death; that when someone who doesn't know me sees my corpse, he should say that he loved someone...

someone who knows me and finds my corpse should say, you finally chased your dream...

I want to die in such a way; my death hides an epic behind it which overshadows my thousands of years of life, but nobody knows about it...

I really want to die! As long as I see her just once..."

Standing in the shade of a large tree on the side of a dirt road, the demon slayer named Sakonji closed his eyes and briefly felt the weight of the words he had just heard.

"Okay, I admit that our master told me the truth about you. You are indeed very different from ordinary demons. As a man who has spent a long time devoting my life to hunting demons, I can tell you that none of them can write a poem. Moreover, I have an interest in poetry, so I am sure that the poem you read was not stolen. All poets in Japan nowadays think that poems should have certain rules, and your poem is written outside all the rules, focusing only on meaning... Overall, it's not very good, but it's okay..."

Sakonji turned his head and looked at the bat in the cage in his hand and immediately saw something that made him grimace. The bat's whole body was like an ordinary bat, but its head was shaped like a tiny human head and it was looking at him with excitement. He saw a human head with bat ears looking at him with wide-open eyes, so he first thought how disgusting it was.

The reason Yuto had such an expression on his face was that he was very excited at the moment. He was obviously a person who understood poetry, and he praised his own poems as if he understood them very well. Although a few other people, like Kagaya, had praised his poems before, this was the first time he had been praised by someone who understood poetry.

Yuto was so emotional at that moment that he almost cried. But seeing his face becoming more and more disgusting, Sakonji couldn't stand the sight any longer and covered the bird cage with a black cloth.

"Just as I promised, you passed the exam because you managed to impress me with your talent. I am a man of my word. I will try my best to teach you swordsmanship, you don't need to worry about that."

"Sakonjiii-saaann~ you are a very nice person. I'm so happy to meet you... Sakonji-san? Sakonji-san? What are you doing? Sakonji-san! Ahhhh it hurts! It really hurts! Please cover me!"

The old demon slayer made a mental note that even in the black-covered birdcage, Yuto was very annoying. he would definitely not praise him again...

"Master said that you turned to dust in the sun like other demons, but you didn't die. I just wanted to see it with my own eyes so you don't have to worry. You can think of it as a kind of first training."