prison cell

"Everything I have is scaring you...'

Whatever belongs to you is not mine...

Maybe I'm using up my right to live...

Maybe I don't come, I can't come, wait just five minutes and leave!"

A man with the upper half of his face covered with diseased scars gently relaxed his kimono and sat cross-legged on the damp and dark prison cell floor.

And he listened in silence to the poem read by the old man with long white hair, who was hanging from silver stakes on the wall in front of him.

The poem was quite short, as always. When the old man finished, he looked at him with a smile and said nothing.

The man, named Kagaya, was silent for a while, then opened his mouth and made this review:

"Even though it looks like a love poem, as far as I know, you wrote this poem for death, didn't you?"

The old man was silent for a while and then suddenly started laughing very loudly.

This laughter was already enough of an answer for the man named Kagaya

" Even though you are probably the most immortal being in this world, you are also the one who most desires to death. Probably nobody except you imagines the death to be a beautiful woman, falls in love with her and writes poems about her."

"Ahahaha Your name is kahaya, right? You are really smart but look at it this way. She belongs only to me and I have no rival in love. Although we could never ever meet. What an epic love, right? So, why did you come here today? Or do you have a way to meet me with my love?"

At these words, the man named kagaya raised his hand and scratched his hair, which was as dark as night, and answered his question with a smile in a much kinder tone than the old man in front of him.

"I'm sorry, but I've already stopped searching and I'm pretty sure you're an immortal. There's only one thing left for me to do now, and that's to stop a unique demon like you from spreading more chaos in the world than it already has. My ancestors for five generations have already tried many ways to kill you, haven't they? I'm not even as good as them. They've probably already thought of the things I'm going to think of."

The old man, pinned to the wall by silver stakes through both hands, both feet and his heart, listened as the young man in front of him said, becoming quieter by every second.

"I get it... Now that you are satisfied that you cannot kill me, you will let me free, right?"

When the man named Kagaya heard the old man hanging on the wall in front of him suddenly begging him in a feminine voice, the dozens of veins in his forehead all dilated at the same time.

"You're almost a hundred years old and you still haven't realized this fact? After all the people you've killed, your freedom will never come."

"Please don't say that, kagane-chan. I already told you that I didn't kill them on purpose... At least take the stakes out of the wall to stabilize me so that my world can expand a little... When I'm pinned like this, my world becomes just my thoughts, and if you let me move around in my prison cell as I wish, I'd owe you a favor."

The man, now losing half his face and 90% of his ability to see due to the curse that had been passed on to him from his father when he was born, sighed heavily and stood up and walked away from the old man on the wall.

The old man, who had just spoken for the purpose of talking, was too surprised to even react when he saw that the young man had actually come to him and ripped the stakes out of his body one by one.

"Are you really going to let me go?"

"It's been almost 100 years since you were captured by the 92nd head of the ubuyakishi family..."

The old man let out a slight cry of pain as he fell to the ground after the stake in his heart was ripped out hard, and then he got up from the ground and sat down leaning against the wall. After sitting cross-legged, the old man answered the conversation thoughtfully.

"That was the ninety- 92nd leader, huh? And which leader are you, kagayu-san?"

"I am the ninety-seventh leader."

"And why did you remove the stakes. Or are you going to catch me on the way out of here after you tell me I'm free? You're pretty clever, no one has ever used this method of killing my hopes before... But the problem is that I don't really care about being locked up here, maybe in a few thousand years I won't remember it at all."

"Haha... Will you please stop being so depressing, Mr. Yuto? I'm not setting you free or anything, I just took the stakes out because you look too scary like that."

"Do I look too scary? I was worried after you said that. What if death doesn't come to visit me because I look too scary?"

"I'm not talking about that, I'm introducing you to my children today, so I'd prefer you to sit there."

"Isn't it a bit early to introduce me to your children? As far as I know, you should be able to live to be 25 or 30. You're probably only 15 or something. Come to think of it, when did you tell me you had kids? Has it been 2 years?"

"Huff... My children were born six years ago and that's when I told you. And I'm not 15 years old, and I'm almost as old as you said before. I will now complete my mission and leave you to my children. You can consider this a reward for the many times you have conversed with me over the past time. How you behave when you talk to my children in a moment will affect how you will be treated in the future by a leader among my children when he takes responsibility for you."

"Areee, when did you get so old? Just when I thought I had someone who wouldn't leave me here alone all day but would come by every few months. Even if it doesn't seem like it, you are my best friend."

As he moved to leave the door, one of the veins in his face exploded slightly when he heard what the old man behind him was saying, causing blood to splatter on his face. He had already realized how unserious the old man behind him was by talking to him for many years.

"Please don't call me that. I can't let you be free even if I wanted to. More importantly, your level of disingenuousness makes me want to dry you out in the sun for a few days."

In response, the old man began to apologize over and over in fear.

Seeing the 180-degree change in his manner, Kagaya was about to leave the room without saying anything but the old man opened his mouth once again.

"Didn't you say you didn't want me to look scary?"

"Yeah."

"You know I have five big holes in my body right now, right? Or are you too blind already? And don't forget the deal your father and I made is that you have to bring me 3 drops of blood every year and you only have 4 days left. If you keep your promise before you let your children see me, the holes in my body will be healed and I'll look a little younger and less scary."

Kagaya, like he remembered something, turned and sat cross-legged across from the old man, leaving only a few feet of space between them. Kagaya put his right hand into the gap under the left hand of his kimono and pulled out a small dagger.

The old man, who had been watching the whole process, looked confused for a while and then made a guess he didn't want to believe.

Kagaya made a small cut with the dagger on the tip of his left index finger, causing a drop of blood to fall to the ground.

At the same time, the old man's eyes, covered by his long white hair, glowed crimson. Even kagaya, almost completely blinded, could easily see this horrifying light.

"You can drink as much as you want. In return, you are not allowed to babble about death or do anything stupid in front of my children."

Unfortunately, the old man was at this time trying with great difficulty to control himself not to jump on him. After a while, dirty air spewed out of the old man's mouth and the crimson glow in his eyes disappeared.

"It is very impressive that you resist even my blood. You almost make me doubt the truth of what my ancestors wrote about you."

"Hahahaha. I was only a kid back then, don't judge me by what I was then. Tell me if you were serious about me being able to drink as much as I want. It's not every day I get the chance to drink the blood of special people like you."

"I'm serious."

"Ittadakimasû..."

The old man hesitated slightly, reaching his head out to suck on the kagaya's index finger. When the old man's mouth opened, two of his upper teeth showed especially sharp and longer.

Every second the old man continued to drink blood, his hair turned from white to black and the holes in his body began to close rapidly. After a short while, as his emaciated body slowly became more meaty, the old man suddenly stopped sucking.

As the old man continued to suck blood, it was not only his body that changed but also his expression. Whereas just before the first drop of blood came into his mouth he had an excited expression on his face, with every drop of blood he drank, his expression became uglier and uglier.

According to the old man, this blood was one of the most disgusting blood he had ever tasted in his life. Being a vampire, blood had always tasted delicious to him, but for some reason there seemed to be an additive in this blood that made it taste so disgusting.

When Kagaya saw that he drank less blood than I thought he would, he sighed like he could guess what he was thinking and took a small cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around his finger.

"You realize how much blood you gave me, right? You also removed the silver stakes. I don't know what you're thinking. If I'm not mistaken, there's only one person waiting outside the cell and it must be your wife because I don't get any sense of threat from her."

Kagaya continued to look straight at him and said nothing.

"Will you please stop looking at me like I'm an idiot?"

"Have you forgotten the time my father planned to use you as training material for the demon slayers?"

"Of course I remember, how could I forget that little monster lifting a big rock and smashing my head. The hashiras of that time were very talented people."

"Hashira?... Pufft..hahaha"

The old man heard the young man, who always laughed in a gentle tone even when he laughed, suddenly burst into loud laughter, and not only he but also the woman outside the cell could hear it with her enhanced senses, although she tried to suppress the sound of laughter as best she could.

"Why are you laughing. Can you please stop scaring me, I'm an old man with a kind heart, I can't handle this kind of thing"

"Hahaha. That boy was not a hashira. Didn't you see that boy wearing a mizunoe? Even though I was just a child then, I can remember very clearly how you got beaten up."

Meanwhile, a young woman's voice came from outside the cell door

"Are you going to make the children wait any longer? We still have a lot to do."

When Kagaya heard his wife's voice, he realized he didn't have time to say more, so he patted the old man on the shoulder one last time before heading out and gave him some advice.

"I honestly think that even if you can easily defeat me and my wife and escape from here, you won't get very far. If you trust me, please don't try anything like that, I don't want to put you up against that wall again."

As Kagaya and his wife's footsteps faded into the distance, the old man tried in confusion to understand what had just happened?

What interrupted the old man's thoughts was the sudden appearance of a system screen that only he could see.

[ Congratulations, by drinking a special blood, you have gained 4.3 points of strength, 5.1 points of speed, 2.8 points of stamina, and your blood magic has improved by a negligible amount. ]

[ All of the stored blood has been used to restore 50% of your stats, please drink blood as soon as possible ]