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Chapter 170: Daki: I Want to Lick
Hearing his sister call out to him, Gyutaro immediately snapped his head up, his eyes flashing with desperate hope. But after struggling for a few seconds, he realized there was absolutely no advice or help he could offer her. The light faded from his eyes just as quickly, and his head slumped back down in defeat.
Completely useless! Daki complained in her head. She turned her face back to Suyan.
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, this man was undeniably the most stunning creature she had seen in her entire life. As for betraying Muzan? Neither she nor her brother possessed a shred of genuine loyalty to the Demon King. The only thing currently making her hesitate was the fact that Suyan was human. For centuries, humans had been nothing more than livestock. To suddenly submit and accept one as her master? It felt completely humiliating. Unless...
"Sir! Something terrible has happened!"
A panicked, childish voice rang out from the hallway, and a young girl burst into the room. It was one of the Kamuro—the young apprentices of the brothel. However, the moment she stepped inside and saw the scene, she froze in her tracks.
The most terrifying, image-obsessed Oiran in the Kyogoku House, Warabihime, was sitting in a man's lap. All of her intricate hairpins had been removed, her heavy makeup washed completely clean, and her hair was slightly damp.
"So beautiful..." the little girl blurted out. Even though she didn't know the poetic phrase 'a lotus emerging from clear water,' her brain instinctively processed the sheer, unadulterated natural beauty of Daki's bare face.
"Who gave you permission to enter!?" Daki snapped, completely unappreciative of the genuine compliment. She had heard endless praises about her beauty for centuries; it meant nothing to her. Furthermore, having a lowly servant girl witness her in such an incredibly embarrassing, compromised state enraged her. If Suyan didn't have her pinned down, she would have torn the little brat limb from limb for the insolence.
"I-I'm so sorry, Lady Warabihime!" The girl instantly snapped out of her daze, remembering exactly how cruel Warabihime could be. She bowed frantically, trying to explain her intrusion. "It's just—there's a samurai with a sword outside, and he's—"
"A samurai!?" Gyutaro's head snapped up, his raspy voice grating out the word like it was a curse. Despite knowing it was completely futile, he began thrashing violently against the silver chains. His sister had nearly been burned to death by a samurai when she was human. Even though they had brutally murdered the man in retaliation, the very word 'samurai' acted as an explosive trigger for Gyutaro's rage. "Tell me where he is! I'll kill him!!"
"Eek!" The little girl recoiled in terror at the sight of the grotesque, skeletal demon thrashing in the corner.
"Don't be afraid, little one. He won't hurt you," a gentle voice interrupted. A large, warm hand rested on the top of the girl's head.
The girl flinched, then slowly looked up to see Suyan's gentle, smiling face. For a moment, she was completely mesmerized. What a beautiful man... his voice is so soft, and his hand feels so warm...
Suyan ruffled her hair gently. "Can you tell me what happened?"
The girl blinked, her cheeks flushing as she realized she had been staring. She scratched her cheek nervously. "Are you the strange customer everyone was talking about?"
"Strange customer?" Suyan paused.
"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," the girl immediately bowed her head, terrified she had offended him.
Suyan waved it off with a chuckle. "It's fine. Keep going."
"Well, that's what everyone is whispering about," the girl explained, peeking up to make sure he really wasn't angry. "They said an incredibly handsome man came to the Kyogoku House, but instead of asking for the girls, he just ordered lunch."
Suyan was speechless, though he had to admit it was a fair assessment. To him, ordering food was just an excuse to stay in the building until he confronted Daki. To everyone else, treating a high-end brothel like a local diner was undeniably weird.
Suyan shook his head. "Never mind that. Your name is Koharu, right?"
"Mhm!" the girl nodded energetically. To clarify, she added, "Haru, as in spring."
"Alright, Koharu. Tell me, what's this terrible thing you mentioned?" Suyan asked gently.
"Oh, right!" Koharu nodded quickly, her panic returning. "Sister Xiao Hong took some of your money to go out and buy the special cooked dishes you asked for. But on her way back, she accidentally bumped into a samurai! Now he's harassing her, saying terrible things and refusing to let her go!"
"Samurai deserve to die!" Daki hissed through gritted teeth, clearly flashing back to her own traumatic past. She looked down at herself. Since she had already exposed her true identity, there was no way she could keep living in the Kyogoku House anyway. She looked up at Suyan. "Let me go out there and kill him!"
Suyan didn't answer. He just shot her a sharp glare. Daki instantly shut her mouth and fell silent.
Suyan stroked his chin, thinking. Xiao Hong? That was the polite attendant who had greeted him when he arrived. And she was out buying food for him when she ran into trouble? Well, that meant this mess was partially his fault. He wasn't exactly a pushover, and since he was technically the reason she was in danger, he didn't mind stepping outside to resolve it.
It would also serve as a good excuse to give Daki a little more time to seriously consider his ultimatum. The sun was still up, so it wasn't like the demons could run away even if he left them alone.
Suyan looked down at Daki. "You two stay here and think very carefully about the choice I gave you. I'm going out to take a look."
"I don't want to!" Daki refused instantly. Even though she was deeply conflicted about submitting to a human, she found herself completely intoxicated by the unique aura radiating from his body. She didn't want him to leave. In fact, for the first time in her centuries as an Upper Rank, a bizarre thought crossed her mind—what if she shared her blood with him? What if she turned him into a demon so he could stay by her side forever? If she did that, then submitting to him wouldn't be so bad, right?
"Excuse me!?" Suyan blinked in surprise.
Daki stared him dead in the eye, her tone dead serious. "I said, I'm going with you!"
"Aren't you afraid I'll just throw you into the sunlight and let you burn?" Suyan asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't care! I'm staying with you!" Daki clung to his arm stubbornly, her deeply ingrained, spoiled-brat personality flaring up. He promised he could make her walk in the sun again, didn't he? She was going to hold him to that.
"Sir..." Koharu tugged anxiously at Suyan's sleeve.
Seeing the sheer panic on the little girl's face, Suyan let out a defeated sigh. He reached down and scooped up the heavy outer kimono Daki had discarded earlier, tossing it over her head. "Put this on," he ordered. "Are you fine going out without your makeup?"
"It's fine, as long as I don't let anyone see my face." Daki pulled the kimono tightly around her shoulders. One of her sashes slithered out from her back and wrapped securely around the lower half of her face, masking her features. Then, without any hesitation, she hopped up and latched onto Suyan's back like a koala.
Even Daki was surprised by her own actions. She couldn't believe she was acting so intimately with a man she hadn't even known for an hour. But what surprised her more was that Suyan didn't resist at all—he just instinctively reached back and supported her thighs to keep her from falling. To show a demon his unprotected back was practically suicidal, yet he did it without a second thought. Was he just stupid, or was he truly that confident in his strength? She decided he was just incredibly weird.
"Hey, human," Daki mumbled against his shoulder. "You said you want to be my master, right? What's your name?"
Her face was pressed so closely to his neck that she could feel his pulse. Staring at his earlobe, a sudden, intense urge to stick her tongue out and lick it washed over her. She quickly forced the inappropriate thought away, blushing slightly.
"Suyan. That's my name," he replied, feeling deeply exasperated. He blamed Shizuka for this. The busty school nurse had ambushed him with back-hugs so many times that his body now instinctively caught anyone who jumped on his back.
"Oh," Daki whispered. She fell silent, burying her face into his jacket so she wouldn't be tempted to do anything unladylike to his neck.
Suyan shook his head and let out a long breath. He looked at Koharu. "Lead the way."
"Okay!" Koharu nodded, quickly walking ahead. As she led them through the corridors, she couldn't help but marvel at the fact that the famously bad-tempered Lady Warabihime was acting so docile. Adults were truly bizarre creatures.
Suyan didn't follow immediately. He glanced back at Gyutaro, who was still helplessly tied up on the floor. Leaving a highly aggressive Upper Rank demon alone in a brothel seemed like a recipe for disaster. Suyan conjured a large cloak, tossing it over Gyutaro to cover him completely. He then applied the advanced Nen technique, In, turning the silver chains wrapped around the demon completely invisible to the naked eye. With a sharp tug on the invisible leash, Suyan began dragging the completely immobilized Gyutaro behind him as he followed Koharu.
The entire procession looked incredibly bizarre, but considering he was already the guy who ordered lunch at a brothel, he didn't really care about his image anymore.
As for the chicken, En? Even though Suyan had completely neutralized both Upper Ranks, she still refused to go with him. The moment she remembered Daki's terrifying, murderous threat, her courage shattered. If she had to sit on Suyan's head while that terrifying demon was strapped to his back, she would probably die of a heart attack.
She waited until Suyan and the demons were completely out of the room before her trembling body finally recovered enough to move. Flapping her wings frantically, she shot out the window, cawing in sheer terror. "Scared the feathers off me~!"
She flew as fast as she could back toward the Butterfly Mansion. She had successfully located the demon, right? Mission accomplished! Probably! Either way, there was absolutely no way she was spending another second in this terrifying place.
Meanwhile, Suyan followed Koharu out of the Kyogoku House and quickly arrived at the scene of the disturbance. He immediately spotted the "samurai" Koharu had described.
It was a young man wearing the standard black uniform of the Demon Slayer Corps, with an oversized nodachi strapped to his back. With such obvious, defining features, Suyan instantly recognized the troublemaker. It was the natural-born scum who inherited the position of Upper Rank Six after Daki and Gyutaro's deaths in the original timeline.
Kaigaku!
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