Chapter 154: The Last Look
The afternoon sun was so blistering it seemed like it wanted to melt people.
In a room on the second floor of the Kyogoku House, Daki paced back and forth without stopping.
"Onii-chan, what do we do? What do we do if Marcus doesn’t come?"
She’d already lost count of how many times she’d asked that same question.
Gyūtarō was crouched in a corner, scratching his cheek over and over.
His nails sank into the skin, came out, and dug back in. Blood trickled between his fingers and pooled into a little puddle on the floor. And yet he kept repeating the motion, as if he felt no pain at all.
"You think he’ll come today?"
"How the hell should I know..."
Daki bit her lip and picked up her pacing even more.
Gyūtarō spoke with almost none of his usual laziness left. "He’s the new owner, isn’t he? How’s he not gonna come check on his shop on the second day?"
"That’s not so certain..." Daki stopped dead, a faint flush on her cheeks. "The important thing is yesterday... last night..."
Gyūtarō lifted his head to look at his sister’s face, which showed a mix of embarrassment and annoyance. He sighed deeply.
"Oh, come on... Couldn’t you have held back a little?"
"And what does that have to do with me?!" Daki jumped like a cat whose tail got stepped on. "He was the one who threw himself on me like a rabid dog! What did you want me to do?!"
As she spoke, she started to feel wronged and her eyes filled with tears.
"I was treated in the most humiliating way possible and you’re still blaming me. Is that how you act as an older brother?"
Gyūtarō quickly raised his hands in surrender.
"All right, all right, I didn’t mean to blame you. I just want to know whether he’s really coming or not."
"Hmph!"
Daki turned her face away, wiping the tears from her eyes roughly.
"I don’t know! Anyway, at this hour he’s definitely sleeping like a log!"
Gyūtarō ran his hands into his hair and started yanking at the strands, harder and harder.
"This is bad. Really bad. If he sleeps till nightfall and doesn’t show up... then we’re really done for."
"The moment Muzan-sama gets here, we’re finished..."
The room sank into silence.
Daki stopped pacing.
She planted herself in front of the vanity and stood there gazing at her own face in the mirror.
The woman reflected in it had perfect features.
Even after going through so much the night before, that face was still stunningly beautiful.
She stood there looking at herself for a long while.
"Onii-chan."
"What?"
"Do you think we’ll survive tonight?"
Gyūtarō’s fingers stopped and he looked at his sister’s back.
"If he doesn’t come... definitely not."
Daki stroked her own face, sliding her fingers from her forehead to her cheek, and from her cheek to her chin.
"And if he does come? Would we survive?"
That loaded question sent a shiver through Gyūtarō’s entire body.
Daki saw her brother’s incredulous expression in the mirror and laughed bitterly.
"I know I’m not as smart as you."
"It’s been that way ever since we were kids... you’re not good-looking and I’m dumb."
Gyūtarō: "..."
"But when it comes to reading people, reading what’s in their eyes... and especially what’s in men’s eyes..."
"At that, I’m way better than you."
Gyūtarō remained silent.
Daki turned around and leaned back against the vanity, elbows on the edge and her head tilted back.
"A little while ago... when Muzan-sama left, that look in his eyes... it was completely different from how he usually looks at me."
"Maybe... we’re overthinking it," said Gyūtarō. "Maybe... Muzan-sama was just angry..."
Lowering her gaze, Daki looked at him. "Do you really believe that?"
Gyūtarō said nothing more.
Of course he didn’t believe it.
Muzan was supremely arrogant.
Especially in front of the demons he’d created himself, that haughtiness of his reached such a point that he didn’t even bother to hide it.
The look he’d given them before leaving today, that sweep he made over the two of them, held no rage, no disappointment, not even contempt.
It was indifference, an absolute cold without the slightest trace of emotion... disinterest.
Like the last look you give before tossing out a bag of garbage.
On top of that was what Daki had just revealed to him...
Every demon in that mansion had escaped Muzan’s control.
Gyūtarō turned the matter over and over in his head, and each time his skin crawled a little more.
For Muzan, how serious was this?
This was the end of the world!
It was his pride as the Demon King, the pillar of his rule.
The moment this got out, among the hundreds or thousands of demons, there was no guarantee that some wouldn’t start entertaining treacherous thoughts.
Even if this didn’t pose a major threat to Muzan, for someone as extremely proud to the bone as him...
It was something he’d never allow to happen.
Under these circumstances, no matter how much the two of them promised to keep their mouths shut.
Muzan, who distrusted even his own shadow... was he really going to let them live?
Gyūtarō’s breathing turned heavy.
He lifted his head to look at Daki. In his eyes there was a deep anguish and an immense helplessness.
"W-Why did you have to figure it out?"
"A dimwit your whole life... and you go and understand it right now?!"
He clutched his head, digging his fingers into his hair as he curled in on himself.
"I wasn’t going to tell you."
"That way, in front of Muzan, you’d have stayed as naive and devoted as ever."
"Even if he read my thoughts, you’d have been nothing but a dimwit who didn’t know anything. Maybe... maybe that way you’d have been spared."
He yanked at his hair hard.
"Why did you have to figure it out?!"
Seeing him like that, Daki’s eyes filled with tears again.
She came over, crouched down beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"My whole life you’ve been telling me I’m a dimwit, and now that I finally come up with something smart, you don’t like that either."
Gyūtarō looked at her through the slits between his fingers, a ghastly smile on his face.
"Perfect..." he said weakly. "When we see Muzan again, we’re both gonna have our heads full of complicated thoughts. I can already picture it... how he’s gonna tear our heads right off the second he reads our minds."
Daki’s hand slid off his shoulder and she shook her head slightly.
"I think there’s still a way out."
Gyūtarō looked at her.
Daki’s eyes reflected a glimmer of hope. "If we want to survive, we have to..."
"We have to?"
Gyūtarō stared at his sister’s distressed face and, all at once, the idea hit him like a bolt of lightning.
"Of course! Marcus!"
Seeing that her brother wasn’t even giving her the chance to build a little suspense, Daki got mad and smacked him across the face.
"Ugh, onii-chan! The one time I come up with an idea, you’re insufferable!"
"All right, all right." Gyūtarō let out a rather unusual laugh.
"Then let’s say it at the same time."
"Fine! On one... on two... and on three!"
"Ask Marcus for help!!"
"Kidnap Marcus!!"
Daki: "..."
Gyūtarō: "..."
The two of them stared at each other in absolute silence.
And they spoke in unison again.
"You’re gonna ask him for help?!"
"You’re gonna kidnap him?!"
The room sank once more into the most complete silence.
Gyūtarō covered his face in frustration. "If we already decided to cut the bond completely, then going and begging Marcus is... what? Switching owners?"
Daki was stunned.
"That’s true... now that I think about it, you’re right..."
She tilted her head and mulled it over for a few seconds. Suddenly her eyes lit up.
"So what you mean is..."
"Kidnap him." Gyūtarō murmured it under his breath. "We use him to force Tamayo to cut our bond with Muzan."
"When that happens, we’ll be free and we can go wherever we please."
"No one will ever be able to control us again."
Daki’s eyes shone brighter and brighter.
Gyūtarō rode the momentum to finish winning her over.
"Besides, didn’t he take advantage of you? This works out great for you. Now you can start thinking about how to get your revenge."
Daki shot to her feet, her eyes overflowing with light. "I’m gonna make that bastard lick my feet!!"
Gyūtarō’s mouth twitched.
"That’s the extent of your ambition?"
Daki blinked and thought it over very seriously.
"Then... then I’ll shove my whole foot in his mouth!"
"Can you stop thinking about rewarding him?!" Gyūtarō finally exploded. "Why don’t you think about carving him into pieces, tearing his skin off, eating him?!"
Daki’s face turned red with embarrassment.
She didn’t understand it either, but every time she pictured herself punishing Marcus, the scenes that came into her head invariably ended up on that bed.
And what she wanted most, oddly enough, was simply to take absolute control in that particular battle...
Climbing on top of him, for instance. Whipping him. Making him call her mistress.
"Hehe~"
"Hehehe~~"
Seeing his sister with that goofy smile on her face, Gyūtarō covered his own face in exasperation.
In a life-or-death moment! What the hell was this woman thinking about?!
"Enough!" He slammed the floor hard. "I don’t care how you plan to punish him. Right now the problem is something else... how do we get to see him?!"
Daki snapped out of it and turned serious.
"What if... I dig a tunnel? A tunnel from here all the way to that mansion."
"And can you guarantee we’d come out at the exact right spot?" Gyūtarō rolled his eyes. "What do we do if we veer off, stick our heads out, and the sun burns us?"
Daki pouted.
"Then you tell me what we do!"
Gyūtarō went quiet for a moment.
"Here’s what we’ll do. First, you ask the Yarite to go to the Asakusa mansion and tell him you’ve got business to discuss with him. After all, the two of you... last night... I don’t think he’ll refuse to come."
Daki looked a bit doubtful.
"And if he decides not to come?"
Gyūtarō narrowed his eyes and picked up his flesh-and-blood sickle, propped in a corner against the wall.
The blade flashed with a chilling gleam in the gloom of the room.
"He doesn’t come?"
He slung the sickle over his shoulder, lips curved into a cold smile.
"Then I’ll destroy this place completely."
"With the ruckus I’m gonna raise, he’d better show up."
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