Demon Slayer : Breath of The Forest

Though unsure who that suited, slightly curly-haired demon was, Shinichi had a vivid impression of the other demon Yushiro described.

Golden eyes, an arrogant demeanor and a headband engraved with the character "Martial" on his forehead—wasn't this unmistakably the Martial Demon Shinichi had previously encountered in Nishikawa Prefecture?

At this thought, Shinichi expression became grave.

He had no idea about the background of that Martial Demon or the other mysterious demon.

However, another remark from Tamayo soon caught Shinichi attention.

"Both Shokyu-san and Maito-san know Shinichi ancestor, Moriki Shunichi-sama. That's why they came to visit me and told me about your identity. Though today meeting was sudden and unexpected, it was something I deeply desired—to finally meet the successor of Shunichi" Tamayo said gently.

But her words left Shinichi utterly dumbfounded.

What was going on?

How did she also know the ancestor of the Moriki family?

Just what was the deal with that ancestor? Did he have connections with demons everywhere?

For a moment, layers of mystery shrouded that ancestor from a century ago.

Tamayo didn't comment on Shinichi astonishment. Before their formal conversation, she briefly shared her own story with him.

Hundreds of years ago—yes, hundreds of years ago—Tamayo was just an ordinary human.

As a doctor, she had a happy family: a gentle husband and an adorable child. She should have lived a blissful life.

But a sudden, severe illness shattered that peace.

Feeling her body weaken day by day, Tamayo could only lie helplessly on her sickbed, watching her exhausted husband run around seeking treatment and her child weep.

Despite being a well-known female doctor in the area, Tamayo knew her illness was incurable.

Yet, her fierce will to survive kept her clinging to life.

Then one day, an uninvited guest barged into her home—that nobleman with crimson eyes, the progenitor of demons, that monster! Muzan Kibutsuji.

He seemed to be frantically collecting doctors for some unrealistic goal.

Muzan approached the dying Tamayo, tempting her with the question: "Do you want to live?", Driven by her desperate desire to survive and see her child grow up healthy, Tamayo was transformed into a demon by Muzan.

Just like that, Tamayo became a demon—and lost her consciousness.

When she regained awareness, she didn't see the smiling faces of her husband and child.

Instead, she saw the frozen terror in their eyes, their mutilated corpses, her own hands and claws drenched in blood and the monster reflected in the mirror.

As a demon, Tamayo had slaughtered her own husband and child with her own hands.

This completely shattered her.

She hated Muzan, but she hated herself even more.

She wanted revenge, but it was impossible.

Becoming a demon made her realize just how terrifyingly powerful Muzan was.

How could such a monstrous being ever be killed?

Thus, the fallen Tamayo drifted aimlessly by Muzan side.

Over the next decade, she devoured many humans, serving Muzan delusional dream of conquering the sun.

Until one day, she and Muzan encountered that man!

The man with the sun-shaped earrings, the man who dared to confront Muzan and question why he trampled on lives so wantonly—that man radiated a brilliance akin to the sun itself.

It was also that man who truly made Tamayo see the hope that Muzan could be killed.

When he drew his sword, both Muzan and Tamayo felt as if they were facing the sun.

No—that man was the sun!

In Tamayo eyes, the seemingly invincible progenitor of demons, Kibutsuji Muzan, had split into over 1,800 pieces of flesh in an instant to preserve his life.

Yet that god-like man shattered 1,500 of those pieces in a flash, leaving only head-sized chunks to scatter and escape.

That was the closest Muzan had ever come to death.

Tamayo had never seen him so disgraced—fleeing desperately like a stray dog, without a shred of dignity.

For decades afterward, he dared not show his face.

For the first time, hope flickered in Tamayo eyes.

She had finally witnessed the possibility of Muzan demise.

Though it was regrettable that the man named Yoriichi Tsugikuni hadn't succeeded in killing Muzan, Tamayo seized the opportunity of his panicked escape to break free from his control.

Over the following decades, she even managed to rid herself of the influence embedded in Muzan bloodline, becoming the first demon to truly escape his grasp.

From then on, Tamayo found purpose.

She knew now that Muzan was not invincible—he could feel fear, he could be killed!

Her goal became straightforward: eliminate Muzan.

But her combat abilities were inherently limited, so she poured all her energy into what she excelled at.

She was a doctor—she could concoct medicines, she could study the human body.

Yet that formidable man, Yoriichi Tsugikuni, who had forced Muzan into hiding for decades despite being human, ultimately failed to slay him.

Still, Tamayo did not lose hope. She continued her research.

Decades later, she encountered another demon—one who, like her, had broken free from Muzan control.

But unlike her, who relied on her own studies (having spent decades by Muzan side and thus understanding more), this demon named Moriki Shunichi seemed to have overcome Muzan influence through sheer willpower alone.

When two demons liberated from Muzan grasp crossed paths, their lives inevitably intertwined.

To Tamayo astonishment, she discovered that Shunichi bloodline differed from other demons'.

Infused with the Forest Breathing technique, his demon blood had mutated, becoming gentler in nature.

With Shunichi blood as a basis, Tamayo made a critical breakthrough.

Two remarkable achievements stood out.

First, Shunichi had broken free from the demonic constraint of consuming humans.

His body could now sustain itself by drawing vitality from nature itself—even forcibly absorbing life force from other creatures.

Most crucially, he could replenish his energy by directly ingesting large amounts of sugar.

This breakthrough meant neither Tamayo nor Shunichi had to prey on humans anymore.

At the simplest level, they could maintain their vitality by consuming copious amounts of sugar.

Tamayo was overjoyed by this discovery, even though she had previously developed a method to survive on minimal amounts of human blood.

However, another outcome made both Tamayo and Shinichi hesitate, with Shinichi even bluntly stating that this result must never be leaked.

Because Muzan might go mad for this achievement, as what he had always pursued was the ability to survive under the sun.

"Blood Demon Art: Mimicry Rashomon?" Shinichi instantly understood what Tamayo was referring to and asked in astonishment.

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