Chapter 267: Hundreds of Years Without a Breeze

"Nakime! Are you messing with me?!"

Faced with Marcus’s interrogation, the woman gave no answer at all. Keeping her kneeling posture on the sand, she strummed the strings of the biwa with the bachi.

An intense sound burst across the beach.

Marcus’s muscles tensed instantly.

He took half a step back to gather momentum while stretching his left hand straight toward Nakime’s neck.

If she intended to betray him, he would never let her drag him alone back to the Infinity Castle.

Yet he halted the movement halfway.

Because out of the corner of his eye he noticed the space contorting violently in front of the enormous Japanese door.

The sound of the biwa opened doors—but not beneath Marcus’s feet, rather beneath the figures who had just crossed over from the other side.

The roars of the Demons had barely begun to resound when Muzan and his subordinates, still in the air and without having set foot on the sand, saw a shroud of black abysses bloom beneath their feet.

They had only just escaped the prison, and gravity was already dragging them back.

"AAHHHHH!!"

"Muzan-sama, save me!!"

’Moon Breathing, Fifth Form: Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy.’

Kokushibo swung his blade frantically in mid-flight, unleashing a gale of slashes against the ground.

He used the shockwave to alter his trajectory and buy time in the air. Beside him, Douma swept his fans and made great pillars of ice erupt at the edges of the abysses, bracing against them to slow his fall.

Muzan was the crudest, but the most furious.

His whips slammed into the doorframe, holding him above the void. With his eyes completely red, he looked at Nakime and Marcus.

"Fine...!"

He wanted to tear them apart that very instant, but... in this moment, in this place, he was in a position where he couldn’t even find a foothold.

"Retreat!!"

Even in the midst of extreme humiliation, that was what he decided.

His whips contracted violently, catapulting him away from danger. And before leaving, his whips shot out to grab Kokushibo, Douma, and a couple of Demons floating with their Blood Demon Arts.

The retinue was launched like a meteor toward the density of the distant forest.

"MARCUS! NAKIME!"

Muzan’s voice echoed from afar. "THIS WON’T END UNTIL ONE OF US DIES!!"

The roar was lost in the sea breeze.

The sliding door shattered to pieces, the portals dissipated, and the beach regained its calm.

Marcus stood motionless, staring in disbelief at the direction Muzan had fled.

It all happened too fast... Had Muzan pulled a fast one on him, or had it been Nakime?

He turned toward her coldly.

He had to clear this up right now.

At that moment, Nakime had let go of her biwa.

Without looking at him, she raised her arms devotedly toward the sea breeze, opening and closing her fingers as if trying to catch something.

"I-I’ve gone hundreds of years without feeling a breeze..." she murmured in a distant voice. "Because of the Infinity Castle’s importance, Muzan wouldn’t let me step outside for even a second. He even placed a curse on my body: if I left the place, I’d explode instantly."

She turned her face toward him.

"Thank you, Marcus. Even though the wind isn’t what I imagined, I like it very much."

He wasn’t moved.

"Explain what the hell you did! Why did you let Muzan out just to drag him back?! Was it a lie that the Infinity Castle would collapse if I devoured your ability?!"

Nakime shook her head slightly as the air tousled her long hair.

"It wasn’t me who let them out—it was Muzan-sama’s doing. And I didn’t lie to you: if I lose my ability, the castle will collapse. I only hid that he can come and go without my permission."

Marcus furrowed his brow.

"How is that possible? It’s your Blood Demon Art..."

"As I said before, Muzan-sama tried to take it from me..." Nakime explained, adjusting the kimono over her knees. "Though he didn’t succeed, he found an alternative. Just as he mixes his cells into us to control us, he keeps our cells inside his own body. He uses them as a key to access the Infinity Castle. It was his insurance."

Marcus pieced it together in a second.

Muzan had made a copy of the key just in case.

"So whether or not I absorbed your technique, Muzan was going to escape either way!"

"...That’s right."

Marcus exploded.

"Why the hell didn’t you tell me that sooner?!"

"Because... I didn’t dare take the risk." Nakime’s bright eyes gazed at the starry firmament. "I didn’t know whether you’d kill me inside the castle after obtaining my ability. All I wanted was to get out... to feel the breeze and see the outside world."

Hearing this, Marcus fell silent, struck.

"...Just for that?"

"Weren’t you afraid that, upon discovering the truth, I’d be blinded by rage and kill you?"

Nakime let out a faint little laugh.

"Of course I was. It’s just that you haven’t experienced it, so maybe you don’t understand. Hundreds of years longing for something without getting it can drive anyone to madness... Now I’ve gotten out and been able to experience it. Even if I die, at least it won’t be inside the Infinity Castle."

"..."

Regarding this woman, Marcus didn’t know what to say.

She was a canary caged for centuries, willing to gamble her life just to leave the cage behind.

"Was it worth it?" Makomo murmured, shaking her head slightly, unable to understand her.

Nakime gazed at the stars with nostalgia.

"My mother was a geisha in the service of a noble family. When she became pregnant with me, she fled to the mountains and lived there for over a decade in happiness. She taught me music and how to play the biwa, wishing for me to keep my freedom. But I... I longed for the city and for my art to be recognized, so after her death, I left."

A bitter, desolate smile formed on her lips.

"But I didn’t expect that the day I entered the city, war broke out."

"Terrified, I hid in a room to distance myself from the world, but even so they found me and, without a word, stabbed me. Muzan-sama saved me and turned me into a demon. That was how my Blood Demon Art was born."

Nakime lowered her head, looking at the biwa.

"At last I could play within the structures I admired without anyone bothering me; I didn’t even need to rest. The only thing I lost was the freedom I hadn’t known to value."

She looked at the sand.

"But one year... two years... three years..."

"I began to miss the wind of the mountains."

"Ten years... twenty years... thirty years..."

"I realized it wasn’t that I disliked freedom—I simply hadn’t valued it."

"A hundred years... two hundred years... three hundred years..."

"The centuries passed and I was conscious the whole time, suppressing my longing for the outside world. I missed the wind in my hair, the smell of grass, and the warmth of the sun, but I couldn’t even peek outside."

She raised her head and looked at Marcus.

"That’s why, when I learned you could walk under the sun, I wanted to seek you out. And when my life hung by a thread, I chose to risk deceiving you rather than die without feeling one last breeze."

She placed her hands on the sand and lowered her forehead until it touched the beach.

"I fear death, but at least I’ll die amid the wind. Marcus-sama, thank you. Whatever you do with my life from now on, I won’t hold it against you."

__________

Throw your stones, drop them ALL! 💎

And don’t forget to comment, I wanna know if you liked the Chapter 👀

______

And if PS aren’t your thing but you still want more Chapters...

P-a-t-r-e-o-n → Athome790