I, Who Fell for Douma, Turned Out to Be Michikatsu's Ex-Wife

When I was sixteen, I got separated from my family and their guards on the way back to our hometown. Luckily, a kind man took me in.

His name was Douma, and he was the leader of the Eternal Paradise Faith.

Lord Douma was a very good person. He let me stay at the temple for as long as I wanted. Whenever I brought up contacting my family, he would even put on a sorrowful expression and ask if he had failed to treat me well and made me unhappy.

Of course he hadn't. But there was no reason to stay away from home when you had one.

That's what I thought.

But half a year passed, and my letters home never received a reply. The believers who had offered to help me send them all left the temple, one after another. Only Lord Douma stayed by my side, telling me and pleading with me, "Mako, I like you so much. Can't you stay here with me forever?"

Truthfully, I could. Because I liked Lord Douma, too.

He was so good to me. He never minded that I was sickly or useless, and he was always smiling at me. At the Eternal Paradise Faith, I didn't have to worry about anything or care about anything.

But then that man appeared.

A man with six eyes. A freak. I didn't know him, but whenever he looked at me, it felt as though he was seeing someone else. Later, I learned that he had once had a wife who looked a lot like me, but she had died. When he looked at me, he was always thinking of his wife.

I hated that feeling. I kept avoiding him, but with him around, Lord Douma wasn't as close to me anymore. I grew sick of him. When was he going to leave? I wanted things to go back to the way they had been with Lord Douma.

At last, he was going to leave. On the night before Kokushibo's departure, Lord Douma summoned me.

He smiled at me, just as he had countless times before. But this time, he said:

"Mako, Lord Kokushibo really likes you."

"Mako, will you go with him?"

*

Yorichii was a traditional man.

Yet when it came to choosing a wife, he chose a woman who was anything but traditional.

His wife was sickly, delicate, naive, and prone to sulking. She was hardly a suitable candidate to be the lady of the household, yet he defied everyone's objections and chose her.

He never said it aloud, but he loved having a wife who admired him, and he promised her they would grow old together.

Until he learned that he had awakened the Demon Slayer Mark, and would not live past twenty-five.

How terrifying that was.

Everything he had, his love, his swordsmanship, his legacy, everything, was about to be cut short.

He couldn't accept it. He simply couldn't. So when the moment came, he betrayed everyone without hesitation.

After becoming a demon, he once went to see his wife. But the woman who had always gazed at him with admiration no longer smiled at him.

Under that gaze, he made the decision he would regret most for the rest of his life.

*

Many years later, on a full-moon night, Kokushibo saw a girl who looked like his wife.

She turned her face toward him beneath the dim glow of the paper lanterns in the Eternal Paradise Faith's corridor, just as she had when they first met a century ago.

But this time, she had already fallen in love with someone else.

*A new style experiment. A bit heartbreaking, and very traditionalist. Don't read if you aren't prepared for the traditionalist elements. Multiple endings; see the main and supporting characters section for the male lead.

Core theme: Cherish the present