eleven.

the runners' faction

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The first stray Katsumi brought in was a child no older than eight. He was sleeping in her arms, innocently. He could've been mistaken for a sleeping human if not for the bloodstains around his lips and yukata. The second one was an older demon who was looked forty-five. And the third was even older.

The ones Katsumi and Tamayo took in could always remember. They were the ones filled with grief, resignation and naivety. Their memories were lined with the blood of their loved ones. They would never forget the taste of flesh on their tongue and between their lips.

But most importantly, they would engrave the face of the man who made them so.

Tamayo stood in front of them, and Katsumi stood behind her.

"We will no longer fear Kibutsuji Muzan. We have freed ourselves from his curse," Her eyes narrowed at the determination, rage and wonder, "We are the runners' faction."

Katsumi was a silent leader, giving orders through Tamayo. She had changed her appearance to hide from the demons - though most of them were new demons created without the sense of attachment to Muzan, now that Katsumi wasn't there to play the bad cop. It was better to be safe than to be sorry.

There were a few demons who were resentful of Muzan and his minions. They had vowed to destroy him and his, and so, Katsumi took a chance with them, agreeing to train them.

They only knew her as Fujimori-sensei, which was ironic in a sense. She was the demon who taught them how to hide their nails; how to strike where it hurt; how to control their blood arts.

To others, she taught them how to resist their hunger. (Katsumi forced them through hours of exposure to blood and flesh until they could glance past it without blinking.) Tamayo was working on a method to remove the intense, burning cravings that drove one mad, but she hadn't had any luck thus far.

Katsumi taught them how to hide. (She painted their faces with thick creams, adding age lines and scars to pale porcelain skin.)

She taught them how to react. (She broke them over and over until they knew how much to cry and when to cry out.) Demons tended to have a muted sense of pain with the continuous regeneration their bodies went through.

Katsumi forced herself into masks of expression, knowing when to coddle and when to be strict. The runners' faction didn't have half as many demons as Muzan did, but they had far more able ones. They were dispatched into the outside world, hiding in society without being even thought about.

Muzan was a vile and selfish creature - one that Katsumi would never allow to see one more moon if she could - because of all he's taken and taken and taken from her. The blood of her children stained thick on the hands of their foolish mother, but they had seeped into his skin, and their scent would forever hang on him. She would find him wherever he went, and when she did, she'd kill him as swiftly as she could because she was more than that man who only took.

That demon had forgotten about her. He thought that Yoriichi had split her head from her shoulders in swift mercy that Muzan's betrayal did provide.

But he didn't, and now the faction was coming for him.