At five years old, I had learned to walk without treating every corner as a personal enemy.
I could run too, though Hinaki still called it “fast walking with fear.” She said this while sprinting past me with her sleeves flying behind her, so I chose not to answer. Nichika laughed whenever she won, Kuina insisted the rules were wrong whenever she lost, and Kanata quietly placed herself near the finish before anyone remembered to say we had begun.
My sisters were five now, which meant they had become small people with opinions. Many opinions. Opinions about food, toys, stories, flowers, sleep, clothes, and whether I was allowed to sit alone for longer than three peaceful breaths.
Usually, I was not.
They still slept near me sometimes. Less tangled than before, but close enough that I woke with Kuina’s hand on my sleeve or Kanata’s shoulder against mine. It no longer startled me. That was either progress or surrender.
The system called it neither.
It had grown with me, though. Reading had become part of my day, along with walking, speaking, watching, and pretending not to notice when adults hid serious conversations behind soft voices. My status had changed since three.
Status
Name: Ubuyashiki Haruya
Title: None
Race: Human
Age: 5 Years
Level: 1
Condition: Healthy, Focused, Restless
HP: 75/75
Stats
Strength: 7.3
Agility: 7.8
Endurance: 7.5
Intelligence: 40
Wisdom: 27
Charisma: 15
Luck: 20
Skills
Gamer Body: MAX
Gamer Mind: MAX
Memory Retention: MAX
Language Comprehension: MAX
Inventory: MAX
World Travel: MAX, Locked
Body Control Lv. 24, 11%
Observe Lv. 45, 66%
Speech Lv. 19, 34%
Reading Lv. 16, 82%
Reading had become my favorite skill.
I did not say that aloud, because Hinaki would challenge it to a race and Kuina would try to steal the book to test my devotion. Still, it was true. Letters no longer stood like locked gates. They opened. Slowly, sometimes stubbornly, but they opened.
The first time I read a full sentence without help, the system rewarded me.
Reading Lv. 10 reached.
Proficiency Milestone Reached: Reading Intermediate
Reward: Intelligence +2
Reading function improved: The user can now retain simple written structures more efficiently and connect known spoken words to written forms with reduced effort.
Passive: Reading Efficiency +1%
I had stared at the sentence until Amane asked if my eyes hurt.
They did, but not from reading.
The letters had separated me from the path of my first life. I knew that with a certainty I could not explain to anyone here. The boy called Noir had been locked outside of books, outside of maps, outside of reports, outside of the kind of knowledge men used to decide where other men died.
Haruya could read.
Not well enough yet. Not fast enough. Not deeply enough. But enough to begin.
That mattered.
I practiced every day. Amane taught me letters and poems. Kagaya taught me careful speech, family names, geography, and how to listen without rushing to answer. The last lesson was difficult. I had many answers, and most were trapped behind the face of a five year old.
“Think first,” Kagaya told me one afternoon. “Words cannot be taken back once they are given.”
I nodded seriously.
Kuina, sitting beside me, immediately said, “Hinaki ate my sweet.”
Hinaki shouted, “I did not.”
Nichika looked away too quickly.
Kanata continued reading her page upside down.
Kagaya watched all four of them, then looked at me.
“What do you think happened, Haruya?”
I considered the evidence. Kuina was angry, which meant she had lost something. Hinaki was too loud, which meant she was either innocent or very committed. Nichika’s silence had shape. Kanata was not reading. She was watching Nichika.
“Nichika hid it,” I said.
Nichika blinked.
Kuina gasped.
Hinaki pointed at her triumphantly. “I knew it was not me.”
Kanata smiled without looking up.
Kagaya’s mouth curved. “And why do you think so?”
I could not say that Observe had marked Nichika as amused, guilty, and avoiding attention. So I gave the child answer.
“She smiled with her eyes.”
Kagaya looked pleased.
Wisdom +1
Observe Lv. 45 progress increased.
That was how my days went for a while. Reading, small lessons, sisters, quiet meals, gardens, and the steady feeling that something in the house remained hidden behind screens I could not see through.
Then Kagaya’s face changed.
At first, it was only a patch near his forehead, pale and rougher than the skin around it. I noticed before anyone spoke of it. Observe gave me words I did not like.
Human. Male. Fatigued. Physical strain. Scar tissue development. Composed.
Scar tissue.
The phrase sat in my mind like a stone.
Over the next months, it became clearer. A pattern of damaged skin crept across part of his face. It did not look like an ordinary wound. No blade had made it. No burn, either. It seemed to rise from beneath him, as if his own body had begun writing something cruel on his skin.
Kagaya still smiled.
That made it worse.
One morning, I found him seated near the open garden side of the room, a report folded in his lap. He looked tired, but not surprised when I came in. Amane sat beside him, hands folded neatly, her face calm in a way that told me the conversation had been chosen before I arrived.
My sisters were not there.
That told me more than anything.
“Haruya,” Kagaya said softly. “Come sit with us.”
I did.
Carefully.
At five, one could still be carried out of serious rooms if adults decided the conversation was too heavy. I sat straight and tried to look like a child who would not ask foolish questions.
Kagaya noticed. Of course he did.
“You may ask,” he said.
I looked at his face.
The scarred skin.
The tired eyes.
The quiet patience.
“Are you sick?” I asked.
Amane’s fingers tightened once.
Kagaya did not look away. “Yes.”
The answer was simple, yet heavy.
I swallowed. “Can it be healed?”
“No.”
The room felt smaller.
A part of me wanted to reject the answer immediately. No was a word for people who lacked options. I had a system. I had memories of other worlds. I had heard names of powers in the waiting room. Nen. Aura. Haki. Falna. Magic. Things that healed, strengthened, changed rules.
But I was five.
World Travel was still locked.
And my father was already marked.
Wisdom +1
The reward felt poorly timed.
Kagaya rested one hand on the report in his lap. “Our family carries a curse. It began long ago, because a demon was born from our bloodline.”
I went still.
Demon.
The word no longer surprised me. I had heard enough whispers by now. Reports. Night attacks. Swordsmen. Hashira. Muzan.
Kagaya continued gently, as if placing each truth where I could reach it without cutting myself. “His name is Kibutsuji Muzan. Because he came from our family, the children born to us are weak. Many die young. Male heirs suffer most. None live past thirty.”
I heard the words.
I understood them.
My mind simply refused to arrange them into something acceptable.
None live past thirty.
Kagaya was twenty now.
Only twenty.
The man who held me when I was born, who taught me how to read names on family records, who let Kuina steal his sleeve and pretended not to notice, was expected to die because some accursed demon had been born generations before him.
My hands curled in my lap.
Quest Updated: First Truth
Objective Complete: Confirm the nature of this world and the role of the Ubuyashiki family.
Optional Objective Complete: Learn the meaning of Hashira.
Optional Objective Complete: Learn the nature and limitations of demons.
Quest Complete: First Truth
Reward: Intelligence +2
Reward: Wisdom +2
Reward: Observe progress gained.
Title unlocked.
The window appeared quietly, but the words tasted bitter.
Kagaya must have seen something change in my face, because his voice softened further.
“You are my son, Haruya. My heir. That means this burden will one day be yours as well.”
A second window opened.
Title Acquired: Ubuyashiki Heir
Description: A title granted to the recognized male heir of the Ubuyashiki family. The bearer inherits the family’s duty, authority, spiritual burden, and bloodline curse connected to Kibutsuji Muzan.
Effect: Authority recognition within the Ubuyashiki household and Demon Slayer Corps increased. Charisma growth related to leadership, command, and trust is improved.
Curse Effect: Dormant until age 8. Beginning at age 8, the bearer will suffer progressive annual physical decline due to the inherited curse. Physical stats will lose a percentage each year unless the curse is delayed, resisted, altered, or removed. Projected untreated outcome: death before age 30.
Linked Skill Acquired: Foresight Lv. 1
Description: A bloodline and title-linked intuitive skill that improves the user’s ability to anticipate consequences, recognize patterns, sense approaching danger, and make long-term judgments through incomplete information. This skill does not show the future directly. Accuracy depends on Wisdom, Intelligence, Observe, available knowledge, emotional clarity, and the complexity of the situation.
I read the window twice.
The first time as a system user.
The second time as a son.
Dormant until age eight.
Physical decline every year.
Death before thirty.
I felt no excitement for the new skill. No thrill for the title. No pride that the system had recognized me. It felt like being handed a crown made of funeral cloth.
Mother watched me carefully. “There is a tradition,” she said. “Male children of the family are dressed and raised as girls when young. It is believed to delay the curse’s appearance.”
I looked down at my clothes.
Soft colors. Long sleeves. Hair kept neatly, often decorated by my sisters when adults allowed it. I had thought it was simply custom, or my mother’s preference, or another part of this world I did not yet understand.
“Because I am a boy,” I said.
Father’s expression tightened with quiet pain. “Because you are my son.”
That was worse.
I did not mind the clothes. Clothes were cloth. In my first life, I had worn stolen coats, soldier uniforms, rags, and anything that kept the cold away. But knowing why left a bad taste in my mouth.
It was not protection freely chosen.
It was delay.
A trick against a curse that should never have touched us.
“Muzan did this,” I said.
Kagaya was silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
“He lives because he fears death. He kills because he fears weakness. We continue because someone must stand against him.”
Oyakata-sama.
I had heard the Demon Slayers call him that in whispers when they came at night. Master. Leader. The one they bowed to before going out to face monsters.
My father was the head of a family and the master of a corps built to kill demons.
He was also dying.
I was five, and the system confimed I was his heir.
Something settled in me then. Not calm. Not acceptance. Something harder and less clean.
“I want to learn,” I said.
Kagaya’s eyes searched mine. “You already are.”
“More.”
My voice sounded childish. The feeling behind it did not.
“I want to help Father.”
Amane’s eyes softened, but Kagaya looked away for the first time. Only briefly. Long enough for Observe to show me what his face did not.
Human. Male. Pain. Love. Grief. Hope.
That nearly broke my composure.
Then he smiled.
A small smile.
A father’s smile, not Oyakata-sama’s.
“Then we will learn together,” he said.
After that day, my lessons changed.
Not all at once. No one handed a five year old command over men with swords. My sisters still dragged me into games. I still learned letters, poems, and names. I still had to eat, sleep, bow properly, and avoid letting Hinaki convince me that jumping from the veranda was training.
But father began allowing me to sit with him longer.
At first, I listened while he reviewed simple matters: household stores, letters from estates, names of families who served ours. Then came maps. Roads. Regions. Weather. Villages. Reports from swordsmen, softened when needed, though never enough that I could miss the truth beneath.
The Demon Slayer Corps was not large enough.
Demons did not move like armies.
Fear spread faster than orders.
A wrong delay could bury a village.
Each lesson added weight.
The system noticed.
Skill Awakened: Administration Lv. 1
Description: A management skill that improves the user’s ability to organize people, resources, information, schedules, records, logistics, and responsibilities. Current effectiveness is limited by age, authority, experience, available knowledge, and communication ability. Continued practice may improve efficiency, prioritization, delegation, and crisis response.
Intelligence +1
The first time father asked what I noticed in a report, I read slowly and pointed to the dates.
“These attacks are near roads,” I said. “Not villages only. Roads first.”
He watched me.
“Why does that matter?”
I thought of scouts. Supplies. Messengers. Panic.
“If roads are unsafe, help comes slower.”
Father nodded.
Wisdom +1
Administration Lv. 1 progress increased.
I did not smile.
Not because I was unhappy.
Because I understood, for the first time, that every correct answer here meant someone had already suffered.
That was the shape of my new life.
Warm hands. Sisters laughing. Books opening. Sunlight on paper.
And behind it all, a demon’s shadow stretching across my father’s face.
At night, I opened the new title again.
Title: Ubuyashiki Heir
The words still tasted bitter.
Then I looked at Foresight.
Foresight Lv. 1, 0%
A weak skill. A beginning.
I closed my hand slowly, the same way I had when I was a baby learning to move three fingers in the dark.
I could not save father yet.
I could not kill Muzan.
I could not even unlock World Travel.
But I could read.
I could watch.
I could learn the Corps, the family, the maps, the names, the failures, the places where help arrived too late.
If the curse had made me heir, then I would use the position to fight the curse.
Not someday.
Now.
Quest Generated: Share the Burden
Objective: Learn the duties of the Ubuyashiki heir and assist Kagaya in managing the family and Demon Slayer Corps.
Optional Objective: Study Corps structure, Hashira roles, demon behavior, and regional reports.
Optional Objective: Improve Reading, Observe, Administration, and Foresight.
Reward:
+Intelligence
+Wisdom
Administration progress, Foresight progress, possible Title evolution.
I lay awake long after the window faded.
It wasn’t enough.
All of it, the reading, the observing, the planning, it would make me smarter, sharper, more prepared… but it wouldn’t stop the curse from eating me alive. It wouldn’t let me move freely. It wouldn’t let me stand on my own feet when the time came.
If I wanted to survive, no, if I wanted to change anything, I needed more than knowledge.
I needed a body that could endure.
The Demon Slayer Corps had something I didn’t. Something this world had refined for generations.
Breathing techniques. Swordsmanship. Discipline carved into flesh and bone.
If I could access those resources… if I could train, even with this fragile body… maybe I could slow the curse. Maybe I could buy time. Maybe I could become someone who could actually move between worlds, not just think about it.
My fingers curled weakly against the sheets.
[Quest Generated: Physical Foundation]
Objectives:
Begin basic physical conditioning suited to current body.
Initiate foundational swordsmanship training.
Unlock and practice basic breathing techniques.
Rewards:
+Strength
+Endurance +Agility
+Breathing Skill Unlock
Failure Condition:
Physical collapse or regression of condition.
I couldn’t stay still.
Not anymore.
Kanata shifted beside me, still half asleep, and mumbled, “Haruya, sleep.”
“I am,” I whispered.
“Liar.”
She was five and already too observant.