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"So that's how it was..."
In the late-night tea house, after the three people exchanged their identities with each other, they simultaneously fell into silence once again.
"Demons... such creatures actually exist..."
Butterfly lowered her head, murmuring to herself.
Although she had never believed before that such supernatural creatures existed in this world.
But after witnessing with her own eyes Tamayo twisting off her own wrist, then growing it back from the broken end—something normal humans could never do—Butterfly had no choice but to believe.
The Demon King, demons, Demon Hunters, Breathing Styles...
All those stories Mitsuba once told her were actually true?!
Which meant, Mitsuba really had become a demon, on that night of the fireworks festival when Mitsuba forced her to leave?
After an extremely brief shock, Butterfly quickly calmed down.
As possibly the only person in this world who had accompanied Mitsuba through her final years, experiencing all the changes in her mental journey.
Butterfly understood better than anyone the reasons for Mitsuba's choice.
"Miss Butterfly, what do you think of Mitsuba's choice..."
Beside her, Yoriichi was the first to break the silence.
Facing this person who had accompanied Mitsuba for several years, who had been personally acknowledged by Mitsuba as a close friend, he very much wanted to hear Butterfly's view on Mitsuba's choice to become a demon.
He also very much wanted to learn more from her mouth about this younger sister of his whom he seemed to have never truly understood...
"Mr. Yoriichi, you're asking the wrong question. It's not why Mitsuba would make such a choice, but that she indeed still made such a choice."
Facing this elder brother of Mitsuba's before her, after a brief silence, Butterfly said in a deep voice:
"I must clearly tell you that in my view, given Mitsuba's past experiences, her making such a choice was completely inevitable. I can't even think of any reason why she wouldn't do so."
"Was... inevitable?"
Yoriichi slightly froze. He turned to look at Butterfly, his eyes full of confusion.
And Tamayo beside him remained silent throughout.
"Yes, inevitable."
Facing Yoriichi's gaze, Butterfly nodded, then asked:
"I'm very curious—in Mr. Yoriichi's eyes, what kind of image is your younger sister?"
What kind of person was Mitsuba exactly?
Yoriichi lowered his head, seriously thinking about this question.
"When I was still in the Tsugikuni household, Mitsuba was very active and lively. She wasn't the image of a well-behaved girl; her personality was even closer to that of a boy...
After mother's death, I left the Tsugikuni household. When I saw Mitsuba again, it was on a night more than ten years later.
She had already become quite different from the image in my memory.
She was gentle and quiet, unsmiling, and in every gesture exuded the dignity of a family matriarch.
When she saw me, she always used honorifics, maintained etiquette, and her behavior was impeccable.
The Mitsuba of that time perfectly matched any fantasy people might have of a family matriarch... very perfect.
But that was also the first time I felt a sense of distance growing between me and Mitsuba."
"Then have you thought about why she grew up to become like that?"
"Was it... our family's education?"
"No, it was because she had the most standard family father, the most standard family mother, and two irresponsible elder brothers."
Saying this very bluntly, Butterfly opened her eyes wide, staring straight at Yoriichi before her, speaking with a tone that seemed to be suppressing something:
"She was born with a heart longing for freedom and adventure, yet it was gradually strangled by her standard family parents bit by bit.
She could have chosen to escape like her two irresponsible elder brothers, throwing everything aside without care.
But the so-called sense of responsibility and morality that had been brainwashed into her by her parents again and again during her childhood repeatedly bound her footsteps.
And forced her to ultimately choose to stay, making herself the one to bear everything and clean up the mess.
She once fantasized that after a few more years, when she could shed the heavy burden of the Tsugikuni household, she would rechoose the life she truly wanted.
But the terminal illness in her body then dealt her a heavy blow at this time.
The gods in heaven couldn't wait to make her die—Mitsuba didn't even have the chance to choose again...
Mr. Yoriichi, tell me, if you were Mitsuba, when the chance to choose again appeared before your eyes, would you refuse it?"
"But no matter what, Mitsuba shouldn't have chosen to fall and become a demon..."
Facing Butterfly's calm questioning, Yoriichi almost instinctively refuted.
Just as his words fell, he saw Butterfly continue speaking:
"For a person who, because of morality and responsibility, had almost suppressed and ruined her brief life.
Do you think, when this final opportunity was delivered to her, she would still stubbornly cling to these things that had tormented her entire life, and then let herself die silently in pain and unwillingness?
Mr. Yoriichi, don't forget—you also abandoned everything and 'escaped' from the Tsugikuni household back then."
Butterfly deliberately emphasized the word "escaped."
"You yourself have no position to criticize your younger sister for making such a choice."
Butterfly's mind remained clear-headed.
As someone who grew up in the mountains since childhood, with not very deep contact with human society, she herself didn't have a strong sense of morality or responsibility.
She studied medicine because she liked learning medicine, because she had high talent in this area, and doing this made her feel happy.
She had medical ethics, taking every one of her patients seriously and responsibly to the end, because she liked seeing the heartfelt happiness and gratitude on her patients' faces after being cured.
This brought her deep satisfaction, let her find her own value of existence, made her feel needed by others—not because she had such high morality.
At the root, how could a "wild person" who grew up in the mountains for years possibly possess so much morality?
This unique growth experience gave Butterfly a natural "neutrality."
Making her, when thinking about many problems, not subconsciously stand from the perspective of humans... or rather, from the perspective of human society as a whole.
At the same time, she wouldn't be influenced by the commonly existing morality in human society when making judgments.
From the perspective of human morality, Mitsuba's choice to become a demon might be extreme evil.
But standing from Mitsuba's own perspective, this was a matter of course, a choice she was destined to make.
Between the former and the latter, Butterfly unhesitatingly chose the latter.
Because she understood that Mitsuba's lively and active heart had never truly died, just like on that night of the fireworks festival when the two of them were together...
"Miss Butterfly, I don't understand—if Mitsuba's heart also had her longings, why didn't she speak her true feelings from the beginning?"
After another long period of silence, Yoriichi expressed his confusion about this.