"But you are different, Miss Tamayo~"
Behind her, Mitsuba simply smiled, gently leaning on her back, her fingertips caressing Tamayo's cheek, using that bewitching voice to continuously whisper in her ear:
"Your heart is so persistent and resilient. Even though more than five hundred years have passed, the hatred in your heart still shows no signs of being washed away.
Just look at this—what a moving and poignant story this is.
A loyal wife, a loving mother, actually sustaining this obsession for hundreds of years just to avenge her husband and children who died tragically...
This touching story—just hearing it makes me almost unable to hold back my tears.
But ah, Miss Tamayo, I wonder if you'd be willing to answer a small question for me...
Please tell me, after hundreds of years have passed, can you still clearly remember the faces of your husband and children?"
Tamayo's pupils contracted sharply.
"Can you tell me what exactly they looked like? What kind of voices did they have when they spoke?
What things did they like? What kind of clothes did they usually wear? What hobbies did they have?
Miss Tamayo, would you be willing to share these little secrets with me?
Or has our loyal and virtuous wife long since forgotten all these details that could prove her husband and children's existence?"
In her ears, Mitsuba's voice flowed like water, continuously pouring into Tamayo's brain, stimulating the most sensitive nerve deep in her heart.
"Stop talking..."
"Oh my oh my~ You're going to cry~ How surprising~
Clearly you can't even remember these important things, yet you can remember that hatred in your heart so clearly.
Miss Tamayo, sometimes I really do wonder—in your current memories, are your husband and children really still two living people, or are they two blank targets you've created to maintain the obsession in your heart?
Is this so-called hatred of yours truly hatred, or is it just finding a suitable outlet for the despair you felt when you devoured your husband and children?"
"I told you to STOP TALKING!"
Roaring, Tamayo grabbed a scalpel from nearby and stabbed viciously behind her.
But the instant she was about to move, the Mitsuba behind her disappeared once again.
"Speaking of which, you were there that night when I transformed my elder brother, weren't you, Miss Tamayo?"
Just when Tamayo thought everything was over, in the next instant, Mitsuba's figure appeared again.
"So, you should still remember the metaphor I used for my elder brother that night, right?"
She sat back on that sofa, her expression still that smiling one.
"He was like a gambler who had lost his eyes red. For an impossible goal, he repeatedly invested everything he had, then lost it all completely again and again...
For this goal, Elder Brother had already invested too much—so much that he himself could no longer turn back, was unwilling to turn back.
He could only keep deceiving himself that he hadn't lost, then increase his stakes again and again, and finally, in one defeat after another, completely fall into that endless abyss...
Miss Tamayo, you didn't think that what I said that night was only for my elder brother alone, did you?"
Looking directly at Tamayo's trembling body, Mitsuba propped her chin with one hand and said with a smile:
"Actually, your feeling was correct, Miss Tamayo—we truly are very similar people.
We both once lost everything at the gambling table called life for various reasons, suffering terribly.
But the difference is, I accepted it, so I walked out and had a new beginning.
But my elder brother and you, you are unwilling to admit it, unwilling to let go.
So, you can only be trapped by it for hundreds of years, continuously making meaningless investments, and always indulging in that pain unable to extricate yourselves—truly pitiful, truly tragic, truly laughable... isn't it?"
"That's not true, I, I..."
"Lady Tamayo!"
A sudden urgent shout rang in her ears. Tamayo snapped back to her senses and turned to look, only then discovering that Yushiro was somehow standing beside her, looking at her with a nervous expression.
"Lady Tamayo, what's wrong with you? From just now you've been staring at that sofa without stopping, and you didn't respond no matter how I called you..."
Yushiro—on the surface, appeared to be an ordinary, thin young man.
In reality, he was the only demon Tamayo had transformed through her own blood over the past hundreds of years who was similarly not under Muzan's control.
Like the current Tamayo, Yushiro's modified body similarly didn't need to devour humans; he only needed to regularly consume small amounts of human blood to sustain his life.
"Yushiro, I..."
Her spirit extremely weak, her gaze shifting to see the empty hospital bed before her, Tamayo hurriedly asked:
"Right, where did that patient from just now go..."
"While Lady Tamayo was distracted, I already bandaged him and sent him away quickly!"
"I see, sorry... Thank you, Yushiro, I..."
"Look, what a lovely child."
The familiar voice rang in her ears once again. The Mitsuba phantom that had already disappeared appeared like a ghost before Tamayo once more.
This time, she lay obediently on the hospital bed, but her gaze fell on Yushiro beside Tamayo.
"Miss Tamayo, this child named Yushiro deeply loves you in his heart~ Just look at the way he normally looks at you—that thick affection is completely undisguised~
As for these things, Miss Tamayo who once loved someone and got married, I think, shouldn't be unable to sense them, right?
Ah, I almost forgot~ It's not just that he loves you—in your heart, you actually aren't completely without feelings for him either, a·r·e·n't· y·o·u?"
Sitting up from the hospital bed, Mitsuba used that smile carrying a trace of mockery, raising her hand to lightly poke at Tamayo's heart.
"Oh my~ what a shocking truth this is~
Our incomparably loyal Miss Tamayo! Our Miss Tamayo who can endure over five hundred years of suffering to avenge her husband and children!
She actually fell in love with another man before her great revenge was complete! Even knowing this, she kept this man by her side?!
Heavens~ then what has been her persistence all these years? What is this love she speaks of for her husband and children?"
"Stop talking..."
"I see, I see~ so Miss Tamayo, you've been deceiving me all along, right?
You actually let go of the obsession with your husband and children whom you brutally killed long ago, right?
You're actually no longer avenging those poor people, but just venting the guilt and despair in your heart after devouring them, right?"
"Please, Mitsuba... stop talking..."
Leaning gently against Tamayo who was holding her head, on the verge of collapse, Mitsuba's tone was incomparably cold.
"What husband, what son, what deep affection... you pretentious woman, all along you've actually just been unable to get over yourself, a·m· I· r·i·g·h·t?"
"STOP TALKING!!"
...
(Friendly reminder: The Mitsuba here is indeed a phantom in Tamayo's mind, not the real Mitsuba.)