No Matter How Many Lives, Part 1

As their heads dissolve, Daki and Gyutaro keep snarling at one another, with Gyutaro hurling vicious words and saying his life would have been easier without her. Tanjiro steps in and covers his mouth, insisting that the demon does not truly mean it and that they should not waste their last moments in spite.

Daki, terrified, begs her sibling to rescue her. As she fades, Gyutaro calls her by her human name, Ume, and his memories return. Born to a courtesan in the Kirimise, he was loathed for his looks and voice and was nearly killed by his own dying mother.

His sister's beauty became his only pride, and he grew into a feared debt collector. When Ume, at thirteen, blinded a samurai and was burned alive in punishment, the grief-stricken Gyutaro took bloody revenge before collapsing in the snow. An Upper Rank found the dying pair and offered them new life, which Gyutaro accepted without hesitation.

Daki finishes disintegrating as her brother watches helplessly.

The shared backstory of Gyutaro and Daki, born Ume, is revealed in flashback.

A younger Doma appears as the Upper Rank who turned the siblings into demons.

This chapter is the first half of a two-part flashback and belongs to Volume 11, adapted in Episode 44. It reframes the antagonists as products of extreme poverty, abuse, and injustice in the historic pleasure district. The reveal of the children's birth names underscores the bond at the heart of their villainy.