Being sealed is not the same as dying. Kougaiji did not know this, and he struggled when they subdued him, unwilling to give up his life in defense of his savage father.

He was already so far from the light of day that he could not have said whether it was real, but the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was his mother's voice.

Sleep in peace, Kougaiji. I will be here when you wake.

Those words wove themselves through his dreams for five hundred years. They drove away nightmares of Houtou castle burning, and his father's distorted face, crimson with human blood. They sweetened memories of gentle streams and meadows, and his mother wrapping his tiny hand around a child's sword, for she had been the one who taught him what it meant to be a demon and a warrior.

Five hundred years of sleep passed in but a moment, as he woke to a voice as smooth as silk, and an ice-cold, clawed hand caressing his cheek.

"Wake up, darling. Mother is here now."