One of the most tragic things about demons in KNY is that they’re explicitly bastardizations of their human selves, twisted or malformed into something actively malicious.
Akaza, for example, originally sought strength as a way to provide and protect for his loved ones;
He hates the weak because — to him — the weak are the kind who don’t confront you head on and use underhanded tactics. They’re ugly, they lack forbearance, and give into desperation too easily;
They give into the voices in their heads that say they have to hurt others to appease themselves.
This includes the men who laughed at or scorned his ailing father, the members of the dojo who poisoned the well, and the version of himself who killed 67 people for it. Who bloodied his master’s beloved martial arts and the very memory of his father, Keizo, and Koyuki. He wanted to become strong to outgrow that kind of weakness, and he forgot that when he became a demon. His goal became an obsession with strength just for the sake of it, rather than to provide and protect.
This, I believe, is the reason why he offers demonization to — at the very least — people like Rengoku and Giyuu. A part of him recognizes a similar motivation in them, and (because the demon half of him believes his current self to be the culmination of his efforts) he offers them his supposed salvation. A way to continue seeking power far beyond what a human can manage.
His goal survives where his accessible memory died with his corruption;
He subconsciously incorporated his loved ones into his very being as a demon.
A thing that remains consistent across the demons in KNY, with the hand demon and his memory of running home while holding his brother’s hand, the temari demon and her desire to play, and so on so forth. It’s horribly tragic.
But the part that stands out to me is the fact that this seems to apply to Muzan Kibutsuji too, because his desire to live past his disease when he was human manifested into an obsession with immortality as a demon. It didn’t matter that he was healthier than he’d ever been, the sun could still harm him and so he wasn’t perfect just yet. That’s why he searched so desperately for a demon who would either survive the sun or could become a part of the twelve waxing or waning moons who would protect him while he looked.
Fascinatingly, both he and Upper Moon One (Kokushibo) overlook the immortality of the memento mori philosophy. They focused on how they specifically could live on, forgetting that their knowledge and their history could be passed down and used or remembered by the people after them. Maybe that’s why they hated Yorichii so much — because he looked at the future where he would be forgotten and thought that he would love nothing more then to be a simple footnote in this long, arduous journey to their victory.
The Ubayashiki and many of the demon slayers in between felt similarly, giving their lives for the cause and knowing that someone else would one day do what they sought to do… that the world would eventually heal from demons altogether.
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