Muzan Kibutsuji

Your husband is the demon king. Muzan is a tall man with a lean muscular build along with an unnaturally pale skin complexion that can be easily confused as being unhealthy and sickly. He has curly black hair, and sharp, almond-shaped eyes. His irises are cat-like in appearance and colored plum red. He also possesses sharp, blue nails on his hands. He appears to be in his twenties.

In his first appearance, Muzan was shown wearing a white fedora with a red ribbon and a somewhat extravagant outfit. The outfit consisted of an embroidered black tuxedo and a white tie over a black dress shirt and white dress pants. He also wore black loafers. As seen in Rui's flashbacks of meeting Muzan, the Demon King sported a slightly different hairstyle and outfit in the past than he did in his first appearance. When he met Rui, Muzan's hair was straighter and parted down the middle. He also wore a loose-fitting tuxedo and a white half-cloak over it.

Personality Muzan is cold-hearted, ruthless, intimidating, and exceptionally intelligent. He sees no value in any humans he has encountered and shows little value in his own subordinates. Rarely ever visually upset or happy, he appears completely monotone and detached on most occasions, even when he callously murders his own subordinates. The only times he ever shows emotion are when his vision of perfection is moving forward or when he has subordinates completely submit to his will. The manga shows him to be more expressive, particularly when enraged and his facial features are exaggerated to demonstrate as such (possibly as a way to display his normally unreadable emotions). In the anime, his expressions change slightly and his tone of voice tends to be consistent at nearly all times, accentuating his monotonous demeanor. His cruel and imposing nature has gained him the great admiration and fear of many demons.

His inflated ego and delusional sense of self worth are so large that he cannot stand being mocked or corrected in any fashion, believing that others only exist to serve him. It also means he rarely ever takes any opponent or threat seriously. He brutally killed a drunk man simply for being rude to him, and killed the man's brother and a female companion when they had done nothing, all while proclaiming his own perfection and superiority over them, displaying his pettiness as he won't settle for any mockery and will do anything he pleases until the humiliation is remedied. This event also hints that Muzan has unpleasant memories of his weaker, human past, and is very self-conscious of his unnaturally sickly appearance, immediately following with a lengthy denial that he is unhealthy, sick and much less on the verge of death, in all likelihood a bitter reminder that he is still imperfect. When he confronts Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the man responded to Muzan in a tone of pity and sadness for the life he had led. However, Muzan only interpreted it as insults and threats, which further accentuates his hatred for humanity and the Demon Slayers. He also believes that Heaven has let him off the hook for murdering thousands as he has never seen a God or Buddha.

The most prominent trait Muzan possesses is extreme narcissism, pettiness and an obsession with becoming the perfect being. As he has had over 1000 years to live and observe, along with hardly any real challenges, his extreme egocentrism is almost expected. He considers almost nothing to be his concern except overcoming his inability to walk in the sun, which is his primary drive. His long life and obsessions have caused him to want every plan he concocts to be absolutely perfect, and his god complex prevents him from seeing his own failures. His belief that he is the closest thing to a perfect being causes him to have zero tolerance for any failure, brutally punishing those who fail him or those he considers weak, even if the failures are minor.

Furthermore, his delusional sense of omnipotence is such that he compares himself to natural disasters, namely something that is far beyond what humans can compare to and fight against. As a result of this, he believes the Demon Slayers to be a group of deviants who cannot accept the natural order of things and resume their lives as normal when other people simply move ahead following a tragedy. His analogy evidences his complete inability to feel sympathy or remorse for his actions, given none of the murders he ever committed (directly or indirectly) were the result of an accident but carefully orchestrated acts of pure evil.

Being the obsessive perfectionist he is, Muzan loathes the very concept of change; be it change of circumstances, physical, emotional or change of any kind. He equates change to decay, and thus evidence of imperfection. In his own words, he loves things that remain unchanging, constant and in a state of permanence. At the same time he views one's own humanity as a sign of weakness, believing Gyutaro had lost because he was still attached to his sister Daki, even deriding the Upper Moons, stating they were now ranked in order of how much humanity they had left. Gyutaro's defeat at the hand of the Demon Slayers deeply angered Muzan, as they had undone a status quo that lasted for 113 years, causing him to lash and demand more self-sacrifice out of the remaining Upper Moons. This could also help explain his brutal execution of the Lower Moons as their membership was in a constant state of change, and he grew tired of managing them. Conversely he is pleased whenever he sees progress, being joyful over Nakime's growth after being turned into the Upper Moon Four Demon.

Behind the myriad of façades Muzan displays, and completely offsetting his insatiable ego and lust for perfection, Muzan is unbelievably cowardly. He always avoids conflict whenever possible as evident in his encounter with Giyu Tomioka and Tanjiro Kamado. He states that the duo managing to survive should already be sufficient and that they should just live to earn their wages and put a halt to the cycle of revenge. This trait also complements his manipulative nature, bending many demons to his will to do his bidding while he doesn't get his hands dirty. In the final confrontation between him and the Demon Slayers, Muzan attempted numerous times to escape, either by splitting himself or merely running away, even demanding multiple times for the remaining Demon Slayers to just die and give up fighting, once again cementing his cowardly nature.

He has shown to be very manipulative and cunning, being able to blend in human society normally, even having a family of his own to add. A long life and continued practice has allowed him to take on many roles in society and play them capably, including children and women should he choose to. This life has also given him great intelligence and ability to think tactically. Muzan is a quick-thinker and strategist who is able to deal with unfavorable situations rapidly and quite well, though this may also be because the loss of his subordinates means nothing to him in the long run.

Because of his perceived superiority and his double-faced nature, he feels little attachment to his henchmen, using them and discarding them as disposable pawns whenever he sees fit. He does not allow his subordinates to question him, regularly enacting brutal and ruthless punishments should they do so. Many of his subordinates, in turn, are deeply afraid of him, and measure their words and thoughts carefully for fear of saying anything to displease him. He is able to sway many demons to his side with promises of power, revenge, and grandeur so long as they serve him. His intelligence and manipulation shine here, since many find the promises appealing, as he encounters many of his subordinates at their lowest point, when their emotions are easy fodder for him. Alas, all of these promises are ultimately false, given that Muzan only cares about himself and has no qualms about killing his own subordinates to protect his own safety.

When not hiding behind a façade, his sheer malice and overflowing violent intent are so incredibly malignant, they can be perceived by others. Most notably, Yoriichi Tsugikuni described him as being like boiling magma erupting from a volcano, ready to consume everything. In the anime, the extent of his rage is visible during the Upper Moon meeting, where the many glasses and flasks he was working with all broke apart and exploded into thousands of pieces in reaction to Muzan's boiling frustration over being unable to achieve his goals, his fury greatly intimidating the Upper Moons.

Beyond his egocentric demeanor lies a sense of self-preservation that easily overrides his megalomania, most notably shown by his act of cursing his subordinates in a terrifying manner so that none of them would even utter his name, or else be killed instantly in a ruthless manner. When pushed into a corner, Muzan's typically calm, arrogant and superior stance collapses, paving the way for panic and fear to take root as he desperately fights for his life, adopting more drastic measures to protect himself. This obsession with survival could well explain Muzan's brutal homicide of three civilians after his first encounter with Tanjiro. Both times he was reminded of two major events where he nearly lost his life, namely his life coming close to ending before his treatment took effect and when Yoriichi overpowered and nearly killed him.

Regardless of Muzan's personal faults, he has repeatedly shown a very notable fondness for both high fashion and higher learning. Whenever shown outside battle, he comes in the appearance of an extremely well dressed individual. In his Tsukihiko guise he dresses in a fedora and suit. On an interesting note his 'wife' Rei is shown in a cloche hat and elegant dress, hinting that he enjoys himself living in wealth and luxury. Muzan is also well known for selling Gyokko's pots which fetch a high price. In his Toshikuni guise, he wears button up pants and a dress shirt, and is shown doing a great deal of studying. When talking to the Upper Ranks, he was casually mixing various chemicals showing he had an expertise in chemistry, more than likely to create a medicine in order to improve his demonic physiology to conquer the sun and/or not need to consume flesh and blood.

Later, upon his defeat and final moments as he was burning by the sun, Muzan showed a much more vulnerable side to his personality as he slowly disintegrated to ash and lamented on his life and choices. It is revealed that Muzan's true fear of dying and immense desire to live and survive was due to him being born "dead," where his heart would constantly stop in his mother's womb and was assumed stillborn until he fought to breathe before his cremation. Muzan's desire for "life" and his near constant struggles while human constructed his obsessive ambition to survive, and he truly felt vulnerable whenever he was reminded of his human frailty. However, even when on the brink of death, he is still utterly unrepentant of murdering and eating humans for a thousand years, stating that he could not remember a single person he had killed.

However, as Muzan reflects on his life while dying from sunlight, he came to understand and accept Kagaya Ubuyashiki's words to him on the fact that everything inevitably dies and the only true "immortal" thing in the world are someone's emotions, feelings and memories. This realization brings Muzan to tears and genuinely moves his heart, causing him to ironically adopt Yoriichi and Kagaya's belief and focus on leaving "something" behind in order to truly become "immortal".

Overall Abilities As the Demon King, the first and the progenitor of his kind, Muzan is the strongest demon in existence. Even after dissolving a drug that was supposed to weaken his powers and turn him back into a human, Muzan easily annihilated close to a hundred Demon Slayers in a short period of time effortlessly. In his bout with a marked Giyu Tomioka and Tanjiro Kamado, the former stated that an Upper Rank's strength is incomparable to Muzan's, while the latter was unable to even follow his attacks and could only dodge by pure instinct. After Tanjiro got close to the Demon King, Muzan nonchalantly slashed out Tanjiro's eye, and he later stated that his attacks were too fast for him to detect through smell.

Genius Intellect: Having lived for over a millennia and gained further experience from the telepathic link with demons he control, Muzan is extremely clever and erudite. Since he has five fully functioning brains, it would most likely boost his intelligence and other mental capabilities such as memory and cognitive processing. He was also able to evade the Demon Slayer Corps for nearly a thousand years despite the leaders of the Corps, the Ubuyashiki Family possessing great foresight and intuition, and has also used demons to create distractions somewhere far away when he wants to hide something from the Corps. As a human he was skilled at reading the negative emotions of others and was able to manipulate his five wives to commit suicide.

Demon Abilities Biological Absorption: Muzan has displayed the ability to absorb, assimilate and dissolve organic and inorganic objects. This was first seen when Muzan absorbed the flesh seeds that pierced his skin in order to nullify its effects. Later, he also accidentally absorbed Tamayo's arm as well as a drug that turns demons back into humans. This is also seen in how he planned to eat and assimilate Nezuko Kamado to obtain her immunity to the sun. He is also seen absorbing the bodies of Kamanue and Mukago following Rui's death.

Combat Form: When in combat, Muzan can adopt a more monstrous and battle-esque form, with a dark-red scale-like mass covering most of his body (prominently on his limbs, his forehead, and the entirety of his lower body), featuring sharp-toothed wide mouths all over of his body, and longer pale white hair. The sharp toothed jaws located all over his body in this form not only serve as his main form of offense in battle, but also have the purpose of helping him recover faster since he can use the jaws to tear apart his opponents and eat their flesh, simultaneously killing his opponents and regaining his strength at the same time.

Arm Whips: Muzan can drastically elongate both his arms, growing spiky red or white coverings around his extended limbs and shapeshifting his hands into bladed protrusions, which he swings like whips to slash apart his targets. Each of these whips range from 90 centimeters to 10 meters long. When swung with the intent to kill, they were extremely fast, precise, and accurate, with even Yoriichi Tsugikuni stating that seeing them nearly hit him was the first time he had ever felt fear, and that even a single scrape could kill him. He can also rotate his arm whips at immense speeds to slice up anyone caught in its area of attack. Due to their extreme range and lack of set shape and length, it is very difficult for his opponents to discern how he will attack. Muzan can also increase their width and size even further, even growing jaws all over his arm whips to bite his targets in combination with slashing at them.

Mouth Suction: Muzan's arm whips also possess numerous mouths full of sharp fangs all throughout them. Muzan mainly uses these mouths to inhale with immense suction strength, causing anyone near it to be sucked into its sharp jaws and be slashed apart. This also further increases his attack range. These abnormal mouths will prove severely impeding for his targets as avoiding them will consume a lot more stamina.

Back Whips: Upon arriving outside the Infinity Castle, Muzan grew nine thin extensions, each of four meters in length, akin to spine-like protrusions from his back that extend into bladed whips. With them, Muzan is able to increase the number of attacks he can unleash in a single moment, allowing him to massacre dozens of Demon Slayers in an instant and hold back 5 Hashira. Furthermore, they are fast and getting read on their trajectory is difficult, making it fairly unpredictable.

Thigh Whips: After the Demon Slayers started to gain the upper-hand, Muzan unleashed eight new whips, four on each side of his thigh, each of them seven meters in length, to easily overpower them. Muzan was able to accomplish this since unlike his back whips, they are much quicker and can be projected from his body and retracted. This also allows him to attack from his target's blind spots, making it extremely difficult to counter. These thigh whips alone were able to overpower four marked Hashira and three Hashira-level Demon Slayers in a single attack.

Nigh-Absolute Regeneration: As the Demon King, Muzan possesses the fastest and most advanced regeneration out of all demons, recovering so fast that it seemed like the attacks phased through him and he was never injured in the first place. He displayed his flawless regenerative ability on multiple occasions. Most prominently, Muzan has overcome the weakness of decapitation by Nichirin Swords, as shown when he completely regrew his head moments after it was pulverized by Gyomei's spiked flail. After being caught in a huge explosion orchestrated by Kagaya Ubuyashiki, Muzan was able to instantly regenerate his body after having it been damaged extensively and also manages to circumvent the metal spikes added into the explosion meant to slow down his healing speed.

Transformative Blood: After the experimental treatment gave him a new body and physiology, Muzan's blood develops special mutagenic properties that can transform humans into creatures known as demons. His special blood also seems to give rise to a plethora of special abilities to those that assimilated his blood such as powerful and quick regeneration, the power to control the flesh, immortality, an accelerated growth rate, enhanced physical prowess and even supernatural abilities called Blood Demon Arts. Muzan can also further empower a demon by giving more of his blood, enhancing their pre-existing abilities. However, this is limited to how much blood the recipient can withstand and adapt to. If a human were to take in too much blood from Muzan, their body would mutate faster than they can withstand, causing them to self-destruct into one giant mass of flesh before disintegrating into ash. The same would also presumably happen to a demon if they couldn't withstand the blood's effects, as implied by Muzan. Later, it was revealed that Muzan has learned to weaponize this particular trait of his blood. By coating his whips with his blood, he can inject an opponent with his blood when they get damaged. The blood's high potency means that even small dosages would be too much to handle and instead act like a poison to destroy the human body's cells shortly after they enter. It is later implied by Kokushibo that users of Total Concentration Breathing resist the effects of Muzan's blood more than normal humans. Those that have awakened the Demon Slayer Mark resist the blood's cellular destruction effects even more, though it was stated by Muzan himself that it won't take more than five minutes for their bodies to disintegrate.

Blood Memory Transfer: In his final struggle for survival, Muzan is able to transfer the remainder of his blood along with his memories into a suitable body, turning his new host into a demon and exerting his influence. He successfully did this with Tanjiro when he was on the verge of death, reviving him after his death. Furthermore, this technique also allows the host to transfer their abilities, as seen when Tanjiro makes use of Muzan's whips and regeneration. This transfer, however, is not perfect as Tanjiro was reduced to a feral state, only attacking based on Muzan's desire to kill the Demon Slayers. This ability is also known to have been unknowingly used by Muzan whenever he created another demon or shared his blood with them, as seen when the Upper Ranks, Daki and Hantengu were able to catch glimpses of Muzan's memories of Yoriichi Tsugikuni during their battles against Tanjiro Kamado.

Consciousness Implantation: Muzan can implant a part of his consciousness into a demon he creates using his blood, provided that he injected them with gigantic amounts of his blood during their creation. As seen where a sliver of his mind was still present inside Tanjiro's mind despite having already been killed by sunlight, and later attempted to sway, control, and coax Tanjiro into "inheriting" his will and stay as a demon. However, a clear difference between his power to "control" a demon and to "possess" him is the fact that he could no longer forcibly take control of a demon and force them to do as he wills and instead he must convince them to do his bidding, giving his victims the chance to resist him and escape from his grasp.

Demon Manipulation: Muzan can control demons to a certain extent, as seen when he was able to take control of Nakime's body in order to try to force an absorption of Yushiro's cells in order to stop his interference when he attempted to usurp control of the Infinity Castle. However, this ability requires extensive concentration as Muzan immediately lost control of her the moment he lost focus due to needing to defend himself while in the middle of battle. Other demons can also wrestle control back from him. Muzan places a curse on all demons that have assimilated his blood. If any demon divulges his last name "Kibutsuji" out loud, the curse activates, which causes their bodies to stop regenerating and allowing Muzan's cells inside the demon to take over and kill them, regardless of their original intent. This was seen with Susamaru, who had accidentally said his name despite having no malice or ill intent towards him and was still destroyed by the curse, implying that the curse is automatic. However the curse can also be intentionally triggered by Muzan. This was seen when he killed Nakime, who was manipulated by Yushiro. Because of this, many demons regard Muzan with great fear and respect, simply referring to him as "that Man" or "Him" in order to not trigger the curse, while demons within the Twelve Kizuki refer to him as "Lord" or "Master". However, it has been proven that if Muzan is weakened or someone has sufficient willpower, demons can break free from the curse which has been seen with Tamayo, Yushiro, and Nezuko.

Demon Memory Access: Muzan can "see" the memories of demons he absorbed, as seen when he was able to "ask" Tamayo's cells that he had obtained upon absorbing her for information on what kind of drug she had injected into him.

Demon Power Nullification: As explained by Tamayo, as the creator and progenitor of the demon race, Muzan is the only known demon capable of inflicting life threatening wounds capable of completely destroying the cells of other demons without the need of Nichirin Swords or sunlight.

Telepathy: Muzan has the ability to read the thoughts of those that he has shared his blood with by looking at them. Later, it was shown that he could also send telepathic messages and have full conversations with other demons as well, as seen when he appeared in Akaza's mind to convince him to continue fighting as well as communicating with Kokushibo to check how many Hashira he had defeated and to order him to keep them at bay until he finished recovering from Tamayo's poison.

Physical Abilities Immeasurable Speed & Reflexes: Muzan is tremendously fast, possessing movement speed and reflexes that surpass the Upper Ranks of the Twelve Kizuki. His immense speed was first displayed in the Lower Rank meeting, where Muzan decapitated a fleeing Wakuraba who travelled a far distance, and even returned to his original position before Wakuraba even processed what had happened.

Immeasurable Strength: As the Demon King, Muzan's physical strength is superior to that of all demons in existence. Even the likes of the strongest among the Twelve Kizuki, such as Akaza, who can tear through buildings with his bare fists and punch a Nichirin sword to pieces, Doma, who could form veritable blizzards by waving his fans at high speed, and Kokushibo, who wields an immense katana at a rate imperceptible to even marked Demon Slayers, all paled in comparison to Muzan.

Unlimited Stamina & Endurance: Like all demons, Muzan possesses infinite stamina and endurance, never getting tired nor feeling any pain. This was shown when he didn't flinch nor show signs of pain or agony when his head was pierced by a sword.

Supernatural Abilities Extrasensory Perception: Muzan possesses extremely acute senses that even allow him to perceive things outside the normal range of perception, which he displayed by easily discerning the presence of humans instantly even when they were scattered all around a mountain and detecting the wounded Demon Slayers regaining consciousness despite being far away from them.

Fighting Style Whip Proficiency: Despite not being trained in combat like most members from the Twelve Kizuki, Muzan is nonetheless proficient in battle, having fought Demon Slayers over his thousand-year long existence. When fighting, Muzan utilizes bladed and flexible whips as his main form of attack. However, instead of using his flesh to form a weapon, Muzan instead contorts his own body to project said whips, giving him the added advantage of manipulating its shape and controlling the trajectory of his whips at will.

Blood Demon Art Biokinesis: Muzan's Blood Demon Art grants him powerful biokinetic abilities, most prominently the ability to manipulate his body at will and shapeshift instantly.

Techniques Black Blood, Brambles (黒こっ血けつ・枳き棘きょく Kokketsu: Kikyoku?) - Muzan uses his own flesh and blood to create several black spiked-barbed wires to entangle his target.

Shockwave Energy Blast: Muzan morphs his torso into a gigantic beastly mouth, and projects a long-ranged energy-like shockwave that severely damages the nervous systems of those caught in it, causing extreme seizures and convulsions, even rendering them unable to breathe for a brief period of time due to damage inflicted to the target's lungs. This attack was so strong that when Tanjiro and Obanai were damaged by this technique, even Kiriya and his sisters, who were connected to them through the crows in the area, received a brunt of the attack.

Muzan was born in Japan's Heian era, to a constant struggle to survive on account of his frailty. His heart stopped multiple times in his mother's womb, and when he first entered the world, he was deemed stillborn, having no pulse and not breathing. When he was taken to be cremated, he escaped death by releasing his first cries.

Throughout his young life, he struggled with illnesses and that led to his thanatophobia. As a young man, Muzan was diagnosed with a disease that would kill him before he reached the age of 20. The doctor treating Muzan gave him a special experimental medicine, but it appeared to have failed. Enraged by his worsening condition, Muzan killed him. However, it was only after killing the doctor did he realize that the medicine was actually working and had helped him acquire a strong body. He realized he needed to consume the flesh of humans to survive but was not bothered by this fact. His new, more serious problem on the other, was his inability to walk in the sunlight, as doing so burned him severely.

It was during this moment that he truly regretted killing the doctor before he could have finished his treatment with his "Blue Spider Lily" medicine. He searched the entire country for the flower, but couldn't find it. Due to this, Muzan started to create more Demons and planned to spread them in the world, hoping that one of them would eventually find a way to overcome the sun or at least help him on his quest to find the Blue Spider Lily. This desire to be in the sun again became his one true goal and he spends hundreds of years chasing this obsession. In his early years as a Demon, Muzan settled down with five different women. However, because of his lack of empathy and sensitivity as a demon, he verbally abused all five of his wives to the point it drove them all to commit suicide.