He looked poorly. He said that the day before Chuuya, he'd woke up ill and didn't know why. And, correct. He encouraged me to get the dagger and kill a demon.

[She isn't surprised that gets his attention.]

To be clear, I didn't precisely tell him I have any intentions beyond that. It may well be exactly as he says - that he knows releasing the demons is a risk we cannot take.

But since then, I've wondered. If that is how the ceremonial dagger works, why haven't we simply been stabbing them all along? It would have saved us a lot of difficulty, to be sure.