Thwack!
Caught off guard, Riku didn't even have time to react before the Demon Slayer girl's blade pierced his neck.
Her speed was unreal—beyond human, beyond even what Riku, an oni, could keep up with. One second he was opening his mouth to speak, the next, her blade was through his neck. He didn't even have a chance to hit "Activate Traversal."
But a pierced neck? That wasn't enough to kill him. For an oni like Riku, it barely counted as a scratch.
The girl's weapon wasn't so much a katana as it was something like a Western rapier—long, thin, with a small barb at the tip. It was clearly designed for piercing, not slashing, and her attack style matched it perfectly.
Having just danced with death, Riku was shaken. But he couldn't help but wonder: this Demon Slayer girl was so skilled, how could she not know how to kill an oni?
"You can't kill an oni like that," he blurted out, unable to stop himself.
The moment the words left his mouth, Riku froze. That… didn't sound like a taunt, did it?
The Demon Slayer girl's expression faltered, clearly thrown off by his comment.
"You're really interesting," she said, a smile blooming on her face. She stood in front of him, tilting her head slightly, engaging him in conversation like it was no big deal.
She was tiny—Riku guessed she was barely 1.5 meters tall, maybe less. Her frame was so delicate it looked like a breeze could knock her over, which probably explained her insane speed. Standing before Riku, who, with his horns, towered over two meters after becoming an oni, she looked even smaller.
It was a bizarre scene: a petite girl facing a hulking hellish oni, yet the one in mortal danger was the oni.
"Uh, I wouldn't say I'm teaching you how to kill oni," Riku said, pulling up his [Limit System] and switching to the [World Page]. He was ready to hit the traversal button and bolt at any moment. "I've never killed an oni myself. Honestly, I've only ever met two."
He realized now that this girl wasn't clueless about killing oni—she was just toying with him.
"Oh? Which two?" she asked, her smile unwavering. As Riku suspected, she wasn't in a rush to finish him off.
"One's the Oni King who turned me into this. The other's a little girl who sticks by her brother and doesn't eat people," Riku said slowly, watching her closely. Her smile was visibly fake, and the disgust for oni in her purple eyes was impossible to hide.
"Really? Could you tell me what the Oni King looks like?" she asked, her expression unchanged, still smiling brightly.
Riku's heart sank. She clearly wasn't buying it. His words didn't spark any interest—instead, she seemed to think he was lying. Non-human-eating oni? Two of them? It sounded absurd, especially since the very idea of an oni that didn't eat humans was hard to believe.
"The Oni King… he's got sickly pale skin, blood-red eyes, and he's a handsome young guy, medium height, dressed in Western clothes," Riku said, describing Kibutsuji Muzan.
But he could tell she didn't believe a word.
"Wow, that's great," she said, sheathing her blade and clapping her hands as if praising him. Her expression was so obviously fake, her tone devoid of emotion.
Riku was confused. What was wrong with what he'd said?
"You're the first oni I've met who's given me info about the Oni King," she said.
Riku's face fell. Oh no. Now he got it.
Normal oni probably couldn't spill details about Kibutsuji Muzan without his control stopping them. Demon Slayers would've known about him otherwise. But Riku wasn't a normal oni—he'd broken free of Muzan's control, so he could talk. It made perfect sense.
The problem was, this girl wouldn't see it that way. She wouldn't think he was special—she'd just assume he was lying to her face.
It was a classic case of mismatched information. She was missing the key piece: that he'd escaped Muzan's control.
"So, how'd you do it?" she asked, her smile growing even faker. She was convinced he was lying. Of course, she'd never expected an oni to tell the truth. In her experience, oni would say anything to survive. They were monsters who'd even eat their own families, finding them tastier and more "nutritious."
"Wait, I think there's a misunderstanding here…" Riku said, tensing up. Tanjiro had met a Demon Slayer who wanted to kill Nezuko on sight but managed to turn them into an ally. So why couldn't Riku, who was actually having a conversation with this one, get through to her?
He didn't realize just how deep this girl's hatred for oni ran. Even Nezuko had barely been accepted by her. Tamayo and Yushiro, who'd also escaped Muzan's control and helped the Demon Slayers, were still despised by her. If Tanjiro and Nezuko had met this girl instead of Tomioka Giyu, Nezuko would probably be dead already.
"I was hoping we could get along, but you lied to me. Such a shame," she said, clapping her hands again. Her smile didn't waver, but her eyes grew colder. "Liars get punished, you know."
"Damn it!" Riku cursed, and without hesitation, he hit "Activate Traversal."
This Demon Slayer had no intention of talking things out from the start. And honestly, that made sense. Humans and oni were natural enemies—expecting peaceful chats was naive. How did Tanjiro pull it off? Was his protagonist halo that strong?
Whoosh!
Kochou Shinobu drew her blade in a flash, passing through where Riku had just been.
"Huh? What happened?" she muttered, feeling her blade hit nothing but air. She turned to look—Riku was gone, vanished into thin air.
"Blood Demon Art?" Shinobu said, instantly on guard. But the oni's presence was completely gone. He'd escaped.
"Well, I messed that up," she said, her smile finally fading, replaced by a hint of frustration. This was a first for her.
"Should've used more poison on that first strike," she mused.
Of course, she knew how to kill oni. Piercing was her method—her custom blade injected wisteria poison into an oni's body. Wisteria was a unique plant, its sap deadly to oni but harmless to humans.
"Let's check around. He might not have gone far," Shinobu said, refusing to give up. She began searching the area for traces of Riku.
On her first strike, she'd only used a tiny amount of unrefined poison, not enough to kill or even harm an oni much. She'd found Riku amusing—among all the oni she'd faced, his way of "struggling to survive" was the most creative. The guy was literally eating himself.
"Now that I think about it, creative struggling does work. He actually got away," Shinobu said, weaving through the forest until dawn. Still, she found no trace of him.
"Fine, I'll remember you," she said, her expression darkening with annoyance. She mentally kicked herself. Letting an oni escape could mean countless human lives lost, and she vowed to be more careful next time.