"!"
Toshu's hammer froze mid-strike. A wave of fury and dread crashed through him, transmitted through the blood bond.
Muzan's shock. Muzan's terror.
"How?"
"Upper Moon One is dead?"
The triumph he'd felt moments ago evaporated. His mood plummeted.
Hakudoshi had been his strongest asset, the prize he'd received from Naraku. In terms of raw combat power, the Demonified Hakudoshi was leagues above any Upper Moon from his original world.
And yet he'd died. In less than a day.
"No. It's still night. With One's regeneration, he should have been able to escape at the very least. Who did this?!"
Panic gnawed at his composure. Muzan couldn't steady himself.
He'd arrived in this world brimming with ambition. The plan had been so clear: build a foundation, expand his forces, claim victory, then return home and show those wretched Demon Slayers what it looked like when he stood in the sunlight.
The despair on their faces would have been exquisite.
Reality, however, had other ideas.
All he'd done since arriving was get beaten and run. His greatest converted warrior hadn't lasted two days.
It seemed "immortal body" didn't carry the same weight in a world like this.
"No choice. I'll have to use this thing Naraku just sent over."
"I need to be more careful from now on."
"Tch!"
He looked at the body the Saimyosho had delivered and set about crafting new limbs.
The strength he'd always prided himself on was proving unreliable here. His only viable option was to cooperate fully with Naraku and produce as many usable Yokai-Demons as possible.
Only through Naraku could he survive to the end.
Otherwise, he might stroll past some random clearing and get killed by a monk, a miko, or a yokai whose name he'd never even heard.
That would be the most pathetic death imaginable.
"That woman killed Hakudoshi like it was nothing."
"Kanna. Is that what a Servant is?"
Kagura turned to the small girl cradling a mirror beside her, visibly shaken.
That level of skill could potentially kill Naraku himself.
If Hakudoshi, who shared Naraku's immortality trait, could be poisoned to death, then Naraku couldn't be immune either.
'No. Unless Naraku were restrained, he'd sever the affected area before the Cursed Poison could spread.'
The brief spark of hope died as quickly as it had flared.
She knew Naraku too well. He was nothing like Hakudoshi, who charged in without thinking. Naraku was cunning beyond measure.
"Kagura. Our mission is to test the abilities of the Servants on Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's sides."
"If necessary, seize their Dragon Ball and Sacred Jewel shards as well."
Kanna's empty, lightless eyes turned to Kagura. The words carried no emotion whatsoever.
"Tch! So he wants us to be cannon fodder?"
They were Naraku's incarnations too. Calling them his daughters wouldn't have been a stretch. But Naraku didn't spare them an ounce of mercy.
Even knowing this, neither had the means to resist. Kagura's heart was literally in Naraku's grasp. Kanna simply lacked enough self to care.
"But I refuse to die to that creepy Cursed Poison."
"If I have to go down, I'd rather it be against Inuyasha's group."
She glanced in a particular direction. Sesshomaru wasn't there.
Perhaps it was because she didn't want to face him, or because she couldn't bring herself to attack the little girl named Rin. Whatever the reason, Kagura chose the softer targets.
Her feather soared off into the night sky.
"Hm."
"Not following orders, as usual. Wouldn't it be simple to just steal that girl's Dragon Ball right now?"
Byakuya's silhouette emerged from concealment in the air. He'd been watching from the shadows for some time, baffled by Kagura's choices.
"!"
"Oh. Seems it wouldn't be that simple after all."
A gaze locked onto him from below. Byakuya winced.
'She spotted me from this distance? What a troublesome Servant. Didn't Naraku say Assassins were weak in direct combat?'
The enhanced Hakudoshi had been solo-killed without any apparent difficulty. Byakuya was starting to wonder if everything Naraku said was a joke.
'That killing intent and perception are on another level entirely.'
"Still just as fast as ever, Koga."
"But now that I'm standing right in front of you, why won't you come closer?"
Naraku hovered above the ground, looking down at the snarling wolf demon with undisturbed calm.
"Master, this guy is rotten to the core. Let me use my Noble Phantasm."
Cu Chulainn had no interest in prolonging this. He cut straight to the point.
"The technique that pierces the heart? That would certainly give me pause."
Naraku heard the Servant's proposal and showed no alarm.
Reabsorbing the Infant had been a precaution specifically for this scenario. Leaving his heart exposed outside his body, especially with Lancer's causality-reversal spear in play, was too dangerous.
With his construction, every organ was redundant. As long as he wasn't utterly annihilated, a pierced heart was meaningless.
"Hold off. This bastard isn't that easy to kill."
Koga stopped Cu Chulainn. He knew exactly what the spearman was thinking.
Cu Chulainn had asked him earlier how to beat an enemy with an immortal body. Koga had told him to lay out every ability and technique he had so they could strategize.
From that discussion, Koga knew Lancer possessed two offensive Noble Phantasms.
The first: [Gae Bolg], the causality-reversal spear that guaranteed a heart strike.
The second: [Gae Bolg: Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death], a wide-area carpet bombardment.
One for single targets. One for mass destruction.
But simply blasting Naraku to pieces would accomplish nothing. As long as a single scrap of flesh drifted through the air, he'd regenerate.
"Hmph!"
Seeing them hesitate, Naraku moved first. Wasting time wasn't on his schedule.
Tentacles erupted from his body and lashed toward them.
"That kind of attack can't touch me!"
Koga and Cu Chulainn fell back together. Koga's voice was dismissive.
"Perhaps not. You and your Servant can dodge easily enough."
"But those two Wolf Demon Tribe baggage of yours? Not so much."
His gaze slid pointedly toward the rocks where Koga's clansmen were hiding.
CRACK!!!
"AAAGH!!"
"KOGA!!"
Koga whipped around. Tentacles had burst from the ground beneath his clansmen, shattering the earth into a collapsing fissure. Both tribesmen were sliding toward the gap.
"Naraku, you bastard!!"
The deliberate misdirection infuriated him.
Cu Chulainn was already moving, sprinting to grab one of them. Koga launched himself toward the other, leaping into the air to catch him.
"This is exactly why you'll never beat me."
"You cling to those pointless emotions."
'No!'
Suspended in midair with nothing to push off of, Koga felt tentacles coil around his legs. He'd left himself completely exposed.
CRACK!
Cu Chulainn hurled his spear, severing the tentacles, but purple gas billowed from the stumps.
"This is... poison?!"
"It's miasma! Don't breathe!"
The cloud engulfed them. There was nowhere to find clean air.
"Koga."
"As of today, you're out of the game."
Koga's body plummeted. Naraku didn't bother watching him fall.
Because there, curled in a tentacle and held before his eyes, were the true prizes.
"Two Sacred Jewel shards and a Dragon Ball."
"I'll be taking these."
The attack on the clansmen had been nothing but bait. The instant Koga launched himself into the air with no way to dodge, stripping the shards and Dragon Ball from his body had been effortless.
In that moment, not even a Servant could have saved him.
"Sacrificing everything to rescue your clansmen."
"Spend the rest of your life regretting it."
"Koga."
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]