At the same time, inside the estate—
The mirror shattered, and what had seemed like a dead end opened into a broad space.
Sanemi turned around just in time to see Masachika sprinting toward him.
"Sanemi!"
"Yeah, Masachika."
Locked in battle with the demon, Sanemi actually smiled when he saw his friend.
"Thank God." Masachika's gaze swept over him and found no self-inflicted wounds, nor any fresh injuries left by the demon. He let out a quiet breath of relief.
When fighting demons, Sanemi had a bad habit of cutting himself and using his rare blood to disorient them. He had been doing it long before he officially started hunting demons, and even now, he had not entirely broken the habit.
Only Masachika's endless nagging had forced him to rein it in at all.
Sanemi looked around at the space that had abruptly changed. The fleshy, wall-like labyrinth had vanished. It was just an ordinary room now. The ceiling, the floor, the doorframe—all bore the marks of his blade. Clearly, Masachika had found some way to dispel whatever unnatural phenomenon had trapped him.
"Thanks, Masachika."
Sanemi raised an arm, and Masachika lightly knocked his own against it.
"Of course. I'm your senior, aren't I?"
Masachika smiled, then turned toward the woman standing in the middle of the room.
Besides the demon, there were also two children lying on a bed in the corner.
"How did you break the Blood Demon Art?" Sanemi asked.
"That…" Masachika's expression darkened. "I think we owe that to Sasae."
"Sasae?"
"She was this thing's daughter. Back when she was still human."
Masachika fixed the demon with a hard stare.
She was beautiful, terribly so—her lips curved in a kindly smile, though sharp fangs showed behind them. Her eyes were red as blood, her lips a vivid crimson, and her hair was glossy black, like raven feathers. A scarlet flower adorned her head. She stood there quietly, looking back at them with open malice.
Across her eyes were carved the characters: Lower One.
Lower Rank One.
Masachika immediately thought of the Lower Rank One the Thunder Hashira had slain. So the Twelve Kizuki had shifted again over the past half year.
That realization only stoked Sanemi's fighting spirit. If he slew Lower One as well, then he would not lose to that woman.
"Masachika?"
"This thing murdered her own daughter."
Then Masachika rapidly told Sanemi everything that had once happened in this house, laying bare the demon's crimes.
"I won't forgive you, Miei!" he snarled.
"What an unpleasant name," the demon said coldly. "I am Ubume. It was that Lord who granted me new life. He gave me not only this exquisite body, but this exquisite name as well. He was the only one who truly understood me."
The two swordsmen faced Ubume.
She went on in a dreamy voice, almost drunk on her own memories.
"All I ever wanted was happiness. That was why I endured my husband's violence. I believed our family could still become warm and whole. But he fell for some woman from the gambling dens and planned to throw me away. How could I allow that? So I killed him."
She tilted her head and looked at them with soft, innocent eyes.
"Tell me—why was it that no matter how hard I tried, I could never obtain happiness?"
"What happiness? You belong in hell, demon!" Sanemi lunged first, his blade shrouded in a gale as he shot toward her.
"What a rude child. Could you not let me finish?"
Ubume lifted one arm and blocked the strike. She drifted backward, then struck his blade aside with her other hand and hurled Sanemi into the far end of the room.
She moved with leisurely grace.
Beneath her kimono, her body began to warp. Her frame stretched. Her bones cracked and popped. Her arms lengthened far beyond human proportions, and her fingers bent into vicious claws. Her skin turned a bluish gray, hard enough that even a Nichirin Blade struggled to bite through it.
Sanemi's hand went numb from the impact.
This demon's strength… was monstrous.
Leaving aside that thing on Kurama Mountain, she was stronger than any demon he had ever fought.
Ubume kept talking as she fought him.
"After that, while caring for the sickly Sasae, I discovered that the hollow inside me had finally begun to ease. I became calm. I thought that if I stayed like that forever, everything would be all right. I would care for my daughter forever. But Sasae betrayed me too. She tried to run away. She didn't want to stay with her mother. Why? She was my child." Ubume smiled serenely. "She crawled if she had to, just to escape. Such a cruel rejection of all my devotion. So I broke her bones."
Her voice turned faintly tremulous.
"And then Sasae died. Just like that. She abandoned me so easily."
Then her expression flushed with bliss.
"But then that Lord appeared."
"He gave me demon blood. He ordered me to devour them all. He understood me. He wanted me to become a powerful demon." Her scarlet eyes swept over Sanemi and Masachika. "Would you like to guess what I ate first, after becoming a demon?"
She narrowed her eyes and smiled.
"Sasae's corpse."
"She's with me forever now."
"Masachika!" Sanemi barked.
Masachika moved instantly, snatching up the two children from the bed and retreating.
Sanemi stepped in to pin Ubume down.
Claw met blade with a deafening crash. He could keep up with her rhythm.
"Too slow. Compared to that woman, you're far too slow!" Sanemi sneered, his own strikes accelerating sharply. "Wind Breathing, Third Form: Clear Storm Wind Tree!"
Three blades of wind tore across the room and ripped into Ubume's arm.
But Ubume showed no alarm at all.
In the next instant, her arm regenerated.
"That healing speed…" Even Masachika could not keep the grimness from his face.
Ubume's lips curled.
"I can tell at a glance that you're a child raised in misery. Was it your father who beat you? Your mother? Or both?"
"Shut up!" Masachika's eyes blazed.
"You'll die here!" Sanemi roared.
For the first time, his voice became frighteningly calm. "And another thing—you're wrong. I'm a happy man now."
"Wind Breathing, Fourth Form: Rising Dust Storm!"
He swung hard.
Masachika set the children down and joined the fight.
Together, the two elite swordsmen began to overwhelm her. Without the spatial trickery of her Blood Demon Art, Ubume could not face both Masachika and Sanemi at once with raw flesh and claw alone.
That was exactly what Masachika had thought from the beginning.
If she had been capable of defeating them together, she would never have bothered splitting them apart.
More and more cuts opened across Ubume's fine kimono. Her bluish-gray flesh was shredded by the wind, healed, then shredded again. Sanemi and Masachika moved in flawless tandem, never giving her an opening. All she could do was watch the wounds accumulate.
"Wind Breathing, Fifth Form: Cold Mountain Wind!"
Masachika struck from behind, his blade punching clean through her waist.
Ubume drove him back, but when she looked down, the wound at her middle had not healed.
Her regeneration could no longer keep pace with the damage that Wind Breathing was inflicting.
The whole house howled with storm winds.
"Sanemi!" Masachika shouted.
"Yeah!"
The two swordsmen dropped low, blades hanging near the floor, preparing to deliver the finishing blow.
Then Masachika's expression changed.
"Something's wrong!"
Ubume's wound still had not healed—but her presence had not weakened.
If anything, it had grown stronger.
"So you noticed," Ubume said with a smile.
She spread her claws and waited for the perfect moment—then caught both Nichirin Blades in her hands at once. Even as the steel seared her palms, she did not flinch.
"The White Serpent was a nuisance. After she died, Lord Muzan gave me a great deal more blood." Her smile deepened. "Just the two of you? You're dreaming."
With monstrous force, she slammed both men into the floor.
The boards exploded beneath them. She drove their bodies down hard enough to crater the ground.
"Kh—!" Masachika coughed blood. "Sanemi!"
"Annoying insects." Ubume's face went cold. She raised a claw and slammed it toward Masachika's head.
Then she stopped.
Sanemi was kneeling there, his blade having slit open his own wrist.
"Rare blood…" Ubume whispered, eyes going unfocused. "How? Such exquisite blood… the kind worth a hundred men…"
The stronger the demon, the more irresistible rare blood became.
And for a demon like Ubume—a top-tier Lower Rank One—Sanemi's blood hit with crushing force. She froze where she stood, unable to move.
"Heh." Sanemi's lips twisted into a savage grin as he raised his sword. "Hey, Masachika. Can you still move?"
"Kill her."
"Obviously."
Masachika pushed himself upright. The two of them lowered their stances, stamped forward, and swung.
This was the strongest strike the two Wind Breathing swordsmen could unleash together.
"Wind Breathing, Third Form: Clear Storm Wind Tree!"
The winds struck before the blades did, and even the pressure of them alone made Ubume's face split and sting. Her kimono was shredded at once. Her body tore open in the storm, reformed, tore open again—until all that remained was a skeleton wrapped in scraps of flesh.
Yet even then, her crimson eyes stayed locked on Sanemi, laughter flickering within them.
"Child…"
"Who the hell is your child? Die!"
Ubume smiled.
A little girl suddenly threw herself in front of her.
The moment she stepped into the storm, her face was cut open.
"Don't hurt Mother!"
Ubume had not been speaking to Sanemi.
She had been calling to that child.
"What—?" Masachika's entire body seized. He tried to pull back the blade that was about to cut through the girl—but because his breathing faltered, his muscles spasmed, and the sword flew from his hand.
The instant one side of the pressure broke, Ubume burst free and drove a claw straight for Masachika.
"You should have struck through her as well. Pay for your softness, swordsman."
"Crack—"
Blood sprayed.
Ubume froze.
Her extended arm had been severed.
Sanemi had placed himself in front of Masachika. In that instant, he had caught Masachika's falling Nichirin Blade in his left hand and cut off Ubume's arm—while with the sword in his right, he drew up a cyclone for the killing strike.
He stood there drenched in blood, twin blades in hand, like some demon of the battlefield.
He had seen it.
He had seen through Ubume's trap.
And his body had answered before thought could catch up.
The way she lunged at Masachika was almost identical to the attack Hozuki had once unleashed—a thrust straight through the eye of the storm, slipping past the structure of Wind Breathing with brutal precision.
Only this time, Sanemi knew how to answer it.
He raised Masachika's blade before his throat, cut through Ubume's hand—
And then unleashed the decisive strike with the sword still clutched in his other hand.
Now!
Sanemi's eyes widened, bloodshot and feral.
"Wind Breathing—!"
His hair whipped violently around him. The blow he had taken earlier should have left him coughing blood, but instead his presence only swelled.
"Eighth Form: Primary Gale Slash!"
In his eyes, there was only her neck.
The gale born from his blade tore the girl away from Ubume, ripped apart the walls, shattered the floorboards, and hurled splinters, stones, and debris high into the air.
And at the heart of it all—
The sharpest wind of all swept straight for Ubume's head.
A spiraling slash that circled the target in a single instant, tearing her body apart as it wrapped her in a spiral of cutting wind.
"Crack!"
Her head flew.
Ubume's severed head hit the floor, rolled twice, and laughed—a clear, beautiful, horrifying sound.
There was no repentance in it.
No remorse.
This was the full malice of Ubume, human and demon alike.
The new Lower Rank One—Ubume—had been slain.
Sanemi remained frozen in the posture of his final strike. In truth, he could no longer move at all. Fatigue and the sensation of his body tearing itself apart were on the verge of destroying him.
But then he looked back and saw Masachika safe.
A smile spread across his face.
"I told you," Sanemi said, curling one corner of his mouth upward. "I'd become the Wind Hashira before you."
"You idiot…" Masachika shook his head and moved toward him.
Then he suddenly collapsed.
Silence.
Masachika looked down at his lower body.
"Huh?"
Why were his legs separated from the rest of him?
From his own perspective, they still seemed to be standing there—but at the knees, they ended abruptly, blood slowly beginning to seep out.
"Masachika! Get back!" Sanemi roared.
In the darkness behind Masachika, a shadow appeared.
It was a woman cradling a battered biwa. The hair across her forehead had been cut away, revealing a pallid face—and an enormous eye that seemed to occupy nearly half of it.
She sat quietly in the dark, as though she had been there all along, watching Ubume's entire play unfold to the end.
Then she lowered her gaze to the severed head that was even now beginning to melt away.
"The Master has convened a meeting of the Lower Ranks," the woman said flatly.
"If he learns that Lower Rank One has changed twice within a single year… matters will become troublesome. We will need offerings worthy of calming his anger."
"Heehee…" Ubume's fading head let out a final laugh. "Then please kill them, Lady Nakime…"
With that, Ubume vanished completely.
The demon called Nakime looked up.
Sanemi felt something looking at him.
Not from the giant eye in the woman's face—
But from behind him.
"Strum—"
The biwa rang out.
A light shone suddenly from behind Sanemi, illuminating the darkened room.
There was more to come.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 80
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 74
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 48
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 50
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 47
Uma Musume: From Beginner 42
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