In Yoshiwara, within Tokyo Prefecture, on one brightly lit corner of the pleasure district, a beautiful woman with her hair arranged in an elaborate datehyōgo style clutched at her chest with white-knuckled force. Her rose-red, inhuman slit pupils trembled as a low murmur escaped her lips.
"What was that? What were those eyes?"
It was Muzan Kibutsuji.
Through Akaza's vision, he had met Sui's Mystic Eyes head-on, and for an instant even his blood seemed to freeze.
"Why didn't Akaza's wounds regenerate? That woman did not possess the strength to cut through Akaza's neck—so why was he still decapitated?!"
His hoarse growl deepened as his gaze shifted and landed on the red blade wreathed in lightning.
"The sword…"
His pupils contracted violently.
"It's the same kind of blade that man used! A blade that suppresses a demon's regeneration, that inflicts unbearable pain, that tears open demon flesh with ease… After more than three hundred years, such a swordsman has appeared again!"
He narrowed his eyes.
"A Bright Red Blade. The Transparent World. How alike. How terribly alike."
"Kagetsuki," Muzan said coldly.
"As you command, Lord Muzan," came the response inside his mind.
…
Akaza's head traced a long arc through the air. The indigo tattoos on his severed face gleamed like shattered porcelain under the moonlight.
Blood at the stump of his neck began to clot. Snow gathered over the wound.
The supreme realm he had pursued all his life was falling apart.
In a daze, he saw the wooden floor of a dojo. His fifteen-year-old self knelt before his master. Koyuki held out a tea bowl, pale cherry petals floating on the surface like snow.
And in that hazy instant, he understood.
His name was not Akaza.
It should have been Hakuji.
Akaza was far too ugly a name.
It sounded like the name of a dog.
"Master…"
His lips trembled, but all that came out was ash.
Then the stillness of death descended.
Yet what it brought him was not fear, but a peace he had never known.
The demon who had spent his entire existence pursuing the pinnacle of martial skill had finally reached the end.
Within the darkness, his head was cradled in the arms of a girl.
"Hakuji," she called softly.
Snowflake-shaped hair ornaments decorated her hair.
The names of his techniques had come from fireworks. The form of his battle stances had come from the style Keizo taught him. Even the imagery of his art had come from Koyuki's hairpins.
Everything that belonged to Akaza the demon had been born from the attachments of Hakuji the human.
"Come with me," the girl said, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.
"…All right."
Hakuji closed his eyes.
His body began to crumble into ash.
"He is not allowed to leave."
The dry rustle of fox tails punching through the earth shattered the vision of death.
Three snow-white tails wrapped around Akaza's severed head and ruined body like constricting serpents. Kagetsuki rose from the scorched ground, the corners of her mouth lifting.
"I will gladly accept the nourishment of Upper Rank Three."
The demon who should have died from decapitation now stood there whole and unbroken.
Had it been her Blood Demon Art?
Because the puppet of Shinjuro had not yet been destroyed, even if Kagetsuki was beheaded, she would not die?
Her pupils twisted.
The engraving in her eyes changed.
From Lower Rank One—
to Upper Rank Three.
Upper Rank Three, Kagetsuki.
Her spine bulged with cracking sounds. Beneath the miko robes, her bones reassembled. One tail became three, three became four, then five, six, seven—
and at last, eight.
Under the snowy night, the eight-tailed fox demon stood like an idol of ruin itself. The demonic pressure rolling from her now was even more terrifying than Akaza's had been, enough to engulf the entire mountain.
Kagetsuki studied her reborn self with narrowed eyes and a faintly sultry smile.
"Perhaps if I eat Upper Rank Two as well, I'll grow a ninth tail."
"You will never get the chance."
Sui's Mystic Eyes were still active, locked onto the fractures running across Kagetsuki's body.
"Big sister, don't be naive. In your current state, can you still unleash that strike?" Kagetsuki mocked her. "And even if you could slash out a second Seventh Form, would I stand there like Akaza and let you cut me down?"
She lifted a hand and laughed.
"And besides, aren't you curious why I didn't die? Surely someone as clever as you has already guessed. As long as my puppet isn't destroyed, I can shift my true body through Divine Fire Play."
Her lips curved.
"I treasured old Shinjuro too much to let him be broken so casually. So the body I used for that beheading was just one of those ordinary Demon Slayer swordsmen."
At a glance, her body seemed elegant and whole, but in truth the signs were there for anyone who could read them.
"You look rather close to that flower woman," Kagetsuki said, glancing toward Kanae. "Why are you always tangled up with my sister? Don't you have one of your own?"
Lightning flashed.
The fox tails loosened their hold on Kanae and withdrew to avoid Sui's blade.
Sui was now wielding Kanae's broken sword.
Whether it was sharp or not no longer mattered.
All that mattered was landing a hit.
The next moment, Kagetsuki moved faster still.
"I see…"
Then the broken blade was knocked away.
"Big sister, did you forget? I still have Mr. Shinjuro."
A figure appeared behind Sui.
The former Flame Hashira.
Sui lifted her hand.
Then, with her bare fingers, she sliced the incoming strike apart.
Kagetsuki's expression froze.
The scene before her had already surpassed the bounds of what she considered human. Sui had torn through a sword form with nothing but her fingers. Wherever those fingertips passed, life itself seemed to wither.
Her fingers traced over the crimson lines only she could see.
And with that touch, she severed the connection between Shinjuro and Kagetsuki.
The puppet's face instantly turned corpse-pale. A moment later, the body collapsed, becoming nothing more than a skeleton leaning on its sword, with only the haori of the Rengoku family still draped over it.
"Mr. Shinjuro… I'm sorry," Sui said softly.
"Ah! You did splendidly—splendidly indeed! Girl, you truly are the most talented person I have ever seen!"
The familiar booming voice sounded beside her.
A broad, burning-hot hand settled on top of her head.
At once, the blue flame of her Mystic Eyes died down, and the searing pain in her mind was soothed by that warmth.
"Girl, close those eyes for now. They are a double-edged blade. You are already reaching your limit. You have worked hard to come this far. Leave the rest to your comrades."
Shinjuro's soul glowed faintly as he stood at her side.
He caught her wrist and guided her arm.
"Flame Breathing is a style for those with hearts as blazing as fire—passionate, open, and fierce. It is the breathing art passed down generation after generation within the Rengoku family, and among all the styles, it is one of the closest to the original Sun Breathing. In the hands of a master, its slashes become fiercely scorching flames that burn demons to ash. You won't grasp its essence just by flipping through a few books!"
Then he tightened his grip.
"You do it like this!"
"Flame Breathing, Ninth Form—Rengoku!"
At that instant, Shinjuro stepped forward and swung as if he were a wrathful guardian deity.
What was happening?
Kagetsuki had already begun considering retreat.
She had not fully digested Akaza's demon blood yet, and the damage from the beheading was not entirely gone either.
Not far away, Sui moved with a blank expression, drawing Shinjuro's sword from the skeleton's hand and launching a wholly unfamiliar sword form. It looked as though someone stood behind her, holding the blade together with her.
Those monstrous eyes were gone, yet Kagetsuki still felt an overwhelming threat from Sui.
The clouds parted.
Thunder and flame wrapped themselves around her blade.
"Flame Breathing, Ninth Form: Rengoku," Sui said softly.
And then the inferno erupted.
Sui vanished.
Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap Flash.
Flame Breathing, Ninth Form: Rengoku.
The two lunging sword forms fused into one.
Like a meteor streaking across the heavens, trailing a long, gorgeous tail of lightning.
Sui slammed bodily into Kagetsuki and drove the blade straight through her torso, carrying her forward in one unstoppable rush. Chunks of earth heaved up on both sides. A gouge ten meters wide and hundreds of meters long was carved across the ground.
Electric light crackled.
Flames roared.
The face Kagetsuki had borrowed—the one identical to Sui's—burned away, revealing her original appearance beneath it, scarred and ruined.
Kagetsuki's expression shifted from stunned emptiness to horror, then to hysterical hatred.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, Sui! I hate you!"
Pinned on the blade, she raked at Sui with her claws. The Demon Slayer uniform tore apart at once, and across Sui's back she left deep gouges down to the bone.
"Why?"
"Why are you still trying to kill me even after all this?! Why?! Answer me, Sui!"
"I only wanted to stay with you forever! I didn't want to die! I wanted to live beautifully too, just like you… What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?! Tell me, Sui!"
"What do those Demon Slayers even have to do with you?"
"Why are you so good to them?!"
"Why?!"
"Why… big sister…"
At last, Kagetsuki's scream broke into sobs.
For the first time, she truly believed she was about to die.
But Sui's sword pinned her to the trunk of an ancient tree—
and then Sui herself staggered forward and collapsed at Kagetsuki's feet.
The truth was that she had already lost consciousness the moment she launched that strike.
If Shinjuro's spirit had not intervened, Sui could have killed Kagetsuki with the Mystic Eyes alone—but at the cost of leaving behind grievous, lasting damage to herself. With the eyes closed and the Ninth Form of Flame Breathing spent, the pressure vanished, and she fell asleep just as she once had after meeting Shinjuro at the shrine.
"Big sister?"
Kagetsuki lowered her head and stared at Sui's sleeping face.
Then she began to laugh.
"You really can fall asleep at a time like this."
She pulled the blade from her own body.
At first, she seemed as though she meant to touch Sui's cheek.
Instead, her fingers closed around Sui's throat.
"Hm?"
Her wrist flew off.
Kagetsuki arched a brow.
A man had appeared without a sound and severed her arm in one stroke.
Flower-like illusions flashed forward as Kanae gathered Sui into her arms and withdrew beyond the range of Sanemi's wind blades.
"I told you this kind of thing was supposed to be my job, damn it! Look at the state you've worked yourself into, idiot woman!"
Sanemi glared at the half-burned face of Kagetsuki.
"That face looks better on her than it does on you. Seeing it on you makes me want to throw up."
"I'll gnaw every last bone in your body clean," Kagetsuki said coldly. "Then I'll make a new puppet out of you."
The man's voice sounded like teeth grinding against blood, full of rising battle spirit and vicious rage.
"You rotten piece of filth! Ugly thing can't even show its face properly! I was born hard as iron—if you want to chew on me, you'd better make sure you don't break your teeth first!"
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 126)
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 (Chapter140)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter89)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter1165)
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 145
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 135
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 84
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 150
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 125
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 105
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 80
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 80
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 52
Uma Musume: I Want All 55
I Can Copy Unique Skills 53
Summoning an Evil God, but the 27
Supernatural Multiverse 27
My Harem Is Indescribable 26
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