The smoke and dust of the battlefield had scattered. The morning light slowly rose from the eastern horizon, gilding the scorched-black meadow with a faint layer of gold.
Shinji withdrew his perception. The impossibly fine thread of yōki that had stretched toward the far distance receded back into his crimson demon eyes, no longer projected outward.
Yes the "anchor" of the Soul-Chasing BowArm Transformation still held one final target. At the very, very end, of all the demons, only one remained free of the Demon King's control. Tamayo. Though she had broken free of that dominion, she was still, ultimately, a demon. And thus, she still lay within Shinji's locking range.
But Shinji did not directly annihilate her. Instead, he left her to guard that bead of blood, the Residue of the Celestial Immortal Elixir.
The System panel that had flickered and vanished in that fleeting instant had brought Shinji immense shock. The final and most essential blood of the Demon King unquestionably originated from the elixir that had transformed Kibutsuji Muzan into a demon.
But to think, merely the residue of a flawed elixir was already classified as an incomplete Divine Artifact. And the note that it was not unique… No matter what, Shinji could not possibly ignore this.
The distance was simply too great, and Kyōto was fraught with peril. Otherwise, he would have already flown there directly to retrieve that elixir. But precisely because of the distance and danger, he left Tamayo. He locked onto her soul and commanded her to remain within Honnō-ji to guard it, allowing him to monitor its status at any moment.
Sooner or later, he would go and retrieve it. Both for the abilities it could grant through cultivation, and even more, for investigation. From that single, fleeting System panel for the Celestial Immortal Elixir alone, Shinji could deduce that the "physician" who had given Muzan that drug all those years ago was far from ordinary.
There was surely some deeper scheme behind it all. He could not afford to remain completely unprepared. In some matters, knowing was better than not knowing. From this point on, Kyōto had become yet another reason he must go there in the future.
But for now, he could not. He still had something far more important to attend to.
Shinji lowered his head and looked at Yomi-giri in his right hand. The Nichirin Blade's body gleamed with an exceedingly pale silver-white in the morning light. The hue of Yomi covered the entire steel face, from the cutting edge to the blade's spine.
The System panel flickered to life.
[Nichirin Blade · Yomi-giri: Affection +31]
[Current Affection: 72/100 (Trust)]
In a single night, it had leaped from 41 before the battle to 72. The reason was simple, it had slain demons. Under the amplification of the Shura Form, it had pierced through the ultimate form coalesced from dozens of Kibutsuji Muzan's clones with that single slash of fused Sun and Moon.
The dual properties of sunlight and Yomi carried by that strike had pierced, seared, and frozen all five of Muzan's brains and all seven of his hearts. After that, across a thousand kilometers, it had killed the newborn Demon King, Kumo-Oni.
This was the most perfect "demon-slaying" the Nichirin Blade had experienced since its birth. Its founding purpose had been fulfilled, and so its Affection had skyrocketed. But 72 was still not enough. Twenty-eight points remained.
Shinji did not sheathe the blade. He laid Yomi-giri horizontally before his knees and sat cross-legged upon the wilderness, beneath the only withered tree still standing. Tsugikuni Yoriichi, seeing this, did not sheathe his own Nichirin Blade either. He silently stood guard nearby.
Shinji closed his eyes. The Demon's Breath began. A slow, deep, continuous breath, like the tide. Yōki contracted at the surface of his body, drawing the impure energies diffused through the surrounding air into himself.
The impure energy flowed through his mouth and nose, entering those dead lungs, the organs that had still, to this day, never truly "come alive." The yōki stirred once more. The impure energy swirled, condensed, and spiraled within the residual structures of his lungs.
The Demon's Breath was not the breathing of air. It had become the breathing of heaven and earth. Dead lungs as the furnace. Impure energy as the fuel. The rhythm of impure energy as its cadence. Inhale. Refine. Circulate. With every completed breath, the refined yōki surged from his lungs and poured into the meridians throughout his entire body. And at the same time, it poured into the Yomi-giri laid across his knees.
But this time, the way the yōki was infused was different. Before, it had been one-directional. Like a faucet pouring water into a cup. Now, it was resonance.
The rhythm of the Demon's Breath and the power of sunlight contained within Yomi-giri oscillated at the same frequency. On the inhale, the black-violet light on Yomi-giri's blade dimmed faintly.
On the exhale, the light blazed bright once more. One bright. One dark. One inhale. One exhale. Like the waxing and waning of day and night between heaven and earth.
Like the rising and falling of the tides. The boundary between man and blade blurred further and further within this resonance.
The System panel began to tick.
[Yomi-giri Affection: 73.]
[74]
[76]
[80]
With every breath, it climbed. Because this Yomi-giri, the Undying Slash, had long since reached its threshold. All it had lacked was resonance with Shinji. And the Demon's Breath itself was the most perfect resonance for Yomi-giri. Same origin. Same body. Same destination. Until...
[99]
The final point.
Shinji exhaled the last breath of Yomi. A mist of violet light spilled from his lips, shrouding the entire space beneath the withered tree. Within that luminous mist, Yomi-giri's blade blazed with a radiance it had never before shown.
Black-violet. A black-violet so pure it was nearly transparent. The hue of Yomi covered every inch of steel, from the cutting edge to the hilt, from the sheath to the pommel. It seeped into every line and grain. The blade was glowing. In the cold morning light, it emitted a light of its own.
[Nichirin Blade · Yomi-giri: Affection 100 (Returned to One / Fusible)]
[Max Affection Talent Unlocked: Yomi-giri · Undying Severance — The dual properties of sunlight and Yomi carried by this blade's slash will absolutely negate the target's regenerative ability. No matter how fast the regeneration, anything severed by this blade shall never be restored.]
[Note: This talent is only effective against the regeneration of 'demons' and similar forms of immortality.]
Max Affection. Talent unlocked. But this was not the end. Because in the very same instant that Yomi-giri reached max Affection, deep within Shinji's thoracic cavity, something detonated. No pain. But truly, a blooming.
Those long-silent, dead lungs, in the instant Yomi-giri's max Affection was achieved, were completed by the final missing piece. Light rose from between two withered leaves of lung. It blazed. Blazed continuously. The Shura Lungs. Projection. Completion. With the Demon's Breath as the foundation.
With Yomi-giri's max-Affection talent as the catalyst. The dead lungs were replaced by the projection of the Shura Form, becoming an eternally cycling core, capable of autonomous operation, endlessly refining the impure energies of the world.
The heart, kidneys, and lungs of the Shura Form's visceral projection formed a complete cycle in that instant.
The heart pumped yōki. The kidneys stored and purified. The lungs refined impure energy. The three formed a closed circuit. Yōki no longer relied on external infusion. It could now be generated, circulated, and multiplied autonomously within the Shura Form.
Three viscera complete. The circuit whole. The crude infusion from before, when he had crammed unrefined impure energy directly into the gaps of the skeletal framework to cut down Muzan, would never be needed again. With the Shura Lungs as the furnace, the Demon's Breath finally had a vessel to contain it. Impure energy drawn in, swirled and refined within the lungs, and expelled as pure yōki.
A process that had previously only been barely possible within his main body could now be completed directly within the Shura Form. From this point forth, the Shura Form was no longer a simple projection of bone armor. It was a second body, possessing a degree of autonomous internal circulation. Though two viscera were still missing, though gaps remained, in that single instant, Shinji's yōki and demonic power skyrocketed.
It reached a scale surpassing the Eleventh Transformation of ordinary yōkai, brushing against the Twelfth.
And beyond that, he now possessed the internal transformations of three elemental attributes. Fire of the heart. Water of the kidneys. Metal of the lungs. Ice belonged to Metal. Like mist. Like frost. It could, as if freezing, blanket and seal all regenerative power. Sever immortality.
Shinji looked down at his own hands. Beneath his pale skin, the yōki flowing through his blood vessels had visibly thickened. A dark crimson light flickered faintly at his fingertips. He clenched his fist. Power surged through every inch. Then he released it and exhaled.
Yomi-giri lay quiet and still across his knees. Having reached max Affection, it was exceedingly docile. The complete opposite of Onikiri's fierce temper. It was like a cold moon hanging silent and serene in the canopy of heaven. Not competing. Not grasping. Simply there. Waiting to be drawn. Waiting to continue cutting down that which should not exist. And furthermore,
[Yomi-giri (Demon Artifact / Max Affection)]
From a demi-demon artifact, having received Shinji's yōki, it had successfully transformed into a complete demon artifact. Though still only a demon artifact, not yet perfect like Onikiri, it had achieved a dual metamorphosis.
Shinji rose to his feet and sheathed Yomi-giri, hanging it back at his right hip. Onikiri on the left. Yomi-giri on the right. The two blades brushed against each other at his waist, emitting an exceedingly soft metallic sound. As though greeting one another. As though vying with one another.
[Sakasagami no Yura expresses: Extreme displeasure.] Without question, the comb had been provoked once more.
Shinji patted the comb at his waist. "Don't worry. Truly, don't worry. It's close." It was time for him to go. His crimson demon eyes gazed toward the direction of Musashi Province.
There, his most beloved miko, who had waited for him for a full month. There, Kaede's Village. There, his home in this world.
But before he could take a step... "Sir Shinji."
A voice came from behind him. Yoriichi. The red-haired young man stood at the other end of the wilderness, his crimson Nichirin Blade sheathed at his waist. The golden thermal mist had long since dissipated. His deep crimson eyes gazed northward.
From the northern road, the sounds of hoofbeats and human voices were drawing near. Yoriichi's Transparent World had already seen them. A small company, roughly a dozen riders. They bore a banner of blue. The crest embroidered upon that banner was the emblem of the sun. The Tsugikuni crest.
Yoriichi's expression shifted faintly. An emotion of immense complexity, one he himself could not fully name, flickered across his face. "Someone is coming," Yoriichi murmured.
Shinji's demon eyes swept in that direction. The sensory web of the Soul-Chasing BowArm Transformation, after the activation of the three-viscera cycle, had seen its normal coverage range skyrocket.
It effortlessly captured the details of that approaching company. The one leading them was a man. Older than Yoriichi by some years, around thirty. His face bore five or six parts similarity to Yoriichi's, yet it was colder. Harder. Sharper. Between his brows was pressed a deep, long-accumulated gloom. His physical bearing was exceptional.
No, more than exceptional. That man's physicality and gait, among ordinary samurai, were already the pinnacle of the pinnacle. He even faintly possessed a superhuman control over his body's movements, reminiscent of Yoriichi himself. Only, far weaker. No Transparent World. No Breathing Techniques.
But that raw, unpolished talent, it was like two fruits grown from the same tree. One had grown beneath the nurturing sunlight. The other, had grown beneath the shadows, gritting its teeth.
Shinji glanced at Yoriichi. "Your brother?"
Yoriichi was silent for a span longer than all the time he had ever taken to answer every question combined. "…Yes," he spoke a single word. His voice was even softer than before.
Tsugikuni Michikatsu. The eldest son of the Tsugikuni family. Yoriichi's elder brother. The heir of the Tsugikuni house. Through his own relentless effort and obsession, he had become one of the most outstanding swordsmen of the Tsugikuni clan.
Only, that "one of" was never enough in the shadow of his younger brother. That was why Yoriichi had left home. He did not wish to shame his brother. So he had remained silent for over a decade. And wandered for over a decade. Until today. Most likely because the commotion last night had been far too great.
The Earth Barrier had covered three provinces. The yōki shockwave of the Shura Form had rippled outward for hundreds of kilometers. No samurai active in the vicinity could possibly ignore such an anomaly.
Least of all the Tsugikuni military forces, who served as a branch of the Hōjō clan, garrisoned at the border where Musashi and Kōzuke Provinces met. Led by none other than Tsugikuni Michikatsu.
Michikatsu's company drew closer and closer. Shinji patted Yoriichi on the shoulder. "Your matter. You handle it yourself." Then he turned and strode toward Musashi Province without the slightest hesitation.
Matters between brothers, he truly had no place to interfere. But before leaving, Shinji lifted his gaze and looked toward the sky. There, a pitch-black Kasugai Crow was beating its wings, flying into the distance.
Yoriichi watched that gray figure recede into the far distance. Then he turned and faced the approaching road. In the morning light, that company had already emerged within his field of vision. The man at their head rode a black warhorse. He wore a deep gray samurai hunting robe.
A tachi was sheathed at his waist, its scabbard was heavily worn, scarred by years upon years of real combat. His face was cold and hard. The features, so similar to Yoriichi's, were etched with deeper, harsher lines.
Michikatsu saw the red-haired young man standing on the road. His horse slowed. Then stopped. The two brothers gazed at one another across a distance of several dozen paces in the morning light.
Iwamasa's gaze fell upon the flame-shaped birthmark at Yoriichi's left temple. His pupils contracted, nearly imperceptibly. His lips moved. He seemed about to speak. But in the end, he merely tightened his grip on the reins and said nothing.
Yoriichi did not speak either. His deep crimson eyes looked calmly upon his elder brother. The one he had looked up to all his life. The one who, one day, had suddenly stopped looking back at him. Yes. Though Yoriichi possessed a talent no one could match, toward his brother, he had always been filled with admiration. Reverence.
The morning light fell upon the grass between them. Neither spoke first.
At the same moment. The headquarters of the Demon Slayer Corps. The Ubuyashiki estate. Within the main hall, the lamps had burned to their very end. The final ember of the wick struggled within the melted wax, casting Rikiya's shadow upon the plain white shōji door.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya knelt upon his cushion.
His hands were spread open upon his knees. Though he could see nothing, he could feel it. His hands were changing. On the backs of his hands, mostly covered by the purple decay, the violet lines were receding.
Agonizingly slowly. So slowly that if he hadn't been focusing every last shred of his attention on it, he would never have noticed. But it was, undeniably, receding.
The curse of the Ubuyashiki family. That curse which had lasted for five hundred years, forced upon this family because they shared the same blood, the same origin, as Kibutsuji Muzan, was fading.
Rikiya's body began to tremble faintly. He felt it. The chain of blood that had bound the Ubuyashiki family for over twenty generations, one end of it had snapped.
Muzan was dead.
At the very least, the existence that was "Kibutsuji Muzan," the Progenitor Demon who had carved that curse into the Ubuyashiki bloodline with his own hands five hundred years ago, no longer existed.
The source of the chain had been severed. The curse had lost its foundation. It would not vanish immediately. Five centuries of accumulated poison had seeped into the marrow, into the blood, into every bone. To purge it completely might require years. Perhaps even longer. But it was receding. It was no longer growing.
Rikiya slowly curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist, then released them. There was sensation in his fingertips. Fingertips that had been numb for over a decade, now faintly tingled. Like the prickling numbness of frostbitten skin beginning to recover.
He lifted his head. And through his clouded, blind eyes, he could vaguely, impossibly, see the flickering candle flame before him. Though it was only a blur of light and shadow, he truly saw it. The corner of Rikiya's mouth moved.
An almost imperceptible curve. An expression surfaced on his face that even he himself could not describe. It was the face of someone who had held his breath underwater for far, far too long, finally breaking the surface and drawing that first gulp of air.
Five hundred years. The Ubuyashiki family had waited five hundred years. Those ancestors, generation after generation, dying young, generation after generation, sickly and frail from the curse, generation after generation, passing hatred and duty down to their children, the day they had waited for… had, at last, arrived.
"…It's over." Rikiya's voice was so soft it was barely a whisper. So soft even the attendant beside him didn't catch the words. But she saw the expression on her lord's face. And so she asked nothing. She merely stepped back in silence.
But then...
"Send the order."
Ubuyashiki Rikiya opened his eyes once more. His voice was still frail, yet it no longer quavered as it always had. Calm. Steady. Like someone who, after a long illness, had finally risen back to his feet.
"Abolish the former Final Selection on Mount Fujikasane. And immediately summon all members of the Demon Slayer Corps back. For those who wish to leave the Corps afterward, grant them sufficient funds to depart. For those who choose to remain, tell them to continue searching. Continue hunting. The demons across this land… are not yet all dead."
Yes. Though Kibutsuji Muzan was dead, the power of the bloodline told him, demons that preyed upon humanity still very likely remained. Eradicate evil completely. Over the long, bitter years, the objective of the Demon Slayer Corps had long since transcended the simple pursuit of Kibutsuji Muzan.
Now, they had only concluded a single phase. The future still lay ahead. The attendant bowed her head to receive the order and withdrew. Rikiya was left alone in the main hall. The candle flame burned down to its very last and extinguished with a soft pop.
In the darkness, Rikiya's right eye, slowly regaining its sight, glistened faintly with moisture. He spoke in a low voice, words meant for those ancestors who were no longer here. "The hardest step… has been walked. The road that remains… leave it to us."
He added, "I await word from you… Sir Nakai Shinji—no. Lord Kishin Mikoto-no-Mitama." Through his blurred vision, Ubuyashiki slowly unfolded a slip of paper he had concealed within his palm.
It was the final letter Shinji had sent via the Kasugai Crow. The letter spoke of the Residue of the Celestial Immortal Elixir. And it spoke of the fact that it was not unique. Since it was not unique, it proved that in other places, there might yet be similar Demon Kings.
There were still demons. To slay demons, the Demon Slayer Corps was still needed. From this day forward, the Demon Slayer Corps would still be the Demon Slayer Corps.
Their Master would still be Ubuyashiki. But behind the curtain, without question, there would be one more "person." Or rather, one more god. Many things would, of course, have to change with the times and circumstances.
Outside the headquarters of the Demon Slayer Corps, the girl Chō paused mid-step. She, too, suddenly lifted her gaze. She looked in the direction Shinji had departed. "Sir Shinji… Master Shinji… the next time we meet, I will have grown stronger. Strong enough, to at least be of help to you." The girl had, thus, made her resolve.