Boom!
With a deafening crash, the two bodies tangled together once more.
They kept grappling—
fists flying,
falling,
getting back up again.
Collision after collision.
Punch after punch.
"Shinazugawa Sanemi!"
"Hashibira Inosuke!"
The two men, who had just crashed to the ground, almost simultaneously sprang up again, fists raised, hurling themselves toward each other.
A dull, heavy impact rang out—
Thud.
But this time—
Shinazugawa Sanemi's body, like a kite with its string cut, was blown backward the instant it met Inosuke's fist.
He flew through the air and smashed hard into a muddy pool of blood, filthy water splashing everywhere.
Inosuke remained frozen in his punching stance.
His fist trembled slightly.
Only he knew—
That punch hadn't used any strength at all.
And yet the man known as the Wind Hashira—the mad dog who never seemed to tire—had fallen.
"Ha… ha…"
Sanemi lay prone on the ground, fingers weakly clawing at the earth. All his fingernails had been torn off, flesh mangled and bloody.
Every breath he took came with a wheezing sound, like a torn bellows.
His rare blood was nearly gone.
His body temperature was plummeting.
The Mark was fading.
He had… reached his limit.
"Hey! Mad dog!!"
Inosuke's voice exploded above him, panic bleeding through despite his tone.
"That's it?! You're down already?! Get up!!"
"It's not dawn yet! You wanna die here?!"
Inosuke glanced east.
The sky had shifted from pitch-black to deep blue.
Behind the clouds, the faintest hint of pale dawn was forming.
The sun… was about to rise.
"Hold on a little longer, damn it!!"
"Just a few more minutes!!"
"Stop lying there playing dead!!"
He rushed over, grabbed Sanemi by the collar, and forcibly hauled him up off the ground.
"Aren't you supposed to be the best fighter?!"
"Aren't you supposed to kill demons?!"
"Swing your fists!!"
Sanemi's head drooped limply. Blood dripped from his hair onto Inosuke's hand, scalding hot.
With immense effort, he opened his swollen eyes.
Through the blood-matted haze, he saw Inosuke's mismatched eyes—red with desperation.
And then he saw the distance.
Genya was still screaming, still being torn at by the rampaging Lower Rank, yet stubbornly guarding his vitals, refusing to fall.
"Genya…
my little brother…"
Sanemi's body jerked violently.
Obsession—
like a shot straight to the heart—stabbed into his dying consciousness.
"Ah…"
A broken growl tore from his throat.
His blood-soaked fist trembled as he lifted it, pouring everything he had left into a soft, powerless punch against Inosuke's chest.
The force was so weak it was like brushing dust away.
"Who… is playing dead…"
He pushed Inosuke aside and swayed to his feet.
His legs shook violently, his knees cracking under the strain, but he still forced his spine straight.
Again and again—
Knocked down by Inosuke, then back up.
Knocked down again, then back up.
To outsiders, it looked like Inosuke was brutally, one-sidedly beating the Wind Hashira.
But Sanemi could feel it.
Every time he fell, Inosuke shouted insults to mask how weak he was becoming.
Every time he rose, Inosuke subtly slowed his attacks—sometimes even exposing openings on purpose so Sanemi could land a few hits.
He was buying time.
He was waiting for the sun.
At that moment—
The last shred of doubt in Sanemi's heart vanished completely.
"Inosuke… is really trying to save me…"
"Inosuke…"
Sanemi suddenly grabbed Inosuke's wrist as he was about to throw another punch.
His voice was eerily calm, lucid in a way that only comes before death.
"I… can't keep going."
He smiled bitterly as blood bubbled from his mouth.
"My body… I know it. My lungs are shattered."
"Listen to me…"
He stared straight into Inosuke's eyes, desperation burning there.
"Cut off my head.
Take it back to the Demon Slayer Corps."
"Tell the Master… I died protecting civilians."
"I'll tell the crow… that you're innocent. That this was my fault."
His fingers tightened, nails digging deep into Inosuke's flesh—his last remaining strength.
"Use my life… to get yourself back."
"Can you promise me one thing…?"
"Let Genya live…"
"Don't let him keep killing demons…"
"Let him live like a normal person… marry… have children… grow old…"
"I still don't know what you're trying to do…"
"But… I believe you now…"
"I'm sorry…
for misunderstanding you before…"
Sanemi let go.
His body fell backward.
He abandoned all resistance—accepting death calmly.
Inosuke froze.
He stared at the man falling away from him, at this lunatic who treated his own life like a bargaining chip, tossed out like trash.
A tidal wave of fury shattered his reason.
"What the hell are you saying?!"
Inosuke roared.
He lunged forward, seized Sanemi's collar, and violently yanked him back upright, refusing to let him collapse.
"Trade your life so I can go back?!"
Inosuke's eyes were blazing red, spit flying into Sanemi's face.
"What do you take me for?! Huh?!"
"Do you think I did all this just to let you die?!"
"Live, damn it!!"
He grabbed Sanemi tightly and slammed their foreheads together.
"Who cares about going back to that damn Demon Slayer Corps?! I want everyone to live!!"
"If you die, what happens to Genya?!"
"You want him to live his whole life drowning in guilt?! Thinking he killed his own brother?!"
"Stand straight!!"
Inosuke punched Sanemi hard in the chest—striking his heart to force it to keep beating.
"This fight isn't over yet!!"
"As long as the sun isn't up! As long as I haven't said stop!"
"You keep fighting!!"
"Do you understand?! Shinazugawa Sanemi!!"
"This is an order!!"
Sanemi looked at the boy in front of him—
At that once-arrogant, unruly face now twisted with genuine terror.
He laughed.
Tears mixed with blood streamed down.
"…Seriously… I lose to you…"
On the other side of the battlefield, the fight between Genya and Masasaburō had reached its most brutal stage.
Genya was soaked in blood. A huge chunk of flesh had been torn from his shoulder, black claw marks covering his body.
And yet, like a bull, he clung to Masasaburō's waist, biting savagely into his neck.
Masasaburō—
The newly appointed Lower Rank Six—
was in an even stranger state.
Genya was biting him, yet he seemed unable to feel pain.
His vertical, catlike eyes were fixed on the distance.
There—
Kotoha.
Like a spotless Bodhisattva.
Even in such a deadly battlefield, she was protected perfectly.
Her gaze was gentle. Clean.
Like the unreachable Pure Land from his dreams.
And then he looked at himself.
Neither human nor demon.
Full of poison and cursed blood.
Being torn at by a human boy like a rabid dog.
His mother was dead—
killed by his own poison.
He had become a demon—
only to be trampled beneath the Demon King's feet.
"Why…"
Black, bloody tears streamed from his eyes.
"Why, no matter how hard I try… my mother still can't go to the Pure Land?"
"Why did I kowtow a hundred times… only to be given poison?"
"It's not fair… it's not fair!!"
This was his obsession.
And the source of his Blood Demon Art.
Poison.
Paradise.
A home he could never return to.
"Blood Demon Art: Pure Bliss Rebirth — Arsenic Cataclysm"
Masasaburō's body suddenly began to swell violently.
The blood vessels beneath his skin turned a sickly purple, writhing like venomous snakes, spreading across his entire body.
An overwhelmingly strong scent of bitter almonds poured out from him.
This was his only Blood Demon Art.
And his final one.
All his demon blood.
All his hatred.
All his poison—
Detonated in a single instant.
A technique that could only be used once.
The price—
Total annihilation of the soul.
"Let go of me!! Run!!"
Genya sensed the terrifying energy building inside Masasaburō, though he didn't understand it was self-destruction. He struggled desperately, trying to restrain him.
Masasaburō looked at Genya.
Then at Kotoha in the distance.
This distance—
Several hundred meters.
Enough.
Enough to kill the god-child's mother.
Enough to kill this bastard biting him.
"Heh…"
Masasaburō smiled.
A smile as innocent as that of a six-year-old child.
Scenes flashed through his mind—
A shabby hut.
A leaking roof.
A woman who always saved her only rice ball for him.
The woman who hugged him and told him he was the best child in the world.
"Mom…"
"I guess… I'm not going to the Pure Land."
"I killed someone…
I became a demon…"
He looked up at the black sky, as if seeing his mother waving to him.
"You go on without me."
"Go to a place with no hunger… no sickness…"
"Your son… will watch you…"
"From hell… and that's enough…"
"Let's go to hell together!!!"
BOOOOOOM—!!!!
A world-shaking explosion tore through a corner of Yoshiwara.
Purple toxic mist billowed upward like a massive mushroom cloud, carrying annihilation as it instantly swallowed Genya—
And surged wildly toward Kotoha.
Poison.
A toxin so deadly that even a single drop would rot flesh and rupture organs.
"GENYA!!!"
From the brink of death, Sanemi heard the explosion.
His howl of despair was drowned out by the blast.
The poison surged toward them all.
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