In the dead of night, the whistle of a train arriving at the station tore through the silence.
A swordsman stepped off the carriage, utterly out of place among the crowd. His face looked as though it had been carved from stone, devoid of any expression. Long black hair was tied into a low ponytail behind his back, the ends curling slightly upward. Draped over his shoulders was a distinctive haori split into two colors.
As he lifted his head slightly beneath the station lights, a pair of exceedingly rare dark blue eyes came into view.
"This smell is like a can of rotten food," he remarked flatly about the journey.
Carrying his sword, he walked out of the station and frowned at the dense mass of people filling the plaza outside. He did not do well in crowds.
A Kasugai crow landed on his shoulder and muttered, "One of the Twelve Kizuki, one of the Twelve Kizuki—Lower Rank One, Lower Rank One!"
"That sounds like a troublesome enemy," the man said. He had only recently become a Hashira—or rather, he did not even think he was worthy of the title.
"Where?" he asked.
"Due south, due south!"
"Understood."
But just then, the crowd in the plaza parted like a receding tide.
Eight burly men slowly carried a curtained palanquin through the street, gold-threaded mandala patterns swaying vividly in the night wind.
They looked like members of some religious cult.
The man had seen plenty of such people before—swindlers, or those searching for some kind of spiritual refuge. Yet he sensed something off and frowned instinctively.
From within the palanquin, pale blond-white hair adorned with a skull ornament threaded with a girl's hair coiled lazily. Through the gauzy veil, a pair of rainbow-colored eyes glanced at him.
Then the eight men carried the palanquin off and disappeared around the corner.
The man stared in the direction they had gone, as though lost in thought.
Beneath the curtain, blade and claw collided, throwing off sparks.
Below the stage, the audience screamed and fled.
Sui split the stage apart. In the storm of lightning and splintered wood, a winding shadow shot upward into the air.
The serpent demon crossed its claws and blocked the thunder-swift sword technique.
Standing upright, the White Serpent Demon was a full three meters tall. Its enormous frame gave it an overwhelming physical advantage. Every time it swung an arm, it forced Sui back. She answered with calm, rapid cuts, her blade reduced to afterimages, while the serpent demon displayed reaction speed beyond anything she had seen from any demon before. It matched every single strike precisely with its claws, and their clash instantly erupted with the terrifying force of two armies colliding.
The walls of the theater were torn apart. Seats in the audience were blasted flying.
"Boom!"
Sui brought her blade down in a single cut and met one of the demon's claws head-on. Borrowing the force of the impact, she sprang backward and swept the dazed Lady Kyoka into her arms from the corner of the stage.
The White Serpent Demon pursued her, raising an arm high with a grin before bringing it crashing down.
"Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Rice Spirit."
With Lady Kyoka in her left arm, Sui swung her sword with her right. She did not even bother with a formal stance, casually releasing ten streaks of lightning.
The White Serpent Demon was driven back, its muscles numbed by the attack.
Lady Kyoka still remained in a dazed state; the demon's control over her had not yet been severed. She struggled restlessly in Sui's arms. As a full-grown, well-built woman, Lady Kyoka was more than Sui's slight frame could properly restrain, so Sui knocked her unconscious with the flat of her blade.
"There's still Mr. Fujiwara."
Sui sent her senses into every corner of the theater.
Her earlier clashes with the serpent demon had also served as cover while she searched for traces of Fujiwara.
Her hearing was sharp enough to pick out Fujiwara's cries for help, or even the sound of him moving, amid the thunderous roar of battle. She used the theater's layout to maneuver around the demon, and even carrying Lady Kyoka, she remained completely in control.
Then, after another exchange, the theater floor cracked open, exposing a hidden space beneath. A faint light shone up through the gap.
Found him.
Almost in the same instant, Sui caught Fujiwara's voice.
He was shouting for her to run.
"Hiss…"
The demon let out a low hiss. Yet once again, its claws failed to break through the girl's defense. When it lunged, Sui merely shifted the path of her blade, cleanly shedding the force of its attack, then raised her sword and severed one of its arms.
With every clash, the White Serpent Demon's bones and muscles shook a little more.
It was Thunder Breathing.
The demon was astonished, because it had almost never encountered a Thunder Breathing swordsman trained to such a level.
So this was… a Hashira?
"Swordswoman!" the demon growled.
Its only reply was the blood-dark red of her blade.
Dark violet lightning arced around the girl like a circle of attendants, making her resemble some divine maiden of Takemikazuchi himself.
In myth, lightning was the domain of gods of the highest order. It symbolized heavenly wrath, the power of the skies.
The demon had once been a shrine maiden. Faced with the girl before her, she could not help but think of ancient myths.
"Did you enjoy the performance I prepared for you?" the demon asked. "Those true man-eating monsters."
The White Serpent Demon prowled a short distance away, a split grin opening across its face.
Its thick serpent tail swayed, waiting in ambush.
Cunning and deceitful, the White Serpent Demon had prepared countless traps and complications for this swordswoman. But all of them had been cut apart by that breathtaking single stroke. A Demon Slayer would normally never allow a demon to appear among a crowd of civilians. But this girl was different—at the instant she drew her sword, she had locked onto it, and the moment the kabuki performance ended, she struck, landing a hit on its torso.
And in that instant, the balance between offense and defense had reversed.
That was Thunder Breathing.
Its speed was too great for an opponent to react to.
Even the swordswoman's decisions came with shocking unpredictability.
So the White Serpent Demon chose to stall. It only needed a little time. With its Blood Demon Art, it could turn every human in the theater into puppets. But because of the sudden attack, all the audience members had already fled, forcing it to change plans.
Hidden in Lady Kyoka's sleeve, the serpent demon had tucked away a dagger—so that, at the crucial moment, she could plunge it into the swordswoman's heart.
That would be the true drama it wished to see.
It spoke again.
"Compared to the number of people we demons have eaten, the merchants, factory owners, and officials lurking in this city's darkness have far more blood on their hands. Why did the Serpent God die? Because of their greed. Their cruelty!"
The White Serpent Demon's scales glimmered with a mossy sheen beneath the ruined chandelier.
Its voice rang out with the hollow, ethereal tremor once used by shrine maidens in prayer.
"Even now, Osaka's waterfront still shines with lights. The noble lords are sitting here in comfort, watching kabuki."
Its arm regrew, and it pointed toward a certain spot in the audience seating.
"Him—Yokota Hideki, owner of a steelworks. Twenty workers have died under him. Not one of them was eaten by a demon. They were eaten by people like him instead. In your human words, they were consumed for the value of their labor, weren't they?"
"And her—last month she threw a sick maid into an abandoned mine shaft. That maid tasted quite good, but in the end your Demon Slayers still counted it as one more death at the hands of demons. Even if we hadn't eaten her, she would have been nothing but a corpse, wouldn't she?"
The White Serpent Demon watched the girl's every movement.
Waver.
You self-righteous demon hunters.
You know how to slay demons. You wield transcendent martial skill.
But you know nothing of the human heart.
"You are so much like me, swordswoman. You used to be a shrine maiden too, didn't you? I can feel that same pure air about you."
Blood Demon Art: Scale-Bound Puppet!
The moment had come!
The serpent tail hidden in the dark exploded into motion.
At the same time, Lady Kyoka awoke in Sui's arms, her eyes empty. She pulled the dagger from her sleeve.
"Rip—"
The dagger pierced nothing but an afterimage.
The tail struck only empty air.
Dark violet lightning suddenly expanded in the White Serpent Demon's eyes.
The girl stepped through the raging thunder, her blade passing across its throat.
The White Serpent Demon froze. It touched its neck, only to find a thin line of light there—
and then its head dropped from its body.
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 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 126)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter134)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 87
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 79
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 73
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 49
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 45
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 45
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 31
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 27
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 26
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