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Marcus's heart pounded against his ribs like a drum. Every beat thundered in his ears as his eyes, locked on the scene below, didn't blink.
If Muzan's hand dared to deviate even slightly toward Tanjiro, to hell with the plan. To hell with the timeline, with Tamayo, and with everything else. He'd launch himself down and rip Muzan's head off before he could finish the motion.
…Fortunately, events didn't stray from their course.
Muzan was still Muzan.
His elongated nails weren't meant for Tanjiro.
Instead, they slid swiftly toward the neck of a man walking beside him without the slightest suspicion.
Three deep cuts across the nape.
The poor bastard didn't even feel it.
"Sigh…"
Sighing, Marcus barely loosened his grip on the hilt.
Now came the real unknown.
Was that man the right one? Was he the same bystander from the original story?
He couldn't be sure.
All he could say was that the guy also had a wife, and his appearance vaguely resembled what he remembered.
But absolute certainty? He didn't have it, and lying to himself wouldn't do any good.
It was, at the end of the day, something brutally random.
A random man walking down a random street at a random second.
And on top of that, there was him as an additional variable. His mere presence in this reality was already a stone thrown into the pond.
So all he could do was gamble.
If that man turned out to be the right one and his Blood Demon Art was the one he thought… perfect. In the future, he'd have a monstrously powerful demonic technique in his hands.
And if he wasn't… well, there was nothing to be done.
He wasn't going to beat himself up over something beyond his control. He'd done everything he could.
The rest was in fate's hands.
Below, the scene unfolded like a carbon copy of what he remembered.
The man turned demon bit his wife, Tanjiro rushed in to help by covering the man's mouth, and Muzan…
Muzan did exactly what Marcus knew he would do.
He slipped away.
Without looking back, without a shred of hesitation, he grabbed his wife by the arm, settled the girl against his chest with the gesture of a protective father, and melted into the crowd.
"Damn… in person he's even more of a coward than I thought."
Even so, he waited until Muzan disappeared from his sight completely, and let out the air he'd been holding in. His shoulders relaxed, and the hand that had been welded to the hilt finally loosened.
'Good. What's next…'
A tingling sensation crawled up his spine from bottom to top.
'What's next is Tamayo.'
In that moment, his tension cracked apart, and a childlike emotion surfaced.
Every pore on his body stood on end and his heart, which a minute ago had been pounding from the tension of seeing Muzan, was now beating for something completely different.
"What kind of scent will she have…?" He licked his lips. "I'm dying to find out."
However, right when he was waiting eagerly…
He felt it.
DANGER
The excitement evaporated from his face as if it had never existed and transformed into something animal, purely instinctive.
Swish
He vanished without thinking.
And in the very next instant, in the exact spot where his head had been a tenth of a second before, a cut appeared.
Nearly invisible. Clean. Silent as a thought.
The tiles that had been perfectly aligned under his feet split into two exact halves, sliding against each other without producing the slightest sound.
A cut so absurdly sharp that the ceramic didn't even screech as it broke apart.
…
Simultaneously, in the alley below, Marcus was running.
He wasn't fleeing. He wasn't retreating strategically.
He was running for his fucking life!
The Breath of Desire roared in his lungs at full power, every inhale like swallowing fire, every exhale like spitting it out, and his legs devoured the ground at a speed that would have left an unbroken horse in the dust.
'RUN, RUN, RUN, FUCK, RUN!'
His mind was a chaos of adrenaline and terror.
'That cut just now… IT WAS FROM MUZAN!'
'HOW DID HE FIND ME?!'
He had underestimated his perception. He had underestimated the King of Demons like the arrogant idiots in the fanfics he used to read!
Sweat poured down his forehead in streams, his eyes burned, his hands trembled. And to top it all off, Nezuko was perched on top of his head, her tiny hands desperately clutching his hair like they were the reins of a galloping horse.
Seen from a distance, they would have looked like an absurd creature: a big-headed being with long hair and endless legs that crossed the alley and vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving behind nothing but a gust of wind and the echo of frantic footsteps.
But Marcus wasn't in any state to appreciate how ridiculous he looked.
He ran for five minutes without stopping. Five minutes that felt like five hours. Alleys, corners, rooftops, walls he leaped over without thinking.
Putting as much distance as possible between himself and that thing!
Until he slammed to a halt.
His feet skidded across the alley floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
He stood motionless, breathing out of control.
…Because there he was.
At the end of an abandoned alley on the outskirts of Asakusa, standing as if he'd been waiting for him from the very beginning…
Muzan Kibutsuji.
It was just him: standing, upright, arms relaxed at his sides and an expression so devoid of emotion it was more terrifying than any snarl of rage.
'No… No, no, no, no…'
Marcus's brain short-circuited for half a second. Half a second in which panic threatened to devour him whole.
But Muzan's eyes weren't fixed on him.
They were fixed above him.
On Nezuko.
"To think a demon exists that isn't under my control…" His eyes narrowed with curiosity. "What is your na—"
"BREATH OF DESIRE, FIRST FORM: VALKYRIE!"
Without letting him finish, the sword in Marcus's hands transformed.
A colossal pink blade, over twenty meters long, compressed to the maximum, vibrating with energy so dense the air around it warped like a mirage in the desert, rose toward Asakusa's night sky.
The glow was so savagely blinding that the two adjacent streets lit up as if dawn had broken all at once.
And for one eternal instant, that monstrous sword was a second sun suspended over the city.
And the next second, the blade fell.
Muzan's face changed — but not from fear… From fury!
Though he could feel the threat of that blade, to him, even if he stood perfectly still, it would be, at most, a superficial wound.
A cut that would close before the blood even finished flowing.
But what infuriated him, what made his insides boil, wasn't the attack itself.
It was the audacity.
That this disgusting human dared to interrupt him!
The muscles in his arms swelled.
The muscle fibers multiplied, stacked, twisted over themselves with a sickening sound.
In the blink of an eye, his arms stopped looking human and became two colossal limbs, covered in veins.
He crossed them above his head.
"Fine! Since you want to fight, I'll oblige you, trash!"
Because the truth was, this suited him perfectly.
Just minutes ago, when that redheaded brat had grabbed him by the shoulder in the middle of the street and looked at him with those red eyes, with those damn earrings dangling from his ears… He had felt something he refused to name.
The shadow of that man.
Yoriichi.
Just thinking the name turned his stomach. Made him feel small. And Muzan Kibutsuji despised feeling small.
So yes.
That fear had been rotting inside him for a while now like acid in an open wound. Suffocating him. Reminding him of the only time he truly believed he was going to die.
Perfect… Absolutely perfect to blow off steam.
But the instant his arms collided with the gigantic blade, he frowned.
The force that came down through his arms was colossal.
It wasn't the little tap of some random slayer, it wasn't the desperate effort of an ordinary human trying to deal damage with everything he had.
It was something real.
Something that pushed his feet into the ground…
…A Hashira?
Ubuyashiki has a Hashira LIKE THIS? Since when? SINCE WHEN?!
His Lower Moons reported the Slayers' movements to him. His spies brought him names, techniques, weaknesses.
He had a mental map of every relevant threat that existed, and yet this human didn't appear anywhere on that map.
Who the hell was he?!
But before he could dig through his brain for any data on Marcus…
The name of another technique rang out again.
"BREATH OF DESIRE, THIRD FORM: FLORAL TRAVERSE!"
Muzan's eyes gleamed with interest.
'Two swords… Two simultaneous attacks… I see. Nitōryū.'
His smile returned.
"Fine! Let's see what else you've got!"
At his command, four chained sickle-shaped blades sprouted from his waist.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The enormous blade shattered instantly under the sickles' strikes, exploding into a rain of brilliant particles that scattered in every direction, dyeing the alley in a pink haze.
But beneath that haze, Muzan didn't rush to attack.
Because an idea had crystallized in his mind.
A swordsman with this kind of talent… you didn't just kill him. That would be a waste.
A swordsman like this had to be crushed…
Crushed until he recognized the difference in power. Until he understood in the deepest marrow of his bones that no matter how much he trained, no matter how much he sweated… the distance between them was the same as between an ant and a mountain.
Crushed until his mind broke. Until the will that shone in those green eyes of his flickered out like a candle in the rain.
Crushed until he craved more strength. Until the taste of defeat became so unbearable he'd be willing to do anything just to never feel it again.
And then, when he was on the brink of death, with his pride in pieces and hope extinguished, Muzan would offer him a choice.
His blood.
And perhaps he'd gain a new Lower Rank out of it. Or perhaps… with that level of talent, with that strength…
Perhaps even an Upper Moon.
His smile widened.
So he waited…
He wanted to see the second move of a man capable of landing such an impressive first strike. He wanted to know if this human was worth recruiting.
He waited…
The four sickles around him, motionless, ready to shred whatever emerged from that pink haze.
He waited for the second move…
He waited for the silhouette of the swordsman bursting out of the cloud with both blades raised and desperation carved into his face.
He waited…
…and waited…
…but…
The haze cleared completely.
And the alley was empty.
Muzan tensed.
WHERE IS HE?!
There was no one. The only thing left was that sword driven into the ground by its hilt, perfectly vertical.
Muzan slowly lowered his arms, which resettled into place.
Did he… leave?
…Did he run?
That human… had used him as a distraction.
"HOW DARE YOU TOY WITH ME?!"
His sudden roar was so bestial it exceeded the decibels of the clash between them.
Thank God they were in an area where hardly anyone passed by at that hour. Otherwise, a shriek like that would have drawn everyone in.
Even so, in the center of the city, people managed to pick up a muffled, distant blast that made them lift their heads and exchange bewildered looks.
And Tanjiro, who knew Marcus well, caught large amounts of Breath of Desire residue in the air.
"Marcus…?"
He looked dazed in the direction of the source, but at that moment he was blocked by Tamayo's Demon Art.
Then he turned with concern. "Excuse me… if possible, I'll leave this person in your hands."
He was already taking his first step, ready to bolt in Marcus's direction, when Tamayo's voice stopped him.
"That crash just now…"
Tanjiro stopped dead and turned around. Tamayo was watching him with a seriousness that went beyond concern.
"…Was that your senpai?"
"…Yes… but he's never caused a commotion that big before. It seems like the demon around here isn't easy to deal with…"
Tanjiro didn't think of Muzan. It didn't cross his mind for even an instant.
First, because the distance between both confrontations was considerable. Second, because Marcus hadn't been with him when he ran into Muzan on the street. In his mind, the conclusion was logical: Marcus had found the target demon of their mission, and things had gotten ugly.
But if something had been capable of making Marcus explode with that kind of violence… then it wasn't something simple at all.
"Step aside, please — I need to go find him!"
Tamayo looked at him calmly. "What rank does your superior hold in the Demon Slayer Corps? Is he a Hashira?"
?
Tanjiro was thrown off by the calm with which she spoke while the echo of the explosion still lingered in the air.
But something in her eyes made him answer honestly.
"Hashira? No… we officially joined barely half a month ago."
"…Half a month?"
Upon hearing this, Tamayo turned her head toward the direction of the clash, and for an instant she stood motionless, staring into the darkness with an expression Tanjiro couldn't decipher.
Then she shook her head, as a trace of sadness crossed her eyes.
"There's no need for you to go find him."
"What…?"
"…I sensed Muzan's power."
The name fell on Tanjiro like a bucket of ice water. "Are you saying that…?"
"Your senpai is fighting Muzan."
"!!!"
Without thinking, Tanjiro tried to force his way through Tamayo's Art.
She didn't stop him — instead, she stepped aside in silence.
But when Tanjiro passed by her, she swiftly struck him on the back of the neck.
Tanjiro's eyes rolled back and he collapsed into the arms of Yushiro, who was nearby.
"I'm sorry… but your senpai is already dead. And I won't allow you to be as well."
"Yushiro, take him back to the house too."
Yushiro frowned. "But, Tamayo-sama… he's from the Slayer Corps. If he wakes up in our house…"
"Do as I say."
"Understood!"
...
When he opened his eyes, Tanjiro didn't recognize the ceiling.
Unknown walls. Tatami beneath his body. A room wrapped in a silence that didn't belong to him.
And then the memory hit him full force.
"NEZUKO!! MARCUS!!"
He shot upright so fast the blood rushed to his head and the scar on his forehead flared a furious red. His eyes swept every corner of the room with the desperation of a caged animal, searching for a familiar face, any sign, any trace.
But nothing.
Nezuko's small silhouette wasn't there. Marcus's carefree smile wasn't there.
Only silence and walls he didn't know.
"You're awake…"
The sliding door glided open with a whisper and Tamayo appeared, watching him with a serene gaze.
"I apologize for bringing you here this way."
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Thank you for reading! 🙏 Did you expect Marcus to trick Muzan like that? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. ✍️
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