The smoke of battle had cleared from the wilderness, and dawn light rose slowly from the eastern horizon, gilding the scorched grass with pale gold.
Kobe Hikaru withdrew his senses.
The thin thread of yokai power that had stretched into the distance within his crimson Demon eyes sank back inward, no longer projected outward.
Yes — the Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation's anchors had only one left, the very last. Among all the Demons, only Tamayo remained free of the Demon King's control. But freed or not, she was still a Demon, and so still fell within Kobe Hikaru's range of tracking.
Still, he hadn't killed her outright. Instead he'd left her to guard that drop of blood, and the leftover residue of the Heavenly Immortal Medicine.
That fleeting system pop-up had shaken Kobe Hikaru profoundly.
The Demon King's last, most essential blood had, without question, originated from the medicine that had turned Kibutsuji Muzan into a Demon.
But even the residue of a flawed drug already counted as a fragment of a "divine artifact."
And then there was that note — not a unique item.
There was no way Kobe Hikaru could simply not care about that.
Only the distance was too great, and Kyoto too fraught with danger, or else he'd probably be itching to fly there right now and seize the medicine himself.
But precisely because of that distance and danger,
he'd left Tamayo behind, her soul bound, keeping her at Honno-ji to guard it — so he could keep watch on her movements at any time.
Sooner or later, he'd go retrieve it.
Partly for the ability he could unlock, but more so... for the investigation.
Just from that fleeting glimpse of the Heavenly Immortal Medicine's panel, Kobe Hikaru could already guess how extraordinary the "doctor" who'd given Muzan the drug back then must have been — there had to be some conspiracy behind it all.
There was no way he wouldn't take precautions. Some things were better known than not.
...From this point on, Kyoto had gained yet another reason he would eventually need to go there.
But not right now.
He had more important matters to attend to first.
Kobe Hikaru lowered his gaze to Yomikiri in his right hand.
The Sun Blade's body gleamed a pale silver-white in the morning light, the color of Yomi spreading from the edge to the spine, covering the entire steel surface.
A panel popped up.
[Sun Blade · Yomikiri: Favourability +31]
[Current Favourability: 72/100 (Trust)]
Overnight, it had jumped from 41 before the battle to 72.
The reason was simple — it had slain a Demon.
Amplified by the Asura Mutation, a strike fusing sun and Yomi as one had pierced straight through the ultimate form fused from dozens of Kibutsuji Muzan's clones.
That single cut, carrying both sunlight and Yomi's dual attributes, had burned, frozen, and pierced clean through all of Muzan's five brains and seven hearts.
Then, over a thousand li away, it had killed the newborn Demon King, Onigumo.
That was the most perfect "Demon-slaying" the Sun Blade had ever experienced since its birth.
Its wish had been fulfilled, and so its favourability had surged.
But 72 wasn't enough yet.
Twenty-eight more to go.
Kobe Hikaru didn't sheathe the blade. Instead he laid Yomikiri across his lap and sat cross-legged in the wilderness beneath the one remaining withered tree.
Beside him, Tsugikuni Yoriichi, seeing this, didn't sheathe his own Sun Blade either — he simply stood guard silently nearby.
Kobe Hikaru closed his eyes.
The Demon's Breath began.
Slow, deep, a continuous breathing like the tide.
Yokai aura contracted from the surface of his body, drawing in the turbid heaven-and-earth qi that hung diffuse in the surrounding air.
The turbid qi entered his dead lungs through his mouth and nose — that organ which, even now, had never truly come alive.
The yokai aura stirred again.
The turbid qi spun, condensed, and coiled within the residual structures of his lungs.
The Demon's Breath was no longer the breath of air, but had become the breath of heaven and earth itself.
With his dead lungs as furnace, the turbid qi as fuel, and the rhythm of the turbid qi as the beat — inhale, refine, cycle.
With each completed breath, the refined yokai aura surged out from his lungs and flowed into his meridians throughout his body.
At the same time, it flowed into Yomikiri lying across his lap.
But this time, the manner of that flow was different.
Before, it had been one-directional — like water pouring from a tap into a cup.
Now, it was resonance.
The rhythm of the Demon's Breath and the sunlight power contained within Yomikiri had begun to oscillate in sync.
On the inhale, the black-purple glow along Yomikiri's blade dimmed slightly.
On the exhale, the glow flared bright again.
Light, then dark — one breath in, one breath out.
Like the waxing and waning of heaven and earth, day and night. Like the rise and fall of the tide.
The line between man and blade grew ever blurrier in that resonance.
The panel began to jump.
[Yomikiri Favourability: 73.]
[74]
[76]
[80]
Every breath raised it further.
Because this Undying-Slayer Yomikiri had already reached its limit — all it had lacked was resonance with Kobe Hikaru.
And the Demon's Breath itself was the most perfect resonance for Yomikiri.
Same origin, same body, same destination.
Until.
[99]
One point left.
Kobe Hikaru exhaled his last breath of Yomi.
A purple mist-like light spilled from his mouth, enveloping the space beneath the withered tree — within that misty light, Yomikiri's blade suddenly blazed with a brilliance it had never shown before.
Black and purple.
A black-purple so pure it turned translucent.
The color of Yomi spread from the edge to the tang, from the sheath to the pommel, covering every inch of steel, seeping into every groove.
The blade was glowing.
In the cold morning light, it radiated its own light.
[Sun Blade · Yomikiri: Favourability 100 (Unity/Fusable)]
[Full-Favourability Talent Unlocked: Yomikiri · Undying Annihilation — A strike carrying both the sunlight and Yomi attributes will utterly negate the target's regenerative ability. No matter how fast it regenerates, whatever this blade severs will never recover.]
[Note: This talent only takes effect against Demon regeneration and similar immortal properties.]
Full favourability.
Talent unlocked.
But that wasn't the end.
Because at the very instant Yomikiri reached full favourability — something exploded deep within Kobe Hikaru's chest.
There was no pain.
But it was truly blossoming.
That long-silent, dead pair of lungs — at the moment Yomikiri's favourability reached full, the final piece of the puzzle slotted into place.
Light rose from between the two withered lungs.
—It lit up.
It kept on glowing.
The Asura's Lung.
Projection, formed!
With the Demon's Breath as foundation and Yomikiri's full-favourability talent as catalyst — his dead lungs were replaced by the Asura Mutation's projection, becoming a self-sustaining, perpetually cycling core that endlessly refined the turbid qi of heaven and earth.
The heart, kidneys, and lungs of the Asura Mutation's internal-organ projection achieved circulation in that same instant.
The heart pumped yokai aura, the kidneys accumulated and purified it, the lungs refined the turbid qi — the three formed a closed loop. Yokai aura no longer depended on external infusion; it could now generate, circulate, and multiply on its own within the Asura Mutation.
All three organs complete.
The circuit whole.
The crude infusion he'd used when cutting down Muzan before — forcing unrefined turbid qi directly into the gaps of the bone frame — was no longer necessary.
With the Asura's Lung as furnace, the Demon's Breath finally had a vessel to hold it.
Turbid qi drawn in, spun and refined within the lungs, and output as pure yokai aura — a process that before could only barely take place within his true body, but could now be completed directly inside the Asura Mutation itself.
From now on, the Asura Mutation was no longer a mere bone-armor projection cast down from above, but a second body with a degree of autonomous circulation.
Though it was still missing two organs, and still had gaps.
But in that instant, Kobe Hikaru's yokai aura and yokai power surged all the same.
Reaching the scale of an ordinary yokai past the Eleventh Transformation, nearly approaching the twelve-mutation level.
And more — he now possessed three internal attribute-mutations at once.
Fire of the heart, water of the kidneys, metal of the lungs.
Metal aligned with ice — mist-like, frost-like — able to blanket all regenerative power as if freezing it, severing immortality itself.
Kobe Hikaru lowered his gaze to his own hand.
Beneath his pale skin, the yokai aura flowing through his veins had visibly thickened — a dark red glow flickering faintly at his fingertips.
He clenched his fist.
Power filled every inch of it.
Then he released it, and let out a breath.
Yomikiri lay quietly across his lap.
After reaching full favourability, Yomikiri had become extremely docile — unlike Onikiri's volatile temper, it was now like a quiet cold moon hanging in the sky, seeking nothing, contesting nothing, simply there.
Waiting to be drawn, waiting to go on cutting down things that shouldn't exist.
And what's more...
[Yomikiri (Yokai Weapon / Full Favourability)]
From a half-yokai weapon, having received Kobe Hikaru's yokai power, it had successfully become a complete yokai weapon.
Though it remained only a yokai weapon, not as perfect as Onikiri, it had still achieved a double metamorphosis.
Kobe Hikaru stood, sheathed Yomikiri, and hung it back at his right hip.
Onikiri on the left, Yomikiri on the right as always — the two blades clinked softly together at his waist, a faint metallic sound.
It was as if they were greeting each other, or perhaps competing.
[Sakasagami no Yura reports: displeased.]
No doubt about it, the comb had been provoked again.
Kobe Hikaru patted the comb at his hip. "Don't rush."
"Really, don't rush. It won't be long now."
It was time for him to go.
His crimson Demon eyes turned toward Musashi Province — there waited the shrine maiden he loved most, who had waited a month for him, and Kaede's Village, his home in this world.
But before he took a step—
"Master Hikaru."
A voice came from behind him.
Yoriichi.
The red-haired young man stood at the far end of the wilderness, his crimson Sun Blade sheathed at his waist, the golden heat-haze long since dispersed.
His deep red eyes gazed north.
On the road to the north, the sound of hooves and voices was drawing near.
Yoriichi's Transparent World had already seen it — a small party, roughly a dozen riders, flying a blue banner.
The family crest embroidered on the banner was sun-shaped.
The crest of the Tsugikuni house.
Yoriichi's expression shifted slightly, some complicated feeling even he couldn't quite name.
"Someone's coming."
Yoriichi said quietly.
Kobe Hikaru's Demon eyes swept toward that direction.
With his three-organ circulation now active, the Soul-Chasing Archer Transformation's sensory net had surged in its baseline coverage range, and he easily picked up on the party's details—
The man leading them was one.
A bit older than Yoriichi, roughly thirty or so.
His face resembled Yoriichi's by five or six parts, but harder, sharper, with a long-accumulated darkness pressing between his brows.
His footwork was excellent — no, more than excellent.
That man's physical caliber and gait would already rank among the very best of ordinary samurai, even carrying a faint trace of the same extraordinary control over the body's movement that Yoriichi possessed.
Only far weaker, and without the Transparent World or a breathing technique.
But that raw, unpolished talent — it was like two fruits grown from the same tree, one raised in sunlight, the other gritting its teeth to grow up in shadow.
Kobe Hikaru glanced at Yoriichi.
"Your brother?"
Yoriichi fell silent for longer than he usually took to answer any question.
"...Yes."
He said just that one word.
His voice quieter than before.
Tsugikuni Michikatsu.
The eldest son of the Tsugikuni house, Yoriichi's elder brother.
The heir to the Tsugikuni house, who through his own effort and obsession had become one of the finest swordsmen the family had ever produced.
Only that "one of the finest" would never measure up in front of his younger brother.
That was why Yoriichi had left home — he hadn't wanted to embarrass his brother.
So he'd stayed silent for over a decade, and wandered for over a decade as well.
Until today.
Probably because last night's commotion had been too great.
The Earth Barrier had covered the territory of three provinces, and the shockwave of yokai aura from the Asura Mutation had carried for hundreds of li — no samurai active anywhere nearby could have ignored such an anomaly.
Let alone the Tsugikuni house, a branch family of the Hojo clan tasked with guarding the border between Musashi and Kōzuke Province in the Hojo's stead — and Tsugikuni Michikatsu in particular.
Michikatsu's party drew nearer and nearer.
Kobe Hikaru patted Yoriichi's shoulder.
"Handle your own business yourself."
Then he turned and strode off toward Musashi Province without a shred of hesitation. Matters between brothers were something he really shouldn't interfere in.
But before he left, Kobe Hikaru glanced up at the sky.
There, a pitch-black crow was also spreading its wings, flying off into the distance.
Yoriichi watched that gray-cloaked back recede into the distance.
Then he turned around to face the approaching road.
In the morning light, the party had already come into view.
The man in the lead rode a black warhorse, dressed in a dark gray samurai kariginu, a tachi at his hip.
The scabbard of that sword was badly worn — the mark of years of real combat.
His face was hard, its lines sharper than Yoriichi's similar features, cut deeper by time—
Michikatsu had spotted the red-haired young man standing on the road.
His horse slowed.
Then stopped.
The two brothers, dozens of paces apart, faced each other in the morning light.
Michikatsu's gaze fell on the flame-shaped birthmark on the left side of Yoriichi's forehead, his pupils contracting almost imperceptibly.
His lips moved.
As if he wanted to say something.
But in the end, he only tightened his grip on the reins, and said nothing at all.
Yoriichi didn't speak either.
His deep red eyes gazed calmly at his brother — that figure he'd looked up to his whole life, who had one day simply stopped looking back at him.
Yes.
Though Yoriichi possessed talent unmatched by anyone, when it came to his brother, he had always looked up to him, and admired him.
The morning light fell across the grass between them.
Neither spoke first.
...
At the same moment.
Demon Slayer Corps headquarters, the Ubuyashiki Mansion.
In the main hall, the lamps had burned down to their last, the final flicker of the wick struggling in the wax, casting Rikiya's shadow onto the plain white paper doors.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya knelt on a cushion.
His hands lay open before his knees.
Though he could see nothing, he could feel his hands changing.
On the backs of his hands, half-covered in purple corrosion, the purple patterns were receding.
Extremely slowly — so slowly that if he hadn't focused on it intently, he wouldn't have noticed at all.
But they were receding.
The Ubuyashiki family's curse.
That curse, passed down for five hundred years, forced upon this family because of its shared blood-origin with Kibutsuji Muzan—
was fading.
Rikiya's body began to tremble faintly.
He could feel it.
The bloodline chain that had bound over twenty generations of the Ubuyashiki family had broken at one end.
Muzan was dead.
At least, the being who was "Kibutsuji Muzan," the vengeful Demon progenitor who had carved this 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 reason to exist.
It wouldn't vanish immediately — five hundred years of accumulated poison had seeped into his bones, into his blood; to purge it completely might take years, perhaps longer.
But it was receding. It was no longer growing.
The five fingers of Rikiya's right hand slowly curled, then opened again.
Feeling had returned to his fingertips.
Fingertips numb for over a decade now tingled faintly, like the pins-and-needles of frostbite beginning to heal.
He raised his head.
His clouded eyes, astonishingly, could dimly make out the flickering candle flame before him.
Just a blur of light and shadow, but he had truly seen it.
The corner of Rikiya's mouth twitched.
The faintest curve.
An expression he himself couldn't have named — like the face of someone who'd been holding their breath too long underwater and finally broke the surface for that first gulp of air.
Five hundred years.
The Ubuyashiki family had waited five hundred years.
All those ancestors, generation after generation dying young, generation after generation weakened by the curse, generation after generation passing down hatred and duty to the next—
the day they had waited for had finally come.
"It's over."
Rikiya's voice was extremely faint, so faint the attendant beside him barely caught it.
But she saw the expression on her lord's face.
So she asked nothing, only silently stepped back.
But then...
"Send word."
Ubuyashiki Rikiya opened his eyes again, his voice still weak but no longer trembling as it usually did.
Calm, steady — truly like someone recovering from a grave illness, standing on his feet once more.
"Cancel the previous final selection trial on Wisteria Mountain."
"And immediately summon every member of the Demon Slayer Corps back home."
"For those who wish to leave the Corps afterward, give them enough money to see them off. For those who wish to stay, tell them: keep searching, keep hunting."
"The Demons of this world... aren't all dead yet."
Indeed — though Kibutsuji Muzan was dead, the power inherited through his bloodline told him that vengeful Demons still roamed the world, quite possibly still many.
Root out evil completely.
For a long time now, the Demon Slayer Corps' goal had never simply been to chase down Kibutsuji Muzan alone.
For now, one stage had ended. But there was still a future ahead.
The attendant bowed her head, accepted the order, and withdrew.
The main hall held only Rikiya now.
The candle burned down to its last point, then went out with a soft snap.
In the darkness, Rikiya's right eye — the one slowly regaining its sight — glistened faintly with moisture.
He murmured something quietly — words meant for the ancestors who were no longer here to hear them.
"The hardest step has already been taken."
"The rest of the road... is up to us now."
"I'll be waiting for word from you, Master Kobe Hikaru — no, I should say... Lord Demon God, Mitama-no-Mikoto."
In his blurred vision, Ubuyashiki slowly unfolded a letter he'd been holding hidden in his palm.
It was the last letter Kobe Hikaru had sent by crow.
The letter spoke of the residue of the Heavenly Immortal Medicine.
It also spoke of the fact that it wasn't a unique item.
If it wasn't unique, that proved there might be similar Demon Kings elsewhere.
And more Demons.
To slay Demons, the Demon Slayer Corps would be needed.
From today on, the Demon Slayer Corps would remain the Demon Slayer Corps, and its lord would still be Ubuyashiki — but behind the scenes, there would undoubtedly be one more presence... or rather, one more god.
Many things would naturally have to change according to time and circumstance.
...
Outside Demon Slayer Corps headquarters, the girl Kakushi Cho paused mid-step, and just as suddenly lifted her gaze.
She looked toward the direction Kobe Hikaru had gone.
"Master Hikaru... Teacher Hikaru... next time we meet, I'll definitely be stronger — strong enough to actually be of help to you."
The girl made up her mind, resolute.
____
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