No matter what, no matter what fate had been laid out for the people living in this world, Inori would not give up even a sliver of hope.
To this world she might be only a passing traveler, a wanderer forever on the road, but it was precisely because of that that she could stand outside its fate as a third party, and go on to alter the course of its original history.
She scooped up Kocho Shinobu and, without another word, tore off toward the spot the crow had pointed out.
...
By the time she reached the city she'd passed through on the way, the sky at the horizon was already beginning to pale. The hour of sunrise felt close enough to touch. The crescent was slowly fading, and from the distance came the broken, scattered crowing of roosters. Outside a courtyard wall near the edge of town, that little path lay utterly silent.
A lone black-haired girl stood there, cutting a solitary figure. She used that beautiful sword of hers as a cane to prop up her swaying body, forcing her eyes open to stare straight at the sky. A cool breeze stirred her lovely hair. Fresh blood trickled from the corner of her mouth; her frozen lungs could barely function anymore. She gently closed her eyes, as if sinking into some long, distant memory.
—Sorry, Shinobu, Kanao, and Inori... this time, I might be running a little late.
She'd already given it everything she had, unleashing every last form of Flower Breathing without holding a thing back. Yet even after fighting so long, she still couldn't change the final outcome, because miracles weren't so cheap a thing. This demon was slow in thought, but his strength far outstripped what she'd predicted.
Made sense, really. He was Upper Rank Two, after all, the demon ranked second in strength save for the original Muzan himself. She, as she was now, was probably still too young.
If even Upper Rank Two was this hard to handle, one could only imagine just how strong Muzan had been.
And more unimaginable still: that girl she'd been keeping like a little pet had actually killed him, and left this Upper Rank Two utterly devoted to her.
"You can still stand?"
Doma put away the paired fans and covered his mouth, speaking with a face full of heartache.
"Your lungs are about frozen solid, aren't they? And plenty of ribs broken too. You've taken my Blood Demon Art. There's no saving you now."
"..."
Kocho Kanae said nothing, only glared at Doma, the veins standing out on her forehead.
Her body trembled; her gaze couldn't focus. Even on the verge of death, she hadn't thrown away her dignity as the Demon Slayer Corps' Flower Hashira. She would die on her feet, no matter what, taking up her weapon for one last counterattack.
Piercing pain shot through her lungs again. Kanae couldn't help coughing up a mouthful of blood laced with ice slivers, her legs going weak, nearly buckling under her.
"Haha, you can barely breathe now, can you? And if you can't breathe, you can't pull off those pretty sword techniques."
Doma no longer cared at all about her earlier insults; he only put on a deeply sorrowful expression, full of sympathy for the plight she was in.
"Don't worry now. I'll cut your head off in just a moment, and then there'll be no more pain."
There were a few things Akaza had once said that Doma actually agreed with.
—For a demon, anything other than growing stronger is meaningless.
Yes. Only strength let you live as you pleased. Only strength won you true happiness.
Doma noticed the shadows around him growing more distinct; the sky would brighten soon. There wasn't much time left to waste. He reopened the paired fans and summoned several ice lotus blossoms, ready to deal Kocho Kanae the fatal blow, preserving only that beautiful head of hers, and the butterfly hair ornament he meant to give Inori.
—Will Lady Inori praise me?
Doma thought of the pink-haired girl's smile, and more wondrous emotions welled up in his chest. He grew more certain: as long as he stayed by Inori's side, his affliction, this lack of feeling, would one day be cured.
What a beautiful future. For the first time in his life, he felt hope toward being alive.
Crash—
A sound like a host of precious vases shattering all at once, sharp and ringing, spilling out in a bright cascade.
The ice lotuses he'd just conjured with his Blood Demon Art shattered in the same instant, without his noticing, dissolving into countless crystalline droplets that scattered glittering to the ground.
Doma looked over, startled, and met a strange, wondrous eye: a black slit pupil set in deep-crimson sclera, gazing right at him, its look one of pure, uncomprehending puzzlement.
It seemed to be mimicking the exact details of his own eyes at that moment.
He narrowed his gaze and tilted his head slightly, at a loss. These few red feathers, each with an eyeball growing on it... were very familiar.
When Inori had crossed blades with Kibutsuji Muzan, she'd used weapons just like these, fighting him to a standstill, though later she'd been overpowered once he unleashed the fully liberated form of his Blood Demon Art.
"You've come, Lady Inori?"
At the thought of something so unexpected and delightful, Doma couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice at all.
The pink-haired woman in the black striped haori alighted gracefully, still carrying a short little girl in her arms. That child, without a word, rushed straight to the side of the dying woman Doma had been fighting and burst into inconsolable sobs.
"Nee-san!"
Shinobu's tears broke like a dam. She braced her sister's collapsing body with her own small frame, her weeping utterly beyond control.
"I'm sorry... it's all my fault. I should have, I should have gotten here sooner!"
Her sister's injuries were grave, but Shinobu, versed in medicine and pharmacology, could tell it wasn't yet hopeless. As long as she moved fast with emergency treatment, Kanae could pull through.
Had it not been for Inori's intuition, her sister really might have been beyond saving.
"Shinobu... I'm all right..."
The blood leaking from her ruptured lungs had seeped into her throat, leaving her voice terribly hoarse; every word came at excruciating cost. Kanae squeezed her little sister's hand as hard as she could, telling her she was fine, then slowly turned her head to look at the girl in black standing between them and the demon, pink hair drifting.
"I knew it... you'd definitely come."
She coughed hard again, and even so, still forced out a smile.
—If you can't greet a reunion with a smile, that's too much of a shame.
Hearing those words, and looking at that weak yet achingly beautiful face, Inori felt a swell of emotion in her chest.
In her heart, the most dashing Kocho Kanae had ever been was when she'd defied Corps regulations for Inori's sake, ready to draw her blade against the Wind and Flame Hashira. And the most heart-wrenching sight of all was this very moment.
"How could I ever leave you to die?"
Inori walked to her side and crouched, taking her hand, smiling softly.
"Leave the rest to me. Shinobu, hurry, get your sister out of here."
Kanae had meant to use the last of her strength to warn Inori of Doma's ability, and of his warped fixation on Inori, but in Inori's eyes she read a firm resolve, and anger.
Shinobu, for her part, wasn't the sort of weakling who'd cry without end. She stopped at once, wiped the tear-tracks with her sleeve, hoisted her gravely wounded sister onto her back, and hurried away from the place.
"Lady Inori, the weather's really lovely, isn't it? To think we'd meet by chance in a place like this. What a coincidence."
"Drop the act, Doma."
Inori folded her arms across her chest, her icy gaze stabbing toward him like a blade's edge.
"Didn't I tell you I forbade you to prey on women for your meals? You should know what happens to those who defy me, shouldn't you?"
"Ahh~"
Far from panicking, Doma laughed aloud in excitement, a suspicious flush on his cheeks, until at last he was so moved that tears actually spilled out.
"How wonderful... that expression of yours... those eyes, like you're about to kill in earnest, eyes like a queen's... Might I be granted a little more of it?"
—Yes, this was the Inori Doma wanted to mold.
Mature, cold, a pitch-black will burning in her eyes that would strike without hesitation when the moment called for it. This was the first time he'd seen it with his own eyes. A woman capable of defeating Muzan really couldn't have been some simple child after all.