"Shut the hell up!" Sanemi Shinazugawa roared, a sudden burst of speed propelling him forward as the currents of Wind Breathing whistled into lethal blades around him.
His assault was savage, a relentless downpour of strikes that left Gyokko no room to breathe. His blade screeched against the porcelain surface of the demon's pots, sending sparks flying in a jarring shower of metal and clay. "Wasting words on a demon is a waste of my damn time!"
Before the sentence even finished, Sanemi's silhouette blurred into a jagged streak. "Wind Breathing, Fifth Form: Cold Mountain Wind!"
The wind blades, bolstered by a howling gale, surged directly toward Gyokko's face.
Gyokko's pupils constricted. In a frantic scramble, he thrust his pot forward to block. A thunderous clang echoed through the woods as a deep, jagged crack spiderwebbed across the porcelain.
"You insolent whelp!" Gyokko shrieked, his crimson eyes swirling with murderous rage. He surged with demonic power, and a barrage of water needles erupted from the fractured pot, raining down on Sanemi.
Just as the needles were about to find their mark, a flash of misty light intervened.
Muichiro Tokito glided onto the scene like a ghost. His Nichirin Sword carved through the watery blockade, the pressure of his swing driving straight for Gyokko's throat.
Feeling a bone-chilling cold at his neck, Gyokko twisted his body in a panicked dodge. The blade hissed past his ear, neatly severing one of his arms instead.
"You brat!" Gyokko snarled, his face contorted with fury. Ignoring Sanemi for a moment, he whipped out another vessel. Massive octopus tentacles, dripping with foul-smelling slime, erupted from the mouth of the jar and lashed out at Muichiro.
Muichiro was swept into the air. He let out a soft grunt, but his grip on his sword remained iron-clad, the blade catching a cold glint in the dim light.
The tentacles constricted violently, but they crushed only empty air. Venom splashed onto the forest floor, hissing as it ate away at the earth in blackened pits.
Gyokko's eyes widened. Before he could process the miss, a shadow was already upon him.
"Mist Breathing, Sixth Form: Moonlit Mist!"
With a cool, detached cry, Muichiro descended like a trail of shimmering moonlight draped in a freezing gale.
The blade, condensed into a sharp lunar arc, slammed into the pot that had summoned the tentacles. With a crisp crack, the vessel shattered, and the foul energy within dissipated into a haze of black soot.
Without the support of the Blood Demon Art, the tentacles slumped into a heap of rotting, turbid sludge.
Gyokko stared at his ruined pot, his shock instantly curdling into a volcanic temper. "You arrogant little brat! You've barely lived a decade, and you dare act so superior in my presence?!"
"Eh? But your pots are really ugly," Muichiro replied tonelessly, delivering the most devastating blow with a blank face. "They're lopsided and completely asymmetrical. It's honestly embarrassing."
Gyokko's defense—and his ego—shattered. "That's because your eyes are broken! I am an Upper Rank demon! I am an artist who has nearly achieved perfection! Insects like you aren't fit to even touch my collections!"
Sanemi let out a mocking bark of laughter. The wind blades around him began to rotate even faster, making his silver-white hair whip frantically in the gale.
"Upper Moon? You're just a pathetic demon clinging to life!" Sanemi's voice carried the weight of a hurricane. "In my eyes, you're no different from the rotting sludge on the side of the road!"
The Wind Hashira vanished. His absolute speed turned him into a gale that the naked eye couldn't follow, charging straight at the demon.
"Tokito, together!"
"Mist Breathing, Fifth Form: Sea of Clouds and Haze!"
Ethereal blades of mist radiated from Muichiro, cascading down like a mountain of clouds, sealing off every possible escape route for Gyokko.
The sword-light was soft yet lethal, weaving together with Sanemi's violent, jagged wind blades to form a death-trap of steel.
Just as the combined assault was about to tear Gyokko apart, the demon vanished. All that remained was a shriveled, hollowed-out skin.
"He can molt too? How tedious," Muichiro remarked, looking up at Gyokko, who had scrambled into the branches of a nearby tree.
"You should consider yourselves lucky," Gyokko hissed. "Very few have ever lived to see my true, magnificent form."
Gyokko was coiled around the branch like a serpent, his freshly molted skin a sickly, iridescent pale green. His hands had become long and spindly, tipped with claws that gleamed under the moon. He glared down with crimson slit pupils, his voice dripping with manic pride. "This is the form of absolute perfection!"
"Perfection? Looks to me like you just got even uglier!" Sanemi barked. He kicked off the ground, launching himself like a bolt from a crossbow toward the canopy. His blade tore through the air with a piercing whistle.
A wind blade grazed Gyokko's side, leaving a deep, bone-exposing gash. The pale skin was instantly stained with a jarring, brilliant red.
"Curse you!" Gyokko shrieked in agony. His pupils surged with killing intent as he unhinged his jaw, spitting a glob of dark green venom toward Sanemi.
While Sanemi dodged, Gyokko lunged at Muichiro. But the moment his hand reached out, it was severed by a flash of emerald-tinted steel.
Muichiro stood on a branch, his uniform torn slightly from a previous exchange, revealing a patch of pale skin. As he listened to Gyokko's narcissistic prattle, a memory of his brother's death flickered across his mind.
"Your attacks are just like your precious pots," Muichiro said, a cold smirk finally touching his lips. His voice was light, but it pierced Gyokko like a frost-bitten dagger. "Slow and useless."
"Mist Breathing, Seventh Form: Obscuring Clouds!"
The moment the words left his lips, Muichiro's figure shifted into dozens of ethereal phantoms, moving like clouds scattered by a sudden wind.
The afterimages lunged at Gyokko from every direction, each one carrying the chilling pressure of a real blade. Gyokko couldn't tell which was the real body.
The sudden shift sent Gyokko into a blind panic. He shrieked, flinging venom in every direction to ward off the phantoms, but the misty shadows were like ghosts—evading every splash with surgical precision.
"Impossible! How can you be this fast?!"
At that moment, a single shadow solidified. Muichiro's Nichirin Sword was already pressed against the demon's throat, the cold steel reflecting a terrifying light.
Squelch!
Gyokko's head tumbled to the forest floor. His slit pupils were wide with a final, lingering shock. "How... how could I be defeated...?"
Sanemi leapt down, delivering a brutal kick that sent the wailing head flying. He followed up with a vertical slash, grinding the remains into fine dust.
He turned toward Muichiro with a rare look of approval. "Not bad, kid!"
The next second, Muichiro began foaming at the mouth and collapsed face-first into the dirt.
"Hey!" Sanemi scrambled to catch him before he hit the ground. "I just gave you a compliment! Don't you dare die on me now! Get a grip!"