The mist around the clearing disappeared, revealing the aftermath of Nezuko's struggle.
She stood in the center, chest rising and falling with exhausted breaths. The spirits she had fought sat a few steps away, no longer hostile.
Relief washed over her briefly—she could finally breathe—but the pain in her body reminded her that she had only just survived.
Nezuko lowered her hands, staring at them. Every wound throbbed, even the ones already healed.
Her muscles screamed, her limbs protested, and her eyelids drooped under the weight of fatigue. She wanted to rest, to sleep, but something in the air made her uneasy.
Then came footsteps.
Steady, and impossibly precise, as though the person walking had memorized every crack of stone and hidden root.
Nezuko turned toward the sound, and the spirits mirrored her movement. The mist parted, revealing two figures stepping forward.
One was a man wearing a carved tengu mask. The other was a boy whose face Nezuko had known since childhood.
"Nezuko!" Tanjiro's voice rang out, cracking with disbelief. His eyes were wide, as though he could barely comprehend she was truly here.
Nezuko's heart thumped at the sound of his voice. She wanted to run to him, to throw herself into his arms, to apologize for leaving without telling him—but her legs refused to move.
The man beside Tanjiro stopped. Urokodaki's presence shifted immediately. His posture stiffened, and his hand moved subtly toward the hilt of his blade.
He did not see her expression, did not hear her uneven breaths. All he saw was the energy lingering in the air, the faint presence of something, and broken illusionary masks, scattered, like fragments of a memory he could never forget.
He inhaled sharply, and in that single breath, the invisible became painfully clear.
The spirits, barely visible moments ago, flickered into reality for him. He stepped closer, and his eyes widened as recognition struck him like a hammer.
"They… they are my students," he whispered under his breath, voice tight with disbelief. His fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, knuckles white.
"The ones I lost… they are here, kneeling, and yet…" His gaze hardened, sweeping over Nezuko. "…and yet there is a demon standing over them."
Tanjiro opened his mouth to speak, but the weight of Urokodaki's presence silenced him. The tremor in the masked man's voice betrayed the storm within, a mixture of grief, rage, and disbelief.
"You…" Urokodaki said, the single word heavy with emotion. It was not anger at first, but shock, mingled with sorrow and something darker.
"Sir? What—what's wrong?" Tanjiro asked, stepping forward instinctively.
Urokodaki's arm shot out, stopping him mid-step. His attention did not waver from Nezuko, who met his gaze with wide, uncertain eyes.
When he spoke again, his voice was sharp, precise, like a blade scraping stone.
"You are attacking those children… even in death, you wound those who can no longer defend themselves."
Nezuko flinched, shaking her head. "What? No—I wasn't hurting—"
"Sir, she wasn't attacking anyone! There's nothing there!" Tanjiro tried to explain, panic rising in his voice.
"You cannot see what I see," Urokodaki interrupted, his voice taut. The spirits themselves seemed to shrink under his gaze, their faint voices swallowed by the tension in the clearing.
He took a slow, deliberate step forward, the force of his presence pressing down on Nezuko.
"Tanjiro," he said, voice steady but burning with controlled rage.
"you pleaded with me for training because you believed you could rescue your sister. You believed she went with the cruel demon king to protect your family."
"And yet here she stands… on sacred ground, disturbing the rest of two children who died in service to others. My students, Tanjiro. My students."
Nezuko's throat tightened, and her hands curled into fists. "I didn't mean—I wasn't trying to—"
He did not let her speak. "If there is any truth in you," he said, "then answer me plainly."
His blade shifted subtly, angled toward the ground, enough to show lethal intent.
"Did you follow Muzan of your own will?"
The words cut sharply. Nezuko hesitated, heart pounding—not because she didn't know the answer, but because she feared his judgment, feared the disbelief that always seemed to follow her.
"…Yes," she said finally, voice barely above a whisper.
Urokodaki closed his eyes for a brief moment. Grief washed over him like a storm. When he opened them again, his voice had changed, sharpened with cold clarity.
"And did you fight my students willingly, or did that wretched demon king force your hand?"
Something inside Nezuko snapped. Why did every question twist the truth? Why did no one ever believe her? Why was her side of the story never enough?
"Master Muzan didn't force me!" she cried, stepping forward, voice trembling but desperate. "And he is not wretched—he saved our fami—"
The sound that followed was almost imperceptible—a soft shing of metal cutting through air. A silver arc glinted faintly in the dim light.
Then everything shattered.
Nezuko did not feel the pain at first, only a sudden lightness, a strange floating sensation. Her body fell forward as her head tumbled toward the ground.
"NEZUKO!" Tanjiro screamed, his voice breaking, running toward her, the spirits recoiled, paralyzed in shock.
Urokodaki lowered his blade slowly, breathing unnervingly calm. "To speak of Muzan in praise," he murmured quietly, "and with such certainty… Tanjiro, this is what your sister has become."
Tears slowly slid down Nezuko's cheeks, though no body remained to carry them.
'He struck me because I refused to hate master Muzan? He didn't listen. Not even once.'
She remembered the family she had saved, remembered Muzan's warning: 'Humans won't think of you, Nezuko.'
Her vision dimmed at the edges, but she could see movement: Muzan, with jaw clenched, was trembling with rage, and closer still, Tanjiro was running towards her, voice cracking, and desperate.
Then Urokodaki moved. One fluid step placed him between Tanjiro and her disintegrating form.
His sword rose, steady, tip aligned with Tanjiro's heart.
"Tanjiro," he said quietly, voice as sharp as steel, "if you approach her, I will not hesitate. Your sister has fallen. Carefully consider where you stand."
The clearing went silent. The space between the living and the dead, between hope and despair, shrank to nothing.
Everything Nezuko had believed about demons, humans, and peace crumbled into ash with her disintegrating body.