The sashes Daki released looked like ordinary fabric, but they were creations of her Blood Demon Art.
Especially after she recalled the sashes that had flown out and her hair turned white, Daki's power grew even stronger.
The astonishingly tough sashes attacked Tanjiro like the sharpest blades, even throwing sparks when they struck his sword.
Tanjiro swung steadily and knocked all four incoming sashes aside.
In that moment, Tanjiro truly understood the gulf between the Lower Ranks and the Upper Ranks.
Power, speed, technique—each was on a completely different plane.
His original plan was to sever the sashes, rush up to Daki, and cut off her neck.
But the sashes were terrifyingly tough, and their softness bled off the force of his cuts. In the end, Tanjiro only managed to parry Daki's attacks.
If not for Charles's special training, he wouldn't even have kept his forms smooth and stable.
The reason he had any confidence about cutting the sashes was because he had done it once.
Since they knew Daki and Gyutaro's abilities, they had, naturally, trained specifically for them before the fight.
And during training, Tanjiro had indeed cut through the magical apparatus used as a prop… but only once.
Charles told him that if he could fully master that single strike, he would step into a higher realm.
Tanjiro had been working toward that ever since.
He recalled and practiced the feel of that strike countless times, but in real combat something always seemed missing, and he couldn't reproduce it.
He raised the blade tight along his forearm, guiding a stabbing sash to skid off the edge.
But another sash fell from the other side, carving a line across his shoulder, and he only escaped by dodging at the last instant.
Before Tanjiro could catch his breath, several more sashes lashed down together. Though he blocked with his sword, he was still blasted away.
He smashed through the tavern wall and slammed onto the street.
Just as he got up, a wave of dread surged through him, and he instinctively used Fake Rainbow.
A sash split Tanjiro open, but then he dissipated like a mirage in the air. If he had been even a heartbeat slower, he would have been cleaved in two.
Half a sleeve fell to the ground, cut from him by Daki's attack.
Tanjiro's pupils tightened, not only because of the gash across his chest, but because Daki's strike had carved open most of the street.
Before the battle, he and Charles had spent a great deal of money to evacuate nearly the entire street.
But Daki's blow reached the next street over. Tanjiro could hear the screams and smell the blood in the distance.
"Why?"
He glared at Daki as she strolled out from the tavern's ruins and asked in a cold voice.
He had always believed demons were pitiful beings whose lives and everything important to them had been taken by demon blood.
But Daki, in complete lucidity, still wantonly destroyed and took lives, and the simple-hearted Tanjiro saw what evil truly was for the first time.
Daki looked as if she didn't understand, smirked, and gave him a sidelong glance. "What do you mean, why? Oh, you mean this?"
With that, the sashes shot out again. Tanjiro had no time to react before every building around him was sliced apart, and the screams abruptly stopped.
"Hahaha! So you're just another ugly, boring thing. What's there to care about? Strong and beautiful demons can do whatever they want—that's only natural!"
Tanjiro suddenly remembered the story Charles had told him about Yoriichi Tsugikuni.
On the verge of slaying Muzan Kibutsuji, he finally understood how Yoriichi had felt when he asked that question.
So Tanjiro said, "What's so funny! What's supposed to be amusing!"
Daki's vision blurred, and an unfamiliar scene surfaced before her eyes.
In the haze she saw a pair of earrings sway, and when her sight cleared she was staring at Tanjiro wearing the same earrings.
"What do you take human life to be!"
As Tanjiro's words fell, she saw that man standing with his blade again, and her body trembled on instinct.
She unleashed a storm of sashes, all of them slashing for Tanjiro's vital points.
As he spoke, Tanjiro felt his body heat up abnormally. Vaguely, he seemed to retrieve the feel of that strike from training.
So Tanjiro chose to let his emotions surge.
Flames flared from his blade. The sashes Daki had fired were cut clean through. In an instant, he didn't know how many strikes he had loosed; he closed on Daki as the severed sashes danced behind him, turning to ash in the flames.
The vision before Daki didn't fade; as he drew near, it only grew clearer, and her body seized up.
In that instant, Tanjiro swung and severed Daki's neck.
Her body fell to its knees, and her head tumbled aside, wailing, "You ugly freak, how dare you cut my neck! Outrageous! Save me, brother!"
Tanjiro recalled Charles's warning that the hardest part of dealing with Upper Rank Six was that both siblings had to be decapitated at the same time.
And Gyutaro usually hid inside Daki's body, appearing when her neck was cut.
"I have to move now!"
Seeing the writhing flesh at Daki's severed stump, he made his decision at once.
But that last strike had pushed Hinokami Kagura to the extreme. His breathing was ragged, and his lungs and muscles were numb with searing pain.
At that moment, a man crawled out from Daki's severed neck.
His hair was like dry grass, scar-like markings marred his face, and his body was grotesque—ribs jutting, belly sunken—like a starving ghost from hell.
The other half of Upper Rank Six, and the stronger one, Gyutaro, appeared.
He picked up Daki's head, set it back onto her neck, and gently wiped away her tears.
"How dare you make my little sister cry!"
Flesh-like matter in his hands warped into a short-handled sickle. He raised his arm to slice open Tanjiro's unmoving throat.
But as his arm fell, the sickle and wrist dropped to the ground, and Tanjiro vanished.
Several meters away, Charles set Tanjiro down and shoved the Nichirin back into his hand.
Daki stared in disbelief. "Brother, what are you doing? How could you let them get away!"
Gyutaro glanced at his severed wrist, and the next second his hand had regrown.
"Impressive! You actually cut off my wrist! And looking at you up close, you're pretty good-looking—no blotches on that skin, no scars, tall build—you must be popular with women! I'm so jealous!
Could you just hurry up and die? Die miserably, skin split open, body in pieces, and then…!"
As he spoke, Gyutaro clawed at his own face and body, raking bloody furrows that healed in an instant.
Charles raised a hand. "That's far enough. I'm not here to fix your issues. Take your grievances to hell."
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